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 THE LIBRARY: OF THE 
 DEC 22 1927 
 ONivfcHSily oi iumws 
 
 A REPORT 
 
 PREPARED BY 
 
 WILLIAM ADAMS BROWN, PH. D., D. D. 
 
 UNION SEMINARY LECTURER ON RELIGION 
 IN THE FAR EAST 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
 OF THE 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 JANUARY, 1917 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 MIYERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 

dtahtt F. Gkmcher 
 Number. 
 
 lUn&rnt fHtaatmta itt the 3ftar lEast 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 DEC 2 2 1927 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 
 
 A REPORT 
 
 PREPARED BY 
 
 WILLIAM ADAMS BROWN, PH. D., D. D. 
 
 UNION SEMINARY LECTURER ON RELIGION 
 IN THE FAR EAST 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 BOARD OF DIRECTORS 
 OF THE 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 JANUARY, 1917 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 On May 18, 1915, the Board of Directors, following the 
 precedent already created in the case of Dr. George William 
 Knox, appointed me Union Seminary Lecturer on Religion in 
 the Far East, and granted me six months’ leave of absence from 
 Seminary duties. Pursuant to this action I left this country on 
 the 26th of January, 1916, and spent the following four months 
 and a half in a trip to the Far East, in the course of which I 
 visited a number of mission stations, conferred with many Union 
 Seminary alumni on the foreign field, and delivered numerous 
 lectures, sermons and addresses. I beg herewith to submit 
 to the Board the following report of impressions received during 
 the course of this experience, so far as they bear upon the work 
 of the Seminary as a school for training men for Christian 
 service at home and abroad. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/modernmissionsin00brow_0 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 I. Outline of Work Done as Union Seminary Lecturer. 
 
 II. General Impressions as to the Present Situation on 
 the Mission Field. 
 
 1. Magnitude of the enterprise. 
 
 2. Extent of the success already attained . 
 
 3. Greatness of the work still to be done. 
 
 4. The opportunity for further advance. 
 
 5. The unity of the missionary enterprise. 
 
 6. The wisdom of the present leadership. 
 
 III. Special Problems and Needs. 
 
 1. The Problem of Administrative Efficiency. 
 
 (1) The relation between the home base and the field. 
 
 (2) The organization of the forces on the field. 
 
 (3) The problem of the best use of the individual. 
 
 2. The Question of Educational Policy. 
 
 (1) Different theories of the function of education 
 
 in missions. 
 
 (2) Institutions under direct missionary control. 
 
 (3) Methods of cooperation with non-Christian in- 
 
 stitutions. 
 
 (4) The education of women. 
 
 3. The Question of the Native Church. 
 
 (1) The relation of the missionary to the native 
 
 church. 
 
 (2) The church in Japan. 
 
 (3) The situation in Korea and in China. 
 
 (4) Conditions in Latin America. 
 
4. The Attitude of the Christian to the Non-Christian 
 Environment. 
 
 (1) The attitude of the Christian to the non-Christian 
 
 religions. 
 
 (2) The responsibility of the church for social and 
 
 economic reform. 
 
 (3) The attitude of the missionary body to the gov- 
 
 ernment under which it works. 
 
 IV. Consequences for Missionary Education. 
 
 1. The recruiting and training of missionaries. 
 
 2. The training of the native ministry. 
 
 3. The need of a Christian literature in the vernacular. 
 
 4. The education of the church at home. 
 
 V. What the Seminary Can Do. 
 
 1. The responsibility of the Seminary for missionary 
 
 education. 
 
 2. Bearing upon the present plan for a department of 
 
 missions. 
 
fUnfcrot 4®t00ums in thf Jffar tEaat 
 
I 
 
 OUTLINE OF WORK DONE AS SEMINARY LECTURER 
 
 I left New York City with Mrs. Brown on January 26, 1916, 
 on the steamship Almirante for Panama, where I attended the 
 Missionary Congress on Christian Work in Latin American 
 countries, as a delegate from the Board of Home Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. Here I had the opportunity of 
 meeting several hundred representatives of the different agencies 
 at work in Latin America, both native and foreign, and of 
 learning much concerning the condition, needs and opportuni- 
 ties of this most important field. From Panama I went to San 
 Francisco, where I sailed for Yokohama on the Chiyo Maru on 
 March 2, 1916, taking with me my son, William Adams Brown, 
 Jr., as my secretary. We reached Yokohama on March 18th 
 and, after two days spent in conference with those responsible 
 for the planning of our J apanese trip, went on at once to China, 
 reaching Shanghai on Friday, March 24. In Shanghai we 
 remained five days, which were filled with conferences, addresses 
 and interviews. We left Shanghai on the evening of March 27, 
 visiting successively Hangchow, Soochow, Nanking, Hwaiyuan, 
 Chufu, Taianfu and Tsinanfu, and reached Peking on the 
 evening of April 6. Here we remained six days, during which 
 we made side trips to Tungchow and Nankow. On April 12 
 we left Peking for Korea, stopping at Tientsin and Moukden 
 on the way. Saturday and Sunday, April 15 and 16, were 
 spent at Pyeng Yang; and Monday, the 17th, at Seoul. From 
 Korea we crossed over to Japan, landing at Shimonoseki on 
 the 18th, and after a night spent en route at Miyajima, reached 
 Kyoto on the 19th, where we spent five days and where I 
 delivered a course of lectures under the auspices of the Doshisha, 
 as well as other sermons and addresses. From Kyoto we went 
 to Kobe, stopping over a day at Osaka en route where I de- 
 livered three lectures. At Kobe I delivered a number of 
 lectures and addresses under the auspices of the Kwansei 
 Gakuin, the leading Methodist College in Japan. From Kobe 
 we went to Tokyo, stopping at Wakayama and Nara and 
 Nagoya on the way. We were in Tokyo from May 3 to May 13, 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 the time being filled to overflowing with lectures, interviews 
 and conferences of every sort. A brief trip to the north, where 
 I spent three days at Sendai, lecturing under the auspices of 
 the German Reformed College, completed my work as lecturer. 
 The last week was given to sight-seeing at Nikko, Kamakura 
 and a three days’ trip around Fuji. We sailed from Yokohama 
 on May 25 by the Empress of Russia and reached San Fran- 
 cisco on June 4. 
 
 During my trip I lectured thirteen times, preached twenty-one 
 times, delivered forty addresses, and conducted fourteen con- 
 ferences, besides having many interviews with individuals both 
 of the missionary body, of our own alumni, and of the native 
 church. While I was in the Far East I spoke on the average 
 about twice a day, except when on the train or boat, and in 
 spite of the strenuous character of the trip both my son and I 
 enjoyed the best of health during the entire time. 
 
 My programme in Japan was arranged for by a committee of 
 the China Continuation Committee, consisting of Dr. Dearing 
 and President Ibuka ; in China by Mr. Lobenstine, the Secretary 
 of the Continuation Committee in that country. In Japan I 
 delivered at Kyoto, Kobe and Tokyo a course of lectures on the 
 subject, “ Is Christianity Practicable? ” These lectures were 
 delivered in response to an invitation from the Continuation 
 Committee and the Federation of Japanese Churches, and are 
 to he published in Japanese by the Christian Literature Society, 
 and in English by Scribner. My remaining lectures and ad- 
 dresses covered a wide variety of topics, social, educational and 
 religious. I had repeated opportunities to address audiences 
 of non-Christians, the most interesting perhaps being the Con- 
 cordia Society of Tokyo, a group of eminent scholars repre- 
 senting the leading religions of Japan. I was also invited to 
 address the students of the Waseda and the Imperial Universities 
 at Tokyo, the students of the government law college at Peking, 
 as well as other representative groups of non- Christians. 
 
 In each of the communities through which I passed I visited 
 the leading missionary institutions and conferred with repre- 
 sentative missionaries of different denominations. I had a 
 number of opportunities to meet representatives of the non- 
 Christian religions, and took every means in my power to inform 
 myself as to their condition, prospects and influence. I was 
 fortunate enough also to meet many Japanese leaders in educa- 
 
11 
 
 tional and diplomatic circles, and to gain some insight into the 
 social problems of the new Japan. 
 
 I was everywhere most cordially received and, if I were to 
 mention all those to whom I am under obligation for personal 
 help and kindness, the list would run into the hundreds. Homes 
 were everywhere freely opened to us and during our entire trip 
 in the Far East we spent only six nights in a hotel. 
 
 I made a particular point of looking up our own graduates, 
 and was gratified to find them holding important posts and 
 doing useful work. In all I met personally more than forty 
 out of nearly a hundred Union Seminary alumni in the Far 
 East. At Shanghai the alumni gave me a lunch at the Hotel 
 Astor. At Tokyo, where an alumni association has recently been 
 formed, we were entertained at dinner by Mr. and Mrs. Coleman, 
 eleven out of fourteen graduates of the Seminary being present. 
 Wherever I went I found our alumni keenly interested in the 
 Seminary, and our plan for a department of missionary training 
 was welcomed with enthusiasm. 
 
 Outside of the circle of our own alumni and friends I found 
 the Seminary well known and much esteemed for its service to 
 the cause of missions. The wise and tactful conduct of our 
 alumni on the field has done much to dispel prejudice and 
 remove misunderstanding. 
 
 I brought back from my trip the conviction that in its work 
 as a training school of missionaries, the Seminary has an oppor- 
 tunity of exceptional promise which, if embraced without delay, 
 will enable it to render a service of great importance to the 
 cause of missions. In order to describe this opportunity intelli- 
 gently it will be necessary for me to say a few words about the 
 missionary situation in general, and to point out some of the 
 special phases of the situation which bear directly upon the 
 work of missionary preparation. 
 
II 
 
 GENERAL IMPRESSIONS AS TO THE EXISTING 
 SITUATION ON THE MISSION FIELD 
 
 1 
 
 Magnitude of the Enterprise 
 
 The first impression made upon one who visits the mission 
 field for the first time is of the magnitude of the missionary en- 
 terprise. Considered simply as a business proposition missions 
 are a going concern. Both in the physical plant operated, the 
 numbers of men and women employed, and the influence exerted, 
 foreign missions are one of the outstanding facts with which 
 any intelligent traveler in countries like China and Japan must 
 reckon. The compounds of the leading foreign missionary 
 societies occupy large tracts of land in each of the leading cities. 
 The houses of the missionaries are substantial and comfortable. 
 The educational and religious enterprises, judged by the stan- 
 dards which prevail, are well housed. In a city like Shanghai 
 the missionary community numbers perhaps five hundred per- 
 sons; in Peking and in Tokyo, several hundreds. A glance 
 over the index of the Mission Year books of China and Japan 
 reveals a story of many-sided and efficient activity. One feels 
 that in the large cities at least the pioneer stage of Christian 
 missions is past, and that a work which commands such large 
 resources of men and of money must be judged by more exact- 
 ing standards than those which were applied a generation ago. 
 
 2 
 
 Extent of the Success Already Attained 
 
 Nor is it simply from the point of view of the money and the 
 energy invested that foreign missions impress the visitor. Their 
 influence in each of the countries in which they are at work is 
 altogether out of proportion to the number of individuals 
 who are concerned. In China the leading educational in- 
 
 12 
 
13 
 
 stitutions have been, up to the present time, missionary insti- 
 tutions. Missionaries have been leaders in various movements 
 of social reform, notably the movement for the suppression of 
 opium. In Nanking one of our own graduates, Mr. Joseph 
 Baillie, has been a pioneer in the work of reforestation and 
 scientific agriculture. In Hangchow the Christian community, 
 though numbering only eight hundred in a population of sev- 
 eral hundred thousand, succeeded in defeating a movement for 
 the opening of a quarter for licensed vice, after the land had 
 been granted and the buildings actually erected. 
 
 In Korea, until the advent of the Japanese, missionaries were 
 everywhere looked up to as the leaders of the nation. In the 
 absence of any effective native leadership either in church or 
 state, every forward movement was due to their initiative, and 
 it would be difficult to-day to find any community, even in the 
 United States, where in proportion to the number of their 
 inhabitants, the Christian churches exercise a more powerful 
 influence. In Pyeng Yang I attended the Sunday School of the 
 Central Presbyterian church. Three sessions were required to 
 accommodate the scholars who in each filled the main audience 
 room to its capacity. At the first session more than four hun- 
 dred men and older boys were in attendance, at the second, six 
 hundred women, while the same number of children of both 
 sexes attended the final session. And the Central is but one of 
 seven Presbyterian churches in Pyeng Yang, while the Method- 
 ists have a work second only in importance to that of the 
 Presbyterians. At Syen Chun, fully half of the population are 
 Christians, and from both centres an active evangelistic cam- 
 paign is being carried on, in which the workers are largely 
 volunteers serving at their own charges. 
 
 Even in Japan, where Christianity confronts a powerful, inde- 
 pendent organization, both in church and state, the influence 
 exerted by Christians on public opinion is altogether out of 
 proportion to their numbers. While I was in Japan the attempt 
 was made to open a licensed quarter near some schools in the 
 city of Osaka. A powerful opposition at once arose, in which 
 Christians were the leaders. On many important social ques- 
 tions, such as the divorce question, the right of woman to the 
 protection of her person, the drink question, and the like, 
 Christianity has proved itself a powerful factor in the formation 
 of public opinion. Measured by what it has accomplished, the 
 
14 
 
 amount which has been expended for Christian missions has 
 justified itself to date. 
 
 3 
 
 Greatness of the Work Still to be Done 
 
 A third impression produced by a visit to the mission field 
 is of the greatness of the work still to be done. This is true 
 even when one takes the narrowest view of Christianity as a 
 purely individualistic religion. Eespectable as are the numbers 
 of the converts, they are still, with the single exception of 
 Korea, but a small fraction in each of the non- Christian coun- 
 tries, and when one passes from the individual to the social 
 point of view and considers what has still to be done to create a 
 Christian society one feels that one is facing a task not for 
 decades but for centuries. 
 
 This impression of the greatness of the task is most vivid in 
 China. I spent two days in Hwaiyuan, with our own graduate, 
 James Cochran. Hwaiyuan is, I suppose, one of the best 
 managed mission stations in China. It has an excellent hospital, 
 a fine church, good schools, and an adequate and spacious com- 
 pound for the workers. The work has been well manned and 
 conducted with intelligence and success. A Christian com- 
 munity has been gathered; boys and girls are being trained, 
 and through an evangelistic campaign the influence of the 
 central station is reaching into the surrounding villages. Yet 
 when one measures what has been done by what still remains 
 to.be done one realizes the vastness of the task. Sanitary con- 
 ditions in the city are conspicuous by their absence ; the village 
 washing is done in a pond into which the sewage of the city 
 drains, and Mr. Cochran found it convenient to send his wash to 
 Nanking, three hours away by rail. Foot-binding is still almost 
 universally practiced; executions take place on the public road 
 outside the village, and the bodies are left to lie unburied until 
 the family or some friend comes to reclaim them. The exposure 
 of female infants is of common occurrence. When I was in the 
 hospital Dr. Samuel Cochran showed me a man whose body was 
 frightfully burned. He was a respectable merchant who had 
 been beset by robbers and tortured in order that he might 
 betray the whereabouts of his money. As Chinese communities 
 
15 
 
 go, Hwaiyuan is a very decent place, and the magistrate, the 
 centre of all power in the Chinese community, a good one as 
 magistrates go. But when one applies to such a community the 
 standard of the Christian social ideal, one realizes how much 
 has still to be done before China becomes a Christian nation. 
 
 It would be unfair to generalize from a single example ; but 
 the impression made in Hwaiyuan was confirmed by what I 
 saw elsewhere in China. Except in centres like Shanghai and 
 Tientsin, where foreigners have exerted a controlling influence, 
 one hears everywhere the same story of inefficiency, inertia and 
 corruption. More even than in Syria I felt myself transported 
 back into pre-Christian conditions, both as to economics and as 
 to psychology. With human material of unusual promise, with 
 capacities for industry, endurance, patience and good humor, 
 unparalleled in any other people, with individual examples of 
 character and achievement nowhere surpassed, there is yet 
 something lacking in China which it will take generations, yes, 
 centuries to supply. Of India I cannot speak at firsthand, but 
 with this exception China impressed me as the great mission 
 field of the world. 
 
 When, however, one shifts one ’s point of view from the longer 
 to the nearer future one is led to modify one’s judgment. In 
 magnitude China may be the great mission field, but in urgency 
 J apan comes first. This is due to many different causes ; in part 
 to the more effective social organization of Janpan which makes 
 it possible to influence the whole country more rapidly and more 
 effectively; in part to the relative strength and independence 
 of the native church which has in Japan a power which the 
 church in China does not possess ; but above all, to the strategic 
 position which Japan holds in the political world both with 
 reference to China and to Korea. Like all the countries of the 
 world Japan faces a crisis in her political fortunes, and her 
 decision both in questions of domestic and of foreign policy will 
 have momentous consequences not only for Christianity within 
 her own borders but in the world. Nowhere in my judgment is 
 Christian leadership more needed than in Japan to-day, and 
 nowhere will the next ten years count for more. 
 
 There is an impression in certain Christian circles that the 
 work of missions in Japan is practically over, and that from 
 this time on the responsibility for Christianizing Japan can be 
 Jaid upon the shoulders of the native church. I believe that 
 
16 
 
 this is a mistaken impression, and that there will be work for 
 the right kind of missionary in Japan for many years. It is true 
 that the work of the missionary in Japan is very different from 
 that of the missionary in China. In China what is needed is 
 patient instruction in the elementary tasks of sanitation, econo- 
 mics and citizenship, until a generation of Chinese has been 
 raised up who are able to assume the responsibility of Christian 
 leadership all along the line. In Japan the problem of the mis- 
 sionary is to cooperate with the leaders of the native church in 
 creating a public sentiment strong enough to affect the life of 
 the nation as a whole. In view of the strength of the anti- 
 Christian influences now at work in Japan, this is a task as 
 important as it is difficult, and it would be unfortunate if the 
 recent emphasis in missionary appeal upon the needs of China, 
 an emphasis not greater than the facts warrant, should obscure 
 even for a moment the equally important, and as I believe, even 
 more pressing need of Japan. 
 
 4 
 
 The Opportunity for Further Advance 
 
 But if the need is great, so is the opportunity. In every 
 country that I visited I found the barriers which have hampered 
 the missionary enterprise in the past in the way of removal,, 
 and the way open for a forward movement all along the line. 
 
 This is notably true in China. The attitude of suspicion 
 which characterized the days of the Boxer outbreak is giving 
 place to a feeling of sympathy and confidence. Intelligent 
 Chinese welcome the help that Christian missions can bring 
 them in solving their national and social problems, and the 
 hospital and the school have established points of contact which 
 give the missionary easy access to the minds and hearts of those 
 for whom he works. I have spoken of the discouragements 
 which the missionary must face: the corruption of the govern- 
 ment, the inertia of the people, the heavy weight of the dead 
 hand of the past. And it is necessary to do this if one is to 
 give a true picture of the facts. So much has been said in 
 missionary circles of the awakening of China in the past few 
 years, and of the new forces which are making themselves felt 
 in the life of the nation, that there is danger that those at home 
 
17 
 
 will underestimate the difficulty of the task and the long time 
 that must elapse before the desired results appear. And yet 
 it is true that China is awakening, and that in spite of the dis- 
 couragements of her present political situation, there are ele- 
 ments in the life of the nation that are full of promise for the 
 future. There is a new spirit abroad of which one finds evidence 
 in the most unexpected places, a spirit of expectation and hope. 
 Minds are waking up and new ideals are being conceived. 
 Nothing impressed me more in my trip through China than the 
 eagerness with which the more thoughtful Chinese — and I 
 may add Chinese women — followed the changing political con- 
 ditions, and the extent to which the standard by which they 
 judged was a moral standard. Whatever other influences may 
 have cooperated in Yuan Shih Kai’s downfall, the fact that he 
 broke his pledged word was an important one. Men felt 
 that he could not be trusted, and so he had to go. How China 
 is to meet the crisis of the immediate future he would be a 
 wise man who should venture to predict, but that there are 
 moral forces in China which, if properly directed, will in time 
 make her the great country she promises to be, no one who has 
 been even a month in China can doubt. 
 
 Equally impressive though different in kind is the opportunity 
 in Japan. There was a time some years ago when the relations 
 between the missionary body and the native church were some- 
 what strained. But now that the church has won its inde- 
 pendence, and the missionaries have frankly accepted the posi- 
 tion of advisers, this strain has been removed. When the 
 missionary comes to the Japanese in the spirit of brotherhood 
 and equality with suggestions based upon superior knowledge 
 and experience, his help is eagerly welcomed and his suggestions 
 are apt to be followed. I do not believe that there is any place 
 in the world to-day where the presence of a small group of able 
 and far-sighted men full of sympathy with Japan in her legiti- 
 mate aspirations and inspired with the Christian ideal of 
 brotherhood and service can do more to advance the Kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 In Latin America too doors are opening in unexpected ways. 
 The restrictive policy which used to obtain in the Latin Amer- 
 ican states is rapidly yielding to one of toleration if not of 
 sympathy. In the Central American republics the govern- 
 ments cordially welcome Protestant missionaries and cooperate 
 
18 
 
 with them. In Pern, the stronghold of reaction, liberty of 
 worship and of teaching has finally been granted to Protestants. 
 Thoughtful Latin Americans are becoming concerned at the 
 state of irreligion in their universities and welcome the presen- 
 tation of a form of Christianity which is not inconsistent with 
 the results of modern science. 
 
 So much has been said recently in the papers about the 
 Panama Congress that it may be of interest to say a word as 
 to the impressions which I received there. I confess that I 
 went to Panama somewhat in doubt as to the wisdom of the 
 gathering and open to conviction as to whether the Latin 
 American countries were really a missionary field in the strictest 
 sense. I came back with a clear conviction that not only was 
 Latin America a mission field for Protestants but one of the 
 highest importance and promise. This is due in part to physical 
 reasons like the vastness of the territory and the difficulty of 
 communication; in part, to social reasons like the absence of 
 any strong middle class to act as a connecting like between the 
 little company of the well to do and the educated, and the great 
 mass of ignorant laborers in the different countries; but above 
 all, to the absence of effective Christian agencies to counteract 
 these difficulties and to supply the uplifting and unifying 
 influence which is needed. When all allowance has been made 
 for the work which the Roman Catholic Church has done and 
 is doing in the person of many of its representatives, with all 
 recognition of the fact that in certain of the Latin American 
 countries like Chile, Argentina and Brazil, we have a relatively 
 high civilization which compares favorably with the corre- 
 sponding civilization of Europe, the fact remains that when we 
 take the field as a whole there is a work to be done by Protestant 
 missions which intelligent Latin Americans themselves recog- 
 nize and heartily welcome. 
 
 One of the most impressive addresses at the Panama Con- 
 gress was delivered by Judge del Toro, a Catholic layman of 
 Porto Rico. It was entitled “The Principles and Spirit of 
 Jesus essential to meet the social needs of our time,” and 
 was an eloquent appeal to the confernce to bring to his 
 fellow countrymen of Spanish and Portuguese speech the type 
 of free and spiritual religion which has been so important a 
 factor in the life of the Protestant peoples of the North. 
 
 An interesting phase of the situation on which I can touch 
 
19 
 
 only in a word has to do with the relation of Christianity to 
 the non- Christian religions. Here also conditions have changed 
 greatly in the last few years and for the better. In every 
 country that I visited the Christian has access to leaders of 
 the non-Christian religions of a kind which would have seemed 
 impossible only a few years ago. In China Confucianism im- 
 presses one as the one moral agency of importance which can 
 be counted upon for help in the moral regeneration of the 
 people. Buddhism seems moribund in spite of spasmodic efforts 
 of the Japanese Buddhists to revive it, Mohammedanism is 
 content to hold its own and make little effort at propaganda. 
 The real religion of the mass of the Chinese seems to be a form 
 of spirit worship, chiefly animated by fear. In all China 
 Christianity meets no strong and effective opponent, and already 
 the reflex influence of its propaganda is beginning to appear 
 in the effect upon the leaders of the non-Christian religions. 
 Far-sighted missionaries like Timothy Richard have established 
 points of personal contact with leading representatives of the 
 non-Christian faiths. In Peking there was recently held a 
 conference of the leading Mollahs, somewhat after the model 
 of John R. Mott’s Continuation Conferences, to consider what 
 was the matter with Mohammedanism and what could be done 
 to revive it. A similar conference, I am told, is planned by 
 the Buddhists, 
 
 In Japan conditions are very different, but the outlook is no 
 less encouraging. Here Buddhism is a living religion that is 
 carrying on an active missionary propaganda. It has its pro- 
 fessors in the imperial universities; it has its own educational 
 establishments. It is imitating the social institutions of Chris- 
 tianity, and has its young men’s Buddhist associations and its 
 Buddhist Sunday schools. It has revived preaching and is 
 creating a popular literature. All this is so much to the good. 
 It focuses attention on questions of religion; it creates a class 
 of men to whom the Christian propaganda is of interest. While 
 it makes demands for a high order of training on the part of 
 the Christian missionary and a sympathetic understanding not 
 easy for a foreigner, there is evidence that the work of Christian 
 missions is having a far wider influence than a superficial ob- 
 server would realize. Many Buddhist priests are reading the 
 Bible ; not a few are Christians at heart. 
 
 It is more difficult to give a just estimate of the significance 
 
20 
 
 of Shinto in the religions life of Japan. Shinto is the primitive 
 religion of Japan, the form in which the spirit worship which 
 is the prevailing religion in China, reappears in this new en- 
 vironment. But in Japan it has undergone an independent 
 development and, through its association with the ideals of 
 patriotism, acquired a new lease of life. The festival in com- 
 memoration of the heroic dead plays an important part in 
 developing the national self-consciousness. And while the gov- 
 ernment has decided that its significance is civic and not re- 
 ligious, and some missionaries have acquiesced in this interpre- 
 tation, it must be confessed that for many Japanese the distinc- 
 tion is difficult to make. There are thoughtful missionaries who 
 believe that in the future it will appear that Shinto and not 
 Buddhism is the most formidable rival of Christianity, and that 
 in spite of the government disclaimer, it may develop into a 
 religion of imperialism which, as in ancient Rome, will deify 
 the State and make the will of the Emperor the supreme law. 
 
 5 
 
 The Unity of the Missionary Enterprise 
 
 A fifth impression which one gains from a visit to the mission 
 field is of the unity of the work. For convenience we divide the 
 work of missions into sections which we label home and foreign ; 
 but the divisions are only for convenience. In principle we face 
 the same problems everywhere, whether in Shanghai or 
 Yokohama, Buenos Aires or New York. 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive of two fields where the 
 external conditions are more different than in China and Latin 
 America. In one case you are dealing with an ancient civiliza- 
 tion; in the other, with one comparatively modem. In the 
 first case, with a population of exceptional density where the 
 mere task of securing means of subsistence for the people is 
 constantly pressing; in the other case, with a widely scattered 
 population spread over vast reaches of territory. Yet in both 
 cases the problems to be faced and the difficulties to be over- 
 come are essentially the same. When I was in Shanghai I was 
 requested to give a talk before an audience of missionaries on 
 my experiences at Panama, and when I finished, the presiding 
 officer remarked that the description of the situation and the 
 
21 
 
 needs could be transferred to China with the change of but a 
 single word. 
 
 And what is true as between the different sections of the 
 mission field is true also with reference to the work at home. 
 I came to my study of the foreign field from a background of 
 some years’ experience as a home mission administrator, and I 
 found that there is scarcely a single problem which the mission- 
 ary confronts in China, or Japan, which is not faced in principle 
 by the church at home. The problem of race, of language, of 
 class prejudice, of denominational rivalry, of the degree of 
 the church’s responsibility for social and economic conditions, 
 the problems of Christian education and of comity — these and 
 many more which could be named are common Christian prob- 
 lems. The line between home and foreign is an imaginary line, 
 like the equator on the map. 
 
 Nor is the unity simply in the problems to be faced. It 
 appears also in the reflex influence which is being exerted by 
 one country upon another. The work of the missionary as he 
 preaches brotherly love and unselfishness is handicapped by the 
 prejudice created by the conduct of his fellow-countrymen at 
 home who, as a matter of fact, are acting selfishly. It is hard 
 to presuade men of the practicability of Christianity as a social 
 programme for China when every mail brings evidence of its 
 failure in countries calling themselves Christian. More powerful 
 than any argument for Christianity which the missionaries can 
 give on the field would be the success of the Christian church 
 in Christianizing social conditions at home. 
 
 The intimate connection between the problem on the field 
 and the church at home was constantly brought to my attention 
 during my trip. When I asked why such and such a thing was 
 not done, or why such and such a policy was not followed, the 
 answer was frequently that the sentiment of the church at 
 home would not permit it. The prejudices and limitations of 
 our local denominationalism are reflected across the sea, and 
 the church in Japan and China is less effective than it might 
 be because of the failure and inefficiency of the church at home. 
 
 The consciousness that the Christian enterprise through- 
 out the world is one has been greatly reinforced by the war. 
 One of my chief objects in visiting the mission field at this time 
 was to learn what had been the effect of this world catastrophe 
 upon the estimate of Christianity by the non-Christian peoples. 
 
22 
 
 Would the war make the appeal of the missionary more difficult, 
 or would it reinforce it by its demonstration of the appalling 
 consequences of the policy of national selfishness, which has 
 hitherto been controlling in the relation between nations? On 
 the whole the latter has proved to be the case. The war has 
 proved to thoughtful men in China and Japan not that Chris- 
 tianity is a failure, but that the nations which call themselves 
 Christians are not really so. It has accentuated the gap between 
 the professions of the western nations and their practice, and 
 made us realize as never before that, so far as its national 
 and social life is concerned, there is not a country in the world 
 which is not missionary territory. 
 
 6 
 
 The Wisdom of the Present Leadership 
 
 The sixth and final impression of which I shall speak here 
 is of the wisdom and ability of the present missionary leader- 
 ship. When I w T as in Panama I had the opportunity of talking 
 with representatives of all the larger Protestant missionary 
 societies, and of learning their attitude toward the group of 
 questions which are raised by the situation I have described ; 
 and I have no hesitation in saying that the impression which I 
 received was most encouraging. I am convinced that w T ith few 
 exceptions those responsible for our present missionary leader- 
 ship have a clear conception of what needs to be done and the 
 earnest desire to do this so far as conditions allow. The older 
 individualistic conception is everywhere seen to be inadequate, 
 and men realize that without intelligent cooperation success is 
 impossible. The note of unity and daring struck at Edinburgh 
 has re-echoed throughout the entire church and in ideal at least 
 the leaders of the missionary enterprise are at one. 
 
 Nor is this true only in ideal. Much progress has been made 
 in creating the machinery of effective cooperation. The Con- 
 tinuation Committee created by the Edinburgh Conference for 
 all the countries outside of Latin America has now been matched 
 by a Continuation Committee taking in these countries as well. 
 For the first time in its history the missionary body has an 
 organ through which it can express its unity and correlate its 
 work. 
 
23 
 
 This unification of missionary forces and ideals at home has 
 its parallel in the field. In each of the great centres we find 
 cooperative movements of great promise. The central Con- 
 tinuation Committees of which I have spoken have their parallels 
 in local committees covering a single country or group, and the 
 consciousness that the Christian enterprise is one is everywhere 
 in evidence. One of the pleasantest features of my trip was 
 the opportunity of attending gatherings like the weekly prayer 
 meeting at Shanghai where all the Christian forces come to- 
 gether for conference and fellowship. There can be no question 
 that as between the church at home and abroad the conscious- 
 ness of unity on the foreign field is more highly developed and 
 the possibilities of effective cooperation are greater. 
 
 Such then are the general impressions which I brought back 
 from the mission field : the magnitude of the enterprise ; the 
 extent of the accomplishment to date ; the greatness of the work 
 still to be done; the range and many-sidedness of the oppor- 
 tunity; the unity of the work both at home and abroad; the 
 wisdom and efficiency of the present missionary leadership. It 
 is with these considerations in mind that we must approach the 
 special problems which the missionary faces to-day. 
 
III. 
 
 SPECIAL PROBLEMS AND NEEDS 
 
 1 
 
 The Problem of Administrative Efficiency 
 
 When one approaches a complex situation such as that pre- 
 sented by modem missions it is essential to distinguish between 
 those general questions of principle or policy which affect the 
 situation as a whole, and the more specific problems and needs 
 which, however important they may be in themselves, are yet 
 relatively independent. Fundamental among these more general 
 questions is that of administrative method, for it is the key to 
 all the rest. 
 
 I have spoken already of the impressions which I received of 
 the wisdom of the present missionary leadership. But this is 
 quite consistent with the recognition that there is room for 
 improvement in our methods of missionary administration. At 
 two points our present methods fall short of the highest stand- 
 ards of efficiency. First, in their lack of proper coordination 
 between the executive at home and its representatives on the 
 field; and secondly, in their failure to make the most effective 
 use of the force on the field. This in turn is due in part to 
 lack of proper organization of the different units at work; in 
 part, to failure to provide individual workers with the equip- 
 ment they need. 
 
 This failure is in part due to causes which are unavoidable. 
 When one considers the conditions to be faced the wonder is 
 not that there is room for improvement in missionary methods, 
 but that so much has been accomplished in the face of so great 
 obstacles. Instead of a single organization covering the field as 
 a whole, we have to do with a large number of independent 
 societies, each with its own traditions, constituency and point 
 of view, each with its staff of workers responsible only to the 
 home authorities, each with the natural local pride which is 
 characteristic of denominationalism at home. The obstacles with 
 which we are all familiar in our efforts to secure practical 
 
 24 
 
2S 
 
 cooperation in Christian work on the home field reproduce 
 themselves across the sea, and until our denominational divisions 
 are overcome and organic unity secured, at least in the greater 
 branches of the church, we must continue to face them. Under 
 these circumstances, I repeat, the wonder is not that the highest 
 success is not always attained, hut that so much has been 
 accomplished, as is in fact the case. 
 
 But apart from the inherent difficulty which grows out of 
 our denominational divisions there is a further difficulty which 
 hampers our missionary secretaries, and that is the disposition 
 on the part of the church at home to regard money spent for 
 purely administrative purposes as so much taken from the 
 direct work of the church. This is a prejudice which all who 
 have had to do with missionary administration understand 
 perfectly. It hampers our home mission enterprise at every 
 point, but its evils are accentuated on the foreign field. In 
 proportion to the magnitude and difficulty of the problems to be 
 faced is the need of flexibility in the organization to deal with 
 them. Experiments must be tried, conditions studied, the results 
 of previous experiments analyzed and compared. But for this 
 there is need of an administrative staff more numerous and 
 more efficiently equipped than is the case with our present mis- 
 sionary boards, and for a reserve of mobile funds which can 
 be used to meet emergencies as they arise without trenching on 
 the work to which the boards are already committed. 
 
 On the way to Panama one of our delegation met a company 
 of American business men traveling to Latin America on busi- 
 ness. When they learned the purpose of our trip they became 
 much interested and asked us many questions as to the methods 
 followed in missionary administration. The thing which 
 impressed them most was the smallness of the overhead 
 charges. This did not seem to them good business. “If we 
 were to undertake such an enterprise as you have on hand,” 
 they said, “ we should set apart $20,000 or $30,000 for a pre- 
 liminary survey. We should take the best men we could find, 
 send them all through the field, have them mature careful 
 plans and only on the basis of their report feel justified in 
 undertaking the work. ’ 7 
 
 This is the way in which our present missionary methods 
 appear to men who have been trained in modern business 
 methods. If our work as missionaries is to reach the highest 
 
26 
 
 standard of efficiency we must relieve our executive heads of 
 much of the burden of detail which now rests upon them. We 
 must unify and coordinate our work more perfectly. We must 
 perfect our intelligence departments and furnish them with 
 the means they need for effective study. We must not expect 
 each of our secretaries to do the work of two or three men, 
 and then be surprised if some things remain undone. We must 
 give them the help that they need and realize that every dollar 
 so spent is true economy. 
 
 (1) The Relation Between the Home Base and the Field 
 
 One effect of the economy thus forced upon the board is a 
 lack of effective coordination between the executive at home and 
 its representatives on the field. Wherever I went I found the 
 desire for some method for securing speedier action by the home 
 authorities upon the plans prepared on the field. Years pass 
 between the visits of the secretaries, and when they come, the 
 distance to be covered is so great that opportunities for confer- 
 ence are of the briefest. I followed Dr. Speer in his recent trip 
 to the Far East and had the opportunity to compare his schedule 
 with my own. To our own mission in Shanghai he could give 
 two hours; to individual missionaries a scant fifteen minutes; 
 for all of Japan little more than two weeks. When one con- 
 siders the conditions in such a field as China, the magnitude and 
 intricacy of the problems, the rapidity with which conditions 
 change, the need of speedy action to meet emergencies which 
 cannot be foreseen, and reflects that the entire responsibility 
 for ultimate decision in questions of this kind rests with the 
 staff in New York, consisting of three or four secretaries each 
 burdened with enough work to fill the time of a dozen ordinary 
 men, the unsatisfactoriness of the present situation becomes 
 apparent. One of the pressing needs of missionary administra- 
 tion is of some readjustment which will make it possible for the 
 responsible executive officers to spend more time on the field, 
 or, in default of this, to put a greater burden of responsibility 
 upon resident missionaries. Many of the missions are advocat- 
 ing resident secretaries. In those churches which are non- 
 Episcopally organized the attempt is being made to secure more 
 efficient administration through the creation of local committees 
 under chairmen relieved from other duties. Thus the Pres- 
 
27 
 
 byterians have set apart Dr. Lowrie for such work in China. 
 The Baptists have done the same with Mr. Proctor. But what 
 has been done is only a beginning of what is needed. 
 
 It would be a great advantage if, in addition to more frequent 
 visits from the board secretaries, the members of the different 
 foreign boards should themselves make a practice of visiting 
 the field. This would be specially desirable in the case of the 
 lay members. Many questions of missionary policy are purely 
 business questions and the judgment of business men would be 
 of great value. The materials for such judgment cannot be 
 transmitted by mail. Only first-hand observation on the ground 
 will suffice. The experience of Mr. Louis Severance of the 
 Presbyterian Board is a case in point. He repeatedly visited 
 the mission field and took time for intelligent study of its con- 
 ditions; and the splendid Severance Hospital at Seoul is only 
 one of the many evidences of the beneficent results of his study. 
 
 An interesting experiment in missionary administration is 
 being tried by the Southern Methodists who have consolidated 
 their men’s and women’s boards and given women representa- 
 tion on equal terms in the united board. If this example should 
 be followed by other churches, it would make possible many 
 economies and would have as its result a closer union of men’s 
 and women’s work all along the line. In this whole matter of 
 women’s work we are going through a transition period. At 
 first women had to fight for recognition, and secured this 
 through the organization of their own boards and the assump- 
 tion of their own definite sphere of responsibility. At Panama 
 a day was set apart for the consideration of women’s work, 
 much to the gratification of some of the women present who 
 regarded this as an advance over the Edinburgh Conference, 
 where no special provision was made for the discussion of 
 women’s work as such. To others, however, and these some of 
 the most thoughtful, the plan followed at Panama was un- 
 satisfactory, and the true ideal declared to be the cooperation 
 of men and women in each branch of mission work under 
 conditions making possible the most effective use of the special 
 gifts of each. 
 
 (2) The Organization of the Forces on the Field 
 
 The organization of the missionary forces of each denomina- 
 tion within the larger units of territory needs to be supplemented 
 
28 
 
 by interdenominational organization, so far as that is practi- 
 cable. Much good has been done through the creation of con- 
 tinuation committees for countries like China and Japan, with 
 efficient secretaries who give all their time to the work. But as 
 the work develops and problems become more clearly differen- 
 tiated, these central bodies will need to be supplemented by 
 smaller local units of the same kind until every important centre 
 has its federation or church council organically related to its 
 fellows and to the larger provincial and national committees. 
 Here too we find encouraging beginnings, and in more than one 
 city, as in Hangchow under Dr. Fitch, the entire Christian body 
 is attacking the problem of city evangelization as a unit, and in 
 other ways showing a spirit of cooperation which is full of 
 promise for the future. 
 
 There are three ways in which cooperation between the dif- 
 ferent Christian bodies can be effected. The simplest is through 
 a division of territory such as obtains in Porto Rico and the 
 Philippines. Such a method is possible in sparsely settled 
 regions, or in dealing with a country of the magnitude of China, 
 and, where feasible, has many advantages. A second is through 
 a division of function. Thus in Tokyo the Baptists have assumed 
 the care of the religious interests of the Waseda University, with 
 the concurrence of the Young Men’s Christian Association and 
 other Christian bodies. The third is through cooperative enter- 
 prises such as the various union colleges and seminaries, which 
 are so notable a feature of modern missions, especially in China, 
 or as the joint evangelistic campaign which is being conducted 
 by the Japanese churches. 
 
 The difficulty with union educational institutions is that of 
 securing concentration of authority. Where all must be con- 
 sulted the slowest is apt to set the pace, and in the interest of 
 union, opportunities for a forward movement must often be 
 neglected. This is especially true of theological seminaries 
 where doctrinal considerations play an important role and the 
 more liberal and progressive members of the faculty have to 
 wait for the approval of their more conservative brethren. On 
 the other hand the habit of working together breeds confidence, 
 dispels prejudice, and in the long run probably lifts the whole 
 body to a higher level than would otherwise be possible. 
 
 An instance in point is the Baptist Seminary in Shanghai. 
 When the question of consolidating the theological schools of 
 
29 
 
 central China had to be faced, two possibilities were open: 
 either to follow sectional lines, and unite the schools of the 
 Northern Baptists and Northern Presbyterians in one seminary 
 while the southern branches of both churches came together in 
 another ; or to let Baptists, north and south, unite while Presby- 
 terians did the same. The latter policy was followed, and I 
 believe wisely. The fear of those who predicted that the doc- 
 trinal differences between the more conservative southerners and 
 their more progressive northern brethren would prevent them 
 from working together effectively have not been justified by the 
 event; and while progress has probably been slower for both 
 institutions than would have been the case had the two northern 
 bodies united, it has been none the less sure. I had several 
 conferences with members of the faculty of the Baptist institu- 
 tion, and found them facing the problem of theological educa- 
 tion with an open mind, and revising their curriculum so as to 
 make room for modem studies like pedagogy, sociology and the 
 like. In Nanking too progress, if slow, has been sure, and if 
 the plan for a special honor course for college graduates can be 
 carried through we shall see marked improvement here also. 
 
 (3) The Problem of the Best Use of the Individual 
 
 Apart from the regular work of the missions there will always 
 be special problems and tasks which can be dealt with only by 
 selected individuals who are fitted for the task by unique per- 
 sonal gifts. No system of administration can be called effective 
 which does not take account of this fact, and try as far as 
 possible to meet it. But here again our boards are embarrassed 
 by the pressure upon the treasury and are often obliged to do 
 the possible rather than the best. From more than one mission 
 station I came away with the impression of good material unused 
 because of a lack of proper coordination of the man with the 
 work. Men who had been spending years in preparation for 
 technical work in theological scholarship were teaching mathe- 
 matics or physics to boys of high school grade, or were using 
 hours which might be given to creative scholarship in matters 
 of routine which should have been entrusted to a clerk or a 
 stenographer. Such waste of good material is neither good 
 business nor good morals. One of the leaders of a sister denomi- 
 nation confided to me in private his conviction that it would be 
 
30 
 
 a wise policy for his own mission to dispense with the services 
 of a third of the present staff, if by so doing it could furnish 
 the other two-thirds with the equipment which would enable 
 them to prosecute their work effectively. This is no doubt an 
 extreme statement, but it is typical of what thoughtful mis- 
 sionaries are feeling, and I myself saw instances enough of the 
 wastefulness of our present methods to feel much sympathy 
 with this point of view. 
 
 To take but a single illustration. I have in mind a missionary 
 in Japan who for years has been interested in the philosophy 
 of religion and has been specializing in the history of the 
 Buddhist sects. It is a work of great importance for the whole 
 missionary enterprise which, if successfully performed, would 
 put into the hands of the missionaries information of much use 
 for the successful prosecution of their work. But the time 
 which it is possible for my friend to give to the task is so limited 
 as to make any large success impossible. Besides his scholarly 
 work he must attend to his duties as teacher of philosophy in 
 the college of which he is a member. He is treasurer of the 
 mission and chairman of an important building committee, as 
 well as of other college committees. The hours which he gives 
 to his work of research must be stolen from his nights after the 
 day ’s work is done. He has none of the mechanical helps which 
 would relieve him of the physical labor of copying the materials 
 which he has gathered. To secure the assistance of a Japanese 
 scholar to translate some important text he must pay the bill 
 out of his own salary as a missionary. It is not strange if the 
 work done under such conditions should fail to measure up to 
 the highest standards of scholarly achievement. 
 
 No doubt in the pioneer period of missions such hand to mouth 
 methods were inevitable. Under the pressure of instant need 
 men had to turn their hand to the tasks which lay nearest at 
 hand, and every successful missionary was something of a jack 
 of all trades. However defective his work might be, judged by 
 home standards, it was at least superior to that of his neighbors, 
 and in the absence of competition, second-best was better than 
 none. But this condition of affairs is rapidly changing. In 
 Japan it has already changed. Here the missionary faces a 
 highly efficient and well-organized administration, a university 
 system based upon that of Germany, an admirable civil 
 service, and a nation which is alive to all the changes which are 
 
31 
 
 going on in the civilization of the West. It is clear that if 
 Christianity is to hold its own under such conditions our own 
 methods must he not less efficient than those with which we are 
 to compete. One of the reasons for the marked success of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association in gaining access to the 
 leaders of public opinion in the larger centres and winning their 
 confidence is the extent to which it has recognized this fact, 
 and furnished its representatives with the equipment which is 
 necessary to enable them to do their work effectively. 
 
 What is true in Japan to-day will be true in China to-morrow, 
 or at least day after to-morrow. Here, too, we see the be- 
 ginnings of a new educational system under government aus- 
 pices. Up to this time what has been done has been greatly 
 hampered by the corruption and inefficiency of the government, 
 but as soon as a strong government shall be established in China 
 we shall see there the repetition of what we are now witnessing 
 in Japan. Already the advent of the Rockefeller Foundation 
 with its plans for a medical school of the highest scientific 
 character is facing medical missions in China with new condi- 
 tions and raising new problems. And what is true of medical 
 education will be true sooner or later of education in all its 
 phases. 
 
 This raises a question of missionary policy of far-reaching 
 importance. How far ought the boards themselves to under- 
 take to furnish institutions of higher learning on the mission 
 field? How far should they be content to cooperate with exist- 
 ing institutions after the manner which is done in our own 
 country by such agencies as the Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation and the Young Women’s Christian Association? It 
 is the same question which we have faced at home with the 
 denominational college, but on the foreign field it is complicated 
 by other inuflences which make it more difficult of solution. 
 
 2 
 
 The Question of Educational Policy 
 (1) Different Theories of the Function of Education in Missions 
 
 There are two theories of the relation of missions to education. 
 According to one theory education is simply an adjunct to 
 evangelization. Schools are founded and hospitals and other 
 
32 
 
 helpful social agencies established because they provide a point 
 of contact with individuals. The direct benefits which they may 
 render are only incidental. If therefore one must choose between 
 a number of institutions of lower grade affording contact with 
 many individuals and a few of higher grade teaching a lesser 
 number, the former policy is to be preferred. According to 
 the other theory the work of Christian missions consists not 
 only in evangelization, but also in giving an example of the 
 true nature of Christian civilization. The work of the doctor 
 and the teacher is Christian work, and in providing institutions 
 of the highest grade inspired by Christian motives and per- 
 meated by the Christian spirit, we are doing work which is 
 legitimate and necessary. 
 
 This difference of opinion has its source in a fundamental 
 contrast in the view taken of Christianity itself. Are we to 
 think of the Christian religion as something apart from human 
 life, or is it simply a way of realizing life at its best? If the 
 former be true, then our aim should be to emphasize the con- 
 trast between religion and other phases of human experience, 
 and to shelter our converts as far as possible from contact with 
 the currents of modem thought which tend to raise the ques- 
 tioning spirit. If the latter be true, then our aim should be to 
 plant our institutions at the very heart of modem life and show 
 how the Christian spirit can be made to permeate all forms 
 of human activity. 
 
 This contrast appears on the mission field to-day in most acute 
 form in Korea. Korean missions have on the whole been con- 
 ducted on the first of these principles and, as we have seen, have 
 attained a very great success. To an extent unparalleled else- 
 where on the mission field the Korean Christians have been 
 sheltered from the disturbing influences of modem thought, and 
 a native church of large numbers, of great zeal and of apostolic 
 simplicity, has been gathered in centres like Syen Chun and 
 Pyeng Yang, and from these centres is carrying on an evangel- 
 istic work of great effectiveness. But with the advent of the Japa- 
 nese, conditions in Korea are changing. The primitive customs 
 which have obtained hitherto are being superseded by modem 
 methods and with new economic conditions the Koreans face 
 also a changing intellectual environment. 
 
 What now shall be the Christian attitude in such a situation ? 
 Some missionaries believe, and I think rightly, that there is only 
 
33 
 
 one thing to be done: to recognize the new conditions as facts 
 which have to be faced ; to adjust our methods accordingly and 
 to seek in every way possible to prepare the Korean church 
 for the transition which lies before it. 
 
 With this in view it is proposed to establish a strong college 
 in Seoul and to make this the centre of Christian education 
 for the country, in the belief that since Seoul is the capital of 
 Korea and the centre from which radiate the influences which 
 are moulding the policy and shaping the life of the nation, it 
 is essential that this should be the place in which the strongest 
 Christian influences are concentrated. To many of the Korean 
 missionaries, however, this seems a dangerous policy. They are 
 afraid to expose their converts to the contacts of the capital, 
 and they have strongly urged upon the boards the location 
 of the central Christian institution of Korea at Pyeng Yang, 
 where there is already a strong Christian community. 
 
 A similar contrast meets us in the attitude of the mission- 
 aries in China to the Rockefeller Foundation. Here also we 
 find some, and these among the most responsible of the mis- 
 sionary body, who favor hearty cooperation with the Foundation 
 and the incorporation of the existing schools of the missions in 
 its plan as parts of a single uniform system. To others such a 
 policy seems to involve the surrender of the primary purpose of 
 Christian medical missions, which is not healing men but saving 
 souls. They fear that if the medical work of the mission is to be 
 subjected to the purely scientific standards of the Foundation, 
 the evangelistic interest will suffer. If they must choose between 
 a good doctor who is a poor Christian, and a good Christian 
 who is a poor doctor, they believe that it is our duty as Chris- 
 tians to choose the good Christian — that is to say, for the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Of the two policies thus contrasted, the future is manifestly 
 with the former. The leaders of the missionary cause are com- 
 mitted to it, and it has the support of the wisest and most far- 
 sighted of the missionaries on the field. Important as evangeliza- 
 tion may be, we realize that it is but one step in a more com- 
 prehensive social programme. We must apply the principles of 
 Christianity to all phases of human life, and this means that 
 we must regard no form of helpful service as alien to the cause 
 of missions. 
 
 But when we have said this, we are only at the beginning of 
 
34 
 
 our problem. Granting that we ought to take up medical work 
 for its own sake, how far ought we to carry it? Shall we con- 
 fine our w^ork to healing, or shall we enter the field of medical 
 education ? Shall we be content to teach what is already known, 
 or shall we try to enlarge the boundaries of medical knowledge ? 
 Shall we concentrate our forces on a few strong institutions of 
 high grade, or shall we distribute our doctors over the widest 
 possible field, with the consequent loss of efficiency to the 
 individual ? 
 
 An example in point is that of a well known physician in a 
 Chinese city — who has just been called to Tsinanfu to take 
 part in the proposed reorganization of the medical school 
 there, which in turn is part of a larger plan of cooperation 
 with the Rockefeller Foundation. He is at the head of a fine 
 hospital of his own, and is doing a most excellent work in 
 congenial surroundings. He has a personal influence as a 
 result of long residence, which it would be difficult to transfer 
 to a successor. On the other hand, he misses the contact with 
 other surgeons of eminence and has little time for independent 
 research along the line of his profession. Will he help the cause 
 of missions most by staying where he is and accepting the limi- 
 tations of his position, for the sake of its opportunities of per- 
 sonal influence, or will he do more good by helping to build up 
 a strong central institution of the highest scientific standing, 
 from which in time Christian physicians can be sent forth to 
 multiply just such centres as that of which he is now the 
 head? 
 
 What I have given is a personal case, but it illustrates a 
 problem which meets us everywhere on the foreign field — the 
 problem of centralization or distribution. Shall we do more 
 good in the long run by covering the widest possible territory 
 in a superficial way, or by concentrating our energies in certain 
 selected strategic points, from which in time the wider work 
 of evangelization can be carried out? 
 
 While all intelligent students of the missionary problem recog- 
 nize that there is room for both kinds of work — the extensive 
 and the intensive, and that a wise policy will include both, I 
 found a disposition among those with whom I talked to recognize 
 that on the whole the work of extension has been overdone and 
 that the most pressing need for the present is of greater con- 
 centration, in the interest of higher standards. 
 
35 
 
 (2) Institutions Under Direct Missionary Control 
 
 To return from this digression to the question raised a moment 
 ago as to the true educational policy to be followed with refer- 
 ence to institutions of higher learning. It is doubtless impossible 
 to give any single answer which will be applicable everywhere. 
 In some fields such as China it will undoubtedly be the case that 
 for a long time to come there will be need of independent mis- 
 sionary institutions of high grade. If the church does not 
 supply the need there will be no one else to do so. In countries 
 like Japan and in the Latin American countries, however, where 
 there is already an effective educational system, cooperation 
 rather than competition would seem to be the wise policy. At 
 most the question arises whether there is room in great centres 
 like Tokyo or Buenos Aires for some strong Christian insti- 
 tution of university grade to which the graduates of Christian 
 colleges may be sent for higher training under Christian aus- 
 pices. The establishment of such institutions is strongly advo- 
 cated by many missionary leaders, and there is much to be said 
 for it if it can be done in an effective way. But for this it is 
 necessary to gain the cooperation of all the Christian forces, 
 and this for reasons already explained, is not an easy matter. 
 The plans for a Christian university in Tokyo seem likely to 
 be abandoned because of the impossibility of securing this co- 
 operation, and at the time of this writing the plans for the much 
 needed women’s college in the same city are hanging fire for a 
 similar reason. 
 
 The difficulty of running an interdenominational institution 
 of higher grade is not simply the preliminary difficulty of secur- 
 ing the consent of all the elements whose cooperation is neces- 
 sary, and in adjusting the difficulties created by the existence 
 of independent organizations occupying a part of the field, but 
 also that of devising an organization which shall at once safe- 
 guard the rights of the different denominations and at the 
 same time have the flexibility and initiative necessary for suc- 
 cessful administration. For this reason it will doubtless be wise 
 not to attempt permanently to control such institutions 
 through the home boards, but to create independent boards of 
 trustees such as those of the great colleges of the nearer East, 
 Robert College, the Syrian Protestant College, and Constan- 
 tinople College. 
 
36 
 
 On one point all are agreed, that if Christians are to under- 
 take higher education it must be done effectively. To run a 
 second rate college or school and call it a university is as bad 
 morals as it is poor pedagogy, and this is just as true in China 
 as it is in Illinois. 
 
 On the whole I was much impressed with what I saw of the 
 Christian colleges, both in China and in Japan. Such insti- 
 tutions as St. John’s at Shanghai, the Methodist College at 
 Soochow; the Kwansei Gakuin at Kobe; the College of the 
 Dutch Reformed Church at Sendai, to mention only a few at 
 random out of a much larger number, are doing an admirable 
 work and exercising a character-forming influence of the greatest 
 value. 
 
 An interesting feature of the missionary colleges is their use 
 of athletics as a means of moral discipline. Nothing has proved 
 a more effective counterpoise to the extreme individualism that 
 has hitherto characterized Chinese education than baseball ; and 
 I still recall with interest a memorable contest in the grounds 
 of the Kwansei Gakuin in Kobe, in which a visiting Chinese 
 team from Shanghai demonstrated to their Japanese rivals that 
 in baseball at least China could hold the field against all comers. 
 
 When one passes from the higher education in the various 
 forms in which I have referred to it to secondary education 
 there remains a wide field to be occupied by the missions for 
 generations to come. For character-forming work there is 
 nothing like the daily contacts with children in the schools, and 
 the work that is being done here by our missionaries is of the 
 highest value. 
 
 (3) Methods of Cooperation with Non-Christian Institutions 
 
 Second only in importance to the direct work of missions for 
 education is the indirect influence which may be exerted 
 through the Young Men’s Christian Association or other similar 
 agencies upon the lives of the students in the government, or 
 other non-Christian institutions. Neither in Japan nor in the 
 Latin American countries is any adequate provision made for 
 the moral and religious needs of the large bodies of students 
 who attend them. There is no dormitory system corresponding 
 to that in our American colleges, and apart from individual 
 professors who may invite students to their homes the Faculty 
 
37 
 
 feels no responsibility for the life of the student body outside 
 the classroom. When one adds that in Japan specialization 
 is carried to a point greater even than in the German univer- 
 sities, so that the student of science has no provision made for 
 instruction in the humanities, and vice versa, one is not sur- 
 prised to find that the prevailing atmosphere among university 
 students is one of materialism and scepticism. This is recog- 
 nized by thoughtful Japanese educators who deplore it, but 
 who have not yet devised any effective way to cope with it. 
 The opportunity therefore of the Christian church to enter the 
 unoccupied field is correspondingly great. 
 
 There are various things which can be done and are being 
 done to meet the situation. The Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation of Tokyo is just opening a new building for its col- 
 lege branch with excellent living rooms and gymnasium. The 
 Baptists have assigned Professor Benninghoff to student work in 
 Waseda University, and opened near his home a dormitory 
 which accommodates a number of students. A dormitory has 
 been conducted with success by the Young Men’s Christian 
 Association at Buenos Aires. In Shanghai the Christian Sunday 
 Service League conducts special services for college graduates 
 who understand English. Under Mr. Hurrey the World’s Stu- 
 dent Christian Federation has set apart special workers to 
 meet foreign students coming to America and bring them into 
 touch with the best influences in our national life. Miss Ruth 
 Rouse of the English branch of the same movement has been 
 visiting Latin America in the interest of the women students in 
 that large and hitherto almost untouched field, and her report 
 will doubtless result in the beginning of work for them. 
 
 IP I 
 
 (4) The Education of Women 
 
 This reference to Miss Rouse suggests a phase of the educa- 
 tional problem which is every year acquiring more importance, 
 and that is the education of women. No subject in connection 
 with the modem missionary enterprise is more important and 
 more difficult, and this is true of each of the countries which I 
 visited. 
 
 The reason lies in the social situation. An intelligent Japa- 
 nese lady recently returned home after an extended visit in 
 the United States, and when asked of her experiences, re- 
 
38 
 
 marked that it was a good thing to get back to a country where 
 women occupied their rightful place. “ So far as I can see/' 
 she said, “ the men occupy the same position in America that 
 the women do in Japan.” She was referring of course to the 
 prominence given to women in American society, their initiative 
 and leadership in comparison with the retired life lived by well- 
 bred Japanese women. In Japan there has been until recently 
 a much greater separation of the sexes than is the case with 
 us. The free intermingling of men and women in society has 
 not been considered good taste. Marriages are arranged through 
 a go-between, and the young people see little of each other till 
 the wedding. Under these circumstances it is not surprising 
 that the education given the majority of Japanese women is of 
 the most elementary kind. 
 
 But here again conditions are rapidly changing. The new 
 movement which is affecting so many other phases of Japanese 
 social life is having its effect upon the position of women, and 
 will do so increasingly in the years to come. The higher educa- 
 tion is being opened to women. The old isolation is giving 
 place to freer contact. The new opportunities, as always, bring 
 their dangers. There is a lack of balance and restraint on the 
 part of those who are having their first taste of freedom, which 
 is particularly offensive to Japanese feeling. To meet this 
 situation and guard against these dangers there is need of a 
 wise education under Christian auspices. This is necessary not 
 only for the sake of the individual woman and girl, but for the 
 sake of the family. For Unless we can raise up a company of 
 intelligent Christian women to be wives of the men who are 
 accepting Christianity we cannot have the Christian family 
 with all that that means. Such a college as that at Kobe which, 
 under the presidency of Miss De Forest, is training the daugh- 
 ters of well to do and respectable Japanese to be Christian wives 
 and mothers, is doing work whose importance it is difficult to 
 estimate too highly. 
 
 But there is another class of Japanese women whose need of 
 Christian education also requires consideration, and that is 
 those who must practice self-support. The entrance of women 
 into industry, of which I shall speak in a moment, is raising 
 many new and important problems with which the thoughtful 
 women of Japan are beginning to concern themselves. And in 
 the solution of these, too, Christian women must be prepared 
 
39 
 
 to take their part. Besides such institutions as the college at 
 Kobe there would seem to be room for a strong central insti- 
 tution of the highest grade at Tokyo, which should serve as a 
 centre for the higher education of women for Japan as a whole, 
 and from which leaders might go forth able to bear their part 
 intelligently in dealing with the perplexing social, economic 
 and moral problems which are already beginning to confront 
 the women of the new Japan. 
 
 What is true of Japan is even more true of China to-day. 
 Here too the education of women is the key to all effec- 
 tive social progress. And here we face in accentuated form the 
 difficulty which results from centuries of segregation. It is 
 hard for us in America to conceive even in imagination a state 
 of society in which there is no social intercourse between the 
 sexes, in which concubinage is still a recognized social custom, 
 and in which the exposure of female infants is still widely 
 practised. To change this state of things it is not enough to 
 convert the men. We must change the women also, and this can 
 only be done through a process of education which will take 
 generations, if not centuries. 
 
 Consider the difficulty which the present situation presents to 
 the Christian minister. How can there be effective preaching 
 without pastoral work, and how can there be pastoral work 
 when there is no home into which one can go? The gulf which 
 exists in all social intercourse extends into the churches, and in 
 China the women sit in their places apart, often separated from 
 the men by a screen. 
 
 In Korea the line of division is more radical still. When 
 I preached in Pyeng Yang I stood in a room which was di- 
 vided in the middle by a high wall which reached almost to 
 the ceiling. On one side were the women, and on the other 
 the men. Neither could see the other, though the preacher from 
 his central platform strategically located could see both. 
 
 Yet in both countries conditions are changing, and there is 
 much reason for encouragement. The women ’s colleges in China 
 have more applicants than they can accommodate, and what is 
 more important, the new type of graduate finds favor in the 
 eyes of prospective Chinese husbands. The number of women 
 who are unwilling to be bought and sold as if they were cattle 
 increases every day, and the number of men who prefer wives 
 who marry from choice is growing correspondingly. Like all 
 
40 
 
 the rest of the world China has her new woman, and I am told 
 that no one follows the changes in the political situation more 
 eagerly or judges them more intelligently than she. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of women’s education I wish to 
 say in conclusion that I brought back from the Far East an 
 enhanced sense of the importance of the work done by the 
 Young Women’s Christian Association, and of the unparalleled 
 opportunity now opening before it in China and Japan, and I 
 may add Latin America. I am speaking within limits when I 
 say that of all the opportunities which I saw, and of all the 
 needs of which I was conscious, that of the Young Women’s 
 Christian Association most impressed me. When one considers 
 the needs of such countries as China and Japan for just such 
 work as the Young Women’s Christian Association can do and is 
 doing, and reflects how few the workers and how relatively 
 small the investment up to date, one cannot resist the conviction 
 that a very large expansion will be necessary before this par- 
 ticular branch of the service acquires the relative strength which 
 its importance deserves. 
 
 3 
 
 The Question of the Native Church 
 
 Passing from these general questions of administrative and 
 educational policy to the more specific problems which confront 
 Christian missions to-day we must give the place of first im- 
 portance to the question of the native church. This is recog- 
 nized by all thoughtful students of missions. 
 
 (1) The Relation of the Missionary to the Native Church 
 
 In his recent book, “ The World and the Gospel,” Mr. 
 Oldham points out the contrast between the attitude of the older 
 missionaries who were content to evangelize individuals, and 
 that of the modem church which recognizes its responsibility 
 for the planting of Christian institutions in each non-Christian 
 country, with the expectation that the native church will in 
 turn become the most successful evangelizing agency. The 
 primary aim of foreign missionary work, he tells us, is not to 
 convert individuals but “ to plant the church of Christ in 
 
41 
 
 every part of the non-Christian world, as a means to its evan- 
 gelization ” (p. 141). 
 
 This is not because we feel any less strongly than the older 
 missionaries the importance of evangelization, but because we 
 have come to understand better the magnitude of the task, and 
 the conditions which are necessary for its realization. To Chris- 
 tianize the world it is not enough to preach the Gospel. We 
 must raise up a native ministry, create a Christian literature in 
 the vernacular; plant institutions which shall have for each of 
 the countries in which they are established the same power of 
 self propagation which is characteristic of the churches of the 
 home land. 
 
 This is a work which cannot be done by foreigners. They may 
 lay the foundation, but the building itself must be the work 
 of native Christians interpreting Christianity to their fellow- 
 countrymen in terms of their own speech and habits of thought. 
 It is one of the most encouraging features of the present situa- 
 tion that this is so generally recognized by missionaries, and 
 that the progress of the mission cause is being more and more 
 judged by this standard. 
 
 What then does it mean to create a native church? Clearly 
 not simply to gather congregations of native Christians and 
 to raise up a native ministry to preach to them. It means to 
 bring into existence in each country of the world a Christian 
 community with an independent self-consciousness, self-support- 
 ing, self-governing and self-propagating. 
 
 When we apply this test to the different countries which I 
 visited we find widely different conditions. In Japan such a 
 church is already in existence. In China it is still to be created. 
 In Korea we have self-support and self-propagation, but self- 
 government only in name. In Latin America whose Protestant- 
 ism is still of comparatively recent date, we find the beginnings 
 of an independent church in Brazil, but in other Latin Ameri- 
 can countries the leadership of the missionary enterprise, so 
 far as Protestantism is concerned, is still almost entirely in the 
 hands of foreigners. 
 
 (2) The Church of Japan 
 
 I have already spoken of the position of the native church in 
 Japan. Here we find all four of the conditions of which I have 
 
42 
 
 spoken largely realized : independent self-consciousness, self-sup- 
 port, self-government, self-propagation. The position of the 
 missionary body is for the most part advisory. Both in matters 
 of education and of evangelization the leadership is more and 
 more passing into the hands of Japanese Christians and, if all 
 the missionaries were to leave Japan to-morrow, one could feel 
 sure that the work of Christ would go on. 
 
 This does not mean that missionaries are not needed and are 
 not still welcome, but only that their work must be of a different 
 kind. As mediators between the rising Japanese church and 
 the older churches into whose fellowship they are entering, the 
 missionary^ body has a place which the Japanese themselves 
 recognize that no one else can fill. Such men as Dr. Wainright, 
 Dr. Dearing, Mr. Fisher and many others who could be named, 
 exercise an influence on the leaders of the native church which 
 is not less far-reaching because unofficial. Moreover, the Japanese 
 church is poor, and in spite of the generosity of its members is 
 unable as yet to finance many of the enterprises which contribute 
 so much to the success of the Christian cause at home. The 
 Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations, the 
 Christian Literature Society, and the various educational enter- 
 prises to which we have already referred, rely largely for their 
 support upon the church of the West, and must continue to do 
 so for years to come. In all of them we see Japanese and 
 foreigners working together in harmony. 
 
 It is true that this dual relationship raises questions of 
 adjustment which call for patience and tact. For the younger 
 men especially the delay and waste which are involved in work- 
 ing through Japanese when it would be easier and quicker to 
 act independently, are often irksome. As one of the secretaries 
 of the Young Men’s Christian Association expressed it to me, 
 “ I long for a job into which a man can throw his entire self.” 
 But the limitations are a necessary condition of a period of 
 transition, and the man who is willing to put up with them 
 patiently and with good humor till by patient study of some 
 particular phase of the Japanese problem he makes himself a 
 master Avhose opinion his native fellow workers must respect, will 
 in the end have his reward. 
 
 A striking example of the vitality of the Japanese church is 
 the nation-wide evangelistic campaign which is now being car- 
 ried on under its auspices. In this campaign, which is now 
 
43 
 
 in its second year and which is to continue through next year, 
 all the churches are cooperating, and excellent results are being 
 gained, not only in direct conversions, but in the education of 
 the churches in common action and in the reinforcement of 
 their consciousness of a common Christianity. 
 
 For Japan, as for us at home, the problem of the country 
 church is most perplexing. As yet the country districts have 
 been little touched by Christianity, and even the present evan- 
 gelistic campaign has been confined largely to the cities. In 
 the villages and small towns, where the community is con- 
 servative, and the entire environment hostile, the Japanese 
 worker faces difficulties which are not felt to the same extent 
 by the foreigner. It has been suggested therefore by some 
 Japanese that the missionaries give a greater proportion of 
 their time to evangelization, leaving the work in the greater 
 centres where Christianity is already strongly established, more 
 largely in the hands of the Japanese. 
 
 (3) The Situation in Korea and in China 
 
 In Korea we find a very interesting situation. Here we have 
 a strong native church carrying on an energetic and successful 
 evangelistic campaign, but a church in which the leadership is 
 still almost entirely in missionary hands, and where, as already 
 explained, the underlying philosophy has been very different 
 from that just described in Japan. The policy of the mission- 
 aries has been to emphasize, so far as possible, the separation 
 between the church and the world, a policy easy in Korea 
 hitherto because of the fact that in Korea there is no active 
 religion in competition with Christianity, and that the insti- 
 tutions of the government have been lamentably weak. Now, 
 however, with the advent of the Japanese an entirely new state 
 of things has come about. The same influences which have led 
 to the emancipation of the native church in Japan are beginning 
 to operate in Korea, and wise missionaries like Dr. Gale in 
 Seoul see that a change of policy is essential if serious danger 
 is to be avoided. The next ten years will be critical years for 
 the church of Korea, and upon the ability of the boards to 
 carry through successfully the policy already referred to, of 
 establishing a strong Christian centre in Seoul, in which leaders 
 can be trained who will guide the Korean church through its 
 period of transition, success or failure will depend. 
 
44 
 
 Most critical of all is the situation in China. Here I must 
 confess to- disappointment. When one remembers how long 
 Protestant missions have been at work in China, how many and 
 how able the missionaries, how great the influence of Christi- 
 anity upon many phases of Chinese thought and life, it is dis- 
 couraging to find the Chinese church still so weak, and to see 
 the contrast between it and the Japanese church in independence 
 and efficiency. 
 
 The cause of this state of things is complex. Partly it is due 
 to the Chinese character which has been accustomed for genera- 
 tions to accept without question the leadership of superiors ; but 
 in part also it is the result of a mistaken policy on the part 
 of the missionaries. Until recently they have kept control of 
 all matters in their own hands, and only within the last few 
 years have they come to realize the importance of divesting 
 themselves of some part at least of the authority which is 
 now theirs. 
 
 This attitude on their part is due in part to causes which w r ere 
 unavoidable. When the missionaries first came to China they 
 had to establish such points of contact as they could, and these 
 were naturally among the more ignorant and undeveloped sec- 
 tions of the population. Thus naturally the missionary stepped 
 into a position of leadership which he has retained ever since. 
 When his converts were poor he had to help them; when they 
 were persecuted he had to protect them; when a church was 
 to be organized, it was along the lines which he prescribed. The 
 familiar charge that the Chinese Christians are rice Christians 
 is the reflection of this early situation. Grossly unjust in its 
 main contention it yet contains an element of truth. Not a few 
 Chinese, impressed by the superior power and influence of 
 the foreigners, entered the Christian church from selfish motives, 
 a practice which was encouraged by the preference given to 
 professing Christians in some of the mission schools in the 
 assignment of financial aid. 
 
 The result of this state of things was reflected in the char- 
 acter of the native ministry. Men entered the ministry, as 
 at one time they used to enter it at home, because it was the 
 line of least resistance. They learned their lessons by rote 
 as they had been taught to do in the Chinese schools. They 
 brought to their work little independence or initiative and 
 when they went out to preach were content to repeat the doc- 
 
45 
 
 trines which they had been taught, believing that when they 
 had done this they had done their full duty. 
 
 Nothing impressed me more in passing from China to Japan 
 than the contrast in the standards of theological education. The 
 state of the theological seminaries is a good indication of the 
 spiritual and intellectual standards of the church, and judged 
 by this test, the schools of China leave much to be desired. In 
 their standards of requirement they are at least a generation 
 behind the schools of Japan. Many of them are really Bible 
 schools rather than theological seminaries, as we understand the 
 term. Men are admitted with little preliminary training, and 
 even in schools of higher grade the course is necessarily of a 
 very elementary character. 
 
 Fortunately things are changing for the better. Among the 
 men who are giving themselves to the work of theological educa- 
 tion in China are some of the finest and best equipped men I 
 know. They see clearly the difficulties and are working intel- 
 ligently to correct them, and if they can receive adequate sup- 
 port from the church at home we shall see, if I mistake not, 
 marked progress in the next few years. 
 
 For the point to be insisted upon is the fact that there is 
 material for Christian leadership in China if only we can dis- 
 cover it and when discovered, properly utilize it. 
 
 Nowhere on my trip did I meet personalities who impressed 
 me more than some of the Chinese Christians. Men like C. T. 
 Wang, C. Y. Cheng, David Yui, and Chang Po Ling, are the 
 peers of any men anywhere, but it is only in recent years 
 that such men have been given the recognition which their 
 abilities deserve. Fortunately a better day is dawning. 
 The weakness of the present system is being generally recog- 
 nized, and steps are being taken to correct it. The system of 
 financial aid to prospective candidates is being revised so as 
 to discourage the insincere professor of Christianity. Important 
 positions are being filled by Chinese, and their counsel sought 
 in matters of missionary policy. The Young Men’s Christian 
 Association has taken the lead in this matter. Its general secre- 
 tary in Shanghai is a Chinese, and Chinese occupy respon- 
 sible positions in its work in other cities. A Chinese is as- 
 sociated with Mr. Lobenstine as his first assistant in the Con- 
 tinuation Committee. On the Board of Managers of Nanking 
 University are representative Chinese. These men and others 
 
46 
 
 like them who could be named are bringing to the work of 
 Christian missions in China a devotion and insight which will 
 bear large fruit in the future. 
 
 It was interesting to get the opinion of the Chinese as to the 
 reason for the failure of more able and intelligent Chinese 
 to enter the ministry. All those with whom I talked agreed 
 that one of the reasons was that the position of the native 
 pastor had not been given sufficient dignity to attract men of 
 independence and force. The situation is not unlike that which 
 we faced in this country a few years ago when the competition 
 of other professions threatened to rob our seminaries of the 
 best of their candidates. It is not that the Chinese expects that 
 the salary scale shall be the same in his case as in that of the 
 foreigner. He recognizes the difference in the standard of 
 living and is quite prepared to be content with a smaller salary. 
 But there are elements in the life of the missionary which he 
 feels ought to be found also in his own. Every few years the 
 missionary has a furlough in which he can go home and refresh 
 himself by contact with new scenes and home conditions. He 
 has funds which he can spend for books; he has opportunities 
 of contact and of inspiration. All these things are lacking 
 in the life of the native pastor, and until in some way we can 
 provide their equivalent we shall continue to face this difficulty. 
 
 But after all, the key to the situation must lie with the Chinese 
 themselves. It is not the missionaries in Japan who are re- 
 sponsible for the Japanese native church, but the Japanese. It 
 will be so in China. The one strong independent church of 
 which I learned is in Tientsin, and the explanation of its ex- 
 istence there is the personality of one man, Chang Po Ling. 
 The hope of China lies in the fact that other Chinese are 
 arising who with him feel that the future of China depends on 
 the development of a strong native church. The greatest service 
 that the missionary body can render China is to cooperate with 
 these men in the realization of their ideal. 
 
 (4) Conditions in Latin America 
 
 In Latin America the difficulty of creating a strong native 
 church as Protestants understand it, is complicated by the 
 presence of an older and as we believe corrupt form of Chris- 
 tianity. With every disposition to recognize the good in Roman 
 
47 
 
 Catholicism and the desire to cooperate with its representatives 
 as far as possible, we find that conditions are such as to make 
 such cooperation impossible in fact. In their reaction from 
 the abuses of the Roman church, the tendency of the native 
 Protestant pastors is to take refuge in a highly individualistic 
 type of Christianity and to make the line of demarcation be- 
 tween the church and the world as sharp as possible. This is 
 notably true in Brazil where alone among the Latin American 
 countries we find a strong Protestant church under native 
 leadership. The type of Christianity represented by the 
 leaders of this church is highly conservative, and the social 
 emphasis so characteristic of our modern Protestantism is 
 conspicuous by its absence. The difficulty is accentuated by 
 the fact that in Latin America we have no homogeneous society 
 such as that from which our northern Protestant churches were 
 recruited, but widely separated classes of very different intel- 
 lectual and social background requiring a different type of 
 religious approach. Under the circumstances the conduct of 
 Protestant missions is largely in the hands of foreigners, and 
 conditions, so far as the native church is concerned, approxi- 
 mate those on the foreign field. There is doubtless no immediate 
 remedy for this situation. A change must come gradually as 
 the result of social and economic as well as moral and religious 
 influences. In the meantime we face the difficulty that when, 
 through the Young Men’s or Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
 ciation, we succeed in getting in touch with some of the more 
 thoughtful of the student body and interesting them in the 
 matter of personal religion, there is often no Protestant church 
 accessible in which they can find a congenial spiritual home. 
 
 Under these circumstances many Latin American missionaries 
 advocate a policy of greater centralization than has hitherto 
 obtained in our Protestant work. Since ultimate success will 
 depend upon our ability to raise up strong native leaders the 
 wise thing would seem to be to concentrate our energies upon 
 those centres which promise greatest results along this line. 
 Face to face with a great church like that of Rome, the presence 
 of a number of groups of Protestants working in comparative 
 isolation cannot but produce an unfavorable impression, and 
 the argument for cooperation and centralization — everywhere 
 strong in the foreign field — is here overwhelming. 
 
48 
 
 4 
 
 The Attitude of Christians to the Non-Christian 
 Environment 
 
 Our discussion of the native church suggests naturally the 
 closely related question as to the proper attitude of Christians 
 to their non-Christian environment. We have already had 
 occasion to touch on this question indirectly, hut it deserves 
 fuller consideration. 
 
 There are three phases of the contact between the Christian 
 community and its non-Christian environment which present 
 perplexing problems. The first has to do with the relation of 
 Christianity to the older religious faiths which are its rivals. 
 The second is concerned with the responsibility of Christians 
 for social and economic reform; the third with the proper 
 attitude of the missionary to the governments under which he 
 works. 
 
 (1) The Attitude of Christians to the Non-Christian Religions 
 
 As to the first, the relation of the Christian community to the 
 non-Christian religions, we find a marked change of attitude on 
 the part of the missionary body in recent years. Where the 
 attitude of the older missionaries was one of outspoken opposi- 
 tion and often uncompromising denunciation, the disposition to- 
 day is to a more sympathetic attitude. We are coming to see 
 that the relation of the older faiths to Christianity is positive 
 as well as negative. They contain elements of good which need 
 to be conserved and which make them in part at least a prepara- 
 tion for the gospel. The attitude which Paul took to the Greek 
 religion of his own day is one which is more and more com- 
 mending itself to thoughtful missionaries as a model for their 
 own treatment of the ethnic faiths. 
 
 This is true of all the religions to which I have had occasion 
 to refer. It is notably true of Confucianism. No thoughtful 
 missionary is disposed to minimize the service rendered by this 
 great faith to the moral discipline of the Chinese people. More 
 than one missionary whom I met was carrying as his constant 
 companion the Analects of Confucius, and found in them many 
 a fruitful text for a Christian sermon. It is true also of 
 
49 
 
 Buddhism, with its insistence upon mercy and lovingkindness, 
 its sense of the sanctity of all life, its uncompromising opposi- 
 tion to war, its catholicity and universalism. It is true 
 of Shinto with its reverence for the past, its inculcation of 
 loyalty and self-sacrifice, its appeal to the spirit of patriotism. 
 In all of these we find elements of truth which Christians should 
 be the first to recognize, and in which they may find points of 
 contact for their own distinctive message. 
 
 No doubt there are dangers to be faced, dangers of a too easy 
 acquiescence in customs which, however innocent in themselves, 
 carry with them associations which are misleading and danger- 
 ous. The example of Buddhism which in its willingness to 
 compromise has often sacrificed all that was essential in its 
 own gospel, is ever present as a warning to the Christian 
 preacher. This danger is felt most keenly by the native Chris- 
 tians who have themselves come out from the superstitions of 
 heathenism and who are suspicious of any compromise which 
 seems to them to blur the line of demarcation between the older 
 and the newer faith. Bishop Tucker of Kyoto, one of the wisest 
 of the Japanese missionary leaders, in a conversation which 
 I had with him some months ago, gave as one of the reasons 
 why the missionaries had been so slow in undertaking the 
 intelligent and sympathetic study of Buddhism which is so 
 much needed in Japan, the fact that they had been misled by 
 the attitude of their own converts. This is only natural. The 
 burnt child dreads the fire. For a just appreciation of the non- 
 Christian religions in their relation to Christianity we may 
 expect a more impartial judgment from the Christian scholar 
 than from the man who has experienced in his own person the 
 limitations and weaknesses of the native religions. 
 
 There are two phases of the adjustment between Christianity 
 and the non-Christian faiths which need to be distinguished. 
 There is the adjustment of the mind, which is the affair of the 
 scholar, and the practical adjustment which concerns the pastor 
 and the evangelist. 
 
 There is a work, in the first place, to be done by the scholar. 
 Before we can hope for a satisfactory adjustment of the rela- 
 tions between Christianity and a great rival religion like Bud- 
 dhism we must have an intelligent and painstaking study of the 
 facts of the case. Buddhism, as we are coming to understand 
 more and more, is not a single unchangeable phenomenon which 
 
50 
 
 can be defined and catalogued once for all, but a living religion, 
 or rather a family of religions which includes widely different 
 types of thought and life and is in constant process of change. 
 It has its Catholicism and its Protestantism, its mysticism and 
 its social reformers, and all these different types are actually 
 represented in a country like Japan. To understand its aims 
 and its possibilities a painstaking study is necessary not only 
 by a single scholar but by a whole company of scholars working 
 together according to a definite plan. 
 
 What is true of Buddhism is true to a lesser degree of all the 
 other great religions: Confucianism, Shinto, Mohammedanism. 
 So far as they are living they are changing, and to understand 
 them it is necessary not only to be acquainted with their sacred 
 books and the forms of their historic past, but to know their 
 living representatives and enter into their inmost aspirations. 
 
 It was a matter of great interest and encouragement to me 
 to find how keenly the need of such sympathetic study is appre- 
 ciated by the missionary body, and how many missionaries in 
 spite of other and arduous labors are giving themselves to 
 this work. Men like Beischauer in Tokyo, Armstrong in Kobe, 
 Ogilvie in Peking, Leighton Stuart at Nanking, Hodous at 
 Foochow, are only outstanding names of a larger company. 
 
 Such sympathetic study of the non- Christian religions will 
 have a reflex influence upon our work at home. It will shed 
 light upon the central problem of theological science, that of 
 the definition of the distinctive features of the Christian re- 
 ligion. What is it which differentiates Christianity from all 
 the other religions ? What gives it its convicting and converting 
 power over the men whom it draws under its spell? This is a 
 question which it is hard for us to answer impartially, living 
 as we do in the environment where Christianity has been at 
 home for centuries until it has become practically synonymous 
 for many of us with all that we know as religion. But on the 
 foreign field it is not so. Here Christianity meets other faiths of 
 hoary antiquity, and men who have known vital religion in 
 other forms. We have here therefore the ideal scene for the 
 scientific study of the Christian religion. 
 
 I recall with particular interest an evening spent at Hwaiyuan 
 with a company of native Christians gathered by Mr. Cochran 
 for informal discussion of the subject of religion. The con- 
 versation turned on the motives which had led to their conver- 
 
5i 
 
 sion, and I was impressed by their variety. To one man it 
 was frankly the hope of material betterment; to another, the 
 reaction from the failure of an effort long continued to attain 
 Buddhahood ; to a third it was the influence of the unselfish lives 
 of the missionaries, notably their work in healing the sick. An 
 old boatman dated his conversion from a sermon on the flood 
 which he said he could verify from his own experience, since 
 he too had lived through the flood. On the whole, the motives 
 were very simple, and the specific reasons which fill our apolo- 
 getic books conspicuous by their absence. These come later as 
 a result of long training in the Christian life and a deeper 
 experience of the meaning of religion. 
 
 Equally vivid was the impression produced by the testimony 
 of a group of Japanese Christians, gathered to meet me by 
 Dr. Wainright, of the Christian Literature Society. Among 
 those present were five or six of the leaders of the Japanese 
 church — men of great force of character and independence of 
 judgment. When I led the conversation to the reasons for their 
 becoming Christians, I found the answers were of two kinds. 
 For the older men the motive was distinctly religious — the 
 satisfaction which Christianity offered to the heart that hun- 
 gered for personal communion by its revelation of the Father 
 God. For the younger men the motive was ethical — the example 
 of Christian lives and the desire for service. Dr. Uyemura 
 pointed out that this was a natural difference between the 
 first and the second generations of Christians, and this was 
 confirmed by the experience of the western Christians who 
 were present. To the second generation of Christians the per- 
 sonality of God is taken for granted, and the great question is 
 of His purpose. For the older men the discovery of personality 
 is itself the satisfying thing. 
 
 Here too theological considerations in the technical sense 
 played a small role. Indeed when one pierces below the surface 
 to the motives which are actually used in religious appeal, one 
 finds the differences between Christians disappearing. I asked 
 a Southern Presbyterian — very conservative in her theology — 
 what motive she used in her appeal to non-Christians. ‘ ‘ There 
 are just two things, I find,” she said, “ that move them — the 
 example of brotherly love in Christian lives, and the satisfac- 
 tion which Christ gives to the heart that is longing for God. ’ ’ 
 
 This does not mean, of course, that theology is unimportant, 
 
52 
 
 but only that our theology needs restatement in the light of 
 our actual experience. As a theological teacher, I believe the 
 foreign field has a great contribution to make to this restate- 
 ment, and am confident that the time will come when no theology 
 can claim scientific validity which does not utilize in its for- 
 mulation of doctrine the material which is furnished for it 
 by the actual conflict of Christianity with its rivals on the 
 mission field. 
 
 But apart from this intellectual adjustment there are prac- 
 tical questions to be settled of no small difficulty. What shall 
 be the attitude of the Christian church toward the customs 
 and practices of these older religions — customs and practices, 
 many of them, sanctified by ancestral piety and patriotic spirit. 
 Such a custom, for example, as the decoration of the graves of 
 the ancestors on the great festival of Confucianism, or the 
 burning of incense to the spirits of the departed heroes as 
 practiced by Shinto. Here again we find two parties: the 
 stricter and the more tolerant, and it is not always easy to 
 decide as to what it is right to do. 
 
 In general it may be said that the attitude of the missionary 
 body in Japan toward existing religious customs is one of 
 toleration, if not of sympathy. The declaration of the govern- 
 ment that Shinto is to be understood not as a religion, but as 
 an expression of national custom and patriotism has been taken 
 at its face value, and Christians have been allowed to participate 
 in ceremonials of the ancient faith which, in spite of this dis- 
 claimer, have still no doubt a religious significance for many. 
 In China on the whole the attitude of the missionary body has 
 been more uncompromising ; but here too we find a disposition to 
 recognize that some substitute for the old customs must be pro- 
 vided. Thus I found in the church at Hwaiyuan a memorial 
 tablet just inside the church door, on which were inscribed the 
 names of those Christians who had died during the year. “We 
 want to show our Chinese Christians, ’ ’ said Mr. Cochran, ‘ ‘ that 
 we too reverence the departed and honor our ancestors as truly 
 as the Chinese.” 
 
 (2) The Responsibility of the Church for Social and Economic 
 
 Reform 
 
 A second phase of the question as to the proper attitude of 
 Christians to their non-Christian environment has to do with 
 
53 
 
 the relation of the missionary body to contemporary social and 
 industrial problems. This is a question which is likely to demand 
 increasing attention in the near future. I have spoken of 
 China’s economic backwardness, of the absence of the social 
 and industrial agencies familiar to us in the West. But this 
 state of things is rapidly changing. In coast cities like Shanghai 
 manufacturing is beginning. In Shanghai I visited a cotton 
 mill owned, run and operated by Chinese, and it was only 
 one of many. In Japan the transition to the new order is well 
 under way. Great industries are springing into existence and 
 with them every form of social problem. At Osaka great num- 
 bers of young girls work in the factories under conditions of 
 virtual slavery, and their numbers are increasing every year. 
 Here is a unique opportunity for the Christian church to cope 
 with the situation at the outset and bring Christian ideals and 
 principles to bear upon the new conditions before it is too late. 
 
 It cannot be said that the church has as yet fully faced this 
 opportunity. In many respects the work that has been done by 
 Christian missions for the cause of social progress is admirable. 
 In such problems as the vice problem, the drink problem, the 
 problems of disease and of ignorance — in all those phases of 
 social need, in a word, which bear primarily upon the individual, 
 the Christian missionary has been a pioneer, and the Christian 
 community, as we have already seen, exercises an influence 
 altogether out of proportion to its numbers. One of the most 
 interesting hours that I spent in Japan was in conference with 
 a little group of prison reformers who were following with 
 interest the latest developments of the prison reform movement 
 and were as well informed as to the situation in Sing Sing 
 as I was myself. 
 
 The most signal contribution of Christianity to social need 
 in its more individualistic form is, of course, medical missions. 
 I have already had occasion to refer to these in another con- 
 nection, and it is not necessary to take time to speak in detail of 
 a work whose excellence has been recognized by all impartial 
 students of missions. But I wish here in passing to pay my 
 own tribute to the admirable work which is being done by such 
 men as Dr. Avison at Seoul, Dr. Neal and his colleagues at 
 Tsinanfu, Dr. Christie at Moukden, Dr. Cochran at Hwaiyuan, 
 and a host of others whom I might name. The fact that the 
 Rockefeller Foundation proposes to use their work as the 
 
54 
 
 basis of its own is the best evidence at once of the extent 
 of their influence and the excellence of their work. 
 
 But we are coming to see that reform which confines itself 
 to dealing with the ills of the individuals, whether of mind or 
 body, does not reach to the root of the matter. Sickness, like 
 vice and crime, is itself the result, or at least the symptom of 
 an imperfect social order and can be dealt with adequately only 
 as we attempt to change this. This deeper underlying problem 
 the church on the mission field has not as yet adequately faced. 
 In this, to be sure, it is like the church at home. 
 
 But here again conditions are rapidly changing. The same 
 causes which are bringing about the change in our social outlook 
 at home are affecting the leaders of the missionary enterprise. 
 I referred a moment ago to Mr. Oldham’s treatment of the 
 native church, in his recent book. Even more striking and sig- 
 nificant is his connection of the missionary enterprise with the 
 general movement for social reform. Unless Christians at 
 home take the lead in reforming the social abuses in their own 
 industrial system, with what conscience, he asks, can they come 
 to other countries with a gospel of deliverance ? 
 
 Among thoughtful missionaries on the field I found not a few 
 who share this new point of view. Both in China and in Japan 
 I talked with men who were thoughtful students of the in- 
 dustrial situation and who were deeply concerned that the 
 Christian church should take its part in support of the in- 
 fluences which are making for a better and juster economic life. 
 
 There are three possible ways in which this may be done. 
 In part it may be done by opening demonstration centres such 
 as social settlements through which the Christian missionary 
 can come into touch with all classes of people and try to influ- 
 ence them toward a better and more brotherly life. A second 
 way is through setting apart individuals to make a scientific 
 study of social conditions with a view to suggesting a remedy. 
 A third is the infusion of all Christian teaching with the spirit 
 of brotherhood and social service. 
 
 An example of the first is the proposed social settlement of 
 the Baptist College at Shanghai under the leadership of Pro- 
 fessor Kulp, head of the sociological department of that insti- 
 tution. It is proposed, if the proper cooperation and backing 
 can be secured, to take a building in a congested quarter near 
 the large cotton mills, and begin there a work similar to that car- 
 
55 
 
 ried an by our settlements at home. Professor Kulp is already 
 in friendly touch with many of the leading manufacturers both 
 foreign and Chinese, and has done much to secure better con- 
 ditions for their employees. 
 
 The difficulty with work of this kind is that in order to be 
 effective it requires large financial support. It is therefore 
 difficult to carry on under the auspices of a single board. I 
 visited, for example, a settlement building recently opened by 
 one of the missions in a congested district of a large Chinese 
 city and felt that with the meagre support which it could com- 
 mand, both of men and means, it would be difficult to make 
 it a success. For the most effective results there should be 
 either home support from some outside body, or cooperation on 
 the part of several denominations, each being responsible for 
 some part of the work. 
 
 Even more important than to open such social centres is it 
 to set apart a number of men to specialize in social 
 studies in order that they may be in a position to give counsel 
 and advice when the opportunity arises. But here again we 
 face the difficulty that such work seems outside the direct scope 
 of missionary enterprise as at present carried on. I heard of one 
 case of a Young Men’s Christian Association secretary who 
 had given a number of years to a careful study of the famine 
 problem in one of the provinces of China, whose services were 
 dispensed with just before the completion of his work on the 
 ground that he was not securing adequate results in adding 
 individual members to the Association. It would be a great 
 advantage if we could have some organization which would do 
 for the cause of social reform in general what the Rockefeller 
 Foundation is planning to do for medicine — make an intelligent 
 study of the whole situation and outline the work that is 
 practicable. But if this cannot be done, it would be well for 
 the leading missions to commission some of their own number 
 to give at least a part of their time to work of this kind. As 
 an indication of the kind of work I have in mind I may refer to 
 Professor Gulick’s recent study of the working women of Japan, 
 or the work which Professor Baillie is doing in his agricultural 
 experiment station on the Purple Mountain at Nanking. 
 
 But apart from this specific work by individuals or social 
 groups we need to permeate all our teaching with the social 
 spirit. This is true not only in less developed countries like 
 
56 
 
 China and some parts of Latin America, where the responsibility 
 for leadership in social reform rests upon the Christian mis- 
 sionary. It is even more true in such a country as Japan, 
 where we have a strong and highly efficient government, and 
 where the temptation therefore is to shift upon its shoulders the 
 responsibility for the social betterment of the people. 
 
 I believe that the fostering of such a social consciousness on 
 the part of the Christian community is one of the most pressing 
 duties of the Japanese ministry. Thus far Japanese Chris- 
 tianity has concerned itself primarily with the individual and 
 apart from the movements which deal with the more obvious 
 social vices, such as intemperance and immorality, there has 
 been little facing of the social question as such. I spent an 
 afternoon with Dr. Suguira in visiting the slum district of 
 Tokyo and found there all the evils with which we are familiar 
 in our large cities in accentuated form. Yet in this great neg- 
 lected region, housing some three or four hundred thousand 
 people, there is only one little Christian mission. The churches 
 of Japan have thus far been too occupied with their own prob- 
 lems of self-support, to face the needs of this vast section of 
 their population. It is the same with the factory situation in 
 Osaka. The problems presented by the new conditions are 
 recognized, but little has as yet been done toward meeting them. 
 
 But here again, as I have said, things are changing for the 
 better. Individuals here and there, both missionaries and native 
 Christians, are beginning to feel the pressure of the new prob- 
 lems and are considering how they can best meet them. When 
 I was in Tokyo I met a number of men of different professions 
 who were keenly alive to the social need, and had the privilege 
 of discussing with them some of the methods which we have been 
 following in dealing with our own problems on this side of the 
 w r ater. Plans are under foot for opening a social centre in the 
 slum district of Tokyo, as part of a systematic canvass of the 
 whole social situation. A recent number of the Japanese Evan- 
 gelist reports a similar movement in Kobe. From Mr. Davis, 
 of the Young Men’s Christian Association, I have received a 
 pamphlet embodying an address read at a missionary conference 
 entitled, “ The Social Challenge of the Japanese City.” These 
 are only a few of many indications which might be mentioned 
 of the awakening of a spirit in the Japanese church which is 
 full of promise for the future. 
 
57 
 
 What is true of Japan is still more true of Latin America. 
 Here, as we have seen, the type of Protestant Christianity which 
 has hitherto prevailed has been highly individualistic, and the 
 line between the church and the world has been sharply drawn. 
 But here too conditions are changing. At the Panama Confer- 
 ence the need of a stronger social emphasis was insisted on by 
 more than one speaker ,and the responsibility of the church for 
 using the social message as a means of appeal to the young men 
 and women of the colleges pointed out. Interesting testimony 
 was also given as to the successful use of social methods, notably 
 by Mr. Inman, whose institute at Tiedias Negras in Mexico has 
 proved the means of bringing together all classes of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 One question which it may be worth while to raise in this 
 connection is as to the possibility of closer cooperation between 
 the Young Men’s and the Young Women’s Christian Associa- 
 tions in the social aspects of Christian work. One of the great 
 difficulties which each of these splendid institutions faces is 
 the limited constituency with which it deals. Its work is 
 with individual men and women, and it feels little responsibility 
 for the environment from which is constituency comes. This 
 difficulty is accentuated by the sharp line drawn between the 
 sexes in the East. If it were possible to have a branch of the 
 Young Men’s Christian Association in a congested slum district 
 with a similar branch of the Young Women’s Christian Asso- 
 cition next door, the two retaining their independence of 
 management and yet operating practically as one, it seems not 
 unlikely that larger results could be secured. There is room, 
 in my opinion, both on the foreign field and for that matter 
 in our own work at home, for an organization modelled upon 
 the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Young 
 Women’s Christian Association, and like them having the 
 advantage of an interdenominational constituency and sup- 
 port, which operates with the family as its unit, and includes 
 in its sphere the country as well as the city ; or better still, for 
 such an expansion of the work of each of the existing organiza- 
 tions as would enable them in cooperation to cover the whole 
 field, of which each now deals with but a segment. But the line 
 of thought thus suggested would carry us beyond our immediate 
 purpose. 
 
58 
 
 (3) The Attitude of the Missionary Body to the Government 
 Under Which It Works 
 
 A third phase of the question as to the proper attitude of 
 Christians to their environment has to do with the relation of 
 the missionary body to the governments of the countries in 
 which it works. In general it may be said that the policy of 
 our Protestant missions has been one of friendly neutrality. 
 The distinction clearly recognized in the United States between 
 the sphere of church and state is reasserted on the foreign field, 
 and the missionary asks only the privileges granted to other 
 foreigners doing their legitimate work. 
 
 In practice, however, it is not always easy to live up to this 
 principle. Not to speak of exceptional conditions such as obtain 
 in the Turkish Empire where until recently our mission schools 
 have been operated under special treaties granting them peculiar 
 privileges, questions are continually arising growing out of the 
 social situation which render some activity on the part of the 
 missionary body toward the political authorities necessary. 
 What, for example, shall be done in a country like Japan where 
 in cities like Tokyo and Osaka the government follows the policy 
 of licensing vice ? How far should the missionary body attack 
 unjust laws such as those which deny to woman the custody of 
 her own person, and put the power of divorce wholly in the 
 hands of the husband ? How far shall the Christian church 
 demand or, if granted, accept indemnity for wrongs done to 
 the person of its missionaries or converts ? What shall be the 
 attitude of the missionary body in times of international crisis, 
 such as that which a few years ago threatened the relations 
 between Japan and the United States, and more recently the 
 relations between Japan and China ? It is clear that complete 
 inactivity under such conditions would be possible only through 
 the surrender of principles, but it is no less clear that activity 
 involves risk and should be confined to cases where moral prin- 
 ciple is clearly involved. 
 
 In general it may be said that in dealing with the political 
 aspects of social questions it is wise as far as possible to work 
 through the native Christian community. As this community 
 gains in power and in understanding of the social implications 
 of the Gospel it will inevitably protest against whatever in 
 the life of the nation is inconsistent with the application of 
 
59 
 
 these principles, and in this protest the missionary body may 
 well join. Instances in point are the recent agitation, already 
 referred to, against the opening of a licensed quarter in Hang- 
 chow in China and in Osaka in Japan. In both cases native 
 Christians and missionaries cooperated in creating a public senti- 
 ment against the proposed abuse and were supported by an 
 influential section of the public. 
 
 There are cases, however, in which the missionary must take 
 the initiative if anything is to be done. One of the most notable 
 cases of political reform brought about in this way is the change 
 in the Japanese law relating to the right of a woman to discon- 
 tinue a life of vice, which was the direct result of the persistent 
 agitation of a little group of missionaries headed by Mr. Murphy 
 of Nagoya and described in his book, “ The Social Evil in 
 Japan.” 
 
 More perplexing is the question of the proper attitude to be 
 taken in times of international tension. Here there are two 
 dangers to be avoided : on the one hand the disposition to accept 
 without question what the government may say, and so be led 
 to condone wrong doing on the part of a strong nation to a 
 weak; on the other hand, the uncritical championship of the 
 weak against the strong, which may lead to a type of political 
 interference detrimental to the freedom and permanent influence 
 of the missionary. 
 
 Both may be illustrated at the present time in the relations 
 between Japan and China. I found in Japan a disposition to 
 belittle the charge of aggressive intention made against the 
 government and to insist that the pacific statements of the 
 authorities be taken in good faith. In China, on the other hand, 
 I found a rooted distrust of Japan and all things Japanese com- 
 parable only to that which obtains at the present time on the 
 part of the Allies toward Germany. Dr. Speer’s warning to 
 the Chinese missionaries against hasty judgment of Japan was 
 severely criticized in China, and the Japanese missionaries 
 blamed for not coming out in open denunciation of the govern- 
 ment under which they lived. 
 
 We find a similar difference in the attitude of the Japanese 
 and the Korean missionaries as to what has been happening in 
 that country. The former have on the whole approved the policy 
 of the government; the latter have condemned it. At least 
 this was the case until recently. At present, however, I am 
 
60 
 
 glad to say there are indications of a change of sentiment on 
 the part of some of the leaders of the Korean mission. This 
 change may be traced in large measure to the visit of Dr. 
 Underwood and others to Tokyo, and their closer contact with 
 the leaders of the Japanese church. In Dr. Underwood’s recent 
 death, coming at a time when his counsel and influence were 
 more than ever needed, the church of Korea has suffered a 
 serious loss. 
 
 Some such interchange of opinion and sentiment is greatly 
 needed as between China and Japan. We know in our own 
 experience in the case of the European war how easy it is for 
 bitterness and misunderstandings to arise when the organs of 
 communication are interrupted. It would be a calamity if the 
 situation which now obtains between the churches of England 
 and Germany should be repeated in the case of the churches 
 of China and Japan. To guard against this danger it is highly 
 desirable that arrangements should be made for annual con- 
 ferences in which leaders of the Chinese church should visit 
 Japan, and vice versa. Such conferences would not only relieve 
 the tension as between the two Christian bodies by bringing 
 about a better understanding of the facts. They would create 
 an international sentiment which would have a powerful in- 
 fluence upon the action of the governments on either side and 
 might pave the way to an amicable adjustment otherwise 
 impossible. 
 
 One difficult question which is at present agitating the Korean 
 missionaries concerns the government prohibition of the teaching 
 of religion in the missionary schools. In most cases an exception 
 has been granted suspending the operation of the rule for 
 nine years, but if it should ever be enforced it would raise 
 questions of conscience of a difficult character. Many of the 
 missionaries with whom I talked believe that before the nine 
 years are over some modus vivendi will be discovered. It 
 does not seem likely that a country like Japan, which claims 
 to guarantee freedom of conscience to all its subjects, would 
 permanently continue a rule prohibiting religious instruction in 
 private schools for those who of their own accord choose to at- 
 tend them. The action taken in Korea is probably to be re- 
 garded as a police measure due to the peculiar conditions pre- 
 vailing in Korea during a transition period. 
 
IY 
 
 CONSEQUENCES FOR MISSIONARY EDUCATION 
 
 All the subjects which we have thus far discussed bear directly 
 or indirectly upon the matter with which as a Seminary we are 
 most immediately concerned. I mean that of missionary educa- 
 tion. In what follows I shall briefly call attention to some of 
 the more important aspects of this many-sided problem, so 
 far as they bear upon the Seminary’s plan for a department 
 of missions. 
 
 There are four phases of the problem of missionary education 
 which need independent consideration: (1) that of the recruit- 
 ing and training of missionaries; (2) that of the training of 
 native workers; (3) that of the creation of a Christian literature 
 in the vernacular; (4) that of the education of the church at 
 home. 
 
 1 
 
 The Recruiting and Training of Missionaries 
 
 And first of the education of the missionary himself. Who 
 is he, and what does he need to fit him for his task ? 
 
 A generation ago the foreign missionary was, with a few 
 rare exceptions, an ordained minister. He received his training 
 in a theological seminary with a uniform curriculum including 
 the original languages of the Bible, exegesis, church history, 
 systematic theology, and homiletics. Whatever else he needed 
 to learn to fit him for his work he had to acquire himself after 
 he came to it. Whether a man went to India or to China or to 
 the South Sea Islands; whether he was to be a teacher or a 
 preacher, or a translator, there was no difference in his pre- 
 liminary training. Such a post-graduate study as he needed was 
 supplied by the field itself. 
 
 Under this system many strong and efficient missionaries 
 were developed. There is no teacher like necessity, and the 
 contributions of some of the older missionaries to science and 
 literature in fields outside of theology will bear comparison 
 
 61 
 
62 
 
 with the best work done by men who have been trained as 
 specialists. 
 
 With the increasing complexity and difficulty of the mis- 
 sionary problem, however, we are coming to see that such a 
 system is wasteful and inflective. Both from the point of view 
 of the field itself and of the different kinds of work to be done 
 within the field there is need of a more specialized training. 
 With the expansion of the sphere of missionary activity to 
 include social and philanthropic service of all kinds, it is no 
 longer necessary that every candidate for the mission field 
 should be a clergyman. The doctor and the teacher, the Young 
 Men’s Christian Association and the Young Women’s Christian 
 Association secretary look forward to work of a very different 
 kind from the minister or the theological teacher, and require 
 a different kind of training. With some things taught in the 
 seminary they can dispense, while they require others, for 
 which in many of our seminaries at least no provision is made. 
 
 Under these conditions the whole problem of the training of 
 candidates has entered upon a new phase. It is becoming less 
 and less a theological, more and more a general educational 
 problem. Both missionaries and boards are giving this problem 
 an attention which it did not receive a few years ago. Most 
 significant is the work of the Board of Missionary Preparation, 
 a body including leading missionary educators who have been 
 studying conditions in the different fields and making recom- 
 mendations as to the special lines of preparation to be followed 
 by candidates looking forward to work in these fields. The 
 work thus done is reacting upon the seminaries which are giving 
 to the problem of specialization in missionary preparation a 
 constantly increasing attention. 
 
 There are three phases of the problem of missionary educa- 
 tion : first, that of the training of the missionary before he goes 
 to the field; secondly, that of the best use of the furlough; 
 and thirdly, that of further training for the missionary while 
 he is still on the field. 
 
 The attempt to provide specialized training for the candidate 
 for missionary service before he goes to the field encounters 
 serious difficulties. These difficulties are due in part to the 
 fact that missionaries like other persons often do not know 
 where they are going to work, in time to make intelligent 
 preparation beforehand. Even when the field is known it is 
 
63 
 
 often uncertain what particular branch of the work will be 
 assigned to the prospective candidate. Questions of personal 
 fitness also come in, with the result to which I have already 
 referred, that we find men of high technical training in one 
 subject spending their time in doing elementary work in another. 
 
 Several suggestions have been made for dealing with this 
 difficulty. One is that the time of preparation should be divided, 
 men leaving the seminary after one or two years to go to the 
 field for a period of two or three years during which they 
 may acquire the language, and discover for what particular 
 part of the work they are fitted, returning then to the seminary 
 to complete their preparation and to secure such further special 
 training as may be needed to fit them for their special work. 
 A second suggestion is that the time of the first furlough should 
 be shortened, being made three or five years as the case may be. 
 Still a third suggestion is that there should be a clearer differ- 
 entiation between the educational work of missions and its other 
 phases, and that for the former, more use should be made of 
 college trained men who have had only one or two years of 
 special theological training instead of the full seminary course. 
 On no subject did I find greater difference of opinion among the 
 missionaries. Many seemed to feel that the difficulties in the 
 case are inherent and that no change in method would mean 
 a material improvement. We face here one phase of the general 
 problem of specialization in education which is giving so much 
 perplexity to our teachers here at home. 
 
 On one point there is general agreement, and that is on the 
 fundamental importance of a mastery of the native language 
 by the missionary. During the pioneer period of missions, 
 when the contact of the missionary was largely with the ignorant 
 and uneducated, it might be possible to get on with an imperfect 
 control of the language, but to-day when in every country 
 without exception the missionary has access to men of culture 
 and refinement, and when he is obliged to deal with the most 
 intricate questions of science, philanthropy and comparative 
 religion, nothing less than complete mastery will suffice. In a 
 country like Japan this is a matter which requires years of the 
 most painstaking effort and particular linguistic gifts which 
 not all possess. All the more important is it therefore that 
 there should be some preliminary sifting of candidates to deter- 
 mine who possess these gifts, and that the men who do should 
 
64 
 
 be encouraged to give themselves to linguistic study with a 
 thoroughness which the pressure of the average missionary's 
 multifarious duties often makes impossible. 
 
 But if it is difficult to give the missionary the proper special- 
 ized training before he goes to the field, that is all the more 
 reason for giving him such training after he has reached it and 
 knows what he needs. Here the furlough supplies an educa- 
 tional opportunity of which as yet we have made too little use. 
 I found a very general agreement among missionaries that our 
 present system is wasteful and ineffective. To take a man who 
 has been several years on the field and let him spend his fur- 
 lough in running from one end of the country to another giving 
 missionary addresses when he might be mastering some subject 
 which would fit him for more effective work when he goes back, 
 is surely penny wise and pound foolish. The disposition on the 
 part of our seminaries to provide opportunities for specialized 
 training for returned missionaries is generally welcomed and 
 is receiving the hearty cooperation of the secretaries of the 
 different boards. 
 
 A phase of the problem of missionary training which has 
 received much less attention than it deserves is that of the 
 education of the missionary on the field. I have called atten- 
 tion to the wastefulness of a system which fills with routine 
 work which could be done as well by any clerk the time of a 
 man who, if his energies were released, could be doing effective, 
 scholarly work. I believe that one of the best things which 
 could be done would be to encourage a certain number of our 
 younger missionaries of promise to give themselves to special 
 research in subjects like comparative religion, sociology, and 
 the like, in order that they fit themselves to meet the leaders of 
 the non-Christian faiths on equal terms. The exceptional man 
 will no doubt do this in any event in spite of the difficulty to be 
 overcome. But what we need is a policy that will encourage 
 more men to take up such work, remove the obstacles which 
 at present make it impossible for many of them, and create a 
 spirit of cooperation and esprit de corps which will make them 
 feel that their work is worth while. 
 
 Another phase of the same problem is the question of bring- 
 ing inspiration and refreshment to the individual missionary in 
 a more or less isolated field. Here again I found men of fine 
 parts doing excellent work who seemed worn and jaded from 
 
65 
 
 the lack of touch with some outside influence such as that which 
 is open to those who are living in or near great cities. The need 
 is the same with which we are familiar in the home mission field, 
 and the problem there as here is in part a problem of expense. 
 Partly the need could be met by more frequent visitation on 
 the part of the secretaries or of other friends ; partly 
 through some system of circulating libraries, bringing the results 
 of modern scholarship into the homes of men who cannot reach 
 large libraries; partly through a fund which could be used in 
 bringing men from distant points to centres for conference 
 and inspiration. But whatever the method, it is clear that 
 there is something that needs to be done if we are to keep our 
 men at distant points in touch with the sources of inspiration, 
 without which our own lives would stagnate. 
 
 2 
 
 The Training of the Native Ministry 
 
 What is true of the missionary body is true a fortiori of the 
 native church. Here the great opportunity provided for the 
 missionary by his furlough is lacking. Only a very few of the 
 native Christians can leave their homes for a year of study in 
 Europe and America. All the more important is it therefore 
 that we should take measures to encourage the leaders to train 
 themselves for effective service where they are. 
 
 The need of providing adequate facilities for home training is 
 accentuated by the fact that even if it were feasible on the 
 ground of expense, there are disadvantages in giving men who 
 are looking forward to the ministry in China or Japan their 
 complete theological training in English or American semi- 
 naries. There is danger that men who have been transplanted 
 to so different an environment at so early an age will lose touch 
 with home conditions and problems and find it difficult to put 
 up with the limitations under which their native fellow-minis- 
 ters must work. I found not a few cases of such maladjustment 
 both in China and Japan. For this reason many missionaries 
 believe that as a rule candidates for the native ministry should 
 receive their training at home, the opportunity for further 
 study abroad being reserved for exceptional men who have 
 proved their fitness and who are looking forward to definite 
 work. 
 
66 
 
 I have already had occasion to refer to the state of theological 
 education in Japan and China, and need not repeat what I 
 have already said. In Japan we have excellent schools with a 
 comparatively high standard from which men can come to our 
 American seminaries with a good preparation. In China con- 
 ditions are much more elementary, and the opportunities of 
 advanced training for men of promise limited. 
 
 With the general rise of educational standards in China 
 the need of improvement in the methods of theological educa- 
 tion is beginning to make itself felt; and the time has come 
 when it should be possible to increase the number of centres of 
 advanced theological instruction, open to college graduates only, 
 or men of similar preparation. Professor Stuart, as we have 
 seen, is anxious to provide such a course at Nanking, and to this 
 end is appealing for a fund to enable him to establish merit 
 scholarships modeled after our system at Union. He believes 
 that such scholarships would attract men of promise from all 
 over China, and help to raise the standard of theological educa- 
 tion for the Republic as a whole. 
 
 In addition to the existing provision for theological education 
 I believe that there is a great field of usefulness in China for 
 institutions modeled after Hampton and Tuskegee, which should 
 provide training for lay workers who could get out into the more 
 undeveloped parts of China and, like the graduates of these 
 institutions at home, set an example to their neighbors of a 
 clean, intelligent and self-respecting life. One of the great 
 obstacles in China to-day is the association of education with 
 book-learning, and the consequent tendency of the educated man 
 to despise manual labor. The spectacle of graduates of Chris- 
 tian schools earning their own living in trade and industry 
 and using their leisure for Christian work among their neigh- 
 bors would help to break down this prejudice and educate public 
 opinion as to the dignity of labor. 
 
 An important element in any comprehensive educational sys- 
 tem must be adequate provision for specialized training for 
 those outstanding personalities among the native Christians who 
 give promise of leadership. What was said a moment ago as to 
 the disadvantages of sending the average Chinese or Japanese 
 abroad for his theological education does not apply in the case 
 of men who have already proved their fitness and know what 
 they need. For such men opportunity to see another country 
 
67 
 
 and study other methods can prove only beneficial, and every 
 provision should be made to make such advanced study possible. 
 
 I recall an evening spent in conversation with Chang Po 
 Ling of Tientsin, one of the strongest of the native Chinese 
 Christians. He is the principal of a large and exceedingly 
 efficient boys’ school, financed and run entirely by Chinese, 
 and the leading spirit in the strongest independent native 
 church in China. But he is without technical training either 
 in matters educational or religious. If he is to meet the re- 
 sponsibilities which rest upon him in the most effective way 
 he ought to spend at least a year in study in some graduate 
 school in the United States or Great Britain, where he could 
 inform himself as to the latest developments in pedagogical 
 science and gain that historic background which would enable 
 him to meet the perplexing theological questions which face 
 every independent church during the formative years of its life. 
 
 In addition to providing opportunities for study abroad for 
 a selected number of promising native leaders much could, no 
 doubt, be done to provide facilities for further training on the 
 field itself. Men of scholarly tastes should be encouraged to 
 choose some subject for special research, and give themselves to 
 it during their hours of leisure. For the rest, inspirational 
 conferences should be provided, after the model of the confer- 
 ences now conducted by Hampton and Tuskegee, or by the 
 Presbyterian Board’s Department of Church and Country Life. 
 The main thing is that it should be recognized, in the case of 
 the native worker as of the missionary, that graduation from 
 the seminary is not the end, but rather the beginning of the 
 minister’s education. 
 
 3 
 
 The Need of a Christian Literature in the Vernacular 
 
 One phase of the educational problem whose importance it 
 is difficult to over-emphasize is that of the creation of a good 
 Christian literature in the vernacular. In every country which 
 I visited I found that this was recognized as one of the most 
 crying needs. When one realizes what we owe in English 
 speaking countries not only to the Bible but to the great classics 
 which have been formed under its influence, and then try to 
 
68 
 
 imagine what our life would be if all these were to be suddenly 
 removed, we appreciate the importance of trying to give to the 
 countries that are facing the new tasks of Christian citizenship 
 something which shall prove an equivalent. It is not enough 
 to translate European books, even the best. We must raise up 
 a new literature, and this is a gigantic task. 
 
 This is particularly important in a country like Japan which 
 is in close touch with all the currents of modern scholarship 
 and which through its universities is turning out every year 
 large numbers of highly trained specialists. In men like Pro- 
 fessor Anesaki and his colleagues in the Imperial University, 
 Japan possesses scholars who are the peers of any in our 
 western universities. It is clear that if we are to hold the 
 thoughtful young men and women of Japan to the Christian 
 faith we must be able to put into their hands a literature pre- 
 pared by men who are familiar with the work of these men 
 and able to meet them on their own ground. 
 
 For China too the creation of such a literature is a work of 
 prime necessity. Here is a country which for hundreds of 
 years has given its greatest honors to the scholar and the man 
 of letters; in which acquaintance with the classics lies at the 
 foundation of the entire educational system. It is clear that 
 if we are to build up a native church of the type which we have 
 seen to be needed, we must make an appeal through the eye as 
 well as the ear, and this means that we must have a literature 
 which can address the cultivated Chinese in the language 
 with which he is familiar, and which will conform to the stand- 
 ards of taste which prevail in the circles in which he moves. 
 How far we are from realizing this ideal those who have been 
 longest in China will best appreciate. 
 
 To meet this need so far as possible Christian Literature 
 Societies have been founded, both in China and in Japan — the 
 former until recently under the venerated Dr. Timothy Richard ; 
 the latter under Dr. Wainright, of Tokyo. I cannot speak 
 too highly of the work which these societies are doing. Both 
 in securing translations of good books and in publishing the 
 works of native authors they are rendering an indispensable 
 service. But they are limited in funds and also necessarily in 
 scope. They must give precedence to works of a religious 
 nature, and among these to those which bear more or less 
 directly on the missionary enterprise. But apart from such 
 
books there is need for a wholesome secular literature written 
 from the Christian point of view, of good popular novels which 
 can be put into the hands of young men and young women, of 
 works on philosophical and scientific subjects, essays and poetry 
 and biography and history; in a word of all that we sum up 
 under the title literature. But to produce this, even were the 
 materials in existence, would require an expenditure of time 
 and money which is wholly beyond the reach of these societies. 
 
 What is true of Japan and of China is true in equal measure 
 of the Latin American countries. From every one without 
 exception comes the cry for a good Christian literature. One 
 of the most pitiable features of the Panama Congress was the 
 exhibit of Protestant Christian literature in Spanish and Portu- 
 guese. Both in amount and in quality the books were utterly 
 inadequate, and if the missionary enterprise is to have any 
 effect in reaching the more thoughtful classes, this lack must at 
 once be supplied. 
 
 The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that translations, even 
 if they were to be had, will not fully meet the need. What is 
 required is the assimiliation of Christian ideas by leaders in the 
 different countries of the mission field who speak and write 
 their native language with precision and grace and who can 
 produce works which will meet the standards of literary excel- 
 lence by which the works of contemporary scholars in their own 
 country are judged. 
 
 It is clear that before this need can be adequately met many 
 years must pass, and a generation arise who have grown up 
 into Christianity as naturally as our own children do so at 
 home. But in the meanwhile we must use such materials as 
 we have. And here I believe that through intelligent coopera- 
 tion much could be done which we are not now doing. 
 
 One of the most interesting recollections is of an evening 
 spent in conversation with two of our own graduates, one a 
 Professor of Church History, the other a leading pastor of 
 Tokyo, on the subject of Japan’s need of Christian books. They 
 were speaking of specific books which were needed — a book on 
 theism, a book on the church, a sympathetic interpretation of 
 the historic Christian doctrines in the light of modem thought. 
 These young men were anxious to do their part in supplying 
 this need. They had proved their ability by the production 
 of work of excellent character, but they were hampered by the 
 
70 
 
 press of other duties to such an extent that the needed time and 
 leisure were not to be had. 
 
 I have no doubt that there are many such men in each of the 
 greater mission fields. Some of them I myself met. But they 
 are not free to give themselves to the work. Surely it ought to 
 be possible to devise some system by which men of scholarly and 
 literary tastes may be released from the service of the par- 
 ticular denomination to which they belong, for a period longer or 
 shorter as the case may be — to give themselves with undivided 
 energy to the more important task of creating a literature 
 which shall serve the need of the church as a whole. 
 
 Here as everywehere we are brought back to the supreme need 
 of Christian missions, and that is the discovery and training of 
 strong personalties. Where can we find the men who are 
 competent to do the work that needs to be done, and when we 
 have found them, how can we furnish them the equipment they 
 need to do their work effectively? This is the missionary 
 problem par excellence, as it is the problem of the church at 
 home. 
 
 4 
 
 The Education of the Church at Home 
 
 One more phase of the problem of missionary education I 
 can touch on only in a word, and that is the problem of educat- 
 ing the church at home to the needs and demands of the present 
 situation. At present this responsibility rests largely upon the 
 shoulders of the secretaries of our boards and of the mission- 
 aries on furlough as they go about among the churches. But 
 it is clear that it is not fair to ask them to assume the whole 
 weight of this burden. It is a part of the whole problem of 
 education, for which our colleges and seminaries are respon- 
 sible. It is not enough to train our men for the mission field. 
 We must help to create the public opinion which will sustain 
 them in their work, and that means that we must produce an 
 attitude toward foreign missions on the part of the church as 
 a whole which will appeal to the thoughtful men at home who 
 have it in their power to make possible the realization of the 
 ideals of which we have been speaking. 
 
 There are two ways in which we may go about the creation 
 
71 
 
 of such an attitude. One is by bringing an increasing number 
 of individuals into direct touch with the work of missions, either 
 through personal visitation of the field, through contact with 
 returned missionaries, or through missionary literature. This 
 is the work in which our boards are at present engaged, and 
 they are meeting with great success in it. Through such move- 
 ments as the Laymen’s Missionary Movement, by the testimony 
 of such leaders of opinion as President Taft, who has had 
 exceptional opportunities to inform himself as to the work of 
 our missionaries — above all, through such gatherings as the 
 Edinburgh Conference, and the more recent conference at 
 Panama, an intelligent public opinion is being informed which 
 is full of promise for the future of missions. 
 
 But there is another phase of this preparation which is no 
 less important and that is to bring the church to such a con- 
 ception of the nature of Christianity and the function of the 
 church that foreign missions will be seen to be of the very 
 essence of the Gospel. This is a work which must be done by 
 our ministers and theological teachers, and until we have accom- 
 plished it, our work for missions must rest upon a precarious 
 foundation. We must have done once and for all with the 
 departmental conception of Christianity, which thinks of mis- 
 sions as an addendum to something which is complete without 
 it, and come to realize that there is only one kind of Christianity 
 worthy of the name, and that is missionary Christianity. 
 
 This has a direct bearing upon our work as theological teach- 
 ers. It is an excellent thing to create a department of foreign 
 missions in the Seminary, and to furnish our students with all 
 the information available as to what is being done and planned 
 on the foreign field. But it is even more important to infuse 
 the spirit of missions into the work of each department and 
 make men feel that whatever the subject studied, whether it be 
 exegesis or history, ethics or theology, their teachers approach it 
 in the spirit of world-wide service, and against the background 
 of the whole world’s need. It is with this conviction that I 
 would approach the final topic which awaits our consideration, 
 namely, what our own Seminary can do to further the cause 
 of missionary education. 
 
y 
 
 WHAT THE SEMINARY CAN DO 
 
 1 
 
 The Responsibility op the Seminary for Missionary 
 Education 
 
 There are four ways in which the Seminary can contribute to 
 the cause of missionary education. First of all, by training 
 individual candidates for the mission field ; secondly, by provid- 
 ing an effective graduate school for the further training of 
 returned missionaries, or selected native leaders, in the special- 
 ties which they require • thirdly, by contributing directly to the 
 work of missions by setting apart one or more representatives 
 for service on the field; and fourthly, by doing its part in 
 interpreting modem missions to the church at home. 
 
 The first thing that the Seminary can do to help the cause of 
 missions is to supply effective missionaries. Everything else is 
 subsidiary to this. Whatever tends to improve the standing of 
 the Seminary among educational institutions, whatever helps to 
 raise the ministry in men ’s estimation, whatever serves to attract 
 manly men from our leading colleges and universities and to 
 present the cause of Christian missions for their consideration 
 as a life work, is a direct contribution to the cause in which we 
 are at present interested. 
 
 The second thing that the Seminary can do is to furnish a 
 graduate school for the advanced training of returned mission- 
 aries or of selected leaders of the native church. For this work 
 Union Seminary has unique advantages, situated as it is in 
 the greatest city in the world, with close access to two great 
 universities, and in intimate touch with the headquarters of 
 the great mission boards. Such a school should not only give 
 the individual missionary the training that he needs, but it 
 should serve as a clearing house between the different fields by 
 bringing together men with a different background of experience 
 and enabling them to interchange their ideas under conditions 
 of mutual profit. 
 
 72 
 
73 
 
 But apart from this the Seminary has an opportunity to make 
 a further contribution to the work of missions by setting apart 
 one or more of its representatives for direct service on the field. 
 This contribution can be made in two ways: partly along the 
 line of scholarly research, and partly along the line of practical 
 inspiration. There are problems which the missionary faces on 
 the field which we could help him to solve if we used the oppor- 
 tunities of study open to us for that end, and there are inspira- 
 tions which we share which we might bring to him if we could 
 realize our hope that such visits as the generosity of the Board 
 has made possible in my own case might be repeated in the case 
 of other members of the Faculty. 
 
 Finally, the Seminary can help the cause of missionary educa- 
 tion by contributing to the formation of a healthy public senti- 
 ment concerning missions on the part of the church as a whole. 
 This it can do in two ways: In the first place by providing 
 
 contacts between the representatives of the mission cause and 
 the general public, either through lectureships which bring to 
 the Seminary leading representatives of the mission cause from 
 all over the world, or through foundations having for their object 
 the production of effective missionary literature. In the second 
 place, by bringing all the Faculty into touch with modem mis- 
 sions and enlisting their interest in the work of interpreting 
 the missionary cause. 
 
 2 
 
 Bearing Upon the Proposed Plan of a Department of 
 
 Missions 
 
 It is against this bacground that we must judge our present 
 plan of missionary expansion. It deals with all four of these 
 phases of the situation, and if it can be carried into effect will 
 mean progress all along the line. Through its increase in the 
 staff of teachers it provides additional facilities for specialized 
 training of missionary candidates. By its system of graduate 
 scholarships it makes it possible to extend the advantages of the 
 Seminary to those students who most need the advanced train- 
 ing it can provide. By its appointment of a professor who is 
 to spend at least part of his time on the field it makes an 
 original contribution at once to the cause of missions and to the 
 
74 
 
 scientific study of comparative religion ; while by bringing to 
 the Seminary a succession of leaders of the missionary cause, 
 both native and foreign, it contributes to the cause of mis- 
 sionary education in the largest sense. 
 
 During my visit to the East I took every opportunity to 
 explain the plan to the missionaries I met, and everywhere I 
 found a sympathetic hearing. The lines along which it was 
 conceived met with general approval and I found nowhere any 
 serious criticism. 
 
 The two points of special interest to the missionaries on the 
 field were, in the first place, the provision of scholarships for 
 returning missionaries ; and secondly, the plan for the appoint- 
 ment of a professor who should spend a part of his time on the 
 field. Both of these commended themselves to those with whom 
 I talked, but the former called forth special approval. I met a 
 number of men of high promise and much experience who would 
 be only too glad to take advantage of the opportunity that our 
 plan would offer who, as things now are, are not able to come 
 to us because of the prohibitive expense of life in New York. 
 I feel sure that if we could carry out our plan we could in a 
 very few years make our Seminary a centre of missionary in- 
 terest and inspiration second to none in the country, if not 
 indeed in the world. 
 
 The plan of a resident professor also met with favor, although 
 it was recognized that all would depend upon the character of 
 the appointee and the siprit in which he approached his task. 
 There is no doubt in my own mind, however, that if we could 
 find the right man he would receive a hearty welcome from 
 the missionary body, and in addition to his direct work as a 
 scholar, would find many opportunities indirectly to serve the 
 missionary cause. 
 
 As to the question of the location of the resident professor, 
 should one be appointed, I came to the conclusion that under 
 present conditions the best subject to be chosen was Buddhism, 
 and the best place to locate our appointee, Japan. The reasons 
 for this conclusion are fourfold. In the first place, of all the 
 great non-Christian religions except Mohammedanism, Bud- 
 dhism is the one which now shows most signs of life, and which 
 is the most effective rival of Christianity. In the second place, 
 it is a subject in which there is more need of independent 
 scholarly research than any other, especially in Japan where 
 
76 
 
 Buddhism is undergoing rapid development and where many 
 sources of accurate information are being made accessible to 
 western scholars through the labors of Japanese professors. 
 Thirdly, the rapidity with which conditions are developing in 
 Japan gives special urgency to the claims of Japan for such 
 an appointment. Even if in other respects the need were 
 equally great, the time element in the case makes it desirable to 
 give Japan precedence. Fourthly, the opportunities for indirect 
 service through contact with the intelligent Japanese who are 
 non- Christians, as well as the thoughtful members of the mis- 
 sionary body, would give a man coming to Japan as the repre- 
 sentative of the Seminary special opportunities of Christian 
 service that he would not be as likely to find elsewhere. 
 
 At three points it seems to me possible to supplement our plan 
 with advantage. In the first place, in addition to the scholar- 
 ships provided for returned missionaries I should like to see a 
 number of scholarships for native scholars, which could be 
 assigned to a group of carefully selected men who gave promise 
 of creative scholarship. I have in mind such men as those to 
 whom I have already referred both in Japan and in Latin 
 America who if they had the requisite leisure and contacts could 
 contribute to the creation of a native literature for their re- 
 spective countries, but are at present prevented from doing this 
 by lack of opportunity. I believe that if the Seminary could 
 furnish them this opportunity it would be making a contribution 
 to the cause of missions of primary importance. 
 
 A second addition which I should like to .see made is the pro- 
 vision of a fund for the translation and publication of important 
 sources for the history of religion. There is a mass of material 
 which is being brought to light by the labors of Japanese scholars 
 which would be of great value to Christian missionaries if it 
 could be made accessible. Occasionally some of this finds its 
 way into the transactions of the Asiatic Society. One or two 
 of the more important documents may be published by the 
 Christian Literature Society, but there is still abundant material 
 which would be not only interesting but practically useful, not 
 only to scholars, but to the missionary body. It would greatly 
 increase the effectiveness of our plan for the professorship if 
 the man to be appointed could have at his disposal such 
 a fund to be expended either directly by him or through resi- 
 dent scholars working under his direction. Here too the Semi- 
 
76 
 
 nary would not only be helping Christian missions but con- 
 tributing to the cause of universal scholarship and carrying on 
 the best traditions of its own past. 
 
 Finally, I should like to see a lectureship provided which 
 would make it possible for other members of our own Faculty 
 or others whom the Faculty might nominate to share the 
 privilege which came to me through my recent trip. There 
 are many teachers of theology who could not give a year to 
 the cause of missions who could spare two months or half a 
 year. By sending them to the mission field the Seminary would 
 not only contribute inspiration to those on the ground, but 
 would give those who went such an acquaintance with the cause 
 of missions as would exercise a reflex influence upon the in- 
 struction of all the departments of the Seminary, and indirectly 
 contribute to that general education of the public to the import- 
 ance of which I have already more than once referred. 
 
 I end where I began with an expression of my conviction of 
 the greatness of the opportunity and of the strategic position 
 occupied by the Seminary in meeting it. As I recall the ex- 
 periences of the last four months ; as I think of the world situa- 
 tion with its unexampled demand for far-sighted and unselfish 
 leadership, I am filled with enthusiasm at the prospect which 
 opens before us if we have the vision and courage to enter into 
 our privilege and go forward along the lines to which the 
 providence of God seems to be pointing us. 
 
 m L 18 RAHY Of THE 
 DEC 22 1927 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 1