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 PRINCETON, N. J. "^ ^ 
 
 Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. 
 
 
 BV 2060 .G3 1896 ^ 
 Galloway, Charles B. 1849- 
 
 1909. 
 Modern missions 
 
 
 - 
 
 ..... 
 
 
 
MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 THEIR EVIDENTIAL VALUE. 
 
 (Cole Lectures for 1896.) 
 y 0^^^ (k^-^ \\ \^u l>L ice t^*- ^ V t>Y . 
 
 BY CHARLES B. GALLOWAY, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 A Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
 
 Nashville, Tenn.: 
 Publishing House Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 
 Barbee & Smith, Agents. 
 j 1896. 
 
 \ 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1896, 
 
 By the Board of Trust of Vandkrbilt University, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE L page 
 
 The Question Stated; or, The Answering 
 Voice of History i 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 Christianity and Other Religions 35 
 
 LECTURE IIL 
 Portable Evidences from Many Lands. ... 77 
 
 LECTURE IV, 
 Fruits from Various Fields 115 
 
 LECTURE V, 
 The Message of Missions to the Church . . 155 
 
 LECTURE VL 
 Lessons from Some Master Missionaries . . 193 
 
LECTURE I, 
 
 THE QUESTION STATED; OR, THE AN- 
 SWERING VOICE OF HISTORY. 
 
THE QUESTION STATED ; OR, THE ANSWERING 
 VOICE OF HIS TORT. 
 
 THE subject selected for this course of lectures 
 by the Faculty extending the invitation is my 
 apology for accepting a service for v^hich, by 
 taste and training, I have an unaffected sense of 
 unfitness. The subject, and not the position, 
 though most honorable, constrained my accept- 
 ance and accounts for my appearance. Having 
 recently enjoyed the privilege of inspecting sev- 
 eral of the great mission fields of the w^orld, it 
 seemed incongruous that I should positively de- 
 cline, hov^ever meager might be my contribution 
 to the discussion of so exalted a theme. The sub- 
 ject contemplates not so much a plea for Missions 
 as a study of Missions, not so much an enforce- 
 ment of obligation as a report of the results of 
 investigation. It is hoped, however, that the re- 
 port and its study will prove a persuasive plea for 
 Missions and an additional enforcement of our di- 
 vine indebtedness to the Christless world. Such 
 a line of argument, harmonizing as it does with 
 the energetic and practical life of the age, ought 
 
4 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 to be the strongest and most impregnable defense 
 of our Christian religion. There is no enthusiasm 
 in apologetics which are no more than ** a vindi- 
 cation of the original guarantees of Christianity or 
 of the documents in which it was first enshrined." 
 That line of apology is not to be underrated, nor 
 is it to be overestimated. A religion that is *' mere- 
 ly capable of defense " can never command the 
 homage of mankind, and will never stir the ** en- 
 thusiasm of humanity." Canon Freemantle has 
 thus forcefully characterized the essential quality 
 of religion: *' It must inspire and lead, or else it 
 dies. We must show that it is capable of influ- 
 encing, stimulating, and guiding the progress of 
 humanity; and, further, that the world itself de- 
 mands the Christian religion as alone capable of 
 sustaining its hope and its energy." 
 
 My appointment, therefore, is to speak more as 
 a witness than an advocate — to testify rather than 
 to defend. I shall not consider the grounds and 
 obligations of Missions — will not attempt to set 
 forth the principles underlying, or the motives in- 
 spiring, or the authority requiring, a world-wide 
 evangelism — but will turn an ear to the fields them- 
 selves and listen to the message they have to send. 
 We are to '* ask the days that are past " and pass- 
 ing, and give earnest heed to the '* answering voice 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 5 
 
 of history." We will consider not so much what 
 the Scriptures command as what experience con- 
 firms. Thus we will ascertain some of the great 
 truths modern Missions disclose and exemplify. 
 If, as has been declared, '* history is the supreme 
 test of all things," we are concerned to know its 
 verdict as to the virtue and power of the gospel 
 to redeem the nations. 
 
 Dr. Fairbairn has said that *'it is the function 
 of the philosophic historian, the man of science in 
 the field of religion, to get by analysis at the whole 
 history of the genesis of the ideas that create our 
 religious institutions." So ambitious a purpose is 
 not contemplated in these lectures; but the facil- 
 ities and materials for such a searching and final 
 analysis are at hand, and have been furnished by 
 the missionaries. We occupy the highest vantage 
 point in history for the thorough study of Chris- 
 tianity. By virtue of this fact, we are better able 
 than any former generation to form a correct esti- 
 mate of its spirit, doctrines, and ethical system, as 
 compared with other religions. And for this, by 
 general admission, we are indebted to the achieve- 
 ments and revelations of modern Missions. They 
 have not only illustrated the power of Christianity 
 as a redemptive agency, but have also introduced 
 the world to a larger acquaintance with all reli- 
 
6 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 gions. We have broader knowledge of the life 
 and literature of hitherto unknown peoples, and 
 are in consequent possession of " a key to hearts 
 and intellects which previously were closed to our 
 approach." If, therefore, our plan of argument 
 does not require an attempt to ascertain the ** gen- 
 esis" of religious ideas, we will try to trace their 
 influence — will go down the stream, especially of 
 modern history, and see if it be true in fact, as 
 Ezekiel saw in vision, that " everything shall live 
 whither the river cometh." 
 
 Bernard, in his Bampton Lectures on " The 
 Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament," 
 observes that '^ every age, every Church, every 
 sect, every controversy, in some way or other con- 
 tributes something to the working out, the testing, 
 or the illustrating of some part of the revelation of 
 God." Our inquiry, therefore, will be as to what 
 disclosures modern Missions have made to the 
 Church — what additions to the history of Chris- 
 tian doctrine and what distinct contributions to 
 the evidence and defense of the gospel. It is 
 asserted that Christianity is inherently expansive 
 and progressive — that its nature is to grow. The 
 growing years should, therefore, be a continuing 
 display of its divine character — a revelation of 
 Christ additional to the thrilHng records of the 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 7 
 
 New Testament, and a constant ** evolution of the 
 Holy Ghost" in the rational and moral conscious- 
 ness of the Church. And this is the Christian's 
 high claim. He contends not with Dionysius that 
 ** history is philosophy teaching by examples," nor 
 with Matthew Arnold that it is a mere *' stream of 
 tendency," but rather that history is the move- 
 ment of God in providence and grace. That as 
 in the Old Testament history there is an unmis- 
 takable discernment of " one Presence and one 
 increasing purpose," so the later history of the 
 Church, especially the story of missionary en- 
 deavor, reveals a Saviour *' come and coming," 
 and one *' mighty to save." 
 
 The divine purpose to make the progress of the 
 Church a ** continuous and cumulative exhibition " 
 of Christ as the world's Redeemer and Lord is thus 
 stated by Bishop Westcottin a single luminous sen- 
 tence : ' ' The history of Christianity is the histofy of 
 the slotv and prog?' essive efforts that have been made 
 to gain and to embody an adequate knowledge of 
 Christ in the fullness of his twofold nature, of the 
 eternal revealed under the conditions of time, of 
 the earthly raised to the heavenly, of the harmony 
 that is established potentially between man and 
 humanity and God, under the continuous guiding 
 of the living Spirit." 
 
8 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Now it is the aim of these lectures to discover, 
 if possible, how far this divine ideal has been made 
 actual in the history of modern Missions. This 
 should not be a very difficult task, for Christianity 
 is essentially historical. It is *' not a mere spirit, 
 a spirit unclothed ; " but projects itself into the life 
 and institutions of the world, and seeks to mold 
 and control them for its own lofty and beneficent 
 ends. It is, therefore, a religion of facts as well as 
 ideas, and by those facts its ideas are to be tested 
 and its virtues measured. And if they stand the 
 test, which ought to be searching and severe, the 
 argument is complete; for as Dr. Fairbairn has 
 well said, ** There is no logic like the logic of fact; 
 there is no law of reason so inevitable as the law 
 that fulfills itself in historical movement." 
 
 And this is God's favorite method of instruction 
 and revelation. The Scriptures are largely given 
 up to narrative. The Bible is not so much a man- 
 ual of doctrine as the story of God's dealings with 
 man and men. It is a **book of models as well as 
 maxims," and Christ's ministry was a ministry of 
 works rather than of words. Though ** he spake 
 as never man spake," he wrought more than he 
 talked. Indeed, his method was first to act a truth, 
 and then proclaim it; to do it, and then declare it. 
 And this accords perfectly with man's mental and 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 9 
 
 spiritual capacity ; for truth is best apprehended, not 
 by studying precepts and proverbs, but by observ- 
 ing its influence upon human life and conduct. 
 The moral law itself is best understood, not by 
 reading its **shalts" and **shalt nots," but by 
 ** witnessing the course of Providence in the actu- 
 al career of good and evil men." 
 
 But while the task of ascertaining the philosophy 
 of history seems not to be difficult, as a matter of 
 fact it is by no means easy. Two persons may 
 look at the same facts and learn therefrom very 
 different, if not antagonistic, lessons. A distin- 
 guished writer has said: ** History is no sphinx. 
 She tells us what kind of teaching has been fruit- 
 ful in blessing to humanity, and why, and what 
 has been a mere boastful promise or powerless 
 formula." That depends largely, though not en- 
 tirely, upon who consults the oracles, and_/brwhat 
 he is listening. Edward Gibbon, for instance, of 
 whom it has been said, '* no man ever clothed a 
 sneer in language so stately, or mocked in periods 
 so majestic," in writing his great history evidently 
 made a studied effort to avoid any recognition of 
 Christianity, and only acknowledged its benign in- 
 fluences when compelled to do so by facts that even 
 the blind could not fail to see. So, then, in order 
 rightly to interpret the true philosophy of events, 
 
TO MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 we must not only take into account the fact that 
 *' history has \X.s foreground and its background, ^^ 
 but our own personal and spiritual attitude thereto. 
 As we are we see. Only a spiritual eye can dis- 
 cern spiritual verities. The one essential prepara- 
 tion for a correct understanding of religious histo- 
 ry is thus stated in a few wise words by a great 
 thinker: "Nothing but deep initiation into the 
 spirit of the Bible can enable us to form the faint- 
 est idea as to what historical events belong most to 
 the divine plan, or have most relation to the king- 
 dom of the eternities." 
 
 Now these preliminary suggestions are offered, 
 not as a plea in abatement or to escape the full 
 force of the fiercest criticism, but as a guide in our 
 further investigations. Christianity has asserted 
 claims and made a history, and by that history 
 must stand or fall. Of course it should only be 
 held responsible for its legitimate fruits. Its 
 Founder bore the sins of the world, but should 
 not be charged with all the failures and follies of 
 the world. But Christianity has set up claims 
 which are audacious if not true, and encouraged 
 hopes that are cruel and criminal if beyond possi- 
 ble realization. If Christianity is only an ad in- 
 terim stage in human development, without ele- 
 ments of permanency or promise of universality; 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. II 
 
 if it is only one of many religions; if it is simply 
 suited to the genius of a particular people, espe- 
 cially the Western mind at a certain stage of civi- 
 lization; if it is not necessary to every child of 
 Adam — then its claims are the sublimest arrogance 
 and its history an unparalleled travesty. And, as 
 Canon Liddon has aptly phrased it, the ** mission- 
 ary enterprise is at once wasteful and impertinent." 
 It is recklessly wasteful of home resources and an 
 impertinent interference with other beneficent re- 
 ligions and civilizations. If it is not the answer, 
 and the only '* answer to every religious aspiration 
 and need of man and men," if it is not the only 
 ''power of God unto salvation," then St. Paul's 
 sense of indebtedness to Greek and barbarian was 
 a burdensome delusion, and his wearisome mis- 
 sionary labors were nothing less than prodigious 
 folly. 
 
 The claims of Christianity are absolute and uni- 
 versal. Its certain conquest of the world is af- 
 firmed as positively as the very existence of God, 
 on whom it is conditioned. '*As truly as I live, all 
 the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." 
 And Daniel declared that ''his dominion is an ev- 
 erlasting dominion, and his kingdom that which 
 shall not be destroyed." St. Paul affirmed " that 
 in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might 
 
12 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 gather together in one all things in Christ, both 
 which are in heaven, and which are on earth." 
 The apostle sublimely contemplated a vast, united 
 kingdom, consisting of the unf alien in heaven and 
 the restored on earth, all under the common lord- 
 ship of Jesus Christ. Now, in enunciating the 
 principles of that ** kingdom of God," and in en- 
 forcing the divine obligation to hasten its coming, 
 two dreadful alternatives are distinctly declared: 
 (i) The Church will be condemned for neglect of 
 the heathen; (2) the heathen will be doomed to 
 perpetual degradation because of that neglect. 
 Every honest student of religion has a right, there- 
 fore, to ask : <' What are the results of the efforts al- 
 ready made? At the close of this last and most 
 active century of vast expenditure of time, treas- 
 ure, and human life, what are the returns? And 
 what do the facts attest ? " If true to the principles 
 announced and claimed to be of divine authority, 
 if in any sense they are a fulfillment of promises 
 made, promises said to be of God and character- 
 ized as ** exceeding great and precious," Missions 
 ought to be the *' actual and historical expression 
 of the precepts of the gospel." The facts must 
 indicate the factors. I accept the statement that 
 *'the word of God and the work of God must 
 agree, and we must know the former in order to 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 1 3 
 
 interpret the latter; " but this also we have a right 
 to demand — that the latter must be a clear expres- 
 sion and faithful fulfillment of the former. 
 
 The appeal for continued and increased support 
 of an enterprise must be reenforced by its hope of 
 advancement. A faihng cause cannot command 
 enthusiastic support; a traihng flag never stirs the 
 heart of hope. I do not mean that mere numbers 
 measure progress, that statistics alone gauge suc- 
 cess, that truth depends upon majorities. Max 
 Miiller made a reply to Canon Taylor (who was 
 at once frightened by his own figures and strangely 
 enamored with Islamism) that was as apt as it was 
 philosophical: '* If I gain ten, I am right; if some- 
 body else gains twelve, then I am wrong." Thus 
 he exposed the absurdity of the mere mathematics 
 of religion. 
 
 But there is inspiration in success. Once the 
 Church depended solely for encouragement on the 
 positive command of God to ''Go," and the promise 
 of the Holy Spirit's constant presence and guidance. 
 Now, in addition, we have an unabridged volume 
 of testimony to the gospel's redeeming power in 
 the history of Missions, every glorious page of 
 which gleams with light and thrills with fervor and 
 spiritual energy. 
 
 It will be the purpose of these lectures, there- 
 
14 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 fore, in a survey of this century of modern Mis- 
 sions, to consider: 
 
 1. What changes have been wrought? 
 
 2. Have the changes been beneficent? 
 
 3. Are they so directly traceable to Christian 
 and missionary influences as to justify the chal- 
 lenge to the world to see ''What hath God 
 wrought ? ' ' 
 
 4. What emphasis is given to Christian evidences 
 thereby, and what new lessons in Christian life 
 and doctrine do they teach? 
 
 Great changes have certainly been wrought. 
 Mighty forces of some sort have been at work. 
 The map of the world has shifted its shadings and 
 colorings every few years during the past most 
 eventful century. Society in some countries has 
 been revolutionized from top to bottom. The 
 principles of government have been radically mod- 
 ified. Autocracies have given way to constitu- 
 tions, monarchs have bowed to parliaments, and 
 barbarous tribes have accepted the protectorate of 
 Christian nations ; and even in Christian countries, 
 as the author of ''Ecce Homo! " observes, ''the 
 present century has witnessed a remarkable soften- 
 ing of manners." Legal tortures for convicted 
 crime have been abolished, civil severities have 
 been swept away, and in private life "men have 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. I5 
 
 greatly advanced in tenderness, sympathy, and un- 
 willingness to inflict pain." 
 
 Isolation has yielded to a world-wide spirit of 
 neighborhood, and the most frigid exclusiveness 
 has been compelled to surrender to the warmth of 
 an international hospitality. Long-locked ports 
 have been opened, and are now eagerly bidding 
 for the commerce of the world. Except in a few 
 countries, notably in Turkey, there is tolerance of 
 religious opinion. Though persecution has not 
 entirely ceased, there is less and less danger to 
 life and liberty in professing and propagating any 
 form of religion. Japan, an empire of forty mil- 
 lions of people, once the most exclusive of hermit 
 nations, and which less than fifty years ago pro- 
 hibited the introduction of Christianity on penalty 
 of death, is now as tolerant in opinion and as open 
 to the gospel as the most Christian nation. And 
 her broad, progressive purpose for the future, by 
 imperial edict, was announced several years ago in 
 these words: ** It is intended that henceforth edu- 
 cation shall be so diffused that there may not be a 
 village with an ignorant family, nor a family with 
 an ignorant member." Railways have made a 
 network of the whole empire, telegraph lines 
 stretch from one end of the land to the other, 
 daily newspapers abound, banks and hospitals have 
 
l6 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 been established, and they have a mail service 
 equal to the post office department of the United 
 States. Corea, though the last to emerge from 
 her hermitage, has given the hand of welcome 
 to other nations, and opened her doors to the 
 ambassadors of Christ. Siam gives ample gov- 
 ernmental protection, and even royal w^elcome, 
 to missionaries. Africa, until a few years ago the 
 great unknown and unexplored, to-day is the ral- 
 lying ground of all the great Christian nations 
 eagerly prosecuting their political, commercial, 
 and missionary enterprises. China has seen her 
 great wall broken, and the breach can never be 
 healed. A recent imperial edict declared that 
 *'the several nations are at liberty to promulgate 
 their religions in China as set forth in the treaties, 
 and imperial decrees have been granted instruct- 
 ing the various provinces to give protection at all 
 times. The religion of the Western countries sim- 
 ply admonishes people to become virtuous, and 
 the native converts are Christian subjects under 
 the jurisdiction of local officials. The 7'eligions 
 and -peofles ought to exist -peaceably side by sideJ*] 
 And equally as momentous is the news just re- 
 ceived, that among the matriculates in the Meth- 
 odist University at Peking for the present term are 
 a grandson of the private tutor of the last emperor 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 1 7 
 
 of China, a nephew of the private tutor of the 
 present emperor, a son of the imperial commis- 
 sioner of Chinese railways, and fourteen of the 
 proud literati of the kingdom. 
 
 India has passed entifely under Christian influ- 
 ence, with over two millions of Christian adher- 
 ents, and more communicants than the apostles 
 and early disciples gathered in the whole world 
 during the first century of the Christian era. 
 
 Many of the cannibal islands of the South Seas 
 have ceased to celebrate their horrid feasts, have 
 burned their idols, and are now reverently bowing 
 to the scepter of the Son of God. In Fiji, where a 
 hundred years ago there was not a single Chris- 
 tian, there is to-day not a single heathen, and in a 
 population of one hundred and twenty thousand 
 not a single home in which there is not morning 
 and evening worship. And countries like Mexico 
 and Brazil, for centuries dominated by a corrupt 
 form of Christianity, scarcely elevated in its ethical 
 results above the false faiths of the East, have been 
 thrown wide open to a purer and larger life. 
 
 And there has also been a momentous change in 
 the Church'' s attitude to, and estimate of, the cause 
 of Missions. We are a full millennium from the 
 age and sneer of Sydney Smith, though the alma- 
 nac records only one hundred years. No Christian 
 
l8 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 minister would now be tolerated with such a narrow 
 and intolerant spirit — one who would dare ridicule 
 a cause '* in which the Spirit of God mingles, and 
 which the providence of God molds." He anath- 
 ematized William Carey and his associates as ** di- 
 dactic artisans, whose proper talk is of bullocks 
 and not of the gospel; delirious mechanics; the 
 lowest of the people; detachments of lunatics." 
 And that Christian assembly would be an anach- 
 ronism whose presiding officer would say to some 
 modern William Carey: ** Young man, sit down! 
 When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will 
 convert them without your aid or mine." No 
 Scottish General Assembly could now be gathered 
 that would pronounce the missionary idea ** highly 
 preposterous," or have the temerity to praise '* the 
 happy ignorance of the untutored savage." No 
 bishop of the Church of England would now so 
 minimize the mission of the gospel or discount the 
 apostolic history of the Church Missionary So- 
 ciety as to publicly and privately argue against the 
 idea of the missionary enterprise. The days of 
 such ignorance the Church would not now wink 
 at. 
 
 Every Church is awake and at work. Organi- 
 zations have multiplied until about five hundred 
 and sixty-one societies are actively engaged in ad- 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 1 9 
 
 vancing the enterprise of Foreign Missions. The 
 offerings to this sacred cause have increased from 
 the £13 2s. 6d. of the humble Kettering Baptists 
 to a yearly contribution of $15,000,000. There 
 are three societies in America that expend annu- 
 ally over $1,000,000 each in sending the gospel to 
 the regions beyond. Medical missions are carry- 
 ing healing in their hands, and thereby opening 
 highways into the hearts of nations and millions 
 for the triumphal incoming of the Son of God. 
 And simultaneous with this work came the new 
 apostolate of woman. To her heathen sisters she 
 is carrying the tender words of the Christ, who 
 alone in all this world has made woman conscious 
 of her womanhood. Seventy-two societies have 
 already been organized, and their lines have gone 
 out into all the earth. 
 
 And what a change in the world's attitude toward 
 missionaries I The men once derided as '* detach- 
 ments of lunatics," are now uppermost in public 
 esteem. David Livingstone, once ridiculed as a 
 fanatic, was given a State funeral and sepulture in 
 Westminster Abbey. The East India Company 
 formally expressed its estimate of Christian Mis- 
 sions in these rather sarcastic words: *' The send- 
 ing of Christian missionaries into our Eastern pos- 
 sessions is the maddest, most expensive, most un- 
 
20 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 warranted project that was ever proposed by a lu- 
 natic enthusiast." It violently opposed the com- 
 ing of William Carey and his colaborers, and they 
 were compelled to seek shelter under a Danish 
 flag. But what a change was wrought! When 
 Carey had finished his course — had accomplished 
 his marvelous work and peacefully fallen asleep — 
 that same East India Company lowered its flags to 
 half-mast on the day of his funeral, and honored 
 the ** consecrated cobbler " as though he had been 
 a viceroy or a general of armies. 
 
 Dean Farrar, in referring to the sneer of Sydney 
 ^Smith against William Carey and the small contri- 
 bution of £13 2s. 6d. by the Baptists of Kettering 
 to project a mission in India, uttered these gen- 
 erous and eloquent words: *' Nevertheless, at this 
 moment every one who knows anything of India 
 knows that we owe more to that consecrated cob- 
 bler, and to his pitiful and beggarly £13 2s. 6d., 
 than we owe to the genius of Warren Hastings, or 
 the fiery battle brunt of Lord Clive.'* 
 
 And the London Times, once scornfully antag- 
 onistic and abusive, now comes to the defense of 
 missionaries, vigorously rebukes those who scoff 
 at their reports as the visions of harmless enthu- 
 siasts, and pays this tribute to Drs. Moffatt and 
 Livingstone : 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 21 
 
 Moffatt, it may be said, has labored, and other men have en- 
 tered into his labor. Livingstone has come after him, and has 
 gone beyond him and has linked his memory forever with the 
 records of the South African Church. The progress of South 
 Africa has been mainly due to men of Moffatt's stamp. In 
 him, as in David Livingstone, it is hard to say which character 
 has predominated, that of the missionary proper or that of the 
 teacher and guide. Certain it is that, apart from the special 
 stimulus they felt as proclaimers of the gospel message, they 
 would never have thrown themselves as they did into the work 
 in which their lives were consecrated. It was by no zeal for 
 the spread of civilization on its own account that they passed 
 many years laboring and teaching among savage tribes, amid 
 dangers of every kind, amid privations of which they them- 
 selves made light, but which only a sense of their high spir- 
 itual mission could have prompted them to face and undergo. 
 
 And I quote again from that great organ of 
 public opinion in its tribute to missionaries in Chi- 
 na, and its high estimate of th'eir mighty labors. 
 It says : 
 
 The only real interpreter of thought and progress of the 
 West to the millions of China is the missionary; and when we 
 remember that European knowledge of China is derived almost 
 wholly from the works of missionaries, we may fairly say that 
 these men stand as interpreters between the East and the West 
 As to the charity, we can only answer that China had no effi- 
 cient hospitals or medical attendance until the missionaries 
 established them, and in truth she has no other now; and when 
 her great men, such as Li Hung Chang and Prince Chun, are 
 in serious danger they have to go to the despised missionary 
 doctor for that efficient aid which no Chinaman can give them. 
 
22 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 But even more remarkable is the following par- 
 agraph from the learned pages of a recent issue 
 of the London Quarterly Review: 
 
 Men of mark for scholarship, in larger numbers than ever, 
 devote their talents to the labor or the literature of the mission 
 field and add to its prestige. The sons of English bishops no 
 longer inonopolize the richest livings at home, but give them- 
 selves to this most trying form of Church work abroad; and 
 the sees of Litchfield and Exeter and Hereford, and even the 
 princely throne of Durham, are adding to their dignity by send- 
 ing from episcopal palace and castle those vi^ho might justly 
 expect high honor and advancement here in England. An 
 archbishop's daughter maintained for years single-handed the 
 work of edvicating Arab boys in Egypt, and daughters of lay 
 peers superintend and cheer by their presence the zenana 
 workers in India. Cambridge dispatched the most learned of 
 its Arabic professors to try and win the Mohammedans of 
 Aden, and the foremost of its cricketers to no less arduous 
 work in China. 
 
 But while remarkable changes of sentiment at 
 home and abroad have been wrought, and recog- 
 nition, often reluctant, has been accorded, oppo- 
 siton has not ceased. The point of attack has 
 only been shifted. 
 
 The assertion is boldly made that Missions are a 
 failure, and the reason given therefor is that Chris- 
 tianity is not adapted to Oriental peoples; that 
 while it may suit the Western mind, it can never 
 be permanently planted in the East; that it is as 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 23 
 
 impossible as to try "to graft the tropic palm upon 
 the Northern pine." To this defiant declaration 
 the friends of Christianity reply that Missions have 
 not only been a success, but they have been a tri- 
 umph. They even go so far as, in the language 
 of the Bishop of Ripon, to say that ** the story of 
 modern Missions is a continuation of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, with all its essential supernaturalism ; " 
 that ** prophecy links hands with Providence" to 
 produce stupendous results in which the living 
 Spirit has been found as well as promised. And 
 to the assertion that Christianity is not suited to all 
 people they reply that Christ is "the cotempora- 
 ryof all ages," the omnipresent Factor of history, 
 the omnipotent Force of the centuries, the guiding 
 Spirit of the race ; that Christianity is indigenous 
 to every soil, and is at home everywhere ; that its 
 every domicile is a temple — a temple of the Holy 
 Ghost — and the heart of its every true disciple is 
 at once an altar and a throne. 
 
 Some tourists and residents of the merchant and 
 official classes have failed to discover the results of 
 evangelical effort as reported by the missionaries 
 in such glowing terms. Not only so, but they have 
 positively denied the truth of their statements, and 
 pronounced their labors not only fruitless of good, 
 but harmful and irritating. And some prominent 
 
24 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 natives also — the priestly champions of antagonis- 
 tic and evidently decaying faiths — have been equal- 
 ly positive in pronouncing modern Missions a 
 failure, and have analyzed the reasons therefor. 
 A German tourist and author, Max Biichner, says 
 that he always begins by dividing the assertions of 
 missionaries by ten. And that same gentleman, to 
 the no small amusement of those at all informed, 
 also said: ** Mission stations, since the last war 
 in New Zealand, seem scarcely to exist any more 
 as in former times." A naturalist, writing of the 
 Ostiasks, expressed the wish *Hhat they might long 
 remain heathen, lest their good qualities should be 
 lost." So able an organ of public opinion as the 
 Philadelj>hia Reco7'd has been betrayed into so 
 monstrous a declaration as this: *'It has been es- 
 timated by well informed authorities that it takes 
 an average of over two million dollars to convert 
 one Chinaman ; and the worst of it is that, for ev- 
 ery Chinaman converted to Christianity, at least 
 a thousand Christians have been converted into 
 corpses." 
 
 Such statements should not be summarily set 
 aside or impatiently resented because they disap- 
 point our wishes and humiliate our ardent faith. 
 If the Christian religion has demonstrated its in- 
 adequacy to meet the wants of any people; if it 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 25 
 
 fails to sustain its high claims to be the light 
 and life of every land it touches, to force it 
 upon such countries and peoples is little less than 
 a crime. 
 
 But these declarations, however positively made, 
 do not necessarily impeach the testimony of mis- 
 sionaries. First of all, we must study the compe- 
 tency of witnesses. And several things are to be 
 considered: 
 
 I. The personal attitude of the witness to the 
 question. His supposed individual interest may 
 prompt an adverse judgment. The doctrines 
 preached, if they become dominant, might injure 
 his immoral business. And for illustrations of that 
 fact we have only to read the missionary history 
 of Dr. John G. Paton, the apostle of the South 
 Seas. Or he may be personally hostile because 
 the missionary's presence and preaching are a re- 
 buke to his manner of life. So his personal en- 
 mity may color his testimony. It has been aptly 
 said that there is a peculiarity about eyes : they see 
 only what the heart desires. Ordinary tourists and 
 irreligious resident tradesmen and officials may, 
 therefore, be incompetent witnesses. They do not, 
 because they cannot, see a kingdom that cometh not 
 with observation. And the presence of this God- 
 less class constitutes one of the gravest and most 
 
26 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 difficult problems of the mission fields. There is 
 sad significance in the remark of an observant 
 Hindoo: '* If all Englishmen lived such lives as 
 Donald McLeod, India would soon be a Christian 
 country." 
 
 This amusing story, found in the ** Recollections 
 of an Indian Missionary," seems to throw light on 
 the trustworthiness of certain witnesses. Some 
 thirty-five years ago a regiment from Benares 
 passed through Cawnpore. The officers of that 
 garrison gave their comrades a dinner, to which 
 ladies were also invited. In the course of it a lady 
 asked a captain of the regiment what the missiona- 
 ries were doing in Benares. The captain assured 
 her that there were no missionaries there. 
 
 '* But they have an Orphan House there," replied 
 the lady. 
 
 '* Pardon me; there exists no institution of that 
 kind," said the captain. 
 
 ** But I pay a subscription to it annually." 
 
 **I believe that; but I was three years in Be 
 nares, and must have seen the institution if it ex- 
 isted." 
 
 Then the gentleman who sat at the lady's right- 
 hand said quietly to her, **Wait a little;" and 
 then he asked the captain, ''Did you use to go to 
 church, sir?" 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 27 
 
 '*Yes, we are commanded to attend." 
 
 <«But who preached in Benares, for there is no 
 government chaplain there?" 
 
 ** True, we had no padres; but the service was 
 conducted by clergymen who were much beloved 
 by our men." 
 
 '' Strange, captain ; you attended services which 
 were conducted by missionaries, and you know 
 nothing of the existence of these gentlemen." 
 
 *' W-h-a-t! Were they missionaries? " 
 
 '* Now, another question, sir. * Did you ever 
 see the long building in the street which leads by 
 Sigra to Marawaddi? ' " 
 
 '' Certainly. It happened once that a fox was 
 lost there, and I rode into the comfowid. There 
 was a heap of little black rascals who grinned at 
 me. They knew where the fox was, but would 
 not tell me." 
 
 «« Then you were in the precincts of the Orphan 
 House of which the lady beside you spoke." 
 
 " Indeed ! I did not know what it was. I took 
 it for an indigo factory, or something of that sort." 
 
 And yet such witnesses testify with perfect as- 
 surance against missionary work, not only in India, 
 but in all the fields of the world. 
 
 2. We must consider the capacity of the witness 
 to apprehend that about which he speaks. An 
 
28 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 untutored savage could not be expected to give an 
 intelligent opinion about the system of Copernicus 
 in astronomy, or the Baconian method in philoso- 
 phy, or the value of jetties in hydraulics. 
 
 In the realm of the spiritual this fact is fun- 
 damental. The natural man perceiveth not the 
 things of the spirit. An open, sympathetic 
 mind is necessary in order to apprehend certain 
 truths. There must be not only breadth and 
 strength of mental grasp, but oneness of spirit, 
 likeness of soul, sympathy of heart. The attitude 
 of the heart is as important as the posture of the 
 mind. 
 
 We may be in immediate presence of great ver- 
 ities and not know it. There is pathos in the 
 Lord's reply to Philip : " Have I been so long time 
 with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip?" 
 There is an undertone of disappointment and sad- 
 ness in the words. Our sight is determined by our 
 spiritual insight. 
 
 But that sublime truths are discredited or denied 
 is not necessarily an argument against their exist- 
 ence. We are told that if our ear nerves were suf- 
 ficiently delicate, the most rapturous music could 
 be caught from the rising and falling of the sap in 
 the trees of the forest. This is described in an 
 oft-quoted passage from Mr. Huxley: '' The won- 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 29 
 
 derful silence of a tropical forest is often due only 
 to the dullness of our hearing ; and could our ears 
 catch the murmurs of these tiny maelstroms as they 
 whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells 
 which constitute each tree, we should be stunned 
 as with the roar of a great city." 
 
 The Bampton Lectures for 1894, on '* Person- 
 ality, Human and Divine," discuss with conspicu- 
 ous ability and satisfaction the proposition that 
 moral affinity is needful for the knowledge of a 
 person. Our own natures must be in sympathy 
 with one if we would really know him. Affinity is 
 the condition of self-revelation on the one hand 
 and of right understanding on the other. **He 
 must become Godlike," says Plotinus, " who de- 
 sires to see God." 
 
 So the Godless cannot interpret the divine. The 
 irreligious are incompetent to pass judgment upon 
 things spiritual. They cannot apprehend that for 
 which they have been apprehended. 
 
 Another class that criticise Missions and are al- 
 most desperately demanding to be heard are na- 
 tive heathen, especially of the friestly order. Some 
 educated Indian gentlemen (notably Mr. Telang, 
 Mr. Gandhi, and Mr. Vivikananda) have recently 
 pronounced severe judgment against mission work, 
 and attempted to account for its humiliating fail- 
 
30 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 ure. But these igentlemen, though natives and life- 
 long residents, are not necessarily informed in 
 such matters. Incjeed, it is a remarkable fact that 
 such persons are goperally the most incompetent 
 witnesses. They are hostile to the cause about 
 which they testify, and of necessity get their infor- 
 mation second-hand. 
 
 And these native residents and disciples of an 
 antagonistic faith differ among themselves. Mr. 
 Vivekananda, who attracted so much attention as 
 the representative of Hindooism at the ** Congress 
 of Religions," ventures to say of woman in India 
 that *' from the Hindoo standpoint she receives all 
 her rights." Alas for the *' standpoint! " But 
 in opposition to that statement I give the testimony 
 of another highly educated and unusually broad- 
 minded Brahman, the editor of the Hindu ^ a 
 leading paper in Southern India. In the columns 
 of that journal he says : 
 
 We recently approved the statement of a Bombay paper, that 
 the social eminence which the Parsees so deservedly enjoy at 
 the present moment is due to these two causes: that their 
 women are well educated, and they are bound by no restric- 
 tions of caste. These two advantages make themselves felt 
 among our native Christian brethren, and it is probable that 
 they will soon be the Parsees of Southern India, They will 
 furnish the most distinguished public servants, barristers, mer- 
 chans, and citizens among the various classes of the native 
 community. 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 3 1 
 
 But more significant is the report of the Rama- 
 bai Association, conducted by that remarkable 
 Christian woman, Pundita Ramabai, in behalf of 
 the child widows of India. It seems incredible 
 that there are twenty-three million widows in In- 
 dia, of whom ten thousand one hundred and sixty- 
 five are under four years of age, and fifty-one 
 thousand eight hundred and seventy-five are be- 
 tween the ages of five and nine. Referring to the 
 statement that the life of a child widow was not so 
 hard and piteous as had been represented — that 
 their bodies were not so " emaciated and disfigured 
 by cruel blows," that the number of suicides and 
 lives of shame was exaggerated — the last report 
 says: "Let him who believes such statements, 
 though made by the Hindoos themselves, come to 
 the Saharada Sadana, listen to the pitiful stories 
 of some of its inmates, see the white mark of the 
 hot iron on the head, the little white scars made 
 by the sharp finger nails meeting in the tender flesh 
 of the face — as I have heard and seen all this, and 
 much more — and he will not only know the truth, 
 but he will feel it a privilege to do something for 
 these unfortunate children." Thus the native wit- 
 nesses widely disagree. 
 
 And even Mr. Telang, while expressing a Brah- 
 man's contempt for missionary interference and 
 
32 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 impertinence, is candid enough to say that *' the 
 structure of Hindoo society and religion is such 
 that there is no such help for the Pariah as a Chris- 
 tian missionary has brought to him." As the mis- 
 sion of Christianity is to lift up the lowly and give 
 the gospel of hope to the poorest, this is an uncon- 
 scious tribute to its divine genesis and genius. 
 
 And there is yet another class of critics, who 
 are found in the Church at home. They are rep- 
 resented by Canon Taylor and others, who, from 
 what they regard as the slow progress of Missions, 
 prophesy its failure. This class may not be large, 
 but never fail to be heard. Such pessimism may 
 result from an enfeebled faith or from infirmity 
 of temper. Macaula)^ said that in his day he saw 
 nothing but progress, yet he heard only of decay. 
 There are always crises in the Church to some 
 people — their faith is in a chronic state of panic. 
 To them every discouragement is a calamity, and 
 every seeming failure an utter defeat. They carry 
 two small banners: one a danger signal, the other 
 a flag of truce. At the first assault of an enemy 
 they are ready to flee the field or run up a white 
 flag. At the first rumble of thunder they forsake 
 the house and rush for a storm pit. This is the faith 
 of circumstances, not of eternal verities. They 
 trust an arm of flesh, not a God "mighty to save." 
 
THE QUESTION STATED. 33 
 
 But from whatever source these criticisms and 
 objections emanate, and inspired by whatever mo- 
 tive, it is the function of the Christian apologist to 
 give them judicial and thorough examination. If 
 our Christianity fails in any of its high claims, we 
 are most concerned to know it, and cannot afford 
 to conceal it. But if we discover that its aims and 
 claims are vindicated by the facts of history, then 
 Lord Macaulay uttered a sober truth when he said : 
 *' Whoever does anything to depreciate Christian- 
 ity is guilty of high treason against the civiliza- 
 tion of mankind." 
 8 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
II. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 RELIGION is the regnant power in this world. 
 It molds the civilization and determines the 
 destiny of nations. No such power resides else- 
 where. Not in philosophy, not in science, not in 
 art, not in climate, not in material resources, not 
 in organized society — not in anything else are 
 such mighty forces enfolded and such tremen- 
 dous potentialities enthroned. It marks the prog- 
 ress of the race. It dominates individual life and 
 determines personal conduct and character. Re- 
 ligion is universal and ineradicable. It is neces- 
 sary to man, and, therefore, indestructible. So 
 Prof. Tyndall said truty: *'No atheistic reason- 
 ing can dislodge religion from the heart of man. 
 As an experience of the consciousness it is per- 
 fectly beyond the assaults of logic." 
 
 The aim of this lecture is to study Christianity 
 in contrast with the distinguishing characteristics 
 of other religions. To this we are invited, if not 
 impelled, by the high claims of the religion of 
 Christ on the one hand, and by the bold challenge 
 of its enemies on the other. It is not, however, 
 
38 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 within the scope of this discussion to consider the 
 origin and development of religious beliefs, but to 
 study their characteristics, and, if possible, trace 
 their tendency and history. Whether, therefore, 
 ancient religion began, as Schlegel argues, with 
 the worship of the Supreme Being and in some 
 countries lapsed into polytheism, or, as others 
 contend, it started with ghost dreams and grew 
 into monotheism, we are not just now concerned. 
 It is true that the deism of Moslem is the mono- 
 theism of the Jew; and it may be, as is claimed, 
 that the rehgion of the Zend-Avesta was borrowed 
 from Abraham, and from the same patriarchal 
 source also came the traditions that constructed 
 Brahmanism and Persian Magianism. But into 
 the history of the genesis of religious ideas I shall 
 not enter. Our more practical purpose is to look 
 at the chief characteristics of these great religions, 
 as they are and have been, and examine their es- 
 sential qualities and potential influences, as exhib- 
 ited in the civihzations and history of nations. 
 
 Christianity claims to be the only true and uni- 
 versal religion, adapted to all men and needed by 
 all men. It is absolute and exclusive. It recog- 
 nizes no competitors and tolerates no rivals. Its 
 attitude to other religions is antagonistic and un- 
 compromising. The avowed purpose and certain 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 39 
 
 effect of its teachings, as God assured Jeremiah 
 when he ordained him "a prophet unto the na- 
 tions," are ** to root out, and to pull down, and to 
 destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant." 
 Its mission is destructive and constructive. It first 
 extirpates and exterminates ; then plants and builds. 
 Now to this high claim and aggressive purpose the 
 friends of other faiths make defiant denial. They 
 claim to have the truth. They indignantly deny 
 the adaptability of Christianity to all races, and 
 positively affirm that Missions are a failure. A re- 
 cent writer has stated that ** Christ is not suited to 
 the Hindoos." They desire a Saviour not so meek 
 and lowly. There is also a revived disposition to 
 applaud the merits of Mohammedanism and over- 
 estimate its civilizing power. Canon Taylor and 
 others have boldly asserted its peculiar adaptation 
 to the Eastern mind, and the superiority of its 
 claims. And yet others consider it a good prepa- 
 ration for the higher Christian faith. But on the 
 other hand, so high an authority as Sir William 
 Muir gives this positive judgment: *' They labor 
 under a miserable delusion who suppose that Mo- 
 hammedanism paves the way for a purer faith. 
 No system could have been devised with more 
 consummate skill for shutting out from the light 
 and truth the nations over which it has sway. The 
 
40 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 sword of Mohammed and the Koran are the most 
 fatal enemies of civiHzation, liberty, and truth 
 that the world has yet known." 
 
 The doctrines, spirit, ethical systems, products, 
 and historic effects of these religions will be brief- 
 ly considered, and contrasted with the teachings, 
 genius, and achievements of Christianity. By this 
 method we can more readily ascertain the virtues 
 and defects of the one or the other, and discover 
 in which are those permanent and divine elements 
 that will command the homage of the human soul 
 and guarantee its final and eternal triumph. I 
 readily accept the statement of Dr. Fairbairn 
 that *'the function of great beliefs is not to find 
 perfect men, but to make them; to take the poor 
 material it gets, and out of it to build up nobler 
 characters and nobler men." The ethical value 
 of any religion is tested by the kind of character 
 it produces. Christianity, therefore, like every 
 system of truth, should be measured by its de- 
 clared purposes and legitimate effects. 
 
 It has been objected, however, that we have no 
 right to infer the truth of a doctrine from its titil- 
 ity ; that some beliefs may have been morally use- 
 ful that were not true. To that objection Bishop 
 Westcott makes convincing answer by showing 
 that those beliefs were effective because not wholly 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 4I 
 
 false, and then utters these striking words: **And 
 the absolute uniqueness of Christianity lies in this, 
 that its capacity for good is universal and in itself 
 without alloy. ^^ 
 
 First, let us contrast Christianity and other re- 
 ligions in their conceptions of God. All religions 
 are typed and determined by their deities. A peo- 
 ple can never be better or worse than the gods they 
 worship. A distinguished writer on comparative 
 religions makes this very just observation : **A bad 
 god can never have a good religion. As is the 
 deity, such must the faith that is built on him be. 
 Find out the character of the deity, and you find 
 out the character of the religion." And on anoth- 
 er occasion the same writer said: " There is no 
 surer measure of a people's progress than its suc- 
 cessive conceptions of the being it worships." It 
 shall be our purpose, then, to ascertain, if possible, 
 and from authoritative sources, what are those 
 ** conceptions " which constitute the religions of 
 nations, and which determine their destiny. 
 
 We will look at Hindooism, the ancient re- 
 ligion of India, and see what is its conception of a 
 being to worship. We find that there is no recog- 
 nition of a personal God. It is pantheistic and 
 idolatrous. There are lords many and gods many. 
 As many as three hundred and thirty million divin- 
 
42 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 ities have been counted. The imagination has 
 grown weary in their multiplication. One of the 
 native writers of India, an ardent Brahman, the 
 editor of the Hindu, said recently that Hindoo- 
 ism had never degraded itself so far as to believe 
 in a personal God. A great scholar, and by no 
 means unfriendly critic, makes this statement 
 concerning the chief Hindoo deity: ** Brahm is a 
 sort of divine neuter, a colorless, abstract, super- 
 personal (and therefore impersonal) being, without 
 love or anger, without sympathy or pity." There 
 is also a sort of crude trinity — Brahma, Vishnu, 
 and Siva — Vishnu representing the preserver and 
 Siva the destroyer. Passions that would be base 
 in men are sinless in their gods. Kali, the wife of 
 Siva, the Moloch of India and a favorite goddess, 
 is best propitiated by human sacrifices ; has thugs 
 to commit murder in her name, and is represented 
 as a horrid black figure with protruding tongue, 
 dripping blood, and usually adorned with a girdle 
 of dangling hands and a necklace of human 
 skulls. 
 
 Buddhism, a reformed religion which sprang up 
 as a protest against Brahmanism, is substantially 
 atheistic. In its creed there is no god to worship. 
 Prof. Max Miiller says: " Difficult as it seems to 
 us to conceive, Buddha admits of no real cause of 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 43 
 
 this unreal world. He denies the existence, not 
 only of a creator, but of any absolute being." 
 
 Zoroastrianism, said to be the best and purest 
 of all pagan creeds, believes in one god, but has 
 no conception of him as a spiritual being; and its 
 votaries worship first of all fire, then the sun, moon, 
 stars, water, wind, earth, rivers, trees, etc., be- 
 lieving them to be emblems of the deity. They 
 hold that the eternal created two gods: Ormuzd, 
 the god of light, and Ahriman, the god of darkness. 
 These two deities are in constant conflict, but in 
 the end the god of light will triumph. 
 
 Mohammedism is monotheistic, but has a dis- 
 torted conception of God. It is thus stated by Sir 
 William Muir: "The god of Islam, sohtary, se- 
 vere, stern, inducing man to obey by motives that 
 debase, depraving woman, hating the infidel, is a 
 fit deity for wild Arabs or fierce Turks, but no god 
 for civilized and free man." The Moslem creed 
 may be expressed in a single sentence: " There is 
 one god, and Mohammed is his prophet." 
 
 In this classification I have not included Confu- 
 cianism, for it is a philosophy rather than a reli- 
 gion. Now with these crude and revolting ideas 
 of a Being unto whom the soul of man cries, we 
 contrast the new and noble conception of God 
 which Christianity has introduced into the world : 
 
44 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 A Person who is one Lord, self-existent, eternal, 
 omnipotent, omniscient, the Creator and Preserver 
 of all things, the everlasting and universal Father, 
 full of mercy, truth, and tender compassion. He 
 is a God who exercises tender watch care over ev- 
 ery creature of his hand ; a Lord whose overruling 
 providence makes all things work for good to them 
 that obey him; a loving Father who protects and 
 provides for his children, and hears them when 
 they pray ; a Saviour who provides a remedy for all 
 sin; a Spirit to regenerate, guide, inspire, and 
 sanctify all that believe on his name. What a 
 world-wide difference of conception ! What a 
 transfiguration in contrast with the pitiful condi- 
 tions and heartless mockeries of the heathen world ! 
 With Dr. Martineau we all joyfully say: **A faith 
 that spreads around and within the mind a Deity 
 thus sublime and holy finds the life of every pure 
 affection, and presses with omnipotent power on 
 the conscience; and our only prayer is that we 
 may walk as children of such light." 
 
 The heathen have no conception of God as a 
 Father. The world sighs for fatherhood, and 
 nothing less will satisfy the soul of man. The 
 heart wants not a code of laws, not a system of 
 doctrine, not a judge however just, not a bountiful 
 provider and preserver, but a divine, sympathetic 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 45 
 
 Father. Philip's prayer, «* Show us the Father, 
 and it sufficeth us," is the orphan cry of humani- 
 ty, the plaintive voice of the universal human heart. 
 Nothing less can satisfy. And the search for God 
 has been correctly characterized as the search for 
 the principle of fatherhood. A great writer has 
 truly said: '* Without it [the doctrine of father- 
 hood] the religions of the West had perished amid 
 license and apathy, while the more fervid spirits of 
 the East took refuge in the thought of annihila- 
 tion." 
 
 Next we will contrast Christianity and other re- 
 ligions in their conceftions of man and their esti- 
 mates of the value of htunan life. This truth is 
 • axiomatic : the more exalted our conception of the 
 God we worship, the nobler will be our estimate 
 of man. Divine thoughts of God necessitate 
 high thoughts of man. The greater the God 
 whose lordship we recognize, and whose author- 
 ity we obey, the greater the man created in his 
 image or in any sense the representative of his 
 character. Now in connection with this funda- 
 mental truth, though not necessarily deducible 
 from it, I lay down these broad propositions: (i) 
 Religions that do not beheve in a personal God 
 cannot beheve in the divine origin, dignity, and 
 individuality of man. Personality is instinct in 
 
46 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 man in proportion as the personality of God is 
 distinct. (2) The doctrine of the immortality of 
 man is conditioned on belief in the eternity of 
 God. (3) Belief in the unity of man is not possi- 
 ble to those who believe in a multitude of gods. 
 Polytheistic religions deny the unity of the human 
 race, and its logical expression, the brotherhood 
 of man. 
 
 These propositions are sustained and abundantly 
 illustrated by the histories of the great non-Chris- 
 tian religions. Hindooism, which denies a person- 
 al God, does not recognize the existence of a real 
 soul, but only a temporary emanation, like the 
 moon's reflection in water. There is no capacity 
 for fellowship, and the end is absorption. 
 
 From these low conceptions of the origin, dig- 
 nity, and destiny of man there necessarily follows 
 a cheap estimate of the value of human life. A 
 life that has no future can have no value. We are 
 not surprised, therefore, to find in all heathen coun- 
 tries contempt for human life. " China would see 
 a thousand men perish with less concern than we 
 would see a score." Until the strong arm of a 
 Christian government prohibited it, human sacri- 
 fices were offered to their gods in India by the 
 hundreds every year. Victor Hugo contrasted not 
 only the sentiment of different civilizations, but 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 47 
 
 the principles of antagonistic religions, in this sar- 
 castic sentence: '' If a man is killed in Paris, it is 
 murder; the throats of fifty thousand people are 
 cut in the East, and it is a question." Among the 
 tribes of the South Seas human flesh was the 
 cheapest food. James Calvert, the apostle of Fiji, 
 tells of one wretched cannibal who was wont to 
 put down a stone for every human body of which 
 he partook, and his mound of horror reached the 
 number of eight hundred and seventy-two stones. 
 
 Now contrast with these low ideas that degrade 
 man, and make his existence of no more value 
 than sheep in the shambles, the lofty conception 
 of man's immortality and eternal personal identity 
 introduced by Christianity — made in God's own 
 image, capable of not only apprehending, but of 
 having fellowship with the Divine, endowed with 
 faculties that make him a partaker of the divine 
 nature, and possessed of a personality distinct and 
 deathless. 
 
 Christianity is the only religion of rede7nftion. 
 This is its preeminent characteristic. It is the ap- 
 proach of Heaven to man, that man may be lifted 
 up to heaven. All heathen faiths are only '* co- 
 lossal systems of meritorious legaHsm." Hindoo- 
 ism has no Saviour and no salvation. It has no 
 divine helper in hours of need, no mediator be- 
 
48 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 tween fallen man and a holy God, and no regen- 
 erating spirit to create anew a nature stained with 
 sin. Its only idea of ultimate redemption is a state 
 of *' absolute quiescence or the negation of all con- 
 sciousness." And Buddhism recognizes only <* a 
 salvation which each man could gain for himself, 
 and by himself, in this world, during this life, 
 without the least reference to God or gods, either 
 great or small." The most momentous question 
 under Buddhism and Christianity has thus been 
 contrasted: *' The Christian inquirer asks, * What 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life?' the Buddhist, 
 'What shall I do to inherit eternal extinction?" 
 Buddha said, *' The harvest I reap is Nirvana; " 
 and Nirvana is annihilation. Jainism, a sect of 
 Buddhism, teaches that man is perfected only after 
 '* myriads of births into this and other worlds," 
 and by a long and painful process of penance and 
 maceration. And the perfection at last attained is 
 a state of *' entirely unconscious repose." And 
 Mohammedanism has no atonement. Salvation 
 is by works only. The works prescribed in 
 order to secure redemption are these : (i) 
 Prayer^ which is offered five times a day, with the 
 face turned toward Mecca, accompanied by cer- 
 tain ablutions and purifications. (2) Fasting, 
 which Mohammed called **the gate of religion." 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 49 
 
 (3) Almsgivings the importance of which in their 
 system was thus stated by a Moslem teacher of 
 the early centuries: "Prayer carries us halfway 
 to God, fasting brings us to the door of his palace, 
 and alms procure us admission." (4) A pilgrim- 
 age to Mecca, which is an act of highest merit. 
 
 With these dreary responses to the bitter cry of 
 burdened humanity, these Dead Sea apples pressed 
 to the parched lips of the human soul, we contrast 
 our Christian religion, with its blessed and inspir- 
 ing promise of answered prayer and pardoned sin, 
 and a purified nature, and an endless, sinless, joy- 
 ous fellowship with the Son of God. It promises 
 the infinite expansion of every power of the soul, 
 and unending satisfaction to every stainless im- 
 pulse. The enrapturing assurance is that each re- 
 deemed heart " shall be able to comprehend with 
 all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
 and height; and to know the love of Christ, which 
 passeth knowledge, that he may be filled with all 
 the fullness of God." 
 
 The two doctrines — that a sinless man was made 
 sin, and that a dead and buried man was made life 
 — Sir Monier Williams says makes a gulf be- 
 tween our Holy Bible and the so-called sacred 
 books of the East, " which severs the one from 
 the other utterly, hopelessly, and forever; not a 
 
50 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 mere rift across which the Christian and non-Chris- 
 tian may shake hands and interchange similar ideas 
 in regard to essential truth, but a veritable gulf 
 which cannot be bridged over by any science of 
 religious thought; yes, a bridgeless chasm which 
 no theory of evolution can ever span." 
 . Heathen religions have no high motives and 
 lofty ideals. With this low ethical aim and these 
 despairing views of life there can be noble aspira- 
 tions and inspired longings. There is nothing to 
 kindle divine desire, nothing to exalt hope. When 
 a personal God is denied and possible fellowship 
 with him decried, there is nothing in a religion to 
 satisfy pure desire; so the desire has to be anni- 
 hilated. Buddhism is essentially repressive. It 
 blasts and sterilizes the soil out of which springs 
 nobility of character. Confucianism teaches men 
 to beware of action and aim at inaction, indiffer- 
 ence, and apathy as the highest of all states. 
 
 The difference between Buddhism and Chris- 
 tianity as motive powers has thus been stated: 
 ** Buddha so hated life as to extinguish the very 
 desire to mend it; Christ so loved life as to create 
 in all who loved him the desire for its ennoblement. 
 The aim of Budhha was to make men know their 
 misery, that they might be willing to lay down the 
 burden of existence; but the purpose of Christ 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 5 1 
 
 was to make men conscious of sin, that they might 
 live unto holiness, forsake the darkness, and seek 
 the light." 
 
 The images of Buddha, some of them of colos- 
 sal proportions, represent the Oriental saint in a 
 sitting posture and meditative mood, with hands 
 folded and the palms upturned. The position of 
 that figure of inaction and meditation is a fitting 
 representation of the great system of religion of 
 which he was the highest incarnation. It can pro- 
 duce nothing nobler than a type of character which 
 is to mourn over the vanity of all things and sigh 
 for Nirvana. A religion with such a contempt of 
 life, and so entirely destitute of any spirit of ag- 
 gression and enterprise, can never produce great 
 characters or work out high plans for the world's 
 uplifting. 
 
 Every missionary in every field and every tour- 
 ist who has an eye to discern spiritual verities, 
 agrees with Bishop Caldwell when he says: *' I 
 cannot imagine any person who has lived and 
 moved among uneducated heathen in the rural 
 districts believing them to be influenced by high 
 motives in anything they do. They have never 
 heard of such things as high motives, and cannot 
 for a long time be made to comprehend what they 
 mean." . It is true that Buddhism taught a form of 
 
52 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 self-sacrifice, which is said to be the foundation of 
 the whole complex system; and of Buddha him- 
 self it is related that in one previous existence 
 he plucked out his own eyes, and that in another 
 he cut off his own head, and that in a third he cut 
 his own body to pieces to redeem a dove from a 
 hawk. But the distinction between the self-sacri- 
 fice taught by Buddhism and that inculcated and 
 nobly illustrated by Jesus Christ is thus clearly set 
 forth by Sir Monier Williams, probably the world's 
 highest authority on that ancient religion : ** Chris- 
 tianity demands the suppression of selfishness; 
 Buddhism demands the suppression of self. In 
 the one the true self is elevated and intensified; in 
 the other the true self is annihilated by the prac- 
 tice of a false form of nonselfishness, which has for 
 its final object the annihilation of the ego, the utter 
 extinction of personal individuality." 
 
 Mohammedanism offers its worshipers not high 
 moral and intellectual felicity, but "the everlast- 
 ing gratification of their passions." Gratification 
 of the lower nature becomes, therefore, the object 
 of life. Its ethical system approves and encour- 
 ages polygamy, divorce, and slavery, thus poison- 
 ing domestic life, degrading manhood, and disor- 
 ganizing society. Individuality is absorbed into 
 the life of the system, and all freedom of thought 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 53 
 
 and right of private judgment entirely destroyed. 
 As a matter of history, the legitimate result of 
 such ethics and ignoble aims, non-Christian reli- 
 gions have developed no '' creative personalities, 
 no men who have originated and led great move- 
 ments for the world's uplifting. They have pro- 
 duced no philanthropists and reformers and broad- 
 minded patriots. Where are theij John Howards 
 and John Wesleys and George Washingtons? 
 Out of such religions they can never be evolved. 
 The highest expression of philanthropy in all India 
 is hospitals for sick animals, inspired by their doc- 
 trine of transmigration. They will neglect afflicted 
 men to care for a diseased dog, for in so doing they 
 may be ministering to a dead son or daughter. 
 
 Contrast these dreary dreams of paganism with 
 the lofty ideals and mighty motives of Christian- 
 ity. Other religions have naught to live for but 
 the present, and the present is considered essen- 
 tially evil. All the motives of a great life are 
 wanting. The future is but a dream at best. But 
 how invigorating and inspiring are the ideals of 
 Christianity! What exalted purposes to kindle 
 aspiration! What noble enterprises to command 
 our best endeavors ! We are exhorted to nothing 
 short of imitation of God himself. *' Be ye imi- 
 tators of God, as dear children." 
 
54 MODRRN MISSIONS. 
 
 Christianity exalts the meaning and mission of 
 life. Its plans are projected into the eternal years. 
 A man cannot rise above the object of his affec- 
 tion. Hence the exhortation, *' set your affection 
 upon things above, not on things on the earth." 
 If the object of love is base and lov^, the man him- 
 self will be degraded to its level. If it is lofty and 
 noble, he will be lifted up to its splendid nobility, 
 however exalted. He cannot rise above his ideal. 
 He rises or falls with the object of his supremest 
 hope and affection. How striking is that picture 
 John Bunyan drew of the old man with the muck 
 rake in hand, bent low at his work, raking rotting 
 weeds and leaves together; while just above him 
 floated an angel, on radiant wing, with a crown 
 in hand ready to place it upon his brow if he 
 would only straighten up ; but he never wore it, 
 because he never looked up. He lost a crown by 
 always looking down. That is a faithful picture 
 of unsaved humanity everywhere, especially in 
 heathen lands. A religion that has no lofty ideals 
 — no hope in the future — and does not train the 
 eye of the soul to look upward, has no '* joy and 
 crown." The sad angel may linger, poised on 
 weary wing, but the hour of coronation will never 
 come. 
 
 The unapproachable superiority of Christianity 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 55 
 
 is further shown in its symmetrical develofment of 
 human character. And after all it is symmetry 
 that gives beauty to character. It is formed not so 
 much by **the gigantic size of one virtue," as by 
 the harmony and completeness of all. Unlike na- 
 tional religions, with their limitations to the sup- 
 posed needs of national life and their adaptations 
 to national character, Christianity touches htunaii- 
 ity at every point, and is adapted not only to all 
 men, but to the whole man. There are no metes 
 and bounds to its ** exceeding breadth." It is not 
 only *^ familiar with the chief notes of character, 
 but also with those many semitones whose happy 
 introduction makes the full music of moral perfec- 
 tion." There is not one appeal to one set of mo- 
 tives, and an ominous silence toward another; 
 not a generous response to some cravings of the 
 human heart, and a hard, closed hand to others 
 equally urgent; but has an attentive ear for every 
 cry of humanity — an unlimited supply for every 
 need, ample reward for every effort, and an open, 
 inviting field for the loftiest aspirations and the 
 grandest achievements. The gentler and the stur- 
 dier virtues are alike developed. I thank Mr. 
 Watkinson for this striking figure and eloquent 
 passage: *' The famous violin of the Hardanger 
 region has its four delicate under-strings, whose 
 
56 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 vibrations add weird harmonies to the tones pro- 
 duced by the stroke of the bow on the four prin- 
 cipal strings ; so a nature developed and perfected 
 by communion with Christ not only responds to 
 the great appeals of common veracity and justice, 
 but, full of the fine chords, makes all the delicate 
 music which discerning souls know to be the mu- 
 sic of the upper spheres." 
 
 Our religion contemplates the sanctification of 
 the whole man, and is concerned with the entire 
 range and round of life's activities and duties. 
 ** Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or what- 
 soever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (i 
 Cor. X. 31.) 
 
 In his first Epistle to the Church at Thessalonica 
 St. Paul thus prays: '*And the God of peace him- 
 self sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and 
 soul and body be preserved entire, without blame 
 at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful 
 is he that calleth you, who will also do it." 
 
 All that is purest in purpose and holiest in life 
 and tenderest in sympathy and sweetest in mercy 
 and freest in charity and fairest in virtue and most 
 beautiful in character are the direct inspiration of 
 the Christian religion. But under no heathen sys- 
 tem of religion or philosophy, even those with the 
 largest element of truth, is it possible to develop 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 57 
 
 a full-orbed character. At the best, '* a man car- 
 ries a catechism in his head and an arctic winter 
 in his soul." 
 
 Christianity alone gives co^nfort in bereavement. 
 Every other religion is pitiless. They have no 
 voice to sympathize, no hand to soothe, no hope 
 to cheer. Without a resurrection faith there is no 
 cure for human sorrow. Nothing can be more 
 utterly cheerless than the doctrine of the transmi- 
 gration of souls: that our loved ones are reappear- 
 ing in the forms of beasts and birds and fishes. 
 One tradition is that Buddha himself had five hun- 
 dred and fifty earlier lives before he became the 
 son of Suddhodana. He had lived as a rat and a 
 crow, as a frog and a hare, as a dog and a pig, 
 twice as a fish, six times as a snipe, four times as a 
 golden eagle, four times as a peacock and as a ser- 
 pent, ten times as a goose, as a deer, and as a lion, 
 six times as an elephant, four times as a horse and 
 as a bull, eighteen times as an ape, four times as a 
 slave, three times as a potter, thirteen times as a 
 merchant, twenty-four times as a Brahman and as 
 a prince, fifty-eight times as a king, twenty times 
 as the god Indra, and four times as Mahabrahman. 
 A believer in Jainism, who had suffered bereave- 
 ment, was asked by a missionary if he hoped ever 
 to see his dear one again. With a hopeless ex- 
 
58 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 pression of countenance he replied: *' How could 
 I? My loved one is gone, gone forever!" No 
 wonder the Hindoos burn their dead, for why 
 should they keep a body whose spirit may at once 
 become a frog or a crow? Hindooism has no 
 graves. To their faith the stone can never be 
 rolled from the door of the sepulcher, and the 
 mortal form they loved never be clothed with im- 
 mortality and given a glorified body. Hope never 
 survives death. It ends all. 
 
 The highest hope of Buddhism is annihilation^ 
 It teaches that life is essentially evil, and escape 
 therefrom the chief end of man. They hold, as 
 Max Miiller tells us, that ** true wisdom consists in 
 perceiving the nothingness of all things, and is a 
 desire to become nothing, to be blown out, to en- 
 ter Nirvana. . . . If to be is misery, not to be 
 is felicity; and this felicity is the highest reward 
 which Buddha promised to his disciples." And 
 the heaven of Mohammedanism is nothing more 
 than a *' lustful paradise." 
 
 How incomparably more comforting and sustain- 
 ing is our Christian religion ! It has a balm for 
 every wound, a comfort for every sorrow, and a 
 joyful morning for every night of weeping. As 
 contrasted with the dreadful doctrine of transmi- 
 gration, how transfiguring is the assurance of 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 59 
 
 heavenly recognition : that we shall know even 
 as we are known ! 
 
 Heathen religions have 110 -power to elevate. 
 Their highest aspiration is after nonexistence. 
 They offer only a state of ease and sloth. Their 
 heaven is an eternity of idleness or unconscious- 
 ness, as in Buddhism and Hindooism ; or a '* car- 
 nival of sensuous pleasure," as in Mohammedan- 
 ism. Their gods sleep. All energy is emascula- 
 ted and enterprise is treason to their ancestral 
 faith. Hence Eastern nations are inert, slothful, 
 apathetic ; and this apathy is no less appalling than 
 their immorality. 
 
 These religions debase manhood and degrade 
 womanhood. No wonder a poor Hindoo woman, 
 in sending a despairing appeal to Queen Victoria 
 for some relief in India, closed with this agonizing 
 prayer: *'0 God, I pray thee, let no more women 
 be born in this land !" 
 
 The bells of Japan are tongueless. They have 
 no power of melody within. By means of a large 
 beam swung on ropes the ponderous bells are 
 struck on the outside and made to wake the echoes 
 of mountain and valley. And this I have thought 
 most fitly represents the civilizations and religions 
 of all the Orient. Dominated by a conservatism 
 that produces stagnation, and their religions Sesti- 
 
6o MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 tute of fellowship and hope, and therefore without 
 inspiration, they have no capacity within them- 
 selves of elevating nations and making music for 
 the march of the generations. But when struck 
 from without — struck by the hammer of Christian 
 truth, struck by the wand of Western enterprise, 
 struck by the power of modern progress — chimes 
 are awakened that charm the ear of nations and 
 thrill the old lands themselves with the possibilities 
 of a new and larger life. The late brilliant cam- 
 paign of the Japanese against China — one splendid 
 victory succeeding another with the rapidity of a 
 drama, marching with almost unchallenged step 
 from one conquered field to another — was really 
 the majestic movement of Western ideas against 
 the impassive and imperturbable Orient. The 
 thunder of every Japanese gun hurled a projectile 
 of Western thought. But all must come from with- 
 out, and from the direct influence of Christian na- 
 tions. 
 
 The only possible exception to the sterilizing in- 
 fluences of non-Christian religions is Mohammed- 
 anism ; but those who speak by the authority of ac- 
 curate and ample knowledge admit that it can only 
 lift savage races up to a certain point (say to the 
 Arabian civilization of the seventh century), and 
 then * ' further progress is impossible except upon its 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 6l 
 
 absolute rejection." Mackey, of Uganda, speaks 
 of the '* strange venom " of Islam, and describes its 
 votaries as ' ' guilty of every form of uncleanness and 
 robbery and tyranny and murder." I know of no 
 more discriminating and just description of the 
 genius, spirit, and influence of Mohammedanism 
 than is to be found in these words from the pen of 
 Bishop Alexander: "It once elevated the pagan 
 Arabs. Even now it elevates the negro above his 
 fetich; but it must ever remain a religion for sta- 
 tionary races, with its sterile god and its poor lit- 
 erality, the dead book pressing upon it with a 
 weight of lead. Its merits are these: It inculcates 
 a lofty, if sterile, theism ; it fulfills the pledge con- 
 veyed in the word ** Moslem " by inspiring a calm, 
 if frigid, resignation to destiny; it teaches the duty 
 of prayer with strange impressiveness; but whole 
 realms of thought and feeling are crushed out by 
 its bloody and lustful grasp. It is without purity, 
 without tenderness, and without humility." 
 
 Mohammedanism has blighted every land it has 
 touched. It is an absolute despotism, and crushes 
 out the very life of nations. Founded on the prin- 
 ciple of war, the resources of the countries are 
 drunk up by its sword. It destroys accumulated 
 wealth. It blasted Arabia, bankrupted Egypt, and 
 exhausted Persia. Agriculture is discouraged by 
 
62 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 its frail land tenure. Look at Arabia, at Persia, 
 at Turkey, at Egypt, at all Syria. Its history is a 
 track of desolation and lamentation. It has no 
 conservative forces. 
 
 But on the other hand Christianity has demon- 
 strated itself to be the great character-developing 
 and nation-uplifting force in the world. It gives 
 dignity to labor, sanctity to marriage, nobility to 
 woman, purity to domestic and social life, and 
 promotes the brotherhood of man. It finds deserts 
 and makes them gardens, trackless forests and 
 converts them into fruitful fields, dreary marshes 
 and builds great cities therein, hitherto unknown 
 continents and establishes therein a higher civili- 
 zation. What has been said of some countries 
 will soon be said of every mission field: *' Nations 
 have been transformed; Christianity has become 
 the law of the land; and idols, once in every house, 
 have not been found, even as curios and relics I 
 The adamantine wall of caste, the iron wheel 
 of transmigration, the brazen fetters of Moslem 
 bigotry, the hopeless thraldom of fetichism, have 
 alike proved powerless to oppose the simple gos- 
 pel of Christ." Everything lives whither the riv- 
 er Cometh. 
 
 The marvelous progress of the world is limited 
 to Christian nations. Account for it as others 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 63 
 
 may, the astonishing fact remains that only in 
 Christian countries is there any development, while 
 in all heathen lands there is stagnation and decay. 
 Now how is this progress to be explained? Why 
 this strange coloring of the maps of the world? 
 How happens it that the progressive and nonpro- 
 gressive nations are differentiated by their attitude 
 to Christianity? 
 
 Another fact distinguishing Christianity from 
 other religions is its attitude toward its Founder. 
 Christ, the center of the Christian system, is the 
 supremest object of affection and adoration; the 
 founders of other faiths may be revered, but are 
 not loved. Confucius, the greatest philosopher of 
 the East, is honored for his wisdom; but while his 
 words are cherished, his person has no inspiration. 
 Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, has not in 
 himself any special charm to the votaries of that 
 faith. Mohammed was a magnetic and intrepid 
 leader, but only a prophet claiming to speak for 
 the Lord. But in Christianity it is the person of 
 Christ that has attractive and ennobling power. 
 Christian loyalty is animated by personal affection ; 
 the heathen obeys through fear. The difference 
 between Christian and heathen service is the dif- 
 ference between obedience and subservience. The 
 Christian says, '* O, how I love thy law!" the 
 
64 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 heathen says, ** O, how I dread the gods!'* 
 What the venerable Dr. Legge says of the Chinese 
 may be said with equal emphasis of the disciples 
 of all heathen religions: ** I have been reading 
 Chinese books for more than forty years, and any 
 general requirement to 'love God,' or the men- 
 tion of any one as ' loving him,' has yet to come 
 for the first time under my eye." 
 
 But in Christianity devotion to Jesus Christ is 
 the source of all strength and the inspiration of 
 every enduring form of heroism. In his *' History 
 of European Morals " Mr. Lecky pays this tribute 
 to Christianity as a reforming and uplifting force 
 in the world, the secret of which he discovers in 
 the person of its great Founder: ** It has been re- 
 served for Christianity to present to the world an 
 ideal character which through all the changes of 
 eighteen centuries has filled the hearts of men with 
 an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of 
 acting in all ages, temperaments, and conditions; 
 has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but 
 the highest incentive to its practice, and has exer- 
 cised so deep an influence that it may be truly said 
 that the simple record of three short years of 
 Christ's active life has done more to regenerate 
 and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of 
 philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 65 
 
 It has been the wellspring of whatever is best and 
 purest in the Christian Hfe. Amid all the sins and 
 failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution 
 and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it 
 has preserved in the character and example of 
 its Founder an enduring principle of regenera- 
 tion." 
 
 Paul, the great, calm thinker and apostolic lead- 
 er, voiced at once his own ardent love for his Lord, 
 and the sum of every true Christian's faith, when he 
 exclaimed, ** For me to live is Christ, and to die 
 is gain; " and then, enraptured with the prospect 
 of an eternal and uninterrupted personal fellow- 
 ship, said that he desired '* to depart, and to be 
 with Christ; which is far better." The aged and 
 sainted Polycarp, of Smyrna, when standing at the 
 stake where his body was to be burned, and 
 begged to recant that he might escape the flames, 
 made answer in these brave words: ** Eighty and 
 six years have I been his servant, and he never 
 did me an injury; how, then, can I blaspheme my 
 King, who is my Saviour? " And similar testimo- 
 ny, in flame and blood, has been borne by multi- 
 plied millions. Dean Farrar says, with as much 
 force as beauty: '* It is strange and touching to 
 see how this character, with the winning love of 
 its irresistible tenderness, by the moral sorcery of 
 
66 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 its infinite self-sacrifice, pervades, astonishes, over- 
 whelms, subdues." 
 
 But heathen religions have no such joyous spir- 
 itual fellowship and no such object of affection or 
 encouragement to glorious endeavor. Their gods 
 are as cold as an arctic winter, without love them- 
 selves, and unable to enkindle it in others. Speak- 
 ing of the missionary Hionen — Thsang — called the 
 St. Francis Xavier of Buddhism — who traveled 
 once for four days and nights through a desert 
 without a drop of water. Prof. Max Miiller says: 
 *' He had nothing to refresh himself except his 
 prayers, and what were they? Texts from a work 
 which taught that there was no God, no Creator, 
 no creation — nothing but mind, minding itself." 
 
 Of the Christ and his quiet conquests Jean Paul 
 Richter says: ** The lowliest among the mighty 
 and the mightiest among the lowly, who with 
 pierced hand has lifted the gates of empires off 
 their hinges, turned the course of history out of 
 its channel, and still governs the centuries." 
 
 Christianity is also distinguished from other re- 
 ligions by the manner of its growth and the 7neth- 
 ods of its -progress. It proposes to conquer the 
 world, but only by love. It marshals no armies 
 and commands no navies and seeks to compel no 
 people by force to surrender to the rule of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 67 
 
 King of kings. As Athanasius says, '' No forced 
 obedience pleases God. He dislikes that men 
 should be made religious by hatchet and sword." 
 And whenever misguided zealots have used the 
 enginery of war or the power of civil government 
 to advance the cause of Christ, the cause itself 
 has suffered and the Spirit of the Lord has been 
 grieved. The Word will win the world, ''not by 
 might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the 
 Lord of hosts." It advances by simple, gentle, 
 unobtrusive means. As quiet as leaven, as soft as 
 light, as persistent as salt, is the gospel of the 
 kingdom "that cometh not with observation." It 
 asks not the power of kings, nor the patronage of 
 state, but only the privilege of simple proclamation 
 and the miracle of holy living. These are the only 
 means by which its conquest of the nations is to be 
 achieved. Its victories have been won " not be- 
 cause of princes, but in spite of them." By he- 
 roic endurance, by burning zeal, by boundless 
 love, the uttermost parts of the earth are to be 
 possessed. 
 
 But no other faith has so won its way in the 
 world. By the patronage of princes and the pow- 
 er of the sword every one has attained influence 
 and wide acceptance. For centuries there was 
 ceaseless conflict between Hindooism and Bud- 
 
68 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 dhism in India, and at last the latter had to cross 
 the Himalayas and flee the country, leaving only 
 a small following on the island of Ceylon. Shin- 
 toism is interwoven with the life of the State. And 
 Mohammedanism is only another name for human 
 cruelty and fanatical ferocity. The richest re- 
 wards and the most conspicuous places in the sev- 
 enth heaven were promised those whose swords 
 were wet with the blood of the largest number of 
 infidels. In chapter xlvii. of the Koran are these 
 words: ''When ye encounter the unbelievers, 
 strike off their heads, until ye have made a great 
 slaughter among them. . . . O true believers, 
 if ye assist God, by fighting for his religion, he 
 will assist you against your enemies, and will set 
 your feet fast; but as for the infidels, let them 
 perish, and their works shall God render vain.'* 
 Thus their hands were taught to war as the rarest 
 virtue, and assuring the richest reward. Mo- 
 hammed went so far as to say that ''paradise rests 
 under the shadow of swords." The difference 
 between Christianity and Islam has thus been 
 stated: "Converts were gained to the faith of 
 Jesus by witnessing the constancy with which its 
 confessors suffered death; they were gained to 
 Islam by the spectacle of the readiness with which 
 its adherents inflicted death. In the one case con- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 69 
 
 version often imperiled the believer's life; in the 
 other, it was for the most part the only means of 
 saving it." 
 
 And that spirit yet abides and gloats in blood. 
 The atrocities of Armenia have appealed to the 
 sympathy of the world, and a restraining hand has 
 only been stayed by the fear of the greater horrors 
 of a European war, in which every power would 
 be involved. But Moslem fanaticism and inhu- 
 manity must go down before the peaceful triumphs 
 of the Man of Galilee. It is true that the history 
 of Christians under Moslem law '* is only an unin- 
 terrupted scene of tyranny, violation, 'and slaugh- 
 ter;" but its civil power will soon be broken, and 
 only linger as a hateful memory. 
 
 And another fact which shows the transcendent 
 superiority of Christianity over other religions, is 
 its self-reciiferative energy. A divine religion must 
 have the power of self-recuperation. If it wins by 
 its inherent energy, it must organize victory even 
 out of defeat. A religion is valueless that cannot 
 meet a crisis. If dependent upon other and might- 
 ier influences for deliverance from peril or recov- 
 ery from misalliance and mistake, it is shorn of 
 any claim to be divine, and has forfeited all right 
 and title to human confidence. Dependence is 
 not a quality of divinity. If a religion has to be 
 
70 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 buttressed by supports, civil and secular, it is man- 
 made, and not divine. 
 
 Christianity has never been aided, but rather 
 hindered, by too close alliance with civil govern- 
 ment. The kingdoms of Christ and Caesar should 
 be at peace, but independent. A striking illustra- 
 tion of the positive hurtfulness to Christianity by 
 this forbidden union is the history of the church 
 in connection with Constantine the Great. I adopt 
 and reproduce the vigorously expressed opinion 
 of Mr. Wesley thereon. He said: ** Persecution 
 never did, never could, give any lasting wound to 
 genuine Christianity. But the greatest it ever re- 
 ceived, the grand blow which was struck at the 
 very root of that humble, gentle, patient love which 
 is the fulfilling of the Christian law, the whole es- 
 sence of true religion, was struck by Constantine 
 the Great, when he called himself a Christian, and 
 poured in a flood of riches and honor and power 
 upon the Christians, more especially upon the 
 clergy. I have been long convinced from the 
 whole tenor of history that Constantine calling 
 himself a Christian was productive of more evil 
 to the Church than all the ten persecutions put 
 together. From the time that the Church and the 
 State, the kingdoms of Christ and of the world, 
 were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 7 1 
 
 Christianity and heathenism were so thoroughly in- 
 corporated with each other that they will hardly ever 
 be divided until Christ comes to reign upon earth." 
 
 But out of all entanglements of false friends, 
 and all embarrassments of misguided zeal, and all 
 fierceness of persecution, Christianity comes by her 
 own unaided effort, with a mightier vitality and a 
 diviner glory. This recuperative and triumphant 
 spirit of our holy religion dominates the very meth- 
 ods of the sacred writers even when pronouncing 
 the judgments of God. Above the tones of lamen- 
 tation there is always a voice of hope and the shout 
 of final victory. Listen to Isaiah. Dark enough 
 was the picture he drew of Israel's downfall, and 
 dreadful were the judgments that he said were im- 
 pending; but out of the gloom he sounded a note 
 of cheer, " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a 
 stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure 
 foundation;" and St. Paul, pained by the here- 
 sies he had to combat, and discouraged by so 
 many apostasies from the true faith, until he is 
 tempted to wonder if faith will still be found in 
 the earth, yet cries out, with the notes of a bugle, 
 '^ nevertheless the foundation of God standeth 
 sure." 
 
 And Christianity never was so buoyant and ag- 
 gressive as now. Every day marks a notable 
 
72 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 advance. Through flame and flood and blood the 
 gospel has come, and moves onward with a stead- 
 ier and statelier step to the conquest of the nations. 
 Nothing can stay its conquering course. '* No 
 despotism can ever destroy or permanently arrest 
 the gospel, because it has the light of God upon it 
 and the life of men within it." 
 
 The age is remarkable for eager inquiries into 
 the life and person of Christ. All peoples are face 
 to iace with the question: **What think ye of 
 Christ?" He is the theme of poet, the study of 
 philosopher, the model of artist, the teacher of 
 statesmen, the inspiration of philanthropist, the 
 friend of the poor, and the brother of every man. 
 It is said to have required four large volumes to 
 record simply the names and contents of the books 
 that have been written concerning the person of 
 Christ. Mr. Gladstone says: ** Talk about the 
 questions of the day: there is but one question, 
 and that is the gospel of Christ. It can and will 
 correct everything needing correction." 
 
 But while Christianity triumphs, every other re- 
 ligion is failing. They are toppling to their utter 
 ruin. Enfeebled with years, they are without 
 power to renew their youth like the eagle. Their 
 vitality is decaying, with nothing to arrest the 
 process of death. Their most sacred shrines are 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 73 
 
 neglected, and venerable temples are crumbling. 
 A waning crescent, Moslems themselves admit, 
 fitly foretells their future. In the published ac- 
 counts of the burning of the famous mosque at 
 Damascus a few years ago there was a suggestive 
 coincidence, if not a striking prophecy. It was 
 built on the sacred spot where once stood the old 
 Byzantine Church, dedicated to St. John the Bap- 
 tist. In building this Moslem temple one of the 
 Roman arches was blended in the superstructure, 
 on which was a Greek inscription from the Holy 
 Scriptures. After the great fire the arch was found 
 in place, bending over the ruins, bearing these 
 words: " Thy kingdom, O Christ, and thy domin- 
 ion endureth throughout all ages." 
 
 The distinguished Boden Professor of Sanscrit 
 at Oxford, probably the best authority, says that 
 *' as a form of popular religion Buddhism is grad- 
 ually losing its vitality and hold on the vast popu- 
 lations once loyal to its rule." He computes the 
 number of Buddhists at one hundred million, not 
 four hundred million, as hitherto estimated; and 
 gives the first place numerically to Christianity. 
 The order, according to number of adherents, is 
 as follows: Christianity, Confucianism, Hindooism, 
 Buddhism, Mohammedanism. 
 
 There is a painting in the Vatican gallery repre 
 
74 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 senting pag-am'sm m prop/iecy. It is a broken col- 
 umn, which has fallen, and is partly covered with 
 sand and weeds. However long it may have stood 
 in stately strength, at last it falls, and is being 
 fast buried out of sight. The picture is true to 
 life. History is rapidly fulfilling that prophecy. 
 Throughout the world the power of paganism is , 
 broken, and sooner or later will be covered under 
 the sweep and growth of the centuries. 
 
 But I have another picture in mind — a figure of 
 Christianity — not in dead stone, but in living na- 
 ture. I find it in an account of a mysterious tree 
 in the old city of Canton, China. It grows on the 
 ruins of an ancient pagoda, and is green all the 
 year round. From what source it draws its vigor- 
 ous and beautiful life is something of a mystery. 
 Other leaves turn sear and yellow, but these seem 
 never to fade. On the crumbling debris of that 
 old, decaying pagoda, the tree waves aloft its 
 green branches like another angel of the resurrec- 
 tion, proclaiming its independence and defiance of 
 the whole empire of death. That is God's proph- 
 ecy in a figure. On the ruins of Confucianism, 
 Buddhism, Hindooism, and every doomed religion, 
 there has been planted the tree of life, whose leaves 
 are for the heahng of the nations, and which bear- 
 eth its fruit in all seasons. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 75 
 
 I conclude, therefore, this discussion with the 
 eloquent exhortation of Sir Monier Williams, whose 
 profound knowledge of other religions has only in- 
 tensified his appreciation of the absolute truth of 
 the Christian system and strengthened his faith in 
 its ultimate and glorious triumph. He says: 
 
 Go forth, then, je missionaries, in jour Master's name; go 
 forth into all the world, and, after studying all its false religions 
 and philosophies, go forth and fearlessly proclaim to suffering 
 humanity the plain, the unchangeable, the eternal facts of the 
 gospel; nay, I might almost say the stubborn, the unyielding, 
 the inexorable facts of the gospel. Dare to be downright with 
 all the uncompromising courage of your own Bible, while with 
 it your watchwords are love, joy, peace, reconciliation. Be 
 fair, be charitable, be Christlike, but let there be no mistake. 
 Let it be made absolutely clear that Christianity cannot, must 
 not, be watered down to suit the palate of either Hindoo, Parsee, 
 Confucianist, Buddhist, or Mohammedan ; and that whosoever 
 wishes to pass from the false religion to the true can never 
 hope to do so by the rickety planks of compromise, or by the 
 help of faltering hands held out by half-hearted Christians. He 
 must leap the gulf in faith, and the living Christ will spread his 
 everlasting arms beneath, and land him safely on the eternal 
 Rock. 
 
LECTURE IIL 
 
 PORTABLE EVIDENCES FROM MANY 
 LANDS. 
 
III. 
 
 PORTABLE EVIDENCES FROM MANY LANDS. 
 
 IN this lecture I shall consider what has been 
 happily called '' the portable evidences " of 
 Christianity — the testimony of those in different 
 lands and reared under various religions who have 
 put our religion to an experimental test and have 
 become *' living epistles" of its redeeming virtue 
 and power. Christianity claims to produce certain 
 results wherever and whenever embraced by indi- 
 viduals and peoples. It only asks to be tested by 
 a spiritual trial of its divine energy. Indeed, it 
 seeks every opportunity of making demonstration 
 of its infinite power. And after all, a spiritual ex- 
 perience is the final evidence. Slightly modified, 
 I adopt the words of Thomas Carlyle : To test re- 
 ligion, and *' to 'teach' religion, the first thing 
 needful, and also the last and the only thing, is 
 the finding of a man who has religion." A living 
 Lazarus, who has been four days dead, is the con- 
 vincing answer to all cavil. He is the absolute 
 demonstration of resurrection power. Bishop 
 Westcott thus clearly states the case: " The veri- 
 fication of the gospel is in and through life, the 
 life of men, and the life of each man. It is veri- 
 
8o MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 fied outwardly by the testimony of history; it is 
 verified inwardly by the testimony of experience." 
 
 Now it is boldly affirmed that Christianity ex- 
 tends, without distinction, ''to all men, to the 
 whole of man, to all being and to all time," and 
 that it is entirely adequate to meet the needs of all 
 men, and is perfectly adapted to every possible 
 human condition. Of course, such a claim must 
 be supported by evidence. But if men in differ- 
 ent lands and latitudes, in every stage of civiliza- 
 tion and intelligence, and reared under various 
 philosophies and religions, from the highest Bud- 
 dhism to the lowest fetichism of the South Sea 
 Islands, embrace Christianity and bear the same 
 testimony to its saving and sanctifying power, we 
 are justified in accepting the universality of its 
 adaptation and mission — its perfect correspond- 
 ence " with the original constitution and the actual 
 condition of man." 
 
 Our Lord certainly had a vision of world-wide 
 empire. He purposed nothing less than a univer- 
 sal and everlasting kingdom. His command, there- 
 fore, is "to preach the gospel to every creature " 
 — no limit of territory, race, caste, class, or condi- 
 tion. And the promise is that " all shall know the 
 Lord, from the least to the greatest." And that 
 command is based upon the possibility of univer- 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 8l 
 
 sal redemption and the pledge of His exhaustless 
 resources to achieve it. The supposition is that 
 no such command would have been given, if men 
 were not able to receive it. Now we claim that 
 the history of modern Missions has converted that 
 conclusion into a demonstration. It has demon- 
 strated the capacity of man, everywhere, to appre- 
 hend Christian truth. He may not be able to un- 
 derstand the metaphysics of theology; but the spir- 
 itual verities of the gospel, which renew the life 
 and mold the character, can be apprehended and 
 reincarnated by all men. 
 
 This broad statement is supported by two con- 
 siderations : 
 
 I. Enlightenment of the heart, rather than the 
 head, is the condition of spiritual knowledge. The 
 heart has eyes. St. Paul speaks of '* having the 
 eyes of your heart enlightened." This inner eye, 
 opened, is the organ of spiritual discernment. 
 Now it is much the same in all men. The affec- 
 tionate nature and the natural conscience are on 
 the same level among all races and nations. There 
 are vast differences in intellectual capacity and 
 culture, but the natural heart is quite the same. 
 Jeremy Taylor makes this discriminative observa- 
 tion: "Every man understands more of religion 
 by his affections than by his reason. It is not the 
 
82 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 wit of man, but the spirit of the man; not so much 
 his head as his heart that learns the divine philos- 
 ophy." Our Lord was therefore eminently phil- 
 osophical when he said: '* Blessed are the pure in 
 heart: for they shall see God." 
 
 But this in no sense discounts the intellect, or 
 underrates the right use of reason in religion. All 
 religion worthy the homage of the heart must 
 have an intellectual basis. Knowledge furnishes 
 the materials of faith. A distinguished German 
 writer said: '' By my faith, I am a Christian; by 
 my reason, I am a heathen." On that covert sneer 
 Dr. Fairbairn makes this just observation: "Any 
 theory that leaves a division in a man's own soul 
 is false. If religion be a mere matter of faith, un- 
 able to bear the light of reason, it is untrue to the 
 nature the Creator gave to man." 
 
 2. The other consideration is that obedience is 
 also a condition of spiritual knowledge. David, 
 therefore, spoke of himself not boastfully, but 
 philosophically, when he said: ** I have more un- 
 derstanding than all my teachers, because I keef 
 thy command^ne^its y So our Lord says: '' If any 
 man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
 whether it be of God, or whether I speak of my- 
 self." And there is earnest and repeated exhor- 
 tation to ** taste and see that the Lord is good." 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 83 
 
 But before calling the witnesses from many 
 lands, and of every color of skin and former habit 
 of life to bear testimony to the regenerating power 
 of Christianity in their own lives — to speak by the 
 authority of their own personal experience — it may 
 be well to define Christian experience, and con- 
 sider what is the value of such testimony. *' Ex- 
 perience," as defined b}^ the lexicographers, is 
 *' particular acquaintance with any matter by per- 
 sonal observation or trial of it; by feeling its ef- 
 fects; by living through it." As appHed to the 
 Christian religion it is, in a word, consciousness 
 of certain internal states and feelings, through 
 which one has passed or is passing. Schleiermach- 
 er said that religion is not a system of dogmas, but 
 an *' inward experience." 
 
 Now, such testimony — the testimony of con- 
 sciousness — is most valuable. " Behind conscious- 
 ness one cannot go; as far back as consciousness 
 religion must go, or its work is superficial." It is 
 '' the affidavit of life to life." About every impor- 
 tant event in history there may be somewhat vary- 
 ing accounts as to details. These, however, do 
 not impeach, but rather confirm, the reliability of 
 testimony. But, as Dr. Harrison has well said, 
 ** If there is one moral fact that is capable of ab- 
 solute demonstration, it is the soul's attitude to- 
 
84 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 ward its Creator. . . . It is possible to dem- 
 onstrate to the consciousness of man both his need 
 of a Saviour and the presence of the Saviour that 
 is needed." On the rehabiUty of experience Leib- 
 nitz says: ** If our immediate internal experience 
 could possibly deceive us, there could no longer 
 be for us any truth of fact; nay, nor any truth of 
 reason." And Herbert Spencer himself admits 
 the demonstration of experiences of this character 
 in this luminous sentence: **When . . . the 
 postulate is . . . not based on one concrete 
 experience, . . . but implies an induction from 
 a great variety of experiences, we may say that it 
 ranks next to the postulates of exact science,'''' 
 
 And in this connection I ask you to delay yet 
 a moment, in order to call attention to an impor- 
 tant distinction, suggested by Bishop Foster, that 
 *' there is a difference between an experience of 
 Christianity and a Christian experience ^ The 
 one is an observation of its moral, social, and oth- 
 er effects upon individuals, peoples, and nations; 
 while the other is purely subjective — the conscious- 
 ness of certain spiritual facts, forces, and fruits in 
 the individual soul. One, therefore, may have an 
 experience of Christianity — may have extensive and 
 even approving knowledge of its mighty objective 
 influences and results — and yet be without a gen- 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 85 
 
 uine Christian experience. Sir William Muir, 
 once Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Prov- 
 inces, had an experience of Christianity, but not 
 necessarily a Christian experience, when, in refer- 
 ring to the increased ratio of conversions, he said: 
 *'And they are not shams or paper converts, as 
 some would have us believe, but good, honest 
 Christians, and many of them of a high stand- 
 ard." And so the Governor of Madras, a few 
 years ago, had an experience of Christianity when 
 he reported that in justice to those nations that 
 had adopted Christianity as their profession in In- 
 dia, he ought not to refrain from bearing his testi- 
 mony to that which came more especially under 
 the eyes of a Governor — viz., their conduct in civil 
 matters as well as their conduct in religious mat- 
 ters. When they come to large masses of his peo- 
 ple, to whole villages which had adopted Chris- 
 tianity, then it was possible to those in authority 
 to form some opinion as to whether the change of 
 creed had conduced to the good conduct of the 
 converts; and he must not refrain from saying 
 that the tendency of the change had been de- 
 cidedly good. And the native Prince of Travan- 
 core, though avowedly not a Christian, had an ex- 
 perience of Christianity, and thus publicly stated 
 the results of his observations : 
 
86 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Where did the English-speaking people get all their intelli- 
 gence and energy and cleverness and power? It is their Bible 
 that gives it to them. And now thej bring it to us and say: 
 «' This is what raised us." They do not force it upon us, as the 
 Mohammedans did their Koran; but they bring it in love, and 
 translate it into our languages, and lay it before us, and say: 
 "Look at it, read it, examine it, and see if it is not good." Of 
 one thing I am convinced : Do what we will, oppose it as we 
 may, it is the Christian Bible that will, sooner or later, work 
 the regeneration of this land. Marvelous has been the effect 
 of Christianity in the moral molding and leavening of Europe. 
 I am not a Christian; I do not accept the cardinal tenets of 
 Christianity as they concern man in the next world; but I ac- 
 cept Christian ethics in their entirety. I have the highest ad- 
 miration for them. 
 
 Another fact should not be overlooked: While 
 the attitude of regenerated souls is essentially the 
 same toward God and the great verities of the gos- 
 pel, ** every experience is colored by the subject of 
 the experience." Inherited tendencies, degrees of 
 intelligence, peculiarities of temperament, former 
 habits, and, indeed, everything that differentiates 
 human beings, affect and determine the expressions 
 of this new life. Mental and temperamental char- 
 acteristics are untouched in regeneration. Indi- 
 viduality is preserved. So in Christian experi- 
 ence, *' every bird sings according to its beak." 
 But there are certain great, radical results wrought 
 in every one who accepts and, with the heart, be- 
 lieves these great truths. These are facts of con- 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 87 
 
 sciousness to which he testifies, and as they affect 
 life and conduct become facts of observation. 
 
 Now in Hstening to the testimonies of native 
 Christians, recently emerged from heathenism, 
 and studying the character of converts in the va- 
 rious mission fields, three suggestions are offered 
 for our guidance : 
 
 < I. Oi necessity there must be immaturity of 
 thought and character. The inheritors of cen- 
 turies of ignorance and superstition cannot escape 
 the period of spiritual and moral infancy. 
 
 2. We must acknowledge that there have been 
 discouraging lapses in the mission fields. Not 
 every convert has been faithful to his new profes- 
 sion. In a few instances whole communities have 
 lapsed into heathenism. The break with old faiths 
 was never complete. A man in the New Hebrides, 
 for several years a professor of Christianity, was 
 discovered, after his death, to have retained three 
 sacred stones with which to raise storms, make 
 rains, and bring disease. At Delhi, in India, 
 almost one entire mission returned to heathen 
 rites. That these lapses should occur is not sur- 
 prising. The poison of superstition transmitted 
 through the centuries, and the tyrannous social os- 
 tracisms which men of weak courage are unable to 
 withstand, may easily account for them. We won- 
 
88 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 der that so few fail, that so many are steadfast. 
 But so it has ever been. The parable of the sower 
 is at once the picture of all lands and the history 
 of the gospel in all countries and centuries. Some 
 seed fall where there is not much depth of earth. 
 The greatest trial of St. Paul's faith was the infi- 
 delities of professed disciples. On one occasion 
 he said with a sad heart: '^Demas hath forsaken 
 me." Again: *'A11 in Asia have turned aside from 
 me." Often he had to lament the falling away of 
 those from whom he had a right to expect gener- 
 ous support and valued service. 
 
 It is no impeachment of the integrity of Chris- 
 tianity, and no underrating of its saving, sanctify- 
 ing power, that all its frofessed disciples are not 
 saints; that some are defective in character, un- 
 trustworthy in conduct, and positively traitorous in 
 spirit. Every system must be measured by its best 
 products, by its noblest results. A criminal who 
 defies law, outrages public morals, and suffers the 
 penalty of his guilt, is not a fair representative of 
 our Christian civilization. He is the condemnation, 
 and not the commendation, of our national life; the 
 refuse, and not the representative, of our public 
 opinion. We do not go to the records of our crim- 
 inal courts, to our prisons and scaffolds, to find 
 the flower of American manhood and womanhood. 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 89 
 
 There is not found the proper standard by which 
 to measure the value and virtue of our social insti- 
 tutions. We must look into our American homes, 
 where honor and integrity dwell, and read the 
 stories of heroism, patriotism, and piety that adorn 
 the annals of our country, if we would have a true 
 conception of the spirit and power of our national 
 institutions. 
 
 What, then, we ask, can Christianity do in de- 
 veloping character out of the materials and cir- 
 cumstances of human life ? What are the legitimate 
 products of its ethics and its religion? Who are 
 the proper representatives of its graces and virtues ? 
 
 In the New Testament these graces find illustra- 
 tion in such beautiful characters as the apostle 
 John, and not in the traitorous conduct of an Is- 
 cariot; the splendid heroism of St. Paul, and not 
 in the cunning of an Alexander the coppersmith 
 or the dupHcity of a Simon Magus. 
 
 Because Balaam was a false prophet did not the 
 Lord have any voice whom the people could trust? 
 Were there no loyal souls in all Israel on whose 
 lips God had placed a live coal from off his high 
 altar? There were unworthy priests who plun- 
 dered the sanctuary, made merchandise of their 
 office, and burned strange fire before the Lord. 
 But for every one that was false and faithless there 
 
90 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 were a hundred who had clean hands and pure 
 hearts and clear discernment to know what Israel 
 ought to do. And so through the ages the Church 
 has suffered from unworthy friends, but God has 
 ever had brave and true prophets to be his voice to 
 the nations. 
 
 3. We must also take into account the immense 
 strain upon one's fidelity and firmness to become 
 a Christian in a heathen land. In a country where 
 Christianity is the dominant sentiment there is lit- 
 tle or no courage in confessing Christ. On the 
 contrary, there may be social embarrassment and 
 political ostracism because of avowed infidelity. 
 It may be true, as averred, that blatant skepticism 
 in our country has shut the door of high political 
 preferment in the face of some who might other- 
 wise have entered in. Now, if these things could 
 occur in a land of such intellectual, religious, and 
 political tolerance, what might we not expect in 
 the narrow, fanatical, and autocratic countries of 
 the East. Attachment to Christianity means de- 
 tachment from everything personally and socially 
 dear in life. Every open disciple becomes an out- 
 cast. The confession of Christ means not only 
 ** exile, poverty, persecution, contempt, but im- 
 piety to their ancestors, treason to their country, 
 sacrilege to their gods." 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 9I 
 
 To the character of native converts in India this 
 positive testimony is from one who has authority 
 to speak: '' If deep repentance, earnest faith, and 
 burning love ; if complete self-sacrifice is a cheer- 
 ful surrender of all that men hold dear in life ; if a 
 fearless confession of Christ at any cost be marks 
 of genuine conversion, then has the Church of 
 India multitudes of confessors within her pale dis- 
 tinguished by these marks." 
 
 And like strong witness is given in a report of 
 the Darjeehng Mission: . . . *^ If the inevitable 
 cross of baptism and discipleship, involving not 
 unfrequently the loss of all the natural man counts 
 dear, and involving always the surrender of cher- 
 ished evil habits— if favorable comparison with the 
 best Churches of Christendom, in respect of quot- 
 able instances of pious lives and pious deaths, the 
 proportion of enrolled communicants and active 
 workers' attendance on ordinances, zeal for edu- 
 cation, Christian liberality, mutual benevolence, 
 freedom from vice and crime — if all this is any test 
 of sincerity, they are preeminently sincere, and 
 we may rest reasonably satisfied regarding them." 
 
 But our purpose is not to ascertain the observa- 
 tions of others upon the Christian character of 
 mission converts; we are to hsten to their own 
 statements as to the power of the gospel in their 
 
92 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 hearts and lives. The experiences to be related 
 and the characters rapidly sketched are only a 
 few of many that might be given from the vast vol- 
 ume of testimony at command; but these show 
 how unsatisfactory are all the false faiths of the 
 world, and are a triumphant vindication of Chris- 
 tianity's perfect adaptation to all classes of mind, 
 all stages of civilization, and all conditions of hu- 
 manity. The characters are introduced without 
 reference to chronology or country. 
 Joseph Neesima. 
 
 Joseph Neesima, the first native apostle of Japan, 
 would rank as a remarkable man of highest culture 
 in the most golden age. We wonder that an in- 
 heritor of centuries of superstition and idolatry 
 could not only have such clear spiritual apprehen- 
 sion of Christian truth, but should have so thor- 
 oughly mastered its theology, and expounded it 
 with such critical scholarship. His character was 
 as symmetrical as his gifts were remarkable. In 
 him ** reason and religion ran together like warp 
 and woof to weave the web of a holy life.*' 
 
 Born of honorable parents, in the home of a 
 prince, to whom his father was secretary, he was 
 just ten years old when Commodore Perry an- 
 chored his flagship in the Bay of Yeddo. Early 
 taught to worship the family gods on the shelf? and 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 93 
 
 made acquainted with the Confucian classics, he 
 was a Shintoist of the straitest sect. But a copy 
 of a Chinese Bible which he chanced to see one 
 day at the home of a friend opened wide the in- 
 quiring mind of the brilliant youth. He ceased to 
 worship idols. From the conception of God as 
 Creator, he soon recognized him as his Heavenly 
 Father, and then, said he, '*I discovered for the 
 first time that the doctrines of Confucius on the 
 filial relation were too narrow and fallacious." 
 So from the religious and social systems of his 
 country, though it cost the sacrifice of home and 
 friends for years, he broke away, because they 
 failed to satisfy the quest of his mind and the hun- 
 ger of his soul. 
 
 By a chain of strange providences he came to 
 America, under the patronage of Mr. Joseph Har- 
 dy, of Boston; was educated at Amherst and An- 
 dover, became a devout Christian, and returned to 
 his native land to found a Christian university and 
 be to Japan a second St. Paul. The text most 
 frequently quoted in his journal was, '* For God 
 so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life," of which in 
 later years he said: '* This verse is the sun among 
 all the stars which shine upon the pages of God's 
 
94 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 holy Word." On the opposite page in his journal 
 is this prayer: '* O Lord, wash away my sins, take 
 up my evil heart, and give me the right spirit to 
 understand and remember thy holy Word more 
 and more. O God, wilt thou help me to destroy 
 many gods and idols? Please destroy them with 
 thy power, and let me' be comforted," etc. 
 
 He was asked by the Japanese Minister at Wash- 
 ington to return to Japan and establish schools 
 there after the American system. Of that visit and 
 request of the high official he thus wrote: '* When 
 I saw the Japanese Minister at Amherst I told him 
 that I would not go home concealing my Christian 
 faith like a trembling thief goes in the dark night 
 under the fear of discovery, but go there as a Chris- 
 tian man, walking in Christian love, and doing 
 things according to the light of my conscience." 
 
 When about ready to return to his native land 
 and aid in its evangelization, his eager soul caught 
 a glimpse of the open field, and he cried out: ** I 
 feel that my active battlefield has come within my 
 sight. I am ready to march forward, not asking 
 whether my powder is dried or not, but trusting 
 simply and believing only that the Lord of hosts 
 will help me to do my duty." Again, in language 
 almost equal to the sublime declaration of Moses, 
 ne said: ''I would rather preach or teach the 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 95 
 
 truth which is in Christ Jesus with the bread of 
 affliction than to do other things with the earthly 
 luxuries, pleasures, and honors." 
 
 On his return he was the divinely commissioned 
 instrument of his aged father's clear conversion to 
 Christianity, and of turning a heathen house into 
 a Christian home. He founded a great university 
 at Kioto and gave it the suggestive name of " Do- 
 shisha," meaning ''One Purpose or One Endeavor 
 Company. '' Within those walls he saw over nine 
 hundred fine young men gathered, breathing a 
 wholesome Christian atmosphere, and receiving 
 the impress of his own sanctified genius. He 
 was in labors most abundant. His quenchless 
 zeal consumed his frail body. Divine impatience 
 for the redemption of his people exhausted his vi- 
 tal energies. In an appeal for help to extend his 
 work, he thus wrote between his tears: '' My heart 
 is constantly burning like a volcanic fire for my 
 dearly beloved Japan. Pray for me, that I may 
 rest in the Lord." 
 
 In an impassioned argument in favor of a quick- 
 ened step and a grand forward movement, he flung 
 out these words, that ring like the notes of a bugle, 
 and ought to be the lofty motto of every Christian 
 soldier: '* We must advance on our knees." 
 And in the midst of busy planning, the maps of 
 
96 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 all the provinces spread out before him, he fell 
 asleep, with these words trembling from his lips: 
 *' Peace, joy, heaven." The story of that great 
 scholar, educator, statesman, saint, and apostle is 
 one of the most brilliant in all the annals of spir- 
 itual chivalry. If Christianity can lift one Japa- 
 nese from the cheerlessness of Shintoism and the 
 frigid philosophy of Confucianism into the dignity 
 and glory of such a character, why can it not save 
 the whole nation, making each subject of the Mi- 
 kado a citizen of the kingdom of Christ? It can — 
 and it will. 
 
 Joel Bulu's Experience. 
 This man, a native of the Friendly Islands, and 
 brought to a knowledge of Christ through the 
 agency of the Wesleyan missionaries, was for forty 
 years a consistent Christian and a tireless mission- 
 ary among the Fijians. For clearness of spiritual 
 apprehension and the joyousness of a conscious 
 salvation through faith in Christ, his experience is 
 above the average in the Church at home. This 
 is his own statement, translated by a missionar}^: 
 
 I was born in Vavan in the heathen days, nor was it till I 
 was a big lad that the lotu [their word for the " new religion "] 
 came to our land. When I heard the report of it I was full of 
 anger, and mj soul burned with hatred against it. "And shall 
 our gods be forsaken?" I cried in great wrath. "As for me, I 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 97 
 
 will never forsake them." One day I heard a man talking of 
 the lotu, who said that it promised a land of the dead different 
 from the bulotu of which our fathers spoke, even a home in the 
 sky for the good, where evil men were cast into a dreadful 
 place, wherein there burned a fire which none could quench. 
 On that very night I went forth with the lads of the town— it 
 was a fine night — and, looking up to the heavens where the 
 stars were shining, this thought suddenly smote me, "O the 
 beautiful land! If the words be true which were told us to- 
 day, then are these lotu people happy indeed;" and my soul 
 longed with a great longing to reach that beautiful land. I 
 could not rest, so I went to another town, where dwelt a 
 Christian chief, to tell him that I wished to lotu. " Good is 
 your coming," cried the chief, and great was his joy. " But 
 why do you want to lotiif' "I have heard," was my reply, 
 "of the good land whither you go after death; therefore do 
 I wish to lotu, that I also may be a dweller in the sky." So 
 they prayed over me, and thus it was that I turned to Chris- 
 tianity ; but of its meaning I knew nothing. Then came Mr. 
 Thomas to Vavan, and, standing under a tree in the public 
 square, he preached to us from the parable of the tares among 
 the wheat. It was this sermon that pierced my soul; for I had 
 thought that I was one of the wheat, but now I found that I 
 was among the tares. As I heard I wept and trembled, for I 
 thought: " I shall never see the good land." When the sermon 
 was over and the people rose to go I sat in my place quaking 
 for fear and weeping in great anguish, for all the strength had 
 gone out of my body. " What is the matter with you ? " they 
 asked. "Pray for me, pray for me, I beseech you! " So they 
 knelt down and prayed for me, first one and then another, till 
 they were tired, but I found no comfort. So I rose, and, going 
 into an empty outhouse, I knelt down there by myself, weeping 
 and praying before the Lord, for now I felt that I was a sinner; 
 7 
 
98 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 the wrath of God laj heavy upon my soul, and I hated myself 
 because of my evil ways. " O what is that repentance where- 
 of the preacher told us?" I cried; "Lord, let me find it, that 
 I may live! " for so dark was my mind that I did not know that 
 this sorrow and fear of mine were marks of repentance. Thus 
 I continued a long while seeking the Lord in prayer with many 
 tears. 
 
 At last there came a day, in 1834, when the missionaries (of 
 whom Mr, Turner was one) assembled us together to hold a 
 love feast; and when we had sung a hymn and prayed, then 
 Mr. Turner stood up to declare the work of God in his soul. 
 My heart burned within me as I listened to his words, for in 
 speaking of himself he told all that I had felt, and I said to my- 
 self: "We are like two canoes sailing bow and bow, neither 
 being swifter nor slower than the other." Thus it was with me 
 when he told of his repentance; but when he went on to speak 
 of his faith in Christ, the forgiveness of his sins, and the peace 
 and joy which he had in believing, then said I: "My mast is 
 broken, my sail is blown away ; he is gone clear out of my sight, 
 and I am left here drifting helplessly over the waves." But while 
 I listened eagerly to his words, telling of the love of Christ to 
 him, my eyes were opened; I saw the way, and I, even I, also 
 believed and lived. I was like a man fleeing for his life from 
 an enemy behind him, and groping along the wall of a house 
 in the dark to find the door that he may enter in and escape, 
 when lo! a door is suddenly opened before his face, and straight- 
 way, with one bound, he leaps within. Thus it was to me as I 
 listened to the words of Mr. Turner; my heart was full of joy 
 and love, and the tears streamed down my cheeks. Often had 
 I wept before, but not like my former weeping were the tears 
 which I now shed. Then I wept out of sorrow and fear, but 
 now for very joy and gladness, and because my heart was full 
 of love to Him who had loved me and given himself for me; 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 
 
 99 
 
 and Mr. Turner, seeing the tears raining heavily down from 
 my eyes, called upon me to speak. " Stand up, Joel," said he, 
 " and tell us how it is with you." So I stood up; but it seemed 
 to me as if my soul were parted from my body, and I remem- 
 bered nothing more until I found myself lying on the mat, and 
 the missionaries weeping over me, and saying : " What is this ? " 
 " I live," said I, " I live. Let me rise, that I may declare the 
 mercies of God." And even while I spoke there arose a great 
 cry in our midst, and a burst of weeping, for the hearts of all 
 were strangely moved. O what a day was that! Never can I 
 forget it. The prayers, the praises, and the tears of joy! " 
 
 Africaner. 
 The name of Robert Moffat is indissolubly con- 
 nected with Africaner, the first convert of his min- 
 istry, once a bloodthirsty chief of a cruel tribe, 
 and then one of the humblest and gentlest follow- 
 ers of the meek and lowly Man of Galilee. The 
 miracle of grace that converted this wild Nam- 
 aqua warrior into a Christian brother and hero 
 was in all respects equal to that which transformed 
 the persecuting Saul of Tarsus into Paul, the 
 greatest of the apostles. Ferocious even to wolf- 
 ishness, and rapacious almost beyond comparison, 
 he was a tyrant and a terror. His name was the 
 synonym of all that was cruel and terrible. Neigh- 
 boring chiefs and their tribes fled affrighted at the 
 very report of his coming. But under the minis- 
 try of Robert Moffat this monster of cruelty be- 
 came the gentlest of brothers. His heart opened 
 
lOO MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 to the truth, Christ was apprehended by faith, the 
 pardoning voice of God was heard, and a new 
 song was put into his mouth. Through the cen- 
 turies this story of Africaner's marvelous trans- 
 formation will linger in 'all South Africa as a me- 
 morial and a testimony. Of him, as of Saul of 
 Tarsus, it might be said: " There fell from his 
 eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight 
 forthwith, and arose, and was baptized." And as 
 the brethren at Jerusalem, on Saul's first return, 
 " were all afraid of him, and believed not that he 
 was a disciple," so the Dutch farmers and others 
 at first refused to believe that Africaner could be- 
 come a Christian; but when they saw and heard 
 him, lifted high their hands and exclaimed: " This 
 is the eighth wonder of the world ! Great God, 
 what a miracle of thy power and grace! " His 
 entire after life was in perfect accord with this 
 transforming experience of the Spirit. His feroc- 
 ity was turned into spiritual fervor, and his ra- 
 pacity into a consuming zeal ''for God and his 
 missionary." He became Moffat's protector and 
 provider. He built him a house, provided other 
 comforts, was his watchful and tender nurse in a 
 critical illness, and accompanied him with a body- 
 guard on a visit to Cape Town when he had reason 
 to fear that the brave missionary's life might be in 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. lOI 
 
 peril. In the home land there was never a more 
 devout worshiper in the sanctuary or a more ea- 
 ger and prayerful student of God's word. 
 
 When he discovered that his health was failing, 
 and apprehended that the end was not far off, he 
 gathered his chief men about him and delivered a 
 solemn charge. He said: ** We are not now what 
 we once were — savages — but men professing to be 
 taught according to the gospel. Let us then do 
 accordingly." Then he counseled them with great 
 tenderness to be peaceful, brotherly, united, de- 
 voted to God, and ever to extend the largest hos- 
 pitality to all Christian missionaries. 
 
 It has been said of this, his dying confession, 
 that it '* would have graced the lips of the Apos- 
 tle of the Gentiles: " *' I feel that I love God, and 
 that he has done much for me of which I am to- 
 tally unworthy. My former life is stained with 
 blood; but Jesus Christ has bought my pardon, 
 and I am going to heaven. Beware of falling into 
 the same evils into which I have so often led you ; 
 but seek God, and he will be found of you and 
 direct you." Having thus finished his course, 
 Africaner fell asleep, leaving an imperishable me- 
 morial of the power of God unto salvation. 
 
102 modern missions. 
 
 Ling Ching Ting, the Converted Opium 
 
 Smoker. 
 This man, at forty years of age, strayed into a 
 street chapel at Ato, a suburb of Foochow, in 
 1863, and heard a sermon by Rev. S. L. Brink- 
 ley. He listened with close attention, and lingered 
 after service to talk with the missionary. " Did 
 you say that Jesus (I never heard of him before; 
 I don't know who he is); but did you say that 
 he can save me from m}^ sins?" "Yes," re- 
 plied the missionary, "that is just what I said." 
 "But," the Chinaman responded, "you didn't 
 know me when you said that; you didn't know 
 that I had been a gambler and sorcerer for many 
 years; you didn't know that I had been a licen- 
 tious man; you didn't know that I had been an 
 opium smoker for twenty years, and ever}^ one 
 knows that a man who has smoked opium for that 
 length of time can never be cured of the habit. 
 If you had known all this, you wouldn't have 
 said that Jesus can save me from all my sins — 
 would you?" "Yes," replied the missionary, 
 "I would have said just what I did; and I tell 
 you now that Jesus can save you from all your 
 sins." 
 
 He was deeply perplexed. He went away and 
 returned next day, and from day to day came to 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCE'S. IO3 
 
 examine proofs of Christianity, bringing his ob- 
 jections to be answered. But one day he came 
 with radiant countenance, and exclaimed: "I 
 know it ! I know it ! I know that Jesus can save 
 me from my sins, for he has done it." 
 
 He conquered the opium habit, and became an 
 earnest evangelist. His words were with power. 
 He went to Hok-Chiang to preach, when at length 
 he was arrested on false charges, brought before 
 a corrupt district magistrate, and sentenced to be 
 beaten with two thousand stripes. The cruel sen- 
 tence was executed with bamboo on his bare back. 
 He was carried to the mission premises in Foochow, 
 more dead than alive. When the missionar}^ came 
 into his room he said: *' Teacher, this poor body 
 is in great pain just now; but my inside heart 
 has great peace. Jesus is with me; and I think 
 perhaps he will take me to heaven, and I will be 
 glad to go." Then the old fire began to flash in 
 his eyes, and, raising himself a little, he added: 
 *' But if I get up from this, you'll let me go back 
 to Hok-Chiang, won't you? " 
 
 After a long time he recovered and resumed his 
 evangelistic work with consuming zeal. For four- 
 teen years he was in labors most abundant, lived 
 a blameless life, endured persecution, and died in 
 triumph. 
 
I04 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Hok-Chiang, where he was so cruelly treated, 
 became a fruitful field. In 1890 there were sev- 
 en hundred members, five hundred probationers, 
 and over fifteen hundred adherents. Thus the 
 works of the brave evangelist do follow him. The 
 converted Buddhist became a flaming apostle. 
 
 A Japanese Judge. 
 Among the members of the East Osaka Meth- 
 odist Church is a judge of the Appeal Court, who 
 for many 3^ears has occupied high judicial position. 
 He is an earnest Christian, and recently has be- 
 come so burdened in spirit for the evangelization 
 of his native land as to tender his resignation as a 
 judge, that he may devote himself, at his own 
 charges, to the salvation of his people. The let- 
 ter, addressed to his pastor, Rev. W. E. Towson, 
 announcing his purpose, has just been made pub- 
 lic. It indicates the Pauline spirit. A few ex- 
 tracts are here given : 
 
 I Avas baptized and converted to Christianity in 1890; and 
 now, as I look over our country, strong impressions come to 
 my heart. Our country is zealously adopting Western civiliza- 
 tion from about thirty years ago, such as railway, telegraph, 
 medical science, law, military, navy, politics, etc. We are very 
 happy to live at this day, but I regret that the people do not 
 come to the light of Christ, except some few persons. Evan- 
 gelization is very necessary for Japan. Judge is worldly work, 
 and there are very many candidates; but evangelist is religious 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. I05 
 
 service, and there are very few candidates. I think I can be 
 more useful to our country to work as an evangelist than to 
 serve as a judge, and it is with rejoicing that I have resolved 
 to do so after serious consideration. 
 
 1. I believe that the Lord has chosen me to do some work 
 for the evangelization of Japan. 
 
 2. I intend to work as a free evangelist and to preach the 
 gospel in a self-supporting way. 
 
 3. I have served as a judge for fifteen full years, and so am 
 due a small pension, which will barely support my family. 
 
 4. When I need more money than my pension I will work 
 as a lawyer. 
 
 5. A judge is not allowed to preach in public, but a lawyer 
 can do so. 
 
 6. I think that one can change his profession when he has 
 full conviction that he is called to a higher work. Many of 
 the Lord's disciples have left their profession to work for Jesus. 
 I feel as Paul did : " Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel." 
 
 First Native Bishop of the Niger, Samuel 
 Adjai Crowther. 
 One of the miracles of Missions, and one of the 
 most remarkable of ** living epistles" — was Sam- 
 uel Adjai Crowther, the first native Bishop of the 
 Niger. Born in 1808, converted at the age of 
 seventeen, and thence to the end of his da3^s a 
 blameless and fearless apostle of Christ, he illus- 
 trated as have few men the wonder-working power 
 of divine grace. At twelve years of age Moham- 
 medan marauders overran his country, killed his 
 father, and carried the boy into slavery. He was 
 
Io6 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 traded for a horse, separated from his mother, and 
 taken to the coast, where the Portuguese had an- 
 chored their slave ships. With one hundred and 
 eighty-six others he was crowded into the hold of 
 a vessel, and started westward ; but the slave ship 
 was given chase by two English men-of-war and 
 captured, and the human beings in irons were land- 
 ed at Sierra Leone. Here the slave boy, Adjai, was 
 taken to a mission school, and there he was joy- 
 ously converted to God and baptized as Samuel 
 Crowther. He became first a pupil, then a teacher, 
 in Yoruba Bay College. He translated the Scrip- 
 tures into the Yoruba dialect, prepared a diction- 
 ary of the Yoruba tongue, besides many other 
 books. 
 
 On his several visits to England he pleaded the 
 cause of African missions, in Exeter Hall and 
 elsewhere, with persuasive and powerful elo- 
 quence. 
 
 He was the first native ordained preacher in that 
 valley, and it is a singular and pathetic coincidence 
 that the first convert of his ministry was his own 
 mother. His ministry was wonderfully blessed of 
 the Holy Spirit. He preached with great power, 
 was untiring in toil, and saw multitudes brought 
 to Christ. Mission stations were established, the 
 slave trade w^as arrested and finally destroyed, and 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. 107 
 
 the moral and social life of the people almost en- 
 tirely reconstructed. 
 
 In 1864, with solemn and impressive ceremony, 
 he was ordained the first Bishop of the Niger. 
 Thus, under the providence of God, the poor slave 
 boy was made the most distinguished guide and 
 leader of his people into a higher and nobler life. 
 
 Shemmas Meekha, of Mosul. 
 
 This remarkable man lived on the western coast 
 of Asia, and was born in 1816. In 1828 a plague 
 swept over Mosul, and carried off forty thousand 
 persons. Among the victims was a millwright, 
 the father of Meekha. 
 
 The meditative youth early became burdened in 
 spirit, and sought comfort and counsel from the 
 priest of his heathen faith. He studied Syriac, 
 that lie might read books and investigate for him- 
 self. In the providence of God the Rev. Joseph 
 Mathew, an evangelical graduate of the college 
 at Catta3^am, in Southern India, came to Mosul. 
 Meekha soon formed his acquaintance, and for 
 him he had a strong attachment. He was em- 
 ployed as the Arabic teacher of Rev. A. K. Hins- 
 dale, from whom he in turn learned Enghsh, and, 
 best of all, a knowledge of the true God. 
 
 One Sabbath, while conversing with his teacher 
 
Io8 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 in an ** upper room " on redemption through 
 Christ, he drew near, and said eagerly: ** Do 
 come with me and repeat these good words to my 
 people, and I will interpret them, for they never 
 heard truth like that." His heart was not only 
 filled with the peace of God, but with an intense 
 concern for the salvation of his people. 
 
 While working at the trade of his father he be- 
 came a teacher and lay preacher, but never felt 
 called to the full functions of a minister. Through 
 his influence largely the truth was so deeply rooted 
 in Mosul that no subsequent persecutions could 
 displace it. He was a Christian of almost perfect 
 consecration. Two of the choice hymns in the 
 Arabic hymn book used by the S3a-ian Mission 
 were from his pen, and he left an unfinished 
 Syriac manuscript translation of *' Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress." 
 
 In writing to a missionary friend he says: 
 "Pray that God will keep me from sloth, and 
 make me perfect in his service. I long to impart 
 to others that knowledge of an atoning Saviour 
 which God has given me. How can I describe 
 the greatness of my obligation for this grace? I 
 grieve to see so many without Christ. Pray that 
 I ma}^ have grace to instruct them to believe; and 
 yet, should I bring the whole world to him, that 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. IO9 
 
 would be the work of his power and grace, not 
 mine." 
 
 In another letter he said: "I think I know 
 something of that sweet word of John, ' There is no 
 fear in love; ' and I know that nothing can sepa- 
 rate me from his love. I try to lead men to Christ. 
 Some approve my words, but yield no fruit; yet 
 I hope that if the grain of wheat fall into the ground 
 and die it will not remain alone." 
 
 He peacefully fell asleep June 14, 1S81. So 
 highly was he esteemed and so profoundly revered 
 that the Christians had him buried inside the 
 church, " that they might be constantly reminded 
 of the gospel he taught them while alive." 
 
 We have had his own statement of his inner 
 spiritual life ; now let us look at his outward con- 
 duct, as seen by others. His high Christian char- 
 acter commands not only respect, but admiration. 
 Dr. Marsh, of the Assyrian Mission, said of him: 
 " His mind was clear, with splendid acuteness and 
 strength, and was very receptive of truth. He was 
 a thinker rather than an actor ; but by unswerving 
 probity among a dishonest -people, Christlike gen- 
 tleness among violent men, and steadfast loyalty to 
 Christ and truth, he bore testimony for God." 
 
 The memory of this saintly man's consistent 
 piety abides as an inspiration. 
 
no MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 A Remarkable Experience. 
 
 Here is another expression of the Spirit's power 
 in the heart of a recent barbarian, restraining his 
 passion for blood and revenge. Few more un- 
 mistakable and remarkable triumphs of grace are 
 recorded in the memorahilia of the Christian 
 Church. It comes to us from the South Seas. 
 
 When the Rev. Mr. Taylor, a missionary in 
 New Zealand, was about to return to England, 
 some years ago, he held a farewell service, con- 
 cluding with the communion of the Lord's Supper. 
 When the first communicants were kneeling around 
 the chancel, one man arose suddenly, and in great 
 agitation returned to his seat. After some time he 
 recovered composure, and went again to the altar, 
 and partook of the holy sacrament. When after- 
 wards interrogated by the missionary as to his 
 strange conduct, he made answer as follows: 
 '' When I approached the table I did not know 
 beside whom I should have to kneel. Then I sud- 
 denly saw that I was beside the man who, some 
 years ago, slew my father and drank his blood, 
 and whom I then sw^ore I w^ould kill the first time 
 that I should see him. Now think what I felt 
 when 1 suddenly knelt beside him. It came upon 
 me with terrible power, and I could not prevent it, 
 so I went back to my seat. Arrived there, I saw, 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. Ill 
 
 in the spirit, the upper sanctuary, and seemed to 
 hear a voice: * Thereby shall all men know that 
 ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to anoth- 
 er.' That made a deep impression upon m^, and 
 at the same time I thought I saw another sight — a 
 cross and a man nailed thereon — and I heard him 
 say: " Father, forgive them; they know not what 
 they do.' Then I went back to the altar." 
 Namakei, the Old Chief of Aniwa. 
 
 The first trophy of Dr. John G. Paton's ministry 
 in the New Hebrides was Namakei, the old chief 
 of Aniwa. In early life he was a cannibal and a 
 great warrior ; but under the teaching and preach- 
 ing of Dr. Paton he at length became an earnest 
 Christian, and for many years was the powerful 
 defender of the great missionary, and aided not a 
 little in the rapid extension of the work. Dr. Pa- 
 ton says: *' Slowly but very steadily the light of 
 the gospel broke in upon his soul, and he was ever 
 very eager to communicate to his people all that 
 he had learned." 
 
 His last act was to attend a Synod on the neigh- 
 boring island of Aneityum, and there he passed 
 away to the better land. So enraptured was the 
 old chief with the religious fervor of the meeting, 
 and the reported progress of the work, as one 
 island after another was given in as having been 
 
112 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 won to Christ, that he cried out: *' I am lifting 
 up my head hke a tree. I am growing tall with 
 
 joy!" 
 
 When prostrated with what he feared was a fa- 
 tal illness he sent for Dr. Paton, and said: ** Mis- 
 si, I am near to die. I have asked you to come 
 and say farewell. Tell my daughter, my brother, 
 and my people to go on pleasing Jesus, and I will 
 meet them again in the fair world." 
 
 When assisted to a cool place under the shade 
 of a banyan tree, he said again to Dr. Paton: " I 
 am going ! O Missi, let me hear your words rising 
 up in prayer, and then my soul will be strong to 
 go." As the great missionary knelt by him, the 
 old saint grasped the hand of his teacher, and, 
 pressing it to his heart, said in a strong, clear 
 tone: "O my JVIissi, my dear Missi, I go before 
 you, but I will meet you again in the home of 
 Jesus. Farewell!" 
 
 With these words he relaxed his loving grasp, 
 and sweetly fell on sleep. So *'the first person 
 who ever on that island of love and tears opened 
 his heart to Jesus " entered his Master's joy. 
 
 In the Training College at Asyat, Egypt, at- 
 tended by over four hundred boys and young men, 
 nineteen have joined the Student's Volunteer 
 
PORTABLE EVIDENCES. II3 
 
 Movement. Some who offered themselves for 
 the work gave their reasons for so doing as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Christ commanded us to pi*each the gospel. As I love him, 
 I must keep his commandments. — Abadir Ibraheem. 
 
 There are few preachers in mj country, while there are mul- 
 titudes of men who know not the truth. — Gabra Hanna. 
 
 Ovir country is not small, and its progress depends upon its 
 Christian young men. Therefore I intend to help train the 
 boys in Christianity, so that later they will work for their fel- 
 low-men. The Lord's work is wide and the workers few. Our 
 young men prefer to go to the government offices. Therefore 
 I choose to be a Christian teacher to educate the small boys in 
 their youth, so as to be progressive in their old age. — Kheelay- 
 lah Masrood. 
 
 I feel that I am under responsibility because of the religious 
 knowledge the Lord hath given me. I must not hide the light 
 I have, lest my brothers die in the valley of darkness. — Isshak 
 Ibraheem . 
 
 He who knows something of God, and does not inform oth- 
 ers, is responsible before God. — Handa Gabroos. 
 
 Now, these several experiences of persons 
 widely separated by race, nationality, civiliza- 
 tion, heredity, and environment, yet all testifying 
 substantially and joyfully to the same things, are 
 a conclusive and triumphant vindication of Chris- 
 tianity's claims to be the one universal religion. 
 In the language of the eloquent Bishop Alexander, 
 we may say: ** By a homage of such diversity and 
 such extent we recognize a universal Saviour for 
 
114 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 the universal wants of universal man, the fitting 
 Propitiation for the whole world." Therefore, 
 however slow its progress or formidable the oppo- 
 sition to its advance, missionary success is assured 
 and final redemption a divine certainty. 
 
LECTURE IV, 
 
 FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 
 
IV. 
 
 FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 
 
 ARE Missions a failure? is a question the 
 Church is compelled to answer. There is 
 a demand for results that must be respected. 
 And though this urgent demand may indicate an 
 enfeebled faith — an impatience that will not wait 
 upon the sure and mighty movements of God — yet 
 it cannot be disregarded. Though it may be 
 enough for an enlightened faith that the Church 
 is obediently carrying out the orders of the King 
 of kings, still there ought to be some return from 
 the expenditures of a hundred heroic years. 
 
 The purpose of this lecture is to rapidly survey 
 some of the great mission fields, and see what re- 
 port they have to make to the Lord of the harvest. 
 Of course there are many things wrought by the 
 gospel that cannot be tabulated, and are, indeed, 
 scarcely translatable into human speech. To esti- 
 mate, for instance, the amount of patient, prepara- 
 tory work necessary to make the world accessible 
 to Christianity is beyond the power of human 
 reckoning. But mighty results have been wrought 
 that all can understand, which attest the all-con- 
 quering power of the Christian religion. To some 
 of these attention will be called. 
 
Il8 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 First, all heathen faiths are losing their hold 
 upon intelligent votaries. Under the silent, per- 
 sistent influence of the gospel faith in old, effete 
 systems is being undermined, and new aspirations 
 are being enkindled, which are prophetic of yet 
 greater results. There is a divine discontent with 
 doctrines and forms that cease to satisfy. In In- 
 dia there is widespread restlessness of thought, 
 and a spirit of eager inquiry has stirred to the 
 deptlis the stagnation of centuries. In a Madras 
 paper these lines appeared, as voicing the cry of 
 vast multitudes : 
 
 We are weaiy of empty creeds, 
 
 Of guides who show no man the way, 
 
 Of worship linked with lust and shame: 
 
 Life is an ill, the sea of births is wide, 
 
 And we are weary — who shall be our guide? 
 
 Sir Monier Williams says that education is caus- 
 ing a *' great upheaving of old creeds and supersti- 
 tions throughout India, and the ancient fortress of 
 Hindooism is in this way being gradually under- 
 mined. The educated classes look with contempt 
 on idolatry.^'' 
 
 The Brahmo Somaj, the Theistic Society of In- 
 dia, said by Max Miiller to be **the most momen- 
 tous movement in this momentous century," is 
 itself an expression of the unrest of the Hindoo 
 
^-RtJITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. II9 
 
 mind. Despairing of the old faiths, and not yet 
 quite able to fully accept the Christian faith, there 
 is a pathetic feeling after the truth if haply they 
 may find it. But these Brahmos make no secret 
 of their admiration of the character of Jesus Christ, 
 and it is said that in the home of every member 
 there is a picture of the Man of Galilee. An edu- 
 cated Hindoo, and not a professing Christian, in 
 delivering an eloquent address in Bombay, rang 
 out this question and answer: *' What has started 
 our present religious Somajas all over India? 
 Contact with Christian missionaries." He con- 
 cluded his address with these words: *' Of one 
 thing I am convinced: Do what we will, oppose as 
 we may, it is the Christian's Bible that will sooner 
 or later work the regeneration of this land." And 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, the able leader of the Brah- 
 mo Somaj, went even farther, and said: *'You 
 cannot deny that your hearts have been touched, 
 conquered, and subjugated by a superior force. 
 That power, need I tell you, is Christ. It is Christ 
 who rules British India, and not the British Gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 From Sir Charles Atchison, another distin- 
 guished authority, we get this positive opinion: 
 ** Educated Hindoo society is honeycombed with 
 unbelief, and the great question of the day in India 
 
120 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 is : ' What shall take the place of the broken 
 gods?'" The Hon. John W. Foster, a distin- 
 guished American statesman and diplomat, on his 
 return from the East, in a recent missionary ad- 
 dress, testifies to the same thing in these words: 
 *' During our sojourn at Calcutta we saw much of 
 the families of several Hindoo gentlemen of the 
 Brahman and Rajpoot castes, leading lawyers, lit- 
 erary and wealthy people of the city, some of them 
 graduates of Cambridge, England, and the equals 
 in intelligence and culture of any European cir- 
 cles. They 7'ecognized the utter folly and empti- 
 ness of their religion as practiced by the masses.^ ^ 
 
 Another evidence of the conquering progress of 
 Missions is the awakened opposition to Christianity, 
 The days of ridicule have been succeeded by wide- 
 spread alarm. They feel that the foundations are 
 giving away. Hoary superstitions, the massive 
 structures of weary centuries, are toppling to ruin, 
 and the cracking of falling timbers is heard round 
 the world. With pen and tongue the ablest de- 
 fenders of these false faiths have enlisted for the 
 final struggle. They are in the '' throes of hea- 
 then despair," and will not see Christianity win a 
 victory without a bitter contest. But this despera- 
 tion of hostility is confined largely to the priestly 
 classes. In Japan Buddhist priests have taken to 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 121 
 
 preaching to arrest the sweeping progress of the 
 gospel, and in Kioto a Buddhist theological sem- 
 inary has been built and equipped for the training 
 of men able to defend their decaying doctrines. 
 But every brick in that building is a voiceless but 
 eloquent tribute to the conquering march of the 
 gospel. The dull, monotonous, unintelligible rep- 
 etition of certain phrases before a dreary altar by 
 an ignorant priest no longer satisfies the eager, 
 persistent questionings of the people. Priests, 
 therefore, must become public teachers and 
 preachers. 
 
 In India a Hindoo Tract Society has been 
 established at Madras for the issuance of publica- 
 tions in defense of Brahmanism and malignant at- 
 tacks upon Christianity. In the plazas and mar- 
 ket places their best orators stand to plead with 
 the multitudes. Not only so, but eloquent Hin- 
 doos have felt constrained to come to America and 
 appeal to Christians to cease missionary effort in 
 India, because it is a sad and certain failure. They 
 benevolently urge our people no longer to squan- 
 der their means on a visionary enterprise and a 
 forlorn hope. But if Christianity is making no 
 progress, why should Vivekananda and others 
 make such piteous appeals to the American pub- 
 lic? Why be disturbed about a cause in which 
 
122 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 there is no hope of success? Dr. Jenkins, of En- 
 gland, for years a missionary in India, not long 
 since uttered these significant words: *'Just one 
 century ago, in yonder small meetinghouse in Not- 
 tingham, there was a question debated by a little 
 Baptist council: 'How can we get Christianity 
 into India?' There is another question debated 
 now by our enemies here and in India: * How can 
 we get Christianity out of India? ' " But the time 
 of its uprooting and transplanting will never come. 
 It can never be gotten out of India, or any other 
 land, where it is firmly planted. And the better 
 informed natives themselves see the hand-writ- 
 ing on the wall, and have not failed in its in- 
 terpretation. An appeal from certain Hindoos, 
 sent out to arouse the natives to vigorous and 
 united action against Christianity, contained this 
 significant admission: ** Missionaries have cast 
 their nets over our children by teaching them in 
 their schools, and they have already made thou- 
 sands of Christians, and are continuing to do so. 
 Do you not know that the number of Christians is 
 increasing, and the number of Hindoo religionists 
 decreasing every day ? " It was mere bluster when 
 a Buddhist priest said to a Moravian missionary: 
 ''I will tell you what you have done here: you 
 have given Buddhism a resurrection.'' If so, the 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 12^ 
 
 graveclothes are still on the corpse, and the pallor 
 of death yet on its cheeks. But really there has 
 been no resurrection. The stone has only been 
 rolled from the door of the sepulcher and revealed 
 the ghastliness of the grave. 
 
 But there is no diviner evidence of the power 
 of the gospel than its transformation of heathen 
 houses into ho^nes. If, as has been beautifully 
 said, "the first consecrating touch of the incar- 
 nation rested upon the family," we should expect 
 to find among the first fruits of the gospel of the 
 Incarnate Son of God in heathen lands a recon- 
 structed and purified family life. This is at once 
 the test of a religion and the condition of its tri- 
 umph. Unless the home, w^hich is the corner stone 
 of the social state, the palladium of national life, 
 and the stronghold of religion, can be reached and 
 reclaimed, there is no hope of redeeming the na- 
 tions. I reproduce, with heartiest approval, the 
 noble words of Dr. Fairbairn: ''A religion that 
 does not purif}^ the home cannot regenerate the 
 race ; one that depraves the home is certain to de- 
 prave humanity. Motherhood is to be sacred, if 
 manhood is to be honorable. Spoil the wife of 
 sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have 
 perished.'' 
 
 The radiating, saving center of a community is 
 
124 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 a Christian home. Hence the vast importance of 
 missionaries establishing, as eloquent object les- 
 sons to the heathen, bright, cheerful, happy Chris- 
 tian homes. A distinguished missionary states- 
 man did not overestimate the power of such a si- 
 lent ministry when he uttered these earnest words : 
 ** Into the midst of pagan masses — where society is 
 coagulated rather than organized, where homes 
 are degraded by parental tyranny, marital multi- 
 plicity, and'^female bondage — he brings the heaven 
 of a redeemed family, which is to be the nucleus 
 of a redeemed community." 
 
 In heathen countries there are no homes, only 
 houses. The basis of family life is tyrannous and 
 grossly immoral. Prof. Monier Williams says 
 that in no Indian tongue is there " any equivalent 
 for that grand old Saxon monosyllable, Hoine — 
 that little word which is the key to our national 
 greatness." And that judgment is confirmed by 
 the Hindoo philosopher, Keshub Chunder Sen, 
 who remarked that a home in Bengal was ** a 
 whited sepulcher! There may be exceptions, but 
 this is the rule. The horrors of the zenana are 
 multiplied tenfold by the misery of the joint family 
 system, and the degradation which domestic ill will 
 produces." That certainly is a remarkable admis- 
 sion from a native, who must have spoken by the 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 25 
 
 authority of thorough knowledge. Chief Justice 
 Miyoshi, of Japan, when on a visit to England some 
 years ago, and residing temporarily in a Christian 
 family, uttered these words: ''Here I am forty 
 years of age, and I never knew what home was be- 
 fore." 
 
 Christian Missions, in reconstructing the fam- 
 ily life, have put "the bright crown of queen- 
 ship upon woman's brow." The drudge and slave 
 has been elevated to her rightful throne. Fetters 
 have been broken from her limbs, and the burdens 
 of a beast have been lifted from her chafed and 
 weary shoulders. Christianity alone puts honor 
 upon womanhood. Bishop Alexander has force- 
 fully said: "From her out of whom Jesus cast 
 seven devils to the Chinese woman converted last 
 year, womanhood confesses: ' Christ first taught 
 us that we were women.' " 
 
 Her degradation in all heathen countries is be- 
 yond power of description or exaggeration. The 
 old Arabic proverb which says that the threshold 
 of the house weeps forty days when a girl is born 
 is the heathen estimate of womanhood. She has 
 no rights to be respected, no feelings to be re- 
 garded, no character to be protected, no honor to 
 be defended, no opinions to be considered, and no 
 mind to be educated. In all non-Christian lands, 
 
126 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 a hundred years ago, there was scarcely a woman 
 able to read. So degraded was her condition and 
 so fixed in social life, that when Dr. Duff first 
 went to India he said that to educate and elevate 
 woman was as difficult as to *' scale a wall five 
 hundred feet high." But that wall has been scaled, 
 for it is now stated that ** in the province of 
 Bengal alone a hundred thousand women and 
 girls are under instruction," and all over the em- 
 pire a change amounting to a social revolution has 
 been wrought. To-day there are native lady grad- 
 uates of universities in several Oriental coun- 
 tries. And it is said that the very appearance of 
 the women tells whether or not a Christian mis- 
 sion has been established in a community, for it 
 must be that, as Dr. Gordon says, ** the gospel 
 gives new hands and new faces," as well as new 
 hearts, to those who accept it. Most interesting is 
 this testimony from the distinguished missionary. 
 Dr. J. Murray Mitchell: " In Southern India, for 
 instance, you can tell whether a village is largely 
 Christianized by the appearance of the women at 
 the well: their dress is more seemly, their look is 
 different. Nearly every Hindoo woman has a 
 careworn, anxious face, as if the battle of life 
 tried her sore. The Christian woman has a far 
 more peaceful expression." 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 127 
 
 As farther evidence of the remarkable and sub- 
 stantial growth of Missions, I quote another strik- 
 ing statement from the recent missionary address 
 of ex-Secretary John W. Foster: '*A few months 
 ago I stood at Beyrout, Syria, by the grave of 
 PHny Fisk, the first missionary. Within a radius 
 of two miles of that grave are four Christian col- 
 leges, seven female seminaries, sixty boys' schools, 
 thirty-two girls' schools, seventeen printingpresses, 
 and four large hospitals . ' ' Two items in that won- 
 derful sentence, were there no others, indicate the 
 measureless distance between us and the earlier 
 days of Pliny Fisk: " seven feniale seminaries, 
 and thirty-two girls' schools.'' What that means 
 to the uplifting of India and the redemption of the 
 Orient those can appreciate who have studied the 
 joint family system, and the iniquities of the 
 zenana. 
 
 With the knowledge of Christ comes a desire 
 for the comforts and refinements of Christian civ- 
 ilization. While wise missionaries resist any ef- 
 fort to force upon the East the dress and customs 
 of the West — condemn attempts to Europeanize 
 and denationalize — some changes are necessarily 
 wrought. Modesty is one of the first fruits of 
 Christianity. To Dr. Lindsey we are indebted 
 for this suggestive statement: * 'Among the Zulus 
 
128 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 the first sign of approach to Christ is a desire for 
 clothes. A man comes one day and buys a calico 
 shirt; the next day, perhaps, and buys a pair of 
 duck pants ; then a three-legged stool, for he can no 
 longer sit on the ground; and with shirt and pants 
 on, and seated on that stool, he is a thousand miles 
 above the level of the heathen around him." 
 
 And like testimony is borne by a United States 
 Minister to Turkey. Referring to the influence of 
 American missionaries on the habits of the people, 
 and the w^ork being done by the colleges at Con- 
 stantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Asyoot, and Bey- 
 rout, he uses this strong language: *' The Arab 
 youth who has graduated at the college in Beyrout 
 is no longer contented to live in a mud pen, to 
 clothe himself in filthy rags, or not at all, and to 
 live on sugar cane. He aspires to live as do his 
 teachers, who come from the great republic on 
 the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He tells his 
 family and friends something of what he has 
 learned; and an ambition, a longing for something 
 better than they have ever known, is inspired in 
 them." 
 
 Christianity also increases the wealth-producing 
 capacity of a -people. It touches the mainspring 
 of enterprise, unlocks latent energies, and gives 
 wise direction to awakened industry. Dr. George 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 29 
 
 Smith, the historian of modern Missions, makes 
 this statement as to India: **No statistics can 
 show the growth of these native Christians in 
 wealth, in social position, in official and profes- 
 sional influence. They are pushing out the 
 Brahmans, by character, by ability, and by in- 
 telligent loyalty, until the Hindoo press confesses 
 the fact with apprehension, and the local blue 
 books report it continually to Parliament." A 
 large proportion of those reached and redeemed 
 by the gospel are of the humbler classes — the poor 
 to whom the Master preached. And on that ac- 
 count Christianity is ridiculed as the religion of 
 coolies and pariahs. But by its uplifting power 
 the poorest are enriched and outcasts are given 
 such dignity and influence until the highest castes 
 are forced to do them reverence. There is a roy- 
 alty in the blood of Christ that gives rank to a 
 pariah, and improves a hundredfold the earthly es- 
 tate of a coolie. Missionary annals are crowded 
 with incidents which strikingly illustrate this sug- 
 gestive fact. 
 
 This multiplied power of achievement is also 
 conferred upon nations with their acceptance of 
 the Christian religion. The wealth of the world 
 is in Christian treasuries. The commerce of the 
 
 world is controlled by Christian countries* The 
 9 
 
130 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 tonnage of the world is carried almost entirely in 
 vessels flying the flags of Christian nations. And 
 it is also suggestive that the tonnage of Protestant 
 countries is nearly Six times as great as that of the 
 Roman Catholics. Race and climatic conditions 
 do not account for this vast difference in wealth 
 and dominion. It is the type of a people's reli- 
 gion that determines their earthly as well as their 
 heavenly estates. A new heaven creates a new 
 earth. Christianity has an industrial value beyond 
 possible calculation. No wonder, therefore, that 
 the new Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, speaking 
 as a government official, and noting the influence 
 of the Christian religion upon the citizenship, so- 
 cial condition, and industrial development of the 
 empire, uttered these emphatic words: ** I make 
 bold to say that if Missions did not exist it w^ould 
 be our duty to invent them." 
 
 The non-Christian natives in all the mission 
 fields are beginning so to appreciate the commer- 
 cial value of Christianity that they are placing their 
 children in mission schools to be educated. The 
 most popular institutions in China to-day are those 
 conducted by Christian missionaries. And these 
 sentences from the most influential non-Christian 
 newspaper in India, the Hindu, show the drift of 
 intelligent native sentiment in that great empire : 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. I3I 
 
 The progress of education among the girls of the native 
 Christian communitv, and the absence of caste restrictions, will 
 eventually give them an advantage which no amount of intel- 
 lectual precocity can compensate the Brahmans for. We re- 
 cently printed the statement of a Bombay paper that the social 
 eminence which at the present moment the Parsees so de- 
 servedly enjoy was due to these two causes — namely, that their 
 women are educated, and they are bound by no restrictions of 
 caste. These two advantages slowly make themselves felt 
 among our native Christian people, and it is possible that they 
 will soon become the Parsees of Southern India. They will 
 furnish the most distinguished public servants, barristers, mer- 
 chants, and citizens, among the various classes of the native 
 community. 
 
 The tenderness and sympathy introduced by 
 Christianity into heathen countries are one of the 
 striking evidences of its divine power. When it 
 changes the nature it softens the manners and 
 opens a fountain of brotherly sympathy in the 
 heart. Stoicism is converted into pity, savagery 
 into humanity, brutaUty into brotherhood. Mr. 
 Lecky thus refers to the softening influence of the 
 Christian religion: '*As a matter of fact Chris- 
 tianity has done more to quicken the affections of 
 mankind, to promote piety, to create a pure and 
 merciful idea, than any other influence that has 
 ever acted upon the world." And it is said that 
 the charity and help shown by native Christians 
 are in such marked contrast with the hardness and 
 
132 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 indifference of Mohamniedans, Hindoos, and oth- 
 er heathen as to become a convincing appeal for 
 the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some 
 transformations are certainly wonderful, as in the 
 case of Africaner, the first trophy of Moffat's min- 
 istry, and thousands of others that might be gath- 
 ered. 
 
 It has also affected the sentiment and life of na- 
 tions not yet Christian. A spendid illustration 
 comes from Japan and the late Japan-China war. 
 In the ancient capital city of Kioto, Japan, may 
 be seen the famous **Ear Monument," a large 
 mound on which is a stone or marble shaft. Be- 
 neath that mound were buried the ears of Coreans 
 killed and captured by the Japanese in a war of 
 the sixteenth century. Such brutality makes one 
 shudder, and to perpetuate it in marble is nothing 
 less than horror. But a change has come over the 
 Sunrise Kingdom. In 1894-95, during the war be- 
 tween Japan and China, the Red Cross Society 
 had charge of all Japanese hospitals, in which sick 
 and wounded Chinese prisoners were cared for as 
 tenderly as the bravest Japanese soldiers. The 
 Empress herself was daily engaged, with her la- 
 dies at court, in making bandages and preparing 
 lint, which were used on wounded Chinese and 
 Japanese alike. What a marvelous change ! What 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 133 
 
 a vast distance from the '*Ear Monument," at 
 Kioto, to the Red Cross hospitals at Hiroshima! 
 And it is a suggestive coincidence that in the city 
 of Kioto, and under the very shadow of that mon- 
 ument to brutahty, an orphan asylum for little 
 girls is being established by a native Christian 
 teacher, to which he devotes all his property. 
 
 Another most gratifying result has been the de- 
 velopment of the native church in heathen lands. 
 By this "infant" Church these lands must at last 
 be Christianized. The firm planting of the native 
 church is the ultimate aim of Christian Missions ; 
 or, as the distinguished Secretary of the Church 
 Missionary Society says, it is "the development 
 of native churches with a view to their ultimate 
 settlement upon a self-supporting, self-governing, 
 and self -extending system. When this settlement 
 has been effected, the mission will have attained its 
 euthanasia, and the missionary and all missionary 
 agencies can be transferred to the 'regions be- 
 yond.'" This ultimate aim in some fields has 
 been already attained, and these vigorous young 
 churches are sending their flaming apostles into 
 other lands. Wise caution should be observed, 
 however, in withdrawing supervision from mission 
 fields. 
 
 Dr. Lawrence characterizes the reproductive 
 
134 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 spirit of the gospel in these striking words: ^^JEv- 
 ery church should work out into a 7nission;~ every 
 mission should work out into a church.'''' The 
 rapidity with which some missions have worked 
 out into self-sustaining and self-extending churches 
 reveal the same supernatural power that attended 
 the successful ministry of St. Paul. Dr. Mackay, 
 who reported 2,546 baptisms in fifteen years, 
 makes this cheering statement: "If the Church 
 in North Formosa were now left without foreigners 
 or foreign help, I believe that it would grow and 
 prosper. The people know enough of the gospel 
 to appreciate it, and at each chapel they would 
 manage to find sufficient to support a preacher, so 
 that he might give himself wholly to the work of 
 preaching and teaching." 
 
 An intelligent young Japanese Christian, in a 
 letter written but a few months ago, uttered these 
 confident words: "I thank God that his religion 
 has found such a deep root in Japan that, even if 
 all missionary efforts are withdrawn from my coun- 
 try, Christianity will go on her way just the same." 
 
 From the Samoan group of islands, with a Chris- 
 tian population of over thirty thousand souls, comes 
 intelligence that not only thrills our faith, but is a 
 suggestive lesson to the Church at home. Besides 
 supporting their own ministry, a few years ago 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 35 
 
 they sent a thank offering, as their custom is, of 
 £i,8oo, to the London Missionary Society. When 
 a Church member dies, they still keep his name on 
 the books, with a mark opposite which means : * * We 
 cannot think of him as dead, either to us or to the 
 work. We shall give a contribution in his name, 
 that the cause may not suffer by his removal 
 hence." And to the northwest of Samoa there are 
 ten thousand people who have been won from 
 heathenism by Samoans. 
 
 From China the missionaries send like hopeful 
 assurance. In large portions of the Shantung and 
 other provinces, churches are almost entirely self- 
 supporting, though the people are distressingly 
 poor. Instances, eloquent and numerous, could 
 be given. Time would- fail to tell of a Taoist 
 priest in a country village, soundly converted, and 
 then converting his house into a chapel that he 
 might preach to his neighbors, without salary; of 
 a true-hearted woman, the only Christian in a com- 
 munity, praying and working until she secured a 
 school which grew into a church: of a little 
 Church, on the day of its separate organization, 
 subscribing the entire salary of a pastor — and 
 scores of others that glorify the annals of the 
 Church in China, and are surely recorded in the 
 chronicles of the skies. Dr. Nevins says: ** Ex- 
 
136 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 perience in China shows that now, as in the early 
 history of the Church, Christianity may be speed- 
 ily and widely propagated by the spontaneous and 
 silent influence of native Christians." There can 
 be no doubt of the sincere faith of those humble 
 Christians in Ceylon, who are giving their labor 
 when needed, and, tithing their poverty for the 
 Lord, take out a handful of rice from every day'' s 
 7neal and consecrate it to God. Such self-denial 
 we have not elsewhere found — no, not in Israel. 
 In Uganda, entered a few years since, so rapid 
 and widespread is the enlargement of the work 
 that already one hundred native laborers are in the 
 field, all supported by native contributions. The 
 South India Missions, connected with the Church 
 Missionary Society, contributed in one year $13,- 
 582 in gold. And from India, Burmah, and Cey- 
 lon the aggregate contributions from native Chris- 
 tians rapidly increased from 60,000 rupees in 1861 
 to 159,124 in 1871, and to 228,517 rupees in 1881. 
 And it is a gratifying fact that by far the larger 
 portion of converts in India are to-day won to 
 Christ by the agency of the native ministry. Bish- 
 op Thoburn states that one hundred native teach- 
 er-preachers reported 1,400 converts in one year. 
 
 Most instructive is the story of the Church of 
 England Mission in Fuchow. In 1862 there were 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 37 
 
 only three converts, and they turned out unsatis- 
 factorily. One missionary died, and the other had 
 to leave for a few months on account of failing 
 health. In his absence a Chinese mob set fire to 
 the mission buildings. So, after twelve years of 
 toil, the whole mission apparently collapsed. But 
 the brave missionary, though advised against it, 
 under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, returned to 
 the ashes of his former labors and began to lay 
 anew the foundation of the kingdom. At the end 
 of 1893 there were 170 places of worship in that 
 province, 11,000 Christian adherents, 125 cate- 
 chists, and 106 schoolmasters. " These blessed 
 results," said Archdeacon Wolfe, " are, under 
 God, mainly due to the free employment of a na- 
 tive agency which, from 1862 to the present time, 
 has ever been liberally used in this mission." 
 
 At Sierra Leone there is a *' self-sustaining and 
 self-extending " African Church. The only white 
 clergyman in the colony is Bishop Ingram. All 
 pastoral work is in the hands of native ministers, 
 who are represented as efficient and zealous. 
 
 But even more remarkable has been the prog- 
 ress among the Karens of Burmah. After sixty 
 years of labor there are forty thousand communi- 
 cants in the Church and one hundred thousand 
 adherents, with numerous schools and a foreign 
 
138 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 missionary society. In 1894 over sixteen thousand 
 rupees were contributed for Church and school 
 purposes. The British Government report some 
 years ago referred to the '* four hundred and fifty- 
 one Christian Karen parishes, most of which sup- 
 port their own Church parish school and native 
 pastor, and many of which subscribe considerable 
 sums for missionary work," and added this trib- 
 ute to their personal character: '' These Christian 
 Karen communities are so much more industrious, 
 better educated, and more law-abiding that the 
 British Government owes a vast debt to the Amer- 
 ican missionaries under whom this change has been 
 wrought." The late and long-to-be-lamented Dr. 
 Gordon said that, though only fifty years out of 
 heathenism, ** the poor Karens of Burmah outrank 
 their Baptist brethren of ever}^ State in the Amer- 
 ican Union save two as contributors to their mis- 
 sionary society." 
 
 The Fijians, but a few years ago the worst of 
 cannibals, are now the most active and heroic mis- 
 sionaries. They enterprised the work in New Brit- 
 ain, New Ireland, and other neighboring islands 
 themselves, and in the prosecution of the same 
 have cheerfully suffered persecutions for their 
 Lord that deserve large place in the chronicles of 
 Christian martyrdom. 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 39 
 
 The transforming power of the Holy Spirit 
 seems even more wonderful when we look at the 
 character of these native Christians. Amiel says 
 that " the test of every religious, political, or edu- 
 cational system is the man which it forms." By 
 that test the fruit of Missions can stand. They 
 are not mere " paper converts," as has been sneer- 
 ingly charged — good only to count and deceive the 
 Church at home— but display the same genuine 
 marks of the Christ life as may be seen in England 
 or the United States. The British Governor, Sir 
 Arthur Gordon, reporting to his government, paid 
 this tribute to the Fijians: " Out of a population 
 of about one hundred and twenty thousand one 
 hundred and two thousand are now regular wor- 
 shipers in the churches, which number eight hun- 
 dred, all well built and completed. In every family 
 there is morning and evening worship.'' Such a 
 percentage of Church attendance and such atten- 
 tion to family religion can scarcely be paralleled 
 in all the world. In the largest of the Samoan 
 Islands it is said that there '' cannot be found fifty 
 families that fail to observe family worship," and 
 of the spiritual character of the work there the 
 Herald of Missions says: *' We don't know if the 
 tide of devotion has reached as high a watermark 
 anywhere else the wide world over." 
 
140 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 After the missionaries had been forty years in 
 the Hawaiian Islands they were visited by the Hon. 
 Richard H. Dana, who, in writing of his observa- 
 tions, made this interesting statement: *' I did not 
 find a hut without a Bible and hymn book, and 
 family worship and grace at meals are as univer- 
 sal as they were a hundred years ago in New 
 England." And ten years later those islands 
 were visited by Mr. Moncure D. Conway, an 
 apostle of liberal thought. He was disappointed 
 almost to disgust. Instead of witnessing, as he 
 expected and said, *' merry scenes, islanders 
 swimming around the ship in Arcadian innocence, 
 and the joyous dance and song of the guileless 
 children of the sun," he saw in Honolulu a '* si- 
 lent city, paralyzed by piety," and said that he 
 had to "go to church to see people." '' Never in 
 Scotland or Connecticut," said he, *'have I seen 
 such a paralysis as fell upon Honolulu the first day 
 of the week." It was not the purpose of this 
 boasted apostle of culture to make an admission in 
 favor of Christianity, but such is the eloquent pre- 
 lude and interlude of every word that he has writ- 
 ten. Would to God that a like *' paralysis of 
 piety " could characterize the Sabbath of ours and 
 every land ! 
 
 A distinguished Hollander, who visited Sumatra 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. I4I 
 
 and made an extensive tour through the Dutch 
 East Indies, and who before his travels had an 
 unconcealed prejudice against Missions, has made 
 this statement: *'To be welcomed in the land of 
 cannibals by children singing hymns, this, indeed, 
 shows the peace-creating power of the gospel." 
 James Chalmers, of New Guinea, gives a graphic 
 account of a Christmas sacramental service in his 
 mission, in which he says: " I was united with, 
 and shed tears of joy with, men and women who 
 a few years before sought our lives. What did it? 
 It is the old story still of the gospel of Christ." 
 
 Carl Ritter, who has been called the '* prince 
 of geographers," said that the transformation in 
 the character of the natives of New Zealand is 
 " the standing miracle of the age." Of these New 
 Zealanders Bishop Selwyn, with a larger knowl- 
 edge of the field, also wrote: ** We see here a 
 whole nation of pagans converted to the faith. 
 Where will you find throughout the Christian 
 world more signal manifestations of the presence 
 of the Spirit, or more living evidences of the king- 
 dom of Christ?" 
 
 The Chinese Christians compare favorably with 
 any other race in the strength of their faith, the 
 solidity of their character, and the genuineness 
 of their Christian experience. Many testimonies 
 
142 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 could be given. This from a discriminative student 
 of the mission fields of the world, the late Fleming 
 Stevenson, is very clear: '*I have found nowhere 
 in Christian lands men and women of a higher 
 type than I met in China, of a finer spiritual expe- 
 rience, of a higher spiritual tone, or a nobler spir- 
 itual life, and I may say with conviction that there 
 are in the native churches in China not only the 
 elements of stability, but that steadfast and irre- 
 sistible revolution which will carry over the whole 
 empire to the new faith." It was a Chinese Chris- 
 tian, Lough Fook, who sold himself into slavery 
 and shipped to the South American mines, that he 
 might have readier spiritual access to his country- 
 men. And he had the joy, before his translation, 
 of seeing nearly two hundred of them converted 
 to God, and devout members of a Christian 
 Church. Of this beautiful instance of lowly 
 consecration — taking upon himself the form of a 
 slave — Dr. Gordon says: *' To a Christian China- 
 man belongs, so far as we know, the unique honor 
 of wearing the Saviour's bonds in voluntary servi- 
 tude." 
 
 During the recent massacres in Armenia, which 
 awoke universal horror and indignation, atroc- 
 ities have been committed almost without a 
 parallel in the past century. And on the other 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 43 
 
 hand there have been examples of triumphant faith 
 and heroic endurance among native Christians, 
 worthy of conspicuous mention in the later acts of 
 the apostles. At least twenty native pastors have 
 suffered death rather than deny their Lord, while 
 hundreds of other Christians have filled martyrs' 
 graves. Writing under date of February 27, 1896, 
 a missionary tells this thrilling story: '* During the 
 massacre at Ourfa two young men were seized by 
 the mob. They were asked to accept Islamism, 
 and were told that refusal was death. The mother 
 of the young men stood by, and said to them: 
 * Die, but do not deny the Lord Jesus.' They 
 stood firm, and were immediately cut down by the 
 cruel swords of the Moslems." When Bishop 
 Hannington went down to his glorious martyrdom 
 in Uganda, he was accompanied by thirty-two na- 
 tive Christians^ '* massacred in one lot," whose 
 dying testimony was not only triumphant, but even 
 jubilant. 
 
 Nor less emphatic and genuine is the testimony 
 of some tourists and scholars to the transforming 
 power of the Christian religion. Conspicuous 
 among these is the name of Charles Darwin, the 
 great naturalist, and not supposed to be in active 
 sympathy with the Christian Church and its mis- 
 sionary enterprises. But these are his words, and 
 
144 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 a severe rebuke they are to shallow critics of For- 
 eign Missions: 
 
 Thej forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifice and 
 the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy 
 unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a con- 
 sequence of that system ; bloody wars, where the conquerors 
 spared neither women nor children — that all these things have 
 been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licen- 
 tiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of 
 Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is a base in- 
 gratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck 
 on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the 
 lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far. 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace, the scientist, who wrote 
 a charming volume on the Malay Archipelago, 
 thus speaks of the mighty achievements of the mis- 
 sionaries in those islands, where he spent so much 
 time in the study of man and nature: '*The mis- 
 sionaries have much to be proud of in this country. 
 They have assisted the government in changing 
 a savage into a civilized community in a wonder- 
 fully short space of time. Forty years ago the 
 country was a wilderness, the people naked sav- 
 ages, garnishing their rude houses with human 
 heads. Now it is a garden worthy of its sweet na- 
 tive name of ' Minahati.' " 
 
 Capt. Briggs, in his interesting book, ''Sunny 
 Days in Salween," makes this generous statement: 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 45 
 
 **As an official of eight or nine years' experience 
 on this coast, I can vouch for the great moral ele- 
 vation among the Christian Karens. I venture to as- 
 sert that ten Christian villages give less trouble to 
 the police than one heathen Karen village. In- 
 deed, our registers show that in one heathen town, 
 Taung by uk, there is more crime than in the 
 whole Christian district of this province." 
 
 The speedy development of ethical life in those 
 so recently emancipated from the bondage of 
 heathen superstition is pathetically illustrated in 
 the first letter written in English by a Congo na- 
 tive, and for which I am indebted to Dr. Pier- 
 son. It is addressed to the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury : 
 
 Great and Good Chief of the tribe of Christ; Greeting: The 
 humblest of your servants kisses the hem of jour garment, and 
 begs you to send to his fellow-servants more gospel and less 
 rum. In the bonds of Christ. Ugalla. 
 
 And we are made to rejoice over the rapid 
 progress of Missions. The movement has been 
 accelerated far beyond the faith of the Church. 
 The harvest is large, the results marvelous. When 
 we consider the resources at command, the oppo- 
 sition that had to be encountered, the barriers to be 
 broken down, and the almost insurmountable diffi- 
 culties to be overcome, we cannot but be amazed 
 10 
 
146 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 at the majestic movement of the missionary cause. 
 The vastness of its achievements can only be ac- 
 counted for by a recognition of the constant pres- 
 ence and assistance of a supernatural power. And 
 yet objection is heard that Missions make slow 
 progress. In this demand for rapid results there 
 may be evidence of an enfeebled faith, a desire 
 to walk by sight. That is the sturdiest and truest 
 confidence in God that laboriously works, and then 
 cheerfully waits. We are too '* idolatrous of the im- 
 mediate." To this objection Archbishop Whate- 
 ley once made reply as follows: *' The man that is 
 in a hurry to see the full effects of his tillage must 
 cultivate annuals, and not forest trees." Our Lord 
 waited long for '* the fullness of time;" and as 
 we are building for the eternities, we can well af- 
 ford to spend ample time on the foundations. 
 
 But progress has not been slow. The angel of 
 the apocalypse has flown on swift wing. Nations 
 have been born almost in a day. And this prog- 
 ress, which has been a perpetual miracle, must in- 
 crease in ratio ; for each convert is not a dead 
 figure to count, but a living influence to work. So 
 the ratio of growth must continually increase. It 
 is geometrical. Max Miiller well says: "An in- 
 tellectual harvest must not be calculated by adding 
 simply grain to grain, but by counting each grain 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 47 
 
 as a living seed, that will bring forth fruit a hun- 
 dred and a thousand fold." 
 
 It was failure to consider this vital fact that led 
 Canon Taylor into fatal error. His arithmetic 
 would never have told so lugubrious a tale and his 
 disparagements of missionary activity and results 
 would not have been so contemptuous, had he not 
 mistaken living souls for dead figures. Compar- 
 ing the birth rate in heathen lands with the number 
 of conversions in all mission fields for a series of 
 years, and assuming that the same ratio would con- 
 tinue — that the present rate of increase will be the 
 perpetual rate — he employed the scornful figure of 
 the tortoise and the train to travesty the utter 
 weakness and humihating failure of modern Mis- 
 sions. But the ratio of increase is not stationary. 
 Movement in some fields has been by leaps and 
 bounds, while in almost every other the progres- 
 sion has been geometrical. The tortoise has over- 
 taken the train. 
 
 Protestant mission work began in Madagascar, 
 *Uhe Great Britain of Africa," in 1818. The fruit 
 of ten years' labor was only fifty native catechu- 
 mens. Then came the days of bitter persecution 
 which drove the missionaries from the field. Yet 
 in 1868 there were 37,112 Christians, and in 1878, 
 just ten years later, there were 2^0,000. In Japan, 
 
148 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 after nearly twenty years of preparatory work, 
 there were 3,000 Christians in 1876; this number 
 increased to 14,500 in 1882, and in five years 
 more to 43,000. But even more suggestive are 
 the last figures from another field, and a single 
 mission. Dr. E. W. Parker, of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Mission in India, said that in 1891 their 
 converts were increasing at the rate of 6,000 per 
 year. In 1893 Bishop Thoburn said that the rate 
 had advanced to nearly fifty a day, or about 17,000 
 per year; and in 1894 the increase was thirty 
 thousand. Indeed, the remarkable success of that 
 and other missions in India has occasioned the 
 most serious problem of the hour — has precipita- 
 ted a veritable crises in opportunity and adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 With the marvelous transformation in Fiji the 
 world is now familiar. What a change in only 
 forty years ! Cannibal islands become thorough- 
 ly Christian — churches built on *' the site of can- 
 nibal ovens " — and out of a population of 110,000, 
 104,000 regularly and reverently attending places 
 of public worship. James Calvert said: " When 
 I arrived at the Fiji group, my first duty was 
 to bury the hands, feet, heads, and bones of arms 
 and legs of eighty victims whose bodies had been 
 roasted and eaten in a cannibal feast. I lived to 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 1 49 
 
 see the very cannibals who had taken part in that 
 inhuman festival gathered about the Lord's table." 
 What a history of apostolic achievement is con- 
 tained in that two-line inscription to Dr. John Ged- 
 die, in the Church at Aneityum: 
 
 When he landed here in 1848 there were no Christians ; 
 When he left here in 1872 there were no heathen. 
 
 Reports like this from many of the great harvest 
 fields, made by Dr. Mansell, are now by no means ex- 
 ceptional: " In 1890 Dr. Wilson, of Budayoon, in 
 only eleven months baptized 1,163; ^'^' Buchner, 
 of Bijiore, baptized 533; Hazan Raza Kahn, of 
 Kas Ganj, baptized 415; Ibrahim Solomon, a con- 
 verted Jew, of Farthgaj, baptized 477. In 1889 
 there had been 4,000 baptisms; in 1890 there were 
 nearly 9,000; and in 1891 there have been about 
 18,000, while only in a small part of the field 20,- 
 000 more are reported as ready for membership 
 in the Church." 
 
 After years of self-denying toil and patient wait- 
 ing, the Moravian missionaries in the far-away, 
 frozen parallels of Labrador witnessed a Pente- 
 cost. It is said that *'the churches could not con- 
 tain the numbers who flocked to hear the message 
 of salvation," and soon the whole land was trav- 
 ersed by native evangelists, baptized by the Holy 
 Ghost, and preaching with persuasive power. Dr. 
 
150 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Pierson tells us of a single missionary station in 
 the East, near the Bosporus, which in fourteen 
 years established a central nucleus, with twelve 
 out stations, and seven of them containing self- 
 supporting Christian churches. **A11 that work 
 of fourteen years," he says, **was accomplished 
 with less money than built the church in the city 
 of Detroit in which I preached for thirteen years." 
 
 So rapid indeed has been the march of Chris- 
 tianity, and so extensive its conquests, that we may 
 say almost of the entire world, as Tertullian did of 
 Christian evangelism in the country he knew: 
 *' We are but of yesterday, and we have filled all 
 that belongs to you — the cities, the fortresses, the 
 free towns, the very camps, the palace, the senate", 
 the forum; we leave to you the temples only." 
 And in most heathen countries the old, decayed 
 temples are sadly neglected, and scarcely a new 
 one is being erected. 
 
 And these magnificent results have been wrought 
 with seemingly insufficient means. There is no 
 correspondence between the means employed and 
 the ends achieved. The fact that obscure fisher- 
 men, unlettered, and without official influence, and 
 in the face of fierce fanaticism and political preju- 
 dice, wrought the mighty results they did, evi- 
 denced beyond question the presence and power of 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. I5I 
 
 God. So we are forced to a like explanation of 
 the marvelous transformations in the mission field. 
 They were not an evolution, but a spiritual revolu- 
 tion. Consecrated men, clothed only with a pow- 
 er from on high, 
 
 Mitered with pentecostal flame 
 
 by the simple truths they declared, have changed 
 the map of the world. 
 
 And this rapid progress is the more suggestive 
 when we study the comparative success of the home 
 and foreign work. Last year it was estimated that, 
 while there were about seven cofiverts to each of 
 the preachers of the United States, there were sev- 
 enty converts to each of the missionaries in Asia. 
 Seven and seventy. With an equal number of la- 
 borers the harvest is ten times greater in the re- 
 gions beyond. And yet some object to Foreign 
 Missions because of their meager results. In the 
 Presbytery of Shantung, in Northern China, in 
 1891, 760 persons were admitted to the communion 
 of the Church. There were only nine Presbyteries 
 in the United States, including the great centers of 
 influence and population, that made a like report. 
 And ex-Secretary of State, John W. Foster, in a 
 missionary address, said a few weeks ago that 
 «' the statistics for the Presbyterian Church last year 
 show that the ratio of additions to the native 
 
152 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 churches in India alone was nearly twice as great 
 as in the churches in America." 
 
 The following admirable and gratifying summa- 
 ry of results in India, by Rev. J. E. Scott, is only 
 a sample of the fruits in almost every mission field : 
 
 1. Caste is breaking down. It is seen in the way people eat 
 and drink, dress and work; in the way they travel, in their 
 schools, on their trains, steamships, and in their mills. 
 
 2. The poor are coming up. The coming man in India is 
 the converted sweeper. 
 
 3. The people are broadening out. The National Congress, 
 the Social Congress, the newspapers, the patronage of Western 
 science, the study of law, medicine, and engineering — all indi- 
 cate that. 
 
 4. Christ is honored more. Many among all classes now 
 look upon him with favor. Brahmos, Brahmans, and Moham- 
 medans speak well of him. 
 
 5. The Christian Missions are succeeding. Never before in 
 the history of India were they advancing so rapidly as now. 
 "The workers were never so numerous, the schools never so 
 spiritual, the methods never so good, the fraternity and unity 
 never so strong, the converts never so numerous, the Church 
 never so spiritual as now." 
 
 6. The native Church is taking hold. Often it is becoming 
 self-supporting. The people are appreciating their own pastors. 
 Strong men are being raised up. 
 
 7. All feel it worth the effort. Here are 282,000,000 people. 
 
 Looking at these stupendous achievements of 
 the gospel in overturning the false faiths of the 
 world and establishing a kingdom '* wherein dwell- 
 eth righteousness," I most heartily adopt the elo- 
 
FRUITS FROM VARIOUS FIELDS. 153 
 
 quent words of Dr. Storrs, as applied to an earlier 
 period: *' It conquered, where philosophies had 
 failed; it exalted, where arts had degraded; it 
 purified, where religions had polluted; and, in the 
 eloquent words of another, 'it made the instru- 
 ment of the slave's agony a symbol more glorious 
 than the laticlave of consuls or the diadem of 
 kings.' The splendor of that supreme achieve- 
 ment no skepticism can shadow, no lapse of time 
 rob of its brightness." 
 
 But I need not multiply witnesses and add to 
 this splendid volume of inspiring testimony. So 
 abundant and eloquent are these facts — all attest- 
 ing the same thing, unmistakably asserting their 
 connection with the same divine source and influ- 
 ence — that to deny the divinity of their origin 
 would require a greater strain upon our faith and 
 reason to account for them in some other way. It 
 has been well said: ** If Christianity be not of 
 God, then is it historically and structurally a series 
 of miracles unique in the world's history, a mira- 
 cle greater than its assumed supernaturalism it- 
 self." 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS TO THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS TO THE CHURCH. 
 
 WHEN the disciples of the imprisoned and de- 
 spondent John the Baptist were dispatched 
 to Jesus, with the strange message, "Art thou he 
 that should cpme, or do we look for another?" his 
 only response was the display of his miracle-work- 
 ing power. With a seeming indifference to their 
 urgent, distressful request, he continued his mighty 
 works — healing the sick, cleansing the leper, rais- 
 ing the dead, preaching to the poor — and after a 
 time quietly turned to the messengers and said: 
 ** Go back and tell John what you have seen and 
 heard." As much as to say: " That will answer 
 his doubts and cheer his fainting faith." In the 
 works that only God can perform he will see the 
 Divine, the One *' that should come," and will 
 never again '*look for another." 
 
 A like response our Lord makes from all the 
 fields where, by his command, missionaries have 
 gone to disciple the nations, and where his mira- 
 cles of grace are being daily and mightily wrought. 
 He simply says: '*Go back and tell the Church 
 
158 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 what you have seen and heard — how that the blind 
 see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the 
 dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel 
 preached unto them." Thus God is '' hearing 
 witness^ both with signs and wonders, and with di- 
 vers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, accord- 
 ing to his will." By the stupendous success of 
 his word, under his own personal administration 
 and the power of the Holy Ghost, he furnishes the 
 infallible proofs of his divinity, and the gospel's 
 perfect adaptation to all nations, and its entire 
 availability for all circumstances, for all races, and 
 for all times. 
 
 The purpose of this lecture is to interpret the 
 message of those miracles to the Church. For, 
 as St. Augustine has well said, ** our Lord worked 
 miracles to signify somewhat by those miracles, 
 and that we should learn something more from 
 them than simply that they were great, wonderful, 
 and divine." We are to discover, if possible, the 
 " somewhat " signified by the miracles of Missions 
 in all the fields; what lessons they have to teach 
 the Church, while blessing and redeeming the lost 
 millions of heathen lands. And I doubt not it will 
 be ascertained that while they are uplifting the na- 
 tions abroad, there is a corresponding edification 
 of the Church at home. Thus the mission fields 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. I59 
 
 become the most thoroughly furnished and effect- 
 ive teacher at whose feet the Church can humbly 
 sit and eagerly learn. A distinguished German 
 writer has said: " No doctrine can bring it about 
 that there shall arise in our hearts the full certainty 
 that God exists for us ; only a fact can inspire such 
 confidence in us. Our certainty of God has its 
 root in the fact that within the realm of history to 
 which we ourselves belong we encounter the man 
 Jesus as an undoubted reality." 
 
 Missions have made the world known. They 
 have colored the maps of geographers, have traced 
 the lines of nations and empires, have revealed the 
 racial and tribal peculiarities of unknown peoples, 
 and really furnished most of the materials upon 
 which philosophy speculates and commerce plans 
 its gigantic enterprises. 
 
 Missions have increased the Church's knowl- 
 edge of the world's needs. They have uncovered 
 its woes, and articulated its cry for help. Much 
 of the intense opposition which William Carey en- 
 countered, and the bitter raillery he endured, were 
 born of ignorance of heathen peoples. Indeed, 
 pagan virtues were applauded. Some men said: 
 " We believe that a Hindoo is milder and soberer 
 than most Europeans, and as honest and chaste." 
 But that time of ignorance has passed away, thanks 
 
l6o MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 to the heroic and self-denying toils of Christian 
 missionaries. 
 
 Amiel, in his journal, says: * 'Action coarsens 
 thought." I should rather say that action tests 
 and defines thought. It measures and determines 
 the force of any doctrine. Thus every truth is 
 put to final test. Modern Missions have contrib- 
 uted something, therefore, toward the verification 
 of the great doctrines of the gospel. Prof. Austin 
 Phelps says: '* The most triumphant way of prov- 
 ing any doctrine involved in human duty is to use 
 it. Make it thus prove itself as a fact, and time 
 will take care of it as a dogma." We believe that 
 Jesus Christ intended the gospel for all men, and 
 that it is adapted to all men and necessary to all 
 men. We so interpret his great commission, his 
 tasting '* death for every man," and his becoming 
 the Propitiation '' for the sins of the whole world." 
 These inspired statements we may steadfastly be- 
 lieve. But when we know of different races of men 
 in the various mission fields of the world intelli- 
 gently apprehending the gospel, attesting its re- 
 deeming virtue and illustrating its transforming 
 power, steadfast faith becomes triumphant as- 
 surance; and, as Bishop Westcott says, ** in the 
 growing assurance that the gospel meets each real 
 need of humanity we shall find the highest con- 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. l6l 
 
 ceivable proof of its final and absolute truth." 
 And when the mission fields further testify that no 
 other religion except Christianity *' is doing at this 
 time any regenerating work whatever for the 
 world" — that all non-Christian faiths are tending 
 to decay — there is left no room for decent doubt. 
 
 Among the peoples of earth where mission work 
 has been enterprised there has been found no sin- 
 gle exception to the perfect adaptability of the gos- 
 pel to their real and urgent needs. Charles Kings- 
 ley thought that he had discovered one. Taking 
 the position that man might fall by original sin too 
 low for the gospel of Jesus Christ to redeem him, 
 he refers for illustration to the poor Papuan of 
 Australia. He says: " The black people of Aus- 
 tralia, exactly the same race as the African negro, 
 cannot take in the gospel. . . . All attempts 
 to bring him to a knowledge of the true God have 
 as yet failed utterly. . . . Poor brutes in hu- 
 man shape, . . . they must perish off the face 
 of the earth like brute beasts." But later reports 
 disprove that statement. 
 
 Efforts to reach and reclaim those debased peo- 
 ple were most discouraging, traceable, however, 
 to explainable reasons, not creditable to a great 
 Christian nation. But the labors of missionaries 
 
 have not been entirely fruitless, as the reports of 
 U 
 
1 62 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Moravians abundantly attest. The history of some 
 conversions, and the subsequent life of the believ- 
 ers, evidence that the Holy Spirit can work in their 
 hearts and produce like fruits to those seen among 
 other people. 
 
 Missions have given the Church a broader con- 
 ception of the great -plan of redemption. It is a 
 curious fact that the doctrine of the divine obliga- 
 tion to give the zvorld the gospel has had to win 
 its way in the Church by conquest. Geographical 
 and national prejudices have put limitations upon 
 the scope of our religion. Political and racial an- 
 tipathies, imported into religious faith, have ob- 
 scured its divine imperatives and circumscribed 
 the extent of its mission. All religions have been 
 more or less provincial. Some are avowedly and 
 distinctively national. Christianity has not escaped 
 the narrowing influences of political and racial 
 prejudices. They have fettered its spirit, and 
 stayed the majestic march of its world-wide mis- 
 sion of redemption. In the early days of the 
 Church God not only called prophet and apostle 
 wtth his own clear and authoritative voice, but had 
 to employ miraculous agencies to broaden their 
 conceptions and inspire their sense of obligation. 
 
 In his Bampton Lectures on " Prophecy a Prep- 
 aration for Christ " Dr. R. Payne Smith aptly il- 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 163 
 
 lustrates that thought in this suggestive paragraph 
 on Jonah: 
 
 Now the prophecies generally have a message for the hea- 
 then nations round; only tAvo or three confine themselves to 
 Israel and Judah. The heathen nations do not lie beyond the 
 pale of God's providence; and thus Nahum's one subject is 
 Nineveh, Habakkuk's is Chaldea, Obadiah's is Edom. But 
 this is no case merely of sending them a warning, or recording 
 a condemnation of their sins. Jonah has to labor in person 
 among these heathen, and his whole Jewish nature rises up 
 against such a service. He will flee to the ends of the earth 
 rather than so violate his prejudices. His name, Jonah, means a 
 "dove;" but he cannot brook the thought of carrying the olive 
 branch to those hateful Assyrians. Nothing short of evident 
 necessity can induce him to obey God's command. So it was 
 with the apostles. Simon Bar-jonah will go and receive the 
 Roman centurion, Cornelius, into the Church only after he has 
 thrice had a command from heaven not to call, in his Jewish 
 way, that common and unclean which the Holy Ghost had 
 sanctified. 
 
 And that history has had to be repeated in the 
 Church from the days of Jonah until now. What 
 is known as missionary eras have only been distin- 
 guishing points when this sense of obligation was 
 rekindled. 
 
 Regeneration, as a great, world-wide enterprise, 
 though not a modern conception, is a distinct m.od- 
 ern inspiration. And this inspiration has deepened 
 and strengthened with the majestic advance of 
 missionary forces in heathen lands. For some 
 
164 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 years after the opening of this last and most bril- 
 liant missionary century of the world, the prevail- 
 ing missionary sentiment was that a few might be 
 restored, but there was no strong faith in the na- 
 tion's being redeemed. That was only the dream 
 of enthusiasts and visionaries. In 1796, when the 
 subject of Foreign Missions was introduced into the 
 Scottish General Assembly, the proposal was con- 
 sidered preposterous, and vehemently character- 
 ized as both '* absurd and revolution ar}-." But 
 now as these triumphs multiply with marvelous ra- 
 pidity — as nations are sometimes born in a day — 
 we have increasing assurance of the indestructible 
 and conquering vitality of the gospel. We have 
 learned the deeper meaning of those oft-quoted 
 words, '* Not by might, nor by power, but by my 
 Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Missions have 
 proved to be ** a new discovery of divine re- 
 sources." 
 
 And so thought and wrote the calm and cau- 
 tious Prof. Christlieb of Bonn, in these suggestive 
 words: *'The work of Missions is outwardly, at 
 least, more extended than it ever was before. In 
 this region, therefore, according to our former 
 rule, miracles should not be entirely wanting. 
 Nor are they. We cannot, therefore, fully admit 
 the proposition that no more miracles are per* 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 165 
 
 formed in our day. In the history of modern Mis- 
 sions we find many wonderful occurrences zvhich 
 unmistakably remind its of the apostolic age.'^ 
 
 The continued and continuing achievements of 
 the gospel in mission fields strengthen faith in its 
 power to save the world. Faith increases with 
 cumulative evidence. Every conversion is anoth- 
 er remove from the apologetic period. Salvation 
 is not an experiment. Deliverance is not a vague 
 and uncertain hope. Redemption is not a mere 
 promise. It is a glorious fact attested by the in- 
 spiring history of the ages. It is a joyous verity 
 to which millions are bearing blessed testimony. 
 Our Lord is " mighty to save." On his own shoul- 
 ders he has laid the weight of the world's woe, 
 and by his own divine arm he has undertaken the 
 world's redemption. His power has been tested. 
 And by these signs and wonders the Church has 
 been led to expect greater things from God, and 
 to attempt greater things for God. 
 
 And this strengthened faith in the gospel has in- 
 creased the Church's sense of indebtedness to the 
 Christless millions, and led to enlarged plans for 
 their redemption. Without faith in the possible 
 salvation of all men there can be no adequate ef- 
 fort for the recovery of all men. We must believe 
 in the perfect adaptation of the gospel to all men. 
 
i66 Modern missions. 
 
 its adequate provision /"or all men, and its final ex- 
 tension to all men. 
 
 The Church has been led to believe that the con- 
 version of the world is possible and practicable. 
 
 And with this increasing sense of indebtedness 
 come new discoveries of divine resources. We 
 understand somewhat the meaning of the prayer, 
 **Thy kingdom come." It is not that independ- 
 ently God will usher in his kingdom, but these 
 words are an appeal and a pledge. *' I will do 
 all I can to make thy kingdom come." 
 
 Modern Missions have contributed to a clearer 
 estimate of the priceless value, and stronger faith 
 in the mighty power, of God's Word. Translated 
 into the various languages and dialects of the 
 world, testimonies to its enhghtening and redeem- 
 ing sufficiency have multiplied a thousandfold. 
 Each translation has been a signal providence, 
 and the history of some editions has been a mira- 
 cle. We are thus better able to understand that 
 strange, ominous statement: that the Lord is 
 ** jealous of his Word above all his name." The 
 most sacred thing to him in all this world is his 
 Word. If men trifle with his name — with his per- 
 fections and powers — they must not tamper with 
 his Word. 
 
 Paul's greatest boast was not that he had fought 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 167 
 
 a good fight — met and mastered the last enemy — 
 not that he had finished his course — triumphantly 
 reached the end of an honored and useful career; 
 but that he had keft the faith. He had preserved 
 and preached it in its integrity and entirety, in its 
 purity and power. Without admixture of human 
 tradition, without accommodation to the world's 
 wisdom, without weakening its divine imperatives, 
 without lowering its high standards, he had kept 
 the faith — the w^hole faith. He called the Ephe- 
 sian elders to witness, and with pardonable pride, 
 that he had not shunned to declare the zuhole co7in- 
 sel of God. 
 
 Now Paul would not have boasted of having 
 kept the faith if it were not worth keeping. His 
 vision had too wide a sweep — he had too ample 
 and accurate a knowledge of the world and its 
 needs — to spend thought and labor on preserving 
 anything of minor importance. With his marvel- 
 ous power of discrimination he never would have 
 placed such sacred emphasis upon a matter of sec- 
 ondary concern. But he knew that it was the ba- 
 sis of character, the foundation of hope and sal- 
 vation, the inspiration of spiritual achievement. 
 
 " The words that I speak unto you they are spirit 
 and they are life," is the declaration of our Lord 
 himself. The splendid achievements of the mis- 
 
l68 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 sion fields were impossible without the Bible trans- 
 lated into the vernacular of the nations. For, as 
 Dr. Gordon has said, in a sentence as lucid as 
 luminous: "Without the Scriptures Christianity 
 may be imposed ufon a nation, but it cannot be 
 imj[>lanted in a nation." And this implanting is 
 the absolute condition of a nation's regeneration. 
 
 A striking confirmation of this fact comes from 
 Uganda. Bishop Hirsh, chief of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Missions, in a report of his vast diocese, makes 
 this suggestive statement: ** I am compelled to ac- 
 knowledge that we will be forced to print a trans- 
 lation of the New Testament, which is being spread 
 by the Protestants all over the country. We can- 
 not -prevent our people from reading it, for every 
 one, with the women and aged people, wishes to 
 learn to read before being baptized. We are, 
 therefore, busy with an edition of the New Testa- 
 ment, with commentaries by the Fathers of the 
 Church." 
 
 This yielding, though under the compulsion of 
 necessity, is a long step forward, especially when 
 considered in connection with other well authenti- 
 cated facts of history. 
 
 The King of Bohemia on one occasion en- 
 treated the pope that the Church service might 
 be performed in the language of the country, to 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 169 
 
 which the holy father thus rephed: "Dear son, 
 know that we can by no means grant your re- 
 quest; for, having frequently searched the Holy 
 Scriptures, we have discovered that it hath pleased 
 and still pleases Almighty God to direct his wor- 
 ship to be conducted in a hidden language. . . . 
 Therefore, what your people ignorantly require can 
 in no wise be conceded to them, and we now for- 
 bid by the power of God and his holy apostle 
 Peter." 
 
 The two divinely appointed agencies for the sav- 
 ing of the nations are " the man of God, the Chris- 
 tian preacher; and the Word of God, the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures." These two must go together. 
 But there have been instances, when the " man of 
 God " was lacking, that the '* Word of God" 
 alone wrought its redeeming work. This is 
 strikingly illustrated in the strange story of the 
 Pitcairn Islanders. Not by means of a consecra- 
 ted evangelist, but by the power of the word in the 
 hands of the wicked mutineer, John Adams, those 
 islands are won from superstition and canni- 
 balism to the Lord Christ. From the w^eck of a 
 vessel a Bible and prayer book were rescued. 
 Having nothing else to read, these two books were 
 used to while away the tedium of the days. But 
 the Holy Spirit sealed the word to his joyous sal- 
 
170 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 vation. He was converted, became a missionary, 
 and witnessed the mighty works of God. So as a 
 distinguished missionary writer says: *' One stray 
 copy of the blessed Book of God, and a book of 
 common prayer, in the hands of a reckless, god- 
 less mutineer, first became blessing and salvation 
 to himself, and then to that degraded class by 
 whom he was surrounded." 
 
 When Dr. WilHam Goodell completed his trans- 
 lation of the Bible into Armenio-Turkish in 1841, 
 he said: "Thus have I been permitted by the 
 goodness of God to dig a well in this distant land, 
 at which milHons may drink." And a like en- 
 thusiasm of hope stirred the heart of Robert Mof- 
 fat to rapture on finishing the translation of the 
 Bible into the language of the Bechuanas. He 
 thus graphically relates his experience: *' I felt it 
 to be an awful thing to translate the Book of God. 
 When I had finished the last verse, I could hardly 
 believe that I was in the world, so difficult was it 
 for me to realize that my work for so many years 
 was completed. A feeling came over me as if I 
 should die. My heart beat like the strokes of a 
 hammer. My emotions found vent by falHng on 
 my knees and thanking God for his grace and 
 goodness in giving me strength to accomplish my 
 task." And the great heart of the sturdy Scotch- 
 
The message Of missions. 171 
 
 man, John G. Paton, became even more fervent at 
 the thought of giving the South Sea Islanders 
 God's blessed Word in their own tongue. To any 
 but the ear of faith, and one acquainted with the 
 mysterious and resistless power of the Word, the 
 conduct of the noble missionary, in striking off the 
 first page of his translation into the Tamil lan- 
 guage, seems the extravagance of an enthusiast. 
 He says: ** Do you think me foolish when I con- 
 fess that I shouted in an ecstasy of joy when the 
 first sheet came from the press all correct? It 
 was about one o'clock in the morning. I was the 
 only white man then on the island, and all the na- 
 tives had been fast asleep for hours. Yet I liter- 
 ally pitched my hat into the air, and danced like a 
 schoolboy round and round that printing press, 
 till I began to think, ' I am losing my reason.' 
 Would it be liken a missionary to be upon my 
 knees, adoring God for the first portion of his 
 blessed Word ever printed in this new language? 
 Friends, bear with me: that was as true worship 
 as was even David's dancing before the ark of 
 God." 
 
 And a no less intelligent and earnest tribute to 
 the power of the Word comes from the Hawaiian 
 Islands. On the occasion of the formal withdrawal 
 of the American Board of Missions from the field. 
 
172 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 turning over the administration of the self-sustain- 
 ing Church to native pastors, whose contributions 
 that year amounted to $30,000, the venerable na- 
 tive missionary, Kanwealola, before a great con- 
 gregation including the royal family, w^ith a copy 
 of the Bible in the Hawaiian language in hand, ut- 
 tered these eloquent words: "Not with powder 
 and ball, and swords and cannon, but with this 
 living Word of God, and his Spirit, do we go forth 
 to conquer the islands for Christ." 
 
 When the translation of the New Testament 
 was ready for Uganda, it was joyfully seized by 
 the expectant natives. A missionary thus writes: 
 ** Talk about sieges, if ever there was a siege, it 
 was yesterda}^; and this morning It seems likely 
 to be renewed tenfold. I mentioned that our ca- 
 noe had come, and I gave out on Sunday that the 
 Gospel of St. Matthew would be sold Monday 
 morning. I was roused up before it was light by 
 the roar of voices, and, after dressing hurriedly, 
 sallied out to see — I had almost said fight. Close 
 to my house is a slight shed, used for cows to stand 
 in in the heat of the day. This we barricaded, 
 keeping the people outside ; but barricades were 
 useless. In came the door, and we thought the 
 whole place would have fallen. In ten minutes all 
 the hundred Gospels were sold." Bishop Tucker 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 1 73 
 
 reports the desire for the Scriptures so great that 
 they had to offer an entire invoice for sale at sev- 
 eral designated places simultaneously. 
 
 And what thrilling personal testimonies to the 
 power of this word come from mission fields ! A 
 marvelous history it would make if the various 
 texts that were used by the Holy Spirit in the con- 
 version of the heathen could be collected. It was 
 the story of the Saviour's agony in the garden, 
 that fell into the heart of a stolid savage named 
 Kajarnack, which won the first Christian convert 
 in Greenland; or, as Dr. Gordon poetically says, 
 he is '' the first bloom of the rose of Sharon ap- 
 pearing in the frozen field of Greenland." 
 
 By such testimonies the faith of the Church is 
 strengthened in the power of the word to redeem 
 all men, and the whole of man. 
 
 Another message of Missions to the Church is 
 this : Civilization is impossible without Christiarii- 
 zation. It is the gospel that civilizes and human- 
 izes. The statue of David Livingstone, at Edin- 
 burgh, is an heroic figure of the great missionary 
 explorer standing with a Bible in one hand, while 
 the other rests upon an ax. That is a magnifi- 
 .cent conception of the true genius of Christianity, 
 and the three agencies of its final triumph : a man, 
 the Bible, and an industrial implement. But an 
 
174 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 industrial implement in an unskilled hand, a hand 
 untrained by the *' man of God " and the ** Word 
 of God," will never pioneer or plant civilization in 
 any land. Dr. Storrs only echoes the '* answ^er- 
 ing voice of history" when he says: "No reli- 
 gion save that of the New Testament can put the 
 moral basis beneath human society and human civ- 
 ilization." Every attempt to civilize without the 
 gospel has proved a disastrous failure. Yet these 
 failures and follies are repeated. And there are 
 some who, as Dr. Gordon says, while the}^ ** be- 
 lieve that the Word of God is the * sword of the 
 Spirit,' are yet tempted to believe that that sword 
 needs civilization as the hilt for grasping it and 
 driving it home." 
 
 Samuel Marsden, the pioneer of New Zealand, 
 in his early missionary career, said that ** civiliza- 
 tion must work in preparation for conversion." 
 After twenty 3^ears he wrote down this very differ- 
 ent but more mature judgment: '* Civilization is 
 not necessary before Christianity. We may give 
 them both simultaneously, if we will; but it will 
 always be found that civilization follows Christian- 
 ity, rather than conversely. If we speak with the 
 poor heathen of his God and the Saviour, he will 
 understand. The rest will come of itself." But 
 concrete examples are more convincing than the 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 1 75 
 
 clearest statements or strongest opinions of most 
 trustworthy witnesses. I recall, therefore, the ex- 
 perimental test made by Bishop Colenso in Africa. 
 Fie selected twelve Zulu lads and took them into 
 his service, using every possible art and influence 
 upon them, except the gospel. Christian teaching 
 was rigidly excluded. When the time expired, 
 every one returned to barbarism, leaving his Eu- 
 ropean clothes behind him. The next day, it is 
 said, the good Bishop went over to the American 
 Mission, and left a note for fifty pounds, with this 
 statement: " You were right, and I was wrong." 
 And even more suggestive is the story told of 
 Hongi, the New Zealand chief, who spent some 
 time in London, and was thought to be quite civi- 
 lized. But on his return to New Zealand, and en- 
 gaging in a tribal w^ar, it is related that '* the first 
 thing he did, after a battle in which he was victo- 
 rious, was to tear out and swallow the right eye of 
 his slain enemy, and to bite into his fluttering heart, 
 while he served hundreds of his foes as food for 
 his victorious army." 
 
 James Calvert, whose life was spent among the 
 Fijians, and who saw those people rise from the 
 degradation of cannibalism to a stage of civiliza- 
 tion that has commanded the attention of the 
 world, made this strong statement: " I have nev- 
 
176 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 er talked with a single man or woman, or with a 
 single people, that your civilization without Chris- 
 tianity has civilized. Wherever there has been 
 the slightest spark of civilization in the South Seas, 
 it has been where the gospel has been preached. 
 Civilization ! The rampart can only be stormed 
 by those who carry the Crosse 
 
 These, and other testimonies that might be gath- 
 ered into a ponderous volume of evidences, all 
 confirm the statement of the great historian, Mr. 
 James A. Froude, who said: *'A11 that we call 
 modern civilization in a sense which deserves the 
 name is the visible expression of the transforming 
 power of the gospel." 
 
 Mr. Huxley gives expression to a despairing sen- 
 timent, in contemplating the outlook of society, 
 when he declared that *' if there is no hope of a 
 large improvement of the condition of the greater 
 part of the human family ... I would hail 
 the advent of some kindly comet which should 
 sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable con- 
 summation." And this is the despair of every 
 non-Christian philosophy or religion in the world. 
 Evil cannot be removed by revolutionary process. 
 There are no potentialities within that, unaided, 
 can work a reformation. Sin cannot be civilized 
 out of the heart and life. James Russell Lowell 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 1 77 
 
 has aptly said: " There is a poison in the sores of 
 Lazarus, against which Dives has no antidote." 
 
 With this marvelous success of evangelism, 
 and its spirit of daring enterprise, we have demon- 
 strated the best method of answering present day 
 unbelief. The proclamation of truth, accompa- 
 nied as it has been in all lands, by signs and won- 
 ders, gives triumphant answer to the boldest skep- 
 ticism. While modern doubt is shifting its point 
 of attack, the faithful preaching of Christ contin- 
 ues to work miracles of grace. And these are an 
 end of argument. There is no appeal from a fact. 
 A redeemed soul is worth more than a volume on 
 apologetics. A livingLazarus, four days dead, is an 
 infallible proof of resurrection power. The "Anal- 
 ogy " of Bishop Butler was a masterful, unanswera- 
 able argument; but the great revival which followed 
 its publication, under the ministry of Whitfield, the 
 Wesleys, and others, with its thousands of spiritual 
 miracles, put to flight the armies of aliens. No 
 charge against the insufficiency of revelation, or the 
 inadequacy of Christian truth, or the inaccuracy 
 of the Christian Scriptures, or the incredibility of 
 Christianity's claims, can stand before the demon- 
 strations of its power — the millions in all lands, 
 redeemed thereby, all testifying that they do know. 
 
 This indicates the true apologetic function of the 
 12 
 
178 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 preacher. He should not make the pulpit a pro- 
 fessor's chair, nor follow lines of discussion before 
 an ordinary congregation that belong to the pages 
 of a Review. He more completely refutes infidelity 
 by preaching Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
 
 Modern Missions have confirmed the faith of the 
 Church in man'' s common nature, in the unity of 
 the race. The readiness with which all races, un- 
 der their multifarious civilizations, apprehend the 
 gospel, and the identity of its effects upon person- 
 al and community life, reenforce the doctrine of 
 man's common origin. '' God has made of one 
 blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of 
 the earth." The distinguished Principal of Man- 
 chester College thus clearly states the doctrine in 
 a singularly felicitous sentence: " If men differ in 
 color, in blood, and in speech, they may still rec- 
 ognize common manhood, but as a matter of his- 
 tory common manhood has never been recognized 
 save through common religion, and the only com- 
 mon religion which has m.ade men recognize their 
 common humanity has been that of Christ." 
 
 Christianity has but one law of life, and one 
 standard of moral judgment for the high and the 
 low, the wise and the unwise, the Greek and the 
 barbarian. In intellectual merit there are wide- 
 distinctions, but the natural conscience of the race 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 1 79 
 
 is about on the same level. The same standard is 
 used in the moral appraisement of Anglo-Saxon 
 and Fijian. Before the moral law there is no dis- 
 tinction of race, age, or nationality. Mr. Watkin- 
 son, in his Fernly Lecture, uses this language: 
 *' In the vast congregation assembled on Sabbath 
 morning in the church of God throughout the 
 earth all kinds of distinctions exist — distinctions of 
 intellectual power, of culture, rank, wealth, age, 
 country, calling. But when the Commandments 
 are read, all these distinctions are ignored; a ma- 
 jestic standard of conduct is exalted with stern sim- 
 plicity, and by this standard all alike must test 
 themselves in the presence of God ; no distinction 
 exists except that of moral good and evil." 
 
 Now out of this unity comes moral fraternity. 
 A common humanity necessitates a universal broth- 
 erhood. Of the witness of Christian Missions to 
 this marvelous fact of the Christian religion, Dr. 
 Fairbairn says: '* It has made the civilized man 
 feel that he and the savage are of one blood, that 
 the savage is as dear to God as he is, has as vast 
 capabilities, as boundless promise of being as his 
 own nature can boast. The religion that has cre- 
 ated this sense of kinship and duty is the true 
 mother of man's faith in human fraternity." 
 
 Modern Missions have led the Church to an 
 
1 8o M ODERK MISSIONS . 
 
 awakened study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 
 An Anglican writer says: *' The theology of the 
 third Person is a department of sacred science in 
 which the Church of England is confessedly 
 weak." Dr. Pope says: *' Indistinctness has pre- 
 vailed on this subject in much of the theology of 
 earlier and later times. The offices of the Holy 
 Ghost have been obscured by exaggerations of sac- 
 ramental efficiency, and his personal relations to 
 the believer have been undervalued in many per- 
 sons." Smeaton, an English writer, says: *' Ger- 
 many seems to have abandoned this whole field, 
 as if it were no longer worthy of cultivation. 
 There is not a single work in the whole compass 
 of German literature on the office and work of the 
 Holy Spirit, if we except the unfinished work of 
 Kahnis." 
 
 The mighty signs of the century have brought 
 the Church back to a new interpretation of the 
 presence and office of the Holy Spirit. The mira- 
 cles of the mission field — the Pentecosts reported 
 from every land — have said to the Church: '* This 
 is that which hath been spoken by the prophet 
 Joel; And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I 
 will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh: 
 and it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the 
 name of the Lord shall be saved," 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. l8l 
 
 These show that the bestowment of the Spirit is 
 not the gift of a priest, but the act of God. And 
 it is reasserted and abundantly illustrated in the 
 history of Missions. The debased elevated, can- 
 nibals cured of their taste for human flesh, souls 
 redeemed, nations transformed, attest the presence 
 and omnipotence of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 To ascribe these to civilization, evolution, etc., 
 v^ould be to " blaspheme against the Holy Ghost." 
 The history of Missions is the history of the Holy 
 Spirit in the Church. 
 
 The Church has been given a clearer and w^ider 
 recognition of the Lordshif of Jesus Christ, 
 
 The history of Missions has been a successive 
 unfolding and unveiling of the Son of God in his 
 power and glory, a series of epiphanies of the 
 risen and reigning Lord. His presence has been 
 the one distinctive and glorious fact in the prog- 
 ress of the century. And, as Bishop Westcott 
 says: " If anything can make us feel the nobility 
 of life, it must be that in Christ we are enabled to 
 recognize in the whole course of history a majestic 
 spectacle of the action of divine love in which no 
 failures and no willfulness of men can obliterate 
 the signs and the promises of a presence of God." 
 
 The fuller recognition of Christ's kingship is a 
 great gain. It means more perfect obedience, 
 
l82 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 readier service, more cheerful endurance, and 
 more trustful waiting. Attention has been called 
 to the significant fact that the first word uttered by 
 the awakened Saul of Tarsus was '"Lord," and 
 that word was the keynote of his splendid apos- 
 tolic career. 
 
 Christ's ministry is a -personal ministry. His 
 government is a personal government. He takes 
 personal command of the Church, and is himself 
 the Great Captain of the world's salvation. '*Lo, 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world." His immediate and constant presence is 
 pledged. Of the Acts of the Apostles Canon Norris 
 has said: '' Surely one great purpose of this book 
 is to teach us to recognize the personal govern- 
 ment of Christ throughout his Church's history. 
 Of that Church history of eighteen centuries, could 
 it be written truly, this record of the first thirty 
 years would be seen to be but a specimen page — 
 the first of many pages, of which the last is not 
 yet written. When the last page comes to be writ- 
 ten, then shall we understand, as clearly as the 
 writer of this page understood, the fulfillment of 
 Christ's promise: ' Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world.' The history of 
 Missions give ' many infallible proofs ' of Christ's 
 presence and personal administration." 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 183 
 
 Dr. Gordon thus happily states the doctrine of 
 our Lord's personal and perpetual presence in the 
 Church: " By Christ's ascent to the Father, and 
 the Spirit's descent upon the disciples, the Church 
 exchanged the presence of the Lord for his omni- 
 presence ; so that whereas in the time of his man- 
 ifestation in the flesh he could be present only in 
 one place at a time, in the time of his manifesta- 
 tion in the Spirit he could be present in all places 
 at all times." Really the promise, " Lo, I am 
 with you alway, even unto the end of the world, '^ 
 is without significance, if not an assurance that 
 in an exceptional sense, in a very special manner, 
 the omnipresent Lord will accompany the brave 
 souls who go out in his name to disciple the na- 
 tions." 
 
 Modern Missions have taught the Church new 
 lessons in the doctrine and duty of -prayer. Upon 
 no other duty and privilege do the Scriptures be- 
 stow so frequent mention and lay such sacred em- 
 phasis. It is the most potential factor in personal 
 life and the most efficient aid in spiritual service. 
 To it the largest promises are made. We are as- 
 sured that the divine response will only be meas- 
 ured by our asking. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, a veteran 
 missionary, says: "When Christians are knock- 
 ing God is always opening doors." 
 
184 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Missions have certainly intensified and fostered 
 a spirit of -pi-ayer. Indeed, the history of modern 
 Missions is the history of answered prayer. The 
 stupendous undertaking itself — in view of the vast- 
 ness of the field, and the difficulties to be removed 
 — has thrown the Church back upon God. There 
 has been more simple reliance upon a divine arm, 
 and more importunate pleading into the divine ear. 
 It has been said that the published appeal of Jona- 
 than Edwards for ** a visible union of God's peo- 
 ple in extraordinary pra3^er " was itself a turning 
 point in modern history, especially in modern Mis- 
 sions. Dr. Pierson states the inspiring fact of 
 history in this terse and striking phrase: ** There 
 has been no outpouring of the Spirit without a pre- 
 vious outpouring of souls to God." The new era 
 of world-wide Missions was born of an awakened 
 spirit of earnest prayer. Over a Christian and 
 missionary *' Home " for young English- American 
 women in Paris are these words: '^ Asked of God 
 August II, 18 y 4.; Given to God March g, iSgs'' 
 What thrilling eloquence in those brief words ! 
 But such inscriptions might be placed over a thou- 
 sand doorways in the mission fields of the world. 
 
 From Tahite there comes an inspiring illustra- 
 tion: For sixteen years there seemed to be no 
 promise of that field, no return for the expendi- 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 185 
 
 ture of missionary labor. In that time of faithful 
 toil and patient waiting there was but one conver- 
 sion. Tribal wars raged, horrid rites were ob- 
 served, disgusting idolatries were almost universal. 
 The directors of the London Missionary Society 
 were discussing the advisability of withdrawing 
 their forces, and opening work in a more prom- 
 ising field. But some vigorously opposed abandon- 
 ment, believed that the Holy Spirit would yet give 
 them rich reward, and supported their faith by 
 largely increased personal subscriptions. A season 
 of prayer was appointed. Letters of encourage- 
 ment were sent to the missionaries, in connection 
 with which this remarkable coincidence, or rather 
 providence, occurred: ^^ While the vessel was on 
 her way to carry these letters to Tahiti another 
 ship -passed her in mid ocean which conveyed to 
 Great Britain news that idolatry was overthrown 
 in the island^ and bore hack to London the rejected 
 idols of the people. What a striking fulfillment of 
 the divine promise: '' Before they call, I will an- 
 swer ; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear ! " 
 And instances even more remarkable might be 
 multiplied a thousandfold. 
 
 Missions have enriched the spiritual life of the 
 Church. It deepens as it widens. An aggressive 
 missionary zeal is necessary to conserve spiritual 
 
l86 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 life at home. Wonderful words were those of the 
 venerable Dr. Duff, Scotland's missionary hero: 
 "The Church that ceases to evangehze will soon 
 cease to be evangelical." They accord perfectly 
 with that obverse statement of Prof. Bowne, in his 
 «' Logic of Religious Belief : " " Within the Church 
 also, periods of rationalizing have always been pe- 
 riods of dearth and death." And both are sug- 
 gestive comments on the law of spiritual develop- 
 ment stated by our Lord himself: '* To every one 
 that hath shall be given, and he shall have abun- 
 dance : but from him that hath not shall be taken 
 away even that which he hath." And all history 
 bears testimony to that momentous declaration. 
 The evangelizing spirit must be kept warm and 
 glowing, or indifferentism and deadness will en- 
 sue. A rationalizing pulpit preaches a lifeless 
 gospel. 
 
 Those are suggestive and true words of the 
 great Chillingworth : "Christianity is a strange 
 commodity. The more you export, the more you 
 have for home consumption." It is a law of spir- 
 itual life that he that giveth shall receive more 
 abundantly, that "he that watereth shall be wa- 
 tered also himself." 
 
 The great Dr. Andrew Fuller, as quoted by Dr. 
 John Harris, thus wrote to a friend: 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 187 
 
 There was a period of my ministry marked by the most 
 pointed systematic effort to comfort my serious people; but 
 the more I tried to comfort them the more they complained of 
 doubts and darkness. ... I knew not what to do nor what 
 to think, for I had done my best to comfort the mourners in 
 Zion. At this time it pleased God to direct my attention to the 
 claims of the perishing heathen in India. I felt that we had 
 been living for ourselves, and not caring for their souls. I 
 spoke as I felt. My serious people wondered and wept over 
 their past inattention to the subject. . . . We met and 
 prayed for the heathen; met and considered what could be 
 done among ourselves for them; met and did what we could. 
 And, while all this was going on, the lamentations ceased. The 
 sad became cheerful, and the desponding calm. And I, instead 
 of having to study how to comfort my flock, was myself com- 
 forted by them. They were drawn out of themselves. God 
 blessed them while they tried to be a blessing. 
 
 Missions have demonstrated the great principle 
 of Christ's kingdom, so clearly enunciated, that 
 we get from the Lord as we give to the Lord. 
 "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth." 
 This is not a premium upon a low, commercial 
 aspect of the gospel, no assurance that an in- 
 vested penny will return us a pound; but the 
 gain comes in a larger manhood and in richer 
 and increased spiritual life, though history testi- 
 fies that an investment in Missions has brought 
 large commercial returns. The mission to the 
 Sandwich Islands is said to have cost $5,000,000, 
 while the trade with that country amounted to 
 
1 88 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 $16,000,000 in six years — making the interest for 
 two years exceed the entire principal. The great 
 gain is in enlarged ^ower at home. 
 
 A Church cannot live on its history. Serene 
 contentment with the past is sure prophecy of de- 
 cadence in the future. It emasculates spiritual 
 manhood, weakens the inspirations of constraining 
 love. What a striking illustration have we in the 
 Copts of Egypt! Once numerous and powerful, 
 standing bravely against Mohammedan cruelty and 
 tyranny — adding some of the noblest names to the 
 martyrology of the centuries — they have ceased 
 to be aggressive, complacently satisfied with the 
 past, until they have grown weak in numbers 
 and weaker in all the elements of Christian life 
 and character. 
 
 The Church lives as it imparts life. It strength- 
 ens as it expands. Its life deepens as it spreads. 
 ''A Christianity which is not aggressive becomes 
 regressive. A state of inaction sinks into a state 
 of degeneration. A reclining Church soon be- 
 comes a declining Church." And again it has 
 been said that *'a Christianity which simply nour- 
 ishes itself soon loses its power." 
 
 With the extension of Christ's kingdom into the 
 distant regions and among the most degraded peo- 
 ples, additional emphasis is given to another great 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. 1 89 
 
 Christian truth, that service to man is consecration 
 to God; and that really the only way to serve God 
 is to help man. '' He serves Jesus best who serves 
 the neediest of men in their greatest need," are 
 the discriminating words of a great thinker. The 
 divine exhortation is: "Bear ye one another's 
 burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." And 
 the law of Christ was eminently the law of his own 
 life. It inspired his every parable, it wrought his 
 every miracle, it directed his every journey, it 
 commanded his every thought, it consumed his 
 every energy, it accomplished his tragic death, 
 and ultimated in his glorious resurrection and 
 transcendent, perpetual priesthood. God, who is 
 self-existent and infinite in his perfections, has no 
 lack that we can supply, has no need that ap- 
 peals to our sympathy. But the needs of men are 
 his needs, their sorrows are his heaviest burdens. 
 By ministering to them, we serve God. 
 
 And how this law of service dignifies human 
 life and glorifies our Christian religions. Bud- 
 dha's boast was: '* I am no man's servant." 
 Jesus said: *' If any man would be great among 
 you, let him be the servant of all." As illustra- 
 tive of this Christly spirit, how beautiful is that 
 story of Baron Von Welz, the forerunner of 
 Swartz and Carey, who, renouncing his titles and 
 
190 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 estates, went to Dutch Guiana, and after a time 
 filled a missionary's grave. He said: *'What to 
 me is the title * well born,' when I am one born 
 again in Christ? What is to me the title * lord,' 
 when I desire to be a servant of Christ? What to 
 me to be called * your Grace,' when I have need of 
 God's grace, help, and succor? All these vanities 
 I will away with, and everything besides I will lay 
 at the feet of Jesus, my dearest Lord, that I may 
 have no hindrance in serving him aright?" 
 
 The history of Christian Missions has been a di- 
 vine illustration of this great law of life. 
 
 Missions have brought the Christian world into 
 closer union. A distinguishing and happy feature 
 of modern Church life — '*a sign alike of rejuve- 
 nescence and of ripening" — is the awakened in- 
 stinct of oneness among the Churches of Christ, 
 and the articulate craving for, and the earnest feel- 
 ing after, some feasible manifestation of that one- 
 ness in the face of an unbelieving, warring world. 
 Children of the same Father, brethren of the same 
 Elder Brother, with the same spiritual blood flow- 
 ing in our veins, animated by the same impulse, 
 journeying to the same home, temples of the same 
 Holy Ghost, we have fellowship with each other. 
 This fellowship oversteps the narrow bounds of 
 land and sea, and overleaps the lines of race, sect, 
 
THE MESSAGE OF MISSIONS. I9I 
 
 party, and nation. It merges " the clan into the 
 country," the race into the oneness of the world's 
 blessed brotherhood, and the sect into the univer- 
 sal kingdom of our one Lord and Saviour. And 
 with this all-embracing and constraining love there 
 comes a sense of divine indebtedness to the wide 
 ^orld — to Greek and barbarian, to the wise and 
 unwise. 
 
 To this growing spirit of Christian comity and 
 unity the modern missionary movement has made 
 the largest contribution. In the presence of a 
 common foe Christians stand close together. Mi- 
 nor differences are forgotten, points of agreement 
 are multiplied and emphasized, and the unity for 
 which our Lord prayed is seen to be the essential 
 condition of the world's evangeHzation. His 
 prayer, '' That they all may be one," was in order 
 ''that the world may believe that thou hast sent 
 me." 
 
LECTURE VL 
 
 LESSONS FROM SOME MASTER MISSION- 
 ARIES. 
 13 
 
VI. 
 
 LESSON'S FROM SOME A/ASTER MISSIONARIES. 
 
 THE characters of the apostles are as instructive 
 as their acts; their Hves, as inspiring as their 
 labors. What God wrought in them is as impor- 
 tant a lesson as what God wrought through them. 
 We want to see the messenger while we hear his 
 message, and the character of the messenger is 
 often the best commentary on his message. So, 
 back of the Acts, marvelous though they be in our 
 eyes, we fix most eager gaze on the apostles them- 
 selves. And as we study the men we better un- 
 derstand their wonderful words and mighty deeds. 
 Probably the grandest product of the first Chris- 
 tian century was the majestic and many-sided 
 character of the apostle Paul. Everywhere, his 
 words and works — his inspiring sermons and apos- 
 tolic achievements — are overshadowed by his tow- 
 ering personality. We trace with intense eager- 
 ness the track of his missionary movements, and 
 recount with thrilling interest the marvelous inci- 
 dents of his providential history, but never for a 
 moment lose sight of the massive figure of the 
 masterful leader himself. And all the elements in 
 
196 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 that great character are of divine development. 
 God developed him, while he used him. He is 
 the Holy Spirit's product of a missionary career. 
 
 So modern Missions, under the administration 
 of that same Holy Spirit, have developed great 
 characters. While the heathen have been re- 
 deemed, the laborers have been ennobled. The 
 message has transfigured the messengers. The 
 great field, which is the world, has not only pro- 
 duced sheaves of heathen converts, but harvests 
 of heroic character and apostolic achievement. 
 The workers have been proven while the work has 
 prospered. It is the aim of this lecture to study 
 the characters and careers of some pioneer mis- 
 sionaries of the century, and try to ascertain the 
 lessons that they were designed to teach the 
 Church. 
 
 Renan said that ** the true miracle of nascent 
 Christianity was the spirit of Jesus strongly grafted 
 into his disciples: the spirit of sweetness, of self- 
 abnegation, of forgetfulness of the present; that 
 unique pursuit of inward joy which kills ambi- 
 tion." That spirit, grafted into Christians of this 
 day and in every land, is perpetuating «*the true 
 miracle of nascent Christianity." And in no single 
 class of Christians is that spirit so '* strongly 
 grafted," and by whom '* the true miracle of nas- 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. I97 
 
 cent Christianity" is more wonderfully wrought 
 than the missionaries of the various fields. 
 
 Mr. Lecky, in his '' History of European Mor- 
 als," has said: " One great cause of the success 
 of Christianity was that it produced more heroic 
 actions and formed more upright men than any 
 other creed." And to this crowning demonstra- 
 tion of Christianity modern missionaries have made 
 the wealthiest contributions. Their names have 
 become the synonyms for the highest virtues and 
 the noblest achievements. For lofty character, 
 undaunted courage, quenchless zeal, entire self- 
 abnegation, and perfect consecration to one su- 
 preme beneficent purpose, there are no nobler 
 illustrations than the men and women of moral 
 greatness and apostolic devotion, whose lives have 
 been made a freewill offering to the Christless na- 
 tions. Dr. John Harris did not hesitate to say 
 that they had *' served and saved the character of 
 the Church." Dr. Lawrence, a high authority, 
 who spent years in a personal study of mission 
 fields, felt constrained to say that **the consecra- 
 ted list of the heroes of faith and the saints of love 
 whose light shines most conspicuous in their march 
 across the lands and the ages is more thronged 
 with the names of missionaries than with those of 
 any other class." And having m3^self inspected 
 
198 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 the work in many lands, I most heartily agree 
 with the suggestion that the work itself brings com- 
 pensation and blessings in the way of character 
 and grace which there is no space to mention. 
 Indeed, Theodore Parker went so far as to say 
 that, '* Had the whole missionary work resulted in 
 nothing more than the building up of such a char- 
 acter as Adoniram Judson, it would be worth all 
 it has cost." 
 
 Religion is tested not only by the ** fitness of its 
 conceptions," but by '•Hhe force of its msfira- 
 tions'^ Behind the great ideas — the doctrines — 
 the truths of religion must be its spirit — its spirit 
 that throbs with life and has the quiver of power. 
 This is the measure of its value and virtue as a re- 
 forming and transforming power. Not every cor- 
 rect conception has the force of an inspiration; 
 not every sublime truth stirs the soul to action. 
 They touch no emotions, they awaken no desires, 
 they compel no heroic endeavor. The doctrine 
 of gravity is absolutely true and universally ac- 
 cepted, but has no power to kindle enthusiasm. 
 So there are religions that are avowedly limited, 
 with no spirit of enterprise or power of propaga- 
 tion; and yet others that seek universal exten- 
 sion, but have exhausted the force of their inspi- 
 ration. 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. I99 
 
 But Christianity is essentially missionary. Its 
 very words are spirit and life. It not only grati- 
 fies and satisfies; it inspires. We no sooner em- 
 brace it than we have a joyous impulse to commu- 
 nicate it. Interest in others is enkindled. And 
 the growth of this spiritual concern for the unsaved 
 is the measure of our religion. The love that 
 prompted our Lord's coming constrains our go- 
 ing. Under its impulse we proclaim the truth he 
 revealed, we propagate what he preached, we 
 continue what he began. On the contrary, un- 
 concern for others is an impeachment of the Chris- 
 tian's faith, an abrogation of the Christian's com- 
 mission, a reversal of his sacred mission. So a 
 true religion must not only teach us what to do, 
 but implant the inspiring force which will create 
 the desire to do it. ** Cold illumination is not 
 enough; the fire must be burning upon the altar." 
 Religion must inspire as well as instruct. 
 
 Now, I do not think it too much to say that the 
 inspiring ioYCQ^ of Christianity has been most strik- 
 ingly displayed in the lives and labors of Chris- 
 tian missionaries. Their tender solicitude for the 
 Christless millions, their divine eagerness to fly to 
 their relief, their unremitting labors to arouse the 
 conscience of the Church, their sublime courage 
 which no dangers could arrest, their heroic forti- 
 
:iOO MODERK MISSIONS. 
 
 tude which no privations could exhaust, and their 
 conquering faith which the shadows of the grave 
 could not obscure, are the world's grandest ex- 
 pression of the dynamics of Christianity. No dis- 
 appointments or difficulties have for a moment 
 checked their efforts or curbed their restless spir- 
 its. We discern the inspiring force in St. Paul's 
 life as we follow him in his tireless missionary 
 wanderings on land and sea. Amid poverty and 
 persecution he labored with unremitting zeal to 
 bring men to Jesus. So stirred was his great soul 
 by this inspiring force, and so enraptured by the 
 vision of the field, that he arose and exclaimed: 
 *'/ ca7i but 'preach.^'' The full heart and fired 
 brain had to speak. The unlocked fountain would 
 flow, even if it had to cut a channel for the ma- 
 jestic sweep of its liberated waters. Again he 
 said, as if in seeming explanation of his fervent 
 and restless zeal: ** The love of Christ constraineth 
 me." And when opposition grew more intense, 
 and the storm of persecution began to beat upon 
 him in pitiless fury, sustained by an unshaken pur- 
 pose and impelled by this divine desire for the 
 world's redemption, he cried out, above the roar 
 of the tempest: ** None of these things move me.'' 
 It was intimate acquaintance with his Lord, and 
 profound, prayerful study of the desperate needs 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 201 
 
 of the world, that lifted the great apostle into mas- 
 terful leadership and fired his soul with the spirit 
 of glorious conquest. And that same sublime pas- 
 sion, that same disinterested love of humanity, 
 has been reincarnated in the missionary heroes 
 and heroines of this missionary century. To all 
 lands they have eagerly gone in this Pauline spirit, 
 attempting great things for God and expecting 
 great things from God. 
 
 So Christlike have been their lives and so divine 
 the virtues they have illustrated that the names of 
 great missionaries have become synonymous with 
 certain Christian graces. The eloquent Dr. John 
 Harris thus describes the characteristics of some 
 noble names: 
 
 Eliot, Zeisberger, and Brainerd are but other names for in- 
 defatigable labor and enterprise, and self-consviming ardor. 
 We think of Swartz, and the might of character. The ac- 
 complished youth, panting to live for Christ in distant lands, 
 but derided as a visionary, thinks of Martyn and takes courage. 
 Pious and disinterested poverty reads of Carey, and emerges 
 from its humble cell to perform labors vv^hich excite the devout 
 thanksgiving of the Church. Faith looks at the origin and 
 early history of the Moravian Mission, and, undismayed by the 
 scantiness of her human resources, girds up the loins of her 
 mind, and addresses herself to her task afresh. Their biogra- 
 phy is creating for the Church a literature of its own. Their 
 example is reproducing itself in a second race. To the influ- 
 ence of Brainerd the Church is chiefly indebted, under God, 
 
202 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 for the labors of Milne. The pious father gives their names to 
 his sons as a title of excellence and an incitement to attain it. 
 Their zeal for God has kindled a fire at which numbers are 
 lighting their torches. And thus, in various ways, have they 
 given ardor to holy activity, and multiplied the power of truth; 
 while the Church below unites with the Church above in glo- 
 rifying God in them. 
 
 One assurance has been given fresh emphasis 
 in the history of modern Missions : that the Holy 
 Spirit as distinctly calls and anoints for service to- 
 day as he designated and sent forth apostles in the 
 early Church. The history of apostolic Missions 
 opens with these words: "The Holy Ghost said, 
 Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work 
 whereunto I have called them. ... So they, 
 being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto 
 Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.'' 
 And in the same way and by the same authorita- 
 tive voice the Holy Ghost has separated and sent 
 forth missionaries into the world. Barnabas and 
 Saul were not more divinely anointed and appoint- 
 ed than were Coke and Carey and Calvert. With- 
 out discussing the nature of this call and the man- 
 ner of its communication, without inquiring into 
 the * ' mysterious interworkings of the Spirit of 
 God and the spirit of man," I simply state the 
 fact that the Holy Ghost's oversight of the Church 
 is in nothing more manifest than in his distinct 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 203 
 
 designation and sending forth of laborers in the 
 harvest fields of the world. 
 
 Another fact attests the purpose and presence 
 of the Holy Spirit in modern Missions : the marvel- 
 ous adaptation of the workers to the work. 
 
 It is most instructive to study the individualities 
 and gifts of the special agents God employed in 
 the great crises of the world's history. The qual- 
 ities and characteristics of the men as much indi- 
 cate the purpose of God as their divine call to 
 service. When the abominations of Baal worship 
 were to be overthrown and the tyrannous rule of 
 Ahab broken, God needed a prophet of fire and 
 terror; so he went into the wilderness for Eli- 
 jah the Tishbite, and clothed him with majesty 
 almost divine. But after the prophet of woe, he 
 needed a pastor, after the destroyer a builder, 
 after the shiver of earthquake and the sweep of 
 storm and fire he wanted a " still small voice;" so 
 he threw a mantle over the shoulders of the gentle 
 Elisha, and sent him out to comfort the people. 
 And when the fullness of time had come, when 
 immediate preparation was to be made for the 
 coming of the King, God needed not '* a reed 
 shaken by the wind," not *' a man clothed in soft 
 raiment," but a man of decision, of hardihood, 
 of lofty courage; so he called John the Baptist 
 
204 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 and sent him out as '* a voice crying in the wilder- 
 ness." And that same marvelous discrimination 
 of the Holy Spirit has been abundantly illustrated 
 in the call and appointment of modern missionaries. 
 It was not by accident that Adoniram Judson 
 went to Burmah, instead of to India, as he had first 
 planned. In him were the very qualities needed 
 for planting the gospel and founding the Church 
 in the far-off land. And how perfectly adapted 
 was William Carey to the stupendous task assigned 
 him by the Holy Spirit in Northern India ! A man 
 of less steady nerve would have yielded to fierce 
 opposition, and a heart of less heroic purpose 
 would have gone down under the strain of hope- 
 less waiting. And by his marvelous power of ac- 
 quiring language he soon laid the foundations for 
 a Christian literature in India, and compelled the 
 East India Company, which at first refused him 
 civil protection, to call him to the professorship of 
 Sanskrit in the University of Calcutta. In every 
 feature of his character there was a special pur- 
 pose, and every event of his life was a divine prov- 
 idence. And so of Morrison in China, and Mof- 
 fat in Africa, and John Williams in the South 
 Seas, and Calvert in Fiji, and Mackay in Uganda, 
 and hundreds of others whose names and worthy 
 deeds are written in the chronicles of the skies. 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 205 
 
 And modern missionaries have shown the Christ 
 spirit in their eagerness to serve God's neediest 
 children in their greatest need. Paul, the model 
 missionary, gives us the inspiring motive of his 
 wonderful career in these words, addressed to the 
 Church at Rome: '*Yea, so have I strived to 
 preach the gospel, 7iot where Christ was named ^ 
 lest I should build upon another man's foundation; 
 but as it is written, To whom he was not spoken 
 of, they shall see: and they that have not heard 
 shall understand." He had a divine impatience 
 to save the lost. His ministry was to the most 
 needy, those to *' whom Christ was not named." 
 The more desperate and neglected their condition, 
 the tenderer was his solicitude, and the more in- 
 tense his desire for their relief. **TJie wide un- 
 filled provinces of his apostolate ever called 
 him on." 
 
 That example has been emulated in every mis- 
 sion field. Illustrations might be given by the 
 thousand of those who were not in the least behind 
 the great apostle in consuming zeal for the lowliest. 
 Robert Morrison, the apostle of China, offered 
 this prayer: ** My desire is, O Lord, to engage 
 where laborers are most wanted." William Milne, 
 twice rejected as a missionary, asked to be allowed 
 to accompany Dr. Morrison to China as his serv- 
 
2o6 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 ant. He became a great missionary, and is spoken 
 of in history as '' that excellent man, whose talents 
 were surprising, whose labors were incessant, 
 whose whole life was devoted to his Saviour/' 
 Pao, who became the apostle of the island of Lifu, 
 was landed upon Mare, forty miles away. When 
 he saw the vessel sailing away, and impatient of 
 delay in reaching his field, he cried aloud: *'Do 
 not I know about God? O, let me go and tell the 
 heathen what I know!" Then, refusing to await 
 the return of the ship, he sprang into a canoe, and 
 with a Bible in one hand and a paddle in the other 
 **shot like an arrow over the crested wave of a 
 dangerous sea." With one companion, he reached 
 the island in safety, and began his evangelistic 
 work. In twelve years cannibals were civilized, 
 whole villages burned their idols, and nine thou- 
 sand persons professed faith in the Son of God. 
 And hundreds of others have shown like heroic 
 purpose to go down into the depths of the world's 
 sorest need. 
 
 The Czarina of Russia, widow of the late Em- 
 peror, some years before his death, uttered words 
 that contain a beautiful lesson. In speaking of 
 the constant peril of the Czar's life, she said: ** I 
 am thankful to the Nihilists for one thing. They 
 have made me love my husband dearly. Our home 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 207 
 
 life has become so different since I began to look 
 upon him as though he were under sentence of 
 death. You can't think how deeply this menaced 
 state attaches me to him/' Anxiety for his per- 
 sonal safety, and knowledge of the fact that bitter 
 malignity shadowed his every footstep, and ex- 
 hausted all human and inhuman ingenuity to ac- 
 complish his death, awoke every secret and latent 
 sentiment of her heart toward him. It opened an 
 undiscovered fountain of affection, and made the 
 indifferent bride a tender, watchful, loving com- 
 panion. She became to him more a wife than a 
 queen. 
 
 So peril increases attachment. It awakens and 
 displays the abandon of love. And this is true in 
 things spiritual. The soul's danger intensifies con- 
 cern. It was this that made Jeremiah a prophet of 
 tears. The dreadful sins of Israel, and the doom 
 which he knew was impending, almost broke his 
 sympathetic heart. In his agony of anxiety he 
 cried out: ^' Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there 
 no physician there?" And it is this knowledge of 
 the degradation and doom of heathen peoples that 
 has written the brilliant history of modern mission- 
 ar}^ heroism. 
 
 Missionaries have given the Church some new 
 lessons in -personal consecration. They have illus- 
 
208 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 trated what Paul meant when he said: ** For me 
 to live is Christ." Count Zinzendorf, the head of 
 the Moravian Church, said: 'M have but one pas- 
 sion, and that is He, only He." Henry Martyn, 
 who fell into an early missionary grave, a sacrifice 
 to his consuming zeal, said: *' I see no business 
 in life but the work of Jesus Christ, neither do I 
 desire any employment to all eternity but his serv- 
 ice." A Moravian missionary sold himself into 
 slavery that he might preach the gospel more ef- 
 fectively to the slaves. "That is what incarna- 
 tion means," says a distinguished writer. And no 
 apostle of all the ages has ever exhibited a spirit 
 of more perfect self-abnegation than that saintly 
 missionary in India, who uttered this prayer: '* O 
 Lord, if thou canst not make me a soul-winner 
 here, set me aside from this calling, and appoint 
 others who will save these millions." Such self- 
 debasement in order to the redemption of the na- 
 tions demonstrates the fact, as the author of 
 " Ecce Homo ! " happily phrases it, that *' the verb 
 to love really has an imperative mood." 
 
 A missionary to the Dark Continent gave utter- 
 ance to this noble sentiment: *' I think it is with 
 African Missions as with the building of a great 
 bridge. You know how many stones have to be 
 buried in the earth, all unseen, for a foundation. 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 2O9 
 
 If Christ wants me to be one of the unseen stones, 
 lying in an African grave, I am content." 
 
 So perfect has been the consecration of these 
 later apostles, and so obedient their ardent spirits, 
 that they have readily discerned a Providence in 
 the most discouraging events in their lives. They 
 have found in a seeming disaster the divine assur- 
 ance of speedier and grander victory by another 
 line of battle and a different character of cam- 
 paign. The humble Moravians thus interpreted 
 their persecutions and consequent dispersion. 
 They said: '* If we have been cast out and ren- 
 dered homeless, it must be by the divine will that 
 we shall become ambassadors for the Master, who 
 had not where to lay his head." And so with 
 ready and cheerful obedience they have gone to 
 the ends of the earth. Count Zinzendorf once 
 said to a young Moravian Christian: ** Will you 
 go to Greenland?" *'Yes." ''When?" ''To- 
 morrow, if the shoemaker can finish the boots I 
 have ordered." 
 
 Another characteristic of missionary consecra- 
 tion is the joy of service. Constraining love be- 
 comes a sustaining grace. Labor is not weariness, 
 burdens seem light, and the joy of service elimi- 
 nates every element of sacrifice. Brainerd so 
 loved the heathen that without their salvation 
 14 
 
2IO MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 nothing could make him happy. James Calvert, 
 though in labors abundant and perils oft among 
 the cannibals of Fiji, said: '' We had no night of 
 toil; God was with us from the first, and all 
 along." Dr. John Talmage, of China, who re- 
 cently died after more than forty-five years of 
 service, said: '* The missionary of Christ knows 
 no sacrifice. His work is all joy, nothing but joy." 
 Mackay, who has been called the *' St. Paul of 
 Uganda," wrote these words, which ought to in- 
 spire in us a deeper consecration to God: *'I 
 don't consider it a self-sacrifice, as some count it, 
 to come here as a pioneer of Christ and civiliza- 
 tion. I would not exchange my place for all the 
 world. A powerful race here is to be won for 
 Christ, men are to be brought to love God and 
 one another, and in order to do that, institutions 
 that have lasted for ages are to be uprooted, and 
 wisdom has to be implanted. Who would not 
 give his life for such a noble work as that? " 
 
 On October 7, 1805, Carey, Marshman, and 
 Ward drew their famous '* Form of Agreement," 
 sometimes called ** Carey's Covenant," which ev- 
 idences their apostolic purpose and singular con- 
 secration. It seems to have been born from above 
 — was inspired by the Holy Ghost. Dr. George 
 Smith, the historian of Missions, says that it '* em- 
 
LVSSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 211 
 
 bodies the divine principles of all Protestant scrip- 
 tural Missions, and is still a manual to be daily 
 pondered by every missionary, g.nd by every 
 Church and society which may send a missionary 
 forth." Once a year it was publicly read in every 
 station, as a reminder of missionary vows and an 
 occasion for their renewal. As has been said, 
 this solemn compact sounds like an apostolic doc- 
 ument; 
 
 It is absolutely necessary 
 
 1. That we set an infinite value upon immortal souls. 
 
 2. That we gain all information of the snares and delusions 
 in which these heathen are held. 
 
 3. That we abstain from all those things which would in- 
 crease their prejudices against the gospel. 
 
 4. That we watch all opportunities for doing good. 
 
 5. That we keep to the example of Paul, and make the 
 great subject of our preaching Christ the crucified. 
 
 6. That the natives should have an entire confidence in us 
 and feel quite at home in our company. 
 
 7. That we build up and watch over the souls that may be 
 gathered. 
 
 8. That we form our native brethren to usefulness, foster- 
 ing every kind of genius and cherishing every gift and grace 
 in them, especially advising the native churches to choose 
 their own pastors and deacons from among their own coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 9. That we labor with all our might in forwarding transla- 
 tions of the sacred Scriptures in the languages of India. 
 
 10. That we establish native free schools, and recommend 
 these establishments to other Europeans. 
 
212 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 11. That we be constant in prayer and the cultivation of 
 personal religion, to fit us for the discharge of these laborious 
 and unutterably important labors. Let us often look at Brain- 
 erd in the woods of America, pouring out his very soul before 
 God for the perishing heathen, without whose salvation noth- 
 ing could make him happy. 
 
 12. That we give ourselves unreservedly to this glorious 
 cause. Let us never think that our time, our gifts, our strength, 
 our families, or even the clothes we wear, are our own. Let 
 us sanctify them all to God and his cause. O that he may 
 sanctify us for his work! No private family ever enjoyed a 
 greater portion of happiness than we have done since we re- 
 solved to have all things in common. If we are enabled to 
 persevere, we may hope that multitudes of converted souls will 
 have reason to bless God to all eternity for sending his gospel 
 into this country. 
 
 The sufferings and martyrdom of missionaries 
 recall the age and Acts of the Apostles. The pri- 
 vations of the first missionaries to Greenland are 
 almost unparalleled, and their discouragements to 
 less heroic spirits would have been appalling. We 
 are told that they at times could only satisfy hun- 
 ger on shellfish and seaweed; they occasionally 
 had to eat the remnants of tallow candles, and con- 
 sidered themselves fortunate if they ^* had train oil 
 to mix with their scant morsel of oatmeal." And 
 yet they stood firmly at their posts and labored on 
 — only at last to be richly rewarded. In Western 
 Greenland it is said that there is not a single pagan 
 left. Dr. Kane gave this testimony: ** The mis- 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 213 
 
 sionaries have been so far successful among the 
 natives of Greenland that there are but few of 
 them who are not Christians." 
 
 Six hundred missionaries sleep in the soil of In- 
 dia. West Africa has been called the "White 
 Man's Grave," but the deadly climate has never 
 deterred brave men and women from going there 
 to labor and to die. The Church Missionary Soci- 
 ety alone lost fifty-three missionaries in twenty 
 years. And in all the fields they sleep in honored 
 graves. 
 
 Mexico has been a field of blood. Its soil has 
 been drenched with the blood of martyrs. Within 
 a few years not less than sixty were brutally slain, 
 for no other crime than telling of a Saviour's love. 
 
 Missionaries have given new meaning to //^^^r^^^ 
 of patient waiting. There is no higher expression 
 of faith than that which, having done all, is able 
 cheerfully to stand — after laborious toil can ** stand 
 still and see the salvation of the Lord." We won- 
 der at the sublime hopefulness of the missionaries. 
 
 When Judson had been eighteen years in Burmah 
 some one wrote and asked: *'What of the pros- 
 pect?" The great-souled apostle replied: '* Bright 
 as the promises of God." To others it seemed 
 that not a seed would grow, that it was all stony 
 ground. The heavens shone like brass upon the 
 
214 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 blistered soil, with never a cloud so large as a 
 man's hand to tell of a coming shower. Yet they 
 confidently trusted and patiently waited. It is a 
 strange coincidence that it was seven years before 
 Carey in India, Judson in Burmah, Morrison in 
 China, Moffat in Africa, or Henry Richards on 
 the Congo, each baptized his first convert. How 
 severely their faith must have been tested ! Think 
 of a husbandman looking anxiously upon the same 
 field every day for seven weary years before he dis- 
 covered that a single seed had begun to germinate. 
 Does all prophetic and apostolic history show sub- 
 limer endurance or more unfaltering faith? Jere- 
 miah, though given repeated and miraculous as- 
 surances, became at times discouraged almost to 
 the point of despair. His entreaties had been so 
 long unheeded, his brotherly sympathies so rude- 
 ly repulsed, and his solemn warnings so defiantly 
 mocked and ridiculed, that he lost hope for his 
 people, and was tempted to lose faith in his mes- 
 sage. So great was his discouragement that the 
 prophet cried out: '* I will not make mention of 
 him, nor speak any more in his name." But 
 happily, just then came back the vivid memory of 
 his divine call and consecration — of the blessed 
 promise of strength for every hour of need — and 
 as the cloud lifted, he girded up his faith and ex- 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 215 
 
 claimed: ** But his word was in mine heart as a 
 burning fire shut up in my bones." 
 
 But a consecrated missionary, however discour- 
 aged, never gets to the point of despair. He is an 
 enhghtened optimist. In all the East I did not 
 hear a doleful tone or a discouraging word. And 
 those who had been longest in the field seemed 
 the most enthusiastic. There was no undervalu- 
 ing of opposing forces, no underestimating the 
 strength of the enemy, no idle sentiment about a 
 millennial dawn without further sacrifice and strug- 
 gle; but they firmly believed that God's endue- 
 ment of power would bring final and glorious vic- 
 tory. In all there was the same hopeful spirit, 
 the ardent expectation of a near and abundant 
 harvest. 
 
 The unfaltering faith of the missionaries has also 
 sustained and cheered the confidence and hope of 
 the Church at home. It should be just the reverse. 
 The Church should comfort and encourage them 
 amid the gloom and loneliness of heathen lands. 
 But they have had not only to endure the hardness 
 and even horrors of the field — they have had to 
 buttress the faith and sympathy of the Church. 
 There are missions that have enjoyed Pentecosts 
 of the Spirit, and become strong, self-extending 
 centers of spiritual evangelism, which would have 
 
2l6 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 been abandoned had not the missionary's hope 
 been stronger than the enfeebled faith of the 
 Church. A signal illustration comes from China. 
 The Church Missionary Society opened a station 
 in the province of Fuh-kien in 1850. Eleven years 
 passed without a single convert. During that time 
 of anxious waiting three missionaries died at their 
 posts. In the tenth year, '* without one single con- 
 version or prospect of such a thing," the home 
 Board was about to abandon the field. For ten 
 years they had come seeking fruit and found none. 
 But yielding to the importunity of Mr. Smith, their 
 only missionary left, they deferred final action. 
 The brave-hearted and Spirit-baptized apostle, 
 who would rather have been buried with his com- 
 rades than flee the field, wrote home as follows; 
 ** I hope that a brighter day is about to dawn upon 
 us. There are three men whom I really look upon 
 as honest inquirers." Those who compute the 
 cost of converts in dollars would say: *' Why this 
 waste?" After ten long, toilsome years, and only 
 three that even '*look" like honest inquirers! 
 But the heroic missionary had the full assurance 
 of faith, and history vindicated his fidelity. In 1891 
 there were 8,500 Christian adherents, one-third of 
 whom were devout communicants, embraced in 
 their one hundred and fifty stations and out stations. 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 2l7 
 
 Another fact which indicates the seemingly im- 
 possible work to be accomplished, and also illus- 
 trates the sublime faith and heroism of missiona- 
 ries, is the morally degraded condition of the 
 heathen. It is true that there is a natural Sinai in 
 every human heart, but centuries of ignorance and 
 superstition have almost entirely effaced the char- 
 acters written therein. The difficulty is thus stated 
 by David Livingstone, who spoke by authority of 
 long experience and accurate knowledge : '' There 
 is a work to be done by missionaries which people 
 in Christian lands hardly dream of. They have 
 to create a moral sense before they can appeal to 
 it — to arouse their conscience before they can 
 look to its admonitions to enforce their teachings. 
 Their consciences are seared, and moral percep- 
 tions blasted. Their memories scarcely retain 
 anything we teach them. So low have they sunk 
 that the plainest texts in the whole Bible cannot 
 be understood by them. It is hard, until one goes 
 to a heathen country, to realize how much civili- 
 zation owes to Christianity." 
 
 They have brought us back to the basal fact 
 that faith in his message is the true source of the 
 preacher's inspiration. One of the distinguishing 
 characteristics of these heroic disciples, recalHng 
 and emulating the missionary zeal and spirit of St. 
 
2l8 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 Paul himself, is their unquestioning faith in their 
 message. While we are hesitant, they are hope- 
 ful. After the clearest promise of our message's 
 power — that it is by '*the foolishness of preach- 
 ing" that the nations are to be redeemed, that the 
 truth can make any man and all men free — there 
 is a strange skepticism as to its immediate effects. 
 There is not a confident expectation of results, 
 an assurance of victories gained by the truth's 
 simple and faithful announcement. There is too 
 little disappointment if the power of conviction and 
 conversion is not seen. 
 
 Bishop Thoburn admits that the conversion of 
 Hindoos during the delivery of his message marked 
 a distinct experience, a spiritual epoch in his life 
 as a missionary. He said: *' I have long since 
 ceased to marvel at them. The real wonder is 
 that I should have preached nearly fifteen years 
 before discerning that the ambassador of Jesus 
 Christ, intrusted with the ministry of reconcilia- 
 tion, is really able through his 7nessage to do that 
 which he is sent to accomplish." That faith is 
 the condition of heroic endeavor and endurance. 
 Convincing speech is the inspiration of profound 
 conviction of truth. 
 
 Dean Millman has truly said: *'No Pelagian 
 ever has or ever will work a reformation. He who 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 2I9 
 
 is destined for such a work must have a full con- 
 viction that God is acting, directly, immediately, 
 consciously, and therefore with irresistible power, 
 ufon and through him." 
 
 One of the four principal objections to Foreign 
 Missions is that *' they are and have been in the 
 hands of unfit and incapable men." If that be 
 true, the Church ought either to improve the char- 
 acter of her workmen or else abandon the field. 
 But is there real ground for such an objection? 
 Were those lacking in fitness and capacity who 
 bravely pioneered the cause of Missions in the va- 
 rious fields? And are their successors, now pros- 
 ecuting the work so heroically begun, no better 
 equipped for the needs of such a stupendous en- 
 terprise ? As a matter of fact they have been the 
 great scholars of the century, and have made the 
 largest contributions to the languages and litera- 
 ture of the world. The construction of language 
 and estabhshing a literature '*have been taken in 
 hand, not by science^ so proud of her powers, not 
 by commerce, that celebrated civiHzer, not by the 
 European colonial poHcy, so much belauded as 
 the educator of barbarians, but by the despised 
 mission, wherever she has planted her foot amid 
 barbarism." 
 
 This mastery of the dense ignorance of the hea- 
 
220 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 then is the monumental achievement of the mis- 
 sionaries. They have first to impart Christian 
 ideas, and then construct a language with which 
 to impart them. Such a task seems almost hope- 
 less. But by the ingenuity and inventiveness of 
 faith this barrier is made to give way, and in every 
 land the statement is verified: *' The entrance of 
 thy Word giveth light." No wonder Mr. Darwin 
 said: **The lesson of the missionary is the en- 
 chanter's wand." 
 
 As to the fitness and capacity of missionaries, 1 
 give the judgments of two of the foremost schol- 
 ars, who testify that which they do know. A dis- 
 tinguished scientist, Lewis H. Morgan, pays this 
 generous tribute to missionaries: 
 
 There is no class of men upon the earth, whether considered 
 as scholars, as philanthropists, or as gentlemen, who have 
 earned for themselves a more distinguished reputation. Their 
 labors, their self-denials, and their endurance in the work to 
 which they have devoted their time and their abilities, are wor- 
 thy of admiration. Their contributions to history, to ethnol- 
 ogy, to philosophy, to geography, and to religious literature, 
 form a lasting monument to their fame. The renown which 
 encircles their names falls as a wreath of honor upon the 
 name of their country. 
 
 Dr. Cust, in ''The Languages of Africa," is 
 alike generous in judgment: 
 
 Let me turn away from the subject of language, and say 
 one farewell word of the missionaries, those good and unselfish 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 221 
 
 men who, for a high object, have sacrificed careers which 
 might have been great and honored in their own countries, and 
 have gone forth to live in hovels, and sometimes to die; who, 
 as it were, in the course of their striking hard on the anvil of 
 evangelization, their own proper work, have emitted bright 
 sparks of linguistic light, which have rendered luminous a re- 
 gion previously shrouded in darkness, and their sparks have 
 kindled a corresponding feeling of warmth in the hearts of 
 great, and to them personally unknown, scholars, working in 
 their studies in Vienna, Berlin, or some great German univer- 
 sity; scholars who, alas! cared little for the object of the mis- 
 sionaries' going forth, but rejoiced exceedingly at the wonder- 
 ful, unexpected, epoch-making results of their quiet labors. 
 
 Mr. Denby, our American Minister at Peking, 
 said : '* Believe nobody who sneers at the mission- 
 aries. . . . They are heroes and heroines as 
 truly as Grant or Sheridan, Nelson or Farragut." 
 
 The high character and consecrated unselfish- 
 ness of the missionaries have overcome native prej- 
 udice and won their admiration for the Christian 
 religion. Prof. Christleib has said: *'The moral 
 influence of Christianity and Christians in China, 
 and also in India, is almost wholly sustained through 
 the missionaries alone." 
 
 Addressing a missionary in India, a high-caste 
 Hindoo said: ''You missionaries are the only per- 
 sons in whom we really have confidence." One 
 of the most suggestive instances is the influence of 
 Father Swartz, the great missionary of South In- 
 
222 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 dia. Native princes were his warmest friends, 
 and when all other foreigners were distrusted and 
 detested he was honored and followed. ** Do not 
 send to me any of your agents," said Hyder Ali, 
 in his message to the Council at Madras, *'for I 
 do not trust their words or treaties ; but if you wish 
 me to listen to your proposals, send to me the mis- 
 sionary Swartz, of whose character I hear so much 
 from every one. Him will I receive and trust." 
 
 As illustrative of the doctrines and principles 
 herein set forth, I give in brief outline a sketch of 
 a few devoted and noted missionaries in the several 
 great fields of the East. 
 
 Francis Xavier. 
 
 Whatever criticisms may be justly passed upon 
 the methods of Francis Xavier as a missionary, 
 and thereby account for the comparative promi- 
 nence of his labors, he must rank, in spirit and 
 consecration, with the greatest apostles of the 
 ages. He was of noble Portuguese birth — con- 
 nected with the house of Bourbon and the royal 
 family of Navarre. Ardently devoted to Ignatius 
 Loyola, he was one of the small company that laid 
 the foundations of the Jesuit order — which, by the 
 way, originated in an agreement between seven 
 young men to devote themselves to the conversion 
 of the heathen world to Christianity. It fell to 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 223 
 
 Xavier's lot to be the missionary pioneer of India. 
 He went out the guest of a viceroy, and clothed 
 with ample authority, from both the pope and the 
 King of Portugal. His zeal knew no abatement 
 and his labors were prodigious. At times the deg- 
 radation of the heathen so overwhelmed him that 
 he became the Jeremiah of his age. '* O rock, 
 rock, when wilt thou open to my Master?" On 
 another occasion he uttered this passionate cry: 
 *' It often comes into my mind to go around all the 
 universities of Europe crying hke a madman to all 
 the learned men whose learning is greater than 
 their charity, *Ah, what a multitude of souls are 
 through your fault shut out of heaven.' " 
 
 His intense desire for the speedy evangelization 
 of the nations, coupled with his exaggerated esti- 
 mate of baptism as a means of conversion, caused 
 him to invoke civil power to compel the heathen to 
 become Christian. In a letter to the king he said: 
 *' I very earnestly desire that you should take an 
 oath, invoking most solemnly the name of God, 
 that in case any governor thus neglects to spread 
 the faith, he shall, on his return to Portugal, be 
 punished by close imprisonment for many years, 
 and all his goods and possessions shall be sold and 
 devoted to works of charity. In order that none 
 may flatter themselves that this is but an idle threat, 
 
224 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 you must declare as plainly as possible that you 
 will accept no excuses that may be offered; but 
 that the only way of escaping your wrath and ob- 
 taining your favor is to make as many Christians 
 as possible in the countries over which they rule. 
 So long as the viceroys and governors are 
 not urged by the fear of disgrace and fine to make 
 many Christians, 3^our Majesty must not hope that 
 the preaching of the gospel will meet with great 
 success in India." 
 
 In his sanctified impatience to give all nations 
 the gospel — feeling his divine indebtedness to 
 Greek and barbarian, to the wise and unwise — he 
 left India and sailed eastward as far as Japan. 
 His five years in that island kingdom were in many 
 respects the most faithful in his entire evangelistic 
 career. From Japan he went to China, and in the 
 midst of busy preparation for what he thought 
 would be the greatest work of his life, in the great- 
 est mission field of the world, he died December 
 2, 1552, at Macao, not very far from the city of 
 Canton. "No companion was near to whom he 
 could breathe out his dying thoughts, no priest 
 gave him the last offices of the Church, or com- 
 mitted his body to a Christian grave." 
 
 Now after three centuries have passed, his fame 
 as an earnest Christian abides, though few results 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 225 
 
 of his labors survive. He was unwise as a mission- 
 ary leader, and had some false conceptions of the 
 best methods to promote God's work; but for pu- 
 rity of purpose, and saintliness of life, and earnest- 
 ness of effort, and restlessness of zeal, he will ever 
 deserve to rank among apostolic forerunners of 
 this missionary century. 
 
 Christian Frederick Swartz, the Apostle 
 OF Southern India. 
 
 As Dr. John Harris observed, the name of 
 Swartz stands for ** might of character." He 
 possessed a singular combination of qualities for 
 masterful leadership. Not by self-assertion, but 
 by a common impulse he was accorded kingship 
 among men. Amid heathen people, hostile to his 
 religion, he commanded not only highest respect, 
 but the greatest veneration, and everywhere exer- 
 cised almost unchallenged authority. This mar- 
 velous quality evidenced the striking providence 
 in his appointment to India. 
 
 In 1726, in Sonnenburg, Prussia, a Christian 
 wife and mother when dying thus whispered to 
 her weeping husband: ''I have dedicated our 
 youngest son to God for such service as he shall 
 appoint. Assure me that when he hears the Lord's 
 call you will not discourage it." That youngest 
 son was Christian Frederick Swartz, who early 
 15 
 
226 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 gave his heart to his mother's God. Returning 
 from Halle, where he was educated, he told his 
 father that the Lord had called him to missionary 
 work in India. It is said that " the father retired 
 to the chamber hallowed by the mother's saintly 
 death, and after three days' struggle with his 
 widower-heart, he yielded his youngest born upon 
 the altar of God." In 1750 Swartz joined the 
 Danish mission at Tranquebar, and began his won- 
 derful missionary career. 
 
 His linguistic attainments were remarkable. He 
 had rare and ready power for acquiring language. 
 This enabled him speedily to speak in the language 
 of the people, and gave him great power over the 
 congregations that gathered to his ministry. His 
 first sertnon was preached in Tamil within four 
 months after landing in the country. "Father 
 Swartz," as he was reverently called, was for 
 years the most influential man in all India. On 
 the tablet to his memory in the church at Tajore, 
 erected by a native prince, are these words: ** His 
 unspotted probity and purity of life alike com- 
 manded the reverence of the Christian, Moham- 
 medan, and Hindoo; for sovereign princes, Hin- 
 doo and Mohammedan, selected this humble pas- 
 tor as the medium of political negotiation with the 
 British Government, and the very marble that here 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 227 
 
 records his virtues was raised by the liberal affec- 
 tion and esteem of the Rajah of Tanjore, Maha 
 Raja Sinfogee." 
 
 In his letter to Lord CornwalHs, Gen. Fuller- 
 ton says: " On our second march we were visited 
 by the Rev. Mr. Swartz, whom your lordship and 
 the Board requested to proceed to Seringapatam, 
 as a faithful mediator between Tippoo and the 
 Commissioners. The knowledge and integrity of 
 this irreproachable missionary have retrieved the 
 character of Eurofeans fro^n t7nputatio7ts of gen- 
 eral deprav ity . " 
 
 As illustrating the '* might of character" all 
 missionary annals will sacredly preserve the name 
 and fame of Christian Frederick Swartz. 
 William Carey. 
 
 Among the sons of the mighty, there is no no- 
 bler name than that of William Carey ; and through 
 the years his fame will increase, as men study the 
 philosophy of history and feel the weight of char- 
 acter. He wrought with the hand of a master, 
 and his works do follow him. 
 
 Born in poverty and obscurity, at sixteen ap- 
 prenticed to a shoemaker, at which trade he 
 worked for twelve years, and with very few edu- 
 cational advantages, there was no prophecy in his 
 circumstances of the wide sphere that he was to 
 
228 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 fill, and the world-wide honor that he was to re^ 
 ceive. Over the door of his humble cobbler's 
 shop was this sign: 
 
 '* SECOND-HAND SHOES BOUGHT AND SOLD." 
 
 But from the day of his conversion the Holy 
 Spirit set the seal of a great commission upon his 
 soul. Out of a full heart he talked for his Lord. 
 His cobbler's bench became a village pulpit, and 
 soon the people began to wonder where this young 
 man had learned so much wisdom. Yielding to 
 the call of God, he forsook his trade, was ordained 
 to the ministry, and accepted a small pastorate with 
 the meager stipend of only fifteen pounds a year. 
 
 His thoughts soon turned to the needy in hea- 
 then lands. Reading Cook's ''Voyages," which 
 gave graphic descriptions of the horrid superstitions 
 and utter degradation of heathen peoples, stirred 
 his great soul to the depths. This gave him a new 
 interpretation of the great commission, and broad- 
 ened the horizon of his faith. He saw the duty of 
 the Church in a new and broader light. . To him,, 
 further neglect was sin, and sin unto death. He 
 appealed to fellow-Christians, only to be rebuffed 
 and ridiculed. In a ministers' meeting in North- 
 ampton he was rebuked for his impertinence to 
 God and his providence. He was ordered to his 
 seat for presuming to question the councils o£ 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 229 
 
 God. But nothing daunted, he persevered, or- 
 ganized a society for the evangelization of the hea- 
 then, and became its first missionary, sailing from 
 England June 13, 1793. 
 
 He found a cold reception in Calcutta. The 
 East India Company refused him the protection of 
 the British Government, so after a time he had to 
 move out to Serampore and work under the folds 
 of a Danish flag. 
 
 The diligent student became a great scholar, 
 the master of Oriental languages. He was ** the 
 Wickliffe of the East," being the first to translate 
 the Bible into the Bengali language ; and with his 
 oyvn hand he translated the Scriptures into Bengali, 
 Sanskrit, Hindoo, and Marathi. He also super- 
 vised the translation into other languages, until 
 twenty-eight versions were issued from his press at 
 Serampore. 
 
 The once despised missionary, by the force of 
 his character and his extraordinary labors, com- 
 manded great influence. He was invited into the 
 faculty of the College of Fort William as professor 
 of Sanskrit, and became the trusted counselor of 
 the Governor General. 
 
 All of his salary, except a few pounds on which 
 to subsist, was scrupulously devoted to the exten- 
 sion of Christ's kingdom. As evidence of the 
 
230 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 world's acknowledgment of its debt to this genius 
 and saint of God, Bishop Thoburn, in a public ad- 
 dress, thus referred to the great missionary pio- 
 neer: "During a residence of a dozen years in 
 Calcutta, I met many tourists from England and 
 America. Among them all I recall but one who 
 wished to see the house in which Macaulay had 
 lived; one asked to see the house in which Thack- 
 eray had been born; and two or three inquired for 
 the residence of Warren Hastings. But literally 
 scores upon scores have asked to be led to the 
 grave of William Carey, and the little burying 
 ground in the old Danish settlement of Serampore 
 has become like a pilgrim's shrine, to which Chris- 
 tian men and women come from all parts of the 
 world." 
 Adoniram Judson, the John the Baptist of 
 
 BURMAH. 
 
 Adoniram Judson was the William Carey of the 
 American Church. He had as little encourage- 
 ment in entering upon his missionary career as did 
 the *' consecrated cobbler" of England. It was a 
 little volume by Claudius Buchanan entitled *' The 
 Star in the East," that kindled the fire in his heart 
 which at length drove him over the seas to Bur- 
 mah. On his way across the Atlantic he was cap- 
 tured by a French privateer and confined in pris- 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 23 1 
 
 on for awhile at Bayonne. But this never for a 
 moment chilled his ardor or suggested a change 
 of purpose. He was offered a pastorate in Bos- 
 ton, and urged by his mother to accept; but it had 
 no temptation for a heart set on the salvation of 
 heathen nations. 
 
 He expected to labor in India, but Providence 
 directed his steps to Burmah so clearly that he 
 could not be mistaken. Indeed, every event in his 
 most eventful life seemed to be a signal provi- 
 dence, and every step was ordered of the Lord. 
 
 With perfect reliance upon God when a deplet- 
 ed missionary treasury promised him scant sup- 
 port, and with unruffled courage in presence of 
 every conceivable danger, that man of destiny pur- 
 sued his unwearied course in laying the founda- 
 tions of Christ's kingdom in a far-off heathen land. 
 His labors were prodigious, and his works do fol- 
 low him. 
 
 A memorial tablet in the Baptist Church at Mai- 
 den, Mass., contains this beautiful inscription: 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Rev. Adoniram Judson, 
 
 Born August 9, 1788. 
 
 Died April 12, 1850. 
 
 Maiden his Birthplace, 
 
 The Ocean his Sepulchre; 
 
 Converted Burmans 
 
 and 
 
 The Burman Bible 
 
 His Monument. 
 
 His Record is on High. 
 
232 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 When Adoniram Judson died there were over 
 seven thousand Christians in Burmah, in sixty- 
 three churches, and under the oversight of one 
 hundred and sixty-three missionaries,- native pas- 
 tors, and helpers. The lessons in Judson's mis- 
 sionary career are, the directness of his divine 
 call, the frequency of providential interposition, the 
 heroism of an apostolic faith, and the marvelous 
 fruits of consecrated toil. 
 
 Henry Martyn. 
 
 For unreserved and unselfish consecration to 
 God no apostle of the early Church ranked Henry 
 Martin, of Cornwall. When the call came to a 
 chaplaincy in India, he immediately accepted and 
 uttered these words, which were the secret benigni- 
 ty and the serene contentment of his short career: 
 *' I see no business in life but the work of Christ, 
 neither do I desire any employment to" all eternity 
 but his service." On arrival at Madras en route 
 to Calcutta, after a tedious voyage, and much of 
 it devoted to the sick and dying among passengers 
 and crew, he wrote: ** O, if I live, let me have 
 come hither to some purpose." 
 
 Arrived at Calcutta, he soon overtaxed his frail 
 body in order to keep pace with his consuming 
 zeal. The hours of the day were all too short for 
 him to master the Hindoostanee language, and oth- 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 233 
 
 erwise be equipped for direct evangelistic work. 
 The wretched condition of the people almost 
 crushed his sympathetic heart. He says: '* I lay 
 in tears, interceding for the unfortunate natives 
 of this country, thinking within myself that the 
 most despicable sudra of India was of as much 
 value in the sight of God as the King of Great 
 Britain." In the largeness and tenderness of his 
 noble heart he sought to rescue a Hindoo widow 
 from sacrificing herself on a funeral pyre beside 
 her husband. The scene sickened him, and he 
 said that he '* shivered, standing, as it were, in the 
 neighborhood of hell." 
 
 The breadth of his brotherhood and the ardor of 
 his sympathy expressed itself in these words : ** Let 
 me never fancy I have zeal till my heart overflows 
 with love to every man living." 
 
 He had a discussion with a Brahman over an idol 
 worship, in which he made this comment: "I 
 learned that the power of gentleness is irresistible." 
 
 After spending a day in hard labor, distributing 
 tracts, preaching the gospel, and writing on a 
 translation of the Scriptures, the heavy-laden 
 heart penned these words: '* I was much bur- 
 dened with the consciousness of blood-guiltiness; 
 and though I cannot doubt of my pardon by the 
 blood of Christ, how dreadful the reflection that 
 
234 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 any should perish that might have been saved by 
 my exertions ! " 
 
 He translated the Book of Common Prayer into 
 Hindoostanee, and wrote a commentary on the 
 parables in that language. His labors were pro- 
 digious; his liberality onty limited by his resources. 
 He supported five schools out of his own pocket. 
 
 This entry appears in his diary: " I have read 
 and corrected the manuscript copies of my Hin- 
 doostanee Testament so often that my eyes ache. 
 The heat is terrible — often at 98° — the nights in- 
 supportable." That version, written with the 
 heart's blood of that frail young man, is still do- 
 ing God's work in India. 
 
 He spent some time at Dinapore, and afterwards 
 in Cawnpore. His health began to rapidly fail, 
 but he girded up strength to complete his Persian 
 New Testament. In order to its perfect accuracy, 
 he went to Persia. There he completed also a 
 translation of the book of Psalms. En route to 
 Europe, overland through the country, he died — 
 died rejoicing in Christ his Lord. ' His biographer 
 says truly: ** The symmetry of his statue in Christ 
 is as surprising as its height.''^ 
 
 James Calvert. 
 
 One of the most notable figures in missionary 
 history is James Calvert, the Wesleyan apostle to 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 235 
 
 the Fijis. His character was as robust as his 
 faith was strong. His courage was never daunt- 
 ed, and the conscious presence of his Lord was 
 the inspiring experience of every eventful day 
 among the cannibals of the Pacific. If Christ 
 ever indicates to his Church the men he has des- 
 ignated for hazardous posts, it was clearly mani- 
 fest in this courageous missionary to the races in 
 the Southern seas. A man of less physical and 
 spiritual vigor would have shrunk from the dan- 
 gers and horrors that made up the thrilling experi- 
 ences of each day. He foiled the plans of many a 
 ** cannibal despot," often defended the defense- 
 less by his brave expostulations, and frequently, 
 by almost reckless daring, rescued '*poor women 
 and children, already doomed to be strangled or 
 clubbed to furnish the cannibal feast." 
 
 And yet so cloudless was his faith and so great 
 his joy in God's service, that he seemed oblivious 
 of personal peril and unconscious of the weight of 
 his burdens. Indeed, in a review of those early 
 missionary years, he said: ** We had no night of 
 toil; God was with us from the first and all along." 
 
 He saw those cannibal islands so thoroughly 
 Christianized that when he closed his great career 
 there was scarcely a Fijian home in which was 
 not daily heard morning and evening worship. 
 
236 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 James Calvert illustrates the lofty courage and 
 perfect consecration of a pure faith. 
 James W. Lambuth. 
 
 Into this list of worthies I introduce the name 
 of James W. Lambuth, for thirty-three years a 
 missionary in China, and six years a successful 
 toiler in the Empire of Japan. He illustrated the 
 possibility of entire self-abnegation and perfect 
 consecration to one divine purpose. Though not 
 so richly endowed as some master spirits in the 
 mission field, and unequal to others in vast attain- 
 ments, it is doubted if the canonized roll of God's 
 great pioneers contains a saintlier character than 
 James W. Lambuth. No dangers daunted his 
 courage, no difficulties swerved his sanctified pur- 
 pose, and no trials weakened his indomitable will. 
 From the hour he heard the Lord's call to the 
 mission field down in his Mississippi home, to the 
 day his beautiful life peacefully closed in Kobe, 
 Japan, he could repeat the words of Count Zinzen- 
 dorf: *' I have but one passion: it is He, only He." 
 So transparent was his character and so translu- 
 cent his simple faith, that the native Christians of 
 Kobe said: *' He is our father, and we want him 
 for our model." 
 
 His intense ''soul-loving spirit" made him a 
 tireless worker and gave him a tongue of fire. It 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 237 
 
 is doubted if in the same length of time any 
 preacher at home or abroad ever preached so 
 many sermons. Others have had more eloquent 
 lips, but there was never a more earnest tone or 
 yearning heart. And no prophet of God ever 
 had more absolute faith in his divinely given mes- 
 sage. He always expected immediate results. 
 And both in China and Japan many were the 
 trophies of his consecrated ministry. 
 
 Dying with a heart burdened for the redemption 
 of the heathen nations, his last words were an ap- 
 peal to the Lord of the harvest. He said: *' I 
 die at my post — send more men." 
 
 Hon. Ian Keith-Falconer. 
 
 Few men have ever illustrated the divine law of 
 service more beautifully and perfectly than the 
 Hon. Ian Keith-Falconer. His days were short, 
 but his influence will abide through the eternities. 
 He was of noble ancestry. Son of the Earl of 
 Kinton, it is said that he could trace his lineage 
 back through the stormy periods of British history, 
 ** past the standards of Bruce and Wallace," back 
 to the year loio, in the reign of Malcolm II., 
 King of Scotland, when in a battle with the Dan- 
 ish invaders Robert Keith won by valor the title 
 of Hereditarv Great Marshal of Scotland. 
 
238 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 This young man was born in 1856. He loved 
 the Scriptures from a child. His old nurse tells 
 of his going among the cottages of the peasants 
 soon after he was seven years old, reading the Bi- 
 ble and trying to explain it. 
 
 He was athletic, six feet three inches tall, and 
 fond of manly sports. As President of the London 
 Bicycle Club, he was champion of all England. 
 
 Engaged in mission work in East End, London, 
 and soundly converted to God, he heartily gave 
 £2,000 thereto himself. He studied the Semitic 
 languages, giving Arabic chief attention, and spent 
 a winter in an obscure place in Upper Egypt, in 
 order to get the colloquial and study the temper 
 of the Arabic mind, and the nature of Moham- 
 medan religion. 
 
 He located at Aden, Arabia, only twelve de- 
 grees from the equator. As many as a quarter of 
 a million camels come into Aden every year from 
 the interior. This gave him access to the interior. 
 Near there he established a mission and hospital. 
 He studied medicine himself, that by this means 
 he might fine readier entrance into the heathen 
 heart. Although he bore the entire expense of 
 the mission himself, he put himself under the di- 
 rection of the Foreign Missionary Agency of the 
 Church of Scotland. 
 
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 239 
 
 His vast linguistic attainments led to his being 
 elected Professor of Arabic in Cambridge. As 
 this required only a few lectures during the year, 
 he accepted ; but most of the twelve months were 
 laboriously devoted to mission work in Arabia. 
 In the midst of elaborate plans for the erection of 
 additional buildings, this consecrated young no- 
 bleman fell asleep — "quietly slept out his life 
 while those who had been watching at his bedside 
 slumbered with him." 
 
 His last appeal to men of wealth and culture 
 at home contained these words: *' While vast con- 
 tinents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and 
 hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of hea- 
 thenism or Islam, the burden of proof lies upon 
 you to show that the circumstances in which God 
 placed you were meant by him to keep you out of 
 the foreign mission field." 
 
 His death was seemingly a great calamity. But 
 God knows best. The call for a volunteer to take 
 his place was responded to by tJm'teen yowig fnen 
 from the graduating class of New College. 
 
 But time would fail me to tell of Robert Morri- 
 son, the pioneer of China and the first translator 
 of the Bible into that difficult language ; of Robert 
 Moffat and David Livingstone, and their heroic 
 
240 MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 labors in Africa ; of Alexander Duff, who laid the 
 foundation for a new educational policy in India; 
 and of Bishop Hannington, the latest martyr to 
 Africa's redemption, who said to his executioners: 
 ** Go tell Mwanga that I die for Bagarda, and that 
 I have purchased the road to Uganda with my 
 life." This martyrdom and dying declaration re- 
 call those beautiful words of Bishop Alexander in 
 characterizing the death of John the Baptist: 
 *' The mutilated body, stretched upon the thresh- 
 old of Christianity, only marks the via dolorosa^ 
 over which the whole army of martyrs have passed 
 to their crown." The lessons of these and many 
 other apostolic lives, of whom mention cannot be 
 made, will be an inspiration to the Church through 
 all the militant centuries. 
 
 A noble company ! May we be worthy of such 
 a heritage of divine achievements ! Of these apos- 
 tolic spirits and their successors, we may say in 
 the fine lines of Matthew Arnold : 
 
 "There in the hour of need 
 Of your fainting, dispirited race, 
 Ye like angels appear! 
 Languor is not in jour heart, 
 Weakness is not in jour word, 
 Weariness is not on jour brow. 
 Ejes rekindling, and prajers 
 Follow jour steps as je go. 
 Ye fill up the gaps in our file, 
 Strengthen the wavering line, 
 Stablish, continue our march — 
 On, to the bound of the waste — 
 On to the Citj of God." 
 
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