tab ei NEARGEMENT OF THE NATIVE ARM Obey aiuto RV Cre Boot ighaine Oe Tih BUCh oto CESS Ores Visits o.l.OIN-S John F. Goucher Number. en i Mt OsHeNGuRe. MONT 2 THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE NATIVE ARM OF THE SERVICE ESSENTIAL TO THE HIGHEST Se GB Sv bee M TS ST ONS BY JOHN R. MOTT Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions and General Secretary of the World's Student Christian Federation BOSTON THE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS 1902 An Andress GIVEN AT THE NINETY-THIRD ANNUAL MEET- ING OF THE BOARD, HELD AT OBERLIN, OHIO, OCTOBER SIXTEENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND Two John F. Goucher THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE NATIVE ARM OF THE SERVICE ESSENTIAL TO THE HIGHEST SUGGES SOF MIS SiLONS Rav ee te tr aye Os HEN eRe MIOrle © w A STUPENDOUS PROBLEM THERE is need of strengthening greatly the native arm of the service throughout the mis- sion fields of the world. The idea of evangel- izing the world in this generation, apart from the raising up of a vast army of native workers, is at the best a vision which is not likely to be realized. We shall need during this gener- ation several thousands of the choicest spirits which the colleges and the theological semi- naries of North America, the British Isles, and other Protestant lands can furnish, to evangel- ize the heathen nations, to plant the Church, to guide and steady the Church, and to place at the disposal of native Christian agencies the acquired experience of Christendom. But for every thousand missionaries there will be needed not less than ten thousand native workers to serve as pastors, teachers, evangel- ists, catechists, and Bible women. This pre- sents a stupendous problem, because if we 3 are to flood the world with the knowledge and spirit of Jesus Christ and do the fair thing by our particular generation, we must have noth- ing less than an army of native workers. NATURAL ADVANTAGE OF THE NATIVE WORKER The value and importance of raising up an adequate native force would seem to be evi- dent. Asa matter of economy and business sense it is desirable, because native agents can live and work in their own country at compar- atively little expense. Moreover, the natives are already acclimatized, and can work at all seasons and without furloughs. They are in intimate association with their own people ; they travel together, eat together, lodge to- gether, live together. The foreigner, at the best, has exotic habits. Naturally, they have a more fluent command of the vocabulary and idioms of the language. They have an inti- mate acquaintance with the habitual trains of thought, the currents of feeling, and the springs of action. They understand the na- tive character, and, other things being equal, are the best judges of the motives and sincer- ity of those among whom they work. They know the temptations, doubts, and soul-strug- gles of those with whom they are so closely associated. They have probably fought over the same battle ground. They know the heart life of their fellows, and their fellows know that they know it. They are of the same 4 blood. They will always have larger and more influential access to their own people. It took a German to lead the German Refor- mation. Wyclif did so in England. John Knox did-so in Scotland. Americans have always most deeply moved this continent. And so it will ever be, — the sons and daugh- ters of the soil will leave the deepest mark on their own people and generation. THE NATIVE WORKER THE PRINCIPAL FACTOR History teaches that the principal factor in the evangelization of non-Christian nations has been the native factor. There has never been an extensive region or nation thoroughly evangelized but by its own sons. It would seem to be the Providential method. It is also the method which great missionaries have specially emphasized. Alexander Duff, that great missionary statesman, —I class him a- mong the great statesmen of the British Em- pire,—said that ‘when the set time arrives the real reformers of Hindustan will be quali- fied Hindus.” Joseph Neesima, after years of Christian work in Japan, said that “the best possible method to evangelize her people is to raise up a native agency.” Mackay, of Uganda, a wiser missionary than his years gave promise of while he lived, but whose wisdom becomes more and more apparent as the mis- sionary problem is grappled with in Africa, said that “the agency by which, and proba- 5 bly by which alone, we can Christianize Africa is the African himself. But,’’ he added, ‘‘ he must first be trained for that work, and trained, too, by the European in Africa.” Dr. Nevius, who was conceded to be one of the ablest missionaries in China, said that “the millions of China must be brought to Christ by Chinamen.” Dr. Griffith John, the great Nestor of Chinese missionaries, wrote me some two years ago from the heart of China that the wonderful ingathering of the past few years in Fukien, Hupeh, Hunan, and Man- churia is attributable mainly, under God, to the efficiency, the earnestness, and the assi- duity of the native workers. Dr. Goodrich wrote me about the same time, from North China, that whether we view this question po- litically, economically, historically, or sociolog- ically, the only sound method of evangelizing a great nation is that of raising up and using the native agency. DIFFICULTIES IN SECURING AN ADEQUATE NATIVE FORCE There are difficulties in the way of securing and using native workers. It may be well to call attention to them. There is, for exam- ple, the confemptin which religious workers are held in the East. This is unlike what we find in America and Great Britain, where the ministry has dignity and prestige as a re- sult of its honorable position and influence 6 through centuries. All through Asia to-day, largely as a result of the corrupt lives of the Buddhist and other priests, religious callings are looked down upon, if not despised. Un- willingness to incur the reproach which so often attaches to the native who is related to the foreigner, is another difficulty which keeps many from entering upon Christian service in these countries. They do not like to be called foreign hirelings, as a Japanese ex- pressed it to me; or, as a group of Chinese put it, they do not want to be twitted with eat- ing the foreigner’srice. Then there is the ques- tion of s/a/us, which seems to stand in the way of some in India and in other lands ; that is, the native workers feel that they are entitled to more power, liberty, and responsibility than they have; that they should receive larger recognition ; that more confidence should be shown in them by the missionaries. It is admitted that in some cases they have good reasons for this opinion. But in more cases, I am persuaded, their attitude is due to a misconception of the motives and spirit of the missionaries. Nevertheless, this is a very real difficulty, and it is not easy to overcome it. The opposition of parents and relatives is a very real hindrance. Far more than at home, in lands where the Confucian ethics dominate, or where the system of casée exists, it is exceedingly difficult for young men to 7 stand out against the expressed desire of par- ents, relatives, and friends. The attractions presented by commercial pursuits, by govern- ment service, and by other so-called secular walks of life, is a principal reason, if not the principal reason, why it is so difficult to-day to get a sufficient number of strong native students to devote themselves to Christian work. The sa/aries paid in the secular call- ings range all the way from a little larger to thirty or more times larger than can be paid in Christian service. It is just as though the students of Oberlin and other colleges were offered five-thousand-dollar salaries to enter business or certain political positions. If this were done, it would be exceedingly difficult to get a sufficient number of men for the work of the ministry. Might it not prove to be a severe temptation to young men even in our theological seminaries? When one of my friends visited the Doshisha Seminary a few years ago, he found there eighty theological students. When I touched, there the first time, five years ago, the num- ber had fallen to less than a score. I was told by the professors that the chief cause of this decline in the number of ministerial can- didates was the great inducements to money- making in connection with the recent com- mercial development of Japan. This is a real difficulty, and we should have sympathy with those subjected to such pressure, remember- 8 ing that they have not, like ourselves, Chris- tian heredity, Christian environment, and the dominance of Christian ideals to hold them to higher tasks. A lack of spirituality should not be omitted among the causes making it difficult to get a sufficient number of men for Christian work. In these non-Christian lands many young men have a hold upon Christianity, but, generally speaking, Christianity does not have a power- ful hold upon them. Wherever I found a native student upon whom the Spirit of God had laid his mighty hand, I found a student who was eager to enter upon the service of his fellow-men, and, therefore, willing to face the hardships, opposition, and sacrifice in- volved. If I may mention another reason why we are not raising up this army more rapidly and using it more extensively, I should say it is because of the Zack of adequate efforts and measures to secure and to use more workers. Those boards and missions which have given most thought to this problem are the boards and missions which have raised up the largest number of effective agents. Those mission- aries whom I have met in my travels, who have had the greatest burden upon them, that they might be used of God in enlisting young men and young women for this impor- tant service, are the missionaries who are turning the largest number of young men 9 and young women into Christian work as a life work. HOW MEET THE DIFFICULTIES? 1. Thoroughgoing Study and Statesmanlike Policy What can be done to meet the difficulties to which attention has been called, and to raise up this army? In the first place there should be a comprehensive and thorough- going study of this question and a states- manlike policy with reference to meeting the need. It should be comprehensive, in the sense of taking into the scheme, as the Jesuits have done, the whole world. It should be comprehensive, in a second sense, that it embraces the generation for the serving of which God holds us responsible. Let the policy grapple with the whole generation, and not simply with emergencies. It should be a statesmanlike policy, in the sense that it takes account of all other forces in the Church of Christ at work on the mission field, thus avoiding duplicating or overlapping. We might wisely imitate the practice of the Euro- pean powers, with reference to their naval programs. They adopt a policy which re- quires years to fulfil; for example, they plan to lay down so many battleships this year, to build so many torpedo boats and destroyers next year, to equip a certain coaling station and build a dry dock a year later. So the Church should look down through the years, 10 and so lay her plans as to bring up the forces to meet the needs of the world of our own generation. 2. Greatly Enlarge and Strengthen the Educa- tional Work A second thing which is exceedingly im- portant is that we greatly enlarge and strengthen the educational missionary work. I have had the privilege of visiting nearly all the colleges of the American Board, some of them twice. In addition to that, I have vis- ited scores, if not hundreds, of colleges and high schools of other boards of the North American and European societies. I would say here to-night what I have said concern- ing the American Board in the gathering of another denomination, that I know of no colleges which have had a larger fruitage in the respect of which we are speaking — that of furnishing the right kind of native agents —than the colleges of the American Board. It should be a distinct encouragement, and also an appeal that no one take our crown. I would add, also, a conviction that has not been formed hastily. There should be expended on these higher institutions of the American Board within the next five years not iess than one million dollars. I will not go into details explaining what this money should be used for,— adding plants here, endowment there, strengthening the teaching force here, It improving the equipment there. It seems like a reasonable proposition in a country like this, which has found it possible during the past year, in private gifts alone, to devote scores of millions of dollars to higher educa- tion. One bequest, announced the other day, for Princeton Theological Seminary, is likely to amount to a million and a half of dollars. The Protestant Episcopal Church has just issued an appeal for one million dollars, to endow their work in their most recently en- tered field, —the Philippines. I believe that men of large financial ability and large out- look will respond far more generously to a plan which seems adequate to do the work which God has assigned to our generation, than to one which is obviously insufficient to meet the need and opportunity. INCREASED FORCE OF WORKERS But I am even more convinced that we should add to the force of workers in these colleges than to their material equipment. This is the last part of the foreign service that we should allow to be undermanned. It is poor economy to put up these large institutional plants and underman them to the point that we fall short of making them productive investments. It has seemed to me that the staff of workers was often so overburdened with the technical work of teaching, which ought, for the honor of the 12 Church, to be kept up to scholarly standards, that they were not able to give the time that they desired to give to the most vital part, — the touching the lives of the students. We must add to the force of educational mis- sionaries. ‘They need not all necessarily be ordained men. Nowand then an unordained man who has been well prepared for teaching, and who is a religious force among students at home, would be very successful in such work abroad. QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY We must add to this force to such an ex- tent that in every mission college and school the educational missionary will have enough time to think, to grasp the problems, to pray, to do a lot of personal work, to deeply impress the students. I visited the college of Dr. Mateer in the Shan- tung Province some years ago. He and Mrs. Mateer started that Christian college about thirty years before the time of my visit. I learned that every graduate of that institution had become a Christian before graduation, and that the large majority of them had entered some form of Christian work as a life work. Later, I found one or more of these graduates on the teaching staff of nearly every important mission college of China. When I asked Dr. Mateer the secret of the wonderful influence of the college, he 13 replied: “ My wife and I early came to the conclusion that we together could not deeply impress more than sixty students. And so we deliberately kept down the number of students.” The yield that has followed would seem to prove the wisdom of their practice. We should never cease to mention with gratitude the name of Miss Eliza Agnew, who within forty years sent out from her school in Ceylon six hundred graduates as Christians, of whom over two hundred entered what we would call distinctively Christian callings. She never let the number in the school become so large that she could not give personal atten- tion to the individual student. In India I met a man who made a profound impression upon me. Later, I learned that not infrequently he spent long hours—on one occasion, the whole night —in interces- sion for the native workers. A friend of mine went out from Oxford to India and became absorbed in executive work. He wrote me three or four years ago: ‘‘I have decided to change my method ; I am going to spend a large section of my time this year with a little group of men.” The size of the group, I may say, was twelve. I heard from him toward the close of the year that the fires of God were burning in the lives of those men. He was walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in this practice. 14 MULTIPLICATION, NOT ADDITION The greatest work of the missionary is the making of missionaries. In no other way can he so multiply himself. What a work was accomplished by the men who influenced for Christ such natives as Moses Kya, of the Sandwich Islands; Tiyo Soga and Bishop Crowther, of Africa; the great Sheshadri; the converted Brahmin, Banurji, of Calcutta ; Chatterjea, of the Punjab, and Pundita Rama- bai, of Western India ; the Brothers Meng, in North China, and Pastor Shen, the worker of the London Missionary Society among the Chinese ; Miyagawa, of Osaka, and Honda and Uemura, of Tokio. Lives like these are not the product of foreign money and intel- lectual culture alone,— they are the gift of God through the example, the training, and the spiritual nurture of Christian missionaries. 3, A Large Investment of Money In the third place, if we are to have this army of workers, there must be a wise use of a large amount of money in raising up and sustaining such a native agency. I realize keenly the difficulty of the problem. Like every other important thing, it is beset with difficulties. But the fact of a difficulty should be a challenge rather than a hindrance to us. I believe there is a way to use money (and this has been proved again and again in the missions of the American Board) which will 15 not hinder, but rather further, one of the great objects we have in view; namely, the stimu- lating and enlarging of self-support. It will not be easy. It will require the exercise of much patience and judgment, and call for much prayer. But there is no body of men in Christian work to-day who can be depended upon to make a wiser use of money for such a purpose than the men stationed in the key positions of the missionary societies of Great Britain and America. 4, Co-operation of Forces Moreover, we should co-operate with the Christian Student Movement in the non-Chris- tian countries. The Young Men’s Christian Association Movement in the colleges of Asia and other non-Christian parts of the world is not a self-appointed task. It was planted in mission lands by the missionaries, and every one of the foreign secretaries engaged in de- veloping and extending the movement in the heathen world has gone there at the call of the missionaries. It is the policy of this movement never to send a secretary to a non-Christian country until all the mission- aries of all the responsible denominations at work in a given field unite in an appeal and take the initiative in asking for such a secre- tary. The thirty-one men now on the field have, without exception, gone in response to such calls. These men have already devel- 16 oped over one hundred and fifty college Christian associations. They are found not only in the Christian colleges, but also in many of the leading government institutions throughout Asia and in other parts of the world. ‘These organizations and the secre- taries are supervised by national committees, the principal members of which are mission- aries,— such men as Dr. Davis, on the Na- tional Committee of Japan, and Dr. Sheffield, on the National Committee of China. The object of this Christian movement is to help evangelize the students, and then lay upon them the burden for evangelizing their own people. Thus it is, in a true sense, a Stu- dent Volunteer Movement for Home Missions. And herein lies the reason why the mission- aries believe in this work so strongly wherever it has been well established and supervised. THE STUDENTS OF THE WORLD UNITED The methods employed by this movement are those which have been most fruitful in the colleges of the West. The devotional, thor- ough study of the Bible is much emphasized. Already, from one fourth to one half of the Christian students in the colleges with asso- ciations have been drawn into voluntary Bible classes. Among other methods promoted are personal work, evangelistic campaigns in the neighborhood, and the development of mis- sionary interest. Special stress is laid on 17 influencing strong students to devote their lives to Christian work as a life work. About five hundred students in China, India, Cey- lon, and the Levant have already become volunteers. Of this number, over one fourth volunteered during the past year. The means employed by the national committees to de- velop this movement are : Conferences for the deepening of the spiritual life and for training voluntary workers ; the preparation and use of literature designed to help in the forma- tion of right habits for the cultivation of the spiritual life, and to stimulate Christian effort ; the visits of expert secretaries, necessary even in a country like the United States, if the fires are to be kept burning and if the work is to be co-ordinated and brought into vital con- nection with similar movements of other countries. By means of the World’s Student Christian Federation the Christian student movements of non-Christian lands are or- ganically related to the Christian organiza- tions of students all over the world. Over eighty thousand Christian students and pro- fessors in forty different nations are bound together in this world-wide movement for the evangelization of the world and the com- plete establishment of Messiah’s Kingdom. I have just come from Denmark, where I met in conference the representatives of twenty- nine of these national student movements. There native Christian Japanese, Chinese, and 18 indian delegates sat with the leaders of the work in Christian lands and helped to shape the policy for the work of Christ among the students of the world. It was decided that the next conference of the World’s Student Christian Federation be held in Japan in 1904 —the first world’s conference, either secular or religious, that has ever gone to Asia. What may it not mean to the great government student centers in Japan, and to missionary colleges and schools in Korea, Japan, and China? 5. Productive Power of Prayer Above all, there is need of far more prayer for the raising up and the thrusting forth of the army of native workers. This means is necessary to make all the other means effect- ive. It is necessary to make them most largely productive. It is the means and the only means on which Christ has placed stress in connection with getting laborers. Any plan which neglects this factor is exceedingly superficial. Why leave unappropriated and unapplied the greatest force for the raising up and energizing of laborers and for calling in- to being and energizing spiritual movements? PROBLEM URGENT AND IMMEDIATE What we do to solve this great problem, and every other problem which has come before us during these days, we must do 19 quickly. Too many organizations and indi- vidual Christians to-day are acting and plan- ning as though they had two or three gen- erations to do the work for which God is going to hold them responsible. We need to revise our method in this respect and to focus our energies upon the task at hand. While it is true that we should build for the future generations and for eternity, the best way to do it is to serve our own generation by the will of God. The only way that this world is ever going to be evangelized is going to be by each generation of Christians resolving to evangelize its own generation oO! non-Christians. The Christian world to-day can evangelize the unevangelized now living ; the Christians of the last generation and the Christians who are to come after us cannot do it. I repeat it: We must evangelize our own generation of unevangelized if they are ever to know and obey Jesus Christ. There is an element of urgency and imme- diacy in the command of Jesus Christ that we are prone to overlook. The dominant im- pression made on me during my last tour around the world was that every mission field is ripe, yes, dead ripe, and that the time has come to reap. In my judgment, if we rise to our opportunity, the next ten years will witness an unprecedented ingathering into the kingdom of Christ in all the great mission fields. 20