i Ml A, PRICE TWENTY CENTS. L n Q AV\ SELF-SUPPORT HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 511 J>tuiip in finance. BY Rev. C. H. CARPENTER. BOSTON : PUBLISHED BY PERCIVAL T. BARTLETT^ i 43 Lincoln Street. 1885. iy Copies of this pamphlet will he sent , postpaid, to any address for twenty cents. Application should he made to the publisher, at 48 Lincoln Street, Boston. Persons desiring copies for distribution, can obtain favorable terms by applying to the author, at Newton Centre, Mass. SUPPLEMENT. SELF-SUPPORT: HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Columbia University Libraries I https://archive.org/details/selfsupporthowfaOOcarp SELF-SUPPORT: HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. A STUDY IN MISSION FINANCE. BY C. H. CARPENTER. British India is an empire more magnificent, in some re¬ spects, than any empire of ancient or modern times. Its ex¬ penditures are on an imperial scale, exceeding those of our own nation (the interest on our great war debt included) by about $100,000,000 a year. Four-fifths of the two hundred and fifty millions of her Majesty’s Indian subjects are poor beyond any conception that we in America can form of poverty; and yet it is an axiom with British statesmen, that “ India must pay her own way; ” and pay their way the dusky, half-starved millions do, though they seem at times to stagger and almost faint under their burdens. With the Indian revenue (over $350,000,000 per year) is paid the entire cost of the most highly paid and the most highly pensioned corps of civil officers in the world ; the cost of a great army of native and Eurasian subordinates in the courts, collec- torates, custom-houses, post and telegraph offices ; the entire cost of a native police-force of 190,000 men under European officers; of an army of 190,000 men, of whom 65,000 are Europeans ; and of the Indian navy ; the entire cost of “ famine 3 4 SELF-SUPPORT: relief; ” the expense of the coast-survey, the great trigonomet¬ rical and the cadastral surveys ; the cost of state railways and telegraphs, of the great canals and irrigation works; the cost of coast defences and outlying fortresses, like Aden ; a large moiety of the cost of wars in Egypt, Afghanistan, and China. So closely is the line of division drawn, that England will not even guarantee the payment of the public debt of India (less than $800,000,000) ; although she is determined to hold India against all attacks from without, and from all mutinies within, and although, by her guaranty, the interest charge would be reduced one-fourth. Poor India does pay her own way under British rule; and, mark the statement, she is better off by far than she ever was, or ever could be, under the lawlessness and extortion of warring; native princes, ignorant, all of them, of the first principles of government for the public good. Slowly but surely, under the rule of Christian statesmen, and under the instruction of Chris¬ tian teachers, the heterogeneous generations of that sad land are being fitted for self-government and prosperity. India pays her own way, also, in the support of a state Chris¬ tianity, as well as in the support of all non-Christian religions. The latter she has voluntarily supported for a score of centuries. A million or two of the priests of Brahma, of Vishnu and Siva, of Boodh and Mahomet, with the fakirs and soothsayers of a hundred occult systems, live on the fat of India; while the richest and most substantial structures of which the country boasts are mosques and idol-fanes, tombs and monasteries, built and adorned by devotees of the same sad and ancient land. This India is becoming more and more a Christian country. The statistics gathered at the last general missionary conference in Calcutta show conclusively an increase of from fifty-three to eighty-six per cent in the number of native Christian communi¬ cants in each of the last three decades. A grave question has been pending ever since Swartz, Carey, and Judson began their Christ-like labors ; and it is not yet settled. While we continue to support our own missionaries, shall these converts pay their HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 5 own way (as they did when heathen), and, by becoming a self- supporting, self-directing, and self-propagating church, or churches, form a new wing in the Redeemer’s army for spiritual warfare upon the world? or must the older Christian commu¬ nities of England and America, which were never carried, continue indefinitely to carry them, babes in arms, to the ex¬ haustion of our own resources, and to the hopeless enervation of their powers ? A great deal is said at present in commendation of the prin¬ ciple of self-support in missions. It w'ould be easy to infer that all are agreed, in sentiment and in practice, on this point, and that rapid progress is being made in all quarters of the mission- field towards the desired goal. In view of the long-continued commercial depression, and of the strong appeals that are com¬ ing from Africa and other unoccupied fields, it is important and not untimely to seek reliable answers to the following related questions : — 1. Is the general tendency or drift towards an increased or a diminished expenditure of mission funds on the fields now occu¬ pied by the Missionary Union? 2. If the average expenditure per man is rapidly increasing, to what object or objects is the increase applied? 3. What is the position actually occupied to-day by the sev¬ eral missions of the American Baptist Missionary Union as to self-support ? 4. Finally, what can be done, if any thing, to reverse the disastrous tendency referred to, and to turn the present defeat of self-support, in most fields, into a victory? Most Baptists will agree that the main work of a foreign mis¬ sionary society should be to send out, and support in pagan lands, faithful preachers of the gospel. There are, of course, many expenses necessarily incidental to the great work of establishing Christ’s kingdom firmly in heathen countries. For example, there are the outfits and passages of missionaries to be pro¬ vided ; presses to be maintained for printing Bibles and a Chris¬ tian literature in strange tongues ; schools for the training of a 6 SELF-SUPPORT: native ministry, etc. There is room, also, for an indefinite amount of humane and civilizing work, — work that is done in hospitals and dispensaries, in schools and workshops, all of it with more or less advantage to the cause of spiritual Christi¬ anity, provided always that this subsidiary work keeps its place in strict subordination to the one great work of preaching, which has the first, if not the exclusive, place in our Lord’s command. The law of proportion is a great law in God’s uni¬ verse : it is a great law, also, in the economics of Christ’s kingdom. There is constant danger that the due proportion which should exist between the principal and the subsidiary will be exceeded ; and there is constant need of watchfulness, lest the main work of missions shall be overshadowed and stunted by an overgrowth of work that is good in itself, and of more or less importance, but which will strangle the one hope of the nations if it is not kept down with a firm hand. The seventieth anniversary of the Missionary Union has passed ; and if it should appear that we have been slowly but steadily increasing our expenditures for side objects, and for the support of native work abroad that ought to support itself, to the hinderance of our one great business, there is little occasion for fear or discouragement, provided a remedy be applied promptly. The masts and hull of the old “Union” are still stanch enough, and it is to be hoped that there is skill enough in her officers and crew to ’bout ship without disaster. I. WHAT IS THE DRIFT? Let us first compare the Treasurer’s Reports for the last fifty years in this way: Beginning with 1835, we take from the gross expenditure of the Society for each year, at home and abroad, three items, — the sums spent on Indian missions in North America, annuities paid to the donors of funds, and all contributions from the foreign fields of the Union, in Asia, Europe, or Africa, that can be ascertained. Then, for a divisor, we take the whole number of American male missionaries actu¬ ally on the foreign field, including, with preachers of the gospel, HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 7 new men learning the native languages, school-teachers, trans¬ lators, printers, medical men, and mission treasurers. We do not include new missionaries on their way out, for their salary does not begin until they arrive at their destination ; nor old missionaries on furlough, for there would be equal propriety in including the secretaries and other home-workers. We aim thus to ascertain the average expenditure from year to year for each man who stands on pagan shores as the agent and representative of the American Baptist churches in fulfilling the Great Com¬ mission. AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. TABLE I. Showing the Tendency to Increased Expenditures. Year. No. of American Male Missiona¬ ries on theField. Expenditures of the Society for the Year, less Three Items. Average Expen¬ diture per Man. Remarks. 1835 • 16 $44,383 95 $2,774 00 First decade, 1835-44, 1836 • 27 42,818 38 1,585 86 inclusive: — 1837 • 33 57,964 89 1,756 51 Average number of men 1838 • 29 72,209 93 2,490 00 on the field .... 29.9 1839 • ; . 32 101,484 58 3,171 39 Average expenditure 1840 • 29 62,362 37 2,150 42 per man.$2,201 20 1841 • 33 77,810 31 2,357 88 1842 • 34 51,605 40 1,517 80 1843 ■ 33 58,009 89 1,757 87 1844 • 33 80,858 91 2,450 27 1845 • 34 85,145 71 2,504 28 Second decade,1845-54, 1846 • 27 89,429 39 3,312 19 inclusive: — 1847 • 32 76,553 02 2,392 28 Average number of men 1848 • 35 78,235 25 2,235 29 on the field .... 37.1 1849 • 38 80,747 95 2,124 94 Average expenditure 1850 • 35 80,074 38 2,287 84 per man.$2,495 37 1851 • 45 91,003 08 2,022 29 1852 • 41 98,064 24 2,391 81 1853 • 45 109,508 12 2,433 51 1854 • 39 126,724 96 „ 3,249 35 8 SELF-SUPPORT: TABLE I. — Concluded. Year. No. of American Male Missiona¬ ries on the Field. Expenditures of the Society for the Year, less Three Items. Average Expen¬ diture per Man. Remarks. 1855 • 39 $128,843 24 $3,303 67 Third decade, 1855-64 1856 • 36 97,516 97 2,708 80 inclusive: — 1857 • 29 99,997 31 3,448 18 Average number of men 1858 • 27 91,798 40 3,399 94 on the field .... 29.8 1859 • 25 94,092 65 3,763 70 Average expenditure 1860 29 86,904 83 2,996 72 per man.$3,288 88 1861 • 28 86,674 58 3,095 52 1862 • 28 72,697 33 2,596 33 1863 • 27 92,719 10 3,434 04 1864 • 30 124,258 65 4,141 95 1865 • 32 145,935 65 4,560 49 Fourth decade, 1865-74, 1866 • 35 174,663 36 4,990 38 inclusive: — 1867 • 34 193,754 40 5,698 66 Average number of men 1868 • 39 209,511 06 5,372 08 on the field, .... 36.8 1869 • 34 177,168 18 5,210 83 Average expenditure 1870 • 34 204,643 80 6,018 93 per man.$5,352 78 1871 • 36 177,778 24 4,938 28 1872 • 39 220,854 64 5,662 94 1873 • 42 230,238 02 5,481 85 1874 • 43 240,516 43 5,593 40 1875 • 52 260,239 17 5,004 59 Fifth decade, 1875-84, 1876 • 47 213,787 16 4,548 66 inclusive: — 1877 • 49 235,309 04 4,802 22 Average number of men 1878 • 47 231,622 81 4,928 14 on the field .... 53 1879 • 46 221,754 64 4,820 75 Average expenditure 1880 • 52 235,886 07 4,536 27 per man.$4,885 40 1881 • 51 277,188 60 5,435 07 1882 • 52 277,686 57 5,340 12 1883 • 63 303,136 87 4,811 69 1884 • 71 328,486 68 4,626 57 For the first decade under review, therefore, the Society had on the field an average of 29.9 men, at an average expendi¬ ture, including the salaries of officers and agents at home, and HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 9 all other expenses save the three items mentioned above, of $2,201.20 per man. For the second decade, 1845-54, there were 37.1 men on the field, at an average annual expenditure of $2,495.37 per man, — an increase over the first decade of 13^ per cent. For the third decade, there was a falling-off in the number of men to 29.8 ; but the average expenditure increased 324 per cent, to $3,288.88 per man. During the fourth decade, 1865-74, owing to the suspension of specie payments through the whole period, there is a phenom¬ enal increase in the cost of the missions in United States dollars, — an average of 36.8 men on the field, involving an average expenditure of $5,352.78 per man. For the fifth decade, 1875-84, inclusive, an average of 53 men on the field involved an average annual expenditure of $4,885.40. Omitting the average of the fourth decade, as partly due to extraordinary circumstances, we find an increase in the expenditures of the fifth decade over the third, of 48J per cent, or about 24 per cent for each of the last two dec¬ ades. The total increase in the average expenditure per man in the fifth decade, as compared with the first, is 122 per cent. This, of course, is the increase of forty years. Notwithstanding, therefore, the gradual accumulation, since 1814, of the expensive “ plant” needful for the efficient prose¬ cution of our work abroad, such as mission compounds, dwell¬ ing-houses, schoolhouses, chapels, presses, and machinery of various kinds, literary apparatus created, and Bibles translated and printed at great cost; notwithstanding, too, the great advance in numbers, intelligence, resources, and organization of our native converts, — it appears plain that there has been a large and steady increase in the ratio of our expenditures to our fighting force from this country. We congratulate ourselves that the receipts of the Union have increased tenfold in fifty years ; but if, in the fifth decade, we are maintaining on the foreign field rather less than twice the number of male mission¬ aries that we had in the first, our congratulations might well 10 SELF-SUPPORT: be tempered with modesty, if not with shame, especially when we remember the abounding blessing of the Lord which has attended our labors abroad, and the amazing growth of our denominational wealth and numbers at home. Is it strange that thoughtful men are beginning to ask when this increase in the rate of expenditure is to cease, and how, if the expenditure on old fields is to wax greater and greater, new fields are to be occupied ? II. WHITHER GOES THE INCREASE, AND FOR WHAT? Since the time when our Baptist fathers first organized, at the call of Judson,and Rice, for the support of foreign missions, the accounts rendered to the denomination annually have shown the exact sums paid to each one of the executive officers and collecting-agents at home. Not so, however, with the workers abroad. The amounts appropriated for the support of a par¬ ticular mission were given in gross, under some comprehensive term, like “ Remittances, Drafts, and Purchases.” Under this method, it was impossible for any friend of missions, outside of the Rooms in Boston, to tell the salary paid to any particular missionary, or the cost of any school, or of any department of mission-work. This rather unconfidential and unsatisfactory method is still in vogue in most foreign missionary societies ; but it has given place, in the Missionary Union, to a better one. For the last twelve years it has been possible to learn from the published reports how much every missionary on the field or at home has cost the Society, and how much has been intrusted from the Society’s treasury to each, for expenditure in the work. This is as it should be, we think; and little room appears to be left now for improvement in the book-keeping of the Union. Taking the last report of the treasurer, rendered May, 1884, we find the gross expenditure for the year to be $341,284.94. Deducting $6,722.32, the sum paid in annuities to donors of u funds,” we have a net expenditure of $334,562.62. 1 Going 1 In Table I., $6,075.94 additional is deducted for donations credited to France, Burma, Japan, etc., in the Magazine for July, 1884, p. 201. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 11 over the items charged to the several missions with great care, we find the expenditures classifying naturally under eleven heads, thus : — AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. TABLE II. Giving an Analysis of the Expenditures for 1881+. 1. Salaries, 72 male missionaries on the field . (about 24%) 2. Salaries, 37 single ladies on the field . . . (5 \°J 0 ) 3. Dwelling-houses and mission compounds, in part. (5%) 4. Scriptures and printing, in part .... (1%) 5. Schools, buildings for schools, and “ mission-work ” (46%) 6. Outfits and passages.(41%) 7. Missionaries at home.(3%) 8. “ Collected on the field ” (partly from America) . (3%) $83,413 70 18,633 32 16,683 63 3,650 00 159,279 16 15,965 04 10,697 76 9,878 74 Total expended on the field .... $315,201 35 Less “saved on exchange,” etc. . . . 11,606 00 Net expenditure on the field .... (90f%) $303,595 35 9. Executive officers and agents.(74%) 25,168 54 10. Publications.(-£%) 1,892 31 11. Miscellaneous home expenses .... (1%) 3,906 42 Grand Total $334,562 62 Now, taking this table as a starting-point, we wish to look backwards, and ascertain, if possible, under which of these eleven heads the large increase of one hundred and twenty-two per cent in expenditure, which we have noted, falls. It is true that the salaries of the officers at home, and of the missionaries abroad, have been increased somewhat, to meet the increased cost of living in these later years; the helping hands of many devoted women have also been added to the force abroad : but we shall find that neither one nor both of these factors will account for the main part of the increase. Let us first consider the home expenses. As funds cannot be collected and disbursed, for any purpose, without labor and expense, it is evident that some measure of expenditure at home is as essential to the prosecution of the work abroad as are the salaries of those who preach to the heathen with the living voice. From $44,384, in 1835, the expenditures of the Union 12 SELF-SUPPORT: have increased eightfold in fifty years, reaching the sum of $334,562 for 1884. The larger the amounts handled, the smaller should be the percentage of cost for collection and ad¬ ministration. Accordingly, we find that there has been a small diminution in the ratio of home expenses to the total expendi¬ ture in the last half-century, but not nearly as much as there would have been if pastors had been forward to aid in the work of collection. In 1835, the first of the fifty years under review, the treasurer served gratuitously ; and the salary of the corresponding secre¬ tary ($1,000), clerk-hire, and editorial services cost $2,152.25 only, or 4 T 8 ^ per cent of the net expenditure ; but, if we add the miscellaneous expenses and the heavy cost of “premium and discount,” the total home expenses for the year reach $5,989.34, or 13^ per cent of the net payments. It must be added, however, that, during the first one or two decades under review, about one-fourth of the home charges might fairly be reckoned as belonging to the Indian missions in North America, reducing the percentage to that extent. In 1844, the last year of the first decade, the amount paid to executive officers and agents was $7,503.23, or 9 t 2 q per cent of the net payments for the year. The cost of publications was t 9 o of 1 per cent, and the miscellaneous expenses 4 i 7 q ; making a total of 14-^j- per cent for home charges. In 1854, the last year of the second decade, the amount paid for home salaries and agencies, including a part of the cost of the u deputation ” to Asia, was $14,612, or 11 \ per cent of the whole. Adding 4 per cent for publications and miscellanies, we have a total home expenditure of 15J per cent. In 1864, the last year of the third decade, the cost of home agencies and salaries was $9,666.34, of publications $775.20, of miscellanies $2,295.06 ; making a total home expenditure of $12,736.60, or 10 t 2 q percent of the entire net expenditure. In 1874, the last year of the fourth decade, home agencies and salaries cost the Society $30,428.87, publications cost $2,332.45, and miscellanies $7,725.32 ; a total of $40,486.64, or 16 t 8 q per cent of the entire net expenditure for the year. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 13 In the last year of the fifth decade, 1884, as we have seen, the entire home expenses were $30,967.27, or 9 t 2 q per cent of the net payments. If it be said that the Woman’s Societies, East and West, are a very economical collecting-agency, and that their home expenses should be reckoned also, inasmuch as their foreign expenditures are included in the expenditures of the Union, reducing the percentage of home expenses propor¬ tionally, that would add $6,862.24, and would raise the entire cost of the home-work of the Union and its auxiliaries to ll T 3 o per cent of the whole net expenditure. This, it will be ob¬ served, is somewhat less than the percentage in the other years examined, excepting 1864, when it was only 10^-. The cost of outfits and passages of missionaries seems to be less now, relatively, than it was fifty years ago. While the missionary’s term of service abroad may be somewhat shorter, and his voyages homeward more frequent, now than they were in the days of sailing round the Cape, the aggregate cost of getting him and his to and from the field seems to have dimin¬ ished. Thus, in 1844, outfits and passages were 7^ per cent of the net payments; in 1854, 8 T 4 a ; in 1864, 2J; in 1874, 13^ ; and in 1884, 4 T 7 ^. The allowances paid to missionaries on furlough vary in amount a good deal from year to year, but they seem to average no more than formerly. Thus, in 1854 these allowances amounted to a little over 5 per cent of the total expenditure ; in 1864, to l^j per cent; in 1874, to 3 per cent; and in 1884, as we have seen, to 3 T 2 y per cent. It appears, 1 therefore, that, while the cost of administration and collection has increased largely with the increasing scale of our missionary operations, there has been a slight diminution in the ratio of that cost to the whole expenditure. There has also been a diminution in the percentage expended on outfits and passages, and no perceptible increase in the percentage 1 Of course, an exhaustive examination of all the years might show a somewhat different result; but we have no reason to suspect that the years selected at random are not a fair sample of the several decades. 14 SELF-SUPPORT: expended upon missionaries at home on furlough. How has it been with that which should be the chief item in the cost of our work, the amount spent for the support of ordained mis¬ sionaries on the field? We have already ascertained with precision the number of male missionaries on the field for each of the last fifty years. (See Table I.) We know, that, prior to 1863, the salary paid to male missionaries in Asia was $600 a year, with an allowance of $80 for each child below the age of eighteen (?), and all expenses for medical attendance and travel for health paid by the mission. In 1863 it was deemed to be an economical arrange¬ ment for the Society to raise the salary to $800 for the first three years of service, and to $1,000 for succeeding years, leaving the missionary to support his own children, be they few or many, and to defray his own doctor’s bills, and the cost of journeys for health, as pastors generally do at home, without recourse to the Society. Most of the older missionaries were slow to enter into the new arrangement, preferring at first their old allowances to the $1,000 offered to them under the new rules. If, however, we reckon $900 as the average cost for salary, support of children, doctor’s bills, etc., for the first three decades, we shall find that the amount paid out for the support of missionary families on the field was 40-^- per cent of the entire net expenditure for the first decade, 36 per cent for the second, and 27 t 3 q per cent for the third. The fourth decade we leave out of account, for the reason already given. In 1874 the salary was raised to $1,000 for the first three years, and $1,200 there¬ after. If we reckon fifteen years as the average term of ser¬ vice, the average salary for the fifth decade would be $1,160, and the average percentage of this most essential item in the whole expenditure, only 23 t 7 q. For 1884, as we have seen, the exact amount paid out in salaries to men on the field was 24 T ^- per cent of the whole. This, certainly, is a very heavy falling- off from the 40^- per cent expended on preaching-missionaries during the first decade, especially when we consider the increase of $200 a year to each man throughout the last decade. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 15 The command is, to go preach the gospel. If it be true, then, as it is, that the ratio of our expenditure on preaching- missionaries (all male missionaries, indeed, are not such) has fallen off fully three-eighths, to what has the deficiency been diverted? Under what heads shall we look for the correspond¬ ing increase of expenditure? The area of inquiry has been narrowed down, so that our search must soon be successful. The increase cannot be due to extravagant house-building nor to Bible-work. In 1844 the Union was supporting three unmarried ladies on the mission-field. In 1854 the number had risen to four. Since 1871 it has rapidly increased to the present number, thirty- seven. About five per cent of our annual expenditure is now applied to the support of these our single sisters, who have gone forth in response to urgent invitations from married mis¬ sionaries, to help them in any way and in all ways that offer, for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom among the heathen. The spirit in which they and their supporters in this country are rendering this service is admirable; their devotion is abso¬ lute ; and, in so far as their educational work has followed in the wake of the gospel ship, a swift-winged u tender,” freighted with help, enlightenment, and comfort for converts who feel the need of aid in their own hard struggle upwards towards the full light and liberty of the gospel, we have no word of criticism to offer. But if it should be found, that, in their zeal to serve, some of the schools have been established, at heavy expense, as evangelizing agencies , in advance of the conversion of the people to God in considerable numbers, then we submit that it is time for Baptists to halt. It is time for us to consider con¬ scientiously whether our Lord intended to have the Great Com¬ mission read backwards ; and, if not, whether it is not high time to put men and preachers into the van once more, to limit our school-work strictly to the necessities of the converts, and to gauge it largely by the willmgness and the ability of the converts to bear their share of the cost. The increase that we are in search of must be looked for, not 16 SELF-SUPPORT: so much in the five per cent expended on the support of thirty- seven single ladies, as in the forty-six per cent expended under the fifth head of Table II., “Schools, School-Buildings, and Mission-Work.” The Report for 1884 places the number of non-self-supporting schools, in connection with our Asiatic mis¬ sions, at 232 ; the number of non-self-supporting churches at 204. III. SCHOOL-WORK IN OUR MISSIONS. The school question in our missions received great attention from 1852 to 1855. The “deputation” took somewhat strin¬ gent measures for the abolition or reconstruction of schools then existing in Maulmain. The stand taken by the executive offi¬ cers at that time, seems to have been approved by the great body of ministers and laymen at home, although it did not receive the undivided assent of the missionaries. As late as March 11, 1878, the Executive Committee unanimously adopted an admirable minute on the subject, from which we take the following extract: — “ The rapid increase of school-work in our missions justifies a delib¬ erate review of the principles on -which it should be conducted. For it must be taken for granted that there are principles which ought to determine our action in this matter. The following may be specified as well-nigh self-evident: — “1. That the one all-comprehending object of missionary work, as carried on by the American Baptist Missionary Union, is, to win the heathen to Christ and eternal life. “ 2. That the one divinely authorized way of doing this is by preach¬ ing to them the gospel in its purity, and by teaching them, when converted, to obey its precepts. “ 3. That other forms of labor can be embraced in missionary work in so far only as they are either prerequisite, or plainly and directly auxiliary, to this. “4. That any, and indeed all, other forms of labor, should be kept in a strictly subordinate relation to the work of evangelizing the people, and should be used as means to this end. 11 From these principles, which will probably be accepted by all of our missionaries as correct, the following rules of action may fairly be HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 17 deduced as applicable to school-work among converts and the people in our missions : — “1. Christian converts should be taught that it is their duty to pro¬ vide for themselves and their children the rudiments of education. . . . The Christian people of America can never be expected to give those of Asia primary education: they might as well be asked to feed and clothe them. Self-help and self-culture are indispensable to the welfare of converts to Christianity. “2. The converts should be expected, also, as soon as they can pos¬ sibly do this, to support station schools for the better education of some of their children. No station school ought to be dependent, for any considerable period or amount, upon mission-funds. What the people provide for themselves is worth thrice as much to them, as the same thing furnished to their hand by others. “3. They should also be expected to support themselves, or their children, in obtaining any higher education for secular’ ends. At least, they should be made to understand and feel that mission-funds-are not contributed for secular purposes, and that any help which is afforded them in obtaining a liberal education for worldly employments must be secured by special contributions here or there. “4. Higher education for distinctly Christian service, and espe¬ cially for the ministry, may properly be given them, at least in part, by the Missionary Union. Yet they should be required to do what they can in educating their own ministry even.” Will it be believed that to-day we are expending on schools in Asia, with the approval, apparently, of the executive body, more than twice as much as we were expending in 1878, and many times more, both in money and missionary time, than we were expending prior to the check given to educational work in 1854? English, also, is freely taught in nearly all of our mission-schools, and fancy work in most of the schools for girls. To assist in the education of a native ministry, and to give some aid to converts who are striving, to the extent of their means, to educate their children, is one thing. To go beyond this, and make expensive provision for the education of children and youth, the large majority of whom are from heathen fami- 18 SELF-SUPPORT: lies whose parents will not accept Christianity for themselves, and are presumably opposed to having their children accept it; to buy land, erect buildings, provide costly American teachers and native assistants, furnish food and all the appliances of a native boarding-department, and then receive back from some of the pupils a tuition of ten, twenty, or fort}^ cents a month, and from some others a dollar or two a month, towards the cost of the food which they eat, — to expend so many thousands of dollars in this way, I say, that we are unable to send out the men who are needed to enter open doors for preaching the gospel in “ the regions beyond,” may not be absolute waste, but it can¬ not be the highest form of obedience to the last command of our Lord. To make my meaning clear requires us to consider a few typi¬ cal cases, all taken from official reports which are accessible to every pastor. Since 1873, leaving out of account the salaries, outfits, and passages of the ladies engaged in the work, we find that the American Baptist Missionary Union has expended on the Bur¬ mese girls’ school in Maulmain, $27,378.54. While the ladies engaged in educational work are supported from the general funds, it is fair to state that a part (how large we have no means of determining) of the above-named sum and of other sums mentioned hereafter was contributed specifically for the objects named. On the Eurasian school in the same town, $6,409.50 have been spent, not reckoning large sums drawn from England and other sources outside the treasury of the Union. Besides these two schools, some thousands of dollars have been spent upon a school for Burman boj^s. What, then, is the extent of the Christian population which is to be benefited by this large expenditure and b} 7 the precious lives which have been devoted to the same object? In 1874 there were, in the three Burman and Talaing churches connected with Maulmain, a total of one hundred and eighty-nine mem¬ bers. In 1884 the number had risen to two hundred and fifty- two. We have looked in vain for a statement of the amounts HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 19 given by the native Christians for these schools ; and we will not hazard a guess, whether they have given an amount equal to one or ten per cent of the sums expended upon them from America. We ask, with all respect for the excellent promoters of these enterprises, whether any one would think of appealing to benev¬ olent persons to provide expensive schools like these for so small a constituency on American soil? We ask again, is it right, is it in accordance with a high ideal of Christian stewardship, to ask for such contributions from American Christians, when we consider the claims of a hundred destitute nations and the desperate need of a perishing world? Let it not be forgotten, in answering these questions, that the British government has been doing much for the education of the youth of Maulmain during the last fifty years, and that the government schools are as open to Christian youth as to others. Look again at the Burmese girls’ school in Rangoon. In the Burman churches connected with Rangoon, we find reported, in 1884, a total of one hundred and ninety-two members. Here are sixty or seventy Christian families, whose children ought to re¬ ceive some measure of education. What have American Chris¬ tians done for them ? At the request of missionaries, sanctioned, apparently, by the authorities in Boston, there have been ex¬ pended for land, buildings, and the current expenses of the school at Kemendine, during the last ten years, $20,438.28, be¬ sides maintaining in the school, at heavy cost, two and some¬ times three American ladies. In addition to this, we find, in the last Treasurer’s Report, $7,846.66 charged “for enlarging English church, and for purchase of land and house for boys’ school.” Of this sum, five thousand or six thousand dollars, probably, went for the land and buildings of the new Eurasian boys’ school, which will henceforth be likely to become an annual charge upon the mission treasury. Nor is this all. We find in Rangoon the “ Baptist College,” so called, open to all races, upon which the Union has expended, since 1872, besides the salary, etc., of the president and one American assistant, $41,885.88. Inasmuch as the Burman 20 SELF-SUPPORT: pupils in this school largely outnumber the Karens, the greater part of this expenditure may well be charged to the Burmese work in Rangoon. Again we say, unless we are prepared to adopt schools as an agency for the conversion of the heathen to God, how can we justify ourselves in expending such sums of Christ’s money on the education of a handful of native Chris¬ tians, to whom a dozen other ways are open for obtaining the essentials of an education ? Let us look ahead a little. The Society being fairly com¬ mitted to this work of boys’ and girls’ schools, other stations must have their schools on a scale as nearly equal to that adopted in Maulmain and Rangoon as possible. We must not be par¬ tial. It is pleasant to see the good work go on. The society of a dreary, isolated out-station is wonderfully enlivened by the addition of two or three devoted ladies, engaged heart and soul in the refining work of educating the sons and daughters of the native Christians and their neighbors. A few converts, too, are almost sure to be added to the church from the projected school; and those converts, surely, will justify the expense to the consciences of the workers there, as well as to the judgment of contributors at home. In Toungoo, in the year 1880, there was a church composed of seventeen Shans and twenty Burmans. In 1884 the same number of Shan Christians is reported, and four more Bur- mans, making a total of forty-one. The Secretary’s Report for 1880 states that a girls’ school is “much needed” in that sta¬ tion. A building and grounds were accordingly purchased by the Woman’s Society, at a cost of $3,124.54. From that time on, one or two American ladies have been supported in the school, and the current expenses met, at a cost of several thou¬ sand dollars. A work of this kind, once begun, must be kept up, or property will deteriorate, and prestige will be lost. But, if a girls’ school was “ much needed ” in Toungoo, is there not need of a boys’ school also? And is there one of our forty- one stations in Asia where schools are not at least equally needed? And if we must go on appropriating from two thou- HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 21 sand to three thousand dollars a year for the education of the girls of one race, and as much more for the girls of other races, and equal or greater amounts for the boys of the several races in each of our old stations, not less than half a million a year will be required for current school expenses, allowing nothing for lands, buildings, school-furniture, etc. Under this our present method of operations, when shall we overtake the work, and be at liberty to advance into the utterly benighted “regions beyond,” to which the “man of Macedonia” and Christ himself are calling us ? It is hard to call in question the policy to which the highly respected officers of our northern Baptist foreign missionary societies are committed. It is still harder to differ with be¬ loved brethren and sisters who are bearing their share of the burden and heat of the day abroad. But fidelity to our Master requires us to call attention to the unmistakable drift of affairs, and to raise the vital question, whether we are to improve upon apostolic examples, and repudiate traditions which were the glory of our fathers. If so, let us, with eyes wide open, com¬ mit ourselves squarely to the school-system of converting the nations. Let us do this, although we cannot point out, in forty years’ experience in this line of work, a single instance of ex¬ tensive revivals and ingatherings, like those which have so often followed the faithful preaching of the Word among the unevan¬ gelized. Then let us open our wallets wide, and contribute ten times more than we have ever dreamed of doing yet; ay, and let us prepare to send forth treble the number of preachers and teachers that would be necessary for the conversion of the world under the New-Testament plan. This I say; but I am bound to add, that, whenever the native Christians of any mission are ready to meet the chief cost themselves, I would no more dare to withhold advanced Christian schools from them than I would dare to trample under foot the Christian colleges and academies, or the common-school system, of our native land. 22 SELF-SUPPORT: IV. TESTS OF SELF-SUPPORT APPLIED. The harmony of view which seems at present to prevail with regard to self-support in missions is delightful, but there are certain tests which must be applied before we can be sure that these principles are carried into practice on mission-fields. Two of the tests for ascertaining the degree of progress which our missions are making towards the desired goal are these : —- The first relates to the amounts actually given by the native churches for the various objects of religion and education ; the other, to the sums of foreign money expended from year to year upon the schools, the evangelistic and church work of the sev¬ eral missions. In the tables which follow, we propose to give such information as we are able to gather under the first head; but our chief endeavor wfill be, to pursue the second line of inquiry, going for information, where all may go, to the Treas¬ urer’s Reports of the American Baptist Missionary Union for the years 1875-84, inclusive. These reports, though not perfect for our purpose, are superior to those of any other society with which we are acquainted. Our particular object now is, to ascertain as exactly as possi¬ ble the amounts expended from the mission treasury on schools and on all kinds of native work. By native work is meant work done by natives for natives, including the support of preachers, teachers, pupils in school, and hospital work. We shall exclude carefully the salaries, outfits, and passages of all American laborers ; also all sums set down separately for mission com¬ pounds, and dwelling-houses for mission families ; also the ex¬ penses of the press, and all appropriations for Bible-work so charged ; also from three hundred to five hundred dollars a year, according to circumstances, from the miscellaneous appropria¬ tions of every male missionary not exclusively engaged in teaching, to cover the cost of mission travel, repairs of dwell¬ ing, taxes, etc. ; also from one hundred to three hundred dol¬ lars for similar expenses of every unmarried lady missionary or teacher. What remains may represent, as nearly as can be HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 23 ascertained without reference to the books and correspondence of the treasurer, the actual cost to the American Baptist churches of the native work and the schools which are carried on under their auspices in Asia. The work of preparing the tables on which the following figures are based has consumed many days of close, hard work. I have been over the work repeatedly, until I am sure of its approximate accuracy. After making all the deductions mentioned above, we find the aggregate amount expended on our mission-schools (reduced about one-half by the exclusion of salaries) and native work in Asia, for the last ten years, to be $632,333. 1 But for these subsidies , our force of preaching-missionaries on the field during the last decade might have been doubled , with no increase whatever in the contributions from the churches. Since the adoption by the Executive Committee, in 1878, of the minute in which they threw upon the native Christians the duty of educating their own chil¬ dren, offering only temporary aid for higher education and the training of a native ministry, the increase of this kind of ex¬ penditure has been rapid beyond precedent, as these figures will show: — For 1878, $47,272; 1879, $54,980; 1880, $59,825; 1881, $62,750; 1882, $66,779; 1883, $72,527; 1884, $98,933. In other words, with no advance into new fields which involved any considerable expenditures under this head (the sums ex¬ pended in equipping the four new Telugu stations with buildings, etc., being excluded), the subsidies which we pay to our native Christian allies in Asia for educational and evangelistic purposes have more than doubled in the brief time which has elapsed since the minute referred to was adopted. It would be difficult to find, in the history of the Missionary Union, a more important statement of principles than those which we quoted, a few pages back, as unanimously adopted by the Executive Committee, 1 Excluding local collections, and the salaries and expenses of American missionaries, the grants in aid of native work, theological education, and the Paris chapel in our European missions, amounted, in the same period, to a little over $285,000. 24 SELF-SUPPORT: March 11, 1878. It would be equally difficult, perhaps, to find, in the history of missions, an instance in which sound princi¬ ples, adopted and published by responsible men holding high trusts, have been more quickly abandoned in action. The responsibility of these expenditures is, indeed, divided, in a sense. Some of the money has come into the treasury, designated in advance to the specific objects to which it was applied. More still has come already appropriated by the boards of the Woman’s Societies. A large part, however, has been directly voted from the treasury by the Committee; and, in accordance with a provision of the constitution, which the Executive Committee insist upon, even as against the Board of Managers, all has been formally appropriated by them, with no published words, so far as we know, of caution or remonstrance to the contributing public. Africa, and the peoples of Asia who have yet to hear the first lisp of the gospel, are crying more loudly than ever for us to come over and help them ; but our feet seem to be fettered. The older fields of Asia are ab¬ sorbing more and more of our resources. They will continue to absorb more and more ; the desired goal of self-support will continue to recede farther and farther from our view, in the missions as a whole, unless the present policy at Boston is reversed, and brought into harmony with the declaration of March, 1878. But let us proceed to a study of the facts as we find them. In respect to economy of expenditure on native work, the Karen missions seem to lead, followed by the Assam missions, the Chinese, the Telugu, and the Burmese ; although there is room for doubt as to the order in one or two cases. The Japan¬ ese, the Shan, and the Kakhyen missions are of too recent ori- gen to be classified with confidence, although the expenditure upon them will be noted. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 25 AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION. TABLE III. Showing the Subsidies paid for Schools and Native Work from 1875 to 1884, inclusive; also, the Contributions of the Converts, so far as Pie- ported, for One Year. Mission. Chu rch Members in 1884. Aggregate Subsi¬ dy from Amer¬ ican Bap. Mis¬ sionary Union in 10 Years. Native Contribu¬ tions, 1 Year.* 1 Bassein, Sgau Karen. 6,848 $700 00 $12,434 40 “ “ Normal Institute . . . - 5,237 74 $5,937 74 - 2 Rangoon, Sgau Karen ....... 4,400 8,680 63 4,510 80* 3 Toungoo, Paku and Red Karen . . . 2>,564 8,863 86 1,772 92 4 Shwaygyeen, Karen. 1,042 4,047 33 988 00 5 Bassein, Pwo “ . 1,202 6,158 54 1,888 84* 6 Tavoy, “ . 1,202 6,898 00 376 92* 7 Henthada, “ . 2,349 14,506 02 3,492 00 8 Maulmain, “ . 1,230 7,683 20 765 06* 9 Rangoon and Maoobin, Pwo .... 441 7,943 14 574 80 10 Toungoo, Bghai Karen. 2,500 24,853 64 2,050 40 11 Pahpoon, Karen (1 year). 54 117 34 - Karen Theological Seminary .... - 28,402 79 - Rangoon Baptist College, one-half . . - 13,634 61 - Totals, Karen Missions .... 23,832 $137,726 84 $28,854 14 1 Sibsagor, Assam. 209 $5,316 23 $26 17* 2 Gowahati, “ . 674 13,167 07 39 60* 3 Nowgong, “ . 110 13,355 17 47 90 4 Gowalpara and Tura, Garo .... 828 16,404 10 108 00 5 Molong, Naga (9 years). 25 1,354 99 20 00* 6 Kohima, “ (6 “ ). 7 507 34 11 20 Totals, Assam Missions .... 1,853 $50,104 90 $252 87 1 Bangkok, Chinese. 100 $1,399 74 $30 75 2 Swatow and Munkeu Liang, Chinese . 959 34,801 93 687 13* 3 Ningpo, Chinese. 253 20,918 27 153 05 4 Ziao-hying and Kinhwa, Chinese . . 61 7,916 83 14 51 Totals, Chinese Missions .... 1,373 $65,036 77 $885 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 SELF-SUPPORT: TABLE III — Continued , Mission. Church Members in 1884. Aggregate Subsi¬ dy from Amer¬ ican Bap. Mis¬ sionary Union in 10 Years. Native Contribu¬ tions, 1 Year.* Ongole, Telugu. 22,443 $64,856 70 “ High School. - 16,118 12 - - $80,974 82 - Kurnool, Telugu. 194 2,291 49 $14 70 Ramapatam, “ (6 years). 628 12,063 83 - Nellore and Alloor, Telugu .... 563 29,397 82 - Secunderabad, Telugu (9-years) . . . 77 5,976 48 - Hanamakonda, “ (5 “ ) . . . 16 1,070 08 27 60 Madras, Telugu (6 years). 39 7,290 58 136 00 Four new stations (1 and 2 years) . . (with Ongole) 2,782 50 83 34 Brownson Theological Seminary . . - 47,657 41 440 00 Totals, Telugu Missions .... 23,960 $189,505 01 $701 64 Prome, Burman. 237 $7,759 64 $642 34 Bassein, “ . 44 1,609 07 47 71 Thongzai, “ . 363 13,517 56 236 00* Zeegong, “ (9 years). 123 8,650 39 125 96* Henthada, “ . 50 5,350 07 23 95* Tavoy, “ . 4 525 99 - Maulmain, “ . 252 $20,949 09 - “ Girls’ School. - 15,885 70 - “ Eurasian School. - 6,409 50 - - 43,244 29 1,197 20* Rangoon, Burman ........ 192 $8,221 55 f - “ Girls’ School. - 20,438 28 - “ Eurasian School. - 6,846 66 - 35,506 49 874 80 Toungoo, Burman. 24 7,927 71 204 80 Shwaygyeen, “ . 3 2,870 48 3 60 Rangoon Baptist College, one-half . . - 13,634 61 - Totals, Burman Missions.... 1,292 $140,596 30 $3,356 36 t This mission also receives aid from the Rangoon Missionary Society d from the “ Russell Fund.” HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 27 TABLE III — Concluded. Summary. Mission. Church Members in 1884. Aggregate Subsi¬ dy from Amer¬ ican Bap. Mis¬ sionary Union in 10 Years. Native Contribu¬ tions, 1 Year.* Japan Missions. 286 $31,534 14 $145 86 Shan “ . 25 15,673 57 54 11 Kakhyen “ (8 years). 19 1,290 51 55 20 Thatone Mission (4 years). - 865 65 - Karen Missions. 23,832 137,726 84 28,854 14 Missions in Assam. 1,853 50,104 90 252 87 Chinese Missions. 1,373 65,036 77 885 44 Telugu “ . 23,960 189,505 01 701 64 Burman “ . 1,292 140,596 30 3,356 36 Grand Totals, all Asia. 52,640 $632,333 69 $34,305 62 * The amounts given in the column of “ Native Contributions ” are taken from the statements of the missionaries embodied in the American Baptist Missionary Union Report for 1884. When wanting for that year, the as¬ terisk (*) signifies that the amount was taken from a previous report, or from the native minutes of the local association. The column would show the total for ten years, but it has been possible to obtain that only in the case of the Bassein Sgau Karen churches. Their contributions from 1875 to 1884, inclusive, amount to $133,736.80, or twenty-two and a half times the total of subsidies given them from America. There is great lack of uniformity in the reports of contributions from different missions. Many (presumably those which take the least pains to impress the duty of giving upon their converts) make no report whatever. Some appear to include the gifts of missionaries with those of the native Christians. Some include school-fees paid by heathen pupils. One makes a rough guess, based upon no actual returns. There is great need of more careful attention to this matter, and of uniform practice. N.B. —Rupees are reduced to dollars, at the rate of forty cents for each rupee. Y. TWO POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED. (a) How far are statistical averages a reliable guide ? It has come to be a maxim with many successful evangelistic laborers at home, that immediate results should be sought and looked for with every effort. In work for the heathen, however, there 28 SELF-SUPPORT: I is so much of patient foundation-work to be done, that we are inclined to go to the other extreme, and content ourselves with vague hopes of a harvest in the indefinite future. Table III. shows, that, during the last ten years, the Union has expended upon 23,832 Karen Christians an average of $5.78 each, while they have contributed, so far as reported, an average of $1.21 each in a single year. Upon 23,9G0 Telugu Christians an aver¬ age of $7.91 per member has been spent; while, through a fail¬ ure to report the contributions from Ongole and two other Telugu fields, we are able to give an annual average of only 3 cents per member contributed. In Assam, 1,853 Christians contributed an average of 14 cents each, while in ten years the Union spent $27.04 each in educating them and in aiding them to do their duty in preaching to their heathen neighbors and countrymen. The Chinese Christians, so far as reported, gave 64 cents each in a single year, while they received from the Union $47.36 each in ten years for religious and educational purposes. The 1,292 Burman Christians are credited with the highest average of contributions, being $2.59 per member; but the grants in aid of their educational and religious work, sent from this country to the amount of $108.82 per member, during the last ten years, make it by far the costliest of all our older missions. Such averages, of course, are not perfectly conclusive; for, in sowing the gospel seed among any people, much may be sown that is late in germinating. Among the Karens and Telugus, as well as among the Shans and Burmese, there may be second and third crops, reaped from previous sowings, which shall exceed the first in richness; but there is a limit beyond which the most hopeful laborer must cease to hope, and that is the limit which death imposes. The generation to which Judson preached has perished; and the multitudes who believed not during their lives, have gone to the bar of God. The seed which he sowed in their hearts has perished utterly, or become “a savor of death unto death.” Judson will ever live as an inspiration to Christ’s servants in both hemispheres. He still lives in the u Golden Balance,” and in the Bible which he HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 20 translated. He still lives in the lives of a few of his younger converts, some of whom may, possibly (or their children after them), yet become sons of thunder. But the effects of his per¬ sonal ministry have ceased. The fruit of his ministry, in souls converted through the words which fell from his lips, has been garnered, and may be, for the most part, counted. So of all other missionaries, each in his day. As wise stewards of a Master who counted the pounds, and took note of the increase, whether thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold, such averages as these are worth considering, and should have much weight in determining our mission policy. (b) What is a dollar? In prosecuting mission-work in many lands, it should not be forgotten that the potential value of the dollar is in no two places or countries the same. The Mission¬ ary Union, unlike the American Board, pays its missionaries the same salary, whether they are sent to city or out-station, to India, to Burma, to China, or Japan. It would be difficult to adjust salaries so as to meet exactly the great inequality in the purcliasing-power of the Mexican dollar or the rupee, but it would seem that an effort ought to be made. A thousand rupees on the western coast of the Bay of Bengal will go as far as twelve or thirteen hundred can be made to go in purchasing the necessaries and comforts which an American family need on the opposite coast of Burma. When it comes, however, to using dollars in native work, the difference is much greater. It is well established, that the wages of a day-laborer in Burma are four or five times greater than they are upon the Madras coast; while the wages of a day-laborer in New England are five or six times greater than of one in Burma. Ten thousand dollars a year, to be spent in securing native service in the Telugu country, may go as far (not allowing for the greater value of the service rendered by an American laborer) as two hundred thousand dollars would go in America; and we may add, that the dispensing of such a sum of foreign money in subsidies for schools and evangelistic service in the Madras presidency would be apt to bring with it at least as much of a 30 SELF-SUPPORT: certain kind of undesirable influence as ,the dispensing of two hundred thousand dollars a year, by a home missionary, among the pastors and denominational schools of a Western State would bring. Perhaps I am mistaken; but, owing to this great difference in the purchasing-power of the rupee, I have ventured to follow my best judgment in placing the Telugu mission fourth on the list as to real economy of expenditure on native work. No one can envy that mission the possession of its grand new theologi¬ cal hall in Ramapatam. The fifteen thousand American dollars that went into that structure of stone and teak are well invested, but I sympathize with Dr. Williams in the peculiar pleasure which he takes in the deep-toned bell which has “ not a cent of foreign money in it.” He writes, “Our plan is, to train the Christians ... to help themselves. They need this infi¬ nitely more than gifts. They can be taught to do for them¬ selves, and must be. No amount of outside gifts will make men and women of these Telugu people.” VI. WHERE IS RETRENCHMENT POSSIBLE? (a) The Karen Missions. — In scrutinizing Table III., we are struck, first , by the great difference in the amount of mis¬ sion money expended upon two departments of the Karen work in Toungoo. Here are two missions, started at the same time among kindred peoples, having their headquarters at the same station, with nearly equal numbers of converts, each maintain¬ ing jungle schools, schools in town, and all the machinery of a widely extended evangelistic work, vigorously; the one at a cost to American Christians of eight thousand and odd dollars, the other of twenty-four thousand and odd. The latter has ab¬ sorbed, in the last ten years, three times as much as its neighbor in Toungoo, and six times as much as its neighbor on the south, in Shwaygyeen. Our esteemed friend and brother who has been iu charge of this work during the period under review, has done admirable service in recovering churches that had been alienated and torn by the influence of a false teacher. He laid BOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 31 the foundations of the Red Karen work, and a part of his expenditures early in the decade were for that work; but, making due allowance for both these factors, there has been, undeniably, a freer use of American funds on his field than in any other Karen mission. This is the more to be regretted, for the Toungoo missions were begun by Whitaker and Mason on the self-supporting principle. Sau Quala repeatedly declined aid from the mission. In 1855 Dr. Mason reports that “the assistants have received their entire support from the Karens.” In 1857 Mr. Whitaker wrote of “a universal readiness on the part of the preachers to rely on God and their people for sup¬ port.” Moreover, we find in the “Magazine” for June, 1870, a stirring letter from this brother himself, narrating a movement looking towards the assumption, by the local association, “of the entire support of the school in town, with that of the needy pastors.” With his natural qualities as a leader, and the divine blessing, he could not fail in an earnest attempt to retrace his steps, and lead the mission back to the only healthful pecuniary basis for any community of native Christians, — complete inde¬ pendence of foreign aid. With this single exception, we believe that none of the Karen missions will compare unfavorably, as to the degree of self-sup¬ port attained, with the most forward of our missions to other peoples. An average expenditure of less than sixty cents per member, annually, is not a large average for the churches of America to devote to the discipline and aid of their Karen allies, if it be necessary: but the aggregate is large ; and, in view of the more urgent claims of newly opening fields, the writer would appeal to his fellow Karen missionaries, to see if there are not points at which a reduction in the expenditure of mission-funds can be made. Having an experience of twenty years in the work, and a personal acquaintance with the condi¬ tion of several of the Karen fields, he believes that the native brethren in some localities are able to bear a larger proportion of the cost of educating their children, and of gospel work, than they are doing. He believes that it would be a positive 32 SELF-SUPPORT: gain to the Karen churches, as a body, to have these long- continued draughts upon the mission treasury reduced at once one-half, and by the end of another decade entirely stopped. With regard to the expensive “ college ” in Rangoon, it is to be observed, that the Executive Committee, in the minute already referred to as unanimously adopted March 11, 1878, reluctantly expressed this opinion: “The establishment of the college appears to have been a mistake ; and there seems to be no reason to expect that for a long time to come, if ever, it will do the work for which it was founded. It is too much an American school. The native converts have had too little to do in founding and supporting it. Should it not, then, be sus¬ pended or abandoned?” If we can judge from the annual reports furnished by the president since 1878, has any thing been accomplished which contravenes the above opinion ? And how could the Committee justify themselves in appointing an additional missionary to the teaching-staff of the college, and in continuing its support at an annual outlay of over four thou¬ sand dollars, besides interest on the money invested in the com¬ pound and buildings, when the urgent need of evangelistic work in newer fields is considered ? If the costly experiment must be continued indefinitely, we can see no valid objection to bringing the college under the wholesome regulations of the Educational Department, like other mission-schools. Then, like them, it might receive from one to two thousand dollars annually as “ grant-in-aid” from the goverment. As to the Karen Theological Seminary, — which has cost the Union over twenty-eight thousand dollars during the last dec¬ ade, besides the salary, etc., of its president, and interest on money invested, — it may be said confidently that there should be a school somewhere for the thorough training of the Karen ministry. Moreover, if necessary, it is not unfitting that American Christians should continue for a time to aid the Karens in bearing this burden. But we venture to ask where the wisdom is, in keeping a school for the training of jungle youth for exclusively jungle service, in the most expensive IIOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 33 city in all Burma, and especially in a place where there is no native Christian community to aid generously in sympathy and support? Nay, more. Where is the humanity in continuing to keep it on a compound which has been infested for eight years with a mysterious but deadly disease? The school has been moved once without detriment: it can, therefore, be moved again. And Dr. Smith must know, that, if American support were cut off, there is but one place in Burma to which he could turn with confidence that a general school for biblical education would still be successfully maintained. The Karen brethren in Bassein so covet the presence of the seminary among them, that they have repeatedly pledged themselves to erect, on their spacious and healthy compound, all needed buildings, and to supply gratuitously, in perpetuo , all the rice needed for the use of the pupils. 1 It would seem that an offer so munificent and unprecedented in the history of our missions should be most carefully considered. Add to this the fact, that, by the sale of the valuable eight-acre compound in Rangoon, a handsome endowment-fund might be secured, and it becomes entirely feasible to relieve the Union henceforth from all charges for Karen theological education. (b) Missions in Assam. — Next to the Karen missions', in economy of management, I have placed, with some hesitation, the six missions in Assam. Here we find Clark and King in the hills, far from the comforts and delights of civilization, rigidly restricting their expenditures to the bare necessities of their work, and laying the foundations of Christ’s eternal kingdom among the rude and lawless Nagas, in prayer, in ear¬ nest faith, and self-denial. The missionaries at Tura, also, while expending more freely, have their eyes fixed on self- support as an end to be speedily attained. On the plains are to be seen, if we mistake not, traces of the ill effects of exces¬ sive expenditure in the past; but retrenchment is the order of the day in Sibsagor and Gowahati. May we not also look for 1 See Self-Support in Bassein, pp. 265-267, 354, 362-367, 377. 34 SELF-SUPPORT: a substantial reduction in Ncwgong? Conscious of his falli¬ bility, the writer still holds to the opinion that the subsidies which have so long been paid to the older missions in Assam, could with advantage be largely reduced at once, and extin¬ guished within a reasonable length of time. In modern mis¬ sions, occasional obedience to the spirit of the Lord’s command to the twelve, in Matt. x. 14, repeated to the seventy in Luke x. 10, 11, and exemplified by Paul in Acts xiii. 51, xviii. G, and elsewhere, might be more pleasing to Christ than the endless waste of precious life and treasure on obdurate communities and peoples. 1 (c) Missions to -the Chinese .—Among the pleasantest mem¬ ories of his life the writer will ever reckon the leisurely visits which he made, thirteen years ago, to three of our four Chinese missions. Lie obtained much pleasing evidence of the hold which the gospel had even then taken upon a few hundreds of the shrewd sons and daughters of the Flowery Land. Much wise and earnest labor has been bestowed by our missionaries upon all of these interesting fields, and the divine blessing has not been withheld. Whether the fact is due to the close strug¬ gle for existence in an over-populated country, or to the intense worldliness of the Chinese as a race, I know not; but, for some reason, not much is said or written, as yet, by missionaries in China, of progress in self-support. When upon the ground, I received the impression that the missions of the Southern Bap¬ tist Board in Canton and in Northern China had made greater progress in this direction than our own missions ; but in the lapse of years we may have overtaken them. There is some reason to suspect, however, that our honored Ashmores and Lords must still yield the palm, iu this respect, to Graves, Yates, and Crawford. 1 From the statistical table of the Assam missions for 1880, it appears that the Assamese, for whom the greater part of the expenditures of our Board in that province, for the last forty-five years, has been made, num¬ bered only 166 converts, out of a total of 1,616. Of the remaining nine- tenths, eight-tenths (1,297) were from the hill tribes, and one-tenth (153) from the Kollis. now FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 35 The present time of war and bitter persecution is a poor time to urge a reduction of expenditure in Southern China. The scores of chapels which have been burned or wrecked must be replaced. If indemnity from a weak government is out of the question, American Christians will be appealed to, and not in vain. Common philanthropy may make even an increase of expenditure advisable and necessary in some fields for a season. But, with returning peace and prosperity, a new leaf should be turned over, and we should begin to see the dust-clouds which herald the advancing “ supply-trains ” from China, of which an able missionary wrote prophetically ten years or more ago. In the future development of the Messiah’s kingdom, the two hun¬ dred and fifty millions of China, the most industrious, the most frugal, and one of the most persistent, races on the globe, must have a most important part to play. May the Holy Ghost hasten the day when all of Sinim’s peoples and all of Sinim’s wealth shall be the Lord’s ! It is noteworthy, that, in the last report, the five hundred church-members returned from the Chinese churches in Siam in 1883, are cut down at one blow to one hundred. Whatever may be the grounds of this sweeping reduction, we beg to call attention to the fact that in the last ten years the veteran Dr. Dean has expended upon his converts less money from the treasury of the Union than any other missionary in charge of a Chinese station. (d) The Telugu Missions. — To these missions, so greatly blessed and honored of the Lord, reference has already been made in no critical spirit. Two or three additional remarks only, seem to be called for. The rapid increase in the subsidies drawn by these missions from America since the close of the famine should be noted. In 1878 they amounted to $9,903 ; in 1879, to $16,609 ; in 1880, to $19,820 ; in 1881, to $17,810 ; in 1882, to $21,388 ; in 1883, to $27,001 ; in 1884, to $33,740.71, more than treble the amount drawn in 1878. Is this increase to continue indefinitely? Mis¬ sionaries to the Burmans, the Slians, and the Chinese some- 36 SELF-SUPPORT: times tell us, that if their peoples would only come into the kingdom in large numbers, like the Telugus and the Karens, they might dispense with a large portion of the aid which they now ask for. Are they mistaken ? Table III. shows a marked contrast between the amounts expended at the stations east and at those west of the Ghauts. Another example is afforded, also, of the disproportionate amounts that are apt to be expended on the oldest station of a mission ; Nellore absorbing, during the last ten years, an average of $52.21 per member, or over six times as much as the average for the whole Telugu mission. One man, and one only, it seems to me, can with God’s help successfully lead this great host of new converts out of the slough of dependence on foreign bounty, into which they are near falling, to the firm footing of self-reliance and self-help. May God gird him for this second great work, and enable him, with undiminished ingatherings, to achieve a second triumph even grander and more enduring than the first! (e) The Burman Missions. — Here, again, we note a rapid increase in the subsidies drawn from this country, all, of course, appropriated by the Executive Committee. They amounted in 1882 to $11,417; in 1883, to $12,809 ; in 1884, to $23,647.61, thus more than doubling in the last three years. During this time no new station has been occupied, but one new missionary has been sent out. The increase is almost wholly due to the expansion of school-work. Again we are forced to ask, and every contributor to the Missionary Union should ask, Is this the way Jesus Christ would have his money spent? With a total membership, in all the Burman missions, of 1,292, with 151 baptisms, and a net increase for the year of about 120, the entire cost of the Burman work for 1884 (including salaries and passages) was $62,526.80. Any reader can reckon for himself the average cost of the converts, half of whom, perhaps, were the children of Christians. Since the inception of the Burman mission, in 1814, scores of lives, and over $2,000,000 in money, probably, have been expended upon it by American Baptists. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 37 After seventy years of such costly and comparatively unfruitful endeavor, shall the era of expensive schools (secular for the most part), which has already been inaugurated at three of the stations, be continued, and extended to all? The pertinacity and faith of the missionaries in this department are admirable ; but, until the Burmans will accept the unadorned gospel in con¬ siderable numbers, I, for one, make bold to say that American Christians are not called upon to sacrifice the lives of our noble countrywomen in teaching them arithmetic, and to double our expenditures to pay for costly school-buildings and apparatus. (f) The Japan Missions. — The work in these missions is full of promise ; but, as before remarked, they are of too recent formation to be strictly classified, or to afford reliable lessons in mission policy. But it is well to note the sudden expansion in the appropriations for schools and native work last year. The increase is fourfold, — from $2,582 in 1883, to $10,226.91 in 1884. CONCLUSION. Every country has within itself all the necessaries of life, unless it be in times of famine or great social disturbance. By commercial exchanges between different countries and climes, luxuries are obtained, and mutual benefit is conferred. The people of America have sent cargoes of provisions more than once, as a free gift, to save the people of Ireland from starva¬ tion. They might cheerfully contribute a cargo of Carolina rice, or of any other superior grain, to the government of India, to improve the seed or increase the crops of that country ; but they could not be convinced, probably, that it is their duty to contribute year by year, for generations, for the maintenance of the people of India. Although the average standard of living is much higher here than there, we know of no reason to think that it is our duty in ordinary times to share our living with the poorer nations of the East or the West. In the economy of grace, the Lord bids us u Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” We under¬ stand this requirement to be analogous to the distribution of a 38 SELF-SUPPORT: cargo of improved grain for seed. We are to send missionaries to all non-Christian lands, and support them while they engage in the self-denying work of u discipling ” the nations. Scores are needed where one goes now. Fidelity to our Master requires us to do vastly more than we have ever undertaken to do for the conversion of the heathen ; but the line must be drawn somewhere between what we do for the heathen and what we leave for them to do. We are to teach the converts “ to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Does not the“ all things ” include the education of their own children, the support of their own Christian institutions, and efforts on their part to evangelize, in turn, their own neighbors and countrymen? “American support for Americans, Karen support for Karens,” was Mr. Abbott’s motto ; and I know of no better rule for general adoption. Experience is teaching an increasing number of missionaries, that, instead of subsidizing the native churches, as most missions do, relieving them of the support of their own pastors wholly or partially, building their chapels, and assuming the principal support of schools for the children of converts and heathen alike, the missions should from the outset depend almost entirely on the resources of the countries to which they go for the development of the native work. Self-denial, self- sacrifice, self-help, are the law of development in individual and in aggregate Christian life. In no other way can Christianity be successfully planted, and the native churches become the “ handful of corn upon the top of the mountains.” In the fear of God, and with unfeigned respect and love for my brethren at home and abroad, I have earnestly endeavored to ascertain the exact facts with reference to the progress of self-support in our Asiatic missions. All that I have and all that I am is devoted to this sacred cause. I long with an inex¬ pressible longing to see my countrymen, and especially my own denomination, more generally enlisted in this immense work of foreign missions. Five hundred picked men, for preaching mainly, as many chosen women for teaching and for religious labor among their own sex, and a million dollars annually for HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 30 their support, would be all too meagre an offering from the Baptist churches of these Northern States. But before such an advance can be persuasively insisted upon by our leaders, before the hearty and generous response will come from our consecrated hosts, a rigid scrutiny of the expenditures of the Missionary Union must show to the poorest contributor that self-sacrifice is characteristic of all its agents, that a wise economy prevails, from the Rooms in Boston to the remotest out-station in Asia, and that self-support is at least a goal towards which steady and perceptible progress is being made by all. The churches, generally, need to be taken into our confi¬ dence ; and honest criticism from any quarter should be wel¬ comed without a frown. As a whole, the facts which we have discovered are not of an encouraging nature. The tendency to increased expenditure of mission-funds in nearly all departments of mission-work is alarming, and it would seem absolutely necessary to check it. Where shall we look for that noble rivalry in self-sacrifice, in strict economy, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the heathen masses as yet utterly neglected, which the churches long to see manifested at home as well as on foreign shores? We profess to be engaged in the most serious undertaking that God ever laid upon men, — the conversion of the world to Christ. We profess to believe that the heathen are perishing, and that our Saviour yearns to have the travail of his soul satisfied in their salvation. We profess, also, to rely solely upon the Spirit’s power attending the preaching of the Word in simplicity. If these professions are true, and if the precepts and examples of the New Testament have been handed down for us to follow, how can we escape the conviction that the need of a revolution in the present system of appropriations is absolute ? God has sent upon us these years of the lean kine. He per¬ mits us to be threatened with a heavy debt. 1 We are forced to 1 Although the hooks were kept open for donations eighteen days after the close of the financial year, the expenditures of the year 1885 exceed the receipts by considerably more than $90,000. This is bad enough; but the 40 SELF-SUPPORT: pause and consider. Our souls go out to Africa. We long to see the great Congo valley dotted with Christian churches and bamboo schoolhouses. Some of us do not quite understand how the Baptist Missionary Union could appoint so many mis¬ sionaries in that region who are not Baptists, without violating the twentieth article of the constitution; some would have preferred to break new ground on the Upper Congo. But per¬ haps no mistake has been made. At all events, retrenchment is forced upon us ; and the only way to retrench that we know of is — to retrench. The constitution puts the power of appropriations into the hands of the Executive Committee. Let them exercise this power of theirs, responsible only to God and the Board ap¬ pointed by the denomination. Few of our zealous almoners and educators in this country can have all the money that they think is absolutely necessary. There will always be a way found to convey gifts to specific objects over the heads of the Com¬ mittee. In such cases the escape from responsibility can only be a relief to the executive officers. The evil itself can be checked only by outspoken frankness. We are persuaded that the sooner all mission-schools are put upon a self-supporting basis, so far as appropriations from the mission treasury go, the better it will be for all concerned. The English government is ready to afford substantial aid to all effi¬ cient schools within its provinces. This aid, with that which local friends will give, should be sufficient to enable native Christian communities to support all the advanced schools which they really need. If they are unable, it is a misfortune which they can bear better than helpless heathen can do without the gospel. The fact being, that the familiar preaching of Christ and Him crucified has been blessed to the conversion of four, yea, popular depression which might result from the frank announcement of the largest debt in the history of the Union would be a less evil, perhaps, than the distrust which might be awakened if portions should be taken from certain funds on which interest lias to be paid during the lives of the donors, to make an apparent diminution of the deficiency. HOW FAR ATTAINED IN OUR MISSIONS. 41 ten, times as many souls as all other agencies combined, the funds of a missionary society should not be diverted from their legiti¬ mate use, however useful foreign schools may be in a pagan land. To self-supporting schools the Woman’s Societies would, of course, continue to send their well-trained and devoted teachers. The support of these teachers in such schools is a heavy bill, and it is all that can reasonably be asked from them for educa¬ tional purposes. It will be found, probably, that some of the schools already begun cannot come up to this standard. If these should be allowed, for the sake of the regions beyond, to die a natural death, the event should be regarded as any thing but a calamity. The value and importance of the work hitherto done by the Woman’s Societies, East and West, is not to be depreciated, nor would we narrow the sphere of their operations. We would rather plead for their entrance into a field of almost limitless extent, which they have as yet hardly touched upon. The women and children of any heathen people constitute two-thirds of the entire population. Women in heathen, as well as in Christian, lands, rock the cradles and mould the characters of each succeeding generation of sons and daughters. To present the gospel to heathen women and children in the most fervid and the most scriptural manner, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, is a work that is open, I believe, to the women of this Christian land ; and in that work, done in a womanly way, we yet may see the grandest mission of the centuries. There is, besides, a vast amount of Sunday school and temperance work needing to be done in all our missions, which the mission¬ aries cannot possibly overtake. Are there not women among us whose hearts God is already inclining to such work ? Are there not those who are willing to prepare themselves to take up the unfinished work of Anna the prophetess, of Pliebe the dea¬ coness, of Priscilla, of Persis the beloved, and of many other women, named and unnamed, who were loved and trusted as gospel-workers in the early Church? If there are such, may God speed them, and help us all to see, eye to eye. • BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SELF-SUPPORT ILLUSTRATED IN THE HISTORY OF THE BASSEIN KAREN MISSION. This work has been pronounced by excellent judges to be one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the his¬ tory and philosophy of missions. Ten missionary societies have ordered a large number of copies for distribution among their missionaries, and the book has been introduced as a text¬ book in the Training Institution of the Danish Evangelical Missionary Society. Single copies of the new edition, with Dr. Hovey’s excellent introduction and a copy of this tract (realty a supplement to the larger volume), will be sent, post¬ paid , to any address in any land for $1.50, or to ministers and missionaries for $1.25, on application to C. H. Carpenter, Newton Centre, Mass. It may be procured, also, at any de¬ pository of the American Baptist Publication Society. OPINIONS OF EDITORS, MISSIONARIES, AND OTHERS. “ The study and experience of all the years that have transpired since we went to India, lead us to welcome this volume, and devoutly thank God for it. It is the largest contribution to the work of foreign missions within our knowledge since the days of the apostles and the early mar¬ tyrs, — larger than a gift of a million dollars in solid cash. Let the lessons of this history be duly studied and applied by every foreign missionary, and we may look for the speedy evangelization of the entire heathen world.” — Rev. Dr. Wilder, editor Missionary Review. “ A book full of interest, and sure to be of lasting advantage to the cause which it seeks to promote. The writer is deeply in earnest. He is more than the historian, and more than the advocate. Profoundly im¬ pressed with the truth of the record, and with the importance of the principles it illustrates, he gives to his pages a strong personality, which impresses itself upon the reader, and wins him to the side of the man with whom he is walking in Burma.” — Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D., in the Christian Union. “ An extremely interesting inside view of missionary work.” — The Independent. 42 THE BASSEIN KAREN MISSION. 43 “ Will be recognized at once, by all competent to pronounce on the matter, as a very important contribution to the history and theory of for¬ eign missions.” — Rev. James Mudge (late of Lucknow, India), in Zion's Herald. “ The reading of it is to be urgently commended, especially to the home conductors of missions and to all missionaries. — Allgemeine Missions- Zeitschrift. “ A work of remarkable interest and value, not only as a history, but also as an argument based on the facts. . . . The whole story of trial and triumph is told with admirable tact and temper.” — Homiletic Monthly. “A thrilling account, and will be read with the deepest interest by all friends of missionary work.” — Christian Commonwealth , London. “ Mr. Carpenter has laid the whole Christian world under great obliga¬ tions to him for this noble book.” — Christian Standard, Cincinnati. “ We commend the book to all Christians as a record of the triumphs of faith and heroism of martyrs. We commend it especially to mission¬ aries at home and abroad, for its lessons on the subject of self-support are important to both.” — Missionary Record (Cumberland Presbyterian), St. Louis. “ Should be read by every pastor in America. It is a timely book, an inspiring book, a book that has a mission. Its lessons are needed by the leaders in missions throughout the Christian world; and the inspiration of the example of zeal, self-denial, and heroism shown by the missionaries and the Karen Christians is needed by all.” — Baptist Pioneer, Selma, Ala. “ Very suggestive and instructive. A valuable contribution, not only to the history, but to the philosophy, of missions. It is the most historically accurate and carefully written book that has yet been published on the missions in Burma. We wish every secretary of a missionary society, every director, and every missionary, could read it.” — Chronicle of the London Missionary Society. “ Exceedingly suggestive. We wish it could be put into the hands of every missionary in India. Valuable hints can be found in it upon many missionary topics, while the spirit which pervades the book from end to end cannot but be stimulating to missionary zeal and enterprise. The heroes of the story are not exalted to impossible pinnacles of excellence, but their frailties are admitted with all frankness and honesty.”— Rev. Dr. Thop.urn, in the Indian Witness, Calcutta. “Subsidy enervated the churches; self-help, on the other hand, invig¬ orated them. We wish that every promoter of missions could trace for himself the proof of this statement in the admirable history of the Bassein Mission by Mr. Carpenter. In a narrative of intense and romantic inter¬ est, it presents a distinct view of one of the best missions of the century, carried on by Christian heroes, who shortened their lives by devotion to the cause they loved so well. The adoption, gradually and wisely, of the principle of self-help in all our missions, would, we are persuaded, inaugu- 44 SELF-SUPPORT: HISTORY OF rate a new era of progress throughout the world.” — Spurgeon’s Sword and Trowel. “ I am exceedingly glad to see your hook, because it brings so freshly to my mind a man who was very dear to me, and whom I esteemed as one of our best missionaries. I knew Brother Abbott before he left Hamilton. . . . I think he was the most genial man I ever knew. Your book brings him fresh before me, with so many pleasant recollections, that I cherish the book as a blessing and a friend. I think it cannot fail to do good to all who read it, and I think that those who read it will be many. If they love missions, they will read it; and, if they read it, they will love mis¬ sions.”— Rev. E. B. Cross, D.D., Toungoo, Burma. “ I read your book through, from beginning to end. I enjoyed it much. . . . I approve and indorse it, as a whole, most heartily and emphatically. I wish it might be in every Baptist family and in every Sunday-school library in the land. I thank you for your faithful work. May God reward you by making the book the means of awakening a deeper interest in missions, and a deeper study of the principles, methods, and policy of missions.” — Rev. A. T. Rose, Rangoon, Burma. “ Your book has been read by some of us here with much interest. I mean to keep it moving among my missionary friends.” — Rev. G. L. Mason, Ningpo, China. “ I fully approve of the principle, and we are trying to throw the bur¬ dens more and more on the native brethren.” — Rev. R. H. Graves, D.D., Canton, China. “ "We have read your good and timely book, ‘ Self-Support,’ with pleas¬ ure and profit. I think it will do great good.” — Rev. E. Z. Summons, Canton, China. “ Of all missions, the Bassein Karen Mission leads the list, in my hum¬ ble judgment, and largely because it has kept to the 'principle of your text.” — Rev. W. H. Sloan, Mexico (late Rangoon, Burma). “A wonderful record. Its study will do any man good. With the principles it advocates, I am in full sympathy.”— Rev. J. A. Freudat, Bhamo, Upper Burma. “ The history of this mission is faithfully and most interestingly re¬ counted, and yet the thing to be illustrated is never for a moment lost sight of. Indeed, it could not well be, so incorporated is this principle of self-support in the entire life and growth of the mission. . . . Our grati¬ tude is certainly due to [the author] for thus collecting and putting into permanent form these records of one of the most successful missions of modern times or of any time. . . . To hunt about for a stray fly or two in this book of precious ointment may seem a very ungracious task.” — Rev. D. A. W. Smith, D.D., Rangoon, Burma. “ I am glad you have published [your book], and still more so, that the facts which it records ever took place to enable you to publish it. I hope that the book will be widely read, and that it may promote a true knowl- THE BASSE IN KAREN MISSION. 45 edge of missionary work and interest therein.”— Rev. C. W. Park, late editor of the Indian Evangelical Review, Bombay. “ I have read it through with pleasure and profit. It is a noble histori¬ cal record of the early days of the mission, and full of important informa¬ tion and suggestions as to the later and the present.” — Rev. S. F. Smith, D D., author of Missionary Sketches , Rambles in Mission-Fields, etc. “ My wife and I are reading your hook with great interest. The account of the early beginnings of Christianity among the Karens, when the Word was handed on from mouth to mouth, and no missionary came for years together, is wonderful.” — Hon. C. Bernard, Chief Commissioner British Burma, Rangoon. “ A great mistake has been made by our societies South in their manner of work among the freedmen. They are not helping them to do the work, but are doing it for them in large measure. ... I hope your hook may help to change this.” — Rev. H. Woodsmall, Atlanta, Ga. “I read your book with profound interest. My joy and admiration in view of Christian missions were greatly increased. The type of piety developed by the apostolic labors and teaching of the sainted Abbott seems to me nearer to the New-Testament model than any other found in our time. Your book must do great good.”— Rev. G. W. Bosworth, D.D., Cambridge, Mass. “ I cannot write you of my thoughts as I read this wonderful story. . . . I never dreamed of the work which was going on when I was a child, and used to hear all the talk about ‘ Abbott’s work.’ I thank you a thousand times for the gathering of the threads, and for putting them before us in this clear and connected narrative.” — Mrs. M. A. Edmond, Salem, Mass. “ I am sure your excellent book will be read by [our missionaries] with the same interest as that with which I have read it, and that it will con¬ tribute to the furtherance of the system of self-support in our missions. . . . I wish this sound principle to be instilled into the minds of [our missionary students] from the very beginning of their preparation for their future work.” — Pastor Y. Holm, Secretary Danish Evangelical Missionary Society, Gladsaxe, Denmark. “ I want to tell you how much I am enjoying the reading of * Self-Sup¬ port ’ in Bassein. I am glad you have brought out Mr. Abbott’s views in regard to self-support. We must look to the future in laying the founda¬ tion. A system may be adopted which will yield apparently greater pres¬ ent results, but be finally pernicious.” — Miss L. E. Miller (late of Tavoy). “ We are enjoying your hook very much, and second Dr. J.’s suggestion that the Karens should have an abridged edition in their own language. If you will immediately prepare such an edition, I shall be glad to put it through our press to the best of my ability.” — Rev. C. A. Nichols, Bas¬ sein, Burma. 46 THE BASSEIN KAREN MISSION .” “ I have found great interest in reading your volume upon self-support. God’s lessons in the Bassein Sgau Karen work cannot be made too con¬ spicuous. I only wish now that our Board could go hack with you to Western Burma, and spend a week on your field.” — Rev. TV. F. Bain- bridge, author of “ Round-the-World Tour,” etc. “ I have just finished the reading of your hook, ‘ Self-Support,’ and feel that I must thank you for it —or God that he led you to write it. . . . I think that Brother Abbott was divinely led to [the true principle]_ ‘Karen support for Karens, American support for Americans.’ . . . Your hook cannot hut do good.” — Rev. E. T. Sandford, St. Jolinsbury, Yt. “ I have read it through from beginning to end with constantly increas¬ ing interest, and I hope profit also.”— Rev. S. B. Rand, Amherst, Mass, (formerly of Maulmain). “ It will he a very readable hook to many even who do not comprehend its logical tendency. . . . Self-support should he the aim in all our mis¬ sions at the earliest moment practicable, and self-control also. The won¬ derful progress of these Karen churches will he helpful in leading us in the right direction. I congratulate you on so successful a completion of your great undertaking. Your hook may accomplish more even than all your successful personal ministrations as a minister of the gospel among the heathen.” — Ebenezer Thresher, LL.D,, Dayton, O. “ I thank you most cordially for your very valuable volume defending the great principle of self-support in missions.” — Rev. Joseph Cook, Boston. “I have read your volume with much interest. I accept heartily the theory set forth, as limited and illustrated in the Bassein mission.”— Rev. Dr. N. G. Clark, Corresponding Secretary A.B.C.F.M., Boston. “A very interesting hook. I have thus far read about one-half of it, and hope to complete it in a few days. I take it with me on my journeys. The history of the Karen missions has always been of stirring interest to me; hut the better knowledge which this hook gives me greatly increases that interest.” — Rev. Dr. J. M. Reid, Corresponding Secretary Methodist- Episcopal Missions, New York. “It is a great satisfaction to me to see the high merit and indefatigable work of my friend Mr. E. L. Abbott, in years long gone by, placed on record in a volume which will be read with deep interest in these islands as well as in America. Need I say that your interesting book recalls to me many happy days among the simple Karens in the midst of their hills and jungles?” — Gen. Sir A. P. Phayre, late Chief Commissioner of Brit¬ ish Burma, Governor of Mauritius, etc., Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. “I am reading ‘Self-Support in Bassein’ with due care, and growing interest as I proceed. Those of us who have a practical knowledge of mis¬ sions, and who see how their strength and progress have been retarded by foreign nursing and a far too lavish supply of money, cannot but be inter- ** SELF-SUPPORT .” 47 ested in tlie history of a healthier attempt. The book, as you say, will awaken some sharp criticism; but it will commend itself to the judgment of most unprejudiced minds. It is especially advisable to get it into the hands of missionaries and the secretaries and directors of mission societies. The opinion, I imagine, is now general, that the earlier missionaries were wrong in doing so much for the native churches; and now comes the diffi¬ culty of correcting their mistaken policy.”— Rev. E. Storrow, Brighton, England (for many years a missionary of the L.M.S. in Calcutta). “ I have read Self-Support ’ with an interest second only to that with which I read the life of Dr. Judson, and in some respects with an interest such as no other mission-story ever awakened in my mind. As I complete the reading, I ask myself, ‘ What can be said in reply to the argument which it presents? ’ It seems unanswerable. Two points are made perfectly clear by it, — the necessity of developing a spirit of self-support among the con¬ verts, and the need of a Christian education for the people who have been evangelized. The first principle lies at the very root of Christianity.” — Rev. Gf. B. Gow, D.D., Glen’s Falls, N.Y. “The book is cheap at $1 50, as books are published, and its contents are richer than its external dress and form. I hope it may have a large circulation. Its excellences are abundant, and its failings are few and by no means considerable.”— Rev. J. N. Murdock, D.D., Corresponding Sec¬ retary A. B. M. Union. “I thank you for your interesting book. We think it would be useful for our mission-conference libraries in India, and are ordering twelve copies through Triibner & Co. for that purpose.” — Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretary Church Missionary Society. “ Let me thank you for the service which you have rendered the cause of Christian missions by writing ‘ Self-Support in Bassein.’ I have just finished the careful reading of it, and am profoundly impressed with its value. It is a revelation, a demonstration, and an inspiration, — a revela¬ tion of missionary life of unsurpassed interest; an historical demonstra¬ tion of your thesis, that the evangelical work done by natives in our foreign fields must be sustained by natives ; an inspiration of courage and hope in the prosecution of our divinely appointed task of giving the gospel to the world. Upon the method which you advocate, there is reasonable ground for faith ; our resources of men and money seem more nearly ade¬ quate to the demands of the enterprise than under the current system.” — Rev. H. E. Robins, D.D., late President of Colby University. “Among the most valuable of recent additions to missionary litera¬ ture. . . . With admirable modesty the author tells almost nothing about his own personal work. . . . The book gives us fresh occasion to congratu¬ late our brethren of the Southern Baptist Convention, that the poverty of our treasury and the good sense of our missionaries have preserved us from some of the mistakes into which others have fallen.” — Foreign Mission Journal, Richmond, Va., April, 1884. ■ . ' , r v / / » f mm