Keep Your Card in This Pocket Books will be issued only on presentatioa of proper library cards. \Jnless labeled otherwise, books may be retained for four weeks. Borrowers rinding books marked, defaced or mutilated are ex- pected to report same at library desk; other- wise the last borrower will be held responsible for all imperfections discovered. The card holder is responsible for all books drawn on his card- Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus CQ&t of notices. Lost cards and change of residence must: be reported, promptly. PUBLIC LIBRARY Kansas City, Mo. Keep your Card in This Pocket KANSAS CITY, MO P 03QOE714 7 HOME UNIVERSlW: -XIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE No. 55 Editors: HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, Lixx.D., LL.D., F.B.A. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A. LIBRARY f Q? Mbl>Eli3g":4l^Q^I'EDGE i6mo clojkh^ ^D* tents net, by mail 56 cents . . : v : PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION Just Published PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY . By BERTRAND RUSSELL BUDDHISM By MRS. RHYS DAVIDS ENGLISH SECTS By W. B. SELBIE THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT t By B. W. BACON ETHICS . . . By G. E. MOORE MISSIONS By MRS. CREIGHTON Future Issues THE OLD TESTAMENT .... By GEORGE MOORE BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS By R. H. CHARLES COMPARATIVE RELIGION . . By J. ESTLIN CARPENTER A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT ByJ. B.BURY MISSIONS THEIR RISE AND;,:DEVELOP- BY LOUISE CREIGHTON AUTHOR OF "A FIRST BISTORT OF ENGLAND," "LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH,'* "LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. CREIGHTON," ETC. NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE COPYRIGHT, 1912, HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I MISSIONS BEFORE TELE REFORMATION .... 7 II THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY THROUGH DIS- COVERY AND COLONISATION 21 III THE REFORMATION AND THE BEGINNING OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS 47 IV THE BEGINNING OF MODERN MISSIONS AND THEIR RELATIONS TO GOVERNMENTS 65 V METHODS OF MISSION WORK AMONGST NON- CHRISTIAN PEOPLES 88 VI WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 112 VII THE MOSLEM PROBLEM 128 VIII MISSION WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 144 IX THE CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS .... 164 X THE PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS .... 195 XI THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 INDEX 255 MISSIONS CHAPTER I MISSIONS BEFORE THE REFORMATION" SINCE the days of the first Apostles, the great work of spreading the religion of Christ throughout the world has never ceased. At some times zeal and progress have been greater than at others, but the advance has been continuous, and the methods by which that advance has been secured have been singularly alike in all ages, so that in the record of the successes and failures of the past, the Church of the present day should find its best guidance for further progress. The spread of Christianity has always been allied with the spread of civilisation, partly of course because Christianity itself is one of the chief, if not the chief, of civilising agencies, partly because the spread of new ideas is easier and more rapid amongst those 7 8 MISSIONS who have attained to some measure of civil- isation. It was the ready means of commu- nication, the peace and order, the education, throughout the Roman Empire which made possible the development of the early Church. Success brought with it its own dangers, for when after the conversion of Constantine (A. D. 312), Christianity became fashionable, many called themselves Christian who cared little for the faith, and the Church began to face all the difficulties resulting from its association with political power. When once the Roman Empire was nomin- ally Christian, the question of the conversion of the fierce pagan tribes who surged round its frontiers and constantly invaded its terri- tories was the next task of the Church; an urgent task in the mind of the Churchman, eager to save these sinful souls from destruc- tion, and an equally urgent task in the eyes of the statesman, since he judged it to be the best means of leading these rude and restless men to settle down and develop into peaceful and industrious nations The early missionaries were for the most part monks, men who had renounced the world and given up their lives to the service BEFORE THE REFORMATION 9 of God. Though many of them were but ignorant and simple men, it was through them, taken as a whole, that knowledge, education and the peaceful arts were spread amongst the peoples. The history and methods of the gradual advance of the Christian faith during the early centuries is to a large extent unknown, but some great teachers and some great events stand out amidst the general obscurity. Amongst the Goths around the Danube, Ulfilas (A.D. 818- 383), not only taught and ministered, but showed himself their friend by obtaining for them a grant of rich pasture land within the Roman border, where they could settle and feed their flocks in peace, so earning for him- self the name of a new Moses. He also, as so many missionaries since his day have done, reduced their language to writing, and made an alphabet for it. He translated the Bible for the use of his people, but he would not include the Books of the Kings in his trans- lation, lest he should encourage the Goths in their warlike tendencies. Patrick, a Christian boy who was carried off from Scotland by Irish pirates and sold into slavery as a swineherd, was so moved 10 MISSIONS with pity at the sight of the ignorance of the Irish, that when he had escaped after six years' captivity, his one desire was to go back to preach the true faith to the people amongst whom he had toiled as a slave. He returned to Ireland (A.D. 405) with a little band of followers. His previous knowledge of the country and of the language, joined to his dauntless courage and burning zeal, enabled him not only to convert many to Christian- ity, but to lay with wise forethought the foundations of the Church in Ireland. The Irish have ever honoured him as their pat- ron saint. The great missionary amongst the Ger- mans, Winfrith, afterwards called Boniface (A.D. 680-755), was an Englishman born in Devon. The stories he heard in his youth of the English and Irish missionaries who laboured amongst the pagan German tribes, inspired him to follow their example. His work was marked by devotion and wisdom. He founded monasteries, notably the famous monastery of Fulda, as centres of learning, with schools attached to them, and brought civilisation amongst the barbarous tribes. But in his life we see already many of the BEFORE THE REFORMATION 11 difficulties of the future. He wished to or- ganise the work of the missionaries, and to bring it into close connexion with the au- thority of the Pope at Rome. Christian communtites which had grown up independ- ently were not always willing to come into line, either in matters of organisation or of doctrine. There were conflicts with heretical teachers as well as with careless Christians and wild pagans. But through all his strug- gles, whether as Bishop or Archbishop, to uphold the authority of Rome, the zeal of the missionary never waxed cold in Boni- face's soul. At the age of seventy, he re- signed his office as Archbishop of Mentz and went as a missionary to the still heathen Frisians. There, together with fifty-two followers, he was massacred by a band of pagans just as he was preparing to confirm a number of his converts. The work begun by individual missionaries was carried on by the monasteries which they founded, and which served as training-places for missionaries and teachers. The monas- teries did much for the civilisation as well as for the conversion of Europe, as may be learned from the history of the famous 18 MISSIONS monasteries in Britain lona, Lindisfarne, Whitby, Croyland and many others. But the conversion of the peoples did not always proceed by slow and peaceful means. Some- times the conversion of a king was followed by the wholesale conversion of his people, as was the case with Clovis, king of the Franks, who with all his warriors became a convert (496) in consequence of a victory over his enemies, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, whose baptism was at once followed by that of thousands of his followers. Then the real work of the missionary had to follow the baptism of the people, who, though they might become nominal Christians, still clung often for generations to their pagan habits and customs. Thus history shows us the same problems which perplex the modern missionary, the doubt whether it is best to begin from above with the rulers and leaders, or from below with the people, and the diffi- culties attending the mass movements of whole peoples to Christianity. Sometimes force was used by the kings to compel conversions. Charles the Great, in his attempts to bring the indomitable Saxons to submission, compelled them to receive BEFORE THE REFORMATION 13 baptism at the point of the sword, in spite of the remonstrances of Alcuin, the learned Englishman, his adviser and friend, who said, "Carry on evangelisation according to the example of the Apostles; of what use is baptism without faith?" Vladimir of Kief (972-1015), having once decided that Chris- tianity was the best religion, threw down and destroyed, amidst the tears of the Slavs, the idols they revered, and at his orders men, women, and children plunged naked into the Dnieper for baptism, whilst the priests prayed on the banks. Small wonder that with such methods, when self-interest, if not the desire for self-preservation, com- pelled conversion, the real progress of Chris- tianity was slow. The desire for the conversion of the Saracens was one of the chief motives that inspired the Crusaders, and the work of bringing the remaining pagan peoples in the north of Europe to Christianity was under- taken by a military religious order, the Teutonic knights. They brought order into the frontier districts of North-eastern Eu- rope, and subdued the wild peoples that lived on the shores of the Baltic, converting 14 MISSIONS them to Christianity in the early thirteenth century and sending mission clergy to min- ister to them. Roughly speaking, it took ten centuries for Europe to become nominally Christian, though even then the greater part of Russia and much of Scandinavia and the shores of the Baltic were still untouched, whilst the south of Spain remained under the rule of the Moors. It is well to remember this in the consideration of the history of the fur- ther progress of the Christian Church during the next ten centuries, and also to notice how the work of the missionaries suffered from alliance with the world power and from the use of methods utterly opposed to the spirit of the religion which they were seeking to spread. Yet in spite of countless mistakes, Christianity showed itself everywhere as the great civilising and educating influence amongst the peoples of Europe. The spread of Christianity had made the organisation of the Church necessary. That organisation centred round the Papacy, and the Papacy became a world power eager to maintain its supremacy among the nations. Zeal for the conversion of the world grew cold BEFORE THE REFORMATION 15 in days when the rulers of the Church were busied with controlling the politics of the nations. It needed a spiritual revival to bring back religion into the lives of the peo- ple. This revival came with the rise of the friars. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) aimed not only at preaching to the poor and ignorant in Europe, he longed to bring the Saracens under the power of the Cross by preaching rather than by military conquest. Though his own efforts led to no results, his followers never forgot that their activity was not to be limited to Europe. His own conviction that the Moslems must be won to the Christian faith by words, both spoken and written, rather than subdued by arms was felt even more strongly by Raymond Lull (1236-1315), a Spanish nobleman. Lull, who was a poet and a courtier, was converted in the midst of a gay and brilliant life by a vision of the Crucified Saviour. A Fran- ciscan preacher completed the work of the vision, and Lull determined to devote his life to the conversion of the Moslems. His distinction lies in the fact that he realised that for this great work careful preparation was needed. He bought an Arab slave that 16 MISSIONS he might learn Arabic, and gave seven years to his studies. He visited the Pope and other European princes, and tried to win them to his ideas. At last he was enabled to found a monastery where Franciscan friars might study Arabic preparatory to being mission- aries. Through his persuasions professor- ships of Arabic were founded in the uni- versities of Paris, Salamanca and Oxford. He wrote books to convince the Moslems of the truth of Christianity, and when at last he failed to get any companions in his en- terprise, he went alone at the age of fifty- six to Tunis. There he engaged in discus- sions with learned Moslem teachers, until he was first imprisoned and then banished from the country. But he escaped from the ship which was to bear him away, and con- tinued his teaching whilst living in hiding. He succeeded in making several missionary journeys about the shores of the Mediterra- nean, preaching to Jews and Moslems. Here and there he made a few converts. All the time he continued his studies and wrote books both to convince the Moslems and to make known his own ideas. Though it is difficult to believe the statement that he BEFORE THE REFORMATION 17 wrote 4000 books, a list of 321 books written by Mm is in existence. At the age of seventy- nine he returned to Bugia on the African coast to visit his converts there, and after spending nearly a year amongst them in hiding, came out to preach openly in the market-place, where he was set upon and stoned to death. His wise conception of the nature of the task that lay before him, and the time and study he gave to prepare him- self for it, make him an example to all mis- sionary leaders. Whilst Lull was teaching on the African coast, another missionary pioneer, John de Monte Corvino, had made his way to the court at Pekin. China was then ruled by the Mongols. The great Mongolian Empire had not remained untouched by Christianity. When Nestorius, judged a heretic by the Councils of the Church, had been banished from the Roman Empire, his teaching spread eastwards. His ideas as to the nature of God were sympathetic to Eastern minds, and for a time the Nestorian Church flour- ished. A chain of bishops and churches spread from Jerusalem to Pekin. But the Nestorian Church, separated from the rest .8 MISSIONS >f Christendom and subject to the constant changes which resulted from the rise of one jreat conquering power after another in ^sia, had not been able to maintain itself. Later teachers, however, found Nestorian Christians, cherishing a mutilated faith, still surviving in China. Kublai Elan, the famous Mongol ruler, was anxious to enter into relations with the great powers of Eu- rope. When the Polos, two Italian travellers, the father and uncle of the famous Marco Polo, visited his court, he sent by them a letter to the Pope, asking him to send to China a hundred Christians, who should be able to prove by argument to the idolaters that the law of Christ was the best. He seems to have believed that Christian teach- ing would help to civilise and soften the un- tamed peoples over whom he ruled. But Christendom was not ready to answer his appeal, and so probably a great opportunity was lost. All that the Pope could do was to send (1271) two Dominican friars, who fled back to Europe when they had only accom- plished part of their long journey. It was nearly twenty years later that the sent a Franciscan, John de Monte Cor- BEFORE THE EEFORMATION 19 vino, to China. The journey there took him three years. He had to wait a year in India to join a caravan with which he could travel to China, The Nestorian Christians did not welcome his coming, and tried to put hindrances in his way; but Kublai Elan treated him well. He built a church at Cambaluc, the future Pekin, trained many boys to be choristers and priests, baptised 6000 Chinese, and translated the New Testament and the Psalms into Chinese. Seven other missionaries, who were already consecrated as bishops, so as to be able to rule the future Church in China, were sent out to help him. But it was a dangerous and difficult journey, and of these seven only three reached their destination. They laboured with toil and devotion, longing for more help from Europe to aid them in their tremendous task. Corvino died at the age of eighty, and with the fall of the Mongol power, the work which he had begun perished also. The Mings, who succeeded as rulers of China, wanted no foreign religion. At the same time the zeal for missions was growing cold in Europe, which was absorbed in its own political and religious difficulties. The 20 MISSIONS Church which had converted the Goths and Teutons and Huns, allowed Africa, the land of Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius and Au- gustine, to be conquered by Islam, and by the fall of Constantinople (1453) the Moslem power gained a foothold in Europe itself. The period preceding the Reformation was not of a character to lead to missionary activity. CHAPTER H THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY THROUGH DISCOVERY AND COLONISATION WITHIN a few years of one another Columbus discovered America and Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. The Pope claimed the spiritual sovereignty of the whole world, and authorised the conquest of new lands by the discoverers on the condition that wherever they went they should plant the Cross. Priests accompanied the voyages of the great discoverers, not only to minister to the members of the expedition, but to establish the faith in the new lands. The zeal of the Spaniards for the conversion of the heathen made the expeditions of Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortez for the discovery and colonisation of the New World assume almost the ap- pearance of a Crusade. They did not shrink m MISSIONS from violent measures If gentle measures were not sufficient for conversion. The mis- sionaries who accompanied the expeditions were chiefly Dominican friars, many of them humble and devoted men who worked quietly and zealously amongst the natives, and tried in every way in their power to mitigate the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors. The Spaniard might be eager for the conversion of the native, but he was still more eager to win wealth from him and to force him to work on the land of which he had been forcibly deprived. The sufferings of the natives, their death by thousands under these cruel conditions, stirred the indignation of the missionaries. Las Casas, an eminent Dominican, who spent his whole life in the service of the South American Indians, by his remonstrances and representations at the Spanish Court succeeded in having it pro- nounced illegal to make slaves of the Indians, with the exception of those taken captive in an unrighteous war. He spared no pains to improve their condition, crossing the ocean twelve times and travelling to every part of the newly-discovered countries, opposing in season and out of season the rapacity and THE SPREAD OF CHRISTL1NITY 3 cruelty of the Spanish colonists. But to spare his Indian converts he was willing to sanction the plan of importing negroes from Africa to labour in the West Indies. Later, he learned to deplore the mistaken judgment by which he had helped to introduce the horrors of the slave trade. The Roman Church, whilst jealous for the conversion of the heathen, saw no reason to object to the capture and sale of the African negroes, and their transport under horrible conditions to the lands where their labour was needed. A bull of Pope Martin V had given to Portugal all the land the Portuguese could conquer in Africa and Asia, and they brought negro slaves back to Portugal from Africa on the pretext of converting them. Later, another papal bull (1537) sanctioned the opening of a slave market in Lisbon, where ten to twelve thousand negroes were sold annually for transportation to the West Indies. About the same time, Sir John Hawkins carried off negroes as slaves from the West African coast, and the English slave trade began. Though men might seek to excuse their treatment of the natives by a profession of their desire for their conversion, it is clear 4 MISSIONS that, except in the mind of a humble friar here and there, no sense of the brotherhood of man had yet dawned. It was the friars who were the chief civilising agency in the New World, as the missionaries have been in all ages. They taught the natives to till the ground, they built churches and schools for them. The people loved the services of the Church and venerated the men who minis- tered to them. But on all sides the work of the friars was hindered by the bad example and the cruelty of the Spaniards. Under the hard rule of their new masters the natives perished by thousands, till it seemed as if they would entirely disappear. In order to save them from their miserable fate, the Jesuits obtained permission to make special settlements of the natives, where they could guide and teach them without interference from the colonists. The most notable of these was in Paraguay, in the centre of South America, where (1610) two Jesuit fathers settled with 200 native families. At first they suffered from the frequent raids of the colonists who caine to carry off slaves. But the settlements grew and prospered. The Jesuits were as keen in their hunt for souls as THE SPREAD OF CHEISTL4NITY 5 the colonists in their hunt for slaves. They studied the nature of the people whom they wished to convert, and learnt how to attract them and win their confidence. The settle- ments were governed by the Fathers like a great family; every one worked for the good of the whole; there was no private property; industries of all kinds were practised; there were beautiful gardens, and immense herds of cattle. Admirably cared for in every way, the natives were, however, treated like chil- dren, they could not grow up into free men, their powers of initiative were never de- veloped, and so in the end these settlements proved a hindrance rather than a help to the true progress of the country. The Jesuits stand pre-eminent amongst all the religious orders for their missionary work. Francisco Xavier, one of the first associates with Ignatius Loyola in founding the order of the Jesuits, a gifted young man of noble family in the far south of France, was the first of their long list of heroic missionaries. Eloquent, impetuous, devoted, with all the charm and vivacity of a southerner, he com- bined a rare amount of common sense with absolute self-sacrifice. He said: "I fear God m MISSIONS and nothing else In the world"; and his life showed the truth- of his words. The King of Portugal sent him (1541) with the Portuguese fleet to Goa, the chief Portuguese settlement in India, and pope and king alike supplied him with full authority to supervise the work of the Church there. At Goa he found al- ready established a fine cathedral, a seminary for training native priests, and a large Fran- ciscan convent. He was eager to go on from Goa to save the perishing souls of the heathen, and soon set out to visit the villages of the pearl fishers on the coast near Cape Comorin, where he spent three years. He did not give himself time to learn their language, but worked through interpreters. His methods were very simple. On arriving at a village he rang a bell to gather the villagers around him. Then he recited to them the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and the Ten Commandments in Tamil. On Sundays they were assembled together to recite the Creed with him, and he baptised all those who were willing; going on till fatigue made it impossible for him to lift his arms, and his exhausted voice could not utter the words of blessing. Sometimes he was even without THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 27 an interpreter, but he wrote: "I am not with- out work, for I want no interpreter to baptise infants just born, nor to relieve the famished and naked who come in my way." He says himself that in one month he baptised 10,000 converts. The whole villages who came over in this way to a nominal Christianity were organised into parishes with native priests. Xavier's impatient soul longed to see quick results, but though he could bap- tise and organise, longer and more patient work was needed to make these poor fisher- folk into understanding Christians. Xavier's energy was untiring. He never spared him- self, and endured without a murmur the severest privations on his repeated journeys. From Southern India he went on to visit the islands of the Chinese Archipelago, and even got as far as Japan. He was above all am- bitious to enter China itself, and in an at- tempt to do so, died in an island off Canton (1552). The difficulties attending mass conversions soon became obvious to the Jesuits, and one of their number, Robert de Nobili, an Italian (c. 1606), determined to proceed by other methods, and to begin at the top and get m MISSIONS hold of the Brahmins themselves. He adopted their dress and their habits, living for a year in a grass hut on herbs and water. In this way he aroused the curiosity of the Brahmins, and they came to question and talk with him, so that he was able to study their religious ideas, and adapt his Christian teaching to them. He wrapt his teaching in the veil of mystery so attractive to the Hindu mind, and wrote books in Tamil in which he dwelt on the fundamental likeness between Christian and Hindu beliefs. He did not attempt to interfere with caste, and tolerated the practice of many Hindu rites by his converts. Finally he forged an an- cient deed written in Indian character to prove that the Jesuits were descended from the god Brama. However blameworthy this resort to deception as a foundation for his authority may appear to us, there can be no doubt about the zeal with which he and his companions and successors laboured for the conversion of the Indians. They trained up a native priesthood; the districts under Por- tuguese rule were organised into parishes, and many churches were built. The acceptance of the caste basis of society led them ulti- THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 29 mately into many difficulties, and brought about bitter disputes between the Jesuits and other religious orders. A little before Nobili began his work in India, another Italian Jesuit, Father Ricci, had penetrated with two companions into China. A young man of twenty-seven when he started on his great enterprise (1578), Ricci set himself to study the character of the Chinese that he might know how to win their attention. He soon perceived that it was useless to attempt to overcome the prejudice against Christianity, arising from the Chinese attitude of intellectual scorn towards all foreigners, unless he could first convince them of the superiority of Western learning. He approached them, therefore, as a man of learning rather than as a religious teacher, adopted the dress of the Chinese literati, mastered their language so perfectly that he could not only discuss political questions with learned Chinese, but could write treatises which were admired by them for their literary qualities. Especially he impressed them by his mathematical and astronomical knowledge. He translated Euclid into Chinese, and made a map of the 30 MISSIONS world by winch to correct some of the errors of their ideas about geography. Welcomed at last at the court at Pekin, he won the Em- peror's confidence by his presents of a clock, a repeating watch and some sacred paintings. The Emperor and the learned Chinese now treated Riccl and his companions with great favour, and once the ground was prepared, he used every opportunity to introduce Christian teaching. Many converts were made, churches were built even at the capital itself. Ricci constantly implored that more men should be sent him from Europe to help in his great work. He laboured in China himself till his death (1610), and other Jesuits took up the work that he had begun. Here in China, too, concessions were made to native ideas by allowing the converts to keep up the custom of ancestor worship, connecting it with the worship of the saints that prevailed in the Roman Church. This and other concessions led later to dissensions with Dominican missionaries, who invoked the interference of the Pope, and these dis- sensions destroyed the early prosperity of the mission. The work was also periodic- ally interrupted by persecutions which THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY SI compelled the temporary retirement of the missionaries. In Japan also, the Jesuits and Franciscans worked with success and made many converts. It seemed as if Japan were about to become a Christian land, for within a century there were said to be a million converts. Then in the early seventeenth century a change of rulers led to a terrible persecution, in which the Japanese were encouraged by the Dutch traders, who resented bitterly the influence of the Jesuits. Thousands of Japanese Christians went bravely to meet a terrible death, and the bright hopes of a Japanese Church were crushed. For many generations Japan was a sealed country, closed to the outer world. When, more than 200 years afterwards, Christian missionaries were again tolerated in Japan, there were still found some who practised secretly the Christian rites, which had been kept alive all these long years by those who hardly knew what they meant. Equal in devotion to the Jesuit mission- aries in China and Japan were the French missionaries who laboured in Further India in the kingdoms of Siam, Tonquin and 32 MISSIONS Cochin China* They were sent out by a Society for Foreign Missions founded in Paris in 1650. In the work of this society and in the motives that inspired its sup- porters, we see a curious mixture of genuine religious zeal with a desire for the aggrandise- ment of France and the extension of her trade. The missionaries of these times had to a large extent to win their way by acting either as political agents or as traders, and also in many cases to support themselves by trade. Their voyages to the East had to be accomplished on trading vessels, and on overland journeys they travelled with trad- ing caravans. This mixture of interests led to international jealousies. The Portuguese, who claimed jurisdiction over the whole of the East, were constantly putting difficulties in the way of the missionaries of other coun- tries as well as in that of the Jesuits Two men were the real founders of the Paris Society, Frangois Pallu and de la Motte Lambert. Both belonged to legal families. Pallu from childhood had been dedicated to the priesthood; de la Motte Lambert, a rich and independent man, was a magistrate when he decided to give up the world and become THE SPREAD OF CHMSTIANTTY 33 a priest. To both after a while the mission- ary call came clear and strong. De la Motte Lambert, pertinacious and zealous in any- thing he undertook, joined Pallu in getting the Paris Society established and securing for its objects the approval of the Pope. Both men were appointed bishops that they might superintend the spread of the Faith by the Congregation of the Propaganda, the great organisation in Rome which since its founda- tion in 1622 directed all the missions of the Church. The Portuguese considered the appointment of these two bishops as an in- terference with their ecclesiastical jurisdic- tion in the East; hence it was impossible for the bishops to travel to Tonquin in Portu- guese ships. De la Motte Lambert started to make the journey by land. The directions of the Propaganda were that he should go by Persia, that he should dress as a Turk so as to avoid recognition, that he should be care- ful to interfere nowhere with politics, and should teach and practise obedience to rulers. He travelled partly by sea, in boats so wretched that one of his companions said of a sea passage that "to embark in such a boat one must have made the sacrifice of 34 MISSIONS one's life and have given one's fate into God's hands"; partly by land, in company with trade caravans. Wherever he came across sick and suffering fellow-travellers, he assisted them with such remedies as he knew. At Ispahan and Bagdad he was cheered by finding Capucin missions at work, and in most of the ports some Chris- tians were discovered. The journey took two years. De la Motte Lambert never returned to France. He spent his life in the Cochin China mission. His courteous manners helped to gain him influence with the native rulers, and he ever showed himself fertile in expedients and undaunted in difficulties. Pallu, equally zealous and devoted, was the statesman of the Mission. A man of luminous and bold intelligence, he was full of clear and wide views, which his vigour and tact enabled him to carry into effect. When he realised the impossibility of travel- ling in Portuguese ships, he persuaded the French ministers Mazarin and Colbert to help him to found a French East India com- pany, in the vessels of which the missionaries were always allowed free passages. He wished to extend the influence of France and THE SPREAD OF CHRISTL4NITY So to promote the interest of its trade, whilst he spread the Faith in the East. Nothing daunted him; when five out of the seven missionaries he took with him died on the way, he wrote: "We see the bridge begun, only too happy if our bodies and those of our dear brothers may serve as piles to strengthen it, and to make a full open way for brave missionaries to gather in an ample harvest from such fertile fields." His first object was to establish a seminary to train native priests. Siam was then a meeting-place for traders from all parts of the world, and its king realised the advan- tage of cultivating friendly relations with the French. He was prepared, therefore, to be tolerant to Christians, and granted the mis- sionaries land for a college and a church. The two bishops drew up rules full of wisdom and insight for the guidance of their mission- aries and of the native church. It was in Tonquin that they displayed most activity. One priest alone speaks of having baptised 2000 natives in two years. Periods of peace- ful progress were followed by years of savage persecution, in which both converts and missionaries suffered unheard-of torments 36 MISSIONS with the greatest heroism. Louis XTV, king of France, showed great interest in the mis- sion. He saw in it a way of increasing the power and influence of France, and in the whole work of the mission, political and commercial interests played a great part, side by side with the most genuine religious devotion. The native princes patronised the foreign teachers when they thought it their interest to do so, and some even visited Paris under the care of the missionaries. Pallu made two journeys back to France in the interests of the mission, and laid before the king of France his plans for founding trading fac- tories in all parts of Cochin China. On his journeys he sought opportunities of visiting other missionaries and discussing their methods of work with them. The route of the trading vessels in which he travelled lay past Cape Verd and round the Cape of Good Hope to Madagascar, where there were Dominican missions, and thence to Macao. The time on ship was spent in study and devotion and in ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the sailors. Scurvy was then a terrible scourge; some- THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 37 times the whole ship would be like a hospital, but a hospital with no comforts or aids for the sick. Then the missionaries would do all in their power for the sufferers. At Macao they had to disguise themselves and seek means to cross undiscovered in native boats to Cochin China or Canton, a voyage which often took a month. Pallu on one of his journeys was captured by a Spanish ship and carried back to Spain as a prisoner- He used the opportunity to visit Rome and obtain from the Pope ap- proval for his plans for the organisation of the Church in the Far East. He brought back with him to the East a band of new missionaries. His great desire was to enter China, and this he at last achieved, but only to die there. His last words are a revelation of the nature of the man. He bade his com- panions remember that so long as love reigned in the mission all would go well, and then he recommended the mission to France, pointing out the new alliances that might be made and the great commercial openings that were possible. He left behind him, as the result of his untiring labours, the begin- nings of a powerful ecclesiastical organisa- 38 MISSIONS tion; there were seminaries for the training of priests, convents to serve as a refuge for the women and girls who were in danger of being forced to marry heathens; in the vil- lages there were placed elders or catechists to gather the Christians together for worship in the absence of the priests, who came at stated intervals to dispense the sacraments. Pallu's greatest contribution to the work of missions was his insistence on the necessity of training up a native clergy, which was ever his first care in all his plans. It is impossible to follow all the manifold missions of the religious orders in the East, or to tell the tale of their martyrs and con- fessors, of their deeds of heroism and endur- ance. The sufferings and tortures that many of them endured are incredible. We read of men first exposed naked to the bite of mos- quitoes and then tied up in sacks and thrown into the river; of fingers crushed between planks, flesh torn out by hot pincers, till the sufferers, giving thanks to God all the time, fainted with agony. One priest, Gleyo, after many tortures and scourgings, was cast into a fetid prison where he lived for eight years and then escaped. His bishop could THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 39 hardly recognise the man, with the face of a corpse, trembling hands and dying voice, who appeared before him. He was only one amongst many, and the heroism of the mis- sionaries was equalled by the heroism of their converts. Persecuted and driven out of China and Tonquin, the one desire of the missionaries was to find a way to return, to live in hiding under the most wretched con- ditions, that they might at least keep in touch with their converts. Their courage reaped its reward, for it was in lands like Tonquin, where the persecution was most severe, that Christianity took the deepest root. But in the light of their great suc- cesses and the wonderful promise of their missions, which made it appear as if the torhole of the East would speedily become Christian, we are forced to ask what was the reason of the failure of this promise. Many things seem to have contributed to this. Political motives, the love of power and influence, constantly mingled with re- ligious zeal. The missionary, absolutely self- denying in his own life, was often ready to push trade and commercial interests for the good of his country, or even for the en- 40 MISSIONS ricliment of Ms Order or the support of his mission. He went too far in trying to ac- commodate the Christian Faith to the ideas and superstitions of the people amongst whom he worked. Though wisely eager to train up a native priesthood, he took little pains to make his converts independent of his rule. There was no attempt to build up national churches; the Bible was not given to the people, only such elements of the Faith as were thought good for them; in every detail the supremacy of Rome and the authority of the Pope were asserted. Yet though all the missionaries owed the same obedience to Rome, their work was con- stantly disturbed, not only by the aggressive assertion of their rights by the Portuguese., but by jealousies and antagonisms between the different religious orders. These came to a climax when complaints against the Jesuits were made to Rome on account of the tolera- tion of heathen rites authorised by Ricci and Nobili. A legate was sent from Rome to China to investigate the matter (1701). The legate, who was opposed at every step of his proceedings by the Jesuits, died after great sufferings* a prisoner at Macao, and the con- THE SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY 41 duct of the Jesuits In this matter showed the autocratic nature of their pretensions. They had indeed grown so powerful, that, founded to aid the power of the Pope, it seemed as if they had taken to themselves the rule of the Church. Their arrogance raised up enemies to their Order in every country and at last led to their suppression by the Pope (1773). This was a severe blow to the missions. At the same time the revolutionary movement in France disturbed the work of the Paris Society, which provided and trained priests for many of the missions, and for some years no new missionaries could be sent out. But the organisation of the East into vicariats, dioceses and parishes, remained a framework into which the work could afterwards be again fitted. The history of the Roman missions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is full of instruction for after times. The attempt to adapt the Christian faith to the religious ideas of the peoples was only a perversion oi the truth now generally recognised, thai there are great common ideas at the basis oi all religions upon which the Christian teach- ing can be built. The value attached to the 42 MISSIONS formation of a native ministry was a begin- ning of the recognition of the fact, that it is the great aim of all wise mission work to build up an independent native Church. The attention given to the organisation of the Church showed that statesmanlike method of facing the whole situation, which will alone prevent wasted and dispropor- tionate effort. But most of all is to be learnt from the lives of individual mission- aries, from their courage and their single- minded devotion, from their own endurance of suffering, and from the spirit with which they inspired their converts, so that they gladly laid down their lives by hundreds in persecutions as cruel and bloody as any suffered in the worst days of the Roman Empire. The life of many of the Jesuit missionaries, their sufferings, their labours, can be studied in the remarkable letters which they sent home from their lifelong exile, and which reveal clearly what manner of men they were. On the other side of the world, in North America, the courage and devotion of the Jesuits was equally shown. Here, in the frozen lands of Canada, they laboured THE SPREAD OF CHEISTIANITY 43 amongst the American Indians. These tribes were living in a state of complete barbarism, constantly on the verge of starvation, en- gaged in desperate feuds with one another, a prey to superstitious terrors, which were fed by the sorcerers as a means of increasing their power. They were by no means friendly in their reception of the Black Fathers, as the Jesuits were called, who came to sacrifice their lives in bringing them the knowledge of the true faith. The Jesuits who gave themselves to the foreign missions were amongst the most devoted and zealous members of the Order. For the most part men of gentle birth, cultured and highly educated, they offered themselves gladly for a life of desperate hardship. No tales of heroism can surpass the unflinching devo- tion of their lives amongst the Indians in Canada. They followed the tribes to their winter quarters, living amongst them in their filthy huts, sharing their bitter priva- tions, only to meet with revilings and in- sults, sometimes driven half-starved and frozen from every door, struck and spat upon, their lives in danger at every moment, and only saved because the Indians feared 44 MISSIONS the vengeance of the French at Quebec. In such a life their religion was their one sup- port; comforted and sustained by heavenly visions, they did not shrink from their task, but were ever eager to press on into new ventures. Even the most atrocious tor- ments could not stop their zeal. One of them, Bressani, fell into the hands of the Iroquois, the most savage of the Indians; after beating him till he was streaming with blood, they stript him naked and, as he stood shivering in the bitter cold, they forced him to sing for their amusement. Then the children were turned on to torment him, summoned by the chief "to come and caress" him, by thrusting sharp sticks into his flesh and burning him with hot coals. This was repeated for several evenings; later he was hung up by his feet with chains, and dogs were turned on to lacerate him. Some- how he survived. "I could not have be- lieved," he wrote, "that a man was so hard to kill." Every day he expected his death, but in the end, in his pitiably mangled con- dition he was offered for sale to the traders at a Dutch fort. They generously gave a large sum for him, tended him and sent him THE SPREAD OP CHRISTIANITY 45 back to France. Maimed and disfigured as lie was, as soon as tie was able he returned to his work amongst the Indians, ready once more to face hardships and torments. By every means the Jesuits sought oppor- tunity to baptise the Indians, whether war- riors dying in battle, prisoners bound to the stake, or men and women on their death- beds. They baptised infants by stealth on pretence of giving them sweetened water to drink. Their work was most successful amongst the Hurons, and here they estab- lished a large mission (1649) and built a church which was the wonder of the Indians. They made many converts, and by their excellent management brought comparative prosperity to the settlement, through grow- ing maize and storing the food gained by hunting and fishing, so that in the winter hundreds of starving Indians would gather round them to be fed. All this was destroyed by a savage attack of the Iroquois, who seized and tortured to death with the most revolting cruelties two of the Jesuits. One of these, Brebeuf , the founder of the mission, a man of noble birth and heroic nature, sur- vived for nearly seventeen hours of torture 46 MISSIONS without flinching, so that "his death was the astonishment of his murderers." It was said that at times he seemed beside himself with agony, and then with a mighty effort he lifted up his hands and offered his sufferings to heaven as a sacrifice. It was the Iroquois, the most ferocious of the Indians, who finally ruined the hopes of the Jesuit mission, and with it the prospect of making New France, the land of so many hopes and dreams, fostered by the ambition of Richelieu, and inspired by the zeal of the Jesuits, a state strong, united, and pros- perous, and able to resist the English colon- ists, who were still but few and weak, living along the shores of the New World. CHAPTER III THE REFORMATION AND THE BEGINNING OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS THE religious stir of the counter-reforma- tion had kindled in the Roman Catholic Church a new zeal for missions. But the re- formation movement in Europe brought with it no sense of obligation to carry the Gospel to the non-Christian nations; indeed, the leading reformers were even distinctly op- posed to foreign missions. They stated that the command to go and teach all nations had been carried out by the Apostles, and was no longer incumbent upon them. The only voice raised on the other side was that of Erasmus, who in a treatise on the Art of Preaching speaks most eloquently of the call to mission work. After describing the countries of the world to which the Gospel had never reached, he says: "There are 47 48 MISSIONS surely in these vast tracts barbarous and simple tribes who would easily be attracted to Christ if we sent men among them to sow the good seed." He goes on to speak of the causes which kept men from this task: want of faith, fear of difficulties, hard- ships, and death, and concludes with an urgent plea to men to address themselves "with fearless minds to this glorious task." "It is hard work I call you to," he writes, "but it is the noblest and highest of all. Would that God had accounted me worthy to die in such a holy work. . . . No one is fit to preach the gospel to the heathen who has not made his mind superior to riches or pleasure, aye, even to life and death itself." The words of Erasmus met with no re- sponse amongst the reformers. The few who here and there tried to rouse any sense of responsibility for the work of the conver- sion of the world, met with the bitterest hostility from the orthodox party in Ger- many. Amongst the seafaring and colonis- ing nations there was not wanting a convic- tion that the explorers must carry the Gospel with them. Instructions issued to navigators in the name of Edward VI state that "the THE REFORMATION 49 sowing of Christianity must be tlie chief interest of such as shall make any attempt at foreign discovery, or else what is builded on other foundations shall never obtain happy success or continuance. 5 ' Sir Walter Raleigh was anxious for the introduction of Christianity into his proposed colony of Virginia, and 100 given by him for the prop- agation of the Christian religion in that colony, is the first recorded missionary sub- scription in England. The Dutch, the greatest colonising power of that day, sent out clergy to the East Indies who were not only to minister to their colonists, but to be missionaries to the natives. The heathen yielded to the pressure put upon them by their new rulers and were baptised in masses without any instruction, the preacher being paid for each man baptised. When the Pilgrim Fathers settled in North America, they looked upon the conversion of the Indians as their duty. One of the earliest colonists, a minister, John Eliot (1604-1690), by his devoted labours, earned for himself the name of the Apostle of the Indians. He studied their language and translated the Bible into it. He established schools and 50 MISSIONS settlements for the Indians, where they were taught industries and agriculture. He was wise and tolerant in his treatment of them, and gentle with the children, for whom he always carried little gifts in his deep pockets. The Long Parliament, on learning of his work, issued (1647) a manifesto in favour of missions, and the first English Missionary Society was founded in 1649 to support his work. Cromwell himself made a compre- hensive scheme for missions and for the training of missionaries, but died before he could carry it into execution. Individuals felt the missionary call, but it was not till the great spiritual awakening of the Pietist movement in Germany, in the early eigh- teenth century, that Protestantism was roused to a sense of responsibility for the condition of the heathen peoples. Slowly the influence of the Pietists, men inspired with zeal -for mission work both at home and abroad, made itself felt, in spite of the bitter opposition of the orthodox party. In 1722, an orthodox preacher went so far as to con- clude a sermon in which he had demon T strated that missions were not necessary, with the words: "Formerly it certainly was THE REFORMATION 51 said: Go out into all the world, but now the command is: Stay there where God has placed you." By degrees the influence of the Pietists bore fruit. August Hermann Franke (1663- 1727), one of the foremost amongst them, set himself to train men who should be ready to go abroad as missionaries. It was to him that Frederick IV, King of Denmark, turned, when he was aroused to a sense of the needs of the Danish Settlement in Southern India, by the petition of a Danish woman, whose husband had been murdered by the natives. Franke sent him Ziegenbalg, the first Protes- tant missionary to work in India. He died at the age of thirty-six, but, before his death, he had made 355 converts, founded schools, made a Tamil dictionary and translated the New Testament and part of the old into Tamil. He was followed, some forty years later (1749) by another Dane,. Christian Schwartz, who gained great influence over the famous Hyder Ali, Rajah of Mysore, and spent nearly fifty years labouring amongst the Indians without ever returning to Europe. These early Protestant mission- aries made the same mistake as the Jesuits 52 MISSIONS through their too great eagerness. They were far too quick to baptise their converts and too ready to tolerate caste and other Indian customs. After Schwartz's death, many thousands of those whom he had con- verted and baptised fell away again. Count Zinzendorf, a young Austrian noble- man, used frequently to visit Franke and to talk with the missionaries whom he met at his table. From his boyhood he was filled with enthusiasm for missions and with desire to help them. The way to do so came in an unexpected manner. A band of fugitive Moravians, who had fled from their country because of religious persecution, begged for shelter on his estates. By his permission, these poor persecuted men and women were enabled to build up a settlement which they called Herrenhut; and Zinzendorf from the first, by his intercourse with them, fired them with zeal for missions. Two men were sent (1732) to teach the slaves in the West Indies, of whose wretched condition news had reached Herrenhut, and two more went to teach the Eskimos on the frozen and savage coasts of Greenland. The Moravian Church, which has never numbered more THE REFORMATION 53 tlian 70,00(f members, holds a unique place. It has from the first been a truly missionary Church, every member feeling the compel- ling obligation to further the cause of mis- sions. It has sent out 2000 missionaries, and, in its first twenty years of activity, started more missions than the whole of Protestantism had done in two centuries. At the present day one out of every sixty of its full members is a missionary. Zinzendorf s restless energy led him to start too many missions at once. Moravian brethren and sisters were sent to every part of the world, to the most desolate and bar- barous lands. They were simple and reso- lute men, often quite ignorant and unlearned, but expecting no reward and living amongst their people by the work of their own hands. They feared no hardship, and went with cheerful courage alike to the tropical forests of South America and to the ice-bound coasts of Greenland and Labrador. John Beck laboured in Greenland (1735) for five years, often on the verge of starvation, amongst an inhospitable people, without producing any result on their dull natures, till one day, as he was preaching, a man, 54 MISSIONS hearing the tale of the suBerings of Jesus, was at last touched and cried out with quivering voice: "How was that, tell me once again, I too would be saved/* He was the first fruit of the mission. There was no organisation in the Moravian churches, and they made no attempt to train a native pas- torate, they laboured for the conversion of individual souls. It was this want of any statesmanlike view of the missionary problem as a whole, which made the first efforts of the Pietist missions produce results small in comparison to the greatness of their devo- tion. The wave of rationalism which swept over Europe in the latter half of the seven- teenth century, still further hindered the growth of interest in missions. In England there continued to be some recognition of the duty to spread the Chris- tian Faith in the new colonies in America. A clergyman of the Church of England, Dr. Bray, was the chief instigator of more active measures* Moved by what he had seen of the ignorance of the clergy at home, and of the far greater ignorance of the few clergy whom he found ministering in Maryland a he induced the bishops and others to help him THE REFORMATION 55 to found, In 1698, the Society for the Promo- tion of Christian Knowledge, to provide parish libraries and books for the clergy; and, in 1701, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to organise direct missionary work amongst the settlers and native inhabitants of the new planta- tions. The eighteenth century was not a time of religious zeal; the imagination of the Church was not fired by the sense of its great opportunities, and the growth of the first missionary society was slow. A few earnest men laboured in America, but, in spite of some feeble attempts, the Church there was not allowed to grow in strength and inde- pendence by the appointment of bishops of its own, and it remained under the jurisdic- tion of the Bishop of London till the war of independence. All the early trading and colonising ven- tures of the English were alike carried on at first with a pretence at least of a desire for the conversion of the people amongst whom they went. The East India Company pro- vided each of their ships and their forts with a chaplain, and some of these did what mis- sion work they could amongst the natives in 56 MISSIONS their neighbourhood; but the first Protestant missionaries in India were Lutherans, Danes, Germans, and Swedes, not English, who were in part supported by the funds raised by the English Church Societies. It was the evan- gelical revival that at last aroused real mis- sionary zeal in England, and led some men at least to face the great missionary enter- prise which must be the concern of every living Church. Unfortunately the call, so imperative on a great colonising nation like the English, was not heard by the Church of England as a whole, the problem was not faced as one great question that was the con- cern of all. In Germany, in the early eigh- teenth century, the call had been heard and responded to by individuals, and on that account the work had lacked statesmanlike direction and often failed in permanence. In England, the enthusiasm of individuals led to the formation of missionary societies, and it is through societies that the Church of England and other religious organisations have since worked. The English pioneer in the modern mis- sionary movement was William Carey (1761- 1834), a poor shoemaker, who became a THE REFORMATION 57 Baptist minister and, by constant study* learnt Latin, Greek and Hebrew. As a young minister of twenty-five lie ventured to ask at the Baptist Conference whether the command given to the Apostles to go and teach all nations was not binding on us also, and as a result was called "a miserable enthusiast" by the president, who said sternly: "Sit down, young man; when it pleases God to convert the heathen, He will do it without your help." Carey was not daunted, but returned with fresh earnest- ness to his studies. Six years later he preached a missionary sermon to a gathering of ministers at Nottingham* Its two lead- ing thoughts were: "Expect great things from God"; "Attempt great things for God," and the sermon so moved some of his hearers that twelve ministers combined to form a Baptist Missionary Society, con- tributing from their modest resources 13 %s. 6d. for its endowment. A year later Carey himself sailed for India. Never was a mis- sion begun with less prospect of success, and yet Carey proved himself not only a pioneer but a leader in missionary methods. The East India Company, which, at its 58 MISSIONS foundation, had professed a desire to spread the Christian religion, now held different ideas, and considered "the sending out of missionaries into our Eastern possessions to be the maddest, most extragavant, most costly, most indefensible project which has ever been suggested by a moonstruck fanatic. Such a scheme is pernicious, imprudent, useless, harmful, dangerous, profitless, fan- tastic. It strikes against all reason and sound policy, it brings the peace and safety of our possessions into peril. 5 ' Carey was not allowed to live in Calcutta and had to settle in Serampore, under the Danish flag. One of his principles was that a missionary must maintain himself by the work of his own hands, and in trying to do so at first, he and his family were brought to the brink of starvation. Then for a while, in order to maintain himself, he became an indigo manu- facturer, and whilst he worked at his busi- ness he studied Bengali and Sanscrit. Three other men were sent out to join him, and the four missionaries, with their families, set- tled at Serampore, where they shared a house, living a sort of community life. They set up a printing-press and schools, and sup- THE REFORMATION 59 ported themselves by their teaching. They allowed no trading for private gain, all that they made was devoted to the work of the mission. For seven years Carey laboured without making a convert, then he had the joy of baptising a Hindu with his whole family, and, in the following ten years, 300 con- verts were made. His converts were always taught to be evangelists, and sent out two and two to preach. Meanwhile his schools were constantly enlarged, and new missions were started. His plan was to set up mis- sion stations 200 miles apart, each to dis- seminate literature and maintain itself by trading or otherwise. He persisted in his language studies, and when Lord Wellesley started his college for the young servants of the Company at Fort William, he appointed Carey as teacher of Bengali. This appoint- ment enabled Carey to extend his influence to Calcutta and to earn more money for the mission. Every moment that he could spare was spent on translation. When he had completed the translation of the Bible into Bengali, he said that he still had translation work planned for twenty years. From the 60 MISSIONS press at Serampore there issued, in all, thirty- six translations of the Bible. Four of these were Carey's own, and all were more or less superintended by him. It was he who first made Bengali a written language, and thus he was the father of all modern Bengali literature. He could converse fluently in Sanscrit with the Brahmins, and prepared a grammar and began a dictionary in that language. From the Serampore press the first newspaper in any oriental language was issued. After the mission had founded 126 native schools, Carey proceeded to found a college at Serampore, where the students, besides studying their own literature, might learn English, and western science. A Danish charter gave the college the right to grant degrees, and Europeans as well as Indians studied there, Carey spent forty- one years in Bengal without going home, and died at the age of seventy-three. His life had been marked by many troubles. His wife, who accompanied him to India, went mad, and during all the early years of struggle and privation he had the terrible trial of the companionship of a mad woman. He refreshed himself in his many labours by THE REFORMATION 61 liis study of nature, and was a keen naturalist and botanist. At Ms death he not only left the Baptist Missionary Society well estab- lished, but many other religious bodies had been fired to imitation by the example of his work. In 1796, at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it was proposed and seconded that "to spread abroad the know- ledge of the Gospel amongst barbarous and heathen nations seems to be highly prepos- terous . . . whilst there remains at home a single individual without the means of religious knowledge, to propagate it abroad would be Improper and absurd." But a new spirit was abroad. Men were helped by the ideas of the French Revolution to begin to feel stfme sense of the brotherhood of man, and, at the same time, new interest in the heathen world was aroused by the geograph- ical discoveries of Captain Cook and others. Commerce was ever making the world better known, and the means of communication were slowly improving. Liberty was in the air, and the belief in the right of man to be free helped the evangelical party in their agitation against the slave trade. From the 6 MISSIONS first, the anti-slavery movement and evan- gelical missions were in close connexion, and attracted the support of the same people. But the official representatives of the Ang- lican Church at the end of the eighteenth century did not favour foreign missions. They regarded them as extravagant, foolish, and hopeless undertakings. So those whose hearts had been awakened to hear the call to spread the knowledge of the Gospel amongst the heathen had to find their own means for organising the work. Missionary societies were founded in quick succession by the different religious organisations; the Church Missionary Society, the greatest of all missionary societies in the extent of its work and the vastness of its resources, in 1799, and the Bible Society, ever the hand- maid of all missions in its great work of the translation and dissemination of the Bible, in 1804. By its means the Bible has been translated in whole or in part into 400 lan- guages. For the work of translation, a great number of these languages have for the first time been reduced to writing, and have had grammars and dictionaries of them made by the patient and arduous study of the mis- THE REFORMATION 63 sionaries. It is a remarkable fact that amongst the missionaries who have done the most for linguistic study are some whose previous life would not seem to have pre- pared them in any way for such work; men such as William Carey, who started life as a poor cobbler in the Midlands, and Robert Moflat, a Scotch gardener. It is probably true to say that it has been by the agency of missionaries alone that illiterate languages have been reduced to writing. In Germany, the enthusiasm for missions which had grown up out of the Pietist move- ment, languished under the influence of rationalistic thought, except in the Moravian Church. But missionary societies were founded here and there, and did much good work. When in 1885 German colonial activity began, German Protestant missions received again a strong, new impulse. The American interest in foreign missions began to show itself at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and has rapidly increased. All European Protestant countries have their own missionary societies, whilst the Roman Catholic countries help to feed the great re- ligious orders who send so many workers 64 MISSIONS into the foreign mission field. To the Roman Church all countries which are not Roman Catholic are part of their mission field, and it is not always easy to obtain accurate in- formation as to the extent of their work amongst non-Christian peoples, because they include in their statements about their mis- sions their work in Protestant countries. All their mission work is under the control of the Congregation of the Propaganda at Rome, which has a great college for the training of mission priests, and a printing-press for the issue of the missionary publications of the Roman Church. The Orthodox Church has never taken a large share in missionary work, outside its own dominions. The Russians have many missions in Siberia, and also a mission in Japan. To enumerate the existing missionary societies would be impossible. There are now some 338 complete societies, with many others which assist them by collecting money or in other ways. CHAPTER IV THE BEGINNING OF MODERN MISSIONS AND THEIR RELATIONS TO GOVERNMENTS THE religious movement which, brought about the beginning of the enthusiasm for for- eign missionary work in the early nineteenth century was. for the most part outside the regular organisation of the Church of Eng- land. Hence it was that the Church as a whole did not take up the work and that, instead, the various missionary societies grew up within the Church. To some this has seemed an advantage because it has left to the societies greater freedom and independence; to others it seems nothing but loss that the Church as a whole failed to recognize its great responsibility at the first, and bring the whole work so far as possible into co-ordination and unity. The great majority of missionary societies are denominational, and the divisions 65 66 MISSIONS of Christendom at home have been introduced into the mission field, to the great hin- drance of the whole work. At first the denominational differences were not strongly marked in the missionary enterprise. To a large extent it owed its inspiration to the evangelical revival and to the general humanitarian movement which was closely allied with it. The same people who felt pity for the sufferings of the un- happy slave, felt pity for the ignorance of the heathen savage, who, according to the evangelical opinions of the time, would go to hell unless he were converted, just as the Roman missionary believed that he would go to hell unless he were baptised. Pity was the inspiring motive. But there was also beginning to be some sense of responsibility for the new lands, which were being opened up for commerce and colonisation by the great discoverers, who were making known the hidden places of the world. The thrilling tales of Captain Cook's voy- ages aroused a special interest in the inhabi- tants of the Pacific Islands, and it was to this region that the London Missionary Society, a society which included members of all reli- MODERN MISSIONS 67 glons bodies, and desired to impose no one form of church, government on its converts, first directed its efforts (1799). The first difficulty when the missionaries reached Tahiti was to learn the language; it was the earliest heathen language to be reduced to writing, a task of great difficulty for un- trained men. The man who finally trans- lated the Bible in Tahiti was the son of a bricklayer. For some years the missionaries met with no success, but after eighteen years not only were there large congregations of Christians in Tahiti, but two thousand of them attended a meeting to found a mission- ary society to send teachers to other islands. There was no ship to carry them, and the missionary John Williams, who knew little of shipbuilding and possessed hardly any tools, set himself, with nothing but the help of the natives, to build a ship of from seventy to eighty tons, which carried him and two Tahitan teachers to Fiji (1830). The inhabi- tants of Fiji were given over to the most bestial cannibalism, cannibalism inspired by nothing but the most loathsome greed, which would lead a man to kill his wife and eat her. The pioneer missionaries were in constant 68 MISSIONS danger. As late as 1867 one of them was killed and eaten, but they did not falter in their task. On one occasion, when a horrible canni- bal feast was in progress during the absence of the missionaries, their wives bravely went to the rescue of two native women, and by the mere force of their personal influence saved them from being killed and eaten. Now all is changed, the inhabitants of Fiji are all nominally Christian, and some of the very men who were themselves formerly cannibals are now leaders amongst the Christians. The results produced by the missionaries are thus described by Charles Darwin. "They had," he said, "abolished human sacrifices and the power of an idolatrous priesthood, a system of profligacy unparalleled in any part of the world, and bloody wars, and had greatly reduced dishonesty, intemperance and licen- tiousness. " The piece of rock on which little children were brained before being eaten has now been turned into a Christian font. Fiji possesses a native ministry, and it sends teachers to other islands in the Pacific. The attraction of these beautiful islands to traders and others has brought many to them who have interfered with the peaceful develop- MODERN MISSIONS 69 ment of the child races which inhabit them, and frequently the missionaries have suffered for the crimes of the traders. The first great name in African missions is that of Robert Moffat, the Scotch gardener. In his father's cottage home, Moffat read with glowing interest the early tales of the Mora- vian missions to the Eskimos. He felt the call to offer himself as a missionary (1815) . There was then much missionary enthusiasm in evangelistic circles, and Moffat was told that there were so many ready to go out that only the most likely would be taken. He spent his waiting time in further preparation. When at last he was sent out to South Africa, he found there some beginnings of missionary work, but all in a most disorganized condition. These early evangelical missions were very individualistic in their methods, and Moffat himself said that he had "a stout non- conformist objection to the principles of superintendency ; it was like putting the Pope in new clothes." His first station was in the village of Africaner, a chief in Griqua- land, and a Christian convert. Before his conversion, Africaner had been a fierce and bloodthirsty man, the dread of the colonist 70 MISSIONS and a price had been put on Ms head as a rebel. Now, as a Christian, he helped Moffat in all his work. He was constant at prayers, a diligent student of the Bible, and even helped to care for and wash the school children. After a while, Moffat passed on to Bechuanaland with his wife, who described it as a miserable country, and the Bechuanas as a people with no sense of spiritual things. There was constant fighting between the different tribes, and the missionaries were often in danger. Moffat spent two months quite alone amongst the natives in order to get a real grasp of their language, and then settled down to give it a literary form, and to start a school. He and his wife worked eleven years in gloom, with nothing to cheer them. Then there came a sud- den change. A wave of enthusiasm passed over the natives, and they crowded the little church. Moffat at first only baptised six of those who professed themselves willing, but the effects of the conversions were soon shown in changed life and work. Later, he pressed on to teach the savage Matabele, and as he got acquainted with new tribes was ever increasingly struck by the wretched con- MODERN MISSIONS 71 dition of the heathen races, by their cruelty and ferocity, and by their sufferings through constant warfare and recurrent famines. The immense change in the country to which he and his wife gave their lives is largely the result of the work which he began. Another leader in Africa was Johann Krapf, who began his work in Abyssinia in 1837, but a few years later settled with his young wife as a missionary of the Church Missionary Society at Mombasa, on the east coast of Africa. There his wife and child died, and he wrote home: "Tell our friends at home that there is now on the East African coast a lonely missionary grave; this is a sign that you have commenced the struggle with this part of the world." For two years he lived alone, studying the Swahili language, and thinking of the work to be done in Africa. He longed to see a chain of mission stations right across the continent, a settlement for freed slaves on the eastern coast, and a black bishop and black clergy to minister to the people of Africa. When he was joined by a fellow-missionary, he started a series of remarkable journeys of exploration into the interior of Africa, and by the tales of what he 72 MISSIONS had seen and found helped to Induce otJier explorers to plunge into the dark secrets of the mysterious continent. Krapf's own aim was always primarily the conversion of the people. With this object he brought out a vocabulary of six African languages, and his visions of the work to be done in the future, and of the means by which it might be accom- plished, have been the inspiration of many missionary endeavours. His dream of a great chain of missionary stations across the centre of Africa is still the object of desire for those who understand best the nature of the work to be done. As Captain Cook's voyages in the previous century had attracted the interest of his fellow-countrymen to the Pacific, so did David Livingstone's (1813-1873) reports of the spiri- tual darkness of Africa and the horrors of the Arab slave trade arouse attention to the unknown interior of the dark continent. Livingstone began life as a cotton-spinner in a Scotch factory. Whilst there he spent his evenings in study, and when he was nineteen determined to devote his life to the "allevia- tion of- human misery." He studied as a doctor to prepare himself for the work of a MODERN MISSIONS 73 missionary, and, attracted by the fame of Moffat, went to Africa to aid Ms work. Sub- sequently he married Moffat's daughter. Livingstone was not the man to stay and work steadily in one place. His astounding per- severance and energy were directed to the task of pressing constantly onwards to new regions and to discovering new opportunities. As he realized the vastnessof the task that lay before the missionaries, he felt that it could only be accomplished by native teachers. He himself was, as it were, the herald of the Gospel; in his own words, he wished "to let the good seed be widely sown, and, no matter to what sect the converts may belong, the harvest will be glorious." It was his missionary character, his method of dealing with the natives, that enabled him to penetrate into the very heart of Africa, and to establish friendly relations with the tribes, whilst he learnt their dialects and studied their country. His was not a mind to dwell constantly on the dark side of human nature, and instead of allowing himself to be depressed by all the evil and misery that he saw, he turned his mind to the study of the wonders of nature that surrounded him on every side. 74 MISSIONS His discoveries, his careful observations, earned for him the admiration of the men of science of the day, and every mark of distinc- tion was shown to him on the occasions of his visits to London. But for him the great object ever was to open ways into the heart of Africa, that religion and civilisation might put an end to the cruelties of the slave raiders and the ignorance of the people. "I am tired of discovery, " he said, "if no fruit follows it. " His one wish was to help to heal what he called "this open sore of the world"' the de- vastating slave trade of Central Africa. Speaking (1857) to the students at Oxford and Cambridge, he said: "I go back to Africa to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity: do you carry out the work which I have begun, I leave it to you. " As a result of his appeal the Universities Mission to Central Africa was founded in 1861. As Cook, Livingstone, Krapf and many others opened out to the civilised world unknown oceans and continents, the mission- ary problem unfolded itself before the mind of Christendom* The problem was threefold: There was the call to evangelise the wide non-Christian lands which were under the MODERN MISSIONS 75 dominion of Christian powers, such as India and the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, Sumatra and other islands. There was the call to minister to the spiritual needs of the colonies in Canada, Australasia and South Africa, and there was the call to carry the Gospel to the vast heathen world outside the direct influence of any Christian power. In each of these three directions there were special difficulties to overcome difficulties which have prevailed till the present day. The East India Company had long carried on its operations in India with the sole view of financial gain. It had even definitely opposed missions to the Indian peoples. The chaplains who were sent out to minister to the English residents and troops in India, sometimes tried to arouse interest in the condition of the natives, and one of them, Henry Martyn (1781-1812), by his devoted labours at translation and the establishment of schools, joined with his saintly life, pro- duced an impression upon the minds of his fellow-countrymen, which won him a place amongst missionary heroes, though he died at the early age of thirty-one. In 1813 the Charter of the East India Company had to be 76 MISSIONS revised, and Wilberforce, wlio Lad fought so persistently for the freedom of the slave, with the help of other like-minded men, roused public opinion and, after an eloquent appeal in Parliament, carried a motion allowing mis- sionaries to proceed to India without hind- rance. When, after the mutiny, the govern- ment was taken out of the hands of the Com- pany, the proclamation by which Queen Victoria declared India to be part of the British Empire (1858) stated the principle of religious neutrality, under which the govern- ment of India has since been carried on. "Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with grati- tude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our con- victions on any of our subjects." The fact that a Christian government has never in any way favoured the Christian religion has of course often been misunderstood by non- Christians, and has seemed at times to put hindrances to the progress of Christianity, but all thinking men are convinced that the gain has been greater than the loss, since the policy of complete neutrality has absolutely disso- ciated religion from politics. The Indian MODERN MISSIONS 77 government has always been ready to recog- nise the great work done by the Christian missions for education. In some other lands under the British rule, the desire to avoid friction by preserving religious neutrality has not worked so satis- factorily as in India, and especially has this been the case in Moslem lands. The fear of provoking Moslem fanaticism in Egypt, the Soudan and Nigeria has led in many cases to a policy which is really anything but neutral, and can fairly be described as open partisanship of Islam. The methods of the officials in Northern Nigeria lead the natives to believe that the best thing they can do is to become Moslems, otherwise they will get no road-making or other work under Government. A missionary in North- ern Nigeria is not allowed by a Christian Governor to enter a city without the per- mission of the Mohammedan Emir. Traders may go where missionaries are not allowed to go. In Egypt, the Moslem Friday, but not the Christian Sunday, is allowed to be kept as a holiday by those filling Government posts. The difficulties, exceptionally great in themselves, of working in a Moslem court- 78 MISSIONS try, are increased In every way by the fact that the neutrality which the Government professes to show is very far from being the real neutrality that prevails in India. In the Dutch colonies of Java and Sumatra and other islands of the far East, the Gov- ernment has always aimed at a policy of re- ligious neutrality, but this has not prevented it from helping the schools and hospitals of the missions, and showing in various ways that it does feel responsibility for the re- ligious welfare of the people. It has approved of the appointment by the missionary socie- ties of a Missions-Consul, who acts as inter- mediary between the Government and the missionaries. He has no definite authority, but as a man on the spot, who has the in- terests of all the missions thoroughly at heart, he has proved to be most useful to all parties so that, according to the testimony of an experienced missionary, "already one wonders how one ever got on without the Missions-Consul/' Some of the severest difficulties put in the way of missions by the Governments of European countries have been experienced in the last few years. In Madagascar, the MODERN MISSIONS 70 French Government, tinder the administra- tion of a Governor of f ree-tMnking ideas, has proved extremely hostile to the work of the missions. It has interfered with their schools, stopped much of the civilising work they were doing for the natives, and hampered them in every way by vexatious restrictions. Its conduct has seemed to be absolutely con- trary to those principles of liberty and equality which it has been the glory of the French people to uphold. In the Belgian Congo it is not only the work of the missions but the well-being, the very life of the unhappy natives that have been in danger through the brutal adminis- tration of the European officials. Mutilation, murder, rape and unutterable outrages were the lot of the people, and it was only the voice of the missionaries that drew the atten- tion of the world to the horrors that were being perpetrated. It is the universal policy of missions to be loyal and to teach loyalty to existing Gov- ernments. Only in dire necessity do mis- sionaries make complaint, and then rather on account of the treatment accorded to their people than to themselves. They only 80 MISSIONS ask for liberty to carry on their work; they do not ask for any protection different from that accorded to others, neither do they, in the very great majority of cases, claim com- pensation for damages inflicted on their property. In the few cases where this has been done, it has been c u arly shown that the estimation in which they were held by the natives suffered from their apparent alliance with the ruling power. But missionaries ask that religious neutrality should be a reality, and they have again and again come forward as advocates for their people against those who would destroy all possibility of their peaceful progress by the introduction of the liquor or the opium traffic, or of any system of forced labour, or by the unjust appropriation of their lands. Missionaries have especially been called upon to defend the rights of the natives in those lands where white men have settled. When the Hudson Bay Company first estab- lished its forts for the fur trade in Northern Canada, the Company had not the slightest desire to promote the conversion of the Indians. They treated them as incapable of civilisation, and only used them for their own MODERN MISSIONS 8j purposes. In other parts of North America the efforts of the missionaries were constantly hindered by the land-grabbing of the colon- ists, and their utter disregard of the rights of the native population. The same was the case in Australia and New Zealand. In South Africa the difficulties found in other colonies were increased by the mixture of races, white as well as coloured. The Boers, the Dutch settlers, were never eager for the conversion or education of the natives in their colonies. They had taken the lands of the Kafirs and reduced their owners to slavery, and even when under British rule they were forced to abolish slavery, they believed that the Kafirs would work better for them if left uncon- verted and in ignorance, We hear (1850) of a Dutch minister asking to be received into the English Church because of his dissatis- faction with his own Church on account of its neglect of the coloured people. The white settlers, both Dutch and English, were themselves at first left with very little re- ligious ministration. Bishop Gray wrote (1850): "These poor Kafirs have been nur- tured amidst war and rapine, and have been in deadly conflict with us from childhood; m MISSIONS the greater number of Europeans with whom they have mixed, and do mix, have not sought to do them good, but have let them see that they despise them, and regard them as no better than dogs, and it is we who have taught them to drink/' Up and down the country many hundreds of Englishmen were settled, living without God in the world, bringing misery upon themselves and discredit upon all Englishmen by their lives. The discovery of the diamond mines and of the mineral wealth of the country only added to the diffi- culties, for native labour was imperatively needed, and men who cared more about growing rich than for the well-being of the natives, opposed the efforts to convert and educate them, for fear that it would then be less easy to get them to work. In non-Christian lands the dangers and difficulties of missionary work differ much according to the nature of the people, but every land has provided its martyrs and confessors. From the earliest days, mission- aries of all religious denominations have faced dangers amongst cruel and barbarous peoples, and the equally great risks from the rigours of Arctic cold or tropical heat, with MODERN MISSIONS 88 simple and uncomplaining courage. They have learned that it does not help their cause to throw away life needlessly, and ex- perience and increasing medical knowledge have helped them to preserve health and power to work in dangerous climates, by submitting to wise precautions. But courage and self-sacrifice have not grown less because* where possible, they are allied with prudence for the work's sake. A greater difficulty to the missionary's cause than either barbarism or climate arises from the conduct of the white trader, who finds his way for profit into almost every land. The ignorant heathen judge the religion of the white man as much by the life of the trader as by the life of the missionary, and where the trader goes the liquor trade also goes. The intro- duction of spirits has been the ruin of many native tribes. It is the deterioration of the coloured man under the approach of civilisa- tion that makes so many superficial observers speak contemptuously of the result of mis- sions. The poor degraded native ruined by the white man's spirits may have been at a mission school and may call himself a Christian, but it is not the mission school 84 MISSIONS that ruined him. Those who like to romance about the noble savage in his untouched con- dition must remember that the opening-up of the world to trade has made it impossible, even if it were desirable, to leave the savage untouched. Another difficulty with regard to missions in non-Christian lands arises from inter- national jealousies. This has especially been the case in the past, when the missionary was apt to be regarded as, and often was in a greater or less degree, the agent of the power behind him. In the present day, increasing sympathy and co-operation between the mis- sions of different nations may be expected to bring greater harmony even into interna- tional relations, but jealousy with regard to the influence that may be won through mis- sions is not altogether a thing of the past. When we consider the immensity and the complexity of the missionary task undeir all these varied conditions and amidst these many difficulties, there can be no wonder that progress has not been more rapid. But more disastrous than all the difficulties that have been mentioned is the fact that it is no united Church that has to face the tremen- MODERN MISSIONS 85 dous task, but a Church divided and rent asunder into bodies often conflicting and sometimes bitterly hostile. Hence the task as a whole has never been looked at in a statesmanlike manner. Efforts to grapple with it, however earnest and devoted, have been isolated. In some countries there has been much overlapping and conflicting work, whilst vast regions are still totally unoccu- pied, or only most sparsely occupied, by missions. There is at present> on the whole, increasing co-operation amongst Protestant missions, but the Roman Church still stands loftily aloof, though in the mission field in- dividual priests often show kindliness and friendliness to other missionaries. The diffi- culty is increased because the Propaganda considers missions in Protestant countries to be just as much part of its work as mis- sions to non-Christians, whilst some Protes- tant bodies send missions to the Roman Catholic natives in the West Indies and South America on the plea that they are in such a condition of ignorance and supersti- tion as to be hardly worthy of the name of Christians. To most of those who long for unity in the great enterprise of missions it 86 MISSIONS seems wisest to use all practicable means of co-operation, but to hesitate to put forward for the present any scheme, whether practical or theoretical, for unity. The spirit and practice of unity must take precedence over any organised effort. But in spite of the immense difficulties of the task, in spite of the disastrous want of unity, in spite of much paralysing coldness in the attitude of the Church at home to foreign missions, the progress of the last hundred years has been remarkable progress not only in the results attained, but in the methods employed and the general interest in the work. When the Church Missionary Society was first started in 1799, they could find no Englishmen willing to go out as mis- sionaries, and the first two men they sent out were German Lutherans; they now have a total of 1360 missionaries, men and women, at work. Other societies show similar prog- ress. The last census in India recorded a larger increase in the number of Christians than ever before. The total increase of the population has been 6A per cent., but the increase of the Christians has been 11.6 per cent., and there are now nearly four million MODERN MISSIONS 87 Christians in India. In Korea, in 1887 there were seven native Christians now there are close upon 400,000. These facts, taken at random, give some idea of the progress throughout the world. CHAPTER V METHODS OF MISSION WOEK AMONGST NON-CHKISTIAN PEOPLES THE most obvious missionary method is tlie preaching of the Gospel at the street corner, in the bazaar, in the centre of the village; in China often in a simple street chapel, hung with maps and pictures, which always stands open to any comer. Often the preaching may go on for years without any result. Generally, in time, a small body of inquirers will gather round the teacher. Their motives may be only the desire for some personal advantage; and in practically all missions careful instruction and a period of testing precedes baptism. Preaching is also carried on in connexion with the itinerat- ing mission doctors, to the crowds who gather in the villages in search of healing from their bodily pains, and in the wards and waiting-rooms of the mission hospitals. 88 METHODS OF MISSION WORK 89 As was natural, many mistakes in the nature of the preaching were made at first. Even when the difficulties, in many cases almost insuperable, of the language were overcome, the missionary would be some- times inclined to give the Gospel message with little knowledge or sympathetic under- standing of the religious ideas of his hearers, and in most cases he imposed upon them not only the Christian teaching, but the theology and the ecclesiastical ideas which had grown up in Europe to meet the needs of European thought and conditions. Experience, the study of non-Christian religions, the deeper understanding of missionary problems, has led by degrees to more enlightened methods. The native evangelist was soon seen to be the best fitted to teach the poor and ignorant amongst his own countrymen, and his proper equipment for the task is now felt to be the most urgent need. At the same time it is recognised that amongst almost every people there exists some preparation for the Gospel that is everywhere the spiritual needs of the human soul that have produced the re- ligions of the East and of the Animist peo- ples, and that the task of the missionary is 90 MISSIONS to show how the teaching that he brings corresponds to those needs, and includes in itself what is true and permanent in the re- ligious ideas which he finds amongst his hearers. The missionary's own attitude has changed. Pity for dark ignorance and cruel suffering is still there, but it is not the only motive that animates him. He feels that these people, too, have their contribution to bring, and that the fullness of the Christian message will not be realised till the great nations of the East and even the Animist peoples of Africa and the Pacific have en- riched it with their religious ideas and their way of holding and exhibiting the truth. Through Ms converts his own faith is strengthened, and his own conception of Christian truth enlarged. A missionary in China writes: "The par- ticular tenets of my own Church are falling into the background in view of man's need of Christ. The Kingdom of God is greater than any Church, and Christianity than any creed." And another from India: "I have increasingly felt that my concern as a Chris- tian missionary is not with Christianity as a religious system* but with the presenta- METHODS OF MISSION WORK 91 tion of the Personality of Christ as the supreme revelation of the redeeming love of God. This is the one Gospel that India needs. I am far from thinking a theological system useless, but I feel strongly that no attempt should be made to impose on Eastern Christianity any theological system worked out by Western theologians. East- ern theology, in my judgment, will be more on the lines of the Gospel of St. John than the Epistle to the Romans." And yet an- other: "The New Testament reads like a new book with regard to the great critical question here in India of racial unity within the Church. The history of the Apostolic Age, the foundation of Catholic as opposed to Judaic Christianity, the life struggle of the Apostle Paul for racial unity and brother- hood on terms of equality and freedom all this has gained a vividness and a colour and a glory which have made, as I have said, the New Testament a new book to me. M When it is said that the first duty of the missionary is to study sympathetically the religion of the people amongst whom he labours, and to look carefully for its good points, this does not mean that he is to 92 MISSIONS repeat the error of the early Jesuit mission- aries in China and India, and tone down the Christian teaching, and try to make it suit- able to the people by adopting some of their prejudices; but that a sympathetic under- standing of their point of view should help him to bring out what in Christian truth they specially stand in need of, and also to show them how all that is dear to them need not be cast away, by striving to connect what is true in their religious conceptions with the Christian revelation. To the Animist, who is a constant prey to superstitious terror because he believes that the world is peopled with spirits who are envious of the living, and who, unless pro- pitiated, will strike them with disease or calamity, the teaching of the unity and om- nipotence of God comes as a joyful deliver- ance. To learn that God is love completes his happy sense of glad and free life. In China, where ancestral faiths are losing their hold before the inrush of western civilisation it would seem that the traditional morality, which has been the source of the strength of China, must disappear, and the whole land be given over to materialism unless, through METHODS OF MISSION WORK 93 Christian teaching, her people can leam that the spiritual need, which they have tried to satisfy by ancestor worship, can find its full satisfaction only in Him who is the Father of all spirits. In India, as he is confronted with Hindu philosophic thought, the missionary is re- minded of the first contact between Chris- tianity and Hellenism in the schools of Alex- andria. It is said by one who has studied the question that "the history of India is one long proof of the inadequacy of Pan- theism to meet not only the religious, but the moral and social needs of man; . . . the manifold ills of Indian life, the immense out- growth of mendicant asceticism, the petri- fication of society in the caste system, the abuse of child marriage, and the manifest hardships of widowhood can all be traced to the same deep root as that which is manifest in all the infamies of popular idolatry the defective conception of God, the turning away of the human heart from its Father in mistrust and in fear." Yet in the "immem- orial thoughts of India there lie hidden profound and vital truths." Amongst the missionaries now labouring there are many 94 MISSIONS who, whilst absolutely convinced of the evils of Hinduism, yet show a "generous and pro- found appreciation of that in it which is true and eternal/* They are convinced both that "the religion which they are seeking to dis- place is a revelation of deep wants of the human spirit/' and "that the Gospel con- tains the answer to these wants, and that they must find the answer/' "convictions which are essentially the same as those which animated the minds of the Apostles and their successors." It is being realised that things lie hidden in the Gospel teaching which will not be fully brought out until the Hindu shows that through it he can at last satisfy that unresting desire for unity with God which has tormented him through the ages. The above quotations are taken from evi- dence collected from a very large number of missionaries of all denominations, for a report presented to the great Missionary Conference held at Edinburgh in 1910. It is encouraging to note that all unite in believ- ing the true missionary method to be that of knowledge and charity, and hold that "the missionary should seek for the nobler ele- METHODS OF MISSION WORK 95 ments in the non-Christian religions and use them as steps to higher things/' that "in fact all these religions, without exception, dis- close elemental needs of the human souls which Christianity alone can satisfy, and that in their higher forms they plainly mani- fest the working of the spirit of God. On all hands the merely iconoclastic attitude is condemned as radically unwise and unjust." At the same time these men show clearly that "it is precisely because of their convic- tion as to the absoluteness of Christianity of their belief that Jesus Christ fulfils and supersedes all other religions, that they find it possible to take this more generous view of the non-Christian religions.^ Almost from the first it was found neces- sary to combine educational work with the evangelistic work of missions. This was im- perative if a native ministry were to be built up, and also as a means of opening out dull minds and preparing the soil for the new teaching. The nature and effect of this educational work must, of course, be very different in the more civilised countries of the far East from what it is amongst the backward races. In the East, even when 96 MISSIONS definite conversions liave not followed, mis- sionary schools and colleges have made Christian thought and morals permeate the ideals and aspirations of the peoples, and so have prepared the way for a general accept- ance of Christianity. In India, nothing has more impressed the high-caste native with the power of Chris- tianity than the way in which, by education, the missionaries have been able to raise the lowest castes, even the outcasts of the com- munity. In South India, Brahmins will send their children to schools where they are taught by low-caste men. Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that education alone can be expected to remove the almost insuper- able difficulties placed in the way of progress by the caste system. It is the worst enemy of Christianity, and it is so deeply rooted in the Hindu mind that its prejudices survive even conversion to Christianity, so that missionaries have again and again been tempted to ignore it, or even to recognise it. In South India, where caste is strongest, to this day the Roman Catholics have separate churches for the caste people and the out- casts. There would seem to be no other METHODS OF MISSION WORK 97 course for the Christian Church to take than to refuse to recognise caste in any form, other- wise it will continue to survive within the Church itself. It Is through the schools and through the intimate relations there built up between pupils and teachers, that prejudices and misconceptions have been most easily re- moved. By the schools, the missionaries get access even to the homes of the people; the strong attachment which grows up between pupil and teacher makes the minds of the pupils accessible to Christian preaching in after-life. Special difficulties have attended the de- velopment of the mission schools. The mis- sionaries In the past were seldom men with any educational training, and yet they were soon compelled to face the most difficult educational problems. They had to train their assistant teachers, to determine the curricula of the schools, and above all to decide on the weighty problem of the place to be taken In the schools by the vernacular and by the national classics in countries like India and China. The pioneer of higher edu- cation in India was Dr. Duff (1806-1878) 98 MISSIONS the first missionary sent out by the Church of Scotland. In his college the Bible was to be read and expounded daily, but every form of useful knowledge, up to the highest uni- versity studies, was also to be taught there. His view was that the higher subjects should be taught in English, and that through the English language the students should be in- troduced to Western science and literature, whilst in the primary schools the vernacular should be used. The educational policy pursued by Government was largely framed in consultation with him, and his plan of teaching the Bible to all the pupils has been followed in the schools belonging to missions. His success was striking. In 1840 there were 800 pupils at his school, in 1844, 1,257. Some of his leading students, Brahmins and Mo- hammedans, were converted and baptized; others were imprisoned by their fathers to prevent their baptism. A storm of indigna- tion amongst the Bengalese followed the conversions, and any conversion led to a sudden drop in the number of pupils, which, however, speedily rose again when a little time had passed. Many of the most re- markable Indian Christians were trained by METHODS OF MISSION WORK 99 Mm. The distinguislied son of one of Ms converts. Dr. Rudra, is now Principal of the college belonging to the Cambridge Mis- sion at DelM, one of the leading colleges in North India, and under Mm Oxford and Cambridge graduates are working as tutors and professors. The honourable and important part played by missions in the education of the people of India is gladly recognised by government reports. Of late there has been a growing opinion that education in India is too western in character, and that it has not been sufficiently adapted to suit national needs. Students are freed from their old religious and social restraints, and are, owing to the non-religious nature of the state schools, given nothing in exchange, so that they are left, in Sir William Hunter's words, "without discipline, without contentment, and without God." Mission schools and colleges in order to obtain the government grant are obliged to follow the government curriculum, but it is in some mission schools that the most en- lightened attempts are being made to give a sounder education, and to aim at making the students good Indian citizens. By games 100 MISSIONS and athletics, the boys are taught to be manly and courageous, the study of their own history and literature is encouraged, and though in the upper classes, and es- pecially in scientific subjects, the teaching is conducted in English, the vernacular is not neglected. Both in India and China it is increasingly the practice of missionaries to give religious and Bible teaching in the vernacular, so that it may always be con- nected with the most intimate thoughts of the student's heart. In China the part played by the missions in educational work is fully as important as in India, though of a different nature. China has always believed in education, and pro- motion in the State was in the past entirely decided by examinations. But with the sudden awakening of China in the last few years, all the old educational methods have been swept away, the system of examina- tions has been abolished, and the great ex- amination halls are falling into ruin. The doors are open wide for western learning. In every possible way the missions are co- operating with the efforts of the Chinese Government to spread education throughout METHODS OF MISSION WORK 101 the whole country. They wish to show in their schools and colleges examples of the highest type of education, and not only to provide Christian schools for their own converts, but to train up Christian teachers to work in the government schools and ex- ercise there a Christian influence. The situa- tion in China is felt to be specially urgent, and to demand the help of the best possible missionary educationalists in building up the educational system of the new China. In Japan and in many parts of India and China, the best way in which the missions can help in education is" by establishing hostels, where * the students at the govern- ment colleges can live, and there continuing the Christian training of their own people, and also providing a safe place in which students can live. The educational work amongst the back- ward races, very different in kind, is equal in importance to that in the East. The pioneer missionaries found it to be one of their most necessary tasks to reduce the native lan- guages to writing, to set up printing-presses, to teach the people to read and write if they were to produce any permanent effect upon 10 v MISSIONS, them. If a native church was to grow up, native teachers and preachers were needed, and for this purpose the most promising lads were picked out and educated. Amongst the islands of the Pacific, the plan was to collect likely youths from the different islands, who were willing to come to learn at some central school. They were fetched to the mission station in a steamer, and taken home from time to time for holidays. In Africa, industrial schools have proved es- pecially useful to train the natives in habits of industry and to induce them to lead settled lives. The natives have in most cases been eager for education, seeing in it the source of the white man's power, and the chiefs have begged that teachers should be sent to their villages. Every one who has had to do with the African native feels the necessity of teaching him industries and habits of work. Already in 1856 Livingstone wrote: "We ought to encourage the Africans to cultivate for our markets as the most effectual means next to the Gospel for their elevation." A missionary of the Scottish Mission at Blantyre in Nyassal and, says : " The difference METHODS OF MISSION WORK 103 between the native village where there Is a school built by the people themselves for their own use and their children's, and a village where there Is no such educational oppor- tunity Is at once manifest to the visitor. In the former case the people show a new in- terest in their life . . . even a mere alphabet class is a fresh development in the life of the village community, and makes for discipline among the inhabitants. 95 The severest critics of missions amongst the African natives are prepared to recognise the good work done by industrial missions, and by any form of training which teaches the black man to work. From the earliest days missionaries have tried to show their love and pity for the people amongst whom they went by ministering to their bodies as well as to their souls. Where- ever the missionary went, the people crowded round him for the sake of such simple reme- dies as he carried with him. But it is only within the last fifty years that the value of medical missions has been thoroughly appre- ciated. In 1876 the largest English Mission- ary Society had only three doctors as mission- aries, now it has ninety-three and seventy- three nurses. Progress at a similar rate has 104 MISSIONS been made by many other societies, and well- equipped hospitals where native doctors and nurses can be trained have been established, as well as small village hospitals. Itinerating doctors who go from village to village are also proving to be one of the most effectual of missionary methods. The medical mission- ary is welcomed wherever he goes, people come to him, he does not need to seek them, he can get into places which would be closed to any one else. All along the north-west frontier of India there are districts and countries such as Afghanistan closed to all mission work; but here within the British border have been planted a series of medical missions to which the wild men of the hill tribes and the fierce Afghans and Pathans come for healing from their distant homes in the mountains. Scattered throughout large districts, they spread on their return home the tale of the care and kindness that has been shown them, and so at least help to disarm hostility to Christianity and to prepare the way for it. The medical missionary as he travels afterwards amongst the villages is greeted with joy by many former patients, who with their grateful friends seek to do METHODS OP MISSION WORK 105 Mm honour In every way they can devise. He gets opportunities of preaching the Gospel such as fall to no one else. One medical missionary writes: "Often while in camp, I have been surrounded by patients from morning to eve, drawn from all the countryside, and my associates and I could preach to them as long as we desired." In the loving work of the doctor, the most ignorant can see something of the meaning of the Christian message, and can recognize in him a representative of the Great Physician alike of soul and body. A bond of true sympathy is set up, which is able to get over the separations of creed and colour, and ignorant terrors and prejudices are dispelled. The hospital at the mission centre exercises the same attractive force as the itinerating doctor. People will come to it for medical treatment when nothing else would draw them to the mission. Many beside the patient are influenced by the work and life of the hospital, since to suit the customs of the people, friends and relatives have to be freely admitted and allowed even to live within the hospital precincts. The friends of the patients carry far and wide the accounts of what they 106 MISSIONS have seen at the hospital, and the example of the unselfish, devoted lives o doctors and nurses has a powerful effect. In many cases, especially in China, a leper asylum is attached to the hospital. Until the missionaries came there was no one to care for the lepers. Blind, lame, crippled, covered with sores, they lived as outcasts without a hope and without a home. Now, sometimes in leper villages, sometimes in homes or hospitals, they are tended with loving care by missionary doctors and nurses. The leper hospitals and villages are always described as happy places, where the children are taught and the patients learn to help and care for one another, and many find hope and consolation in their sufferings and lingering death through faith in Christ. Those who are fit for it are taught to work, and they build with their own hands their houses and churches, and tend the gardens of the settlement. The Bishop of Carpentaria, after a visit to the leper settle- ment on Friday Island, where Chinese, South Sea Islanders and Australian Aboriginals are gathered, writes: "It was a touching sight to see the fifteen communicants, kneeling under the shade of a big tree, manifesting METHODS OF MISSION WORK 107 the deepest reverence as they received the bread into their sometimes fingerless hands, or drank the wine with their poor distorted mouths/* Some missionary doctors are try- ing in China to secure better treatment for the insane. The Chinese method was found to be to fasten them up with chains, expose them to all weathers, or smother them. The doctors do not forget the educational side of their work, and do all in their power to train native doctors and persuade native governments to provide hospitals or to help in supporting the mission hospitals. One of them writes: "I shall not rest content till China herself comes to the rescue of her sick, her insane and her outcast lepers." The care of orphans has from the earliest times been part of the work of missions. In China and certain parts of India, girl babies, little desired in a family, used often to be, and sometimes still are, thrown away to perish. To rescue these poor outcasts was the favourite work of the nuns who went out to the early Roman Catholic missions in China. In India the different missions have gathered in the children who were either deserted or survived their 108 MISSIONS parents during the famines which so frequently occurred, and these have been brought up as Christians in schools and orphanages. Whilst never losing sight of their main object to preach the Gospel, the call to share in everything which made for the social regeneration of the people amongst whom they worked, has ever been felt by missionaries. But as has been shown in the case of their religions teaching, so in their social teaching, they are increasingly careful to preserve all that is harmless and all that is useful or beautiful in native customs and habits. The tasteless imitations of European clothes and manners are not often due to the influence of the missionaries, but again and again to the desires of the people themselves. Where there is so much to be done and, in spite of the enormous increase in the number of missionaries, so few to do it in proportion to the needs of the work, there is cause for earnest consideration and real statesmanship to decide in what districts, and amongst what people, or classes of people, work should primarily be carried on. In certain quarters, notably in parts of India METHODS OF MISSION WORK 100 and In Korea, there is a tendency towards mass movements in favour of Christianity. Whole villages are ready to become Christians at once, or, as lately in Korea, a wave of enthusiasm accompanied by much spiritual excitement leads many to sudden conversion. In all cases of such mass movements, much careful training and teaching is needed if the people are to be anything more than Christians in name. For this purpose a large missionary force is requisite, till native clergy and teachers can be trained in sufficient numbers. To supply this need seems to some the most important part of missionary work a* the present moment. Others again feel that the most imperative task is to strengthen the appeal to the most educated classes of the native community, and to try to secure leaders for the future from amongst the people themselves. They are prepared to devote their energies to win over even individuals amongst the high-caste Indians and the best educated Chinese and Japanese, and are ready to wait with patience should they see no immediate fruit of their labours. This must of necessity be very slow work. But to it some of the best missionaries are 110' /MISSIONS' content to devote their lives with little hope of much immediate success, in the belief that by a true setting forth of the Christian faith, by a readiness to meet the inquiries of students, by sympathy with national ideals, they will best prepare the way for the future acceptance of Christianity. Their desire is to reach the students at the universities, and for this purpose they open hostels where the students can lodge, and where all their caste scruples are carefully respected, whilst the missionaries mix as friends with the students and are ever ready to talk with them, to answer their questions and to encourage them to be seekers after the truth. Men who are doing work of this kind do not expect large numbers of converts. They know too well the difficulties in the way of a student coming forward for baptism. A Hindu boy realises that, as a rule, from the moment of his baptism his home will be closed to him, none of his relations or friends will speak to him; if they meet him they will only taunt him with the disgrace he has brought upon them. His property will be taken away from him; if he is married his wife and children will probably leave him. Yet, there are those METHODS OF MISSION WORK 111 each year who are brave enough to come for- ward and give up everything for what they have learned to see is the truth. The mission- aries are not discouraged because they are few. They know that foundations are being laid and that much work is being done under the surface, and they believe that when the right time comes, the conversion of India will take place very rapidly. Even as it is, Chris- tianity is spreading in India at a far quicker ratio as regards the population than it did in Europe at the beginning of the Christian era. It is to the Indian Christians that we must look for the regeneration of India. CHAPTER VI WOMEN'S WOBK FOB MISSIONS THE religious orders of women within the Roman Church have provided large numbers of devoted women who have given themselves to the work of starting schools and orphan- ages in all parts of the world. They have nursed the sick and tended the lepers; for the most part they go to the mission field for their whole lives and never return home again. In the early days of Protestant missions there was no idea of sending out women except as the wives or perhaps sisters of missionaries. Of these wives many proved themselves most zealous missionaries and worked hard, starting schools for the girls, visiting and teaching the women, and tending the sick as far as they were able. But very often the life of a mis- sionary's wife was terribly hard; with home and children to care for, frequent ill-healthj WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 113 no one to help her, surrounded by a barbar- ous and hostile people, missionaries* wives needed to be of heroic material, and it was only few of them here and there who could do much mission work themselves. Yet experi- ence soon showed that much progress could not be made amongst the men unless the women were won also. The Christian converts, unless they could be provided with Christian wives, must almost inevitably fall back. Moreover, the influence of the women, in spite of their inferior and despised condition in all non-Christian countries, was still strong, and on account of their ignorance and natural con- servatism it was always exerted against Christianity. As soon, too, as European and American women began to realise something of the conditions under which their sisters in other lands were living, the desire to help and teach them was aroused. The slowness with which any advance was made in sending out single women as missionaries, is a measure of the position of women and their inadequate education during the early half of the nine- teenth century. When women first began to be interested in missionary work both in England and America, the only part of the 114 MISSIONS " work for which they were considered fit was to collect money and to organise prayer-meet- ings and work-parties for missions. In 1815 three English ladies offered themselves to the Church Missionary Society, and said they were ready to go anywhere they might be sent; but the Society decided not to send unmarried women abroad except as sisters joining their brothers. A few years later, when another lady wished to go to work in India, Bishop Wilson of Calcutta answered: "No, the lady will not do. I object on principle, and from the experience of Indian life, to single ladies coming out to so distant a place, with the almost certainty of their marrying within a month of their arrival/* But others more discerning urged the imperative need of women missionaries. An American mission- ary, David Abeel, who had been deeply moved by the misery and helplessness of the Eastern women, and convinced that if Christ- ian teaching was to prevail the home must be reached, spoke of what he had seen to a gather- ing of ladies in London, repeating to them the words of some Chinese women: "Are there no female men who can come and teach us." His words led to the formation of the first women's WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 115 society, "The Society for Promoting Female Education in the East/ 5 in 183-1. Its work at the beginning met with much opposition, an Indian missionary saying that "to attempt female education in that country was as hopeless as to try to scale a wall five hundred yards high." But others emphasised the futility of seeking for the conversion of a people except through influencing the home, and if this was to be done in the east it must be done by women. After fourteen years this first society had twenty women mission- aries at work. By degrees other women's societies were formed, but it was some time before the great missionary societies really recognised their obligation to undertake women's work. They employed some women in India, chiefly Eurasians, as teachers, but they trusted to the women's societies to do the work amongst women. Before 1887 the number of women on the roll of the Church Missionary Society was 103; of these fifty-five only had been sent out as single women. But slowly a great change took place, and, in the years from 1887 to 1907, 691 women were sent out. Most other societies, both American and English, show a similar progress* 116 MISSIONS In other cases the women's work is organised and conducted by special women's societies. Every advance in foreign mission work only shows more clearly the need and import- ance of women's work. The low position of women is characteristic of all non-Christian countries, and in nearly all of them polygamy is the rule. Everywhere Christianity carries with it in time the emancipation of women, and with that, the progress of society as a whole. In India and in all Moslem lands, the seclusion of women adds to the misery of their inferior position. From the age of ten all, except the poorest women, are shut up in the Zenana and not allowed to see any men ex- cept those of their immediate family. When Mrs* Caldwell, the wife of a missionary bishop in South India, began (1853) to teach girls to read, their parents exclaimed with amaze- ment: "She will be teaching the cows next." As a rule the women are uneducated, ignorant, without interests or occupations. In sickness they have no skilled help, and the ignorant and superstitious customs of the people add to their sufferings and risks in childbirth. The Indian Government has put down the custom of Suttee, that is, the burning of WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 117 the widow on her husband's funeral pyre, but It has not been able to do anything to diminish the sufferings of widows, of whom there are twenty-five millions in India. In former days widows were legally unable to remarry, but though this restriction was removed in 1858, the feeling against re- marriage is so strong, that it very rarely occurs, even when the girl became a widow in her infancy. The widow is the drudge of the family; her ornaments, the chief delight of the Indian woman, are taken from her, she is considered to bring ill-luck wherever she goes. The hateful custom of child marriage, by which little girls and even babies are often married to men of fifty and older, leads to the existence of a large number of child- widows, whose little lives are clouded from the first. With great difficulty a reform in the law was carried in 1891, by which the consummation of a marriage before the wife was twelve years old was made illegal, but it is difficult to ensure the keeping of this law. Little girls, even babies, are sold or given up by their mothers to a life of shame in connexion with temple services, and dedicated to evil by what is called marriage to the 118 , MISSIONS god. All these customs which regulate the life and decree the inferiority of women are based on religious practices, enjoined, not by the oldest sacred books, but by later law- givers. Freedom from them can only be found through a truer and purer religion which shall give women their right place, and by raising them, raise men with them. In CMna the horrible custom of foot- binding is a mark of the inferior position given to women, and a continual source of suffering to her; and in Japan the absolute submission demanded from her destroys her chance of free development. In Moslem lands, the seclusion of women is enforced everywhere, but with varying degrees of severity, and except amongst the wealthy in Turkey and Egypt, no care is given to their education* It was against a dense mass of hostility and prejudice that the first women missionaries had to make their way. Only slowly were they allowed to visit the Zenanas. Their plan has been to begin by teaching embroidery or sewing of different kinds, and to add to it, as it became possible, the teaching of reading and of the Bible. In the dullness of Zenana life any change was welcome, and, entrance once WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 119 obtained, the missionary lady or the native biblewoman whom she trained as her helper, became a friend whose visits were eagerly anticipated. But there can be little hope of making converts in this way, since for the secluded Indian woman to come forward for baptism is well-nigh impossible. Still pre- judices are removed, the soil is prepared, and through the visits to the Zenanas permission is won for the children to go to school. Schools of every kind, from little village schools in a hut to well-equipt high schools, have been started by the women missionaries. The higher education is for the most part for the children of native Christians who are being trained, some to be teachers, nurses, or doctors, but the greater number to be Christian wives and mothers, and so to build up Christian homes. Of late years some schools have been started for high-caste Indian girls, in which strict purdah is observed. It early appeared what great need there was for medical work amongst Eastern women, and almost as soon as a medical edu- cation was open to women in England and America women doctors began to train for mission work. There are now fine hospitals 120 MISSIONS for women in all parts of the mission field, which in themselves are a visible proof of the position given to women by Christianity. Amongst their own people for long ages their health and even their life had been treated as of no account. The strength of the influence exercised by the women missionaries is shown by the remark of a Hindu who said to a missionary at Amritzar: "We do not greatly fear your schools, we need not send our children. We do not much fear your preaching, we need not listen, but we fear your women and we dread your doctors, for your doctors are winning our hearts, and your women are winning our homes, and when our hearts and our homes are won what is there left of us?" If the suffering and ignorance and neglected condition of women in the East was a power- ful inducement at first for Western women to go to their help, the present condition caused by the new movements in the East calls even more imperatively for help and guidance from the experience of the West. Amongst the enormous populations of India and China, progress in a sense must be slow, and the vast majority of the women are illiterate; WOMEN'S WORK MISSIONS 121 yet at the top there Is a striking movement towards emancipations towards a fuller life. Educated Indian men are beginning to desire educated wives. More knowledge of the con- ditions outside are making some at least of the women impatient and restless in their seclu- sion. "/\Some, chiefly Christian women, have shown by their achievements what great capa- cities they possess as teachers, doctors, and evangelists. Others have displayed their powers of leadership and organisation, their eagerness for progress, their desire for educa- tion. In China, even in Persia, girls' schools are springing up everywhere. Amongst the vast populations of India and China, the pro- portion of women who are touched by this modem movement is, of course, small, but these are the women who will make them- selves felt. Even in those parts of India where women's education is most backward, the latest government report tells us that the number of girls attending school has almost doubled in the last five years. At present, at most seven women in a thousand in India and barely one in a thousand In China can read. But the rapidity with which things are MISSIONS moving has no parallel In the history of the past. We hear of women speaking in public in China and India, of women newspaper editors and writers. This awakening of the women of the East is largely due to the work of the missionaries in the past, and the missionaries of the present day are feeling that no call is so urgent as that to help to guide the develop- ment and emancipation of these women by a right education, towards true and noble ideals. The old religious sanctions which guarded the life of the family are being thrown aside, and disaster must follow to the moral and social life of the nations if nothing takes their place. Neither must the education of the women of India repeat the mistakes made in the education of the men by being too Western in character. This is largely out of the hands of the missionary educationalists, as they have to conform to the government curricula in order to earn the government grant, but their important share in educational work should enable them to exercise influence in the right direction, if only they can get women with the knowledge, the sympathy, the breadth of mind needed to devote them- selves to the question. WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 128 It Is not only amongst the old civilisations of the East that the work of women mission- aries is important. The same need is felt amongst the peoples of Africa. Here there is no impossibility in men teaching the women, but it is naturally not easy for them to reach them. The earlier missionaries in Uganda found that the women throughout the country were the most earnest followers of the heathen religion, upholding everywhere the power of demon- worship. The extraordinary response to Christian teaching amongst the people of Uganda made the great missionary. Bishop Tucker, increasingly anxious to have English women to teach the native women. He said: "For the sake of the women and children in other words, for the sake of the future of Uganda it was absolutely essential that the ministry of English women should, with the least possible delay, take its part in the work." This was only in 1895. Amongst the authorities of the Church Missionary Society at home there was much hesitation, owing to the risks attendant on the 800 miles 5 march from the coast before the days of the railway. But at last it was agreed that five ladies should be sent, with five more men mis- 124 MISSIONS slonarles, and Bishop Tucker made the most careful arrangements for their long march, on which he himself accompanied them. The difficulties of the journey can be seen from the fact that for this party, besides an army of 500 porters, 100 extra men were needed to carry tins of water across the desert that had first to be crossed. The march to the capital of Uganda took eleven weeks. Bishop Tucker thus describes their arrival: "The welcome accorded to the ladies by the Baganda women at Ngogwe was well-nigh overwhelm- ing. They ran along by the side of the ladies' chairs, grasping their hands and uttering all manner of joyful and loving greetings. As we drew near to the mission station the crowd increased, so that it was difficult to get along. When the ladies alighted to climb the hill they were embraced by the Baganda women in all the fullness of their hearts' joy." Six hundred people were gathered in the church for a hastily arranged service of thanksgiving. The king wrote to express his joy, saying: "Even from my childhood I have never seen English ladies. 5 ' Other natives sent warm words of welcome, one of them writing: "You have done a wonderful thing for us in bringing WOMEN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS 125 up ladies/' and ended his letter with an urgent invitation to Ms house. " It is a short way off. I beg of you not to make me un- happy. Consent to my request with the maid- servants of Jehovah." When the party reached Mengo, the capital, the welcome was still more amazing. The mass of people made it almost impossible to get along. The Bishop writes that "the crowds which gathered to see Sir Gerald Portal enter Mengo, were nothing to the crowds which welcomed the first English ladies to the capital of Uganda. Six thousand people gathered inside and outside the Cathedral on the following Sunday for a service of thanksgiving." This little band of ladies at once set to work to tend the sick, and to teach the women and girls. Others came out from England to help them, and thirteen years after there were fifty women, married and single, working in the mission, and 14,300 native girls in the schools. Native women have been trained to share in the work of the conversion of their heathen neighbours, for the Church of Uganda has from the first been a missionary church, and the best work among the heathen women is done by native 126 MISSIONS women teachers. Women are encouraged to take an interest In the affairs of the Church; they have their own church councils, advisory bodies on which the most earnest of the women sit. They are eager for education, and will walk six or eight miles a day to get to a school. The ladies have started a special school for the daughters of chiefs, where great care is taken not to Europeanise them. The English ladies consider that their chief work is to train the women to be Christian wives and mothers, so that there may be true home life among the Baganda, and to raise by educa- tion the whole status of the women, who be- fore the coming of Christianity were regarded as mere chattels. Work of the same kind is needed amongst the women who accompany the natives who crowd to labour in the mines on the Rand, and in every part of the world it is now recognised that without the assistance of women mission work must be incomplete. Neither have women martyrs been wanting. Many perished in China after horrible suffer- ings during the Boxer riots. One American lady, Dr. Chesnut, who escaped at that time, returned the following year to China. There WOMEN'S WOEK FOE MISSIONS 1 In a sudden riot the mob attacked the mission and murdered the missionaries. They brought Dr. Chesnut to the temple steps, and as she sat waiting for death, she noticed a little boy in the crowd with an ugly gash in his head. She called him to her, and tearing off a piece of her skirt, made a bandage and bound up the wound. Then the mob struck her, threw her into the river, and stabbed her to death as she lay there. CHAPTER VII THE MOSLEM PBOBIaEM THE greatest opposition to the spread of the Christian faith throughout the world comes from the Moslem power. More than one-fifth of the whole non-Christian world follows the religion of Mohammed, yet mission work amongst Moslems has never received anything like the same attention in proportion as mission work amongst the heathen peoples* This is in the main on account of its very special difficulty. The Moslem faith is the strongest force that is arrayed against Chris- tianity; it is the only great religion that has sprung up since the rise of Christianity, and for this very reason, its adherents consider it, since it is a later revelation, as a superior faith bound to supplant its rival. This makes the Mohammedan very difficult of appi'oach; he is filled with intense pride and 120 self-satisfaction 5 and even the poorest and most degraded follower of Mohammed looks upon the Christian with profound contempt. At the present day, two-thirds of the whole Mohammedan population of the world are under Christian rule. This has removed one great difficulty which formerly stood in the way of the conversion of the Mohammedan, since amongst these peoples at any rate conversion is no longer forbidden under penalty of death. Even in the countries still under Mohammedan rule, contact with civilisation, and in Turkey the beginnings of greater toleration, make it easier for Christian influence to make itself felt. Yet whether under Christian or Mohammedan rule, the vast number of Mohammedans, two hundred and thirty million souls, in spite of their divisions into different sects all turn to Mecca as the centre of their faith; all are united by a belief in one God and in Mohammed as his prophet. One social sys- tem binds them together, and they stand, a mighty force, united against the rest of the world, capable of a religious enthusiasm which may arouse them to the wildest out- bursts of fanaticism. 130 MISSIONS Islam at the present day is the only other great aggressive religion in the world besides Christianity. In India, as far as can be ascertained, it has been stationary during the last two hundred years, whilst Christianity has of late gained ground with increasing rapidity. It is in Africa, both in the past and continuously up to the present day, that the advance of Islam has been most marked, and here lies the greatest danger for the future. There are many even amongst Christians who are prepared to maintain that for the African natives Islam is the most suitable religion. It is perhaps one of the great reasons of its advance, that it is so admirably suited to the nature and capacity of the average man. It is comparatively easy to achieve its ideals, whilst the Christian ideals, with their high standard of morals, are far removed from possible attainment by the average man. Hence it is argued by some that the best we can hope for the African native is that he should become Moham- medan, and that missions to Mohammedans are mistaken and a waste of energy. This is not the place to argue the respective merits of Islam and Christianity, but some THE MOSLEM PROBLEM 131 things may be pointed out which are sufficient to make every earnest Christian zealous for tills enterprise, however difficult it may be. The way in which women are regarded in the teaching of Mohammed condemns them, and with them the whole social life of Mohamme- dans to perpetual degradation; there is no possibility for them to remove the restrictions and disabilities under which they labour, for they are enjoined by Mohammed himself in the Koran. Slavery is also part of the social system of Islam, authorised by the prophet himself, and in Mohammedan lands, wherever Christian governments are not able to interfere, the slave trade is carried on with the most ruthless disregard of human suffer- ing and life.. Moreover the Mohammedan religion, bound as it is to a book, shows no possibility for growth or development. Its unbending conservatism makes any reform impossible, and the countries where it has prevailed have never been progressive. In- deed the degraded condition of the Moham- medan women must make progress impossible. Introduced amongst an ignorant and barbar- ous people, Mohammedanism does much to develop in them more orderly habits of life, 188 , MISSIONS as is often seen in Africa, but It stops there and leads to no further progress and develop- ment. The advance of Islam In Africa is seen therefore to be not only a hindrance to the progress of Christianity,, but to be also a bar to the real progress of civilisation. It would seem almost as if the very difficulty of producing any impression upon the vast strength of Mohammedanism had in the past paralysed Christian energies, or rather turned them into other channels. At present, whilst the call to evangelise the heathen is felt more strongly than ever, the fact is being at last clearly faced that the missionary problem of the day is how to use the special opportunities of the moment. At last the door is open, conversion to Christianity is no longer forbidden under penalty of death in the greater part of the Mohammedan world; this is the time for a determined attempt to overcome the power of Islam- There can be no doubt that this is a formid- able task, perhaps the most formidable task that has ever confronted the Christian Church. But it is necessary not for the sake of the Mohammedans alone, but for those peoples who will be converted to Islam unless Islam 133 can first be won. For such a task different methods are needed than for oilier missionary work, and those methods need to be dis- covered and studied. Here and there in the past great individuals have realized some- tiling of the nature of this problem., and have tried to prepare themselves for the task. After the fruitless attempt of the crusades to destroy the power of Islam by the sword St. Francis of Assisi and Raymond Lull tried the more peaceable method of argument to convince the learned mullahs, the Moslem teachers, and Lull gave his life to studying their faith and arguing against it both in speaking and writing. After his death it was long before any one else took up his work. The great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, followed his methods with the learned mullahs in India, and with the beginning of modern missions, the work was taken up again. Henry Martyn (1781-1812), a Cambridge Senior Wrangler, devoted his brilliant gifts to the missionary cause. He studied Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic to prepare himself for his work, and when he reached India his linguistic facility enabled him quickly to learn Hindustani. He died at the age of thirty- 134 MISSIONS one, after only five years' work In the East, but Ms burning zeal produced an immense impression on all who knew Mm, and made his example powerfully effective after his death, when his letters and diaries were published. He translated the New Testament into Hindustani and Persian, and intended to translate it also into Arabic. For this purpose he travelled from India to Persia, and engaged in many discussions with Mohammedans. He hoped himself to offer his translation of the New Testament to the Shah, but he died of fever in Arabia, and it was the English Ambassador who first presented Ms Persian New Testament to the Shah and then had it printed and circu- lated in Persia. The work begun by Martyn was carried on by a German missionary in Persia Dr. Pfander. He wrote (1829) a learned work which refuted the false teaching of the Koran, and contained a full statement of Christian doctrine. This book was the means of many conversions from Mohammedanism . Forced to leave Persia, Pf ander went to India, and at Agra met with Valpy French, an Oxford man, and an ardent missionary. , THE MOSLEM PROBLEM 135 Together they were successful in gaining many converts from Mohammedanism. The Moslems grew alarmed, and began to write answers to Pfander's book. Some of their learned Moulvies made a study of Christian books and of western critical writings, and challenged Pfander and French to a public discussion. This discussion took place in a room crowded with Mohammedans sitting cross-legged on the floor. The Moulvies were surrounded by their students, and had piles of German and French books by their side. For two days the discussion went on, and at the end each side claimed to be victorious. But not many years after two of the Moulvies, who had then for the first time heard the arguments in favour of Chris- tianity, came forward for baptism, and one in the service of the State, and the other in the service of the Church, spent their lives as consistent Christians. French ever felfc himself a disciple of Pfander in the work amongst the Mohammedans to which he gave his life. He became Bishop of Lahore, but loved to escape from episcopal business to the work of direct evangelisation. He knew how to get near the heart of the Indian. 136 MISSIONS Dining once with an old Pundit, a convert, lie noticed that he did not know how to use his knife, and to make him feel at his ease, he himself ate with his fingers. He Invited a converted Moslem to spend a week with him alone in a police bungalow, that they might preach to the natives and spend the evenings in Christian converse together. The convert said afterwards: "I have always believed Bishop French to be a special friend of God on the earth." Later, French resigned his bishopric, but he could not settle down in retirement in England. At the age of sixty- five he went alone to Muscat, in Arabia, to start pioneer mission work, and alone there ' the old Christian warrior died. Conversions from the Moslem faith in India have always been individual there has never been anything of the nature of a mass movement. Amongst the converts have been men of real intellectual mark. A considerable number of the native clergy working under the Church Missionary Society in the Punjab are converts from Islam. Dr. Imad-ud-din a distinguished convert himself, wrote a paper for the religious conference at Chicago in which he said that converts from Islam MOSLEM 137 to Christianity have come and are coining in their thousands. In Ms paper, he gives a list of over a hundred converts from Islam to Christi- anity now occupying influential positions both in Church and State in India. He points out that the number of learned converts from Islam is far greater than that of unlearned. It is everywhere one of the chief objects of the missionaries to get into touch with Moslem students and to try through them to influence Moslem thought. This is being done in India and also in Egypt. The number of students that come from all parts of the world to the great Mohammedan university, El Azhar, make Cairo the intellectual centre of the Mohammedan world. There, in the great court of the university and under its many- pillared portico, the students sit in groups round the feet of their teachers, and now, in consequence of the peace and religious tolera- tion that prevails in Egypt, Christians can even enter this great court and find oppor- tunity to talk and discuss with the Moslem students. Since Cairo is the centre of the Mohamme- dan intellectual world, it has beea wisely thought that it should be also the centre for 138 . MISSIONS the Christian study of the Moslem problem. Here men of trained Intellectual power can easily get into touch with Moslem students, Moslem thought and literature can be studied, and the Arabic language can be really mastered. At the mission, open house is kept for those who wish to come in and talk with the teachers. One such describes how lie came in one evening with twenty students from El Azhar on purpose to break up the meeting,, and interrupted the speaker, calling out "to all true believers to rise up and protest." But what struck him as strange was that whilst he treated the missionaries with hatred and insult, they never ceased to treat him "with courtesy and even love." He adds: "So I saw that whereas Islam teaches us to return hate with hate, Chris- tianity, on the contrary, teaches men to love their enemies and to treat them courteously/ 5 This man afterwards became a Christian, giving up all his worldly prospects for this purpose, and only freeing himself from the authority of his father by signing a statement in the presence of Lord Cromer. The mission at Cairo issues a journal and prepares literature of various kinds for the THE MOSLEM 189 purpose of putting before Mohammedans the true nature of the Christian faith. Written in Arabic, a language with which many educated Moslems aU over the world are acquainted, this literature finds its way to many parts of the Moslem world. The same work of publication is carried on in Madras for the Indian Moslems. By work such as this, by study of Moslem thought at the head-quarters of Moslem learning, by inter- course with Moslem students and teachers, the peculiar characteristics of Islam will be understood and the secret of its strength dis- covered, whilst Christian missionaries will be trained up and fitted for this the most diffi- cult and the most urgent of all the missionary tasks that lie before the Christian Church. Throughout the Turkish Empire the ab- sence, until quite lately, of religious liberty has made anything like direct missionary work im- possible. Educational and medical work have been preparing the way, and have done much to influence the thought of the people. Especially amongst the Turkish women do there appear to be many symptoms of a desire for a change from the secluded and inferior positions which, now that many of 140 MISSIONS them are receiving a really good education, appears to them Intolerable. "\Yhen, In 19C8, the Constitution was proclaimed In Turkey., thousands of women threw off their veils and rushed Into the streets to join in the cry of liberty. For them, liberty was not so easily won. They had to go back to their seclusion. But there are many among them who are no longer content to submit willingly to the restrictions Imposed upon them, and in Persia too many women are coming to feel the desire for a fuller and freer life. To help them in their efforts must be the earnest desire of all Christians, and the future of Turkey and of Persia will largely depend upon their success. The Moslem problem, difficult everywhere-, is probably most urgent in the great continent of Africa. There the Mohammedan religion is spreading amongst the pagan tribes* Every Mohammedan trader is a mission- ary, and, as he penetrates into the heart of Africa, he spreads his faith wherever he goes. The native is impressed by Ms superior cleverness; he readily feels that it will be an improvement to his position to become a Mohammedan. To do so he has only to profess Ms adherence to the brief MOSLEM PROBLEM 141 Mohammedan creed, and lie Is at once one of the great fellowship of this mighty religion* free to give his daughters in marriage to the Moslem, and to share in all the prestige of the man whom he admires. It is only a very thin veneer of Mohammedanism that is spread over the pagan tribes of central Africa, but it is enough to add to the many difficulties of the Christian missions in that vast country. Africa has been divided up into spheres of influence under the great European powers; wherever commerce and trade are penetrating Islam can easily follow on account of the peace made by Christian Europe, whilst the suppression of the slave trade forces the trader to turn his energies into other directions. European steamers convey countless pilgrims to Mecca, and if the political power of Islam appears to be decreasing, its religious power seems to be increasing. This is a direct challenge to Christendom. It needs to be met by the concerted effort of all who care for the spread of the Christian faith. The native Churches in Africa must be built up and strengthened, and at the same time the centres of Moslem teaching at Cairo, Constantinople, Agra, and Delhi must be 142 MISSIONS attacked by men and women able to meet the learned Moslem in argument, because they have studied his ideas and tried to understand Ms methods of thought and the real foundation and meaning of his religious system. In the past it has perhaps been too much the tendency for missions to devote their chief energies to the conversion of the heathen because of the difficulty of work amongst the Moslems, but it is being in- creasingly felt that at the present moment it is the problem how to win the Moslems that most urgently calls for the attention of missionaries. A German authority on the subject says, that "the chief hindrance, which even at the present day stands in the way of a comprehensive, united, enthusiastic missionary advance of the Church into Mo- hammedan territory, is want of courage." But the way is more open than it has ever been. Conversion is no longer punishable by death in the Turkish Empire; the exten- sion of commerce, the spread of education, the improved methods of communication have broken down the old isolation of the Mohammedans and brought them in many new waysunder Christian influences, or rather, THE MOSLEM PROBLEM 143 perhaps, under the influence of Christian civilisation. There is a growing feeling that all Christian missions must combine to dis- cover the way in which they can best use the present opportunities, and meet the formida- ble difficulties in the way of really forward work amongst the Mohammedans. It is the most difficult missionary problem, but in view of the low level of intellect and character to which "poor ethical ideals, the degradation of womanhood and a fatalistic philosophy have steadily brought Moslem society/' it is one which makes an ever increasingly urgent appeal to Christendom. CHAPTER VIII MISSION WORK AMONGST COLONISTS THE Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded with the special object of providing for the religious needs of those who settled as colonists in new countries. The duty of the Established Church of Eng- land to care for her children wherever they went was recognised both by the Church and the Government, In India and the West Indies chaplains were appointed with bishops here and there to supervise them. In America it was not thought necessary at first to appoint bishops, and the clergy there were under the supervision of the Bishop of London. It was not till the year 1784, after the War of Independence, that the first American bishop, Dr. Seabury, was consecrated. Three years later the first colonial bishop, Dr. Inglis, Bishop of Nova Scotia, was appointed. 144 WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 145 Amongst the colonists, especially in New England, were many deeply religious people, who had come as voluntary exiles from their native land to seek a new home where they might be free to worship God as they pleased. These naturally had their own ministers and teachers. The French in Canada were well cared for by their priests. But when the great expanses of the far West, first in the United States and later in Canada, began to receive settlers, the difficulty of providing them with any possibility of religious worship and teaching was very great. The first settlers were, of course, widely scattered; means of communication were dangerous and rare, and not only had the settlers to be kept true to their faith, but there were the Indians to be converted. Amongst the pioneers in this missionary work were many heroes, men who shunned no labour to reach the settlers, sleeping in rude cabins and miserable taverns or on the hard earth itself, knowing by their geniality and ready wit how to make themselves welcome in any company, whether in miners' camps or in the company of rough sheep-herders and cowboys. Amongst these pioneers many were bishops 146 MISSIONS of the American Church, who feared neither toll nor hardship, and helped by their work for religion and for education to build up the great civilisation of the western states of America. In Canada the problem was even more difficult owing to the greater severity of the climate. The western territories, to which the name Rupertsland was given, were first explored by the Hudson Bay Company, founded in order to collect from the Indians the valuable furs which abounded in the country. In 1815 there existed no building intended to be used as a place of religious worship through the whole extent of the Company's territories. The first ministers of religion to settle in Eupertsland were two Roman Catholic priests, and two years later there came an Anglican chaplain for the Hudson Bay Company. There was no Pres- byterian minister till 1851. There were some missions amongst the Indians, but the scattered settlers were quite uncared for. In 1849 the first Bishop of Rupertsland was appointed. His chief work, and that of his successor, the famous Bishop Machray, lay amongst the settlements along the Red River. WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 147 A little mission church called St. John's, near Fort Garry on the river, was his cathedral. Now enlarged and transformed it stands in the centre of the great city of Winnipeg, From here Machray made tours through his diocese, travelling in a dog sleigh and spend- ing night after night sleeping by a camp fire. To get men to help him in his work was his first desire. "We must struggle for the living agent/* he said, and with this object he started a training college for clergy which is now part of the University of Manitoba. The difficulty of mission work amongst the colonists was and still is increased even more than in the case of work amongst non-Christ- ians by religious differences. The Presbyter- ians and Wesleyans, always strong in eastern Canada, naturally wished to minister to their own people. Their plan in the newly settled districts, where there was not support for a regular minister, was to send a student from a college who was studying for the ministry to hold services during the summer months and prepare the way for apermanent minister. A new settlement was naturally not likely to be able to support more than one church, and so the religious body that was first in the field 148 MISSIONS was likely to be the one to remain. On the other hand, in cases where there were settlers strongly attached to their own de- nomination, attempts would be made to support two or even three separate churches in a place unable to do more than properly support one. Besides the Protestant bodies there was also the Roman Church anxious to minister to the Irish and to the French and half-breeds from eastern Canada who joined the migration to the west. So the whole work could not be wisely planned in such a way as to cover, if possible, all the needs of a population thinly scattered over such a wide area. The Anglican Church received much help from England, but its policy in mission work in the colonies has always been to make it self-supporting as soon as possible, and, whilst freely sending men to newly settled districts, only to give money to build churches in proportion to what may be raised by the settlers themselves. It was after 1881 that the great develop- ment of the far West began. In that year the contract for the Canadian Pacific Railway was signed. Bishop Machray had foreseen the great inrush of emigrants, and had done WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 149 much to make the Church ready to receive It; the Presbyterian Church had done the same, Where Bishop Machray had been in sole charge when he first came out, there were now six other bishops working. An American visitor to Winnipeg in 1887 speaks with admiring praise of the number of the churches, and says: "On Sunday there are no street cars running, nor is there any other desecra- tion of the Lord's Day. The entire population seem to go to church. It is a wonderful contrast to the open ungodliness and un- blushing wickedness of any western (Ameri- can) town of its size and age, and causes us to hang our heads with shame at the contrast. It is a wonderful tribute to the blessed in- fluence of the Church, which was here all ready to receive the tide of population when it came pouring in, and which moulded it as it came." Each year as the great railways were built and the boundless prairie was brought under cultivation increased the difficulty of mission work amongst the settlers. It is repeatedly said by those who have watched the present development of western Canada that nothing like it has ever been experienced elsewhere. 150 MISSIONS The railways, combined with the rich re- sources of the country, have made this un- exampled growth possible. In Columbia, on the other side of the Eocky Mountains, with its matchless scenery, its beautiful climate and its boundless natural resources the same de- velopment has gone on. It may be only a few years till the settlers are well enough off to pay for their own churches and clergy, but if they have been left alone till then to build up their homes in a struggle of ten cruel and bitter, many will certainly fall away from all religion, and their children will grow up as many are doing now in practical heathendom. Besides this the settlers are men of many kinds and nationalities from many different parts of Europe, and from the west of America, people who often profess to belong to no religious body. Anglicans, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics must all desire to follow their own people, and at the same time to help in the building up out of all these varied elements and different nationalities a nation which shall not only be rich and prosperous but truly Christian. Mission work has to be carried on in mining centres and lumber camps, among the navvies working on the railway WORK AMONGST COLONISTS Wl as well as among the scattered homesteads on the prairie. To reach their people the missionaries must make long trips in canoes or in sleighs in the intense cold of the long winter, often camping out at night or accepting part of a bed in a farmer's shack or a bunk in a miners* camp. In the earlier days these long journeys were constantly attended with real hardship and danger, and the record of them is like a thrilling tale of adventure. There is plenty of hardship and danger still, and what is often worse to bear, long months and even years of isolation to be faced, especially for those working in the far north. Novel methods of work have to be tried. Young laymen are much used under a scheme started by Archdeacon Lloyd in Saskatchewan* Each has a light cart which carries a tent and his absolute necessaries, and he spends the summer driving through the prairie visit- ing the scattered homesteads, gathering the people for services on Sunday in a barn or pool-room, and whenever possible getting them to put up a small t wooden church at some convenient centre. During the worst months of the winter these young men are brought together at a college to study and 152 MISSIONS to be prepared, when suitable, for future ordination. The needs of the men dwelling in isolated logger camps on the islands round about Vancouver, have had to be met by exceptional means. A mission steamer has been started to provide them with both spiritual and medical help. Its cabin is fitted up so that reverent services can be held in it; there is also a lending library of books, and there are two hospital cots. Here patients are taken in, generally men suffering from acci- dents or sometimes from fights in the camps; the steamer then carries them to one of the small hospitals which have been put up on the coast. The ship is thus a floating hospital, library, and church combined. Similar work is being done on the inhospitable coast of Labrador, where long ago brave Moravian missionaries settled to teach the Eskimos. Now a devoted English missionary, Dr. Grenfell, has brought new hope and joy into the lives of these lonely people. He has caused little hospitals to be built at intervals along the coast, and he has a hospital boat in which he visits the different fishing stations, and in which, if necessary, patients can be WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 153 transported to one of the hospitals for further treatment. In his care for the well-being of the people, he has also, by introducing the reindeer among them, added considerably to their material resources. The emigration to Canada has in many ways added to the difficulty of mission work among the Indians, who both in Canada and in America suffer from their contact with civilisation. Probably the majority of them are now nominal Christians, and they are ministered to by clergy of their own race. The present mission work is chiefly educational; the children come from the reserves where the Indians live, to the mis- sion centre, and spend some years there at school, going back afterwards to their own families. Mission work amongst the colonists in the West Indies and in the southern states of America was from the first complicated by the existence of the large population of negro slaves. In early days in South Carolina, the masters were as a rule opposed to the en- deavours of the missionaries to teach the slaves, whilst the slaves showed themselves most eager for instruction. This early atti- 154 . MISSIONS tnde towards the slaves has, no doubt, helped to increase the difficulty of the problems occasioned by the existence of the negro population since the emancipation of the slaves. In the British West Indian colonies the emancipation came much sooner, and for that and other reasons, the racial difficulties are by no means so acute. In Jamaica the various races join together in church worship and communion, and many of the coloured and black people take part in the manage- ment of Church affairs and in the ministra- tions of the Church. It is interesting to note this fact, so different from anything that prevails either in the United States or in South Africa. In Australia and New Zealand needs similar to those in Canada and America had to be met. The work was made more difficult owing to the fact that the early colonists in Australia were for the most part convicts. The first batch of some 750 men and women convicts were sent out by Government in 1787, with no religious minister of any kind. It was only at the last moment that, owing to the repre- sentations of Wilberforce, a chaplain was appointed, who worked singlehanded amongst WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 155 them for seven years. The first work done by any missionary society was to send teachers for the children of the convicts. It was difficult to do much under such unpromising conditions. Little help was given by tlie Government, who contented themselves with putting Australia under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Calcutta. Only in 1836 did Australia get a bishop of its own. Slowly, and chiefly through the help of the S.P.G., something was done to provide travelling missionaries for the scattered settlers, and to try to lift them out of the infidelity and drunkenness in which most of them were liv- ing. In 1850 the Bishop of Sydney stated: "Wherever I go it is but to witness a scanty population, scattered over tracts of country, hundreds of miles in extent, without churches, clergy, or instructors of any kind, and without any means of Christian education for their children." When the discovery of gold sent a rush of new settlers to the country, more missionaries were sent by the S.P.G. to minister to the gold-diggers, and slowly, as the wealth of the new towns increased, the Church in Australia grew self-supporting. Help was still needed for the outlying districts, and has 156 MISSIONS continued to this day to be needed in that vast and thinly populated country. To meet the needs of the people of late years several bush brotherhoods have been started, com- munities of clergy who live at a common centre, and go out for periodical visitations to the bush dwellers and timber getters scattered over an immense district the only way of ministering to a country where there may be 100,000 people scattered over an area of 130,000 square miles. The bush brothers learn, as one of them has said, "to sleep on the bare floor, on Mother Earth, on a sofa a foot too short, in a single bed with another man who snores and kicks." But these drawbacks are as "nothing compared with the joy of working amongst the farmers," whom they describe as "battling along in that lonely land in the face of hardships and difficulties innumerable." They are able to cheer and help these lonely settlers, to baptise the children, to encourage the women. Services are held wherever possible, "some- times in the police barracks, sometimes in the parlour of a public-house, sometimes in a dancing-hall. Everywhere there is the same sense of reality, the same earnest attention, WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 157 the same hearty if not particularly musical singing of the hymns." In New Zealand, there were many of the same problems as in Australia, but there was not there the added difficulty of having convicts as the first settlers. Early in the nineteenth century, missionaries went to work amongst the Maoris, the fine race who were the original inhabitants of New Zealand, and some help was given to the settlers to build schools for their own and for the native children. In 1841, the English Government sent out a Bishop with full powers to organise the Church in New Zealand. George Selwyn, the first Bishop in New Zealand, was a man of rare gifts, who would have been certain of a distinguished career at home. He went out full of hope and energy to what his friends felt to be a great and holy adventure. The people in New Zealand did not know what to look for in a missionary bishop, and the Governor said with some scorn when he heard of his coming: "What can a bishop do in New Zealand, where there are no roads for his coach/' They soon learnt something of the nature of the man they had got. The Bishop spent over six months on his first 158 MISSIONS visitation journey through Ms new diocese, going, not in a coach, but as a tramp more than 1,000 miles on foot. He got back with blistered feet, his last pair of thick shoes worn out, but he had kept his suit sufficiently decent to enable him to enter Auckland by daylight. It was not only devotion to his work that he showed, but the capacity of a statesman in his wise plans for the organisa- tion of the Church, which he desired to make self-supporting and independent of the Church at home. He was interested too In everything that made for the well-being of the colony, in the teaching of industries, and especially of wool-weaving, and tried to correct in every way the slovenliness which he considered to be the bane of aU colonial work. He rebuked the settlers for their land-grabbing and for their treatment of the natives, and it is said that at his approach they used to grumble: "Here comes the Bishop to prevent us fighting with the natives." After seven years' work in New Zealand, Bishop Selwyn set himself to do what he could to carry out the Archbishop of Canter- bury's parting injunction, and try to carry the Gospel to the Pacific Islands. In some of jWORK AMONGST COLONISTS 159 the islands he found Wesleyan Missions estab- lished, and he made no attempt to interfere with their work. But in other islands, where there were no missions already he started work on his own lines. He went about amongst them in a little yacht of twenty tons, carrying no arms, an enterprise which was attended with no little risk. His plan was to land on an island and make friends with the islanders, and then try to persuade them to let him carry off some of the most likely youths to be educated, in the hope that they would in time become missionaries to their own people. The boys spent the summer in New Zealand at school, and returned to their own homes in the winter. By these means, which have been continued since his day, native missionaries in large numbers have been trained, and they are working at present in the islands of the Pacific and even in New Guinea. Amongst the Maoris also he built up a native Church, and by his influence he helped to make the Church both in Australia and New Zealand from the first a missionary Church. To establish the Church in his diocese on a firm basis was his great object, and for this he spared no pains. He con- 160 MISSIONS tinned to travel about every part of the country, either walking or riding, visiting and teaching the people and confirming the children. He would plunge alone into the bush for one of these long tours, and it is told of him that on one occasion he promised his archdeacon six months before to meet him at the end of one of his tours at a particular spot. The archdeacon went to the meeting-place and as his watch pointed to the hour, he saw the bishop emerge from a thicket looking "well, wiry and bushy/' The influence of Bishop Selwyn on mis- sionary enterprise all over the world and at home in England was very great. He left a strong Church with its own independent constitution and four bishops working in New Zealand, and Bishop Patteson in charge of the work in the islands. It was there that, landing on a strange island where the conduct of some traders had irritated the natives against the white men, Bishop Patteson was treacherously murdered. He is venerated as one of our missionary heroes for his blame- less life and the noble and courageous work he was doing in the islands at the time of his death. WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 161 South Africa also called for mission work amongst the colonists. Here the problem was complicated by the presence of the Boers, and by the large native population, and also by the frequent wars that have distracted the country. Mission work amongst the native population in a colony has always been peculiarly difficult owing to the attitude of the colonists to the natives. They have, in almost all cases, shown themselves ruthless in the way in which they took possession of the lands of the natives, and their one interest in the natives themselves has been to turn them into beasts of burden and instruments of labour. In Australia the aboriginal tribes almost disappeared before there was any one to care for their interests. Now an attempt is being made by missionaries to teach and protect those that remain. In New Zealand the Maoris, a stronger race, have been able to maintain themselves, and have shown them- selves capable of progress and very ready to receive Christian teaching. In South Africa some of the native races have disappeared, but others show great vitality and capacity, and are keenly desirous of education. The white settlers are willing that they should be 182 MISSIONS taught anything that will make them better and more industrious workmen, but, as a rule, they have shown themselves very un- sympathetic to missionary effort, especially at the mines. It is difficult for missionaries to get the heathen to understand the real nature of Christianity when they see the vices and drinking habits of the white men who call themselves Christians, and when they suffer from their scornful disregard of their rights in the country which has been taken from them. The refusal of the white men to worship in the same church as the coloured people is another difficulty in the way, though many who have the welfare of the native at heart, maintain that it is best for both sides that there should be as few opportunities of contact as possible between the white and coloured races. It is not only the original inhabitants of the colonies that claim the thought and attention of the missionaries, almost every colony now contains settlements of people of very varied races Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Malays and others who have come for purposes of trade and industry. In England itself there are colonies of Orientals at our ports who stand WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 163 in need of Christian teaching. This work is amongst the most pressing of the calls on Christian people for service. These men generally go back to their own country after a time, and if during their absence in a Christian land they have been brought under Christian influence, they may go back to be, in reality, missionaries to their own people. Unfortunately, the influences under which they are brought, and the side of the white man's civilisation that they see, are often far from likely to lead them to venerate the white man's religion. They too often go home having lost their own original religious convictions, and having learnt only some of the white man's vices, and they are far more likely to be a source of evil than of blessing to their own people. CHAPTER IX THE CIVILISING WOKK OF MISSIONS THE critics of missions probably do not realise what a great part they have played and are playing in the spread of civilisation. They have been at all times the pioneers of education and industry in heathen lands. The object of their educational work was in the first place to gain converts by preparing the ground for the reception of Christian truth; and in the second place to provide Christian education for the converts and their children, so that they might train up from amongst them native teachers and a native ministry, and so prepare the way for an independent native Church. But their schools have almost invariably been open to non- Christians as well as to Christians, and the most enlightened opinion at present is against segregating the native converts in schools 164 CIVILISING WOEK OF MISSIONS 165 of their own. Prominent missionary educa- tionalists in India are opposed to anything that would denationalise their converts. They wish that in high school and college life they should mix freely with their countrymen and that the college life should be a training which shall not shut them off in after years from intercourse with their fellow-country- men, and from the full national life. The government schools in India, being under the necessity of excluding all religious teaching, have in the past provided an educa- tion which enabled students, possessed of the quick memory and ready intelligence of the Hindus, to acquire a mass of superficial knowledge. They become adepts at passing examinations, in order to be candidates for government appointments, but which did little to train their character or influence their conduct. The mission schools have been free to pursue a higher educational ideal and to aim at the development of the whole individual. They have gained much in efficiency through government inspection and grants, and the appreciation of their work by Government has been shown by the freedom that has been left to them to pursue their own ideals* The 166 MISSIONS popular demand for education is greater than can be supplied at present, and the aid of the mission schools is welcomed; their experience is valuable in helping to determine the lines on which future progress must be made. What can be done to train and develop character by plans carefully thought out to meet special needs, is shown by a school at Srinagar in Kashmere, under the Rev. C. Tyndale-Biscoe. He found the Kashmiri boys very ready to be studious, but untruthful, conceited, superstitious, cowardly, selfish, and dirty in their habits. He set himself to make them strong, athletic, and considerate for others. With this object he encouraged games and bodily exercises of all kinds, but allowed no attempt to stimulate individual exertion by prizes. In competitions with outsiders it is the school, not the boy, that wins the prizes. The boys are taught in every way possible to help others, by giving aid at fires, by protecting women from insult, by being kind to old people and invalids, by rescuing people from drowning, by preventing cruelty to animals. All this was very difficult at first, because, as Brahmins, the boys objected to any kind of manual work., and to touch CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 167 or In any way minister to persons of inferior caste. But by patience and continued effort a spirit of service and a capacity for physi- cal exertion has been built up. All the boys are taught to be beautiful swimmers, a most necessary art for those who live amongst the water ways of Srinagar. They work hard in their racing boats and delight in the sport, but they also take the invalids from the mission hospital out on the water for change and fresh air. The influence of the school is developing their bodies, minds, and spirits, and making them disciplined, manly, and considerate of others. In Kandy, a similar work is being done for the Singalese by Mr. A. Eraser. His great desire is to counteract the denationalising effect of the system of education which pre- vails in India, and which owes its origin to Lord Macaulay. As an Indian administrator Macaulay felt the need of giving the Indians an education which would bring them in touch with modern science and modern thought, but by going too far in that direction he cut them off from the study of their own history and literature. In Ceylon students are to be found, who after passing through 168 MISSIONS college, know Latin, and even Greek, and can qualify for the degrees of the London Uni- versity, but cannot write a letter in their na- tive language. Education has in consequence fixed a great gulf between them and their own people. In Trinity College under Mr. Eraser's superintendence, the object is to train men who, though Christians, shall know and understand the religious beliefs of their own people, shall have studied their own history and literature, and by English public school methods shall be trained in straight- forwardness and independence of character. In this way it is hoped to produce men who will be fit to be leaders and teachers of their own people, and who will be able to present to them no merely western Christ, but to teach them the universal truths of the Gospel in words which will appeal to their thought and un- derstanding. The College aims at producing something better than mere candidates for examinations. It desires to train Indian students who shall feel the duty and beauty of service to their Motherland. In these and other schools and colleges the missionaries are helping to discover the kind of education best suited to Indian needs, and to direct CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 169 wisely the growing national feeling. There is urgent need that the same work should be done for Indian girls as is being done for boys, and to this object women educationalists are beginning to direct their attention. It is in the work amongst the outcasts and pariahs, especially in South India and among the hill tribes of India, that the missionaries have achieved the most surprising results, so that it has been said, that the most powerful witness borne to Christianity, and the one which has impressed even hostile Indian observers, has been the power which the Christian missionaries have shown to raise the lowest classes of the community. In South India the power to do this work is only limited by the number of people to do it. Whole villages on every side are ready to become Christian, and are crying out to have teachers sent to them. One missionary after three years* work in South India said that since he came out he could not recollect the day on which he had not to say no to villages asking for Christian teachers. But it is not even easy to supply the villages already Christian with the necessary teachers. Of these Christian villages we are told that 170 MISSIONS "a glance at the face of the villagers is quite sufficient to show that one is surrounded by Christians. The Christians look intelligent, happy, and fearless; the women are dressed neatly and cleanly, and the children are as merry as can be, whereas heathen villagers, in spite of their gaily coloured clothes, often look untidy, depressed, and unhappy. Even the houses show the difference. The orderli- ness and cleanliness of the palm-thatched cottage of the Christian is a strong contrast to the uncomfortable, squalid abode of the non-Christian . * * The Karens, the hill tribe livingamongst the mountains of Burma, are a striking example of the result of missionary labour. Work was begun amongst them a hundred years ago, when they were a people of drunken, super- stitious and degraded habits. An American Baptist, Judson, was the first to make any impression upon them. For the last years of his life he lived amongst them almost a hermit's life, occupied in translating the New Testament for their use. Now fully one- seventh of the Karens are Christians, an educated and industrious people, fast building up a Church and ministry of their own. CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 171 The Kols, a Mil people in Chota Nagpur, India, were given over to demon-worship, idle and filthy in their habits, drunken most of the day and living by begging. They were first taught by German missionaries, who found them wild and vicious and quite un- willing to learn. The missionaries were often stoned out of the villages, and for five years no convert was made. Then a change began, and soon the converts could be counted by hundreds. When in one district of Chota Nagpur, the German mission could no longer be maintained, the Christian Kols of that part, at their own request, were received into the Anglican Church. They are now to be found scattered in over 300 villages, some of which are entirely Christian. They have become sober and industrious, and there are many native clergy ministering to them. The number of Christian Kols still in connexion with the German mission is even greater. Work such as this for raising the outcasts of India is only limited by the number of workers. It is, perhaps, in Africa that the most conspicuous examples of the civilising work of missions are to be found. Livingstone had 178 MISSIONS so impressed England with the needs of Central Africa, that as a result of Ms exhorta- tions, the Universities' Mission was founded. The name itself of this mission was a gain to the cause, for it showed that the claim of missions on the best men intellectually as well as spiritually was being recognised. The pioneers of this mission suffered terribly from the climate, and the proportion of deaths was very large. Only by degrees and after grievous losses of men were the precautions learned which enable the missionaries to face with less risk the constant dangers of the climate. They had to begin by reducing Swahili to a written language, and their first great endeavour was to get the slave trade put down. The earliest converts were five boys rescued from a slave dhow and baptised in 1865. Seven years later the slave market in Zanzibar was closed, and a cathedral was built where it had been. Bishop Steere, a true missionary, of whom it was said, that he never despised the humblest work and plied chisel or hammer or needle as naturally as he preached, superintended every detail of the building, and himself invented the coral cement of which the roof is made. The CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 173 altar stands on the spot where the slaves 5 whipping-post formerly stood. The work of this mission extends to Lake Nyassa, and there, in order to visit the different villages on the shores and islands of the lake, a steam launch was a necessity. One was sent up in 1885, being carried all the way up the Zam- bezi and up the Shire, in thousands of pieces, packed in 880 cases, and put together at the lake under the direction of the missionary. The mission which has been crowned with the most conspicuous success is that to Uganda. It owed its origin to the appeal of another explorer, H. M. Stanley, who told of the great opportunity and of the willing- ness of the king to receive a mission. Uganda is nearly a thousand miles from the coast. There was then no means of communication except by walking, and much of the way lay through low-lying swamps. The enterprise seemed too difficult and perilous to be contem- plated, but the interest aroused by Stanley's journeys was intense. Money was subscribed and the C.M.S. undertook the mission. Of the first three men sent out, two were mur- dered, and the third remained, the one white man in the heart of Africa, alone for a year. 174 MISSIONS In 1878 he was joined by Alexander Mackay, a young Scot, who with a brilliant career as an engineer before him had felt the com- pelling call to give Ms life to mission work in Africa. His hope was "to connect Chris- tianity with modern civilisation/' and to train the young men "in religion and science together." He wanted to execute "public works, railways, mines, etc." These great schemes had to wait, but his engineering skill proved useful to him in many ways. He set up a lathe, grindstone, forge and anvil which were most attractive marvels to the natives. The king, Mtesa, professed himself anxious for instruction, and was at times friendly to the missionaries, but at other times gave way to the wildest outbreaks of cruelty and vice. At such times he caused large numbers of men, women and children to be kidnapped and sacrificed as expiatory offerings to departed spirits. On one occasion as many as 2000 innocent people were caught and killed in this way. The country was filled with cruelty, oppression and crime of every kind. Yet the king professed again and again willingness to hear the missionaries, and would send for them to his court to CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 175 read and explain the Bible to Mm and his chiefs. It was four years before the first five converts were baptised in Uganda. The work was made much more difficult by the arrival of some French Roman Catholic missionaries,, who told the king that the Protestants were teaching him nothing but lies, so that he professed utter bewilderment, and said: "Every white man has a different religion, how can I know what is right? 55 The trouble that thus began and ultimately led to war between the rival factions of Uganda, was caused partly by political jealousy, partly by religious animosity. The French wished to resist the growing influence of the English in Uganda. Mtesa died with- out making up his mind to be a Christian, yet the influence of the missionaries was sufficiently powerful to prevent the wholesale slaughter, which in accordance with the customs of the country, had hitherto followed a king's death. His son Mwanga who succeeded him was a youth of cruel and vicious tendencies. He turned against the missionaries, and three of his pages who were converts were slowly burnt to death because 170 MISSIONS they would not deny their faith. The death of these boys, the first Uganda martyrs, did not stop the progress of Christianity. One of their executioners was so impressed by the way in which they bore their torture, that he came to Mackay to be taught to pray himself. The Church grew, and Mackay worked at a printing-press with his pupils to provide translations of portions of the Bible made by himself for the people. Other missionaries had been sent from home to help the first-comers, and now it was decided to send out a bishop for the growing Church. Hannington was chosen, and came to Africa in 1885, He had accomplished the greater part of the long and dangerous journey from the coast, when he was seized by a hostile chief, who kept him prisoner whilst he sent to King Mwanga to ask what should be done with the stranger. For eight days Bishop Hannington waited; the little diary which he kept during those days was after- wards found. On one day he writes: "A terrible night, first with noisy, drunken guard, and secondly with vermin. I woke with fever first developing. , . . I am quite broken down and brought low. Comforted CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 177 by reading 27th Psalm. In an hour or two's time fever developed very rapidly. My tent was so stuffy, I was obliged to go inside the filthy hut, and soon was delirious." The messengers returned, and soon after he was led out into the open, and with his party of fifty porters surrounded and slain, only four of the men escaping. It was reported by his murderers that he bade them tell the king that he died for the Baganda. This murder was followed by a severe persecution of the Baganda Christians. Many were burnt alive and horribly tortured, but some succeeded in hiding. About 200 perished, showing to the last their courage and faith. Mackay was bullied and threatened by the king, but he did not dare to hurt him. The next years were very disturbed ones for the mission. Another bishop was sent out, but died of fever shortly after his arrival. Many new converts were made, and there were periods of calm and peaceful progress, interrupted by attacks from Arab traders, who overcame the Christians for a while and determined to make Uganda Mohammedan. But the Christian party under the leadership of Christian natives drove them out in their turn. 178 MISSIONS Mackay was often left quite alone, and many at home were in favour of giving up the mission which had cost so many lives and suffered such disasters, but Mackay refused to leave. The famous explorer, Henry Stan- ley, thus describes a visit to him at this time: "We entered the circle of tall poles within which the mission station is built. There were signs of labour and constant, unwearying patience. . . . There was a big solid workshop in the yard, filled with machin- ery and tools, a launch's boiler was being prepared by the blacksmiths, a big canoe was outside repairing, there weresawpits and large logs of hard timber ... a cattle-fold and a goat-pen . . . fowls by the score, and out there trooped a number of little boys and big boys, looking uncommonly sleek and happy; and quiet labourers came up to bid us with hats off, 'good morning/ God knows if ever man had reason to be doleful and lonely and sad, Mackay had when, after murdering his bishop and burning his pupils, and strangling his converts and clubbing to death his dark friends, Mwanga turned his eye of death on him. And yet the little man met it with calm blue eyes that never winked." CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 179 It was shortly after this visit that Mackay wrote his last appeal to England for more help. Mwanga was then friendly, and asked for hosts of teachers for his people. The Christians begged that at least twenty more missionaries should be sent. A month after he wrote Mackay was struck down by fever. He died in 1890, after having spent nearly fourteen years in Africa without ever return- ing home, and as Stanley wrote, "without a syllable of complaint or moan among the wildernesses." No effort was spared to carry on the work so well begun. A new bishop was sent out with several helpers. When after his toilsome journey Bishop Tucker reached the mission in Uganda, he was amazed at a what he found. He wrote: "Truly the half was not told me. Exaggeration about the eagerness of the people here to be taught there has been none. . . . On Sunday I stood up to speak to fully 1000 men and women, who crowded the church. There close beside me was the Kati- kiro, the second man in the kingdom. There on every hand were chiefs of various degrees, all Christian men, and all in their demeanour devout and earnest.' ' . 180 MISSIONS Bishop Tucker was called to be a states- man as well as a bishop. Difficult questions troubled the future of Uganda. In the division of East Africa between England and Germany, it had been assigned to the English sphere of influence, and the East African Company had been formed to open out its trade. Under the guidance of Captain Lugard the Company had put down the slave trade and maintained law and order. But not getting the support from the British Govern- ment that had been expected, it decided that it would have to withdraw from the occupation of Uganda. This could not fail to prove disastrous to the mission, and the withdrawal would have been certain to leave anarchy behind it and to open the way for the Arabs to reassert their power and massa- cre the Christians. It was owing to Bishop Tucker's influence during a visit to England that sufficient money was raised to enable the East African Company to stay another year in Uganda, after which the British Govern- ment was persuaded to set up a protectorate of Uganda, and it was decided to build a railway to connect it with the coast. Much anxiety was caused before this by CIVILISING WORE: OF MISSIONS isi an outbreak of civil war in Uganda between the natives belonging to the Protestant party and those belonging to the Roman Catholic party. The jealousy of the French at the English supremacy was the real cause of this trouble, combined with the treacherous character of King Mwanga. To get the British Government to understand the real state of the case and to help in the peaceful settlement of affairs after the war, caused Bishop Tucker great anxiety, and his wisdom and moderation helped much to procure a lasting settlement. Through all the troubles the number of converts steadily grew. They were taught to administer their own affairs in their Church Councils, and their zeal amazed all who saw it for the first time. One mis- sionary on first arriving wrote : "The services here are a marvellous sight . . . the crush was so great and the eagerness to secure good places. . . . Outside were hundreds of people who could hear distinctly through the walls, which are of reeds/ 5 The Baganda showed an extraordinary eagerness for books. One Sunday it was announced that a supply of books had arrived, and that the Gospels of St. Matthew would be sold early the next 188 MISSIONS morning. The missionary was roused before daylight by a roar of voices. He tried to barri- cade the door to keep the people outside but "barricades were useless in came the door, and we thought the whole place would have fallen. In ten minutes all the hundred Gospels were sold." As each new box of books was opened the same scene was repeated; the eagerness was so great that the missionary could hardly find time to eat, and "when everything was sold there were still a thousand or more people waiting about, each *mad to buy a book/ " The work rapidly extended; women mission- aries and doctors joined the mission staff, Baganda clergy were ordained, and Baganda teachers carried the Christian teaching to the surrounding villages. Bishop Tucker's policy has been to try in every way to develop a native self-governing Church; the churches are built in native fashion, the teachers are supported by the people themselves, and what is more, the Baganda Church realises the duty of being a missionary Church itself. King Mwanga proved a trouble to the last, but his son, the present king, has been a Christian from his infancy, and the CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 183 Katikiro, or Prime Minister, Kagwa Apolo, who suffered persecution in bis youth for Ms faith, has lived the life of a true Christian statesman, guiding his country in the path of real progress. He visited England for the Coronation of Edward VII, and was knighted by the King. In another quarter of Africa a great chief has shown what a Christian ruler can do for his country. Khama, the chief of Bechuanaland, was at his father's wish taught by a German missionary and baptised whilst still a boy. He married a Christian wife, and grew up determined to live a consistent Christian life. His first troubles were with his father, who remained a heathen to the last, and was furious when his son would not share in the disgusting heathen rites of his people and refused to marry a second wife. He declared that Khama should not succeed him, and tried several times to have him murdered, so that at last Khama was driven with his wife and family and a few faithful followers to take refuge in the hills. Called back to help his father, who had been driven out by a revolt, Khama, famous as a soldier and for his coolness in danger, subdued his 184 MISSIONS father's enemies, but still found it hopeless to try to live with. him. On his father's death, when he became chief himself, he set himself at once to carry out his Christian principles in his methods of ruling his people. In order to do this he had to face many diffi- culties. First he had to put down the hateful witch doctors, whose lies made the lives of the Bechuana a constant terror. Next he had to stop many heathen customs, the killing of weakly children, the plan of allowing useless old people to starve, the right of a man to kill his wife, and many horrible punishments. Hardest of all was his struggle against the drinking habits which were ruining his people. He gathered the people together and told them that they were utterly degraded by the great beer drinkings which always followed the harvest, and that in future he entirely forbade them to make or drink the native beer, a most intoxicating liquor made from fermented corn. The people went away in angry discontent, prepared to rebel against this intolerable order. Ehama said in after years: "I withstood my people at the risk of my life." When he was remonstrated with, he answered: "Beer is the source CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 185 of all quarrels and disputes. I will stop it." It needed long and patient work to get Ms prohibition enforced, but success came at last, and in a Blue-book issued in 1888 it is written: "It would require no police to manage the native part of the town. By his determination and courage Khama has put down strong drink, and pre- vented traders bringing it into his country," It was with the traders that Khama had his last great struggle. They insisted upon being allowed to bring in brandy for their own use, and again and again were discovered selling it to the natives. At last, when they would not desist, Khama banished two of the ring- leaders from his country, treating them, however, with the greatest consideration. These men, determined "not to be beaten by a nigger," tried to stir up trouble against Khama, and finally returned with a party of men, amongst whom was a Boer. Khama sent some of his soldiers to turn them out, and in the fighting the Boer was killed. This led to an investigation by the Trans- vaal and British authorities. The English Administrator who heard the case was much impressed by Khama's conduct and 186 MISSIONS bearing, and wrote: "His character entitles Mm to the respect and affection with which he is plainly regarded by his people, and to the esteem entertained for him by all unpre- judiced Europeans who have come in contact with him." Khama himself ordered a severe punishment for his soldiers because they had gone beyond his orders, sentencing them to six years' hard labour, but he showed no yielding on the drink question. "It were better for me," he said to the Administrator, "that I should lose my country than that it should be flooded with drink. I fear Lobengula (the Matabele chief) less than I fear brandy. Lobengula never gives me a sleepless night, But to fight against drink is to fight against demons not against men. I dread the white man's drink more than the assegais of the Matabele, which kill men's bodies and all is quickly over, but drink puts devils into men and destroys both their souls and their bodies for ever." As years went on, Khama had the wisdom to see that it would be difficult for him to maintain his independence in the midst of the various forces that were struggling for power in Africa. He decided to put him- CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 187 self directly under the protectorate of the English Queen, stipulating only "that his people should enjoy their cultivated lands, their cattle stations and their hunting grounds/* He has proved a loyal and faithful ally under many difficult and trying condi- tions. In every way this African chief has carried out in practical life the Christian faith which he holds. Of unblemished courage, he has been loyal in his dealings both to friends and foes. He has ruled his people like a father, sitting every morning in his great courtyard, which is kept spotlessly clean, to hear complaints, petitions or dis- putes. He rides everywhere about his coun- try, visiting the villages and the fields, and encouraging the people to better methods of cattle rearing and agriculture. Every year the digging season is begun with a meeting for prayer. On Sundays a great congregation, often of 2000 people, gathers for worship. They met at first on the hillside, but by degrees gathered the money needed to build a great church. Khama's chief town was moved by his orders to a new site, where better water could be procured, and the newtown, Palapwe, was carefully planned and laid out, but all in 188 MISSIONS native style, Khama himself living in a hut but little larger than any one else's. He has built large airy school-rooms where the children are taught to read and write, and have regular instruction in the Bible from teachers trained by the missionaries. Khama's wife has helped him in every possible way and they have brought up their children with lov- ing care. A Blue-book reporting about him says: "Khama rules the tribe more by kind- ness than by severity. He is probably the best example of what a black man can become by means of a good disposition and of Christianity." In 1911 high festival was kept at Khama's capital city, to celebrate the jubilee of the baptism of Khama. A deputation of the London Missionary Society, the society to which he owed his conversion, went to cele- brate the occasion with him. They were met by Khama at the head of a body- guard of about 8000 soldiers. The fol- lowing day began at sunrise with a prayer- meeting of 4000 men; and in the afternoon were sports and festivities. The next day was Sunday, and began with the baptism of 103 converts. Then came a service at which CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 189 12,000 people were present, the soldiers form- ing a circle round the women and the old men who were seated on the ground. The week went on with festivities of many kinds, military games as well as solemn services. Ehama himself spoke grave words to his people, saying: "This is a thing which has come from God, and you know that God is stronger than we are, and has more power, and if we continue in the service of God we shall be a nation still. . . . You know that the one thing that destroys our work and is a great enemy to our work is Drink. Intoxi- cating drink is a great chief in the country." He ended by warning them against the sins of their forefathers, and with a warm welcome to his white visitors. These few examples have been selected to show in some detail the civilising effect of missions. They might be multiplied in- definitely. It was the voice of the Baptist missionaries on the Congo that made known to Europe the atrocities perpetrated in the country which Leopold, King of the Belgians, had promised to develop for the good of the natives, but where he allowed them to be exploited and ruined with the 190 MISSIONS most horrible cruelty for the good of his shareholders. It is missionaries again who have done most to awaken the conscience of Europe to the havoc wrought by opium in China, and the shame attaching to the English Government for having in the past forced opium upon China for the sake of commercial advantage. Missionaries are still labouring to convince the world of the wrong done by the liquor traffic to the primitive peoples of Africa. It is their work everywhere to strive to protect the rights of the native races from those who, whether as individuals or Governments, seek to exploit them for the sake of trade without any consideration of their real advantage. In the past they helped to bring about the suppression of the slave trade, and they are still working for the abolition of the system of forced labour, which, as their experience shows them, in- evitably leads to the oppression of helpless peoples. But whilst they object to forced labour, one of the first objects of missionaries amongst primitive peoples is to train them in habits of work and to teach them industries of all kinds. This is to be seen to a notable extent in many of the Roman Catholic Mis- CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 191 sions and also in the Presbyterian Mis- sions in Africa, especially in the great settle- ment of Lovedale, which is a real school of industry for the natives. This result of missionary effort is praised even by those who have no sympathy with its higher aims. Missionaries have not only done much for civilisation, they have also done much for science. All over the world they have been the first to reduce illiterate languages to writing, to make grammars for them, to pro- vide them with translations of the Bible and other books. They have been foremost amongst discoverers and explorers of un- known lands, and their studies of the customs of primitive peoples have been a most impor- tant contribution to ethnology. Many of them have been distinguished as naturalists, geographers and scientific observers, and their letters home, from the days of the earliest Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries to the present time, are an important contribution to our knowledge of the world. It is common for travellers and superficial observers to criticise adversely the methods of missionaries and the results of their work, but before attending to what they say it is 192 w MISSIONS well to examine the sources of their knowledge, and to discover whether their own experience and observation of what is being done has given them any right to criticise. On the other side, there is much evidence from official Blue-books and reports, as well as from the statements of some of the most experienced administrators and some of the most observant travellers in other lands to show the value of the missionaries' work. Lord Lawrence once said: "Notwithstand- ing all that the English people have done to benefit India, the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined." Another distinguished Indian administrator. Sir Mackworth Young, said in 1900: "The work done by missionary agency exceeds in importance all that has been done (and much has been done) by the British Government since its commencement. The most potent influence that has been working amongst the people since annexation is Christianity as set forth in the lives of Christian missionaries/ 5 Not least amongst the results of the activities of Christians in India has been the effect produced upon the leading classes of the population in compelling them to emulate CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS 193 the work of the missionaries by philanthropic and educational work of their own. Captain Younghnsband gives some interest- ing pictures of the Roman Catholic Missions he visited on his travels in Manchuria. He speaks of a bishop who had lived in the country for over thirty years and died there; his whole village was Christian; the mission- ary had begun by educating the children as Christians, and they, when they grew to be men, brought up their children as Christians. They were sincere and devout in their Sunday worship, and seemed like a different race from the cold, hard, heathen Chinamen in the other villages round. In the far inland parts of China, Younghusband visited in a remote spot three French priests, whom he describes as not only good men, but real men types of pure, genuine goodness. They had gone out for their whole lives and were absolutely cut off from the world. "Their strong simple natures were bound to affect for good all who met them. They were not dull or stern or morbid, but had a fund of simple joviality and were full of spirits, with just a sigh when they spoke of c la belle France, 5 which they were never to see again." 194 MISSIONS It is the great strength, of tiie Roman Missions that so many of the missionaries, both men and women members of religious orders, go out to the mission field for life and never return. The orders provide a constant supply of successors, and they are therefore able to man their missions with less difficulty than other religious bodies. Captain Young- husband summarises his impressions of mis- sions by saying: "The traveller through strange countries cannot help recognising that there is something in the Christian religion vastly superior to others, but he sees that these latter have much that is good and true in them also . . . those who desire to be leaders in a religion and to gain adher- ents for it, must study in a sympathetic man- ner the religions of others . . . they will be able to slowly raise the moral standard of those among whom they live, and give those who are more ignorant a higher conception of the Deity . . . this is what the best missionaries are doing in China and have been doing for years and years." CHAPTER X THE PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS IT Is not easy to present a comprehensive view of the present condition of mission work amongst non-Christian peoples, but some attempt must be made to give an idea of the progress made in the last hundred years. We have seen that the Roman Church has always been a missionary Church, and has ever regarded missions as part of its activity as a Church. The task has been attacked with varying energy; there have been periods of slackness, of almost entire neglect followed by great revivals, the revivals being generally due to the creation of new religious orders. It is not possible to arrive at any very exact statement of the amount of their mission work amongst non-Christians, or to compare their statistics with those of Protestant missions, since no uniform system of statistics has ever been followed. As far as can be 195 196 MISSIONS ascertained there are In the non-Christian world about 9,000,000 Roman Catholic con- verts, including both baptised and cate- chumens, and about 5,300,000 Protestant; whilst there are nearly 8000 Roman priests and 5,500 ordained Protestant missionaries, besides the women, the medical and other lay-missionaries. It is a large force, but the work before it is enormous, and those who know the history of the spread of Christianity during the early centuries of our era will readily see that there is no cause for dis- couragement in the progress made since the Reformed Churches awoke to a sense of their missionary responsibility. In Japan, where for long centuries all doors were closed to teachers from outside, Christi- anity has become naturalised, and there are among the Japanese Christians men possess- ing the character and ability to manage their own Churches, and to enable them to a large extent to do without outside help* This is the work of the last fifty years. Japanese Church organisations are being formed in connexion with the different religious de- nominations, for the Japanese wish that their PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 197 Church should express the national spirit. The strengthening of these churches is of vital importance for the future of the East, where at present Japan is the leading and progressive nation. The educated Japanese are drifting away from their old religions, and are for the most part naturalistic and agnostic. No religion is taught in the State schools. In the words of a distinguished Japanese statesman. Count Okuma: "The old religion and the old morals are steadily losing their hold, and nothing has as yet risen to take their place/ 3 The great University of Tokio swarms with students from all parts of the far East among them are 3000 Chinese. These students have for the most part thrown off their old beliefs and found nothing else to satisfy them. Here is the great opportunity of Christianity. There is no hostility to it, but the movement in its favour, which began some twenty years ago, has been checked, mainly owing to the reports brought back by Japanese visitors to Western lands. Shocked at the social evils of the West, at the slums and poverty which they saw, they became doubtful of the power of 198 MISSIONS Christianity to regenerate the world. There are, however, Japanese Christians to be found in many prominent positions, and the import- ance of the Christians in Japan is quite out of proportion to their numbers. Amongst them were to be found in 1910, fourteen members of the House of Representatives, an admiral, officers both in the Army and the Navy, a Cabinet Minister, and several judges. The Government welcomes the as- sistance of the missionaries in many kinds of philanthropic work. They are allowed to visit criminals in prison, and by the conversion of the officials and their wives and most of the prisoners, have made one large prison with 2000 inmates into a sort of Christian community. Most of the leaders amongst the Japanese converts, and many prominent persons in Japan, amongst them the editors of at least twenty of the leading journals, were educated in mission schools. The influence of these schools is said to have "inspired the new literature of Japan, to have vitalised its new civilisation with spiritual ideas, and to have been on the side of righteousness and purity PRESENT EXTENT OP MISSIONS 199 In national, family and private life." Now that the Government has seriously under- taken the work of education, it is hard for the mission schools to become as efficient as the State-aided schools, and the tendency is for the missions to devote their energies to training colleges for clergy and teachers, and to providing hostels for the students in great educational centres. There is a growing desire for the establishment of a Christian University. In Japan is to be found the only important mission of the Orthodox Church outside the boundaries of the Russian Empire. At its head was a saintly Archbishop, Nicolai, honoured by men of all communions, who died early in 1912. Some 30,000 Japanese belong to that Church, and its services are conducted with all the reverent and elaborate ceremonial that prevails in Moscow itself. Korea was long a closed country to foreign- ers. After it was opened missionaries soon penetrated into the unknown land. No country has responded more quickly to their teaching. There are now 200,000 Christians, of whom about 64,000 are Roman Catholics. The numbers are rapidly increasing, and the 200 MISSIONS Koreans show themselves not only ready hearers, but eager missionaries as soon as they have learned the truth. The number of converts grows rapidly. There is one Church that in a space of sixteen years has grown into five Churches, and yet the original con- gregation still numbers ,500, and is so large that the men and women have to meet separately. The Koreans are a poor people, but already their Churches are largely self- supporting, and those who cannot give money give work, offering to give themselves for some fixed number of days in the year to the work of evangelists. Women have cut off their hair that it might be sold for the mission. Revival preaching has produced a great effect upon the Koreans, who have been won by thousands in this way. The Bible is the book which has the largest sale amongst the Korean people; they have a respect for learning, and the mission schools are helping much in the spread of general education and in the raising up of a native ministry. A Korean Christian, speaking in 1910 of the present state of things in his country, said that the rapid conversion of the people would prove a danger unless PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 201 the number of missionaries could be increased, for the people needed thorough teaching that the foundations of the Church of the future might be laid wide and deep. The task of evangelising the countless millions of China is one that has had the strongest fascination for the Church of Christ since the days when the first travellers who penetrated into the unknown land brought back the tales of what they had seen and heard. The work of the Roman Church, which was carried on with so much success by the Jesuits, left comparatively little remaining after the expulsion of that order, and the present condition of the Roman Church in China, with its total of about a million adher- ents and its large number of Chinese priests and nuns, is mainly due to the activities of the last hundred years. The Imperial De- cree procured by the French Minister in 1899 gave their missionaries a political rank and status, and their bishops now rank with the governors of the provinces. The British Minister offered to secure a similar status for the Anglican bishops, but they refused it, preferring to remain independent of politics. MISSIONS The Roman Catholic churches are large and prominent, and they have fine schools, hospitals and orphanages. The number of converts made by the missions of the Reformed Churches is barely half the number of Roman Catholics. The work of missions was much hindered by the wars by which England compelled China to open her ports to trade and forced opium upon her. The treaties which made it possible for the missionaries to enter the country brought also the opium, and this cast a shadow over the Christian Missions. The missionaries have been hated as foreigners rather than as teachers of a new religion. The Chinese, as a result of their long seclusion, are contemptuous, cold and conceited, but the wall of isolation which began slowly to break down in the latter half of the nineteenth century is now rapidly disappearing. In Manchuria in 1872 there was no baptised Christian belonging to a Protestant Churcli. Three were baptised the next year by an American missionary, and these first converts at once felt it their duty to teach to their countrymen what they had learned. There PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 203 are now 30,000 baptised Christians, with many native ministers supported by their own people besides hundreds of thousands of people interested in Christianity. It is said that the vast majority of the converts were made by the Manchurian Christians them- selves, and that as a result of their work idolatry is dead in Manchuria. The edict of toleration, published by the Chinese Emperor in 1844, made it possible for missionaries to penetrate into the far interior of the country, and they are to be found now in every province, though their numbers are utterly inadequate to the tremendous task before them. All alike realise that it is only by the agency of native evangelists that the vast population of China can ever be converted. It is, therefore, the first object of the missionaries to train up men and women to be teachers and leaders of their fellow countrymen, and for this purpose to provide schools and theological colleges. The Americans have been especially active in missionary work in China, and their educational and medical missions are well equipped and admirably organised* Many MISSIONS Chinese students pass on from them to com- plete their studies in America. The English have more particularly devoted themselves to direct evangelisation, and to translating and distributing the Bible and other litera- ture. They too however are increasingly giving themselves to educational work. The missionary as he teaches in the schools un- consciously teaches the civilisation which has been built up under the influence of Christianity. Christian ideas slowly per- meate and affect Chinese public opinion, and the way in which the Chinese have been imbued with them can be seen in the change of attitude with regard to opium smoking, footbinding and slavery. There is a very large proportion of women amongst the missionaries in China, as the work of raising the women is considered of the first import- ance, since upon them the superstitious ideas of the old religion have the strongest hold. Though hitherto despised and uneducated their influence on the children and in the homes is all-powerful, and on them the building up of Christian homes in the future must depend. The Chinese Christians are PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 05 conspicuous by their cheerfulness and happi- ness when the Christian hope takes the place of the cheerless outlook of oriental life. We hear of the beatific expression on the faces of some of the superior converts. They have also shown their courage and persistency under cruel persecution. In the Boxer rising 30,000 Roman Catholic and 10,000 Protestant converts perished, though many of them could have saved their lives by trampling on a piece of paper bearing the name of Jesus. A great work still lies before the Christian Church in China, but all feel that the future will lie in the hands of the Chinese Christians. They want their own Church, not a foreign Church, as one of them- selves has said: "The controlling power of the Christian Church in China has largely been in the hands of foreign missionaries, and there is no doubt that it should have been so in the days gone by; but the time has come when every Chinese Christian should realise and undertake this responsibility." But to help them to build up that Church they still ask urgently for the help of the foreign missionary. 06 MISSIONS Of all mission fields India is probably the one which has attracted the most attention from all parts of Christendom and from every variety of religious organisation. The Chris- tian Churches of all countries of the world have naturally regarded India, ever the home of religion, as their great opportunity. If India could become Christian, it would not only ensure the Christianity of the East but enrich the Christianity of the West. The progress of Christianity in India during the past fifty years has been steady and ever increasing in rapidity. The last census re- turns show that whilst the total increase of the population has been 6A per cent., the Christians have increased 11.6 per cent. This increase in the Punjab amounted to 400 per cent. To a still greater extent it may be said that Christian thought is influencing Indian thought and ideals. There are many men and perhaps more women who are Christians at heart, but have not the courage to come forward for baptism. Baptism means the breaking of caste, hence the utter separa- tion from family and friends; it has often seemed to a man to involve even the giving PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 207 up of his country and becoming the member of a foreign community. The influence of Christianity therefore cannot be measured by the number of converts. Canon Brown, head of the Oxford Mission to Calcutta, writes: " Nothing is more common, as one travels about Bengal, than to get into conversation with some native fellow-traveller who by and by tells you he would like to be a Christian, but is withheld by family considerations." It is amongst the outcasts, amongst the masses of Southern India, that there are the largest number of converts. Probably the motive for conversion is feeble and inadequate in the majority of cases, but the preparation of these people for baptism, their training in the Christian life afterwards, is a task which enables the missionary to bear a most effective witness to his faith. A Brahmin Commis- sioner, writing of the miserable condition of the outcasts, and the effect of Christianity in humanising and raising them, says: "The Brahmin community of southern India are not doing what the casteless Britisher is doing . . . our organisation as the chief caste of the Hindu community does not provide help or means 208 MISSIONS of relief for them. We have regular insti- tutions all over India for doing charity to Brahmins, but none either inculcated in book or practised by our ancestors to the outcasts. The credit of going to the houses of the low, the depressed and the dirty, and putting the shoulder to the wheel of depraved humanity, belongs to the Englishman/' Though the number of converts is greatest amongst the outcasts, Christianity has pene- trated much more deeply among the educated as an influence on thought. The small number of converts amongst the educated is claimed by some as being in one sense an advantage, because it enables the utmost individual attention to be given to each. These men exercise an influence upon public opinion quite out of proportion to their numbers. They are preparing the way for others. The slowly permeating influence of Christianity is by degrees "changing the ideas of the Indian nation, destroying its intellectual idols, raising its conception of morals." So far there has been a lack of leaders amongst the Indian Christians. The national char- acteristics are not of the kind likely to make PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 209 leaders, and tlie missionaries have perhaps been too slow to give responsibility to the Indians. But all missions are coming to see the necessity for training Indian leaders and trusting them with real responsibility, and also for making the Indian Christians do more for the support of their own Churches. This is a difficult matter, especially amongst the country folk, on accountof their great poverty. But in the Christian villages of the Punjab, of which there are many, the people bring of their substance to the church collections on Sunday, rice, corn, flour, butter or a kid, and poor coolies will give as much in money as half a day's wages. In the south it is a common practice for the Christian women to put a handful of rice aside in a basket for the church each time a meal is prepared, and this basket of rice is brought to the church once a month. The Indian Christians have been much slower than the Chinese or the Koreans to show any missionary activity themselves, but of late years they have formed some Indian missionary organisations, and alongside of the growing national feeling is an increasing desire for an Indian Church. If the con- 210 MISSIONS version of India is to be accomplished its peoples must learn that Christianity is not a Western religion; it needs teachers of their own race to present to them the universal Christ in a manner which shall appeal to their Eastern minds. Missionary activity in India embraces every kind of work, from the highest educational and medical work to the teaching of the most ignorant peasant. Many varied opinions pre- vail as to which kind of work is the most important at the present juncture, but all are agreed that the work amongst the women, and the uplifting of their social position, is one of the most crying needs. This is work which requires Christian women of high attainments and wide and understanding sympathies* The change in the position of Indian women which is beginning is nothing less than a social revolution, and it will be an irretrievable disaster for India if the Indian woman, in her coming emancipation from her old conditions and from the religious sanctions which hedged in her life and conduct, gains nothing to take their place. The women mis- sionaries in India have a deep responsibility PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 211 laid upon them in helping the Indian women to frame new ideals for themselves which shall preserve the best of the old whilst adding to them the liberty of the Christian. Though there are missions belonging to almost every religious body and sent by many different nations, the mission force is wholly inadequate for the great work that lies before it amongst the teeming masses of India. It would be true to say that almost every mission is undermanned, whilst it sees before it vast opportunities of extension which it is unable to seize for lack of funds and workers. In some few centres there is overlapping by the different religious organisations, which shows the disadvantages of the want of unity and the consequent lack of statesmanship in organising the work to be done by the different denominations. But the general estimate is that if Christian teaching is to be carried into all parts of India, the number of missionaries should be increased fourfold. Even as it is, the situation in spite of many grave difficulties, is full of hope and encouragement. For fifty years at least the advance has been steady, even in numbers. 212 MISSIONS The number of ordained Indian ministers has increased f ortyf old. But mere numbers give no test of the real progress. The missions are most of them full of life and enterprise, manned with 'workers of real thought and power, who are ever alert to discover the best way of presenting the truth to the Indian people and connecting it with their own rich religious heritage. The progress of Christianity has led to revival movements amongst some of the Indian religions, which have copied certain Christian methods, and shown a desire to assimilate Christian truth and claim Christ for their own systems. This tendency makes it all the more imperative that the missionary should understand the religious beliefs of the Indian peoples, and that Christendom should recognise how, in the words of Bishop Lefroy, at the present time "almost everything is in solution and the direction largely undeter- mined.'* and hence the urgent need that "Christianity should really enter as a potent factor, able in greater or less degree to exercise that commanding influence which is hers by right, if only she is given a chance." In Burma the conditions of missionary PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 213 work are much the same as In India. The greatest progress has been made amongst the hill tribes who show an astonishing eagerness to embrace Christianity. The Burmese are Buddhists, as are also most of the people in Ceylon, and amongst them of late there has been a considerable revival encouraged by European residents who have taken an interest in Buddhism. Some of these have even been numbered amongst its adherents. The Buddhists have copied many Christian methods and are using aggressive measures to spread their teaching. In Siam there is but little being done by Christian Missions, and French Indo-China is closed to all except Roman Catholics. These countries were in former days the starting- point for missions to China. In Singapore and British Borneo the English missionary societies minister to their own people, and carry on besides as much mission work as their resources allow. The Dutch East Indies have been largely overrun by Mohammedans. There is a considerable amount of activity shown by Dutch missionary agencies. Much success has been gained by the Rhenish Mis- 214 MISSIONS sionary Society during the last fifty years amongst the Bataks, a hill people living in the interior of Sumatra. The Bataks were sunk in the most savage paganism and the darkest superstition, and for a time resisted all efforts to teach them. The missionaries were in con- stant danger of their lives among these rude cannibals, who only wished to rid the land of them. By degrees a few were won over, and then whole communities followed, impelled to act together by the strong corporate sense which characterises these people. The civilis- ing work of the Dutch Government in making roads and introducing order assisted the spread of Christianity and now more than a sixth of the Bataks are Christians, with many native ordained ministers and teachers, and the tribes that are still heathen are asking for teachers and schools. This mission is another example of the rapid progress that can be made when the native Christians give themselves with zeal to the conversion of their country- men. The vast group of islands called Melanesia and the great island of New Guinea have been the scene of heroic labours on the part PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS of missionaries, which have led to the sacrifice of many noble lives. The work has been full of difficulty owing to the incredible variety of languages and dialects, but it has met with rich success. Many islands are entirely Chris- tian, and have themselves provided teachers for the other islands, so that the work of evangelisation is largely in the hands of native missionaries. The Papuan has a special fit- ness for this work. He can travel lightly equipped, he is capable of great endurance, and he is eager to give Ms message, proving in that way the usefulness of the desire inborn in the native to pass on information. So the good news of the Gospel is borne from village to village. The Papuan also has great facility in learning the native dialects, and the com- munal system of village life natural to them helps the native Christians to realise their responsibility for one another; they are very faithful and loyal to their missionaries, and can be trusted to carry out any work thej are given to do. Much of the mission work carried on in New Guinea is supported bj Australians. But in some parts of Australia help is still needed from England for thei] 216 MISSIONS own mission work. Men are wanted for the bush brotherhoods that minister amongst the settlers, and both men and money are needed for work amongst the aboriginals who still survive. These aboriginals are to be found chiefly in the north and the north-west, and have been very much neglected in the past and even horribly ill-treated by settlers. There are some 80,000 black men still remaining, wild, untamed savages who, under the care of the missionaries, are learning to till the ground and to lead an ordered and settled life. There is also need for mission work amongst the Chinese, Japanese and other non-Christian peoples who come to northern Australia for purposes of trade. In New Zealand the native population, the Maoris, have for the most part become Christians. The treatment they received from the early settlers, who wished to exterminate them, led to many fierce wars, for they are a sturdy and independent race. Bishop Sel- wyn showed himself their friend, and was active in promoting their evangelisation. The Maori Christians were eager missionaries themselves from the first, some of them PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 217 suffering martyrdom for their faith. There are Maori clergy now ministering to their own people. The Polynesian Islands have been the centre of much missionary effort for about a hundred years, and now heathenism has practically disappeared from amongst them. The native Church has developed organisation of its own, and, with relapses here and there, a Christian standard of life is maintained* The stage of evangelism is over; it remains to be seen how the life of the Church will progress and develop. The missionaries have established communications between the dif- ferent islands, and civilisation has followed the missionary enterprise. The difficulty of mission work in the vast continent of Africa is enormously increased by the deadliness of the climate in many parts, by the vast extent of the area to be covered, and the comparative scantiness of the population, which uses, moreover, an endless variety not only of dialects, but of distinct languages. At least one hundred different translations of the Bible have been needed for use in Africa. The conditions 218 MISSIONS of the African peoples are for the most part still primitive; they have lived shut off from civilisation, torn by intertribal wars, de- vastated by slave raiding. The work of the missionary is to bring civilisation as well as religion, but in most cases he has little to build upon. He has to teach habits of work, to introduce industries and education, to reduce languages to writing, to teach respect for property and human life. Some of the largest and most successful missions in Africa have been industrial, and have taken the form of settlements comprising schools, workshops, and farms which, whilst educating and train- ing the children, spread their civilising effect over the neighbouring districts. The great menace to Africa is the rapid advance of Islam, which has been assisted by the opening-up of the country under the protection of the various European powers, amongst whom the continent has been divided up. In Egypt, the Soudan, and the vast districts of East Africa and Hausaland, British policy has been influenced by the fear of provoking disorder and outbursts of fanaticism, and the tendency has been PRESENT EXTENT OP MISSIONS 219 to encourage the Moslems at the expense of the Christians, and to hinder missionaries from preaching to Moslems. The strength of the Moslem power is naturally in Egypt, and all along the north of Africa the people are mainly Moslems. The French Order of the White Fathers, founded by Cardinal Lavi- gerie, works for their conversion in the French colony of Algiers and the desert behind. The Fathers suffer from difficulties put into their way by the French Government, which does not wish the Moslems to be interfered with. Their work, and that of other religious orders, has spreadfarther andfarther into the interior. In all Africa the Roman Catholics have over 1500 mission priests, but so far they have not built up a native priesthood; there are only some ten native priests, besides the priests of the ancient Coptic and Ethiopian Churches, which are in communion with Rome. Many nuns and lay-brothers help in the work of the missions, teaching in the schools, and working in the fields side by side with the natives to encourage them in habits of industry. In Uganda, in Nyassaland, and elsewhere, the Roman Catholic and Protestant 220 MISSIONS Missions have come into contact with one another, sometimes with most unfortunate results. On the west coast of Africa are some long- established missions going back to the day when Sierra Leone was founded (1786) as a settlement for slaves rescued from the slave ships. The work here had special difficulties from the first, and it was only the patient labours of successive missionaries that brought order into the strange community of rescued slaves gathered from many different tribes and peoples, and taught them industries and civilised habits. Now most of the people there are Christians, and there are schools and colleges where many native clergy have been educated. A rescued slave boy, Crow- ther, grew up to be the first native bishop of the Anglican Church. There are now two native bishops in West Africa, and the native Church itself does much mission work amongst the heathen tribes inland and gives generously for its support. All down the west coast the labours of the European missionaries are constantly hindered by the deadly climate. The number of missionaries is far from PRESENT EXTENT OP MISSIONS sufficient, and the native CImrclies are not yet strong enough to stand entirely alone. For the most part the peoples of the coun- try inland are untouched. It is being opened up to trade, and in these newly opened districts the white man is looked upon not as a bringer of the good news of the Gospel, but as a disturber of existing conditions and the representative of a superior and alien power. Yet the natives who come in contact with the missions constantly ask that teachers should be sent to their villages also, and the only hindrance to the further extension of mission work, with its civilising and educational activities, lies in the paucity of the workers. Missions from many different countries, and belonging to many different denominations, are at work all along the vast stretch of the West African coast, and extend also up the Congo river and into the Congo Free State. The difficulties of the work there were terribly increased by the awful cruelties inflicted by the Belgian officials. The coming of the white man seemed nothing but a curse to a country which, when Stanley first discovered it, ap- MISSIONS peared to be full of promise for the future. But the natives have learned to recognise the difference between the missionaries and the officials, and there is every reason to hope that better methods of government are now being introduced by the Belgian authorities* In South Africa, mission work amongst the native races has long been carried on. It has its special difficulties caused by the mingling of the white and coloured races, and the consequent racial animosities, jealousies and antagonisms. There is a feeling amongst some of the white population that the native is spoilt by education and by being converted to Christianity. His labour is needed on the land and in the mines for the development of the country, and it is maintained that edu- cation and conversion will make him less tractable to his employers. But the value of the missions to the native population was fully recognised by the "Government Com- mission on Native Affairs," which reported in 1905, and stated that "for the moral improvement of the natives there is available no influence equal to that of religious belief "; PRESENT EXTENT OP MISSIONS 223 and that "one great element for the civilisa- tion of the natives is to be found in Christian- ity." There is need for much effort to counteract the disastrous effects upon the morals and habits of the natives produced by life at the mining centres. The mining authorities have not, as a rule, been friendly to missions, and have not helped to provide churches and schools. Yet the importance of the work of the missionaries at the mining centres cannot be over-estimated, and is far-reaching in its effects. The native does not stay long at the mines, he goes off home to his far-distant village with his earnings, and spreads there what he has learned for good or evil during his absence. In the British Protectorates that lie to the north of United South Africa are many flourishing and well-established missions. Here are the great missions of the Scottish Churches in North-eastern Rhodesia, at Livingstonia, and in Nyassaland, and the French Protestant Mission amongst the Barotse, founded by Francois Coillard, one of the most devoted of missionaries. Moshesh, the chief of the Basuto, invited (1833) the MISSIONS French missionaries to live with Mm and teach his people. The situation was very difficult; the missionaries had to contend against the prejudices and passions of a pagan people for the most part ruled by the terrors of witchcraft, and also to try to keep the peace between the various tribes and to defend the natives against the unjust encroachment of Europeans. Coillard was a man of rare devotion, and of great wisdom and tact. The result of his life's work was the building of many churches, schools and industrial institutions. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the mission, the Resident Commissioner spoke of it as "a unique spectacle in South Africa a native tribe dwelling in peace and prosperity under their own chief and their own laws, a people advancing in civilisation, and having everywhere the advantages of religious and secular education freely offered to them." This and many other missions, Dutch as well as English, show what can be done to train and develop the native. In the large district of Portuguese East Africa there is very little mission work; even PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS the Roman Church, is not active here. In German East Africa there are many mission stations well placed, but quite inadequate to reach the population scattered over this vast district. There are several Roman Catholic Missions with many priests and sisters at work, as well as German Protestant Missions, and the English Universities Mission with its centre at Zanzibar. Zanzibar is the centre also of Arab influence, and from it come the traders and porters who penetrate into every part of the German colony, and they, as well as the native officials and soldiers in the employment of the German Government, are everywhere spreading the power of Islam. There is much need here for an increase in the number of missionaries, and for the establishment of schools to check, by Christian education, the advance of the Mos- lem faith. Everywhere the importance of education is emphasised by the missionaries if a native Church is to be created, and if the ignorant natives are to be saved from hasty conversion to Islam. Much the same conditions prevail in British East Africa; but the vigorous young Church of Uganda 226 MISSIONS Is already showing its zeal by sending out evangelists to the heathen peoples in its neighborhood. In the opinion of those who have considered the problem of Africa as a whole, the mission- ary forces in Africa should be trebled to meet even the needs of existing missions. A more favourable attitude towards missions on the part of Christian Governments in Africa is also urgently needed, since it is clear that missionaries have been the best pioneers of commerce, the best promoters of friendly relations between the different tribes, and the best teachers of industry and order. Hausaland, hitherto almost untouched, should be made a great centre of missionary effort, which should radiate from thence to all parts of Africa, and be the most potent check to the Mohammedan advance. Medical missions have proved to be the most fruitful means of penetrating amongst the Mohammedans them- selves, and Christian schools the best method of winning the still pagan natives, and preparing the way for Christian teaching. Christian missions were started in Mada- gascar in 1820 with much success. A cruel PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 227 persecution tried the constancy of the early converts, but ultimately led to the conversion of many others, and finally of the queen and many of the chief people of the island. But since the French annexed Madagascar in 1895, the missions have passed through very difficult times. The Government, without showing itself at all friendly to the Roman Catholic Missions, is distinctly hostile to theProtestant Missions, and by its regulations is making it almost impossible for them to carry on their work, yet the missionaries feel that they must not desert their converts, who have stood firm through many trials and difficulties. In the wide territories of the Dominion of Canada there is still need for the labours of the missionary amongst the scattered tribes of Red Indians, and amongst the Eskimos in the frozen lands of the north. Here, from the days of the Jesuit pioneers to the days of Bishop BompasandDr. Grenf ell, missionary heroes have travelled long days through ice and snow in sledges and canoes to carry the good tidings of the Gospel. The Government both in Canada and in the United States is doing much to help the missions in their work 228 MISSIONS of educating and civilising the Indians who still survive, and who, under improved con- ditions, are even beginning to increase in number. In Alaska the work of the American missionaries among the Eskimos is made very difficult by the character of the white men who are attracted there by the quest for gold. Along the western coast of North America, mission work of many varied kinds is needed amongst the Chinese, Japanese and Hindus who have settled there. South America was superficially converted by the Spaniards and Portuguese in the early days of their colonisation, but there still remain Indian tribes in the interior quite untouched by Christianity. They are very difficult of approach by the missionary, since they speak many different languages and live buried in the tropical forests or along the luxuriant river valleys, where the climate is deadly to the white man. The very imperfect Christianity of many of the nominal members of the Roman Catholic Church has led the North American Protestant Missions to direct their energies to work amongst them rather than to the more difficult task of reaching the PRESENT EXTENT OP MISSIONS still pagan peoples in the interior. Of late years, more efforts have been made to reach these still untouched peoples, but the diffi- culties of work in South America, owing both to the nature of the climate and to political considerations, have led to its being largely neglected by most Protestant Missionary Societies, neither have the Roman Catholics done much either to convert the heathen or to improve the condition of the great mass of those who are only nominally Christian. Amongst the Moslem peoples on the Levant and in Persia and Arabia, Christian Missions have been carried on with extreme difficulty and with little apparent result. Religious freedom was non-existent for Moslems in the Turkish Empire, and a converted Moslem could only save his life by flight from his country. It remains to be seen what changes may follow from the new rule in Turkey. The indirect effect of the educational work of the Americans on the Levant, through their schools and colleges, it is impossible to measure. The Christian schools have set the standard for education in Turkey, and the influence of the character of the men trained 230 MISSIONS in the American colleges has been felt in every part of the Turkish Empire. Sir William Ramsay writes: "I have come in contact with men educated in Robert College (the American College on the Bosphorus) in widely separate parts of the country, men of different races and different forms of religion, and have everywhere been struck with the marvellous way in which a certain uniform type, direct, simple, honest and lofty in tone., has been impressed upon them; some had more of it, some less, but all had it to a certain degree, and it is diametrically opposite to the type produced by growth under the ordinary conditions of Turkish life." In his opinion, Beirut and Robert Colleges have produced an educated middle class in the Turkish Empire. All through the East the influence of the medical, literary and educational work of these missions may be found. Thought and life have been affected, if conversion has been impossible. In Palestine, the attraction of the associations of the country has led to the establishment of many missions and much unfortunate rivalry and overlapping. In Armenia and Assyria, modern missions have PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS 31 gone to the help of the ancient Churches, which had survived persecution and neglect, but were languishing in isolation. During the terrible Armenian massacres, the missionaries have helped to save life and have shown both prudence and heroism in a remarkable degree. In Arabia, medical work is slowly forcing an opening for Christian teaching, and is at least doing something to remove hostility and prejudice. Persia has some strong mission centres with large hospitals, some of them being amongst the best equipped in the mission field. Here women as well as men doctors are at work, and by their loving care have been able to break down even the hostility of the mullahs. In this brief and imperfect survey of Christian missions scattered over the whole world, an attempt has been made to give some idea of their many activities. In every country, and almost in every mission station, it may be said that the forces are inadequate for their needs and for the great opportunities open before them. In some districts the work can only be said to have been begun. There are besides many portions of the world where MISSIONS not even a beginning has been made. These include large parts of Asia, such as Mongolia, Turkestan, Tibet, and Afghanistan. In Africa, more than one-third of the whole population, especially in the central regions, is quite outside the scope of any missionary agency. The work is vast, the means to do it seem hopelessly inadequate. Yet, in spite of all discouragements, the most scientific statistics show that Christians are increasing more rapidly, both as regards their total number and their ratio to the population of the world, than the adherents of any other religion. CHAPTER XI THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY THE growth, and development of foreign missions, the increased interest in them during the last hundred years, is self-evident. The duty and responsibility of Christians, to whatever denomination they may belong, to spread the knowledge of the Gospel is more widely recognised than it has ever been since the days of the early Church. The change in the views taken on the subject can be judged by the quality of the men and women who offer themselves for this service. When the great English Missionary Societies were first founded, it was difficult to find men of any kind ready to go out as mission- aries, and during the first years of its exist- ence, the Church Missionary Society had to employ German Lutherans. Now, amongst the missionaries of all societies are to be found men who might, if they had chosen it, have 233 234 MISSIONS been prominent In the ministry at home, men of university distinction and states- manlike powers, educationalists and medical men and women who would have gained professional eminence in any part of the world. Most remarkable has been the In- crease of women missionaries during the latter part of the nineteenth century. This has been closely allied with the general movement for the higher education of women. Women are learning to hear the call to service not only in the home, but in the Church and in the State, The educational oppor- tunities opened to them after many struggles and difficulties have enabled them to fit themselves as doctors and teachers, to go to the help of suffering and ignorant women all over the world. The greater freedom won for them to lead their own lives has made enterprise and independence in this work for others possible. The ignorant opposition and even hostility which was formerly shown to missions in general has largely disappeared. But this does not mean that there is not still much opposition and much want of sympathy and THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY S5 understanding to be found. There are many who tell us that the nations should be left to develop on their own lines, and that we should not try to foist Western ideas upon the East. But Europe shows no inclination to leave the East alone. The progress of trade, the desire for colonial expansion, political considerations, as well as the mere desire for travel and adventure, are carrying Western ideas over all the world. The nations are not being left to develop on their own lines. Intercourse with the civilised, and progressive nations of the world makes clear to the non-Christian peoples the in- sufficiency of their own religions, whilst it teaches them the vices of the civilised people; we are bound to try to give them something higher in return for what we are taking away. In those parts of the world where white men have settled amongst primitive peoples, in Africa and Australia, the colonists are often inclined to believe that to keep the black man ignorant will make him more willing to work for them in the ways that they desire. This means practically the enslaving of the inferior races in the service of the superior. It 236 MISSIONS must lead to the degeneration of the superior; it cannot lead to the development of the inferior along their own lines, and hence must only tend to their degradation. The only way by which this danger can be avoided is by the recognition of one aim for all, and that aim, the common good of all. But we are met again by the objection that these people are not fit for Christianity, that they are spoilt by conversion, that the raw native is altogether a finer fellow than the convert. To this it may be answered that very few of those who criticise the natives who call themselves Christians in any part of the world take the trouble to find out how far these men have any right to the name of Christians. They may be nothing more than persons who for a brief while attended a mission school and were dismissed for bad conduct; or their connexion with a mission may belong to a remote past, and their pretensions to Christianity may be only revived in the hope of producing a favourable impression. Apart from this, people are apt to expect much too much from converts, and to fail to realise the extraordin- THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 37 ary difficulty of their position. As an ex- perienced missionary in China has said: "They are shut off from what is the life of many a Christian in a Christian country and what is so helpful, the tradition behind it, the hereditary examples and traditions, the Christian atmosphere. The Christian converts in the mission field stand up without any of these helps. They stand up, to the eye of the flesh alone, to face an unchristian world; can we wonder if they sometimes stumble and fall ? " In India, the loss of caste consequent on baptism separates the convert absolutely from all his former friends and relations from everything on which his former life was built. Yet Christians may often be recognised by the happiness and peace in their faces, and in every land and in every age of the Church's history down to the present day, converts have gladly sacrificed wealth and position and friends, and have endured persecution and horrible torture and cruel deaths for the sake of the Master they have chosen to follow. That the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church is as true in the mission field to-day as it was in the days of Tertullian. 238 MISSIONS On the whole, the general feeling in favour of missions steadily grows stronger. Even cold, dispassionate observers recognise the good work that is being done, and some, not Christians themselves, see in missions a means by which the brotherhood of man is being more fully realised. Each year, a larger proportion of the members of all the different denominations are led to take a more living interest in foreign missions, and to feel that the responsibility for them rests with the Church as a whole, and not only with a small section of interested persons. At the same time with greater knowledge and wider experience, there is a growing sense of the difficulty of the task, of the need for careful preparation for it, and for earnest study of its problems. Fewmissionary societies at present think that any person of zeal and devotion who offers as a candidate is fit to be sent at once to the foreign mission field. Tests of increasing stringency are applied to candidates and more and more time spent in preparation and training is demanded from them. It is being recognised that not only general theo- logical training is needed by evangelists, not THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 239 only professional training by missionary teachers, nurses and doctors, but that they should also receive special teaching to prepare them for the problems they will meet, teaching in the history, the religions, the customs and social organisation of the people amongst whom they are going to work, as well as opportunities for language-study, which will enable them really to master the languages in which they intend to teach. All this was realised by the great missionaries of the past, who got for themselves the teaching which, in their day, no one was competent to give them at home, and themselves laid the founda- tions of those studies in languages, religions, ethnology and sociology, which now attract so much attention from scholars. But the ordinary missionary was content to deliver the simple message of the Gospel, and to attempt to plant in a new country the forms and observances which had grown up under different circumstances and amongst different peoples. Their efforts, however feeble, were again and again crowned with success. The story of the Gospel, and the witness offered to the truth of that story, were sufficient to 240 MISSIONS gain countless adherents. But the increasing conviction that in order to build up strong native Churches, opportunities for free growth and development must be allowed to them, and that the expression of Christian truth must be in the terms, and in the form, of the thought of the people itself points more and more to the necessity that every missionary should try to fit himself to know how to present the truth, and how to guide the de- velopment of the native Church. One of the most marked characteristics of the missionary activity of the present day is the desire to find out how to improve missionary methods, and how to use the results of the study that has been devoted by scholars in many lands to the history of religions and sociology, for the advance- ment of the Christian faith. Whilst increased knowledge of other religions only convinces them the more of the unique character of the Christian religion and of its universal application, missionary students yet see with ever new clearness the truth taught by St. Paul that God at no time and amongst no people has left Himself without THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 241 a witness. They believe also that each new people as it accepts the Christian faith will add something to the fulness of its compre- hension, and that the older Churches will gain a new life and a richer apprehension of the truth through the upspringing of younger Churches in all parts of the world and amongst people of many different gifts and capacities. The difficult problem is how to guide the young Churches, how to keep them in living touch with the past whilst giving them freedom to develop on their own lines. Increasingly it is acknowledged that if the great peoples of the East are to be won for Christianity, it can only in the end be through men of their own races. They do not want a Western Christ; and though the Christ that the missionaries of the West would preach to them belongs neither to east nor west but to mankind, it is impossible for men of western blood and western traditions to present even the Christ who, born in the East, is the real link between East and West, except in the forms of Western thought. The leaders in the missionary enterprise are more and more seeing the necessity of a MISSIONS wide and comprehensive view of their whole task. Where the work to be done is so vast, resources must be economised, the most important centres must be strengthened, and the right starting-points for further advance must be occupied. The methods of work need constant investigation, and no effort must be spared to find the right people for the work and to give them the necessary training and equipment. The more the question is studied as a whole, the more urgent and insistent does the call to increased effort at the present moment appear. The oppor- tunity is such as it has never been before. The travels of successive explorers have made known the secret places of the earth. Im- proved methods of communication have made it possible to go easily and safely to any part of the world, and have, in consequence, made the world a smaller place. China, Japan, and Korea, so long closed to foreigners, and the mysterious centre of Africa, the dark continent, are now open to all. The general awakening in the East dates from the time when, through a successful war, Japan sprang at once into the position THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY of a world-power. China, which, had been thought to be on the very verge of dis- solution, seemed to shake itself like a giant, and is now busy in bringing about changes with a rapidity which can only be de- scribed as bewildering. All through Asia a similar ferment is in process. The non- Christian religions are losing their hold on the educated classes, the leaders of the people; and at the same time these leaders themselves are more and more -feeling the necessity of religion for the people, of religious teaching for the young. Here is the opportunity for the Christian teacher. But the call is urgent. At the great missionary conference in Edinburgh in 1910 a Chinese professor from Pekin said: "The people of China are now giving away the old, but they have not yet grasped the new. The minds of the Chinese are now empty, and this is the time for Christ to step in. If you wait four or five or even three years, you will find such a change in China that the minds of her people will be blocked." With the stirring of the spirit of nationality in India and all over the East goes a keen desire for more and better education. The MISSIONS government systems of education in China, Japan* and India are absolutely secular, and the same system is being followed in Turkey, Egypt and Persia. The new education under- mines the ancestral religions, and the young generations are growing up without the old faith, and often definitely hostile to Christian- ity as Western and foreign. Hence the urgent call to strengthen and improve the educational work of missions, and to bring it into touch with the best aspirations of the people. In Africa, though perhaps for other reasons, the moment is equally urgent on account of the steady Moslem advance. It comes from the north and east, and needs to be forestalled and met by a strong and concerted advance on the part of Christian Missions, For this the missionaries claim from the administra- tors of Christian Governments at least equal rights and liberties with the Moslems, who are often placed in a more favourable position from the desire to preserve peace and order and prevent outbursts of fanaticism. It is the universal experience that native races, once converted to Islam, are hardened against Christianity, and if the progress of Islam in THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY M5 Africa is to be checked, an immediate increase in the strength of Christian Missions in every part of the continent is urgently needed. A different opportunity is offered at the present moment by the great mass movements towards Christianity in many parts of the world, especially in Korea and India. The people are waiting and eager to be taught, and there is the prospect not of individual conversions alone, but of building up whole communities in the Christian faith. Again, there is a very different but an equally urgent opportunity in the far West to make the Christian religion a factor in the development of the great new nation, that is being created by emigrants from every part of Europe, on the wide plains of Canada and the rich mountain slopes and busy sea coast of Columbia. The work is so vast, the opportunities so unrivalled, the call so urgent and clamorous as to tax all the resources of Christendom, and whilst it is true, perhaps, to say that never before in modern times has the most enlightened and progressive thought in the Christian Church been so interested in foreign MISSIONS missions, it is also true to say that the greatest hindrance to the progress of the work is to be found in the condition of the Church at home. The want of unity amongst the different Christian bodies is the greatest stumbling-block in the way of the spread of the Gospel. Energy is consumed at home by controversies and disputes; energy is wasted abroad by competition between differ- ent missions, and confusion is created in the minds of non-Christians by the differences and antagonisms of those who profess to be followers of the same Master. Moreover, though an increasing number of persons are interested in missions, and support them to the best of their ability, for the most part the work is left to societies within a Church, and is not considered incumbent on the Church as a whole. In consequence, people who give little or nothing to foreign missions will spend large sums on the adornment of churches and the luxuries of worship at home. There are others who will urge the folly of devoting money and energy to the conversion of heathen abroad when there are so many heathen at home. It is, however, THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 24*7 usually found that those who are most keen about the work of the Church at home are also most keen about its work abroad. More and more It is being realised that there can be no separation between these two sides of its activity, and that a living Church must be a growing and a Missionary Church. It can be clearly seen that the lessons learnt in the mission field react upon the life and work of the Church at home, whilst the social conditions in many great western cities are used by enlightened non-Christians as an argument against the truth of a religion which has done so little for its own people. The realisation of the brotherhood of man resting upon the Fatherhood of God must be worked out at the same time in the slums of the great city, in the bazaars and Zenanas of India, in the Kafir kraal, and amongst the teeming multitudes of China. The unity of the work is being recognised, and the need for unity amongst the workers is being seen to be a prime condition for the success of the work. Of late years there have been many move- ments in the direction of unity and co- operation. There have been conferences, both 48 MISSIONS at home and in the mission field, of many different kinds. At Shanghai, two great conferences of missionaries of all denomina- tions have been held, and the Chinese desire for unity f or one Church in China has found strong expression. In Edinburgh, in 1910, a missionary conference of representatives from all important Christian organisations except the Roman Church was held, and has left be- hind it as a heritage not only a much better understanding and warmer fellow-feeling be- tween different denominations, but also various schemes for further consideration of common problems. In many parts of the mission field there is co-operation of various kinds, and a growing sense of honour as regards the avoid- ance of competition or interference with other missions. Unfortunately the Roman Catholic Church stands coldly aloof from all conference or co-operation of any kind with those whom she considers heretics. This fact, amongst many others, is a warning against any hasty formulation of schemes or proposals for re- union. It would make a really Catholic Church almost hopelessly impossible for all times if all the non-Roman bodies were to THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 49 unite to form one great Protestant Church as opposed to the Roman Church. Unity will come as we learn how to recognise the value of the truths for which others stand, and to make room for their expression whilst we maintain the truth which has been re- vealed to us, and for which we stand. The older Western Churches may well be helped towards the unity which they have lost by the lessons to be learnt from the new Churches in the mission field. No movement has been more helpful in the promotion of unity by greater under- standing and a spirit of true brotherliness than the Student Volunteer Union and the larger organisation of which it is an in- tegral part the ChristianStudentMovement. Students of both sexes and of all denomina- tions and all nationalities join these unions, thosebelonging to the Student Volunteer Union pledging themselves, if it should be God's will, to offer themselves as foreign missionaries* Thus in their college days, before their definite association with special organisations, they learn to know and understand one another. Those who are going to work abroad realise 250 MISSIONS their unity of aim with those who are going to work at home, and denominational differ- ences assume their proper proportion in the light of a common devotion. The missionary enterprise now, as ever, is the great adventure of the Christian Church. It is the source of hope and courage, the vision of the future to the believing Christian. Its annals are as full of exciting incidents as any romance, its ranks are rich with the names of heroes, and the record of its work brings new life and inspiration to those who, in the complications and disillusionments of the old world, are losing their ideals and their faith. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY General Report of the World Missionary Conference, 1910. Oliphant. 9 vols. This contains the reports of the eight commis- sions appointed to study different aspects of the mis- sionary problem, and is invaluable as giving the experience and judgment of the present authorities, and the results of the latest observations. History of the Church Missionary Society . E. STOCK. C.M.S. 3 vols. Gives a history of the greatest missionary society, and much information about the growth of missions generally. History of Protestant Missions. G. WARNECK. Oliphant. Translated from the German, useful as an account of continental Protestant Missions. Missions and Modem History. R. E. SPEER. Revell & Co. % vols. Brings missionary developments into connexion with the great historical developments of the last sixty years. Histoire de la SocietS des Missions Etrangeres. A. LAUNAY. Tegni: Paris. 3 vols. A history of the Roman Catholic Missions conducted by the Paris Society from its founda- tion, in the East, and Canada. Katholische Missionsstatistik. H. A. KROSE. 1908. Gives most careful information as to the extent of Roman Catholic Missions and the numbers of their workers. Statistical Atlas of Christian Missions. Marshall Bros. Is- sued by the World Missionary Conference, with admir- able maps and full information as to all -missionary soci- eties. Handbooks Foreign Missions. BISHOP MONTGOMERY. Longmans. Short Handbook of Foreign Missions. E. STOCK. Long- mans. Short History of Christian Missions. G. SMITH. Handbooks of English Church Expansion. Mowbray. Deal with the work of the Anglican Church in Japan, Western Canada, China, Australia, South Africa, North India. The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions. T. R. MOTT. The Desire of India. S. K DATTA. The Reproach of Islam. W. H. T. GAIEDNEB. The Uplift of China. A. H. SMITH. 253 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY Special Missions and Countries' Changing China. LORD WILLIAM CECIL. NIsbet. South- ern Indian Missions. T. A. SHARROCK. S.P.G. Christian Missions in the Telugu Country. HIBBERT WARE. S.P.G. Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier. DR. PENNELL. Seeley. History of Missions in India. T. RICHTER. Oliphant. Full of information but not quite fair to Anglican missions. Christian Missions in Burmah. W. C. B. PURSER. S.P.G. History of Christian Missions in South Africa. Du PLESSIS. Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa. BISHOP TUCKER. Arnold. Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea. J. CHALMERS. An Outpost in Papua. CHIGNELL. History of the Moravian Church. T. E. HUTTON. A Parson in the Australian Bush. C. H. S. MATTHEWS. Arnold. The Jesuits in North America. F. PARKMAN. Some Missionary Biographies Bishop, Edward Bicker steth. E. BICKERSTETH. Murray. - Verbeck of Japan. GRIFFIS. Dr. Alex. Duff. G. SMITH. Hodden Father Goreb. C. E. GARDINER. Longmans. Our Sister Beatrice. GRACE GRIER. Longmans. Life of James Hannington. E. DAWSON. Seeley. Mackay of Uganda. I. W. HARRISON. Hodder. David Livingstone* W. G. BLACKIE. Murray Khama. Mrs. KNIGHT BRUCE. Bishop Patteson. T. PAGE. Partridge The Black Bishop. T. PAGE. Simpkin. Bishop Bompas. CODY. Seeley. Bish- op Selwyn. H. W. TUCKER At Work. Dr. MARIE HAYES. Marshall Bros Letters from East Africa. G. M. WARD. U.M.C.A. A voluminous bibliography of books relating to missions is to be found in vol. vi of the Report of the World Missionary Conference. The Central Board of Missions of the Church of England issues "A Select Bibliography" for the use of students. Leading Missionary Reviews "The International Review of Missions." Quarterly. "East and West." Quarterly. "Zeitschrift ftir Missions- wissenschaft." Quarterly. (Roman Catholic). Every missionary society issues one or more monthly or weekly magazines, most of them being illustrated, which tell of the work that is going on. INDEX Africa, 71-4, 102, 123, 130, 132, 140, 219-28 , Central, 173 , South, 81, 161, 162, 222-4 , West, 220 Africaner, 69 Alaska, 228 America, 55 , South, 228, 229 American Missions, 231, 232 Animists, the, 89, 92 Arabia, 231 Armenia, 230, 231 Assyria, 230 Australia, 81, 154-6 Baganda, the, 124-6, 182 Baptist Missionary Society, 57, 61 Barotse, the, 223 Bataks, the, 214 Bechuanas, the, 70, 184 Beck, John, 53 Beirut, 230 Blantyre, 102 Boers, the, 81, 82, 161 Bompas, Bishop, 227 Boniface, 10,11 Borneo, 213 Boxer riots, the, 126, 205 Bray, Dr., 54 Brebeuf, 45 Bressani, 44 Burma, 170, 212, 213 Cairo, 137-8, 141 Caldweli, Mrs., 116 Cambridge Mission, 99 Canada, 43, 44, 145-51, 153, 227 Carey, William, 56-61 Ceylon, 167 Chestnut, Dr., 127 China, 18, 19, 29, 37, 90, 92, 93, 100, 101, 107, 108, 118, 121, 122, 201-5, 242-4 Church Missionary Society, 62, 80, 115, 124, 235 Cochin China, 32, 34, 36, 37 Coillard, Francois, 223, 224 Columbus, 21 ' Congo, the, 79, 80, 191, 221 Corvino, John de Monte, 17, 19 Cromwell, 50 Crowther, Bishop, 220 Darwin, Charles, 68 Dominicans, 22, 30, 36 Duff, Dr., 97 Dutch East Indies, 218' East Africa, 224, 225 India Company, the, 55,56, 58, 75, 76 Edinburgh Conference, the, 94, 248 El Azhar, 137, 138 Eliot, John, 49 Erasmus, 47, 48 Fiji, 67, 68 Francis of Assisi, 15, 13$ Franciscans, the, 31 Franke, August Hermann, 51 Fraser, Mr. A., 167,168 Frederick IV, King of Denmark, 51 French, Valpy, 134, 136 Gama, Vasco da, 21 Gleyo, 38 Goa, 26 Greenland, 53 Grenfell, Dr., 152, 227 Hannington, Bishop, 176, 177 Hausaland, 218 Herrenhut, 52 Hinduism, 94 Hudson Bay Company, the, 80,146 Hunter, Sir William, 99 Imad-ud-din, Dr., 136 India, 87, 90-3, 96, 100, 101, 110, 111, 114-8, 120-2, 144, 166, 208- 14, 247 Indians, Red, 153, 227 Indies, West, 153 Mam, 130-33, 225, 244, 245 Jamaica, 154 Japan, 64, 101, 198-201, 242, 244, Jesuits, 24, 25, 28-32, 43-6, 92,201 Kafirs, the, 81, 82 Kandy, 167 Karens, the, 170 Katikiro, Kagwa Apolo, 179, 183 Khama, 183-89 Kols, the, 171 Koran, the, 131, 134 Korea, 87, 109, 199, 200, 242, 245 Krapf,Johann,71,72 Kublai Khan, 18, 19 255 256 INDEX Labrador, 152 Lambert, de la Motte, 82-4 Las Casas, 22 Lavigerie, Cardinal, 219 Lawrence, Lord, 192 Lepers, 106, 107 Livingstone, David, 72-5, 102, 171 London Missionary Society,66, 188 Louis XIV, 36 Loyola, Igaatius, 25 Lugard, Captain, 180 Lull, Raymond, 15-17, 133 Macao, 37, 40 Machray, Archbishop, 146-9 Mackay, Alexander, 174-80 Madagascar, 36, 79, 226, 227 Manchuria, 202, 203 Maoris, the, 157, 101, 216, 217 Martyn, Henry, 75, 133, 134 Medical Missions, 104-6, 120, 226 Melanesia, 214, 215 Mission Consul, the, 78, 79 Moffat, Robert, 63, 69, 70, 73 Mohammed, 129 Mohammedans, 98, 128-43 Mongol Power, the, 17, 19, 20 Moravians, the, 52, 54, 152 Moshesh, 223 Moslems, the, 15-17, 77, 78, 128- 43, 219 Mtesa, King, 174, 175 Mwanga, King, 176, 182-4 Nestorian Church, the, 18 New Guinea, 214, 215 New Zealand, 81, 154, 155, 157-60, 161 Nobili, Robert de, 27, 29, 40 Nyassaland, 219, 22$ Okuma, Count, 197 Oxford Mission to Calcutta, 207 Pacific Islands, 66, 102, 159 Palestine, 230 Pallu, Francois, 32, S6-8 Paraguay, 24 Patrick, 9 Patteson, Bishop, 160 Persia, 121, 140, 231 Pfander, Dr., 134-5 Pietists, the, 50, 51 Pilgrim Fathers, the, 49 Polo, Marco, 18 Polynesian Islands, 217 Portuguese, the, 23, 32, 33, 40 Propaganda, the, 33, 64, 85 Rhenish Missionary Society. 213 Kicci, Father, 29, 40 Robert College, 250 Roman Catholic Missions, 64,193- 4, 201, 202, 219, 227 Rudra, Dr., 99 Rupertsland, 146 Saskatchewan, 151 Schwartz, Christian, 51, 52 Selwyn, Bishop, 157-60, 216 Serampore, 58, 60 Siam, 31, 35, 213 Sierra Leone, 220 Singapore, 213 Slave Trade, the, 141 Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, 115 Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 55 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 55, 144 South India, 169, 171 Srinagar, 167, 168 Stanley, H. M., 173, 174, 221 Steere, Bishop, 172 Student Volunteer Union, 249 Sumatra, 78, 214 Tahiti, 67 Tonquin, 32, 33, 35, 39 Trinity College, Kandy, 168, 169 Tucker, Bishop, 123, 124, 181, 182 Turkey, 139, 140, 229, 244 Tyndale-Biscoe, Rev. C., 166 Uganda, 123, 124, 125, 173-83, 219, 225 Ulfilas, 9 Universities Mission, 74, 172 Vancouver, 152 Virginia, 49 Vladimir, 13 West Indies, 23 Williams, John, 67 Wilson, Bishop, 114 Women's Work, 112-27 Xavier, Francis, 25-7, 13S Young, Sir Mackworth, 192 Younghusband, Captain, 193, 194 Zanzibar, 172, 225 Zenanas, 116-9 Ziegenbalg, 51 Zinzendorl, Co Count, 53, 53 i 1 36 640