'' J 1^ ^j.v : ^ :i ft tihYary of Che trheolo^ical ^tminary PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY ?i> PURCHASED BY THE HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND BV 2060 .S72 1919 Speer, Robert E. 1867-1947. The Gospel and the new worl(| The Gospel and the New World By ROBERT E. SPEER The Stuff of Manhood i^mo, cloth, John's Gospel, The Greatest Book in the World i2mo, cloth, Men Who Were Found Faithful i2mo, cloth. Some Great Leaders in the World Movement The Cole Lectures for 1911. izmo, cloth, The Foreign Doctor: " The Hakim Sahib " A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, M.D., of Persia. IlluBtrated, i2mo, cloth, Christianity and the Nations The Duff Lectures for igio. 8vo, cloth. Missionary Principles and Practice 8vo, cloth, A Memorial of Alice Jackson i2mo, cloth, A Memorial of Horace Tracy Pitkin i2mo, cloth, A Memorial of a True Life A Biography of Hugh McAllister Beaver With Por- trait. i2mo, cloth. Young Man Who Overcame lamo, cloth, Paul, the All-Round Man i6mo, cloth. The Master of the Heart i2mo, cloth, A Young Man's Questions i2mo, cloth. The Principles of Jesus in Some Applications to Present Life. i6mo, Christ and Life The Practice of the Christian Life. i2mo, cloth Studies of the Man Paul i6mo, cloth, Studies of " The Man Christ Jesus " i6mo, cloth. Remember Jesus Christ And Other Talks About Christ and the Christian Life. i6mo. cloth. The Deity of Christ iSmo, boards. The Gospel and the New World By / ROBERT E. SPEER Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of ths Presbyterian Church in the United States of America New York Chicago Fleming H. Re veil Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 19 19, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street Preface THE Gospel is the same yesterday and to-day. But the world is a different world. And the change which the war has wrought in the world entails new problems with regard to the statement of the unchanging Gospel and the methods of its action upon man and his institutions and relationships. Wherein is the world a different world? What are the new prob- lems of the missionary undertaking? Is it necessary that it should be subjected to any radical reorganization of method or aim? These are questions which must be frankly and broadly faced in the new day which is dawning. And fresh political issues are coming clearly into view. The principle of the self-determination of peoples, the tide of democratic feeling that is rising in the hearts of the na- tions, the new realization of the importance of right racial education and the increasing need of instrumen- talities of just and charitable international interpretation are setting the work of foreign missions in a new light in the thought of the world. Is it desirable or probable that in consequence, the foreign mission work is to be modified in its character, or is it to be still an unswerving and direct religious enterprise with wide and inevitable social and political bearings, but with undiminished and dominating loyalty to its central spiritual ideals ? These are some of the questions which are considered in this volume. e PEEFACB It is plain that the work of foreign missions is one of the indispensable forces in the life and progress of the world. It is of the utmost importance that that force shall be kept pure and true, that its functions shall be clearly discerned and its right field of action be justly recognized and that the movement shall make its full contribution to the moral good of mankind, to the estab- ishment of a new order of righteous relationships of men and of nations based on the principles of justice and service, and to the lasting peace of the world. R. E. S. New Yorkj Contents I. The Gospel and the New World . . 9 II. Foreign Missions in the Light and Dark- ness OF THE War 44 III. Christianity AND THE Race Problem . .65 IV. Foreign Missions a Constructive Inter- pretation OF Christian Principles . . 89 V. The World's Abiding Debt to the Mis- sionary 121 VI. The Christianizing of the Impact of the West Upon the East . . . .138 VII. The Evangelization of the World in This Generation M4 VIII. The Relationship of Missionary Education TO Evangelism i?^ IX. The Purpose and Problems of Medical Missionary Work 186 X. The Relation of Western Theological Statements and Forms of Religious Ex- perience TO Other Races . . .203 XI. Are a Restatement of the Christian Mes- sage TO THE Non-Christian Peoples and a Reinterpretation of the Missionary Ob- jective for the Church at Home Neces- sary? 225 XII. Ideals OF Missionary Service . . . 250 XIII. Missionary Organization and Life . . 260 XIV. New Aspects of the Relations of East and West 274 XV. The Church and the World To-Day . . 302 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD THE Gospel is the same yesterday and to-day. But the world is a different world. Wherein is it different ? In one sense it is in an immensely larger world. We go all aro.und the world more easily than our great-grandfathers could go from New York to the Mississippi River and we know more of what goes on in China than our fathers knew of Cuba. Each of us is consciously a part of a world so big and intricate that our fathers v/ould have disbelieved any one who would have foretold to them the commonplace facts of to-day. But this expansion of the world is in reality its contrac- tion. The whole of it has become smaller than its parts. Some years ago I came up the west coast of South America from Callao with a Peruvian official who was on his way to take up office as prefect of Iquitos, the great rubber port of Peru on the upper Amazon. The significant thing was his choice of the quickest route from Lima to his post. Overland the distance in a straight line was perhaps six hundred miles. In time, however, it was quicker to go nearly half-way around the world, from Callao to Panama, from Panama to New York, from New York to Liverpool, from Liverpool back across the Atlantic and up the Amazon. This was be- fore the war. The war shrank the world into yet smaller dimensions. I went out to Siam in the spring of 1915 about ten months after the war had begun. In Honolulu 9 10 THE GOSPEL AND THE XEW WOELD and Manila lay the rows of interned German boats. At Hongkong the shutters were up on the shops and the banks of all the German firms. The leading restaurant of Hongkong had a new gilt sign across the door. " Weisman " had been replaced by " Wiseman." In the Menam below Bangkok for a mile up and down the river lay a long line of German steamers. Far up in the jungle we came on some German engineers building a railroad bridge and carrying the road on into the jungle but hampered at every turn by their inability to get out new material. Wherever one stopped anywhere on land or sea, there the life of the world was trembling in unison with what was happening ten thousand miles away. Iso- lation has disappeared. The new world is tightly inter- laced by boat and wire and rail into a physical unity. The economic unity of the new world, as there will be occasion to point out again, is a yet more pervasive and unalterable fact. The world was aware of the fact be- fore the war but it miscalculated both its strength and its weakness. It believed that the financial interdepend- ence of the nations, " the peace of Dives," as Mr. Kip- ling described it, would hold the nations together. It was an empty faith. Not even certain financial ruin can prevent war, and it ought not to. On the other hand men had no conception of the indissolubleness of the com- mercial solidarity of mankind. They did not realize that the economic life of the world had become an organic unity and that if any nation should fall all must feel the downpull. Even yet many men will not believe it. They talk in the old language of " trade war," as though the ancient Shibboleths were any longer true. Trade war is trade suicide in a unified world. The nation that in- jures other nations in trade conflict simply injures itself. If a man gashes his leg with his hand, the hand shares THE GOSPEL AND THE KBW WOELD 11 in the loss and suffering. And it is so in humanity. In the development and distribution of raw material, in the interchange of goods, in the use of credits, the interest of one is the interest of all and the interest of all is the in- terest of each. Any other doctrine and the practice of it will bring their own judgment with them. The male- factors who are immediately guilty may figure up only profit but time and facts will reckon with their children. The truth is the only profitable economic theory and the truth is that the economic interest of humanity is in- divisible. The war which was the greatest economic schism ever known has demonstrated this principle of unity. And the new world presents the phenomena not of physical and economic unity alone but also of a common political and intellectual life. Eight years ago Professor Reinsch wrote a thoughtful book on " Intellectual and Political Currents in the Far East " in which he con- tended, against the fallacy of perpetual racial disunion, that " the separate existence of East and West has come to an end and that, in profoundly influencing each other, they will both contribute their share in developing the all-human civilization of the future." Professor Reinsch proceeded to describe the movements of thought in Asia which were either analogous to or identical with the main movements of opinion in the Western world. The old generalization that Asia is autocratic and satisfied with autocracy and that the West is democratic is not true. The greatest war in history has been fought between autocracy and democracy in the West and the ferment of ideas which lay back of the war and which inspired the winning forces has spread to the whole earth. The principle of the " self-determination of peoples," so easily expressed and so hard to define and limit and apply, has 12 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD set the hearts of whole races and of wide buried strata of men aflame with new hopes and desires. The war has universalized the familiar catch words of democracy and equality and justice. I wrote some time before the war ended to some of the leading men of Asia to ask what effect the war was having on moral and religious ideas and these were some of their answers : " All other religions in Asia must try to do something better for brotherhood." " War proves that might is not right but right itself always remains right." " War reveals the real meaning of the Christian term * righteousness/ and its relationship with sacrifice." " The real issues involved in the war are the issues of humanity and democracy." " The war revealed that the reconstruction work should be based upon the principles of universal brotherhood and fraternity, and a world-wide scale of reconstruction is desirable." " The maintenance of permanent peace and the further- ance of the welfare of nations require largely the in- fluence of religion as the supplier of ennobling, unifying elements of life, and purifier of all human motives. " During the war, while the struggles of the two op- posing factors were at the climax, and the world ap- parently doubted the probable issue of the cause of justice and humanity in the face of the deadly assaults of op- pressive militarism, the inmost desires of the noblest minds found expression in their prayers, their opinions and their deeds ; they were forgetful of their own selves, solely expectant for the purification of the whole world through the furnace of the hardest trials and the bitterest sorrows ; they sought for the reign of peace restored and justice exercised, or further — for that of permanent peace and inviolable justice, the foundations of which were undoubtedly being laid even when the international THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 13 struggles were at their height. It may be surmised that all this was an unmistakable sign of the influence of true religion, and it is to be expected after the war that there will be found an ever widening circle of the people whose inmost desires are for the realizaton of universal brother- hood and the cessation of every kind of self-centered hos- tility among nations." And the effect of the war on political ideas cannot be better shown than in the impressions with which a Jap- anese General returned to Japan after a year in the army camps in America and with the armies in France. These were the convictions which he took back with him : 1. A firm faith in democracy and a conviction that democracy, perhaps after the British rather than the American model, because Japan is a monarchy, must be accepted in Japan. 2. A surprised discovery of the strength of religious faith in France. 3. A clear conviction of God in history. History is not a development of impersonal force nor did commercial or random influence bring America in. It was God. 4. Germany was defeated in the spirit. She was not as yet beaten materially. It was the moral ideals of the Allies which conquered the moral ideals of Germany. 5. America did not have so large an actual part in the conflict as others, but it was America which deter- mined the victory. The scale was even with the German side preponderating; when America was forced in, the German side of the scale shot up. America's contribu- tion was decisive. 6. In outward appearance Russia's failure was a dark disaster. It prolonged the war and threatened the de- feat of the Allies, but in the deeper philosophy of history the hand of God is clear. It meant the overthrow of 14 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD autocracy in Russia, and in Germany, and assured a tiqw, democratic age. 7. Spiritual faith throughout the world, faith in God and in spiritual force and ideals, have been advanced by the experience of the war. 8. Belief in the Trinity has not been destroyed. The divine character and personality and teaching of Jesus have been brought out with greater clearness than ever. The new world is a world in which the old problems of England and the United States have become the prob- lems of all nations intensified in many lands by the fact that experience must be condensed in old and slow na- tions which new and active nations were able to spread out over longer periods, that immense and in large part illiterate populations are involved, and that the moral and spiritual forces which alone saved the West are pitifully inadequate in these nations. But let there be no supposition that the new world is unequally new. The fact is that the processes of change are as plain and powerful in the West as in the East. The unity of the world is seen in the unity of its ex- perience. Old things are passed away everywhere. The old Europe is gone, and a new Europe is come with new maps, new national and racial divisions, new economic problems and relationships and discontents, new political principles and fallacies, new ambitions and enmities and fears, new social ideals, new disabilities, new hopes, new despairs. The old Africa is gone. Unless they are some day restored to her, as it is to be hoped they may be, Germany's African colonies are lost and the continent is practically divided between Great Britain and France. Will this be best for Africa and the black race ? The fu- ture will declare. Is Africa to be administered for the negro or for the white ? Who is to have the best land and THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 15 to be enriched by African wealth ? Africa will test the great propositions for which millions of men laid down their lives in the war. South America was the continent least involved in the great war. Some of the republics did all that they could on the side of the Allies, but it was as nothing in comparison, for example, with what the Punjab alone did in India with its offering of a million men. But whatever its direct relation to the struggle, whether little or great, the struggle altered all Latin- American destiny. The immense German influence in South America broke down. The close alliance of the United States with France, Latin America's ideal, and the restraint of the United States in Mexico and the unselfish sacrifice of the United States in behalf of great political ideals, went far to convince Latin America, in spite of much that still offends, that we are not wholly given to materialism and gain. Not for half a century have North and South America been as ready to work out a common destiny as to-day. Not least has the war altered the whole life and outlook of Asia. In innumerable ways Asia has felt the effect of the war. One of the most powerful and least calculable is the influence which their experience in Europe and other war areas will have had upon the millions of soldiers and labourers from India, Africa and China. "The Chinese are seeing a sad side of our Western civilization," writes one of the men who has been working among the coolie labour battalions in France. " I sometimes wonder what outstanding impressions they will carry back with them to China. Coolies they are, it is true, but theirs is a simple philosophy of life inter- spersed with an abundance of common sense. When they get back to China, what tales will they tell in their homes and to their friends gathered in the tea-houses? Coolies though they be, not one but will have a larger hearing 16 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD than many foreigners have ever secured. It vi^ould not surprise me to hear of officials in the districts from which these men come calHng in these plain men to hear from their own lips the ungarnished tales of life as they had had to live it over here. They will hear what these men are doing and seeing and thinking now. France is now a great school for Chinese. The greatest hospital for Chinese in the world is here and number 1,500 pa- tients. The greatest school for Chinese in the world is also here in France. There are 140,000 pupils. Our graduates will scatter to all parts of China. Their ex- perience in France no doubt will be the biggest thing in their lives and a thing in which all the Chinese with whom they come into contact will be interested. We must therefore reckon on a new body of men 140,000 strong going back to China as interpreters of our Western civili- zation. What will they say ? '* And what are the Indian troops saying as they go back to their home villages? Not by any means such things as Mr. Kipling writes down in " The Eyes of Asia." And the new world has meant a greater change for us than for any other nation except the three ruined powers and Russia. It has revealed us to ourselves both in our strength and in our weakness. We have discovered ca- pacities for united and unselfish action which we had distrusted or disbelieved. And we have realized that a democracy can develop many despotic tendencies and that its loose and generous liberties are exposed to peculiar dangers. The unity of our national life in war has been followed by the widest dissensions in the policies of peace. New powers of common action have been matched by new capacities of disagreement. The heavy expenditures of the war were so much less that those of .others and the growth of national wealth has been so THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 17 great that we emerge from the war with economic re- sources far in excess of those of other nations and with the undisputed financial leadership of the world in our hands. Furthermore we have sought nothing for our- selves in recompense for our share in the struggle, neither territory, nor indemnity, nor repayment of any sort what- soever. We have made ourselves unpopular by objecting to the acquisitions of other nations, but we have gained the trust of the peoples who want help and who believe that America would give it to them disinterestedly. There may be many criticisms of the peace treaty be- cause of injustices which it allows but in not one case does America profit by these injustices. Indeed the criti- cism which had to be met was that the treaty did nothing but lay on America additional obligations and obligations for evil situations which it had not created and which lay beyond the boundaries of its traditional responsibilities. With new power, fresh influence and clean hands the United States came out of the war. No other people knows better than we our weaknesses and shortcomings but we know too our honest good purpose toward all other nations, our desire to live at peace with all, to take advantage of none, and to see all nations prosperous and free. " America," as John Galsworthy said on his visit to the United States in the spring of 1919, "has the might of a great country and a great people behind her. With her powers she can accomplish wonders for the benefit of the world. But she must look to the use she makes of her might. Whatever she does is watched with careful eyes by England, for what- ever America does affects England. America's ac- tions vitally affect England, not so much in a mate- rial way as a spiritual way. To America the whole world looks. Her dauntless spirit, her desire for the 18 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD best things, the force of her inhabitants are capable of being of the greatest service to the rest of the world. America is on the threshold of her career. She may step out as the redeemer of the world. It is her duty to do so. Noblesse oblige is as much an obligation of democracy as of aristocracy, and at present rests peculiarly on the United States. Her good work will be done, however, in the schools and homes rather than in Congress. If America walks upright, we too shall walk upright. If America bows to money and wealth, we too shall bow and civilization will be lost." What is the business of the Gospel in this new world? What does the world need ? Who will show it its course ? He is a rash man who thinks that these are easy questions. Only one blind to-day can feel that he sees surely and only a man who is unaware that he is a neighbour to his fellow men can be at rest in a world like ours. And yet there is one view in which confusion and the perplexity of the time are not to be dreaded. They are evidence of freedom and of the forward striving of men. Far better the confusion of liberty than any coerced simplicity. And we have the consolation in the midst of this con- fusion that after all in any day the problem of the in- dividual can become a measurably clear and simple prob- lem. He knows his Lord, Jesus Christ. No tumult of the world around him can ever hide from him the voice of that Lord within his heart. He loves his neighbour and no perplexity as to social duty can ever confuse him as to what that love of his neighbour requires of him in the actual intercourse of life and the common round of daily companionships. And yet it is possible to exagger- ate these consolations that come from our personal Chris- tian faith. It is quite true that all that the Lord our God requires of us is that we should do justice and love mercy THE GOSPEL Ai^D THE NEW WOELD 19 and walk humbly with our God. But what justice is, is by no means a clear and simple thing and no matter how real our personal Christian experience may be, just so surely as a man enters deeply into it is he made aware of the kinships in which he stands to every other man-— those who have already shared this experience with him and those to whom this experience is still strange. To find duty to-day, whether our individual or our col- lective duty, is an infinitely difficult task. But there are some elements in the present duty of the Christian Church in our nation, that must also be the present duty of the Christian Church throughout the world, that are fairly clear. We know that the first great task of the Christian Church, always her primary and fundamental business, that underlies everything else and without which no other part of her work can ever be done, is her responsibility as a witness. The Church was sent out into the world as a witness, a witness to certain great facts and prin- ciples lying within and back of those facts. That was her primary commission. " Ye shall be witnesses unto me," said our Lord, " both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." The essential qualification for the elemental Christian ministry was that men and women should be competent to discharge this duty of testimony. The Church con- ceived its work first of all in these terms. When it had stated all the great facts that had passed before its eyes, then it said emphatically and clearly as though that closed the matter, "and we were witnesses of these things." And our first duty to-day would be to make clear to ourselves just what the great facts are that are to constitute the permanent and abiding testimony of the Christian Church. For primarily it must be a body of 20 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD facts. Witnesses are not called to express their opinions. Witnesses are not called to do the work of advocates. Witnesses are called to give testimony to the facts that they have seen and heard and know. And yet, after all, facts do not necessarily constitute the truth. The truth is true facts seen in their right relationship and given their true interpretation. And our business, as we under- stand it quite well in the world that we are living in to- day, is to bear witness to the great principles of truth which were once embodied in historic facts and which those historic facts of the incarnation and the crucifixion and the resurrection and the ascension of our Lord were meant to bring home into the conscience and mind and heart of humanity forever. And I wish to set forth what seem to me to be the half dozen great elements of our witness bearing — our primary responsibility as Christian men and women and as a Christian Church in our nation and in the world to-day. In presenting the abiding Gospel to the new world we are first of all to bear witness to the fact and the truth that Almighty Love is at the heart of all things. What our Lord said when He taught men to say " Our Father," and to conceive of a father as back of all the universe is our initial and fundamental testimony. We believe that at the heart of history, that in the very heart of nature, that at the very center of all life, is Almighty Love. We hold this against every other interpretation of history and of nature and of life and of the universe, that at the root of all there is found an almighty personal love. The second element of our testimony is that men need and that they can have the help of that Almighty Love, of a living and sufficient fatherly God. Now each of these two statements is denied. Sometimes both of them THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 21 are denied. Sometimes men deny that they have any need of such help. Sometimes they deny that any such help is obtainable. Sometimes they deny both. It is our testimony as Christian believers and as the Christian Church that men stand in need of help from without and that help from without is available for their need. We can put it all in great words, the word of our Lord Him- self, " Apart from me ye can do nothing," and the word of St. Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And it is because we believe those two things that we can believe rationally in liberty. A liberty that does not know its limitation or that has no access to energy can be no liberty at all. There is a passage in a recent book giving an account of a wonderful evening in Venice of Lord Acton with Mary Gladstone and her brother Herbert, when Acton walked up and down before them and set forth before them his great and unquench- able belief in God's will for freedom for mankind. How did he come to believe in freedom with that great pas- sionate eagerness that made him one of the prophets of liberty in the past generation and century, except by sub- mitting himself to the strength of a joyous faith in the needed and accessible help and life of a living and loving and sufficient God? The third great element of our testimony to-day is that men are just man. We cannot apprehend the Gospel ex- cept in the implication of human unity. Whatever vital- ity heresy can have dies in the experience of unity. A heresy can live only in a Gospel which believes and prac- tices the divisibility of mankind. We go right back to the beginning and everything rests upon the implication and faith of the true unity of man. And one finds there to- day whatever argument there is, and whatever suggestion as a form we need, with regard to the unity of the Chris- 22 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD tian Church. Whatever disunity in the Christian Church compromises or weakens her testimony to the unity of humanity is unallowable. Whatever diversity of the Christian Church enriches and does not destroy her testi- mony to human unity is not only allowable but desirable. And we see the forces by which alone the early traditions of unity can be recovered and borne out in our witness to mankind. One recalls a letter which Cardinal New- man wrote in the mellow days that came at the end of his distraught life to Principal Brown of Aberdeen be- tween whom and himself there was a sympathetic bond in their deep desire for the unity of the body of Christ. " It seems to me/' said Cardinal Newman, " the first step to any chance of unity amid our divisions is for religious minds, one and all, to live upon the Gospels." Nobody can live in the Gospels without realizing that the funda- mental message of Christianity must be a united message of a united humanity. The fourth needed element of our human testimony to-day is that righteousness is a universal law. We have fought a great war and ten million men have laid down their lives to demonstrate to mankind forever that right- eousness is to be applied to the whole of human life, to the relations of man to man, of nation to nation, of all the different elements of human society, that righteous- ness cannot be departmentalized, that it is simply the effort to carry the truth, and truth that carries its own bitter judgment upon all that is inconsistent with it, into all the relationships and activities and ideals and experi- ences of every form of human life. The fifth great element of the Church's testimony to- day is an abiding witness to the primary principle that our Lord laid down in His own life and work, " I am in the midst of you as one who serves. Among the Gentiles THE GOSPEL AKD THE NEW WOELD 23 those who rule shall be counted great but it shall not be so among you. For the Son of ]\Ian came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many." This war has been, in our American thought, a struggle between these conflicting ideals, the ideal of service and the ideal of assertion, the ideal of renunciation and the ideal of aggrandizement. The whole history of mankind has been written in the confused strug- gle between those terms. We have come to realize that the victory is going to lie with the elements of renunciation, that even in a harsh and bitter world like this the crown and the power and the victory belong to the ministry of unselfishness. We have seen one notable illustration of it in what we have just passed through in our national experience. It has been a problem in America for many years as to what would be the effect of the feminizing of American life through the education of the American citizenship at the hands of women; and we know how often we have heard in the last score of years of the penalty that lay ahead of America for placing the dis- cipline of children not only in the homes but in the public schools in the hands of women. What has been the result? The millions of young men who have been taught by women, the women who have lived their lives in the principle of renunciation and service, were found to have proved themselves to be equal in the day of test- ing to any call laid upon them. This is the principle for which Mr. Kidd has been arguing in the last of his books, that the future of the world is in the hands of the na- tions that yield themselves most completely to the mould- ing of the spirit of renunciation and service and sacrifice that has always been the primary principle in the life of womankind, which was the elemental principle in Chris- tianity in the beginning. 24 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD The last element in our witness bearing to-day is our testimony to a deathless and impregnable hope of a new; and different world. We are coming at last to the time when boldly, without apology, without hesitation, we are to stand out with a full Christian message to mankind and to say to mankind that the future of the world is not to be surrendered to man's self-chosen moral impotence, but the day has come when man is responsible for his refusal of the promise and offer of God to release to the faith of men the forces of that religion which, by the might of a Living Christ and the power of His Resurrec- tion, can change the world. We are hearing and are re- joicing to hear new voices on this matter speaking in our own time. Mr. Kidd's " Science of Power " to which I have referred and which will be supplying soon as much sermon material as the author's earlier books, " Social Evolution " and " The Principles of Western Civiliza- tion," is an illustration of the new mind : " So far from civilization being practically unchangeable or changeable only through influences operating slowly over long periods of time, the world can be changed in a brief space of time. In the lapse of a single generation it can undergo changes so profound, so revolutionary, so permanent, that it would almost appear that human nature itself had been completely altered in the Interval. . . . There is not a single existing institution in the world of civilized hu- manity which cannot be profoundly modified or altered or abolished in a generation. There is no form of or- ganization, of government, or of other domination of forces that cannot be removed from the world within a generation. There is no ideal in conformity with the principles of civilization dreamed of or idealized, that cannot be realized within the lifetime of those around him. . . ." Yes, but not by its own boot straps ! THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD 25 Within a period of one generation we have seen a miracle wrought. Thirty years ago was there one who believed that in our generation we should see the saloon abolished in the American nation ? There are many of us now who are sure that we will live to see other institu- tions of lust and evil and sin absolutely extirpated from American life. But what we are being told to-day is just what Christians have known from the very be- ginning, that any generation might have the Kingdom of God if it would open itself to the full inpouring of the will and the power of God. I repeat that the sixth great element of the Church's testimony to-day, in a time that is in danger of becoming cynical and blase again and trampling on the very ideals that gave life and victory during the great war, the sixth is the assertion of the possibility here and now of a new and a better world, the kind of world for which Christ lived and died and lives again. And we must be un- flinching too, if we are to gather men to share this faith. We must be unflinching in describing what that world is going to be, for men are going to make sacrifices for it just in proportion as they believe it to be a desirable goal. It will be a new world in which the principle of competition shall have given way to the principle of asso- ciation and fellowship. It will be a new world in which the principle of unity shall have replaced the principle of division, or in which at least the principle of division will see itself only as the servant of the principle of a larger synthesis. It will be a new world in which the sacred- ness of property will find its sanction only in the greater sanctity and dignities of personality and human life. It will be a new world in which the social and individual ideals and services will be reciprocal and complementary. It will be a new world in which brotherliness and friend- 26 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ship will have displaced all antagonisms except the war against evil. It will be a new world in which obedience to truth and duty will find its ground in the Will of a transcendent, sovereign God. It will be a new world in which Jesus Christ will be the head of humanity and His life and spirit will do for men what no injunctions or ordinances can ever avail to do. That new world, held before men's eyes, will be worth as many sacrifices as men were willing to make for what was held before their eyes in the four years that have gone by. And if only that amount of sacrifice could be called out, those ten million lives and uncounted billions of wealth, it would suffice to change the face of the whole world in less than twenty-five years. Our question of duty to-day is made simpler to such honest minded men and women as we want to be as we review in our minds and hearts, in this way, what that body of testimony is to which it is our first function to bear witness before the world. This duty of witness to Christian truth, however, contains a great deal more than appears on the surface. For this truth to which the Christian Church is to bear witness in the world is some- thing more than a body of historic fact or philosophic theory. It is a living power and the Church that bears witness to the truth, in bearing such witness will find that it has become not merely a witness to facts but a channel of great and living energy beating upon the life of the world. The word is a word of life. That was part of the commission of the early Christians too. John the Baptist was not a shining light alone but a burning light as well. And what made the testimony of the apostolic church so wholly convincing was the life that the Church lived in the world and the channel of energy which was opened through it by the power of God to press those THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 27 facts down upon the sin and need of mankind. And our business to-day, also, bearing witness to truth is to release on man the divine power of renewal and redemption that will affect every area and department of human life, the life of each man in his ideals of what a man can be and do in the world, the relations of man in society, all the relations of class to class and of nation to nation. And that is a vastly more difficult problem than bearing wit- ness to static truth alone. To deal with life, the great complex life of the world, tangled up by the lies and confusions of the past, scarred by the sin and the evil and hatred of the years gone by, to disentangle all that, to heal those scars, to make human life to-day what the will of Christ would have that life be, is a vastly more difficult task than to write down a message and state that message in words to men. It is quite true that obedience to truth and the spirit of love and brotherliness is itself a great work. Every lover is a recreator of human life. But this we know is not enough in itself. It must lead on to the duty of the Christian Church not only to bear a clear, pure and un- equivocal testimony to the body of her witness in the world to-day, not only to be a channel of living power letting that truth in upon mankind, but in herself to devise and to provide for mankind the great instru- mentalities that are necessary in order that we may deal w^ith our pressing collective responsibilities. One cannot speak here of any new agencies or methods of action which the Church must devise for dealing with her economic problems but I suggest the reading of Mr. John Lietch's little book " Man to Man,"— it is not a book that deals with religion or that professes to approach the industrial problem from the view-point of religion, — but it is a religious book, opening the way for the application 28 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD of the principles of Christian democratic relationship to the problems of our present industrial life. But we must speak of the other two great problems, the problem of our developing as we have not yet de- veloped it, the instrumentality essential for correlating the energies and agencies of the Christian Church in their attack upon their one common task. If humanity is one, if there is one God and Father over us all, if we have one Lord and one faith, we may be sure that we have just one great common work in this world to-day, and our present business is to find the instrumentalities by which we can mass the whole power of Christian faith and Christian character and Christian will and bring them to bear upon the common problems in the Chris- tian nation and Christian Church to-day. Christian men are at last truly striving to realize what was in the mind of our Lord when He prayed that they might all be one and in the thought of Paul in those vast biological metaphors before which we still stand cowed and afraid not daring to take them in the fullness of their meaning, in which Paul conceived of the Church as a great living body, articulate, organic, with one Head over all, from Whom love and government and power pour streaming through it all. We have begun in prayer and love, in brotherly trust, laying aside the spirit of isolation and jealousy and suspicion, submitting ourselves to the mind of Christ, to feel our way. We shall not be given light to see far, but we can feel our way step by step, as we respond to every intimation of Christ's spirit with the fullest possible measure of correlated activity in dealing together with our great common task. One sees in the immediate pressing problem of the Church to-day the greater urgency of that task. Thank God, we have gone far enough in our duty in this matter to furnish some THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 29 help as mankind now seeks to shape the instrumentalities of a new world organization. As in the beginning of our national life it was the Christian Church pervading the thirteen original colonies, communizing them, relating them one with one another, supplying models of collective organization, that gave to the statesmen who built the political structure of this nation their fundamental ideals, so it may be to-day. It is the Christian Church that can give and in reality is giving example and spirit for a new correlated relationship for all mankind. And what we speak of to-day as the League of Nations is surely an indispensable and unavoidable implicate of all our Christian faith and endeavour in the world. Surely the considerations that drive us on to this great goal are fundamentally and essentially religious. We have to provide in our world to-day some instrumentality of in- ternational relationships to deal with the flat and un- avoidable facts of existing world relationships and entanglements. And it is religious to face facts. It is irreligious for men to shut their eyes to indisputable and unavoidable facts. We are related through the world to-day by ties that cannot be dissolved. The economic bonds are heavy and unbreakable. The rest of the world owes the United States to-day more than ten billions of dollars of money. Every year the balance of trade is overwhelmingly in favour of the United States. Not a year passes that obligations of all the rest of the world to the United States do not enlarge. Men who tell us that we should draw off from the rest of the world simply preach against the irresistible tides. We are enmeshed in all the life of the world to-day. We cannot unmesh our- selves. Every day that passes entangles us more in- extricably with all the rest of mankind and we are simply imbecile if in face of the fact we shut our eyes to it and 30 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD do not try to devise the agencies by which that fact should be dealt with. In the second place, we believe in an attempt at a world association on religious grounds, because it is drawn out from the very fact and ideal of human unity. The human race has always been one but its unity was unreal- ized. So long as the means of communication were poor and the population of the world was widely scattered and there were great areas segregating the races, it was pos- sible for us to live our detached, provincial life. That day, we have seen, has gone forever. God has thrown the whole of humanity together in an actual experience of the unity of man and out of that unity we are compelled to think to-day the plans of organization that shall deal with this actual constitution of mankind. In the third place we are bound to this advance by loyalty to what has gone by. It is irreligious to betray the past. We remember the great word in the Epistle to the Hebrews where after that noble list of heroes and heroines of Israel the writer of the Epistle throws out the moral challenge to the men and women of his own day : " These all received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect." We have to lay the frame- work for a new world in loyalty to the men who sleep be- neath the poppies in the Flanders fields. They will not rest there if we prove unequal now to carrying forward the work that they began. All that has gone was getting ready for this. It was not getting men and women ready to come to this and then to turn back again into the past. Men and women have been brought up to this through such sacrifice that by that sacrifice they might be so en- larged as to be able now to believe and to do what in the past had been an impossible thing. THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 31 We believe in the League of Nations in the fourth place because of our obligations to what comes after us. It is irreligious to be disloyal to the future. Men and women who avoid great and pressing duty do not betray the past alone. They betray the future as well. And the problems that grow out of the last four years are im- possible problems unless we provide instrumentalities de- signed honestly, however imperfectly, to deal with him. We have to have some form of organization to cope with international necessities which have come out of the war and become more intense and critical by reason of the war and the terms of peace. Inevitably the terms of peace must leave open and conditional many issues and many issues unsettled or unwisely settled. The issues which it seeks to close will reopen and reshape them- selves. Continued peace will depend upon their wise handling in the processes of life in the years that lie just ahead of us. In the fifth place, we need some international associa- tion to-day as an instrumentality of world service. It was a significant thing that when they redrafted the covenant they put in an entirely new article covering the proposed international expansion of the work of the Red Cross. It is tragic that religion has had to be left out of the covenant, that we have a constitution of the world now with no provision in it for religious liberty, — a con- stitution of all mankind, and that only indirectly can we bring in those great principles of service that are symbol- ized by the Cross of Christ and that draw their inspiration from the spirit of Christ but cannot be there except by indirection. It is significant that they come in under the symbol of the Cross. It is world service and cooperation for which we must prepare and provide. It is simply indisperiable that there should be new agencies of inter- 32 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD national service provided adequate to the needs of the new day. Is it tolerable that in a world that God made, whose resources He made adequate to the needs of all His children, there should be great areas of mankind with superfluous supplies and other great areas of mankind as Turkey and Persia and Russia, the Bombay Presidency, Rajputana, the Punjab, where hundreds and thousands of men, women and little children are starving to death for lack of bread, while elsewhere there is abundance and to spare? Is it tolerable that there should be such a world? We have got to erect for mankind some agency of inter- national service that will do for all men everywhere the work that the spirit of Christ in His Church insists should now be done to Christ Himself, incarnate forever in the need of humanity. There are no more difficulties in the way than would have prevented, if men had yielded to them, any human society whatsoever at the beginning, no more difficulties in the way than would have made impossible the original federation of the thirteen colonies, not so many difficulties in the way as stood in the path of the men who drafted the Constitution of the United States. Whatever argu- ments can be made against the federation of the world to-day were valid too against the federation of the col- onies that constituted the original United States. And if we believe that those men would have been disloyal to God if they had failed Him in that great hour and had not set the boundary of freedom more wide and secure by what they did in building this nation, by so much we believe must we regard the men and women of this day disobedient if they do not seek to do for the world now as much as they can of w^hat our fathers did for it a cen- tury and a half ago. Men have appealed to their exam- ples as debarring us from entering into relationship with THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 33 the other nations of the world to-day. Those men are most loyal to the great names of the past who seek to do what those men would do to-day if they stood face to face with the tasks and responsibilities of this present time. And if we are told that all that is proposed is experiment and that nobody can be sure of the result, could the same thing not have been said one hundred and fifty years ago ? All life and progress and all stagnation and standpatism are experiment too. And it is safer for us to follow any man who says he believes in a better world and is going to try to get it even if we are not totally sure about all the prescriptions than to follow any man who says he knows all about his prescriptions because they call only for what we have had and says, " Come, let us go back again into the known past." That past is gone forever. Ten million men died to seal that past once and for all against our retreating into it; died that a new and better world might come, a world in which the children they were never to have might have lived in peace and quiet- ness and honour and love, or other real children in their stead. Maybe thoughts like these carry us too far out of our own proper field. Let us come back to what lies central to it all,— just three great things. First of all, that we should conceive the work that we have to do to-day in the existing relationships in which we find ourselves, in terms of the most comprehensive brotherhood and of the min- istry that we are to work out in our differentiated activi- ties in behalf of the whole common body of Christ. There is to-day a deepened sense of denominational re- sponsibility. Those are the traces in which we are set now to draw. We shall do our best for the whole as each body of us inside the area of its own defined responsibility does in the fullest and richest measure all the work that 34 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD God has given that body to do, only does it not in the spirit of isolation and of jealousy and of antagonism but in the spirit of glad recognition of the underlying unity of the whole and of its ministry as just its contribution to all that great body of resources that at last is to be the com- mon wealth of the undivided body of Christ. In the second place, we should bring all the massed moral forces, all the massed spiritual forces of the Chris- tian Church to bear upon our common present responsi- bility. Many have read General Foch's book on " The Principles of War," to see what there is there in the principles of the great Marshal that might be of service to us men and women engaged in another and mightier and more difficult conflict than his. Listen to these as some of these first axioms in the earlier chapters. " De- feat is a purely moral result." " Strategy is only the re- sult of character and common sense." *' Whatever is done in an army should always aim at increasing its moral strength. Of all mistakes one only is disgraceful — inac- tion." " Napoleon always marched straight to his goal without in any way bothering about the strategic plan of his enemy." " Nowhere can better models be found than in the case of Napoleon who triumphed by taking advan- tage of human emotions, by giving to operations the most crushing nature ever known, by manoeuvering masses of men." " The mass absorbs for war all the physical and moral resources of the nation." We have to mass our resources against our task. Some larger and richer means of doing it must yet be devised. We have to mass the total moral and spiritual power represented in Chris- tian faith and Christian sacrifice upon the full task of the Christian Church in the whole world to-day. And thirdly, — it is good to come back to it, — we have to remember just what life is; how unitary and cellular THE GOSPEL AKD THE NEW WOELD 35 a thing it is ; that the power of the whole body is no more than the power of the aggregate cellular life of the body. Behind all our larger organizations must lie the strength and power of local Christian faith and worship and service. But these chapters are to deal rather with the world relations of Christianity in this new time. Our interest is in the bearings of the new; world conditions upon Christian missions. It is clearer than ever that the whole world needs what Christianity purports to offer. A Japanese paper, the Herald of Asia, comments on the latent savagery in man as war has revealed it. " It may be as some aver," it says, *' that in most people all that is needed is a little scratching to find the savage. We have been civilized outwardly and to a greater degree than we have been civilized inwardly. National character has not kept pace with material development. Man has changed his envi- ronment but not his heart. His power is greater than his self-control. He is advancing materially more rapidly than he is advancing spiritually. He is becoming to an alarming extent his own God, and what if it prove a devil? Nations that look no higher than man can ex- pect nothing better than man. But religion has much to do yet before it can make a real man out of this human animal." Man is his own problem. He makes his own misery. All that all men need is generously provided in the world. There is no reason for human unhappiness except ignorance and sin. The Gospel offers to care for both. It declares that in Christ and His Gospel are all the principles man requires for personal guidance and for the direction of society and that the power of Christ can set man free from sin. We have wars and pestilence and want simply because we will not have God's will in Christ. 36 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD The new world needs Him and that is all it does need. It needs His spirit of trust and brotherhood, His forgive- ness and freedom, His principle of world organization, His power of recreation, the fullness of the Gospel of redeeming love and life. " What we lack in our coun- try," writes a thoughtful Japanese, " is Christianity in power and in resurrection." This is the whole world's lack. The war has not only illustrated the need of a new life for the world. It has constituted an appeal to Christian- ity to launch forth upon its invisible resources and to at- tempt mightier tasks, to rely boldly upon its Founder's own words. " The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father." The well-nigh limitless elasticity of the spirit of sacrifice and obedience and noble daring in men and nations which the past years have seen is a summons to the Christian Church to return to the wonder-working days, the days of moral miracles, the days when men joy- fully achieved the impossible. The new social psychology uses almost as bold language as the Bible in its declara- tion of what can be. " The law of the integration of the individual," says Mr. Kidd, "has been the law of the supremacy and the omnipotence of brute force. But other and higher integrations are now on foot in the world which rest on mind and spirit. It is the laws and the meanings of these integrations which are carrying the world into new horizons. And in the upbuilding of the civilization founded on this wider knowledge it is the stones which the builders of the past have rejected which are about to become the master stones of the edifice. , . . Germany has been the first country of the West to bring home to the minds of men, though unfortunately only in relation to the atavisms of war, the fact neverthe- THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 37 less indisputable and of the very highest significance to civilization, that an entire nation may be completely al- tered in character, in outlook, and in motive in a single generation. With the single exception of gigantic effort devoted to the national ideal of sacrifice in the cause of successful war, of which the results in recent history have been astounding, the world has witnessed no example in its history of the idealisms of mind universally imposed through intensive culture on the youth of civilization in conditions of emotion and with all the equipment and re- sources of modern civilization in the background. The great systems of religion which have come nearest to realizing such a conception in the past have not so far even remotely approached what is possible under modern conditions of knowledge. We are on the verge of a new era of civilization, and the people or the type of civiliza- tion which will first succeed in this experiment will ob- tain control of all the reservoirs of force in civilization in a manner which has never been thought possible in the past. . . . There is absolutely no aim, which civiliza- tion chooses to set before itself, which it is not possible for civilization to achieve, even to the sweeping away of this existing world and the creation of a new world in a brief space of time." If wholly apart from the Christian Gospel a man can talk thus, what sort of Christians are we if we think only in terms of immutability and fixed fate, and forget that vastly bolder spirit than Mr, Kidd's which breathed in St. Paul and in that great campaign of his which upheaved the world ? The new world will not be irreligious. Already the re- actions of the war on the non-Christian religions are marked and significant. Books like " Hinduism, the World Religion," show how Hindus are ready to change Hinduism from the ground up to adapt it to the world 38 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD unity which has come. There never was any such thing as this Hinduism. Its sheer manufacture to-day is a sign that the world reahzes that it must have the conception of Christianity. Chen Kuan Chang, a Ph.D. of Columbia University and a member of the Chinese Parliament and the leader in the effort to have Confucianism adapted constitutionally as the state religion of China, in a paper issued in February, 19 19, puts forward Confucianism as the religion of the united world : " While European scholars advocate nationalism, Chi- nese scholars advocate universalism. The time appears to have arrived when universalism should replace nation- alism and the Confucian principles of perfect peace should be put into practice. It is our duty to persuade the world to accept these principles. " Confucius says : ' When the great principle of uni- versalism prevails, the whole world becomes a republic; the people elect men of virtue, talent and ability; they endeavour to find out the theory of sincere agreement and cultivate universal peace. Thus men do not regard as their parents only their own parents, nor treat as their children their own children. Provision is made for the aged till their death, employment given to the middle- aged, and the means of self-development offered to the young. Widowers, widows, orphans, childless men and those who are disabled by disease, are all supported by the State. Each man has his rights, and each woman her individuality, safeguarded. They produce, not for the sake of throwing it away or wishing to keep it for their own gratification, disliking idleness, the labour, but not alone with a view to their own advantage. In this way selfish schemings are suppressed, and find no way to arise. Robbers, filchers and the rebellious do not exist. Hence the outer doors can remain open.' This is what I call universaUsm." Thereupon Chen Huan Chang proceeds to outline a THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 39 proposed scheme of Universal Government in twenty-five planks. Among these are the following : 1. With the object of preventing the recurrence of dreadful war in the future and attaining permanent peace, a Universal Government shall be established by all the nations of the world, which should be treated on an equal standing irrespective of their distances, strengths and races. The first principle of " Spring and Autumn " is " one government." 2. A Universal Council shall be established to exercise the power of Universal Government, pass laws and deal with international questions. To this Council each nation shall send a representative, whose term shall be three years, and who may be allowed to serve another term. Any man holding office in the Universal Government shall lose his nationality for the time being, and shall not be subject to the jurisdiction of his own country. 5. The year in which Universal Government shall be established shall be considered the first year of the Uni- versal Era. The different methods of counting years which are peculiar to religions and nations are to be con- tinuously used by those particular religions or nations only, and not to be used universally. II. All the races in the world, irrespective of colour, shall be treated as equals, and no discrimination against them is allowed. 13. All things, including spoken and written languages, social duties and customs, shall be gradually regulated and made uniform. 14. All the territories of the universe shall nominally belong to the Universal Government. No nation shall be allowed to own lands. But a nation shall be allowed to exercise temporary control over the areas it has already occupied. 15. At the present Peace Conference boundaries of all the nations shall be clearly defined, and the Universal Government shall assume the responsibility for according 40 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD them its protection. Nations shall be forbidden to ex- change, buy, sell or occupy lands of other nations, in order to prevent hostility. 1 6. The Universal Government alone shall have the right to accord recognition to newly formed nations. No two nations shall be allowed to amalgamate; and, with the consent of the Universal Government, one nation may be divided into two or several smaller states. 22. The nations shall be independent and self-govern- ing so far as their own affairs are concerned. But their governments, whether hereditary or elective, shall be democratic and governed by popular will. The King of Siam feels the surge of the world con- sciousness and transcends the ancient and orthodox Bud- dhist traditions in public recognition of the supernatural intervention in behalf of the righteous cause. On No- vember 19, 1918, he issued his " Royal Proclamation on the occasion of the Great Victory of the Allies " : " On the 22nd of July of the present year I invited the Siamese people to unite in an intercessional prayer invoking the Holy Buddhist Trinity and the Virtues of the departed Sovereigns of the Royal Chakri Dynasty to grant aid and vouchsafe victory to the Grand Alliance over our enemies. . . . People of Siam! Now that the great blessing of Peace has returned to this world through the valour and gallantry of the Military and Naval Forces and the indomitable deten nination of our Allies, we ourselves, as followers of tb:i Holy Buddhist Religion, hold the belief that the Holy Buddhist Trinity, which we all revere and daily worship, and the Virtues of the departed Monarchs who have been Protectors of the Siamese Nation in the past have also aided in the achievement of the victory which has brought about this happy result. Therefore, on the 2nd of December, which is the anniversary of M^ THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 41 Coronation, I will proceed to the Royal Plaza in the center of the Capital and, together with the Princes of the Royal House, the officials of the Government, the officers and men of My Army and Navy, and Corps of Wild Tiger Scouts, will there offer up a Thanksgiving Prayer to the Holy Emerald Image of our Lord Buddha and pay reverence to the Royal Statues of the last five reigns, which are enshrined in the precincts of the Royal Temple, and invoke the Holy Buddhist Trinity and the Virtues of My Royal Ancestors to protect and safeguard our Siamese Nation and all the nations with whom we are allied, and vouchsafe to us all lasting peace and happiness and the fullest enjoyment of all the fruits of victory." Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism avow the Christian ideal of humanity. Islam alone is incompetent of it and yet Islam also is attempting it and in doing so ceases, like Hinduism and Buddhism, to be itself. What all these faiths now feel after is what Christ came to fulfill. They need the fundamental Christian conception of humanity. And this conception is essential to any such elementary organization of humanity as the League of Nations. Embodied in foreign missions the human democracy and innate internationalism of Christianity has been preparing the way for the consciousness of human unity which the war has accentuated and for the expression of this con- sciousness in some political instrumentality. Foreign mis- sions have rendered this service in many ways. They have communicated a religion to the East which origi- nated In the East. The fact of Christianity is an Inter- racial and International fact. Our Western faith came from the Orient. Missions have bridged racial gulfs and interpreted the East and West each to the other. " Friends," said a Chinese speaker in the city of Hwai 42 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD Yuen, " there are five great races in the world, white, black, brown, red and skin colour." Missions have taught that all the colours of men are skin colour. They have taught brotherhood and incarnated the spirit of service. They have developed in diverse races a leader- ship sympathetic with democracy and internationalism, loyal to their own nationalisms beyond any other claims of the people, but assured that the nation and humanity are not irreconcilable terms. There are some who tell us that they are. But that is just the great falsehood that we charged to Germany. These teachers will be telling us next that the family and the nation are irreconcilable. But we know that just as the nation can be built only on perfected family life, so the very end of perfected nation- alism is humanity. There was no more powerful preacher of national unity and national personality than Joseph Mazzini, but his voice was irresistible for the nation because he spoke in the name and for the interest of humanity. " God, Humanity, the Fatherland and the Family " were the four terms of his message. The nation or the statesman that omits any one of the four distorts the truth and invites the inevitable judgment that pun- ishes error. The new world rests like all new things on sacrifice. A body of men greater than the population of whole nations died to end one order and to begin a new. The spirit of their dying should be the spirit of our living. " Father," wrote Wilbert White, one of the choicest of those who died in the war, saving another by his own unhesitating sacrifice, " life to me now is a whole lot more serious matter than it ever has been before. I realize that I've something to live for, and, if necessary, to die for, and I'm fully prepared to do either. If God wills that I come through this war with my senses, I'm going to get a lot dPHE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 43 of things I was never thinking of before . . . and if I'm not to get back, — well, I will at least have given my life for the right. It is a great war we're in, Father, a wonderful war ; a war between right and wrong, and I'm in it heart and soul to the end." " Mother," wrote an- other young American, of like spirit and character, Edwin Austin Abbey, 2nd, " I could leave at once. I am so full of that, it drowns out every ambition or desire or thought of the future that I have. I have nothing but a great big desire to give myself to help in this battle against evil." The war between right and wrong is not ended. The battle against evil is waging still. Old error and false- hood and sin are all here in the new world. They are in the new world everywhere. No victory of arms can des- troy them, for their home is in the heart of men. Only one power can follow them there and achieve deliverance. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and nought else can set us free from the law of sin and death and give us the new earth with the new heaven over it and within it, righteousness. II FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE LIGHT AND DARKNESS OF THE WAR FOUR great mission fields were included in the actual physical area of the war. The tides of battle rolled to and fro over each of the three great African Colonies of Germany — German Southwest Africa, German East Africa and German West Africa or Kamerun. Some years before the war, a British writer in a striking article pictured the possibility of a future battle between European powers on the great African lakes, watched in confused alarm by the African people. Sooner than he knew his imagining came true. In mission station after mission station appalled African Christians heard the tumult of war and saw the African tribes armed against one another in a conflict whose causes lay thousands of miles away. One of the most successful missions of the American churches was in Kamerun. The American Presby- terians who had for many years worked both in the Ger- man colony of Kamerun and in the French colony of the Congo to the south, on the Benito, Gabun and Ogowe Rivers, had concentrated all their work in German terri- tory, finding there greater freedom from hampering re- strictions. There they had developed great churches and schools. The largest Presbyterian church in the world is the church at Elat. Here also was a remarkable indus- trial school where the African boys were taught to be 44 FOEEIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAR 45 tailors, carpenters, farmers, mechanics, as well as teachers and preachers. The school and its machinery were seized and turned into an ammunition plant. The native people were impressed into military service either as fighters or as carriers. The American missionaries whose govern- ment was at that time still neutral in the war were placed in positions of great difficulty as the issues of the war unrolled. The Allies soon conquered this section of the German possessions in Africa and it passed into the hands of the French, who still hold it. There were extensive German Missions in northern Kamerun. It is to be hoped that the German Protestant missionaries may be allowed to return to the work they have been doing there so faith- fully. If that may not be, then the French Evangelical, churches and the American churches must be prepared to take over this trust. The second field included in the actual war area was the Province of Shantung in China, where, in order to make the Pacific safe for the ships of the Allies, Japan wrested from Germany the harbour of Kiao Chou Bay and the city of Tsingtau and the claims which Germany had extended into the Province of Shantung. In accom- plishing this Japan crossed Shantung from the north, in- vading China's neutral soil, and not content with taking over Germany's establishment she built brick barracks along the railroad, filling them with Japanese troops, and erected a great military establishment in Tsinanfu, the Provincial capital, where she could control not the rail- road east and west alone but also the trunk line north and south between Nanking and Tientsin, and dominate the entire government of the province. She overran the province with Japanese, as the Germans had never done with Germans, and introduced far and wide a diabolical trade in morphine. It was absolutely necessary that Ger- 46 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD man power in Shantung should be overthrown but the absorption and retention of so extensive and absolute con- trol of this great province by Japan has been the bitterest outcome of the war to China and has caused great dis- satisfaction with the Peace Treaty to many friends both of Japan and China in the West. On China's side it is urged that the original acquisition of her rights in Shan- tung by Germany was by wrong and injustice, that Japan promised to return what she took from Germany to China, that on entering the war China denounced her agreements with Germany and resumed all extorted rights, that she needs and has a right to the return of a harbour, which is one of the few remaining harbours on her coast which European powers have not absorbed, that she is now striving to get her national house in order and needs all the help other nations can give her instead of being pillaged of her resources, that she has already ample cause to distrust Japan and that the Japanese claim to Shantung can do nothing but deepen this distrust and foster hatred between two peoples who must live in neighbourly relations forever and who ought to be friends. On the side of Japan it is argued that Japan was asked to drive Germany out of Shantung by Great Britain, that Germany's rights had been granted to her by China and that it was Japan and not China which took them back from Germany, that Great Britain is seeking Thibet and has no intention of returning to China what she has taken directly from her in the past and that since the war be- gan France has helped herself to more of China's terri- tory at Tientsin, that China is in danger of breaking up and that it would be suicidal for Japan to run the risk of having some European power in Shantung, that Japan has promised to return to China all but a small part of Kiao Chou Bay and that she will hold this only on a long FOEEIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAE 47 lease so that in time China may have all back if China grows capable and trustworthy. If only Japan, which has learned so much from the West, would transcend the political tradition of the West and honestly seek to build China up, to strengthen the best elements of the nation, to be an absolutely unselfish friend — this would be to ex- pect more of Japan than Western nations have been wont to do, but it would begin a new day in Asia, and from a friendly, grateful China Japan would gain more than she can ever wring from China outraged and embittered. Meanwhile the presence of Japan in Shantung has not been without its effect on Missions. It wiped out the German mission work in the province. The siege and capture of Tsingtau temporarily checked the American Presbyterian work. The discontent of the people through- out the province did not help to increase their interest in Christianity. The morphine trade and the Japanese method of officially administered prostitution were harm- ful moral contributions. Group Five of the Twenty-One Demands threatened a politico-religious Buddhist propa- ganda. The immediate effects of the war did not pro- mote Christian missions in Shantung. The third mission field affected directly by the war was the Turkish Empire and the Balkan states. The great work of the American Congregational churches in these lands was shattered. Some institutions were still main- tained by the Congregational missionaries and the Pres- byterian mission in Syria operated its schools throughout the war, while the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut and Robert College and the American College for women in Constantinople ran on without a break. The im- measurable catastrophe was the brutal decimation of the Armenians. It is not yet known how many Armenian people are left but it will be only a fraction of this thrifti- 48 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD est and most capable section of the populations of Turkey. And the horror of murder and beastly cruelty by which the Armenians were slaughtered less mercifully than sheep, were accompanied by every possible physical destruction, moral atrocity and religious sacrilege. More than a thousand Christian homes in Aintab, for example, were entirely torn down by the Turks who wanted the timber to use for fuel or to sell in the markets. For three and a half years no church service and no Sunday Schools were allov/ed in Aintab. The Turks had made one of the churches into a brothel. In every conceivable way they had desecrated these buildings. They had despoiled the stately Gregorian cathedral of all its treas- ures, ripped out the ancient tiles with pickaxes and torn away the marble stones of the altar. A capable and just minded observer in Mosul wrote of the facts which he found there and I quote his report not because it is ex- ceptionally bad but because so much worse ones might be quoted : " Great droves of refugees were herded here. One can speak of it in no other way. They came driven like cattle and on their arrival here were herded like cattle in open fields. The good-looking girls and women were carried into the city and disposed of in Moslem harems, as mistresses to officers and in the public brothels. The remainder were left to drag out a miserable existence in the open without any definite or certain food supply. " The great majority of these multitudes herded thus outside the city perished with hunger, cold and disease; some scattered among the Christian villages and, let it be noted, among the villages of the Yezidees, a sect some- times spoken of as ' Devil Worshippers ' and both Chris- tians and Yezidees, although nearly as bad off as the strangers and living in constant fear of massacre, shared their meagre supplies with them. Some filtered into the city and struggled with the street dogs for a living. The FOEEIGN MISSIONS m THE WAE 49 Official and military class, including most of the Ger- mans, seem to have been utterly callous to the pleas of these unfortunates, kicking and clubbing them from be- fore their doors, not only refusing to aid them but f rown- mg upon the efforts of more charitable ones to feed them. This is not true, however, of the Moslem population of the city as a whole, among whom were many who were kindly disposed toward the destitute Christians and fed them. Many of these, however, bestowed their charity m order to win converts to Islam. Since the coming of the British army, many girls and women have been re- covered from such homes where they were being cared for but held as Moslem converts, and I am told by the Armenian Bishop that hundreds still remain concealed. "The distress of the war period culminated last win- ter in a dire famine which wasted Christian and Moslem alike. The most trustworthy estimates I have been able to secure would place the number of deaths from starva- tion and disease during the winter between 35,000 and 50,000. To-day I saw photographs of a Moslem and his wife m chains, another showing them hanging on the gallows; a third gruesome picture shows the heads of children killed by them. The meat is said to have been sold in the market and it was for this crime they were hanged. "One of the saddest pictures I have seen was in a yard where nearly one hundred girls have been segre- gated by the medical authorities. In looks and appear- ance they were much above the ordinary refugees, for It was because of their beauty and social position 'they had been selected for the prostitution into which they were forced. Their homes were from all over Asia Minor, from Constantinople to Erzerum, some of them evidendy homes of wealth and refinement. As they gathered about me, some of them weeping, some of them angiy and resentful, they begged to be set free." Over the various mission centers of Turkey the storm of war swept once, twice, and again, before at last the armies moving northward from Egypt, north and north- 60 THE GOSPEL A^B THE NEW WOELD west from the Persian gulf, and the collapse of Bulgaria behind, put an end to Turkey and the rule of Turkey over Christian populations forever. So the capitulations are abolished once for all by the abolition of the power which could not become a free nation, which could not exclude the people of free nations and could only set up a com- promise with their presence. If Christianity is not now to have a free course in the territories which were Turkey it will be Christian nations which will be responsible for the hindrance. The fourth mission field harassed by the war was Persia. The armies of Russia or Turkey or both held every mission station in Western Persia and some of these stations changed hands three or four times during the war. One of them, Urumia, suffered more perhaps than any other mission station in the world. Protected for a time by the Russians and for a time by the armed Assyrian and Armenian Christians themselves, after four years of hardship, of mingled horror of repeated flight and famine and oppression, the entire Christian popula- tion at last poured out in one great hegira of nearly 80,000 souls to the south. Attacked by the Kurds, dis- organized, without food or transportation, losing the first week their one trusted guide and protector, Dr. William A. Shedd, who died of cholera near Sain Kala, as he sought to protect the rear of the terror-stricken host, tens of thousands of the nation perished. It can be safely said that of all the people who suffered from the war the Assyrian or Nestorian Christians suffered most. They were a neutral and pacific people, and the Persian section of them lived in a neutral land. If the mountain Assyrian tribes at the last acted not unlike their Kurdish and Mohammedan oppressors, though such action was wrong, it was the sequel to indescribable provocation- Perhaps FOEEIGN MISSIOl^S IN THE WAE 51 two-thirds of the nation has been wiped out and the remnant is still awaiting a just reestablishment with ade- quate reparation in their old homes in eastern Turkey and about the Urumia Lake. Most of their pastors and priests were slain. Their villages were pillaged and destroyed. Their women and girls were outraged. Their pitiful lot is one more evidence of the intolerable wrong of leaving Christian populations to the unchecked evil of modern Moslem governments. Urumia is still a scene of anarchy and in the summer of 19 19 each effort of the missionaries to return even for relief work for Moslems and Kurds had been frustrated and no Christian life was safe, and Persians and Kurds were at one another's throats. When once the Kurds are broken and the poison of Turkish influence is forever gone the Persians, who are a kindly and courteous people, with such help as they themselves realize they need from without, may be expected to re- establish peace and to begin a new day in this mangled area of Azerbaijan. But the Persians will never do it here or elsewhere in Persia without the moral regenera- tion and reenforcement of Christianity. It is a remarkable thing that in each one of these four fields the mission work went on throughout the war with- out the permanent abandonment of a single mission station and that in almost all of the stations outside of interior Turkey missionaries are at their work to-day as though there had been no war. In some of the African stations the largest Christian congregations assemble that can be found anywhere in the world. In the midst of upheaval and change one force which has held steadily on its way has been the force of Christian missions. The more important question, however, is as to the influence of the war on the mind of the non-Christian people. Has the war sealed the thought of Asia and 52 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD Africa against Christianity as a Western religion, des- troyed by the breakdown of Western industrial civiliza- tion ? Not so. The men of Asia and Africa are able to make distinctions as well as we. As Prince Damrong said to us in Siam, " Do not fear that we think Christi- anity is responsible for the war. We understand per- fectly well that it is not Christianity which has failed, but the Western nations, and that if only peoples of the West had practiced the precepts of Christ there would have been no such awful struggle." What Christ came to do, what spirit and message the missionaries bear from Him to the world, is clearer to the minds of the non-Christian peoples to-day than it was five years ago. The war saw an appalling financial burden laid upon missions as a result of the increase in the price of silver. This increase was due to many causes — to a diminution in the output of silver from the mines, to the immense in- crease of other forms of currency, increasing thereby the proportionate value of silver ; to the hoarding of silver in India and China and the great demand for silver for cur- rency in these lands and for the Chinese and Indians in- volved in the war; to the decrease of trade, diminishing the demand for exchange on the West. The result was the advance in the price of the silver currency of lands like China where the Mexican dollar nearly doubled in value, and in Persia where the Toman more than doubled. Now the Rupee in India and the Yen in Japan have also advanced. Some mission boards had to appeal to their constituencies for additional contributions of over half a million dollars merely to provide for the depreciation in the silver purchasing power of American money. But there are deeper aspects in which the war brought to light the significance of the missionary enterprise. - In a day, and against the background, of disorder and FOEEIGN MISSIOI^S IN THE WAR 63 destruction, we saw Christian missions as a great, peace- able and constructive agency of equalization, transforma- tion and freedom. The American people believed that the war in which they became involved was a righteous and necessary war. But war can never be anything else than destruction, the wiping out of wrong and the tear- ing down of false power, and never in human history was there such a titanic work of destruction done. If the billions of dollars and the millions of men engulfed in the war could only have been devoted to the great processes of human progress, we could have lifted humanity for- ward in this decade by the sheer leap of a century. This may not now be. But it is against all this inevitable shadow that we see more clearly than ever the honour and glory of the missionary ideal and its work of un- selfish and creative love. " I confess," said Sir James Meston, the Lieutenant-Governor of the United Prov- mces, at the opening of some new buildings of the De- partment of Agriculture in the Ewing Christian College at Allahabad, India, " that after I have been here and spent an hour on the farm, I always go away seeing visions. I see a vision of a very different India from what we have now— of an India in which the whole coun- tryside has been metamorphosed by agricultural skill and science; in which its rustic people are comfortable, in which the land is immune from the ravages of famine, in which the ground is producing three, four, five, six times what it produces now; and as a correlative to that I see a vision of the great towns, busy with the hum of looms and a purr of electric machinery, which I hope means smokeless chimneys, turning out the comforts and luxuries which a prosperous countryside will require. It is a vision of the future of a great and prosperous countiy striding forward to higher things." War cannot work 64 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD a transformation like this. It can be wrought only by the constructive ministries of good-will. In the very darkest hours of this war and the most cruel places of the earth we have seen the missionaries accomplishing these ministries. At the meeting of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, on October 22, 1918, the Board looked upon the vivid symbol of them when a faded and frayed American flag was presented to it with the following letter: Gentlemen : American missionaries in the foreign field love the American flag; no less has the American flag cause for gratitude to American missionaries in distant fields. The American flag is honoured in the Orient — an honour due in no small degree to the missionary's influence; and, on the other hand, many American missionaries owe to the American flag their lives and the lives of many natives who have clung to them in times of trouble. I have the honour, on behalf of the members of Urumia Station, to present to you a well-worn flag which was graciously used of God in defending the rights of the weak and defenseless in Urumia, Persia, during a time of great turmoil. This flag was hoisted over the gateway leading to the main compound of your Mission Station in the City of Urumia (West Persia Mission) soon after the evacua- tion of the city by the Russian Army on January 2, 191 5, and before the entrance into the city of the Kurdish vanguards of the Turkish Army on January 4, 1915. It thereafter flew uninterruptedly until after the Russian Army had reentered the city. May 24, 1915, and again taken up the reins of government — a period of about five months. During those months it was an instrument under God's grace in saving the lives of i5,chdo defenseless Christians, who had taken refuge under its shadow, and indirectly it was a strong influence for quiet and order in a much wider circle. FOEEIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAR 55 Could this flag speak, it would tell you heartrending tales of sorrow and suffering, of injustice and extortion, of cruelty and death ; it would preach powerful sermons on faith, love, sympathy; it would make you feel the gratitude which it read in the 15,000 pairs of eyes that were daily upturned during these sad months — a gratitude which is alive to-day, toward God and toward Christian America, and which will live on 'through generations. Fraternally yours in the great Cause, (Signed) Hugo A. Muller. The flag would not have been there if missionaries had not raised it, and, after all, it was the missionaries and the ideas which they represent which gave the multitudes safe shelter under its folds, for the armies of its govern- ment were six thousand miles away. In a day, and against a background of strife and divi- sion, the war showed us Christian missions as a great agency of friendship and unification. The war opened awful chasms in humanity, and its breaches have not left unaffected the international missionary fellowship, but they have not yet destroyed it and in the midst of all the inevitable divisions of the war something of the principle of super-nationalism has been maintained by the mis- sionary enterprise alone. The American Lutherans cared for the German missionary work in India, the American Presbyterians helped to provide for the French mission- ary work in Africa, and for months at the beginning of the war the discontinued salaries of German missionaries in India were met in part by the British missionaries from their own scanty allowances. And how can the hurt of the world ever be healed, the chasms which have been cleft closed again, except by the balm and the bond of a great forgiving and unifying religious faith, save by the acceptance of the Christian principle of the unity of the 56 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD body of humanity with Jesus Christ as its one Head? " Yes," said a Japanese banker in New York, not yet a member of the Christian Church, who had just been to hear a Christian sermon, " I beheve that what the preacher said is true, that if mankind ever is to be made one it can only be in Christ." Amid the great influences which thundered through the world, but which after all can only do their work upon the surface of human life, we saw the missionary enterprise with a new vividness as a great force, cutting into life's heart and penetrating to the central character of man. There are days in human history when war is the lesser evil and when its necessary work must be done. But its influence can only be structural and not organic. It is surgery cutting away diseased and vicious tissues, but it is not, and never can be, one of the deep and organic processes of life. New ideals, new motives, a new spirit and a new and living power are needed to change the world, not a reconstitution of political re- lationships but a regeneration of the soul of humanity. Mr. Morgenthau discerned this and spoke of it in his tribute to the missionaries in Turkey on his return from his two years' service as American Ambassador in Con- stantinople. "A residence of over two years in Turkey has given me the best possible opportunity to see the work of the American missionaries and to know the workers intimately. Without hesitation I declare my high opinion of their keen insight into the real needs of the people of Turke}^ The missionaries have the right idea. They go straight to the foundations and provide those intellectual, physical, moral and religious benefits upon which alone any true civilization can be built." How deeply this in- fluence has penetrated into the world's life no one can adequately tell. In the years gone by, those most com- FOEEIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAE 67 patent to judge have declared it to be the most powerful and penetrating of all influences, and the influence that has wrought thus is changing the moral ideals of one-half of humanity. In a recent article in a Japanese magazine the writer pointed out the transformation that had taken place in the meaning of Japanese words in the last twenty- five years, beginning with the Japanese word for God, into which the influence of Christianity had poured an absolutely new meaning. What subtler influence can work upon a nation than this? And it is working not only through the resistless evangelization of a changed national speech, but it is striking home ever more and more to the individual heart. But our view of the relation of the war to Missions must take a wider scope. What are some of the larger significances of what we have been through? We can foresee the consequences neither of war nor of peace. The calmest years of life are filled with forces that work out results which we cannot calculate in advance and which often startle us with the more vivid surprise just because they operated in silence and obscurity. Not less and perhaps not more the issues of war, radically alter- ing our normal courses of action and trends of develop- ment, and dislocating our judgments and previsions, present us with new situations on which we had not calcu- lated and to which we have to make a Vv^holly new ad- justment of all our ideas and practices. It would be easy to pick out any war in history and to show how different its effects were from all human expectation. No one thought that our concern for Cuba and our consequent war with Spain would give us re- sponsibility for part of Asia and make us schoolmasters of the Philippines to prepare them for freedom. And even when it became apparent that such a duty was to 58 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD fall to us no one was able to conceive what the effects of its discharge would be upon our national temper, our home politics, or our international relations. So incom- petent are we to forecast what the years or even the days will bring forth that it is unprofitable to speculate as to what the political and moral consequences of this war will be. We do not know yet what effects the struggle has had upon the minds of men in Europe and on other continents. And our only wise course is to wait and pray. But yet this is not all. There is a work of clear think- ing and fearless acting to be done in preparation for the iestablishment and continuance of just and enduring peace. And in the interest of the work of propagating throughout the world the gospel of love and righteousness there is room for a weighing of some of the lessons of this awful struggle. We learned, as I have already said, with an amazing and convincing suddenness that the world is a unity. This is the fundamental axiom of the missionary enter- prise. It holds that all mankind are one family, that nations and men cannot set themselves off from others as in possession of peculiar privilege or capable of isolation, that the truth is the truth for all, and that all men are members one of another, so that if one member of the great body suffers all the members suffer with it. The non-missionary or anti-missionary spirit has assumed that nalio*ns could go off alone and live their life in negligence of other peoples. But it is not so. Within a week from its beginning the effects of the war were felt to the farthest corners of the earth. Transportation between nations was disarranged or ceased altogether, mails stopped, factories closed in Santiago and Shanghai. *ilemote islands of the Pacific and villages in interior Africa were involved in the conflict. Missionary FOEEIGK MISSIOls^S IK THE WAE 59 babies in the West Coast jungles dependent upon con- densed milk from home were cut oif from their supply. The delicate mechanism of exchange was jarred. Inter- national activities of trade and philanthropy were annihi- lated. The whole world felt throughout every fibre and tissue the shock of an experience which made it aware as never before of the truth of Paul's conception of hu- manity as an organism with a common life. The world can never again be as it was. From the very outset of the war it saw and said " This war is not an affair of the belligerent peoples alone. It is an affair of humanity. All humanity is suffering from it. A swift and sure peace which will mean enduring justice and established and immovable righteousness is the concern of all the world." Well, if it be so, foreign missions may speak again to the Church in the hope that their rejected appeal may be heard, " All nations, every creature, utter- most parts of the earth, all men," tliey may say,—" these were the thought of Christ, that He might bring them all into one in Him." A new realization of the truth of human unity is one meaning of the war for foreign missions. But some will say, " Preposterous ! War is the utter denial of unity, not its affirmation. The war sowed dis- cords and racial hates which will never be outgrown. Look at the prejudices and distrusts which have produced the war, and which were themselves the lasting products of past wars. Men hated one another as never before in history. . It was the utter breakdown of brotherhood *- and unity. The benevolent claim of foreign missions is a delusion." This is the apparently obvious fact, and there Is only too much evidence that between even con- scientious men of different nationalities the rent that ha^ opened is terrible. And all international Christian serv- 60 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ices were subjected to a fearful strain which tested to the uttermost the forbearance, fair-mindedness, and charita- bleness of Christian men. But the test will be met. Nations of honest common people cannot cherish abiding wrath against each other. And while foreign missions, which are the great Christian internationalism, have been put under a new strain, the strain has been for the most part endured. The war meant also a new revelation of the need of the work which Christ alone can do for men everywhere. There have been many who saw no need of Christ. " What did he mean ? " exclaimed one of our college presidents with regard to the declaration of a speaker in the college chapel. " He said that a man absolutely needed Jesus Christ. Nonsense. Many a man gets along very well without Him." Culture and civilization were supposed to suffice for men without Christ. And in the non-Christian nations man was held to be able to get along very well without the Gospel. But men are not so sure now. They doubt whether man is much more than the brute which, as they believed, he was at the be- ginning. " In fact," says the Allahabad Pioneer, which has always had a very lofty opinion of European develop- ment, " we must give up the idea of evolution in the essentials of the human race." In Europe, or America or Asia, we see now, man is incapable in himself of realizing the 'Kingdom of God on the earth. He needs the Gospel. But, once again, are we not compelled now to admit #hat the Gospel is as much of a failure as man? Did not Europe have the Gospel? Why did it not prevent this strife and take fear from men's hearts and make them brothers? If it did not do this for Europe, can it do it for Asia? Is Asia not better off with religions under which no such awful struggles have occurred in our day? FOEEIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAE 61 We ask these questions, men say, and what will become of foreign missions when the non-Christian people ask such questions ? At home such questions will not cut the nerve of mis- sionary consecration and prayer, for the simple reason that if it had been practiced Christianity would have prevented strife and stripped men's hearts of fear and made them brothers. The most interesting phenomenon in all the discussions of the war was the way in which men of all types of opinion have recognized that only religion can end war. Statesmanship and diplomacy and science and trade and organization and armaments and education have not prevented it. They have made it only more terrible. Nothing but the grace of God transform- ing men and uniting them in unselfishness and love can ever make peace. And not only have we had a new revelation of the need of the real evangelization of men, but we have had also a new revelation of the worth of men to God. When has there been such loyalty, such sacrifice, such devo- tion,— the women giving up their husbands and sons, and cultivating the fields and making supplies and nursing the wounded, and men going by the tens of thousands to their death ? Not only was man seen in all the nakedness of his utter moral need, but he was seen also in the raw glory of the ruin of his God-like lineage. " Let us make man in our own likeness," said God, and the likeness is there still in Asia and Africa as well as Europe. Foreign missions will not be told so often now that " the heather are not worth saving." But on the foreign field has the war meant the end of the unique claims of Christianity? Have the non- Christian people said, " Where now is the validity of your argument, for the superiority of Christianity ? Look at 62 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD the Christian nations waging such a war as we have never known in Asia. You have told us that Christianity was superior to our religion, and you have pointed us to what you called the Christian nations and their wonderful Christian civilization as the proof. Is this it? If Christianity is to be judged, as you have asked us to judge it, by the civilization it has produced, we will judge it so, and we reject it." Wherever Christianity has been propa- gated by the arguments of Christian civilization this reply of the non-Christian world will cut in. We rejoice that it will. There has been altogether too much confused thinking and teaching as to what Christianity is. It is not something political or social or philanthropic. The best fruitage it was ever able to bear on the tree of humanity was not Christianity. And it will be a blessing if the dis- tinctions which we are now forced to make drive us back to the New Testament, which knows nothing whatever about Christianity, which never uses the word, but which does deal with the life of God in the soul of man, and with a personal discipleship and fellowship which was the message and purpose of Christ. The legitimate and wholesome retort of the non- Christian world to common but false forms of missionary apologetic will not, however, retard the progress of the Christian faith in non-Christian lands. It will rather insure the progress of the faith in purer character. For the people of the non-Christian world are now just what they were. Their needs are just what they have always been, and just what men's needs are everywhere; and only Christ, not Christianity or civilization, can meet those needs. To speak of but one other aspect of the war*s signif- icance to Christian missions, we are to hope that it will recall the Church to the sacrificial missionary principle. FOREIGN MISSIONS IN THE WAR 63 The Church as a whole has never done anything sacri- ficial. Individual Christians have followed Christ, but the Church, as Duff said, has played with missions. An average of a few dimes a year from each member has represented the measure of her missionary giving and now there are some who doubt whether the Church can continue to do even this. The financial uncertainties, the increased taxation, the high prices, the reduced dividends, all make it impracticable, men say, to keep up old gifts and to advance to larger things. But look at the war. Great nations rose to the height of an unlimited sacrificial devotion. Is the Church to show less loyalty to Christ and His honour ? The war which shadowed the world and 'the sacrifices which were willingly made in it should shame our timidity and our tame trifling with duty, and call us to deal with life as a reality and with the work of Christ in the world as worth more devotion than national honour or commercial advantage or racial pride. Every soldier dying for his country on a European battle-field, ever;^' home giving up its blood and tears a summons and a reproach to us men and women who have accepted the Christ of the Cross but not the Cross of Christ. If they have counted their cause above their lives and their every possession, why not we ? What they freely yielded to war and death shall not Christians give with joy to the Lord of Life and Peace ? The one great lesson of the war which is to be car- ried up into the coming day is the lesson that now, not less but more, with a richer devotion, must all those forces be intensified and flung forth which can build crea- tively the new order which must come upon the earth. If, as we believe, we entered the great conflict to check wrong, to make the world a safe place for free- dom, to forward the cause of brotherhood and equality, 64 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD to secure justice for the weak and to establish the law that strength is given for service, then, the forces which were best fitted to produce these results before the war, and on which alone we can rely to produce them after- wards, must not be abated or diminished. Every worthy end that the nation believes that it had in view in the war is an end for which the Christian spirit has wrought and must still work. No matter what sacrifice must be made, the missionary enterprise must not be sacrificed. Even though its maintenance during the coming years will cut into the capital of the Christian Church that price must be paid. The men who gave their lives on the battle-field were not serving the nation out of their in- come, they were pouring out the last and utmost measure. Christ has a right to ask, in the service which alone can establish righteousness upon the earth, that His people shall give Him not a fraction of their income only, nor all of their income alone, but that they shall lay down at His feet their very last and all. This is the word of the war to the new day of peace. * Ill CHRISTIANITY AND THE RACE PROBLEM ONE of the two greatest unsolved problems in the world to-day is the problem of race. The other, I suppose, is the problem of Church and State. Next to sin and selfishness in individual hearts, more woe and wrong and desolation have flov/ed from racial prejudice than from any other one source. And the problem is not modern alone. It has been here ever since there were diverse races in the world. Race feeling has been one great issue of mankind, one of the central and determining principles in history. The great movements of the world have been racial or national movements — the tidal wave of the Aryan peo- ples, from whose loins we. sprang, spreading out from central Asia in the early morning of history; the exodus of the Hebrew nation from Egypt into a land and life of its own; the consecutive streams of English, Roman, Dane, and Norman pouring in upon the isle from which our destinies came forth; the mighty migration of the northern people when "The end of the world was long ago, And the ends of the earth waxed free. When Rome was lost in a sea of slaves And the sun fell into the sea. "When Cesar's sun fell out of the sky. And whoso hearkened right Could only hear the plunging Of the nations in the night. 65 66 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD " When the ends of the earth came marching in To torch and cresset gleam, And the roads of the world that lead to Rome Were filled with faces that moved like foam, Ivike faces in a dream"; the flow of the great sea of Huns which left its deposit in the modern nations of the Balkans ; the westward pro- cession across the Atlantic and the wide American plains — these were all racial movements. And the great wars have been racial wars. We need not go back of the last century for sufficient illustra- tions. The convulsion in India when Moslem and Hindu sought to throw off the rule of Great Britain in the Sepoy Mutiny ; the Taiping Rebellion in China, the most colossal single movement in history, in which a Chinese leader strove to free his land from idols, opium and an alien dynasty ; the Civil War in America in which a race split over a race; the Franco-Prussian, the China- Japan, and the Russia-Japan wars; and the struggle between British and Boer in South Africa, were all racial con- flicts. The great men of history have been, so to speak, racial men, personalities who incarnated the racial spirit and character, who stood for its purpose and distinctive mis- sion, or were so conceived, and gathered around them the passion and ambition of the race, men like Alexander and Caesar, and Charlemagne and Wolsey and Napoleon and Cavour and Bismarck and Lincoln. The man who has set himself against the tide of nationalism has been overwhelmed by it, and those men have stood out as the great achievers who have aided their race or nation in realizing its independence and developing its character. And so also the great issues of the world have been and are the racial issues. They are our great issues to- day. Within the life of the nation are three great prob- CHEISTIANITY A:N^D THE EACE PEOBLEM 67 lems, the problems of the negro, and of the assimilation of the immigrant, and of the inner unity of the nation in social righteousness and economic justice; and outwardly our great questions are the questions of right relations with the races of Asia and with our neighbouring Latin- American nations. It can be truly said that our one great issue and that of almost every other nation in the world is the race issue. What is its right solution? What are the meaning and the use and end of race? How are diverse races to think and act toward one another ? One answer is that there is now, and is always to be, a continuing racial conflict, that the chasms between races cannot be bridged, and that across these chasms there must always be discord and misunderstanding and war. Between Asia and Europe, so Mr. Meredith Town- send argued in his writings, there is a gulf fixed that will never close. The yellow and the white races must accept the fact of their mutual intellectual isolation and un- ending alienation. This is the view expressed in the most frequently quoted of all Mr. Kipling's lines, which are usually dissevered from the context which wholly contradicts them, " O, East is East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet Till earth and sky stand presently At God's great judgment-seat." And this view of the inevitable antagonism of the East and the West other men extend to cover all race re- lationships. They hold that racial clash and friction is essential to human progress, that it is the divine method of world-education. At the Universal Races Congress in London in 191 1 Dr. von Luschan, professor of anthro- pology in the University of Berlin, set forth this con- viction : 68 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD " Racial barriers," said he, " will never cease to exist ; and, if ever they should show a tendency to disappear, it will certainly be better to preserve than to obliterate them. The brotherhood of man is a good thing, but the struggle for life is a far better one. Athens would never have become what it v/as without Sparta; and national jealousies and differences, and even the most cruel wars, have ever been the real causes of progress and mental freedom. As long as man is not born with wings, like the angels, he will remain subject to the eternal laws of nature, and therefore he will always have to struggle for life and existence. No Hague Conferences, no Inter- national Tribunals, no international papers and peace so- cieties, and no Esperanto or other international language, will ever be able to abolish war. The respect due by the white races to other races and by the white races to each other can never be too great, but natural law will never allow racial barriers to fall, and even national boundaries will never cease to exist. '* Nations will come and go, but racial and national antagonism will remain; and this is well, for mankind would become like a herd of sheep if we were to lose our national ambition and cease to look with pride and delight, not only on our industries and science, but also on our splendid soldiers and our glorious ironclads." This is one answer to the problems of race. How abhorrent it is to the spirit of Him who called all men brethren ! A second answer is that races exist not to struggle with one another, but to let one another wholly alone; that each race has its own rights and should not be invaded or interfered with by other races. Professor Giuseppe €ergi, of Rome, maintained this view at the Universal Races Congress. "What," asked he, "should be the attitude of one nation to another, or toward other peo- ples with which it has relations, in regard to diversity of customs, morals, and religion? The reply which pre- CHRISTIANITY AND THE RACE PROBLEM 69 sents itself immediately to us is, not to attempt any change, and to respect the existing usages together with the sentiments which accompany them, because one runs the risk, from the resistance which is made to chang- ing the manner of living, of disturbing good inter- national relations, of inciting revolt, bloodshed, and war." Those who hold this view usually apply it only to mor- als and religion. They deem trade and commerce quite legitimate intercourse, although the influence of these is enormous in its effect upon the life and thought of un- civilized peoples. What they resent is any effort to mould the religions of the other peoples. But a solution of the race problem such as this is ludicrous. The idea that ideals can be segregated, that races can be preserved from the moral and social influences of other races, is an utter delusion. The only effect of such a view is to expose the weaker races to the exploitation of the stronger without reenforcing their moral powers or guiding them into a higher life. A third answer is that of course the races must mingle and find their proper inter-relationships, but that these consist in the recognition of places of superiority and in- feriority. There are the white peoples and then beneath them " the lesser breeds " as constituting " the white man's burden"; but, lest the "burden" should be too heavy, the white man is to bear it seated upon its shoulders. Equality is the last word in the dictionary of this solu- tion. The white races are to rule the earth, and the other races are to be happy in being ruled, and are to carry the wood and draw the water for their white masters wearied by the toil o£ ruling them properly. A fourth solution Is the dream of the great amalgam, the intermixture of all human breeds in one cosmopolite 70 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD man. America is even now a blend of a dozen European races. England herself is the national offspring of a gigantic racial intermarriage. The Latin- American peo- ples include not a single nation of pure racial blood. So, men say, at last all the world will melt together into one harmonized racial unity. No man can say that it may not be so, but the dream offers no present solution of racial feeling. Such an end, if it ever comes, is cen- turies and millenniums ahead of us. And what we need is an answer to the race problem that will answer it now and show us how to live before we die. Well, there is such a solution. " I have other sheep not of this fold," said our Lord. " Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." For Christ, said Paul, is our peace, who made all one, and broke down the walls of division, that He might reconcile all in one body. This is the one and only solution of the race problem. Humanity is a unity. It is one flock. The sheep may be of different strains. The hues of their wool may vary. But there is one Shepherd, and all the sheep are His sheep and one flock as they follow Him. Humanity is an organism with many members but one body. Each member is a race. All the members differ, but all are one. A common life pervades the whole. If one member suffers, all suffer with it. Each feeds the tissues of all the rest. There is no schism, no jealousy, no strife in the body. There dare be none in humanity. It is as irrational that Japan and the United States should be set in hostility as that a body should take its fingers and tear out its eyes. V/hatever strength any race possesses it possesses not for itself but for all. If any nation is not so strong as others, and needs to be helped, it should be helped in the OHEISTIAOTTY AND THE EACE PROBLEM 71 spirit of the Chinese boy who was carrying a younger child on his back, when a stranger stopped him and spoke pityingly of the heavy burden he was bearing. " That is not a burden," replied the lad ; " that is my brother." And yet the weaker races have their work to do and their contributions to make to the full wealth and glory of humanity. In the light of the city whose lamp is the Lamb all the races are to walk, and men shall bring the honour of all the races into it ; but nothing unclean shall be there, no race prejudice, nor the abomination of pride, nor the lie of race-exclusion that will not allow Slav or Teuton or Latin or Japanese its place in the flock of Christ and the sunlight of God. This is Christ's view of the race problem. His solution was love and brotherhood and the recognition by each race of its essential unity with all other races. The sheep, He said, were one flock. The colour of their fleece made no difference. From every people they were coming in to His call. They were not all of that Jewish fold. They are not all of the Anglo-Saxon or the European or the American fold to-day. Black Susi was one of His sheep. He was an African savage from Shupanga, where David Livingstone's wife was buried in southwestern Africa. He joined Living- stone in 1864 as a w^ood-cutter on the Pioneer, when Liv- ingstone was exploring the Zambezi. When the explorer organized his last expedition to go northwest from the Zambezi, seeking the sources of the Nile and tearing aside the veils which hid the unspeakable atrocities of the slave-trade, Susi was one of the men who went with him. They started in 1866 on their great journey. In 1870 only three of the forty-seven men who started from the Zambezi were still with Livingstone, and Susi was one of the three. 72 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD When Stanley came up into the interior hunting for Livingstone, Susi was the first to learn of his approach and to go out to meet him and bring his master word. When Stanley ^had gone, and Livingstone had turned back from the temptation to go home to resume his task, Susi clung to him. When the rivers and swamps were to be waded, and Livingstone was racked with fever and must be spared all avoidable exposure, Susi carried him on his shoulders ; and, when the missionary's strength failed, and he could go not one step more alone, Susi and the other men made a litter, and bore him gently day by day until they came at last to Chitambo's village at Ilala. There they laid him quietly down_ under the eaves of a hut while Susi built him a house of his own, into which they bore him to await the end which they saw was not far away. And there it was Susi who found him on his knees beside his bed, where the old warrior had passed away on the farthest of all his journeys, praying, as we may be sure, in the words which mark his grave, for " Heaven's rich blessing on every one — American, English, or Turk — who will help to heal the open sore of the world." And then what did these black gentlemen do? They knew they had been the companions of a hero. They knew down in their pure hearts — who told them? — that Livingstone's body must go home ; and, though they had never been out of Africa and knew nothing of the world, they decided that they would take it hom.e. So they buried his heart under a great mvula-tree near the hut where he died, embalmed the body, took it up on their backs, and started for England with it. It was a nine months* journey to Zanzibar, through peril, toil, and pain. On the way they met a British expedition coming in for Livingstone. CHEISTIAMTY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 73 And what did these simple Africans have to do but stand for what was chivah'ous and high-minded against Livingstone's own race ? Susi had honourably sealed up all of Livingstone's papers just as he left them. The men of Livingstone's own race opened them. Susi had carefully packed Livingstone's instruments. The men of Livingstone's own race took them and used them for months, so that when at last they were returned the corrections could not be made in Livingstone's observa- tions which could have been made, had the instruments been taken home and tested and the observations checked accordingly. The black men were far and away the knightlier souls. From Zanzibar they accompanied the body to Aden, and then to Southampton, and then to London ; and they stood beside it as it was laid to rest in the great nave of Westminster Abbey, where beside the record of the name and the mighty work are written the words : " Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice." And then, not like white men who might have stayed to turn their fame into gain, but like the gentleman he was, Susi went back to the Africa which Livingstone had loved and died for. Only a black Shupanga boy, but white, clean w^hite inside, and sheep of Christ as truly as any man of any race. " Sheep I have in Africa," says our Lord, " and sheep also in Japan. They also belong to my fold." Paul Sawayama was one of these. Just before Perry's visit he was born in the province of Choshu under the shadow of Mount Idsumi. As a boy Sawayama was busy in military affairs, rendering brave service in defending his native province from the shogun's troops. He was sent to the best teachers in the province, and after the Civil 74 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD War gave himself to study, attending the most famous schools of Japan. He was a thoughtful, reverent lad, who was feeling after something deeper than lay upon the surface. As a boy he had heard a lecture on the sennin. Sennin was the name given to an imaginary creature, supposed to be more than a mere man. It denoted a being something like an angel, who had been transformed from a man by extraordinary physical and mental exercises. The boy was so impressed by what he heard of these happy beings that he aspired to be one, and on the pre- text of going to meet a friend he ascended a mountain, and stayed there several days, hoping to become a sennin. When he got hungry, he subsisted upon wild fruits or roots of plants; and sometimes he went down to the country, and begged food from farmers, and then went back to the mountain again. But he was unsuccessful in these attempts; and he lost all hope of becoming a sennin, and returned home. When he was nineteen years of age, Sawayama found his way to the bread that is true bread and to the water of which if a man drinks he shall not thirst any more. Dr. D. C. Greene, the first missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Japan, was then living in Kobe, and in the spring of 1870 two of the retainers of the daimio of Choshu came to him to learn Western habits of life, that they might be prepared for responsible places in their prince's household. After a while they asked permission to bring with them a son of their immediate superior in the service of the prince; and, when permission was given, they brought Sawayama. Dr. Greene says : " He presented a very striking appearance. He had CHRISTIANITY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 75 apparenty but recently recovered from an attack of smallpox; and his hair, which he wore in semi-foreign style, had not yet become wonted to the new treatment; but there was in his face that expression of mingled modesty and firmness which always conspicuously marked his features. He took up the study of English with much earnestness, and made rapid progress; but he was dissatisfied. " He was a constant attendant at our family worship ; but we had no definite evidence of any faith in Chris- tianity, though he seemed to find pleasure in the society of one or two other Japanese who did manifest much interest. One of these, Ichikawa Yeinosuke, had asked for baptism. Ichikawa, with his wife, was arrested in the spring of 1871 (Meiji Yonen) on suspicion of being a Christian, and, after confinement for a year and a half, died in the Nijo Castle of Kyoto, a true martyr to his faith." What was taking place in Sawayama was concealed both from Dr. Greene and from himself; but, when in 1872 he came to Northwestern University in Evanston, 111., and the great ideas which had been sown in his soul began to expand, he realized that he was a Christian and that God had called him before he knew it. After three years' study in the United States some- thing seemed to tell him that his time was short and that the night was at hand when men cannot work ; and, say- ing that he had as much education as the apostles had when they were sent out, he started back to Japan. There he founded the first self-supporting church in Japan as the pastor, at a salary of seven dollars a month, of a little flock of eleven simple believers. For two years his light burned and shone. For some time before the end he lived in the hospital, sometimes crouched for days upon the floor in agony, only to rise and go out to preach Christ again. His worn prayer-list 76 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD showed how he worked even in his lonely hours. Sor- row after sorrow rent his home. But nothing shook his dauntless soul; and, though more than a generation has passed since his death, his deathless influence abides, and the church in Japan to-day is what it is more, perhaps, by means of Sawayama's ideals and devotion than by those of any other man. " Other sheep I have not of your American fold. Them also I must bring.'* Yes, and they come to their shepherd even from Islam. More than twenty years ago I stood reverently in the little mud-roofed room in Khoi in Persia, where a few years before Mirza Ibrahim had been baptized. He had been convinced for some time of the truth of Christianity, and had asked for baptism. His poverty, however, and the distrust of the innate duplicity of Persian character led to fear as to his motives, and he was delayed. But nothing discouraged him. His wife and friends scoffed at him ; but he stood firm, and after a year's probation he was openly received and baptized into the name of Christ. Believers and unbelievers were present, and saw with wondering hearts the bold confession. One of those present " was a Moslem, himself a half-believer, who after the ceremony gave our brother the right hand of congratulation, wishing that he had like courage to avow his belief in Jesus." The test of his faith came immediately. His wife and children and small property were taken from him by fanatical Moslems; and, though sick and feeble, he was forced to flee. He went to Urumia, and found refuge in Dr. Cochran's hospital. After a year or two he was sent out at his own re- quest to carry the glad tidings of the Gospel to the villages around, with the small compensation of four dollars a month. With such fearlessness and vigour did he pro- CHEISTIANITY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 77 claim the way of life through Christ alone that the wrath of the enemy was aroused against him, but he only grew the bolder. Such a course, however, could issue in but one way. The arm of the civil law, at the behest of Mohammedan priests, was laid upon him. He was ar- rested and brought before the serparest, a sub-governor appointed over the Christians. When arraigned for in- vestigation, a crowd of scowling mollahs and other Mos- lems being gathered around, the serparest inquired of him, " Why should you, a Moslem, be teaching the Chris- tian's doctrines ? " After his examination he was knocked down and ter- ribly kicked, even by the serparest, and was then thrown into prison, with a chain about his neck and his feet fast in the stocks. So great was the uproar in Urumia that it was decided to send him to Tabriz. A Nestorian brother of Mirza Ibrahim in heralding the cross among Mohammedan villages v/ent to bid him good-bye on the day he was to start for Tabriz. He found him tying his clothing in a handkerchief, ready to go. Turning to his fellow prisoners, he said : " I have shown to you Christ, the all-sufficient Saviour; you have learned truth enough to save your souls if you only receive it." He bade them a tender farewell, and they all arose, with heavy fetters on hands and feet, and chains upon their necks, and bade him go in peace, tears streaming down the wretched faces of many of them. An extra supply of provisions sent him by his Christian friends being left over, the soldiers suggested that he take it with him for his journey's needs ; but he answered, " No, I have a Master who will provide for me ; I will leave this bread for the poor prisoners here." As he left the prison, he turned and, raising his hand, solemnly called God to witness that, if on the judgment-day he i 78 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD should meet any of these souls unsaved, he had declared to them the way of life, and that he was free from their blood. In Tabriz he was cast into a mouldy cellar and chained to a gang of murderers, who robbed him of his coat and bedding. Even these he tried to win to Christ. " One night," says Dr. Labaree, " after they had been locked up for the night, the prison inmates had been talking of the two religions of Jesus and Mohammed. His fellow prisoners declared to Ibrahim that, if he did not say that Jesus was false and Ali (one of their mediators) true, they would choke him to death. By turn each of the base fellows put him to the test, and each time his answer came back, ' Jesus is true ; choke me if you will.' And they did so, one after the other, until his eyes bulged out and for minutes he lost consciousness. They de- sisted without actually taking his life on the spot; but as a consequence of their brutal treatment his throat so swelled as to prevent his eating his dry prison fare, and he became weaker and weaker." His condition touched even his keeper, and he was moved to the upper prison. But it was too late, and on Sunday, May 14, 1893, he died from his injuries. When the Crown Prince was informed of his death, he asked, " How did he die? " And the jailer answered, " He died like a Christian." " He through fiery trials trod, And from great affliction came; Now before the throne of God, Sealed with His almighty name, Clad in raiment pure and white, Victor palms within his hands. Through his dear Redeemer's might More than conqueror he stands." " Other sheep I have not of your fold. Them also I bring," CHEISTIANITY AND THE RACE PEOBLEM 79 Do we welcome them ? Or does it irritate us to be told these things? Are we glad that all the children of men are God's children, or do we want to shut some of them — Slavs, Teutons, Latins, Asiatics, Africans — out of the sunshine of God? Well, whatever our likes or dislikes in the matter, God is no respecter of races; and He takes them all in, and the flock of Christ contains sheep of every name and nation. To gather in these sheep one by one is a true and suffi- cient Christian work of itself. The eifort to bring them in and the implication and conviction which underlie the missionary enterprise and sustain its motives involve the true and Christian view of the race problem. They do more than this. They make the greatest possible contribution to the solution of the problem. The spread of Christianity is the one solid hope of unifying man- kind. No other religion is capable of universality with- out an essential modification of its character. Christian- ity is only true to its character when conceived as the one universal faith. As we spread it throughout the world and gather the sheep into one flock we unite the races in the family of God. This fusing influence of religion has been often dis- puted. The sight of a divided Christendom for four years seemed to discredit it. But in reality the war saw the most comprehensive and world-wide alliance ever seen in history and it was an alliance in behalf of funda- mental Christian principles of freedom and duty. There was no disproof of the principle which Lyall states in "Asiatic Studies": " It is impossible not to admit that in many instances the successful propagation of a superior or stronger creed has been favourable to political amalgamation, nor can there be any doubt of the intense fusing power that 80 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD belongs to a common religion. In our day, the decree of divorce between religion and politics has been made ab- solute by the judgment of every statesman, above all for Christian rulers in non-Christian countries ; nevertheless, the religion of the Spaniards was a part of their policy in the New World, and this of course is still true in re- gard to Mohammedans everywhere. There have been many periods, and there are still many countries, in which an army composed of different religious sects could hardly hold together. And it is certain that for ages identity of religious belief has been, and still is in many parts of the world, one of the strongest guarantees of combined action on the battle-field. It has often shown itself far more effective, as a bond of union, than territorial patriotism; it has even surmounted tribal or racial antipathies; and its advantages as a palliative of foreign ascendancy have been indisputable. The atti- tude of religious neutrality is now manifestly and incon- testably incumbent on all civilized rulerships over an alien people; it is a principle that is just, right and politic; but there is nothing in its influence that makes for that kind of assimilation which broadens the base of dominion. Religion the world over, especialty in Asia, and their in- fluence for or against political consolidation has lost very little of its efficiency anywhere." With regard to the Oriental problems, accordingly, that is, the problem of the relations of the Western and the Eastern races, the Christian Church has two great duties : One is to evangelize the Oriental nations ; the other is to Christianize the relations sustained to these nations by the nations which are called Christian. These two duties are inseparable. If we desire our relationships to the Oriental nations to be right and happy relationships, they must rest on those unities which spring from the Chris- tian faith. Just so truly as it is impossible to bind any single nation together in a lasting and organic oneness part Christian and part un-Christian, so it will be im- CHEISTIANITY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 81 possible on that basis to unify mankind. We take this duty for granted. And, as a matter of fact, the Church has set herself to its discharge with a greater earnestness and power than characterizes her efforts to deal with the second of these tasks. In the same way the second duty is inseparable from the first. It is impossible for the Church to evangelize the non-Christian world so long as its direct testimony is contradicted or compromised by the influences which ac- company it. I recall a passage from an address by Lord Salisbury made in the year 1900 in London at the bi- centenary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in which he recognized the changed conditions brought about by the political and commercial changes of the world in making infinitely more difficult the task of Christianizing the non-Christian peoples : " In the Church of old times, great evangelists went forth to this work, exposed themselves to fearful dangers and suffered all the terrors that the world could inflict in support of the doctrine v/hich they preached and the morality which they practiced. There was no doubt at the same time, a corrupt society calling itself by their name. But . . . the means of communication were not active and were not as they are now, and things might go on without attracting the attention of those who listened to the teaching of the earlier teachers or diminishing the value of their work. Now things are considerably altered, and that very increase in the means of communication, that very augmentation of the power of opinion to affect opinion and of man to affect man by the mere conquests we have achieved in the material do- main; those very conquests, while undoubtedly they are . . . an invitation from Providence to take advantage of the means of spreading the Gospel, are also a means by which the lives of many and the acts of many, which are not wholly consistent with the ideal which is preached 82 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD in the pulpit or read in the Holy Book, are brought home to the vast nations which we seek to address. That is one of the great difficulties with which we have to con- tend, and that is the reason why this society and all missionary societies appeal with undoubted force and with the right to have their appeal considered — that as our civilization in its measure tends to hamper missionary efforts, so in its nobler manifestations and its more power- ful efforts that civilization, represented by our assistance, shall push forward to its ultimate victory, the cause to which you are devoted." We are bound to do our best to diminish these diffi- culties by removing their cause, if we are ever going to complete our missionary undertaking abroad and find peace and tranquillity at home. But we must make our national relations Christian also just because they must be right. Until those relationships are made Christian they are not right. And simply because we must have right relations with the Eastern nations the churches are bound to help in the problem of making them right by Christianizing them. There are a great many things that the Church can do in the discharge of this duty. I wish to pick out only one of these things now, namely, that the Church should herself hold and should constantly advocate the great ideas which must be generally accepted if our re- lationships to the Oriental nations are to be peaceful and satisfactory. Nothing else is more important or more practical. Everything depends on the ideas which we hold or reject in this matter of racial attitude. We can- not reap right relationships out of false conceptions, and until we get our principles of relationship right between ourselves and the Eastern world it is vain for us to think that we can make our policies right. I should like to speak of simply four or five of these CHEISTIANITY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 83 ideas which the Church should hold and assert in the matter of our relations to the Oriental nations. In the first place, we should steadfastly hold to the con- viction that enduring peace between the Oriental nations is not contrary to nature or to the will of God. There are some who hold that it is. Or if they allow God a little benevolence they hold that nature is stronger than He and able to overrule any good-will He may have. They set up a new and stronger God whom they call the logic of history. I am not exaggerating. Let me read the words of a leader in Congress in regard to Japan and the Philippine Islands : " I have no doubt that a con- flict will come between the Far East and the Far West across the Pacific Ocean. All that is taking place in the world, the logic of the history of the human race up to now, teaches us that the avoidance of this conflict is im- possible. I hope it will be only a commercial conflict. I hope war may not come, but I have little faith in this world of ours that people and races are able to meet in competition for a long period of time without armed con- flict. A fight for commercial supremacy leads in the end to a fight with arms, because that is the final arbiter between nations," I say nothing about the speaker of these words, but I say that words like these are weak and wicked. They are weak because they assume the necessary surrender of actors to their own acts, and they are wicked because they bring on the very situation which they profess to deplore. The principles which they embody the Christian Church must unflinchingly repudiate, and assert instead an absolutely contradictory doctrine, the doctrine that pacific relations between our- selves and the Orient are possible and obligatory. In the second place, we must stand for the duty and the possibility of the development of genuine international 84 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD sympathy and love between ourselves and the Oriental peoples. We have listened entirely too long to nonsense regarding chasms run across humanity that can never be bridged. There are no such chasms. We must believe that it is entirely possible to establish relationships of genuine international good-will and affection between our- selves and the Oriental peoples. Alas, they do not exist. For a long period of time they did exist between us and Japan, but they have been slowly fading away. They exist in some measure between ourselves and China, but these, too, may die away. They do not exist between us and the other nations of the West. Nothing makes a man sadder than to find all through Latin-America fear and distrust with regard to us. Such inter-racial sus- picion destroys national influence. As one travels over the northeast corner of Asia he feels how infinitely Japan's influence might be increased if only she could in some way win China's trust and esteem. It can be done, as we can win the confidence and love of Latin-America. We have to believe that nations can love one another even across the Pacific Ocean. The Christian Church must set herself to lead in that affection, and we must not content ourselves with projecting the task into the distant future or thinking of it as beyond the level of our immediate and practical duty. It is close at hand at this moment. Japan threw away her opportunity to bind China to herself. For years from 5,000 to 15,000 students from China whom she might have v/on for herself were study- ing in the institutions of Japan and went back to China with bitter anti- Japanese hate. Great Britain has had her opportunity for a generation with Indian students. So far from making every one of those men a bond of loyalty and good-will, they have constituted for her a great angry mass of disaffections. There are over one CHEISTIANITY AND THE RACE PROBLEM 85 thousand Latin-American students in our own universi- ties, with hundreds of men from the schools of Asia, and we have our chance to estabhsh relationships of racial affection by winning now the good-will and gratitude of this responsive life in the midst of our own land. In the third place, we must stand for the right and, one may go further, for the duty of national personality on the part of these Oriental neighbours. God made each of these races, and we must believe that He had some great and benevolent purpose in making them different. Have they not the same rights as we to a sense of racial character and mission? Is humanity not to be richer for its variety? The very wealth of humanity is to consist in the fulfillment by each people of its own duty and destiny. All are in God's will. We have no right to assert that there is a superior and inferior between races as races. Some races may be inferior in some quality; others in qualities of different kinds. No single race can be picked out as absolutely superior in itself. The only sufficiency is of the whole. All mankind must fit into one unity of racial completeness. Our great danger to-day is that we shall break down in the Oriental peo- ples themselves their own sense of national confidence. And what can you do with a man whose self-respect has been shattered? A great part of our contact with the Oriental world the last hundred years has had this re- sult. It has slowly undermined the confidence of the Oriental races and their hope in God for themselves. And we seem to take pride in this and resent in Japan her successful resistance to It. She is the one Oriental na- tion which has learned our secrets and preserved her own national life. This is a thing to rejoice in. We must believe that God had a wise purpose in letting man- kind divide itself into the races that they might bring 86 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD back again a richer treasure into the wealth of the whole family of God. The Church must hold this larger racial sympathy and preach a true doctrine of humanity. In the fourth place, we must stand steadfastly for the highest fairness of national judgment. We have not ex- ercised such judgment and we are not doing it to-day. We are full of racial bigotry and unequal judgment. It is as much as a man's good name is worth in some Chris- tian communities in Asia or Europe to say a good word for Japan or to express any trust whatever in the good faith of Japan. And in the same way there are people in every land in South America who deride the idea of the integrity and honour of the United States. When it comes to looking across the chasm of race men do not see other races as they see themselves. We err in two ways to-day in our national judgments. First by generalizing races. But racial character of purpose cannot be generalized in any accurate or trustworthy way. Mr. Lowes Dickinson is very clever in attempting it for India and China and Japan, and some of us applaud and approve, but if we think he has done it justly let us examine his generaliza- tion of American character and see whether we are will- ing to accept his judgment of our own national person- ality. A whole race cannot be unitized under any com- mon character label. Each race is a composite of good and bad, sincere and unworthy. Contradictory streams run through it. It is a maelstrom, not a current. It can only be judged as a medley. And our own is like all the others, and all the others are like our own. In the second place, we apply to ourselves one set of standards and to the Orient another set. We see ourselves through an apotheosis, but Asia we judge without allowance by idealistic principles before which we ourselves cannot stand. As we judge our own conduct, so we must judge CHEISTIANITY AND THE EACE PEOBLEM 87 their conduct. Our larger knowledge does not entitle us to a laxer obligation. Superior theology is no excuse for inferior morality. If we have a clearer viev/ of God than the Oriental nations, then we must judge ourselves by stricter standards than we apply to them. Lastly, it is our duty to hold fast to the creative prin- ciple of trust in our attitude to the Orient. We only help men by believing in them. We make our neighbour- hood better by believing in its best. This was the great principle of the Incarnation. It was God trusting Him- self to untrustworthy man and making man worthy by the creative power of His trust and love. When the Taiping Rebellion was over Chinese Gordon's body-guard was made up of ex-rebels, whom he had taken and made trustworthy men by the redemptive power of his trust in them. In " Latin- America — Its Rise and Develop- ment," the best book we have on Latin- America from the Latin-American point of view, Garcia Calderon describes the United States as " The North American Peril " to Latin-America. Much that he says we cannot say is untrue. But it is the possibility of the worst in us. And men are writing on Japan to-day with blind eyes and a hard heart who see only the exaggeration of the possible worst. Such thinking and speaking only produces the very badness which it wants to see. But we help each nation and mankind, not by parading the worst, but by holding each nation to its best. Surely if there is one body in the world that has such a duty to the Oriental nations that body is the Christian Church. To think un- flinchingly of the things that are true, and with the things that are true to see and rejoice in the things that are lovely — there are other duties beside these. But surely the Church has no more important duty than to think with the truth that is love regarding the Oriental na- 88 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD tions and the problems of our relationship to them. Let us speak that truth across this nation, and everything that is contradictory to that truth call a lie. Otherwise we shall sow and reap only bitterness and sorrow— bitter- ness and sorrow that will grow with the years if we cannot, side by side with our work of evangelization, Christianize our political and economic relationships with the peoples of the Orient, IV FOREIGN MISSIONS A CONSTRUCTIVE INTER- PRETATION OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES HUMANITY is now engaged in the effort to re- construct out of the ruins of the war a new and better world. This new effort will be as futile as all that went before unless humanity accepts the ideals and the energies of the Christian faith. Where can it find these principles in operation on human life? In foreign missions. In our search for the essential and con- structive principles of Christianity, we can get more help from Christian missions than from any other source. Larger knowledge comes from larger life. Christian theism we ov/e to the Incarnation, and the Pauline Gos- pel to the Pauline propaganda. The bounds of human knowledge are pushed out by action, even as our Lord said of His own supreme revelation, " The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself ; but the Father abiding in me doeth His works." And no action illus- trates or reinterprets more luminously the true char- acter of Christianity and its bearing on the most press- ing problems of the modern world than the spontaneous action of the Christian spirit in foreign missions. Let us clear the air at once of all false issues by the fullest acknowledgment of frailties and failures in the agents of missions, of mistakes in policies and methods, of the imperfect grasp and application even of true prin- 89 90 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ciples, of inadequate apprehension on the part of the missionary movement of its own true character and goals. When everything has been allowed that needs to be allowed on these counts, it remains true that foreign missions are the most efficient movement in human history. And what is of more consequence, and is here to be set forth, foreign missions embody the elements of Christianity which are essential to its life and to the recovery of its unity and the principles which alone can solve the problems confronting the modern world. These are ambitious claims, but after all, they are claims not for foreign missions, but for Christianity, and for foreign missions only because foreign missions are the present expression of the primitive Christian spirit fresh from its first contact with God in Christ. To go straight to the heart of the matter, foreign missions are the purest embodiment of the spirit of ab- solute loyalty to duty and of utterly unselfish love. And these are the two highest characteristics of the life of our Lord, and therefore of the Christian mind. They were the two commandments of the Law when the Law had passed through the alembic of His soul who fulfilled it. They were the emphatic notes of His own doctrine. " We must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work." " He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." I am not saying that other enter- prises are not carried forward in duty and love. I am saying that the foreign missionary idea is the purest em- bodiment of these conceptions, and that it and all Chris- tian activities can be powerful with the full strength of Christianity only in proportion as these are their abso- lutely controlling conceptions. The foreign missionary movement from the beginning A CONSTEUCTIYE INTEEPEETATION 91 has stood solidly and unflinchingly upon the idea of duty. It has believed in authority and has incarnated obedience. Lord Curzon has spoken slightingly of it as resting upon a solitary command of Christ of questionable authenticity. We may dispute the form of his cavil but freely concede its substance. The enterprise has rested on the recogni- tion of the absoluteness and authority of Christ and of the work v^hich He did, and has conceived that in His Lordship, v^hich embraces nobody unless it embraces everybody, there is a sanction of the duty of a world propaganda which stamps as ethically anomalous the man who professes the Christian faith and does not seek to discharge the missionary duty, who answers the de- scription and arraignment of Christ, " Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ? " Will- iam Carey would not have adhered to his purpose through all the indifference and opposition which he met at home, and he would not have wrought for forty years with never a furlough amid difficulties, which we can verbally describe but cannot vitally conceive, in India; Robert Morrison would not have toiled for seven years without visible result in Canton, and Stephen Bush and Stephen Mattoon for six years in Bangkok; the Chris- tians of Uganda would not have smiled at the fires of a thousand martyrdoms and the Christians of China at the sharp swords which slew their thirty thousand in the year of grace 1900, if it had not been for that iron clutch of duty which has made the missionary enterprise not contemptuous but indifferent toward all that opposes it before or behind. "We do not endure hardship," said Donald Hankey of his fellow soldiers. " We deride it." The missionary enterprise has been a movement of voluntary loyalty to duty, not the loyalty of conscription or irrevocable enlistment or military discipline, but free 92 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD and avoidable. And this hard and unyielding fidelity to what ought to be done, no matter what is said or met, Gi* how fruitless or impossible the task, is our great need in all the work of the Church and the Kingdom. The missionary enterprise teaches us to ask simply, " What is right ? What ought to be done ? " and when we have our answer, to do it steadfastly, immovably, in the con- fidence of St. Paul's assurance regarding the outcome of all work so done. In the patience of duty which we learn from it, v/e can wait as long as we need to wait to achieve whatever is right in the mission or character of the Christian Church and in the advancement of the world. Foreign missions embody, also, the perpetuated spirit of the Incarnation. They represent the voluntary sur- render of privilege in the interest of purely unselfish service. Those who labour in the missionary enterprise are not salaried, they are merely sustained. There is neither employment nor wage. There is simply life given for work. And no motive of gain or interest attaches to the work. It can be shown undoubtedly that Christian missions produce peace and create trade and advance prosperity. All this is the world's gain, but it does not accrue as payment to the man who produces it, and no missionaries go out because it can be shown that their work is full of material blessing to mankind and is eco- nomically and politically profitable to the nations from which they go. If such motives ever found their way into the movement they would be its death. Even the legitimate considerations of patriotism which support so much of our appeal for the work of the Church at home do not enter here. The enterprise is itself only when it is absolutely unselfish, when with no weapon but love, with no purpose except the purpose of doing good and A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 93 giving life, with no agency except the truth, with no con- ception of interest or of return or of glory or of pride, it goes forth to meet men as naked and unaccoutred jn their need as it is in its supply. Doubtless often tl^ pure ideal of the missionary eifort has been clouded. It has taken other tools and implements into its hands and has still produced results. Nevertheless its best fruit- age has come from its purest fidelity to a principle of utterly unselfish love and unaccessoried truth. But each age misreads history or forgets it under the allure- ments of its own temptations and we constantly need to be reminded, to quote Macaulay's words in the Edinburgh Review, " that falsehood, though no match for truth alone, has often been found more than a match for truth and power together," and that the temptation of our Lord was a temptation to use His unprecedented and unequalled resources to achieve good ends by means unequal in goodness, to mingle interest with self-forget- fulness, to build a golden kingdom on foundations of clay. We have come nearest to escaping such errors in the most unselfish work which the Church is doing, the work of expatriating her children, of passing the best of them through a real kenosis, of giving where there is no claim and whence there can be no return. And the power of the work has been in proportion to its unselfishness, that is, to its pure reliance upon love as its support, its agency and its only reward. Against all the derision of the world the method and principle of the Sermon on the Mount, of the self-devotion of the Incarnation, are the triumphant forms of action, and the success of the Church everywhere awaits their adoption, freed from every alliance with power and every confusion with interest. 94 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD It is in this matter of unselfish service that the mission- ary principle sets for our modern international intercourse its indispensable lesson. " The history of nations/' wrote Mr. Gladstone in 1876, " is a melancholy chapter; that is, the history of governments is one of the most immoral parts of human history." We of the West surely cannot complain if the East and the South, whom our superior political power has exploited — with rare exceptions of trusteeship and those trusteeships maintained by power — look upon us with dislike and resentment. What na- tions to-day are viewing China with truly disinterested good-will, anxious only that China should be strong and free and that China's interest should be first and most fully secured? How revolutionary the missionary prin- ciple would be in international politics! Lacking the principle in politics and business, Mr. William B. Reed, when he was American Minister to China, rejoiced that at least it was found in the missionary body. " Having no enthusiasm on the subject," he wrote to the Secretary of State, " I am bound to say that I consider the mis- sionary element in China a great conservative and pro- tecting principle. It is the only barrier between the un- hesitating advance of commercial adventure and the not incongruous element of Chinese imbecile corruption." The service of the missionary enterprise in this regard is varied, and it is indispensable to the neighbourliness of mankind. The missionaries make the East and West, the North and South, acquainted with one another. " The great agency to-day in keeping us advised of the conditions among Oriental races," said Mr. Taft in an address while he was President, " is the establishment of foreign missions." All other agencies combined do not do as much to introduce the West to the Oriental races. The missionaries bind the peoples in friendliness. They A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 95 draw after them the love of milHons in the lands from which they come, and it is their business to win the friendship of those to whom they go. There they become centers of good-will and kindly feeling. In time of suf- fering it has been they who enlisted the sympathy of the richer peoples and who are the almoners of their bounty. Only the missionaries and their enterprise have made pos- sible the immense undertaking of relieving the Armenians, the Assyrians and the other peoples of the Near East. Of their services in the last great famine of China, one of the leading English papers in Shanghai remarked : " It rnust be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that the famine committees have been able to enlist the serv- ices of the local missionaries in the distribution of relief. Their fitness for the work entrusted to them, which they have willingly undertaken, no one will question, whilst their probity and conscientious administration of the funds are equally beyond cavil. Their knowledge of the language and customs of the people, and their, generally speaking, friendly relations with them, constitute them the most fitting instruments for the work." * It would be easy to multiply indefinitely the evidences of the work of sympathy and conciliatory understand- ing wrought by missionaries. Many, already endeared to the people among whom they worked, have been enshrined in an almost religious reverence for such sacrificial service. The missionary enterprise everywhere is itself only when it is a movement of good-will and friendship. It is in this that the secret of its power to promote peace and order resides — a power greater, where it is allowed * The North China Herald, March 28, 1907, editorial, " The Famine." 96 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD to work, than any other power the West possesses. " I have relied," said Sir Peregrine Maitland, Governor of Cape Colony, " more upon the labours of missionaries for the peaceful government of the natives than upon the presence of British troops." " For the preservation of peace between the colonists and natives," said General Sir Charles Warren, Governor of Natal, " one missionary is worth a battalion of soldiers." " In my judgment," said Sir Augustus Rivers Thompson, Lieutenant-Gov- ernor of Bengal, " Christian missionaries have done more real and lasting good to the people of India than all other agencies combined. They have been the salt of the country and the true saviours of the empire." But we should go back of such testimony and illustra- tion to central principles. And the principle here is that foreign missions represent the duty of unselfish and helpful relations on the part of the strong nations to the weaker, and to that end the duty of understanding and intelligent sympathy. The best type of British diplo- matic service has supplied this intelligent understanding of the language and life of other peoples, but much of our political contact with other nations, and almost all of our commercial contact, has been devoid of it. Ex- President Eliot bore frank testimony to what he had found in the Far East ; lifelong residents who could not speak a word of the language and who knew none of the people, and the great body of foreigners, with the excep- tion mainly of missionaries, utterly unacquainted with the real life of those among whom they dwelt. What would the British and the Americans do if their foreign language papers were to be repressed in China and India and Japan ? There can be no constructive handling of the present world problems in conditions like these. And these are the very conditions which the missionary prin- A 00:N^STEUCTIVE INTERPEETATION 97 ciple assails. It calls for a sympathetic understanding of all mankind, of its literature, its religions, its social institutions, its ideals, its realities and its dreams. Mis- sions have been and are the greatest of all agencies open- ing the world and bringing the knowledge of it to the civilized nations. '' We owe it to our missionaries," said the London Times, "that the whole region (of South Africa) has been opened up." Indeed, the one name which towers over all others in African exploration, is David Livingstone's. " In the annals of exploration of the dark continent," said Stanley, "we look in vain among other nationalities for such a name as Living- stone's." " Religion, commerce and scientific zeal," said Professor Whitney of Yale, " rival one another in bring- ing new regions and peoples to light, and in uncovering the long buried remains of others lost or decayed ; and of the three the first is the most prevailing and effective." But once again let it be noted that these testimonies and illustrations are not presented here in any apology for for- eign missions, but to set forth a principle of the foreign mission movement which is essential to the solution of our present-day problems. We shall make no progress at all toward those solutions until we all take up toward the world the attitude of respect and sympathy and understanding without which missions could never have gained any foothold and which, apart from any such prudential consideration, are the marks of its essential spirit. But a yet deeper principle than this lies beneath the missionary enterprise—and it is the only enterprise which is the definite and uncompromising avowal of this princi- ple,— the principle, namely, of the world family of God, of the true unity of mankind, of human brotherhood not as a phrase but as a reality. This conception is funda- 98 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD mental to Christian missions. They hold that there is one God and that He is the God of all men, that He made all men of one blood, that there is one Lord and Saviour of all, that truth of whatsoever kind is not ethnic but universal, that the conception of different religions as equally true or valid is as absurd as the conception of ethnic medical sciences or racial mathematics or national chemistries, that however real racial differences may be, these differences do not go down to the essential ground- work of human unity. Mankind is all one family, or ought to be, and the Gospel was sent to the end that the family life of humanity in God might be restored in Christ. The missionary movement takes issue absolutely with Mr. Meredith Townsend's view that " something radical, something unalterable and indestructible divides the Asiatic from the European. . . . They are fenced off from each other by an invisible, impalpable, but impassable wall."* The main contention in Mr. Townsend's essays, that human unity is broken in the chasm between Asia and Europe, is what on principle and from experience the missionary enterprise denies. It believes that God made one, not two humanities, and thousands of its representatives have proved the truth of Sir Andrew Eraser's words in " Among Indian Ra- jahs and Ryots " when, commenting on Mr. Townsend's view, he says: " It IS no cant sentiment with men who have spent their lives among Eastern peoples, that God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth. Human hearts, human needs, human senti- ments are much the same in the East and in the West. . . . Human hearts come together in the East just as they can in the West." * " Asia and Europe," pp. 50, 150. A CONSTEUCTIVE INTERPEETATION 99 On any other theoiy, what a hell on earth we have to look forward to! Asia and Europe flowing ever more and more together, but unintelligible, alien, living a com- mon life but incapable of sharing it, working at a com- mon problem but doomed to eternal misunderstanding over it, answerable to the same God but incapable of a common worship or a common responsibility. This is to promise us a future of perpetual misconception and dread of war. St. Paul had a far nobler view. He believed in the one family of God and the unity of the world in that family's life : " Now in Christ Jesus, ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For He is our peace Who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that He might create in Himself of the twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the en- mity thereby; and He came and preached peace to you that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh ; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father. So then ye are no more strangers and so- journers, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the founda- tion of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone ; in Whom each several build- ing, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit." Foreign missions are the affirmation of this world unity. And foreign missions are not only affirming it. They are creating it. It is not enough to say, "All men are brothers." For a generation we have heard religion re- duced to the two propositions of the fatherhood of God 100 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD and the brotherhood of man, and this reduction offered to us as a reason for dismissing the missionary enterprise as superfluous. But humanity is one only in ideal. The brotherhood of man is still an unrealized dream. To profess it as a faith is not enough, unless we accompany our profession with the works that achieve it. Foreign missions are doing this. Wherever they go they produce the consciousness of unity. It is by the foreign mission- ary movement that this vision of the truth comes to men. The non-Christian faiths denied human unity. Chris- tianity affirmed it and in the work of foreign missions exemplified and validated it. The world has to learn from foreign missions still how the task is to be com- pleted. At home we must acquire the attitude of mind and heart toward the non-Christian nations which this modern reproduction of the Incarnation embodies, and abroad the great constructive work must be done in the non-Christian nations which will give them the Christian principles without which they cannot take their true place or fulfill their missions, or be ready for human unity. The non-Christian nations are realizing that they do not have these principles and must find them. And these new principles for which the nations are feeling have their origin and their full life only in the missionary interpretation of Christianity. It alone fits men for freedom, by teaching them self- control in liberty, and making them fearless followers of the truth which makes men free. The two greatest gifts of the Gospel — truth and freedom — are the supreme needs of the non-Christian peoples. These nations need Chris- tianity to fit men for freedom. They need it also to teach men service, which is the divine end of freedom. Until men are unselfish freedom is only an enlarged opportunity for action hostile to human unity. And A CONSTRUCTIVE INTEEPRETATION 101 Christianity, uttering itself through one channel or an- other, can alone teach the nations this law of ministiy, which is a new principle to the non-Christian peoples. Furthermore, it is the missionary construction of Chris- tianity which must give the world the principle of equality of man and woman as well as of man and man. The non-Christian principles of class and sex inequality have ruled the whole world except as Christ has changed it. The missionary enterprise has been the one great enter- prise of modern times which has placed men and women on an equality of administration and responsibility in its advancement and which has gone to the non-Christian world, which has always been a man's world, and the non-Christian religions which have been men's religions, with a message of human equality necessitated by its message of human unity. And one other principle which the Christian ideal in foreign missions has to contribute to the nations from without is the ideal of a true nationalism. "The very Idea of nationality has come to the edu- cated mind of India under the auspices of Christianity; it has been undoubtedly quickened by the unconscious assimilation of ideas and principles essentially Christian. Split up hitherto into a number of separate and conflicting races and castes, a corporate life is now beginning to It Is Christianity and the Christian principles, presented with whatever obscuration, which have created this stir- ring and given it the life of hope. Throughout the world the missionary movement has been one of the great edu- cative ideas, and Is the true norm and illumination of the Christian nationalism which is the divine principle of the next stage in the development of humanity. * Slater, " Missions and Sociology," p. 14. 102 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD And missions not only introduce from without the principles required for the development and unity of humanity, but they present in doing so the only possible method of achieving unity. They deal directly with the individual and move upon his personality and will, and so rest the new movement where alone it can stably rest, upon the redeemed character of persons. " The mightiest civilizing agencies," says Dr. Fairbairn, " are persons. The mightiest civilizing persons are Christian men." And it appeals through the mind and heart of the individual to the reason of the world. " If our people are ever to be moved," says Mr. Dickinson's Chinese official, " their reason and their heart must be con- vinced." ^ That is true of all the peoples, and that is the method, and the only method of the missionary enterprise. It is speaking to the reason and the heart of nations. By the purely persuasive agencies which it uses, the voice of the friend, the steady upheaving transformation of the school, the tenderness of sympathy in suffering, by dis- solving prejudice and incarnating the truth of human oneness, it is convincing the world's reason, even when it is unaware, and has already penetrated every nation and permeated some nations with the principles by which the people are to fulfill their separate destinies and attain their heavenly ordered unity at the last. Furthermore, the missionary aim of Christianity is essential and effective because it provides the adequate moral basis which is necessary for the life and institutions of the peoples. All the non-Christian peoples have lacked the moral basis of national life. The Chinese have come nearest to possessing it, and what was strong in China's neighbouring nations was borrowed from the Chinese, but even there the want of what is elementary * " lyCtters from a Chinese Official," p. 42. A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATIOIsr 103 in Christianity deprived the Chinese people of the central power of a great nationality. As S. Wells Williams wrote, who knew the nation as well as any foreigner has ever known it : " Even among a people like the Chinese, who are pos- sessed of the conveniences of life and held together by an organized government founded on the consent of all classes, the want of truth and integrity weakens every part of the social fabric. Moral ethics, enforcing the social relations, the rights and duties of the rulers and ruled, and the inculcation of the five constant virtues have been taught in China for twenty-five centuries, and yet have failed to teach the people to be truthful. They never can do it, for they have no sanctions calculated to influence the mind and strengthen it to resist temptation. , . . But until truth becomes even here the basis of society, so that a man sinks in the estimation of his fellows if caught in a falsehood, and is afraid to lie be- cause he will be despised, the Chinese must remain far below any Christian nation. They cannot progress in civilization until they become truthful. No corporate bodies formed among them for the purpose of carrying out great plans of improvement can cohere in conse- quence of this inherent weakness, because no subscribers will trust their money to such a company. No insurance company can obtain the confidence of the community; no trust company can succeed, let it promise ever so much. If the government issues coin, it is taken for its intrinsic worth, like bullion, because it is so tampered with as to lose its nominal value ; and the case is still worse with its bonds, — so that China alone, of all the nations of the earth, has even now no national silver or gold coin, and no bank bills, the only currency being a miserable copper-iron coin, so debased as not to pay counterfeiters to imitate it. . . . Truth alone is the proper aliment for the mind ; on it alone can all the facul- ties acquire their full development." ' ' S. Wells Williams, " The Middle Kingdom," Vol. I, p. 352, ff. 104 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD And so of every nation. Its deepest needs are the moral needs, which must be met before the people can be free to fulfill their divinely ordered ends. " It is the moral sense of the people that has to be elevated," .says a Hindu writer of his own nation." And both in each nation in its needs, and among the nations in their re- lations, Christianity, and Christianity alone, can furnish the indispensable foundation. It is in Christianity and the principles which men cannot permanently separate from their historic origin in it and their organic connec- tion with it that the moral basis of true nationalism and of true universalism is to be found. As Bishop Brent says, in speaking of the Christian Church in which Chris- tianity prosecutes her central mission among men: " Upon her perpetuation in the civilized world depends the maintenance of common morality, not to mention moral refinements, the achievement of even that moder- ate success in character-building which marks the path- way of Christian history, that buoyancy of hope which <»sts upon the harsh disciplines of life something akin to transfiguring radiancy. Upon her extension to every corner of the world that is ignorant of the truth, as made known in the good news of the Saviour's message, hinges the consummation of God's beneficent purposes for the human race, the full knowledge of Christ's personality by men, and that unification of the nations of the world which has ever been the dream of philosophers, the labour of philanthropists, and the prayer of the saints." The missionary movement embodies the one supreme uniting power. Within each nation for the perfect de- velopment of its character and for the faithful fulfill- ment of its mission there must be some adequate unifying bond. The bond must relate men in their deepest life, ' Jwala Dass in the Hindustan Review. See The Literary Di- gest, Feb. 15, 1908, p. 220. A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 105 in the foundations of their principles, in the fountains of their ideals, in their eternal hopes. Only a common re- ligion can supply that bond. "Any one realizing the im- portance attached to religion in Asia," says Arminius Vambery, "will easily understand how impossible it is to bridge over (politically) the gulf which separates the professors of these various beliefs in India. Religion absorbs the interest of the Asiatic ; it is stronger than his feeling of nationality." * When any land is torn by religious and racial division, as Dr. Ghose reminded the Surat Section of the Indian National Congress in 1907, after the unhappy division of the Congress, it cannot realize the unity of its char- acter or its destiny. It was the missionary movement in Christianity which furnished the Roman Empire with this essential bond, and his discernment of the power and duty of Christianity thus to unite men marked the supreme statesmanship of St. Paul. The task which St. Paul performed for the Roman Empire we have now to perform for the world, and in a more complicated iqvm, but a form for which Christianity is entirely adequate. We have to locate Christianity in the life of each separate nation for the perfection of its national character and the accomplishment of its national destiny, and we have to set it in the whole life of the world so as to bind into one each perfected nationality and to cement and com- plete with its unity the whole varied life of mankind. This is the work that must now be done, and which Christianity alone can do. The privilege of it is ours who believe that God has made of one blood all the nations of men, and has appointed to each the bounds of its habitation and the glory of its own distinct mission, and has also given them in the Gospel of His Son that * " Western Culture in Eastern Lands," Ch. II. 106 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD common life provided for all mankind, wherein there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman nor freeman, but Christ is all and in all. But the issues which have arisen in recent years over Oriental immigration have raised the question of the implications and limitations of the doctrine of human unity. If the world is one and human brotherhood is equal, what are the logical consequences in the case of legislation which rests upon contrary assumptions? So far as any legislation does rest upon the contrary assump- tion, the only judgment which we can pass, under the mind of Christ, is one of condemnation. The law of human unity is the sovereign law and mankind is bound to live by it and to recognize in every man a brother to all his brethren. But within humanity there are also races and nations and families, and the recognition of racial and national distinctions, and of the insulation of the family as a separate integer is not only not inconsistent with the conception of human unity, but is essential to it. The spirit of nationalism is inevitable and it is invalu- able. It is not in conflict with the ideal of a united hu- manity. It is essential to its realization. The same God who made of one blood all nations of men, assigned them also their racial and national character and destinies to the end of a perfected humanity. The development of state consciousness, state conscience, state ambition, state duty, is a development in the will of God for man, and the true world citizenship will recognize this and build the unity of mankind, not upon any speculative theory of humanity, nor upon any sand-heap of individual units, but upon corporate nationalities such as God has always dealt with and built upon in human history. He used a A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPRET ATION 107 nation to prepare the salvation of the world, and He has always wrought His purposes through racial movements. His men were men of their nations, and His judgments were judgments of nations of men. The problems presented by a world made up of con- scious and independent nationalities, with distinct mis- sions to fulfill and distinct contributions to make to the ultimate perfected human society, are complicated and difficult but they are not insoluble. What makes them dangerous is the introduction of the spirit which always arises from the denial of the fundamental postulate of world unity, the family idea of humanity. If we accept this idea freely, there is no danger of jealousy or injustice in the effort of each nation to guard for itself its own mission and national duty. The recognition of human brotherhood does not necessitate universal miscegenation, much less marital communism. Likewise it does not necessitate the surrender of national identity or the con- fusion of racial character. Just what racial intermixtures are wise and beneficial, what are the proper bounds and limitations of the safeguarding of national character and personality, are problems which nations should work out in good-will and mutual considerateness, and which they can work out thus on the basis of a genuine mutual acceptance of the principles of human unity and racial function. Foreign missions are showing how this problem can be worked out. They are based on the assumption of human unity. They seek to establish a universal society. At the same time they operate on the principles of nationality and of distinctive racial character and mission. They believe that each section of humanity has its own contri- bution to make to the ultimate wealth of the whole, and that each should fulfill its own distinct task; that in each 108 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD there should be a national Church, of the soil, rooted in the tradition and life of the people, fitted to its customs and institutions, sharing its character and participating in its mission — ^yes, defining and inspiring that mission as it can do only when it is a truly national Church subject to no alien bondage. In such a Church Christianity will, of course, surrender nothing that is essential and uni- versal. It enters into no compromise. It simply domesti- cates itself in a new home which it has been long in finding, and from the new roots which it sinks into humanity expands that interpretation of the life of God in man and nourishes that hope of man's future in God, which can only be perfected as all the peoples bring their glory and honour into the final temple of humanity. If we borrowed these conceptions and carried them over into the present-day problems of world politics, we should be lifted sheer over some of our current perplexities into a new atmosphere of international life. By this recognition of world unity as an ideal and by all that foreign missions are doing to realize it, they are making a great constructive contribution to the cause of Christian unity at home. The influence of the principle of nationalism, to which I have just referred, is one part of this contribution. The ideal of foreign missions is another. That ideal is the creation of indigenous national Churches, deadened by no throttling laws of uniformity, free and varied as the spirit of man, but still unified, corporate, animated by one organic life, fulfilling one great mission, and inspiring and answering the national life and destiny of the people. If that is the right ideal for Japan or India, it is the right ideal for Scotland or the United States. It is the ideal toward which the people of Canada are working. The very ideal of missions involves union and suggests the road to us at homew A CONSTEUCTIVE mXERPEETATION 109 Foreign missions have shown us the uniting power of a great work. The immensity of the common task, the essential oneness of aim of all engaged in that task press the workers together in spite of their unacquaintance and their dissonant traditions. When men are not united in their work, they can easily remain apart, exalting the secondary things into fundamental principles, but when they are seeking the evangelization of a world, the pri- mary things assert their dominance. Dr. Swift, the great spirit who laid the foundation of the foreign missionary organization of the American Presbyterian Church, un- derstood this principle and expressed it in one of the first reports of the Board, referring to the temporary abandon- ment by the Church in 1826 of its corporate responsibility as a missionary agency, and to its later separation into New and Old Schools : " Had the commotions which now agitate the Church found its ministry and its churches bound together by the hallowed ties of one harmonious and life-inspiring effort to evangelize the world, those waves whose rockings now threaten its destruction would scarcely have left the trace of their existence. . . . The days of division and in- action cannot last forever. The Spirit of God will return in glory and in power to the Churches, and the spirit of love and concord to the Saints." Common aims and honest effort to realize those aims are making us one abroad. They can make us one at home. More than that, they require unity of us. As Dr. Henderson said in his final address as Moderator of the United Free Church Assembly in 1909 : " Fathers and brethren, may I so far allude to the great subject of Church Union as to say that nothing will so 110 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD effectively and so truly prepare for it as such development of our spiritual life by active service? If it is to come as a blessing — which God grant it may speedily — it will be as a union of those who labour for it from a supreme desire for fuller and freer service ; from a pressing need of developing a free and fruitful life in direct obedience to the will of Christ. Hindrances which thwart such spiritual aspirations will become intolerable, and their re- moval will be demanded at all costs. And union will come, not by mere good-will wishing for it, or adroit scheming to bring it about, but when an awakened sense of the urgency of spiritual service thrusts out of its way all that opposes itself to the doing of the will of Christ." The simple existence of the missionary spirit is evi- dence of a vital unity in those who are animated by it. They may be travelling different roads, but their spirit is from a common source. " We love because He first loved us." All our human love has a single origin. The deeper and richer this love becomes, the nearer and fuller our fellowship with the Source, the closer, whether we know it or not, do our lives come, each to his brother's. And this essential unity is found not in a common source alone, but also in a common end. For it is a common end which all the varying missionary impulses are seeking, the end of the world Kingdom of Christ, of the realized Family of God. We may differ in our definitions of the thing. We shall find when we come to it that the thing itself differs from all our definitions. But it is the thing, however we define it, which we are all seeking. That is a bond which no unconsciousness or denial on our part can dissolve. And more than this, the elevation of this end as supreme unifies men. Whenever men believe enough in a cause to die for that cause, the sacrament of their consecration discloses a unity deeper than all their dis- agreement. When Churches or men say one to the other, A COKSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 111 " Come and let us die for that for which Christ died," or, when they are not near enough to say it one to the other, but are sufficiently near to Christ each to say it to Him, then in the death to which they go they pass no more divided, but as one. And foreign missions provide the larger stage, the ampler air in which we can pass out from the proximity of what has hampered us, and scale our estimates and measurements to the true standard of the full life of humanity. We come to a place of vaster hopes, of richer flexibilities, of expanded life. We do not stay there on the level of our history, of our past disagree- ments, and seek by modification, by surrender, or supple- ment to fit them together. We simply rise to a higher level, into a unity which comprehends in its completeness our half-lights and fragments. Our theologies are to be reconciled at last, not by a restatement which will balance them afresh and establish a universal com- promise and equipoise. They are to be reconciled in God. The living God, conceived and experienced as the God of all men, will unify them and supplant them. And so with all our disagreements as Christians. We shall not need to compose them. As we move upward into our true air and outward into our whole life each man will be the most eager of all to lay aside his error, and in the world knowledge and world love we shall find our lost unity in our freshly discovered God. It is no enmity to our past to believe that it did not exhaust God. There is no disloyalty to the past in believing that God means the future to be better than it. Unless the past has made ready for a better future, the past was a bad past. Only those things are good that make ready for better things to come after them, and those men are disloyal to the past, who believe that all the great things are in a golden 112 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD age gone by. Very great and glorious the past has been, but the past will have failed to teach its lesson to us, the past will have failed to fulfill its mission in the will of God if it binds men forever in the chains of its sectional apprehensions or institutional forms, if it has not made them ready for larger and completer things and led them on to such a unity as Christ Himself, we must believe, longed for while He was here, and waits for now where He is gone. In the methods which foreign missions took up instinc- tively on their field, there is light upon some of the questions which seem to perplex the Church so greatly at home — for example, the relation of the Church to social service and of religion to education. What is the function of the Church? How far is it the Church's business to care for philanthropy, to organize hospitals and asylums, to provide sanitation, to organize industry, to look after the housing of the poor, to concern itself with the redemption of the social environment? Is the Church justified in concerning itself at all with these things, or is its one business the preaching of the Gospel to individual men? The work of foreign missions from the beginning has by the instinct of Christianity given its answer. As an aged apostle and missionary, Bishop Thoburn, said: " It is just as natural for one who has the love of Christ in his heart, if he sees a man hungry, to feed him, or to watch with the sick, or to devote himself in any way to relieving distress, as it was for Christ when He was on earth. And if any one of you can fail to relieve suffering when it is within your power to do it, let me tell you that you have yet to prove that you have the same kind of love in your hearts that Christ had. " I could give you many illustrations on this point, but I will confine myself to just one. You take a young man A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEIiPEETATIOIsr 113 out of this meeting and say to him: 'You are going abroad as a missionary. Don't be drawn aside into other enterprises. Keep to the one thing, the preaching of Christ.' ' I shall try to do so,' he says. He lands on an Eastern shore and starts up into the interior of the coun- try, and at the first river that he has to cross, as he goes down to the ferry boat, he finds a row of lepers lining the path, and it comes into his heart at once that those people should have something done for them. He has a new love in his heart as he crosses that river, and some day it will take form. He crosses the river and goes along the highway, and finds a starving child; the little one says, * My parents have deserted me and I am dying of hunger.' He cannot pass that child, and yet if he takes the child he becomes responsible for its keeping, and he has started the nucleus of an orphanage. He goes on and perhaps finds the parents dying by the roadside. * Well,' he says, * I must take care of these people.' And he founds an almshouse. He goes on upon his journey and he finds the lame, and the sick, and the halt, and the blind, and he says, ' I must relieve these suffering people.' Then he has a medical dispensary and a hospital. They are all there before he reaches his station. His friend comes out to visit him and finds him thus surroimded, and he says, ' I thought you were going to do but one work. I thought you were going to preach Christ.' He answers, ' That was my intention, but I couldn't help it' No. If he had the love of Christ in him he couldn't help it." These expressions of the Christian Spirit are irrepress- ible, and they are characteristic. Whether medical mis- sions and charitable activities are proper agencies of the missionary enterprise are useless questions. They can- not be prevented. If missionaries see widows burned and children slaughtered and villages ravaged in slave raids, and famine orphans and Christ's sheep scattered abroad and sufi:ering with no man caring, they are going to care, and agitation and action are as certain as the love of Christ. And such services are themselves manr 114 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD festations of Christ. They are original to Christianity. The non-Christian peoples recognize this. " There is plenty of scope for active work/' said the leading social reform paper of Madras, " not only for policemen, but for earnest men and women, of course among Christians. Our countrymen must pardon us for this piece of plain speaking, as they have never shown the least anxiety to reclaim the fallen. For ' once fallen always fallen ' would seem to be their maxim." * All pure unselfishness preaches Christ. Indeed, it is the only way He can be preached. No words can speak Christ to men as words can speak Him when pictured also in deeds. Many of the non-Christian peoples are kindergarten peoples and need to be taught by object lessons. Acts must put con- tent into words for them. The love of Christ must be interpreted to them by the vision of a man in whom Christ is loving them. But universal charity is not the aim of the foreign missionary movement. It cannot heal or feed the world any more than it can educate it, and it is not its business to try to do so. All that the Church is giving or would need to give to discharge its distinctive foreign mission work would not suffice to meet the physical sufferings of the Yangtse Valley or to educate Bengal. Foreign mis- sions attempt as much of such work as is necessary to get more of it done. Foreign missions cannot do it all, but they do what they do in order that other agencies may do all that ought to be done. In part foreign mis- sions seek to raise up an indigenous Church which will do more than foreign missions could do, but in larger part still, foreign missions look forward to such a Chris- tianization of the state as will accomplish through it all that can be accomplished by organized human effort. Is * Quoted by Slater, " Missions and Sociology," p. 34. A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 115 not the method of foreign missions the indication of the rational poHcy for the Church at home? It is the busi- ness of the Church to create ideals, to blaze trails, to generate power, to maintain purpose, and, until a Chris- tian State has been developed, to do all the actual work of social as well as individual redemption that can be done. But when and as such a state is developed it will be the work, because it Avill be the nature, of that state to establish all righteousness. Indeed, just as foreign missions have their fulfillment in the national Church, so in the perfect coming of a Christian State the Church may have its fulfillment. In the vision which was given him of the heavenly commonwealth into which all the glory of the nations is to be gathered, St. John saw no temple. Church and State were the same thing. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were the only temple. Twenty years ago the most criticized feature of the work of foreign missions was its use of education as a missionary agency. Although there are still a few mis- sions which neglect education, and although Lord William Cecil complains of this neglect on a large scale on the part of British missions in China, nevertheless the objection to the principle of educational missionary work has passed away, and it cannot be denied that a great part of the sudden transformation of China and of the slow and unnoticed but equally real transformation of India have been due to the use of schools by the Christian Church, partly as a training ground for leaders and partly as a fountain of ideas. Foreign missions have from the outset believed that religion must use education, both because it needed it and the power which it produced, and also because education without religion is a source of danger to a nation, and each nation should have before its eyes, accordingly, in the Christian schools of the missionaries. 116 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD an object lesson of what education could do and of the indispensable necessity of the religious principle in educa- tion. Duff acted upon these convictions at the beginning of missionary work in India, and courageously told the Government what would follow if it acted otherwise : " If in India you do give the people knowledge without religion, rest assured that it is the greatest blunder, polit- ically speaking, that ever was committed. Having free, unrestricted access to the whole range of our English lit- erature and science, they will despise and reject their own systems of learning. Once driven out of their systems, they will inevitably become infidels in, religion; and, shaken out of the mechanical round of their religious observances, without moral principles to balance their thoughts or guide their movements, they will as certainly become discontented, restless agitators/' What Duff foretold has come to pass in India, and in Egypt also, and wise men are dreading it in Japan and turn to Christianity as the one power that can help. Said Count Okuma recently : " Any nation that neglects the spiritual in the education of its citizens, though it may flourish for a time, must eventually decay. The origin of m.odern civilization is to be found in the teaching of the Sage of Judea, by whom alone the moral dynamic is supplied." And if they do not turn to Christianity for what they need the people of India are nevertheless making it clear that they realize that religion is indispensable to educa- tion because indispensable to life. These wants are as real in America as in India, and the Church at home will do well to draw from the lessons of our missionary ex- perience a deeper purpose to convert to Christianity the A CONSTEUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 117 educational influences which are shaping the coming citizenship of the nation. In a larger sense, also, foreign missions are a reminder of the need of religion in national life. They are our one protest against secularism in Asia. So far as most of our contact with Asia and Africa is concerned, our Chris- tian nations might as well have been materialistic. There was little in our conduct to betray any idealism, genuine sympathy or altruistic good-will. Mr. Fukuzawa's paper, the Jiji Shimpo, once remarked that in the early days of Japanese intercourse : " There can be no doubt that many serious troubles would have occurred had not the Christian missionary not only showed to the Japanese the altruistic side of the Occidental character, but also by his teaching and' his preaching imparted a new and attractive aspect to the intercourse which otherwise would have been masterful and repellent. The Japanese cannot thank the missionary too much for the admirable leaven that he introduced into their relation with foreigners." And Count Okuma has expressed frankly his opinion of European character as seen in Japan : " Comparing Europeans and Japanese, I do not think that the Europeans then (thirty years ago) in Japan were a particularly high class of persons; nor do I think that those here now are particularly high class." There is no doubt that Japan was often irritated, almost beyond endurance, by her political contact with the West. The missionary influence smoothed over and conciliated this irritation. Mr. Fukuzawa declared: " I once said that if no missionaries had ever come to our country, the dissoluteness and wantonness of for- 118 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD eigners would have come to be much greater and our rela- tions to foreigners would not be what they are now." We need a Christianization of all the impact of the West upon the East, and to that end we need the acceptance at home of the missionary affirmation of religion as the central and comprehending necessity of national life and international relationship. I have been speaking of the missionary movement in its modern aspects, but a larger survey would show that in some measure the ideals and principles we have noted have been illustrated and advanced by all the forward movements of the Church throughout the ages, as the Church has passed out from old limits to plant itself on new soil. Recall the history of the Nestorian Church. As one who has given his life for that Church and for the Kurds, with a devotion as apostolic as it is modest and selfless, wrote before the horrors of the war came down as a deluge of death upon these unoffending people and nearly wiped out the nation : " Without a home board to support it or government to protect it, in highly civilized cities, among wild mountain tribes and the nomads of the plains all the way from Antioch to Pekin, the Nestorians preached the Gospel to Syrians, Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Hindus and Mongo- lians, established schools and organized churches. And this was not done without the shedding of blood; the martyrs of this Church were countless. And after Tamerlane and Ghengis Khan and the Moslem armies had ended their bloody work, the self-inflicted punish- ment it may be of a disobedient Church, the remnant of that Church, cut off from their brethren in the West, despised and hated by their fanatical conquerors, almost continuously oppressed or persecuted, kept the faith, held fast at least to the Name of Jesus. For a thousand years in the midst of Islam the Nestorians have, in some meas- A CONSTBUCTIVE INTEEPEETATION 119 ure, borne testimony to the Sonship of Jesus Christ and to His claim to be the only Redeemer. And so preserved by Him throughout these centuries, would it not be like God to use this very people, the despised remnant of His early Church, to evangelize those from whom they have suffered so much ? Is there not a Divine logic in it ? The covenant He made with their fathers bespeaks this com- mission for them, that they may fill up that which was lacking in the service of those fathers. " But granting their adaptedness and their calling, what prospect is there of the Old Church community's hearing the call and obeying it? To-day, if not dead, they are asleep in formalism. Is it possible that they can be re- vived and reformed and equipped and so be used of God as a special agency for the evangelization of the Kurds and Arabs? What is the state of the Nestorian Church to-day ? What does it promise to be to-morrow ? " To a casual observer they are rude and wild moun- taineers. They are illiterate and lawless. In religion they are formalists, trusting largely to fasts and ritual observance for salvation. And perhaps most discourag- ing, the major part of them are self-satisfied, without ambition for better things." But over against this are their reverence for books, and for the Book of books, their deep religious feeling, their capacity for education and evangelistic service. My friend adds: " Recall what Scotland once was, a land of blood and rapine, the abode of ignorance and superstition. And behold it to-day. The parallel between the ancient high- landers of Scotland and these mountain clans of Kurdi- stan is a close one. And if God could transform a Rob Roy into a Henry Drummond or a David Livingstone, can He not do as much with these highlanders of Kurdistan? There is the same Word of God to preach ; there is only needed the faith and the passionate desire of John Knox. There is much to argue the calling of the Nestorians and. 120 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD whatever their condition to-day, we cannot doubt but that God is able to make them hear that call and obey it/' What was has not wholly ceased to be, nor shall. Where the Church has gone there is something that was not before and cannot elsewhere be — as with this ancient Assyrian Church, the possibility of a new life and the ancient mission, if the dreams of those who love it can be fulfilled and its light be not extinguished or absorbed. And lastly, foreign missions rest on just such hopes as these. They know of no impossibilities. The pioneers going out alone were more ludicrous than David with his little sling against Goliath. For they wrestle not with flesh and blood. But they had the faith which the Lord invited, the faith which can remove mountains and to which nothing is impossible. If ever the world was war- ranted in ridiculing a movement for the disparity of its means and aims, for its worldly impotence, for its illu- sions of faith, for its innocence, for its childlike magni- tudes of ambition, for its delusions of grandeur, it was warranted when Carey and queer John Thomas set forth for India. But these are the very lessons which we need to learn to-day, that there is no impossible duty, that noth- ing that is right and good should be left uncared for, that all that Christ saw in humanity is there, even its recover- ableness from all its waste and sin. This is what foreign missions mean to us. They teach the miracle of endless possibility in the world. They have been the miracle of an ever new possibility in the Church. They are a guarantee that there need be no war. They forerun the peaceable kingdom of love. THE WORLD'S ABIDING DEBT TO THE MISSIONARY THE work of foreign missions is not in need of any overstatements in order to support its claim. More than that, any exaggeration is sure to injure both the cause and its advocates. What it cannot claim within the bounds of truth, it does not wish to claim, and would be injured by claiming. I wish to state strongly the world's debt to the missionary, but I want to do it well within the bounds of the truth. And to give assurance that no careless claims are to be made regarding the measures of the world's debt to the mission- ary, I wish to make at the outset three preliminary obser- vations. In the first place, the missionary enterprise is not the only agency by which God is acting upon the world. We do not believe that commerce and diplomacy and civiliza- tion have slipped between the fingers of the hands of God. We do not believe this, because, on general principle, we believe in God's sovereign control over all the lives of men. And we do not believe it because, particularly, we can see throughout the world the manifest way In which these great forces are playing into the designs of God in the coming of His Kingdom. And the spirit of life Is moving out over the world also in far more subtle ways than these, permeating the life of the nations. And that spirit of life we believe to be the Spirit of the living God. 121 122 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD Not all that is being done in the world, accordingly, to- ward the coming of the Kingdom of God is being done by the one enterprise of foreign missions. In the second place, the missionary enterprise is not a perfect and faultless enterprise. How could it be? It went out from us. It carries with it to the mission fields the limitations that mark the life of the Church at home ; it represents the best and noblest element in the Church, but just so far as that element falls short of the perfect embodiment of the character and spirit of our Lord will the missionary enterprise itself be imperfect and faulty. It is carried on by men, and they will make men's mis- takes. In the third place, the missionary enterprise is not seek- ing to achieve everything. There is much solicitude on the part of some lest the Church concern herself with so- cial and political problems, and in doing so forget or con- fuse her distinctive character and mission. None of us need feel as yet too great apprehension regarding the for- eign missionary enterprise in this regard. It is aiming at just one thing, to make Jesus Christ known throughout the world. It is a distinctly religious enterprise, animated by a distinctly religious spirit, aiming at a distinctly religious end, and it is accomplishing all that it is accomplishing in other directions, largely because it does not make these other things its primary aim at all, but goes out with one supreme, determining and all-embracing religious pur- pose. I think it is just to claim that the missionary enter- prise is nevertheless the most powerful, the purest, the most fruitful agency by which God is operating greatly upon the world. No other agency that is affecting the life of man is striking that life with so deep and heavy an impact; is pouring into it so purely, with so little con- tamination, the living stream of the life of God ; is bearing THE WOELD'S ABIDING DEBT 123 so rich and abundant a fruitage. And I wish to try to analyze the debt which the world owes to the missionary and to his enterprise. In the first place, it is the missionaiy who has largely helped to open the world to us. He has opened up a good part of the geography of the world. We would not be knowing it to-day as we do if it were not for him. The whole dark continent of Africa was made known to us chiefly by him. And this is true not only of Africa, but of Korea, Manchuria, China, Burma, Siam, Arabia; in fact, almost the whole of Asia has laid bare its inner se- crets under the work of the missionary. We owe our knowledge of the external world in no small part to the missionary's investigation. And as we owe our knowledge of the world's geog- raphy to him, so we owe much of our knowledge of the world's languages and its literature. In some lands there is no literature except that which he creates. Morrison in China, Carey in India, Hepburn in Japan, Gale in Korea, were the men who first gave us the dictionaries of the great languages of those lands. We largely owe our knowledge not only of the lands in which they live, but also of the languages in which they speak, to the in- vestigations of the missionaries. We owe to them our knowledge of social customs and ideas. In the words of a publication of the Smithsonian Institute : " The contri- butions to history, to ethnology, to philosophy, to geog- raphy and religious literature form a lasting monument to their fame." We have penetrated the thoughts of all these people, because the missionary has lived among them, won their friendship, and exposed their minds. I was talking recently with a well-known publisher with reference to the publication of a missionary book by one of our missionaries. He said he did not think that he 124 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD could take it without some guarantee. And I asked him why. He said because missionary books do not sell as well now as they did a few years ago, and he said he thought it was partly due to the great mass of missionary books sent out by the missionary organizations through study classes, but even more to the fact that twenty-five years ago we were dependent for almost all our knowl- edge of these non-Christian lands upon the missionaries, who were the pioneer explorers, while nov/ a great many others have followed in behind them and a nev/ literature has grown up where formerly we had missionary books alone. It was the publisher's unconscious testimony to the world's debt to the exploring missionary for the open- ing up of the treasures of the world's knowledge. And not only has the missionary given us our knowl- edge of the world, and is giving us our deepest and most sympathetic knowledge of the world even to this day, but in the second place the missionary has taken something to these lands, which he has spread over these lands. Wher- ever he has gone he has carried peace, order and civiliza- tion with him. He has done it among the savage races of the world. Nothing could be clearer than Darwin's testi- mony to the transforming power of the missionary's work. Regarding missions in Terra del Fuego, he said : " The lesson of the missionary is the magician's wand," and to the South American Society he wrote : " The suc- cess of the mission is most wonderful, and charms me, as I always prophesied utter failure. It is a grand success ; I shall feel proud if your committee think fit to elect me an honourary member of your society." The name of Darwin suggests that of A. L. Wallace, who wrote of the Celebes : " The missionaries have much to be proud of in this country. They have assisted the Government in changing a savage into a civilized community in a won- THE WOELD^S ABIDING DEBT 125 derfully short space of time. Forty years ago the coun- try was a wilderness, the people naked savages, furnishing their rude homes with human heads. Now it is a gar- den ! " And not only are scattered people like these in the remote and forgotten pockets of the world trans- formed, but in the dark corners of Africa it is the mis- sionary's influence that has wrought beyond all power of government, in impressing the deepest life of the people. Sir Harry Johnston, who is one of the greatest adminis- trators in Africa, said not long ago : " When the history of the great African States of the future comes to be written, the arrival of the first missionary will, with many of these new nations, be the first historical event in their, annals." And even of the great and well-governed land of India, the same was to be said by Sir W. Mackworth Young, after his return to Great Britain, from the Lieu- tenant-Governorship of the Punjab: " As a business man speaking to business men," said he, " I am prepared to say that the work which has been done by missionary agency in India exceeds in importance all that has been done, and much has been done, by the British Government in India since its commencement. Let me take the province which I know best. I ask myself what has been the most potent influence working among the people since annexation fifty-four years ago, and to that question I feel there is but one answer — Christianity, as set forth in the lives and teachings of Christian missionaries. I do not underesti- mate," he went on, " the forces that have been brought to bear upon the Punjab by the British Government, but I am convinced that the effect on native character pro- duced by the self-denying labours of missionaries is far greater. The Punjab bears on its historical roll the names of some great Christian statesmen, men who have honoured God by their lives, and endeared themselves to 126 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW "WOBLD the people by their self-denying work, but I am convinced that if they could speak to us out of the great unknown there is not one of them who would not proclaim that the work done by men like French, Clark, Newton and For- man, who went in and out among the people for a whole generation or more, preached by their lives the nobility of self-sacrifice, and the lesson of love to God and man, was a higher and nobler work, and more far-reaching in its consequence." And we recall the equally significant lan- guage of John Lawrence himself, who declared that, how- ever much the British Government had done for India, he was convinced that the missionary had done more to benefit India than all other agencies combined. The same thing might be said of China. It is true we do not seem to have very deeply penetrated the lives of the four hun- dred millions of that land, but I suspect that we have penetrated deeper than it seems, and one recalls the words of the Viceroy Tuan Fang at the dinner given the Chinese Embassy in New York several years ago, when he recog- nized what the missionaries had done in their schools and colleges and added, as he closed : " And I think the mis- sionaries will find China not ungrateful for what they have done for her." This is the second great debt of the world to the Christian missionary. In the third place, for many generations the world's diplomacy was practically dependent upon missionaries. We were unable to carry on our intercourse with the Ori- ental people without the assistance of the missionaries. I read a little while ago a letter from Caleb Gushing, as Secretary of State, regarding Bridgman and Parker, early American missionaries, in which he wrote acknowl- edging the obligation of the Government to them, and added : " The great bulk of the general information we possess and nearly the whole of the primary philological THE WOELD^S ABIDING DEBT 127 information regarding the language of China are derived through the missionaries." And after the Arrow war Mr. Reed, the American Minister, declared his debt to Dr. W. A. P. Martin : " Without the missionaries as in- terpreters, the public business could not be transacted. I could not, but for their aid, have advanced one step in the discharge of my duties here, or read or written or understood one word of correspondence or stipulation." And when Stephen Mattoon was representing the Presby- terian Church in Siam, and the time came to establish our diplomatic relations with the Siamese, Dr. Wood, the head of the Embassy, wrote back to the United States Government, and said : " It was very evident that much of the apprehension they felt in taking upon themselves the responsibilities of a treaty with us would be dimin- ished if they could have the Rev. Mr. Mattoon as the first United States Consul to set the treaty in motion." Of all relationships between Eastern and Western nations in the last century, none have been more free from friction and misunderstanding than those that have prevailed be- tween the United States and Siam, and I believe it is largely due to the character given to those relations by the hand of the missionary, trusted by his own land, and beloved by the Siamese. And that is the third debt of the world to the missionary. In the fourth place we owe the missionary a great debt for having done something to atone for the moral shame of our Western contact with the East. I do not propose to go into details, but it is well to turn some time and read in Kidd's " Control of the Tropics," his descrip- tion of the effect on Westerners of life in those lands, especially the tropical lands of Asia and Africa. Most of us have no idea of the shameful record that has been made by a great multitude who have gone out represent- 128 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ing our Western nations. There have been many noble men in commerce and in government service, and there have been some v^hose Uves were a loathsome affront to Christian civilization. The missionary has done some- thing at least to mitigate our shame. He has done something, at least, by his pure and high life to correct in the mind of the heathen world the idea that the Chris- tian ethics are inferior to the ethics of the pagan lands. We owe no small debt to the missionary on this account, and yet it is just on this account that moral delinquents from the West dislike him. In the fifth place, we owe it to the missionary that the whole attitude of Western nations to the heathen nations has been transformed. One hundred years ago, if any Western nation wanted to go out and take a slice of the world, it went and took it, and did not feel called upon to justify itself. But now, if any land wants to take land elsewhere, it has to set up some missionary reason for its doing so. There was a time when the Eastern people seemed likely to be not the white man's burden, but the white man's beast of burden. What wrought the change? What has given to the West the sense of responsibility for those Eastern people? Nothing so much as the unselfish movement embodied in the mis- sionary, who has helped to lead the Western world into a radically new attitude to the weaker peoples. In the sixth place, it has been the missionary agency which has in good part launched, and which is neces- sary to direct, those great movements of life which are astir in Africa and Asia in our day. These lands are no longer asleep. A book appeared not long ago en- titled, " The Unchanging East." There could not be a more complete misnomer than that. You might talk about the unchanging United States, but not the un- THE WORLD'S ABIDING DEBT 129 changing East. The whole of Asia and Africa is astir with the thrill of a new life, and it was the missionaiy movement largely that started that life. We can hardly agree with what some have said that we have scarcely as yet made any impression on the non-Christian world. It is seething to-day with new forces, and the agency that in no sm.ail measure started those forces has been the moral and spiritual influence of that great enterprise which we have had planted now for more than one hundred years, and which has been sending the thrill of a vivifying life throughout the length and breadth of the non-Christian world. The first college and press that were established in India, China, Korea, Siam and Persia were established by missionaries. The modern educa- tional system of India sprang from William Carey, Alex- ander Duff, and Macaulay, influenced by Duff. That mighty tide of life that is seething through India from east to west and north to south runs back to the influence of the missionary enterprise. I believe, too, that in a real measure the same thing is true about Japan. The Iwa- kura Embassy was conceived by Guido Verbeck. He suggested that Embassy, he had the selection of a few of the representatives. It was the return of the Embassy that led forward the tremendous upheaval and transfor- mation of Japan. And, as for China, more than any other single agency, I believe the educational enterprise of the missionaries, and the thousands of missionaries and native Christians operating in obscure places, preach- ing Christ, telling truths, planting deep the seeds of the Kingdom of God, have been the great moral agency in the upheaval of the four hundred millions of the Chinese people. And just as the missionary enterprise has been one of the largest agencies in launching these movements of 130 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD life, so it is indispensable to guide and control them. They cannot go forward to God's goal without a moral principle or basis. If they are the movements of Christ they require Christ's hand upon them, giving them direc- tion and guiding them to their right end. I believe the people of the East are themselves coming to recognize this. Some years ago that most influential of the Japanese statesmen. Prince Ito, declared he had no sym- pathy with religion, that it was only superstition. Not long before his lamented death in a dinner given by him- self to a little group of men he took back his own words. One wishes he had amended his own life, but it is a great thing for him to have amended his theory — when he said that he had come to realize that morality was absolutely indispensable to civilization and that religion was absolutely indispensable to morality. And there is only one religion that can furnish the world with an adequate moral ideal and power. The missionary is the custodian of it and through him the purest influence is brought to bear upon the moving currents of life through- out the non-Christian world. In the seventh place, the Church at home owes the missionary a supreme debt. He has confirmed and strengthened for her her pure and simple evangelical conviction. We might have lost here at home the pure old faith of the Gospel if it had not been for the foreign missionary enterprise. The very act of spreading Chris- tianity solidifies our confidence in it as worth spreading. If it is not worth spreading it will not be able to convince men that it is worth retaining. A religion that is not so good that it requires its possessor to share it with all mankind will not long be able to convince its possessor that it is worth his while to keep it for himself. The very fact that for one hundred years now we have had a THE WOELD'S ABIDING DEBT 131 great enterprise communicating Christianity to the world has confirmed us in our convictions that Christianity is worth our while at home. But not in that way only has the missionary retained in us the purity of our evangelical conviction. The unemasculated vigour of the Gospel there has toned and braced us here. I remember in Korea hearing the Korean Christians singing all over the land what was then, and what I suppose is now, their favourite hymn. I have seen them gathered by day and night, with a preacher in the midst of the village people, whom he was never to see again, teaching them to sing his hymn: " What will wash my sins away ; nothing but the blood of Jesus." And the discovery all over the world that nothing but the blood of Jesus will wash away the sins of the non- Christian world ; that nothing but the Divine power of a supernatural Christ will save men and keep them saved, that very discovery has reacted upon the Church at home to draw us nearer in the simplicity and earnestness of our faith, to the pure evangelical conviction once and once for all delivered. More than that, the missionaries have seen a living God at work among the nations. We may have been blinded here at home to the evidence of the Divine King ruling over human society. We may have had doubts and discouragements as to whether, after all, the Gospel had any more than a human moral appeal. But the missionary has seen results produced, not to be explained on any human grounds, results only explicable as men have seen back of them the living and personal interven- tion of the same God who spoke to the fathers through the prophets, and who came and stood in the world in the person of His Son. The missionary enterprise also has kept us aware of the fact that we are engaged in a great effort, that Christianity proposes to displace the 132 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD otiier religions of the world; that it is not a religion that will make any compromise with atheism in southern India, or atheism in Iowa, unitarianism in Japan or unitarianism in England, but a religion that has set out on a great conflict, and that does not intend to make terms with any foes until at last it has subdued them and won a complete victory for its King. We owe to the missionary enterprise this confirmation of the pure evangelical con- viction of the Church. In the eighth place, we owe it to the foreign mission- ary that he has brought to us a mighty inspiration. He i as brought to the Church and the world alike the in- spiration of a great idea, the idea of a whole humanity redeemed and gathered into one great kingdom of brotherliness and love. Bishop Thoburn has reminded us that, after all, at the bottom of its heart, the world is grateful to the missionary enterprise for this. In Cal- cutta, he says, not one man in a thousand who comes there from the West ever asks to be shown t^e house where Thackeray was born; not one man in a hundred wants to be shown where Macaulay lived, but almost every one asks to be carried out to the burying-ground of Ser- ampore, where lies the body of the English cobbler, who relearned and retaught the world the glory of a world- wide service. The missionary enterprise has kept before the Church and the world alike the inspiration o^ a great ideal, of a great and dauntless daring. In his chapter on " The Character of Jesus," Horace Bushnell refers to the fact that the way in which Jesus Christ sat down in front of a universal and perpetual project shows Him to be something more than a man. That is what the modern missionary enterprise has done; it sat down in front of a whole world of men, more than a century ago, when that world was absolutely unknown, THE WORLD'S ABIDING DEBT 133 when there was no access to the great majority of its people, when there was no knowledge of the problems that must be confronted. When all things must be built up from the beginning, the missionary enterprise unfearingly faced its task. And it is not afraid to-day. It has held out before the Church and the world the inspiration of a great courage, and it is holding out be- fore us now the inspiration of a great unselfishness. I said good-bye some time ago in our missionary rooms to an old friend just going back to China. He had gone out a few years ago taking with him his young wife ; she had died there of cholera, and he had come home with his little motherless babe, and was leaving his little one with his mother here; many influences were brought to bear to retain him here ; he was going back with the touch of his little child's fingers upon his heart, and he was going alone, once more to his task in southern China. And as I shook hands with him as he went away I was grateful to God ^r association with an enterprise in which men are so willing to lay down everything in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ ; v»^here the same spirit that filled Him, who, though He was in the form of God, counted not equality with God a prize to be jealously retained, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, had gained and was gaining still the utter surrender of the hearts of men. There comes back to mind the description in the life of Mackay, of his last meeting with Stanley. Stanley had suggested Mackay's coming away with him, and he had refused and Stanley looking back saw still the yellow-haired, blue- eyed Scotchman, standing there unwilling to leave, then turning back to the task that was so near done, but refusing for self's sake to forego the privilege of laying 134 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD down self in the service and for the sake of Christ. We owe it to the missionary that he has held up before us still, in this selfish time, the picture and object lesson, the high appeal of great, inspiring, heroic unselfishness in the ministry not of war but of peace. Last of all, it is the missionary who is leading the Church on to unity, who is showing us how much the things in which we agree outweigh the things in which we disagree. The things in which we agree, how vastly greater they are than the things in which we differ. The missionary enterprise as it leads the Church out against its immense task shows us how much more He, the Lord, who leads us, and how much more His Kingdom, the goal we have in view, more than outweigh all the things that still keep us asunder. It has been the missionary enterprise that has been demonstrating to us and for us the necessity and the pos- sibility of union. Here in this Christian land, surrounded by all the influences of Christianity, we are many; out there, surrounded by the influences of paganism, we are becoming one. Are the influences of paganism to be superior to the influences of Christianity? Are we able in the midst of that atmosphere, to bind ourselves in unity for the accomplishment of our great ends, Christ's great ends for us, while we are still unable to do so here at home? It is the missionary who has been leading the army of Christ into one. And it is the missionary who has been leading the world, also, to unity. He is the greatest agency in bind- ing the dissevered fragments of our human race into one. He is doing it first of all by exemplifying brotherhood and democracy. Other people are talking brotherhood; the missionary is actualizing it; other people are saying what a beautiful dream it is; the missionary is realizing THE WOELD'S ABIDING DEBT 135 it. In a recent report of one of our medical missionaries in India he told of having taken a Mohammedan into his own house, and stayed with him day by day, until at last, nursing him himself, he had made him well and sent him on his way. He was followed by another man full of disease; the missionary was unable to care for him in the hospital, and he took him, too, into his own home. During the hot months of June and July he slept with him under the stars, side by side, that he might nurse him with his own hands, and when he had to go oif to a distant city he took him along, that he might care for him, and brought him back to his own station, where in the month of July the patient died. He missed him when he was gone. " It is wonderful how your heart gets near to a man when you try to help him, and try to be a brother to him." So he spoke of it. It is the mis- sionary all over the world who is making the greatest contribution to the unity of the world by manifesting in his own life the spirit of brotherhood. And the missionary is making a contribution— and it is no petty contribution— to the unity of the world, by his advocacy of the principle of freedom of thought and re- ligious toleration. There is no true unity except unity in liberty. And the missionary is making a contribution, which the next generation will appreciate far better than ours, to world unity, as he goes out everywhere, acquainting men with this principle, and slowly winning its incorporation in their national life. It is easy to-day to criticize S. Wells Williams for the part he played in securing the incorporation of the toleration clauses in the early treaties with China, and to say that great evils have flowed from the political privileges obtained then for Chinese Christians. There have been abuses; per- haps Christianity should have been left untolerated, but 136 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD I am not sure that generations hence men will not look back with a calm view over history and regard that as one of the greatest contributions the missionary has made to China*s progress. At any rate it has been the mis- sionary everywhere throughout the world who has been preaching love and unity as against hate and disagree- ment. Here in our own land we hear the mutterings of racial hate and discord. But all the world over mis- sionaries believe that God has made of one blood all the races of men; that no different coloured blood runs through the Japanese or Chinese from that which runs through our ov/n veins, and that the same blood which was shed on Calvary for us men of white faces, was shed also for those men of yellow faces across the sea. The missionary has been contributing to world unity by preaching this message of equality and of love. We little understand the depth of the racial hatred that has sprung from the seed that has been sown in the past; how intense has been the bitterness of the Eastern nations against the West; and alas, they have had cause enough for their bitterness. If our land had been seized by Asiatic people, as China was seized by the Western people, there would have been an uprising in comparison to which the Boxer uprising was as " the fading dews of the morning before the roaring flood." The Asiatic world has its long bill of grievances against the West. Let us thank God we have our representatives there who are preaching love and unity ; who are teaching a nobler principle than Mr. Townsend's unbridgeable gulf between East and West, who know that all gulfs are closed by the love of Christ and the unity of His body. " If ever," said Bishop Welldon at Oxford, when he came back from India, (I do not quote him exactly), " If ever I felt that the chasm between the East and the West — THE WORLD'S ABIDING DEBT 137 and it is more terrible than I ever dreamed before I went out — could be bridged, it was when I saw men of different nations kneeling down together at the sacramental table of our Lord." The only thing that is going to save the world from a bitter strife, vaster and more terrible than anything the world has known for ages past, is the unity of men in one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all, who is in all, over and through all. And it is be- cause the missionary represents that, and because he is embodying this saving principle in the life of the world that we stand in debt to him as to no other man. He, more than any other, will bring in the day, the great day of which Tennyson dreamed, in which universal love shall be each man's law, and universal light shall not only lie like a shaft of light across the land, and like a lane of beams across the sea, through the cycle of the golden year, but rather, shine with all the covering radiance of Christ on all the lands and seas; because at last there shall have come through him, more than through any other, that Kingdom of God on earth which will be like the Kingdom of God on high, where there shall be no darkness any more, because the Lamb Him- self is the light thereof. And to whom in that day shall the first and most grateful words be spoken, when at last His Kingdom shall have come, and His will shall have been done on earth as it is in Heaven, but to the missionary doing his work in his lowliness and in his meekness to-day, but recognized in his glory and his power then—" Well done, good and faithful servant ; by thee I wrought this " ? VI THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE IMPACT OF THE WEST UPON THE EAST THE impact of the West upon the East we have already said must be Christianized. We imply, then, that it has not been Christian. Are we prepared to admit this ? Without qualification, we should not do so. The net result of the dealings of the so-called Christian nations with the non-Christian world, with all the evil that has seamed and defaced that contact, has been for good. We believe this for two reasons: First, / because we believe in God and that God has been govern- ing the world, and that He has not allowed these relations between the different races of men to arise without Him- self participating in them, and seeing to it that the pur- poses of good which He had formed for men were not altogether frustrated. We are sure that in spite of the evil that we see through the world, the development of man's life has not escaped the control of God, and that in the ages past He has been leading on His world. We believe it in the second place because we can see all through the non-Christian world the penetrating and cre- ative influence of great Christian principles. It is not the same heathen world on which we look out to-day that our fathers knew one hundred years ago. Christian principles of morality, equality and justice and the Chris- tian idea of God have been slowly making their way into 138 THE IMPACT OP WEST UPON EAST 139 the thought of mankind. Deeply as we lament all the evil that has defaced our past relations with the East, we still rejoice that God has overruled this, and that we ourselves can see the slow fashioning of the nations to a better and truer life. But when we have said this, then we are prepared to admit that there are still, as there have been in the past, large non-Christian elements in the impact of the West upon the East which must be Christianized. We recog- nize clearly, and confess with shame, that in our political contact with the non-Christian world there have been radically non-Christian elements. There is no room here to make the detailed confession. The great wrongs from which the Chinese Empire suffered before the Boxer uprising are a sufficient evidence of the non-Christian character of much of our dealing with the non-Christian world. I recall an article in the Nippon Shimhun of Japan some years ago commenting on the curious notions of humanity and honesty displayed by the West toward China in the proceedings which led up to the Boxer storm. The Japan Mail summarized the article at the time : " The ethics of Westerners are to the Nippon very in- explicable. It proceeds to quote Chwang tze on the European politicians. The sage was asked whether mo- rality existed among thieves. He replied much as follows : * Is there any place morality does not exist ? The five virtues are all exemplified by thieves. In perceiving that there are treasures in people's houses they show sagacity. In each striving to be first to get into a house they dis- play courage. In not striving to be the first to escape from a house they show a regard for what is right. In determining whether a house should be entered or not they display intelligence; and in the consideration they show to each other in dividing the spoil they display benevolence. Without these five virtues no big robbery would succeed.' This applies to the doings of Europeans 140 THE GOSPEL AKD THE KEW AYOELD on the neighbouring continent. If this conduct is to be the standard of humanity, a pretty low level will be reached." And Dr. Kato, of the Imperial University in Tokyo, discussing at the same time the evolution of morality and law, held that the example of Western states shows that they do not recognize any universal ethical principles, and are indeed unqualifiedly un-Christian in their dealing with alien nations. When a great empire had practically not a single port left in which she could anchor her own fleet along thousands of miles of seacoast without getting the consent of a foreign power; when she heard the whole world talking about her dismemberment and the partition of her territory among foreign nations, we can- not wonder that that nation and the neighbouring nations failed to discern in the political attitude of the West a Christian spirit toward the non-Christian world. And while respect for ethical ideals has been deepened in both the East and the West in connection with the war there has been wide-spread conviction in Asia that political conduct and especially the issues of the war for Asia have not been conformed to those ideals. In the second place, there have been great un-Christian elements in our trade impact on the non-Christian world. Pne needs only to recall the slave traffic, a thing of the past now, but with its memories still living. One needs only to remember that little canoe drifting out from shore to sea in v/hich the body of Coleridge Patteson was lying with five wounds upon it, like the wounds upon his Master's body, and two fronds of palm crossed upon his breast, an expression of the wrath of the South Sea Islanders against the Christian traffic in human flesh, to realize with shame the devilish elements that have stained much of our intercourse with the non-Christian world. THE IMPACT OF WEST UPON EAST 141 There has been immeasurable commercial exploitation. And there has been the opium trade with China and there is still the rum traffic with Africa. And the morphine and tobacco business and the transfer of the American brew- eries to China are an international scandal and offense. In the third place, there have been non-Christian ele- ments in our personal impact upon the non-Christian world. There was published some ten years ago an in- teresting but depressing book written by a graduate of one of our Western universities, who went on a tramp around the world, and who, penniless, made his way across Europe and across Asia and back to the United States again, right down on the bones of life over all the world. It was interesting because any such experience would inevitably be interesting; but also it was sad because of its instances of the domineering assertion of the sense of racial supe- riority, and its illustration of the way in which Western men have gone out over the Eastern world and have affronted the fundamental principles of human brother- hood and equality. Again and again our personal touch with the non-Christian world has been radically un- christian. I was told once of a dinner given by the French Consul in a certain Chinese city where I was, where, after the French Government had opened a hos- pital for the purpose of conciliating the people, the Consul invited a number of guests to a feast, and behind every guest's chair he had thoughtfully provided a girl from one of the brothels, having been mindful, not of their tastes only, but also of their lusts. And that is unhappily no exceptional illustration of an ethical behaviour that has been too common in our impact upon the non-Chris- tian world. And our civilization itself is not altogether Christian. 142 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD We see in it here at home radically un-Christian ele- ments. Our Lord Himself is not Lord yet of all our corporate and organized life; and just so far as we carry our civilization, with its mingled good and evil, with its non-Christian elements tainting and defiling its Christian elements over the world, just to that extent is our impact upon the East non-Christian. It is that impact which must be Christianized. Now how big is that " must " ? We say that the im- pact of the West upon the East must be Christianized. How deeply do we feel that? Why must it be Chris- tianized? It must be Christianized, first of all, because if it is necessary for every individual to be a Christian in his relationships with others, it is necessary for every collection of individuals to be Christians in their rela- tions to others. There are no different types of ethics, some for the individual, some for society, some for the nation and some for the race. It is just as obligatory for the nation and the race to do right as it is for the in- dividual to do right, and to be a Christian is to want to do right, to live up to Christian principles, to strive to embody in all our acts and relationships the ideals and the conceptions, the laws and spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to do right in all our relationships with the East as nations and as races, just because we are bound to do right and to be Christians as individual men. In the second place, our impact upon the East must be Christianized because we are moving out upon the East in very many different ways, and those ways are sure steadily to increase. Mr. Kidd has pointed out in his little book on "The Control of the Tropics" that the efficient nations are certain to move out over all the world that is occupied by the inefficient peoples to teach those inefficient peoples the secrets of efficiency and the THE IMPACT OP WEST UPON EAST 143 lesson of stewardship of life and in life. And we cannot separate the diiferent forms in which that movement of the West upon the East is taking place. They are all of them inextricably intertwined. And every one of them is bound to suffer or to benefit from the character of the rest. Christianity is sure to be damaged in its purer form of expression in the missionary enterprise by everything that is non-Christian in all the other forms of the move- ment of the West upon the non-Christian world. We have to Christianize our impact from the West upon the East in the interest of our distinctively missionary prop- aganda. We cannot go to the East and preach one doctrine to it by the lives of our missionaries, and an- other doctrine by the lives of our merchants. We cannot without great difficulty teach a theoretical message which is not confirmed in the actual diplomacy and conduct of our Western peoples. In the interest of Christianity and our missionary enterprise, we must penetrate with Chris- tian principle all those forms of our contact with the non-Christian world with which, for good or ill, our Christian impact is inseparably interwoven. But, in the third place, we must Christianize this im- pact in the interest of the impact itself. As we look back across the years we see that just in proportion as our impact upon the East has been Christian, has it been powerful for good. Our best diplomacy has been the diplomacy which we have exercised through Christian -men. We never had happier relations with China than when S. Wells Williams was the brain and soul of our legation in Pekin. And also as we look back we see that our commercial relationship with the non-Christian world has been powerful for good precisely in proportion as it has been dominated by the Christian principle. Our impact upon the East has been potent for right and truth 144 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD as Christian principle has wrought in it and through it. It has certainly been so in Africa and the South Sea Islands. There is a passage in James Stewart's " Dawn in the Dark Continent," in which Stewart quotes James Chalmers as setting forth a principle which Stewart said he had seen again and again exemplified in the life of Africa. Said Chalmers : " I have never seen a savage whom civilization without Christianity had succeeded in civilizing." As far as he had known the South Sea Islands, whatever uplift of life there had been, had come only in so far as Christianity had found access to the life of these peoples, and James Stewart, out of one of the largest experiences ever given to any man in Africa, bore testimony to the same truth regarding the Dark Continent. And we can go further than this; it is not only true that the past impact of the West upon the East has been largely ineffective, has, indeed, been altogether impotent for good, except as it embodied Christian principles — we can go further and say that so far as it has not em- bodied Christian principle it has been positively bad. If you ask for proof it can be given in one word, Con- stantinople. For generations the Western civilization has touched the Eastern civilization in the city of Constanti- nople, and every man who lives in Constantinople will tell what the result has been. Dr. H. O. Dwight, a long-time resident of Constantinople, set forth the facts plainly in " Constantinople and Its Problems " : " Civilization represented by Western commercial en- terprise and isolated from religious principle has been in contact with the people of Constantinople for many, many years. Since the Crimean war it has had untrammelled sway. Some of the externals of environment have bene- fited from this contact. Individuals may sometimes have THE IMPACT OF WEST UPON EAST 145 been lifted out of the quagmires of the mass of the pop- ulation by glimpses of what manhood really is. But there is no question as to the general result. The result has been the moral deterioration of the city and the strength- ening of the repulsion felt by Turks toward the West. One of the leading Turkish papers of Constantinople dealt with this subject not long ago. It said that the one positive influence of Western civilization is against God and in favour of drunkenness and debauchery. It pointed to the great number of disorderly houses in Pera, which engulfed and destroyed large numbers of Mo- hammedan youth, and it declared in open terms that the family life of Europeans living in Pera is such as to lead to the supposition that marital fidelity is not known there. ' We want none of this Christian civilization/ said the Turk." Except so far as our Christianity has permeated our Western impact upon the East, that impact has been positively harmful and bad. It has broken down what Avas innocent and good; it has destroyed the moral and industrial organization of old societies, and, save as in some measure Christian principles have been embodied in it, it has been a visibly deteriorating and destructive power. In the fourth place, we are bound to Christianize the impact of the W^est upon the East, because inevitably that impact is a religious impact. We cannot have any impact of the West upon the East, no matter how much we may think we are secularizing it, that is not distinct- ively religious alike in its character and in its results. The ideal of a religious neutrality is a purely chimerical idea. Every man*s influence is either for the Gospel of Christ or against the Gospel of Christ. And there is no such thing as a non-religious connection between two men or nations, or two halves of the world. All life in Asia is religious and we cannot touch Asia without exert- 146 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ing an influence upon religion. All our contact with the non-Christian peoples is religiously destructive. We are paralyzing and overthrowing their old systems of ethical and religious belief. We are doing that even if we do not send a missionai*y to those shores, and we are bound to make this impact of the West upon the East, not only not a merely destructive impact, but also a constructive and creative impact for good. We can do this only by pen- etrating it with Christian principle and with Christian love. And we are bound to Christianize our impact upon the East because Christianity is the only racially unifying bond. You cannot unite permanently dissimilar races by any commercial institutes. You cannot bind them together by mere political ties. The whole history of the world tells us that the only unifying racial bond is a common religious faith. England is able to govern India to-day and has been able to hold India all these years, because India has never been unified. In one of the most illuminating books on history that has appeared in a half century, Professor Seeley's " Expansion of Eng- land," which is also one of the best books we have on the American Revolution and on Great Britain's colonial policy in India, Seeley points this out and says that the whole policy of Great Britain in India has been, and must be, to unify the masses of that land, because only by unifying them can the land be prepared for its proper destination, and the one way, he suggests, in which these diverse races can ever be unified is by giving them one common religious hope and faith. Our Christianity is the only permanently harmonizing racial or national bond, and we are bound to Christianize our impact upon the world, because we do not want to keep this world a maelstrom of antagonistic races. We want to build out of this world one great brother- THE IMPACT OF WEST UPON EAST 147 hood of the family of God, and we can do this only by penetrating all our relationships with the non-Christian world with the principle of that Gospel by which alone the world can ever be made one. The Western impact upon the East must be Christianized, and it must be Chris- tianized upon these grounds. And now how can it be Christianized? It can be Christianized by our practicing Christianity as a nation, just as we practice it as individuals ; by pervading all of our relationships with non-Christian powers with the Christian principle and the Christian spirit. I was handed several years ago by one of our missionaries from Japan a letter from a friend living in a great city in Japan. The letter illustrates vividly this first form in which we are to Christianize our impact upon the East: " I want to write you a word about international re- lations. There is no doubt that the certain degree of alienation between Japan and America that has come to exist in the past few years has an unfavourable influence upon Christian work in Japan. It is also within the range of possibility that if the agitation is kept up war may eventually come. The diplomatic relations even now, I have good reason for saying, are delicate. Such an event, as we all realize, would be an unspeakable calamity, both from the standpoint of religion and of humanity. The East and the West are bound to come closely together during this century, but all is at stake in their coming together peacefully and sympathetically. " Now it seems to me that if in some way the Christian element of the population of America could at this time make itself more strongly felt in reference to this ques- tion it would be eminently fortunate. It is quite possible to restrict immigration into America in an amicable way, I believe. The essential thing is that the Japanese nation be not treated as an inferior race ; that the nation's honour be not infringed upon. It is clear in all diplomatic nego- tiations commercial interests are kept in mind. It seems 148 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD to me not only worthy of, but right for the government of a civilized nation to take the missionary problem into consideration also — that is, to be extremely careful to avoid, if possible, doing anything that will hinder the Christianization of these great Eastern nations. Rather special effort should be made to show the Christian spirit, and to help and also to receive help. Compara- tively speaking, America has not a bad record in this respect, but as she becomes more imperialistic there is more danger. " Then, as to the question whether Japan is true to her pledges on the subject of the open door in Manchuria and the integrity of China, it is specially necessary that really competent observation be made. We all knov/ how easy it is for a man to get into a certain atmosphere here in the East in which he can see absolutely no good in the Japanese, and in which only suspicion and mistrust and misrepresentation prevail, and when a man with such a bias makes a report one can imagine the result. It is difficult to stop foolish and v/icked war talk on the part of the newspapers and individuals, and also to restrain anti- Japanese agitation on the west coast, but there is at least the influence of public sentiment that can be brought to bear upon the situation." We have a right to demand that the attitude of this nation toward every non-Christian nation should be a Christian attitude. The idea of war between the Ameri- can people and any Asiatic people is preposterous. There are no possible conflicts in sight that justify us in any other attitude toward the whole non-Christian world than an attitude of sympathy and brotherhood and peace. And we are bound to practice in our national relations w^ith all of these nations the same spirit of restraint, of generous confidence in another's good-will, of unselfish regard for another's interest which we regard ourselves as under obligations to practice in our relationship one to another as Christian men. Our newspapers should THE IMPACT OF WEST UPOls EAST 149 realize this and behave with decency. So also should Japan's. That is the first thing. In the second place, we can do it by making sure that the men who go out to represent this country in com- merce and in trade really represent that which is best and truest in the land. The Government is not to go mto the business of religious propagandizing. But this country is a Christian country. We have the judgment of the United States Supreme Court, the highest possible authority there could be in this land, written by the late lamented Justice Brewer, for declaring that the United States is not a non-religious nation, that the United States is a Christian nation. We have a duty to seek to make sure that all that goes out from this nation to the rest of the world, whether politically or commercially, should justly represent the true character of our people. It is not a right thing, for example, to send a man who drinks freely to represent us at a Moslem court. There have been in the past great bodies of noble men who have gone out to represent the Western nations to the Eastern world. A long list of those names at once suggests itself to us — men like Chinese Gordon, and John and Henry Lawrence, and Herbert Edwardes, and Townsend Harris, and Commodore Perry — and the list might be indefinitely multiplied of statesmen and merchants who carried their Christian character with them and who, wherever they were and in all that they did, stood unabashed and faithful as Christian men. We can Christianize the impact of the West upon the East by making sure that this kind of man goes out to represent us there. In the third place, we must do it by Christianizing our trade. A great many of our Western business men are outraged to-day because Japan is stealing our Western trade-marks, and discriminating in favour of her own 150 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD merchants wherever she is able to do so. In what school did Japan learn those lessons? We cannot expect to conduct our trade with the East upon non-Christian principles, and then have the East turn the other cheek to us and practice Christian principles in trade with us. We are bound to carry on our trade with other nations on a Christian basis, I mean with honesty, and with unselfishness and a desire for mutual helpfulness and good. We can do it by Christianizing our educational impact. When young men come over from Asia to study in our own schools, as they are coming by the hundreds, we can make sure that they receive a Christian education here. The university, whether it be a private university or a State university, that educates in pure secularism a young man who comes here from the East to study in our schools, and sends him back with the idea that human culture is possible without religious faith, is an enemy to the good of the world and to the right relations be- tween the Western and the Eastern nations. We are bound to Christianize not only our educational impact upon the East when it comes to the West, but we are bound to do it when we carry that educational impact out to the East. If we seek to benefit the nations, we must beware how we lay up peril for the generations that are to come after us; we must make sure that the education by which we seek to help the world is given, and that the larger power which it brings is held, under the constraints of a loyal and simple and true-hearted re- ligious faith. We have to Christianize our educational impact upon the world. And, last of all, we must remember that it is by our national conduct and our national character that we are evangelizing the world, as truly as by the missionaries THE IMPACT OF WEST UPON EAST 151 whom we send ten thousand miles away to represent us there. We cannot escape from the evangelization of na- tional example. Again and again we have seen the re- sults of it. The Iwakura Embassy, which fifty years ago went out from Japan, came to the West and visited us and Europe and returned, and men in that embassy went back with the supreme idea that what Japan needed was the Christian gospel, and the Christian home, and they got that idea from Christian men and the Christian homes with which they had been in contact here in the Western lands. I was interested in noting in a Japanese paper some time ago the impressions of the different members of a Japanese Embassy who came here repre- senting the business men of Japan. Four of the men who gave their impressions spoke of the attitude of the American people toward women as the one thing that most impressed them. Thank God there are elements of good in our Western life, which, when Eastern men come in contact with them, bear faithful testimony to the Christian principles of our society. But one re- members how the Gaekwar of Baroda went back to India, with a radically different opinion of our Western Hfe, proclaiming to the people of India that they had only one thing to learn from the West, and that was its secret of industrial power, its ability to produce wealth, that that was the only contribution the West had to make to the non-Christian world. We must beware of the gospel we are preaching by day and by night, by what we are as a nation. We are brought face to face here with the home mis- sionary obligation, the duty of making our land a Chris- tian land, in order that by what we are, as well as by what we say, we may convey our gospel to the whole world. I know that there are men who say that there 152 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD cannot be any such thing as a Christian nation. I have a good friend with whom I have been carrying on a correspondence as to what the fundamental missionary motive is, and in his last letter he said he did not think it was possible to say that there would or could be any such thing as Christian nations. I suppose he meant that Christianity is a matter of the individual relationship with God. Well, there is a great truth there, but can there not be such a thing as a Christian home, or a Chris- tian family ? May not I and my children know ourselves to be one in a corporate family Christian life that is as really Christian as the relation which binds each of us as individuals to the Gospel of God, the Father of us all? Surely there can be such things as Christian families. And if there are Christian families, why cannot there be groups of Christian families making Christian com- munities, and if there can be Christian communities, there can be many Christian communities, there can be Christian lands. When the Lord taught His disciples to pray, "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven," He surely meant that it was to be done by families, by communities, by nations, as well as by in- dividual men. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom in which in all their corporate relations, in all their racial ties, men fulfill the will of our Father Who is in Heaven. Nations have no right to live except as they fulfill that law. There dare not be in that Kingdom of God any nations that are not Christian. There is no contact of any Western nation with other nations which may be other than a Christian contact. There is no impact open to it upon the Eastern world which should not be a Christian impact. We are given this gospel that it may make us, one by one, individually the followers of the THE IMPACT OP WEST UPON EAST 153 King of all the earth. We are given it also that it may be the basis of all our family and our corporate and our national life, and it must find utterance in all the out- going of our effort and our sympathy toward the non- Christian world. And may this not be the point where the great emphasis needs now to be laid? It is futile for us to hope that with a little band of individuals sent out over the world we can preach to the world the gospel of peace, if in all of our organized national life in the West we are preach- ing the gospel of strife. It is futile to hope that a little company of men, however much they may attempt to isolate themselves from the national and racial life out of which they came, can preach to the world the gospel of love, if in our corporate and national life we are preaching the gospel of selfishness and of distrust. It is futile to hope that we can send to all the world the mes- sage of the love of God in Christ, by those who go out to represent our Christian churches, if we are preaching to the world by other tongues, tongues so loud that they almost drown the still small voice of the missionary en- terprise, a message of hate and discord and the waste of life. And it is in our hands to determine whether or not now, not by one single expression, by the outgoing of one separated body of men, but by the whole impact of our Christian nations upon the non-Christian world, we shall commend to all mankind that one God who is the Father of every race — Anglo-Saxon, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu and African — and who would draw to- gether in one, in the only way in which they can ever be drawn together, namely, in the Gospel of His Son, all those races of men whom He made of one blood and whom He would bind in one brotherhood. VII THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD IN THIS GENERATION WHEN the foreign missionary movement among students began more than thirty years ago, it adopted a watchword embodying its hope and its ideal, defining its distinctive purpose, and un- sealing — or so it was desired — the great fountains of power which are opened only to those who enlist them- selves in bold and heroic undertakings, — " The Evangel- ization of the World in this Generation." It must be ad- mitted that at the beginning this watchword called for a great deal of explanation and for no small measure of defense; and we whose memories go back to those days can remember how it was felt to be necessaiy often to review the watchword, reexamining the bases on which we had thought ourselves justified in adopting it, and answering afresh the objections that had been laid against it. We do not feel it necessary any more to traverse that old ground. The watchword has worked its way widely into the missionary conscience of the Christian Church, and though often criticized still we do not feel the need to re-vindicate its adoption or to re-lay emphasis on the general conception of the phrase or to re-interpret its meaning. But there are some, at least, who believe deeply that the day has come to rearrange our emphasis. Thirty years ago it was necessary to emphasize "the world." The Christian Church had not come to realize 154 THE EVANGELIZATIOK OF THE WOELD 165 the world-obligation of her mission. The great battle which the original student volunteers had to fxght at the beginning of our own national missionary history, a century ago, was a battle in behalf of the fundamental missionary character of our religion ; and that battle was i still an unwon conflict a generation ago. It was neces- sary then again to stand in defense of the fundamental character of our religion and to deny the full title of any Christian system to bear the name of Christ that looked out on the world with a territorial or provincial view. The day is not altogether gone by for that emphasis. The world-view is still inadequately accepted. It is still imperfectly woven into the programs of our Christian Churches. Too many of them are dealing with narrow and insular tasks. Too few of them have conceived their duty in the world to be a duty that lies to the whole of human life and human kind or have opened themselves to the rich potencies of the world-purpose. The world- view is still inadequately accepted in the programs of individual lives.y^ow many thousands of students there are in our American and Canadian colleges and uni- versities who are forming their life-plans not only with no thought of a world-citizenship but with no adequate thought even of the full significance of their own na- tional citizenship. Many a man forms his life-purpose, without allowing it to enter into the field of his vision that God's will for him might lie beyond the boundaries of his own land. Until the world- view comes to dominate the program of every Christian Church and the program of every Christian man's life, we dare not remove the emphasis from the world-conception. / The essential character of Christianity also is still in- adequately perceived. What is the fundamental fact 156 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD about Christianity? Is it not its universality? What makes Jesus Christ a valid authority for us but the uni- versality of His person? What makes the Gospel valid in the life of any individual man but its universal validity? There is not a word in the New Testament that singles out the races to which we belong as races that have any distinctive claim upon Christ and His religion. He and His religion belong to us only by virtue of the fact that we share in the claim of all mankind to Him and to what He came to give and to do. We must say " world " until we think " world " in every thought of Christianity. Again, in this past generation, we have entered still further upon a new era of world-life. I am not speaking of the geographical contraction of the world, of the way in which the races have been thrust upon one another. I am not speaking of those great upheaving movements that are so rapidly changing the world. I am speaking of that phenomenon of human unity that we are facing now with ever-increasing clearness of vision, and with a discernment that enables us to see that the problems of every separate nation are the problems of all mankind. The problems of personal salvation, of national character, of racial relationship, these are the three great problems that men are facing on almost every square mile of the surface of our earth ; and they can be answered not by any insular and territorial solution but only with an answer that is valid for the need of all mankind. Not only have we passed into a new era of world- movement, but we are facing to-day a new revelation of world-need, altogether different from that which we faced a generation ago. Walter Bagehot has pointed out the fact that over the great non-Christian nations of the world — and Meredith Townsend has shown us the same thing — a fiat of arrest had seemed to fall upon all the THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD 157 movements of human life, so that the great forces of these ahen nations which have carried them up to a certain point have proved impotent beyond that point. The non-Christian nations themselves now realize this, and we are made aware as never before of the deep needs of their life; for the past experiments of life and the study of comparative religions have made unmistakably clear to us and to some of them that there is nothing in any non-Christian faith adequate to meet those needs or to supply human life v/ith the power of progress. This new revelation of the need of the world has not been confined to non-Christian nations. Recent years have confronted us with a new and more impressive demonstration of need in our Christian lands that de- mands an increased and abiding emphasis upon the world-idea of the Gospel. We were trying, up to twenty- five years ago, to solve our national problems on this continent with a national Gospel, and the needs of no nation on earth can be solved with a national Gospel. God saw our folly and our failure, and He took the only course, I suppose, open to Him to enlighten our eyes. " You will try," He said, " to solve your own problems within the bounds of your own land, will you ? " and He tore open our Western frontier and thrust the Hawaiian Islands upon us. We failed to learn His lesson, and His next rebuke was from both West and East, as He pushed in upon us Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. Once more, while our eyes were still holden. He tore open our Southern doors and made us the custodians of the new gateway between the Eastern and Western Seas. Not content with all these things, He took great hordes of people of other bloods of Southern Europe and poured the inhabitants of whole villages and provinces in upon us, saying, " Take these, too, if you think you can solve your 158 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD own problems inside the confines of your own isolated race." And what is the divine meaning of these later days of wrath and burning except God's warning to us against that national isolation in which we have tried to work out the problems of our own land in negligence of our neighbourly duty and our world-trust? All the conditions in the world which we are facing to-day drive in upon us the obligation of preserving the old emphasis, and making it yet heavier and more grave, upon the world-character of the Church's mission. The second phase of the missionary movement of the past generation, which followed fast upon the first, laid its emphasis upon the last words in the watchword : " The evangelization of the world in this generation," We learned very soon that the world we were to evangelize is not a world of thousand-year-old trees or a world of century-old brutes, but that it is a world of living men who will last one generation and no more; that the only world with which we have anything directly to do, that the only world with which we are confronted, and which confronts us and asks an accounting from us, is the world of our own generation. I am not forgetting our organic responsibility to posterity, but the only discharge of that responsibility is the doing of present duty. And the Church very soon came to see this, too. The one great note of our missionary enterprise for the last ten years has been the note of immediacy. All who gathered at the missionary council in Edinburgh felt the pressure of it there. Men were no longer ready to sit down under the deliberate principle of the postponement of mission- ary duty. They came to realize that our task lay at once to great multitudes of men who would hear the Gospel never if they did not hear it at our lips, whose right to it is as good as ours and whose need is as mortal. THE EVANGELIZATION OP THE WORLD 169 Another great change which these years have brought with them, which has made emphasis upon this last phrase comparatively easy for us, lies in this fact— that the last thirty years have seen mankind breaking through the mysteries of vast new secrets of power. Great en- ergies of which our fathers never knew are now laid in our hands and placed beneath our mastery. A new world of power and possibility has been opened to us, a horizon-less world. The bounds of freedom have been pushed further and further outward; and just as men realize that they dare not place any limit upon the power / God is ready to put in the hands of men who are pre- pared to use physical power as a trust, just so no man dare set any limit upon the power that God is ready to lay in the hands of those who are ready to use spiritual power also as a trust. We are beginning to believe now that our Lord was a man of honour when He said : "What- soever ye ask in faith believing, ye shall receive,*' and that the word He spoke was sincere and honest when He declared : " If ye have faith, nothing shall be impossible unto you." Under the conviction that we dare postpone no duty, under the conviction that no task is beyond the strength of men who serve God, we do not shrink any longer from the uttermost implication of those words: " The evangelization of the world in this generation." And every feature of the world-situation that we con- front to-day is a summons to lay new emphasis on that phrase. This present generation that we are facing is a generation bowed down under mortal need. Ask the men and women among us to-day from the Chinese Re- public to tell of their need. Ask the men who have come across the other sea, from Africa, to tell of their need. Or ask the hundreds of students in the United States of the needs of the fifty millions of our Southern neighbours 160 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD who lie closest to us of all the calling nations of the earth. Or hear our own American paganism. It is no answer to the mortal need of these men to tell them that long after their bones have mouldered, by some slow process of racial education the light of the Gospel shall have glimmered down to theij; far-distant children. The atti- tude of those who can thus mock the living, mortal need of the generation of our day with gravestones instead of bread, is not the attitude of Him who loved the world and laid down His life for its soul. This present generation is not a generation in the clutch of deep mortal need alone. It is a generation of plastic flow. Other great ideas will surely penetrate the minds of all mankind in this generation. Twenty-five years from now not a village on the face of the earth will be as it is to-day; not a human life will be conditioned as it is to-day. Do we intend to sit idly by and allow other great ideas to pierce to the life of the world while the redeem- ing idea of Christ, which we know to be the most piercing and pervasive of all ideas, is postponed to be administered to a preempted world by generations that come after ours? This present generation is not only a generation of deep mortal need, and a generation of plastic flow; it is also a generation in which that plastic flow is fast settling in its moulds — m.oulds that will last for our day and the day that comes after our day. Was Lowell right when he said, " Once to every m.an or nation comes the moment — and the choice goes by forever " ? Thus looking out upon the world that is calling to us, the world that is going on its road as we go ours, the world of plastic flow now hardening fast into forms that will not change, God forbid that we should abate one iota of the emphasis laid heretofore upon the necessity of the THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WOELD 161 f evangelization of the world, not in some other day than ours — that day will face its own duties — but the discharge of our duty in our lives, the evangelization of our genera- tion in our own time ! And there is one stronger reason even than this for perpetuating and deepening the old emphasis. We need, and we never shall cease to need, the great moral and spiritual principles that were embodied in that idea. The man who desires to walk with God must walk with Him on the level of Godlike tasks. The man who would con- front the Infinite must be willing to do so on the plane of the program of the Infinite, and not invite God to a humiliating complicity in puny undertakings. All life is of God, and all duty, even the humblest, is divine ; but we need to-day, as the Church never needed in any day gone by, a challenge to supreme and supernatural enterprise and a commensurate faith. We are not engaged at our own charges in a warfare of our own. We did not con- ceive this enterprise. We are not carrying it out for any glory or ends of our own. We have been set to a great task by One whose power has no limits fixed to it, who has charged us to do a thing that we can do because He has charged us to do it. If there be one need of our day greater than another, it is the need of which Dr. D. S. Cairns of Aberdeen wrote once regarding the miracles of Water Street, the need " in the theological desert of a highv/ay for our Lord, a recovery of the ancient faith," that would not mortify the living attribute of God's own power, but that would allow Him to show to men the fullness of His life and love, and the fountain of super- human achievements open to man to-day. I have said all this for the sake of avoiding any mis- understanding. Everything that we have ever said re- garding the world-obligation of our faith, regarding the 162 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD possibility of the duty of the evangelization of the world in this generation, we are ready now to reaffirm and to augment. But I believe that the pressing need of our time is to lay emphasis in this watchword on the thought that heretofore we have been too much passing by, '' the evan- gelization of the world." After all, that is the basic need. " The world," " this generation " — these are only the sphere in space and time in which the basic thing is to be done. Our great aim and end is to evangelize. What does that mean? Well, it is not an easy thing to say just what it means. Who can tell when any man has been evangelized? Who can tell when any nation has been evangelized? Who can tell when the world has been evangelized? No man knows when any man has heard. What one says, no two of us hear as the same words. Some of us seem to hear it, and could repeat it, but we have not really heard it at all. Some of us have heard half of it ; some of us have heard two-thirds of it. What is it to hear? No man can say. What is it to be evan- gelized? We do not know; but we know enough about our own primary part in evangelization. We know it is our part to take the living Christ, God's message and messenger, and what that living Christ said, and was, and did, not only the Gospel that was what Jesus Christ brought and taught, but the Gospel that could only be after Jesus Christ had finished His life, that lay deep- bedded in all He is and is doing now — to take that Gospel of Christ alive in us, and to lay that living Christ and His message upon the lives of men and upon the life of the world. The New Testament does not use the word " evangelize " in an exact sense. But what our Lord Himself and St. Paul did will illustrate, perhaps, what it is, and how vital and fundamental it is. In three short years Jesus went up and down Judea, Samaria, an^ THE EVAl^GELIZATION OF THE WOELD 163 Galilee, and I suppose He would have said that He had evangelized those villages. He so spoke to men. St. Paul tells us that from Jerusalem round about to Illyr- icum he had fully evangelized the Roman world. This, at least, may be said, that when we are speaking about the evangelization of the world, we seem to be using the word in a larger and more exact meaning apparently than that in which it was used by those who first made use of the term in the New Testament Scriptures. We can see from their methods also how vitally im- portant it was. Here was our Lord and Master with all the secrets of human influence. He might have moved up and down the world healing the sick, feeding the hun- gry, doing by miracle the great work He came to do. He did these things, but it is perfectly obvious that He did them not as ends but as means and illustrations. He was bent upon introducing a new order of personal and social life, of thought about God, of vital relationship. He made this central and dominant, and He went up and down speaking to men out of His own life the message that He had brought and that He was. He wrote never a word. After Him came another man who had a doctor with him, and we read only seldom of any healing miracle either of skill or of supernatural power wrought by Paul and Luke in all their missionary travels. Paul simply took this great living message — with no support of in- stitutional missions — and planted it far and wide across the Roman world. That was the beginning of the morn- ing of the new day for humanity. What St. Paul and our Lord did, we must believe to be the first thing in our missionary activity still. I do not say that they used all the missionary methods that are legitimate. It is right enough and necessary for US to produce our Christian literature, though our Lord 164: THE GOSPEL AND THE KEW WOELD wrote never a word. It is right enough and necessary for us to build our great hospitals, though St. Paul wrought seldom miracles. It is not only right, it is in- dispensable, to use education and philanthropy to repre- sent the Gospel in ordinary life and in institutions. The Board I serve has 1,721 schools and colleges, and 191 hospitals .and dispensaries. It has asylums for orphans, lepers and the insane, schools for the blind and the deaf and dumb, printing-presses, homes for tuberculosis patients ; and men and women are needed for these, and truly serve Christ in these; and rightly conducted these are not only agencies of evangelization, they are evan- gelization. Only they need to be bathed and engulfed in the most direct and persuasive teaching of Christ and His Gospel, and men and women who are looking for- ward to spending the greater part of their lives in ac- cessory activities may well be reminded that these two, our Lord and St. Paul — whose lives were the most power- ful lives that ever have been, that lie at the foundation of the Christian Church and of the modern world — chose for themselves the one pure, simple undertaking of carry- ing the living message straight into the living heart of persons. And the one great need of the missionary enter- prise to-day is for men and women who will follow in their footsteps. At the Continuation Committee Conferences held throughout Asia in 1913, every national conference of the four that were held, and almost every one of the separate district conferences that were held, joined in saying just what was said at the All-China Conference at Shanghai : " Our Lord Jesus Christ has laid upon His Church as a primary duty the preaching of the Gospel to all nations. Times come in the history of nations when their need of the message of life becomes manifestly urgent. It is THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WOELD 165 such a time in China now, and in God's providence there is an opportunity corresponding to the urgency of the need. A great door and effectual is open for the direct preaching of the Gospel. While fully recognizing the great evangelistic value of the educational, medical, and other institutional work, the conference considers it urgently important" at the present time to provide for, and to safeguard the maintenance of, an adequate supply of workers, Chinese and foreign, for the organization and prosecution and extension of purely evangelistic work, and urges that a due proportion of funds be allo- cated for the effective equipment of this purpose." The Continuation Committee Conference in Japan appealed for the doubling of the number of men engaged in direct evangelistic work, and for the largest possible measure of unification in all institutional work, in order that men might be released to give their whole time and strength to that to which our Lord and St. Paul gave theirs. I believe that the one supreme need in this Movement, in the missionary enterprise, and in the world to-day, is that we should recover the old ideal and emphasis and pro- portion of the early Christian Church and of the ministry of our Lord Himself. ' This emphasis upon the evangelization of. the world in this generation, I make bold to say, should govern the proportion of our missionary appropriations; it should govern the classes of workers that we send out to the field ; it should more and more become a controlling prin- ciple in all the program and development of our mission- ary undertaking. And that it may become this, it is necessary that this same emphasis should guide men in their choice of their life-work if the needed messengers are to be found. And this means that greatly increased tides of our ablest men should be pouring into the Chris- 166 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD tian ministry. Every other profession is overcrowded. A man going into law or medicine or engineering can hardly get a foothold for himself from which he does not crowd away a competing man. The only Hne of activity in the world to-day of which I know that is com- peting for men, where men do not need to compete for place, is the kind of work that our Lord Himself did at the very beginning. There is need for great bodies of men to push out into the Christian ministry at home and abroad. If one were choosing to-day any line of activity in this country, knowing pretty well, too, where men of power and influence in our country are to be found, he need not hesitate one moment. There is no sphere on this continent to-day comparable in influence and power and lucrativeness of moral return with the place that is open to true men inside the Christian ministry. And this is emphatically true regarding the mission field abroad. Its most insistent, far-reaching call is for men who will not need Saul's armour ; for men who will go out unen- cumbered, with the same clear, unaccoutered message that Christ bore, that St. Paul bore after Him, to the open mind and heart of the non-Christian world. This emphasis should dominate not only the men of whom I am speaking, still free to make their choice of life's calling. It should dominate all of us, no matter what our particular profession or calling may be. Those men who are going out to the mission field to engage in educational work should make evangelism the primary purpose and the dominant thing in their own lives. Alex- ander Duff did that in India, and his stamp is there to-day. Calvin Mateer did just that in China, and his mark re- mains still upon China. S. R. Brown and Guido Ver- beck did it in Japan, and Japan may forget but never will lose their impress. The men who are going out into THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WOELD 167 medical work have no right to relegate this evangelistic purpose to any secondary place. The missionary con- science requires of them that they shall be just as scrupu- lous and true in their oral statement of the Gospel of Christ and their living utterance of it as that they should do honest work in operating-room or laboratory. I have seen Dr. John G. Kerr, one of the greatest medical mis- sionaries of his time, a man who performed perhaps more operations than any other surgeon in the nineteenth cen- tury — I have seen him again and again, like a father among his children, while he spoke, as one who loved them, to the men and women and little children of the Saviour, whom he loved most of all. We know the rule in Dr. Mackenzie's hospital in Tientsin, where the clinic had to be finished by noon, all dressings attended to, and the hospital cleaned for the day. Then he and every attendant spent the whole afternoon going about from cot to cot to the Chinese who had placed themselves under his care, telling of the Great Physician and His healing power in the soul. In any line of our activity we are untrue to the watchword, we are untrue to our mission, we are untrue to our Lord, if we do not lay emphasis where He laid it in His own life and in His own work. This emphasis is necessary if the motive is to be found by which our task is to be done. I wish there were space to reproduce the utterances of Rufus Anderson, the most acute and courageous student of missionary policy that this country has produced, in which he shows that it is this evangelistic motive alone that will carry men out to a real life-work, that will hold them there against all discouragements and limitations, so that they will not go home if the conditions are not all pleasing ; that no other motive will lead them out in the volunteer spirit that flung Isaiah down before the lifted Lord in the temple 168 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD in the year King Uzziah died, but the holy motive that lies at the deepest roots of the human soul, a motive found in evangelistic passion for the Christ who would save the whole world of men. No other emphasis than this will bring us the adequate motive, none other secure the longed-for result. The great trouble with the world is not intellectual ignorance ; it is not environment; it is simply unredeemed personal wills, and nothing will ever cut home to the roots of all the world's appalling need but the power that penetrates to the depths of life and relates men in the springs of their being to God, the fountain and foundation of all truth and holiness and strength. And if our ideal is the evangelization of the world, and we believe, as we do, that that can be accomplished only by establishing in all these lands great native Churches that will make Christ known to their own people, will any one tell us how we can produce an evangelistic native Church under the influence of institutionalized foreign missions alone? The native Church is going to be not what we tell it to be, but what it sees that we are; and the only way whereby we can ever penetrate and pervade these great national Churches, which are growing up, with a spirit that will make them as burning and shining lights throughout all the darkness of these lands, is by setting before them, as St. Paul set before the early Church, as our Lord set be- fore the Twelve in the school in which He trained them, first things in first places. Finally, it is this emphasis alone that will give us our power. We must get beyond our trust in buildings, in appropriations, in equipment, in all material resources. The finite things are obviously necessary, but so long as our confidence is in these finite things alone our strength will be merely finite strength. We must strip ourselves THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WOELD 169 from all such reliances and be content to go out with Christ and His pure Gospel as our one message, our one burden, our one reliance. And when the hour comes that we have brought ourselves to that dependence, there will come, as there came nineteen hundred years ago, the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and weak men will rise in a new strength, timid men will find them- selves facing the world with a new courage, and the morning of the world's redemption will have broken at last. Would that to-day Christ might be able to find among us men and women of this heart, men and women to whom Christ Himself is the only reality, to whom Christ is all in all, who have only one passion — Him, only Him. Surely, when we are still and listen for Him, we may hear Him calling unmistakably for such hearts now : I hear the voice Of one who calleth, Calleth sweet and clear, For men to reap for Him A harvest white. Oh, soul of mine, rise up and answer Him Before the night. The long night falleth. And the day be gone, thy day be gone. VIII THE RELATIONSHIP OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION TO EVANGELISM THE subject of the relations of missionary educa- tion to evangelism opens up one of the largest fields of missionary discussion in the whole area of missionary policy. We may hope to deal with only a few aspects of the problem. I shall select four of these. I. First of all, it is to be hoped that we are all ready to accept the view that education itself, true education, is in reality evangelism. It is a dissolution of error, and all error obstructs the conquest of light. It is a com- munication of truth, and all truth is one truth, the truth of Him who is One and all in all. Much unnecessary conflict can be escaped and our entire thought both of education and evangelism made much more rich and true, if we are willing to take this view of the promulgation of all truth as something that in its nature is essentially and fundamentally evangelistic. That view is set forth very clearly, and with a rather new note, in one of the deliverances of the Shanghai Centenary Missionary Con- ference, among the findings of the Commission on Educa- tion: " When we reflect that there is a gospel of creation, and a gospel of the divine government of the world as well as a gospel of redemption, we see that the founding of the school and college is a necessary duty of the mis- sionary. In later years since men's conceptions as to 170 MISSIOiTARY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 171 the function of the Christian Church in the world have been enlarged, we understand that we are not only work- ing for the salvation of separate individuals, but for society as a whole. Our great ideal is the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth. We aim at influenc- ing all the strata of society. Christianity is to save the world and to bring all human relationships, political, social, commercial, and industrial, into harmony with the laws of God. The imparting of an enlightened and Christian education is one of the great means for the accomplishment of this end." The memorial of this Conference to the Home Churches is not so satisfactory as a statement of missionary aim, because it kaleidoscopes some very divergent functions in the field of education, functions of the state and func- tions of the Christian Church, which is to abide, and functions of the foreign mission, which is a temporary institution and agency. But as a statement of Christi- anity, of the nature of our undertaking and of the results that we seek ultimately to achieve, It is, I think, a legiti- mate word. And I have often wished that I had a judg- ment which I heard delivered once by one of the justices of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York on the same subject. It is not recorded, as far as I have been able to find. In any of the printed deliverances of the Court; but it was one of the most interesting mis- sionary statements that I have ever heard. It was in a case over the validity of the will of a woman who left her entire estate to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, specifying that It was to be used for higher education In the mission field. A great many distant relatives who had displayed no interest in the old lady while she was living were very soHcitous lest her money be illegally spent now that she was gone. In contesting the validity of the will, they came down at last to this, 172 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELB that it was not competent for a missionary Board, or- ganized and operating to propagate Christianity, to carry on so-called secular education, especially higher educa- tion. And it was on that issue that the case was tried before Justice Benton in the city of Rochester. Pro- fessor Beach and I went there to present the case in behalf of the Board. After we had made our statement, the contestants asked permission to make their argument. Justice Benton said in substance, " There is nothing more to be said. I am going to settle this case right now. Re- ligion is light. It always has been light. Whatever expresses light expresses and spreads religion. Whatever spreads religion spreads light and truth. God is all one Truth and this corporation in spreading truth and dis- solving error and wiping the mists from men's minds is carrying forward legitimately the purposes of its incor- poration." This is very much the same view our friends in China took in the Centenary Conference; — whatever dispels darkness, whatever lets light and truth into the minds of men is essentially evangelistic. It is preparing for the Gospel, even when it may not be directly and explicitly an expression of the Gospel. I do not mean to say that all expansion of any kind of knowledge is necessarily evangelistic. To teach a man the truth of the mechanics of drills and bits and the chemistry of high explosives may make him a clever safe-breaker and not bring him to Jesus Christ at all. The mere expansion of knowledge does not necessarily carry with it evangelism, or have any influence on character. But that kind of expansion is not, to our minds, true education. True education, to our minds. Is drawing out the latent possibilities of char- acter and grafting in on these latent possibilities all that can be introduced to qualify men for the most efficient MISSION AEY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 173 service of their fellows, the enlarging of their relation- ships to the truth, which, according to the definition of our Lord, is life. We conceive these things to be true education, and whatever does these things we are ready to say should be thought of as a distinctly evangelistic contribution. 2. But this view of missionary education is not ade- quate. It is true and valid as far as it goes, but the aims and purposes and influences of missionary education should be evangelistic in an ampler and more penetrating sense than I have thus far indicated. Our charters re- quire that it should be so. No man having noted the terms of these acts would be satisfied that he was carry- ing out their specifications in education, if he did not look at evangelism in a larger sense than the sense of which I have been speaking. These charters specify that we are to propagate Christianity, to make men Christians. They lay on us the evangelistic obligation in the richest and most concrete New Testament sense, and we are not loyal to these acts of incorporation unless we define missionary education more carefully. We know also that the men and women who are giving the funds for the carrying on of this enterprise are not giving them for what we sometimes call in misleading phraseology, " mere secular education." We appeal for these funds on dis- tinctly evangelical grounds, and it is that motive that lies at the root of most missionary giving. I cannot speak for all the missionary agencies, but I am sure I am speak- ing for most of them, if not all. It is this motive that lies at the root of the interest and sacrifice and prayer and giving that maintain our missionary operations abroad. Unless w^e define education in more distinct terms, we should not be loyal or faithful trustees in deal- ing with the responsibility laid upon us. 174 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD Furthermore, this is demanded by our own aim, quite apart from any obligation we owe to acts of incorporation or trusteeship. Our own sense of what we are in this work for, of the use for which our lives are given to us, compels us to think that something more than this must be meant when we speak of education as an evangelistic agency. Perhaps all would not be willing to go as far as Professor Lindsay of Glasgow. Having come back from India thirty years ago from a deputation from the Free Church of Scotland, which had been sent to investi- gate the legitimacy of the educational work of the Free Church of Scotland, he and his associate, Mr. Daly, said : " To begin with, we must lay it down as a prfnciple that the one absorbing aim in all real mission work is to bring our fellow-men to know Jesus Christ to be their Saviour, and to profess their faith in Him in baptism. The mis- sion work of the Church is done in obedience to the com- mand of the Lord, * Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.* Every mission, and all mission methods, must in the end submit to this test. Therefore, in discussing the mission value of educational missions, we must put aside all arguments drawn from the spread of humanitarian and civilizing ideas. These are welcome accompaniments, but, after all, the question is — Is all this educational work calculated to draw men to faith in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and to a profession of that faith in baptism ? " Professor Lindsay was one of the most broad-minded students of church history in Scotland at that time. He never for one moment thought that he was hampering missionary education, or narrowing it, by giving this as its ultimate purpose. Instead, he was conceiving mis- sionary education in far richer terms than education was conceived at home. He held that it is not enough to say that education, just because it teaches the truth about MISSIONAEY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 175 nature, because it lays the foundation for what the older men called natural theology, is therefore sufficiently evan- gelistic. He held and we hold that education must be more evangelistic than that, that it must contemplate as its distinct and acknowledged aim (and that that aim must be practically dominant in the way in which educa- tion is carried on), that it is the purpose of this education to win men to the Christian faith and Christian character and send them out as professing servants of Jesus Christ in the fullness of His life and in the fullness of His min- istry. And so conceived, education is as legitimate as an evangelistic agency as travelling around the country on itinerary trips and speaking to groups of village people, carrying on chapel preaching or any of those other activi- ties of which we speak as distinctly evangelistic. 3. Again, education is absolutely indispensable as an evangelistic agency. In many regards there is no more effective form of evangelistic work than that which educa- tion affords. In the first place, it gives access to classes otherwise almost inaccessible, to social groups and bodies '^ of religious opinion otherwise closed to us. How other- wise, except by medical work, would we have been able to touch the Mohammedan world ? How otherwise would we be reaching certain great social strata in India ? The educational method opens to us the doors of evangelistic opportunity which our other methods do not open. In the second place, it operates in those areas with con- tinuous power. One wants to emphasize both of those words. It operates with continuous power. Evangel- istic work at the best operates now and then. Even a prolonged evangelistic campaign represents only an occa- sional pressure upon the conscience and mind, while in 'educational missions we have our congregation before us day in and day out, night in and night out, the year 176 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD around and for years. It is a method that operates with continuous power. For the most part our evangelistic method is intelUgible to the mature; but here we work upon the plastic mind, on the life that is not yet hardened and that comes into our hands under conditions giving us quasi-parental relationship to it. In the third place, it sets back fires blazing. Or, to put it otherwise, it under- cuts and saps all the while that the frontal attack is being made. It pervades society unawares with great trans- forming ideas. The very teaching of the English lan- guage is intellectually revolutionary; it inevitably carries with it conceptions that burst the grave-clothes of the old institutions and ideas. At Wellesley one Sunday I heard Rabindranath Tagore. He was reading songs and prayers of the village people of India. He prefaced them with an interesting statement about the troubadours and folk singers. But the deeply interesting thing was that he could not translate one of them in perfect loyalty to the original language and ideas. He could after a fashion put them over into our tongue, but there was a sense in which he could not reincarnate them. His English educa- tion and atmosphere of mind altered the fundamental as- sumptions and ideas. He could not detach himself from the slow, shifting process that operates through the in- tellectual life of a race. The undercutting of inadequate ideas of God and of the relationships that bind men to- gether in society is one of the great services of educa- tion in these lands. Education is doing this very thing. And the argument addressed to us in behalf o^ the estab- lishment of a Christian university of the highest grade in Japan rests upon this conviction, that we need such a power to cooperate with the direct and simple proclama- tion of the Gospel in introducing the principles of Christ in the life of Japan. MISSIOjSTAEY education and evangelism 177 In the fourth place, educational work benefits evan- gelism, not in these ways only, but also by operating upon nature and habit as Horace Bushnell describes its method, particularly in his address on the *'Age of Homespun," and in the recollections of his home training. It was not so much what he got in Yale or in any university, but what he got in his old home in Litchfield County, under the steady habit-forming hands of a mother, who did more for Bushnell than any other teacher, that formed his mind and character. Home influence has more effect upon the life of a man than any school. One of the supreme values of education is the way in which, if it is true education, it holds the boys and girls under the steady pressure of habit- forming influences. And the most powerful of them is the picture of truth that they see incarnated before them in Christian personality, bear- ing in upon mind and will with unconscious and trans- forming constraint. Education is essential to evangelism also, because it raises up our leaders. It raises up leaders for the Church, in the state and in industry. It is interesting to see how, whatever the theory a mission starts out with may be, it is driven inevitably by the pressure of the facts and conditions to this view, either to do education itself or else to snuggle against any neighbouring missions that have a larger policy which will do the education for it. We cannot look anywhere in the world to-day and find a fruitful mission that started out as a so-called purely evangelistic mission that v/as not driven either itself to incorporate educational aims into its policy or else to relate itself to other missions which, by specialization of function or more comprehensive program, would be able to do what it had been unprepared itself to do. In these regards, education is not only evangelistic in 178 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD^ the partial sense of which I»spoke at the beginning; it is absolutely indispensable as an evangelistic agency in these other regards. 4. And now, fourthly, what are we to do in order that we may be enabled to get our educational work more fully to achieve its missionary aim, more fully to do those things which in some partial measure we all of us recog- nize that it has been doing? There is much discontent throughout all the mission fields to-day with regard to the inadequacy of the evangelistic character and fruitage of our educational work. There is discontent with re- gard to the disproportion of expenditure and assignment of men. Scarcely a thoughtful missionary student goes out to the East and tries to see the facts with an unbiased mind who does not come back feeling that our great need is for an immense enlargement of the directly evan- gelistic forces operating in those lands. The sapping action of literary work and education has outrun the gathering in of the evangelistic results, the evangelistic fruitage. Unless we want this discontent to grow, with the result that the old controversies will spring up again that were flourishing when this report of Professor Lind- say was written, and unless we want the old issues to come back again with more power and to do more harm than ever because our work is taking so much greater scope, we must face this question candidly and coura- geously as to how we are going to make our educational work evangelistic, not only in its ideal, but in its output. First of all, by discerning more clearly and dealing more fearlessly and directly with the great dangers of which we are aware. One of them is the danger of sending out from our institutions men who will be against the Gospel as well as men who will stand for it. The very agencies that are preparing men for leadership are preparing men MISSION AEY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 179 for hostile as well as helpful leadership. It is a signifi- cant thing in Siam that the King was educated at Oxford, He is delivering lectures to the young men of Siam, ex- horting them to maintain Buddhism, and saying that his preference of Buddhism is not blind, because he sur- passed the English boys in Bible examinations. We have to remember that men may go out from our schools hardened against the Gospel, if they do not go out for it. But there is a middle area. There are many men in India and Japan who will not be against us or on our side. These constitute one of the great fields of work that is not being adequately cared for; but I am speak- ing now of this first danger, of training men who are go- ing to be our strongest and most resourceful antagonists. In the second place, there is a great danger of which we hear expression in practically every mission school of whatever grade in the world. It has to do with the in- adequate work of the school. Men are so burdened with the work of the curricula, etc., that there is no energy or strength left to do what they would gladly do, if they had the strength and the energy. One of the most im- pressive statements I have seen of this was made by Mr. Hogg of the Christian College in Madras, in which he spoke frankly of the enormous waste that was taking place, simply because they were all so encumbered with many things which they had to do that they could not do other things which they ought to have done as Christ's representatives. And thirdly, we need to beware of overloading our col- leges with students. It is the old question of extension or intension. Teachers are reluctant to give up the op- portunity to influence as large a number of students as possible instead of limiting their work to the intensive in- fluencing of fewer students. I met the problem recently 180 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD in Silliman Institute in the Philippine Islands. The year before the school had over seven hundred boys where it could have had a thousand or fifteen hundred. Many people argued against the intensive policy. They said, " This is our chance to interest these boys. Ten years from now we can do intensive work. Our wider oppor- tunity may be gone then, but now this is our chance to make these boys our friends. Let us take them all in." But we must face the fact that as soon as we bid for the mass we may diminish our efficiency. We miss our chance to deal with the individual man. We have to face the fact that if we choose the many, the results of our work may be desirable, but they may be also of a different quality. There is the fourth danger of overloading ourselves not merely with the total mass of students, but with a non-Christian mass of students. Even if you are going to have a small institution and have it dominated by the non-Christian element, the Christian boys cannot stand up against the pressure. We know the truth of that, for it is just as it is in America. It is the atmosphere that surrounds the boy that is going to shape him. In the fifth place, under the pressure of these perils many men will sink back into the first position and will be satisfied with the kind of evangelistic influence that is inadequate. They will say, " Oh, well, it is true we are not sending out Christian men ; we wish we could ; but we are doing them good. We are helping them in their battle with temptation. We are teaching them the truth about the world and w^e are undermining their super- stitions." There is danger that some will be content with just that. 5. And now one may offer a half dozen positive sug- gestions. First, there is the question of the kind of men MISSIOl^AEY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 181 who are going into the educational work. It is not a matter alone of having skillful teachers who have ade- quate educational preparation. It is not wholly a matter of what we call personality, which so many times is not in our control at all. The teacher-qualities wanted are things that are within the reach of men — sincerity, gen- uine interest, good-will, contagious love, compassionate and sacrificial surrender of a man's life to the dominating aim. Now, we cannot plead the fact that these things were not born in us as a reason for not having them. No school can give them to us. We need to remember that they are part of our birthright— this contagious love, good- will and disposition to sacrifice. In another old educa- tional document, a report on Educational Missions of the Church of Scotland, is a letter from Dr. Wardlaw Thompson. He points out that the great thing is to get for missionary teachers men and women able to love. Suppose we were to pick out the men and women who really have made us. In almost every case it would be some unknown man or some unknown woman who had this inner gift of sacrificial devotion which gave them access and power, and enabled them to pass that power into our lives. We have to get men w^ho have zeal for making our schools in the highest degree educationally efficient, using ''educational" in its technical connota- tion. But no men of zeal of that kind will ever take the place of religious men, men who are really filled with the spirit of Christ, in whom Christ dwells, and who seek in love and faith to lead men to Christ as their Saviour. In the second place, we need to flood our institutions with an overwhelming Christian spirit. This is a very difficult thing to do anywhere, even here in America where we have more or less Christian inheritance and environment. How much more difficult will it be in those 182 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD lands where the whole inheritance is Pagan and where all the surrounding influence is against the school ! Now, it may be impossible to get enough men or women who are filled with an irresistible zeal and with a Christian spirit. But there could be a great many more of them than there are in some of our mission schools. There is more of the zeal and spirit now in some schools than in others. In some schools we feel the aroma of such personal in- fluence all through the school, up and down the corridors and in every room. It must be there. It must be there more and more in our missions and mission schools ; and no amount of formal instruction or required religious worship will ever suffice to accomplish the end, if these dynamic influences are not operating. In the third place, I believe in required religious in- struction and required worship. I believe in it in the United States. I do not see why an institution should require students to attend classes in astronomy and physics and that yet there should be question as to whether they should study religion. I do not see how they can be required to take part in athletics and yet raise the question as to whether they shall attend the worship of the institution. Religion and worship ought to be integral parts of the life of the institution. Re- quired chapel is not so objectionable to the students who are required to go; the man on whom it is hard is the preacher who has to preach to them. Required religious instruction is no hardship to the students. But it is a hard and solemn work for the man who has to give the instruction. But for what else is he a missionary teacher, or indeed a true teacher at all ? In the fourth place, we ought to fill our educational institutions in the interest of evangelism with a great deal of personal dealing between the teachers and students. MISSION AEY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 183 It is desirable in the interest of education also that the school do this. There is not nearly enough of it. And we have to bear this in mind when people argue that we should fill our schools up with a thousand or two thousand students. When we see a student body of that size and a faculty of ten or twenty, the inevitable conclusion is that the individual student does not get the attention he ought to have. A great deal of the most important teach- ing and even the dealing with the individual student is rolled off on an unqualified native assistant. There must be room and strength for personal work, and it must be done by the teachers themselves. It is an empty delusion that you can employ a Y. M. C. A. secretary to evangelize the boys of the school or college or that you can call in an evangelistic missionary who has a circuit through the country and have him do in a day for the students what the man whom the student sees every day does not do. Perhaps he is willing to do everything else, but is not willing to do that. I came across a little bit of biography the other day in a magazine. It was from Bishop W. F. McDowell : " I cannot escape the influence that surrounded me in the days when I went to college. I cannot while I live cease to be grateful, not that I fell into the hands of some one specially designated to do it, not that I fell into the hands of an Association secretary who had in his hands the whole working of the Christian life of the in- stitution, but that in those old days at Ohio Wesleyan I fell into the hands of a faculty, which faculty felt itself under a divine compulsion to do what it could do to in- duce young fellows like me, who had come to college without having given themselves to Jesus Christ, to give themselves to Jesus Christ." In the fifth place, we have to devise far more efficient 184 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD following-up methods than we have as yet put into opera- tion. Dr. Denyes in Penang — and he knows as much about this subject as any man — told me that in the area of the Malaysia missionary educational institutions they had sent out twenty thousand students. They can trace five hundred of them. Nineteen thousand five hundred have gone through their institutions and been lost to view. Now, it is not all loss, of course. No word is to come back to God in vain, and every deed that has been thor- oughly done makes its mark in the working out of God's purpose. But Dr. Denyes held that it is not good mis- sionary statesmanship, this having twenty thousand students under our influence and then letting nineteen thousand five hundred go adrift without any following up and keeping in touch with them. We found in the Silliman Institute that, out of five thousand, only fifty had been graduated from the whole course. One per cent, had been graduated from the institution. They knew all of these. That one per cent, was followed. But of the ninety-nine per cent., only a few had been followed up and kept in touch with through their various agencies. Well, we can go on building up more and more of these factories, but we are not using the product of the factories that we now have, but are rather letting most of it get away from us. One of the greatest needs of our educational s)^stem is to devise a more exacting and more careful and conscientious plan for following up those who go out from our schools. And the sixth thing is — and I think this point ties all together — we cannot evangelize by anything that is un- veracious, anything that is slipshod or inaccurate or un- true. This is putting it strongly because there is, of course, a great deal of sincere carelessness and slip- shodness that doubtless does do good. I suppose it MISSIONARY EDUCATION AND EVANGELISM 185 would be amazing to see with what strange instruments God is working and achieving results. But in general, if we want our evangelistic work to be truly evangelistic, it has to be ever truer, more genuine, more accurate, more painstaking, than it has been. And no education is going to be evangelistic that is not marked by these qualities. If it is not honest education, it cannot honestly preach Christ to men. He can only be represented to men in truth and in sincerity. And if we can truly shape our education so that it will be what it ought to be as educa- tion, it will be what we want it to be as evangelism. IX THE PURPOSE AND PROBLEMS OF MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK IF there is one form of human activity which, it would seem, might be excused from the requirement of pro- ducing its fundamental objectives to be cold-blood- edly analyzed and questioned it would appear to be med- ical missions. Medical missionary activity is pure, loving kindness, unselfish human service, and these things are their own justification. They do not have to specify some ulterior end which they are serving, before they can be regarded as legitimate. It would be very pleasant, if we might think of medical missions just in this way without needing to be hedged around with limitations such as we are familiar with in every other department of the missionary undertaking. But, as a matter of fact, medical missions do not con- duct themselves. They are conducted by missionary or- ganizations, and missionary organizations are limited in their resources, and they exist to accomplish very clear and definite ends. Medical missions must be adjusted to the problem of proportion and to the accomplishment of these clear ends. Furthermore, nothing really functions just in a free way of itself. In all life there is articula- tion ; energy works in and through correlations and frame- works. This is true of the medical missionary under- taking. For its own sake, for the sake of the definiteness of its work and for the sake of its excellence and efficiency i86 PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 187 medical missionary work must ask itself, whether any- body else is entitled to ask a question or not, what it is for, what it is seeking to do and just what the relation- ships are in which it stands; and if we are responsible for missionary administration which would define these fundamental objectives and are to consider the problems which medical missions raise in connection with our whole responsibility, it goes without saying that our first under- taking must be to get before ourselves clearly and com- prehensively what the legitimate objectives of medical missions may be said to be. The best statement I have ever seen on the subject is Dr. Christie's paper at the last Shanghai Conference. Dr. Christie is one of the most experienced medical mis- sionaries and teachers of medicine in China, and this is the paper in which the commission of which he was the convener set forth the results of its correspondence and studies during the preceding five or six years. And yet hardly anywhere in that paper is there any mention made of one objective of medical missions which undoubtedly was historically one of the first to be discerned, and that is the care of the health of the missionaries. We all recog- nize distinctly enough that that is one of the functions of medical missions. In one sense it is a diminishing func- tion. We have a great many missions where there are no medical missionaries at all, where the medical care of our missionaries is provided for in other ways — by for- eign civilian doctors or by doctors on the field belonging to the nationality, who have had their training in satis- factory medical schools which exist there — where never- theless we feel obliged to carry on the rest of our mis- sionary undertaking. I suppose in one view we may re- gard this function as likely to be a steadily diminishing one; and in another view it ought to be an increasing 188 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD objective. In the proper planning of missionary build- ings, in the drainage, the supply of water, and the sanita- tion of missionary compounds, in the conservation of the health and efficiency of the missionary community — in these regards, the medical missionaries in many of our fields ought to take a larger measure of responsibility than they have taken for the last twenty years. If we go back thirty years, I think we will find that medical missionaries did then largely carry these responsibilities. But there was a shift in their relationships which in many fields relieved the medical missionaries from the discharge of some of these functions. Medical missionaries should think of themselves as carrying this responsibility and a sentiment should be created and fostered in each mis- sionary community v/hich would recognize this. The second objective, which in one sense would seem to cover the whole ground, is to do good, but a moment's reflection shows that it is not a satisfactory or a vei-y serviceable definition. Oftentimes the greatest good is done by refusing to do good. There are men in the Rockefeller Institute, for instance, who are not doing all the general good which they could do. They do not for- sake their tasks to render help to sick people about them in the city. They have deliberately confined themselves to specialized tasks which they have vigorously set for themselves. They know that in the end they will do a great deal more good in this way. Our Lord might have spent all His time working miracles. He could have gone about the world a lord bountiful, throwing good about on every side and He would have died and been forgotten. He realized He would do more good by re- fraining from doing good. And He spent His life plant- ing great principles in humanity which have ever since been fountains of beneficence and which are immortal. PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 189 A third way of defining the objective of medical mis- sions would be to say that they are to relieve suffering. In China, however, various agencies are going to estab- lish great medical educational institutions that will not relieve suffering at all except incidentally. In the end the work they are doing will vastly increase the amount of service rendered to the world in the diminution of suffering, but they themselves will not be reducing suf- fering greatly by their definite activity. In the fourth place, it is among the objectives of medical missions to relieve prejudice and secure access to the minds and hearts of the people. One often hears this use of medical service alluded to in terms of contempt or disrespect, as though these considerations which I spoke of in the beginning ought to be the only ones — doing good and showing loving kindness, but I do not think this aspect of medical missions should be spoken of with disrespect. That is a great service which enlarges a man's mind, which makes his spirit more hospitable. Medical missions do not only open the minds of men to a practical statement of religious truth, they do not only make friends for the evangelistic missionary ; they enlarge all the horizons of the life they touch. They make these men accessible to all kinds of new ideas; they enlarge the hospitality of the human spirit ; and it is a legitimate and by no means to be understimated objective of medical missions that they do thus remove prejudice and open doors of access to the minds and hearts of men. The fifth element in the objective of medical missions is the introduction of sanitation and hygiene, and other true ideas. The whole of truth hangs together and we do not let any part of it into men's minds without making an easier roadway for the rest to come in. Any medical missionary who teaches a truer conception of the body 190 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD teaches a truer conception of a good many other things besides the body, and it is a legitimate and proper object- ive of medical missions that, while it does these things specifically in the interests of evangelistic responsibility, it does them also in regard to the whole life of man and the whole interest of man in the world. And the sixth objective is the development of the medical and nursing professions, or the moralizing of the influences that may exist for the production of such professions. In some fields both must be done, for ex- ample, where there is no opportunity for any kind of training except that which missionaries provide. But no matter what our will may be to build medical schools and keep them always under control it cannot be done. If we had sought twenty-five or thirty years ago to build medical schools in Japan we would have been displaced long before this. In some other lands, hitherto, we have been required through the medical missionaries to pro- duce the doctors needed in that country. Sooner or later the governments enter the field and build their own medical schools. But even then, if there are to be the proper moral ideals and the proper spiritual motives, we must be in a position to help to influence the profession. China is a nation of materialists. You cannot count upon the altruism and friendly service in China that you can count upon in Christian lands. Dr. Welch regards it as fundamentally necessary to put religion and the influences of the Christian religion into medical training in China. I was interested some time ago in reading an old address, I think by Baron Ogawa, in regard to the moral training of nurses in Japan, in which he referred to the moral pervasion of the profession by Christian spirit in this Western land and the lack of anything equal to this in Japan, and he urged the necessity of securing PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 191 some such moral contribution to the nursing profession in Japan. It is an appalling thing to think of what the profession of nursing might become in Asia, if we failed to steep it in all the moral sanctions that spring from Christianity. It is one of the first functions of the far- seeing medical missionary to moralize and spiritualize the professions of the doctor and the nurse in these non- Christian lands. In the seventh element of our objective we come nearer' its center — the expression by incarnation of the spirit and the teaching of Christianity. By no means is all knowl- edge communicated by language. Perhaps we do not know what an incomplete thing either language or knowl- edge really is. Knowledge and deeds— how much does the language add and how much is added to the language by the act and what goes into the act ? We do not know yet. Language, its meaning, origin and growth is largely a mystery to us, but we do know that the greatest revela- tion that ever was given of the word of God was not in a book, was not a written statement, was not an oral statement nor was it a deed, nor was it a series of deeds. It was a life operating in deeds and expressing itself in words, requiring all of these. We may be perfectly sure the missionary enterprise has got to express itself to the non-Christian world in very many other than verbal ways or it will never carry our message to the non- Christian world at all. It must be carried by the whole range of loving acts and deeds, in every way in which truth is made effective. What would we know about friendship, if we had learned it simply from the word friendship? The friendship which we really know is the friendship we have learned from friendship itself. Tenderness and love do not gain their meaning from the words which express them, but the words arise from the 192 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD things themselves. Precisely so, it is an indispensable purpose of medical missions that they give expression just as truly and effectually to the Christian Gospel as the Christian evangelist and teacher. Finally there is this fundamental objective which is the same in all our missionary work, and that is to lodge Christ — and I use the word in the largest and most mystical and most personal sense — to lodge Christ, the liv- ing, loving Christ, to get the mind and thought of Christ lodged in human life the world around. That is what our missionary enterprise exists for, and it seems to me that every agency we use exists for that same purpose. Now a second problem is the problem of the method in which this objective is going to be brought forward, this purpose to be wrought out. There are three main agencies operating on the fields of missions — the medical school for training native leaders, the medical hospital with its affiliated dispensaries and the work of the medical itinerant. The problem of the first of these is already changing in China. We had hardly begun there, when new elements came into the field, changing the whole program as first laid out. We may be sure this will be more or less true in every field, where we have this work. Some element of change will be introduced which will modify our whole program. We must make our methods as pliable as possible to fit the new conditions as they arise. The second important agency through which these ob- jectives are being realized is hospitals and dispensaries. It is needless here to discuss this phase of work. About the third agency, however, I would like to say a word. It is an aspect of the medical work calling for some explanation. Many medical missionaries are now unwilling to go into itineration, because they believe that PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 193 it means a depreciation of their professional efficiency, that there are certain kinds of medical work which they cannot do as effectively in itinerating through country villages as in modern hospitals of the kind which they believe should be provided. There is truth in this, but there seems to me to be room on the foreign field for medical missionaries who will do this itinerating medical work. It is this work that brings a man into close touch with the people. We can recall the service that has been rendered, in the past, by such work and see how it has found its mysterious way right into the minds and hearts of men and communities and we know the need. Let me read a few extracts from a letter from a medical missionary: "I've come out to help poor people who have no one to help them, and I find I have to compete for the opportunity, not that I dislike competition, be- cause I enjoy it. Last year our receipts in hospital were , as Dr. told me, more than he took in himself. I don't know, but it worries me. When I spend from 7 : 30 a. m. to 2 p. m. on private patients, and have to, in order to keep the hospital running and supplied with all that is needed; when at the same time I know thousands are suffering somewhere from lack of a physi- cian and surgeon ; when I know in there are at least six or eight men who can operate and who are competing with me ; I wonder what my duty is. As you have said, I have one life to live, and I want to put it where it will count for most. I come out here and find I'm a money-making machine to keep a hospital open, have to fight for position much as a city surgeon at home, have to make a certain amount of money in order to keep the hospital at the front, and this prevents one from touring more generally and reaching more generally the poor people for whom we have especially come. 194 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOBLD " I suppose you think I'm horribly radical, but you must see my point. . . . "If all goes well here and we have the patients I rather expect and the work we have every reason to ex- pect, I will be able to write to you more explicitly. All I want is to find a place I can be busy in day in and day out, serving people who need help, who but for me would go unhelped. I don't mean to be selfish and want all the credit of helping people, but I feel with our limited supply of medical men and institutions we ought to go where we can reach the most people otherwise unreached. It is a question in my mind whether we ought to settle in a big city and be forced into competition to make money enough to keep a hospital open. Because we rep- resent the cause we do we must so far as possible be ahead of every one, and in this way we are likely to for- get that service is our motto and the giving of the Gospel message our real purpose. . . . " I wouldn't change this work for any job on earth. If men at home only knew its joys you would be overrun with applications. I am only anxious for more work for unfortunate people. The city is fine, but I spend too much time on patients who are well able to go to a dozen other doctors. I have enough to do there but am anxious for more. . . ." It does seem to me that in our missionary administra- tion we are in danger of slipping too much into the institutionalization of our medical work in schools and hospitals on the foreign field. We need the continuance of the itinerating medical work for a long time yet. Some time it goes as deep down into the ranges of life as any other form of missionary work we can do. The third set of problems are those of proportion and limitation. We could absorb all our missionary money PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 195 in the medical work alone. The China Medical Board will be spending five or ten million dollars in China in its two medical hospitals and schools. We could take every dollar missionary agencies are using the world over and put it all into one province of China, and not then be adequately dealing with the suffering in that province. The question is that of making our whole work efficient and proportional and of accomplishing the whole of our great end. This simply means that medical missions must be judged, not in any theoretical way, nor yet in any abstract way, but on the basis of reality provided by facts. I notice that the medical missionaries at the Edin- burgh and Shanghai Conferences spoke of medical mis- sions as an integrally essential and indispensable part of the foreign missionary enterprise. There is a sense in which this is true, but in another sense it is not true. In Latin America we have foreign missions without any medical missionary work. We are carrying on foreign mission work in Japan and yet we have only one or two medical missions now in that country, and we are likely, so far as I see, to carry on much of our work in the future without any medical missions at all. We must plan for just as much medical work as will yield the maximum of result in its correlation with the rest of our work but will not absorb from the limited whole at our disposal more than can wisely be set aside for this one department. Secondly, whatever we do must be done truly. It must be done well and truly, because we are Christian workers, and anything that is done badly and falsely belies our principles. We cannot preach the Gospel of truth by activities that have either falsity or unworth in them. In many fields, moreover, we are not going to have any opportunity except by reason of the quality of what we 196 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD do. In Siam and Korea our quantitative medical mis- sionary activity will diminish. In Korea the Japanese Government is establishing large hospitals each with ten or twelve specially trained men. It is now a question of how long the Japanese will give permits to any hospitals that are inadequately staffed and equipped, that attempt to meet the need of the community in which they are located and then close up for a year or more now and then. In Siam the Government has built an excellent hospital at Bangkok. Soon our missionaries will have no field except the field which they hold by virtue of the quality of their work, not only its professional quality, but its spirit of truth and sympathy and kindness and unselfishness, the spirit which disregards caste lines and social lines, the spirit that cannot be bought by wealth and is never forgetful of the poor. Only by the spirit and the quality of the work we do are we going to have any opportunity at all to carry on medical missions in some fields of Asia in the near future. Consequently it seems to me we shall have to limit proportionately our hospital work instead of indefinitely extend it, in order to make the quality and effectiveness of the work what it must be, if we are to continue the service of medical missions. We may greatly increase our itiner- ating medical service. No such near limits appear to it. In the third place, I would emphasize our responsibility for the trusteeship of missionary funds with regard to the necessity of our holding fast to our conviction that medical missions are an integral part of our whole mis- sionary undertaking, and that we cannot send out to teach In schools or to direct hospitals or to do medical work the man of a different type of motive, the man of a different principle of love, the man with a different thought about God and our Lord and our relations to PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 197 him than prevail in the rest of the undertaking. We cannot spoil the essential character of our enterprise. Unless we have men of one heart, men of one truth and experience, men of one general attitude toward life, within the ranges possible within human personality, unless we do this, there is a grave danger of chilling the spirit of any mission station. One man may by his attitude petrify and stultify all that is best in its in- fluence and life. The whole missionary community must be bound together in the bonds of confidence and affection which are quickened in a common life in Christ. I was interested in a pamphlet which I saw one day on medical missionary work entitled : " Claims of the Mis- sionary Enterprise on the Medical Profession," by Dr. Daniel J. Macgowan, delivered before the Temperance Society of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1842. This is one of the last sentences: " The medical missionary should have great singleness of purpose, never allowing his secondary object, the heal- ing of disease, and the promotion of science, to become his primary one; this honour should in his mind belong only to the conversion of souls, else in the end he will prove a stumbling block to the heathen and a scandal to the Church." Now there is an unnecessary alternative here. The writer speaks of a first and a second, regarding things that may and should go side by side. That is a difficulty of all our space and time necessities of speech. But it is only first and second in verbal order. All must go to- gether. They are contemporaneous in life. I would not make a distinction between an unselfish motive and the evangelical motive. Those are unrealities, those dis- tinctions. If the motive is not unselfish, it is not evan- gelical. In Christianity all such motives ought to run 198 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD right together in one melted unity in which there is no cleavage at all. We ought to be sure that our mission stations are founded on that condition and that all the men who are going out to do medical work are as alive to it as the men going out to do evangelistic work. How is the medical man going to do human work for the man who comes to see him in the hospital, if he does not have the same feeling as the evangelistic man? A medical missionary in China told me once of an old farmer who brought in his little boy, his only child, to be examined. The doctor took the boy, looked him over very carefully and then said to the old farmer, " Well, I do not believe we can save him for you, but the only thing we can do is to operate, and if you are willing, we will do the best we can." The old man said that he had brought his boy there for that pur- pose ; that he had confidence in them. They operated and that evening the old man came to see the doctor and said, " Do you think he is going to get well ? " "I am afraid he may not," said the doctor, " I am sorry." " Well," said the old man, " have you done all you can for him ? " " Yes," said the doctor, " we have." But the old man continued : " Is there anything anybody can do ? " and the doctor said : " Yes, we can pray." " What is that ? " said the farmer. He had never heard of prayer before. The doctor explained what prayer was. " How do you do it ? " said the farmer. " Come in," said the doctor, " and I will show you." They went in and he showed him. All through that night the old farmer knelt in the ward by the cot of his boy and prayed that his life might be spared, and the life of his little son was spared. Do you mean to say that doctor could have done a man's part, a brother's part, by that farmer, if he had not been able to enter into the whole life of the man? Suppose PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 199 he had had to say, " Well, we have an ordained missionary in this station, I will get him and maybe he can tell you something I have not told you." Why, the flush and joy and reality of the deep and appealing truth would have been lost. It was because the doctor, who was seeking to save his little son, could let him into this secret that the old man was able to go into that hospital as he did and then go out with something more than his son — with a whole new thought of life. His little son was given back to him, and something else that he could keep as long as he could keep his son and forever. There are other great reasons why we must keep our medical work and our evangelistic work locked together indissolubly. Each disease on the field is linked with the superstitions of the people, and the medical man who would deal with one must deal also with the other. In northern Siam malignant malaria was sweeping peo- ple away by hundreds. It was not enough to prescribe quinine for them. The moment the missionary's back was turned the devils came. They feared these devils and forsook the medicine. The missionaries went out and stood with the people and fought their devils with them. It was a real fight. That is only an illustration of the mind of the whole Animistic world, in Africa and in Asia. Disease and false thoughts about life and false attitudes toward the unseen are all bound up together, so that a man cannot deal as a doctor with what he would think in this country is distinctly his field of duty, unless he is prepared to deal also with these other things. In the fourth place, from the point of view of mission- ary administration, we do not wish to have the planning, the projecting or the conduct of medical missions di- vorced, either at home or abroad, from the whole ad- ministration of the undertaking. It breaks up the har- 200 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD mony of the mission stations and the unity of the mis- sion councils. It sets off a certain element in a station from the rest of the station, so that it cannot be called upon in those times of emergency, when the whole energy of the body of workers must be fluent in order to be suc- cessfully used. Such a segregation is fatal to real unity or efficiency. Here at home we need to get the whole work and life of the church tied together in some way: far more is this needed on the mission field. There is this additional reason for unity. The prob- lem of sanitation and hygiene is not merely a medical problem in the foreign fields. It is an economic problem. Take Chinese villages. What is the use of talking mod- ern notions of hygiene to men and women, when the whole family has not enough to eat, where it cannot live in a clean house, where the people cannot buy clean clothes, where they must live on a few cents a day; it is an economic problem quite as much as a problem of medicine. It was that in the Panama Canal Zone. Think of the scientific aspect of that thorough sanitation — hardly a mosquito, hardly a fly. I saw a few at the horse stables in the Zone and only there. Panama was cleaned up, but it took money to do it. So it will be all over the world. Human life is not divisible. It is all knit together. We must deal with it as a whole. We cannot set off one fragment without weakening that frag- ment and diminishing its influence. Of course, one part will say, " Such a course keeps us back. We can do much better, if we do it all by ourselves." If the evan- gelistic work had said that, the medical missionaries would have had little opportunity. In the end, while it is true we might segregate some section of our missionary undertaking and by centering on that give it an excessive development above what it PUEPOSE OF MEDICAL MISSIONAEY WOEK 201 has already gained, I still believe that the ultimate loss would be incalculable, and that we will do better by hold- ing our whole propaganda together and letting it strike as a unit upon the life of the world and carry as a unit its message toward the end of making the life and the thought and the energies of Christ effective in humanity. Lastly, we must shape our work to many impending changes. Where we have medical missions now, we may not be able to have them in the same form for many more years. Where we shall be able to have them, they will have to change very materially in many ways, and I am even prepared to believe that there are places where we do not have them now and where we have thought — in the fashion of our thinking hitherto — that we should not need them, where we may have to bring them in — maybe in South America, maybe in some other places, maybe for some other purposes, for example with a view to striking in a new and more general way at the social needs of many of these lands, perhaps getting access there to classes we are not now reaching. I know there are many who think we ought to hold fast to the old plan of purely verbal and individualistic preaching, but we are not hold- ing fast to it at home. If we go through the churches to- day we will find that the masses there have not been brought in by any defined evangelistic method of delib- erate conviction of individuals; they have been brought in through the family, the school, or through the caste as in India. The methods of the Kingdom must be as varied and mobile as life. My only contention is that from the point of view of missionary administration we have one end that we are seeking, and we must seek it by unified effort. The end we are seeking is a living one. That means that nothing is the same two moments in succession; that everything is going to shift and be 202 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD transformed with us, and that we must be prepared, one way or the other, to make adjustments from year to year, not losing sight of our end, please God, not for- getting, nor allowing to sink into unconscious assumption the motive and the driving spirit, which are Christ. THE RELATION OF WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS AND FORMS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE TO OTHER RACES WHEN we face this subject squarely, we have presented to us, on the one hand, a strong case in support of the frank transportation to the mission fields of our Western creeds and types of Christian experience. The arguments may be summar- ized as follows: 1. We cannot help it. We can only go out as the men we are and carry the convictions in which we honestly believe. Missionaries go from definite church organiza- tions, trained in the doctrines and life of these bodies. Whether their denomination lays on them little or much of obligation to the denominational tradition, they still are members of that denomination and of its missions, sharing in a common body of opinion and a common temper of life, which are not things they can lay aside by any act of will, or cancel as though they were not. 2. Our obligation is to carry to the non-Christian world not the original Christian message alone, but all that the Spirit of God has added of clearer understanding and of richer experience through the centuries. We should be doing wrong to these new native churches to ask them to start where we started four hundred years, or eighteen hundred years ago. ^ 203X 204 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 3. To call our theological statements "Western" is to misname them. The whole purpose of those who framed them was to escape from anything sectional or territorial, and to embody, in formal statement, the uni- versal elements of Christianity. Truth itself is universal, and if these statements are true — as the churches which hold them must certainly believe that they are — then this truth is not Western, but Eastern as well. That they are Western in language is obvious, but the Bible and all other good books require translation likewise. 4. If it be said that these creeds are Western in their mode of thought and forms of emphasis, some reply by pointing out how much there is in them which came dis- tinctively from the East, and call attention to the fact that the Councils which fashioned some of them were distinctively Oriental Councils, while others reply that these elements which are spoken of as Western embody the very principles which the East needs most, and which are indispensable to a universal conception, whether in theology, or in philosophy, or in social institution, and that to carry to Asia a theological doctrine or ideal of life containing only Oriental principles and in no wise colliding with or supplementing the Asiatic ideals of the present day, would not be such a Christian evangeliza- tion as the New Testament contemplates or as Asia mortally needs. What India wants is the Christian antidote to her pantheism — not a surrender of Christian- ity to a pantheistic construction. What Mohammedanism needs is the Christian idea of God — not a surrender to the theistic mechanicalism of Islam. 5. It is not the Western forms either of doctrine or of life in which Christianity is presented that perplex and hinder non-Christian peoples. It is the very essence and universal elements of Christianity. Commission IV of WESTEEN THEOLOGICAL STATEIMENTS 205 the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910 included in its list of questions the following enquiry : " Did the Western form in which Christianity was presented to you perplex you? What are the distinctively Western ele- ments, as you see them, in the missionary message as now presented? '' This question was addressed to converts to Christianity. The Report of the Commission states that the question itself was unintelligible to many. The Rev. C. H. Basil Wood of Japan says : " I submitted this question to several of the Christian schoolmasters in my school— men of tried Christian char- acter. They all answered frankly that they were unable to write down, or formulate, any answers. They did not understand what was meant by references to * Western form, Western elements,' in the teaching of missionaries who teach from and with an open Bible in the hands of all." The Rev. T. Takahashi, of Japan, says: " The so-called Western forms do not present them- selves as Western forms. Whilst recognizing that the Bible contains much that is similar in form to what is found here in the Far East, the fact that we have three religions with more or less different forms of expression prepares us to expect and accept what may be thought peculiar in the Christian religion." The hindrances and difficulties reported from the vari- ous fields had to do not at all with the Western forms in which Christianity was presented. Both the attractive and the repellent elements were found in the fundamental characteristics of Christianity— its claim to absolutism and universality; its doctrine of God; its spiritual freedom; its ethical difficulty; its relation to history; its principles of personality and redemption. In comparison with these difficulties, any trouble with Western forms is negligible. 206 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD 6. It is even held by some that our modern forms of creedal statement greatly simplify and interpret the Gos- pel. In a most suggestive article in the East and West for April, 1913, on " The Western Form of Christianity," the Rev. Campbell N. Moody argues that modern Chris- tian Missions have advanced far beyond the letter of Scripture; that our creedal formularies have immensely clarified the truth of the New Testament, and he quotes the naive observation of a Chinese convert to him, to the effect " that the teaching of missionaries was much clearer than that of the New Testament, for the New Testament, he said, gives no very definite account of conversion or of present salvation, and confuses the mind with con- flicting views of faith and works." This creedal simpli- fication and articulation, Biblical theology, in other words, Mr. Moody argues is not Western but human, and there- fore universal, as shown by the fact that the same creed has taken hold of a great variety of peoples— Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Africans, Celts, Germans, Saxons and Slavs. He admits a Western accent, but not a Western form, and the accent would be there whatever the form. If any form perplexes the Chinese converts, he holds, it is not the Western form of our theology but the Jewish cast of the Gospel narrative. 7. Western forms of infidelity and unbelief are pour- ing over the world. Some of them have an unmistakable Occidental character that does not prevent their accept- ance in every part of the non-Christian world. The books and articulated systems of Western materialism have been accepted all over Asia. Are they not to be met with the systems of positive faith, which alone are found adequate to deal with them in the West? It is folly to declaim against our positive religious doctrines as Occidental and unintelligible to Asia, when our West- WESTEEN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 207 ern systems of negation and unbelief achieve a universal currency. 8. If it be said that it is the precision and elaborate- ness of our theological statements which confuse the East and divide the churches there, it is replied that it is the want of precision and the parsimony of statement in our creeds that is the chief objection. All the non- Christian religions attempt a range, and some of them a detail which are foreign to the restraint and reverence of our Western creeds. 9. It is not the Western character of Christianity but its foreign character that raises prejudice against it, es- pecially where the spirit of nationalism exists, or has grown up without discerning its debt to Christianity. The real root of prejudice, so far as it springs from any- thing else than the essential character of Christianity, is found in the confusion of Christianity and its messengers! with political invasion and the pressure of dominant races. 10. It is not the forms of Christian doctrine that we carry to the non-Christian world which divide the native Christians or denationalize and Westernize them. It Is the tide of ^Qcialinfluence^ which Is poured In independ- ently ornilssions, and which missions would check and correct If they could. It Is divergencies of church organ- ization, teaching as to polity and sacraments, and the In- defensible application to the non-Christian churches of alien geographical or historical names. As Dr. Cuthbert Hall remarked in a passage quoted by Bishop Brent in his introductory note to the Barrows Lectures on " Christ and the Eastern Soul " : " Next to the ethical misrepresentation of the Christian religion by the perverse and contradictory lives of its nominal adherents, I know of nothing more likely to repel Orientals from the sympathetic study of this East- 208 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ern faith (Christianity) than the overshadowing prom- inence of ecclesiastical institutions. That these institu- tions are inseparable from the Occidental practice of Christianity, history appears to show. That they have their excellent uses, in their own sphere, it would be but questionable wisdom to deny." 11. Efforts to present Christianity in a form separate from and depreciative of our Western creeds have no- where met with the success that can be shown in ordinary missions of our Western churches, nor have efforts such as these been free from the same difficulties which attach to our other missionary efforts. Those who have gone out with a message, either purposely or unconsciously dis- dainful of the actual history of Christian doctrine, and with an effort to accommodate Christianity to an Oriental soul, supposed to be different in type or consciousness from a Western soul, have met with less success than those who have gone with the clear historic Christian message, and especially with that message in its challenge to the actual social life of men. 12. Lastly, if our theological statements are to be re- garded as ethnic, and other nations are to correct their Western bias, where, it may be asked, has the correction begun to be made ? Which one of the European nations in the past universalized a territorial theology? Which ones of the non-Christian nations are doing it to-day ? A larger life, embracing the world, as Alston points out in " The White Man's Work in Asia and Africa," is giving us a clearer insight into ourselves and disclosing new meanings in the Christian truth which has come down to us ; but what new truth or rearrangement of theolog- ical emphasis, or even what new heresy has the Universal Church received as a result of more than a century of missianary contact jvith the non-Christian world? WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 209 II This is one side of the case. What is to be said on the Other side ? 1. First of all, it is recognized that the foreign mis- sionary enterprise represents the greatest unified effort of the Christian Church, and that the very fact that the problems to be met on the mission field are the elemental problems of religion, and not the issues of denominational diversity, has led to a general emphasis, on the part of all the churches, upon fundamental elements of common re- ligious conviction. As a simple matter of fact, accord- ingly, there has never been the export of our diversified creedal statements. The Westminster Confession, the Augsburg Confession, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort, for example, have never been translated into many of the languages in which the missionary v^ork is done, and the same thing is true of the full formularies of most of the churches. The argu- ment in behalf of carrying our Western theological state- ments in full to the missionary field, accordingly, is an argument in behalf of what never has been done and never will be done. 2. Not only have we not carried our full denomina- tional standards to the mission field, but in many of these fields we have not even preserved what were supposed to be radical divergencies in theological principle — the divergencies, for instance, of Calvinism and Arminian- ism. The Methodists have been working ever since they went to China with great success with a Calvinistic type of theology. One of them complained recently in a paper published by their press in Shanghai : " What distinctively Methodist literature does Method- ism in China need at present? In answer, I would say 210 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD one thing needed is work on systematic theology. So far as I know, there is no treatise from the Methodist stand- point. What we have is tinctured with a diluted Calvin- ism, not rank, to be sure, but still retaining a mild flavour of that dead system." In a later number of the same publication, another mis- sionary writes : " Many times have I been pained to hear our preachers present Calvinism to their congregations, and, what is worse, to know that the books taught in our theological seminaries are tinctured with that dead system. Let the Methodists of China look about and at once select a man filled with the spirit of God and Methodism, and set him aside for the work of preparing clean Methodist theo- logical works." I am glad to say that I think the theology of most of the Presbyterian missions is equally tinctured by the very live system of Arminianism. To the extent that these theological differences are emphasized, our Western theo- logical statements divide us. To the extent that distinc- tions melt together v/here they belong, we are united. 3. The object of the missionary enterprise is to estab- lish in each field a living Church — a Church with its own personality, strong in its own conviction, faithful in its own ministry. The attitude of missions to these churches should be the same as the attitude of a wise father to his son. He will help him in every way in his power and endeavour to acquaint him with all the lessons of the past, and to place at his disposal all his best traditions, but he will not attempt to stifle his son's individuality, to clothe him in his ancestor's garments, to subject his mind to any statutory sovereignty. His aim is to train a free personality, who shall take up all that his father can do WESTEEN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 211 for him and go beyond it. We are not acting in this way toward these churches if we fix them in our own mould. We have recognized theoretically that we must not do this. The principles of the Church Missionary Society state : "We of the Church of England are bound by our fundamental rules to train up every congregation gathered from the heathen according to the discipline and worship of the Church of England. But our own Prayer Book has laid down the principle that every National Church is at liberty to change its ceremonies, and adapt itself to the national taste, and therefore we look forward to the time when the native Christian communities shall have attained that magnitude and maturity which will entitle them to worship and perfect themselves according to the standard of God's Holy Word." But we indefinitely postpone this day to the extent that we lay the authority of our formularies upon these weak shoulders. 4. It is just because we have thus over-awed and over-burdened these churches, in some measure, with our Western forms, that there has been no independent theo- logical thought among these peoples. The Report of Commission II at the Edinburgh Conference quotes the statement of a leading Indian missionary : " It is one of the serious defects of our Indian literature that our educated Christians have not thus far separated themselves from the leading-strings of Western mission- aries in matters of Christian thought. ... I have hardly known one Indian Christian thinker whose the- ology has revealed definite constructive thought, who has been able to shake himself away from the trammels of the West." And Dr. Gibson of China adds ; 212 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD " The Church in Japan has apparently given evidence of more intellectual activity than either India or China, but it has been so powerfully under the domination of its acceptance of everything Western in the earlier stages of its modern life that, while there is increasing freedom in the use of the pen in contributions to magazines and newspapers, there is not much sign yet of any independent treatment of the great themes of the Christian revelation." " Throughout the whole of India," says Mr. Bernard Lucas, " one looks in vain for anything that can be cor- rectly described as an indigenous Christianity. The In- dian Church has produced not a single theologian, nor has it given birth to a single heresy. When we contrast the first century of Christianity in Europe with the first century of modern Christian missions in India, this state- ment is deeply significant. The contact of Christian thought with that of Greece was productive of a ferment in both, which had an immense influence on the spread of Christianity in the West. In India we have a philo- sophical atmosphere quite as stimulating, and far more permeating than that of Greece when Christianity first came into contact with it ; yet while Christianity has pro- foundly stirred Hindu thought and feeling, Hindu thought has had absolutely no influence on Indian Chris- tian thought. The reason is that, with few exceptions, the Christian convert was never distinctively a Hindu. It was not to him as a Hindu that the Christianity which was presented appealed. Hinduism had more or less lost its hold upon him, or he was outside the sphere of Hindu thought and feeling, and Christianity appealed to him on its own Western merits." What these people have needed was a greater burden of responsibility for theological work of their own. 5. The introduction of our divergent theological state- ments, to the extent to which they are introduced at all, confuses and perplexes those to whom they are offered, and who are unable to judge for themselves, and so di- WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 213 vides them. It divides them, also, along lines of cleavage alien and unnatural to them. It may be that the living native Church when established will itself divide, but if so, it will be along the line of natural divergences, and the new denominations will represent a reality of con- viction and not the mechanical adoption of alien tradi- tions. It may be held, also, that the native churches, if we establish them in unity, will be able to retain their unity. Those movings of the Spirit of God which are drawing us together in the West, may surely be trusted to hold together that which we found in unity on the mission field. 6. The introduction of our Western forms and state- ments lays the emphasis on intellectual definition instead of upon the actual experience of Christ and His practical service in life. Definition always divides, while lifel unites. ^ 7. Do we deem our present theological statements final and complete? Have we reached the limit of our apprehension of Christian truth and our power to de- clare it? Surely not. Our present statements have led us into a larger truth than men had previously known, and the road still lies open before us. " If it had been possible," as Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall wrote in " The Universal Elements of Christian Religion," " for one set of men to legislate the form and contents of religious thinking in a manner permanently adequate for all Chris- tian experience, our conception of the vastness of the revelation of God in Christ would shrink. But this never has been possible. The successive theological re- interpretations have borne witness to the sincerity, and often to the insight of those that framed them. For those who used them they have appeared to have a relative sufficiency. As presentments of Christian thought, and 214 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD interpretations of revealed truth, they have been honoured of God and serviceable to man. But their noblest quality has been, not their relative adequacy, but their absolute inadequacy ; not their direct witness to certain aspects im- pressing the minds of those who framed them, but their indirect witness, through their insufficiency for other minds, to the immensity of the scope of the manifestation to the world, of God in Christ. Had Europe slept in ignorance beneath the limited view of God and His uni- verse that prevailed in the age of Hildebrand, and was not materially enlarged by the Council of Trent, one might conclude that Christianity is but an ethnic faith. But with the rebirth of learning and the emancipation of thought came the rolling back of clouds, the uncovering of landscapes, the multitudinous self- fulfillments of God ; and the students of truth awoke; and every one had a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation; and lo ! the wideness of God's mercy was as the wideness of the sea — and the love of God was broader than the measure of man's mind." Neither our Western statements nor our Western in- corporations of the Gospel in life are final. 8. Our creeds are changing fast in the West, and we are witnessing a great melting together of that which was supposed to be contradictory. It is not that we are discovering that our statements were not true. What we are perceiving is that they were not the whole truth — that we need a larger comprehension that shall gather up the broken lights of our separate systems. Our whole struggle is to escape from what was national or sectional, and to achieve that which is universal. Shall we seek, at such a time, to perpetuate abroad that exclusive temper of the ancient statements from which we are just escap- ing at home? WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 215 9. Moreover, it is by the very offer of our Gospel, not in its denominational distinctiveness but in its elements of universality to the non-Christian nations, that we our- selves are to be given the correctives and expansions of which we stand in need. It is not that the non-Christian religions are to give these to us, but that they are to come from the contact of Christianity with new sections of that humanity which is the body of Christ, and in which and by which alone in its universal completeness, can the full truth be known. 10. It is recognized that the message of the Gospel is a coherent message to be addressed to the minds of men as well as to their hearts. The question of such a procla- mation is not at issue. The question is as to whether this proclamation is to be made in terms of the New Testament and of the general Christian concordat, or in the divergent terms of our Western creedal statements. *' The question is often asked," said Dr. Harada at the Edinburgh Conference, " in some sort of way like this, are the expressions of faith as formulated by the Western churches acceptable to and sufficient for the various churches in the East? In answering such a question as that, I wish to speak frankly and boldly of what I re- gard as the fundamental principle which should ever be kept in our view, namely, Christianity is life — the life of God in man — nothing other than that can be considered as real Christianity. The life cannot be translated into another life except through that life. The organization and the system of doctrine will follow on, but all the or- ganizations and the systems of doctrine are not powerful enough to produce that life. In saying this I do not mean to say there is no need of organization, nor do I mean to say that there is no need of the statement of faith — not at all. What I want to say is that the ex- 216 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD pressions of faith must be the fruits of the Christian life and the spiritual experience. Perhaps some of you may say that it is too commonplace, too simple, but let me remind you that very often the simplest truths are the truths very easily forgotten by us. The essential faith of Christianity is our faith in the personal God our Father, in a living Christ and in the Holy Spirit who is living with us all the time. Teach the Bible without too much of our interpretation, and then be patient as well as watchful to await the outcome of the Christian life in non-Christian lands. I think we want faith in God, but we want faith in man, not in the goodness of man, but in man as the living temple of God. We should not judge of others by our own thoughts. Our system and your system are not necessarily the perfect or final type of Christianity and therefore in the matter of the expressions of faith in non-Christian lands we must be patient, we must wait for the time of the real expression of their spiritual experience. That is important, not only for the sake of the churches in non-Christian lands, but I think that is important for the sake of the mother churches, because in all those and only in all those our Lord's full personality will be glorified and revealed in all the world." " Whether we like to confess it or not," writes the Rev. Edwin Greaves in the East and West for January, 1910, in an article entitled " India for the Christian Church or for Christ ? " *' the fact remains that Chris- tianity, the Christianity which is set forth by missionaries, is Western. The formulation of its doctrines, the pro- portion and relative weight of its parts, its ecclesiastical organizations, its forms of worship, and, in part also, its ideals of the religious life, are Western. It is inevitable that they should be so. But Christ is not Western, and it is possible for men to accept Christ and to become His WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 217 true followers without identifying themselves with any Western church. Jesus Christ is ' the Way, the Truth, and the Life ' ; He also is * the Door/ . . . My own strong belief is that if men from the north and south, from the east and west of India, would take up this attitude, and, without identifying themselves with any Western church, would take the New Testament, and, seeking God's guidance, * work out their own salvation with fear and trembling,' a day would dawn for India which longing eyes have watched for for long, and yearn- ing hearts have prayed for." II. Our doctrinal forms of statement fill a place of diminishing importance in the life of our churches in the West. Dr. Herrick Johnson, in a pamphlet entitled " Why I am a Presbyterian," glories in the fact of the elemental simplicity of the foundations of his church. " It demands nothing whatever for admission to its fold," he writes, " except trustful belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and credible evidence of that belief in the daily life. Applicants for church membership are not required to give assent to an extended creed. . . . The one and the only belief she insists on is beUef in Christ. The applicant must be a Christian, that is all — a new creature in Christ Jesus, accepting Jesus as Saviour and Master, trusting in Him alone for salvation, and submissive to His revealed will. The candidate may have imperfect views of doctrine, imperfect views of duty, imperfect views of the person of Christ, may be Calvinist or Arminian, Sabellian or Apollinarian, annihilationist or final restora- tionist, may question infant baptism or stumble at the Trinity ; but if he loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusts in Him as his personal, divine Saviour, and gives credible evidence of it in a Christian life, the door of the Presby- terian Church is open to him, and all the privileges of her hallowed communion are his." 218 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD If something more than such a simple confession should be required of those joining the new churches on the mission field, why should more be asked than the Apostles' Creed, as is customary in the missions in the Anglican communion and many others? There should be, of course, the most careful Bible teaching, both at home and abroad, but why should not Christ and the simple facts of Gospel faith, embodied in the Apostles' Creed, suffice as our united message and requirement? "The method of presenting Christianity," writes Professor Mu- kerji, of India, " will change with the country and the times, but not the body of the message. The questioner is right in refusing to accept anything as the norm of Christianity except the New Testament Christian- ity." 12. It is folly to say that there is no Western type of Christianity with statements and institutions distinctively Western. We know how real are the distinctive types of Roman, Greek and Teutonic Christianity — how wide the difference between the North and South American types, between the English and the Continental. Where we are aware of distinctions like these, it is impossible to imagine that the East is not aware of the reality of the Western character of our statements and forms. 13. It is true that much opposition to Christianity and much misunderstanding of its character are due to its essential principles and to its unhappy association, in Eastern minds, with the political misdeeds of the na- tions whose representatives are bringing Christianity, but these facts make it all the more important that the missionary problem should not be made more intricate and difficult by adding unnecessary elements of confusion and resistance. We remember the incident which Dr. Hume told at the Edinburgh Conference : WESTERN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 219 "Recently when I asked the one who is easily the most influential political leader in Western India, and who is also a religious man, what was his personal at- titude toward the Lord Jesus Christ, and what was his estimate of the probable increase of a reverential atti- tude to our Lord, he instantly replied : ' Jesus Christ is hopelessly handicapped by His connection with the West/ That was an exaggerated statement. But it is the simple fact that while many thoughtful Indians are being drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ, many are hindered and alienated by the organization and by some of the requirements of the Indian churches. For their sakes it is desirable that the Indian Church should grow on national lines, with more Indian modes of worship, music, organization, doc- trinal statements, and leadership." Where there is a necessary antagonism, due to funda- mental divergences, all unnecessary grounds for prejudice and misunderstanding should be laid aside. 14. Our present modes of presenting Christianity are not satisfactorily effective. Professor Hogg, of Madras, argues that the theology which we have worked out is designed to cover needs which the Hindu does not so deeply feel, while for other needs which he feels with crushing weight, our theology has no adequate message. " These two factors,'' he says, " obviously render it hope- less to expect to make the necessary spiritual impression by interpreting Christ to the Hindu directly in terms of our Western doctrines. There are only two alternatives open to us. Either we must set to work to develop in his mind a new framework of ideas which will make it possible for him to begin to feel our own type of spiritual hunger, or we must ourselves learn to feel his type of spiritual hunger and at the same time discover for our- selves in Christ the fulfillment of that hunger and learn to present Christ in that light." 220 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD And Principal Hogg goes on to state his conviction that we must follow both of these courses. What he so deeply feels was felt as the great problem of his life by the late Alfred Jones, of the Province of Shantung, who was convinced that our Western theological interpreta- tions fall far short of those universal statements of the Christian truth for which he sought with prayer and longing all his days, in order that Christ might be com- mended to those to whom Mr. Jones felt He might come through some less opaque medium than that through which the Church sought to communicate Him. 15. And lastly, the Church seems to be strongest in those lands where it has most completely emancipated itself from the West and begun to build its walls on the fundamental and universal elements in Christianity, sep- arated from the elements of theological divergence in the West. In Japan there are strong self-supporting in- dependent native bodies doing their own thinking, main- taining their own institutions, living their own life in Christ. Similar churches are found in Korea, in Africa and in other lands, and wherever they are found it is seen that they rest on the New Testament and upon those great Christian facts and principles which are indisputably universal in our faith. Ill Here, then, is a statement of the case on either side. One is tempted to go on enlarging the argument on one side or the other, or pointing out the fallacy or neces- sary qualification of that which has been urged. What general conclusion shall we draw? Obviously it is de- sirable to recognize the facts. Each of these views is held by earnest men who are acting upon them, and the situation with which we have to deal is a situation of WESTEEN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 221 reality. Men of mediating minds, I think, might recog- nize such points as these : I. The great body of Christian people who are carry- ing on the missionary enterprise and the great majority of the representatives whom they have sent out are now substantially one in Christian doctrine. Their agreement extends beyond the Apostles' Creed. How wide it is and how united is the statement of Christian facts and con- victions which it is possible to make is illustrated by the deliverance of the missionaries in Japan who, feeling the need of a united statement to the nation, issued in 1914 the paper entitled " A Message to the Japanese People," covering the following points : Jesus the Christ. The Fatherhood of God. The Kingdom of God. Son of Man and Son of God. Man and Sin. The Message of Christ. The Death of Christ. The Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ the God-Man. The Significance of the Cross. The Significance of the Resurrection. General Principles of Christian Living. The Christian Religion and Society. The Christian Religion and the State. The Christian Church and the Great Commission. Christian Worship. The Bible. If the missionaries in Japan can do this, so, also, can the missionaries In other lands, and a new power and unity would come to the movement in China and India and every other field. Perplexing problems which will 222 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD otherwise arise would be forestalled, and the great goals which we seek would be brought appreciably nearer if in each nation all the missionaries at work could agree on some such utterance as has been signed by 700 of the 1,000 missionaries in Japan, or if, even better, we could agree upon such a statement here at home. 2. Our chief difficulties in the way of union on the mission field spring not from doctrinal disagreements nor from the importation of Western creeds, but from our divergent views of polity and the sacraments, and from the types of action and temper of mind due to these divergences or producing them. Against atheism, ma- terialism and pantheism, all the Christian bodies speak with a common voice. It is in the matter of organization and sacrament, in the symbols which are the confessedly mortal elements, that our difficulties lie — not in the things that are unseen and eternal. 3. There is a life in Christ and a truth of Christ which all of us recognize, and in which we know ourselves to be one. The saints of all the ages and all the communions are our saints. Whatever the type of polity or of sacra- mental conviction, we recognize this unifying life. It binds all Christians, no matter how wide their divergences or contradictions. Monists and pluralists, individualists and socialists, Quakers and sacramentarians, independ- ents and Episcopalians,— all these and more recognize and joyfully acknowledge the unity both of life and of truth that they have in Christ. That unity surely should be our first message to the world. The exaltation of this idea of our common Christian possession is often spoken of in these days with some reproach as " the irreducible minimum," or " the lowest common denominator." But ought these phrases to intimidate us? Are they not es- sentially misleading? It is not minimum but maximum, WESTEEN THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS 223 not lowest but greatest common denominators with which we are dealing. Is it not a fact that our Lord is the common possession of us all— that we all find life in Him, that we all believe that the true Church is His body, and that all who are in His body must be in that true Church ? If we go on estimating our great body of common Chris- tian faith, do we come to a result that may be spoken of by Christian men in minimizing words ? Has not the day come at last when we may think as reverently and speak as boldly of the greater things in which we agree as of the lesser in which we differ? Are these latter entitled to a higher reverence than the former? How- ever dear they may be to us, however important to the whole Christian wealth, ought they not still to be given the place which the actual facts of Christianity assign them, and be thought of as a contribution of each part to the whole, and not as an exaction by each part from the whole. 4. It is this common experience of Christ, interpreted as it can only be interpreted by the body of the common evangelical truth, ministered to man as it may legitimately be administered by a wide variety of symbol, which is the central and indispensable thing in the kingdom of Christ. It ought to be the central and indispensable thing in the Church, otherwise we erect in the Church principles at variance with the principles of the kingdom of Christ and of heaven. These symbols and their in- terpretation will of necessity vary. No symbol is capable of a uniform universal application, but the central Chris- tian experience and the truth which produces it and which it embodies are universal in the same sense and degree to which the need to which they answer are uni- versal. In proportion as we perceive this and act upon it, as we are doing more and more, as a Power mightier than 224 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD we will lead us yet more and more to do, will our mis- sions to the world be lifted above the weakening in- fluence of whatever divides us or distorts Christian values by exalting secondary things into primary places and we will be given the authority which awaits our recovery of the accent that is universal and whole.. XI ARE A RESTATEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE TO THE NON-CHRISTIAN PEO- PLES AND A REINTERPRETATION OF THE MISSIONARY OBJECTIVE FOR THE CHURCH AT HOME NECESSARY? IT is bold to attempt to deal in any adequate way with such a theme as this is in a single chapter. And the bigness of it is not the only difficulty. There are still greater difficulties in its presumptuousness. Who is any individual that he should presume to state what the missionary message of the Church should be? The best that he can do is to speak his own small word, from his own narrow angle of vision. The message of the Church is a corporate message issued through diverse bodies of men, issued by many more processes than those which we control. One man would be vain and foolish indeed if he thought that single-handed he could advise his brethren or the Church as to what the state- ment or the restatement of the message in any period should be for all. I have done the best that one could do to check one's own limitations and weakness here by asking twenty or thirty trusted and capable friends if they would not help in suggesting what might be said. And I think nothing is said that has not the support of one or more, or all of these whom one may trust. There is the further element of difficulty, namely, that impossible comparisons are involved. It is a restatement 225 226 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD that is spoken of, a statement different therefore from some other statement. But what was that other state- ment? No one of us can say what the statement of the missionary message has been at any time. It has been uttered through many minds, in many different ways. Nobody can codify it in any single expression and say thus and thus has been the missionary message that now must be restated in our time. And definitions are involved, by virtue of the very necessity of these comparisons — definitions that of course for many raise and settle the whole issue. If on the one hand we mean by a restatement of the missionary message any tampering with its substance, our answer is unequivocally, " No.*' Time brings changes undoubtedly, different and larger understandings, altered modes of expression, but not even the great experiences through which we have been passing in the last four tragic years of human history have involved an) altera- tions whatever in the substance of the Gospel or of the elements of the message by which the Gospel has been expressed through the life of the Church. I am reminded of some recent words of Principal Garvie that have had their application to more experiences in human life than this one : " Informed and responsible theologians have not found it necessary to revise the articles of their faith, as the war has not disclosed facts about God or man, sin or salvation, life or death, duty or destiny, which had hitherto escaped their scrutiny." If this restatement means any denial of the facts, again we answer, " No." There are certain great facts that lie impregnably at the base of every form of this message, the fact of the incarnation and the fact of the resurrec- tion, and any restatement of the message that means ob- scuring those facts, or any tampering with those facts. A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 227 or any denial of those facts is a statement not for us in loyalty to our Lord and His truth. Or, once again, if this restatement contemplates now the attempt at any elaborate formulation of new creedal deliverances, we say, " No." Not because the old creedal deliverances are perfect, not because the day may not come when they will need to be revised and rewritten, but this is not the opportune time. In the non-Christian lands the Christian Church has not yet come to sufficient maturity to undertake this task, and the intellectual at- mosphere in which we live in the West is not now fa- vourable to such an undertaking. Or, in the fourth place, if we mean by this restatement any merely ethical or moral construction of the Gospel, slurring or denying its supernaturalism, again we answer, " No." I was reading the other day the letter which a former American University president wrote after a visit to China in commendation of the work of the Prince- ton Y. M. C. A, in the city of Peking, in which he said : "Although I was no more interested than I am now in the evangelistic work of the Y. M. C. A., I was very much struck with the work done at the Princeton Uni- versity Center at Peking, particularly in two subjects, in the English language and in athletics. The importation into China of baseball and other out-of-door sports is, to .my thinking, one of the very best services which Chris- tian missions there have rendered to the Chinese people." A good service, undoubtedly, but if it is proposed that the missionary instead of carrying the New Testament in his hand should bear instead an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue and the last rules of the National Baseball League, we say, " No." Those are interesting docu- ments but the old statement of the Gospel is better. One 228 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD does not deny that the leaves and the grapes are essential, but the Ufe of the vine is more necessary than any leaf upon the branches, or the clusters of grapes that it bears. We could better forego one whole harvest than to let go the abiding life that shall bring forth all the harvests through all the years. No doubt in days like these a good deal can be said in favour of what one of the preachers on the other side described as " a kit-bag religion," which he was urging upon the soldiers. Indeed there is need of an even simpler religion than will go into a kit-bag, a religion so simple that a little child can understand and bear it. But for the salvation of a world, for the dealing with the mighty and intricate problems that now confront us as we go forth into the new day, there cannot be any letting go of all that is dynamic and most central in that for which we stand, and the whole mighty outreach and implication of Christianity will be required. Or yet, once more, if by this restatement we mean atiy compromising adaptation with heathenism, we say, " No.'* It is not that we have not a great deal to learn ourselves. It is not a satisfying statement to our mind to say that we are going out to the other side of the world to lift these people to our level, to share with them that which we possess. We go out that we and they may be lifted to a higher level than we ourselves have won, and may know a great deal more than we ourselves have as yet achieved. There are hidden values in Christianity which are to be brought out by its offer to all men, the dis- covery of which will make us glad of undiscerned wealth in our own possession, but this is not to compromise with any falsehood, nor to hide anything essential, nor to surrender anything vital. If these are what men mean when they speak of a restatement, we say, " No." A EESTATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN MESSAGE 229 But on the other hand unmistakably the answer is, "Yes." There must be perpetually fresh restatements of everything, and again and again, in every life. There must be restatements adjusted to the audience to which ^the Gospel is addressed. What are our four Gospels but attempts to express the truth of the Gospel, and to tell the life of Christ to different types of mind and different bodies of men? They represent varying shades of tra- dition, guided by the Spirit of God, in the deliberate effort to restate the truth of the Gospel to the varying minds of men. What is the rest of the New Testament ? St. Paul's teaching, St. John's teaching, St. Peter's teach- ing, what is this but on the part of each of them an effort to state the Gospel in his way to the people to whom it was the will of God that he should go. And when we confront new audiences in our day, the Gospel IS not preached when we have said the words that satisfy us, it is only preached when the message has been spoken that makes Christ a reality, that enters or ought to enter the soul to whom the words are uttered. Men must be spoken to in the language of their own day and in the atmosphere which they themselves breathe. And the message must be uttered out of the growing life and experience of every man and the growing life and experience of the Church. Is there one of us who can repeat verbatim the addresses we made ten, five, or two years ago? Unhappy is the lot of that man who can. Life is an ever changing thing, an ever enlarging and expanding thing, and no man of us dare say to-day the same bare words that he said even a few years ago. New vision should have come to him, new understanding, new illumination that makes the whole statement of his message a richer, a more vitally veracious thing. And again "Yes," because even true forms of words lose 230 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD the grip of reality on men. The miracle of the Bible is that here are forms of words that never lose their grip. But take even the best of our creedal statements and there is not one of us who can preach those very words to-day. The words themselves have shifted their sig- nificances and demand a new interpretation. But these are general considerations. In the theme as it is proposed it is obviously assumed that there is some- thing in the situation that we are facing now that raises the question as to the necessity of a restatement of this message to the non-Christian people. Is that new state- ment necessary because of things peculiar in the condi- tions of this present time? Let me summarize the answers that have come in this correspondence to which I referred. " Yes," for these reasons : First, because of the great war. Let me quote three paragraphs from these letters : " A restatement of the Christian message is needed in Christian lands, let alone the necessity for it in the ap- proach to non-Christian lands. This appears necessary because of the new day in which we are living. War has carried us across the border line of one great era in human life into another great era. There has been a preparation of the heart and soul life of the peoples in Christian lands by the experience of the war which calls for a new statement of the Christian faith ; religious in- difference and atheism have disappeared in large sections of our people. The personal, moral, and spiritual life of men has been enriched by a new experience. A great new symbolism, expressive of sacrifice, loyalty, and obe- dience to high moral and ethical ideals and of service of a highly Christian character has become ours." Another writes : " I am not one of those whose conception of Chris- A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 231 tianity or whose conception of the missionary program of Christian missions has come through this war without very much modification. To summarize some of the impressions which the war has made upon my previous missionary conception, I will say the war has made me feel that the Christian message to non-Christian nations must be a broader message in its scope and application than it was before the war. Undoubtedly our conception of the Christian message has been very greatly individ- ualistic. The war has emphasized the necessity of en- throning Christian principles in the life of society and in the life of the nation." And a third : " The war has made great changes at home and abroad which have affected the economic, social, and moral con- ditions among the nations, both of the East and of the West; yet all these changes are in some sense superficial and not fundamental. They seem to me like the waves of a storm which may rise mountain high, but leave the depths of the ocean undisturbed and do not interfere with or divert by one hair's breadth the tides of the Gulf Stream. What I mean is this, that the character of the missionary problem remains exactly what it was before the war, because human character has not changed; nor the character of God. We have the same message and the same message is needed." But the friend who writes these words is illustrating in his own life new and vivid forms in which in this day that old message needs to be recast. " Yes," in the second place, because of the very nature of language. There is not a missionary who has not al- ready restated the Gospel by virtue of the necessity under which he was of phrasing that Gospel in a different vernacular from that in which he received it and in which all of his previous religious experience had been de- scribed. And whether abroad or here, the very necessities 232 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD of language oblige us constantly to vary the words in which the old message shall be expressed. For language is not a permanent and unchanging thing. As Justice Holmes said in a judgment of the United States Supreme Court in 1918, " A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the succession of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it was used." The singular thing about human language is that it perpetually contracts. It starts out as a great living metaphor, and little by little the metaphor dies out, until at last, when the metaphor is all gone, the language becomes capable of dead and rigid, that is, of strictly scientific, use. But when the language was first used, the living, breathing metaphor was all there. If men cling to the old speech when the life has gone out of it they are not stating the message in the terms in which it was stated when that language was all alive. In the third place, it is necessary because, while lan- guage is a steadily contracting thing, the perception of truth is an ever expanding thing. We cast the truth in certain words in one day. The next day those words mean less than they did the day before, and that truth has grown to be seen to be a bigger thing. As years go by truth lays hold upon us with greater grasp. Truth it- self becomes a bigger and richer thing to us and new forms must be found to contain the larger substance that we have won. In the fourth place, the restatement is necessary be- cause the elements essential to it, and demanding it, are found about us now on every side. There are new understandings, new sacrifices, the new light in which the cross of Christ stands out in its principle of abandon- ment, its principle of surrender, its principle of atone- A RESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 233 ment, made vivid and real to the world by our own and the world's tragic experiences. The shrinking of man- kind has given us the world as our term of speech, and our tool of work, and our field of action. There are new conceptions of the solidarity of mankind that make the ideals of St. Paul a possibility to our thought to-day. These and innumerable discoveries in the Spirit of God through our own experience have furnished us with elements that require to be incorporated now in more adequate representation. The message is the same and because the same is new and more. In the fifth place, restatement is necessary to-day be- cause at last we are beginning to lay hold of and to be laid hold of by what we speak of as the indigenous prin- ciple, the necessity of assimilating Christianity to the life of the world, instead of merely laying it down upon^ that life from some alien influence without. It is put in the words of the president of one of our oldest missionary organizations : " I do not know whether the question as it has been phrased for you was intended to refer only to doctrine or not. From my own point of view, I should assume that it was not, that it covered many other questions besides. In my own view, assimilation of Christianity in the in- digenous churches in non-Christian lands involves re- statement of almost everything. We are certainly aware how largely the statements of doctrine which have been current among us bear the marks of the history of thought which has been indeed the history of our ex- perience, but has not been the history of thought of other races. It seems to me therefore quite axiomatic that the Christian doctrine be restated by these other nations themselves as they come toward maturity, and that that process should be aided by our attempt to restate Chris- tian doctrines for their benefit in so far as we have the sympathy and insight which are necessary to the work. 234 THE GOSPEL AKD THE NEW WORLD And this remark is equally true of matters pertaining to organization and ritual and the application of Christianity to conduct and life." In the sixth place, this restatement is necessary be- cause of the new heresies that we confront to-day. What are the past creedal statements of the Church but the effort to safeguard the content of the Gospel against contemporaneous heresy? Those statements are valid I still wherever contemporaneous heresy is what it was jwhen those creeds were formulated. But we are facing i;new heresies to-day that men never dreamed of in the I old years of long ago, and our Gospel must be restated ISO as to protect its content against the actual heresies of 'our own time. And only once more it is necessary because we have come to realize afresh the living presence of God in his- tory. We have seen Him in the watchfires of a thousand circling camps. We have heard the thunder of His judg- ments on the land and sea. We see the unfolding of His will in all the current history of mankind. We have to state the Gospel in the terms of our living experience of God to-day, in a new understanding of what revelation means, of eternal truth made available for men. That means eternal reality cast in terms of time and space, the terms contemporary to the mankind to whom the revela- tion is to be made a living and real thing. One might fill a volume in amplifying these things of which I have been speaking. I have picked out of this correspondence only seven of the great grounds on which it is indispensable to-day that we should restudy the state- ment of our Christian message to the non-Christian world. But wherein, we must ask ourselves — the question surely means to carry us on to this — wherein and how is this restatement to be made, what are the forms of it, A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 236 and the notes to be struck in it? First of all, it is to be \ made by a return to the ideas, to the living idioms, to the ' experience of the New Testament. There are many men to-day who have been telling us that we need to get back to Christ, by which they mean that we must slough off all of the New Testament, except the Gospels, and all of the Gospels except the words of Jesus. Our understanding is different from this. We believe that our great need ,t to-day is to get back to the whole of the New Testament . I representation of the Christian Gospel, and that our re- ! statements will be found in reality to be only rediscoveries !■ of what we had missed in our previous readings of our f New Testament. Let me quote from two letters, one from one of the leading missionaries in Japan : " In our Western Christianity metaphysical and philo- sophical discussions have occupied so large a place as to give our conception of it a twist, and our presentation of it a form, which do not naturally appeal to the Oriental mind. The Gospel considered as a system of Divine Metaphysics, or as a plan of salvation whereby the indi- vidual soul is enabled to get to heaven, has never been enthusiastically received by them. Whereas the Gospel considered as the power of God to create new personality, to reform bad social custom, and to produce ideal national institutions at once awakens sincere and hearty response. " There is need, therefore, in presenting the Gospel to non-Christian nations that it first be delivered from its Western philosophic mould, and be offered in the sim- plicity with which Jesus Himself taught it, and for the purpose He had in view, viz., to establish the conditions of the Kingdom of God on earth. In other words, the Gospel message must be made more practical and distinctly social in all its outlook and operation." One more letter from one of the leading younger mis- 236 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD sionaries in China, a man from whom jve are going to hear much in the coming years : " The restatement of the Christian message, if it can make vivid those things which are dear to life and awaken the lagging interest of sinful men, is a thing much to be desired. A closer approximation to the Biblical forms and figures properly interpreted will, I think, produce such a restatement. It surely is a signifi- cant thing that for simplicity, perspicacity, and general utility the Biblical forms and figures seem peculiarly adapted to all nations. They are easy to grasp. As far as I am aware, there is no special difficulty in China with Biblical expressions and symbols as such. The difficulties such as there are have more to do with the idea than with the form of the expression. Christianity has brought many absolutely new ideas to China, and naturally there is difficulty in grasping these ideas. The difficulty would not disappear, however, upon the changing of the form; rather, it would grow larger, for if the form were changed before the idea was properly conveyed, there would be great danger of losing both form and content at the same time. For example, if one tried to explain the meaning of sacrifice as it is found in the Christian faith, Chinese forms could not help him at all, and the right idea could not be conveyed. I think the general principle is a sound one, that the Christian message stands in need of re- statement in proportion to its distance from the New Testament." First of all, accordingly, we need to restate our Chris- tian message in a new discovery and a larger loyalty to the New Testament, and second, thereby we need to do it with a new and clearer apprehension of right emphasis "and proportion. For the New Testament does not lay its | emphasis on metaphysical theory, it lays it on super^ i natural life. The New Testament does not lay its ' emphasis absolutely, as we have too often done, on one aspect of the application of the Gospel to humanity, A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 237 through the individual. The New Testament recognizes as clearly the solidarity of mankind. Its great conception of humanity is of a body in which every different section of mankind possesses membership, a body with a common life, of which Jesus Christ is the head. We are only be- ginning to-day to feel our way into the great daring ideals and conceptions of the New Testament, and in proportion as we get into them, we shall discover that what we speak of as the social restatement of the Gospel, in so far as it is a true statement, is only a return to the New Testament ideal of the collective body. If the solidarity of man- kind, if the reality of the collective principle and the communal spirit — and was there ever a day better fitted for the rediscovery of that principle than this? — were realized and lived as well as restated, what would happen ? What do we see in national unity to-day, in the power of great armies to gather up men, and to supply vicariously the courage of the body to the individual ; what have we seen in all this but a shadowing forth of the New Testa- ment ideals of the Christian Church, and the unity of mankind, and the reality of the collective application of the redemption of Christ to human solidarity? We will find in this return to the New Testament not only this rearrangement of emphasis and proportion, we will discover also the presence in the New Testament of what has often been apologized for by us, but what we know to lie at the very root of all human progress, the recognition of the principle of nationality. " My heart's desire and prayer is for Israel." There is the national conception. It dominated the Old Testament. It was not destroyed in the New. And just as in proportion as you perfect the family life, do you contribute the units that make possible the perfection of national personality, just so as you perfect national life, do you make possible 238 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD a real and effective international society. And we know the new power that the Gospel has had in China with this rediscovery. I am aware that one of our great dangers is the peril of the national proclamation of Christian truth. What is the history of Europe but the story and picture of the peril and danger of it? But the peril and danger do not absolve us from the duty of dealing with the task. And in proportion as we go back to the New Testament, we shall get not only our individual message made clear and distinct, but our social message will be affirmed, and set in right relationship, and we shall have a new national word to speak to the peoples that will kindle enthusiasm in hearts that have been cold to the statement that we have made to them in the past. Yet once more, we need to make this restatement by gathering up all the wealth and truth that is lying around about us now ready for our use. Dr. Griswold of India has written a valuable paper entitled " Non-Christian Rites and Their Christian Equivalents," and the idea of the paper suggests the line of thought I have in mind. All across the world there are these feelings of men after what will satisfy the deep need of their souls. The desires are there that Christ came to satisfy. It has been dif- ficult for us to bring ourselves to Christ's point of view in the matter, difficult for us to win the courage and the daring of Paul, but who can read Paul's epistles wdth any knowledge whatever of the contemporary thought in the midst of which he lived without seeing how he made everything tributary to his statement of the Gospel, how he laid hold on every point of contact round about him, and wherever he saw a little flicker of light tried to make the soul that nursed that flicker realize that in Jesus Christ that little flame found its fulfillment. In the blaze of the perfect day, in the Light of all the world? A EESTATEMEKT OF CHRISTIAN MESSAGE 239 In the fourth place, such statements need to be made — and I have misgivings at times as to whether everything else ought not to be left out and this one thing alone stressed — such statements need to be made as will recog- nize that what we want now and ever is not the form of words so much as the living, loving, thrilling, resistless power behind those words, living in those words, uttered through those words. I am thinking of the appeal of life and to life. Let me quote a letter from one of the younger men in another section of China, one of the half dozen coming leaders of the Christian body in the great republic of China. He is speaking of it as the last point in his reply. " In the fourth place, too much emphasis cannot be put upon the predominant part which the lives of the mis- sionaries themselves have in carrying the Gospel into new fields. Corruption and evil are only too evident all about one. The salt must not lose its savour if it is to preserve and heal. There is much to lower the morale of any missionary ; the separation from the home-land and from all that America stands for; the loneliness and depression which inevitably come from being surrounded by a people whose civilization is a century behind ours, whose stand- ards of life are largely untouched by the purifying power of Christian thought and example ; the narrowness of the daily outlook, where companions and outside interests are few in number ; the trying climate and conditions of living in an Oriental land that so often brings illness which must be endured without the usual medical care, — all these things tend to bring discouragement. Problems begin to look insurmountable ; small differences of opinion tend to develop and to threaten friendship ; every-day temptations are increasingly difficult to overcome. There is a great need for the actual incarnation of Christ's spirit in His disciples, of the warming and revivifying influence that can come only from the Divine Source. We do not need so much the * restatement of the Christian message ' as 240 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD we do a reincarnation of Christ's spirit in the messengers. New methods of approach, or emphasis upon these pre- paratory steps, are useless unless the ultimate reality of actual experience of Christ's power and presence is the goal. And there is encouragement in the fact that re- sponse to this Christian reality will always come." There is the need above all of the utterance by life to life, of the yearning of love, of the wooing of the cross, of the dynamic of the supernatural ethics of that cross, the subtle call of the mysticism of the invisible fellowship. I received a large package of papers from our friend, Howard Walter, the very week that the cablegram an- nouncing his death was received, and they were all in reality an appeal for the restatement of our Christian message in more unflinching mystical terms to the non- Christian world, and especially to the great groups of questioning spirits whom he was meeting among the Mohammedan peoples of the Punjab, who had been touched by the Sufi influence. Far more than any mere tinkering with the language, we need the incarnation of the reality in men's lives, the reality which is felt by men and lived by men, which will utter itself in words that carry their piercing and healing significance to men's souls. I was reading recently, in the second volume of the life of Bishop Westcott, the tribute that Canon Scott Holland paid in The Commonwealth to Westcott's social influence, and to all that he and his friends had owed to him. This is what he wrote : "The real and vital impression made came from the intensity of the spiritual passion which forced its way out through that strangely knotted brow, and lit up those wonderful gray eyes, and shook that thin high voice into some ringing clang as of a trumpet. There was a famous A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 241 address at the founding of the Christian Social Union, de- livered to us in Sion College, which none who were pres- ent can ever forget. Yet none of us can ever recall in the least what was said. No one knows. Only we know that we were lifted, kindled, transformed. We pledged ourselves ; we committed ourselves ; we were ready to die for the Cause ; but if you asked us why, and for what, we could not tell you. There he was; there he spoke; the prophetic fire was breaking from him; the martyr-spirit glowed through him. We, too, were caught up. But words had only become symbols. There was nothing verbal to report or to repeat. We could remember noth- ing except the spirit which was in the words; and that was enough." Not one of them could remember a single word that Westcott had spoken, not one of them could recall a single thought to which he had given utterance in that address, but every one of them traced back to it transforming in- fluences. They were carefully chosen words, as we may know. And the thought was no reckless and unguarded thought. But what had left its impress and gone home was neither the word nor the thought, but something deeper than both — a life in him that found the life in them. And yet once more this message must be restated in terms of unity, not in terms of our differentials. Our message to the non-Christian world must to-day be brought resolutely under the category of our agreements, of our united Christian faith. We play false with Christ, we play false with the world to-day in so far as we break the central unity of His great message which every one of us can affirm in the symbol of our faith that we call the Apostles' Creed. In so far as we obscure those great central convictions by secondary issues we misinterpret the message that we are sent to bear to the non-Christian world. 242 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD And now one comfort about it all is that no one of us individually can restate the message. It is a corporate task. In the past the statement of the Gospel has been adequate only in proportion as there has been an adequate corporate statement of it. It can only be stated ade- quately by our collective witness to-day. There will be room in the mission field, thank God, for those men who see the truth in many different ways. One great Chris- tian experience will be dominant in this life, and another in that life. There is room for all of us there, and if only we be obedient to the One Great Spirit and docile to the One Great Head, the Lord of us all will make sure that our united deliverance adequately represents Him. And I am not one of those who believe that the mis- sionary enterprise is the only voice by which the revela- tion is coming to the world. I do not believe that the Christian Church is the only institute of religion in the United States. I conceive the state and the family to be as truly divine as the Church, and if two of the three were to be dispensed with, the Church would not be the last. We read of that Heavenly City that will some day come from God out of Heaven, and there will be a family and a state, a King and a Father, and there will be children there. But, as has been said, John saw no temple therein. There are more forces working in the world than those we think of as contained in the distinctive missionary enterprise which we carry forward. We believe it is central, we believe it bears the message in greatest purity, we believe that without it all else is dead, but thank God, He works with greater wealth than we command, and He has forces operating in the world to fulfill His ends be- yond those that we control and they too help to speak His word. And now there is room for but a brief reference to the A EESTATEMENT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 243 second aspect of this theme — whether a reinterpretation of the missionary objective is necessary in the Church at home. The theme does not speak of a restatement of the missionary appeal or a reinterpretation of the mis- sionary motive. It speaks of a reinterpretation of the missionary objective. Is that necessary at home ? Well, there is no space for any comparison of what we conceive to be the missionary objective now with what men conceived it one or two or three generations ago. And I believe that a great many of our ordinary judg- ments on this subject are wrong, because we do not ade- quately apprehend what was the missionary objective as men conceived it one and two, or three generations ago. Perhaps every supposed novel restatement of that ob- jective which we hear to-day one might undertake to match out of missionary literature, thirty, fifty, seventy- five years old. All that we can here do is to state simply and constructively what are to be the notes and the order in which those notes are to be struck, as we speak of the missionary objective of our own times. First of all, our objective is to preach Jesus Christ to persons and to the world as the Saviour of men from sin and unto life. And if men are contemplating any reinter- pretation of the missionary objective to the Church that leaves out that objective or that sets it elsewhere than in the first place, the missionary undertakings of our evan- gelical churches will define their objectives otherwise for thernselves. We set in the first place unqualifiedly, to be dominant over everything else, that the objective of the missionary enterprise is to make Jesus Christ known as the Saviour of men from sin and unto a divine life. Second, it is to diffuse the Gospel as light amid the darkness of the society of the world; that by its gradual illumination it may drive out the night and bring with it 244 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD the health and healing that come with the wholesomeness of the day. Third, it is the use of the power of the Gospel by its principles and life to change not only individuals and human society, but national personalities. Let me quote from another letter : " In a somewhat similar fashion there must be a re- statement of the Missionary Program for the Church at home. If our aim is, frankly, to usher in the Kingdom of God in non-Christian lands, then we must recognize all the forces that are used of God, and that must be used, in order to accomplish that end. Now many of us have in a somewhat smug and provincial fashion regarded the Missionary Movement as the only agency through which God was accomplishing His purposes in humanity. We have argued for our program on the ground that if it were actually carried out everything would be included, and we have defined our program very largely in terms of the presentation and the heralding of the Gospel to the in- dividual. Nevertheless, Germany is an illustration of the inadequacy of such a definition. Here was a great country where the Bible was really acceptable to the people; where the Church was established as an institu- tion; where there were enough people genuinely evan- gelized to become radiating centers for the Gospel throughout the entire country. In other words, Germany was a country that was evangelized as fully as our ambi- tions for the evangelization of lands now non-Christian would require. Nevertheless Germany was the cause of a great World Tragedy." Here we go beyond the distinctive foreign missionary responsibility, however. No nation is wholly Christian, and if Foreign Missions are responsible for making them so then, it may be asked. What fields are not foreign mission fields ? Foreign Missions are not the only Chris- A EESTATEMEKT OF CHEISTIAN MESSAGE 245 tianizing agency. Their duty is to begin the work. Other forces are to end it. But the end must be fore- seen and aimed at in the beginning. In the fourth place, it is to exercise the ministry of Christian internationalism upon the great problems of the present time, supplying the ideals on which alone a world society ever can be set up, and what is more difficult still, contributing the spirit of confidence and trust and the emancipation from suspicion without which no League of Nations can come into existence, or if it comes into existence, can survive. In the fifth place, to demand the fulfillment of their missionary obligation by national societies. Never can we complete the task set forth for the Christian Church to do throughout the world as long as that task is frustrated by the influence of nominally Christian nations. As one of these correspondents says : " It is well known that the non-Christian nations are always more affected by example than by precept, and it can hardly be questioned that in the present emergency the most powerful restatement of the Gospel message that could be made to the non-Christian people would be that the Christian nations practice it themselves. The words of our Christian President have gone out to the ends of the earth as an awakening evangel, and if the ideals which he has advocated, or, better still, if all the ideals which Jesus Christ advocated could be exemplified nationally and internationally by Christian nations, the message of the Gospel would be invincible in every land where the Gospel is proclaimed. " In other words, while the present crisis calls for a restatement in words of the Gospel message to non-Chris- tian nations, it calls with even greater insistence, and as an essential preliminary, that the principles of the King- dom of God forming the basis of that message should be actually realized among us, and should be manifested in 246 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD all the outgoings of our national life. Only thus can we expect our message to be fully understood and believed by the people that make up those non-Christian nations." In the sixth place, we must set clear among our reinter- pretations of the objective the heroic and the courageous and the sacrificial principle. In so far as our missionary enterprise has gone down to any other level than that, it has been untrue to its origins and has only sowed the seeds of its own impotence and decline. The missionary enterprise grew out of the sacrifice of the Son of God, it went out through the world asking men who were to bear the message that they should give everything, never turn- ing back, counting no price, deeming every human rela- tionship secondaiy in comparison with that central claim, and thereby glorifying in that claim every human tie. To-day, once again, we have been called back by all that we have seen and suffered to realize that only as we keep this enterprise on this plane will it be true and strong and hold the secret of convincing appeal to the hearts of the young men and the young women of our time. One has many searchings of conscience in this matter, in practical things, day by day, in what we spend upon our food, in what we spend upon our comforts, in our own personal tastes and pleasures, and relationships. One has many searchings of conscience in these things, and one longs again for the return of the heroic days. They came back for a little while in the war. It was then for the soldier no question of salary, of terms of employ- ment, of comforts of living, it was then no question of such things in these days that have just gone by. We must recast the missionary enterprise and its appeal in terms as exacting and as sacrificing as those, in terms that ask men for absolutely everything, if we wish to keep it true and powerful still. A RESTATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN MESSAGE 247 And last of all, we must go out in this new day with a more aggressive dauntlessness in the assertion of the missionary obligation. We never had any ground for making apologies for it. If we ever thought we had, that thought is baseless to-day. One of our correspondents writes : " I believe we can now restate the program in three aspects in a way which would be new to most in the Church. " I. As to its naturalness. Heretofore, it has been counted an unnatural thing to have a world-wide concern or to feel a world-wide responsibility. It should be pos- sible now to state in new and fresh terms that the mis- sionary program is native (a) to the nature of Christi- anity, and (b) to the nature of the race. There is a wide-spread feeling that the churches of Christendom mean by bulk of forces to propagate Christianity. We can now point out that this is not our design. The whole method of international cooperation has made the pro- posal of evangelization by native effort wholly natural. As the Roman Empire made natural the conception of a world-wide force which should yet leave large native freedom, and so prepared the way of the Christian con- ception, so this recent world movement and world co- operation prepares the way for a new outlook on the naturalness of the missionary program. Any minister who speaks haltingly about the missionary program in •these days reveals that he has missed this new-world conception of it. " II. As to its possibility. Multitudes in the Church have always thought of the missionary program as a beautiful dream of a few idealists who never discussed among themselves rationally the feasibility of their plan. Within five years I have had an active Christian point out to me that neither in men nor in money was this pro- posal feasible. The impossibility was urged also on the ground of essential antagonism between the nations, the ideals of one nation conflicting hopelessly with those of 248 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD another, etc. Of course the program can now be re- worded in very daring terms. We have found that when heart enough is put into any program, there are money and men enough for it. Ministers will find that congre- gations are thinking in terms of the other side of the world as they never did before, and while there will be nothing new to the more thoughtful leaders in this accent on the possibility of the program, it will be a revelation to the people who have been laboriously but hopelessly supporting the movement. " III. As to its unity. Of course among those of us who have observed carefully the work abroad there will be nothing new here except a new application of wholly familiar principles, but there can be no doubt that in the Church at large there are multitudes of people who think of the missionary program in terms of their own churches. There came to my desk this morning from one of my recent students an order of a Thanksgiving service which he had planned, in which all the religious forces of the community, including Catholics and Jews, took their part. It is not to be supposed that the post-war conditions will make that kind of thing possible at all points but we have our opportunity to restate our missionary program in similar terms. It will be no more than we have been do- ing for years, but it will be more than the Church has been heeding. The difficulty has been and will still be with some of the brethren that conviction and fellowship seem conflictive to them. How to carry one's deep convictions into fellowship with a man of another set of convictions is difficult in private life. It is even harder to do in ecclesiastical life. I suppose we will run into the same snags but there is a wider channel open now than we have ever known before. We can restate the missionary pro- gram as though it were the one task of the one Church, and in its name we can challenge the churches to recog- nize themselves as the Church." He ends with this hope that by taking advantage of this present opportunity, the Churches, though Churches still, might do in the world the work and make upon the A EESTATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN MESSAGE 249 world the impression of the one Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe that is the word with which one might best end. And yet there is one other word better to end with than that. Our thoughts of the Church are, many of them, tainted and incomplete, and we are perpetually talking of it in language about its bigness, the bigness of the appeal that it can make, especially its financial bigness. Is that a wholly true note? There is nothing in bigness that is going to accomplish our task for us, or that has kinship to the little child born in a manger who had nowhere to lay His head, who lived a poor man and died poor, with no booty for His murderers except the one white robe which He wore. No, Jesus Christ is the word to end with, and the thought. In proportion as we know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable to His death ; in pro- portion as the Gospel that we preach is not words about Him, but the Lord Himself; in proportion as the one great objective that controls us and that we hold up be- fore men is Christ, in that proportion do we work with truth and unto victory. I know that this carries with it its own limitations. The world thinks that it is bigger than Christ. But Christianity is the acceptance of the liberty and power that spring from the limitations of God in the Incarnation, and of the freedom and strength that flow from our limitations in the bondage of Christ. XII IDEALS OF MISSIONARY SERVICE WHEN we reflect upon the ideals of missionary service our minds almost inevitably turn to comparisons between the present and what we think of as the giant and heroic days. We pass in review the conditions under which missionary work had to be done then and the conditions that environ us to-day. We think of the provision then and now for the education of missionary children, the ideals that prevailed then and our practice to-day with regard to the length of the term of service and the frequency of furloughs. Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson and Walter Lowrie among the home administrators stand out before our minds and it becomes almost impossible for us not to fall into thoughts of com- parison between their days and our own. Now one wonders whether comparisons of this kind are really possible. Surely they are very difficult to make with justice and with truth. I attempted a little while ago to study in our missionary records this matter of the length of term of missionary service, whether it was true that prior, say, to the year i860 the average length of missionary career was greater than it has been since i860, and it proved to be almost impossible to form any really just and trustworthy judgment even on that subject. We know our term of comparison, but we do not know ade- quately, and I do not suppose we ever can recall the other term. Furthermore, even if we could make the compari- 250 IDEALS OF MISSIOKABY SEEYICE 251 son, one wonders whether it would be really valuable. Either we would decide that the old ideals were higher than our present ones, or we would decide that our present ideals are higher than the older ones, and either way, the results would be negative and barren. It is a great deal better for us to set up the absolute ideal that laps across all the years and the generations and then to let our time measure itself against that abso- lute ideal ; to think not of whether or not the men of a former day had more devotion and courage and per- sistence than the men and women of our day, or the re- verse, but how we in our own day are comparing with the perfect standard that we hold up before ourselves in the life and character and ministry and principles of action of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And I wish to pick out here a few of the capacities, the elements of char- acter, the principles of action embodied in our highest missionary ideal by which we can judge what we are actually achieving in our missionary work to-day. First of all, it seems to me that we ought to adhere to the ideal of missionary work as a permanent life service. There will undoubtedly be exceptions. Men and women will be obliged to leave the missionary work on account of conditions which they cannot control. And again and again the indications of Providence will lead them, as they have led many men and women whom we know who are in this work, to transfer their service to some other de- partment of the missionary work than the immediate activity upon the foreign field. We have to-day in the use of short term missionaries an increasing tendency to abandon this ideal of permanent life service. There is something to be said undoubtedly in behalf of this larger use of short term missionaries, young men and women going out for two or three or five years, as the case may 252 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD be. It is argued with justification in its behalf that young men and women of this kind are valuable when perma- nent workers cannot be secured ; that there is an economy involved in it, because they always go out unmarried, are accepted only on that basis; that they bring a certain freshness and vigour into the life of the schools where they come; that young men and young women going in this way are able to mingle on an equality with the students, as older men and women are not able to do; and furthermore, there are many of these who are not prepared to make the final decision, but who by this prac- tical experience in missionary work are enabled to decide favourably toward a permanent commitment of their lives to it. All that is valuable. On the other hand, it needs to be recognized that the element of economy is more apparent than real. The travelling expenses are just as great for these as for any others, and they have to be met more frequently. In the second place, it involves a great burden of administra- tion, because they have to be perpetually replaced, while other workers stay through long periods of time or for the whole of life. It has to be recognized, also, that it is introducing an element of educational inefficiency and immaturity, which in India is already beginning to awaken the objections of the government educational inspectors. And there is the one other difficulty, that it tends to break down the ideals of permanent service in the missionary undertaking. Now power comes with experience and with time. It is the man who has had twenty, thirty, forty years who is worth more than any other type of worker in the mis- sionary undertaking. And in the service of the Boards here at home we also know how valuable is the long term of activity. It is only when the man has been in the IDEALS OF MISSIOKAEY SERVICE 253 work for a long time that he begins to feel at home in it, that he lays hold on the principles and has that adequate background of missionary knowledge, of comprehension of the broad philosophic principles that underlie our undertaking, which makes him worth what a man in his place ought to be worth to the Church at home and the missionary administration abroad. I believe that we need to adhere tenaciously to the ideal of missionary work as a permanent life service and to resist as much as we can the tendencies that break down that ideal. In the second place, I think we need to hold fast to a principle of devotion in the missionary enterprise that is superior to and independent of all external conditions whatsoever. We need to keep the motive in the enter- prise such as would have started the enterprise if it were not in existence. We cannot afford to maintain it now on principles that would not have produced it at the be- ginning. There are a great many influences that introduce the conception of experiment, of probation, of tentative ideal in connection with the missionary undertaking. We need to beware of the ultimate influence that will result from all conceptions of that kind. We want in the missionary undertaking such a power of motive as will laugh at any disappointments it may encounter on the field, or as, if it does meet any conditions which it did not anticipate — as it invariably will — will simply be able to override and conquer them by its independent and indestructible power. It is there to hold fast, whatever the outer circumstances and discouragements may be. In the third place, we need to hold to the ideal of the spirit of love as the central element in our undertaking. And nothing is further from one's thought in the matter than the merely sentimental construction of that principle. 254 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW "WORLD I am thinking of love as the great set of the will, as the most positive virile energy in our lives. We need to keep this dominant in our whole undertaking. Love, for one thing, is that element in character which demonstrates in ourselves and in all our relationships and activities the truth of the message that we proclaim. We are preach- ing to the world a Gospel that we say is adequate to deal with any situation whatever and to conquer any sin. If it is not able to conquer dissension in the mission station, what veracity is there in our message? We have got to have a power of love that will bind men together, no matter how much the instinctive disinclinations of their temperaments to come together may be ; a power of love that will apply the Gospel and enable works to be seen that will glorify God inside the community of the mission station itself. We need it as an energy of propaganda. There is no more powerful energy of propaganda than love, the capacity to make friends, the contagion of personal af- fection, that quality in men and women that makes it im- possible for other men and women to distrust them or to hold aloof from them, that draws men and women to the Master by showing forth the spirit of the Master in the lives of those who draw in His name. And we need this ideal of love quite as much as a prin- ciple of missionary administration. When it comes to solving the problem of transition of authority from a mission to a native church, the euthanasia, as Henry Venn used to call it, of the missionary and his authority, and the supplanting of all his dignity and prominence by those whom he has trained, nothing will carry us through the problems that go with that period, except the spirit of love, real love, construed in the terms in which we see it exemplified in the life of our Lord. IDEALS OF MISSIONARY SEEVICE 255 In the fourth place, missionary administrators need among themselves, as well as in the missions on the field, a living, quick and irrepressible intellectual energy and vitality and alertness; for they are dealing vi^ith tremen- dous problems, problems on which no man's mind can lie down and fall asleep. If there is one activity in the world that calls for perpetual study, for ceaseless think- ing, it is the activity in which they are engaged. In one of the reports of the Board of Missionary Preparation there is a letter of Dr. Gulick of Japan in which he speaks of the desirability of every missionary being an intellec- tual authority in some one line. Unless a man is that, unless he knows more than other men in some one line, he cannot have the influence that he will have everywhere if on one subject everybody will say, " That man knows more about that subject than any of the rest of us know." It may be a very small matter. Dr. Henry H. Jessup's knowledge of geology in Palestine, and Dr. Adolphus Good's knowledge of butterflies in western Africa — and you might multiply these illustrations indefinitely — were real missionary assets. There must not only be intellectual vitality and alert- ness in this regard, but the missionary and the worker at home must be a perpetual reader. I read a missionary speech a little while ago in which one missionary was advising his fellow missionaries to read at least one book a year. Assuredly, but one fears that a man whose speed is measured in that way cannot stand up very long. There must be more velocity than that even to keep erect, much less to speak of any momentum. Every man is quite apt to dry up, his mind become lazy and weak un- less he is a perpetual reader. One book a year is nothing for us to think about. Every missionary ought to read at least one book a month. Many of them can and ough^ 256 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD to read one book a week, and workers in the mission boards at home ought not to think as an ideal of reading less than one new book, a good book, every week, if they want their minds to keep alert and alive and well fur- nished and quick and eager. And beyond this thing missionary workers at home need this intellectual alertness in order that they may really enter into the broad intellectual problems that are stirring the life of all these peoples across the world. Missionaries do enter into the political life of these peo- ple, but we do not enter enough into their intellectual life, the shiftings of the bases of their thought, the great prob- lems that they are dealing with, their solutions of those problems. If we really want to measure up to the ideals of our task we must be intellectually alive to these things and more alive than any men and women with whom we are dealing. In the fifth place, our ideals to-day must include spiri- tual originality, first-handedness. We are givers of life, bearers of light to these lands. A light can only be car- ried as it is itself original light. We have got to take life out to these people. Life is not a transportable thing except as it is an original life by and in itself. We need to go out to these fields not with qualifications of the parasitical type, but with an original first-hand contact with the source, a knowledge of truth that is our own knowledge, not a borrowed knowledge from anybody else ; an acquaintance with life that is our own acquaintance, that makes it possible for us to say in as true a way as John said it, " That which my eyes have seen and my ears have heard and my hands have handled of the Word of Life communicate I to you." We have a great prom- ise on which we ought to be relying, " Out of the depths of his life shall pour torrents of living water." IDEALS OF MISSIONARY SEEVICE 257 And last of all we must hold fast in our missionary ideals to a purpose of effort, of tireless, indomitable, un- resting — using that word with its proper qualifications and offsets — unresting toil and energy of action. Now this is one of the hardest things in missionary life. Any man who has spent any time in the tropics knows what a hard thing it is to keep the fires burning as hot and the engines driving as hard under those conditions as here in our temperate climate with all the accelerations that come with our changing seasons. Here we meet an- other set of missionary problems regarding the conditions of the missionary's home life: that he should have a sanitary, hygienic dwelling and proper food, and that his mind should be relieved from all unnecessary care so that every condition should be afforded that will keep his energies at the highest, and enable him to pour the fullest maximum of power and energetic action into his doing of his tasks. And a great deal depends, of course, upon standards. " You know," somebody said to Lyman Beecher once re- garding a certain man, " that he has too many irons in the fire." " Too many irons in the fire ? " said old Lyman Beecher ; " bless me, that cannot be done. Why, a man ought to have all his irons in the fire, and the shovel and the tongs and the poker and the coal scuttle, too." And that is perfectly true. Unless a man does have every- thing he has got in the fire, he won't have anything hot enough to do anything with. There are limits, to be sure. The whole of life is com- pensations and offsets. Nevertheless, this is the prin- ciple that we really deeply need. There are a few who are in danger of being too active in our Lord's service, but they are very few. Not many men break down be- cause of overwork. There is something else besides 258 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD overwork that breaks them down. A score of other things may be there. Now and then there will be over- work. Now and then one over-conscientious man who has not a physically good basis of equipment will overdo it; and many and many a man knows how much easier it would be for him to throw himself out than it is to hold himself wisely and judiciously in check as he realizes that he must. All this has to be taken into account, but after it has been, these things are true: we are called to be fellow builders, men who create, who construct, who erect, who leave something where there was nothing before. That is what St. Paul called himself and all men who had the same ideal, fellow builders with God. We are that. In our missionary work we have to keep that foremost in our thought all the time. It is an invisible building, to be sure. I do not mean that every man has to build an organization or a visible institution. A great many more men and women are needed who will be satisfied with in- visible building in these days, to let their structure be the kind that the eyes do not look on, but that will endure the tests of fire at the last and remain when those testing fires are burned down to ash and cinder. And to bring it closely home in personal life we need the principle which is in one of Dr. Bonar's hymns. We sing it again and again, but do we actually live it as we might, on the field or in our support of foreign missions at home? "Time worketh; let me work too. Time undoeth; let me do. Busy as time my work I ply Till I rest in the rest of eternity. " Sin worketh; let me work too. Sin undoeth; let me do. Busy as sin my work I ply Till I rest in the rest of eternity. IDEALS OF MISSIOKAEY SEEYICE 259 "Death worketh; let me work too. Death undoeth; let me do. Busy as death my work I ply Till I rest in the rest of eternity/* XIII MISSIONARY ORGANIZATION AND LIFE THE methods of work of two well-known men of letters have recently been described by those magazine writers to whom nothing is secret and by whom nothing is hid. One of these men was a novelist and the other an historian. Their processes of production wxre far removed from the ways of Scott and Gibbon. Instead of sitting down alone and writing out with their own hands the material gathered by experience and conversation and their own laborious and exacting research, these authors set about their work with the full equipment of a commercial agency or business organiza- tion. There were extensive and scientifically equipped offices, with investigating and recording clerks, card catalogues and filing cabinets of material, typists and their machines. The authors came in for regular office hours, to go over the materials prepared and to dictate from them the articles or books which would be sub- jected to various well-organized revising processes and then issued as the finished output. If the spontaneity and genius of literature have taken up the methods of busi- ness organization and efficiency it may be assumed that these methods have come to prevail almost everywhere. Factories of letters mean factories of all else. If litera- 260 MISSIONABT ORGANIZATION AND LIFE 261 ture can be organized and manufactured, why should not the same processes be applied, as they are, to patriotism, business, war, politics, religion and missions? It is of course very different from the old days. A missionary from an old Pietist community on the conti- nent, passing through New York City some years ago and visiting one of the missionary boards in a great building of its own on the principal street and going through its scores of offices with a hundred and more employees and the equipment and organization of a modern business, was cast down by it all. It seemed to him an alien world into which he had come. His own mission was such a simple affair. Its home office was a back parlour in a family home and its machinery consisted of small groups of pious people with simple collections of their gifts, and of little more. But after all in literature and missions alike it is a matter of spirit and degree. Scott writing his books with pen and ink on paper and scattering them by the tens of thousands by means of the printing press and the book trade, and Gibbon mastering his materials in great libraries and moulding them into his massive history are farther removed from Homer and Herodotus than we are from Scott and Gibbon. And the missionary trans- formation from St. Paul to Carey is over a larger and wider chasm than from Carey to us. Even from Boni- face to the founding of the London Missionary Society is a longer step and a more radical change than from the founding of our foreign missionary societies to their present development and organization. This elaboration of missionary machinery is not con- fined to the home administrative office. It is seen on the mission field. There the individual missionary speak- ing to men in conversation or In public address about Christ is now an inadequate representation of missions. 262 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD There are great institutions, schools, hospitals, presses, industries. There are committees and conferences. Hun- dreds of agents are employed and must be supervised and paid. Many missionaries sit in offices just like secre- taries at home and do their work by writing letters, or by deciding problems in whose immediate incidence upon life they do not share. And nowadays there is yet an- other region in which organization proposes to outdis- tance all that has been dreamed of in the past. And the past, it must be remembered, dreamed of a good deal. One needs only to read the lives of missionary leaders both in Great Britain and in America in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially lives like Alexander Duff's and Jeremiah Evarts', to see that we have much less to teach them in the way of organization than we suppose. But we have something to teach even them and a great deal more to teach their generation. We are proposing now by publicity and advertisement, by the prudent use of the lessons of mass psychology, by parish organization and methods of benevolence, by the rational adaptation of principles of business efficiency and organi- zation to " sell foreign missions " (this is the technical phrase) to the whole Christian public, and for that matter to the non-Christian public also. As a capable advertis- ing man wrote us : " If some patriotic layman of the Presbyterian Church would put $250,000 at the disposal of an advertising agency that I could name — not my own — that agency would give you plans for securing say treble or quadruple as much missionary money for the Presbyterian Church as has been raised any year yet, with less general over- head charges in proportion than it now costs, and with the big asset of vastly increasing, for future years, mis- sionary good-will. " Would this agency guarantee it ? MISSIONARY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 263 "No, but with the experience of business as success- fully promoted, with records that can be shown of big commercial undertakings in these days when men are thinking in world terms, I know it can be done." In other words, missions need in order to succeed only a sensible and courageous use of the methods of business organization. As my friend's letter shows, you must spend money in order to get it. That is now the larger part of the cost of missionary administration. The machinery and the expense of actually conducting missionary work, of using the money given and of directing the enterprise have increased little. Proportionately to the volume of the work they have much decreased. The large increase in the administrative expense of missionary boards has been in the home department, the promotion of intelli- gence and the collection of funds. Here, as the advertis- ing men all inform us, " It is just a matter of how much you are willing to spend. If you spend so much in pro- motion you will get so much. If you double your outlay you will double or more than double your income. It is recognized that the real power is in ideas, but the ideas are powerful in proportion as they are in circulation and circulation costs money. Of course a man can go around and if he is a vivid personality he can propagate the idea, but he represents outlay— his travel and his own cash value as a promoter. And the day is gone by for trust- ing to such personalities. We know now the psychology of the whole thing and a man like the prophets of one generation or two or three or a hundred generations ago is a waste as an individualistic itinerant. He needs to be used and to use others. A press agent, a wise advertising man, a campaign manager and a proper follow-up system would net a hundredfold bigger result from a prophet 264 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD than you will ever get from a prophet let loose after the old style." II There is a kinship and yet an immense distance be- tween this and the eager interest of the rapidly spreading talk about the lakeside long ago when Jesus was pub- lishing His wonderful message and stirring men with His call, " Come after Me and I will make you fishers of men." There is a resemblance and yet what a dif- ference. What was Christ's ideal and method for Himself? There were no limitations in God, prescribing the form which the Incarnation should take. Jesus might have been born in any social level or in the way of any natural advantages. He might have come as the son of Caesar, as a man of wealth, or as a master of organization. He rejected all these forms of influence and deliberately subjected Himself to conditions which deprived Him of any method of action except simple personal influence. This is the last thing we should have descended to in His place. One of the first things we would do in setting out to undo all wrong and establish all righteousness would be to enlist legislation and the forces of government which make legislation operative. We must change the order of society, we maintain. But Jesus would have nothing whatever to do with politics. He discouraged every effort to politicize His mission, and He entirely divorced His method from every suspicion or possibility of political entanglement. Next to the conviction that without legislation nothing of a radical or adequate character can be done, is our modern axiom that money is indispensa- ble. We speculate on the power of v/ealth to produce moral and spiritual reforms. We make plans for the extension of the Kingdom of God, which need only wealth MISSIONAEY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 265 behind them to revolutionize the world. " With wealth," we say, unconsciously altering a great saying of Christ's, *' nothing is impossible." Indeed the logic of our attitude often would drive us to complete the parody : " With God it is impossible, but not with money ; for with money all things are possible." Jesus never spoke thus. Such ideas never entered His thought. Money in any ca- pacity, least of all as a method of influence, was of no interest to Him. His references to it are usually con- temptuous. The idea of relying upon gold to alter character and to make dead men live would have seemed pitiful to Him. As for organization, which is the third great reliance of our day, that, too. He treated with a silent indifference. Our great generals and engineers and merchants and statesmen to-day are the organizers, the men who arrange men and classify them and fix their grades and orders and swing them as a mechanism. Jesus, however, was not a mechanic in this sense. He had earned His bread by a trade, but religion was not a trade to Him. He was not a drill-master nor a manipu- lator of men. When His disciples urged Him to set up some sort of organization and assign them their place in it. He refused, and He died at last without having done anything whatever to assure the permanence of His movement by organization. Now legislation and wealth and organization are all legitimate and noble agencies for the accomplishment of right ends. Men act with propriety when they seek to subordinate these forces to the ends of the Kingdom of God. Jesus, however, did not do so. He was neither a political nor a financial figure. He just went about in a simple fashion, talking to people, telling them His ideas, giving help here and there in a tender, sympathetic way, doing good generously but by no means indiscriminately, 266 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD laying out His life upon any responsive life He could find, " catching men," to use His own expression, and catching them not in multitudes or by great orations but in quiet individual v^ays ; and then He died and that was the end of it. Was that the end of it? Indeed that was only the beginning of it. We see now that what was going on so quietly and unostentatiously there in a se- cluded corner of the Roman Empire was the greatest up- heaving movement of all history. If we compare our modern organized way with St. Paul's fashion of work the resemblance may be a little clearer but the difference is scarcely less clear. He surely was an organizer. He sought out the capable young men and laid responsibility upon them. He formed great projects and adopted measures and selected men with a far-sighted and deliberate view to achieving his ends. He sought the kinds of publicity which served his pur- poses. He dealt with all levels of society and used the means of access which were necessary. He carried his cause before kings and governors and seized the oppor- tunity of appealing to Rome that he might get to the very head and center of the world. He was not content to issue his message and pass on. He planned to con- serve and perpetuate. He gathered the results of his work into simple but effective organized groups. He kept in touch with these so far as the possibilities of his day allowed. If there had been more possibilities we may be sure that he would have used them. He worked out systems of supervision and responsibility and moved about personally and through his missionaries in a pro- gram of comprehensive and skillful world evan- gelization. As an organizer of world influence both in his ideals and in his methods Paul led his generation. It will not do for us to plead Paul against the adapta- MISSIONAEY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 267 tion and use of all the instrumentalities of efficiency and of influence which our time affords. Nor can we reject them in the interest of the simple and unaffected methods of our Lord. We might as well reject railroad travel or the telegraph or steamships or motor-cars or the printing press. In every department of life new tools have been provided. He would be a foolish man who would reject them, who in war would reject machine-guns and go back to bows and arrows, who in transportation would reject railroads and return to human carriers, who in medicine would go back to leeches and blood-letting and herbs. Ill The problem for missionary organization is not be- tween the employment or the refusal of all conceivable instrumentalities of efficiency and influence, it is a prob- lem of the spirit and end, the proportion and actual result. There is a vast deal of organization which is nothing but traditional or imitative, or which absorbs as much energy as it produces. A missionary worker at the home base analyzes the situation in this way : " Missionary societies here are working with energy and devotion and a good deal of their work is flexible and high grade. But they are loaded up in many cases with a mass of organization which would be scrapped at once if it were examined in a fresh light. Besides this, there is a considerable amount of organization, good enough in its form, which is used as an end in itself rather than as a channel for the transmission of life. The remedy for local stagnation is often sought in a new bit of machinery rather than in a renewed current of spiritual life. " This is very evident in some of our missionary com- mittees. They are choked up with a fixed membership and have little room for young life or free thought; 268 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOBLD their outlook is so tame that a former minute governs them more than a new condition; they hug the shore of the past. " Then we have innumerable unions, guilds, fellow- ships, associations, movements on behalf of foreign mis- sions all over the country, with thousands of office-hold- ers who put through a large amount of routine work in filling blanks, enrolling members, collecting funds, and arranging small local meetings. The channels are numer- ous and fairly well planned, but very often the current through them is sluggish and the disproportion between work and result is startling. There are myriads of women who organize meetings for needlework, get up sales of work, make garments to send abroad to mission- aries, or prepare presents for mission pupils. A fuller inspiration behind their devoted service would make it richer in every way. A large group of persons organize work for young people. A good deal of this is on modern lines but some of it is still superficial and lacking in spiri- tual vitality. Many people are secretaries for the dis- tribution of literature, others specialize in the collection of funds. Most vital, perhaps, of all, there is a mass of ma- chinery in connection with prayer, for enrolling members in prayer unions and preparing and circulating requests and topics for prayer. " This vast complex of work is cause for thankfulness, yet as one goes through the country and sees place after place unquickened and great areas of the home base practically unreached, one is filled with a sense of how little organization can do without the tide of life behind it." Heart searchings like these are not confined to the home base. There are kindred problems on the foreign field. There, too, institutions and activities are kept go- ing just because they were once started or they are started because others have them or because this is the way things are done at home, or they are allowed to ab- sorb all the available personal forces so that instruments MISSIONAEY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 269 designed for the accomplishment of ends beyond them- selves become themselves ends. Bishop Brent in his account of his episcopal service in the Philippine Islands makes frank and sorrowful comment on this : " One cannot help wondering whether there is not likely to be change both at home and abroad in the place held by institutionalism in the Church's mode of opera- tion. The institution is of spiritual value in so far as it becomes a vehicle for that personal labour of the pastor for which its mechanics can never be a substitute. Fre- quently — I speak from experience — the burden of holding organizations together and the killing anxiety of financing them leaves but little room and vitality for a missionary bishop to do that which after all is his chief duty. The mission field has lost something, whatever its gain may have been, in which the early days were rich. I mean that simple evangelistic faith, which, unembarrassed by facilities and machinery, devoted its total energies to the ministry of the Word, and was richly rewarded. God knows with what great longing many of us, caught in the tangle of organizations, have looked toward and coveted such a life. A pioneer is rich in compensations for all his pains and toils, but retrospect sometimes reveals to him where loss of perspective has increased his difficulties and impeded his progress. I am not sure that were I to live my episcopal career over again I would not in the main pursue the same course as I actually followed, but I think I would at any rate be at more deliberate pains than I have been to spiritualize and moralize every in- stitution organized. As things are, much of that task remains for those Avho come after me." What concerns missionaries and missionary workers is the remedy for wrong proportion, for ineffectiveness of organization, whether from its antiquatedness or its over- elaborateness, for the secularizing and mechanicalizing influence if institutionalism and so-called "business 270 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD methods/' Perhaps a few constructive suggestions max be made. IV First of all, let all publicity effort be absolutely sub- ordinated to the truth. The missionary movement is a publicity movement. Its ultimate aim is the proclama- tion of the Gospel to the whole world, and its means of accomplishing this aim is the presentation of the mis- sionary duty and privilege to the Christian conscience. In this endeavour deputations, public meetings, publica- tions, correspondence, the development of auxiliary or- ganizations, the use of the press, are all legitimate and necessary. We may do in a great variety of ways to-day what in earlier days could be done only by personal itine- ration. But our danger has been and is that we should be misled by political and commercial analogies. We are making many such mistakes to-day in the effort to secure missionary support from elements of the population in and out of the Church who do not have the religious motive for giving such support. And a good part of our modern organization is designed to capitalize political and philanthropic and ecclesiastical support from those who have not given and are not likely to give religious support. The result is a shoddy imitation of a modern business developed on advertising. The remedy is the truth. If we steadfastly tell the whole truth about the missionary enterprise, its real aim, character, work, some kinds of publicity will be found to be impossible and those which are possible will be within our power and effective for our real ends. In the second place, the whole organization of mis- sionary work at home can be kept simpler and truer in proportion as giving is kept on a right and true basis. MISSIONARY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 271 It is the modern financial campaign or " drive " which involves costly and elaborate organization with skillful advertising, the camouflaging of all aspects of the work which can in any way touch any one's prejudice, the in- tensive and hectic solicitation, the appeal to any effective motive, the psychological use of the elements of bigness, crisis, singularity. The missionary enterprise can be easily misled by these examples. Let it remember that it is not a sudden spurt, but a steady and continuous and deathless endeavour. Let it remember that motives mat- ter, that all money is not alike, that a pound or a dollar from one hand may be worth a thousand from another. Let it build on truth in the principles of giving. What is needed by the churches and by the missionary societies in this matter does not call for great organization. Great organization, developing the appeal to and reliance upon other motives and principles than those which are based on simple and pure religion, may mislead and damage the whole missionary enterprise. The real need is for true teaching in the churches by the clergy and for true training in the home by Christian parents with regard to the principles of stewardship, the right meaning and use of wealth, great or small. Organization which not only ignores the fundamental spiritual laws of Christian char- acter and obligation but substitutes for them motives and appeals drawn from business conceived in its old and gross commercial and competitive aspects, is costly to set up and operate, and no matter what its returns is a foolish missionary expedient. The missionary enterprise ought to be supported on a spiritual basis in keeping with its spiritual character. Such support requires only or- ganization in harmony with it. In the third place, while conflict between the personal and individual emphasis and the emphasis on institution 272 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD and organization is not a necessary issue it is too often an actual reality. Paul laid the foundations of an institution, but it was all alive. The personal elements were domi- nant in it. Life moulded and used the forms provided for it, invented new ones, sloughed off the old. The or- ganization was an agency of life, not a burden on it. With us too often the machine absorbs the energy which was intended by means of the machine to be brought to bear upon tasks beyond. We all know the ailment. What is the remedy? Sometimes it is the scrapping of the machine, sometimes it is repair and readjustment, sometimes the one simple need is that persons, still using the machine, should detach themselves and their time sufficiently from it to deal daily in a personal way with other persons. Perhaps at the outset it will be enough if they find a way of daily acting personally on some one other person. The head of the mission college may begin his emancipation from his subjection to his institu- tion and his entrance on a new era of power by taking time to deal personally with one boy each day. A mis- sionary secretary can force his prison bars by one daily personal unorganized outreach beyond the institution. In each local agency the man or woman who is alive may release the forces of life by adding In or over the process of the agency a touch by word or letter or deed upon a new life. Lastly, the problem is one of the relation of means to ends, of power to control and use, of the organization of matter to its animating reality. Our present methods and devices all need innovations and will soon be out- classed. So far as they can be used in truth and spiritual sincerity we are free to use them if they serve the great end. But the end is the possession of persons by Christ and the possession by persons of Christ. Is our organi- MISSIONARY OEGANIZATION AND LIFE 273 zation accomplishing that ? It may be doing many other things. It may be fiUing the newspapers. It may be giving us no small public place. But these are all danger- ous at the best and are pure delusion if they are not pro- viding for us and for the personal forces which we direct that harvest from the ground of the human soul, of which our Lord speaks, by which we and they do not abide alone. After all, we ourselves are persons and it is persons we are after. Francis of Assisi sets out alone. He has no assets and will accumulate none. With or- ganization in our modern sense he will have nothing to do, and the impulse of his soul and of his idea moves in the world to this day. John Wilhelm Rowntree worked with an ideal of organization, the organization of settle- ments for religious study. His first plans were too am- bitious and he drew them in, not desiring to attempt what could not be filled and empowered of life. He built as he desired. But the greatest thing about him was his life, " a life luminous with character and goodness," and lived in tragic physical limitations against which it wrought out only a larger fullness. "His long, hard battle with a stubborn disease which was attacking the very citadel of his power— his sight, his hearing and his memory— only made him more heroic and gentle." Life was more than master of its forces. It was by Himself that our Lord purged our sins. Whatever we make of the exegesis, the historic fact is clear. He did it by Himself, not with or by anything else, neither His doc- trine nor His cross — but by Himself. Not otherwise does He do His work to-day. Not otherwise may we. XIV NEW ASPECTS OF THE RELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 1. T T is no longer possible to speak of the changing I West and the immovable East. Once perhaps the JL East lifted its head to see the legions thunder by and then dropped to sleep again, but from that sleep there was a waking long ago. And nothing more clearly illustrates the unity of the world than the oneness of the forces which are moving to-day in the life of the East and the West alike. I travelled through these lands in the early months of the war, which was ten thousand miles away, but we saw the effects of the war in every country to which we went and realized clearly the truth of what Mr. Paish of The London Statist wrote some years ago of the economic community which the whole world has now become : " In fact," said he, " there is no nation or people or individual which is not affected bene- ficially or prejudicially by the welfare or misfortune of all the world. A disaster from earthquake, from disease, from drought, from war, which falls upon any nation in these days affects the welfare of the whole world in greater or less degree, and on the other hand the prog- ress of thought, the spread of education, the advance of invention, the growth of production, and, indeed, all things which raise the moral and material welfare of any nation, bring in their train advantages to the whole race. 274 THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 275 Experience of the benefits of the increasing dependence of nation upon nation, which has been gained in the last century from the removal of the physical barriers which used to divide them, and from the supply of capital by one country to another, affords some idea of the great well-being to which the whole world will attain in the years that are yet to come from the ever growing move- ment toward the economic unity of the race." Back of this economic unity lies the great fact of the moral unity of mankind. Once denied in theory and still often repudiated in practice, this truth is nevertheless making itself realized in every nation. In collision with it conceptions of ethnic religion, of zonal ethics, utterly break down. If humanity is one, it must go on to find the one truth which can satisfy its deepest needs and guide to its largest destiny. The whole movement of the world's life to-day toward a deeper consciousness of its oneness is both a preparation and a search for Christian- ity. It makes a League of Nations an absolute essential agency of humanity. The idea that America is the great melting pot of the nations needs supplementing in the light of the facts of other lands. New York is indeed a great maelstrom of the races but they are almost exclusively the Western races. Honolulu presents an even more wonderful lab- oratory of racial intermixture with its population of 26,- 041 Hawaiians, 3,734 Asiatic Hawaiians, 8,772 Caucasian Hawaiians, 21,674 Chinese, 79,674 Japanese, 22,303 Por- tuguese, 1,990 Spanish, 4,890 Porto Ricans, 695 Blacks and Mulattos, 14,867 other Caucasians, and 7,269 miscel- laneous. The Malay peninsula is another crossroads of the races. Here 11,065 Europeans, 10,807 Eurasians, 1,412,196 Malays, 915,883 Chinese, 267,170 Indians, and 32,849 from other races are poured in to one of the great- 276 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD est whirlpools of racial cross-breeding that can be found on the earth. A common language, unified communica- tions and the strengthened national life are drawing to- gether a dozen different racial strains in the Philippines. The Japanese and Koreans have been engaged in an enormous racial inter-blending adopted as a deliberate governmental policy. In Bangkok one-fourth of the pop- ulation is Chinese and that population does not mark the limit of Chinese blood in the city. In addition there is a large population of Indians and Malays, and there are Burmese and Shans, Eurasians, Cambodians, Laotians, Annamites, Javanese, Japanese, and a dozen Western nationalities. The isolation of the races has passed away. Not only are ideas running across the world contemptu- ous of all national boundaries, but the racial bloods seem to be flowing to a common level. The deeply impressive fact as one views all this move- ment in Asia to-day is that the movement is not the enter- prise of individuals. Individuals are borne on the move- ment. What one feels is the heave of a mighty tide of life moving through the world, greater than men, greater than nations, bearing men and nations onward in the grip of great forces that clearly have an order within them and a purpose to fulfill. Both men and governments seem to be like playthings in the hands of these unseen energies. Economic facts are much stronger than men, and the man must be blind who cannot see that back of these economic facts, and handling them with a wisdom and a will that are absolute, stands God. As Mr. Outer- bridge said once in a paper on shipping and its influence upon international unity, " So irresistible are the unseen forces bringing to the surface more enlightened views as more difficult conditions arise, that it suggests the ques- tion — whether the all-wise Creator is not using economic THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 277 law and necessity as one of the greatest fundamental forces in uplifting the moral character and mental vision of humanity." It is increasingly clear that in this great process of progress those races will be able to serve best and con- tribute most which can bring into the common treasure the best character and the purest faith. It is the want of character or of those qualities of character which make living progress possible which is holding back the Asiatic races. In some qualities of character they sur- pass the Western nations but not in the qualities that contribute to living progress. In those qualities perhaps the character of India is most deficient, so that Mr. Dickinson's remark is justified, that India has more to gain and less to lose in the contact with Western people than any other Asiatic nation. But increasingly all the peoples of Asia are beginning to feel their need of the constructive and collective principles of life which are sweeping the world onward under the leadership of the Western races and which have the purest fountain of their virtues and the best corrective of their vices in Christianity. Yuan Shi Kai is reported to have said, " I am not a Christian, I am a Confucianist, but unless the ethics of Christianity shall dominate the scholarship of China, there is no hope for the Republic." It is not a question of domination merely. The real problem is one of energization and it Is not a matter of Chinese scholar- ship alone but of Asiatic character. It is not personal character alone that is needed, al- though that is the fundamental thing. It is personal character so generalized and massed that it can function through a national consciousness. The Eastern nations are becoming aware of this also, and at the same time that they have to find the springs at which individual 278 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD character can be formed, they must build the sense of national personality, which can only be built out of a right racial character, in which the virtue of personal and family life is collectively massed. Some of the Asiatic nations are in danger of thinking that the na- tional personality can be developed by itself, but most of them are realizing that the two must come together. It is not to be wondered at if some of these peoples who are struggling so hard to develop a national consciousness, are slow in rising to the thought of that higher nation- ality for which our small present political nationalisms are but the preparation. And every Western example which sets the nation above humanity is a blow at the processes of progress in Asia and sets back the slow struggle of the Asiatic nations out of their isolation into the larger fel- lowship and ministry of mankind. Nothing is more important than that we should stimu- late the faith and courage of the Asiatic nations in their struggle. It is pitiful to see an individual man who has lost the hope that he can ever attain or achieve. It is yet more pitiful to see a nation which has begun to despair. " I sometimes wonder," said an able Indian who had been educated in Great Britain, " whether it will ever be possible for us to do it. We can see the goal but we seem to lack the nerve to win it." It is a dreadful thing when this mood creeps from individuals into the consciousness of a race. We ought to do every- thing in our power to build up instead the spirit of hope and boundless confidence in every race; not that it can do everything that every other race can do, — our Western races are utterly unequal among themselves, — but it must be made to feel that it can make its contribution and do its work and that no other race can fulfill its mission for it. Anything that we do in trying to help the Eastern THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 279 races, either governmentally, educationally, or through re- ligion, will be an injury to them and an offense to the boundlessly hopeful and trustful Spirit of God, if it re- sults in undermining the right ambitions and the just pride of Eastern peoples. If, sometimes, these ambitions ap- pear to us excessive and this pride, a foolish thing, we ought still to rejoice that they are erring on that side instead of on the side of a craven acceptance of the doctrine of their inferiority. I think there is a principle here which we need to keep much more clearly in view, and which has its large bearing on such problems as the teaching in English in Chinese schools and the develop- ment of independence in the native churches. At this time of increasing intimacy of racial relation- ships and of overwrought racial suspicion, it is the duty of Christian men and especially of the missionary enter- prise to set an example of just and generous race judg- ment. It is often necessary to form our minds and to express them on the subject of particular acts, but it is a dangerous thing to extend these judgments on acts into judgments on racial character or national purpose. The present governments in the Far East have as much claim to purposes of good faith as any other govern- ments and we ought to judge them precisely as we would wish to be judged ourselves. To condemn them because they are Oriental, to express of them a distrust which we do not feel toward Western governments " because these are white men*s governments," is not only un-Christian, it is foolish and wrong. In his " Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," in the chapter on the victory of the Amer- icans at Saratoga, Creasy wrote, " The importance of the power of the United States being then firmly planted along the Pacific applies not only to the New World, but to the Old. Opposite to San Francisco, on the coast of 280 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD that ocean, lie the wealthy but decrepit empires of China and Japan. Numerous groups of islets stud the larger part of the intervening sea, and form convenient stepping- stones for the progress of commerce or ambition. The intercourse of traffic between these ancient Asiatic mon- archies, and the young Anglo-American Republic, must be rapid and extensive. Any attempt of the Chinese or Japanese rulers to check it, will only accelerate an armed collision. The American will either buy or force his way. Between such populations as that of China and Japan on the one side, and that of the United States on the other — the former haughty, formal, and insolent ; the latter bold, intrusive, and unscrupulous — causes of quar- rel must, sooner or later, arise. The results of such a quarrel cannot be doubted. America will scarcely imi- tate the forbearance shown by England at the end of our late war with the Celestial Empire ; and the conquests of China and Japan by the fleets and armies of the United States, are events which many now living are likely to witness. Compared with the magnitude of such changes in dominion of the Old World, the certain ascendance of the Anglo-Americans over Central and Southern Amer- ica, seems a matter of secondary importance. Well may we repeat De Tocqueville's words, that the growing power of this commonwealth is * Un fait entierement nouveau dans le monde, et dont I'imagination elle-meme ne saurait saisir la partee.' " To this paragraph in the text Creasy added the fol- lowing footnote, " These remarks were written in May, 185 1, and now, in May, 1852, a powerful squadron of American war-steamers has been sent to Japan, for the ostensible purpose of securing protection for the crews of American vessels shipwrecked on the Japanese coasts, but also evidently for important ulterior purposes." This THE RELATI0:N^S of east and west 281 was the interpretation which one of the noblest-minded historians of his time placed upon Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan, Whatever we may think of this judgment of Creasy 's we ought to think regarding simi- lar judgments of our own. Now and then a nation may have a government so bad that it deserves to be called wholly bad, but no nation was ever as bad as that, and Christians are the last people in the world who are justi- fied in forming or expressing an indiscriminate judg- ment of suspicion or condemnation against any race. We ought to credit every race with a better character than it has. We ought to hold for it a higher and nobler faith than it can hold for itself until it becomes a Chris- tian race. It was by His belief in possibilities of human character which were not actual that Jesus Christ made them actual. The faith of the missionary enterprise in the races for whom it works should be as the faith of Christ in men and in man. " Why what but faith, do we abhor And idolize each other for — Faith in our evil or our good. Which is or is not understood Aright by those we love or those We hate, thence called our friends or foes." 2. These general reflections have a deeper significance for missions than it is necessary to point out further, but one other word should be said regarding the place of missions as a force in this movement of human progress. Government, trade, education and religion are the four great agencies which are at work in this process. It is not necessary to say which of them is the more powerful, because the principles and spirit of true religion should pervade them all. And yet we do believe that the work which religion is to do is the most important work of 282 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD all and those men and women who go with their lives and the example of their homes, to live among the non- Christian nations, to teach them new truth and to in- carnate that truth before them in individual character, in the fundamental social institution of the family and in the life of the community, are the greatest facts of prog- ress and are using the most fundamental and effective method. They represent in the purest form the truth of which in its political correlations, Professor Reinsch speaks in his book on " Colonial Government," " The idea that a numerous population, covering large terri- tories, cannot be by political means raised en masse to a higher stage of development, and that, if political and social progress is to come about in such regions, the advanced methods and institutions must first be worked out in smaller areas, in cities and towns, which may thus become a model to the surrounding country, — this idea is based on the soundest knowledge of the laws of politics. To civilize by bayonets, to educate by force, to render moral by laws, — these are all Utopian notions, although they appear under a strangely un-Utopian guise. Peo- ples, like individuals, can be deeply and permanently in- fluenced only through a more quiet, less obtrusive, appeal to their inner nature by example. It may be the example of righteous living, or the example of efficient methods in political administration and in industry. Industrial example has done more to transform the Orient in the last decade than has all the political action of centuries. To impose upon a backward people institutions excellent in our eyes, but for which its historic experience has not as yet fitted it, is vanity and folly ; to give within a limited sphere and area the example of correct methods and honest work, would seem an approach to a statesmanlike policy." THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 283 The work that missions are doing and the mere pres- ence of missionaries, especially if they are American missionaries, in any field exert influence far beyond our understanding. Most of this influence is just what we would wish it to be, but some of it perhaps, with or with- out our knowledge, takes forms that we might not have desired to give to it. In one sense, of course, all this can be left to that great energy of hfe of which I have spoken, which is working in the world and which sweeps along the endeavours of men toward the great ends of God, but nevertheless we are not excused from the duty of perpetually scrutinizing our influence to see if in any regard we can strip it of elements of weakness and bring it more fully into accord with the central and untram- melled spirit of the Gospel. We cannot go out as other than American missionaries. What we are, we are. But we certainly can strive to lay aside our Americanism and to appear, instead, as catholic men representing the uni- versal Gospel. Certainly we can avoid the folly of Fourth of July celebrations in mission schools. We can use the national flag rather than our own. We can refrain from teaching history with too much of the American accent. We can remember that it is the Gospel that was pro- claimed in Palestine and not an American version of it that we are to carry, and that our business is to help the races to which we have gone to achieve a character that is all their own. If, on the other hand, It is proclaimed in China and throughout the world that American mis- sion schools produce republics, we can only wonder that there is not less unrest In neighbouring lands with re- gard to what we are doing there. We must make it clear that we are not an agency for the dissemination of political Ideas but are ministers to the racial character and nationality to which we go. 284 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD No enterprise is more in need of calmness, of patience, of steady ability to hold the perspective, of clear discern- ment of the large and distant, not to be lost in the small and near. Missions ought not to be rushed into pre- cipitate action, specially in that border land where the problems of missions and the problems of government interlace. The Church of Christ has time, all the time there is, and while she needs to be in haste in her own work, she can afford to wait indefinitely for the settle- ment of any problem which she cannot settle on the spot by love and faith. The central elemental agency of missions is the body of missionaries. After we have recognized all that God will do in spite of the men He uses and all that the Church may do by prayer through any agents she may send out, it remains true that the work will be stronger or weaker in proportion to the quality of the men and women who are doing it. It is because the missionaries represent the standard of character and devotion and ability which they do, that it is such a privilege and inspiration to visit the mission field. But the strongest missionaries wish they were still stronger and long for a larger reinforce- ment of yet stronger recruits from home. The mission- ary boards are justified accordingly, in maintaining high requirements for missionary appointments, in seeking to secure improved training, in resisting the acceptance of low ideals of education and of power. But how are strong men and women to be found and how can they be identified? Many of those who think themselves strong turn out to be the weakest and candidates highly praised in their testimonials may prove far inferior to other candidates whose qualities had made themselves less conspicuous. Furthermore the most essential quali- ties are those which it is most difficult to determine. It THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 285 is evident that neither education nor training nor experi- ence at home can guarantee efficiency on the field. Effi- ciency depends rather on the balance of personality, the poise of spirit, the correlation of energy and judgment within, and of both of these to the task without. 3. It becomes ever more evident that the Christian Church is the fundamental institution in the missionary enterprise, and that the establishment of a real church with its own life and government, unsubsidized and un- directed, but standing on its own feet and cooperating with us or making a place for us to cooperate with it, should be the normative principle of mission policy. Missions should aim to build up local congregations and unite these in national churches, and in a field where sev- eral denominations are at work, the churches which they all establish should be united from the beginning as they have been in the Philippine Islands, nominally, and as they ought to be organically. If this is not done at the beginning the present conditions in Japan will suffice to show how difficult, if not Impossible, it is to do it later on. The non-Christian peoples are well experienced in religious sectarianism. There was complaint when we were last in Japan from fifty odd Buddhist sects and a dozen or more Shinto sects because only one of each was to be represented at the coronation. If we once establish our separate denominations in the mission field, custom, natural affection, vested interests, the desire of institu- tions to preserve their integrity, and all the human mo- tives which enter into the maintenance of our divisions at home, will come into play. And worst of all the voice of the Church will be a divided voice and Chris- tianity will not be able to make itself felt as it would through a strong united life testifying by its unity and its love to the possibility of those very things for which 286 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOBLD each nation is seeking and which it can reaUze only through its full surrender to God in Christ. Because the Church is so central and important every effort should be made to give it right character and to see that it is made up of true Christian men and women. Doubtless the Christian faith and character of its mem- bers will be very immature at the beginning. That is all the more reason for making sure that what there is is real and for providing agencies for the education and development of the Church. There are some of our missions which would do well to give careful heed to an article in the International Review of Missions for July, 191 5, by Johannes Johnson entitled " The Impor- tance of the Catechumenate " from which a few sentences may be quoted : " It is difficult for a native to withstand the pressure exercised upon him by impatient catechumens, and the fear of losing them through too strict an adherence to the severe rules of his pastoral instructions. Moreover, a great many of the catechumens have not been taught by himself, but by assistant catechists whom he does not want to hurt; fear of man, regard of public favour, weakness of character, are indeed more common faults among the young Christian churches of our mission fields than in the older Christian communities. ... In 1906, the year in which all the missions lost most of their schools, and the colonial Government took up a decidedly anti-religious attitude, lasting till 1910, we determined to introduce into our work a series of special rules regarding the teaching of catechumens. The most important provisions were : " I. It was laid down that those desiring to become catechumens must be admitted to the catechumenate through a public act before the congregation where they attended, and their names entered on a register in which their attendance at the catechumens' class was also re- corded. THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 287 " 2. The time of instruction and probation was regu- lated in a way that in most instances brought the cate- chumenate up to about one year. " 3. Nobody could be baptized without the approba- tion of the congregation of the place where he lived and the members of which had seen him during the time of the catechumenate. . . . " In my different classes through many years only about one-third of the catechumens actually reached bap- tism as members of the class which they joined in the first instance. Two-thirds dropped away, sometimes for good, sometimes to return after a year or two, or even later. The most common reasons for falling away, as far as I have been able to ascertain, were three: first, their wish to become Christians was not serious at all, they therefore soon lost patience, found the teaching too trying in its regularity and their other occupations too important; secondly, they were not able to give up the heathen life — to enter into a regular marriage or to give up heathen customs of burial, etc., proved too heavy for them ; thirdly, they found it hard to accept our condition that they should join in supporting their church. . . . " If the missions and the native churches neglect this question, if they allow indiscriminate baptism and think that restrictions and the catechumenate in any thorough form should be reserved only for admission to first com- munion, they are sure to create in all heathen lands the same kind of baptized heathenism under which the west- ern world is suffering. Perhaps the least of the evils to which this will lead is the disdain, disparagement and neglect of Christian baptism which at present is spreading over all the Christian Church. . . . " How our Lord is going to shape the future history of the Church is His matter. But our concern and duty is at every turn of our way to do the right thing. It is only by so doing that we can be used by Him to create a sound method for the progress of His kingdom. Now in this matter His clear order from the beginning has been that we should baptize those who sincerely want to be His disciples. The only possible way to ascertain whether this state of mind exists is to have a solid cate- 288 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD chumenate before baptism. When we have done this, we shall be able to see later what the Lord is going to do. For my part, I am inclined to believe that a strong catechumenate and a regular baptism of adults is the elementary condition of every sound church and should never have been abandoned in the churches of the West." Many missionaries feel this same problem. Dr. Eakin, of Petchaburi, has written regarding it in Siam : " Our chief concern is for the hundreds of professed believers who are pressing for baptism, and we are not able to give them the needed instruction. Many of them have been waiting for two or three years since first they professed to accept Christ as their Saviour and Lord. I can visit them only about once a year and only for a day or two at a time. Our evangelists are well equipped to do pioneer work, but are hardly equal to the task of prepar- ing inquirers for baptism. I have to care for five churches and sixty groups of inquirers numbering more than a thousand souls. " The Lord is doing great things for us, whereof we are glad; but I find it difficult to keep from feeling anxious lest we build with untempered mortar, and the consequences will be disastrous. We are trying to give our time and strength to intensive work ; but we find new converts at every turn who wish to be enrolled as be- lievers. To baptize them in a year or so with little in- struction seems a great risk in view of the isolation and the pressure of heathen environment." And such adequate educational training of catechu- mens should be maintained systematically in the case of church members and made an agency of training of the Church in ceaseless evangelistic work. And the greatest need of the churcMes and the missions is, I believe, a sustained and glowing evangelism. The THE EELATIONS OF EAST AI^D WEST 289 equipment of the missions is not everywhere adequate, and those who cannot serve the work abroad otherwise than by giving their money at home to provide more equipment, have an ample field still open to them. But the primary need of the mission work is not more equip- ment, it is for more evangelistic energies coursing through the equipment that we have, the schools, and the hos- pitals, and the chapels and church buildings. Regarding the moral and the social results of missions there can be no doubt. Those who object to missions because they are ineffective in influencing society, choose the weakest point of attack. The point at which Christians who be- lieve in missions are least satisfied, is in the matter of the drive, the persistence, the patience, the longing, of the evangelistic work and of all our work in its evangelistic utilization. We are further away, it seems to me, from the accomplishment of our aim of evangelization, than from the accomplishment of any of our other missionary aims. A wise and thoughtful writer in an article on the relation of missions to civilization in the International Reviezv of Missions for July, 191 3, said, " It would ap- pear that the mere process of evangelization, the mere making known of the message concerning God in Christ to the world, is a task now nearly accomplished." Would that one could believe this ! No one could be where we have been and not be constrained to think that instead of being nearly accomplished, the task had been scarcely begun. It is the long, long work. No one can tell when it will be done. It is the magnitude and the endlessness of it that appall one and make it difficult to awaken and to keep at ruddy glow the evangelistic fervour. 4. Whether the number of Europeans in Asia will greatly increase in the near future is a matter of un- certainty. Much of the work for which the Eastern 290 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD nations have been obliged to employ Europeans will be done by Asiatics, There are many European commercial communities in the Far East which have not grown, the increase of business having been brought about by the entrance of Asiatic traders into the field. On the other hand, the steady unification of the world throws the shuttles of race ever to and fro across the web of life and there may be a steady or a spasmodic increase of foreigners in the East. It is most important both to the East and to the West that the moral character and in- fluence of this element should be helpful. The general testimony is that it is increasingly helpful. Old business men in a city like Yokohama ^testify that the general tone of the foreign community has steadily advanced and that while in these communities, as everywhere in so- ciety, the outstanding individual may not be as conspicu- ous as he was when a few great merchants largely dom- inated this field of trade, nevertheless the average has risen and the moral purity of life become more creditable to the West and more helpful to the East. Between these European communities and the missionary body there is in general now a much better feeling and understanding than there was twenty-five years ago. There has been a return to the good spirit of the earliest days when men like John C. Green and his associates founded the medical missionary society in Canton and when the Oliphant ships again and again served the missionary enterprise. There is still, however, a great work to be done in recovering the wreckage of European life in Asia and in awakening every motive that may protect our young men who go to Asia on business from sinking down to the basest levels of moral life about them. It is clear that racial self-respect and pride of racial integrity are not sufficient to accomplish this. They seem to be very superficial THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 291 qualities. Witness the horde of Eurasians in Asia born of the very men who are loudest in their boasts of these virtues. As a British newspaper man in the Straits Set- tlements says, " The British have a pride of pure race which would be admirable enough if it kept them from all intercourse with black, brown, or yellow. To beget and then to scorn strikes me as somewhat abominable, a crime, in fact, against nature." The Eurasian is one of the great social problems of the East, a problem which those races are most responsible for solving which, on the father's side, produced the Eurasian. Lord Haldane has spoken in several of his speeches of Sir Alfred Ly- all's poem which pictures the glorious strength of race pride in lifting a man above moral weakness : " The poem is called ' Theology in Extremis,' and it describes the feelings of an Englishman who had been taken prisoner by Mohametan rebels in the Indian Mutiny. He is face to face with a cruel death. They offer him his life if he will repeat something from the Koran. If he complies, no one is likely ever to hear of it, and he will be free to return to England and to the woman he loves. Moreover, and here is the real point, he is not a believer in Christianity, so that it is no question of denying his Saviour. What ought he to do? Deliverance is easy, and the relief and advantage would be unspeakably great. But he does not really hesitate and every shadow of doubt disappears when he hears his fellow prisoner, a half-caste, pattering eagerly the words demanded: He himself has no hope of heaven and he loves life — "* Yet for the honour of En.g-lish race May I not live or endure disgrace. Ay, but the word if I could have said it, I by no terrors of hell perplext Hard to be silent and have no credit From men in this world, or reward in the next; 292 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD None to bear witness and reckon the cost Of the name that is saved by the life that is lost.- I must begone to the crowd untold Of men by the cause which they served unknown, Who moulder in myriad graves of old; Never a story and never a stone Tells of the martyrs who die like me Just for the pride of the old countree/ " This pride of loyalty to the best moral ideal of the race does suffice to hold many men who live their lonely lives in cleanness or who honourably marry women of Asia and leave a pure inheritance to their children. A large body of Eurasians possess this pure heritage. But the pride of race fails in thousands of other lives. Mere environmental religion also fails and one is tempted to wonder from what he sees in these lands, how much of our American religion is integral to men and how much is merely environmental. All along our way we met with men who had been open in their church re- lationships at home and sometimes active in their Chris- tian service, from whom the whole thing had slipped away as a garment when they came out to the Far East. There must be something more than racial pride or bor- rowed religion to hold men true and to make them strong to render moral service in the uplifting of the East. They need the iron of the moral law, tempered and forged into steel in the furnace of the love of Christ. And if they are to be held to all that is best and highest when they come out to the East they need to ally them- selves at once with the Christian Church. One of the best informed men In Manila told me that he knew of no young men who were being held absolutely faithful to the ideals of moral purity who had not connected them- selves with the Church and were not openly identifying themselves with its worship and its work. Among Asi- THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 293 atics and Europeans alike, the indispensable and supreme agency is the Christian congregation. A sad but curious problem arises in some stations in the matter of the duty of missionaries toward the illegit- imate children of Europeans or Americans who are re- turning home from Asia, abandoning their offspring but yet desiring to make some provision for them. In some cases missionaries have assumed a sort of guardianship of such children and have received remittances from home on their account. The little children are not responsible for their illegitimacy. It is a Christian man's duty to do all that he can to help such little ones, but on the other hand it puts the missionary in a strange situation, to be looked to, as he so often is, to take up such responsibili- ties. His acceptance of them may easily lead to mis- understandings among the people. It would seem that no fixed rule could be laid down but that such situations call for a great deal of discretion and wise judgment on the part of the missionaries. Certainly one cannot with- hold his deepest sympathy from the unfortunate children. We shall never forget the face of one little boy that looked up at us from the front row of one of our schools in Siam. That little face will ever be an undying appeal for compassion. 5. It is both exhilarating and pitiful to see the eager- ness of Asia to acquire the English language. It is ex- hilarating because it is a sign of the hunger of the world for unity and for a common speech, because it reveals the intellectual awakening of Asia, because it opens to the Asiatic peoples ranges of literature and knowledge otherwise inaccessible, because language is a living thing with an indwelling spirit which moulds those who open themselves to it. Their own languages are a heavy burden on some of the Asiatic peoples. The Chinese 294 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD ideographs, which Chinese and Japanese must learn, lay a task of drudgery and memorization upon the young mind which is crushing. It takes years for a Chinese child to learn the language by which he is to learn other things. Japanese have simplified the matter a great deal by the " kana " characters which are a sort of alphabet and which in the newspapers are printed in parallel columns with the regular characters. There is a strong movement in Japan to introduce Romaji, that is, to sub- stitute for the characters the phonetic sounds expressed in Roman letters. The effort to introduce this reform in China and Japan, however, meets with immensely greater difficulties than our reform spelling encounters at home. It is sad to reflect that in Korea the cumbersome Japanese language has sought to supplant Korean with its wonderfully simple and beautiful alphabet, and that in Siam the Siamese letters are already displacing the far more beautiful Lao. But while the demand for English is exhilarating there is something sad about it. So much of the demand is purely commercial and, while not unworthily so, it testi- fies to the dreadful necessity under which the greater part of Asia lies, of construing all the values of Hfe in terms of one day's bread. It is sad also because so often the eagerness for the new is indiscriminate and what is trivial and unworthy is taken in with the good, while that which was good and worthy in the old is discarded with what was useless or bad. It is now and it may be even more in the future the duty of the missionary enterprise to do what it can to protect the Asiatic people from them- selves and to help them to conserve the good of their own past which otherwise they would throw away. Few greater evils could befall Asia than that it should make the mistake of excessive imitation of Western civiliza- THE EELATIOI^S OF EAST AND WEST 295 tion in its present form or that it should impoverish the stock which it brings for the reception of the new- graft. 6. It fills one with wonder to see the way in which the non-Christian religions are undergoing transforma- tion, in their tendency, partly conscious, and partly un- conscious, to slough off the weaknesses which contact with Christianity has revealed, and to develop whatever resemblances they may have to Christianity, and to bor- row from it so far as they can what it possesses and they lack. The whole tendency brings into clearer view the things that are strong and unique in the Gospel. It may reveal also things in the Gospel that we had not so clearly seen. It has revealed and will reveal nothing that the Gospel of the New Testament, understood in its full- ness, lacks. As Dr. Denny says, in his commentai-y on II Corinthians, speaking of the first six verses of the eleventh chapter, " There is no comparison between the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ His Son and any other religion. The science of comparative religion is interest- ing as a science; but a Christian may be excused for finding the religious use of it tiresome. There is nothing true in any of the religions which is not already in his possession. He never finds a moral idea, a law of the spiritual life, a word of God, in any of them, to which he cannot immediately offer a parallel, far more simple and penetrating, from the revelation of Christ. He has no interest in disparaging the light by which millions of his fellow-creatures have walked, generation after genera- tion, in the mysterious providence of God; but he sees no reason for pretending that that light— which Scripture calls darkness and the shadow of death— can bear com- parison with the radiance in which he lives. 'If,' he might say, misapplying the fourth verse—' if they brought 296 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD us another saviour, another spirit, another gospel, we might be religiously interested in them; but, as it is, we have everything already, and they, in comparison, have nothing/ The same remark applies to ' theosophy,' ' spiritualism,' and other * gospels.' It will be time to take them seriously when they utter one wise or true word on God or the soul which is not an echo of some- thing in the old familiar Scriptures." This absoluteness of Christianity is sometimes con- strued by us in exclusive rather than inclusive terms and the Gospel that has sent us out as the servants of men insensibly operates to make us their masters. The su- perior prowess of the Western peoples, their advance- ment in knowledge, their mastery of applied science, the conscious maturity and strength of their political judg- ments, the too ready acknowledgment of their weakness and inability on the part of the Oriental peoples, the energy of Anglo-Saxon character against inertia or in- efficiency, the quasi-consular status which extra-territori- ality has given and which now and then one meets a mis- sionary who is reluctant to give up just on this account, because he sincerely believes that such a position of superiority increases his influence as a representative of the Gospel, — these and many other things make it diffi- cult to keep the spirit in which alone Christ can be truly represented to men and the gospel of human unity pro- claimed. A letter from a missionary in China states the whole matter better than any words of mine can : " Now that I have lived for some years in the Orient I know a good many things about the difficulties of mis- sionary work that I did not know before coming here. One of the greatest hindrances, to my mind, to the com- ing of the Kingdom here so far as we missionaries' short- comings are concerned, is the feeling of race superiority THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 297 or arrogance that gradually springs up in a foreigner's heart. I think our race is naturally an arrogant race and the whole circumstances of our life here make it easy for this kind of feeling to take possession of us. I mean such things as extra-territoriality, our influence simply because we are foreigners, the lack of backbone of the Chinese, the knowledge of our race's achievements, etc. As I have tried to examine my own heart it seems to me that most missionaries go through the same experience. We start in often with great sympathy for the people, trust in them because they seem so open and attractive, but gradually, partly through disappointment with indi- viduals but most of all through the subtle influence of a feeling of race superiority that most all foreigners in the Orient seem to have, we begin to put up a barrier be- tween ourselves and the people which I believe to be a very real hindrance to the spread of the Gospel. We do not so openly display this spirit and sometimes we are able to hide it, but nevertheless it is a factor to be dealt with. I don't think the great mass of the people realize that the missionaries are this way, but I think the edu- cated ones often see it, the returned students, for in- stance, and it is a real hindrance. Canon Robinson in a little book entitled * The Interpretation of the Character of Christ to Non-Christian Races,' expresses what I mean. He says that we are weak on the side of patience, humility, meekness, non-resistance, which is the side of the Christian character which particularly appeals to the people of the Orient. I find that the mingling of this side of the Christian character with firmness, honesty, justice, the hatred of hypocrisy is one of the very hardest problems I have had to face. As soon as you go out of your way to be kind, and try to treat the Chinese as you would a foreigner, he will as a general rule take ad- vantage of it, and the average person who starts in with the idea of treating the people as real friends and brothers is too often apt to give up this attitude unless he is completely deceived by them and does not see through their exterior. It is very hard to express in a letter just what I mean but it is a real factor. This creeps into our conversation when no Chinese are listening. 298 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD When I first came out, one of the things that struck me was the lack of reverence of missionaries for the per- sonality of individuals such as a Christian ought to have. This is of course largely influenced by the fact that they do not have this respect for one another. Our social life is for the most part almost completely cut off from them. Of course I know that this is partly inevitable, and they on their part don't admit us into their families the way they do one another. However, there are some with whom it would be possible, our educated clergymen for instance, and the English-speaking students who have graduated and are in various occupations. I can sym- pathize with the missionaries in this failure of ours be- cause I have failed in this respect too, but I am making a conscious effort to overcome this defect. If I were to go home now, I would not feel much like appealing for money, but rather that the Church at home would give itself to more constant prayer that we out here would be more completely filled with the love and humility of Christ and be given greater wisdom and insight as to how to interpret this love. I want the Church at home to know where we are failing, for I feel that, as a body, we are failing very greatly to manifest the atoning life of Christ. It is easy to help in famine work, or to do what we can to protect them during fighting compared to humbling ourselves before them as individuals, and hav- ing enough sympathetic insight that we can sense their feeling about matters. I remember one of my teachers, whom. I learned to love greatly, often used to say that the greatest mystery of all to Paul was the unity of the human race in Christ. Being brought up such a strict Jew accounted for his wonder. I can better appreciate Paul's wonder now." 7. The absolute unselfishness of the missionary move- ment needs to be guarded with scrupulous care. Other agencies of international influence may properly include an element of self-interest. " The banker," said Mr. Seligman, referring to the negotiations attending such transactions as the Chinese loans, "never loses sight of THE EELATIONS OF EAST AND WEST 299 the resulting advantage to accrue to his own country." The missionary ought to lose sight of every such ad- vantage utterly. The enterprise should be stripped of every aspect of interest. It goes out to the nations, ask- ing nothing, seeking nothing, naked of every political alliance. It does not exist to promote commerce, to se- cure for the nations from which it comes any more good- will of the people to whom it goes than it seeks to secure for all other nations. Our American missionaries are not in China to promote trade or intercourse or better feeling between China and the United States. They are there to advance the cause of human unity, to hasten the day when all men shall be brothers, to bind not two races together in political and commercial relationship, but to bind all men together in Christ. As Professor Reinsch writes, " There can be little doubt that the suc- cess and the moral authority of missions is being jeop- ardized by their connection with politics, and by the polit- ical purposes which, often against their will, they are made to subserve. The missionary who goes forth un- aided to face countless hardships, and to battle against the hostility of nature and of savage men, merits the respect of all, and gives the best kind of guarantee of his aims and intentions. But when the State stands ready to turn his high-minded and unselfish heroism into a source of material gain to itself, and to make use of it for purposes of national expansion, there is danger that the missionary may lose moral power and be looked upon as a mere political emissary. Moreover, the unity of Chris- tian missionary work is liable to be destroyed by having its field of work broken up arbitrarily into national areas. Tendencies such as these should be earnestly discouraged in order that the missions may retain their value as agencies of redemption and improvement. Missionaries 300 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD in all parts of the world are voicing their opposition to the close connection of missions with politics, which destroys the confidence of the natives and robs the mis- sionary of his influence as a protector of the native against every kind of exploitation." This is justly spoken. Missions must be saved from any such confusion for the reasons of which Professor Reinsch has spoken and for the deeper reasons which have been stated. Over the inner doorway of the Institute which Dr. Whitewright has built up in Tsinanfu, one of the most remarkable missionary agencies in the world, is this in- scription, " The aim of this institution is to show through all its agencies God manifest in nature, in the world, and in the teachings of Jesus Christ the Saviour of mankind. " It seeks to illustrate human progress and the prin- ciples on which that progress must be forwarded; to enlighten in all that makes for the welfare of China and the Chinese people; to bring East and West together in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God and the brother- hood of man. " ' Have we not all one Father, hath not one God created us all ? ' — Malachi. " ' God hath made of one blood all nations of men.' — St. Paid/' After all, are not these the great missionary problems? How to generate a spontaneous, unsubsidized and self- sustained evangelism in native churches made up of truly believing, growing Christian men and women; how to secure in these churches a leadership true, and bold and freely led of God ; how to keep and increase the personal and individual service in the midst of the heavy institu- tional and general activities of missions ; how to bathe the work in sympathy and comprehension, lifting it above all suspicion and spiritual contractions; how to apply the THE EELATIONS OP EAST AND WEST ^ 301 same sympathy and comprehension to races as well as to individuals ; and how to be ourselves more wise, pow- erful, contagious workmen. " What I long for," wrote one of our missionaries in Japan as we came away from his field, " is more courage and more power. These seem to me to be the great needs." Are they not ? What needs can be greater than these? The need of the per- fect love that casts out all fear and of the strength made perfect in weakness which says, " My Father worketh and I work." XV THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD TO-DAY IF ever there was a time when selfishness in individ- uals or in nations appeared mean and insufferable, that time is now. Almost all the peoples of the world are calling out for help and for sympathy. We are told in the life of St. Paul that one night he dreamed that a man from the Balkans came and asked him to cross over the Hellespont and do some work in Europe. In response to that call of one man the whole course of St. Paul's life was changed. The whole course of human history was changed as well. We are concerned to-day, not with one man whom we hear speaking to us in a dream, but we are seeing in the flesh hundreds of millions of men who are asking us to give our help and our sympathy to the lands to which they belong. In response to this appeal one may see very clearly two diverse tendencies acting inside the Christian Church. One is the tendency of contraction, the Church huddling in upon herself or upon the soil of her own nation, or, maybe, enlarging her sympathies so as to take in the needs of kindred peoples, but as regards the far ends of the earth asking whether she would not better abridge and curtail somewhat those distant and remote activities. There is a second tendency of postponement, the Church talking about future world conditions and the part she is to have in the great tasks elsewhere after all our own home problems are solved and our home needs are met. 302 THE CHUECH AND THE WOELD TO-DAY 303 We make our protest against these two tendencies. The Christian Church is doomed, if, on the one hand, she begins now to hmit the performance of her duties and to abridge the outgo of her world sympathy, and if, on the other hand, to-day she begins to talk not of the work that she is to do this very hour in the world, but of the work that she intends to do one year, three years, or five years from now. We protest against these two tendencies because we believe that the only Christianity that can have any living power in our own nation to-day, or that can have any power in the work of reconstructing the world, is a Christianity that does not shirk any of its duties, but that meets the demands of its entire world task. After all, if there is not vitality enough in a religion to carry it out to its work at the ends of the earth there is not vitality enough in that religion to do its work stand- ing still. All the religion in the world to-day that has any power or vitality is " going religion," religion that is both the product and source of the foreign missionary undertaking. The churches and universities that we see around us would not be here if it were not for foreign missions. As a matter of fact there is no Christianity in the world to-day except the Christianity that is due to the foreign missionary activity of the Church. Chris- tianity utterly died out in the land of its origin. There is no Christianity, even In the land where Christianity be- gan, except what was brought back as a reimport from the result of the missionary activities of St. Paul and the early Church. We would have no Christianity and no Christian Church on earth If it were not for what the foreign missionary enterprise has done to perpetuate it. Religion dies if it does not attempt always and reso- lutely to conquer the whole world. 304 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD We protest against these two tendencies, not only for the sake of the life of Christianity, but also in the name of fairness and common honesty. Either Christianity is a good thing or it is not a good thing. If it is not a good thing, then we ought to discard it. If it is a good thing, then we ought to distribute it. And we have no right to set any bounds around that distribution. If Christianity is a good thing for us, we are under obligation to give it to all men everywhere in the world. If it is any good for me, it is because it is good for every man, and I am bound to pass it on to every other man. There is no Christianity in the world to which any man can lay claim as exclusively his own, by which he can separately de- velop himself, by which he can simply save his own soul and stop there. The only corporate Christianity in the world that the Master and Founder would recognize as His is the Christianity which its possessors try to share with every man — not only with the man who is their near neighbour. We have something that we are bound to share with all the world, not with New York City alone, not with the American nation only, not with the Western races of the world only, but which we are bound to carry to every man and every woman and every child every- where, unless some one else is already doing it. We protest against these tendencies because every need that led to the establishment of the missionary enterprise in the past exists, intensified and accentuated, to-day. If men have needed Jesus Christ in the years gone by, does any one of us need to be told that they need Him just as much, and that this old world needs Him more to-day, that if we need Him, every man, woman, and child in the world needs Him, in the same way? And on the other hand if the people of China or India can get along without Him, the people of New York can THE CHUECH AND THE WOELD TO-DAY 305 get along without Him just as well. Men object to our carrying Jesus Christ to the Far East and to the Far South to-day. But they have no quarrel with us. Their quarrel is with the Incarnation, for if it is not necessary for Christ to go to China to-day, it was not necessary for Christ to come to Palestine nineteen hundred years ago. He was less needed for Judaism then than He is needed for Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and paganism to-day. AL the need that there was for the Atonement in the beginning exists to-day in every nation of the world. Men need Christ and they need Him now. They need Him for. their bodies' sake. Where in the world are men hungry to-day except where the Gospel has not come really home to the lives of men? Did you ever stop to think that the great deserts are within the bounds of the non-Christian religions, and that many of these deserts were made by these religions? The great racial assassi- nations have been under the aegis of great non-Christian faiths. Only where Christ has gone are men's lives deemed sacred, have men's bodies been fed, have the common, elementary needs of life been met. If Christ were King in the world to-day, there would not be a hungry mouth anywhere under the sun, nor one little crying child. Men need Christ to-day not for their bodies' sake only. The moral needs of the world are as deep now as they were when Christ came, and they are everywhere. If they are in America, they are in every land. Where Christ's Influence has never been felt even so slightly as in our own land there those moral needs are deeper and darker still. Christianity is the only religion in the world that forbids polygamy. Every other religion either allows it or encourages or enjoins it. In a world like this 306 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WORLD there are abysmal moral needs rooted, many of them, in the unjust treatment of womanhood, that call for Christ. There are everywhere, as there are in our hearts, deep, unsatisfied spiritual needs. Nothing else ever contented us until we found Him. Nothing else will ever content them until they find Him. *' Thou, O Christ," we sing, " art all I want " — and Christ is all that every man wants. We protest against any denial of Christ to the world. It has a title in Him equal to any title that we have. The world calls for Him because He is as indispensable to its life as He is to ours. Was there ever a day when, not for all men one by one, for the wants of their individual homes and hearts, but in one great mass of want, t:ie world's need of Christ was so sharp and imperious as it is to-day? Who but Jesus Christ can ever bind this torn and discordant world together? We tried to do it w4th trade, and it could not be done. We tried to do it with diplomacy, but diplomacy failed. We have tried to do it with secular education, but secular education has been unequal to the task. There is only one way in which the world ever can be united in one : " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth," said Jesus Christ, " will draw all men unto Me." In the one Head of all humanity, the one Shepherd of the whole flock of every race and every people and every tongue — only there can any hope of human unity ever be found. In a day when we are weary of strife and hatred and war, the need of the world for Christ protests against any abridgment of our will and purpose to share Him now with all the life of men. And we believe in not only maintaining all that we have begun, but in even now enlarging and extending every ef- fort to carry Christ to the last ends of the world, because we know what carrying Christ will signify and what noth- THE CHUECH AND THE WOELD TO-DAY 307 ing else will signify to mankind. Men often say that they; do not believe in the missionary undertaking. What is it in tne undertaking that they do not believe in? Twenty- five thousand men and women have gone out, not for money's sake, not for honour or earthly gain. They have given up everything and have settled in the midst of un- appreciative millions of people. They have made friends with them. They have made their own lives a part of their life. The missionaries are there for nothing else than to be kind and Christlike to the peoples to whom they have gone. Is there anything in that ministry in which a man cannot believe? They have gathered over two million little boys and girls together in schools in those lands to prepare them for the manhood and the womanhood that is remaking the nations of the earth. Is there anything in that with which any one can dis- agree? They treated in their hospitals lais last year more people than the entire population of Greater New York, opening the eyes of the blind, enabling the lame to walk, enablmg the deaf to hear, curing sickness and disease and banishing pain. Is there anything in that of which men disapprove? They lay down their lives for their brethren as they did in China during the Boxer up- rising. Is there a greater love than that that men can have ? The only life that ever can be wasted is life that is not laid down in ways like that. Life that is laid down, seed fashion in the soil — there is no waste to that. It 'Springs up and bears abundant harvest in changing things. In changing the world, in the fruitage that lasts beyond death and the grave. Because we know, having seen It with our own eyes and shared In it with our own hands, what the enterprise of Christ Is accomplishing throughout the world, we pro- test against the common tendency in men's thoughts that 308 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD would hold that enterprise in abeyance until some future day or discountenance it either by indifference or by antagonism. There are great needs in Europe. There are hungry people to be fed in many lands, and there are thirty mil- lions of human beings in India who never know what it is to have enough to eat, who say if only they could be fed adequately for two days they would be willing to lie down and die. There are millions of little children in Asia every night who would cry themselves to sleep in their hunger and want of bread but for the familiar monotony of their suffering. For the sake of the world's need, which only Christ's Gospel can supply, we make our appeal to-day more earnestly and imperatively than in any past day, that Christ's last command should not be postponed for an interval of months or years. It is valid and effective now. It would be easy to gather up the witnesses and let them bear testimony to the truth of these statements. You may have read what the Chinese Ambassador to Washington recently said in Chicago, when without any- body's suggestion, he bore his testimony to what his na- tion needed, and to the men and to the women who were meeting his nation's need : " I have outlined the work of the American mission- aries in my land in order to show their activities and the utter unselfishness of their purpose. Some of them de- vote five or ten years to China, while others spend their whole lives there. But whether for a longer or for a shorter period, they all do it with the desire to give and without the hope of gain to themselves beyond the gain of satisfaction in service rendered and in duty done. These men penetrate the innermost parts of our country and mingle with the people as members of the local com- munity. Neither hardships nor difficulties deter them. THE OHUECH AND THE WOELD TO-DAY 309 In the last half century troubles sometimes arose between them and the local people; but they were always peace- ibly settled without the display of military or naval power on the part of the United States, and without the loss of political or territorial rights on the part of China, so that by contrast and comparison the people of China have long come to recognize the difference between the missionaries from the United States and the people from other lands. For this reason, they have manifested their readiness to receive and welcome them with open arms. Nothing which individual Americans have done in China has more strongly impressed the Chinese mind with the sincerity and genuineness and altruism of American friendship for China than this spirit of service and self- sacrifice so beautifully demonstrated by American mis- sionaries." And he was thinkmg not merely of social benefits rendered. "As religious teachers," he added, " they have made the Christian faith known to the mil- lions of China who had not heard its truths before and thereby gave them new hope and a new source of in- spiration. It is impossible to estimate how much happi- ness and comfort they have brought to those who found life miserable because of its lack of spiritual vision." In a little spot near the wall of Mukden, the old capital of China in Manchuria, is a grave, and near by a tablet placed on the wail of the new medical school and hospital. Four years ago I stood in front of that tablet to the memory of young Arthur Jackson, who led his school at Liverpool, and who was one of the best-known athletes and scholars of his day in Cambridge University and who had gone out in the fall of 1910 as a medical mis- sionary to Manchuria. A month later the pneumonic plague began to come iown from the north. The Chinese hunters had been sending down their marmot skins, and the deadly germs had been carried in them. Before the Chinese Government had taken adequate precaution, the pestilence had worked its way down from Harbin to 310 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD Mukden. The death rate was one hundred per cent. Not one man, woman, or child attacked recovered. When China learned what an awful terror was moving down upon her four hundred millions, she stood dumb and aghast. Arthur Jackson laid down all his other work, went down to the railroad station at Mukden to erect a barrier between that oncoming pestilence and the help- less masses of Chinese behind him. Day after day, clothed in oilskin boots and a long white robe, with a bag over his head, breathing through a sponge, he went about his work segregating the diseased and visiting every railway car that came in and separating every sus- pected Chinese, until at last he had stemmed '.he fatal tide. Then when his work was done he discovered one day in his own sputum the blood traces that told him of the inevitable end, and in a few hours the great Christlike life had come to its close. They carried him around the walls by night and buried him outside the gates. Two days afterwards, in the British Consulate, they held their little memorial service. The old Chinese Viceroy made a speech. He never had known of anything like this. He had never seen a man lay down his life in sacrificial love. All this was the revelation of a new principle of life and character. This was his speech : " We have shown ourselves unworthy of the great trust laid upon us by our Emperor. We have allowed a dire pestilence to overrun the sacred capital. His Maj- esty the King of Great Britain shows sympathy with every country that calamity overtakes, and his subject. Doctor Jackson, moved by his sovereign spirit, with the heart of the Saviour who gave His life to deliver the world, responded nobly, and we asked him to help our country in its need. He went forth to help us in our fight daily. Where the pestilence lay thickest, amidst the groans of the dying, he struggled to cure the stricken THE CHUECH AKD THE WORLD TO-DAY 311 and to find medicine to stay the evil. Worn by his ef- forts, the pestilence seized him, and took him from us long before his time. Our sorrow is beyond all measure ; our grief too deep for words. Doctor Jackson was a young man of high education and great natural ability. He came to Manchuria with the intention of spreading medical knowledge, religious comfort, and other blessings on the Eastern people. In the pursuit of his ideal, he was cut down. The mission has lost a recruit of great prom- ise; the Chinese Government, a man who gave his life in his desire to help them. O Spirit of Doctor Jackson, we pray thee intercede for the twenty million people of Manchuria and ask the Lord of Heaven to take away this pestilence, so that we may once more lay our heads in peace upon our pillows. In life you were brave ; now you are an exalted spirit. O noble spirit who sacrificed your life, please help us still and look down in kindness upon us all." Remembering the men like him, the thousands of them, scattered up and down the non-Christian lands amid pestilence that will not postpone itself, amid sin and moral and spiritual needs that are present and insistent realities, we plead with Christian men and women to make of their lives a new consecration, and to resolve, in the face of the new conditions that vv^e confront to-day, upon a larger and fuller measure of obedience. Our fathers, in the dark days during and following the Civil War, did not feel justified in demitting their missionary responsibili- ties. In the darkest days of the War they maintained and enlarged their undertaking. The Presbyterian Board testified in the fourth year of the Civil War that it had never withdrawn a single missionary or shut up a single station or withheld, for financial reasons, a single man or woman. Shall we, with vastly more wealth than they, not do our full duty? If there ever was an hour when this cause was needed, it is needed now. This is no day 312 THE GOSPEL AND THE NEW WOELD to surrender any international bond, any instrumentality of Christianity that overleaps racial division and bridges the chasms that separate the peoples of mankind. This is the day for us with every last sacrifice we can make to maintain and expand our activities to make Christ known to the whole world. We have sung again up and down this land the words of Julia Ward Howe : " He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat." How is He sifting them out? By watching whether or not they, in this day, follow the call that sounds no re- treat. The Church has never been and is not now war- ranted in huddling in upon herself, in drawing back from her most distant and complete devotion. Now of all days she is called to the ends of the world. We recall the incident — it may be apocryphal, but it has truth in it — of the drummer boy in one of Napoleon's campaigns to whom the great commander turned in an hour when the cause for the day seemed lost and said, " Boy, beat me a retreat ! " And to him the lad dared to reply, " Sire, I know not how. Desaix never taught me that; but I can beat a charge that will make the dead fall into line! I beat that charge at I^di; I beat it at the Pyramids. Let me beat it now ! " And without waiting for the word, he beat his charge and over the dead and the wounded, over the breastworks and the batterymen, he led the way to victory. To-day let us not know how to beat any retreat. Let us hear the voice calling now more clearly and more appealingly than it ever called in any of the days gone by, " li ye love me, ye will keep my commandments." What did He command? In those very last moments, THE CHUECH AND THE WOELD TO-DAY 313 His chance for one final word, until the sky grows ruddy with the hope of His coming again, before the clouds caught Him up out of sight of men, this was His com- mand, " Ye shall be my witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the world." And no thunder of guns across the battle-fields or cry of trade or whisper of ease in peace can drown in the heart of the Christian man or the Chris- tian Church the summons, the deathless abiding summons, of those last words. Printed in the United States of America THE NEW WORLD ORDER PROK A. T. ROBERTSON, P.P., LLP. The New Citizenship The Christian Facing a New World Order. Net "Characterized by the thoroughgoing, wide-reaching scholarship for which Professor Robertson is internation- ally noted, but also by his fine common sense, felicity of diction and strength and beauty of style. It is a book for busy laymen and book-reading women, as well as for preachers." — Baptist World. GEORGE fVOOP ANPERSON Problem— or Opportunity? Which is it the Church is Now Facing. i2mo, cloth, net Mr. Anderson, an evangelist, has seen service with the American boys on the battle-front, and impelled by his vivid experiences oversea, addresses himself afresh to the problems and opportunities now facing the Christian church. A plea for a more devoted working and applica- tion of the program Christ laid out for His followers, to the clamant needs of humanity at large. C. B. iriLLIAMS, Ph. P., P.P. Citizens of Two Worlds i2mo, cloth, net "A volume of addresses growing out of the spirit of this new age of democracy and brotherhood, which speaks to the hearts of struggling men and women who want to solve the age's economic and social problems by following the teachings of the Nazarene. Sermons which show how to reach up to heaven for the dynamic and inspiration to reach down to earth and help its needy milliong."— CAm- tian Work. friLLIAM C. SCHAEFFER, P.P. The Greater Task Studies in Social Service. Cloth, net "This author believes that the kingdom of God is com- ing; that it has come; that it will continue to come in ever greater and greater power and glory. He writes with force and illumination, and brings home with great effectiveness, both to the individual and the Church, the sense of duty and the broad scope of obligation and op- portunity in the present crisis. A book of real leadership and merit." — Christian Guardian. AFTER THE WAR CHARLES E. JEFFERSON, D. D. What the War Has Taught Us i2mo, cloth, net From first to last, Dr. Jefferson's standpoint is that of the Christian minister, and, chiefly, his book is concerned with showing how the War has supplied the Christian Church with new and vigorous arguments for the truth that is in her, together with new and poignant illustra- tions of the fundamental teachings of Jesus. THOMAS TIPLAD Y {Chap lain) Author of " The Crtss """•^ ■ ait he Front'' ^ Social Christianity in the New Era i2mo, cloth, net A reconstruction message for every one interested in the Church to-day. The work of a man, who has seen and learned much of the average man's view of the Church during his three years of daily army intercourse. There is scarcely a side of social life not touched upon. It is a book of Christian idealism which will make leaders think for themselves and keep on thinking until remedies are found. CHAPLAIN TIPLADTS OTHER BOOKS The Soul of the Soldier i2mo, cloth, net The Cross at the Front i2mo, cloth, net "Among the great mass of war literature these books stand out as of unique purpose and power. They are like no other, and no others are like them." — Cal. Chr. Advocate. NEJVELL DJVIGHT HILLIS Rebuilding Ruined Europe The Human Side of the Problem. i2mo, cloth, net A graphic survey of the appalling havoc wrought by the Great War throughout the whole Continent of Europe, together with an approximate forecast of the possibilities possessed by both peoples and countries for rebuilding, re- construction and renewed prosperity. PROF. HUGH BLACK Author of" Friendship r ttt, "Le^ We Forget" i2mo, cloth, net Dr. Black subjects Democracy, Patriotism, State-Rights, Religion, War, Peace, Pacifism and the League of Na- tions to a close, searching scrutiny, indicating how, by a just and sane interpretation, they may be made to provide a larger incentive to truer living, and a finer apprehension of the duties and responsibilities of world-citizenship. SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR HAROLD C. 1VARREN With the Y. M. C. A. in France Souvenirs of a Secretary. Introduction by Ed- ward W. Bok. i2mo, cloth, net Mr. Warren's book contributes a welcome and timely vindication of the organization, as well as a vastly enter- taining personal record of personal adventure. GRACE H, KNAPP Missionary of the American Board • in Armenia The Tragedy of Bitlis A Chapter of Armenia's Suffering. Illustrated, l2mo, cloth, net The district about Lake Van in Armenia passed through the most awful of that sad country's terrible experience. This authentic story from eye witnesses carries the utmost conviction and will awaken unstinted sympathy. JAMES I. VANCE, D.D, The Silver on the Iron Cross i2mo, cloth, net In common with many other distinguished preachers Dr. Vance has seen service overseas with the American Ex- peditionary Forces. This new book is the record of some of the scenes witnessed, and the impressions left upon his mind. Despite its tenderness, the book resounds with a note of optimism; for as Dr. Vance says: "The Huu's war-cross is made of iron, but it is edged with silver." WILLIAM CARTER, D.D. The Gates of Janus An Epic Story of the World War. Net "A versified history of the Great World Struggle, cov- ering the whole period from the day when the dogs of war were unleashed, down to the signing of the armistice. "A valuable contribution to the literature of the war. It is an effective example of the poetry of action and will win its way when a more prosaic form of delineation would miss its aim." — Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst. VOSNJAK BOGUMIL Member Jugoslav Com., Lecturer • ■ at University of Zagreb {Croatia) A Bulwark Against Germany i2mo, cloth, net "Instructs ug about that branch of the Slavs which, curiously enough, seems the least known — the Slovenes. The present volume explains their historical, political, so- cial, and economical evolution, and abundantly shows that, as the westertimost branch of the TugO'-lavs, they do con- ititute a bulwark against Germany.'" — The Outlook, MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD CAROLINE ATJVA TER MASON Author or The Liau ■■ Green God, ' etc. Conscripts of Conscience i2mo, cloth, net A plea in story form for volunteers for Medical Mission ■work in the Orient by a -writer of recognized literary gifts. The heroic, the sacrificial, have been in continued evidence during our World-War. A parallel field of opportunity is here presented with every promise of equal stimulus to times of peace. ROBERT E. SPEER, LL.D. The Gospel and the New World i2mo, cloth, net Dr. Speer's qualifications for reviewing the situation need no recital. It is sufficient to indicate that with his customary force and clarity, he covers the whole subject of Foreign Missions in the light and darkness of war. CHARLES L. THOMPSON, P.P. The Soul of America The Contribution of Presbyterian Home Mis- sions. Illustrated, cloth, net A lucid, clearly defined statement of what has been done on the North American continent, in Home Mission field by the Presbyterian Church. WINIFREP W. BARTON John P. Williamson A Brother to the Sioux. Drawings by John Redowl. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net ^ "On the prairies Dr. Williamson spent a life of over eighty years crowded with adventures, hardships and toil as he laid out trails for civilization. Such men are our truest empire builders." — Albert Wens in The Dakota Farmer. ELIZABETH LEHMAN MYERS A Century of Moravian Sisters A Record of Christian Community Life. Illus- trated by F. J. Myers. Cloth, net "Gives an impetus to the spirit of simple faith and practical devotion that cannot help but be far-reaching in its cEtct."— Bethlehem Times. friLLIAM EARL LA RUE The Foundations of Mormonitm i2mo, cloth, net _ Bruce Kinney says: "The author has discovered and here brought together original documents bearing on the origin and history of all branches of the Mormon Church. They are so startling that they must be either accepted or disproved/' ABOUT OTHER LANDS HENRY CHUNG The Oriental Policy of the United States With maps, i2mo, cloth, net A plea for the policy of the Open Door in China, pre- sented by an oriental scholar of broad training and deep sympathies. The history of American diplomatic relation- ships with the Orient, the development of the various policies and influences of the western powers in China, and the imperilistic aspirations of Japan are set forth ad- mirably. CHARLES KENDALL HARRINGTON Missionary Amer. Baptist Ftrtign Miss. Society to Jafan Captain Bickel of the Inland Sea Illustrated, 8vo., cloth, net "Especially valuable at this hour, because it throws a flood of light on many conditions in the Orient in which all students of neligious and social questions are espe- cially interested. We would suggest that pastors generally retell the story at some Sunday evening service, for here is a story sensational, thrilling, informing and at the same time a story of great spiritual urgency and power." — W atchman-Bxaminer. HARRIET NEWELL NOTES Canton, China A Light in the Land of Sinim Forty-five Years in the True Light Seminary, 1872-1917. Fully Illustrated, 8vo., net "An authoritative account of the work undertaken and achieved by the True Light Seminary, Canton, China, Mrs. Noyes has devoted practically her whole life to this sphere of Christian service, and the record here presented is that of her own labors and those associated with her ia missionary activity in China, covering a period of mor« than forty-five years." — Christian Work. MRS. H. G. UNDERWOOD Underwood of Korea A Record of the Life and Work of Horace G. Underwood, D.D. Illustrated, cloth, net "An intimate and captivating story of one who labored nobly and faithfully in Korea for thirty-one years, pre- senting his character, consecration, faith, and indomitable courage." — Missions. FAITH AND IMMORTALITY HENRY VAN DYKE What Peace Means l2mo, boards, net Dr. van Dyke's striking booklet might have been fitly called "Peace and Immortality," for it shows us a dis- tinct connection existing between the peace that comes as the fruit of individual sacrifice and the peace that is the promised heritage of "the faithful." Another of those un- mistakable brochure-gems, familiarly known as a van Dyke gift-book. MALCOLM J. MacLEOD, P.P. Songs in the Night i2mo, cloth, net "Satisfying, cheering, written for those who have been forced to drink of the bitter waters of Marah; for those beset with doubt; for those who despair. Studded with choicely-chosen illustration, and fitting literary allusion, each chapter has a message." — Christian Work, E. M. MILLIGAN, P.P. Where Are the Dead? i2mo, cloth, net A faithful guide to the correct understanding of Scrip- tural truth as taught everywhere in the Bible. It is a careful study with copious references, affording _ true spiritual consolation to those who place their faith in di- vine revelation. BISHOP EPJVIN P. MOUZON Does God Care? An answer to Certain Questions Touching Providence and Prayer. i6nio, cloth, net In a concise and closely-reasoned way, Bishop Mouzon meets the question with an unflinching affirmative, pre- senting a strong, forceful argument for the benignity of Divine Providence and the prevailing power of prayer. /. PATERSON-SMYTH Tenth Edition The Gospel of the Hereafter Revised and Re-edited, cloth, net "A dispassionate study of immortality. It is a bold, honest, heroic book. He believes and can reason in faith and hope. The book is preeminently worth while. It is adapted to make one think, feel and Sict."— Watchman- Bxaminer, ''\inmmuiJ,S'A^'"' Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01237 9824 DATE DUE y ^ w ' r GAYLORD PRINTED IN U-S.A 'If , i|j"V 4% ( J ,*j^; i? '"^ra^l .4 'i';^?;;'