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 The Value of Foreign 
 
 By the President 
 
 Missions of the United States 
 
 > Sages LATE 
 
 The Urgency of the 
 Task Bhitah, Ambaesader 
 
 Laymen’s Missionary MOVEMENT 
 1 Madison Avenue New York 
 
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 Val Tito at 
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 UOTE. 
 
The 
 Value of Foreign Missions 
 
 By the 
 
 Honorable William H. Taft 
 President of the United States 
 
 The Urgency of the Task 
 
 By the 
 
 Honorable James Bryce 
 Ambassador of Great Britain to the 
 United States of America 
 
 Author of 
 “The American Commonwealth,’’ Etc. 
 
 LayMENn’s MIssIONARY MOVEMENT 
 1 Mapison AVENUE 
 New York 
 
Shorthand Report of Addresses Delivered at 
 the Washington Convention of the National 
 Missionary Campaign of the Laymen’s Mis- 
 sionary Movement. 
 
The Value of Foreign Missions 
 
 By Hon. William H. Taft 
 
 I like to think, whether it be true or not, 
 that we have in this generation reached 
 a somewhat different view of the responsi- 
 bilities of a civilized nation from that which 
 prevailed in the last generation, especially 
 as applied to our own country. It was 
 perhaps natural that when we were en- 
 gaged in digging into the soil and doing the 
 best we could to make enough to live on 
 that we should fall into the habit of think- 
 ing that we were a nation by ourselves with 
 no responsibilities whatever with respect 
 to the rest of the world. And so we have 
 had maxims come down to us and a con- 
 struction put upon Washington’s Farewell 
 Address that would still keep us in a place 
 of isolation, and with pleasant remarks, 
 and well and politely expressed hopes for 
 the welfare of other peoples, but devoting 
 ourselves entirely to our own improvement. 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE 
 
 Now, even in the days when that prin- 
 ciple was announced and was followed with 
 _a good deal of care, there was one doctrine 
 which was utterly at variance with it, and 
 that was the Monroe Doctrine. That did 
 give us some sort of responsibility, and did 
 
 3 
 
make us asstime some sort of protection 
 and interest in the independent nations and 
 governments of this hemisphere, and that 
 has now enlarged into what I think we 
 may call a definite recognition on the part 
 of our public men that we have a very dis- 
 tinct interest in the welfare, and a very 
 distinct duty with reference to the condi- 
 tion of the countries of this hemisphere. 
 And we have exhibited it in what was, I 
 think, we may almost say, the only altruistic 
 foreign war that history presents, that in 
 which we fought for the liberties of Cuba, 
 and the ending of what we regarded at 
 that time as a national scandal. 
 
 OBLIGATION TO WESTERN HEMISPHERE 
 
 And so we have gone on. We have 
 taken over in a sense a receivership for 
 Santo Domingo, and we are helping out 
 that country as well as we may; and we are 
 doing what we can to preserve the peace 
 between the Central American countries. 
 And there lies back in the history of this 
 continent the possibilities of a heavy obli- 
 gation resting upon us should an explosion 
 take place and unhappiness and chaos result 
 for any of the peoples of this hemisphere. 
 
 THE CUBAN WAR 
 
 Now, that is one step. The Cuban War 
 illustrated the fact that when you get into 
 a war you never know where you are com- 
 ing out. We entered lightly—well, not 
 
 lightly, but with a sense of due gravity, 
 4 
 
and certainly not with a sense of what the 
 possibilities were—at Key West and San- 
 tiago, and we brought up ten thousand 
 miles away at Manila. And then we had 
 to take over that government, and we still 
 have it. It has cost us a good deal of 
 money. 
 
 COST OF HELPING PHILIPPINES 
 
 I had a Democratic Senator ask me the 
 other day how much I thought it cost, 
 “Right down between us now,” he said. 
 Well, I explained to him that the War 
 Department accounts showed that so far as 
 the Army was concerned down to 1902, it 
 had cost us about one hundred and seventy 
 million dollars, and that the further cost 
 depended upon how you regarded the 
 Army. If you thought that we could 
 get along with fifteen or twenty thou- 
 sand men less than we now have, 
 then the whole cost of the Army 
 ought to be imposed as a part of our 
 foreign policy, which would make from 
 twenty-five to thirty millions a year. But 
 if you thought that we ought to have an 
 Army of the size it is now, and that it 
 could be made useful in many ways, then 
 it has cost us by reason of our Philippine 
 policy upwards of six million dollars. 
 
 MONEY NOT WASTED 
 
 Now, perhaps I am a little bit extreme. 
 Perhaps my experience in the Philippines 
 
 _ has colored my view of the situation. But 
 
 5 
 
I do not think that the money that we have 
 spent in that way, even estimating it at the 
 highest sum, has been wasted in any way. 
 I think it has developed our national char- 
 ‘acter. It has broadened us into a view of 
 our national responsibilities as no other 
 experience could. No one can say that we 
 have been there—I mean conscientiously 
 say, I mean “right down between us,” that 
 we have been there for the exploitation of 
 our own business. I do not mean to say 
 that it may not come along, and I think it 
 will, and I hope it will, but certainly we 
 have not made any money out of it up to 
 date. And certainly we have not been there 
 and have not done the things that we have 
 done with a view to our business profit. 
 
 CONDITIONS BETTERED 
 
 We have been there conscientiously (and 
 I think I can speak for part of those who 
 have been charged with its immediate re- 
 sponsibility) for the betterment of the peo- 
 ple of the Philippine Islands. And I am 
 sure we have bettered their condition. We 
 are in the position of many a man who 
 sought to help another man, and if we go 
 into that sort of thing for undying grati- 
 tude, we might as well give it up in the be- 
 ginning. It does not continue, and it does 
 not persist, and the only benefit that you 
 can get out of it is the consciousness of 
 having tried to do something for another 
 man, and the belief that you really have, no 
 matter what he thinks about it. 
 
 6 
 
Now, I was thrown into the Philippines 
 against my will. Well, I won’t say that; 
 I am a person, I presume, who could say 
 yes or no, but I mean I was led into it by 
 another, by that sweet nature, that most 
 engaging character, that lovely man, Wil- 
 liam McKinley. And I know what actuated 
 him, and I know that the spirit that actuated 
 him influenced us all: his successor, Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt, his secretary, Elihu Root, 
 and all who had the good fortune to serve 
 under those great men. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF MISSIONS 
 
 And in the control and government of 
 those Islands, I first became aware of the 
 importance of foreign missions. And if I 
 may say so, I think there is a strong analogy 
 between the spirit that leads a nation into 
 what we have done in Cuba, in Santo Do- 
 mingo, and in the Philippines, and that 
 movement which I am glad to see growing 
 stronger and stronger, the movement in 
 favor of foreign missions, 
 
 PHILIPPINES AN EXAMPLE 
 
 The Philippine Islands themselves are an 
 example of what ancient foreign missions 
 could do. They are the only people, the only 
 race in the Orient that are Christians, and 
 they were made so three hundred years 
 ago by the earnest effort of Augustinian 
 and Franciscan friars. They led them on, 
 taught them the agricultural arts, and led 
 
 4, 
 
them on to a peaceful and religious life. 
 They did not believe in too much education, 
 and they did not believe in bringing them 
 into close union with the European nations. 
 They thought there was a good deal that 
 they might learn there that would hurt them, 
 and they preferred to keep them—I don’t 
 mean all of them, but all but a selected few, 
 in a state of tutelage—Christian peoples. But 
 that which they wrought has been to our 
 advantage in working out the problem that 
 we are set to there, the problem of teaching 
 them self-government. They are a Christ- 
 ian people, and they look to Europe and 
 America for their ideals, and they recog- 
 nize those ideals, and that makes it possible 
 to instill in them the principles of civil 
 liberty and the freedom of our institutions. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Now, there came about in the Islands 
 what is perfectly natural, that the preva- 
 lence of one denomination led to, and the 
 division between the Spanish and the native 
 priesthood led to, a good deal of demoral- 
 ization in the Church; led to its taking on a 
 very strong political character. The condi- 
 tion has greatly improved since we went in 
 there, in that regard, because, of course, 
 we carried with us entire freedom of re- 
 ligion, and that has led to the sending in 
 of missionaries other than the Roman Cath- 
 olic denomination, and has brought about a 
 spirit of emulation and competition that 
 makes for the good of the entire Islands 
 
 8 
 
and for all the churches. But the operation 
 of the foreign missions there, the effect 
 upon the people, the influence which the 
 Church exerts and which it constantly tries 
 to exert, and without which the govern- 
 ment could carry on few of its reforms, 
 all impress itself upon a man charged with 
 the responsibility of civil government in 
 those Islands. 
 
 MOVEMENTS ON THE MAINLAND 
 
 Being in the Orient, I could not but take 
 an interest in what occurred on the main- 
 land. Every time you travel around the 
 world, or travel anywhere, you have to 
 refresh your geography. The Philippine 
 Islands are about sixty-six hours from 
 Hongkong, and they are a great many 
 thousand miles from other parts of the 
 Orient; but here we are apt to associate 
 them all together. And perhaps after all 
 it is not improper to do so, because distances 
 there do not seem quite so great as they do 
 here, and you do come closer to China when 
 you are in the Philippines, very consider- 
 ably, than when you are here. That made 
 those of us who were in the Orient study 
 somewhat the Chinese question, study some- 
 what the movements that were going on 
 in the great empire of four hundred mil- 
 lion people. 
 
 MISSIONS THE INSPIRATION OF MODERN 
 CHINA 
 
 And the chief movement that was going 
 on was a movement that found its inspira- 
 
 9 
 
tion, that had its progress in the foreign 
 missions that have been sent there to intro- 
 duce Christian civilization among the peo- 
 ple. I do not hesitate to say that, because 
 I am convinced of the fact. They are the 
 outposts of Christian civilization. Each 
 missionary with his house and his staff 
 forms a nucleus about which gathers an 
 influence far in excess of the numerical 
 list of converts. They have a political 
 influence, an influence upon the govern- 
 ment of China itself, and upon the Vice- 
 roys of China who exercise so much power 
 there, that we do not understand, and the 
 movements, the development of China to- 
 day, and her budding out as she has and 
 as I hope she will continue to do, is largely 
 the result of, first, the missionary move- 
 ment, and, then, the education in America 
 and elsewhere under the influence of those 
 missionaries, of able young Chinamen who 
 are anxious that their country shall take 
 the position that her wealth, and her num- 
 bers, and her resources, and her possi- 
 bilities, and her history justify. 
 
 The same thing is true, though I am not 
 so familiar with it, in regard to Africa. 
 
 MISSIONARIES THE OUTPOSTS OF 
 CIVILIZATION 
 
 The men who take their lives in their 
 hands and go among the natives are en- 
 titled to be called the outposts of civiliza- 
 tion. They have been criticised, and I 
 presume that is something that is common 
 to humankind. They have been held up 
 
 Io 
 
to contempt at times. I have read books, 
 doubtless you have; I know one by a very 
 distinguished authority who visited China 
 and thought it wise to poke fun at what 
 he called the “assumed self-sacrifice” of 
 the missionaries in China. But I am glad 
 to say—I have not seen it myself, but I am 
 glad to say that I understand that that au- 
 thority has withdrawn all those implications 
 and all those criticisms of the men who 
 were fighting the cause of Christian civi- 
 lization in that great country. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF SENDING MISSIONARIES 
 
 You visit a Chinese mission—I mean 
 a denominational mission in China from 
 this country or Great Britain—and you will 
 find a large house, you find a considerable 
 staff, you find as near comfort as they 
 can have in a country that does not know 
 what Occidental comfort is; but you find 
 upon examination that they have to go 
 out among the sick, they have to pursue 
 their course of life far away from friends 
 and homes, they have to undergo that 
 homesickness that no one understands until 
 he has been ten thousand miles away from 
 home and is longing just to get the smoke 
 of his own home, dirty as it is, that he is 
 near where he once grew up, and that his 
 neighbors are about him. The lives they 
 lead, the good they do, and the character 
 of representatives that they are of the 
 highest of our civilization, is what makes 
 it so important that they should be sent, 
 
 II 
 
and be sent with all the instruments of 
 usefulness possible into those far distant 
 lands. 
 
 A CONTRAST 
 
 I do not like to reflect upon anybody. It 
 is wiser not to be too emphatic and too de- 
 nunciatory, but I am bound to say that in 
 those distant lands, a great many who visit 
 there for gain and for so-called business, 
 for so-called livelihood that they could not 
 earn at home, are not representatives of 
 our best elements. And they visit there 
 for other purposes than the spread of 
 Christian civilization. They “take in” the 
 native when they can, and they do not 
 impress the native who has only them to 
 judge by that the civilization which they 
 represent would be any great improvement 
 on that which they have. Now, when I 
 contrast them with the missionaries who go 
 there only for disinterested purposes and 
 who spread their influence throughout the 
 entire country, risking their lives by going 
 into parts of the country where, should an 
 uprising occur, there is no adequate pro- 
 tection, it always makes me indignant to 
 hear anybody express contempt of those 
 men who are carrying the banner of Chris- 
 tian civilization and putting themselves in 
 positions where they may be complete sac- 
 rifices to the cause. 
 
 REAL CAUSE OF BOXER TROUBLE 
 
 They say they were the cause of the 
 Boxer trouble. Well, anybody who looks 
 
 I2 
 
into that knows that they were the ones 
 who had to bear the danger of it, because 
 they were where the danger was, but the 
 cause of the Boxer trouble came from a 
 sense on the part of the Chinaman, and he 
 is not without sense, that there was a dis- 
 position on the part of a good many of the 
 so-called Christian powers to divide up, 
 and the division was going to be between 
 parts of China. That was their fear of 
 foreign intervention, and they manifested 
 it in a plain way, and the missionaries, who 
 were among them for the purpose of 
 spreading Christian civilization, had to 
 bear the brunt of it. Now, that is just 
 about the substance with respect to it, and 
 that is the ground for the criticism of the 
 missionaries in respect to the Boxer move- 
 ment. 
 
 WHOLE BODY OF MEN NEEDED 
 
 There is to be, I believe, a centenary of 
 the missionary movement in Africa, and, 
 I believe, with that fatuity that I exceed 
 anybody in, I have agreed to go and make 
 a speech there. So, I am not going into 
 that part of the world. I am going to keep 
 where I know a little more about it in this 
 meeting. I sincerely hope the result of 
 this meeting will give to the movement for 
 foreign missions an impetus that, with due 
 respect to our clerical brethren, it cannot 
 have unless the whole body of good men in 
 the community press for it. I have spoken 
 of it solely from a layman’s standpoint, and 
 
 13 
 
not from a purely religious standpoint, but 
 I have spoken of things that I think I 
 know, and am here not so much to talk, as 
 by my presence to express the deep sympa- 
 thy I have in this movement that you, I 
 hope, are most successfully inaugurating. 
 
 14 
 
The Urgency of the Task 
 
 By Hon. James Bryce 
 
 I am here only for the formal duty of 
 
 presiding during the last hour of your con- 
 -yention meeting, a meeting which has so 
 
 much surpassed the expectations, high as 
 they were, of its promoters, and which has 
 
 been a splendid augury for the future. And 
 
 it is only a very few words, indeed, that 
 I feel like attempting to say to you, not 
 
 that I can contribute anything to add to 
 
 the appeals for active Christian work in 
 
 the mission field which have been put to 
 
 you already, but that I want to mention one 
 point which has come forcibly before me, 
 connected with the spread of missions, 
 partly as a traveler in many parts of the 
 world, and partly as having in connection 
 with the foreign and colonial policy of my 
 own country had to perceive and study 
 what was passing in those parts of the 
 world with which Britain is concerned. 
 
 AMERICA’S RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 I was greatly struck, gentlemen, by the 
 
 - wise, weighty words which were addressed 
 
 to you at the opening meeting of this con- 
 vention by the President of the United 
 States. He spoke to you upon the responsi- 
 bility which the people of the United States 
 
 15 
 
had undertaken by going to the Philippine 
 Islands and becoming responsible for the 
 government of that country and the ad- 
 vancement of that race. And he spoke of 
 the duty which their political action there 
 threw upon them to do everything to ad- 
 vance the civilization and the Christianiza- 
 tion of the peoples of those Islands. That 
 was true, and I could see by the way you 
 received it, that you felt it to be true, and 
 that you felt that in God’s providence prob- 
 ably you are called, and were called, to those 
 Islands in order that you might do your 
 duty in the way of civilizing and Christian- 
 izing them. 
 
 DUTY OF CHRISTIAN NATIONS 
 
 Now that is a part, and only a part, of 
 the responsibility which rests upon all of 
 us for doing what we can for the civiliza- 
 tion and Christianization of the world. It 
 is most incumbent, perhaps, upon you in 
 the United States and upon us in Britain 
 and Canada, because of all the European 
 races we are those which have most gone 
 out into the world and which have most 
 come into contact, partly as traders, partly 
 as governors, with all the backward peoples; 
 but it is a responsibility which belongs to 
 everyone of the European stocks, a respon- 
 sibility which we who are Christians ought 
 to feel that we must recognize and take up 
 and endeavor to discharge. 
 
 You are met here at this convention, and 
 similar conventions have been held and are 
 
 16 
 
being held over the breadth and length of 
 this continent; you are met to show that 
 you feel that responsibility and are willing 
 to take it up, and the responsibility met 
 already gives us the amplest hopes of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 THE PRESENT URGENCY 
 
 But what I want to put to you for three 
 minutes just now is the special urgency at 
 this moment of your endeavoring to fulfill 
 that responsibility. I see at the head of the 
 program of the Washington Convention 
 that your watchword is THE EVANGEL- 
 IZATION OF THE WORLD IN THIS 
 GENERATION. 
 
 THE OLD LIFE AND CUSTOMS CRUMBLING 
 
 Why in this generation? I want to give 
 you a reason for the great urgency of the 
 question. The moment which we are now 
 living is a critical moment, or perhaps the 
 most critical moment there ever has been in 
 the history of the non-Christian races— 
 most significant and weighty upon their 
 fate and their future. In this time of ours 
 the European races have obtained the con- 
 trol of nearly the whole world, and the in- 
 fluence over even those parts of the world 
 in which they do not exercise political con- 
 trol. Our material civilization is permeat- 
 ing every part of the world and telling as 
 it never told before upon every one of the 
 non-Christian races. It is transforming the 
 conditions of their life. They in their 
 
 17 
 
countries are being exploited as never be- 
 fore, and means of transportation are be- 
 ing introduced as they never were before, 
 which enable foreigners to pass freely 
 among them, and which are completely 
 breaking up and destroying the old organ- 
 ization and civilization, such as it was, that 
 existed among them. Under this shock, not 
 only the material conditions of their life, but 
 also their traditions and beliefs, their old 
 customs, and everything that was associated 
 with, and depended upon, their beliefs and 
 their customs, is rapidly crumbling away 
 and disappearing. Their morality, such as 
 it was, was associated with their beliefs 
 and traditions. This we are destroying. 
 This must perish under the shock and im- 
 pact of the stronger civilization which we 
 have brought with us. 
 
 NOW IS THE TIME TO GIVE THE SUPREME 
 GIT 
 
 What I want to put to you, gentlemen, is 
 the supreme importance at this moment of 
 our doing what we can to fill that void 
 which we have made, to give them some- 
 thing to live by instead of that by which 
 they have lived heretofore. Now, when the 
 old things are passing away from them, is 
 the time for us to give them something new 
 and something better by which they may 
 live, through which they may come again 
 into a truer progress than they ever could 
 do in their ancient ways. This is the time 
 for us to give them the one supreme gift 
 which the world has ever received and in 
 
 18 
 
which we believe the safety and future hope 
 of the world lie, a knowledge of the life and 
 the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. That 
 is what we are called upon to give them. 
 
 THE PRESENT A CRITICAL, FAVORABLE 
 
 MOMENT 
 
 We are called upon now to seize this 
 critical moment, which is also a favorable 
 moment, to provide them with the means 
 and basis and the foundation of life instead 
 of that which has crumbled from beneath 
 them. Let Christianity go to them, not as 
 a destroying force, not as being the mere 
 confession of those who are grasping their 
 land and trying to turn to account their 
 labor ; let it go as a beneficent power which 
 is to fill their souls with new thoughts and 
 new hopes, which is to be a link between 
 them and us, which is to be a link between 
 all the races of mankind of whatever blood 
 and whatever speech and whatever color, 
 and which is to teach them that they are all 
 the children of one Father in heaven. 
 
 19 
 
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