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 I E> R.ARY 
 OF THE 
 U N I VLRSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
 goxn^n farts. 
 
 REPORT OF A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 183rd annual public MEETING 
 
 OF THE SOCIETY, HELD IN 
 
 ST. JAMES'S HALL, 
 
 On TUESDAY, JUNE 11 th, 1884, 
 BY THE 
 
 MOST REV. THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY, 
 
 Revised hy His Grace at the request of the Society. 
 
 19, DELAHAY STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W.
 
 <xi' 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 HAD hoped to give the whole of this afternoon to 
 the Conference of a Society to which I am most 
 deeply devoted, but I am sure I shall have your 
 approbation if I say that I am still more due to 
 my place in the House of Lords to consider a Bill which, I 
 trust, will bear importantly on the Temperance of the whole 
 kingdom — the Sunday Closing Bill for Cornwall. You will 
 perhaps, then, allow me very briefly first to thank the Secretary 
 for that remarkable abbreviated Report in which he flashed 
 us round the whole world. ¥/e shall thank Lord Carnarvon 
 for addressing us witli the voice of a statesman, of one who 
 speaks from his own observation of things, and who leaves us 
 with strong words of encouragement, based on experience, 
 which were well indeed taken up by the venerable Prelate 
 whom we salute with all our hearts to-day. 
 
 There was a time when George Herbert wrote — 
 
 " Religion stands a-tiptoe on our strand 
 Ready to pass to the American land," — 
 
 SO full of dejection were the hearts of men at that hour. And 
 what he looked for she did — she went, but yet she stayed ; 
 and her work, as we look across the Atlantic, is a work from 
 which we at home can take high courage, and, in spite ot 
 past discords, may almost say to the American Church, Matre 
 pulcJira filia imlchrior. Speaking as President of the Society, 
 it seems to me we have need of being helped as the presence 
 of the Bishop of Ohio helps us, to take a calm, strong, large 
 sight of our work. Looking upon the ever-widening and ex- 
 tending work of Missions, we have some fear lest, out of the
 
 intense interest that is very rightly excited in novel parts 
 of the work, there should arise exclusive agitations in favour 
 of some one part of the field, tempting us to lose sight of what 
 should be the grand aim of the Society, to keep an equable 
 hand over all the Missions. I can never forget the wide terms 
 of our Lord's Mission to His Apostles, Trdarj rfj Kriaet : they 
 were to preach the Gospel "to all the creation." 
 
 Again I feel from time to time a little anxiety lest in our 
 ardour we should run into exaggeration. I do not find such 
 exaggeration in the publications of this Society, but I am 
 alluding to a handling of Missionary work which is becoming 
 too common. The great cause of Missions will not be served 
 by over-pathetic appeals, or by sensational writing about limited 
 and temporary phenomena. I have only just received a letter 
 from a Colonial Bishop lamenting the strained appeals made 
 by friends of his own diocese, as if there were not great cause 
 for gratitude, and as if encouragement were not more helpful 
 than despair. Here we have again to take a strong view of the 
 subiect. There was a time in our country when every church, 
 or at least a very great number of churches, had its special 
 shrine and devotions ; and there were pilgrimages here and 
 there, and votaries of this intercessor or that; every man had 
 his own pet saint ; and all this preluded a period of complete 
 breaking up. So it would be with us, I think, if we were all to 
 throw our interests into particular Missions, as we have been a 
 little in danger of doing, instead of taking a very strong general 
 interest in all Missions. Spiritual competition will lead to 
 spiritual selfishness, and while all selfishness is dangerous to the 
 character, spiritual selfishness is perhaps the most dangerous of 
 all, for it attacks us in that which ought to be the centre of all. 
 The true Mission spirit is a universal spirit. True Mission 
 work has two great characteristics. In the first place, it has 
 the characteristic of aggressiveness, an aggressive spirit which 
 cannot rest ; but it is a self-sacrificing spirit. The spirit 
 of Christianity is the very opposite of the spirit which 
 has been so eftective up to a certain point in Moham- 
 medanism. Mohammedanism has been a great religion and a 
 very aggressive religion, and it has made great sacrifices — but
 
 all to self. It has sacrificed to itself women, peasantries, 
 resources, nations. For a time it lias prospered ; but when it 
 has eaten up all these, then it must stop and must die. The 
 spirit of Christianity is to sacrifice self to every one of those 
 things which Mohammedanism has sacrificed to itself. The 
 second characteristic of Christianity is tolerance — the toler- 
 ance of love, the tolerance of intelligence. When I look at the 
 Bishop of Lahore's Manual of Moral Philosophy, and see the 
 two first parts occupied with bringing out all that is noble 
 and good in the Philosophies of the East and of Greece, and 
 see that this is to lead to the third part, the true morality of 
 Christianity, I feel that therein the real spirit of Missions is 
 thoroughly understood, and that the history of the whole world 
 is looked upon as the ancient Christians looked upon it — as 
 a Preparation for the Gospel, not a thing to be despised and 
 thrown away. As Christ Himself came in the fulness of time, 
 so comes our teaching to those who have run through all that 
 they can learn without Christ, and then are in the position of 
 men who, by their great insight into the phenomena of nature, 
 are prepared to take in the phenomena which God reveals of 
 Himself. Aggressiveness and Tolerance together^ these should 
 be the symbols of this Society. If I may dare to use a 
 word which is often used in a cant sense, its members and 
 branches should take a "statesmanlike" view of the work. 
 The word often is corrupted to mean " cold and indifferent 
 under the show of impartiality." But the most impartial 
 statesman may have a real perception of and devotion to 
 what is true. What I mean to say is, that our work ought 
 to produce, and when it is w ell done it does produce, those 
 very characters in nations which the statesman most wants 
 to produce, but does not know how, and never will be 
 able to produce without Christianity. Christianity, and 
 Christianity alone, recognises the purpose of man on earth — ■ 
 not only of the individual soul, but of human society. Was 
 not Las Casas a far greater statesman than the great Cardinal 
 in Spain, when he maintained that Indians had souls like 
 Spaniards, and that no soul of theirs cost Christ less than the 
 most accomplished soul in Europe ? He spoke of himself as 
 
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 having been for this doctrine of his " cursed like Paul, stoned 
 like Stephen, dragged from tribunal to tribunal," but in insight 
 was he not a far greater statesman than any of his time? 
 Let us turn to India, — and we cannot turn our eyes in that 
 direction without bemoaning the loss the country has sustained 
 in that holy, gentle statesman who has just passed away. He 
 has told us in one of his lectures that he meant to give a simple 
 report, such a report as any Roman Prsetor might have sent in 
 to Trajan or to one of the Antonines, and, speaking as a Roman 
 Praetor, he bore his testimony that no words could describe the 
 rise which he had seen take place in the prospects of the future 
 of the great nations amongst Avhom he had lived, and he at 
 the same time pointed out how this was the work of a few 
 men who, with a very few grand exceptions, were of no emi- 
 nence, and w'ere of little account in their ow^n country, but w^ho 
 simply went and carried to these nations the message of the 
 Gospel. At the same time w^e had Gardner's Report on the 
 Trade of Chefoo, and he told us how, without becoming 
 Christians, wdiole populations were raised in tone and character, 
 and precisely such preparations made for a coming people, 
 a civilised, a law-abiding, honourable people, such as the states- 
 man would fain make if he knew how. All that was done by 
 the simple presence among the natives of Chefoo of Christian 
 people, not always living up to their light, but still living as 
 Christians, and showing how the very lees of Christianity are 
 better than the new wine of heathenism. This is no new 
 discovery. I never can forget the thrill with which I first read 
 the words of Cyprian, in which he put his finger on the precise 
 point. "Paulus vocandis formandisque gentibus missus" — 
 "Paul sent to call and to form the nations." He saw that 
 the work of Christianity, represented to him in St. Paul, was 
 in the time to come, not only to be the calling of individual 
 souls, but in reality the moulding of the nations. 
 
 Now will you let me say why I think that a great Society 
 like this has claims upon us of the very broadest nature, and 
 that we shall not be doing our duty if we do not support with 
 all our might its great objects? It seems to me that this 
 Society, being able to review the whole field, can focus the
 
 questions before it in a way that no individual can do, and can 
 see the relative importance of this or that work of the Church. 
 It can proportion its grants accurately, and, what is most 
 important in contrast with special societies, it can give 
 temporary assistance, and is not bound to go on in some 
 one particular field. Let me give you an instance. I was 
 delighted to hear what the Secretary said about the Corea. The 
 Corea is a very important peninsula, destined to be important 
 to commerce, and estimated to contain 13,000,000 people. 
 Sir Henry Parkes has just concluded with the Coreans a treaty 
 in which he managed to get introduced as a stipulation 
 which could not be departed from, that British subjects must 
 have liberty to exercise their religion. More than that he 
 could not gain. The Coreans prohibited immoral books, 
 and the Christian Scriptures are understood by the people 
 in that sense. There is a weak government, and a fierce 
 people. They are very unruly, and it is quite certain that as 
 soon as we can we must Christianise their country. The pos- 
 sibility of Missions there will entirely depend on the tact and 
 wisdom with which British subjects^ live and exercise their 
 religion in the country. The question has excited the 
 greatest ardour amongst the Bishops and Churches in 
 China, who see the attractiveness of work there on account 
 of its difficulties and importance. Its millions of people, 
 its natural resources, its faltering government, and its 
 extreme hostility to Christianity, will require sagacity pro- 
 portioned to the future importance of such a country. 
 Application was made to the S.P.G., and the answer was 
 at once returned that the Society knew the whole importance 
 of it, and knew exactly what to lay out upon it, and it 
 was £2,000 per annum, which they had not got. In that 
 answer can be seen the advantage of a Society which has 
 full means of information at its command, so as to compare 
 one country with another, and an answer such as that is a 
 challenge to England to find £2,000 a year for the service of 
 the Society in this respect. 
 
 I said just now that I thought it Avas unfortunate to go into 
 exaggerations, and that I had received a letter from a Bishop,
 
 7 
 
 speaking with pain of the reports 'set afloat, with the best 
 intentions, with respect to his diocese. They speak of floods of 
 people streaming into the country in numbers unparalleled and 
 in such carelessness about their faith that a minister of the 
 Gospel can only sit down and Weep. The Bishop says this is a 
 most mischievous representation. There is no need to weep, 
 but only to buckle ourselves to work for the future, and that 
 now is the very moment. 
 
 While all have rejoiced in Canon Anson's noble offer of 
 himself to go and work as a simple Missioner with a band 
 of helpers in that vast region, it is still more noble that, though 
 with great reluctance, he has surrendered his own cherished 
 plan for work, and, in spite of the regret we share with him^ 
 he has placed himself trustfully in the hands of those who have 
 assured him that he can be still more useful as a Bishop, and 
 has placed his fund in the hands of this Society for admini- 
 stration. This is a recognition of the width of the view which 
 lies before a great Society in contrast with a limited individual 
 view. 
 
 May I now say a few words on the Mission to the ancient 
 l^estorian Church in Assyria. These people, under the 
 greatest difficulties, have kept up from the earliest centuries 
 their faith, orders, sacraments, and creeds, and do not seem to 
 retain any trace of their ancient heresy. The study of the 
 map alone will show how great is the advantage to peaceful 
 progress if a people placed as they are become sincerely 
 attached to England through the English Church. There are 
 two great agencies at work with the only object of absorbing 
 them into themselves, while the object of the Church of England 
 will be to strengthen, to sustain, and to keep them intact as 
 they have been from the beginning, and to render permanent 
 their devotion to England, for their very religion's sake. At the 
 earnest request of my predecessor, there has been sent out, not 
 a Missionary, but a Teacher to them, who possesses a singular 
 gift of languages and also of dealing with such a people, and 
 his presence has been the greatest comfort and help to the 
 Bishops, clergy, and people. It does not rigidly fall within the 
 province of this Society to maintain this work, but who does
 
 not rejoice that it is able to spare a little sum of £250 a year 
 towards it, and that the Christian Knowledge Society gives a 
 similar sum ? Two young clergymen, or National schoolmasters, 
 are now wanted out there, and I appeal for earnest 
 and capable men to come forward. 
 
 In conclusion, to do wrong things in the Christian name is a 
 fearful sin against Christ, and to teach Christianity in a wrong 
 way is a great injury to the cause of Christ ; and as long as we 
 do these things a good Government may and must find fault 
 with us. But to do Christian things in a Christian way will 
 never cause disquiet. We are bound to do these things to the 
 uttermost of our power. For while we do them we are re- 
 placing man in his own place. 
 
 Even such considerations are enough to make us feel that 
 our work is a glorious work for mankind ; but it is far more — 
 it is a work of God through us. 
 
 Let us invoke the Lord of Missions to be with us ; let us 
 put ourselves in His hands. Let us rely, not upon the power 
 of man, but upon the loving Spirit of God ; using all gifts of 
 God to man, and showing by '' demonstration of the Spirit 
 and power " that God the Holy Ghost is with us. 
 
 tiOWDON : B. CLAY, 80NB, AKD TAYLOR, BBEAD STftKBT HILL.
 
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