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 IMPRESSION^W 
 SOUTHERN ASIA 
 
 AN INTERVIEW WITH 
 BISHOP WILLIAM F. McDOWELL 
 
 BISHOP AND MRS. McDOWELL SPENT FOUR 
 MONTHS (DECEMBER, 1910, TO MARCH, 1911) 
 IN INDIA, MALAYSIA, AND THE PHILIPPINES. 
 THE OCCASION WAS THE QUADRENNIAL 
 VISIT TO SOUTHERN ASIA OF A GENERAL 
 SUPERINTENDENT. THIS INTERVIEW WITH 
 THE BISHOP WAS HAD IMMEDIATELY ON 
 HIS RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 150 FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK CITY 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF SOUTHERN ASIA 
 
 You have made the tour of all the Southern Asia 
 Conferences. What have been your dominant 
 impressions ? 
 
 I am convinced of India’s absolute need of Chris- 
 tianity and the utter inability of her own religions to 
 bring her people redemption or new life. Over and 
 over one keeps saying, There is no other name. I 
 am impressed by the quality and the quantity of the 
 work already done by Christianity in India. This 
 is indicated both by Christianity’s numerical strength 
 (Protestantism now numbering at least a million people) 
 and by Christianity’s tremendous influence upon the 
 moral, religious, intellectual, social, political, and per- 
 sonal standards and ideals of India. The early history 
 of the church in the Roman Empire and in the con- 
 quest of Europe has many parallels in India to-day. 
 It is easy to say that our converts are mostly from 
 the outcasts, and it is easy to regret that fact, but the 
 pervasive influence of Christianity has gone through 
 all strata — the hard strata of Indian life — until the 
 whole life has already been affected by it. 
 
 Another dominant impression is the solidity and 
 apparent permanence of Christianity as one of the 
 recognized religions of India. It is no longer ignored. 
 It is not yet triumphant, but it is established. 
 
 Another dominant impression is that the task of con- 
 quest has only begun, is to be harder before it is 
 finished, and cannot be successfuly performed by the 
 2 
 
agencies and energies now employed by the Christian 
 churches at work in India. Mohammedanism in India 
 is powerful, active, popular, and aggressive. Hinduism 
 is having a real and widespread revival or reawakening. 
 It is not true to-day that the altars of heathenism are 
 crumbling, her temples neglected, and no new shrines 
 being built. In at least two great cities the most con- 
 spicuous building enterprises visible from tall buildings 
 are new mosques. The methods of Christianity are 
 being copied and adopted, features of Christian civili- 
 zation are being taken up, the language of Christianity 
 is being used, with the heart of Christianity left out. 
 Just as in China one hears of a Confucio-Christianity, 
 so one hears in India of an Indo-Christianity. And 
 this is not the pure eastern Christianity of the first 
 century, the Christianity of Christ. It is a paganized, 
 Hinduized Christianity far removed from the religion 
 of Jesus Christ. Hinduism has immense capacity for 
 extinction by absorption and for destruction by per- 
 version, and this capacity is at work on Christianity 
 in India. The Samaj movements are not in the in- 
 terest of a true pure type of Christianity. In view 
 of certain reactions and the revival of non-Christian 
 influences, the immense awakening of mighty Moham- 
 medanism, and its powerful appeal to the Eastern mind, 
 one cannot resist the impression that the great work 
 of Christianity in India is yet to be done. The 
 church at home must not demand or expect the impos- 
 sible of the young church in that vast and varied 
 empire. A course in early church history would be 
 good for Mission Study classes just now. 
 
 Another dominant impression is that new emphasis 
 must be laid upon the training of Christian leaders — 
 men and women — on the field. We have reached the 
 point where a mighty native leader, educated and con- 
 secrated, is imperatively needed in every important center. 
 We must not train fewer workers, but must train more 
 leaders. We can go on as we are going by doing 
 3 
 
 as 
 
we are doing, but the excellent work we have done 
 compels an immeasurably better work than we have 
 ever done. The leadership of India will pass into 
 the hands of educated Indians, who will lead both 
 the educated and the uneducated classes. Uneducated 
 Indians cannot do it. Educated Americans and Euro- 
 peans cannot do it. Educated Indians will do it. Shall 
 that educated leadership be Christian or non-Christian? 
 That is the whole question. Mass movements among 
 the outcasts make educated Christian leadership im- 
 perative. Mohammedans and Hindus see this clearly. 
 They will provide — are providing — the institutions of 
 higher learning and are filling them. The most active 
 educational movement of the year has been the endow- 
 ment of the Mohammedan College at Aligarh as a 
 tribute to the new king-emperor and a feature of the 
 durbar! Will the Christian Church be wise in the 
 day of its opportunity? Ten years from to-day our 
 native ministry in India ought to have at least a 
 hundred men in it who are graduates of college and 
 theological seminary. To-day in all India we have 
 one. I never have had such a conviction as to the 
 value and the necessity of higher Christian education 
 as India has given me. This is the test and proof of 
 its excellence. Every good work done requires that 
 better work shall follow it. 
 
 Another dominant impression is that the field 
 is undermanned, that our present force is inade- 
 quate, that our missionaries are compelled to 
 spend too much time and strength obtaining 
 money to carry on their own work, that this 
 constant strain upon them in large part takes 
 them out of, and unfits them for, their own highest 
 and best, most direct missionary service, and that 
 the Kingdom of God in India would be made glad 
 if all “ special givers” at home should send word 
 to all missionaries that they need not write any 
 more appeals for ten years, and that all “ special 
 4 
 
gifts ” would be continued for ten years and 
 increased ten per cent each year, so that the 
 missionaries could be missionaries instead of part 
 missionary and part agonized and burdened 
 solicitors of funds. More than one confessed to 
 me that he gave half his strength to the task of 
 raising special gifts. And yet these are the men 
 most competent to lead India’s hosts and to guide 
 the young church aright. And the need of 
 missionary leadership was never so great and its 
 opportunity never so promising. More than once 
 as these men told me of their hundreds of letters 
 and their anxieties I said in my heart, “Loose 
 them and let them go.’’ 
 
 Another dominant impression which made glad my 
 heart was the impression made upon me by certain 
 native ministers and native Christians. I looked for 
 the types I had heard William Butler speak of years 
 ago and found them — found them in beauty and strength 
 of Christian life, experience, and character. No one 
 could meet some of the men and women we saw and 
 ever doubt again the power of the Gospel of Christ 
 in the life of a modern Indian. In a certain village 
 one early morning Mrs. McDowell was attracted by the 
 faces of certain women, who looked different from 
 the others — they had light and character in their faces. 
 She asked who they were and was told at once: “They 
 are Christians of the second generation." The Hindu- 
 ism of the centuries has not produced anything to 
 equal certain men whose names leap to my lips, and 
 whose faces rise before me, sons of outcasts who have 
 become sons of God — lit to stand before kings. 
 
 Another dominant impression was made by the mani- 
 fest success of our work in India. The missionaries 
 will easily recall criticisms I freely made when with 
 them, criticisms of past mistakes and present errors as 
 they seemed to me. But making all abatements neces- 
 sary to be made, I record my deliberate conviction 
 5 
 
that our mission in India has achieved under God a 
 success far beyond all legitimate human expectations, 
 and possibly the largest success of any of our foreign 
 missions. The vision of what God has enabled us 
 to do is enough to make any man shout for joy. And 
 I did it more than once — sometimes over the work of 
 men with whose policies I disagree. The hand of 
 God has led our church in India. 
 
 How much of our work in Eastern Asia were 
 you able to inspect ? 
 
 All that I have said relates to India. My assignment 
 took me to Malaysia and the Philippines, and our 
 journey after the Conferences were over took us to 
 China, Japan, and Korea, and Honolulu. 
 
 The work in Malaysia is most interesting and, as it 
 seems to me, exceedingly promising. The industrial de- 
 velopments in the various parts of Malaysia are rapid 
 and significant. It is one of the regions where they 
 are in need of and seeking population. Many millions 
 of China’s enormous multitude will find a home some- 
 where in Malaysia. Our church is working on states- 
 manlike lines to meet and master the conditions there, 
 some of them rapidly changing. We had a visit during 
 the Conference from two Chinese gentlemen from out 
 in Java, sent by their local Chamber of Commerce, 
 who came asking us to send them two school teachers 
 to establish Christian schools in their city. And they 
 were most careful to tell us that they would themselves 
 meet all the expenses, including salaries. All they 
 wanted was the teachers. 
 
 It is not easy to restrain one’s enthusiasm over our 
 work in the Philippines. Possibly being under the 
 Stars and Stripes again after many months had some- 
 thing to do with stirring our feelings. 
 
 What our government has done in the brief years 
 of our occupancy is enough to make every American 
 proud. The American schoolhouse is the new symbol 
 6 
 
in the Island. There as at home America believes in 
 popular education. 
 
 What the American churches have done is enough 
 to set an American to singing doxologies and national 
 airs. There is a careful territorial agreement between 
 the churches so that the work does not overlap. There 
 is a fine spirit also between them, resulting in admirable 
 co-operation and consequent influence for Protestantism. 
 
 We held the Conference at Mexico in the Province 
 of Pampanga, a beautiful session held in the converted 
 theater presented to the Church by our splendid breth- 
 ren, the Cunanan brothers, who entertained all the mis- 
 sionaries at their own table through the session. On 
 Sunday the whole town celebrated the tenth anniversary 
 of the coming of Protestantism to the town. The two 
 most striking “floats” in the parade were a Bible chained 
 and padlocked on one table and an open Bible radiant 
 with light on another. 
 
 The Philippine Islands University will be built at 
 once in Manila. The Christian churches should at 
 once provide ample hostels to take care of their own 
 young people and should unite to build in Manila a 
 union Christian College powerful and commanding in 
 its equipment and faculty and thoroughly Christian in 
 its tone. No one denomination can do it in strength — 
 such strength as to command the situation. Such an 
 institution should be as good as the government’s own 
 in its collegiate work, plus the spirit and presence of 
 Christ. 
 
 The work of the American churches in the Philippines 
 has a significance and importance for the East quite 
 beyond the size of that work itself, just as the work 
 in Hawaii has. In these Islands the work of the 
 American churches, under the American flag, is an 
 exhibition to the Orient. Countries like China and 
 Japan are both interested in seeing what we do under 
 such conditions. There is a double necessity for doing 
 it well. 
 
 7 
 
In the Philippines, as in China, Korea, and Japan, it 
 was more than a joy to meet that splendid layman from 
 Brooklyn, Frank L. Brown, who was representing 
 the International Sunday School Association and oui 
 own Board of Sunday Schools in services of the highest 
 value. In all these countries the Sunday school is a 
 genuinely live institution. In the Philippines the Rev. 
 Harry Farmer will hereafter give half his time to 
 Sunday school work, the Board of Foreign Missions and 
 the Board of Sunday Schools dividing his salary be- 
 tween them. 
 
 Have your convictions deepened as to the 
 quality of missionaries needed in our various 
 fields ? 
 
 How can one fail to have his convictions deepen on 
 that point as he sees the difficulties on the field? Lord 
 Salisbury wrote Lord Roberts when he wanted that 
 great soldier to go to South Africa: “We are finding 
 out that this war depends on the generals." This work 
 calls for the best the Church has to offer. How many 
 men on the field said to me, sometimes with tears, always 
 with intensity: “Send us the best men you can get!" 
 More than one with a noble record of devotion and 
 achievement said: “Send better men than we are — 
 the work calls for better men every year. It is one 
 of the sure tests of our work that it always compels 
 better work than ours to be done. We are not doing 
 well unless those who come after us are compelled to 
 do better. The machinery of missions calls for more 
 competent engineers every year.” So men on the field 
 spoke over and over again. The whole matter on the 
 human side of it hinges on the quality of the missionary, 
 Tire selection and training of missionaries should every- 
 where be put upon the wisest and most adequate basis. 
 
 Will the mission field best profit by an increase 
 in the number of missionaries with general 
 qualifications, adaptable for any phase of the 
 
 8 
 
work, or should we send an increasing number of 
 men and women exceptionally qualified for par- 
 ticular duties ? 
 
 Both. Just as at home there is always abundant room 
 for men of general ability, provided it is of high order, 
 a mission should always have men whom it can use 
 in almost any place. Men are few and must do many 
 things. A mission made up wholly of specialists would 
 be badly handicapped. And a mission without special- 
 ists cannot do its work. Education particularly requires 
 more and more that men shall be specially prepared 
 for it. Government makes that necessary even if there 
 were no other influences at work. But in other fields 
 the same demand exists. The work of Brenton Badley 
 for the Epworth League has already justified his appoint- 
 ment and will increasingly do so according to present 
 outlook. The next special appointments I would make 
 for India would be two specialists for Sunday school 
 work, and one specialist to be educational secretary, to 
 do for India what Dr. Gamewell is doing for China. 
 We have two thirds of all the Sunday school enroll- 
 ment of India. It is an immense field. Our educational 
 institutions of all classes need correlating and unifying 
 and standardizing and the touch of a master hand. 
 The organization of our schools into a system, the treat- 
 ment of our educational work as a whole, the adjust- 
 ment of one part of it according to wise policy to the 
 system as a whole, this should be done at once. An 
 educational statesman would have an immense field in 
 India and an almost unsurpassed opportunity to do 
 a monumental work. He would find all ready to his 
 hand a noble lot of schools, fine and strong, waiting 
 only to be organized into such a system as would compel 
 all India's admiration. And Methodism can do this 
 kind of thing. Anything else is un-Methodistic. 
 
 Is Methodism going to make its largest con- 
 tribution to the Christianization of Asia by seeking 
 
 9 
 
on that continent to gather together an Asiatic 
 “people called Methodists,” or by an emphasis 
 on universal values to work toward the establish- 
 ment of national churches in India, China, etc. ? 
 
 I can speak only of India, having seen so small a 
 part of China and Japan. The denominational em- 
 phasis in India as in America must always be upon the 
 denomination as a means to the establishment of the 
 kingdom. Methodism has no mission anywhere simply 
 to gather together a “people called Methodists.” But 
 her proper emphasis upon universal values is not made 
 anywhere by striking her own note feebly, but by striking 
 it harmoniously; harmoniously with the note of universal 
 values and with all other churches playing the same 
 tune. That is the general statement. That there must 
 be a new co-operation on the field is a modem common- 
 place. That there is more of it already on the field than 
 at home is doubtless true. But the hint of a national 
 church in India compels me to say that I do not find 
 evidence that the church in India is anywhere near 
 ready to plan for such a thing. The conditions for a 
 national church in India simply do not now exist and 
 will not, I fear, for a long time yet. 
 
 You know the home church and you have now 
 traveled widely among our Asiatic fields. Where, 
 in your judgment, is the crux of the problem of 
 Methodism to-day, in the matter of meeting its 
 full responsibility to the non-Christian world ? 
 
 There is rarely a complicated and vast enterprise 
 like the missionary cause that depends or chiefly de- 
 pends upon any one thing, however important. There 
 are not many of these problems that can be solved 
 by a single word, or situations that can be opened by 
 a skeleton key. We could do our work much more 
 easily if the system of the skeleton key could be applied. 
 I have not found that it can. I would say that the crux 
 of the problem is not our machinery, nor our cash box, 
 10 
 
nor our missionaries, but the perfect adjustment ancf 
 use of the total power of the church, under God’s 
 Spirit, to the total task of the church. 
 
 It goes without saying that among the very 
 greatest needs are those for funds and reinforce- 
 ments. But do you return with any new convic- 
 tions about how these needs can be met from 
 the home base ? 
 
 I have been steadily studying the foreign field during 
 the seven months since leaving home, and have not 
 been studying the home base. I return, however, with 
 a deepened sense of the value of the organized work 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions as distinguished from 
 all individual and independent operations. And in re- 
 sponse to your question I can only give the general 
 answer that the Board as the connecting agency between 
 the field at home and the force on the field abroad 
 should be strengthened in every way. It should have 
 in its hand the appeal of the general cause and the 
 charm of the special causes. The cheapest, best, most 
 correlated and permanent missionary work I have seen 
 is the work directed and supported by Boards like 
 our own. Of course the state of the church at home 
 determines the fate of the church abroad. The condi- 
 tion of the heart affects all the extremities. And I do 
 not mean the simple willingness to give money. I 
 mean particularly the ability to give life. For long, 
 long yet the heart at home must be supplying blood to 
 the far extremities. 
 
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