MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVEMENTS BISHOP CHARLES H. FOWLER r PRINCETON, N. J. *^ Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. BV 2060 .F73 1903 Fowler, Charles Henry, 1837 1908. Missions and world movements Missions and World Movements MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVEMENTS By ,/ Bishop Charles H. Fowler CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND PYE NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS Copyright, 1903, by Jennings and Pye Missions and World Movements. * Missions and World Movements fully. stated would answer the whys of human history ; why it runs thus and thus. Mount Calvary is the key that unlocks the mystery. Redemption is God's objective point. What- ever God says goes in a Missionary Conven- tion ; goes finally in human history. I have seen throngs of Hindus bathing at the junc- tion of the Ganges and the Jumna. They believed that at the junction of these two sacred rivers there was also a third, a holy and invisible river coming down from the throne of God that, mingling with the two earthly rivers, cleansed the bathers and made them fit for the kingdom of God. So we Missions and World Move;me:nts. hold that where the great streams of secular events and of Church movements mingle, there is also another stream coming down from God's Almighty Providence that trans- forms these streams and orders their move- micnts in the interest of the kingdom of God. This stream of Providence comes to the sur- face in the history of Israel, but it sweeps on under all history. Cyrus took Babylon from polytheists, idolaters, and extended the domains of Monotheism. Mohammed trampled down idolatrous altars. The bloody Eagles of Rome quieted and com- pacted the clashing tribes, and lifted a wide shield that protected St. Paul everywhere from the malice and bigotry of his country- men. German and English monarchs turned back the power of the pope, and made room for religious freedom. Wesley touched the dead corpse of formal Christianity; it felt the throb of new life, and stood upon its feet. Missions and World Mov]e:ments. The; Trend of the Ages is Godward. Latest evolutionists hold that natural se- lection is under this law. There has always been one end in view up through all animal increments to the perfected physical, up into the intellectual, and up, by the same law of selection, to the spiritual. From the first speck of mist in the universe on through the inconceivable lapses of duration there has been a steady trend toward the perfect man. This ideal of evolution Christianity has realized in the man of Nazareth. There is that in things that makes for righteous- ness. My faith does not faint or weary in this long ascent. This only gives me a good start into an endless future. The Supreme Power who has worked and watched so long will not now sleep nor forget me. On the way to the North Cape our steamer brushed against the branches of trees on the sides of the mountains that rose 7 Missions and World Movements. almost straight up out of the sea. I won- dered how it could be safe to sail so close. But marine engineers said to me: "It is safe. The shape and slant of the land above water indicates the shape and slant of the land below." So the unnumbered ages of God's thought in the past assures me of care for endless ages to come. When God tires out it will be so late, that the universe will have been rolled together like a scroll and folded away like a vesture, and we shall have grown so old and strong on the wide fields of our eternal activity that we can only dimly recall the little kindergarten patch of this world's missions. With Jesus here in our humanity, we see what is pos- sible. We can poorly realize what we shall be; but this we know, we shall be trans- formed into His likeness, our vile bodies shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body, and we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. God seeks always with all 8 Missions and World Movements. power and with all wisdom, with all unflag- ging, heartaching love to lift up and save all men. He is no respecter of persons; he willeth not the death of him that dieth, but would that all men would turn and live. God's Providence sweeps round the world and through all time. All available forces and agencies are marshaled and marched, sent into the field to help forward his re- deeming purpose. So the great world forces that seem so hard and hostile are yet handled by him. They are his messengers, his mis- sionaries. Even the wrath of men shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. All things shall work together for good for his children and for his cause. True, many statesmen handling heathen countries for profit, many nominal Chris- tians in mission-fields for trade, many trav- elers wishing to make books for the market, and many sea-going officers who barely reach open ports, are the natural enemies of 2 9 Missions and Wori.d Movements. missionaries and of their work. The lives of many of these men are rebuked, and their practices are interfered with ; therefore they are quick to criticise what they never inves- tigate. The East India Company stood in the way of the work for years. Government officials frequently are willing to find scape- goats, and therefore criticise and complain. But in spite of all these surface views, the facts remain that missionaries usually lead the way into these lands. They furnish much information for government adminis- trators and for scientists. The secretaries and interpreters of the government embas- sies to unopened heathen countries have nearly always been missionaries. When the ministers of the civilized governments were besieged in Peking, and the whole world stood aghast hourly expecting the horrible massacre to be consummated, it was a mis- sionary, an honored member of this body that conducted the defense, without which lO Missions and World Movements. deliverance would have been impossible. When our American troops made their way into Peking under the wall through the bed of the river, as the Persians made their way into Bablyon and into the feast of Belshaz- zar, it was a missionary of our own missions who led the troops into the city. We feel that it is high time for this irresponsible and unjust criticism to stop. Pardon me that I have turned aside a moment to repel these gorillas. To repel gorillas, did I say? No, not to repel goril- las ; only to brush away these gnats. Let me address myself to the great forces that fill this field. Our theme, like a cube in geometry, has three dimensions — length, breadth, and thickness. Its factors are nations and races ; its fields are seas and continents ; its sweep is the duration of mankind. It is ethno- logical, touching all the families of men. It is political, reaching all the world govern- II Missions and World Movements. ments. It is ethical, handling the principles of the moral government of God. It has chiefly to do with the Mongol, the Slav, the Saxon, and the Latin and the African races. It involves paganism, heathenism and the Greek Church, Romanism and Protestant- ism. As a map of the world can show only the few very great cities, so we can only touch a very few of the principal world movements. The Latin races in the Eastern Hemisphere have a great past, and in the Western Hemisphere they promise a great future. But we must pass these important fields with the prayer and hope that our missionary work may rejuvenate the one and emancipate the other. The African race is a far more remote dominion ; this also we must pass. Let us fix our thought rather upon the uncounted baptized and unbaptized heathen, whose movements claim our atten- tion. 12 Missions and World Movemeints. The; Pacific the Storm-center of this Twentieth Century. The Pacific is the storm-center of the world. Low poHtical barometers are trav- ersing its vast surface. Danger-signals are exhibited on nearly every coast. All the great Capitals are watching their ventures. The storm-center has left the Mediterran- ean and the British Channel and the North Atlantic, and now draws all eyes to the Yel- low Sea and the Pacific. De Tocqueville said: "The United States was a new factor in the world, the significance of which even the imagination could not grasp." Creasy, the English historian, in 185 1 predicted the forcible opening of Japan by the United States and vast changes in the Orient. Thomas H. Benton, arguing in the United States Senate for a Pacific Railroad, pointed to the setting sun and said, ''There, there, gentlemen, is the East !" William H. Sew- 13 Missions and World Move:me:nts. ard, in Congress pleading in the interest of commerce for more accurate surveys of the North Pacific, gifted with the vision of the Seer, said : "The Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter." And again, this great statesman, in 1852, standing in the United States Senate Chamber by the side of the bier of Henry Clay, said : "Certainly, sir, the great lights of the Senate have set. We are rising to a more sublime stage of national progress, that of expanding wealth and rapid territorial aggrandizement. . . . Commerce has brought the ancient conti- nents near to us, and created necessities for new positions. . . . Perhaps connections or colonies there. . . . Even Prudence will soon be required to decide whether distant regions East or West shall come under our protection, or be left to aggrandize a rap- idly spreading and hostile domain of des- 14 Missions and World Movements. potism. Sir, who among us is equal to these mighty questions? I fear there is no one." Since these inspired words were uttered more than fifty years have joined the silent and endless procession of the past. That statesman, like the one voiceless at his feet, has passed from the stage of action into the chiseled marble and molded bronze, and into the page of history. But these '^mighty questions" are standing here, like mailed warriors, to dispute our march into the fu- ture. Whether we wish to enter the lists or not, we must, with the aid of the facts dropped at our feet by this half-century, make to these "mighty questions" answers with which we can humbly and fearlessly face God. The apocalyptic angel for this twentieth century, calling the nations to judgment, stands with one foot on the Pacific and the other on the continent of Asia. The Pa- 15 Missions and Wori^d Move;me:nts. cific washes five continents out of six. Asia contains the three greatest empires on earth — British, Russian, Chinese. It cradles three-fourths of mankind. It has the loftiest mountains and the most important rivers. It has the widest stretches of arable land, and the most productive soil. It had an empire extending from the Arctic Sea to the Indian Ocean, and from Germany to the Yellow Sea. "It built the most wonderful of all cities, Babylon, and the richest of all palaces, Persepolis, and the most beautiful of all tombs, the Taj Mahal." It has given us music and the drama, gunpowder and the compass — guide on the earth, and the Bible — guide to heaven. It has generated the most philosophies, and is the birthplace of all the great religions. It has produced *'the five greatest moral and religious teachers of the world — Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mohammed ;" the wisest of kings and the bloodiest of conquerors. This is i6 Missions and World Movements. the land "where Abraham received the cove- nant, and Moses the law; where the first Adam sinned, and the second suffered." This is great Asia, whose population to-day is on the increase, and whose virility, with the aid of Russian infusions, equals its palmiest days; whose commerce is the magnet of every metropolis, and whose markets are the inspiration of every great nation and the necessity of all the dense populations. With new blood monopolizing her highways ; with rival leaders, the Saxon and the Slav, fighting with their backs to the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean, it is impossible for the imagination to measure its importance. Not a harbor open to the Pacific but feels the throbbing of its swell- ing pulse, and not a nation with a Pacific exposure that can safely sleep at the present low-tide mark. 17 Missions and World Move:ments. China the Probi^em whose Solution WILE Stamp the World's Civil- ization with Absolut- ism OR Freedom. Turkey is the sick man in Europe, China is the sick man in Asia. I can not discuss her special mission work. I can only enter the Yellow Ward in the World's Hospital, feel the patient's pulse, look at her tongue, question the nurses, and sit down a few mo- ments with doctors and surgeons in the ante-room. The patient seems to have creep- ing paralysis. It may be Locomotor Ataxia. It may be only the trick of the old serpent. The doctors are timid about diagnosing the case. They all agree that whatever ails her body the malady has not reached her intel- lect. Her cunning has never been surpassed. The Russian surgeon has brought his chest of instruments, yet he seems to hesitate to venture an opinion. Once when the Roman i8 Missions and World Move:me:nts. Conclave was walled in to elect a new pope, and no one of the Catholic monarchs was certain of electing his candiate, in order to gain time they elected an aged cardinal who was too sick and feeble to stand alone. As soon as the ballot was announced the sick man arose, dropped his crutches, and straightened up in vigorous manhood, say- ing, "Now, gentlemen, you have a ruler." A long and powerful reign verified his state- ment. So it is difficult to treat this sick man of Asia, who has the longevity of the for- ests, the rough endurance of the rhinoceros, the stately dignity of the lion, the cunning of the fox, and the wisdom of the serpent. The; Bulk of China Is too vast to be handled easily in our minds. As it was lying on the map when some of us were in school, it stretched through sixty degrees of longitude and spread over forty degrees of latitude. It measured four and 19 Missions and World Move:ments. a half million square miles. But in the con- vulsions of recent years it has shaken off Tibet, Hi, Kashgaria, Mongolia, and Korea, and now Manchuria is also being given to the great Polar Bear. There remains one million five hundred thousand square miles of the best acreage, one-third the empire in area, with eleven-twefths in population. It is over 350,000,000 strong. It is not diffi- cult to accept the recent statement of J. W. Foster, the great authority on American di- plomacy, when he says : *'It is scarcely an exaggeration in presence of its history and attainments to assert that no nation or race of ancient or modern times has stronger claim than the Chinese to be called a great people." They were an ancient people, with city and town organizations, with commerce and trade, with arts and sciences, with his- tories and heroes, three thousand years be- fore there was an Anglo-Saxon. They had printing many centuries before Faust played 20 Missions and WorIvD Move:ments. with his blocks ; and gunpowder long before the last great Mohammed shot down the gates and walls of Constantinople. Their compass directed their open sea voyages be- yond the sight of mountain or beacon long before Columbus picked up bits of strange wood on the shores of Italy. They dug salt- wells five thousand feet deep centuries be- fore Solomon was born, and they had civil service examinations for office ages before Abraham received the blessing from Mel- chizedec. Surely they are a great people. When I stepped upon their shores I felt that I was in another world. The ages crumbled beneath my feet, and I instinct- ively looked about me for the patriarchs and for the leaders of the primitive races. Phys- ically everything was turned around. Men I met turned out to the left ; men I greeted shook their own hands instead of mine. Scaffoldings were built first, then the houses were built inside of them. The mechanic 21 Missions and World Movements. turned his auger and gimlet and screws to the left to make them enter. The carpenter pulled his plane and his saw toward him, and pushed his drawing-knife from him. Strangers moving into a new neighborhood called on the people with whom they wanted social relations. Soon one learns that these externals are only indices of deeper differ- ences. The very modes of thought seem reversed. Their architecture and art and very laws of language are peculiar. Busi- ness methods, politics, literature, amuse- ments, and worship are all reversed. While the races of the Orient often differ widely from each other in personal appearance, in costume and speech, yet one feels a common spirit among them all. Touch Asia any- where, and you have the same impressions. It is like touching a tiger, soft and pleasant ; yet you are conscious that there are teeth and claws concealed near by. There is the same politeness and dignity in manner, the 22 Missions and World Movements. same indifference to truth, and attention to minute social laws. It is always easier for them to lie than to offend. Esthetics anni- hilates Ethics. They respect successful falsehood, and judges who are flagrantly corrupt. They placidly accept any govern- ment with power. They admire a governor who rides over them and beheads them. Liberty would be scoffed by them. They think that there is no use of having power unless you use it. They do not believe in power that they can not see. Honesty is a myth, and a man who does not improve his opportunities is an imbecile. They are ob- livious of the value of time, and hate haste as much as if they had, like Methuselah, eight or nine centuries to kill. There is a gulf between the Orientals and Occidentals as wide as the gulf fixed between Dives and Lazarus, yet, as in that case, there are hu- mans on both sides. These are some of the characteristics of the Asiatics, from the Arc- 23 Missions and World Movements. tic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and from the Black Sea to the Yellow Sea. These characteristics, bad as they are throughout Asia, Have Their Worst Development in China. Here their evil t3^pes are confluent and ma- lignant. The Chinaman has no public spirit. The officers are paid to administer the gov- ernment; so let them do it. The officers, almost without exception, are unmitigated liars and thieves, and the mass of the people match them in perfidy. There is not the slightest shame about lying. But it is a dis- grace not to put on the best face. Treachery is a virtue. Li Hung Chang gave safe con- duct and assurances to the seven leading captive generals of the Tai Ping Rebellion to dine with him on his boat, and the next morning their heads were knocking about in the bay. Sir Robert Hart was so out- 24 Missions and World Movements. raged by this bloody perfidy that it is said he hunted all day, revolver in hand, for Prince Li, determined to kill him at sight. There is no limit to their mendacity. The higher the official, the more monumental the treachery. In 1793, Lord Macartney was the first English Plenipotentiary to be ad- mitted to an audience with the Emperor. He refused to kozvtozc, i. e., pound his head on the ground, for his king knew no su- perior. The boat that carried him up the Peiho toward Peking bore a flag saying, "Ambassador bearing tribute from the Country of England." The high officials took advantage of his ignorance of Chinese to proclaim this falsehood. It would take a supernatural chemistry to distill one drop of honorable integrity out of a nation like that. It is not strange that such a people left to themselves are incapable of gratitude. The two men who have served China most faithfully for more than half a century in 3 25 Missions and World Moveme:nts. most arduous and distinguished duties, are Sir Robert Hart, head of the Customs serv- ice, whose integrity and honesty and lofty character have never been questioned, and J Dr. Martin, head of the Chinese College for training men for the diplomatic service of China. The greatness of these men is only sur- passed by the greatness and variety of their public services. There are no men in all Asia who deserve more from China than they do. There ought not to be a man in the empire who would not gladly protect these two men at all hazards. Yet when the outbreak against the foreigners culmi- nated in Peking, no man would lift a hand to help them, and they barely escaped with their lives into the protection of the British barricades. The empire is honeycombed with secret societies. The slyness and mystery of these organizations are adapted to the superstition 26 Missions and World Movements. and suspicion of the Chinese character. These societies afford runways from the officials and from real and imaginary ene- mies. Their thieves have a king, who sells immiinity from their ravages. Their beg- gers also have a king, who fixes the price of deliverance from their importunities and offensiveness. It is an unclassified social condition, where a beggar travels his cir- cuit on horseback. Famine relief money sent to Canton was used to pay damages awarded on account of assaults made upon the foreign concession. When the emperor orders that taxes be not collected in a cer- tain district on account of famine, the offi- cials often carefully delay posting the de- cree till after the taxes have been collected. Often when relief has been distributed the tax-gatherer follows close upon the heels of the charity agent and gathers up the contributions. Possibly these two agents have a co-partnership in the business, and 27 Missions and World Movements. both thrive. I saw up in the hills along the Yang-tse the castle of a great viceroy, who had cut off within three scores of ten thousand heads, and I saw some of the heads hung out over the street in iron baskets like ancient torchlights. This viceroy was pray- ing to his gods to spare him till he rounded up the full ten thousand. Yet he would quote from Mencius and other ancient clas- sics beautiful sentiments about "the sacred- ness of human life." Cooke in his "Life and State Papers of a Chinese Statesman," shows that this statesman "pockets the money given to him to repair an embank- ment, and thus inundates a province ; and he deplores the land lost to the cultivation of the soil." Signing a treaty he said it was "only a deception for the moment," yet he exclaims "against the crime of perjury." The supreme irony known anywhere in the world, in the united judgment of the foreign ministers, is in the inscription over the en- 28 Missions and World Movements. trance to the Yamen, where treaties are ne- gotiated, which reads, "The greatest happi- ness is in doing good." Like the wrecker, who had picked up the body of a drowned man, when asked if he tried to resuscitate him, said, "Yes, sir; I picked his pockets." This bland, two-faced perjury runs through- out the empire from top to bottom. Very rare exceptions, one in a thousand milHons, are found, hardly enough to prove the law. Li Hung Chang was sent to St. Peters- burg to protest against Russian encroach- ments upon Manchuria, and he was at that very time in the pay of the Russian Govern- ment as a director in the Russian Bank in Peking. China is the supreme hypocrite of all the races and of all the ages. It is a compound of Judas Iscariot and Ananias, perfected by the training and practices of four thousand years. It has not the con- science of Judas, enabling it to commit sui- cide. It barely has the smoldering rem- 29 Missions and World Movements. nants of the moral sense of Ananias, suffi- ficient to make it susceptible to moral pun- ishment. Its chief public virtue is fear of power. The only binding force in its cove- nants is in the mouth of a double-shotted cannon. vThis Moral Mummy is Embalmed and Wrapped in Superstitions Four thousand years old, and more than ten thousand layers deep. These super- stitions touch every act of life and every word and every secret thought. They are victims of luck, fortune-tellers, and necro- mancy. They live in a world packed to the very stars with powerful spirits, which must not be offended. All ranks and classes from the emperor down to the poorest cooley, are steeped and boiled and parboiled in super- stition. By these superstitions the univer- sity men and the priests govern and rob and torment all classes. A priest in charge of a 30 Missions and World Movements. temple in Canton pays many thousand dol- lars ($40,000) for the control of the temple. He robs the people by his monopolies to pay this fee and enrich himself. Poor people pay to him ten times as much for an incense stick as it costs elsewhere. Only sticks pur- chased in that temple can be burned there. Women pay enormous extortions for the privilege of sleeping on mats in the temple. This privilege is said to increase their chances for male progeny. All China is robbed and persecuted and tormented by these cruel superstitions. Be- hind the viceroy's Yamen in Tientsin — that was Ivi Hung Chang's Yamen, or Court — there was a temple to Ta Wang, the wind and water dragon. A boat conveying a pre- fect was nearly overturned by a sudden storm. Some boatman with his pole must have carelessly disturbed Ta Wang. Care- ful search was made, and a small snake was discovered near the railroad bridge. 31 Missions and World Movements. Profuse apologies and prostrations were made to it, and it was carefully carried with the greatest pomp and ceremony to the Ta Wang temple. China is the deepest pit of heathenism, where Satan brews his most powerful charms and his most deadly moral plagues. No human plummet can fathom this sea of corruption. Two hundred thousand na- tives in Hong Kong, many of them born there or living there fifty years in close con- tact with intelligent foreigners, glad to have the protection of the British flag and the high wages of a British city, where silver is as abundant as brass on the main land, and where no mandarin can extort half or any part of their wages; glad to be taught English without cost, so as to earn the high wages of European clerks and have the free service of English physicians ; glad to be under incorruptible magistrates and just policemen; glad to live in a model foreign 32 Missions and World Movements. city, where they can live as they please and follow their own customs, and worship their own gods, with everything to help them, and nothing to disturb them, — in spite of all this they are in all ranks with very few ex- ceptions, too few to count, as deeply dyed with superstitions as any who never even saw a civilized man. They are bland and smiling and silent, while nothing unusual jars the public mind. But when the plague came all their old superstitions came to the surface. They cursed and hated the for- eigners, and hid their sick from the doctors, and refused to go to the hospitals, and as- saulted both doctors and nurses, and threat- ened to burn the city and poison the wells. They believed every old superstition, and trusted their incantations and vile, filthy remedies. The influences of the clean and . helpful civilization in which they had lived for half a century, but which did not con- cern itself much about their religious en- 33 Missions and World Moveme:nts. lightenment, vanished in one hour. There remained only hatred for the foreigners and the undisputed reign of Satan. No human power can save this people. Only the al- mighty grace of God, that can create anew the elements and energies of a moral nature, can make them moral and trustworthy for the uses of civilization. ' The one virtue in the Chinese character that has survived these long centuries of op- pression and superstition that keeps society from utter dissolution, and the State from annihilation, is the FAMII.Y Tie:. It begins with the devotion of children, strengthens with every year of natural life, and extends to the worlds out of sight, in an absorbing worship of parents and ancestors. There is no limit to the thoroughness and cruelty with which penalty is inflicted npon a child that kills his father. In Foochow 34 Missions and World Move;ments. I saw the traces of this penalty upon a young man who had killed his father with a hoe as they worked in the field. The officers chained him to a post in the execution place, and compelled his mother to cut out the first piece from his breast. Then they hacked him slowly into small pieces till there was only a heap of refuse at the foot of the stake. Then they executed the mother for having such a son, and the neighbors living next on cither side for having such a neighborhood. Next the officer, like a policeman, whose duty it was to keep order in that beat, was executed. The officer above him, like our sherifiF, was banished. The Tawtai, or gov- ernor, of the district was removed from office. Then they burned down the house in which the man had lived, and dug up the ground under it to the depth of two feet and carted the dirt off and dumped it into the river. They intended to wipe out that wickedness so it could not spread. 35 Missions and World Movements. Every Emphasis is Pi^aced upon the Family. It is the unit in the State. The entire fam- ily is responsible for the conduct of each member. There is a mortgage of ancient and constant custom, an unwritten law, that makes the family responsible for the debts of the father. There is only one way to dis- charge a debt in China, and that is to pay it. It follows the family like an avenging spirit, not to the third or fourth generation, but forever till it is paid. The family must take care of its own poor. One man thrives, the indolent and thriftless live on him. He must employ them even to the exclusion of competent service, and often even to the ruin of his business. This family feeling widens a little, reaching neighborhoods and clans, but fails to strengthen the empire. The family tie is the chief virtue planted in the Garden of Eden that has survived all 36 Missions and Wori,d Move:ments. the migrations, and all the changes in dy- nasty, and all the centuries. It absorbs all the natural vigor of patriotism and all the supernatural inspiration of religion. Its roots entwine the earth, and its branches em- brace the heavens. Another element of strength in the China- man is his CoivONiziNG Power. He crosses all seas and burrows into all continents. He surpasses the Saxon in abil- ity to toil in all climates. He matches the Russian in enduring Arctic storms, and sur- passes the Negro in working in the tropics. He is the one cosmopolitan, at home every- where as if he owned the world. Silent, gentle, submissive, industrious, economical, temperate, all-enduring, he thrives every- where — on the mountains, in the deserts, on the plains, in the islands. As the serpent, with his one ability to crawl, competes in 37 Missions and Wori.d Movejments. various fields, without fins swims with the fish, without hands dimbs with the mon- key, and without feet runs with the horse, so the Chinaman with his one abiUty of adaptation competes successfully with the sailor on the sea, and with the frontiersman in the wilderness, and with the miner under the earth, and with the exile in wanderings. He does not ask for a fair chance. He asks only for a chance, so does not try to crowd anybody. Once landed, he abides. The in- dividual changes, but the kind continues. A human microbe, he multiplies. Not being a politician, all governments that let him alone suit him. He never breeds nor joins revolutions abroad. Not being a specialist, all industries with a possible margin attract him. He never boycotts any trade. Not being ambitious, except for more cash, all social orders that pay for services are equally satisfactory to him. He is pleasing to the greatest variety of women. He marries 38 Missions and Wori,d Movements. through the widest range of races. Like a mongoose he can run through any passage- way. Though fond of a palace, he can live in a closet and make a home anywhere. As gravity draws all rivers along the lines of least resistance, so his instinct for gain draws him along lines where there is the least waste of energy. He is the supreme colonizer. All countries are his — Siberia, India, Bur- mah, Austraha, all the Americas, including the Philippines. All the islands of the seas ; he has the largest colonies here and there on the earth, even larger than the English colony, Buenos Ay res. In the Malay Straits he far outnumbers the Malays. In Siam he is nearly three million strong, one-third the entire population of that kingdom. But for the fact that he could not vote in Amer- ica, and so left the politicians to oppose him in the interest of those who could vote, he might have been to-day ten millions strong 39 Missions and World Movements. under our flag. It took all the venom of local prejudices and all the power of the General Government to check this silent, creeping, ever-pressing tide. In his wide wanderings he is a factor wherever he lives. He owns and manages great steamship lines, banks, factories, mines, plantations, mercantile establish- ments, great corporations in the English col- ony of Hong Kong, in Japan, in Singapore, in India, in Burmah, in Siam. He is a constant menace to the laborer in every labor market of the world. The Chinaman is not a Soldier. You find over China statues of scholars and statesmen and philosophers and literary men, but not often of soldiers. He has no military spirit, yet he has courage when he is well drilled, commanded, and paid. There are rare instances of heroism. Some men have volunteered as substitutes to be exe- 40 Missions and World Moveiments. cuted. He believes in strategy, not arms. He fights behind walls, like a cornered rat ; but before an assault he runs like an ante- lope. This spirit has made it possible to live in the same world with him. When he shall find a good drill-master and an able com- mander, and prompt care when wounded, and certain pay for service, he will be a splendid soldier. Russia can furnish all' these lacking requisites. England sent a drill sergeant up the Nile into the sands of Egypt to the water-carrying fellahs, and Europe and Asia were surprised to see these recruits fight like ancient Greeks. Any-, thing the Egyptians can do, the Chinaman can do. What England has done for Egypt, Russia can do for China. The greatest modern Chinese statesman, Wensiang, often said to foreign diplomats: *'You are all too anxious to wake us and* start us on a new road, and you will do it ; but you will all regret it, for, once waking 4 41 Missions and World Movements. and started, we shall go fast and far, farther than you think, and much faster than you want." Thd PROBI.EM WITH China is This, Which Way is She: Going? In recent years she has lost two-thirds of her territory, though only one-twelfth of her population. Yet there remain fifteen hun- dred thousand square miles of land, an im- mense block of available land, and 350,000,- 000 of people. She may change dynasties, she may come under the control of some for- eign Power; but she will not cease to be. She will not be wiped out. Like the king in a chess game she may be checkmated, but she can not be removed from the board. Some pawn or knight, some Japanese or Muscovite, will cover her exposure and con- tinue the game. Her very numbers is God's promise of perpetuity. The yellow race will remain the menace of the world. It lies on 42 Missions and World Move:ments. the shore of Asia, a huge club, only waiting to be picked up by some Hercules. China ^ is the world's problem for the twentieth century. Who will seize this club? Russia the Coming Power. We are up against an inexorable propo- sition. As we peer into the mists that veil the future, coming events cast their shad- ows toward us. There is a huge figure ap- proaching. It has a fur cloak over its shoul- ders, and a club in its hands. It may be the coming Hercules. Looking more closely it is a Bear. The Bear that Vv^alks like a man. After our experiences during the • Civil War, when the Czar sent his fleet to New York and San Francisco to defend us against intervention, it is difficult for us to fear the Bear or refuse him anything. Yet we must recognize facts. It is a Bear stand- ing on the trail. His posture does not change his nature. If Russia appropriates 43 Missions and Wori.d Moveiments. and assimilates China, we are face to face with the most powerful empire ever known ^ among men. The world problem is this, Shall Russia be allowed to absorb China? This problem is full of dragon's teeth, teeth enough to seed down the world with century- long strifes. Russia is Ai.re:ady Very Great. / She has 125,000,000 people, and 8,670,- 000 square miles of land. The mass of her people are stout and solid, inured to hard- ship, economical, able to live as cheaply as Chinamen. They are ignorant and super- stitious, zealous followers of the Czar, tak- ing his word as final and almost divine. One block of land, from the Polar Sea to Persia, and from the Baltic to Korea, with no intervening sections of hostile or even neutral territory, — infantry could march over these wide zones without touching for- eign soil. 44 Missions and World Movements. Russia is Rendered Incapable oi^ Subju- gation BY Her Geography. She needs only to retreat into her climate to destroy all pursuers. Even the genius of Napoleon could not survive her neglect any farther north than Moscow. She can march against any foe at her own sweet will. If she wins she can absorb the conquered territory to pay the expenses. If she fails she has only to retreat, wait, recuperate, and try again. The State, as distinguished from the coun- try, means the Czar. He is the State. His wealth surpasses that of any other man's wealth. Money is more than ever before the sinews of war. The ancient David might slay Goliath and scatter the Philis- tines with a sling and a smooth pebble from a common brook, not worth more than a Chinese cash 1/18 of a cent; but the modern David who would defend his country or ex- 45 Missions and Wori.d Move:me:nts. tend her borders must have steel ships and twenty-four inch guns. It costs $800 or $1,000 now to hurl one pebble from some of our modern slings. Money is the sinews of war. It takes a key of gold to unlock the gate of empire. The Czar is very rich ; has money almost without limit. His un- mortgaged resources approach $1,000,000,- 000 a year, and would maintain perpetually a war as great as the late English South African War. The debt of Russia is $3,- 311,000,000. Great as it seems, it is less than the debt of England or of France. He has vast resources from mines and coal and timber lands. While all other nations, ex- cept some of the South American Republic wildernesses, are hunting for and planting and economizing their lumber supply, the Czar has over 300,000,000 acres of heavy timber. He has income from rents and rail- roads. He owns 25,000 miles of railroads, and some years is adding to these at the rate 46 Missions and World Movements. of 2,600 miles a year. He has vast income from the Hquor trade, which he took into his own hands to control its quality and re- strict its sale, and save the peasants from utter destruction. According to latest re- ports his income from all sources exceeded all the expenses of the Government by $200,- 000,000. Out of this he put $47,500,000 into new warships, $21,575,000 into relief for the crop failure, and other millions he poured into increasing the army. In a time of financial depression he was not affected in the least. He pushed his great Siberian Railroad 7,600 miles long, his Trans-Cas- pian Railroad, his railroads in Central Asia, in Southern Caucasus, and his railroads down to the frontier of Austria and to the frontier of Germany, just as if he owned all the mines and mints in the world. This great Siberian Road, purely a polit- ical and military enterprise, is destined to change the map of Asia and mold the des- 47 / Missions and Wori.d Movements. tiny of China. A great Russian statesman has said, "We shall conquer China by rail- roads." Now running along the border of China by the thousand miles this road makes it easy and inevitable to put Russian pres- sure on China at any point. The Czar has only to close a little these iron fingers on the brain or on the heart or on the throat of China, and his will will be supreme. Know- ing this, he has pushed the Siberian Road on to its objective point with all the wisdom of a capitalist and all the energy of a con- queror. He still has had a large surplus which he applies to the development of Russia's boundless resources. Mr. Ford says in an English engineering magazine: "Mighty canals are being cut, rivers and harbors deepened, arid regions irrigated, forests cleared and waste lands reclaimed; cities, villages, and workshops are being built, and colonies are being planted in new localities 48 Missions and World Movements. where modern systems of drainage and agri- culture are being introduced." These improvements are of the highest character; depots, government buildings, opera-houses, public halls, cathedrals are of the most modern style, and most permanent structures. The advances into new regions and toward possible conquests have all the appearance of permanent occupation. These vast outlays are no spasmodic output. The treasury is never exhausted. The na- tional debt is all the time being regularly reduced fifteen or twenty million dollars a year. New loans are floated only to pay off old bonds and carry the debt at lower rates. Not a dollar of the recent loans has gone into the treasury or current expenses. Rus- sia has large deposits in English banks. In recent years (A. D. 1890) one of the London banks had to have the support of the Bank of England to help it over a close place. Russia's deposit there was so great that the 49 Missions and World Movements. Bank of England asked Russia "not to call for her deposit till a certain date, as it would precipitate a financial crisis of the utmost gravity." Add to all this the fact that the %| Vast Resources o^ the Empire are Oni,y Being Discovered. Coal, iron, copper, and oil are produced by the million tons, and their resources are barely scratched. Life-supporting prod- ucts are created by the hundred million tons. Improved agriculture is pushed upon the farmers. Industries are planted in every direction. Public works open new sources of knowledge and support for large numbers of the peasantry. The empire covering one- eighth of the earth's surface, and about one- tenth of the world's population, is a vast workshop. Russia is a beehive. The spirit of the great Romanoff family, the greatest family that ever sat on a human throne, in- 50 Missions and World Movi:ments. spires all ranks of the people and of the army. They believe implicitly in the Czar. Tell them that such or such is the wish or will of the Czar, and they are quick to do it. Ask a Russian anywhere what is the mis- sion of Russia, and he will say, ''To save the world." Ask a Russian officer where Russia is going, and he will point to China. Their faces are set to the southeast. It is ingrained into the Russian conviction that they are destined to reach the warm sea. It is amazing to think of the vastness of the Czar's power. All the energies of that em- pire centralize in him. The strength and momentum of two continents are com- pressed into him. He is the world's fist. With such a Power rising in Europe and Asia, nothing is impossible to it. What Does the Czar Want? That is the vital question. He must be judged by his history and his environment. 51 Missions and World Movements. His natural and national instinct has been forward to open winter harbors, to the warm sea. He has desired the warm sea with a greed many centuries old. This drift is a world movement. It depends neither upon individual men nor upon particular ages. It is not dependent upon any great military genius. It requires only an average ruler, open to the instincts of his people. Opposition may retard this movement, but it can not defeat it. It is a tide lifted by the stars. It is a gulf-stream sweeping onward by the century, unaffected by State funerals or the flight of time. It is silent, concentrated, perpetual. As the Muir gla- cier comes out of the Alaskan gorge from a number of concentrated, converged gorges, spurting and pushing each other forward till the advance along the main axis of move- ment is often visible to the careful observer, so this Russian political glacier comes out of all the converging convictions of the em- 52 Missions and World Movements. pire, pushes straight on by a resistless grind toward the warm sea, and it must succeed. It is a world grind, and only God can stop it. Russia will ultimately reach warm water, but she must not absorb China. Can China resist Russia? Let the drift of recent years answer. China has recently lost Siam, Burmah, Annam, Tibet, and Mongolia, Tong King, Formosa, Man- churia, and Korea. These are China's tracks, toes in toward Peking, away from the nar- rowing frontier. It is not thinkable that she should now arise and reverse her direc- tion and her history in a struggle against her overshadowing master. Russia's ad- vances are as marked as China's losses. Russia has transformed the map of Asia into a series of Russian plateaus, marking the mighty strides of Russia's progress. Look at them : The Urals, Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia, Baikalia, Kamschatka, the Amur, Manchuria, the Steppe, Khiva, Tur- 53 Missions and Wori.d Movements. kestan, the Merr Oasis, Bokhara, Samar- kand, — these are Russia's footprints, heels toward St. Petersburg, toes toward the ex- tending frontier, marking her strides over Asia. Meantime her naval base drifts south, tack by tack, Petropaulafsk, Nikolasefsk, Vladivostock, Port Arthur. With Her to Wii.Iv is to Achieve. She moves as if she had only to pick out of everything whatever she wants. Is it Siberia? She takes it. Is it Central Asia? She takes it. Is it Port Arthur ? She takes it. Is it Manchuria? She takes it. Is it Persia? She runs her railroads to the Per- sian Gulf and takes the Persian commerce, knowing that where Persia's heart is there will she be also. Does she want Mongolia? She has only to say the word. The iron net is fully spread. Does she want Tibet? She already has her hand stretched under the limb to catch it when she wishes to jar the 54 Missions and World Movements. tree. Her railroad runs 7,600 miles from the Baltic to the Yellow Sea, and a branch is already creeping up to the Great Wall almost within cannon shot of Peking. With her railroad stations skirting the Chi- nese border for 3,000 miles, and thickly set with forts, and with her navy nosing out to the Yellow Sea, she becomes the only friend of China whose advice must be taken. The northern half of China, all north of the Yellow River and possibly down to the Yang-tse, becomes her vassal. Her rail- roads will not only thread Manchuria, but all North China. The commerce of that great empire will become exclusively Rus- sian. Differential rates on her railroads will neutralize the ''most favored nation" clause of the treaties. Without firing a single shot, or taking a single step worthy of interna- tional consideration, with only the pressure Russia knows so well how to exercise, China seems certain to be brought, and is being 55 Missions and Wori.d Movements. brought, under the absolute control of Rus- sia. With a navy, now only second in rank and rapidly increasing, much larger than ours, a navy such as Russia can easily put upon the Yellow Sea and on the Pacific, and with vast armies within easy reach, there will be no Power able to dispute her ad- vance or countermand her orders. China Naturally Gravitates Toward Russia. Russia is largely Asiatic, all Asiatic ex- cept a little European light let in through St. Petersburg, the window which Peter the Great opened into Europe. Russia is Asiatic. Napoleon said, "Scratch a Russian, and you have a Tartar." She has the Asiatic ability to smile and lie and wait. She has no value on time. She hates haste. She has the soft, complacent, smiling, treacherous face of all Asiatics. She un- derstands and suits China. She yields and 56 Missions and Wori.d Move;me;nts. presses, and waits and holds on. She is only another arm of the same octopus. So China, repelled by and hating the Saxon straight- forward integrity and haste, naturally sinks back into the embrace of Russia. Her four hundred millions, drilled and paid and com- manded by Russian officers, can furnish armies without number, and inferior to none. Russia has supreme organizing and ab- sorbing power ; a hundred nations and tribes have been dissolved in this sea, and never one has ever been precipitated. The vast industrial possibilities of China, reached by steam and electricity over waterways and railways, projected and owned and managed by Russians, will make her as dangerous in the labor markets of the world as on the battlefields. Russia does not want a military conquest if she can avoid it. She will avoid all beyond the near presence of her armies and threats. She wants China for the sake 5 57 Missions and Wori.d Move:me:nts. of her incipient, and possibly boundless, commerce. She wants control of those mar- kets now ready for use, as soon as she can reach those thronging millions with proper communication and transportation. It is not ^ Siberia for her own sake she wants, where she has to plant colonies and slowly create trade; she wants Siberia for what lies be- yond. It is China, where the population has been waiting by the thousand years for the development of commerce. Russia Wants this Empire to Use: as a We:apon against India and against the rest of Asia, and against Europe. In Russia's hand China will be a deadly weapon, and make Russia the great- est empire, ancient or modern. Establish the Czar's authority in Peking, with a continuous frontier along India, from the Upper Oxus to the Yang-tse basin on much of three sides of that populous em- 58 Missions and World Movements. pire, with a home fleet on the Pacific su- perior to the EngHsh fleets projected into those waters, making the transport of Eng- lish armies impossible, with five hundred millions of people whose flesh and blood are cheap obeying his orders, able to drop armies into India without number, unex- posed on transports, then the absorption of India will be only a matter of willing. The Russian Empire, then extending from the Polar Sea to the Indian Ocean, and from Germany to the Yellow Sea, covering Asia and much of Europe, and controlling half the human race, will put Europe in greater peril than it ever was in the days of the Mongol Empire in the palmy days of Jen- ghiz Khan, or Timurlane, Russia is already running her railroads down to the border of Austria, waiting till the Slav and German elements of Austria shall assert themselves upon the near death of Franz Joseph, the present emperor. Then the Czar will be 59 Missions and Wori.d Move:me:nts. ready to bargain with Germany and take his Slavs in out of anarchy, while WilHam III hovers his Germans. It looks as if the old Bonaparte had the vision of a prophet, when on St. Helena he said, '*In a century Europe will be all Republican or Slav," and again he said, "If a Czar, brave, hardy, gifted with warlike qualities, mount the Russian throne, he will be able to conquer all Europe." This is not a dream. The Czar, as ruler of Asia, can do much toward transforming the Pacific Ocean into a Russian harbor or highway. In peace, by high duties and dif- ferential rates over her railroads, he can close all the vast markets of Asia against all non-Russian products, as he is doing to-day wherever his double-headed eagles float. He stops at no half-way measures. He seeks the accomplishment of his own will with the celerity of ambition, and with the merciless thoroughness of fanaticism. The 60 Missions and WorIvD Movements. Czar is accumulating and marshaling mighty forces, and is confident that he can absorb China, and later India and the rest of Asia. He will reach the warm Pacific. But he ^ must not absorb China. The Powers must resist him, and set limits and bounds to his ambition and to his empire. The Lines are Being Drawn By an invisible and Almighty Hand. The Great Powers are silently wheeling into place. Sooner or later the contest will be joined. Let us catalogue the forces on each side. On one side is Russia, ambitious, seeking more territory, not for a crowded population, for she already has much room to spare, but for strategical positions for future political and military conquests. Rich beyond computation, compact in terri- tory, one immense block, buttressed on the north by the Arctic Ocean, cushioned on the south by soft peoples, stretching across two 6i Missions and World Movements. continents, with little east of her to resist, and everything to allure her, even on to the Pacific, and confronted on the west only by Germany. With 125,000,000 of devoted, warlike subjects, fanatically certain that Russia is ordained of God to conquer both Asia and Europe for the salvation of the world, with a greed for conquest fermented in the blood for many centuries, and with an experience of successful absorptions wide enough to turn the head of the Sphinx, with all this power concentrated in one unques- tioned will, can there be any doubt as to which way Russia will move? On the side of Russia will be found her ally, France, the Don Quixote of the nations, though within a few days France seems to be mak- ing friends with England. Turkey must yield to the old-time greed of Russia. So much of Austria as is of Slav origin will join the Slavs. The rest of Europe will not add much to these forces. Italy is only a 62 Missions and World Movements. name on the map. Spain is a relic. These baptized and unbaptized heathen will soon be able to rally half the human race to one standard. Against these vast hosts may possibly be gathered the Saxon and Protestant nations. Germany, That old birthplace and cradle of Protest- ism ; that camp in the heart of Europe ; that race of soldiers; that land of colleges and scholars, and statesmen, and fighters; that nation that sung its way from Berlin to Paris, trampling down all opposing armies as if they were only knocking off the heads of toadstools; that bulwark of Europe against Russia will give sympathy, and pos- sibly aid. Since the fall of Bismarck, who always courted Russia at the expense of England, it looks as if William III has come to his senses and realizes the danger of the presence of so great and ambitious a neigh- 63 Missions and World Movements. bor as Russia, as if the faith of his fathers was asserting itself in his convictions, as if the blood of his mother and grandmother, God's most elect lady, Victoria, was work- ing in his veins, and that he is turning the prow of his Ship of State toward the Eng- lish Channel. When Napoleon was in Ber- lin he visited the resting-place of Frederick the Great. He picked up Frederick's sword that was lying on his coffin, and carried it away with him. When Unser Fritz went into Paris with Moltke at his back, and met the French commissioners suing for peace, the first thing he said was, "We have come after Frederick's sword." That sword, dropped into the scales in this strife, may tell which way the beam of Fate will sink. Let us hope that Germany will be true to her history and her instincts. It is fairly safe to expect sympathy and comfort from 64 Missions and World Movements. Scandinavia. Those sons of the Vikings and of the old pirate chiefs, those sons of the heroes of the Thirty Years' War, who single-handed against all Catholic Europe for a whole gen- eration defended and saved Protestantism and Liberty ; these Scandinavians who stood off and so defeated Peter the Great, that after one of his defeats he had the Te Deum sung in the churches, saying: *'The time has at last come when three Russians can stand against one Swede. The time will come when we can stand two against one ;" these Scandinavians who have a larger per cent of people able to read and write than any other nation anywhere, who, living by their fjords and mountain streams, sing the glad songs of liberty and are as free as any people have ever been in any land or age; these Scandinavians will be true to their history, to their faith, and to their God. They will be found on the right side. 65 Missions and World Move:me:nts. It may not be too much to rely on help from HoivIvAND, That pioneer of religious liberty. Holland was the advance guard of Freedom for two hundred years. She was the discoverer of nearly every great truth out of which re- publics are made. She discovered, polit- ically the individual man, freedom of con- science, free schools for boys and girls, free press, free libraries, free judges, secret bal- lot, written constitutional limitations for the ruler, full subpoenas for the witnesses of the accused, and counsel for his defense. Holland endured the tortures of the Duke of Alva without flinching, and resisted the combined forces of the Bourbon family through the long Eighty Years' War. She can never be wanting when she is needed. 66 Missions and World Movements. Japan, Suddenly rising into importance, long a na- tion of sailors and fighters, now in covenant with England, may be counted against her great and ancient enemy, Russia. Her fleets and her armies, her commerce and her in- dustries, her valor and her new life, her geographical position and her ambitions, make her a great factor in the problems of the immediate future. She so regards her- self and her mission. Her genius for peace- ful achievements is shown in her mounting so quickly to the second place in the com- merce with China, and in the rapidity with which she assumes control of her own new industries. Most of her railroads, started and handled by foreigners, are now exclu- sively Japanese; not one foreigner is re- tained with them. Her ancient war power has survived the exchange of the cross-bow for the steel cruiser. This is demonstrated 67 Missions and World Movements. by the ease with which she destroyed the naval power of China. It is not strange that she should now regard herself as one of the great Powers, almost the great Power. Count Okuma, ex-minister for foreign af- fairs, not long ago said in a set speech: "The European Powers are already showing symptoms of decay, and the next century will see their constitutions shattered and their empires in ruins. . . . Who is fit to be their proper successors if not ourselves. . . . The Japanese mind is in every way equal to the European mind. . . . We are become one of the chief Powers of the world, and no Power can engage in any movement without first consulting us. Japan can enter into competition with Eu- rope as the representative of the Oriental races." In the impending struggle 68 Missions and Wori.d Movements. England Stands as the bulwark of Liberty, and the defender of Christianity, and the strength of Protestantism. Her blood, her history, her faith, her Divine commission, her com- merce, and her high leadership, and almost her existence compel her to meet this crisis before it becomes a destiny. England is born of all the great Northern races. Her island has been a fort for the control of the Continent. All the pirates from the high seas, and all the freebooters from the main land, all the ambitious chiefs and all the most fearless adventurers, patriots panting for freedom, and saints praying for ease of con- science, warriors and martyrs marching in the picket-line of the advance guard of human progress, generation after generation, age after age, for many centuries, have crowded into this island fortress, and have contended for a footing and a future. In the death- 69 Missions and World Movi:me:nts. grapple with fagot and sword they have staggered from shore to shore, baptizing every blade of grass with the blood of their martyrs, and paving every square yard of their island with the bodies of their heroes. They have mingled their blood in their streams and in their veins, and out of all this strife and agony has come the most virile race known to history, Engi^and To-day is a Bank and an Ex- change;. She calculates in marble counting-rooms and lives in golden palaces. She does not produce so much as she causes others to produce and then divide. She stretches her arms over all seas and into all continents. She sends her sons into all the mines and forests and harvests of many lands, and they come back with much of the world's wealth. She lives and labors at arm's- length. To be anything she must keep 70 Missions and Wori.d Move;me;nts. open her markets and keep up her Hnes of transportation. The heart of her wealth beats inside her narrow shores, but she must keep her arteries and veins, that net the world, in safety and health. Let these clog, and heart-failure will end her career. Her Indian Empire fills many of her cof-/ fers and feeds many of her millions. With- out it she might still exist, but she would miss many of her luxuries and lose much of her prestige. There have been three great queens of the sea — Tyre, and Venice, and England. Tyre is only a tradition ; Venice is a remnant; England, stripped of India, might be pushed from her place of power. She is forced by her commerce, and almost for her very existence, to stand at all hazards against the shadow of the returning Mongol Empire. She can not allow Russia to rule Asia. England's faith is her soul. This is the power that gave her her leadership and her 71 Missions and Wori.d Moveiments. destiny. She stands for all that is dear in freedom and all that is sacred in religion. Her Westminster Abbey gives her the stately pageant of her history and the pride of her great families. But her Smithfield, where her martyrs, for the sake of the truth, defied the stake and the fagot, is the center of her power and of her glory. The ashes from that sacred spot have been carried by the waves and by the winds to all shores and over all lands, where they have sprung up in free institutions and pros- perous peace. Nearly all her great families know what Protestantism cost and what made Smithfield resistless. While the mem- ories of these historic sacrifices touch a chord in the hearts of freemen, and England stands for the open Bible, she can never in- nocently or safely hand over Asia to bap- tized and unbaptized heathenism. Wher- ever the power of Russia reaches, there mis- sion work in the past has been perilous, and 72 Missions and World Movements. almost impossible. But wherever the Union Jack is unfurled, there the Bible is wide open and religious teaching is protected and safe. If England surrenders Asia to Rus- sia she gives a new lease of life to heathen- ism, and postpones the triumph of the Cross for from two to ten centuries. She sur- renders her scepter, and passes into obscur- ity uncrowned and unhonored. We still hope that England can never retreat. Like the Old Guard at Waterloo, England can die, but she can never surrender. She fought France for three hundred years with vary- ing fortunes but they gave her Marlbor- ough and Nelson and Wellington, and cre- ated her empire. Surely she can afford to fight Russia twice that time, if necessary, to maintain her supremacy and perpetuate her empire. There is Another Factor in this Problem. This argument, like John's locusts and 8 73 Missions and Wori,d Movkments. scorpions in the Book of Revelation, has its sting in its tail. That other factor is the Uniti:d States, Our ambitious, aggressive, confident, power- / ful, dear sweet selves. Nearly every inter- est we have is involved in the solution of this Chinese question. We are drifting in this political gulf-stream. We are an Asiatic Power. Russia ruling Asia may transform the Pacific into a Russian harbor, or highway, a roadstead across which Saxon and Slav will struggle. In peace the Czar can close half the markets of the world against us, and we shall find the cheap labor of all the world competing in our markets. Our labor will be depressed as never before. A small per cent of our possible appliances can glut all the markets then left open to us. In war the Czar will be a colossal peril to every nation having a Pacific exposure. This is not a dream. It is a situation, al- 74 Missions and World Movements. ready within the field of vision. Napoleon saw it a century ago ; Lord Palmerston saw it half a century ago; we ought to be able to see it now. It does not menace us he- cause we have a Pacific Archipelago in Far Eastern waters. It menaces us because we have a Pacific frontage. When we bought the Northwest Territories from Napoleon, and shoved the prows of our commerce into the Pacific, we gave hostages to Asia. With our inheritance comes our new peril. As long ago as the time of Mr. Lincoln's Administration his voice was strong enough to revolutionize the policy of Japan. An ancient edict against Christianity ordered the suppression of the ''evil sect." The revolutions in the sixties encouraged native Christians to confess their faith. The Mikado ordered their extirpation. Mr. Lincoln sent word to the Mikado that his edict was ofifensive to the United States; . . . that it conflicted with the Treaty of 75 Missions and World Move:me:nts. 1858; that it conflicted with toleration in the civiHzed world; and that "the Unite:d States can not Acquiesce: in or Submit to the Mikado's Proc- lamation/'' The minister was instructed to "proceed with firmness and without practicing injuri- ious hesitation, or accepting any abasing compromises." Japan accepted the doc- trines and stopped the persecution. We are an Asiatic Power. The diplomacy of President McKinley in Peking concerning the Boxer troubles was the determining element in the adjustment. The three points urged by McKinley were : First, that it was not a war, but a riot, and therefore retaining the Chinese minister he thus kept fifteen of the eighteen Provinces out of the strife. Second, that the integrity of China must be maintained, thus preserv- ing the "Open Door ;" and Third, that dam- 76 Missions and World Movements. ag-es should be settled by a lump sum, thus preventing the seizure of territory by any individual Power. The Powers came finally to these contentions. The United States sat at the head of the table in fixing the affairs of Asia. We are an Asiatic Power. We have more at stake than any other nation. The Isthmian Canal will bring all our cities into close trade relations with Asia. The vast multitude of Asia must come our way, either to trade with us or with Europe. What a future rises before us ! The great cities of the Atlantic Coast from Portland to New Orleans have all been built by the commerce from little Europe. What, then, shall we say of the cities to be built on our Pacific Coast? Ten times the people, soon to be Christian and civilized, with the wants of civilization, will soon change the face of the continent. To-day we face Europe. To-morrow we shall face Asia. To-day San Francisco's harbor is our 77 Missions and World Movements. back door. To-morrow the Golden Gate will be our front door, and Europe will be be- hind us. Much of the largest part of our wealth will soon be west of the Mississippi. Our great cities and forts will be on the Pacific. A thousand million people crowd- ing in will tramp the highways into pave- ments. By the side of their trails vast cities must spring up. Cheap power will soon lift and carry and distribute the waters of the great mountain regions till all those deserts shall blossom like gardens. The most desir- able climate, the richest and deepest soil, the accumulated nutrition of ages heaped upon those sage-brush plains, easily irri- gated there will be found a thousand million people crowding these plains like the old valley of the Nile. What a city San Fran- cisco must be ! With no port near her, with a coast-range preventing any other natural entrance for hundreds of miles, with those long granite arms reaching up and down 78 Missions and Wori.d Moveme:nts. the coast to gather into that most capacious harbor the countless ships freighted from populous Asia, — with all these helps and stimulants the world's greatest metropolis will be built by the Golden Gate. We have more interests exposed to the Pacific storms than any other nation. We ought not to sit idly by while our destiny, like the Savior's seamless garment, is being gambled for before our very eyes. Sooner or Later We Shaliv Coneront Russia. The strife of all time will be to decide whether the commerce of the Pacific, which will be the bulk of the world's commerce, which will mean the dominating power of the world, shall be Russian or American, whether the Pacific with its interests shall be Slav or Saxon, shall be for absolutism or liberty. Almost in spite of ourselves, certainly by 79 Missions and World Movements. no planning of our own, we are being put in shape for this struggle. Our decks are being cleared for action. Hawaii, The one only and supreme strategical point in all the wide Pacific for the defense of our coast, has come to us at the right time. It is the only point where a hostile coaling station would be dangerous to us. From Alaska to the Isthmus, from America to Japan, this is the only spot where coal and water could be obtained. Four times it has been held by foreign Powers. Once we re- jected it when offered to us. Some Power wiser than our statesmen wanted us to have it, so it floated back to us with its Pearl Harbor. Now we want it. Never again will it be tumbled about the public market. On the other side we have the Phiuppines, Stretched along the coast of Asia. They are 80 Missions and World Movements. the very doorkeepers of Asia. A hand reaching out from Manila can put a finger or thumb on the principal ports of China, Japan, Korea, Siam, and Annam. If the nails on those fingers are battleships they can easily throttle those thoroughfares of commerce. We did not want the Philip- pines; but now nobody else can have them. When Dewey took Manila a great Chinaman said, "This is the salvation of China; she will not be partitioned." Russia sold us eighteen thousand miles of North American coast fine. We did not want it; but now we mean to keep it. No double-headed eagle must ever again light on this continent. France sold us another stretch of Pacific Coast for fifteen million dollars, and now there is not enough money in France to buy it back, nor Frenchmen enough in the world to take it from us. We are being prepared for the coming strife. Our decks are being cleared. 8i Missions and Wori.d Moveme:nts. ^, The struggle is between the Far East and the Far West. It is a grapple of civiliza- tions. Let us hope that all Protestant na- tions and Japan — just protesting against nearly everything — will stand together, and present such a solid front that Russia, even though hoping to rule all Asia, may hesitate to disturb the peace, and be compelled to resort to her lifelong policy of delay and diplomacy and pressure, and thus make room for better agencies than the sword, and time for better principles to obtain the mastery. Sooner or later Russia will reach the warm sea; but she must not have all Asia. She must be checked and held where she is by the Powers till China is Christian- ized in principles and civilized in fact. The / great Protestant nations may use diplomacy to gain time. The last forty years civiHzed Japan and prepared her to join England on the side of freedom in the combinations against Russia. Seventy-five years more 82 Missions and World Movements. may so transform China as to make her an ally instead of an enemy. Sir Robert Hart regards ''China as a menace to the civilized world," and suggests only two remedies. First, the partition of the empire among the Powers, a course embarrassed by many diffi- culties. Second, the miraculous spread of Christianity, a not impossible but scarcely to be hoped for religious triumph, which would convert China into the friendliest of friendly Powers." We are confronting a crisis. Once in the rapids, the current is swift and the cataract is near and inevitable. When a falling man has slid from a high roof we say, "He is a dead man !" though he has not struck the pavement. The forces are liber- ated that will kill him. With Russia actually occupying Man- churia and fortifying Vladivostock and Port Arthur, with her Siberian railroad finished to warm water, the crisis is actually upon us. There is no time to waste. Our Isth- 83 Missions and Wori.d Move:me:nts. mian Canal should be pushed as Russia has pushed her railroads. Our navy, now third in rank, must be brought up speedily to the first rank, and we must hold ourselves ready to master and hold the Pacific. Saxon and Slav are running to get in. The Pacific is the fort. Whoever gets in masters the world and stamps the world. It must be free, or despotic for centuries. If the storm breaks upon the world too suddenly, and all the other Powers stand back and leave the contest to the English- speaking peoples, we even then can defend our rights, save the world from Russian absolutism, and meet the high obligation thrust upon us by a friendly Providence, provided that we understand that the strife is like the old tolke knife strife of the Swedes, where the contestants are bound together by a rope around their waists, are armed with a stout knife, and fight to the finish a mortal strife, provided that we un- 84 Missions and World Movements. derstand its decisive character and have but one argument, and that is war to the bitter end ; that we have but one plan, and that is victory or death ; that we have but one pur- pose, and that the absokite control of the Pacific, cost what it may. With such con- victions and purpose we can help liberty to her last and final triumph, and secure civil and religious freedom for mankind forever. That wise and sleepless Providence has cared for us, even before our cradles were made, and furnished defenses for our use. About the great walled cities of China and Japan I have seen the old deep moats to be flooded for defense. So about the great groups of English-speaking peoples and possessions God has dug and flooded his deep and almost impassable moats. Look at them. The United States, Canada, Eng- land, South Africa, Australia, and New Zea- land, protected by God's moats. Some one who fixes the bounds and habitations of the 35 Missions and Wori.d Movements. nations inspired and ordered these colonies and States and empires. The channel and the tempest did most to destroy the Spanish Armada. So God has made ready his chan- nels, and can easily cut the leashes of storm and tempest about these centers of English- speaking peoples, these homes of liberty and Christianity. It is for us merely to use the defenses offered us. This Isthmian Canal, that last possible revolution in the geog- raphy of the v^orld, must be put through. We must have a great navy that can offset any navy created by Russia, and so prac- tically neutralize the tens of millions of sol- diers possible to Asia. There Remains to Us Another Duty, The enlistment and marshaling of forces that surpass all other forces in the field, the spiritual forces of God's government and Providence. How can I enter this field? Who can venture into the war counsel of 86 Missions and World Movements. the Almighty? God's heart is fixed and his mind is set. He says: "O that there were such an heart in you that you would hear my voice! How can I give you up? The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Nevertheless I will be inquired of by the House of Israel to do these things." God Waits for the Prayer of Israel. We must work and use the human agencies, but the victory comes only from God. When we have come to our limit God comes in. Our extremity is God's opportunity. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God that giveth the increase. It is borne in upon me to say to these workers, that the Time for Pr.\yer^ Agonizing Prayer, Sacrificing Prayer, Has Come. We are only playing with this matter of 87 / Missions and World Movements. saving the world. We, as a Church, have not yet straightened our traces on this load. During the Civil War we gave in money, and in our credit as a Nation, an average of one hundred dollars a year for each man, woman, and child to re-establish this Gov- ernment and give freedom to three million slaves, whose bodies only were in bondage. Surely virtue, economy, industry, temper- ance, honesty must count for something. We must be up to the average. We gave our pro rata share. Surely if this mission work were upon us with the same burden and pressure and grip, we could give as much in cash and credit for the re-establish- ment of the blessed government of our God over a lost and revolted world, and to give freedom to a thousand million helpless ones in the direst bondage of both body and soul. That is not impossible. That means that our Methodist Episcopal Church alone, in- stead of struggling to raise one million and 88 Missions and World Movements. a half in a year, could raise more than three hundred million dollars a year. I know you stagger as I do at these figures ; but we have given this, and if we were near enough to the Son of God to hear the broken- hearted sobs and feel the anguish of Geth- semane, if we were near enough to the chis- eled rock of Calvary to hear that agonizing, heart-breaking cry that rent the veil of the temple, and rent the trembling rocks of that bloody summit, and rent the granite doors of death, and echoed through the universe as if the wrath of the Lamb were driving suns and stars from his presence, that one only cry in all the eternities breaking the in- finite heart of God, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" if we could really hear that cry we could easily repeat and surpass these old gifts for the war. Even if we gave only one-third of it, what could not be done with one hundred million of consecrated and holy money? The world's 7 89 Missions and World Movements. -^'salvation is reduced to a question of dollars and cents. We have the blood of the atone- ment, we have the resurrected Son of God. We have the gospel, we have the experi- ence of saving grace, we have the theology, we have hosts of scholarly believers. We have the material agencies, Bibles, presses, steamboats, railroads, translations, gram- mars, and the open doors of the world — all the appliances, ready and waiting. All we ^^ lack is the money. We have not scratched the surface of our possible giving. God, pity us ! Jesus pleads. He says : "I emptied myself of the glory I had with the Father before the worlds were made. I had all the wealth of all the Ophirs, and of all the Aus- tralias, and of all the Californias, and of all worlds, all the fullness of the Godhead bod- ily. Yet for your sakes, to save you, to save the world, I exchanged the scepter that swayed over all intelligences for the spikes of a felon's cross, exchanged the songs of 90 Missions and World Movements. the angels for the hooting of the mob, ex- changed the unspeakable glory of the eter- nal court for the gloom of a human sepul- cher ; for your sake I became so poor that I had not where to lay my head. Now I call upon you to come after me to take up your cross and follow me, knowing that if any man have not my Spirit he is none of mine. Come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord, against the mighty." What is our answer? Our giving is only sixty cents a year. This is no answer. O, thou sorrowing and dying Son of God, have mercy upon us. Pour thy Spirit upon us till we count it all joy to give and sacrifice for thee, till we un- derstand the fellowship of thy suffering. Our First Need is Prayer, Mighty prayer that our eyes may be opened,- that our hearts may be opened, that our pockets may be opened. Our day is passing 91 Missions and World Movemknts. swifter than a weaver's shuttle. It is borne in upon me that the Son of God is weeping over us as he wept over Jerusalem, saying, "How oft would I have gathered thy chil- dren together as a hen gathereth her chick- ens under her wings, and ye would not." May we awake and pray lest we hear the rest of the sentence ! 'Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!" We are within reach of Asia. We can crowd our messengers into China and India. God can yet reach those millions. God can yet give us the liberality necessary to reach and save the seven hundred millions of China and India. These lands are still open. God will hear and answer prayer. My faith looks up to thee, thou Lamb of Calvary. Thkre: is Gre:at Russia. We must pray mightily for Russia. We ought to enter Russia with a great mission- ary force. There she stands, blocking the 92 Missions and World Movements. door of the future. As I look at her she seems the greatest field, the most inviting field under the stars. One hundred and twenty-five millions of people, not an effete race, the virile and conquering race of all Asia ; most of them free from idolatry, with the open Bible in their hands, and observing the forms of Christian worship; most of them within the reach of Christian altars, lacking the spirit of the gospel, lacking the saving power of the gospel, lacking the per- sonal experience of the new life received by faith only in Jesus Christ. Just now since we last met the Lord has touched the heart of the Czar, and the doors of Russia have swung back, the hinges set in bigotry for generations, clogged with the rust of cen- turies, have moved back, pushed by the hand of God. The Czar has ordered universal religious liberty throughout his wide empire. God can bring the spirit of the people up to the liberal edict of the Czar. This field, 93 Missions and World Movements. with the open Bible and with open gates, is white and ready for the reapers. ^ Russia Saved, Asia is Saved. There never was such demand for prayer, prayer, mighty prayer for Russia, that God will pour out his Spirit upon Russia and call to the minds of that people the Word which he has spoken to them. He can quicken this Word, now lying dormant in their hearts, and sweep over that empire in miraculous power. God can raise up some Wesley, who will call the dead Greek Church from its sepulcher, and make it stand on its feet. I Our high duty is prayer, prayer, prevailing prayer for Russia; prayer that God will arouse the Powers to preserve the integrity of China; prayer that God will put a bit in the teeth of Russia, saying, ''Thus far may- est thou go, and no farther," till vital godli- ness shall burn in all Russian hearts ; prayer that God will show us these fields and make 94 Missions and World Movements. us feel their greatness ; prayer that God will inspire within us the spirit of consecrated, abundant giving up to the limit of our abil- ity; prayer that God may display resistless supernatural power in the miraculous spread of the gospel over China; prayer that the gospel may speedily reach and conquer every caste and family of India ; prayer that the Holy Ghost may fall upon all the cold altars and upon all the formal and nominal Christians of all Churches, quickening them into spiritual life; prayer, agonizing prayer that the command of the Son of God to go into all the world may so sink into every professing Christian's heart, that he can find no rest till he is willing to go or send. Our God is the living God. He hears and answers prayer. Daniel called upon him, and the mouths of the lions were closed. He can close the mouth of the Bear. Elijah, the Tishite, stood against Ahab, and said: "As the Lord God of Israel liv- 95 Missions and World Movements. eth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dev/ nor rain these years but according to my word." These were heroic words of faith. Such was his faith that the heavens were turned to brass and the earth to drift- ing dust. This same prophet went up to the top of Carmel and cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and called upon God for rain. Six times he sent his servant to look toward the sea; but the servant returned, saying, ''There is nothing." The heavens were still as brass and the earth as powder. But the old prophet's faith failed not. He held on to God and sent his servant the seventh time. Then the servant returned and said, "Be- hold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand!" Thus Elijah's prayer closed and opened the windows of heaven. His prayer loosed the forces of famine and death, or bound them at his will. The God of Elijah still hears and answers 96 Missions and World Movements. prayer. We must go up into the mount of prayer. Already there is a Httle cloud over Asia like a man's hand. It is possible to make it a mighty flood. It shall be unto us according to our faith. This old record bristles with supernatural power from end to end. It is one long demonstration that God hears and answers the cry of his children. There is hardly a page that does not display supernatural an- swer to prayer clear enough to found and vindicate a supernatural Church. We have not forgotten the deliverance of the Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego. They said : "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, if you do cast us into the burning fiery furnace, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, even if he does not deliver us, we are worth more to burn than 97 Missions and World Movements. for any other purpose. Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." The king was wroth. The furnace was heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated. "These men were bound in their coats, their hosen and their hats and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. The strong men that cast these men into the furnace were killed by the flames. But these three men fell down bound into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar was aston- ished. He said : "Did we not cast these three men bound into the midst of the fire? . . . IvO, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the Fourth is like the Son of God." The king called out, " Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the Most High God, come forth and come 98 Missions and World Movements. hither." And the princes, governors and captains and counselors, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. (Dan. iii, 16-27.) The king said, ''There is no other god that can deliver after this sort." But our God can deliver after this sort. He can do it to-day as easily as in the days of these three Hebrew children. He is the same yester- day, to-day, and forever. If we will call upon him, and refuse to bow down to the gods of Fear and Doubt, and stand up straight for him, willing to take whatever comes, the form of the Fourth, like unto the Son of God, will walk with us through the kindHng fires of this world's empires, and bring us out without our having our garments changed, without having a hair of our head singed, and without the smell of fire upon us. He hears and answers prayer. 99 Missions and World Movements. Peter was cast into prison and kept for the day of execution. But the little perse- cuted Church in the house of John Mark and his mother, Mary, called upon God, and God heard and said to one of his angels : "There is my servant Peter; thrice he de- nied me, but now he is in prison for me. And the little Church there is praying day and night, and asking me to deliver him. Go and bring him out of prison, and let him go to the Praying Society yonder in Mary's house.' Then the angel went down to the prison and went into the dungeon where Peter was chained. He needed no key, for He who gave to the iron its co- hesion had sent him, and the bolts recog- nized the authority of their Maker, and slid back before his messenger. He needed no torch, for his face illumined the dungeon as if a sun had risen in it. He smote Peter on the side, and Peter arose, and the chains, manacles, and shackles fell off, and the dun- 100 Missions and World Movements. geon door stood aside, and the great gates of the outer wall recognized God's angel and rolled back to let him pass. There is nothing diliicult for God when his believing children need him and ask for his help. He did hear and answer the crying little society in Mary's house, and did miraculously de- liver Peter. So he will hear this Methodist Chur:h if only we call upon him, and he will deliver his cause from peril. We are at the parting of the ways. We are in the breach. It is for us by our works and prayer to decide. Look at Moses yonder on the mountain pleading for Israel. There on the plains stretches the camp of Israel. In the midst of the camp is an altar and the golden calf. Israel is on her face worshiping the calf, and saying: "These be thy gods, O Israel, that took thee by the hand and led thee out of the house of bondage.' God's anger is stirred, and he says to Moses : "Go, get thee lOI Missions and Wori.d Move:me:nts. down to thy people whom thou hast brought out of Egypt, for behold, they have cor- rupted themselves." Moses, poor little Moses, who the other day did not dare to speak even to poor little Pharaoh, now in this hour of destiny stands boldly before his angered God and asks, *'Why is thine anger kindled against thy people whom thou broughtest out of the land of bondage?" God said, "Let me alone that mine anger may wax hot against them." Moses clung to the very vesture of God, and cried, "Where are thy promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob?" God said, as if to buy him off, "I will make of thee a great people." Moses held fast, crying, "What will the heathen say, that thou broughtest out thy people into the wilderness to slay them? If thy promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob fail, blot me out of thy Book, but spare Israel." The honor of God was touched, and he was held in the grip of heroic sacri- I02 Missions and World Move:me;nts. fice. He yielded, and Israel was spared'. Brothers, what vast responsibilities rest upon us who have the promises of God ! If we, as a Church, will rise to the heroism ^ of our crisis, and by relieving prayer cry, *'0 God, have mercy upon us, take our sub- stance according to thy will, take ourselves for any service, and if need be take even our children, but save great Asia, and bring this world into the light and liberty of the gospel !" if only we wdll thus pray and give and believe, God will hear us as certainly as he heard Moses. This generation of believ- ers will see the salvation of this generation of sinners, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. 103 Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01234 8498 Date Due ^^uw^^^^ \ ^^^i^^^^ f) PRINTED IN U. S. A. 1