KEEP YOUR CARD IH THIS POGKE1 Books will be issued only on preseii- tatiou of proper library cards* i Unless labeled, otherwise, books mjay be retained for two weeks, subject ' to renewal for ^ like period. Borrowers finding book marked, defaced or mutilat- ed are expected to report same at library desk; otherwise the last borrower will fee held responsible for all imperfections The card holder is responsible for all books drawn on this card. jNo books issued unless fines are paicL Lost cards and change of residence must be reported promptly. PUBLIC mm KANSAS CITY, MO, KEEP YOUR CARP INTHIS POCKET KANSAS CITY, MO. KANSAS CITY, MO PUBLIC LIBRARY MEN AND MISSIONS BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS With a Foreword by John B. Sleman, Jr. Founder of the Laymen's Missionary Movement and with a statistical and historical Appendix compiled by Abigail J. Davies PHILADELPHIA THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1909, by THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1909 To My Two Sons, nmfeltfl mtli ilarltttmm Elto, Who Have Early Learned To Delight in World Maps FOREWORD IT is no mere coincidence that at the time when the whole non-Christian world is awakening to new life and a wider outlook, there should also be a stirring among the men of the churches of the great Christian countries. It must be perfectly evident to the Christian who ponders deeply the happenings of our day, that God intends the marvelous wealth in men and women, in education, in material resources and in highly de- veloped powers of initiative and accomplishment with which He has endowed the Christian nations, to be used in this generation to bear the tidings of the gospel of Christ to every portion of the globe. What other objective is there big enough to over- come in our churches the tendency to selfishness and ease which are the forerunners of utter spiritual decay? The Church needs the dynamic of a great vision to give it the power to grapple with those social and economic problems at home to whose solution it must address itself. Mr. Ellis has interpreted with singular clearness, and with the vividness which always attaches to the faithful statement of great realities, the situation in 5 FOREWORD the world to-day, and the relation of the men of the churches to this fundamental problem of evangeliza- tion. Upon perusing the book one is forced to the con- clusion that only as we are obedient to that last command of the Saviour to " preach the gospel to every creature " will we receive power to finish the work which has been committed to our hands here in the homeland. It is not too much to believe that the reading of this book will mean the spiritual re-birth of many a nominal Christian as he catches a glimpse of the possibilities of his own life in this day of marvelous opportunity. JOHN B. SLEMAN, JR. WASHINGTON, D. C, October 29, 1909. PREFACE FOR a year, recently, it was my business as a secular journalist to look into the entire missionary enterprise, both as a principle and in practical opera- tion. My investigations led me entirely around the world and over the main mission fields. As I critic- ally examined mission schools, mission churches, mission hospitals, and mission evangelistic work often going out into raw heathendom I kept in view the one purpose of telling the truth as I could discover it. I paid my own expenses and held no brief for any cause or organization. Throughout my personal intercourse with hundreds of mission- aries, of many denominational names and of none, I earnestly endeavored to keep an open and un- biased mind, that I might render a fair judgment upon the missionary and his work. Upon returning home I found myself frequently called upon to address city campaigns and national gatherings of the Laymen's Missionary Movement ; so that I have had opportunities for a first-hand study of the latter in many parts of the continent. Out of these two experiences has come this book, which I have tried to make a hand-book for the average layman. In a subsequent volume, " Foreign Missions Through a Journalist's Eyes," I shall en- deavor to portray with more of detail than is pos- 7 PREFACE sible in this one the actual conditions of mission work as I found them. In each case I have imposed upon myself what the discerning will recognize as the severest condition: the production of a book that will bear reading in mission lands by the men and women who know. Wherein my views are not in accord with those of other and wiser men, I can only say that I have tried to "Write the thing as I see it For the God of Things As They Are." My own faith in missions, and in the men of the home churches, has grown stouter with every day of fuller thought and knowledge. W. T. E, SWARTHMORE, PA., September, 1909. CONTENTS I. A MAN AND THE WORLD 9 II. THE AWAKING WORLD 19 III. THE NEW PATRIOTISM 31 IV. A MAN'S JOB 41 V. STORY OF A PERSONAL INVESTMENT 51 VI. SOME THINGS MASCULINE IN MISSIONS .... 61 VII. THE LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT 71 VIII. AFTER INTEREST WHAT? 81 IX. THE FACTS AT FIRST HAND 95 X. SOME DARLING DELUSIONS 105 XI. FIELD PROBLEMS FOR MEN'S SOLVING. ... 117 XII. THE MEN AND THE BOARDS 133 XIII. THE CRITICISM OF MISSIONS 143 XIV. THE MISSIONARY UNDER FIRE 155 XV. LOOKING AT MISSIONS IN THE LARGE 167 XVI. " IN THIS GENERATION"? 181 XVII. BROTHERHOOD A WORLD GOAL 193 XVIII. WHEN THE GOSPEL COMES BACK 207 XIX. THE ULTIMATE ISSUES 219 XX. THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF MISSIONS 229 APPENDIX A 241 APPENDIX B 295 INDEX 309 MEN AND MISSIONS CHAPTER I A MAN AND THE WORLD THE bigness of the modern man and the littleness of the modern world are twentieth century discov- eries. The powers of man have so extended that even a mediocre person nowadays may impress his personality upon races which a few decades ago our fathers regarded as dwelling afar in the realm of romance. To his natural force man has added the steamship, the locomotive, the airship, the submarine cable, the newspaper, and the wireless telegraph. His grasp has grown to world-embracing propor- tions. The twentieth-century man Is the true Co- lossus. A new knightliness and chivalry also possess the modern man. He is interested in the world and its needs. He has ears for the cry of smitten Armenia ; for the famine sufferers in China, India, and Japan ; for the oppressed in Russia; for the victims of earthquake in Italy; for the maimed and oppressed natives on the Congo. Whatever interests humanity is an object of interest to him. The growing 9 MEN AND MISSrONS homogeneity of mankind has begotten a new world- consciousness. Cultured Greece and Rome spoke of other nations as "barbarians"; China called them " foreign devils " ; Japan named them " hairy foreigners " ; but Christendom glimpses, even though faintly, the truth of the universal brotherhood of man. Some persons are lifting up hands of amazement at the sudden appearance throughout civilized lands of legions of men absorbed in the world idea. Many students of current events do not know what to make of this uprising of the laymen. They note great conventions unparalleled for size, character and seriousness in all parts of North America, met in the name of a universally-extended gospel They read, with almost tiresome sameness, of city mis- sionary gatherings which brought together the larg- est and most representative companies of men ever before assembled, in any capacity, in the com- munity. Bewildered, they seek explanation for all this. Whereas, to a Christian, the explanation lies on the surface. It is one with the cause of the world- ferment treated in the ensuing chapter; the Spirit of the living God is moving upon the hearts of men, for His own vast purposes, even as He moved upon the face of the waters at creation. God has been marvelously preparing the world- field ; He would be less than Omniscient if He did not at the same time prepare the Church- force. The laymen have arisen to a new cosmopolitanism be- cause God has summoned them, IQ THE WORLD-MAN Entirely in consonance with this confidence is the truth that many kinds of voices have been em- ployed in this call by the inscrutable Spirit. A growing discontent with overwhelming material interests is one of these. The men of Christendom have been surfeited with things. Grubbing for gold has begotten a profound restlessness. All-engross- ing " business " has starved men's spiritual natures until they pant for water and bread that will re- fresh and satisfy. Even the purely secular leaders of our day record that men are turning with repug- nance from the materialism and littleness of the lives they lead. Jaded, wearied, dissatisfied, they hail this world-interest as an emancipator. This new sense of unity with all mankind, and of the possibility of making their lives count for the whole world, appeals to men's noblest latent sentiments. Beneath the overlay of commercialism, sordidness, self-centredness, and artificial civilization beats a passion for life and conquest for some larger, manlier, diviner expression of one's own person- ality. Happily, too, the spirit of romance never wholly dies in the human breast The quest for the new, the wonderful, the great, which is expressed in the oldest myths and fables and histories, at some time or other lifts its lure before the eyes of every normal man. This is one reason why the world- vision sets to vibrating what Barrie calls " the harp which every man carries in his breast/' The bigness of the world its varied interest its glamor MEN AND MISSIONS and greatness its appealing needs all cry to the knight-errantry of manhood. So it is that the awakened, chivalrous Christian men of the Western world find their gaze bent upon the hoary East with ever-increasing interest and absorption. The Orient is getting big headlines in the daily newspapers. Leaders in commerce and finance are turning their attention to the trade possibilities involved. The foreign offices of the national governments are being readjusted in view of the emergence of the East. Sociologists and political economists meet in largely- attended conferences upon the Far Eastern question. Scholars, statesmen, journalists and other investi- gators make pilgrimage to the Orient. Yet the West's interest in the East is less re- markable than the corresponding interest of the East in the West. The shell of immemorial con- servatism which until recently bound the ancient nations in self-sufficient seclusion has been irrepara- bly cracked. There are no longer any hermit na- tions. The peoples who were once most indifferent to the outside world are now the keenest after a world-knowledge. China, which called herself " The Middle Kingdom " all other nations being the mere inconsiderable outer fringes is fast tak- ing her place as one of the modern powers. She, like Japan and Korea and Turkey and Persia and Egypt, has broken with the past. Her face is toward the West, where, paradoxically, her sunrise lies. The old terms of reproach for peoples of other races can now be heard only in obscure vil- 12 T HE WORLD- MAN lages of China and Japan, and then usually from the lips of mischievous small boys. The very word " foreigner," at least as it is spoken in a tone of self -superiority and disdain, is fast disappearing from all vocabularies. The twentieth century has entered upon a mar- velous era of cosmopolitanism. The life of the nations is so wondrously interpenetrant that it can scarcely be said which is the near and which is the far. Commerce, with its magic fluidity; travel, which has made beaten paths into corners lately remote; education, which has sent Western men and women as teachers to all parts of the East, and established " cosmopolitan clubs " of Eastern stu- dents in many of the universities of the West; the newspaper, which binds the whole earth into a measure of oneness by cords of common intelli- gence all these forces are silently, pervasively at work to break down the barriers that separate man from man and nation from nation. This subtle but strongly- felt spirit has curious by-products. Primarily, it has promoted the spirit of genuine cosmopolitanism and of world-conscious- ness to such a degree that the early years of the twentieth century will probably be known as his- tory's greatest period of worldism. Incidentally, this expansion -of interest and sympathy has given us a new type of newspaper, magazine, and travel book. The former rather childish interest in distant nations, as something merely strange and curious and entertaining, has been succeeded by a deeper MEN AND MISSIONS sense of human interest in all men. Once the differ- ences in outward life formed the subject-matter of most travel-writing; now the essential unity of the human race and the identity of our inter-related problems engage us. The purveyor of oddities has given way to the world political economist. The changeless human problems of the hoary East are now engrossing the up-to-date man of the West, who rightly feels that his own destiny is inextricably bound up with that of the peoples who once seemed so distant and different. In this day of world- compactness "There is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed nor Birth." At a swiftly-increasing number of points the East is impinging upon the West and the North upon the South. The two American continents have for a generation known that a common interest binds them into real unity, and that a common life awaits them both. Across the seas comes the brother-call from Australia, meeting on these shores the same hail from Great Britain, " We be of one blood, brothers all." Britain has alliances with Asia and Europe, and America has strong human ties bind- ing her to every people under heaven. So that to-day the whole family of nations is intricately inter-related and made aware of its blood-oneness and its spirit-unity. No happier expression of present-day world con- THE WORLD-MAN ditions has been uttered than is contained in Joseph Cook's epigram, expressed at the close of the last century: "The nineteenth century has made the world one neighborhood; the twentieth century should make it one brotherhood." The wayfaring man cannot escape the accuracy of that first declara- tion. This is the era of universal propinquity. Everywhere is nigh to everywhere else. India's fer- ment causes assassinations in London; China's poli- tics ramify into New York ; Japan's congestion cre- ates a California crisis; Korea's transformation is responsible for the slaying by a Korean in San Fran- cisco of an American official of the Mikado. The mastery of the Oriental trade stirs four great pow- ers into assorted activities. Illustrative facts to fill a book may be heaped up, Ossa upon Pelion, to demonstrate what is really obvious to-day, that the age of provincialism, insularity, prejudice, and nar- row nationalism has passed. The world is now a neighborhood. Nearness without likeness is perilous. The con- tiguity of the nations has created a whole new set of perplexities and problems. Since we must live close to everybody else, and in constant inter-rela- tions, the necessity for a common spirit and sym- pathy becomes greater. There is no aristocratic suburb of the world into which an exclusive nation may move, free from slums and undesirable neigh- bors. Cheek by jowl we must stand together, bear- ing common burdens, facing common conditions, affected by every neighbor's weal or woe. This is MEN AND MISSIONS obvious situation makes startlingly plain the wisdom of Joseph Cook's second observation: "The twen- tieth century should make the world one brother- hood." It is no exaggeration to say that the supreme political and social and economic question of the hour is how to inaugurate a reign of world brother- hood. Subordinated to this issue although directly affected by it are all such concerns as tariff and taxation, the diminution of armaments, the indus- trial problem, international trade, and the race ques- tion. Every one of these, and all other issues, should be viewed in the light of this vaster, graver, more far-reaching and even more immediate and practical problem of hastening a day of world brotherhood. Here enter clamant all the theories for human amelioration that the mind of altruistic man has devised. Of present interest, however, is the propo- sition that it is in this guise the promotion of a brotherhood of man that the missionary enterprise appeals to modern men. This is the tremendous task that confronts the manhood of Christendom. The present missionary propaganda has certain features essentially masculine. It evokes to the full the finest powers of the greatest men. It affords the largest play for his most imperial conceptions. The latent greatness which, to some degree, slum- bers in every true man's breast may find best ex- pression in this ultra-Alexandrian scheme of world conquest by an altruistic ideal. Only the Hero, in whose train man's noblest self yearns to follow, is sufficient for this universal emergency. 16 THE WORLD-MAN Let it be written plainly, " precept upon precept ; line upon line/' that the present crisis can be met only by a supernatural gospel, which makes over into newness the individual man. This ever-smaller world cannot be legislated into brotherhood. Bat- tleships and armies cannot be decreed out of exist- ence by cabinets and parliaments. The unbrotherly competition of commerce, the oppression of the toiler, the creation of caste, the greed for gold, may not be eliminated by any mechanical means. It is beyond the power of " civilization " to sweeten any of the bitter springs of life. There have been many misconceptions on the part of superficial thinkers with respect to this point. The world has often been most unbrotherly at the places where culture has flowered most fully; as in ancient Greece and Rome. Humanity's inextinguishable dream of a golden age, which is the vague expression of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus erected upon earth, can be fulfilled only as, one by one, men and women yield their lives in allegiance to the Father whose father- hood alone makes possible brotherhood. The mood of the present day demands deter- minedly the pursuit of brotherhood as the supreme good. All sorts of practical considerations justify this. Now ft the time when the men who believe that they possess the one panacea for the varied ills of the entire race which are economic and political because social, and social because spiritual and indi- vidual should, with all the insistence and inge- 17 MEN AND MISSIONS nuity of which their modern brains are capable, press upon the restless, dissatisfied, and enfeebled world the peace and repletion and strength of the life that is in Jesus Christ, mankind's best Brother, and the All-Father's sent Son. THE AWAKING WORLD CHAPTER II THE AWAKING WORLD IF men are to find and to fulfill the mission which is the worthiest expression of their vision and power as Christian cosmopolites, they must grasp the idea of the world's unity. For all its bigness, this world is one world. Geographers have long known that certain great currents sweep through the waters of the earth. Science has lately demonstrated that there are hitherto unsuspected electrical properties in the ether above us which make it possible for continent to flash messages to continent, conducted only by the mysterious cords that encircle this globe. Modern aeronautics are discovering that there are certain major and staple currents of air which girdle this earth, recking nothing of nations and little of continents. I chanced to be within sight of Asama- yama, Japan's greatest volcano, upon the occasion of the Valparaiso earthquake, and there in Japan, on the other side of the earth, Asarna was exhibiting sympathetic disturbances with Valparaiso, even as it had done when San Francisco was shaken. The unity of the natural world is written in air and earth and water and fire. And mankind likewise has an 19 MEN AND MISSIONS essential unity, for c< He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth/ ' Before missions can be dealt with man-fashion there must be a realization of the substantial one- ness of humanity; and, what is more difficult to encompass, a realization of the truth that the whole of mankind is affected by spiritual world-tides which move it in its solidarity. A man must rise to a con- siderable height before he can see the vastness and the sweep of the moving panorama of human his- tory. Most persons have suffered from the defec- tive vision which the apostle described as " seeing only that which is near." Even as men formerly regarded the Bible as a collection of texts, so they looked upon mankind as a congeries of isolated nations or communities. It has often been difficult to lead some persons to take even a national view : their horizon has been limited by their own neigh- borhood. Not a few of the country's ills are trace- able to the fact that her laws are made by narrow- visioned politicians, with their eyes upon their own "districts," rather than by statesmen animated by the thought of " our country." The rapid increase of the sense of cosmopolitanism is an especial reason for gratification, because without this it is impossible to comprehend the idea of the world's oneness. Only they who study world maps can understand world currents. Remarkable comments have been made upon the present astonishing changes that are rapidly taking place in the universal family. Historians like the 20 THE AWAKING WORLD Hon. James Bryce, who have long thought in world terms, perceive that this day is like unto no other day upon which the sun has ever shone. Amazing transformations are taking place before our eyes. The day's newspapers are casually recording, but seldom interpreting, changes as momentous as the fall of Rome or the Norman invasion of Britain. Said Dr. Bryce, before the Laymen's Convention of the Southern Methodist Church in Chattanooga: " Things which have lasted from the Stone Age until now are at last coming to a perpetual end. They will vanish from the face of the earth. This is a phenomenon which has never happened before and can never happen again." This startling awaking of the world to a real- ization of its own compactness and community of interests has been happily phrased by ex-Mayor David P. Jones of > Minneapolis, who calls it, in the terminology of modern mechanics, " the standard- ization of the world/' The railways of the whole earth are being run on standard gauge ; and locomo- tives made in Philadelphia travel through Korea and China and Siberia. A universal postal union covers practically everywhere. Even the dress of widely separated peoples is gradually coming to an essential conformity. The same code of interna- tional laws now governs all nations. The standards of civilization are being rapidly imposed upon the lands which a generation ago were called "hermit nations." Under the pressure of the new sentiment for 21 MEN AND MISSIONS standardization, which is being felt throughout the earth, certain conditions which have been tolerated for hundreds of years, even for millenniums, are now passing away. Uniform laws of moral and social sanitation and hygiene now run to and fro over the whole earth. The ancient civilizations no longer are permitted to go their own way unchal- lenged and unquestioned. Since they have moved into the world neighborhood they are required to abide by the laws of good neighbor liness. Even as, because of the pressure of Western sentiment, Japan no longer allows her lepers to travel at large through the community, so she and the other peoples of venerable history no longer feel free to tolerate social and moral practices which run counter to the ideals of the West. This is the price paid for the new compactness of universal human society. Of the factors contributing to this extraordinary condition it is not necessary to write at this point ; but attention should be called to the remarkable fact of the prevalence of the English language, especially among the largest and oldest nations. French has long been esteemed the language of diplomacy, and it still widely prevails in continental Europe. But elsewhere English has the right of way. One may journey over all the main-traveled roads of earth, speaking no other tongue than English. Why should not China and Japan and Korea have learned French or German or Russian ? That India should master the speech of the nation which rules her is not remarkable, but that English should be taught 22 THE AWAKING WORLD in the new schools of these other ancient peoples is a marvel of providential significance. For it means that the ideals which the language embodies the ideals of Christian and Protestant nations are to be dominant in the reshaping of these civilizations of antiquity. The immense responsibility, along with unprecedented opportunity, thus laid upon the shoul- ders of the English-speaking peoples should cause the truth of " noblesse oblige " to be pressed home to the intelligence of every alert man who speaks the tongue of Carey and Livingstone and Morrison and Martyn and Verbeck and Underwood. Dis- criminating Christian laymen cannot be blind to the significance of this situation, which puts the great majority of mankind under the tutelage of the English language. A British statesman recently called this one of the most remarkable facts of human history. All the co-ordinated forces mentioned simply pre- pare one for a clearer contemplation of the present signs of the whole world's awaking. Before an attempt to outline these phenomena even the boldest pen would pause. During the weeks in which this book is passing through the press new events will have made its summary antiquated and inadequate. Changes are being effected in the Orient that seem like the work of a magic wand. A close study of them is one of the most alluring and engrossing interests possible to a cultivated mind. To be a spectator in the theater of to-day of this world drama is a high privilege ; to be an actor therein 23 MEN AND MISSIONS which is permitted to all who have a part in the missionary agencies now operating is a rare honor. The torpor from which the nations are awaking was well described by the Rev. C. A. R. Janvier in an address before the Birmingham Convention of Southern Presbyterian Laymen. Pointing to a gigantic map of the world which hung on the wall, he said : " Begin on the west coast of Africa with what, on the old maps, is still called the great desert of Sahara, but parts of which we know to be teem- ing with millions who call to us for light. Pass right across northern Africa to Turkey in Europe, then through Syria and Arabia and Persia, across Af- ghanistan and India, Siam and Tonquin, China, Korea, and Japan. If you had looked that way a few years ago what would you have seen ? A great chain of sleeping nations, sleeping the sleep, of death; a pall of sluggishness and hopelessness rest- ing over them all; a lethargy such as no one can know except those who have come into contact with it no public life, no public spirit, no public institu- tions, no deep feeling on any subject one sweep o deadly indifference from east to west and west to east." Now behold the marvel ! Japan, only fifty years away from her resolute insulation, is a first-class world-power, with a population as keenly alert to current issues as any other people on earth. After her half-century of marvelous political, economic, and social transformations, we find her a nation on the qui vive, profoundly discontented with what she 24 THE AWAKING WORLD has gained, and reaching out groping hands for some new sovereign specific that will bring peace to the hearts of her aspiring, dissatisfied people. Careful observers have even ventured to say that the politi- cal, social, and religious crisis of Japan to-day is graver than the epochal period of half a century ago. A generation since, the reading public heard of Korea as it heard of the pygmies in the African forests a strange people, utterly apart from the main stream of life, and never likely to have more than a curious interest for civilization. Since then a portentous and map-changing war has been fought over Korea, and the " Land of the Morning Calm " has become a concern of all the great chancelleries of the world. In the. meantime, the entrance of Christianity, and its marvelous growth amidst this arrested nation, has challenged the interest of Chris- tendom, and a type of discipleship has developed which has set the oldest Christian churches to pray- ing for like graces and blessings for themselves. One scarcely dares prophesy what will be the part of this young Christian giant in the evangelization of the Orient. In the meantime, out of the sleep of millenniums, Korea has awaked until every fibre of her being is a-tingle with new life. When it comes to China, with her four hundred millions of people, one is tempted to abandon any attempt to convey even the most superficial impres- sion of the seriousness of her present crisis. China's awaking is portentous. It is marvelous. It is in- 25 MEN AND MISSIONS describable. It is incredible. It is limitless in its influence. For the sake of the world to-day for the sake of the next generation for the sake of China herself, some new prophet-watchman should ascend the housetops of civilization and cry aloud, with megaphonic voice, "China is awake! China is awake!! CHINA IS AWAKE!!!" The big- gest of all nations the people with the greatest latent powers the heirs of to-morrow have started to school to learn all the ways and weapons and wisdom of the West. This is the news of the day that most deserves " scare heads " in the news- papers. Here is the subject upon which every wise man will inform himself and instruct his children. Let a man wear his last year's coat, if need be, so that he may buy the latest and best books about China. Before sailing from China to India, that scene of bewildering ferment, the observer should look in upon the Philippine Islands, the unexpectedly ac- quired outpost of the United States. Here is another awakened nation, making giant strides forward to overtake the march of civilization, behind which it had ever lagged. Many of the characteristics which mark new Japan, new China, new India and new Turkey are to be found among the Filipinos. The remarkable system of general public education which the American Government has provided, the wide- spread and popularly received Protestant evangel- ization, and the measure of self-government al- ready put into operation, afford the new life of the 26 THE AWAKING WORLD people unusual channels for expression, so that the moral, social, and material progress of the Philip- pines is a phenomenon scarcely understood by the American people generally. Since the restlessness of India has taken to ex- pressing itself by bombs, pistols, and boycotts the world at large has developed a considerable interest in it. While not so ominous as the fundamental processes of change at work in China, the swift awakening of India to a new sense of national unity and of national aspirations has already given the British Government gravest concern, and is inevita- bly fraught with serious and unpredictable conse- quences. This ancient land has, within a genera- tion, been baptized with the spirit of the new West. Her own attitude toward the outside nations has been completely altered. The sweep of the world life through her consciousness is now realized. The old scorn and indifference and self-containedness which has largely disappeared the spirit which in- spired Matthew Arnold's lines, "The East bow'd low beneath the blast, In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again." To-day, India, like all the East, is quiveringly alive and alert, and insistent in demands upon the governing nation. Her needs by no means corre- spond with her desires, but the former will eventu- ally have to be met; and the meeting of these is part of the new world-man's task. 27 MEN AND MISSIONS With a touch of scorn in His voice, the Gentlest of all teachers once cried to the learned of His day, " Can ye not discern the signs of the times ? " Con- templating the languid interest, or comparative in- difference, of Christendom in the Turkish Empire's f uolte~'face ) one is tempted to cry again in challenge these words of the Lord. In the spectacular triumph of the Young Turk Party the last national citadel of religious intolerance fell to the ground. What a great day was that for liberty! All the angels which have brooded protectingly over the cause of Christian civilization must have shouted in exultation when the revolution in Turkey triumphed. Some great poet is needed to interpret to the world at large the mighty meaning of this event. It sig- nifies more than one nation's awaking: it inaugu- rates, in the land where Jesus and His apostles gave to the world great and patient truths which must ultimately be universally victorious, a reign of free- dom which lifts the heavy hand of bigotry from all the sacred places of Christian history, and makes easy the return of the gospel to the regions of its birth. That revolution was also a sword-thrust at the heart of Islam, of which Islam will ultimately perish. Notwithstanding these staggering conse- quences, multitudes of intelligent Christian men re- mained more interested in the tariff debate and in the Cobalt mines than in Turkey's upheaval. The roll-call of awaking nations is too long to finish here. Old Egypt is swiftly shaping into New Egypt by the action of the same unified world influ- 28 THE AWAKING WORLD ences which have touched the nations already cited. The great disturbances in the larger nations have obscured the significance of late events under the shadow of the pyramids. Likewise Persia, which for centuries has been of contemporaneous interest only for its ancient history, has overnight leaped into the glare of public attention because of its suc- cessful fight for constitutional government. How far-flowing are the day's deep spiritual currents that they should thus refresh the parched hearts of the Persian people and lap the peacock throne of the Shah until it has been undermined and overthrown ! When we come to understand more fully the meagre news from Morocco we shall read it as one more manifestation of the universal Power that is making China and India over, that has given religious liberty to Russia, that has aroused the anti-clerical storms of democracy in Spain and Portugal, and that has penetrated even to the nomad Bedouins of the des- ert. In most sober earnestness we may apply the poet's words, truer now than when written, that "We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time; In an age on ages telling To be living is sublime." , All these varied signs of the whole world's awak- ing, which chord so signally with the enlarging vision of the men of the Christian Church, betoken a timeliness which argues a Sovereign design. Rea- soning from history alone, it is patent that there MEN AND MISSIONS is such a thing as " the fullness of time." The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and He has His own purposes which, when His clock strikes, corne to fulfillment. There is no argument so powerful with thoughtful men as the divine concatenation of events. History is hortatory, God's providences are God's proclamations. His signs are His sum- mons. No man with eyes to see can look upon this mar- velously awakened world to-day especially if he look closely and deeply without perceiving that all the clamorous voices of the nations may be inter- preted as a call for the truth which sets men free. The world's wants are many ; its need is one. In all careful thoughtfulness it must be declared that the underlying, abiding, all-embracing need of the world is for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which alone im- parts new life, new liberty and new brotherliness. In the last analysis, the Christian missionary crusade is the supreme service of this revivified, homoge- neous, aspiring world. THE NEW PATRIOTISM CHAPTER III THE NEW PATRIOTISM SOME essayist may one day win a wide reading by describing adequately the death of American jingoism. For it is dying. The picturesque spread- eagleism and buncombe and cocksureness which constituted an outstanding feature of the politics and " patriotism " of the United States is going the way of the Indian's war-whoop and the pioneer's coonskin cap. Sometimes it may still be found in rural or unprogressive communities, and, rather strangely, it crops out with most vigor in the Amer- ican abroad. Other travelers, and many foreigners, sincerely believe that this assertive and boastful nationalism, which proclaims in season and out of season the superlativeness of " the land of the free and the home of the brave," is a common character- istic of the ordinary American. The insistence of travelers upon the display of the stars and stripes has constrained some London hotel-keepers who are largely dependent upon American patronage to fly this emblem. The donkey boys of Cairo, whose importunity is equalled only by their insolence, find that all faults are atoned for if only they name their donkeys, for the occasion, " Yankee Doodle/' MEN AND MISSIONS " George Washington/' " Abe Lincoln," or " Mark Twain." They apparently deem it profitable also to assure their customer preparatory to doubling the fee that "America is great nation. It can lick England." To judge by this sort of evidence, and sometimes, also, alas ! by one's own observation, it would appear that the crudity and boastfulness and shallow jingoism of many American tourists is beyond the belief of their stay-at-home compatriots. We may be indulgent with this in the conviction that it is an evidence of newness that will be shortly outgrown; and to flee for comfort to the ever- consoling " et tu " argument the same spirit may be found, expressed with rather more sophistication, in the older nations. There are a multitude of cos- mopolitan Americans journeying over the earth who are not identified as such because they do not dis- play the expected characteristics. Of greater sig- nificance is the fact that in America itself there is rapidly developing a conception of patriotism which is nothing less than a lofty type of cosmopolitanism. An extended life for the nation as well as for the individual is now widely entertained as a goal. Born of more leisure for study, of wider observa- tion through travel, and especially of a quickened sense of international relationship and responsibili- ties, there has gradually emerged a patriotism which embodies an entire change of attitude toward self and the world. This vigorous young Western con- tinent at first took itself too seriously ; and yet, para- doxically, not seriously enough. Now it is coming 32 THE NEW PATRI O T I S M to have a saner perception of its place in the family of nations, and also of its own peculiar character and mission. The West is now admitted freely and on a parity to the councils of the great powers. Its own interest in the big international problems and policies is conceded. That it may also possess the word for to-morrow is apparently the belief of many statesmen. Gradually the eyes of the older peoples have been drawn to this Western continent. Slowly-accruing experiences and a more careful consideration of those human, popular sentiments which go deeper than diplomacy have created a general conviction that in America the dearest dreams of the human heart are being given definition in actuality. This vast experiment in self-government is everywhere being studied with increased interest. The precious ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality are here being measurably articulated into life. This is man- kind's laboratory of self-government. Despite grave and pressing problems peculiar to herself, America is demonstrating the practicability of amalgamating many diverse white nationalities into one new type of democracy, with freedom of opportunity to all. This mysterious " American spirit " which seems to pervade the atmosphere is as ozone, reinvigorating the mind and spirit of the European peasant, heir to centuries of serfdom, into a new manhood; and breaking the strong bonds of caste and church which once held the immigrant in subjection in his native land. 33 MEN AND MIS SI O N S A world-traveler from the West is amazed and chastened to learn the far-ramifying power of the American genius. As he follows the setting sun to the sunrise he discovers that this intangible spirit has created a remarkable inter-racial democ- racy in Hawaii. It has spread its lure over Japan, so that the coolie who pulls his rickshaw, the college president with whom he drinks tea, and an innumerable company of students, tradesmen and workingmen in between, are keen to go to America to learn the secret of American life. A sordid in- terpretation has been put upon all Japanese immi- gration, which is not warranted by the facts. Multi- tudes of Japanese have left their own land for America and Europe in the same spirit that the Wise Men of old followed the wondrous star. Re- cently, when a voting contest was held among some advanced students of Kobe as to the greatest man in history, George Washington was accorded first place. Pictures of Washington and Lincoln may be seen in remote Japanese villages. The spell which the name " America" has cast upon the ancient world, all without the knowledge of the great body of Americans, is well illustrated in Korea and China. Ancient " Chosun," " The Land of the Morning Calm," knows America as the country whence come the missionaries who have brought thither all of hope and emancipation that she possesses. By treaty Korea's best friend, Amer- ica proved once more that diplomatic promises are broken reeds to lean upon ; but the good-will of the 34 THE NEW PATRIOTISM American people themselves was attested by the presence of those unofficial ambassadors of sympa- thy, the missionaries. The awaking of Korea is directly traceable to the teachings of these Christian leaders. In all her centuries of suzerainty, China did not exercise the shaping influence over her vassal that America has wielded in Korea within twenty- five years. As for China herself, America is undoubtedly the most popular nation there. Her statesmen pri- vately avow that they want to build the New China upon American lines. The Young China party preaches America's self-government as its ideal. The ties of friendship between the two nations are many. America has never seized a foot of Chinese territory. She has stood most staunchly for the " open door " policy, which has saved China from dismemberment. She not only withstood the rapac- ity of the powers after the Boxer madness, but she also remitted a full half of her own indemnity fund because it was not needed to pay actual, proved expenditures and damages. She officially invited China's students to America's schools and universi- ties; and she established in China a court which means that no individual American can with im- punity deal unjustly with a native. When a great famine recently smote North Central China, it was from America that succor most quickly and abun- dantly came. An American, too, has been the fore- most and persistent factor in the anti-opium crusade which is now bearing such remarkable fruit in the 35 MEN AND MISSIONS empire. Of more weight than all these considera- tions is the pervading presence of American mis- sionaries in every province of China, living and preaching the gospel of good-will and new life. Their schools have been foremost in producing young patriots animated by the new spirit, which now may be detected filtering through all the nation, of emulation of the American life. India's unrest is now known everywhere; and it is freely admitted that education, both government and missionary, has been a potent factor in creating this unrest. A traveler pricks up his ears, however, when he finds the agitators citing the American Revolution as an illustration of what India should do, and the United States as the type of federated states which India should develop. The tremendous leaven of this spirit of the West is powerfully if not wisely working in the East. The avidity with which American history is read is portentous. With- out exaggeration, and with fullest sympathy with the aims and spirit of the British Government, it may be said that, because of the preponderance of American missionaries, America wields a unique and remarkable power in the leadership of India. Largely out of the American mission schools in Egypt, Persia, and Turkey has developed the new spirit which is reshaping Egypt, which has given Persia a constitutional government, and forever overturned the murderous reign of tyranny and big- otry in Turkey. It is stated that the Young Turk -leaders are the output of the mission schools. 36 THE NEW PATRIOTISM The scenes in Constantinople of late months have been such as to recall the days of '76. The populace have been afire with enthusiasm for the ideals which are written large in America's history; Moslem and Christian and Jew have shouted and danced to- gether, falling upon one another's necks because now all are equal before the law, and brothers in- deed. In this spectacle is seen anew the precious- ness of the great truths of liberty and justice and equality and fraternity. How intense is the popular hatred of despotism and caste distinctions is here revealed as by a lightning flash. We may now per- ceive what a marvelous phenomenon is this out- reaching on the part of the oldest nations after those principles which are embodied in the Consti- tution of the new young Republic on the Western Continent. This yearning after the American way is no programme of statesmen or project of agita- tors; it strikes its roots deep down into the dream- ing heart of the common people. In the presence of this tremendous truth the American Christian catches a gleam of the real in- terpretation of his own land's history. He has been reared on instruction in the providential de- velopment of America; at least once a year, on Thanksgiving Day, he has heard sermons in the spirit of "He hath not dealt so with any nation." It has been borne into his consciousness, almost as deeply as into that of the ancient Jew, that his country is Jehovah's special care. The comparative provincialism of America permitted it to entertain 37 MEN AND MISSIONS this complacent conception, heedless of the more than a thousand million other inhabitants of the earth, and even to esteem it as rather an evidence of good taste on the part of the Almighty! It was not hard to believe that God had guided and cher- ished America for America's sake. That cellular notion was called " Christian patriotism." Now, with clearer vision, wider horizon, and better per- spective, the awakened American sees plainly that it was not for America's sake, but for the world's sake, that this nation was so providentially estab- lished. God still is true to His love for the world. As with Israel, so with this new Christian land of the West: it is only a means and an instrument in God's far-reaching design for the service of all mankind. That was a prophet-word of Alexander Hamilton concerning America's destiny : " It is ours to be either the grave in which the hopes of the world shall be entombed, or the pillar of cloud which shall pilot the race onward to millennial glory." That is the new patriotism. It sees, though per- haps dimly, America's peculiar international obliga- tions. It is God's missionary to the older nations, His messenger to carry the beacon light of liberty and brotherhood and life. This is the inescapable destiny of the Republic. Therefore God planted it remote from traditional influences, to work out a new conception of Christian liberty. Therefore He gave it from the beginning an open Bible and a free school. Therefore He welded it into oneness in the seven-times-heated furnace of civil war. Therefore 38 THE NEW PATRIOTISM He placed in its keeping the watch tower of the Pacific, beautiful Hawaii. Therefore He established its outpost in Porto Rico, and gave to it the keys of the new waterway that will shortly unite the Atlan- tic and Pacific Oceans. Therefore He flung its flag into the very midst of the Far Eastern problem, in the Philippines, making it, nolens volens, a factor in the settling of the mighty questions that will in- evitably arise on the shores of the China Sea. There- fore, His providences scattered those unofficial am- bassadors of the nation's genius, the American mis- sionaries, over all the pivotal places in the Orient, to be potent factors in the shaping of the life that will yet rule the East So the new patriotism must be worldism. As the keeper of treasures which all the old, old people are seeking with rejuvenated eagerness and to which they have a divine right America must, first, be true, with renewed fidelity, to her own ideals, and then, with utmost sympathy and patience and helpfulness, she must share her best with the neediest everywhere. Never before was there so chivalrous a mission given to any nation. It is a " high calling " in very truth. Not the Pharaohs or Xerxes or Alexander or the Czesars or Charle- magne or Tamerlane or Napoleon ever had such an opportunity to impress the life and ideals of one nation upon others as is to-day given to America. As this unique privilege is utterly of God, so also is the raising up of a generation of Christian men, alert to discern the meaning of the conditions of 39 MEN AND MISSIONS to-day, and resolute to impart the genius of their land, which is the gospel of Christ, to the last man whom their consecrated skill and power will enable them to reach. The present missionary propaganda is the highest possible expression of enlarged Amer- ican patriotism. M I S 5 I O NS A MAN'S JOB CHAPTER IV A MAN'S JOB THE modern Atlas is the Christian man who bears on his heart the world bequeathed him by his Mas- ter. There is something heroic about the task of mis- sions : and about the men who have essayed it. It is a job for strong men: but also there are strong men for the job. This huge enterprise affords what Professor William James pleads for in the words: " What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war " a something that will evoke the martial virtues without creating the martial vices. Professor James uses strong speech in declaring that "the worst disease from which our civilization suffers " is the prevalent dread of pov- erty and hardship among the better classes, with its accompanying worship of wealth and luxury. The cure for this, as the same author sees, is for con- temporary religion to erect once again the heroic standards of life, such as caused the early Church to set the world at gaze. This militant note has been heard vibrating through the great gatherings of laymen during the past few years, as they have anew set their faces to 41 MEN AND MISSIONS the task of world evangelization. The real leaders in the modern crusade have not minimized the task. In all its hugeness and hardness it has been put squarely up to men, and they, recognizing it as a man's job, have not flinched. The courage which is one of the fruits of the Spirit of God is appearing as an enduement of world-confronting men. The very difficulty of the work is the most eloquent ap- peal that can be made to brave men. At the Bir- mingham Laymen's Convention, Dr. James I. Vance thrillingly repeated a familiar story that has been cherished by Christians since the early days of the Church. It narrates how news one day came to the reigning Roman Emperor that all of his gladiators, forty in number, had accepted Christ and had made a profession of their faith in Him as their Saviour. " The Emperor was enraged, and im- mediately gave orders that these men be required to recant. In the event of their failure to do so, they were to be transported to the bleakest and dreariest spot in all the bleak and dreary Alpine mountains of Northern Italy, and there, without food or shel- ter, they were to be turned out to die. The message was carried to the gladiators, and to a man they refused to disown their Saviour. In company with a guard of Roman soldiers, they were taken North, up among the Alpine summits, among the eternal snows, and there, in the bleakest, dreariest, and wild- est spot that could be found, without food or shelter, the poor wretches were turned out into the wintry night to die of starvation and exposure. 42 MISSIONS A MAN'S JOB " That night, as the Roman officer lay in his tent, he was disturbed by a chant that was borne in upon him by the night winds. Listening, this is what he heard, ' Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Christ, ask of Him the victory, and claim for Him the crown/ He sat up and listened again. There was borne in more distinctly, 'Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Christ, ask of Him the victory, and claim for Him the crown/ He began to think about the devotion of these men to their Leader. He knew something of the devotion of a Roman soldier to the empire, but he realized that the breast of a human soldier was stranger to a devotion like this. As he mar- veled at it, suddenly a poor wretch came stumbling through the flap of his tent and fell on his knees and begged permission to recant. The officer looked down on him and said, * Art thou the only one of thy number that durst ask this ? ' and he said, * The only one/ Tearing his cloak from him, he threw it over the poor wretch and said, f Then, I will have thy place/ and out into the night he went, and the chant unbroken again arose, 'Forty wrestlers, wrestling for Christ, ask of Him the victory, and claim for Him the crown/ " Missions thrill men, when adequately presented, not only because of their innate heroism and chiv- alry, but also because they are a mighty enterprise on a sound, reasonable basis. The modern Chris- tian man's new attitude toward missions is no senti- mental or hysterical mood, that will not bear the searching light of cold reason; it squares with the 43 MEN AND MISSIONS modern tendency to thrust in the probe to the bot- tom. The modern business man wants facts. A resolute facing of " things as they are " character- izes the commercial world of to-day. The suspicion that there is considerable unreality or artificiality or mere professionalism call the thing " cant," if that will make the point any clearer about much con- temporary religious effort, has probably been a con- sideration deterring some men from giving more than a perfunctory support to the churches. Espe- cially toward foreign missions has the average lay- man maintained an attitude of shyness, for " down- town," and from the secular prints, he has heard stories about missions and missionaries which were by no means in agreement with the minister's mis- sionary sermons. Not having any easy way of ar- riving at the facts of the case, he has given his pocketbook the benefit of the doubt. Out of my year's hard, and at times delicate, work in investigating missions on the field there has emerged, predominatingly, the conclusion that mis- sions are a work for men. The essential masculinity of the missionary propaganda is certain to impress every man who makes a first-hand study of it in operation. That it has hitherto had largely the interest and support of women and children is, be- yond measure, to the honor of these ; they will still bear their part ; but now the men also must come to their own. The proposition which exists to-day is one that calls for the best powers of the ripest masculine judgment. Here is a field for the exer- 44 MISSIONS A M A N ' S JOB cise of the largest abilities possessed by the ablest men of Christendom ; and the peculiar nature of the situation at present is that if the men of the churches do not enter into their proper inheritance, the big- gest task to which they could lay their hands will languish, and they themselves will miss the oppor- tunity of ages. Now, this big task calls for large measures. The brains which have created the vast commercial en- terprises of the twentieth century must attack this work with equal adequateness. This undertaking is too great to be maintained on a foundation of petty, pathetic, or heroic stories adapted to arouse the in- terest and sympathy of the emotionally sensitive. Unless it be established on a firm basis of principle and purpose by men who have the vision and cour- age and resourcefulness to plan tremendously and to persist unfalteringly, the missionary work that the conditions imperatively demand cannot be suc- cessfully accomplished. One is made indignant, and almost disgusted, to behold the two-penny character of a work that is designed to transform nations. More than once, while on the mission field, I was tempted to write to the laymen of America: " Either do the job or chuck it; don't play at it." When the Christian men of America compel mis- sionaries to worry and plan and debate over the dis- position of a few terribly needed dollars not thou- sands, nor yet hundreds, but tens of dollars as I have heard a station meeting in Korea discuss finances, it is time for words of scorn and shame to 45 MEN AND MISSIONS be spoken. The business man who treats his busi- ness in the small-minded fashion that the Church treats foreign missions would deserve to go to the wall in six months. The biggest work in the world and as such I do not hesitate to characterize for- eign missions should be done in the biggest manner in the world by the biggest men in the world. Not only because of its bigness is the missionary work of the world " up to " the men of the churches, but also because of its intricately and delicately strategic character. One whose eyes have seen how tightly wrapped up with problems of statecraft, na- tional prestige, international relationships, and com- mercial expansion is the missionary movement, is bound to feel the weight of this appeal to men. The modern man prides himself on his broad views and farsightedness. He loves politics, big politics. He believes in "big business/' No enterprise, be it tunneling the Hudson River or building a great rail- road, can daunt him. He has a genius for trans- forming the barely possible into the early actual. Whatever he can do, that he will do. Now the pres- ent missionary propaganda confronts him with an enterprise harder than the building of a great rail- road, the laying of the Atlantic cable or the mas- tery of aerial flight. There are a multitude of con- siderations, some of which have been pointed out and some to be later indicated in this book, which should compel the modern Christian man seeking an opportunity for the expression of his religious life commensurate with his powers in other fields 46 MISSIONS A MAN'S JOB of endeavor to take hold of the missionary business of to-day. It is a practical enterprise; it is a big enterprise; it is a timely enterprise; it is a worthy enterprise; it is, indeed, the very call of the strong Man of Nazareth to the men who would follow Him to-day to a fulfillment of His life and death mission. The wisest protagonists of missions do not claim everything for missions. They realize that God is not committed to any single method or agency for the fulfillment of His purposes. But they do not hesitate to say that the preaching of the gospel, which is but another name for missions, is the most potent agency at work for the amelioration of malign human conditions, and for the triumph of that better day which some philosophers have called Utopia, some the Golden Age, and others the King- dom of Heaven. The peculiar character of pro- claimed Christian truth is that it has a mysterious faculty for laying hold of the very springs of being, and for making these sweet and pure and refresh- ing and transforming. It is the most far-sighted statesmanship thus to make over society in its inner- most, character-producing powers. If it be postu- lated that thus the world is best served, then no more effective way of expressing his personality in his own generation and of giving it a measure of immortality in the lives of generations still un- born, lies before the Christian man than the medium of the missionary enterprise. Once men are dominated by this conviction, they will stop at nothing to achieve this greatest of ambi- 47 MEN AND MISSIONS tions. They are accustomed, as an everyday matter of business, to sink large sums of money out of sight, in expectation of ultimate profit. Every sky- scraper is begun by the digging of a hole deep enough to bury what a generation ago would have been called a large building. Trained in such expe- riences, men will not demand a convert for every two dollars invested; nor will they measure the success of missions by immediate, tangible returns, nor by any tables of statistics. Frequent setbacks and apparent failures will not dishearten them. Their faith will not totter when the fires of a Boxer fury seem to sweep away the labors of years. Occa- sional martyrdoms will not affect them otherwise than as fresh incentives. That was a manly word spoken by Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer, of Arabia, when he said, in the spirit of great generalship, " It does not matter how many men are killed, or how much money we spend, in foreign missions. This is a war, and war always means blood and treasure. Our only concern is to keep the fight aggressive, and to win the victory, regardless of cost." May it not be said that there have been too many tears in the missionary presentation, and not enough dogged, daring, defiant determination? The gospel must win its way among the unconverted, it is true, by entreating them. But there are phases of mis- sions especially to be commended to men, where upstanding and outspoken courage, and insistence upon rights, are rather the qualities required. Thus, barely to indicate a subject that will be fully dealt 48 MISSIONS A MAN'S JOB with in a later chapter, there has been a deal of enduring of slanderous criticism, when the better course would have been to stop the mouths of the slanderers. Officers of certain steamship lines which depend largely upon missionary patronage have gone on for years openly making the falsest charges against missions and missionaries; yet there has seemed not to be militant manliness enough in mis- sionary administration (not to speak of concern for the fair repute of Christ's cause) to protest this conduct, upon peril of the loss of business. It is proper to kiss the hand that smites us, when that hand is the Lord's ; but we are not called upon to kiss all the unclean hands that aim blows at the Church and her servants. In like manner should the laymen display toward their governments something of the same vigor in matters affecting missions that they employ when the issue is one of business. A case in point is that of the two Southern Presbyterian missionaries who were haled for trial before a Belgian court on the charge of promulgating charges identical with those made by American and British consuls. Irksome conditions, which revealed a purpose to withhold from them justice, were imposed upon the mis- sionaries in the matter of the trial. What did the Government do? It permitted the story to go out in a form which subjected it to the interpretation that here was another case of those meddlesome missionaries. Privately, the State Department gave the mission board assurances of sympathy and co~ 49 MEN AND MISSIONS operation. There was no quick, open and vigorous assertion of a purpose to defend, by all the resources of the Government, the rights of American citizens endangered abroad. In this instance, the sentiment of the Christian laity should have made itself felt clearly and forcefully at Washington. Contempo- raneous with this incident was an example of how business demands that the Government protect its interests. A railway loan was being negotiated in China, and American financiers wanted to partici- pate. Straightway all the ordinary resources of the State Department, and the extraordinary pro- cedure of a cablegram direct from the President of the United States to the Regent of China, were em- ployed, at the risk of grave international complica- tions, to further the claim of the American bankers. With equal vigor, the dignity and propriety of foreign missions should be sustained by the laymen's fearless, intelligent support in every such crisis. Enough has been said to vindicate the sweep of missions as a man's work, and some of the particu- lar complexities demanding ripe wisdom and manly courage in their treatment. The swift development of the missionary propaganda at home, and the crowding successes on the field abroad, are creat- ing a multitude of new problems that tax the full measure of man's might. If a, career in local or national politics is enticing to a man of parts, far worthier is this career in the realm of highest inter- nationalism, which is possible to every participant in the modern movement of men and missions. 50 ONE MAN'S INVESTMENT CHAPTER V STORY OF A PERSONAL INVESTMENT HERE the general course of this book is inter- rupted in order to tell a story. It illustrates the chapters that have gone before and those which follow. The story is not one tinged with the glamor of adventure upon a remote mission field; but it is the romance of one American man's projected personality. Much that ardent speakers have pleaded for and prophesied is embodied in this simple narrative of how one man, busy about the large affairs of a more than ordinarily successful career in his native land, yet became an important factor in the life of a distant nation, furnishing the most potent influence in shaping the characters and destinies of myriads of persons now living. An American traveler tossed restlessly on his berth in a sleeping-car in Northern India. Op- pressed by the stuffy compartment, he looked at his watch and the time-table and found that it would soon be 5 o'clock, when the train would stop to change engines. So he arose, dressed, and was ready for a stroll on the platform when the train came to a standstill The dawn was breaking, and nobody was in sight except the railway employees MEN AND MISSIONS and one native. As the American walked along, this man drew near, eyed him closely, then fell before him, clasped him about the ankles, and beat- ing his feet with his head, cried, " I am your serv- ant, and you are my savior ! " Puzzled and annoyed, the traveler bade the man get up and say what he had to say. With great emotion, the native at length expressed himself: "You are Dr. Goucher of America, are you not? All that I am and have I owe to you. Hearing that you were traveling through on this train, I walked more than twenty miles just to see your train pass. Now God has let me look into your face." By this time the American's traveling companion, a Methodist bishop, was awake and peering out of the window, and requesting explanations of the strange scene. Thus the story came out, of how thousands of young Indians in the Northwest Prov- inces of India call themselves " Goucher Boys," and look upon a man in distant America, whom they have never seen, as their friend and emancipator. Wrapped up in the tale is all of prophecy and exhortation that missionary speakers have tittered in behalf of the extended life and duplicated pow- ers of men whose primary work must be done where their lives are lived, in the homeland. The man who wants to know how to make his life count largely in terms of benefited humanity will find in this story an inspiration. And although the be- ginning of the tale goes back a quarter of a century before the inauguration of the Laymen's Missionary 52 ONE MAN'S INVESTMENT Movement all the ideals of the latter are embodied in this one experience. The Rev. John F. Goucher, LL.D. (now Presi- dent-Emeritus of the Woman's College, Baltimore, which he founded), was, three decades ago, a young Methodist Episcopal pastor in Baltimore, with the world vision in his heart. Being possessed of an income more than sufficient for his own personal needs, he sought therewith to undertake some form of special service in each one of the great non-Chris- tian lands. To this purpose he devoted much study. Taking up each country in turn, he made a careful investigation of it. Then, when he had found what he believed to be the greatest opportunity open to him for altruistic investment, he straightway seized it. In this manner he became the founder of the great Methodist Episcopal University in Tokio, the Aoyama Gaukuin; of the West China Mission of the same Church, and also of its mission in Korea. The puzzling, alluring- problem of India especially engrossed this imaginative and aspiring young American, as it has engrossed multitudes of others. That arid land has consumed treasure and lives meant for its benefit as its deserts have drunk up the rains, with scarcely a sign remaining. Was it possible for a man, ten thousand miles away, to do an altruistic work in India that would be manifestly effective ? Dr. Goucher's studies had led him to the conviction that a fundamental necessity, if India is ever to abandon its idols, is primary, vernacular Christian schools in the villages. Moreover, since 53 MEN AND MISSIONS society must be leavened from the bottom, he per- ceived that these schools would best serve his pur- pose if provided for the lowest castes. A curious coincidence such as Christians call Providence marked the beginnings of this enter- prise. Dr. Goucher had written to the Rev. Dr. E. W. Parker, of India, laying before him his plan for the opening of a chain of such schools. While this letter was on the ocean it passed a letter from Dr. Parker to his board suggesting the need for such a system of schools. As outlined by Dr. Goucher, the scheme contemplated an expenditure of about six thousand dollars a year far less, of course, than many a man spends on his automobile or pri- vate yacht. The stipulations laid down concerning the schools were that they should be (i) taught by native Christians, (2) opened with prayer, Bible- reading and Christian hymns, and (3) that the course of instruction should contain reading, writ- ing, arithmetic, and daily lessons in the catechism and in Christian songs. The shrewdness of the last two provisions is apparent. The boys would later grow up into an understanding of the catechetical instruction which had been drilled into them merely as a matter of mnemonics. Thus they would have a formu- lated body of Christian truth with which to combat argument or to conduct propaganda. The singing of the Christian hymns meant that from the first the boys would, by singing in their homes, arouse an interest in the new religion. It is no mere poetic 54 ONE HAN'S INVESTMENT fancy or prophet's dream that " a little child shall lead them." Other and deeper considerations were in Dr. Goucher's mind. He foresaw an increased Christian community in India, and a consequent need of teachers and preachers. Moreover, there would come out of this system of Christian educa- tion a product which the old community life could not well absorb men educated beyond the work of the outcast. So, with his eye upon the government examina- tions, which mean government positions, he looked forward to an expansion of his investment into the realms of higher education. Preparatory to this, he offered a premium of one rupee a month increase in salary to every teacher who should pass the re- quired examinations of the year previous in ad- vanced study: thus the teachers themselves were made ready for higher educational posts and for the native ministry. In this, Dr. Goucher antici- pated the University Extension Movement of which, by the way, he was the original projector in this country. It will be seen that Dr. Goucher put brains as well as money into his investment. He named a committee of five missionaries to man- age these schools, fixing their location, appointing the teachers, and so forth. Quarterly reports were made from every school to the business-like preacher in Baltimore, who was keeping a set of books on the enterprise and, incidentally, watching the rate of exchange so that money could be transmitted and sold most advantageously. All the schools had 55 MEN AND MISSIONS been located in Tillages, with Moradabad as a center India is not a land of cities nor of farms, but of villages for this project contemplated nothing less than an experiment in Christian eugenics, the crea- tion of Christian homes, by the marriage of edu- cated Christian boys to educated Christian girls. After schools had been operated continuously in fifty villages for a period of five years, the attend- ance averaging 1500 a year, and after they had won for themselves a place and appreciation in village life, Dr. Goucher brought up a most un-Indian but altogether American feature of his plan which he had hitherto held in reserve. This was nothing less than the establishment of an equal number of village schools for girls. There was no widespread native enthusiasm over this proposition. For if there are any two cardinal principles in Hinduism upon which the multitudinous sects agree they are the sacredness of the cow and the inferiority of woman. Villages were not clamoring for the edu- cation of their girls. But the sahib over seas was obdurate. If a village would not accept a girls' school it could not have a boys' school. So, for the boys' sake, since the boy is king in the Indian home, this rather scandalous innovation was toler- ated. Strangely enough, the girls were quite as bright as the boys, and as susceptible of advanced education. So a high-school training for them was made possible by Dr. Goucher. He had already raised the Moradabad School to the grade of a high school, 56 ONE MAN'S INVESTMENT with new buildings, broadened courses, and extra teachers. Here he provided scholarships, which furnished board, clothing, and tuition for such boys as earned them by their class-room work in the Goucher Schools. These scholarships extended over a period of from three to five years, or until the boy was ready for the government examination. Similar provision was made for the successful girls. Then, much being possible in work with the Sudras that could never be accomplished with Brahmins, the American, whose word was law for this whole educational enterprise, decreed that once a week his scholarship boys and girls should meet together socially. In this wise the choicest product of the village schools for both sexes were brought together, and Propinquity and Affinity, those twin masters of destiny, did their accustomed work. After a time one by-product of the Goucher Schools was an average of over two hundred weddings a year, where both parties had enjoyed a Christian educa- tion. When a husband and wife have similar ideals in respect to religion and education and progress, the children are likely to carry those ideals a step farther : and thus Christian civilization grows in geometrical ratio. Any enterprise so widespread and fundamental as the Goucher Schools is bound to have conse- quences. The consequences in this case were varied and numerous, and some of them unexpected. There had come to America petitions from representatives of several of the highest castes in different villages 57 MEN AND MISSIONS asking that schools similar to those for the Sudras be established for the boys of these particular castes. Invariably the answer went back, " In America we know nothing about castes. I could not be sure of meeting all the difficult caste problems. If I estab- lished a school for Brahmins, the lower castes could not possibly be permitted to attend. But the schools being planned for the children of men, they are open to Sudras and all others : whosoever will may attend them." The higher-caste villagers were in a quandary. They were saying to one another, " Here are these Sudra boys getting an education, and learning more than our boys. If this con- tinues, where will our sons be? We must educate them." So, perforce, and with many a grimace, the higher-caste boys were sent to the Christian schools, where they learned, along with the three R's, the Bible, the catechism, and the hymn-book, certain novel lessons about the brotherhood and equality of man. The power of the schools rami- fied, among high as well as low. The beginning was in 1883. Now, behold the miracle of the loaves and fishes in modern guise. While nobody can measure the effects of spiritual forces, there has been a certain definite, calculable output of the Goucher Schools that makes the in- vestment appear more than gilt-edged in the eyes of the careful business man. We may lay aside the more or less intangible influence of the schools upon homes ; an influence so great that this message was not singular : " Our whole ward is likely to 58 ONE MAN'S INVESTMENT become Christian. For if this man who never saw us so loves our children as to do this service for them because of his religion, we want that kind of religion for ourselves." A fuller set of books than Dr. Goucher keeps will be needed to record this par- ticular form of interest upon his investment. It is a matter of simple statistics in India that for many years full half of all the students at the great theo- logical seminary at Bareilly have come from the Goucher Schools. At the end of the first twelve years missionaries said that at least four hundred of the leading native workers of Northern India preachers, evangelists, colporteurs, and teachers were " Goucher boys." When the North India Methodist Conference met at Bareilly in 1906 it was asked from the platform, " How many of the members of this Conference are Goucher boys ? " Forty stood up. At the North- west India Conference thirty answered to a similar roll-call. In these two Conferences alone one-third of the pastors are graduates of the Goucher Schools. In the care of these men are more than fifty thou- sand native Christians. Although they form only about one-third of the preachers of these Confer-, ences, the Goucher graduates are pastors over more than half the membership of the churches in the Conferences. The story grows more remarkable as it is looked into in closer detail. At Nani Tal one pastor re- ported that he and his five leading official members are " Goucher boys." His own successful work 59 MEN AND MISSIONS was patent to everybody, but he proceeded to sketch the careers of these five church officials. One was private secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Provinces, and when a new Lieutenant- Governor took office he was promoted to be secre- tary in charge of the financial records of the forty- seven million people in the province. Another was stenographer to the Lieutenant-Governor. The third was secretary of one of the leading banks. The fourth was secretary of the municipality. The fifth had supervising work in the cantonments. The aggregate salary of these five men was 550 rupees a month probably a hundred times as much as their fathers earned in one month in all their lives. These men who had been elevated to places of honor and responsibility by the Government, be it remem- bered, were from the lowest of castes, or from the caste beyond castes. The force set in motion twenty-five years ago by an American man whose brains as well as money were consecrated will continue to work, in ever- widening circles, throughout ages to come. Put in bald figures, to meet the taste of the business man who loves specifications, the investment has amounted to something over a hundred thousand dollars, and the ascertained returns have been more than fifty thousand Christian converts, who other- wise would have remained heathen. If that isn't a stroke of business the King's business supremely worth doing, then this author has no sense of rela- tive values. 60 THINGS MASCULINE CHAPTER VI SOME THINGS MASCULINE IN MISSIONS To SNEER at the work of " women and children " for foreign missions does small credit to a man's gallantry or to his knowledge of the facts. It will take long years on the part of the laymen of better labor than they have yet put forth, to equalize the service rendered the cause of world-wide evan- gelization by the " women and children/' concerning whom there is a growing tendency in certain quar- ters to speak disparagingly. Yet it is by no means a reflection upon the other sex to declare that there are certain aspects of the missionary enterprise which, because heretofore unemphasized, owing to men's negligence, now need to be stressed as pecu- liarly masculine. The theory has long been promulgated (perhaps wholly by men writers !) that woman is governed by sentiment and man by reason. Be that as it may, the sentimental and emotional side of missions has so long been kept to the fore that a better-propor- tioned view of the practical difficulties should now be brought forward for masculine consideration. If, as they profess, men like hard tasks and difficult problems, they will find no lack of them in this 61 MEN AND MISSIONS work. Missionary secretaries and men on the field have had to grapple with these always: they are not blind to any of the difficulties involved in the undertaking. If men as a whole want the strong meat of missionary problems, they will find food enough and to spare. A cultivated, sensible missionary in Tokio of one of the smaller denominations once remarked to a visitor, " What shall I report to the home churches? They want favorable word regularly, and they do not want anything discouraging. You see what I am doing; and I hope you agree that it is worth while; but it is small and slow service against tre- mendous odds." Many of that man's supporters, because of the one-sided reports they had extracted from him, assumed that he was creating some such sensation in Tokio as an itinerant evangelist makes in their own village community. In truth, there were pathetically few persons in Tokio aware of this missionary's existence. Nevertheless, he was an important factor in the siege which Christianity has laid to Japan's capital. Breadth of vision, patience and deep resolution are necessary to a re- alization of this truth, which is applicable to thou- sands of other missionaries. The sportsman's tendency to " count the game " is responsible in good part for this first and biggest of the masculine questions involved in missions: How shall the home churches be made to realize the largeness and hardness of the missionary task, without impairing their faith and zeal ? The stag- 62 THINGS MASCULINE gering magnitude of paganism, and the overwhelm- ing difficulties involved in its transformation, must be realized before adequate forces can be brought into play against it. It is fatal tactics to under- estimate the strength of a foe. Not for long can reports of skirmishes won take the place of an accu- rate report of the progress of the campaign. Broadly and somewhat loosely speaking, the churches have been content with news of occasional converts, occa- sional conquests of hostile sentiment, and sporadic " hopeful signs," when they should have been meas- uring the real magnitude of their task, and endeav- oring to meet it. It is puerile to take refuge in inspiring mottoes and a fatalistic optimism when the situation calls instead for a frank facing of realities. Men want facts. This is one lesson most of them have learned in the school of experience. A delu- sion is dear at any price. Better bitter facts than sweet fallacies. Only a presentation of all the ascertained conditions comports with the ideals of manhood. In the particular work of missions, noth- ing short of all the known facts will sustain an enduring interest. Emotionalism is seldom more than a wave, with an inevitable recession. So the fundamental fact of the very vastness of the world- work which Christianity has undertaken is one of the considerations that mark it as masculine. " See both sides and get all the facts " was Charles A. Dana's rule for young journalists. When he comes to look into the side of the missionary story that is different from what he has ordinarily 63 MEN AND MISSIONS heard in church services and prayer-meetings, the layman discovers that there is a hideousness to heathendom of which he had never dreamed. Some of his pre-suppositions have been unwarranted; but there is another realm of conditions quite unsus- pected, largely because of the proprieties of public speech. He knows nothing of the Yoshiwara in Tokio, and the corresponding districts in all other Japanese cities, although he has heard that Japan has proved the success of the policy of segregating and legalizing the social evil ! Even some mission- aries have had a prudish objection to finding out the truth concerning this open sore of the Island Empire, and its relation to the old religions. Like- wise, the utter awfulness of that phase of idolatry in India which is represented by the temple girls children who have been " married to the idol " has never made its appeal to Christian chivalry, because it has not been deemed " proper " to speak of these things. Nine intelligent Christian men out of every ten do not know what constitutes the com- monest object of worship in India; they have never even heard of the Lingam stone. The entire subject of the relation of immorality to idolatry (with the incidental light thus thrown upon the history of backsliding Israel) is a terra incognita to the ordi- nary man. How, in this case, can his knowledge of missions be comprehensive and accurate? This aspect of missions is plainly one for grown men. Other fields that have been chiefly reserved for the occupancy of men are commerce, politics, and 64 THINGS MASCULINE political reform. There is a missionary side to all of these, both at home and abroad. The world citizenship which the modern man accepts entails responsibilities; for every privilege has its accom- panying obligations. International commerce touches the international propagation of Christianity at sev- eral points. How may the two be related? Up to the present time, business in non-Christian lands has been largely antagonistic to missions. It has sometimes actively opposed the missionary and sought to discredit him. This breach will have to be healed before Christendom can present a united front to paganism: only the Christian business men in the homelands can heal it. Now that we have a world politics, it is incumbent upon all shap- ers of public opinion to insure the Christian, or at least moral, character of this. Too long has it been a scandal that Christian nations have dealt with non-Christian peoples unscrupulously, selfishly, and debasingly. The taunt that intelligent natives have hurled at the missionary, times without number, has been the contrast between his teachings and his Government's actions. Land-grabbing, ruthless ex- ploitation of the natives, and the debauchery of the latter by opium, rum and licentiousness are black records which the great powers, who boast that their civilization is Christian, have written upon the an- nals of the backward races. Here is a vast area of service for the kingdom which awaits the laity who cannot go as ambassadors of Christ to distant lands. There is a direct and important relationship 65 MEN AND MISSIONS between the cause of foreign missions and the re- form of the Congo abuses or the opium curse in China, as well as between missions and the conduct of the nations' commercial and diplomatic represent- atives abroad. The need is patent for a powerful force at the home base which shall see that the mis- sionary is not discredited and his efforts nullified by other agencies supposedly representative. In connection with missions there are some proj- ects that appeal especially to men by their very bigness. They call for that quality of mind which has been developed by the largeness of modern busi- ness enterprises. If put through at all, they will probably be accomplished by the large-minded men in the churches. One such project is the bringing of Chinese students to Great Britain and America for their education. The action of the American Government in remitting eleven million dollars of the Boxer indemnity (an action prompted and pressed to a conclusion by the outspoken opinion of Christian men) was primarily responsible for the latest phase of this movement. Every far-sighted citizen, and especially every educator, will see the importance of insuring to these students, who are to be the leaders of their own nation, all possible facilities for absorbing the best of Christian civiliza- tion. Still more far-reaching is the influence that may be exerted just now by the creation of a body of text-books and popular literature for China and Korea and the Moslem world that shall be based on the Christian position. There is danger that 66 THINGS MASCULINE history will be taught to these new pupil nations with an anti-Christian slant. At present it is pos- sible to introduce text-books by the most eminent scientists and educators that recognize the hand of God in nature and in human events. No one mis- sion board can underwrite this vast enterprise, with its intangible consequences. Yet it would be a colossal failure for the broad-minded men of the twentieth century to let the task remain undone. The great powers with interests in the Far East subsidize many of the European newspapers in the port cities. Although limited in circulation, these journals have considerable influence, and the trav- eler who penetrates closely into the conditions of this curious exotic life is told that such and such a paper is subsidized by the Japanese Government, while its rival is in receipt of an income from the Russians; this one is maintained by the Germans, and that one is devoted to British interests. This peculiar state of affairs makes port city journalism almost as interesting as that of the American West in pioneer days. The seeker after the signs of the Kingdom's power looks almost in vain among these assorted dailies for one which exercises a predomi- nant influence in behalf of Christianity. Most of them are, openly or covertly, anti-missionary in their tone. It seems that nowhere has there been the Christian statesmanship to establish great news- papers, either in English or in the native languages, that will represent, with skill and fidelity, Christian civilization, 67 MEN AND MISSIONS Akin to this great need which only men can meet, is the other need for the sending to the Orient of the great Christian thinkers of the Occident. Theo- logians, scientists, physicians, authors, and states- men from the West are eagerly welcomed in the East, and their power is profound. It should be made the business of organized Christian laymen to see that this tide of influence is kept flowing, and that the most representative men of avowed faith frequently find their way to the plastic Orient. The effect of the Hon. William J. Bryan's tour in the East was incalculable to the cause of Christianity, for he practiced, and on proper occasion avowed, his religious beliefs. While upon this topic of creating a general Christian influence, it should be pointed out that the public lecture halls which are now being established throughout China are strategic points for Christian leaders to occupy. Likewise, as the demand for industrial education grows, it should be met so far as possible by the sending out of Chris- tian mechanics and teachers. Other problems of a peculiarly masculine char- acter abound on the mission field. What are we to say of the fact that Christian missions have ap- parently failed in some places? Thus, the Roman Catholic Church in Japan grew almost to the place of a national religion, and then was blotted out, so that scarcely any trace of it was found when the missionaries began work fifty years ago. Similarly, the Nestorian Church flourished and disappeared in China. The actual converts in the Mohammedan 68 THINGS MASCULINE world have been comparatively few. To admit re- verses not to say defeats calls for a faith that is more than superficial. Reputable investigators, and residents in non-Christian lands, have con- demned the " mission-made man/' They say that the native convert is a less efficient servant than the pagan. I have even heard missionaries say that they preferred heathen for their household serv- ants ! In a short view of mission work, facts like these are rather staggering. It also takes the liberality of view and the bal- anced judgment which are said to go with mature manhood to admit the good that exists in the non- Christian faiths. There have been many hurtful generalizations uttered in the promotion of mis- sions, and among these must be counted the sweep- ing condemnations of all other beliefs except the Christian. The Pauline way is the saner. God has not left Himself without a witness in the human heart; and many of the altars to unknown gods may be interpreted as blind worship of Him. The advocate of Christianity loses nothing by conceding many points of merit to theoretical Buddhism, Mo- hammedanism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Shin- toism. Twin to this subject in importance is that of giving something for what Christianity takes away. Even in Christian lands the churches have erred in leaving their recruits under more prohibi- tions than prescriptions. To provide forms of pleasure and tangible life interests that are more attractive than the heathen practices which the con- 69 MEN AND MISSIONS verts have relinquished, is a problem that is ever more real to the missionary than to the minister at home. The sanctified common sense of Christian men will probably prevent the spread of the notion that to Christianize an Oriental we must Occidentalize him. The old tendency to carry into the mission field all the Western forms of Christianity is stead- ily growing weaker. Missionaries are now keeping these non-essentials in the background. Why should church buildings in China have steeples, when local prejudice is strongly against high buildings? A church steeple is not one of the Five Points of Cal- vinism, nor one of the Thirty-nine Articles of Reli- gion. As for the perpetuation in mission lands of the minor denominational differences of American Christianity, that is unwise to the point of absurdity ; and, fortunately, the good sense of native Christians rebels against it. In essentials, the Christianity of the East and the West must be identical; in non- essentials it is altogether likely that the East may make substantial contributions to the West ; so that, because of her fidelity to her broadest mission, the Church will be enriched and strengthened and quickened. LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT CHAPTER VII THE LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT Sometimes we cannot see the tide for the waves ; and many a big comber has been mistaken for a great incoming flood. Doubtless it is too early to determine finally whether the Laymen's Missionary Movement represents a rising tide of progress or merely a wave of interest. Most careful observers seem inclined to the former view. While there are some features of the recent " uprising of men/' as it is frequently termed, that are unmistakably the froth and foam of soon-spent wave-crests, there are deeper indications that the Movement is a force which represents a steady development of mascu- line interest and activity that will probably have an extended duration. Happily termed a " Move- ment," it is not wholly dependent upon the success or failure of any particular organization. It is a manifestation of a real and divinely-impelled move- ment of men toward a larger expression of their own powers, and toward a worthier service of the whole world. That surprisingly active and effective body known as the Interdenominational Laymen's Missionary Movement, which has its offices in the tallest builcl- M E N _ A N D M I S S I O N S ing in the world, is a logical development and a psychological expression of the expanding con- sciousness of the laymen of the churches. It bears many of the marks of Providential timeliness that attest other religious developments. The Laymen's Movement links itself directly with the famous " Haystack Prayer Meeting," at Williams College, Massachusetts, which was the beginning of foreign missions in the Western world. Formed in con- nection with the Haystack Centennial (November 15, 1906), it yet had beginnings that vitally co- ordinate it with the Student Volunteer Movement, which has done immeasurable service in giving mis- sion study a place in college interest, and mission work a place in the thought of young men and women considering a life vocation. At the Student Volunteer Convention in Nashville, in March, 1906, a young business man of Washington, John B. Sleman, Jr., was greatly stirred by the implied chal- lenge of the students to the Church, even as the students themselves had answered the challenge of the world's need. The most natural development would be an organization of the business men, the money-makers, to support on an adequate basis these missionary volunteers. With that thought in mind, Mr. Sleman conferred occasionally with interested friends, and in due time went to New York for the Haystack Centennial, ready to propose the scheme. This he did, and to him is due the dis- tinction of being the human factor most largely responsible for the Laymen's Movement. 72 LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT Some sixty laymen, representing various denomi- nations, gathered for prayer in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church on that stormy November afternoon. The Honorable Samuel B. Capen, of Boston, presided over what was actually a prayer- meeting. In the evening session plans for crystal- lizing the existent sentiment were considered, and a series of resolutions were adopted calling into existence the Laymen's Missionary Movement. The platform of the Movement has been summarized by the General Secretary, Mr. J. Campbell White: The Laymen's Missionary Movement stands for inves- tigation, agitation and organization: the investigation by laymen of missionary conditions; the agitation by lay- men of an adequate missionary policy, and the organiza- tion of laymen to co-operate with the pastors and mis- sionary boards in enlisting the whole Church in the supreme work of saving the world. Thus it will be seen that the basic idea is the infusion of an increased spirit of practicability and business-like administration into missions. There was no thought of a new money-raising agency, or of a new missionary society. The aim of the pro- moters was to recognize the propriety of a careful and constant examination of actual conditions on the mission field by independent laymen; and then the application of the best and broadest business principles to the extension of the work. It was particularly sagacious of these organizers that they did not commit themselves to any theory of finance or evangelization or of administration. Pledging n MEN AND MISSIONS hearty loyalty to the existing missionary agencies of the Church, they merely undertook to endeavor to lead the laymen out into a more adequate partici- pation in, and support of, the work of the boards, provided that work should prove worthy, in the white light of independent investigation. The open- mindedness and flexibility of the Movement has been shown by the fact that it has already altered the plans of its projectors more than once, in order to follow what have appeared to be Providential developments. The first thought was that the Movement would express itself chiefly by the formation of state and city Co-operating Interdenominational Committees of Laymen. This method has been subordinated to the denominational organization of laymen, for it has been found that the latter plan affords greater definiteness and wieldability to the Movement. Standing always on the broadest platform of fra- ternity and unity, the men yet direct their major efforts to the support of the missions of their own churches abroad, and the increase of missionary interest in their own ranks at home. While some denominations have preferred to keep the stimulus of their laymen entirely within the scope of their board activities, others have encour- aged the men to go ahead on their own initiative, and in these cases the results seem to have fully warranted this course. At the present writing the Laymen's Missionary Movement exists as a com- plete organization in 74 LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT The Southern Presbyterian Church. The Southern Baptist Convention. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The Methodist Episcopal Church. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Reformed Church in the United States. The Canadian Baptist Churches. The Church of England in Canada. The Canadian Methodist Church. The Canadian Presbyterian Church. The Canadian Congregational Churches. The Canadian Evangelical Church. The Lutheran General Synod. The Lutheran United Synod of the South, In addition to the parent Interdenominational Laymen's Missionary Movement, i Madison Avenue, New York, there have been organized : The Canadian Council of the Laymen's Missionary Movement, Confederation Life Building, Toronto. The Laymen's Missionary Movement in Scotland, 118 Princes Street, Edinburg. The Laymen' s Missionary Movement in England, Salis- bury Square, London. It is announced from headquarters that the Movement has also spread to Germany and Australia. Some of the largest religious conventions of lay- men thus far held in the history of America have flown the Laymen's Missionary Movement banner. The Southern Presbyterian men gathered at Bir- mingham, Ala., to the number of 1141 enrolled delegates, February 16-18, 1909. In Chattanooga, April 21-23, 1908, one thousand men of the Meth- 75 MEN AND MISSIONS odist Episcopal Church, South, met in a notable convention. A year later the men of the German Reformed Church gathered at Harrisburg, Pa., to the number of eight hundred. Several other less conspicuous interdenominational Layrren's Mission- ary Movement Conventions have also met. Two great conventions of the Northern Presbyterian men were held in Omaha and Philadelphia in 1907 and 1908, respectively, and the latter was the largest of all the men's conventions, enrolling 1681 delegates. These were not Laymen's Missionary Movement Meetings, although of a piece with the general quick- ening of interest in missions on the part of the laity. The most spectacular development of the Move- ment, and the one that has until lately so engrossed the activities of its officers that they have scarcely had time for the quieter and more inconspicuous work of perfecting the organization itself, has been the series of city meetings, or " campaigns." These have been extraordinary occasions, bringing to- gether, as if by common consent, and moved by one impulse not traceable to the definite efforts of the promoters, large companies of the leading laymen of all Protestant denominations. Frequently it has been recorded of these meetings that they were the largest and most representative assemblies of the Christian men of these particular cities that had ever met together. The programme of these city campaigns usually comprised a dinner, followed by addresses, a mass-meeting, conferences, and, at times, special Sunday services in the churches. 76 LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT A few of these city meetings were held, tenta- tively, in the winter of 1906-7* No marked results followed, although it was seen that the subject of foreign missions, presented from the layman's stand- point, possessed real interest for audiences of men. The General Secretary of the Movement, Mr. J. Campbell White, who had served as financial secre- tary of a Men's Forward Movement in the United Presbyterian Church, as a Y. M. C. A. secretary in India for ten years, and, prior to that, as a traveling secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement, pos- sesses unusual ability as a public speaker, with a power of emotional appeal that is extraordinary. Most of the city meetings have followed the line of his special argument. By an effective use of charts, showing the proportion of home and foreign gifts of the churches in the community where he was speaking at the time, and in the world at large, together with statistics of population and religious belief, he was able to inspire the men present to pledge a manifold increase of their city's offerings to foreign missions. In some cases this proposed increase was more than a hundred per cent. Un- fortunately, owing to several causes, one of which was lack of organization, only a very few of the cities which thus pledged themselves, through rep- resentative bodies of laymen, made any thorough effort to attain the goal they had set for themselves, although in some cases substantial increases were reported. Toronto, with characteristic doggedness, came nearest to making the actual increase which 77 MEN AND MISSIONS it had set for itself an increase from $i42;ooo to $500,000. The churches succeeded in raising their annual missionary offerings to $400,000 with the avowed expectation of adding the other $100,000 in another year. This " whirlwind campaign " of many cities, with impressive demonstrations on the part of the lay- men, was the characteristic of the winter of 1907-8. It attracted international attention to the Movement, although in the previous spring a deputation had gone to England to introduce it there. In the fol- lowing winter 1908-9 the plan of city campaigns was continued, with modifications. More time was given to the discussion of methods and to the train- ing of workers. One district and two state meetings were also held, representatives gathering from a wide area to attend these sessions. The preliminary work done for the Minnesota and Iowa conventions, and for the district convention in Janesville, Wis., demonstrated the possibility of effective service by local laymen. In the Southern States and in Canada the laymen have displayed special readiness to do deputation work, so that the remarkable extension of the Laymen's Movement idea in these regions is largely attributable to the volunteer activity of the laity. In speaking before their own churches and in visiting neighboring churches men hitherto un- used to public work have shown that there is a place of large power for the layman in missionary service. Canada's national laymen's campaign in behalf of 78 LAYMEN'S MOVEMENT home and foreign missions during the early months of 1909, culminating in the National Congress held March 31 to April 4, in Toronto, with 4295 delegates in attendance, was the greatest event in the first three years of the history of the Movement This impressive meeting held in Toronto was in every sense a National Congress. It contained delegates from every part of the Dominion, and from every walk in life. From first to last it sustained the imperial note: Canada's men for the conquest of the whole world for Christ This most remarkable gathering of Christian men that ever met in the history of Canada inspired a similar project for the United States for the winter of 1909-10. An elabo- rate campaign was arranged, to be opened in October in the city of Buffalo, and comprehending some threescore cities, concluding with a National Mis- sionary Congress in Chicago in the month of May. What all these meetings mean in the enlistment of lay activity, in the local committees and deputation workers, only a person of active imagination can understand. The Laymen's Movement also encouraged the visit to the foreign mission field of laymen who would make a first-hand investigation of conditions. At first great stress was laid upon this aspect of the movement, but experience proved that only a few of the men who had been to the field had brought home reports that were sufficiently distinc- tive to be of use on the platform or in print It has been suggested that the Movement should care- 79 MEN A N D MISSIONS fully select a few great business men, educators, physicians, and public men, whose judgment will be nationally accepted as without bias, and prevail upon these to make thorough investigations of the missionary enterprise. The statements of avowed protagonists are generally discounted heavily. The average man is still skeptical concerning the neces- sity and usefulness of foreign missions. The literary output of the Laymen's Movement has consisted chiefly of reprints of effective speeches. In its own field the Laymen's Movement has no small task in the devising, discovering, and collating of those methods and facts which bear directly upon the work of men and missions. It should also develop a system of missionary defense that will enable the men to deal vigorously with the unwarranted hostile criticisms of missions, and that will permit of prompt and adequate representation to the Government of missionary interests when necessary. Time will doubtless work changes in the forms and methods of the Laymen's Movement. These are in no sense important to its genius and purpose. That the essential idea of lay responsibility and lay activity are sound is beyond question. Beyond the realm of romance and spiritual exaltation and tem- porary mood lies the enduring missionary obliga- tion: this is the layman's task and opportunity, through the sunshine of success and the darkness of discouragement. 80 AFTER INTEREST WHAT? CHAPTER VIII AFTER INTEREST WHAT? MODERN men are interested in missions. At least, they are interested in a vague something which missions symbolize: the new mood of the Church has not yet been fully analyzed. The most striking phenomenon of contemporaneous Christianity is the international arousal of men. The most vital ex- pressions of the Church's life in the present decade have been in connection with missions the unpar- alleled Canadian National Missionary Congress in Toronto, in 1909; the really amazing meetings of the Laymen's Missionary Movement all over the continent, the Student Volunteer conventions, the huge denominational conventions of men, strictly in behalf of missions, and the missionary aspect of the epochal first Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, The wayfaring man cannot escape the knowledge that the laymen of the churches are interested in missions. That fact is the outstanding mountain peak on the day's horizon. This interest is as yet largely only a seeking in- terest. Its tentative nature should give concern to all leaders of thought and activity who are respon- sible for conserving it and affording it expression. The existence to-day of this newly-stirred sentiment does not guarantee its continuance to-morrow. The quest must be satisfied or it will cease. 81 MEN AND MISSIONS These world-impulses freshly awakened in the breasts of men must find expression, else they will languish away. Mere interest in missions should not be overrated: it is only a preliminary stage the apprentice's indenture papers, after which must follow the period of training, and then journeyman activity. Even after the sublime postulate has been ac- cepted phrased by Robert E. Speer in the words, " We cannot think of God without thinking of Him as a missionary God " there is still more to follow. Deed must be the fruit of every creed that has life. A man may assent to the missionary proposition, and have a measure of interest in what it involves, without being an inheritor of the full wealth of this legacy. Every sensible person is bound to agree with the case as it was put to me one day as I paced the deck of a Yangtze River steamer alongside of the big, short-spoken first mate, who was better trained to the handling of a native Chinese crew than to any philosophical or theological subtleties. He remarked, apropos of the missionary question which I was in duty bound to discuss, when it could be tactfully done, with everybody I met who could throw any sort of sidelight upon it, " It seems to me that if a man has something which he thinks is the best and most important thing in the world as a Christian surely does then he isn't much of a man unless he tries to share that something with everybody else in the world." That basic logic of the missionary idea is possessing the Christian 82 AFTER INTEREST WHAT? Church with renewed force. Like a breeze from some heavenly hills, whose beginning can scarcely be detected, a new spirit has stolen over the disciples of the Great Missionary. It has fanned into life the majestic conception of missions as a task actually to be accomplished. Instead of a vague ideal, the fad of the few, or an incidental adjunct of normal church work, world-evangelization has begun to be esteemed a business to be prosecuted with definite- ness and skill Rich and sustaining as is this con- viction, there are nevertheless consequences entailed in it which not only strengthen and reward such an interest, but insure its permanency. God's clocks all chime in tune; and it seems reasonable to assume that He is sending this new missionary interest to redeem His Church from the blight of pettiness and materialism. He has made the whole world a missionary to the individual life. All that is symbolized by the Laymen's Mis- sionary Movement ushers in the era of the Ex- tended Life. We have had, embodied and preached by the same man, "the strenuous life." As a measure of reaction from this came the vogue of "the simple life." Now, without any phrase to proclaim it, the conception of the Extended Life is gradually pervading the Occident. Suddenly con- scious of their inescapable international relationships and responsibilities, men have coveted for them- selves an outreaching career. The quest for a larger life and for undiscovered worlds which pushed the prows of the little caravels of the Genoa sailor 83 MEN AND MISSIONS across unknown Western seas has stirred again within the breasts of men. They, like Columbus, have longed for a newer, larger stage on which to play their parts. A remarkable article by Professor William James, in a recent magazine, gave forceful utterance to this idea. He showed philosophically that the powers of man are greater than is com- monly supposed or practiced. There is in the realm of mind and spirit such a thing as " second wind." Possibilities of enlarged life lie in front of even the most commonplace persons. Every one can do more than he has been doing. This article was a ringing summons to a broadening of life's borders. Men need a universal interest to deliver them from themselves, as the New England schoolboy, smitten by stage fright on recitation day, was bidden by his brother, "Think of the star-patches, Henry!" Nowadays we have taken Bunyan's muck-rake from the hands in which he placed it and given it over to a certain school of magazine writers; the muck-rake really represents the small, sordid, selfish grubbing among earth things; instead of the erect, sun-crowned, spirit-ruled character. A somewhat maudlin article in a late periodical, " The Confes- sions of a Rebellious Wife," gave voice to it: her charge against her husband may, not unfairly, be rendered against a multitude of men: engrossment in business, to the neglect of all the finer, higher considerations which are comprehended within the realm of idealism. The truth is summed up in that word of the Teacher: "A man's life consisteth not B4 AFTER INTEREST WHAT? in the abundance of the things which he possess- eth." Following in the wake of the day's new inter- est in missions should come a vivid realization of the pre-eminence of spiritual values, which will deliver men from the thraldom of smallness, sordidness, and selfishness. If that end is obtained, the Extended Life will justify all the activity and offerings of men in behalf of missions, wholly apart from any benefit to the non-Christian world. After interest should come also gifts. That is an essential proof of the genuineness of the interest. It would be a hungry household that had to subsist on " cheese and kisses," with the cheese left out. A man best proves his love for his wife by providing a comfortable living for her. Real devotion to worldism is sure to eventuate in dedicated dollars. Money is only a symbol. It may represent the high- est passions as well as the lowest. By means of money a citizen first proves his loyalty to the Gov- ernment, even as also to his family. All the world's workers are engaged in transmuting their powers, whether these be revealed in poetry or pig-iron, into money. The idle and sentimental condemnation of money in itself cannot endure two minutes' con- templation of the sweat and service and sacrifice and suffering which the world's toilers daily expend for a moiety of it. The reality of men's interest in missions must be proved by their offerings thereto. Mass-meetings and resolutions will not fill mission board coffers, " The spirit of the times " will not pay the steamship fares of outgoing missionaries, 85 MEN AND MISSIONS or maintain them on the field after they arrive. Some board officials and foreign missionaries who regarded with high exaltation and expectation the rise of the men's interest in missions have scarcely been able to conceal their disappointment that the financial results have thus far been so small, and that some boards are facing actual curtailment of their work. It is only fair to credit the laymen with a large part in the sustaining and general increase of offerings through a period of financial depres- sion; but as yet there has been no rise in the scale of giving at all commensurate with the magnitude of the men's movement in missions. The laymen who suppose that the day's enthusi- asm is in itself a sufficient attainment should be given pause by the startling fact that the most mis- sionary of all religious bodies, the Moravians, are at the present time facing a large deficit and an apparently inevitable retrenchment and recession on their heroic fields. Von Moltke's famous saying about the method of an army's progress should be much in the minds of men as they think about mis- sions. The Quartermaster's Department is the basic factor in a war. The missionary campaign has many aspects, and it is by no means altogether a matter of money, but money it must have; and money the men must give if they are to prove their interest real It is a pleasant consideration that money so invested is devoted to its highest use, and is transmuted into education and healing and eman- cipation and holiness and spiritual life. Money en- 86 AFTER INTEREST WHAT? ables men to go in power where they cannot go in person; and to express themselves largely in high and noble ways which might not be possible by individual contact. A man may preach through his money who cannot preach with his lips; one who has mastered only the " three R's " may by his gifts teach all the sciences ; one unschooled in medi- cal lore may become the healer of myriads. With the amplified resourcefulness of these later times, a layman may put into practice William Carey's familiar motto, " My business is serving the Lord ; I cobble shoes to pay expenses." A man so ani- mated will not be satisfied with any five-dollar-a- year basis of missionary giving. The interest of some men and churches has flow- ered in a large assumption of missionary responsi- bility. Instead of its being unusual for a church to support its own missionary, this has become a common practice. Practically all the missionaries of one denomination, the Southern Presbyterian, are maintained either by individuals or by single con- gregations. A still broader view of the possibilities of mission work has been taken by some congrega- tions, which have sought to be responsible for entire districts on the foreign mission field. As an in- stance may be cited the First Presbyterian Church, of Wilmington, N. C, which has definitely engaged to undertake the evangelization of an entire district in China, with a population of something like a quarter of a million people. The necessary number of missionaries, homes, schools, hospitals, etc., will 87 MEN AND MISSIONS be supplied by this single congregation. Individual men of wealth are finding that the maintenance of a whole parish abroad is not much more expensive than an automobile and a great deal more fun. Why should it be esteemed unlikely that persons possessed of great fortunes such as have become so common of late years should plan imperial gifts for the backward nations? What an opportunity it would have been for some American millionaire to have faced, and in person to have directed, the conquest of the China famine? A commonplace possessor of great wealth could put himself into the class of historic nation-builders by meeting China's present need for Christian, Western educa- tion. What a shining feat it would be to accom- plish, what the mission boards with their depleted treasuries are even now contemplating, the placing of a copy of one of the Gospels, and explanatory tracts, all in the native tongue, in every home in Korea. At this critical juncture of conditions in the Moslem world, what an opportunity awaits some rich Christian statesman to expend his wisdom and money in a strategic campaign. Imagine the joy of being the means of duplicating, in some other part of Africa, the marvelous story of Uganda! Possi- bilities of imperial Christian service before the Chris- tians of wealth to-day are nothing less than thrilling. Wise parents encourage their children in the stamp-collecting hobby; for by that route comes a deal of incidental knowledge. In an immeasurably larger degree that is true also of an interest in AFT ER INTERES T W H AT ? missions. No other subject leads out into so many profitable fields of thought. An intelligent pursuit of this theme insures more of a liberal education than is imparted by the famous five-foot shelf of books. Purely from an intellectual and social stand- point, a man can afford to forego even his interest in the great American question, "What's the score? " for the sake of an interest in the Far East- ern Question. The trivialities of the ephemeral news articles which fill our dailies may profitably be crowded into smaller space in order to make room for some of the big themes of human interest. A missionary's son, born on the field, was making his first visit to his parents' home in a small Ohio town. One day a neighbor burst into the yard with the great news, ".The circus is coming! " " What's a circtis ? " innocently inquired the young Korea- American, suffering from one of those curi- ous lapses in knowledge of homeland life from which missionary children often suffer. " A circus ! Don't you know what a circus is ? Haven't you ever seen a circus ? " And scorn pass- ing words filled the Ohio lad's voice, as he eyed in boundless contempt this queer visitor. The boy from Korea was stung to the quick, and he retorted: "Well, what of that? Did you ever see the Pacific Ocean? Were you ever on a war- ship? Did you ever see Hong Kong? Did you ever see the diving boys at Colombo? Were you ever in India? Did you ever see the pyramids? What do you know about London?" MEN AND MISSIONS Vengeance was complete : the devotee of the circus was silenced. Before these bigger wonders his traveling tent show grew very small indeed. Similarly, the man who follows the trail of the mis- sionary may lose his intimate contact with some of the inconsequentialities of the day's newspaper, but he will have big and abiding compensations. To begin with, he will know more geography than his neighbor. His familiarity with the neglected por- tions of the earth, which are now attracting public attention, will enable him to make desirable contri- butions to the conversation of any intelligent com- pany of men. For let it be whispered, sub rosa the average man has such very hazy notions of geography that he would be embarrassed if asked to suggest the relative positions of Shanghai and Singapore, Penang and Peking, Bombay and Bang- kok. The man who studies missions usually has ad- vance information upon the main drift of world politics-. He knew of India's unrest a year or two before the newspaper editors awakened to it; and Turkey's revolution, if not expected by him, was at least understood. All the world has a vague notion that there is something doing in China: but it is your student of missions who has an intelligent comprehension of the currents now surging through that renascent nation. The Boxer madness, to most persons, is recalled only as an exciting news sensa- tion of a decade ago, merely one inexplicable out- burst on the part of those queer heathen Chinese: 90 . AFTER INTEREST WHAT? the man who reads missionary literature understands that ill-advised, futile, dramatic, and terrible out- break to be the key to all subsequent Chinese his- tory. Korea, to the man of the street, is little more than a name standing for the picturesque : the mis- sionary layman keeps his eye turned toward it as a pivotal spot in the political and religious develop- ment of the Far East. The South Sea Islands are considered, by not a few cultivated readers, to be, first, the home of cannibals; second, the place of Robert Louis Stevenson's sojourn, and, third, the scene of some sort of hurricane several years ago at a place called Samoa. The romance, the wonder, the tragedy of the degradation of these islands by the first white comers, and their transformation through the advent of a different class of white men, is known to all intelligent adherents of the*cause of missions. Hawaii's course in the history of a hun- dred years, until to-day, a mission-made land, it is one of the territories of the United States, is a story more fascinating than most fiction. There are other large fields of study, apart from the historical and political, into which the man who has become interested in missions should progress. With the complacency of uncaring provincialism, many Christians have conveniently lumped all the non-Christian faiths into the one category of " idol- atry," and have made no effort to prosecute their study further. Yet the theme is a fascinating one ; and important, if the importation, as fads for fool- ish women and idle men, of Oriental cults, is to be MEN AND MISSIONS understood in its real gravity. In the primary class of mission study there should be taught what most educated adults seem not to know the essential dissimilarities between the major pagan faiths. What is the difference between Buddhism and Hin- duism? It appears to be a prevalent notion that India is inhabited by Buddhists ; whereas, in India proper there are practically no Buddhists at all, although the historic spots made sacred by associa- tion with the life of Guatama are there. Is Con- fucianism a religion? Is Shintoism? Wherein do the two differ? What is their relationship to Bud- dhism and Taoism in China and Japan ? Surely the religious systems of the majority of the human race are proper subjects of study; worthier of serious men's attention than the wild animals of the jungle. Stepping* down, for a moment, to the latter plane, the student of missions will not fall into the blunder of a celebrated and widely-loved " faunal natural- ist/' and talk about hunting tigers in Africa. He will know, however, what is not a matter of common knowledge, that tigers abound in the cold regions of China and Korea. When a man's interest in missions has led him to pursue the absorbing theme of non-Christian reli- gions, he finds himself confronted by Mohamme- danisrn, which worships the one God. Wherein is it superior to the pagan faiths ? What are its vital deficiencies? Is it feasible for Christianity Ho con- quer this other great missionary faith? To what extent is Islam being affected by the spirit of the 92 AFTER INTEREST WHAT? times? How should Christian missions set about forestalling the Moslem invasion of Africa and Asia ; and how should it seek to compass the con- version of the Moslem world itself? There are many flowers of human interest to be plucked along this highway a few of them growing in the garden of Omar Khayyam. From monotheistic Islam to the fetichism and animism and shamanism of backward races is a far cry, but the man who goes in for missions may follow it, to the buttressing of his interest. This will lead to a full study of idolatry, and its essential similarity the world around; and its foundation in fear. The core of idolatry is the propitiation of evil spirits : and many and curious are the forms it takes. Even baseball has not the fascination of this hobby of comparative religions, the amplifications of which have been barely sug- gested. Inwrought in the large subject of missions are various social and economic questions which repay a more thorough consideration than they ever get from missionary platforms. There is the primary consideration of how Europeans shall live In pagan, and, often, tropical lands. This involves points be- yond the usual ken of homekeeping white folk. It means a degree of what would here be called luxury, especially in the number of servants, which often evokes the criticism of those who recognize no other standards than those of their own neighborhood. Certain delicate questions of adjustment to the native life are involved ranging from the barbari- 93 MEN AND MISSIONS ties inflicted upon the Congo blacks by the Belgians, to the adoption of a native dress and customs by the China Inland Mission. Possibilities of grave political consequence are bound up in the residence of one race in the territory of another, especially when the former possess a certain degree of author- ity. Traveling along this line of thought, a man finds himself face to face with all the unrest and political agitation in India, as well as with the ominous "rights-recovery" movement in China, which is aimed at the extra-territorial privileges of foreigners. Many other themes of cognate interest to the general subject of missions suggest themselves. Per- haps enough has been said to show the limitless scope of a persisting and developing interest in world-evangelism. The topic is no small or barren one. Nobody has yet exhausted it. While the output of missionary literature, much of it upon a higher, broader plane than ever before (notably the scholarly, luminous volumes of Dr. James S. Den- nis), has been one of the noteworthy features of the publishing world during a decade, yet it is probable that the era of missionary literature is only in its be- ginning. There are marches of missions yet to be explored. Doubtless the eager, restless, inquiring minds of the modern men who have awakened to a conception of the reaches of this absorbing subject will make fresh and important contributions to it. Mere interest will be followed by enlarged knowl- edge, broadened horizons, and intensified life. 94 FACTS AT FIRST HAND CHAPTER IX THE FACTS AT FIRST HAND HARD-HEADED and skeptical men have long been pointing out a serious contradiction of the mission- ary presentation. A great many it is commonly said the most of the men in civil and official life who have traveled or visited in the lands where mis- sionaries labor, return home to make reports that are the reverse of favorable. In clubs, smoking compartments of sleeping-cars, smoking-rooms of ships, and wherever else traveled men congregate, there is likely to be somebody who " has it straight " that missions are not only useless and a meddlesome impertinence, but that they are also a pious sort of graft. Either these men, who undoubtedly have been on the scene, have not fairly acquainted themselves with the facts, or else there has been some serious misrepresentation, even though unintentional, on the part of the advocates and representatives of foreign missions. As to the first resisting the temptation to tell the old story of the sportsman who had never seen a missionary, and the missionary who had never seen a tiger it may again be pointed out that the non-Christian world is so big that many sets of con- ditions are possible within it. The average person 95 MEN AND MISSIONS at home simply has no conception of the vastness of heathendom. There is absolutely nothing within his own experience with which it may be compared. Neither in area nor density of population is his homeland to be likened to the great countries of Asia. His missionary maps have been inadequate to represent to him the piled-up and stretched-out immensity of paganism. It is easily possible for a white man to have spent years in some extensive parts of Asia and Africa (although this is very rarely the case) and yet never to have seen either a missionary or a native Christian. If any reader of this book would like the sensation of being abso- lutely out of sight and touch of Christianity, he can quite easily be directed to quarters of the earth where he will hear no word to symbolize Christian- ity or any of its great truths. After such an experi- ence he will assuredly speak more respectfully of Christian civilization. This simple explanation, that the non-Christian world has bulked too small in civilization's eyes, is true also in its corollary, that the missionary has bulked too large. Home folk have never seen heathendom, but they have seen missionaries. With weekly regularity the picture of the missionary has been called to their vision, through prayer or. ser- mon or printed page. His figure has been dispro- portionately large in their eyes because it has had no perspective or background of actual conditions. Is it any wonder that there has grown up in the Christian thought an image of the missionary as the 96 FACTS AT FIRST HAND loftiest and most important and most ubiquitous factor in the life of the nations that are still outside of what is usually called Christendom? Small wonder, then, that the adverse comments of men who have been on what is supposed to be the mission field, come as a shock to church folk holding these conceptions of his work and person- ality. Elsewhere in this book the criticisms upon missions are dealt with; but the contrasted condi- tions sketched in the foregoing paragraphs call for an obvious remedy. The truth should be ascertained by unbiased investigation. Most port city residents, and many natives, have an anti-missionary slant to their vision; board secretaries and preachers who go abroad are supposed to squint in the other direc- tion. Manifestly, the present state of affairs re- quires that men whose viewpoint is disinterested shall seek the facts at first hand, and make report upon them to the men of the churches. This proposition is one of the planks of the Laymen's Missionary Movement. Some of the men who have gone to the mission field, bearing the com- mission of the Movement, have done thorough and valuable independent work. Men like the late Dar- win R, James of New York, and L. H. Severance of Cleveland, set their well-trained minds to a study of conditions on the mission field, and their criti- cisms and endorsements have been of great weight. The number of men like them, who give sufficient time to their task, and who make the honest investi- gation of missions their first business while abroad, 97 MEN AND MISSIONS should be greatly increased : men in the Church and out of it will give respectful consideration to their opinions. Some other laymen who have visited the foreign field have not been able to leave the main- traveled roads, or to give adequate time to an ob- servation of missions. The lure of the Orient with all the fascinations of its picturesque life beckoning from every hand has been more than could be resisted by some men who went out with the best of intentions of studying missions. In the limited time at their disposal, when obliged to choose between the claims of missions and sight-seeing, they not unnaturally choose the latter. Later delegations of lay commissioners to the foreign field will be warned against this temptation. Speaking, if I may, for the men who have made a first-hand study of the facts of missions, it must be conceded that the earliest impression of a non- Christian community is that the missionary and his work are almost an undiscoverable quantity. Never shall I forget the first hours I spent in a Tokio jinrikisha, looking for the home of a certain mis- sionary, and for a missionary institution which my reading had led me to believe was the biggest thing in the city. I could not for hours find anybody who knew either the man or the building, nor did I see any sign of a church or of organized Christian- ity. Tokio is a huge city, and I did not in that time see a single white face, or meet with anybody who could speak English. Had I returned to Yokohama and my ship from that one experience in Japan's 9B FACTS AT F I R S T HAND capital I, too, might have been ready to join the critics who say there is nothing to Japanese mis- sions. Fortunately, a subsequent residence of sev- eral weeks in Tokio, and greater skill in observing amid Oriental conditions, taught me how- thoroughly that great metropolis of the Island Empire -is inter- penetrated with the influence of Christianity. My first impression of Tokio is not greatly different from the first impression which most travelers gain of a non-Christian land. Paganism seems so vast and so immovable, and even when discovered, the evangelizing agencies seem so few and feeble, that paganism apparently has the field to itself, for the present and for the future. A more thorough and interested observer is bound to report, in all honesty, that investigation reveals remarkable evidences of the presence and power of Christian missions. At first he comes upon the con- crete forms of effort, the street chapels, the churches, the hospitals, the schools, and the Christian litera- ture. Then he begins to find Christians in unex- pected places. He learns of the extraordinary num- ber of Japanese newspaper editors who are Chris- tians, and of the men in Japanese public life who are avowed disciples of Jesus. He finds in Shanghai a great printing plant owned and conducted by Christian Chinese. He runs across a week-day afternoon service in a native church, crowded with people, and he feels the rare thrill of the Presence in that, to him, strange company. Calling one Sun- day upon a young Chinese business man to whom 99 MEN AND MISSIO N S he had a note of introduction, he finds him reading one of Mr. Robert E. Speer's devotional articles in "The Record of Christian Work"; and by that man he is taken to a self-supporting, self-governing native church. In India he meets a band of students, led by the son of a Government official who was one of the leading lawyers of Calcutta, and these young men, he learns, are returning from a volun- teer evangelistic tour. Indirect evidences of the presence and poten- tiality of mission work crop up on every hand. The traveler's British host in a Chinese city, while grum- bling at missionaries, inadvertently drops the re- mark that the missionaries are closest to the natives, and best understand their life and thought; and if the Powers had listened to the warnings of the mis- sionaries there would have been no Boxer massacres or siege of Peking. Most of the translation work that has been done out of the vernacular into Eng- lish has been a by-product of misisonary labor, and practically all the first dictionaries and grammars in native languages are of missionary authorship. Much of the pioneer geographical research, too, has been the work of these same representatives of Christianity. The outreach of missions through education crops up in all sorts of ways through the native press, graduates in official life, the influ- ence upon a village of one educated Christian, the increased wage-earning capacity of graduate stu- dents, the elevation of the moral tone of Govern- ment schools, the widespread use of text-books pre- 100 FACTS AT FIRST HAND pared by missionaries, and so forth, almost indefi- nitely. The traveler finds, too, that the natives have gen- erally learned to classify foreigners into two groups, the missionary and the non-missionary. While the former is not so lavish in his expenditure (being, indeed, at times too careful of his pennies to com- port with the " face " of a foreigner), he is likewise less lavish with his hard words and blows. Only on very rare occasions can a missionary be found who will strike a native; whereas other white men in Asia and Africa are altogether too prone to treat the inhabitants harshly. Your native especially of Asia is no fool, and he understands whether a man is in his country to help him or to make gain of him. A singular tribute to missions was that expressed to me by the editor of a North China newspaper: " Broadly speaking, it is a fact that the only white man who is in China for China's good is the mis- sionary. It never occurs to the average business man here that he has any obligation to the Chinese. Yet only on that ground can he justify his pres- ence." Greatest of all the evidences of missionary suc- cess that creates conviction in the unbiased trav- eler's judgment is the native convert. Naturally there are all sorts of Christians abroad as well as at home; and the cautious critic will probably find as many " rice Christians " there as here : that is, persons who have joined the church for some motive of selfish gain, or from mixed motives. If he is 101 MEN AND MISSIONS fair-minded, however, the tourist will seek to meet some of the converts for himself. He will apply his own knowledge of human nature to their words and demeanor. By the shining in their faces of " The light that never was on land or sea " he will see reflected the inimitable Light that is Life. As deep calls to deep, so the heart of the yellow or brown or black disciple will evoke an answer from the heart of the white disciple. As the High- land elders once sought for the " marks "of church- members, so the enlightened visitor may find in the native church-member die marks of the New Testa- ment Christian, even the marks of the Lord Jesus Himself. This sufficient evidence makes unneces- sary the stories of persecutions endured, heroisms performed, and crosses borne for the sake of the Name. Nobody who has met face to face " the churches in Asia " can ever be moved by the sneers of the uninformed against the " mission-made man." When seen at first hand, the facts of missions make a different impression upon the mind of the observer from, the missionary presentation to which he has been accustomed at home. Because more intelligent, it is a stronger impression. A knowledge of actual conditions, moreover, buttresses a man in his missionary interest. As I have never known a Christian man who has looked into mission work with any degree of thoroughness who has not be- come an earnest supporter of it, so, too, I have never 1 02 FACTS AT FIRST HAND known one whose devotion could be shaken who has established it in a definite understanding of things as they are in mission lands. Enthusiasm may wane, emotions may subside, impulses may cool, and reso- lutions may be worn away by the attrition of the every-dayness of life; but he whose heart is fixed in the truth cannot be moved. That is why the new movement of men in missions must make more and more, as time passes, of facts learned at first hand. What of the multitude of interested men who can never hope to see missions for themselves? Only one in a myriad can travel to foreign parts. The others must receive, and weigh, the testimony of those who have gone abroad. Their very desire for first-hand knowledge is certain to develop new sources of information. Public men will be readier to travel to mission lands when once they realize the absorbing interest of this subject to men at home. The latter will also cultivate the laudable habit of looking more and more to original sources of information. It is worthy of a man's interest in missions to read such great documents as the report of the Proceedings of the Shanghai Conference. A new conception of the reality and largeness and in- tricacy and ramifications of foreign missions may be promised to the reader of a volume like that ; or the Proceedings of the Ecumenical Conference in New York in 1900, or in Edinburg in 1910. These are not purveyed for the popular taste. Skillful pens have not diluted or seasoned them to make them appetizing. They are the strong meat of straight- 103 MEN AND MISSIONS put fact and principle; and men grow strong in missions by digesting them. It is not to be expected that all interested men shall know all the facts of all mission fields. An encyclopedic knowledge of the subject is possible to only the few. The reasonable course for the ordi- nary layman is to acquaint himself with the great outstanding facts of missionary history, which in- cludes some knowledge of the pre-eminent person- alities : this is the sort of knowledge most intelligent men have of the history of their own country and of Europe. In addition, a general understanding of the extent of the mission fields and of the native faiths and of the agencies at work among them, is not too much to ask of anybody who is really inter- ested in missions. Then in detail, every man should know at least one mission field of his own Church ; know it thor- oughly, so that the names and work of most of its missionaries are familiar to him, as well as the geography and life of the people. Every man needs some inexhaustible hobby, outside of his daily work: why not make that hobby China or India or Korea or Japan or Africa or Turkey or Persia or the romantic islands of the South Seas? The theme is worthy of a man's powers, and its pursuit makes for culture and social interest. Such intimate, thor- ough knowledge of the facts at first hand is a proper missionary goal, worthy of every man's endeavor. 104 DARLING DELUSIONS CHAPTER X SOME DARLING DELUSIONS THE tragic disappointment of many honest-souled new missionaries upon arrival in the lands where they expect to spend their lives Is an unwritten chapter of missions. One of the saddest sights to be witnessed on the foreign field is the death of enthusiasm in the young missionary. To some de- gree every one of them suffers this shock. He has gone forth, a modern Sir Galahad, confident in the expectation of victory. His conception of missions had been built up in part, at least, of dramatic stories and chivalrous appeals; and his training in the hard facts of missions had not effaced the romantic view which had early appealed to him. To his consternation, he is not widely acclaimed upon arrival as a friend, helper, and hero. Persecu- tion he had expected, and even hoped for but the indifference which he really encounters is soul-con- gealing. He finds the heathen many and the Chris- tians few. The picturesque aspect of the natives soon fades, and is succeeded by deep irritation at their ways. He finds himself surrounded on every hand by multitudes and multitudes of uncaring heathen, separated from him by seemingly unscala- 105 MEN AND MISSIONS ble barriers of speech, thought, heredity, and custom. He had pictured these people as eagerly expectant and desirous of his coming; but, save for a handful of interested ones, they do not care about him at all, except possibly to laugh at his queer foreign ways and blunders. The overwhelming triumphs of the gospel about which he has so long studied do not appear at first view. Is there any missionary who has not echoed in his heart the bitter cry which Valignani addressed to China, " O Rock ! O Rock ! When wilt thou open to my Lord!" Is it any wonder that many a missionary becomes trans- formed from the fiery enthusiast into the grim, patient plodder, praying ever and hoping on, not because of what his eyes behold, but because of his soul's unquenchable faith ? There are equally rude awakenings in store for every man whose knowledge of missions has been superficial and conventional. The startling and un- expected impact of things as they are has destroyed the interest in missions of more than one Christian tourist, casually observing the lands where mission- ary operations are carried on. The Church has been so greatly concerned to prove the mistakes of the " globe-trotter " who really is not always quite the gullible and prejudiced creature we often make him out, being generally a person of education and of the judgment of men and places which travel ordinarily imparts in his estimates of missions, and so deter- mined to make out a perfect case for her foreign operations, that she has not taken time to consider 106 DARLING DELUSIONS whether, after all, there may not be some basis for adverse findings. Is it not possible that her parti- sanship, and her zeal in behalf of missions, have blinded her to the other side of the story? In a book for men, which is written without any mental reservations, and in an earnest endeavor to give fair representation to all aspects of the mission- ary situation, it must be admitted frankly that Christians as a whole have entertained some serious delusions upon the subject; and these have grown dear by long treasuring. Most of them may be traced directly to the fact that often the official missionary agencies have apparently been distrustful of the courage and devotion of their constituencies; therefore they have felt themselves obliged to pre- sent the more favorable side of the work. The ordinary missionary picture is one without per- spective or horizon. There has been, doubtless, very little intentional misrepresentation ; yet, all unwittingly, by wrong emphasis, there has been generally a failure to present the actual truth in balance and proportion. Inasmuch as a basic principle of the Laymen's Missionary Movement is independent investigation, and a straight presentation of the uttermost facts that have a bearing on the case, there will probably be a gradual alteration of policy in this particular on the part of the officials of the missionary bodies. These men themselves are not ignorant of " the other side " ; they know the failures and discourage- ments and difficulties. Notwithstanding these, their 107 MEN AND MISSIONS faith rises triumphant, and they rightly believe in the necessity and worth and real accomplishments of missions. The new order will simply mean that the whole Church will be given opportunity to dis- play the same confidence and courage as the boards, assuming that the stockholders of a corporation have a right to know the actual condition of its affairs. Possibly because of their absorption in their labors, the protagonists of missions have not realized the serious possibilities consequent upon the course indi- cated, or its real one-sidedness. That the truth shall have free course, even when it does not seem to favor our interests, is of more importance than the welfare of all the good work in the world: nothing is comparable with truth's unfettered liberty. All truth is of God; and we do not serve the God of truth by suppressing aught of the truth of God. Remembering always that " no generalization is true not even this one ! " it may be profitable to consider some of the common misconceptions con- cerning mission work. Not until these are removed, and the project understood in its reality, 'can the evangelization of the world be prosecuted sanely and successfully. First and greatest of all the delu- sions widely entertained with respect to this work is that the whole non-Christian world is rapidly being won to the standards of Jesus Christ: that the missionary crusade is a conquering army before which the forces of idolatry are fleeing in confusion. It must be borne in mind that all Protestant churches have, after some fashion, been preaching and teach- 108 DARLING DELUSION. S ing missions for generations. From infancy, the children of the churches have learned about the non- Christian lands chiefly through their relationship with missions. Long before there was any " Far Eastern Question " the persons who are now adults had some knowledge of China and Japan and Korea and India as places where missionaries labor. Most home-keeping Christians have never seen one of the many daily newspapers published in what we know as mission lands for the white residents there- in ; it would shock them to observe how very little space, if any, is devoted to the missionary body. The ordinary supporter of foreign missions is quite ignorant of that other extensive and potent Euro- pean and American life which exists amid the non- Christian peoples. Is it to be wondered at, there- fore, that, in his eyes, the missionary looms largest on these scenes ? Or that it should be rather vaguely believed that mission lands are being wholly sub- dued to the missionary's teachings ? So the assump- tion is quite general, being furthered by enthusiastic convention mottoes, such as " The World for Christ," and "The Evangelization of the World in This Generation," that "the heathen/' as we indiscriminately group them, are turning en masse to the better way of Christianity. Over against this prevalent notion may be put the unequivocal declarations of many travelers, that they never saw a native Christian, and that mission work does not amount to anything. Let it be ad- mitted that it is easily possible for a person to travel 109 MEN AND MISSIONS through Africa and Asia without ever seeing a missionary or a convert, for such is undoubtedly the case. The vastness of the expanse of pagan lands as yet unr cached by the gospel is best reaHzed by the most intelligent friends of missions. Up until the present, the missionary has only touched the outermost fringes of paganism. The huge inert bulk has scarcely been budged. The immense in- difference of the masses of the followers of the old religions of Asia to the teachings of Jesus is one of the overwhelming phases of the missionary situation that makes an observer marvel at the supreme audacity of Christianity in assuming to be able to overcome it. Of course there have been results of missionary labor triumphs out of all proportion to the investment of men and equipment; triumphs arguing incontrovertibly for supernatural assistance but the conclusion of a thorough investigator must be that, speaking broadly, up to the present time the missionary enterprise has been more a recon- naissance in force than a war. A second prevalent impression that is scarcely sustained by actual conditions is that a first hearing of the gospel story convicts and converts the non- Christian. This belief has been the primary as- sumption of a great deal of utterly inadequate " evangelization/' Certainly, there are well-authen- ticated instances of persons who have been so im- pressed by the first telling of the Good News that they have surrendered their lives to this new Mas- ter; but these are rare. It must be borne in mind no DA RLING DELUSIONS that the heathen (again to employ this convenient though distasteful term) lack altogether the back- ground which constitutes the larger factor in re- ligious work in Christian lands. They have none of the historical information which we possess. Lacking all Old Testament knowledge, ignorant of the existence of Palestine, and without those in- grained religious sentiments which are a Christian inheritance, their whole mode of thought is radi- cally different. Accustomed, for instance, to the idea of many gods,- it is not easy for them to grasp the fundamental conception of monotheism. When a preacher in a London pulpit says " Come to Jesus/' a great body of information and belief and experi- ence, on the part of his hearer, rallies to the re- inforcement of his message. This is not so in China or India or East Africa. The people must be given ears with which to hear. Therefore it is a common saying among missionaries, as they sigh over some defections from their high standards on the part of a convert, " We are after these people's children and children's children." There is an unmeasured amount of missionary work that goes to the creation of a Christian atmosphere, and a gradual leavening of society. Those persons who think that the simple telling of the story (forgetting that years must be spent by the missionaries in learning enough of the native language to enable them to tell the story even stumblingly) is all that there is to missions, regard the enterprise as a military movement that would conquer paganism by assault ; in MEN AND MISSIONS whereas the metaphors of mining and sapping and siege are in most instances more suitable. Allied with the foregoing misconception is that third one, frequently fostered by uninformed utter- ances from home platforms, that the heathen are overwhelmed by a sense of sin. Now, that is just what the non-Christian peoples lack. They are con- spicuously deficient in what Christendom knows as a consciousness of sin. Many of them doubtless realize existence as an almost intolerable burden. They have a profound feeling that the game of life is hardly worth the candle. The inextinguishable spark of longing for a better life burns in all peo- ples; and the sense of an existence and Power beyond self has never been lost from the human heart. So the Hindu faquir gashes himself, and undergoes horrible self-tortures, in order to lay up merit against a subsequent existence. From the same motive custom and a thirst for excitement being also factors Buddhists go on painful pil- grimages, and pay without ceasing. But neither temple toll nor bodily anguish may fairly be repre- sented as prompted by a sense of sin. Questioned upon this point, educated converts have said that the consciousness of sin came to them only after they had become disciples of Jesus, and had attained a personal spiritual experience. A further unwarranted staple of missionary pre- sentation has been that the heathen are sodden in misery as well as iniquity. How, then, are we to account for the laughter of little children, and the 112 DARLING DELUSIONS happy faces of youth, as we find them all around the world? Some of the religious festivals, espe- cially in Japan, are as merry frolics as the best o Sunday-school picnics. People are very much alike everywhere. It is doubtless safe to declare that there is more of misery in non-Christian lands than in Christian lands ; but there is also more of comfort and happiness than the West has been led to believe. The discontent with their lot which makes men and women cry out for the missionary is more read- ily found in missionary literature than in mission lands. The broad statement is too frequently made, and with too slight foundation in fact, that the heathen are thronging into the kingdom of heaven. This is a note which missionary hymns commonly strike. But it i? a false note. Except for Korea, and certain places in other lands, like the mass movements among the Karens of Burma and the outcasts in Northern India, and the great ingatherings in the Uganda and Nyanza regions in Africa, there is no general tend- ency among non-Christian peoples to enter upon the New Way. The missionaries are not being driven to desperation by natives eager to hear the Message. On the contrary, most missionaries undergo long, patient labor in order to win a few converts. The number of the latter is increasing at an accelerating rate, and the indications that they will continue to do so are one of the providential signs which sum- mon the laity into immediate service. Yet there are more heathen in China to-day than when Robert 113 MEN AND MISSIONS Morrison landed there more than a hundred years ago. Fifty years of elaborate and expensive and highly-organized Christian effort in Japan has pro- duced less than 70,000 actual church members. There are other results and foretokens of a great harvesting through the immediate agency of the native Church. But we may not let Christians delude themselves into thinking that " the natural man," in mission lands, any more than at home, is eager for the spiritual religion of Jesus Christ. Only the most earnest and persistent preaching, re- inforced by the all-potent Spirit, can win disciples for the Crucified. The foregoing paragraphs have prepared the reader for a frank statement of the sixth and crown- ing misconception of homeland Christians concern- ing their mission work. This delusion is that the non-Christian world is eager and grateful for the missionary and his message. Most church-goers have been given the impression that the Macedonian cry is echoing clamorously from all the unevan- gelized world. They have sung, in all confidence in the truthfulness of the hymns, many such refrains as "There's a cry comes ringing o'er the restless wave, 'Send the Light!'" If there is one conviction more than another with respect to missions deeply embedded in the hearts of Christendom it is this one of the eagerness of "those that sit in darkness" for the Light of life. Unwelcome as is the truth, it must be acknowledged 114 DARLING DELUSIONS that in perhaps the larger part of the mission world the missionary is not wanted and not even welcome. Some of the advantages which he brings, as medical healing and modern education and industrial train- ing, are gladly received: but the people prefer these without Christianity attached. Many missionaries, laboring in the face of adverse conditions which probably would stagger the Church at home, have to remind themselves frequently that God is kind to the evil and to the unthankful. If they labored for the sake of the thanks of those whom they serve they would not labor long. Paul heard the Mace- donian call (though it was really a call from God, and not from Macedonia), but found persecutions and mobbings awaiting him on this mission field. Frequently his successors encounter the opposition without hearing the voice. An experience of my own in connection with the Kiang-peh famine in China illustrates the situation on most mission fields to-day. Tarrying in Chin- kiang for a few days before proceeding up the canal, I saw considerable of the refugee camp out- side the city wall. Although one of the smaller camps, this one held perhaps forty thousand refugees from up country, all living on the bare and frozen ground, and the most comfortable of them having only an improvised hut of straw matting to shelter them. The tide of relief had not yet begun to flow from America and Europe. Moved by compas- sion for the suffering ones, Mrs. John W. Paxton made daily rounds to administer what medical relief "5 MEN AND MISSIONS was possible. One day I accompanied her, and she translated the words of the people. The commonest complaint we heard that morning from these starv- ing Chinese was that they had lost their appetites! On their faces was the unmistakable famine pallor ; hunger had driven them hither from their homes yet they had no taste for food ! The tragedy of it was overwhelming. They had no appetite, because they had reached the last stages of starvation, and were dying. They did not want food, for the very reason that they needed it so badly. Heathendom does not want the gospel, because it needs it. Starv- ing for the Bread of Life, it yet protests no desire for this supreme boon. Heathendom does not desire Christianity for the very reason that it is heathen- dom. , ntf FIELD PROBLEMS CHAPTER XI FIELD PROBLEMS FOR MEN'S SOLVING. As A boy, I once heard a preacher talking about the difficulties in the Bible, and I recall feeling a distinct contempt for him. I had never found any difficulties in the Bible. It was all plain and clear to me; and I could not understand what ailed the man. Alas! that we should have to outgrow our simple views and sufficient generalizations. One of the severest penalties of being " grown up " is this disillusionment as to life's simplicity: we have to accept the complexities and intricacies and shaded colors of life ; it is no longer possible to place every- thing in one of the two categories labeled " Good " and " Bad." To the children's mission bands this whole missionary business is merely a matter of raising money to send missionaries to the benighted heathen to preach the gospel ; as soon as the heathen hear they will gladly accept the message, and thus the work will be done and there you are. As these chapters have already indicated, the mis- sionary enterprise is far from simple or easy. Every step into fuller knowledge of it reveals fresh com- plications and ramifications. The business of selling kerosene to China is immeasurably simpler for the Standard Oil Company than is the carrying of the 117 MEN AND MISSIONS gospel to China by the Church. There is not a single corporation doing business in the pagan world that does not have a far easier task than the mission boards. It is common to laud the sagacity and pro- gressiveness and commercial statesmanship of the men who sell locomotives and steel rails and other merchandise to the Orient; yet their undertaking does not approach in magnitude or difficulty that of Christian missions. If it takes skill to carry com- merce beyond the confines of Christian civilization, it takes greater skill to carry the body of Christian truth. Now that laymen are seriously interesting themselves in this latter enterprise the greatest work in the world they find awaiting them a multi- tude of problems demanding the consideration of mature minds, accustomed to large conceptions. The continued existence of these would seem to argue that board administration has been unequal to them, or else that the boards have allowed these to slide, along with other matters, because of their en- grossment in what they have believed to be concerns of graver moment. Take, as a general example, the whole subject of missionary relationships. What shall be the relationship of the missionary to the non-missionary white community amidst which he lives ? At present, that relationship is fairly repre- sented by zero. A great gulf is fixed between the two classes. The community people smile or sneer at the missionaries, and the latter often maintain an attitude which some observers characterize as Phari- saical. The missionary does not commonly own 118 FIELD PROBLEMS evening clothes, his salary precludes him from enter- ing into the social life of the port cities, he does not belong to the club, which is the center of masculine social life, and, in fine, he does not come into con- tact with his fellow American or his fellow Euro- pean. So the two who should stand together are not united in presenting a common front in behalf of Christian civilization. This is a serious matter; a very serious matter. It has results reaching into the realm of economics, " haute politiques" social life, private religion, and public morals. The keen interest and best thought of the most influential lay- men will be needed to solve the problem. Solved it must be, for the laity in the large can never be per- suaded to subscribe to the belief held by some mis- sionaries, and expressed in the words, " We came here to work for the natives, and we have no time for the white people/' The spiritual welfare of a Caucasian in Asia is as much a matter of solicitude to the churches and their Lord as is the spiritual welfare of the Asiatic. A pernicious theory of missions held by a com- paratively few persons is that the missionaries are professional witnesses to and against the natives, and that in the delivery of their testimony it is not necessary to cultivate the personal good will of the people. Possibly this is one reason for the condition that exists in some missionary communities with respect to the relationship between the missionary and the local residents. It is far easier to maintain this attitude of what Dr. John H. De Forest hap- up MEN AND MISSIONS pily calls " extra-territoriality," than it is to over- come the mountainous difficulties involved in a suc- cessful adjustment to native life. How far should the wise missionary go in adapting himself to the usages of the people among whom he dwells. Many of these customs seem to him puerile, foolish, and artificial : and he often has the innate Anglo-Saxon (or is it Oriental?) disdain for other ways than his own. Most missionaries, and the best, have recog- nized that only as they were acceptable to their hearers as men and women would their message find a hearing ; and so, without sacrificing their Christian position or integrity of character, they have followed the Pauline course of being made all things to all men, that they might by all means save some. The missionary enjoys in many mission lands the prestige which comes from being a " foreigner/' He seldom seeks the state and power which, until lately, the French missionaries demanded in China. If he is at all fitted for his post, he has no desire to be some great one : he is among men as a minister. Nevertheless, he must have dealings with the offi- cials and gentry, and so he should conduct himself on these occasions with proper state. I know a talented North China Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation man who is careful to observe the top-hat and frock-coat and other ceremonial usages when visiting the yamen, to the scorn of some other mis- sionaries, who, it must be said, never get within speaking distance of the influential Chinese. Wher- ever I went in North China I found the officials and 120 FIELD PROBLEMS gentry pronounced in their sentiments of honor for Dr. J. Walter Lowrie, of Pao-Ting-fu, who has not deemed it inconsistent with his profession as a missionary of the Carpenter to be at all points a polished, tactful gentleman. Miss Gaines, of the Hiroshima Girls' School, Japan, is another example of the power wielded by one who is considerate of native thought and manners. Of missionaries of this sort known to me the roll is too long to be called here. Is it not the very genius of their teaching, expressed in their own lives, which makes them con- siderate of their neighbors? These missionaries do more than safeguard their " face/ 7 as befits a for- eigner of standing; they really learn to love the people of different race with whom they live. There is, probably, less of a problem with respect to the missionary and the native than in some of his other relationships. The entire enlightened laity of the churches stands behind the missionary who en- deavors to identify himself as thoroughly as possible with the native life, in brotherliness, tact, fulness, and sympathy. Especially will it support him in set- ting his face like a flint against the tendency, com- mon among foreigners resident among peoples whom they regard as inferior, to abuse the natives. Nobody has yet written the story of the personal wrongs and indignities and brutality which the yel- low and brown and black man have undergone at the hands of the whites. Occasionally, a missionary acts like an all-powerful " foreigner," forgetting that he is also a missionary, sent out to imitate the 121 MEN AND MISSIONS meek and lowly One. In the main, though, the mis- sionary respects the rights of the natives, and shows no sympathy with the short-sighted and unfraternal policy which subjects them to abuse and exploita- tion. The modern tendency is happily toward an increased emphasis upon the place of the native Christian in missionary work. Whenever oppor- tunity presents, the men of the churches should encourage their representatives to the most scru- pulous adherence to this course. When we come to the subject of the relationships of missionaries with one another, the issue becomes more delicate. Here again, however, the voice of the laity of the home churches is all-powerful in decision. They are the final human authority, and their representatives must conform to their will. If the laity say that there must be union or close co- operation, there can be no gainsaying or withstand- ing that verdict. Happily, the foreign missionaries are far in advance of the home churches with respect to organic union, practical co-operation and comity. The homeland has little to teach the missionaries in those particulars, and much to learn from them. Even so, there remains occasional rivalry and even proselyting on the foreign field. The worst offend- ers in the latter particulars are bodies holding pecu- liar doctrinal views, as sanctification. Supporters of these should make careful examination into the source of their accessions. Consider the situation: a mission has toiled for years to gather a handful of Christians out of raw heathendom. Along comes 122 FIELD PROBLEMS a missionary of another body, who tells these new disciples that they need to be immersed or to receive a." second blessing " ere they can truly be Christians. The converts, eager to conform in all things to the will of their new Lord, sometimes guilelessly accept this additional teaching and go over to the mission- ary who brings them this " full gospel." The latter straightway has a report of wonderful successes to send home. That this is no exaggerated sketch many a missionary who has " eaten the bitterness/' as the Chinese say, of having his sheaves snatched from his arms by one whom he wants to call a brother missionary, can soulfully testify. In explanation, it must be said that this sort of proselyting is usually done by independent and un- denominational missionaries. The latter constitute a grave field problem for men's solving. Too long has a mistaken sense of Christian courtesy kept mis- sionary leaders silent concerning this subject. I speak in conservative terms when I declare that most of the scandals on the mission field, most of the ill-repute of the mission body as a whole, most of the slanderous stories that are told concerning missionaries, and many of the serious blunders in mission work on the field, are due to these " inde- pendent " missions. Men and women are sent out by them to the field with no other qualification than a religious fervor, untinged by any adequate knowl- edge of facts. They are often far below par in edu- cational equipment, and in social furnishing. They are frequently poorly supported, or not supported 123 MEN AND MISSIONS at all, and left to the charity of the " board mis- sionaries " whose lack of faith they openly decry. Every port city is full of stories of these people: many amusing, many pathetic, and many tragic : but all pointing a finger of condemnation at the lack of common sense on the part of Christians in the home- land who will abet the departure of such ill-fitted and unsustained persons for the mission field. Denominational boards undoubtedly have their faults, but they also have a sense of responsibility and honor. What shall we say of the ethics of one holiness sect whose followers make great sacrifices for the cause of missions; but whose leaders use the money thus secured merely to send the weekly organ of the sect to the representatives of all estab- lished missions ? The method of reasoning probably is that by converting the missionaries on the field to their peculiar views they will most quickly reach the heathen ! Needless to say, nine times out of ten the publication, which has no literary or spiritual worth, finds its way into the missionary waste- basket. These independent missions seldom pene- trate into the interior, but establish themselves among the conveniences of the port cities, where they can do most harm and least good. Their faults include inefficient and irresponsible management, in- adequate equipment, insufficient evangelization, and a censorious attitude toward all other missions. If the regular missions were not possessed of more religion than some of these independent workers credit them with, they would long ago have turned 124 FIELD P R Q B L EMS upon the latter and exposed them by name and in detail to Christendom. Doubtless, it has been made plain that here is a job for men. As the conflict with the non-Christian forces becomes more acute, these guerrilla raiders must somehow be eliminated. Some of them have worth enough in them to merit absorption by exist- ing missions. Probably there is not an efficient missionary at work in all of these independent bodies who cannot find a position, and employment for his fullest powers, in connection with some one of the denominational boards. The question should be seriously considered whether it is not the plain duty of laymen to keep all independent missionaries, who are not endorsed by the denominational board of the congregation appealed to, out of the pulpits of America and Europe, thus cutting off, so far as possible, the source of their income. With greater popular knowledge of the facts of the case, conse- quent upon the increased intelligence of the inter- ested laymen, it may be expected that the problem of the independent mission will be disposed of by their amalgamation with the denominational bodies. All the foregoing having been said, it remains true that there are shining exceptions to this general criticism. Of congenial interest to business men is the problem of supplies for the missionaries' living. It is impossible in Eastern lands for missionaries to live entirely on native food. They must have for- eign provisions and clothes and household supplies; 125 MEN AND MISSIONS the predicament of being " a hundred miles from a lemon " has passed into proverb. So at certain points the boards maintain " business agents," who attend to these secular matters for the missionaries inland. Sometimes several business agents, gradu- ates of theological seminaries, are stationed in one city, whereas one commercially-trained layman could do the work of all of them. There is no theological taint in canned goods, and this sort of sectarianism is " ' reductio ad absurdum." It recalls Robert E. Speer's declaration that " All waste is disloyalty to the Church; all friction is disloyalty to Christ/* There are certain aspects of missions which affect not only all bodies at work in the field, but the good name of Christianity as well; and these should have the attention of the laity at home in order that the forces afield may be spurred to action. An im- portant instance is that of the tourist in mission lands. Unless he comes especially armed with per- sonal interest or letters of introduction, he is dis- regarded by the missionaries. Hotels, shops, guides, and " sights " make special efforts to allure him : the traveler across the Pacific finds that the long arm of a Yokohama hotel has been stretched out half way across the ocean toward him in friendly invi- tation : but he inquires in vain aboard ship for even the most general information concerning missions. He fares no better at the great Oriental hotels. The native guides seem to know nothing about mis- sionaries, or else speak disparagingly of them. A short experience with this condition of things leads 126 FIELD PROBLEMS the sensible Christian tourist to the conviction that it is the obvious duty of the mission bodies unitedly to provide all the ships that sail to mission lands, and all the hotels therein, with attractively printed literature of missionary information. This will not only assist travelers to look into missions on their own account, but it will furnish a silent but sufficient rejoinder to the missionary criticisms which tourists constantly hear. The vagueness of these hostile opinions will be answered by the definiteness of the printed information. There is not an enterprise in existence that more greatly needs, or would be more quickly rewarded by, judicious advertising than for- eign missions. There is no good reason why, at the larger ports, Christian guides speaking English should not be provided from the mission schools. These would be gladly used by all classes of tourists, for they would save the latter from the extortions of the existing guide fraternity and presumably, if they are to represent Christianity they would tell the truth, both in respect to the places visited and con- cerning the commercial transactions with curio deal- ers. It is not unreasonable to ask, considering the immense influence wielded in the homeland by the tourist body, that mission-trained guides be supplied who are capable of conducting a party over an entire country. Thus, the stranger in Constantinople could employ a Christian guide who would be his courier throughout Turkey; in Bombay he could secure a mission-school graduate to journey with 127 MEN AND MISSIONS him as "bearer" over all India; in Shanghai or Hong Kong a Chinese " boy " of the first order, and in Yokohama an alert Japanese who would be " guide, counsellor, and friend " to the stranger in a strange land. A new and profitable means of liveli- hood would thus be opened to Christians; and the competition should markedly improve the character and efficiency of the other guides and couriers (want. In addition, for the sake of economizing the mission- ary's time, each large mission should have a native Christian to show to visitors the work. Certain forms of Christian work in foreign lands that do not come within the ordinary scope of mis- sions yet need the attention of the entire missionary body. That they are often neglected is to the dis- credit of these official representatives of the churches. There is the special plight of the white seaman ashore in the Orient. The lure of the East, reinforced by the worst of the West, awaits him. Who, in this hour of direst need, will represent the mothers of these boys, and will exercise the friendly offices of brotherly religion? I well recall the shock that came to me at Chefoo, as I saw the American flag, and the enticing names of American sentiment, displayed over entire rows of vile dens, meant for the ruin of the sailor boys of the American fleet, who were in harbor to the number of thousands. Practically all that was done to provide safe shelter and entertainment for them was at the initiative of an already overburdened missionary, Rev. G. Corn- well, who, with his wife, has recently succumbed to 128 FIELD PROBLEMS cholera. The wisdom of this magnificently patri- otic, humanitarian, and Christian service to the sea- men by Mr. Cornwell was questioned by some other missionaries, who thought it might interfere with the work which he had come to do for the natives. Here was a case where the united mission body, in co-operation with such special agencies as the American Seamen's Friend Society and the Naval Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association (the laymen at home holding these latter to a strict account for any failure to serve the opportunity) should have been ready for this special need. Other great emergencies should be similarly met. The Christian work in the Japanese army is a case in point. Because there were such a variety of Christian bodies eager to do service for the soldier, no one could be accepted until the problem was happily and splendidly solved by the Young Men's Christian Association, the Manchurian Army work of which was probably the greatest piece of Chris- tian strategy in all the history of missions in Japan. If any word of criticism could be uttered in con- nection with so great an achievement and the criticism is not at all laid at the door of the Associa- tion it would be that this far-reaching service was not wrought by the united Christian missions, so that the influence of it might equally serve all repre- sentatives of the Church. Famines, floods, and earthquakes are similar occa- sions for which missionaries should be prepared. The meeting of these emergencies should not be left 129 M^EN AND MISSIONS to self-exploiting newspapers or individuals. The honor of Christianity is at stake. The good name of the Kingdom is tarnished by to cite an instance such an unseemly squabble as arose in connection with the recent great Chinese famine. A self-ap- pointed committee of missionaries in a port city in the interior undertook to raise and administer relief funds. When a great central relief committee, with representatives of the various Governments, of mis- sionary bodies, and of white business men and of Chinese, was created at Shanghai, this missionary committee displayed a petty jealousy, and a desire for honor and power, which led the broader-minded Shanghai Committee to ignore it until it had come to its senses. In the meantime, the scoffers were not silent. All the work of administering relief on the famine field was done by missionaries, and they deserve the highest honor. Their labors advanced the standing of Christianity in that region a long way. But if there had been in Shanghai, as there should be now, a permanent, official China emer- gency committee of missionaries, ever ready to act promptly and to speak officially upon such unfore- seen contingencies, it would not have been possible for one or more ill-balanced individuals to jeopard- ize a great enterprise, or to bring the good name of missions into disrepute. Such an emergency com- mittee in every mission land, working in co-operation with the central committee of the allied mission boards at home, can instantly command the attention and support of Christendom. The need of such 130 FIELD PROBLEMS authoritative utterance, when famine, fire, riot or massacre may any day arise, is best understood by those who know the conditions attendant upon sim- ilar occasions in the past. The business sense of Christian laymen should bring this to an issue. Other field problems for men to solve there are in plenty. The education of the children of mis- sionaries is one of these which assumes special mag- nitude. It is an interesting sidelight upon heathen- dom that American and European children may not safely be brought up in pagan lands. Apart alto- gether from the immorality of thought and speech which surrounds them, they need to acquire the atmosphere and point of view of the homeland. " I want my children to grow up as Americans, not as Japanese/' remarked one missionary. Some Euro- peans (in which term all white persons in the Orient are included) refuse to allow their children to learn the native language, because of its moral taint; and to this end they import governesses. But the mis- sionary cannot afford this. If the mother is to con- duct school at home, how is she to do also the work expected of her by the mission board ? Pending the time when children must be sent to the homeland, to undergo that long separation which is the severest hardship a missionary is called upon to endure, how may they be educated ? Should not the united mis- sion boards establish schools at convenient centers for the training of the missionary children? This relates itself to another missionary problem, that of the missionary's salary, both when on the field and 13* MEN AND MISSIONS when at home upon furlough. There are some startling inequalities to be found here; and it is a fair question for laymen and the boards to face, whether a missionary should not be freed from the often distressing perplexity of financial difficulties. The foregoing chapter may at least have shown some readers that there are tasks upon the foreign field up to which only the strong and wise men of the churches can measure. These are more than an optional interest : they are a clear obligation upon the man who would go in for missions manfully. MEN AND THE BOARDS CHAPTER XII THE MEN AND THE BOARDS THOUGH captained by Jesus Christ, the modern missionary enterprise belongs to the churches. It is their affair. They supply the money and the men. The responsibility is on their shoulders. It does not rest with any board or aggregation of boards. The latter are mere methods and means. The big- gest and oldest board is only the servant of its church. There is nothing sacred about a board, despite the tendency of some denominations to ven- erate them, and of some occasional board represen- tatives to regard themselves as peculiar incarnations of knowledge and power and dignity. This introductory sentiment needs to be expressed before we can consider rationally, in a later chapter, the subject of missionary criticism. For we must first vindicate the right of criticism. There were several grave heresies involved in the old idea, vaguely entertained in many quarters, that the methods and personnel of missions which meant board administration were beyond criticism. The only kind of criticism of missions thinkable was that which condemned the entire missionary enter- prise. For the present it is important to hold to the point that there is a friendly criticism of missions 133 MEN AND MISSIONS which is really necessary to the success of the enter- prise. In no captious spirit, but wholly as a constructive suggestion, the proposition is advanced that the best judgment of the whole body of church-members is needed for carrying on that most difficult phase of the Church's work which we call missions. Every recommendation of a new method is an implied criticism of the old, and will evoke the resentment of the man whom tariff discussions have taught us to call a " stand-patter." Whoever has a word of counsel upon the conduct of missions as a whole, or upon any individual man or station, should re- ceive the most cordial welcome at the centers of administration. All big commercial enterprises in- vite criticism, even from the public. Many of them employ men to seek it out, or formulate it them- selves. A recent innovation in the conduct of the largest American cities is called " The Bureau of Municipal Research." This body of experts under- take to make systematic investigation of a city's ways of working. Upon their definite criticisms constructive reforms are established. Quite in the same fashion the laymen of the churches should bring their trained judgment to bear upon the administration of missions. Are the advertising, or home propaganda, expenses too high or too low? Are the media for reaching the con- stituency antiquated or otherwise ineffective? Is the literature of a sort to get results ? Are the whole money-raising plans on a large enough scale ? Are 134 M E NAND THE BOARDS contributors given a fair return of definite informa- tion for their money? Is the present policy far- sighted enough, or is it primarily designed only to meet the present year's budget? In the matter of board personnel, the judgment of the laity is invaluable. Assuming that no man is kept in board service who is not producing the utmost in the way of results (for boards can better afford to retire, at full salary, if they must do this sort of eleemosynary work, an inefficient man than to keep him in a position where he hinders returns) the laymen are best situated to judge the worth of the men who represent the cause to the churches and to the public. It should in no sense be counted impertinence, but only truest co-operation, if the contributors to a board the stockholders, as it were speak out frankly in criticism of these most im- portant representatives. Here, for instance, is a board secretary who always speaks with a whine, and with a holier-than-thou air. The influence of his addresses is generally very depressing. Some men have been heard to say quite irrationally, it is true, but then human nature is not as rational as it might be that they would give nothing to missions so long as that man represented the board. One entire congregation cut off (most reprehensibly) its annual offering to foreign missions, as a rebuke to the board for sending that particular secretary into its pulpit. Yet, so far as I know, there has never gone to that board, from any church, pastor or lay- man, a frank, manly, dispassionate protest against MEN AND MISSIONS the retention of that inefficient official in service. In other words, the biggest business in the world may be conducted like a country bank which is dominated by nepotism and tupenny sentiments. When the laymen get to expressing their consecra- tion by their criticisms, there will probably be marked and immediate improvements in even the best of our missionary administrative bodies. When it comes to criticism of the field forces and methods, every Christian student and traveler may be of assistance to the cause of missions. The State Department at Washington asked a recent traveler in the Orient to write a confidential report of his impressions of the consuls, ministers, and ambassa- dors whom he had met. Wherein this report con- firmed the department's previous information or knowledge, it acted at once, removing some officials of long standing. That same traveler commented upon serious defects in a certain mission the criti- cisms being by no means new, and the facts being actually in the possession of the board authorities but inasmuch as the comments could be construed as a reflection upon the denomination's administra- tion, their author was roundly denounced! That state of mind, on the part of a board, is unthinkable in this age. It is a primary ground for fundamental criticism. Willingness to condone wrong conditions opens the Church to all the shafts of a hostile world's condemnation and contempt. Men cannot maintain an interest in missions while the official directors of the latter are inhospitable to the truth* 136 MEN AND THE BOARDS As soon as criticism of the field comes up for consideration, a battalion of interrogation points wheels into view. Is not the administration too remote from the field? How can a board in New York or Boston or Nashville efficiently direct a force of workers on the other side of the earth, with only occasional hurried visits of inspection by secretaries who do not speak the native language ? Should there not be some form of district superintendence in every mission? What practical means have been devised, in the experience of a century, of getting rid of glaringly incompetent missionaries? How can the business interests of missions on the same field be consolidated, so that the expense may be reduced ? Is it not possible to furnish all missionaries with the necessities of life at a much lower cost than pre- vails for foreign goods in most mission lands ? Can the China Inland Mission's success in this respect be duplicated or extended to comprehend all mis- sions ? What of the oft-mooted question of the " big houses" in which missionaries are said to live? How can the evils of the independent and irrespon- sible missions be overcome? Just how far is co- operation or union of missions practicable? What part should the native Christians have in the control of their churches? How may independence and self-support be furthered ? What should be the ratio of the native preacher's salary to the missionary's salary? How may the problem of the education of missionaries' children be met, without the heart- breaking separations at present necessary? In what MEN AND MISSIONS way may the missionary identify himself more closely with the life of the other Americans and Europeans in the land of his labors? Is it ever desirable for the missionaries to wear native dress ? How far should they go in teaching English? Is it properly within the province of missions to main- tain the educational work of a country? May mission doctors go on healing the sick, uncondi- tionally, for an indefinite time, in the lands where there is no need of the hospital to effect an en- trance for Christian missions? What proportion of mission work should be distinctly evangelistic? Is it ever right to withhold facts from the home Church? Should failures, as well as successes, be reported ? To continue these questions further would be con- fusing and wearisome. Yet each is a little window into a real problem sometimes a vast problem that has divided the opinions of missionary authorities for years. The questions indicate the possibilities of constructive missionary criticism and a closer relation to board problems on the part of the laity. Incidentally, they may lead interested men into lines of special study for papers and addresses. It must ever be indubitably true that the alert and intelligent interest of the great body of church-members is essential to the normal development of the mission- ary enterprise. All these queries concerning board methods may not at one time be raised for consideration at the official meetings of denominations, but it is proper 138 MEN AND THE BOARDS to inquire if some of them should not be so dis- cussed. Ordinarily, the supreme administrative as- semblies of the various churches give scant and superficial attention to missions. There is usually no real debate upon the actual work of the board. The questions that have engrossed the attention of mission meetings for days, or of board sessions for hours, seldom lift their heads above the surface at general conferences and assemblies. At the most, the time allotted to missions is only a few hours. Purely ecclesiastical policies and politics are freely accorded days for debate, while the main business of the Church, the end for which she is chiefly organized, is disposed of in a few more or less perfunctory hours. The common custom of these large ecclesiastical assemblies is to utilize the time allotted to missions in an effort to increase the enthusiasni and the sup- port of the churches represented. There is rarely any real discussion. The best talent from the field and the board is engaged for hortatory and in- formatory speeches. It is easy to see why this should be so. The work is generally in cruel need : the occasion affords a rare opportunity for arousing the interest of the supporting constituency. So, with all the ingenious variations possible, the cry of the horse-leech's daughters is chorused and re- iterated. No thoughtful man can fail to sympathize with the purpose of the boards in this policy: for they have been bearing heavy loads, and this is their one supreme chance to enlist succor. 139' MEN AND MISSIONS Nevertheless, the question is worthy of serious consideration, whether more would not be gained by a flank movement upon the churches than by this direct frontal attack. If, instead of reinforced ap- peals for funds which undoubtedly do give the impression to many persons that missions are only a matter of money the whole subject of the de- nomination's missionary policy and administration were opened to the Church for consideration, so that the men would feel that the mission board is utterly frank and sincere with its supporters, would not the new result in real interest and support be greater? Surely, the boards may trust the churches. The faith and courage and devotion of the latter will not fail in the face of even the worst discour- agements that confront the board. It would be of profit to the average denomination, as well as to its mission board, if the affairs of the latter were fully and freely laid open before the church-membership, so that the best judgment of the latter might be given to the whole subject. Churches need noth- ing, in respect to world-evangelization, more than the sense that the work is their work, and not the work of boards, and that the latter are in reality only their servants and agents, liable for a full and regular accounting of their stewardship. Of course there are details which are ordinarily out of place in public gatherings; these should be dealt with by the boards or, in many cases, be far better left to the final decision of the mission on the field. Many students of missions believe that over-many 140 MEN AND THE BOARDS details are handled by the boards, and too little authority given to the mission meetings. This is a sensitive point with many missionaries. To cite a single particular wherein the laymen should know more of board perplexities: Every board is at times more or less disturbed by the conduct abroad and the appeals at home of various independent missions and missionaries. Sometimes the latter are ex-missionaries of the board, released for good reasons. Yet, who ever heard this really important question discussed in a Church assembly? Delicate though this matter may be, it is yet so gravely important that the men of the churches cannot longer ignore it. Many of the severest and most deserved criticisms of mission work abroad may be traced directly to the conduct of these irre- sponsible workers. Some of them have wrought irreparable injury to the reputation of the mission cause, in the eyes of natives, of foreign residents, of travelers, and of steamship officials. Often their claims at home are scarcely substantiated by their work abroad. They usually have no responsible body to which they are answerable, and they do not produce results commensurate with the investment they represent. Personally, I do not hesitate to de- clare that my own observations on mission fields have convinced me that, despite various notable exceptions, the independent missionary work can be profitably eliminated or merged with denominational work. If I may venture a sweeping opinion, it is that the Christian men of the homeland would do 141 MEN AND MISSIONS well to stop the supply of funds to these multi- tudinous independent -enterprises except as they are vised by the Council of the Allied Mission Boards and to devote all gifts to the denomina- tional agencies, holding the latter to strict account. In this chapter it may have appeared that undue criticism of mission boards is implied. While feel- ing that I have been conservative in the statements made, I cannot dismiss this subject in all fairness without paying this tribute to the boards of the great denominations: In spite of all their short- comings, which it is the clear duty of the laymen to remedy, these boards maintain the most economi- cal and successful work that is done in mission lands to-day. They display a far-sightedness, a statesmanship, a technical skill, and an administra- tive ability which command the praise of all honest observers. Among the names of the great men of mission history must be inscribed those of many board officials and members, whose loyalty, con- secration, and efficiency are one with the loyalty, consecration, and efficiency of the men at the front. The burdens these men bear, the problems they constantly face, are fairly staggering. Some of their tasks are those which are familiar to great statesmen in national office ; others are of the minute and personal nature with which pastors are familiar. Could the laity of the Church be elevated to the level of intelligent interest and devotion of these men, most of the home problems of the cause of missions would be speedily solved. 142 MISSION CRITICISM CHAPTER XIII THE CRITICISM OF MISSIONS As all policies of the Government are subject to popular criticism, and as the work of explorers and scientists and leaders of great commercial under- takings must pass in review before public opinion, so also that widespread, expensive, and representa- tive enterprise called foreign missions may not hope to escape hostile strictures, along with warm eulo- gies. The propriety of missionary criticism has al- ready been supported in these pages. Even when most unfair, criticism should be received with calm- ness and reasonableness and patience : for this is an occasion when Christian virtues are being tested. Every sincere comment upon missions merits an attentive hearing. To fly into a storm of denuncia- tion and recrimination hardly comports with the dignity or profession of the Christian layman. Remembering that truth generally travels in the middle of the road, and that unqualified endorse- ment of any large and unfinished movement is in itself an adverse criticism, the discriminating lay- man will prepare for controversies upon missions, in the expectation of extracting more than a little entertainment, as well as education, out of them. Debate is profitable. " Iron sharpeneth iron." Bat- 143 MEN AND MISSIONS ties for the truth have bequeathed to the ages the most precious legacies. It will be strange if new in- formation, as well as fresh points of view, are not acquired by the man who tries to hear and meet all criticisms of missions. At least, his powers of judg- ment should be quickened. Also, he will be taught to look for sincerity of motives and for reasonable- ness of spirit, when he discovers, for instance, that the steamship captain who objects to the mission- aries holding a prayer-meeting on deck is himself one of the revelers who sing "the latest popular songs " until midnight ; that the woman who pro- fesses to know most about " those missionaries " in China is a Painted Lady returning to Shanghai to join the colony of " American Girls/' which Judge Wilfley was soon to banish; and that the men who are noisily gambling in the smoking-room see no impropriety in calling missionaries a " nuisance/* Absurd as are many of the counts brought against these humble workers for the uplift of the backward peoples, they yet add to the total of anti-missionary sentiment which rises as a mountain between the Christian and non-Christian races. There can be no blinking the truth that this mountain must be removed before the world at large will ever see the subject of missions in proper proportions. To this engineering task the laymen of the churches are summoned. The missionary can hardly defend him- self, and all mission secretaries are discredited as special pleaders. The laymen are admittedly enti- tled to speak, for they have no zeal in the case 144 MISSION CRITICISM except to know the truth; and they pay the bills. After a year's experience in the Orient with this special subject, * wherein I became convinced of the absolutely impregnable nature of the main posi- tions of the missionary's case, I am ready to de- clare that the average layman who is at all informed upon missions can deal satisfactorily with every criticism, provided he can bind his opponent to abide by the rules of honorable controversy. When, in perfect candor, all the proved specifications adduced against missions have been admitted, it will be found that they scarcely touch the main issue at all, but relate usually to the behavior or fitness of indi- viduals. All the major premises of the missionary position are thoroughly defensible; and it does not require a highly-trained specialist to defend them, either. To the end of time the good will be less evil spoken of ; the Teacher perceived this, and warned His followers to expect and endure it. After all has been said and done, there will be a measure of anti- missionary sentiment remaining, which can only be disregarded. As to the missionary himself, a subsequent chap- ter is devoted to his shortcomings and excellencies. The present chapter, therefore, is free to touch upon the broad, general, and important indictments that are brought against the missionary enterprise as a whole. These are the essential considerations: no * See the author's forthcoming book, " Foreign Missions Through a Journalist's Eyes/' which reviews conditions on the mission field. 145 MEN A N D M I S S I O N S controversy should be allowed to wander off into the by-paths of personalities, or of those minor mat- ters which are incidental to frail human nature everywhere. Every sensible person, whose opinion is worth aught, will perceive the fairness of judging the case only on its main issues. Mere pettifogging, and magnifying of technicalities, is unworthy of the theme that is being discussed. Usually, the first objection urged against foreign missions is that we " have enough heathen at home." Nobody can be credited with any special degree of brilliancy or originality in advancing this argument. Yet it is possessed of great vitality, else it would not have survived the test of time. The point was made in Massachusetts, more than a hundred years ago, when the formation of the American Board was under discussion, that the State had no religion to export. Thereupon the historic rejoinder was uttered: "Religion is a commodity the peculiar nature of which is that, the more you export, the more you have left/' The genius of Christianity is extensive : it lives by giving. Like charity, religion " begins at home," but, still like charity, it loses its character if it ends there. Because a man feeds his own wife and children does not relieve him of the obligation to succor a starving neighbor : indeed, he would be universally condemned if he did not share his last crust with a hungry fellow-man. In such a case he would be as reprehensible as the man who fed his neighbors and allowed his family to suffer want. Of course, every Christian has a 146 MISSION CRITICISM supreme religious obligation to the persons who are nearest him: one who would be greatly exercised over the heathen afar and indifferent to the needy at hand is so utterly lacking in balance as to be beyond the pale of consideration. Personally, I have never known a man who is interested in foreign missions who is not also a diligent servant of some sort of home missions. " The light that shines farthest shines brightest at home." For the best service, and most symmetrical understanding of the pressing problems and needs of the homeland, the churches require a vision of the completeness of God's programme for all the world. When "the uttermost parts " are the objective, the Church will be saved from the peril of self-centeredness and atrophy. No church is a growing church which is not also a giving church. It must be either mis- sionary or moribund. Finally, and in all charity, the plea of the " home heathen " is often advanced to cloak indifference or selfishness: those who put it forward are not usually the persons who are laboring with sacrifice for the needy near at hand. May it not be said that on the entire mission field there is nothing more heathenish than the spirit which, even in the sacred name of the self-immolat- ing, vicarious, and far-visioned Christ, flies the black flag, "Look out for number one." The warrant for a diffused gospel inheres in the very nature of the Christian religion. We cannot follow Christ without going far afield in search of the strayed sheep. MEN AND MISSIONS A more specious criticism of foreign missions is that there is no reason for interfering with another man's religion. " The heathen have their religions ; and we have ours; let them alone." A great deal is being written about the antiquity and beauty and nobility of the non-Christian beliefs. These great " ethnic faiths " are lauded by a school of senti- mentalists until one wonders why these same scholars do not openly advocate that they supplant Christianity. There is really more involved in this line of argumentation than many who employ it appear to realize. If Christianity is only one of the local, national or racial faiths, then it is an Oriental faith. It had its beginning and rise in Asia, and only after it had proved itself among Orientals, as adapted to their needs and thought, was it carried by missionaries to the then heathen who were the ancestors of the great Christian nations of to-day. This is plain to even a child. To the Anglo-Saxon, Teuton, Gaul and Celt, Christianity is an imported, alien creed. Rigidly carry out this " ethnic faith " argument, and we should have to send Christianity back to Asia Minor and Syria (which, paradox- ically, would be a missionary enterprise, and there- fore objectionable in the eyes of those who hold this theory), while we invoke Woden and Thor and the multitudinous gods of early Europe. As a matter of common knowledge, Christianity has pro- duced the New Testament characteristics in all races tinder heaven. The African, the Fiji Islander, the Japanese, the Turk, the Persian, the Korean, the 148 M I S S I ON CRITICISM Chinese, the East Indian all have displayed, at the impulse of the accepted gospel, those marks which are the invariable traits of the true disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. The universality of Christianity is proved by its followers. For if it can make one Asiatic over into the newness of life which is in Christ, it can make all. A single proved convert upsets all theories. The modern tendency which, in the name of " comparative religions," exalts the non-Christian faiths and reduces Christianity to their level, is blind to the first consideration of common sense and scholarship: the facts in the case. Anybody with a shred of reasonableness in his head will admit that the universal test laid down by Jesus is utterly fair, " By their fruits shall ye know them/' It is little less than absurd to judge Hinduism by what one Orientalist thinks of another Orientalist's inter- pretation of a selected few of its " sacred writings." A man does not have to know Sanscrit in order to form an opinion of Hinduism : let him go to Benares, and use his own eyes and ears and nose. The same thing is true of all the other great " ethnic faiths." They have promoted or permitted social conditions which are utterly impossible in this twentieth cen- tury world-neighborhood. Apart altogether from the gross immoralities which are bound up in most of these systems immoralities of which men have a right to know more they have created social conditions which these times will not tolerate. And at heart they have made a society that is selfish 149 MEN AND MISSIONS and unbrotherly to a degree that is inconceivable to the West, which is itself far from exemplary. Mis- sionary books have often been too considerate of the feelings of fastidious readers in this matter of giving a straight look at heathendom: grown men should be informed of what is involved in the temple worship and pilgrimages of the non-Christian religions. " The heathen do not need Christianity," is another common criticism of missions that is but one phase of the point treated in the preceding para- graph. Wholly apart from the purely spiritual con- siderations which are, naturally, most important that statement may be directly challenged. They do not want Christianity, it is true, even as the small boy does not want to have his face washed, or the freezing man does not want exercise; but wants and needs are seldom coincident in this world. Con- sider a few familiar facts concerning the non-Chris- tian nations, and then ask again the question, " Do they need Christianity?" The moral atmosphere is impure: the common speech of the street is so shocking that even the hardiest scholar would not dare to translate into English print the reviling which may be heard daily upon any Chinese highway. The filth and sordidness and suspicion of the heathen mind is almost incredible to one who has inherited Christian standards. Woman's place is an inferior and frequently a pitiable one; and it has often been said that a nation's treatment of its women is a proof of its civilization. Eleemosynary institutions 150 MISSION CRITICISM are lacking in simon-pure paganism. Consider the plight of the deaf, the blind, the insane, the crippled, and the invalids in the Orient. The very need for Christian hospitals, which nobody denies, is alone a sufficient answer to the question under co'nsidera- tion. The new ideals of home life which Christian- ity introduces are an argument for missions of great weight. The lot of the common people has been elevated wherever Christianity has gone; and the iron walls of caste and oppression have been broken. New industries have been introduced, education has become general, and doors of opportunity have been opened for even the lowest classes. Admittedly, a spirit of " divine discontent " has been awakened in lethargic peoples, and the present impulse for democracy and a new national life, which is a goal of the present remarkable unrest in the older nations, are mighty outworkings of the Christian leaven. There is no space here to call the long roll of de- tailed reforms, now in progress and partially accom- plished, which have been due primarily to missionary initiative, such as the unbinding of the Chinese women's feet, the suppression of the opium traffic, and the Government prohibition of suttee and of the marriage of Indian girls to the Hindu idols. However brief the glance at the actual conditions in pagan lands, it must reveal a deep need for the elevating and purifying influences of the gospel of Christ. It is a poor controversy upon missions which does not produce the argument that the missionary's con- 151 MEN AND MISSIONS verts are not genuine. Here admissions are in order. Some converts lapse, as in the case of a certain voluble Oriental Minister to Washington, who was wont, most disingenuously, to parade the excellen- cies of Confucianism and to point out the short- comings of Christianity (all, apparently, for the sake of his own political prestige at Peking), al- though he himself is the son of Christian parents, educated in mission schools, and a professed Chris- tian. Such backslidings have not been unknown throughout the whole history of the Christian church; kings and scholars and ministers and mis- sionaries have been known to apostatize. The same possibility may not be denied to the man or woman freshly out of heathendom, and bound to it by many ties not understood in Christian lands. Having granted all this, the contention that there are no genuine Christian converts may be challenged with vigor. There is no brighter page in Christian his- tory than that which records the fidelity, even unto death, of new disciples of Christ on the mission field. The newspaper-reading man should know that Dr. Morrison, the " London Times' " corre- spondent in Peking, was converted to a belief in missions by the conduct of the native converts dur- ing the siege of the legations by the Boxers a siege which those who underwent it declare would have been successful had it not been for those same faith- ful dfeciples. A long and shining roll of Chinese Christians were " faithful unto death " in those bloody days. Were I to relate even a few of the 152 MISSION CRITICISM cases of the native Christians in various lands whom I have met and whose stories I know, this chapter would be prolonged to undue length. The heroic self-sacrifices, dangers, deprivations and per- secutions which the wearers of the Name in mission lands cheerfully undergo should inspire the faith and courage of all Christians. The volume of testi- mony here will quickly rout any critic. " The missionary meddles with native politics," echoes the opponent of missions. That trail leads straight to China. There is no gainsaying the fact that certain Governments, notably France and Ger- many, have used missionaries for enhancing their prestige, or for acquiring certain tangible benefits. The Roman Catholic missionaries have been power- ful agencies of the French policies, and the recent stripping of civil rank and power from, them has been felt as a serious loss to France. Germany shamelessly made the murder of a missionary the pretext for annexing a large strip of Chinese terri- tory. This, it may be submitted, is the fault of the Government, and not of the missionary. Some Protestant missionaries also have availed themselves of their extra-territorial privileges, in order to pro- tect converts, or to espouse the cause of converts. Undoubtedly, serious mistakes, at which the native officials have a right to feel aggrieved, have arisen in this connection. Now most mission boards have directed their missionaries not to interfere with the civil courts, even though injustice be done to a native Christian. The practice had almost wholly ceased, i53 MEN AND MISSIONS under the pressure of China's new national spirit, even before the boards and missions took this action. To charge that, as a general rule, missionaries interfere with native courts or native customs, is simply to display ignorance of the facts. Why specify more criticisms? The list is a long one, tapering down to the most frivolous and cap- tious fault-finding.* The layman's part is to main- tain a more militant attitude in the whole matter. He may not in honor fail to defend the men and women whom his money and prayers maintain, and who are his representatives in the most altruistic enterprise the mind of man ever conceived. It should be an article of religion and of manliness with him to run down anti-missionary criticisms to their source. Nobody's liberty of speech should be interfered with,, but the critics of missions should know that they can no longer safely slander defense- less men and women, without having to reckon with the Christian laity at home. Whenever a newspaper or public man is willing to enter a debate upon this subject, let him have all he wants of it. The issue is a great one, and of proper public interest: the greater the light that can be thrown upon it, the better for the cause of missions. For the truth, the whole truth, always vindicates completely, in essential particulars, the world-wide enterprise of the Christian Church. *Dr. James L. Barton's book, "The Missionary and His Critics/' may be consulted by any one desirous of going more deeply into this subject. 154 THE MAN UNDER FIRE CHAPTER XIV THE MISSIONARY UNDER FIRE THE missionary's halo has long been one of the sentimental treasures of the Christian Church. That every missionary is a saint, a scholar, a hero, and a possible martyr, and that he undergoes hardships beyond all telling, is the first article of the mission- ary creed of not a few persons. For that faith they will fight. The impeccability, as well as the in- herent greatness and glory, of the missionary is a belief jealously cherished by many earnest Chris- tians ; whose zeal is not dampened by any extensive possession of the facts of the case. A child can as easily imagine a king in a golf cap as such per- sons can conceive of a missionary without his halo. Alas! that it should have to be admitted that in almost every case the halo does not fit; and that in the seclusion of his own home the mission- ary upon whose unwilling head it has been forced is likely to use language concerning it that would not be at all proper in a missionary meeting. The missionary who is fit for his task is no Fra Angelico angel, but a more or less ordinary human being, whose nature has not been transformed (any more than that of the globe-trotter) by a journey across the ocean. Until this simple and obvious fact is iS5 MEN AND MISSIONS admitted there will never be a sane and enduring and effective interest created in the men and women who are Christianity's representatives on the fron- tier of the expanding kingdom. The very term " the missionary " is as inadequate and misleading as that of " the merchant/' " the doctor/' " the lawyer/' or " the mechanic." Before we can approach to any degree of accuracy in con- sidering this subject we must disabuse our minds of this belief in " the missionary. 5 ' I traveled around the world for a year looking for " the missionary " and I never found him. I found missionaries galore, and shook hands with a thousand of them tall missionaries and short missionaries, fat mission- aries and thin missionaries, bald-headed missionaries and missionaries with whiskers, pale missionaries and missionaries with freckles. All the limitations to which human nature is subject may be found in the missionary body. To be utterly frank, it may as well be admitted at the outset, now that we are face to face with the personal fitness of mission- aries, that I have never heard a single criticism of missionaries that could not be substantiated in the case of some individual. Having in my possession perhaps the largest assortment of anti-missionary labels which it was ever the difficult task of any man to collect, I yet was able to find a specimen for every label. So when I hear indiscriminate eulogies of all missionaries, and repudiation of all criticism, I am bound to dissent, silently or openly. If any reader seeks in this chapter for unqualified 156 THE MAN UNDER FIRE endorsement of missionaries, he would do well to drop the book at this point Lest there be any misunderstanding, this much should be said before proceeding further : As a doss, the missionary body outranks any other class of professional persons known to me preachers, doc- tors, teachers, lawyers, journalists or business men. In point of native ability, preparedness and fitness for their work, devotion to their mission, diligence and resourcefulness and self-denial in its prosecu- tion, and of broad and successful human service (which is the test by which all professions must be judged), the missionaries surpass all other workers for the world's weal. That is not the opinion of missionaries a traveler is likely to pick up in Yokohama or Shanghai or Bombay. A shrug of the shoulders or a contemptu- ous smile is about the kindest answer to be expected when missionaries are mentioned to a person in the diplomatic, consular or trade circles. Experience has shown that one may hear criticisms of mission- aries, ranging from " grafter " to "socially impos- sible " ; that he is from the off-scourings of Amer- ica and Europe ; that he cannot earn a decent living at home ; that he is lazy and luxurious ; that he makes false reports to his supporters, and is, gen- erally speaking, a pretender; that he bribes natives to profess conversion; that he interferes with the course of native justice; that he lives in the style of a governor and arrogates to himself lofty and Insolent airs; that he impertinently interferes with 157 MEN AND MISSIONS native customs and religions ; that he gets his Gov- ernment into trouble by his blunders, and that he is, first and finally, " out after the almighty dollar " these are some of the commoner sentiments con- cerning the missionary which any traveler in the lands where he lives may hear. Usually, the answer is an attack on the character of the accuser. Some of the statements heard from missionary platforms concerning the critics of mis- sions are as venomous, baseless and uncharitable as the worst slanders which they are supposed to answer. The folly and ludicrousness of this style of argument was illustrated by an experience in North China. A British merchant, a man of edu- cation and refinement and, to judge from his allu- sions to his own family life, of correct character, was telling me of the iniquities of the missionaries. " They were the prize looters of the Peking siege. There was one fellow, named X , who went out with carts, looting the villages around Peking. Finally, a smart Chinaman up and shot him and killed him, and, by Jove, it served him right ! " I never hinted that I had in my trunk letters of intro- duction to this same missionary, whom my inform- ant supposed had been killed six years before; nor did I repeat the story to the missionary when I met him in Peking. But I was reminded of it when the latter told me one day as we walked down the principal highway of the Chinese capital, discussing the question of missionary criticism, that " the reason these port city men find fault with the mis- 158 THE MAN UNDER FIRE sionaries is that every one of them keeps a native mistress." To both my informants I should have liked to remark : " It is better not to know so many things than to know so many things that are not so." Some charges against missionaries are straight slander, many are clear misapprehensions, and some are true. The natural way to deal with all of these is not to ignore them, nor to revile the critics, but to admit fairly whatever is true, to repudiate the slanders vigorously, and to remove misapprehensions. The most general method here- tofore has been for the missionaries to stand silent under all criticisms. They have been compacted into a more solid community by hostility, and they have grown to be a world unto themselves, largely oblivious to the other Europeans resident in the same lands with them. Naturally, this practice has alienated them farther and farther from the com- mercial and political representatives of Christendom. Furthermore, it has caused them to endure a great deal of unmerited abuse. There is a certain ex- missionary in North China who was cast out of the service for misconduct: but he still remains there in secular business and continues his shady practices. Again and again I heard charges made against missionaries which I traced directly back to this man. The community supposes that he still retains his missionary affiliations, for the mission- aries have never disavowed him. Several cases of ex-missionaries, whose conduct is charged upon MEN AND MISSIONS the profession as a whole, may be found in the Far East. The missionary has the good name of Christianity in his keeping. That is the significant truth which must be borne in mind when this subject is consid- ered. By him the Church and the gospel are judged. His religion is on trial before a suspicious and credulous people : and what they think of it will be just what they think of him. The importance, therefore, of a good reputation for this ambassador of Christ can scarcely be overestimated. If it was highly to the interest of the Government of the United States to clean up vigorously its consular service in China, it is far more important that the Church should put her foreign representatives be- yond the reach of reasonable criticism. To that end, all fair-minded persons will stand squarely upon the platform that no unfit missionaries should be continued on the field. Any hardship which may be worked upon individuals by such a course is not comparable with the injury wrought to the cause of Christianity by their retention. In this connec- tion a recent story is illuminating. A certain mis- sion of one of the great American denominations seemed strangely to lack spiritual life and progress. In the course of a visit to various fields, one of the secretaries acquainted himself intimately with conditions in this mission. The result was the sum- mary removal of one of the oldest and best-known missionaries. It was a hard thing for the secretary to do, and it made him many enemies, especially as 160 THE MAN UNDER FIRE he could not make public, in response to the attacks of the missionary's friends, the real reason for his action. Now, however, that mission has been vis- ited by a revival, and there has been an entire rejuvenation of the life of the native Church. The toad that stopped the course of the water in the pipe has been removed, and the streams of blessing flow freely. Once the mission boards, prompted by the de- clared sentiment of the churches, have plainly shown their purpose to recall all missionaries who are not of a high grade, the layman is in a position to defend the missionaries when they are attacked in his hearing provided, of course, he himself has a reasonable knowledge of the facts of missions. His method should be one of utmost frankness and fairness. Any definitely stated and proved criticism should be admitted. Nine times out of ten the criticisms are not definitely stated nor supported by any evidence. It was but a few days ago that I heard a man who had lived more than thirty years in China declare that missionaries, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, are in the habit of taking up lawsuits for converts, and that many Chinese become Christians for this express purpose. When questioned, he insisted that this is a present, general practice, and he professed to speak from the stand- point of a Government servant. I could not deny that there have been occasional instances of this usage in Protestant missions, but I happily had the testimony of both the British and American Am- 161 MEN AND MISSIONS bassadors, given to me personally upon this point, with which to confute him. Opposed to his vague general assertion was a particular and sufficient specification, and he was silenced. Incidentally, I found that this man, despite the fact that he has been in China as many years as I have been alive, had never seen anything like so much of the interior as had I within a few months. He had confined himself to the port city life, which is a world apart. Every layman who believes in missions is certain to be obliged to enter into controversy in their be- half. The first rule is to call for specifications. Insist that the critic particularize. " They say " is no authority. "Who says? A demand for a bill of particulars almost invariably ends a controversy upon missions. It is assumed that on his side the Christian layman is fortified with facts, as well as with an open mind. Does somebody say that he has heard at first hand of a missionary aboard ship who was unrefined, ill-mannered, and boorish ? Grant it; there are doubtless many such, even as there are naval officers, captains of ocean liners, and traveling millionaires who are not gentlemen. " Do not some missionaries live in too big houses ? " Assuredly; that is only one of the blunders made by organized Christianity; and the worst of it is that usually the poor missionary, whose salary is a matter of public record, finds it difficult or im- possible to maintain an establishment in keeping with this external style. I could tell stories of the financial hardships of missionaries that represent 162 THE MAN UNDER FIRE more heroism than is involved in jungle travels. " Such and such a missionary is making money on the side." Let us have a few details, and we'll report him to his board; either he should go out of the business or go into it altogether. " The con- verts are not genuine ; they're ' rice Christians/ " I do not know, but I fear some of them are, just as I suspect that some doctors attend home churches in order to increase their practice, or social aspir- ants are regularly seen in the Sunday morning con- gregation, in order to enhance their standing with the desirable people of the community. " Some mis- sionaries are lazy/' So am I and I've suspected that some preachers are also. " The missionaries attack native religions tactlessly/' Who said so? The fact is that the missionary is usually more con- siderate of the native faiths than the natives them- selves ; and he often knows more about them than their own priests. Ask Professor Lloyd, of the University of Tokio, the great authority on Bud- dhism, for details. "If missionaries are all right, why are they so generally criticized by other foreigners who know them ? " The answer to that searching question is threefold. First, admittedly the missionaries are not always right. Secondly, their fellow foreigners seldom really know them which is unfortunate for both. Thirdly, human nature in pagan lands is not very different from that which does not permit a Democrat to see much that is good in a Republican administration. It is easier to be partisan than to 163 MEN AND MISSIONS be fain Everywhere in the world persons find it more convenient to pass along the latest bit of scandal than to ascertain its correctness. And, in addition, there may be special and not wholly disin- terested reasons for criticism. The hard knocks which missionaries often receive are as love-pats from a babe as compared with the terrific blows of criticism aimed at Judge L. R. Wilffey, of the United States Court in China, who cleaned up the American community in Shanghai. Emissaries were sent to this country, and an effort was made to impeach Judge Wilfley before Congress, yet all good citizens acquainted with the facts could say, " We love him for the enemies he has made." One of the first and bitterest criticisms of missionaries that I heard after leaving America was prompted, I quickly learned from the critic himself, by the fact that a missionary had thwarted him in certain improper amours. Without at all subscribing to the sweeping charges often made against the foreign residents of the port cities, I must admit that the morals of some white men " east of Suez " are not such as to make them regard the Christian missionary as a congenial neighbor. Some day the laymen who have given themselves to the furtherance of the missionary enterprise will organize a Missionary Defense Bureau, possibly as a department of the Interdenominational Laymen's Movement. No business house of which I have any knowledge is so disloyal to its representatives as are church-members to their agents on the foreign 164 THE MAN UNDER FIRE field. Such a Defense Bureau has proved its power in the case of Christian Science, and of the Catholic Truth Society. Every reputable or important criticism of missions appearing anywhere will be promptly challenged. If it is not true, it will be disproved, and even the most eminent critic will be compelled to retract his misstatements. If it is true, it will be admitted and explained. With a library of facts in the central office, and with every interested layman a self -constituted correspondent, the whole country can be covered. The tone of the public press and of public men with respect to foreign missions has undergone a marked improve- ment in the past few years : yet still there is room for a fairer treatment of this enterprise, which outranks in magnitude and importance either the trade or the international politics with the non- Christian nations. " The best way to parry is to hit," remarked President Roosevelt. The best vindication of the missionary is a clear, true statement of his character and work. The world, and the Church as well, are all too ignorant of the sort of men and women who stand at the farthest points of contact between the East and the West That some of the best- equipped graduates of our colleges go to the foreign field should be a matter of common knowledge. There are an extraordinary proportion of really great men and women in the missionary body. Their achievements have been immense. The utter ignorance which many intelligent persons display 165 MEN AND MISSIONS concerning the real nature of the work of missions is a significant indication o the inadequacy of the home presentation of the Church's foreign work. It should be made difficult for every well-informed man not to know " who's who and what's what " in missions. May it not be hoped that a new sort of missionary apologetics will be developed, in the na- ture of intimate, vivid sketches of the personalities and actual achievements of these men and women, who, I am in honesty bound to declare, constitute the " good society " of the non-Christian world ? MISSIONS IN THE LARGE CHAPTER XV LOOKING AT MISSIONS IN THE LARGE THE night before he left home for Africa, says Dr. Blaikie, David Livingstone spent the entire night in conversation with his father, and they discussed the possibility of the time's coming when rich men would consider it a privilege to maintain entire mis- sion stations. With prophet-vision, the great ex- plorer-missionary foresaw that inevitably men would have to take large views of the subject of world- evangelization. The very nature of the case de- manded it. Already the dream of Livingstone has become true. Wealthy men have discovered that a mission station, a mission school, or a mission hospital, is a more satisfactory luxury than a big automobile. Only a beginning has thus far been made. The arousal of the men of Christendom to the imperial conception of world-service is sure to bring s in its train gifts of a magnitude beyond any- thing the cause of foreign missions has thus far known. This is in consequence of the broader view of missions now prevalent. The past decade has been the era of enlarged horizons. Like the red thread in all the cordage of the British navy, there has 167 MEN AND MISSIONS run through the modern presentations of history the sense of a continuous working of divine Provi- dence. Almost of a sudden, the uncaring multitude of nominal Christians have come to realize that "God is in the field, When he is most invisible/* Men are learning to lift up their eyes to the field ; and " the field is the world." Sometimes detached facts have stood in the way of a knowledge of the whole truth. The company or the regiment has engrossed attention that should have been given to the army. Men have failed to observe the kingdom because a church has held their vision. Now they are learning to study the whole sweep and vastness of Christ's world cause. The part in accelerated progress which apparent disasters, such as China's Boxer outbreak, have had, is becoming apparent. The Church is understanding, as never before, that the part cannot be rightly understood except in its relation to the whole. Perspective is necessary to correctness of view. The full significance of the progress of Methodist missions is not appreciated until it is supplemented by a knowledge of the work of Protestant Episcopal missions. Baptist missions are inextricably interwoven with Moravian mis- sions. Isolated successes and isolated failures are no criteria of the true state of world-evangelization. Even as Scripture needs always to be compared with Scripture, so one part of the mission field must be taken with another in order to obtain a 168 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE balanced report. Missions among Moslems often seem discouraging; they should be observed along with missions in Northwest India. Uganda is an antidote for Thibet, Korea for China. All the triumphs of the cross belong to every soldier of the cross. I once heard some Peking Chinese Chris- tians thanking God for the spiritual outpourings which had come to Korea. As the Church at Jeru- salem rejoiced over the victories won by the Name in Asia Minor through Paul and his associates, so the successes of Christianity abroad should be re- viewed possessively by even the least of the churches at home. God's work is one work, and all who labor together with Him anywhere are sharers of His triumphs everywhere. Into a realization of this inspiring inheritance of the unity of the kingdom of Heaven the present- day laymen's movement is leading the churches. Men feel the thrill of the "elbow touch" with fellow-soldiers on all sides. The broadening influ- ences of a world-wide brotherhood are stealing into many lives that were becoming dwarfed and narrow and sordid. Like Columbus, modern Christians are discovering the bigness of the world; and also their vital relationship to it. This larger grasp of God's great purposes in our time is one of the most important aspects of the universal quickening of the missionary spirit. It cannot be over-stimulated provided always there is a special local interest and activity. There are certain themes in connection with this wider outlook which are likely to conic MEN AND MISSION S increasingly within the purview of the average lay- man. They will afford that outlet for his devotion and expanding powers which is essential to a prop- erly sustained interest. Some of the points indi- cated in this chapter should have treatment in every missionary gathering of men. As an aid thereto, it may be earnestly recommended that laymen se- cure, through their own denominational boards, copies of the reports of the Annual Conferences of the Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada. These papers breathe in every page the bigness and reality of missions as a practical problem. Doubtless most men will consider the addresses and discussions of greater interest than the popular books upon missions. Incidentally, the perusal of this unpretentious but authoritative volume will probably enhance the respect of the reader for the qualities of the missionary secre- taries. A large view of missions reveals, as the most striking tendency in the foreign field, the develop- ment of the idea of the native Church. Many per- sons have supposed, without giving any careful thought to the matter, that missionaries are perma- nent agents of the Christian Church ; and that they are the important, if not the only, means of convert- ing the non-Christian world ; whereas the mission- ary is but a forerunner ; he does not himself suppose that he can evangelize the world. Even if he were to obtain a degree of skill in the native language which few foreign missionaries possess, and if he 170 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE were entirely successful in so orienting his mind that it would face the same direction as the minds of his native neighbors, it would still be physically impossible for him to reach the great mass of the unevangelized. Only the native Christians can do that. The growth of indigenous churches on most mission fields and of the spirit of self-government and self-support is not to be regarded with any other feelings than those of rejoicing. The primary business of the foreign missionary is to train up a self-propagating native Church. The old notion that the missionary and his " native helper " were to do the whole work is fallacious and sometimes perni- cious. Dr. James L. Barton well says : " There is no native Church, in rny judgment and that judgment is based upon a great deal of observation in the field in any country that can become a strong power in that country that does not carry the responsibility of a church. Let them organize missionary societies of their own ; let them organize societies for special work, and let the missionary be the ( helper J of the native. Here is the most appropriate use of the word ( helper/ Let the missionary be the ' foreign helper ' of the native organization." A delicate and difficult problem is the adjustment of the foreign missionary to the native workers. The large disparity of income between the two is a perplexity which is concerning many persons ; and in some countries, notably Japan, where a very superior Japanese preacher will have an income far less than that of a mediocre missionary, the point 171 MEN AND MISSIONS causes considerable friction. As to the snobbish belief that all missionaries are inherently superior to all natives, and that both parties should know this, Mr. Robert E. Speer has this frank word: " The day is passing, if not already long past, when missionaries can stand any more on the strength of their racial superiority, or on the strength of their administrative control of the funds of the home churches. They have got to stand now on their moral superiority, on their intellectual superiority, on their spiritual superiority, on their superiority as men, or they have no superiority on which to stand/ 1 The same authority declared, in the address from which the foregoing words were taken, upon the part that the native Christians are to have in world- evangelization : " While I believe this discussion re- garding the number of men needed for the adequate occupation of the world is doing good because, for one thing, it is showing the home Church that the missionary enterprise is no absolutely unlimited enterprise because it is enabling the home Church to see that it has a certain, specific, and definite duty which can be laid definitely on the individual members of the home Church it can do very great harm if it schools us into the idea that the world is to be evangelized in this way. No land has ever been evangelized in this way. I do not believe that the world will be evangelized in this way. The world will be evangelized by the free onward move- ments of a great living and unorganized impulse. 172 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE All great movements have gone out in this way. Mohammedanism made its conquest so. Buddhism made its conquest in this manner. Christianity will make its conquest in this way. Evangelization is to be wrought by the letting loose of a great and mighty Power that will leap from soul to soul around the world, and will take its own form and shape in every land." Even this brief glimpse into the immensity of the native Church problem reveals the utter inade- quacy of the short and simple and superficial views of missions which many men have long entertained. It should help to a saner appreciation of that other big question, the creation and support of an adequate force of foreign workers. There is no need yet to worry over the possibility of too many mission- aries: the present question is to man sufficiently existing points of occupation, and to throw a proper force into the regions as yet unentered. There are, for instance, about sixty million persons in Moham- medan fields into which as yet practically no mis- sionaries have entered. These are points where Islam impinges upon the non-Moslem world : there the aggressiveness of Mohammedanism must be definitely met and combated. Once aroused, the Christian laymen of the world will not be content with anything less than an adequate force, properly equipped, with which to meet these emergencies. Once let the Church get her eyes focused upon the field in its immensity, and she will perceive how inter-related are all her tasks : and how stupendous 173 MEN AND MISSIONS are some issues that seemed at first only local. Here is the race question. Dodge and evade it as we may for the time, Christendom must one day face this large and forbidding and many-sided interrogation point It is inwrought with the very fiber of the foreign mission enterprise. The man who ventures upon a consideration of the latter theme finds him- self straightway confronted by this subject, which is vastly larger and more complicated than the re- lationship of the white and black races. Does world-brotherhood involve the commingling of the races all over the earth, and the final blending of blood to such a degree that there will emerge a new man, who will not be Caucasian, or African, or Asiatic, or Indian, but an admixture of them all? Or is there a different interpretation to be given to Paul's words to the Areopagites : " The God that made the world and all things therein .... made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined .... the bounds of their habitation 3 ' f Far better is it that the world color question, with its various phys- iological, economic, and social ramifications, should be considered dispassionately at the present time, in all brotherliness and Christian sympathy, than that it should be left for decision to sudden-born passion, fear, and self-interest. There are por- tentous issues involved in foreign missions, but none graver than this. Of a seriousness all unsuspected by the people of Europe and America is the allied subject of the 174 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE Anglo-American communities in the Far East, the port city question. Probably most of Christendom is quite unaware of the very existence of these great European settlements, and their peculiar character. It is generally assumed, for example, that Shanghai is a Chinese city ; whereas the Shanghai that figures in current knowledge is not the negligible native city, but the modern European community, occupied and governed by white men, and over whose pre- cincts Chinese law does not run. All up and down the coasts of Asia are these hybrid cities. They are the meeting points of the East and the West. Born of the exigencies of a peculiar commercial situation, they have from the first been conspicuous for the laxity of the social and moral and religious conventions which obtain in Europe and America. Kipling put the case in exaggerated form when he made his soldier say, in the familiar lines : " Ship me somewheres East of Suez, Where the best is like the worst; Where there ain't no Ten Commandments, And a man can raise a thirst" From these great commercial centers the Orient gains its principal knowledge of Western civiliza- tion. Needless to say, this knowledge does not at all correspond with the missionary's interpretation of Christian civilization. When he must choose between the two versions, is it surprising that tne native elects the one that is visualized before him? This is not the place to enter into a full treatment MEN AND MISSIONS of the port city question; I shall undertake to handle that in a subsequent volume. Here it must suffice to say that the importance of the bearing of the port city "upon missionary operations has been hitherto grievously underestimated or else ignored. Few more difficult tasks are before the men of the churches of America and Europe than this one of making the port cities truly representative of the highest civilization of the West, especially in respect to ethical, moral, and spiritual phases. Associated with this theme is the subject of the present relations which missions should bear to trade and diplomacy. At present these are alienated from the purely altruistic and philanthropic propaganda which the churches maintain in the non-Christian lands. In the large, the aims of all three should be identical; and their agents and representatives should recognize their community of interest. Life cannot be divided into compartments: the mission- ary and the consul and the trader all stand, pre- sumptively, for the same great ideals, and so they should stand together, each influencing for good the other. This aspect of missions in the large brings into view certain great moral and ethical problems which are considerations of world-citizenship. Here rises into view the sickening spectre of the Congo atroci- ties. African missions cannot be considered apart from these. It is incongruous for men of one Chris- tian nation to preach the desirableness of the Chris- tian Way to the natives while men from another 176 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE Christian nation subject them to horrible barbarities. In the large enterprise of vindicating and represent- ing Christian civilization, the suppression of these outrages is more important than the sending of mis- sionaries: and both tasks are the plain duty of Christendom. Not greatly dissimilar from this black shame of Africa is the smothering blight of China, the opium curse. In many parts of this great empire one may find British missionaries ; but every- where over the land he may find British opium. The cleansing of this disgrace from Britain's hands and from America's, too, for America clipper ships were premier in the early days of the opium trade is one with the duty of bearing the gospel of liberty to the Chinese. International reform goes hand in hand with the duty of international evangel- ization. Only an abnormal mind can be interested in missions and indifferent to these allied philanthro- pies. At the beginning of the Chinese famine there was one undenominational mission which said, through its district superintendent, that it would provide food for its own converts, and continue to preach the gospel, but other than this it could take no part in relief work. The unconcealed contempt of the white public in China caused the higher authorities of the mission to reverse this attitude quickly, and the earlier position has even been dis- claimed and repudiated. Humanitarianism and true religion are inseparable: catholic Christians are in duty bound to assume the responsibilities of world- citizenship. 177 MEN AND MISSIONS Before touching upon one last major considera- tion of missions from the larger view, the reader should at least be introduced to the twin themes of the missionary's health and his adaptation of him- self to his local environment. These are perplexi- ties over which all mission boards have wrestled long. The impairment of the mission force from death and illness is staggeringly great Apart from the sentimental side of this, the economic loss is very large. A missionary is an expensive tool. It costs heavily to send him to his field, and to fit him for work after he arrives. Small wonder that, in order to conserve the health of this precious possession, some boards have gone to the extreme of building him too large a house. The abode of the mission- ary, his food, his exercise, his vacations and his furlough are all subjects of grave concern to the home churches, even from so low a standpoint as that of dollars and cents. The last word upon this subject has not yet been spoken; so the progressive layman may be heard with profit. In the matter of acquiring the native language, it has not been fully realized by the churches that the first two or three years of a missionary's life on the field are almost wholly spent in studying the language. Compara- tively few missionaries, we are told, ever learn to speak the vernacular with the fluency of the natives, so that they are, per sej attractive preachers. There are said to be less than half a dozen foreign mission- aries in Japan whom the Japanese would as soon hear as their own preachers. A moment's con- 178 MISSIONS IN THE LARGE sideration of our own attitude toward foreigners who speak English imperfectly will reveal the rea- sonableness of this attitude of natives on the mission field. Now, the science of linguistics has made great strides of late; and experts are coming for- ward to declare that by the employment of better methods, missionaries may learn the native speech in half the time hitherto required, and learn it more perfectly. Within the past two years the boards have begun to give serious consideration to this subject, and to require the scientific study of the principles of mnemonics and language-study on the part of outgoing missionaries. The bird's-eye view of missions as a whole re- veals one tendency which is worth all the cost of missions : namely, the spirit of Christian unity to be found on the field. The modern wave of senti- ment in favor of a united Christendom is, as has already been said, in good part a reflex influence of the forces operating in mission lands. The divisions which Christian communities are strong enough to bear are too heavy a burden to lay on disciples newly out of paganism. The latter know and care little about the considerations which separate the Chris- tian Church. To them the historic denominations mean nothing. When a Northern Presbyterian from South China meets a Southern Presbyterian from North China (neither having a very clear idea of the geography of America, and never having heard at all of the Civil War), they have a rather difficult time in explaining their denominational dif- 179 MEN AN D MISS I ON S ferences. Some day the humor, as well as the pathos, of the perpetuation of Western ecclesiastical distinctions in the churches of Asia will penetrate the mind of Christendom ; and then the native Chris- tians will be given a free course and active encour- agement to form one Church of Jesus Christ. Even the historic differences between main divisions of the Church, which Protestants have thought to be unbridgable, are being surmounted in mission fields. Not long since the native pastors and members of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek churches in the city of Peking held a union service, with all the ministers taking part. The Greek, Roman, and Anglican Churches in Japan have taken formal steps toward mutual recognition and co-operation, if not ultimate union. Everywhere the mission churches are displaying an eagerness to get together. The mission boards abet and encourage this spirit. The missions themselves are uniting in educational and medical and literary work. Partition of fields and organized comity are now the rule. Anybody who is unaware of the strength of this main current is not well informed upon missions. Naturally, thinking men are asking, " Since the denominations trust one another to preach a sufficient gospel to the world which has never heard of Jesus, why should they not display a like confidence at home ? " Thus an encircling view of the mission field brings a man's eyes back to the problems of the homeland : which are, let it ever be iterated, an integral part of the Church's one-world mission. 180 "IN THIS GEN ER A T IO N ' ' ? CHAPTER XVI " IN THIS GENERATION " ? THERE are two ways of administering bitter medi- cine to a child. One is the common way of minimiz- ing the unpleasantness of the medicine. " It isn't very nasty ; you can take it easily " or of covering up the nauseous dose with jam. The other and more modern method is to deal honestly with the patient, saying: "Yes, it tastes very bad, and you will not like it. But it is your medicine, and you need it to help make you well, so you must take it." Thus the child gets both the benefit of the medicine and the advantage of a lesson in the discipline of the will. There are, similarly, two ways of presenting mis- sions to the churches. The popular way has been to sugar-coat the problem. The pleasing, pictur- esque, entertaining aspect of the cause has been kept to the fore. Missions have served as a peg on which to hang exhibitions of curios, lectures, and performances in costume, stereopticon shows in- numerable, and countless stories of romantic Chris- tian triumphs. The programme of world-evangel- ization has been printed in words of one syllable, so to speak. It has been made easy for beginners and there have been few advanced courses provided. 181 MEN AND MISSIONS The effort has been to allure the Church to an interest in this supreme project. As the mother encourages the tired child by the repeated assur- ance, " We're almost home now," so the attainment of the missionary goal has been represented as being almost in sight. A few more songs, a few more conventions and resolutions, a few more mission- aries, a little more money, a few more years, and, lo ! " The world for Christ ! " the end for which cre- ation has travailed for ages will have been accom- plished. There is a fascination about the watchword, " The Evangelization of the World in This Generation/' Underlying it is a subtle compliment to the persons who adopt it. Does it not imply that, although the generations of Christian effort in the past have failed to transfer the world's allegiance to its Redeemer, now that we have come on the scene, things will be different ? Our fathers were not of our calibre or of our class. Good and pious they were: but we are world-statesmen and empire-builders, and ^ve are surely equal to this great endeavor. So we find the modern students, and now, in increasing throngs, the laymen, cantering jauntily into the arena, con- fident that they will do the task before sunset. With all appreciation of the earnestness and sincerity of most of the newly-aroused laymen who have sud- denly caught a vision of the fields white unto the harvest, it may yet be permitted to remind them that a degree of humility and self-distrust would not be unbecoming in this emergence into an en- 182 "IN THIS GENERATION"? larged sphere. Some persons, who have seen the work wrought by the women and children, of whom some men now speak so disparagingly, are inclined to be somewhat cynical as they observe the air of certitude with which the men are setting about their recently-accepted task They are not quite so con- fident of an early and successful outcome of these masculine labors as are the men who sit around banquet boards and enthusiastically resolve that the world can be won for Christ in this generation, and that " We can do it and we will." A saner and safer missionary motto would be that of Carey: " Expect great things from God ; attempt great things for God." The compliment to the powers of man implied in the Watchword is one reason for its popularity. Another is that the ordinary layman who adopts it has only the vaguest possible notion of what is in- volved in the resolution. He has the modern man's confidence in organization and in money. The Stan- dard Oil Company, the American Tobacco Company, the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and the Mil- waukee breweries are able to market their products over the whole earth ; why should not similar energy and skill do as much for Christianity ? The less one knows about the task of missions the easier it seems. The men whose chief source of information has been a few perfervid speeches are sure that it can be done immediately. Nothing is easier than for a platform speaker, ten thousand miles away from the center of the non-Christian 183 MEN AN D MISSIONS world, to make this most romantic enterprise seem easily feasible. Emotionally-swayed individuals have been known to pledge the entire commonwealth in which they live to the pursuit of this great objec- tive. Now, as politicians well know, it is not an easy matter to predict in confidence what a com- munity will do in even the most simple affair of public policy. Convention enthusiasm is often like the hot-house plant that is chilled to death by its first contact with the wintry outside air. The reso- lutions of mass-meetings seldom eventuate in the revolution of the mass. Some of the propositions of bodies of men who have been stirred by elo- quence, and by the psychological exaltation of sym- pathetic associations, are almost as tragic in their outcome as the well-meant efforts of unattached, penniless, and untrained enthusiasts who are con- stantly landing at the port cities of the foreign mis- sion field, assured that such faith as theirs must overcome the world. Self-confidence and uninformed zeal look upon the evangelization of the world as a comparatively simple task. Not at all to be classed with these is the lofty faith of other men and women, who, care- fully safeguarding and defining their words, fly the audacious banner, " The Evangelization of the World in This Generation." For the moment, at- tention is centered upon the perils of any light acceptance of this staggering slogan. Over against the easy assurance of those whose rhetoric is not retarded by any comprehensive knowledge of condi- 184 "IN THIS GENERATION"? tions in the non-Christian lands, must be placed the deliberate judgment of the majority of mission- aries actually at work upon the foreign mission field. The Conference of Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada, held in 1908, gave careful consideration to the subject of the forces needed to compass the work of the world' s-evangel- ization. Replies were received from 101 missions of thirty boards, twelve other boards having failed to report in time. The full synopsis of this great number of expert opinions cannot be reprinted here, but upon the point under consideration in this chap- ter the deliverance was as follows : "There is a general agreement in the replies that the time has come for a great aggressive movement in non- Christian lands. Perhaps, excepting Turkey and Arabia, not a few missionaries believe that their fields can be evan- gelized in a single generation. While many are adverse to such a time limit in making the missionary appeal, be- lieving that it is misleading as to the nature of the work, and Is liable to cause serious disappointment among the home churches. Among the replies received are the fol- lowing : "'The political and general conditions of the country are favorable to make a far-reaching and aggressive move- ment for a complete evangelization of the people in this generation.* China Inland Mission. "'The mission realizes the enormity of the project, yet believes that the time has come for the serious considera- tion of such a plan, recognizes in it the pointing of the finger of God, and hastens to make some suggestions as touching what may be the appropriate means by which the desired end may be approached.' West Africa, Presby- terian North. 185 MEN AND MISSIONS " ' There seems to be no condition in our field which would hinder a far-reaching and aggressive movement for a complete evangelization of the people in this generation. The difficulties are all here, as are the obstacles of pride and ignorance, superstition and false religion, and many others, but the doors are open/ China, Reformed Church in America. "Other missionaries, on account of the peculiar diffi- culties of the field, do not believe it is possible to evan- gelize in a single generation the district or country in which they are laboring. For example, one reply states: " ' It is not favorable to evangelization in this generation under political conditions.' Turkey, American Board. "'According to our understanding of the term, the com- plete evangelization of the people of Japan in this genera- tion, that is, within the next thirty-five years, is not pos- sible.' Japan, Reformed Church in America. " ' The conditions do not seem to be such as to make a far-reaching and aggressive movement for the complete evangelization of the tribes of Arabia possible in this generation/ Arabia, Reformed Church in America. "Another, from Syria: " * Do not consider conditions of field such as to make advisable a far-reaching and aggressive movement for a complete evangelization of the people in this generation.' Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. " It will be noted that the committee gave two definitions to the word 'evangelization/ First, an intelligent presenta- tion of the claims of Christ, and, second, a planting and building up of Christian churches and a Christian civili- zation. The first use of the word found little favor with most of the missions. The consensus of opinion was very strong in favor of the building up of a Christian com- munity, and the putting into active operation the principles of the gospel of Christ. "The most discouraging report regarding evangelization in this generation, was as follows : * Our missionaries are 186 ' f I N THIS GENERATION"? interested in the question of the evangelization of the world in the present generation, but the pressing question with us is how to preserve the existing work which in many places is nigh to perishing. This sad outcome is the result of a retrenchment of all forms of native agencies of some 60 per cent, within twelve years.' "A missionary bishop in the thick of the battle is emphatic in asserting: 'It appears to me merely ideal to go to making estimates instead of being so impressed with the greatness of the task that we get at the practical work of sending out every man and every dollar we can raise for the actual work we have to do. I do not feel any in- terest in such a calculation which is theory merely. You simply cannot treat the conversion of a people as if it were a question of numbers, and that so many men would in- variably produce given results. To evangelize means so much more to me than just covering the ground with a given number of preachers to the twenty-five or fifty thousand. It is essentially a thing of moral and spiritual influence: a thing which may spring any day from the influence of one man inspired by the Holy Ghost, or may be unfortunately delayed by the slowness with which great and important ideas work in men's hearts and minds, that I am simply unable to approach it from this side/ " Whatever may be our final conclusion respecting the propriety of the Watchword of the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and of the Student Volun- teer Movement, the men of to-day are doubtless convinced that the modern method of administering medicine is wiser than the old; the whole truth should be known. The situation calls for careful investigation, rather than for unsubstantiated plat- form enthusiasm. In its entire bigness and hardness and difficulties the missionary task should be placed 187 MEN AND MISSIONS squarely before the people whose co-operation is sought. Unless there is to be a disastrous relapse from awakened interest in missions (such as in the present year seems to be overtaking the London Missionary Society, and requiring a cut of twenty- five thousand dollars in outlay, with prospect of increased restriction) the interest must be sustained and increased by fuller knowledge. Should the churches suddenly awake to a realization of the immensity of the work to which they have ad- dressed themselves, they might shrink from it in discouragement, blaming not their own ignorance and weak faith, but the presentation upon the basis of which they undertook the service. If any false glamor of romance or any shallow expectation of swift success is to be lost from the cause of mis- sions let it be in the beginning, and not in the end- ing. The whole situation should be known. Notwithstanding this, it is clearly true that when we canvass original sources of missionary informa- tion we find a general consciousness of " a march- ing in the tops of the mulberry-trees." What man may have despaired of doing is yet easily within the range of Divine performance. " With God all things are possible/' Not once nor twice has the rod of Jehovah smitten flinty rocks to make waters gush forth. This may be God's time for swinging all His legions into line for the speedy accomplish- ment of His own greatest work. The sweeping revivals of India, Korea, and China may be merely samples of what the resistless Spirit is ready to do 188 ' ' IN THIS GENERATION"? for the whole earth. The rise of occasional great native preachers, like Pastor Hshi and Dr. Li, in China, and Mr. Kil in Korea, indicates possibilities of multiplied native agencies which may alter all the calculations of Christendom. The increase of con- verts may be in geometrical ratio. It is presump- tuous for mortal mind to erect any limits to the activity of the Omnipotent. But it is well to be cautious lest we lay down a programme for the Lord, rather than try to follow in simple faith- fulness the commands which He has given. God's trains do not run on man's tracks. The Watchword, "The Evangelization of the World in This Generation," comprehends certain truths which lie beyond the realm of debate or question. One is that only the living can evangelize the living. If unconverted people now on earth are ever to hear the "glad tidings of great joy," it must be from the lips of those Christians who are also now on earth. The present generation cannot possibly preach to the dead; it may project its influence over peoples yet unborn, but beyond all controversy its principal Christian duty lies in bearing the news of Life to fellow present inhabit- ants of the globe. An interpretation of the word " evangelization " affords a field for profitable study. Sometimes it has been too loosely rendered, as when Francis Xavier sprinkled uncomprehending natives by the wholesale, or when zealous preachers, seemingly more eager to vindicate a doctrinal theory than to 189 MEN AND MISSIONS accomplish an actual work, have spent a single day in a Chinese village, talking unintelligibly by the wayside, and then leaving in the confident assurance that the inhabitants had been evangelized, and that the missionary's testimony would rise up against the natives in the Day of Judgment. The elastic and variously understood definition of the phrase given by Mr. John R. Mott * is this : " It means to give all men an adequate opportunity to know Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and to become His real disciples." Later f he remarks, "The phrase * in this generation/ therefore, strictly speaking, has a different meaning for each person/' Already half a generation has gone since this cry was raised, and comparatively slight inroads have been made into the thousand million non-Christian inhabitants of the earth. A rigid interpretation of the Watch- word from the standpoint of the time of its adop- tion would require that the task now be completed in the remaining half a generation. If, on the other hand, we accept " this generation " as meaning al- ways thirty-three years from the moment of utter- ance, then the term is continuous and meaningless, and a dishonest use of language. Returning to the word " evangelization," it may be remarked that it is capable of being employed as requiring, as a prerequisite, a full system of Christian training, including the translation of the Scriptures and the * " The Evangelization of the World in This Generation." P. 3- f Ibid., pp. 6-7. 190 "IN THIS GENERATION"? organization of a native Church. This is mentioned in order to stress again the important principle that some knowledge of the intricacy, elaborateness, and immensity of the missionary propaganda is neces- sary, on the part of the generality of its supporters, if the devotion of the latter is to be maintained. Interest in world-evangelization should be built upon deep foundations. No open-minded person can contemplate the present-day missionary viewpoint without admira- tion. The whole scheme is now looked upon as really practicable : missions are a task actually to be done. They are not merely an opportunity for an inexpensive acquirement of the sense of vicarious service, tinged with pharisaism ; and not an inherit- ance from our forefathers to be handed on un- diminished to succeeding generations. They are a work to be wrought thoroughly, and in workman- like fashion. Jesus assuredly did not intend to bequeath to His disciples a permanently unfinished task. When He bids His Church evangelize all nations He means just that: up to the very limit of their powers, Christians are to seek the fulfillment of the work begun by their Lord Himself. The world is to be won: that is the Church's supreme vocation. The contribution to that end which has been made by the promulgation of the daring phrase, " The Evangelization of the World in This Generation/' is a cause for real gratitude on the part of all lovers of the Kingdom. The work is not limited by the Watchword. The 191 MEN AND MISSIO N S new conception of foreign missions has no room for clocks or calendars. Pillared firmly in the un- shakable foundations of a divine command and a human need, it fronts a future of service and sacri- fice that asks no time limit. Christian men do not have to be lulled into acquiescence with any special programme, or spurred into unwonted activity, by assurances of early and easy victory. They are better soldiers than that. They have enlisted " for the war"; they covet a record like that of the North Carolina soldiers who were " First at Bethel, farthest at Gettysburg, last at Appomattox." Be- cause they want to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, Christian men are willing to keep on fighting in His war until Gabriel's trumpet sounds. This mis- sionary devotion is no mere campaign excitement ; it is a deep life-purpose that strikes down to the very roots of manhood and of religion. Concerning the times and the seasons it does not trouble itself, being solicitous only to heed the Master's, " Follow Me." 192 WORLD BROTHERHOOD CHAPTER XVII BROTHERHOOD A WORLD GOAL IF the broad lines that mark the development of organized Christianity in the opening decade of the twentieth century be traced, an outstanding charac- teristic is discovered to be the tendency of Christian men to express the masculinity of their identity. The vague " brotherhood " sentiment of the world at large has become concrete in a Brotherhood era in the Church. With a definiteness which was little expected, Joseph Cook's prophecy, " The twentieth century should make the world one brotherhood," is being fulfilled. Even offhand, a student of the times would name " unity and masculinity " as the dominant notes of contemporaneous religious life: and the Brotherhood idea comprehends both of these. All the churches of the modern world, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, have shown remarkable signs of the working of this spirit in their midst. The Laymen's Missionary Movement is but one phase of this outcropping sense of men's religious responsibility : the Brotherhood Movement is larger than the Laymen's Movement, as the whole is greater than any part. The splendid comprehen- siveness of the Brotherhood idea, which permits it to pour all of its ardor and skill into any depart- ment of Christian activity that may need reinforce- MEN AND MISSIO N S ment at the moment, has enabled it to enter whole- heartedly into the entirely congenial special work of the Laymen's Movement. Any interpretation of the masculine thought of the churches should take account of the visible organizations of men which bear the Brotherhood name, even as it should be cognizant of the his- torical facts of the Laymen's Missionary Move- ment. The pervasiveness and power of the Brother- hoods (in which designation should really be in- cluded the swiftly-multiplying Adult Bible Classes) become the more remarkable when we recall that the organization is little more than twenty-five years old : and the founder, James L. Houghteling, a Chicago layman, is still so thoroughly in his prime that, in the summer of 1909, when traveling to a Y. M. C. A. convention in Europe, he was able to beat off, single handed, and with only his fists for weapons, several Italian bandits who attacked him. It was in October, 1883, that Mr. Houghteling's Bible Class developed into the Brotherhood of St. Andrew of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The growth and effectiveness of this society has been a triumph of organized efficiency and spiritual power. Kindred to it in name and mission is the interde- nominational Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, also the outgrowth of a Bible Class. The founder was the Rev. Rufus W. Miller, at the time, 1888, pastor of a German Reformed church in Reading Pennsylvania. These two organizations grew stead- ily until early in the present century, when they 194 WORLD BROTHERHOOD began to be augmented by other denominational brotherhoods, and the rise of all these afforded the most favorable conditions for the development of the Laymen's Movement. More than a million men in the United States alone, it is estimated, and with proportionate num- bers in Canada, are now enrolled as members of the various Christian Brotherhoods. These now include the following organizations : The Brotherhood of St. Andrew. The Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. The United Presbyterian Men's Movement The Methodist Brotherhood. The Presbyterian Brotherhood of America. The Men's Movement of the United Brethren Church. The National League of Universalist Laymen. The Brotherhood of the Southern Presbyterian Church. The Lutheran Brotherhood of the General Synod. The Baptist Brotherhood, The Congregational Brotherhood. The Men's Movement of the Disciples of Christ. Akin to this mighty array in general purpose, and in many cases having the same men in its member- ship, are the Young Men's Christian Association, the Gideons, the Baraca Bible Classes, and the vari- ous denominational Laymen's Movements. The totality of power represented is enormous. There is reason for the belief of some sanguine Brother- hood men that these Christian fraternities, which are now informally federated so that unity of action 195 MEN AND M I S S I O N S is feasible, may yet come to take the place of secret societies in supplying men with fellowship and mutual helpfulness. They are not at all engaged in an anti-secret society campaign; but the point is well made that the ties which bind Christian men are more numerous and vital than any of the arti- ficial ties that the lodges have established, so that the Brotherhood should do for men all that other frater- nities are able to do and more. This general Broth- erhood movement in the churches needs still further compacting; and it awaits, above all else, some great leader who will bring the Brotherhoods to a realiza- tion of themselves, their power, and their mission. When that man comes he will quickly be a national figure of might. The Brotherhood movement synchronizes with the times. It definitely seeks the goal toward which the best thought of the world is to-day groping. Nolan Rice Best's " Brotherhood Hymn " voices the thought : Made of one blood with all on earth who dwell, Born brothers of the near and far as well, The children of one sacred Fatherhood, And common heirs of universal good, Grant us, who bow, O Lord, before Thy sovereign face, To learn with Thee to love our world-encircling race. Amidst the troubled, grieving, over-borne, Among the helpless, hopeless and forlorn, Engirt with ill and poverty and pain, And bitter strife of greed for empty gain Give us, O Lord, the sight with Christly eyes to see The hidden, soul-deep need of men for us and Thee. 196 WORLD BROTHERHOOD The very name of the predominant men's soci- eties voices the inarticulate cry of the times. All sorts and conditions of reformers and prophets are crying aloud for a better day ; and great multitudes are following political socialism, because they do not perceive that the world's need lies deeper than any political probe or physic can reach: it is in essence the need for this underlying spirit of broth- erhood which Jesus embodied and which His dis- ciples best manifest. The poet's " One far-off, divine event, To which the whole creation moves 1 * is nothing less than a world of men ruled by the brotherly spirit of Jesus. The larger significance of the Brotherhood Movement, which possibly all adherents thereto do not as yet clearly perceive, is in its interpretation of the deepest sentiments of the present generation, all the world around. It is in tune with the times. Everywhere earth's seers are crying aloud for the advent of this nobler humanity and larger patriotism. Russian prisons are filled with men and women who have dared to dream this dream, and to cry yearningly, with Tennyson, "Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year? " 197 MEN AND MISSIONS New China has dimly caught the reflection of the same vision. It is the old-new hunger for brother- hood that has set India aflame. To the amazement of the discerning, the very word for " brotherhood " has found a place in the triumphant slogan of revo- lutionized Turkey" Liberty ! Equality ! Frater- nity ! " The frenzied scenes of suddenly-realized brotherhood, when Moslem and Christian fell into each other's arms as fellow patriots, were among the most dramatic of the events reported in con- nection with the overthrow of Turkish despotism. The amazing manifestations of the universality of the passion for brotherhood, which most Western- ers had regarded as the flower of Christian teach- ing, is but one more evidence of the presence in all the universe of the mysterious and mighty Spirit of God, who works upon human hearts in ways past men's devising. The devout observer of the times cannot regard these widespread phenomena as other than a part of the divine preparation of mankind for the reception of the Brother who is also a Redeemer. Before the brotherhood of man can be realized to the full the Fatherhood of God must be accepted. Only under the influence of that Supreme authority, and the unifying force of that Supreme love, can fraternity grow to be a passion capable of mastering human selfishness and smallness. Nothing less than the supernatural grace of Omnipotence can eradi- cate from man's breast the monstrous selfishness which is another name for sin. There must be a 198 WORLD BROTHERHOOD new human nature before there can be a new human society. Altered conditions cannot make men over : the heresy that environment will transform mankind is a popular one; but it is convicted by the well- known fact that many of the lowest forms of vice derive their support from men in the so-called " higher walks of life." Wealth, education, travel and sestheticism have not been uncongenial soil for the luxuriant growth of depravity, from the days of Rome down to the time of the latest American social scandal. Men who are alert to life should set their faces firmly against the dangerous delu- sion that sin flees before culture. Clean clothes, hygienic homes and conventionally good manners are not, as some sentimentalists delight to teach, a means of grace: they may be concomitants of char- acter-changes, and consequences thereof, but essen- tial transformations in men are wrought from within outward, and not from without inward. All who sincerely care for the attainment of genuine brotherhood, rather than for the vogue of its watch- words and shibboleths, will combat the notion that a new order of society is to come to pass, either by godless social settlements in the congested sections of the great cities, or by Western education in the Orient. That snare has caught many well-meaning persons, who have neither the taste nor the aptitude for a careful investigation of actual conditions. Mere culture does not make men either good or altruistic: the worst foes of fraternity are the highly-cultivated selfists. A knowledge of science 199 MEN AND MISSIONS does not necessarily give men a passion for human- ity; but the religion of Jesus does. That Is why the multiform needs of the big world of to-day are to be met only by the ushering in of an era of the sort of Brotherhood which is but another expression of Christianity. This postulates the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Jesus, Brotherhood follows an acceptance of these truths : when men know themselves children of God, and kin to the Elder Brother, they are not likely to fail in brotherliness to all the wandering members of God's universal family. It is in the school of Jesus that true brotherhood is learned. He taught it first ; He teaches it still. The fire that flames most stead- ily and brightly in the breasts of world-servers is that kindled by Him. None but His representa- tives, whom we call missionaries, have stood the supreme test of perseverance, beyond all trodden paths, to the service of mankind, in the face of hos- tility, misunderstanding, contumely, persecution, loneliness, and varied hardships. The core of the matter was reached by Mr. Robert E. Speer, when he quoted a report he had just received from a medical missionary in India. " The missionary told, first of all, of having taken a Mohammedan into his own house, stayed with him day by day, until at last, nursing him with his own hands, he had made him well, and sent him on his way. And he was followed by another man full of disease; the missionary was unable to care for him in the hos- pital, and he took him into his own house. During 200 WORLD BROTHERHOOD the hot months of June and July, he slept with him under the stars, side by side, that he might nurse him with his own hands, and when he had to go off to a distant city, he took him along that he might care for him, and brought him back to his own station, where in the month of July the patient died. He missed him when he was gone. ' It is wonderful how your heart gets near to a man when you try to help him, and try to be a brother to him/ So he spoke of it. It is the missionary all over the world who is making the greatest con- tribution to the unity of all the world by mani- festing in his life the spirit of brotherhood. What do your heathen in India know about brotherhood ? What do the men who deny the great name of Jesus Christ know about brotherhood ? That man knows the reality of brotherhood who is a brother, in Christ's spirit, to the needy for whom Christ died/' In this Western world, so profoundly leavened by the teachings of Jesus, we do not realize the extent of the world's unbrotherliness which Christ has commissioned His disciples to remedy. But the missionary does. He knows though he scarcely dares to tell those in comfortable Christian lands whose representative he is what is involved in the dawn of a universal day of brotherhood. He has seen how his fellow European, released from the restraints of civilized usage and opinion, treats the natives whose land he has invaded. The cruelty of the white man to the black and brown and yellow is a gruesome page of history; yet and this is 201 MEN AND MISSIONS written in no wise as an extenuation of the foreign- er's conduct it is less cruel than the conduct of black man toward black, brown man toward brown, yellow man toward yellow. The haughty display of a sense of racial superiority with which the white man is often charged cannot compare with the atti- tude of a Brahmin to a low-caste Hindu, which in the name of religion regards the very shadow of the latter as pollution. The caste system has not the attendant brutalities of the slavery which has flourished under Mohammedanism, but it represents an even more difficult state of unbrotherliness to overcome. While caste reaches the acme of defini- tion in India, there is yet to be found in China and Korea and Japan a system of rigid class lines which make anything like fraternity and equality an achievement scarcely possible to any power short of the democratic gospel of Jesus. The missionary knows also the heart-sickening unbrotherliness of the white man's conduct, which has painted hideous black streaks across China and Africa. Opium has been poured into China for the white man's gain to such a degree that the title of a recent book, " Drugging a Nation/' is scarcely too strong an arraignment of this course. It is proverb- ial that the ships which have carried Christian mis- sionaries to Africa have also been heavily freighted with Christian rum. It is a Christian power which has devastated the Congo, until the crimes there enacted in the name of trade and civilization cry out to heaven. It was "Christian" traders who 202 WORLD BROTHERHOOD debauched the South Sea Islanders. Everywhere that the commercial representatives of Christian Governments have gone there seems to have been left a trail of iniquity that reveals the essential un- brotherliness of the exploitation of a weaker nation by a stronger. Whoso fixes his eyes, even for a moment, upon the teeming lands which as yet own not Christ, turns away heavy at heart with a sense of the overwhelming need for brotherhood between man and woman. Nearer home the same need prevails. In the state as well as in the marts of trade and in the more purely social relationships, this is the supreme desideratum. "Who is the patriot? Only he Whose business is the general good, Whose keenest sword is sympathy, Whose dearest flag is brotherhood"* The problems of this new Western world are soluble only in the crucible of love. The alien in our midst can only be brothered into the highest type of citizenship. This is the message which all students of the immigration problem are stressing and reiterating. The children of the Chosen Race, who in the open air of liberty of these shores are breaking away by multitudes from their ancient religious ties, need brotherliness if they are not to slip into complete atheism. The workingman, sensi- * Frederic Lawrence Knowles. 203 MENAND MISSIONS live under what he sees to be inequalities and in- justices of the present social system, is prone to charge up all these wrongs to the religion of the prosperous; whereas he supremely needs, as does also his employer, to sit at the feet of the Carpenter to learn the lesson of brotherhood. The boy in the perils of adolescence, who holds in his uncertain hands the destiny of to-morrow, needs a " big brother" sorely; and the Christian men of the Brotherhoods have wisely undertaken to satisfy the need. The drunkard and outcast, problems of the centuries, cannot be evolved into manhood: they must be brothered thither. This delicate duty is one to be learned ; it does not come naturally : only the tactful, gentle, compassionate Christ can teach it, Brotherhood, which spells Christianity in terms of human relationship, comes only by discipleship to that best Brother of all mankind, Jesus Christ. We may well beware of vast and vague schemes for the wholesale transformation of the world. Quack remedies for social ills are as dangerous as those which promise relief from the sufferings of the flesh. We cannot vote Into existence the Golden Age. There is not a single one of the multitudinous " re- forms " now before the world, worthy though most of these be, which is sufficient to usher in the era of peace and good will and fraternity. The 'day by prophets long foretold will not come except as, one by one, individual men and women enter into the company of those who yield allegiance to the Re- deemer. In His school brotherhood is learned a 204 WORLD BROTHERHOOD brotherhood that overleaps all barriers of speech and race and social position. For myself, I must confess I most clearly real- ized the simplicity and vitality of this beautiful Christian fraternity when traveling in Korea. Of many similar instances, this one stands out most clearly in my memory : I had gone off into a village too small to be indicated on the maps, and its name I have never known. The morning after I had met with the Christian villagers in their worship, in the quaint little church which their own hands had built on the hillside, and to which they were summoned by a whistle in the hands of one of the elders, I en- countered a coolie on the highway the Korean highway, so like the one in the Scripture parable. Upon his back he bore what seemed to be two half- lengths of telegraph pole ; for the Koreans are the most heavily laden people on earth. As he drew near, his face began to break into smiles. He shifted his burden, and, countenance beaming, he clasped my arm in a warm pressure, while the beau- tiful Korean salutation of " Peace," fell from his lips. The man had seen me with the missionary and knew me for a Christian. So we stood there for a few minutes, in a fellowship that was com- prehensible and sweet, despite our lack of a common tongue. I was his brother; he was mine: to both of us, at the moment, that truth transcended such minor details as our different nationalities, different speech, and different manner of life. We were one in the unity of the Spirit, and the bond of faith. 205 MEN AND MISSIONS And the world's ultimate Brotherhood is to be made up, regardless of all such minor differences as lan- guage and color and environment, of all self-crucify- ing servants of God and the world who wear the stigmata of the fraternity, " the marks of the Lord Jesus/' 206 THE RETURNING GOSPEL CHAPTER XVIII WHEN THE GOSPEL COMES BACK. One of the romantic aspects of Christian history is the return of the gospel to the lands which once possessed and then lost it. America is to-day send- ing missionaries to Jerusalem. All the sacred region hallowed by association with the earthly life of Jesus is now a mission field. The great missionary church of the apostolic days was in Antioch, in Syria. Thence Paul and Barnabas and Silas went forth on their missionary tours. To-day Antioch is getting back the Good News by way of peoples who received it through the natural development of this first missionary extension. All the cities of Asia Minor, whose names Christendom learns through the New Testament long ere it studies them in geographies, are at present fields of missionary service. After many days they are being served by the gospel which once they shared. This interesting situation pictures our own con- dition. The Western churches have undertaken missions with extraordinary zeal. And, lo, already we may dimly see a reflex result far beyond all calculation or expectation. For this exported gospel is coming back to save the home Church from a greater danger than any on-sweeping hordes of bar- 207 MEN AND MISSIONS barians and fanatics. The American Church to-day is menaced by a loss of its Christ. There are at work pervasive forces which are insidiously under- mining the people's faith in a divine Redeemer. With beautiful tributes to His noble humanity, teachers even in supposedly " orthodox " schools are taking away from Jesus the crown of His divin- ity. When the President-Emeritus of Harvard Col- lege recently prophesied a " new religion " for this century a colorless, creedless, crossless, Christless thing there were not lacking preachers and theo- logians and editors to acclaim his wisdom and to welcome as new this old man-made religion of natu- ralism. The man of the street, eager above all things else to be " broad " and " open-minded," and " up-to- date/' is quick to assent to every such dilution of religion. In the face of all this, a great many per- sons, serene in the possession of a living faith in a risen Saviour, have really no conception of the widespread extent of the popular laxity of thought along spiritual lines. It is boldly asserted in some quarters that " the scholars " have repudiated the claims of Jesus, and the ordinary man is often quite willing to accept this statement as a final verdict. Right here comes heathendom to the help of Christendom. The churches at home may be un- certain what they believe, but the converts abroad know that only the power of a living Christ has redeemed them. A cloud of witnesses arise, in Africa and China and Korea and Japan and India 208 THE RETURNING GOSPEL and Burmah and Siam and Turkey and Persia and the transformed islands of the sea, to testify that they have learned to know Jesus Christ, and that knowledge has meant to them a complete change of character, and a peace and a joy that had thith- erto been inconceivable. The tremendous evidential value of the Chris- tian conquests in mission lands has scarcely yet been realized. Happily, the new temper of the times accepts as valid testimony the attested experience of men and women. What Christians have under- gone in their own hearts is now admitted by even the most advanced scholars as credible evidence. This opens the way for the witness of all the legions of native converts in behalf of the Saviour. If it can be shown that the power of Jesus Christ, apart from the vaunted and vague " uplifting influ- ences of civilization," has entirely reconstructed the characters and conduct of these people who were debased savages, then the scholar and the plain layman must set aside, in favor of a proved reality, any theories they may hold. The unanswerable apologetic for Christianity is its successful work in making Christians. All the clever rationalism of Germany is nullified by one con- vert who, at the call of Christ, has suddenly sloughed off the characteristics of heathendom and has taken on the marks of a New Testament disciple. This is the stupendous fact to which missions bear witness. The testimony of the missionary himself, who might be suspected of a professional 209 MEN AND MISSIONS interest, is not the only warrant for its acceptance. Native neighbors, commercial and official foreign residents and visiting investigators of all sorts, unite in attesting the genuineness of the transformation that has taken place in the lives of converts. More and more, as the laymen at home perceive the vast significance of this line of Christian apologetics, the evidence will be collected and collated most sys- tematically. A new note of certitude will be im- parted to the day's preaching and teaching by the volume of testimony from the field where the gospel is being tested in soil as virgin as that which the apostles tilled. Instead of the questioning, specu- lative, uncertain temper of the day with respect to religious fundamentals, there will be infused into the Christian consciousness a fresh sense of convic- tion and of vitality. The old spirit of conquest will return. The Church at home will be saved from hesitancy and heresy by her own work abroad. The amazing looseness of our present-day re- ligious thinking is perhaps one result of our com- mon habit of reading newspapers and magazines instead of big books. The modern mind is scrappy. Inconsequential and incoherent mental processes are almost the rule. An astonishing agility has been developed in jumping to conclusions. Confidence in their national " horse sense " is something of an obsession with Americans. So we are more im- posed upon by quacks of all sorts than any other people under heaven. We even give a place in our unofficial hall of fame to the Barnums who have 210 THE RETURNING GOSPEL gulled us. Despite all our piled-up experience with deceivers and impostors, we lend a ready ear to any- body who has a specious remedy for any ill. This temperament partly explains America's hos- pitality to every new religious cult and ism. The more sweeping and unsubstantial its claims the readier its acceptance. So likewise the superficial soup-kitchen idea of Christianity always gets the applause of the crowd. The notion that a gym- nasium is a more important part of a church's outfit than a sacramental table finds wide acceptance. Similarly, the social settlement is hailed as of more value to the crowded quarters of downtown than a church. Manifestly, all this is because many people have lost the art of thinking things through. Because of the same reason, a school of religious thought which modestly labels itself " liberal " and " progressive " wins the favor of the ordinary man, who boasts of his " common sense " and who is more afraid of being esteemed narrow or unprogress- ive or illiberal than he is of the devil. When these " new " theologians owlishly assure Mr. Man-of-the- Street that all modern thinkers (meaning them- selves) have discarded the supernatural claims of Jesus, and that the Son of Mary was no more the Son of God than Mr. Man-of-the-Street himself, the latter sagely nods his head in acquiescence. This sheer heedlessness is the real cause of most of the prevalent heresy. The ordinary man has not learned to challenge the easy and sweeping asser- tions of the intellectually arrogant. 211 MEN AND MISSIONS With all his faults, Mr. Man-of-the-Street is willing to be convinced. He really loves what he calls "a square deal." His sense of fairness is equal to his open-mindedness. He is ready to grant to proved facts a weight which cannot attach to even the wisest man's opinion. And if it can be demonstrated to him, by evidence which he is will- ing to accept, that over against the theories of these theological savants may be placed the actual results of the present miraculous work of Jesus Christ, as well as the whole body of Christian history, he will not deny to the Lord honor and allegiance. The issue narrows down to one of evidence. That evi- dence the mission field supplies. Whosoever will look fairly may see the divine Christ work, and know that the Church still has a gospel for sin. Bishop Taylor of the Methodist Episcopal Church used to tell the story of a wealthy Parsee in India whom he had persuaded to read the New Testament. Deeply impressed, the man declared that if he could find Christians who matched that Book he would join them. He sought amongst the white people for the life of the Book, but reported to Bishop Taylor that he had failed to find it to his satisfaction. The latter then sent him among the native converts, receiving his pledge that he would make as diligent search there as he had made among the Europeans. In a short time he returned with enthusiasm, to say that he had discovered men and women whose lives corresponded with the Book. He himself became a Christian and suffered the THE RETURNING GOSPEL loss of wealth and friends for the sake of the Name, and when he died of violence in Bombay his last words were, " It is sweet to die for Jesus." The story points to the tremendous truth that it is not in our conventionalized Christendom that the New Testament experiences are being reproduced most closely, but in the communities of disciples who are freshly out of raw heathendom. Even the tyro in missionary knowledge is aware that on many mission fields it is common for con- verts to undergo persecution for the sake of Christ ; and to bear it with patience and sweetness and mag- nanimity. Volumes could be written of the martyr- doms in mission lands and especially of the living martyrdoms. There Christianity is counted worth suffering for and worth dying for. It is expected that those who enter upon the Way will pay the toll of sacrifice. The gifts of the native Christians likewise afford a stimulating example to the long-established churches. At the last meeting of one of the great American denominations prior to this writing, a missionary secretary reported that the gifts of the poverty-stricken Korean members of his church averaged higher than the gifts of their fellow mem- bers in wealthy America. Statements like this could be made concerning many other mission fields. That glowing ardor for the Name which so im- pressed observers of the first-century Church that to this day writers delight to picture the beauty and grandeur of it, may still be found among the dis- 213 MEN AND MISSIONS ciples who have newly come out from idolatry. What reader of contemporaneous religious litera- ture has not been thrilled by the stories of the long journeys on foot taken by Korean Christians in order to attend Bible-study classes ? In that land of Christian romance, it is quite a common practice for a man to move his family and his business to another village which contains no Christians, in order there to live and preach the gospel. The supreme interest of these brethren is the religion of Jesus. Their story is eloquent with a summons to the Christians who gave them the gospel, to put Christ in first place. Likewise, the apostolic peace and joy in their new-found faith, which observers report as a char- acteristic of many of these converts, should set the careworn, restless, and fretted Christians of the West to coveting earnestly the best gifts. It may reasonably be expected that a closer knowledge of the conditions among the disciples in some non- Christian lands will set the home churches to hun- gering and thirsting for these New Testament bless- ings. The gospel also comes back from the regions be- yond fragrant with tidings of wonderful spiritual visitations, of the Pentecostal type, upon these newly-won peoples. The marvelous spiritual plen- ishings which of recent months have come to India., Korea, Manchuria, and the regions of China about Nanking, read like a continuation of the Book of the Acts. They demonstrate not only that the gospel 214 THE RETURNING GOSPEL still has its first-century power to redeem and trans- form men, but also that it is accompanied by mighty attestations and reinforcements which can be ac- counted for only by the supernatural Spirit of God. This is indisputable evidence right down to date. To go even farther back than this testimony of the mission field to Christ, the reflex influence of a world-wide propaganda is earlier felt by the great challenge which it throws down to the Church. Be- fore a thinking man spends money and labor in exporting his faith, he must first answer the ques- tion, " Have we really a faith to propagate? After all, is Christianity a universal, absolute religion, or is it merely one of the great ethnic beliefs ? Is there inherent in the gospel any sufficient reason for trying to bear it to the last man on earth ? " Such a line of reasoning is both honest and wholesome. Thus brought face to face with the religion which he has inherited, and which he has always accepted as a matter of course, a man is aroused to a new sense of the living issues involved. He perceives that Christianity cannot remain a conventional accessory of civilization, to be accepted, along with linen col- lars and trousers, with unthinking complacency. He finds himself forced in all integrity of manhood to Archbishop Whately's conclusion: "If Christianity is false, we ought to suppress it; if Christianity is true, we are bound to propagate it." The refreshing breezes that waft back to Christian shores the tidings of the conquests of the Christ, 215 MEN AND MISSIONS also blow away the fogs of indifference and the miasmas of inconsistency. For whoso holds, and sends abroad, this pure gospel of a world's Re- deemer, must himself be true to' its precepts. If a man offers this truth as life-giving to his neighbor over the seas, he cannot, without a hypocrisy which stultifies his manhood, live a small, sordid, and selfish life at home. No man can, representatively, be a missionary in China and at the same time a mere money-grubber in America* He cannot crown Christ in Uganda and crown Mammon at home. The effect upon the character of the home churches of the new zeal for world-evangelization is bound to be immense. Since we offer the gospel as the panacea for the non-Christian world's ills, how may we, in any semblance of consistency, fail to apply the same remedy to our own thronging social prob- lems? The race question, the labor question, the immigration question, the sex question, the city ques- tion, all are susceptible to the Christ-cure, if it is as efficacious as we profess it to be in Asia and Africa. Every form of home-mission effort should be vitalized by the return-influence of the Christ carried abroad. Even as her extension work among the Gentiles delivered the Jerusalem Church from the peril of a narrow Judaism, so the present outreach of Chris- tianity into " the regions beyond " is saving the home churches from the slow atrophy of self-centered- ness. Missions have set Christians to studying larger maps. The horizon of their interest has 216 THE RETURNING GOSPEL vastly broadened. No twentieth-century Christian conceives of the kingdom of heaven as co-terminal with his own denomination. Even the average Roman Catholic in the Western world does not be- lieve this. An enlarged conception of the thought of God, and of the love of God, is one of the bless- ings that has followed in the train of a world-wide gospel. In the flame of missionary zeal, ancient sectarianisms and prejudices have been consumed. The dream of a united Christendom has grown dearer in proportion as her borders have grown wider. Proselyting is passing. Churches are trust- ing one another to preach a sufficient gospel in non- Christian lands; and under the unifying influence of that great pioneer service to the unconverted, they are learning to display a like confidence in one another at home. The greatest single factor in the irresistible movement toward Christian unity is the example and spirit of the churches on the foreign mission field. The day of sectarian rivalry and competition everywhere is in its evening twilight The Church of Christ is seen to be greater than any of the churches of Christ. A gospel that is being universally accepted is welding the disciples of Jesus into universal oneness. When the Presbyterian missionaries established their modest compound on a hillside outside the picturesque city of Taiku, Korea, they undertook the raising of American fruits and vegetables and berries. The French Roman Catholic priest, their neighbor and predecessor, generously shared with 217 MEN AND MISSIONS them his fine bed of strawberries. Up on the hill the transplanted strawberries prospered; but the next season the priest's own crop entirely failed. He had not a plant left except those he had given away. So from the garden of his Presbyterian friends he replenished his own supply of plants. His strawberry crop had been saved by being shared. The little incident figures a great truth. The ex- ported gospel is coming back, laden with added meaning and blessing, to the Church which sent it abroad. The salvation sent afar Is saving the send- ers at home. The truth borne to the uttermost parts of the earth is returning to solve some of the gravest problems of the twentieth-century Church in Christian lands. 9X8 THE ULTIMATE ISSUES CHAPTER XIX THE ULTIMATE ISSUES " Cm bono?" is an ancient question, which, in Anglicised and modernized form, the twentieth- century man is certain to ask concerning all this new interest in missions. " What's the use ? What will it all amount to in the end ? * Show me/ " That is well and wholesome. These questions can- not be asked too often, or too searchingly. There is real danger of some men being caught up in the whirl of a popular movement, as crowds throng to any commotion on a city highway, without knowing why. Men, the wise old prophet pointed out, go astray just " like sheep," and they follow they know not what nor whither. Now, the matter of missions is entirely too serious and abiding to seek this sort of witless support from the fickle crowd. It wants only " reasonable service." If the present-day men's movement in the churches, especially with relation to missions, cannot justify itself clearly to itself, and to the world, then there is something wrong with either the men or the movement. As this discussion of "Men and Missions" draws toward its close, let us recapitulate the broad, general, and yet defi- nite considerations which may be regarded as the ultimate issues of the present men's movement. 219 MEN AND MISSIONS Commencing close to home, in the proper mission- ary fashion, as laid down by the Master, we may say that the quickened concern for the whole world may properly be expected to have an important influence upon the lives of the men themselves. Missions work both ways : they save the world, and they save the savior from the world and from him- self. Deliverance from the dungeon of selfishness is perhaps the first achievement of Christian cosmo- politanism. Every man is in danger of meriting some such epitaph as was inscribed, by his own direction, upon the tombstone of a cynical French- man: "Born a man, Died a grocer." Business is shrivelling the innate nobility of many persons. Narrowness and littleness beset most lives as a daily snare. " From the dominion of things, this day, O Lord, deliver us!" might be a daily petition of modern men. As has already been pointed out in a preceding chapter, this new and chivalrous interest in missions is helping men to interpret in world terms the daily task and the everyday life. Men are learning their own rela- tion, and the relation of their work, to the entire universe. They are acquiring an understanding of their place in the whole vast scheme of things. As they enter upon the pursuit of a full-orbed man- hood, rightly adjusted to heaven and earth, to time and eternity, they perceive the meaning of the apos- tolic statement, "All things are yours." As once 220 THE ULTIMATE ISSUES men came to giant stature by deep thought upon doctrinal themes, so to-day they may be equally served by deeds of greatness and altruism. The endeavor to obey, by practical service, the greatest commandment that the Lord ever dared to lay upon His friends, is the divinely-ordained means of en- abling them to measure up to the fullness of the stature of the Perfect Man Himself. This entire world-arousal of laymen will have been in vain if it does not issue in a new allegiance on the part of the Church to her primary business. Undoubtedly, it is possible for the Church to forget her first mission: thereby she has in times past lapsed into a woeful condition. All the beauty of great cathedrals, the sumptuousness of elaborate ritual, the pride of the nominal allegiance of the rich and the mighty, and the confidence of immense wealth, are no substitutes for obedience to the com- mand to evangelize the nations. Failure to do this one tiling results in spiritual atrophy. The Church must go and grow, or else she will stay and starve. She must extend or expire, preach or perish. The imperial teaching of Jesus, that His " Good News " was an obligation which all His disciples owed to the very last man they could reach, was clearly under- stood by the early Church. In that spirit they cov- ered the known world. Those were the days of her majesty : the might of missions was revealed in apostolic history. A new comprehension of this, her first work, is the need of the Church to-day. In the fire of a divine passion for the souls of men, the 221 MEN AND MISSIONS dross of eccelsiastical pettiness and parochialism and partisanship and politics and pride and prejudice will perish, and the Church will be purified and made powerful The effort to redeem the world will redeem the Church. If the laymen are instrumental in the recalling of the Church to her first work, the work of the Son of God, who came " to seek and to save the lost," they will surely have contributed most directly and effectively to the solution of the complex social problems of our day. The remedy for one is the remedy for all Vitalized Christianity is alone suffi- cient for the day's multiform perplexities. If enough men are on fire with Christ's love for their fellow-men everywhere, there will soon be an end to the sweatshop, to the labor problem, to the slum, to the immigration question, to debauched munic- ipalities, to predatory wealth. Love such self- sacrificing and brotherly love as Jesus taught and imparts simply cannot endure these iniquities. By the same passion wherewith they yearn over the oppressed black man in Africa, Christian laymen will blaze forth into heroic service for the oppressed white man in America. The truth lies on the sur- face. In God's one world there is one need and one remedy, variously applied. That need is caused by sin, and the only remedy is the gospel of Jesus. By way of the Orient and the Dark Continent and of the islands of the sea, Christian laymen may yet learn how to answer the profound human, social questions of their own lands. 222 THE ULTIMATE ISSUES This high emprise is certain to enrich the common life of all Christians. Treasures of fellowship and sympathy and shared experience are pouring into the whole Church as a result of the united activities of the laity. Men are " finding themselves " as Christians. They have come to learn the Christian identity of men with whom they had been accus- tomed to have only commercial and social dealings. Even as Elijah was reassured by the knowledge of the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, so many earnest Christians who had thought that " I, even I only, am left " have been stimu- lated by the discovery of a great host who are one in heart and practice with them. It seems impos- sible that the present sweep of the Laymen's Mis- sionary Movement should not be followed by some new expression of the solidarity of Christian senti- ment in the city and nation. This multitude of mighty men, suddenly made aware of their power, can hardly keep their hands off corrupt politics. Indeed, they must clean up the homeland, if only for the sake of the mission field. If we are to be missionary nations, our civilization must be genu- inely Christian, and not a byword among the heathen. It is an essential part of missions abroad that conditions at home should be at least measur- ably in accord with the missionary's message. Despite the fact that in many quarters the Lay- men's Missionary Movement is tagged specifically for work in non-Christian lands, the conclusion is inescapable that it is going to issue in a new sense 223 MEN AND MISSIONS of the unity of all Christian service. The only authoritative definition of missionary territory we possess declares that " the field is the world " and Christendom is still on the map. God's ocean should not divide God's work. Because the wee wits of some saints were not able to grasp the largeness of the Bible's plain teaching, somebody doubtless assisted by Satan invented the terms " home mis- sions " and " foreign missions." The effect of these phrases has been immeasurably pernicious. With- out at all understanding what their statements in- volved, men have unwittingly obeyed the impulse of partisanship which they have inherited, and group- ing themselves into two not-always-friendly camps, have declared, " we believe in home missions/' and " we don't believe in foreign missions " ; or con- trariwise. This is stupid, as well as sad. Its lamentableness is almost equaled by its ludicrousness. For who can define home missions or foreign missions, or draw a plain line between the two? The case was reduced to an absurdity when, after the Spanish- American War, certain mission boards in New York arbitrarily apportioned the newly-acquired Amer- ican possessions between themselves. Thus Cuba was counted a foreign-mission field, while Porto Rica, farther away, was put into the home-mission field. Chinese in Canton are considered objects of foreign-mission endeavor ; when they move to New York, the same individuals are turned over to the home-mission arm. It would take an unusually 224 THE ULTIMATE ISSUES clever subject of His British Majesty to tell just which of his fellow citizens are to be counted " heathen," and which are within the more respect- able scope of home missions. Out upon such ridicu- lous distinctions ! The obviously sensible way is to eliminate, as fast as possible, these man-made labels. The whole world is God's world, and it is past the power of man to tell whether any spot upon it is particularly dear to him. Surely it is contrary to the nature of such a Father to have favorite children: although the divinely-drawn picture of fatherhood represents the wandering and disobedient child as the especial object of parental solicitude. All the work of gos- pelling is God's work. No part of it may be ignored, if His commands are to be obeyed. If a New Eng- land cotton manufacturer is concerned over the con- dition of the Chinese (let us say the particular Chinese who spin and weave cotton) and indifferent to the welfare of his own mill operatives, he is merely one more instance of human inconsistency and defective judgment : assuredly he is in no wise an illustration of true missionary enthusiasm. Nowhere else in the realm of religion is the sanity and open-mindedness of the laity more greatly needed than in this particular. They have an im- portant office to perform in maintaining proportions, and in observing relative values. They should avoid all undue emphasis, and help their pastors to do like- wise. Whoever removes a brick from the wall which separates " home " from " foreign " missions, 225 MEN AND MISSION'S helps to build up the true Church of Christ. Griev- ous and even sinful is all the friction and rivalry between these two man-divided camps of Christ's disciples. The world-worker who sneers at so-called home missions, in public or in private, should be recalled to his senses by a brave rebuke; and the home-missionary advocate who disparages work abroad should fare likewise. " Is Christ divided?" This warning is none the less necessary because the service in foreign lands has frequently been neglected and despised, as the fad of the few. It is true that the whole world has not been given what Americans call " a square deal." Podunk has bulked larger than Peking; counties at home have fared better than countries abroad. " The regions beyond " have been overlooked, in the prevalent nearsightedness of even sanctified human nature. The logic of the Christian faith, and considerations of wise world-citizenship, require a fairer, fuller consideration of what is termed " foreign missions." But this does not imply any diminution of interest in the duties that are near. Quite the reverse. Extensive love promotes intensive love: the more persons a man loves, the better he knows how to love each. Selfish love is least worthy of the name. - The statement is frequently made that interest in world-wide evangelism reacts immediately upon all the forms of home work. Everybody has heard instances similar of that of the little home-mission Baptist church, whose new pastor stipulated that a certain proportion of all its gifts should go to the 226 THE ULTIMATE ISSUES foreign field. Soon the church asked to be taken off the home mission board's books, and became a prosperous, growing congregation. It is scarcely to be questioned that this is commonly the result of a quickened sense of world-responsibility; yet the point is one upon which a body of statistics is sadly needed. On such matters as this advocates of a cause are likely to dogmatize: whereas the only proper treatment of the situation is the presentation of unquestionable data. A volume of authenticated instances in support of the common general asser- tion that gifts to foreign missions stimulate those to home misisons, would be an invaluable piece of lit- erature; and it could most properly emanate from the Laymen's Movement. One other natural issue of the men's movement may not be omitted. Every close observer must have been impressed with the signs that it has come to the kingdom for the winning and welding of the world to oneness in Jesus Christ. It is to bring to those that sit in darkness the Light of the world. Ancient ignorance, superstition, and spiritual night are to be supplanted by Wisdom, Truth, and Light. The day of liberty and justice and fraternity, for which the whole creation groans until now, is to be ushered in for all the heart-hungry and down- trodden of earth. The best service that man can render to the human race is to hasten the coming of the kingdom of heaven. To the congregation of the universe the new ambassadors of Jesus are to declare, as He himself said at Nazareth: 227 MEN AND MISSIONS "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." THE SPIRITUAL SIDE CHAPTER XX THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF MISSIONS THE racing white horses of the sea, as they chase one another with flying manes over the illimitable green fields of the deep, are, after all, not the sea, but only a superficial aspect of it Deep, silent, strong, and changeless, the real nature and power of the sea lies below all this outward seeming. The summer vacationists, who think of the ocean only in terms of breaking surf and dashing spray, little know of the vastness and resources of the deep. In like manner, this profound subject of missions has surface aspects which glint and sparkle, and by their beauty and movement attract all eyes ; yet the true significance of it lies in the depths. There is much talk of the statecraft of missions ; of the place of missions in world-politics; of the commercial value of missions; of the part of the missionary as the explorer, pioneer, and civilizer; of the economic value of missions ; of the altruistic spirit and service of missions ; of their educational usefulness, and of their worth as eleemosynary agencies. Some of this is fustian, but most of it is true, and worthy of thoughtful and dignified con- sideration. Public men, and the laity generally, are prone to lay stress upon the importance of cer- tain of these phases of the missionary enterprise. 229 MEN AND MISSIONS All the speeches and books that have been prepared upon these themes have their use, and nobody who would be a careful student of the forces that go to make up world-civilization can afford to ignore them. Yet it must be frankly admitted that the place of all these considerations is a secondary place. Naturally, I prefer to leave to preachers and religious teachers the amplification of the cardinal truth that the missionary enterprise is primarily and essentially and finally spiritual Yet, as a lay- man and as a newspaper writer who has been called to a survey of this subject in the course of his day's work, and sincerely bent on the endeavor to ascer- tain all the facts and factors, I am bound to recog- nize that the work of missions is spiritual work, and utterly incomprehensible except on a spiritual basis. While it manifestly seeks a great variety of goals, its ultimate objective is the conversion of individual men and women to the gospel of Jesus Christ. As a means to that end, and as a by-product of its main achievement, it is leavening up the mass of mankind into a new state of society, designed to resemble or to be the kingdom of God on earth. This work of missions is ameliorating many forms of evil or bur- densome social conditions, and it is bringing un- numbered social and economic and political advan- tages in its train. But, fundamentally, the mission- ary is changing the world by changing the individual man and woman. He seeks to accomplish universal uplift by personal transformation. No study of missions in any aspect is adequate 230 THE SPIRITUAL SIDE which does not definitely confront the student with the truth that this is a spiritual work, and that it can be wrought only by spiritual means. Nowhere else is the Old Testament word so pertinent as here : " Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah." With all its force and appliances twentieth-century civilization is in itself unequal to the task which is the objective of missions. Nor is the endorsement of all the great statesmen, trav- elers, authors, and soldiers of earth enough to insure the success of this enterprise : let the Church beware of the peril of substituting men's applause for God's favor. Our modern ubiquitous civilization, with its subtle persuasiveness, may teach the backward races the cigarette habit, the liquor habit, the wear- ing of silk hats, the use of the bicycle, the phono- graph, and the machine gun, but it cannot make over the inner nature of the Chinese or the Fiji Islander. All the cunning and tools of this wonderful age are futile to give men new hearts. The innermost nature of Christian civilization does not naturally follow the outward forms of that civilization. I have seen a foreign-educated Japanese nobleman, in silk hat, frock coat, and patent leather shoes, going through all the genuflections and ceremonies of worship at a Tokio Shinto shrine. Turning over the leaves of all missionary litera- ture, until at last we come to the primary lessons in the very first of the missionary books, we read that the Christian world crusade was to begin not by a going, but by a waiting. The handful of 231 MEN AND MISSIONS original disciples, upon whom all depended, for they had been entrusted with the Message by the risen Redeemer, were to tarry at their base until they had received a spiritual enduement A mysterious and supernatural " Power " was to come upon them, to be their equipment. Without that it would be in vain for them to go forth. Conquest could come only through the Comforter, The Spirit alone could insure success. The apostles' years in school with Jesus were not preparation enough. Their knowl- edge of His message, and their conviction as to His Messianic character, would not alone avail. Only as they were furnished with this wonderful Spirit could they hope to go up successfully against sullen sectarianism, boastful bigotry, powerful pride, and apparently invincible idolatry. With that Spirit who personified the returned Lord, they were promised leadership, fellowship, and might which should pre- vail against all nations. As it was then, so it is now. Only the divine power of the Omnipotent Jehovah is equal to bring- ing this missionary service to a successful issue. The work cannot be done otherwise. All the elo- quence and learning and wealth of Christendom would quickly fall back in admitted defeat before the hardened heart of heathendom. Every worker in this cause must labor in the Spirit and by the Spirit and for the Spirit. None but the self-emptied and Spirit-filled man or woman is equal to this task. This is not mere mysticism: but the commonest reality that confronts an observer of the situation 232 THE SPIRITUAL SIDE in mission lands. Said a wise and strong young missionary in Korea to me, as we considered the tragic moral collapse of a man who had gone to that land as a missionary, " I tell you, a man can't stand the pressure in a heathen land, even if he is a mis- sionary, unless he gives close and constant attention to the cultivation of his own inner spiritual life," Apart altogether from this question of the moral danger which besets the missionary and the secre- taries of mission boards have wisely considered it needless to reveal these occasional shocking disasters to the home churches it is possible for him to maintain his life on the field, in serenity and con- tentment and outflowing peace, only by aid from without himself. Nothing short of the comforting and sustaining Spirit of Jesus can enable the mis- sionary in the remote stations to live his life and do his work. The secret of the enigma of the happy lives of missionaries amidst an unlovely environ- ment, which is utterly antagonistic to all their train- ing and ideals, is to be found in this hidden spring of communion with the divine Spirit. Equally, it is impossible for unaided man to change the heathen heart into the Christian heart. Anybody who has been baffled, in a community where the whole general current of life sets toward righteousness, in his endeavors to lead one person into better ways, will comprehend how hopeless it is to transform an alien, whose entire environment and heredity are anti-Christian, into a devoted dis- ciple of the Christ. A knowledge of these external 233 MEN AND MISSIONS conditions is what makes many travelers, and some European residents of non-Christian lands, declare openly that the missionary's task is hopeless; that you cannot make a sincere Christian out of a heathen. These persons know the heathen: but they do not reckon with the Power, strange and supernatural, which co-operates with the mission- ary. Only a divine Christ can break the heathen heart into contrition and conversion. Only the inscrutable Spirit of the living God can create Chris- tians, Similarly, only that same Power can enable the convert to stand steadfast, in spite of the tug and pull of old friends, old habits, and old beliefs. Since, as we thus see, the one supreme and essen- tial factor in missions is the divine Spirit, then it becomes obvious that all the co-operating forces should be spiritual. Mere money will not win the world. Neither will the might of massed men : there is peril in the assumption that because the men of the churches are being aroused to missions, there- fore the task will be done expeditiously and in workmanlike fashion. Only as men labor in con- secration and with prayer can their efforts avail. They need to be profoundly animated by the con- straining love of Christ. They should seek salvation for the whole world because something of the vicari- ous passion of Jesus has entered into their own hearts. Having experienced the preciousness of their Redeemer, they are keen to share Him with all who know not this greatest of joys. The men of to-day will see their far-visioned labors rewarded 234 THE SPIRITUAL SIDE only as they are impelled thereto by the same motives which sent the early Church into the re- motest accessible regions, to bear the gospel of the Crucified The same Spirit is the invariable char- acteristic of all gospelling. Nor is this all Accompanying every spiritual service for the world should be those compensating experiences which history has shown to be part of extensive evangelization. The man who ministers to missions, by his prayers, by his money, by his counsel, by his testimony, by his lips and labors, should know that sweet fellowship with his Lord which is one of the offices of the Paraclete. This is one of the direct and tangible rewards of all work done in the will of God. It is reasonable that every worker should seek and expect it. A sense of co- operating in the infinite plans of the Almighty of being " workers together with God/' as the apostle phrases it is the due of the true disciple who is busy about the first concerns of Christ. He should know and in the knowledge find peace that he is serving the world as Jesus served it, and that he is carrying on the unfinished work of his Master. This is more than a consciousness of. duty done. It is a realized fellowship with the Lord : an entrance upon the highest possible plane of human existence and endeavor. Once a man has entered this stage, he cannot be satisfied with a lesser measure of the consciousness of God than he knows the new disciples on mission fields are receiving. When he learns, with unselfish MEN AND MISSIONS joy, of how wonderfully God is pouring out rains of refreshing upon distant peoples who have newly found the Saviour, he will hunger and thirst for the same enrichment for himself and for the home churches. In humility and teachableness, he will sit at the feet of these younger brethren to learn the conditions of their royal inheritance. Realizing, even dimly, that in their elaborate organization and sophistication the churches which are older in disci- pleship have lost the pristine simplicity of faith, and the deep-flowing peace which these converts enjoy, he will give himself no rest until he has won the same treasure for himself. For all the riches of God are meant for all the children of God: and they most fully share his favor and fellowship who most implicitly seek to do His will. APPENDIX CONTENTS APPENDIX A As TO METHODS 241 How TO INTEREST MEN 243 PUBLICITY PLANS 260 GETTING MEN ORGANIZED 264 ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION 267 MORE ABOUT MONEY 275 PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS 282 BIBLE CLASSES AND MISSIONS 290 SOME ASSORTED PLANS 291 238 APPENDIX B 7AC2 MISSIONARY STATISTICS 295 BEGINNINGS OF MISSIONS 295 EPOCHAL MISSIONARY EVENTS 296 NOTABLE MISSIONARIES . 297 PROTESTANT STATISTICS 303 THE FORCE AND THE FIELD. 304 THE DISTRIBUTED RESPONSIBILITY 304 239 APPENDIX A AS TO METHODS. A method is less than a man. The man Is master, and the method is not even a servant, but only a tool. There is no reverence due to a method. The best method that has ever succeeded may be turned inside out with impunity by the next person who has occasion to use it. Because a plan has worked in one place is no guaranty that it will work else- where. In men's work especially, there should be no slavish copying of old methods. As a general rule, it may be laid down that methods are best when adapted to local needs. The principle under- lying some good form of work may be everywhere applicable, whereas the form itself may need con- stant adaptation. Like the fish we catch ourselves, or the vegetables we grow in our own gardens, home-made methods are best. If once the average man is emancipated from the thraldom of methods which other men have put into operation, he will have little difficulty in formulating his own. There should be originality enough in every church to meet its own problems in its own way. A valuable part of the training afforded by religious activity is this very develop- ment of initiative and resourcefulness. 241 MEN AND MISSIONS Yet as a wide-awake architect is ever studying other men's buildings, as a stimulus to his own think- ing, so the most progressive churchmen keep them- selves informed upon the aids which other workers have found useful. The best things are gradual de- velopments. A plan is generally improved by passing through half a dozen hands. In the following pages there are many methods indicated, and a perusal of them will be profitable, even though no one be adopted in the form given. These methods are from a great variety of sources. Many of them have been adduced at con- ferences of laymen. Others have been supplied by friends, experienced workers. Others have been gleaned from a variety of publications. No special claim is made for originality. The author would be glad to receive from readers descriptions of meth- ods, not here mentioned, which they have found useful So far as possible, these will be incorpo- rated in later editions of the book. The free inter- change of suggestions among fellow-servants of the one great cause is a tie that binds the laymen of the country together, and promotes the efficiency of the entire body. Without being " preachy," it is yet to be pressed home upon every man who works for missions that his success will be in direct ratio to his fidelity in following up the methods adopted by Jesus in or- ganizing the first great missionary service. May His farsightedness, His quietness, His modesty, His patience, His tact, and His trust in His asso- 242 HOW TO INTEREST MEN ciates, be shared by all who now call themselves workers together with Him. HOW TO INTEREST MEH It is a law of banking, as well as of religious work, that before there can be interest there must be principle. The foundation of all missionary interest lies in an acceptance of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The basis of appeal is allegiance to His commands. The primary and constant consideration that impels men to the support of foreign missions inheres in the gospel itself. Over and over men must be recalled to first things if their enthusiasm is not to lag. All ingenious methods pall and fail in time unless the Scriptural ground for missions be carefully maintained as fundamental and supreme. All this has been suggested in the body of the present book. So also has the important psychological law, that interest which does not eventuate in activity is perilous. There should be no emotion aroused without its resulting endeavor. The object of interesting men should be to enlist them in some form of practical service. The laymen's meeting that stirs up a lot of excite- ment and enthusiasm which does not crystallize into prac- tical service has done more harm than good to a com- munity. Men's Meetings. Two reasons exist for the holding of men's missionary meetings. One is to hear the message of the speaker or speakers and to be enriched by the body of information which they impart. The other is to create that sympathetic condition of mind which the mere contact of like-minded men in one gathering generally awakens. Men meeting as men feel their masculine identity. A new sense of the responsibilities that belong to manhood is easily borne in upon them. The favorite phrase of Laymen's Movement speakers, "Missions are a man's job," has its popularity in this state of mind. Men meeting as men may be moved in a way that the same men cannot be moved 243 MEN AND MISSIONS in a mixed assembly by the same words from the same speakers. Hew Ways for New Times. Laymen's meetings should not be merely additional missionary services: they should represent a type of meeting, marked by characteristics here- tofore lacking. There are certain styles of missionary pres- entation to which church-folk have been accustomed by generations of the " monthly concert of prayer for foreign missions." There are other styles of missionary presenta- tion which are familiar in the Sunday-schools. The new note which differentiates men's meetings from others is one of comprehensive treatment, of a resolute, business- like facing of the enterprise of foreign missions as a task to be undertaken and pressed to an early issue. The larger considerations which are wrapped up in the theme, and which impinge upon commerce, statecraft, and the march of civilization, are most congenial to men. An utter facing of the ultimate facts in the case likewise appeals to a man's self-respect He does not want to have his emotions stirred by maudlin stories, which, in the clear light of the day after, he sees to have been unreal and not especially apropos. He is willing to face the difficult facts as well as the easy ones; the obstacles in the way of missions as well as the open door ; the failures as well as the suc- cesses. His interest will not continue unless he knows he is being given an absolutely "square deal" by the mis- sionary speaker. He likes also the graphic presentation of the statistics of missions through charts. Missionary Dinners. The " church supper " has been emancipated by the men's movement and set to world- service. Men's missionary dinners have been a feature of practically all of the Laymen's campaigns that have been held during recent years. Men have enjoyed meeting one another about the board, when they realized that they had some definite purpose before them. The serving of din- ners, however, creates new complications and difficulties. First of all, it needs to be said that the dinner itself should 244 HOW TO INTEREST MEN be worth the price paid for it. It is not fair to men or to missions to ask men to pay a dollar for a dinner worth twenty-five cents, on the plea of using the balance of the money to meet the expenses of the series of meetings. A dollar dinner should be worth a dollar; a fifty-cent dinner should be worth fifty cents. It would be sad if any skep- tical layman were to judge missions by the nature of some of the dinners that have been served in its name. Often- times, also, dinners mean delay. It is difficult to have them served on time and expeditiously. Inasmuch as the dinner is but an incidental part of the gathering, it should be as quickly disposed of as possible, so that the time which belongs to the speakers should not be consumed by the waiters. When the dinner is over, the activity of the waiters in the room should be stopped and undivided atten- tion given to the speakers. The place of holding a dinner is a serious consideration. Frequently it is held in a church, with the ladies serving. This has been known to be an embarrassment at times, because the presence of the ladies prevented the speakers from giving to the men the straight look at heathendom which men have a right to hear, but which is scarcely proper in a mixed audience. Sometimes the dinners served in fashionable clubs are limited in quite another way. Missionary speakers have been embarrassed by the social customs of the club ; as, for instance, a dinner at which various kinds of liquors were served, after the usage of the club. Because it was so important to catch the hearers with guile, the speakers were distinctly hampered in their full religious message. On general principles, it may be said that elaborate "banquets are not in the most thorough keeping with the missionary idea; nor yet, on the contrary, should any men be sent hungry away. Presiding Officers. Out of many trying experiences a bishop once proposed that a new paragraph should be added to the Litany "From our traducers, and our introducers, good Lord, deliver us!" The long-winded, over-officious, 245 MEN AND MISSIONS over-anxious or fearful presiding officer spoils the best of meetings. In their eagerness to have a conspicuous or rep- resentative man in the chair, committees sometimes give the helm of a meeting into the hands of one who knows naught about missions and less about the speakers of the occasion. The presiding officer ought to be a man who has been working in closest co-operation with the com- mittee of arrangements. He should know the incidentals of the meeting as well as the principal object. He should be entire master of the material provided for the meeting, and then he should be trusted to manage It courageously. Especially worthy of all honor is the "stop-thief!" chair- manthe man who has the courage to bring to a close an address that is encroaching upon the succeeding speaker's time. Inasmuch as some public speakers are entirely with- out conscience in this respect, it is the painful duty of every chairman to have a conscience quick enough for the entire platform. A definite amount of time should be allotted to every speaker, and he should not be allowed to exceed that. If the chairman himself keeps on talking interminably, the only remedy is for the committee to blacklist him for all future occasions. It should be the care of every committee to indicate to the chairman just how long he should take in his introductory remarks, if there are any. Introductory remarks, like addresses of welcome and congratulation, are usually works of super- erogation. Similarly, missionary meetings can profitably get along without the artistic soloist, either vocal or instru- mental. In Touch with Missionaries. The missionary is the man who knows most about missions. He should be the most acceptable of all missionary speakers. Because he has had to de-occidentalize himself, in order to be an acceptable speaker to foreign peoples, the average missionary is not always the most attractive speaker in the homeland.. A man's efficiency on the field may not be measured by his 246 HOW TO INTEREST MEN fluency on the platform. Some of the poorest missionaries are most successful in arousing the Church at home. Mis- sionaries in general, however, are delighted when they find that they do not have to " get up " an interesting address, but may talk frankly about the real conditions of the field. Especially are they useful in conferences and smaller gath- erings. Relieved of the sense of responsibility which a public address entails, they will talk directly about their work and about the conditions in which they labor and about the needs of the field. Dinner Parties and Missions. It is desirable to have as many interested laymen as possible know the greatest possible number of missionaries who are home on furlough. Friends of missions will bear this in mind when arranging dinner parties at their homes. An hour's social contact may do more to win a man to the missionary and his cause than five hours of public speaking. When laymen have approached the missionaries in the attitude of " We want to know," the missionaries have shown themselves wonderfully effective in revealing the conditions which appeal to laymen. At the men's conventions the missionaries have been of immense value, and some of them, incidentally, have picked up all the support they wanted for their field. It is a realized opportunity for the missionary when he can talk frankly to discriminating men about things as they are, rather than feel himself obliged to make a conventional presentation of some one side of foreign missions. And, by the way, it is a great privilege which laymen can give to their children by bringing the latter into contact with the men whose lives are touched with the romance and glamor of knowledge of foreign parts, and of great and chivalrous achievements. Parlor Conferences. Many men have gained their first interested knowledge of missions not from great platform speeches, but from small gatherings where the methods and machinery of missions were being considered. A sense of the reality and responsibility of the work comes on these 247 MEN AND MISSIONS occasions. Then speakers and hearers get closer together; questions may be asked and answered; points that have troubled laymen may be brought out into the open for discussion. Criticisms of the missionary and his work which have been heard " downtown " can be presented for discussion to men who may have first-hand knowledge. The advantage of parlor conferences lies not in the speeches made, but in the discussion created. Fifteen minutes of discussion is worth an hour of oratory. Would that some brave soul could arise in every conference that is being talked to death by prolix officials, eager to unburden them- selves of their fathomless knowledge, and cry "Murder! Murder ! " I have seen luncheons of business men, met to obtain just this informal association and intercourse, whereat the wealthiest and most influential men, whose attendance had been secured at great labor, have quietly dozed off into after-dinner naps while the visiting experts prosed along, trying to impart information when there was no interest. Ten questions, seriously asked by the laymen at one of these conferences, are worth more than twenty more important points made by the speakers. Greatest pains should be taken to cultivate the spirit of intimacy and informality on these occasions. A preacher's son said to him one day, " Father, do you really mean it, or are you only preaching? " Leaders of these conferences should give to the men the impression that they " really mean it," and that they are not " only preaching." Thus perfect free- dom will be created and an exchange of uttermost con- fidences, in respect to this subject, will be evoked. Objec- tions, often of surprising smallness, lie in some men's minds, preventing their unreserved allegiance to missions, and unless these can be removed, no conference or meeting can achieve its highest usefulness with these men. The Funny Side. Happy, too, is the conference leader who knows how to evoke an occasional hearty laugh during the discussion. Some missionaries have this gift of illu- minating the conference, and relieving the tension of atten- 248 HOW TO INTEREST MEN tion, by some pertinent incident from the field. A wise ecclesiastical leader was on the trail of a big thought when he said to a missionary speaker, " I wish you, or somebody else, would write a book on * The Funny Side of Missions/ " Where to Meet. The place for the holding of confer- ences is important. The men of a single congregation can often meet to advantage in a home. Neighborhood com- mittees may assemble in the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, in a clubroom, or in a hotel. It is desirable that they should not meet in a church auditorium if this can be avoided. The latter somehow throws an atmosphere of stately religiousness and conventional churchliness over the occasion. Some men are afraid to speak up within church walls who have no hesitation about talking around a directors 1 table. Make it easy for the men to be informal and free, for the closer the laymen themselves are welded together, the better they come to know the board secretaries and missionaries and other officials, the better it will be for the whole enterprise. There are enough serious ob- stacles in the way of creating an interest on the part of men, without setting up any needless trivial barriers. As to Stale Speeches. It is wholesome for an informal conference if the leader or the speaker from abroad is forced to say "I don't know." This will help his hearers to get through the veneer of professionalism and conven- tionality which even the most careful of speakers can scarcely escape. Some speakers have set addresses from which they never vary. A conference is no place for these warmed-over victuals. The air of Infallibility which some- times a worker conveys to his listeners is likely to alienate them instinctively from himself and his message. It might be hard to convince the speaker that to have his limitations discovered is an advantage, but human beings love to work with human beings, and not with demigods. It will be wholesome for all concerned when our laymen get into the habit of asking searching questions of all their leaders. It may inspire the latter to be more particular in keeping 249 MEN AND MISSIONS up to date on the latest information of missions, both con- cerning the field and concerning methods. History is making so rapidly, these days, that no missionary address two years old is worth repeating to-day, without radical additions or alterations. The Place of Sermons. This book is for laymen. The obvious and important place of sermons in awakening and maintaining missionary interest is better known to the ministers than to anybody else. This author does not feel himself competent to give advice to those at whose feet he prefers to sit. Why Hot a Debate? Missionary crowds have kept to themselves, and talked their case over among themselves; and anti-missionary crowds have kept to themselves and talked over the criticisms of missions to their heart's con- tent, each group being mutually satisfied with its conclu- sions. Nothing is clearer than that the missionary enter- prise cannot be kept in a reserved compartment of life. It is an affair of the whole world. If it is not able to stand the knocks and buffetings of unfriendly critics, then it should meet the fate of the unfit Happily, nobody who has more than a kindergarten knowledge of missions thinks for an instant that the missionary proposition cannot stand the light of day, and the blows of all enemies. Has not the time come for the issue to be brought out into the realm of public debate? Is it not a legitimate means of arousing missionary interest, and of educating the big public upon the subject, to promote debates between intelligent adver- saries of missions and the defenders thereof? Of late a certain eminent Georgia politician has been vigorously assailing foreign missions, to the great grief of the circle of people who believe in him and follow him, and yet want also to believe in foreign missions. The sensible course to adopt would have been to challenge that gentleman to a public debate in the leading city of his State. The chal- lenge should have been made state-wide, if not national Probably, as a fair man, he would have accepted it. The 250 HOW TO INTEREST MEN gate receipts could have been divided equally between some Georgia charity and some interdenominational foreign mis- sion cause. Papers all over the South, if not all over the land, would have reported the debate and its outcome. The same is true of serious criticisms in any community. The laymen should push the battle. There is no reason why the Church of Christ should be forever on the defensive. When the newspaper paragrapher knows that he must answer to his constituency for his criticisms of missions, he will wield a more careful pen. When the lawyer or politician who casts aspersions upon this cause knows that he is likely to be openly challenged to a public debate, and put to shame if he refuses to debate, he will be more chary of his remarks. Every time the laymen can succeed in securing a genuine debate in public between well-equipped men they will do an immense service to foreign missions. The public loves a conflict and it will throng to such a debate where it will ignore missionary meetings. The right sort of debate between prominent men would do more to arouse interest in missions than a three days* Laymen's campaign. But be careful that the man who represents missions in such a debate is armed with something else than sympathy and good intentions. He should have brains, debating power, and a grasp of missionary information that would insure his victory. Catching Men by Guile. Why should it seem to be necessary to announce every missionary speech as mission- ary? Some persons run from the word, and do not give the case a fair hearing. In reaching the uninterested men of a community, why not show the wisdom of the serpent? Here is how a pastor in Schenectady did it: He invited a journalist-traveler to spend Sunday with him, and to speak Saturday night to the men 6f the city. Then he went to the press club, and said: "Mr. Gadabout is to be with me over Sunday; don't you want to give him a dinner Saturday night, letting the townsmen buy tickets?" The suggestion was adopted; the dining-room of the largest hotel was 251 MEN AND MISSIONS engaged, newspaper men, laymen and preachers all co- operated to make the occasion a success. There were several hundred men present the largest and most repre- sentative banquet Schenectady had ever seen, and the press men were proud of themselves. The traveler-scribe was announced to speak on "America and the Orient." He told stones, talked practically about American trade in the Far East, and some of the mistakes American exporters make. Naturally he proceeded to the changing needs of the people, their social condition and, since there were no ladies present, their moral state, as well and thence, in- evitably, to the religious situation. The greater part of the hour and a quarter was devoted to a straight missionary talk; and when the speaker sat down these business men clamored for more ! There is scarcely a community where some such method cannot be employed with a visitor. The university club, the commercial club or board of trade, the press club, the current events club, all furnish convenient points of contact. The visits of distinguished foreigners, especially from the Orient, and such scholastic occasions as the Far Eastern Conference at Clark University, afford proper opportunity for a tactful interpretation of the mis- sionary aspect of international relationships. Using Existing Agencies. No laymen in their senses will needlessly duplicate organizations. They will naturally identify themselves with all the existing agencies through which they may serve and their object be served. Thus they will avail themselves of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Brotherhoods, the social unions, the men's clubs, the Student Volunteer bands, and the young people's societies as opportunities for educational work. They will co-operate with the Young Men's Christian Association and the young people in the mission study courses; and from all these organizations they will draw speakers and workers; and to them all they will bear the Laymen's Movement message. The influence of the laymen should add dignity and cohesion and popularity to the study classes. 252 HOW TO INTEREST MEN Remember the Women. Whenever opportunity arises, or can be created, the laymen will pay sincere honor to the work of women for missions. They will remember, in wholesome humility, that what they are now discovering concerning the big world's call their mothers and wives and sisters knew long ago. With all their organization and agitation, the laymen yet lag behind the women in mission- ary knowledge, gifts and devotion. It would be a gallant and seemly deed for the laymen of a church or neighbor- hood to give a reception in honor of their teachers, leaders, and inspirers, the missionary women. Using Existing Literature. The newspapers alone reach all the people. A discriminating use of these is a powerful means of building up a gradual public interest in foreign missions. Many men are inclined to place more credence in what the newspaper prints than in what the preacher says. Elsewhere methods of publicity are indicated: here the point is the use that may be made of matter already published. A quiet, casual " Did you see in this morning's paper that editorial on China ? " is a primarily effective way of approaching the disinterested. Marked copies serve the same purpose. A clipping tacked up on the church bul- letin board is useful. The circulation of current magazine articles on missions is of great value. The alert layman will see that every such issue is widely read; he will also write to the editor for more of the same kind. In private conversation the incidental commendation goes farther sometimes than the formal argument : as, " I read a curious little thing last night by a man named Zwemer, from Arabia, who says that absolutely every business house in America has some more or less direct connection with foreign missions. * Queer idea, isn't it, that a man may be stuck on the Heathen by way of his mucilage bottle? I'll send it to you ; you can read it in three minutes." This *"What Business Has a Business Man with Foreign Missions? " by the Rev. S. M. Zwemer, D.D., Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America. 253 MEN AND MISSIONS is the one most effective use of tracts. When Turkey is "on the wire," a remark such as the following goes a long way with an alert man who likes to keep up to date: " I never knew what a mixed lot of people the Sultan bosses, or what a fascinating history that old empire has had, until I read a book * Daybreak in Turkey/ by a Dr. James L. Barton, who used to live there. I stayed up until midnight last night reading it." The same cunning layman will make sure that such a book and it is but a type of many is placed on the shelves of the local public library, of the Young Men's Christian Association library, and of his own Sunday-school library. Similarly he will "talk up" those captivating stories, "The Lady of the Decora- tion " and "The Little Green God." Study Classes. For the interested men there will be, naturally, systematic study classes, often in connection with the Young Men's Christian Association, and the collection of such treasuries of information and inspiration as the volumes of proceedings of the big missionary conventions. Only by the accretion of fact and principal can interest wholesomely grow. Zeal will cease to develop unless the fagots of increasing knowledge are kept piled on the fire. How to Use Tracts. An immense mass of readable lit- erature in the form of tracts and pamphlets has been issued of late years by the various missionary societies. An answer for almost every question, an argument for every objection, and information for every taste may be found in these. Many of these tracts are written especially for the use of laymen. A discriminating use of them is part of the missionary committee's proper work. Special pamphlets should be selected for particular men. Others may be dis- tributed at meetings to all attendants. The more expensive pamphlets may be exchanged ; ask that the assortment given out on one occasion be brought back and redistributed. Sometimes it is economy to mail leaflets, rather than to give them away. The practice which prevails on the mission field, of selling literature, in order to enhance its value, 254 HOW TO INTEREST MEN might occasionally be adopted in a congregation. When seeking to enlist the interest of some one particular person, an innocent conspiracy may be formed, whereby, at irregu- lar intervals, different men shall speak to him about certain pieces of literature, afterward supplying him with the same. The cumulative effect of literature should be studied, the clinching argument being reserved for the last. Periodicals from Afar. In the way of periodical liter- ature, a man needs his own denominational missionary magazine, some such general missionary publication as the comprehensive and up-to-date " Missionary Review of the World," and a good daily newspaper. One who is in the best sense " a man of the world " should insist upon having a daily paper which covers the whole world; if, after writing to his local editor, he cannot get such information in his neighborhood newspaper, he should take from the nearest large city the daily which best supplies this need. Every public and college and Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation library should keep on file (and it is proper work for the laymen to see to this) the weekly edition of the great papers published in English in the major mission lands, as The North China Daily News, The Japan Times, or Mall, and the Indian Statesman or Pioneer. Charts, Maps, and Pictures. From denominational headquarters, from the Laymen's Movement, and from the Young People's Missionary Movement, excellent series of charts and diagrams of a missionary nature may be secured. An alert committee will supply its church with missionary maps and missionary pictures making sure to change the latter at proper intervals. When truth enters by both eye- gate and ear-gate it penetrates farthest. Laymen who go forth to speak find the charts of great assistance; and so do their hearers. The charts may also be displayed on the walls of the prayer-meeting and Sunday-school rooms. The first of the following charts is from the Leaders' Manual of the Methodist Laymen's Movement ; the two last are used by Mr. J. Campbell White : 255 MEN AND MISSIONS AVERAGE GIFT PER MEMBER FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS IN isos DENOMINATIONS AVERAGE PER MEMBER IN UNITED STATES UNITED PRES. $2.26 REF. OH. IN AMERICA 1.685 AM. BOARD CONG'L 1.35 u. s. so. 1.17 PRES, U. S. A. NO. 1.03 PROT. EPISCOPAL .85 BAPTIST NORTHERN .719 METHODIST EPISCOPAL .60 METE EPIS. SOUTH .45 BAPTIST SOUTHERN .199 This average includes all receipts except money contributed on the foreign field. 256 HOW TO INTEREST MEN THE UNFINISHED TASK HALF A BILLION CHRISTIANS of all names Protestant, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Coptic, Nestorian, etc. MUST LEAD A BILLION NON-CHRISTIANS Needing the Larger Light and Life To CHRIST 21,834 MISSIONARIES ARE NOW THE FORCE IN THE FIELD WHICH MEANS ONE MISSIONARY (wives, teachers, etc., included) TO 45,000 NON-CHRISTIANS 257 MEN AND MISSIONS NORTH AMERICA'S FIELD AT HOME 50 MILLIONS ABROAD 600 MILLIONS There are fifty millions of people outside the membership of all churches in Canada and the United States. This ,is our field at home. It is believed that in view of our numbers and resources, 60 per cent of the entire Non-Christian world or 600 millions should be reached by the Churches of North America. As a matter of fact, there are at least this many people in the districts now occupied by our missionaries. 258 HOW TO INTEREST MEN TOTAL MISSIONARY OFFERINGS OF Protestant Christendom Last Year, 1909, $24,613,075 UNITED STATES AND CANADA $11,317,405 GREAT BRITAIN $9,584,653 ALL OTHER COUNTRIES $3,720,017 259 MEN AND MIS SIGNS PUBLICITY PLANS The giving of the gospel to the whole world is not only the business of the whole Church: it concerns everybody else. It is really important news. Not to be aware of it is to be ignorant of one of the day's deepest currents. Religious news, foreign and home, has a right to adequate space in the daily newspaper. I say " right " : this atten- tion is not a favor to be entreated, but a right to be de- manded. The interests of the best people in a community merit at least equal attention with the sporting proclivities of the minority who want to know all about the latest prize fight. Fuller thought upon this great theme will set courageous laymen to writing frank, friendly letters to the editors of the papers they read, firmly insisting upon their rights with respect to religious news. More is at stake than at first appears. The whole reputation of the kingdom of heaven in the eyes of the world is involved. And facts have a preaching power: the news of the progress of Christ's cause attracts men to that cause. Every layman who wants to count most largely for the kingdom will constitute himself an unofficial press committee of one. Is it to Boost the L.M.M.? A snare awaits the feet of all who enter upon the publicity question in connection with religion. It is that exploitation of the organization or of the workers will take the place of a modest representa- tion of the work itself. There is no sufficient reason why the Laymen's Missionary Movement, or any other organiza- tion, should be "boomed" in print. That may be left to the theatrical companies and the commercial enterprises. Laymen have more dignified and important work to do than to serve as press agents of the Laymen's Missionary Movement We are not interested to get up a name for it, or for any of its representatives. "Puffs" of the lay- men's work are no substitute for news of the kingdom. To impart information through the daily press concerning the progress of Christ's cause, near and far, is the only 260 PUBLICITY PLANS proper object of publicity. Every press committee should be watchful that the worker is not substituted for the work, the means for the end. What is Good Publicity. Newspapers exist primarily to print news. They want, first of all, local news. Therefore they desire above all else, the "local end" of missionary intelligence. They are more interested in the organization of a Co-operating Committee of Laymen in their own town than in the formation of the National Laymen's Move- ment. So whatever is done locally belongs in the local papers : but it should always carry with it an intimation of the work abroad. One does not have to be a skillful press agent to use local news as a mere connecting link with wider interests. Thus, the fact that the local men have had a speaker from China, or a letter from China, opens the door to a statement of some vital China facts. Local delegations from state, national or denominational gather- ings can report the meaning of the latter. A dozen ways of relating the big message to the local opportunity will suggest themselves to an ordinarily alert man; thus, "Dr. Blank, who used to be pastor of the First Church in this city, aroused much interest at the Methodist Conference by his statement that " and there you have an opportunity for a vital excerpt from his speech. Or, " Governor Jones, who is visiting in town, remarked last night upon the num- ber of men's meetings and banquets which he has been called upon to address lately. The men of the state seem greatly stirred over America's foreign relations of a religious nature. He has learned that there are no less than seventy- six citizens of this state who are serving as religious ambassadors to foreign countries, which is his new name for missionaries." Again, to cite a familiar opportunity: " the Rev. James Blank, of China, who preached on Sunday in the Second Church, was making some interesting com- parisons yesterday between his adopted home and this city. He says that he has no competition in the preaching line and is never tempted to jealousy, for he is the only Chris- 261 MEN AND MISSIONS tian minister in a district having twice the population of this city. He went on to say," etc. Be Brief. It is not the amount that is printed that counts, but the amount that is read and remembered. A two-line paragraph may be better worth while than a column. Beware of a craze for space. "Little and often," is a good press committee rule. 41 Boil it down until it simmers, Polish it until it glimmers. When you've got a thing to say, Say it don't take half a day ! " Do Your Own Reporting. It is not modesty, so much as bad judgment, which prevents missionary speakers from furnishing the press with a readable summary of the most popular phases of their addresses. Accuracy and adequacy are both secured by this means. Committee meetings, depu- tation work, and other lay activity should likewise be furnished to the papers by the men who are interested in having the big outside world know that God's cause is marching on. If what is written is not printed, never mind; try again, after finding out why the former effort failed. Ten lines in a daily newspaper justify a deal of labor. Some Special News Items. When a church makes its annual subscription to foreign missions, the occasion and the results make good local news. The why and what of every unusual missionary meeting belong in print. When routine missionary meetings or classes develop an item of timely interest, pass it on to the press. During the late discussion of polar matters, no newspaper that I saw per- ceived any significance in the oft-recurring name, "Hans Egede." A live missionary committee would have taken " The Frozen North as a Mission Field " for a timely topic ; and imparted some of the resulting information to the press. Supporters of missions in the parts of Africa where President Roosevelt went hunting should have helped their 262 PUBLICITY PLANS cause to ride into popular knowledge on the President's exploits. Giving the Editor a Hint. Some of the well-known newspaper correspondents, like Frederic J. Haskins, William E. Curtis and Frank Carpenter, frequently write on mis- sionary lands. The laymen serve all interests when they suggest to their local editors the advisability of printing these letters. When the letters are printed, and the laymen are pleased, let them say so. When a convention is well reported, or a discerning editorial written, withhold not the word of praise. Only by such friendly co-operation can the newspapers and the churches be kept on mutually help- ful terms. Remember the Church Paper. The local congregational paper, if there is one, and the denominational press, should be supplied with the real news of the laymen at work always with the self-glorification omitted. Men with the world-vision in their heart will not work for the sake of getting their names in the paper. Using the Big Names. While intelligent laymen will not overrate the value of the endorsement of the world's great ones to the missionary enterprise, the public attaches great importance to these utterances. Such men as Presidents Taft and Roosevelt, Sir Andrew Fraser, Ambassador Bryce, Sir Robert Hart, and Mr. William J. Bryan have expressed opinions upon missions that may properly be used in dealing with the outside public. Occasionally and only with the most careful discrimination, and when the man's life is not of an unchristian sort public men may be used at missionary meetings. Committees should proceed most carefully in this direction, however. A National Press Bureau. For a few years past con- ditions have demanded the creation of a central missionary press bureau. Individual boards have made good use of press representatives, but this concerted movement has as yet failed to materialize. Now there are signs that all the Protestant work of the country will be united in a 263 MEN AND MISSIONS great press bureau in New York, for the safeguarding of the good name of the churches, and for the promotion of religious publicity. Doubtless the missionary department of this bureau will be complete and effective. It should keep carefully filed, and accessible day and night, the facts concerning the whole field. If mission premises are at- tacked in China, the press associations will be able to get at a moment's notice the American end of the story. If a missionary is massacred in Turkey, his life story and pho- tograph can be given to the press within an hour. When a Senator in Washington charges Chinese missionaries with having put in claims for hundreds of thousands of dollars for jewelry destroyed by the Boxers, the actual facts can go out with the original report. We cannot begin to apply the favorite adjective, "statesmanlike" to our management of missionary matters until we have established a national Christian and missionary press bureau. GETTING MEN ORGANIZED The laymen stand for organized effort yet not too much organization. Men have no power to waste in merely making wheels go around. They have not an atom of zeal for a new society. So organization should be kept to the minimum; and so far as possible it should coincide with existing organizations, such as the missionary committee of the conference or presbytery. The trend of the Lay- men's Movement has been strongly toward the denomina- tional organization of the men; for thereby they can ex- press themselves most directly and practically. For pur- poses of city campaigns, Co-operating Committees of the Laymen's Movement are formed, but these are largely temporary in their nature. After their work has been done, the steady pull devolves upon the laymen in their denominational and local church relationships. For the state and city campaigns full instructions are always pro- vided from the headquarters of the Interdenominational 264 GETTING MEN ORGANIZED Laymen's Movement; in this book, therefore, the denomi- national, and especially the congregational, organization is kept to the fore. If men are organized efficiently in their own churches, they will be quick and capable in the larger service. In Touch with the Denomination. Every mission board has a department devoted to the awakening of interest in missions, and the promotion of the best methods. It should go without saying that the first business of every man who wants to work for missions will be to put him- self into touch with the denominational mission headquar- ters. He will acquaint himself with its helps and its plans ; and will learn just what sort of assistance it can render him ; and how it seeks his co-operation. When he acquaints himself with its workings he will conceive a new respect for the efficiency of his board. Armed with this informa- tion, he will be able to fill some other role in committee meetings and conferences than that of a question mark. Keep in Line. Common sense dictates the uniformity of military tactics and organization. The men who enlist for missions should be careful not to become mere guerrillas : there is good reason why they should align themselves with the organizations prescribed by their denominations. Re- inforce the whole at every part. Even if one's own ideas are brighter than those of folk at headquarters, one's bril- liance may shine through the standardized lamps. The modern men's movement is a carefully reticulated whole : it is a serious matter to cut any of the lines. Fall in with the procession, and take orders from headquarters! "Get Busy." A missionary slogan has long been " Pray, study, give." To that should be added the equally important words " Go " and " Do." There are many men who should face frankly the question of going to the field in person; still others ought to consider their responsibility for sending their children. Missions is not the other man's job. Unless a man is interested to the point of surrender, he is not interested enough. The genuineness of his devotion may 265 MEN AND MISSION S be doubted if he withholds himself or his only child from the service of the world. At this period of the develop- ment of men's activity in missions, another word to be stressed is " Do." Every man should harness his mission- ary impulse up to some direct, personal missionary activity. Committee work in the home church is a primary and normal form. Deputation work is still a larger means of service of the missionary cause. Its success has been proved by many laymen. More about it in a subsequent paragraph. The point stressed here is the psychological one of the necessity for giving some immediate tangible expression to one's quickened interest in missions. If this is not done there is real danger that the interest will gradu- ally subside and that it will be more difficult to awaken it subsequently. Deputation Work. Men are discovering that the most interesting theme for public addresses is this one of foreign missions. Laymen who cannot get up a sermon find it easy to talk about the big world and a Christian's responsibility thereto. From the recent laymen's conventions all over the continent there have gone out into the churches a host of men who have found their voices in behalf of world evangelization. Some men, long Christian, have been like the rivers emptying into the Arctic Ocean frozen at the mouth. The Laymen's Movement has thawed them out, and they have experienced the delight and power of being able to speak in public in a manner to influence the thought of their fellow-men. It is nobody's intention or desire that the laymen should take the place of the preachers in the pulpit. Some men of wide experience in laymen's work have been frank enough to say that the oftener they hear laymen speak the better they like to listen to preachers! It is to be hoped that no man will so far lose his poise as to suppose that he can equal the preacher in making a speech, or that he will covet the pulpit for a display of his gifts. Occasionally, however, pastors are glad to have a layman or two enter the pulpit, not because the laymen 266 ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION are eloquent, but because their plain, matter-of-fact pres- entation of missions appeals to other laymen. Chiefly, however, deputation work will be done in prayer-meetings and in outlying churches. The laymen of strong centers should systematically chart and cover all the congregations in their territory, so that at least once a quarter the lay- men's plea for missions may be presented. It is wonderful what an appeal this makes to laymen generally. Audiences can be gathered to hear business men talk on the world who will not go out to listen to distinguished evangelists. Meetings in school-houses are quite in order. Inter-con- gregational rallies are often feasible under the laymen's banner. This work gives to the worker, as does nothing else, a sense of co-operation in the programme of world- evangelization. He, too, is speaking the Message. The result is an intensified earnestness and a vitalized Christian service. In Apostolic Fashion. Men engaged in mission work find it advantageous to go out two by two. This applies to the solicitation of funds and to the making of addresses, and to the extension of the Laymen's Movement organiza- tion. When a church is being canvassed for subscriptions, or when an interdenominational campaign is under way, it should be the general rule to send the men out two by two. For it is more than twice as hard to resist the appeal of two men as to resist the appeal of one man. There is also mutual stimulus and encouragement to the workers them- selves in thus being yoke-fellows. ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION FOR MISSIONS The average man's problem, when he takes up work for missions, will be how to get his own congregation into the right condition. One who has had a large and suc- cessful experience in canvassing congregations, the Rev. F. A. Brown, of the Southern Presbyterian Church, who, before going to the field, spent two years as a special 267 MEN AND MISSIONS representative of the Southern Presbyterian Forward Movement, has kindly written out his experiences and sug- gestions for this book. Mr. Brown takes up the matter in carefulness of detail and shows step by step the procedure which he has found most successful. The terminology is naturally that of the Presbyterian form of organization. The following pages will be found worthy of careful perusal, and they will be often referred to by laymen who are facing anew the problems which Mr. Brown so often met and mastered. Goals and Routes Thereto. For a number of years it has been the aim of mission boards and churches to de- velop the activities for foreign missions along three lines : (1) To secure a gift from every member of the church., (2) To secure from the church in advance a pledge covering the whole amount of its annual gift. (3) So to relate these gifts to the work on the field that each church will be kept informed as to where its money goes, and what it is doing. Four methods of finance have been in use: (1) The annual or semi-annual collection. (2) The budget plan. (3) Some churches depend entirely on gifts from Sun- day-schools and societies. (4) The subscription plan. Some Surprising Figures. An increasing number of churches that have tried the other methods are now adopt- ing this last, because it has been found to reach the largest number of givers; it has proved the most stable, and it offers the best assurance of growth from year to year. From a careful study of the methods used in nearly two hundred churches, varying in membership from 12 to 950, I have reached the conclusion that not more than one out of every four of the women of our Church, not more than one out of every eight of the men, have ever given anything to foreign missions; by "anything," I mean any amount over a dime a year. 268 ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION System, Rather than Enlightenment. When I entered this work of securing subscriptions, I was under the im- pression that what men needed most was more information. I am now convinced that more important even than this is a better system of finance. A personal canvass of about one thousand individuals in several states has led me to believe that many men are simply waiting to be asked to give. The semi-annual collections by themselves have not proved a fair test of the willingness of men to give. How to Conduct a Subscription Service. In most cases, subscriptions are taken at a public service, though in some churches the larger givers have been previously approached and the total amount of their gifts announced. At this meeting laymen have spoken briefly on such topics as : The Value of System in Our Giving. The Necessity of Every Member's Sharing in the Work The Missionary Responsibility of the Individual Church. Some churches have prepared large charts, showing the number of heathen committed to their particular congrega- tion, the cost of evangelizing such a number, and the present response of the church in gifts. Cards are then passed with pencils and subscriptions taken at once. Several different kinds of cards have been in use, the two most important features being to make some provision for placing the gift on an equal basis and for making it pay- able to any of the existing agencies of the Church that the giver prefers. In presenting these slips it has been found very useful to make three clear-cut statements. This is the only time in the year that you will be asked to make a gift to foreign missions, i. e., you can make your gift payable at the regular semi-annual collection, or through the missionary society, or through the Sunday- school, or the Brotherhood, subject to the approval of pastor and session; but you are asked to put on this slip the whole amount that you reasonably expect to give to foreign missions during the year (in some cases even including the dues to the missionary society). 269 MEN AND MISSIONS The gift may be made payable in annual, semi-annual, quarterly, or monthly payments, preferably the last. Each giver, however, is asked to estimate his gift on a weekly basis. The cards are then handed in as they are being signed, one by one, and the amounts read off, but not the names. The object is to give each person time to make an unhur- ried decision. Such meetings have been frequently marred by too much haste. Misunderstandings to Avoid. A meeting of the session should, of course, be held preceding such a public meeting, in order to plan the details of the meeting and to appoint a committee of men to canvass the men of the church fol- lowing a public meeting. It has also been found very important to hold a confer- ence with the officers of the various missionary societies of the church and Sunday-school, in order that a thorough understanding may be reached in regard to the subscrip- tions; as to whether they are to include the regular stated gifts of the members of these societies, or be additional to them; as to whether the gifts should be made payable through the various societies or, to the treasurer of the foreign mission fund of the church. Local conditions should determine the answers to these questions, the main point to be kept in mind being to secure a subscription, however small, from every member of the church, espe- cially those not in any society. At this conference a com- mittee is appointed to canvass the women of the church who do not subscribe at the public meeting. This confer- ence should also precede the public meeting, which will then be in line of the policy adopted by these societies. The object of the subscription plan is to simplify the giving and not to make it more complex. Terse Canvassing Hints. Immediately following the public service these two committees should meet, a list of the church-members having previously been prepared and the names so divided that a church of three or four hun- 270 ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION dred members can be thoroughly canvassed within a week. From a study of the methods used by nearly a hundred such committees the following hints may prove suggestive : The committee should be small. If possible, they should work two by two. Printed cards will be found a great help. The foreign mission boards are glad to supply these, but the larger churches prefer to print their own. It is well to insist upon immediate answers. Some committees have simply handed the slips out and then waited for them to be returned. This usually neces- sitates a second canvass. Do not omit any members. The very poorest persons appreciate being asked to give. The telephone has been used to secure answers from the country mem- bers, and all non-resident members have been written to by some committees. If possible, agree on a special object before the can- vass is made, as the plan of receiving quarterly reports from a certain field will appeal to many people not previously interested. Emphasize especially the value to the board of secur- ing these pledges from the church in advance. This argument has been found to appeal strongly to business men, for obvious reasons. Set a time limit for the completion of the canvass, when each committee member will be asked to report at a joint meeting of the committees, and the com- mittees, if temporary, may then be disbanded. As a rule, it has been found that what is not accom- plished in a week or ten days will not be done. Some large city churches are planning to set apart two or three days during which the business men on the com- mittee will give nearly their entire time to completing the canvass, along the lines of the building canvasses so successful in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association. 271 MEN AND MISSIONS Make it clear that the canvass will not be repeated each year, and that on the strength of these subscrip- tions new missionaries will be sent out and new appro- priations made. Repeated notices from the pulpit showing the prog- ress of the campaign, the names of the committeemen, and the fact that this whole movement is by authority of the Session, will lend authority to the whole work. It is frequently well to remind givers of the other benevolent causes that must all be sustained and in- creased, also that this is the one call that will be made upon them for any gift that goes outside of our own land, and that this appeal takes the place of all other special appeals. Some Common Objections. The difficulties that have been met with most frequently are : (a) Men who are perfectly willing to give of their money are not willing to give the time necessary to interest other men. I have seen more canvasses fail on account of delay than from any other cause. Where a canvass is drawn out indefinitely it wearies people, and the committee itself becomes discouraged. An increasing number of the very busiest men are, however, making generous sacrifices of their time to do this work (b) Some churches object that the time is not opportune for such a canvass, on account of a building operation or debt On the other hand, many churches cumbered with large debts, and even some organizations with no buildings to worship in, have resolutely launched such a canvass, aiming to unite every member of their church to the foreign-mission cause. It would be difficult to imagine conditions more unfavorable than those in some churches where the largest results have been obtained. (c) Some individuals are not willing to make a pledge. For this reason, Dr. C. E. Bradt has advocated the use of a card that reads '* I desire to give/' in place of " I pledge" or " promise." I have found such a form to be the best 272 ORGANIZING A CONGREGATION Reporting to the Board. After the canvass is reason- ably complete, the treasurer of the fund should send to the committee or board the total amount subscribed, including the .regular gifts from societies and Sunday-school. In some cases an estimate is also included of the amount expected from the regular collections, though in most cases this is not advisable, as the canvass should have been so thorough as to include this amount. This matter of notifying the board is an all-important one; in fact, the stability of the plan depends on it. As to the valuation the boards place upon these pledges see "The Foreign Missionary" (Dr. Arthur J. Brown), Chapter V. No one book will give a layman a better grasp on the administra- tive side of the foreign-mission enterprise than this one. Considerable difficulty is often experienced in securing this pledge from the church, for the individual pledges have to be gone over very carefully, to avoid a cross-classifica- tion, and a meeting held of the officers of the various societies. What of the Second Year. Subscriptions may be taken every year, but in most cases this is neither necessary nor advisable. A better way is to state that after the close of the year the giver may decrease his gift, increase it, or discontinue it, but in any case he should notify the treasurer of his decision, as otherwise he will understand that his gift was meant to be continuous. Probably no one thing will add more to the stability of the canvass than the organization of a missionary com- mittee of the whole church, as suggested by the Laymen's Movement I have found that this plan commended itself heartily to the judgment of pastors and sessions for two reasons : First, it is not creating any new machinery in the church, but simply making use of the organizations al- ready in existence. Second, since the session appoints the committee, it is a recognition of the fact that the session is the rightful head of all the missionary activities of the church. 273 MEN AND MISSIONS Getting the Actual Cash. The duties of such a commit- tee are twofold. First, to collect the pledges. In most cases treasurers have turned over all the subscriptions made by the women of the church to the various mission- ary societies for collection, and he has kept account merely of the totals. This plan has also been found to work well in the Sunday-school, where the teacher (or a treasurer in each class) attends to the collection of the individual sub- scriptions, and the treasurer of the whole fund keeps his account with the class as a unit As a rule, about half of the subscribers will pay promptly by means of monthly envelopes, and the other half will have to be reminded. In some churches envelopes are not used, but the whole amount is secured by collectors each month. The foreign mission board will be glad to furnish record-books, en- velopes, and other literature free. Keep the People Posted. A second duty of this com- mittee is for each member to keep his constituency in- formed as to the results on the foreign field. Just here is where the boards are anxious to co-operate. Various plans have been tried, such as the support of missionaries and native helpers. But the most approved method is that known as the share plan, or the parish abroad. Many- churches have objected to this plan on the ground that it would embarrass the board in the distribution of the funds. As a matter of fact, however, these amounts are included in the regular appropriations or grants to the missions. Few things will do more to secure the permanence of these subscriptions than for the churches to receive the quarterly bulletins from the field telling of the progress of the work and their particular station. For these reasons it is hoped that each church will specify, at least, the field to which they desire their gift to go. Some Notable Results. The subscription plan has been in operation for six years in the Southern Presbyterian Church, during which time it has clearly proved its per- manence. Some 800 churches are now giving over $200,000 a year by this method. 274 MORE ABOUT MONEY A church of 200 members increased its gifts from $60 to $800, largely through small gifts. In a church of 130 members, which had started a sub- scription for a much-needed new building, a committee of two ladies increased the annual gift from the women of the church from $20 a year to $225. A church that was already giving $4 per member brought its gifts up to $16 per member, and the whole Presbytery is now giving on the average $5.23 per capita. A church in a college town, with a membership of 500, increased its gifts from $250 to $1,700. Some 60 churches have now reached or passed the $4 per capita mark. Some of these churches were not self- supporting. Seven churches in Texas have just increased their gifts by the subscription method from $2,000 to $7,000. MORE ABOUT MONEY Methodist Men's Methods. In the capital "Leader's Manual," issued by the Laymen's Missionary Movement of the Methodist Episcopal Church, there is the following sum- mary of points regarded as essential to a successful finan- cial policy in a local church. A live missionary committee. Missionary offerings by the subscription plan and upon a weekly basis. A special educational campaign for at least two weeks before the offering is taken. A personal canvass of the entire membership of each church. The complete separation of the home and foreign offerings in the local church. Provision in each pastoral charge that offerings made to foreign missions be reported for foreign missions only, whether or not in excess of the apportionment. That in addition to the apportionment plan (which 275 MEN AND MISSIONS is intended merely to fix a minimum which must be exceeded if advance be made), a per capita basis be established, by which each Conference may readily ascertain its share in the advances from $3,000,000 in 1909 to $6,000,000 in 1912. Systematic and thorough instruction concerning the nature of Christian stewardship, and the obligation resting upon those living under a dispensation of grace, not to give less than was given under the dis- pensation of the law. The same "Leader's Manual" advises that there be a representative of the Laymen's Movement in every pastoral charge. It advises the keeping of a roll containing the name and address of every man in the congregation. It also wisely counsels the laymen to be sure to take into conference with them in all their plans the pastors, not forgetting to send the latter as delegates to missionary gatherings, at the expense of the men. Business Men and Budgets. Apparently the consensus of denominational opinion favors the budget or apportion- ment plan of giving. This enables every church to know its own minimum responsibility for all causes. It appor- tions the offerings according to the ripest judgment of the denominational leaders. This plain obligation met, there is room for an unlimited reach of service and gifts over and beyond what is expected. The business judgment of the men has brought into being the budget plan. By the exercise of that same faculty the enlarged service of the world will be done by men, and we may hope to see ful- filled the prophecy of Mr. John H. Converse, the great locomotive builder, who says : " When Christian men give the same energy and intelligence to the work of missions that they now give to their own private business affairs, then the proposition to evangelize the world in this genera- tion will be no longer a dream." Going After Big Gifts.The old-fashioned way was to wait for a rich man to die, in the hope that he would 276 MORE ABOUT MONEY bequeath something to foreign missions. It has been found of late years that bequests have decreased in number and in size. Missionary money is coming from living people. Now that the twentieth century has put into the minds of the persons of wealth a sense of their responsi- bility to their fellow-men for the use of their means, almost everybody possessed of a fortune is casting about for proper objects of bequest or of direct gifts. It be- hooves business men who care for missions to lay sys- tematic siege to the fortunes of Christian men of wealth. It is no casual matter to secure a great offering for foreign missions. The achievement is one that waits upon careful planning and tactful labor. In the first place, effort should be made to get the man within the hearing of the best missionary addresses, of the sort that will commend them- selves to his careful judgment: for most men who have much money are careful. Then a cumulative campaign of education should be undertaken for him. An occasional letter, a marked pamphlet, an attractive book, a bit of testimony anything that will bear upon the object in view, should find its way at irregular intervals to this man's attention. Then he should be told frankly that some day a committee of men are coming to talk to him about making a gift to missions. The committee should comprise at least three men, and these should be men of greatest personal influence with the man interviewed. The visit should not be made until the denominational authori- ties have been consulted as to the best methods to be used, and the best object to be laid before the particular individual. One man will give to a hospital who would not give to Bible-translation; another will give to Bible work who will not give to general literary propaganda. Still another will support the distinctively evangelistic work who has no interest in education or in medical missions. While it must ever remain true that the cause of world-evangelization will depend chiefly upon the small gifts of the many, yet it is but reasonable that there should 277 MEN AND MISSIONS be large offerings from men who have been made stewards of large wealth. To secure such gifts is a proper field of service for laymen. Pass On the Money ! Money for missions is meant by the donors to go to missions, and not to He in a local bank. Commonly, boards are obliged to borrow money to tide them over to the end of the year, simply because church treasurers do not forward promptly the money which has already been given by the churches. As soon as gifts are in hand they should go out of hand to pay the bills of the mission board. It is unbusinesslike financiering, and un- worthy of laymen, to cause this needless expense and worry to the mission boards. Similarly, whenever a church takes an annual subscription for missions, the amount of that subscription should be reported at once to the mission treasurer, so that the board may know upon what basis to apportion its year's work. This point needs to be made again and again. Keeping Tab on Funds. Religious organizations are no- toriously lax in their business methods. The responsibility for more than one misappropriation of church funds has been partly traceable to the laxity of responsible officials who have failed to audit accounts. It is appropriate that the laymen, from the interdenominational organizations down to the smallest local committee, should set an ex- ample in this particular. The carrying charges should be kept to a minimum. Because a committee is spending somebody else's money, it should be more economical than if it were spending its own. One laymen's committee spent $700 for a two-days' campaign that reached a few hundred men. Less than half that sum ought to have sufficed. As rigid economy as comports with efficiency should be the steadfast rule of every laymen's organization. In the matter of individual expense accounts too much care cannot be observed. Every officer should be required to submit itemized expense accounts: these to be filed for the use of the auditing committee. To the last penny, all the 278 MORE ABOUT MONEY money raised for the expenses of the movement should be accounted for, in a public statement. A gentleman widely conversant with the ways of religious organizations was recently heard to say that, for correct business methods, the Young Women's Christian Association and the women's missionary societies are far in advance of the churches and of the men's organizations. Perhaps the business men will send committees to the women to learn how to exercise business methods in church work! Don't Toady! Whether justly or not, the impression prevails quite widely that the only prominent laymen in the churches are the rich laymen. When boards and com- mittees in church work want to secure lay representation, they frequently, if not always, name the wealthiest men. This is unfortunate. We have good authority for it that the rich have not a monopoly of consecration and devotion and religious efficiency. Even the poorest man in a congre- gation ought to be permitted to devote his sagacity, If he is sagacious, to the service of the kingdom. Let us have the man with the message, and the man with the ideas, whether he comes from the cornfield or the counting-room. In the work of the Carpenter of Nazareth there should be utmost simplicity and democracy. The Committeeman's High Calling. Lofty impulses may sustain lowly labors. When in the dreariness and drudgery of obscure committee work, the layman should remember that his service is as vital as that of the man on the field or in the headquarters. The work is one work, and the " well done " may be earned by the humble laborer in a small country congregation as truly as by the greatest missionary in the most difficult field. We have consecration services for outgoing missionaries : it would not be un- seemly to have consecration services for missionary treas- urers in the local churches, for upon their consecration and efficiency depends a large measure of the usefulness of the men and women abroad. Giving Without Boasting. Every man who is inter- 279 MEN AND MISSIONS ested in missions will determine upon a systematic and proportionate plan of giving for himself. No matter how little he can afford, he will give something, systematically and in proportion. Then, he will keep quiet about his gifts. There is danger in our testimony meetings upon this point. Giving is a sacred act of worship. It should be kept between the giver and his Lord; and by no means should a man brag of his gifts. For of those whose religious life was exposed to the gaze of men the Teacher said, "Verily, they have their reward." Envelopes for Offerings. The problem of a weekly of- fering for benevolences is helped to a solution by the right kind of envelope. It is important to keep separate the gifts for local church expenses and for missionary purposes. A variety of devices are in use for this work. Several forms of duplex envelopes are employed, and are on the market One is perforated in the middle, and sometimes the home expense side is printed in blue and the missionary end in red. Other churches use separate envelopes en- tirely. A convenient form is that suggested by the pam- phlet, " The Missionary Committee," of the Southern Pres- byterian Laymen's Movement: 280 MORE ABOUT MONEY CO m oo o I SL 3 H 00 CJ1 u o H CD CD O CD 00 cn CD O H CD CD o CD 281 MEN AND MISSIONS PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS The best missionary meeting cannot be outlined in a book ; for its essence is originality and freshness. The unconven- tional meeting is most effective. The Church is on the way to an entirely new form of presentation of the mis- sionary plea, and this new decade will probably witness wonders in this particular. A tremendous stride was made by the pageant and exhibit, " The Orient in London." That great spectacular performance commanded an attention which no amount of small meetings could have secured. We are now reaching the stage where the work with indi- viduals and local congregations must be supplemented by tremendous and overwhelming occasions that will com- mand the notice of the world. The laymen have the opportunity to pioneer new forms of missionary presenta- tion. A Diversity of Devices. All meetings do not seek the same object. There is a place though a limited place for the use of curios and costumes and the incidentals of missions. These belong chiefly in Sunday-schools and mis- sion bands, where children are to be interested. Likewise there is a proper field for the use of the stereopticon and moving-pictures. The public has been accustomed to seeing moving-picture representations of almost everything under the sun, except mission work. A small beginning has been made in the way of the latter. Men's meetings, however, are best when they take the larger view of missions as a world-factor, and as a great task requiring all the resources of modern civilization. In all kinds of meetings the pres- entation of the missionary motive is in order. Except the passion for men be kindled at the flaming heart of Christ, it will not burn long nor illuminate many. Out of the Ruts. -Unconventional meetings provided they are also substantial should be a goal of all missionary committees. A rut is seldom a route. " Preliminaries " of a meeting can usually be omitted. The wisest man on the PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS committee should be the one to choose the hymns, having an organist who can be counted on to play without pre- liminary practice, so that if there be a hymn that clinches the climax of a speaker's address, that may be sung. The more unconventional the hymn, the better: "Greenland's Icy Mountains " do not warm the modern missionary meet- ing. Minus all introductory exercises, addresses of wel- come and congratulation, a meeting can be kept within reasonable time limits. There should always be a Scrip- ture portion. A man of judgment will often quote from memory the passage instead of reading it, and quote it as if it were something meant to be listened to and heeded. At the opening session of the first meeting of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America there were a great many addresses, and Prof. Rufus M. Jones was to read the Scriptures. Instead, he quoted from memory the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and everybody who heard it remembers that message, though few can recall who were the speakers or what they said. Similarly, the recitation of an apt hymn is often more effective than the languid singing of it. It is impressive and worth while, occasionally, to have several men on a platform who will get up, one after another, and quote the most pointed phrase concerning missions each has ever heard. Epigrams stick. A children's drill, if brief and well wrought out, may be appropriate in a men's meeting. Hearing from the Floor. The leader who can conduct a conference that will evoke spirited, pointed responses from the floor is a more valuable acquisition to a programme than the man who can make a great speech. It takes all the qualities of a major-general, and then some more, to keep well in hand, and to the issue, a meeting of men. The diffusive, tactless brother is always present in any large gathering and readiest to bob up and be heard. A meeting of this sort beyond the control of the presiding officer is a pathetic sight. Conferences of this kind are especially valuable as to methods that have been tried and 283 MEN AND MISSIONS as to literature that has been read and as to points that have impressed men with the missionary plea. Overloaded Programmes. Overloaded stomachs pro- duce stupidity and indigestion; so do overloaded pro- grammes. The meeting that would be powerful if it ended with the second speech, has its vitality exhausted by a third or fourth. The commonest offense of programme committees is this one of overcrowding. Would that in every church there might be one canny layman who would take for his special hobby the insistence upon short, meaty sessions. Better two good speeches than four common- place ones and if there are four, they are likely all to appear commonplace. Better two good speeches of half an hour each than three equally good ones of twenty minutes each. Better one great speech an hour long (there are few great ten-minute speeches) than four of fifteen minutes each. The craze for short speeches is born of the restlessness of our day. A man with a great world message cannot speak it in fifteen or twenty min- utes: to do so is simply impossible. Some men's or- ganizations have found that, by carefully choosing their speaker, and giving him at least an hour, they have se- cured an amount of entertainment, information, and in- spiration which they could not have got through any number of short speeches. A veteran missionary from China was recently invited to attend a series of laymen's conferences and to speak at all of them: he was only called upon once, probably because he could not make a "snappy" five-minute speech. A few days later, the sec- retary of his own mission board, wiser than the laymen, invited this veteran to speak for an hour at a Summer conference. The result was the most absorbing, states- manlike, comprehensive, and illuminating address upon China that it has ever been my privilege to hear. Pro- grammes should not be overloaded; but they should be full-freighted. Cumulative Programmes. A programme should be 284 PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS like a railway train, with a track and a destination defi- nitely laid down. Meetings that are just meetings, with pious remarks of no particular point, are not needed services. Every men's missionary meeting ought to aim to do some one thing. To that end the programme should be built up carefully, so that the climax comes at the end. Of course, there is no climax to a meeting with a great number of miscellaneous participants. Bird-shot is good when one is going for birds; but cannon-balls are better when one is fighting in a great battle. Force that should be compacted into cannon-balls of platform utter- ance is often dissipated into platitudinous pellets. If you can have only one speech, have a big one, and give the man time to make it. The committee that consumes half an evening in reports of no interest to the public, and in routine business, and in polite and footless remarks from somebody who represents something, and in miscel- laneous music that is not appropriate, deserves to be con- demned for a long period to listen to its own productions. Why should not a missionary meeting be as direct and businesslike as a directors' meeting? Facts vs. Rousements. The missionary cause suffers much from the emotional mood. The temptation to grow hortatory is present with every missionary speaker. It is easy, and evidently telling, to relate moving stories, even if they are not true or not particularly to the point. It is not the tears that men shed in a meeting that determine their subsequent activity in missionary effort, nor their devotion to the missionary enterprise. The proposition may be laid down squarely that no missionary interest is enduring that is not established in fact. No matter how eloquent the speaker, he may not be excused from giving some facts concerning missions. These ought to be fresh facts, also, for stale speeches are nowhere so inexcusable as on the missionary platform. This mission- ary enterprise is a war now under way. The business of leaders is to keep the supporters supplied* with the latest 285 MEN AND MISSIONS news from the front The suspicion is sometimes awakened that not all missionary speakers read the missionary books which they recommend. Every courageous committee of arrangements should keep in mind the peril of mere rousement, without a residuum of solid information that will endure the glare and blight of the day after, and of contact with an unsympathetic world. The Man Who "Represents" Something. Some big missionary meetings have been burdened with prosy speeches because the speakers, forsooth, "represented" certain interests that it was expedient to consider. Out upon such petty policy ! No man has a right to take the time of a big audience of people simply because he repre- sents the Congregationalists or the Episcopalians or the Methodists or the Presbyterians or the Baptists. The only justification for a speaker's standing before a company of people is that he has a message for them. Whether he be rich and famous or politically eminent, or whether he be a delegate from the backwoods, his one warrant for speak- ing is that he has something to say, which he is able to say in a manner that compels attention. The missionary theme is too absorbing and thrilling to leave room for prosy speakers. If a missionary meeting is not interesting, the indictment may well lie at the door of the committee of arrangements ; for no committee that knows its business will call to its service a man whom it has not good reason to believe will both interest and edify the hearers. Keep Close to the News. It should be possible in most communities for a first-class missionary meeting to be arranged upon only a few days' notice. Sometimes the newspapers afford an unexpected reason for the meeting. Thus, when Morrison and Sheppard were on trial in the Congo, and the subject was before the public eye, the case of Congo missions and missionaries, and their service to humanity, and of the missionary as a patriot and a representative of Western ideals, should have been pre- sented with force and conviction to the public by those 286 PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS who have especially considered the case. Likewise the news from Turkey and Persia, and frequent news from China, justifies occasional meetings. These should not merely arouse interest, but also impart information that may be extended to the daily newspapers. Why not make missionary gatherings the live centers of world news? Why has not .the China Emergency Commission in Eng- land and America emerged as a focal point around which the great China mission meetings are held? In the same line of thought, it may be suggested that when an ambas- sador or consul from a mission land is in a community, it is quite appropriate that he should be tendered a recep- tion and given an opportunity to speak by the local men who care for missions. A Critic's Congress. An innovation in the way of mis- sionary meetings would be the massing of criticisms, either at second hand or at first hand, to be answered by men who have informed themselves upon missions. Many men who would not go out to hear a missionary presentation would be willing to participate in a frank discussion of the criticisms of missions. Let it be understood that the worst that any man has ever heard about missions should be brought out into the light. Only when criticisms are in the open may they be met and answered. So long as they are hidden in a man's breast they remain a hindrance to the cause of missions. If a church or a community has a number of strong, open-minded, and well-informed men, more zealous for the truth than for any cause, such a Critics' Congress could be made of telling effect. The Monthly Concert. The women and the pastor of most churches have been the support of "the monthly concert of prayer for foreign missions." If men's awak- ened interest in this subject is at all genuine or practical, there should be an influx of laymen to this monthly mis- sionary prayer-meeting. Men should go, not primarily to make speeches on missions, but to join in the concert of prayer. It is better that such a meeting should be 287 MEN AND MISSIONS filled with prayer than with brilliant addresses. As oppor- tunity serves, however, men will participate in wise and tactful ways in the meeting. They will help arrange the programme, and by all the means in their power they will add dignity and interest to this staple of a church's life. Hospitality to Speakers. Any speaker worth hearing gives out his own life to his hearers. A thoughtless ob- server may think that he has only imparted some bits of counsel and information. In truth, he has poured out of his very soul-stuff. No recognition that the committee can show is too great for this service* There is no point wherein committees in charge of meetings are likelier to fall short than this. Every man who has made public addresses could tell, if he were to speak with utmost frank- ness, of the spirit-exhausting labor of addressing meetings (not to mention the time and toil involved in getting to the place), and then, after it is all over, he is permitted to go unheeded to his lonely hotel, or to a still more inhospitable sleeping-car, to waken, after a troubled night, not sure whether life is worth living or not It is not the rule, but the very rare exception, for a speaker to receive from his hearers written words of appreciation. The committee that fulfills this duty, which seems to be in- volved in decency and good manners, is the extraordinary, rather than the usual one. Sometimes men who have exerted a tremendous influence upon the minds of men and women who have heard them, have gone their weary way, altogether unaware of the results of their labors. Laymen's Movement workers should take a course in ecclesiastical hospitality. The first article of this should be that any man who is worthy to be their guest is worthy of most courteous and comfortable entertainment Pro- vision should be made for him in a home or a hotel preferably the latter and his quarters should be good ones. In advance, arrangement should be made for the payment of the hotel bill. A committee should meet every speaker when he arrives on the train, and any attentions 288 PROGRAMMES AND MEETINGS that could properly be extended should be offered him. Do not, however, as you prize a successful meeting, crowd a speaker's time with social functions up to the moment of his entrance upon the platform to speak. He needs attention after his address, not before. Excepting 1 in more boorish communities than most speakers will find, there will be a number of persons to express cordial sentiments toward the speaker at the close of his address. He, poor man, is in such a glow and daze after his effort that he does not understand or remember what is said to him at such a time. The wise committee will not only see the speaker on his way when he leaves the com- munity, but will also provide him with clippings from the local papers, and with a cordial letter of appreciation. More than a little good would be accomplished if hearers who express to the committee their pleasure in the address were advised to write to the speaker himself and to ex- press the same sentiments. Speakers and Expenses. Religious congregations have been so accustomed to getting something for nothing that they do not hesitate to ask a busy man to give his time and energy in order to address them, with only a bare "thank you" in return. Often it never occurs to com- mittees to pay even the expenses of speakers. On this point it is important to remember that on the night of a meeting the speaker's expenses be paid in full, and that he be not required to render an account to the penny. His trip has probably cost him more than the committee repays. Trust his honor on this point. It is gross inconsiderateness to wait until a man has had to pay his own traveling ex- penses both ways before reimbursing him. If the speaker has been obliged to expend time in attending a meeting, and if his time is his income, he should be offered a fee for speaking, the understanding being very clear and definite in advance. If a man is professionally engaged in religious work and under salary for that work, he ordinarily need not be paid. When the committee wishes 289 MEN AND MISSIONS to make recognition of his services, the check should go to the board or body which he represents. Other speakers, however, should be compensated adequately. BIBLE CLASSES AND MISSIONS. The old Crusaders went forth to conquest shouting the slogan, " It is the will of God ! " The enduring basis of all missionary endeavor must be the revealed will of the divine Father of all men. There is an especial appro- priateness in the relation of missions to the Sunday school, and to the Adult Bible Classes, All methods and all messages from the field should be interpreted in the light of Scripture. Happily, such is the trend of the religious thought of the day, that no first-rate Bible-class teacher would think of trying to get along without con- stant allusion to the missionary aspect of the truth. He will also be at pains to interpret the daily newspaper in the light of the Scripture, especially as it marks the stately steppings of the Son of Man. Contemporaneous history as an expression of divine Providence is always an absorbing subject. Using Fresh Illustrations. As the preacher who gets his illustrations from a book of illustrative quotations is soon a marked man, so the Bible-class teacher who uses hoary and machine-made missionary illustrations proves himself to be a decade or two behind the times. There are enough fresh incidents appearing every month in the missionary publications to equip any teacher of a Bible class with illustrative material. Especially should he be- ware of the maudlin stories that are sometimes told in the supposed interest of missions, whose unreality shines out through their tears. This sort of sentimentality may serve in primary classes although a modern primary- class teacher would prevent it but it has no place in the Adult Bible Class. The Sunday School the World Around. The Sunday school in mission lands is a theme by itself. It should be 290 SOME ASSORTED PLANS presented to every Sunday-school in the world. Classes in America and Europe should feel themselves kin to the Sunday-school classes which are studying the same lesson in the Orient and in Africa. To know how Sunday schools work in mission lands is a valuable medium of missionary information. Every Sunday school also should supply some foreign missionary with lesson-charts and picture-cards of Sunday-school work. Any one who has been in the foreign field has conceived a new respect for the weekly-lesson roll pictures, for there they are treasured as works of artwhich, indeed, they occasionally are. The Sunday school that keeps in touch with the World's Convention and its interests will find itself in line with an unusual and interesting body of missionary information. The International Sunday-school officials are animated by the missionary motive, and they are doing an incalculable service in helping Christians in the homeland to see their world-relationships. Serving the Children and the Church. It is a proper missionary service for the adult classes to help the little folks of the main Sunday school and of the younger de- partment, to acquire a proper and intelligent interest in missions. The teachers will gladly welcome co-operation and assistance in this. Less by the methods it adopts than by the impulse it imparts, the Adult Bible Class should be a vital factor in the missionary life of the congregation. It should best be able to interpret and expound the under- lying purpose of missions, and the meaning of the great commission.* SOME ASSORTED PLANS. A Globe on the Pulpit. When pastor of Brown Me- morial Presbyterian Church, in Baltimore, Rev. Dr. John Timothy Stone kept a large globe standing on the pulpit, a silent reminder that "The field is the world." Other * For methods, see M Missions in the Sunday-school," by George H, Trull. 291 MEN AND MISSIONS churches, Sunday schools, and prayer-meeting rooms dis- play a map of the world. A Missionary Bulletin Board. News of forthcoming missionary- meetings, the names of new missionary books and magazine articles, bits of fresh missionary informa- tion, and apt quotations, may properly be displayed on a church bulletin board, especially in rural congregations. Verify Quotations. -On letter-heads, wall- mottoes, Church papers, convention banners, etc., missionary quota- tions are being used with good effect. The practice will probably grow, and it may be worth while to point out the need for carefulness in verifying quotations, and in ascertaining authorship. An example is the case of a sentence which I myself wrote a number of years ago, and which is being widely used by the laymen in various corrupted forms: "It is the business of the whole Church to preach the whole gospel to the whole world." The three "wholes" are seldom used, or else in the wrong places. Ink, Mired With Brains. Invitations to special meet- ings should be striking enough to attract attention. For- eign postal-cards may now be secured cheaply from most mission boards, and, printed in a style corresponding as nearly as possible to that of the country represented, they form effective announcements. Similarly, Chinese copper " cash " may be attached to red invitation cards. Examples need not be further cited: Printer's ink will not "take," unless mixed with brains. Missions or the Mortgage? There are some churches where "church work" is synonymous with dreary efforts to cut down the mortgage. It is a sad truth that there are some church officials who would rather take a feeble hack at the encumbrance which bad financiering, and possibly ambition, also, have placed on the building, than have a share in the pre-eminent and vitalizing work of world-conquest. The church which lets a mortgage, or the need of new paint, or the desire for a higher-priced 292 SOME ASSORTED PLANS choir, stand in the way of its doing its duty to the world into which it has been sent, will never, though it live for centuries (which is not likely!) find itself free from some small and selfish obstacle. Blessing comes only from the Lord; and He is not g~oing to bless a mean church or a mean man. " There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want." Prayer Circles. All denominations now issue mission- ary prayer calendars. These should be used by every family in connection with its daily family worship, and they should find also a place, along- with the Bible and devotional literature, for use in the individual prayer life. The Student Volunteer Union also has a prayer calendar of a more general nature. All the might of men in behalf of missions will be in vain except it be reinforced by the power of the Highest "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" Whenever the laymen of to-day fly the banner, "We can do it, and we will," they should be at pains to put above it the wiser, truer words, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Near-at-hand Mission Work. To preserve their mis- sionary spirit from any shade of unreality, men should couple some specific neighborhood mission work with their service of "the regions beyond." The alien population affords particularly effective opportunities. Especially by one interested in the Far East should the near-at-hand Japanese and Chinese be organized and taught The slow and toilsome and taxing work of teaching English and the gospel to these foreigners has hitherto been almost too much of a task for the devotion of men, and therefore it has been relegated to women. But this is by its very nature a work for men. The service of Italian communities and other aliens should be prosecuted diligently. The rescue missions in the big cities should be mightily reinforced by an influx of helpers from the Laymen's Missionary Move- ment "The light that shines farthest, shines brightest at home." 293 MISSIONARY STATISTICS APPENDIX B By ABIGAIL J. DAVIES. MISSIONARY STATISTICS POPULATION OF THE WORLD ACCORDING TO RELIGIOUS BELIEF. * Number of Creeds. followers, 1. Christianity 477,080,158 2. Worship of Ancestors and Confucianism... 256,000,000 3. Hinduism 207,147,026 4. Mohammedanism 176,834,372 5. Buddhism 147,900,000 6. Taoism 43,000,000 7. Shintoism 14,000,000 8. Judaism 7,186,000 9. Polytheism 117,681,669 BEGINNINGS OF MISSIONS IN NON-CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES Africa- South Africa: Roman Catholics, fifteenth century; Moravians, 1737. West Africa: Church Missionary Society, 1804. East Africa: Church Missionary Society, 1819. Central Africa: Livingstone Inland Mission, 1878. North Africa: North Africa Mission, 1881. Asia- Persia: Henry Martyn translates New Testament, 1811. Turkey: A. B. C F. M., Smyrna, 1819. * No tabulation of this sort can be absolute, since many persons accept two or more faiths, as Confucianism and Buddhism. 295 MEN AND MISSIONS India: Baptists, 1793 (Carey). Burma: A. B. C F. M., Rangoon, 1813 (Judson). Siam: A. B. C F. M., 1830 (Abeel). Malaysia: Dutch Protestants, 1605. China: Nestorians, 781; Jesuits, 1582; London Mission- ary Society, 1807. Japan : Roman Catholic (began 1549 ; ended 1614) ; Prot- estant, Williams, Hepburn and Verbeck, Nagasaki and Yokohama, 1859, Korea: Roman Catholic, eighteenth century; Protestant, John Ross translated New Testament, 1875; Dr. H. N. Allen, M.D., 1884. Micronesia: American missionaries, Caroline Group, 1852. Eskimos: Hans Egede, 1721. American Indians: John Eliot, 1646. EPOCHAL MISSIONARY EVENTS Carey entered India, 1793. British and Foreign Bible Society formed, 1804. Haystack Meeting, 1806. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1810. American Bible Society, 1816. Opening of treaty ports in China, 1842. Japan opened by Commodore Perry, 1854, Y. M. C. A; formed in England, 1844; in America, 1854. Union Missionary Meeting, New York and London, 1854 ; Liverpool, 1860; London, 1878, 1886, 1888. Woman's Union Missionary Society, 1861. China Inland Mission, 1865. Opening of Uganda by Stanley, 1875. Student Volunteer Movement, 1886. Annual Conference of Foreign Mission Boards of United States and Canada, 1893. Ecumenical Conference, New York, 1900, Edinburg, 1910. 296 NOTABLE MISSIONARIES Young People's Missionary Movement, 1902. Laymen's Missionary Movement, 1906. Conference of World's Student Christian Federation, Tokio, 1907. NOTABLE MISSIONARIES Africa Vanderkemp, John T. (1747-1811) Apostle to the Hottentots. Moffat, Robert (1795-1883) Translated the Bible into Bechuana. Transformed his people from murderous savages to civilized beings, giving them a written lan- guage. Livingstone, David (1813-1873) Opened Central Africa; exposed the horrors of the slave trade, Mackay, Alex. M. (1849-1890) Reduced the vernacular of Uganda to a written language. Printed portions of the Bible in Swahile. Pioneer in industrial education. Pilkington, George L. (1865-1898) Translated Bible into Luganda,* made Grammar and Luganda vocabulary. India Carey, Wm, (1761-1834) The father of modern Prot- estant missions. Opened India; through Indian trans- lations of the Bible rendered it accessible to 300,000,000 souls. Judson, Adoniram (1788-1850) Burma. Translated Bible into Burmese. Hall, Gordon (1784-1826) Bombay. Translated the New Testament into Marathi; was greatly respected by the Brahmins for his discussions and pulpit discourses. Scudder, John (1798-1855) Ceylon and Madras. In missionary work thirty-six years; gave much time to evangelistic itinerancy. His eight sons, two grandsons, and two grand-daughters have been members of the Arcot Mission, in India. Swain, Clara A.- First woman to go to India as a medical missionary. 297 MEN AND MISSIONS Thoburn, Isabella (1840-1901) Founded the college for girls at Lucknow. Wilson, John (1804-1875) Bombay. Organized the Bom- bay college for Christian education of Parsees and Hindus. Martyn, Henry (1781-1812) First India, then Persia, where he translated New Testament Siam Bradley, Dan Beach (1804-1893) Bangkok. Translated the Scriptures into Siamese. His writings furnish the material for most of the more recent books and articles upon Siam. First educated physician and surgeon to visit Siam. Mattoon, Rev. Stephen (1816-1889) Bangkok. Was the first to translate the Gospels into the Siamese tongue, Malaysia Milne, William (1785-1822) Opened a free school at Penang (1815) and an Anglo-Chinese college at Malacca (1820). Aided in translating the Bible into Chinese. His "Two Friends" is said to be still the most popular and useful of all missionary booklets in China. Medhurst, Walter Henry (1796-1857) Malacca, Java, Borneo, and coasts of China. Remarkable linguist. Helped on revision of Bible into Chinese, completed in 1853. Paton, John G+ (1824-1907) The Apostle to the New Hebrides. China Morrison, Robert (1782-1834) Founder of Protestant missions in China (1807). Translated the Bible into Chinese with aid of Dr. Milne; made a Chinese dic- tionary. Legge, Dr. James (1815) Malacca, Hong Kong. Presi- dent of theological seminary for training of native 298 NOTABLE MISSIONARIES ministers for China; renowned for edition of Chinese classics, with Chinese text and English translation and notes. Williams, Samuel Wells (1812-1884) Canton. Editor of The Chinese Repository. Translated portions of the Scriptures into Japanese, learning the language from shipwrecked sailors; author of "The Middle Kingdom," dictionary vocabulary, and many other works. In 1876 returned to the United States, where he was appointed professor of Chinese at Yale. In 1881 was elected president of the American Bible Society. Parker, Peter (1804-1888) Opened a hospital at Canton; educated Chinese young men in practice of medicine. Burns, William C. -(1815-1868) Hong Kong, Canton, Amoy, Swatow, Peking, Newchwang. Besides con- stant preaching, he translated "Pilgrim's Progress" into idiomatic everyday Chinese, translated many hymns, and completed other important literary work. Bridgman, Elijah Colman (1801-1861) Editor of The Chinese Repository. Prepared a Chinese chres- tomathy; assisted in revision of the Scriptures. Gilmour, James (1843-1891) Mongolia. Labored as a lay physician and evangelist among the agricultural Mongols. Gutelaff, Karl Friedrich August (1803-1851) Made translation of New Testament into Siamese; was asso- ciated with Medhurst in translating the Bible into Chinese; translated the Gospel of lohn into Japanese. Nevius (1829-1893) The Nevius method of native self- support was first fully tested in Korea and now is gen- erally accepted. Extensive literary work and introduc- tion of Western fruits into North China, one of his many by-products. Western Asia Riggs, Elias (1810-1901) Translated Bible into Artne- 299 MEN AND MISSIONS nian and Bulgarian and served on the committee that revised the Turkish translation; produced, either as translations or originals, no less than 478 hymns in the Bulgarian language alone; had a working knowl- edge of twenty languages, was master of twelve. Schauffler, William Gottlieb (1798-1883) Missionary to the Jews in Turkey. Translated the Bible into Hebrew- Spanish. His great work was the translation of the whole Bible into literary Turkish. Smith, Eli (1801-1857) Malta. Superintendent of mis- sionary printing establishment With H. G. O. Dwight, explored Asiatic Turkey, Western Persia, and the Caucasus, obtaining information that led to missions among Armenians and Nestorians. Translated a large part of the Bible into Arabic; this work was finished by Dr. C. V. A. Van Dyck. Japan Brown, Samuel R. (1810-1880) Induced many Chinese and Japanese young men to come to America to be educated; helped translate the New Testament into Japanese. Verbeck, Guido F. (1830-1898) Nagasaki. Trained young men who became prominent in the new govern- ment that succeeded the revolution of 1868 ; had much influence in framing new institutions ; helped in trans- lating the Old Testament into Japanese. Hepburn, J. C., D.D. (1815 ) Went to China in 1840; at Singapore, 1841-1843; one of three pioneer missionaries to Japan in 1859. Compiled first English dictionary of Japanese language. Translated Bible and many literary, medical and evangelistic works. Neesima, Joseph Hardy (1844-1890) A Japanese who escaped from Japan to learn of the true God; educated in America; founded the Doshisha College, at Kioto. Gulick, Luther Halsey, M.D. (1828-1891) Labored with great success in Micronesia; later pushed the work of the American Bible Society in China and Japan. 300 NOTABLE MISSIONARIES Korea Ross, John Translated the whole of the New Testament into Korean and sent it across the border. Still a mis- sionary in Manchuria. Allen, H. M. y M.D. Transferred from China, became the first resident Protestant missionary (1884) ; was made head of the first general government hospital; later entered diplomatic service, and became United States Minister to Korea. The Pacific Islands Williams, John (1796-1839) Society Islands, Hervey Islands, Samoan Islands. Had wonderful success in transforming the natives of these islands; reduced the language of Raiatea to writing; translated, with Pit- man and Beyacot, the New Testament into that lan- guage. Built the boat " Messenger of Peace " to visit other islands. Killed by natives when trying to estab- lish a mission to the New Hebrides. Patteson, John Coleridge (1827) Melanesia. Reduced several of the island languages to writing, prepared grammars of these languages and translated parts of the New Testament into the Lifu language. Was killed on Nakapu Island by natives who mistook his ship for a craft that had kidnapped some of the islanders. Pacific Islands Coan, Titus (1801-1882) Hawaii. In 1835 founded a Church of thirty-six members. During the five years ending June, 1841, 7,557 were received into the Church in Hilo. Probably to-day the ratio of people in New England who cannot read and write is greater than among the Hawaiians in Hilo and Puna. Bingham, Hiram Honolulu. Father and son of same name represent nearly continuous work in Pacific Islands from 1819 to 1909. Father (1789-1869) was a pioneer missionary of American Board; in addition to 301 MEN AND MISSIONS direct work in Hawaii published " History of Missions," down to 1845. The son (1831-1909) gave Gilbert Islands a written language, and translated Bible and other books. Gulick, Peter J. (1797-1877) Waimea, Koloa, Molokai, Waialua, Honolulu. Six of his children became mis- sionaries of the American Board. Chalmers, fames (1841-1901) "The Great Heart of the Pacific" he was called by Robert Louis Stevenson. London Missionary Society representative in Cook Island and New Guinea. A famous peacemaker, but martyred in the end by a tribe of skull-hunters. 302 PROTESTANT STATISTICS g a g 5" o d CO "8 hi i s | o S Jf l-i ffi^ * merca Cana Socie 1 P 303 ota Ch b? 0? MEN AND MISSIONS THE DISTRIBUTED RESPONSIBILITY Most of the mission boards of North America have ac- cepted a certain distinct responsibility for a share of the mission field. This has done much to remove the vagueness from missionary presentation. It has been figured out also by the men best informed how much money it will take to meet this responsibility. Consequently, some churches have determined the amount they should raise. The figures in the former case, so far as they are available, are given below. Accepted responsibility Denomination. in population. Canadian Societies 40,000,000 Congregationalists 75,000,000 Dutch Reformed 13,000,000 Foreign Christian Missionary Society 15,000,000 Northern Baptists 61,000,000 Northern Methodists 150,000,000 Northern Presbyterians 100,000,000 Reformed Church in the U. S. 10,000,000 Southern Methodists 40,000,000 Southern Presbyterians 25,000,000 United Brethren 5,000,000 United Presbyterians 15,000,000 INDEX ABUSE of natives by white man, Adult Bible classes helping chil- dren, 290. . . Advertising of foreign missions, Africa, a man's hobby, 104; travellers in, who see no mis- sionaries, 96. . . African makes good Christian, 148. Alexander contrasted with Amer- Allen, Horace N., of Korea, 301. Allied mission boards (quoted), 185. Altruistic service of missions, 229. America embodiment of new ideals, 33; its peculiar inter- national obligations, 38. American Board in Turkey (quoted), 186; Board found- ed, 206; question, the, 89; sea- men in Orient, 128; Seamen s Friend Society and seamen abroad, 129; Tobacco Co., cited, 183. Americans abroad need mission help, 128. Anglo-American communities in Orient, 175- Anglo-Saxon a mission product, 148; disdain for other ways, 120. Antioch, a missionary church, 207. Apologetic, missions as an, 206. Apostolic method of mission la- bor, 267, Arnold, Matthew (quoted), 27- Armenia, cry of, 9. Asama-Yama, Japanese volcano, 19. Asia, travellers in who see no missionaries, 96. Associate Reformed Presbyterian Laymen, 75. Atlas, Christian man the mod- ern, 41. Average gift per member, 256. Awaking awaits men of super- ficial knowledge, 106; of Ori- ent, 23. BANGKOK, American ignorance of, 90. Baptist Brotherhood, 195; lay- men, 75. Baraca Bible classes, 195. men, 75. Jaraca Bible classes, 195. ' Barbarians," so called, by an- cient world, 10. Barton, James L. (quoted), 154, 171, 254. Benares, a product of Hinduism, 149. Best, Nolan Rice, Brotherhood Hymn, 196. Bible classes and missions, 390; societies formed, 296. Big gifts, seeking, 276. Bingham, Hiram. 301. Birmingham, ^ Ala., Laymen's Convention in, 75. Blaikie, Livingstone's biographer, (cited), 167. Blind, plight of in Orient, 151. Board officials, incompetent, should be removed, 135; ques- tions for laymen's study, 137; secretaries who travel abroad, 97; and officers complimented, 142; criticisms of, 133; serv- ants of churches, 133; should trust churches, 140. Bombay, American ignorance of, 90. Booming L 1 . M. M. a mistake, 260. Boxer indemnity remitted, 35, 66; outbreak, fury of, 48; outbreak, key to subsequent events, 0i; outbreak, .part in history, 168. Boy needs big brother, 204. Bradley, Dan Beach, 298. Bradt, Rev. C. E. (cited), 272. Bridgjman, Elijah C., 299. Britain, world interests of, 14. Brotherhood, a world goal, 193; 307 MEN AND MISSIONS comes by fatherhood, 204; marks, 205; of Andrew and Philip, 195; of man, 10; of St. Andrew, 195; organization, 194; world pursuit of, 17. Brotherhoods and men's meet- ings, 352. Brown, Dr. Arthur J. (quoted), 273; the Rev, F. A, (quoted), 267. Bryan, William J., and missions, 263; tour of the East, 68. Bryce, Ambassador, and mis- sions, 263; (quoted), ax. Buddhism, different from Hindu- ism, 92; how it conquered, 173; Prof. Lloyd authority on, 163; relation to Confucianism, 92. Buddhists and pilgrimages, 112; few in India, gs. Budget plan, 276. Bulletin board and missions, 253; a missionary, 292. Bunyan's muck-rake and modern sordidness, 84. Bureau of Municipal Research, analogous to mission criticism, 134- Burma, success in, 113. Burns, William C, 299-. Business agents of missions, 126; has starved men's nature, 1 1 ; -like methods in laymen's work, ^276; man ^ and missions, 253. and domestic problems of missions, 125; missions is big, 46. CAESAR contrasted with America, Canada's national missionary campaign, ' 78, 79- . Canadian Congregationahst lay- men, 75; Council of Laymen, 75; Evangelical laymen, 75; Methodist laymen, 75; Na- tional Congress, 81; Presby- terian laymen, 75; canvassing for missions, some hints, 270, 271. Capen, Samuel B., and Laymen's Movement, 73. Carey, William (quoted), 87, 297; entered India, 296. Carpenter, Frank, mentioned, 263. Cash, and how to collect it, 274. Caste system in Asia, 202, Catholic Truth Society and criti- cism, 165. Celt a mission product, 148. Chalmers, James, 302. Charlemagne contrasted with America, 39. Charts and their use, 255- Chattanooga, Tenn., Laymen's Convention, 75. Chefoo, its lure for seamen, 128. China, a man's hobby, 104; American influence in, 35; and rights recovery movement, 94; contrasted with Korea, 169; Emergency Commission, 285; famine sufferers, 9; has Amer- ica for ideal, 35; her marvel- ous awaking, 25, 26, China Inland Mission (quoted), 185; begun, 296 j native dress used by, 94; success in busi- ness way, 137. China's awaking best ^ understood by students of missions, 90* Chinese make good Christians, 149; students in America, 66, Chosun, Korea and America, 34. Christian literature for the East, 66; patriotism, inadequate Idea of, 38; science and criticism, 165. Christianity an Asiatic religion, 148. Church of England laymen in Canada, 75- . . Church papers and missions, 263. Circus and missionary's son, a story, 89. Civilization unequal to world's needs, 231. Civilizer, missionary as, 229, Clark University, Far Eastern conference at, 252. Coan, Titus, 301. College graduates on mission field, 165. Colossus, modern man is true, .9. Columbus like modern Chris- tians, 169; type of modern men, 84. Commercial representatives and immorality, 203 ; value of mis- sions insufficient, 229. Comparative religions, study of, Conference of Foreign t Mission Boards and evangelization, 185. Conferences, importance of, 283; their nature, 24.9. Confucianism, is it a religion? 92* Congo, atrocities, 9, 93, 176, atoz; and missions, 66; Belgian atro- cities on, 93. 308 INDEX Congregational brotherhood, 195. Consular service cleaned up In China, 160. Conventions, unparalleled, of laymen, 10. Converse, John H. (quoted), 290. Converts at first telling of gos- pel, no; few for labor, iijj; grandchildren sought ^ by mis- sionaries, 1 1 1 ; sometimes not genuine, 152. Cook, Joseph (quoted), 15, 16, *93- Cornwell, Rev. G., and work for seamen, 128. Cosmopolite, Christian, 19. Cosmopolitanism, new era of, 13. Cotton manufacturer and foreign missions, 224. Crippled, plight of, in Orient, 151. Criticism, how to deal with, 159; leads to study, 138; not sus- tained, 161; of missionaries and methods, 136; of missions, 143; sought by secular bodies, 134; absurdity of some, 158; how to answer* 250, 251; and laymen, 154; assorted, 163; boards not beyond, 133; indiscriminate, condemned, 156; may be an- swered by average layman, 145 ; of missions, varied, 157. Critics, a congress of, 287; of missions, 95; of missions, char- acter of, 144. Crusade, Christian, primarily spir- itual, 231. Disciples of Christ, Men's Move- ment^ 195. Disillusionment as to missions, ^117. Divine discontent awakened by missions, 151. Donkey boys of Cairo, 31. " Drugging a Nation >T (cited) , 202. EARTHQUAKES, missionaries pre- pared for, 129. East Indian makes good Chris- tian, 149. Ecclesiastical assemblies and mis- sions, 139. Economic questions and missions, 93; value of missions, 229. Ecumenical conferences, proceed- ings of, 103. Editor of China newspaper (quo- ted), 101. Educational work, is it to con- tinue? 138. Education and missions, 100; of mission children, ^131. Egede, Hans, missionary to Es- quimaux, 296. Egypt awaking, 28, 29. Eleemosynary t agencies of mis- sions, 229 ; institutions, none in paganism, 150. Eliot, John, 296. Emergency committees on mis- sion field, 130. Emotionalism, danger of, 6.3. Emotional speeches and their dan- itual, 231. ger, 184. Cuba, a foreign field, 223. England, Laymen's Movement in, Culture no substitute for relig- 75* 78. ion, 199. Curtis, William E., mentioned, 263. , Charles A. (quoted), 63. Deaf, plight of, in^Orient^ ^51. Debate with mission critic ad- vised, 250. Defense Bureau suggested to lay- men, 164. De Forest, Dr. John H. (quoted), 119. Delusions, some darling, ^i 05. Denomination, keeping in touch with, 265. Denominational ^ boards vs. inde- pendent missions, 124; divis- ions on field, 179, Deputation work, 266. Dinner parties and missions, 247. Dinners of laymen, 244, 245. Diplomacy and missions, 176. 7S 78. English language, universal use Of, 22. Envelopes and their use, 280; sample weekly duplex, 281. Epochal missionary events, 296. Ethnic faiths inadequate, 148. Eulogy, indiscriminate, condemn- ed, 156. Europeans, how live in tropical lands, 93- Eutopia, Kingdom of Heaven, 47. Evangelization, in this genera- tion, 181; mechanical theories of, 172; not dependent f on definite number of mission- aries, 172; sometimes inade- quate, no. Ex-missionaries sometimes bring cause into ill refute, 15 9- Expenses of meetings, 289. Explorers, missionaries^ as, 229. Exported gospel returning, 206. 309 MEN AND MISSIONS Extended life, laymen and, 83. Extra-territoriality, of attitude, 120; privileges, 153. FACE, importance of, lai. Facts at first hand, 95, 102; of missions, general, laymen should know, 104. Famine, Chinese, an incident, 177; illustrations from, 115; squabble over, 130; in China, Famines, missionaries prepared for, 129. Far Eastern problem, America's part in, 39; question known to mission students earliest, 109. Fatherhood antedates brother- hood, 198. Federal Council of Churches, mis- sionary aspect of, 8 1. Festivals, heathen, sometimes joy- ous, 113. Fidelity of native Christians, 153. Field problems, 117. Fiji Islander makes good Chris- tian, 148. ^ ^ Figures of mission giving, 268. Financial anxieties of mission- aries, 132. First Presbyterian Church, Wil- mington, N. C. (cited), 87. Floods, missionaries prepared for, I3 9* Foreign devils, foreigners called in China, 10. Foreigner, prestige of, in foreign lands, 120. Foreigners and their conduct in Asia, 65; two groups of, JQI. Foreign missions vs. home, ab- surdity t of, 223. Foot-binding and missions, 151. France and missions in China, Fraternities supplanted by broth- erhoods^ 195. Frarer, Sir Andrew, and mis- sions, 263. French missionaries in China, 120. Friction,, disloyalty to Christ, 126. Funny side of missions, 248. GAINES, Miss N. B., of Hiro- shima, Japan, 121, Galahad, Sir, missionary, a mod- ern, 105. Gaul a mission product, 148. Generalization, none is true, 108. Generalizations outgrown, 117. Geographical research by mission- aries, 100. German Reformed laymen, 75. Germany and missions in China, 153. Gideons, the, 195. Gift of community, relative, 77. Gifts, large, inevitable, 167; of laymen, 86. Gilmore, James, of Mongolia, 299. Gladiators, Roman, Christian, 42, Globe-trotter, a good word for, 1 06; not changed by ocean voy- age, 155. Golden age in kingdom of heaven, 47; man's dream o,f, 17. Goucher boys, 52. Goucher, Dr. John F v 51, 60. Government and missions, 49. Greek Catholics unite with Prot- estants, 1 80. Guatama, associations in India, 92. Guides, natives, and t missions, 126; supplied by missions, 128. Gulick, Luther H., 300; Peter J., 301. Gutzlaff, K F. A., 299. " HAIRY foreigners,** Japanese called strangers, 10. Hall, Gordon, 297. Halo of missionary doesn't fit, *55* Happy lives of missionaries ex- plained, 231. Harrisburg, Pa. f Laymen's Con- vention, 76. Hart, Sir Robert, and missions, 263. Hastens, Frederick J., mentioned, 263. Hawaii, a mission-made land, 91; its inter-racial democracy, 34. Haystack meeting, 296; prayer meeting, 72. Health 01 missionaries, 177, 178. Heathen, a distasteful term, in; at home, 146; do not want missionaries, i x $ ; festivals joyous, 113; more in China than 100 jears ago, 113; need Chris- tianity, 150; not always unhap- py, 1 12\ not longing for the kingdom, 113; not turning en masse to Christianity, 109; re- ligions inadequate, 148. Hepburn, Tames, 300. Hindu fakir, his self-torture, 112. Hinduism different from Bud- dhism, 92; judged by fruits, 149. 310 INDEX Hiroshima Girls' School, Japan, 121. Hobbies, every man's need for, 104; missions satisfactory, 104. Home missions and foreign are one, 223. Home needs and foreign work, 194. Hymns, erroneous impression left by, 114. IDOLATRY, an interesting study, 91, 92; and immorality, 64; study of, 93. Immorality of Paganism, 149. Impeccability of missions not sus- tained, 155. Independent missions and boards, 141, 142; blunders of, 124; should they be supported? 125. India, a man's hobby, 104; Amer- ica's influence^ in, 36 : and un- rest, 94; famine sufferers, 9; her puzzling problem, 53; students and evangelistic work, 100; unrest in, 27; un- rest, known early to students of missions, 90. Indifference of Asia to Jesus, no. Industrial education, and Chris- tian mechanics, 68. Information and money raising, of, in Orient, 151. eign missions hel home, 225, 226. Insane, Interest in foreign mission lps Interesting men in missions, 243. Invalids, Alight of, in Orient, 151. Investigation of missions, 107; unbiased, 97. Investigators, often not thorough, 98. Investment, story of, a personal, 5*- Iowa Laymen's Convention, 78. 'Islam and ^spirit of times, 92; fatally smitten, 38. Italy, earthquake in, 9. JANESVILLE, Wis., Laymen's Con- vention, 78. James, D. K., and study of mis- sions, 97. James, Prof. William (quoted), ii, 41,84. Janvier, Rev. C. A. R. (quoted), on world awaking, 24. Jei Ju< Ki; Jones, Hon. David P. (quoted), 21 ; Prof. Rufus M. (quoted), 283. Japan, a man's hobby, 104; fam- ine sufferers, 9; her new life, 24; meager results of evangeli- zation, 114. Japanese, army and t mission work, 129; immigration, 34; make good Christians^ ^148; newspaper editors Christians, 99 ; noblemen worshipping idols, 231; officials, Christian, 99; Jerusalem Church saved by missions, 215. "ews and atheism, 203. ,,'udspn, Adoniram, 297. Kipling (quoted), 14, 175* Knowles, F. L. (quoted), 203. Korea, a man's hobby, 104; a center of world interest, 25; and American missionaries, 35; antidote for China,_ 169; a piv- otal spot, 91; missionary in (quoted), 231. Korean, Church, 205; converts and Christian fellowship, 204; makes good Christian, 148. *' LADY of Decoration " commend- ed, 254. ^ B Language study of missionary, 179. Laymen and mission problems, 137; should criticize missions, 134- Laymen's Missionary Movement, founded, 297; represent extend- ed life, 83^ Christian unity, 169; and investigation, 107; investigation of missions, 97; history of, 71 ; should defend missionaries, 164; specifically foreign missions, 222. Leader's Manual of Methodist Men (quoted), 375. L'egge, Dr. James, 298. Liberal education insured by study of missions, 89. Lincoln, pictures of, in Japan, 34. Literature and how to use it, 253. " Little Green God," commended, .254. Livingstone and prophecy, 167. *$? Livingstone Inland Mission, 295. Lloyd, Prof., of University of Tokio (cited), 163. Lowrie, Dr. J. W., cited as ex- ample, 121. Luncheons, for missions, some mistakes, 248. 311 MEN AND MISSIONS Lure of the East waits Western- ers, 128. MACEDONIAN call, 115. Mackay, A. M., 297, Mattoon, Rev. Stephen, 298. Man of street and religious thought, 207, 210. Maps and their use, 255. Marriage of girls to Hindu idols, 151. Marty n, Henry, 295, 298. Mass movement toward Christi- anity in Korea, 113. Medhurst, Walter Henry, 298. Medical work, is it to continue? 138. Men and^ boards, 133; how to in- terest in missions, 243. Men's awakening in brother- hoods, 193; meetings, their character, 243; Movement of United Brethren Church, 195. Methodist Brotherhood, 1/95; lay- men f 75; Episcopal University in Tokio, 53; Leader's Manual (quoted), 256; men's methods, Methods of work, 241. Miller, Rev. Dr. Rufus W., founded Brotherhood of A. and P., 194. Millionaire, opportunity of, in China, 88. Milwaukee breweries (cited'), 183. Minnesota Laymen's Convention, Misconceptions with respect to missions, 108. Missionaries and native courts, 153; as a class, superior, 157; bulk too large in civilization's eyes, 96; closest to natives, 100; independent and laymen, 126; independent, blunders of, 124; not too many, 173; their use as speakers, 246; transla- tion work by, 100; an expen- sive tool, 178. Missionary, defense suggested, 80; dinners, 244; indifference of natiye_to, 105; looms largest in Christian eyes, 109; not chang- ed by ocean voyage, 155; not wanted by most heathen, 114; qualifications needed, 123; le- ports, sometimes one-sided, 62; seldom good speaker in Eng- lish, 178; separated ^frotn na- tives by many barriers, 105; too general a term, 156; under fire, 155; varied criticisms of, 157; discouragements of, 106. Mission Boards, allied, reports of, 170; know other side of mis- sions, 107. Mission t schools, American, and their influence, 36. Missions, work in one's own neighborhood, 293; a siege rather than assault, in, 112; as e Christian evidence, m 208 ; beginnings of, 295; biggest work in world, 46; evidence of, in pagan lands, 99; have touched only edge of pagan- ism, no; not a simple matter, 117; that have failed, 68. Mistakes of mission boards, 106. Modern meetings, 244. Moffat, Robert, 297. Mohammedan converts, compara- tively few, 68; fields unenter- ed, 173; how it conquered, 173; wherein different from idol- atry, 92. Money insufficient to win world, 232; only a symbol, 85; repre- sents life outreach, 87; should be sent to board, 278. Monotheism, difficult for pagans to grasp, in. Monthly concert of prayer, 287. Moral atmosphere of heathen- dom, 150. Morrison, Dr., of London Times, 152; Robert, of China, 114, 298; of Congo (cited), 286. Morocco, awaking of, 29. t Moslem invasion of Africa and Asia, 93. Moslems, mission work among, discouraging, 168. Mott, John R. (quoted), 190. Motto of laymen and a better one, Mottoes and their dangerous ef- fects, 109. Murder of missionary, a political pretext, 153. NAPOLEON contrasted with Amer- Nashville", Student Volunteer Con- vention in, 72. National League of Universalist Laymen, 195. Native church, its increasing im- portance, 114. Native convert best evidence of missions, 101. Native converts as servants, 68; genuineness of, 102, 312 INDEX Native " helpers " distasteful term, 171; politics and mis- sions, 153; preacher's salary, J37- Natives, abuse of, by foreigners, 12 1 ; discriminate between for- eigners, 101; their part in Christian work, 122. Neesima, Joseph H., 300. Nestorian Church, 68. New theology and missions, 210. News and missions, 286. Newspaper and missions, 253. Newspapers, abroad and indiffer- ent to missions, 109; American, in Orient, 67; writing to edit- ors, 260. Non-Christian religions, merit in, 69; world, bulks too small in Christian's eyes, 96; magnitude of, 95, 96. North America's field, a chart, 258. North Carolina soldiers (cited), 192. Northern India, success in, 113. Northwest India^ encouraging work, 169; provinces of, 60. Notable missionaries, 297. Nyanza, success in, 113. OCCIDENTALIZING Oriental Chris- tians, 70. Old Testament facts unknown to pagan world, in. Omar Khayyam and Islam, 93. Opium and ^missionaries, 177; curse in China, 202; in China, 66; traffic suppressed, 151. Organization of laymen, 264; should follow stimulus, 243. Organizing a congregation for missions, 267. Orient, in London (cited), 282; its interests in West, ^ 12; lure of, 98; new interest in, 12. Oriental minister in Washington native convert, 152. Original sources, study for mis- sion facts, 103. PAGANISM, vastness of, 99. Paraclete and missions, 233. Parish abroad, rich man's lux- ury, 88. Parker, Peter, 298; Rev. Dr. E. W., of India, 54. Parsee, who sought Christians like the book, 211. Pastor Kil, of Korea, 180; Li, of China, 189; Hshi, of China, 189. Paton, John G., 298. Patriotism, the new, 31; in worldism, 39. Patteson. John Coleridge, 301. Peace, Korean salutation or, 205. Peking, American ignorance of, 90; and Boxer massacres, 100; Christians grateful for Korea's blessings, 169. Penang, American ignorance of, 90. Persecution expected by mission- ary, 105. Persia, a man's hobby, 104; awaking of, 29. Persian makes g-ood Christian, 148. Pharaoh contrasted with Amer- ica, 39. m Philadelphia, Men's Convention, 76. Philippines, the new awaking, 26. Pictures and their use, 255. Picturesque aspect of missions, 105. Pilgrimages and what they mean, Pilkington, George L., 297. Pioneer, missionary as, 229. Political economist world em- bracing, 14. Polytheism, basic thought of pa- ganism, in. Port cities should be cared for by Church, 119; city problem, 176; residents, anti-missionary, 97. Porto Rico, a home field, 223. Portugal, anti-clerical outburst, 29. Prayer circles and calendars, 293. Presbyterian Brotherhood, 195. President of United States and railway loan, 50. Press Bureau, a national, sug- gested, 263, 264; tone toward missions changed, 165. Printing plant owned by Chris- tian Chinese, 09. Programmes, and presiding offi- cers, 245, 246; for meetings, 282; overloaded, 284; should be cumulative, 284. Proselyting is passing, 216; on mission field, 122, 123. Public men and mission lands, 103. Public opinion throughout world, 22, Publicity plans, 260; what is good, 261. QUOTATIONS should be verified, 292. 313 MEN AND MISSIONS RACE question, 174; ultimate reaches of, 174. Railway loan in China, 50. " Record of Christian Work," read in China, 100.^ Reflex influence of missions, 213, 214. Reformed Church in America in Japan (quoted), 186; in Ara- bia (quoted), i'86; in China (quoted)_, 185, 1 86. Relationship > of missionary to other foreigners, 118; between missionaries, 122. Reporting missionary meetings, 262; to boards, 273. Reports, exaggerated, 123; of Al- lied Mission Boards should be read, 170. Revivals in India, Korea, and China, 188, Rice Christians, found every- where, 1 01. Rigg, Elias, 299, " Rock, 0, Rock," addressed to China, 106. Roman Catholic Church in Ja- pan, 68; missionaries and poli- tics, 153; unite with Protest- ants, 1 80. Roosevelt, President (quoted), 165; and missions, 263. Ross, John, of Manchuria, 301. Rousements, danger of, 285. Rum in Africa, 17^7, 202. Russia, oppressed in, 9; religious liberty in, 29. SALARY of native workers, 171. Schauffler, Wm. G., 300. Scholars, Christian, should be sent to Orient^ 68. Schools for mission children, 131. Scotland, Laymen's Movement in, Scudder, John, 297. ^ Self-support on mission field, 171. Sermons and missions, 250. Severance, L. H., and study of missions, 97. Shanghai, a ^hybrid city, 175; American ignorance of, 90; Christian work in, 09; confer- ence, proceedings of, 103. Sheppard, of Congo (cited) ,_ 2: 86. Shintoism; is it a religion? 92; its relation to Buddhism, 92. Sin, sense of, lacking in heathen, 112. Singapore, American ignorance of, 90. Singer Sewing Machine Co. (cit- ed), 183. Slemati, John B., Jr., founded Laymen's Movement, 72. Social problems answered by - Christianity, 221. South Sea Islanders, debauched by traders, 203. South Sea Islands, a man's hob- by, 104; romance of, 91. Southern Baptist Laymen, 75. Southern Methodist Laymen, 75 ; Convention, Chattanooga, 21. Southern Presbyterian Brother- hood, 195; Presbyterian Church, Forward Movement plan, 267, 268; Church, in- creased gifts of, 274; laymen, 75; mission on Congo, 49; sup- ports individual missionaries, 87. Spain, anti-clerical outburst, 29. Speakers and their rights, 246; entertainment of, 288; expenses of, 289. Speeches, stale, to be avoided, 249. Speer, Robert E. (quoted), 82, 126, 172, 200; and Chinese Christian, 100. Spirit's^ mystic thrill in Chinese meeting 1 , 99. Standard Oil Co. type of organi- zation, 183. Stanley Henry M., opened Uganda, 255. Starving Chinese, no taste for food, 1 1 6. Statecraft and missions, 229. State department and criticism of consuls, 136. Statistics of religions, 295. Stockholders have right to facts, 1 08. Stone, Dr. John Timothy (cited), 291. Student Volunteer, band and lay- men, 252; Movement, 296; and Laymen, 72; prayer calendar, 293. Study classes, 254. Subscription service, how to con- duct, 269. Sunday-school and missions, 290. Suttee, prohibited, 151. Swain, Clara A., 297. TAFT, President, and missions, 263. Taiku, Korea, incident in, 216. Taoism, relation to Buddhism, 92, Taylor, Bishop of M, E. Church (quoted), 211. Tennyson (quoted), 107. INDEX Teuton, a mission product, 148. Text-books for all nations should be Christian, 67; for China, 66. Thanksgiving Day, old-fashioned sermons, 37. Thibet contrasted with Uganda, 169. Thoburn, Isabella, 298. Thor and gods or early Europe, M*- . Tigers in China and Korea, 92. Timely news and mission meet- ings, 262. Tokio and influence of Christian- ity in, 99. Toronto and gift to missions, 77; Convention, 79. Total missionary offerings, a chart, 259. Tourist, how to use for missions, 126. Tourists helped by missions, 127. Tracts and their use, 254. Transformation of converts' lives, 209, Travelers who never saw native Christian, 109, Treaty ports opened, 296. Trull, George H. (quoted), 291. Truth, all is of God, 108. Turk makes good Christian, 148. Turkey, a man's hobby, 104; its new sense of brotherhood, 198; awaking of, 37; daybreak in (cited), 254. Turkey's revolution best under- stood by students of missions, 90; transformation, 83, 28. UGANDA, antidote for Thibet, 169; opened, 296; story may be duplicated, 88; success in, 113. Ultimate issues of Men's Move- ment, 218. Undenominational missions, blun- der t of, 177. Unfinished .task, a chart % 257. Union, Christian, on mission field, 122; of churches on field, 179, United Presbyterian Men's Move- ment, 195. Universal uplift wrought by per- sonal conversion, 230. Uplifting influences of civiliza- tion vague, 208. VALIGNANT (quoted), 106. Vance, James I. (quoted), 42. Vanderkemp, John T., 297. Verbeck, or Japan, 300. Village schools in India, 54, 55. Von Moltke's famous epigram, WAGE-EARNING capacity of mis- sion student, 100. Washington, pictures of, in Japan, 34. Watchword, peril in, 187, Weddings of Christian students, wlffs, William S., 298. West Africa Presbyterian Mis- sion (quoted). 185. Whately, Archbishop (quoted), 214. White, J. Campbell, Secretary Laymen's Movement, 73, 77; and charts, 255. White men and missionaries m Asia, 119. Wilfley, Judge L. R. (cited), 144; criticism of, 164. Williams, John, 301* Wilson, John, 298. Witnesses, missionaries* work as, Woden and gods of early Europe, 148. Woman's College, Baltimore, 53. Women and children, their part in missions, 44; to be honored by laymen, 253. Women s Missionary Union, 296; place in paganism, 150. Workingman and social prob- lems, 204. World arousal of laymen, signifi- cance, 220; brotherhood and race question, 174; citizenship, its responsibilities, 176; politics and^ missions, 229; Student Christian Federation, 297. XAVIER, Francis, and his meth- ods, 189. Xerxes contrasted with America, 39- YOSHIWARA in Tokio, 64. Y. M. G, A. and Japanese Army work, 129; and missions, 252; and sailors abroad, 129; form- ed, 296; man, tactfulness of, 120. Young People's Missionary Move- ment, 255; founded, 297, Yangtze River, boatmen on (quoted), 82. ZEAL for missions, sometimes blind, 107. Zwemer, Dr, Samuel M. (quet- *i) f 48, *S3. 3IS 13 6779