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 The Miracle of 
 Modern Missions 
 
 Korea 
 
 By Rev. XV. XV. Pinson 
 
 UNIFORM ENVELOPE SERIES 
 China Korea Japan 
 Mexico Brazil Cuba 
 
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 WHATEVER may be the result, the 
 development of events in Korea 
 will be watched by many with the 
 keenest interest; and not the least in- 
 terested will be those who see in the 
 strange outpouring of the Spirit at 
 Pyengyang an analogous manifesta- 
 tion of that which preceded the great 
 Wesleyan movement. You have only 
 to read the journal of John Wesley 
 and compare it with the account of the 
 manifestation at Pyengyang to realise 
 that the phenomena are very closely 
 akin. There is in both cases an extra- 
 ordinary manifestation of power; peo- 
 ple are convinced of their sins by an- 
 other force than reason, and the power 
 that convinced gives them strength not 
 only to overcome sin but to comnnce 
 others. The Koreans who were at the 
 original meetings have gone forth, like 
 Wesley’s converts, far and wide, 
 preaching the faith. And like Wes- 
 ley’s converts, their preaching has been 
 wonderfully successful — so much so 
 that there are not a few who say that 
 it is through Korea that the light of 
 Christianity will shine on the Far 
 Eastern World. — Rev. Lord William 
 Gascoyne-Cccil ( Church of England), 
 in the London Times. 
 
 
ahr iHtrarlrs of fHc&mt Itttssuma 
 
 After Twenty Years. 
 
 OREA, so recently the Hermit Kingdom, 
 has come to be the miracle of modern 
 missions, and by every token is soon to 
 be a Christian nation. Twenty years 
 ago the missionary had to make opportunities ; 
 now he has to dodge them for self-protection. 
 Then the natives entertained him with guffaws 
 of laughter and jeers at the name of Jesus; now 
 they greet him with enthusiasm as a messenger 
 of Christ. Then he was glad to speak to a small 
 group of noisy and indifferent people ; now he 
 stands before hundreds of upturned, eager, tear- 
 stained faces. Then he wondered at their in- 
 difference ; now he marvels at their intense in- 
 terest. Then he must search for or build a 
 place in which to preach ; now they build a 
 house and send for him. Then the problem was 
 for the preacher to get a hearing; now the prob- 
 lem is for the people to get a preacher. The 
 like of it has never been since Pentecost, and 
 probably will never be again. It has been re- 
 served for the Church of modem times to wit- 
 ness the sublime spectacle of “a broken-hearted 
 nation turning to Christ.” 
 
 Signs Following. 
 
 For more than three years a revival of mar- 
 velous sweep and power has been going on. 
 What Methodists call an old-fashioned revival 
 is wonder enough in an Oriental country, but 
 that is only the beginning of wonders. The 
 
greatest marvel of all is the depth and in- 
 tensity of the spiritual manifestations. Sobs, 
 cries for mercy, open confessions of specific sins, 
 and rejoicings of the justified not uncommon- 
 ly continue for hours at a stretch. It is not 
 uncommon for those who have stolen or de- 
 frauded to restore the property, nor for those 
 who have wronged others to seek their forgive- 
 ness. This conviction that smites like a sword, 
 this sorrow that shakes the soul like a tempest, 
 is followed by complete transformation of charac- 
 ter, bearing the marks of the Spirit’s influence. 
 This, too, in a land where a score of years ago 
 they did not so much as have the idea of guilt 
 or forgiveness, and their religion consisted not 
 in love of God, but in fear of devils. When 
 Bishop Candler said to a missionary of another 
 Church, “Korea presents the greatest missionary 
 opportunity since the days of St. Paul,” that mis- 
 sionary exclaimed, “When did St. Paul ever see 
 such an opportunity as this?” When, indeed? 
 
 The Spread of the Good News. 
 
 The Korean Christians have what the Churcli 
 in America has, we grieve to say, largely lost. 
 They have the spirit of personal evangelism. 
 They believe, and therefore speak. They spread 
 the tidings. The gospel is to them good news, 
 too good to keep. When they have heard it, 
 with joy they tell their neighbors. The Ko- 
 reans are helping to evangelize Korea. 
 
 Many churches are built where a missionary 
 has never been seen. They reverse the order 
 of the parable, for they come out from the 
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highways and hedges and compel the mission- 
 ary to go. One missionary said recently that 
 there were from six to nine thousand inquirers 
 on his circuit. A missionary of our own 
 Church wrote that 2,650 persons were begging 
 to be taught and received into the Church, many 
 of whom had never heard a missionary’s voice. 
 His grief was that there were not enough mis- 
 sionaries to reach them, and the pleading of 
 many must go unheeded. 
 
 When our pastors are holding prayer-meetings 
 with empty benches, missionaries in Korea have 
 frequently from seven hundred to one thousand 
 at prayer-meeting. When preachers in America 
 are using every' device their ingenuity can sug- 
 gest to draw a crowd, Korean preachers are 
 preaching to men at one hour and women at 
 another that they may be able to house their 
 crowds with some approach to comfort. Nor arc 
 Koreans listless or merely curious ; but “when 
 the lesson is read, they all read ; when the hymn 
 is announced, they all sing; in prayer they all 
 bow their faces to the floor, and any one of them 
 who is a Christian will lead in prayer.” What 
 a joy it must be to break the bread of life to 
 souls thus hungry ! 
 
 Optimism Justified. 
 
 The growth of the past few years justifies 
 such optimism. Mr. C. V. Vickery, Secretary of 
 the Young People’s Missionary Movement, after 
 a visit to the country last year, said that in 
 Pveng Yang, where work was begun only fif- 
 teen years ago, more than a thousand attended 
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one church; that a missionary was driven away, 
 from Kang-Lao fifteen years ago, while on the 
 Sunday before Mr. Vickery’s visit that same 
 missionary went again to that city and was wel- 
 comed by four hundred Christians at the boat 
 landing and by thirty-five hundred Christians in 
 the city, and on Sunday he preached to fifteen 
 hundred people and baptized one hundred and 
 thirty new converts. Mr. James S. Gale writes 
 of the Presbyterian work in Seoul: “Here in 
 this old city, that sixteen years ago was a murky 
 sink of heathenism, to-day we have ordained 
 seven ministers of the gospel out of a group 
 of five thousand believers. While nations col- 
 lapse and kings abdicate, a new power is arising 
 that is to work its wonders by the mysterious 
 agency of faith and hope and love.” In 1897, a 
 Presbyterian missionary entered Syen Chun. 
 There was then but one Christian in town. Now 
 one-third of the population are Christians; there 
 is one church of fifteen hundred members, with 
 ten others that have been set off from it. 
 
 Our Newest Mission. 
 
 Our mission in Korea was projected under the 
 direction of Bishop Hendrix in 1895. He and 
 Dr. C. F. Reid, who had done such yeoman’s 
 service in China as to commend him for the 
 foundation work of the new mission, landed at 
 Seoul in October of that year. The cruel as- 
 sassination of the Queen had occurred only a 
 few nights before, and the King was virtually a 
 prisoner in his own palace. The Bishop and his 
 companion, their vessel obstructed by a sand* 
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bar, walked twenty miles, and the next day 
 spent their first Sabbath in “the land of the 
 morning calm.” A site was purchased for $3,- 
 000, for which the Emperor shortly after offered 
 $20,000. This property has since been sold at an 
 enormous advance, and the proceeds more ad- 
 vantageously invested. The mission received 
 from the first great assistance from Mr. T. H. 
 Yun, by whose earnest solicitation in part the 
 mission was undertaken, and he is now giving 
 the intelligence and influence that was formerly 
 given to high official duty entirely to the work 
 of a missionary. Dr. Reid wisely projected the 
 work, and a noble band of missionaries have kept 
 it going with marvelous results. 
 
 The territory alloted to the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South, lies between Wonsan, Seoul, and 
 Songdo. It is, or was, a solid block of heathen- 
 ism for which we became responsible. It com- 
 prises a population of about 2,000,000. In a re- 
 cent letter from one of our missionaries he de- 
 clares that if the Board will furnish men and 
 money to man and equip the work, in ten years 
 this population can be evangelized. 
 
 Here we have 34 men and women whose cour- 
 age and optimism know no bounds, but they are 
 human. They are embarrassed, not by closed 
 doors, but by more open doors than they can 
 enter. They and the situation plead for more 
 men, not to hunt sheep, but to fold and feed 
 those already found ; yet we have only one to 
 every 60,000 of the population. Think of one 
 preacher in an American town of 60,000, with 
 no teacher, physician, or Sunday-school ! 
 
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Our Success. 
 
 In this brief space we have gathered, with 
 only a handful of missionaries, 181 groups of 
 converts, with 1,988 members, and built 89 chap- 
 els, 48 of which were built last year almost en- 
 tirely by the native Christians. We have en- 
 rolled 1,881 in Sunday-schools. There has been 
 a gain of 62 per cent in membership in the past 
 nine months. At that rate in the whole Church 
 we should gain 1,300,000 a year. For each or- 
 dained misisonary the gain the past year was 
 at the rate of 112, while in the whole Church the 
 average was about 2 l / 2 . Thus each missionary in 
 Korea was instrumental in swelling the member- 
 ship of the Church almost fifty times as fast as 
 the average pastor. 
 
 Roused by the stirring appeal of Bishop Can- 
 dler in 1907, the Church furnished money to 
 begin an intermediate school at Songdo, under 
 the noble-hearted Korean, Mr. T. H. Yun. This 
 school, begun in a ginseng shed, now numbers 
 one hundred and fifty pupils, and will soon be 
 in a new and commodious building. Tributary 
 to this school, primary schools are being organ- 
 ized. These are run at a cost of $20 a year, 
 and are being supported as specials, under prom- 
 ise that after five years they will be self-sup- 
 porting. The purpose is to establish forty or 
 fifty of these in various sections of the country. 
 
 A hospital has been completed and opened at 
 Songdo, and another at Wonsan. 
 
 The building of churches is a burden of which 
 the Board is relieved. The Koreans, though an 
 exceedingly poor people, build their own churches. 
 
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We have had to build only in the cities where 
 the expense is too great for the native ability. 
 Their liberality shames those of us who do not 
 know poverty as they endure it. 
 
 Specials. 
 
 One hundred dollars a year will support a na- 
 tive helper. An indefinite number of these are 
 needed, and can be had. Sixty dollars will pro- 
 vide a home for a native worker, including 
 ground and building. Twenty-five dollars a year 
 will sustain a student in the Songdo School, a 
 most inviting opportunity for a League or Sun- 
 day-school. Twenty dollars will support a pri- 
 mary school tributary to the Songdo School, a 
 great work at small cost. 
 
 The Demand. 
 
 Our overworked missionaries are asking for 
 ten new missionaries and one new mission sta- 
 tion this year to man our share of the territory 
 sufficiently for its evangelization. If they are 
 not sent soon, it may require two or three times 
 as many. If they do not get it and more, then 
 the Church that sent them is not worthy of 
 them, much less of the honor God has conferred 
 upon it in this matchless opportunity. 
 
 Who would dare to limit the triumphs of the 
 gospel in this land of promise in the next ten 
 years? We remember to have heard Bishop 
 Wilson say in a missionary address many years 
 ago : “The Church needs the spectacle of a hea- 
 then nation redeemed and transformed by the 
 gospel.” That need seems about to be met. What 
 a stimulus to faith and effort the prospect ! It 
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is thus as Bushnell exclaimed: “The heathen are 
 saving the Church.” How terrible the shame of 
 those to whom He who stands among that hun- 
 gry-hearted people shall have to say: “I was 
 hungry, and ye gave me no meat !” 
 
 Will the eyes of the Church ever be opened 
 before the harvest is past? No doubt the an- 
 gels are eager to have a part in this work, which 
 they have waited so long to see. As for those 
 made a little lower than the angels, they are 
 concerned about the price of cotton, the rise 
 and fall of stock markets, the cut of their 
 clothes, and the next function, while a sobbing 
 nation stretches out pleading hands and a loving 
 Lord holds out a crown of honor. 
 
 Bibliography. 
 
 The Call of Korea. Underwood $o 75 
 
 With Tommy Tompkins in Korea. Under- 
 wood 1 25 
 
 The Vanguard. Gale 1 35 
 
 Korean Sketches. Gale 75 
 
 The Topknot. Mrs. Underwood 1 25 
 
 Board of Missions of the M. E. Church, South 
 Nashville, Tenn. 
 
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