RaotlBook fop Pastors Passion Week Self-Denial for ISSUED BY Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church 150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY ERRATA PAGE FOURTEEN. In the fourth paragraph the figures under 1915 include 23,239 adherents.* The line should read: 1915—21,151 members and probationers. PAGE SIXTEEN. In paragraph three the figures include members and proba¬ tioners. *A word of explanation: The term “adherents” as used in Korea applies only to persons who meet^the following conditions: 1. The destruction of all household idols. The forsaking of ancestral worship. 2. Enrollment as a “seeker.” 3. Membership in a Bible class. 4. Observance of family prayers. 5. Assignment to special oversight of a class leader. 6. The pursuit of a course of study in preparatory catechism. After a year as adherents they are admitted to probation only upon vote of the Quarterly Conference and must pursue another course of study for six months before baptism. After they are baptized they must study and be under the observation of the church for six months more before they are admitted to full membership. At the end of the first year they are usually further ad¬ vanced in experience and the knowledge of the Bible than the average probationer in America. In reality they are probationers, although technically they are not so recognized or tabulated in reports. Passion Week Self-Denial for New World-Conditions APRIL 13-23, 1916 In Remembrance of Me ISSUED BY Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church 150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY iMlfijuilull PREFACE BISHOP FRANK W. WARNE I HAVE had twenty-seven years of pastoral experience under a great variety of circum¬ stances and know a pastor’s burdens and problems and also his powers of influence and leadership. Therefore, I know that the suc¬ cess of the Passion Week Self-Denial in your congregation will depend upon your inspirational leadership. To more easily secure the co-opera¬ tion of our people and uniformity throughout the Church, we are sending our pastors this Passion Week Self-Denial Hand Book. This call does not ask for an extra collec¬ tion but a self-denial offering. If that be taken according to some of our suggested plans, or through a better one devised by you, it will not interfere with your regular services, nor finances, nor with any one of the benevolences of our Church, which latter would defeat our purpose. On the other hand, we believe that a period of real self-denial will be pleasing to God and be the means of a great spiritual uplift. Therefore with thanksgiving for national peace and prosperity, while other Christian nations are bathed in blood and rendered com¬ paratively helpless to forward the greatest move¬ ments toward Christianity of all the ages from among the Christless nations, we shall trust you to lead your people to a self-denial worthy of such new world-conditions and the sacrifice of our Lord. ilia CHAPTER I. HOW? WHAT? WHY? HOW IT HAPPENED Dr. James R. Joy, Editor of “The Christian Ad¬ vocate•” tells this story of the meeting of the General Committee of Foreign Missions in Los Angeles, No¬ vember, 1915: T HE General Committee of the Board of Foreign Missions was near the close of its second day’s session at Los Angeles in November, 1915. The Treas¬ urer had reported no increase in collections and the heartbreaking needs of the field. It was the usual case of “No Thoroughfare!” Bishop Warne, of India, rose and addressed the body. He said that he had long been possessed by a thought which he felt that he must now utter. When the workers in the field faced a crisis like this they were accustomed to meet it by self-denial. It seemed to him that if the Church at home realized the emergency, it would deny itself in order that the work might not suffer. Bishop Hartzell of Africa sprang to his feet to sec¬ ond the suggestion. He had seen the native workers from the African villages voluntarily refuse to take their pittance of salary in order that more teachers and preachers might be put into the Christless villages. Mr. J. M. Cornell, of New York, a layman, heartily favored the proposal and Dr. Charles E. Welch, of Westfield, N. Y., declared that the time had come for the Church to give more largely. “It should not be left to the missionaries,” he said, “to make all the self-denial.” The idea commended itself immediately. Bishops, District Members and Board Representatives hastened to express their approval and to suggest ways in which 3 the appeal might be made effective. The spontaneity and accord of what was said in that hour made it evi¬ dent that the Spirit had been concentrating many minds upon the same escape from the difficulties imposed by success in the field. That is how self-denial week came to be. WHAT HAPPENED r Y^HIS appeal comes from your brethren and servants who compose the General Committee of the Board of Foreign Missions. It is written when the world is tremulous with fear and hope; written also at a time when the United States is most signally free from ad¬ versity among all the greater of the world’s nations. Our fellow-Christians in other Protestant countries are now feeling the poverty and limitation of war. In re¬ spect of support for a world-wide work for Christ, we that are strong ought to bear the burdens, not only of those that are weak in the sense that they have not our faith, but also of those that are weak in the sense that they have not now our wealth. God invites us to be the bearers of a double burden. TT is our conviction also that there must now be utter collapse of merely formal religions and that the demand of a heart-broken world, plunged into its sorrow by the evil or mistaken wills of men, will be for a Gospel that promises individual regeneration and the social re¬ sponsibility that springs therefrom. God now gives us a solemn and hopeful hour for a thorough Gospel that offers peace on earth among men of good will. It is our certain faith that what learning and science and invention and material wealth have failed to do, our Lord can do by his gracious power in open and obedient hearts. E summon you all to a period of self-denial ex- tending from April 13th to April 23rd, 1916, wherein by giving up all luxuries and needless pleasures 4 we shall save for God’s special work as represented by Foreign Missions a larger share of the gold and silver which are His by primal and ceaseless right. We call you to this period of self-denial not merely that we may increase the Lord’s treasury, but the more that we may all have outward reminders that make for thoughtful devotion and earnest prayer, and that we may share somewhat the sorrows and privations of our stricken brethren in other lands. B UT our appeal is for much more than a brief period of self-denial; it is for constant faith and prayer and generosity. God speaks to us now by many dis¬ tinct voices: by the voice of war that becomes a wail and a moan; by the voice of an institutional and cere¬ monial religion in Italy, Mexico, France, South Amer¬ ica and elsewhere, that too often becomes the voice of a hopeless atheism; by the voice of an amazing progress in Japan and China and Korea and Africa, which becomes a clamor for guidance in the paths of God; by the voice of weighty Mass Movements in India where thousands wait eagerly for the sacred rite of baptism; by the voice of orphanhood which makes ten¬ der request to be gathered from homes destroyed by war into the care of spiritual parenthood under the leadership of Christ; by the voice of an overworked missionary force that covets reinforcement and relief; by the voice of trained and consecrated youth that pleads to go if only we will send; and by voices that speak to us from open doors on all continents and islands. This day is vocal with the varied calls of God; and He needs now a listening and a willing Church. ^T^HESE words of appeal are not given to you, our Brethren and Sisters in American Methodism, be¬ cause they represent an annual custom. They are rather forced from our hearts by the pressure of a critical world-period and by the most solemn and glorious op¬ portunity that has ever faced the Church. The nations 5 have been in their Gethsemane; yea, more, some of them are climbing their Calvary. We believe that we are partners with God in bringing them to their Resur¬ rection. We summon you to intercessory prayer and to sacrificial giving in the faith that our blessed Lord with his saving Gospel is alone equal to meet the world’s darkness with light, the world’s grief with consolation, the world’s sin with forgiveness and peace. The people of earth are heavy-laden with ignorance and war and iniquity; it is ours to bid them hear and obey the only One who is able to say, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” WHY IT HAPPENED Three compelling reasons urged the General Com¬ mittee on Foreign Missions to call the Church to Passion Week Self-Denial, April 13-23,1916. CP HE deplorable situation we confront in a world -®- where horror follows horror and carnage and waste of human resources are so wide and so continuous that we are in danger of losing all keenness of sensibility and moral recoil, and, even worse, of so blunting com¬ passion that we fail to be moved to the utmost endeavor to heal the hurt of a stricken world. HP HE serious crippling of all European Missions *■- leaves it largely to America with her unimpaired strength, resources and prosperity to carry on the evan¬ gelization of the non-Christian world. For the Amer¬ ican Church at such a time as this to fail her Lord is unthinkable. We must with heroic self-denial enter into fellowship with Christ and our suffering brethren of Europe and go to the relief of the depleted forces of our Lord in all the world. REAT movements in China, in Korea, in India, in Africa, in South America, and, indeed, in all our world-fields have for years been held back for lack of equipment. Oppressive debts, unbuilt hospitals and mis- c sion houses, ill-equipped schools and printing plants have everywhere retarded splendid forward movements. In addition to the stress which for years has burdened the missionaries, crushing pressure is now being exerted by the evangelistic awakenings which are bringing tens of thousands of converts into the fold of the Church. In India, for illustration, we have the heart-breaking spectacle of more than one hundred and fifty thousand people held back because the Church is not ready to receive them. In this time of world anguish and opportunity, when our missionaries are undergoing extraordinary privation to meet the emergencies confronting them, the General Committee was confident that the Church would eagerly respond, through greater self-denial, to the call to enter into closer fellowship zvith our over-burdened mission¬ aries and thus interpret to the world in terms of deep¬ ened devotion the sacrificial life of our Lord. S. EARL TAYLOR, W. F. OLDHAM, FRANK MASON NORTH. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT The New Financial Plan and Self-Denial . The Former Includes the Latter HP HE purpose of the “New Financial Plan” is to systematize and spiritualize church finance and put under it an adequate educational foundation. Giving is recognized as an act of worship in which every member of the congregation should participate each Sabbath. Giving, if it is to be intelligent, must be di¬ rected by a mind informed by frequent illuminating statements regarding world conditions. The offering on a weekly basis is essential to the .spiritual culture of the individual, meeting the need for a frequent recognition of God’s ownership and man’s stewardship, that the soul may be kept cleansed of 7 covetousness. It supplies the only method by which a large majority of the people can make an adequate offering for the maintenance of the Church and its world-wide work. The plan as adopted by the General Conference and expressed in the Discipline (par. 70, pages 58, 59) and in the literature of the Commission on Finance (Manual, page 14), recognizes that all cannot fully meet their obligations to the Church through the Weekly Offering and advocates additional opportuni¬ ties for the expression of the benevolent impulse through special thank offerings. While the New Financial Plan was adopted to pro¬ tect the Church from outside non-official, irresponsible appeals, it was at the same time accepted as a means of educating the Church to meet emergencies de¬ manding Church-wide and prompt co-operation. The San Francisco disaster is still fresh in memory. Swift and generous action was required. Any system pre¬ venting such response would have been a positive and serious injury to the Church. It is equally true that in the midst of great Mass Movements throughout the world, simultaneously with the wreckage wrought by a colossal war, no standard of giving attained by the Church has adequately pro¬ vided for the minimum needs of its missionary work. Present conditions demand supplementary contribu¬ tions and impose upon the followers of Christ the ob¬ ligation of Self-Denial: First, an emergent need for which no provision can otherwise be made. Second, an unparalleled material prosperity full of peril to the Church. The greatest revival movement of modern times is penetrating to the remotest corners of the earth. It is not a provincial but a world task that faces us. This is primarily an American responsibility. The pride of Europe’s manhood lies bleeding on battlefields. The homes of millions have been darkened with sorrow. Multitudes are homeless and destitute. The suffering, 8 bankrupt nations of Europe will be relatively helpless for years to come. America must be the world’s Good Samaritan. The call is to the service of sacrifice. America has been given unparalleled prosperity. The earth has yielded bountiful increase. Cattle and crops alone reach the staggering sum of ten billion dollars. What shall be said to the soul of the nation in the midst of this material increase? On December 21, 1915, thousands of Jews of New York City assembled in Carnegie Hall to provide means of relief for distressed Hebrews in Europe. In one evening nearly a million dollars was contributed. Money, checks, pledges and jewelry were piled about the feet of the speaker on the platform. The American Jewish Relief Committee is undertaking to raise $5,000,000 for the aid of their race in war-stricken Europe. The Methodist Episcopal Church is confronted with a high privilege. The Protestant Episcopal Church last year faced an emergency requiring $400,000 above its regular income. The appeal was made for one day’s income, or its equivalent in self-denial. The Church reports: “We have never met such enthusiasm in any appeal as this one evoked. We have yet to hear of a Parish that does not feel thankful for it.” The Church responded with an offering of $431,000. Ours is a greater family, and ours is a greater obligation. A week of self-denial, chivalrously ob¬ served, would bring great blessing. The Church would share in meeting the most extraordinary situation that has ever confronted the world. Such denial would im¬ prove the Church’s ability to meet its regular budgets by touching the deeper springs of benevolence. The possible revelation of a simpler, less expensive and more wholesome mode of living would show that all the enterprises of the Church might be easily fin¬ anced while at the same time the individual Christian would enter into closer fellowship with Christ in sac¬ rifice and service. 9 CHAPTER II. NEW WORLD-CONDITIONS ( NOTE—These statements and restatements are exclusively for use of pastors and will not be published in other form until after Easter .) A WORLD CHURCH IN THE MIDST OF WORLD MOVEMENTS T ESS than one-half the population of the world has ' thus far heard the Gospel. A MERICAN churches have sent out 10,000 Prot- estant missionaries, one for every 2,400 of their present membership. We ought to have 25,000 mis¬ sionaries, approximately one for every 1,000 members. r T r HE Methodist Episcopal Church spends more money annually on its work in the United States than all Christendom contributes to foreign missions. TT is estimated that Europe is spending for war -®- $80,000,000 a day, an amount sufficient to put the foreign missionary enterprise on an adequate basis and maintain it for a year. A year of the war would maintain this redemptive world-enterprise for 365 years. r F v HE Christian propaganda requires larger total in- vestment in the homeland than in the foreign field; but should it be in the following proportion? One annual conference in Illinois (there are four in the State) has more money by several millions of dollars invested within its boundaries in permanent institutions (churches, parsonages, schools, hospitals, homes, etc.) than the entire Methodist Episcopal Church has in¬ vested in all the world outside of the United States (Mexico, South America, Europe, Africa, India, Ma¬ laysia, Philippines, China, Japan, and Korea). On a capital so small we are trying to do a world business! T^ROM the beginning there have been wars, but never in the history of the human race a conflict of such 10 colossal, unimaginable proportions as the present Eu¬ ropean war. This constitutes an emergency unparal¬ leled since the world began. N EVER since Christ was on earth has there been in pagan lands a movement of such vast masses of people to Christ as today. This constitutes an emer¬ gency unparalleled in all the Christian centuries. 'T'HE increase in the wealth of our country surpasses -®- all previous records. This fact, confronting the facts above recorded, places Christian America in a place of opportunity unparalleled in the Christian Era. THE LARGEST CONTINENT \ SIA is larger than Africa by an area equal to all of the United States and its possessions and all of Europe west of Russia. TTS population is sufficient to repopulate all Europe, Africa, North and South America and still retain for a new start in Asia as many people as now live in South America and Australia. TTS people are cleft into many races which speak hun- dreds of languages. Most of its millions are unable to read or write and live in a poverty verging on peril of famine. Its social customs and race prejudices multiply the difficulties of approach. Its religions are inextricably interwoven with dreadful superstitions and gross immoralities. A SIA confronts Christendom with the most startling challenge of the Christian centuries. ‘Y/’ET so great are the changes taking place and the -*• victories being won by the Gospel in Asia that over that vast continent might well be written: “The rudiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm. The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form.” 11 THE AWAKENING NATION OF THE ORIENT r T v HE very name, China, conjures up thoughts requir- ing large terms for expression. Vast Area: It exceeds the United States and terri¬ tories by an area larger than the German Empire, Eng¬ land, Belgium and Montenegro. Limitless Natural Resources : Siberia to India, Pa¬ cific to Himalayas—what ranges of soil and climate! What agricultural wealth ! Mineral resources, for ages untouched, are now being developed. Coal, iron, and copper exist in almost inexhaustible supplies. Multitudinous Population: More than one-fourth the human race. Equal to the population of North and South America, Africa, Great Britain, and Germany. 743 walled cities. 450,000 villages and towns. Sze¬ chuan Province, smaller than Texas, contains twice the population of the states west of the Mississippi. Great Potential Possibilities: A virile people who thrive in the Arctics like the Esquimaux or in the Tropics like the Malay. In business ability superior to the Jew. The “Potato King” of our Pacific Coast is a Chinaman. Capable of high intellectual development. They are crowding our mission schools, eager for learning. Many honor students in our great American Universities are Chinese. Under the power of the Gospel they reveal the high¬ est moral and spiritual qualities. They gladly sacrifice position, money, even life itself for Christ. Thousands have done this. A Belated Nation: Deep is the tragedy of China’s backwardness. “Familiar with the mariner’s compass, gunpowder, and printing from blocks ages before they were used in the West,” the Chinese illustrate arrested development, resulting in squandered or neglected re¬ sources and deep, abysmal poverty. Read “A Message to You” in the self-denial envelope. 12 Filth, sickness, suffering unimaginable, due to utter ignorance of sanitation, hygiene and medicine, afflict millions. Superstitions and customs which fill their lives with fear and suffering have held China’s millions in spirit¬ ual and physical bondage. There are still 70,000,000 Chinese women with bound feet. There are more Mohammedans in China than in Persia or Arabia. They are open to the Gospel in a most remarkable manner. The New Day : China suddenly faces the bewilder¬ ing confusion of modern life and civilization. Every¬ thing is changing—government, schools, industries, social standards, religion. The perils incident to such changes are threatening. Opening mines, building steel plants, constructing railroads, establishing factories— these activities indicate the changes and suggest the new industrial and social perils. Robert Speer says that in Shanghai 30,000 women and children work in factories and that girls of eight and nine years work on night shifts of twelve hours. Educationally : The situation is pathetic. Struggling to adjust herself to the present and provide for the future by modernizing her educational system, China lacks both money and trained men to teach her sixty million children. Religiously : China is open to the Gospel. It re¬ quired over fifty years to win the first thousand con¬ verts in China. Recently a larger number than this were enrolled as inquirers during a single night in one city. Great areas still remain untouched. A group of mis¬ sionaries recently traveled 580 miles through a province without finding a chapel or a Christian witness. Opportunity : Here are 1,000,000 teachers to be trained, 60,000,000 children to be taught, hundreds of thousands of villages and cities to be made clean and wholesome through sanitation, 430,000,000 people to be evangelized and won to Christ. 13 THE PALESTINE OF THE FAR EAST TN Korea two out of three babies die. At least half -■■of them might be saved by medical knowledge and skill. There are as many physicians in Kansas City (popu¬ lation 325,000) as in Korea with its 14,000,000 people, counting missionary, Japanese, and Korean doctors. The Methodist Church, having exclusive missionary responsibility for 3,000,000 Koreans, has only one mis¬ sionary for each 60,000 of this population. Thirty wonderful years: 1885—First Methodist missionary sent to Korea. 1895—410 members and probationers. 1905—7,796 members and probationers. 1915—44,390 members and probationers. Last year our church witnessed the largest number of revivals which it has seen in that Land of Revival. In Seoul, during a union campaign of fifty days, 265 Japanese and 11,318 Koreans expressed a desire to be¬ come Christians. Koreans make splendid scholars. At a recent meet¬ ing in Seoul four Koreans wearing Phi Beta Kappa keys sat on the platform. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton were represented. 4,600 boys, 3,100 girls in Methodist day schools. 20,000 children in all Christian schools. 30,000 Christian children unprovided for. Pyengyang was the worst city in Korea. Twenty years ago it had seven baptized Christians. Today it has 33,000. Lack of resources in the Methodist Mission now compels a cut of 50 per cent, in the expenditures for day schools and the sending home of two missionaries and their families. And yet there are Methodist Churches in America whose local expenditures are larger than the appropria¬ tion of our Board to the entire work in Korea. 14 THE EFFICIENCY EXPONENT OF THE ORIENT T APAN’S new god is efficiency. She has 5,000 miles ^ of railroad—a great change from the “man-pull” car (the rickshaw) to the “Pullman” car. Turning her back on the past, Japan adopted what would add to efficiency in every department of national life—except religion. The Christian Church missed its opportunity. Intel¬ lectual Japan became agnostic. For years Herbert Spencer was the favorite author. The people continued pagan. “Will the Japanese people ever respond to the spiritual message of the Gospel?” was asked skep¬ tically. Eighty per cent of Japan’s population are unreached. There is only one missionary for 126,000 people. But note the miraculous change. Robert Speer says: “Eighteen years ago the temper of the nation was dis¬ tinctly anti-Christian. Now great congregations come to hear the preaching. The nation openly confesses its need of religion. Mr. Mori Mura, the millionaire business man from Tokyo, travels throughout the length and breadth of the land telling young business men that the nation’s moral need can only be met by faith in God.” The Protestant missionaries engaged in a three years’ union evangelistic campaign, call for 474 new mission¬ aries. God gives His Church another opportunity. Japan is receptive to the Gospel as never before. A Japanese gentleman, a man over 78 years of age, has recently accepted Christ. He at once contributed $100,000 for the improvement of the moral conditions of Japan and now goes about exhorting men to turn to Christ. At the Methodist Boys’ School in Nagasaki last year out of a graduating class of forty-three, thirty-seven went forth professing Christians, practically all con¬ verted in the school. 15 AMERICA’S WARD IN THE FAR EAST 'Cj' OR centuries kept in ignorance and dependence on superior authority, the people of the Philippines lack initiative and power of sustained effort. They greatly need continued impulses from without, if they are to move forward. All through northern Luzon are the ruins of cathedral-like Roman Churches, destroyed by the In- surrectos before the American occupation. Two mil¬ lion people broke away from the Roman Church be¬ cause of their hatred of the Friars. Protestantism is not in the Philippines to proselyte, but to meet the needs of these multitudes without religious instruction. We began work in the islands sixteen years ago. To¬ day our membership is 35,000. One preacher last year received $7.50 monthly from us. He organized five churches, built one chapel, and received 160 members into the church. Eight hundred congregations need chapels costing from fifty to one hundred dollars each. In Tangos, one of the worst places in the islands, a missionary preached on the street. Later a woman in America gave $100 to build a chapel in memory of her husband who had been a Methodist preacher. Results— a beautiful, self-supporting church with nearly 1,000 members and a transformed town. Three preachers and six deaconesses have come from this church. Dormitories are needed at all the provincial capitals for high school students and in Manila enlarged ones for university and normal students. These dormitories are self-supporting as soon as erected and are great evangelistic centers. Three-fourths of the students in the Manila dormitory have been led to Christ. Hun¬ dreds of applications for rooms had to be refused. A normal school student in our Girls’ Dormitory went home to teach. Within a year she started a move¬ ment that resulted in an organized church with over 500 members. 16 THE MELTING POT OF ASIA HP HE ends of the earth meet in Singapore. From thirty to fifty languages are spoken in our Methodist schools. Malaysia is literally the “Melting Pot” of Asia. Malaysia is developing in a wonderful way. Millions of rubber trees are just beginning to produce. Three- fourths of the world’s supply of tin is mined there. Roads are being extended in all directions. One of the best constructed railroads in the world is in opera¬ tion between Singapore and Penang. One missionary writes, “My territory covers all of Java, Sumatra, West Borneo and Banka, an area the size of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.” The Rajah of Sarawak, Borneo, has given us 250 acres of land and an annual grant of $500 for our industrial school at Sibu. A revival has broken out there, one feature of which is a pledge to abstain from gambling, opium, liquor and tobacco. Many people have confessed their sins. Methodism is supplying missionary teachers to the Chinese Reform Association of Malaysia. These men are developing numerous churches alongside of their schools. Java needs five new hospitals with doctors and nurses. They would be self-supporting within five years. Sumatra, with its wild Battaks, half-civilized Malays and thousands of Chinese, begs for Methodist mission¬ aries. Hundreds of thousands of Indians in Malaysia, gathered in rubber ranches and tin mines, call for earnest pastoral attention. More Moslems have been baptized by us in the Far East in the past ten years than the total for the Near East and Africa combined. With outstanding opportunity and very high prestige this Mission, undermanned and all too feebly financed, needs strong reinforcement. 17 THE HEART OF ASIA B ISHOP WARNE calls India “The Throbbing Heart of Asia.” Doctor Oldham calls it “The Land of the Breaking Heart.” Intensely religious, with more gods than people, it is one of the saddest countries on earth. Three times the population of the United States live in India’s 700,000 villages, in half the area of the United States. Twenty-six million widows, of whom 115,285 are less than ten years old, are family slaves and can never hope for any other life. India has 2,273,245 wives under ten years of age. Less than one in one hundred and fifty women can read. At one Hindu festival there was an attendance of four millions. Masses move in India. Shall they move towards Hinduism, Mohammedanism or Christianity? It is for the Christian Church to say. A recent cable from India gives figures for the past quadrennium and calls for reinforcements for the Woman’s Society and our Board. Jubbulpore, Jan. 27, 1916. Missions, New York. Hundred forty thousand baptized. Hundred sixty thousand waiting. Fifty new mission¬ aries with support needed by each Board. Robinson. After many years in India Bishop Warne expresses the conviction that we could add two million converts in the near future in India if we would adequately equip our mission for its opportunity. Caste, so long the greatest obstacle to Missions in India, through the blessing of God is now helping to advance the Kingdom. Mass movements proceed along caste lines. When a movement starts in a caste, the very organization which so effectually hindered Chris¬ tianity is most effectual in propagating it throughout the caste. 18 In the Meerut District the entire Sweeper caste, approximating 100,000 persons is practically ready for baptism. The Chamar caste, numbering 11,000,000, could be baptized as rapidly as the fundamental Chris¬ tian doctrines could be explained to the people who are already strongly inclined to Christianity. In this district alone approximately 1,000,000 persons are ac¬ cessible to the Methodist Church to-day. Native leaders offer themselves by the hundreds but we have not even enough missionaries to prepare them to lead their brothers, or money enough to pay their pitifully small salaries of $50 a year, each. In the Delhi District 10,000 people are being held back because of the lack of $1,000 per year to support ten workers required for the necessary advance. Missionaries in India daily face severest tests of en¬ durance and heroism: a tropical climate the enervating power of which we cannot conceive; awful diseases such as enteric fever, tropical dysentery, black smallpox, cholera and bubonic plague; most of all the fearful burdens of overwork due to overwhelming success and lack of reinforcements. Every man bears the burden of two to four men. Although the average daily income of a family in India is less than three cents per member, our Chris¬ tians are rapidly assuming the full support of their pastors. Tithing is common among Indian preachers and is spreading among the people even in their pov¬ erty. Bishop Warne says: “Recently I was in a meeting of India preachers. One a short time before had been beaten to unconsciousness, but won his enemies by forgiving them and refusing to go to court. Another still had a disabled arm. I asked how many present had been beaten in persecution. Seventeen raised their hands. I felt ashamed in their presence. I have never suffered persecution. There is yet a great book to be written on the toil, persecutions, privations, poverty and suffering of our beloved Indian ministers.” 19 THE CONTINENT OF FEARS A FRICA is the continent of fears. Hearing the word “Africa” one instinctively runs back over generations of witchcraft, cannibalism, poverty, filth, disease, superstition, theft, murder, plundering bands of Mohammedans and so-called Christian slave traders. Livingstone called Africa “the open sore of the world.” Africa presents one of the saddest, darkest pictures ever hung before the nations—a draped and shadowed continent. There is room in Africa for India, China, the United States and all Europe. Christian missionaries have pioneered the way into its darkest regions. Limitless supplies of gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, precious stones, and forest wealth have attracted the fortune hunters. The lure of trade and of dominion has incited the great nations of Europe, until to-day over ninety-six per cent, of Africa is controlled by European powers, most of it by the nations now at war. Great sections of Africa are being rapidly developed. Mines are being opened, railroads built, forests felled and wide areas brought under cultivation. Such ma¬ terial progress always involves great moral and social perils. A large part of Africa is today facing all these frontier perils and is in desperate need of the Gospel. In considerable portions law and order prevail and churches are established. But vast areas are still un¬ occupied by any church. Imagine our population east of the Mississippi River scattered over a territory nearly twice as great, without one preacher, church, or Gospel influence of any kind among its 70,000,000 people. That represents the areas in Africa unclaimed and unoccupied by the Christian Church, but rapidly being invaded by Islam. 20 Every third person in Africa is a Mohammedan. Nor are they confined to North Africa. There are 4,000,000 of them south of the Equator, every one a missionary of Islam. Unless a wall of Christian mis¬ sions is built across Africa to check this southward thrust of Mohammedanism, in a few years millions will be won to the false prophet and made more in¬ accessible to the Gospel. This constitutes the out¬ standing menace to Africa. Africa is suffering bitterly because of the great war. Shipping is paralyzed, business prostrate and cost of living greatly increased. Large territories have been involved in actual war. Other parts of the continent are armed camps. Much of the missionary activity has been seriously crippled. The missions of our church occupy seven strategic centers under British, French, Portuguese, Liberian and Belgian flags. At one conference Bishop Hartzell recently appointed 130 native young men and their wives to stations scat¬ tered over a wide area, where we have a membership in church, Sunday and day schools of about 5,000. A few years ago we had no work in this section and with two or three exceptions all these native workers were in barbaric heathenism. The Methodist Church has only one hospital in the whole of Africa. It is not much to brag of. There is no chimney, no window, no floor, except the earth, no beds, no mattresses or bed covers, no furniture at all. It is just a native grass hut that accommodates fifteen patients laid out on the ground. The rest of them sleep out of doors. The call of God is definite and urgent for an im¬ mediate and large advance in mission work in Africa. Only thus can Christendom stay the advance of Mo¬ hammedanism. 21 THE STRICKEN CONTINENT ¥ T staggers the imagination to conceive of the mag- nitude of the European war which has involved three continents and swept over all seas. Dr. John R. Mott at the recent Foreign Missions Conference made the following statements: In no previous war have more than 2,000,000 men faced each other. Today 24,000,000 men and boys are engaged in the war. 2,400,000 have already been slain. 5,000,000 men and boys are on beds of pain. 4,200,000 are in military prisons. 1,200,000 Russians are in German prisons which are open to the Christian work represented by Dr. Mott’s splendid organization. 43,000 German sudents are in the trenches. In the Latin Quarter in Paris there are usually 18,000 students. Dr. Mott found but four or five left there and had to depend on women students to take up the work of reaching students in the trenches. DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT France : One of the most famous and militant of the French infidels has “right about faced.” He declares that this world cataclysm is carrying away everything false. “Nothing remains but Truth and Faith.” This incident is only one of thousands indicating a pro¬ nounced European-wide movement “Back to God.” Many are prophesying that a spiritual awakening has begun in Europe which will surpass the revival in Eng¬ land in the eighteenth century led by the Wesleys. Russian Methodist Conference : “Two brethren were missing, one having fallen as a brave Russian officer in Galicia, the other being a prisoner of war somewhere in the South. The many heart-touching incidents, most remarkable providential leadings and signal victories of divine grace which our preachers related moved us all to tears and praise. We are bearing one another’s 22 burdens, engaging in relief work, nursing the wounded, scattering thousands of Gospels and Testaments.” “Everywhere, especially among the wounded soldiers, there is a great hunger for the Scriptures.” North Germany : “In no time has there been a greater hunger for the Word of God than now; 65,000 Testa¬ ments distributed, altars crowded with penitents.” Austria-Hungary : “A wounded soldier when dis¬ charged from our care (Methodist Hospital) said with tears in his eyes: T have found more than healing for my wounds. What I experienced here I shall never forget. If Methodists are such people, then I will become a Methodist, if God brings me back from the front.’ The war is creating wonderful opportunities for immediate and extensive evangelistic work in all Southeastern Europe.” Bulgaria : “Following a stirring revival at Varna the Methodist Church in that city has been taxed far be¬ yond its capacity. At some of the meetings thousands were turned away.” (Dr. Elmer Count, our Apostle to the Balkans, has recently returned to the field.) Italy : “Methodism was never more efficiently active. About Milan, Naldi has organized an extensive work of visitation in the hospitals. At Genoa, Spini is doing the same and supervising a dozen different branches of relief work. In the large industrial center of Sestri, Ponente Contino is the leader of revival and relief work. Ravazzini is with the Red Cross and the Prayer League in Turin. Dr. Lala is continuing his Bible talks to the soldiers at Udine. From Rome the great Chris¬ tian weekly, Evangelista, is bearing its message of hope and love to thousands in the trenches. Down in Cala¬ bria a mighty revival has broken out under the preach¬ ing of Giuseppe Scorza.” Finland : “We are in a time of vigorous self-exam¬ ination. The failure of modern culture and social organization has driven us to seek deeper and more abiding foundations.” 23 THE NEGLECTED CONTINENT "VITAR conditions opening up trade, the heart cry of * ’ millions of Indians, the misery of the downtrodden illiterates, the dissatisfaction of misled formalists, the rapid drift of men into atheism, these are some of the factors which constitute a spiritual emergency among the Latin-American races. We deal in South America with republics of varying types which in natural resources are favored of God. Cattle, cereals, minerals, saltpeter, coffee, and rubber abound. In Argentina is the finest city of South America, Buenos Aires, which has a subway more magnificent than the one in New York. Among its 1,700,000 people are less than 100 churches and temples of all faiths. The estimate of attendance at all these churches on a Sunday morning is 1,700. The control of marriage by the Roman Catholic Church and the use of this control as a source of in¬ come have resulted in the failure of the great masses of the people to get married. Some years ago in Barranquilla, Colombia, Father Revallo prepared a table of vital statistics of Barranquilla for fifteen years and published it in one of the secular papers. This table showed that the illegitimate births during this period were 71.4 per cent of the total births. Bishop Stuntz reports that never before have so many converts been gathered into the churches as dur¬ ing the past few months. A delegation of seven Peru Indians came to Lima on government matters. A much respected government of¬ ficer brought them to our Wednesday evening prayer meeting. He realized that what the Indians most needed was the Gospel. The whole group has joined our church on probation. In Panama where there are 450,000 people and where our government has spent $450,000,000 there is but one missionary speaking the language of the people. 24 In Ecuador not a Protestant Mission Board is at work. Six independent missionaries are the only Protestant representatives. In the northern half of Peru there is not one Pro¬ testant missionary among 4,000,000 people. In Bolivia there are less than 100 members of evan¬ gelical churches. There are 1,000,000 native Indians untouched by the Gospel. Ninety-eight per cent of the 50,000 students of this continent are agnostics. THE LAND OF STRIFE OR three hundred years the Mexicans endured op- pression. For about a hundred years they have been struggling to throw it off. An American residing in Mexico City says that the reaction against Cath¬ olicism is very marked. In Orizaba all but four of the Roman churches are closed. In Puebla and many other places all the confessionals have been burned. In Mexico City the most fashionable Roman church was first used as a military barracks and later as head¬ quarters for the laboring men. Ninety per cent of Mexican people, although nomin¬ ally Christian for four hundred years, do not know the difference between a Bible and a secular book, the circulation of the Bible being forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. In the state of Oaxaca we have a native worker who does not even know how to read, but Christ has made him brave enough to go from village to vil¬ lage preaching. His method is to seek a man who can read. To him he explains that he has a wonder¬ ful book. He asks the man to read. Then follows the sermon. In this unique way he has led many to Christ. Mexico is in a state of political transition and as it settles down to peace an unrivalled opportunity will be given for Protestant work. 25 THE ELDER BROTHER AS A TABLE GUEST Rev . N. L. Rockey of India tells the story . ii \ ND here comes another collection!” The missionary at Gonda felt rebellious. The average income of our Indian church of 149 people was just a fraction less than four and one-quarter cents a day. Out of this meager income these poor Christians had given for pastoral support, the various benevolences and missionary collections, cutting them¬ selves to the very quick to do their part. Then came the emergency call from our Foreign Board. I had not the heart to ask them for another cent. On the appointed day for the collection as the native pastor was finishing his sermon a thought came to me like an inspiration. Arising, I told them of the situa¬ tion and how I had hesitated because I knew they had already given to the limit. I then suggested this plan. ‘‘Suppose your beloved elder brother should desire to visit you for a week. Would you stop to count the cost of the food and hesitate t/o let him come ? I know you would not.” Their nods and smiles gave assent. “Now suppose we consider that Jesus, our Elder Brother, has come into every home to be a table guest for this week. When we prepare for our meals let us lay aside His portion for Him. Next Saturday night let us take what we have saved for Him and sell it to ourselves at honest market rates and bring in the money.” Their evident pleasure at the proposition showed that it had won. Next Sunday this loving people came reverently, and joyfully laid on the table almost seven dollars from their grinding poverty. Do you wonder that I was compelled to pause to get part of the quiver out of my voice before I could trust myself to offer thanks and pronounce the benediction ? Do you wonder that we love these people ? 26 THESE ALSO HAVE SACRIFICED Yoitsu Honda , first Bishop of the Japanese Methodist Church, turned his back on a brilliant political career to follow the Christ in a life of extreme self-denial, but glorious spiritual achievement. He endured poverty and suffering and literally wore out his life in service. Masih ka Rasul (Apostle of Christ), when graduating from the Theological school, had in his pocket an offer of a government position at a salary of twenty-five dollars a month, with a prospect of rising to two hun¬ dred or even three hundred. He joyfully chose to enter our Indian ministry on four dollars a month. After a most distinguished career, covering forty years, he has recently died. At the time of his death he was District Superintendent- of Budaun District, re¬ ceiving a smaller salary than his first government offer. r F'HESE illustrations could be multiplied to volumes and paralleled in every mission field and in the home land. Humble Koreans have mortgaged their homes to extend the Gospel. Methodists in America have done the same. Korean women, hearts quivering with the pain of the sacrifice and faces wet with tears, have given their simple ornaments and even their wedding rings. Devoted women in America have made the same sacrifices for Christ’s sake to give the Gospel to others. There is a fellowship of sacrifice. T HE whole Church is challenged as never before to demonstrate the thesis of Professor James regard¬ ing the moral equivalent of war—-something which will appeal as universally to the heroic in man as war does, but without the resultant evils of war. That substitute, he declares, is heroic self-denial on behalf of a great cause. G OD confronts His Church with a stricken world and to meet its unutterable needs calls for sac¬ rifice worthy of the Christ. 27 CHAPTER III. SUGGESTIONS FOR LOCAL CHURCH PROGRAMS The following are suggestions only, which you can use, modify, or lay aside for plans better adapted to your need. There is no intention to interfere in any way with your regular services or collections, but only to help you lead your people to put into the period preceding and during Passion Week a depth of spirit and sincerity of purpose which will express themselves in genuine self-sacrifice for Christ's sake on behalf of a suffering and waiting world. If local difficulties are in the way they should be frankly recognised and the program so adjusted as to avoid friction and secure the hearty co-operation of officials and members. APRIL 9 Sunday Morning Service. A sermon on some such theme as “New World Con¬ ditions.” Exclusive materials for this are printed on pages ten to twenty-seven. Follow the sermon with a brief statement explanatory of Passion Week Self-Denial. In this connection state that on Sunday next, April 16th, Self-Denial Envelopes will be distributed and that these will be collected on Easter Sunday. Call the ushers to the altar and ask God’s blessing upon the plans. Then let the ushers distribute the copies of “Missionary News” throughout the congre¬ gation, one for each family. Sunday School. There should be a preparatory announcement and 28 explanation of Passion Week Self-Denial plans and of next Sunday’s distribution of envelopes. Epworth League. The Central Office will probably suggest through the Epworth Herald a program of co-operation, as the Sec¬ retary and Editor are deeply interested in the move¬ ment. Evening Service. If you desire to pursue the theme, a sermon on “America’s New Place in the World,” stressing the im¬ perative obligation which is on us for humility and spirituality that we may faithfully fulfill our high calling, would be a fitting subject. Mid-Week Service. Let theme, songs, prayer and testimony center in the plans and program of Self-Denial Week. APRIL 16 Sunday Morning Service. A sermon on some such theme as “The Sacrificial Life.” This is the week in which we commemorate Christ’s passion on the cross. Today we begin a week of special, unflinching self-denial that we may devote our substance more largely in ministries to a suffering world. The Board of Foreign Missions has provided envelopes in which we may place the money which we save through sacrifice that it may be brought here amid the joys of next Sunday, Easter Sunday. Call attention to “A Message to You from Bishops Bashford and Warne” which will be found in each envelope. When the ushers have been called to the front to pass the envelopes, while they are at the altar, an ear¬ nest prayer should be offered for yet closer fellowship with Christ in sacrifice and denial, a willingness to forego ease, pleasure, indulgence and even comforts, if need be, that we may enter with Him into the world’s tragedy and through our offering of ourselves and our substance help to heal the world’s hurt. 29 Sunday School. •Make similar announcement and explanation in the Sunday School, suggesting to the children of various ages how they may practice self-denial—carfare, pic¬ ture shows, confectionery, etc. Press home the idea that they are to do it unflinchingly, joyously, for Christ’s sake. Have children selected in advance and call them to the front for distribution of envelopes. While standing there, offer earnest prayer for divine guidance in this week of heroic sacrifice that we may be good soldiers of Jesus Christ and share in His sufferings on behalf of others that the children in the shadowed lands may receive the joy of His presence and grace. Epworth League. Follow program suggested from Headquarters through the Epworth Herald. Evening Service. If you wish to continue the thought of the outreach of the Gospel and its controlling power over human lives, discuss some such theme as “The Heroic Element in Christianity” as illustrated from the sacrificial lives of the great modern missionaries. Mid-Week Service. We are close to the anniversary of the sacrifice on the cross. Suggestive theme: “What Our Redemption Cost Christ,” “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” For Churches Observing Passion Week. Passion Week Self-Denial makes it possible for you to express in “living sacrifice,” through self-denial and self-dedication, all the deep emotions and high purposes born of your meditations during this hallowed week. APRIL 23 Easter Morning Service. Sermon on some such theme as “What the Resurrec¬ tion Life Means to the Non-Christian World,” “The 30 Power of His Resurrection,” “The Larger Joy of Easter Realized Through Fellowship with Christ in Sacrifice,” or “The Results of Sacrifice Laid at the Feet of Our Risen Lord.” At the close of address call forward the ushers and pray for God’s blessing upon the givers and their gifts, that their sacrifices, laid at Christ’s sacred feet, may be acceptable to Him and may carry to the multitudes across the seas the ministries of His living grace, and that our lives may find in all the future years a nobler expression through the deeper devotion of sacrifice. If, because of conflicting interests, it is not prac¬ ticable to take the self-denial offering separately, let it be received with whatever offering has been planned. If this cannot be done without confusion, the offering might be deferred a week. Sunday School. An attractive service for receiving the self-denial offering could be arranged by constructing a floral cross and having children dressed in white collect the en¬ velopes and bring them to the front. An earnest prayer could be offered expressing joy that we are counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ on behalf of others. Let the children then deposit the offerings at the foot of the cross. Please Notice: This is no part of the Sunday School Missionary offering and must not be reported with it, but forwarded with the church self-denial offering to be credited as explained on the following page. Epworth League. The Epworth Herald program can be followed, or, as has been explained regarding all these suggestions, you can modify or lay it aside for plans better adapted to your needs. Mid-Week Service. Devote the prayer-meeting to testimonies narrating the experiences and blessings of Passion Week Self- Denial. 31 PROMPT FORWARDING OF OFFERING The needs are pressing and insistent. They require prompt relief to save the missionaries from breaking under their terrible burdens. You will double the blessing by forwarding your offering promptly after Easter to George M. Fowles, Treasurer, 150 Fifth Ave¬ nue, New York City. Immediately thereafter report on post card blank to your District Superintendent. CREDIT WILL BE GIVEN UNDER “OTHER BENEVOLENCES” The voucher sent you cannot apply on the regular missionary apportionment nor as a special gift. To credit it in either the regular or special gift column would create confusion and lead to apparent decrease next year. The purpose of the self-denial week would be defeated by such credit. The emergency is so over¬ whelming that it demands a sacrifice offering above and beyond the regular and the normal special gifts of both Church and Sunday School—an offering which represents actual self-denial. Such an offering should not be a substitute for the regular offerings nor for any part of them. If it re¬ sults in such decrease, disaster will follow. It ought to increase the regular offering through increased in¬ terest in the “New World Conditions.” “WORLD EMERGENCY” FOLDER We are ready to supply you, free of cost, with the beautiful illustrated folder, “World Emergency,” one for each family in your congregation. If you have lost the order blank, address a postal card to Passion Week Self-Denial, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Give plainly your name, address and number of full members in your church. 32