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 A Story of 
 
 Beginnings 
 
 MissionFields 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST 
 MISSIONARY UNION 
 
 TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/storyofbeginningOOamer 
 
A STORY OF 
 BEGINNINGS 
 
 IN OUR 
 
 Mission Fields 
 
 E as Baptists 
 owe our be- 
 gin n i n g in 
 missionary 
 work to Ado- 
 niram J ud- 
 son, for if he 
 had not be- 
 a. judson come a Bap- 
 
 tist, who can 
 say how long it would have taken 
 us to awake to the grandest op- 
 portunity the Lord ever gave the 
 Christian Church ? Dr. and Mrs. 
 Judson went 
 
 To Burma 
 
 not because they chose to go 
 there, but because they could not 
 go anywhere else. Missionaries 
 were not welcomed in those east- 
 ern lands then as they are today. 
 Nothing but difficulties and hard- 
 ships met them on every hand. 
 The situation confronting them 
 was appalling; cruelty, barbar- 
 ism and superstition character- 
 ized a people wholly given over 
 to heathenism. Could the gospel 
 reach such as these? For seven 
 years they waited for an answer 
 to this question before the un- 
 
A Story of 
 
 speakable joy of baptizing the 
 first convert was experienced. 
 Other missionaries in the mean- 
 time came to help them, preju- 
 dice broke down little by little, 
 and love gained the victory. 
 Today a church of 40,000 mem- 
 bers stands as their “ joy and 
 crown.” But what of the mil- 
 lions in that land who have not 
 yet heard the gospel — Shans, 
 Chins, Kachins, Talains, Karens, 
 Burmans and others? 
 
 But, as though heart and 
 hands w r cre not fully occupied 
 already, there came to our mis- 
 sionaries in Burma one day, a 
 request from a man in govern- 
 ment service in 
 
 Assam 
 
 that a missionary be sent to that 
 region. It w r as finally decided, 
 in 1831;, that Messrs. Nathan 
 Brown and O. T. Cutter should 
 j go. Assam is the place 
 where the finest tea in 
 the world is grown, and 
 is situated at the point 
 where India, Tibet, 
 China and Burma dove- 
 tail into one another; 
 its great water-way, the 
 Brahmaputra R i ve r, 
 constitutes a natural 
 avenue of approach to 
 the great regions of 
 central Asia. Early mis- 
 sionary efforts among 
 these people read like 
 a romance ; savage , 
 
 
 WARRIOR — ASSAM 
 
Beginnings 
 
 bloodthirsty tribes transformed 
 into humble followers of Jesus. 
 Some of our most hopeful work to- 
 day is on these great tea gardens 
 where thousands of coolies, who 
 have come up from central India, 
 are employed. Fifty-one mission- 
 aries, our present force, are not 
 very many among 6,000.000 peo- 
 ple, but over 7,000 Christians are 
 bearing faithful witness for Christ 
 among these various tribes, and 
 through their influence we hope 
 for a widespread knowledge of 
 the gospel. 
 
 Our Telugu Mission 
 
 has been called one of the mira- 
 cles of modern missions, and we 
 should be profoundly 
 grateful to God for the 
 way the gospel has been 
 received. Our first 
 missionaries, Rev. 
 and Mrs. S. S. Day, 
 settled eventually in 
 Nellore, from which 
 point their in- 
 fluence, and that of 
 others who followed 
 them, has spread far 
 and wide. The dif- 
 ficulties encoun- 
 tered in those earl}’ 
 years, arising from 
 the antagonism of the people and 
 the restrictions of caste were stu- 
 pendous ; but after years of faith- 
 ful preaching and patient waiting, 
 the great ingathering came. July 
 3, 1878, will ever be memorable in 
 
 HINDU TEMPLE 
 
A Story o f 
 
 the annals of the Telugu Mission, 
 for on that day occurred the bap- 
 tism of 2,222 individuals, the 
 largest number baptized in one 
 day on profession of personal 
 faith in Christ since the day of 
 Pentecost. Other great ingath- 
 erings followed this, until the 
 work demanded large reinforce- 
 ments and thorough organiza- 
 tion. Even the force of ioo 
 missionaries now on the field is 
 wholly inadequate to care for 
 the 55,000 Christian Telugus, 
 and reach the multitudes who 
 are ready to come. 
 
 When our work in Burma 
 spread out into Siam we did not 
 understand that that was God’s 
 way of getting us 
 
 Into China 
 
 for there seemed little chance 
 then of entering that great em- 
 pire whose doors were still shut 
 tight against foreign invasion. 
 But in 1842 China became in- 
 volved in that struggle with Eng- 
 land known as the Opium War. 
 Although the result was lament- 
 able in the terrible curse that was 
 forced upon poor China, there 
 was one redeeming 
 feature, five coast 
 cities were opened to 
 foreign residents. The 
 missionaries were not 
 slow to take advan- 
 tage of this, and our 
 splendid South China 
 and East China mis- 
 
 CHINESE PRIEST 
 
Beginnings 
 
 sions date from this 
 period. During recent 
 years the opening up 
 of the interior of the 
 empire has afforded a 
 grand opportunity for 
 advance work. The 
 West China^and Cen- 
 tral China missions 
 are growing rapidly, 
 and many more op- 
 portunities for work 
 are presented than the mission- 
 aries are able to take advantage 
 of. 
 
 As in Burma, so 
 in Japan 
 
 the Lord had a man ready for the 
 work before the Missionary Union 
 realized that there was work for 
 them to do in that land. Jona- 
 than Goble first went to Japan 
 as a seaman in Commodore 
 Perry’s expedition, which re- 
 sulted in opening the first port 
 to foreigners. Having seen the 
 country and the people, he longed 
 to go back and preach the gospel. 
 Pie was sent out in 1862 by the 
 American Baptist Free Mission 
 Society, which became united 
 with the Missionary Union in 
 1872, and Mr. Goble was accepted 
 by the Union as our missionary. 
 Rev. Nathan Brown, who had 
 been a missionary in Burma and 
 Assam, now went to Japan, 
 where he continued his labors 
 for many years. Dr. Brown en- 
 joys the unique distinction of 
 having translated the New Testa- 
 
A Story of 
 
 ment into two distinct languages, 
 Assamese and Japanese. There 
 are now in Japan 58 missionaries 
 and 2,151 members of our 
 churches, and the outlook is full 
 of encouragement . 
 
 We thought by this time we 
 had about all the work we could 
 manage, but we were mistaken; 
 for, a little over twenty years 
 ago, some of God’s servants be- 
 gan to be heavily burdened for 
 
 The Great Continent 
 of Africa 
 
 and its countless millions. While 
 considering where it might be 
 wise to begin work, it 
 transpired that Dr. 
 and Mrs. Guinness of 
 London wished to 
 transfer the Living- 
 stone Inland Mission 
 on the Congo to other 
 hands, leaving them- 
 selves free for further 
 pioneer work. It took 
 considerable persuasion to make 
 the Board of the Missionary 
 LTnion feel that they could as- 
 sume this added care, but God 
 has so blessed the mission all 
 these years that there is little 
 likelihood of its being given up. 
 So widespread has been the in- 
 fluence of the gospel that some 
 entire regions of considerable ex- 
 tent have been practically trans- 
 formed. The horrible fetishes 
 and the satanic witch doctors 
 are disappearing, and the people 
 
Beginnings 
 
 worship God “ in spirit and in 
 truth.” The scourge of sleeping 
 sickness has carried off hundreds 
 of Christians, but what a blessed 
 thought that, through the knowl- 
 edge of the gospel, they have 
 gone to praise God forever around 
 his throne in heaven. 
 
 We are reminded of the old 
 saying, “ Some are born great ; 
 some achieve greatness, and 
 some have greatness thrust upon 
 them.” 
 
 Our Philippine 
 Mission 
 
 was “ thrust upon us,” as it were. 
 How little we thought of such 
 a thing live or six years ago! 
 Again the truth is illustrated 
 that “ my thoughts are not your 
 thoughts, neither are your ways 
 my ways, saith the Lord”; for 
 that the Lord was in all the won- 
 derful movements that led up 
 to our presence in these islands 
 cannot be doubted, judging from 
 the condition of affairs and the 
 state of mind in which the people 
 have been found. Tired of Span- 
 ish domination and the oppres- 
 sion of the friars, many of them 
 even in abject heathenism, they 
 are receiving our missionaries 
 with an open-heartedness truly 
 wonderful. The 14 missionaries 
 of the Union now 
 on the field find 
 heart, head and 
 hands fully ab- 
 sorbed, The native 
 
 FILIPINO HOUSE 
 
A Story of 
 
 church of over 400 members we 
 believe to be only an earnest 
 of the future. 
 
 The Churches in 
 Europe 
 
 We cannot attempt in this 
 brief sketch to mention in detail 
 how we became involved in work 
 in Europe. As early as 1832 
 mission work was commenced in 
 France. Owing to 
 the gradual spread 
 of convictions pe- 
 culiar to the Bap- 
 tists, appeals were 
 made to us for 
 help. In Germany, 
 Norway, Sweden, 
 Denmark, Russia, 
 Finland, France, 
 Switzerland and 
 seminary -GERMANY Spain there are 
 
 today nearly 1 ,000 
 Baptist churches, reporting a total 
 of 108,613 members. The converts 
 come largely from the Roman 
 Catholic and formal state re- 
 ligions. Many of them have 
 willingly suffered much for the 
 joy and liberty of conscience 
 which have come to them through 
 the gospel of Christ. 
 
 By all that we have said it can 
 easily be seen that in entering 
 one field after another we have 
 followed the divine guidance. 
 Not only so; we have really been 
 forced to take up some work 
 which, humanly speaking, we did 
 
Beginnings 
 
 not seem able to undertake. We 
 have been signally blessed in 
 each and all of our fields, and 
 our contributions have increased 
 accordingly. Let us trust God 
 even more in the future, and go 
 forth to other fields of oppor- 
 tunity whose peoples are stretch- 
 ing forth their hands, and utter- 
 ing the Macedonian call 
 
 “ Come Over 
 
 and Help Us.” 
 
 Literature Department Jimerican 
 Baptist Missionary Union ^ ^ 
 Tremont Temple, Boston , Mass. 
 
 SAMPLE COPIES FREE ; 25 CENTS PER HUNDRED. 
 
 1ED.-10M.-4-04-U.