Missions 
 and Civilization 
 
 By the Hon. William H. Taft 
 
 An Address delivered at 
 Carnegie Music Hall, New York, 
 under the auspices of the 
 Laymen s Missionary Movement , 
 April 20, 1908 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
 London 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
Missions 
 
 nd Civilization 
 
 By the Hon. William H. Taft 
 
 An address delivered at 
 Carnegie Music Hall, Neva York, 
 under the auspices of the 
 Laymen's Missionary Movement, 
 April 20, iqo8 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 London 
 
 Edinburgh 
 

 I 
 
 
Missions and Civilization 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 I have known a good many people who were 
 opposed to foreign missions. I have known 
 a good many regular attendants at church— 
 consistent members—perhaps, that religiously,, 
 if you choose to use that term, refused to con¬ 
 tribute to foreign missions. It has been the 
 custom in literature sometimes to make fun 
 of them. You remember in Dickens when 
 Sam Weller came home, and saw Tony, his 
 father, and the widow whom Tony had mar¬ 
 ried. The widow and the Rev. Stiggins 
 framed an indictment against Tony, on the 
 ground that he would not contribute any mon¬ 
 ey to pay for “flannel waistcoats and moral 
 pocket handkerchiefs” for little infants in the 
 West Indies. He said they were little hum¬ 
 bugs, and he said, moreover, in an undertone 
 to Sam, that he could come down pretty hand¬ 
 some for some “straight veskits” for some 
 people at home. 
 
 I confess that there was a time when I 
 was enjoying a snug provincialism, that 1 
 hope has left me now, when I rather sympa¬ 
 thized with that view. Until I went to the Ori¬ 
 ent, until there was thrust upon me the re¬ 
 sponsibilities with reference to the extension 
 of civilization in those far distant lands, I 
 did not realize the immense importance of for¬ 
 eign missions. The truth is, we have got to, 
 
 3 
 
wake up in this country. We are not all 
 there is in the world. There are lots besides 
 us, and there are lots of people besides us that 
 are entitled to our effort and our money and 
 our sacrifice to help them on in the world. 
 Now no man can study the movement of mod¬ 
 ern civilization from an impartial standpoint, 
 and not realize that Christianity and the 
 spread of Christianity are the only basis for 
 hope of modern civilization in the growth of 
 popular self-government. The spirit of Chris¬ 
 tianity is pure democracy. It is the equality 
 of man before God—the equality of man be¬ 
 fore the law, which is, as I understand it, the 
 most God-like manifestation that man has 
 been able to make. 
 
 I am not here to-night to speak of foreign 
 missions from a purely religious standpoint. 
 That has been done and will be done. I am 
 here to speak of it from the standpoint of 
 political governmental advancement, the ad¬ 
 vancement of modern civilization, and I think 
 I have had some opportunity to know how 
 dependent we are on the spread of Christianity 
 for any hope we may have of uplifting the 
 peoples whom Providence has thrust upon us 
 for our guidance. Foreign missions began a 
 long time ago. In the Philippines, in 1565 to 
 1571, there were five Augustinian friars that 
 came out by direction of Felipe Second, 
 charged with the duty under Legaspi of Chris¬ 
 tianizing those islands. By the greatest good 
 luck they reached there just before the time 
 when the Mohammedans were thinking of go¬ 
 ing into the same place, and they spread Chris¬ 
 tianity through those islands with no violence 
 but in the true spirit of Christian missionaries. 
 
 4 
 
They taught the natives of those islands agri¬ 
 culture. They taught them peace and the arts 
 of peace, and so it came about that the only 
 people as a body that are Christians in the 
 whole Orient are the Filipino people of the 
 Christian provinces of the Philippines, seven 
 million souls. I dwell upon this because it is 
 the basis of the whole hope of success that we 
 have in our problem in those islands. It is 
 true that those people were not developed be¬ 
 yond the point of Christian tutelage. Those 
 old missionaries felt that it was not wise to 
 expose those people to the temptations of the 
 knowledge which European Christians have, 
 and so they were kept in a state of ignorance, 
 but nevertheless they were Christians, and for 
 three hundred years have been under that in¬ 
 fluence. In this condition of Christian tute¬ 
 lage, their ideals are western, their ideals are 
 European, their ideals are Christian, and they 
 understand us. When we attempt to unfold to 
 them the theories and the doctrine of self- 
 government, of democracy, they are fit ma¬ 
 terial, to make, in two or three generations, 
 because they are Christians, a self-governing 
 people. We have the opportunity to know, 
 because we have got a million non-Christians 
 there—we have 400,000 or 500,000 Moham¬ 
 medans, and they don’t understand republican 
 government. They don’t understand popular 
 government. They welcome a despotism, and 
 they never will sustain popular self-govern¬ 
 ment until they have been converted to Chris¬ 
 tianity. 
 
 I suppose I ought not to go into a discussion 
 here of our business in the Philippines, but 
 I never can take up that subject without point- 
 
 5 
 
ing the moral. It is my conviction that our 
 nation is just as much charged with the obli¬ 
 gation to help the unfortunate peoples of other 
 countries that are thrust upon us by fate, onto 
 their feet and to become self-governing peo¬ 
 ple, as it is the business of the wealthy and 
 fortunate in a community to help the infirm 
 and the unfortunate of that community. 
 
 It is said that there is nothing in the Con¬ 
 stitution of the United States that authorizes 
 national altruism of that sort. Well, of 
 course there is not; but there is nothing in the 
 Constitution of the United States that forbids 
 it. What there is in the Constitution of the 
 United States is a breathing spirit that we are 
 a nation with all the responsibilities that any 
 nation ever had, and therefore when it be¬ 
 comes the Christian duty of a nation to assist 
 another nation, the Constitution authorizes it 
 because it is part of national well-being. 
 
 We went into the Cuban War, and we did 
 not go into it for conquest. We went in be¬ 
 cause we thought there was an international 
 scandal that ought to be ended, and that we 
 had some responsibility with respect to that 
 scandal, if we could end it and did not end it. 
 We passed a self-denying ordinance with re¬ 
 spect to Cuba, but we found these other coun¬ 
 tries on our hands. I have been at the head of 
 the Philippines, and I know what I am talking 
 about when I say that the hope of those is¬ 
 lands depends upon the development of the 
 power in those islands of the churches that 
 are there. One of the most discouraging 
 things to-day is the poverty-stricken condition 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, which has the 
 largest congregations in those islands, and 
 
 6 
 
every man, be he Protestant or Catholic, must 
 in his soul hope for the prosperity of the Ro¬ 
 man Catholic Church in those islands, in or¬ 
 der that it may do the work that it ought to 
 do in uplifting those people. Protestant mis¬ 
 sions in those islands are doing a grand and 
 noble work. It may be that their congrega¬ 
 tions will not be as large as that of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. It is not to be expected; but 
 the spirit of Christian emulation, if I may use 
 that term, of competition between the repre¬ 
 sentatives of the churches there, has the 
 grandest effect upon such agents of all the 
 churches, and so indirectly upon the people; 
 and it is the influence of the church upon a 
 people as ignorant as they are, and of these 
 churches that hold up the hands of the civil 
 governor, charged as he is with the responsi¬ 
 bility of maintaining peace and order, of in¬ 
 ducing them to educate their children, and to 
 go on upward on the path toward self-govern¬ 
 ment. I am talking practical facts about the 
 effect of religion on political government. I 
 know what I am talking about. Foreign mis¬ 
 sions accomplish—I did not know it until I 
 went into the Orient—a variety of things. 
 They have reached the conclusion that in or¬ 
 der to make a man a good Christian you have 
 got to make him useful in the community and 
 teach him something to do and give him some 
 sense and intelligence. So, connected with 
 every successful foreign mission is a school, 
 ordinarily an industrial school. You have also 
 got to teach them that cleanliness is next to 
 Godliness, and that one business of his is to 
 keep himself healthful; and so in connection 
 with every good foreign mission they have 
 
 7 
 
hospitals and doctors, and the mission makes 
 a nucleus of modern civilization, with schools 
 and teachers, a physician and a church, and in 
 that way having educated the native, having 
 taugh him how to live, then they are able to 
 be sure that they have made him a consistent 
 Christian. Of course, it is said there are a 
 great many rice Christians in China. Doubt¬ 
 less there are. Chinese don’t differ from other 
 people, and they are quite willing to admit a 
 conversion they don’t feel, in order that they 
 may fill their stomachs; but the real fact is 
 that every mission in China is a nucleus for 
 the advancement of modern civilization. Chi¬ 
 na is in a state of transition. China is looking 
 forward to progress. China is to be guided 
 by whom? It is to be guided by the young 
 Christian students and scholars, that either 
 learn English or some other foreign language 
 at home, or are sent abroad to be instructed, 
 and who come back, and whose words are 
 listened to by those who exercise influence at 
 the head of the government. Therefor it is 
 that these frontier posts of civilization are so 
 much more important than the mere numerical 
 account of those who are converted, or those 
 who yield allegiance to the foreign missions 
 seems to make them, and I speak from the 
 standpoint, as I say, of political civilization in 
 such a country as China. They have I think 
 some 3,000 missionaries in China. The num¬ 
 ber of students last year was 35,000. They go 
 out into the neighborhood, and they cannot 
 but have a good effect throughout that great 
 Empire, large as it is, to promote the ideas of 
 Christianity and the ideas of civilization. 
 
 Two or three things make one impatient 
 
 8 
 
when he understands the facts. One is the 
 criticism that the missionary is constantly in¬ 
 volving governments in trouble and constantly 
 bringing about war. The truth is that West¬ 
 ern civilization in trade is pressing into the 
 Orient, and the agents that are sent forward, 
 I am sorry to say, are not the best representa¬ 
 tives of Western civilization. The Americans 
 and Englishmen and others who live in the 
 Orient are many of them excellent, honest, 
 God-fearing men, but there are in that set of 
 advance agents of Western civilization, gen¬ 
 tlemen who left the West for the good of the 
 West, and because their history in the West 
 might prove embarrassing at home. More 
 than that, where there are honest, hard-work¬ 
 ing tradesmen and merchants attempting to 
 push business into the Orient, their minds are 
 constantly on business. It is not human nature 
 that they should resist the temptations that not 
 infrequently present themselves, to get ahead 
 of the Oriental brother in business transac¬ 
 tions. They generally are quite out of sym¬ 
 pathy with a spirit of brotherhood toward the 
 Oriental native. Even in the Philippines that 
 spirit is shown, for while I was there I quite 
 remember hearing on the streets a song of a 
 gentleman who did not agree with my view of 
 what we ought to do by the Filipinos, “He may 
 be a brother of William H. Taft, but he ain’t 
 no brother of mine.” That is the spirit that 
 we are too likely to find among the gentlemen 
 who go into the East for the mere purpose of 
 extending trade. 
 
 Then I am bound to say that the restraints 
 of public opinion that one finds at home to 
 keep men in the straight and narrow path are 
 
 9 
 
loosened in the Orient, and we find a number 
 of foreigners not the models that they ought 
 to be in probity and morality. They look 
 upon the native as inferior, and they are too 
 likely to treat him with contumely and insult. 
 Hence it is that in the progress of civilization 
 we must move on as trade moves on and as 
 the foreign missions move on. 
 
 It is through the foreign missions that we 
 must expect to have the true picture of Chris¬ 
 tian brotherhood presented to those natives, 
 the true spirit of Christian sympathy. In the 
 progress of civilization you can not over-esti¬ 
 mate the immense importance of Christian 
 missions. If in China to-day you try to find 
 out what the conditions are in the interior, 
 you consult in Pekin the gentlemen who are 
 suposed to know, and where do you go? You 
 go at once to the missionaries, the men who 
 have spent their lives far advanced into the 
 nation, far beyond the point of safety if an 
 uprising takes place, and who have learned by 
 association with the natives, by living with 
 them, by bringing them into their houses, by 
 helping them on their feet, who have learned 
 what the secret of Chinese life is; and there¬ 
 fore it is that the only reliable books that you 
 can read telling you exactly the condition of 
 Chinese civilization, are written by these for¬ 
 eign missionaries who have been so much 
 blamed for involving us in foreign wars. It 
 is said that the Boxer war was due to the in¬ 
 terference of the missionaries and the feeling 
 of the Chinese against the Christian religion 
 as manifested and exemplified by the mission¬ 
 aries. That is not true. It is true that the 
 first outbreak was against the missionaries, 
 
 io 
 
because the outbreak was against foreign in- 
 teferences, and it was easiest to attack those 
 men who were furthest in the Chinese nation. 
 But that which really aroused the opposition 
 of the Chinese was that feeling that all of us 
 Christian nations were sitting around waiting 
 to divide up the middle kingdom and waiting 
 to get our piece of the pork. Now that is the 
 feeling that the Chinese have, and I am not 
 prepared to say that there was not some 
 ground for the suspicion. 
 
 I have described to you the character of 
 some Americans in the cities of the Orient, 
 in Shanghai and in others. It has improved. 
 Our consular system has been greatly im¬ 
 proved, and then we established a consular 
 court of China or circuit court of the United 
 States, and a man was put in there who had 
 been attorney general in the Philippine Is¬ 
 lands. He had some experience in dealing 
 with these waifs that come around up the 
 coast, go through one town and then go on 
 up to another town. They left Manila and 
 then after they left Manila they spent their 
 time in condemning the government of Manila. 
 We called them in Manila “Shanghai roos¬ 
 ters.Wilfley went there as Judge of that 
 court, and he found a condition of an Augean 
 stable that needed cleaning out, so far as the 
 Americans were concerned, and I think per¬ 
 haps in this audience I would be able to call 
 on witnesses who could testify to the condi¬ 
 tion of immorality that was carried on there 
 under the protection of the American flag. 
 We have extra-territorial jurisdiction in a 
 concession made by the Chinese Government 
 to us. Judge Wilfley went to work and be- 
 
 n 
 
fore he got through the American flag floated 
 over a moral community and in so doing he 
 had the sympathy of the foreign missionaries 
 who were in that neighborhood. But he has 
 come home, and when you are a good many 
 miles away facts are difficult to prove. Pic¬ 
 tures are easy to paint in lurid colors of the 
 tyranny of a Judge away off there, and he has 
 been subjected to a great deal of criticism on 
 that account. I want to give my personal tes¬ 
 timony on the subject and in favor of his 
 course. With this change in our diplomatic 
 relations to China, by doing what was a plain, 
 honest thing to do, and which as between na¬ 
 tions seems to be a little more exceptional per¬ 
 haps than between individuals—by agreeing 
 to return the money that we really ought not 
 to have taken, the indemnity, by the influence 
 of our own foreign missionaries there, and by 
 the belief in China that we are not there for 
 our exploitation or to appropriate jurisdiction 
 territorially or otherwise, I think we stand 
 well in China to-day. I think we stand in such 
 a position that such a movement as this, in 
 order to raise money to increase the number 
 of missionaries and the number of nuclei of 
 Christianity and of civilization in that teeming 
 population of 450,000,000 is better to-day than 
 it ever was. Therefore such a movement as 
 this must enlist the sympathy and aid of all 
 who understand the great good that these self- 
 denying men who go so far to accomplish their 
 good are doing. You can read books ( I have 
 read them) in which the missions are described 
 as most comfortable buildings, and it is said 
 that they are living much more luxuriously 
 than they are at home, and therefore that they 
 
 12 
 
don’t call for our support or sympathy. It is 
 true that there are a good many mission build¬ 
 ings that are handsome buildings. I have seen 
 them. It is true that they are comfortable, 
 but they ought to be comfortable. One of the 
 things that you have got to do with the Ori¬ 
 ental is to fill his eye with something that he 
 can see, and if you erect a great missionary 
 building he deems the coming of the mission¬ 
 ary into that community as of some import¬ 
 ance and the missionary societies that are do¬ 
 ing that and are building their own buildings 
 for their missionaries are following a very 
 much more sensible course than is the United 
 States in denying to its representatives any¬ 
 thing to shelter them. But it is not a life of 
 ease; it is not a life of comfort and luxury. 
 I don’t know how many have felt that thing 
 I think physicians call “nostalgia.” I don’t 
 know whether you have experienced that sense 
 of distance from home, that being surrounded 
 by an alien people, that impression that if you 
 could only have two hours of association with 
 your old friends at home, if you could only 
 get into a street car and sit down or hang by 
 a strap, in order to be near your friends. I 
 tell you when you come back after an absence 
 of five or ten years, even the strap seems a 
 dear old memory. Those men are doing a 
 grand good work. I don’t mean to say that 
 there are not exceptions among them, that 
 sometimes they don’t make mistakes and some¬ 
 times they don’t meddle in something which 
 it would be better for them from a political 
 standpoint to keep out of, but I mean as a 
 whole, those 3,000 missionaries in China and 
 those thousands in other countries worthily 
 
 13 
 
represent the best Christian spirit of this 
 country, and worthily are doing the work that 
 you have sent them out to do. 
 
 I would like to talk a little about the dif¬ 
 ference between our colonial policy and its 
 effect in China, and the colonial policy of 
 other countries, but that is probably not ger¬ 
 mane to-night, and I am afraid if I did you 
 would think I was using this opportunity as 
 a means of airing my hobby. 
 
 I thank you for the opportunity of speaking 
 on behalf of this body of Christian men and 
 women who are doing a work which is in¬ 
 dispensable to the spread of Christian civili¬ 
 zation. 
 
 14