BV 3265 /t39 1882 Taylor, Will: Lam, 1821- -1902. Ten years of self-supportin missions in India TEN YEARS SELF-SuppoRTm& Missions IN INDIA. / ILLIAM TAY BY WILLIAM TAYLOR Author of " Seven Years' Street Preaching in San Francisco," " Chrj5 TiAN Adventures in South Africa," " Four Years' Campaign in India,'* etc., etc. PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & H U N T = 80o BROADWAY. 1882. PREFACE. I HAVE in this writing given a brief illustra- tive exhibit of the principles and progress of the general missionary movement under the auspices of one hundred and sixty-six mission- ary societies; and have proceeded more at length with a statement and vindication of the peculiar, but nevertheless scriptural, principles and methods underlying my Self-supporting Missions. 'No event of my life strikes me as more prov- idential than the unexpected existence of this book. It comes just in the nick of time to save my Self-supporting Missions from a de- structive flank movement. Having no ill-feel- ing against any person, I have not been writing about persons but about principles, which in- volve, by their proper application or other- wise, the salvation, or criminal neglect, of millions of souls ; hence offer no apology for manifest anxiety and earnestness in the ex- pression of my honest convictions. William Taylob. New York, July 3, 1882. PRIJcTC THSOLOGIOilL CONTENTS I. PAGB Prophecy 9 II. Peepaeation 10 III. Official Testimony to the Progress op Missions 15 IV. General Observations on Missions 23 V. Collateral Agencies and Resources Prepar- ing the Way of the Lord 36 VI. Gospel Commissariat Principles and Re- sources 44 vi Contents. VII. Healthy Harmonious Relationship of the Various Methods of Missionary Work . . 60 vni. St. Paul's Method of Missionary Work 66 IX. Personal Preparation for Founding Self- supporting Missions 92 X. Organization of Methodism in Bombay 117 XI. Three Years of Personal Pioneering 138 XII. First Session of the South India Conference. 149 XIII. Sixth Session of the South India Conference. 167 XIV. School- WORK of South India Conference.... 208 Contents. vii XV. Missionary Character of our Self-supporting Missions 214 Points of Comparison between the North AND the South India Conferences 243 XVI. Passing Peep at the Outlook in South America 251 Present Force at the Front 295 xvn. Transit Fund 299 xvm. Orphanages 312 The Telugu Mission 316 CoLAR Orphanage 330 Christian Periodical Literature in South India Conference 338 Seamen's Work in Calcutta 340 Indian Languages 345 India Camp-meetings 350 XIX. Administrative Embarrassments 355 Vlii COJS^TENTS. XX. The PomTS not to be Considered 379 XXI. Sphere op the two Missionary Methods Illus- trated 395 XXII. New Departure Tested before Trusted 417 XXIII. The "Alleged Self-supporting Conference". 436 Allahabad Church Debt 437 The Macallister Will Case 440 Alternation between Principles "One and Two" 443 XXIV. Conclusions and Suggestions 448 Appendix 481 PEIHCETOIT SELF-SUPPORXmG MISSIOIS. PROPHECY. MissiONAEY work, like railroading, requires a vast initiative outlay of mind, muscle, and money, before any commensurate results can be realized. Tkus, Isaiali heard a voice "cry- ing in tlie wilderness, ^Prepare ye tlie way of tlie Lord, make straight in the desert a high- way for our God. Every valley shall be ex- alted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain : and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.' " Heavy grading — blasting, tunneling, leveling down the mount- ains and hills, and filling up the valleys, to pre- pare a highway for the King, where all the redeemed shall walk and witness and work : " And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." It must be so, " For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 10 Self-Supporting Missions. 11. PREPARATIO:^^. 1. The grand preparatory work accom- plislied by tlie Missionary Societies. The mag- nitude of the undertaking, tlie value and ex- tent of tlie initiative work now progressing, and tlie widening sweep of its influence, are all alike immeasurable. The most difficult languages have to be mas- tered by the pioneer missionaries before the work of grading down the mountains and hills can be commenced. In India, for example, in a population of two hundred and fifty-two millions, twenty-three different languages, besides many dialects, are spoken by as many different nations. To mas- ter any one of those languages is a life-work for a man beginning at the age of twenty-five years. In a monthly meeting of missionaries, in Cal- cutta, I heard the statement made, and admit- ted to be a fact, that only a minority of foreign missionaries become effective preachers in the Indian languages. Preparation. 11 An earnest missionary in North India, hav- ing spent some years in the study of the Hin- dustani language, was one day preaching in the open air to a promiscuous crowd of Hindus and Mohammedans, about heaven — asmani ja han — the heavenly world. In his discourse he tried to quote the assuring declaration of one who had been there: "In my Father's house are many mansions." The Hindustani word for mansion is '^ makkhan," their word for but- ter is makkhan. The two words are alike, with the difference of an accent. He meant to say, " Mere Bap ke ghar men bahut makkhan hain," but said, " Mere Bap ke ghar men bahut mak- khan hain ; " that is, " In my Father's house " there is much butter. A Madras missionary told me about a ridicu- lous mistake made by one of their most learned men in that city. He had been selected, above all others, as the most competent man among them to translate a number of our hymns into the Tamil language, and compile a Tamil hymn book for the use of their native Churches. In rendering the first line of that grand hymn of Charles Wesley, " O for a thousand tongues, to sing," he made an egregious blunder that passed through a number of editions of the 12 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. book, and was sung for years before they de- tected tlie mistake. In the Tamil language the word for tongues and the word for sau- sages are very much alike. So for several years the translator had the missionaries and their native congregations piously singing " O for a thousand sausages, to sing ! " Strange to say, the ridiculous thing coincided exactly with a Mohammedan slander against Christianity with which they had been long familiar, namely, that drinking brandy and eating pork are dis- tinguishing characteristics of the Christians. So the natives, who knew the meaning of the word, seemed to take it for granted that it was all right, and hence, that the Christians wanted a thousand sausages for a song. These are merely illustrative specimens of hun- dreds of similar mistakes that every successful missionary is liable to make, as a part of the cost of his education in Oriental language and lore. The man who is unduly fearful of making such blunders, loses his time shivering on the brink, and fails to master the language ; while the man who dashes in, makes mistakes, finds out where the laugh of the criticising na- tives comes in, and makes his corrections as he Preparation. 13 proceeds, lie is the man wlio masters tlie situa- tion. Thus many a faithful missionary has spent his missionary life-time in mastering a language, translating a few books of the Bible into the language he has mastered, and in educating a few hundreds of heathens to read the Script- ures. In all those years of patient toil he bap- tizes but a few scores of converts from heathen- ism, and they from the poorest and least influ- ential classes. In the heat of his struggle, while anticipating the high noon of success, his sun sinks suddenly beneath its western horizon. His wife and children are left in darkness and desolation ten thousand miles from kindred and home. A paragraph in the papers half as long as your finger announces the fact that the rev- erend missionary is dead. As soon as a suitable selection can be made, a hero of kindred spirit is sent to the field thus vacated. With fresh faith and zeal he takes up the work with the facilities furnished by his predecessor, and led on by gleams of the coming " glory of the Lord," he wears out his life and dies, and quietly retires to his rest in heaven. 14 Self-Suppoeting Missioij'S. Thus hosts of holy men have spent their lives in " preparing the way of the Lord." The friends at home critically examine the missionary reports, and note the small numer- ical returns of converts from the ranks of hea- thenism year by year, and feel the chill of an awful mist of doubt and darkness ; and many who for a quarter of a century have been pay- ing twenty-six cents per year to help the Sav- iour of men to prepare the way, and evangelize the nations, report a failure of the whole concern. But the heroic hosts of missionaries of all the missionary Churches have gone steadily on with their great work, until the Bible, mainly through their agency, with the material aid of the Bible Societies, has been translated and printed into more than two hundred languages; besides tomes of other Christian literature, with school books by the ton, and schools numbered by thousands. No failure, but, for the outlay of men and money, the grandest success of the centuries. Progress of Missions. 15 III. OFFICIAL TESTIMONY TO THE PROGRESS OF MISSIONS. To give further light on this subject, and to checkmate the slanders of infidel travelers, I will here copy — as an illustration of the general progress of missions — (from William Boyce's "Statistics of Missions,") the following state- ment exhibiting the Moral and Material Prog- ress and Condition of India, ordered by the British House of Commons to be printed, April 28, 1873, in the Parliamentary Blue-book: Number of Societies, Missionaries, axd Stations. The Protestant Missions of India, Burmah, and Cey- lon, are carried on by thirty-five Missionary Societies, and now employ the services of 606 foreign missiona- ries, of whom 551 are ordained. They are widely and rather evenly distributed over the different presiden- cies, and they occupy at the present time 522 principal stations, and 2,500 subordinate stations. The entire presidency of Bengal, from Calcutta to Peshawar, is well supplied with missionaries, and they are numer- ous in the southern portion of the Madras presidency. The various missions.in Calcutta, Bombay, and Mad- ras, are strong in laborers, and almost all the principal towns of the empire have at least one missionary. 16 Self-Supporting Missiojs^s. A great impulse was given to the efforts of those so- cieties by the changes in the public policy inaugurated by the Charter of 1833, and since that period the num- ber of missionaries, and the outlay on their missions, have continued steadily to increase. In 1852 there were 459 missionaries in India at 320 stations, and in 1872 the number of missionaries was increased to 606, and of stations, 522. Various Forms op Labor. The labors of foreign missionaries in India assume many forms. Apart from their special duties as pub- lic preachers and pastors, they constitute a valuable body of educators ; they contribute greatly to the cul- tivation of the native languages and literature, and all who are resident in rural districts are appealed to for medical help for the sick. Knowledge of Native Languages. No body of men pays greater attention to the study of the native languages than the India missionaries. With several Missionary Societies (as with the India Government) it is a rule that the younger missionaries «hall pass a series of examinations in the vernacular of the district in which they reside ; and the general j^rac- tice has been, that all who have to deal with natives who do not know English shall seek a high proficiency in these vernaculars. The result is too remarkable to be overlooked. The missionaries, as a body, know the natives of In- dia w^ell ; they have prepared hundreds of works suited both to schools and for general circulation, in the fif- Peogeess of Missions. 17 teen most prominent languages of India, and in several other dialects. They are the compilers of several dic- tionaries and grammars ; they have written important works on the native classics and philosophy ; and they have largely stimulated the great increase of native literature prepared in recent years by educated native gentlemen. The Mission Presses and Publications. The mission presses in India are twenty-five in num- ber. During the ten years between 1852 and 1862, they issued 1,634,940 copies of the Scriptures, chiefly single books ; and 8,604,033 tracts, school books, and books for general circulation. During the ten years between 1862 and 1872 they issued 3,410 new works in thirty languages ; and circulated 1,315,503 copies of books of Scripture, 2,375,040 school books; and 8,750,129 Christian books and tracts. Missionary and Anglo- vernacular Schools. The missionary schools of India are chiefly of two kinds, purely vernacular and Anglo-vernacular schools. The former are maintained chiefly, but not exclusively, in country districts and small towns ; the education given in them is confined pretty much to reading, writ- ing, geography, arithmetic, and instruction in simple religious works, such as the "Peep of Day." In the Anglo-vernacular schools a much higher education is given, not only in those subjects which are taught in English, but in those in which the vernacular is em- ployed ; a higher knowledge even of the vernacular languages is imparted in these schools than is usually 18 SELF-SuPPORTINa Missiois-s. given in purely native schools. These schools are most in demand in country towns, in the presidency cities, and in the districts immediately around them. Bengal has long been celebrated for its English schools, and the missionary institutions in Calcutta still hold a conspicuous place in the system and means of ed- ucation generally available to the young Hindus of that city. All the principal missionary institutions teach up to the high standard of the entrance examina- tion in the three universities of India, and many among them have a college department in which students can be led on through the two examinations for B. A. and even up to the M. A. degree. Tkaining Colleges and Zenana Schools. In addition to the work of these schools it should be noted that several Missions maintain training colleges for their native ministers and clergy, and training institutions for teachers. These colleges and institu- tions are 85 in number, and contain 1,618 students. The training institutions for girls are 28 in number, with 567 students. An important addition to the efforts made on behalf of female education is seen in the Zenana schools and classes, which are maintained and instructed in the houses of Hindu gentlemen. These schools have been established during the last sixteen years, and now num- ber 1,300 classes, with 1,997 scholars, most of whom are adults. Of these, 938 classes, with 1,523 scholars, are in Bengal and the North-west provinces. The ef- fort has not yet much affected the other provinces of India. Progress of Missions. 19 Increase in the Schools. The great progress made in these missionary schools, and the area which they occupy, will be seen from the following fact : They now contain 60,000 scholars more than they did twenty years ago. The figures are as follows : In 1852 the scholars numbered 81,850, and in 1872 the number was 142,952. University Examinations. The high character of the general education given in the college department of these institutions may be gathered from the following facts : Between 1862 and 1872, 1,621 students passed the entrance examina- tion in one or other of the three India universities ; 513 students passed the first examination in arts ; 152 took the degree of B.A. ; 18 took the degree of M.A., and 6 that of B.L. A considerable proportion of the amount expended upon education by the missionaries in India is provided for by school fees, which, in recent years, have been much increased. The statistical tables, however, do not give the exact amount, neither do they state the amount received from the government grants-in-aid. In the higher education it is believed that little expend- iture falls upon the Missionary Societies, beyond the salaries of the superintending missionaries. Pro test Ain? Converts — Note of Increase. The statistical returns now referred to state very clearly and completely the number of converts who have been gathered in the various Indian Missions, and the localities in which they maybe found. They show. 20 Self-Supporting Missions. also, that a great increase has taken place in the num- bers of these converts during the last twenty years, as might be expected from the lapse of time, the effects of earlier instruction, and the increased number of mis- sionaries employed. In 1852 the entire number of Protestant native converts in India, Burmah, and Cey- lon, amounted to 22,400 communicants in a community of 128,000 native Christians of all ages. In 1862 the communicants were 49,688, and the native Christians were 213,182. In 1872 the communicants were 78,494, and the native Christians, young and old, numbered 318,363. Besides the foregoing extracts from the Par- liamentary Blue-book, I will copy part of tlie testimony of the Bight Hon. Lord Laurence, late Governor-general of India, taken from a speech he delivered at the meeting of the Wes- leyan Missionary Society, at Highbury, (1870.) He said : Notwithstanding all that the English people had done to benefit that country, the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined. They have had ardu- ous and up-hill work, often receiving no encourage- ment, and sometimes a great deal of discouragement, from their own countrymen, and had to bear the taunts and obloquy of those who despised and disliked their preaching ; but such has been the effect of their ear- nest zeal, untiring devotion, and the excellent example which they have universally shown to the people, that Progeess oe Missions. 21 I have no doubt whatever that, both individually and collectively, in spite of the fact that the great masses of the people are intensely opposed to their doctrine, as a body they are remarkably popular in the country. During my career of forty years in India, I have met in North-west India, and more particularly in the Punjaub, with missionaries of the various denomina- tions, and I found them all aiming at the one great object of converting the people, and spreading thu Gospel of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I can recollect the day when a missionary could not live in the city of Lahore, and no Englishman could resort there without an armed escort ; but now Sun- day-schools are established in that city, and mission- aries are looked ap to with respect and gratitude by many of the population. I may add tliat I have preached in Lahore many times to large, attentive native congrega- tions in connection with the Presbyterian Mis- sion there, under the superintendence of old Dr. Newton and his sons. Of course there is no spiritual illumination nor regenerating power in mere secular education, but the foregoing facts indicate the marvelous amount of invalu- able preparatory work done. I may but add to this exhibit the summary statement, '^that 166 Missionary Societies are engaged in this great missionary movement in foreign countries/ 22 Self-Supporting Missions. Tlieir aggregate receipts of money for this purpose for tlie year 1872 amounted to nearly ten millions of dollars. The receipts of the Koman Catholic Missions for 1872, according to the "Annals of the Prop- agation of the Faith," amounted to one million one hundred and twenty thousand five hun- dred and twenty-five dollars. The progress of missions between the years 1872 and 1882 doubtless exceeds that of the preceding decade ; but not having a consecutive official exhibit at hand, I submit the foregoing as sufficient proof that the great missionary movement of the Churches, so far from being a failure, is, as before stated, the most marvel- ous success of all benevolent enterprises of the ages ; and yet this great work is mainly but to "prepare the way of the Lord," and the reve- lation of his glory in the salvation of all the nations of the earth. Observations on Missions. 23 IV. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MISSIONS. In my representation of self-supporting mis- sions, I do not wisli to minify, but give briefly a broad exHbit of tbe great work being done under tlie auspices of tlie Missionary Societies ; and, in addition to wliat I have just inserted, I wisli to add tlie wise discriminating observa- tions of Eev. William Boyce. He was an early Wesleyan missionary in Soutb Africa. He wrote tlie introduction to my book — " Christian Adventures in South Africa." He was for years one of the secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in London. I insert most of his introductory chapter to his "Statistics of Protestant Missions," headed, "General Ob- servations on Missions :" 1. The Mission work is slowly but surely obtaining a favorable recognition from the public press. At the beginning of this century it was looked upon by some as a dangerous outbreak of puritanical fanaticism, and by others as a harmless but mistaken effort, from which no practical good could possibly ensue. It is now, how- ever, a great fact. One hundred and sixty-six distinct Protestant Missionary- organizations, besides twenty 24 Self-supporting Missioi^s. leading Bible and Educational Societies, all of which have their subordinate branches and auxiliaries, and also their agencies in every part of the globe, cannot be contemptuously ignored. On the contrary, with the exception of one or two journals, which yet cling to their seats " in the chair of the scornful," (Psa. i, 1,) our newspapers speak respectfully of the labors of our missionaries. One of the best of the weeklies admits that '^ Civilization alone does not offer sufficient induce- ment to the savage permanently to change his habits. The labor imposed by a civilized state of life is obnox- ious to him without a sufficient motive : " and further, " That Christianity has applied a lever powerful enough to effect in a generation that which has elsewhere been the slow growth of ages, is a fact worthy, perhaps, of more consideration than it always gets." It is true that the influence which animates the agents in this great undertaking remains a mystery hid from " the wise and prudent " of this world, (Matt, xi, 25,) who evidently deem it to be a phenomenon irreconcilable with the culture of the nineteenth century. " In these days it is not easy to imagine the enthusiasm, or the impression of a Divine call, which should send a young man with talents, friends, and prospects, to some remote corner of the earth, to spend the best of his days in educating savages into decency, reason, and faith. It is a matter of fact that many do feel themselves so called ; that they leave every thing and follow their vocation." So speaketh, and so admits, the leading journal, in an article, May 16, 1874, in which tardy justice is done to the labors of the London Missionary Society. 2. Modern Missionary Societies have much to learn, Obseevations on Missions. 25 and ought to profit from their own experience of three generations past, and from the criticisms which their labors have called forth from all quarters. Whether censorious or friendly, the opinions so freely given deserve a patient and serious consideration. We have no right to attribute malignancy of motive, even in cases where the missions have been most seriously mis- represented. The error is generally traceable to a partial and imperfect acquaintance with the subject. Some men finding the actual condition of a mission to differ greatly from the ideal which they had been led to form, the reaction of feeling renders them not only unable to estimate the value of what has been really accomplished, but unwilling to look at the difiiculties which have been overcome. We may be convinced that the objects sought to be attained by Missionary Societies are the most important in the world, and yet be willing to admit that the agencies employed are fallible and imperfect, and ready with the apostle to confess, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels." (2 Cor. iv, V.) 3. Objections to the principle which nnderlies all action by Missionary Societies, as now constituted, are not very formidable. Our Millenarian friends think that our labors are merely for a witness, and that we must wait for the second coming of Christ before we can hope for the conversion of the world. If, how- ever, our Lord's teaching respecting the nature of his kingdom be one of gradual unfolding and progress, (Mark iv, 28-33,) this idea, which the Millenarians, like many eighteen bundred years ago, are not " able to hear," (verse 33,) is the justification of our labors. 26 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. 4. The multiplicity of Christian denominations is regarded by many as a serious hinderance to the propa- gation of Christianity among Mohammedan or pagan nations. No doubt this is a stumbling block to many at home, as well as to non-Christians abroad. Whether it ought to be so, or can long remain so, is another ques- tion. The points on which all orthodox Christians dis- agree are so trifling, and the differences among them refer to matters of such comparatively trivial impor- tance, that it requires but very small consideration to understand the oneness amid the apparent variety ; and the task itself is one of those intellectual labors in the pathway of progress necessary for those for whom we desire that "by reason of use" they should "have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Heb. V, 14.) Differences of opinion, and the discussions and collisions of mind which naturally follow, appear to be the conditions of advancement in spiritual knowledge. Controversy has been the means of more fully unfold- ing to us truths that otherwise would have escaped our observation. Without it theology would have been a stagnant pool, instead of a fertilizing stream. The Churches have not yet sounded all the depths of the Holy Spirit's revelation to us. With each generation the stand-points from which we study the Scriptures become more elevated, and our mental and spiritual horizon more extended ; and thus, while the great truths remain the same, our conceptions of them are deepened and enlarged. Thus our theology avails itself of the advanced culture of the day, and makes it a handmaid to piety. The members of missionary Churches must of necessity in due time go through Observations on Missions. 27 our experiences, and grapple with our mental and spir- itual temptations and trials, until they, with us, "all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the meas- ure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." (Eph. iv, 13.) We therefore lay no stress on the proposal of the late excellent and eloquent Isaac Taylor, in his "New Model of Christian Missions," (8vo, 1827,) to unite all Christian Protestant Missions under one lead- ership, and thus present to heathendom the appearance of an outward unity. It is enough to say that this, even if desirable, is impossible in the present state of the Churches. Meanwhile the diversities of adminis- tration demand from all parties engaged in their prac- tical working, great forbearance and mutual considera- tion for each other. A very useful discipline, which, rightly borne, becomes a means of grace. 5. A formal discussion of the entire question of Christian missions has recently appeared in a work entitled, " Christian Missions to wrong Places, among wrong Races, and in wrong Hands," (12mo, Sydney, 1871. London, Nisbet & Co.,) by Rev. A. C. Geekie, D.D., Minister of St. Peter's Presbyterian Church, Bathurst, New South Wales, and recently Moderator of the Assembly Presbyterian Church. The author is not only an able man, but a sincere friend to the mis- sion work of the Christian Church. The censure of a friend must be met with corresponding candor. Dr. Geekie's first proposition is, (1.) that missions have been established in wrong places, and among wrong races : for instances, in Greenland, Labrador, West Africa, The North American Indians, and in Polynesia. The 28 Self-Supportino Missions. proof is the small population of Greenland and Labra- dor— the deadly climate of West Africa — the certain gradual decline and extinction of the North American Indian population, and of the Polynesian and Maori races. Our reply in reference to Greenland and Lab- rador is, that Hans Egede, when he commenced his mis- sion in 1722, obeyed the instincts of a Christian man in doing at once and sacrificially the duty that was dearest to him as a missionary. No other sphere was available. We admit that his sphere was a limited one, and so was Brainerd's among the Delaware Indians in 1743 ; but the history of the labors and trials of these devoted men of God, and of the divine support vouchsafed to them, has done much to inspire and inspirit that mis- sionary zeal which now finds scope in China, India, and Africa. Surely, this is something ! With respect to the deadliness of West Africa, great as has been the loss of life, as much through inexperience as from the climate itself, have we no results to correspond ? What would have been the condition of these regions with- out the sacrificial labors of the missionaries of the Church of England and of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, or those of the Basle and North German Mis- sions ? Is it nothing that the Christian Church in the nineteenth century can prove that there are, in the ranks of its ministry, men and women ready to risk life, so that they may labor and die for Christ ? Dr. Geekie deems Africa generally to be one of the right places ; but it is impossible to reach the interior and more healthy regions of Africa without stepping stones on the sea coast. With respect to the extinction of the Polynesian and Maori races, there are two sides to that Observations on Missions. 29 question. There is reason to believe that the progress of decline has been arrested ; but, if not, the Missions to Polynesia and West Africa may be justified by the fact that at the close of the last century the Missionary Societies were compelled to go to small communities and to unhealthy countries because all the greater com- munities peremptorily excluded them : to which we may add the remark of Dr. Mullens, (in the Report of the London Missionary Society, 1872, page 49,) "They" (the objectors) "forget that almost all the great experiments and problems of humanity have been wrought out within small areas." It w^as, per- haps, better that " the prentice hand " of the Christian Church should be tried on an impressible people in the islands of the Pacific, than in India or China. If our corrupt civilization has conveyed to these interesting races the seeds of death, the missionaries are not to blame. They have done all they could to mitigate and correct the evils arising out of European intercourse, and they will have their rew^ard. Let us not blame the zeal which led the first Societies to occupy Polynesia and other comparatively unimportant localities. India, Africa, and China need not have a missionary the less because Polynesia has so many. 6. Missionary Societies are beginning to feel as they have never felt before the cost of their advanced mis- sions. Expense increases with success. The claims for educational institutions of a superior sort, for build- ings, as schools and chapels, and the increased cost of living, press fearfully upon the finances of the various societies. Much money has been wasted in buildings, and the time is come to make a stand in reference to 30 SelJ'-Supporting Missioits. this piece of extravagance. Many societies are begin- ning to see that to build any thing, except the modest bungalow of the European minister, is a mistake. All chapels or school-rooms should generally be such as the natives themselves choose to erect at their own cost, and suitable to their reasonable requirements. A wattle and dab, or mud cottage or chapel, or even a grass hut, built by the natives, and at their own cost, is more creditable to any mission than large, commodious chap- els and school-rooms built at the expense of the Churches at home. The less property an absent proprietary has the better ; and it must be remembered that the Com- mittee of a Missionary Society is an absentee, and that the managers on the spot are, from the necessities of the climate, never at one stay ; changes in the personnel of the mission being the rule. Neither should any Missionary Society, where there is a native Church and congregation, pay any charges for cleaning, repairs, chapel-keeping, etc. : all these should be met by local resources. For Missionary Societies to meet these charges is to cherish and train a pauper spirit in the mission Churches, and to perpetuate the feeling of de- pendence on foreign aid. 7. On the subject of a native ministry there has been much said which is very doubtful in its bearing upon the healthy condition of the missionary work. A native pastor supj^orted by a Missionary Society is in a false position. He should look to his own people for his salary ; and as it is possible that it may be desirable to appoint native pastors before the Churches are fully able to take the entire support of their minister, assist- ance might be given in the shape of a grant-in-aid to a Observations on Missions. Si pastor fund, gradually diminisliing in its payments to each Church. If native ministers are employed as evangelists, to open out new places, of course these are engaged in purely missionary work, and they would naturally look to their employers, the missionaries, for their support. A native ministry or pastorate sup- ported mainly by English funds is in danger of becom- ing a great evil. With the views of Dr. Underhill, the experienced Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Soci- ety, who has had some Indian, and West Indian, and West African experience of missionaries and native agents, we heartily agree. His letter on the subject is dated June 10th, 1874 : "I think it highly expedient that we should have as little to do with the support of native agents as possible. In all cases pastors should be supported by their congregations, and evangelists by such funds as may be raised on the spot, as far as practicable. I fear that in our haste to spread as widely as possible the agencies for conveying Divine truth to the people of a heathen or unevangelical coun- try, we have too hastily taken up individual converts, so as to lessen the sense of responsibility among them- selves to propagate the Gospel they have received, and so from the first the promotion of the kingdom of Christ has become too much a question of paid agency, instead of the voluntary action on the part of those to whom the blessings of salvation have come. It is true, I think, that in all cases where the work of spreading the Gospel has become the spontaneous and voluntary act of the converts, there the truth had most rapidly spread and the Word of God taken the deepest and strongest rb5t. In th^ Wfest Indies, tb* S^&uth Sfeas, 32 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. among the Karens of Burmah, and the aboriginal tribes of Central India, this has been remarkably the case. It seems to be the office of Christian countries simply to introduce the Gosx:)el into heathen lands, and then to rely for its further propagation and growth on the ex- ertions of the indigenous Christian population." 8. Missionaries of the European races are the main workers in the mission field ; upon them depends (under God) the character of the native missionaries and other agencies. How young men called of God to this work should be trained is a difficult question. The various systems of private tuition under suitable minis- ters, that of college training in company with others, and the extreme of no special training at all, have each their advantages and the contrary. On the whole, the men with the most of self-help in them make the best missionaries, and the men who naturally lean upon others the worst, and hence it is that our American brethren are' specially adapted for this work. The pushing, energetic habits of society in a new country prepare young men to expect difficulties, and to grapple with them, without looking for assistance from others. The present self-indulgent habits of the respectable classes of English society favor the growth of a femi- nine helplessness, which is in danger of destroying the manliness of the English character. In missionaries quality is of far more importance than number. Half a dozen men with faculties, and of the right sort of dis- position, are worth a dozen of mere average men, who just " do duty," as the phrase is, however conscientious- ly that duty may have been done. Most men need a passion for mission work in order to succeed and be Observations on Missions. 33 happy in it. There are, of course, some exceptions, where men from a strong sense of duty have accepted the mission work allottod to them, and then, working on mission ground, have learned to love the work. Even an admixture of perfunctory men with others in the same mission tends to lower the standard of working power. The sooner such men are weeded out of the mission field the better. It is very possible that in in- ferior and less onerous positions at home some places may be found for them, where they may in some small degree "serve their generation after the will of God." 9. The question so often mooted, whether civilization must precede or follow Christianity in the case of bar- barous tribes, appears to be a trifling with words : Christianity is the highest civilization, applying itself first to the moral nature of the uncivilized, influencing the will to yield to the power of those great truths which at once excite the imagination and awaken the long dormant conscience. Then follow the decencies and appliances of civilized life. The difiiculty of obtain- ing access to the intellect and the affections of a savage people has been forcibly j)ut by that deep thinker John Foster (in his Essay on the Application of the Epithet "Romantic":) "Did you ever listen to the discussion of plans for the civilization of barbarous nations with- out the intervention of conquest ? I have — with de- spair ! " And then he appends a note which is the key to his meaning : " I here place out of view that religion by which Omnipotence will at length transform the world." The misfortune of uncivilized nations in our day, consequent upon their contact with our civiliza- tion, is not their unwillingness to participate in its ad- 3 34 Self-Supporting Missions. vantages, but that our railway speed of progress leaves no time for its acclimatization and natural growth among them, and that, meanwhile, the weeds of our civ- ilization are more rapid in their growth than its useful plants. When our barbarous ancestors appropriated the rich heritage of the culture of the old Roman world, they came under its influence by slow degrees, here a little and there a little, and thus the changes, though almost imperceptible in their process, were per- manent, having become identified with the national growth. Missionaries to uncivilized people have now to watch and direct the process of changes in them- selves beneficial, but incidentally connected with much that is evil and destructive : their main anxiety at such critical periods of a people's history is to guard them against the vices which accompany our somewhat cor- rupt civilization. 10. In conclusion : Let the friends of Christian Mis- sions beware lest by their attempts to recommend their great object to the world at large, they are unwittingly led to vulgarize the conception of the grand aim of the mission work, and thus lower it to meet the material- istic views of " the wise and prudent " of this world. That Christianity will lead to the extension of trade and a mutually beneficial intercourse and comity of nations now barbarous and unsocial with those which are civilized, is true. This is one of the blessings which follow naturally in the path of the teachings of our missionaries. But this is not our object. Christianity is the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Cor. v. 19.) It seeks to harmonize the relation of man to his Maker, to send forth the light of the truth in the place of Obsekvatioi^s on Missions. 35 heathen darkness, and to bring " peace with God " into every troubled conscience. In the j^rogress of this great work its agents expect to equalize to some extent the condition of humanity, and to raise the degraded races, by imparting to all the highest mental and moral culture of which our humanity is capable. Nor are our hopes chimerical. We have " a more' sure word of prophecy." (2 Peter i, 19.) "The earth shall be full of the knowl- edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah xi, 9.) 36 Self-Supporting Missions. V. COLLATERAL AGENCIES AND RESOURCES- PREPARING THE WAY OF THE LORD. 1. The English Colonization System, in- cluding America, is a part of a grand provi- dential programme for the extension and estab- lishment of universal Christian empire through- out this world. God has no complicity with bad men, nor with the mistakes of good men, but he controls the forces resulting from both ; and while he inspires and concurs in the coun- sels of good men, he also conserves their mis- takes, and overrules the ambitious schemes of worldly wise men, and the wicked devices of bad men and devils, and lays the whole of them under contribution for the accomplish- ment of his purpose to rescue and save the nations. Look at your maps of English-speaking countries, read up the history of colonial prog- ress, and pray for the British nation. 2. The English Language is a heaven-or- dained medium through which God's chosen may flood the nations with gospel light — a Collateral Agei^cies. 37 language spoken by more people than any other, with a diffusion wide as the commerce of the world, with a growing thirst for its ac- quisition among all maritime nations. It is estimated that at least a million of na- tives in India speak the English language as accurately as do the mass of English people. 3. The Commercial Fleets of the Anglo- Saxon empire — including America — have de- posited, and are depositing, along the coasts of all heathen and semi-heathen countries, vast re- sources in men, money and merchandise, bold, adventurous men, merchant princes, common traders, mechanics, miners, soldiers, sailors, and miscellaneous adventurers of all sorts, who speak the English language, and bear the Christian name. Large numbers of these being young men, settle down in those remote countries, marry native women, and bring up families of mixed blood. These mixed races in Asiatic countries are called Eurasians. With the first syllable of Europe to designate the paternity, and Asian, the maternity, we get the compound word Eu- rasian. The last census of India reports about one hundred and forty thousand of them in 38 Self-Supporting Missions. tlie Indian Empire. Similar classes are found in large numbers in Japan, Cliina, Siam, Bur- mah, and in European and Asiatic Turkey; also among the various kindreds and tongues of European nations, and of Central and South America. In tlie olden time there was a providential dispersion of the Jews among the nations, and also a very wide diffusion of the Greek lan- guage, preparatory to the rapid spreading of Gospel light and life. St. Paul, having a special commission to the Gentiles, took in the situation, and largely utilized those resources in the establishment of self-supporting and propagating missions throughout the Roman world. The dispersion and propagation of the En- glish-speaking people, and the still wider diffu- sion of their language throughout the world in these last days, furnish resources and agencies immeasurably superior to those of St. Paul's day, in volume, value, and availability, for the establishment of self-supporting missions in all the countries whither they have gone. " But," says a returned missionary, " the great mass of those English people, and their half- breeds in foreign countries, by their infidelity COLLATEEAL AgENCIES. 39 and by their heatlienisli habits, antagonize ns at every step and terribly obstruct our way of access to the natives." How did so sad a state of things come to pass ? I presume to suggest that it is largely owing to the fact that the Churches at home failed to take in the whole situation, hence failed to utilize, except incidentally in small measure, the idigenous agency and resource the Lord had thus adjusted to their hand; hence limited their operations mainly by the measure of their home charity missionary funds, and ap- propriately applied them to the real objects of charity in heathen countries — the poorest classes of the natives ; hence declined an opportunity of gospel access to their o^vn kindred in heathen lands, and failed as well to gain access to the well-to-do classes of the heathen, neither being objects of charity, and both declining to asso- ciate with the outcast poor classes, from which their Churches had been gathered. "With the feeble influence of such native Churches, neu- tralized by the demoralization of his own de- generate neglected countrymen, the heroic mis- sionary works at a great disadvantage, which should lead every friend of missions to inquire whether there are not other jDrinciples and 40 Self-Supporting Missiois^s. methods of divine appointment available by wliich many of those English-speaking and upper-class native opposers may be reached and saved, and thus not hinder, but greatly help, the present missionary movement. 4. The facilities of national intercommu- nication give the modern messengers of mercy a marvelous advantage over those of any previ- ous age. What a small speck of this globe vras open to the apostles, and what wretched modes of conveyance they had. On the land they had to depend mainly on their own legs, with a donkey relay occasionally; at sea, on unworthy hulks that w^ould not be allowed to carry passengers in our day. Their lives were always in jeopardy, not to speak of their poor accommodations for personal comfort. Now we step aboard a floating palace and circum- navigate the globe in less than half the time that St. Paul spent on a voyage from Caesarea to E-ome. In India there are about eight thousand miles of railway, so that in a day or two you may reach any great center of Dopulation in the empire. 5. Another significant fact greets us on this line, and that is, the recent opening of the Collateral Agencies. 41 nations to God's gospel messengers. Fifty years ago more tlian half the populations of the earth were locked in, and Protestant mission- aries, at least, locked out. Now all the nations — popish and pagan — are open to them; so that altogether God has put within the grasp of his Church in this our day the grand possi- bility of the speedy evangelization of all the "families, kindreds and nations of the earth." The business now is to appreciate the situation, work with God according to his own clearly revealed principles and methods, utilize our available resources at home and abroad, and take the world for Jesus within the next thirty years. The greatest drawback at the present hour is the superficial character of church work in Christian countries. I believe there is more in- telligent holiness in the Church now, with a wider diffusion, than ever before ; but we are veiy far below the standard of our opportuni- ties and responsibility. If any manufacturer of any sort should have as much bogus shoddy and sham on the market bearing his trade-mark as may be found in the popular Churches of to-day, it would smash his business in six months. 42 Self-Supporting Missioi^s. Tlie fact tliat tlie Churcli lives and advances, in spite of such disabilities, demonstrates the marvelous conservative power of the true gospel salt contained in it. It is "the remnant, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony for Jesus," that God uses to hold the Church together and make the grand conquests she is making. Now, if our church registers were conformed as nearly as possible to that of "the general assembly and Church of the first-born who are written in heaven," so that all the specimens exhibited in the market would " be blameless and hannless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation" — ever seeking occasions of rebuke, but finding none — the life and char- acter of such, standing out as beacon " lights " along the dark coasts of sin; and every one holding forth "the word of God," with "their testimony for Jesus," to guide the feet of the perishing in the highway of the King, then the Advocate with the Father would be able to make up his brief, and " ask " and receive " the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." Count- less ages of preparatory working and waiting have put these grand possibilities ^vithin reach COLLATEEAL AgENCIES. 43 of the Churcli of Christ in this latter quarter of the nineteenth century. O that she would hearken to the prophetic voice of the Spirit, " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." . . . ^' And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." . . . "The abundance of the sea shall be con- verted unto thee, and the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee." Isa. Ix, 1-5. 44 Self-Suppoeting Missions. VI. GOSPEL COMMISSARIAT PRINCIPLES AND RESOURCES. The Lord lias incorporated into his gospel system and plan of work theee nis'AisrciAL PRINCIPLES, with their appropriate methods of application. The first two are commercial principles, the third a charity principle. Principle number one is a pioneer principle, represented by the men who, at their own cost, without any guarantee of compensation, open up new resources and new industries. I once saw a tunnel which had been drilled and blasted through solid basaltic rock, nearly as hard as pig metal, into the heart of a Cali- fornia mountain. The work had been executed by a class of hardy pioneers bearing the name of the "Live Yankee Company." They put in three years of solid work before they had any assurance that they would " find the color." They finally " struck it big," as the miners ex- press a great success ; but thousands of others were equally industrious who did not "strike it " at all. The vast armies of prospectors, in- PEmciPLEs AND Eesoueces. 45 ventors, commercial explorers and pioneers of all sorts, wlio open up new resources and new- industries at their own risk, represent principle number one. The commercial prii^ciple, number two, ap- plicable to opened fields, proceeds on tlie line of estimated values, covering the law of de- mand AND SUPPLY : 1. In regard to labor and compensation. 2. In regard to all varieties of commercial equivalents. Under the Gospel utilization of principle NUMBER ONE the pioucer embassador for Christ pays his own expenses and preaches the Gospel free of charge. Paul and Barnabas were gospel pioneers, working under principle number one. In his farewell address to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, St. Paul said to them : " Eemember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." . . . "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me." Acts xx, 31-34. Paul and Barnabas had as good a right to claim a support as any other ministers called of 46 Self-Suppoeting Missions. God to preach Hs Gospel. Paul said to Ms traducers in Corintli, "Mine answer to tliem that do examine me is this : Have we not power to eat and to drink?" — ^to demand a support? '' Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife ?" — the right to have families and to re- ceive a support for them — " as well as other apos- tles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas ? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working ? Who goeth a war- fare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock." He proves to them that they had a right to demand a support for themselves and families, but adds, "Neverthe- less we have not used this power ; but suffer all things lest we should hinder the Gospel of Christ. Do ye not know that they which min- ister about holy things live of the things of the temple ? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar ? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things that it should be so clone unto me : for it were better for me to die, than Pkinciples and Kesources. 47 that any man sliould make my glorying void." 1 Cor. ix, 3-15. Wliy should lie prefer to die than cease to work with his hands for his own support ? Not because he was so fond of making tents, but because he knew, by the inspiration of God, and by his own experience, as a founder of self-supporting Churches, that such success could not be attained in any other way. His business was not only to found Churches, but, under a divinely-appointed plan, to plant the principle and develop the practice of regular systematic giving, adequate to the permanent life and responsibilities of each Church. He enjoined, therefore, that every member of each Church should "lay by in store the first day of the week, according as the Lord had prospered them " during the preceding week. The giving embraced, as a minimum, the long-established ratio of the tenth of net income, with added "free-will offerings," "according as the Lord had prospered them." This essential, but deli- cate and difficult, work can be put into effective operation quickly, and on a permanent basis, by a pioneer under principle number one. But a pastor, coming as a stranger, and undertaking this pioneer work, on which his own support 48 Self-Supporting Missioiq-s. depends, is at once confronted with tlie suspi- cion tliat lie is after the fleece instead of the flock. He becomes timid, and is tempted, and starves himself and family often, rather than talk about money. His people go into the busi- ness of robbing God, become close and stingy, and suffer more in their souls than do their preacher and his family in their bodies. When the preliminary work has been done by the pioneer, then it is easy for the pastor to help develop the principle of giving among his people. The application of these principles is one of the most familiar experiences of my min- isterial life. St. Paul sustained himself under principle number one by making tents ; Dr. Coke, by his inheritance ; Mr. Wesley, by his authorship. Most of the pioneer work of Methodism iiT America has been done on principle number one, by laymen, and women, and local preach- ers. In the cities, east and west, and through- out the length and breadth of the land, the old plan was for a few earnest laymen to enter every open door, by establishing a weekly prayer-meeting, or a little Sunday-school; then, after some preparation, to build a small chapel, develop the work, hold a series of special serv- Principles and Resources. 49 ices, and have a liundred outsiders converted to God ; then build up a strong self-supporting cliurcli. Some years ago Brothers French and Booth and a few others started a little Sunday- school at Hanson Place, in Brooklyn, IST. Y. When that became quite too lai'ge for their "hired room," they went to work and built a church edifice. The first Sabbath after their new house of worship was dedicated, and for three Aveeks, I led for them a series of special services, and from the harvest of new converts the Lord gave us during that time, over two hundred of them joined the pioneer band of John French & Co., and we launched Hanson Place Church, which took rank from that time as a first-class self-supporting station in that city. So in the olden time most of the churches of all our cities were founded. There is a perilous tendency among our lay- men and local preachers now to avoid personal responsibility in soul-saving work; pool their financial resources, and do as much as possible by proxy ; hire a good preacher to become spon- sor-general for the souls of the congregation under his charge ; pay an organist and a choir of singers to "sing praises unto the Lord for 50 Self-Supporting Missions. all the people." As prayers are cheap, they depend on a few old hands to do the praying at the prayer-meeting. As class-meetings have become unpopular with many, it is convenient in many places to supersede them by the church social, where the sheep and the goats can entertain each other. Parents, who have to work so hard to rise in the world and keep up ap23earances, depend on the Sunday-school for the spiritual training of their children, and wherever an opening is found for pioneering a new field for church work, get a missionary ap- propriation, and send a missionary. Under the Gospel utilization of princi- ple NUMBER TWO, "The Lord hath ordained," as under his Jewish economy, so under the Christian dispensation, that " they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel" they preach. " The laborer is worthy of his hire," to be paid by the people who get the benefit of his labors. The illustrative ox, that St. Paul introduces into his argument on this subject, was not an object of charity, but an able-bodied beast that could earn his own feed, and had the right, by the laws of Moses, with unmuzzled mouth to eat of the grain he was treading. Then, when Principles ais-d Resources. 51 his day's work was over, lie could stand square- ly on Ms four legs, and chew his cud in con- scious self-respect. From "the ox that tread- eth out the corn," St. Paul runs the parallels of labor and compensation up to God's own embassador, high on the list of producers whose product of mind and muscle is put among the notable values in the market, and as worthy of compensation as any other values in it. St. Paul, in his argument, takes care to give to God's minister the double application of PRINCIPLE number two, covcriug not only the law of demand and supply in its relation to labor and compensation, but in its relation also to commercial estimates of value. He bears in his hands a gospel message infinitely more valuable than any thing that could be given in return. Hence he says, " If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?" 1 Cor. ix, 11. Under these two gospel commissariat PRINCIPLES the apostles and their coadjutors conquered the R(jman world. Under these two principles Methodism had its birth and its development in England and America to stalwart manhood, before we had any Missionary Societies. I believe the same is 52 Self-Supporting Missiois's. true of all tlie branches of the Church of God in America. All the chaPwITAble ijs^stitutions in the T^^ORLD worthy of the name are the offspring of gospel achievement under the operation of principles one and two. The greatest of these charities is that of sending the Gospel, prepaid, to poor people who are not able to support the ministers who bring them the glad tidings, and to pay the other current expenses of the movement. We thus deduce principle number three, which is a charity principle. The three principles are co-ordinate ; each one constitutes an essential part of God's gospel commissariat arrangement ; the first two, in re- lation to the third, standing as antecedents : those fundamental, this secondary. Under the first two the mountains are tun- neled, the railroads built, the machine-shops run, the wheels of commerce turned. All the legitimate commerce of the world is conducted under these two principles, and regulated by them through the equipoise of the law of de- mand and supply. Under principle number three all the asy- lums, almshouses, hospitals, charities of every Principles and Eesources. 53 variety, public and private, are established and sustained. There is no collision between any of these institutions and the railfoads. If, however, the Board of Directors of a hospital, or of any of these charities, should claim jurisdiction over the railroads and their machine-shops, then the question of jurisdiction would have to be settled. Great charity institutions are a peculiar glory of a Christian people, but they don't run the commerce of the nation. All the Missionary Societies are based ON THIS heaven-born PRINCIPLE NUMBER THREE. They constitute the greatest benevolent in- stitutions in the world ; tending not only to alleviate the physical woes of millions of the human race, but to rescue their souls from de- struction, and restore them to filial union with God, and to eternal life. I have labored for years in many lands with missionaries of most of the great leading Mis- sionary Societies of the world, and claim to have a higher appreciation of the men and women employed, and of their heroic self-sacri- fice and grand success than any of their home officials can have, who have not had the same 54 SELF-SuppoETi]S"a Missions. opportunity of personal contact and labor with them in their remote fields; so that nothing that I may say in regard to self-supporting mis- sions, under principles number one and two, should be construed as implying any antagon- ism with the charity principle, and the institu- tions based upon it, nor invidious contrasts be- tween the two kinds of work. In the planting and prosecution of the self -sup- porting mission work to which God has called me, it is necessary to show that I am proceed- ing regularly under a clearly defined gospel charter, giving me the nght of way among the nations, yet in no way to hinder, but in many ways to help, the great benevolent missionary organizations in their work. "What about the Church Exten^sioi^ So- ciety?" That is also a grand benevolent institution, but its disbursements of funds not being in the form of annuities to individual workers, but in the form of single " grants in aid," to build up permanent church improve- ments, it partakes largely of the nature of a building association, to put a spirit of independ- ence on vantage ground for self-supporting work, and hence not so liable to the pauperiz- ing tendencies which give the almoners of Priin-ciples and Kesources. 55 charity annuities to individuals so much trouble. The proper disbursement of charities in all their variety, to individuals, is one of the most perplexing problems of the age in v^^hich we live. In New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming Territory, and all along those lines of longitude, millions of cattle subsist through all their win- ter seasons on the native grass without being fed. The cattle kings of Wyoming told me when I was laboring there, that from the severity of some of their winters, they lost from three to five per cent, of their cattle. I asked why they did not keep a supply of hay to help the weaklings through ? " Give them hay and they quit work, and their example tends to demoralize the herd — cheaper to let them die." That was a rigid application of the princi- ple of self-support, but that is the way they develop the hardy herds which require no feed in the winter, and hence can be multiplied without any reference to the limit of winter supplies of hay or grain. A friend of mine, in the State of Nevada, who had a stock rancho, told me that once, in 56 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. the severity of a hard winter, he bought a stack of hay to tide his weakly cattle through a cold snap. His supply of hay was not at all ade- quate to the length of the winter season, but would sustain life till the snow should pass away, and allow the cattle access to the grass ; but, to his great disappointment, all the cattle admitted to the hay stack lay down by it as soon as they filled themselves. Then when hunger returned, they would walk to the water- trough and drink, and return to the stack and eat. Thus they spent their days till the hay was all devoured, and then, one by one, they lay down and died. The next winter was also very severe, and my friend saw that he was likely again to lose a large number of his cattle, but having learned a lesson of wisdom on the distribution of charity, he determined to adopt a different method, so he procured a supply of hay, but kept it en- tirely out of sight of the herd, and during the very severe weather he had each " cow boy " sling two bundles of hay across his shoulder, and have them hang down fore and aft of his body, so as not to attract the attention of the cattle, and pass quietly among them as they were scattered widely over the plains, and when Peinciples and Resources. 57 tliey found one in a starving condition, just to lay down a little hay and pass on. In that way lie did not paupeiize, but did vitalize and keep his needy cattle to work on the line of self- support, and did not lose one that winter. Gifts presented directly to the needy by the giver have an advantage over pooled donations, disbursed on more general principles by agents. Both are necessary, and none the less so because of the embarrassments involved in their admin- istration, but let those embarrassments be lim- ited to the sphere of charity work, w^hether pertaining to the bodies or to the souls of men, and not be allowed to cripple the energy and operations of self-support. What about Missionaries ? Are they ob- jects OF charity ? No, not because they are missionaries. An effective missionary is as much a producer as if he labored in a self-supporting field. He is a messenger sent and supported by a charity in- stitution, to carry the gospel tidings to objects of charity who are not able to support the gos- pel messenger, and pay the expenses involved by gospel work among them. The missionary, however, being the repre- sentative of a great institution which has a 58 Self-Suppoeting Missions. great reputation to sustain, mast secure and maintain a social standing in keeping witli tlie institution lie represents, rather tlian tliat of the mass of the people whom he is sent to serve ; and becoming, too, the disbursing agent of large sums of money to his native ministers and employes, in their variety, he is in more danger of becoming master instead of servant, than the minister who depends on the people he serves for his support. One of my Indian converts from Hinduism said on one occasion to two native ministers belonging to two different missions, "In our Church we are all brothers, both ministers and people." After a little pause, one of them replied, " Well, our ministers are good men, but we get our living from them, and they are our mas- ters." It does not follow that those missiona- ries assumed to be masters, but that indicates a peril in their path. The "middle men," receivers and disburs- ers of charity at home are not objects, but agents of charity. The wealthy libeeal Cheistian men who go from Christian countries to heathen lands, and give liberally to help the missionaries in Principles and Kesources. 59 tlieir work are independent patrons of charity, and not tlie subjects and fruits of it. Col. Gowen, Col. Kamsay, and others, have given liberally to help our North India Con- ference to found orphanages and schools. Such examples have been quoted to offset the fact of the real self-support of the South India Conference, coming almost entirely from people who were converted at our altars, and give their money to support and extend Methodism. The noble men of the North referred to had developed a liberal Christian character before they ever saw a Methodist missionary, and have never become Methodists at all, and have not given their money to support Methodism, as such. They are broad philanthropists, and do all they can to help the India Government to establish educational institutions for the natives, and are glad to have the Methodist, or any other Missionary Society, co-operate with them in their great educational work. Thus for many years the Government gave as much money as any Missionary Society would appro- priate toward the erection of a school-house. That is all right, but a very different thing from conquering and converting enemies, and have them cheerfully to foot all the bills involved. 60 Self-Suppokting Missions. VII. HEALTHY HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIP OF THE TWO METHODS OF MISSIONARY WORK. In every great work involving a variety of agents and metliods, the harmony and effective- ness of the movement requires that the agents of the different departments shall attend to their own business, according to the laws and con- ditions governing their own sphere of opera- tions respectively. In a great steamship there are engineers, firemen, seamen, cooks, waiters, stewards, and officers of all these departments ; so in an army there are many departments, and each governed by its own peculiar laws. The engineers, the sappers and miners, the commissariat agents, the soldiers, with their divisions of cavalry, artil- lery, militia, and so on — all influenced by the same motives, and working together for one common end ; but the harmony and success of the movement can be secured only by main- taining strictly the diversity of the separate departments of work. Harmoitious Methods. 61 So, if the laws and principles of Divine ap- pointment, essential to tlie establishment and success of self-supporting missions, are diverse from those of the organized charity missionary movements, we have only to recognize that fact, and allow the Holy Spirit to work in har- mony with those diverse laws and methods; then all will rejoice together in the success of his soul-saving work, whatever the diversity of means employed. The main question pending this discussion about self-supporting missions is this : Have THESE FIRST TWO PRINCIPLES A POSSIBLE DIRECT APPLICATION to the better classes, or any class of the foreign empires of Romanism and hea- thenism? Or must those vast populations, comprising nearly four fifths of the human race, be evangelized through the agency sent out and supported by the organized Missionary Societies, with such measure of indigenous agency and self-support as they may develop under the op- eration of the charity principle? The latter is the position assumed, as I understand it, by all the Churches of Christendom, and by the administrators of all Missionary Societies. I know that to question such a high stand- ard of authority is to lay myself open to the 6^ SELF-SuppORTma Missions. charge of presumptuous egotism; hence, if it were simply a speculative question, I would not moot it at all ; but with me it is a question of the most vital and practical importance, involving the salvation or criminal neglect of millions of souls. Hence, with a high appre- ciation of the Missionary Societies, their work- ers, and their work, and with all due deference to so high a standard of authority, I neverthe- less presume to say, first, that they have taken too large a contract for their financial resources ; and, second, that the principles number one and two have not only a possible dieect appli- cation" TO THE BETTER CLASSES of thosc empires of Romanism and heathenism, but the only principles on which the better classes can, to any appreciable extent, be reached. The three principles, with the appropriate methods belonging to each, are governed by their laws of nature, or God's modes of operat- ing through the relations affected by them. The relation between the cause and the effect may not be seen by the subject of it, but that does not alter the fact. Give a starving beggar a loaf of bread, and he will receive it with thanksgiving. Tender such a charity to a man of independent spirit Harmonious Methods. 63 and means, and you insult him. Meet the man of means on the platform of independent per- sonal equality, call his attention to something that will commend itseK to his common sense, and to his conscience, as a thing of great value to him and to the community in which he lives, and he will invest his money in it, and become an interested party in its dissemina- tion. The Gospel, mth its resources, motives and adaptations, presented in God's way, " commends itself to every man's conscience." When a cer- tain man of this class found a pearl of great price, ^' he sold all that he had and bought it," It is often a matter of surprise, and of regret, too, that the Churches gathered by missionaries in heathen countries are, with a very few indi- vidual exceptions, the poorest of the poor people of those countries. Then is quoted the comforting saying of the Master, " To the poor the Gospel is preached." That was true, but not so exclusively as in modern missionaiy work. The Saviour and his preachers reached, with saving results, all grades of society, up to the household of Herod and of Caesar; and their well-to-do men and women ministered to the necessities of the preachers and paid all the 64 Self-Supporting Missions. running expenses of the work and met the de- mands of its charities. Paul's plan was first to reach the educated, influential people of the great cities of the Roman world; and so far succeeded on that line of work that, according to Dean Trench, the name " heathen " is taken from the heaths occupied by the poor people; and the word pagan, from Pagani, the people of the paguses, or small villages, while, meantime, the popula- tion of the great cities had become Christians. The question is not whether the first two principles are applicable to Christian countries, nor whether the chaiity principle, as applied to heathen countries in the great missionary work now in progress can be dispensed with, but whether or not the Gospel, under the apostolic principles and methods of self-support, as be- fore explained, shall have a recognition in heathen countries ; and that we be allowed to build up loyal Churches in those countries through indigenous resources — Churches to take rank in paternal relationship, with all the rights and privileges of self-supporting Churches at home, without the sponsorship of a missionary society ? This is the question that I respectfully sub- Haemonious Methods. 65 mitted to our Cliurcli authorities ten years ago. When tlie Lord commenced to found self- supporting Churches in India, through my agency, I took the ground: Fiest, that the jurisdiction of a missionary society extended legitimately to all the fields requiring and re- ceiving funds from her treasury. Second, that the jurisdiction of our Bishops, in foreign fields should not be limited to the missions thus cov- ered by the jurisdiction of our Missionary So- ciety, but should extend to any part of the habitable globe requiring the services and guaranteeing the support of an itinerant Meth- odist minister; and hence, requested them to take immediate direct charge of my Indian Churches, but refused to put them under the intermediate control of the Missionan^ Societ}^ Hence I suggested, modestly, to the Board of Bishops, through Bishop Janes, that, on the ground of common necessity, common sense, and the common law of Methodism, they should put a liberal construction on the " mis- sionary rule" for ordaining men for foreign w^ork, so as to ordain and send out men to the fields the Lord might enable me to open. 66 Self-Suppoeting Missions. VIII. ST. PAUL'S METHODS OF MISSIONARY WORK. I. The Pauline plan of planting the Gos- pel IN HEATHEN LANDS WaS 1. To plant nothing but pure gospel seed : not a grain of Jew tares, cockle, or cheat, naught but the pure wheat of gospel truth. When sowers of mixed seed came into his fields Paul put up the following notice : " There be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Gal. i, 7, 8. Hence, when Peter inspected the harvest fruits of Paul's seed-sowing, he said, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another vrith a pure heart fervently : being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- ever." 2. Paul laid the entire responsibility of St. Paul's Methods. 67 clnircli work and cliurcli government upon his native converts, under the immediate super- vision of the Holy Spirit, just as fast as he and his tried and trusted fellow-missionaries could get them well organized, precluding foreign in- terference. His general administrative bishops were natives of the foreign countries in which he had planted the Gospel : such men as Tim- othy and Titus. 3. Paul " endeavored to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" with the home Jerusalem Churches by all possibilities short of corrupting his gospel seed, or allowing the home Churches to put a yoke of bondage on his neck, or of laying any restrictions on his foreign Churches. 4. On the principle of equivalents, or value for value, which he expressed in terms like these, "The laborer is worthy of his hire," " They that preach the gospel shall live of the gospel " — ^he took it for granted that the Gospel was worth to any country incalculably more than all the cost of "food, raiment," and travel- ing expenses of the messengers devoted wholly to its promulgation: "For," says Paul, "if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister 68 SELF-SuppoETma Missions. unto tliem in carnal tilings." Hence he went, and sent, according to the teaching of the Mas- ter, without "purse or scrip," or an extra coat, or pair of shoes, above the actual requirements of their health and comfort. 5. In utilizing for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, and for the support of its ministers and institutions, all available agencies and re- sources, he uniformly commenced in Jewish communities, which had become indigenous in all the great centers of population throughout the Roman Empire. They were representatives of the ancient Church of God, retained its forms of worship and its insj)ired oracles, and yet Avere practically more Greek than Jew, and perfectly familiar with the life and languages of the Gentiles among whom they had been born and brought up. Hence, as fast as Paul and his fellow-missionaries could get those Jews to receive Christ and be saved from their sins, they organized them in the houses of their principal men and women into self-supporting Churches and spiritually aggressive combina- tions of agency for the salvation of their heathen neighbors. 6. To give permanency and continued ag- gressive force to his organizations, as far as pos- St. Paul's Methods. 69 sible, lie remained in each great center of work long enough not only to effect a complete organ- ization, witli administrative elders, but to de- velop the Christian character of each member up to the standard of holiness indicated by his oft-repeated exhortations and prayers as re- corded in his epistles. To the Church in Phil- ippi he says, "Do all things without murmur- ings and disputings : that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world ; holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain." Paul knew that " a man who commenced to build a house, and was not able to finish it," as stated by the Master, would lose all his labor and ruin his reputation as a builder. Driven out suddenly from Thessalonica by mob violence before he had time to build up his Church in that city '4n their most holy faith," their lack of perfection occasioned a heart struggle of suspense and anxiety that nearly killed him, but was relieved in part by tidings of their steadfastness, when he said, " Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." 70 Self-Supportikg Missions. Still Lis solicitude was so great that lie prayed ^' niglit and day exceedingly " that lie miglit see their face, '^ and perfect that which " was " lack- ing in " their " faith." 1 Thess. iii, 10. And Paul assures the Church at Ephesus that all God's ministers — " apostles, prophets, evangelists, pas- tors and teachers," were to make a specialty of " perfecting the saints," till " all " — individually, and as a body — " come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fuHness of Christ." Eph. iv, 11-14. He knew, as a General in the King's army for the conquest of the world, that if he left a regi- ment of "children, tcssed to and fro, and car- ried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive," they would be capt- ured, and, worse still, his work would be coun- terfeited by " the apostles of Satan," who would marshal his apostates under the Christian flag, and make a material disphiy that would quite eclipse the work of a plain man like PauL St. Paul's Methods. 71 Paulike Methods Suited to the Demands of THIS Age. God's gospel arrangements and provisions as -revealed in the Book are adapted to all the pe- culiarities of all ages, and adequate to the spiritual needs of all the " nations " and " fami- lies of the earth;" but there is a remarkable correspondence between the providential con- ditions of Paul's day and of our day favorable to a rapid soul-saving work of God throughout the world. 1. For the wide domain and far-reaching in- fluence of the Roman Government, and the potency of her literature and laws, we have the modern counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon Empire of Nations, including Great Britain, her Amer- ican daughter under the stars and stripes, and all her Colonial governments, and her repre- sentatives among all the nations of the earth. These Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christian na- tions are the owners of a large share of the land, and command the resources of all the seas of the globe. 2. That was purely heathen and bitterly op- posed to Christ and his Gospel. This is avow- edly Christian, and pledged to defend and ex- 72 Self-Suppoeting Missiois-s. tend tlie religion of the Lord Jesus ; and higli above the designs of men the English, coloniza- tion system, as we have shov^n, w^hatever the motive and methods of its endless variety of agency, is part of a providential programme for the permanent establishment of universal Chris- tian empire in the world. 3. Paul took advantage of the wide diffusion of the Greek language and literature of his day. We may utilize more effectively our own En- glish language, which is manifestly a God- ordained medium, through which his word may flow " to the uttermost parts of the earth " and flood the nations with gospel light. 4. The scattered Jews constituted the enter- ing wedge with which Paul opened the heathen nations of his day. Our English-speaking people, dispersed through the earth, ought to be as available and as potent for good as the dispersed Jews of Paul's day. Those were, in the main, refugees, prisoners of war, and slaves, and at best occupied a social position of no great in- fluence. What of the dispersed English-speaking people as compared with the dispersed Jew ? The currents of English and American com- merce have deposited on ^11 the coasts of St. Paul's Methods. 73 heatlien and semi-lieatlieii countries, vast re- sources of men, money and merchandise. These adventurous, heroic men of every class are not bound by bands of exclusive caste like the Jews ; they are liberal and often wasteful to a faulty extreme. They have not the systematic training in regular voluntary payment of the tenth of their income that was common among the Jews, but the sight of real distress or need will always touch the hearts, and open, and often empty, the pockets of the dispersed En- glishmen. The religious training of the Jews afforded many advantages favorable to their reception of Christ, but the truth they held was so ob- scured by their traditions as to make the en- trance of gospel light extremely difficult, and, in a large majority of cases, impossible. Their endless routine of obsolete altar services and sacrifices, and of self-imposed "works of the law" and ritualistic observances were equally obstructive. The religious training of the Englishman is decidedly Christian. His elevation from gross barbarism, and the emancipation of his mental powers and their consequent development, and all his grand achievements in their vast variety 74 Self-Supporting Missions. .are clearly traceable to the mysterious power of an open Bible, and the Divine resources of light, life and salvation to which it leads. In Paul's days the Jews were bitter persecu- tors of the Christians, rivaled only by their heathen neighbors, who were often set on by themselves. Paul had a hard experience on this line. Speaking of false "apostles, deceit- ful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ," he says: "Are they min- isters of Christ ? I am more ; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck " — [this was prior to his wreck as a Eoman-bound prisoner] — "a night and a day I have been in the deep" — [hanging on to a fragment of the ^^nrecked vessel] — " in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own coun- trymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren." 5. All governments, all nations, all religious systems, were combined in deadly hate against Jesus and his infant Church. To-day the St. Paul's Methods. 75 doors of every nation on tlie face of tlie earth are open to God's gospel messengers. If an ir- responsible mob make an onslaught upon them, as in Mexico a few years ago, the government at once purges itself of the outrage, and orders the arrest and punishment of the offenders. 6. Instead of thumping about on the Medi- terranean sea and off the west coast of Europe in the fellow to an old leaky Chinese junk, as did Paul and his heroic compeers, we circum- navigate the globe in floating palaces driven by modern mechanical forces, the discovery and application of which result from the enfranchise- ment of the human intellect through the power of the Gospel. Paul had the advantage of miraculous gifts. They were public divine attestations of the men whom God inspired, and the messages they delivered and wrote, and the soul-saving meth- ods they employed. Thus God composed a Book for man's instruction, and established the gospel system. As temporary scaffolding to the permanent superstructure, so were mere physical miracles to this gospel system, and to the superior miraculous soul-saving work of the Lord Jesus, " in demonstration of the Spirit," adequate and available for the woes and wants 76 SELr-SuPPORTING MISSIONS. of every human soul to tlie end of tlie world. The prophetic utterances of the " holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and God's miraculous attesting evidences, with which the Bible is so replete, ^x the standard and measure of evidence that God deemed essential to command the confi- dence and obedient concurrence of mankind. Any religion unsupported by such attesting evidence, is utterly unworthy of the confidence of mankind. As an embassador for Christ, I am not sent to perform public, physical mira- cles, but to proclaim the glad tidings of a com- plete and perfectly attested gospel, and of a possible verification of its truth, and by a per- sonal demonstration of the Spirit in my renewed heart and life, to bear witness to the fact that the Lord Jesus is alive, a personal Saviour, and saves me ; and that saved millions to-day are witnesses of these facts. I have but intimated the facts illustrating the vantage ground, resources, appliances and grand possibilities of the Church of Christ at this hour. If she would purge her records, put on her strength, and come out of the wilderness leaning in perfect fidelity on the arm of her Beloved, he would lead her triumphantly St. Paul's Methods. 77 througli the open gates of all tlie nations, and tlie whole world would yield willing obedience to God and his Christ in less than fifty years from this moment. Present Outlook fok Pauline Self-support- ma Missions in Foreign Countries. As we have seen, our transportation facilities are marvelously prophetic, and daily increasing and extending. All countries are open and ac- cessible, and skirted by a resident population bearing the Christian name, and speaking our own language. Those dear people, widely iso- lated from wholesome home influence and Christian association, and deprived of the counsel and care of gospel ministers, have be- come sadly assimilated to the heathenism and infidelity surrounding them. As might reason- ably be expected, their unrestrained carnal nat- ure thus open to lustful allurements, a large proportion of them are enticed and enslaved. Many of them marry native women, and bring up families of mixed blood, which form an in- digenous class of society bearing the Christian name, and, in the main, speaking both the English language and the vernacular of the particular province in which they live. With 78 SELF-SuppoPwTiNa Missions. some honorable exceptions, tlie mass of tliem, so long exposed to the demoralizing power of their surroundings, constitute so formidable an obstruction to the introduction and dissemina- tion of vital Christianity where they reside that missionaries, to achieve any success worthy of their cause, and of their seK-sacrificing toils, have had to go far into the interior, where they themselves are to the natives the only repre- sentatives of the Christian religion. The grandest soul-saving successes of mission- ary effort have been among the South Sea Island cannibals, where the peril of being roasted and eaten precluded commerce and immigration. The Wesleyan missionary hero, John Hunt, and his noble wife, unfurled the gospel stand- ard near to the palace of Thackenbaugh, the great cannibal king of Fiji. The king and his men of war held their cannibal feasts in front of the missionary's house, where they dug their ovens and roasted and ate their victims in the presence of the missionary and his family. Thackenbaugh afterward became a Christian, and his whole nation " turned away from idols to serve the living God." So, under the ministrations of the apostle Peter Turner, the king of the Friendly Islands St. Paul's Methods. 79 and liis queen were botli converted to God in one niglit. The king became a powerful preacher of the Gospel, and planted missions in adjacent islands. So Nathaniel Turner and a heroic band of men and women, at the peril of their lives, pro- claimed the tidings of salvation to the man- eating Maories of New Zealand. Thus slavery and cannibalism were abolished, whole nations were marshaled under the gospel banner, and their countries dotted with Christian churches, schools, and happy homes, where the Prince of Peace dwelt with the people. I have heard many of those pioneer missionaries give the marvelous accounts of their trials and triumphs that would fill a volume. Those grand missionary successes made im- migration into those hitherto cannibal countries possible; then came the hordes of English- speaking Christians; blight and ruin ensued, profligacy, rum, diseases unknown to natives, wars and destruction. This is notably true of. the native nations of New Zealand, as seen by my own eyes. Fiji is now in great peril from the same cause. The railway system is now carrying those foreign misrepresentatives of Christianity away from the ports into the in- 80 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. terior regions of all tlie empires of heatlienism except China, and will jeopardize Christian missions wherever they go. Why signalize foreign English-speaking ad- venturers ? Because of their superior numbers as com- pared with other maritime nations ; because of the power and influence of the nations they represent ; and especially because, in conjunc- tion with the great missionary system of the Christian nations, those hordes of English- speaking adventurers constitute a grand heaven- appointed agency for the salvation of heathen and semi- Christian nations just as certainly as were the Jews, scattered abroad among the na- tions, in the days of St Paul. Why the sad miscarriage of these valuable resources and agencies ? The possibility of such disaster grows out of the fact that man is not a mere animal, but " the offspring of God," endowed with the at- tributes of intelligence, affections, conscience, and a will, essential to a royal, filial relation to God ; hence the sad abuse of moral freedom by Adam and Eve, and of their descendants through all the intervening ages to this day. The more immediate occasion of this disaster St. Paul's Methods. 81 may be found in the fact that the Churches have devoted theii^ religious activities princi- pally to home work in great variety^ and by desperate efforts have sent forth about one mis- sionary for each one hundred million of heath- ens, and in the main precluded their foreign countrymen from their programme of evangeli- zation ; so much so, that a man who dares to go and gather those lost sheep and fold them for the Good Shepherd, becomes, by so doing, a pronounced "irregular." The Churches have bat two "regular" methods of disseminating the Gospel. One is by the gradual extension of the home work, and the other is by the au- thorized location of definite mission fields, the appointment of missionaries, and the appropri- ation of money to support them, by the regular Missionary Societies through their officials. Our remote, dispersed people are beyond the radius of the first, and not being heathens nor paupers, they do not come within the plan or provision of our Missionary Societies. Mean- time Satan, conducting his missionary opera- tions on the self-supporting plan, has been al- lowed quietly to utilize nearly all these grand resources of men and money, and an-ay them against the advance of Christ's kingdom. Not 82 SELF-SulPPOtiTiNG Missions, largely in avowed opposition, to be sure, but the daily presence of drunken, profane, licen- tious, haughty, native-hating English Chris- tians (?) furnish to native minds an argument against Christianity that outweighs all possible utterances of the missionary. Those stumbling-blocks must be taken out of the way, so far at least as to furnish to the natives a demonstration of the transforming power of the Saviour of sinners, and establish a clearly defined line between nominal and real Christians, designated in India "pakka" and " kutchha " Christians. Otherwise the heathen will continue to point the missionary to his debauched countrymen, and tauntingly say, " There is one of your disciples. You have had him in hand ever since he was born. If your Jesus can't make him as good as a common heathen man, what is the good of your tales about his great power to save men from their sins ? " The heathen may not make due allowance for man's power to resist God's saving work in his own soul, but their argument has, neverthe- less, unanswerable force in it ; for a gospel agency that cannot lead at least a fair propor- tion of our own p'ebple in he'ath'eii lands to a St. Paul^ METHOiffi. 83 saving knowledge of Jesus Ckrist cannot be very effective in the more difficult work of sav- ing the heathen. The fact is, most of the mis- sionaries in the past have had instructions from authority at home not to divide their time with English-speaking people. This precaution was to prevent a possible diversion from the native work. Moreover, the missionaries, in founding and teaching schools for the natives, translat- ing and printing books, together with daily preaching and disputation, had no time nor strength to spare for their demoralized coun- trymen. Meantime, however, mainly by missionary agency, the Bible has been translated and printed into more than two hundred different languages, besides tomes of other Christian literature and school books, and thousands of schools crowded mth native pupils. This is all grand preparatory work, essential to the final triumph of the Gospel. Those heroic pioneers have been grading down " mountains and hills," filling up the " valleys, making the crooked straight, and the rough places plain '* — preparing "the way of the Lord." All the regular missions should be adequately re-enforced and sustained by home Churches, 84 SELF-SUPPORTING MiSSIOKS. but their next grand achievement is to utilize, on a purely spiritual soul-saving base, the na- tive agency and resources connected with their work. The school-house is an armory from which the children of heathen and Moham- medan parents go forth armed with weapons which they will surely turn against God and his people, unless they are led to receive the Lord Jesus and allow him to " save them from their sins," and "destroy the works of the devil " out of their hearts. Practical Test of Paulln-e Methods. God is using me and my fellow- workers as a special body of agency to initiate and develop from the start the Pauline principle of self-sup- porting missionary work. All missions hope to work up to this standard, and have reached it in a few cases. We have a few fine examples in our regular Methodist Mission in China. That the application may the more readily be seen, I will restate some leading principles of Paul's plan : 1. To bear the gospel message to his own people, wherever he could find them scattered through the nations of the Roman Empire. 2. By all possible means to induce them, St. Paul's Methods. 85 upon the prophetic records of their own inspired Scriptures concerning Messiah, and the most public and notable fulfillment of them in the person of Jesus of ISiazareth, to "receive him" as their Saviour from sin, and allow him to elevate them to citizenship in his spiritual and eternal kingdom. Pursuant to the command of the Lord Jesus to all his saved ones to be " witnesses unto him unto the uttermost parts of the earth," and the orders specially contained in Paul's own call to preach the Gospel, uttered by the lips of the same prince and Saviour, " I have called thee to be a minister and a witness " — his method was to furnish a twofold basis of faith — "the word of God, and the testimony for Jesus Christ." The documentary credentials of the Great Physician who came down from God, and the testimony of living witnesses to a personal verification of the truth of the documents — a personal demonstration of the fact that Jesus, the crucified and risen Saviour of men, was in- deed their personal Saviour from sin, and was daily preserving them from sinning. On these evidences commanding the confidence of all who would be at the trouble, in the spirit of concurring obedience, to examine them, Christ 86 Self-Supporting Missioj^s. was proclaimed as a living, personal, present Saviour, witli assurance that " As many as re- ceived him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Thus, avoiding as far as possible all debat- able issues, many thousands of Jews received Christ, and were born again, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Paul, in common with all the apostles, was a sound logician. The mod- em method of most of the learned advocates of Christianity in dealing with Buddhists, Mo- hammedans,. Hindus, and unbelievers, at home and abroad, is to set forth their tenets of belief in the form of dogmatic propositions, and pro- ceed with their arguments to prove that those religions of their opponents are all wrong, and that theirs is all right; but unfortunately their opponents do not admit the premises on which the attacking argument is based ; hence, the argument is worthless, and the conclusion carries with it no convincing force. That is what Aristotle designated as the fallacy of " begging the question." The apostles, as sound logicians, always laid the major premise of their arguments in the region of admitted truth, un- questionable truth ; hence, their arguments were St. Paul's Methods. 87 sound and solid, and tlieir conclusions came down on Jew or Gentile alike with logical irresistibility. In reasoning with Jews they always ba^ed their argument on the Scriptures ; with Gentiles they dug down into the region of their natural religiousness, and brought to light the undeniable facts of their need, and their earnest struggles for a supply, and got an unquestionable foundation on which to build their arguments, clinching and crowning them with "the Word of God, and the testimony for Jesus." 3. The believing Jews, " filled with joy and the Holy Ghost," were at once organized into Christian Churches in the dwellings of their own leading people, such as Gains, of Derbe, Aquilla, of Pontus, Stephanus, and hundreds of others. "And Paul ordained them elders in every Church." These Churches were purely self-supporting from the start. It seems never to have entered the minds of inspired apos- tles, nor of the people, that the great work of their " high calling," the salvation of the world, required the construction of costly edifices, with their expansive appendages, to be called churches, involving a vast outlay of funds, making dependence " on rich men a necessity." 88 SELF-SuppoETmG Missions. Indeed, to check the natural tendency of the Jewish people in that direction, Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, using Mount Sinai as the symbol of the Jewish Church in legal bondage, and of the materialistic display and gorgeous ritualism of the temple service says, " Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched," " But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" — unto the metropolis of the spiritual kingdom of the Messianic Son of David, all invisible, but real and glorious be- yond description. He goes on to inform them about the citizens, government, and soul-saving resources of that great invisible "city of the living God." 1.) "An innumerable company of angels;" and says of them, "Are they not all minister- ing spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heii^s of salvation ? " 2.) The innumerable hosts of "the general assembly and the Church of the first-born" — the collective spiritual Church of Christ on earth — "which are written in heaven" — "and to the spirits of just men made perfect," the blood-washed throng who have left their bodies in the sleep of death till " all who are in the St. Paul's Methods. 89 graves shall hear tlie voice of the Son of God and come forth;" their spirits meantime puri- fied and perfected in holiness, enjoy a standing of citizenship combining royal and sacerdotal honors — " kings and priests unto God." 3.) The Thi'one of government and of me- diation. "We have come to God the Judge of all," " And to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprink- ling," by the merit of which all the fallen race may obtain acquittal from the penalty of death, and pardon for all their sins ; and by its puri- fying virtue, applied by the Holy Spirit, " may be cleansed from all unrighteousness," and so perfected in all the graces of the Spirit as to be prepared for joint heirship "with Jesus Christ." 4. The conversion of Jews, and their organ- ization into Christian Churches, was not the end, but a subsidiary means to the great end of his apostolic commission from God. The Lord said to Ananias, " He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings and children of Israel." Paul to the Church at Kome says, " I speak to you Gentiles, inas- much as I am the apostle to the Gentiles; I magnify mine office." The children of Israel 90 SELF-SuppoETiNa Missio:n-s. were embraced in his mission in common with the people of the Gentile nations, and for the purposes before stated ; drawn, too, by patriotic instinct and Christlike sympathy for his own countrymen, he always commenced his ministry in foreign countries among them, and utilized them to the utmost of his power as a personal and combined agency for the evangelization of the Gentile nations. He hence explained to them and to the Gentiles alike, w^hat had been a hidden mystery to the Jewish people through the ages, that the Abrahamic covenant, under which the Jews claimed exclusive rights to God's covenanted mercies in Messiah, was but a modern and subsidiary provision for carry- ing into effect the "purpose of God," dating back to eternity past, and embracing impar- tially and universally all "the nations," and "all the families of the earth." The terms "election of grace," " f oreordination," "pre- destination," and "foreknowledge," are terms belonging to the records of chartered rights of the human race — ^not rights of merit, but of mercy, based on God's " eternal purpose," se- cured through "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and applied by the Holy Spirit to all w^ho receive Christ, Jew or Greek. Paul St. Paul's Methods. 91 thus cleared away the rubbish of Jewish ex- clusive dogmas, and laid a basis of faith for the Gentile nations. Now, in no way to hinder but in many ways to help the work of foreign missionary socie- ties, God is using me and my fellow- workers as a humble but special body of agency to make a practical application of these Pauline principles of self-supporting missionary work, utilizing the dispersed English-speaking people of foreign nations, as St. Paul did the Jews. In common with the missionaries of the organ- ized Societies, we have a great deal of educa- tional and other preparatory work to do, and hence will require time and patience to secure the Pentecostal measure of Pauline soul-saving successes; but we have unfaltering faith in God, and his Pauline methods of missionary work, and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are going on to victoiy. 92 Self-Supporting Missions. IX. PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR FOUNDING SELF-SUPPORTING MISSIONS. The question is often put to me, " What led you into this line of mission work ? " To answer in a word, I can only say that I was led by the Holy Spirit, who has engaged to lead every one who will " walk after " him, in the way that he shall choose. The founding of Self-supporting Missions was no conception nor plan of my own. I can see now that the Lord has given me a special training for this business, as long as the ap- prenticeship of Moses in the wildernesss. The Lord Jesus "took me" in effect "into his arms and blessed" me mth pardon and conscious peace with God when a " little child " of about eight summers. The prophetic unction of the Holy Spirit thrilled my heart in those days of my early boyhood. My parents, though at that time strangers to the converting grace of God, taught me very early to read the Script- ures ; and I got much of gospel teaching into my memory. Hearing a colored girl repeat Personal Prepaeation". 93 part of tlie experience of a colored man, wlio testified tliat lie had got his sins forgiven, and coupling that testimony for Jesus with the word of God, I got a basis of faith, and was thus led to seek and receive Jesus as my Saviour. But being ignorant of Satan's devices, after some months of happy union with Jesus, I was ^'entangled and overcome." One day when, with my little hoe, I was waging a war with the w^eeds in my father's cornfield, Satan came to me. I was not acquainted with Satan then, and being invisible, I knew not his presence nor his designs upon me. He said to my inner person, " Have you not read what the poor sinners did in Jerusalem when they repented and obtained the forgive- ness of their sins ? " " Yes, ^ they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.' * Barnabas having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it down at the apostles' feet.' " " Have you sold out all your goods and given away the money ? " " No, I have not." "Well, you see how it is. You can't be a 54 S:EL$'-STJPPt)RTIlN'G MlBBIDl?5-S. follower of Jesus unless you sell all that you have and give the money to the poor; and, moreover, you never can be the owner of any property as long as you live." I hung my head, and thus soliloquized, ^^I have but little, but I must sell all that I have and give the money to such as are in need." In my mind I began at once to take stock of my effects, intent on following the example of the saved sinners in Jerusalem. My small stock of homespun apparel I set down as ex- empt. The only things I could recall, as coming under the gospel requirement, were a few calf- skins and sheep-skins, and a dog-skin or two dowQ in my father's tan vats. I said to myself, "How can I get them out to sell them? I don't see how I can do it. O I wish I could, but I can't ! " Satan had seized an arrow from God's quiver and thrust it through me, and stood over me in a grim, malicious self-gratification, peculiar to himself, aud said : " God requires you to do what you cannot do. Is it not a hard require- ment ? " I said in my heart, " It seems so ; yes, it is so ! " and my light went out, and the pall of death i^as thrown over my spirit. O, if I had known any body wlio knew Jesus, or could have had a Philip near to expound to me the Scriptures — some one even to whisper in my ear that I might understand that those examples of liberality were not mandatory, but simply his- torical, showing the power of Christian love to relieve the necessities of the pilgrim Jews who had come from all parts of the Roman world to their annual Pentecostal feast, and whose conversion to God had changed all their plans, many of them disinherited, and all of them detained for a time in the holy city. Without extraordinary benevolence on the part of resident believers, to meet so great an emergency, want and famine and death would have come to many of their foreign brethren and sisters. A similar demand now would draw out a similar supply, for Christian sympathy and fraternal love are the same now as then. God's " law of the tithe," and ordinaiy " free-will offerings," embodied simply the prin- ciple of proportionate giving "according a^ the Lord had prospered them." Barnabas sold his land and laid down the money and himself at the apostles' feet — his money to relieve the suffering saints, and him- seK as a liffe witness and worker to rescue poor 96 Self-Supporting Missions. sinners. His sister Mary, with equal devotion to God, kept her land, and was thus enabled to keep an open house in Jerusalem, as a home for the preachers and for the assembly of the saints. It was at the house of Mary, who was the mother of John Mark, in which the prayer- meeting was held where " many were gathered together " to pray Peter out of prison. When the angel of the Lord delivered him, he took refuge straightway in the house of Maiy. Acts xii, 12. A little Scripture exposition of that sort would have saved me from that horrible defeat and a dozen years of fruitless struggles to be good, alternating with as many failures and wretched relapses into sin. I feel confident to this day, that if I had then been within reach of the helpful methods of Methodism I should have stood "fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made me free." I had never heard of a Methodist at that time, and a few years later, when I did hear of them, I heard so many evil reports against them that I wanted nothing to do with them. In course of time, however, happily for me, the advancing armies of "the sect every -where spoken against," covered the country in which I lived, and as far back as Peksot^al Preparatioi^. 97 1835 I joined them, but, being a demoralized backslider, I was so dark and unbelieving that it was not till August 28, 1841, that I was, by a miracle of mercy, restored to my stand- ing in the family of God. I ^vsis so grateful to my heavenly Father for my deliverance from the horrible pit in which I had been so long imprisoned by Satan, and so filled with love and sympathy for perishing sinners, that, though extremely bashful and unobtrusive by nature, I commenced at once to work and witness for Jesus. God gave me success from the first day after my own deliverance, so that I soon learned to test all my work for God by its effectiveness in soul-saving, and thus proved the truth of a more modern saying, " Nothing succeeds like success." I suppose every young terrier has in him an instinctive antipathy to rats, but unless from the first he is trained to catch and craunch, he will never make a successful ratter. He will spend his life in scenting rats in a hay mow, and barking at them, but never kill any. The difference is not in the instinct, but in its proper development and application. 7 98 Self-Suppop.ting Missions. Tlie spiritual instinct of every new-born soul exclaims : " O that the world might taste and see The riches of his grace I The arms of love that compass me "Would all mankind embrace." That heaven-born principle may be suppressed or frittered away in a life-long religious routine of barking instead of biting. I have known hundreds of young converts who were used by the Spirit in leading souls to Jesus the first week of their new life. Com- mencing on that line they rapidly develop their courage and skill, and God can depend upon them to obey orders, and they become valiant soldiers for Jesus. As soon as Andrew " found the Messiah," he went for his brother Simon, " and brought him to Jesus." What a life-long inspiration that was to Andrew ! So also, "Philip findeth Nathanael, and said unto him. We have found him, of whom Mo- ses in the law and the prophets did write, Je- sus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Philip had the happiness of seeing his friend saved that very hour. That is God's way. Happily Peesonal Preparation. 99 for me, I was put into it from the beginning of my new life. I thus began to drink at the fountain struck by the Prophet Joel, when the Lord said to him, "It shall come to pass in the last days, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall proph- ecy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." Dreams and visions are for the instruction of ignorance in old men, and of inexperience in young men. A few weeks after I was saved I dreamed that I was at a preaching service, and at the close, when the preacher dismissed the congre- gation, he remained standing in the pulpit and sang a hymn. Most of the people in attend- ance retired, but a portion remained, and as I sat in front of the pulpit, looking at the min- ister, he suddenly stopped his singing, and fix- ing his eyes on me, said, " "William, God has a great work for you to do, and if you will ' con- fer not vdth flesh and blood,' turn neither to the right nor to the left, but follow the lead- ing of the Holy Spirit, your wisdom will increase like the continual dropping into a bucket." 100 Self-Supporting Missions. In "my dream I saw the empty bucket, and the pure, sparkling drops falling into it, and learned from that hour never to say in response to any call to perform duty, " Please to excuse me, I am not prepared." The next Sabbath after this vision of the night the Kev. Wm. Enos, of the Baltimore Conference, " our preacher in charge," at the close of his sermon, dismissed the congregation, and, while the majority of the people were re- tiring, the preacher remained standing in the pulpit and sang a hymn. He stopped suddenly and looked at me, and then came down to me and said, "William, you will please to go out." I grabbed my hat and cut for home, a dis- tance of two miles. Striding over the hills like a racer, I was wondering what upon earth I could have done, that our preacher should order me out of the class-meeting. When my father returned home he said, "Will, what became of you? Brother Enos sent me out to call you in, and I couldn't find you anywhere." " No, sir. I was not to be found in those pai-ts. When the preacher ordered me out of the house I thought it was time for me to start, Personal Preparation. 101 and the grass had no time for growing under my feet between that and home." " Well, you had nothing to be scared about. When you left, Brother Enos addressed the class, and said, ^ I have had my eye on William Taylor for some time, and I am satisfied that God has a great work for him to do, and if you all think as I do in regard to him, and will recommend him, I will be glad to give him a license to exhort.' The vote was unanimous ; and then Brother Enos said to me, ^ Go and tell William to come in;' and I felt ashamed in going back to report to Brother Enos that you were not within sight or hearing." I said but little, but thought much. My dream just at this time recurred to my mind, wdth the beginning of its fulfillment, and I said to myself, " Who is sufficient for these things ? I have nothing but an empty bucket, but I see how it is to be filled, and I have nothing to do but to obey the orders of my Sovereign and Saviour. He has not promised to fill me with knowledge, but with %oisdom^ so that I may adapt means to ends, and, with a little knowl- edge, do great execution." I soon after began to recognize the call of the Holy Spirit to devote my life wholly to 102 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. soul-saving. Nothing else appeared to me to be worth living for, and I became so burdened in spirit as to jeopardize my health of body and mind. Then in my ignorance the I^ord again "in- structed me in the night season." In my sleep an invisible person, who ap- peared to be close to me, talked most kindly and sweetly to my spirit, reminding me of the command of Jesus to his disciples, "that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me." ..." Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." " Then," continued my heavenly teacher, " the prophetic spirit of Jonah shall be given to you." The anticipatory thrill of such a commission went through me, and I woke, and patiently waited while I continued to work with earnest- ness. Some weeks afterward Brother Enos gave me a written license to exhort. The heading was beautifully executed in German letters by the hand of Sister Enos, who was a German scholar. Every line, written with exquisite skill, seemed to be touched with tender sympa- Personal Pkeparation^. 103 tliy for an awkward youtli wlio could scarcely muster courage enough to walk up and shake hands with the refined wife of " our preacher." I read that paper again and again, and said to myself, " An official exhorter in the Method- ist Episcopal Church." What a responsibility, and nothing with which to meet it but an empty bucket ! The Lord will help me, and I'll " confer not with flesh and blood," but go straight forward as the Lord shall lead me, and let him fill my bucket, and give me the pro- phetic commission of Jonah, and use me as seemeth good unto him." That license was never renewed, for before it was a year old I was sent off by Rev. N. J. B. Morgan, "our Presiding Elder," as junior preacher under Eev. Thomas Busey, on " Frank- lin Circuit." Brother Busey was absent from the circuit when I arrived, and I had filled half a dozen of the appointments and saw a number of souls saved before I had the pleasure of meeting him. A brother who had heard me preach at one of the appointments gave him a description of the new preacher to this effect : " He is tall and slender, active and strong; wears a blue coat. 104 Self-Supporting Missions. with brass buttons; his legs extend three or four inches lower than his pants, and he wears the broadest-toed boots that have ever been seen in these parts ; he has had but little expe- rience in preaching, but he is desperately in earnest, and has the stuff in him to make a preacher, and he can sing just as loud as he likes." So my colleague got my measure before he saw me, and was ever to me a most loving, appreciative, and true friend. He has long since 2:one to his reward. I traveled four circuits in the mountains of Virginia. The fourth — Sweet Springs Circuit — I organized. I took the timber from the stump, and in one year built up a seK-support- ing circuit that received and supported a mar- ried preacher the next year. I recently met a minister in the Kansas Con- ference, transf eiTed from Virginia, who told me that he traveled Sweet Springs Circuit but a few years ago, and, said he, "Though it has passed through the devastations of the war it stands firmly on the foundation of old loyal Methodism on which you built it. The new societies you formed are all growing, the chapels you projected were all completed, and are filled Personal Preparation. 105 witli attentive hearers. The class-books you gave them are still in the hands of the leaders, and regularly marked each week, as you taught them— ;^, for present; A, for hindered; d^ for distant ; s^ for sick ; and a, for absent. When the first books were filled up, instead of laying them aside, the leaders stitched a new one to each old one, and have been adding on ever since, so that each bundle of class-books con- tains the record of the members of each class from the beginning." God gave me a harvest of souls often in the midst of opposition amounting to personal vio- lence to seekers, and threats against the preacher, on each of the four Virginia Circuits I trav- eled. It was a good four years' course in " Brush College." I was stationed next in Georgetown, District of Columbia, as junior of Rev. Henry Tarring, a weeping prophet and good man of God, now in heaven. In addition to my regular pulpit and pastoral work, both in " the white and colored Churches " of that city, as soon as the spring birds began their songs, I opened my gospel commission in the "Georgetown Market." We had great crowds, good order, and great religious interest. 106 SELr-SuppoRTiNG Missions. Many outsiders were tlius brought to tlie liouse of the Lord and converted. The next year I was re-appointed to George- town, as junior of Rev. Thomas Sewall, "the Apollos of the Baltimore Conference," but he was taken ill, and spent the latter half of the year in Montgomery, Alabama, so that I had double work, but withal kept up regularly the market-house preaching. I was next, in March, 1848, stationed in Baltimore city, as junior of C. B. Tippett and John S. Martin. We had three churches, (Exe- ter-street, Monument-street, and Harford Ave- nue,) and an aggregate membership of 1,800. Soon after I anived I commenced open-air preaching in Belair Market, with larger crowds and more manifest results than we had in Georgetown. During that summer, while reading of the physical manifestations attending the preach- ing of Benjamin Abbott — people falling under his preaching like men slain in battle — I be- came distressingly concerned on the subject. I said to myself, " Why is it that in all my min- istry I have never yet succeeded in knocking the senses out of any poor sinner ? " I prayed to the Lord about it, asking not for fame or a Personal Preparation. 107 sliow of power, but tlie higliest measure of effectiveness possible for me in the salvation of sinners for his glory. Pending that question, I was preaching one Sabbath morning in Monument-street Church on the parable of the barren fig-tree; (I don't remember that I ever preached from it before or since.) Near the close of the discourse a man fell to the floor suddenly as if he had been shot. Immediately two or three men gathered him up and carried him out. His wife followed, wringing her hands and crying, " O my poor husband is dead, and he is unprepared to meet his God ! " The man, in a state of insensibility, was borne to a carriage and hauled home and laid on his bed. A doctor was at once called, who came in haste and examined his patient, and had a large mustard plaster laid over his breast and stomach, and set a couple of strong men to work in rubbing his extremities to promote circulation. After about an hour the man woke up into a state of consciousness, and, taking hold of the mustard plaster, he said, " What is this ? " "That is a mustard plaster put on by the doctor. YouVe been very sick." 108 Self-Supporting Missions. " Sick !" lie replied; " notliing ails me but sin. Mustard wont take it out. Send for Mr. Taylor." A messenger came in haste for me, and I went at once and found my man weeping on account of his sins. He was still in bed and the men were rubbing his feet. I instructed him and prayed for him, and in about an hour, as 1 continued to labor with him, he surren- dered and received JeSus, and was grandly saved. He leaped out of bed and praised God, and " testified to all around what a dear Savioui' he had found." That afternoon, in my discourse in the mar- ket, I was illustrating the power of Grod to awaken and save sinners, and narrated the facts and incidents of the man who had been treated for the disease of sin in the soul by an application of mustard to his body, and added, " If the brother is present he had better come up on the butcher's block here, where the peo- ple can see him, and tell them what the Lord has done for him." The crowd was great, and I knew not whether my man was present or not, but im- mediately he came to the front, and, mounting the block, testified distinctly to the facts in his Personal Preparatiois-. 109 case. He then stepped down and I went on with my discourse in application of the evidence adduced. A grocer, a non-church goer, by the name of Shilling, was on a Sunday walk with his wife, and hearing the singing at the opening of our service, they came and stood in the street, out- side the circle of the crowd, and heard the gospel proclamation. The arrows of truth pierced his conscience, and near the close of the discourse he left his wife standing in the street and pressed his way through, and, with loud weeping, kneeled down on the pavement and began to cry to God for mercy. A host of earnest workers gathered round him, and in the old-fashioned way in which I had always been accustomed to work, we instructed him, and sang and prayed and waited mth him till he turned away from all his sins and self- dependence, and accepted Christ. He got a notification from the throne, through the un- erring Spirit, of his acquittal, pardon and adop- tion, and was at once regenerated by the Spirit, and shouted praise to God, and testified there, in the open market, to the saving power of Jesus. So that day I was furnished with an example 110 SELF-SuPPORTINa MISSIONS. of the two kinds of work, and I said to myself, "I will take stock of these two cases, and see wliicli will yield the larger return for the glory of God." The man who was stricken down and blistered with the mustard was a quiet, easy-going brother. I am not aware that he backslid. I don't think he did, but I never could hear of any good that he did in the Church, beyond a quiet example of " do-nothing religion." My man Shilling hunted up his wife among the excited multitude, and, with streaming eyes and joyful lips, told her that he had got all his sins forgiven, and that the loving Saviour was waiting to save her. They returned to their home, and he at once told the good news to his mother-in-law, and got the mother and daughter down on their knees, and prayed for them. In a few days they also received Jesus and were saved. Brother Shilling continued on that line of active work for God with great success. Thirty-one years afterward I preached one night in Frederick City, Md., and at the close, a man came up and grasped my hand, saying, " This was the hand that led me to Jesus thirty- one years ago in Belair Market. God has kept Personal Peeparation. Ill me ever since. I shall be a star in your crown of rejoicing in heaven. My name is Shilling." Well, from the time of his conversion to God I never asked the Lord to knock any poor sinner out of his senses under my preaching. I preferred that they should keep their senses all wide awake that I might reason with them intelligibly on '' righteousness and temperance and judgment," and salvation in Jesus. I have had the happiness of seeing many thousands of all complexions of men and women saved since then, but all of them, so far as I ever knew, had a keen consciousness of their utterly helpless and ruined condition, a clear perception of the documentary and verbal evi- dences, furnishing a basis for their faith, and intelligently accepted Jesus, and consciously received the Spirit's witness and regenerating w^ork in their hearts. In October, 1848, 1 was appointed by Bishop Waugh, under the direction of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as a missionary to California. The gold was discovered in California in January, 1848. The treaty ceding California under purchase to the United States by Mexico was signed in May, 1848, before the news of 112 SELr-SuPPOETING MISSIONS. tlie gold discovery reacted the high contract- ing parties. The tide of emigration to the then far-off land of gold was beginning to rise in the autumn of that year. I expected to start off straightway, and never in this life see home or kindred again. My starting, however, was delayed till after the session of my Conference, in March, 1849. The delay was occasioned by opposition raised by some leading officials against my being removed from my charge. After a five-months' voyage round Cape Horn I arrived, with my wife and two chil- dren, in San Francisco, then a city of tents, in September, 1849. Then for seven years in that city, besides my regular pulpit and pastoral work, I preached from one to three times each Sabbath — an ag- gregate of about 600 sermons — to the masses in the open squares and streets of the city. (Illustrative details of this work are recorded in my book entitled, *' Seven Years' Street- preaching in San Francisco.") Having thus gone through a course of seven years in the old Baltimore Conference, and seven years in San Francisco, among the repre- sentatives of nearly all the nations of the earth, Personal Preparation. 113 it was manifest tliat I was being educated for something beyond the ordinary routine of a Methodist minister's work. I had no thought of a change, however, till, by a strange and un- expected providence, I was thrown out of the regular orbit of my itinerant life, into a comet- like path leading on through immeasurable space. It was not of my choosing, but, on the other hand, the greatest grief of ray life up to that time. My ambition was to stay at home in " the regular work," with my dear wife and children ; but my loyalty to God, which had been perfected during the first four years of my spiritual life, would not allow me to shrink for one moment from any responsibility the Lord might lay upon me, whether for life or death. Then followed years of traveling and preach- ing six days per week in the United States and Canadas ; in England, Ireland, and Scotland ; in the Australian Colonies, New Zealand, and Tasmania; in the West India Islands, and South America; in the English Colonies of Africa, and among the nations of Kaffraria. (For full details of the latter see my book, " Christian Adventures in South Africa.") After my second revival campaign in the 8 114 Self-Supporting Missions. Australian colonies and Tasmania, I went thence, in 1870, to Ceylon, and in tlie missions founded by Dr. Coke's pioneer band of mission- aries for the east, we had, according to the showing of the missionaries, a thousand Singha- lese converted to God. In the fall of the same year I went on to India, and spent over a year in native work, through interpreters, with the missionaries of half a dozen different denominations of Chris- tians. In all this line of work, without a week's in- termission, except when voyaging at sea, run- ning through so many years, I got an education that could not be obtained in any other school. I also formed alliances of friendship and Christian brotherhood throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and all her colonies, which are of incalculable value to me now in utilizing English agency as the entering wedge for opening Self-supporting Missions in foreign lands. In the autumn of 1871 I went by special in- vitation to labor a few weeks with missionaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions in the Bombay Presidency. I preached for them a couple of weeks at Ahmed nugger, and then Personal Preparation. 115 a montli with Kev. Charles Harding, one of their noble men in Bombay. While preaching thus, day and night, through interpreters, in the American chapel, to Ma- ratti natives, a number of English-speaking people, who came to see " the wonder," were awakened and saved. I had no designs on them, nor had they any designs on me. I thought I was finishing my work in India and expected soon to sail from Bombay to my loved and longed-for home in California. But step by step God was leading me in a way that I knew not, till I found myself the pastor of a hundred new-born souls in that city, who were depending on me for ministerial guidance and help. It may be proper to remark that I was not sent to this work by any missionary society, and did not commence my work among the English and Eurasians in the name of any denomination of Christians. I had been laboring in foreign fields through all those years as an evangelist in the organized work of missionaries of all the great leading missionary societies of Christen- dom, and was glad to be honored with the op- portunity of helping them to get the trains on the track they had laid, and to gather in the 116 Self-Supporting Missions. Pentecostal harvests of souls, resulting from so many long years of unrequited toil. But wlien I struck tlie English and Eurasian stratum of society in Bombay, I found myself outside of Cliurcli organization. I at once formed our converts into " Fellow^sMp Bands," self-support- ing and self-acting bodies of agency for their own edification and for the salvation of their heathen neighbors. I knev^ not at the beginning what organic shape or name God would give to those New Testament Churches in the houses of our lead- ing members. As I am often asked now by ministers, as well as laymen, whether or not my work in India is connected with the Methodist Episco- pal Church, and as some critics assume that I have departed from the principles of self-sup- port with which I set out, I will insert the chapter from my book entitled "Four Years Campaign in India," containing an account of our first organization in India, and a full state- ment of our principles, from which we have not swerved. Methodism in Bombay. 117 X. ORGANIZATION OF METHODISM IN BOMBAY. On Thursday, the 8th of February, 1872, Brother George Miles drew up the following letter : *' To the Rev. William Taylor. : "Dear Brother — We the undersigned, who have by God's mercy been awakened through your preach- ing to a sense of our sins, and who have found the Lord Jesus to be our Deliverer, are desirous for the establish- ment of a Methodist Episcopal Church in this city. "We are satisfied, from all that we have yet learned, of the scriptural authority for the methods practiced by the Church to which you belong ; and we therefore unitedly invite you to take the necessary steps for the accomplishment of our wishes, and to act yourself as our pastor and evangelist until such time as you can make arrangements with the Home Board for sending out the necessary agency to this city." Brother James Morris the same day showed it to a number of converts, and thirty of them signed it; so in the evening, when he came home and showed me the list of signatures, I said, "Now before you go any further with this business, I must read our ^ General Rules' 118 SELF-SuPPORTINa MISSIONS. in the bands, tliat they all may know what we shall expect of them, and act intelligently. So by Monday morning, the 12th of February, I had read the Kules in the seven bands we had up to that time organized. Brother Morris, meantime, had increased his list of signers to eighty -three ; and on Wednesday the 14th I foimally accepted their call by the following letter, which was published in the Bombay Guardian: [Reply.] " Dear Brethren and Sisters in the Lord, — "In response to your letter allow me to state a few facts ; " Though an ordained minister, and for many years a pastor, in the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, I have, with the concurrence of my Church, for many years past wrought as a missionary evangelist in foreign countries, among all denominations of Christians. I came to Bombay Presidency by invitation of the Amer- ican missionaries of *the Maratti Mission.' I enjoyed the pleasure of working with them at Ahmednugger and in this city, and in return have had their hearty sympathy and co-operation — the same also, in a good degree, of other ministers — in all my work for God in this city. Our gracious God will reward them. I had also the pleasure of giving a little helo to the Mission of the Free Church of Scotland. "I expected by invitation of ministers here, as in Methodism in Bombay. 119 other places, to assist many Churches in Bombay in seeking the soul-saving power of God, and in the de- velopment of a more effective working agency in their respective organizations. " As you all know, we have been providentially brought * by a way that we knew not,' to a somewhat different result. " A number of you will bear me witness, that when at different times you spoke to me on the necessity of organizing a Methodist Church in Bombay, to conserve and extend the fruits of this work of God, I advised you not to think about that, but to go on in the soul- saving work in which the Holy Spirit was using you, and that God would in due time manifest clearly the course you ought to pursue. I could not anticipate what it might be, but was fully resigned to follow wherever he might lead. "Under later unmistakable indications, I now see with you the guiding hand of God by which you have been led to your present conclusion, and I am bound by my loyalty to Christ to concur with you in this movement. After I received your letter, I read to the * fellowship bands ' the ' General Rules of our Societies,' that all might know from the start the self-denying, cross-bearing life necessary to constitute a true Meth- odist— that is, to find out God's Gospel Methods, and pursue them with a martyr spirit of fidelity to him and to mankind. So our organization has now become matter of history. Let it be distinctly understood that we do not wish to hinder, but to help, the spiritual progress of all pre-existing Churches in this great country. 120 Self-Suppoeting Missions. "We attach no importance to the nominal relation of an unconverted man or woman to any Church. \Yhen, therefore, God by our agency leads such to re- ceive Christ and salvation in him, they naturally look to us for spiritual guidance, and we are bound to ex- tend to them hands and hearts of fraternal sympathy, and receive them into our church-fellowship ; unless they conscientiously believe they can get and do more good in some other branch of the Church of Christ. But persons who have a vital spiritual union with any Church, and a field of usefulness therein, we sincerely advise to remain in their own Church. We are not at liberty to refuse any persons who have a ' desire to flee from the wrath to come, and be saved from their sins ; ' but we do not wish any truly saved man to leave his Church to come to us. On the other hand, persons who are influenced by worldly motives would make a very great mistake in trying to ally themselves with us. All who join the Methodists should make up their minds to * endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,' and prove the truth of the Saviour's saying, * Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and shall persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.' Dr. Chalmers said, * Method- ism is Christianity in earnest.' That is a thing directly antagonistic to the carnal spirit and life of the world; and hence the emphatic statement of St. Paul, 'All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecu- tion.' " It does not follow that such are a long-faced, gloomy people, but rather, a people who * rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks Methodism in Bombay. 121 unto God.' They daily cheer their heavenward journey with songs and shouts of victory over sin and Satan, speaking to each other in * psalms and hymns and spirit- ual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord.' All of us further agree that ours is to be an Evangelistic, self-supporting Church. We know no distinction of language, caste, or color, as it regards our relation to God and to each other as his children. ** Every member is expected to be a witness for Christ, and help to herald the fact that every human being on the face of the earth, or that may be born, to the end of time, has, and shall have, chartered rights under God's ' eternal purpose ' to a full restoration of his filial relation to God, and a present salvation from * all sin,' on the one simple condition of receiving Christ. * As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.' " Every such one becomes our real brother or sister, and fellow-heir to an eternal inheritance in Heaven. All such, who remain * faithful unto death,' are enabled in that last mortal struggle to exclaim, * O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? . . . Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' To give one illustrative case : Dr. Sewall, an old Methodist of Washington City, when dying, shouted aloud the praises of God. His friends said, 'Dr. Sewall, don't exert yourself. Whisper, doctor ; whisper.' *Let angels whisper,' said he ; 'let angels whisper ; but a soul " cleansed from all sin," by " the blood of Christ," — a soul redeemed from death and hell, just on the threshold of eternal glory — Oh, if I had a voice that would reach from pole to pole, I would 122 Self-Supporting Missions. proclaim it to all the world ? Victory ! victory through the blood of the Lamb ! ' " I will make application at once for missionary pas- tors to be sent to assist you in your great work. I will meantime (I>.V.) serve you to the best of my ability till they shall arrive ; but must be allowed, as heretofore, to decline to receive any fee or reward for my services. " Your brother in Jesus, "WILLIAM TAYLOR. "Bombay, Uth February, 1872." It was from the start distinctly stated and unanimously concurred in by all our members, that ours should be purely a Missionary Church, for the conversion of the native nations of India as fast and as far as the Lord should lead us ; that while it should be true to the discipline and administrative authority of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it should neither ask kor ACCEPT ANY FUNDS FROM THE MISSIONARY SO- CIETY beyond the passage of missionaries to India; nor hence come under the control of any missionaiy society, but be led directly by the Holy Spirit of God, and supported by him from Indian resources. For the sake of estab- lishing, as nearly as possible, an indigenous Indian Church, regardless of color or nation- ality, .our ministers will forego their rights as regards salary, and also the ministerial social Methodism in Bombay. 123 standing — equal to that of an officer in the army — which in India has been considered es- sential to success in their high calling, and live on subsistence allowance as near the level of the natives as health and efficiency will allow. We shall thus preclude a "padri-log" caste — white preacher caste, which causes such an impassable gulf between foreign and native ministers. Whether Jew or Greek, Parsee or Afghan, Hindu or American, Scythian or En- glish— all our saved ones are indeed one body in Christ, and ministers are their servants for Christ's sake. Of course we have no control over the social distinctions of society. God's gospel arrangement for fellowship, without ignoring social distinctions, provides within his Church a sphere and time for all needful social and spiritual fraternity as one great brother- hood, in which even its divine Founder stands as^a Brother. He says, " Whosoever doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, my sister, my mother ; " and it is written, " He is not ashamed to call them brethren." It is our earnest wish to help all other Christian organizations in their soul-sav- ing work, so far as God may give us ability ; and to hinder none. 124 Self-Suppoeting Missions. We are not opposed to Missionary Societies, nor the appropriation of missionary funds to any and all missions which may require them. Our ground on this point is simply this : There are resources in India — men and money suffi- cient to run at least one great mission. If they can be rescued from worldly waste, and util- ized for the soul-saving work of God, why not do it ? All admit that self-support is, or should be, the earnest aim of every mission. If a work in India — the same as in England or in Amer- ica— can start on this healthy, sound principle, is it not better than a long, sickly, dependent pupilage, which in too many instances amounts to pauperism ? I am not speaking of mission- aries, but of mission Churches. We simply wish to stand on the same platform, exactly, as our Churches in America — which began poor, and worked their way up by their own industry and liberality, without funds from the Missionary Society. When such need help in some great enterprise, of building a church edifice or literary institution, it is considered no infringement of their self-support and self- respect to get help from Churches or friends beyond their bounds ; nor to accept help from the Missionary Society for the beginning of Methodism in Bombay. 125 work in tlieir bounds too poor to start of itself. So our self-supporting principle in India applies particularly to the support of ministers of tlie Gospel, and as far as possible to all our cliurcli buildings and institutions, but would not pre- clude foreign help for ttie latter from liberal Christian friends who might feel it a privilege to help us; nor would it preclude help from the Missionary Society for extending mission work, just as it has done in all our self-support- ing Conferences at home, if need be. But it is a sound principle in political economy to develop the resources in hand, before you begin to subsidize them. Appropriations in advance will hinder, if not preclude, a healthy develop- ment. AVe hope for such an adequate develop- ment of Indian resources as to render it entirely unnecessary ever to draw on any Missionary Society for any purpose. The opening pioneer mission work in any country may require, and in most cases has required, and does require, some independent resources which the pioneer missionary brings to his new work before he can develop it, or make it self-supporting. Thus St. Paul depended on his skill as a tent- maker ; I depend on mine as a book-maker ; and missionaries ordinarily have to depend on mis- 126 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. sion funds. Ten times the amount of all tlie money now raised for mission purposes would not be adequate to send one missionary for eacli hundred thousand of heathens now access- ible. God has within our day opened the gates of all the heathen nations of the earth to his gospel messengers ; and now he wants the men to go, and the money to send them, and give them such help as they may require in solving, till they can reap, and make their fields self-supporting and reproductive. The old existing missions of India have accomplished, especially in education and trans- lation of the Scriptures, a vast preparatory work, which we thankfully accept as a part of the available resources we propose to utilize. All honor to the patient, good men who have spent their lives in this preparative dispensa- tion ! But we see the disadvantages of what is known as the " compound system." It is not likely that any missionary ever planned such a system as a theory, but it gradually grew upon them as a fact ; and thus the theory has been adduced, and facts which should have been set down as incidental and exceptional, have attained the status of an unavoidable necessity ; so that with many good missionaries it is Methodism in Bombay. 127 accepted, as a foregone conclusion, tliat it is impossible for persons converted from Hindu- ism, or Mohammedanism, or Parseeism, to re- main at home with their own people; they must be at once protected and provided for. Hence the " compound," with houses for native converts under the eye and protection of the missionary. All missionaries deplore this ne- cessity— many are trying to abate it ; and among low-castes many converts now are taught with success to remain in "whatsoever calling" or relation they may be when called by the Spirit of God. Still, so many native teachers have been nurtured in the compound, who teach others by their own experience, that it is very difficult to measure the motives of the candi- dates they bring to the missionary for baptism, especially when they know that a large amount of foreign funds are annually distributed from the missionary treasurer's office. So we escape a danger that many, unacquainted with the native Indian character, cannot appreciate, in being able to say, " We get no appropriations of money from any foreign source. We have no rupees to give you, and no compounds in which to shelter you. If you receive Christ among us we will baptize you, and say to each 128 Self-Supporting Missions. one, ^Go home to tliy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.' They will persecute you, of course ; but God has given you a guarantee that you shall never be tempted or tried ^ above that ye are able ; but he will, with the temptation, also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it.' If they kill you, accept the first good chance you get to have your head cut off, and seize a martyr's crown. Don't provoke opposition, nor court danger ; but don't fear or shun either, in the plain way of your duty to God." On this principle we may not for awhile get so many native converts ; but they will make up in quality any lack of numbers. To insure sound instruction on this subject, we seek no native agency from other missions; and, as far as practicable, discourage all native Christians from joining our mission. We state our principles to the Hindus, Mo- hammedans, and Parsees ; and they approve of them. They are all familiar vrith the news- paper reports of lawsuits, and many of them have footed the bills involved by them to recover their sons from the compound of the missionary ; and from their stand-point they can but regard the man of God as a kidnapper. Methodism m Bombay. 129 We say to them, on all suitable occasions, " We claim for your wives, children, or servants, as for yourselves, liberty of conscience. The laws of the British Constitution and the laws of Grod support this claim ; but, on the other hand, we recognize your rights of property to the persons of your waves, children, and serv- ants, and we pledge our word and honor that we will not infringe your rights. If we can get your wives, children, or servants, to receive Christ and salvation, we will baptize them and send them home to you. You must not sus- pect that we will hide them : we will not ; we will send them back to their friends and kin- dred; and we will require of you that you treat them properly, and not interfere wdth their conscience. Give them a fair trial, and you will see that they will fulfill all their duties better than they ever did before. If you per- secute them they will bear it patiently; but we will put you upon your honor to do justly, and trust that you will show yourselves worthy of our confidence — for we love you, and will place confidence in you, if you will not destroy in yourselves a ground of confidence." I have often made such statements to hun- dreds of heathens, and never without pro- 9 130 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. f oundly enlisting their attention ; and by their eyes, actions, and words, they have on every such occasion expressed their approval. Our platform has not a single new plank in it, and we don't want any new thing. We simply claim the privilege of carrying on a mission for the salvation of as many of these millions as God shall give us, on the very principles so fully exemplified in the Acts of the Apostles, and repeated in the great revival of apostolic methods by Whitefield, the Wesleys, and their coadjutors — first in England, and then in America. In regard to our mission in the North, com- menced in 1857, I have always taken the ground that, as it was planted in the new provinces of Oudh and Rohilcund, it was quite proper for us as a Church to found educational institutions, orphanages, printing establishment, etc., and do from the foundations what older missions have done for nearly all other parts of India. I have always, from my arrival in India, done what I could to advance their work. I knew that in planting a mission on these plain, old-fashioned principles, I should be misunder- stood and misrepresented by many ; and have not been disappointed, nor for a moment dis- Methodism in Bombay. 131 coil raged. I am sure we are on the riglit plat- form for India — God Mmself, without our seek- ing or planning, put us on it — and we intend, by the power of his Spirit, to stay on it. That we might conduct our mission without any possible complications with our India Mis- sion Conference, or our Missionary Society, I thought if the General Conference would grant a provisional charter for a Bombay Conference, to be left to the judgment of the Bishops hav- ing charge of our work, it would be well. The following are copies of my letters to Bishop Janes, and to the General Conference, on the subject : "Bombay, India, March 4, 1872. "Dear Brother. — The inclosed printed letters will indicate to you the leading of God which has resulted in the organization of a Methodist Episcopal Church in Bombay. We have now nine classes, in which over 130 converts meet weekly ; and newly-saved souls are being * added daily.' " We hereby ask you, and our Missionary Committee to send us men as we may require them, but not money. If you wish to pay their passage to Bombay, and can, by the liberality of a few friends or otherwise, do it, without placing this mission on the list of deperident missions, all right. One appropriation of funds from any missionary society would set upon us the brand- mark of existing Indian missions, and tend to bring us down to their dead level. 132 Self-Supporting Missions. " We do not underrate the valuable preparatory work accomplished on these vast plains of heathenism by- faithful missionaries, living and dead — especially in the translation of the Scriptures into most of the languages of these nations ; but we believe the time has fully come when God wishes to demonstrate the soundness and practical utility of his old gospel methods of ag- gression— one principle of which is self-sustentation. Our Mission Conference in the North— planted, as it is, in a new heathen field — cannot live on the principle on which God intends to run this work in the South, where we especially desire that the Holy Spirit be allowed to test his simple Pauline methods. " We believe that he will thus lead us through this great Indian Empire. "After we learn to walk without crutches, then if, in any emergency, our American brothers wish to help us, all right ; and our Indian Methodists, according to their ability, will also make a collection for the * poor saints in Judsea,' or in New York. We now ask the Committee, through you, to send two young men — single men — if engaged, well ; if not, better. We want men of good practical common sense ; if liberally edu- cated, well ; but sound in body, wholly devoted to God, ready to do or die for Jesus in India, and who will trust God and his Indian Methodists for food and raiment. We can't promise high salaries ; but no faithful minis- ter here need incur debt for food or raiment, nor suffer want of either. " It is considered unsafe, on the score of health, for new recruits to land here in the summer. So the said missionaries for Bombay need not arrive till November Methodism in Bombay. 133 of this year. I will (d.v.) be here to receive them, and initiate them into their work. " Your Brother in Jesus, "WILLIAM TAYLOR. « Rev. Bishop Janes, D.D." The following is a copy of my petition to the General Conference, which, held its session in Brooklyn, New York, commencing May 1, 1872; "To the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. " Dear Fathers and Brethren — The God of our fathers has planted Methodism in Bombay. You may see by inclosed printed letters that our cause here is but in its infancy. "I have been but three and a half months in this city, and the first month was devoted to the Maratti natives through interpreters ; but you may see from in- closed Circuit Plan an indication of our growth. This is a city containing a population of nearly a million of souls ; Moradabad, the seat of our recent session of the India Mission Conference, is about 1,400 miles distant ; hence this Mission cannot in reason be appended to that Conference. Moreover, we believe that God in- tends to run this soul-saving concern on his old Pauline track, which must pay its own running expenses, and help *the poor saints in Judaea' as well ; and therefore we cannot be tacked on to a remote dependency. " We have asked our Missionary Committee, through Bishop Janes, to send us two young men, to arrive in 134 Self-Supporting Missions. November of this year ; but it is already manifest to us that God will raise up ministers here from the recruits he is now levying. One young man had over thirty seals to his ministry before he was two months old. We have nine classes, in which more than 130 new converts meet weekly; and others are being * added daily.' Nearly all these speak the different native languages spoken in this city; and God will lead us down upon the native masses as soon as we are suffi- ciently developed and equipped for such an advance. We shall want the facilities for initiating and organiz- ing into a regular Methodist ministry the men whoni God may call in Bombay for this work. "We therefore respectfully ask the General Confer- ence at its present session to grant us a charter for the organization of a Bombay Conference — not a Mission Conference. If we stand alone on our own legs, by the power of God, and draw no mission funds, why call it a Mission Conference ? We have a number of spacious places of worship in our circuit, named in the accompanying Circuit Plan; but we are also raising funds for the erection of a Methodist Episcopal Church. For further information I refer you to Rev. R. S. Maclay, D.D., and Rev. Henry Mansell. As it regards myself, I am subject to the Master's orders, to stand at this post till he shall release me and order me to some other. " Your Brother in Christ, on behalf of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Bombay, "WILLIAM TAYLOR. •'Bombay, March 4, 1872." Methodism in Bombay. 135 You naturally inquire, What was the result of the petition? Well, the Committee on Foreign Missions were about to consign it to the waste-basket without even reading it, when Brother M., who had recently passed through Bombay, and was a member of the Committee, called for the reading of the peti- tion. It was read and laid on the table — not to be taken up again. The idea of a man lay- ing the foundations of a Conference in a heathen country in the short space of three months ! PLAN OF BOMBAY CIRCUIT— MARCH. Meeting-places. FEAMJEE COWASJEE HALL. Preaching each Lord's Day, at 11 A.M. and 6 p.m MAZAGON. P. &0. Co'sHaU Tinckom's . COLABA. Preaching each Lord's Day, at 9 A.M GRAHAM'S. P. 3 p. 11 BYCULLA. Mrs. Miles' Almeida's Grey'B Berkley Place THE FORT. George Miles' F. 2 F. 8 F. 1 11 A.M. No. 1. 6 P.M. No. 1. S. 1.5 F. 10 F.9 P. 1 P. 1 F.4. P. 4 p. 14 P.T F. 7 p. 5 p. 6 F. 3 F. 2 F. 8 F. 12 10 11 A.M. 1. 6 p.m. 1. a. 15 F. 1 F. 1 P. 3 F. G 11 F. 4 P. 1 p. 13 p. 10 F. 7 The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to be administered first Sabbath evening' of each month. Quarterly tickets will admit memhers to ihe Quarterly meeting' of the Bands, and to the Sacrament ; others should have notes of admission from the pastor. "F." For Fellowship Band, or "Class-meeting," which is for the saved and the seekers only. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 1872. 16 17 18 > 9 1 23 24 25 .1 > CD >^ .2 u 1 30 31 *i' 11.A.M 8. 6 P.M. 1. llAM. 1. 6 P.M. 1. llA.M. 1. Ministers. Wm. Taylor 1 George Bowen . . 2 S. 15 F. 10 P. 1 S. 1.5 F. 13 P. 2 S. 15 F. 10 P. 4 Charles Harding. 3 F. 9 F. 1 p. 4 F. 9 Prayer-Leadert. p. 7 P. 1 F. 4 p. 11 P. 2 F. 4 P.l F.l James Shaw.... 4 C.W.Christian.. 5 r.8 P. 5 F. 3 F.3. P. 3 Major Eailt 6 James Morris.... 7 F.2 F.2 P. 1 F. 2 Wm. Ashdown.. 8 Walter Abraham. 9 F.8 p. 10 F.8 p. 11 F.8. p. 6 George Miles.... 10 Capt. J. Winckler 11 F. 6 p. 11 F. 6 p. 5. F. 6 P. 13 George J. Pointer 12 F. 12 F. 1 F. 12 Wm.Boyd 14 F. 7 p. 2 F.7. p. 10 F. 7 p. 14 Joseph Head ... 15 P." For the public Preaching of the Gospel. " p." For public Prayer-meetings. " S." For Sunday school. 1st Quarterly Conference, 7 A.M. 30th March. Ist Quarterly Meeting of the Bands, or "Love-feasts," 9 A.M. Slst March. 138 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. XI. THREE YEARS OF PERSONAL PIONEERING. The first of tlie three was devoted to foun- dation work in Bombay and Poonah, resulting in the organization of a live, seK-supporting missionary Church in each of those cities. My second year was spent in Calcutta, with a similar result. Near the close of that year one of our Bishops, on an episcopal tour round the world, stopped off to preside at a session of the "India Mission Conference," which had been developed from the missions commenced by Eev. William Butler in 1857. Hearing that the Bishop was coining, accom- panied by Eev. J. W. Waugh, a returning mis- sionary, who had been at home on furlough, and by Eev. Brothers Spencer and Haughtpn, who, also, were making the tour of the globe, I made arrangement for their entertainment while in the city, and was anxiously awaiting their arrival. The Bishop, meantime, tele- graphed from Ceylon to Eev. J. M. Thoburn, Presiding Elder of Lucknow District, of the India Mission Conference, to meet him in Cal- Personal Pioneering. 139 cutta. So Brother Thoburn came in advance of the Bishop's arrival, and gave us valuable help in our work. I learned afterward that the good Bishop had an apprehension, from the many rumors he had heard about my mission, that I was going to set up a new sect — a thing entirely out of the question, both with myself and with my people, from the first — and thought he might need Mr. Thoburn's assistance to bring me and my work into harmonious relationship with the Church. Every document and class-book we had, and the trustees and deeds of our property in Calcutta, were in evidence of our perfect loyalty to the Church of our choice, though refusing, first and last, to be put under the control of any Missionary Society; because, as a self-supporting mission, it did not belong to the jurisdiction of a charity institution. When the Bishop and his party arrived I met them at the ship, and had them conveyed to the quarters I had provided for them. As soon as we left the ship the Bishop, alone in a carriage with me, said, "Now, Brother Taylor, we want to bring your mission into a closer connection with our Church, and 140 Self-Supportino Missions. we want you to become officially and in name, what you are in fact, its superintendent." I replied, ^' I received a very kind letter from Bishop Simpson, proposing the same thing; also a letter from Dr. Eddy, containing a simi- lar request from you. I wrote on immediately to both Bishop Simpson and yourself, stating that while I was not at all ambitious of any honor or official position in the gift of the Church, yet, as God had opened and organized this mission through my agency, and had thus made me its superintendent, I should not ob- ject to your official confirmation of his appoint- ment, provided, there should be no interfer- ence with the peculiar principles on which our mission was founded." The Bishop said, "I had left New York be- fore your letter got there, and never received it." I then explained to him more fully that we had a loyal development of self-supporting Methodism on the old principles on which original Methodism was founded, and that, though we might receive help from home for the passage of our missionaries and to assist in building up our institutions, yet so long as we required no missionary money for the sup- port of our ministers or their families, we could Personal Pioneering. 141 not consent to come under tlie control of our Missionary Society; not from any prejudice, but because, in tlie order of God, we did not legitimately come under their jurisdiction. The Bishop replied, "Your principles are sound, and very clearly stated. Where the Missionary Society appropriates the funds of the Church, of course they are responsible for their pi'oper disbursement; but where they give no money, as in the case of your mission, what have they to do with its internal manage- ment?" So the Bishop, as the representative of the Church, fully concurred in our principles, and consented to our independence of the Mission- ary Society. The whole thing was settled in a few minutes, and the Bishop grasped my hand and said, " O, Brother Taylor, we will take all India." I learned since that the Bishop won immortal honor from his colleagues at home for his grand achievement of bringing me into line. I have no doubt that he had great trouble in his mind about it before his arrival, but it all grew out of a misapprehension of the facts in the case, based on false rumors afloat at home in regard to me and my India work. 142 Self-supporting Missions. The Bishop and I then talked the matter over, and agreed that my work should be desig- nated the " Bombay and Bengal Mission ; " and that, until we could organize a Conference of our own, I and my ministers should join the India Mission Conference ; but that the said Conference should sustain no official relation to the Bombay and Bengal Mission, any more than the Baltimore Conference sustains to our Mission in Japan, because its superintendent, Kev. E. S. Maclay, happens to remain a mem- ber of that Conference. It was further agreed that all India, outside of the defined boundaries of the India Mission Conference, should be included in the bounds of the Bombay and Bengal Mission. Indeed, our missionary authorities, in response to Dr. Duif's invitation to them to send missionaries to India, had, by covenant agreement, accepted Oudh, Kohilcund, and Gurhwal as the exclusive portion of India to be occupied by American Methodism. At the ensuing Conference session — January, 1874 — in Lucknow, these arrangements were organically consummated ; and, contrary to my expectations, but greatly to my satisfaction, Rev. J. M. Thoburn, D.B., resigned his work PeESOKAL PlOI^EERINa. 143 in the India Mission Conference, and joined my mission. He had given up his stipend from the Missionary Society a year before, and had tested and fully adopted the peculiar prin- ciples of our mission. Our Church membership at that time num- bered about ^ve hundred, including probation- ers. And our appointments, as announced by the Bishop at the close of that Conference ses- sion, stood as follows : BOMBAY AND BENGAL MISSION. William Taylor, Superintendent. Bombay: George Bowen, W. E. Bobbins, James Shaw. The Deccan : (Poona, Lanowli, Dexal, etc.,) D. O. Fox. Central India: Albert Norton, George R. Gilder. Bengal: (Calcutta,) J. M. Thoburn, C. W. Christian. As soon as I got Dr. Thoburn settled in Cal- cutta, I went to the City of Madras, and in nine months I founded a Church of large pro- portions in that city, and small societies in many adjacent towns. 144 SELF-SuPPORTmG MlSSIOT^S. From Madras I went to Bangalore, a large native city and military station, and spent six ■weeks and three days in daily services, morn- ing and evening, six days per week. Of one hundred and forty persons who professed to experience salvation at our meetings, w^e organized one hundred into a Methodist Episcopal Church, and appointed James Shaw as their pastor. I left them, and have not been back since, but they received and provided for Brother Shaw and family, built two plain chapels, (on two lots which I procured while there,) and took a second minister before they were a year old, and have sustained two charges ever since. We have had for some years past four mar- ried ministers stationed in Bangalore, one of whom, wdth his wife, is in charge of a high- school our people have established in that city. As the limits of this book must preclude a consecutive detail of the facts and incidents making up a complete history of the movement, and as an extensive exhibit of the history of the first three years may be found in my book, "Four Years' Campaign in India," we must here content ourselves with an outlook from PeESOT^AL PlONEERnTG. 145 a few lieadlands along tlie journey. We had a view from the Conference in Lucknow when " Bombay and Bengal Mission " was for the first time officially announced. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at its session in Baltimore City, May, 1876, granted a charter for the oi'ganization of the " Bombay and Bengal Mis- sion " into an Annual Conference to be called "The South India Coi^ference," to embrace all India outside of the bounds of the India Mission Conference, the name of which was at the same time changed to tliat of " North India Conference," which embraced the Provinces of Oudh, Rohilcund, and Gurhwal, containing a population of about fourteen millions. The South India Conference, with no defirued outside limits, to include " all India beyond," containing in Inia a population of two hundred and thirty-eight millions. The North Conference had occupied two cities — Cawnpore and Allahabad — located in the bounds of my mission. The first was opened in connection with my evangelizing tour in the North before I commenced found- ing a separate mission. The second was opened through the agency of Dennis Osborne, who 146 Self-Supporths-g Missions. was brouglit into our Cliiircli during my work in Lucknow, in 1871, and became a minister in that Conference, and was stationed at Allaha- bad. So the General Conference put Allaha- bad into the South India Conference, where, geographically, it belonged, and left it to the decision of the two Conferences at their annual session next ensuing to decide the boundary line in regard to Cawnpore. The action of the South India Conference in regard to it is indi- cated by the following minute, from the Jour- nal of their proceedings : " Bishop Andrews brought forward the General Conference reso- lution regarding Cawnpore, and the following was passed : ''Mesolved^ That this Conference consents to the transfer of Cawnpore to the South India Conference ; provided, that the Memorial School be free from all incumbrance." A good school in connection with Church work had been established in Cawnpore. The people had raised a large proportion of the funds, and expected a corresponding appropria- tion from our Missionary Society, which, by some misunderstanding, was not forthcoming, so a debt was pending that the new Conference was not prepared to assume, and, the incum- Peesois^al Pioneering. 147 brance remaining, Cawnpore was not trans- feiTed. We will get a second outlook from the organ- ization and first session of tlie Soutli India Conference, which was, very appropriately, held in Bombay, November 9, 1876. I copy the following item from my Journal : " I arrived in Bombay November 1 0, 1 8 7 1 . Ee v. C. Harding, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, met me at the station, and drove me to his house in Byculla. Commenced a series of Maratti services in Brother Harding's chapel on the following Sabbath, the 1 2th. Eev. Vishnu Punt is the pastor of his native church, but Brother Kam Krishnu Punt came from Ahmed- nugger to interpret for me in Bombay. Preached at 9 A. M. to a congregation of thirty persons. At 4 P. M. we had about a hundred. ' By whom shall Jacob arise ? for he is small,' very small, indeed, in this great pagan city ! " As I have before intimated, this self-support- ing mission was born during that series of serv- ices, by the conversion of English-speaking people under the gospel preaching which was interpreted to the Maratti Hindus. I copy also the following : " Saturday, De- cember 30, 1871. This evening, in the house 148 Self-Supporting Missions. of Mrs. Miles, I organized tlie first Fellowship Band, or " Class," ever organized in tHs city. There has, of course, always been the spirit of fellowship in the hearts of God's children here, and often manifested in their casual meetings with each other; but this is undoubtedly the first organic regular arrangement for it. I appointed Rev. George Bowen, leader. At this, our first meeting for fellowship, twenty-eight persons told their experience — most of them young converts. In circumstantial detail, va- riety, simplicity and point, I never before heard better testimony for Christ. Some of these will join our second Band, to be organized next Monday night at the house of Brother George Miles." As we have seen, the regular organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Bombay was not effected till the middle of February 1872. So, in less than four years from the fii'st conversion, the organization, in the same city, of the first self-sujDporting Conference in India, became a fact of history. I A^dll here copy some of its proceedings, both for their intrinsic and historic value. South India Conference. 149 XII. FIRST SESSION OF THE SOUTH INDIA CON- FERENCE. Conference Membees, 1876. NAMES. William Taylor George Bowen J. M. Thoburn Wallace J. Grladwin Daniel 0. Fox William E. Robbius DeDiiis Osborne James Shaw Cliristopher W. Christian. George K. Gilder Clark P. Hard Frank A. Goodwin John B. Robinson Piyari M. Mukerji William T. G. Curties Milton H. Nichols John Blackstock Franklin G. Davis William E. Newlon David H. Lee Thomas H. Oakes, P Isaac F. Row Levan R. Janney, P Benjamin Peters, P Home Conference or (Previous Eesidence). Joined Conf. or (arrived in India). Attendance 1876. California 1870... (New York) (1847). Pittsburgh 1859... St. Louis 1872... North Ohio 1872... Indiana 1872... (India) 1874... (India) 1874... (India) 1874.., (India) 1874... Western N. York. . . 1874.. . Central Illinois 1874... Central Illinois 1874.. , (India) 1874... (India) 1874... South Illinois 1875... North- West Indiana. 1875... Rock River 1875... Michigan 1875.. Erie 1875.. (India) 1875.. New England 1876.. Central Ohio 1876.. (India) 1876.. In America. Present. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Officees and Committees, 1876-77. President, Bishop E. G. Andrews. Secretary, C. P. Hard. Assistant Secretary, W. J. Gladwin. Recording Secretary, D. Osborne. Statistical Secretary ^ F. G. Davis. 150 SELF-SuPPORTINa MlSSIO]S^S. Book Committee : Chairman^ J. M. Thoburn ; Sec^ retary^ W. E. Robbins ; J. Morris, W. J. Gladwin, J. Shaw, D. Osborne. Board of Education : G. Bowen, J. M. Thoburn, C. P. Hard, W. E. Bobbins, and W. J. Gladwin. Committees of Examination : First Year, D. Os- borne, F. G. Davis. Second Year, D. O. Fox, J. Black- stock. Third Year, W. E. Bobbins, I. F. Row. Fourth Year, W. J. Gladwin, M. H. Nichols. Admis- sion on Trial, The presiding elder and preacher in charge. To preach the missionary sermon, George Bowen. First Day, Thursday, November 9, 1876. The South India Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church met for its First Annual Session, Thurs- day, November 9, 1876, at Falkland Road Hall, Bom- bay. Bishop E. G. Andrews, presiding, read the 40th chapter of Isaiah and selections from the Epistle to the Philippians. The 48th ("Jesus, the name high over all") and 45th ("Let Zion's watchmen all awake ") hymns, from " Hymns New and Old," were sung. The Bishop led in prayer, also Brothers Parker and Bowen. Bishop Andrews read the following paper : " In accordance with the action of the General Con- ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held in Baltimore, U. S. A., May 1, 1876, whereby the South India Conference was constituted of all those parts of India not included in the North India Conference, I hereby recognize the following brethren as members of said Conference, namely : South Ikdia Conference. 151 « William Taylor, George Bowen, J. M. Thoburn, W. E. Robbing, C. P. Hard, D. O. Fox, P. M. Mukerji, D. Osborne, M. H. Nichols, J. Blackstock, G. K. Gilder, and C. W. Christian. " And the following brethren as probationers in the said Conference, namely ; F. G. Davis, F. A. Goodwin, J. Shaw, D. H. Lee, J. E. Robinson, W. E. Newlon, W. T. G. Curties, and T. H. Oakes. " I also announce the transfer of W. J. Gladwin, (an elder,) from the North India Conference ; I. F. Row, (an elder,) from the New England Conference, and of Levan R. Janney, (a probationer,) from the Central Ohio Conference, as by the accompanying certificates. " And on this first session of the South India Con- ference I invoke the special blessing of the great Head of the Church. " May love, faith, and wisdom, attend its delibera- tions ; and prepare the way of a long history of distin- guished usefulness in this Indian Empire. "E. G. Andrews." C. P. Hard * was chosen Secretary ; and W. J. Glad- win, Assistant, D. Osborne, Recording, and F. G. Davis, Statistical Secretaries. A record book and case were presented by the ladies of the Church, and the thanks of the Conference were returned. The visiting members of the North India Confer- ence, E. W. Parker, H. Mansell, E. Cunningham, and F. M. Wheeler, were invited to participate in the pro- ceedings of the Conference. * C. p. Hard, from excessive work as Presiding Elder of Madras District, broke and returned home in 1878, but was transferred again to India in 1882. 152 SELF-Suppoirn]>jG- Missions. Book Concee:n^. The Committee appointed to present a plan for the establishment of a Book Committee offered the follow- ing, which was adopted : " I. A Book Committee of six shall be appointed at this Conference : two members to be chosen annually. " II. This Committee shall open at Bombay an agency for the publications of our Book Concern and other standard Methodist literature. " III. All traveling preachers of our Church in India are expected to act as agents, and shall be allowed such discount as the Committee may decide to grant. " TV. The accounts of the Committee shall be kept in proper form and audited by the Conference annually. Minutes of committee meetings, correspondence, or- ders, bills, receipts, and all other important papers, shall be carefully preserved by the Committee. "V. The Committee shall not incur any indebted* ness, and all sales be upon the cash system." In accordance with the above plan the following were appointed a Book Committee : W. E. Robbins, J. Morris, (for three years,) W. J. Gladwin, J. Shaw, (two years,) D. Osborne, and J. M. Thoburn, (one year.) The Committee on Sunday-schools read their report, and it was adopted. (See Statistics.) It was ordered that the " Children's Day " be observed on the date specified by the Sunday-School Union of London. Personal. The following was adopted by a rising vote : "Resolved. That we hereby express our warmest South India Conference. 153 thanks to our beloved brother, William Taylor, for his unswerving fidelity to our interests since his return to America, and especially for his successful efforts to send out re-enforcements to our work. " 2. That we rejoice to hear that Brother Taylor, al- though unexpectedly delayed, still confidently ex- pects to return to India, and that we beg to assure him of our earnest prayers for his safe and speedy arrival among us. " 3. That we respectfully request the Bishop presiding to give Brother Taylor such an appointment as may admit of his pursuing the peculiar evangelistic work in which God has so signally blessed him, throughout the entire bounds of the Conference, without being restricted to any one particular district. *' 4. That we commend him to the love and sympathy of the Church in America, and bear grateful testimony to the invaluable work which has been accomplished through his unselfish labors in India." Pending the adoption of the above, Bishop Andrews took occasion to speak of his high appreciation of the good done through Brother Taylor's instrumentality. He expressed his desire in harmony with the Confer- ence for Brother Taylor's return to India to open new work and to aid the brethren in developing that al- ready begun by the earnest and aggressive efforts which are necessary to realize continued success in the mission which God has committed to us. Pastoral Address. Dear Brethren : The organization of our widely scattered Churches into an Annual Conference of the 154 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. Methodist Episcopal Church seems to us a fitting time in which to address you a few words of Christian greeting and fraternal counsel. First of all, we would ask you to join with us in praise and thanksgiving to God for the goodness and mercy with which he has crowned us in the past, and for the tokens of promise which he sets before us for the future. Though few in numbers, and weak in most of the elements by which the world estimates strength, we have yet abundant cause for encourage- ment when we review the steps by which God has led us, and still more when we look at the privileges and opportunities which invite us forward. Beginning without financial resources, without a staff of laborers, without local prestige, and without a single church or chapel in which to worship, we have been led, often in ways no one could have anticipated, from one point to another, until in the short space of five years, a Church of believers, under our care, has been organized in nearly every important center thoughout India. What- ever of human imperfection may have entered into this work in the past, and whatever weakness may be found in it still, we cannot but believe that it never could have been accomplished, unless guided by a wisdom, and sustained by a power, higher than that of frail and erring men. Thus far, the majority of those enrolled as members of our various Churches have been English-speaking persons, and our preaching and other services have been chiefly conducted in the English language; but from the first our aim has been ultimately to reach the masses, of whatever race or religion, with whom our South India Coi^feeence. 155 members might be brought in contact. As the Jews, who had been so strangely scattered throughout the Roman Empire, were constantly used by the first evan- gelists as a connecting link between their work and the heathen world, so it seemed highly possible, if not in- deed manifestly certain, that the English-speaking Christians of India have been scattered far and wide throughout the land, that, in the providence of God, they might be used to help forward the work of bring- ing India to Christ. Hence, it is our earnest desire that every Church under our care should be, in the most practical sense, a Missionary Church, not in feel- ing or conviction merely, but in direct, aggressive, earnest work for the salvation of the people of India. To secure this result, it is necessary that we, one and all, be a working people. We make no provision for a market-place in which any of our people may stand idle, but trust that every one may find some task, how- ever lowly, on which to jDut forth earnest effort for our loving Master. Not every one can find a conspicuous place in which to work, but God never fails to provide that kind of labor and that sphere of action which is precisely adapted to the peculiar wants and individual talents of each disciple. May we not, therefore, urge you, dear brethren and sisters, ever to hold yourselves in readi- ness to rise up at the Master's bidding, and engage heartily in whatever work he may set before you, as well as submit cheerfully to whatever burden he may lay upon you. In the development of our work thus far we have introduced no new plans and advocated no new theo- ries, but have simply fallen back upon the evangelical 156 Sele-Supporting Missioi^s. methods pursued by our fathers in England and Amer- ica for which exceptional opportunities seem to be offered among the English-speaking people in India. It has been our aim to let the Gospel become self- propagating, or, in other words, to go forth as evan- gelists preaching the Word, and organizing those con- verted into Churches, financially self-supporting, and spiritually aggressive and self-sacrificing. We have believed that wherever this is done in the true spirit of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit will not fail to thrust out more reapers from the ranks of those thus brought to Christ ; and it is certainly a striking attestation of our faith in this respect, that six of the Churches under our care have been organized mainly through the ef- forts of those who had thus been thrust out from our membership by the Lord of the harvest. Our hope and trust is that the same plan may, with God's blessing, succeed on a larger scale when fairly introduced among the thronging multitudes of Hindus and Mohammedans around us. In pursuing this course we have been influenced, partly by the necessities of the case, partly by the ex- ceptional circumstances around us, partly by our con- viction that the early fathers of Methodism, not to say of the New Testament, had set us a precedent, and partly by the hope, as above indicated, of extending this work in all its simplicity and efficiency. As we succeed or fail in realizing this hope will our work as a whole be ultimately judged not only by men, but by the Judge of all things. We must, therefore, not only aim to engage in practical missionary work, but we must carefully maintain the essential principles on South I]S"dia Conferei^ce. 157 which we have set out in extending our work among the natives of India. It is, perhaps, needless for us to remind you that such a plan as we have adopted must necessarily in- volve no small measure of self-denial, both on the part of the ministers of the Church, and of those ministered to. No congregation under our care is able to give more than a very slender support to its pastor, and we trust no one among us loves the work less on this ac- count. Our only desire is that the spirit of self-sacri- fice may be mutual as between pastor and people, and general, as applied to the whole company of associated believers. May it be our highest ambition, our most earnest desire, to hold every interest subordinate to the will of Christ, to hold our individual rights as nothing, our opportunities for doing something for Christ as every thing ; and may we ever remember that the min- ister does not belong to the congregation, nor the con- gregation to the minister, but that both belong to Him who has purchased them with his most precious blood. Suffer us, dear brethren and sisters, to impress upon you the importance of maintaining a due regard for the organization and discipline of the Church. From the first our Church has been organized as a " Church militant," an active and aggressive body of disciplined believers arrayed against the powers of evil. While discarding every semblance of sacerdotal authority or ecclesiastical tyranny, we nevertheless try to follow the New Testament precedents in effecting proper or- ganizations and maintaining a firm discipline among our people. We believe this discipline, widely as it may differ in spirit, to be nevertheless as important to 158 Self-Suppoeting Missions. our highest efficiency as military discipline is to the efficiency of an army. Such a discipline can only be secured among us by your cordial co-operation, and by the frequent exercise of that spirit of self-denial of which we have already spoken. While urging your careful observance of the General Rules of the Church, we would make particular refer- ence to the rule in respect to temperance. In adopting as a General Rule the principle of total abstinence, we do so expressly on the scriptural ground that whatever imperils our weakest brother should be put far from among us. We are convinced by wide observation and no little practical experience, that we can never do much practical good to intemperate persons on any other principle, and we are profoundly convinced that tlie masses of the people of India would be exposed to frightful danger if released from their traditional re- strictions, and exposed to the temptations to drink which unhappily are now within the reach of nearly all. Our rule is founded upon the scriptural principle of self-denial for a brother's sake, and to this principle we should carefully adhere. Other Christian friends may not see their duty in the same light, and we must be careful not to judge them in meat or drink; but, while extending the broadest charity to every believer, let us firmly maintain the position in which God has enabled us to rescue many victims of intemperance, and, as we believe, to shield many weak disciples from a fatal danger. While deeply absorbed in Christian labor, and anx- iously watchful over our individual piety, we must not forget the duties and privileges which cluster around South India Conference. 159 the words family and home. Parents should remember that while God solemnly warns them that in an impor- tant sense they are responsible for the future welfare of their children, he does not withhold from them special promises of aid and blessing. Every home should be esteemed sacred as a household sanctuary, and the presence of Him who never scorns the most humble door should be constantly invoked at the family altar. He who promised that upon every dwell- ing place in Mount Zion shall be the pillar of cloud by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, is true to his promise still, and will surely dwell with those who call upon him. May we not urge you, then, to maintain family worship morning and evening, to tram your children in the fear of God, to banish from the sacred circle of home every thing in word or temper Avhich does not befit a holy place, and thus to exhibit to the world the power of the religion of Christ to sweeten and adorn life in its most endearing relation- ships ? We share with you your solemn obligation to train up your children in the way of life. Our blessed Sav- iour loves them infinitely more than you do, and is in- finitely anxious that they might be kept from going into the way of sin. The Holy Spirit ever waits to sec- ond your believing efforts to point them to Christ, and unbelief alone on your part can wholly thwart his gracious purpose to assist you. Receive, then, God's promise in the fullest confidence, remembering that it is to you and your children, and daily look up for help in guiding and guarding them. Nor should you be un- mindful of the solemn duty that rests upon you to 160 SELF-SuppoETiNa Missions. maintain a firm and wise family discipline. So long as you suffer your children to be disobedient to you as their parents, you cannot teach them to obey God. You cannot, while daily permiting them to break one commandment, teach them to obey another. We ear- nestly advise you, therefore, not to yield to the weakness of your own parental feelings, but firmly, though lov- i"g^y> to exact that obedience from your children which is due to their interests even more than your own. It is a thought full of hope and encouragement, that our children, so precious to us and to God, may be trained ujd to be useful in India, far beyond our own feeble measure of usefulness. We would that they might all be consecrated to God's work in this needy land, and we would suggest that they be carefully in- structed in one or more of the vernaculars of the coun- try, that in whatever sphere of life their lot may be cast they may be able to do effective work for Christ. As many of you are brought into frequent contact with other church organizations, and with the agents of various missionary societies, we will express the hope that you will cultivate the most kindly Christian relations with all who will permit you to do so, and especially to be forbearing and charitable toward those whose church usages or methods of labor may differ much from our own. God has many kinds of work- men, and accepts many kinds of service, and we must never allow ourselves to think that because he blesses our peculiar kind of labor, he does not accept our neighbors' also. Let it be our constant aim to do our own work in the way which God seems to have indi. cated to us, but let us at the same time ever keep a South India Conference. 161 right hand extended toward every one who is trying to work in the Lord's great vineyard. Finally, dear brethren and sisters, we beg your ear- nest prayers in our own behalf, that God may give us strength for our day, and crown our labors with his constant blessing. May you and we together walk ever upon this highway of holiness, keeping ourselves un- spotted from the world, living as pilgrims and stran- gers here, loving one another with pure hearts fervent- ly, and spending and being spent in the work of the Lord. May we be filled with the Spirit ; may Christ dwell in our hearts by faith ; may we be rooted and grounded in his love ; may the promised power of the Pentecostal day be revealed in all our assemblies and attend all our labors ; and may we thus, with God's gracious blessing, go on from strength to strength, until one by one we are all permitted to appear in the heavenly Zion before God. Education. It must be apparent to all who are acquainted with our work in India that we have reached a point in the history of this work when it has become an imperative necessity for the further and successful prosecution of this work, that schools for the education of the youth of India brought under our influence should be estab- lished. Your Committee would respectfully submit the fol- lowing recommendations : 1. That as soon as the services of a competent teacher can be obtained a school be opened. 2. That the school shall have a primary or common- 162 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. school course, and may also have a high-school course, which shall prepare students for the Government Ma- triculation standard. 3. That the High School be located at Poona, and that the South and West portions of the Conference unite in sustaining it for the present ; and that primary- schools be established as far as possible at different stations of our work. 4. That only so much be charged for tuition and board as is necessary to pay the current expenses of the school, thus bringing it within reach of families of moderate means. 5. That, as the character of the school will depend almost entirely on the qualifications of its principal, no B(;hool be opened till an experienced and well-qualified teacher can be obtained. 6. That a Board of Education, consisting of five mem- bers, be appointed, without whose consent no school shall be opened during the Conference year. Yernacular Studies. The committee appointed to prepare a course of study in the vernaculars of India beg leave to submit for adoption the following rules : 1. Every preacher admitted into the Conference, un- less excused by a special vote of the Conference, shall be required to study one of the Indian languages. 2. Those who pursue such a course of vernacular study in connection with the regular studies prescribed by the Discipline, may, with the sanction of the Board of Bishops, be excused from such portion of the latter course as does not relate to strictly theological subjects. South India Conference. 163 3. The examinations in the vernacular shall be as follows : First Year. — A standard Grammar of the language, selected elementary reading lessons, and the Gospel of Matthew. Second Year. — The Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, one hundred pages of some standard book used for examinations in the language, and oral exercises. Third Year. — The New Testament Epistles, two hundred pages in a standard book, and a written ser- mon. Fourth YeaT-.— The Psalms and Prophets, written ex- ercises as furnished by examiners, two hundred pages in a standard book, and a written sermon. 4. The examination upon the above may be con- ducted at the Conference session, or by a local com- mittee selected by the Presiding Elder. CFOOT) ^g : : : «S" • A'auuoissiiv sm IS IBa3u9y • c;o> -lo •^.loddng l^iaa';siuij\[ m o ;d (M Ti :; :§:?& :^ I o.-oo S^s in: IC L- -T I 00 C5 ^- -:? QC' I- >0 "-J Sri •ssanpaiqap •saipjnqo 3ui -AO-iclrai puB auipiina joj pasiiM junoiuy •S33T?U0SJBd •aniHA aiquqoaj •saqoanqo JO J3i(mn^ •siinpv •uajpnqa ID • • --H eJ : It -^ "O 00 -t — :i :• : i t-«s»seoco :=fB fil eOMri «3 ^coo<« to -^ CI -ri •sq^naa o ~t"-a'. 'S;^ ?5 •sjaqo'Bajj [HDOI •rH .CI -CT >« IOOC> •saaqraajv nnj inc^osoot^ •saauouBqojj «soj; §g?5 ;8 §§2 I: S4 ^ ^ •o c5 o<;S^ cS 3 u POP •jvai ^^^ suois -J3AU00 ;o -0^ - «o>a «9 15 - § a us : I "*** Sicl"' s •SJ3U0HBC10.IJ JO s.i.)quidi\[ 25SJ3 ;-> §i!s IC if?S 1 •s.iaqoRax poB saaoigo J" 'ON (^5oco^m>o s ^ : :'-*'°g s "^as? s sss]r^ •spoqag JO .taqiun^ •«f = 00 \ 2 1 3 p i 1 1 a .s 1 . c • c ; E ".< H •< - 1 m c 1 •a c i .1 (5 I.? II •a c 166 Self-Supporting Missions. APPOINTMENTS. Bombay Distkict, G. Bowen, P. E. Conference Evangelist^ William Taylor. Bombay^ G. Bowen and I. F. Row, one to be supplied. Poona^ J. Blackstock. Tanna, W. E. Robbins. Egutpoora, to be supplied. Mhow, M. H. Nichols. Nagpore, W. J. Gladwin. Kurrackeey D. O. Fox. Calcutta District, J. M. Thoburn, P. E. Calcutta, J. M. Thoburn and F. A. Goodwin. Seameii^s Church, T. H. Oakes. Darjeeling, to be supplied. Rajmahal, P. M. Mukerji. Allahabad, D. Osborne and L. R. Janney. Jubbulpore, to be supplied. Agra, C. W. Christian. Meerut, G. K. Gilder. BoorJcee, D. H. Lee. Madras District, C. P. Hard, P. E. Madras, C. P. Hard, F. G. Davis, B. Peters, one to be supplied. Bangalore, J. Shaw and W. E. Newlon. Bellary, to be supplied. Hyderabad and Secunderabad, I. E. Robinson and W. T. G. Curties. South India Conference. 167 XIII. SIXTH SESSION OF THE SOUTH INDIA CON- FERENCE. Passing silently over a period of ^ve event- ful years, I select this as a stand-point from which we may catch a glimpse of the onward march of this movement. The Conference met in Bangalore, November 3, 1881. Bangalore is a high and healthy city, two hundred and seven miles by rail from the city of Madras, and has a population of about one hundred thousand. In six weeks and a half I organized a Church one hundred strong of our converts, and secured two church sites, in 1874, and now Bangalore has four Methodist ministers and their families stationed there, and entertained the Conference held in 1881. I will simply notice (1) the business order of the Conference, (2) insert the reports of the Presiding Elders, (3) obituary notices, (4) statistics, (5) frater- nal letter from North India, with personal re- marks on our " Delegated Conference." No Episcopal tour to India last year, and our old veteran, George Bowen, was elected President. 168 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. Conference Members, 1881-82. Names. George Bowen John Blackstock , Melville Y. Bovard Cliristopher W. Christian. William F. G. Curties Eobert E. Carter Franklin G. Davis Daniel 0. Fox Alexander G. Fraser George K. Gilder Levan E. Janney Simon P. Jacobs David H. Lee James Lyon William E. Newlon James A. Northup Dennis Osborne Thomas H. Oakes William B. Osborn Benjamin Peters William E. Eobbins John E. Eobinson Isaac F. Eow... Ira A. Eichards James Shaw Oramil Shreves William Taylor James M. Thoburn Charles B. Ward Home Conference or Previous llesidence, (New York) , North-west Indiana, South-east Indiana, (India) do Wilmington Eock Eiver North Ohio (India) do Central Ohio Kansas Erie Delaware Michigan Eock Eiver (India) do Georgia (India) Indiana Central Illinois New England North Ohio (India) Central Ohio California Pittsburgh Central Illinois tToined Conference or arrived in India. 1847 1875 1879 1874 1874 1879 1875 1872 1881 1874 1876 1880 1875 1879 1875 1877 1874 1875 1877 1876 1872 1874 1876 1879 1874 1879 1870 1859 1876 Attendance this SessioQ. Present. do do do do do do do Excused. Present. do do do do In America. Present. do do In AustraKa. Present. do do do do do do In America. Present. do Wellington Bowser William W. Bruere William D. Brown Albert H. Baker Charles W. D. Souza.... George H. Greenig Herman Jacobsen Marion B. Kirk Thomas E. F. Morton.. William A. Moore James P. Meik Prosunno KoomarNath. George I. Stone , James S. Stone William H. Stephens.... William A. Thomas Algernon S. E. Vardon. John D. Webb PEOBATIONERS. Erie (United States). (India) (United States). (India) (United States). (India) East Ohio (India) do do do Ohio East Ohio (United States) . (India) do (United States). 1879 1880 1880 1881 1881 1881 1881 1879 1880 1880 1881 1881 1879 1880 1880 1881 1881 1881 Excused. Present. Excused. Present. do do do do do do Excused. do do Excused. Present. Excused. do Present. South India Conference. 169 Officers and Committees, 1881-82. President, George Bowen. Secretary, J. A. Northrop. Assistant Secretary, W. E. Robbing. Statistical Secre- tary, T. H. Oakes. Recording Secretary, G. K. Gilder. Publishing Committee : Chairman, D. O. Fox, 1883. Secretary, W. B. Wright, 1884. W. E. Rob- bins, W. J. Gladwin, 1882 ; Wm. Bedford, Jas. Morris, 1884. Board of Education : J. M. Thoburn, J. B. Law- rence, 1882 ; F. G. Davis, A. G. Fraser, 1883 ; George Bowen, W. H. Barker, 1884. Trustees op Poona School : D. O. Fox, J. A. Northrup, G. Bowen, A. G. Fraser, J. Morris, S. M. Smylie, W. E. Robbins. Trustees of Bangalore School : D. O. Fox, C. W. Christian, J. B. Lawrence, W. N. Wroughton, C. Christian, P. B. Gordon, J. Morrell. Trustees of Memorial School, Cawnpore : J. W. Waugh, H. Petman, D. Osborne, W. J. Coen, 1882 ; T. Craven, A. Bare, 1881 ; J. M. Thoburn, J. F. Deatker, 1884. Committee on Vernacular Publications: D. O. Fox, D. Osborne, J. M. Thoburn. Church Extension Committee: President, D. Os- borne, 1884. Secretary, J. Shaw, 1883. Treasurer, J. Morris, 1882. H. Wale, D. O. Fox, 1884 ; F. G. Davis, 1882 ; P. B. Gordon, 1883. Commission on Colar Orphanage : D. O. Fox, D. Osborne, J. M. Thoburn. Fraternal Delegate to North India Confer- since : D. Osborne. 170 Self-Suppoeting Missioin-s. To Preach the Missionary Sermon : J. A. North- rup. Committees of Examination : First year, J. Shaw, T. H. Oakes. Second year, J. E. Robinson, F. G. Davis. Third year, L. R. Janney, M. Y. Bovard. Fourth year^ S. P. Jacobs, D. H. Lee. Admission on Trial, W. E. Robbins, J. Blackstock. Vernacidar /Studies, G. Bo wen, D. Osborne, C. B. Ward, B. Peters. Report of Brother Ward's Orphanage. By request I report on our Orphanage work, as follows; 1. In Christian Orplianage — Native Orphan Boys 27 " " Girls 33==60 2. In Christian Home — East Indian Boys G " " Girls 2= 8 Total No. of Orphans. . 68 Becdpis from November 30th, 1880, to October Slst, 1881: Christian Orphanage Rs. 3,095 11 3 " Home " 500 0 0 For support of missionary in charge, as before reported Rs. 800 0 0 Total Receipts. Rs. 4,395 11 3 Balance in hand October 31st, 1881.. " 200 00 0 C. B. WARD. Report of the Committee on Memoirs. 1. F. A. Goodwin. Rev. Frank A. Goodwin was born at Biddeford, Maine, on the 13th September, 1847, and died at the same place on the 16th of August, 1881. He was converted in Portland, Maine, in 1866, when South liSrDiA Coi^ference. 171 nineteen years of age, and maintained a consistent Christian walk until 1873, when his usefulness so com- mended him to his brethren that he was licensed to preach. He was soon afterward appointed City Mis- sionary by the Young Men's Christian Association of Pennsylvania, and for six months rendered very effect- ive service to the association. Feeling deeply, how- ever, his need of a more thorough preparation for the work of the ministry, he repaired to Drew Seminary, and entered upon a course of regular theological study. During the following year, however, a very urgent call came from the South India Mission for additional mis- sionaries, and Dr. Eddy, then one of the Missionary Secretaries, meeting Brother Goodwin accidentally at Chautauqua, was strongly impressed that he ought to go, and tendered him an appointment to our field. After due prayer and deliberation, the offer was ac- cepted, and a few weeks later, on the 20th October, in company with Revs. C. P. Hard and J. E. Robinson, he sailed for India. On his arrival in Bombay, on the 19th of December, 1874, he was appointed to Kurrachee, and at once pro- ceeded to that station. He found the work in a par- tially disorganized state, and encountered grave diffi- culties in his first work in India, but bis strong faith and his indomitable energy carried him successfully through all difficulties, and at the end of two years he was prepared to leave the charge in a comparatively prosperous state. On his arrival he found the little congregation embarrassed by the want of a place of worship, and he at once resolved that our cause should have not only a name but a habitation in Kurrachee. 172 Self-Supporting Missions. The attempt to build seemed an almost hopeless enter- prise, but, having secured the necessary sanction, he began the work, and before the close of his term of service completed both a church and parsonage, both of which he left unincumbered by debt. To those ac- quainted with the difficulties his success in this enter- prise was simply wonderful. It is a high tribute to the usefulness of a Methodist minister whose term of service with a congregation is usually short, that he is able to leave permanent marks of his usefulness behind him at every point where he is called to labor. At the organization of the South India Conference, in 1876, Brother Goodwin was appointed by Bishop An- drews as junior pastor to Calcutta. With characteris- tic promptitude he hastened to his new post and at once entered upon his work with great energy. His first special work was in the Sunday-school, to which he gave a great impetus and in which he achieved a notable success. He was a very efficient pastoral visitor, and in other respects filled the post of junior pastor very faithfully. Early in the year, however, it became nec- essary to transfer him to the Seamen's Church, made vacant by the illness and removal of Brother Oakes, and he here began what was to be his last, as well as most notable work in India. With a view to bringing the sailors as near as pos- sible to the Church, a house was rented in Dhurrumtolla- street, in which a coifee-room, reading-room, and prayer- room were provided, and nightly services held. This entailed a great deal of severe labor upon Brother Goodwin, but, not satisfied with the very encouraging success achieved, he soon began to plan for a much South Iistdia Conference. 173 larger work. Our excellent friend, Colonel Haig, had opened similar rooms in the vicinity of Lai Bazaar, and he proposed that the two institutions be united in Lai Bazaar, itself. This street, and some adjacent streets and lanes, were literally infested with sailors, boarding- houses, and grog-shops of a very low class; and it seemed like carrying the war into Africa to open a mission immediately among them. The only eligible building which could be found could only be obtained at a cost of 430 rupees per mensem, and it seemed almost reckless to attempt to open the mission in so expensive a place. Kind friends dissuaded, but believing that God was directing the movement, the house was taken, and in April, 1878, it was formally opened. It is need- less to record the story of its success.' For more than three years the good work has gone forward, and many hundreds of seamen have been awakened and converted to God through the agency of this mission. Many of the adjacent drinking-shops have been closed, and the whole neighborhood has been improved by it. The Lai Bazaar Coffee Rooms are known to the ends of the earth, and many kind words, and some more substantial tokens, have been received from grateful friends in dis- tant lands. After a year of successful labor in Lai Bazaar, Broth- er Goodwin's restless energy began to crave some new employment, which very opportunely was furnished, through a suggestion from Sir Ashley Eden that a place similar to the one in Lai Bazaar should be opened in the suburb of Hastings, for the benefit of the ship- ping in the lower part of the river. It was deter- mined to purchase a house in Hastings and make such 174 Self-Supportin-g Missions. additions to it as might be necessary. This was done, and the new mission formally inaugurated in April, 1880. The amount of labor which devolved upon Brother Goodwin in connection with this enterprise was very great. He collected about 18,000 rupees toward the purchase and enlargement of the property, and per- sonally superintended much of the work, and when the rooms were opened he threw himself with characteris- tic energy into the work among the sailors, and toiled on until suddenly prostrated by severe illness. It was feared from the first that his sickness would be unto death, but no effort was spared to secure his recovery. He was sent to Natal, in Africa, in the hope that the voyage might do him good, but returned with- out visible improvement. He slowly but surely con- tinued to decline until he was imperatively ordered to leave India, in the hope of prolonging, rather than of sav- ing, his life. He sailed from Calcutta on the 19th of Feb- ruary, and, stopping a month at Malta, reached America in the balmy days of spring. He was conveyed safely to his mother's home by the sea-side, and there, with all the care and attention that a devoted wife and loving moth- er could render him, he calmly awaited his summons to his Father's house. It came to find him ready and waiting. " I am trusting ; I am resting fully in Jesus," was his last testimony. Our toil-worn brother rests at last, and truly his works do follow him. Few ministers of his age leave behind them so much tangible work accomplished as did he. He was never idle, and no one ever saw him working in a perfunctory manner. Work with him was another name for earnestness. What he did he did heartily as South India Coitfereis-ce. 175 nnto the Lord. If we may be i^ardoned for alluding to what he himself considered an error after he had been stricken down, his greatest mistake consisted in working too inconsiderately. The love of hard work becomes almost a passion with some men, and many a Christian laborer forgets that his Master would have mercy and not sacrifice. Our dear brother felt this after he was prostrated, regretted that he had not more clearly regarded his health as a sacred trust from God. But no one can speak of this error with the slightest feeling of censure implied in it. If our brother wore himself out prematurely by unremitting toil, we may Avell apply to him the words of a great religious leader : " It is better to wear out than to rust out." No speck of rust was ever permitted to gather on his blade. To our bereaved sister, the faithful companion and helpmate of our deceased brother, we tender our heart- felt sympathy, and assure her of our earnest prayers. May the God of all mercies ever care for her and her little ones. I went to Biddeford, Maine, last July, and spent two days with our dying brother — days of mournful pleasure. His last words were, " Mother, you've been very kind to me. Meet me in heaven." He then turned over, and died in a minute after without a moan. He is the second member of the South India Conference who has gained his crown. The first was Rev. Hiram Torbet, than whom we never sent a better man to India. 176 SELF-SuppoETiNa Missions. 2. Sister Gilder, In the death of our dear sister, the wife of Brother G. K. Gilder, we have to mourn the removal of one upon whom the grace of God rested in a singularly at- tractive way. Called at the age of ten years to a sav- ing knowledge of Christ, she continued unfalteringly to follow in the footsteps of the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in the eyes of all who witnessed her blameless walk and conversation. She had the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. She was a true helpmeet to our brother in their brief wedded life. During a protracted and trying illness her patience, submission, and trust never failed. Realizing clearly the probability of being taken from a circle where she was so tenderly loved, she nevertheless acquiesced, without repining, at the will of the Master ; and when it became fully evident that she was soon to part with her loved husband and little ones, and close her eyes upon the world at the early age of twenty years, she rejoiced in Him who is mighty to save. At her request the hymn " Jesus, lover of my soul," was sung as her spirit took its flight to the realms of the blest on the 19th of May. As a Conference, we sympathize deeply with our Brother Gilder, at the same time that we re- mind him that the memory of the just is blessed. Brother and Sister Gilder are botli natives of India, and were both, saved early in the progress of our work. South India Conference. 177 PRESIDING ELDERS' REPORTS. 1. Bombay District. — D. O. Fox, Presiding Elder. We desire first to express our gratitude to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for the degree of prosperity that has attended the work on the district as a whole throughout the year. God has been with his workers and blessed his work. In Bombay there are three pastoral charges under one Quarterly Conference. At Grant Road, Brother Jacobs has labored as pastor. During the year there have been twenty-eight conversions, and many Chris- tians have been greatly strengthened in their Christian character. Several members, encouraged by the pas- tor, have rendered efficient aid in the native work. Brother Shreves has had charge of the church in the Fort. He has had a year of prosperity. The place of worship is within reach of the harbor and of the Euro- pean soldiers. During the year there have been con- versions among the sailors and soldiers as well as among the civilians. At a weekly preaching service held in the European Hospital, a number of the patients have been led to Jesus. In Mazagon, Brother Stephens, who was appointed junior preacher, has done nearly all the pastoral work. He did it efficiently. He not only visited members of the church and congregation, but gained access to many Roman Catholic families. He has a children's class which numbers thirty-five. Among these are some children of Roman Catholics. A native day and Sun- day-school has been opened under the care of a native Christian teacher. Brother Stephens is also principal 12 178 Self-Supporting Missions. of a day-school. It began in March, 18S0, with four scholars, and now has over seventy on the roll. The church in Poona and Lanowlee is under the care of Brother Northrup and Brother Bruere. This is North- rup's third year here. The work has steadily grown under his ministrations. This year has been the best of the three. The congregations are large and regular, and the Sunday-school has developed into a fruitful nursery of the Church. The last two months were marked by a revival, in which the Church was much quickened and several sinners were converted. Serv- ices have been held regularly in Lanowlee. There is a large number of Europeans here, but during the year there have been no conversions. By removals the society here has been reduced to a very small number. We trust that Lanowlee will ere long be visited with a glorious revival and many of the people converted to God. The Poona school, under the supervision of Brother Robbins, continues to fill a want long felt in our work on this district. Brother Robbins has had charge of the school from its beginning, and has done hard and faithful work. The number of boarders is the largest since it opened. On the roll are 49 scholars. In con- nection with the European school is a native school, also under his supervision. Egutpoora Circuit consists of the English Church in the station, and the Thakkur Mission. Brother Gilder had charge. The work at the station among the Europeans has held steadily on, without much change. The work among the Thakkurs was inter- rupted by the sickness of Sister Gilder. Brother South India Coi^ference. 179 Gilder was out on a tour through the mission when Sister Gilder was taken sick. Her illness continued over two months, resulting in her death. The mon- soons followed, preventing any further work in the mission field. But a mission house is under construc- tion, and a native preacher has been appointed to this work and has already gone to his field of labor. The native preacher is supported by the Church at Egut- poora. The other expenses have been met by contri- butions from friends interested in this work. This promises to be one of the most interesting fields of native work in the Conference. Bhusawal was attached to Egutpoora at the begin- ning of the year ; but on account of its distance from that place it has been made a separate charge. Brother Greenig was appointed to supply the work till Confer- ence. He has done good work. There have been sev- eral conversions. A lot has been obtained for a build- ing site, and a good portion of the money needed to build a church has been raised. Brother Morton has labored in Kagpore. He has had a successful year ; sinners have been converted and the society greatly strengthened. He has preached once a week at Kamptee, and at other stations on the railway. A good native work is carried on at Kamptee by Brother Samuel, a native preacher. He is an earnest, humble and deeply pious man. His wife, Rebecca, is fully as good a worker as he is. Their son, about ten years of age, often bears his testimony for Jesus at the street preaching. He and his family are a good speci- men of the kind of Christians who will conquer India for Christ. 180 Self-Supporting Missions. Ahmedabad and Baroda have been supplied by- Brother Baker. He came out from America in Janu- ary last. He is one of our most earnest and faithful laborers. The work in Ahmedabad had been at a stand- still for several years. The last of this year three persons were converted, and the good cause has taken a new life. In Baroda the society has nearly com- pleted a beautiful church, which will be ready for dedi- cation in a few weeks, free of debt. An interesting native work has been opened here. A native preacher has been employed by the Church to preach in the city of Baroda. In August I baptized six adult converts and five children. The adults gave good evidence that they had found Jesus able to save. They are living in their homes in the city, and bearing a faithful testi- mony. Kurrachee, as the sea-port of the Punjaub, and all north and west of the Punjaub, will always be a very important station. Our Church there has passed through a year of severe trial. Brother Janny has labored amid many difficulties. But we think the work has entered upon a new life. Those who remain in the Church are united in love and harmony, and, we trust, will form the nucleus of an earnest and Christ-like people. 2. Calcutta District. — J. M. Thobukn, Presiding Elder, The work of this district is practically confined to the two cities of Calcutta and Rangoon. Several attempts have been made to gain a foot-hold at other points, but thus far. without success. This is chiefly South India Coistference. 181 owing to the sparseness of the English-speaking popu- lation throughout Bengal, there being very few places where enough persons can be found to form a basis for such an organization as we try to effect. It is hoped, however, that by adopting the old circuit system in some places, and slightly modifying our usual policy in some other places, we may succeed in widely ex- tending our work in different parts of Bengal. In Calcutta we have four separate appointments : one for Europeans, one for Bengalees, and two for seamen. The English Church necessarily occupies the most prominent position, and from the nature of the case largely affects the whole work of our Church in Cal- cutta. While we may maintain separate organizations in various parts of the city, it will probably not be pos- sible to give the original Church, the mother of them all, a secondary place until the Bengalee converts begin to be converted by the thousand. This is as it should be. The best possible purpose which a powerful En- glish Church can serve in a great Indian city, is to foster the interests of all the missionary organizations which may grow up around it. During the past year Brother Oakes has worked faithfully and unremittingly as pastor of this Church, and not without frequent tokens of Divine approval. The attendance at Sunday services has been good, con- versions have been frequent, and the finances have improved. The remaining debt on the church building will, it is hoped, be paid during the ensuing year. Members of this congregation have rendered very efficient help in the seamen's work, and also in the work 182 SELF-SuPPORTIN^a MlSSIOJS"S. among the natives of the city and suburbs. Plans have been formed for greatly increased activity next year, and it is hoped that a very great advance will be wit- nessed in all the interests of this Church before our next Conference. The Bengalee Church in Calcutta comprises about a hundred members and probationers, nearly all of whom are poor. They are divided into five classes, and when the weather is favorable attend the fellowship meetings more faithfully than their English-speaking brethren. They have done very well in the matter of self-support. During the last three months of the year they paid the claim of their pastor in full, and there is good reason to hope that they will at an early day become a wholly self-supporting Church. In the district south of Calcutta many thousands of Bengalee Christians are found belonging to the Bap- tist, Anglican, and Roman Catholic Churches. There have, from time to time, been many dissensions among these people, and changes of Church relationship, and in the course of years not a few of the people have drifted away from all Church membership. Some years ago some of these villagers, having come to Cal- cutta for employment, were led to attend our meetings, and, having been blessed in doing so, carried back a good report of us to their friends in the country. The result was that we received many invitations to send preach- ers to various points, but it required the greatest wis- dom to determine when to respond to, and when to decline, such invitations. In some cases the motive was apparently good, but in others it was quickly discov- ered that help in a local quarrel, or worldly profit in some South Iot)Ia Conference. 183 form, was the ulterior object in view, and hence it was long before we could confidently and energetically undertake any thing for them. Slowly, however, we have organized societies in a number of villages, until now we have a hundred or more enrolled. If a good, thoroughly devoted, and physically capable, Bengalee preacher could be found for this work, there is every reason to hope that a very great work could be done in that region, not only among those who are nominally Christians, but among the heathen who are closely asso- ciated with them. Near the close of the year we held, for the first time in Calcutta, a series of revival services conducted in the Hindustani language. The result was very encour- aging, and it is intended to hold regular services in Hindustani hereafter. At the close of these meetings five adult Hindus were baptized, and three Roman Catholics received on probation. Seven adult Hindus were baptized during the year. The work among the seamen at Lai Bazaar has gone on quietly and prosperously throughout the year. Con- versions have taken place almost daily. Brother G. I. Stone and his excellent wife have worked faithfully, and have seen their reward in a steady ingathering of the sons of the sea. If little can be said about this work, it is chiefly because the uninterrupted flow of suc- cess leaves little room for special remark. At Hastings Rev. J. S. Stone has also done a very good work. A debt of over 3,000 rupees has been paid in full, and the mission placed upon a healthy financial basis. The attendance at this point has been, and may always be expected to be, smaller than at Lai Bazaar, 184 SELP-SuppoRTiNa Missions. but the field is wide enough to repay abundantly all the labor that is put upon it. With the single excep- tion of Lai Bazaar, it is probable that more souls have been saved in connection with the meetings at Hastings, than at any other point in the Confer- ence. At Rangoon, Brother Robinson has been battling bravely, and begins to see growing up around him sub- stantial results of his labors. A large reduction has been made in the Church debt, and in other respects the finances of the Church have materially improved. Both congregation and Sunday-school are on the in- crease, and very encouraging progress has been made in arranging for the opening of a girls' boarding and day-school. Earnest efforts are directed toward the natives of various nationalities, and two adult Buddhists have recently been baptized. A great field lies before us at Rangoon and other ports on the south-eastern coast. As soon as laborers can be found it is proposed to open work at other points, and there is every reason to believe that a rich harvest will be reaped. But re- enforcements are imperatively needed for the work in that direction. In the entire district, we have worked during the past year with but three members of Conferences and two preachers on trial. Next year we hope to begin work with four additional preachers on trial, and with God's blessing we may reasonably anticipate a much larger measure of success than we have attained in the past. South India Conference. 185 3. Allahabad District. — D. O^bo-r^is.^ Presiding Elder, The last Annual Conference recognized nine pastoral charges in this district ; and we have to report with deep thankfulness an encouraging advance all along our line, from Lahore in the north to Mhow in the south-west. Our preachers have all enjoyed a fair measure of good health, and without an exception have done effective and uninterrupted work throughout the year. The Lord has blessed them with a very precious enjoyment of his love, and every-where we have rejoiced to see tokens of a riper experience and more exalted faith. We have had opportunity of con- ferring with all of them upon the practical details of their work, and throughout there has been the fullest unanimity and resoluteness in giving effect to every measure calculated to carry the blessing of the Gospel to the benighted and needy. There has been a general recognition of the claims of native work upon preachers and people, and a practical effort in some directions to reach it. Th^ material prosperity of the Churches has furnished another cause for special thankfulness ; throughout there has been an increased appreciation of the duty and privileges of supporting the Gospel, and a disposition to foster and extend the recognized benev- olences of the Church. We now proceed to a more particular notice of each circuit or charge, as they stand upon the list of appoint- ments of 1880-81 : ALLAHABAD— W. F. G. CUETIES, Pastor. The work of the year has been faithfully done. The regular services of the Church have been steadily 186 Self-Supportino Missions. maintained, and in addition to these, smaller meetings in the homes of the people, and in other convenient and needy localities, have been begun and continued. Our staff of lay preachers have, as usual, given good help. We gained much at the beginning of the year through the services held by our beloved brethren, Messrs. Inskip, M'Donald, and Wood; and the influence of their earnest ministry has remained with the Church. The Sunday-school work has been carried on as usual. A weekly meeting for children and young people has been maintained almost throughout the year, with encouraging results. A noteworthy feature of the year's work was our first camp-meeting in Futtehpur, held in March last. The attendance was decidedly encouraging. The spirit of the meeting was excellent, and it is believed that those who attended were truly refreshed and blessed. The occasion proved a rare and unexpected opportunity for native work. Vast throngs of atten- tive hearers, including many influential and educated gentlemen of the city and district, gathered daily to hear the Gospel preached and sung, and it is certain that from this center of blessing went forth far-reach- ing influences for good. At the outstations embraced within the circuit. Brother R. J, Young in Futtehpur, and Brother G. Hart in Banda, local preachers, have steadily main- tained the form and enjoyed the power of Christian worship. Chunar, too, has been visited, and the Gos- pel proclaimed to eager listeners. The Cannington Girls' School, notwithstanding un- avoidable fluctuations, has had a successful year under South India Conference. 18V tlie superintendence of Miss M. B. Spence. As the insti- tution will be represented by the Board of Education, particulars need not here be furnished. ALLAHABAD HINDUSTANI CIRCUIT— D. OSBORNE, Bist 1 2 to 1 C c 0 d Z "i i 1 3 1 *i 3 'a > 1 11 ill it Is III III Bombay District. 70 3 3 12 8 4 6 5 111 .? 19 i2 i 10 31 31 43:3 14 4 1 16 3 1 17 2 182 89 30 10 32 9 8 10 370 100 56 911 12 1 28 33 29 310 249 54 8 86 36 43:3 98 15 6 i 15 17 18 . 12 . 5 1 4 . 3 ' t . 5 1 3 42 2 7 7 4 7 I '.'. 4 4 7 J 40 1 21 'i 2 12 9 3 "Is '2 '6 8 i ■3 4 1 4 14 1 1 1 'i 1 1 6 1 2 1 1 "i 1 7 1 'i 1 1 4 33.000 6,600 4,500 70( 5,600 3,500 3,256 166 2,400 140 180 257 50 6,800 6.200 Total 53,900 5.750 627 6,800 6,200 Madras District. Madras • Vepery .... 10,000 4,050 6,000 13,370 5.066 14,000 10,000 8,066 100 362 323 155 2,166 2,000 692 1,450 9.000 600 4,480 Blktw'n and Perarabore Bangalore : Richmond Town . St John's Hill Tamil Circuit Bellaiy... Chadarghat Secunderabad Telugu Mission Total 52,420 2 18,000 3,040 4,142 14,080 Calcutta District. Calcutta : Dhurrumtolla Lai Bazaar 80,000 22,066 IS 'i 1 1 i 2 7,066 90 200 1,206 2,500 3,236 3,066 18.000 5,066 Hastings Bengali Rangoon Total 131.000 7.000 1,496 8,736 23,000 Atj.ahabad District. Allahabad 2 10 . 3 2 1 . 3 . 3 2 4 4 'i 1 i 2 i 25,000 4,066 6,700 2,606 3,000 200 Mi 80 4,000 si? 8,000 806 Jubbulpore Hnrda Total 58 685 686 "i 212 1,355 1,335 20 17 551 46 3 9 . .. 1 4 26 6 151 5 155 5 31 30 5 22 22 38,300 3,000 4,155 4,317 8.850 Grand Totals this year.. " " last year.. 275.620 239,3-20 8 9 "i 33,750 36,.950 93I8 21,141 23,995 9,291 52,130 67,010 Increase Decrease 9 "4 1 36,300 3.266 11,823 14,704 14,886 > These fiRures indicate Rupees, about half a dollar each In value. INDIA CONFERENCE. Sunday- Schools. Benevolent Coi.t.kctions. JIlNIST'L Sdpport. h it For Missions. II 1 1 1 c 'c 02 1 C ■S.S II c.'H c .£ 1 D u •— It u I." 1 a 5 11 k 11 J? 1 o 1 m Si s i i 1 1 1 li'i 8 1 1 1 J 1 1 1 30 It I 10 2 1 3 131 13:3 24 10 74 20 3 5 103 io is 29 14 29 117 io is •• 49 49 50 125 25 90 4,909 2,000 1,900 455 679 1,096 37 689 ii 10 1,363 990 123 53 512 130 267 10 67 400 128 43 171 49 49 195 11,965 21 3,348 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 18 16 15 9 5 5 9 12 12f 115 162 80 100 41 45 70 733 12 13 40 25 ~90 ■■ io i2 13 io 40 25 • • '8 129 166 46 1,800 1,121 1,253 800 680 473 1360 825 800 ;; ii 290 298 106 534 248 8 10 100 .. •• .. 8 269 9,612 2.233 1 1 27 6 14 230 166 116 1^79 1,279 35 23 1^600 52 574 4.5no 2,794 500 396 2.669 61 4,150 15,150 1,200 390 5 47 446 1,279 1,279 .. : 35 .. 23 2.2-26 10,859 61 20,890 8 30 5 2 8 4 8 5 6 271 285 420 55 oi' 22 29 30 50 665 2,244 2,434 43 1 5 10 27 60 1 13 ■3 93 2 18 10 30 :; ■'• ;; 360 57 545 ISO 2,055 1^16 50 1,132 331 1,076 1,140 260 1,126 270 483 205 184 15 18 86 67 153 .. 1.112 7,360 2,415 41 44 1.583 1,016 120 9ti 1,703 1,112 •• 84 80 3.802 2,251 39,796 31.605 82 g^ '3 i4 190 567 24 591 .. .. 84 ;; 80 1,551 8,191 84 7,956 206 Self-Supporting Missions. APPOINTMENTS. Bombay and Madras District, D. O. Fox, P. E. Bombay, Grant Road, J. A. Northrup. Bombay, Fort, supplied by local preachers. Bombay, Mazagon, W. H. Stephens. Bombay, Maratti Circuit, George Bowen. Poona and Lanowlee, O. Shreves. Egutpoora and Thakkur Mission, A. G. Frazer and W. H. Bruere. Bhosawal, G. H. Greenig. Nagpore, T. E. F. Morton. Ahmedabad Circuit, A. H. Baker. Poona School, W. E. Robbins and A. S. E. Vardon. Agent Methodist Book Depository at Bombay, J. A. Northrup. Madras, Yepery and Perambore, T. H. Oakes and W. B. Osborn. Madras, Blacktown, J. Blackstock. Bangalore, Rich- mond Town, C. W. Christian. Bangalore, Memorial Church, D. H. Lee. Bangalore, Tamil Circuit, I. A. Richards and B. Peters. Bellary and Railway Line, W. A. Moore. Chadarghat, R. E. Carter. Secunder- abad, F. G. Davis. Telugu Mission, C. B. Ward, D. O, Ernsberger. Colar Mission, S. P. Jacobs. Ban- galore School, I. A. Richards. Conoor, I. F. Row. Superannuated, W. E. Newlon. Calcutta District, J. M. Thoburn, P. E. Calcutta, English Church, J. M. Thoburn and J. S. Stone. Cal- cutta, Bengali Circuit, Prosunno Koomar Nath. Sea- men's Work, Lai Bazaar, G. I. Stone, Yernon E. Bennett. SeamerHs Work, Hastings, L. R. Janney. Jamalpore Circuit, W. A. Thomas. Saidpore, J. P. Meik. Rangoon, J. E. Robinson. Rangoon, Seamen's Mission, H. Jacobsen.* * Sent out to India from the North Indiana Conference in May, 1882. South India Confeeence. 207 Allahabad District, D. Osborne, P. E. ARaha- had, D. Osborne. Jubhulpore, W. D. Brown. Hurda, to be supplied. Khandwa, J. D. Webb. Mhow Circuit, C. W. D'Souza. Agray W. F. G. Curties. JSandikui, M. B. Kirk. 3Ieerut, G. K. Gilder. JRoorkee, W. Bow- ser. Muasoorie, James Lyon. Lahore, James Shaw. Kurrachee, M. Y. Bovard. William Taylor, Confer- ence Agent. Lay Missionaries. C. A. Martin, Principal, J. A. Wilson, Assistant, Calcutta Boys' School. Miss M. E. Layton, Preceptress, Calcutta Girls' School. Miss M. B. Spence, Preceptress, Cannington Girls' School, Allaha- bad. Miss E. H. Warner, Preceptress, Rangoon Girls' School. 208 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. XIV. SCHOOL-WORK OF SOUTH INDIA CONFERENCE. "We have had from the beginning in our leading cities native schools taught two hours per day — from 7 to 9 A. M. — by voluntary unpaid teachers. Thus hundreds of poor heathen children are taught to read God's word. I will here simply insert the Report OF THE Board of Education, adopted at the sixth annual session of the Conference. 1. Allahabad. The Cannington Girls' School, at Allahabad, has en- joyed a year of prosperity under the efficient super- intendence of Miss Spence. A large and more eligible building was rented early in the year, and the attend- ance has risen to a monthly average of seventy. The average monthly income is 255 rupees. If a grant-in- aid, which has been asked for, should be obtained, this school will be placed upon a solid foundation, and no doubt will prosper still more in the future. But it is very desirable that this, and all similar schools, should be provided with a building of its own as soon as pos- sible. The rent paid rapidly eats up the income, while the idea of permanency which belongs to a school which owns its own home does very much to commend it to the confidence of patrons. South India Conference. 209 "^ 2. Bangalore. The school at this place, under the charge of the Rev. I. A. Richards, has enjoyed a year of quiet useful- ness, with steadily improving prospects. At the last session of our Conference the results of the Government examinations had not been announced. These results were, on the whole, satisfactory. One of the pupils sent up to the middle-school examination stood at the head of all competitors in the presidency. The total number of pupils enrolled this year has been one hun- dred, of whom eighty are in attendance at present. The present number of boarders is nine. A generous donation of three thousand dollars from Father Bald- win, of Berea, Ohio, has enabled the principal to pur- chase part of the buildings now occupied by the school, and it is hoped that the remaining buildings may also be purchased during the coming year. With addition- al buildings, and an increase to the staff of teachers, this school has an assured future of usefulness and pros- perity before it. We strongly recommend an immedi- ate and earnest effort to add at least six thousand rupees to the funds of the school, and the employment of two additional teachers. 3. Bombay. The school at Mazagon, under the management of the Rev. W. H. Stephens, has done a year's good work. The present number of pupils is seventy, with three teachers employed. The number of boys enrolled is forty-five, and of girls twenty-five. The sole financial resource of the school is the fees paid by the pupils, and as the charges are extremely moderate the expendi- 14 210 Self-Supporthstg Missiotts. ture is necessarily very low. It will be impossible to build up a strong or permanent institution on the pres- ent basis, but the school is doing an excellent work, and maintains a very good reputation among those ac- quainted with its operations. It is to be desired, how- ever, that a school having so large an attendance, and doing so good a work, might be placed on a footing of greater permanency, and be equipped for doing even better work than at present. 4. Calcutta. The two schools in Calcutta have not materially changed during the past year. The Calcutta Girls' School retains the same relation to our Church as for- merly, and fully meets the wants of our people without compromising its character as an unsectarian school. The attendance has been equal to the full capacity of the buildings, and the necessity for additional accom- modation has become very urgent. Miss Lay ton has been ably seconded by an efficient staff of teachers, and has fully maintained the high character of this school. "We are glad to learn that active measures have been inaugurated looking to the erection of new buildings for the institution, and it is hoped that before the close of the ensuing year we may be able to report substan- tial progress in this work. With larger and more eligible buildings there is every reason to believe that the usefulness of the school could be doubled, without very largely increasing the present scale of expendi- ture. The Calcutta Boys' School closes the year with fif- teen boarders and forty day pupils. We are glad to South India Cojstference. 211 report an addition of five thousand rupees to the funds of this school, and to learn that there is a good hope of securing still further aid at an early day. As soon as a large and better building can be secured there is every reason to believe that the attendance will largely increase. Mr. C. A. Martin has had charge of the school during the past year, and has done much to put it on a better financial basis than it has heretofore en- joyed. If the plans formed by him can be fully carried out, there is good reason to hope for a bright future to the Calcutta Boys' School. 5. Cawnpobe. The South India Conference has a joint interest in the two schools in Cawnpore. Satisfactory reports have been received from the principals of both insti- tutions, brief mention of which may be here made. The Memorial School for Boys, under the superin- tendence of Rev. F. Neeld, has enjoyed a fairly pros- perous year, and closes with sixty-eight pupils on the rolls — the average attendance having been fifty-six. The income has exceeded the expenditure, and a slight reduction has been made in the debt of the institution. The health of the pupils has been good, while, better still, there has been a good spiritual work among the boys, a number of them having been hopefully con- verted to God. The principal reports that he has room for twenty-five additional boarders, and expresses the hope that the members of the South India Conference may use their influence to send boys to the school. The Cawnpore Girls' School — Miss S. A. Easton, principal — reports a year of quiet but successful work. 212 Self-Suppoeting Missions. The average number of boarders throughout the year has been forty four. The health of the pupils has been exceptionally good, and "the order, regularity, and attention very gratifying. Real progress has been made in those things which are not only better than silver or gold, but better than learning." The finances of the school are in good condition, but we would earnestly suggest to the Board of Trustees that im- mediate measures be taken to secure a larger grant-in- aid than is now given. The study of Hindustani is successfully prosecuted in this school — a feature of the institution worthy of unqualified commendation. 6. Chandarghat. No report of the school at this place has been re- ceived. 7. Egutpooea. From the brief report given of the school at Egut- poora, we learn that forty-two pupils are under instruc- tion, and two teachers employed. For a school of its grade, good work is done here, and the teachers are strongly commended for their fidelity and zeal. 8. Madras. The school at Yepery, Madras, has been under the management of Miss M. J. E. Taylor during the greater part of the past year, and reports a year of successful labor. The attendance has been over seventy, and the progress made has been very satisfactory. Better ac- commodations are greatly needed in order to put the institution on a better footing. The fees charged are so low as to be nearly nominal, and as the grant-in-aid is South India Conference. 213 very small, the school has to struggle against serious disadvantages. There is every reason to believe that the work done has been of a very valuable character, and it is greatly to be hoped that means may be found for enlarging the sphere of usefulness which the school now enjoys. 9. POONA. The school at this place has been under the super- vision of the Rev. W. E. Robbins, and reports forty- nine pupils on the rolls at the close of the year, with an average monthly attendance of forty-two. Here, as elsewhere, the need of additional financial resources is keenly felt. 10. Rangoon, Buemah. Arrangements have been perfected for opening a girls' school for both boarders and day pupils in Ran- goon, and Miss Warner, an experienced teacher from America, is now on her way to take charge of the institution. The prospects of this school are very encouraging, but it would be premature to publish further details at present. The school will be opened at the beginning of the year, and make, no doubt, a good report at the next Conference. 214 Selb^-Supporting Missions. XV. MISSIONARY CHARACTER OF OUR SELF- SUPPORTING MISSIONS. A GOOD Bishop said to me : " Your men, or the men you send out, are not missionaries, for missionaries are stipendiaries." Reply — " Paul, Barnabas, and Co., were not stipendiaries, yet they were missionaries of the very best type." " A missionary is one sent — a true missionary is one sent by God to sinners sitting in dark- ness, whose enlightenment depends on the light being sent to them. If thus sent, it matters not whether it be through the agency of a mis- sionary society or a single Church, as that of Antioch, or of an individual man as Paul, or as Grossner, the German." The Bishop said, " But Paul did not go out to found schools, as you are doing in South America." Reply — " Paul's mission was mainly to people in the great centers of educational institutions and commerce ; but, as an educated man, would he not encourage his people to provide for the Our Missionary Character. 215 education of their cMldren? However tliat may have been, we know that nearly all the missionaries sent out by modern missionary Churches for the past one hundred and eighty yeai's have spent most of their time in school- teaching, which was just the foundation-work required." In India, with but very few individual ex- ceptions, my missionaries were the first in that great empire who devoted themselves wholly, from the beginning, to evangelizing and pastor- al work. Some of our missionaries, in the " India Mis- sion Conference," wei-e so impressed with my style of direct evangelizing work among the natives, as to query whether or not they should give up their school-work. Dr. T. asked my advice in regard to it, and I said, " No ; that is an essential preparatory work in the field you are cultivating." The missionaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions, under a mandate from their committee at home, closed up all their schools, so as to have all their time for direct Church work ; but I think, with most of the mission- aries themselves, that it was a mistake ; and, after many years, I learn that they have 216 SELF-SuPPOETLN-a MISSIONS. resumed their school-work. Tlie two de- partments of work should be carried on to- gether, acting coiTelatively on each other, and all for the salvation of the people — old and young. The schools now being developed under the South India Conference came up as a fruit of our gospel successes. The fields in South America, in which I found no English people to utilize as an enter- ing wedge to native work, I could not begin with evangelizing, for I had no footing, and no man who could preach in their language; hence, I began where all missions begin — in the school-house. But, instead of founding pauper schools, to be supported mainly by for- eign funds, I establish first-class academic in- stitutions, which command the confidence and patronage of the well-to-do classes of the native people. The patrons, parents, and pupils are Roman Catholics. I enter into written articles of agreement with them for school-work, and one of the articles provides that we shall daily read tlie Holy Scriptures, and pray in the schools. We also organize Sunday-schools in each place, and in the music department of our institutions, in addition to the classes for Our Missionary Character. 217 learning instrumental music, all tlie cMldren, boys and girls, are taught vocal music. In Concepcion, Chile, for example, our music teacher, Miss Lelia H. Waterhouse, taught the children to sing with such charming attractive- ness that, to meet the demands of a Roman Catholic population, she gave a monthly con- cert of sacred song to crowds of Romanists, who came to hear the children sing " What a friend we have in Jesus," " Jesus, lover of my soul," " Rock of ages," and a hundred others of gospel-teaching hymns. With each hymn, sister Lelia put in words of explanation and her own "testimony for Jesus." The people, without suspicion or prejudice, would gather about her and beg her to visit them at their houses ; and on one occasion, by request, Lelia and her children sang in the Cathedral, to the astonishment of priests and people. That highly-educated heroic daughter of one of our faithful ministers of the Maine Conference, though in our poverty obliged to go to her hard field as a steerage passenger, is as true a missionary, in my judgment, as ever was sent out by any Missionary Society. It is true that I and my men and ladies do not go to foreign people to ridicule their religion, and the des- 218 Self-Supporting Missions. perate struggles they manifest in their daily ceremonies, penances, and pilgrimages to meet its requirements ; but, in s}Tnpatliy and love, to show them the "Way, the Truth, and the Life." While we tell who we are, and what we come to do, and make no compromise with error or sin, we decline to debate and to con- tend with the people about religious beliefs and names. The method of most missionaries of all societies is to challenge for debate, and try to convince Romanists and Jews, Mohammedans and Hindus, Buddhists and Brahmans, that their systems are radically wrong, all wrong; and that Christianity is right, all right. Well, the parties on the opposite side don't admit the premises assumed by these mission- aries, and then what is the worth of their argu- ments, or the weight of their conclusions? That is what Aristotle designated " begging the question," a fallacy and a failure all the way through. Thus the educated classes of Hindus, Mohammedans, and Parsees in In- dia, have been led to arm themselves with all the infidel books that ever issued from the press, to be used as weapons with which to fight the missionaries. However great their Our Missionary Character. 219 disagreements witli eacli otlier, they are so keen on the scent of a missionary, that they lose sight of all their own differences, and simultaneously go for the man of God. This was not the apostolic method of deal- ing with the " strangers and foreigners " whom they hoped to win for Christ. The apostles were logicians, and they never " begged the question." They always kindly and cautiously laid their " major premises " — their foundation facts — in the region of admit- ted truth — facts that the opposite party could not deny ; then their conclusions came with logi- cal irresistibility. Thus, when preaching to Jews, they deduced the foundation of their arguments from the "holy Scriptures," which the Jewish people admitted to be the standard of truth from which there was no appeal. In preaching to the heathen, they said noth- ing about the Scriptures, but went down with them into the region of their own natural re- ligiousness, and along the line of admitted facts of their personal moral responsibilit^T-, their violation of the laws of their consciences, their guilt and condemnation, their pollution and helplessness, their sincere and desperate struggles for relief — by sacrifices, ablutions, 220 Self-Supporting Missioi^s. penances, and pilgrimages — all backed up by the writings of their own poets. Thus, without debate, they got a basis on which to build, and by the word of God and their testimony for Jesus they laid on that basis a foundation of evidences on which to rest their faith, and " come and see," and receive Jesus. So that my missionaries are in this and in many other things, as may be seen in my books on Africa and India, working a revolu- tion in missionary methods ; a new departure back to the old gospel way of doing it. All the employees in our "Domestic Mis- sions" are called missionaries, and more than half of the missionary money paid into the "treasury of our Missionary Society is paid out for their support." My men and ladies are sent on a gospel mission; hence, they are missionaries. They are sent on a gospel mission to foreign countries; hence they are "foreign mission- aries." "Taylor's men and Taylor's missions! We are tired of hearing such things." Well, my tired brothers, you had better pray for a large stock of patience, for you will never hear the last of it. OuK Missionary Character. 221 I should greatly prefer to sliun this appear- ance of egotism ; but wliat shall I say ? If I say " our missionaries," it would ambigu- ously a]3ply to those sent out by " our " Mis- sionary Board, for I claim as large a share in them as any other minister in " our " Church can set up. I can't say " the missionaries sent out by the ^ Methodist Self - Supporting Missionary So- ciety,'" for the reason that no such society exists. I am simply an errand-runner and recruiting- sergeant for the King. He has called me to this business, and has set his seal of success on my work. I am thus, under God, the founder of foreign missions, and the sender of missionaries to man them, and until a better designation is sug- gested, I guess, on the line of truth and brevity, I shall go on saying, "my missions" — "my missionaries." The Christian gentlemen and ladies whom I send out are not my servants ; I am their serv- ant for Christ's sake. I pay them nothing, and receive the same from them : on the other hand, I pay my own expenses and work for nothing. 222 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. Tlie question raised by many good men, however, is, whether or not my missions are for the natives of foreign countries, or simply for the few scattered English people sojourning in those countries? That never was a question with me nor with my men. It is, however, a question continually propounded by good people who know but little of my work, and who don't take the trouble to inform themselves on the subject ; and it is assumed and assei-ted, by a small class of officials, that the latter is the scope and end of my missions, and that '' there is no mission- ary work in them." That is not so much from a design to injure my missions as from a fear that the success of self-supporting missions may injure the financial resources of our Missionary Society ; as though God would antagonize himself. Do THE ACTUAL RESULTS sustaiu the claim of your Missions to genuine missionary char- acter ? I answer, in the first place, that we rest our claims on our foundation principles and meth- ods, as applied to a foreign people, and propose to take time for the demonstration, as the Lord shall lead us and speed us on our way. Our Missiojs^ary Character. 223 As proof in part, however, we refer to tlie Soutli India Conference and its work. That Conference is the organic embodiment of a part of the fruits of the movement in which, ten years ago, I stood alone, as a stranger in a strange land. Now our self-supporting wit- nessing Churches stand out as beacon lights in all the great centers of population in that em- pire of darkness. Let any unprejudiced man consider these things, and measure if he can their salutary effect on those heathen masses. As to the conversion of natives in those great centers of commerce and caste in which my missions are planted, no missionary society has, up to the present hour, collected a church which, either in numbers or social standing, they Avould dare to bring forward as a test and proof of the true missionary character of their organization and work. They have had at the front some of the ablest men of their day ; they have had nearly half a century of faithful toil in those fields, with millions of money at com- mand; they have founded colleges, and edu- cated thousands of high-caste Hindus; but, with a few individual exceptions, failed to bring them to Jesus. I don't mean to cast the slight- est reflection on the grand men who have devoted 224 SELi;-SuppoRTiNa Missions. their lives to this great work, for it is a work not to be measured by numerical results, but I simply intimate tkat it cannot be reason- ably expected tliat a movement of yesterday, beginning without prestige, money, or friends, shoidd suddenly break down the hitherto im- passable barriers, and record great numbers of caste people among its converts. The charity principle on which all the mis- sionary societies are based, as I have before shown, is well adapted to the fields in which they have reported great numerical successes, whether in the islands of the Pacific, or Labra- dor, or Africa. I saw the king of the Amapondo nation of Kafiirs sitting in council with his (amapakati) councilors. The king sat on a stone elevated a couple of feet above the surface of the ground, and the councilors sat on the grass around him — a king and privy council discussing a war policy for their armies then advancing to engage the armies of a neighboring tribe in mortal com- bat. Well, for this royal person and his high ofiicers of state there was not a shirt, and not one of them ever had a shirt in his life. The mandate of such a council will turn a whole nation to nominal Christianity, and then vnth Our Missionary Character. 225 money and time and toil tens of thousands of them may be brought to receive Christ ; but large numbers are baptized on a catechetical training and a professed belief in Christ, with- out the inward experience or outward fruit of a new life. But among the educated men of means the missionaries on the old line have not made a success, and it is too early in the movement of self-sup]3orting missions to expect a decided success among upper-class natives. As I have before explained, I do not believe it can be done on the charity principle. I do be- lieve it can be done on principles ^' one and two" by the power of God. Thus far we have not reached any of the rich people, nor many of the poor people, but a variety of mid- dle-class producers, and from the beginning have, from indigenous resources, made a S'elf- supporting success. Again, from the commencement of onr work, as soon as we got a company of witnesses newly saved from sin, we began regular preaching to the natives. Thus in Bombay we established preaching for natives on '' the esplanade," and at "the fountain," four days per week, and those appointments have been kept up, I learn, ever since, now for ten years; and so we pro- 15 226 Self-Supporting Missions. ceeded in Calcutta, Madras, and wherever else the Lord gave us a witnessing Church, and from the start laid down the theory, and put it into effect, to utilize, as far as possible, all our English agency and resources for the salvation of the natives. We don't recognize any color line among our people ; hence no separate col- umn in our Conference reports for black, white, or mixed. Differing from many of the missionaries around us, we refuse to baptize an adult of any color until we have satisfactory evidence of genuine conversion to God ; and don't retain the names of people on our books who do " not attend class " and manifest the fruits of contin- ued fidelity to God and his Church. So that it is only by special inquiry that it can be seen what proportion of our membei'S are converts from the ranks of raw heathenism. In 1876, when our Conference was regularly organized, Bishop Andrews made diligent in- quisition and reported "only eighty-six full- blooded Hindus" in our body. Did ever any new four-year-old mission make so good a showing ? And not a cent of money to draw them to us. In 1879 Dr. Thobum wrote me that at that Ottr Missionary Character. 227 time one for every ten of our members was a convert from heathenism. In 1880 Eev. C. B. Ward wrote me that the proportion then was one for every seven — about 300. The latest information reports 450 in a membership of 2,040. So that we are mak- ing steady advances on that line. Indeed, the English population is so limited, and so scattered, that we cannot hope to do more than fill the gaps occasioned by death and removals, and hold to our present numbers, except by penetrating the native masses. Our English membership have stood by us nobly in supporting our ministers and school teachers and their families, and helping to ex- tend the work among the natives, but we have encountered several drawbacks to the training of our missionaries for effective native work. 1. Our success in utilizing the English and Eurasians in supporting such a missionary movement led missionaries of other bodies to run with hook, line, and sinkers, to fish in the same waters, and our men had to give more special attention to English work in the com- petition that ensued, and hence that much lesa time and strength to native work. 228 Self-Supportes"g Missiot^s. 2. As may be seen in tables of statistics, mucli time and money have been given to churcli building. 3. The frequent itinerant removals of our men far away from the vernaculars they have commenced to learn, into the regions of other languages, have operated unfavorably to their acquisition of any one language. My plan was, that every missionary should master at least one native language, and in order to do that, and for the subsequent use of it, he should always remain in the region in which that lan- guage was spoken ; but by the power of God we are bound to succeed on our principles of missionary work among the heathen. They are God's own gospel principles, and he will honor them. I will here insert, from the Minutes of the recent session of the South India Conference, the report of the Committee on Native Work : The Committee appointed to report on Native Work beg to state : 1. That the fundamental principle upon which the work of the South India Conference was founded, was that each English-speaking congregation with its pastor, was to be a missionary center, from which direct evan- gelistic effort and inliuence should go forth to the hea- then beyond. The Rev. William Taylor explicitly and Our Missionary Character. 229 repeatedly formulated this as the principle upon which his "mission," subsequently organized as the South India Conference, was built. It must be remembered that Brother Taylor came to India especially to work among the natives of the country. He had been gloriously used of the Lord in KafRrland, seven thousand having yielded to Christ under his preaching through an interpreter, and he came to this country under the persuasion that the want of a knowl- edge of the languages would not prove a formidable barrier. On his way hither, at Ceylon, he had an op- portunity of addressing the natives through an inter- preter with such success that he was encouraged to believe he would be used among the natives of India. He came to India upon the invitation of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Oudh and Rohilcund, whose labors were exclusively among the natives ; and spent his first year in preaching to them through interpreters. When he came to labor in the Bombay Presidency, he began to preach to the natives, and it was only when he became aware that the Europeans and the Eurasians constituted a moral barrier in the way of any exten- sive or satisfactory work among the natives, that he felt impressed with the conviction that the Lord would have him approach the masses of the country through the nominal Christians. With this conviction and with this object, the Churches organized by him were founded. He did not underrate the importance of evangelistic work among the Europeans and Eurasians, but he regarded this as the outer camp of the great citadel, necessary to be taken, chiefly, for the reduction of the more stubborn 230 SELF-SUPPORTING MISSIONS. Stronghold within. His principle undoubtedly was, that the native work should be so affiliated with the English work, that they should grow together, be supported together, and succeed together, the object evidently being twofold, namely, the prosecution of the work among the natives, as well as the diffusion and culti- vation of the missionary spirit among the growing Churches. 2. In looking over the work of our Conference dur- ing the last five years, we see no little reason for encour- agement and thankfulness. In not a few of our Churches direct effort has been put forth among the natives with a fair measure of success. In Bombay the word of God has been steadily and faithfully preached ; in Calcutta a large congregation has been gathered in ; in Allahabad and its suburbs persevering efforts have been maintained ; in Madras and Banga- lore the gospel of Christ has not been without a wit- ness among the heathen. Four members of our Con- ference have been from time to time exclusively in the field representing the Hindustani, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil languages. Among our lay preachers, many have faithfully labored in this department. In the way of direct success, although we are by no means satis- fied with the results achieved, nor believe that we have reaped as we might have reaped, we nevertheless see reason for thankfulness and encouragement in the progress made. 3, We cannot refrain, however, from exj^ressing the conviction that, as a body, we are in danger of losing sight of the fundamental principle underlying our work. We regard with uneasiness the sentiment, indulged in OuE MissiONAEY Character. 231 some quarters, tliat the English work is to be the sum and total of our aspirations and efforts ; and we have been grieved to hear that this section of our work has, in some instances, so completely absorbed time and attention as to leave but little room for the other. We are aware that our preachers have done hard and good work ; that they have labored constantly and effectu- ally, and that our brethren are perfectly sincere in offer- ing this plea. But this very fact affords confirmation to our fears, for it demonstrates, that while the obliga- tions of English work are sacredly regarded, the respon- sibilities connected with the other are not adequately appreciated. 4. To remedy this condition of things it has been more than once proposed to thrust out specially selected men into the native field, to be supported by a Confer- ence Missionary Association. Now, while we believe that in the course of our work there will be men upon whom God will lay his hand for special service, and while we are willing to recognize and indorse such, when they appear before us, it is necessary in our judg- ment to be very guarded, lest such an exceptional pro- cedure should come to be regarded by us as our general and normal mission policy. Such a course, in delegat- ing the obligations of this work to a selected few, and these few supported by a Conference fund, would put an end to the circulation of a healthy missionary spirit through our Conference as a body, as well as sap the principle of support accepted and cherished by us hitherto. As bearing on this subject, we quote from the Minute on Native Work, adopted at our annual session of 1878 : 232 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. " Men should not be employed on stated salaries and sent out among the heathen, although the money is all raised in India. Such a course Avould not differ ma- terially from the usual policy of missionary societies, and would be quite at variance with the fundamental principle on which our work was commenced." 5. In view of all these considerations, it is our con- viction that, as a Conference, we need to take some advanced and decided action with reference to the more general and faithful prosecution of native work amon^: us, but that in order to this we must return to the early principles upon which our work was founded. While we are quite willing to recognize the good hand of our God, when specially laid upon any brother for a particular service, as in the case of Brother C. B. Ward, we feel that the successful solution of this problem requires the general and concerted action of each member of the Conference. To give, if possible, practical form to this proposition, we are of opinion : (1.) That we, as a Conference, ought more heartily to recognize the obligations of native work among us. As leaders of the people, we can only expect them to feel these obligations as we recognize and cherish them. Further, that we ought to regard it as a duty devolving upon each preacher and English-speaking flock, to do every thing possible to spread the knowl- edge of the Gospel among the heathen. (2.) That, in order to be fully furnished for this work, each of our preachers, (saving in cases particu- larly excepted by the Conference,) should acquire one or other of the native languages, and pass therein at the annual sessions of our Conference. We recommend Our Missionary Character. 233 that the course of studies, approved in 1876, be ac- cepted by the Conference, as obligatory upon its mem- bers, and that a committee of examination be duly appointed from year to year to examine in these studies, it being understood that, as sanctioned by the Board of Bishops, the person passing shall be excused from such portions of the regular English course as do not relate to strictly theological subjects. (3.) That on each charge the preacher should seek out from his flock devoted and qualified men and women, and lead them out to such departments of work as they may be fitted for. (4.) That, until the native language is acquired, and the preacher can preach therein, he may and ought to seek out and labor among the intelligent English- speaking natives in his charge, preach through an interpreter, organize vernacular Sunday-schools, and by his presence and countenance encourage and urge forward this department of work in his circuit. (5.) That, in order that the preacher in charge be free to prosecute evangelistic work among the natives, our church members and congregations should consent to afford and to accept, in such measure as may be needed, the ministrations of local preachers, exhibiting in this way their interest in mission work, and bearing in this way, as in others, their share of the burdens and privations involved in the faithful prosecution of the work. (6.) That points of contact be sought for the English and native ministration in Sunday-schools and ver- nacular meetings and open air services, so that the separating gulf be narrowed as far as possible. 234 Self-Supporting Missions. (7.) That our preachers, by example and exhortation, urge upon the people the duty of labormg for and among their native servants, Christian or heathen. (8.) Our preachers and people should be actuated by such a spirit of self-denial and frugality as shall prevent the absorption of their resources in the English work, thus precluding the provision of funds for native work. To this end due economy ought to be practiced in all our church, parsonage and school enterprises. (9.) In planting our churches in new fields, their adaptability, as good missionary centers, ought to be carefully considered. (10.) That the Presiding Elder of each district should inquire specifically as to the progress of native work in each charge, and urge the preachers to pursue their studies in the vernacular.* Further, that at the session of our Annual Conferences there shall be a standing committee on native work to represent this particular interest ; and, if possible, that missionary anniversary exercises be arranged in connection with the exercises of our Annual Conference. (11.) When any brother offers himself exclusively for native work, or for any particular department of this field, we recommend that he be duly examined with respect to his reason of choice, general suitable- ness, or particular fitness, and if he seem to be well fitted for the special work, he may be appointed thereto, such brother being dependent upon and an- swerable to the Quarterly Conference of which he is a member. * Rev. D. O. Fox, Presiding Elder of Bombay and Madras Districts, has ten of his ministers preparing for examination in native languages at the next Confer- Our Missionary Character. 235 For further information in regard to our native work I will copy a letter from Rev. C. B. Ward, published in the " Christian Standard and Home Journal," of May 27, 1882 : LETTEB OF C. B. WARD, IN CHARGE OF TELUGU MISSION. The regular visits of the " Standard " are enjoya- ble to us in this far-off frontier skirmish pit, in the very midst of the enemy's country. We are now in the midst of our hot season, with the thermometer 100 degrees in the shade every day, and above 70 at night; but, bless God, we are all well, and being much blessed in our work. It is encouraging to us, who have not an English neighbor, and spend all our time and strength among the heathen, to hear from the other side of the water that we are doing nothi7ig for the heathen. But all is fair in war time. Well, we do not wonder that our work is little understood, and this is due to the little that is known of it. Probably we have made a mistake in not saying more about our work in the home papers. Fearing that what we should say would be too readily construed into specious appeals for home money, most of us have felt like keeping still. But we are glad facts will out, and that friends on both sides of the ocean are praising God openly in print for what we have done and are doing now for the heathen in the Indian Empire. Our orphan work, thus far the most important part of our mission, will soon become one of the depart- ments only of the mission. Our " Christian Orphan- age," for native orphans, is now companied by the " Christian Home " for East Indian orphans. In the 236 Self-Supporting Missions. former we have, boys and girls, 59 ; and the latter, 10 of both sexes. The work of training these orphans has been arduous, assiduous, and most successful. Of the 59 native orphans, 4^2 are soundly converted, and for more than one year have lived consistent lives. Of the remainder 17, ten are not without evidence of a precious work of grace, and we reckon them proba- tioners, though they are not yet baptized, nor are they communicants. Of the ten East Indian orphans, one has been recently converted, while grace surrounds the remainder with wholesome influences. We have, however, been short-handed all along. Miss Miller left us April 8, 1881. Her place, however, has been filled by Miss C. O'Leary, an East Indian or- phan twenty-five years of age, who joined us in Octo- ber, 1880. She has labored steadily and successfully. She has mastered the language, and acquired much real missionary efficiency. Sister Ward for the last year has spent much of her time in training and developing the East Indian orphans. Nothing is clearer to us to-day than that God has given us these orphans, and lays upon us the responsi- bility and privilege of training some of our own mission- aries in our Orphanage. We have now under training a number of boys and girls for itinerant work another year. The boys will accompany me, trained to sing, testify, pray, lead seekers to Christ, some of them, in time, to preach, sell and give away Scriptures and tracts, and do any other kind of mission work opened up to us as we move about from village to village. The girls will be trained for Zenana and other work among the women. The boys and myself made our first sally last week. Our Missiois-ARY Character. 237 Near by was a large feast attended by some 15,000 people. Five of the boys and myself spent two nights and two days on the ground among this throng. We sold 300 Bible portions and tracts, and gave away 400 more, besides giving our personal testimony to the folly of idolatry, and God's way of salvation, to not less than 1,000 persons. The boys exceeded all expectations for effectiveness. We came home, having thus introduced ourselves to the people of the country for more than twenty miles each side of us, praising God for the pros- pect that lies before us. A few more months of training and drill, and this " Telugu Mission Band " will com- mence incessant itinerating among the heathen. We find ourselves in the midst of a large field of about 7,000 square miles, with about 3,000 villages, and 500,- 000 inhabitants, all open. Our prospect is only bounded by our strength and heart. Our third year of faith work has closed successfully in point of finance. The last year brought us about 5,000 rupees; the previous two years, about 7,000 rupees; and India is richer for the giving of it. I might say we have received from America $220 ; from England, five pounds sterling ; and from Scotland, one pound, in the three years ; this realized here about 600 rupees. Every pice of the balance is Indian. We set out on our fourth year with large faith and courage for good deeds and fruits. Miss Ruth Freer, another daughter of India, is on her way from her home in Madras to join our mission as I write. CoLAE Mission, under Brother Jacobs' leadership, has been in the midst of a constant revival since Con- 238 Self-Suppobting Missiois-s. ference. More than 100 have found the Lord, and these are all Hindus, three years ago in all the horrors of darkness and idolatry. Some of the conversions are of great moment. One, a Brahmin, is likely to glorify the Master as a preacher along with Brother Jacobs. Brother and Sister Jacobs, nothing daunted by their age, have boldly undertaken the mastery of Canarese. They are sure to succeed, too. It is an example that should inspire younger preachers, to see a gray-headed man deliberately sitting down to acquire a new lan- guage. The Colar Mission will soon do a mighty work in that part of the country. Vepery, Madras, and Chadarghat have each grandly successful native Sunday-schools. Bombay, in her two principal preaching-places, has services for servants that are being blessed of God. In Poonah, Brother Robbins is devoting himself entirely to na- tive work, as Brothers Bowen and Gladwin do in Bombay. Street-preaching is .maintained in the lat- ter place since Brother Taylor's day. The Thakkur Mission, attached to the Egutpoora Circuit, under Dr. Frazer, assisted by Brother Bruere, is doing good service among the Thakkur hill people. We understand they have two native workers, and a small house or shed for gospel work among them. Nagpore employs a native helper and has a native church. In Banga- lore, Brother B. Peters and Brother I. A. Richards keep up steady Sunday-school work and bazaar preaching in Tamil. Lahore has a native Sunday-school. Allaha- bad has five. The Futtehpore and Lanowle camp- meetings held daily services for natives this year with much blessing. Calcutta is the seat of war, no daubt. OtJE Missionary Character. 239 Almost daily street processions and preaching are kept up. Intense interest is reported by Dr. Thoburn, such as he has not seen during the years of our Calcutta work. Rangoon maintains native work. In Calcutta the Bengalee Church, already strong, is growing up most encouragingly, under Brother Nath. With- in the hounds of our Conference are ten men exclusively employed in native work. Five of these are mem- bers of the Conference, and five are natives. Besides this, about fifteen ministers are partially engaged in native work in conjunction with English. Our na- tive converts now number more than 450. The Lord is graciously leading us on, and we expect to see the day when many will be ready to join in saying, " We killed the bear." Our work is a most wonderful and many- sided work, with its English and native work, schools, papers, etc. Few, indeed, have been the missions that have let themselves into so many real effective agencies in ten years as the South India Conference has done. Our history is one of marvelous divine guidance and blessing. Pramoor, Nizam's Dominions, A'pril 12, 1882. The $220 from America came unasked from some of Ward's friends, and was so mucli to- ward putting up his orphanage buildings. That is incidental, but legitimate. I mil add a tabulated exhibit of the schools and orphanages of both the North and South India Conferences, which is copied from the "Luoknow Witness": 240 Self-Supporting Missions. I. Of the North India Conference. Name and Sex, On roll, 1881. Cawnpore Girls' School 44 Centennial School, (boys,) 184 Christian Girls' School 45 Memorial School, (boys,) 68 Nynee Tal Boys' School Nynee Tal Girls' School Tlieological Seminary, (both sexes,) 23 Total reported 364 Orphanages of the North India Conference. Name and Sex. Number. Boys' Orphanage 225 Girls' Orphanage 275 Total 500 These are all assisted, more or less, by mis- sionary money from New York. TJiey are accomplisliing a work for God that cannot be measured by statistical tables. II. Of the South India Conference. Name and Sex. On roll, 1881. Bangalore Methodist School, (boys and girls,) 100 Calcutta Boys' School 65 Calcutta Girls' Scliool 206 Cannington Girls' School 76 Chadarghat Methodist School, (boys and girls,) 45 Mazagon School, (boys and girls,) 70 Madras School, (boys and girls,) 70 Poonah School, (boys and girls,) 49 liaugoon Girls' School, just opening : Total 681 Orphanages Under the Care of the South India Conference. The Christian Orphanage, (native boys and giils,) 60 The Childrens' Home, (Eurasian boys and girls,) 10 Colar Orphanage, (native boys and girls,) 350 Total 420 Our Missionaky Character. 241 Tlie Colar Orphanage was founded inde- pendently by Miss Anstey, but was put under our pastoral supervision, and at her request Rev. S. P. Jacobs, a holiness straight^ has been appointed preacher in charge of Colar Mission, and is having natives saved daily. All the schools and orphanages of the South India Conference subsist on indigenous resources, without any missionary appropriations. The school at Bangalore received a gift of $3,000 from Father Baldwin, of Berea, Ohio, with which Brother Eichards has bought one of the houses occupied by the school, and has cut down half the amount before paid for rent, and he hopes that the Lord may put it into the heart of some other man of means to send $3,000 to buy the other house in their use, and have no more rents to pay. Sister Inskip is trying to interest her friends to build a house for our girls' school in Cal- cutta, and I hope she will succeed. Tuition rates are so very low in India that it is hard to run self-supporting schools, and if our friends would put up buildings for them, they would have a permanent footing, and, having no rent bills to pay, could strengthen their staff of teachers. 16 242 Self-Suppoeting Missions. In Rangoon tlie Government lias given our minister, John E. Robinson, a site for our girls' school, and a building grant of $5,000. So Miss Warner will begin on vantage ground. From the foregoing exhibit it will be seen that we have an aggregate of 681 scholars in the schools named, under 15 experienced prin- cipals, and they are assisted by about 40 under- teachers. Besides these, there are the 410 na- tive orphans. The foregoing list of Methodist schools embraces schools of high grade under the principalship of our missionary men and women. Besides these there are in the bounds of the North India Conference 242 village schools for natives ; and in the South India Conference there are private schools for English and na- tives ; and native primary schools on the plan of unpaid tuition, as I intimated at the open- ing of this chapter. So the time is hastening on when " the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an haii;, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert," and the glory of the Ijord shall be revealed. Our Missionary Character. 243 I wish liere respectfully to submit a few points of comparison between the results of 25 years of faithful work in the North, with our 10 years of effort in the South. Regular Minsters. 1. North India Conference 30 South India Conference 50 Local Preachers. 2. North India Conference 68 South India Conference ST Members and Probationers. 3. North India Conference 3,228 South India Conference 2,040 Baptisms for 1881. North India Conference: adults, 28t ; children, 205... 492 South India Conference: adults, 41; children, 144... 185 Average Attendance at Public Worship, North India Conference 4,248 South India Conference 3, 147 Value op Church Property. 4. North India Conference *|64,182 South India Conference 131,725 Parsonage Property. 4. North India Conference $64,595 South India Conference 16,475 Church and Parsonage Debts. 5. North India Conference $12,200 South India Conference 27,050 1. Of those 50 ministers, 47 are at their work in In- dia. Six of them combine school work with their preaching, and three are absent, namely : William Taylor, founding missions ; W. B. Osborn, in Austra- * It has a much larger value in Orphanage and Hospital property. 244 Self-supporting Missions. lia on account of the illness of his wife ; "W. E. New- Ion, at home with broken-down health. 2. The 68 of North India Conference are doing regular work and are paid from the missionary appro- priations. The 57 of South India Conference support them- selves, and are engaged in preaching nearly every day in the week, free of charge. 3. Of the 3,228 members of North India Conference 661 of them, including the 68 local preachers named, are employed as teachers and helpers in various departments of missionary work, and are paid by the Missionary Society. The most of these being men, they and their families constitute the larger proportion of their 3,228 members, and drawing their supplies from New York. The 2,040 members of the South India Conference not only support themselves, but, without a dollar of help from a foreign source, support all their own ministers and pay all other running expenses of the movement. 4. The Church and parsonage property of the North India Conference don't come from their native membership to any appreciable extent, but from a few outside patrons in India, and from the missionary ap- propriations from New York. The South India Conference Church and parsonage property came almost entirely from the pockets of her lay members and other indigenous sources. 5. Of the $27,050 of debt in the bounds of the South India Conference, $11,500 on the Calcutta Church is considered as virtually paid, the amount having been Our Missionary Character. 245 divided up among the subscribers and paid up by annual installments. The North India Conference employs 661 native workers who are paid by the Missionary Board. It is in the fields in which these 661 native workers are employed so largely in day and Sunday-school work that the North India Conference makes her grandest showing — 242 day-schools, with 8,553 scholars, and 260 Sunday-schools, with 11,996 scholars. The Missionary Society has invested in that mission in 25 years more than a million of dollars, and I would not assume that a dollar of it has been misapplied. As a rule " it is more blessed to give than to receive," but in this case, while the blessing to the givers far exceeds the money value of the gifts, the streams of blessing to the receiv- ers exceed all possible computation of money values. " Why not witlidraw tlie missionary appro- priation from tlie Nortli India Conference and let them swim by their own muscle and skill, like the South India Conference ? " That would be the extreme of cruelty. It would be infinitely worse than turning all the orphans of the asylums of New York out into the streets. Those natives are, in the main, the wards of the Missionary Society, and have learned to depend on them the same as orphan children. Moreover, the most of them are too poor to support the body of workers employed as ministers to them. 246 Self-Supporting Missions. Self-support may be readied in a long time, and that time must be allowed them without rashly cutting down the missionary appropria- tions. Brother Parker and other wise men among them are doing all they can to develop self- support, and they are succeeding. When I labored with them twelve years ago they had a membership of about 800, and nearly all directly or indirectly depending on missionary appropriations from New York for their sub- sistence, and at that time were receiving about $80,000 annually. Now they show a member- ship of 3,228, and an annual appropriation of a little over $60,000. So in the last twelve years they have increased their membership about 75 per cent, and reduced the annual missionary appropriation about 25 per cent. ; and nearly the whole of this great Sunday- school development has been mthin those twelve years. When I went to Lucknow they had in that city a Sunday-school of about 30 or 40, but I was allowed to lead in a work to give them a Eurasian membership, and Kev. Thomas Craven, a Sunday-school general fresh from Chicago, utilized this new element for Sunday-school work. In four years from that Our Missionary Character. 247 time lie had a Sunday-school army, mostly of Hindu and Mohammedan children, marching through the streets of Lucknow under flags bearing Christian mottoes, and singing the songs of salvation, an army of Sunday-school children 900 strong. That grew out of our re- vival movement there in 1870, and gave an impetus to this Sunday-school work that is developing so grandly. The Missionary Society withal is now saving $20,000 a year from their former appropriations for North India. So much for a self-supporting mission along side of them; at any rate, the North brethren give me the credit and the blame of a clean loss to them of that amount annually ; but they are wise and patient and don't fall out with me nor my people, and the two Conferences are as a unit in their work. When the missionaries in the North saw an account of the attack made on me and my missions in India, at the Ecu- menical Conference in London, they, at their next session of Conference, passed emphatic resolutions branding the attack as uncalled- for and unjust. The Missionary Society will, I doubt not, deal kindly with the missionaries of the North 248 Self-Supporting Missions. Conference. They are men of God, wise and true, and they must be trusted to go on de- veloping indigenous resources, and reducing the need of missionary appropriations as fast as it can be done safely. In the meantime let it be lawful for South India Conference to proceed in its work with- out being urged year by year to ask for mis- sionary appropriations from New York; and let the two Conferences thus move on har- moniously, each in its appropriate method of work. The centers of work may all be traced on this outline map, but many of these are the heads of circuits embracing outstations not named on the list of apportionments though some of them are on the map. 'Bhawalpoo /§r /Bukhar , ^ A 1 \ V^^xA^A '/A -^T^ ' \ ,^ \..'"^iv;-^- > ^^i "^ H A o" p o Qj?:^;^^^ -^ '' -^ >^^ ''^'^ ^^ ■• > . L. P R O V I r^E B E_N^ A\L^ m m&Vf Goa^^ Mangalore ;^^ , "^.Ji^ ^^^ecunaeraliaa^' "Chaaarghat >^->S^" ^^ v 1^ <:y%'-':$b-^^ .^^-^^ ^ tajt^hoor jellary' f ^ 11 ^'- / ^T ^ ^'fM A D R^/ A a) ItFeiamTiore O ^'i^,-¥:.?N V"^ 2^^-;^-C''^ ftlt.St. Thomas \ p ;r) Erf>V V Callcat\ 'C«^°o^)^^,#,^^^'^® '^ OUTLIKE MAP Vr^m^^^^rHN^.S^P^tam OP I N D I A Scale of Miles 200 300 -15- 75 Longitude Outlook in South America. 251 XVI. PASSING PEEP AT THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AMERICA. It is not in keeping with tlie title and limited space of this book to give a history of my self- supporting missions in South America. I will give simply a very brief outline of facts. On the 16th of October, 1877, I sailed from New York for South America. After spend- ing a couple of months in miscellaneous hard work in Callao, a pre-occupied field, and not open to me, I set out from that city on January 3, 1878, on a southerly voyage of exploration, for the purpose of opening self-supporting mis- sion fields on that coast. Opening a field in my work in India meant my own direct evangelizing work, till by the power of God, according to his Gospel, I suc- ceeded in organizing a strong self-supporting Church, ready at once to receive and support the pastors required. In South America, owing to my limited time, and the amount of track-laying work essential to great success, especially among the natives, the 2o2 Self-Supporting Missions. opening of a field meant a very different thing. I had to do the greatest amount of work in the shortest period of time possible. I had to work my way right in, book in hand containing a written proposal of what I wished to do, with articles of agreement to be signed by the people, each signature to be accompanied by the amount of money they would pledge — ^first, to pay the outward passage of the missionaries, and sec- ond, the amount to be paid monthly for their support. I refused in every case to handle a dollar of their money. I paid my own expenses as I do every-where, and wrought for the love of God and souls without any compensation from men, on gospel principle No. 1. But in each place I had my subscribers nominate a committee, consisting of chaiiman, secretary, collector, and treasurer, whom I ap- pointed to attend to the business and forward the passage money to the order of Nelson &, Phillips, 805 Broadway, New York, and to collect monthly and pay into the treasury the amount subscribed for the monthly support of my missionaries. The first field I opened was Mollendo, the western terminus of the MoUendo, Arequipa, and Puno railroad, then completed three hun- Outlook in South America. 253 dred and twenty-four miles to Puno, on tlie shore of Lake Titicaca. This is one of tlie two railroads that Henry Meiggs (whom I used to know in California) extended through the clouds across the Andes ; the MoUendo, Are- quipa and Puno road, crossing the Andes at an altitude of 14,660 feet, about 400 feet higher than that of the Lima and Oroya road. At Mollendo, 300 miles south of Callao, I opened a field for a combination of preaching and school- work, and subsequently appointed to it Eev. Magnus Smith and his wife. Broth- er Smith was a graduate of Williams Col- lege, Mass., and, having studied in Germany also, was a good German scholar. He had symptoms of lung disease, but knowing of per- sons similarly afflicted being restored to health and long life in South America, and the climate of Mollendo being very mild and equable, I took the risk of sending him, being a man of unostentatious but of very superior talents and attainments, with a wife to match. For a time his health improved, and he was very hopeful ; but he became iU, and while in that condition Mollendo was bombarded by the Chilian gun-boats, and poor Brother Smith was hastily caiTied a distance of two miles to 254 Self-Supporting- Missions. get him beyond the range of the guns. The shock, in his low state, if it did not cause his death, at least hastened it, for he fell asleep in the arms of Jesus soon after. The utter be- reavement and desolation of his wife can be better imagined by some of the widows of our civil war than can be described by me. But the Lord took care of her, and she returned home to her friends. 2. Tacna, Peru, a town of about 14,000 inhabitants, 39 miles inland by rail from Arica, the port of entry, with an Andean elevation of 2,000 feet, and reputed to be a healthy site. Not finding any English people there to whom we could preach directly, I arranged to found a school of high grade, to which I sent Eev. A. P. Stowell, Mrs. Stowell, and Miss Cora B. Benson. During the first year they made a good suc- cess in school-work, for which they received $2,400, but they wrought too hard. Brother Stowell, a very rugged, powerful man when he graduated in theology from the Boston University, was taken down with pneumonia, and was told by the doctors that he must die. He said that if he must die he would prefer to die at sea than remain there. Sister Stowell Outlook m South America. 255 was also sick, but not thought to be danger- ously ill. Dear Brother Stowell was carried on a stretcher, and laid on a bed in the rail-car, prepared by his native friends, and conveyed thirty-nine miles by rail to Arica, and four men carried him aboard ship and laid him down to die, but on the voyage he rallied, and rapidly improved. Dear Sister Stowell, however, be- came very ill. She had weak lungs and con- sumptive tendencies, and now she went into a rapid decline. I providentially met them in New York, and heard the report of their work, and helped them in their homeward journey. Two weeks after Sister Stowell got back to her mother's, she died in the Lord, and went to a better home in heaven. She was a most lovely Christian woman. Sister Cora B. Benson became the private tutor in the family of a member of our Board of Education, and remained in Tacna for a couple of years or more, till, in consequence of the war, the family she was in had to leave Peru and take refuge in Chili, and Cora re- turned to her home in Boston. I immediately sent Prof. Humphrey and wife to resume the work in Tacna. They got through Arica the day before that port was 256 Self-Stjpporting Missio^s^s. closed by the blockading fleets of Chili. They had a successful term in the school, and re- ceived $200 per month for their work. By that time the besieging armies of Chili were ad- vancing for the siege of Tacna, so that, by mutual consent of my School Board and the teachers, it was thought best to suspend the re-opening till the war should close. Brother and Sister Humphrey, noble and effective Christian teachers, went on to Chili, and helped to found our college in Santiago. His health afterward was enfeebled and they returned home. 3. Iquiqiie. It has a population of about 12,000, and is located on the coast about 500 miles south of Callao. Here I opened an ex- tensive field for preaching the Gospel to hun- dreds of English-speaking people. I also arranged for a school. I stationed Eev. J. W. Collyer at Iquique, and he wrought like an Apollos, both in preaching and teaching. I sent his sister Edith to assist him, and that was then the most promising field we had in South America. They also opened a field for work at Pasagua, 50 miles north of Iquique, but the blockade suspended every thing and my dear people had Outlook in South Amebic a. 257 to get out as quickly as they could. So they went to Chili and opened a new field at Lota, some 300 miles south of Valparaiso. They were succeeding in Lota, but Dr. Trumbull, of Valparaiso, was taken ill, and his people voted him a year's leave of absence, and called Brother Collier to sup]3ly his place, w^hich he did. Sister Edith held the fort alone at Lota for many months. She joined class in Con- cepcion, and though she had to come 30 miles to class-meeting, she was in regular attendance. She afterward gave up Lota and became a teacher in our college in Santiago, and about a year or more ago she died with the small-pox, but fell asleep, O, so sweetly, in the arms of Jesus ! She was a saintly little lady, beloved by all who knew her. 4. A]ST0FAGASTA, Bolivia. Bolivia and Chili had a dispute about their boundary line, in- cluding the mines and town of Antofagasta, which led to the war. This was a very im- portant field, both for preaching and school work. I stationed there A. T. Jeffrey, B.A., and his good A^^ife, who were getting a fair stai-t in their work when he was taken ill, and before he recovered sufficiently for work the place became so involved in the war that they 258 Self-Supporting Missions. were obliged to leave. They went on to Chili, and have been in the work there ever since. I also made arrangements for occupying 5. Pabellon de Pica, 6. HuANiLLOS, in Peru, and 7. ToKAPiLLA, in Bolivia. As the clouds of war were gathering over the coast I was in doubt about the possibility of occupying all o£ them, but sent J. P. Gilli- land and wife to enter into any of those fields that might be open to them. They had wrought as successful evangelists in Illinois and Texas for two or three years, and were ready to go with Jesus anywhere. But arriv- ing at Callao they learned that the whole coast of Peru and Bolivia was blockaded. Then they went to work among the seamen in that port a while, but soon found a better field in the guano fleet at Lobos Island, north of Callao. They wrought daily among the sea- men aboard the ships, and many professed to find the Saviour. After lal^oring there for many months the blockaders came and dis- persed the fleet. Then Brother and Sister Gilliland rented a house in the city of Lima large enough for a congregation of 60 or more, and went into gospel work. They were gather- Outlook in South America. 259 ing a little congregation, and would have got a footing but for the war. The sailors had given them money enough to put them on a year in Lima, even if they should get nothing there, so they were prepared for a siege. But as the Chilian armies neared the city the excite- ment of the people became so great that nothing could be done to advance the work, and a last offer of escape to foreigners came eight days before the city was captured, and they em- braced their opportunity and took ship for Chili. My stations in Peru and Bolivia were the most promising fields we then had by far, and all open for preaching except Tacna, w^ith abundant resources for self-support in every place, and easy of access in all except one, and that was improving, but we lost the whole of them by the war; but of our 13 heroic mission- aries who did not die or have to return to the States through sickness, all, except Cora Ben- son, went on to Chili and got new fields and adequate support. 8. Our next field was Copiapo, Chili, forty miles by rail from Caldera, the port town. Copiapo is one of the principal towns of the province of Atacama. The whole province contains a population of 69,000 natives, besides 17 260 Self-Supporting Missions. 547 who are put down as English. This was an open field for both preaching and school-work. I stationed here Eev. Lucius C. Smith, B. A., and his wife. He was a classical graduate from Baldwin Univei'sity, and a theologue of Boston University, and a good preacher. He learned to preach in the Spanish language in nine months, besides his school- work and regular English preaching. In a few months his wife went down under typhoid fever and died. A very healthy town, and not troubled with fevers, but the Lord took the dear sister to heaven. Lucius was nearly crushed with bereavement and desolation. His widowed sister, Mrs. Vasbinder, also a graduate of Baldwin, promptly volunteered to go and assist her bereaved brother in his work, and I sent her. Then our exiles from Lima, Brother and Sis- ter Gilliland, joined them in Copiapo. Later Brother Smith married again. The five of them are in the field pushing the battle. Miss Whitfield, the preceptress of our female college in Santiago, in a letter to my secretary, Mrs. Anderson Fowler, speaking of the work at Copiapo, says : " Mr. Smith, one of Mr. Tay- lor's men, is doing a grand work among the Outlook m South America. 261 natives. He spoke and preaclied in their lan- guage perfectly in ten months. He is a mag- nificent man, counting nothing a sacrifice. He has won over very many to the Protestant faith." 9. CoQuiMBO, containing a population of about 1,300, is the principal commercial center of the province of the same name, containing a population of 58,000, of whom 800 are English. Here I opened up a field for a big circuit, no school-work at the start. I stationed Rev. J. W. Higgins, B. A., a single man. He labored hard there for three years. Near the end of that term he wrote to me, saying : " You made a wise selection in a committee. They have raised the money themselves, paid all the run- ning expenses, paid up my salary, and have $1,500 in the treasury, and $100 more in the Sunday-school treasury." Many persons pro- fessed conversion under the able ministry of Brother Higgins. He organized Fellowship Bands, Sunday-school, and prayer-meetings, but did not see his way to attempt the organization of a Methodist Church. In India I found it much easier to get people to receive Jesus and become Christians than to become Methodists. We go among a class of 2G2 SELF-SuppoKTiisra Missions. people wlio know but little about the Method- ists, except what they have heard against them. Sometimes we fall in with backslidden Method- ists ; but as a rule they don't help us much. 10. Valparaiso, a city of about 100,000 pop- ulation. I preached there for Dr. Trumbull in 1849, on my way as a missionary to California. He has been laboring in that city ever since. He has a good church property and large con- gregation, and a church organization styled " Union Church." There is also an English Church in that city — a small German Church, and a Presbyterian Mission Church for natives, under their mission- ary, Rev. Mr. Merwin. So I did not see my way to attempt any separate work ashore, but went into the fleet and arranged a provision for the support of a minister for the seamen of that port. I then called a meeting of the ship-masters who had subscribed the funds, and we organized the "Valparaiso Seamen's Evangelical Society." On my nomination they elected Rev. Dr. Trum- bull, president, and Mr. James Blake, secretary, being both permanent residents; other mem- bers of the committee were men of the sea. James Blake is an earnest Wesleyan Methodist, Outlook in South America. 263 but tliere being no Churcli of his own denomi- nation in South America, lie had become a member of Dr. Trumbull's Union Church. I appointed to this charge Rev. Ira H. La Fetra, B.A. He did a good work there for about a year, and got an adequate support, and then gave place to our refugee from Bolivia, Rev. A. T. Jeffrey. That work is developing well. I heard the fame of its soul-saving success away along the west coast of Oregon and Washington Terri- tory, in my journeys and labors there last winter. 11. CoNCEPCiON, a town of about 30,000 pop- ulation, ten miles inland. Here I arranged to found a school, with the expectation of an early provision additional for gospel work among the English-speaking people, to whom I preached a couple of sermons while I was there. I engaged to send a man and wife to commence a high-grade school. We got a sub- scription of nearly $1,000 to initiate the move- ment, of which $500 was to be sent to 'New York to pay the passage of the teachers. From all the places named the transit money was to be collected and forwarded to Nelson & Phillips, 805 Broadway, New York, for the outward 264 Self-Supporting Missions. passage of my missionaries. I secured the sub- scriptions, and had a committee in each place elected by the subscribei^ to collect and apply the funds according to written articles of agree- ment. It was one of the conditions of success that I should not only proceed on principle No. 1 as a pioneer, but that they should clearly see that to be the fact in the case. Having laid a basis of faith for them in me, on a plain gospel principle, I had such faith in them that, without a dollar in hand, I returned to Boston, and had about a dozen first-class men and women getting ready to sail for South America before a remittance came to hand. The first draft I received was from my Roman Catholic friends in Tacna, for the passage of a man and wife to that city, $436 95, but by the same mail I received a letter from the chairman of my committee in Concepcion, stating that he feared that this movement would raise a row between the two great political parties of the country, and being a merchant, his business would be imperiled, and, there- fore, he had ordered my collector not to collect the subscriptions. That slip indicated plainly the necessity of a transit fund at home, and from that time I have allowed friends, who Outlook m South America. 265 desired to do so, to give something for tlie pas- sage of my missionaries ; and I hurried round and sold books, and managed to get enough for steerage passage for my learned and refined people. Failing to find a suitable man and wife for Concepcion, I found an able young man, William A. Wright, Ph.B., and two young ladies, Sal- lie Longley, and Lelia H. Waterhouse, and sent them on to Concepcion. Their arrival was a great surprise to my English friends in that city ; their astonishment was equaled only by their indignation against me for sending them teachers after receiving the letter fore- closing the whole movement, as they supposed. Brother Wright said they could look at their subscription book and articles of agreement with Mr. Taylor, a plain business transaction between two parties, which cannot honorably be dissolved without the consent of both par- ties. Mr. Taylor has so far fulfilled his part of the agreement, and expects you, as gentlemen of business integrity, to fulfill your part. So the English people were in a great dilemma and no small trouble. Many of them were anxious for the school, but the idea of a possi- ble collision between the two parties of the 266 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. natives terrified them. Meantime my dear peo- ple went to a native hotel and took boarding for a month, and w^aited for the development of events. Soon the Intendente — mayor of the city — who had subscribed $50 on my application, when he heard of two Englishmen who had also subscribed $50 each, declining to pay the money or favor the work, he said, "Put me down for $150, this thing has got to go in." Meantime the organ of the Church party opened fire against the new movement, and were going to sweep it, as with a besom, out of the country. Quickly the organ of the Liberal party responded on behalf of the new movement, silenced the guns on the other side, and put my people on a plane of effective work, which opened up grandly. It has had severe reverses, not from any lack on the paii: of our native friends and patrons, but by sickness of one, and necessary subse- quent absence of another, and the planting of a rival mission along side of us, (to which of itself we raised no objection;) but our work there lives and grows. The institution is called Wesleyan Academy. Outlook in South America. 267 It has done good work under many disabilities. It is now manned by Eev. A. T. Jeffrey, A.M., and wife, and Rev. G. M. Jeffrey, B.A., Misses Esther L. Spink, Martha Boyce, and Mary E. Elkins, besides some assistant teachers whom they have raised up from their own school. The health of Miss Longley, who had become Mrs. Wright, having broken down by disease and hard work. Brother Wright and she had, greatly against their will, to return to the States in about a year from the time they went out. Miss Lelia H. Waterhouse remained and worked and prayed, and by her heroic faith carried the movement through all its struggles and perils for nearly four years; but from broken down health is now on her homeward voyage round Cape Horn. If the Lord has sent out a more genuine missionary to any land in the last hundred years than is Lelia H. Waterhouse, the fact has not come to my notice. We have regular preaching in Concepcion, a small Sunday-school and class, and have had some very clear conversions. The two broth- ers Jeffrey, are nearly broken down in health by close application to their school, and their 268 Self-Supporting Missions. hearts being more on tlie ministry alone as their life calling, I will relieve them at their own request as -soon as I can get the men of God's choosing to fill their places in the academy. 12. Talcahuano, the sea-port of Concepcion, is at the southern terminus of over four hun- dred miles of railroad, via Santiago, the capital, to Valparaiso. I arranged to put a man at Talcahuano to found a school and preach to seamen and the few English-speaking people on shore, but, owing to a series of disappoint- ments and delays, the Concepcion school ab- sorbed its principal school interest, and it was thought best to suspend our plans indefinitely. The passage money sent was refunded to the parties who gave it. 18. Lota, the field opened and occupied for a season by Rev. J. W. and Miss Edith Coll- yer, is some 30 miles south of Talcahuano. 14. The German Colonies. They are in the region round about the city of Valdevia and Lake Llanquehua, near the northern border of Patagonia. There are nearly a dozen of them and widely scattered. I could not in my limited time open those fields, but on the representation of a German Outlook in South America. 269 Bible colporteur, wlio visited them, I sent two live Dutclimen, Rev. Henry Hofmann and wife and Rev. Oscar Krouser, to open a field tliere if they could. Three of those colonies I learned had each a Lutheran minister from Germany ; but my men went to the waste places, and for a time they seemed to get on grandly, many of the people coming out from the world in penitential tears, and seeking the Lord in old- fashioned Methodist style, and professed to ob- tain peace mth God; but after some months of wonderful apparent progress, some of the ministers from the Vaterland under a deep sense of duty, no doubt, went round and raised the cry of "mad dog" against the Methodist intruders. A terrific storm of persecution en- sued. Their indigenous supplies were cut off and their lives were imperiled. Brother Krouser left and came back as far as Valpa- raiso, and was appointed to succeed Brother Jeffrey in the seamen's work in that city, Brother Jeffrey having gone to take William Wright's place in Concepcion. Brother Krou- ser is a most enthusiastic worker, and has had, according to report, many seamen and some landmen converted to God. He and his wife receive from seamen and citizens of Val- 270 Self-Supporting Missions. paraiso a stipend of $1,500 a year, on which they can live comfortably. Brother and Sister Hofmann stood their ground till recently, when, on account of the ill- ness of Sister Hofmann, they returned to the States, and he has been transferred to one of the German Conferences of the West. He is a man of good appearance, of tremendous earnest- ness, and never fails to bring some of his hear- ers to an avowed surrender to God by his preaching, and Sister Hofmann is a noble, self- sacriiicing woman and a faithful witness for Jesus. If I had any German work available I would not consent to part with them. Brother Hofmann left an organized Methodist society of 33 converted Germans, most of them from Romanism, at Vulcan, Puerto Octal, north- east of Lake Llanquehua. These represent six Roman Catholic and two Protestant fami- lies. He left this little flock in the wilderness under the care of a young man, one of his converts, Gustav Konrad, and gave him a Methodist Discipline to guide him, in connec- tion with the word of God. Brother Konrad holds regular services, class and Sunday-school. If this seed shall grow and spread as we hope it mil, then all the outlay and toil expended Outlook t^ South America. 271 in the movement will prove a good investment, besides the leaven put into the lump in other communities. 15. Santiago, the capital, has a population of about 180,000. Our minister, Mr. Osborn, for- merly Governor of Kansas, a very affable and able gentleman, introduced me first to the Minister of Justice and of Public Instruction for the Nation, Don Senor Miguel Louis Amunategui, wdth whom I had an agreeable talk on the educational interests of the country. Mr. Osborn next introduced me to the President of the "Lone Star Republic," His Excellency Don Senor Annibal Pinto. He is a man of medium size, not corpulent, but in good, rounded, healthy condition, smooth feat- ures, keen black eyes, with an appearance of great amiability and kindness of heart, and a model of simplicity. He was seated at his desk, examining some documents as we entered, but rose and shook hands with us very cordially. I explained the nature of my work in his country, and he seemed pleased, and in- quired about some of my j)atrons in- Concep- cion, that being his former home, and his kins- man, Major Pinto, the banker there, being the treasui-er of my committee. 272 Self-Suppoeting Missions. Santiago was not tlien ready for tlie intro- duction of my work. The Englisli people were committed somewhat to a Churcli-of-England minister stationed there at the time, and Mr. Osborn, a true friend of oui* work, advised that it would be safer for our cause to wait for a change in the local condition of things. I con- curred in that judgment, and did nothing there but "spy out the country." About a year later, when we needed new fields in which to plant our fleeing refugees from Peru, the En- glish minister resigned his charge in Santiago, and returned to England. When he went out, our man, La Fetra, from Valparaiso, went in, and since that a congregation and a college in Santiago have been established, and are being run by my people. They have regular preach- ing, and a Sunday-school. The " Santiago Col- lege '' has a male and female department. At last advices they had in the male department 57 pupils, the female 95, and both growing daily. Ira H. La Fetra is the preacher in charge, Millard Lemon, is principal of the male depart- ment, assisted by Wm. Wright and vdfe. Miss Addie H. Whitfield is preceptress of the female college, assisted by Misses Kipp, Hold' ing. Kinsman, Ogden, and professor of music, Outlook in South America. 273 A. W. Farwell. All these are from America, and besides these they employ three or four native assistant teachers. In a letter to Mrs. Fowler from Miss Whit- field, dated April 13, 1882, she says: "The Bishop was here ; I think he was greatly pleased with the educational work we had begun, but at first did not seem to trace any very direct religious bearing. The educational work itself is a grand one ; but I believe, with further de- velopment of our Church, that not only the enlightening but religious influence of our work will soon be mdely felt. I believe, ere long, there will be in attendance on our services some of our most liberal-minded patrons ; and, as our students become familiar with the En- glish language, especially our boys, they will go and hear for themselves. " If God prospers us, I believe it is the work of the near future to convert many of these well-ed ucated people to the true faith. Through the upper classes, among whom we work, the lower classes will be reached — never the upper classes through the lower." Paul began with the upper classes and reached every grade; the missionary societies begin with the lower, and stay there. 274 Self-Supporting Missions. Miss Whitfield adds : ^' Two young ladies in our family of boarding scholars, one sixteen, with a Roman Catholic mother, another eighth een, both parents Catholic, are as truly con- verted as any one I ever knew. Their conver- sion was through no special endeavor on the part of any one, but simply by witnessing lives truer than those they had been accustomed to see, and by seeing something of the power of Christianity. ^* The very boys and girls we are educating will, I think, be the foundation of a new Church in this Catholic community." This is not only a true preparatory missionary work, but the only open highway to a broad and fruitful plain on which the families of decided infiuence, intelligence, and moneyed re- sources reside. Our people here pay out of their earnings by tuition, a rent of more than $2,000 per year for their college buildings. Let some of our rich men put up for them good college buildings and become patrons of the in- stitution, not to endow it, nor to pay a cent to any professor, but to lay the material founda- tion, and furnish facilities for its working effectiveness, and help to give permanence to it. 16. Guayaquil — ^the commercial emporium Outlook in South America. 275 of Ecuador. I sent a good man, a graduate of Syracuse University, to commence the founda- tion of an institution in this city, but his health failed and he was obliged to return home. I hope soon, by the will of God, to re-open our fields all along that coast. 17. AspiNWALL — it is called there Colon, the Spanish of Columbus. Poor old Christopher ! they might allow one poor town to retain his name. Colon has a population of six or seven thousand, largely made up of West Indian black people, a few scores of English and Americans, and quite a considerable Spanish population. I spent a day there on my way home, and Peter Austin, a colored gentleman and business man th^e, whom T met on my way down, accompanied me, and we got a sub- scription that warranted me in sending a man to Aspinwall to preach the Gospel. I ap- pointed to that new charge Rev. C. M. Bird- sail, B.A., and Lillie his wife. Brother Bird- sail was a scholar, a holy man, a good preacher, of intense earnestness and great effectiveness. He was a hero ready for any work in this world or in any other. He was, however, not sufficiently afraid of that treacherous climate. He went right in, preaching three times each 18 276 SELF-SuPPORTINa MlSSIOT^S. Sabbath, morning and night in the city, and in the afternoon at Monkey Hill, walking, through the burning tropical heat, two miles out and back, making pastoral calls by the way. His system was thus weakened, so that when he was struck with the Panama fever, so common there, and which has strewn all that isthmus with the bleaching bones of hundreds of American gold-seekers, he succumbed and died, and went to heaven in three or four months from the time of his arrival in Aspinwall. The dear brother said to his wife, as he was departing to glory, ^' Go back to Berea and complete a course in college, and go again into Brother Taylor's work." She went to school there for a time, and I -sent her to India, she paying half of her own expenses out. She did good work in our Calcutta girls' school ; but is now the wife of Rev. O. Shreve, our minister stationed in Poonah, India. She is a faithful witness for the Saviour. Immediately after the death of Brother Bird- sail I sent to take his place Rev. E. L. Latham, of the Providence Conference. He organized a Methodist Church of forty or fifty members, and by funds raised partly there and partly at home he built a large house suitable for Outlook m South America. ^77 meetings and school on lower floor, and resi- dence of the minister and family above, all at a cost of about $2,500. After three years of successful service there he was followed by Eev^ B. S. Taylor, of the Troy Conference. He dashed in under high -pressure, teaching the school commenced in Brother Latham's time a few hours daily, keeping up all the regular preaching appointments in the city and at Monkey Hill, and running special revival serv- ices in a big tent four nights per week. He is a graduate of Middletown, a holy man, an eloquent preacher, but of killing, consuming zeal. He was stricken with fever, and went down to the gates of death. The doctors, after consultation, gave him up as a hopeless case, but my man, Rev. Richard Copp, stood over him day and night, applying simple remedies, and, by the mercy of God, pulled him through. He and his family are back home now. He has recovered, and is at work in his own Con- ference. 18. Panama is an old native cit}^ with about 10,000 people in it, of whom a thou- sand are West-Indian blacks, a few hundred European and American foreigners. I pros- pected that field but did not attempt to open 278 SELF-SuPPORTINa MissioiN-s. it in the few hours I was there. A little over a year ago I sent Rev. Richard Copp to Pana- ma. I first made his acquaintance when he was a Wesleyan missionary in Jamaica. He is a gentleman of fine address, a good preacher, an indomitable worker, with a brick-kiln con- stitution that can stand the torrid heat. He now works Panama and Aspinwall as one cir- cuit for the present, and I am trying to find a young man who can stand fire to join him as junior preacher. 19. San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, Central America. I did not personally open that field. Mr. Morrell, the American consul at San Jose, on his way home on a visit, met Brother Latham at Aspinwall, who told him of me and my methods of missionary work. So when Mr. Morrell arrived in New York he tried to find me, but failed, for the reason that I was not there ; but later, in Washington city, he saw a notice in a daily paper that I was to lecture that night in Wesley Chapel. At the close of the lecture he introduced himself to me, and asked an interview. It was a very hot night in the early summer of 1880, so I took him to a nice clean ice-cream saloon, and or- dered a couple of plates, and we talked mis- Outlook in South America. 279 sionary business. The consul claimed to be only an outsider, and did not believe much in ecclesiastical buncombe, but he wanted a good practical common-sense preacher for San Jose, a scholar but not a pedant, and said if I could find a man to suit him he would give him every facility possible for getting into work. I went off soon after to Brazil, and did not send him a man till June, 1881. The consul writes me that he thinks the man I sent fills the bill per- fectly— Kev. John E. Wright, a holy, harmless young man, who will do an immense amount of work without undue excitement or wear, and has perfect health. He is a graduate of Law- rence University, of Wisconsin. His principal business is to preach the Gospel, but recently he has added school work, and wants an assist- ant, whom I hope soon, the Lord willing, to send. 20. Greytown, Nicaragua, Central America. Brother Latham, from Aspinwall, has just com- menced to open that interesting field. 21. Para, Brazil, a city of about 30,000 in- habitants, the commercial emporium of the Amazon. It is located on the south bank of the river Para, some eighty miles distant from the Atlantic Ocean. I went there in June and 280 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. took witli me Kev. Justus H. Nelson, M. A., and his wife, and Walter Gregg, a graduate from Delaware, Ohio. I stopped there a couple of weeks and opened the way for a college for the natives, there being no English families in that city, though some English business men. Brother Gregg, after a few months, went to work on his own account, with our consent, teaching English in the native schools, while Brother Nelson is going on to build up a fine institution for God and Methodism. I sent Miss Hattie Curtis, from Michigan, to assist him. She could not, of course, speak the language, but being familiar with the school-room, she ]3roved herself from the start a valuable monitor, and did good service till a young scientist exploring in those waters won her affections ; then followed an engagement, which brought her home again. She would have made a successful worker for God had she remained as she began. She had perfect health all the time. In June, 1881, I sent additional recruits to Para — Rev. John N. Nelson, B.A., brother to Justus, Miss Hattie Batchelder, a graduate of Kent's Hill College, Maine, and Miss Clare Blunt, a graduate in music from the same in- stitution. Brother Nelson wrote repeatedly Outlook m South America. 281 that he was delighted with his new workers, for they were "• eating the Portuguese language and going in splendidly." In August the yellow fever struck down John Nelson and Hattie Batchelder, and gave them a sudden exchange from Para to Paradise. It seemed a mysterious and shocking thing, and I thought the dear Nelson family, in Appleton, would be crushed almost to despair by this be- reavement ; but soon I received a letter from a still younger brother, James Willet Nelson, say- ing, " I suppose that you have heard that Hattie Batchelder and brother John have been pro- moted, and John's place is vacant. If you have no better man to put into it than I am send me. I would like to stay and graduate next spring, but a diploma is nothing compared with the demands of the work of God in Para, so I can be ready to start on short notice. Father and mother both consent to my going. Father wept when I first talked to him about it. He said, ' It is like filling up the broken ranks in battle, but if you feel it your duty, my son, go, and may God bless you.' " Soon after this letter from James Willet, I received a letter from Justus H. Nelson, his brother, at Para, saying that the survivors of 282 Self-Supporting Missions. their party were all well, and that the work was prospering, and that they could hold the fort and give the time needed to secure good helpers for him. So I wrote James W. to remain and finish his college coui'se and go out in May. Meantime he selected a good assistant teacher to accompany him, and she went as his wife. They sailed from New York for Para on the 20th of May, 1882. 22. Peenambuco, Brazil ; the native name is Racief, the capital of the Province of Pernam- buco, but the capital usually bears the name of the province. Its harbor is not sufficiently deep for the largest vessels, but is well pro- tected by an immense circling reef forming the harbor like a great sea-wall. The con- fluent mouths of two rivers added to this sea- harbor, aiford, all together, a safe anchorage for a large fleet of ships, constituting it a great maritime city, of about 100,000 inhabitants, located in the island-like segments and circles of the mainland, intersected by the two rivers. These are spanned by bridges, and street cars and railways traverse the city and the region round about. Having made arrangements for founding a school to be developed into a college, I sent, as Outlook lis South America. 283 founder and principal, William T. Robinson, a local preacher, and tlie son of a traveling minister in the Iowa Conference. William T. Robinson was a graduate of Wesleyan Uni- versity, Iowa, and was for ^ve years a professor in that institution. He subsequently graduated in the law and was admitted to the bar, but becoming wholly sanctified to God he felt it his duty to devote his life specially to God in a mission field. I requested him to select his own assistants for school work, of missionary character, and capabilities measuring up to our standard. He selected two young men and their wives, all classically educated, and apparently every way suited to the work. Thinking that he might not require so many at the start I sent one couple to open a field in Maranham, which I had prospected but not opened, except to engage a prominent man to use his influence on our behalf. They made a hopeful commencement, but the brother was prostrated with illness for a time, then rallied and went on with his work for a while, but got discouraged, and they came home. The pair at Pernambuco, assisting Brother Robinson, had fine health and displayed fine 284 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. capabilities, but becoming dissatisfied and homesick, tliey also returned. 23. Bahia, the capital of a province of the same name, a city of 180,000 people, is located mostly on a high plateau about three hun- dred feet above the level of the harbor. Trav- elers, for the most part, ascend from the lower to the upper and principal city by an immense steam elevatoi'. I made arrangements in Bahia also for found- ing, the same as in Pernambuco, only not so complete. I sent as pioneers a brother v^ho w^as a successful doctor in medicine, his wiie also a graduate in medicine. They thought it their duty to devote their lives in foreign vs^ork for God. It was all well meant, but they were not skilled as teachers, and satisfied themselves that they were not likely to make a success, and did the next best thing, which was to re- turn and resume the business to which they were specially adapted. There is just this severe test at the very doors of my self-supporting work : if by mis- take we send persons who are not able or persistently willing to make a success on this line, they have nothing to do but to quit. The proportion of good people in this world Outlook m South America. 285 who could make a self-supporting success on our principles is very small, yet large enough to plant such missions among all the self- supporting people of all the nations of this globe before I leave it. In this school work the difficulty is not in founding a school, even without funds to start with, as we do, but for men and women to go into a purely Koman Catholic country, not knowing the language of the people, and with- out funds, to found a Protestant school, secur- ing by a written article of agreement with the patrons the right to read the Scriptures and pray in the school, and preclude the priests from it, and proceed in founding also a Sunday- school in each place, and teach the people to sing our salvation hymns ; that may indicate the human impossibility we undertake to do in each case ; and never in any field I have opened, not counting Maranham, have we had a square back down, except this one of Bahia, and that we expect, the Lord willing, again to occupy. Many have returned from my fields from sickness, occasioned largely from overwork, but from all other causes just eight out of a hundred and seventeen I have sent out in the last six years and a half. All the mission- 286 SELF-SuppoETii^a Missions. aries I sent to India for several years Avere purely for the work of tlie ministry. It is more recently that the Lord has led me into educational work, especially in South America, that being the best possible way of gospel access to the upper classes, and through them to the masses of all grades. So I have to learn to select suitable teachers, combining the edu- cational and missionary qualifications requisite. At first I had the impression that almost any devoted Christian man or woman with a good classical education, a graduate from a first-class college, could certainly found a primary and develop it into a high-grade institution of learning ; but I have found out, in this school of experience, that unless a young man or lady take native-born teaching talent into a col- lege, they will not bring any away with them when they return with their diplomas in hand. So I shall acquire skill in the business of selecting school-teaching missionaries by prac- tice in the business. Happily the transit ex- pense to Brazil, whence so many have returned, is light compared with that of other fields. 24. Eio DE Jai^eieo, the capital of the Em- pire, is a very great city, stretching over hollows, hills, and mountain slopes. In prospecting this Outlook in South America. 287 city, I found that the English field for missions was preoccupied. I had not the time at com- mand to make definite arrangements for a school, but secured the co-operation of able men resi- dent there to assist any whom I might send to get a footing. I had a pleasant interview with the Emperor, and explained the object of my mission, and my measure of success in arranging for work in his country. He said, '^ Cannot you furnish me these things in writing, so that I may give them due con- sideration ? " ^^Yes, your majesty, I have the pleasure of placing in your hands a copy of my prospectus and articles of agreement with the people of Para, Pernambuco, and Bahia." I then passed the documents, beautifully written on clear, thick paper in the Portuguese language, into his hands. So in those coun- tries we have done nothing in a corner or on the sly. In June, 1881, I sent Wray Beattie, Ph.D. and M.D., accompanied by George W. Martin and wife, to commence an educational work in Eio de Janeiro, leaving it discretionary with themselves to stop at Pernambuco and help 288 Self-supporting Missiois-s. Brotlier Eobinson till they could get the Por- tuguese language, or proceed directly to their destination. They reached Pernambuco at the nick of time to fill the places vacated by the departure of the helpers Brother Robinson had brought with him, and rendei'ed most effective service in helping him to found his " Americano do Collegio." Dr. Beattie is a man of great learning and versatility of talent, and reputed to be the best educator in Iowa. He would have made a grand success in Rio, but his health broke down the first year, and he found that his con- stitution would not stand the heat of the torrid zone. It was, I believe, the greatest disap- pointment of his life to forego the purpose for which he had gone out, but he was obliged to retire from the field to save his life. Brother Martin still remains with Brother Robinson. Their gross receipts from tuition fees the first year were $5,200, which paid cuiTent expenses, and gave a small dividend of profit to the workers. They have entered their second year with an increase of boarders and pupils, and brightening prospects. I have appointed to Pernambuco Prof. George B. Nind, son of Mrs. Mary Nind, a lecturer and traveling secre- Outlook it^ South Amekica. 289 taiy of the Kortli-west brancli of our Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. George is a lioly young man, a professor of insti^umental and vocal music, and goes out to found a music department in our college. He sailed the 13tli of May. I have also appointed Prof. Koose and wife, both graduates of M'Kendree College, in Illinois, to the same college, who sailed the 20th of June, 1882. It will not be four years till next August since the advance-guard of this movement entered South America, and I have not been able to revisit a single field opened. It seems to be a part of God's arrangement that my heroic men and women shall learn self-reliance, utter self-abnegation, and implicit trust in God without having me or any body else in the way of God's discipline. From the extraordinary and unforeseen tribulations through which they have passed, we may be assured that God is preparing them for great struggles and grand achievements among the nations of South America. Discounting all, who, from whatsoever dis- ability, and from death, have I'etired from the front, twenty-one men, and twenty-four ladies — forty-five — besides many native helpers, re- 290 Self-Suppoetiis-g Missions. main, and all are supported by the people they serve. We simply pay their passage, and furnish a meager outfit. If the Lord should add to our transit a building or loan fund, so that we could relieve them in part of the enor- mous rents they have to pay, it would be econ- omy of life and labor far exceeding in value the extra amount of outlay, without ever in- fringing our principle of self-support by giving a dollar of salary. The availability of adequate resources for our self-supporting work in South America, which is only commencing, is no longer a question with my men there. The only ques- tion is in the adaptation and patient toil of the workers. Most of our ladies, and all our men at the front in South America, are classical graduates except four, and their lack in that respect is fully compensated by practical effect- iveness in their work. A high missionary official said to me a few weeks ago, in a foregone - conclusion way, "Your schools in South America can't do missionary work. We will have to send men to preach to the natives." Keply, " I have no business in South America short of the conversion of the natives, and on a grand scale, and under the peculiarities of Outlook in South America. 291 those nations I am employing the best pos- sible means to that end." Our Missionary Society has had a trial of 46 years in Argentina and Uruguay, 31 of those years among the English before they commenced a mission among the natives. Now they seem to think I am so dreadfully slow in my work in South America that my only hope of reaching the natives is to let them absorb my work, and go in to do the business. Hands off, gentlemen ; give us a trial of 46 years, and then we will hear what you hav^e to say on the subject of self-supporting missions. I only mean to intimate the superior ex- pansive aggressive force of God's primary principles and methods of self-supporting work. I would not in any way depreciate the great work accomplished by our Society in those 46 years, and as an index to it I here insert their last table of statistics taken for the annual report of 1881. I have made no inquiry as to the expenditure of missionary money beyond the $12,000 of last November, and would not say, nor allow myself to think, that a dollar had been inappropriately applied. 19 Ti3k ^ Co.Engy's N. 1*. Present Force at the Front. 295 PRESENT FORCE AT THE FRONT. This Mission opened in Jan., 1872 ; organized as South India Conference, Nov., 1876. This showing dates to Nov., 1881, embracing also over three years of work in South America. I have sent to India from America, within about six and a half years, fifty missionaries — thirty-six men and fourteen women. Not one of these has died a natural death — one dear brother fell through a ship's hatch in Bombay harbor and was killed; not one of these has brought any reproach on the cause of God by an immoral act or sinful word ; not great men, but good and true to God and man. Of the fifty, six only have returned to America — ^ve men, under medical advice, and one woman, to take care of her sick husband. Besides these missionary workers, we have 57 local preachers of Indian birth, who support themselves and preach almost daily in the churches and in the bazaars. All these are backed up by over 2,040 lay members, who are workers also, and who pay the running expenses of the whole movement. By reports dating up to May, 1882, we have 540 native members and probationers — onefoui-th of our membership. 296 Self-Supporting Missions, Places. Bombay and Madras Bombay : Grant Eoad Fort Mazagon Maratti Circuit General Native Work Poonah and Lanowlee, . Egutpoora . . Ahmedabad. Bliosawul... Nagpore . Madras : Vepery. Blacktown Bangalore : Eiclimondtown. St. John's Hill Tamil Circuit, Bellary Secunderabad.. Chadarghat.. Colar Mission, Conoor Telugu Miss, at Pram'r. Calcutta District, J Calcutta. Names. Nattonalitt. No, Districts, D. 0. Fox, P. E. United States. j J. A. Northrop " " I Mrs. J. A. Northrop " " , .Supplied by local preachers. " " • W. H. Stephens " " .. George Bowen " " ..W.J. Gladwin, A. C.Gilruth " " 7 rO. Shreeves " " I Mrs. 0. Shreeves " " \ W. £. Bobbins " I Mrs. W. E. Bobbins India. [a. S. E.Vardon " 5 j A. G. Frazer Scotland. ( W. H. Bruere United States. 2 ..A. A.Baker " " 1 ..G. II. Greenig " " 1 ( T. F. Morton India. 1 I Mrs. T. F. Morton " 2 JT.H. Cakes " ( Mrs. Sallie Stephens United States. j John Blackstock " " ■j Mrs. John Blackstock India. 4 (C.W.Christian " "j Mrs. C. W. Christiim Scotland. j D. H. Lee United States. ■j Mrs. D. H. Lee India. r L A. Eichards United States. J Mrs. I. A. Eichards " " 1 B. Peters India. 8 t Mrs. B. Peters " j W. A. Moore " ■j Mrs. W. A. Moore " 2 ( F G. Davis United 'States. ( Mrs. F. G. Davis " " 2 ( E. E. Carter " " 1 Mrs. E. E.. Carter " " 2 ( S. P. Jacobs " " 1 Mrs. S. P. Jacobs " " 2 ( L F. Eow " " 1 Mrs. I. F. Eow India. 2 f C. B. Ward United States. 1 Mrs. C. B. Ward " " [ Miss O'Leary India. [ D. 0. Ernsberger United States. 4 M. Thoburn, Presiding Elder. United States. r Mrs. J. M. Thoburn United States. J. S. Stone " C.A.Martin " " Mi-s. C. A. Martin " " J.A.Wilson " " [.MissM.E. Layton " " 13 Present Force at the Froj^^t. 297 Places. Names. Nationality. No. Calcutta : Bengalee Church P. K. Nath India. (G.I.Stone United Lai Bazaar ^ Mrs. G. I. Stone " ( Vernon E. Bennett " Hastings ] yt ^'/''^'^Y t 'I ^ I Mrs. L. R. Janney India. Tamiipore Circuit W. A. Thomas " i Saidpore Circuit J. P. Meik ' ." " i r J. E. Robinson United States. Rangoon Ur '• i' % w^"'''''' " ^ I Miss E. H. Warner " " [ H. Jaeobsen India. 4 Allahabad District, D. Osborne, Presiding Elder. India. Allahabad -i Jf^' B' i^«^l°^°® I"dia. I Miss M. B. Spence United States. Jubulpore W. D. Brown " 3 Khanclvva J. D. Webb .'.United States. Mhow C. W. D'Souza India. ^gr^,.V •: W. T. G. Curties India. Sf^^dikui M. B. Kirk United States. Meerut G. K. Gilder India. Roorkee i ^^ ^P^J^??" United States. • • ■ ] Mrs. W. Bowser " " 2 Musoorie -i i ^^?''- ' --t t '.' ] Mrs. James Lyon India. 2 Lahore ( James Sb aw Ireland. ( Mrs. James Shaw India. 2 Kurrachi i JJ" Y;/^^%^- • • v United States. ( Mrs. M. Y, Bovard " " 2 Total at the front in India 80 Absent on leave: William Taylor, W. E. Newlon, William B. Osborn, and Mrs. William B. Osborn : William Taylor, founding missions in Soutli America; William B. Osborn and wife, evan- gelizing in Australia; W. E. New^lon, most anxious to return to India, but his health is not yet sufficiently restored ; he is, however, doing nearly effective ministerial work in Kentucky. 298 SELF-SuPPOETINa MlSSIOJS^S. Places. Chili: South America. Names. Nationality. No. Copiopo Coquimbo. Valparaiso , Santiago, Concepcion U. S. OF Columbia : Panama and Aspinwall. San Jose, Cent. Amer. . Grey Town Brazil : {Lucius C. Smith United States. Mrs, Luciiis C. Smith " " Mrs. Vasbinder " " J. P. Gilliland " " Mrs. J. P. GilUland " " J. W. Collier " " Mrs, J. W, Collier " " Miss Eachel Holding " " Oscar Krouser " " Mrs, Oscar Krouser " " n. H. LaFetra " " Millard Lemon " " W. A. Wright " " Mrs. W, A. Wright " " Miss Addie H, Whitfield . . , " " Professor Farwell " " Miss Lizzie Kipp " " Miss Kinsman " " Miss Ogden " " ^ Miss Lizzie Holding " " ' A, T, Jeffrey United States. Mrs, A, T. Jeffrey " " George M. Jeffrey " " Miss Esther L. Spink *' " Miss Martha Boyce " " ^Miss Mary E, Elkins " " (EichardCopp " " \ Professor Eouse " " ..John E, Wright " " .,E.L, Latham " ^ Para. Pemambuco, f J, H. Nelson Mrs. J H. Nelson..., I J, W. Nelson 1 Mrs. J. W. Nelson Miss Clare Blunt [ Walter Gregg rW. T. Eohinson Mrs. W. T. Eobinson. G. W. Martin Mrs. G. W. Martin . . . G. B. Nind F. F. Eoose Mrs. F. F. 10 Grand total 123 Transit Fund. 299 XVII. TRANSIT FXnSTD. In the commencement of this self-snpporting organization in Bombay I offered, as has been stated, to give the Missionary Committee and their administrators this important share in the movement, viz. : to select and send out and pay the passage of all the missionaries I might require in the progress of the work; but to send no money for their support, and exercise no control over the men or their work, no more than they exercise over the New York or any other self-supporting Annual Conference. I sup- posed that they consented to the proposal and its conditions, for the first year they sent us two men, the second none, and the third three. Then I came home, and asked them to send twelve men immediately, to meet the growing demands of the woi'k. They had an appropria- tion for it of $1,000, 'which at that time would pay the passage of two men to India, instead of a dozen. They were heavily in debt and could not advance any more, so, in a friendly way, I withdrew my proposal, and agreed to ask them for no more transit money, and 300 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. have stuck to my agreement. It was arranged that the said thousand dollars should be used to pay the passage of my out-going missiona- ries that year as far as to London, and I would pay their passage thence to India out of my own hard earnings by selling ray books; that was in 1875, and from that till 1878 I worked away on that line, refusing to receive a dollar from America, except pay for books, lest I might tap or appear to tap the resources of the Missionary Society. This responsibility struck me on my way home to see my family after a separation of about seven years ; and two and a half years of the hardest work and wear of ray life stood between me and my dear wife and children. But my work in India had to be supplied with missionaries, and I bent to it through great discouragements six days per week for over two years, and sent on the men and women. My friends in India and Henry Reid, of Tasmania, gave me a liberal lift and saved me from embarrassment. "Then, just before I went to South America, Brother Chauncey Shaffer, of New York, voluntarily offered to pay the passage of a missionary to India; Andrew K. Rowan, of Trenton, New Jersey, made a similar offer. I needed the men and Trai^sit Fund. 301 had not the money of my own to spare, and allowed the two brethren to pay the passage of two missionaries to India ; but I regarded those as exceptional cases. So in my proposals to outsiders and Koman Catholics of South Amer- ica to send them preachers and teachers, the iirst condition was that they should pay their passage, and I did not intend that our people in the United States should be allowed to put a dollar into the movement; but I now saw that it was God's will that I should receive passage money from home; first, from the fail- ure in a few places to send the passage money in time, and, second, by the fact that was com- ing to view that vast resources for self-supjjort could be struck by men on the ground, tliat could not be drawn out in advance for passage money for people the donors knew nothing about. So I kindly notified our Missionary Secretaries that T had tried the principle of self-denying expediency, of refusing to let my friends help me pay the passage of my mission- aries, long enough, and would from that date fall back on the fundamental principle of my original platform, of allowing any who so desired to contribute to pay their passage and furnish their needed outfit. 302 SELF-SuppoETiNa MissioN^s. I then opened a little book in wMch to record the names and amounts of persons wish- ing to invest in that way. The following is a copy of its preface : Transit Passage Fund for Self-Supporting Missions. To the Patrons and Friends of Education and of Evan- gelization : As the founder of Self-Supporting Missions and Schools in India, which now support thirty minis- ters, and call for ten more this year, I appeal to your generosity to help send the men required. I have recently opened twelve centers of self-sup- porting educational and evangelistic work in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, West Coast of South America, requiring fifteen preachers and teachers. The people whom they are to serve guarantee their support and most of the passage money required, but in some cases a subsidy is needed. I pay my own expenses and work gratuitously, but need help to pay the passage of additional workers to South America, and to all lands in which the currents of commerce deposit available agency and resources for self-supporting missions. I do not wish to receive a dollar that would otherwise go into the regular missionary treasury. This self-supporting work which the Lord of the harvest is opening with such success is outside of all Missionary Societies, but not antagonistic to any. I wish that the* small sum needed simply for passage should be outside and over and above the contributions Transit Fund. 303 rightly claimed, and so much needed, by the Missionary Societies. On these conditions I will thankfully receive and apply and duly report the voluntary offerings of all who wish to co-operate with me in this work. Respectfully submitted, WILLIAM TAYLOR. MroDLETOwN, Conn., May 13, 1878. Up to that time, as before stated, the Mis- sionary Society had sent five missionaries to my work, then the $1,000 toward the passage of my men for 1875 as far as London. Subse- quently they sent out Miss Terry to be the wife of Eev. J. E. Robinson, one of the men whom they had sent to my field, so that I sup- pose they paid out passage money for all these to the amount of about $4,000. Brothers Shaffer and Rowan, $750. I kept no account of what I gave ; I gave all I could make and save, and put in what was sent me from India and Tasmania as well. The flow of funds into my transit depart- ment was by no means rapid nor adequate to the style we thought at least desirable. I had a dozen highly educated young gentlemen and ladies ready to sail, and to ask those young men to go steerage, among the cattle and dogs, was a very humiliating thing to do, and all I could 304 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. say to them was, " I can only get money enough to pi'ovide a steerage passage for you. If you can subsidize it out of your own pockets, and walk up higher, all right." But the dear young fellows had just com- pleted their college course, and could not find it convenient to pay the difference, and said as I had gone to South America in the steer- age they could do the same. Of course they could; heroic young fellows! they were ready for any thing that was right. But the dear young ladies, half a dozen of refined noble young women, to allow them to go steerage! O, my soul ! I feel badly every time I think about it, but I could not help it. My people had to leave on short notice, according to my agreement with my patrons in South America. So I had some circulars printed, stating the facts in the case, and that these people had to sail in two weeks, and that I was a thousand dollars short even for steerage passage. I was really sending more than I had engaged pas- sage for, and some of the money promised not having come, I was caught. So I got the names of twenty-four of our most wealthy and liberal givers, and wrote them on the blank of my circulai's, explaining more fully the great Transit Fund. 305 emergency, and respectfully submitted, that if it was their pleasure to invest a small amount in my Transit Fund, I would gladly recognize them as patrons of the movement. My twenty- four circulars and letters all went for nothing. They did not make a return of one cent ; so I threw my circulars away. An old friend in Baltimore sent me $10, and small amounts kept coming in unasked. I hurried round and sold my books, and one way and another I got them all off without delay as steerage passengers. I "assuredly gathered," from all the indica- tions bearing on the subject, that the Lord did not want me to solicit funds, but leave the mat- ter to him, and I have not asked for help since. In all my Journeyings, preaching and lecturing, I have never appealed to the people on behalf of the Transit Fund. I, of course, give informa- tion to my friends personally who want to know about it. At a camp-meeting at Mansfield, Ohio, in the summer of 1878, John S. Inskip and William M'Donald proposed that I allow them — either in their monthly, "The Advocate of Holiness," or their weekly, " The Christian Standard and Home Journal" — ^to advertise my Transit Fund 306 SELF-SuppoETiNa Missions. to tlieir readers, and to acknowledge tlie receipts in each issue of whatever might be sent in. Such a proposal was entirely unsought and unexpected, but, coming as it did in my time of need, for I was hunting up and sending men as fast as I could, I believed it was of the Lord, and consented. So ^'The Christian Standard and Home Journal " opened a comer for the acknowledgment of the cheerful offerings of its readers week by week, and that resource, with what has been handed to me directly, has kept the machine running ever since, so that I have not had to detain a missionary an hour for want of passage money. I am not a member of the National Holiness Association, nor any other association, except the Methodist Episcopal Church ; but I advo- cate heart-purity from the daily experience of it for thirty-seven years, and I advocate these men of God who are so earnestly helping to ful- fill the great mission of Methodism, of " spread- ing scriptural holiness over these lands." Besides passage, we have supplied each mis- sionary with a meager outfit, such as was abso- lutely needed for his or her work. Those espe- cially who went to found schools, not for them- selves but for the Church of God, it was needful Transit Fund. 307 to provide witli seats, desks, blackboards, globes, maps, etc. All tMs permanent furniture is to be not individual but connectional property. I ar- ranged to get such things, with the books re- quired, from the original manufacturers at a cheap rate ; the cost of the books, slates, etc., to be sold to the pupils, we required the principals to refund as far as possible. The missionaries who thus go to found first-class schools in a Eoman Catholic country, not knowing the lan- guage, and having to depend on the tuition of schools to be originated, for their rent, board, and all current expenses from the start — not popular schools open to the priests, but Protestant schools precluding them — such an undertaking is above the line of human possibilities. Wise ecclesiastics far away take up their telescopes and sweep the field of vision along the plane of human possibilities, and exclaim, "We cannot see how you do it." No, indeed, not on that plane. Yet our men do succeed. I took Brother and Sister Nelson with me to Para, the commercial emporium of the Amazon, a couple of years ago, and opened their way to found a school for native Portuguese children ; not an English family in the city. Brother Nelson landed, with forty dollars of his own 308 Self-Supporting Missioisrs. money in his pocket. The freights and duty on his school furniture amounted to a hundred dollars. He took boarding for himself and wife at a hotel at fifty dollars per month, rented a hall for school purposes and for preaching to a few English business men at fifty dollars per month. I was puzzled to know how the Lord would put them in there. I could not help them, for I had scarcely money enough for my pioneer tour south, and most of it as a steerage passenger. But the Lord did put them in, and they paid all their expenses the first year, and are going on to build up an institution for God. But I think that though God has wonderfully helped us, it is not his will that we should con- tinue to put so heavy a strain on our pioneer founders. It endangers their lives and wears them out prematurely. They are limited to a moderate allowance, even of their own earnings, holding in trust all they clear above that stipu- lated amount to be invested in real estate and buildings for a permanent base of their own institutions and the churches that will follow. What ought to be done is not now, nor ever to the end of the world, to provide a fund for the payment of a dollar to any man who is able to labor, nor hence to endow an institution which Transit Fund. 309 would amount to tlie same thing ; but to pro- vide greater facilities for more effective educa- tional work and witli less wear of tlie workers. We sliould at least pay half the rent of the buildings required for school purposes till an adequate income can be realized without un- duly cramping and pinching the missionaries. Or, better still, we ought to have a " building or loan fund." Our people in Santiago, for example, pay over two thousand dollars a year rent for their school buildings ; now if we could, even as a loan, put up buildings at a cost of twenty thousand dollars, and receive their rent of two thousand dollars a year, in ten years the prin- ciple would come back, and repeat itself in some other city where God is in great want of just such an institution. We want no collections, nor soliciting agents in the field to compete with the regular official agency of the Church; let the gifts of the peo- ple come on as they do now ; but give informa- tion to our friends concerning the need of a Building, as well as a Transit Fund, and pray to God for his blessing on the gifts and the givers. The Transit and BuiLDiNa Fund should be under the management of a small committee of laymen, thoroughly practical business men, yet 20 310 Self-Supporting Missions. men of sucli consecration to God and liis self- supporting missions as to join me on principle No. 1 — give their services free of charge. This wonld give greater breadth, security, and stability especially to the educational de- partment of this movement. The object of the Transit Fund can be broadened a little, so as to make better provision for the internal work of the institution; and the Building Fund to assist, at least, in providing by rent, or, if possible, by the erection of suitable build- ings for our schools, both in India and South America. I am sure the school work, on strict Christian principles, is the highway, and possi- bly the only way, of access to the upper classes of those nations, the people who have the brains and the money and the social position, and hence the influence that God needs to control the masses and lead them to a better life. We can advance on that line mth great rapidity. If our friends will agree to provide the pas- sage money, as they have been doing, and, addi- tional to that, the buildings, I will pay my own way as hitherto, and open the fields and find the workers, and plant a Christian academic institution in every city of note in Central and South America inside of two years. Why not Transit Fuis-d. 311 do business for God as our great railroad and commercial men do for themselves ? I traveled with a man in South America who was em- ployed by twelve manufacturing establishments in Philadelphia to introduce their wares into its principal cities, each firm allowing him $2,000 for his trip of one year round that continent. He was a man of great experience in his line, and could command those rates — $24,000 for that year's work. Now, I'll go at my own expense, and will never receive one cent of money out of it, if rich men of God or poor people will simply do what I propose. Then let our wealthy men of leisure occasionally go with me to South America, where no voice of praise is now heard, and see thousands of children in our Sunday-schools, and hear them singing the praises of Jesus. Education with us is not an end, but a means, of preparing the way of the Lord, and then his glory shall be revealed in the salvation of the people. The Lord willing, I shall see it in my day. For a full exhibit of Transit Fund for the four years it has been in existence, see Appendix. 312 Self-Suppoeting Missions. XVIII. ORPHANAGES. DuEma the Madras famine, in which half a million of poor people starved to death before the Government could get supplies to them, Kev. C. B. Ward, one of our ministers, traveled a circuit in that region a thousand miles long, with seventeen appointments. The daily sight of gaunt skeletons of men and women, more dead than alive, with their sallow, projecting cheek-bones and sunken eyes, dying for want of food, and little children lying round, and huddled together, starving to death, and living babes tugging at the breasts of dead mothers, melted the preacher's heart within him. So he began to pick up some of the dying children whose parents had perished, and having com- menced he proceeded rapidly. A Eurasian brother, A. C. Davis, a government civil en- gineer, with a good salary, joined Brother Ward in this work of charity, and they founded an orphanage. The two of them gave their earn- ings, and received such assistance as was sent to them by friends who knew their work and its needs. Orphanages. 313 At the next Conference session Brotlier Ward asked the presiding elders, no Bishop being present, to release him from English work and cut him loose from dependence upon any English Quarterly Conference, and allow him to take his orphans into the remote regions of the Nizam's dominions and found a Telugii Mission. The place he had selected as the site of his orphanage and mission was in the midst of a million or two of Telugu Hindus, among whom no missionary had ever appeared. This locality was so remote that his nearest post-office, Chadarghat, is seventy-five miles dis- tant. Think of a man getting up in the morn- ing hungry for the news or a fresh letter, and then having to go or send seventy-five miles to the post-office ! Well, when Brother Ward's application came up for consideration, the brethren said, '^ Brother Ward, how can you live away there in the wilderness ? Eemember, mth your own family and helpers, you will have the responsibility of providing for eighty-six persons, and no money, and not the guarantee of a dollar from any source." Ward replied, "I have a friend. Brother Mather, a civil engineer in government serv- 314 SELF-SuPPORTINa MiSSIOK-S. ice out in that region, and lie is preparing my way. Among a great variety of information I have received from Brother Mather about that country, I learn that it is a great place for tigers and bears and panthers and wolves and hyenas and birds of every feather. I have in- quired particularly of Brother Mather about those animals of the earth and fowls of the air, whether there is any manifest want or destitu- tion among them, or any burdened with debt, or whether any are grumbling about the hard times. ^' Brother Mather assures me that, so far as he has been able to learn, all these wild denizens of the woods are well fed, they are plump and sleek, buoyant and cheerful, seeming to vie with each other in making the most noise in the spontaneous expression of the jubilant life that is in them. So I have considered this matter, and have come to the conclusion that if God takes such good care of his wild live stock in that wilderness, I may safely trust him with the orphans." So when the appointments were read out a new appointment appeared on the list— "Telugu Mission, C. B. Ward." Removing far from the place they had occu- pied in a Mohammedan tomb, at Goolberger, ORPHAlSrAGES. 315 Brother Ward was very sorry to part with Ms fellow-laborer, Brother Davis ; but soon after he, also, was removed by government appoint- ment (without reference to the orphanage how- ever) right into the region to which Ward was going, and was off in time to help Ward build his temporary sheds as the home of himself and his orphans. When their new home in the wilderness was prepared the orphans made a journey of 200 miles on foot to get to it. The little waifs walked ten miles a day, so it took twenty days of walking to make the distance. I do not presume to give a history of this institution; it would fill a volume, but I give simply a few il- lustrative peeps into the lights and shades of the movement. Some of their children died ; a few they gave as seed for a little orphanage started at Alichpoor; forty-seven of those re- maining have been converted to God, have been baptized, and have made good progress in spiritual growth. I here insert a brief article from the pen of Brother Ward, published in his paper, " The Indian Methodist Watchman." 316 Self-supporting Missions. THE TELUGU MISSION. Christian Orphanage. The first month of this year has been one of the best in our history. A faithful God has supplied our every want. He has also given us all good health on the whole. Sister O'Leary has had fever, and perhaps needs a few weeks' change. Our spiritual estate has been greatly enriched and blessed day by day all this month. Daily meetings have been much more inter- esting and we trust profitable, since so many are now able to read. We found it advisable to re-arrange a little, and we have now two meetings a day for those who read and two for those who do not read yet, and to these latter we assign a smaller portion for mem- orizing. We began January with a series of lessons to run through at least four months on the life of Jesus. A portion is selected containing from five to fifteen verses, and among these one is to be memorized while all is our lesson. Nursa and Rama and Eraka, when needed, are very acceptable in leading meetings, explaining lessons, etc. These are our helpers. Bless God, the day is not far distant when we shall have a number of solid helpers among these " famine waifs." At our meetings all who can read round a verse in turn from their new Telugu Testaments. Twenty- seven read nicely now. Another innovation is the in- troduction of what corresponds to family prayer. After general prayer is over at night, each Kolcar gathers his or her household and has evening prayer with them, just as the head of a family should always do. We want God's idea of a Christian home enshrined in the The Telugu Missioit. 317 hearts and minds of these children, and we felt this was one desideratum. We submitted the matter, and the experiment has been a blessed success, and now passes into history, as one of the daily habits of our '* wilder- ness church " members. Bless the Lord ! . Our new quarters afford us more comfortable homes, better accommodations. The effect is seen in better kept houses, cleaner clothes and persons, and conse- quently a greater general happiness of all. We are giving more diligent attention to the in- struction of the children, with some success ; the chil- dren cease all work and study one hour — from 12 M. to 1 P.M.— daily. We mean better thin gs than this even in the future. This year will complete the education of most of our children in all probability. We want them well furnished in the rudiments. Of the small piece of land we took up, the boys, ten in number, have nearly half all cleared. By the rainy season they will be ready for some little farming. This is the beginning of their independence, and we rejoice in it greatly. Brother Davis did not get back to stay any time with us. But he called one day, the 28th. Brother Monet came with him and remained three days. He has kindly entered in our diary his observation and reflec- tions on our work. They have greatly cheered us, and, though we cannot enter his remarks here, we mean to do so in our " Third Report," which, D. V., we hope to publish in April. During this month we have collected all the timber required for our houses. We build economically, be- lieving that the Lord indicates his will in this matter 818 SELF-SuppoKTmG Missions. by the amount of money he sends us for building. Yet we shall have better homes than have ever been occu- pied by many who have been " pilgrims and strangers " in this world. We shall have more than we deserve and enough for comfort, and this is all any one really enjoys. We find we can live without brick and mortar and be as happy as the children of a king. Bless the Lord ! The frames of our houses are up, and they will probably be closed in by March 1st. We feel greatly our need of help. But in this, too, we believe the Lord indicates his will by compelling us to stay here and train these orphans. How gladly would we begin evangelistic work in the host of vil- lages about us ! But our hands are too short. But the Lord encourages us with the prospect of being accom- panied with one or more of our orphans, now young men and women, when we get out. We are probably where the adage " Make haste slowly " is appropriate. But it is often a cross to heed this counsel now that we can speak the Telugu. January 3d, and again the 5th, we were visited by sharp showers of rain, since which the heat has been daily increasing. December ISth we had 46° at 5 A.M.; but now we have it Q5^ at the same hour, and above 100° at midday. But we are in a land of " corn and wine ; " so we sing and toil on, expecting to see a great victory for the Lord. Brotlier Ward displays a versatility of talent. He is a good Greek scholar, and equally good in tlie use of ax, saw, or plane, and, not satisfied witli building an orphanage for Hindu children, The Telugu Mission". 319 lie lias added a department for Eurasian or- phans, called the Christian Home. Children all well. The last month has witnessed marked progress on the part of the children in their studies. Harry and Alice have mastered the 112 ques- tions of the Catechism No. 1, which they have recited at breakfast time each day. Henry, Ellen and Willie have in like manner mastered 68 questions. Jimmy and Richard have conquered 46. We have found this a good way to have our minds profitably engaged at our table. Ofttimes the table affords useless topics of con- versation and gossip as well as food. Sister O'Leary has had the burden of these children all the month, and somehow seems happy at it. I am not sure but she would make a better step-mother than she has any prospect of being just now. I have at- tended the daily meeting with them, always profitably. Scriptural safeguards thrown around children are of immensely more benefit to them than appears at first glance. These children hold their own evening wor- ship together as any family would. The work of the Spirit is very manifest in Alice. The Lord remembers us with funds sufficient. Our cash balance is about Rs. 200 still. Constant contribu- tions do not allow it to go down much. We want more children the happy inmates of our "Home.'* We hope any one knowing of destitute East-India orphans, under twelve years of age, will kindly let us know of them. As if to doubly encourage us in this work of working and trusting, the Lord has given us 320 Self-supporting Missions. such a plenty of money as we have never before had in India. Yet at no time have we ever had much in hand. We have had abundance for ourselves and native orphans, and about Rs. 600 for the '* Christian Home." Heathenism is something mightier than the ice mount- ains that smashed James Gordon Bennett's ship in the Northern Ocean. But the Sun of righteousness shall honey-comb the mighty thing and it shall fall forever. How much of a share our " Children's Homes " shall have in that great demolition the Lord knoweth. We need a teacher for these children alone. Has India no daughters who love Jesus more than self and ease, who will say : " Here am I, send me ? " We praise God and go forward joyfully. We are thankful for fre- quent letters of sympathy and encouragement. We hope we may be helped by the prayers of many always, as we believe we are now. C. B. WARD. Christian Pramoor, Feb. 1, 1882. Query ? Is not this a charity work, just the same as the orphanages and missions founded by the Society ? It is in part a charity work, but differs from the other in several points. In the regular way a large amount of money must be raised, and buildings erected in a style becoming the standing of the home institution it represents. Then an appropriation made by the Mission- ary Society to be paid annually. The superin- The Telugu Missioi^. 321 tendent's family and employees must be in a position to maintain a respectable social stand- ing in society, so as to command influence, and draw all the indigenous patronage and help they can get. They are, of course, pious and earnest, and do a good work, but when short of funds — and they are often short — they pray to the secretaries and Missionary Committee, ten thousand miles farther away from them than the throne of heavenly grace. 'Tis said " that prayers long on the way return the more heavily freighted with blessing," but it does not hold good in this case, as a rule, not from lack of disposition on the part of the Mission- ary Committee, but because they have so many prayers of similar kind spread out before them that, with their limited supplies, they have to cut down, divide up and distribute meager] y, according to their best Judgment. Their little " hay-stack " in each field is not adequate to the needs of the flock, and many suffer from real want ; but on their popular theory that the work of the world's conversion is '^ re- duced to a question of dollars and cents," they keep on praying for the money to be sent from a remote country. 1. Ward and Davis did not begin with brick 322 Self-Supporting Missions. and mortar, but witli starving children. They got the use of a deserted Mohammedan mauso- leum, cleared out the rubbish, and fitted it up as a temporary house for their orphans. 2. They gave their own money and wrought with their own hands, and got contracts for road making, and put all their boys and girls who were able to work to earn a living. Then and now a part of each day is devoted to study and religious services, and a part to hard work and self-support. Then whatever they need for current expenses besides, God furnishes from such resources and such agency as he has available. Once when in need a Mohammedan sent them $25. God thus sends along one of his " cow-boys " to put down a little bundle of hay in the prairie, and the recipients get it and thank God, and graze away at the indigenous grass, however short the picking. Their prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread," is not presented to a Missionary Committee ten thousand miles away, who, like the Jewish high-priest that entered the holy of holies but once a year, are only able to answer such prayers annually in the month of November, but is addressed daily to the mediatorial throne of Jesus, and answered The Telugu Missioiq^. 328 the same day. When assistance comes in through Grod's human agents, Ward cfe Co. often know nothing of its human source, and when they do know whence it came they have no assurance that any more will come from that source ; so they keep " looking unto Jesus," praying and praising daily, and meantime working away with their hands. This orphan- age is now about four years old, and Brother Ward writes that in all that time they have never gone in debt to the amount of a dollar, never borrowed a dollar, and never lacked a dollar that they really needed, yet never had more than a few dollars in their treasury at one time. The foregoing statements and comparison in- dicate two distinct channels of charity. The one is in the form of donations to a charity insti- tution to be '' pooled" and disbursed by "mid- dle-men " agency. That is the only way by which, to any considerable extent, the good people of America can build and support schools and orphanages and support mission- aries in remote heathen lands, and it is a means of grace to them personally to engage in it largely that is worth more to them than its cost by a hundred fold, besides the priceless 324 Self-Supporting Missions. benefit conferred on the heathen. The other is in the form of gifts directly from the giver to the object without circumlocution, leakage, or middle-men agency. For illustration, Brother Frank A. Goodwin, on his way home from his loved work in Cal- cutta to die, stopped a few weeks at Malta. He often observed a well-dressed gentleman of very quiet demeanor at the table of the same hotel in which he and his wife were board- ing, and occasionally met him " in the library." One day this unobtrusive stranger modestly approached Brother Goodwin in the library, saying, " Excuse me, sir, but I understand you are a missionary returning from India, and I thought you might be in want of funds, and I shall be happy to furnish you what you need." Brother Goodwin thanked him, and then explained to him the nature and w^ork of our self-supporting missions in India, and added that when his health gave way and he had to leave for home, his people had generously pre- sented him with a purse with adequate funds for all his wants. And he therefore respect- full}^ declined the offer. The next day. Brother Goodwin being in the library, this gentleman walked up to him The Telugu Missioi^. 325 without a word, and as though he was going to shake hands with him, he put in his hand a twenty-pound note, (about a hundred dollars.) Without a word they both stood and wept, and the stranger quietly retired. And Brother Goodwin lifted up weeping eyes and heart to God and thanked him, not so much for the money as for the mysterious touch of the hand of God in it, and it brought to his mind the unfailing supplies he had received in his seven- years' struggle in extending his kingdom in India. Thus we have indicated the difference be- tw^een a donation and a gift, both right in their place ; but in India, w^here every living Chris- tian is in daily association with the heathen, hand and heart in continual direct contact, we should run our charity in the second channel I have indicated instead of the first. We want no missionary society there. Every Church is a missionary society for the region in which it is set as a beacon light, and every member of it a hand-to-hand worker and giver as God shall lead. Our self-supporting mis- sions are doing, and will more and more do, a grand charity work of the latter sort. Such gifts impart a divine magnetic thrill to both 326 SELF-SuPPORTINa MlSSIOlS^S. giver and receiver, and Jesus makes this entry in his book, " Forasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my needy ones, ye did it unto me." A peep into another phase of the Telugu orphanage work may be seen in the following letter from Brother Ward in " The Watchman " of April, 1882 : Leaving Pramoor February 2, I saw no more of the work till the month had expired. Sister O'Leary was queen of the castle in our absence. Brother A. C. Davis, being engaged on public work in the vicinity, found it convenient to camp near us a portion of the month, and outside of office hours he has given such oversight to our building operations as he could. He has been in also at a number of our meetingrs. The divineness of any benevolence finds some proof in the persistent and ofttimes fiery opposition it meets with from the adversary. It has been my lot to be necessarily absent from the Orphanage on several oc- casions in the past. Satan has demonstrated the shal- lowness of many of his conclusions on these occasions. Once he set his Mohammedan allies to luring away the orphans most boldly, but God gave the victory to the feeble. Again he stirred up the larger girls to mutiny. They had always been very loyal before, but now only a rigorous hand brought the sister's victory again. On my return this time I found he had made tools of some of the larger boys. They had endeavored to set at naught Sister O'Leary and otherwise mar the con- dition of our work. The Telugf Mission. 327 Brother Davis' presence soon set matters right, as strong hands and strong faith are usually aj^t to do. We were long ago confirmed in the opinion that our work in these parts, both present and prospective, was a thing unpalatable to the devil, and that, therefore, he would continually endeavor to break up our work, and us too if he could. So hot fires, either from with- in or without, do not surprise us. Yet they show us our personal helplessness and the standing necessity of living much in prayer, humbly depending on God's almighty arm hour by hour for grace unto victory. I find on my return most things in order and a few traces of difficulties encountered here and there still appear. But if our work is of God nothing can de- stroy it unless we throw up our commissions under the great King or take our pensions. We bless God for an inward victory, more and more of which we expect to realize till, with crowned heads, we shout it through the skies with many who have been rescued from heathenism in these very parts. Under Sister O'Leary's supervision Rama Nursa and Eraka have done the work of the puntulu whom we dismissed recently, while she also has taught and cared for the East-Indian orphans as well. The bands have met as usual, and the general meetings have maintained something of their wonted interest. Building movements had so far prospered that we were greeted with a home decked with flowers when we came. I also found two houses nearly ready for the occupancy of the East- Indian orphans. These houses are humble, cheap, comfortable, and somewhat durable. "We think 328 Self-Supporting Missions. a visit to us would be much more prepossessing than the figures I might name here would indicate. But we want to say we are very happy in our palmyra-roofed home. In the past our invitations have been hearty, but so far no friend has ventured to span the distance between us and Hyderabad. Seventy-five miles in a cart is a great distance in these days of steam. However, during our absence, two missionaries called and spent a Sabbath morning with our orphanage and orphanage workers. It is said they had a pleasant visit and were somewhat pleased with our children. These missiona- ries were agents of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and were spying out the country for the most advan- tageous point in the Yelgundel District, Nizam's Do- minions, for a mission station. A little over two years ago we were led to settle in this waste region of the Lord's vineyard, and since that time we have made such progress as we could, in preparation for aggress- ive mission work in the country about us. "We have never regarded our possessions here exclu- sive. We have been somewhat unable to sympathize fully with the idea that one may or must have a mo- nopoly of all the souls in fifty miles of him, so much so that they may perish in heathen darkness rather than that another man should preach Christ to them. Of course, we are not in sympathy with the Jesuitical policy that leads one missionary to build up of the converts and workers he may be able to lead away from his predecessor's fold. We are glad of the opportunity of welcoming our Wesleyan brethren to this district on behalf of the Meth- The Telugu Mission-. 329 odist Episcopal Church, although they are now found doing again the very same thing they have accused us incessantly, publicly and privately, of doing. Our only desire is that they may plant in these parts only genu- ine Methodist Christianity. The heathen of these parts spend enough on folly, sometimes countenanced by missionaries, to pay the way of a mighty gospel work among them. We are glad to have our two youthful sons, Wesley Asbury and William Taylor, with us. They demonstrated their ability to travel in coming from Bangalore here in good time. Two months for them and their mother in Bangalore made them fresh and hale-looking. A good man has expressed a hope that they may both become Telugu missionaries and bless thousands and be blessed by the same. We share this hope with full hearts. We have been glad to find an awakening among our people in some places we h^ve visited in our absence. Madras and Chadar- ghat are undertaking as not hitherto. The Lord re- vive our people on the line of their responsibilities to the heathen. We brought back with us Willie and Mary Smith from Bangalore as recruits for our " Christian Home." We now have seven East-Indian boys and three girls. We now settle down to hard work in the more especial effort to develop a band of mission workers, a little army to sing, testify, live and preach the Gospel from village to village, and in the more general one of teach- ing. We hope, as soon as we are re-enforced, to walk and talk and sing our blessed gospel among the be- nighted heathen of these parts. The Lord mercifully provides for all our wants, 330 Self-Supporting Missions. though after twelve months of ceaseless plenty he suffers us once more to come to the last rupee. But he delivers daily with abundant grace. The Lord is the stay of our hand and heart. C. B. WARD. Peamoor, March 4, 1882. Brother Ward is one of those who " does no missionaiy work among the heathen. The impression that he does is caused by virtual misrepresentation." See Eeport of the last November Missionary Committee. COLAR ORPHANAGE. This institution was founded also during the great famine in the Madras Presidency a few years ago. Miss Anstey, an educated, conse- crated English lady, was for some years a mis- sionary in India under the direction of the London Missionary Society. Her health failed, and she was sent home to die. Her heart was in India, and she so greatly preferred to work there for the salvation of the heathen than to go to heaven that she asked God for the gift of restored life and health and special power to work for him in India. God quickly answered her prayer, and she returned immediately to India, and, without any human certainty of friends or funds, she went to work to gather up CoLAR Orphanage. 331 the dying children — dying from starvation. Her orphanage numbers about three hundred. As has been previously stated, the orphanage was not founded by authority from any mis- sionary committee. They would all have been dead before any foreign missionary committee could have learned and considered the facts and taken action in the premises. I do not pre- tend to give a history of this wonderful insti- tution and how the Lord has kindly cared for it, but I will insert from " The Watchman " a letter from their pastor, our Brother S. P. Jacobs, which will give us a peep into the inner circle of its daily movements : The Editor "I. M. Watchman" — My Dear Brother — We rejoice to tell you of God's dealing with us. He is continually showing us some- thing new in his word. More and more the conviction deepens that we are largely walking in the experience of the Mosaic dispensation, but supposing ourselves to be in the new dispensation. Conscious regeneration and guidance by the Spirit were enjoyed under the law, (Num. xi, 17, 26, 27 ; Judg. vi, 34 ; ' Deut. xxxiv, 9 ; Psa. li, 10-12 ; 1 Chron. xxviii, 12 ; Micah iii, 8, etc, ; yet persons having this experience sup- pose themselves in possession of the blessings of the Gospel. The grace of John the Baptist greatly exceeds many of the present day ; yet Christ declared that the least in the kingdom of heaven excelled him. The 332 SELF-SuppoETmo Missions. experiences common to the age preceding Christ s ascen- sion, are not the experiences characterizing the gospel dispensation. The powerful experiences characterizing the period following Christ's glorification place one in the new dispensation. See John vii, 38, 39 ; Acts i, 8 ; ii, 4-47; xix, 2-6; 2 Cor. iii, 7-18 ; Eph. iii, 16-19; Col. i, 9-11, etc. "We cannot say that we have fully attained ; but we follow after that we may apprehend that for which Christ apprehends us. We find the work of edifying more difficult than that of making converts. This is generally the case. Among the reasons are the fact that the grace of regeneration is regarded as Christian- ity, that all additional grace after justification is thought profitable but not necessary, and that Satan is especially opposed to all advance in grace beyond the pardon of sin. The adversary well knows that increased holiness and power wonderfully diminishes the liability to apostasy. In addition to special instruction in our regular serv- ices to edify believers, the daily Scripture lessons in the schools are arranged with respect to this end. The programme for scriptural instruction for one week was as follows : Marks of a Christian — Love. Monday — This Love makes us avoid all sinful connec- tions with the world. 1 John ii, 15, 17. Tuesday — ^This Love makes us cleave to God. Psalm xvi, 5 ; 1 John iv, 19. Wednesday — This Love makes us cleave to the children of God. 1 John iv, 20, 21 ; 1 Peter i, 22. CoLAE Orphanage. 333 Thursday — This Love makes us love our enemies. Matt. V, 44. Friday — This Love turns every thing into blessing. Romans viii, 28. Another week the subject was humility ; another, patience ; another, faith ; another, peace ; another, idolatry, and so forth. The class-meetings afford much aid to edification ; but closer personal intercourse is needed to ascertain the spiritual condition of each and bestow the needed help. The former habits of heathen life make necessary the most vigilant oversight and the most rigid adherence to God's word in both instruction and discipline. The idea that blameless Christian character, according to the Bible, is not to be expected of native converts, is unscriptural and unreasonable. Native character is human character. And the only way to improve human character is by partaking of the divine nature. And the only method of securing this is through regeneration and sanctification. Regen- eration ends the death of sin, however great ; and en- tire sanctification ends the pollution of sin, however great. A native of India brought from the death and pollution of sin into the life and holiness of God is as fair a saint as a European or an American in that con- dition. And the anointing of the Holy Spirit in addi- tion will make a grand success of either. A carnal or self-seeking life, under a Christian garb, is not better than such a life under heathen garb. " All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is no difference." So, when fully saved, there is no differ- ence, because " God is no respecter of persons." 334 Self-Supporting Missions. Every passing montli of experience and observation confirms us in the foregoing convictions. A BRAHMAN CONVEETED. Mr. E. Lackshmen Row, formerly a teacher in Miss Anstey's Orphanage, came to Colar to spend the holi- days. He esteemed himself a Christian, although he wore the "sacred thread," the cue, and at times the mark in the forehead, because at heart he had lost faith in Brahmanism, and had embraced, in a measure, the Christian doctrine. We suggested that he was de- ceived ; that Christianity is fundamentally the divine life in the soul, causing a complete change of man's nature from sin to holiness ; and that this change in man's moral nature necessarily effected a change in his conduct. He insisted that one might be a Christian without regeneration ; and that if regeneration be the standard very few Christians would be saved. He claimed Christian teaching and living in support of his views. We were compelled to admit that nominal Christians, by precept and example gave him some grounds for his opinion ; but we more strongly insisted upon an utter change of moral nature and conduct, giving God's word as authority and confirming it with our personal testimony. We declared the doctrinal formulas in the Bible to indicate divine, spiritual power, as truly as chemical formulas represented natural, physical force ; that as the exploding dynamite differed from the chem- ical formula for its composition, so the living Christian was the embodiment of the scriptural doctrine ; and that a merely doctrinal Christian was as great an anom- CoLAR Orphanage. 335 aly as would be an army of printed men with printed guns and printed horses. He seemed somewhat satis- fied ; but would not abandon the insignia of Brahman- ism and openly accept and confess Christ. He finally left for Madras, where he was a student at college ; but prayer from faithful hearts reached the throne in his behalf. He turned aside to Bangalore, whence he wrote of his deep distress of mind and his hope to become a true Christian. Unable to find relief for his burdened soul, he returned to Colar to join the Christian fold. Satan, unable longer to hold him in Brahmanism, now attempted to beguile him into a false Christian hope. He requested baptism. This was refused him. He needed regeneration to change his nature instead of baptism to change simply his relation. We held before him God's standard of repentance and of Christian character. 2 Cor. vi, 14-18 ; 1 Peter i, 14-16. Having abandoned the "mark," and having laid aside the " thread " the day before, he expressed a readiness for prayer for his conversion. We brought the shears to cut off the cue, but he hesitated, declined, and plead " looks," " national custom," etc., in extenuation. He then said : " Let us pray here ; then I will go and have my hair cut." " No," I said ; " I do not kneel before God except in his covenant." He left the room ; and we entered our study to await results. In a few moments he returned with half the length of hair cut off, saying, "I have turned out the devil and all his work." I said, " That will not do ; God demands thorough work." Enough of the hair remained to form a short cue for a passport back into Brahman society in case he did not obtain regeneration. He again left the 336 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missiojs^s. • drawing-room, and we entered our study to await re- sults. Satan suggested that we were too exacting, that he would become discouraged ; but the Holy Spirit gave us very clear directions, and we remembered that regeneration follows repentance. He soon returned with the shears, saying, " Cut it off to suit you." We cut it short with a satisfaction sur- passed only by his gladness over the triumph he had achieved over Satan. All now knelt in prayer, and, in a few minutes, after a very definite acceptance of Christ as his Saviour, he was born again. His face beamed with divine joy as he clasped our hand in Christian love. A few days after this some one's profession of Christianity was spoken of ; when this new convert from Brahminism said, "I have no faith in him because he wears his cue," showing, evidently, that his own cue was his last emblem of idolatry sur- rendered. We have been minute in statement in order to throw a little light upon the question why native Christians are so generally weak and backward in winning others to Christ. The chief reason is, they have never been regenerated. And they have not been regenerated, because they have never repented. And they have not evangelically repented, because they have not had suf- ficient gospel light. Another cause of this weakness is the lack of edification. And Christian edification or progress is very difiicult in those truly regenerate, be- cause of indwelling bent to sin. And this bent to sin- ning exists because entire sanctification is postponed. And postponing this sanctification is as truly a violation CoLAR Orphanage. 337 of scriptural precept and promise, as is the postponing of repentance and justification. Eleven days after his conversion, Brother Lackshmen Row was fully sanctified. His consecration and trust for this was as definite as his surrender and trust for pardon. And the divine witness to his sanctification was more powerful than that of his justification. He exclaimed, " O, this joy ! It is inexpressible." His whole being was impressed with the divine power. We magnified God together for this demonstration of the Gospel, this monument of God in the heart against idolatry. Having been greatly buffeted by Satan, and his consecration having been severely tested, he is now running joyfully the way of holiness. His conversion created an uproar in the town. Effort was made to imprison him, but, failing in this, they tried to regain him to Brahmanism by flattery and sym- pathy. Every effort failing, they called a mass-meet- ing and passed resolutions to put out of caste all who should be connected with the institution or patronize the Petta school. The timid quailed before this pro- scription. Four men left their posts in the mission, and some withdrew their daughters from the Petta school. Some of these are now returning to the school. The storm has subsided, and vigilant quietude reigns in the town. We have been compelled to omit points of interest for the sake of brevity ; but, we fear, have failed of our end. Do not forget to help Colar Orphanage. Let this work have a warm place in the Christian heart of India. Your Brother in gospel bonds, S. P. JACOBS. 338 Self-Suppoeting Missions. CHRISTIAN PERIODICAL LITERATURE IN SOUTH INDIA CONFERENCE. 1. "Bombay Guardian," Rev. George Bowen, editor, an undenominational, but intensely- religious sixteen-page paper. It is a bulwark of sound doctrine, truth, and righteousness, in Bombay Presidency. Brother Bowen has been the editor of this wonderful little paper for about thirty years. He joined our Church in Bombay, and became one of my first regular ministers. Later he was presiding elder of the Bombay District for several years, now in charge of our Maratti Circuit in that city, and has twice been president of our Conference. 2. " The Lucknow Witness." This weekly, a fraction larger than the " Guardian," was com- menced by Brothers Messmore and Thoburn in Lucknow, in 1871. They were the editors, and did their work ably, till it passed it into the hands of Eev. James Mudge, who was sent out by the Board as editor. It was not strictly denominational, but was not any the less de- voted to the interests of our Church. It has recently passed into the hands again of Dr. Thoburn, who now edits it in Calcutta, and sends it out weekly under the new title of Christian Pekiodical Liteeature. 339 "The India Witness." He will make of it a strong and useful paper. It is now the official organ of our Conference. The third is a monthly of about the same size, commenced under the supervision, princi- pally, of Eev. W. J. Gladwin, one of our min- isters. It bears the title of the " India Meth- odist Watchman." I clip the following notice of it from one more familiar with its operations than I have had opportunity to be. He said : It had a providential birth, and has had a providential and useful history. It has been blessed of God in raising nearly |1,000 for Brother Taylor's Transit Fund. It has prampted the sending of many hundreds of rupees to the Telugu Mission, and has been a blessing to many readers. During the first thirty months of its history 20,000 copies went forth to bless the world. It deals with the subject of holiness from the Wesleyan stand-point of doctrine experienced. It is the special friend of Faith Missions, and is devoted to the diffu- sion of such knowledge and exhortation as is calculated to stir up our South India Methodists to the magnitude and responsibilities of our opportunities among the heathen. For two years and a half a committee of Methodist preachers edited and published it. With January, 1882, the paper passed, unsought, into the hands of Rev. C. B. Ward, Superintendent of our Telugu Orphanage and Mission. As a part of his work for God in India, as God gives him means and ability, he sends forth this monthly record of Christian work 340 Self-Supporting Missioi^s. and experience. The Colar Mission and Telugu Mis- sion are reported in each number by a letter covering the month's experience and work. One or two other Faith Missions will soon be regularly reported, and the progress of native work throughout our Conference. We are persuaded that for $1 per year many of our friends in America would get a vast amount of India missionary news, by subscribing for the " India Meth- odist Watchman." The editorial service of all these papers is rendered cheerfully without pay. SEAMEN'S WORK IN CALCUTTA. Calcutta is called the Paris of the East. It has a population of 800,000. Soon after I commenced my campaign in that great city, I renewed my acquaintance with a man who was saved under my ministry in San Francisco twenty years before. When I met him in Calcutta he was commander of a ship making regular trips between that city and London — Captain Jones. He was an unassuming, quiet man, but a man with force of character, and a leader of men. His name was the first on my Church roll in that city, but he soon left on his return voyage to London. When he came back he was delighted to see what progress we Seamen's Work in Calcutta. 341 had made, and regularly brouglit one or two captains witli him to my meetings, and while he remained in the city, several of his fellow- commanders were saved; so before my year was up in Calcutta, we had the beginning of a good work of God among seamen, in addition to my special work of founding a permanent Church in the city. One of my regular hearers from the begin- ning was Thomas H. Oakes, of purely English blood, but born in India. Before I left, the Lord " sanctified him wholly,^' and called him to labor among the seamen. His industry, faith, patience, and skill, were marvelously manifested in his labors among the men of the sea. In four years he organized about forty Methodist societies of newly converted officers and men aboard that many ships, and had them drilled to work and witness for Jesus. He kept track of all his floating churches over all seas and in all ports whither they went, and by writing to ministers in their destined ports in advance, bespoke for them a Christian wel- come. To give his seamen a safe retreat ashore, away from the land-sharks, he opened a coffee- room — not a Sailor's Home, with board and 22 342 Self-Supporting Missions. lodging, but a large, well-fitted up, and splen- didly lighted hall — where seamen found a wel- come ; and papers, books, stationery, and facili- ties for writing to their friends, and every even- ing a grand salvation meeting. By excess of labor, and no sabbatic rest. Brother Oakes broke down his health, and came home to En- gland and recovered. Then to a good commer- cial education he determined to add a regular theological course, so he came to America and graduated at Drew Seminary, Madison, N, J., and is now stationed at Madras, the city in which he was born. He is an able minister of the Gospel, and tests all his work by its suc- cess on the line of " biting instead of barking." His place in Calcutta was filled by Rev. Frank A. Goodwin, a man of indomitable energy, a fine musician, good singer, and soul-saving preacher — a man well adapted to that work. By excess of labor, and no sabbatic rest, he broke himself down ; a sudden hemorrhage of his lungs led to consumption and a premature grave, before he had reached the noon of his growing power and skill in leading sinners to the Saviour. I sent G. I. Stone and his wife from the grindstone quarries of Berea, Ohio, and later a helper in the person of Vernon E. Seamen's Work m Calcutta. 343 Bennett, from St. Joseph, Mo., who is a prod- igy in work for God for one so young in years, to man the first seamen's charge in that city, for we have two establishments of that sort in Calcutta : the first is in a rented and large hall, at 19 Lai Bazaar, and the other, which we own, at Hastings, a few miles further down the Hooghly Eiver. Eev. L. E. Janney is stationed there. Total annual income and expenditure of the Lai Bazaar work is over $10,000. For the house alone we have to pay $3,138 per year. An extract from the report of the superintend- ent for 1881 will give a glimpse at the daily working of the institution, partly charity, partly business, largely soul-saving daily, ''by grace through faith." The work of the Seamen's Coffee Rooms, Lai Bazaar, has been carried on through another year with good results. All that was said in our report for 1880 with regard to the success and usefulness of the rooms might be truthfully repeated for 1881. The same work, conducted in the same way, and among the same class of men, has abounded with tokens of God's favor and blessing. Our Coffee Rooms are conducted on thoroughly Chris- tian principles, for the avowed purpose of not only res- cuing the seamen from temptation, but also of bringing 344 Self-Supporths-g Missions. them to a knowledge of Christ as their Saviour. Every evening a service is conducted in the room set apart as a chapel, and large numbers of those who call in for re- freshments are easily induced to step into the chapel to listen to the music and afterward to participate in the worship. It thus happens that nearly every day in the year some poor wanderer receives a faithful call to re- turn to his Father, and we think it would not be put- ting the estimate at all too high if we said that on an average throughout the year not less than tw^o poor fellows every day are induced to leave their husks and swine and return to their Father's house. We do not think that this positively religious char- acter of the rooms operates in the least to keep men away from the place. It has never been found since the rooms were first opened that any seaman objected to its religious character. On the other hand we are decidedly of the opinion that a purely secular resort would be less successful in every way, and that fewer seamen would go to it than to such a place as we are maintaining. The cause of temperance is kept prominently before the seamen. The pledge is presented every night, and, as was stated in our last report, many sign it, and we have reason to know that many keep it. Mr. J. P. Meik, who has been connected with the rooms since they were first opened, has recently left us to engage in another department of the Lord's work, and Mr. V. E. Bennett, who has come out from home for the special purpose, has taken up the work in his place. We beg to tender our best thanks to the many Seamen's Work in Calcutta. 345 friends who have generously assisted us in our work during the past year. We would make special men- tion of the thoughtful kindness of Mrs. Robinson, the excellent wife of the late Commander Robinson, who so generously aided in establishing the rooms, and also of Mrs. Howe, whose lamented husband was in former years one of the foremost friends of mission work among the seamen in Calcutta. Both of these ladies, though living in England, maintain an active Christian sympathy for our work. We have also to express our regret that Major-General Crofton has been obliged to leave India. In General Crofton our coffee-rooms lose a faithful and liberal friend. INDIAN LANGUAGES. The various nationalities and heterogeneous character of the vast population of India is in- dicated by the following exhibit : The last census tells us that India teems with more than 250,000,000 of human beings. It is said by those who have made diligent inquiry that about 100 various languages and dialects are spoken among these mil- lions. More than 60 of these, however, are mere dialects spoken among the hill tribes at the foot of or among the Himalaya mountains, while of the remaining 40 something like 25 are dialects growing out of, in some shape, the remaining real parent languages. 846 Self-Supporting Missions. Of the parent languages nine count more than 5,000,000 each, as follows : 1. Hindee (including Urdu and Hindustani) .. . 100,000.000 2. Bengalee 36,000,000 3. Telugu 16,000,000 4. Maratti 15,000,000 5. Tamil 15,000,000 6. Punjabi 12,000,000 7. Canerese 9,000,000 8. Guzarati 7,000,000 9. Oriya 5,000,000 Below 5,000,000 we have : 1. Malayalam 4,000,000 2. Kolorian 3,000,000 3. Kashmiri; 4, Sindhi ; 5, Gond, each 2,000,000 There remain about 25,000,000, among whom fall the threescore mountain dialects, and the Singhalese, Bur- mese, Asamese, Nepalese, and Pushtoe, which are hardly Indian tongues, constituting more properly a linguistic fringe woven on the outer edge of Hin- dustan. Laboring in these languages are about 25 European and 15 American Missionary Societies, with about 700 ordained and lay missionaries, exj^ending annually more than $1,125,000 in the various departments of their work. Missionary work has long been in operation in the regions of all the parent languages. Many of the societies are penetrating these larger fields; others are invading the territory of many of the dialects. The Bible wholly or in part is now translated and published in all the great languages, and in about forty Indian Languages. 347 of the dialects. The work still goes on, and will till every tongue has its " Christian Bible." In the i^rovidence of God, in the last twenty-four years the Methodist Episcopal Church has been firmly established within the bounds of all these great Indian languages at strategic points for a mighty movement among 200,000,000 of souls. Her forces are distributed in the territory of lan- guages about as follows : 1. In Hindee, missionaries 40 10 9 4 4 3 3 1 1 ] We look around us and see no other organization to which God has committed such amazing opportunities as to Methodism, nor indeed has she elsewhere any such a battle-field in the wide world unless it be among China's 400,000,000. To whom thus much is given surely much will be re- quired in that day. We are aware that the majority of the above missionaries not in Hindee territory are largely engrossed in English-speaking work. But can we for one moment regard our English work at any point as the ultimatum of our existence in this country ? Europe and America afford infinitely better facilities for work in the English tongue than India presents. 2. " Bangalee, * 3. " Maratti, ' 4. " Telugu, • 5. " Tamil, ' 6. " Canarese, ' 1. " Burmese, * 8. " Punjabi, * 9. " Guzarati, * 10. " Sindi, 848 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missioi^s. This work is but our base of operation for a mighty movement upon these 200,000,000 of heathen and Mo- hammedans. A careful pondering of the providences of our history will convince most of us of the truth of this statement. What fields we have all white to the harvest! Fol- lowing Christ in this holy conquest for India's redemp- tion, we shall yet see the most glorious 'victory in our history. If we follow not and fail, the failure will be second to none in the Christian era. The Lord help us in the midst of these immense responsibilities and opportunities ! The S. I. Conference, at its late session, appreciating in a measure the vastness of our responsibilities, made it incumbent upon all members of the Conference, not excused by vote, to study some one of the Indian ver- naculars, in addition to English studies and pastorate and preaching work. Examinations to be held at the session of each Annual Conference. FiEST Year. A standard grammar of the language selected, ele- mentary reading lessons, and the Gospel of Matthew. Second Year. The Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, one hundred pages of some standard book used for examinations in the language, and oral exercises. Third Year. The New Testament Epistles, two hundred pages in a standard book, and a written sermon. India]^^ Languages. 349 Fourth Year. The Psalms and Prophets, written exercises as fur- nished by examiners, two hundred pages in a standard book, and a written sermon. This is a light course of study, and most of us waste time enough to complete every line of it with honor. If these immortal millions were on our hearts as Jerusalem sinners were on the Master's, we would soon solve this language question and be out preaching " Jesus mighty to save " to them. What is the mas- tery of the language when we are supplied with so many useful appliances as our day presents ? 0 that we were more inspired by the example of our prede- cessors, who, under astounding disadvantages, without our helps, have mastered the most difficult languages, and then translated Scriptures, etc., into them ; and in some cases set up the very type for their publication. We ought to quit ourselves " like men " in the midst of these immortal opportunities, by much praying, diligent study, and heroic labor for the salvation of these millions. 350 Self-Suppoeti]s^g Missioi^s. INDIA CAMP-MEETINGS. The founder of tlie Ocean Grove Camp-meet- ing, in New Jersey, is tlie founder of regular camp-meetings in India — Kev. William B. Os- born. It may be proper here to say that Brother Osborn paid his own passage to India and gave us several years of good service as Pre- siding Elder of Bombay and Madras Districts. If he could have concentrated his faith and energy, as I had to do to make a success — a year in Bombay, six days per week ; a year in Calcutta, and so on — he would have accom- plished a great work. He did good, and stirred up the working spirit in others. The illness of his wife obliged him to seek a change of climate, and they are now evangelizing in Aus- tralia with good success. It has been common for many years for mis- sionaries to " itinerate," as they call it. They go with their wagons, tents, servants, preachers and Bible readers and camp near a heathen vil- lage and preach daily, in a tent and in the open air, for a week or more, and then move on to another village. That has resulted in much gospel instruction to the natives, but not kept up long enough for great numerical results in Ii^DiA Camp-meetings. 351 soul-saving. I have attended many meetings of that sort in Roliilcund, India, and at one in Kumaon, under Eev. Brother Haskins, quite a large number were converted to God. These were camp-meetings of their kind. Then for eight or nine years our "brethren in Lucknow have had a great annual gathering on a general native festive occasion, called the '^Dasara holidays." This was not a regular camp-meeting, but they had a great tent in which they had large meetings, and often ex- traordinary gospel power. Quite a number from Calcutta, about eight hundred miles dis- tant, attend those meetings. But William B. Osborn started a regular camp-meeting of the American type, first at Lanowli, and a second on the sea-coast near the city of Madras. The Lanowli camp-meeting is in the midst of grand mountain scenery on the railway between Bom- bay and Poonah, eighty miles from Bombay and forty from Poonah. I clip from the "India Methodist Watchman" the follow call for a camp-meeting at Lanowli for 1882 : Lanowli Camp-meethstg. The idea of camp-meetings is even yet new among Christians in India. But we are led again and again to ask ourselves whether the camp-meeting idea is not 352 Self-Suppoeting Missions. a very familiar one with the natives of India. The other day as we were riding in a train we saw by the way what appeared to be not less than 15,000 or 20,000 Hindus congregated in the vicinity of an old temple. Near the temple we counted more than fifty small tents; carts, bulls, etc., stood about in great profusion. It was a heathen festival, of course. But drop out the heathenism and put in Christianity, and what a camp- meeting we might have had ! Some of those people came distances by train, others from villages far and near on foot, by horse and carts. For years an annual camp-meeting has been held during the Dasara holidays at Lucknow. Many have co-operated, but our brethren of the North India Con- ference may fairly regard this as their institution. These meetings have been so blessed from year to year that nobody entertains the idea of discontinuing them. Less than five years ago a sort of camp-meeting apostle came to India, and within the first year of his stay he found a goodly number who believed the Easter holi- days afforded a good time for a camp-meeting some- where near Bombay. Lanowli was selected as the site, and accordingly four years ago a goodly concourse of people and preachers there assembled for a few days in the capacity of a camp-meeting. W. B. Osborn has lived to see the Lanowli Camp- meeting a regular institution well established, and he is seeking to establish the same institution extensively in Australia. The Fifth Annual Camp-meeting will be held at Lanowli this year, beginning April 5th, to last from six to eight days, according to circumstances. It has not IkDIA CAMP-MEETmGS. 353 been our privilege to see the camp grounds at Lanowli. But we believe the location is all that could be desired : climate delightful, shade abundant, water plenty, rail- way and post near, and mountain scenery not far aw^ay. A few hours' ride from Bombay or Poonah puts one down at these grounds. As hitherto, tents will be available for as many as come on the ground, at low rates. Boarding arrange- ments will be made for all who are not prepared to feed themselves, at one rupee per day as on previous years. It is expected that a good number of preachers, lay and clerical, will be present. We have been requested to say that the gathering will be made a " straight holi- ness camp-meeting." We sincerely hope and pray that the end for which God especially wants a holy Church in India will be strongly impressed on every attendant at Lanowli this year. We fear that as Methodists we do not so clearly see this as we should, and many, who have sought sanctification for its personal benefits alone, have not found it ; others have found it, but not dis- cerning the end for which God sanctifies his people, have lost the blessing again. Pentecostal experiences sent a Pentecostal Church into the streets, bazaars, fields and villages with irresistible soul-saving power. " Ye shall be witnesses unto me, to the ends of the earth," was ineffaceably written on their memories. If ever a people needed Pentecostal experience we do this day in India. Services will be held daily for the natives. Last year these services were greatly blessed we have been told. It is our prayer that some time may be specially devoted to the consideration of prayer for this most necessary part of our work in 354 Self-Supporting Missioi^s. India. It is pretty well established in our day that Christ's Gospel, even at considerable cost, is intensely economical. The more of godliness we get the less we expend for folly and luxury. It will cost you but little to attend this camp-meeting, but it may put hundreds of rupees in your pockets in a few years, besides an " eternal weight of glory." Alas ! many among us spend yearly more on trinkets or a filthy habit than a trip to camp-meeting. Brother and sister, go and get cured of these sources of financial and spiritual leakage by the " baptism of the Holy Ghost and power." Let all who cannot attend pray mightily for blessings on those who do attend. A letter from Eev, Thomas Morton, one of onr India-born ministers, furnishes an intima- tion of the last meeting. He says : We had a grand time at Lanowli Camp-meeting during the Easter holidays. The power of God was gloriously manifested in all the exercises, especially in the after-meetings. Brothers Carter, Baker, Northrup and Stevens are all alive. Stevens is very fiery. He does not tire in talking of salvation. Brother Jacobs is one of the grandest men we have in India. The " Bombay Guardian " reports the camp- meeting was a decided success. Some persons came 800, others 1,500, miles to attend it. Two Hindus were baptized near its close. One night a wolf came into the camp, but when he saw what sort of a meeting it v*^as he left. Administrative Embarrassments. 355 XIX. ADMINISTRATIVE EMBARRASSMENTS. As a loyal Methodist it is a great grief to me in any way to embarrass the administration of the Church. I would much rather die than cause unnecessary trouble in the Church of my choice. I am, of course, personally acquainted with all our Church officers; I love them all as Christian brethren, and honor them in their high representative character ; I never had any personal unpleasantness with any of them, and never expect to ; I would not spend a moment of time in advocating any speculative theory. The " rub " is on a line of vital principles and practical facts. As we have clearly shown, I conscientiously took the ground from the beginning : 1. That the jurisdiction of our Missionary Society — ^the grandest institution of our Church — extended legitimately to all the fields receiv- ing funds from her treasury for the support of her missionaries in those fields, and no further. 2. That the jurisdiction of our Bishops should not be limited to said mission fields, 856 SELF-SuPPOETrN-G MISSIONS. but should extend to any part of the globe re- quiring the services and guaranteeing the sup- port of an itinerant Methodist minister. There- fore, 3. It should be competent for the Bishops to put a liberal construction on 'Hhe missionary- rule " for ordaining men for foreign work, so as to ordain and send out suitable men to fields opened by my agency or otherwise. I pre- sumed that, on the principle of common neces- sity, common sense, and the common law of Methodism, the Bishops would be justified in such a rendering of the spirit of the law ; if not, then I asked them to recommend the Gen- eral Conference to alter and enlarge the appli- cation of "the missionary rule." 4. Refusing from the first to put my self-sup- porting missions under the control of a mis- sionary society, not from prejudice, but prin- ciple, I specially desired to put my work, as soon as organized, under the Episcopal jurisdic- tion of our Church. In putting my India Churches under the Episcopal supervision of the Methodist Episco- pal, an integral loyal part of the body, the representative Bishop of said Church concurred in the principles stated, and consented that all Admii^istrative Embarrassment. 357 my self-supporting missions sliould remain out- side and independent of tiie Missionary Society. Now, it seems to me tliat if, in tlieir wisdom, they had so applied tlie missionary rule as to ordain and send men wherever needed, and kept pace with the outside movement, there would have been no possibility of friction ; but, so construing the rule as to make it applicable only to men sent out by the Missionary Board, they limited their own juiisdiction in foreign countries to missions opened by order of the Missionary Committee. When I was called by the Spirit to go to plant missions on the west coast of South America, I labored hard to get the concurrence of the Bishops in advance. I offered to go in their name, pay all my own expenses, and found self-supporting missions, if they would consent to ordain and appoint the men required, and allow them to retain a confer- ence connection at home, and be returned on the minutes — " missionaries to South America," and thus keep the whole movement under their own control. Without details, suffice it to say that my proposal was not accepted. Then having gone without any such authority, and having opened a dozen of important fields, and having a dozen missionary men and women 23 358 Self-Suppokting Missions. preparing to sail, I again appealed to our dear Bishops, at tlieir semi-annual meeting for 1878, asking if thej would ordain my men for South America ? They were, of course, very courteous and kind, for they are all my friends, and I am their friend — I would black their boots, wash their feet, do any thing but compromise conscientious principle — but replied emphatically, '' The trouble is, as a Church we have no missions in Peru, and as Bishops we have no power to create one, nor to send men to one." I then realized more clearly than before two things : 1. The utmost foreign boundaries of our Episcopal jurisdiction — the fields opened by our Missionary Committee. 2. The illimitable fields opened to me — all outside of their jurisdiction — to be occupied as the Lord shall lead, and that, too, without infringing any law of our Church. So I ac- cepted the unsought providential situation. I could not secure ordination for my men, but certified to their educational attainments and manifest call from God to preach his Gospel, and appointed them to the fields I had opened to give full proof of their ministry. Administeative Embarrassment. 359 Tlien, at tlieir next annual meeting, tlie Mis- sionaiy Committee assayed to organize all South America, (outside of tlieir mission in Argentina,) and Central America into a mission of tlie Methodist Episcopal Church, and appro- priated $500 dollars for its support. That action conceded my point, viz. : that the Mis- sionary Board have no jurisdiction where they appropriate no money ; the appropriation being merely nominal, never to be drawn for any such purpose. The ostensible object was to relieve the administration so that the Bishops might legally ordain my men. But I respectfully inquire, First, If the action was merely nominal, and not a hona fide trans- action, and, applied to a field outside of their jurisdiction, had it any legal force or validity ? If it be said it was really for the purpose of planting missions in those fields, that is nega- tived by the smallness of the appropriation. Second, Was not the real object of the com- mittee to bring me and my Missions under the control of the Missionary Board, contrary to the principles I had avowed from the first, and to "the agreement" that my Self-supporting Mis- sions should not be put under the control of the Missionary Society? 360 Self-Supporting Missions. The following correspondence will illustrate tlie situation at that time. I insert it because it pertains, not to any private or personal affair, but to the most sacred interests of the Church and the salvation of the world. Moreover, it is but honorable and fair to have a full state- ment of the case from the other side. It con- sists of four Episcopal letters addressed to me, and my replies. The first is dated January 13, 1879, and reads as follows : Dear Brother Taylor — The Bishops, at their fall meeting, asked me to write you, and also the brethren in South America, as to your judgement concerning the feasibility of visiting the coast next winter and ordain- ing the brethren and setting in order the Churches. You will notice that the General Committee at its last session placed that region within the control of the Society. We can, therefore, now elect any brother there, whatever his ministerial age, to both orders. If such desire it, and I judge from what I see in the papers that they do, they ought to receive ordination. I wrote Brother Stowell on the matter. It would be well to get the names of the brothers who wish ordination, that they may be elected in some of the home Confer- ences. It may not be well to do more now than grant ordination. I am greatly gratified with your work, and have always supported you. I hope you will soon get the Church's arms about the brethren, as you have done in India. The Western South American Conference Administrative Embareassiment. 361 ought to soon follow the South India. Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain your brother and fellow-worker in Christ Jesus. No epistle could be more respectful and brotherly, but it concedes the fact tliat tlie action of tlie General Committee "placed that region within the control of the Society." Ex- actly. The following is my reply : Paisley, Canada, JavAiary 27, 1879, Rev. Bishop : Dear Brother — Tour favor of the 13th inst. just to hand. Before I went to South America I labored hard, by letter and by personal pleading, to get our Bishops so far to recognize my contemplated work in South Amer- ica as to allow my missionaries each to sustain an itin- erant relation to our home Conferences and be returned on their minutes — just as was Rev. Dr. Swaney, of the Pittsburgh Conference, when for years he was in South America under the auspices of the Seamen's Friend Society — " Missionary to South America." I agreed to take the responsibility and make no drafts on the Missionary Society. In India I had time at command, and personally founded Churches in all the great capitals of that empire ; but being anxious for an early return to my work in India, I could not hope to stay long in South America ; hence wished to put it immediately under the care of the Bishops. My loyal appeal to the Bishops signally failed, as you may know, and I was officially forbidden to attempt such a thing ; 362 SELF-SuppoRTiisra Missions. hence, though I had to " obey God," and go to South America, I organized, not Churches, but working com- mittees elected by the people, on a broad undenomina- tional principle. I founded my missions in India on the same principle, and they themselves in due time elected to become an integral part of our Methodism. When we shall, by the will of God, found, and develop Churches in South America, they may elect to be the same. I am not a foreteller in that matter — was not in India. But I believe in God and in man and in Methodism and in the identity of old-fashioned Method- ism and apostolic Christianity; and had our men re- ceived the help from the Church at home that their heroic self-sacrifice entitled them to, I should have no concern about organic results. Nothing can be done now, so far as I can see, till, as in India, we develop Churches in South America, and let them settle the question of their own Church rela- tionship. Having a written agreement with all my patrons in South America, based on the broad principle aforesaid, extending for three years from the date of the arrival of my workers, were I to become a party to the action of the Missionary Committee, and advise the visit of a Bishop, as you suggest, they would brand me and my men as Methodist Jesuits, trying to take them in under false pretenses. If the Bishops could have seen their way to ordain the men before they left, it would have been a real help to our stupendous undertaking, but now the less that is said and done, officially, the better for our work there. Your brother in Jesus, WILLIAM TAYLOR. Administkative Embarrassment. 363 Tlie official reply is as follows : January 31, 1879. Dear Brother Taylor — I was glad to hear from you. I wrote three letters, and was afraid you had left your home, as you have given it — the earth — and that I could not reach you. 1. I do not object to your conclusions, but allow me to make a statement or two in defense of the action of the Bishops. You are aware that we cannot ride over law, otherwise a worse name might and would be affixed to us than that you fear for your and my brethren in South America. The Board was anxious to favor your plans, but could see no way. The Discipline limits their powers. I told Brother Stowell before he aj^plied to Bishop Merrill that he could not get ordained. He was legally of non age. Bishop Merrill would have been subject to Discipline had he ruled otherwise. Had he thus ruled, and the Conference appealed, the appeal would have been sustained. 2. As soon as they could act they did. The Mis- sionary Committee must create the missions. This was done after a unanimous vote of the Board of Bishops in favor of it. When that was done the way was open to co-operate formally, as they had already heartily, with your plans. They, therefore, voted that I enter into correspondence with you and the brethren. I have only written Brother Stowell. After your letter I shall proceed no further. It is, however, perhaps desirable for you to consider how anomalous are their present relations. They are local preachers in our Church, eligible now to ordination, both as deacons and elders Tinder the Missionary Rule. They ought to be so or- B64 Self-Supporte^g Missioi^s. dained. If they should administer either sacraments unordained they would be subject to discipline. That, you nor they nor any one would wish. They can be ordained by coming to California. That covers your point as to Churches ; or, they could be elected, and a Bishop could proceed there to ordain them, and not or- ganize any Churches. I do not wish to suggest or ad- vise, much less would I harm your work. You are well aware of my sympathy with it. I believe the whole Board is of my opinion ; still, if in some way these brethren could be ordained, I have no doubt you and they would be glad. It can be settled between now and next fall. There is plenty of time, as the California Conference does not meet till September, and if a Bishop went there he would not go till after that. Meantime consider further, and if you or they wish any action on the part of the Bishops, please let me know. They will do all in their power to further your work after the Church order, which is all the power they have and that you want. You will notice that the course suggested does not raise the question of Church organization. It avoids that entirely. You will also note that India was under missionary, and so Episcopal, jurisdiction from the start. Most truly yours, For gentlemanly courtesy, Christian love and patience, nothing can exceed this letter. But we learn from it — 1. That after all, through years of corre- spondence and talk, i had been so unintelligible Administrative Embarrassment. 365 in my statements of tlie case that I had failed to get the Bishops to perceive the fact, that God had put me to icork in a domain outside of the jurisdiction of the Missionary Committee. 2. That, from principle, I had from the start refused to put myseK and my self-supporting missions under the jurisdiction or control of said Committee. 3. That when I formally placed my missions in India under the jurisdiction of our Bishops, they, through their official representative, con- curred in my principles, as we have seen, and covenanted that we should not he put under the jurisdiction and control of said Committee. 4. That the domain of the earth outside the boundaries of organized Methodist mission fields was open to pre-emption by the pioneer settlers of self-supporting Methodism, and that such settlements had, under a gospel charter, the right to claim the supervision and co-oper- ation of the Methodist Episcopal Church directly under Episcopal supervision and of direct appeal to the General Conference, with- out being put under the control of one of the great benevolent home institutions of the Church. No one acquainted with the facts in the case 366 Self-Supporting Missions. can doubt the earnest wisli of the Bishops to do every thing in their power to solve the adminis- trative problem involved in their theory of ad- ministration, by which they are not allowed to take one step in a foreign field without first getting permission from the Missionary Com- mittee at one of its annual sessions in New York, nor to extend their jurisdiction into any of my organized self-supporting foreign mis- sions, till they shall be formerly recognized and put under the control of said Committee. Keply to letter No. 2 : Hamilton, Canada, February 11, 1879. Rev. Bishop : Dear Brother — ^Your favor of the 31st ult. is just now to hand. My earnest endeavors to secure ordination for my men, from the first, are in evidence that I was more anxious for it than any body else could be, and I shall be most happy to have it done as soon as possible with- out jeopardizing our work there. It is not what the people there might say about us that I would dread, but what they would do if we do not deal fairly with them according to our agreement. It is a thousand miles further from Panama to San Francisco than to New York, so that my men can't go there for ordination. To return to New York and back to their work would Administkatiye Embarrassment. 367 involve double the cost of sending thera — say $10,000, or a little less in the steerage, as they went first. I am a man of peace, and cannot afford time to debate questions of law. I am, I know, doing the work God has given me to do, and that a stringent application of tape should impose such disabilities on God's advancing work is a great pity. Bishop Simpson saw no difficulty in ordaining and appointing men to South America, and arranged to ordain a man for me the same fall I was leaving first for that country ; but adverse councils prevailed at the annual meeting, and hence the hitch that has so jeopard- ized this work of God. I believe that the precedents of Methodistic history, the common law of Methodism, and God's various methods of extending his soul-saving work into new fields, make a clear distinction between the jurisdiction of our Episcopacy and that of our Missionary Society. I believe that the jurisdiction of our Missionary So- ciety is limited to needy fields requiring and receiving funds from her treasury. The jurisdiction of our Bishops, besides covering those fields as it now does, should extend beyond those lines as far as our work may be opened and organized. I believe in our Missionary Society, and have been advocating its claims and contributing to its funds (as high once as a thousand dollars at a single donation) for thirty-seven years ; but to refuse to let the Holy Ghost open a work in India or in South America — a self-supporting work — unless he can first get the con- currence of the Missionary Committee in ISTew York, and put it under their control, is a violation of the 368 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. spirit and common law of Methodism. Such a work, however, like all our self-supporting work before we had any Missionary Society, should come immediately under Episcopal jurisdiction. I have no jDrejudice nor caprice in the matter, but on principle took this position in India seven years ago. When I proposed that the Missionary Society might send men to my mission and pay their passage, my proposition was accompanied by a distinct stipulation, that my mission should not in any way come under their control, but under direct Episcopal supervisiooi, and I thought, in accepting my proposal, they did concur in that and in the principle it involved, as their repre- sentative Bishop did emphatically when I consented to be appointed nominally the superintendent of the Bombay and Bengal Mission, as I was really, by divine appointment, before. Our Church Extension Society is a grand institution, but if the Board in Philadelphia should assume that, beyond a certain radius, no church should be built from independent resources (requiring no help from them) without the consent and authorization of the Board, it would at least raise the question of jurisdiction. You remind me "that India was under Missionary and Episcopal jurisdiction from the start." But, Bishop, you will allow me to remind you that out Missionary authorities and Bishops entered into a covenant with Dr. Duff — representing the Free Church of Scotland — and with the Bishop of Calcutta, to ac- cept, as the exclusive portion of India to be occupied by the Methodist Episcopal Church, three provinces : Oudh, Rohilcund, and Ghurwal. I used to hear Dr. Administeatiye Embarrassmei^t. 369 Durbin and the Bishops speaking regretfully afterward that they had thus precluded American Methodism from the great capitals and most of the territory of India. So that our Missionary Society was debarred from entering the territory now embraced within the bounds of the South India Conference, containing a population of 238,000,000. Under the untrammeled leading of the Holy Spirit I gave that territory to Methodism, and legit- imately too, by the elective franchise of my converted people, of which they could not be deprived by the covenants of foreign missionary officials. If I had waited, therefore, for the action of the Missionary Board, that field would not have been opened to Methodism yet. I know the technical hitch in the way, but I know, also, that there is an essential " common law " of God and Methodism on the other side of the question. " The missionary rule " was made many years before my self-supporting missions were thought of as a pos- sibility, but in common law the rule is just as suscepti- ble of a construction in favor as against my missions. The object of the law was to provide for the ordina- tion of men for foreign mission fields. India and South America are foreign fields, and my missions are as purely Methodistic as any others, and need ordained men as much as any others ; but because the Holy Ghost did not find it convenient to wait till the Mis- sionary Committee should authorize him to proceed, this work is pronounced irregular; whereas in India the Committee could not, on account of their covenant precluding them, and in South America they would 870 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. not for want of faith in the possibility of success ; and because those missions refuse foreign missionary money and control, a narrow construction is put upon the missionary rule, and the manifest work of God is ob- structed. The whole Church would have sustained the Bishops in a construction more liberal and more in accord with our common Methodism and God's leadings. Whenever I ask the Missionary Society for funds to support me or my missionaries, then I will consider myself and my missions as under their legitimate juris- diction and subject to their orders, not till then ; but shall be glad for an arrangement by which I can put my missions, present and prospective, under Episcopal supervision, just as I asked for so earnestly before I went to South America. I am not the man to make any trouble for the Bishops or Missionary Committee, but I stand conscientiously on clearly-defined essential principles, and, with my present convictions, could not depart from them without infringing my loyalty to God. I never made a report of my mission work in India to our missionary secretaries, and never will, not from any prejudice against them or the Society, but lest they should construe it into an abandonment of my prin- ciples and position. I explained all these things to Bishop Janes and Dr. Eddy years ago, and am sorry that I have any occasion to restate them, which, however, I do cheerfully, that you may know that I am not acting under any pique or caprice, but on a great principle essential to the Pauline methods of utilizing indigenous resources in founding self-supporting missions. ADMmiSTKATIVE EMBARRASSMENT. 371 It is simply the principle on which Methodism was founded before we had any Missionary Society. As soon as I see it possible, without laying my men liable to be driven out of those Roman Catholic, coun- ties by breaking faith with them, or appearing to do so, I shall be most happy to have a Bishop go down and ordain them ; but, at present, of the two evils, we must choose the less, and keep quiet till we can get a sure footing, and see the Lord's way out of our embar- rassment in not having ordained men. Your Brother, WILLIAM TAYLOR. Episcopal letter No. 3 is dated February 15, 1879: Dear Brother Taylor : I have carefully read your letter, and approve of its spirit, but I cannot quite see as you do. The Church has selected certain officers. They must work as the Church dictates. You give them too supreme author- ity. ISTor should the Bishops ordain men for sections they cannot officially visit. As it appears it would be unfair for them, injurious to the work, and reflect on you for them to visit places where our preachers are sowing. St. Paul's plan never was to create Churches over which the Apostolic Board had not supervision. We had better, I think, walk a little slower, and walk on Church lines. Still, I admire your ardor, and hope you will have success. The results of your work in South America will be 372 Self-Supporting Missions. effected badly by making it too much an educational work. That was not the Pauline method, nor to live off of bad rich men by teaching their children, and failing to organize Churches. He lived at tent-making, and was independent of rich sinners and Romanists. If you wish to have those going out ordained, I presume it can be done if you let it be known in sea- son, as we can now exercise that privilege. Wishing you great success in bringing souls to Christ, I remain Very truly yours, Reply: Railway Station, Toronto, Canada, February 21, 1879. Rev. Bishop : Dear Brother — I am writing on my knee whilo waiting for a train. I am sorry that I have not been able to stale the peculiar principles and facts in regard to my work so that you could clearly understand them. Those I stated in regard to the jurisdiction of the Mis- sionary Committee, and the wider episcopal jurisdic- tion of our Bishops, define a fact which pervades the foundation principles and historical precedents of Meth- odism. The present aspect of my work in South Amer- ica is peculiar and exceptional. I shall be glad if soon our brave men there may be able to get such a footing in those Roman Catholic countries ns to organ- ize Churches, as in India, and put the work under Epis- copal supervision. But, as I said before, having a writ- ten contract with my patrons there, extending for three years, based on a non-denominational principle, I would not feel at liberty to transfer the work to any Church administration. It would be a breach of faith that ADMimSTEATIVE EMBARRASSMENT. 373 would not be right, and would work disastrously against us. Hence I give it as my judgment that the only honorable and safe way is to wait and see what can be done on the present basis. My patrons in South America have not, like my pa- trons in Madras, India, stipulated that I shall not organ- ize a Methodist Episcopal Church among them, so that the coast is all clear for organizing when the possibility for it shall come. I organized a Methodist Episcopal Church in Madras on the advice of the very men who in their invitation to me to come to that city stipulated in writing that I should not so organize. If our Bishops had insisted on officially visiting my work in that city, and gone in before gospel Methodism could have been planted and developed into the proportions of organic life, they would have crushed the eggs before incuba- tion was possible. Hence your conclusions that I wish to preclude the Bishops from my fields are not fair. You say, " Walk a little slower, and walk on Church lines." I think our Church has walked slowly enough into South America. She commenced her march in that continent of nations in 1835, and retreated and recalled all her missionaries, but afterward consented to let one remain at the special call of the English people of Buenos Ayres. If I had "held my men back" from going to South America till after the meeting of the Missionary Com- mittee, in November, I would have forfeited my engage- ment with the South Americans to send them in June ; I would have been untrue to God and the obligation he had laid upon me. Failure and demoralization would 24 374 Self-Suppokting Missions. have followed, and the Committee would have taken no action except, perhaps, to reproach me for my folly and failure. You said Paul had nothing to do with schools, and was " independent of rich sinners and Romanists." He acknowledged indebtedness to all sorts of folks- even " to barbarians," and seems to have been very im- portant for a couple of years in the "school of Tyrannus." When I learn that the Methodists refuse financial help from " rich sinners " I will consider the case. Nearly all the missionaries of all the Churches spend most of their time in organizing and teaching schools, at the cost, for the most part, of their missionary societies. I aim first to put in men devoted wholly to the work of the ministry, but where I find grading and track laying to be done, by organizing schools under thorough missionary Methodist teachers, we undertake the busi- ness in the name of the Lord, and on the Pauline plan of self-support, and let the " rich sinners and Romanists " foot the bills, instead of laying that burden on "the poor saints in Judea." To sum up the leading facts in regard to my peculiar MISSIONARY WORK, I remark : 1. The Spirit of God has laid upon me the responsi- bility, and has thus far led me in the work of utilizing indigenous resources for founding self-supporting mis- sions for the conversion of the natives of the countries into which he leads me. He called me to this work just at the time I had set to close my foreign evangel- izing tours, and return to my family and to my regular itinerant work in California. Thus my cherished hope Administeative Embarrassment. 375 of years was blighted. I am a man of the strongest home affections and preferences, with no earthly am- bition for foreign travel and labor. My ambition was to stay at home. So that "I suffer the loss of all things" naturally dear to me. I am by nature a conservative, and a man of peace ; hence, to collide in any way with the administration of our Church is to me very painful. The work I am called to do is on the line of human impossibilities. During my campaign in South America, in many a struggle of prayer, I said to God, most rev- erently and earnestly : " Unless thou wilt, in thine in- finite wisdom and might, take the whole responsibility of this work, then let me go home. Let me settle down in some obscure dell in the West, and hide away from the strife of tongues and the gaze of men." The Lord would not release me, but led me on, and used me to do "the impossible things." Until he does release me, I am bound to proceed and fight it out on this line : first, in opening fields as the Lord shall direct ; sec- ond, in accepting and adjusting the missionary workers he may be pleased to give me ; third, to allow friends voluntarily to furnish the funds for their passage and outfit. Organization. As fast as we get people converted to God we organ- ize them into "Fellowship Bands" — New Testament Churches — in the houses of our people. All my mis- sionaries are Methodists, and most of them are liberally educated, and will, I believe, do thorough Methodist work according to the Gospel. There is, therefore, a strong presumption that the movement in South Oi Self-supporting Missions. America, as in India, will result in voluntary loyal organic Methodism. As soon as that result is attained the work, just the same as in India, will come directly and unreservedly under our Episcopal administration, not as Mission Conferences, but, as in India, regular indigenous self-supporting Annual Conferences, patron- izing and helping the funds of our Missionary Society, but sustaining to it no other relation than that of the Ohio, or any other conference developed purely from indigenous resources. Late Action of the Missionary Committee. If its object is simply the "recognition of my work," and for the removal of what appears to be legal ob- structions to the ordination of my men, I will make no objection to it. But our Missionary Society is not to be involved in any financial responsibility on account of my missions, nor to exercise any official control over them, nor over the appointment of men to them. At the beginning, as a peace measure, I offered the Society a share in my work so far as to select missionaries and pay their pas- sage, provided that they should not assume the control of my missions. They seemed to concur, but did not send us half as many as we could have got in that time without their aid; and when finally, from want of funds, they declined to supply our demand, I released them from any further responsibility in regard to my work. I should be most happy to lay this whole responsi- bility on the Church, but God has laid it upon me. I cannot shirk from it, nor shift it, and hence must bear it cheerfully till he shall see fit to release me. Administeative Embarrassment. 377 Now, if our dear Bishops can see their way to adjust themselves to these providential facts, and ordain my men, and allow them to retain a conference relation at home, and be returned missionaries to South America, as I so earnestly requested before I went to South America, I shall be glad. In regard to the dear fellows now in the field, as soon as they get a footing in the country, and decide that it will be safe, in their peculiar position, to receive the visit of a Bishop for the purpose of their ordination, we shall be delighted to have one visit that coast, and do all the good he can. If the Board of Bishops cannot accede to my respectful ' requests, in accordance with the facts in the case, I shall be very sorry, but shall be obliged to proceed as led by the Spirit of God, and do the work that he may assign to me. He is in your work, and he is in mine,* and he will not antagonize himself. Your brother in Jesus, WILLIAM TAYLOR. The Bishop's fourth letter, dated March 3, 1879: Dear Brother Taylor: Your letter of the 28th ult. did not reach me till yesterday. I could not, therefore, get an answer to you by the 11th, as you asked. I hope this will reach you. I read your two letters carefully. It is not necessary that the points they raise should be con- sidered. You have made such arrangements that I judge the Board of Bishops will not deem it advisable to send any of their number to the west coast this 378 Self-supporting Missions. year, though that I cannot decide upon. The Board is very anxious to help, not harm, your undertakings by getting the brethren in orders, and into regular Church work as soon as possible. But your agreement with parties there that no Church shall be organized under three years would prevent their visiting your work. You speak of the ordination of those who are going. I wrote you in my last and advised that you have them ordained. It can now be done legally, as the Com- mittee have established the Central and Western South American Missions. I advise you to get all those who are going out recommended for orders and admission. They can be ordained, admitted, and stationed as you suggest, missionaries to Western South America and Central America. You could also be made superin- tendent of the same missions, if you wish, I have no doubt, remaining as a member of the South India Con- ference, or being transferred to one of the American Conferences. The Bishops concur with me in this opinion. Write me soon if you thus wish, and I can transfer you to New York East Conference, of which I have charge, and appoint you superintendent. Send your names and men there and they will be ordained and admitted. Yours truly, I answered to the proposed ordination, Yes ; to my appointment as superintendent of my own missions in South America, No. Points not to be Considekep. 379 XX. THE POINTS NOT TO BE CONSIDERED. The Bishop said, "I have read your two letters carefully. It is not necessary that the points they raise should be considered." The points I raise are the points which peculiarly distinguish self-supporting missions, which I have stated fully in the sixth chapter of this work, and which are contained, some- what at length, in my replies to the foregoing Episcopal letters. Two of my points represent two distinct kinds of missionary work : the first based on the two business principles I have explained, the second on " the charity principle." The two methods of work were incidentally brought out at the meeting of our Missionary Committee for 1878. The representation of work in India reported North India Confer- ence as receiving from the missionary treasury during the year over $60,000. The South India Conference, nothing, though a nominal appropriation of $500 is annually put on the list. 380 Self-Supporting Missions. Bishop Ames raised tlie question, "Why is tliis ? Here are two Conferences in tlie same country, about equal in size, the one fifteen years older than the other; the older receiving an- nually the largest appropriation of the Church, the younger nothing, and never from the first received a dollar from home for the support of her ministers. How do you account for such a difference ? " Bishop Andrews, having just returned from India, replied that " Mr. Taylor's people are a well-to-do people. Many of them receive wages for their work ranging from 300 to 500 rupees per month, (value of a rupee about half a dollar.) They are able to build churches and support their ministers, and they do it. But the people among whom we have planted missions in the North are very poor people. Instead of 500 rupees, perhaps no one of them would get more than ^ve rupees per month ($2 50) on which to support a family; and any one of them can carry his whole estate in a knapsack on his back." That was accepted as a satisfactory answer. Well, there are hundreds, millions, of just such poor people in Asiatic countries, and to send them the Gospel prepaid, found schools, edur POIJSTTS NOT TO BE CoNSIDEEED. 381 cate, elevate and save those millions who are emphatically objects of charity, is the grandest work of benevolence in the v^orld. This is peculiarly the kind of woik that is being done by all the missionary organizations on the earth; and they will require fifty times more money and men than they have ever received or sent to overtake in a thousand years at pres- ent rate of speed the demands of this kind of work. But what about the " ^ve - hundred - rupee " men ? They are the men who, as a class, have never been reached by the missionaries of these great benevolent institutions; and, while the law^s of human nature I'emain w^hat they are, they and the classes above them never can be reached on a charity principle. Has the great Father of his perishing " off- spring " no other resource — no other plan of work by ^vhich those classes may be saved ? They are the people w^ho have the brains, edu- cation, wealth and influence, so requisite to the full and final triumph of his Gospel among all grades of all the nations. The points I have " raised " indicate a royal charter, the right of way, the resources, and the agency by which the Holy Ghost did at the 382 Self-Supporting Missions. beginning simultaneously reacli from '^ Caesar's household " down to the beggars who sat at the gates of the rich. These are " the points " that are not " to be considered." It is no use to talk about apos- tolic methods of seK-supporting mission work, and of the pioneer work of Methodism done on this plan, for such points are ''not to be considered." Why not ? Because, as it appears from the evidence ad- duced, that our Missionary Committee assume to have an absolute monopoly of the missionary business, so far as Methodism is concerned, in all foreign countries, and, the Board of Bishops con- curring, the whole thing was legally settled long ago. So that when self-supporting Methodist Churches, not of their planting, sprang up in Bombay, and asked to be recognized hy the Gen- eral Conference, instead of the General Commit- tee of Missions, it was regarded as obtrusive, and as starting an unlawful competition in the missionary business, and must hence be brought under subjection to the Missionary Board. The first plan proposed was to " jump my claim," as the miners would say. Twenty thousand dollars were appropriated Points not to be Considered. 383 by tlie Board to begin with for founding a Maratti Mission in Bombay. Immediately tliere appeared in the " Missionary Advocate " a set- ting forth of the grand advance movement to be made, under the heading — Bombay to be entered, with a full representation of the great field, ripe for the reapers soon to be sent out, and an appeal to the Church for the funds. My patient wife in California, who had given her husband for missionary work among the heathen, put a squib into some paper, under the heading — " Bombay entered a year ago, and a Methodist mission established, and a number of natives already converted to God." At the next meeting of the Committee the $20,000 appropriation was withdrawn, and we were saved the humiliating spectacle of two rival missions of the same Church in that city. The next thing was to appoint and send out one of their men as superintendent of my mis- sion in Bombay. One grand, good Bishop was fully determined to carry that measure, but a weightier member of the Board of Bishops fought it from the start, and all through, till it 384 Self-Suppoeting Missions. was abandoned. This lie afterward told me himself. Pending this proposition, one of the secre- taries wrote me, saying : '' We rejoice greatly in your success in Bombay, and after prayerful consideration of the subject, we think it advis- able to send out a man of years and experience as superintendent of that work." That was a feeling letter, and I respectfully replied, "Brother, we have two men on the ground of that sort. The first is Rev. George Bowen, who has been here for nearly a quarter of a century, and has come into our work with a rich India experience. The second is myself." The next thing was to appoint me superin- tendent, which, as we have seen, was done, under what I thought was an unequivocal pledge that our self-supporting principles, char- acter and mission work should not come under the control of the Missionary Society, nor be interfered with by it. This is one of the points which "it is unnecessary to consider." The Bishops have their work assigned them. They live in the sphere of their official duties, are worked nearly to death, and some of them quite. They have no time " to consider my points," and don't consider it at all necessary, as their line Points not to be Considered. 385 of duty in tlie matter is clearly defined ^' by tlie Discipline." I don't mean to cast the sliglitest reflection upon our good and great representa- tive men. They are men of God, and doing conscientiously what they believe to be right, and that is all the worse for my self-supporting missions, for they seem to think that they will do God and his Church good service when they shall, by any means, extinguish alike our prin- ciples and professions of self-support, and bring the whole of my missions under the control of the Missionary Committee on a common level with their own missions. The Bishops presiding at the South India Conference have, in all kindness, of course, recommended that the South India Conference appoint a Missionary Committee to receive ap- propriations from the Board in New York, as do all the younger Conferences in America. Once a resolution to that effect was proposed on the floor of the South India Conference, and was instantly killed. By a recent order from the Board of Bishops, I am requested to send the papers of candidates for ordination for my missions sometime in ad- vance, so that they can be duly examined and approved. I learned further that the said 386 Self-Supporting Missions. papers had to be passed upon by the mission- ary secretaries ; tlms transfering to them the responsibility of selecting men for my work, and putting this essential department practi- cally under their control. Then, the great work of the Committee in es- tablishing missions in South America. The only missions they ever really established in South America are the three in Argentina and Uruguay, employing three missionaries and some native helpers. They have accomplished a great work in that field during the last forty- seven years, and have a grand future of success awaiting them I doubt not. The appropria- tion of the Board for those missions last November was about $12,000. But the greatest show of progress seen lately was in the large number of missions "estab- lished " by the Committee last November. We read in their reports that they have established a "North-eastern South American Mission," " a Western South American Mission," and " a Central American Mission," and made an ap- propriation of $200 to each one of those grand missions. The passage fare for one person from New York to Valparaiso, in the Western South American Mission, is $350. My dear sirs, if Points not to be Consideeed. 387 they can found and run missions so cheaply, they ought very soon to penetrate all the dark places of the earth. I have been in all those countries in South America, but have not seen nor heard of those missions '^ established " by the Board. I have forty-five hard working Methodist men and women in those fields grading and pre- paring the way of the Lord ; but we cannot tell when nor in what manner he may reveal " his glory." He may lead us in and lay upon us the responsibility of refoi'ming the old-estab- lished Churches of those South American na- tions ; and we intend to remain entirely free for that, or any thing else the Lord will have us do. As before stated, there is a strong presump- tion that if we succeed in our work, as we hope, it will develop organically the same as in India, but we don't know that. While thus engaged in preparatory work in Roman Catholic coun- tries, to make a blow about establishing Meth- odist missions, and receiving Episcopal visita- tions, will seriously interfere with our work, if not defeat it altogether. " Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Prov. 1. 17. I have no nets to spread, but I don't want others to frighten away my birds. We 388 Self-Suppokting Missions. don't go to catcL. people "by guile," as was slanderously charged against Paul. We go in our true character as Methodists. We 2:0 avowedly to do the people good regardless of name, nationality or creed. We don't go to establish Methodist missions, but to do the work that God shall make it possible for us to do. We don't go to work as journeymen for any other Church. If in the good providence of God we develop organic results, w^e expect that the outcome will be the original self- sacrificing, self-reliant, hardy type of Method- ism. We are not, however, absolutely certain that we shall succeed in founding Methodist Churches and missions. Our work, instead, may result in a great revival in the Roman Catholic Churches of that country ; if so, Amen ! So I insist on letting the Lord have his own way with us and with our work. I don't defer to any man in my appreciation of Meth- od sim, and if I or my workers are violating any law of the Methodist Discipline, then we are open to arrest and trial. "Witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed : whose ox have I taken ? or whose ass have I taken ? or whom have I defrauded ? whom have I oppressed, or of whose hand have I POES^TS NOT TO BE Coi^SIDERED. 389 received any bribe to blind mine eyes there- witli ? and I will restore it." I have not received a dollar from tlie Churcli for more tlian a quarter of a century, and never expect to, though I expect to give her another quarter of effective work and die at the front of her battles. I founded my missions in India as a located minister — ^located from the California Confer- ence for the sake of a world-wide itinerancy. " The crime or impediment " in my case is simply this: that God has led me to found these self-supporting missions, and I refused to put them under the control of the Missionary Board. And now my " points are not to be considered," but my missions are to be captured and put under their control in spite of God and of me his servant. The arrangements, as we have seen, are all made, and if I would only lay down and die, the whole scheme would be consummated at the next meeting of the Com- mittee. Now if my dear brethren would " consider the point " made by that philosophic Pharisee we read about : " If this ... be of men, it will come to naught ; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it," it would be well. 25 390 Self-Suppoeting Missions. They assume, and most of tliem believe sin- cerely, not having " considered my points," tliat they are rendering great service to my work by organizing those so-called missions, in order that I may get mj men ordained. That is just one of my points to "be considered," Why should all the ordaining functions and author- ity of the Methodist Episcopal Church be put under the locks and keys of a subsidiary insti- tution of the Church ? Young ministers, class- ical and theological graduates, fulfilling all disciplinary conference conditions, but, after all, can't be ordainod for a foreign self-support- ing work unless indentured to and controlled by a Missionary Board, from which they receive not a cent of money ! Have we come to that ? Then it is true that no Methodist minister has a right to get poor sinners converted, and organize them into Methodist Churches, out- side of the United States, unless sent out by this Board. Then it may be truly said we belong to the " Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America, limited.'''' No "legal right" of extension beyond our own national boundaries, except by the charity missions founded in foreign fields by our Mis- sionary Society. Points not to be Consideeed. 391 If that is settled as a fact, then I propose, by the will of God, through the agency of located ministers, local preachers, and the inspired "sons and daughters, servants and maid-serv- ants " of our Church, to plant and develop the original type of holy, hardy, self-supporting Methodism in the "regions beyond." I have nothing to do with secession or any thing of that sort, but our best type of Methodism is not fully represented by agents of charity sent out and supported by missionary money, however able and devoted the men may be. Paul and his coadjutors were a hardy lot of missionaries. He says to the Church at Thessalonica : "Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought with labor and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you : not because we have not power," [to demand a support,] " but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." 2 Thess. iii, 8-10. Paul was a pioneer, founding and developing in that way industri- ous, self-supporting Churches. Our Methodist workers, of the most self-re- liant aggressive tyj)e, are of too great value to 892 Self-Suppokting Missioi^s. the world at large to be all kept legally locked up in America. God needs sucli among remote nations as well as at home, that they may go "every- where preaching the word." The more our Church becomes the means of blessing abroad, so will be the increase of God's blessing upon her at home. Paul was not " sent out by the apostolic col- lege of Jerusalem." He refutes that allegation in his Epistle to the Galatians, saying : *^ I cer- tify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. . . . But when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen ; immedi- ately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me," (to get ordination.) " I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apos- tles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." Thus a pioneer founder of missions of the original type must be called to that responsi- bility by God, and proceed under the immedi- ate supervision of the Holy Spirit. That was then, and is now, the only way by PoiiN^TS :n'ot to be Considered. 393 whicli sucli missions can be established. Or- ganization, administration, and law are essential, and the Holy Spirit works by a ^' diversity of operations " in all these. But, in founding self-supporting Churches in the "regions be- yond," he claims the right to lead his pioneers high above all human authority. Suppose Paul had gone out under the au- thority of the Missionary Committee and Board of Bishops in Jerusalem. After visiting a few Churches on the way he is sent to found a mission in Asia — Corea and Mysia — Ephesus being the capital. He has with him Silas and Timotheus. Before they reached their destina- tion, " they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia." They beg the Holy Spirit to wait till they can be released by the Board in Jerusalem. The Committee having just closed their annual session, they lie off in suspense for a whole year, with a solemn reminder now and again from the missionary secretaries of the possible consequences of disobeying the rule and Disci- pline of the Church. Finally, they get their change of appointment to proceed to Bythinia, and as they were about to enter the city, " the Spirit suffered them not." 894 Self-Supporting Missioxs. So another year is wasted, and liard things are said about Paul and his foreign missionary operations ; but finally he gets an order to go to Troas, and the very first night " a vision ap- peared to Paul in the night ; there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying. Come over into Macedonia, and help us." And Dr. Luke, who joined Paul's party there, adds : " And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them." Acts xvi, 9 10. Missionary Methods Illustrated. 395 XXL SPHERE OF THE TWO MISSIONARY METHODS ILLUSTRATED. I MAKE no criticism on missionary organiza- tions and operations as applied to their legiti- mate field, as great benevolent institutions. But when tlie board of managers of an orphan asylum assay to make laws to regulate and re- strict the independent industries of the coun- try, they furnish ground for remonstrance from the other side. I again aver that God's original Pauline way of planting missions does not come legitimately within the province of the charity principle on which all Missionary Societies are founded, and that, with all the wisdom and piety possible, they are as poorly adapted to founding self- supporting missions, and to the nurture of Churches thus founded, as the grand charity institutions of our country are adapted to the construction and running of our railroads. This does not involve the slightest reflection on our benevolent institutions, but simply asserts the fact that their province and juris- 396 Self-Supporting Missions. diction do not cover that of the railroad com- panies. What God now requires is a railroad company, with right of way to bear at least its proportion of responsibility in carrying the Gospel to " the uttermost parts of the earth " on his original business principles. We don't need any new thing, though we have used a new name for it by way of illustration. A pioneer founder of God's original t}^e of missions, as I have said, must be called specially to that work by God, and proceed under the immediate supervision of the Holy Spirit. That was then, and is now, the only way by which such missions can be established. Suitable organization, administration and law, which are essential, will all come in under "the diversity of operations of the same Spirit." The first thing is to get a footing in a foreign field, and, by gospel conquest, raise up a wit- nessing host out of which to develop organiza- tion. The order of God in such work is, first, " apostles " — pioneer founders ; second, " proph- ets " — the witnessing host " of sons and daugh- ters, servants and maid-servants," as foretold by Joel ; third, evangelists for carrying the war into all the regions round about the ceiitral move- Mission AEY Methods Illustkated. 397 ment ; fourth, '' pastors and teachers " for the edification of the churches thus founded. This is God's arrangement for conquest, and ^' for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ." Eph. iv, 11, 12. I claim for the Missionary Societies that they have done much, and will yet do more in all the departments of this Divine programme, just as orphanages and houses of industry for poor children have their industries, and develop good men and women, but not of the high type and grand proportions of the great com- mercial and mechanical world outside. So, as I have shown in defining the " three principles," there are, in God's plan, two dis- tinct kinds of missionary work. On this I remark : 1. That the organized Missionary Societies have no provision adequate to this original type of planting missions. I will give a few illustrations on that line. When I was working as an evangelist for the Wesley an missionaries in British Guiana, South America, fifteen years ago, I heard that the people of Paramaribo, the capital of Dutch Gui- ana, two days south of us by steamer, had for 398 Self-Suppoeti^-g Missions. twenty years been petitioning tlie Wesleyan Mis- sionary Society to send missionaries to that city, and that tlie municipal government had offered them by gift a good site for mission premises. I considered that an opening, and after satisfying myself fully as to facts in the case, I proposed to go to Paramaribo, and have a hundred or two of the perishing people con- verted, and organize a self-supporting mission to be added to their list of loyal missions in Brit- ish Guiana. The only condition I required was that they would give me a man to take charge of the work and develop it. A grand young man — Rev. Richard Bleeby — volunteered to go with me, and remain as the pastor, in case I made my word good to give him a self-support- ing converted people to provide for him, other- wise he would return with me. I became re- sponsible for every dollar of the expense in- volved in the experiment — experiment as it seemed to many, but with me, by that faith which " is the evidence of things not seen," a certainty of success. The project was talked up, and the young ministers, to a man, were enthusiastically in favor of such an advance of their work. The plan was fully matured and ready for execution, requiring only the official Missionary Methods Illustrated. 399 sanction of tlie Cliairman of the District. He was an amiable, pious man ; but when the proposition was submitted to him, he expressed great surprise at our presumption and folly in even proposing to found a mission in a new country without the initiative order from the Committee in London. He could not entertain such a proposal for a moment. Thus the dear young thing was strangled to death in the birth. Some time after that I preached a few times in the Island of St. Thomas, and we had a great awakening among the people, and some leading merchants in the capital and principal town begged me to stop and found a mission there. My work would not allow me to settle down in that city, and, having no man to appoint as pastor, I had to decline. Then they begged me to use my influence with the Committee in London to send them a missionary, and they would pledge the payment of $1,000 a year for his support. There were many Wesleyans residing in that city, but they had no organiza- tion nor minister. I wrote the Committee in London, laying all the facts before them, and so the hopeful enterprise had a decent inter- ment. 400 Self-Supporting Missions. On my way to Brazil, a couple of years ago, I called at St. Thomas. As soon as I stepped ashore the first man I met exclaimed : " O, aint this Mr. Taylor ? " I said, "Yes." ^^ Now you have come to stop with us, and preach for us." " No, I have to proceed in this steamer to Brazil." I walked around amid the tombs of sinners lost forever and of buried possibilities of soul- saving work that opened up so manifestly during my former visit. Mr. E., one of the merchants so anxious for the establishment of a Wesleyan mission, though not professedly a converted man, had died, and many more, but no Wesleyan mission established. Others less reliable had, meantime, occupied the field. When I was laboring among the Kaffir nations in Africa, my royal interpreter became so wonderfully indued " with power from on high," that the great chiefs sent messengers after me hundreds of miles, to Natal, praying that I would send "Pamla" back to them. By months of daily work with Pamla, and the conversion of thousands of Kaffirs, I was led fully to concur with his expressed convictions Missionary Methods Illustrated. 401 that God wanted him to go through those nations as a founder of missions. I therefore addressed a petition to the An- nual Meeting of the Wesleyan missionaries of South Africa, stating my convictions in regard to Pamla's call, and begged them to appoint him regularly with Brother Jenkins, in the midst of the Kaffir nations, and without any irregu- larity let it be understood between him and the superintendent that he shall not be tied down to the routine of pastoral work, which others could do as well, but have his time for planting new missions, while they should pro- vide and send pastors to man them ; or let him stay long enough in a new field to develop the work and its indigenous workers. I also offered to support him out of my pocket at least for one year, that the thing might be tested. I received a very coui-teous reply, saying that nothing of the kind could be attempted without the consent of the Committee in Lon- don. Pamla is doing a grand work, but under disabling restrictions to this day. When I laid the foundation of our mission in Cawnpore, India, I got pledges which gave a guarantee of support for a missionary, and, 402 Selp^-Supporting Missions. on tlie floor of the India Mission Conference, pleaded the cause of Cawnpore till they con- sented to put it on their list of missions, at the risk of trouble at home for crossing the Ganges into territory from which the covenants of the Missionary Society precluded them. Then it required a year of negotiation with the Board at New York to get a missionary for Cawnpore. I remark : 2. That such is the order established by the Missionary Societies, that when God founds a mission in modern times on his original plan, they seem to regard it an irregularity that must be squelched or absorbed by their organization and reduced to order, I will mention but a few illustrative examples : Nathaniel Gilbert, Esq., Speaker of the House of Assembly in the Island of Antigua, West Indies, accompanied by two of his colored servants, while on a visit to England, heard Mr. Wesley preach the Gospel. Mr. Gilbert and his two servants were saved, and in- structed in the saving doctrines of the aj)ostle3 through the agency of Mr. Wesley. On Mr. Gilbert's return to Antigua he preached and his servants witnessed, and a work of salvation among the people, principally the colored Missionary Methods Illustrated. 403 people, of that island, followed. This was de- veloped and extended under Mr. Gilbert's ministry — not officially — for several years till he died. Then Mrs. Gilbert superintended the work for a season, when she returned to England. Then two colored women held meetings nightly among the societies for two years. Then God sent them a missionary from En- gland in the following order : The dock-yard at Antigua being in want of shipwrights, an application was made to the Government at home for some suitable persons to be sent from England to supply the deficiencies. Among the persons selected for this purpose was Mr. John Baxter, of the Koyal Dock at Chatham, who, having received his appointment, repaired to Antigua without delay. Mr. Baxter, prior to this time, had been a member of the Meth- odist Society about twelve years, and previous to his departure had been a class-leader for some considerable time, and for several years as a local preacher he had called sinners to repentance. Mr. Baxter became at once the preacher in charge of the work opened under the ministry of Mr. Gilbert. The introduction to this work is 404 Self-Supporting Missions. described in a letter lie wrote Mr. Wesley, which reads as follows : On Thursday, April 2, 1778, I arrived at English Harbor. On Friday, the 3d, I went to St. John's, and waited on Mr. H., who received me kindly. The next day Mr. II. went with me to see our friends. The work that God began by Mr. Gilbert is still remaining. The black people have been kept together by two black women, who have continued praying and meeting with those who attended every night. I preached to about thirty on Saturday night, on Sunday morning to about the same number, and in the afternoon of the same day to about four or five hundred. The old members de- sire that I would inform you that you have many chil- dren in Antigua whom you never saw. I hope we shall have an interest in your prayers, and that our Christian friends will pray for us. Last Saturday I again visited St. John's and preached to a fashionable company of white women, while the back room was full of blacks, who are athirst for the Gospel. On the following day I preached to a large concourse of people that filled both the house and the yard. From that time Mr. Baxter was the superin- tendent of that work for eight years. He sup- ported himself with his own hands, but his people built a substantial church, which was opened in 1783 — the first Methodist chapel that ever appeared in the torrid zone. Dr. Coke, on his way to America with two Missionary Methods Illustrated. 405 of his missionaries, Messrs. Clarke and Ham- mett, was driven by furious gales to the south- ward, and landed at Antigua Christmas morn- ing, 1786. Walking up the street in St. John's he met Mr. Baxter, with hymn book and Bible under his arm, on his Avay to his preaching ap- pointment. The meeting was one of mutual joy. Dr. Coke preached three times that day and administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. I insert a copy of one of Dr. Coke's first letters from the West Indies, describing this work, and the numerical strength of the societies under Mr. Baxter's care. January 5, 1787. I have preached in this town twice a day. The house used to be filled in the evenings about an hour before the time of preaching, and I have made it a rule to begin about half an hour before the time. Our society in this island is nearly two thousand ; but the ladies and gentlemen of the town have so filled the house that the poor dear negroes who built it have been almost entirely shut out except in the mornings, and yet they bear this, not only with patience, but with joy. Two or three times I have preached in the country. Our friends who invite us to their houses entertain us rather like princes than subjects ; herein perhaps lies part of our danger in this country, 26 406 Self-Supporting Missions. Self - Supporting Resources. Dr. Coke at once held an infant conference. He appointed one of his missionaries to assist Mr. Baxter, and then made a tour through most of that group of the West Indies, piloted by Mr. Baxter. At Kingston, St. Vincent, Dr. Coke was received by Mr. Claxton, whose wife was Mr. Nathaniel Gilbert's adopted daughter. Mr. Claxton fitted up a large warehouse with seats for a congregation, and Mr. Clarke, the other missionary of Dr. Coke, was stationed there. That was the commencement of a self-sup- porting mission, which gave great promise of conquering all those islands for Christ. Dr. Coke's missionaries were supported by their people, but his arrangements for a conference on this independent base, as in America, were not carried out ; but the societies in all those islands were put under the kind fostering care and control of a Missionary Society, and they supplied them plentifully with missionaries sent from England, and sujDported for the most part by the funds of the Society whose servants they were. Eighty years after Dr. Coke's arrival in Antigua I made an evangelizing tour through Missionary Methods Illustrated. 407 that island, and found an aggregate Methodist membership on the whole island of about 2,300, about 300 more than John Baxter had eighty years before. Before the Methodist Episcopal Church had any Missionary Society, God founded one of his original sort among the Wyandot Indians. He selected as his missionary a mulatto man near Marietta, Ohio, named Stuart, and called him, as he called Paul at Troas to go to Macedonia. " In a vision of the night " an Indian man and squaw appeared to him and said, " Come north and teach us and our people." Stuart considered the matter, " assuredly gathering that the Lord had called [him] for to preach the gospel unto them." Acts xvi, 9, 10. He was called to be a pioneer, and had noth- ing to do but obey the call. But, instead of obeying God, he laid the case before his min- ister and the brethren. Of course, it was all out of order. He had not the education, nor gifts, nor authority from the Church for any such undertaking. Poor Stuart had somewhat of the feeling of Jonah when he took ship for Tarshish. He was prostrated by dangerous illness, and 408 Self-Supporting Missions. brought down to a near view of the gates of death, and the terrors of hell made him airaid. Then he " cried to the Lord in his distress," and promised, if God would restore him, he would confer with nobody, but go and do the work he might give him to do. At once he began to recover, and was soon restored to health. He took his Bible and hymn book, and a little knapsack of provisions, and started due north, as he was told in the vision. He traveled through the wilderness three days, and came to a tribe of Indians \^dio were engaged in " corn-shucking." He went in with them and helped them shuck their corn, after which, in the evening, they had a dance. He sat down, and they formed a dancing circle around him, and amused themselves by show- ing him how near to his nose they could cut the air with their tomahawks without cutting his nose off. After allowing them to play at that game a while he took out his hymn book and begaD to sing. They squatted and listened and grunted ap- plause till he was through, and then by signs told him to sing again, and so he sang on by the hour. He supposed they were the people to whom Missionary Methods Illustrated. 409 he was sent; but after staying witli tliem three days the impression on his mind was that he must proceed north. So they filled his knapsack with provisions for his journey, and he bade his new friends good-bye, and walked on through the wilderness for about a week, and came to the house of an Indian agent, Squire Walker, and told his story. The squire thought it was all nonsense, but told him of a colored man, by the name of Jon- athan, who lived a few miles farther north, who had spent many years among the Wyandot In- dians, and could speak their language perfectly. So Stuart went on north and came straight to Jonathan's house. He did not sit down first of all to learn the language of the Wyandots, but went to work on his sable host that night. Jonathan confessed that he had known the Saviour when a lad in Kentucky, but had fallen away, and had become the same as an Indian. Next day Stuart went with Jonathan to a " corn-shucking," and did his full share of the work. At night came the usual dance, but Stuart took out his hymn book and began to sing. The Indian chiefs and warriors at once squatted down and listened and grunted. Aft- er a few hymns Stuart preached to them in 410 Self-Supporting Missions. his way — Jonathan interpreting. The Indians were very attentive, and seemed much pleased. Then he made an appointment to preach the next day at Jonathan's house, and thought from the interest manifested that he would have a crowd of chiefs and people. Long before the hour for preaching Stuart was away in the forest, (" the closet " of our pioneer preachers in the West,) and was praying for power to instruct the red men, and lead them to Jesus. At the time to commence preaching he returned to the house, and not an Indian was to be seen anywhere round, and he felt a dreadful chill of disappointment ; but, on entering the cabin, there sat the man and the squaw whom Stuart recognized at a glance as the persons whom he had seen in his vision. He preached to them, and gave out an ap- pointment for the next day, and they brought two more, and so on he went daily. He soon got his interpreter converted, and then the Spirit of God poured light into the minds of the natives, and the most remarkable work of God ensued that has ever been recorded in the history of North American Indians. J. B. Fin- ley's " History of the Wyandot Mission " is one of the most thrilling narratives of its kind on Mission AKY Methods Illustrated. 411 record. Among Stuart's early conveii:s were the great chiefs of the nation, Mouoncue, Grey Eyes, Between-the-logs, and others, who became men of great eloquence and power in the Church. As the result of that work very many of the Lord's red men went up to swell the great multitudes of the redeemed in heaven. The whole nation was leavened by it; but the movement passed into the hands of the Mis- sionary Society. They, with the Indian nations generally, who own so much grand territory of our country, and ought to be a well-to-do people, are, in the main, very poor and dependent. With many individual exceptions they have, by lavish appropriations of missionary and of government money, been reduced to a condi- tion but little above beggary; and those who work and make money don't think of '^laying by in store " for God's work " as the Lord hath prospered them." The superintendent of our missions in Indian Territory told me but a few months ago that he could not get a shilling from his people for the support of the Gospel. I repeat, our Missionary Societies are the grandest benevolent institutions in the world, but their usefulness depends largely on their 412 SELF-SiTppoRTiira Missions. keeping purely within their appropriate charity sphere of work. When they indiscriminately absorb the churches of any country, as in the West Indies and in Nova Scotia, the good done to real objects of charity is more than overbalanced by the pauperizing evil to those who are able to carry the whole movement to their own great advantage. And to give a monopoly of the business of founding nearly all the new churches of our far Western States and Territories to a Missionary 'Society, is as great a mistake as to put the railroad system, and all its immense machinery, with all mechan- ical and mining enterprises, under the control of a charity institution in New York. The men who display such immeasurable energy and genius, and accomplish so much in developing the physical resources of these new States and Territories, are they not able to support the Gospel ? Why don't they do it ? They are the sharp- est and most practical men in the world, and diamonds from the same mine are the only sort that will cut such material. A gentleman from the East, well educated, highly refined, pious and eloquent, sent out by a benevolent institution with an appropriation not half suffi- Missio:n^ary Methods Illustrated. 413 cient for the support of himself and family, but quite enough to prevent him from getting an adequate allowance from the people he has come to serve, and who are well able to pay for serv- ice rendered them ; that minister will be treated like a gentleman and agent of an honorable and moneyed institution: but, so far as the mass of the men of means are concerned, he Avill not get much of their money, and, infinitely worse still, he will not get them. He will, in course of years, " build up a church," and after a sad process of weaning them, in which the old sheep of the fold will do most of the bleating, their church will become self-supporting and be pronounced a grand success through the wisdom and beneficence of the Missionary Society. A voice from the other side says : " I would like to see you put down on your plan in one of those fields to which we appropriate mis- sionary money." To be put down in a Church fostered for years by a Missionary Board would be " a hard appointment" for me. Whether I should not close up the concern and begin anew, would depend on local circumstances ; but in any case I should certainly strike for new diggings, 414 Self-Supportij^g Missions. and form a company of siich as can dig or drill or blast, as occasion may require. I would welcome into my new company all the old hands Avho might concur in the change, and do the w^ork required. This is a delicate subject on which I say but little, but one about which I feel the gravest concern, for it involves the salvation or otherwise of millions of souls, and the future of our Churches in those grand coun- tries. It is not money that is needed, but men. I mean no reflection on the good men in the field. I know them and love them. They are hard-working men and making head- way, but working under great disabilities, just as I would have to work if put down into such fields as an agent of a charity institution. Much depends on beginning on a right basis, and keeping on in the more excellent w^ay from the start. If Methodism in America, founded in God's irregular way, had been kept in the trailing strings of the good men sent from England, it never would have met the demands of its great emergencies, nor would it have mastered the situation. Its English pastors, hearing the thunder of the coming revolutionary war, has- Missionary Methods Illustrated. 415 tened back to their native place, all except Francis Asbury, who became a thorough live American. The abandonment of Methodism to itself and to the God of providence was the real beginning of its healthy development. As soon as the Gospel was fairly planted in Madagascar by the heroic missionaries of the London Missionary Society, an exterminating war of persecution was raised against their infant churches. The missionaries all fled, as Paul often did, and the young converts were left without pastors to endure the fury and force of a heathen government. They were arrested wherever found, and brought to trial, and forced to renounce the new religion or be cast over a high cliff into the sea. But few of them hesitated a moment. They were thrown over into the sea by hundreds, and went on dying for Jesus till they brought new life into their nation. The peril of Christ's cause now in Madagascar is its po]3ularity with the Gov- ernment and the patronage it brings. The founding of that mission was a grand achieve- ment of the London Missionary Society on the charity principle, and worth a thousand times more than ten thousand times the amount of money expended on it. Their loving, fostering 416 Self-Supporting Missions. founders out of the way, the Holy Spirit led them '^ through the floods of great waters," and developed them into a Church of light and might that " revealed the glory of the Lord." There are so many sides to this subject, and so many peculiar cases come up, that the wis- dom of our wisest men is baflled ; but let it be " legal " and in ^^ order " for the Lord to work by at least the ttvo plain methods he has insti- tuted and honored through the ages. A New Departure. 417 XXII. A NEW DEPARTURE TESTED BEFORE TRUSTED. God being manifestly the Author and Leader of this self-supporting caission, I well knew, from the beginning, that it would be op- posed by carnal minds, and sharply criticised by spiritually minded church officials who are set for the defense of the truth as it appears to them. I am not, therefore, either surprised or terrified by any of the assaults of our assailants. Rev. George Bowen, Editor of the " Bombay Guardian," though well acquainted with things divine and human, did seem astonished, when he penned for his paper the following : There has never been, to our knowledge, a man so abused in Bombay as this evangelist (William Taylor) has been. All sorts of calumnies have been uttered against a man who came to this country at his own charge, pays all his own expenses, is ready to share whatever he has with any poor man, takes nothing from any: a man devotedly attached to his family, yet who has foregone their society for six years that he may proclaim the Gospel of God to these people; a man w^hom God has acknowledged by saving and 418 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. blessing multitudes through his ministry; who has borne the calumnies and insults addressed to him with the meekness that becomes his mission — not replying again. And when a sense of justice leads some one else to point out the wrongfulness of such attacks, im- mediately there is an outcry about our glorification of Mr. Taylor. There has never been any thing of the kind on our part. If Mr. Taylor had been solicitous of the honor that cometh from man he would have pursued a very differ- ent course from that which he has followed. In fact, the Lord would not have used him. Our contempo- raries sometimes favor us with articles explanatory of what they call the failure of missions, the powerless- ness of the pulpit, etc. — referring in terms by no means flattering to the love of money, comfort, position, in those who preach the Gospel. From the strain of their remarks one would infer that they would be enraptured to see a man against whom no trace of this feeling can be alleged. When a man comes who in all particulars embodies a complete disdain of these things, they are more bitter against him than ever they were against any other. " But wisdom is justified of her children." The attacks to which Brother Bowen refers did not come from the Hindus nor from the Mohammedans. They came principally first from a few Protestant missionaries and their friends ; and second from English infidel op- posers of all missions and missionaries. Their assaults did not affect my feelings, having nei- A New Departure. 419 ther time nor inclination to read them. I heard the echoing report of their guns, but being quite beyond their range, never felt the scratch of a bullet. I had a most bitter assailant in New Zealand, who wrote some half dozen articles in a daily paper against me and the work of God in which I was engaged. Judge W., son of a Governor in India, responded, as I was informed, in a masterly manner. A bundle of the papers containing the whole controversy was kindly passed into my hands, and without opening it I put it among a collection of curiosities. I thought I might have time to examine it in old age if I ever should retire from the front. Some years after I left New Zealand T met a friend from there, who well knew the man who had so maligned me in the papers, and he gave me the sad news that he was dead ; had died as he lived, but in a tragic way — " cooked and eaten by the Moories," whose cannibal hun- ger for human flesh had been revived by their war with the English soldiers. When tidings of the work of God in India in connection with my agency reached the " ears of the Church " in America, they occa- sioned gratitude to God, and joyous hope in the 420 Self-Supporting Missions. hearts of the rank and file; but very soon, east and west, there was raised a cry of alarm and opposition. In one article of assault, the author drew from his argument this emphatic conclusion : It is a sin against high heaven for Taylor to he experimenting in a foreign mission field!''' Another tried to comfort the distressed by assuring the Church that Taylor's work in India was an entire failure — a little stir among a low class of Eurasians of no standing or influence, and that the " two hundred and fifty millions of the native population belong to us/' It must not be supposed that our Church in America is opposed to this self-supporting mission work in India. In the last seven years at home I have had good opportunity to know the sentiment of our people, and have not a doubt that ninety -nine out of every hundred of them and their ministers are entirely in sym- pathy with this movement and rejoice in its success. The opposition here is not from the outside world ; nor from other Churches ; but from a very few returned missionaries, and a small number of our own church officials. It does not proceed from personal envy, nor enmity, A Xew Departure. 421 but from a grave apprehension that the success of self supporting missions will tend to close the pockets of our people against the treasury of our organized missionary societies. If there is a possible tendency of this sort, I assume that the way to prevent any such effects is to impart to our people a clear exhibit of all the facts in the case. I have been earnestly engaged in this business, east and west, six days per week, for half a dozen years past ; not specially ad- vocating my self supporting missions, but set- ting forth clearly the philosophy and the facts of the whole missionary work of our Church, and of all Churches, and the harmony of the diffei'ent varieties of work, and the different methods used for its accomplishment. The tens of thousands of people who have heard my addresses, from our Atlantic border to British Columbia, stand ready to testify, if need be, that for every quarter of an hour I gave in ex- planation of the peculiarities of my own work, I gave at least an hour in advocacy of the claims of our organized missionary societies. In regard to the money scare, I assume : 1. That any stingy man who would witlibold his donations from the missionary treasury be- cause I have establisbed some missions on the 27 422 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. principle of self-support, has not been properly instructed in his head in regard to missions, or is wanting in love and sympathy in his heart for the perishing heathen, and, unless enlight- ened and saved, he is not of much use to the Church any way. Then, if such should with- draw their patronage, still the Missionary So- ciety will survive and prosper. 2. That self-supporting missions root down into indigenous resources of the foreign coun- tries in which they are planted, and don't re- quire funds from home, except to pay the out passage of our missionaries, and to assist in build- ing up the institutions of our Church in foreign countries. All the funds that may be given for these two purposes would not amount to a tithe of the money required to support the missionaries. So that the only way in which our people at home can, to any appreciable ex- tent, help the Lord Jesus to save the heathen, is by their prayers and the money they put into the missionary treasury. If they don't help in this way they cannot help much in any way. Then how will they answer to the Judge, who commanded them to go in person, or by proxy, and preach the Gospel to every creature ? 3. Suppose a few hundred dollars should, A I^EW Departure. 423 unasked, come into my Transit Fund, that might possibly have gone into the treasury of a mis- sionary society? What then? It is not so much that our Church gives that we should be frightened with the fear of depletion. At a circuit camp-meeting in Northern Indi- ana I once heard the Presiding Elder make a desperate begging appeal on Sabbath forenoon to raise $250 of a circuit deficiency, and he re- ceived in collection and pledges about $38. He was awfully crest-fallen, and said ; " It is no use to try this again. We can't get blood out of a turnip, for the reason that there is none in it." He aftei-ward said to me : " Brother Taylor, you can't sell any books to these people. They have had drought and failure of crops, and are dead broke." I said : " All right, brother. My mission is to preach the Gospel. My book business is secondary and incidental, and of no account compared with my gospel preaching." On Monday forenoon I made a little speech, and the people cleaned out a box of my books in fifteen minutes. I had hard work to find change enough to break the five and ten dollar bills that were turned OTit of the wallets of those " dead-broke f arn^iers." 424 SELF-SuppoRTiis'a Missions. Tlie Presiding Elder opened his eyes to new possibilities. " W%," said he, ^' I am astonished. These people have plenty of money. I must go at them again, and clear off this circuit debt." So after Tuesday forenoon preaching he made a brief statement of the case, and I added a few remarks, and in about twenty minutes the same people paid the last dollar required. Had I not tapped their depleted resources a bit, that circuit would have gone on groaning under the burden of its debt and murmuring about hard times. In a neighboring State, another Presiding Elder, not more pious, perhaps, but more philo- sophic, said to me : ^' Brother Taylor, I want you to attend my camp-meeting at , and bring a good supply of your books. The people of that region are well-to-do farmers, but they are opposed to education, and have no taste for reading. I have tried my best, but can't get them to subscribe for one of our Church peri- odicals, nor to buy a book, so that their igno- rance and stinginess beat me out. They are a kind people in their way, and impressible in their emotional religious sensibilities, and if you will come to the camp-meeting you can get hold of them, and they will buy your books. A New Departure. 425 and the books will act as an entering wedge to the introduction of our catalogue publications and periodicals, and help me to enlighten and enlarge the minds of my people." I accepted the invitation, preached a num- ber of sermons in that leafy temple, and near the close of the camp-meeting services I called the attention of the people to my cause and my books. In a few minutes the Presiding Elder sold the last book on hand, and ran into the preachers' tent shouting " Hallelujah." I assume, furthermore, that God is doing all he can through our Missionary Societies, and that he is also opening and developing this work of self-support. Now, if it should come to pass that his resources for the sustentation of the two kinds of work are inadequate, and that his fields for their operation are too limited, I shall not try to solve the problem, but leave its adjustment to his wisdom and power, and abide his decision. But some of my official brethren cannot see it as I do. I am not surprised at that, and certainly have no complaints against them for seeing differently. Others, also, feel it their duty to warn the world against the perilous possibilities of self-supporting missions. The 42 G Self-Supporting Missions. biggest guns that liave yet opened fire against them were those of A.D. 1881. The^^'^"^ was at the great Ecumenical Council in London. The champion selected by the op- position was a celebrated doctor of divinity of the Wesley an body. His long, elaborate speech is in the book containing a record of the proceedings of the great Council, published by the Methodist Book Concern, New York. The great doctor ran a parallel between the work, respectively, of Dr. William Butler and William Taylor in India. The one regularly appointed, the other an adventurer on his own account ; the one assigned judiciously to a definite field of labor, the other went wherever he pleased ; the one founded legitimate, the other illegitimate missions ; hence, the Churches growing up under the one, regular, the Churches under the other, irregular, but have a sort of recognition by the Methodist Episcopal Church of America. The doctor's dignified propriety would not allow him to say it in words, but the substance was that the South India Con- ference had a bastard birth, and no legitimate family relationship in Methodism. According to the record, not one of all our heroic host of representatives of American A New Departure. 427 Methodism who listened to that speech took upon him to say to that little Englishman that William Taylor's Churches in India have the seal of God upon them. ^' Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor- ruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever." And that the South India Conference was duly organized under a regular charter from the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America — the only Church Mr. Wes- ley ever organized — and that the said South India Conference, therefore, sustains the same legitimate, royal relationship to the Church as the New York Conference, or any other in the body, and that, too, on its o^^oi independent base of material resources, without the spon- sorship or pap of a Missionary Society. That grand man of God, William Arthur, followed with an able address, not ostensibly, but really, covering all the points made against my missions. When any "Tertullus" under- takes to enlighten the public on the irregular- ities and impropneties of my self-supporting missions, as in the past, so also in the future, the assailant may expect to be confronted by a modest statement of the facts in the case by a 428 SELF-SuppoRTma Missiotts. man who Jiajppens to be there. Even in this world-wide representative meeting of Method- ism, when all my American brethren, through want of information or otherwise, gave quiet assent to the impeachment of the South India Conference, William Arthur, a man of convic- tions and courage to express them, knew the facts in the case. He is my friend, and his daughter, the wife of Anderson Fowler, of New York, is the Kecording Secretary of the Transit Fund of my missioiis, and it so hajpjpened that she, accompanied by her husband, was on a visit to her parental home at that very time. It so happens. The said attacking doctor of divinity is an old friend of mine, but he personally knows nothing about my w^ork in India. He simply proclaimed from "the house-top" what "he heard in the closet," from designing men who lacked his courage to say what they wanted to be said on that great occasion. The next demonstration against us was at the meeting of our Missionary Committee in New York last November. I cannot be sus- pected of " telling tales out of school " when I simply insert what was published to the world in our great Church official, as follows : A New Departure. 429 South India. — Amount asked, |500. Bishop Mer- rill and Drs. Crawford and Baldwin spoke of the posi- tion of the South India as an alleged self-supporting Conference. Dr. Baldwin especially referred to the claim that the South India was a model for our mis- sionary work. The fact is, that it does no missionary work among the heathen. The impression that it does is caused by virtual misrepresentation. Under the ad- ministration of Brother Taylor unfit men had been appointed, and the Bishops were expected to shoulder the responsibility. Bishop Harris thanked Dr. Baldwin for his remarks. These self-supporting missionaries absorb our collec- tions and do not do our work. Bishop Merrill con- firmed the unfitness of some of Brother Taylor's ap- pointments, and the Churches of India have been pressed to pay the cost of their passage home. The South India Conference is tired of being called Taylor's men, and having preachers sent them whom they would not receive. He paid tribute to Brother Taylor's per- sonal work, and to the character of the members of the South India Conference. Dr. Brice asked for informa- tion as to Brother Taylor's irregularity, so that our people may know how to act. Bishop Foss, while paying high tribute to Brother Taylor, yet spoke as personally acquainted with the unfitness of many of his appointments. Bishop Hurst defended Brother Taylor, and said he was doing the work he professed to do, and by that he must be judged. His mistakes in making appointments were no greater than those made at home. Dr. Curry said William Taylor was a peculiar man. But he was a sincere man, and he 430 Self-Supporting Missions. wished the Church had twenty such to found self- supporting Conferences the world over. Bishop Wiley, while appreciating Brother Taylor, yet deprecated his course as detrimental to our missionary collections. He was conveying wrong impressions as to the needs of our missionary work. He was not carrying the Gospel to the heathen at all, but to the English-speaking inhabitants. This our people should distinctly understand. Bishop Foster said it was our duty to administer these mis- sionary matters according to the rules of the Society. William Taylor has an undoubted call which God has crowned by success. Let him do his work and we do ours. Dr. Fowler moved to amend the resolution to appro- priate $500 by directing the secretary to announce to the brethren of the South India Conference that, in paying the interest, this Society does not admit any responsibility for the payment of the debt on the church at Allahabad. Bishop Harris urged the neces- sity for this action. If we pay the interest without some such protest, it will be claimed that we have assumed the debt. There was much discussion as to the position of this church at Allahabad. Bishop Merrill explained that it was a private enterprise, and we have not contributed to it, and do not own it. It is simply held for wor- ship according to the Discipline and rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. Buckley considered that there was no reason for passing this amendment. Our plan with India ought to be strong, but courteous. We do not owe the debt, and any assumption that we do, or insulting letters, may be left to the Correspond- A New Departure. 431 ing Secretaries. Bishop Foss agreed with Dr. Buck- ley, and moved to lay the amendment on the table. This was lost, 12 to 18. The amendment was adopted, 11 to 12, and the full amount was granted. The dear brethren in the Committee, like the great Sanhedi'in that arraigned Paul, were pretty equally divided. When Dr. Thoburn, in Calcutta, read in our New York Advocate these strictures of the Missionary Committee, he was stirred in the interest of truth and justice to wTite the fol- lowing reply, published in the issue of March 9, 1882: Mission Work in the South India Conference. At the recent session of the General Missionary Com- mittee in New York an unfortunate discussion of the merits of the work in the South India Conference took place, in the course of which the somewhat startling statement was made that this Conference '* does no missionary work among the heathen," and that "the impression that it does is caused by virtual misrepre- sentation." This testimony of an experienced mission- ary who had visited our work, supported as it was by two Bishops, one of whom had visited India, will no doubt attract attention, and be accepted very widely in the Church. To us in South India it comes with the weight of a serious accusation. As a Conference, we have repeatedly affirmed that we aim at the conver- sion of the heathen, and we have steadily kept this 432 Self-Supporting Missions. object in view. Whether we actually do any thing for them or not can only be determined by an appeal to facts, and this appeal I most respectfully beg to submit : 1. We have two preachers who cannot preach in English at all, and hence they cannot be included among those who work only " for the English-speaking inhabitants." 2. We have three preachers who live among the heathen, far from European society, and it is certainly safe to assume that they are doing something for the heathen. 3. We have two others who have been assigned to exclusively vernacular work, and who do nothing, ex- cept in an incidental way, among Europeans. 4. We have more than a dozen local preachers who do regular work among the heathen, preaching in bazaars and other public places, and in some cases exer- cising pastoral care over small bands of converts. 6. Wo have an orphanage among the heathen, with some sixty or seventy children, and the pastoral over- sight of another orphanage, with more than three hun- dred inmates. 6. We have not less than 1,000 native Christians, of all ages, connected with us, while the proportion of native members to Europeans steadily increases. 7. We are indirectly — if it must so be called — work- ing among the heathen through the agency of our En- glish-speaking members. Every evening in the week Christian ladies may be found in a public square in Calcutta, surrounded by a crowd of heathen people, helping the preachers with their singing and prayers ; and every Sunday afternoon two bands of refined A New Departure. 433 Christian ladies may be found in the streets, one work- ing among the grog-shops, and the other in lanes and streets, where three fourths of those who gather round them are heathen. 8. We do not baptize many converts, but God gives as many to us as to any other missionaries in the city. Other facts might be adduced in defense of our work, but perhaps the above will suffice. If a personal re- mark may be pardoned, I would refer briefly to my own connection with this Conference. For nearly fif- teen years I worked in connection with the North India Mission, and for nearly eight years I have been in the South India Conference. In crossing the Conference boundary line I did not feel, and never since have been able to feel, that I ceased in the smallest degree to be a missionary to the heathen. In India we have the heathen all around us, and all Christian work done in India is work done for the heathen. Then as to direct work, I am preaching five or six times a week to heathen audiences, and rarely preach to any audience in which no heathen are found. Brother Bowen, of Bombay, I believe, preaches three hundred and sixty-five times a year to heathen audiences, and we have other preachers among us who do but little less. There are probably fifty sermons or exhortations given by Methodist preachers to heathen audiences in Calcutta alone every month, except during the rains. And yet we have good and wise men in India who do not think this ought to be called missionary work. I have often been ap- proached by missionary friends who say, in substance, " You are doing a good work, no doubt ; but I cannot help regretting that you ever gave up missionary work." 434 SELF-SuppoRTmG Missions. I seldom defend myself against such an impeachment. It would be useless to attempt it. The man who cannot see any real missionary work in what we are doing, is not likely to change his mind in consequence of any possible array of facts. One thing I have noted with interest and gratitude. The missionaries in India who are the most efficient workers, and who are the most fully devoted to the great work of saving the heathen, are those who have the least misgivings about the future of the South India Conference. The dear brethren in North India, among whom I used to labor, have as warm a feeling toward me and my work as if I still stood in their ranks. We are one still, and our work is one. There is no antag- onism whatever between the interests of the two Con- ferences, as the devil very well knows, and hence his persistent efforts to create one. It Avould have been very easy at the outset to have stirred up a most un- natural spirit of rivalry and opposition between the two Conferences by appealing to imaginary dangers and indulging in wrong surmises ; but, so far as India is concerned, this danger has been happily averted thus far, and it is to be hoped that our friends at home will not allow themselves to be drawn into a hostile attitude toward our struggling work under the utterly mistaken impression that they will thereby help the Missionary Society. We are very indifferent workers, and have a record of which very few of us feel like boasting, but we are in our present field by the appointment of God and the Methodist Episcopal Church, and most respect- fully protest against having our names exj)unged from the missionary roll of Methodism. The readiness to A New Departure. 435 distrust us in some quarters is really amazing. At the great Ecumenical Conference in London we enjoyed the painful distinction of being the only Methodists in the world who were subjected to unfriendly criticism, and we were virtually put outside the common pale of universal Methodism without a word of protest from any quarter. Our position in the South India Conference is a delicate one ; our work is difficult, and our future by no means unclouded. We need the wisest statesman- ship and the purest devotion which the Church can give us. We are an Annual Conference, and the Bishop can transfer men to us at any time. Father Taylor has been severely criticised for not exercising more care in select- ing candidates ; but there is always this to be said for him, that he did something. If he had not stirred him- self, our work would have almost certainly broken down, at least so far as its original plan was concerned. 436 SELF-SuppORTmo Missions. XXIII. THE "ALLEGED SELF-SUPPORTING CON- FERENCE." This was the insinuation thrust against the South India Conference at the Missionary Committee meeting last November. Our self- support from the first was clearly defined to mean the support of all our ministers and teach- ers and their families by the people they serve, with other indigenous help that may come to them. If there has ever been a violation of this principle to the amount of a dollar I have never heard of it from any body who is ac- quainted with our work. Transit money to pay passage and outfit of our out-going mission- aries, and assistance, if need be, to help build up our institutions, are the exceptions to our self-supporting rule, as stated from the begin- ning. For years attempts have been officially made to get the South India Conference to ask for an appropriation from the Missionary Committee to help weak charges, but the Con- ference has up to this hour refused to entertain the proposal. There are two cases which have "Self-Supporting Conferei^ce." 437 furnished an opportunity to some brethren who seem to desire such an opportunity to criticise my work in the meetings of the Missionary Committee. One was The Allahabad Debt. When Allahabad was connected with the " India Mission " — now " North India Confer- ence " — the Presiding Elder, when arranging to buy Church property in that city, laid the matter before the Bishop visiting there at the time, and got from him what he thought was a promise that, on his return to New York, he would bring the matter before the Mission- ary Committee, and, as was customary in that Conference, get an appropriation. He was so sure that the Bishop would secure the money from New York, that he went and borrowed the amount required on his own note, and bought the property for the Church — a regular Methodist Episcopal Church. If Allahabad had been in the South India Conference at that time, no appropriation would have been asked for nor expected. The charter granted by the General Confer- ence, for founding the South India Conference, placed Allahabad where, geographically, it be- 28 438 Self-Supporting Missions. longed, in the Soutli India Conference, and it fell into the Calcutta District. The Presiding Elder of the Calcutta District magnanimously relieved the Presiding Elder retiring, by cancel- ing his note, and giving his own note for said borrowed money for the Church. The certainty of getting the money from New York was from the beginning accepted by our people in Allahabad as a fact, that it had been given ; and between the two Elders, as I understand it, the people have not yet been informed of the facts in the case, first, because in addition to their other financial burdens they are not able to pay it ; and, further, the Elders did not want to disturb their confidence in the source whence, as they suppose, a munificent gift came to them. It was not introduced into the Mis- sionary Rooms by the Calcutta Presiding Elder. It had been there two or three years before it was entailed on us by the transfer of Allahabad to the South India Conference, but for which transfer they doubtless would have paid it long ago. The Calcutta Elder took it up, therefore, as a matter of record with our missionary sec- retaries, and fully explained the peculiarities of the case, and requested that they lift it off his heart, as he was not able to pay it, "Self-Supporting Conference." 439 and could look to no one in India to help him, as they already had as much as they could carry. It was not assumed that they were legal- ly bound, but that it would be a generous thing for them to do, under the circumstances. They heard him kindly, and agreed to pay the interest, and hoped that when their own debt was paid they might pay the principal, but it was not a positive promise. He would not have it as a missionary appropriation to the South India Conference, for it was purely local, and had nothing to do with ministerial support, for which mainly such appropriations are made. The Board has paid the interest most of the years since, and the " $500, as the amount asked for ^"^ by South India Conference, is sim- ply the annual interest that they have been paying for years; but it seemed refreshing to some of the dear brethren to have a blow over it. The amount of the debt is $5,000, for which, and interest at the rate of ten per cent, per annum, our Calcutta Presiding Elder is per- sonally held. Why should so grand a man of God be crushed down with such a burden ? If I had the money I would send him a telegram to-day, and order the debt discharged. Will not my friends in America join me in liberating 440 Self-Supporting Missions. our noble brother in Calcutta, and forever keep out of the precincts of the Missionary Commit- tee, except to give them money as we may be able. The other was The Ika Macalister Will Case? I never went into the details of it, but substan- tially it was this : Some years before I went to Bombay a good New England Methodist, as named above, on preparing to go to heaven, where all good Methodists go, ordered in his will that a certain amount, I believe $5,000 or $6,000, should be for the Methodist Church in Bombay. Some time after my return from India to America, some of our ministers in Bombay got information about this legacy, and as they were building a cburch edifice, and in need of money, thought that it would be a good thing to get the money which had been bequeathed to Bombay. They took it for granted that a New England man would, on paying out a lump of $6,000, see where he was putting it. He probably knew that there was no Methodist mission in Bombay at the time ; but knowins: that there was one in the Prov- inces of Oudh and Eohilcund, a thousand miles away, he could see no better way of getting '' Self-Supporting Conference." 441 one planted in a center so mucli larger than by specifically designating Bombay as the place where he wanted to apply his money. So our ministers in Bombay thought they had a good case. They wrote on to me to look after it, but that was entirely out of my line ; then they otherwise got their case before the Missionary Board, but the Board would not concede the claim of the Bombay Church. They were quite willing to give them an appropriation if they would ask it, but India refused, saying if they had no legal claim they did not want it ; finally at the Committee meeting, in November, 1880, they voted to give Bombay $2,500 of it. The Missionary Eeport for that year gives the following deliverance concerning the South India Conference, with mention of both these cases above referred to : South India Conference is a true missionary field. Those who preach the Gospel to the people there have to be sent to them. Once in the field, these pastors are supported by their own people. Nothing has been paid from the treasury of the Missionary Society during the past year, except a small grant to relieve the Church at Allahabad. The General Committee, which met in November last, also appropriated to be paid during the year 1881, to the Church in Bombay, the sum of $2,500. This case was, however, peculiar in 442 Self-Supporting Missioisrs. that the brethren in Bombay conceived that they had a claim to it, arising from a clause in the will of Ira Macalister. The foundation of this claim was not at all apparent to the Missionary Society ; but, in order to satisfy these claims, and because of our interest in the noble church erection at Bombay, the grant was cheerfully made. This amount, with the grant for Allahabad, makes $3,000 appropriated to South India. A small amount is usually appropriated to this field, not only to meet some possible want of the mission, but in order to keep it on the list of missions, without which certain peculiar privileges granted by the Discipline to foreign missions could not be applied to this field, and the work must be greatly embarrassed in consequence. If these had been granted as regular hona- fide appropriations for church building in those cities, it would not have infringed on our self- supporting principle, though Ave never did, and we never expect to, ask the Board to give us a cent for such purpose, except in these two peculiar cases. The only other case which could be tortured into a constructive charge of violating our self- supporting principle is this. The South India Conference, with 238,000,000 of heathens and Mohammedans, besides supporting all their own ministers, and their churches, parsonages, etc., " Self-Supporting Conference." 443 to build, are assessed for a contribution for tbe parent society, and have been contributing a small sum annually ; but I tbink for a year or two a Presiding Elder arranged with the home secretaries to appropriate this to some charity there, not for ministerial support, and that may be imputed to us as an appropriation to South India. Hence the sneering prefix " alleged self- supporting conference." Our people of the South India Conference, as seen in the tables I have inserted in this book in detail, have paid during the year 1881, for self-support, $24,579, and for building and repairing churches, $13,861. ALTERNATION BETWEEN PRINCIPLES "ONE AND TWO." Let the order of God in the apj^lication of these principles be maintained all the way through, Number one being the pioneer of number two. If number two is not possible in its immediate application to a field possess- ing self-supporting resources, don't, on any account, resort to principle number "three," but fall back on number one. Don't be ashamed to build tents, or do any honest thing 444 Self-Supporting Missions. for a living, till you tap those self-supporting resources, or let God select some man or wom- an who can do it. Who opened Mexico to Protestant missions ? The Missionary Societies stood back aghast till God opened the gates by the agency of a woman, irregular, of coui'se, but they went in when she opened the way. I will give an illustration of my point ; On a certain circuit in Colorado, receiving a mis- sionary appropriation, the people got discour- aged, and told the Presiding Elder that they could not support a preacher, and that he must not send one to that circuit the ensuing year. He urged them to go on and do the best they could, but they were so set in their purpose that at the last quarterly meeting just before the session of the Annual Conference, there was a unanimous vote passed requesting the Elder and Bishop not to appoint a preacher to that circuit the ensuing year. So in the list of appointments for that year that circuit was put down "to be supplied." The Presiding Elder, however, sent my friend, C, to supply the place where no preacher was Avanted. Brother C. went, and called on all the Meth- odist families in the principal village of the circuit, and w^as in every case told, " We don't Alternation Between Peinciples. 445 want you. We told tlie Presiding Elder not to send a man, and we can't go back on that." The poor fellow put in a day trying in vain to get even a boarding place ; so, late in the afternoon, he went to the house of a Methodist farmer and was repulsed in the same way. Mr. F. said to him : " Mr. C, we have noth- ing against you, but we told our Elder that the circuit could not support a preacher, and that he should not send us one, and now the thing is settled. I and my wife are going to join the Church in Denver, for this circuit has gone up." "Well," replied Brother C, "I am tired, and it is getting late. Will you allow me to stop over night with you ? " "No, Mr. C, we have not a spare bed in the house." " Will you let me sleep on the hay in your barn ? " " O yes, if you are so badly off as that, you can sleep on the hay, if you vnsh." Then the t^vo walked together to the barn, and Brother C. said to Mr. F. : "You and your wife are going to join in Denver, eh ? " " Yes." " Well, when you and your wife are away in the city, seven miles from home, what is to 440 Self-Supporting Missions. become of your boys running at large every Sunday, with no parental oversight or re- straint ? " "Well, Mr. C, I liad not thought of that ? " "You may see that it is a very serious thing, which demands your prayerful attention." So they talked till the supper-bell rang, and Mr. F. said ; " Mr. C, you had better come and get some supper." "If you please, sir, I will be much obliged for a supper, for I have had no dinner." After supper Brother C. rose to retire to his lodgings in the barn, when Mr. F. said : " Mr. C, one of my sons has gone to spend the night vnth a neighbor, and you can occupy his bed if you like." " All right, brother, I will accept your kind- ness and thank you." Next morning Brother C. was invited to stay for breakfast, and heard Mr. F. lamenting that he could not find a man in that country who knew how to rick w^heat and hay, saying, " I am just read}^ to haul in my crop. I don't know how to rick, and I don't know what to do." "What do you propose to give a man per day for that kind of work ? " " I'll pay two dollars and a quarter." Alternation Between PErN-ciPLES. 447 " Very well," said Brotlier C, " I'll take tliat job." " What, can you rick wheat and hay ? " " Yes, sir. I was brought up to do all such work as that. I shall want some poles and rails for a foundation first, and then you may put on all your teams and tumble in the wheat as fast as you can. I'll take care of it." So Brother C. could not get into that circuit on principle No. 2, and fell back on principle No. 1. Before the week was out many Method- ists asked him to let them make an appoint- ment for him to preach the ensuing Sabbath. He said : " No, I am hard at work here all the week, and need the Sabbath for rest." The next week they renewed their request. He put them off from time to time till he had ricked all Mr. F.'s large crop of wheat and hay. Then he yielded to their importunity. The house was crowded at his first appointment and every subsequent one. During the year about eighty persons pro- fessed to find salvation under his ministry, and though a single man, requiring but little to keep him, they paid him a salary of eleven hundred dollars, and gave him a good horse and buggy besides. 448 Self-Supporti2^g Missions, XXIV. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Is it not a fact clearly established tliat God has self-supporting principles and methods, for sending and sustaining his ministers, and that he has a self-supjDorting gospel work in the world ? Is it not a fact that most of the self-support- ing Churches in our own and other countries became such from the beginning without inter- mediate aid or agency from any Missionary Society ? If this is God's order in one country, why should it not be lawful, at least, to allow this same order of God to be introduced and tried in any or all countries ? "Is it not lawful?" I supposed it was when I commenced to try God's order in India; but soon, as we have seen, it was announced in a regular Church 23aper at home, that " it was a sin against high heaven for Taylor to be experimenting in a foreign-mission field." I paid no attention to that, for I thought it COTTCLUSIONS AND SuGGESTIOTTS. 449 was simply tlie writer's opinion. Then it was reiterated along tlie lines, " that Brother Taylor is out of order ; " but I could not see the point. I knew that I was at work in God's order, and there by his appointment, and, therefore, took it for granted that I was in harmony with his laws throughout the universe ; hence, pro- ceeded in my w^ork as led by the Spirit. The expansive force of our self-supporting principles has not been fairly tested yet. The Lord, by ways that I need not state, has kept me back, having kept me at the front but three years in India, and six months in South Amer- ica, out of the ten years of my self-supporting missions. It seems that God plants missions as he does trees. He don't want them to grow too fast, nor in a hot-house, but let them develop under all the changes of the seasons, and amid the fury of the storms. The yearnings of a pioneer founder of Churches for his persecuted spiritual children are thus described by Paul in his first epistle to the Church in Thessalonica, 1 Thess. ii, 7, 8 : " We were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children ; even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we w^ere 450 Self-Supporting Missions. well pleased to impart not the Gospel of God only, but also our own selves, because ye were become very dear to us." (New revision.) "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." The presence of a mother's sympathy when the father is chastising the children mars the disciplinary effect. So when an infant Church was planted under Paul's agency, and so far developed in holiness as to " endure hardness," and be tested under the " tribulum," to prevent its looking to Paul more than to God, he was suddenly taken out of the way. He spent about three years in chains as a prisoner at a time when he thought he was most needed to extend the work into Spain and Britain. There is a weakness in human nature strongly inclined to what Mr. Wesley designated " soft- ness and needless self-indulgence." That is much more dangerous to spiritual health and effectiveness than the hardness of God's whole- some discipline. If Hannibal's soldiers, toned up by the hardness they endured in the Alps, had been led directly to the gates of Rome, they would have conquered the Romans, but, after a few months of "softness and needless self-indulgence" at Capua the Romans con- quered them. CoNCLUsioj^-s a:[^d Suggestions. 451 As Paul was separated, in God's order, from his infant Churclies wlien he so yearned to be with them, so I was separated from mine in India; but the Lord, instead of sending me to jail, as he did Paul, has, for more than half a dozen years, had me preaching at large to help our dear people in their home work, and to root down the principles of Self-supporting Missions into the confidence and conscience of the Church at home so as to prevent schism, as an issue of the war against this self-supporting movement. The rank and file of Methodist preachers and their people will stand for God and his work every time, but they had to learn his method of founding Self-supporting Missions, and their harmony, in his design, with our organized mis- sionary societies ; hence the necessity of a representative of the self-supporting principles and plan in their midst. But, after all, is there any such war in ex- istence ? I have no personal war against any body, and am not aware that any body has against me. This is not a war of persons, but of prin- ciples. The question in dispute is on the pos- sibility and legality of founding Self-supporting Missions in foreign countries outside of the 452 Self-Supporting Missions. jurisdiction of missionary societies. Tlie key to the controversy was expressed at tlie meeting of the Mission Committee, last November, by utterances like this : '' Appreciating Brother Taylor, but deprecating his course as detri- mental to our missionary collections." It appears that this apprehension of rivalry in foreign mission fields and competition in re- gard to home resources, has been like Edgar Allan Poe's "Kaven" at the door of our mis- sionary councils ever since the commencement of my organization in India. Hence it became an apparent necessity and duty to extinguish the self-supporting spirit and principles of my missions. The thing had to be done very quietly to avoid a public demonstration. The measures em23loyed may be indicated by the statement of a few facts, some of which I have noticed before : 1. The first was to " jump my claim " in Bom- bay at the beginning; hence an appropriation of $20,000 to send men and plant a new mis- sion in that city. That failed. 2. To send out a superintendent to super- sede me and take my work over and put it directly under the control of our Missionary So- ciety. That failed also. Conclusions and Suggestions. 453 3. To get my consent to be officially ap- pointed as superintendent, under a declared concurrence in our principles of self-support, and a promise of non-interference, sincerely, I doubt not, but, as it turns out, there was a misunderstanding as to how far my self-sup- porting principles should apply in this organic relationship. I understood that our agreement certainly meant self-support and direct loyal relationship to the Methodist Episcopal Church under its episcopal government and control, without any sponsorship or control of the Missionary Society whatsoever. It seems that the Bishop understood it to mean self-support and episcopal supervision under the legal control of the Missionary Com- mittee. So I am just beginning to wake up to what is now claimed to be the fact in the case, that long ago the General Conference delegated the whole of her administrative responsibility of sending the Gospel to foreign countries to their Missionary Committee ; hence their rep- resentative, who took me and my India mission in, had really no authority to concede any thing to the peculiar requirements of my self-support- ing principle or plan. 29 454 Self-Supporting Missions. Hence I was really violating tlie laws of the Churcli, for I was getting people converted to God, and founding Methodist Churches away there in India without an order from the Mis- sionary Committee. But believing me to be " a sincere man," and that the work in which I was engaged was a genuine work of God, they passed over my un- intentional irregularities, and appointed me superintendent of the work God had given me. Then the coast seemed all clear for the admin- istration, and every thing went on quietly for a season. When the General Conference granted a charter for the organization of my India Churches into a regular Annual — not a " Mis- sion " — Conference, I accepted that action as a confirmation of the legality of my principles of Self-supporting Missions. But it seems, after all, that I was mistaken ; for when, under a conscious call from God, I went and laid the foundations of Self-supporting Missions in South America, I was pronounced out of order again. Then followed more manifest determination to strip my work of its missionary character — ^' no missionary work at all " — and buy up, or in CONOLUSIOJ^S AND SuGGESTIOT^S. 455 some way put an extinguislier on our princi- ples and professions of self-support : hence the repeated efforts to persuade the South India Conference to receive missionary appropriations from New York. It is the most unnatural thing in the world to refuse the offer of gifts — especially coming in sincere affection from an honorable source, as in this case. Here is the sublime spectacle of a conference of men, de- pending on very slender financial resources, (not amounting to a tithe of the wealth of our people in our Western States and Territories, where large sums of missionary money are annually expended,) living on a line of rigid economy, ten of whom, with their families, without a cent of foreign aid, having passed through the Madras famine, in which half a million of people starved to death — one of them imprisoned for preaching the Gospel in the streets of Bangalore, consented to give up his household effects to pay an unrighteous fine laid upon him for so doing — such a body of men respectfully refusing year by year to ask or receive a dime from any foreign source for the relief of themselves or their families, pre- ferring to depend on the people they serve, who cheerfully support them, according to the 456 Self-Supporting Missioits. law of Moses and of Paul, that " the laborer is •worthy of his hire." Preachers so peculiar and so set in their principles of Self-supporting Mis- sions— according to the " course " so deprecated as " injurious to the missionary collections " — must be brought under subjection to the Mis- sionary Committee. If the Missionary Board is so anxious to help our brethren in India, why not pay that Allahabad Church debt of $5,000? That would be a real act of kindness and would not in the least affect our self-supporting princi- ples. Nay, they want to put " a hay-stack " right in the midst of my missions. It is very kind in them, but my hardy independent fel- lows prefer the indigenous grasses of the countr}^ in which they live and labor. In the month of May, 1881, a decree was passed by the Board of Bishops requiring me to send in the papers of my Missionary candi- dates to be examined and approved by the secretaries, thus giving them the power to delay, or limit, or reject my selection of mis- sionaries for my work. Later in the same year came the attacks upon my Self-supporting Missions, and my << irregular administration" at the Ecumenical CoNCLUSIOiS^S AND SUGGESTIONS. 457 Council. See the combined official forces of the Methodist Episcopal Church concerting with the allied representatives of all the Methodist organizations in the world to stig- matize and crush one poor Methodist preacher because he dared to obey God and found a Conference in a heathen country, without per- mission from the Missionary Committee in New York. Then at the meeting of our Mis- sionary Committee last November, finding, after all, that I was not dead, several of our Bishops and a few other doctors of divinity made a rush to finish me as the representative of Self- supporting Missions. The next thing in order w^as to make an inventory and prepare to administer on my effects ; hence, the action at this same meeting of the Missionary Committee, to establish said new missions in South America. I have a band of heroic workers on the west coast of South America. Thirteen of them, as we have seen, lost their fields in Peru and Bolivia by the war. All who did not die, or return home invalided, went to Chile, and entered self-supporting fields of work ; so that all our forces on the west coast are concentrated in Chile. For their mutual edification and the 458 Self-Suppokting Missions. unification of their work they organized them- selves into what they called " The South Amer- ican Evangelical Association." It was a con- ception of their own, the embryo of a regular annual conference, but up to this time, though they have had conversions in all their stations, and have organized "fellowship bands," they have not seen their way to organize Methodist Churches. The long-talked-of episcopal visit to that coast to ordain my pioneer men came off last November. I said to the Bishop before start- ing, that, as they had not yet organized Method- ism in Chile, he could not go on the official assumption that they were Methodist missions, but simply a friendly visit and preach, and do all the good possible, and quietly ordain the men. He cheerfully concurred in all that, and, no doubt, did as he agreed. But he said to me : " The brethren there are in an anomalous position. They are fine young men, and are eligible to admission into the Annual Conferences at home, in which they are now simply probationers, but they have no one legally authorized to represent them in those Conferences, so that they can be admitted. The mission ought to have a superintendent." He Conclusions and Suggestions. 459 tlien proposed to appoint me as superintendent. I respectfully declined. I knew that I would be staked down in that field, and that the radius of my missionary operations would be limited by the length of the lasso tied round my neck by an episcopal agent of the Mission- ary Board ; whereas, God had given me a com- mission outside of their jurisdiction, as wide as the world. I said, in reply, "When we can, by the will of God, organize Methodist Churches in Chile, and develop them to proportions requir- ing a superintendent and adequate means for his support, then one from their number can be so appointed, and I shall be glad." I further stated that I expected, " when my pioneers in all my fields shall have secured the requisite footing, to go through their work as an evangelist, and help them to gather the fruits of their seed-sowing, as I did for the Wes- leyan Methodists in Africa, Ceylon, and in other lands." Well, the dear Bishop, in a hasty tour round to Argentina, stopped off in Chile and or- dained my men. Probably he did not assume that they were Methodist missions, but would, of course, express his mind to the young men, 460 Self-Suppokting Missions. as lie did to me, about tlieir " anomalous rela- tion to the Churcli," hence the necessity of a regular superintendent to represent them, so that they could attain a conference standing at home. All this was but the utterance of an honest conviction of duty on the line of epis- copal administration. My people, isolated and lonesome, were delighted with the Bishop and his wise counsels. Now, what follows ? No annual meeting, as before, of their Association. One of my leading men writes me, saying : " We need a man here with authority to com- mand, to preside over us, to unify our work, and keep every thing straight." The first utterance of the kind that ever came to my ears since it began. Letters from different brethren there show dissatisfaction about their anomalous relations to the Church. Later a letter was handed me by a sister in New York, just received from one of my work- ers in our Santiago College, with the request to pass to me in haste. My noble woman, in her letter, states how their happy circle w^ere sur- prised and shocked by a letter they had just received from , one of my pioneer men, saying that he was tired of Taylor's rnission, and Conclusions and Suggestions. 461 tliat lie had written to the Missionary Board in New York, that unless they take this work into their hands, he wished them to recall him. He stated, further, that in his application to the Board he had represented Santiago also, (hence, probably, all my stations in Chile.) The writer disclaims for Santiago any thing in regard to it, but surprise and disgust in being misrepresented, and goes on to say : If it had been Brother J., who has been sick and has really had a hard time, it would not have been so sur- prising, but I received a letter from him by the same mail. He is still quite unwell, and his wife is ill ; but he is full of the Spirit, and is determined to stand at his post till Mr. Taylor can send him needful helpers : but this complaining brother has the least ground of complaint of any one in our mission. Brother H., one of Mr. Taylor's men, spent three years in opening the circuit this brother now occupies. It is a very healthy place, and its mountains, valleys, and sea views are beautiful. He has large congregations, prayer- meetings and Sunday-school. He gets his house rent free, and receives a cash salary of eighteen hundred dollars. I have simply given the substance of a long letter. That dear brother can't stand Taylor's Self-supporting Missions any longer, and must have a change. 462 SELF-SuppoRTiNa Missions. So far as South America is concerned, unless the Lord in mercy shall interpose, this dreadful haste of the Missionary Board to get the eggs will kill the golden goose. They ran' their mission for English people in Buenos A}nres for thirty-one years before they commenced a mission for the natives, and they think I am too slow altogether, when I have not yet had four years for all the work I have initiated in South America. I don't criticise their motives ; they sincerely " deprecate my course," viewed from their ad- ministrative stand-point, and I sincerely depre- cate theirs; but it is well known now that they are simply discharging their obligations to the high trusts the Church has put into their hands, and in this " course " of adminis- trative duty they have been quietly check- mating me for ten years, and now, in their last two moves, they have got me cornered. 1. The recent action of the Board of Bishops, virtually placing me and my new recruits under the control of the secretaries, so that I am forced, first, to submit to the control of the Board, the thing, for reasons given, I conscien- tiously refused to do from the beginning ; or, second, disobey the express order of the Board Conclusions and Suggestions. 463 of Bishops applied to me by name ; or, third, fail henceforth to get ordination for my mis- sionaries. I have had three ordained since that decree went forth — two immediately after it passed, before it was announced to me, and one since, under circumstances that made it an exceptional case. 2. The action of the Missionary Committee, by which they '^ established" their new mis- sions in Central and South America. That corners me in this dilemma. In South Amer- ica, the same as in India, I have always gone, of course, in my true character as a Methodist minister, but not officially as a representative of any Church, and upon my own personal responsibility, as led by the Spirit, founded Self-supporting Missions for God, never to come under the control of any Missionary Society; and as for possible future Church organic results, that was to be left purely to the choice of our newly-converted people themselves. As I have said before, I would do this work and leave all the fruits of it in the Roman Catholic Church if the Lord should so order. This broad catholicity of spirit that God gave me long ago is mistaken by many of my friends for a kind of Jesuitism. 464 Selb^-Suppohting Missio:n-s. Some of tlie Protestant missionaries in Brazil declare that against me ; but I declare tliat it is not so. I am, from the clearest convictions, a Methodist, but I am for helping the Lord Jesus to get the world saved, without putting sectarian obstructions in the way. Then, when they are saved, they can calmly and intelli- gently decide upon their church relationships. That is precisely the way in which the Meth- odism was made which now constitutes the South India Conference. Now review the action of the Missionary Committee in contrast with the facts in the case, and any one may see how it involves me. I never was consulted in regard to this nominal establishment of missions in South America. I believe in creating missions in foreign lands by the power of God, but do not believe in a fictitious creation of foreign missions in New York by the policy of men. I asked a New York merchant and a mem- ber of our Missionary Committee if that action of the Committee of founding so many missions in South America in one day, at the nominal cost of $200 each, would pass in the Board of Trade. "No," said he emphatically. " No, the Conclusions and Suggestions. 465 author of such a thing would be expelled from the floor." Of course, the members of the Committee are, like this merchant, honorable Christian gentlemen; but their attention is taken up with the onerous practical duties before them^ and resolutions like those of administrative policy, prepared beforehand, pertaining to re- mote countries, why, they are submitted and passed unanimously, like a budget of resolu- tions of thanks at the close of a Conference to the railroad companies, the citizens, and every body whose generosity merited the thanks of the Conference. It is not at all likely that the real authors of those South American resolutions considered the moral phase of such action, or its practical bearings on my work. The ostensible purpose was to help my work, and thus make it lawful for a Bishop to go and ordain my men, and, of course, explain to them " their anomalous relation to the Church." Now, any one who will consider these facts, can see the dilemma in which I am '' cornered." As I have shown, if I should concur in the action of the Committee, my South American patrons would brand me as a hypocrite whose meanness is excelled only by his stupidity, to 466 Self-supporting Missio:n"s. take them in under false pretenses, and go right back to New York and sell tliem publicly to a Missionary Committee. On the other hand, \^'hen I shall confront such charges by the facts of my non-concur- rence, and my emphatic protest against the whole proceeding, then they will say, "Ah, you have a divided house at home. We have enough of strife and division here now, so you can go home and look after your Mis- sionary Committee." So that nothing short of a miracle of Divine Providence can save my missions in South America from utter defeat. No difficulty about adequate self-supporting resources, and about our success, but for this flank movement of our friends. I have cried over this thing till, like a child, I have laid the ^vhole thing with myself on the bosom of Jesus, my Jesus, and there I rest ; but while I tnist in God, I must also " keep my powder dry." So, in India, the last Bishop presiding urged the Conference to ask for a missionary appropriation. This sort of thing repeated year by year in such sympathy and kindness, with the increase of married men in the Con- ference, and of church debts, and the desire to Conclusions and Suggestions. 467 send out jpaid native preachers, when other missions are offering a premium for our unpaid native preachers, it would be quite natural for the Conference to give way, and ask for an appropriation from the Board. Then the hitherto all-conquering spirit of self-support with the self-respect and independence belong- ing to it, which has enabled our people to make such a success in the past ten years, would be conquered. Then, soon, instead of a host of heroes, we would have a horde of beggars vying with each other for the biggest appropriations from New York. The Missionary Society has no money to give them ; they can't support their own mis- sions and keep out of debt, but they are anxious to give my people enough to stop their mouths and silence their talk about Self- supporting Missions. Demoralization and de- feat would follow, and would be laid to the charge of " so-called Self-supporting Missions."' I am laying those grand heroic men and women on the bosom of Jesus every day, and have no more doubt of their success in self- support and in soul-saving, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow, if they stand to their principles and be true to God and old-fashioned 468 Self-Supportiis^g Missions. Methodism. I'll trust them, and in God's time I will give them the best work of my life in personal evangelizing in their midst. ^^OuR Missions m South America."" Under this heading I see in the " Christian Advocate" of May 18th our secretaries make this showing : The name of our well-known South America mis- sion, whose field of operation has been the river Platte and its tributaries, was, at the last meeting of the General Committee, changed to South-east South America Mission ; and two other missions in South America, namely, the North-east South America, whose field is the Amazon region and adjacent coasts, and the West South America, embracing the west coast of the continent, were put on the list of the missions of our Society. The Central America Mission was also added. They then proceed with an elaborate and in- teresting historical sketch of the population and resources of the countries covered by their new missions. That makes a good showing on paper, and Math $200 appropriated for each of these new missions " established by the Committee," they ought to make an impression on those dark places of the earth. Conclusions and Suggestions. 469 Well, in the "Advocate" of May 25tli they report progress as follows : South America Missions. [From our Mission Eooms.] We give here the names and stations of the mission- aries in these missions : SOUTH-EAST SOUTH AMERICA. The preachers mentioned here will include both missionaries and native preachers. At Montevideo, the Rev. T. B. Wood, (Superintendent,) the Rev. Willian Tallon, Miss C. Guelfi, of the Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society. Montevideo Circuit, the Rev. T. B. Wood and the Rev. A. Guelfi. Uruguay Circuit, the Rev. J. Correa. Buenos Ayres, the Rev. J. F. Thom- son. Rosario and Parana Circuit, the Rev. J. R. Wood. Rosario, Mrs. E. J. M. Clemens and Miss J. Goodenough, of the Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety. Andrew M. Milne, Agent of the American Bible Society, is doing much evangelistic work, traveling far and near. His post-office address is Montevideo. George Viney is a local preacher acting as supply at Rosario, and Francisco Pensoti on a Montevideo sub- circuit. CENTRAL AMERICA. This mission should not be forgotten here. The Rev. John E. Wright is laboring at San Jose, in Costa Rica. WEST SOUTH AMERICA. At Aspinwall, the Rev. E. L. Latham. At Panama, the Rev. Richard Copp. In Chili the following : At 80 470 Self-Supporting Missions. Copiapo, the Rev. Lucius C. Smith, wife, and sister ; the Rev. J. P. Gilliland and wife. At Coquimbo, the Rev. J. W. Collyer and wife. Miss Rachel Holding. At Valparaiso, the Rev. Oscar Krouser and wife. At Santiago, the Rev. I. H. La Fetra, the Rev. William A. Wright and wife, the Rev. J. H. Shively, Professor M. Lemon, Professor Farwell — all engaged in teaching in the male department of the college. In the female department are Miss Whitefield, (Preceptress,) Miss Kipp, Miss Kinsman, Miss Holding, Miss Ogden. The number of pupils is over 100. At Concepcion, where is also a college, the Rev. A. T. Jeffreys and wife, the Rev. George M. Jeffreys, Miss Spink, (Preceptress,) Miss Boyce, Miss Elkins. NORTH-EAST SOUTH AMERICA. The following are in Brazil. At Para, the Rev. Justus H. Nelson and wife. Prof. J. W. Nelson and wife. Miss Blunt — all teaching in a college. At Per- nambuco. Professor W. T. Robinson and wife. Pro- fessor Marten and wife, Professor George B. Nind. [The state of his health has compelled the return of Dr. Beattie.] This mission effort in Brazil begins with the native work in Portuguese. The sentiments of the Liberal party among the people offer some opening. Stipulation is made that the Bible shall be used in the schools. All the pupils are natives and Roman Catho- lic in form. How strange all this must appear to the patrons of my Self-supporting Missions, both in this and in foreign countries ! Conclusions and Suggestions. 471 In commencing to found a mission, I always open witli statements like this: "I am not here as the representative of any Missionary Society. Missionary Societies are grand benev- olent institutions. You are not objects of charity ; you are men of means and independ- ence, and able to pay for whatever you see proper to invest in, and I am here to talk business with business men," etc. They enter into written engagements with me to receive and support the people I shall send them with the distinct understanding, that no Missionary Society shall have any thing to do with it. So at this end of the line the people who give their money to provide passage, outfit for our missionaries, and furniture for our schools, don't give that money for general missionary purposes, but specially to found and supply my Self-supporting Missions. Now, after all this, they see it published to the world that the missions they have thus founded in South America are the property of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- copal Church. They inquire, " How under the heavens did that society get the title to our property ? " 472 SELF-SuppoRTma Missions. The answer is, " By the action of the Mis- sionary Committee last November." Then they want to know: "What is our man, Taylor, about, that he allows our money and the missions we are helping him to found to be gobbled up in this way ? " "Well, gentlemen, I have been jBghting this battle alone for ten years, and now, having fur- nished the facts, I will allow you to enlist in the war ; but it must not be waged against persons, but be purely a defensive war of principles. Our motto is, Friendship to all Churches, Ko- man Catholic and Protestant, and to all mis- sionary societies, and enmity to none; but we demand the right, and will contend for it by all lawful means, and to the end, to plant the Gospel and its educational institutions among the self-supporting classes of all na- tions, as the Lord shall lead us ; and shall not allow any Missionary Society, nor the Church officials of any name whatsoever, to have any control, nor nominally record any claim, to our Self-supporting Missions, only as the people — not the preachers nor a clique — but the people we thus succeed in saving, shall of their own accord elect." This excepts the South India Conference, Conclusions and Suggestions. 473 but includes all my missions in Central and South America, and all future missions the Lord may enable us to open. We want it distinctly understood henceforth, that every missionary we may send out must know our principles and subscribe to them, and, having thus been sent, he shall have no more right to enter into negotiation with any Missionary Society, or Church, for the trans- fer of his mission to said Missionary Society, or Church, than an employe has to purloin the property of his employer. We send no slaves; our missionaries are the Lord's freemen and women, and whether in the school-room or the bazaars, are Christ's embassadors. They must, therefore, count the cost, and go to those fields of their own free-will. When there they must have all their moral freedom at command, and if they find that they are not in their right place, give us notice, and we will relieve them as quickly as possible, and let them go with our blessing and best wishes; but they must keep their hands off our mission property, and must not tamper with the loyalty of our people. We further give notice, that w^hile any Mis- sionary Society is free to found missions in any 474 Self-Suppoeting Missions. country, no Missionary Society, nor Churcli, has any more right to set up a claim to our Self- supporting Missions in any field whatsoever, than one man has a right to set up a claim to the farm of his neighbor, who does not owe him a cent, and publish it in the papers as part and parcel of his own estates. His assertions to the man he has wronged and distressed, that his action is only nominal, and that it does not mean forcible possession, don't meet the case. Being greatly over-worked, I was attacked in the winter of 1881 with a combination of asthma and bronchitis, and coughed and wheezed incessantly for fifteen months. I con- tinued to preach six days per week, but with it combined a tour of health to the Pacific coast as far as British Columbia. I have but recently returned, after about a year's absence, not being able in the meantime to give due attention to my missions, and have, hence, in the year past, sent out but nineteen mission- aries instead of an average of thirty each for three years preceding. Meantime all this wonderful business of founding missions in South America has been transacted, and I cannot yet for some weeks learn through the mails how far my unsuspecting missionaries Conclusions and Suggestions. 475 and their people may have been influenced by all the proceedings of our high officials; and, of course, I have been uneasy, and cried over the situation through many midnight hours, and have laid it all where I remain, as a little child, in the arms of Jesus. Eichard Grant, of Jersey City, during my absence, built a prophet's room for me, and he and his family being away in their summer retreat, I have been in this writing all alone with God, and have cried aloud to him as in the primeval forests of my youth. " In the face of such complications what do you advise ? " 1. I advise, first, that no person entertain hard feelings, or indulge in reproachful words against the Board of Bishops, nor against the Mission- ary Committee, nor against the secretaries ; for, as we have seen by the Episcopal letters I have produced, they are simply discharging what they believe to be the duties laid upon them by the Church. I have been so fully occupied with the practical details of soldier life at the front, that I have never seen this so plainly as I have since I sat down to write this book. All those dear men are worthy of the confidence of our people, which, of course, they have. 476 Self-Suppokting Mission's. 2. Do not withhold, but largely increase your donations to the Missionary Treasury, for it will require fifty times more money, and more men than they have ever received or sent, to overtake the demands of the great benevo- lent work God has given them to do. 3. Don't blame the Church, nor her law- making body, the General Conference, for they are but in their apprenticeship yet in the mis- sionary business, and naturally enough have followed the illustrious example of all the older Churches who have been so long in the field and have already excelled some of them in missionary achievement. " But, have you not been blaming all these in this book ? " No. As before stated and repeated, I have not been writing ^bout men at all, and hence have avoided the names of any who might sup- pose that I was hitting at them. I have been discussing principles and methods pertaining to the salvation of the world, and have given but a few glimpses of my ten-years' voyage, guided by the old gospel chart, through unexploi'ed seas; and already, above the darkness of the storm- clouds that envelop us at this eventful hour, I see the dawi?" of a new missionary epoch. COITCLUSION'S AND SUGGESTIONS. 477 For about two hundred years God lias been specially preparing tbe way for this very tbing. He has introduced no new principles nor meth- ods, but is intent on an application of his old ones as revealed in his book long ago. He does not wish to displace his great charity missions, but he intends to send his Gospel to the self- supporting classes of all nations as I have shown, on the fundamental principles of self- support, which I have eliminated from his book. He has laid the responsibility of in- itiating this advance movement on a few Methodist men and women, and has thus far given the fruits of it mainly to the Methodist Church. He will not conduct the advance movement under a sectarian flag, but if the Methodists will work with God on his broad principles in this march for the conquest of the nations, they shall continue to reap plenteously according as they shall sow. This involves no reflection on the Churches or their missionary societies. They have done grand preparatory work for this advance movement. The Wesleyan Methodists every- where lay down a sound doctrinal base for soul- saving, and they thoroughly drill their people at home and abroad in the principle and prac- 478 Self-Supporting Missions. tice of systematic giving of money for tlie Lord's work. After a tug of forty years, in the Sandwich Islands, the missionaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions were signally suc- cessful. The noble missionaries of the same honored Board are advancing on that line in their Central, Western and Eastern Turkey missions. The Baptists are noted for economi- cal and successful missions. Se Sec Ung, and a few others of our own missionaries in China, have stepped up, and moved off on the high plane of self-support. The Lord has commenced a number of mis- sions on the principle of self-support, but hith- erto they have all been subjugated and ab- sorbed by the great mission movements based on the charity principle. Now he has under- taken to establish a Self-supporting Mission which will not attempt to swallow any other mission, nor consent to be swallowed by any other, though that is just what our missionary administration has undertaken to do, and will force us in self-defense to erect our quills like a great Asiatic porcupine. Let our next General Conference prayerfully read and study the discussion and solution of CONCLUSIOITS AND SUGGESTIONS. 479 this same problem, as reported by Luke in tlie fifteentli chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and let them act accordingly, and so legislate that it shall be lawful in our Church for God to found SeK-supporting Missions wheresoever and by whomsoever he pleaseth ; and that any such missions, fulfilling our conditions of Church membership, shall be admitted as primary missions, or as organized Conferences into loyal and royal relationship with the Methodist Episcopal Church directly through the General Conference, and not through a pupilage under the Missionary Society. Let those plain gospel principles for self- support — " one and two " — ^be legally recognized as God's principles, hence based on essential laws, and being, in their true relations, as en- during and as reliable as the laws themselves. Let the legitimate sphere of "]N^o. 3," or the charity principle, be legally recognized and fixed, and then God will bestow greater honor upon it than ever before in the prosecution of its heaven-given commission. "When God establishes a work on his primary plan, under principles " one and two," as he did in Antigua, through the agency of Nathaniel Gilbert and John Baxter, and among the 480 Self-Supporting Missions. Wyandots of Ohio by John Stuart, let the self- supporting agency and resources through which God may be pleased to give birth to such move- ments be utilized under regular self-supporting church organization, regardless of country or nationality ; and let it be unlaw^ful to put such a work indiscriminately under the control of a missionary society ; and let the Churches that God shall found in foreign fields be invested as soon as possible with all the functions essen- tial to a Church of God anywhere, " 0 for til is holy dawninef "We watch and wait and pray, Till o'er the height the morning light Shall drive the gloom away ; And when the heavenly glory Shall flood the earth and sky, We'll bless the Lord for all his word, And praise him by and by." APPENDIX, It was my purpose to insert here in detail all the amounts contributed to the Transit Fund from its com- mencement, with the names and residences of all the contributors, whose names were given, but already my book contains a hundred pages more than I designed. To carry out my purpose in regard to the Appendix, would unduly increase the size and cost of the book, so I will furnish an aggregate statement simply of all receipts and disbursements for each year, with the name and foreign field of each missionary. The names of all the contributors, and the amounts sent to John S. Inskip, W. C. Palmer, and Wm. McDonald, were ac- knowledged, as they came to hand, in the " Christian Standard and Home Journal," in " The Guide to Holi- ness," and in " The Advocate of Holiness." All those names, together with the names of all who gave transit funds to me, and all the amounts they represent, are preserved in the books of my recording secretary, Mrs. Anderson Fowler, New York. FIRST YEAR. {From May, 1878, to May, 1819.) Total receipts from all sources $8,403 46 Total expenditure for the passage of thirty missionaries and their outfit, and school lurniture 8,159 11 Balance 244 35 $8,403 4e 482 Appet^dix. The names and fields of the missionaries were as follows : I. South America. Tacna, Peru.— a. P. Stowell, B. A. ; Mrs. A. P. Stowell, Miss Cora B. Benson. CoNCEPCiON, Chile. — W. A. Wright, Ph. B. ; Miss Sallie B. Long- ley, B. S. ; Miss Lelia H. Waterhouse, B.S. Iquique, Peru.— J. W. CoUyer, B.A. ; Miss Edith Collyer. CoQuiMBO, Chile. — J. W. Higgins, B.A. Valparaiso, Chile. — Ira H. La Petra, B.A. CoPiAPO, Chile. — Lucius C. Smith, B.A. ; Mrs. Lucius C. Smith, Mrs. Yasbinder. Aspinwall, U. S. of Colombia. — C. A. Birdsall, B.A.; Mrs. C. A. Birdsall, E. L. Latham. Antofagasta, Bolivia.— a. T. Jefifrey, B.A. ; Mrs. A. T. Jeffrey. Mellendo, Peru.— Magnus Smith, B. A. ; Mrs. Magnus Smith. German Colonies, near Patagonia, Chile. — Oscar Krouser, Henry Hofmann, Mrs. Henry Hofmann. Lima, etc.— J. P. Gilliland, Mrs. J. P. GilUland. II. India. Bellary. — Miss Welch. Bombay. — Hiram Torbit, B, A. Agra.— J. W. Gamble, B.A. Rangoon, Burmah.— R. E. Carter, B.A.; Mrs. R. E. Carter, B.A. SECOND YEAR. {Extending to June, 1880.) Total receipts from all sources $11,396 46 Total disbursement for passage and outfit and school furniture $10,384 29 Balance 1,012 17 $11,396 46 Twenty-eight missionaries sent that year as follows : I. South America. Aspinwall, TJ. S. of Colombia. — Mrs. E. L. Latham. Guayaquil, Eucador. — Philip Price, B.A. Appendix. 483 Para, Brazil. — Justus H. Nelson, M.A.; Mrs. Justus H. Nelson, Walter Gregg, B.A. Tacna, Peru. — Fletcher Humphrey, B. S. ; Mrs. Fletcher Humph- rey, B.S. II. India. To be appointed to their fields by the Conference : James Lyon, B.S. ; Ira A. Richards, B.A. ; Henry F. Kastendieck, B.A.; 0. Shreves, M. Y. Bovard, B. S.; M. B. Kirk, B. A.; WellingLoa Bowser, B. A. ; G-. I. Stone, Mrs. G. I. Stone, Mrs. Lillie Birdsall, Miss Mollie MUler, Miss Sallie Winslow, G. W. Woodall, Mrs. G. W. "Woodall, George A. Greenig, W. H. Stevens, "W. H. Bruere, John D. Webb, A. A. Kidder, S. P. Jacobs, M.A.; Mrs. S. P. Jacobs. THIRD YEAR. {Ending in June, 1881.) Total receipts from all sources $11,640 96 Total disbursements for the purposes of the fund $11,111 60 Balance 529 36 $11,640 96 Thirty-four missionaries sent during that year. I. South America. Santiago, Chili. — Miss Addie H. Whitfield, B. A. ; Miss Lizzie Kipp, Miss Kinsman, I. H. Schively, Millard Lemon, B. A. Pernambuco, Brazil. — W. T. Robinson, M. A., and wife; Wray Beattie, M. D., Ph.D.; George W. Martin, B. A., and wife; Charles Shelton and wife. Maranhao, Brazil. — B. W. Coiner and wife. Bahia, Brazil. — I. J. Woodin and wife. Concepcion, Chili. — Miss Esther L. Spink, Miss Sarah E. Potter, George M. Jeffrey, B. A.; Miss Martha Boyce, Miss Mary E. Elkins. Panama, United States of Colombia. — Richard Copp. Para, Brazil.— John N. Nelson, B. A ; Miss Hattie Batchelder, B. S.; Miss Clara Blunt, B. S.; Miss Hattie Curtis. Central America. San Jose, Costa Rica.— John E. Wright, B. A. 484 Appendix. II. India. J. Sumner Stone, M. D.; Charles A. Martin, B. A.; Thomas H. Oakes, B. D.; Miss Nana Smith, B. S.; Miss M. J. Edna Taylor, B. S.; Mrs. Wellington Browser, Albert H. Baker. FOURTH YEAR. {Ending with June, 1882.) Total receipts from all sources ^1] 094 87 Total disbursements lor all purposes of the fund $8,324 21 Balance 2,770 66 $11,094 87 Missionaries sent to self-supporting fields for the year ending June, 1882: I. South America. COQUIMBO, C ILL — Miss Rachel Holding. Santiago, Chili. — Miss Lizzie Holding, "William A. Wright, Mrs. W. A. Wright, A. W. Farwell, Miss Nettie 0. Ogden. Panama, United States of Colombia. — Professor Rouse. AspiNWALL, United States op Colombia. — B. S. Taylor, Mrs. B. S. Taylor. Para, Brazil. — J. Willett Nelson, Mrs. J. W. Nelson. Pernambuco, Brazil. — George B. Nind, F. F. Roose, Mrs. F, F, Roose. II. India. Calcutta. — Yernon E. Bennett, Mrs. Charles Martin, Mrs. J. M. Thoburn, J. A. Wilson. Nizam's Dominions. — D. 0. Ernsberger. Note. — Mrs. Anderson Fowler is my Recording Secretary; address. No. 60 East 68th- street. New York. My Executive Agent, Richard Grant, No. 326 Pavonia Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey. My Treasurer and principal Collector of the Transit Fund, Rev. J. S. Inskip, 921 Arch-street, Philadelphia, Pa. Assistant Treasurers, Dr. W. C, Palmer, 62 and 64 Bible House, New York, and Rev. Wm. McDonald, 36 Brorafield-street, Boston. These Treasurers acknowl- edge all receipts for Transit Fund in every issue of the periodicals of which they are the Editors. All these give their services for their love of Self-supporting Missions, and contribute liberally besides. Date Due i