“Sint “SoPy> : icipata, 10 cents dozen, postpaid, at 00 THOS. E. WATSON Bas OSED AN EXAMINATION OF HIS “FOREIGN MISSIONS EXPOSED” Bu CARLEION: D. HARRIS BRICES Single copy, postpaid, 10 cents Per dozen, postpaid, $1.00 Per hundred, not prepaid, $6.00 NASHVILLE, TENN. BoarD OF MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CuHuRCH, SOUTH ste ge! ae Seenekain ee ia git, +e ; *, AS Fi 2 : F \ ~ 4 ‘. ” ‘* me ks 5 | ys . "J is > 5 - 7 Lye = < ea a Pea er sisceawiignoe A apt ep syaider sia Seater gle ; ‘ . > af . SARIN ES ER ase INTRODUCTION, THE substance of this pamphlet was published in a series of editorials in the Baltimore Southern Meth- odist, of Baltimore, Md., fully answering every charge made by Mr. Watson, some of them being the old stock objections urged against foreign missions, while others were new, bearing the Watsonian stamp. Though Mr. Watson attempted a reply in his magazine, he evidently, finding himself unable to break the force of the incontestable facts produced, left them unan- swered and even unchallenged and wandered off into new fields. He thus put upon these facts his own esti- mate of their impregnability. The author of this pamphlet was led to show up the fallacies of Mr. Watson’s statements against foreign missions because those darts are directed at the heart of the Church in attacking one of her supreme enter- prises; because his arguments are so plausibly con- structed, with scripture quoted in their support, that they are likely to be regarded as unanswerable by those who have no knowledge of the true conditions ; because the book, on account of the prominence of the writer, has had a wide circulation in some parts of our terri- tory in the South, and the harm it has done has not been of a negligible quantity; and because answering his statements will give us an opportunity of bringing some of the latest and best missionary information to the attention of our readers and Mr. Watson. (3) 4 Thomas E, Watson “Exposed.” Mr. Watson makes the general charge that the Church’s whole foreign missionary system is funda- mentally wrong and founded upon a perversion of the words of Christ. He says: “J heartily favor foreign missions. But I contend that the present system of doing the work is unscriptural, unwise, unpatriotic, and unnatural. What is the duty which Christendom owes to the heathen? In the simplest words I venture to express it thus: To go into all the world and preach Christ and him crucified. In every instance Christ limited his instructions so that his full meaning can be expressed in our word preach. A fair paraphrase of the language of Jesus is this: ‘As I have explained my gospel to you, do you go and explain it to all the world. I have in person given my commands to you; go you and tell all the world what those commands are. That is all there is to it—absolutely all. That much is divine, direct from Christ. Anything more than that is human, not from Christ.” Mr. Watson does not hesitate to use such strong expressions, in speaking of foreign missions as oper- ated by the Church to-day, as a “betrayal of Christ,” a “crime,” a “farce,” and to label its promoters with such names as “fanatics,” “Pharisees,” etc.,-and to affirm that “the burden of proof is upon the fanatics who have fastened to us a system which hires a hea- then to call himself Christian, and which tempts the needy of pagan lands to profess conversion by offering relief from physical suffering.” Now, if Mr, Watson’s conclusions are correct, and he says he has reached them after a wide range of reading and much study, the great leaders of modern Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” 5 missionary thought and activity were and are either fools or knaves, either insufferably stupid or con- sciously wicked. We are not prepared to believe that either is true, to hang on either horn of Mr. Watson’s dilemma, but we do believe that there is a possibility of Mr. Watson’s reasoning from false premises, so that his conclusions are unsound; and this we hope to prove before we are through with this subject. The general charge will be covered in particular by the answers to the first three minor charges, and in general by the answers to the others as well. due “ Ae or iw 7 Tell Allee, ¥ * t ‘ . v ¥ Breas eae So + ~ ee : ie be Py pee t er t aw ' \ ao a Mee . ‘ » t we F 7 ne ; 7 . sh ry ¢ wh ‘ es bee? * : i aS 8 * 4 air in ay j ern ea! t. : ” Py hee he Sy Ae 5 Rieck yy e . r . i Rie ’ a ¥ * *& 1 ae ; . } fv Ve. = 8 hy , * J F CONTENTS. TORT RMEETLON, Pte, WOM ee eo io se ok le ee ca CHARGE I, That the Church Has Misinterpreted the Great Commis- BURT ater a ter eg Cuarce II. That Education as Carried on by the Church in Japan and China, in View of the Great Illiteracy in Our Own ’ Country, Is Not Only Mad Fanaticism, but Is “a ume: agamst besarte yas ete ess es soe a Cuarc_E III. That Medical Missions Are an Instrumentality for Making aayuoctites (Jutuceerieathetiye a...) ode. civics... lasek CuarceE IV. That the Missionaries Live Lives of Luxury and Ease.... CHARGE V. That There Are Grave Doubts as to Whether or Not Any Heathen Has Ever Been Genuinely Converted........ CuarceE VI, That the “Beautiful, Refining, Inspiring Code” of Pagan Morality Produces Fruits as Good as Those of Chris- RUM NE Ga IY ss SI CUR Sv hc h5'vid ve a v's os CuarceE VII. That Protestantism Shows an Intolerant Spirit in Estab- lishing and Supporting Missions in Papal Lands...... 1* (7) 14 21 23 aN 40 8 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” CHARGE VILLI. PAGE. That the Church’s Fanatical Policy Is Destructive to Vital Interests at Home, and That the Missionaries Should Be Recalled Gye bee be eta So. eee see 46 CHARGE IX. That the Indemnity Claims for Diamonds and Costly Clothing by the Protestant Missionaries after the Boxer Rebellion Were So Great as to Provoke Much Hostile-Comment .( 20.0500... aes. +s lence aa 51 CHARGE X. That Wastefulness, Gluttony, and Wine-Drinking Marked the Laymen’s Missionary Banquet in New York...... 53 THOMAS E. WATSON “EXPOSED.” ——____ CHARGE I. THAT THE CHuRcH Has MISINTERPRETED THE GREAT CoMMISSION, As Mr. Watson puts so much value upon Christ’s words, we shall consider first the importance and meaning of the Great Commission. The Great Commission was not spoken until after the resurrection. Christ knew that many things that he spoke to his disciples during his natural life would be forgotten by them, but he uttered the Great Com- mission under circumstances so impressive and awe- inspiring that he knew, though they might forget all other things, they would not forget this. Three days after the crucifixion, when the disciples were gathered together in an upper room at Jerusalem behind barred doors for fear of the Jews, suddenly, without a bar being withdrawn or a door being unbolted, Jesus stood in the midst of them. They were affrighted, . thinking they had seen a spirit; but he assuaged their fears, demonstrated his identity, and impressed upon their hearts by this specterlike visit his command con- cerning missions, so that it matters not whatever else he may have said on that memorable occasion, this was made so prominent that when the evangelists came to write of the visit it was uppermost in their minds. Mark, Luke, and John each reports ee the 9 10 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” great command. Then some days later, in obedience to Christ’s instructions, the disciples and, according to Paul, five hundred others assembled on a mountain in Galilee, and again Christ appeared from the spirit world. What command did he impress upon them by this second specterlike appearance? The same mis- sionary command. This time he said: “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, bap- tizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” But this is not all. After the forty days had elapsed since the resurrection he gathered his disciples on Mount Olivet and, before ascending to his Father, again addressed them on this subject, saying: “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.’ And with these words trembling upon his lips, the last he ever uttered to man before going to his Father, he was received up into the heav- ens, and a cloud hid him from mortal view. In addition to this, some things that Jesus said are spoken of by one or two of the evangelists and passed over by the others in silence; but the Great Commis- sion is emphasized by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and by Peter and Paul in every epistle that they wrote and by their lives which they gave to this cause, as were given the lives of the other apostles; so that it is not only an important command, but, humanly Thomas E, Watson “Exposed.” II speaking, it is the most important command that was ever promulgated by the Son of God. It was for that to which the command looks that his sacrificial death was given on the cross, and the glorious results of our obedience of it shall cause him to see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. The supreme importance of his command is fur- ther accentuated by the fact that Christ’s three years’ ministry and teaching on earth led up to the Great Commission. On two other occasions our Lord for- mally commissioned his apostles. First the twelve were sent forth on a trial mission that was limited both as to area, not extending beyond the boundaries of Galilee, and as to objects, confining itself to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Later the seventy dis- ciples were chosen and sent apparently to itinerate in Galilee, with instructions similar to those given to the twelve. The instructions in both cases may be called the lesser commissions in comparison with the Great Commission, uttered after the resurrection. From all the foregoing it will be noted that nothing can be more binding upon the heart and conscience of a follower of Christ than the Great Commission, including his for- eign missionary command. We have endeavored to put this part of the subject clearly before the reader for reasons which will be apparent later in the discus- sion. Now, as to the meaning of the Great Commission, we would ask: What is the significance of the word “gospel,” which is expressed or implied in the several forms of the commission as given by the four evan- gelists? In its historic and broader sense, “gospel” 12 Thomas E,. Watson “Exposed.” means the whole God-story, covering Christ’s three- fold function—preaching the gospel, teaching the ethic, and healing the sick. In its original and more limited sense it confines itself to Christ’s message concerning the Fatherhood of God, the inclusiveness and spirit- uality of the kingdom, and God’s gracious provision for the redemption of man from sin through the atonement wrought by his Son. But even though we accept the word “gospel” as it is found in the Great Commission in its more restricted sense, certainly the Church is not out of harmony with the spirit of Christ in following his example as far as it can in the other two parts of his function, teaching and healing, as it was found, as Christ knew, that they are most effective ways of making disciples out of men. So the Church to-day is trying to carry out the Great Commission in the spirit of her Lord, whose work is summarized in Matthew in these words: “Jesus went about in all Gali- lee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of dis- ease and all manner of sickness among the people.” On account of these three forms of activity manifested by Christ, he is known as the Great Teacher, the Great Physician, and the Incomparable Preacher. Thor- waldsen’s piece of sculpture in heroic size, represent- ing Christ as the “Divine Healer,’ with matchless compassion upon his face, at the Johns Hopkins Hos- pital, in Baltimore, is a benediction to the suffering humanity that goes there, for it silently but strikingly reminds it of the Source of all healing, life, and love. Mr. Watson wants to know why Paul and the other apostles did not teach and heal if Christ desired it. Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” 13 They did in some measure, but conditions then pre- cluded their teaching and healing as those functions are ministered by the Church to-day. The introduction of Christianity, revolutionary in its character and hos- tile to the existing order, demanded unceasing evan- gelizing. The disciples were driven by the enemies of Christianity from place to place with but little oppor- tunity to plant the truth, much less to look after its cultivation and maturity. They never had a strong home base from which to foster agencies looking to solidifying their work and making it permanent, but they laid the foundation for Christianity on which the noble structure is being reared to-day. The modern Church, therefore, in the spirit of Christ and his apostles, is meeting the conditions of the age in which it exists and is building up the kingdom of God on earth by means of a propaganda which in- cludes Christian education and remedial treatment of the sick, which is not only a contribution to the abun- dant life that Jesus brought to men, but a powerful auxiliary in bringing them into spiritual relations with himself; and this propaganda is being used by the Church not only in our own country but in the Orient with marvelous efficiency, as will be further shown in. answers to other charges. CHARGE II. THAT EDUCATION AS CARRIED ON BY THE CHURCH IN JAPAN AND CHINA, IN VIEW OF THE GREAT ILLITERACY IN OuR Own Country, Is Not OnLy Map FanatTicisM, BuT Is “A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.” In combating Mr. Watson’s statement as to the mission schools of the Orient, we give a sample of his specious reasoning concerning them. On page 55 of his book he says (the italics being his) : Here is Japan—progressive, victorious, powerful, rich. She has offered her children “splendid facilities’ [quoting from Go Forward, a missionary journal formerly published by our Church] for education. Yet the Methodist Church, South, is required to pour money into Japan to compete with the Japa- nese government in giving a secular schooling to Japanese children. Could fanaticism be madder? Where is the scripture for this unnatural and impossible task? How can the people of this country be expected to educate their own children and bear at the same time the expense of secular education to the hundreds of millions of heathen children whose own gov- ernments are offering them “splendid facilities” in their own public schools? When I reveal the facts to our people, in order that they may give with their eyes open, I am savagely denounced. Why so? What wrong have I done? Is it a sin to let in the light? Is it a crime to publish the truth? It will be easily seen from the foregoing by any one who has knowledge of the facts that Mr. Watson is reasoning from false premises, and consequently his | (14) Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” 15 conclusions have no foundation upon which to stand. The statement that the Church is competing with the Japanese government in giving a secular schooling to Japanese children, which he repeats in italics on page 41, applying it to the Chinese government also, shows that Mr. Watson’s education has been sadly neglected as to Church matters. He would make it appear that the Church was in the business of secular education for the sake of education itself, competing with gOv- ernments, etc., of which nothing could be more untrue. The education which the Church is giving, both in this country and in the Orient, as this sort of education is a part of the propaganda of our religion everywhere, is always qualified by the word “Christian.” Its aim and end 1s to develop the pupil not only imtellectually but morally and spiritually, not only to teach him to think the deepest and grandest of all thinking, but to bring him into saving relations with Christ and make out of him a constructive force of the highest efficiency im building up God’s kingdom. For the accomplish- ment of this result both the Christian character of the teacher and the course of instruction receive the most careful consideration by the Church. The State, not aiming at this result, demands neither Christian char- acter on the part of the teacher nor Christian instruc- tion in his teaching. The Church fosters a system of education that is the handmaid of religion and is never of a purely secular character, and thus it occupies a field that is peculiarly its own, into which the State does not enter. In “The Why and How of Foreign Missions” Dr. Arthur J. Brown says: “All mission schools are uncompromisingly Christian. The Bible is t** 16 Thomas E, Watson “Exposed.” the chief textbook, Jesus is the Great Teacher, prayer is the atmosphere.” Japan has thoroughly tested the fidelity of this position. When some time since she issued an order that no religious instruction should be given in schools approved by the government, thus placing a serious handicap on mission schools, as all avenues of preferment lead from schools having gov- ernment recognition, those schools did not yield an inch, but said: “We cannot use missionary funds to give the young people of Asia a purely secular educa- tion. We are here for Christ’s sake, and his only.” Some of the mission schools closed, others dwindled in their attendance from hundreds to dozens. Japan later rescinded her order, but not until she had been con- vinced of the unyielding purpose and the inflexible character of the Christian schools. Such schools are largely the hope of the triumph of Christianity in the Orient ; for while it is always more or less difficult to break down by direct attack the wall of inherited prej- udices and social, business, and religious associations of the adult and induce him to abandon the faith of his ancestors, the mission school is quietly undermining that wall, for character is taken at a plastic period and shaped for the future. The old German proverb is apropos here: “What you would put into the life of a nation, put into its schools.” Dr. Sun Yat Sen the Product of the Mission School. But are these schools making good? Are they jus- tifying the wisdom of the Church in establishing them? Let us look at some of the facts. We can give but a few on account of the limits of our space, but amply Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” 17 sufficient to show that there can be but one answer to the question. Hon. T. H. Yun, the princely Korean who is now suffering imprisonment for righteousness’ sake, and Dr. Sun Yat Sen, whom a leading American Review speaks of as the most illustrious living Chinese to-day, to whom more credit is due for the dynamic changes which have taken place in China in the past few years than to any other man, are both the products of Christian schools. The first school for girls found- ed by the Chinese was in Shanghai, and a Christian, Miss Alice Allen, the daughter of our late Dr. Young J. Allen, was selected as superintendent. This is not surprising, as the great present educational movement of China is traceable to the missionaries. Twenty years ago the Chinese government opened a school to teach foreign learning and put in charge of it Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who went to China as a missionary, which was followed by the Opening of five other schools of high grade, most of them universities, all of which were committed to the hands of men who went to the Orient as missionaries. To-day there are forty thousand schools in China established by the government for teaching the learning of the Occident, and in all the schools of the province of Chi-li the pupils have been ordered by the viceroy to study the Bible. China has not been slow to recognize her great obligation to the Christian religion for this and other blessings, as is evidenced by the fine tribute the Pres- ident of the republic, though a Confucian himself, re- cently paid to Christianity. Through its schools Chris- tianity is reaching the very heart of China. The late Dr. Anderson, who was President of our school at 18 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” Soochow, and who from many years of living among the Chinese had a first-hand knowledge of their life and character, a man of large influence among them, made this significant statement: “The very fact that the education which we are carrying into China is a Chris- tian education only makes it in a real sense more ac- ceptable to the Chinaman. Not that he understands Christianity, but that he understands the necessity of moral and religious training. Any religion is better than no religion. It is impossible to-day to revive Confucianism. The only religion in China to-day that has a future is that of the Lord Jesus Christ”’ This school is attended by sons of leading Chinese mer- chants and officials, who make no objection to their becoming Christians, on the ground that Western progress and civilization center in Christianity. As in China, so in other mission lands Christian schools are striking at the root of sin, ignorance, and superstition, making a successful appeal to the young and laying the foundation for the kingdom of Christ in those countries. A leading Scottish missionary of many years’ experience has said that nowadays no bona fide idolator is to be found among university men. : | Within the past few years between one and two hundred students have been led to dedicate their lives to Christian service at each of the following institu- tions of learning: Peking University, Shantung Union College, and the College of Assuit, Egypt. And even the Imperial University of Japan, through Christian influences, is turning out some of its graduates for the ministry. Thomas E, Watson “Exposed.” 19 Mission Schools in Turkey. As to Turkey, to which the eyes of the whole world are now turned, Dr. Samuel B. Capen, President of the Laymen’s Missionary Movement of this country, was approached not long since by a diplomat and high government official of that land, who said that he wanted Dr. Capen and his associates to go on putting in schools and colleges, for, as he remarked, “there is going to be a break-up in Turkey before long, and you gentlemen then, with the work you have done, will be on top.” This is a confirmation of what an officer of the Sultan said a few years ago: “What Dr. Ham- lin is silently doing with his Robert College and the American missionary with his theological seminaries and schools and books all the diplomats of Europe united cannot overbalance.” Bulgaria, a Christian country, was created by the graduates of Robert Col- lege. The few facts stated of the many that could be recited can give no adequate conception to our readers of the tremendous and imperishable work that is being done in the twenty-nine thousand mission schools, with more than a million and a quarter of students, in shap- ing forces that will make for the religious destinies of millions of people. Without going farther, we are willing to rest our case, so far as mission schools are concerned and their beneficent fruits, at which Mr. Watson scouts, with any fair-minded jury that Mr. Watson may select, to judge whether or not Watson’s premises are not false and his conclusions thoroughly unreliable. Mr. Watson, in a tone of injured innocence, says: 20 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” “When I reveal the facts to our people, in order that they may give with their eyes open, I am savagely denounced. Why so? What wrong have I done? Is it a sin to let in the light? Is it a crime to publish the truth?” If Mr. Watson will publish the facts, and all of the facts, the Church will do all it can to circulate his literature. Nothing so helps the progress of mis- sionary work as for all the possible light to be thrown upon it. As to what wrong Mr. Watson has done, we shall leave that matter to his own conscience. It is no sin to let in the light, but Mr. Watson has been letting in the dark. It is no crime to publish the truth, but how about a half truth conveying a meaning exactly opposite to the truth? We shall leave Mr. Watson to muse over these things while we take up another item. CHARGE III. Tuat MepicaL Missions ARE AN INSTRUMENTALITY FOR MAKING HypocriITEs Out oF HEATHEN. MEDICAL missions are contributing their part to this Christian kingdom-building. As we have previously stated, Christ himself set the example of ministering unto the sick. Twenty-four of his thirty-six recorded miracles were of physical healing, and there were many others unrecorded, for the Bible tells us that “all they that had any sick . . . brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.” So our hearts beat in unison with the great heart of Christ when we do not “pass by on the other side” those countless sufferers that abound in non- Christian lands or shut our ears to their cries of agony. Apart from the pain and suffering that naturally come, pages could be devoted to the unnecessary agony, physical deformity, and death as the result of the ig- norance and superstition of the Oriental quacks who minister to the sick. The medical missionary, with his scientific knowledge of medicine and surgery, is win- ning his way into the heart of the Orient by his skillful treatment of its diseases and accidents; and wherever he goes he carries with him the religion of Christ, so that heathendom has come to associate all lofty things with Christ and to learn the truth, which some people in this country are slow in learning, that the gospel was intended to save men both for this life and for the life to come, that Christ came to establish a king- (21) 22 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” dom on earth as well as a kingdom. in heaven. Dr, W. H. Park, who has charge of the Soochow Hospital, where many thousands of Chinese receive treatment annually, has a medical class from which students are graduated after five years of study, nearly all of whom become Christians, and who are beginning to fill the responsible positions in China, One is a physician in a large railroad district, and another is a surgeon in the navy. Other hospitals are doing a similar work in China and in other parts of the Orient, and are exert- ing an untold influence for Christianity through these native Christian physicians who are part of their prod- ucts. CHARGE IV. TuHat THE Missionaries Live Lives or Luxury aNnp EASE. Mr. Watson says: “Our foreign consuls have no better jobs than our foreign missionaries, whose toil is no longer arduous and whose salary is not only good, but regular. . . . Dearly beloved, don’t weep any more over the hard life of the foreign mis- sionary. The chances are that he is having a much better time than yourself. He wears up-to-date habil- iments, lives on appetizing viands, has comfortable and roomy quarters, smokes good cigars when he feels like it, and has a corking good time generally.” Then Mr. Watson speaks of their having elegant homes in the cities for winter and beautiful mountain homes for the long vacation in summer. From this rhetorical picture, so brilliant in color, that Mr. Watson has painted, one would be led to think that, from a material point of view, there are few more desirable callings than that of a foreign missionary ; but let us put the naked truth over against Mr. Watson’s rhetoric and see how the case stands. When Mr. Watson says that foreign consuls have no better jobs than our foreign missionaries and then points out the creature comforts of the missionaries, the only logical meaning Mr. Watson’s language con- veys is that the jobs of the consuls are no better from a material consideration. But is this true? We have before us a copy of the “Diplomatic and Consular ee (23) 24 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” Service of the United States,’ which we secured from the State Department of our government. From this we learn that the average salaries of our consuls in China and Japan (Korea included), the Asiatic coun- tries in which we have missionaries, are $3,822 for China and $3,750 for Japan, while the last report of our Board of Missions states that the allowance of missionaries in those lands is, for married men, $1,000, with an allowance of $100 for each child, to be increased to $150 at ten years of age; for single missionaries, $600. Each ten years of service entitles the addition of $100 to married and $50 to single mis- sionaries. The allowance, of course, varies with the different fields, as it takes more to live in some fields than in others. The average salary of foreign mis- sionaries, according to “The Why and How of Foreign Missions,” is about $550 for a single missionary and $1,100 for a married one, while the smallest salary Uncle Sam pays to his consuls anywhere is $2,000, and the salaries in foreign countries run from this sum to $5,000. Thus Mr. Watson’s first rhetorical vaporing dissolves before the steady rays of facts that cannot be gainsaid, or, to go back to our original fig- ure, his picture becomes colorless. Mr. Watson makes another astonishing statement, and its very unreasonableness involves its own con- demnation. He says: “Now, when you consider that most of the unmarried ladies enjoy salaries of from $600 to $750, and that the men get from $1,100 to $1,500 each, you can begin to understand why these positions are so eagerly sought for.’”’ Even if his figures were exact, can you conceive of gifted, college- Thomas E,. Watson “Exposed.” 25 trained men with families and highly educated women eagerly seeking to sacrifice so many things that men call dear and go to the ends of the earth for a salary of $750 or $1,500? It is as true now as when Macau- lay wrote, and what he wrote applies measurably to other foreign countries, that “all English labor in India, from the labor of the governor-general and the commander in chief down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid for at a higher rate than at home. No man will be banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for nothing.” It is well known that business men who have commercial relations with Asja and Africa have to pay three times the salaries that are paid in America in order to induce their clerks and agents to stay abroad. One of the latter is re- ported to have said that he “would rather hang on to a lamp post in the United States than to have an estate and a palace amid the heat and dust and snakes and dirt and fevers and fleas of a typical Oriental country.” Such discomforts do not belong to all mission lands, but that they belong to many of them is lamentably true. And yet Mr. Watson would have us believe that men and women are eagerly seeking to be missionaries for the meager support they get. Few. things could be more preposterous. If money had been the dominating motive, as it seems to be with some people, in the lives of such men as Dr. Henry K. Jessup, the famous Syrian missionary, a Moder- ator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, Dr. H. H. Lowry, President of Peking University, Dr. John G. Kerr, the celebrated surgeon, the late Dr. Young J. Allen, formerly President of the Anglo-Chinese 26 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” University, and many other distinguished mission- aries who could have commanded large salaries at home, why have they remained on the foreign field, receiving stich comparatively paltry sums as from $1,000 to $1,200 a year, with house rent? We can conceive of but one motive influencing men and women to the foreign field, and that is such deep consecration to God as to put one’s all absolutely upon the altar and to sacrifice the dearest things for the sake of Jesus and the dying heathen. The missionary is deaf to all things but Christ’s command. We who are enjoying the comforts of home and the blessings of a Christian civilization know little of the priva- tions and sufferings of those noble men and women that are holding up Christ in foreign lands. In our ignorance we may speak lightly of them. How true is the old maxim of school days, “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”! Among the hardships of the missionaries, one is sep- aration from their children. Conditions are sometimes necessary for the father and mother to leave their chil- dren in the homeland and be absent from them, ten thousand miles away, for years. Think; is there any material compensation that would pay you for this heartbreaking experience? If Mr. Watson thinks this is a trifling thing, let him try it for a few months; and if he has the heart we think he has, he will be seeking the mourner’s bench, asking forgiveness for the unkind things he has said about those who are making such sacrifices for Christ’s sake. Then there are uncongenial surroundings which weigh them down —a sense of the lack of companionships that so enrich Thomas E, Watson “Exposed.” a7 life in our land and of loneliness which must be experi- enced to get some idea of the depression which accom- panies it; unhealthful climatic conditions, makinz in- roads upon their vitality and sapping away their physi- cal strength; distress that comes from the presence of so much physical suffering that the missionaries are un- able to relieve. Sir William Hunter said that there were hundreds of millions of people in India who nev- er knew the sensation of a full stomach. An equally large number in China live so near to starvation that a drought or flood brings about appalling suffering. All over Asia the missionaries see disease and bodily in- jury so unattended or misattended as to produce a resultant condition as dreadful as it is intolerable. Another is heartsickness in coming in contact with the most debasing and loathsome forms of sin of which St. Paul gives a true picture in the first chapter of Ro- mans, no little of which is practiced openly. Still another is the awful desolation attendant upon the burying of loved ones away from friends and kin- dred, in an alien land, in the midst of most distressing conditions. “Six weeks after my arrival in China,” a missionary writes, “my wife, though but shortly before in America adjudged physically sound, died after only a week’s illness. The memories of the cold, bleak, January morning when we laid her in that lonely grave upon the hillside will not soon fade from my mind. What a mournful little procession it was that passed through the streets of hostile Tsi-nan-fu on that day! With but half a dozen of my new-found friends, I fol- lowed the plain coffin borne by coolies, whose jargon seemed all the more unsympathetic because I did not 28 Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” understand it. O the unspeakable desolation that sweeps over a little community such as many of our missions are when death invades its feeble ranks, and the stifled wail that reéchoes from America three months later!” The missionary’s task, Brother Wat- son, is no “pink-tea” affair, but one requiring the deep- est devotion and largest heroism of which men are ca- pable. What we have written covers the life of the average missionary. Of course it is possible to find a few wealthy missionaries, as it is to find a few wealthy preachers in this country; but in neither case did they get their wealth from their salaries. The very fact that there are a few wealthy missionaries accentuates the depths of their consecration in their submitting their lives to such conditions. In answer to a letter we wrote to Rev. J. T. Myers, who went to Japan from the Baltimore Confer- ence nineteen years ago, and whose intelligence, con- secration, integrity, and fidelity are known to hundreds of our people, we have some illuminating facts that sweep away the last vestige of Mr. Watson’s charges. Mr. and Mrs. Myers were in this country on a fur- lough last year. When they left in the fall for a seven years’ stay in Japan, they tore themselves from two of their children who remained in America. Brother Myers’s letter is of such value in covering this ground with first-hand information and is so worthy of pres- ervation that we publish all of it relating to this sub- ject. It answers in detail questions suggested by Mr. Watson’s statements, which we asked Brother Myers. His letter is as follows: Thomas E. Watson “Exposed.” 29 1. “Is the job of a foreign missionary as good as that of a United States Consul?” I do not know how good a consul’s job is; but if it is not better than that of the missionary in the matter of a living, then Uncle Sam is inexcusably stingy. 2. “What is the purchasing power of a dollar in the Ori- ent?” In many things it is very great. In the things an American there must have for a living, about 75 cents to 80 cents. We must buy many things from abroad. Now Japan is out for a protective tariff, and duties are high on all those articles com- monly considered necessaries by an American—we will say an American mechanic or clerk. Duties on foodstuffs and cloth- ing range from twenty to forty per cent. Add cost of freight from America, packing, and insurance, and you will see that it is not possible to get them as cheaply as at home. Here is a list of comparative prices from actual experience: In Japan, In Baltimore. DRE AL So: a,c do xc, caesar SOU OSCT Ce ene oes tues tases 1oc. gal. esr ,25) PDI. s « sctanie ate int OAL A ketal! Wiccan $5.50-$7.00 bbl. aU 09 ee oe Me GOnaleis URAL oa ose ss oss As 5c. lb Se Se eee rE Per Leu MiMi MAITIS eee oy lego «weeks 30c. Ib. BCC. A), . oo Sea a « Lael gs He ar ee ae 11c.-14¢c, Ib. EGO 1c c ee aha dt % PLATA DACOINis at Wes. os 8s ses BAC, eee 1s vee cen Palette POW UCh cc . ccs otis ac win 25's 45c. Ib. CHE As Saar s T SETETAT Ve RS Ties apie yaa 4¥4c. cake On ee i Bfshs Co 8 SS aN ge aire 50c. URS (Mpa dee tat em tae es 6) a, TCORIIIG et a TTR Ua ott pleteate : $1.00 SACL AT Sg et en ARR Daily Paper..... Balto. Sun, $3.00 yr. ey had Orcas coe Daeess Home| QUAL. 6 csc un ¢s, 4: $1.50 yr. Sp RU mati day evening FOS. < . a rd ny i Sea, i tams 2 pars se = cee <3 a eg orale Lhe ., fh adh 0)