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 Why Foreign Missions Cannot 
 Retrench on Account of the War 
 
 By Arthur Judson Brown 
 
 1. Because the work has been built up 
 through a long series of years and cannot 
 be hurriedly adjusted to temporary condi- 
 tions in America. A mill can be shut down 
 for a while or run at half capacity and re- 
 turn at any time to full operation ; but not 
 a long and laboriously developed mission 
 work in non-Christian lands. The Board’s 
 business has not fallen off, but is greater 
 than ever. This year’s obligations were 
 fixed, within the limit authorized by the 
 General Assembly’s Executive Commission, 
 months before the European War broke out 
 and commitments were made that could not 
 be recalled after nearly half of the fiscal 
 year had passed. 
 
 2. Because missionaries have been sent 
 out by the Church for life, and cannot be 
 discharged as a merchant can discharge a 
 clerk. The faith and honor of the Church 
 are involved. 
 
 3. Because it would be extravagant to 
 dismiss them. An employee in America 
 can be easily replaced, but a missionary is 
 
a highly trained and carefully selected man, 
 transported at heavy cost to the other side 
 of the world, and maintained for three 
 years of study of language and people be- 
 fore he can begin his real work. When he 
 has acquired experience, he represents an 
 investment in money and a developed value 
 for work which it would be wasteful to 
 throw away and later begin all over again 
 with new men. 
 
 4. Because there would be no present 
 saving, but on the contrary additional ex- 
 penditure in recalling missionaries, as they 
 and their families would have to be brought 
 home at large expense. 
 
 5. Because our 73 hospitals, our board- 
 ing schools for the blind and for deaf 
 mutes, and our asylum for the insane are 
 full of helpless sick and afflicted people who 
 need our care and whom it would be cruelty 
 to abandon. 
 
 6. Because our 16 colleges, 87 acade- 
 mies, 1,526 primary and intermediate 
 schools, 59 kindergartens, 115 schools of 
 other kinds, including normal, medical, 
 nurses’, theological and Bible-training 
 schools, and 2,773 Sunday-Schools are full 
 of students who represent a great mission- 
 ary opportunity, and on which we are de- 
 pendent for the future supply of native 
 preachers and teachers. It would be an 
 
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enormous loss of influence and prestige and 
 almost a death blow to the Church of the 
 future to turn them out either to a life of 
 ignorance or to go to anti-Christian schools 
 where they would be educated away from 
 Christ instead of towards Him. 
 
 7. Because the work is now conducted 
 in the most economical way consistent with 
 efficiency. The administrative expenditures 
 of the Board last year were 3.64%, and 
 including other disbursements in America 
 required by the General Assembly and the 
 propaganda among the home churches 
 2.81% more, a total of only 6.45%, which 
 is believed to be the lowest percentage of 
 any large missionary board in the world, 
 and which experienced business men have 
 repeatedly told us is remarkably low as com- 
 pared with business corporations. Indeed 
 a British missionary director has criticized 
 our Board for being too economical in its 
 administrative expenditures. On the field, 
 the general fact is expressed by the mis- 
 sionary who writes : “We have considered 
 the question of reducing expenses from all 
 sides and can see no way of retrenching 
 unless we stop work, for we have been car- 
 rying on this Mission with the least possible 
 expense.” 
 
 8. Because as a result of many years of 
 toil, our mission work has attained a mo- 
 
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mentum that would make retrenchment, or 
 even restriction to the present scale, a dis- 
 aster from which it could not recover for 
 years. The following table will show the 
 advance during the last decade : 
 
 
 
 Per 
 
 cent, of 
 
 
 1904 
 
 1914 
 
 Increase 
 
 Foreign Missionaries... 
 
 837 
 
 1,226 
 
 46% 
 
 Native force 
 
 2,160 
 
 5,766 
 
 160 
 
 Organized churches . . . 
 
 400 
 
 728 
 
 82 
 
 Communicants 
 
 50,172 
 
 133,713 
 
 160 
 
 Schools 
 
 823 
 
 1,781 
 
 116 
 
 Pupils 
 
 27,009 
 
 64,687 
 
 140 
 
 Sundav-school scholars. 
 
 49,745 
 
 154,139 
 
 210 
 
 Hospitals 
 
 43 
 
 73 
 
 70 
 
 Dispensaries 
 
 59 
 
 100 
 
 70 
 
 Receipts on field for 
 
 
 
 
 congregational, edu- 
 
 
 
 
 cational and med- 
 
 
 
 
 ical expenses 
 
 $117,355 
 
 $560,195 
 
 377 
 
 Per capita 
 
 $2.34 
 
 $4.18 
 
 79 
 
 Receipts at home from 
 
 
 
 
 all sources $1,068,118 
 
 $2,171,260 
 
 130 
 
 Per capita 
 
 $.90 
 
 $1.49 
 
 66 
 
 It will be noted 
 
 that the 
 
 income 
 
 of the 
 
 Board in this period increased 100%. This 
 is very gratifying, but is it not still more 
 gratifying that the work on the foreign 
 field increased at an average rate of 117%? 
 Our present problem therefore is not one of 
 failure, but of splendid success; the prob- 
 lem of inducing the home Church to keep 
 up with the march of the Kingdom of God 
 on the foreign field. 
 
 9. Because the European War has in- 
 volved the Board in extraordinary expendi- 
 tures which must be met, increasing the cost 
 of hospital supplies, money exchange, tra- 
 vel, prices of staple commodities, calling 
 for the relief of missionaries of European 
 
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Boards whose supplies have been cut off by 
 the war, destroying mission property at some 
 of our stations where the war has involved 
 fighting, and at the same time affecting 
 our income at home by leading givers to be 
 more than ordinarily conservative and by 
 the absorption of popular interest in the 
 worthy efforts to relieve suffering in Eu- 
 rope. Every missionary worker is eager 
 to have all possible help given to war suf- 
 ferers ; but to divert missionary contribu- 
 tions is not to give honestly, as such gifts 
 are really made at the expense of mis- 
 sionaries. Manifestly, too, pledges for a 
 budget made before the war was known 
 will not suffice for the extraordinary condi- 
 tions which the war has created. 
 
 10. Because the home Church is amply 
 able to maintain its foreign missionary 
 work at full strength and to enlarge it even 
 at this time. The derangement of business 
 is bringing temporary loss of income to 
 many persons, but it is bringing increased 
 business to others, while large elements of 
 the population, especially in the agricultural 
 districts and in the Middle and Western 
 States, are unusually prosperous. There is 
 no valid reason for believing that the finan- 
 cial ability of the Church as a whole has 
 been permanently impaired or that it is 
 likely to be. 
 
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11. Because even if American Christ- 
 ians were much poorer than they are, gifts 
 to foreign missions form such a tiny pro- 
 portion of their incomes that it is absurd 
 to urge that it is necessary to lessen them 
 on account of the war or of any financial 
 disturbance. These gifts to our Board 
 from living sources last year were $1,694,- 
 464, an average of only $1.16 per member. 
 Will any one seriously allege that doubling 
 this amount would have the slightest appre- 
 ciable effect upon the income of the average 
 Presbyterian ? And yet doubling it would 
 wipe out the deficit, pay the war emer- 
 gency expenditures, and meet all the obli- 
 gations of the year. Some people are ask- 
 ing, “Why not use your legacies?” Under 
 the rule of the Assembly and the Board, we 
 are using annually $100,000 from legacies 
 and the interest on the remainder and on 
 the permanent funds of the Board. In addi- 
 tion, the Board is applying, as it applied 
 last year with the approval of the General 
 Assembly, as much of the Kennedy bequest 
 as it is deemed prudent and right to employ 
 in the work of a given year. Our annual 
 budget takes these resources into considera- 
 tion and still leaves $1,850,000 which 
 must be secured from churches, Sunday- 
 Schools, Women’s Societies, Young Peo- 
 ple’s Societies, and individuals, if we are 
 to cancel the deficit and meet the obli- 
 
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gations for the year even without making 
 the necessary enlargements contemplated by 
 the Board and approved by the Executive 
 Commission at the beginning of the year. 
 It would be wrong in itself and it would 
 have a dangerous effect upon living testa- 
 tors if it were known that the Board used 
 the legacies of the honored and beloved 
 dead, some of whom made them with 
 knowledge that the Board’s policy was that 
 any sum beyond the $100,000 referred to 
 would be used for the strengthening of the 
 work — it would, we say, be wrong in itself 
 and disastrous in its influence to use leg- 
 acies to make good the failure of the living 
 Church. The deficit which the Board is 
 now carrying is primarily due to the fact 
 that the churches last year fell short of the 
 amount which the Executive Commission 
 and the General Assembly and the Board 
 believed at the beginning of the year that it 
 was reasonable to expect them to give and 
 on the basis of which the Executive Com- 
 mission and the General Assembly author- 
 ized the Board to project its work. The 
 way out of this difficulty is not to depend 
 upon the dead, but upon the living. 
 
 12. Because the Church should emulate 
 the example of Christians of former days. 
 
 I Several of the British missionary societies 
 were founded in the period of the French 
 
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Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. The 
 Baptist Missionary Society of Great Britain 
 made some of its most notable advances 
 during the Crimean and Boer Wars. Some 
 of the strongest societies in America were 
 formed in war times. The foreign mission- 
 ary work of at least one of the Churches 
 in our Southern States was started in the 
 darkest days of the American Civil War. 
 While the contributions to the northern mis- 
 mionary societies fell off during the first 
 years of the struggle, they regained their 
 former standard before the war closed, and 
 in some cases exceeded it. Without ques- 
 tion, American Christians of to-day can 
 equal the devotion and self-sacrifice of 
 Christians of former days. No concession 
 therefore should be made to a spirit of 
 retreat, but the Church should be confident- 
 ly expected to address itself with new vigor 
 to the supreme necessities of the hour. 
 
 13. Because the Church needs the stim- 
 ulus of heroic effort and sacrificial giving. 
 There are enormous latent resources in the 
 Church which have hardly been touched by 
 the giving thus far. In the words of 
 Phillips Brooks, “It is not keeping expenses 
 down, but keeping faith and enthusiasm up 
 that gives a clear balance.” 
 
 14. Because the world conditions precip- 
 itated by the war summon the Church to 
 
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make its message to men everywhere more 
 strong and compelling, to make Christianity 
 a more vital and virile force, a religion 
 which will affect the whole man, so that 
 he will govern not only his private life but 
 his business relations and his duties of citi- 
 zenship in accordance with the principles of 
 Jesus. This is not a time to weaken the 
 force of the Christian message by failing 
 to support the work of the Church. 
 
 15. Because foreign missions is the anti- 
 thesis of war, standing for everything in the 
 relations of different peoples which would 
 make war between them impossible, recog- 
 nizing that whatever the superficial differ- 
 ences, there is in the sight of God only one 
 race and that is the human race, and that 
 men ought to love one another and help 
 one another and not regard one another as 
 rivals or enemies. The missionary enter- 
 prise, therefore, stands for world brother- 
 hood and world peace. The only hope of 
 preventing the recurrence of this dreadful 
 war, the only hope for the future is in the 
 universal triumph of this principle. 
 
 16. Because the opportunity in non- 
 Christian lands for which the Church has 
 long hoped and prayed and toiled and to 
 which devoted pioneer missionaries conse- 
 crated their lives and saw afar by faith has 
 now come. The world is at last open to the 
 
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Gospel and ready to hear it. Shall we allow 
 the voice of that Gospel to be drowned by 
 the tumult of warring nations? Shall we 
 not rather make it clearer than ever before? 
 The “Continent” has well said that “the ter- 
 rific world-crisis now fallen on the nations 
 challenges the universal Church as no other 
 situation in the history of the past 400 
 years. The conjoint exhibit of moral fail- 
 ure, moral need and moral opportunity in 
 the military tragedy to-day convulsing hu- 
 manity calls Christians to a supreme test 
 of how much they believe in Christ and 
 how much they will dare and do to make 
 him King and Peacemaker over this dis- 
 tracted earth. If the Church ever intends 
 to vindicate its name among men as the 
 champion of a pure and peaceable religion 
 of heavenly power, now is the time when it 
 must move forward with consecration sur- 
 passing all it has shown before. Now is the 
 hour for sacrifice, for devotion that costs, 
 for fidelities unflinching and unlimited. The 
 reason why the knowledge of the Lord 
 must cover the earth as the waters cover 
 the sea is now evident as never before. 
 Nothing less than literal saturation with 
 religion will save the world from such out- 
 breaks as now bathe it in blood. Thin- 
 spread, nominal Christianity is a demon- 
 strated failure. Nothing but the uttermost 
 insistency and persistency of Christians for 
 
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the rights and will of their Master can be 
 worthy of their calling and allegiance in 
 this critical juncture of human life. If 
 the earth is to be covered deep with the 
 knowledge of the Lord, the matter to care 
 for first is that the tide shall not be allowed 
 to ebb away from the fields where it now 
 prevails. Recession anywhere now in any 
 religious work would verge on treason.” 
 
 If the Presbyterian Church is to main- 
 tain this position, the Board of Foreign 
 Missions will require for the Deficit carried 
 over from last year the sum of $292,150, 
 for the regular work of this year, which 
 was well under way months before the war 
 was known, $1,859,321. To these sums 
 must be added about $100,000 for the War 
 Emergency Fund — a total of $2,251,471. 
 Manifestly, the ordinary scale of giving will 
 not cover this. Will you not make yours 
 an extraordinary one? The fiscal year is 
 rapidly passing. Will each reader of this 
 leaflet immediately send some gift to Mr. 
 Dwight H. Day, Treasurer of the Board 
 of Foreign Missions, 156 Fifth Avenue, 
 New York City. Mention your church or 
 society, and credit will be given to it. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Form No. 2229 
 
 December 1 , 1°14