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 Missionary Society 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 
Fifty Years In Southern Asia 
 
 By Bishop J. M. Thobum, D.D. 
 
 Fifty years ago our Church had not 
 yet fairly entered upon her foreign mis- 
 sionary work. Up to that date our peo- 
 ple had been absorbed in the immense 
 and urgent demands of the home work, 
 especially in the great West, but previ- 
 ous to the beginning of the last century 
 only a slight beginning had been made 
 among the teeming millions of the hea- 
 then world. Shortly after the General 
 Conference of 1852 Dr. Durbin became 
 impressed with a conviction that the 
 time had come for the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church to enter the foreign mis- 
 sion field in force, and he began to ex- 
 press his views clearly and forcibly in 
 official circles, and to some extent 
 throughout the Church at large. The 
 members of the Missionary Board were 
 quite prepared to adopt his views, and 
 after careful inquiry and due delibera- 
 tion it was decided to found a well 
 equipped and strong mission in India, 
 as the first step toward a widespread 
 and vigorous work in different parts of 
 the heathen world. India was selected 
 
chiefly for the reason that it was the 
 only large region in the world which 
 was at that time both wide open, and 
 accessible to the Christian missionary. 
 
 CHOICE OF A FOUNDER 
 After a long, and at times discourag- 
 ing search, the choice of a founder and 
 superintendent for the new work fell 
 upon Dr. William Butler of the New 
 England Conference. Every one has 
 heard the story of his appointment in 
 1856, of his prompt departure, of his ar- 
 rival in India and selection of a field in 
 the northern part of the country, of the 
 energetic beginning of his work, of the 
 outburst of the great war of the Mutiny, 
 of the breaking up of the new mission, 
 of its reorganization, and of the new 
 start made in 1859. 
 
 EMBARRASSED BY SUCCESS 
 The progress of this mission has been 
 rapid, and in some respects extraordi- 
 nary. It so far surpassed the expecta- 
 tions of those who sent Dr. Butler into 
 the field, that they soon found them- 
 selves embarrassed by its success. It 
 had been Dr. Durbin’s plan to establish 
 a vigorous mission with twenty-five men, 
 a force which according to the scale of 
 that day would have seemed exception- 
 ally strong, and it was hoped that the 
 success of this force would stimulate the 
 Church to make other missionary at- 
 tempts in different parts of the world. 
 The territory selected for these twenty- 
 five missionaries was about the size of 
 
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the State of Indiana, and contained a 
 population of nearly seventeen million 
 people. It was a most interesting- and 
 inviting field, and certainly seemed 
 large enough to absorb the sympathy 
 and challenge the energy of the Church 
 for many years, but God had other 
 plans in reserve for the missionaries, 
 and as time passed they were led into 
 fields of which they had never dreamed, 
 and into kinds of work which they had 
 never sought, and did not desire. Step 
 by step they were led outward and on- 
 ward until not only the whole great em- 
 pire of India was embraced in their 
 field, but they passed onward toward 
 the southeast and entered Malaysia, 
 where they gained a strong position and 
 were ready, when in the strange prov- 
 idence of God the Philippines were 
 brought under the American flag, to 
 enter in and proclaim a free gospel to 
 the millions who had so unexpectedly 
 become their fellow subjects. 
 
 FROM A MUSTARD SEED TO A GREAT TREE 
 
 But while the missionaries were thus 
 pushing on from one post to another, 
 the original field was by no means neg- 
 lected. From the very first steady 
 progress was reported. In 1858 Dr. 
 Butler reported twenty-three members 
 and probationers. In 1864, when Bish- 
 op Thompson went to India to reorgan- 
 ize the little mission into an Annual 
 Conference, the membership was still 
 small, being only 111 members and fif- 
 
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ty-three probationers, but in that dis- 
 tant day of small things these numbers 
 appeared large, and were considered en- 
 couraging. A few years later the mis- 
 sionaries were drawn beyond the field 
 first selected for them, and before the 
 General Conference of 1876 met, they 
 were preaching in nil the great cities of 
 the empire, and in nine different lan- 
 guages. A second Conference was or- 
 ganized at that time, but the work con- 
 tinued to spread, until at the present 
 time the little Mission Conference of 
 1864 has expanded into nine Annual 
 Conferences with 231 missionaries, 104 
 missionaries of the Woman’s Foreign 
 Missionary Society, 277 native members 
 of Conference, 979 teachers, more than 
 125,000 church members and probation- 
 ers, over 141,000 Sunday-school schol- 
 ars, fifty-five high schools, four col- 
 leges, and a total Christian community 
 of more than 185,000 souls! 
 
 HALF A CONTINENT AND A BABEL OF 
 TONGUES 
 
 When this great work was started 
 fifty years ago, it was the expectation 
 of the missionary authorities at home, 
 as well as of the missionaries in the 
 field, that the work should be confined 
 to one field of limited extent, in which 
 only one language was spoken ; but so 
 far from being able to adhere to this 
 purpose, our missionaries in Southern 
 Asia today are preaching in thirty-seven 
 
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different tongues! So far from having 
 a small field about the size of Indiana, 
 and with a population of seventeen mil- 
 lions, they are scattered over the south- 
 ern half of a continent, and are preach- 
 ing to a teeming multitude of three 
 hundred and fifty millions! Truly God 
 has put his seal upon the work of his 
 servants, and the great Church which 
 planted and sustains this work should 
 ponder well the lesson which God has 
 been teaching her in the ends of the 
 earth. 
 
 FOR THE FATHERLESS IN THEIR 
 AFFLICTION 
 
 But the above statistics do not by any 
 means tell the full story of the success 
 and wide influence of this work in 
 Southern Asia. It was in India that 
 our Church first entered boldly and on 
 a large scale upon orphanage work. In 
 1860 two orphanages were opened, one 
 for boys and one for girls, and from 
 that day to the present hour no orphan 
 has been turned away. More than 
 twenty orphanages and several thou- 
 sand children are cared for, — more per- 
 haps than in all the other sections of 
 our Church put together. 
 
 THE HEALING ART IN WOMAN'S HANDS 
 
 It was to this Mission that the first 
 woman physician who ever entered a 
 heathen land was sent, and in which an 
 attempt was ever made to teach Asiatic 
 women the science and practice of med- 
 
 6 
 
icine. It was within the bounds of the 
 original Mission that the first college 
 for women was established, and today 
 this institution holds a leading position 
 in the empire. N o less than seven pub- 
 lishing houses have been established at 
 different language centers in this vast 
 field, from which literature in twenty 
 or more languages is issued. Training 
 schools have been established at many 
 points, and hundreds of young men are 
 receiving instruction to fit them for the 
 ministry of the Word among the multi- 
 tudes of simple people who wait for the 
 light which can best be taken to them 
 by representatives of their own people. 
 
 THE FULFILLMENT OF A GREAT HOPE 
 These facts are very striking and full 
 of encouragement, apart from all other 
 considerations, but the most striking 
 feature of the case is the fulfillment of 
 Dr. Durbin’s hope that the mission in 
 India might mark the beginning of a 
 new era in the foreign work of our 
 Church. This has been realized in an 
 extraordinary way. Closely following 
 the advance in India, a new era opened 
 in Eastern Asia. The little mission in 
 China has expanded into five great 
 fields. Japan was occupied, and then 
 Korea; Mexico was taken up, and the 
 little mission at Buenos Ayres has been 
 extended over the whole of South Amer- 
 ica; and, lastly, the work in Africa has 
 
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received a special recognition from the 
 General Conference, which will make it 
 in time one of the grandest mission 
 fields in the world. 
 
 AN APPROPRIATE CALL AND A FITTING 
 CELEBRATION 
 
 In view of all these facts, there seems 
 to be a special propriety in the action of 
 the General Conference in calling on the 
 Church to celebrate in a fitting manner 
 the conclusion of the first fifty years of 
 the Mission in India. It concerns the 
 missionary interests of the whole 
 Church, and in a sense pertains to all 
 our foreign work. The whole Church 
 should join in thanksgiving, and should 
 lay upon her altars an offering worthy 
 of such an occasion. 
 
 A DESIGNATED DAY OF JUBILEE 
 
 After long and careful inquiry, the 
 second Sunday in May has been selected 
 as the date on which our people are in- 
 vited to hold special missionary services 
 in all their sanctuaries in celebration of 
 this important event in our history. 
 The day should be made one of joy 
 and gladness, and a special thank-offer- 
 ing should be laid upon the altar of 
 every sanctuary. If for local reasons 
 the service cannot be held on the day 
 named, another date may be selected. 
 The several Churches will be permitted 
 to report the amounts given as “special 
 gifts, ” under the rule which governs of- 
 ferings so designated. 
 
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