PAM. 
 
 f.liSC. 
 
 IS^I 
 
 The Seven Wonders 
 of the Modern 
 Missionary World 
 
 Abram Woodruff Halsey 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions 
 of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 
 166 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 
 
This leaflet—“The Seven Wonders of the 
 Modern Missionary World”—is intended to sug¬ 
 gest to pastors and missionary leaders some of 
 the striking characteristics of the modern mis¬ 
 sionary movement. The merest outline of the 
 subject is given with the thought that fuller 
 treatment of the points mentioned can be left 
 to the individual pastor or leader. Recent books 
 which will be found helpful are: “The Decisive 
 Hour of Christian Missions,” Mott; “Story of 
 the American Board,” Strong; “Korea for 
 Christ,” Davis; “Modern Missionary Challenge,’’ 
 Jones; “Christian Endeavor in all Lands,” Clark; 
 “Dr. Apricot of Heaven Below,” Kingston De- 
 Gruche; “The Light of the World,” Speer; a 
 series of articles on the Eastern question in “The 
 Continent,” by Ellis, and freqeunt references in 
 “Woman’s Work,” “All the World,” “Assembly 
 Herald,” and in religious papers and secular 
 magazines. See also introduction to the Seventy- 
 fourth Annual Report of the Board of Foreign 
 Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 U. S. A. 
 
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE 
 MODERN MISSIONARY WORLD. 
 
 The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; 
 The Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens 
 of Semiramis at Babylon, the Temple of Diana 
 at Ephesus, the Statue of Jupiter by Phidias, 
 the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus 
 at Rhodes, and the Pharos (or lighthouse) at 
 Alexandria, fittingly attest the skill, the genius, 
 the glory and the ideals of that ancient civiliza¬ 
 tion. 
 
 The Seven Wonders of the Modern Mission¬ 
 ary World attest the subtle leavening power of 
 the teachings of Jesus among all nations, the 
 slow but gradual growth of the ethical standards 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, the dynamic power 
 of the Gospel to save even unto the uttermost all 
 who come unto God through Him, and the provi¬ 
 dential opportunities set before the Church in 
 the twentieth century. 
 
 i. The Altruistic Wonder: 
 
 The impact of the Gospel idea is felt today in 
 all classes of society and among all nations of 
 the world as never before since the beginning 
 of the Christian era. 
 
 The gift of $10,000,000 by Mr. Andrew Carnegie 
 for the promotion of the peace of the world is 
 significant; the gift of one and one-half million 
 yen by the Mikado for the poor of Japan is still 
 more significant. The President of Yale Uni¬ 
 versity in his baccalaureate address at com¬ 
 mencement, June, 1911, declared that never in 
 the history of the world have so many men been 
 willing to give time and money and service for 
 the public good. The will of the late John S. 
 Kennedy was not only a revelation of the char- 
 
acter of this godly man, but suggestive of a new 
 era in the history of Christian philanthropy. 
 
 At the dedication of the Union Medical Col¬ 
 lege at Tsinan, Shantung, China, April 17, 1911, 
 the governor of the province of Shantung, the 
 ruler of 35,000,000 people, contributed 1,000 taels 
 for the work of the college. Twelve years be¬ 
 fore the governor of that same province issued 
 an edict ordering the massacre of all foreigners. 
 
 The success of the Chinese government in the 
 extermination of the opium traffic, despite the 
 enormous financial losses involved, is a bit oi 
 altruistic legislation unparalleled in the history 
 of the race. 
 
 The free-will offerings made during the cele¬ 
 bration of the Women’s National Foreign Mis¬ 
 sionary Jubilee will amount to at least $1,000,000, 
 an unprecedented sum when the financial condi¬ 
 tion of the country is considered and the large 
 gifts made during the year to Foreign Missions 
 are taken into account. 
 
 The gifts of the Christians scattered through¬ 
 out the world in non-Christian lands as tabu¬ 
 lated in “The World Atlas of Christian Mis¬ 
 sions” for a year amounted to $3,246,717; the 
 gifts of Christians for Foreign Mission work 
 from the homeland for the same period amount¬ 
 ed to $30,378,489. We should multiply the gifts 
 of the native Christians by at least ten for any 
 fair basis of comparison. 
 
 The humanitarian spirit of Jesus Christ is 
 becoming more and more dominant in all lands, 
 among all races. The peace of the world so 
 ably advocated by the chief executive of «ur 
 Republic is no idle dream, but is far within the 
 realm of probability in our day and generation. 
 
 The missionary is a factor to be reckoned 
 with in the furtherance of this great and noble 
 endeavor. 
 
 4 
 
a. The Language Wonder: 
 
 The spread of the English language is one of 
 the wonders of the age. The English language 
 is spoken at the present time by nearly 200,000,- 
 000 people; each year sees large additions to 
 the group of English-speaking peoples. In the 
 Philippines more people today speak the English 
 language than spoke the Spanish language after 
 300 years of Spanish rule. 
 
 In all higher education in India, English is 
 compulsory; in the secondary schools in India, 
 English is taught. In China, the government has 
 made English a part of the regular curriculum; 
 it is taught in many of the higher institutions 
 of learning such as St. John’s College, the Soo- 
 chow College and the Canton Christian College 
 and other institutions. In Japan, the students 
 are eager to learn English. It is the avenue 
 through which the missionary frequently is able 
 to reach the educated classes. In Syria, one of 
 the boys in the class-room wrote on the black¬ 
 board, “God is Love” in his own language, thirty 
 boys followed, each writing the text in his own 
 language, yet these boys, sooner or later will all 
 speak the English language. A speaker at the 
 Edinburgh Conference declared that some mis¬ 
 sionaries read the Lord’s command as though it 
 were written, “go and teach all nations the Eng¬ 
 lish language”. Macaulay says that whoever 
 knows the English language has “ready access to 
 the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest 
 nations of the earth have created and stored in 
 the course of ninety generations.” The English 
 language is the language of liberty, of law, of 
 morals, of high ideals. The English Bible which 
 has moulded Anglo-Saxon civilization, is mak¬ 
 ing no small impress on world civilization. 
 
 The Greek language became the vehicle in 
 which the Gospel story was borne to the edu¬ 
 cated world of the first century. The English 
 
 5 
 
language seems destined in the providence of 
 God to be the bearer of the Gospel to the races 
 of the twentieth century. 
 
 3. The Travel Wonder: 
 
 News travels. In a little village in Korea a 
 missionary was informed that a three-story 
 building constructed completely in America and 
 sent out on the back of an aeroplane was about 
 to be erected at Pyeng Yang. This in a remote 
 village in Korea. 
 
 Money travels. It is estimated that nearly 
 $1,000,000,000 of American money has been in¬ 
 vested in Mexico. The population of Mexico, 
 according to recent census, is over 15,000,000, 
 a large proportion of which is composed of In¬ 
 dians. The United States must exercise some 
 influence where so much money has traveled. 
 China has recently negotiated a loan of $50,000,- 
 000, which is to be distributed in Europe, Great 
 Britain and America. The loan is secured by 
 receipts of custom in Manchuria for forty-five 
 years. The far-reaching consequences of this 
 traveling of money is self-evident. 
 
 People travel. The delegates of the Associ¬ 
 ated Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific coast 
 spent six weeks traveling in China, the reception 
 given to them by the people was of such a 
 nature that it astonished the promoters them¬ 
 selves. The representatives of the Chinese press 
 at Shanghai, in a word of greeting declared,— 
 “We are now passing through the transition 
 period, there are many things in China you will 
 not understand, but one thing you will under¬ 
 stand and that is, that we Chinese people are a 
 reasonable people and can be friendly to those 
 who are friendly to us.” 
 
 Ideas travel. At the commencement exercises 
 of a high school at Seoul, the oration given by 
 Mr. Yang Ik Whan was on the theme, “Proper 
 Thinking the Source of Personal Elevation”. 
 
 6 
 
This would have done for a high school gradu¬ 
 ate’s oration in New England. 
 
 Institutions travel. The Union Medical Col¬ 
 lege of Shantung Christian University, which 
 was dedicated April 17, 1911, marked an era in 
 Chinese education; a three-story structure with 
 laboratories, amphitheatre, class-rooms, clinics 
 and all modern appliances. 
 
 At the commencement exercises of the Sever¬ 
 ance Medical College at Seoul, Korea, six Korean 
 youths were graduated, all of them Christians. 
 Modern medical science in Korea begins with the 
 stamp of Christianity upon it. The far-reaching 
 influence of such Christian institutions planted in 
 non-Christian communities is not easy to calcu¬ 
 late. 
 
 Roman roads made possible the carrying of the 
 Gospel to the old Roman world. Modern travel 
 makes possible the sending of the Gospel to the 
 ends of the earth. 
 
 4. The Racial Wonder: 
 
 The Scriptures long ago revealed that God 
 “hath made of one blood all nations of men for 
 to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath de¬ 
 termined the times before appointed, and the 
 bounds of their habitation.” This truth is recog¬ 
 nized in our day as never before. 
 
 At the Silliman Institute on the Island of Du- 
 maguete, Philippines, the graduating oration of 
 the class of 1911 was delivered by a Filipino 
 youth, Pablo Zarco, on the subject of “A Positive 
 View of the Racial Question.” We quote a few 
 sentences: “We have among men, individual dis¬ 
 tinctions, family distinctions, social distinctions, 
 and national distinctions, which are but the mani¬ 
 festations of racial distinction in small degrees. 
 This distinction is universal, and the only way to 
 avoid it is to change all men into one color, to 
 have a uniform climate, to make all men of the 
 same mind, to give them equal knowledge, and 
 
 7 
 
one language, and then to take sin from the 
 world; but these are impossibilities; therefore ra¬ 
 cial distinction, which is derived from all these 
 differences is unavoidable.If we Fili¬ 
 
 pinos do really believe that we are created, free, 
 and the equal of any other man in the world, 
 let us educate our youth, raise up our people mor¬ 
 ally, develop our industries, improve our forests, 
 and operate our mines, and not leave these things 
 to others.” This lad a few years ago was in ignor¬ 
 ance, today he voices the aspirations of a race 
 rapidly finding itself. He represents the new 
 youth of the world. 
 
 The new nationalistic movement in the Turkish 
 Empire shot through as it is with the thought 
 of Islamic supremacy, is in its final analysis a 
 new racial movement. 
 
 At a great meeting held in Constantinople last 
 year where were present Mohammedans, Arme¬ 
 nians and Christians, a member of the new Turk¬ 
 ish Parliament and one of the leaders in the new 
 Turkish Empire, said: “Hitherto we of Turkey 
 have looked upon religion as the great barrier to 
 keep the races of this empire apart. Religion to 
 us has been the cause for race hatreds and indi¬ 
 vidual hatreds, but now we are learning that re¬ 
 ligion may be, and is, the greatest bond to bind 
 us together into a great fellowship in the Father¬ 
 hood of a common God.” 
 
 In the Christian church in Beirut on a Sunday 
 morning can now be seen Christian soldiers from 
 the Turkish army, suggestive of a racial wonder 
 which bodes well for the success of the new Turk¬ 
 ish movement. 
 
 The Ethiopian movement in Africa, however 
 unsuccessful as a political propaganda, represents 
 a great social and moral upheaval. The Japanese 
 no longer consider themselves an inferior race, 
 since they have formed an alliance with a world 
 power like Great Britain and are moving ahead 
 with ever increasing momentum in all that makes 
 
 s 
 
for modern civilization. China has changed more 
 in the past twelve years than in the previous 1200. 
 
 The unrest in India culminating in the cry, 
 “India for Indians,” is a racial unrest, and the 
 crowding of thousands upon thousands of the 
 sweeper and the lower classes in India into the 
 ranks of the Christian Church is but the beginning 
 of the breaking down of old racial barriers among 
 the 300,000,000 polyglot peoples of India. The 
 Gospel which declares that “God hath made of 
 one blood all nations” is finding a ready accept¬ 
 ance in an era when racial distinctions are being 
 obliterated. 
 
 5. The Intellectual Wonder. 
 
 Japan is the intellectual marvel of the Orient. 
 It has a postal clearing bank in which deposits 
 can be made in any one of the 7,800 post offices 
 in the empire by any person paying the fee of 
 one-half a cent on a deposit of 50 cents, or not 
 more than 8 cents on a deposit of $5,000. Checks 
 can be drawn and messages written on the back 
 of the deposit slip with no extra expense, not 
 even a postage stamp, save the small sum collect¬ 
 ed each month from the account. A missionary 
 writes: “Think of the advantage of paying evan¬ 
 gelists, servants, or what not when away from 
 home during the summer, without handling any 
 cash, without tedious waits at the post office.” In 
 a recent issue of a Japanese paper it speaks of 
 Kure as the largest and most important naval sta¬ 
 tion in the Orient, to which no battleship fleet in 
 the world could even approach in time of war. 
 This naval station is discussed as an evangelistic 
 proposition where there are 30,000 workmen and 
 a large number of officers and people to be 
 reached by the Gospel. In Japan, 96 per cent, of 
 the children of school age are in school. 
 
 In Korea, the Christians purchased and gave 
 away within a twelve month a million copies of 
 
 9 
 
the Gospel of Mark, and people were found eager 
 to read this priceless bit of literature. 
 
 In Persia, 1,500 tomans (a toman is 95 cents) 
 was placed in the hands of a missionary and the 
 promise of a new school building, the best in all 
 Persia, to be completed by the fall of 1911, pro¬ 
 vided the missionaries would open a school and 
 send a Christian teacher. 
 
 In China, more than 40,000 schools under gov¬ 
 ernment control. At the same rate of increase in 
 the next ten years, as in the last few years, there 
 will be 45,000,000 pupils in the schools in China. 
 In May, 1911, in the English Union service in 
 Peking a sermon was preached by a Chinese 
 preacher. He was a pupil in a mission school. 
 He studied at Oxford, England, taking the full 
 theological course. He spent six years in Ger¬ 
 many, where he obtained a doctor’s degree from 
 the Berlin University with high honors. He has 
 accepted a position to teach in the Chinese Impe¬ 
 rial University with the understanding that no re- 
 striation should be placed on him as a Christian. 
 “It was worth all one’s life and work in China,” 
 writes a missionary, “to see and hear this man 
 and realize the possibilities of Chinese Christians 
 with education and Christian training.” He is no 
 exception. The Orient is going to school. 
 
 In Turkey the minister of education declares 
 that at the close of 1911 there will be 65,000 pri¬ 
 mary schools. In the Philippines there are more 
 than 600,000 pupils in the public schools. The in¬ 
 tellectual awakening in non-Christian lands is a 
 great opportunity for the Christian Church. The 
 demand for the annual output of the Bible from 
 the Beirut press has grown from an annual out¬ 
 put of 23,000 volumes between 1880-1889 to an 
 annual output of 62,538 between 1900-1909; and 
 the output of 1910 has leaped to 85,775. This is 
 indeed one of the signs of the times in the Ara¬ 
 bic speaking world. 
 
 The Presbyterian Board has in the foreign 
 
 10 
 
field, nine colleges and universities, n theological 
 seminaries, 6 medical schools and colleges, 5 
 nurses training schools, 14 industrial schools, 3 
 schools for the blind, 2 schools for the deaf, 
 96 high schools and academies and boarding 
 schools, and more than 1,800 day schools. Total 
 number of pupils in these institutions last year 
 was 55,729. 
 
 In all the non-Christian world there are not 
 less than 32,924 institutions of learning, with 
 1,522,802 pupils; 1,653 hospitals and dispensaries, 
 treatments given in a single year by medical mis¬ 
 sionaries, 7,578,942; 572 orphanages, leper homes, 
 and schools for deaf mutes, with 34,206 inmates. 
 A blaze of intellectual, moral and spiritual light 
 emanates from these Christian institutions in non- 
 Christian lands. 
 
 6. The Devotional Wonder. 
 
 The devout spirit of the non-Christian world 
 has not been changed by any of the modern won¬ 
 ders. The 650th anniversary of a great Buddhist 
 temple in Kyoto was celebrated this spring, the 
 fete lasted ten days, the worshippers flocked to 
 the temple, offering their prayers and throwing on 
 the matted floor a small coin worth about one-half 
 a cent; the daily offering for each of the ten days 
 amounted to 17,000 yen or gold $8,500. Kyoto 
 also held a series of celebrations connected with 
 the temples, tens of thousands of people coming 
 from all parts of the empire, some walking all 
 the way and visiting the temples and shrines and 
 as a reward having a seal stamped on their gar¬ 
 ments. When asked what avail the seal was, the 
 eager and confident reply came,—that the gods 
 of the temples and shrines where they had wor¬ 
 shipped would come to meet them when they were 
 called to the next world. 
 
 The agricultural population in North India is 
 five to six hundred per square mile, in some dis¬ 
 tricts nearly 800. All India looks to the farmer. 
 The farmer worships his plough and his corn 
 
 11 
 
sieve or winnowing basket. At the end of the 
 sowing season there is a regular worship of the 
 plough and sacrifices are made to it. At certain 
 festivals a woman takes a sieve and a 'house- 
 broom and beats them in every corner of the 
 house to scare evil spirits, saying: “God abide and 
 poverty depart.” In Central India the marriage 
 of the earth to the plough is celebrated. Certain 
 deities of the s&l tree who control the rain re¬ 
 ceive an offering of fowls. In time of drought 
 two figures, one representing the god of rain, the 
 other the god of clouds, are made with their legs 
 and heads hanging downward, on the theory that 
 the discomfort thus caused will compel them to 
 grant the rain. 
 
 At “Old Goa” in India, the body of Saint Fran¬ 
 cis Xavier was exhibited this spring. From five 
 to ten thousand pilgrims came every day for the 
 space of two months. The poor villager was not 
 permitted to kiss the foot of the skeleton save 
 through the medium of the priest’s hand. These 
 teeming thousands travel many miles just to look 
 or to touch through another the dead body of 
 Saint Francis and this with all the enlightenment 
 of Christian education and civilization of more 
 than ioo years. India is still idolatrous. 
 
 This devotional spirit needs only to be turned 
 into the right channels to work wonders. This 
 was well illustrated in connection with the recent 
 famine relief in China. One of the missionaries, 
 Dr. Samuel Cochran, fell ill with typhus fever 
 due to excessive labors in connection with the 
 famine. Prayers were offered for him by the 
 Christians, Catholics and Protestants. One day 
 some men representing the Chamber of Com¬ 
 merce of the cicy of Hwai Yuen came with a 
 message that they were going to the temple 
 to protect Dr. Cochran’s life for fifty years. 
 These men actually offered to give up fifty years 
 of their own lives to the city god on condition 
 that the city god would lengthen the life of Dr. 
 Cochran fifty years. 
 
 12 
 
There was dedicated at Shanghai some months 
 ago a memorial hall costing $10,000 (Mexican). 
 It was the gift of the children and grandchildren 
 of Pastor Bau, one of the devout preachers of 
 China; his sons and grandsons are connected with 
 the Commercial Press, the largest printing estab¬ 
 lishment in Shanghai; they represent three gen¬ 
 erations of Christians. 
 
 At the meeting of presbytery in Korea the 
 Korean missionary who had been at Vladivostock 
 made the closing address. The pastor of the 
 church was seen weeping and when asked the 
 reason, he replied: “There is no money to send 
 the missionary back to Vladivostock.” Some 
 one in the audience said he would give five yen 
 ($2.50), another said “Stop crying, the money is 
 forthcoming.” The next day the entire amount 
 was raised. The Korean church now supports 
 six missionaries in three stations, one at Quelpart 
 Island, one in Manchuria and one at Vladivos¬ 
 tock. A few years ago the Korean people were 
 devout worshippers of the spirits. Today many 
 thousands worship the true God and Jesus 
 Christ whom He has sent. 
 
 In Japan, the Buddhists have Young People’s 
 Associations, Women’s Meetings, Sunday- 
 schools, hymn-books and Bibles, all after the 
 Christian pattern. Recently there was issued an 
 adaptation of the familiar children’s hymn, 
 which has obtained wide circulation in that 
 country—“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the 
 Bible tells me so,”—“Buddha loves me this i 
 know” is the new song. Imitation is the sincer- 
 est flattery. The leaven of the Gospel is work¬ 
 ing in non-Christian lands and the devotional 
 spirit needs only to be turned into the right chan¬ 
 nels to make it most effective. 
 
 At the commencement exercises of Union 
 Medical College in Peking, May, 1911, Rev. W. 
 A. P. Martin, 84 years of age, addressed the 
 graduates telling them that “the old practitioners 
 
 13 
 
were charlatans and impostors. The new order 
 of physicians, which begins with this class, wifi 
 discard superstition and work in the light of 
 modern science/’ The Exercises of this Medical 
 College commencement were opened with prayer 
 by Wu Cheng, a native pastor. Here indeed is 
 a wonder of the missionary propaganda! 
 
 7. The Wonder of Grace: 
 
 Rider Haggard’s “Regeneration” can be dupli¬ 
 cated in many lands. The mission meeting at 
 Lolodorf last July appointed a special day of 
 prayer for reinforcements for Africa, eighteen 
 new missionaries were asked for. Later in the 
 year a group of Christians came to Batanga and 
 asked the missionary when the steamer was to 
 come in, meaning the steamer with the new mis¬ 
 sionaries. “According to your faith be it unto 
 you.” The new missionaries are now in Africa. 
 
 A group of African carriers at the close of a 
 hot day having walked twenty miles, each carry¬ 
 ing forty pounds, said, ‘’We get tired, hot and 
 hungry, but these are nothing to what Jesus en¬ 
 dured for us.” The work of grace in Kamerun, 
 West Africa, is marvelous, due largely to the 
 zeal, earnestness and holy living of native Chris¬ 
 tians. 
 
 Under the ministry of Ding Lee Mai, who was 
 educated in our mission schools, thousands have 
 been brought to Christ in China; in this number 
 are many young men. Ding Lee Mai is now visit¬ 
 ing the leading colleges and universities in China 
 and is called by some “The Saint Paul of China.” 
 Through his influence Principal Chang Po Ling, 
 one of the great educators of North China was 
 brought to Christ. Mr. Ling was used of God in 
 securing the gift of $13,000 from a distinguished 
 Chinese for a Y. M. C. A. building in Tien-tsin. 
 One cannot estimate the influence such a man as 
 Pastor Ding will have in coming years. 
 
 The retiring moderator, elder See Mo of Chi- 
 eng Mai Church, Laos, the wealthiest and best 
 
 14 
 
educated man in the entire Church with every 
 prospect of worldly success, after most careful 
 consideration decided to ask ordination to the 
 Christian ministry and he was ordained. An in¬ 
 spiration and hope to the young men of Siam, 
 and a foretaste of the intellectual and spiritual 
 awakening which is coming in many lands. 
 
 At Ubenje, West Africa, a Mabea woman 
 walked twenty miles to attend a service of the 
 Lord’s Supper, she is totally blind and had to be 
 led every step of the way. Her townspeople 
 said of her, “She is a strong person for God,” 
 she was one of a company of forty who, going 
 and coming, each walked forty miles. A few 
 years ago the Mabeas were cannibals. 
 
 A dying Chinese woman in Hainan was asked 
 what clothes she would like to be dressed in 
 after death. This is a matter of great importance 
 to the Chinese, and this Christian replied: “It 
 makes no difference what clothes I wear, Jesus’ 
 righteousness will be my glory dress.” 
 
 In the non-Christian world there are 21,373 
 missionaries; 103,000 native assistants; 38,557 
 stations arid out-stations with a group of adher¬ 
 ents numbering 6,837,738. Truly these are won¬ 
 ders of grace. One can but write wonderful as 
 he thinks of this great Christian army in the non- 
 Christian world. The power of one Christ-like 
 life cannot be estimated. James Gilmour labored 
 twenty years in Mongolia, one Mongolian con¬ 
 vert, he not strong. In the last volume on Mon¬ 
 golia, just published, entitled, “Tramps in Mongo¬ 
 lia,” the author states that fourteen years after 
 the death of Gilmour he visited a city of Mongo¬ 
 lia “and found a very few and sturdy Christian 
 men remaining there, faithful amid the passing 
 years to the Gospel story they first heard from 
 Gilmour’s lips and proud of their early associa¬ 
 tions with the lonely apostle of the Mongols.” 
 
 His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful! 
 
 New York, October 1st, 1911 
 
 15