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AMISSIONS LIBRARY

L*AfcE UNIVERSI33P*

MISSIONARY ACHIEVEMENT

MISSIONARY . .
ACHIEVEMENT
A SURVEY . . .
OF 
WORLD-WIDE . .
EVANGELISATION

BASED ON THE .
GAY LECTURES, 1907

W. T. WHITLEY
M.A., LL.D.," F.R.HIST.S.

77*" 3-
MORGAN & SCOTT LTD-
(Office of "®(re fflhriaiisit")
12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS
and 30, PATERNOSTER ROW
LONDON MCMVIII

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
"This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain,
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day ;
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the .proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
Browning.

TO
THE MEMORY OF
HAEEY GEOEGE WHITLEY
SAILOR MISSIONARY ON THE CONGO
1883

Preface

A LIFELONG interest in missions was' in-
-*--*- creased by an invitation to co-operate in
the training of candidates for foreign service. To
gain some special knowledge for this, a winter
was spent on several mission fields in India. This
led to fresh duties as Secretary of a foreign com
mittee, and Editor of its organ.
Attention was soon directed to the history of
missionary enterprise in the past. Then came an
opportunity to clarify thought on the subject, by
a call to speak to hundreds of students for the
ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Louisville. Since this institution
keeps the claim of foreign service well to the
front, it was decided that the Gay Lectures for
1907 should deal with the story of missionary
achievement in five continents. This led to the

viii Preface
special study of scores of works by masters of
their subjects.
The Lectures have undergone careful revision,
and in their present form will prove of interest to
the Lord's people generally. An enlarged list of
books for reference is appended for those who wish
to continue the study of this important subject.
The author trusts that the Owner of the vine
yard will forgive, where His plans for the world's
husbandry have been here misconceived ; and that
God will prompt others to study them more closely,
and expound them more powerfully. Meantime it
will be his joy if some who read these pages may
be quickened to hear the call of the Master, who
ever comes seeking helpers, and may go and labour
in His vineyard before the precious fruit perish.

Contents

PAGE

mi

INTRODUCTION
Christianity essentially missionary — A moral failure— The charge
to enlighten the Nations — Victories and Defeats — Three crucial
centuries— This age alert— Through the Continents of the
World . . . . .
I. FAILURE IN ASIA
The Study of Anatolia and Arabia postponed — Failure of Asiatic
Christianity — Our Religion met by four great nations . . 3
1. Jews
The Rejected Messiah — The Priests and the Pharisees — The Jewish
Christians — Clementines — The error of Outward Continuity
— Characteristics — Minority — Muhammad influenced by
Jewish Christians — Legacies to Christianity : — The teaching
of Jesus ; Professional Missionaries ; Scripture ; Worship ;
Christ the focus of history — Dubious later gifts . . 4
2. Syrians, Armenians, and Persians
Aramaic — Edessa — A Gospel harmony — A philosopher won —
A Church of Celibates — Armenia — A converted king — Persian
revolution — The Apostle Thomas in Baluchistan — Zoroastrian
revival — Persecution — Revised Syriac Bible — A Persian
church — No Persian Bible — Revised constitution — Muslim
rule — Christianity again becomes missionary — Local influence
on Islam ....... 14
3. India, South and North
Emigration to Cochin — No Tamil version — The Ganges valley —
The Buddha — Establishment of Buddhism — A missionary
king — BrShmans and Christians — Loans from Christianity —
Salvation by faith — Disappearance of Buddhism — The Bible
of the Ramaites — Second borrowing from Christianity — The
Tamil leaven ....... 27
4. Cbtna, Buddhist and Confucian
An imported religion — Taoism as a home product — Arrival of
Persian missionaries — Native clergy — Patriotic opposition —
Second attempt under Mongols — Vision of a Tatar Christian
empire — Mark of Pekin — Patriarch of Babylon — Latin

x Contents
PA8K
jealousy-Muslim ferocity-Chinese hostility-Devastation ^
by Timur ..•¦•'
Four ancient religions unconquered-Not taken into «™™*J*
missionaries— No organisation or method— JNo strategy ^
Syriac Christianity not adaptable . • •

II. SUCCESS IN EUROPE
Contrast with Asia— The story of Christianity in Europe familiar
—Only mission frontier work— The Anatolian Peninsula—
Success by 1500 a.d. ..-••• °'
1. The Greek World
Westwards to Lyons— Hellenistic Jews— The Septuagint—
Jewish adherents the nucleus— Capitals occupied«-Ephesus
the metropolis— Attack on Greek gods— Christian frontiers
men—City churches— Provincial synods— Churches and
missionaries— Celsus and Porphyry— Decius— Conquest of the
Greeks— The evils resulting :— Lower morality, Philosophy,
Polytheism, Idolatry, Sacramentalism and Sacerdotalism
— Needless accretions . . . ¦ • .59
2. The Roman World
Consolidation in Rome— Slow progress outside— The opposition
of Mithraism — A military cult — Mjinichaeism opposing —
Another Persian religion — Uniformity exacted — Christian
customs codified — A stereotyped pattern for missionaries . 70
3. The Uncivilised Tribes
Keltic gods— Martin of Tours— Britons in Ireland —Monks becoming
missionaries — Ninian in Ireland and at Penrith — Concilia
tion of Druids — Learning utilised — Kentigern on the Dee
and the Clyde — Columba on Iona — The northern isles —
Columban up the Rhine — Saint Gall — Heligoland — Gregory
and Austin — Aidan at Lindisfarne — The Abbess Hilda at
Whitby— Gregory's statesmanship — Wulf and the Gothic
Bible — Theodore and Boniface organising missions — The
German epic of Christ — Conversions perforce — Norse opposi
tion — Gauntlet or Gospel — Iceland — The Slavonic Bible and
Liturgy — Muscovites baptized in large numbers — Baltic Bhores
reduced — An Auto-da-fe . . . . .76
The Empire : — Elements rejected ; Penalty paid later ; A
warning to present-day missionaries ; Monks and versions —
Barbarians : — Mission finance ; Well - manned stations ;
Native workers ; Missionary strategists ; Little harmful
assimilation ; Slow progress, but sure and enduring . . 99

Contents xi
PAGE
IH. THE STRUGGLE FOR AFRICA
The problem of Islam — Two geographical facts — Influence of
European Christian Powers ..... 109
1. Winning the North Coast
Native Copts — Monasticism in Egypt — The Native Church —
Kabyles, Tyrians, and Latins at Carthage — The Latins won
— Missions languish and Paganism revives . . .111
2. Progress in Arabia and Abyssinia
Aden and Mecca — Arabian heathenism — Poetic contests — Jewish-
Christian Immigrants — The south occupied — Abyssinia won
— Ethiopic version of the Scriptures — War with Mecca —
Idolatry there — Muhammad — Religious wars — The Qur'&n . 115
3. Extinction of Christianity in the North
Defection of the Copts — Egypt the Muslim stronghold — Nubia
starved out — Abyssinia stagnant — Vandals and Berbers pass
over — Strangulation of Carthaginian Christianity . . 121
4. The Rival Missions to the Blacks
Isolated from the north — Sudanese and Bantu — Muslim enter
prise — Negro bishops-— Slave trade as a form of missions —
Neglect till 1800 a.d. — Scramble for Africa — Higher criticism
of the Qur'an : — Heathen, Jewish, Semi-Christian, Persian
elements — Islam's offers : — The Muslim God ; Ritualism ;
Law ; Morality ; Social system ; Rabbis — Muslim mission
methods : — Force obsolete ; Education ; Professional mission
aries ; Traders ; SanusI brotherhood ; Cairo University —
Equality ? — Prospects of Islam — Political attitude of Euro
pean Powers ....... 128
IV. EXPANSION IN AMERICA
European Christianity influencing new races — Freedom to wor
ship God — Modification in new surroundings . . . 153
1. Missions to Natives
Paraguay and the Jesuits — The Reductions— Tutelage — Protestant
apathy — North America — Eskimos — Brazilians — West Indian
negroes — Mexico and Peru — " Baptized Heathenism " —
Condemned by the Pope — Missions in papal fields — A neglected
continent — A native ministry ..... 155
2. European Christianity Developing in New Surroundings.
Influence of Environment — Changes eliminate the accidental —
Illustration from Monasticism— Sunday schools— Endeavour
societies — Organisation — Doctrine .... 176
Change to be governed by the Holy Spirit — Romanism in North
America — Romanism at home — Europe a needy field —
America the experimental station .... 183

xii Contents
PAGE
V. REPLANTING IN ASIA
No defeat accepted as final — Other forms of Christianity
brought ....... 191
1. The Jesuits in India, China, Japan
Cathay not recognised — Jesuits a mission body — Xavier pioneering
— Adaptation— Japan expels the Jesuit missionaries — Chinese
compromises — Malabar rites — Modern likeness to Paganism
—Propaganda — Scientific study .... 192
2. New Bases Acquired off the Coast
Work in the Pacific — Related to Asia — Oceania — Philippines long
isolated — Portuguese and Dutch — First Protestant mission
versions — Formosa and Ceylon — Advantage of government
patronage ? — Danes at Tranquebar — Caste — Aborigines of
New Zealand and Australia — New homes of whites . . 199
3. The New Forces in India
Centre of gravity on the Ganges — Serampur versions — Planning
expeditions — Buddhists hard to approach — Hindus numerous
— Individualism exceptional — Value of poetry — Sacerdotalism
— Alternative attitudes to the past — Muslim pride — Argue
from Qur'an — Ten millions accessible — Attracted by the
Wheel, the Trident, the Crescent and the Cross — These out-
castes the pressing problem — Political situation favourable . 207
i. The Outlook in China

*. j. he uutlook in uhina
fifth attempt — Education changing — Patriotism suspicious —
Local religions unimportant — Kaleidoscopic situation — Per
sonal dealing — Paid native agents — Opium

215

5. The Value of Japan
Even Russia works ! — America's duty — Patriotism and Ancestor-
worship — Opportunism like Constantino's — Buddhist ambition
— Secular schools — A native Church — Best base . . 219
6. The Cradle of Christendom
Cowed by the Muslim— Islam f altering —Perishing by the sword ?—
Responsive to preaching — A stationary system — A benumbed
Church—Preaching illegal— The field for laymen and women : —
Industrial, medical, literary, educational, harem work —
America's opportunity— Catholic weakness— Ishmael and
Isaao •••.... .223
Seventeen Centuries of Missions .... 233

Bibliography

235

ERRATA . On pages 29, 32, 38, 57, 69, 91, 95, for
"Arian" read, "Aryan."
On page 245, column 2, line 18, for
' ' forms " read " focus. "

Introduction

CHEISTIANITY is a Missionary religion. This is no
accident, nor an afterthought of man, but the
eternal purpose of the all-wise God. For ages the
mystery of salvation had been hidden; but the Father
purposed that His manifold wisdom should be made
known through the Church as soon as the Son of Man
had been lifted up. Our Lord, on the last evening of His
earthly ministry, gladly and solemnly reflected that He had
accomplished the work given Him to do. His request
now was, first for the men who had been given Him out
of the world, that they should be kept from the evil one ;
and then that all who should believe on Him through
their word might be one. He had spent much of His
energy in training a band of missionaries. After that
death on the Cross, which crowned His life, He gave His
parting injunction to these followers that they should
evangelise the world, enlist other followers, and train
them in turn to Christian service. Thus at the outset,
the scope of our duty was plainly and emphatically
announced. This Missionary programme, viewed on its human side,

xiv Introduction
was original. Most religious leaders had confined them
selves to their own peoples. Even among the Jews, it
was rarely that the very greatest of them thought of their
faith as meant for all nations ; and though some ardent
souls would compass sea and land to make one proselyte,
yet their success was small in their own eyes, and it was
branded by our Lord as in reality a moral failure. For
Him it was reserved to teach new truths, to make
atonement for the sins of the world, and to ensure that
His work should continue and develop, by founding a
Society whose leading purpose was to spread the know
ledge of what He had wrought, not slackening endeavour
till all nations had been enlightened.
This magnificent charge has always been heeded by a
faithful few; with varying energy, with varying skill,
soldiers of the Cross have always been found on the
frontiers of Christendom. During the last century, the
primary duty of the Church has attracted increasing
attention, and there is now no quarter of the world pur
posely or accidentally excluded from the sphere of Christian
effort. Lest strength be misdirected, it is well for those
who are not in the din of conflict at the front, to take a
survey of the whole field, that they may try and compre
hend the principles of the holy warfare. The experience
of nineteen centuries deserves to be scanned, for the
victories and defeats of missionaries happened by way of
example; and they may serve for our admonition, that
we may avoid repeating their mistakes, and may improve
upon their successes.
When we look for important eras, we can recognise

Introduction xv
three centuries crucial for the spread of Christianity : the
seventh, the thirteenth, and the nineteenth. The first of
these periods, 600 a.d. to 700 A.D., marks the rise and
marvellous success of Islam, well called a counter-
mission; it broke up the continuity of Christian lands
around the Mediterranean, and permanently separated the
two mission centres of Babylon and Eome. The second
period, 1200 a.d. to 1300 A.D., marks the revival in the
Western world which soon won the rest of Europe,
regained Spain, and even tried to Bomanise the Levant ;
while it shows the culmination of Christianity in Asia,
with native Churches in Syria, Persia, Turkestan, North
China, South India, and even in the islands of Socotra,
Ceylon, and Java. The third period, 1800 a.d. to 1900
a.d., marks the deliberate attempt to evangelise the whole
world, recognised at last as the paramount task of the
Church. During these ages, the seed of the Gospel has been
cast into very different soils, and each yielded a different
result. Asia contained three great empires with vener
able religions : China indeed lay secluded behind vast
deserts, and was not in touch with Jewry ; but India was
known, and could be reached by land or sea; while
Parthia, which only forty years before our Lord's birth
had ruled over Jerusalem, still governed millions of Jews
in the splendid realm across the Euphrates. Europe was
the headquarters of the great Eoman Empire spreading
around the Mediterranean, where in the East the civilisa
tion was of a Greek cast ; while in the West the Latin
influence predominated. Africa in the North shared the

xvi Introduction
same culture ; but beyond the Sudan and the Sahara lay
other races of more primitive type, yet equally needy of
salvation. Across the Western ocean were other lands ;
and when Christianity was dying in its native continent
a new world was opened to it in America. And then
westward, the course of Empire still holding its way, the
circuit of the globe leads to Asia anew— yes, to a new
Asia, awaking from lethargy, and uncertain what path to
follow, thus needing most urgently the authoritative,
" Come and see ! "
Thus to follow the march of the centuries, thus to sweep
through the continents of the world, is to get some
glimpse of how all times and all lands are in the almighty
hand of our Father. Through Christ He created the ages ;
in Christ He claimed the world. The outworking of
His plan of redemption we do not fully understand;
but enough of that mystery which had been kept in
silence through times eternal has now been revealed, to
lead us in adoration to the only wise God, through Jesus
Christ, to whom be the glory for ever !

MISSIONARY ACHIEVEMENT

i
FAILURE IN ASIA

Our yet unfinished story
Is tending all to this :
To God the greatest glory,
To us the greatest bliss.
From broken alabaster
Was deathless fragrance shed,
The spikenard flowed the faster
Upon the Saviour's head.
The discord that involveth
Some startling change of key,
The Master's hand resolveth
In richest harmony.
Havergal.

Failure in Asia
THE Holy Land is essentially a fragment of Asia,
although in the providence of God the European
power of Rome was dominant there during the
earthly life of our Lord. If now and again the dwellers
by the Nile claimed a footing, yet it harboured chiefly
the Semites of Arabia, and was ruled generally from the
Euphrates or Tigris. There is reason, then, in examining
first the spread of Christianity in its native continent.
The study may be the more interesting as its story has
never been written in our tongue, and the facts have had
to be gleaned with patience from all manner of sources.
The field of Asia may, however, be narrowed by setting
aside three great areas : first, that Anatolian land called
by us Asia Minor, which is better treated in connection
with Europe, whose civilisation it largely shares, and
whence it has been ruled for centuries ; second, we
may postpone the study of Arabia, which from a religious
point of view is associated rather with Africa ; third,
we may ignore Siberia and the North as a tract of land
then utterly unimportant.
Again, we may draw the line at the period when Asiatic
Christianity had spent its force. Thrice has Europe

4 Failure in Asia
tried to transplant her rehgion : once in the Middle Ages,
by force, in the Crusades ; once at the dawn of the modern
world of commerce, when the friars and the Jesuits were
the heroes ; once again when Protestantism essayed
the task anew, with the weapons of thought. But these
attempts represent the Western world seeking to domin
ate or to rejuvenate the East ; and if help is to be gained
for modern ambassadors, there must first be study of what
Asiatics have done for Asiatics, how they succeeded and
why they failed. For we know that by 1400 a.d. they
had failed, conspicuously and finally, and that Christianity
in Asia was then absolutely negligible.
Our rehgion in its Eastward progress met four great
nations — the Jews, the Parthians or Persians, the Indians,
the Chinese. Let us note how it fared with each of these.

1. The Jews
We to our past adhere,
The onward path we fear,
We keep the faith for which our fathers bled :
We will not yield one jot,
Let zeal be fierce and hot —
Smite them and spare them not,
Till they their faith deny, or lie among the dead. PlTTMPTRE.
Poore nation, whose sweet sap and juice
Our cyens have purloined, and left you dry:
Whose streams we got by the Apostles' sluce,
And use in baptisme, while ye pine and die :
Who by not keeping once, became a debtor ;
And now by keeping, lose the letter !
Hbbbert.

Christianity and the Jews 5
Since whole nations have been swayed by their rehgious
reformers, such as Zoroaster, Confucius, Gotama, Mu
hammad, we may be inclined to wonder why the Jews
remained almost unaffected by one who was not only
the Prophet long expected, but also far more than a
prophet, being the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Any Israelite who was told in the year 25 a.d. that within
the current high-priesthood the Messiah would come and
accomplish His work, must have confidently expected a
national evolution or a rehgious revolution. He would
have been sure that there could be no failure in what
God had prepared His people for during the ages. But
once again Isaiah's doctrine of the Remnant was to be
exemplified ; once again was it to be seen that the Jews
of Palestine were on the whole " bad figs," as in the days
of Jeremiah, and that the best were to be sought away
from the centre of contamination at Jerusalem. If Ezekiel
beheld the glory of the Lord depart from the Temple,
so, too, the disciples heard Jesus declare that the House
was left desolate ; and they beheld Him despised and
rejected by His own nation. During His personal ministry
He won only seventy brethren to prepare the way for
Him on His journey to the Cross. And when God had
set His seal on Christ's mission by the resurrection,
yet there were only five hundred in Galilee who, in
that hour of triumph, were enthusiastic enough to
accept His gracious invitation and behold their risen
Lord. Then came the Spirit, and the proclamation of pardon

6 Failure in Asia
even to those who slew their Messiah. Nor was this
in vain ; and soon there were thousands at Jerusalem,
including disciples of the Pharisees and a great company
of the priests. But if hopes were ever entertained of
winning the leaders and bringing the whole nation to
accept Jesus as the Messiah, they must soon have faded
when Stephen challenged the Temple and the customs
delivered by Moses ; when Paul entered into the breach
made by Philip and Peter, introducing Gentiles ; and
when the Jewish Nazarenes agreed, however reluctantly,
to recognise these on almost equal terms. Paul himself
might be plotted against, or thrown into prison, but his
work continued ; and whatever those of the new Way
might decide, the orthodox Jews held distinctly that it
was an unlawful thing for them to keep company with
one of another nation. Henceforth these followers of the
Crucified were a sect, and their doctrine was a heresy.
So far had the god of this world blinded the minds of the
unbelieving. The suppression of the great rebellion in 70 a.d., the
destruction of the Temple, and the extinction of the San-
hedrin with its priestly rulers, might seem to open the
way anew for the nation to reahse its true destiny. But
instantly the Pharisees stepped into the vacant leader
ship, and proceeded to close up the ranks by detecting
and expelling all suspected of sympathy with Jesus.
They forbade any manner of observance of the first day of
the week ; they framed a special " Benediction " — which
reads rather like a malediction— against the " Minim,"

The "Clementines" 7
as they began to style their erring brethren, and caused
it to be pronounced every Sabbath ; they discouraged
the reading of all books tainted with the heresy, even
forbidding the use of a copy of the Law previously owned
by a heretic. And when there came the desperate rising
against Hadrian, they did their best to massacre aU the
Jewish Christians. This made it hopeless to think of
winning over the whole of the once Chosen People ; and
we may confine attention to the minority which was
trying on the one hand to keep the Law of Moses, and
on the other to accept the grace and truth which came
through Jesus the Messiah.
At the middle of the second century they still felt
themselves the main Christian stock ; and we hear of a
Jewish Christian who recoUected the precedent of Barnabas,
once sent down to Antioch to inspect the doings there
and assure the Church at Jerusalem that all was well
with the daughter Church. In this spirit Hegesippus
went on a tour of the Christian Churches ; he was satisfied
with what he found at Corinth and at Rome, doctrine
that accorded with the Law and the Prophets and the
Lord. He shows that in his circle a glorification of James
had made way, as if he were a sort of high priest. But
within a dozen years his party was in a minority, and
soon ceased to obtain any recognition of pre-eminence.
Thereupon appeal was made to the power of the pen,
and a novel was pubhshed with Clement of Rome as
its hero, representing him as converted by Peter in
Palestine, and as looking to James at Jerusalem to

8 Failure in Asia
confirm him as Peter's successor. It is instructive
to see how the Jewish Christians tenaciously asserted
their superiority, and how they endeavoured to sub
ject all the Christian world to an hereditary dynasty
of the family of Joseph and Mary. The claim was
ignored, except in so far as it kindled aspirations in
the Roman Church, destined to come to fruition at no
distant date.
On the other hand, the Nazarenes were cast out by the
old-fashioned Jews, who give us glimpses of their separate
synagogues, where they met probably on the first, fourth,
and sixth days, their readers clad in white and bare
footed, with phylacteries on the forehead and the palms
of the hands. Thus isolated on either hand, like the
Anglican communion to-day, they worked out their
own theology ; two leading schools appear, one purely
Jewish-Christian, the second influenced by other Asiatic
elements. The germs of the latter may be traced in the
counterblasts of Paul and John against the heresies of
Asia Minor, or in the teachings of Cerinthus as reported
by Hippolytus ; but this does not claim attention yet,
for its influence was greatest in Europe. The Palestinian
type is shown in the Talmud and in the Clemen
tine Homilies, which reveal the way the old Jews
regarded them, and the way they regarded the Gentile
Christians. As against the orthodox Jews, they upheld the reality
of the resurrection of the Lord, and insisted that this was
the only valid proof of a general resurrection, demand-

A Combination oe Peculiarities 9
ing where the Old Testament promised any such thing,
or even foreshadowed it. They had a high doctrine of
the Person of Christ, and were charged with asserting
the duality of the Godhead. To His teachings they paid
respect, and on His authority they criticised the Law of
Moses, declaring that only the Ten Words were still binding,
and so becoming involved in frequent disputes on ritualism.
But as against Gentile Christians, they were sacerdotal
and legal, and had a strong sense of the value of exter
nal continuity. EspeciaUy they regarded Christianity
as continuous with Judaism, and claimed a secret tradi
tion to prove this. Thus they inevitably continued in
conflict with Paul, as their fathers had been, and the
Homilies contain a virulent attack on him and his teach
ing. And in their view of Jesus they laid the emphasis,
not with Paul, on the Cross ; nor even with Peter, on the
Messiahship : but on the teaching and prophecy of Jesus
Himself. This combination of peculiarities condemned them to
isolation and stagnation, and as the Church grew in other
directions they became less and less important. In
the fourth and fifth centuries the tendency to uniformity
bore hardly on them ; and the " Catholic Church," having
taken over to itself their chosen dogmas of continuity,
sacerdotahsm, and legalism, at length excluded them alto
gether as heretics.
If any of them resented this, they had a magnificent
revenge ; for all the knowledge that Muhammad had of
Jesus seems to have reached him through some Jewish

10 Failure in Asia
Christians, and the Qur'an reflects some of their ideas.
Had there been more consideration on both sides, more
interchange of thought between Jewish and Gentile
Christians, Muhammad might have had a richer and
deeper conception of Jesus ; his watchword might have
varied, and he might have done for western Asia and
Africa what Olopun of Persia was doing for eastern Asia,
what Aidan and Chad were doing for England, what
Columban was doing for Central Europe.
But as a matter of fact, most of the Jews rejected
Jesus ; and those who did accept Him fulfilled His fore
bodings, and would only take a patch of the new cloth
to put upon their old garments : by thus qualifying their
acceptance of Him they remained feeble and stationary,
and are now extinct. Looked at outwardly, Christianity
failed twice in the very place where it ought to have suc
ceeded wonderfully. Yet, is not such an idea due to the
Jewish error of outward continuity, naturalised among
Christians as Apostolic Succession ? Look not at peoples,
but at ideas. What did the Jews bequeath to Christian
thought ? We can trace three distinct legacies — from
our Lord, from the Apostles, from later generations.
First, Jesus Himself disengaged three great truths
from the mass of Jewish behefs, and stamped them with
His authority. He endorsed the current faith in God as
a living God, actively concerned with all that passed :
"My Father worketh hitherto. Thy Father seeth in
secret, and shaU recompense thee." Then He authenti
cated the splendid hope for the future, both of the

"Professional Missionaries" 11
world and of the individual ; He transformed it by that
personal touch for which our hearts crave, immeasurably
enriching it by the assurance that eternal life was to
know the Father and Himself ; and to what had been
but a pious hope without any solid foundation, He now
imparted an imperishable certitude by His own reappear
ance from the dead, an earnest of what might happen
to all. Further, He not only approved the lofty ethics of
the Jews, but He frankly criticised their written Law as
inadequate to the needs of their time, and selected two
sentences into which He breathed new meaning, presently
restating them in what He called plainly a New Com
mandment, enjoining Mutual Love. No rehgion had ever
lifted such a standard before its devotees. And once
more, whereas Ezekiel had claimed attention to the im
portance of the individual, and John the Baptist had
driven this home to the individual sinner among the
Jews, Jesus not only taught that every man stands or
falls by himself, but added that each is saved by the
personal interest of God, and through a personal devo
tion to Himself : "He that believeth on Me hath
eternal life."
The earliest Jewish Christians, living before the schism,
brought rare contributions to Christian life and thought.
To begin with, they were accustomed to a steady pro
paganda ; and to them we are indebted for the very con
ception of professional missionaries, of men whose efforts
to spread Christianity were the chief thing in life, and
not mere by-products. There was no Apostolic Succession

12 Failure in Asia
of missionaries kept up after the Jewish element was
extruded from the Church, and its influence faded out.
True that here and there we find a Gregory Illuminator,
a Ramon Lull, a Francis Xavier ; but these are rare ex
ceptions. Had the Jewish custom been perpetuated,
the command of Jesus might have been speedily obeyed,
and all the nations might have heard the Good News a
millennium ago.
Unfortunately, one item of their programme did abide,
the thought that every missionary was to model his
proceedings on the pattern of Jesus, the Forerunner
and the Example, and the directions given by Him on
one specific occasion to the twelve disciples were taken
as universally applicable. Here, surely, are two fallacies :
Jesus was not above all things the model missionary,
but the Redeemer ; and His conduct must often have been
determined by this consideration, so that it is a mistake
to appeal to it as necessarily in every detail to be imitated.
And the directions given to the twelve in Matthew x.
bear one obvious mark of being temporary, in that they
hmit that mission to Jews : the details of conduct
ordered on that single tour are of no more permanent
binding force than the restriction, " Go not into any way
of the Gentiles " — which has long since been removed by
the express order, "Make disciples of all the nations."
Yet the blunder persisted, and wrought serious effects :
despite the plain words of Paul, despite the fact that he
was a widower, settling for years at a time in one town
to establish a cause, and supporting himself; yet the

The Old and New Testaments 13
popular type of missionary was the itinerant bachelor
subsisting on chance charity. The evangehsts and
wandering prophets of the second century were gradually
discredited and supplanted by stationary local officials,
and organised missionary effort correspondingly ceased.
A more useful legacy from the Jews was the Old
Testament, the sacred literature of the Jews ; to which, as
Hegesippus shows, the Jewish Christians soon added the
Lord's words as equally authoritative, and to which
Marcion speedily opposed the writings of Paul : so that
gradually a New Testament emerged, completing a collec
tion of standard religious literature. Familiar as this
conception was in China, India, and Persia, yet in the
Roman Empire it was a novelty, and the Jews must be
credited with its introduction. Again they carried over a
new atyle of worship, that of the synagogue, with its public
reading, its responsive prayers, its chants, its preaching ;
but without pompous procession or idol or priest or sacri
fice. And once more, if we think of doctrine, the concep
tion of Jesus as the God-sent Leader, to whom all the
ages led up, and in whom all history finds its inter
pretation, this is their grandest legacy. Expressed with
awe-stricken adoration by Paul, missionary and theologian
alike, it strikes the keynote for those who would follow
the philosophy of history. This glorious truth, that all
things are summed up in Christ, sets us at the right
point for viewing the past to elicit its meaning, and for
advancing into the future cheerfully trusting the Captain
of our salvation.

14 Failure in Asia
At a later period Gentile Christians appropriated yet
other elements from the Jews, the value of which is
extremely different. There was an adoption of Jewish
apocalypses, and a tendency to forge writings, which
could perhaps be checked by officials and kept out of
public worship, but none the less were studied at home.
There was an officialism which turned the business com
mittee into a paid staff of priests, turned the teacher into
a rabbi with a love for tradition, and promoted a life
tenure of office with a corresponding degradation of the
unofficial Christian, like " this people which knoweth not
the Law, accursed." Such an inheritance as this was no
part of the primitive deposit, and can only be regarded
at best as a temporary husk, which must perish when the
grain of wheat is sown afresh.

2. Syrians, Armenians, and Persians
Clad in the robe I betook me
Up to the gate of the palace,
Bowing my head to the sign of the glorious
Sign of the Father that sent it;
I had performed His behest,
And He had fulfilled what He promised;
So in the satraps' court
I joined the throng of the chieftains ;
He with favour received me,
And near Him I dwell in the Kingdom.
Sykian Hymn of the Soul.
To the east and north-east of Palestine lay the basins
of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Araxes, all containing Jews,

A Notable Convert 15
and presenting obvious fields for Christian missionaries.
No difficulty would arise as to language, for the Aramaic
of Palestine differed no more from the Aramaic of the
Parthian kingdom than Lowland Scots from standard
English. Indeed, both Matthew and Josephus wrote
originally in Aramaic for this very population, and their
works were read as far as the Indus. And for centuries
afterward the Jews used it for their Talmud and their
Targums. Now, the Jewish rebellion of 135 a.d. was a great
dividing line for Jewish Christians as for Jews proper.
When it was suppressed, a Christian missionary, called
Addai, came to the frontier town of Edessa, where he
found Jews with translations of their Law and Prophets,
and of Ben Sira's Wisdom. Many of these people he con
verted, and built a church for their use. Though he died
in peace, his successor Aggai was less fortunate ; opposi
tion developed and he was martyred. Soon a native called
Tatian returned from Rome bringing the Four Gospels
which he dovetailed into a composite Life of Jesus, trans
lating and publishing it in the vernacular. The breach
between Jews and Christians is shown in the fact that
he used a different alphabet ; and gradually the dialect be
came specialised and was known as Syriac, which remained
a literary language for Christians down to 1300 a.d. Soon
was won a notable follower, Bar-Daisan, astrologer and
philosopher. Tatian had peculiarities that the Greek
world wondered at, and from this new convert Syriac
Christianity received another notable impress. He specu-

16 Failure in Asia
lated on the origin of the world, and on the factors to
determine the character and future of a man ; as against
Nature, and Fate, he emphasised the reality of free will.
Certainly he was excommunicated as too bold a theorist ;
but if we turn to the standard book of the second century,
the Doctrine of Addai, we discover that nothing is said
about parentage or children or education. Indeed, the
asceticism for which Tatian was blamed developed so
fast that church membership at Edessa was for celibates
only ! Married people might indeed attend certain
parts of worship, but could not even be baptized.
Persecution reduced the Church, and the Greeks of
Antioch intervened to rescue it from foes without and
faddists within. A new line of bishops began about 200
a.d. with Palut, on the annexation of Edessa to the
Roman Empire, and the break of continuity was marked
by the river destroying the church building. For awhile
the energies of the Church were directed Westward ;
Cappadocia was won for Christ, and the XII. Legion
quartered on this frontier became deeply leavened. When
Decius and Diocletian tried to stamp out Christianity,
this Legion and this Church yielded many martyrs.
From Edessa the Gospel was carried Northward to
Armenia, which profited first by the presence of Bar-
Daisan, then of an organiser, Gregory Illuminator. So
successful were the missionaries that King Tiridates not
only gave in his own adhesion, but also established it as
the State rehgion, the first such instance known. Syriac
and Greek schools were opened, and the Scriptures were

The Gospel in Armenia 17
taught ; soon the sons of heathen priests were in training
to become native bishops. Had we the time to spare,
it would be interesting to sketch the remarkable form
assumed here by Christianity, revealed to us by the
Armenian " Key of Truth," before the Greek spirit affected
the national Church and distracted its attention to other
problems. One point is that the headship of the Church
descended in Gregory's family, much as at Jerusalem
it descended in the family of Joseph and Mary. And
even to the present day the priesthood remains hereditary.
Until the year 230 a.d. the Eastern Kingdom, on whose
borders both Syria and Armenia lay, was governed by the
Parthians ; but then the Persians brought about great
changes, both pohtical and rehgious. The Tigris and
Euphrates became again highways of travel, and the
Christians of Edessa came into touch with others on the
shores of the Persian Gulf and of Baluchistan. They
seem to have originated from the labours of the Apostle
Thomas, who evangehsed those parts in the reign of
King Gondophar, reigning near Cabul, and who was
slain on the coast rather west of Karachi. The com
munity he founded preserved an Aramaic " Gospel accord
ing to Matthew," which was taken to Alexandria by a
missionary professor, a converted Sicilian Jew, about
180 a.d. The story of the doings of Thomas has been
grievously embeUished, but the very embellishments
show us the ideal that obtained in the district — virginity,
poverty, vegetarianism ; and in these points we recognise
the local ideal of holiness, adopted later by the Brahmans,
3

18 Failure in Asia
though as foreign to the primitive Hindu rehgion as to
Christianity. In the year 235 a.d. a merchant brought
to Edessa what he supposed were the bones of Thomas,
which were deposited in the old church ; and ever since
then the Christians spreading throughout Persia styled
themselves the " Church of Saint Thomas." *
The pohtical changes at this time were less important
than the revival of the Persian rehgion. The antique
national faith had been recast about the time of Ezekiel
by Zoroaster, who had inspired the Medes to their national
revival which overthrew Nineveh, and led Cyrus seventy
years later to permit the restoration of Jerusalem. The
Zoroastrians now condescended to copy Christian models ;
their priests were organised into a hierarchy, and presently
their sacred books were gathered into a canon.
1 The subsequent history of these bones is curious. In 394 Bishop
Cyrus removed them to a grand new church in Edessa, where Sylvia
of Aquitaine saw them. About fifty years later General Anatolius
presented a silver casket in which they were placed, and hung by silver
chains from the roof. When the separation took place between the
Persian Church and the Greek, the latter retained the relics. In 1097
the Latins conquered the place, and they claim that they took the
bones to Chios, where in 1127 they rededicated the cathedral to Thomas,
and that in 1258 another removal took place to Ortona on the east
coast of Italy, where the head may still be seen mounted in silver. But
the Greeks declare that before the Latin conquest the emperor, Alexioa
Comnenos, removed the head, and presented it about 1090 to a new
monastery on Patmos, where also it may be seen mounted in silver,
and very efficacious in its influence on the weather. It is also to be
noted that in 1293 Marco Polo found in Malabar, on the coast of India,
a church to the memory of Thomas, whence in 1522 the Portuguese
removed what a Muslim told them were the bones of the Apostle and the
lance that speared him ; these are to be seen at Goa. A fourth set of
bones is now displayed at the Malabar church in the suburbs of Madras.

A Celibate Church 19
When, a century later, Christianity was adopted by the
Greek Empire as its State Rehgion, it was instantly re
garded in Persia as an exotic enemy, and' an organised
campaign against it was set on foot. This, however,
served rather for the furtherance of the Gospel, as in the
days of Stephen ; for the fugitives carried a knowledge
of Christ round the coast to South Arabia, where we
shall meet it on another occasion, and across the ocean
to the Maldive Isles, and especiaUy to the south-west of
India and round to Madras.
Yet the persecution was a pohtical blunder, for the
Persian Christians were not in very close touch with the
Greek. Not only was the language different, but the
theology also, as is shown by the writing of Afrahat, the
Persian sage. So far as he had any doctrine of the Person
of Christ, it was quite untouched by Greek thought,
and quite innocent of the speculations of Arius and
Athanasius, but represented rather the old type noticed
in Armenia. Really with him Christianity was not a
creed, but a life, and emphasis was laid on the conduct.
Listeners and vague adherents were welcomed, but they
were not admitted to fellowship unless they would take
vows and become " Sons of the Covenant." This cove
nant was for cehbates, and these alone might be baptized.
Married people were not admissible, nor was any ceremony
of marriage regarded as a sacrament. The origin of
this peculiarity we shall understand when we study the
influence of Buddhism farther Eastward. However we
may deplore this narrowing, there was at least one in-

20 Failure in Asia
evitable gain. A church which dehberately refuses to
admit members who can raise children in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord must either die or be a missionary
church. And this latter alternative was joyfully elected.
One more great statesman deserves notice, Rabbula
by name. He revised the old Bible, adding more books,
modernising the language, and creating a standard text.
He absorbed the great sects of Marcion and Bar-Daisan,
and made the Persian Church one. But even as he
brought about this unity, complete by his death in 435
a.d., fresh troubles were arising, due to the propensity of
the Greeks to raise theological questions about the Person
of Christ. The Persians did not sympathise, and after
some hesitation cut the knot by breaking off aU fellow
ship with the Greeks. The Persian Church was labelled
by the Greeks, " Nestorian " ; but this obscures the great
fact that the Persian Syrians were tired of the whole
subject, and were eager to develop on their own lines.
The Greeks in revenge destroyed the college at Edessa,
and the centre of gravity now shifted really to the twin
cities of Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the Tigris, the new Persian
capital forty miles north of the ancient Babylon, from
which city the Patriarch now took his title.
Thus thoroughly detached from European Christianity,
the Persian Church organised anew, and soon found
itself confronted with a reformed Zoroastrianism furnished
with a revised edition of the Avesta. The State Rehgion
taught the lordship of Ahura Mazda, a good and wise
spirit, ruling a band of angels through six archangels,

Two Great Messages 21
but opposed by an evil spirit. It upheld a lofty morality
by the promise of a resurrection and a future judgement
leading to an eternal heaven or hell ; and it provided
an elaborate ritual of purification. Much of this the
Persian Christians agreed with ; but they had two great
messages to the Zoroastrian — that sin could be forgiven
through Jesus Christ without the need of burdensome
ceremonial, and that the whole tone of life could be raised
by the help of the Holy Spirit. It is melancholy to
confess that even after the Zoroastrian forces were divided
by the new departures of Mazdak, no great impression
was made by the Christians, though it must in fairness
be allowed that the law inflicting death for perverting a
Zoroastrian was no dead letter.
Yet, as we know that similar prohibitions have never
by themselves been effectual, we are bound to ask what
internal weakness there was in the Persian Church during
the Zoroastrian period. The answer is simple — the lack
of any vernacular version of the Bible. When their
old Syriac coUege at Edessa was destroyed, and when
they founded a new one at Nisibis, they had a grand
opportunity to cut adrift from the West in every way,
and to naturalise themselves most thoroughly. But there
was one pecuhar hindrance which has always handicapped
the dwellers on the Tigris — the absence of a simple system
of writing. The ancient cuneiform is a byword for its
complexities ; and although an alphabet had been worked
out by old Persians, yet the Parthians hardly knew how
to write their language, and for more than a thousand

22 Failure in Asia
words of importance wrote the Syriac word instead, thus
exactly reverting to the curious hybrid custom of the
Babylonians.1 But even if an expository translation of the
ancient Avesta were appended to it in this heterogeneous
jumble, where for the word written was pronounced the
corresponding word in another tongue, we can readily
understand that the Persian Christians hesitated to abandon
their pure Syriac for such pidgin-Persian ; as a matter
of fact, " Pahlavi " (as the Parthian form of writing
was styled) was hardly used except for the sacred books
of the Zoroastrians. Yet if it be true that the Jews ren
dered their Law into Arabic and Persic by 827 a.d., we
can hardly acquit the Christians of neghgence ; and it is
not pleasant to find that leisure was found by bishops
to write learned treatises in Persian and Arabic, and
even to translate Aristotle, but not to translate the
Scriptures. Without a real vernacular Bible the Christians were
handicapped. But it is to be remembered that they
were not corrupted like their European contemporaries.
Their clergy held fast to the apostolic order that they
should marry, since a synod in 499 a.d. had faced this
matter and altered the custom mentioned by Afrahat. No
image or picture laid them open to any charge of idolatry ;
no stone altar ousted the wooden table for the Lord's
Supper, and exposed them to the blame of offering sacrifice.
'We have a similar custom, e.g. " 112 lb., i.e. I cwt., for £1, 13s. 4d.
per lb., etc.," where the Latin abbreviations, however familiar to the
commercial clerk, confuse the foreigner expecting English.

Tolerated 23
Yet we have seen one striking instance of their attach
ment to rehcs, and this feeling of theirs was destined to
aid a tremendous change. One of the latest Shahs was
favourable to Christians, and even built churches ; but in
war with the Greek Empire he captured Jerusalem and
carried off what purported to be the true cross. The
Persian Christians were not pleased with having this
in their midst ; but were furious at the insult to their
rehgion, intended as such by the Zoroastrians, and
executed by the help of thousands of Jews. When,
therefore, the Muslim armies presently attacked the Shah,
first a vassal Christian king submitted, then the Christians
generally welcomed the invaders. A pathetic story is told
of the assassination of the last native Shah in a miller's
hut, and of his body being indebted for decent burial to
the Bishop of Merv, who caused the Christians to build
a church over his grave.
Under Muslim rule the persecution ceased ; toleration
was granted on condition that no effort was made to win
converts from Islam. The same embargo was laid on
the Zoroastrians, and at length the two religions met on
equal terms. In the homeland both long maintained their
footing, and in the Arabian Nights we read how in the
days of Aaron the Just, cahph of Baghdad, Jews, Christians,
Zoroastrians, and Muslims were the four recognised groups.
But as usually happens, the intruding rehgion came to
terms with its predecessor, absorbing much of its teaching
and practice, notably its intense stress on ceremonial
purification. Thereby Persian Islam isolated itself, and

24 Failure in Asia
to-day the Shi'ah sect is widely apart from the mass of
Muhammad's followers ; organised largely in dervish
orders, and with a mystic theology. Very few Persians
hold fast to the old national rehgion in its purity, nine
thousand living in an obscure part of the land ; the ancient
customs of the Parsees only attract attention from the
visitor to Bombay, who is requested not to misuse fire by
smoking on the street cars, and who sees the vultures
hang around the Towers of Silence.
Far other was the destiny of Persian Christianity. When
the hour came that proved so fateful to the ancient Persian
faith, Christianity awoke again to the consciousness of its
missionary calling. To persuade the conquerors was for
bidden, but the armies of Islam had spent their strength
in the attack on Persia, and, except for one feeble wave
that broke on Sindh, the Arabs went no farther. It was
at this time that the Persian Church sent forth great
missions to India and to China, and renewed its youth like
the eagle. Wonderfully does God repeat Himself ! When
Israel was held in captivity by Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon,
Jehovah .sent Cyrus to smite down that empire and set free
His people ; it proved a revival of rehgion for them else
where even while it established the faith of Zoroaster on
the spot. Now that the Zoroastrians held down the
Christian Church in bondage, and in sloth also, God raised
up a new dehverer, as hard to recognise for God's servant
as Cyrus had been, and the Cahph Omar set the Christians
free to go forth with the Message of salvation to the greater
empires Eastward. And what a rebuke is here for the

Educators 25
timorous ! Many to-day would argue that after centuries
of persecution the Church was enfeebled, and that this
respite gave them now a call to Home Missions, to rebuild
the walls and repair the breaches ; this is exactly what
the EngUsh Nonconformists did in 1689 a.d., and the
selfish, narrow pohcy led to dry rot and aU but death.
Such freedom is a call to strengthen the stakes and lengthen
the cords, to go forth and extend.
Nor was the foreign enterprise aUowed to mask in
difference to home duties. When the ignorance of the
Arabs had been long in contact with the civilisation of
Persia, and when Arab chivalry was fading away so that
the Turks were the chief warriors, then Aaron the Just
and his children at Baghdad showed themselves desirous of
learning, and sent out commissions to procure aU manner
of literature, Armenian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Greek,
and to render it into Arabic. At once the Christians
came to the front as interpreters and scholars, and to
them is due the speedy outburst of culture in the caUph's
realm. Naturally they did not ignore their own Scriptures
at this crisis, and soon the Psalms, Gospels, Acts, and
Epistles were current in Arabic, which, as the court tongue,
had spread throughout the dominions of the Arabs. Indeed,
Al Kindy even ventured to put out an Apology for the
Christian Faith. Unhappily the Persian Christians for
the second time missed their opportunity, and retained
the Syriac Bible for public use ; and by the time that the
modern Persian tongue had evolved, the Syriac was so
entrenched in the affections of the clergy that a Persian

26 Failure in Asia
version made no headway. This neglect is the more morti
fying when we know that the Jews had rendered their
Law into the vernacular before 500 a.d., and had trans
lated the whole Old Testament by 1300 a.d. at latest. We
do not know that even the Gospels were put into Persian
tiU 1341 a.d., when a Jewish convert saw the need ; and
it wiU presently appear that the tide of success was
then ebbing, and Christianity was near its extinction
in Persia.
Yet the Church had not fahed to exercise an influence
on Islam around it. While Christians might not on peril
of death seek to win converts direct, a command occasion
ally violated with honour and success, yet aU the develop
ment of Islam at Damascus and Baghdad was in a Christian
atmosphere. The very conception of the right of CEcu-
menical Councils to determine doctrine with authority
passed over to Islam, and gave force to the Agreement of
the early Companions, and of the recognised Expositors
of the Mushm Law. Then, whereas Islam retained crude
animal sacrifices only at Mecca itself on pilgrimage, yet
the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice making atonement for
sin has been taken up by Persian Muhammadans. But
our subject is not the development of Christianity in its
homes, but its extension by pioneers ; and we follow the
Persian missionaries next to India.

Refugees in India 27

3. India, South and North
Hidden in a trackless and primeval wood,
Long-buried temples of an unknown race,
And one colossal idol ; on its face
A changeless sneer, blighting the solitude. Lewis Moreis.
The south-western coasts of Asia had received the Gospel
in the days of Thomas, as we have seen. Unhappily
we are not able to trace its development regularly. After
the visit of Pantsenus from Alexandria, we hear of a
Socotran who was converted and sent as a missionary
to the Arabian coast and Abyssinia. Then in 522 a.d. an
Egyptian Nestorian travelling these seas to gather facts,
and to prove that the earth was flat and not globular, found
Persian Christians settled round the coasts of South India
and Ceylon, and discovered that in doctrine he was largely
akin to them.
But when the caliphs ruled on the Tigris a large emi
gration took place, so important that the Persian settlers
obtained a charter of self-government from the local king
in the south-west of India. And when about 822 a.d.
this was reinforced by a second large company, not only
was a new charter granted, but presently the king himself
became Christian. Such a conversion often leads to im
portant results, but the dynasty died out, and a neighbour
ing ruler asserted his overlordship and checked wholesale
conversion. The immigrants intermarried with the natives,
and the Christian community grew steachly. Monuments

28 Failure in Asia
stiU exist on which may be seen Persian crosses with
inscriptions in Syriac and Pahlavi. For unfortunately
there are no traces that the Scriptures were ever rendered
into Tanhl ; this was not attempted tiU the Dutch began
it in Ceylon about 1688 a.d., and when the Germans took it
up on the mainland they received apparently no help from
this ancient Church, for their vernacular had now diverged
from that of the Eastern coast. Nor was it tiU 1811 a.d.
that, at the suggestion of an Enghshman, they rendered
the Gospels into Malay.
WhUe, however, the Persian missionaries thus neglected
one obvious duty, they strove to unite the advantages of
a native church .with filial submission to the motherland.
Their archbishop was always a Persian, while their deacons,
priests, and bishops were aU local men ; and not only were
they aU married according to New Testament prescription
and Persian wont, but the bishopric was hereditary, as
was the custom of the district, in singular harmony with
what we observed in Armenia.
Nor was India influenced in the south alone. The
vaUey of the Ganges is the most productive in population
and in thought of aU the peninsula, and perhaps of
aU the world. Here Buddhism had been known for
a miUennium, had been the estabhshed rehgion for eight
centuries, and had been propagated by a missionary
king over aU India, Burma, and Ceylon. Let us try
and reahse the rehgious history of the peoples there, to
whom Christianity was about to be offered.
When first we get a ghmpse of them and their cults,

The Buddha 29
it is in the orders of later reformers as to what was to be
opposed. From them we read of palmistry, auguries,
ghost-laying, astrology, mediums ; of worship of the god
dess of luck, of kings, of serpents. Among these aborig
ines in the Panjab, and later in the upper vaUey of the
Ganges, came a slender body of Arians with a faith
faintly akin to that of Zoroaster. Proudly they held
aloof from the dark-skinned - natives, and sought to pre
serve their loftier rehgion ; but as they intermarried, the
coarser behefs of their wives tainted their children, while
the natives paid even less attention to the gods of their
conquerors than the modern natives do to the religion
of their present rulers.
About the time when Haggai and Zechariah were by
leave of Darius promoting the rebuilding of the temple
at Jerusalem, or possibly a httle earher, there arose a
Nepalese noble with aspirations after better things. For
a few years he sought help from ascetic practices, as was
widely the custom ; but failing in that way he turned to
contemplation, and thought out a wonderful pessimist
philosophy. From the enhghtenment that he believed he
had gained he was styled the Buddha. Henceforth he
set himself to combat sorrow by annihilating desire and
cultivating purity and love. And at once he began
itinerant preaching in the lower valley, and enUsted
foUowers who came by hundreds and thousands. On the
outer circle he laid five commands — to be chaste and
temperate, not to MU or steal or he. But an inner circle was
formed of those who would take ten vows, pledging them

30 Failure in Asia
also to avoid garlands or perfumes, dancing or drama,
money, rich food at nights, or aught but a mat to sleep on.
Such devotees he enroUed with a pledge to be true to the
Buddha, to the Doctrine, to the Order ; they were ton
sured and clad in a special gown. Thus arose the first
monks. About fifty years after Malachi, the monks organised
into communities, with chapter meetings in which they
made mutual confession of sin, when they chanted over
the poems which recounted their Buddha's life and teach
ing. Then came the visit of Alexander, which opened
communications between India and the West, leading to
filtration of Buddhist thought and practices to the banks
of the Nile and to the Anatolian plateau. Soon after
the Jewish Law was translated into Greek at Alexandria
there arose a great king, Asoka, who subdued aU India
and Ceylon, and presently adopted Buddhism as his court
rehgion. At his capital of Patna the monks gathered
in council, and from their dehberations emerged the
Canon of Buddhist Scriptures, now for the first time com
mitted to writing, as far as we can teU. Asoka proceeded
to build temples for his State Rehgion, notably at the
spot where the Buddha received enhghtenment, Bodh
Gaya. But more than this, he was a missionary king,
a combination such as rarely appears. Six bodies of
monks did he dispatch — to the Indus, Peshawar, Kashmir,
Burma, Ceylon, and South India. And he estabhshed two
departments of state — one to superintend public religion,
the other to propagate it in foreign parts.

A Great Epic 31
But his empire crumbled, and Tatar invaders came in
through the north-west, who estabhshed their own rule.
On the one hand, this opened the way for Buddhism to
raise them, and to go back along their track tUl it reached
China ; but on the other, it facihtated the rise of a set of
scholars who promptly offered themselves as interpreters,
and set to work to undermine Buddhism and exalt them
selves. This was the easier as the Tatars, in accepting
Buddhism, debased it. And so these scholars, who in
herited and exaggerated the claims of the Brahman
priests to the earlier invaders, saw that they must stoop
to conquer. They gathered up aU the popular legends
not utihsed by Buddhists, and wove them into a Great
Epic, injecting their own sacerdotal theories and glorifying
their own caste perpetuaUy. And thus, when Buddhism
in India was rotting away hke the contemporary North
umbrian paganism, two claimants appeared with new
rehgions : Kumarila, the Brahman priest with his Indian
sacerdotalism, and a mission band from Seleucia-Ctesiphon
with Christianity.
Now, the Buddha had taken great pains to set out
his ideal of what was Good Form — so we may translate
the technical term. But he was wisely silent where he
knew nothing — he had nothing to say on the question of
God, and so he advocated no worship. In the course of
centuries his foUowers have fiUed that gap by worshipping
him, and, indeed, the earhest monuments were huge
domes of brick-work built over rehcs from his funeral
pyre.

32 Failure in Asia
The Brahman priests were ready with an elastic pan
theon, and could either introduce their Arian gods, or
adopt some aboriginal deity, or exalt some popular hero ;
and so the Buddha was declared to be an incarnation of
Vishnu, one of the gods coming to be most regarded. And
on the other hand, they appropriated some Christian ele
ments. The Great Epic has plenty to say about a sly
hero named Krishna ; the similarity of name may have
prompted the transference to him of many stories about
the birth of Christ — a virgin-wife going to pay taxes,
birth in a stable, adoration of the wise men, massacre of
the innocents, miracles wrought in infancy, etc. Then
Krishna thus decked out is declared to be another incarna
tion of Vishnu (a stroke to conciliate the Arians), and this
Krishna-Vishnu is associated with a shadowy Brahma
and a bloody Shiva into a triad of gods. With these
amazing loans from Christianity the Brahmans felt ready
to inoculate the people, and to defy the purer and stronger
religion. There was a time when the pretensions of the Brahman
priests had been absurd, and when the Buddha could
found a movement that made no room at aU for priests,
largely because it was altogether silent about God. But
for belief either in thirty-three or in thirty-three million
gods, priests become almost a necessity to prescribe the
due ritual and to mediate effectively. So the Brahmans
now came forward with theories that they had long in
cubated, closed up their ranks, and declared themselves
an hereditary and indispensable priesthood. Provided

Hinduism Leavened 33
they could be acknowledged as leaders of society, entitled
to respect and to huge fees, nay, even to be worshipped as
Divine, then there was nothing they could not absorb,
no doctrine, no worship, no god, no conduct however vile.
Christians have certainly stooped again and again,
have borrowed much from the strong local religions ; but
they have never been willing to go these lengths. So
the Christian mission failed to plant the pure faith on
the Ganges. But if it failed as a whole, it seems to have
produced one remarkable development which may be
traced in the Divine Song, inserted presently in the Great
Epic. A whole Uterature has grown up about a new
doctrine taught here for the first time ; and from an
official text-book Dr. Grierson quotes the foUowing com
pressed but hteral translation :
" BhaJcti means faith, in the sense of absolute devotion
to a personal God. It is defined as ' an affection fixed
upon the Lord.' It is not belief. Those who hate the
Lord may beheve, but they have not faith. It may be
present in outward acts of worship, but they are not
of themselves faith. It must be devoted to a person,
not to have a system of doctrine. It is ' abiding ' in Him.
It may not be devotion for some spiritual gain, for it
must be purely unselfish. ' Works ' are not faith, nor can
they be united with faith unless they are pure, that is,
surrendered to Him as the One who inspired the believer
to perform the work. Works not so surrendered partake
of the nature of sin, and are but bondage. Faith must
be directed to the Supreme, or to one of His incarnations.
4

34 Failure in Asia
He alone is free from taint of earth, and hence He alone
is purely unselfish. He became incarnate, and descended
from His high estate unselfishly and solely to abohsh
others' woes. We know faith by its fruits. Such are
respect and honour paid to the Lord, celebration of His
praise, continuing to hve for His sake, considering every
thing as His, regarding Him as being in aU things, resigna
tion to His wih, sorrow for sin, absence of anger, envy,
greed, and impure thoughts."
Thus far, then, Christianity leavened the popular
rehgion, outwardly with the tales of Christ's infancy
distorted and naturalised, but inwardly with the great
doctrine of Faith which works by Love, a faith directed
to God incarnate as Saviour, and evincing itself in renewed
life. Next, we may trace another stream of influence
which came from the Tamil Church of the South, whose
progress we could note step by step and century by
century, but can now mention here only the crises.
It was in the twelfth century, when in Western lands
the Second Crusade was afoot, and in the Baltic the isles
were being conquered for Christ, that a heathen priest
of South India named Ramanuja found his way to the
North with a new doctrine. By this time the old Northern
language in which the Buddhist literature was written
had given way to Hindi, whUe the Brahman priests
had evolved an artificial tongue caUed Sanskrit, which
always has remained the property of a narrow educated
circle. By this time the Buddhists seem to have been
absorbed into the Shiva sect, or to be just finding a new

A Hindi Milton 35
opportunity by the contact of Islam with their strong
hold on the lower Ganges. It seems very probable that
the mass of Bengah MusUms are descended from the
Buddhists, who found a double boon offered them —
escape from the domineering of their age-long enemies,
the Brahman priests, and a satisfaction for the natural
craving after a god, without the degrading and incredible
tales now worked into the Great Epic.
Now the doctrine which Ramanuja brought from the.
South was elaborated by a succession of disciples, of
whom the most famous was Ramanand, flourishing when
the last tribes of Europe were accepting Christ, and when
Wycliffe had just given a new Ught in England. At
length, in the days of Shakespeare, there arose at Benares
a Brahman priest caUed Tulasi Das, who became the
MUton of the Hindus. Rama, heir of the king of Oudh,
was already the hero of a poem in the sacred Sanskrit ;
Tulasi Das now wrote, not in an unknown tongue, but
in the vernacular Hindi, another poem on the same theme.
This book, almost contemporary with the EngUsh Genevan
Bible, the first to win popular affection, is now practically
the Bible of the Ramaites, said to number a hundred
millions. Strange to say, Enghsh scholars, misled by
the Brahman priests, have hardly made acquaintance
with this work, which feeds the souls of the largest sect
in India. And one who knows it weU blames our mis
sionaries for their ignorance that it teaches much Christian
doctrine — doubtless intermixed with superstition, doubtless
with the name of Rama where we put the name of Christ,

36 Failure in Asia
but stiU doctrine essentiaUy and historicaUy Christian.
Hear an exposition :
" There is one God and Father of all who became in
carnate in this sinful world as ' Rama, the Redeemer of
the world.' God became incarnate as Rama, not merely
to slay a demon, but to save souls. Rama hved on this
world as a man, experiencing man's purest happiness,
man's heaviest sorrows. He made friends with and
received help from the very humblest beings, even from
aborigines whose mere touch was defilement to the Brah
man-Pharisee, beings so degraded that birth-proud
Aryans looked upon them as level with the monkeys of
the forest. Rama is now in heaven. He has not lost
His personahty ; so to speak, He has not disincarnated
Himself, but is stiU Rama, the loving, the compassionate,
the sinless. Sin is hateful, not only because it condemns
the sinner to future torment, but chiefly because it is
incompatible with Rama's nature. Yet no one is too
great a sinner for Rama to save, if he wiU only come to
Rama. The sinner must confess his sin, and in aU good
faith must throw himself naked of aU good works before
Rama, and Rama wiU stretch out His hand to save him,
as He has done to countless others before. Rama has
been a man, and knows what man's sins and sorrows are.
The sorrows He knows by having sorrowed, the sins He
knows by His ineffable compassion alone, for He has
never sinned Himself. Rama is the loving Father of
every human being ; and we, His children, are therefore
brothers, and must love each other as brothers, just as

Heathenism Purified 37
we love Him as a father. Faith, devotion, directed to
Rama, is aU that is necessary for salvation, and salva
tion is a hfe of pure bhss with Him after death. Faith
in His name is a httle boat ; the Holy Master Himself
is the steersman ; stretching out His loving arms He
crieth, ' Come, I will ferry thee across.' Now, aU this,"
adds Dr. Grierson, " if we substituted the name of our
Lord for that of Rama, is the teaching of Christianity,
and has been borrowed from it. It has come down
through many generations of Hindu thought, and it is
astonishing that it has been preserved with such
fidelity." Thus the middle-class worshippers of Krishna have
learned from Christianity the great doctrine of Faith in an
incarnate Saviour ; the thoughtful worshippers of Rama
have added the Fatherhood of God, who so loved the world
that He sent His Son to redeem the world, a second
doctrine derived directly from Christian teaching but
thought out and expressed in Hindu form. Now advance
and observe that even the lowly Shivaites have one sect
which, in immediate contact with the Tamil Christians, has
thrown off aU but pure deism, and, without abandoning
the name of the native god, has at least purified the con
ception of Him. Here is one of their hymns :
" How many various flowers,
Did I, in bygone hours,
Cull for the gods, and in their honour strew !
In vain how many a prayer
I breathed into the air,
And made, with many forms, obeisance due.

38 Failure in Asia
" Beating my breast, aloud
How oft I called the crowd
To drag th? village car ! How oft I strayed
In manhood's prime to lave
Sunwards the flowing wave,
And, circling Shiva fanes, my homage paid !
" But they, the truly wise,
Who know and realise
Where dwells the Shepherd of the worlds, will ne'er,
To any visible shrine
As if it were Divine,
Deign to raise hands of worship or of prayer."
Reviewing, then, the movement of thought, and the
development of religions in India, we see that three great
influences have been brought to bear on it, irrespective of
Islam : the agnostic morahty of the Buddha, Turanian ;
the polytheistic teaching of the Vedas, Arian ; the
Trinitarian Gospel of the Christ, Semitic.
The Buddha's message, lofty as it was, had two radical
defects : it had no word about God, it had no gospel for
women. The Brahman's message had aU too many gods,
but had no morahty worth speaking of, while to women
it said that their rehgion was to serve their husbands, and
to die on their funeral pyres if worthy. The Buddha's
message has been utterly rejected by his own people, a
warning for those who think that a pure morahty can
maintain itself apart from roots in the Divine. The
Brahmans have won a double victory : they have exalted
themselves into a sacerdotal caste indispensable to aU
worship and ranking highest in the social scale ; they have

Results and Problems 39
extended their power from the upper Ganges over the
whole land. But they have done this at the cost of
abandoning nearly aU their ancestral rehgion except a
few names, and of adopting and sanctioning whatever
the people wanted.
Christianity has technicaUy failed, for her adherents
number not six hundred thousand, apart from the converts
of European missionaries during the last century. But
in reaUty she has impressed some of her cardinal doctrines
on each of the three great Hindu sects, and her leaven
has worked chiefly among the Ramaites, most numerous
and most thoughtful. There are Christian doctrines,
intertwined doubtless with superstition, but stated in
language understanded of the people, fashioned into native
forms by the people, and enshrined in books better known
to the farmers and labourers of North India than is the
Bible to the Western man of business.
Surely this is something to recognise and to appreciate.
The modern missionary from the West will be almost
culpable if he fails to acquaint himself with this work
accomphshed, and if he acts as though his Grseco-Roman-
Teuton form of Christianity must needs be transplanted
in India. Two great problems demand earnest attention.
First, how to use or destroy the sacerdotal influence of
the Brahman. It may be used, for while we know sacer
dotalism to be absolutely incompatible with pure Chris
tianity, we have seen Martin Luther, Huldreich Zwingli,
Menno Simons, John Knox, themselves priests, smite
down priestcraft. And what Ramanand and Ramanuja

40 Failure in Asia
and Tulasi Das have begun, may yet be accomphshed
by a new reforming Brahman, imbued with the Spirit of
Christ. The second problem is how to smelt out the
abundant dross of idolatry and superstition, and leave
the pure gold already introduced by Christians. If we
are ready to recognise the hand of God in accomplished
facts, we may note the presence of Islam with its horror
of idolatry, and ask what part God assigns to it in the
rehgious future of India. And then we see with joy one
great advantage which Christianity has, sharing it with
none other ; that it has a message for women, and can
make the name and the lot of widows as honourable as it
is now miserable.

4. China, Buddhist and Confucian
Why has the drought been sent upon my land ?
No cause for it know I. Full early rose
My prayers for a good year ; not late was I
In offering sacrifice unto the Lords
Of the four quarters and the land.
In the high heaven God listens not. And yet
Surely a reverent man as I have been
To all intelligent spirits should not be
The victim of their overwhelming wrath.
Chinese Book or Odes.
The Persian mission to India has therefore left deep
traces ; but far other was the fate of that dispatched more
to the North. Here was another great empire, with two
religions well established on the usual foundation of
superstition. The purely native cult was that of Confu-

"Show us a God" 41
cius, which had endured some eleven centuries. This
philosopher had, hke the Buddha, drawn up a code of
behaviour showing how to comport oneself in the family,
the state, the inner life ; and again like the Buddha, he
offered no advice on how to behave towards God, nor had
he anything to say about a future life or salvation. How
ever suitable was this system for rulers, who found a
sort of unconditional submission to authority inculcated,
it left the field open for religion properly so called, a
revelation of God, and opportunity to hold intercourse
with Him.
And so, about the time when James, Paul, and Peter
were ending their careers, a State Commission was sent
in search of a religion, and especially to investigate
Buddhism. It returned with a sandalwood statue of the
Buddha, and with forty-two books, which were soon trans
lated. Now these books represented a modification of the
original doctrine, somewhat under the influence of the
Brahman priests. The emphasis was shifted from self-
culture, and it was declared that the character of a great
man could be transmitted to another incarnation able
not only to save himself, but also to save others. This,
of course, led easily to the worship of the historic Buddha
himself, though it was only later, and in India, that he
was identified as an incarnation of Vishnu.
Thus China was provided with a doctrine about the
future, a god, a saviour, and with an organised monasti
cism, aU of which could be amalgamated with the Con
fucian code of behaviour. A native at once raised an

42 Failure in Asia
opposition rehgion, estabhshing himself as a kind of per
manent head, and pandering to low superstition, even
preparing a piU for immortality. On the one hand, he
laid hold of a philosophy coeval with Confucius ; on the
other, he borrowed freely from Buddhism, and so founded
what to-day is known as Taoism.
Buddhism, however, at first grew better in the fertile
Chinese soil, and in a way very different from its founder's
expectations, or from its development in Ceylon. And
when England was stiU a welter of barbarous and cruel
pagans, aU CJhina was united into one empire whose ruler
favoured Buddhism. We hear of thirty thousand monas
teries with hundreds of thousands of monks, besides, of
course, far more adherents who never took the vows.
But in the next generation a new dynasty withdrew its
patronage, and within a few years the Christian mission
band had reached the capital, then Si-Ngan-Fu, finding
a splendid opportunity for propagation at the very centre
of power. They were not indeed pioneers, for as early as
500 a.d., Persian monks had reached China, and had taken
back the secret of silk-culture, even to Europe ; but it
needed the calamity of Islam to send forth this party
under Olopun, fired with missionary zeal.
Sacred books were in the baggage of the party ; and
with a true instinct that this was a literary people, one
of the earhest tasks was to prepare a Chinese Bible. The
emperor was willing to issue an edict of toleration, and
soon buUt a church on the pubhc square, after which the
way was open for steady propagation. Sixty years later

Monument at Si-Ngan 43
arrived a Zoroastrian embassy with its sacred books, on
which the dowager-empress smiled, but presently Christian
monasteries were sanctioned. Fresh helpers arrived from
Herat and Persia, and when Charles the Great was con
quering the Saxons, one of these named Adam, the Vicar-
episcopal and Pope of China, erected a monument detaihng
the progress of the work, and commemorating not only
the lord John Joshua, the universal patriarch away in
Persia, but many also of his own helpers in China, whose
names aU appear, not in Chinese or Persian or Arabic,
but in the antique Syriac which continued to be their
ecclesiastical tongue. More interesting is it to read in
Chinese the names of sixty Chinese priests, for these show
that, though the movement was stiU affiliated with the
Persian Church, it had now struck root in native soil.
Unhappily the love of dominion inherent in aU men
checked the indigenous movement. Confucians had no
Church, and could have no head of a Church. The Chris
tians of China all looked to the Patriarch of Babylon as
their Supreme Head on earth, and thereby they were
certain to arouse against them national feehng. The
occasion came when a native dynasty revived Confucian
ism and established it as a State Religion, and if the Tatars
of the North favoured Buddhism in its idolatrous forms,
the Christians had not the courage to throw themselves
purely on the Chinese.
Indeed, when Wu-Tsung ordered the destruction of all
the Buddhist monasteries and the return of all their inmates
to civil life, in 845 a.d., he also ordered all foreign

44 Failure in Asia
missionaries whatever, of every religion, to cease work.
And an Arabian monk sent about 980 a.d. with five others
to organise the Church better, returned in dismay to say
that there were no Christians left to organise.
When the next effort was made in this direction it
was in connection with the Mongols. This people from
Central Asia broke Eastward over the Great WaU into
China ; Southward into Persia, where they became over
lords of the Christian Patriarch of Babylon at Baghdad,
and where they broke the dominion of the Mushms ;
Westward into Russia, Moravia, and Hungary, tiU it
seemed as if the whole civihsed world would be submerged
by a wave of barbarism. Such a unifying of the Western
world in the days of Paul had given a splendid opportunity
for the Christianising of the whole Roman Empire, and
now the Persians saw their opportunity to do the same
for the whole of the great East. Their missionaries were
sent throughout the Tatar dominions, and so it came to
pass that the thirteenth century saw their work at its
zenith. Indeed, it was also introduced to the knowledge
of the West, so long isolated from Asiatic Christianity, so
that at least eight Frenchmen and Itahans visited the East
between 1245 a.d. and 1338 a.d., leaving some account
of what they saw ; and our own Roger Bacon recorded
much that they told him.
We hear of Christian priests at the Tatar camps, with
tent chapels ; of services conducted in Turkish, Arabic,
and Syriac ; of the chief men won for Christ, and even
of some of the princes being baptized and trained in the

A Tatar Patriarch 45
faith. We hear of a vigorous mission to the Uigur Tatars,
taking an alphabet, reducing the language to writing,
and apparently rendering some parts of the Bible into their
tongue. We know this was crowned with success by a
Kerait prince adhering to Christianity, whose fame reached
Europe as Prester John. We hear of handsome stone
churches in which worshipped the chief officers of the
court ; and in those days, when one power stretched from
the Pacific to the Danube, it hardly surprises us to hear
of an Enghshman at Karakoram or Pekin. But it is
surprising to hear that in 1250 a.d. not one tenth
of the Turks were Muslim, most being Christian. It was
but a httle earher that an Englishman was chosen Patriarch
of the Latin Church of Peter, and was enthroned beside
the Tiber ; he presided over fewer Christians than those
who looked up to the head of the Asiatic Church of Thomas.
Even in China itself there were again bishops at most of
the provincial capitals, and a governor was found to devote
much of his wealth to the furtherance of Christianity.
If these details come from Europeans, hear an Asiatic teU
his own story, written in 1330 a.d., and perhaps not even
yet accessible in our language. Two Tatars, called Mark
and Bar-Suma, sons of Church dignitaries at Pekin and
another great Chinese city, became monks, and after
some years decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The Tatar emperor therefore appointed them his am
bassadors to the European rulers. They reached the
head waters of the Euphrates, and paid their respects to
the Patriarch, who had recently removed thither from

46 Failure in Asia
Baghdad. He consecrated Mark* as Metropohtan of
Cathay, the other as Visitor-General. Wars in the neigh
bourhood prevented their farther progress, and they
went into hermitages for two years. On the death of
the Patriarch, the clergy thought it a clear sign of God's
wiU that now they were under Tatar rule, a Tatar Christian
high in favour with the Tatar emperor should be at hand,
and they chose Mark to be Patriarch of the whole Asiatic
Church. The local Tatar viceroy instaUed him, and
he was enthroned in 1281 a.d., by twenty-four bishops,
obtaining a royal grant of thirty thousand dinars yearly
to buUd new churches.
The next Tatar viceroy on the Euphrates was an
apostate from Christianity, but his career was short.
His successor was distinctly favourable, and proposed
to aUy with the kings of western Europe to crush Islam,
so he appointed Bar-Suma as his ambassador. The
accounts of Constantinople and Rome, the intrigues
which he witnessed actuaUy in the conclave at the election
of a Pope, his interviews with King Louis at Paris, and
with our own king, Edward i., are most singular reading
for us. And this journey may remind us that Edward
reaUy was a crusader, and did attack the Muslims in
Palestine. But the great scheme miscarried ; and after
a civil war among the Tatars, the Muslims obtained the
ascendency and vowed to exterminate Christianity at
its very headquarters in Asia. They did destroy the great
cathedrals : they captured the Patriarch and hung him
upside down; and though the Tatar king rescued him,

Naturalise ! 47
he felt it pohtic to allow his more turbulent subjects,
the Muslims, to do nearly what they hked. So the
closing years of the Patriarch were saddened by con
stant tales of massacre and destruction, not compen
sated by the recoUection that in his thirty-six years
of office he had consecrated seventy-five metropohtans
and bishops.
The story of his hfe reveals one fatal weakness about
the Asiatic Church ; it persistently adhered to the use of
the Syriac tongue, which as a spoken language was ob
solete except just where Tigris and Euphrates took their
rise. This Tatar of Pekin was baptized not by any
Tatar name, but as Mark; and when enthroned as Patriarch
even that name was not judged Syriac enough, so that
he was styled Yabh-Alaha. And hence the Church ap
peared everywhere as a foreign institution, instead of
naturahsing itself in every land. We may not blame
them with a clear conscience, for stiU there are pious
missionary patriots who teach Marathi chUdren to sing
the hymns of Ray Palmer in English to the accompani
ment of an American organ ; but the sequel in China
warns that this course courts disaster. The Chinese
have always been intensely patriotic, and at this very
time were sensitive about their language and their writing ;
when even the Mushms proposed to use a modified Syriac
alphabet, they declined to abandon their comphcated
syUabary in its favour.
And now there appeared two enemies to the Asiatic
Church in China. From the Far West came a Flemish

48 Failure in Asia
monk who was amazed at finding Christians caring nothing
for the chair of Peter, and venerating the throne of Thomas.
He set himself to scan their doings with hostile eyes,
and at once noted this foreign trait — indeed, exaggerated
it to say that all the clergy chanted in a tongue they
did not comprehend. Strange to say, he did not ask
whether the Latin of western Europe was understood
by aU the French, Dutch, English, and Scandinavian
clergy ; but his criticism was just.
Then arose a new emperor who invited to court repre
sentatives of aU the leading rehgions, that he might select
one for his patronage. At first he asked them alternately
to bless his food ; but the Europeans saw fit to urge the
claims of their Itahan Pope, and also to depreciate the
ancient Christianity of the country. Certainly they
were expeUed, but the tide was turning. One Mongol
emperor suppressed the bureau of rehgions, another sup
pressed several dioceses, and after 1368 a.d. the curtain
falls on a vanishing cause. For the Christians had thrown
in their lot too closely with the Mongol dynasty, hated
by the Chinese. And when a successful revolt drove
out the tyrants, it brought to the throne an ex-priest,
who naturaUy showed Christians no favour.
Was, then, the long effort in China fruitless ? was the
failure as complete as in India ? Yes, and with the same
qualified gain. For if a native Church surviving from
the fourteenth century is vainly sought, there has been
a strange transformation and purifying of a native cult.
Modem Taoism, says Dr. Timothy Richard, is not the

Extirpated by Force 49
ancient ; and aU the novel features are distinctly due to
Christian influence ! How this came to pass has not been
adequately explored, and it is only a conjecture of the
Baptist scholar that is set forth in the Shanghai Hand
book of Missions. But we should indeed marvel if a
Church so deeply rooted throughout the empire had been
utterly extirpated ; and when modern observers caU our
attention to its traces in a rejuvenated Taoism, we ought
to ask whether here is an ancient foundation fit to bear
a modern superstructure, and to save some trouble in
beginning afresh.
If the Chinese expelled Christianity with the Mongols,
we might at least hope that the Mongols in Mongoha
would retain and extend it. But those were the days of
Timur, who from his capital of Samarcand ravaged im-
partiaUy in aU directions, destroying whole cities and
raising grisly pyramids with thousands of skulls. So far
as he had a preference for any religion, it was Islam ; but
this did not hinder him from destroying Baghdad, and
massacring every one of its eight hundred thousand inhabi
tants. This was also the centre of Asiatic Christianity ;
the blow to our cause was as if in Europe Rome was laid
waste, Pope and cardinals all slain, while every other town
of importance had suffered in hke fashion. When Timur
passed away in 1405 a.d., Persian Christianity was extinct
as a vital force, although in the extreme north-west around
the town of Urumiah, supposed to be the birthplace of
Zoroaster, stiU cluster a few thousand adherents of the
once great Patriarch of Babylon. Two strange legacies
5

50 Failure in Asia
his Church has left in outward things : its hierarchical
organisation and its ritual. Whether or no the Taoists
inherit these, it is certain that they were imitated by the
Northern Buddhists, and were introduced with Chinese
exactitude into Tibet, to puzzle European visitors at a
later date.
Thus rose and feU Asiatic Christianity. When Francis
Xavier passed Socotra he found it dying there, and its
mummy was yet seen in 1650 a.d. by Vincenzo the Car
melite. The antiquary may stiU behold a fossihsed
Church in South India. But speaking broadly, there has
been a fourfold failure. Christianity measured itseh
against four older rehgions, of which one never yielded to
persuasion, and three yet survive in dogged strength.
Confucians, Buddhists, Jews, hold in calm superiority to
their sacred books, older than the Christian, and in Oriental
disdain announce that we have been weighed in the balance
and found wanting. What pleasure is it for us to point
out that the Confucian is not content with his own system,
that the Buddhist has borrowed a Christian hierarchy, that
the ancient books of the Brahman are neglected for legends
and doctrines tinctured with Christianity ? The Buddhist
smilingly rejoins that Gotama has been canonised as a
Christian saint ; the Brahman disdainfully points to the
Indian beast-fables, which were tagged with good morals
and became more popular in Europe during the Middle
Ages than the Bible itself ; and the Jew strikes in with the
reminder that his Scriptures have been appropriated

Faulty Preparation 51
wholesale by us. Broadly, the Message has been rejected
throughout Asia : and if it is to be accepted now, it is in
face of the added difficulty that it comes afresh with the
stamp of Europe upon the gold mined in Asia ; that it
comes with the stigma of repeated defeat, not with the
prestige of victory.
If we try to account for this huge failure, we can observe
that in every case there was a strong, reasoned, organised
opposition, which the missionaries do not seem to have
taken into account : a Paul would have done his best to
appreciate the strong points of each faith, and the weak
ness ; he would have adapted his Gospel to the needs of
each people. Then we may note the want of organisation
in two respects : in supplying missionaries, in conducting
the campaign. The Christian Church was essentiaUy
missionary ; Christ gave at least half His energy to the
preparation of missionaries for their work ; and His latest
words emphasised their supreme duty. But despite aU
that was done at Edessa and Nisibis, we cannot trace any
systematic attempt to maintain a missionary seminary,
to prepare men for the foreign field, to collect the lessons
from success or failure. Nor do we see any clear tokens of
missionary strategy. Paul aimed for the leading towns,
and planted in each a strong church, even though it took
him two or three years to estabhsh a centre of influence.
He preached before governors and kings : what a con
verted king can do for the cause we have seen in Armenia
and elsewhere ; what a missionary king did for Buddhism
was to spread it from a tiny principality over half a

52 Failure in Asia
continent. And above aU, few learned the Pauline lesson,
to be aU things to aU men. In Syria this was indeed
done, and Syriac Christianity is the only type that survives
in Asia ; but Syriac Christianity never became reaUy
Persian or Indian or Chinese ; to the Hindu the missionary
could not become a Hindu, and he won practicaUy no
Hindus. If the failure of the past is to be retrieved in these
lands, the historic faith must be stripped of much of
its Western accretions. Not the gorgeous ceremonial
of Rome with the creed of Pope Pius iv. ; not the
XXXIX. Articles and the Canons of 1603 and the
Prayer-book of Charles n. ; not the Westminster Con
fession and Catechisms ; not John Wesley's Sermons and
the discipline of Methodism; but only the New Testa
ment in aU its God-given simplicity must be presented,
that it may be read afresh as the Oriental may be guided
by the Spirit of God, and not by the Occidental. Our
schemes of government are not his, and there may be
methods of Church management that are both familiar to
him and in accord with the mind of Christ. And above
aU, the pure morahty of Christ, as distinct from the
practice of Western Christians, wiU receive a ready
welcome from the students of what the Buddha or Con
fucius taught. Only whereas they centred attention on
behaviour, on the salvation of self, Christ points the
sinner, heart-broken by failure, to God, the loving Father
and Saviour, and bids us spend ourselves in the service
of others.

Resurgam 53
If we should plead our hearts' consuming pain
At sight of ruined altars, prophets slain,
And God's own ark with blood of souls defiled :
He on the rock may bid us stand, and see
The outskirts of His march of mystery,
His endless warfare with man's wilful heart.
Go, to the world return, nor fear to cast
Thy bread upon the waters, sure at last
In joy to find it after many days.
The work be thine, the fruit thy children's part :
Choose to believe, not see; sight tempts the heart
From sober walking in true Gospel ways. Keble.

II
SUCCESS IN EUROPE

I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians.
I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also that are in Rome.
I have finished the course.
Paul.

II
Success in Europe
THE story of Christianity in Asia is one to sadden
every Christian, for five hundred years ago it
showed complete failure ; whereas in Europe until
the same period we have to study success, hardly broken,
and finaUy complete. In Asia there were great organised
rehgions to encounter, which with modifications remain
victorious ; in Europe there was no religion with any
vitahty in it, and though certain rehcs remain, they
are chiefly in customs whose origin is forgotten by those
who practise them, and which do not distract from the
Saviour. In Asia the peoples who have proved so tenacious
of their ancient faiths were mainly Turanian, with a few
Arians and Semites in the south-west ; in Europe the
impressionable peoples who adopted Christianity were
mainly Arians, with a few outlying Turanians.
The story of Christianity in Europe is weU known, at
least in its early stages, and is probably more interesting
than its fate in Asia ; but the missionary problems it
presents have seldom been disengaged and studied. The
matters that fill many histories are the conquest of the
Roman Empire, the evolution of a system of Greek thought,
57

58 Success in Europe
the erection of a Latin governmental hierarchy, the elabor
ation of a pagan-Jewish sacerdotal cult ; only a few, Uke
Dobschiitz, reaUse that even in organised Christianity
the main thing is the quahty of the Christian life. Our
theme, however, is different ; we are concerned not with
the development of Christianity in any one land, but
with the story of its frontier Une, wherever that went.
And in noting the spread of Christianity over Europe we
shaU meet such problems as the tactics adopted toward
heathen customs, opposition or assinhlation ; the methods
of persuasion or force ; the organisation of the missionary
army. To Europe, as we understand the term, is to be added
for our purpose the Anatolian peninsula. So thoroughly
was this HeUenised before the Christian era that it has
generaUy since been bound up with Europe, and the
holder of Constantinople has often ruled on either side of
the Bosphorus.
We can group the facts, numerous as they are, into
three sections : —
1. The Greek world, and the contact with philosophy.
2. The Roman world, and the contact with order and
officialism. 3. The uncivilised tribes : Keltic, Teutonic, and
Slavonic. When a word is added as to stemming the Muslim
invasion in Spain, Hungary, and Russia, we come to 1500
a.d., when practicaUy the whole of Europe was covered
with nominal Christians.

Jewish Preparation 59
1. The Greek World : Contact with Philosophy
'Twas the hour when One in Sion
Hung for love's sake on a cross —
When His brow was chill with dying,
And His soul was faint with loss;
When His priestly blood dropped downward,
And His kingly eyes looked throneward —
Then, Pan was dead.
By the love He stood alone in,
His sole Godhead stood complete ;
And the false gods fell down moaning,
Each from off his golden seat, —
All the false gods with a cry
Rendered up their deity —
Pan, Pan was dead. E. B. Browning.
Palestine was a bilingual country, where the Aramaic
of the East met the Greek of the West, and where the
official Latin claimed, but hardly obtained, a place.
Similarly, round Delhi to-day the Hindi of the native and
the Urdu of the Mushm contend, while EngUsh demands
official recognition. We have seen how in Aramaic
guise the Gospel once spread over much of Asia, next
comes for our attention the spread in Greek form over aU
the lands tinctured with Hellenism, as far as Rome and
Lyons. The Jews had prepared the way to the West, as to the
East. As slaves, as colonists, as merchants, they had
settled in many leading towns of the Roman Empire,
and wherever they went they gathered into httle com
panies which met Sabbath by Sabbath. And whereas in

60 Success in Europe
the East there was a reluctance to write down a version
of the Scriptures, the Alexandrian Jews had broken down
this conservatism, and Greek versions were in general
use, not only of the canonical books, but of other rehgious
literature. The early Christian writings, except for the
original Aramaic Logia of Matthew, were aU in Greek.
The early missionaries were subjects of Rome, if not
citizens, and, forgetting their Jewish origin, they showed
themselves true patriots with imperial tendencies ; they
set to work to evangeUse their own empire.
In every synagogue there was room found for attentive
hearers, just as we open our churches not to members only,
but to aU who choose to Usten, especiaUy if they are willing
to contribute to the expense. So the earhest missionaries
deUberately addressed themselves not only to the men of
Israel, but also to those who feared God outside Israel.
Again and again Paul attracted these Gentile weU-wishers,
swept them into his net, drew them out and estabhshed
a new meeting in the same town. His proceedings natur
ally exasperated the Jews to the last degree ; but we must
recoUect that Paul's work among the Jews was quite a
side issue — he was dehberately told to leave them alone
and go to the Greeks. And in this task he showed the
strategy of a statesman. In a score of years he had
founded churches at Tarsus, Pisidian Antioch, Ephesus,
Thessalonica, and Corinth, besides lesser towns ; and he
had a great share in building up Churches at Antioch
and Rome. Thus on the high roads to the capital he
personaUy ensured that every provincial capital had a

Christianity becomes Greek 61
Christian Church to kindle the province. Granted that as
a Tarsian he naturaUy was drawn to Anatoha, yet it was
full of promise that this great peninsula was so early
occupied for Christ. Others followed up his work, and
Ephesus became the metropohs of Christianity for one
hundred and fifty years, and held its own till the Goths
destroyed the city in 262 a.d. As for the Jewish Chris
tians, they found their tradition snapped by the two great
rebelUons of 66 a.d. and 135 a.d., and the new rehgion
passed promptly into a Greek phase, so far as the West
was concerned.
The Greek Christians took over the Greek version of the
Scriptures, and from their philosophical schools, as imitated
by Philo the Jew, came the habit of aUegorising whatever
was not convenient to obey, while the Prophets were
ransacked to discover foreshadowings of Jesus as the
Christ. The result was that the Jews ceased to influence
HeUenist thought ; that the synagogues were deserted
by Gentiles ; and that every Greek in search of rehgion
attached himself loosely to some Christian gathering.
The presentation of truth to such can be seen in the
Book of Acts : God is One, deeply concerned in us and
our conduct ; He wiU send a Judge, who has already come
as Saviour ; this judge is Jesus, and the proof of His mission
is the Resurrection. The good news was of salvation to
body and soul, and the duty of every Church was made
plain, to tend its own poor and sick, and to foster brotherly
relations with every other Church. Enormous emphasis
was thrown on decent hfe, and explicit teaching was given

62 Success in Europe
as to vice and virtue, in some respects contradicting the
current Greek ideal of ethics. On idolatry war was declared ;
and the attack long begun by philosophers was pushed
home with the bluntest of speech as to the character of
the Greek gods, moral and inteUectual. Aristides even
presented to the Emperor Antoninus Pius a sweeping
indictment of them as adulterers and murderers and
thieves, whose worship must demorahse their votaries.
The skirmish line of attack consisted of penniless mission
aries, who dehberately travelled in order to preach. They
supported themselves like Paul, or accepted support like
Barnabas and Peter, but seldom stayed in one place once
they had organised a community ; they may be compared
to the backwoodsmen of Virginia in the days of old Vin-
cennes, of Boone and Rogers Clark, restless in a settled
society, and eager to push back the frontier of civilisation.
After the missionaries arose the teachers, resident and
paid, in many respects like the professional heathen
teachers : Justin, Tatian, Clement, and Origen are exceUent
examples. Behind them rose up the organising local
officers, part of whose business was to see that the ordinary
member did his share in propagating the Gospel. Paul
urged every man to continue in his former occupation ;
for so he could exert the best influence, his changed life
witnessing to his associates the new power that had entered
him. The organisation of the Greek converts deserves special
attention. All Jewish precedent suggested that Jewish
converts should form one great community, ruled from

Organise on Civil Pattern 63
Jerusalem ; and in the Jewish stage we do actuaUy read of
the Church in Judea and Gahlee and Samaria. But Greeks
organised by cities, and the Greek converts naturally did
the same, taking over even the technical Greek word
" Ecclesia." One city, one Church ; such was the Greek
custom. And whereas Jews managed everything by one
committee of elders, the Greeks soon differentiated the
committee into two groups, and evolved a single head,
on the Unes of their civil hfe. Paul, however, knew the
Greek tendency to disintegration and local independence,
and set his face sternly against it. His letters to Corinth
smartly rebuke this, and urge co-operation, consideration
of others, submission to the general customs. Before long
this worked out on the familiar political Unes, and the
Greek city churches conferred together in synods, as
Augustus had taught the cities of a province to send their
representatives for the yearly worship and business. And
thus the pattern evolved by 360 a.d. is due to adopting for
religious business the forms familiar in poUtical business :
local self-government on the municipal pattern, provincial
co-operation on the federal pattern. The Greek Churches
still hold to that pattern, for in every independent State
is to be found an independent Church, as in Greece, Bul
garia, Servia, Roumania, Russia, etc. And the Anglican
communion also adopts the same plan; all the congrega
tions in Scotland, aU in America, aU in Canada, all in
AustraUa leaguing into local Churches, each technically
complete, yet fraternising with the others. When we
observe the general principle involved, that organisation

64 Success, in Europe
is to be on familiar Unes, we see one reason why Westerners
have made no wonderful progress in modern attempts
to win Asiatics and Africans for Christ.
It was in this Greek phase that the question first arose
as to the relation of the Churches to the missionaries.
Paul himself found a decided disposition to question his
authority, and Corinth seems to have flouted him at times.
Then he tried the experiment of detaching aides-de-camp
like Luke, Timothy, Tychicus, Titus, vested with his
authority ; and we find Ephesus declining to recognise
the delegate, so that Timothy was recaUed from the scene
of his faUure. A generation later Diotrephes brought
matters to a crisis in one congregation, refused to give a
hearing to the messengers of John, and expeUed those
who sympathised with them. In one aspect this was
officialism resisting the spirituaUy gifted members ; in
another it was a seK-contained Church refusing any status
to missionaries, and sending them on to preach to the
unconverted. Thus early emerged the question, which in
the East was solved by withdrawal of the missionaries and
the formation of national Churches ; which Rome settled
for awhile in the West by the claim to rule everywhere
through her missionaries ; which the Methodists settled by
the missionaries appropriating aU the power of any import
ance ; which is arising again by the formation of a National
Missionary Society of India, or the consohdation of the
Japanese Churches without regard to the nationaUty of
those who brought them the Gospel. The experience of
revolts against Rome and Wesleyan Methodism seems to

Resistance of Philosophers 65
prove the wisdom of the Greek settlement, and to show
that the missionaries should watch for the signs of readi
ness in their converts to assume all responsibility, and then
gradually transfer their energies to fresh fields.
The opposition to the missionary efforts was of various
kinds, philosophical and pohtical, but in the Greek world
hardly rehgious. Greek reUgion was rotten, except in
so far as there was a revival in the mysteries. These
were strong, and the sacramental doctrine they taught
was only overcome by being appropriated. Christians
came to beheve that the due performance of ceremonial
was the channel of blessing ; that baptism actually washed
away sin as surely as did the sea-bath of Eleusis ; that
the Lord's Supper actually nourished the soul with Divine
strength. There was another case of stooping to conquer,
as the Brahmans did with the Buddhists ; for Gregory
Thaumaturgus debased his work by adopting the super
stitions of Anatolia, and set a fashion which has been
aU too widely foUowed.
The philosophical opposition was long in maturing.
Early Christians were ignored as beneath notice, but at
last they were found to be a real force. Celsus drew
attention to what is still a stumbling-block, the number
of rival sects ; he urged that current Christianity was not
the primitive teaching of Jesus, and asked what was
essential — an inquiry that deserves much more serious
consideration, especially by missionaries, than it has
yet received; not appreciating the importance of the
promise that the Holy Spirit should guide the apostles
6 .

66 Success in Europe
into aU the truth, he went so far as to insinuate that
they had adulterated the pure doctrine of the Christ.
Seventy years elapsed before a reply was forthcoming
from Origen, and in less than half that time the attack
was renewed by Porphyry in an elaborate treatise. He
charged that the Scriptures were misused, and that the
doctrines of Creation, Judgement, and the Resurrection
were untenable. Four Christians answered him, but the
most effectual response was when Christians became
dominant and destroyed his book. Nor did philosophy
prove merely critical ; it was able to present a counter
scheme, Neo-Platonism, which spiritualised the old
natural rehgion, aUegorised the myths, and orientalised the
Greek polytheism into pantheism. This also was crushed
rather than answered ; after the days when Church and
State coalesced, the Alexandrians could murder Hypatia,
but they could not refute her, for the bishop had suppressed
the great teachers of an earlier age.
But first the State had measured itself with Christianity.
As early as the days of Peter the principle was announced
that Christianity was iUegal ; but no general conflict arose
tiU Decius gave the simple alternative, " Recant or die."
Foreign affairs drew off the attention ; but Maximin Daza
went farther next time, created an atmosphere unfavour
able to Christianity in the schools, procured treatises
against it, and condescended to copy the organisation,
erecting a pagan hierarchy of priests. AU faUed, and
Constantine saw the need of coming to terms with Greek
Christianity ; he shifted his capital into the Greek pro-

Greeks seek Wisdom 67
vinces, and tried to patch up a peace between the halves
of the largest sect, concentrating his persecution on the
other sects. This step marks the acknowledged success
of the mission among the Greeks ; and Harnack sums up
that, even before Constantine set the State imprimatur
on it, Christianity was the standard rehgion in Asia Minor
and Thrace, and was of weight in Syria, Cyprus, and the
Greek coast. He estimates that about eight hundred
bishops could be mustered in the East.
What, then, was the reaction of the Greek world on
Christianity ? For success has to be paid for, and the
Greek Christianity that now held the field was another
thing from the preaching of the Apostles.
The emphasis was shifted from conduct to creed, and
the whole tone of the morahty had sensibly declined.
This had not come to pass without a struggle ; but the
Montanists and Novatians, who upheld the old standard
of hving, found that Constantine did not think them worth
patronising, and he continued to oppress them : so that
the dominant sect was one from which aU the purest
elements had been filtered off. The average result may
be guessed when we know that even the bishops at Nicsea
charged one another with crimes which Constantine was
pohtic enough to ignore. It is true that creed must
underlie conduct ; but it must be a creed that commands
the assent of the wiU as weU as the inteUect.
The Greeks were dialecticians, and they now threw
themselves on the philosophy of the Person of Christ, just
as their predecessors had attacked cosmology, and as their

68 Success in Europe
inteUectual heirs in Germany and elsewhere have rushed at
the literary dissection of the Bible, in a spirit that has
nothing Christian about it. Every council led to an exclu
sion or suppression of the minority, and though there were
sects enough before Constantine, the next few centuries
saw the rise of Arians and Nestorians and Eutychians
and Monotheletes, further to spht the Greek world. While
the main body chose to define its position merely by
contradicting aU these, and whUe the formula of Chalcedon
was dictated by and accepted in the Roman world, yet
we must not forget that aU this thought is cast into
Greek moulds. We, it is true, have been trained on the
ancient Greek classics, and therefore can appreciate and
adopt these Greek Christian definitions ; but the thought
of Asia is not affected by Greek philosophy, and it may
weU be necessary that the great truths as to our Lord's
Person must be fused afresh and assume quite other
forms to be valued or even comprehended aright by
Chinese or Hindus.
Again, Christianity became polytheistic ; for such is the
real meaning of saint-worship. This began with com
memoration of the martyrs, hymns in their praise, the
reading of the story of their martyrdom, an oration in
their honour, and the old feast of the ancestors shghtly
transformed, sometimes even with dances and pantomimes
to conclude with. Then came in speedUy the practice
of invoking the help of the saints. And before long it
was hard to distinguish the crowd of saints, with God
in their midst, from the former Greek pantheon, with Zeus

An Evil Root Defiles 69
over aU. As an instance of this Christianised paganism,
take the worship of Demeter, the Latin Bona Dea, at
Catania in Sicily. Twice yearly, at the Greater and
Less Eleusinia, was her festival held. A horse-race was
followed by a procession, when with torches and bells
the statue of the goddess was escorted, her veil was shown,
and her fertile breasts. To-day exactly the same cere
monial is enacted at the same time, in honour of Saint
Agatha, whose name is simply the Greek version of Bona.
With polytheism naturally came idolatry. The bones
of the martyrs and the wood of the true cross were revered
everywhere. Then foUowed pictures of the saints, and
although the Greeks did draw the Une dehberately and
emphatically at statues, yet Muhammad contemptuously
brushed away the refinement, and termed them plainly
idolaters. Add to this the sacramentahsm taken over from the
Mysteries, and the sacerdotahsm which, if defended from
the Old Testament, was yet founded on and carried over
from Greek ideas, and we see that the contribution of
HeUenism to Western Christianity was indeed great.
For the missionary it is aU important to recollect that
these accretions are not essential to Christianity. To
primitive Christianity they were unknown, if indeed not
alien. To Asiatic Christianity they never found an
entrance to any extent, a fact generally neglected by
those who bid us study the actual development. What
ever may be said about progress among the Arians, it
is needful to remind the workers among Semitic and

70 Success in Europe
Turanian races that it is not their business to transplant
the Arian shrub, but to plant the Gospel seed.
2. The Roman World : Order and Officialism
I see better things and approve them ;
But I follow the worse. HOEATTOS FlACCTJS.
He is here, whom seers in old time
Chanted of, while ages ran ;
Whom the faithful word of prophets
Promised ere the world began;
Long foretold, at length appearing :
Praise Him, every child of man.
Atjbelitjs Pbudentitjs.
Christianity reached Rome in the year of our Lord's
Resurrection ; but it remained of the Greek type for many
generations. Such a phenomenon is not without paraUel
to-day : the Irish may have an important society in
New York, but it may conceivably take two centuries
before this society can forget affairs in Old Ireland, wiU
attend to its own business, falls under American control,
and becomes thoroughly naturalised.
Even in Rome the Greek tendency to faction was most
marked. When the tide was turning, about 200 a.d., we
find the same state of things that was shown in Paul's
letter to Rome — numberless httle Churches and not one
united body. We can identify a Montanist, a Theodotian,
a Modahst, a Marcionite, several Gnostic Churches,
besides the Greek Church presided over by Hippolytus,
and the Latin Church under Victor. It is the same

Italy Long Pagan 71
spectacle that may be seen in many an American or
British town to-day. But the Roman dynasty which
began with Victor introduced a new state of affairs, and
within fifty years an emperor declared he would as soon
see another emperor beside him as a bishop at Rome, for
members of the patrician Fabian and Cornehan famiUes
were now filling that post. Fifty years more and a
disciphned clergy was ministering in forty public basilicas,
with the whole city districted out, as if there were no laws
against their very existence. In Church circles Roman order
and officialism had triumphed, and the dissenters had aU but
vanished. It was the resurrection of the aristocratic repubhc,
as against the monarchy and as against the democracy.
But how did Christianity spread itself outside the one
city ? Gaul, Spain, Britain, and Italy were the Latin pro
vinces, besides Africa, which must be considered separately.
Progress in Italy was slow and disappointing : the South was
stiU Magna Grsecia, and Hellenic Christianity held the field ;
the basin of the Po in the North also was evangehsed from
Greece, and in 300 a.d. there were no Christians in a town
as large as Bologna; while Ravenna, Milan, and Aquileiawere
for long more Greek than Latin. In Central Italy httle is
heard of the new rehgion ; the historians of this century
write as if outside Rome itself, Christianity was almost
negligible in the West ; and such promment men as
Ambrose, Augustine, HUary, and Jerome were permeated
with Greek thought rather than Latin. The intense
concentration at Rome evidently weakened all effort in
the neighbourhood, exactly as the attraction of London

72 Success in Europe
kills aU independent town life for forty miles around. As
for the country districts, they were frankly abandoned ; the
name " pagan " shows that they were beyond Christian
effort. When Benedict of Nursia began his work after
500 a.d., he found idolatry still practised at Monte Cassino,
not a hundred miles from Rome. Progress in the rural
districts was both slow and deceptive. The result after
a thousand years is depicted in these unflattering terms :
" The Itahan peasantry were a class apart from the
burghers, as they were nowhere else. Their rehgion was
usuaUy a thinly veiled paganism, a behef in the omni
presence of spirits, good and bad, to be thanked, pro
pitiated, coaxed, or compeUed by use of charms, amulets,
speUs, and ceremonies. The gods of their pagan ancestors
had been replaced by local saints, and received the same
kind of worship." 1
In Gaul, again, the progress was slow. Irenseus wrote in
Greek, but preached in Keltic, which suggests that among
the Latins and the Romanised Kelts httle was done even
in the south. A century later there were only twenty
bishops who could be mustered from aU Gaul. Britain
was worse, and we hear only of one native and two Latin
bishops. Spain, indeed, which had been dihgently
Romanised by Augustus, produced the great statesman
and bishop, Hosius ; by his efforts the south was well
won, but at the cost of much compromise and falhng
off from the ideal purity. Along the military frontier of
the Danube and the Rhine we find, when Constantine
1 Lindsay, Reformation, vol. ii. p. 601.

Mithraism 73
declared for Christianity, only four or five feeble churches
at the chief posts.
The fact is, that in the West Christianity met with a
formidable opposition from another religion, that of Mithra.
This was an importation from Persia, which itself had been
transformed on its Westward journey. Once Mithra had
been the god of Ught and truth, captain of the hosts of
good; Zoroaster had neglected him and elevated Ahura
Mazda, but had given him a tinge of redeeming activity.
In Babylon he acquired something of the attributes of
Shamash the Sun ; in Anatolia also he was identified with
Helios ; the Greeks gave him a human form, and produced
a group of statuary showing his battle with the bull, which
speedily became standard, while they blended their stoic
philosophy with the old Persian creed. Indeed, under
King Mithradates it seemed as though Mithra might be the
chief god of those parts, but the successes of Pompey
ended that phase. The garrisons on the Eastern frontier
of the empire became deeply leavened ; and when, after
one hundred and fifty years, some of them were transferred
to the frontiers in Italy, Gaul, Britain, and Africa, the
worship of Mithra at once became important in those parts.
Christianity was weak here because Mithraism was strong ;
at every fort along the wall between Carlisle and Newcastle
was one of the cave-temples, while York, Caerleon, and
Chester were great centres. When Diocletian was girding
himself for his struggle with Christianity, he and his
associates excavated for Mithra a stately cavern on the
Danube, the largest temple known.

74 Success in Europe
Nor was this a rehgion for soldiers alone : Syrian slaves
and traders carried it to SicUy, and up the Rhone ; the
junior civil servants spread it in the Tyrol. It appealed
to many classes of society ; the Emperor Commodus was
initiated, and ever afterwards a Mithra chaplain was
maintained in the imperial household, whUe the Roman
aristocracy took up his worship as the correct thing. The
attraction exercised on the emperors seems due to the
theology justifying the deification of the living emperor,
and upholding a doctrine of Divine Right. The lower
classes were concihated by its astrology and magic, whUe
another large section was fascinated by its secret ritual,
its passwords and degrees.
Its inner weakness was its lack of culture and its idolatry,
untouched by the Greek spirit ; nor had it any message for
women ; so, when the barbarians sacked the frontier towns
and destroyed the temples, the crisis came. Christians
beheved that the Mithra priests incited Galerius to the last
trial of strength ; but Constantine, though emperor in the
West, had been bred in the East, and judged that Chris
tianity was the better rehgion to patronise. Yet he
brought into his State Rehgion from Mithra the name of
Sun-Day ; and from the same source the Christian ideas
of Hell were modified and made more definite. Mithraism
did not die at once: Julian fostered it as the only alternative
to Christianity, and the Roman aristocracy at once rallied
to it ; but on the Christian victory fierce persecution of the
rival rehgion foUowed, and the temples were widely
destroyed. For awhile the Mithraic worship of the rising

Manichjeism 75
sun was adopted by Christians, but this has long been
left to the Parsis. As Mithraism fled, its mantle feU on
Manichseism with a double portion of its spirit, and the
struggle was renewed with a nobler antagonist.
Mani was a widely traveUed thinker, who wrought out
a system on the foundation of old Babylonian thought,
with elements added from Zoroaster, the Buddha, and
Persian Christianity. Dropping aU the barbaric idolatry,
he introduced a spiritual worship ; his doctrine was the
old Persian dualism, his morality the high ethics of Chris
tianity and Buddhism. But whUe these loans gave great
vogue to his system, and made it the next formidable
rival to Christianity, the one point that claims our attention
is his transportation to the West of the Buddhist scheme
whereby there was a circle of initiated monks surrounded
with an undefined fringe of hearers. We remember that
the Buddha found in vogue mere individualistic asceticism ;
that he reformed and humanised it ; and that he placed his
monks under social disciphne with definite rules. These
features were copied by Mani, and while independently
of him in Egypt the Indian asceticism grew up, and the
organisation into convents was effected by Pachomius
and Basil for the East, and by Benedict for the West, yet
their efforts were aided by the same plan being successful
in the rival Manichsean community. What this meant for
European missions wiU presently be seen. Meantime we
must note that while Manichseism never had a chance against
Christianity backed by the power of the State, yet it held
its own intellectuaUy, almost capturing PriscilUan and

76 Success in Europe
Augustine. On into the Middle Ages it wrestled in Gaul ;
at Orleans its votaries were found, in Languedoc the priests
of Rome feared it, and at length the Albigenses, accused
by them of Manichseism in the thirteenth century, were only
stamped out ruthlessly by a crusade.
But Greek Christianity became Romanised in the West,
and the great contribution was the imperial uniformity
graduaUy exacted. The heathen emperor had judged
aright, the Bishop of Rome became an emperor of the
Church. If Justinian at New Rome codified the civil law,
Dionysius codified the canons of the councils, adding to
them the decretal letters of the Popes. At the time this
meant nothing for missions ; but as soon as a man with
a missionary spirit became Pope, it meant the dehberate
extension of Christianity and the Romanising of aU the
West. 3. The Uncivilised Tribes : Keltic, Teutonic,
and Slavonic
Lanee, shield, and sword relinquished, at his side
A beadroll, in his hand a clasped book,
Or staff more harmless than a shepherd's crook,
The warworn chieftain quits the world, to hide
His thin autumnal locks where monks abide
In cloistered privacy.
Not sedentary all : there are who roam
To scatter seeds of hfe on barbarous shores ;
Or quit with zealous steps their knee-worn floors
To seek the general mart of Christendom ;
Whence they, like richly laden merchants, come
To their beloved cells.
Wordsworth.

Martin of Tours 77
With the winning of the Greek and Roman world,
one great victory was won by missionaries in Europe.
Now we look into the lands to the West and North to see
the progress among other nations. Observe first the
rehgion that prevailed in Gaul, Ireland, and Britain, the
homes of the Kelts.
Besides the universal substratum of worships, where
wells, stumps, and stones receive adoration, we hear of a
god of rhetoric and writing portrayed by a bronze statue
one hundred and twenty feet high, in a splendid temple on
the Puy-de-D6me : of a goddess Brigit very popular in
Ireland, guardian of medicine and smiths : of a horned
god guarding the nether world : of Llud, worshipped at
Stonehenge, and at fountains, where the rite was to draw
water in a tankard and dash on a slab ; worshipped also
at Cavan, where was a great image plated with gold and
silver before which the first-born were sacrificed to him
as god of war. These are but specimens from the. Keltic
pantheon. The great missionary in Gaul was Martin, who after
a soldier's career in garrison at the north, and a stay in a
monastery off the south coast, was chosen Bishop of Tours
in 371 a.d., and gave himself for the rest of the century
to evangehstic journeys with enthusiastic monks. He
could combine deeds of violence on the idols with Chris-
tianisation of the heathen customs ; of this a good example
was his taking over a pagan festival stiU known after
him as Martinmas. Other survivals are the Breton
Pardons or the Cornish Patterns, watch-nights at the

78 Success in Europe
sacred weUs, hanging rags on the bushes around these
with prayers for cures.
The great wave of missionary monks of which Martin
is such an iUustrious instance was felt in Britain, where
the old civilisation was being wrecked by the heathen
Angles, and the surviving Christians were being crowded
back to the west. Thence they sought a refuge across the
channel, landing near Wicklow and Wexford, which
long remained the headquarters of Christianity, though
they pushed up the coast and leavened aU the eastern
population. Two points we must attend to in this in
vasion of a new heathen field : the monastic character
of the workers, and the compromise with local customs.
Hermits seeking their own salvation were an Indian
invention, transplanted to Egypt after the days of Alex
ander. The Buddha had banded these together and set
them to propagate his teaching ; the banding and dis
ciplining of the Christian hermits was first undertaken
by Pachomius of Egypt, who taught them to work and
worship. This system was transplanted again to Italy
by Athanasius, whUe Augustine fostered it in Africa,
Cassian of MarseiUes and Martin of Tours in Gaul. At
each transplantation the system had shed something
local or accidental, and was gaining in value. Now
through Brittany, CornwaU, and especiaUy through South
Wales it reached Ireland. But whereas in the warm
lands beyond the Mediterranean very httle toil is needed
to support life, so that the Eastern monks in Europe
tend to worship and contemplation ; in the colder North-

Monks as Missionaries 79
West there must be more activity, and the monks were
often great civilisers, iUustrating the value of labour by
free men, and undermining slavery by their example.
Martin of Tours and his disciples now asked what nobler
work there could be than mission work in heathen lands,
and a new turn was given to monastic ideals. And thus,
independently of the Buddha, the same end was attained ;
and the monasteries became schools to train foreign
missionaries, Ubraries and pubUshing houses to equip them
with books, and hospitals for them to retire to on furlough.
Thus about 400a.d. a Briton caUed Ninian, trained at Rome,
settled on the coast of the Irish Sea, and bunt a stone
church near Whithern, which he dedicated to the famous
Martin, with a monastery which became a centre of pro
pagation as far as the Grampians. Here Uved wild
Highlanders, who from their habit of flinging aside their
clothes and rushing into battle naked, but with painted
bodies, are known as Picts. Unfortunately the with
drawal of the Roman Legions made way for the invading
Angles, and in a letter to Ceretic the Christian British
King of Strathclyde, we find that he was allied not only
with Christian Irish settled to the North, but with these
Picts who had relapsed from the faith and are styled
Apostates. The work of Ninian was more lasting in the
vales of Cumbria ; at Penrith was a weU sacred to the
pagan British, which he took over, so that it was dedi
cated to him. Even to-day the maidens go to Ninian's
WeU, and drop pins to see if their lovers wiU be true to
them ; and on the four Sundays in May, festivals are held

80 Success in Europe
here in which the archseologist traces the old pagan worship
which the Christian missionary allowed to remain as an
innocent diversion.
The same pohcy was pursued with the Irish by the many
nameless or obscure monk-missionaries ; they utilised
what they found, and did not make a point of introduc
ing GaUic or British or Roman methods. They concili
ated the Druids, celebrated the Saviour on the old
idol piUars in three languages — Greek, Hebrew, and
Latin : Soter, Jesus, Salvator ; and so strove not to beat
down the ancient civilisation, but to win it for Christ.
And so, from the first, Irish Christianity was a learned
Christianity. The Bards were won, and induced to attach
their schools to the monasteries, to tune their harps to
Irish Christian hymns. In return, their custom of shaving
the front half of the head was adopted, and became the
distinguishing mark of the Irish missionary. The kings
were won, and a relative of each was instaUed as head
of the monastery for the clan, and consecrated as bishop.
The old holy wells were not fiUed up ; but when the people
followed their chiefs, they were led to the familiar scene
of worship, there to be baptized. If open defiance of old
custom was occasionally shown in lighting the sacred fire
on Easter eve, the more usual plan was to take over
and Christianise any innocent habit.1
1 The story of Patrick is so familiar that reference to him can hardly
be omitted. But the oldest accounts of his life were not written down
for two centuries, and a careful examination of them by Zimmer shows
that they are false and partisan. There certainly was a British Christian
called Patrick, who worked in Ireland and has left two genuine writings •

Kentigern and Columba 81
A famous missionary in the north and west of Britain
was Kentigern. Son of a Welsh nun by her captor, an
English king, he took up Ninian's work in Strathclyde, and
laboured as far south as Carhsle, where the Welsh were still
pagan. But as the king frowned on his doings, he went
to see the great Welsh archbishop, David, newly returned
from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and evangehsing the
pagan Welsh in Pembrokeshire. On the journey Kenti
gern paused near the Dee, and there built a wooden
monastery that soon housed a thousand monks. RecaUed
to Strathclyde by a new king, he handed over the Deeside
monastery to his convert, Asaph, and returned to the
banks of the Clyde, where he named the new capital
Glasgow. From there to Carlisle he wandered and
preached for the rest of his life ; indeed, holy wells named
after him are found even in the EngUsh kingdom of
Northumbria. Once at the northern edge of the kingdom
he met another famous missionary, Columba, who had
come direct from the Scots in Ireland to the Scots and
Picts north of the Clyde. The two evangehsts changed
staffs, and the crosier once borne by Columba, then for
nineteen years by Kentigern, was shown at Ripon tiU the
Reformation. Columba settled on the isle of Iona, where arose a
he is perhaps to be identified with Palladius, ordained by Pope Celestine
and " sent as first bishop to the Irish believing in Christ." But this
contemporary statement of Prosper Tiro shows that the conversion of
the Irish was already accomplished ; and that Patrick was simply an
organiser, like Theodore of Tarsus, with the important difference that
he was rejected by the people he sought to subject.
7

82 Success in Europe
dwelling for the missionaries, another for their visitors, a
kitchen, a dining-room, a chapel, aU woven of osiers and
plastered with clay ; these were grouped around a grassy
sward and sheltered by an earthen rampart, outside
which were the farm buildings. This settlement became
the centre whence the missionaries sailed in their wicker
canoes aU through the archipelago. At first they needed
interpreters, and it took nearly three centuries before the
Scots from Ireland subdued the piratical Highlanders and
replaced the Pictish tongue by the Scottish. But the
missionaries were eager to civUise and Christianise ; round
the Hebrides they sailed, up the lochs into the heart
of the land, and as soon as a few disciples were gathered
by preaching they were taught to weave a wicker church
with a room for the missionary. One or two puphs were
left to instruct the new disciples, and were cheered by
frequent visits from Iona. Before long a stone cross was
carved, and sometimes the alphabet would be added round
the edge, that the natives might be taught to read. For
though as early as Caesar's day the Druids used to write,
they kept their knowledge as a treasured secret ; but the
Christian missionary sought to spread the art everywhere,
and many beautiful copies of the Scriptures were produced
in the wattled huts. In such work Columba spent his hfe,
and when he died in 597 a.d. the Highlands were occupied
for Christ.
Nor did his foUowers confine their labours to their own
race. From the Hebrides they sahed on to the Orkneys,
the Shetlands, the Faroes, and even to Iceland. Before

Irish Missionaries Abroad 83
the Norse pirates arrived here,, the Scottish missionary had
pushed out with his crosier, his bell, and his Bible. Indeed,
there are Norse tales that their influence extended down
the western shores of the Atlantic ; and one student of
Mexico interprets the old legends of white men from the
sea to mean the arrival of Irish missionaries in Central
America, where they did something to leaven the native
rehgion. But aU this is not preserved to us in detail, and
at the best the work was isolated and died out. For
abiding results we must turn from Ireland to the south
east of Europe.
Before the death of Columba, a namesake of his, born
in Leinster and trained at the monastery of Bangor in
Ulster, had sailed with twelve helpers for the continent.
They settled down in the Vosges mountains, where all
civilisation had been trampled out by repeated invasions,
and where the bear and wolf roamed through dense forests.
Here they built their wattled home, and spent their time
felhng the trees and tiUing the land, copying Bibles and
praying. The example won hundreds of the heathen
tribes, and other settlements were planted out in the
neighbourhood, to which even the nobles of the Franks
and Burgundians brought their sons. Indeed, within fifty
years aU the North of the country, which had relapsed
into paganism, was won by fresh Irish immigrants, or
by colonists from this centre. But the jealousy of the
worldly bishops and the anger of an adulterous queen drove
away Columban after twelve years. Spending a mournful
vigil by the tomb of his great predecessor Martin, whose

84 Success in Europe
work he had reaUy done over again among the invaders
with their nominal Christianity, he went up the Rhine
into Switzerland. Here at first his burning heathen
temples and flinging idols into the lakes hindered a new
start, but on the lake of Constance he found an old church
which he made the centre of fresh work. This he placed
under his pupil GaUus, who taught the people to garden
and fish, and so won them where the denunciations of
Columban repeUed. Ere long GaUus saw one of his
converts Bishop of Constance, and he moved on to found
another missionary centre still known as St. GaU, which in
three hundred years grew to be one of the most celebrated
schools of Europe. Meantime the uncompromising
Columban, after abandoning the thought of preaching to
the Slavonians, pushed on over the Alps and founded
another centre among the Lombards at Bobbio, where he
died in old age, while his disciples spread out over the
plain and even as far as Fiesole, overhanging Florence,
if not to Tarentum on the sea.
The success of this mission caUed forth others, and up
the Rhine saUed many more Scots, planting monasteries
among the heathen tribes. Belgium too was evangehsed,
and the archbishop with his three helpers sealed their
testimony with their blood. North HoUand and Friesland
excited the concern of Wilfrid and of Egbert, abbot in
Connaught ; so at length Wilhbrord, who had for twelve
years been in training there, went with eleven others.
We hear of his being wrecked on Hehgoland, where he
slew some sacred cattle and baptized converts in the holy

Emulation of Italians 85
weU. We hear, too, of his buying boys and training
them to be missionaries ; of his stirring up Christians
of the continent and of England to generous help ;
and of the Christianising all the lowlands by the
coast. Such work could not pass unnoticed, and in those dark
ages Rome was still the centre of all civihsation for the
West. The story how monks were turned missionaries
and were reviving the duty of evangehsing the heathen
was calculated to fire any ardent soul. And one such had
God raised up in Gregory, himself a monk in Italy. The
monks of Benedict had hitherto laboured in the fields and
prayed, and it was no part of Benedict's scheme that they
should be foreign missionaries. But the Keltic monks
had now shown what could be done for the spread of the
Gospel. Gregory wished to go to England in person, but
God had other work for him, and placed him at the head
of the Christian forces in Rome.
In the last year of Columba's hfe in Iona, Gregory sent
out a mission band of Itahan monks, who were extremely
reluctant to undertake this novel enterprise. He com
pelled them to go forward, and they broke ground among
the EngUsh in Kent and Yorkshire. Although they failed
aU but utterly, the Keltic monks of Iona at once took
up the friendly chaUenge. An exile from Northumbria
had been at their island home, where he was converted ;
and when he fought his way to his father's kingdom, he
sent north for missionaries. Soon he instaUed Aidan on
the isle of Lindisfarne, where arose a church of spht oak

86 Success in Europe
thatched with grass. And tiU Aidan learned the Enghsh
speech the king himself did not disdain to interpret his
sermons. Converts were soon gained ; and one of the
earhest, Cuthbert by name, did grand work at Melrose
and Ripon, Lindisfarne and York ; as simple monk or prior
or bishop, he was earnest in his travel and preaching,
tiU Northumbria rang with his fame, and Cuthbert was
one of the most popular names for centuries.
From Lindisfarne missionaries went to the Midlands,
and at Lichfield the name of Chad is justly honoured.
His brother became the apostle of Essex, while Wilfrid of
York much later evangehsed Sussex, winning his way by
teaching the natives how to fish. We hear of the mission
aries riding in bands from place to place, beguiling the
way with chanting the Latin psalms. The bishop became
the king's right-hand man, the fount of culture, training
preachers, planting them out, itinerating to evangehse and
to encourage the lonely workers ; he was probably as busy
a man as could be found. At Whitby arose a great
missionary coUege presided over by the Abbess HUda.
New converts, men and women alike, were often brought
here for training and instruction, then sent back again to
be points of hght in their homes and viUages.
Meantime the Itahans returned to the charge in the
south, and won Wessex. Within fifty years from the
death of Columba, four Enghsh bishops had been appointed.
Two conferences took place between the Churches of the
Enghsh, which resulted in their abandoning many Keltic
customs and falling into line with the Itahan ; presently

Statesmanship 87
they bowed out the missionaries, and organised themselves
as a national Church in communion with Rome. This
should remind us that faithful missionaries must distinguish
between what is of the essence of the Gospel, what is mere
accidental custom, and what is national ; only the first
need be taken up and incorporated into the Christianity
of a new nation. Thus of the points which the converts
of the Scotch waived, one was that the heads of the clergy
should no longer be shaved in front from ear to ear, a custom
of the heathen Druids carried over into the Scottish
Church ; another was that the old Christian calendar
which they had inherited should be given up for an improved
revision ; another was some detail in the administration
of infant baptism. In the same way we must not be
surprised if in the Malay archipelago, where nine American,
four British, and twelve Dutch societies are at work, the
thirty-eight thousand converts may some day consult
together and decide to form a Malay Church, compromising
on many details, and producing a type of Christianity con
genial to their habits.
The programme laid down by that great missionary
statesman, Gregory, was full of wisdom ; he directed that
not aU Roman ways were to be transplanted, but that
Roman and British and Gallic usages were aU to be con
sidered. He advised that the old pagan temples might be
cleared of idols and used for Christian worship, and that as
the people were accustomed to sacrifice oxen to their gods,
they might still be encouraged to come on the day dedicated
to some martyr or saint, build their wattled huts around

88 Success in Europe
the church, and hold the. feast as of old, but now in honour
of the saint. And in Yorkshire, a stronghold of the Keltic
mission, may still be seen an old menhir at which the
heathen had worshipped, on which the missionaries carved
a cross, and beside which grew up a church. But the
Keltic influence is not to be seen in churches and abbeys ;
their humble dweUings of wattle and daub have long been
replaced by stately Enghsh or Norman fanes ; they beheved
that mighty as is the trowel, mighty as is the sword, mightier
yet is the pen ; and from the first they spent their energy
in giving the people the Word of God. Splendid copies of
the Psalms and Gospels were made at Lindisfarne, Jarrow,
and Whitby; and if these were stiU in Latin, for that nothing
EngUsh was yet in writing, yet two pupils of the Irish
missionaries,C3edmon in the north and Aldhelm in the south,
versified the Bible story and sang it by the roadside in the
abbey ; while presently the native Church produced a
Bede who set himself to translate the Gospel into plain
Enghsh prose.
The work of the Keltic missionaries had latterly lain
among the great Teuton races. These had been evan
gehsed already in two fashions. When the Franks had
broken into the empire, the Christian clergy there had
seen to the new-comers. And Eastwards, when Wulf the
Goth, sent to Constantinople as a hostage, had been won
for Christ, he returned North of the Danube to teU his
people. This work he made permanent by making the
first European version of the Scriptures, a generation
before Jerome began to revise the Latin for Western

Monks and the Bible 89
Europe. For awhile the Goths resisted the Gospel,
banished Wulf and his converts, sought out Christians
everywhere, and insisted on their eating meat sacrificed
to idols, or being burned in their households. But being
themselves attacked by the Huns, they accepted Chris
tianity as the condition of being granted an asylum in
the empire. And now with their own vernacular Bible
they became missionaries to their kin ; and wherever
they settled, in Austria, Italy, South France, Spain, and
North Africa, the Gospel was carried in Teuton guise. It
deserves notice that the Teutons were at first bitterly
hostUe to monasticism, and everywhere forced monks
back into social hfe. The two mission agencies, monks
and the Bible, are seldom associated, though indeed Jerome
shows that for an established Church a monk can do
good work in revision, and Theodore and Hadrian ren
dered good service in organisation.
But now the question was of Teutons outside the empire,
and again a converted Teuton was successful, again was
the success maintained by a vernacular Bible. The
great organiser of missions now was an Enghshman,
Winfrid by name, but renamed Boniface by a second
Pope Gregory. Born on the borders of Cornwall, where he
saw Keltic and Benedictine monks rivalling one another,
bred at NutceU near Winchester, he went to see what
Wilhbrord was doing in Friesland. He recognised his
call abroad, and with a letter from his bishop won
the Pope's commission. Kelts and Franks and Scots
had planted ; he now took up the watering. Somehow

90 Success in Europe
his predecessors had no gift of organising, which is not
strong among Kelts ; but he had something of the Enghsh
genius, and his labours gave stability to the cause. He
did not slavishly foUow old precedents, but instead of
bidding the converts vaguely renounce the devil and all
his works, he bade them renounce Wodin and Thor by
name. He thought hfe too short to be divided between
mission work and farming, and drew supplies of money
and food and clothes from his friends at home. He sent
for women to labour among women. He would brook
no opposition to his plans, once he had won the con
fidence of the Pope and was made Archbishop of Mainz ;
one recalcitrant helper he at last imprisoned ! And in
the same drastic spirit he went once to the sacred oak
of Thor, and before a crowd of pagans hewed it down
with his own hand, causing a Christian church to be
built of its timber. Trained himself to the Latin Bible,
yet the discovery that Latin was a Uve language in Italy
seems to have set him thinking. When he returned
he set a lad to read the Scripture ; this he did fluently,
but it proved that he was merely pronouncing the words
without understanding, and this though he was grandson
of the abbess, newly left school. Boniface translated
the passage and preached, and the lad was so attracted
that next day he rode off with the missionary and gave
aU his life to the same service. Whether Boniface himself
foUowed up the hint is not clear ; but within fifty years
the old Diatessaron of Tatian, the composite hfe of Christ,
was turned into German poetry, and the Heliand became

Taking the Sword 91
the popular epic of the people, setting forth Christ as the
Healer. Another style of mission was inaugurated by Charles
the Great, who had seen something of the success attending
the Muslim campaigns. He set out to conquer the Saxons
and force on them the Gospel, so behind his armies of
warriors came the armies of monks. While the soldiers
hewed down the sacred groves, slew the sacred horses, de
stroyed the idols and the caldrons, the monks had the
harder task of dealing with the home rehgion, the wishing-
wells and trees, the viUage heroes, the beUef in fairies and
elves. With this they seem to have dealt wisely, planting
the Good Seed in hope that the tares could be rooted out
after awhile. If in this they were too sanguine, at least
the survivals everywhere in Germany and England
do not detract from the glory due to Christ. It is no
defacement of rehgion to call our days after Tiu and
Woden and Frigga and Sseter, or to scour the White
Horse on the Berkshire Downs, or for the Royal Family
to be drawn by white horses — all of them rehcs of the old
Arian worship. A single exception is known to the general
destruction of idols : at the present day one may be
seen outside an Antwerp church, often decked with flowers
by wives desiring children. This must be a step beyond
what Pope Sergius contemplated when he ordered that
festivals should be adjusted to the old heathen holy days,
a pohcy that accounts for much of the Belgian|May-day
celebrations. It is pleasant to find that at a synod in
Frankfort missionary matters were discussed, and on the

92 Success in Europe
one hand the pohcy of cutting down pagan trees and
groves was approved, while on the other it was emphati-
caUy declared that " there is no tongue in which prayer
may not be offered."
Then came the problem of the Teutons across the
Baltic, the fierce Norsemen, whose pirate barks threw
them on every coast to harry or destroy. AU around
the shores of Britain they practicaUy eradicated Chris
tianity, and the story of how they were there won for
Christ is part of the home mission tale. But the slaves
they captured brought among them some knowledge of
the White Christ, and in their later Eddas we note a leaven
of Christian thought, a recognition that Baldur must die
and the gods pass down to the twUight, while the world
is prepared for better gods.
Ground was broken in their homes by Anskar, a monk
from Corbey near Amiens, given the honorary title of Arch
bishop of Hamburg, but reaUy leaning on a missionary
abbey in Flanders. He ransomed Scandinavian slaves,
and trained them there before dispatching to their kins
men. The Northmen were defiant of the Christ. WhUe
the settlers in the EngUsh Danelagh and the Normandy of
France came to terms with the local god, not so they.
If their kings were converted and tried to force them too
to destroy the idols, to bestow the sacred ring on some
favoured queen, to burn the brush that sprinkled the
blood on the worshippers, to forswear horse-flesh — then
they fought their king, and when worsted saUed off to
Iceland or Greenland, or South again to a Wineland that

Gauntlet or Gospel 93
might be a refuge for these persecuted pUgrim fathers.
It is not pleasant to read the doings of Hakon and the
Olafs ; but Longfellow has seized the spirit of the times
and made them familiar to us.
I am the god Thor !
I am the War god !
I am the Thunderer !
Here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress, —
Reign I for ever !
Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it ;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant;
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor's Day.
Thou art a god too,
O Galilaean !
And thus single-handed
Unto the combat,
Gauntlet or Gospel,
Here I defy Thee !
One sketch must suffice to show the difficulties of the
task here — the winning of Iceland, last stronghold of the
Norse faith. Olaf the White, King of Dubhn, learned
Christianity from his Irish subjects ; and on his death
his widow came to end her days in Iceland. So long as
she made no attempt to force her rehgion on others, the
estabhshed Church of Odin tolerated her dissent, and
aUowed a cross to be erected. But after her death it was
thrown down, and Christianity faded out as it had done a

94 Success in Europe
century earher. Next came a Saxon priest, and laboured
four years quietly preaching. A graphic account is given
of his contest with a demon inhabiting a holy stone, how
his prayers avaUed nothing for two days, but on the third
a sprinkling with holy water split the stone to pieces,
and the doubting bonder gave in his adhesion to the
White Christ. Next came Thangbrand, scorned as the
drunken priest, setting back the infant cause. But the
times were against the old paganism, and at last in the
annual Al Thing the whole matter was debated. The
pagan leader proposed a compromise : the old temples
should be abohshed, and national sacrifices should cease ;
the Lord's day, Easter, and Yule should be observed ;
but there should be no prohibition of eating horse-flesh,
nor any inquiry into the worship at home, and immersion
should be not in the cold lake but in the hot springs. The
terms were accepted, and soon the Icelanders were gather
ing around the Table of Peace.
It is accepted,
The angry defiance,
The challenge of battle ;
It is accepted,
But not with the weapons
Of war that thou wieldest !
Cross against corselet,
Love against hatred,
Peace-cry for war-cry ;
Patience is powerful,
He that o'ercometh
Hath power o'er the nations !

The Four-Century War 95
Stronger than steel
Is the sword of the Spirit,
Swifter than arrows
The hfe of the truth is,
Greater than anger
Is love, and subdueth !
When at last Knut reigned over an empire that in
cluded Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Britain, when
Danes became Archbishops of Canterbury, and Enghshmen
bishops in Denmark, then we may reckon that the victory
was won, and that the Northmen at home as abroad were
accepting Christ, though it was 1075 before Thor and
Wodin were outlawed in Sweden. Let us not forget that
it took more than two hundred years from the time when
Ebbo, the Primate of France, began by baptizing Harald
Klak, till the time when Knut went as pilgrim to Rome ;
while, if we look back to the time when Augustine and
Aidan began in England, more than four centuries were
taken to win for Christ the tough Teuton race. And shaU
we be daunted if a single century of Protestant work among
the hard thinkers of the Orient has accomphshed so httle ?
Long before the Teutonic races were won by the Gospel,
this was preached also to the last great section of the
Arians in Europe, the Slavs, comprising the Bulgarians,
Moravians, Bohemians, Poles, Prussians, Wends, Russians,
etc. Three specimens of the work may be glanced at — the
mission of Cyril and Methodius in Moravia ; the search of
the Russians for God; and the conquests of the Teutonic
knights in Prussia.

96 Success in Europe
Moravia was a borderland suffering from rival missions ;
the wars of Charles the Great had introduced compulsory
baptism and the Latin services ; but the rulers strove foi
independence, and pleaded with the emperor at Con
stantinople for missionaries to teach them in their own
tongue. Two Thessalonians were sent them with the order
to translate. Out of Greek and Armenian and Hebrew
letters, eked out with some original shapes, they con
cocted an alphabet of forty signs, and proceeded to render
into Slavonic the Gospels and Acts and Psalms. At this
the Pope interfered ; but after long argument he was
persuaded to sanction their work, only with the restriction
that service was to be in Greek or Latin. The Moravian
nation was soon absorbed into others ; but the Slavonic
Bible remained only too weU, for despite changes in the
fourteenth and eighteenth centuries it stiU is the official
Bible of the Russian Church.
Turn to see how this Church arose. By the tenth
century a great kingdom was ruled from Kieff , and many
attempts were made to win the ruler. Muslims and Jews
were rebuffed at once, German Christians failed, but a
Greek Christian induced him to send deputations to study
all these in their homes. On their report he adopted Greek
Christianity, captured Kherson in the Crimea, was there
wedded to the emperor's sister, and baptized by her clergy.
His courtiers and sons foUowed suit, the national idol
was destroyed, and the temple replaced by a church ;
whUe the people came by thousands at his bidding to be
immersed in the Dnieper. After this sensational beginning,

Fall Down and Worship 97
the work was foUowed up steadily, and aU the civilisation
of Constantinople was imported with its rehgion, schools
arising, the Slavonic Bible and a Slavonic hturgy being
introduced. True that the Mongols, who wrought such
harm to Christianity in China and Central Asia and Persia,
did grievous damage here for over two centuries ; but the
Church held its own, and once the State rose again, the
Church spread quickly tiU printing gave the Revised Bible
by 1581 as the best means of completing the victory.
Long before then the Slavs between Russia and the
Germans had heard the Gospel. Here there was strong
opposition organised by the heathen priests, and missions
on the simple Evangelical plan failed utterly. An imposing
deputation with a bishop at its head, weU equipped with
aU manner of impedimenta, fared better, having the
countenance of the duke, and on one day seven thousand
Pomeranians were immersed in three huge baptisteries.
As the pagan hierarchy and the stately temples captivated
the people, more arrogant Christian clergy erected even
more splendid cathedrals, and graduaUy estabhshed a
footing. More forcible methods were employed on the
Baltic islands, and on the capture of Riigen, Bishop
Absalom himself hacked down the enormous idols revered
by the people far and near. But it was found wise to let
the isle remain a privileged State, with numerous churches,
kept up at no cost to the islanders. So at last the very
high priest of paganism in Prussia could be attacked.
Peaceful methods faUing, two bodies of crusaders united
with the blessing of Rome, and proceeded to conquer the

98 Success in Europe
land, colonismg it with Christians from Germany, reducing
the natives to slavery, but offering some remission of hard
ship to any who would be baptized. With the pagan
priests extirpated, their temples razed, their divine
serpents and Uzards MUed, their sacred fires put out, their
holy groves hewn down, the people passed over by degrees
to Christianity. And so in Prussia and Lithuania the
victory of the Cross was assured by 1400 a.d., just about
the time when we saw its defeat in Asia accomplished.
WhUe Christianity had been spreading to the north of
Europe, it had suffered severe checks to the south. The
armies of Islam conquered Spain ; whUe Charles the Great
conquered the Saxons, subdued Anatolia by the time the
Norse were won, and pushed up to the upper Danube to
counterbalance the Letts. Nowhere did they forcibly
suppress Christianity, for always the People of the Book
might retain their rehgion by paying a special tax. But
aU propagation of Christianity is forbidden under Muslim
rule ; and any attempt to win these new peoples had to be
from without, by the strong arm breaking the power of
Islam. The kings of Leon, CastUe, Portugal, and Aragon slowly
fought their way forward, checked twice by two great
waves of African Muslims. In the time of success smaU
mercy was requited for the tolerance shown to the Chris
tians ; and the lot of the subject Moors was made so hard
that either they retreated to the independent Muslim
States, or accepted baptism which was aU but compulsory.
Crusades were organised, an Inquisition founded to verify

Spain Regained 99
the genuineness of conversions, and when the last Moorish
State feU nobly, two rival missionaries attended to the
Muslims. The local archbishop learned Arabic and com-
pUed catechism, liturgy, and lectionary for his new flock,
promising even a whole Arabic Bible. But the Cardinal
Ximenes proceeded to bribe converts and buy up aU the
Qur'ans and reUgious books for an auto-da-fe. Soon
these drastic methods provoked rebellion, and on its sup
pression the Moors were either baptized or banished.
Thus by 1500 a.d. no other rehgion but Christianity
was tolerated here. Conclusion
So God delights to teach this lesson ever —
That His success depends on our endeavour.
When we look over this long story we see that the
winning of Europe was the accomplishment of two distinct
tasks — the capture of the great Empire with aU its
machinery and prestige ; the civilisation of the barbarians
who were beyond its borders, or flocked in from the un
known. To capture the Empire was the work of three hundred
years — a fact that may show us the magnitude of our task
even nowin China and India. The reaction of the Empire on
Christianity was most important : theology was permeated
with Greek phUosophy; machinery was fashioned on Roman
models ; and from the same source came the conception of
a code of Church law. But there was much in the Roman

100 Success in Europe
world which was never assimilated, and the culture of
Greece fled from the Greek Church. Had it been our task
to trace it we should have found it at Baghdad and Cordova,
carried by the agency of the Jews, the Persian Christians,
and the Muslims. But the Christian Church of Europe
broke with the art and literature of the Empire, and was
on the whole uncultured. To find a man like Synesius, at
once an ecclesiastic and a scholar, is a startling exception.
And when there came a renaissance of this rejected art and
literature, it provoked in the old Empire blank infidelity,
or beyond the Empire a reformation of rehgion. The
warning stands for missionaries not to ignore the heritage
of the past, but to beheve that God has worked among
heathen nations, and desires His work to be utilised, not
scorned. The Jews had many advantages, — especiaUy
that they were entrusted with the Word of God ; that
from them sprang, according to the flesh, the Saviour of
the world; that they were honoured to be the first
bearers of the message of salvation, which transcends aU
others : but the GentUes were not utterly overlooked by
God through aU the ages, and they had their gold and
frankincense and myrrh to lay at the feet of the
Redeemer. The spread of Christianity in the empire was the easier
because no other rehgion at first had any vitality ; and when
Neo-Platonism, Mithraism, and Manichseism appeared,
they found the Church already weU developed, and not
averse to using force to complete its victory. Such a
consideration may again give us pause in contemplating

The Sword of the Spirit 101
the modern situation in China and India, where there
are rehgions very much ahve, and actively propagating,
indeed winning converts perhaps as fast as Christianity.
Professional missionaries were few after the first century
of effort ; local jealousy almost suppressed them. The
spread took place from the strategic centres occupied by
the wisdom of the earhest missionaries, and by the influ
ence of purely indigenous churches.
The indispensable tool was the Bible in the vernacular.
The Greek Scriptures were at once appropriated from the
Jews, and graduaUy enlarged by the writings of the earhest
Christians. In the West arose Latin versions ; and when
these seemed too many and too rustic, a revision was
dehberately ordered by the Pope from the finest linguist in
the Church ; the Latin Bible was in the hands of every
missionary from the West, and even holds its own long
after Latin has ceased to be a vernacular.
For new races in a new age there was a revival of apos-
toUc measures. The finer elements in Christian circles were
fleeing from the corruption of nominal Christianity, and
were lights hiding under bushels. Martin and Gregory
upset the bushels, and compeUed the hghts to hghten the
GentUes. But although it might be pleaded that Paul
considered the best missionary would be unmarried, yet
we may fairly ask whether monks might not have been
supplemented with married couples. The fact was that the
evangehsation of the barbarian races was accomphshed
almost entirely by men in communities pledged to
obedience, untrammelled by famUy cares. Seldom do we

102 Success in Europe
hear of one man or of two men isolated at a station ; and
when that poUcy was adopted in the thirteenth century, for
Latin missions to China, it f aUed.
These missionaries reversed the selfish plea of the
Church at Jerusalem, that the mother-church should be
supported by the converts, and drew heavUy on the
resources of the mother-church for support and for aU the
material they needed, such as books, vessels, and wagons.
Preaching was, of course, their leading method, and they
preached chiefly the facts as to Jesus. As their converts
came in they expounded doctrine, but usuaUy had the good
sense to leave alone the Greek councils, and to put matters
simply. On practical affairs — infanticide, slavery, torture,
etc. — they were plain spoken. With idolatry of the pagan
type they never compromised, and so utter was the de
struction that hardly a single idol survives. WhUe at
the proper moment they were ready to heave an idol into
the river or cleave it with an axe, to hew down the sacred
trees, yet they paved the way by undermining the faith
in them first. Aristides and TertuUian had been brutal
in their exposure of the old Grseco-Roman gods, but the
barbarians were shaken rather by questions as to the
origin of their gods, their power, their future.
Much work was artistic and industrial. A leading
Roman chorister went out to teach the barbarians how
to sing ; farming and buUding were introduced by the
missionaries. Not only did they settle in groups, so that the work was
never crippled by the illness of one, and the eccentricity

Training Native Clergy 103
of one was always hable to correction by the wisdom of
the many or the authority of the head ; but also they
regularly gathered in conferences from over large areas,
to encourage, to compare progress, and to consult on future
steps. Two causes contributed largely to their success : accept
ing the pohtical divisions, and training aboriginal converts
for the ministry. Every king in Ireland claimed to have a
bishop beside him, so that it has been said that the bishops
were more numerous than the other clergy. And in
Britain to every Enghsh king was allotted a bishop. The
kings were the objects of special solicitude ; often they
sought civilised wives, and often the wives bargained for
the free exercise of their Christian rehgion, and so opened
the way for new missions. Again and again it was found
that the conversion of a king led promptly to the con
version of his clan or sept or tribe or nation.
The missionaries seem always to have had the wisdom
to recognise that their work was transitional, and that
a permanent Church must be staffed by natives ; and
so they estabhshed theological seminaries. In many cases
there was no permanent centre ; we read of the mission
band riding about, relaxing into races, but generally
chanting as they ambled along, with schooling at the
halts for meals or sleep. Charles the Great had such a
peripatetic college at his court. But as monasteries
arose, cloisters were set apart . for regular training, or
scriptoria where pupils were taught to multiply the books
needed. Sometimes the first supply of pupils was secured

104 Success in Europe
by ransoming captives, but soon there was no lack of
volunteers or of Samuels left by their pious mothers.
And so, as native churches arise, foreign superintendents
disappear. England was evangelised by Scots, Itahans,
Franks, Burgundians ; but when after only eighty years
a Greek organised the national Church, it was staffed
chiefly by English, who before the century ran out were
beginning an EngUsh version, to be sung at feasts or by
the wayside.
But as to barbarian versions, two opinions were held :
the Greeks favoured them ; the Romans never could quite
reconcile themselves to the fact that their own tongue
was not universal. We can readily understand the
difference, for the Greeks respected nationahty, whUe the
Romans tried to suppress or absorb ; but we must deplore
the Roman attitude. WhUe the Greek missionaries
furthered native versions for Armenia and Georgia, for
Goths and Slavs, the Roman missionaries never undertook
a single version for their converts. At most they aUowed
mystery plays, when the sacred story was dramatised in
the vernacular. When we remember that the earhest
complete Enghsh version dates from the tenth century,
the French from the thirteenth, the Bohemian, Danish,
and Swedish from the fourteenth, the German from the
fifteenth, then we see that none of these were missionary
versions, and that what the apostle styles the Sword of
the Spirit was never drawn in the West for this holy war.
We must not overlook the existence of missionary
strategists who, themselves free from distraction in petty

Manuals for Workers 105
details at the front, could think out at home the true
principles of foreign work, and send instructions to those
on the field. Even to-day a labourer in the South Seas or
in Africa, or to the lower tribes of America and Asia,
might read with advantage what Augustine of Africa has
to say about catechising, what Gregory wrote to Austin
of Canterbury, how Daniel of Winchester counseUed his
pupil Boniface when busy in Germany, and how Alcuin
of York presided over the great training coUege of Charles,
and planned for missionaries to foUow up the armies of
the Franks.
If it be asked what Christianity absorbed from the
heathendom of the barbarians, it must be pointed out
that to them it came very slowly and by degrees. The
Empire was in some sense a whole, and if Christianity
captured it as a whole it caught a Tatar ; for the Empire
reaUy captured it and transformed it, so that aU the
Christianity we know has come through Grseco-Roman
channels. With the barbarians it was not so ; even
Enghsh customs did not very deeply tinge the Christianity
of the converts made by the Enghsh missionaries. There
were German customs, Spanish, Russian ; but none of these
have more than local value. If we, for instance, caU the
feast of the resurrection after our forefathers' goddess
Easter, or that of the birth after Yule, and stUl burn the
log and deck the Christmas tree, yet some of these customs
die naturaUy when we migrate away from the old pagan
sites, and none of them seem to detract from the real
worship of the one God.

106 Success in Europe
Eleven hundred years were occupied in winning the
barbarians of Europe, though they had no organised
scheme of thought to overcome, and as a rule no powerful
priesthood to persuade or to crush. The work was slow,
but it has endured. And no sooner was it ended than
there arose in the North and West a movement to extricate
pure Christianity from the swaddling bands of Rome. In
accord with the temper of the age, this led to wars.
Missionary effort on the forcible lines of Spain was trans
ferred by Rome to new lands beyond the seas, whUe for
two hundred years the Teutonic nations sought to main
tain their independence, not reaUsing that this is best
done by a spirited foreign pohcy, and by handing on to
others the Gospel they had received.
Eleven hundred years to win the barbarians of Europe !
With the experience of nearly nineteen centuries, how
long should it take their chUdren, the leaders of the world,
to win aU other barbarians ?

Ill
THE STRUGGLE FOR AFRICA

In the old days, while yet the Church was young,
And men beheved that praise of God was sung
In curbing self as well as singing psalms,
There lived a monk, Macarius by name,
A holy man to whom the faithful came
With hungry hearts to hear the wondrous Word.
He bade his followers to be as brothers,
And die to self, to hve and work for others. O'Reilly.

Ill
The Struggle for Africa
AFRICA presents fresh instances of both the missionary
experiences we have already met — contact with
ancient rehgions, and with barbarian tribes. In the
north, ancient civilisations were won for Christ in three
hundred years, and lost again in a thousand ; in the centre
and south, rude tribes are still accessible to the Gospel
message. It is needless to go over the story of the north,
so far as it means the winning of the Greeks and Romans ;
but the impact of the new faith on the natives they ruled
is generaUy overlooked, and will repay attention. Their
history introduces us to a problem more serious than
any we have met as yet, a problem not unknown else
where, but acute in Africa, the problem of Islam. Here
is another great missionary rehgion which has supplanted
Christianity aU along the north coast, and to-day is con
tending with us for the pagan tribes. Its origin, its
strength, its weakness, and its prospects will claim most
of our attention.
Two geographical facts must be noticed as conditioning
the progress of missions here. Outside the Mediterranean,
Africa has no good harbours, while its rivers are broken
109

110 The Struggle for Africa
by cataracts and bars and swamps ; traveUing is not easy
even at the present day, and most of the continent was
unknown to the ancients. Again, a huge belt of desert
stretches from the Atlantic right across to Persia,
broken only by the narrow vaUey of the NUe and by the
Red Sea. North Africa thus has affinities with Palestine
and Syria, whUe South Arabia is far more akin to Africa
than to Asia. The population of Africa is deeply influenced
by these facts ; leave out of account the Pigmy and Hotten
tot, rehcs of a dwarfed yeUow race, and we see the great
black races to the south of the Sahara, but to the north
and up the NUe are two branches of the white race, often
caUed Hamite and Semite. The Semites are the later
arrivals, always from Syria and Arabia ; by sea to Carthage,
across the isthmus to Egypt, and across the straits at the
south not only to Abyssinia, but at least for trade into
Mashona-land. The last of these great migrations has
been in Christian times, and brought in Islam. But
within the last century European Christian Powers have
thrown themselves on Africa, and to-day the influence of
France and of Great Britain is most powerful, so that its
effect on missions must he weighed.
We shaU find it convenient to group our topics thus : —
1. The winning of the north coast.
2. Progress in Abyssinia and Arabia.
3. Extinction of Christianity in the north.
4. The rival missions to the blacks.

Copts versus Greeks 111

1. The Winning of the North Coast
Still the gods were in the temples,
But the ancient faith had fled ;
And the priests stood by their altars,
Only for a piece of bread :
And the oracles were silent,
And the prophets all were dead.
W. C. Smith.
In the early days of Christianitythere were three strategic
points to the south of the Mediterranean : Alexandria,
the Greek centre amid Egyptian beast-worship ; Cyrene,
a Grseco-Jewish centre, amid Libyan paganism ; Carthage,
a Roman centre, amid Phoenician idolatry, with a remoter
background of Berber paganism. Into Alexandria and
Cyrene, Jewish influence obtained a ready entrance for
the faith, even in apostoUc days ; indeed, it is said that the
Jews of Babylon, adjoining the modern Cairo, came over
bodily to the new faith, and converted their synagogue into
a Christian church. The story of Alexandria and its learned
Greek teachers is so familiar, and has so httle of interest
for missions, that we need only recaU the anecdote of a
Coptic peasant being consecrated owing to the dream of
his Greek predecessor. Aristides declared that these
Copts were more ignorant than aU other peoples ; and
Origen, who suffered from the tyranny of the Coptic
Patriarch, owned that they were very difficult to approach.
Not tiU 250 a.d. do we hear of five bishops outside the
Greek city, increasing presently to twenty-four, showing
some progress among the natives. The Greek bishop at

112 The Struggle for Africa
Alexandria kept a tight hold over the country bishops,
and the troubles under Decius reveal Churches in the
Fayum restive at the attempted control of the Greeks.
When Diocletian renewed persecution, the Copts reahsed
at last that the government was in earnest against Chris
tianity, and they therefore embraced it almost as a body.
The old beast-worship was evidently outworn, and the new
faith gave a national bond against the usurpers from over
seas. So when we get clear vision about 340 a.d. we find
Coptic Churches aU up the NUe, with their own versions
in three dialects, successful in gaining nearly a million
adherents, to the practical extinction of the old rites, except,
at PhUse and one or two other temples. For instance,
the care of the NUometer was transferred to a Christian
Church, and the festival of the annual rising was celebrated
by the Christian clergy. Another century saw the forcible
demohtion of aU the httle country shrines.
The form that Christianity assumed among the natives
was, however, most extraordinary ; we have had occasion
to notice its later modifications in Europe, but monasticism
in Egypt deserves special notice. Just as the hermits of
India had been organised into communities by the Buddha,
so now the Christians of Egypt became ascetics, and were
gathered into labour colonies by Pachomius, a native Copt.
Their development was barely credible, and traveUers from
other lands came to investigate. They found at Oxy-
rhynchus ten thousand monks and twenty thousand nuns,
with no families whatever ; whUe in the suburbs were
secluded Lauras, or minor monasteries. Three other

Three Races near Tunis 113
places are mentioned, where the same extreme course was
adopted. Of course, in such communities aU learning
rapidly died out, and only survived in the great towns,
especiaUy among the pagans, as the name of Hypatia
reminds us. A sharp distinction is to be drawn between
these monks or nuns, all lay people, and the clergy, who
were' necessarily married, and who took over the native
custom from the pagan priests of completely shaving the
head, producing the " tonsure " to which Athanasius had
objected. At a later stage the Copts broke away altogether
from the Greek Church, and though the Greek emperor kept
up a State establishment at Alexandria, the Copts went
their own way and developed on purely national lines. The
only mission they ever seem to have sent forth was up the
NUe to Abyssinia, where we shall presently note them.
Cyrene we must pass by, and look on to Carthage. The
population here was in three strata, which it is important
to distinguish. First was the old Berber aboriginal
element, known then as Numidian, and to-day as Kabyle ;
white in colour, though soon tanned under the fierce sun,
democratic, with a viUage system of government, and
never possessing any literature, even at this day. But a
race that could produce a Jugurtha, to fight Rome on
equal terms, deserves more attention than it usually
receives. Second was the Semite colony from Tyre that
founded Carthage, bringing its own Hebrew speech.
After seven hundred years, in which a Hannibal and a
Terence had appeared, this State was indeed blotted out ;
but the people and the language remained, though under
9

114 The Struggle for Africa
the heel of Rome. Last came the Latins, who had ruled
for at least two centuries when Christianity came hither.
The immigrant elements were lending a favourable ear by
180 a.d., when we hear of Punic martyrs winning the great
Latin jurist TertuUian by their constancy. Forty years
later we hear of seventy bishops gathered at Carthage, a
number which shows us that the local organisation of
viUage home-rule, taken over by Semites and Latins
ahke, had been adopted in Christian matters. Presently
appeared a Latin Bible ; but we never hear anything of a
Hebrew New Testament for the older settlers, and even
the great Augustine never learned this tongue, spoken by
the conquered Carthaginians aU the country round. The
contempt of the Latins for their overthrown antagonists
seems to have shown itself in disdaining to learn their
language, for the Old Testament must have found many
readers who needed no interpreter. There certainly was
strong racial feeling, for two great divisions here associated
with the names of Novatian and Donatus evinced nearly
as much pohtics as rehgion, the dissenters being chiefly
Punic, and outnumbering the State Church. The rivalry
produced great progress, and we hear of five hundred
and sixty-five bishops at a meeting in 411 a.d. Yet the
aborigines, already chiefly confined to the hiUs, do not
seem to have been deeply influenced ; although we hear of
bishops among the black huts of the nomads, and not tUl
the monastic movement was naturalised was much head
way made among them. Then paganism was so dead
that the largest old temple, two miles in circuit, was made

Quarrels kill Missions 115
over as a Christian cemetery, and another in the city
became a cathedral. Soon afterwards entered the Vandals,
and if they opposed the idolatrous State Church and the
unsocial monks, be it remembered that they were Chris
tians with their vernacular Bible translated by Wulf. Un-
happUy, whUe Christians quarreUed, missions languished,
and the Mil tribes revived paganism. The only offset
is that some of the slaves sent into the desert spread their
faith, and we hear of work beginning among the Moors.
As if there were not enough rival Churches, Behsarius
introduced the Greeks and their own quarrels, and in the
year 646 a.d., before any other rehgion came to oppose all
alike, only one hundred and ten bishops could be assembled
in the distracted land.
If it be asked why Christianity never spread inland, and
was confined simply to the strip on the North and to the Nile
vaUey,the answer is that the desert was impassable, that the
value of the camel was not known, and that not Christianity
alone but all civUisation was cramped in Uke fashion.
2. Progress ln Arabia and Abyssinia
Utter the song, 0 my soul ! the flight and return of Mohammed,
Prophet and priest, who scattered abroad both evil and blessing,
Huge wasteful empires founded, and hallowed slow persecution,
Soul-withering ; but crushed the blasphemous rites of the pagan
And idolatrous Christians. For veiling the Gospel of Jesus,
They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest.
Coleridge.
The south of Arabia had httle to do with the north,
population and civUisation being quite distinct. Behind

116 The Struggle for Africa
the barren coasts Ues a fertile interior, from the eastern
province of Oman and the pearl islands, always in touch
with Persia, Beluchistan, and India, along the Hadramaut
strip, to the most important district of Yemen in the
south-west. This has always been the centre of Arabian
life, with three great towns — Aden on the coast ; Sana, the
political capital ; and Mecca, the rehgious focus, on whose
" right hand," as you face the rising sun, the province Ues,
so obtaining its name. As long ago as the days of Solomon,
settlers hence colonised Abyssinia, whose treasurer was won
for Christ at an early date.
The religion of the nomad tribes was fairly simple. In
the back of their behefs loomed the figure of One God ;
but the middle distance showed the Sabian worship of
sun and moon, which may have flourished when the
Queen of Sheba visited Solomon ; the foreground was
choked with superstitious observances. AU the country
offered material for their rehgion ; dotted about were
sacred weUs, but the sandy wastes were filled with
demoniac Jinns. Tribal taboos were common, and feasts,
especiaUy on Uve camels torn to pieces in sacrifice. Here
and there were sacred areas, within whose boundaries
might be no reaping, or hunting, or felling of trees.
Often a cave would be here, where treasure might be stored,
and then an aerolite might be set above it as a god to
guard the deposit, and possibly a priest would instaU
himself to thrive on pious pUgrims. For to such sanc
tuaries the tribes repaired, as to a Welsh Eisteddfod,
blending business, pleasure, and worship ; for the sake of

Arabian Jews 117
this a sacred truce was kept, providing one month to go,
one to stay, and one to return.
In the first century of our era occurred great changes.
A new hne of kings arose, the Himyarites ; the old land
routes of traffic were superseded by sea routes, the old
capital began to decay, and its huge reservoirs feU by
degrees into ruin ; the old worship of sun and moon faded
out, though at the mouth of the Euphrates it yet lingers
among five thousand Mandseans. Some scholars attribute
aU these changes to a vast immigration of Jews, cast out
of Palestine by the wars of Vespasian and Hadrian ; and
they even go so far as to assert that the immigrants con
verted the king, or provided a king out of their own
number. Harnack, however, conjectures that some of
these immigrants were Jewish Christians, and that Pan-
tsenus came and found the Aramaic Gospel here in Yemen,
not in Oman or Beluchistan.
Not tiU the fourth century do we have any clear light
on the progress of Christianity here, when two missionaries
of different sects arrived by sea, from Greek lands. Fru-
mentius of Tyre, enslaved in Abyssinia as a boy, became first
its chief secretary, and then its chief missionary ; while
Theophilus of Socotra, who found already in Yemen
Christians of a type strange to his Greek customs, built
three more great churches. He was bitterly opposed by
the Jews ; but bis success was considerable, and presently
four bishops were appointed, whUe the king himself is
said to have been converted. Medina yielded a few
disciples, and several tribes gave in their adhesion,

118 The Struggle for Africa
notably in the centre. On the other hand, the kingdom
was weakened, the pagans of the centre became inde
pendent, and about 400 a.d. the Qur'aysh clan secured
the keys of the great idol temple at Mecca, the Ka'aba,
among whose hundreds of statues were said to be those of
Christ and of the Virgin.
Before the next century closed, a great immigration
of Egyptian monks strengthened and modified the
Abyssinian Christianity. An alphabet was formed for
the Ethiopic tongue, and the Scriptures were rendered
into it. Despite aU later changes, pubhc worship in the
highlands is still performed in this most ancient of
Semitic languages, and modern traveUers say this is nearly
aU the Christianity to be found there.
Between Abyssinia and Egypt the Negro race had
pushed from the desert down to the NUe, and the great
Theodore of Constantinople sent the first mission to the
blacks, by whom the Nubian king was baptized ; and so
the foundations of Christianity were laid, not to be
obhterated for seven centuries.
There was a reaction in Yemen when a Jewish proselyte
became king and entered on a furious persecution.
Thousands of Christians, even boys and girls, were speared
or burned ahve in huge pits, wlnle the villages were
plundered. The Abyssinians met force with force, and
presently new churches and new bishops arose under a
Christian king. Missions were undertaken, by persuasion
and force winning both Jews and pagans, and a grand
cathedral was buUt at Sana. The king proclaimed that

Mecca and its Idols 119
pUgrimages to Mecca must cease, and that henceforth
Sana would be the capital for all purposes, even for
reUgion. That night an indignant pagan defiled the
altar and the cross, whereon the king vowed to destroy the
idol temple at Mecca. But his army was entrapped in a
defile and grievously defeated, and the progress of Chris
tianity was effectually stopped.
We hear, indeed, that other means were adopted ; that
one bishop regularly attended the annual Eisteddfods,
and preached constantly in the open air ; that a convert
from the Qur'aysh translated the Gospels into Arabic :
but the kingdom of Yemen drooped, and presently passed
nominaUy under the power of the Persian Zoroastrians,
whUe in practice Arabia lapsed into anarchy.
Consider now the condition of Mecca, the rival centre.
It was a town whose dwellers were more cultivated and
more debased than the nomads. The Arabic language
is on aU hands admitted to be most beautiful, and it was
here highly developed. Poetry was greatly esteemed,
and seven classics were ornamentaUy written out and
suspended in the temple. Writing was such a common
accomphshment that captive Meccans were able to ransom
themselves by teaching ten pupils each how to read and
write. But as often happens at a centre of pilgrimage, real
faith was rare, and there was httle attachment to the idols,
only to the profits derivable from the pilgrims. And
many earnest men had arisen in aU parts who rejected
polytheism and were worshipping quietly One God.
One such man was caUed Muhammad, a member of the

120 The Struggle for Africa
Qur'aysh, the aristocratic clan which held the keys of the
temple ; being early orphaned, he grew up Uhterate, and
to the end of his days could not read or write, or even
speak grammaticaUy, as the Qur'an occasionaUy shows.
Travelling with business caravans, he saw something of
Christian Arabs and Syrians on the frontiers of the Greek
Empire, and more of the Christian monks in the desert.
Nearer at hand he saw much of the Jews, who formed httle
seU-governing communities. Conceiving a scorn of the
polytheism and idolatry prevailing, he presently started
preaching against it. For long he proved that a prophet
has no honour in his own country, and many of his
adherents fled to the Christian realm of Abyssinia. At
length he found a friendly refuge at Medina, and his moral
authority grew so rapidly that he became judge and ruler.
Failing to win the submission of the Jews, or their recog
nition of him as a prophet, he ceased compromising with
them, and subdued them perforce. Then he felt strong
enough to attack the Meccans, and at length reduced them
under his power. With them he did compromise, and
agreed to retain that city as the reUgious centre, pre
serving many of the old heathen customs, though the
idols were utterly destroyed. The plunder from his
victories gained many adherents to his system, which
was now both rehgious and pohtical ; and besides the
nucleus of those who heartUy adopted his prophetical
claims, the whole of Arabia flocked to his standard, and
he felt confident enough to summon the rulers of the great
empires to adopt Islam. Though at his death there was

Check! 121
defection, yet capture of the rich towns restored aUegiance.
Then came a conflict between the rehgious party and the
political ; the former won a great point in publishing a
standard edition of the prophecies of Muhammad, hence
forth accepted as the absolute authority for Islam ; but
on the whole the theocracy failed, and the worldly lust of
power came to the front. So within forty years from the
flight of Muhammad to Medina, the progress of Chris
tianity in Western Asia and in Northern Africa was at an
end, and the new religion was consohdated and spreading
fast. 3. Extinction of Christianity m the North
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven.
One who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured
To mutter o'er some text of God
Engraven on his reeking sword. Moore.
When the armies of Islam came to Egypt, they found a
ready welcome from the native Copts, who resented the
tyranny of the Greeks. The conquest was complete in six
years, and there came into play one of the great attrac
tions of the new faith. The moment a subject adopted
Islam, not only was he exempt from paying tribute, which
indeed was balanced by an obhgation to pay the poor-rate,
but he found himself a member of a brotherhood, a ruling

122 The Struggle for Africa
race. AU signs of degradation were removed ; there might
be a subscription to start the new convert, if he were poor ;
freedom was at once granted to intermarry with aU Mushms,
and the way was open to aU power and office. On the
other side the Muslim yoke proved heavier than the Greek,
and was frequently made weightier stiU ; branding on
the hand was introduced, and persecutions of this kind
have twice produced thousands of converts.
The speed with which the Copts adopted the faith of
Islam can only be compared with the speed with which
they had adopted Christianity. Of course the Greek
State Church practicaUy vanished at once, whUe on the
other hand the Persian variety of Christianity made its
appearance ; but aU power and culture passed rapidly to
the Arabs, and the Copts within a century were given the
option of conversion or banishment. If this was not
steadily enforced, they were in the minority within another
century, and the country people began to pass over whole
sale. AU too late they were driven to recognise that
their vanishing faith could only be conserved if they took
over the tongue of their rulers, a measure adopted more
promptly by the Jews. Nor are cases wanting when with
this lever they actuaUy won over Mushms to Christianity.
Then came a terrific reaction, when thirty thousand
churches were demohshed. Even in this extremity the
Christians kept up worship in their houses, and after nine
years the persecution slackened ; whUe the mad Cahph
actuaUy gave leave to rebuUd the churches, and restored
the endowments. But the Crusades caused a revival of

Muslim Culture 123
hatred, and the Muslims burned the old Christian capital
of Babylon, the stronghold of the old national faith ; its
monastery alone remains, at the south of the new Muslim
capital of Cairo. The transfer to the Mushms of the
guardianship of the NUometer alongside it, was another
sign that nationahty and faith were broken. From
1200 a.d. the New Testament was read in a bilingual, and
the ancient Coptic is now extinct. Quarrels now arose
in the dechning Church ; once for twenty years no
Patriarch was appointed, and for want of one, bishops
died out in many places, and whole districts went over
to Islam. Next century there were fierce religious riots,
with the usual results, more destruction of churches,
more conversions to Islam. The story can be gleaned
from Muir's Early Caliphate and his Mameluke Dynasty
of Egypt.
In a sense the land retains its old position as a religious
country. When Ephesus was sacked in 262 a.d., Alexandria
stood out as the most learned city. To-day the culture
of the Muslim world is almost centred in Egypt. Every
viUage mosque has a school attached, and the system
leads up to Cairo, where the great mosque is the home of
a university older than Oxford, frequented by thousands
of students, many of whom are dehberately training to
be missionaries of Islam. Once the Nile vaUey was the
home of thousands of Christian monks ; to-day they have
practicaUy vanished. Were it not for the immigration
of foreigners, Christianity would be almost contemptible ;
and despite the predominance of France and of England in

124 The Struggle for Africa
recent years, Egypt is stiU one of the Muslim strongholds.
More than 92 per cent, of the people are Muhammadan,
and the few Christians represent nine varieties of ancient
Churches, besides adherents of modern Protestant missions.
The native Church of Egypt has shriveUed up tiU there are
but ten bishoprics and a few hundred thousand Copts left
under a Patriarch at Cairo. And since the bishops are
always drawn from the monasteries, where learning is
rare, there seem great difficulties in the way of rejuvenating
what was once a wonder of the Christian world.
Higher up the NUe beyond Egypt proper, hes Nubia.
Here the Christians were isolated and withered away ;
by 1520 a.d. no clergy were left, and quarrels of jurisdiction
prevented others being sent from Abyssinia. The churches
were closed, and the population has long been Muslim.
One bishop remains, at Khartum, with only seven churches
in his diocese. This district was the headquarters of the
Mahdi's movement, and so strong is Muslim feeling that
the British Government has only aUowed Christian missions
with great reluctance. Indeed, it is one of the remarkable
factors in considering Islam, that even when Christians
rule, special consideration is usuaUy shown to Muslims,
a preference complained of from every field. The same
phenomenon is witnessed in England with Roman CathoUcs;
and it suggests that where there is a large rehgious organisa
tion on an international scale, accustomed to play an active
part in pohtics, it inspires a sort of fear in mere national
governments, which concede unfair preferential treatment.
At the head of the Blue NUe is the mountain realm of

Stagnant and Dry 125
Abyssinia. An attempt of the Latins to capture its Church
failed by a revolution in 1633 a.d. ; twelve years later
a Lutheran translated the New Testament into the modern
tongue, but since then the native Church has gone its
own way. The Christianity is a strange compound with
heathenism and Judaism, and the missionary fervour has
quite died out. Indeed, the Mushms boast that since
1850 a.d. all poUtical power hes with them, and that a mass
movement of the people away from Christianity is very
probable. But this is expressly contradicted by Noble.
Certainly no attempt is being made from Europe to educate
or influence the natives, for the Swedish missionaries are
not aUowed to advance beyond the Itahan coastal strip,
while knowledge of the ancient ritual language is reaUy
confined to twelve thousand monks.
The northern littoral between Egypt and Tunis fell
under MusUm influence quickly and uneventfuUy; and
Cyrene, which had furnished a Simon to bear the cross,
and a Lucius to be one of the first heralds of the cross,
passed out of Christian history. Then in the old Roman
districts of Africa and Numidia, where four sects had
quarreUed and weakened one another, hatred of the Greek
tyranny united aU four in a welcome to the Muhammadans
as dehverers. By 700 a.d. Carthage was in their power, and
Christianity was doomed to stagnation. Indeed, within
sixty years, the governor reported to the Cahph that the
tribute of infidels had ceased, as all were converted — a
statement that a careful auditor of accounts might have
questioned as premature.

126 The Struggle for Africa
Here first did MusUms meet Arian Christianity, which
denies to Christ fuU Godhead. Since they themselves
are prepared to honour Isa bin Miriam as the last and
greatest of the prophets before Muhammad, it would
seem that the transition of the Vandals and Goths to
Islam was thus facihtated.
And whereas the Berbers had received httle attention
from Christians, it is mortifying that within eight years
after the Berber state was crushed, the army of twelve
thousand Muslims who saUed to conquer Spain was com
posed of Berbers, whose general Tariq himself was a new
convert. Great efforts were made to read and expound
the Qur'an, and to teach the duties of Islam. Even into
France the Mushm armies swept, " slaying and taking
captive, pulling down churches and breaking up their
beUs." Not tiU they reached the Loire were they beaten
back by the Catholic Franks, and Christendom breathed
again. Within the subjugated lands, the Churches did not
succumb utterly and at once, but there was steady decline ;
it is said that again and again revolts occurred, and a
Mushm historian says that fourteen of these were ac
companied with return to Christianity : but these never
succeeded, and about 800 a.d. there was fierce retali
ation and forced conversion. Christianity might indeed
have regained an open field by Norman conquest and
destruction of Mushm domination, but that in the eleventh
century began a series of Arab invasions from Egypt which
revived Islam and led to the first of the African Mahdis.

A Millennium of Agony 127
When Iceland was accepting Christianity, and Olaf
was being worsted in his Norse crusade, only forty bishops
were left in North Africa. When the Poles were giving
to the Pomeranians the choice of baptism or death,
simply the Archbishop of Carthage remained. That
roused the Pope to send new helpers, and a fresh
lease of life was given to the martyr Church for five
hundred years. But under Mushm rule our faith is
doomed to mere existence at the best, aU propagation
being forbidden. Nor can we wonder if when Ferdinand
and Isabella drove out aU MusUms from Spain, a deUberate
attempt was made to exterminate Christians in Africa.
We can but marvel at the tenacity shown by the Bishop of
Morocco and his faithful Kabyles down to this time, and
sigh as we remember that the last ghmpse is when, about
1550 a.d., some tribes in the Atlas were observing Christian
rites, and some of them were mustered to be bodyguard
of the Sultan of Tunis. It is the more mortifying when
we reflect that where Christianity is extinct, the Jews
have continued to hve on and be true to their faith, re
sisting ahke the oppression of their rulers, and the efforts
of Christian missionaries. With the appearance of the
Turks in 1583 a.d., the last vestiges of the Church of
TertuUian and Augustine vanished away.
During the last century the situation has shghtly
changed, for Algeria and Tunis have passed under French
rule, and mission work therefore is legally possible, but it
is chiefly engaged in by Cathohcs. And Morocco is now a
hotbed of Mushm fanaticism. Even the brave Franciscans

128 The Struggle for Africa
have long ceased to dare direct work on the Muhammadans,
and the Protestants who for the last twenty years have
entered, find it wise to sap and mine by Bible distribution
and Medical Missions.

4. The Rival Missions to the Blacks
Is there, as you sometimes tell us,
Is there One who reigns on high 1
Has He bid you buy and sell us,
Speaking from His throne, the sky ?
Ask Him, if your knotted scourges,
Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
Agents of His will to use ? Cowper.
He comes with succour speedy
To those who suffer wrong ;
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the weak be strong ;
To give them songs for sighing,
Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying,
Were precious in His sight. Montgomery.
Except for the North coast and the NUe vaUey, Africa
is the home of three races, aU low in the scale of civilisation
and rehgion. A few tribes in the South, notably the
Bechuanas, have an elaborate totem system ; near them
are the aboriginal Hottentots. The Bantu negroids of
the Zambesi and Congo basins and the East coast are
addicted to ancestor worship. The Sudanese negroes,

Slave Trade for Missions 129
whose strength is in the Niger basin, affect nature worship,
taking objects at random as their fetishes.
The crusades of King Louis in Tunis and Egypt fired
the MusUms to propagate their faith ; and the tweUth and
thirteenth centuries saw them penetrate to the desert,
winning the Sahara for Muhammad, Timbuktu being an
early and powerful centre in the West. It was the fifteenth
century when Christians began creeping down the West
coast beyond the Canary Islands. The pioneers were the
Portuguese, lately freed from Arab dominion, and now
foUowing in Arab tracks. Prince Henry the Navigator
was urged in his explorations by a distinctly missionary
motive. Finding that captive Moors were inaccessible
to the Gospel, he allowed them to ransom themselves by
sending instead black slaves whom he trained as mission
aries ; by 1444 a.d. a slave trade was started with this
motive. Before the century closed, a mission to the
Congo had won the king, and estabhshed two negro bishops
near Stanley Pool. But though another mission settled
at the mouth of the Zambesi, the slave trade developed
fast under the patronage of the bishops, and when the
riches of India, China, Mexico, and Peru presently dis
tracted attention from Africa, the slave trade continued,
but the Christianising movement died out, without any
stable native Church being founded. The Spaniards led
the way in transporting negroes to the West Indies, but
did nothing to lead them to Christ. Nor did the Dutch
do more at the extreme South, and the impulse came at
length, as to Paul in Troas. A negro from the Danish
10

130 The Struggle for Africa
West Indies met Zinzendorf at Copenhagen, and bewaUed
the lot of his enslaved countrymen. Going on to Herrnhut,
he had the honour of awakening the Moravians to their
missionary career. They soon passed on to Jamaica and
South Carolina ; and this overleaping of civU boundaries
is to be noted, for it is the modern revival of the idea of
foreign missions. Before the century closed, the blacks
in Africa shared the blessing, and during the last hundred
years aU sects and nations have claimed the privilege of
sending the Gospel.
Within the last twenty years the situation has changed
again, by a general opening up of the whole continent
to knowledge ; by the European Powers agreeing on
their spheres of influence ; and by the great immigration
into the colonies of the South. Here is now to be found
a white population not to be neglected, with Dutch and
EngUsh Bibles, and with far less of the former opposition
to missions, though there is some suspicion and dread of
" Ethiopianism " or the formation of a purely native
Church. But the interest centres in the tropics, where the whites
are stiU casual visitors, who have frequently to return
home to recruit their health, and who can never hope to
live permanently except on a few plateaus. Here is the
battlefield of Islam and Christianity.
Of the lower races which have no stable organised
rehgion, far the greater number are in Africa, and they
are disposed to lend a favouring ear to missionaries who
can civiUse or teach them. Islam is wide awake to the*

What is the Qur'An? 131
situation, and Christendom is awakening. While the
problems presented in Asia are vast from their import
ance, the problem in Africa is urgent from the critical
situation and the huge masses that may be won or lost
for Christ.
We have to remember that the rival missions are both
handicapped by the evil deeds of mere nominal professors
of religion. Africa has been exploited for centuries by
the white races, and the slavers have called themselves
indifferently Muhammadan and Christian : in the pursuit
of ivory the Muhammadans have done more evil, in the
pursuit of rubber the Christians. The name of Muhammad
is in worse odour on the East coast where better known,
the name of Christian on the West, for the same reason :
and therefore the Muhammadans are winning their greatest
successes on the Gold and Guinea coasts ; the Christians
in the kingdom of Uganda.
Let us see what Islam really has to offer at the present
time to the blacks — remembering that the African Islam
of to-day is not the Islam of Muhammad, any more than
the American Christianity of to-day is the Christianity
of Christ ; both have tacitly ignored some aspects of their
founder's teaching, and have taken up much from the
experience of centuries. To do this we must first appreciate
to some extent the Qur'an, the Bible of Islam.
The watchword of Islam's creed was : " There is no God
but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet." As prophet
he gave out various revelations, which after his death
.were gathered into one volume rather shorter than the

132 The Struggle for Africa
New Testament, and this Qur'an is regarded as the one
perfectly inspired book, an exact earthly copy of an
eternal and uncreated original in heaven.
As against the previous heathendom of Arabia, Mu
hammad made some great points, forbidding idolatry,
wine, gambling, divining, slaying of infant daughters ;
but he took over many existing practices, simply purging
them of their worst elements, such as circumcision, cere
monial cleanliness and diet, polygamy, slavery, pUgrim-
age, ceremonial at Mecca, including sacrifice, offering of
hair, casting stones, etc.
Then from the loftier Sabian system he borrowed the
practices of fasting for thirty days, of swearing by sun
and moon, of perambulating round the temple seven times.
From the Jews who were so strong at Medina he learned
much in the way of legend, which comes out in the Qur'an.
Stories about Cain learning from a raven how to bury
Abel ; about Abraham breaking the idols and lying about
it, and being preserved from Nimrod's fire ; about the
Mount Sinai being hfted up hke a canopy at the giving
of the Law ; about the Queen of Sheba being carried to
Solomon by a giant Jinn ; about sorcery taught by two
angels — these are specimens of what the Jews regard
as mere fables, but what the Muhammadans accept as
verbaUy inspired truth. Grant that these are perhaps
excrescences, and that, if they were removed, Islam would
be the same. But the very core of his system is also
Jewish ; from Judaism he learned the Unity of God the
Resurrection and the Judgement ; by Jews he was in-

Distorted Christianity 133
fluenced in his laws for prayer, for purification, and for
alms. Indeed, some regard this element as so important
that they term Islam a revised Judaism.
From apocryphal gospels about Christ, Muhammad
gained strange notions, and the Qur'an has much to say
about the Virgin Mary in her chUdhood and early married
life, though she is confused with her namesake Miriam,
the sister of Moses and Aaron. Tales are told about the
infancy of our Lord, but very Uttle of His Uf e ; we can
recognise the Docetic fancy that Christ was taken up to
God before the Crucifixion, and only a hkeness was left to
be slain. The promise of the Paraclete was distorted by
a misreading into a promise that Muhammad should
come. And from the old Egyptian Book of the Dead,
through a Coptic Testament of Abraham, the sort of
story that Mary the Coptic slave of Muhammad would
revel in, he learned about the balance in which the heart
of each man is weighed against truth, to determine his
future — and into the Qur'an it went. Then the legend
of the Christian Sleepers at Ephesus was adapted, and
they were made Mushm, while reference to Christians
on the matter was expressly forbidden.
From the Persians who nominally ruled Arabia in his
early days, Muhammad learned congenial themes. Cen
turies before he was transported in one night on a celestial
steed from Mecca to Jerusalem, a Zoroastrian book told
of a similar adventure of a Persian reformer. The whole
idea of Paradise and its peris, to captivate the heart of
men, was taken over bodily into the Muslim future,

134 The Struggle for Africa
and even the detail of the razor bridge to heaven comes
hence. In view of this Higher Criticism of the sources of the
Qur'an, it were easy to despise it as a thing of shreds
and patches. But Higher Criticism often blinds its
devotees to the present value of a book or of a system.
The constitution of the United States of America has hardly
an original line in it, aU is borrowed ; yet who doubts that
it was chosen with care and pieced together into a very
working and harmonious whole % By this time, the
Mushm system has worked for twelve centuries, and has
learned how to adapt itself to the peoples it approaches.
Our concern now is to note its apphcation to Africa. We
may look first at the content of the message, its gospel ;
then at the way its message is dehvered, its missionaries.
First, Islam comes with the news of one God, and
teaches that aU the burdensome worship of fetishes is
to be abandoned. This does away with a nightmare of
witchcraft, and must be a veritable gospel to aU but the
witch-doctors and the juju priests whose occupation
is gone. And this God is not utterly aloof ; however
long He has winked at times of ignorance, He sent a
series of messengers with revelations of His wiU growing
ever clearer and clearer, until the message for this age
was dehvered now nearly thirteen hundred years agone,
whUe there is constant expectation, nowhere more keen
than in Africa, that He wiU again break sUence and speak
by a Mahdi. However mysterious are His ways, He is

Allah versus Our Father 135
compassionate, and He enjoins that His votaries ap
proach Him five times a day in prayer.
Now in aU these respects we can fuUy appreciate the
attractiveness of the news, and its truth. When we
look more closely to reahse the point where our message
differs, we see that the character of the Mushm God is
vague, and, where distinct, is repulsive. Palgrave de
scribes the doctrine as the pantheism of force, and the
Mushm God as a jealous sterile autocrat. If this is so,
we see that we can add several features in our presentation
that should be far more attractive. We know something
of the justice of God, evinced in His hatred for sin and
His desire for hohness in His creatures ; something of
the love of God, shown especiaUy in one great historic
event, the gift of a Saviour. We know of the help
fulness of God, who constantly answers prayer — prayer
for daily varying needs, not in stereotyped forms for
mere general wants, but for definite gifts. The God of
Islam is a God of the past and of the future ; He did speak,
He wiU speak and judge ; our God is also a God of the
present, who does love and hear and answer and help.
And herein the message of Islam is radically deficient ;
for it can but counsel submission to the inscrutable wiU
of God, and thus is a moral agnosticism.
Then Muhammad said that this God tolerated no inter
mediary between Himself and the true behever. He
denied the right of any priest to intervene. Herein we
can see the immense value of the work he did, which
largely remains. But the mind of man seems unable to

136 The Struggle for Africa
rest in the thought that we may approach God absolutely
direct ; even a Christian poet inquires : —
Oh, how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
The uncreated beam ?
Therefore a general worship of saints has arisen aU over
Islam, and in practice these receive much attention and
many requests for help and intercession. Whether they
were real and eminent men, whether ancient gods taken
over, or mere figments of imagination presiding at ancient
seats of paganism, there the Muslim saints are, and con
stant pilgrimages are made to their shrines for aid. We
are thoroughly f amiliar with this f ailing of the race ;
Greek and Latin Christianity are equaUy tainted with it,
so that the Roman Catholic missionaries dealing with
Mushms find themselves constantly at a loss, and have
to defend themselves against a charge of idolatry rather
than attack Islam. But we who take our stand on the
Bible alone can announce, without fearing that our message
is behed by our deeds, that no one cometh unto the Father
except through Jesus Christ, that there is one Mediator
between God and man, Himself Man, and that He shares
this glory with none other. Herein the deep craving of
the heart for some peace-maker is frankly met, and the
limits of mediation are sharply cut. And whereas the
thought of sin is also present in many hearts, and the
sense that punishment is merited, the message of Islam

Outward Worship 137
here is unsatisfying; while Christianity has the Gospel
that the Mediator is the Sin-Bearer of the world, which is
able to aUay the troubled conscience.
Look next at the outward observances of rehgion.
Islam says that religion is to permeate the whole life, that
prayer is a duty as well as a privUege, and that nothing is
to interfere with its punctual performance ; and religion
is a social thing, so that once a week there is to be united
prayer, with possibly preaching to foUow. But this is
only the beginning, so that the day of a pious Muslim is
ordered throughout by a rehgious code, based on Judaism
and developed by tradition. In that storehouse of Mushm
customs, the Arabian Nights, three or four whole nights
were occupied simply in outlining the scheme of customary
observances. If Peter groaned under the yoke which he
and his fathers were unable to bear, the Mushm proselyte
may well be aghast, and feel that, if his pagan priests
chastised him with whips, he is now threatened with
scorpions. In contrast with this we may boldly assert
that the yoke of Christ is easy, and His burden light.
The Law of Islam is indeed elevated as contrasted with
paganism. We may say about most of it what Paul said
of its source, the Law of Moses, " the Law is holy and just
and good." It condemns much that is evil, it commends
much that is praiseworthy. But it has serious limitations.
It can educate up to a certain point, and then leaves ;
it leads out of the flood of heathenism on to higher land,
which proves to be only an island with narrow resources.
It does not even pretend to supply motive power, only

138 The Struggle for Africa
to sketch an ideal ; and while the ideal is really low, it
yet is too high for many to persevere towards in their own
strength. As Paul put it, the Law reveals the innate
sinfulness of man, but does nothing to cure it. Worse than
that, it is outward, not inward ; a Mushm is invited to
conform by sheer force of wiU, but has to secure his driving
force outside the Law. Now as against all this system,
the Christian missionary can say : " Law is made for
bad men, not for Christians ; if it has educated you up to
the pitch of wishing for salvation, pardon, help, it can
do no more. Christ can blot out sin ; Christ can supply
the power you want ; Christ reveals a higher ideal of life,
which wUl prove more attractive the nearer you come to
realising it : the life of a Christian is indeed a servitude to
Christ, but as compared to the life of a Mushm, it is perfect
freedom." If so far we feel that the message of the Christian mis
sionary is as winsome as that of the Mushm, what about
the moral demands made on the convert ? The code of
Muhammad is high, but inelastic ; he forbade wine, but
knowing nothing of spirits, did not forbid them, and many
expositors permit their use. The Christian has no elabor
ate code, but offers three tests : " Does this harm you %
does it offer a temptation to your neighbour ? is your
conscience quite clear as to its use ? " Or, consider the
much debated question of sexual relations : Muhammad
introduced a reform by drawing the hne at four wives,
with f acuities for divorce, and unlimited concubines.
And quite possibly his message stiU finds tribes to whom

Immorality of Islam 139
that may be a restriction. But too often it comes as a
degradation of an ideal already known, and absolutely
lowers the tone of previous morals. And if it be claimed
that at least it averts the " social evU," it must be plainly
asserted that it does no such thing, as readers of Arabic
literature and traveUers in Muslim lands know weU. And
under Muslim tolerance there has grown up an awful
system of worse vice, not to be dUated on.
When we compare the ideal demands made, the Chris
tian standard shows no compromise for the hardness of
men's hearts, but is plain and simple. But of sin and
holiness Muhammad had no conception. He himself
violated the customs of his own times without scruple,
robbing pilgrims, approving the assassination of women,
marrying a widow within three days, contracting an
incestuous marriage with his daughter-in-law. Two of
these breaches of morahty he justified by producing
new revelations to justify ! He could not even obey
the very laws he promulgated ; and instead of four wives
he had ten, besides negotiating for thirty others. What
sense of sin was there in such a man ? And what can be
expected from his foUowers ?
Then look at the social message of Islam. Professor
Arnold asserts that " as soon as the pagan negro, however
obscure or degraded, shows himself willing to accept the
teachings of the prophet, he is at once admitted as an
equal into " the society of aU the brotherhood of Islam.
Now in the Mushm world of India, this equahty may
be true in theory, and on this hope a low-caste Hindu

140 The Struggle for Africa
or an out-caste aboriginal has a great social inducement
to adopt Islam: but he is hkely to find that in
practice the strata of society are weU marked, even
within the brotherhood.1 For the early days, one of
the first authorities on Islam, Sir WiUiam Muir, declares
that, " in point of fact, the equahty was limited to the
Arab nation ; the right of any brother of ahen race was
but a dole of food sufficient for subsistence, and no more.
. . . The progeny of the Arab sire (whatever the mother)
was kept sedulously apart so as never to mingle with the
conquered races. . . . Subject peoples, even if they em
braced Islam, were of a lower caste. . . . Arab ladies as
a rule married only Arab husbands. . . . The brotherhood
of Islam was confined to the Arab race, and with its
dominancy disappeared." 2 And a detaUed story is given
of how, at the sack of Mosul, in the year 749 a.d., four
thousand Mushm negroes in the conquering army were
massacred for fancying that they were free to consort
with Arab women.
If that refer to the past, hear an English statesman of
thirty years ago speak as to the message of a modern
Mushm missionary : " He can not only give them many
truths regarding God and man which make their way
to the heart and elevate the inteUect, but he can at
once communicate the shibboleth of admission to a social
and pohtical communion which is a passport for protection
and assistance from the Atlantic to the waU of China.
1 Census Report of India, vol. i. part i. p. 543.
2 Muir, Caliphate, pp. 160-162, 606, 443.

A Brotherhood of Faith 141
Wherever a MusUm house can be found, there the negro
convert who can repeat the dozen syUables of his creed
is sure of shelter, sustenance and advice ; and in his
own country he finds himself at once a member of an
influential, if not of a dominant caste. This seems the
real secret of the success of the Mushm mission in West
Africa. It is great and rapid as regards number, for the
simple reason that the Muslim missionary, from the very
first profession of the convert's belief, acts practicaUy
on those principles regarding the equahty and brother
hood of aU believers before God, which Islam shares with
Christianity." With Sir Bartle Frere agrees another observer, who
emphasises that neither colour nor race prejudices a
negro in any way in the eyes of his new co-rehgionists.
Muhammad fancied from the story of Moses' hand becom
ing white that he was a negro, and he himself took a
negro as his constant personal attendant. Hear also a
negro on the difference of the two missions to his people :
" WhUe Christian missions put off indefinitely the establish
ment of a native pastorate, the Mushm priests penetrate
into Africa, find ready access to the pagans, and win
them for Islam. The result is that the negroes to-day
regard Islam as the rehgion for blacks, and Christianity
as that for whites. Christianity, say they, certainly
invites the negro to salvation, but assigns him a place
so low that he is discouraged, and says, I have no part
nor lot in this affair. Islam caUs the negro to salvation
and says to him, It depends simply on yourself to chmb

142 The Struggle for Africa
as high as possible. So the enthusiastic negro gives himself
body and soul to serve this rehgion." *
The area where blacks and whites meet is not great;
but if the colour line is reaUy obUterated, the MusUm
has a great advantage not possessed by the Christian
missionary. Yet the most recent books on Islam, re
porting a conference at Cairo attended by representatives
of every MusUm field, are absolutely silent on this point ;
and it may perhaps be inferred that no great advantage
is reaUy experienced. Indeed, the lot of women is not
enviable among Muslims. A pagan negress has no special
disabUity as compared with her negro husband. But if
Islam comes to the viUage she finds herself at once thrust
into seclusion and suspected ; her husband may have
opened to him a career of travel and learning — she is a
prisoner, and kept ignorant as a chUd. Here Christianity
can come with great opportunity.
Examine the ecclesiastical system of Islam. Muhammad
prided himself on the liberty into which he caUed his
foUowers, freeing them from the tyranny of priesthood.
But he himself laid the foundations of an equaUy objection
able tyranny, or rather he took it over from the Jews,
ready buUt. They had their scribes, their rabbis, who
in our Lord's day were powerful enough to contest the
leadership of the priests, and who saw the power of those
priests disappear in a generation. Then they went on
developing their traditions about the Law, tiU the reaUy
influential and ruUng literature of the Jews is not the
1 Journal des Missions Evangeliques Paris, 1888, p. 207,

Mullah or Bible 143
Law, but the Mishna and the Talmud, the sediment of
traditional exposition. Exactly the same thing has
happened in Muhammad's revised version of Judaism.
What is the good of boasting that no priests exist, if
• authorised expositors of the Law thrust in on every hand ?
Granted that a Mushm may pray alone, may marry, bury,
so the enthusiasts of Islam pride themselves ; but he
dare not think for himself, interpret the Qur'an for him
self ; no Cathohc can be bound by straiter bonds than is
he. And wherein is the negro benefited if he exchange
the tyranny of medicine-man and priest for the tyranny
of mullah and law-student ? Now the Cathohc missionary,
indeed, has nothing better to offer ; but a Protestant at
least does not fear to translate the Bible into any dialect
the poor pagan can understand, and put it into his hand
for himself to interpret and act upon. And more than
one missionary has owned that the untutored African has
instantly accepted and acted on commands that the
sophisticated conscience of Europe has discarded, and so
has opened up anew the value of God's promises.
Quit now this whole subject, what Islam offers and
demands, and consider another important point : How
the message is dehvered — missionary methods.
Two have been tried by Muslim and Christian ahke,
Force, and Persuasion. At the present day force is nearly
obsolete in Africa. Outside Morocco hardly an acre is
under purely Mushm rule, and no Christian Power uses
the arm of the State to propagate Christianity. We

144 The Struggle for Africa
have therefore to consider only the peaceful methods
employed. Islam has three principal sets of agents :
traders to leaven the towns, professional missionaries,
schoolmasters. Every mosque in Africa has its school attached ; aU
education is distinctly rehgious, designed to confirm in
the faith and to lay the foundation for a subsequent theo
logical or missionary training in special cases. Everywhere
the Qur'an is the text-book, and aU learning is grafted
on to it in some way — much as the ignorant mediseval
monks went to the Latin Bible for their astronomy and
geography, not to the professional astronomers of the
East, or the text-books of Ptolemy and Hipparchus ; tiU
a learned Irish missionary of the ninth century, teaching
that the earth was a globe, was rudely rebuked as a heretic
by an ignorant Pope. StUl, even the Qur'an offers informa
tion to the African negro, and its arrival marks a rise in
the social scale. This is markedly to be seen on the
Guinea coast, where for four centuries the natives have
known Christians chiefly as slavers. Their state is degraded
in the extreme, and Christian traders have worsened it
by their offer of spirits and gunpowder. But passing
from the coast a httle inland, a civilising influence
is met, the tribes seem to be self-respecting, clothed, and
in their right minds : Islam has come to them.
It is of course to be said that Christian missionaries
have been at work educationally as in other ways. But
Warneck says that our subjects of instruction are too
many, and the aims too high, whUe the almost exclusive

Traders as Missionaries 145
use of EngUsh perverts and denationalises the people. In
contrast with this, the MusUm, with a lower ideal, generally
attains it. And we have to regret that the quahty of
the Christian converts is decidedly poor ; when Guinea
Christians were taken to the Congo to help to inaugurate
a new mission, it proved to the advantage of the work to
return them speedUy. So it would appear that in our
educational pohcy we absolutely have something to learn
from the Mushm.
It wiU be asked, Who first breaks the ground for Islam ?
The answer is, the Mushm trader and settler. The
European trader on the coast is seldom viewed in a
missionary hght, and seldom deserves to be. But the
Muslim trader is of another stamp ; see an ideal picture of
his doings drawn by T. W. Arnold. His very profession
brings him into close and immediate contact with those
he would convert, and disarms any possible suspicion of
sinister motives. Such a man, when he enters a pagan
village, soon attracts attention by his frequent ablutions
and regularly recurring times of prayer and prostration
in which he appears to be conversing with some invisible
being ; and by his very assumption of intelligence and
moral superiority he commands the respect and confidence
of the heathen people, to whom at the same time he shows
himself ready and willing to communicate his high principles
and knowledge. He teaches the people new songs in
which his doctrines and practices are insinuated. He
marries freely, and begets, perhaps, even more freely, and
all his children are trained in his faith. And so before
ii

146 The Struggle for Africa
long the way is paved for the amateur to caU in the pro
fessional missionary. WhUe this picture is quite probably
overcoloured, it strikes us as most attractive and most
possible. Indeed, we know that in some respects this is
the way in which our own faith spread throughout the
Roman Empire for more than a century.
But now we must observe the wholesale training of men
who are to be professional missionaries, devoting their
whole Uves dehberately to the spread of Islam. Of these
there are two sorts, the university men from Cairo, the
seminary men from the desert.
At the great mosque in Cairo is a Muslim university, to
which students flock from all the Muhammadan world,
including Africa. An enthusiast claimed that in 1884
more than twelve thousand men were on the roUs ; but a
cold-blooded cyclopaedia says that this number includes
aU the affiliated training coUeges and professional schools,
so that only about two thousand are reaUy in attendance.
From the hundreds who graduate hence every year,
instructed in the Qur'an, grammar, prosody, cahgraphy,
history, arithmetic, algebra, and above aU in commentary
and traditions, many go back to spread their faith.
A more modern movement is outranking this plan.
Seventy years ago it originated in Morocco, and after being
for awhile centred at Jaghbub, in Tripoh, it is now directed
from the oasis of Kufra, more to the south, whence the
Sahara is in reahty ruled. A dehberate attempt is being
made to undo aU reform of Islam by internal evolution,
and to resist any change from without ; and the programme

The Sanusi Movement 147
is to extend the old original doctrine of the prophet,
by peaceful means, if these suffice, but if not, by any
means. Strange to say, the objections of the prophet to
monasticism have been toned down, and a community
hfe is adopted. " Convents of the order are to be found
not only aU over the north of Africa from Egypt to Morocco,
throughout the Sudan, in Senegambia and Somahland,
but members of the order are to be found also in Arabia,
Mesopotamia, and the islands of the Malay archipelago."
AU adherents are expected to give a part of their income
to the funds of the society, and many devote themselves
entirely to the reform and propagation of Islam. More
than a hundred and twenty seminaries exist, and from
the largest hundreds ot missionaries go forth yearly to
spread the original teaching of Muhammad, and to incite
to absolute cessation of intercourse with aU Jews and Chris
tians. Slaves are often bought from a pagan tribe,
trained, and sent back to win their people. An annual
Chapter is held at which progress is reported and new
plans are laid.
This movement is one of the most important of modern
days, quite as marked as the rise of Protestant missions
some forty years earlier, and apparently almost as success
ful. To consider the rehgious prospects of the world
without studying this and gauging its future, is to eliminate
one of the chief factors. And we have to consider with deep
, regret that this arose and developed on what was once Chris
tian ground ; that if Christians had not spht into many
sects, hating one another, Islam never would have found an

148 The Struggle for Africa
entrance to this land of rehgious enthusiasm, and the energy
now spent in its cause might have been used for Christ.
We must confess when we hear of this movement that
missionary zeal is intense, and that the Student Volun
teer Missionary Union is quite belated in comparison
with Islam. Consider that many of these are white
Mushms — Moors if you wUl, but not Negroes— and that
they have to cross the desert for their work among a
lower race. Their devotion may put us to shame. How
few of our seminaries put foreign missions in the very
forefront of their purpose ! Yet with these Sanusis every
one of their coUeges is such a foreign missionary seminary ;
and twenty years ago a German traveUer declared that
from Tripoh alone more than a thousand workers go
annuaUy. SeU avers that the Mushm is always proud
of his rehgion, proud to spread it. Even the Christian
missionary may at times adopt an apologetic attitude for
his faith and his calling ; but the Christian trader is not
habituaUy proud of his creed, and therein we can see one
great source of weakness.
The problem of Africa thus proves to be mainly the
problem of Islam. The low pagan rehgions have no power
of resistance, and the question of their future may almost
be reduced to the alternative, ShaU they become Muslim
or Christian ? Of course, here as elsewhere, it is true that
they deeply colour the rehgion that supplants them ; that
African Islam is not the faith of Muhammad, and Ethiopian-
ism is not the primitive Gospel of Christ. But waiving this

Relative Progress 149
point, and viewing the great rival missions, we have to ask
as to their relative position, the statics of the problem ; and
as to their relative progress, the dynamics of the problem.
The actual state of things is disconcerting in the ex
treme. If the total population of Africa be estimated at
164 miUions, according to the Statesman's Yearbook for
1905, we find from the Cairo Conference of 1906 that
the Muslim share is about 59 miUions, or 36 per cent.
of the whole. The estimates for the African Churches in
Egypt and Abyssinia vary widely ; taking the most san
guine, that of Professor Schmidt, they have not 10 miUions,
while the Catholic and Protestant Churches add another
five, aU together about 5£ per cent. Mushms outnumber
Christians more than six to one.
How about the advance of the two faiths ? The Abys-
sinians and Copts may be simply ignored, for they make
no effort at propagation. The progress of Cathohcs is
not easy to state, but as Beach finds that the total con
stituency of Protestant missions is only 576,530 for ninety-
five societies, we shaU take a roseate view if we double
this and say that 1,250,000 is the total under Christian
influence. Over against this we hear from traveUers that
Islam is advancing constantly and rapidly in the West,
and of whole nations being won over in a few years. Dr.
W. R. Miller thinks that this progress is real and hkely
to increase, and warns us that " a peaceful Islam under
British rule, free to proselytise while Christian missionaries
are hampered, wiU be a greater power " than Islam under
Pagan or Mushm rule. This leads us to the pohtical

150 The Struggle for Africa
aspect. The Cairo Conference complained that European
governments cringe to Mushm turbulence and arrogance,
withholding fair play from Christian missions. It would
seem that some observers think the Mushm force is not
growing naturaUy, but has outside stimulus. More than
three-quarters of the African MusUms are under the rule
of France and Britain ; and a Pan-Islam movement is
growing, with more than the benevolent neutrahty of
Germany. The experience of the past shows that govern
ments have never aUowed reUgious considerations to
check their plans for aggrandisement, and that Germany
is no more scrupulous than have been others. Real
Christian workers can but pray that this obstacle be not
wantonly thrown in their path.
A land of dreams and sleep ; a poppied land !
With skies of endless calm above her head,
The drowsy warmth of summer noonday shed
Upon her hills, and silence stern and grand
Throughout her desert's temple-burying sand.
Respect the dream that builds her fallen throne,
And soothes her to oblivion of her woes.
Hush ! for she does but sleep, she is not dead :
Action and Toil have made the world their own :
But she hath built an altar to Repose. Taylor.
When over Niger's banks is breaking
Another century's morning star,
The newborn Phoenix, first awaking
Expands his purple pinions far I
He gazes, from the mountain towers
On which his ancient eyrie stands,
Towards east and west, o'er cinnamon towers
And o'er the desert's arid sands. Freiligrath.

IV
EXPANSION IN AMERICA

Desire of every land ! the nations came
And worshipped at His feet, all nations came,
Flocking like doves : Columbia's painted tribes,
That from Magellan to the Frozen bay,
Beneath the Arctic, dwelt, and drank the tides
Of Amazona, prince of earthly streams ;
Or slept at noon beneath the giant shade
Of Andes' mount : or, roving northwards, heard
Niagara sing, from Erie's billow down
To Frontenac, and hunted thence the fur
To Labrador. Pollok.
Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song : —
" What should we do but sing Hi a praise
That led us through the watery maze ?
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name ?
Oh, let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,
Which thence perhaps rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay."
Andrew Marvel.

IV
Expansion in America
MISSIONS passed into a new phase with the fifteenth
century. The ancient Church of Asia had been
so stunned by the ravages of the Tatars and by
the brutality of its Muslim overlords, that it lay in a
comatose condition, and- could not be looked to for renewed
efforts. The Churches of Africa were all but extinct,
again owing to the stern rule of Islam that propagandism
was a capital crime. Only in Europe seemed there any
hope, but here the remaining pagan nations were rang
ing themselves under the Cross, while in Spain the last
crusades were driving forth the Moor with his Qur'an.
Thus an intense zeal for missions was developed, and no
sooner was the Peninsula won for Christendom again,
than the Spaniards found a new sphere open to them
across the ocean. Instantly the Pope reminded them
of their religious duties, and the famous Bull of 1493 a.d.
enjoined the steady dispatch of missionaries to the natives.
The name of Bernard Boil, the Benedictine monk,
deserves mention as the first apostle to the New World ;
but the work soon feU into the hands of the friars, and
at Darien a Franciscan became the first bishop. Aheady
153

154 Expansion in America
they had a glorious record of mission work attempted
among the Buddhists and Mushms and Confucians ; now
they heroicaUy went out to temper the greed of the soldiers
of fortune, and to take the tidings of a Saviour to the
races that had so long walked in darkness. A century
and more passed before the Protestants foUowed feebly
in their wake, and another before the United Brethren
reaUy entered the field. Thus the natives have had
Christianity presented to them in various forms ; by
Spanish, Portuguese, and French ; by Enghsh and Dutch ;
by Moravians and Germans.
To North America the most important immigrants were
English, and the leading rehgious motive that brought them
was not to convert the native, but to find a refuge from
persecution that they might worship God in their own way.
In 1618 a.d. some members of a church in Southwark and
Amsterdam settled in Chesapeake Bay ; a few years later
some Nottingham men settled at Plymouth, and soon the
coast was dotted with men eager to shake off the restraints
of home, and begin afresh with the Bible in their hands.
Yet be it noted that tradition is too strong thus to be
dismissed. As the yokes of Rome and Canterbury were
broken, a new one forged at Geneva was gladly fitted on
the neck. Only John Smyth had the courage to inveigh
against the notes and glosses of the Genevan translation,
and to plead that the original Scriptures alone should be
the guide. Primitive Christianity was not reproduced,
only a late type of European Christianity as remoulded
by Calvin. '

Jesuit Missions 155
European Christianity alone survived, for the original
Asiatic and the early African had disappeared. In the
New World European Christianity of two leading types
had a grand opportunity. The Roman type is the more
interesting in its work among the aboriginal Amerinds ;
the Teutonic type in its own evolution among white men
transplanted into a new environment. These two themes
can be studied separately. I. Missions to Natives
On the western slope of these mountains
Dwells in his httle village the Black Robe chief of the mission.
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and Jesus ;
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as they
hear him. Longfellow.
In the temperate zones we find two most splendid
mission fields, which have been adorned by heroes of
different nations. Our usual Church Histories are very
reticent about mission matters ; Protestant histories are
too often timid in dealing with the Middle Ages, and
after the Reformation confine themselves largely to Pro
testant countries. So it happens that we are largely
ignorant about CathoUc propaganda after the fifteenth
century ; and if we know httle of the Jesuit at our side,
we know really nothing of his achievements in the
heathen world. His work in Europe has been so re
actionary, that we hardly remember there was once a
countervailing side abroad j that men like Anchieta in
Brazil were doing good work among the heathen which

156 Expansion in America
deserves admiration and study. Of course, even at the
beginning, Jesuit missions were not faultless ; but we
have met no faultless missions at all : it is also sadly
true that some of these missions degenerated, and were
marked by grave errors, which it will be our duty to
note presently : but meanwhile let us not overlook the
fact that in the first age of their existence, there were
Jesuits whose missionary fervour and wisdom have drawn
from a critic, generaUy hostUe, the admission that when
toiling among the teeming miUions of Hindustan and
China, labouring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of
North America, governing and civilising the natives of
BrazU and Paraguay, the Jesuit appears ahke devoted,
indefatigable, cheerful, and worthy of hearty admiration
and respect. From the evidence for this verdict, often
given by those who were to some extent rivals of the
missionaries, let us take the story of Paraguay.
When the Spaniards and Portuguese divided South
America between them, they " swarmed into the New
World, carrying with them aU the vices of the Old, and
adding to them the licentiousness and cruelty which the
freedom of a new country and the hopes of speedy riches
bring with them." 1 The older orders of friars were
not numerous or ardent enough to cope with these
difficulties ; and the new Company of Jesus speedUy threw
itself into the work, inspired by the iUustrious example
of Francis Xavier. While it was generaUed by a Spaniard,
'Weld, Suppression of the Society ot Jesus in the Portuguese
Dominions, p. 24.

Instructions to Missionaries 157
yet it was two ItaUans who took up the task in these
Spanish provinces, and devised the method that yielded
such splendid results. They saw that it was needful to
isolate the Indian converts from the enslaving Spaniards,
and to cast over them the shield of royal protection. On
a tributary of the Parana, 1300 miles above Buenos Ayres,
they estabhshed the settlement of Loreto in 1610 a.d.
The year may recall the beginnings of colonisation in
the far distant North. At Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, the
French had for five years maintained the first settlement
that endured, and had been puzzled by evidences that
other Christians — Irish or Norse ? — had long preceded
them ; Raleigh had failed to settle in Maine, but James
town was proving more permanent in Virginia ; Hudson
had newly discovered the Bay and the River that immor
talise his name ; in HoUand the Baptists were just emerg
ing from the chrysalis, alongside the future PUgrim
Fathers ; and at Penobscot the Jesuits were preparing to
evangelise the redskins of the North.
In this, their heroic age, they combined on the mission
field the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of
the dove ; and well it would be for us if we pondered
over their methods. Listen to these instructions given
to a Scotsman : —
" First of all, attend to your own life, and see that at
aU times and in all things, it commends your message.
Master the language of the people you work among.
Associate yourself with one or two others ; under no cir
cumstances let a station be undermanned. Choose a site

158 Expansion in America
as remote as possible from the movements of commerce
and pohtics ; for the votaries of these seldom show
Christianity to advantage, and may easUy distract the
people you aim at. Plan out the whole station, far in
advance of immediate needs, so that it shaU be orderly
and not a chance growth. Secure sufficient land for
separate and for common needs. Let each be self-con
tained and self-supporting, with every needful trade
represented. Let the church be the most conspicuous
buUding, and the premises for the workers be central.
Avoid aU danger of slander by living a simple home hfe,
supporting yourself after the initial stage by your own
labour, buying what you need and never- begging. Devote
yourseK, heart and soul, to the work, training the young
above aU. When punishment is needful, do not yourself
inflict it. Avoid entanglement with the secular side,
simply seeing that the native chief is trained with a view
to his responsibihties, then when he is instaUed, let him
exercise them." 1
Such were the instructions given to the labourers in
South America, and the methods actuaUy adopted did
not differ widely, an EngUsh Jesuit thus describing what
reaUy went on : " At the blush of dawn, the chUdren
of both sexes were assembled in the church to recite in
alternate choirs the Christian doctrine ; at sunrise the
whole people attended the holy sacrifice of the mass.
After the day's work was over, the sound of the bell again
summoned the children to recite the Rosary. . . . When
1 Helps, History of the Spanish Conquest, vol. iv. p. 414.

Industrial Training 159
the missioner saUied out to make new conquests, he was
attended by a band of some thirty of his flock, eager to
join him in bearing the good tidings to their countrymen.
These would cut their way, hatchet in hand, through the
forests, and when they came upon habitations they would
use all their eloquence to persuade the inmates of their
own happiness, and invite them to cast in their lot with
them. . . . Each one had his own httle property, which
sufficed for his support, and the wise prevision of the
Fathers took care that there should always be a common
stock from which the needy could be supphed. ... As
there was neither gold nor silver in the Reductions, there
was httle incentive to avarice or its attendant quarrels.
. . . AU the useful arts of agriculture and working in wood
and metals, even to the manufacture of clocks and musical
instruments, sculpture and gilding, etc., were taught them.
. . . The forests around them produced dye-wood, honey
and wax, while their fields furnished the famous Paraguayan
grass, and their flocks supphed skins and taUow. In
order that the simple Indians should receive the fuU ad
vantage of their produce, the Jesuits appointed Procurators
of their own body to manage the exchange. AU was the
property of the Indian community, for whose spiritual
and temporal happiness the missionaries gave with joy
their labour, their sweat, and often their blood." 1
These colonies had to be defended against the rapacity
of European settlers, so both in Paraguay and BrazU the
missionaries persevered in their humane efforts, at length
1 Weld, op. eit, pp. 25, 46, 47.

160 Expansion in America
winning royal orders that the Indians were not to be
enslaved, a measure that excited against them the deadly
hatred of many greedy civilians. As to the quahty of
the work accomphshed, abundant testimonies are forth
coming. Within half a century the Bishop of Tucaman,
in the modern Argentine Repubhc, reported : —
" Nothing stops them when they are caUed — neither
labour, danger, health, nor expense. At appointed times,
always with the orders of the bishop, and rendering to
him on their return an account of the fruits they have
gained, they travel over the whole diocese, preaching,
hearing confessions, administering the sacraments, checking
the hcentious, and aU this at no smaU risk, often with
great danger, and at their own expense." Speaking of
the savage Calchaquis, ferocious idolaters in a mountainous
land, he continued : " These Fathers have learned the
language of this people, with immense labour, and during
ten or twelve years have hved among them in two re
sidences, carrying their own wood and water, constantly
suffering insults, and often beaten with clubs, putting no
one to expense, with httle help from the faithful, and
drawing the necessaries of life from their CoUeges." 1
A generation later the Archbishop of La Plata echoed :
" The advantages which aU the people derive from the
reUgious of the Holy Society of Jesus, both in temporal
and in spiritual matters, is so notorious to the whole world
that to attempt to extol it would be to do them an injury." 2
It may be said that these are partial reports of ecclesi-
1 Weld, op. cil., p. 54. * Ibid., p. 55,

Myriads of Converts 161
astics, so it is well to add the official report of the Governor
of Paraguay, who, after commending the conduct of four
thousand Christian Indians called out to defend the country
against invasion through a tedious war, sums up : " All
this is the fruit of the holy education they have received
from the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, of the good
example they give, of the great intelligence with which
they have trained them to perform the duties of civil
hfe, and to fulfil the precepts of rehgion ; instructing them
in a faithful obedience to the Divine law and to that of
the King, at the cost of such great labours and fatigues
suffered in the apostohc ministry, which they exercise
with such constancy to rescue them from the errors of
paganism and a barbarous idolatry, and to raise them
to the state in which they now are." A long chain of wit
nesses is fairly represented by a later Bishop of Tucaman,
who describes seven Reductions of Chiquitos with some
twenty thousand Christians, and thirty more of one
hundred and thirty-five thousand Guaranis, as renewing
the fervour of the primitive Christians, a triumph of grace,
and a trophy of the Cross.1
The Swiss Sismondi — no Catholic — says that all over the
world the contact of Enghsh, Dutch and French races
with savages has caused the latter to melt away hke wax
before a fierce fire (which is equaUy true of the Spaniards
in the West Indies) ; but that, on the contrary, in the
missions of America, the red race multiplied rapidly under
the direction of the Jesuits.2
1 Weld, op. cit., pp. 51, 58, 2 Histoire de France, vol. xxix. p. 54.
12

162 Expansion in America
One criticism has been passed on this work too often to
be ignored, that the Indians were never trained to self-
management. This seems indeed true ; but we ought in
fairness to recoUect that no one else dreamed of any such
training, and that the redskin was regarded as necessarily
to be under white tutelage. If no vernacular Bible was
offered them, this was only the settled plan of the Cathohc
Church ; but we may wonder why no effort was made to
train a native ministry, tiU we reflect that at least this was
not done elsewhere, the precedents of an earher age being
in this respect lamentably neglected. On the general
accusation that the Indians were kept as great children,
Sismondi retorts that after the expulsion of the Jesuits, the
Indians were converted into so many tigers by the Spanish,
Portuguese and French. And this is fuUy confirmed by a
modern resident in BrazU, who declares that the average
native when once wrought up is more like a wUd animal
than a human being, as the mixture of the black, white,
and red races has produced a terrible type.1
In North America the work was prosecuted at first by
such heroic souls as Marquette and other French, based
upon Canada ; then by the Jesuits and Franciscans in
California. WhUe every Spanish ship to the New World
had to carry out some priests or friars, very few Protestants
went beyond pious intentions in this matter, chiefly caring
for their own needs. Ehot, Roger Williams, and David
Brainerd caUed forth reaUy no foUowers. By the time
that a sense of this duty was borne in on the conquering
1 Glass, Through the Heart of Brazil, p. 81,

Eskimos and Fuegians 163
white man, the redskin was being ousted and becoming
unimportant in numbers. To-day it is supposed that
only about three hundred and fifty thousand Amerinds
are left in the continent, of whom many are pagan, stiU
practising their weird reUgious dances. Home mission
work among them is prosecuted chiefly on industrial and
educational Unes.
The Eskimos have been approached by the Moravians
and Danes, and more lately by the Labrador Medical
Mission. Their wandering habits make them difficult to
deal with ; the hard hfe accustoms them to kiU off in
cumbrances such as the aged, the sick, the infants, so soon
as famine sets in ; they seek to redress the balance by
polygamy. In these respects there is ample scope for the
social reformer, whUe on the rehgious side there are
equaUy serious difficulties to encounter. Witchcraft' is
beheved in, and the Angakoks wield much authority by
their supposed possession of supernatural powers. Yet
the missionaries can show results, though it must be owned
that Christianity has never struck root so deeply that
the European gardeners can withdraw from caring for it.
The labours of the doctors along the Labrador coast are
most heroic, and none the less praiseworthy in that they
devote themselves to a dying race which can never figure
largely in the world. At the other end of the continent
are to be found Fuegians who were long supposed to be
irretrievably debased. Darwin marveUed that they could
be regarded as feUow-creatures or inhabitants of the same
world ; yet he hved to acknowledge that Christians

164 Expansion in America
had raised them and discovered the soul ready for a
Saviour.
If such be the condition of things in the extremities,
another brief glance may be cast when we reach the tropics,
and note the remains of certain uncivilised tribes there.
F. C. Glass has lately pioneered through the district he
writes about, and reports : —
" If you take a map of South America, and placing one
point of your compass where the longitudinal and lati
tudinal lines intersect at fifty-five degrees by ten degrees,
and you stretch the other point five degrees and strike
the circle, it wUl give you an area three times the size of
Great Britain and Ireland, a huge territory which, with
the exception of a thin fringe of civUisation at the extreme
east, on the banks of the Tocantins, is whoUy dominated
by various tribes of redskins in a purely primitive state ;
and if some of these tribes have been broken in spirit by
fierce inter-tribal wars, by bloody raids by mercUess ad
venturers, or equaUy cruel miUtary expeditions as acts
of vengeance or in the name of progress, it is true that
others of these tribes retain their old fierce and warlike
characteristics, and are unapproachable and almost impreg
nable in their forest fastnesses, where white man's foot
has never trod : for except the courses of the big rivers
Tocantins and Araguay, this country is an unknown land,
and occupies a blank space on the map of South America.
" It is very difficult to estimate the numbers of these
Indians, there being no rehable statistics at aU ; but it will
be perfectly safe to say they number hundreds of thousands,

Heathenism in Hayti 165
quite cut off and, it seems, forgotten by the outside world.
There are almost as many languages as tribes, their habits
and laws differ in many respects, as also their physical
appearance generally. They have many unwritten laws
which govern their actions in matters of death, birth, and
marriage, the latter being of remarkably wise construction ;
and I think I can say without hesitation that they are
generally much more moral than their white brethren.
Gospel work amongst these tribes could only be undertaken
in the face of much difficulty, hardship, and danger ; but it
can and must be done, and we are prepared to undertake
it. These Indians are 400 to 500 miles from the nearest
railway point, and 150 miles from the outskirts of civUisation,
in a country where there are no roads, no postmen, no white
men, the only means of communication being the rivers."
While we are thus unpleasantly reminded of the neglect
on the mainland, the islands in the tropics show another
variety of the story. In the West Indies, whence the
Spaniards soon exterminated the natives, a new popula
tion has been imported, chiefly of negroes. On some
islands they form the majority, and in a few are devoid
of aU white environment. We have, then, a section of
Africa, without the rival power of Islam ; and the rites of
Obeah and Voodoo are said to be in fuU swing in some
places. Baptists and Methodists have exerted a generous
rivahy, and nominal Christianity is in possession through
the archipelago. But it is painful to hear that in Jamaica
itself more than 60 per cent, of the negroes are born out of
wedlock. While the Jamaican Churches some years ago

166 Expansion in America
formed a union independent of the home missionary
society, yet they do not undertake the training of their
own ministers ; and so we dare not say that Christianity
has struck permanent root so as to be seH-sustaining, even
in this best evangehsed of the negro islands.
These West Indian islands were the first part of the
New World to feel the impact of Europe, and the mainland
to the west and south came next. Here flourished two
great civilisations, Mexico and Peru, both boasting rehgions
strongly entrenched in the hearts of the peoples. Prescott
has made us familiar with the story of the Spanish con
quest, with its prompt destruction of the temples, its
stopping of the heathen sacrifices, its massacres of the
priests. As with Charles the Great in Saxony, troops of
missionaries came in the wake of the soldiers, and by
force or persuasion continued the work. Never has there
been such thorough iconoclasm, nor is it easy to point to
any other lands where a more complete conversion was
secured within a century. Friars and Jesuits rivaUed
one another in evangehsing and catechising ; schools
were opened for the chUdren, and equipped with pictures
and catechisms in Latin, Spanish, and Mexican, and within
a generation the victory seemed won. Yet even then there
were misgivings as to the depth of the work, and some of
the missionaries suspected " that the concourse of the
Indians to the church was more an act of outward con
formity at the command of their chiefs, in order to deceive
these, than a voluntary movement on the part of the
people stirred to seek the remedy needed by their souls."

Baptized Heathenism 167
If the Catholic historian Mendieta is thus candid, we
need not hesitate to inquire further as to the value of these
conversions. We have often observed that it is a regular
thing for the old rehgion and the new to interact, produc
ing a blend which differs in different places ; but nowhere
is the result more striking than in these lands. It is
hardly unfair to say that the old paganism has captured
Christianity, and many observers actually describe what
they see as Baptized Heathenism. Read of the sacred dolls,
the rehgious dances, the processions of flageUants, aU to
be witnessed to-day at many centres, and we recognise
clear survivals of what the Spaniards found four hundred
years ago, and adopted into the Christian worship. Granted
that they did something to lift the tone, that they founded
the University of Mexico in 1553 a.d., the oldest on these
continents, that they sought to elevate the people ; but
once the Spanish yoke was cast off, the native element
reasserted itself, and is in increasing vigour to-day. In
the great Repubhc of Mexico, 38 per cent, are pure
natives, and whUe there are many half-breeds, the
pure whites are dying out ; the very President is of
pure Aztec blood. The yoke of the Catholic Church
has been broken, and many huge buildings have been
confiscated for public purposes such as education.
But while every hamlet has its free pubhc school,
whUe normal, industrial, art, and professional schools
are lavishly provided, yet the teaching of rehgion in
them is absolutely prohibited. This casts on the mis
sionary a heavy responsibihty, to which the Protestant

168 Expansion in America
world has hardly awakened, and the danger of atheism
is real and growing.
Take again Ecuador, with eight hundred thousand
Indians, and not as many half-breeds and whites. Twenty
years ago, Curtis declared it to be the only country in
America where the Cathohc Church survived as the
Spaniards left it.1 One-tenth of the people were priests
or monks or nuns, only ninety-three days in the year
were unappropriated as feasts or fasts. He declared it
was no Repubhc, but simply a popish colony, every school
being controUed by the Jesuits or other agents of the
Church. Yet so unpopular or unsuccessful was this
clerical rule, that 75 per cent, of the births were iUegitimate.
If some progress has been made in pohtical Uberty, and
the Indians have been enfranchised and freed from
tribute, yet the few Protestant visitors into the land
declare it is a field crying for a real knowledge of Christ.
In the adjoining country of Peru, where the native popu
lation is 57 per cent, of the whole, so exceptional is the
type of Christianity, that Castells reports Cathohcs from
other lands are often scandahsed, and prefer to worship
at Protestant places.2
Without viewing separately aU the modern repubhcs,
we may note the estimates of various missionaries in
South America. Frederick Glass declares that the old
orthodox Cathohcism may be regarded as forming reaUy
one of the smaUest reUgious bodies on the continent ;
1 Capitals of Spanish America, pp. 306, 334.
2 (Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, vol. i. p. 477.

Modern Idolatry 169
that the country is passing into the hands of heretics and
infidels j and that it is hard work now to find recruits for
the Roman Cathohc clergy.1 Some details from Scottish
workers may make the picture more vivid : —
" One of the most celebrated images is the so-caUed
Virgin of Luyan, near Buenos Ayres. Her history is
briefly this. Many years ago a caravan was proceeding
up country. The oxen of a cart, on reaching a certain
spot, refused to proceed any farther. The cause was dis
covered to be a box that formed part of their load. As
soon as this was laid on the ground, they would move on ;
but the moment it was replaced on the cart they again
stopped. On being opened, an image of the Virgin was
found, and the conclusion arrived at was that she desired
to remain there. There she was aUowed to estabhsh
herself, and there she is to-day ; whilst over her has been
in process of construction for many years the largest
sanctuary of South America. In connection with image
worship, what are caUed ' votos,' or vows, are used.
For example, a man suffers from rheumatism in his arm.
His petition is presented to a special saint, and he promises
that if cured he wiU present the saint with a silver arm.
On feeling better, he buys from the sUversmith a small
arm stamped in silver, takes it home or to the saint's
shrine, and solemnly hangs it on the image as a mark of
gratitude from a faithful devotee." 2
1 Through the Heart of Brazil, pp. ii. 98.
2 Robert Logan, of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Life of
Faith, 5 xii. 1906.

170 Expansion in America
" The priests as a class are gamblers, immoral, ignorant,
and trade upon the hopes and fears of the people with
utter shamelessness. They are despised and distrusted
by the men, but have great influence over the women,
and this they use for the basest purposes. The rehgion
is Paganism masquerading in the garments of Christianity.
The gods they worship are miraculous crosses, so caUed
reUcs, images of virgins and saints. Gifts offered to these
through the priest are beheved to purchase pardon for
every sin, and smooth the way to heaven in proportion to
their money value. Every day is a saint's day. ChUdren
are named after the saint on whose day they are born.
The saint is set up as the person's special god, and is
supposed to work miracles, and show special favour to
his namesake. Jesus Christ is unknown as the Saviour of
sinners. Moral purity does not exist. Marriage is con
sidered unnecessary. Ninety per cent, of the births are
Ulegitimate. Ninety per cent, of the people cannot read
or write. The Government schools are such centres of
immorality that parents, though living in sin themselves,
often refuse to send their chUdren to them." 1
" The whole mass of the people are destitute of any
saving knowledge of God. The rehgion of Rome has
been from the first an idolatrous and mechanical one,
devoid of spiritual life or power, a veritable cloak for
covetousness. The Word of God has not been given to
the people ; but instead, a gaudy ceremonial of image
worship, combined with feasts and revelries notorious for
1 John Hay, of Edinburgh, in The Christian, 20th December 1906.

Failure of Catholicism 171
their hcentiousness and drunkenness. A debased, im
moral priesthood, arrogating to itself the sole right of
mediatorship between the people and God, has for genera
tions been selling in God's name, but for its own enrich
ment, the hcence to indulge in any and every form of
sin without guilt or penalty, so that the public conscience
has been utterly deadened to aU apprehension of sin as
God sees it. In the light which contact with the outer
world has brought into the larger coast centres, numbers
of thinking men are awaking to the terrible evils of the
Romish system ; but seeing these only as they affect them
selves, and not from God's stand-point, they have sought
freedom from the yoke in open infidelity and denial of
God. Of late years Spiritualism has made extraordinary
strides among the more inteUigent male portion of the
population, strides which might and ought to have been
made by the Gospel, but which, as it is, have carried the
people yet further from God, for the soul which has dis
carded the sensual religion of Rome for the satanic
reahties of Spiritualism is ten times harder to win
for Christ. Thus where Romanism fails by reason of
the growing enhghtenment of the age, Satan is envelop
ing the people in this stiU deadlier system, and the
last state wiU be even worse than the first, unless the
Gospel is heralded throughout the land before it is
too late."1
It wiU be said that these statements are from Pro
testants, even from missionary officials who are naturaUy
i F. C. Glass.

172 Expansion in America
prejudiced, so two more testimonies are added from good
Cathohcs. Father Weld in 1877 wrote about BrazU,
and we know that a history pubUshed by a Jesuit must
be approved on behalf of the Society. He sums up
the conditions of Latin America in the terse phrase :
" Savages who know httle more of the Christian name
than the vices of those who profess it." That is severe
enough, but it refers manifestly to the laity, and especiaUy
to the native Indians. Hear another opinion as to the
clergy themselves, this time of ChUe, supposed to be in
the vanguard of Latin America : —
" In every diocese ecclesiastics break aU bounds and
dehver themselves up to manifold forms of sensuahty ;
and no voice is lifted up to imperiously summon pastors
to their duties. The clerical press casts aside aU sense
of decency and loyalty in its attacks on those who differ,
and lacks controlling authority to bring it to its proper
use. There is assassination and calumny, the civU laws
are defied, bread is denied to the enemies of the Church,
and there is no one to interpose. . . . Prelates, priests,
and other clergy are never to be found doing service
among the poor ; they are never in the hospital or lazar-
house, never in the orphan asylum or hospice, in the
dwellings of the afflicted or distressed, or engaged in works
of beneficence, aiding primary instruction, or found in
refuges or prisons." * Is not that a terrible indictment 1
No, terrible it is ; but it is no indictment, it is a verdict,
and one from which there is no appeal ; for to a Roman
1 Beach, Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, p. 126.

Missions to Catholics 173
CathoUc the utterance is final : it is part of an official
letter sent by Pope Leo only a few years ago.
Latin America, then, raises for us the whole question
of missions in papal fields. We can see that in one great
respect the difficulty is the same as in Muslim lands ;
they have received about enough of the truth to be in
oculated with it mildly, and to be fortified against it in
an unadulterated form. They have the name of Christ,
but on high authority they have nothing of His spirit.
Surely, then, it is as legitimate to spend strength on
ministering to these as to any Muslim who indeed acknow
ledges the one God but refuses to hsten to Jesus Christ.
Both err in that they will not recognise in Him the one
Mediator between God and men : the MusUm leaves the
gulf unbridged, and bows in distant awe before a God
with whom he has no intercourse ; the Roman CathoUc
hangs out over the gulf thousands of approaches, the
saints, by whom to draw near, while he ignores the one
appointed and only Way. Islam knows nothing of sin ;
but Latin America seems to regard it as something that
is licensed by the priests. Islam detests idolatry, which
prevails aU over the Southern continent under Cathohc
auspices. The needs of these two sets of people may be shghtly
different, but their claims are equally urgent. To these
people in darkness must be revealed the true Christ :
not the helpless Infant alone, borne in His mother's arms,
nor the dead corpse being borne to the tomb ; but the
living Christ, who has made full atonement on the Cross,

174 Expansion in America
and now etemaUy abides able to help to the uttermost
those who draw near to God through Him.
Of no fond rehcs, sadly dear,
0 Master ! are Thine own possessed :
The crown of thorns, the cross, the spear,
The purple robe, the seamless vest.
Nay, rehcs are for those who mourn
The memory of an absent friend ;
Not absent Thou, nor we forlorn ; —
" With you each day until the end."
How are we meeting the demand of South America ?
Only poorly, because of ignorance as to the real paganism,
or because of reluctance to go where there is at least a
name to Uve. Except for the Guianas, where under
European rule the Moravians have worked for one hundred
and fifty years, winning twenty-eight thousand in the
Dutch section alone, Protestant effort is recent and feeble.
On the mainland from Mexico to Patagonia, counting
every person from outside, Beach could not number four
hundred and fifty men or five hundred women, or four
hundred stations occupied : and the native constituency,
adherents as weU as communicants, he did not venture to
put at one hundred and fifty thousand. There is a good
civUisation, and so no need arises for industrial or medical
missions ; but, as in Mexico the government education is
purely secular, and schools of South America are declared
to be hotbeds of vice, there is evidently great opportunity
for real Christian education, which is being offered, especi
aUy by Presbyterians and Methodists. And as the Cathohc
worship is mainly spectacular or musical, appealing to

Training Native Ministers 175
bodUy senses rather than to the mind, therefore simple
Gospel preaching is a novelty, and is as successful as when
Paul went out to meet the Gohath of Greek paganism,
with its pomp and procession and ritual, and with the
simple Word of God inflicted a mortal blow. Workers
tell us that farmers and artisans are the most accessible,
exactly as when Paul granted that not many wise nor
noble after the flesh were caUed. Nearly two thousand
natives are already labouring among their feUow-country-
men ; so that the new movement does not appear altogether
as an exotic, but as something which is at least becoming
naturalised. This question of a native ministry is one of the most
searching tests for the vitality of a church. We observed
that the early Church in China was staffed partly by
Chinese, but partly by Persians ; that the early Church in
India was staffed partly by TamUs, but partly by Persians :
nor did we find that any proper arrangements were made
for local training. On such a policy the commentary is
that these two Churches, once so promising, are now
represented by a handful of Christians in Cochin. In
Persia itself there was a great coUege at Edessa, after
wards at Nisibis ; and, even in the present decay, it is
precisely in that district that the persecuted behevers
hold on. Westwards, the first Jewish missionaries were
prompt to instaU local elders in every city, and ere long
there grew up training coUeges for native clergy, of which
the best known were at Alexandria, at Hippo under the
great Augustine, and in the isles off the south of France.

176 Expansion in America
We observed that the early missionaries to Ireland soon
aUied with the Druids, and that the monasteries became
founts of learning whence flowed forth streams to water
the thirsty soU. We saw in Britain the same pohcy
pursued, Picts and Scots and Welsh and Enghsh aU taught
and sent to labour among their own kindred. And we
note the corresponding vitality of the faith among our
people. In Africa, again, we regretted the enormous
spread of Islam, but connect it with the utilisation of
negro students.
With such examples before us, we are bound to see that
our missionaries abroad now learn the lesson, and we
must urge our mission boards to foster the training of
a native ministry, who shaU be prepared not only to
preach, but to organise, to propagate, to take responsi
bility of aU kinds, both in thought and in action. If
this be neglected, the native Church may become parasitic
on the Christians who send the mission : incapable pre
sently of rooting for itself, and assimUating what is good
in the local soU, but imbibing a foreign and perhaps
unnatural strength, and even weakening the home Church
by preventing it going farther afield.
2. European Christianity developing in New
Surroundings
Rehgion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Readie to passe to the American strand.
Yet as the Church shall thither westward flie,
So Sinne shall trace and dog her instantly ;

Old Seed in New Soil 177
They have their period also and set times
Both for their vertuous actions and their orimes.
But where of old the Empire and the Arts
Ushered the Gospel ever in men's hearts,
Spain hath done one ; when Arts perform the other,
The Church shall come, and Sinne the Church shall smother.
That when they have accomplished the round,
And met in th' East their first and ancient sound,
Judgement may meet them both, and search them round.
Herbert.
We come next to consider European immigrants to
America, and the progress of Christianity among them.
It is extremely interesting to see the different growth
of kindred principles in different surroundings. For our
purpose it is very necessary to notice that in every move
ment there is something permanent and essential, clothed
in what is merely local and accidental. When any institu
tion develops in one place alone, the local and accidental
are not recognised for what they are, and may easily
harden tiU they are confused with what is essential. Trans
plantation helps us to see the difference, and to dispense
with what is merely ephemeral. Even as the Indian
peasant laboriously takes up every stalk of rice and sets it
afresh in a new place, replanting twice or thrice to bring
to maturity, so our churches and institutions may be the
better for being uprooted and set down elsewhere among
new races and new conditions, that they may shed all
that is merely national, and may appropriate all that is
best in every soU, tiU they mature in fuU beauty. And
even if there be no perceptible improvement, at least we
learn to recognise that the differences in various lands
13

178 Expansion in America
are not of the essence of Christianity, and to lay the
emphasis aright on that which is held and practised
in common.
Thus, to Ulustrate this principle, isolate the develop
ment of that singular phenomenon of Monasticism, which
we have met again and again, and see how its surroundings
changed its character. The hermits of India, when they
sought seclusion, desired simply their own perfection,
their absorption into Nirvana, by meditation. The
Buddha retained the object and the method of renuncia
tion, but he gathered his foUowers into societies and sent
them forth to preach, adding to the quest for salvation
the aim at saving others. When transplanted to Egypt
and converted to Christian uses, the system aimed more
distinctly at union with God, but modified the means by
the personal and human touch, devotion to Jesus Christ.
At times this degenerated to a wUd fanaticism, but was
stiU tempered by the stern discipline of work. Athanasius
transplanted farther west, and Martin of Tours trans
formed afresh on new soil. To mere activity, which might
equaUy be practised in a secular communist society, he
gave definite point and direction, evincing activity in
mission work ; and forthwith a new era opened for Christ
in the north of Europe among new races. And whereas
devotion to the Saviour had chiefly manifested itself in
contemplation, which can easUy fade into what we are
prone to caU laziness, a new mode of expression soon
appeared in devout study of the words of Christ and His
friends ; and so the Scotch monasteries became homes

Evolution of a Modern Missionary 179
of missions and of Christian learning. AU this wlule the
old Indian tradition had survived, that monks must be
celibates, freed from family ties ; again and again harm
had come from this persistence, and often it had been
challenged. The northern nations were the first to declare
it no part of the Gospel discipline, and to remember that
Christ referred often with approval to the fact that God
created us male and female, drawing the inference that men
ought to marry. So another transformation took place,
and the modern Protestant missionary emerged. Each
stage of the evolution had shown a variety capable of
good service, each may still have a useful place in some
part of God's great field ; but we may thank Him that He
fulfils Himself in so many ways, and helps us to recognise
what is needful and lasting amid all the changes of time
and place.
So then in North America — and indeed in Austraha
also — the one great question raised by the expansion of
Christendom is, What wiU be discarded from the heritage
of the past as a mere transitory form, and what will
be developed amid new surroundings ? The problem is
simpler than in the past, for there is now no native race
in these continents which is at aU likely to react seriously
upon Christianity, and incorporate its old pagan customs
with our own. Whatever alteration takes place wUl
be free from disturbing and debasing factors. It will
be due either to the quiet shedding of forms which
have served their purpose, even as the calyx of the
poppy withers and falls as the coroUa expands ; or

180 Expansion in America
to the luxuriant opening out in fresh and fertUe soU,
under the stimulus of purer air and clearer sunshine,
of what has been latent from the first, but has as
yet had no opportunity to mature. What now may
we look for among those of our own kith and kin in
these lands 1
The outward forms of worship are not hkely to persist
in the precise fashion ordered by Elizabeth's Act of Uni
formity, or the pattern elaborated in the notes to the
Genevan Bible. May we not go further and observe that
the Jewish pattern, taken over without exphcit order in
the first age, is visibly changing ? Already the Sunday
school, started indeed in England, has been systematised
and developed in America to a pitch of high exceUence.
Already the Y.P.S.C.E., originated in New England, has
been transplanted and improved in Australia. Even as
Burbank in California is patiently experimenting with
plants, and is producing new and welcome varieties of
fruit, so the simple elements of praise and prayer, reading
and preaching, are being combined in new and attractive
styles of service.
Look next at Church organisation. To America
were transplanted from Britain three patterns, monarchical,
aristocratic, democratic. Already a Methodist Episcopal
has been produced, an ingenious crossing of two of these.
Away in Tasmania the Baptist leaders examined their
Bibles to see if Baptist traditions were absolutely in
harmony with New Testament principle ; whether a few
baptized believers who build a house for prayer and praise,

Is Independency Scriptural? 181
paying a few men and women to conduct it, with one
pastor at the head, form " a Church " of Divine right,
on a necessary pattern. They decide not, and aU the
Baptists in the island form really one community, with the
ministers recognised as the ministers of the whole body.
Church extension and matters of general interest are
decided by the whole, and selfish isolation is discouraged.
The same question occurred to a minister in Kentucky,
and he asked whether New Testament precedent did
not point to a single Church of LouisviUe, like the Church
of Ephesus or of Jerusalem or of Corinth. And the
same question has again been raised in Britain ; a
recent president of the Baptist Union has boldly avowed
that the usual plan is at best of human origin, and
not ordered in Scripture, whUe many of its developments
are absolutely anti-Scriptural. For the next few years
Enghsh Baptists are hkely to inquire diligently whether
the congregational system, blindly adopted from Robert
Browne, is the last word in organisation ; or whether the
New Testament does not show us aU the baptized behevers
in a town forming one Church, with a plurahty of elders
both to teach and to administer business, and probably
many houses for worship. Indeed, in two great towns this
system is just being tried.
If this seem important, go further and ask whether all
that has been elaborated in doctrine wiU bear transplanta
tion. Councils have sat, (Ecumenical Councils, and have
patiently or impatiently hammered out dogma after
dogma. No Protestant beheves the InfaUibihty of the

182 Expansion in America
Pope and the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
Mary, both announced last century. No Protestant beheves
that eating a piece of bread under certain conditions
actuaUy conveys Divine grace, or that a certain ceremony
with water is an absolutely essential condition for the
pardon of sins. Yet those dogmas have been formaUy
taught, and are accepted by millions. Reject them, and
where shaU the line be drawn ? Is it even probable that
the definitions of the Greeks in 450 a.d. are cast into forms
that are congenial to Teutons at this stage in thought ?
Nay, come nearer home ; in the seventeenth century an
assembly of British divines and laymen elaborated a
long Confession of Faith, presently amended by a Baptist
pastor, and endorsed by the representatives of more than
a hundred churches in England, then by an American
assembly at Philadelphia. Is it likely that these old
Enghsh formularies enshrine exactly the hve modern
American behefs ? that the topics there mentioned
are the only matters interesting men to-day ? For
instance, what had Pastor Collins to say about foreign
missions in 1677 ? Nothing ! And the churches which
insist upon asking whether their office-bearers are true to
his Confession contain several which are content with his
thinking, which are cold to the work of spreading the
Gospel, and even oppose aU concerted action for the
one solitary duty which the Ascending Lord left as His
legacy to the Church.

Change, Decay, Vitality 183

Conclusion
Why rage and fret thee ; only let them be :
The monkish rod, the sacerdotal pall,
Council and convent, pope and cardinal,
The black priest and his holy wizardry.
Nay, dread them not, for thought and hberty
Spread ever faster than the foe can smite,
And these shall vanish as the starless night
Before a morning mightier than the sea. Lampman.
Changes, then, are to be expected as Christianity unfolds
in new lands. Much that is shaken must fall and pass
away ; but that which is vital wiU abide. And while all
forms of worship must naturally vary with differing races,
while methods of organisation may follow those familiar
in civil life, while confessions of belief in order to be
real must be the spontaneous words of the behever ;
yet behind variety of ritual, machinery, and dogma,
is the hfe sustained by the one Life-Giver. Diver
sities of gifts there should be in different ages, with
the recognition that they are from the same Spirit ;
diversities of ministrations there should be by dif
ferent races, but rendered in the name of the same
Lord ; diversities of workings there should be on
differently developed mission fields, but all to the glory
of the same God.
What sort of change, then, has passed over the Roman
Cathohc Church ? Once were to be found in its communion
such ' ardent missionaries as Martin, Gregory, Boniface ;

184 Expansion in America
Uttle by httle its character changed, more and more
doubtful became the proceedings of its emissaries, tiU we
hear of one legate heading a crusade to blot out the
Albigenses, and of marvellous concessions in the Far
East, which looked so hke mere surrender to heathenism
that Rome itself condemned them. We have seen what
has become of Cathohcism transplanted into South
America ; what of it in the North ?
Two tendencies are observable. A desire to stereotype
seventeenth - century Cathohcism is speciaUy strong in
Quebec, and is traceable in other plantations of France
and Spain. But a new phenomenon has arisen, caUed
Americanism, where the new wine of the New World seems
to be fermenting strongly and straining the old skins.
This has, indeed, been officiaUy condemned; but a sign
of the times is that stiU such bold voices are raised as
that of Father Jeremiah Crowley, of the archdiocese of
Chicago. Hear his condemnation of the actual state of
things in the Cathohc Church in the United States.
Of the priests he says : —
" Many of them are themselves intemperate, and
numbers own saloon property of the lowest type. I
could give cases in which Church property is let out for
saloon purposes, and even for these low drinking-shops
which we caU the ' barrel houses.' The people generaUy
do not reahse to how large an extent the Roman clergy,
even the highest dignitaries, are silent partners in the
drink traffic. . . . An American archbishop assured me
that the Romish priesthood was so corrupt that any

Continental Europe 185
attempt to reform or discipline it would knock the bottom
out of the Church." x
Here, then, is another terrible accusation against the
Church of Rome as developed in North America. Trans
planting it has indeed brought forth a new shoot of some
promise, but the question is grave whether the life re
maining is potent enough to expel the evil and to renew
itself in pristine vigour.
This raises a deeper question. When we find that
Cathohcism transplanted to South America, to North
America, to Australia, and we might add also to China
and India, seems not only to exhibit degeneracy, due
possibly to local conditions, but also to be uniformly
corrupt and feeble as a spiritual force — whatever it be
poUticaUy — then it is time to ask whether the stock
whence these seedlings have been brought is itseU healthy,
or whether the root of the evil is not in Europe. Is the
work there accomphshed once for all, so that it needs
no further care — hke the carving of the golden vine
which waf hung over the lintel of the Temple and
could defy aught but the robber or the flames ; or
is it like the cultivation of the hve vine, whose
branches must remain in vital contact with the
root, and which must be ever tended by the heavenly
Husbandman, lest it faU to bring forth fruit ? Alas,
in the opinion of many, Europe is but one shade
better than South America ; it has a name to hve, but
is dead. The East, with its ancient Christian Churches,
1 British Weekly, 20 xii. 1906.

186 Expansion in America
stiffened and fossihsed centuries ago, has long ceased to
change, much less to extend, and is inert in face of the
Turks and Tatars in its midst. These many years the
Owner has found no fruit ; and were it not for His infinite
patience, it weU might have been cut down as cumbering
the ground. A recent student thinks, however, that there
has been of late years a marked spiritual revival in the
rehgious houses, and that help may yet come from the
monks.1 Latin Christianity is indeed ahve, but grave
questions are asked whether it is the Spirit of God or
an evU spirit that animates its aged body. For Ireland,
once the glory of the Christian world, read the books of
Michael M'Carthy, a lay Cathohc. Then Lutheranism
long ago allied itself with the powers of this age, and stiU
pays the penalty. On the whole Continental problem,
hear Dr. Newton H. MarshaU, sent speciaUy to study the
state of affairs, and reporting to the Baptist World
Alliance : —
" There is no field for mission work comparable with
that of Europe. The bulk of the population ^>f Europe
is ignorant of Christianity as we understand it. The
commonly received Roman Cathohcism, Greek Orthodoxy,
and State-Established Protestantism is formal and of
relatively smaU moral and spiritual value. The passions
and vices of paganism are rampant in European civUisa
tion. Every part of the world is interested in the Chris-
tianisation of Europe. Obviously it is the first essential of
European prosperity in the highest sense that Christ
1 British Weekly, 3 L 1907.

The Story of the Past 187
should be known to these peoples. It is important to
America that its immigrants should be men of Christian
type ; and the interests of the non-Christian world are
almost entirely bound up with the moral and spiritual
Btate of Europe. Missionaries find the wickedness of
Europeans the greatest obstacle to their work ; and as a
higher civUisation and an intenser patriotism grows in
Asia and other lands, the desire for a satisfactory rehgion
wUl compel the nation to look to Europe to see what
Christianity is."
Two streams of emigration went to America with
shghtly different rehgious aims. The Latins sought to
evangehse the natives, the Teutons to secure for themselves
rehgious freedom. Latin America has amalgamated its
former pagan customs with the Cathohc worship brought
to it ; but to-day the native element is slowly rising from
its servitude, and in rehgion there appear intolerance
and atheism, whUe no vestige of missionary spirit is shown.
Northern America was for centuries asleep to the call
of the heathen, but all the while rehgion was striking
deep root in the ground ; since the caU of Carey was echoed
by Judson and Rice, standard-bearers have pressed to
the front in every land. Nor is this the best service
that has been rendered ; the early history of missions
abounds with warnings that zeal without discretion
leads to disaster. While Danes and Germans, who
provided the first Protestant evangehsts, led the way
also in systematic coUation and study of their experi
ences, yet that way has been traversed chiefly by

188 Expansion in America
Americans. The scientific study of missions is pursued
mostly in the New World, where is best appreciated
the old proverb : —
By the needle you shall draw the thread ;
By that which is past, see how that which is to come shall be
drawn on.

V
REPLANTING IN ASIA

That waiting One, who now
Is letting us try again ;
Watching us with the patient brow
That bore the wreath of pain ;
Thoroughly teaching what He would teach,
Line upon line,
Thoroughly doing His work in each. F. R. Havergal.

V
Replanting in Asia
WE return to close the circuit of the globe at Asia.
This continent is the largest and the most prolific ;
perhaps the birthplace of mankind, certainly of
Christianity. Here dweU great races which made their mark in history
when our ancestors were yet savages. Here are rehgions
which had six centuries of experience when our Lord
came to earth. Here also are two-thirds of the Mushm
world ; so that of every seven Asiatics, one is a foUower
of Muhammad, and he is usuaUy more energetic than his
six neighbours. For Christianity to acknowledge itself
defeated by older faiths and by a newer faith would be
a confession of sloth or incompetence ; such a confession
has never been made. Even before the native Asiatic
Christianity had given up the ghost, European missionaries
were at work, and within the last century their efforts
have commanded some serious attention.
We shaU do well to observe first the work of the neo-
Roman Church as altered and reinvigorated by the
Company of Jesus. Then when that came to a standstill,
or was even all but extinguished, we shall see the slow
191

192 Replanting in Asia
but steady preparation for the next attack, in the acquisi
tion of new bases in the islands and the continents facing
the south and east shores of Asia. The Protestant work
has become so large and important that it needs consider
ing in four great districts — India, China, Japan, and South
west Asia, especiaUy as these present problems in resistance
that differ greatly.
1. The Jesuits in India, China, and Japan
A soldier's course, from battles won
To new-commencing strife ;
A pilgrim's, restless as the sun —
Behold the Christian's hfe !
Prepared the trumpet's call to greet,
Soldier of Jesus, stand !
Pilgrim of Christ, with ready feet
Await thy Lord's command.
The hosts of Satan pant for spoil ;
How can thy warfare close ?
Lonely, thou treadest a foreign soil ;
How canst thou hope repose ? Gisbornb.
Even before the Persian Christians had ended then
endeavours in China, the Franciscan friars in the first
flush of their zeal had entered ; but although we have
interesting accounts of their labours at Kambalu or Pekin,
yet with John of Marignolh, about the time when mission
work in Europe was ceasing because aU the heathen were
won, the curtain falls on work in Asia. When it rises
again aU continuity is lost. Nothing, indeed, in mere

A Missionary Society 193
geography is more striking than the fact that the Cathay
of Marco Polo and contemporary travellers overland was
not recognised in the China discovered by the sea voyagers
of two centuries later. And the new stream of missionaries
that came round the South or across the vast ocean to
the East found nothing to recaU the labours either of Adam
from Persia or of WiUiam from Rubruck. To them aU
seemed virgin soil, except in a corner of India.
If the Franciscans had brought a type of Christianity
strange to the Persians, the Jesuits brought a third differ
ing from both. Rome is not semper eadem in doctrine
or discipline or methods, and the new chapter of missionary
enterprise illustrates this most vividly. It is irrelevant
here to show how the Latin Church of 1600 a.d.
differed in Europe from that of 1500 a.d., with a new
creed and new rules elaborated at Trent ; it is only neces
sary to observe the moving force behind the transforma
tion, which had absolutely free play in the mission field
of Asia — the Society of Jesus.
Ignatius Loyola was essentiaUy a soldier ; and when
his secular military career was cut short, he planned a
spiritual mihtary career. He was the General Booth of
the sixteenth century, ardent, rehgious, autocratic, and
fuU of resource. To him was due the magnificent mihtary
organisation, wherein absolute obedience was exacted
from every recruit, at the risk of crushing aU power of
initiative, and faiUng to provide for capable successors in
the generalship. But fortunately by his side was Francis
Xavier, full of missionary zeal, who from the outset led

194 Replanting in Asia
the military company to the field of foreign service. In
western India, the southern islands, Japan, and China, he
pioneered ; and if his life was too brief to show much effect,
it inspired the Society to regard missions as its distinct
aim. Promotion in its ranks is slow ; but aU authority is
concentrated in the highest grade, whose distinguishing
feature is a pledge to go on mission work to any spot
at any time when ordered. Is it too much to say that
the Company is essentiaUy a missionary society ? It is
singular that the governing caste is that which is thus
mobUised for instant service ; it recalls how in England
there was one time when the Army and its General Crom-
weU practicaUy monopolised aU power, and how England,
whUe she sickened of its home tyranny, yet rejoiced in
its foreign service and fame.
So when Xavier died on the Chinese shores, others
were speedUy sent to develop the work he initiated. One
great method characterised the Society, that of adapta
tion. We have noted that on the mission fields the pro
blem had repeatedly emerged, How far local reUgious
customs might be retained. The Jesuits were prepared
to go further than any of their predecessors, and have
given us a striking object-lesson on the limits of com
promise. In Japan they found something like the feudal system,
with barons ruling their retainers. They used this
authority, won a few barons, and encouraged them to
compel their dependents to profess their faith. But
the islanders were fiercely patriotic ; they heard how in

The Chinese Rites 195
Europe the Jesuits did not hesitate to inspire forcible
methods for conversion and conquest ; and before it was
too late they proscribed the new rehgion. A steady and
frightful persecution expelled the foreign workers, and
drove Christianity out of sight within a century of
Xavier's quitting Japan. Yet be it noted that when
after two centuries Cathohc missionaries once again
entered the empire, they found that a native Church had
secretly persisted without missionary or priest or Bible.
Such vitality has the Gospel !
WhUe in Japan the adaptation was to the feudal state of
society, in China it was to the respect for ancestors and
for learning. The Jesuits obtained their footing on the
mainland with a plea that they sought seclusion to study ;
they improved their position by adopting the academic
dress of the land, by a remarkable insight into Chinese
modes of thought, as Ricci showed in his books, and by
introducing the mathematics and science of the West.
Surveying and astronomy were pursued by them for the
behoof of the emperor, nor did they hesitate at founding
cannon by the hundred.
If such militant occupations seem hardly accordant
with the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace, yet attention
was attracted rather by their attitude to certain reverences
at the tablets of ancestors and certain ceremonial offerings.
The Jesuits held that these were mere social civil customs,
and were fortified by the official approval of the Chinese
emperor, and by the declaration of many Chinese of aU
ranks. The rival Dominican missionaries obtained the

196 Replanting in Asia
ruling of the Pope that these were pagan rehgious cere
monies which could not be performed by Christians.
When, too, it was found that the old idols were not
banished, but were aUowed to remain alongside the
symbols of the new faith, then missionaries of other orders
opposed and obtained official repudiation of such accom
modation to heathen customs. The emperor, however,
announced that conformity to the Chinese customs would
be expected, and so the situation under the Roman
emperors was reproduced.
Although the tact of the Jesuits and their main
tenance of their own Chinese pohcy averted a local
rupture for awhUe at the cost of weakening their posi
tion in Europe, a new emperor cut the Gordian knot in
1724 a.d. by foUowing the example of Japan, forbidding
aU Cathohc propaganda, and escorting the missionaries
to the coast. In the days of their prosperity, the Jesuits
had comported themselves with arrogance, dressing and
travelling hke rich lords, relying on their native catechists
for work among the commonalty, and devoting themselves
to winning the upper classes or to literary pursuits. But
now they rose to the occasion, threw themselves on the
fidelity of their foUowers in the lower ranks, to whom
they stole back in disguise and faithfuUy ministered.
Throughout long persecution, hundreds of thousands of
converts were steadfast, and fresh missionaries arrived,
tiU fifty years ago new treaties permitted them|toJemerge
into the hght of day.
It soon appeared that much property had been preserved

Catholics Disestablished 197
aU this time, and speedUy the old pohcy was resumed.
The whole empire was mapped out into bishoprics, and
in pursuance of the assimilation idea, official status was
obtained for the bishops, to hold civil rank on the Unes
so familiar with the Lord Bishops in England. Stately
cathedrals arose, money was invested tiU an income of
nearly thirteen miUion doUars is available for extension,
and thus a mUlion and a half of foUowers makes a somewhat
formidable show. But again a keen observer declares
that the aim is rather at external conversion than at the
gradual enlightenment and final reformation of the whole
empire. Still, the Chinese authorities are not satisfied
with the accommodation to their own customs which
aU Cathohcs acquiesce in ; they are affronted at the
establishment of a body of people owning some kind
of allegiance to a foreign priest, who can appoint or
depose the bishops in China, thus indirectly appointing
to Chinese rank, yet who seldom if ever appoints
Chinese to office, but governs through Europeans. Hence
the latest move of the Chinese is towards revoking their
civU rank.
In the process of manufacture it is often found that a
firm wiU devote itself largely to refining material which
has been mined and crudely prepared by others. Such
was the pohcy adopted in India, where Xavier had found
the ancient Church of Thomas represented at Cochin,
and where he instigated the Inquisition of Goa to subject
it to the successor of Peter. The process was not very
thorough, and it cannot be caUed mission work ; we need

198 Replanting in Asia
only note the Jesuit methods among the heathen. Here,
again, compromise with native customs was carried to an
extreme that scandahsed missionaries of rival orders, and
not only, led to exphcit condemnation at Rome but was
one of the reasons aUeged for the total suppression of the
Society. We know that it has revived, and unhappUy
the method of assimilation has revived too. A Protestant
visitor to South India twelve years ago watched an open-
air service for twenty minutes under the impression that
it was a gorgeous heathen function.
To-day it seems as if the Jesuit temper and the Jesuit
principles predominate in the Roman Cathohc Church.
Undoubtedly this appears on the foreign mission field.
The suppleness and adaptabiUty are almost unlimited ;
the pomp and arrogance of the sixteenth century, and all
the pohcy then so fiercely contested by the Dominicans
and the French, seem to be dehberately adopted by the
modern ultramontane missionaries in China.
In India, again, aU the compromises of Robert de' Nobili
have become so much the order of the whole communion
that a native CivU servant reported in 1891 on the Maisur
census that he had met several Roman Cathohc com
munities continuing undisturbed in their ancestral rites
and usages, especiaUy at marriages and festivals, calling
in the Brahman astrologers and famUy priests, and even
using the rehgious mark on the forehead which distin
guishes the Hindu sects and castes. One feature that can
excite our legitimate admiration is the tenacity of both
converts and missionaries in the face of torture, and the

Propaganda 199
persistence of the native Church throughout centuries with
but few aids to faith.
It deserves attention that as early as 1582 a.d. a special
Foreign Mission Committee of cardinals was appointed at
Rome, a sign that henceforward the great work of the
Church should be systematicaUy surveyed and prosecuted.
By 1622 a.d. this was fuUy organised, and soon the
" Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith " had
established a great training college for European and native
missionaries, where also a printing-press renders permanent
their hterary labours. Not tiU 1612 a.d. were Protestants
stirred to found their first Missionary Seminary at
Leyden, and the New England Company in 1649 a.d.
Not till the close of the century was the lesson taken to
heart by the foundation of the Societies for the Promoting
of Christian Knowledge, and for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, with a corresponding Society in
Denmark. Indeed, except for the expansion of the white
race into Either continents, the foreign mission work of
Christendom was prosecuted chiefly by the Roman Catholic
Church for a century and a half, tUl the United Brethren
showed an appreciation of duty equal to that of the Jesuits.

2. New Bases acquired off the Coast
A lake of molten fires which swell and surge
And f all in thunders on the burning verge ;
And one, a queen, rapt, with illumined face,
Who doth defy the goddess of the place. Lewis Morris.

200 Replanting in Asia
0 Australia, fair and lovely, empress of the southern seas !
What a glorious fame awaits thee in the future's history.
Land of wealth and land of beauty, tropic suns and Arctic snows,
Where the splendid noontide rages, where the raging stormwind
blows,
Be thou proud, and be thou daring, ever true to God and man
In all evil be to rearward, in all good take thou the van !
Only let thy hands be stainless, let thy hfe be pure and true,
And a destiny awaits thee such as nations never knew.
Agnes Neale.
Missions in the South Seas are usuaUy regarded even by
the boards and by the missionaries as ends in themselves,
being direct fulfilments of the standing orders to the
Church. Strategists are all too few. Yet, when we survey
the course of events only for a few score of years, it is
difficult to resist the conclusion that the labourers buUded
better than they knew, and that the great Architect on
high was slowly fulfilling His vast plans through uncom
prehending workmen. Hence there is justification for
treating missions in the Pacific as anciUary to and pre
paratory for a renewed attempt on the mainland of Asia.
It cannot even be justly said that many fresh principles
of importance come to hght, that any new experiments of
the first magnitude have succeeded here. We may indeed
read with pleasure the wonderful conversions of some
islanders, and join in Drummond's tribute of praise to
the workers among insignificant and vanishing races ; yet
he saw that the importance here is in the occupation
of Austraha, California, and British Columbia by white
Christians. Concerning, then, the last century's work in Oceania, httle

In the Pacific 201
need be said. There were no great organised rehgions to
encounter, professed by miUions of people ; the islanders
were isolated, and the Christian forces could be concen
trated in mass on some smaU group ; even in Hawan the
system of tapu, linked with the power of priests and kings,
could offer no long resistance. The great difficulties have
reaUy arisen from the conduct of un-Christian white men,
with their vices, their diseases, their demorahsing trade,
and their labour traffic, whUe the competition of CathoUc
workers is a sore trial. The missionary methods are
governed by the fact of this being an oceanic area : certain
islands are selected as headquarters for the training of
natives and for consultation of the white superintendents.
Itineration is of necessity by ship, and the native churches
are largely under pastors of their own race : the expenses
are not heavy, even when printing Bibles and other litera
ture is included, and the converts are encouraged to defray
this themselves. Thus industrial work develops, which
indeed was put in the forefront by the London Missionary
Society. Nearer to the mainland he larger islands, and these soon
attracted the attention of Europeans, both for dominion
and for evangehsation. The Philippines, so close to Asia,
and under Spanish rule since the sixteenth century, might
be expected to be prominent in mission story. Four orders
of friars settled on these islands, acquiring enormous
wealth and influence, tiU they really managed the govern
ment and had won to Christianity aU the millions of
natives on the lowlands, except the Mushms. But they

202 Replanting in Asia
never would admit the natives into their orders, so that
they always were foreigners, and were regarded as exploit
ing the islands ; thus the Filipinos, if Christian in any real
sense, never joined the friars in extending missionary
operations further. Moreover, Spanish commercial jealousy
led to the suppression of intercourse with China. In this
century, however, the Philippines have regained their
rightful position as related to their neighbours. The
natives desired the withdrawal of the twelve hundred
foreign friars, and steps are being taken to replace them
by American and native priests ; Protestant workers also
enter, so that a new type of Christianity is rapidly spreading.
The archipelago is stUl to be regarded as a mission field
hke Japan, rather than as a vantage-ground whence to
approach the mainland ; but the establishment of a pro
gressive Western rule marks the coming transition.
The Portuguese were even earlier in these parts— at
Malacca, the Moluccas, Macao, and Canton ; but their
missionary efforts were not important. When, however,
Spain annexed Portugal, the Dutch annexed most of these
colonies, and promptly sent out ministers to win the
natives. In Formosa they did good work, and in the
very year that Ehot issued his Indian New Testament,
two Gospels were printed in Formosan. Unfortunately
the Chinese expeUed the Dutch, and these efforts ceased
here ; but it deserves to be recoUected that the first
Protestant missionary version was due to HoUand, and
that it is the first for Eastern Asia which survives. More
to the West, the Buddhists in Ceylon offered stubborn

Dutch Missions 203
resistance till civil rewards were offered to converts,
and coercion was employed; the Tamils of the North
had no organised rehgion, and acquiesced more easily.
Free compulsory schools were opened, where certain
texts and prayers were memorised as the chief qualifica
tion for baptism ; seminaries were established to train
native workers. Within a century, versions of large
parts of the Bible were pubhshed in Tamil and Singhalese.
But it was confessed, even by the missionaries in con
sistory, that the superficial effect was unreal. There
might be nearly half a million enrolled as Christians, but
barely one in two thousand was a communicant, the
vast majority stiU adhering to native worship. It is at
least to the credit of the Dutch that this was deplored,
and not sanctioned as permissible. TamU was the tongue
of the continent across the straits, they therefore sought
to spread their faith on the mainland, especiaUy on the
Coromandel coast, whUe north of Madras they had a
native Church even before their Ceylon work was fairly
under way. StiU, on the whole, their missions were
linked with their pohtical dominion, and it is painful to
add that, when the latter ceased, the former vanished
hke the baseless fabric of a dream.
In Java and the neighbouring islands the Dutch flag
stiU flies ; and for nearly three hundred years the Gospel
has been systematicaUy spread in the Netherland East
Indies at the expense of the Government, while versions
in Malay and Portuguese were early circulated. For
the last sixty years this State mission has been supple-

204 Replanting in Asia
mented by the Mennonites, and the work has taken on
a new phase in that the Government seems inclined to
temporise, and even to discourage missions and to favour
the Muslims ; to this the missionary response is that it
is exactly among the Mushms their best work is done.
And in this way we can see that the islands are real bases
for work on the continent.
The step across was taken by the Danes, whose capital of
Tranquebar on the Coromandel coast was occupied at their
king's orders by Ziegenbalg in 1706 a.d. Within a few
years he also had put forth Tamil and Portuguese Bibles,
and established a type-foundry and paper-miU and press.
A score of schools foUowed, then versions in Telugu and
Urdu. The wars of the French and Enghsh broke up
work at headquarters, but acted like the martyrdom of
Stephen in spreading the missionaries to the extreme
South and up to Calcutta, besides over the neighbourhood.
Especially in the district around TinneveUy did the work
persist, and in the hands of two Enghsh Episcopal Societies
is again abundantly successful.
The troubles, however, that the Jesuits had encountered
soon beset these missions, especiaUy as to caste. As
this remains a constant problem to-day, it is weU to face
the difficulty. South India is inhabited by the black
Dravidian race, speaking four languages of importance.
Many centuries ago the Brahman priests from the North
came amongst them and superposed their own supremacy
and a few of their customs on the local rehgions. The
Brahmans consider that they are immeasurably the

Caste 205
superiors of these " monkey-like " peoples, whom they
contemptuously regarded as out-caste. But the peoples
themselves naturaUy felt differences unheeded by their
superiors, and to their classes based on social rank or
occupation they apphed the caste rules of the Brahman.
The result is that the population is distributed into her
editary trade-guilds, not permitting inter-marriage except
under special restrictions, and declining to eat together.
The question was, and is, whether such separation can be
justified in a Christian society. The outsider promptly
says that Paul's words as to unity forbid it in letter and
in spirit ; but the missionary on the field often seems
to falter when confronted with the actual difficulty and
the age-long custom. The most explicit orders that caste
is to be ignored have not sufficed to banish even caste-
names from church-rolls ; and the mutual repulsion is
such that if one caste shows a disposition to join the
community evangehsed by Baptists, another caste inter
mingled in the same area, and equaUy susceptible to the
Gospel, wUl join the Church of England.
The tropical islands are stiU inhabited by the native
races, but beyond them he Austraha and New Zealand,
mostly in the South Temperate zone, and within ten days'
steam of India or China ; while in the North Temperate
zone Ues America, whose western shore is within a fort
night. The occupation of these large areas by white men
has given Christian missions two new starting-points. A
word is due to the aborigines of the southern lands.
Sixty years ago it seemed as if the Maoris were won for

206 Replanting in Asia
Christ, and that a new and stalwart race was a trophy
of the Gospel. But the behef arose that they were the
true Israel, and their worship and customs were reorgan
ised on this basis, unfortunately without proper respect
to the second and seventh commandments. In this
movement the old heathen priests had no smaU share,
and the defection illustrates how the old root springing
up may defile again. Then came Mormon missionaries,
who also depleted the Christian ranks, tiU the outlook
seems most depressing, as a race once noble withers away
in vice and mistaken rehgion. Here we have a terrible
object-lesson that, whUe the establishment of a native
Church is to be aimed at, there is grave danger in removing
too quickly those who are experienced in the vicissitudes
of the past and the heresies of the present.
In Tasmania the aborigines are extinct. In Austraha
the black-feUows are being driven back by the advance
of the white man, and the dissolution of their elaborate
tribal and totem system is not adequately counteracted
by the energetic presentation of the Gospel. On a few
reservations mission work is done, but the roaming tribes
are practicaUy untouched, and their extinction seems
within short distance. The case is different in Papua,
which hes in the tropics, and here success is won as in
the adjacent Dutch islands.
New Zealand now is the home of some eight hundred
thousand whites, whUe three and a half millions more
are near the coast-line of AustraUa, with unlimited room
for expansion. AU the British Churches are represented

The Southern Cross 207
here, and there is a movement for uniting the sections
of Protestantism. Meantime there are several missionary
societies, maintaining more than three hundred workers
abroad, and employing about five thousand native
converts to extend the Gospel. Most of these labour in
India or China, though the islands of the vicinity, and
even Africa, receive attention.
3. The New Forces in India
Little the present careth for the past,
Too httle, 'tis not well !
For careless ones we dwell
Beneath the mighty shadow it hath cast.
Our sword hath swept o'er India ; there remains
A nobler conquest far,
The mind's ethereal war,
That but subdues to civilise its plains.
Let us pay back the past the debt we owe,
Let us around dispense
Light, hope, intelligence,
Till blessings track our steps where'er we go.
L. E. Landon.
The native TamU Church of St. Thomas has lost
its missionary tradition ; and despite the interest shown
in it, first by the Roman Cathohcs and then by the Church
Missionary Society, it prefers an isolated existence by its
stiU lagoons, where no current of life invigorates it, or stirs
it to arise and preach.
The labours of the Danes and Germans during the
eighteenth century were in the South, the land of the

208 Replanting in Asia
Dravidians, with their spacious and ornate temples,
sheltering in their inmost precincts some elephant or
peacock to receive the popular worship and gifts. But as
the power of Haidar Ah waned, the pohtical attention of
Europe was diverted by Chve to the plains of Bengal,
and a new field opened for Christian missionaries. The
turning point is weU marked by the death of Schwartz in
1798 a.d., and the arrival next year of four EngUshmen to
reinforce Carey. The British authorities at Calcutta
had been discussing the question of missions, and though
they tolerated Kiernander and some devoted chaplains,
they declined to further this new departure, so that the
headquarters were placed at Serampur, under the pro
tection of the Danes, as in the south. Here the translating
of the Bible was pushed ahead on a scale that has cast
into the shade the Dutch and Danish pioneering. Within
a generation, portions of the Bible in more than forty
Asiatic dialects were translated and printed on the Seram
pur press. Schools were planted, native literature was
fostered, Western agriculture and horticulture were intro
duced ; and whUe the Enghsh at length honoured and
supported the work of these humble artisans, Denmark
granted a charter for a university in aU branches of
learning, the first to be estabhshed in Asia. After many
years of neglect, this seems likely now to be utilised for
Christian education.
The enterprise was not confined to a httle rural town.
Carey was a statesman, and planned Oriental missions
thence ; while he at once divined the evils of caste, and

Hinduism 209
excluded it from the Church, he devised expeditions,
like Asoka of old, to occupy Bengal, Burma, Orissa,
Bhutan, and the Ganges vaUey. China being stiU sealed,
every available island on the route thither was supphed
with workers. The great zeal and success of the Baptist
band kindled the emulation of others, and into India
poured reinforcements of aU denominations and from
many countries. To-day more than a hundred societies
from every department of Protestant Christendom are
represented by four thousand white workers, super
intending or aided by twenty-five thousand natives,
who can gather four hundred and twenty thousand
communicants. The problem is harder than it was twelve centuries
ago ; duties that are neglected seldom become the easier.
Then there was but one organised rehgion to deal with ; to
day the situation is more complex. The original Buddhism
is to be found, migrated to Burma and Ceylon, where it
has combined with native elements and produced types
of rehgion deeply rooted. The Dutch were unable to
effect much, and to-day evangelistic methods do not seem
to attract, though educational advantages seem to appeal
to the upper classes.
Millions of people of aU races are to be classified as
" Hindus," though this most elastic term tells nothing
with certainty except that cow-killing is a sacrilege, and
that there is a caste system, with the Brahman at the
head, revered almost as a god. At one end of the scale
may be found phUosophers whose pantheism nearly

210 Replanting in Asia
excludes real rehgion ; at the other are mere beast-wor
shippers, who verify the old thought that they become
like to what they adore. Yet perhaps it is fair to refer
to the Ramayana and the Maha, Bharata, the Puranas,
and the Tantras as showing the atmosphere of Hinduism.
This is what wUl be found in two households out of every
three throughout the land, with the women engraining
superstition and magic into their impressionable children.
Idols and pilgrims on aU hands attest the hold on the
people of this conglomerate of faiths. Twice have
Christian elements been absorbed, and twice have they
disappeared in the great slough. When the engineers
were crossing Chat Moss, they almost lost heart as the
bog engulfed their material, tiU it occurred to them to
drain away the water as weU as to deposit baUast.
The fetid mass of Hinduism is aheady being drained of
its most impure and repulsive elements ; widow-burning
is now punished as murder, and we may presently see
the exception abohshed which tolerates impurity and
obscenity when in the cause of rehgion.
WhUe caste holds together large groups, the famUy
system binds together others within the caste, so that an
individual life is impossible, and few dare even to think
for themselves. Jacob kept Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and
ZUpah in different tents ; had he put them aU under the
rule of Rebekah, we can see the shght chance he would
have had to confiscate the ancestral teraphim, and to
introduce a purer faith. Add to these forms of associa
tion the rising patriotism that leads many Hindus to

The Power of Poetry 211
agitate against the foreign dominion, and the difficulties
seem to multiply.
One obvious line of approach has been seldom taken with
any perseverance — religious poetry. Students of early
history remember that Arius won his foUowers by popular
hymns ; the influence of Csedmon and Aldhelm in England
was more pervasive if less conspicuous than that of
Augustine and Aidan ; the German poem of the HeUand
and the Huguenot verses of Clement Marot were distinctly
successful missionary enterprises. So has it been in
India. The two great epics, it can hardly be repeated too
often, are the popular Bible of the Hindus. What we have
done on these lines is as yet feeble. A few BengaU baUads
and an Uriya poem on the life of the Saviour represent
nearly aU that has been accomplished. When some native
poet shaU arise to write a Paradise Lost or a Paradise
Regained, or to dream of an Indian Pilgrim's Progress
from the City of Destruction, or to sing of the Holy War —
then aU experience shows that we are warranted in expect
ing God wiU bless the power of sacred song.
Hinduism is a subtle enemy, capable of swaUowing
anything ; and this eclectic spirit is congenial to most of
the inhabitants of India, insomuch that the very Mushms
in their lower ranks are organised on caste lines. The
arrogance of the Brahman is chaUenged by some mission
aries with even loftier pretensions; for though the
Brahman claims to be divine, he has never ventured to
claim that he makes his god. Such sacerdotalism, how
ever, though practised in the name of the Church, is utterly

212 Replanting in Asia
foreign to real Christianity, and the meek and lowly
spirit is urged by our Master ; while the doctrine that
not Brahmans alone, but aU Christians are twice-born,
that not Brahmans alone, but aU Christians are priests to
God, robs them of the uniqueness of their claims.
Missionaries who care httle for the past, and think that;
as India has no written history, it too is independent of
the past, wiU carry on their work with an unconscious
appeal to the Bible as if what is authoritative to them
wiU carry weight with the native. Their teaching can
hardly strike root into the past, and for good or for evU
is a new thing. Others have sought to graft theirs on to
the old stock of the TamU Church, and vivify this shoot
fro^rn the ancient Syrian root on the Euphrates ; but this
seems no more responsive to the Church Missionary Society
than to the Roman Cathohcs. Dr. Grierson is now urging
that we attend to the modifications produced in Hinduism
by ancient Christianity, and seek to modify stiU further
tiU the error is expelled. To this some reply that there
is no such filiation as he aUeges ; but whatever the origin,
it can hardly be said that the suggestion as to future
method is mistaken, for Paul at Athens did not hesitate
to reinforce his message by an appeal to what their own
poets had said.
A third great section of the people is Muslim. On the
Ganges these formed a ruling race tiU the British advent,
and this memory is ever in their subconsciousness. Con
sider also that Mushm law is recognised and administered ;
recoUect that by that law — if pressed strictly, as it is not

Kill Goliath with his Sword 213
here — the conversion of a Muslim is a crime punishable
with death ; add the intense pride that causes a true Mushm
to look down on even the haughty Brahman : so we see
a net of difficulties in the missionary's path. The Roman
CathoUc is further handicapped by what the Mushm con
temptuously styles his idolatry, which for three centuries
has barred aU access. Not adaptation is needed here,
but inteUigent opposition. The dangerous antagonist of
Christianity is the man who knows his Bible and the
standard works of theology ; and if he is an apostate
minister he becomes reaUy formidable. So what is needed
here is the man who knows his Qur'an thoroughly, able
to cite chapter and verse in the Arabic, ready to refer to
the Muhammadan theologians. A most effective hne
of attack was indicated in a httle tract by Dr. Rouse,
taking the statements in the Qur'an as to Muhammad
and Christ, and comparing the two as depicted on this
authority unchaUenged by the Mushms.
The rest of the people — not Buddhist or Hindu or MusUm,
some ten miUions in aU — are of low Animist practice.
It is from these races that converts are chiefly won ; but
unfortunately they are being won by each of the three
great rehgions. The Hindu yogi goes to a hiU tribe and
slowly impregnates it with the conception of caste. The
Mushm faqir wiU take over the local god as an orthodox
saint, and induce the viUagers to be circumcised, then
insist on their keeping the whole law. The Buddhist
monk wiU win a few lads to put on the yellow robe and
study awhile at the pagoda. It is true that Christian

214 Replanting in Asia
missionaries find their easiest field here ; but we must not
blink the fact that aU the lower castes, many of the BengaU
Muslims, and aU the Burmese Buddhists, are only the
descendants of converted Animists ; even to-day each of
these three rehgions wins more converts than does Chris
tianity. This, then, is the most pressing problem of the moment,
to gain aU these ten millions before they are absorbed by
the other faiths. Of every hundred recruits to Christianity
in India, ninety-five seem to be from these peoples, or from
those who have but lately passed over to form a low
caste. Thinkers on the spot ask that we cease reinforcing
the men who batter at the stone waUs of Islam and caste,
and that we treble or quadruple those who are invited
in at the open gateways of the out-caste villages. Again
and again missionaries are appealed to for teachers who
wiU guide the earnest inquirer, but they have not the
men to send. It would seem time to warn solemnly the
unheeding Muslim and Hindu : " Seeing you judge your
selves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the hUl
tribes ! " When salvation comes to these, and the despised
aborigines rise into new manliness, the others may be pro
voked to emulation. Meantime delay may result in the
last remnant becoming inoculated and unresponsive to
Christian invitation.
The pohtical situation has greatly changed, and presents
a close analogy to that of the Roman Empire when Chris
tianity was in its early days. The only European Power
that has importance in India is that of Britain, which

State Neutrality 215
directly governs 231,000,000 out of 294,000,000. In its
territories there is fuU Uberty of propagation, and the
workers can claim and receive protection so long as they
abstain from pubhc outrage on other religions. If there is
no active support, there is, at least, a free field and abun
dant opportunity. The native rulers of the rest of the
land are aU bound by treaties to Britain ; but in some
cases they have the right to exclude aU foreigners, and
they do actuaUy forbid missions in a very few cases. The
importance of this field is weU recognised, as the presence
of more than three thousand foreign missionaries attests.

4. The Outlook in China
Where are the mighty forests,
And giant ferns of old,
That in primeval silence
Strange leaf and frond unrolled ?
Not lost ! For now they shine and blaze,
The hght and warmth of Christmas days.
Where is the seed we scatter,
With weak and trembling hand,
Beside the gloomy waters,
Or on the arid land ?
Not lost ! For after many days
Our prayer and toil shall turn to praise.
F. R. Havergal.
Modern China presents very different problems. The
flowery kingdom has been evangehsed by the Persians,
who erected the tablet at Si-Ngan-Fu, again by the
Persians in the wake of the Mongols, by the Itahan friars

216 Replanting in Asia
overland, and again by the Jesuits from the coast. After
four successes came four faUures ; then a century ago
Protestantism made its appearance in the person of Robert
Morrison. Presently from Canton and Serampur appeared
two Chinese Bibles, and the note was struck that inter
ested a hterary nation. Other ports were reluctantly
opened, and the inland territory is at last legahsed for
missionary travel and residence.
Two national characteristics have to be most seriously
reckoned with — the educational system, the patriotism ;
whUe there is hardly any real rehgious difficulty. Until
the last three years, education was entirely on classic
literature ; mathematics, art, science, medicine, etc., were
either utterly ignored or studied on the lines laid down
centuries before. Now the whole curriculum is changed,
and Western learning is made the qualification for office.
The opportunity is tremendous, and is fleeting. In ten
years China wUl have her own teachers of the new subjects ;
but at this moment she must borrow them, or send her
students abroad. Unless Christians rise to the occasion,
white men who are indifferent to rehgion may train atheist
teachers ; or Japan may supply an inferior article that is
a colourable imitation of what is needed. We have the
invitation to mould the leaders of a nation ; India caUs
us to the lowest classes, China to the highest.
The Chinese are intensely patriotic, and for this reason
have rejected or extirpated the Gospel in the past ; we
are without excuse after the Boxer riots if we fail to learn
the lesson. They keenly resent foreign interference,

No Active Religion 217
whether as taking commercial concessions or extra-ter
ritorial rights, or leased districts, or spheres of influence.
In their own estimation their civilisation is superior to
ours in essentials, although they can borrow from us
some of the manual arts. If we faU to comprehend this
attitude and adjust ourselves to it, we only prepare
a recurrence of the catastrophes which have aheady
overtaken missions.
There is no aggressive rehgion to encounter. Taoism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism make no progress, and
barely offer any resistance ; while even Islam, elsewhere so
militant, is content to Uve in Chinese fashion, and let
hve. The real difficulty on the rehgious side is the omni
present superstition, which seems a rank undergrowth
persisting through all changes and under all nominal
faiths. The one higher type that is formidable is the
worship of ancestors, which is observed in every home,
but affords no social bond in the village or town. Honour
to father and mother, is a duty of Christians as weU as
Jews ; pride in ancestry may inspire to noble life, but
beyond this it is dangerous to go in meeting the Chinese ;
and the line of approach would seem to be to raise their
veneration from earthly fathers to the Father in heaven.
The Jesuit compromise is not adopted by Protestants.
Confucianism is, in truth, not a rehgion, but rather a
code of manners. It has successfuUy blended with other
rehgions, and can doubtless blend with Christianity.
Nor does there seem any reason why it should not ; for
there is nothing really antagonistic to Christian principles

218 Replanting in Asia
in the teachings of the Chinese sage, though, of course,
he faUs short of the standard held up by Christ.
The Chinese are for the moment ready to welcome
Western teachers, and emphasise their desire for educators
and medical men, though the response is hardly equal to
the demand. Moreover, there is aheady disiUusionment,
and some foresee that they wiU be flung aside Uke squeezed
oranges, so prefer to extricate themselves from a false
position. So rapid are the changes just now that experi
enced men find the kaleidoscope has taken a fresh turn
during a short furlough, and wonder whether the opened
doors are aheady closing.
Meantime the missionaries lay the greatest stress on
personal dealing. Some find that in an obscure home
they can welcome many a Nicodemus ; others invite
themselves to the house of a Zacchaeus, or inquire who in
a city is worthy, and try to meet his needs. Then comes
the stage when the natives take up the work, and it spreads
from house to house hke strawberry-runners. The elders,
who in Chinese society receive such deference, find pre
cedents in the Acts for their becoming guides, and so a
native Church spreads over the countryside.
Thoughtless reproduction of our developed Western
customs has burdened many native churches with the
support of pastors. Experience of financial strain and
suspicion of mercenary motives has led to a closer study
of the New Testament, and in more and more places to
the shepherding of the flock by an unpaid committee of
natives, supervised at present by foreign organisers.

The Fifth Opportunity 219
The awful scandal of the Opium Traffic seems at last
about to disappear, and missionaries wiU no longer be
handicapped by this evidence that white men are not aU
possessed of the spirit of Christ. If the opportunity of
these few years can be seized, then the splendid tenacity
of the race, which was exemplified on a smaU scale when
the recent riots did not cause apostasy or extinction, may
avaU to produce a strong and sturdy branch of Christendom
in this populous land.

5. The Value op Japan
These shores forsake, to future ages due ;
A world of islands claims thy happier view,
Where lavish Nature all her bounty pours,
And flowers and fruits of every fragrance showers.
Japan behold : beneath the globe's broad face
Northward she sinks, the nether seas embrace
Her eastern bounds. What glorious fruitage there,
Illustrious Gama, shall thy labours bear !
How bright a silver mine, when Heaven's own lore
From pagan dross shall purify her ore. Camoens.
Japan is a modern mission field with not fifty years
of work from which to augur its future, indeed with only
a third of a century since edicts against Christianity were
sUently removed as obsolete. When the Roman Cathohc
missionaries re-entered the empire, they certainly found
survivals of the early Jesuit endeavour ; but they barely
lead even now with a community of fifty thousand. It
deserves notice that the immobUe Russian Church

220 Replanting in Asia
has for once undertaken foreign work, and with five
hundred native agents has brought together some twenty-
five thousand converts. This is thoroughly abnormal, and
the recent war is not hkely to increase the facilities for
this section of Christendom.
Japan was forced open by the United States, and
Christian Americans rose to the responsibUity by pro
viding most of the seven hundred labourers who to-day
have gathered fifty thousand converts into native churches,
many of them men in the front rank of thinkers and
statesmen. The rehgions in possession were Shinto and Buddhism.
The former even as restored hardly dare caU itseU a
rehgion, though it expresses the ancient faith and prac
tice ; perhaps its strength to-day is in its intense patriot
ism, which impels a man to face aU risks on behalf of his
land and his Mikado. Add to this the ancestor-worship
which prevails in most famines, and we have two familiar
factors which must be recognised, transformed, and taken
up into any Japanese Christianity. The fortunes of
Buddhism here Ulustrate weU the versatUe and imitative
propensities of the people. It spread over the land,
amalgamating with the native customs, tiU the Buddhists
of the mainland viewed the result askance. A revival of
Shinto seemed to dethrone it, but the monks prove them
selves ready to lay hands on anything if only they can
preserve their predominance. If, then, it seems to the
authorities that Japan can only secure her place in the
family of Western nations by adopting Christianity,

Hesitating Thomases 221
officiaUy or semi-officiaUy, the great body of Buddhist
monks wiU have to be seriously reckoned with as
likely to try and capture all the machinery of the
Church. A great blow has been struck at their influence by rules
which bar out from the pubhc schools aU reUgious teaching.
They have not the zeal to found their own, while the
mission schools are steadily training thousands of pupils
on Christian hnes. As Japan needs no industrial or
medical missions, the other chief avenue to success is the
simple method of preaching or of social intercourse. There
are serious defects in the national character, of truth, depth,
honesty, and purity ; and some observers fear that these
wUl miUtate against the adoption of Christianity. But
the message of Jesus Christ is precisely that His grace
will supply whatever is lacking. Dr. WiUiam Eliot
Griffis, who has had much to do with education for
the Government, and so is competent to form a sound
estimate of the outlook, takes a somewhat hopeful
view : —
" I beheve that the Japanese will be a great Christian
nation, because they are the type of men who first imitate
in order to master ; then reflect and compare ; then take
out what is vital and harmonise it with their own spiritual
life — or rather, harmonise their own spiritual life with
what is vital to Christianity. Of course, the growth wiU
be very slow. AU the talk about the Japanese adopting
a state rehgion is perfect nonsense. Christianity in
Japan has a vital and normal growth, and the Japanese

222 Replanting in Asia
are mastering the true spirit of Christianity. They are
more desirous of finding out what Jesus taught than aU
that has been added to Christianity ; and they want to
be independent of aU foreign control. They claim the
right of learning from Christ directly, and doing what we
have done, namely, put Christianity into the form best
suited to the national life. This does not mean that they
wiU not warmly and gratefuUy accept the teaching,
advice, and help of foreigners ; but they are determined,
for the most part, that the native Church organisation
shaU be Japanese, not Yankee or British or German.
There seems to me very httle hope for EngUsh, Scottish,
or American religion in Japan. But for the rehgion of
Jesus Christ, suited to the Japanese mind and land,
there are hopes that remind me of an unclouded
sunrise." There may then arise a new Oriental Church, appreciat
ing features in the Gospel which are in the shade for us,
and practising on lines which we have dismissed as merely
ideal. If in any way, or from any motive, there arise a
strong Christian Church in Japan, this island empire
wiU have to be reckoned on as the nearest and most im
portant base of operations on the great and trustworthy
nation of China, now slowly girding herself to take some
active share in the world's history. Already, indeed, the
students of India have been impressed by a deputation of
Japanese, who showed that Christianity is not a rehgion
for foreign rulers alone, but also has elements that com
mend it to Asia.

Muhammad or Christ? 223

6. The Cradle op Christendom
The pale-faced Frank among them sits ; what brought him from
afar ?
Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches skill in war;
One pearl alone he brings with him, the Book of Life and Death ;
One warfare only teaches he, to fight the fight of faith.
And Iran's sons are round him, and one with solemn tone,
Tells how the Lord of Glory was rejected by His own ;
Tells from the wondrous Gospel, of the trial and the doom,
The words Divine of love and might, the scourge, the cross, the
tomb. Alford.
Westward we reach again Persia, Arabia, and Turkey-
in-Asia, now aU Mushm. Here are sprinkled thinly
over the land the few remnants of once mighty Churches,
which Rome and Canterbury and Moscow are seeking to
influence, but which seem cowed by misfortune and quite
unable to arise and preach the Gospel. Once it went to
India, which to-day holds some sixty mUlions of Muslims ;
once it went to China, which to-day holds thirty miUions ;
once it went to Central Asia, where to-day Russia rules
fifteen miUions. Now the Christians here are submerged
beneath thirty mUhon Mushms, under Mushm rulers,
where Muslim laws are in force, so that direct propagation
of the Gospel is iUegal, and where massacre of Christians
is frequent. The cuckoo of Islam has usurped the nest of
Christendom, and aU but emptied it of its natural inhabi
tants. The land of Abraham, Rebekah, and Rachel, the
land over which Ishmael wandered, the land where Israel
wrestled with God and prevailed, the land that sheltered

224 Replanting in Asia
Joseph and a greater than Joseph, the land whence Cyrus
came to free the captives of Babylon — aU these lands are
to-day the citadel of Islam. Christian Antioch and Alex
andria and Ephesus and Babylon have been supplanted
by Mushm Damascus and Cairo and Smyrna and Baghdad,
which with Teheran and Cabul aU look up to Mecca.
Such facts bring us face to face with the deeper problem
of Islam, not simply viewed as a rival missionary force,
but as a possible field of missionary effort.
The progress of Islam has slackened, if not stopped.
She rehed first on her sword, and her story avouches afresh
that they who take the sword shaU perish by the sword.
In response to the Berber attack upon Spain, Spanish
mihtary orders were formed and regained the Peninsula
for Christendom. French crusades to Egypt and Tunis
taught the MusUms that they were not invincible, and
during last century the pohtical power passed from Islam
in hah the north coast of Africa. Beyond the Black
Sea and in Central Asia the Muslims have passed under
the yoke of the Muscovite. The empire of the Mughals in
India feU to pieces, and no Mushm ruler sits on his divan
there without a British officer in the background. Even
on the Danube the Crescent has ceased to shine, and barely
three miUions of MusUms still cling around the northern
shores of the Mgean. PohticaUy Islam is a waning force,
nor are its rulers more united than the monarchs of Chris
tian Europe.
She has taken to more peaceful methods, and has found
a son of Christian parents to boast of the preaching of

Islam Vulnerable 225
Islam. Admittedly some progress has been made, and is
stiU being made, where this preaching is to races lower in
the social scale ; but the adoption of this agency is a tribute
to the vitality of Christian methods. Islam has in some
quarters lost confidence in herself, and Doctor MiUer
declares : "A very significant change has perceptibly
come over the Moslem in West Africa ; I believe the time
is ripe for a tremendous propaganda to a broken-spirited
but stiU proud people." *
Experience attests that we are mistaken in thinking
that the inoculation against Christianity is perfect. The
Malays of Java and Sumatra are being rapidly reclaimed
from Islam and won for Christ. India has yielded many
converts, and Persia also. Egypt itself has seen a student
at Al Azhar confess Jesus. That Christianity has some
thing attractive and noble let Bosworth Smith, a friend of
Islam, testify : " The rehgion of Christ contains whole
fields of morality and whole realms of thought which are
aU but outside the rehgion of Muhammad. It opens
humility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice
of self to man's moral nature ; development, boundless
progress to his mind." On the other hand, hsten to a few
recent estimates of Islam, not from missionaries, but from
men of the world who have seen it at close quarters ; the
names of Palgrave, Stanley, Lane-Poole, and Colvin should
carry weight : —
" Islam is in its essence stationary." 2 "As a social
1 The Mohammedan World of To-day, p. 49.
2 Central and Eastern Africa, vol. i. p. 372,
16

226 Replanting in Asia
system Islam is a complete failure." * "A scheme of
social hfe which rests for its authority on the unfruitful
traditions of doctors of divinity. . . . does not admit of
sustained and continuous progress. Every step forward
is barred by some ancient ordinance claiming Divine origin,
or the supreme authority of tradition. There are the gross
evils of sanctioned concubinage and of polygamy, with their
baleful effect on the home-life and character of the famUy
and on the education of chUdren ; the seclusion of women,
with aU that it implies — both for those who are immured
and for the sex from whose social intercourse is excluded
the most softening and humanising element avaUable to
it. The divine ordinance 2 of slavery must be reckoned
with, which degrades the dignity of labour and of industry,
no less than the ideal of humanity. FinaUy, there is the
reluctance of the fatalist to improve upon the position
designed for him by his Creator. . . . The majority of the
other native inhabitants " of the southern Sudan, " though
professing Islam, are httle better than their brethren.
Ignorance and superstition characterise the Sudan as a
whole." 3
In face of this we need to be reminded by Professor
Lansing that " the doctrine of fatalism commonly accred
ited to Islam is not one half so f atahstic in its spirit and
operation as that which for thirteen centuries has been
practicaUy held by the Christian Church as to the hope
of bringing the hosts of Islam into the foUowing of Jesus
1 Selections. * i.e., ordained by Muhammad's god.
3 Making of Modern Egypt, pp. 409, 368.

Laymen Wanted 227
Christ." x The practical question is, along what hues
can we hope to approach, especiaUy in these lands where
Mushm law can be enforced at the wiU of Sultan or Shah 1
Since direct evangelism is iUegal, legal methods deserve
first consideration. Preaching the Gospel is indeed the
command of Christ ; and in face of that it is not true that
the law of Muhammad enforced by the power of any
Muslim state is of any authority. But a wise man will
ponder carefuUy whether in any given circumstances he
is justified in defying the local law, at the risk of pre
judicing his cause, losing his hfe, and hindering the labours
of others who in their own way are unmolested.
Obviously, the chief work, that will excite little or no
opposition, is that of laymen and of women. The teaching
of the past is clear on this point. Francis of Assisi was
a layman ; he not only founded an enthusiastic society
of laymen who within forty years had penetrated North
Africa and the limits of China, but he in person went to
Egypt and spoke of Christ to the Sultan. Ramon Lull
was a layman, one of the greatest missionary statesmen
that the world has known, and he, too, went once and
again to tell of the Saviour at a stronghold of Islam.
The layman escapes the scorn and hatred that the Muslim
feels for all priests, which even a Protestant minister may
easily incur. He is a living example that true Christen
dom recognises the priesthood of all believers, and that
this priesthood expresses itself in aid for aU.
Mackay of Uganda found that even among the Arabs
1 Quoted in Zwemer, Arabia, the Cradle of Islam, p. 392.

228 Replanting in Asia
he was able to work, and his industrial occupations gave
him a standing that no ordained missionary would have
attained. He urged that we should no longer be content
with racing against Islam, but should directly attack
her system. His experience warrants us in ranking
highly the service which Christian craftsmen can render
to the less educated Mushms.
Medical science has never flourished among them, and
in the Arabian Nights we find that the doctors were
usually Christian. From every part of the Mushm field
comes testimony that surgeons are as acceptable to-day,
and that, as in the practice of our Saviour, the healing
of the body can prepare for the heahng of the soul. In
such fanatical lands as Morocco, Persia, and Afghanistan,
hardly any other form of work seems safe.
Literary effort is under no ban; even as early as 830 a.d.
a Christian apology was circulated at the court of Baghdad.
The printing-press to-day opens the way for this form of
propaganda, and nobly has it been used in late years.
In the districts where once the Septuagint, the Latin
and the Syriac Bibles were produced, there is now avail
able a classical Arabic Bible from the preys' of Beirut,
which also pubhshes books both apologetic and dogmatic,
written expressly for Mushms. Some workers are even
hardy enough to translate the Qur'an into various ver
naculars, that the ordinary man may read it and recognise
how much rubbish it contains. AU agree that the need
in literature is a sympathetic spirit, ready to acknow
ledge and to use the truth that Islam holds.

Woman's Work 229
As a correlative to literature comes education. This
is often undertaken by ministers, but it is most instructive
to find the Rev. W. H. T. Gairdner, of Cairo, recognising
' fully that in many ways laymen would have a better
chance than we have," * and advocating lectures on
moral, historical, scientific, and social subjects. Let us
not forget that when the classic learning of the Museum
at Alexandria was rivalled and excelled by Christian
teachers, the first of these showed his interest in foreign
missions by a tour to India, while another, the great
Origen, won his fame while content to be a layman. In
Persia the same agency is found most effective, while in
Turkey nothing is found to equal it. While the great
CoUeges of Constantinople, Beirut, and Urumiah remind
us of the height to which this work may be developed,
it is to be remembered that the illiterate classes owe all
their opportunities to missions, either in Christian schools,
or to Mushm schools founded in rivahy. Egypt is thus
being transformed, and one mission alone caters for two
thousand five hundred pupils.
If all this Ues open for the layman, his sisters find similar
openings in hospital and school, and also have their
unique scope in the home. Muslim women are secluded
and grow up in ignorance and idleness ; visits are their
chief recreation, steady visitation by Christian women
is generally welcomed. Such intercourse in harem and
zenana is invaluable for its influence on women and on
children at their impressionable age.
i Methods of Mission Work among Moslems, p. 69.

230 Replanting in Asia
The Muslims are naturaUy jealous of the European
Powers on whom they once encroached, and who now
are encroaching on them. Britain, France, Holland,
Russia, and Germany rule over more than two-thirds of
Islam, and are pressing dangerously on the rest ; their
missionaries, therefore, are to a certain extent suspect as
pohtical agents. America is hardly viewed as dangerous
in this way, and it foUows that American missionaries
have certain advantages in Muslim lands ; happily the
great societies have recognised this and acted upon it.
On the other hand, the Cathohc missions are constantly
beset with a corresponding danger ; despite the famous
bonhomie of the French, they sooner or later develop a
double pohtical mission — subjection to the Pope, pre
paration for French dominion. If their plan of cehbacy
enables them to pioneer with great speed and cheapness,
they often are unable to foUow up or retain their initial
success, because they have no home life. It might be
thought that this defect could be offset by the labour of
nuns. But these are by no means as conspicuous on the
mission field as the priests and friars, or as Protestant
zenana workers. Indeed, the whole Romish system is
antagonistic to their independent action ; for it is sacer
dotal, depending upon priests, and no woman can be
a priest. Monks and friars were originaUy laymen, and
by their side could naturaUy grow up corresponding
associations of women ; but the sacerdotal ideal trans
formed the men into priests, and when Loyola founded
his Company of Jesus, all in training for the priest-

The Chosen People 231
hood, he logicaUy enough declined to institute a female
society. This greatest of aU Roman missionary agencies
therefore is speciaUy crippled by lacking aU the feminine
side. Islam is a modified Judaism, and the problem of winning
the one leads us back to where we began, the problem of
winning the Chosen People. Whately and Paley might
see in the preservation of this race only a testimony to
the truth of Christianity ; but the presence of twelve
mUlions of Jews, stiU reading their Law, should set us
asking what God means practicaUy by this remarkable
phenomenon. Eight hundred Christian workers to-day
attest that they accept Paul's hope for the conversion
of his kindred, and labour for it constantly. The tenacity
of Israel under oppression is a marvel ; and when a Jew
recognises Jesus as his Messiah, he is equaUy tenacious
of the new truth. As a rule, he feels it wrong to hide
his light under a bushel, and becomes an earnest preacher
of the faith he once denied.
We are justified in expecting a mass movement of the
Jews, and expecting that this shaU lead directly to the
evangehsation of the world — such was the phUosophy of
Paul. Now, may we not go a step further, and see that
there are special affinities between Jew and Mushm, and
that the Jewish-Christian Missionary has this advantage
over the Gentile, that he is absolutely exempt from the
charges of saint-worship, sacerdotahsm, and idolatry ? If
our hope may justly be that the receiving of the Jew shall
bring life from the dead, then the Jewish hope may justly

232 Replanting in Asia
be that he is caUed to be God's agent in the fulfilment of
Abraham's wish — Oh that Ishmael might hve before Thee !
0 house of Jacob, come,
And walk with us in light :
No more bewildered roam
Like wanderers in the night :
The Hope of Israel calls you near,
And Abraham's Shield, and Isaac's Fear.
Rise, Jacob, from thy woes,
And thy Messiah see :
He Who thy fathers chose
Has not forgotten thee :
At His command, we bid you come ;
Her Israel, Zion welcomes home. Htten.
Here we close our survey of what God has wrought in
these nineteen centuries. Blundering and imperfect are
His agents ; yet through aU the surface mistakes and
faUures, somewhat of the Divine plan can be discerned.
Such plan our Lord may weU expect us to trace ; but
too often He has to ask in sadness, " Do ye not yet
understand ? " The Father of glory is ready to give us
a spirit of wisdom, that having the eyes of our heart
enhghtened, we may recognize the exceeding greatness of
His power. If these pages, with aU their imperfections,
shall prompt any one to study prayerfully for himself
the missions of the past, then that story of God's work
ing can purify motives, enkindle zeal, and send afresh to
the feet of Him who would always delay every would-be
missionary till he receives that infilling of the Spirit that
shall empower and inspire to successful service.

SEVENTEEN CENTURIES OF MISSIONS.

Occupied

Helpers (ani

Opponents).

(and Lost).

A.D.

Bible Versions.
Corporate.
Individual.
30
The Church
Paul, Thomas, etc.
Septuagint
Ephesus, Rome
100
(Roman Empire)
(NERO)
Edessa
Addai, Tatian
Alexandria
Pantaenus
Latin
Carthage
200
(Zoroastrianism)
(Celsus) (DECIUS)
(Porphyry)
Syriac
Armenia
300
(DIOCLETIAN)
Eastern
(Mithraism)
CONSTANTINE
Coptic
Empire
Spain
Martin, Ninian
Armenian
Abyssinia
400
(Manichseism)
Frumentius, Wulf
Gothic
Italy
Cheysostom
Vulgate
Ireland
HONOEATUS
Peshito Syriac
France
500
Persian Church
Columba
Scotland
Scottish monks
Columban, Gall
Arabia
Kentigern
Ethiopic
South
600
Benedictines
Austin,
Germany
Gregory
Cochin
(Islam)
(Muhammad)
(Arabia)
England
Aidan
Qur'an
(Egypt)
North China
700
Boniface
(Africa)
North
CHARLES
. Germany
MARTEL
(Spain)
Tatary
800
CHARLES THE GREAT
Denmark
•
Alcuin
i7
SEVENTEEN CENTURIES

OF MISSIONS— Continued.

Occupied
(and Lost).

Helpers (and Opponents).

A.D.

Bible Versions.

Corporate.
Individual.
Sweden
Anskar
(China)
Moravia
900
Cyril and Methodius
Slavonic
(Tatary)
Bulgaria
Russia
HAAKON
Norway
1000
OLAF
Poland
Crusaders.
Peter the Heemit
THE CID
Pomerania
1100
Knights of St. John
"Wendland
Knights Templars
(Edessa)
Knights of Santiago
Livonia
1200
Order of the Sword
Tatary and
Friars
Francis of Assisi
China
Prussia
Lithuania
1300
(Lamaism)
Ramon Lull
Spain
(All Asia)
1400
(TIMUR)
Henry of
Portugal
Congo (Turkey)
West Indies
Spanish Inquisition
COLUMBUS
1500
Mexico
Philippines
Jesuits
Francis Xavier
Peru, etc. ;
1600
Propaganda
Formosan, Malay
East Indies
Atlantic
New England Co.
John Eliot
Virginian
seaboard
California
Society for Advancing
Schultz
Massachusetts
(Congo)
Christian Faith
Tranquebar
1700
Society for the Prop-
agationoftheGospel
Ziegenbalg
Tamil, Portuguese
1732
open a new era
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
Most of the works mentioned here have been published within
twelve years. A very few pioneers or classics are included. All
are classified to correspond with the divisions of the present work.
GENERAL
1894. R. N. Cost. Prevailing Methods of the Evangehsation of
the non-Christian World.
1895. Allan Menzies. History of Rehgion.
Chalmers Martin. Apostolic and Modern Missions.
1896. R. N. Oust. The Gospel Message.
1900. Mrs. W. W. Scudder. Nineteen Centuries of Missions.
W. N. Clarke. A Study of Christian Missions.
L. C. Barnes. Two Thousand Years of Missions before
Carey.
1901. H. P. Beaoh. Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions.
J. - B. Piolet. Les Missions Catholiques Franchises au
XIX™8 siecle.
G. Warneck. Outline of a History of Protestant Missions.
1904. Encyclopaedia of Missions (Second Edition).
Bishop Montgomery. Principles and Problems of Foreign
Missions.
1905. William Ashmore. Stones in the Rough.
Robert A. Hume. Missions from the Modern View.
H. O. Dwight. The Blue Book of Missions.
Robert E. Speer. Missions and Modern History.
R. T. Stevenson. The Missionary Interpretation of History.
1906. James S. Dennis. Christian Missions and Social Progress
(Three volumes and Statistical Appendix ; begun 1897).
Robert E. Speer. Missionary Principles and Practice.
1907. J. W. Bashford. God's Missionary Plan for the World.
Arthur J. Brown. The Foreign Missionary.
Percy Gardner. The Growth of Christianity.
Bernard Lucas. The Empire of Christ.
R. E. Welsh. The Challenge to Christian Missions.
1908. Archibald M'Lean. Where the Book Speaks ; or, Mission
Studies in the Bible.
Henry C. Mabie. The Divine Right of Missions.

236 Books of Reference

I. ASIA
1. The Jews
1894. F. J. A. Hort. Judaistic Christianity.
1902. Adolf Harnack. Expansion of Christianity.
R. T. Herford. Christianity in the Talmud and Midrash.
1904. E. von Dobschutz. Christian Life in the Primitive Church.
2. Syrians, Armenians, and Persians
1719-1728. J. S. Assemanni. Bibhotheca Orientalis.
1775. J. A. Assemanni . . . De Catholicis . . . Nestorianorum.
1893. Budge. Thomas of Marga's Book of Governors.
1894. William Wright. History of Syriac Literature.
1896. F. C. Conybeare. The Acts of ApoUonius.
1898. F. C. Conybeare. The Key of Truth.
1899. F. C Burkitt. Early Christianity outside the Roman
Empire.
Williams Jackson. Zoroaster, Prophet of Ancient Iran.
1900. Lawrence H. Mills. The Gathas of Zarathushtra.
1903. Butrus ibn Muhaddib. Chronicon Orientale.
1904. F. C Burkitt. Early Eastern Christianity.
1906. R. E. Dastoor. Zarathushtra and Zarathustrianism in
the Avesta. 3. India, South and North
1694. Geddes. History of the Church of Malabar (Cathohc).
1863. Henry Yule. Jordan's Mirabilia Descripta.
1886. Fa Heen. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms.
1888. G. A. Grierson. The Mediaeval Vernacular Literature of
Hindostan.
1890. Archibald Scott. Buddhism and Christianity.
1892. R. S. Copleston. Buddhism, Primitive and Present.
G. M. Rae. The Syrian Church in India.
1896. E. W. Hopkins. The Rehgions of India.
I-Tsing. Record of the Buddhist Rehgion as practised in
India and the Malay Archipelago (671-695 a.d.).
W. Crooke. The Popular Rehgion and Folklore of North
India.
1900. R. C. Dutt. The Great Epics of Ancient India, condensed
into English Verse.
Rhys Davids. Buddhism, its History and Literature.
E. W. Hopkins. The Great Epics of India.
1903. Rhys Davids. Buddhist India.
W. S. C. Tisdall. The Noble Eightfold Path.

Books of Reference 237
1905. Mbdlyoott. India and the Apostle Thomas (Roman
Cathohc).
Murray Mitchell. The Great Religions of India.
1906. G. A. Grierson. Hinduism and its Scriptures.
1907. J. N. Cushtng. Christ and Buddha.
Timothy Richard. Guide to Buddhahood.
Timothy Richard. The Awakening of Faith (on the
Buddha).
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism.
4. China, Buddhist and Confucian
1857. Hue. Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet.
1866. Henry Yule. Cathay and the Way thither.
1877. Rubrouck. Recit de son Voyage.
1880. J. Edklns. Chinese Buddhism.
1883. Wells Williams. The Middle Kingdom.
1895. L. A. Waddell. The Buddhism of Tibet.
J. B. Chabot. Histoire de Yabh-Alaha m.
1896. R. Hilgenfeld. Seliba's Jabalaha in.
1900. The Journey of William of Rubruck (Hakluyt Society).
1903. Cordier. Yule's History of Marco Polo.
Heysinger. The Tao Teh King of Lao Tsze, 604-504 B.C.
1905. E. H. Parker. China and Rehgion.

II. EUROPE
1. The Greek World
1888. Hatch. Organisation of the Early Christian Churches.
1902. Adolf Harnaok. Expansion of Christianity.
1903. J. E. Harrison. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Re
ligion.
T. M. Lindsay. The Church and the Ministry.
1904. E. von Dobschutz. Christian Life in the Primitive Church.
1908. James Adams. The Rehgious Teachers of Greece.
2. The Roman World
1902. Foakes-Jackson. History of the Christian Church.
1903. Franz Cumont. Mysteries of Mithra.
1904. Dill. Roman Society.
3. The Uncivilised Tribes
1860-1870. Montalembert. The Monks of the West.
Chantepie de la Saussaye. Rehgion of the Ancient
Teutons.

238 Books of Reference
1863. G. F. Maclear. History of Christian Missions during the
Middle Ages.
1886. Rhys. Celtic Heathendom.
1893. R. C. Hope. Legendary Lore of the Wells of England.
G. F. Maclear. Conversion of the West.
1894. Quiller-Couch. Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall.
J. T. Fowler. Adamnani Vita S. Columbae (with Intro
duction).
1896. Lina Eckenstein. Woman under Monasticism.
1897. G. T. Stokes. Ireland and the Celtic Church.
Folklore Society. The Procession of the Ceri at Gubbio.
1900-5. H. Taylor. The Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of
Lancashire.
1902. Helnrich Zimmer. Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland.
1903. W. H. Hutton. Influence of Christianity upon National
Character.
1905. J. B. Bury. Life of Saint Patrick.
Charles Squire. Mythology of the British Islands.
1906. F. H. Dudden. Gregory the Great.
1907. H. M. Chadwick. Origin of the Enghsh Nation.
Lawlor & Stokes. Ireland and the Celtic Church : Sixth
edition.

III. AFRICA
General
1891. R. N. Oust. Africa Rediviva.
1898. Burton. Notes to the Arabian Nights.
1899. F. P. Noble. Redemption of Africa.
1900. H. H. Johnston. Colonisation of Africa by Alien Races.
1901. H. R. Fox-Bourne. Blacks and Whites in West Africa.

1. Winning the North Coast
1774. Gibbon. Chapters 41, 43.
1878. Julius Lloyd. The North African Church.
1897. E. L. Butcher. The Story of the Church of Egypt.
2. Progress in Arabia and Abyssinia
1774. Gibbon. Chapters 60, 42.
1855. Thomas Wright. Early Christianity in Arabia.
1889. Robertson Smith. The Rehgion of the Semites.
1892. G. M. Rae. Syrian Church in India.
1900. S. M. Zwemer. Arabia, the Cradle of Islam.

Books of Reference 239
3. Extinction of Christianity in the North
1891. S. T. Pruen. Arab and African.
1902. S. M. Zwemer. Raymund Lull
1904. W. T. A. Barber. Raymond Lull.
1906. Douglas Sladen. Carthage and Tunis.
4. The Rival Missions to the Blacks
1888. Blyden. Islam, Christianity, and the Negro Race.
C. R. Haines. Islam as a Missionary Rehgion.
1889. H. H. Jessup. The Mohammedan Missionary Problem.
1890. W. Muir. Mahomet and Islam.
1895. T. P. Hughes. Dictionary of Islam.
1896. W. S. C. Tisdall. The Rehgion of the Crescent.
T. W. Arnold. The Preaching of Islam.
1897. W. Mum. The Mohammedan Controversy; Life of
Mahomet ; The Caliphate.
1897. E. Sell. Faith of Islam.
1898. Burton. The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam.
A. Geigeb. Judaism and Islam.
H. H. Jessup. Setting of the Crescent and Rising of the
Cross.
1901. W. S. C. Tisdall. Sources of Islam.
E. Sell. Essays on Islam.
1904. W. S. C. Tisdall. Original Sources of the Qur'an.
1905. D. S. Margoliouth. Mohammed and the Rise of Islam.
E. Sell. Historical Development of the Qur'an.
C. Partridge. Cross River Natives : The Primitive Pagans
of Obubura Hill District, Southern Nigeria.
1906. E. Sell. Islam: its Rise and Progress.
W. S. C. Tisdall. The Rehgion of the Crescent.
1907. Dennett. At the Back of the Black Man's Mind.
H. K. Kumm. The Sudan.
Leonard. The Lower Niger and its Tribes.

IV. AMERICA
1846. Marquette. Recit des Voyages et des Decouvertes.
1855. Helps. Spanish Conquest in America.
1877. Weld. Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese
Dominions (Jesuit).
1884. Reville. Ancient Religions of Mexico and Peru.
1894. Brine Lindesay. Travels amongst American Indians.
1896-1901. R. G. Thwaites. The Jesuit Relations and Alhed
Documents.

240 Books of Reference
1899. Folklore Society. Catalogue of the Folklore of Southern
Mexico.
1900. Robert Young. From Cape Horn to Panama.
1901. H. P. Beach and others. Protestant Missions in South
America.
Hubert W. Brown. Latin America.
1902. Charles F. Lummis. The Awakening of a Nation (Mexico).
G. A. Dorsey. The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake
and Elephant Fraternities.
1903. W. E. Curtis. Pre-Columbian Voyages to America.
C. Lumholtz. Unknown Mexico.
1904. Folklore Society. Folklore of the Musquakie Indians.
Hugh C. Tucker. The Bible in Brazil.
Gertrude Wilson. Among the Indians of the Paraguay
Chacos.
1905. C. T. W. Wilson and W. Payn. Missionary Pioneering in
Bolivia.
1906. F. C. Glass. Through the Heart of Brazil.
1907. Francis E. Clark. The Continent of Opportunity: The
South American Republics.
1908. John A. Bain. The Developments of Roman Cathohcism.

V. REPLANTING IN ASIA
General
1895. E. A. Lawrence. Modern Missions in the East.
1898. R. E. Speer. Missions and Pohtics in Asia.
1902. Richard Temple. Progress of India, China, and Japan in
the Century.
1903. R. E. Lewis. Educational Conquest of the Far East.
1907. F. A. McKenzie. The Unveiled East.
1908. W. Remfry Hunt. Heathenism under the Searchlight.

1. The Jesuits
1596. Torselllno. Vita F. Xaverii, qui primus e Sooietate Jesu
in Indium et Japonium evangehum inuexit.
1616. Ricci. Apud Sinas.
1710. Memoirs for Rome concerning the State of the Christian
Religion in China.
1893. D'Orsey. Portuguese discoveries, dependencies, and Missions
in Asia and Africa.
1902. Coleridge. Life of Xavier.

Books of Reference 241
2. The Islands
1806. Ling Roth. The Natives of Sarawak and North Borneo.
1899. John Mathhw. Eaglehawk and Crow: A Study of the
Australian Aborigines.
1900. Walter W. Skeat. Malay Magic.
1903. Arthur J. Brown. The New Era in the Philippines.
W. Campbell. Formosa under the Dutch.
A. W. Murray. Wonders in the Western Isles.
1907. Campbell N. Moody. The Heathen Heart (in Formosa).
1908. Robert Lamb. Saints and Savages in the New Hebrides.
3. India
1891. Monier Williams. Brahmanism and Hinduism.
1897. Murray Mitchell. Hinduism, Past and Present.
1899. A. R. Cavalier. In Northern India.
1903. H. P. Beach. Indian and Christian Opportunity.
J. P. Jones. India's Problem, Krishna or Christ.
J. C. Oman. Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India.
Amy Wilson-Carmiohael. Things as They Are: Mission
Work in Southern India.
1904. H. Haigh. Some Leading Ideas of Hinduism.
1905. W. E. Curtis. Modern India.
Murray Mitchell. Great Religions of India.
Whitney. Artharva-Veda Samhita.
1906. Fielding Hall. A people at School (Burmah).
Amy Wilson-Carmiohael. Overweights of Joy.
1907. J. C Oman. The Brahmans, Theists, and Mushms of India.
E. M. Wherry. Islam and Christianity in India.
1908. Transformed Hinduism. 4. China
1896. China Mission Handbook.
1900. Chang Chth Tung. China's Only Hope.
1901. J. C. Gibson. Mission Problems in South China.
1903. John Ross. Mission Methods in Manchuria.
1904. A. J. Brown. New Forces in Old China.
1907. J. Hedley. Our (M.N.C.) Mission in North China.
J. MacGowan. Sidelights on Chinese Life.
Timothy Richard. Conversion by the Million in China.
Arthur H. Smith. China and America to-day.
Arthur H. Smith. The Uplift of China.
W. E. Soothill. A Typical (Methodist) Mission in China.
Jacob Speicher. The Conquest of the Cross in China.
1908. C. Campbell Brown. China in Legend and Story.
Elliot L. Osgood. Breaking down Chinese Walls. From
a Doctor's Viewpoint.

242 Books of Reference
5. Japan
1894. G. M. Cobbold. Rehgion in Japan.
1901. M. L. Gordon. Thirty Eventful Years.
1903-1905. D. C. Greene. The Christian Movement in relation to
the New Life in Japan.
1905. E. W. Clement. Christianity in Modem Japan.
1908. A. Lloyd. The Wheat among the Tares. Studies of
Buddhism in Japan.
6. Persia, Syria, and Arabia
1892. Maclean and Brown. The Cathohcos of the East and his
People.
1903. W. E. Curtis. To-day in Syria and Palestine.
1904. W. A. Shedd. Islam and the Oriental Churches.
W. S. C. Tisdall. The Leading Mohammedan Objections to
Christianity.
1905. E. M. Wherry. The Muslim Controversy.
7. Islam and Judaism
1897. Mum. The Beacon of Truth.
1899. W. T. Gidney. The Jews and their Evangelisation.
1902. A. E. Thompson. A Century of Jewish Missions.
1906. S. H. Wilkinson. In the Land of the North.
1907. Israel Abrahams. Judaism.
(Esterley and Box. The Modern Synagogue.
Phtltpson. The Reform Movement in Judaism.
A. van Sommer and S. M. Zwemer. Our Moslem Sisters.
W. S. C. Tisdall. The Muhammadan Objections to Chris
tianity.
1908. S. M. Zwemer. Islam, a Challenge to Faith.

Index

Abyssinia, 116 ff., 149.
Addai in Edessa, 15.
Afrahat in Persia, 19.
Africa, 109 ff.
Aidan at Lindisfarne, 85.
Amateur missionaries, 145.
America, 153 ff.
Anatolia or Asia Minor —
influenced by Buddhism, 30.
allied with Europe, 58.
evangelised by a native, 61.
won before Constantine, 67.
subdued by Islam, 98.
Anchieta in Brazil, 155.
Anskar in Norway, 92.
Arabia, 115 ff.
Arabian Nights and Muslim cus
toms, 23, 137, 228.
Arabic Bibles, 25, 99, 119, 122, 228.
Aramaic literature, 15, 17.
Aristides, 62, 111.
Armenia, 16.
Asia, 3 ff., 191 ff.
Asoka, 28, 30.
Australia, 206.
Authority of missionaries, 64,
87, 103.
Avesta, sacred book of Zoroas
trians, 20.
Babylon in Egypt, headquarters
of Coptic Christianity —
Jews converted, 111.
Destroyed by MusUms, 123.
Babylon in Persia, nominal head-
fi Hw, quarters of Asiatic Chris-
inf r™ ""tianity, 20.
Bar-Daisan, the theologian, 15.

Benedict, the monk, 72, 76.
Berbers neglected, 113; and lost,
126.
Bible- derived from Jews, 13, 60.
ancient use, 82, 88, 101, 104.
modern use, 143, 208.
Catholic disuse, 162.
Translations —
Abyssinian, 118.
Arabic, 25, 99, 119, 122, 228.
Chinese, 42, 216.
Coptic, 112, 123.
English, 88.
Formosan, 202.
Gothic, 88, 104.
Latin, 90, 101, 114.
Malay, 28.
Negro, 143.
North India, 204, 208.
Pahlavi, none, 21.
Persic, 22, 26.
Portuguese, 203.
Slavonic, 96.
Syriac, 15, 20.
Tamil and Singhalese, 28, 203.
Tatar, 45.
Bibliography, 235
Boniface, the organiser, 89.
Brahmans or Hindu priests —
adaptive, 17, 31, 198.
advance exclusive claims, 32,
211.
gain North India, 38.
gain South India, 204.
possible friends, 39.
Brazil, 155, 159, 164.
Britain, 73, 77.

244

Index

Buddhism —
origin in India, 29.
its defects, 31, 38.
influence on Christianity, 19.
on Mani, 75.
decay in India, 35.
in Burma, 209.
Ceylon, 202.
China, 41, 217.
Japan, 220.
Tatary, 31.
Tibet, 50.
Burma, 209.
Carey, the strategist, 208.
Carthage won, 113; and lost, 125.
Caste, 204, 211.
Cathohcs needing missions, 173 ff.,
184 ff.
Celibacy —
its origin, 12, 19, 29.
weakness, 20, 229.
in Egypt, 112.
Persia, 19.
Syria, 16.
Ceylon, 202, 209.
Charles the Great, 91, 96, 103, 105.
China, 40 ff., 195, 215 ff.
Clementine Homilies, 7, 9.
Columba in the Hebrides, 81.
Columban on the Continent, 83.
Compromise with heathen cus
toms —
African, 148.
European idolatry, 91, 105.
Greek, 65, 67.
Irish, 80.
Mexican, 167.
Norse, 94.
Spanish, 72.
by Jesuits, 194,-198.
Confucius, 41, 217.
Copts, 111 ff., 122, 124, 149.
Cosmas Indicopleustes,: 27.
Crusades —
of Charles the Great, 91, 96.
Edward I., 46.
Olaf, 92.
in America, 106, 166.
Egypt, 122, 224.
Languedoc, 76, 184,

Crusades —
in Prussia, 97.
Spain, 98, 153, 224.
Syria, 4.
Cuthbert of Northumbria, 86.
Cyrene won, 111, 113; andlost,125.
Cyril and the Slavs, 96.
Danish missions, 204, 207.
" Divine Song," 33.
Dogmas, permanence of form ?
181.
Druids won, 80 ; customs dropped,
86.
Dutch missions, 202, 209.
Ecuador, 168.
Edessa, early centre, 15, 175.
destroyed, 20.
Education —
neglected by Rome, 100, 144.
adopted by Islam, 100, 123, 144.
for Mushms, 229.
in Africa, 113, 144.
America, 158, 166 ff., 174.
Burgundy, 83.
China, 216.
Ireland, 80, 144.
Japan, 221.
Scotland, 82.
Eras of missions, xv.
Europe, 57 ff.
Extension vital to Christianity,

Formosa, 202.
Francis of Assisi, 227.
Francis Xavier, 50, 193, 197.
Friars —
in America, 153, 162, 166.
Asia, 192, 196.
Morocco, 127.
the Philippines, 201.
Frumentius in Abyssinia, 117.
Gaul evangelised, 72, 77, 83.
Geography of missions, xv.
Glass of Brazil, 164, 168, 170.
Goths, 88.
Great Epic, 31 ff., 210.
Greeks, 59 ff.

Index

245

Gregory lUuminator in Armenia,
16.
Gregory Thaumaturgus in Ana
tolia, 65.
Gregory of Rome, statesman, 76,
85, 101.
Grierson's links between modern
Hinduism and Christianity,
33, 212.
Guiana, 174.
Hayti, 165.
Hegesippus, 7, 13.
Hereditary bishoprics —
in Armenia, 17.
Cochin, 28.
Palestine, 8.
Hinduism, once akin to Zoroas-
trianism, 29.
modified by Brahmans, 31.
absorbing Christian elements,
32 ff.
modern, 209.
Iceland, 93.
Idolatry, the old, 91, 101, 120,
166, 196.
the new, opposed by Persia, 22.
in America, 169.
Asia, 40, 213.
Europe, 69.
India, 27 ff., 197, 207 ff.
Industrial work, 102, 158, 163,
201, 228.
Iona, 82, 85.
Ireland, 77.
Islam —
a modified Judaism, 132, 137,
142.
influenced by Zoroastrianism,
23.
by Christianity, 26.
a brotherhood, 121, 139.
its progress, 125 ff., 149.
welcomed by Buddhists, 35.
paralysing Christian missions,
23, 98.
a rival mission, 109 ff.
its rival message, 134 ff.
tolerance, 46, 98, 122.
in China, 217.

Islam —
in India, 212.
Persia, 223.
as a field of missions, 224 ff.
Italy hard to win, 71.
Jamaica, 165.
Japan, 194, 219.
Java, 203, 225.
Jesuits —
in America, 155 ff., 166, 168, 184.
Asia, 191 ff.
Jesus Christ —
primarily the Redeemer, xiii,
5, 12.
a missionary, 5.
training missionaries, xiii, 51.
a teacher, 10.
the forms of history, 13.
Jews, 4-14.
make the great refusal, 6.
their contribution to missions,
10, 180.
missionary pioneers, 11, 15, 59.
in Arabia, 117 ff.
Egypt, 111.
North Africa, 127.
influence the Qur'an, 132, 137.
missions to, 231.
Keltic tribes, 77 ff.
Kentigern in Britain, 81.
Kings converted, 51, 81, 103.
to Buddhism, 28, 30.
Abyssinia, 118.
Armenia, 16.
Cochin, 27.
Ireland, 80.
Muscovy, 96.
Northumbria, 86.
Nubia, 118.
Rome, 66, 74.
Krishna, 32.
Lao Tsze, 42.
Laymen and Islam, 227.
Literature among the —
Chinese, 42.
Greeks, 66.
Indians, 208.
Irish, 82 ff., 88.

246

Index

Literature among the —
MusUms, 228.
Persians, 25.
Loyola, 193.
Lull, 227.
Mackay of Uganda, 227.
Maha Bharata, 31 ff., 210.
Manichseism, 75.
Maoris, 205.
Marquette, 162.
Martin of Tours, 77, 79, 83, 101.
Mecca, pagan, 116; Muslim, 120.
Medical work, 163, 228.
Mexico, 166.
Minim, Christian Jews, 6.
Mithraism, 73 ff.
Mongols —
in China, 44.
Mongolia, 49.
Russia, 97.
Monks —
Buddhist 30, 42.
Manichsean, 75.
Muslim, 147.
evolution of Christian, 78, 178.
in Egypt, 112.
as missionaries, 79, 101.
Monuments —
in India, 28.
China, 43.
America, 83, 157.
Moravia, 96.
Moravians, 130, 154, 174, 199.
Muhammad —
life, 119.
influenced by Jewish Christians,
9.
character, 139.
Native churches, relation to
missionaries —
Africa, 130.
Anatolia, 64.
Britain, 86.
Ireland, 80.
Japan, 195.
New Zealand, 206.
Native ministers, 175.
Africa, 129.
America, 162, 175.

Native ministers —
China, 43, 197.
Europe, 103.
India, 28.
Jamaica, 166.
Pacific, 201.
Nazarenes, 6-9.
" Nestorians," 20, 27. See Persian
Christianity.
New Zealand, 205.
Ninian, 79.
Nobui, 198.
Norsemen, 92.
Nubia, 118, 124.
Officialism, its risks, 13 ff.
Olopun in China, 42.
Organisation of Churches, 180.
African, 114.
Chinese, 218.
Greek, 63.
Jewish, 8, 62.
Roman, 71.
Pacific Islands, 200.
Pahlavi, a Parthian script of
Persian, 22.
in India, 28.
Pantsenus in Baluchistan, 17, 27,
117.
Papua, 206.
Paraguay, 156.
Parsls, 18 ff.
Patriarch of Babylon, 20.
head of Asiatic Christians, 43.
always a subject, 20, 23, 44.
persecuted by MusUms, 46.
despised by Europeans, 48.
ruined by Mongols, 48.
Patrick no missionary, 80.
Persecution by Christians, 66,
74, 91, 99, 112, 118.
Jews, 6 ff., 118.
Muslims, 122 ff.
Rome, 66, 112.
Persian Christianity, 17-26.
missions to India, 31.
China, 42, 44, 45.
Peru, 166, 168.
Pharisees oppose, 6.
Philippines, 201.

Index

247

Philosophers oppose, 65; and
influence, 68.
Poetry —
English, 88.
German, 90.
Indian, 31, 35, 37, 211.
Syriac, 14.
Polytheism —
. American, 167 ff.
Greek, 68.
Indian, 29.
Italian, 72.
Prester John, 45.
Professional missionaries —
a Jewish legacy, 11.
rare in the Middle Ages, 101.
Muslim, 146.
Propaganda, 199.
Protestant missions —
since 1800 a.d., xv.
in Asia, 4, 207 ff.
Prussia, 97.
Qur'an, its origin, 131 ff.
standardised, 121.
a Christian weapon, 213, 228.
Rabbflla in Persia, 20.
Ramanand the Hindi poet, 35.
Red Indians, 155 ff.
Rivalry of missions —
Africa, 114.
Arabia, 117.
Britain, 85.
China, 48.
Moravia, 96.
South Seas, 201.
Spain, 99.
Romanism —
reorganised, 193.
Asiatic, 192.
European, 186.
North American, 183 ff.
South American, 167 ff.
Rome —
evangelised, 70.
evangelising and organising,
85 ff., 113.
Rubruck, 193.
Russia —
evangelised, 96.

Russia —
evangelising, 219.
Sacerdotalism —
in India, 31 ff., 211.
opposed by Muhammad, 135,
227.
cramps women's work, 230.
Saeramentalism from Greeks, 65,
69.
Saint-worship, 68, 136.
Sanusis of the Sahara, 147.
Schwartz in India, 208.
Septuagint —
executed by Jews, 60.
adopted by Christians, 61.
Serampur, 208.
Shinto, 220.
Simplicity, 51.
Slavery —
Christian, 85, 92, 103, 129.
Muslim, 147.
Spanish, 160.
Spain —
evangelised, 72.
lost, 98.
regained, 99, 153.
State influence, 124, 150, 204, 215,
221, 230.
Strategy, 200.
of Carey, 208.
Gregory, 76.
Paul, 51, 60, 231.
in Asia, none, 51.
Europe, 104.
Sumatra, 225.
Sunday schools, 180.
Support of missionaries, 102.
our Lord, 12.
Paul, 62.
Boniface, 90.
Support of Chinese pastors, 218.
Syrian Christianity —
ancient, 14 ff.
modern, 175, 223.
Talmudic view of Jewish Chris
tians, 8.
Tamil Bible, 28, 203.
Tamil Church in Cochin —
founded, 27.

248

Index

Tamil Church in Cochin —
influence in India, 34, 37.
fossihsed, 50, 212.
Taoism —
founded, 42.
altered by Christianity, 48, 50.
stagnant, 217.
Tatars in China, 43.
in India, 31.
MongoUa, 44.
Persia, 46.
Tatian, 15, 62, 90.
Theodore of Constantinople, 118.
Theophilus of Socotra, 117.
Thomas the missionary, 17.
church of, 18, 197.
in Asia, 28 ff., 42 ff.
supine to-day, 207.
Tibet: Buddhist rites from Per
sians, 50.
Timur destroys Asiatic Christi
anity, 49.
Traders and missions, 145, 148,
187, 201, 219.
Training of missionaries —
in Asia, none, 51.
England, 86.
Muslims, 146.
slaves, 85, 92, 103, 129.
women, 86.
modern, 199, 201.
Training of native converts —
China, 43.
Europe, 175.

Training of native converts-
Jamaica, 166.
Paraguay, 162.
Syria, 175.
Tulasi Das, the poet, 35.
Variety desirable, 177.
national basis, 216 ff., 221.
Vedic Hinduism, 29 ; extinct, 39.
Women —
Christianity, 40.
under Buddhism, 38.
Islam, 142.
Mithraism, 74.
trained by Hilda, 86.
as missionaries, 90, 229.
Worship based on synagogue, 13,
180.
Wulf the Goth, 88, 114.
Xavier, 50, 193, 197.
Ximenes, 99.
Yabh-Alaha of Pekin, 45 ff.
Ziegenbalg of India, 204.
Zoroaster the reformer, 18.
Zoroastrianism —
in Arabia, 119.
China, 43.
Persia, 18 ff.
the Qur'an, 133.
leavening Islam, 23.

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