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YOUNG MEN AND 
 FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 By Pres. George A. Gates 
 
 of Hunona College, California 
 
 An Address given at the Annual Meeting 
 of the American Board of Commis- 
 sioners for Foreign Missions at 
 Seattle, Washington, 
 
 Sept. 15, 1905. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Published by the American Board 
 
 1905 
 
You Men and Foreip Missions. 
 
 BY PRES. GEORGE A. GATES. 
 
 The American Board was created, 
 under God, by young men. If ever it 
 should become peculiarly the special 
 charge of chiefly old men, that would be 
 a curious inversion. Yet as one ob- 
 serves the constituency of the corporate 
 membership, as one notes the fact that 
 it is mainly older and even old men and 
 women in our churches who are especi- 
 ally interested in this department of the 
 work of our churches ; as one cannot 
 fail to perceive that it is these same old- 
 er people who are most largely the con- 
 tributors to this, work, one is not sur- 
 prised that this hour has been set apart 
 for this special matter. All honor to the 
 veterans among us who have grown 
 older in this service. All their wisdom 
 and consecration are needed and appre- 
 ciated. 
 
It would not be surprising if it were 
 found to be true that the interest of these 
 faithfuls began in their youth. That 
 kind of sturdy tree was not created out- 
 right. It grew', and is strong because 
 it grew. If there be a work “under the 
 all-beholding sun’’ which demands the 
 special characteristics of youth, — zeal, 
 tirelessness, the hopefulness that de- 
 clines to recognize repeated and pro- 
 longed defeat, shrinks from no physical 
 hardships, rejoices in superhuman con- 
 secration to a high purpose, — such a 
 work is foreign missions in the field of 
 its operations. In saying this, one of 
 course does not overlook the fact that 
 scores of men and women no longer 
 young are now in the foreign work, 
 having added the wisdom of experience 
 and maturity to the fires of youth under 
 which they gave themselves. 
 
 Officered by Oi.der Persons. 
 
 We are thus face to face with an 
 anomaly : An institution and cause 
 
 born of the consecration of noble youth 
 and dependent particularly on qualities 
 of youth, supported and officered at 
 
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home, nevertheless, largely by others 
 than young men and women. This fact 
 has been recognized and dealt with in 
 the past. Young men are found among 
 the officers of the board. The present 
 problem is to push the same movement 
 out among the younger men in our 
 churches. 
 
 The cause needs and urgently needs 
 the added support of a great body of 
 young men. Let us face the fact that 
 the young men of our churches are not 
 being enlisted in the support of missions 
 as they must be if the ranks of the sus- 
 taining force at home are to be main- 
 tained in their normal strength. Still 
 less are these ranks being increased pro- 
 portionately to the normal demands of 
 the widening work. That is so plain a 
 fact that one would affront the intelli- 
 gence of this audience to waste words 
 in support of it. 
 
 Let us be clear as to what we are 
 talking about. 
 
 By “young men” we mean what the 
 Romans meant not mere boys, but men 
 from 1 8 to 40, men in whom the enthus- 
 iasms of youth are still dominant and 
 formative. 
 
 5 
 
By “in foreign missions’’ we mean in 
 this present discussion not young men 
 to go out as missionaries, but the young 
 men of our churches to support by their 
 interest and by their gifts the foreign 
 missions department of the church. So 
 narrow is this present subject matter I 
 will confine myself to two points: 
 
 An Age of Young Men. 
 
 First, the universally recognized fact 
 that. we live in an age of young men. 
 The world of business affairs has latterly 
 as never before been finding that out. 
 The works, little less than mighty, of 
 modern corporate enterprise are drawing 
 on the strongest young men of our 
 country. The gigantic engineering 
 triumphs are wrought by young men. 
 The inventions under which physical 
 forces are discovered and harnessed to 
 controlled use, by which daily life is be- 
 coming more than royally rich, are 
 mostly the work of young men. The 
 world of affairs, of applied science, of 
 bringing things to pass — that world is 
 making no such prime blunder as to 
 
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neglect young men. That practical 
 world cannot afford to do so. It needs 
 the livest, strongest, most efficient ser- 
 vice and it knows where to go to get it. 
 It actually gets it. 
 
 To come nearer our immediate con- 
 cern. In many lines of religious life 
 and work the last quarter century has 
 learned much. Since the boyhood of 
 men of middle life great changes have 
 come in the phenomenal growth of 
 Young Men’s Christian Association 
 and Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation work : there are in the world 
 about 7,000 Young Men’s Christian 
 Associations. They own more than 
 800 buildings, three-fourths of them in 
 America, whose value is $33,000,000. 
 That amount of money is about the total 
 expenditure of the American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions 
 from its beginning. The Young Peo- 
 ple’s Society of Christian Endeavor is 
 only a quarter century old. There have 
 come along the Young People’s Bap- 
 tist Union, Epworth League and the 
 whole host of others. That persistent- 
 ly recurrent letter Y in all these stands 
 
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for — well, what does it stand for? 
 Some crudities sometimes, doubtless. 
 But for boundless energy, confidence, 
 in the end achievement every time. If 
 there is failure here and there, there 
 is recovery too, renewed activity and 
 final success. 
 
 The works of young people in relig- 
 ious lines grow almost beyond the abii- 
 ity T of statistics to keep up with them. 
 
 Pastors Neglect Chances. 
 
 Now is there any question but that 
 foreign missions is somewhat failing to 
 get its share of this splendid life ? Of 
 course foreign missions plays its part in 
 all these organizations of young people. 
 They have their committees on foreign 
 missions, and make their contributions, 
 but are they not, nevertheless, far, far 
 short of what they might be in this re- 
 gard? There is but one answer from 
 any honest and adequate observer. 
 
 At whose door lies the blame for this 
 lack ? I can find no other answer that 
 is fair and true but this : At last it is 
 the pastor’s fault largely — dare one 
 
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say? Some of us do know that large 
 numbers of our pastors are not awake to 
 this opportunity. If the pastor be un- 
 intelligent or indifferent about this vital 
 branch of the function of the modern 
 church, of course the people will be 
 so, and especially the young people. 
 “What touches me not, troubles me 
 not,” says a German proverb. The 
 young people of our churches can be 
 led into enthusiastic interest in foreign 
 missions. But the minister must, here 
 as elsewhere, take the lead in knowledge 
 and interest. 
 
 But parents are to blame, too. Chil- 
 dren are quick to feel where their 
 parents’ real interests lie. In hundreds 
 of our homes the children are trained to 
 persistent interest in foreign missions, 
 but in thousands the children are not so 
 trained. 
 
 But what more can the Board do? 
 Much has been done. The movement 
 to get individual churches to support 
 individual missionaries would seem to 
 be wholly good. It is proving success- 
 ful. For young people especially con- 
 crete causes and cases are immeasurably 
 
 9 
 
more appealing. The Board is just now 
 adopting a distinct policy of “working 
 the field” of young men in our churches. 
 Ways will be found to carry out this 
 policy. It has alread}* been found that 
 response from strong, business-like 
 young men will not be lacking when 
 once they can be led to see' what this 
 work is. 
 
 The Appeal to Young Men. 
 
 But I come to the main point I would 
 emphasize — the ground of appeal to 
 young men. I deliberately pass by the 
 great appeal on which all missions rest 
 — the call of God to man to help his 
 needier fellow man. Rather I do not 
 pass it by, but assume it. Assumed 
 also is the appeal from the successes of 
 missions, for this argument after nigh a 
 hundred years is not ashamed in any 
 court of inquiry. But I stand here to 
 lay emphasis on one point: The solemn 
 contract under which the young ?ncn of our 
 churches are to support the American 
 Board. 
 
 And what can one mean by that ? 
 Does one say there is no such contract, 
 
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nor indeed any contract ? Let us see 
 about that. Three years ago occurred 
 the great coal strike in the anthracite 
 fields of Pennsylvania. It was coal 
 miners on one side, owners of mine and 
 railroad on the other. It was mid- 
 winter. Boston and New Haven and 
 New York were beginning to suffer. 
 The poor especially were in dire straits. 
 Even schools, churches and hospitals 
 were running out of fuel. City councils 
 acted. Governors of states pleaded with 
 the parties to the strife to save them 
 from freezing. But the miners would 
 not dig coal. They said no law and no 
 person could compel them. The rail- 
 way magnates, who also owned the coal 
 mines, replied that whether whole state- 
 fuls of people froze was no legal affair 
 of theirs; they couldn’t furnish coal if 
 the miners wouldn’t dig it. “We have 
 entered into no contract to furnish coal 
 to New York City.’’ 
 
 President Roosevelt. 
 
 Then something happened — some- 
 thing that helped the world on a step. 
 The constitution doubtless does not con- 
 
fer the right on the President to sum- 
 mon parties to a quarrel to Washington. 
 But Mr. Roosevelt did ask miners and 
 owners to Washington. Thank God, 
 we are not so democratic that a Presi- 
 dent’s invitation of that sort is much 
 short of a command. The men went. 
 Underneath all the interview, the sub- 
 stance of the President’s attitude was : 
 “You go back and dig and carry coal. 
 My people are freezing. You can argue 
 and readjust or fight at some more con- 
 venient time. But now you men put 
 coal into those cities.” 
 
 They tried to convince him it was im- 
 possible ; they had a quarrel with each 
 other. There was only one reply : “My 
 people are freezing. You get them 
 coal.” Then the mine owners rose in 
 their dignity as American citizens and 
 haughtily said : “We are not compelled 
 to do so. We never contracted to fur- 
 nish a pound of coal to New York City. 
 The mines and railroads are our own, 
 to do with as we please.” But they did, 
 nota bene, go back and get coal to the 
 freezing people. They did it right off ! 
 The two parties argued out their quarrel 
 at their leisure. 
 
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Had they not proceeded at once to 
 furnish coal it is not the least unlikely 
 that the President would have assumed 
 a constitutional role about which there 
 would be no argument, namely, nothing 
 other than that of commander-in-chief 
 of the United States army. For soldiers 
 can persuade to mine coal and run rail- 
 way trains when the people are freezing. 
 
 Contract With Humanity. 
 
 That is : There are contracts immea- 
 surably more binding than any ever 
 written on paper. There is a “con- 
 tract” to the effect that the railways 
 centering in New York City shall carry 
 fuel to freezing folks, milk to dying 
 babies, food to starving people. It 
 doesn’t have to be written. Constitu- 
 tion, laws, “private business” are as 
 nothing compared to that contract. It 
 is written in the nature of modern civili- 
 zation, in the stars of heaven, in the 
 hearts of men, in the purpose of God. 
 
 A similar contract exists between 
 parents and their children. Parents do 
 not sign a contract to do well by their 
 
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children. But such a contract inheres 
 in every marriage. It is so much more 
 binding than any paper agreement that 
 no one would ever think of so flimsy a 
 thing as a piece of paper with writing 
 on it, in that connection. 
 
 Exactly similar is the unwritten but 
 real contract into which our churches 
 have entered. 
 
 It is binding between us and, first, 
 the missionaries. 
 
 The churches have bound themselves 
 to stand by those who, giving up all 
 else, went away. They went out trust- 
 ing in the sacredness of that contract 
 between themselves and not merely those 
 then living, but also their successors in 
 the church membership. It is a time- 
 less contract. This kind does not out- 
 law. The churches of to-day are under 
 contract with the missionaries of two or 
 three generations ago that their plant- 
 ing will be cherished. There is a whole 
 army of saints, nigh a hundred years of 
 them, all holding this sacred bond with 
 succeeding generations of us. 
 
 This contract is binding in a second 
 way, between us and the peoples to 
 
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whom the missionaries have gone. 
 Those converts have broken with their 
 own, in many instances at a cost we at 
 home can never appreciate. They have 
 given of their means, helped to build 
 “plants;” cast in their fortunes and 
 those of their families and descendants 
 with the new. We cannot make of such 
 a contract so light a thing as to think 
 we meet it by putting a 50-cenl piece 
 upon the contribution plate because it 
 happens to be going around. In com- 
 mon decency must the young men com- 
 ing to the fore of life recognize the 
 obligation of holiest contract with what 
 their fathers have done. 
 
 To the strong young men of these 
 later generations the foreign missions of 
 our churches are not a matter of senti- 
 ment. It is plain business, a clear-cut 
 business obligation. This does not 
 mean that the holiest sentiment and 
 loftiest ideals are any more absent from 
 our great cause than they ever were. 
 Quite the contrary. The beauty and 
 the glory of it grow with every added 
 year. But over and above all sentiment 
 the solemn pressure of the cosmic con- 
 
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tract resting upon the young people of 
 each succeeding generation grows also. 
 
 There is nothing exceptional in this. 
 The rewards of God’s world are rewards 
 in kind. The pay we get for doing 
 good work is the chance to do some 
 more and better. The reward of self- 
 sacrifice is the chance to be more de- 
 voted and so enter into higher joy of it. 
 The reward of generosity is just the 
 chance to be more generous. So the 
 fidelity of the young men of former gen- 
 erations and the loyalty of the hosts of 
 their converts is not to free us from bur- 
 dens, but to spur us to bear faithfully 
 the burdens of the inheritance they have 
 bequeathed us. 
 
 They laid out roads through the wil- 
 derness of darkness and superstition, 
 ignorance and awful wrong ; it is ours 
 to finish these roads and maintain them. 
 They laid foundations in confidence of 
 superstructure ; we must build thereon 
 or proclaim ourselves defaulters of busi- 
 ness obligations, and none the less 
 “business” that they are also of the 
 highest spiritual content. To doubt the 
 validity of such an appeal is to doubt 
 
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the integrity of the human mind and the 
 power of right motive. If the argu- 
 ment of such facts and their relations to 
 the present and coming generations can 
 get the ear of young men, the response 
 cannot fail. 
 
 Heathendom and Heathenism vs. 
 
 Christianity. 
 
 There is a third item in this contract 
 with the young men of this generation ; 
 it is with their own and their children's 
 future upon the earth. To any thought- 
 ful observer it must appear that this 
 world is approaching some measure of 
 climax in the age-long struggle between 
 Christianity and heathenism. On the 
 one side are ranged both that heathen- 
 dom that lies geographically beyond the 
 borders of civilization and that heathen- 
 ism that has grown fat not only in but 
 on the very opportunities created by 
 Christian civilization, viz.: the oppor- 
 tunities of great wealth 'born out of dis- 
 covering and harnessing the forces of 
 
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nature. On the other side is the “king- 
 dom of God wherein dwelleth righteous- 
 ness.’’ There is coming rapidly either 
 the tyranny and slavery of heathendom 
 and heathenism or that broad democracy 
 of the gospel of the Savior of all man- 
 kind. There is a contract into which 
 every young man, whether of our 
 churches or not, must enter, with his 
 own business and social future and his 
 children’s. Toward the perpetuation 
 of the darkness or the coming of the 
 light each man must work. It is safe 
 to assert that the most conserving and 
 integrating force in the present stage of 
 building the human race is foreign mis- 
 sions. Like the sunshine, its work is 
 noiseless, patient, effective. 
 
 But to the Christian young man comes 
 the appeal above all others of a “con- 
 tract’’ with the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 That contract,, if one may reverently 
 dare so bold a figure, is stamped with 
 the blood-red seal of Calvary. He has 
 redeemed this world — not a part of it, 
 but all of it. The Christian young man 
 has entered into contract with Him to 
 help no less a work than world redemp- 
 
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tion. How dare any young man range 
 his work, influence, plain money gifts 
 to any lower scale ? To that high pur- 
 pose, “the love of Christ constrains" 
 him and us all. 
 
Send contributions for the work of the 
 American Board to 
 
 FRANK H. WIGGIN, Treasurer, 
 
 Congregational House, Boston 
 
 The literature, leaflets and letters of the 
 American Board may be had by addressing 
 
 Mr. John G. Hosmer, Congregational 
 House, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Or at the offices of the District Secretaries : 
 
 Rev. C. C. Creegan, D.D., 4th Avenue and 
 22d Street, New York City. 
 
 Rev. A. N. Hitchcock, Ph.I)., 163 La Salle 
 Street, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Rev. H. Melville Tenney, Y. M. C. A. 
 Building, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 “THE MISSIONARY HERALD.” 
 Single subscriptions, 75 cents; in clubs of 
 ten, 50 cents each. 
 
 'FORM OF BEQUEST. 
 
 I give, devise and bequeath unto the 
 “American Board of Commissioners for For- 
 eign Missions,” incorporated in Massachu- 
 setts in 1812, the sum of 
 
 dollars, to be expended for the appropriate 
 objects of said corporation. 
 

 
 
 
 

 
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