Number. Expansion. Another View, or How it Saves America. BY W. H. RICE " To save America, America must save the world!' — Prof. Phelps. CHICAGO: CEO. B. MARSHALL & CO., 144 MONROE ST. 1899. Copyrighted 1899 by W. H. Rice. This leaflet is sent forth with the desire, in some measure, at least, to harmonize contradictory opinions by showing the interdependence of the two great branches of Christian work known as foreign missions and home missions. Also to show that the inspiration and forcefulness in all mission work — home and foreign — emanates from and is based upon the last great com- mand of our Lord — " Go ye and disciple all nations." We who live in America have unusual reasons for gratitude to God for the large share we have had in the blessings flowing out of obedience to this command. Does any one ask, "What have foreign missions done for us?" Let us see. W. H. RICE. Evanston, Illinois, August, i8gg. John P. Ooucher Number. Expansion. Another View, or How it Saves America. "All power is given unto me, in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you T — Jesus Christ in Matthew 28-18-20. "Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations ; spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited." — Isaiah the Prophet, chap. §^-2-j. "Attempt great things for God — expect great things from Ood." [Subject of a sermon based on the words of Isaiah, by William Carey, the veteran foreigfn missionary.] Workers in behalf of foreign missions are frequently con- fronted, when presenting their cause, with the assertion "we do not believe in foreign missions, there is so much to do at home;" or, possibly, in another form such as, "We do not think it right to send money out of the country when there is so much need of it here," or that other half-quoted selfish, always borrowed excuse, "Charity begins at home." The proverb reads: "Charity begins at home, but should not end there." The method of using this proverb violates its spirit in lim- iting its teaching. And this spirit of criticism is not always confined to those outside the church membership. In all these the objections arise, for the most part, from a degree of ignorance in regard to what foreign missions are, and 1 that there is any relationship between the foreign work and the work at home. I cannot believe that any member of the household of faith can feel that real work for Christ, in what- ever form it may take, calls for their opposition or should meet with their disapproval. Christ's reproof of the disciples (Luke g-54) when, in their misguided zeal, they desired to call down fire from heaven upon those working for him, but not in their particular way, has in it a lesson for us. Canon Farrar has well said, " Had the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem till they had converted their countrymen, Christianity would have been strangled in its birth." We might also add, can One imagine the result had Christ remamed with the " lost sheep of the house of Israel " and not departed into Galilee? or had Paul the Apostle remained in Jerusalem and not preached throughout all Asia? Another argument in behalf of foreign missions was well stated in the reply to the opposition which arose in the Massa- chusetts Legislature, in 1810, when the American Board applied to that body for a charter. The granting of the charter was opposed on the ground that it (the A. B. C. F. M.) was a society whose business was to take out of the country a commodity of which we had none to spare — that is, religion. The advocates of the Board at once responded with the statement that " the more religion we export, the more we have at home." The point was deemed well taken, and the charter granted. The first regular organized effort in behalf of foreign mis- sions was not made until in the eighteenth century, although efforts were made to carry the Gospel to England's colonial possessions much earlier. In 1578, when Frobisher sailed in search of the northwest passage to India, he carried with him one Maister Wolfall, who was appointed by her majesty's coun- cil "to be their minister and preacher and his only care to save souls." He was the first priest of the Reformed Church of England to minister on American shores. In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the half-brother of Sir Wal- ter Raleigh, commanded an expedition whose main object was "to discover and plant Christian inhabitants in places con- venient" in America. He took possession of Newfoundland and was granted the first charter for the founding of an English colony. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh was given royal letters patent to colonize and govern any territories he might discover in North America. He landed at Roanoke and took possession of what is now North Carolina and called it Virginia. In the first band of colonists sent out was Thomas Harriott, an eminent scientist of his day, of whom it is said, " he many times and in every town where he came, made declaration of the contents of the Bible; and of the chief points of religion, to the natives, according as he was able." Thus becoming the first English missionary to America, and America the first mis- sionary ground. To this work Sir Walter Raleigh contributed £ioo, said to be the first donation to foreign missions recorded in English Protestant annals. A native of Virginia was made Lord of Roanoke and in 1587 was baptised, being the first recorded baptism of a native of Virginia. " From this time on the extension of Christ's kingdom con- tinued to be one of the avowed objects of British colonization." The three great classes in our land which have made large demands upon us in a missionary way are the Indian, the Negro and the Chinaman. We will look at the work among these in the order named: During the Long Parliament on July 27, 1649, ^'^ ordin- ance was passed with the title — " A Corporation for the Promo- ting and Propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England," whose preamble, in part, reads as follows: "The Commons of England, in parliament assembled, had received certain intelligence that divers, the heathen natives of New England, had, through the blessing of God upon the pious care and pains of some godly English, who preached the Gospel to them in their own Indian language — not only of barbarous become civil, but many of them forsaking their accustomed charms and sorceries, and other Satanical delusions, did then call upon the name of the Lord; and that the propagating of the Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst these poor heathen could not be prosecuted with that expedition and further success as was desired, unless fit instruments were encouraged and main- tained to pursue it, such as universities, schools and nurseries of literature settled for further instructing and civilizing them — also instruments and materials fit for labor and clothing, etc.,. were provided; therefore, know ye, that we of our princely piety, and for the further propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ amongst the heathen natives in and near New England, 3 and the parts adjacent, in America, and for the better civilizing, educating and instructing the said heathen natives in learning and the knowledge of the true and only God and in the Protes- tant religion already owned and publicly professed by divers of them ^ :t: * * * ■ ajid for other good and pious causes and considerations — us thereunto especially moving — do for us — our heirs and successors, will, ordain, constitute and declare, by these presents, that there be and forever hereafter shall be within this our Kingdom t)f Eng- land a Society or Company for propagation of the Gospel in New England, and the parts adjacent in America." This is the charter, in part, of the missionary organization known as the New England Company, the oldest missionary society in existence for it is still carrying on home mission work in Canada and British Columbia. A general collection for this society was ordered by Parliament, in all the towns, cities and parishes of England and Wales " for charitable con- tributions to the foundation of so pious and great an undertak- ing." The whole Engligh nation was thus summoned to take part in a great missionary enterprise by Act of Parliament. In an article entitled " The Romance of a Cash Book," published in one of the monthlies (Scribner, March, 1898), the writer gives the following information concerning the early financial con- dition of this society. The record of the first contributions I'eads as follows: 961 2,425 861 £4,1 . Or nearly 124,000. This was the first national response to take part in a great missionary enterprise in time of civil war. The statement is made that the army at that day was composed of pious men who were evangelists, according to their notions, with arms in their hands. The grand total of contributions to this society for missions among the American Indians during the troublous times of the Commonwealth was about ;^i6,ooo, or nearly $80,000. 4 " The Army's contribution The City of London .... Eleven counties Personal gifts The credit side of the cash book referred to shows such entries as these: April 12, 1651. Goods sent to New England, consigned to Mr. John Cotton or Mr. John Wilson, by the ship New England £80 June 12, 1651. More sent by the ship Mayflower, con- signed to John Cotton or Mr. John Wilson 275 April 26, 1652. Goods sent to New England by ship Canary, consigned to Edward Rawson 162 The John Cotton referred to is the once famous New Eng- land divine. John Wilson was the first minister in Boston and Edward Rawson was secretary of the commissionei's who represented the society in New England. On May 24, 1656, another consignment was made by the Hopewell and Speedwell, which was the last shipment made. After that time money was sent in place of goods. The "Speed- well" was the consort of the Mayflower when she sailed from Southampton. The first missionary of this society was John Eliot, who began work among the Indians in New England in 1646. He was afterwards called "the apostle to the Indians" — a man whose missionary zeal was the outcome of the earnestness that carried the Puritans to New England. He lived to see twenty- four of the Indians preachers of the Gospel and nearly five thousand converts. He translated the Bible and a number of other books into the Indian language. Southey called him ".the most extraordinary man of any country." This represents the 7&-rf missionary work among the Indians in our land. In 1709 a Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was organized, and in 1741 established in New York "a board of correspondents," which became the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society of the United States. Their first missionary was Rev. Azariah Horton, who labored among the Indians on Long Island. Their second missionary was David Brainerd — a man who, under the preaching of Whitfield, resolved to consecrate his life to the salvation of the Indian. He labored in Delaware and Pennsylvania. This work con- tinued for forty years and was then abandoned. In 1818 the Presbyterian Church took up the Indian work again, but in 1826 5 transferred it to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. As early as 1817, less than four years after their first mis- sionaries sailed for India, the A. B. C. F. M. had begun its work among the Indians in the United States. Their first station was at Chickamauga, among the Cherokees and Choctaws. The missionaries called the station Brainerd. A neighboring height, Mission Ridge, perpetuates the work then commenced. In 1828 three-fourths of all the church members in the missions of the American Board were Indians. From 1834 to i860 — owing to the removal of the Indians by the Government and for other causes — all the Indian missions of the Board were given up except the missions to the Dakotas. The work of Dr. Whitman in Oregon was a renewal of the work given up by the Board a few years previous. In 1882 all the Indian Missions of the At}ierican Board were turned over to the American Missionary Association, known more generally as the "A. M. A.," and they have carried on the work among the Indians from that time until now, the A. M. A. retiring from the foreign field. At that time the A. M. A. was essentially a foreign missionary society, being made up of "The Union Missionary Society," whose field was Western Africa. "The Committee for the West India Missions," whose work was in Jamaica. "The Western Evangelical Society," whose work was among the Indians in Ohio; and "The Amistad Committee," who represented the anti-slavery work of the association. The association at this time had seventy-one missionaries in Africa, Jamaica, Hawaii, Egypt, Siam and the home field. This is the history of the American Missionary Association's particular connection with the Indian work. Turning now to the work among the JSFegroes, we find the Hampton Institute under the charge, to a large extent at least, of the A. M. A., owing much of its efficiency to the direct influ- ence of the foreign mission work of the A. B. C. F. M. in Hawaii. Of the fundamental idea of this normal and agricul- tural school for the Negro and the Indian, let me speak in the words of its founder — General S. C. Armstrong: 6 "It meant something to the Hampton School and perhaps to the ex-slaves of America, that from 1820 to i860 the distinc- tively missionary period, — there was worked out in the Hawiian Islands, the problem of the emancipation, enfranchisement and Christian civilization of a dark skinned Polynesian people in many respects like the Negro race. From 1831 my parents — Richard Armstrong, of Pennsylvania, and Clarissa Chapman, of Massachusetts — were missionaries, till my father's appointment in 1847, as Minister of Public Instruction, when he took charge of, and in part built up, five hundred Hawaiian free schools' and some of the higher educational work. Illustrating two lines of educational work among them, were two institutions; the Government Seminary for young men where, with manual labor, mathematics and other higher branches were taught; and the Hilo Boarding and Manual Training Missionary School for boys, on a simpler basis, under the devoted David B. Lyman and his wife. As a rule the former turned out more brilliant; the latter less advanced but more solid men. Mr. Lyman's boys had become among the best teachers and workers for their people; while graduates of the higher school, though many had done nobly at home and in foreign fields, had frequently been disappointing. In making the plan of the Hampton Institute that of the Hilo (Mr. Lyman's) school seemed the best to follow." In speaking of the work of reconstruction in the South General Armstrong adds: "The great constructive force in the South and everywhere, is the Christian teacher. ' In Hoc Signa Vinces,' is as true now as in the days of Constantine. Let us make the teachers and we will make the people." Dr. Dorchester in his work, " Christianity in the United States," in speaking of the anti-slavery movement, says: — " This great work was not advanced chiefly by the efforts of statesmen and philanthropists. The prime impulse and support came from Christian laymen and divines who furnished its pabulum and inspiration." It was John Eliot, the first foreign missionary who, in the words of Cotton Mather, " with a bleeding and burning passion first remonstrated against the abject condition of the enslaved Africans." It was this same foreign missionary who memorialized the Governor and Council of Massachusetts in 1675, against selling captured Indians into slavery because, as he said, " the selling of souls is dangerous merchandise." 7 "At the recent jubilee of the First Congregational Church in San Francisco, as reported in The Pacific, the interesting fact was brought out that the first religious work done on the west coast was by a missionary of the American Board to the Sand- wich Islands, the Rev. T. Dwight Hunt, who had gone to his post in 1844. Soon after the discovery of gold in 1848 a mes- sage was sent to him urging him to suspend his work in Hono- lulu, at least for a time, as he was so much nearer that place than New York was. Accordingly he started, reaching San Francisco in October, 1848. He met a most hearty welcome, and was engaged as chaplain to the citizens of the town, it being understood that no denominational church should be organized. He continued his ministry during the winter, the only Protestant pastor within a thousand miles. In the follow- ing spring came other ministers, and in May the first Presby- terian Church was organized, followed in July by the organiza- tion, under Mr. Hunt's pastorate, of the first Congregational Church. During that year six Protestant churches were organ- ized, two Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Meth- odist and one Congregational. It is interesting thus to see that our west coast owes its first Christian effort to the Hawaiian mission of the American Board." — Independent, Aug. 24, i8gg. The effort to Christianize the Chinese in this country was begun in 1852 by Rev. William Speer, who had been connected with the Presbyterian mission in Canton, China. Mr. Speer edited and published a paper in the Chinese language for free circulation. In 1853 he organized a small Chinese church in San Francisco. His health failing and being obliged to leave, he was succeeded in 1859 by Rev. A. W. Loomis, who had just returned from seven years' work in Ningpo, China. Mr. Loomis reorganized the church and took charge, assisted by Rev. J. M. Condict, and another missionary returned from China. In 1854 Rev. J. L. Shuck, a returned missionary from China, started a school in Sacramento. Revs. Graves and Simmons, from the Baptist mission in Canton, were also active workers in San Francisco. Rev. Otis Gibson, author of "Chinese in America," another missionary from Canton, established schools in San Francisco, Sacramento, Grass Valley, Marysville and elsewhere in the State. It was not until 1870 that the A. M. A. began work among tbe Chinese in San Francisco, under the superintendence of Rev. John Kimball. In 1890 the Christian Chinese in California started a mission in Hong Kong, em- ploying an American minister to take charge, and furnishing nearly $2,000 to start the enterprise. One of our missionaries to the Dakotas remarked, a short time since, that "the work among the Dakotas was foreign mis- sionary work so long as we had to approach them in the Dakota language." In the light of that statement the American Home Missionary Society, organized in 1826, came forth from several societies which, because of their work among the Indians, were called foreign missionary societies. The Bible societies have been among our most efficient organizations in the line of missionary effort, and the American Bible Society, whose issues in the eighty-one years of its exist- ence have amounted to over sixty million copies and portions of the Scriptures, was a product of the mind of Samuel John Mills, one of the Haystack Band who set on foot the influences that gave us the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Our societies for the benefit of sailors can trace their incep- tion to that great foreign missionary society, "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," organized about 1700 in London. In the minutes of the Lower House of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, held March 13, 1 701, is this entry: "At the proposal of Dr. Isham a committee of twelve were named to inquire into the ways and means for promoting Christian Religion in our Foreign Plantations — and that it be a further instruction to the said committee to con- sider how to promote the worship of God amongst seafaring men whilst at sea." This is, no doubt, the earliest mention of religious work for seamen. The societies in the United States which are the outgrowths of English societies were not founded until about 1820. I have heard it stated that the Chicago Commons arose from the suggestion of a foreign missionary. Whether that be true or not it is a well known fact that the methods of settlement work are the same as those of the foreign missionary in his labor in heathen lands. However some may consider the foreign missionary efforts of Rev. John Wesley in America (1737), Wesley himself says, "I went to America to convert the Indians." From this fact it seems eminently proper to conclude that it was the foreign mis- sionary element in the man that fired his zeal and impelled him to cross the ocean to preach the Gospel to the Indians in this country. This should be sufficient to designate him as a 9 foreign missionary. It was this man who foimded Sunday- schools for gratuitous religions instruction. Acting on Wesley's suggestion, Rev. Francis Asbury, the first Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America organized in 1786, the first Sunday-school in the United States. In the year 1790 the Methodist Conference passed an ordinance establishing the institution of Sunday-schools. This is believed to have been the first official recognition of Sunday-schools by an American church. Wesley was also among the first to see and feel the iniquity of African slavery and to labor for its overthrow. It was John Wesley's celebrated tract, " Thoughts on Slavery," that so mightily stirred England and America on this question. John Eliot and John Wesley, the two great foreign mission- aries of the last century, were the first to issue tracts for the dissemination of religious knowledge. The Religious Tract Society of London, probably the largest religious publishing society of its kind in the world, was suggested by the annual sermon of the London (Foreign) Missionary Society, delivered by the Rev. Rowland Hill, May 7th, 1799. Many of the pub- lications of this Society are distinctively missionary in character and the society takes an active part in the work of foreign missions. George Williams, the founder of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the world has always shown a strong interest in foreign missions. He is one of the Life Governors of the Church Missionary Society of London, and a liberal contribu- tor to its funds. This society has nearly six thousand preachers and teachers' and fifty thousand communicants in their churches in heathen lands and expended over a million and a quarter dollars in their work in 1896. The Society of Christian Endeavor, such a power in all our churches, had its inception in a Mission Circle where especial attention was given to the subject of foreign missions. Thus we see that the germ in the last great command of Jesus Christ is, after all, the enkindling and vitalizing force in the enterprizes for the moral uplift of men and women every- where — at home and abroad. There is a fallacy prevalent that gifts to foreign missions means less for home work. The fact is that it can be set down as a general rule that earnest support of foreign missions is usually accompanied by increased gifts to 10 home work. An English writer on " Foreign Missions and Home Calls," cites the case of a poor parish in London which gave nearly §500 per annum to foreign missions though the claims of their own parish were necessarily very great. He quotes the vicar of the parish as saying: " I most cordially en- dorse your statement that where interest in foreign missions flourishes, there home work thrives. We are 20,000 people in the parish, all poor, and last year we sent nearly S500 to the Church Missionary Society, chiefly collected in small amounts. Four missionaries, now in the field, have gone out from here; two more are in training. Our own work is very heavy but we are an out and out missionary parish and that is why God is so richly blessing us." Rev. H. A. Stimson, of New York, one of the speakers at the meeting of the American Board in Grand Rapids, Mich., Octo- ber 5th, 1898, referring to the men who were sought to be the leaders of the English people, said: "I have three things to say: First, England stands before the world as the only nation in modern times which has proved by the extent and success of her administration of distant de- pendencies, her right to be placed alongside of the Roman empire in its greatest days, as the great leader in the uplifting of degraded peoples. " How has it come to pass that a nation which, less than half a century ago, presented in her home affairs a state of feeble- ness and corruption greater than any that has been maintained in America, should have, in that short time, so mastered her own weaknesses, and risen above her own vices and mistakes, as to win such splendid pre-eminence? The answer is furnished by her own thinkers. " Sir Henry Maine has said, as the result of his own exper- ience, that from the standpoint of the Indian office, the ques- tions of English local politics appear very small. In other words, it is the duty laid upon the English nation of adminis- tering before God and as in the eyes of the world, the govern- ment of three hundred millions of alien people, which has given her the power to do the work. * * * * "The duty has developed the men, and now the English people as well as English 'statesmen have come to recognize that the successful work which England, through its leaders has accomplished in India and other colonies, has not only furnished the inspiration and the example which has purified and en- nobled English home politics, but has produced the men to whom England is now looking to return as her home leaders, to insure her the new career which is awaiting England among the nations. It is but a few years since Edward Cromer, an English commoner, single-handed, undertook the task of puri- 11 fying the Augean stable of Egypt, defiled, corrupted by cen- turies of decaying civilization, and oppressed by Ottoman mis- rule. In that short time he has not only secured renewed vitality in material things worthy of the most famous days of Egypt's past, but he has established a stable civil government, in which justice and honesty prevail, and he also has uplifted the most apathetic laboring population in connection with the civilized world into a condition of self-respecting, industrious agricultural laborers, and has even made out of them soldiers so competent that a small army of 10,000, led by a few Englishmen, has proved a crushing force before which the hordes of Central Africa have gone to pieces, as the hordes of Central Asia went down before the Macedonian phalanx in the glorious days of Greece, and now Edward Baring as Lord Cromer, is one of the two or three men to whom all England is looking as the new premier, who at home shall lead in the splendid career opening for her in the twentieth century. "At the close of the Russo-Turkish war, a great people long oppressed, discovered that the hour had struck for the revival of their national life, and Bulgaria hastened to take the place which God's providence has opened for her among the nations of the modern world. Then it was discovered that young men in our Congregational Robert College on the Bosphorus, were the only ones to whom Bulgaria could look to help her frame her institutions and interpret modern methods in the creation of her new life." So it appears that foreign missions are a power in the polit- ical as well as religious sphere. It is but a few years since, we in America were alarmed at the vast increase of foreign emigration, from China on the one hand, and from the degraded na.tionalities of Europe on the other. Among them no class was more alien, none apparently more difficult of assimilation than the Bohemian. They ap- peared in large numbers in our great cities. The Home Mis- sionary Society cast about for help. Then it was that a returned foreign missionary, Henry Schauffle;-, from Bohemia, stood waiting to lead the work among the Bohemian people in the United States, and the first assistants to go to his side were the young men and women among the emigrants who had been trained in the Congregational Protestant Bohemian mission churches of this board. To this might be added the work of Dr. E. A. Adams among the Bohemians in Chicago. Dr. Adams was for ten years a missionary of the American Board among the Bohemians in Prague, Austria. A prominent pastor, for a long time at the West, says, "My experience has been that our Home Missionary work has de- 12 rived its chief support from the breadth of view, the strength of faith and reality of sacrifice produced by the foreign mission- ary interest." Another has said, "I am certain it is a great mistake and tends greatly to weaken the spiritual life in our churches or rather indicates that spiritual life is at a low ebb, when Chris- tians draw sharp distictions between home and foreign work. Let foreign work lose its interest in our churches and home work will surely cease." The spirit that pushes foreign missions is the only spirit that will do real work at home. The interest of the church in the work of bringing the world to Christ is now as it always has been, the thermometer which indicates the intensity of its spiritual life and power. " I say without hesitation, that when interest in foreign missions is maintain-ed in a church to the normal point, all other activities and agencies at home will go of themselves, and as things of course; while if there be a lack of devotion to that noble enterprise nothing else will be prosecuted with either enthus- iasm or success." — Rev. W. M. Taylor, D. D. In closing, allow me to quote from the report of the Lambeth Conference, held in 1897, these weighty utterances, in the hope that our hearts may be stirred to greater zeal and more conse- crated work for foreign missions. The words there uttered well express what should be our interest in that work. They were: "Foreign Missions, the work that at the present time stands in the front rank of all tasks we have to fulfill. Foreign Mis- sions, the primary work of the church, the work for which the chiirch was commissioned by her Lord. We recommend that prompt and continuous effort be made to arouse the church to recognize as a necessary and constant element in the spiritual life and body of each member of it, the fulfillment of our Lord's commission to evangelize all nations." " The cause of missions is the cause of Christ. Our duties to those at home in all spiritual matters is undeniably heavy. But the great task of evangelizing the human race is largely put up- on us, and we cannot shrink from bearing the burden. Some one has said ' Time has brought forth two giants, opportunity and responsibility. There never was such a work for the time nor such a time for the work. Why do we delay? The Lord 13 is ever looking for co-workers. He gets only onlookers; who will roll away our reproach?'" — Missionary Review, June, i8g8. Rev. Alexander McKenzie once said that, "the American that does not believe in foreign missions, denies his ancestry, his country and his God." Another has said, "the man that does not believe in foreign missions does not believe in Jesus Christ." In the light of what has been said, the words of Professor Phelps, that " to save America, America must save the world," have an added force and meaning. 14