What Intelligent Men of the 
 
 World Say of Missions 
 
 « 
 
 
 Board of Missions 
 
 Of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South 
 Nashville, Tennessee 
 
What Intelligent Men of the World Say 
 
 of Missions, 
 
 RKV. IvSAAC r. MARTIN, RKRANON, VA. 
 
 S INCt) the Boxer iiioveineiit in China has attracted the attention of the 
 world to that country and given occasion for another attack on the work 
 of missions by a considerable number of secular papers, it has occurred to me 
 that it might be instructive to learn what those persons have to say who have 
 the best Opportunity to know of the great world-movements now in progress, 
 and whose opportunities for observing Christian missions have arisen from 
 commercial or State occupations. As will be seen on examination, I have not 
 admitted anything from missionaries nor from preachers, nor from any one in 
 any direct way connected with missions. 
 
 The estimates of these pages are those of such statesmen as we elect to the 
 Presidency of our great Republic; to such also as we appoint to the most 
 responsible posts of diplomatic service, besides scholars, naval officers, foreign 
 statesmen, governors, heathen statesmen, philosophers, princes, editors, and 
 even kings. The opinions of such men cannot be “whistled down the wind." 
 They go far toward settling the question as to whether Christian missions do 
 good. 
 
 Kx-President Benjamin F. Harrison says mission work “is the most influ¬ 
 ential and enduring work that is being done in this day of great enterprises.’’ 
 
 President William McKinley says: “The story of Christian missions is one 
 of thrilling interest and marvelous results. The sacrifices of the missionaries 
 for their fellowmen constitute one of the most glorious pages of the world’s 
 history. The missionary, of whatever Church or ecclesiastical body, who 
 devotes his life to the service of the Master and of man, carrying the torch of 
 truth and enlightenment, deserves the gratitude and homage of mankind. 
 
 . . . They have made men better, . . . increased the regard for home, have 
 strengthened the sacred ties of family, have made the community well- 
 ordered, and their work has been a potent influence in the development of law 
 and the establishment of government.’’ 
 
 Hon. E. H. Conger, Minister to China, says: “ I desire in this hour of deliv¬ 
 erance to express what I know to be the universal sentiment of our diplo¬ 
 matic corps, our profound gratitude for inestimable help which the native 
 Christians under you have rendered toward our preservation. Without your 
 
What hitelligent JMen of the World Say of JMissions. 
 
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 intelligent and successful planning and the uncomplaining 'execution of the 
 Chinese, I believe our salvation would have been impossible. By your cour¬ 
 teous consideration of me and your continued patience under most trying 
 occasions, I have been most deeply touched, and for it I thank you most 
 heartily. I hope and believe that in God’s unerring plan your sacrifices and 
 danger will be rich fruits in the material and spiritual welfare of people to 
 whom you have so nobly devoted your lives and work.” 
 
 Hon. Charles Denby, United States Minister to China from 1885 to r898, 
 says: “I unqualifiedly, and in the strongest language that tongue can utter, 
 give to these men and women who are living and dying in China and the far 
 East my full and unadulterated commendation. My doctrine is to tell, if I 
 can, the simple truth about them, and when that is known, the caviling, the 
 depreciation, the sneering which too often accompany comments on mission¬ 
 ary work, will disappear, and they will stand before the world, as they ought 
 to stand, as benefactors of the people among whom their lives are spent, and 
 foreruiiners of the commerce of the world.” 
 
 Contrast this with what Colonel Denby said in 1885, when he first came 
 into contact with missionaries in China: “ I am not particularly pro-missionary. 
 These men and women are simply citizens to me as Minister, but as a man I 
 cannot but admire and respect them. . . . These men and women are pious, 
 honest, sincere, industrious, and trained for their work by much arduous 
 stud3^ Outside any religious question, these people are doing a great work of 
 civilizing, educating, and taking care of helpless thousands. They are the 
 forerunners of higher methods and higher morals. I do not address myself 
 to churches, but as a man of the world talking to someone like himself. I 
 think it is difficult to say too much good of the missionary work, even from 
 the standpoint of the skeptic.” 
 
 Minister Denby addressed a letter to Hon. Walter Q. Gresham, Secretary’ of 
 State, on March 25, 1895, from which the following extracts are taken : 
 
 “ SI/': During my recent short stay in the United States so many inquiries 
 were made of me touching Christian missions in China, and the work that 
 they are doing, that I have concluded to send to 3-011 m3- views of this impor¬ 
 tant subject. I beg to premise that my official position causes me to be more 
 guarded in expressing my views than I would otherwise be. I suppose the 
 main, broad, and crucial question touching missionary work in China is, 
 does it do good? This question may properly be divided into two. Uet us 
 look at them separately : 
 
 “ First, does missionary work benefit the Chinese ? I think no one can contro- 
 
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 ll' 7 ial Intellige 7 ii Men of the World Say of Missions. 
 
 vert the patent fact that the Chinese are enormously benefited by the labors of 
 the missionaries in their midst. Foreign hospitals are a great boon to the sick, 
 China, before the advent of the missionary, did not know what surgery was. 
 
 . . . In the matter of education the movement is immense. There are schools 
 and colleges all over China, taught by the missionaries. I have been present 
 often at the exhibitions given by these schools. They show progress in a 
 great degree. The educated Chinaman who speaks English becomes a new 
 man. ... I leave out of this discussion* the religious'benefits conferred by 
 converting Chinese to Christianity. ... I can only say that converts to Chris¬ 
 tianity are numerous. There are many native Christian churches. The con¬ 
 verts seem to be as devoted as people of any other race. 
 
 “ In the second place, let us see whether and how far foreign countries are 
 benefited by missionary work done in China. Missiojiaries are the pioneers 
 of trade and commerce. Civilization, learning, and instruction breed new 
 wants which commerce supplies. . . . Humanity has not devised any better, 
 or even so good, engine of civilizing savage peoples as proselytisni to Chris¬ 
 tianity. The history of the world attests this fact.” 
 
 President James B. Angell, Minister to China from 1880 to 1881, states that 
 “ the immediate provocation of the Chinese officials seems to have been the 
 reform movements of the Emperor in 1898 and the agressive policy of the 
 European powers. The spirit which has animated the Chinese has been pre¬ 
 dominantly anti-foreign rather than anti-Christian. . . . As there are more 
 missionaries in the interior than foreigners of any other class, more demon¬ 
 strations have been made against them than other foreigners. My opinion is 
 that missionary activities alone would not have involved foreign powers in 
 any serious trouble with China.” 
 
 Hon, Geo. F. Seward, former Consul General and subsequently Minister to 
 China from 1876 to 1880, says of missionaries: “They are men of education 
 and judgment. They depend upon spiritual weapons and good works. For 
 every enemy a missionary makes he makes fifty friends. The one enemy may 
 arouse in ignorant rabble to attack him. During my twenty years’ stay in 
 China I always congratulated myself on the fact that the missionaries were 
 there. . . , The good done by the missionaries in the way of education, of 
 medical relief, and of other charities, cannot be overestimated. If in China 
 there were none other influences than missionary, the upbuilding of that great 
 people would go forward securely. I have the profoundest admiration for the 
 missionary as I have known him in China. He is a power for good and peace, 
 not for evil.” 
 
IF/mf Intelligent lien of the IJIortI Say of Missions. 
 
 5 
 
 From these statements of our leading representatives in China ( and they 
 could easily be multiplied) it will appear that those men whose long resi¬ 
 dence gives them opportunity to observe, and whose official responsibility 
 makes their observations doubly sober, give the strongest possible approval 
 to the work of missions in what is admittedly the most difficult of mission 
 fields. 
 
 Hon. John W. Foster, formerly Secretary of State for the United States, and 
 afterwards Consul to the Chinese Government, says : “There is, in my opinion, 
 no reason why mission work in China should be relaxed on account of the 
 recent troubles in that Empire. . . . After two visits to China, five and six 
 ago, I said in public addresses before Christian audiences in various parts of 
 the United States, that I regarded China as the most hopeful.field for mission 
 work in the world. The late disorders, the murders of missionaries, and the 
 destruction of mission property have not changed my opinion. . , . The hope 
 of this people (the Chinese) and its government is Christianity.” 
 
 Hon. John W. Barrett, late Minister to Siam, says : “The King of Siam, who 
 is admittedly one of the ablest statesmen in Asia, once said to me that the 
 American missionaries had done more to advance the welfare of his country 
 and people than any other foreign influence. From careful study of the scope 
 of missionary labor, not only in Siam, bnt in China and Japan, during a 
 period of nearly six years, I am convinced that the missionaries are doing a 
 great and good work for the advancement of both the moral and material 
 interests of these Asiatic lands. Let us therefore be fair in judging the mis¬ 
 sionaries.” 
 
 On October 20, 1900, Mr. Barrett, writing for The Outlook, after frankly 
 admitting that he went to the far East with a prejudice against missionaries, 
 says: “ I came away convinced beyond question that if the results of their 
 efforts through long years could be carefully weighed in the balance of public 
 opinion, a larger majority of our people would earnestly espouse the contin¬ 
 uance of missionary effort everywhere in Asia. ... It is well to note that 
 nearly every minister and consul of the United States who has lived many 
 years in Asia, and therefore has been brought’ in closest contact with the 
 missionaries and their work, where he could study all the details of it, conies 
 home more favorably disposed toward them than he was when he began his 
 duties.” 
 
 Lord Harris, Governor of Bombay, India, has said : “ I do not think I can too 
 prominently say that our gratitude to the American Marathin Mission has 
 been piling up and piling up all the years of this century, ... I take this 
 
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 lV//a^ Inielligeiit Men of the World Say of Missions. 
 
 opportunity of conveying, on behalf of the Government of Bombay, our most 
 grateful thanks for the assistance the people of the United States are render¬ 
 ing the Government in pushing forward the cause of education in India.” 
 
 Sir Chas. U. Atchison, Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, in a letter 
 written in consequence of a statement in the book of an American naturalist, 
 who had spent some time in India looking for wild animals, and not for native 
 Christians, makes this strong statement: “Any one who writes that Indian 
 officials as a class have no faith in the work of missionaries as a civilizing and 
 Christianizing agency in India must be either ignorant of the facts or under 
 the influence of a very blind prejudice. . . . Missionary teaching and Chris¬ 
 tian literature are leavening native opinion, especially among the Hindoos, in 
 a way and to an extent quite startling to those who take a little personal 
 trouble to investigate the facts. 
 
 Sir Richard Temple sa3"s of the native Christians of Southern India; “ 
 conversation with them impressed me with their simple and absolute fidelity, 
 their lo}^al feeling toward their European pastors, their resolute desire to 
 transmit the faith unimpaired to their children. I never heard but one 
 opinion from magistrates, civil officers, and independent observers; namely 
 this, that these people are well behaved, law-abiding, free from crime, tem¬ 
 perate, harmless. That they never cause scandals to arise, never apostatize, 
 never compromise themselves with idolatrous practices, and yet never engage 
 in feuds or even disputes with their heathen neighbors. As for their inner 
 life—let any one who is acquainted with the practical ethics of Hindooism, not 
 as gathered from sacred writings and accessible only to the learned, but as 
 displa^-ed in the conduct of public worship and the effect of private example 
 —contrast this with the pure belief and the virtuous instruction under which 
 they now live. We will then find it impossible to doubt the enormous effects, 
 morallj^ and spiritually, produced by Christianity on their minds and hearts. 
 The conduct of the native Christians is good, and worthy of the faith which 
 they profess.” 
 
 Sir Bartte Frere, formerl}’ Governor of Bombay, said in a lecture delivered 
 in London: “I speak simply as to matters of experience and observation, and 
 not of opinion; just as a Roman prefect might have reported to Trojan or the 
 Antonine; and I assure you that, whatever you may be told to the contrary, 
 the teaching of Christianity among the millions of Hindoos and Mohammed¬ 
 ans in India is effecting changes, moral, social, and political, which for extent 
 and rapidity of effect are far more extraordinary than anything which you or 
 your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe.” 
 
\V/iai Intelligent Jl/en of the World .S^i' of Missions. 
 
 7 
 
 Sir Charles PHliott, Governor of Bengal, ruling seventy millions of people 
 in India, said in London: “ I make bold to say if missions did not exist it 
 would be onr duty to invent them.” 
 
 An English Blue Book (which is the official report of Parliament) contains 
 these strong words: “The Government of India cannot but acknowledge the 
 great obligation under which it is laid by the benevolent work of these six 
 hundred missionaries whose blameless example and self-denying labors are 
 infusing new vigor into the stereotyped life of the great population placed 
 under English ride, and are preparing them to be in every way better men 
 and better citizens of the great empire in which they live.” 
 
 The testimony of intelligent Hindoos, who, while yet heathens, have seen 
 the influence of Christianity as it has been exerted in India, corroborates 
 that of the English statesmen cited above, as may be seen from the following : 
 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, the founder of the Bramo-Somaj, a Hindoo society, 
 the organization of which Prof. Max Muller declared to be one of the most 
 momentous movements of the century, says: “It is Christ who rules British 
 India, and not the British Government.” 
 
 Prince Travancore, of India, said: “Of one thing I am convinced do what 
 we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christian’s Bible which sooner or later 
 will regenerate this land. Marvelous has been the effect of Christianity in 
 the moral moulding and leavening of Europe. I am not a Christian ; I do not 
 accept the cardinal tenets of Christianity as they concern man in the next 
 world; but I accept the Christian ethics in their entirety ; I have the highest 
 admiration for them.” 
 
 An old Hindoo gentleman said to Doctor Penticost a few years ago, when 
 that gentleman was visiting India: “I shall never be a Christian, but shall 
 die a Hindoo; but I have no doubt my grandchildren will all become 
 Christians.” 
 
 The Hindoo., a leading Hindoo paper, published in South India, said: “We 
 recently approved the statement of a Bombay paper, that the social emi¬ 
 nence which Parsees so deservedly enjoy at the present moment was due to 
 these two causes: that their women are well educated, and they are bound by 
 no restrictions of caste. These two advantages make themselves felt among 
 our native Christian brethren, and it is probable they will soon be the Parsees 
 of Southern India. They will furnish the most distinguished public servants, 
 barristers, merchants, and citizens among the various classes of the native 
 community.” 
 
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 ly/ni/ [iitclliii'cnt ]\Fcn of the IJh^r/d Say of iMissious. 
 
 Prof. \V. M. Ramsay, of Aberdeen University, who has spent twelve years 
 in archeological studies in Turkey, says : “ Beginning with a prejudice against 
 their (missionaries’) work, I was driven by the force of facts and experience to 
 the opinion that the mission has been the strongest as well as the most 
 beneficent influence in causing the nioveinent toward civilization which has 
 been perceptible among all the people of Turkey.” He speaks of “the 
 great educational organization which the American missionaries have built 
 np in Turkey with admirable foresight and skill.” 
 
 Commander Benjamin F. Tilley, first Governor of American Samoa, says: 
 “Nearly every inhabitant of Manna is a professing Christian, and all the 
 hillsides resound morning and evening wdtli hymns of praise to God. While 
 many people scoff at the work of the missionaries, I say without hesitation 
 that they have done a wonderful and noble work among the natives of the 
 South Seas, and through God’s help have practically converted the whole of 
 the Samoans.” 
 
 Hon. William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, says: 
 “In the district of Alaska, whose educational system is under the charge of 
 the Bureau of Education, we find the mission stations the only effective 
 centers for any efforts looking to the education of the natives and their 
 assimilation with onr own.” 
 
 Rear Admiral George E. Bellknap, United States Navy, says: “ I assert it to 
 be a fact beyond contradiction, that there is not a ruler, official, merchant, or 
 any other person, from emperors, viceroys, governors, judges, generals, 
 counselors, ministers, admirals, and others down to the lowest coolies in China 
 and Japan, Siam and Korea, who in their association or dealings with their 
 fellow men in that quarter of the globe, are not indebted every day of their 
 lives to work and achievements of the American missionaries.” 
 
 “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying. All power is given unto me 
 in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 
 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded yon: 
 and, lo, I am with 5mu always, even unto the end of the world.” 
 (Matt, xxviii. 18-20.) 
 
 “ But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Gost is come upon yon : 
 and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
 Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts i. 8.) 
 
 “ The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the IvOrd, as the waters cover 
 the sea.” (Isa. xi. 9.)