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THE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.
MEMORIAL. BASSEIN. BURMAH
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ALONG THE LINES
THE FRONT.
A GENERAL SURVEY
OF
Baptist Home and Foreign Missions.
WILLIAM F. BAINBRIDGE,
Author of " Around-the- World Tour of Christian Missions.'
PHILADELPHIA :
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
1420 Chestnut Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by the
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Westcott & Thomson, Stereotypers attd Electrotypers, Philada.
§«bicat£ir to tijt Ptmorg of M.Y Father,
Rev. SAMUEL M. BAINBRIDGE,
A Faithful Minister of the Gospel for Twenty-five Years,
AND Pastor of the Central Baptist Church,
Elmira, N. Y., at his Death,
January i, 1865.
PREFACE.
Many omissions which may be noted in the following pages in records of travelling experience and missionary incidents will be found supplied in Mrs. Bainbridge's book, Round-the-World Letters, and in another she is preparing, entitled Glimpses of Mission Life in Many Lands. It has not been possible, in the limits of this book, to make many references to the work and workers of other denominations ; but the reader is referred to the general volume on Christian missions mentioned on the title-page, with the assurance that it was the endeavor of the writer therein to give a universal survey of evan- gelistic work in such form as to encourage the desire of all for the information. A thorough appreciation of Baptist missions demands acquaintance with all other missions. Our track crosses Bible lands, and this time by way of Babylon and Nineveh. Yet upon these pages I cannot linger, however tempting the detour, but must again ask the reader who may desire to accompany me into the " lands of sacred story " to turn to a volume I hope soon to publish, entitled From the Garden of Eden to the Isle of Patmos : A Cotnplete Tour of Bible Lands.
William F. Bainbridge.
Providence, R. I., January, 1882.
1* "6
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Normal and Industrial Institute, Ko-thah-byu Memorial,
Bassein, Burmah Frontispiece.
Wayland Seminary, Washington, D. C 50
Leland University, New Orleans, La 52
American Baptist Publication Society, 1420 Chestnut
. Street, Philadelphia facing 62
House where the Baptist Missionary Society first
MET, Kettering, Northamptonshire, England . . " 99
Andrew Fuller, D. D " 107
William Carey, D. D " 108
Leading Native Preachers of the Swatow Mission . . " 137
Adoniram Judson, D. D " 160
Rev. J. E. Clough, Itinerating in the Ongole Field . . " 217
MAPS.
PAGB
American Baptist Home Mission Society, Missions and
Schools facing 39
Map of the Work of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society " 54
Baptist Missions in China and Japan " 124
India, Burmah, and Assam, Baptist Missions ..... " 154
Baptist Missions in Europe " 237
r
CONTENTS.
PAGB
Introduction *7-3o
CHAPTER I.
BAPTIST RESOURCES FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION.
American statistics — Northern and Southern Baptists — Colored church-members — Financial resources — Providential leadership of the North — Business prosperity at the South — Natural gen- erosity— Co-operation — Freedmen — Baptist statistics abroad — Social rank of Baptists in different lands — Progress of educa- tion— Our American institutions — The denominational press — Sunday-schools — Spiritual power — Integrity of the ordinances — Abandonment of "close communion " an element of weak- ness with English Baptists — Baptist share in the mission re- sponsibility of the Christian Church — Resources adequate — Serious obligation involved in keeping other denominations from our fields 31-38
CHAPTER n. THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY.
Field of opportunity and obligation — Division of labor required — Existing division between Home Mission and Publication So- cieties the most practicable — Providential leadership — Western drift of American population — Its special call upon mission en- terprise— Transient elements of the opportunity — Immigration — Freedmen — Vast responsibilities for our churches — Indian problem to be solved only by evangelization — History of the Society — Its present mission forces — Homeless Baptist churches — Building demand for coming five years — Endowment of Freedmen's educational institutions^ — Jubilee Fund — A Baptist
lO CONTENTS.
FAGB
building in New York — Our work in the Indian Territory — Mexico — Home Mission Monthly — Woman's societies 39-53
CHAPTER III.
THE AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY.
Its vast sphere of work — Consecration of full power of press — Inci- dental agencies required — Belter, as well as more, Sunday- schools needed — The Society's history a marked providential development — The denomination's own property — A truly na- tional society — Want of information — The Society not at fault — The Missionary Department should bear its proper share of running expenses — Full and satisfactory reports of work — Recog- nition of the Society in the pulpit and missionary concert — The little beginning — Prudent advances — Present attainments — Work in the Business Department largely the most satisfactory mission- ary work — Headquaiters — Wisdom of the expense in location and building — Its tracts and their utility — Other publications — Branches — Trade inducements — All active Baptist members ap- pointed its missionaries — Responsibility to other denominations — Great Bible destitution — German work helped — A prayer.., 54-66
CHAPTER IV.
THE AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION.
Home and foreign missions — The work one — Prevailing indifference — Expediency of considering the obligation separately — Rising tide of mission sentiment — Dr. Judson — Battles with Anti-Mis- sion spirit in England and America — Foreign missionary ranks at home — General Missionary Convention — Triennial Conven- tion— Missionary Union — American Baptist foreign mission field — Missionaries — Results — Statistics inadequate — Burdens at the Rooms — Salaries — Estimates of sacrifice — District Secretaries — Necessity and arduous character of their work — Lack of mis- sionary intelligence — Auxiliary woman's societies — Contribu- tions— Fidelity — Periodicals — Their merits and claims 67-80
CHAPTER V.
OUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, AND THEIR BEARING UPON MISSIONS.
Statistics — The leading denominational purpose in the establishment of these schools — Monument to the missionary idea — Great for- getfulness of obligation — Colleges — Theological seminaries — Exceptions — Reminiscences — The enthusiasm for instruction
CONTENTS. 1 1
PACK
and study in the missionary idea — Evangelizing spirit the best guarantee for breadth and thoroughness of education — Study of missions in theological schools — Past controversies with unbe- lief reappearing, yet in new forms and circumstances — A revival of incalculable value — " Ubique " — Science and literature on their true mission — Mission professorships and lectureships — A pla.- recommended — The duty, how^ever, general 81-88
CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCHES.
Fundamental — Adequacy of missionary supply — Loyalty — Esprit de corps — Improvement — Anti-Mission Christians — Causes of de- ficiency— Not want of success in missions, but lack of informa- tion, and especially lack of Christ — Character of Christ mis- sionary or nothing — Promoters of revivals chief agencies of Christian missions — Some results of utilizing resources — Test of Christian character — Effect upon unbelief of lack of mission- ary spirit — Anti-Mission Christianity self-evident falsehood.... 89-98
CHAPTER Vn.
BAPTIST MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE.
Home-mission work in England and Ireland — Spurgeon Tabernacle missions — Society for Scotland — The Baptist Tract and Book Society — The Baptist Missionary Society (foreign) — Its Home Department in advance of American Missionary Union — English wisdom of frequent delegations — Their ministry more practically interested in foreign missions — American missions more blessed abroad — Baptist Missionary Society history — Dr. Carey — An- drew Fuller — India — Serampore — Jamaica — " Balathe dhourga" — Drs. Marshman, Ward, Yates, and Wenger — Extreme sacri- fice— Serampore College — Calcutta press — Emancipation in West India — Ceylon — Brittany — Congo Mission in West Africa- — German Baptist missions — Swedish Baptist missions — Europe being leavened 99-110
CHAPTER Vni.
JAPAN.
America and the Pacific — Two months' touring — How to enjoy travelling — Japanese inns — Country — People — Playing at life — The revolution — Ten years — Realizing that Christianity must accompany Christian civilization — Government patronage —
12 ^ CONTENTS.
PAGE
Christian missions — American Baptists — Embarrassments — ■ Progress in Yokohama, Tokio, and at the North— Making some calls — New Testament translation completed — Beautiful baptismal scene — Signal service of two women-missionaries — Consecrated politeness and geniality — Baptists behind other Japan missions in evangelizing enterprise — Our special needs — Farewell at Kanagawa 111-123
CHAPTER IX.
CHINA.
Five months' touring — A world — Baptist missionaries — Country — Population — Prince Kung — Li-Hung-Chang — Industry — Strug- gle for existence — Dishonesty of the government — Greed of the priesthood — The opium curse — Confucianism — Taouism — Buddhism — The latter originally atheistic, pessimistic, annihila- tory, but in proselytism no regard for principle — The most selfish religion of the world — Masquerade of the virtues — Underlying Fung-shway superstition — Ancestral worship — Altar of heaven at Peking — Mission assistance of foreign arts and sciences — Nestorian missions — Roman Catholics — Protestant missions — Treaties — Stations of Missionary Union and Southern Baptist Convention — English Baptists 1 24-132
CHAPTER X.
CHINA {Continiud).
Swatow — "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land" — Pulling the latch-string — Series of delightful surprises — Native self-re- liance cultivated — Education fostered, not forced — Inland vil- lage— A week of meetings — Examining candidates — Discipline — " Thus it becometh us " — Eight of us at " the Beautiful Gate of the temple" — "Peng-on! Peng-on I" — Ningpo — Medical work- — Hospitality versus white ants — Missionary care for health — Christian homes — To Zao-hying in a kyiah-wo — Shaking hands once a year — Breaking up missionary families — Sacri- fice that makes ashamed — Chinese classics — Southern Baptists at Shanghai, Canton, and Tung-chow-fu — Hongkong — English Baptist mission — Pious delusion 133-145
CHAPTER XI.
SIAM.
Storm — Meinam — Vegetation — Siamese indolence versus Chinese in- dustry— Missionaries' servants — Bangkok — Permanency of
CONTENTS. 13
PAGE
Chinese population — Baptists — Extreme embarrassment — Prob- ability of rebuke — Duty — Missions under favor of government — Historical glance — Periods of extreme trial specially interest- ing— Another " Lone Star " — Buddhism of Siam — Remarkable proclamation of religious liberty — Visiting royalty — The roll of honor — Favorable impressions 146-153
CHAPTER XII.
BURMAH.
Amherst — Heroism of the pioneers still required — Also in many home churches — Mutual sympathy demanded — A chasm to be bridged — Two months' touring — Country — Climate — Food — Population — Burmans and Karens contrasted — Dr. Judson's mistake — Bible translation — Ko-tha-byu Memorial — Tavoy — Lack of missionaries — The many resting from their labors.. 154-163
CHAPTER XIII.
BURMAH {Continued).
Reinforcement — Concentration — Men needed — Vacations — Absen- tees— Advanced schools in Rangoon and Bassein — Hamilton and Rochester over again — Obligations — Co-education of the races — Industrial departments — Mission press — Sunshine — Visiting the stations — Ma-00-ben — Specific donations — Manda- lay — Schools the temptation of missionaries — Wolves in dis- guise — Rangoon — Maulmain — Thongzai — Zeegong — Prome — Henthada — Shwaygyeen — Toungoo — Bassein — Jungle-tour — Impressions — A rich lesson on giving , 164-180
CHAPTER XIV. ASSAM.
Mission history — How to utilize it — Why missionary literature is not more interesting — Evangelizing Assam — Climate — Safety — Access — Population — Obligations, philological and ethnological, to missionaries — Drifting of the races — Importance of Assam missions — Tribal work — Brahmanism and paganism — Former in contrast with Buddhism — Elements of sti engtli in Hinduism — Mysteries — Tokens of special favor— Kardura and Omed fruits — Kohls — Garos, or " Karens of Assam " — Muster-roll. 181-189 2
14 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
INDIA.
FAGB
Population — Increase — Emigration — Famine problems — Caucasian features — The leading classes — Whitherward? — Idolatry — Atheism and religious indifference — Brahmans worshipped — Polytheistic reaction from Buddhism — Mohammedanism — Im- portation of infidel literature— Brahma Somaj — Christianity to the rescue — Baptist share in the responsibility — Serampore — Ceylon — Calcutta — English Baptist emphasis upon direct preach- ing to heathen adults — Self-support at Delhi — Khoolnea Band — A Christian mela — Scriptures and Christian literature — Converts 190-20I
CHAPTER XVI.
INDIA {Continued).
Dr. Judson's choice — Delayed responsibility — Triennial Convention of 1835 — Glorious ]jlanning and resolving — Danger of unfulfilled promises — Drag of the home churches upon foreign mission- aries— Telugus — Advance of the missions — Italian of India — Proposals in America to abandon — Providential interpositions — "Shine on, Lone Star" — Prayer of faith upon Ongole hill — Wonderful ingathering — Canadian Baptist mission — Annual Conference at Coconada — Approach of Ongole tidal-wave — Union of Societies in the dominion.. 202-209
CHAPTER XVII.
ONGOLE.
From Madras — Dr. Jewett — A beautiful scene — " Bandy " riding — Nellore — Weird singing of Telugu Christians — Ramapatam — Theological seminary — Emphasis upon Bible study — Evidences of genuineness and permanency of Telugu work — Kurnool — Secunderabad — ^ Hanamaconda — Caste system — Rev. J. E. Clough — On "Prayer-Meeting Hill" — Crushing burdens — Meeting five hundred Telugu Christians — Providential call to the lower castes — Gathering in the sheaves — Examining candidates — " More so!" — A blessed good-bye — Contrasts — Baptism.. 210-222
CHAPTER XVIII.
AFRICA.
Attracting general attention — "The Dark Continent" — Central Africa — Explorations — Debt of Christendom— Total force of
CONTENTS. 15
PAGE
missions — Advance into the interior — " International Associa- tion " — Humiliating attitude of American Baptists — Liberia — The death-roll — Yoruba — English and Jamaica Baptists in West Africa — Advance up the Congo — Mr. R. Arthington — Cause of American Baptist delay — Question of location for advance — The Soudan — Hindrance and help of Islam — Upper Niger and Binue — Lake Chad 223-236
CHAPTER XIX.
NORTHERN EUROPE.
Triennial Conference in Hamburg — Rev. J. G. Oncken — Historic glimpses of German Baptist mission — Rev. Barnas Sears, D. D. — Persecution — Prosperities — Gaining legal rights — Encourage- ment in Russia — Austrian intolerance — Centres of Baptist strength — Poland — German missionaries — Baptist missions in Sweden — Possibilities — Rev. A. Wiberg — Theological Seminary — Norway — Finland — Self-reliant disposition — Switzerland — Berlin — German Baptist Publication Society — Rev. P. W. Bicke], D. D. — Evangelical missions in Protestant lands 237-246
CHAPTER XX.
SOUTHERN EUROPE.
Changes since former visit— Greece — Paul and the Hellenic sages — Athens — Mission — Italy — Beautiful deformities — Pictu resque degradation — Situation only of opportunity— Roman Catholi- cism at its heart — The Imperial City — Evangelical missions its crowning interest — Southern Baptists — Rev. G. B. Taylor, D. D. — English Baptists — Naples — Genoa — " Ingresso Libero " — Paris — Protestant movement at present more political than religious — Opportunity — Rue de Lille Baptist Chapel — Founda- tion laborers — Theological seminary — Brittany — Spain 247-258
CHAPTER XXL
WEST INDIES, BRAZIL, AND MEXICO.
Deplorable situation — Spanish and Portuguese exhaustion of slave material — African importations — Baptists in West Indies — British emancipation — The day of freedom — Clouds — Self- reliance cultivated in native churches — Bahamas — Southern Convention and Cuba — Biazil — " Evangelistas" in Rio de Janeiro — Para — Minas Geraes — Political and religious situation — Mexico — Encouraging prospect for evangelization — Our mur- dered missionary — Successors — Field entered by Southern Con-
1 6 CONTENTS.
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vention, and re-entered by Home Mission Society — New Leon and Coahuila — American capital and enterprise 259-269
CHAPTER XXII.
RETROSPECTIVE.
Wide diffusion of Baptist missions — Adaptability of Baptist views to mission enterprise — Tendency to over-school missions — Mission- ary sacrifice — Prevailing underestimate of mission laborers — Unnecessary breaking in health — Imperfect knowledge of lan- guage—;-Missionaries' with special theories not wanted — Famil- iarity with natives— Proportion of male and female missionaries — Physicians — Veiling troubles— -The press — Field for American Baptist Publication Society — -Acquaintance with other missions — Religious papers — The hardest part — A Dr. Mullens for Cen- tral Africa 270-278
CHAPTER XXIII.
PROSPECTIVE.
Home missionary concert — Best time for the Lord's Supper — Wisdom of adopting special missions, laborers, or scholars questioned — Missions in the Sunday-school — What to do with Anti-Mission pastors — The minister's example in giving — Church collectors — Loss and gain of "envelope system" — Mission maps and lit- erature— Confidence in mission Boards and Executive Officers — Representation — Boxes — Books and papers for missionaries — Responsibility of women to the general Societies — Undeserving enterprises — Loyalty to Home Mission and Publication Societies and to Missionary Union — Business principles — Membership in the Boards — Height of the conflict — Baptist responsibility — Equally divided between the three great denominational Societies 279-287
Appendix 289-291
Index 293-310
INTRODUCTION.
It is no wonder that Boaz fell in love with Ruth as he watched her gleaning in his field. The person of the Moabitess may not have been so charming as to have won that noble heart, but the added industry, the humble, faithful work, arrested his attention ; and the many important interests which she represented found through his affection and resources a most generous support. Mine has been the privilege during the past two years of seeing many of our Baptist missionary gleaners at their work in our home and foreign fields, and they have won my heart, as I know they would win the heart of every member of the churches of our great denomination if only they could be seen at their humble^ faithful toil. All, however, cannot go throughout the South and West of our country, much less journey leisurely among the various nations around the world where our missionaries are gleaning souls for the gar- ner of our Lord ; but perhaps some of them may now be enabled to see through my eyes. Perhaps in this way noble hearts may be won, and lives and resources be consecrated, to the work of world evangelization.
It is true that I have given to the public only recently a much larger volume than this, growing out of these 2* 17
1 8 LVTR OD UCTION.
same two years' journeyings, and animated by the same purpose of instructing and stimulating the mission spirit (I cannot create it : God only can) among Christian churches. But that endeavor was undenominational, and another duty lies before me in loyalty to second- ary yet important convictions which, with a multitude of other followers of our Lord, I have prayerfully formed over the open Bible. We are first Christians, and then Baptists, though such testimony does not involve our lowering our denominational peculiarities to the levels of non-essentiality and indifference. The most sublime spectacle of the world to-day is the vast array of the followers of Christ moving forward for the evangelization of all mankind. But each corps of that army is itself having a glorious record, full of interest and inspiration. He who would do the most for the cause must fall into the lines somewhere. In the providence of God, our place is in the ranks of those who give special emphasis to regeneration as a qualification for church-membership, to the all-sufficiency of the Bible as a rule for faith and practice, and to the integrity of the ordinances of bap- tism and the Lord's Supper,
Holding such views, and having been ready upon all suitable occasions during the past two years, among all denominations, to express them, I am able to testify that the attitude of thorough denominational loyalty is best fitted to command the respect, the cordial hospitality, and the effective co-operation of those who represent other Christian denominations. I am certain that if I had hauled down my colors a few points in the interest of so-called Baptist liberality, announcing among the
INTRODUCTION. 1 9
ministry and members of the Church of England, of Lutheran and Reformed churches, of Presbyterian and EpiscopaHan and CongregationaHst and Methodist and other churches, that I was not a believer in the restric- tion of the Lord's Supper ; that, while preferring immer- sion as baptism, I held any other method to be allowable where it was conscientiously thought sufficient ; and that I was as much in favor of creeds and the school theory of church-membership as themselves, — they would not have been half so respectful and cordial and hospitable. It is true the world over: we are the most respected when we respect ourselves. People like to take hold of hands which have a grip. They prefer to drill with those who have back-bones and can stand up straight.
In India I met a Scotch Presbyterian who was im- mediately informed that I was a Baptist as soon as he announced his denominational relations. " You, of course, are liberal and ' open-communion ' ?" he re- plied.— " Liberal," I said ; " but a conscientious believer in ' restricted communion.' " He at once invited me to his house to dine, saying, " I am glad to become ac- quainted with Baptists whose denominationalism is based upon tangible principles and firm convictions."
A Church of England clergyman, since appointed bishop, at a formal call upon me remarked, " You are not, I presume, a rigid sectarian, as are the majority of American Baptists?" — " Oh yes," I replied; "you would certainly judge me to be so, however I might endeavor to qualify your description." Evidently in his inmost heart my position was the most gratifying, for we all dined very unexpectedly 2^ his house the next day, and,
20 INTRODUCTION.
to our still greater surprise, he came to hear me preach the following Sunday.
Several instances could be related of most charming endeavors on the part of Pedobaptists to entirely relieve us of all embarrassment in connection with their adminis- tration of the ordinances. They considered us mistaken in our interpretation of Scripture, but admired the con- sistency of our action ; and we came nearer together in sympathy and friendly intimacies than if I had given to my denominationalism the character of a fawning courtier to their social favor. Baptists everywhere will be the most honored by other Christians and the world by having some things to believe which plainly warrant separate organization, by holding up the head and can- didly acknowledging such convictions ; and thus, also, they will be contributing the most to the essential unity of the Christian Churches in their spirit and work.
The opportunity for carrying out the cherished pur- pose of years was presented at the close of a ten years* pastorate with the Central Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island. It was by no means easy to turn from associations which had been so long enjoyed, from work that had been as agreeable as could be found in any church of the land, and from a city which for delightful- ness of residence is unsurpassed throughout the world ; but the way was clear, life and health being spared, for a two years' journey across our own and many other countries arouiid the globe for the purpose of a personal study of the utility and the comparative methods of Christian missions. I was especially favored in being able to take with me my wife and son, thus by keep-
INTRODUCTION. 21
ing the circle of kinship almost unbroken in all lands around the world preserving from homesickness ; and thus, also, through the added eyes of womanhood and childhood, seeing a great deal more generally and ac- curately than I could possibly have done alone. We were enabled to follow out the more faithfully the special mission purpose of this tour, because my companion and self had thirteen years previously quite thoroughly satis- fied an ordinary touring ambition by visiting Egypt, Palestine, and nearly all the countries of Europe.
Though we first crossed the continent from New York to San Francisco somewhat leisurely, stopping at many places, we had the satisfaction of carrying with us, in entering upon foreign mission study, much more than the results of any such brief and superficial observation of the varied work of home evangelization. Nearly all the States we have been privileged to visit at other times, and generally upon such philanthropic or religious er- rands as gave opportunity for the best observation of mission enterprise. Missionary labor in the far-off new settlements, and even among our Indian tribes ; evan- gelistic and educational work among the freedmen ; col- portage and tract distribution ; and the establishment of Sunday-schools, — of all this we have been favored with seeing much ; of some of it we know from several years of its hard but blessed toil ; and so we were the better qualified to visit the foreign field. No one should either visit missions in heathen lands or go as a missionary among pagan and antichristian populations without first becoming acquainted with home evangelization. Baptists are doing a work throughout the destitute portions of
22 INTRODUCTION.
our country deserving the attention and the co-operation of all our members. The same is true of the home en- terprises of our denomination in Great Britain. And in either land he who has not opened his eyes to what is thus going on cannot see clearly as a traveller into the principles and methods of foreign evangelization, nor is he fitted to go as a missionary to the swarming millions of heathenism to explain to them Christianity in its spirit, its aims, its sacrifices, and the more than human intelligence that does guide it in its " beginnings at Jerusalem."
We hear much of God's leadership in our foreign work ; of how marvellously his providence has opened doors of opportunity ; of how signal have been the calls to duty ; and of how marked have been the tokens of the divine approval ; but it is certain that all this has appeared also in connection with our varied home-evan- gelizing enterprises. God has moved like a cloud by day and a fire by night as truly before our American Baptist Home Mission and Publication Societies as be- fore our Missionary Union. I fear that the thoughts of many, and of some even of our own foreign missionaries, pass hastily by the humble cabins of our pioneer minis- try in the far West ; the hot, crowded class-rooms of our freedmen's schools ; our wearily-plodding colporteurs' trudging along the highways with their heavily-loaded satchels peddling their Bibles and religious books ; and our Sunday-school missionaries seeking to persuade communities to associate for the study of God's word; and they think of evangelizing work in Japan, China, Siam, Burmah, and India as supremely favored by divine
. INTRODUCTION. 23
love and providential leadership. Truly, there is a phase to Christian missions in far-off heathen lands that brings them specially near to the heart of Christ, soliciting his warmest yearnings and most generous benedictions. They are so emphatically going out after the lost : " Doth he not leave the ninety and nine ?" But then there are many destitute portions of the home countries where the depravity and the wretchedness are fully equal to those in pagan lands — where multitudes of lost lives are being lived as far away, practically, from our Chris- tianity as Karens or Telugus. Labor among them, in- deed, carries, however incidentally, the patriotic national motive, but overwhelmingly the impulse is the same that sent Judson to Burmah and Carey to India. And often, perhaps quite as frequently, have signal tokens of divine leadership and favor manifested themselves upon the home fields. Few, if any, have seen more missionaries toiling among the benighted of distant populations, and I know full well the Christlikeness of their services — the self-sacrifice, the dangers, the loneliness, the tension of faith ; but, from many a glimpse of mission work in our Western and Southern fields, and of home evangeli- zation in Great Britain and Protestant Europe, I can testify that the home records are at least immensely voluminous of superhuman guidance, of thorough con- secrations, of extreme self-sacrifices, of martyr-like heroisms, and of all the highest graces of Christian character.
Before asking the reader to cross with me the Pacific Ocean, I would introduce him to the headquarters of our three great national missionary organizations. Every
24 INTR OD UCTION.
Baptist should be acquainted with them, with their his- tory, condition, principles, and methods of work, as well as with the organization and the administration of the church with which he is connected as a member. These headquarters belong to all of us. It is our business which is there receiving the attention of our own agents. They are often so overwhelmed with work because we insist upon such extreme economy in administration that they are hardly able to give any courteous attention to their numerous employers. But they never mean to act as if they owned the concerns. They are toiling there most conscientiously as servants of the denomination. The majority of them, at least, are kept at their work by a genuine missionary spirit. Many officers and soldiers of our late civil war, after reporting for duty, were as- signed to commissariat and transportation departments. While others were amid the smoke and din of the battle, they were toiling over military account-books and papers, gathering up and forwarding provisions and munitions of war and medical stores ; and when we remember the ex- haustive character of their work, its perils to health, its list — almost as large in proportion — of hospital patients, we do not count them out of the war. We do not deny them the military titles, and insist that, after all, they were mere civilians. Likewise, I am confident that all the responsible executive officers at our three mission headquarters — in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia — deserve to be counted in with the great missionary forces which have gone forth from the ordinary and far more agreeable occupations of the ministry and membership of our churches to fight the battles of
INTRODUCTION. 2$
Emmanuel throughout the unevangelized portions of our own and of all other lands.
The two most formidable difficulties with many in ap- preciating this really missionary character of executive service are that the secretaries and treasurers live at home in large pleasant American cities, and that the sal- aries they receive from the treasuries are generally greater than are paid to the missionaries. There is another side to all that. I will not dwell here upon the superior tal- ents required to fill such important positions of trust, and upon the wisdom of graduating salaries into the neighbor- hood of commanding such services. Let it only be ob- served that generally few are called upon to sacrifice more of the comforts of home or have so large a list of offsets to their salaries. They are constantly being called away to attend Associations and Conventions, to adjust finan- cial and other perplexing questions, to participate in the farewell meetings and the embarkations of missionaries, and to help the pastors of about as many churches as there are Sundays in the year to bring up their flocks to their responsibility to missions. The secretaries of our societies are driven to about as much night-riding as commercial travellers. None are so much interrupted in their office-work and compelled so frequently to carrj' their labors of conference and correspondence into the midnight hours. The numerous letters they write are not allowed to be of a short, sharp business style : they are expected by contributors and churches and missionaries to enter into a great number of detaiis, to communicate a mass of general information, and to exhibit a spirit of deep sympathy and of earnest personal interest. To
26 INTRODUCTION.
write such letters is a great deal harder brain- and heart-work than to turn off simple business notes of inquiry and explanation and application. I well remem- ber an interview with one of our secretaries, at which in- cidentally was mentioned a matter of slight embarrassment with one of our most excellent missionaries. On my sug- gesting a consideration, the secretary took down one of his correspondence copy-books and said, " Right upon that point I wrote him some months ago as follows." Well, it seemed as if he would never finish reading that letter — page after page of kindly assurances, of protestations of desire on the part of the Executive Committee to do everything possible, of interested inquiries with regard to this and that other matter designed to allay any feelings of disappoint- ment ; and it seemed as if there were enough points for those old-fashioned sermons which our good fathers told us they used to hear, with their thirtiethlies and fortieth- lies. It took all that for him, as a missionary secretary, to wisely, lovingly say simply, " No."
Their salaries ? Say they have three thousand dollars, and the foreign missionary but twelve hundred ; yet other things must be taken into account which dispose of the contrast and make their amounts about even. The mis- sionary has his house-rent in addition — which is an aver- age increase of three hundred dollars — to salary, making it fifteen hundred ; on the other hand, the executive officer at the rooms is compelled to pay out of his salary from five hundred to eight hundred dollars for corresponding accommodations for his family. His hospitality toward the vacationed missionaries is expected to be — as he certainly desires it to be — unbounded. None others
INTRODUCTION. 2/
are in a situation to feel so keenly the calls upon benev- olence, as they are in constant correspondence with scores or hundreds of missionaries from whose sacrificing, toil- ing, lonely lives there are frequently arising wants which the treasury cannot supply, and which the secretary can hardly pass unnoticed if he can lay his hand upon a few dollars of his own. Nobody thinks of contributing to- ward the education of the children of the executive of- ficers, or of sending them a box filled with useful arti- cles of clothing and household furniture. Missionaries and ministers in charge of churches get all these good things to help eke out their salaries ; the former, at least, deserve them all. No secretary or treasurer could ex- pect a year or two of vacation to rest and recover health. He knows there is no such consideration for him after from seven to ten years' service for the denomination. He must pay his family physician, and never expect any assistance in that line. And so I think that there should be an end to all unfavorable commenting upon the ap- parently much-better-paid services of the executive of- ficers at our different mission-rooms than of the mis- sionaries.
When we have been along together a few chapters, and reach the deck of the steamship that is to carry us five thousand miles across from San Francisco to Japan, I hope my reader will be more free from prejudices and misconceptions and alienations toward the administration of our three great missionary organizations than was I toward one of them, at least, when crossing the gang- plank that was to separate me for two years from my native land. A thousand object-lessons in distant coun-
2 8 INTR OD UC TION.
tries taught me my mistakes in regard to many hasty impressions of the methods and expenditures of our Missionary Union. And the argument of analogy led to review some of the still-lingering and current crit- icisms of our Home Mission and Publication Societies, and it was found that due weight had not been given to some of the facts already noted in pioneer work, in labor among the freedmen, in colportage, and in Sunday-school mission enterprise. We shall learn, as we visit together our mission headquarters in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, that we may throw out of our baggage before crossing the Pacific all serious criticisms and alienations regarding these representative organizations, which we have entrusted with the management of our American Baptist portion of the work of evangelizing the destitute regions of the world. "To err is human;" there is noth- ing in this world that is perfect ; and this we shall find frankly acknowledged at all " the rooms." But as we come to realize the vastness of the responsibilities car- ried, the almost endless routine of the work performed, and the Christlike spirit which it is necessary to exhibit in all things, the conviction will be formed not only that our business at headquarters is moving on about as sat- isfactorily as can be expected in this world of human limitations, that methods on the whole are wise and committed to able, faithful hands, but also that there is no explanation to such remarkable growth of evangeliz- ing enterprise, such success in administration, such tact and prudence and foresight, other than that superhuman wisdom has been granted in answer to prayer and conse- cration— God's work, not man's.
INTRODUCTION. 29
I do not here make prominent mention of various other mission organizations in our denomination through- out the North and the South, for I beheve — and this is the evident judgment of the vast majority of the con- tributing members of our churches — that the providen- tial tendency is to concentrate all our general denom- inational missionary enterprise into the channels super- intended by these three societies. However earnest the efforts of excellent brethren to revive and secure general support for a society to do all our Bible work, the judg- ment of the denomination has been unmistakably ex- pressed, and so that it would seem that it will not be long before this will be divided between the Publi- cation Society and the Missionary Union. The former can best discharge our duties in this important direction throughout our home land, and the latter at present oc- cupies the most advantageous position and has the best possible facilities for meeting our responsibility toward the furnishing of God's word among heathen popula- tions.
There. is also much to encourage the expectation that before many years the mission work of Southern Baptists will come into organic relations with these three leading societies. Their Foreign Mission Board, with its thirty- five missionaries, of whom nineteen are Americans,, its in- come as last reported of forty-six thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars and forty-eight cents, and its import- ant fields, would receive a special welcome from the Mis- sionary Union ; and until it allows that welcome it de- serves at the hands of Southern Baptists a most generous support.
3© INTR OD UCTION.
And now let the reader distinctly understand that these pages are the special plea of no paid agent of these so- cieties. My tours and visitations have been thoroughly independent, at my own expense and prompting. And if, in our journeyings and examinations together through these pages, we meet with anything objectionable in so- ciety administration or in missionary life and labor, we shall not hesitate to make kindly note of it. These pages are designed to be thoroughly candid and accurate for the eyes of the people. No committee is to sit upon them and deliberate as to what should and what should not be published. Such course of procedure is all right at times, and even generally ; but the motive of the in- vestigations of mission work which have led to these and other pages has been rather informal and indifferent of the character and effect of results beyond their simple truthfulness. All have seen pamphlets and books upon home and foreign missions which have evidently been written with the purpose of saying only the best possible and sweetest things of the direction, work, and workers ; I am anxious to disabuse the reader of this volume of any such impressions. We start out under no obliga- tions ; we have no favors to ask. We want the truth. What are these three great mission societies ? Do they deserve our confidence, our prayers, and our self-sacrifi- cing co-operation ?
ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
CHAPTER I.
BAPTIST RESOURCES FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION.
THE last American Baptist Year-Book issued by our Publication Society gives as the number of mem- bers of Baptist churches in the United States, 2,336,022. Of these less than one-third, or 634,167, are in the Northern States and form the main constituency of our three great denominational missionary organizations. As, however, several of the Southern States — and every year in increasing numbers — have many who contribute regularly to our Home Mission and Publi- cation Societies and our Missionary Union, we may claim a million members of American Baptist churches as the nominal supporters of these organizations. But, alas ! the annual reports of their treasuries show that multitudes of this million of members are entirely neg- lectful of their responsibility to give to these societies. There are 1,701,855 members of our Baptist churches in the Southern States, of whom, in 1881, 684,483 were of the colored race; there are then 1,017,372 white Bap- tist members at the South. The colored Associations of the North reported, in 1 881, 21,818 church-members, but
31
32 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
it is probable that an equal number are included in the general statistics. So our denominational representa- tion would appear:
Northern white church-members 634,167
Southern white church-members 1,017,372
Colored members: North, 43,6361 „
Colored members: South, 684,483 j
Total 2,336,022
Undoubtedly much the larger proportion of the Bap- tist denomination's financial resources in the United States is at the North. There the aggregate of annual benevo- lent contributions amounts to over seven times the con- tributions of the Southern white members. There are other explanations, in part, of this great disproportion. Notwithstanding the superior culture and refinement of many at the South, the average of intelligence and enter- prise is more apparent at the North. Although I have met many in the Southern States whose religious cha- racter would shine brightly in any Christian community throughout the world, whose consecration was thorough, and whose zeal in the Master's service was unbounded, it has been impossible to resist the impression of the more general prevalence of that higher type of piety at least in the North-eastern States. Besides, our greater facili- ties of intercommunication render it more convenient to act together in organized missionary enterprises, and more possible to develop the evangelizing ability of the denomination. And then, undoubtedly, the war crippled the finances of the South far more than those of the North, and there has been no such marvellous tide of
HESO UR CES FOR WORLD 'E VANGEL IZA TION. 3 3
immigration to take the place, in field and shop, of the slain multitudes.
Nevertheless, the great disproportion in the aggregate of benevolences is chiefly accounted for by the fact that all through our national history thus far the South has been much the poorer section of the country. But in this respect it is evident that a great change is taking place. For a long time a superabundance of capital has been accumulating at the North. Vast quantities from the money-markets of Europe have sought in vain for profitable investment, and interest has dropped almost to the low level of British consols. The demands of the still rapidly-developing West are not equal to the supply; yet up to even a few months ago capital hesitated in the face of Southern investments. No amount of real estate there was considered good security. The difficulty was largely political; but it seems that the hindrances, on both sides, are now passing away, and capital in enor- mous volume is rushing Southward. Hundred of mil- lions of dollars are being invested in railway extension, cotton-manufactories, real-estate improvements, and the establishment of trade. The soil is better cultivated as the use of expensive fertilizers and improved agricul- tural machinery is increasing. Business and society are becoming adjusted to free labor, and everywhere values are advancing with rapid, firm tread.
We are close, then, upon a time when the benevolent ability of Southern Baptists will not fall far short of, if it does not fully equal, that of the Northern third of the denomination. Naturally, our brethren of the South are the most generously disposed. No people in the
34 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
world are so truly hospitable. Many a time, in Virginia and Louisiana, I have seen favors extended as a matter of course to strangers which never would have been dreamed of at the North. Offering a planter once a " greenback " for the food and lodging readily furnished myself and horse, he replied indignantly : " No ; we Southerners cannot part with our hospitality !" Surely it is a cause for thanksgiving that the time is at hand when the generous, open-hearted Baptists of the South will have abundance to give to the cause of missions. And along with this ability — as the result, in part, of the same influences which brought it about — it may be an- ticipated with great certainty that there will be a draw- ing together of organization in mission work. Southern Baptists will perhaps realize that separate societies are no longer desirable, and that those of the North — which, in the providence of God, have taken the lead and mul- tiplied their agencies tenfold — are the ones properly to survive the estrangement and stand as the monument of fully-restored brotherhood. And in this brightening future the colored members will bear no unimportant part. So rapidly are they advancing in land-proprietor- ship, in intelligence, and in genuine religious feeling that they may ere long be counted upon for large giving of money, and of life especially, for the magnificently-open- ing mission-fields of Africa.
But Baptist resources for world evangelization are not confined to the United States. Though here, in the prov- idence of God, our denomination has had by far its largest development, it has elsewhere great numbers and ability and opportunity. In other portions of North America —
RESOURCES FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 35
mostly in the Canadian Dominion — we have 64,739 m^ni- bers, and in the West Indies, chiefly in Jamaica, 28,352. In the Baptist churches of England there are 2 14,966 mem- bers; of Wales, 68,834; of Sweden, 19,297; of Germany, 16,000; and of other portions of Europe, including Scot- land, Ireland, Denmark, Russia, Poland, France, Norway, Switzerland, Holland, Finland, Italy, Austria, Spain, Tur- key, and Greece, 21,616. In Burmah we have 21,968 members; among the Telugus of South-eastern India, 17,017; in China, 2035 ; and in other parts of Asia, 3338, In Africa there are 3697 members of Baptist churches ; in Australasia, 7918; and in South America, 215. The de- nomination thus, outside of the United States and scat- tered all over the world, enrolls 477,355, or almost half a million baptized believers in Christ. Our grand total of members is 2,813,377, and in one year more, at the present rate of increase, it will be fully 3,000,000. As the number of adherents to any Christian denomination is generally estimated at four times the number of mem- bers, we may claim more than 11,000,000 of avowedly Baptist population throughout the world, or upward of 9,000,000 in the United States. We find, in addition to these statistics, 40,000 Anti-Mission Baptists, but with great propriety our Year-Book does not include them in our numbers. The time has come when want of sympa- thy and co-operation with world-wide evangelization should be the most prominent of all denominational barriers. Indeed, some question whether Anti-Mission churches should any longer be called evangelical.
The social rank of Baptists in other lands is not equal to that which they hold in America. The accessions have
36 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
generally been from among the poorer and more illiterate classes. This has been very noticeable to me in Great Britain and in different parts of Europe. Yet between 1867 and 1880 I could see a marked advance toward the securing in our churches, congregations, and schools of a larger element of the higher middle classes of society. There appeared to be more who had enjoyed opportu- nities for thorough instruction in early years, who had had the refining advantages of competency in mode of life, and who possessed to a degree the capacity of mak- ing circumstances. The preaching to which I listened after an interval of thirteen years seemed, even as did the denominational papers, to be more intelligent and more capable of exerting a wide, healthful influence. And the prospect abroad is of more and rapid advance in this direction. The foundations are being laid in vari- ous literary and theological institutions. Leaders among the ministry and members are earnestly pressing the duty of commending our cherished principles to all classes of society. Yet, in this, American Baptists are much in the advance. We have many well-established acad- emies, colleges, and theological seminaries. Our acad- emies, seminaries, institutes, and female colleges of the same rank number 47, with 350 instructors, 5522 stu- dents, and property to the amount of ;^2,878,298. We have 31 universities and colleges, with 280 professors, 4609 students, ;^3, 279,1 59 endowments, and ;^7,9io,597 of other assets. And then, to crown the educational department of our American denominational work, are 8 theological institutions, with 37 professors, 430 stu- dents, ^1,191,681 of endowments, and ;^ 1,689,878 of
RESOURCES FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION. 37
other property. We have also 62 Baptist periodicals, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, and quarterly, command- ing the editorial and contributing services of many of our leading minds, who add largely to our educational forces, which, under God, are sure in time to place Baptists in the front rank of Christian intelligence and culture.
Thanks largely to our Publication Society, the condition of the Sunday-school enterprise among American Baptists is very encouraging. We have reported 13,492 schools, 116,355 teachers and officers, 926,979 scholars, and 950,926 volumes in library. But the advance in num- bers for the last decade has been surpassed by what is even more gratifying — a general movement in the di- rection of better methods and greater efficiency. With- out the prompt and able leadership of the Publication Society, it is very doubtful whether the International Series of lessons would have been generally adopted. To-day, with their lesson-papers, the scholars come to the sessions of their schools as well prepared as were the average of the teachers fifteen years ago. The book and periodical literature in use is increasingly adapted to the development of true and intelligent Chris- tian character. And the cause of missions has much to expect from the better foundations which are being laid by the Sunday-school in the rising generation, so soon to furnish our missionaries and their support.
The spiritual power of the Baptist churches is not be- low that of any other denomination. By some, indeed, we are still surpassed in culture and general intelligence, and these are a religious advantage, calculated to develop a truer and more useful piety. But, on the other hand, 4
38 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
we have the integrity of the ordinances as they were instituted by the Lord. It more than counterbalances. God is pledged to specially honor this obedience. We know that through the Holy Spirit this promise is ful- filled in us, and multitudes can testify that by our literal observance of the ordinances their attention was arrested and truth thus in symbol was blessed to their conversion. In Great Britain and most of her colonies Baptists largely suffer from a partial loss of this element of strength. As in the past, it is probable our denomination still leads in the emphasis given to a converted church-member- ship. Others may have this same aim before them as distinctly, but we are less trammelled by the school- theory of the church, and look more for the demonstra- tion of the Spirit in actual regeneration. In these things, which are esteemed our weakness, we find great strength. Thus are our resources for world evangeliza- tion vastly augmented. Our mission record is inspiring. No denomination is being more blessed at present in its home and foreign evangelizing labors. Our share of the mission responsibility at present is immense — from one- fourth to one-fifth, it is safe to assume, of all the vast mountain God has placed upon his churches. But with the divine blessing we are equal to it. Not to do more, however, than we are now doing would be a sad failure. Standing still, we hinder others. Thousands of the fairest fields of the mission world we have pre-empted, and our neglect, in many of them, to use our resources means — for a long time, at least — total neglect of all the other Christian resources.
CHAPTER II.
THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY.
IN considering the question of the responsibihty of American Baptists in home-mission enterprise, the field of our opportunity and obh'gation broadens out so immensely that it is difficult to see how the work can be carried on the most effectively without a division of labor. Evidently, no board or executive officer is equal to the mastery and the management of all the details of business so extended, so complicated, so requiring the exercise of the best reason and judgment. Feeble churches in all our States and Territories are to be as- sisted in the support of their ministry and in the erection of their houses of worship. The religious interests of a fifth, at least, of the enormous and constantly-increasing tide of immigration from all parts of the world must be fostered. A like if not much larger proportion of the six million five hundred thousand colored population of our country demands various evangelizing and educational enterprises at our hands. We have yet to furnish the Bible to hundreds of thousands of homes. The number of our Sunday-schools must be doubled, and the efficiency of all vastly augmented. Sunday-school and general denominational literature must be provided in varied and constantly-increasing quantities whose aggregate it is
40 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
bewildering to contemplate. Not only must the exist- ing market be supplied with these publications, but an- other and a larger market must be created. A vast amount of evangelistic work must be done beyond those centres where local church organizations are in demand. It would be cruel to ask any one set of men to thor- oughly and efficiently superintend all such immense and complicated responsibility, made doubly vast and com- plex by the necessity of dragging along with the enter- prise the heavy dead-weight of the comparative indif- ference of more than half the ministry and the churches. The proposal would be as impracticable as that to unite in one department of our government the Treasury, the Post-office, and the Interior Departments.
But how shall we divide our denominational responsi- bility for home evangelization ? On what principles shall the lines be drawn ? It is first of all evident that en- couragement should be given to Associations and State Conventions, even as previously to individuals and churches, to do the utmost possible within their limits to meet our obligations to home-mission work. Co- operation, especially with all the State Conventions, would be wise for this among other reasons — that the general responsibility of the denomination would be very materially lessened. Then, as to this remaining obligation, it might be suggested that the division should be made between the pulpit and the press — the mission of the living voice and that of a Christian and denomi- national literature. But that would be a very one-sided arrangement, reducing the publishing department to a comparatively subordinate and irresponsible position that
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 4I
would interfere materially with its efficiency, and that would not, on the other hand, very greatly relieve the remaining pressure of our extensive work of home mis- sions. There are those who would place under the care of separate societies our Bible work and our freedmen educational work. But care should be taken not to multiply societies unnecessarily, on account of increased expenditure, and of confusion, and hence neglect, in the matter of benevolences among the churches. Moreover, the distribution of the Scriptures and that of Christian literature would naturally go together, as also the teach- ing and the sending forth of colored preachers and in- structors. A very practical division would be between evangelist and pastoral labor — the missionary work and the methods and means which scatter broadcast, and those which locate into permanent centres of organized church life and activity. The evangelist should be pro- vided with copies of the Scriptures and with Christian tracts and books to leave behind as he passes on from house to house and from neighborhood to neighborhood, and the more permanently located missionary should be enabled to strengthen the hands of his new and feeble church in the securing of a suitable sanctuary, or the erecting and equipping of a school building for the special religious training of those whom he would qualify to associate with him in his work. It is this latter division which the providential course of events has brought about in the home-mission work of our American Bap- tist denomination. We surely see the traces of divine wisdom. The actual adjustments have not yet all been perfected, but evidently it is God's solution of the ques-
4«
42 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
tion, How can we best discharge our mission responsi- bility to our own country ? Our Publication Society is our evangelist, thoroughly equipped for his itinerant work ; our Home Mission Society is our missionary pastor, supported in his efforts to establish self-sustain- ing churches in all the destitute centres of population throughout the land, to secure to them suitable sanctu- ary homes, and among the freedmen to educate native pastors and Christian teachers. It is a serious responsi- bility for any to interfere with an arrangement so ad- mirable, and so evidently bearing upon its face the seal of the divine ordination. The aim of every Baptist should be to adjust the workings of this relationship in the two great departments of our home-mission ser- vice the more perfectly. And now, after these many years of counselling and experience, the most that nearly all can do in the direction of this aim is prayerfully to contribute as largely as possible to the treasuries of these societies, that they may, under God, be enabled to show still more plainly the wisdom of the plan, and to make those far larger attainments in home-land evan- gelization for which God is holding us responsible.
The most important fact to engage our home-mission interest is the immense Western drift of our native American population. It is a mistake to suppose that the vast territory between the Mississippi River and the Pacific coast is becoming occupied chiefly by immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. They are in- deed there in large numbers, and they are continuing to flow thither in great and swelling streams ; but there are more native Americans there than immigrants, and our
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 43
East will continue to furnish to our West more citizens than does Europe. This is probably more the efTfect of foreign immigration than of the natural increase and overflow of our Eastern population. Foreign labor is still the most powerfully attracted east of the Missis- sippi by kinship ties, church privileges, the natural taste for density of population, the demands of the market, and the less expense required for travelling and settle- ment. The young men of our native population, espe- cially those in the agricultural districts, grow restless in the presence of such labor competition. Educated by years of free, enlightened American life, and having in- herited the enterprise of their parents, they turn from their limited sphere beside the European workman and search in the West for opportunity to strike out for them- selves and to use their conscious capacities. Multitudes of our young women feel that there is placed before them by the pressure of foreign domestics the alternative either of the shop or of the West. With a considerable pro- portion of this restlessness and feeling that the East, with all its competition in the labor market, is not the best sphere for young American enterprise I have no sympathy ; yet the fact is that, borne upon the flood- tide of such conviction, our vast West is being settled chiefly by a native American population.
I have met them from New England and the Middle States in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, in Wyoming, Nevada, and California ; and there is hardly a settlement where they are not to be found the controlling element in the community throughout also Kansas, Colorado, . Texas, and Oregon. In all this is to be recognized that
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divine wisdom which has thus far guided in the estab- lishment of our nation. The West is becoming first Americanized, and the majority of our European immi- gration are held by various influences where in the pro- cess of time they must become assimilated to our new national life and institutions. It is a grand opportunity for the Christian churches to pre-empt the West for evangelical Christianity — an opportunity which, in the nature of the case, is transient, and which belongs espe- cially to the present generation. In locating a home missionary, for example, upon the Missouri in Dakota, or the Rio Grande in New Mexico, it makes a world of difference whether the controlling element in the com- munity is native American, retaining the impressions from years gone by in the Eastern States favorable to the Bible, the observance of the Lord's Day, Protestant worship, and the great cardinal doctrines of Christianity, The evangelizing opportunity is vastly greater than with settlements principally made up of foreigners, with their superficial ideas of religion and their antagonism or in- difference to the Scriptures. To follow up, then, the providence of God in many hundreds of native Amer- ican communities throughout our Western States and Territories ; ta avail ourselves of the natural inclinations toward the religion and the Christian institutions of years past in the homes and sanctuaries and neighborhoods of the East ; and to do this before the present pioneer gen- eration shall give place to the next with its less favorable consideration for Christianity, as also before the advan- cing tide of immigration shall have rendered the mission work far more complicated and difficult, — this is the call
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 45
of to-day. Under the leadership of our American Bap- tist Home Mission Society, every member of the churches of our denomination should contribute in this direction a large measure of sympathy, prayer, influence, and money.
Foreigners are now emigrating to our country at the rate of nearly half a million a year. The check given by the war and the subsequent financial depression has passed, and we have the near prospect of an annual in- crease of a full million of immigrants to our population. Already we have six millions of Germans among us, more than a million Scandinavians, and hundreds of thousands of French, Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, and Russians. The strength and the activity of Rome among our Irish population have thus far rendered them less accessible than others of our foreign citizens to evangelizing efforts, but upon multitudes of them our national life and institutions are plainly having an en- lightening and disenthralling effect, and we shall be very neglectful and disobedient to the call of God's provi- dence if we do not turn more mission efforts in their direction. The majority of our immigrants require to be reached through their own native languages. They soon learn enough English to transact their limited secular business, but it is a long way biyond to understanding in English the preaching of the gospel, the instruction of the Sunday-school, or the conversation of the mis- sionary. They surely do not bring with them evangel- ical religious advantages. We must furnish them, if they are to be furnished at all. We must be on the constant watch for those whom God has called by his
46 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
truth and Spirit to carry his message of salvation to these various peoples, and we must support them until their work is self-supporting. This is loyalty to our country, to our denomination, to Christ. Not to do very largely in this direction under the auspices of our Home Mission Society would be neglectful, improvident, dis- obedient to God.
The nearly four million of those made free by our war have increased in the South to over five and a half million ; the one million more of the colored population are scattered throughout the North. It is evident that the numbers of this race are to be much larger in America. No em- igration probabilities can materially lessen the enormous rate of increase which has held good since their emanci- pation. The social and religious conditions of the vast majority are deplorable in the extreme. They are the legacy of slavery and of centuries of degradation. Their religion is largely superficial and full of folly and vice. Over half a million are professed members of Baptist churches, and very many of them are true Christians, intelligent and useful. I know some of them who adorn their profession with consistent living, and who are as clear in their convictions and as firm in their principles as any of their white brethren. But the prevailing ig- norance and degradation, even within the churches, is sad to contemplate. Many of their ministers cannot read ; many of their churches do not possess a Bible. Multitudes of them have adopted the ordinances, but know little or nothing else of Christianity. To deal with the problem is a great responsibility. Government, which has lifted the colored people to citizenship and to
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. At7
suffrage, is touching the difficulty at some points, but the great burden necessarily rests upon the head and the heart of the Christian churches. The evils are too deeply rooted for mere legislation, and the ignorance is too dense' to be removed by mere secular education. Christian schools must be established and sustained to qualify a great number of colored preachers and teach- ers to go forth in Christ's name to lift up this mass of ignorance and degradation. Our Home Mission Society is bravely endeavoring to lead the Baptist denomination forward to do its share of this momentous work, but it does not have half the support it should receive.
The Indian problem, also, is plainly a responsibility of Christian churches. It is doubly so since the nation, by its almost uniform treatment of the American aborigines, has disqualified itself for its share of the duty. Our sec- ular contact with the Indians has been more cruel and more deadly than that of the Saracens upon the shores of the Mediterranean. We were as ferocious at Gnaden- hiitten and Schoenbriin as were the Sepoys at the Cawn- pore massacre. We bound together with the men twen- ty-seven women and thirty-four children, put them into two buildings which we called " slaughter-houses," and then murdered and scalped them all. Many scenes of equal horror could be recounted. It is, therefore, no wonder that our civil service and our military forces are thoroughly distrusted by the majority of our three hun- dred and fifty thousand Indians. The Christian churches must meet the emergency ; missionaries must extend the olive-branch. They must heal the wounds we have cre- ated by a century of war, in which we have expended
48 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
many thousands of lives and five hundred milHons of dollars. By earnest efforts at evangelization we must pay the national debt to the Indians, who gave the need- ed help to the English and to English Protestantism in the desperate effort to extinguish French power and French Roman Catholicism in our country." We need to remem- ber the obligation of our civilization to the Iroquois, and that the Oneidas did not join against us in the Revolu- tion. A peace policy has been adopted by the govern- ment, and some favorable results are already apparent ; but the best of it is "the enlarged opportunity it furnishes to Christian missions. The complicated situation, the opportunity, and the responsibility are thoroughly un- derstood at our Home Mission rooms, and all can with perfect confidence entrust their funds to this evangelizing agency.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society was or- ganized in New York City in 1832. The population of our country then numbered but fourteen millions. The " Great West" lay between the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. During the first year the amount raised was ;^6,586, which has steadily increased to last year's receipts of ;^235,032. The results of this pioneer work, begun a half century ago, are in part to be seen to-day in many prominent Baptist churches of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The number of missionaries and teachers appointed has been 8,635, and, in connec- tion with their labors, 85,381 converts have been bap- tized and 2,765 churches organized. The Society's present force of 392 missionaries and teachers is thus distributed: 9 in the Eastern States ; 1 1 in the Middle States ; 86 in
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. - 49
the Southern States ; 286 in the Western States, includ- ing the 25 upon the Pacific coast. Of this large number, 209 are laboring among Americans, 40 among Germans, 30 among Scandinavians, and with the French 6, the In- dians II, the Freedmen 21, and the Chinese 3. During the last year 1,202 churches and out-stations have been supplied with the regular preaching of the gospel.
While it is gratifying to learn of so many missionaries among our native American population, it is saddening to think of the paltry sums which our churches furnish toward their support. But a still greater embarrassment, with many of them, is the lack of meeting-houses. In the West there are eight hundred homeless Baptist churches, besides an almost equal number in the South. It is reckoned at the rooms that, with the one per week continued increase of mission churches, assistance should be given toward the erection of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred sanctuaries per year for the next five years. This would require nearly seventy-five thou- sand dollars annually — an amount that should certainly be provided, and which is less than several of the other denominations are purposing to expend in the same direction. About half of the church-edifice loan-fund of two hundred thousand dollars has been transferred, by consent of donors, to a benevolent department, the interest to be used in direct donations to churches build- ing at an expense of not over ten thousand dollars, and receiving from the mission assistance never to exceed five hundred dollars. It is required that the house shall be free from debt at dedication, and that the donation, with interest, shall be secured to the Society in case the 5
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edifice shall no longer be used by a Baptist church. The judgment of the Board has come to favor decidedly this plan of assistance, rather than the loan-fund which was so popular with us a few j'ears ago. If that plan has definitely proved unwise, then it would be best, as it seems to me, to cease any epecial effort to increase the
Fig. I. — Wayland Seminary, Washington, D, C.
endowment of the Church Edifice Benevolent Depart- ment, and, in view of the appalling destitution, to seek to expend, under the restrictions adopted, every dollar that can be raised for this purpose.
The proposed endowment fund toward the support of our educational institutions among the freedmen is a different matter and eminently wise. It is the prevailing
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 51
judgment of nearly all Christian denominations that, while it is not best to endow churches and purely mis- sionary enterprises, all Christian schools of a high grade, in proportion as their standard of instruction is raised, should be made independent through the income of in- vested funds. Our Home Mission Society has founded, and mostly sustains at present, ten of these schools — Way- land Seminary, Washington, D. C. (see Fig. i); Richmond Institute, Richmond, Va. ; Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C; Benedict Institute, Columbia, S. C. ; Atlanta Semi- nary, Atlanta, Ga. ; Leland University, New Orleans, La. (see Fig. 2) ; Natchez Seminary, Natchez, Miss. ; Nashville Institute, Nashville, Tenn. ; Florida Institute, Live Oak, Fla. ; Alabama Institute, Selma, Ala. ; and Bishop Bap- tist College, Marshall, Texas, In these schools there are nearly sixteen hundred pupils, taught by instructors who in their persons and in their work deserve generally the confidence of the denomination. It would be difficult to overestimate the value of their labors to the enfran- chised race, to our country, and to the cause of Christ, But now the standard of instruction in these institu- tions is being rapidly raised, and a very advanced Theo- logical Department is proposed in connection with the Richmond Institute. The time has therefore come to move in regard to their endowment. It is proposed to celebrate the current year — the semi-centennial of the Society — by raising a Jubilee Fund of five hundred thousand dollars, one hundred thousand of it to be ap- propriated to an endowment of the freedmen's schools. The proposal is worthy of our enterprising, hard-worked Secretary, H, L. Morehouse, D. D., and of the Executive
52
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Board. Still, if this movement is successful, it will only lift us up to the plane of our yearly responsibility. Let every America*! Baptist give liberally to the Jubilee Fund
Fig. 2.— Lfxand University, New Orleans, La.
and then continue sending the same amount annually to the Astor House rooms in New York, until Baptists shall have their own headquarters in that city as they have in Boston and Philadelphia, when our home-mis-
HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 53
sion treasury may continue to receive and to use without deductions for rent. It is to be hoped that, in connec- tion with Rev. Edward Judson's noble mission enterprise in the business part of the metropohs, a Tremont Temple or " 1420 Chestnut Street " may be erected as the home of all our general interests here centering.
Our work among the Indians has been chiefly in the Indian Territory, where we have nearly 100 'churches, with 6000 members and the beginning of a " university " at the capital, Tahlequah. This institution should be thoroughly equipped to meet our share in the higher educational demands of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, among whose 60,000, 34,500 already can read and have their 214 day-schools and 11 boarding-schools. They have over 314,000 acres under cultivation, own nearly 800,000 head of stock, and wor- ship in 154 church edifices. The Cherokees have a weekly newspaper. A tenth of the population of these five civilized nations are members of Baptist churches.
Let me add, in passing, a word of gratitude that the Mexican Mission is being revived by our Home, if not by our Foreign, Mission Society ; that the Monthly of our Home Society is so deserving of a welcome in all our homes ; and that the prospect is that all our Wo- man's Home Mission Societies will become as thoroughly auxiliary to the General New York Society as are our Woman's Foreign Mission Societies to the Missionary Union.
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CHAPTER III.
THE AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY.
WE have seen that our home-mission work divides itself very naturally into two great departments — the church and teaching department, and the publishing and itinerating department. Thousands of centres of population should be occupied by our missionaries, and held with a varied and generous support until a Baptist ,church has been organized and housed and become self- sustaining. Then, as a part of this work among the Southern freedmen, because of no other supply of quali- ^ed colored preachers and teachers, schools must be provided equal in number and in facility to the demand, B.^t then alongside this mountain of responsibility there has arisen another of equal magnitude — twin-mountains of our Baptist obligation to God, to our denomination, and to our country, Ebal and Gerizim upon the right and upon the left of our Israel: it is to consecrate upon the altar of American evangelization the full power of the modern press, and therefore, not only to provide the Scriptures and literature for sale and free distribution throughout the land, but also to create for them a mar- ket by every practicable agency — through pastors, home missionaries, colporteurs, Sunday-school workers, ad- vertising, and all business enterprise. There are tens
64
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PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 55
of thousands of neighborhoods and by-paths not access- ible to our settled pastors and home missionaries, where there should be furnished at least once every few years an opportunity of securing, by gift or by purchase, a Bible and some choice Christian literature; of religious conversation from house to house; and of encouragement and assistance in Sunday-school organization for the study of God's word. Besides, there is need, not only of more Sunday-schools and more religious reading, but that the quality of schools already formed should be improved, and that the standard of demand for Christian literature should be elevated. While these latter should be the constant aim of settled pastors and home missionaries, it is a lamentable fact that multitudes of them are either indifferent or incompetent for the task ; and as, there- fore, a quite general missionary Sunday-school agency would seem desirable, it is evidently most fitting that it be under the direction of those who have the largest opportunity of influencing our Sunday-schools.
It is a real spiritual treat to study the providential development of each of our three great denominational organizations, and equally that of the American Baptist Publication Society. The leading hand of God is seen all along every year from the beginning to the present. The record is full of extraordinary providences, showing the special importance which Supreme Wisdom has at- tached to this varied and vast department of the home- mission responsibility of American Baptists. Occasion- ally there may have been errors of judgment and mis- takes in carrying out of measures. If so, these have been inerely incidental and exceptional, simply showing
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that the glorious divine enterprise was being carried on through human instrumentality. Neither its fortunes nor its misfortunes have ever taken the work out of our Heavenly Father's hands. Men of great wealth and in- fluence have liberally patronized it, but to clear and can- did observation God has not yielded the proprietorship. Under him, the responsibility still belongs to the whole denomination — to every member, however humble — as really as if there had never been any Crozer and any Bucknell family. The Society has been represented as a merely local business concern, with a very capable and enterprising Secretary at its head, and with earnest sup- porters, who are among the leaders of our denomination, yet limited to a very secondary sphere in comparison with the work either of the Home Mission Societj'' or of the Missionary Union. So I have been told repeated- ly, and so I believed until I learned better.
A society, to be efficient, must have a centre of opera- tions. Wherever it be — New York, Philadelphia, or Bos- ton— there it will naturally secure a leading interest and support. It is well that this is so for the sake of those who labor at the rooms. They have a hard-enough time as it is ; and if our three headquarters were changed all around without the special interests accompanying, the Secretaries and Executive Committees would hardly stand it a year. The centralization, then, of warm, gen- erous interest at Philadelphia in the American Baptist Publication Society is, in so far, as it should be, and fur- nishes no evidence that the enterprise has not a thor- oughly national character. Indeed, it has come to be evident that this agency is co-ordinate with our Home
PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 57
and Foreign Mission Societies ; that its sphere is as broad, at least, as the continent, and its responsibility that of the entire denomination ; and it would not be necessar)'- to make these statements, much less to argue them, were it not that some of our ministry and mem- bers have never been led to understand clearly the full scope and the real importance of its work — its connec- tion with our denominational progress in the past and the promise which is given for increased usefulness in the future.
A leading Baptist of New York City — one of the most intelligent and influential of our denomination, than whom, it is generally supposed, few are better posted in regard to home and foreign missions — remarked lately, " I really do not know much about the Publication Society and its work," A few months ago, in Boston, I heard a prom- inent Baptist minister declare publicly that " the Publi- cation Society is a Philadelphia affair, that will be taken care of there." It certainly is not the fault of the Society that they are not better informed, and that they are not deeply interested in the Society and zealous supporters of its varied work. No guardians of our denominational mission interests have been more faithful than the Society in explaining their work and in spreading it before the people in books, pamphlets, and periodical literature. Take, for example, its semi-centennial report of the an- niversary held in Washington, May, 1874. I never saw it surpassed for completeness and perspicuity by the re- port of any Society of any denomination. The present year's Annual is almost equal to it. A little pamphlet was lately issued and largely circulated, entitled The
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Work of the American Baptist Publication Society Defined. It is an admirable statement of the aims and the methods of the Society. It has been the design of the Board to con- duct the Business Department in such a way as to make it self-sustaining, and they have very happily succeeded in carrying it out. This department is kept totally dis- tinct from the Missionary Department. The two depart- ments have separate account-books and separate bank- accounts. The work of the Missionary Department they aim to carry forward as economically as possible. The Missionary Secretary thus states the position of the Board on this subject, and at the same time shows how the Business aids the Missionary Department :
" Inasmuch as all the expenses for the services of the General Secretary and of the Treasurer rendered to the Missionary Department are borne by the Business De- partment without cost to the missionary treasury, and also all expenses for rent, fuel, light, taxes, furniture, and repairs are borne by the same, and then, too, an annual credit, embracing all profits derived from colporteur sales, is given by the Business to the Missionary Fund, — it is the hope and aim of the Board that, by a rigid limitation of the expenses for collecting, the contributions made for missionary work may, with the smallest discount for expenses, be applied to the work for which they are intended."
This seems to be eminently fair and just. I do not sym- pathize with those who would have every dollar sent to our Missionary Societies expended in direct mission work, without a fraction's deduction for the salaries of officers and running expenses. It seems to me that the people
PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 59
should be educated to the allowance of a reasonable per- centage on all their benevolences to the running expenses of the Mission Societies which receive and forward their contributions and superintend all the details of their work. The Societies are not wrong, nor are they unfortunate, in deducting from five to eight per cent, for such necessary- incidental expenses. People who forward a benevolent contribution to some object or person at a distance would ordinarily rather themselves pay the postage on the let- ters containing their gift than ask somebody else to pay it for them. They cheerfully meet the cost of getting their donation to the desired point. At the same time, it is eminently proper that this necessary cost should be made as small as possible.
Our freedom in the expression of our opinions on this subject — which, by the way, is merely Baptist freedom, such as we have especially proposed to exercise in these pages for the sake of a most candid examination of our denominational mission work — makes us the more hope- ful that our testimony will be received by the reader as we take up again the line of highly-commendatory state- ment. And we repeat that it is not the fault of our Pub- lication Society if people are not thoroughly informed with regard to the character and the methods of its work. It cannot be expected to make all the details of its extensive Business Department plain to those who have no practical knowledge of manufacturing and mer- cantile transactions, particularly in the publishing line. I am sure I do not want any more of its figures than it gives ; for even if I had access to all its daybooks and ledgers and cash-books, without the guide of an account-
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ant expert I should be lost as a babe in the woods. In- deed, it is a sufficient strain upon an ordinary knowledge of book-keeping to understand the simple business state- ments that are made in the annual reports.
A chief reason of the lack of information among Amer- ican Baptists regarding their Publication Society is the infrequency of references to it in the pulpit and in the prayer- and the conference-meetings of the churches. Ministers hesitate very much more to make mention of it and its varied work than of the other Mission Soci- eties, from a half-defined feeling that it is advertising bus- iness in God's house. And in the missionary concert it is seldom if ever referred to, except under the general head, perhaps, of " other organizations having in view the advancement of the Redeemer's cause." But all this is a mistake and very unfortunate. There is the business feature to the Society's work, but it is not the business of any man or family or Philadelphia partnership. There are none to lay claim to any dividends : the whole con- cern belongs to the denomination. It may be as fitting- ly mentioned in the pulpit or in social prayer as a church business-meeting, the calling of a pastor, or the erection of a sanctuary. It is all the Lord's business, laid over completely upon his altar more absolutely than could be the case with the affairs of any individual, any partner- ship, any corporation ; and that hallows it sufficiently to place it upon the high level of the better-understood de- partments of our great mission work. The time is not far distant when every mission pulpit will give co-ordi- nate emphasis to the general work of the Publication Society, and among the familiar themes of the mission-
PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 6l
ary conference and the prayer concert will be the purely business as well as colportage and Sunday-school depart- ments of this Society.
A young minister of Maryland, the year after his ordination, in 1823, wrote a letter to a Washington editor suggesting that a tract society should be organized, to sustain the same relation to Baptists that the American Tract Society, Boston, did to Congregationalists. This suggestion of Rev. N. Davis was, under God, the be- ginning of the history of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society. For greater convenience in distribution, the headquarters were early transferred from Washington to Philadelphia, and gradually, under the direction of the denomination, the Society's work was enlarged to include the publication of Sunday-school books and other Chris- tian literature, Bible distribution, colportage,- and general Sunday-school mission enterprise. Each step in advance has been taken prayerfully, deliberately, in deference to the spheres of work of our other missionary organizations, in thorough loyalty to our distinctive denominational .principles, and with confidence that it was obedience to the call of God.
The receipts of the first two years, amounting alto- gether to only ;$i,oio.33, have increased to last year's grand aggregate of ^421,137.73. Of this large amount, indeed, ^326,820.58 was received in the Business Depart- ment, but very much of it is fully as gratifying as the benefactions represented by the funds accredited to the purely Missionary Department. A colporteur finds a family without a Bible, and persuades them into the promise to read it if he will give them one. Or he
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organizes a little Sunday-school of reluctant, half-seri- ous members, with the pledge of a small library and some lesson-helps as a gratuity. Then the Society's Missionary Department solicits contributions to meet the expense of this Bible, these books, and these papers. But yonder comes a poor man to that same colporteur, or into one of the depositories of the So- ciety, hungering for the bread of life for himself and his family, and out of his week's hard earnings he him- self pays for a Bible. Or a newly-organized Sunday- school, appreciating in a measure its opportunity and the facilities offered, takes up a generous collection among its own number and neighborhood, and buys its own library and lesson-help papers. These two trans- actions, indeed, are business — pure business : a word which has a hard, cold sound — and the receipts would be put down to the credit of the Business Department of the Society. Yet, from an intelligent missionary standpoint, these latter transactions are certainly as gratifying as the former. Without undervaluing the gratuitous work of the Missionary Department, there is at least as much real God-blessed mission enterprise in the strictly Business Department.
There is a great contrast between the little second- story room, with an annual rent of one hundred dollars, that was the Society's first depository in Philadelphia, and the present commodious and beautiful edifice for headquarters at 1420 Chestnut street, owned by the So- ciety, without a dollar's debt, and able to make every Baptist who crosses its threshold feel an inch taller. It cost a great deal of money — two hundred and fifty-eight
14-2U CHESTNUT STREET. PHILADELPHIA.
PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 63
thousand dollars — but the funds were given specially for this purpose, and the generous leaders in this magnificent building-enterprise were wise in the investment. All its room is needed, or will be shortly. The walls are strong and substantial, making a structure that in the long run will be decidedly the most economical. The location is an expensive one, but it is the right place — not only so for convenience, but it is where, as a representative build- ing of the denomination, it makes the most favorable impression upon the largest number of other Christian denominations and upon the world. It is quite common for those who do not know us very well to say that Bap- tists are a quite illiterate people, unenterprising, behind the times, and poverty-stricken. Whenever I meet them I am quite likely to suggest a visit at the next opportu- nity to 1420 Chestnut street, Philadelphia. Our Publica- tion Society's headquarters are unrivalled in the world in their visible proof of denominational intelligence, and enterprise, and farsighted wisdom, and financial re- sources.
Baptists should feel a special interest in that feature of our Publication Society's work which first characterized it. Its introductory name was " The Baptist General Tract Society ;" but many have come to look upon tract distribution as rather an old-fashioned and antiquated method of evangelization. Sermons and books and re- ligious conversations have taken the place, they imagine, of a simple leaflet with a brief statement of doctrine or an incident of encouragement or of warning. But this is a great mistake, as multitudes in our churches and in our ministerial and missionary ranks can testify to-day. It
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would help the Christian life of the present very much if there could be less of the " grand-flourish " style of conversion, and more of the quiet, undemonstrative, un- obtrusive way of simple tract-influence. Improvements should be, and are being, introduced into the style and the form of religious tracts. In this none have been more enterprising, within wisely-restrained limits, than our Publication Society. It issues nearly four hundred tracts admirably adapted for general evangelizing and denominational uses. Many of these are in German, Spanish, Swedish, French, Norwegian, and Dutch. Every pastor and church should be well supplied with a variety of the valuable leaflets, which the Society furnishes at one dollar per thousand pages, postage paid. They are an inestimable help in mission work and in scattering broadcast correct views of Baptist principles. Unbelief and Pedobaptism are largely using this means against us.
The book-publishing of the Society's work has enor- mously developed. Not counting old and unsalable books, the present list upon its Catalogue includes 1326 publications. The enterprise is shown in that last year fifty-seven new books were stereotyped and printed — more than one for every week. These publications are not only Sunday-school and denominational, but also of the charac- ter of general library reference-books. It has a very im- portant New Testament commentary enterprise on hand, enlisting, under the supervision of Rev. Alvah Hovey, D. D., a large number of the ablest biblical scholars of our denomination. The Society's contribution to the service of song in multitudes of our churches has been
PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 65
very valuable, and is destined soon to be still more so. Including all its publications, the Society has issued more than ninety millions of copies. Through its Sun- day-school periodicals it is believed to be continually in- structing and influencing fully 120,000 teachers and more than a million scholars. So vast a business throughout the country demands branches, and they have been located at 4 Beacon street, Boston ; 9 Murray street. New York ; 71 Randolph street, Chicago ; and 209 North Sixth street, St. Louis. The late admirable appointment of Rev. G. S. Abbott, D. D., as Superintendent of Sunday-school work in California and of the Publication Society's De- pository, is a hopeful indication of better things in store for the Baptists on the Pacific coast, I am confident that it is decidedly to the interest of all our Sunday-schools to concentrate all their trade for books and periodicals upon their own Society, and that the ministry and mem- bers generally will be best satisfied by ordering their theological, standard, and miscellaneous works through this channel.
The present number of colporteurs, Sunday-school mis- sionaries, and missionary agents is 73. They organized last year 321 Sunday- schools, and called for religious conversation upon 17,459 families. This work is dis- tributed among forty-three of the forty-eight States and Territories of our great country. The total issues of the Society for the year were equal to 509,120,748 i8mo pages — an average of 1,394,851 pages daily. The distri- bution of this vast quantity of religious literature and of the largely-increased amounts of coming years depends, chiefly, not upon the hired agents of the Society, but
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upon its owners, the members of our churches. Its plan is to make all our ministers and working mem- bers its colporteurs and Sunday-school missionaries. We should have enterprise and generosity enough to place some of its religious and denominational literature in the hands of every unconverted person and Pedobap- tist in our neighborhoods. There are nearly forty thou- sand Pedobaptist ministers and theological students in our country. Through this Society we should inform them of our principles and the grounds of our belief. No doubt, it would lead many of them into our ranks. Let it be remembered that in every fifth family of our population there is no Bible, and the destitution is veiy much greater among the freedmen. In Germany and other lands the Society is being called of God to aid in establishing similar societies for a similar work. For all the pressing demands for enlargement we need the busi- ness sagacity of those eminently successful business men to whom the prosperity hitherto is so largely due, and for the preservation of their lives still more than for their continued contributions all should earnestly pray.
CHAPTER IV.
THE AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION
MANY excellent Christians, uninfluenced — at least, consciously — by selfish motives, insist that while so much mission work remains to be done in the home- land it is not wise to give great prominence to foreign evangelization. They feel, and rightly, that the situa- tion of the destitute in our crowded cities and the newly- settled districts of the West and among millions of the freedmen is more serious than among any correspond- ing number of Asiatic or other heathen. He who pro- nounced greater woes upon Chorazin and Bethsaida than upon Tyre and Sidon because of the fuller light in which the former cities were manifesting their ungodliness, and who uttered his special denunciation against the favored Capernaum, must look to-day with far more severity upon the irreligion of those in the mission fields of America than upon the idolatry of benighted pagans. And it is undoubtedly true that largely-increased contributions of lives and of funds to the various departments of home- mission work would still, fail to meet all their reason- able demands.
On the other hand, there are those who insist quite as strenuously, and likewise often with questionable motives, that the great present obligation is foreign evangeliza- tion. Over against the many millions in heathen lands
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who have never yet heard the gospel, they think of the thousands of churches and ministers and Sunday-schools scattered throughout our highly-favored country. They would not repress any efforts to reach the neglected classes in our crowded cities and destitute sections; but then here the majority can, if they will, receive Christian instruction and encouragement, while there are vast ter- ritories in Asia and Africa where no sanctuary is open, no voice witnesses for Christ, and not one leaflet of Bible truth has yet been carried. Frequent comparisons are made between the ministerial supply at home and the missionary supply in Burmah and India and China. And then the spirit of the Master, as illustrated in the parable of the Ninety and Nine, is urged as the most befitting Christian churches in their evangelizing enter- prises. Having so generally offered the gospel to our home populations, if now, leaving them to their oppor- tunities and to the enlarging influences of our established institutions, we go forth to the depraved and wretched millions of heathen lands, exhausting all our benevolent resources to save them, we are told we shall be the most Christlike, shall secure the highest religious character and activity at home, and thus all around the globe contrib- ute the most effectively to the advancement of the Re- deemer's cause.
Both these lines of consideration are of the utmost im- portance if they are not allowed to antagonize each other, and are used to overcome the prevailing selfishness and indifference with which the great mass of professed Chris- tians contemplate the subject of world evangelization. It is like Paul on faith and James on works, whose state-
MISSIONARY UNION. 69
ments, under the inspiration of God, are not designed to be contradictory in the sHghtest degree, but mutually to contribute the utmost possible to true Christian life. As with the great cardinal doctrines of Christianity, so with the subject of evangelizing our fallen race, the vastness of the object requires different points of observation. The human mind cannot take in its whole duty or its whole privilege with one sweep of thought. It is like endeavoring to reach around one of those giants of the California forests with a single stretch of a pair of arms. Supreme obligations to Christianizing our home-land, be- cause it is ours and because its enlightened infidelity is so extremely perilous; supreme obligations to evangel- izing the hundreds of millions of heathen, because it is so Christlike to go after the lost, to carry the light of the gospel to those who are in utter darkness, — both should be considered, both lines of obligation so felt as to con- trol the influence and action of all God's servants. In each direction there is a mountain of motive towering into the very heavens ; and when we stand in the presence of either, that for the time seems the highest.
If any one, then, has been so familiarizing himself with the needs of heathen lands, and so considering the yearn- ing disposition of the Great Exemplar toward those who are the most depraved and wretched and in the densest darkness, that he feels profoundly moved by the convic- tion that there is no cause making so loud a call upon his benevolence as foreign missions, then let him obligate himself in the light of that conviction, and afterward — not before — contemplate the field covered by our Home Mission and Publication Societies. Or if he has first been
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specially investigating the demands upon the churches from the destitute regions of America ; if he has been thinking and praying over colportage, and Sunday- schools, and Freedmen's Institutes, and church build- ings, and he says, " Every dollar I can raise I ought to give to further these glorious enterprises," — by all means let him act at once in the presence of his supreme obli- gation; and then afterward — not before — let him turn to- ward the vast responsibility of carrying the gospel to a thousand millions of perishing souls. There is very lit- tle danger of such a plan leading us to do twice as much as we should. Even if it js not quite business-like, yet the tendency is to be so selfish in this world that such an expedient is desirable. I doubt whether, at the begin- ning of a year, many Christians are equal to answering the question, " What are all my obligations, for the coming twelve months, to the various causes of benevolence ?" We are advised to designate as large an amount as pos- sible, and then divide it among the Societies. The yearly card and weekly envelope system is admirable in many respects, but it is liable to let us off too easily when it allows us to survey a range of mountain-like obligations at once, and necessarily at the greater distance, rather than deliberately and impressively to take them in suc- cession. W^ith very rare exceptions. Christians need to do several times during a year all that they think they can do for missions that year before they have really done their full duty in the sight of God and in the light of eternity.
It is a mistake to suppose that but for Dr. Judson the cause of modern missions to the heathen, and especially
MISSIONARY UNION. 7 1
that of American Baptists, would have been kept by the indifference of the churches from moving forward for many years. This eminent pioneer of our missions rep- resented a movement in the interest of world evangehza- tion that had aheady set in quietly, but powerfully; and if, in the providence of God, this faithful and heroic man had not been among the five ordained at Salem in 1812 for the beginning of American foreign missions, and if, on his voyage out, he had not been led to adopt Baptist views, and thus to become our foremost standard-bearer in the heathen world, some other man would have ap- peared for an equivalent service. The time was ripe. The Master's hand was stretched forth to gather this fruit from off the vine himself had planted, even as just before Wesley and Luther and Wycliffe and Augustine and Athanasius. Men are not so much leaders in the great movements of the world as the resultants or signs of those movements which are the breath of the Almighty. And that breath had been felt by many an American Chris- tian, by many a member of our early Baptist churches in this country, before Drs. Baldwin and Bolles received Dr. Judson's request to be numbered as " one of us." The Baptist missionaries at Serampore had been laboring to- gether for fourteen years, and Dr. Carey for six years longer, and their example and pleas had reached many hearts on this side of the Atlantic. Yet even they, in turn, were, under God, only contributors to the great modern awakening in the interest of foreign missions. There was abundant evidence at our first May meetings in Philadelphia in 18 14 that God, who had prepared Adoniram Judson and Ann H. Judson and Luther Rice
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for Burmah, had also prepared a constituency for them among the pastors and the members of our American Bap- tist churches. Various influences had been combining to a special awakening of spiritual life. Domestic mis- sions in the West and North were evidences of this re- vived condition. And so, when the call of God came from far-off Asia, there was a hearing all in readiness for it.
Battles had to be fought with the anti-mission spirit, yet they were not so fierce, or at such odds, at least, as those in which Andrew Fuller and John Ryland and John Sutcliffe and others had been engaged in England. I would not detract an iota from the credit due the early missionaries and their successors for the mission influ- ences exerted among the home churches by their ex- amples, their letters, their personal appeals in public and in private when visiting around upon their return ; yet I do believe that sufficient obligation is not generally felt toward that much larger number of the ministry and members who, under God, have fought down public sentiment at home, meeting opposition to missions in countless sermons and editorials and addresses and con- versations, and maintaining a constant and generous finan- cial support amid, in the early days, frowns and derision and misrepresentations. Furman and Semple and Cone and Baldwin and Sharp and Malcom and Staughton and Bolles and Peck and Webb, — these and others have been among the heroes of our home battles in the cause of missions, as well as those who have carried the wounds also of foreign conflict. Many have toiled for the evansfelization of the heathen who have never left
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American shores, and in secretaryships or committees or pastorates or elsewhere experienced their Oung-pen-las, their Serampores, their jungle-fevers.
Our foreign mission organization was first called "The General Missionary Convention," but subsequently, from meeting once every three years, " The Triennial Convention," until, in 1845-46, the Southern States with- drew their co-operation, and the Society received the name it still bears — " The American Baptist Missionary Union." It was very evident that the founders of the Society in- tended that foreign missions should be its only respon- sibility ; yet for a while attention came to be diverted in part in the interests of domestic missions and of classical and theological instruction in Philadelphia and Washing- ton. Experience, however, taught the wisdom of return- ing to the one undivided object of missionary operations among the heathen.
The mission field, occupied by the Society at first in Burmah, has extended into Assam, India, China, Japan, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, and Greece. The two missionaries in Rangoon are succeeded by the present missionary force of 186 in Asia and of 463 in Europe. The latter, however, are all native laborers, supported only in part by the funds of the Missionary Union, and, enumerated with the 643 native preachers connected with our Asiatic stations, give 1 106 as the number of laborers in the ministry associated with our fully-supported mis- sionaries. And that one first Burman convert, Moung Nau, baptized by Dr. Judson after the toil and waiting of six long years, has multiplied into 550 churches, with 42,226 members, in Asia, and 455 churches, with 47,046 ' 7
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members, in Europe, or a grand total in sixty-eight years, not including the multitudes of converts who have entered into rest, of 1005 churches, with 89,272 members.
Yet here, again, as with the work of our Home Mission and Publication Societies, the statistics of results fall far short of indicating all that has been accomplished under the blessing of God. When a single station has been oc- cupied in the midst of a vast heathen population, or of multitudes of merely nominal Christian's whose religion is rarely more than a mingling of superstition and for- malism ; when the missionary has secured a shelter and a preaching-room and a working knowledge of the lan- guage,— it means a great deal more than figures can tell. And especially after a few years, or decades of years, when a little company of converts have been gathered ; and a number of the young men have become qualified, through divine grace and careful training, to preach as only the natives, after all, can preach the gospel ; and an equal number of the young women have been so educated that they are fitting companions for these native evangel- ists and pastors; and the Scriptures have been translated and printed, together with a few books and tracts of the most helpful Christian literature, — they nevertheless all together do not make much display in statistical tables. But, in reality, many heroic battles have been fought, many signal victories have been won ; a position has been taken and fortified in the heart of the enemy's ter- ritory ; and the advantage gained is incalculable, in re- spect to all future aggressive movements, in the moral influence that is already felt among the opposing ranks,
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and in the greater facilities furnished to all the mission- ary successors.
Likewise at home, figures are very inadequate to tell the story of the labors and the sacrifices and the triumphs of those whose lives are being devoted to the furtherance of the cause of missions. Of this, perhaps, some of the missionaries — and certainly, I know, many of their per- sonal friends — need to be reminded, even as nearly all of us, that bare statistics, even with much accompanying explanation, do not reveal all the toils and the hardships and the attainments of the missionary's life. It is quickly read that at the last May anniversaries the life-members and delegates to the assembled Missionary Union elected a number of managers to fill up the Board for the ensu- ing three years; then that at the sixty-seventh annual meeting of that Board an Executive Committee and a Corresponding Secretary and a Treasurer were elected ; and then there is a brief Annual Report which next May these executive officers will have ready for the denomi- nation to read — oh that all would be so wise as to read and re-read ! — but even then how little is known of the amount of time spent by these officers, mostly gratui- tously, over innumerable questions of detail connected with the spread of missionary information and the devel- opment of missionary sentiment among the ministry and the churches; in regard to the moneys received and their wisest possible distribution in the face of the most earnest pleadings in every direction for vastly more than can be furnished; and in the selection and assignment and coun- sel of the missionaries, often in the most complicated and embarrassing circumstances! And this is not all. There
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is much else of perplexity and anxiety and labor that can seldom so much as be intimated in the published reports. A great deal of human nature is developed in the commu- nications of so many thousands of churches and ministers with the Rooms. Contributions have been accompanied with immature suggestions ; articles have been urged for publication which plainly, to those at the Rooms, the cause required should be returned ; appointments have been made for anniversary exercises which had to pass by many who had a great deal they would like to have said upon those interesting occasions; some missionary's judgment with regard to additional expenditures or the modification of the work has not secured the approval of the executive officers, and forthwith hastily the ag- grieved missionary has opened his heart, through cor- respondence, to many of his personal friends in the ministry and among the churches. Most of them judge simply from his representations, and forthwith there comes down upon the Rooms an avalanche of more or less brotherly and sisterly criticism, containing frequent intimations that if the judgment of the Rooms is not reversed, funds will be withheld and solicitations be made elsewhere to enable the missionary brother to carry out his plan.
Of course, it will not do to alienate any individual, es- pecially, if he is generously disposed; nor any church, especially if it is attentive to its missionary obligations ; yet of still greater consequence is loyalty to the cause. Obligations have been assumed by the executive officers which comprehend the whole mission field and embrace every station, even the humble and discouraging as well
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as the most conspicuous and prospered. Each is a sacred trust committed to their hands by hundreds of thousands of contributors, and they must preserve a judicial frame of mind, not cold and unfeeHng — ah! they cannot if they would, so close to the beating hearts of so many toiling, sacrificing, dying missionaries — but ever looking upon all sides of every question, leaning toward the judgment of the missionaries in all matters of doubt, yet standing firmly against whatever to them is evidently imprudent or unwise. Yet action in each case must never be taken without every possible effort to lessen its cost. Hence, anxiety and conference and correspondence enough for a year's pastorate of a church or a year's editorship of a newspaper. Indeed, figures cannot adequately repre- sent such services as are being rendered every week — yes, every day — for the mission cause, for our denomi- nation, for Christ, at the Rooms in Boston, as well as at the headquarters of both our Home Mission and Publi- cation Societies in New York and in Philadelphia. I have seen a thousand missionaries abroad, and many missionaries and colporteurs at home, in the midst of their harassing cares and crushing burdens and sacrifi- cing lives ; and then I have seen and talked with the executive officers of our three great Baptist national organizations. With some of them I have sat in coun- sel, and I must testify that the latter also deserve univer- sal appreciation and sympathy, the prayers of all, and cordial recognition as really belonging to the mission ranks.
" But," many reply, " the executive officers of our three missionary societies, who are under pay, receive
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much larger salaries than the missionaries, and hence cannot be ranked with them in sacrifice, even if they can in harassing cares and wearing toils." This is a mistake, as we have seen already in part, and we would not refer to it again except for its serious prevalence. It is nothing to the point if any of them are fortunately cir- cumstanced outside their salaries, for this has happened to some of our missionaries and pastors. Only they can then help the more — as they do — with their financial re- sources, as well as with head and heart and hands. More- over, especially with foreign missionaries, when to the sala- ries are added the house-rent, repairs, vacation-support, pensions, and other perquisites, the inequality in the amounts themselves is not, as we have before observed, very apparent. Neither the Missionary Union, the Home Mission Society, nor the Publication Society have any dwellings for their Corresponding Secretaries and other officers in those great cities where rents are so high. They make no special appropriations for the en- larged hospitalities, as we have said, which have to be extended in the interest of the mission by these execu- tive officers. And when, lately. Rev. J. N. Murdock, D. D., after eighteen years of efficient service in the sec- retaryship of the Missionary Union, broke down in health — temporarily only, it is to be hoped — he could not upon some physician's certificate drop his work for two or three years, if necessary, and go off to some other country to rest at the charges of the Society. No, indeed ; for even for a three months' vacation from the Rooms there had to be a formal resolution of permission passed in his behalf by the Board.
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And now I wish to add a testimony of impression with regard to others of our brethren than those whose execu- tive duties confine them chiefly to the Rooms. I refer to the District Secretaries, of which the Missionary Union has seven, the Home Mission Society sixteen, and the Pubhcation Society five. Their work, its necessity, and its extremely arduous character I never appreciated as recently, after having done a little touring of churches in behalf of our foreign missions on account of the threat- ened deficit in the treasury. The want of information and of sympathy regarding missions that is to be found among a large number of our ministers and churches is astonish- ing. They do not place themselves in the way of mis- sion intelligence, and they do not seem anxious to be- come enlisted in interest and co-operation. They have their own church to look out for, and they have not, and do not care to have, any other responsibility. It is a great field for still further evangelization. Those who go to them with argument and entreaty and prayers to convert them to the cause of missions are as surely mis- sionaries, and often have as hard a time, as the workers in Burmah or in China. There is no other way than personal labor with these, whose sympathy and help are so much needed. The Corresponding Secretaries at the Rooms cannot attend to this duty, being already overbur- dened with the details of office ; so, many of our best men must be enlisted for the service. They must generally be ministers, thoroughly appreciating the position of the pastors, and able to fill acceptably and effectively even the most prominent pulpits. It is a great pity that so much talent has to be provided and so much expense
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incurred to do what the ministers themselves ought to do ; but at present there is no help for it. And, mean- while, if there are any servants of Christ in the wide world who deserve sympathy and support, kindly words and hospitalities, prayers and every possible co-opera- tion, they are the District Secretaries of our missionary societies.
The cause is greatly to be congratulated upon all the efficient and harmoniously-working woman's societies. The Missionary Union has been particularly favored in the wisdom and the spirit which have controlled its women auxiliaries. Of the entire income of the Mis- sionary Union the past year, including ;^2 1,284.70 from sundry funds, and ^28,651.10 from legacies, amounting to ^288,802.48, the woman's societies have contributed ;^59,899.52. As this represents a much larger average of little sums, and as it is the constant effort to realize these in addition to the ordinary contributions, an im- mense amount, of routine work is indicated, not only at the Rooms on the part of the Secretaries and Treasurers and Directors, but by all the District Secretaries. The Helping Hand, as also The Baptist Missionary Magazine, deserves a place in every family. Indeed, may the time hasten when all the periodicals issued by our Missionary Union and Home Mission and Publication Societies shall be considered a necessary part of the expense of every Baptist family in the land !
CHAPTER V.
OUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, AND THEIR BEAR- ING UPON MISSIONS.
WE have seen that American Baptists have 47 acad- emies or schools of their grade, 31 colleges or universities, and 8 theological institutions. Among their 10,561 students, 1532 are in course of preparation for the ministry ; ^Gy instructors are under appointment to carry out the purpose of the denomination in the establishment of these various educational centres, at a cost of ;^ 16,949,61 3. Nearly all thesfe teachers are Christian men and women, many of them conscien- tiously seeking to discharge faithfully the trust com- mitted into their hands. Not only in the theological seminaries, but also in the colleges and academies, it is realized that more is expected than a mere secular train- ing. These institutions were not intended by the great majority of those who have toiled and sacrificed for their establishment to be merely ornamental appendages to the denominational structure, doing under denomina- tional supervision what is done quite as well in the public high schools and the State universities.
Their purpose was twofold — to raise the intellectual standard of the ministry and members, and to promote evangelization. Rather, the purpose was one — to qual-
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ify our churches and their pastors the better to go forth to the conquest of the world for Christ. The grand idea which gave birth to our educational institutions was the missionary idea. Without it not a quarter of these near- ly seventeen millions of dollars could have been raised. The large majority of the donors had the spirit of the " Great Commission " in mind : " Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." It would have been far from sufficient to suggest that in- creased educational facilities would advance social rank ; or that it would be doing as other denominations had done ; or that thus our young men and young women would be kept from going to the other denominations. Such a class of motives would have availed only to a comparatively limited extent. But the missionary idea prompted many of our wise and farsighted members, and they reasoned that educational institutions of various grades, under thorough Christian influence, would con- tribute greatly to the advancement of the Redeemer's cause. The ministry would be better fitted, not simply to ornament their sanctuaries, but especially to reach the unbelieving and ungodly masses with the gospel mes- sage, and so to educate their churches in turn that they should be the more aggressive and victorious. They felt the need of more-disciplined and better-informed minds in the counsel and administration of the churches, that their light might shine out upon the surrounding dark- ness more brightly and more steadily. Some have thought directly of educating men and women to go to mission fields in both home and foreign lands, but usu- ally the thought has been more general, yet none the
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less was it the grand missionary idea of extending the influence of Christianity in ever-deepening and ever- widening circles. The boundaries of Christ's kingdom must be enlarged ; the world must be evangelized.
But on the part of the guardians and instructors in our denominational schools there is a great deal of forgetful- ness of this supreme evangelizing purpose. It is not enough that they live a consistent Christian life before their pupils, exercise a little more freedom in formal re- ligious services than is customary in the public secular schools, and occasionally give an evangelical flavor to their class-room explanations. The teacher of a de- nominational school' is a missionary, placed there to watch for souls as one who must give account unto God. His constant aim should be to lead his pupils to Christ and to qualify them to go forth into the world as Christ's workmen. This is not to interfere with any other duties, but to accompany them all and to bathe them in a brighter light. Young men have told me, as they drew near to college graduation, " Neither president nor professors have ever addressed me personally upon the subject of religion." Yet this was in colleges estab- lished with Christian money to advance the cause of Christ! Indeed, I lately heard one of the most reliable of our younger ministers say that during the three years of his theological-seminary life the subject of missions was never mentioned by his instructors, except by way of history or with such incidental reference as awakened no feelings of the grandeur of the work or of personal obligation.
This must, of course, be exceptional, even in the in-
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struction of the institution to which he referred. I know that in some of our theological seminaries the missionary spirit is honored and fostered. Meeting, on my return, at Venice, Italy, Dr. Stearns of Newton, he most cordial- ly invited me to give a talk to the students at home on missions. Casually meeting, in New York, Dr. Strong of Rochester, a like request was made. And when, under the arrangement of Dr. Weston of Crozer, I ad- dressed the students there on missions, it was very evi- dent that I was in a cordial missionary atmosphere, and that the members of the Faculty were endeavoring in this also to be faithful to their trust. But the charge of neglect herein undoubtedly holds good against much of the instruction in our colleges and other institutions. The missionary idea is largely absent from them. Prayerful effort is not continually made upon suitable occasions to convey the impression that the special object of the schools is a religious one, and that all science and all literature should be subservient to the advancement of Christianity. Personal endeavors to lead to conversion and full consecration of service are sadly neglected. Many of our youth graduate without the remembrance of a single earnest personal effort for their salvation on the part of their instructors, or of any at- tempt to guide them out from self and a selfish aim in life into a broad Christlike view of service. In one of the best of our colleges — the one to which, above all others, I should prefer to send my son — I yet remember that, though entering at the age of fourteen and living among strangers far from home, none of my teachers ever asked me about my church attendance, or invited
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me to a prayer-meeting, or talked religiously and prayed with me in private at that moulding period in life. It was not surprising, therefore, that during that time for one year and a half I never crossed the threshold of any church.
It is more than fidelity to a solemn religious trust that requires the teachers and the guardians of the educa- tional institutions of our denomination to keep promi- nently before the minds of students the missionary idea. In no other purpose than .that of promoting evangeliza- tion can there be found so much enthusiasm for instruc- tion and for study. There is no better guarantee for breadth and thoroughness of education than constant recurrence to the great central fact of all human know- ledge— Jesus Christ and his work. The theological seminary needs the inspiration of a grander idea than the mere evolution of doctrinal systems and ecclesias- tical forms, even the missionary idea in all its glorious comprehensiveness, working 'like leaven through all the curriculum of instruction, and giving character to all the conscious and unconscious influences of the institution. " Missions and their present history," observes Dr. Christlieb, " claim more regard from our theological professors, not only in practical theology, where this usually begins, but also in 'history and exegesis — e.g.^ in expounding the Acts, Pastoral Epistles, and Proph- ets." I am very certain that I should now look back Avith more satisfaction to those three years of special training for the ministry after college graduation if there had been some abridgment of the lectures upon Gnosticism and Montanism, Sabellianism and Mani-
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cheism, Arianism and Pelagianism,' and if the learned professors had turned from the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries to the nineteenth, and informed us upon the history and the work and the prospects of the American Baptist Home Mission and PubHcation Societies and of the Missionary Union. It is quite certain that there have been deHberations and movements connected with modern missions, under the oversight of our own de- nomination, which deserve to be mentioned alongside of the Councils of Nice and Ephesus, the Christolog- ical controversy between the Schools of Antioch and Alexandria, and the distinctions in scholastic theology between the tendencies represented by Abelard, Anselm, and St. Bernard.
It can, indeed, be replied that the principles and the methods on both sides of the conflict with unbelief to- day are identical with those which in the early centuries immortalized the names of Origen and Sabellius, of Atha- nasius and Arius, of Augustine and Pelagius, and many others. This is true, and yet not to the extent which some of our learned and honored theological antiquari- ans assume. The circumstances of to-day are not those of the age of Leo, or of that of Gregory, or of that of Charlemagne. This is the age of Christian missions, far more prominently than when the Nestorians carried their evangelizing enterprise even to the east of China. The circumstances of our conflict with unbelief have many points of resemblance with those of the past, but there are also many contrasts. And it is essential to the best equipment that these dissimilarities should be studied and understood. The scepticism and the formalism
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 8/
and the worldliness that are now encountered in the home and mission work of the churches in America cannot be understood by ever so much famiharity with the past eighteen centuries of rehgious thought and hfe. Never before have heathen and anti-Christian nations faced Christianity in the unfettered, candid, inquiring at- titude of to-day. A Chrysostom would not be ready for a Boston pastorate, nor an Augustine for a missionary appointment in Kansas. A Lactantius would not be at all qualified for colportage work in California, nor an Ambrose to enter upon missionary labor in Tokio, Swatow, Rangoon, or Ongole.
In all our schools the need is not to change the curric- ulum of study, but to put more of Christ into it — more of the Christ of to-day into his work of to-day. Some of the teachers, even as some of the pastors of ovix churches, need, above all things, a revival of religion in their own hearts. They need to feel far more their spe- cial responsibility for souls, directly for their ten thousand five hundred and sixty-one pupils, and through them for the multitude throughout the world whom they will in- fluence. The persistent aim should be, not to qualify these youth for a life simply of religious luxury in pul- pit or pew, but to incline them to the attitude of readi- ness to be and do anything which the Master requires. It is said that the Duke of Wellington declared to the House of Lords that he believed, such was the discipline and the esprit de corps of his Peninsular army, he could march it anywhere. That "Anywhere" — "Ubique" — has since been chosen as the banner-motto of brave British regiments. And "Ubique" — "Anywhere" — un-
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der Christ, should be the watchword of every graduate of our denominational schools. For this every teacher should be consecrated before God. And to the altar of this accepted service all science and all literature should be brought.
What, however, is not a specialty is not very apt to be made prominent. Mission professorships and lecture- ships have been proposed. With the former, one insti- tution is already experimenting ; several are trying the latter plan. It is to be hoped that American Baptists will soon establish a general mission lectureship. Let several of our best men be engaged every year to de- liver addresses, at different educational and other im- portant centres, upon home and foreign missions. Let these annual contributions be gathered up and printed, and circulated throughout the denomination. A thirty- thousand-dollar endowment fund could not be more wisely invested. Its income of fifteen hundred dollars per year would doubtless be sufficient for compensa- tion to the lecturers for travelling expenses, and for the regular and prompt issue of the lectures in book-form. The trustees of the fund might be the Secretaries and the Presidents or Chairmen of the Boards or Executive Committees of our three great denominational societies. Yet still more important is it that all the teachers in our religious schools become inspired with the missionary idea. In no way can they so enlarge their own resources as in thus being faithful to the trust already committed to their hands.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CHUPCHES.
IT is fundamental. Missionaries, and money for their support, are essential, but underneath is the still more important consideration of the missionary spirit in the churches. Men and women may be sent with the gos- pel message to the destitute throughout home and for- eign lands, and the contributions from many Christians may be sufficient to provide them an extremely econom- ical living ; yet the structure of world evangelization is insecure unless it rests upon a deep, strong sympathy among the masses of Christ's followers. So numerous are the members of the Christian churches to-day, and so abundant are their financial resources, that it would be possible adequately to supply the whole mission field without requiring an exhaustive measure of self-sacrifice on the part of the great body of believers. For example, four or five times the present number of missionaries could be sent to Kansas or to Asiatic fields without seri- ous embarrassment to home labor or finance. Yet, under God, the required measure of success would depend upon something else, even the missionary spirit in the churches. As in war loyalty is still more essential than men and money ; as in the heat of a battle the esprit de corps of the army is more important than are even guns and am-
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munition ; or as we inquire of a city, not only whether it has population and wealth, but also if it has public spirit, if its citizens are enterprising, if they are generally animated with the purpose to keep abreast of the times in all modern improvements, — so the great question of missions to-day is that of general loyalty to the cause. It is the esprit de corps of Emmanuel's army in the face of the enemy; it is the religious enterprise X)f_ Christ's followers, their disposition to glorify his name through- out the world.
It is encouraging to note the marked improvement shown during the last few years in the missionary spirit of our churches ; all the laborers in their vacations at home gratefully recognize the change. With every year not only are there more to give and more to go, but there is also improvement in the quality of the interest felt in evangelizing the world. With multitudes that interest is more intelligent, more unselfish, more generous. Many of the ministry and the members are taking a more com- prehensive view of Christian responsibility than what per- tains to things within the sound of their own church-bell. And they are apprehending, also, that even such limited responsibility cannot be fully discharged without the mis- sionary spirit. They see that it is not so much a ques- tion whether the mission cause can flourish without their assistance as whether their own sermons and ex- hortations and various religious observances can accom- plish much without the accompaniment of a large measure of the spirit of Christian missions. But this improvement is far from being as general as many suppose. In some of our churches still an almost entire indifference to the
MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCHES. 9 1
cause of missions prevails. Its agencies are not wel- comed ; the subject seems to be considered an intru- sion.
There are numerous indications of this lamentable state of things. Some pastors never discourse from their pulpits upon mission themes, and never in public prayer refer, except in the most general and formal terms, to world evangelization. As a rule, it is considered diffi- cult, if not impossible, to sustain the missionary concert. Solicitors for subscriptions for the mission papers and magazines find it very hard to secure names, and then it is by no means certain that they have secured readers. Few so . give of their money as to feel it. People are generally surprised whenever a person makes a contri- bution to missions that is fully up to the measure of his ability, and especially if there is evidently a real self- sacrifice in the act. Seldom are parents ready to have their own children think of becoming missionaries. They do not want them to go abroad among the heathen; and at home, if they are to go into the ministry, their parental ambition is to have them " well settled " in the midst of re- ligious, educated, and refined associations. When Chris- tians meet each other for social conversation, it is too rare for them to take up the theme of carrying the gos- pel to the destitute regions beyond their own neighbor- hood ; they have naither the information nor the interest required. And there are many other indications of the prevailing dearth of the true mission spirit.
Strangely, there are those who seek to justify them- selves from a mission standpoint in limiting their labors and their sacrifices to their own local churches and
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neighborhoods. It is thus, they claim, that indirectly and eventually they will the most effectively reach the unevangelized in home and foreign lands. The great need in their eyes is to have strong and flourishing churches in the centres of Christian population, with imposing sanctuaries, popular preaching, and all the modern conveniences for religious enterprise at home. Thus they would centralize all possible good influences, and trust to their natural effect in ever-widening circles among the population of the whole world. But such a plausible theory is suspicious in being so well adapted to mask the most repulsive selfishness. It is so easy to re- strict home-giving to mere payment for value received ; so that usually it comes to pass that there is no benevo- lence at all in those who limit their contributions to the maintenance of their own sanctuary services. But even when the motive is honest, the plan is impracticable. Anti-Mission churches do not prove to be radiating centres of powerful Christian influence. The cause of world evangelization is more hindered than helped by them. A church wrapped up within itself, Christ can- not use.
It is well to inquire into the cause of this prevailing destitution of the true missionary spirit among our churches. Why are they generally so absorbed in their own local prosperities ? Why do they take so little in- terest in sending missionaries and colporteurs to our new States and Territories, and in sustaining Christian labor- ers among the hundreds of millions of heathen lands? It is not from want of success upon the mission field. Our Home Mission Society records the baptism of 85,281
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converts and the organization of 2765 churches; our Pub- lication Society's colporteurs and other laborers have vis- ited religiously over 650,000 families, established 4000 Sunday-schools, and been blessed to the conversion of many thousands ; and our Missionary Union numbers at present, in connection with all its foreign stations, 908 churches, 1054 native ministers and helpers, and 85,308 members. This is unquestionably great success when we take into account the vast difficulties which have been overcome, the foundation-work which has thus been laid for a far more demonstrative future, and the reflex benefits which have been derived in such numerous ways and in such bountiful measure. It is as plain as the sun at noon that God has owned and blessed our missions. Nor is there any want of opportunity for enlargement to make excuse for the lack of the missionary spirit. Never have the calls been so loud for the reinforcement of mis- sion stations ; never have there been such opportunities for evangelizing enterprise among our native and foreign populations ofthe West, among the Freedmen of the South, throughout Europe and the vast interiors of Asia, Africa, and South America.
The cause of the great lack of the missionary spirit in our churches is that there is not enough of Christ in them. Want of information, indeed, is an explanation that is frequently given, and one that has much force. It is strange that, with such numerous and excellent facilities for every one to become acquainted with the mission fields, the work, and the workers, so little, after all, is really known. I have been asked, even by minis- ters, whether any progress has been made in Christian-
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izing the Indians, and what a colporteur really is. And, since my return to America, I was announced in one of our Northern cities by one of our well-known pastors as an old and successful missionary from Burmah. Church members considered qualified to teach in the Sunday- school inquire if the Zenana tribe is anything like the Sqitaw Karens ; if the Publication Society does any mis sionary work ; if the Home Mission Society does any thing for the Freedmen ; and if the Missionary Union is a union society or undenominational. Such inexcusable lack of information must seriously interfere with any con- siderable missionary interest. It can hardly be possible that those who make such inquiries have ever carefully read through a single annual report of either of our three great Baptist mission societies ; scarcely is it probable that they have studied so much as one of our monthly missionary magazines or papers.
But then information is not enough. Every Chris- tian family might receive the missionary periodicals, and be provided with the standard histories and biographies and books of travel which belong to the literature of Christian missions, and all the members of our churches might become thoroughly informed upon the whole sub- ject ; yet an adequate measure of the true missionary spirit would be absent without more of Christ in the churches. The grand necessity is for a general and genuine revival of religion. Information is badly enough needed, indeed, but vastly more essential is the^zeal of the divine life within the heart of the believer to take hold of this information and use it to the glory of God in the salvation of souls. Christ was a missionary from
MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCHES. 95
the bosom of the Father in heaven to our ruined race. Upon him was breathed by the Holy Spirit the mission- ary idea without measure. To go after the lost at every personal sacrifice and through every possible danger was the consuming purpose of his earthly mission. Had he not been driven forth from Nazareth, he must have gone, impelled by the self-emptying love he felt for all man- kind. He could not confine his sympathies and limit his benefactions to Nazareth or Capernaum or Jerusa- lem. Christ was nothing if he was not missionary in his motives, his aims, his methods. His attitude was ever that of endeavoring to reach all around our sin- cursed world. His disciples, so far as they represent their Divine Master, must represent him in this. They must continually exhibit a disposition to go out after the lost. They will never be contented with a localized religious interest. If the light from God is within them more than a feeble, flickering flame of future possibilities, it will shine out upon the surrounding darkness of world- liness and heathenism. Sympathies and prayers and benevolences will flow forth toward the destitute regions of the world. More of Christ, then, in his followers is the supreme need of the missionary cause — more of his love, more of his mind, more of his life ; thus will inter- est be enlisted in world evangelization. Let the execu- tive officers of our societies toil on to spread more and more information among the myriad members of our churches. Let their noble volunteer assistants in this work, scattered all over the country, persevere in the effort to give the masses a missionary education. But that still larger number of the ministry and members
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who are seeking all the while by their lips and their lives to make the church of Jesus Christ better acquaint- ed with its head, its heart, its all ; whose chief burden in prayer and effort is to secure a deep and general revi- val of genuine piety — the vital union of every member with him who came into this world, " not to be minis- tered unto, but to minister " to others, to all, — they con- stitute the most important agency of the mission cause to-day; upon their instrumentality especially depends the missionary spirit in our churches.
It is evident that the resources of the Baptist denomi- nation are equal to a very great enlargement of mission- ary enterprise without at all interfering with legitimate home interests. At a cost of less than two cents per week for each member throughout the North, we are supporting only six hundred and thirty-eight mission- aries and colporteurs. Only one out of every fifteen hundred of our church-members is sent to the destitute regions of our own land and to the teeming millions of anti-Christian and heathen populations. A very much larger proportion could be spared from our home minis- try and membership without rendering it necessary for churches to go pastorless or Sunday-schools to be with- out teachers. Should twice the number of present laborers be immediately sent forth, and at three times the present expense — for that would not be a too-gen- erous support — it would still fall far short of our respon- sibility before God ; yet the direct results would be glori- ous and the reflex blessings upon the home churches an equal benediction. Faith would be strengthened ; God's word would be irradiated with new light ; much greater
MISSIONARY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCHES. 9/
inspiration would be felt for all the details of the import- ant home work ; and there would be greater restlessness to do and be yet more for Christ throughout all the sphere of this life's responsibilities.
In view of the evangelizing interests which are es- pecially now at stake, as also of the ease with which a worldly mind can profess a practically anti-mission Chris- tianity, it is a serious question whether any one who seems entirely destitute of the missionary spirit can be really a child of God, Neither history nor the prospect of centuries furnishes a period of larger and more numerous opportunities for mission enterprise than the present, and many of the most important of them are of a transient character. Never will our great West be opened up again by millions of pioneers from among the Christian homes and church influences of the East, and particularly from New England. The lessons of the past teach the thoughtful that the marvellous immigration to our country from all parts of the world cannot continue as at present into another generation. There are slaves yet to be liberated, especially in Central Africa ; but never again will four millions of Freedmen be cast fresh from emancipation upon the hearts and the consciences of American Christians. It is in our day — in none other — when Japan takes her place among the nations, and China casts down the barriers to her isolation, and India opens her doors, and Islam totters to its fall, and Rome's followers are beginning to think for themselves, and Africa is explored. Future generations will have their own responsibilities, but plainly ours is especially the responsibility of mission enterprise. Not to see it is
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blindness ; not to hear it is deafness, God is declaring his purpose to our generation of Christians with a voice above that of the thunder. But the condition of multi- tudes in our churches shows how easy it is for people to profess religion and attend to the formal services of the Lord's house, and yet see nothing of the onward march of God's special purposes of world evangelization to-day, and hear nothing of Emmanuel's voice of command. Are they his soldiers? Are they in the ranks of the redeemed ? The absence of the missionary spirit in so many of our churches and from so many of our mem- bers is largely accountable for the prevailing unbelief in Christian lands. By this, also, millions of heathen are being strengthened in their prejudices. They know, if we do not, that a practically anti-mission Christianity is a self-evident falsehood.
CHAPTER VII.
BAPTIST MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE.
THE "British and Irish Baptist Home Mission" has an annual income of about thirty-two thousand dol- lars and its headquarters in the building belonging to the "Baptist Missionary Society" (foreign), 19 Castle street, Holborn, W. C, London. But, enterprising and success- ful as is this home society in establishing and strength- ening Baptist missions throughout Great Britain and Ireland, its expenditures by no means represent all that is being done there by our denomination in this direc- tion. Even as in America the State Conventions almost, if not quite, double the work of our Home Mission So- ciety, so in England there are many local Baptist organ- izations and enterprises multiplying the labor directed from Castle street. In the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and under the superintendency of Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, there centres quite as much home-mission activity outside the immediate local responsibility of this church in the des- titute sections of London and throughout the country as at the headquarters of the general Society. The English are great people for multiplying missions and charities. They have over a thousand of them in the metropolis, and there and elsewhere Baptists have their proportionate share. Of the more general character is
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also " The Baptist and Home Missionary Society for Scotland," with headquarters at Leith,
Just beyond our missionary building on Castle street, at the corner of Cursitor street, is " The Baptist Tract and Book Society," which, it is hoped, will one day be to the denomination in Great Britain what the American Baptist Publication Society is to Baptists in the United States. It publishes quite a list of valuable religious and denominational works and a goodly number of tracts designed especially to meet current infidelity and ritualism.
With the history and the work of " The Baptist Mis- sionary Society " especially, the Baptist denomination in America should become acquainted. That Society has taken by far the leading position for enterprise among the general British Baptist missions. Its income is eight times that of the home Society, and it owns a beautiful building for offices, free of debt, and admirably located in the centre of London. The total contributions last year amounted to ;^5 1,459 Hs- io<^-. oi" about ^250,000, and with these funds are wholly supported 6?) mission- aries, and partially 14 more in India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Europe, Africa, and the West Indies. Connected with these stations are 33,805 church-members, among whom are 57 pastors of self-supporting churches and 241 evangelists. In the mission schools are 166 teachers, with 5 141 scholars.
A comparison of such statistics with those of the American Baptist Missionar)^ Union indicates that the home department of our British foreign-mission cause is decidedly in advance of that of our Missionary Union,
MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE. 10 1
and that, on the other hand, American evangelization abroad has been blessed with much the larger measure of success. Nearly two-thirds of the English churches give something annually to the cause, while not over half of the Baptist churches, even in our Northern States, contribute at all. The average of the English Baptists is eighty cents per member, to the American average of but thirty cents. I have sought carefully for an explanation of this. It is certainly not in greater ability to give. The rank and file of Baptist churches in England do not probably handle more than half as much money as the same number of the same denomi- nation in America. And certainly history shows that in generosity of nature the American is not surpassed by the Englishman.
Three explanations we notice, one at " the Rooms," one in the home field, and the other in the ministry. Among the executive officers at the Baptist Missionary Union's headquarters in Boston there is as much intel- ligence and fidelity as among those who superintend our •foreign-mission work in London. We have as much reason to be thankful to God for the names of Hovey, Murdock, and Smith as have the English Baptists for those of Underbill, Baynes, and Tritton. But I received in London the impression of more accurate familiarity with the foreign field and the work of the missionaries than I have found in Boston. The London acquaintance seemed to be such as could be derived only from close personal observation, while that of Boston was evidently the result chiefly of correspondence and verbal reports. At the English " Rooms " all the questions asked me 9*
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showed that they had been there, and that we were talk- ing of scenes far away with which we were ahke famihar. Such information is specially fitted to convey missionary instruction and enthusiasm to the denomination. The London administration has been very wise in sending so many delegations to the different parts of its foreign field. Secretary Baynes is at present visiting the mis- sions in India. I heard a little criticism in Delhi from one of the English missionaries about this being over- done, together with the strongly-expressed opinion that the administration would help their missionaries most by letting them alone. But this was the sole exception to the judgment I found among the thousand missionaries visited. They all endorsed the plan of frequent delega- tions from the home churches, and especially from the executive officers at the Rooms, to secure the utmost familiarity with the field and the work and the workers, to carry back these fresh, vivid personal impressions, and to transfer them to the churches as the missionaries could not themselves.
Take, for example, the sending of the Secretary, Dr. Underbill, to Jamaica in 1859-60, and to Africa in 1869, and especially his previous delegation to India, where, in behalf of the home churches, he spent nearly two years and a half in conference with the missionary brethren. His eyes were worth more than a thousand letters, though written by the most able and painstaking missionaries and read with the utmost attention and deliberation by the Executive Committee. What he said subsequently had double the weight with the constituency of the Baptist Missionary Society. The churches felt that they were
MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE. IO3
receiving their information and counsel and exhortations more nearly at first hand. And a similar impression of such special facility for securing the interest and the co- operation of the masses a visitor secures at the Rooms of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in New York, as also at those of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston. With these brethren, so remarkably successful in raising mission funds (5580,256.31 and ^430,752.46), there is a large measure of the inspiration of thorough personal acquaintance with the various foreign fields. What they ,• say and what they write indicate no more consecration i to the great cause, and no more intelligent conception of \ the principles and methods of missions, than on the part of \ our Boston brethren ; but they wield a remarkable power in public address and through their various periodicals. Each of these Societies secures nearly twice as much money as we do, and supports nearly twice as many missionaries.
Therefore it would probably be a very wise plan for American Baptists to recall a few early precedents, as in 1835 and 1852, and to send Rev. Alvah Hovey, D. D., Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Rev. J. N. Murdock, D. D., Corresponding Secretary, as a delega- tion for one year and a half to visit all our stations. It would be better if they should have two years, so as to study the missions of other denominations and countries. Then, when they return, send two others from the Board in three years, and so on. An accompanying delegation from the woman's societies each time would also be an excellent plan. I thoroughly believe the investment of
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money and of still more valuable time would pay a very large return to our denominational interest in foreign missions, and to the treasury of the Missionary Union, I am quite sure that this plan would receive the hearty endorsement of the missionaries. They are all the while seeing and feeling what they are conscious they cannot tell as well as others. They understand the need of funds too well to encourage any needless expenditures ; yet I know that nearly all of them would most enthusiastically second this motion.
Another thing tending to the more general diffusion of an interest in missions in England is specially to be noted — the nearness of all the churches to the Rooms and the ease with which they can be reached by the mission agencies. The entire area of Great Britain and Ireland does not greatly exceed twice the area of New York, nor four times that of Massachusetts, It is one thing to reach and move churches packed in the small area of one hundred and twenty-one thousand square miles, and quite another to do the same with those which are scattered over nearly three million square miles. Bring our churches as close together as those of Great Britain, and we shall probably be able to move them much more speedily and effectively. If they were all brought to- gether in the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana — which would make up nearly the area of Great Britain and Ireland — then forty-eight hours would take a secre- tary from the Rooms to the farthermost point and back, and in our pulpits and among the members there would be very much more missionary intelligence, interest, and co-operation.
MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE. IO5
And this emphasizes another fact that American Baptists are too slow to learn — the need of the support of a large and efficient corps of home agencies. We cannot contract the limits of our vast territory. Not until invention has made much greater progress with modes of travel can Secretary Griffith or Secretary Johnson be in Portland to-day, and to- morrow in Leavenworth; or Secretary Morehouse at a meeting in Providence this evening, and at another in St. Paul the following evening ; or Secretary Murdock attend a farewell missionary service in New York, a mass-meeting in Cincinnati, and a con- ference with the Executive Committee in Boston all in one day. So far from being reluctant to support the agencies we now have, there ought to be a demand for more of them. The churches in the vicinities of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston are not made up of more intelligent and generous members than in many other localities throughout our country, but with them the agencies at the Rooms come more frequently into contact. In those neighborhoods it is more as in Eng- land. Commerce and politics with us accept the situa- tion, and lay out the larger amount upon running ex- penses. The same wisdom should be exercised in all our mission enterprises.
Another explanation of the fact that the home depart- ment of the English Baptist Missionary Society is very noticeably in advance of that of the American Baptist Missionary Union is that the English ministers — prob- ably, in a good degree, on account of their nearness to each other and to the Rooms — take a more general and intelligent and practical interest in foreign missions than
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we do. In the British Isles the pastors are the moving spirits in the communicating of information and in col- lecting and forwarding funds to the treasury. With us, alas! how many the churches where such responsibility is left almost, if not entirely, to the casual missionary prompt- ings of some of the members! On the 24th of last April there were missionary sermons preached both morning and evening at one hundred and fifty-three different Bap- tist chapels in London — three hundred and six sermons — and at seventy-eight of these places there were "juve- nile missionary services" held in the afternoon of that same day. The English Baptist missionary anniversa- ries last a full week, and that alone in the interest of the foreign work ; while in America there is restlessness at the Missionary Union taking two days of the four, as also at the Publication Society reaching over into an extra evening with the anniversary exercises of its grandly-developing Sunday-School Department. The Missionary Union has seven District Secretaries, and then the auxiliary woman's societies come up bravely with thirty State Secretaries ; but then I have before me a list of " District and Corresponding Secretaries of the Baptist Missionary Society" (English), including the names of ninety-three ministers and members. Great pains are taken to distribute suitable rules for the or- ganization of "County Auxiliaries" and "Congregational Auxiliaries" and "Ladies' Branches" and "Juvenile Mis- sionary Societies" and "Sunday-School Missionary Asso- ciations."
In the work abroad, however, the American mission- aries have been more abundantly blessed than those sent
ANDREW FULLER. D. D. riif.'c- 1(17.
MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE. 10/
by the English Baptist Society. The success of the lattei in the West Indies is equal, numerically, to that of the former in Burmah ; yet the converts connected with the American stations outnumber the English in India and Europe. The same is true in China and in Japan, but there is no opportunity for comparison in those coun- tries, as the English missionaries have been so few and so recently stationed. The English Baptist translation and press work at Serampore and Calcutta has been very remarkable, but the American missions are in advance at Bassein in general education, at Swatow and Ramapatam in the training of a native ministry, and in Ongole, Ger-/ many, and Sweden in evangelizing enterprise. Ameri- cans are the more democratic, and more easily adjust themselves to labor among the masses. They are nat- urally the more enterprising, the more ready to form their own plans and to carry them into execution. Then almost uniformly their principle of temperance is total ab- stinence. Besides, we Americans are more in favor with other nations, since there is no suspicion of our enter- taining ambition to annex foreign territory. And in China we have the immense advantage of not being identified with the government which is responsible for the vast opium curse.
The Baptist Missionary Society was formed in 1792. Among the twelve founders were William Carey, John Ryland, and Andrew Fuller. That same year Dr. Carey preached the memorable discourse from Isa. liv. 2 whose two headings became the appropriate motto of the Soci- ety: " 1st. Expect great things from God; 2d. Attempt great things for God." It was discovered that "there
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was a gold-mine in India, but it seemed almost as deep as the centre of the earth."
" Who," said Dr. Fuller — " who will venture to ex- plore it?"
" I will go down," replied Dr. Carey; "but remember that you must hold the ropes."
Not till three years after reaching Calcutta was a home found for the mission, and then at Serampore under Dan- ish protection. At the same time Drs. Ward, Marshman, and others arrived as reinforcements. The greatest dif- ficulties upon the field came from the English Govern- ment. But they were providentially overruled for the furtherance of the gospel, in that these brethren, so pre- eminently qualified for the work, were compelled to devote most of their time to the acquisition and the use of the native languages in the translation of the Scriptures and in the preparation of a Christian literature. It was seven years before the first convert was baptized.
The Society entered upon the interesting work in Jamaica in 1813, but Serampore still commanded the most attention. The natives called the first mission press a balathe dhoiirga — " English idol." Yet they soon learned that it was not speechless. The word of God was issued in Bengali, Hindustani, Chinese, San- scrit, Hindi, Malay, Singhalese, Tamil, Javanese, be- sides numerous lexicons and grammars and other liter- ature in several of these languages. Dr. Yates became the successor of Dr. Carey in this vast translation work, and before they and their associates, Drs. Marshman and Ward, entered into rest, the Bible, either in whole or in part, had been issued by them in forty-four of the Ori-
WILLIAM CAREY, D. D. Page 108.
MISSIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND EUROPE. IO9
ental languages or dialects, spoken by more than five hundred millions of people. An immense number of religious tracts also were placed in circulation, which contributed to undermine the popular confidence in idolatry and to lay the foundations for Asiatic Chris- tianity.
The sacrifices of these early Baptist missionaries have never been surpassed in the history of modern missions. Though receiving at times large compensation for the valuable services they were able to render to the Eng- lish Government on account of their knowledge of so many native languages, they drew but a dollar per week each for their food for long periods, and were enabled thus to contribute several hundred thousand dollars themselves to their translation enterprises and to the founding of the Serampore college. I visited this col- lege, as also the Calcutta press establishment, and with the most profound gratitude for the magnificent work which both have done. For the former as well as the latter there should be a future. A manufacturing estab- lishment has been allowed to be erected close to the college, but this difficulty must be surmounted even as so many others have been in the name of this Baptist institution, and the noble monument to the Serampore missionaries must be preserved. So say those three neighboring graves to our denomination in England,
Very great assistance has been rendered by this So- ciety, not only to the cause of evangelization, but also to that of emancipation, in the West Indies. In Ceylon, where its labors have been specially blessed, several native churches are furnishing bright examples of self-reliance 10
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and evangelizing zeal. I look to see its work in Brittany soon starting forward upon a more prosperous career, since the situation throughout France has lately become so hopeful for Protestant missions. Dr. Wenger's com- pletion of the Bible in Sanskrit is a great monument to sacred learning. I was glad to see also at our press in Calcutta Pilgrivi's Progress in Hindi. The Congo mis- sion in West Africa is now being pushed by this Society with great earnestness. Its missionaries have reached as far inland as Stanley Pool. Some of them there evident- ly feel as Dr. Livingstone when he wrote to his Society : "I am at your disposal to go anywhere, provided it be
I FORWARD."
German Baptists are sustaining a quite successful mis- sion in British Caffraria, South Africa, as also in Central and Southern Russia. Their labors in Sweden, assisted from America, and taken up and carried forward by the Swedish converts themselves, form one of the most en- couraging chapters in the history of modern missions. "The Missionary Union" of Stockholm has sustained over one hundred laborers, chiefly in the home field. How, by these and by other Baptist forces in Europe, great victories for the cross are being constantly gained all over the continent we shall have occasion to note more fully toward the closing chapters of this volume.
CHAPTER VIII.
JAPAN.
WE have crossed the American Continent and the Pacific Ocean. Three thousand miles of railway- riding and five thousand miles of voyaging upon the great deep have brought us from the shores of the At- lantic States to those of " The Kingdom of the Rising Sun " — far away, indeed, from Rhode Island, yet not homesick, for we have brought home with us. Though one link has been left behind in Cleveland, Ohio, we can still form a family circle — father, mother, son — around the table of a Japanese inn, within .the house-boats of interior China, and in the dock-bungalows of India. The arrangement is admirable, and guarantees, if life and health are spared, a pleasurable second year's absence abroad. It is a poor way to travel, to leave the wife at home. When, in Egypt, Palestine, and Europe, I have met American gentlemen enjoying their opportunities selfishly by themselves, it was a satisfaction to hear them speak of loneliness and unattended sicknesses and social rebuffs : they deserved them all.
For an account of our journey from New York to San Francisco, of the three weeks' Pacific voyage, as also of many other " fillings-in " of this tour around the world, I shall be compelled, by the limits of these pages, to re- in
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fer the reader to our books mentioned upon the title-page and in the preface to this volume. Suffice it here to re- late that we found west of the Mississippi the cars and tracks fully equal to the best in the Eastern States, and the ocean accommodations comparing very favorably with those upon the Atlantic. In attendance, there is marked improvement from Chicago westward. The Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas made it very plain that Americans need not go to Europe to find a Switzerland. We did not turn aside in Utah to visit Salt Lake City, having seen enough of Mormonism in Turkey. In San Francisco, exceptional opportunity, under police guidance and protection, convinced me that it outranks even New Orleans in vice, and that the Chinese portion of the population are not the leaders in the downward road to death. Alas that here and throughout California the evangelizing work of the Baptist denomination has been so hindered by un- worthy politico-religious leadership, in alliance with the worst elements of society ! May God strengthen the hearts of Rev. G. S. Abbott, D. D., and our like-minded brethren upon the Pacific coast, to struggle on in the effort to redeem our name, and to give Baptists an honorable place in the Christianizing of our farthermost West !
For many days after passing out through the Golden Gate it was difficult to realize that we had left America and Christian civilization behind, and should next meet lands and people upon the other side of the world. The crossing, in mid-ocean, of the one hundred and eightieth meridian, and the dropping out there of a day, helped to transport in feeling from the Occident to the Orient.
JAPAN. 1 1 3
But it was not until we cast anchor in the harbor of Yokohama ; saw the strange new life swarming around our steamer; noted peerless Fuji-yama looming up sixty miles away ; passed the custom-house examination at the hands of those queer little gentlemanly Japanese ; and then stepped into a jin-riki-sha, or man-drawn baby- carriage, to ride in search of friends and mail and quarters, — that I fully realized the distance accom- plished, the exchanged hemispheres, and that I was again in Asia. It was two months from this intro- duction to Japan to our reluctant departure from so beautiful a land at the harbor of Nagasaki.
Meanwhile, we visited Tokio, Kiyoto, Osaka, and Kobe; travelled three hundred and fifty miles through the interior of the country upon the celebrated Tokaido ; went to Kamakura, Dai-Buts, and Fuji-yama; sailed over Lake Biwa and the matchless inland sea ; and besides, I took an excursion alone for a hundred miles to the north from Tokio to the wonderful shrines of lyeyasu and lye- mitsu at Nikko. The journeying was mostly by jin-riki- shas, though occasionally we were compelled reluctantly to exchange them for roughly-constructed stages and ex- cruciating kagos — the rudest kind of a bamboo palanquin. Heavy luggage was kept in range of the steamships, and the plan in the interior was to test thoroughly, in all their varieties, the native resources for food and comfort. Trav- ellers in foreign lands, especially in the more distant East, make a great mistake in trying to ensure the familiar home accommodations everywhere. Better make up the mind to take the natives at their own familiar best, and enjoy the novelty of it all. Those Japanese inns, far removed
10*
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from the European and American hotels at the treaty- ports, — it was a rich treat to be put through their quaint processes of entertainment. Such exquisite poHteness ; such remarkable cleanliness ; such good rice and eggs and fish — if you had ordered them cleaned ; and — Well, not much else that would be very appetizing ; but then, after every effort to make out an extrav^agant bill, to re- ceipt for supper, lodging, breakfast, attendance, fire, lights, baths, etc., for fifteen cents each person! Charm- ing simplicity, indeed ! It is really a pity that so soon the natives, even in the far interior, will learn the ex- travagant ways and high-priced living of foreigners.
The country is very beautiful ; almost equal in extent to our New England and Middle States; comprising four large and nearly four thousand small islands; abounding in mountain- and hill-ranges, generally cultivated and covered with a rich foliage. The fields are kept very fertile ; and vegetables, tea, rice, and other grains, are raised in abundance. The last census gave a population of 34,338,404, and to the capital, Tokio, 1,036,771. The Japanese are the French of the Orient, of which the Chi- nese are the Anglo-Saxons. The Japanese are very impulsive and imitative ; of small stature, but good muscular development; their complexion copper color; the men's heads partly shaved, with the remaining hair gathered into a topknot ; the married women's teeth blackened ; and for all a long loose style of dress pre- dominating, except where dress is discarded nearly alto- gether. Sandals of wood or straw are worn everywhere. The houses are generally of one story, with thatched roofs and with movable paper screen partitions. Every
JAPAN. 1 1 5
home has its little garden laid out in extensive miniature landscape, generally in the rear, next to the best-room, the kitchen being on the street. Everything is on such a diminutive scale that the people seem to be playing at life.
But their history for the last ten years has been no child's play. The marvellous results of Japan's revolu- tion in civilization are much more than the effect of im- potent resistance to foreign encroachment. The Empire of over twenty-five centuries' uninterrupted mikadoship had become herself ripe to break with the shogunate and bakufuate usurpation, and to strive for the overthrow of feudalism. The foreigner was the occasion, not the cause, of the revolution. Native men of ability like Okubo, Kido, and Iwakura were ready to improve the oppor- tunity and to lead rapidly forward upon the highway of civilization. They have reinstated the Emperor ; organ- ized all the departments of government upon the most approved plans among advanced nations ; furnished an army and a navy with the best equipment ; constructed telegraph-lines and railways ; built public docks and workshops ; dotted their coasts with lighthouses ; estab- lished a thorough educational system (with three and a half million now in the schools, the male pupils largely and unduly preponderating) ; encouraged the press to a marvellous development ; adopted a decimal currency ; erected the second-sized mint of the world ; declared complete religious toleration ; conformed to the calendar of Christian nations; recognized the Lord's Day, com- manding the nation to observe it ; suppressed two-thirds of the Buddhistic monasteries ; given Shintooism a broad
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hint that it has had its day ; and sent many hundreds of Japan's most promising youth to America and to Europe to learn what more improvements can be made.
Truly, it is wonderful. Already the leaders are be- ginning to realize that they cannot have our civilization actually and permanently without having our Christian- ity also. They had been hoping otherwise. When they came to appreciate that Shintooism and Buddhism must pass away, they welcomed a revival of the old Confucian philosophy in sympathy with the modern materialism of America and Europe. But I rejoiced to find, in conver- sations with the official classes, in visits to the govern- ment schools, and in watching the drift of the native press, many evidences that the leaders of Japan are more and more disposed to extend a positive encouragement to Christianity. Indeed, my anxieties were awakened lest this should go too far. A government patronage might be more calamitous than persecution. But for the pres- ence and influence of the missionaries, and the fact that a majority are Americans, I should expect to see in fifteen years more a union of church and state in Japan, the government maintaining Christian services in all the old Shintoo and Buddhist temples.
Christian missions could not fail to see the grandly- opening opportunity and to hear the voice of God. Mis- sionaries of several of the societies began to enter the fi.eld twenty-two years ago, but till 1872 their work was simply introductory, engaged in the government schools, and instructing private religious classes. They were greatly embarrassed by the flagrant immoralities of so many foreigners among a grossly licentious heathen
JAPAN. 117
people, and also by the bewildering readiness to class- ify Christ and his prophets and apostles among the gods of Shintoo worship. The proclamations of death to all accepting the " vile Jesus doctrine " still remained post- ed throughout the Empire. Yet a few here and there were believing in Christ and distinguishing between his true followers and the ungodly of Christian lands. Gov- ernment began to have confidence in the missionaries. Chinese Testaments were numerously sold at different points throughout the country, the educated being able to read in the Chinese characters. The week of prayer of 1872 witnessed a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the missions and many of the natives. A few months after, the first Japanese Christian church was formed in Yokohama.
At the same time the same Spirit was moving Amer- ican Baptists to undertake mission work in Japan. The Free Mission Society had done some preliminary work through Rev. J. Goble, and Rev. N. Brown, D. D., was under appointment. That Society being ready to trans- fer its responsibility, the Missionary Union, at the evi- dent desire of the denomination, received it and assumed the support of these brethren. They reached their field in 1873. The former soon became disconnected from the Society, but has done some valuable work since as an independent Baptist missionary, and is at present very successful throughout the country as a Bible colporteur. Dr. and Mrs. Brown located at Yokohama, while toward the close of the year the reinforcement Rev. J. H. and Mrs. Arthur arrived and soon commenced work in To- kio. For a year, assistance was rendered by Rev. J. T.
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Doyen, whose failure of eyesight compelled him to with- draw. In 1875, the little church in Yokohama had its faith tried in the loss of its chapel by fire, and a year afterward our other infant church in Tokio was far more afflicted in the death of the earnest and successful young missionary Mr. Arthur. Meanwhile, Rev. and Mrs. F. S. Dobbins joined the mission, but the health of the lat- ter soon compelled return to America. In 1875, Miss Clara A. Sands was located in Yokohama, and Miss A. H. Kidder in Tokio. In 1878, Rev. and Mrs. H. H. Rhees were appointed to Tokio, where Miss Kidder has since been joined by Miss E. J. Munson. Rev. and Mrs. A. A. Bennett began work in Yokohama in 1879. We have learned recently that Mr. and Mrs. Rhees have commenced work in Kobe, with out-station at Tokushima in the north of the island of Sikok. This new move is recorded with feelings of mingled satisfaction and anx- iety. This year, also. Rev. and Mrs. T. P. Poate received appointment, the former having been a professor in the Imperial University, and the latter a missionary under the Presbyterian Board. Though located in Yokohama, their principal work of late has been far to the north, at Sendai and Morioka. Rev. and Mrs. F. S. Dobbins have since rejoined the mission, where it is hoped that her health will permit their life-work to be done with all the marked efficiency illustrated of late in Philadelphia.
Let us make some calls upon these our missionaries and look in upon their work.
This house upon the Bluff, the Foreign Concession of Yokohama, is the home of Dr. Brown and his family — a double house, one-half to be occupied by the new mis-
JAPAN. 1 1 9
sionaries, Rev. and Mrs. A. A. Bennett. The other house, which belongs to the mission, is occupied by Rev. Mr. Poate and wife and Miss Sands. All the other leading missions here have better homes for their missionaries. But ours would answer if only they could be kept in repair; and they would never misrepresent, as some mis- sion dwellings do, the life and the labor of missionaries. A pleasant greeting from Mrs. Brown, and we are intro- duced into her husband's workshop. It has the appear- ance of those German studies where such prodigious labor is accomplished. It would never be mistaken for a parlor. At the table, with an efficient native assistant, Dr. Brown is toiling on at Bible translation. This occupa- tion recalls his similar service for the Assamese, in whose country he labored nearly a score of years. He has fin- ished the New-Testament translation into the phonetic character. The Union Committee of the other missions have done the same, but into the literary style, which has appropriated the Chinese characters. The latter work is in the most demand, for it is in the style in which the people are being educated — God's wisdom, perhaps, to keep them the better qualified eventually to co-operate in Chinese evangelization. Our venerable brother's labor, however, has been a valuable contribution to the Bible cause in Japan. "Venerable"? No, indeed ! A young man still, or he could not have so tired me out on those long walks. The most beautiful sight I witnessed in all Japan was his baptism of three converts in the waters upon the shore of the sea. Two of them were a mother and her daughter, while the father, a physician, and al- ready a member of the Yokohama Church, held his lit-
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tie son in his arms, explaining to him that this was the way that Jesus did, and that he wanted us all to do.
Upon the side of the Bluff we will call upon Miss Sands. " Not at home," as we might have expected, for she is a most indefatigable worker among the Japanese homes. We will then take the railway to Tokio, eighteen miles distant, and we shall reach Miss Kidder there at just the hours she is occupied with her girls' school. These la- dies have been of incalculable service to these two sta- tions. Dr. Brown's translation work, the lamented death of Mr. Arthur, and the removals and various circumstances of the other missionaries, have to a very unusual extent thrown responsibility upon them. How faithfully they have trained their Bible-women ; how judiciously man- aged their schools ; how laboriously visited from house to house ! They have appreciated the need of winning the hearts of the natives, and plainly they have done it.
Mrs. Rhees, whom we meet in her new home then in Tsukiji, is also, both by nature and by grace, specially adapted to the work. Her husband is a laborious stu- dent of the language, conscientious, and of many years' experience in home pastorates.
Mr, Poate is a valuable accession to the effective work- ing force of our mission. He is perfectly at home among these exceedingly polite and genial people. These ele- ments of qualification are of more consequence here than in China or in India or in America. The gratifying way in which his tours to the far North have been blessed shows us that Baptists need not be behind Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Methodists in the success of Japanese missions. Of the nearly two thousand members
JAPAN. 121
and eight thousand adherents, our ingathering thus far has not exceeded one hundred converts and five hun- dred regular attendants.
When we look at the marvellous opportunity for mis- sion work in Japan which the providence of God has sud- denly sprung upon the Christian churches, and observe the way in which several of our sister-denominations are meet- ing their responsibility, we feel ashamed of the compara- tively small contribution of life and money which Baptists have thus far made in this direction. The Presbyterians have 21 missionaries; the Congregationalists, 45; the Methodists, 23; the American Baptists, only ii. While the demand for native preachers is enormous; and the Congregationalists have their hundred in preparation at the Kiyoto Training-School ; and the Methodists have just completed a five-thousand-dollar theological-semi- nary building and commenced an endowment with ten thousand dollars ; and the three Presbyterian missions are united in the support of a most efficient institution for native preachers at Tokio ; and both the Church of England and the American Episcopalians have theirs at Nagasaki and at the capital, — we Baptists as yet are doing nothing except in a private and incidental way.
Our Board should be enabled immediately to double, at the least, our mission force and our expenditures in Japan. The necessity is not the ordinary one for en- largement. The life of the mission is at stake. The enterprise of others will swamp us, unless we enter more vigorously upon the discharge of our duty. No doubt, if we allow our denominational interests there to drift along as in the past, the time will come in the future 11
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when Japanese Christian scholarship will investigate the Greek Testament and church history for itself, and Bap- tist principles will become prominent. But now, even as it ought to be, it is more a question of evangelizing en- terprise than of denominational principles. And we are woefully behind. I saw it and felt it all the time I was in Japan. I wished sometimes the denomination had never commenced there until ready to be more enter- prising.
We should establish a theological school at once at Tokio, with two missionary professorships and fifty scholarships. God would fill it up immediately, as he did the training-school at Kiyoto. We should have a weekly religious paper, like that the Congregationalists print at Kobe. The press is a wonderful power in Japan, The editor and chief proprietor of the Nichi- Nichi-Shinbiin showed me his exchange list of forty dailies and one hundred and sixty weeklies and month- lies. Two families should be located in the North, in- cluding a missionary physician. And, as others besides the American Board have stations in the South, I felt strongly we should immediately have one at Osaka or upon Lake Biwa. Otsu would be an admirable loca- tion.
The last of our mission band whom we met in Japan were Miss Sands and Mrs. Poate, who came to Kanagawa to bid us Godspeed upon the Tokaido, May they and their fellow-laborers soon be reinforced up to the full measure of our denominational responsibility ! Around them are most interesting millions prepared to be re- ligiously instructed, and already impressed to a degree
JAPAN. 123
that the new religion must accompany the new civiliza- tion. A remarkable number of the "upper Samurai class are enlisting as Christians and begging a special theo- logical training to become qualified as preachers to the people. The English Baptists have lately located a mis- sionary (Rev. W. J. White) in Tokio. But evidently the chief denominational responsibility must be met by American Baptists. Japan is at our doors, is receiving our civilization, and asks our evangelization.
^^,3^8-,^^'^
CHAPTER IX.
CHINA.
FIVE months in the country, reaching Shanghai early in May, and leaving Hong-kong during the first week of October. It was not a day too long for the de- sired touring throughout the great Empire and a thorough study of the utility, principles, and methods here of Chris- tian missions. Indeed, when the fiercer heat of the sum- mer required us to take shelter a few weeks at Chefoo, the sanitarium of China far to the north, it was with great reluctance that we consented to lose so much time in the presence of so much opportunity. My first journey was inland from Ning-po, via Zao-hying, Hang- chow, Su- chow, Chang-chow, Chin-kiang, Nan-king, Wuhu, Ngan- king, Kiu-kiang, to Han kow, six hundred miles interior from Shanghai, to which latter city I returned by steamer nearly all the way upon the Yang-tse-kiang. From Che- foo, with Mrs. Bainbridge, I crossed the Pe-chili Gulf, ascended the Peiho to Tientsin and Tung-chow, and then travelled overland to Peking and the Great Wall. We had a tour also into the Shan-tung province before returning south. Subsequently we visited the vicinities of Fuchow, Amoy, Swatow, and Canton, touring from the last two cities somewhat into the interior. I had thus been in nine of the eighteen provinces, twenty-eight
124,
G S Harris * SonsLith PhiU
CHINA. 125
of the great walled cities, thousands of villages, and met nearly all the four hundred and ninety-eight Protestant missionaries at work throughout the Empire. It was our special pleasure to see all the Baptist missionaries excepting Rev. T. Richard, sent from England to Shan- si ; and I freely testify the conviction that for piety, intelli- gence, culture, and enterprise they are, of the laborers in China, the peers of those of any other denomination.
China, including, as we should say in America, her states and territories, is twenty-two times the size of Great_Britain, and has a population of from three hun- dred millioji to four hundred millions. I incline to the latter enormous estimate from comparison of impressions of density of population here and in India. There the reliable British statistics report two hundred and fifty million five hundred thousand. But never, even in the most crowded portions of the valley of the Ganges, did there seem to me to be such swarming masses of human- ity as in many a district of interior China. Their authen- tic history dates back to the eighth century b. c.rmost of the time since, the government has been in the hands of native dynasties. Kublai the Mongol and his succes- sors ruled for sixty years from a. d. 1 280. The present dynasty, the Manchu Ts'ing, usurped from the native Ming in 1644. The Emperor being still in his minority, the dowager regent presides at the Peking Court. It was our privilege, while guests of Minister Seward at the American Legation, to see Prince Kung, the prime minister, and all the heads of the departments, and sub- sequently the great viceroy Li-Hung-Chang, at Tientsin.
The Chinese are the most industrious people to be 11 *
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found in the whole world. And herein, probably, is one leading reason why they are permitted by Providence to become so numerous, and why they are colonizing to- day in almost all lands. Other populations are afflicted with indolence. It is the cause of a large proportion of their financial distresses. If they could only be taught the lesson of industry, their condition would be very much improved. So here come the needed host of teachers from the Orient who know nothing of indolence. I never saw a lazy Chinaman. The natives are always working in the field or the shop or the stre^ from morning till evening ; yet the vast majority are very poor, and this marvellous industry is but a struggle for exist- ence. The three chief causes are the dishonesty of the government, the greed of the priesthood, and the opium curse. Theoretically, there is much about the civil ser- vice which is admirable ; practically, it is about as bad as it can be. The examination system is very elaborate, but administration is one vast round of cruel extortion. I do not believe that five per cent, of the revenues of the coun- try are used legitimately. Twenty million dollars were raised by forced contributions for the late famine suffer- ers in Shan-si, Shen-si, and Chi-li ; yet undoubtedly the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of English relief funds, distributed mostly by the missionaries, went far- ther. Then, among a people so excessively supersti- tious, priestcraft has full swing. One-fourth of the female labor of the land is thrown away in the making of paper money for the dead. Then half the men smoke opium — a most expensive as well as deadly habit. The British Government of India derives a revenue of nearly
CHINA. 127
forty-five million dollars annually from the trade, an equal amount, perhaps, being raised in China, especially in the western provinces. And many hundreds of thou- sands of wretched Chinese perish every year within the coils of this terrible anaconda. There is great wealth in the land, but it is in the hands of the i^w, and they dare not make much show of it.
The three great religions of the people are Confucian- ism, Taouism, and Buddhism. The first is a system of morals, with the worship of the ancestral tablet perpet- uated ; the second is a very degraded materialism and idolatry, taught first by Laou-tsze, who flourished with Confucius in the sixth century b. c. ; and Buddhism, the religion of Fo (the Chinese name for Buddha), was trans- planted from India in the first century of the Christian Era. It became very different in China from what it had been below the Himalayas. Indeed, this is the most chameleon-like religion upon the face of the globe. As it was taught by its founder it was atheistic, pessimis- tic, and annihilatory, and thus it will be found to-day in Ceylon ; but in China it adopted a degraded theism and exchanged its Nirvana for the new western paradise. In Japan it joined hands with Shintooism. In Thibet, As- sam, Siam, and Burmah, Buddhism readily consented to admit to its temples and its priestly supervision all the native worship of evil spirits necessary for successful proselytism. This want of regard for principle is one great shame of this heathen religion which many foes of Christianity are so foolishly praising.
Buddhism is the most selfish religion of the world. It contemplates no virtue but for the sake of personal gain.
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Lying would be better than truthfulness if it paid better. The whole system is a masquerade of the virtues — the stealing of the livery of heaven in which most effectively to serve the devil. This generally is the religion of the Chinese when they come to sickness and infirmities and death. In health, however, they frequent Taouist or Confucian temples, their choice depending upon whether their leading anxiety is business prosperity or govern- ment patronage. Such a changeable arrangement could not work unsupported. Human nature requires some- thing abiding, if it be but the grossest superstition of fetichism. The Chinese have this in their belief of the Fung-shway, a superstitious regard for the real and the imaginary powers of nature. Ancestral worship is an important element in this vast, permanent, underlying faith, in that it is thought that the departed spirits have special facilities for helping or hindering the good or the bad Fung-shway influences. It seems to me that the an- nual worship of the Emperor at the altar of heaven in Peking is a part of this universal devotion to the real and the fancied objects and powers of nature.
It is, then, this citadel to the heathenism of China which must first be carried before Christianity can tri- umph. The people must be taught that there is a God above nature. They must be led to realize that there is something more than good and bad luck in this world. A vast network of superstition that tangles every act of their lives must be swept away by visible evidences of its folly and by a true doctrine of the supernatural. In this much may be expected, and that soon, by way of preparation for the gospel, from the introduction of
CHINA. 129
the arts and the sciences from Europe and from Amer- ica ; and especially from the speedy advent of telegraphs and railways and great manufacturing establishments throughout the. Empire. These innovations strike at the whole system of the equilibrium of invisible influ- ences. The popular faith 'in the Fung-shway must go as those poles and lines of wire and iron rails advance, and as those chimneys tower above their houses and temples, and even their pagodas. We saw that Li-Hung- Chang had succeeded in erecting a telegraph-wire from the mouth of the Peiho to Tientsin, and from thence the bold effort is now being made to introduce the line along the Grand Canal to Shanghai.
In the early centuries the Nestorian missionaries ex- tended their labors as far as Shen-si, from which prov- ince I have the copy of an inscription on a monument recording that "the illustrious religion had spread itself in every direction, and temples were in a hundred cities." All these, however, disappeared before the Ming dynasty. Roman Catholics began missions in China in the thirteenth century, under Kublai Khan. They claim at present 34 colleges, 34 convents, 559 native priests, 1,092,818 con- verts, 664 missionaries, and 41 missionary bishops. These, however, must be very exaggerated statistics. I became acquainted with some of the bishops and clergy through courteous introductory letters in both French and Latin from Bishop Hendricken of Providence. They are a hard- working and in many respects successful mission band, but in the Chinese mind they are ineffaceably associated with government intermeddling ; and their influence in China to-day is by no means equal to that of Protestant missions.
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A brighter day began to dawn over these four hundred million heathen when, in 1807, Rev. Robert Morrison of the London Missionary Society landed at Canton. How- *ever, China was not yet open, and only gradual approaches upon the very outside could be made. Others, as Milne, Medhurst, and Legge, were gradually sent forward to the skirmish-line ; but they had to fall back to the Ma- layan Peninsula, and the pioneer missionary to China was compelled to lay down his work so late as 1835 at Malacca. As the result of the war — alas ! the opium war of 1842, between England and China — Hong-kong was ceded to Great Britain and five ports were unbarred to commerce. Advantage was immediately taken of these opening opportunities for the gospel, both by the mis- sionaries in the neighborhood and by several of the So- cieties in England and America. The Treaty of Tientsin (i860), at the close of the second opium war, supplemented by the Convention of Chefoo, gave freedom to commerce and missionary enterprise throughout the whole interior of China. Christian missions were thrilled by the voice of God thus calling to enlarged responsibilities. Scores of central statfons have been occupied, and, though it required some years to give full effect to the treaty, the mission- ary now travels quite as safely in China as in any other land. On many hundred miles of inland touring — once for a week all alone with my heathen canal-boatmen, and at times being in places seldom, if ever, visited by for- eigners— I yet found no occasion for special anxieties. There are at present 243 ordained missionaries in China, or, including their wives and female helpers, 498, They are distributed among 165 stations and superintend 576
CHINA. 131
outposts. They are assisted by 714 native preachers, and report 18,958 converts.
The Protestant community of China to-day cannot number much short of one hundred thousand; yet this is a small part of what has been accomplished there by Christian missions. The foundations have been laid for the spiritual temple of many millions of souls. The rate of increase up to the present would give us, it is esti- mated, by 19 1 3, twenty-six million members of churches and one hundred million Protestants in China.
I love to think of a Baptist as virtually the pioneer of modern missions to China. When I stood beside Dr. Marshman's grave at Serampore, India, I could not but remember that his work at the Chinese language ante- dated all. Rev. W. Dean, D. D., was our first American missionary sent to the Chinese, and was located among them in 1835, at Bangkok, Siam. Others soon followed, Rev. J. L. Shuck and Dr. T. T. Devan being assigned to the Hong-kong, or Southern China, mission, and Rev. J. Goddard, Rev. E. C. Lord, D. D., and Dr. Macgowan be- ing located at the Ningpo, or Eastern China, mission. In 1848, Rev. J. W. Johnson was added to the former mission, and, in 1858, Rev. W. Ashmore, D. D., was transferred to it from Siam. After the removal from Hong-kong to Double Island, and thence to Swatow, our Southern mission began its steadily-prosperous ca- reer. Special blessing has rested upon the superintend- ency of Dr. Ashmore and the Bible-woman's work of Miss A. Fielde. Rev. M. J. Knowlton, D. D., joined the Eastern mission in 1854, and Rev. H. Jenkins in i860. These and other missionaries, most of whom we shall
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have occasion to mention in the succeeding chapter, ac- companied by their wives — as all missionaries should be — have given our stations an honorable rank among all the others in China. Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention located missions in Shanghai, Canton, and Tung-chow-fu, and, since, the English Baptists in Shan-si and Shan-tung. Let us hasten to visit them all in succes- sion; for a most cordial welcome awaits us, and from none more cordial than from our missionaries from the South- ern States,
CHAPTER X.
CHINA {Continued).
WE have been coasting along all night south-west- ward from Amoy, and anchor during the fore- noon in the spacious harbor of Swatow. At the mouth of the bay we passed Double Island, where our mission located upon its first advance from Hong-kong ; but now we find its headquarters a half mile yonder to the south, at Kakchie, opposite to Swatow, a half mile to the north of our anchorage. The prospect around upon the face of nature is rather dreary and not to be compared with the vicinities of Amoy and Fuchow ; but the considera- tions which led to the occupying of this station were not aesthetic. The best position as a base of operations among the millions of the Tie-Chiu dialect Chinese was the first object sought; and, as this undoubtedly is the neighborhood, considerations of health, safety, and convenience decided the location of oUr mission homes upon yonder wild, hill-fringed shore. Hotels and boarding-houses here are out of the question ; and, as the steamship leaves in a few hours, if we linger, some family must be imposed upon. Whose shall it be? A missionary's, or a consul's, or a merchant's? I will leave the reader with my family aboard while I hail a native boat and go ashore to prospect.
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God bless them ! Why, they really think that we are doing them a favor to immediately double Mrs. Ash- more's cares, turn Miss Norwood out of her room, fill another apartment with around-the-world trunks and steamer-chairs, and give no end of bother. The Doctor rebukes a little for not taking such hospitality for granted, and Rev. W. K. McKibben stirs around to arrange for a larger boat to safely transport all from the steamship. And now what a delightful surprise they have for us ! It is what Hon. R. O. Fuller missed in not visiting Swa- tow. All was then arranged, but has been kept for us. The leading Christians from all the out-stations, to the number of two hundred, are to be called together for a week's series of varied religious exercises. Sermons, prayer- and conference-meetings, a grand covenant- meetincf, lectures, recitations, socials, Bible-women ser- vices, examination of thirty-three candidates, baptisms, — a royal feast indeed. But the preliminaries will take a week ; so our two or three days must be a fortnight. Meanwhile, we will make some missionary excursions to localities of special interest in their work. And now it would require a large volume to record those two weeks. It was a heaven below. Blessed gospel, that can make human companionship so sweet, and can lighten up the darkness of Chinese heathenism with scenes so beautiful, so thrilling, so strengthening to faith !
Quite a cluster of missionaries, indeed, in one place ; yet there is a good deal of wisdom in the arrangement. Besides the four mentioned, there are Mrs. McKibben and Misses Thompson and Daniells, M. D. ; and soon Rev. S. B. Partridge and wife will have returned, and
CHINA. 135
Rev, and Mrs. W. Ashmore, Jr. will be here to occupy- that other dwelling, nearly completed. The strenuous effort has been to locate part of this force at Chau-chau- fu, the great interior city, but as yet unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, more travelling is required to reach the several apportioned districts of the immense Tie-Chiu field ; yet there is important compensation in the greater amount of mutual cheer and counsel and guardianship. In many mission fields I have seen too much scattering of the forces. Multitudes of missionaries have broken down from lack of missionary companionship. The smallest mission station in the centre of a great heathen popula- tion should be composed of two missionaries — mar- ried men, of course — to divide work between itinerating and the training of native preachers ; a physician, and two single-women missionaries, — for the leadership and training in domestic evangelization. There should also be a missionary ready to fill the constantly-occurring vacancies.
In the out-stations we felt the presence of a developed self-reliance on the part of the native converts. The theory of the mission is being justified by its fruits. Schools might have been multiplied by using more mis- sion money in the support of teachers and scholars, and the kind of advantage thus given to evangelizing pres- sure might have been blessed to a larger number of church-members than the present seven hundred report- ed connected with the mission ; but evidently a better foundation has been laid for the Christianizing of these millions in Eastern Kwang-tung. Among the churches and stations, pastors and preachers, we felt as if we were
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among men and women, not children. The plan has been to foster, not force, education ; to watch for the dawning desire for education on the part of converts, adherents, and their dependents, and to guide and assist it; yet never so as to destroy the spirit of noble self- reliance. Every Christian community is encouraged to support its own preacher and teacher ; and at the central station schools of a very limited number of pupils are maintained by the mission as patterns and incentives.
We stop at this village this evening. How dense the population around ! I count from the adjoining hill eighty-three villages within a radius of three miles, and the missionaries say they average six hundred popula- tion. More than a hundred are awaiting us in the well- built little chapel, erected mostly at their own expense. Delightful greetings ! We are glad to linger to morn- ing's Lord's-Day service. How oddly it is introduced ! First, the church clerk calls the roll and gives a black mark to every absentee ; then every one comes up and deposits upon the table the weekly contribution, the treasurer counting each offering. And all this before time for meeting! I wonder how this plan would work in our home churches? — the roll-call of the church fifteen minutes before time for service, and no chance of dropping in a nickel as if it had been a quarter of a dollar !
The week at the central station is never to be forgotten. At all the services the chapel is crowded, and every effort is made to throw responsibility upon the natives. They do most of the preaching and praying and dis- cussing. They examine the thirty-three candidates at
LEADING NATIVE PREACHERS OF THE SWATOW MISSION. Page 1.17.
CHINA. 1 37
the church-meeting ; and accept, for the present, only twenty-one. Those almond-eyed native brethren did put some searching questions : " Do you owe anybody any money ?" " Do you want to use us or the mission- aries for any worldly gain ?" Then there was a case of discipline. A very prominent member — one who had taken a degree, a lawyer^had been told by the com- mittee he must confess to-day or be excluded. All were silent and solemn. It was evident in the expression of the countenances of those native Christians that they were determined to keep their church as pure 'as possi- ble, and then and there to exclude their most aristocratic member should he not make acknowledgment and prom- ise amendment. At last he arose and said : " It is true I charged a lawyer's fee of two dollars, when it should have been but one dollar. I regret it, and will never do so again." All were now in a happier mood for the baptism; and that was beautiful, just as our Lord knew it would be also in heathen lands.
One evening the six brethren on the opposite page asked for a conversation, with Miss Fielde as interpreter. Then hour after hour they plied me with questions ; yet not a word upon any other subject than the evangeliza- tion of China. And then, at the close, though very late, they all prayed — some of them with tears — that God would hasten the triumphs of his grace throughout their fatherland. I could not help it : I fell in love with them. I had before learned to respect the Chinese for their industry and to recognize the triumphs of the gospel among them, but here were kindled the warmest of fraternal feelings. Alas that one of them, the loved and
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trusted Chiang Lim, is with them no more ! And when a whole procession formed the next day to accompany us to the shore, where we took boat to the steamer for Hong-kong, and all shouted after us, as long as they could be heard, " Peng-on ! Poig-on /" (" Peace be to you ! Peace be to you !"), — well, on that deck there was a little salt water which did not come from the sea.
We reach Ningpo by steamer a night from Shanghai, The Presbyterian mission, on the opposite bank of the river, presses its hospitality ; but the two days here must be mostly spent in looking around at the Baptist work, English Church and English Methodist, as well as Amer- ican Presbyterian, missions are here also, but our own is second to none in the ability of the missionaries and ip the success of their work. It is a great centre for evan- gelizing enterprise. The city has a population of nearly three hundred thousand, and there are millions within one hundred and fifty miles around made very accessi- ble by the numerous watercourses,
Mrs, Dr, Barchet — by virtue of the since-resigned United States consular authority of her father, our ven- erable missionary to Ningpo, Rev. E. C, Lord, D. D. — • confiscates all our hand-baggage and places it for our own examination in the guest-chamber. At the adjoin- ing hospital and dispensary it is the hour for opening, and we hasten to one of the most welcome sights in China, How Christlike this plan of reaching souls with the gospel through poor diseased, maimed, enfeebled bodies ! Two hundred have gathered from the city and country around into the two waiting-rooms for their turn. And as the doctor prescribes in his office for one after
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another, native evangelists and Bible-women are earnestly at work with the waiting throng explaining and urging Christian truth. Up stairs are twenty opium-patients — all who can be accommodated at a time. The course of treatment requires about three weeks, and Dr. Barchet is very much encouraged by this department of his hos- pital work. Excepting here, other denominations are in advance of us in the use of the science of medi- cine in foreign missions.
We fill up this second day very fully in calling upon all the missionaries of the different societies, in visiting our chapel and schools, leading the weekly union prayer- meeting in the Presbyterian chapel, and in the evening enjoying a general union missionary social by the de- lightful arrangement of Rev. and Mrs. J. R. Goddard at their home. The three dwellings of the Baptist mission and the hospital and the school-house are close together, outside the city, beneath the wall, and along the bank of the Ningpo River. Our hosts for the evening are com- pelled to entertain in a poor old shell of a dwelling, but it is not their fault. We try to forget how diligent for many years the white ants have been at the timbers and floors, and how the home. Christians have not sent money for repairing. And so we talk together of other helps and hindrances to the great work. And then we sang. All sang, and they were cheery songs. Oh, missionaries are generally very happy, but it is in the Lord ; not in their dwellings and home comforts ; not in the general sympathy and support for their work in Christian lands ; not usually in the progress of their evangelizing efforts ; for in our Eastern China mission, what are three hun-
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dred and fifty church-members, with all other attendant results, compared with what has not been done ? But it is the Lord's cause, for which«he gave his life. And to be filled with his missionary spirit; and to stand and toil where so evidently it is the divine will, leaving the results with him, — no wonder the missionaries are happy and can sing.
Rev. J. R. Goddard has been here at work in his fa- ther's footsteps for thirteen years, toiling hard and wise- ly in the city and country and in the great island off the coast ; yet good care of health — a neglect of many missiona- ries— keeps him strong and equal to all the annoyances in- cident to the foreign-mission work. Therefore we gladly say, " Yes," when he proposes accompanying us to Zao- hying, and to take our commission to hire a boat and lay in a stock of provisions. Then we must have some extras for that lonely mission home, and not allow ourselves to be invited to more than shelter. So all is ready, and we are off. But it is hard to break away. We leave Mrs. Goddard — daughter of Dr. Dean of Siam — with her beautiful little ones, trying to keep the light of a Chris- tian home burning brightly in this heathen darkness. How useful are the mothers and children at this work upon the mission field ! We cannot overestimate their importance, and must not regret their drafts upon the treasury. Both Mrs. Lord — since at rest — and Mrs, Barchet are doing like work for the Master, and in their outside labors in the school and among the native fami- lies are soon to be assisted by Misses F. B. Lightfoot and Emma Inveen. Dr. Barchet has gone over to his boys' school, on the farther side of the city, not satisfied with
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enough hospital work to kill half the doctors in America. And Dr. Lord would surely stop his persistent translat- ing, and come to the window to wave us a " Good-bye," only he cpuld not distinguish our boat from scores of others flitting past upon the river ; and if we make any signal, we are in danger of tipping it over.
Strange thing, this foot-boat. Take an Indian canoe ; strip out the seats ; cover it with a light semicircular framework and bamboo matting ; place a native at the stern to handle the propelling-oar with his feet, and the steering-paddle with his hands, — and you have a Chinese foot-boat, or kyiah-wo. We have to lie down perfectly still in the bottom of the boat, sitting up at a risk, and on the constant guard against all sudden motions ; for the craft will hardly endure more than those quad- ruplicate frog-motions at the stern, especially when, as on this trip, we added a half frog at the bow. But it goes — no mistake ; and the miles of rice-fields and na- tive villages are swiftly passed. Suddenly we awake, going up at an angle of forty-five degrees. The boat creaks frightfully. The air is filled with the frantic cries of a multitude of men. Be quiet: they are only hauling us by a windlass up the bank of the river over into a canal. The night and another day gone. Thirty-two and a half hours and we are at the wall of Zao-hying, a city of half a million population. But it is long after sunset, and water-gate and all gates are closed. Yet the guard is open to an inducement, and sixteen cash — or a cent and a half — turn the lock and swing the great rusty hinges. Rev. and Mrs. H. Jenkins greet us — other than natives, the first for many months to cross their thresh- .
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old. Their children are not with them ; all four are in America. Ah ! there is much of the hardness. And then the separations have to be anticipated, and the parents carry a mountain upon their hearts for years beforehand. Then what shall be done with them in the home-land ? And they do not always turn out well there. Like two beautiful oases in the desert of this great heathen city are our chapel and mission dwelling, with the school-house adjoining the latter. Our brother is the best architect I have met in mis- sion lands. Only, I do not like to think of his own five hundred dollars in that chapel alongside my twenty cents, perhaps. It was evident at the well-attended services that the natives are receiving thorough Bible instruction. Soon the seed being so faithfully sown must harvest in larger numbers than the sixty con- verts here and at Zong-pah and King-wo. The pretty school-building will ere long be filled with the Christian boys for whom it was intended ; and after carefully weigh- ing the difference of judgment between Zao-hying and Ningpo, I cannot see that a judicious use of Chinese classics would be any more inconsistent with the Chris- tian character of the school than the use of the Greek and Latin heathen classics in Brown and Rochester Uni- versities. But the hours have too quickly passed. Our missionary guide thus far must return, while the next one takes his place with us to Hang-chow and Su-chow. Then we shall have experience enough to press on into the interior alone.
Shanghai. — We are becoming quite at home here, hav- ing had occasion to locate in this great city three times
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during our five months in China. The foreign quarter, outside the wall, is quite European, with much display of wealth and luxury. And, alas ! these million natives see a world of foreign vice. There is probably no harder mission field in China. We rejoice that our Southern Baptists have a central station here, and such mission- aries as Dr. and Mrs. Yates. Long and faithfully they have toiled. No other mission has had a more valuable contributor than this brother to the Bible translation and Christian literature for the thirty million who speak the Shanghai colloquial. The chapel near the north gate is admirably situated and well attended. The one inside the native city has lately been sold to secure a better location. Reinforcements are being urged to man sta- tions at Nankin, and Su-chow or Ching-kiang. Rev. W. S. Walker has been appointed to Shanghai.
Canton. — Another million, with so many millions around, and so few to plant and reap for Christ. Dr. and Mrs. Graves and Miss Whilden, of the Southern Baptist Convention, have done much labor which has been owned and blessed of God. They are soon to' be reinforced by Rev. and Mrs. E. Z. Simmonds and Miss S. Stein. I spoke at a regular Lord's-Day service in the chapel to two hundred and fifty Chinese — the best-at- tended ordinary meeting I had found throughout the country. There preceded me in prayer a Tartar brother who had been several times arrested for distributing the Scriptures. But each time he took along to court his bag-full, and when called up immediately passed around to judge and officers portions of God's word, and preached till they gladly dismissed him. I was rejoiced that the
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Baptist mission here, after so long renting part of the German building, has now its own home — two comfort- able dwellings with pleasant grounds.
Tung-cJioiv-fu. — Far to the north, in Shan-tung. We felt as if it is the loneliest spot in this world. The mis- sionaries cannot expect more than one or two calls a year outside the native population. Rev. Dr. Crawford has just returned from the South. He is an earnest and a useful missionary ; and Mrs. Crawford confessedly one of the most competent missionary women in all the foreign field. Mrs. Holmes, wife of the martyr-mission- ary, and Miss Moon are the other efficient members of this mission. Rev. and Mrs. J. P. McCullough, Rev. N. W. Holcomb, and Rev. C. W. Pruitt are soon to join their number. I am glad that the little Christian circle far off in this dense heathenism has the added compan- ionship of the Presbyterian mission. It was a privilege to preach to them all together ; but, ah ! they preached far more to me by the evident consecration of their lives to Christ in a work in itself so lonesome, so repulsive, so wearing to the body, and so harrowing to the spirit. At the three stations of the Southern Baptist Conven- tion in China are 635 members; connected with the missions of the Missionary Union, nearly iioo; and with those supported by the English Baptists, 600 ; mak- ing, in China, 2335 Baptist church-members, and prob- ably not short of 9340 adherents. There are one hun- dred members also at Hong-kong and upon the opposite mainland connected with the faithful independent mis- sion work of Mrs. Johnson, formerly of Swatow. This is soon to be united with the Canton station.
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It was a pleasure to meet Rev. A. G. Jones of the Eng- lish mission in Shan-tung province. He left a prosperous business at the call of God to this life of toil and sacri- fice. His wprk and that of his two associates meet with much encouragement. It is a mistake, however, to dress in Chinese style and wear the queue. The foreigner is still as plainly recognizable, and the deference does not commend itself at all to the favor of the natives. The same mistake is made in China by quite a number of other Baptist missionaries who form the majority of the " China Inland Mission." But they make other mis- takes of far greater consequence. They represent the erroneous and impracticable views of Plymouth Brethren, Perfectionists, and Higher-Life Christians. With special facilities, both at home and abroad, to study this phe- nomenon ; having prayerfully and thoughtfully watched it in England and Germany and India ; having met more than forty of its representatives at work in China ; hav- ing entertained many of them in my church and at home ; and having lately mingled in their grand rally at Ocean Grove, where the official report claims " five hundred sanctified " last year, — I am compelled to testify, in the interest of truth and in the welfare of Zion, that the movement is largely a delusion and a snare. Good men and women are thoroughly deceived by some of its the- ories, and are doing all they can to propagate them. But thus they do violence to God's word ; they an- tagonize the overwhelming judgment of the Christian Church, and up to the measure of their ability introduce discord and weakness into nearly all home and foreign evangelization.
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CHAPTER XI. SIAM.
A DELIGHTFUL sail of five days in one of the largest of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamers brought us from Hong-kong to Singapore. Here I forwarded my family a week's voyage to Bur- mah, while I took passage to Bangkok, Siam. It was well that we separated for those few days at sea, because it was at the change of the monsoon, and upon the north-east of the Malay peninsula my steamship had to endure for nearly all the voyage the full force of a ter- rific gale, while theirs was close under shelter all the way. One night the winds and the waves were furious. Furniture was torn from its fastenings. I barely escaped the marble slab of my washstand, that, challenging en- trance to the state-room, came whizzing past my head and was dashed into a thousand fragments. A danger- ous leak was started, but before serious consequences followed we had reached the mouth of the Meinam — " Mother of Waters " — crossed the bar, and were work- ing our way up the tortuous channel thirty miles to the capital, the city of Bangkok.
The country is covered with luxurious tropical vege- tation, Agriciilture has to contend, not with infertility and with drought, but with exuberance of foliage. It is
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evident that an immense population could be supported in Slam ; but it must be a more industrious population than the native Siamese, to make successful headway against the wonderfully rank wild vegetation. I had a lesson of the natural indolence of these people upon land- ing. My luggage was light, consisting only of two port- manteaus which in the bracing climate of our Northern States even a lady could have handled in the face of any imposing hack-drivers and porters. But I had learned some lessons of prudence in Asia, and especially within the tropics ; and, though I had to wait an hour most im- patiently before the captain could secure me a servant for a one mile's tramp to our Baptist mission compound, I was bound not to take the risk of carrying that load. But, no doubt, I should have done it had I been a mis- sionary just landing from America. Native servants, and plenty of them, are a necessity for European and American missionaries in these Southern Asiatic coun- tries. To dispense with them is to be " penny wise and pound foolish," But we could not secure a Siamese porter, though there were plenty of them around the dock. They had had their breakfast and were not yet hungry for dinner, and they could not be persuaded to earn half a dollar. A Chinese coolie, however, was found, who, with more enterprise and forethought, jumped at the chance to secure two days' wages in half an hour.
The Chinese are rapidly overtaking the Siamese in population, numbering already in the capital two- thirds of the half million, and throughout the country almost half of the total eight million. Often in the
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streets of Bangkok it seemed as if I was in a real Chinese city. But never in the great Empire did I see such a multiplicity of drinking- and gambling-dens and haunts of vice. What of Siam the Chinese cannot get by com- petition in legitimate industry, they are acquiring by fraud. Neither the Siamese proper nor the Laos, Ma- lays, Cambodians, or Peguans have the physical strength and mental energy of the Chinese. And, however tem- porary has been the latter's design of residence in Amer- ica, the crowded Chinese cemeteries in Siam, the frequent intermarriages, and the immense accumulations of real estate and permanent business interests prove unques- tionably that the Chinese have come to Siam to stay. The vast majority are bond-fide immigrants, and the law of "the survival of the fittest" will give them, before the close of the present century, the power at least to wield the political as well as the commercial sovereignty of the kingdom. The First King has now a Chinese woman as one of his wives, and her lately-deceased son was the legal heir.
American Baptists are to be congratulated in that their mission to Siam has come to be chiefly among the Chi- nese portion of the population. Through the Tie-Chiu dialect, generally spoken and understood by nearly all, and which is the dialect of our Swatow mission, the most important foundations are being laid of a future Christian nation. For a long time, however, the Mis- sionary Union has not been able to sustain more than one missionary and his wife at this station, and the lady's labors, together with those gratuitously rendered by Rev- and Mrs. S. J. Smith, are chiefly among the Siamese. I
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am pleased to see that the Presbyterian Board is consid- ering the question of adding to its Siamese mission a Chi- nese Department. If we will leave the venerable Dr. Dean without any reinforcement for so many years, with six stations and almost five hundred members, and surrounded by nearly three millions of Chinese, it is time we were waked up to our responsibility by some other denomination.
Indeed, it has seemed to me that there could be help rendered in this way by both the missions. The Presby- terians have had many missionaries here at work most of the time since 1840, and still their churches have not to-day three hundred members enrolled. A vigorously- prosecuted and flourishing Baptist mission among the Siamese might stimulate these twenty-two missionaries of the Presbyterian Board to greater evangelizing enter- prise ; and a few prosperous Presbyterian stations among the Chinese of Siam would quickly arouse American Baptists to retrieve their disgraceful negligence here for the last eight years. Rev. and Mrs. S. J. Smith have a valuable press establishment and other city property well located for mission purposes, and a heart, I believe, to make all subservient to a strong and permanently-estab- lished Siamese Baptist mission. We have also the val- uable influence of Mr. J. H. Chandler, chief foreigner in the royal court, for thirteen years our missionary, and thoroughly familiar with the Siamese language. Mr. Chandler very readily secured me an audience at the palace, and I rode thither with a horse and carriage which had been presented by the king to Dr. Dean, Surely these facts suggest many encouragements for
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re-entering at once and vigorously upon mission work among the Siamese, and perhaps the Laos, and we may in part be rewarded by being aroused to a respectable reinforcement of our neglected Chinese Department.
It will not answer to found Christian missions upon governmental favor ; and when kings and their courts, prompted either by their ambitions or by their fears, turn from persecuting the missionaries of the cross and their converts to a policy of toleration and patronage, the greater caution needs be taken that conversions be gen- uine. After many inquiries and some careful examina- tion in Siam, I am confident that such caution has been taken during the few past years of large ingathering up to the full measure of the ability of one aged and infirm missionary to superintend such responsibility. It is quite possible that some of these shrewd Chinese have slipped into our churches, because it was so evident that Dr. Dean was in high favor at court, and that Mr. Chandler could get whatever he asked from the kings, and that Mr. Smith did the government printing ; but so also do some Americans join our churches at home, because they see worldly influence which they think they can turn to their own advantage. The fact is we have some exceptional opportunities and facilities at present for prosecuting mission work among both the Chinese and the Siamese populations of Siam, if only we have grace enough and enterprise enough to use them. No exces- sive timidity should be allowed to deprive us of our advantages, which may linger only a little time longer.
It was delightful, while touring about or when seated at the mission home with Dr. Dean, to talk over the history of the work here since its beginning, under Rev.
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J. Taylor Jones, in 1833. There has been a great deal of hard labor, mostly performed by faith and not by sight, and accompanied by much breaking down of health and loss of life. For a long, long time very lit- tle seemed to be accomplished, and so late as 1872 the Executive Committee of the Union suggested the with- drawal of the mission. But then all the perseverance, notwithstanding, was beautiful. It is under such circum- stances that continued Christian labor is the most sublime. When we reach Bassein we shall take pleasure in Rev. C. H. Carpenter's grand high-school success; yet it will be a special delight to recall the less-encouraged founda- tion labors of Rev. E. L. Abbott. In Telugu-land we shall rejoice with Mr. Clough, our Ongole Moody, in the presence of the wonderful results of his evangelizing labors ; but then it will be in some respects a greater sat- isfaction to visit the scenes where Drs. Day and Jewett toiled so hard and so long to keep " the lone star" from falling out of our firmament. And this mission of Amer- ican Baptists to Siam has for many years been another "lone star;" and we love especially to recall the days of faith and toil and discouragement and neglect and removals and sicknesses and deaths.
Rev. and Mrs. J. T. Jones, from their previous two years' experience in Burmah, were prepared to meet the still more bigoted Buddhism of Siam. The yellow-robed priests are evidently very numerous. Nowhere have I seen so many Buddhistic temples and shrines to a given population, nor such elaborate ornamentation of idols and of altars. Yet it is plain that the government is not so much under the domination of the priesthood as fifty years ago. In a variety of providential ways the influ-
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ences of Christianity and of Christian civihzation have to such an extent penetrated the precincts of the royal pal- aces and the residences of the nobility, that in 1878 a proc- lamation was issued containing the following remarkable acknowledgments : " Whoever is of the opinion that any particular religion is correct, let him hold to it as he pleases: the right or wrong will be to the person who holds it. In the treaties and in the customs of the king- dom of Siam there is no prohibition against persons who shall hold to any particular religion. If any one is of the opinion that the religion of the Lord Jesus is good, let him hold to it freely." In conversation with the Second King, I remarked that the little State of Rhode Island, in which I lived, had, through its fundamental princi- ples of religious liberty, elevated the civilization of the whole country; and so I expressed the sincere hope, based upon his late proclamation, that Siam might be the leading kingdom in all advance throughout the continent of Asia, and to this sentiment His Majesty replied most cordially. Still, rulers and people are behind Japan in appreciating the untrustworthiness of Buddhism, and the darkness is still very dense around alike the palaces of royalty and nobility and the hovels of the poor. There are no middle classes.
Dr. Jones was upon the field eighteen years. Dr. Dean's labors in China and his protracted absence in America have left him but twenty-four years in Siam, though he joined the mission here in 1834. Mr. Daven- port's term of service was nine years ; Mr. Telford's, the same ; Mr. Goddard's, seven and a half before his trans- fer to Ningpo ; that of both Dr. Ashmore and Miss Morse, seven years; of Miss Fielde, six years; of Mr.
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Partridge, four; of Mr. Chilcott, one; of Mr. Slafter, seven months ; of Mr. Reed, five months ; and of Mr. Lisle, but a few days. Probably no other mission out- side of Africa can point to more discouragements in sicknesses and removals. But it lives, and it will live and prosper. A telegram lately reports fifty baptized. Seed sown in the past, often by hard suffering from pa- ralysis of faith, is beginning to bear a glorious harvest. Nowhere have I been more favorably impressed than by some of the Chinese Christians of Bangkok. That Chi- naman and his Siamese wife watching over their dread- fully-deformed son — how Christlike the whole spirit of that humble home ! That church treasurer we met in his manufactory of sprouted beans — I would trust him, not only with the temporalities, but also with the spirit- ualities, of Zion ; which is more than can be said of many church treasurers in America. That deacon, a native in- telligent Christian Chinaman, despite his still heathen Siamese wife — we knelt together in his jelly-store, and his prayer for Siam God will hear and answer.
Let our farewell be in the native old men's home. It is located a little way back from the Meinam, but close to the bank of Death's River. It was built by the Chinese Christians with their own money for the shelter of their aged poor. None of the church-members reside in any better house — a corner lot upon a leading thoroughfare. Before we go the old men kneel together, and Dr. Dean makes the closing prayer: "Thou seest, O God! that we are almost through. Others soon must take up our work. Let not the vision of their coming tarry. Eight years we have plead with the churches in America ; now, O God ! we plead with thee."
CHAPTER XII.
BURMAH.
MY first view of this land, so long the centre and the crown of our American Baptist foreign mis- sions, was off the mouth of the Salwin, opposite Am- herst, the resting-place of Mrs. Ann H. Judson. Never did I point my field-glass and scan the prospect more eagerly, unless it may have been when, off the coast of Palestine for the first time, thirteen years previously, " Land ahead !" was shouted from the forecastle, and I was privileged to watch looming up in that horizon the principal mountains and hills and plains of sacred story. It is seldom in this world that we press more closely upon the feet of the Great Cross-Bearer than when we track the weary ways of some of our pioneer mission- aries. Yet the trials of the past are quite equalled by many of those of the present, and as real heroism is re- quired to-day in Maulmain and Rangoon as a half cen- tury ago at Amarapura and Oung-pen-la. Yes, often in the home-land also the servants of Christ need for their work the same consecration and the same dauntless courage as were manifested by her who was buried on yonder shore beneath the hopia tree, and likewise by her heroic husband. Indeed, one way by which our foreign missionaries could bring themselves and their cause much nearer to the hearts of the great body of the
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home ministiy and members, would be to realize more clearly that they have no monopoly of extreme trial, of heartbreaking sorrow, and of the need of strong- est faith and noblest heroism. They tell us of their labors and their sacrifices, many of which are severe indeed, and of which we know nothing from our own experiences; but then the converse is true. Thousands of the ministers and members of the home churches are toiling and suffering for Christ's sake in many directions as really and as keenly as are the majority of foreign missionaries to-day, especially amid the safety and the conveniences and the society of the great treaty and commercial ports.
In my intercourse with over a thousand missionaries during the last two years I felt my heart always drawn out the most warmly toward those, and toward the work of those, who took in sympathizingly and lovingly the situation at home also. When they would speak appre- ciatively of the permanence of their situations and the liberality and reliability of their salaries, in contrast with the continual unsettlement of the pastoral relation at home and the much smaller average of income and much less certainty of its being paid, my confidence and affection were specially stirred, and I felt as if I would invest double in their work. It may be said that I saw the missionaries at their best and in the pleasantest seasons of the year, and that therefore such comparison is unreliable ; yet during two years I re- peatedly placed myself and family for weeks, and even months, among the natives, hundreds of miles from any of the mission stations or foreign settlements, relying upon native resources for food, and often refusing to take
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along interpreters, so as to appreciate as thoroughly as possible a missionary's situation in heathen lands. And I must say that, while our foreign laborers need our sympathy in their separation from kindred and native land, in their depressing and enfeebling climate, and in the dark and malarial heathenism by which they are constantly surrounded, the great mass of the preachers and the burden-bearers of our churches at home also need sympathy, in order to work at their best — sympathy in their financial distresses ; in their care of the churches, which often, as with Paul, is as heart-crushing as anxiety for the conversion of the heathen ; and in their struggles against worldly, selfish influences, at times quite as bad as Buddhism or Hinduism. Mutual sympathy is re- quired. It is the secret lock to many treasures of in- terest and co-operation in foreign missions, on the part of yet inaccessible ministers and churches. Missionaries generally go abroad before they have met the stern battle of life at home. On their vacation returns they are entertained chiefly by the prospered members and the high-salaried ministry, and thus gather their im- pressions of the self-denial involved in work among the heathen. They should try to realize all this, even as I endeavor to appreciate that time and again their hospit- able tables emptied the cupboards of all the station and reduced many following meals to the simple rice-and- curry standard.
But we have come twenty-seven miles up the Salwin and anchored opposite Maulmain. Have I indulged in any thoughts since leaving Amherst inappreciative of missionary toil and sacrifice in this land ? God forbid ! It seems to me to be well to supply fully the needs of
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these faithful laborers, and to appropriate cheerfully what is necessary fci this purpose. Living here is at least twenty per cent, higher than in nearly all other parts of Asia. The British Government adds one-third to the salaries of its civil and military officers when assigning them from India to Burmah for duty : we should extend to our missionaries a like just and generous treatment. The missionary spirit among the churches, so far as it exists, is to deal generously with the foreign work. We do not wish to send our missionaries to Burmah as we do hundreds of miles out upon the prairies. But shall the same continue the spirit of the future ? We hope so. Yet heart must cultivate heart. Every effort should be made thoroughly to appreciate the actual situation on both sides of the ocean. The foreign missionary will be in- spirited and more happy, and the home supporters of his cause will be more numerous, more sympathetic, more self-sacrificing.
We have spent two months in Burmah, visiting Maul- main, Rangoon, Thongzai, Zeegong, Prome, Henthada, Ma-00-ben, Bassein, Amherst, and many other towns in the neighborhoods of these central stations. Generally, the travelling was done by steamer or row-boat, though the ox-cart did its share of service, and from Rangoon to Prome we experienced the novel sensation of again riding upon the railway. The country is well watered, diversi- fied in scenery, and very rich in agricultural resources. It is not so beautiful as Japan, but more so than India. The climate during a large part of the year is very trying to our missionaries, on account both of excessive heat and of excessive dampness. Still, when I meet such venerable missionaries in Burmah as Rev. and Mrs. C.
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Bennett, Rev. and Mrs. D. L. Brayton, Mrs. J. G. Bin- ney, and others, and recall the large number of mission- aries to Burmah who have been laid away in ripe old age, I am impelled to the conviction that some of the com- plaints about the climate here are unreliable. It is dif- ferent from that in America. But let only those who are in perfect health be sent there; let them promptly take all the advice of the older missionaries as to diet and work ; let them adopt John Wesley's motto: "I feel and grieve, ■ but, by the grace of God, I fret at nothing;" and I think I they may rely upon the average of days and the average of comfort the world over in Burmah. For residence and labor this land is to be preferred to Siam, or the Madras Presidency, or Egypt above Cairo, or the sta- tions of Bagdad and Mosul which the American Board is soon to occupy. Maulmain is vastly more desirable than Zao-hying, and neither Shwaygyeen nor Toungoo can be so lonesome as Tung-chow-fu. As to food, while some things to which we are accustomed at home must be dispensed with, the self-denial is in part best for a life in that climate, and other articles of diet are found quite palatable and sufficient to fill out the table. The rice and the curry I learned to relish very ijiuch as a chief reli- ance for daily food, and in leaving Asia parted with this its characteristic diet very much as regretfully as if they had been bread and coffee. Mrs. Bainbridge, however, cannot speak so appreciatively; therefore, in this respect, she would not make so good a missionary. None of our missionaries need suffer in Burmah from lack of whole- some food, if with good management they use their means of support as they were designed, for this and other ordi- nary living purposes. They cannot, however, yield to
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the constant promptings of benevolence, and support native scholars and laborers, and otherwise from their sacrifices seek continually to make amends for our neglects, and then expect to give their health and their strength a fair trial in Burmah.
The population is in the neighborhood of eight mil- lion, equally divided between the British and the native territories. The prevailing religion is Buddhism, it being professed by nearly all the Burmans, who probably num- ber two-thirds of the population, and by the Shans, who may exceed half a million. The present schism of the Paramats is very interesting. The Karens, including the Sgau, the Pwo, the Paku, the Bghai, and the Red tribes, number less than a million, and may not exceed the Shans, Nearly three hundred thousand Hindus and Mohammedans have emigrated from India. The Christian population should be given at four times the number of members, or at not far from one hundred thousand. The Burmans are as intelligent as the average of Asiatics, and excel in pride and indolence. Under the influence of Christianity, however, they become much more humble and industrious, and are very agreeable and useful mem- bers of the churches. The Karens are counted as the inferior or slave race. They have not had the social ad- vantages of the Burmans, having been for ages crushed under a heartless tjTanny ; yet by their religious tradi- tions and superstitfons they have been preserved from the demoralizing and degrading influence of Buddhism. They develop grandly in the school of Christ; and, though with less native intellectual ability and less at- tractive features and complexion than the Burmans, they furnish a higher type of character, more fully rounded out
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and symmetrical, and more reliable for the advance-work in the evangelizing of the south-eastern part of Asia.
It is to be regretted that Dr. Judson, coming from a little experience among the high-caste Brahmans and low-caste Sudras of India, did not inquire at once for the most common people of Burmah — these Karens — among whom to begin our mission, I believe that the whole history of American Baptist evangelizing enterprise in this country is a commentary on i Cor. i. 26-29. The direct success of labor among the Burmans has not been commensurate with the amount of work and the ability of the workers. For many years we have barely held our own. But meanwhile " the foolish," " the weak," the "base things" "which are despised," "hath God chosen," and they are coming forth " to confound the wise," and " to confound the things which are mighty," and " to bring to naught things that are." I never saw such earnest attention and such eager listening to the preaching in Burman assemblies as to Karen school and religious exercises on the part of Burman visitors. They see that by some wonderful power their former slaves have become elevated far above them, and they know that the principles of Gaudama could not accomplish this. By the light of Karen life it would seem that the millions of Burmans are to be led to Christ and enabled to appreciate and utilize the vast amount of gospel truth that has been preached and printed among them by Jud- son and Bennett, by Kincaid and Osgood, by the elder and younger Stevens, by Rose and Crawley and Jame- son, and by many others.
Often upon the rivers and in the jungles, in the homes and the chapels of the natives, and along the crowded
ADONIRAM JUDSON. Page lliO.
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highways of these heathen cities and towns, it was rest- ful to think as Dr. Judson thought and wrote three years after landing in 1813: "If they ask, What prospect of I ultimate success is there ? tell them, As much as there is that there is an almighty and faithful God who will per- form his promises; and no more." He had to wait six years for the first convert ; but that was not as long, as he had himself said, as the twenty waiting years in Ota- heite, or the seventeen of Dr. Thomas in Bengal. In Rangoon we think of his completion here of the trans- lation of the New Testament ; and in Maulmain, on the very spot where his house stood and beside the old chapel where he used to preach, we seem to see him kneel with the last leaf of the entire Burman manuscript of the Bible, offering it to his Master, imploring forgive- ness for its defects and aid in corrections, and dedicating all to his glory. I doubt not Dr. Mason did the same at Tavoy when he finished his Sgau Karen translation of the entire Scriptures, and Mr. Brayton with his Pwo Karen.
Rev. C. H. Carpenter's happy thought at Bassein of having the Karen institute building named the " Ko Thah-byu Memorial " brings together the first and the latest signal triumphs of Christianity among these most interesting people of Burmah. Many times, when listen- ing to the various class-room recitations, which would have done honor to any high school in America ; or when attending the general musical or other exercises in the large well-filled auditorium, and the fact would recur, So wonderful, so unparalleled, that this thirty-thousand-dol- lar— yea, in all, forty-five-thousand-dollar — enterprise is all at the expense of the Bassein Sgau Karen Christians, u*
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— I thought of the beginning, and had my faith in mis- sions strengthened. Some of our living missionaries were upon the ground almost soon enough to witness the baptism of Ko Thah-byu, the ex-slave, at the hands of Rev. G. D. Boardman at Tavoy. I passed there in the night, too far off to see the shore, yet out through my cabin-window I looked into the darkness and wished that time would permit a return from Maulmain to Tavoy, and then at least a walk with the Rev. H. Mor- row down to where this first Karen followed the Lord in his own beautiful ordinance. And there also would have been associated the scene three years after, in 1831, when, before the dying Boardman, Dr. Mason buried in baptism thirty-four Karen converts, the faithful and successful missionary being borne back from the service to the house a corpse, while his rejoicing spirit above began the song of thanksgiving in which many thousands of Karens, on earth and in heaven, have since joined.
Tavoy has a future as well as a past, not only in the Karen, but also in the Burmese, Department. But the station is not adequately supported. The one missionary, his wife, and an assistant are not sufficient for that im- portant centre. And this is the difficulty with many of our stations in Burmah. We are hardly appointing to them missionaries enough to hold their own. It would seem that American churches are forgetful that mission- aries have been dying off for the last fifty years, and that they are resting contented with the thought that Board- man and Wade are still laboring in Tavoy; and Judson and Osgood and the Haswells in Maulmain ; and Binney and the elder Vinton in Rangoon ; and Kincaid and Simons in Prome; and Mason in Toungoo; and the
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elder Thomas and Crawley in Henthada ; and Beecher and Abbott and Van Meter and Douglass in Bassein ; and that Mrs. Ingall's husband is with her at Thongzai, and Mr. Gushing is having the help of Mr. Kelley in the Shan work. Indeed, I was asked lately whether Mrs. Comstock — who was remembered from the touching in- cident, so often told, of her giving up her two children to be brought to America, saying, " O Jesus, I do this for thee!" — whether she was still at work as a missionary in Arracan. Ah, indeed ! these and many others are at rest, and all their places have not been filled. We have no missionary to the Burmans in Tavoy or in Henthada ; none among the one hundred and fifty thousand, probably, of Khyens to whom Mrs. C. B. Thomas is so earnestly directing attention ; and no man in Thongzai. The younger Stevens, with his wife, is alone in Prome. No wonder the Church of England and the Methodists are sending laborers to Rangoon. At almost every station in Burmah the missionary force is too feeble in numbers. It needs strengthening another entire generation for the sake of a qualified native ministry, a firmly-established condition among the churches, and in order to be ready on call for the advance throughout Upper Burmah.
CHAPTER XIII.
BURMA H {Continued).
THERE is one way in which American Baptists can release themselves from the responsibility of con- siderably reinforcing their stations in Burmah. They can say to other missions, " We no longer consider this our pre-empted and exclusive field for evangelizing work." Thus far all the great Societies have deferred to our judg- ment in this, except the Propagation Society and the China Inland Mission. The Methodist station in Rangoon was not regularly authorized. Let us officially announce to the Congregational, Presbyterian, and other Boards that they are welcome to occupy Upper Burmah; to lo- cate missionaries to the Burmans at Tavoy and Henthada; and to receive the entire responsibility of several of our stations, in order that we may concentrate our forces and adequately hold those which remain, — and there is no doubt that in the course of three years Burmah would be provided with all the missionaries absolutely required. But are we ready for such escape from the duty that God has assigned to us ?
Without thoroughly understanding the situation, it may seem strange that ninety-four missionaries — nearly all of them confined in their work to the lower half of the country — should not be deemed an adequate supply. Already it would appear that Burmah is three times as
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strongly occupied in proportion as India. But in every great warfare there are points of concentration. More soldiers were massed against Richmond than against Port Hudson or Atlanta. Virginia was the best field for the strongest attack upon the Confederacy, And, with- out detracting at all from the importance of our mission- ary operations in Siam or China or Japan or Assam, Burmah is probably the best field for our strongest at- tack upon the Buddhism of six hundred millions of East- ern and South-eastern Asia. Jt is the great natural high- way between India and China. Victory here is victory over vast territories beyond the geographical limits of Burmah.
Moreover, v/hile not unmindful of the important evan- gelizing service rendered by the wives of missionaries through 'the Christian homes they provide, and by the single-women missionaries in their school work and na- tive family visitation, it must be noted that only thirty- three of our ninety-four laborers in Burmah are men. I think this is a disproportion, especially in a country where there is very little of that seclusion of the female sex which has created so large a demand in India for ze- nana laborers. The number of women missionaries in Burmah should not be lessened — it should rather, at several stations, be increased ; but at present the very much greater necessity is for more men. Our women at Thongzai and Henthada have done all that women could do in the oversight of upward of sixty churches; yet the need of equally competent men was very evident to me when I visited their fields. Above the primary schools, the boys and young men had better be taught by men, and, as far as practicable, the touring
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work from village to village through these jungles had better be done by men also. Of course, there are many things a woman may do with perfect propriety if there is no man to do it, but better to furnish also the proper proportion of men ; and of late years American Baptists have not been doing this with their missions in Burmah. It must be remembered, also, that one-fourth, on an average, of our Burmah missionaries are at home on vaca- tions all the time, while several upon the ground are be- coming very old, and are far from being able to do what they once did. I agree that the proportion off the field is too large ; it should not be over an eighth, or, making all allowances, certainly not over a sixth. Every mission- ary should return to America once in every eight or ten years for rest and the good of the cause in the home churches. It would be better once in every seven years, could cheap excursion rates be arranged — which I have reason to believe is practicable — and if the length of va- cations could be reduced to one year and a half from the field. I am persuaded that it is a very serious mistake for the missionary to be absent from his post the second working season. But if broken down in health, more time will often be needed for recovery ; and it is good economy to take it. So it would be in the case of many pastors at home, but many of these ministers, and mem- bers too, have to work right on despite poor health and enfeebled constitutions. My father kept at the pastorate for twenty-five years, every summer prostrated by a terri- ble sickness that would have sent many missionaries home, and have invariably secured the physician's certificate of necessity. It would probably be wise to obtain the approval of all, or at least of a majority, of the mission-
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ary community for any vacations taken before the com- pletion of regularly-stated terms of service.
Next to the importance of a reinforcement of not less than ten men as missionaries is the successful prose- cution of our advanced-school enterprises in Rangoon (population, 132,004) and Bassein. We are evidently weak where these efforts are designed to strengthen. Among the nearly twenty-three thousand church-mem- bers, of whom nearly twenty thousand are Karens, I missed that proportion of educated preachers and mem- bers which I found in Northern India, Japan, and some portions of China. There is need of a great many more such- brethren as that Burman who gave us the address of welcome at Prome ; and that Karen at Bassein, likewise employed by government as deputy school commission- er ; and that well-named Martin B. Anderson at Thong- zai ; and those two men Dr. Vinton was so good as to invite in from their jungle villages to talk with me; and others I met among the native members and preachers. A great many more of them are needed to give the re- quired solidity and effective strength to Burmah's Chris- tianity. In some countries the special demand apparent is for educated Christian women, but it seemed to me there are more of them in Burmah than of the corre- sponding class of men. And the girls' schools and de- partments are rapidly increasing their number. We therefore take special interest in the reopening of the Rangoon College, the faithful work of the adjoining Karen Theological Seminary, and the marked prosperity of the Bassein Institute.
A wisdom higher than human is evidently solving our important educational problem in Burmah. It has .seem-
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ed to me singularly like the unfolding of the question of Baptist collegiate training in New York State — Hamil- ton and Rochester over again. " Alas !" said many in our Empire State, " how the cause will suffer by this division of higher educational interests !" But it has proved the contrary. The Bassein enterprise has had wonderful prosperity under Rev. C. H. Carpenter's su- perintendency. It has drawn off, and will hold, a large constituency. But, meanwhile, the missionaries and the native Christians of Eastern Burmah have been strength- ened in the conviction that there must be a united and vigorous effort to establish firmly and render prosperous the college and theological seminary of Rangoon. The college is being reopened by its President, Rev. J. Pack- er. The building is large, convenient, and well located. There are good feeders provided at several stations. And now, with the experience of the past few years, and the example and incentive furnished at Bassein, I see no good reason why we should yield to the English Propa- gation Society the leadership of higher Christian educa- tion in the Burman metropolis of Rangoon. After all that can be said in criticism of the spirit and the meth- ods of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Burmah, there is great ability and enterprise man- ifested, especially in the higher education of Burmese young men ; and I am strongly impressed with the con- viction that our Baptist Mission cannot much longer occupy its vantage-ground among the Burmese, unless the Rangoon College is made a conspicuous success.
The new railway will soon render the Toungoo and Shwaygyeen districts very accessible to Rangoon ; Prome and the intervening mission stations are within
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a few hours' ride ; Maulmain, and even Tavoy, are not too remote ; and the boys' schools, or departments, at all these stations, both Burmese and Karen, should be graded as feeders to the college. Some of the missionaries, in- deed, would miss the incentive and co-operation of their brightest and more advanced pupils in the station work, but the loss would be more than made up in the course of years. It seems to me there has been too much of the mission to Rangoon, and the mission to Maul- main, and the mission to Toungoo, and the mission to Prome, etc., and too little of the mission to Burmah. In this small country, stations are so near together that it is unwise to encourage any such independent action as may be necessary between Swatow and Ningpo, or between Ongole and Gowahati. It would be desirable that the majority of those east of the Irrawaddy should lead, and be led, into the most hearty practical sympathy with this college, and that native Burmese and Karen. Christian brethren should be so instructed as to feel their responsibility. The President would naturally desire to have such assistance in teaching that he can give the need- ed fatherly care to those entrusted to him, so that their residence amid the temptations of the great city may not be a cause of undue anxiety to the missionaries who have toiled to rescue them from heathenism.
The theological seminary, under the presidency of the late Dr. J. G. Binney, and now under that of Rev. D. A. W. Smith, has done a great deal of valuable work in pre- paring a native Karen ministry. It has a good building, in a good location. Its nearly thirty students impressed me very favorably. I had not seen so much intelligence in an equal number of Asiatics since leaving Kiyoto and
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Peking. I was reminded of this latter place when, after addressing them one day through Mr. Smith as inter- preter, a full report was made out in the Karen Morning Star ; only, at Peking, Dr. Martin sprung it upon his ■heathen class in the Imperial University at my close: " Young men, I shall expect a written report from you all next week of the address just delivered." Alas ! if they had been inattentive ! They understood my Eng- lish; I am glad these Karens did not. This teaching of English in mission schools is too often overdone. There is not such a demand for it among the natives as some mis- sionaries, in their imperfect knowledge of the vernacular and their inclination to dispense, if possible, with the long years of hard toil in its acquirement, hastily conclude.
It is urged that this theological seminar}^ be trans- ferred to Bassein. There are some weighty reasons in favor of such change ; but, on the whole, I think it is now where it should be. And, in connection with it, Dr. Stevens should be enabled t© give all necessary time to the sustaining of a Burmese Department. So should the Bassein Institute have its Burmese Department, as well as the Rangoon College continue to encourage this education together of the races. The Burmese and the Karens and the Shans are much more nearly allied than are the whites and the blacks in America ; and the rea- sons which prevail in our Northern States against sepa- rate schools are even more conclusive in Burmah. Some difficulties have arisen, and will arise; but it is worth the continued effort, especially in our higher mission schools, to educate together those who are made equal by the laws of the land. The differences of language require,
BURMAH. 171
indeed, multiplication of teachers, but not so much as with entirely separated schools. Those mingling togeth- er in school life will naturally acquire somewhat of each other's native language, and especially, what is so desir- able— much more than a knowledge of the English — the Karens will come to have a working familiarity wnth the Burmese tongue, and will be able to use it in evangeliza- tion among the five to eight times greater population.
I was specially pleased with the Industrial Department of the Bassein Institute. To see those nearly two hun- dred turn daily for two or three hours to hard manual work of various kinds was one evidence of the wisdom with which this enterprise is conducted. Watching them pounding rice and cutting wood and clearing ground, I felt that they were not likely to be spoiled for return to jungle-village life. If this is best where the Karens have built their own school and sustain their own children in their advance studies, it is more necessary in those schools where the Burmese and the Karens are fur- nished from American funds with buildings and teach- ing and food. Each of them should have an Industrial Department contributing materially toward the support. The girls' schools could have laundries attached, and would command plenty of custom in such places as Rangoon, Maulmain, and Bassein. The Burmese youth, I know, would be reluctant to fall in with such arrange- ments ; they are naturally too proud and indolent. Some of them would refuse and go off to the government schools. That, however, would do no harm to some of our schools which are overcrowded. It seems to me this is a point much more important than to secure the much-coveted government " grants-in-aid." It is prob-
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ably best to take the latter when offered ; yet it is a shame that the home contributions do not enable our missionaries to do all their legitimate work independ- ently.
Our mission press at Rangoon is still under the care of Rev. C. Bennett, who lately celebrated his fiftieth an- niversary in Burmah. It has done a very important part of our Baptist mission work in this land, and, of all the mission-press establishments I visited in different coun- tries, I saw none — the great Presbyterian Publishing House of Shanghai and the Methodist of Fuchow alone excepted — better supplied and arranged, and carried on with as careful business enterprise as this, which our venerable brother has so long superintended. It is evi- dent that conservative principles prevail in all the de- partments, but that has probably been the most enter- prising.
I do not specially fancy fast horses, but I never want to ride behind his horse again, and take one hour to drive two miles on a splendid road. Nevertheless, I had good company on the road, and found more of it at his home in his excellent companion. Their services in abundant labors and self-denials and contributions, if not appreci- ated fully here, are all known by the Divine Master, who must soon receive them into rest. Mr. F. D. Phinney is under appointment to receive the honored mantle which is falling from off" the shoulders of Mr. Bennett.
Several calls were made at the mission house of the Rangoon Sgau Karen compound before I found those indefatigable jungle-workers Rev. J. B. Vinton, D.D., and Rev. I. D. Colburn at home. Unquestionably, they have the hearts of thousands of these Karens, and mine too.
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If any think that the romance of missions has passed, these brethren can undeceive them. There is plenty of the thrilling pioneer experience if only the city mission- aries go far off into the wild jungles and mountain-forests to find it. I .'^avv Dr. Vinton romping for an hour with the boys of the Karen school, and again mount a strange elephant and guide it ; but these characteristics did not spoil the memory of the best mission talk I ever heard, and that in my church in Providence from his burning lips ; nor did they render less solemn and beautiful the words of his closing prayer at our farewell meeting with the missionaries at Dr. Stevens's house. It would help some of our other missionaries if they would cultivate a little more of the romp and sport. These people of Burmah are peculiarly good-natured and frolicsome. I was in Bassein soon after Rev. C. A. Nichols arrived, but I found him in high honor among the Karens — just the missionary they wanted, for he had joined them a few minutes in target-shooting and had beaten them all. Near the old Arracan hills I came riding into a Karen village with wife and two missionaries; each upon an elephant. With solemn and majestic movement we advanced to the chapel, where, with every propriety, we attended ser- vice. Through an interpreter I addressed them, and they listened with apparent interest. But after the close of the meeting, while I was up in one of the houses, my wife roguishly slipped the ladder from the door, and I had to clamber and jump down in a very undignified and amusing way. This touch of nature made the frolicsome villagers and us close of kin at once; and if I could have then invited them back to the chapel and made my speech over again, it would have done twice as much good.
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Dr. Stevens is hard. at work with his new classes of Burmese preachers, caring for the EngHsh and Telugu churches, editing The Burmese Messenger, discharging va- rious trusts in connection with the Rangoon Missionary- Society, and preparing a concordance. His home is a de- hghtful rallying-pointfor the social prayer- and conference- meetings of the missionaries. We found a double bene- diction resting upon it, in that Mrs. Stevens had recently returned from America accompanied with several new mis- sionaries, and that the beautiful little grandchild, daugh- ter of Rev. and Mrs. D. A. W. Smith, the other occupants of the house, had lately greeted there the angels, who, as she said, had come to take her up to heaven. Not far off is the humble cottage where Mrs. J. G. Binney, having finished the admirable biography of her lamented hus- band, is completing the Sgau Karen dictionary entrusted to her by the late Dr. Mason. She is a most intelligent, refined, and lovable mother of this missionary Israel, and I do not wonder that Mr. William Bucknell of Philadelphia has been prompted to do so many generous things to the cause in her name. Rev. and Mrs. D. L. Brayton, assisted by Mrs. A. T. Rose, have faithfully held the Pvvo Karen fort of the Rangoon district till the long-delayed reinforce- ment came in Rev. and Mrs. Walter Bushell, located thirty miles west, at Ma-oo-ben. I hope the next time Rev. A. Bunker comes down from Toungoo he will bring that useful photographic camera and take a picture of Mr. Bushell's mission-dwelling, with Mr. Brayton's house- boat on the adjoining shore. The former, erected at a cost of one hundred and fifty dollars, would be a valu- able object-lesson among our churches, and the boat is a plea in behalf of considerable liberty in the matter of
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specific donations. My old Providence church, which gave the three hundred dollars for that boat, saved thus, probably, the lives of two missionaries for several years, and did more than usual that same year for the general treasury of the Union. Specific donations are in order, when care is taken at the same time to add to the reg- ular annual contributions instead of subtracting from them.
Of the Rangoon Burmese church, school, and subur- ban station work Rev. A. T. Rose has special charge. Much of his labor, however, consists of touring and preaching all over the country. From his late visit to Mandalay it would seem that the time has fully come for the permaneiTx occupancy of the native capital as a central mission station. I hope, on his return from his next rest in America, he will immediately establish the Mandalay Mission. But all the missionaries in Lower Burmah would miss him and his wife. I saw what does not come out in the official reports — that theirs is the big heart that takes everybody else in, helping them in the perplexing details of foreign business, caring for them in sickness, cheering them by frequent correspond- ence, and always welcoming at their home with self- forgetful hospitalities. If others have done for theirs in America, they have returned it many times over in their very marked liberality of heart and hand in Burmah. The girls' school, under Miss A. R. Gage, Mrs. M. C. Douglass, and Miss L. E. Rathbun, presents much encouragement.
In Maulmain — where it is a shame to see new costly heathen religious buildings on ground once owned by our mission — faithful and effective work is going forward in both the Burmese and the Karen Departments. Rev.
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and Mrs. Hascall are very industrious in their Burmese boys' school. The girls' school is admirably conducted by Miss Martha Sheldon. Mrs. J. M. Haswell and Miss S. E. Haswell have returned from America. In the Karen Department, Rev. and Mrs. D. Webster are winning the hearts of all, as had Rev. and Mrs. S. B. Rand before them. Misses Higby and Lawrence are doing much through their school and native family visitations. I was particularly pleased with Miss E. H. Payne's enter- prise in shaking a little clear of this perhaps too monop- olizing school work all around her, and starting a Bur- mese Sunday-school paper, and establishing a Bible and tract depository down in the heart of the city. Many interests would suffer if Miss S. B. Barrows and Mrs. J. B. Kelley were not on hand to meet constantly-arising emergencies. From Miss E. E. Mitchell's medical work good may be hoped. Rev. J. F. Norris, as pastor of the English Church, and, assisted by Mrs. Bryson, in charge of the Eurasian girls' home, has met with gratif\'ing suc- cess in saving the fold from wolves that came clad in the disguise of so-called Higher-Life doctrines.
At Thongzai, Mrs. Ingalls exhibits a great deal of tact and personal magnetism among the Burmese. Her per- sistent endeavors to encourage the principle of self- support are very commendable. The station school, under the charge of Miss Evans, refuses all govern- ment " grants-in-aid." Miss J. M. Elwin is soon to join this station.
We found a .good deal more at Zeegong and its out- stations than we had expected. Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Hancock are much blessed in their work among the Burmese. I did not see a more intelligent, and seldom
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a larger, congregation throughout the country. Miss A. M. Barkley is assisting. We were shown Mrs. Bailey's grave, as also the school she began at Gyobingouk.
Rev. E. O. Stevens, at Prome, is showing excellent judgment in the management of this important mis- sion. His studious habits and thorough knowledge of the language especially commend him in public address to the better classes of the natives. Mrs. Stevens and her assistant, Miss J. C. Bromley, returned since with broken health, exhibit marked executive ability in the school and hospital, and their home is a model one.
From this far-up station of Prome we wish we could go farther, calling at Mandalay, and visit the scenes of the labors of Rev. W. H. Roberts and Rev. J. A. Freiday and their companions in Bhamo and vicinity. We are glad the former on his return is to be accompanied by Rev. and Mrs. L. W. Cronkhite.
At Henthada — Well, it was pitiful to see Mrs. C. B. Thomas all alone ; but, thank God ! her son has come to take up his father's work. It was my third parish call in Burmah. Very mortifying was it the next morn- ing to find she had slept on the floor that her guests might have the only bedstead in the house. A comfort- able dwelling, indeed, and beautifully situated, but then I wish all those croakers who represent missionaries as living luxurious lives could go through it and inventory the furniture. At another missionary house, where they had two or three cheap lace curtains — probably a pres- ent in some box — for the windows, the cautious sister hid them away, until she discovered that we did not belong to those who object to missionaries having any comfortable and pretty things around them. Then up
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went the curtains. I did not ask Brother E. O. Stevens's permission, or I should tell who she was. There is no intimation intended here that Mrs. Thomas was prompt- ed by similar caution. That beautiful service of song which she arranged, where we sang together in English and Burmese and Karen ; her special interest in the up- ward of one hundred and fifty thousand Khyens ; and that social gathering at a native house which recalls the delightful native receptions arranged by my other two parishioners, Mrs. Hascall and Miss Sheldon, at Maul- main ; and such volumes more of experience and of insight into the life and work of our missionaries in Burmah, — I cannot stop to describe.
Having met all but Rev. N. Harris of the Shwaygyeen missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. H. W. Hale in Rangoon, and Rev. and Mrs. W. I. Price in Ongole and Bassein, it seemed almost as if I ha,d been to that important station, where God has so signally blessed the Karen work. And ever since the time when in our summer home upon the Narragansett Bay, and subsequently in the lecture-room of my church in Providence, Rev. A. Bun- ker exhibited with his stereopticon his Burman views, especially of scenes in and around his Toungoo station, it has seemed as if we have been there also. I see Rev. F. H. Eveleth working on with the Burmese, though at the noble sacrifice of his invalid wife's companionship ; Rev. and Mrs. E. B. Cross, Rev. and Mrs. A. V. Crump, as also Rev. A. Bunker himself and wife, with the Paku and Bghai Karens ; Rev. and Mrs. B. J. Mix, until his late decease, on their return, at Liverpool, supplementing the work of Rev. and Mrs. J. N. Cushing, D. D., in the footsteps of Rev. and Mrs. M. H. Bixby, D. D.; and
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assisting among these departments, also, Misses Eastman and Ambrose and Rockwood and Upham. We must have more of those mission pictures as eyes for our home churches. Each District Secretary should have a full supply, with a good sciopticon and limelight.
But I must close this chapter, and we must pass on from Burmah. Let our last glance be in a Bassein Sgau Karen village. With Rev. and Mrs. C. H. Car- penter, prepared for several days' tour by boat and ele- phant in the jungle, we leave the city behind. Pleasant memories here, indeed, of the faithful Burmese work of Rev. and Mrs. M. Jameson. None more faithful in all the mission field. Favorable recollections, also, of Rev. and Mrs, J, T. Elwell and their earnest labors among the Pwo Karens. But shall we find any other evidences of evangelizing enterprise among the Sgau Karens of this district besides ^yonder Normal and In- dustrial Institute, where Misses Watson and McAllister and Mr. Carpenter's corps of native teachers are car- rying on what I unhesitatingly call as yet the banner school of Asia ? After founding this enterprise, with its nearly two hundred pupils, and supporting it, outside the missionary's salaries, is there anything left for the ex- penses of village preaching and teaching? I confess to solicitude. But we have been to a dozen villages, and evidently these extremely poor Karen Christians have been taught their duty, not in one direction alone. The mystery deepens, but it is plain they all have their own churches and schools, with pastors and teachers. How they do it I cannot tell. Our missionary companions say it is very simple, everybody giving something ac- cording to ability, no matter how small an amount. Ah !
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but that itself is a mystery so unlike anything we ever saw in American churches. Let us stop at this village, the most poverty-stricken one we have seen. Half the houses have tumbled down, and soon it is to be deserted. The rats have multiplied in the surrounding jungle, eat- ing up the villagers' rice- crops, till last year half was taken, and this year two-thirds. Formerly they poison- ed these rats, but lately starvation has compelled them to trap, spear, and eat them.
" Here," says the deacon as we leave, " are ten rupees " (five dollars) " from our church for the Ka-Khyen mis- sion."
These Bassein Sgau Karens sustain several native mis- sionaries up among those with whom Rev. W. H, Rob- erts has been laboring, besides Rev. and Mrs. J. A, Frei- day among the Shans at Bhamo.
" No," replies Brother Carpenter ; " you need this to keep you from starving."
" But, teacher — " the deacon insists; and pastor and all say, " Yes, yes, that is so. We can live on rats, but the Ka-Khyens cannot live without the gospel."
CHAPTER XIV. ASSAM.
THIS field (population, 4,815,157) and the history of its evangelizing work are exceedingly rich in mate- rial for study. Let any one carefully gather the facts — so numerous, so diversified, often so impressive — and then make such inquiries of them as these : " Wherein is the providential leading of the God of missions mani- fested?" " What have been the various lessons of divine instruction?" "Wherein have God's ways proved not as man's ways, and still remain unexplained?" " What have been the relations between the darkest and the brightest days of the mission ?" It will then be seen that there is a golden opportunity for instruction. Indeed, this is al- ways the way to utilize the facts that are continually com- ing to us from all the mission fields. To read simply to know if converts are being multiplied, or to feel the mo- mentary excitement of some thrilling adventure, or to follow the missionary experience of some personal friend, fails, in the majority of cases, to lead into the real merits of the subject. The threshold must be passed, and the thoughtful, prayerful mind must enter the temple where the God of missions manifests his presence. Then all the books and all the periodicals of missionary literature become gloriously interesting, for in them is seen the glory of the Shechinah. Why are not our missionary
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magazines and papers eagerly sought by every Chris- tian ? Many of them might contain better writing and be made to present a more attractive appearance ; but the greater difficulty is in the superficial way in which people generally use this literature. Our courts do not listen to witnesses for beauty of language or for interest- ing recitals of personal history, but to get at significant facts bearing upon the all-absorbing question. It mat- ters not how faulty may be the style or how unattractive the appearance of the occupant of the witness-stand. And so should it be with regard to all testimony that can be gathered from the world-wide mission field. We want all that every one can tell us, whoever he may be, and however he may tell it to us. All are welcomed; for we are not listening to them, but to the God of missions through the myriad and varied events of which they bear witness. This makes many a missionary's letter and many a traveller's chapter intensely interesting when evidently it would not otherwise be worth the paper on which it was written.
Assam is a very difficult field for missionary enterprise. This is not on account of the climate ; for, being nearly eight hundred miles north of Rangoon, and close to the cooling winds and waters of the Himalayas, and being chiefly broken up into verdure-covered hills, and valleys well drained by the great Brahmaputra, it is certainly more salubrious than any of our other mission locations in Southern Asia. Nor is there much personal danger from the inhabitants, notwithstanding the occasional re- volts of the more remote wild mountain-tribes. The country, independent previous to 1822, was then an- nexed by Burmah ; but four years afterward it fell into
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the hands of Great Britain, whose rule, as elsewhere in India, is fully as effective in the protection of life and property as ours throughout America. Nor is there any longer the former difficulty of access. When Rev. N. Brown, D. D., now of Japan, and Mr. O. T. Cutter, our pioneer missionaries to Assam, first went up the Brahmaputra to the extreme north-eastern Indian sta- tion of Sadiya, it required four months for their passage from Calcutta; but now most of the distance can be ac- complished by railway, and the travelling facilities upon the river have greatly increased with the development of the immense tea-production and commerce of Assam.
But the country is inhabited by a bewildering con- glomeration of tribes. We are familiar with the As- samese, Khamtis, Singphos, Nagas, Kacharis, Garos, Kosaris, and the Kohls ; but there are many other ethnological and linguistic divisions among the popula- tion of the upper valley of the Brahmaputra and the surrounding hill-regions. There are fifty-four branches of the Tibeto-Burman family lying between the Sutlej and the Irrawaddy, chiefly upon the southern spurs of the great Himalaya range in the neighborhood of As- sam. The Assamese belong to a different group, and drifted into the country from the opposite direction. It is very interesting to study the great variety of races and languages which our missions encounter, particularly in India. And the fact is that Christian missionaries have done the most of it, and that but for them perhaps never would these philological and ethnological labyrinths have been explored. Our own Dr. Mason of Burmah and the Baptist Serampore missionaries contributed much in these directions. And so it appears that in
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Assam we are in the bed of the first great stream of immigration that far back, in prehistoric times, came pouring over the Eastern Himalayas into India. Then another tide — one of Scythian immigration — subsequent- ly rolled in from the west by way of Sindh, conquering and hurling back these Kolarian and Tibeto-Burman pop- ulations. Then, near 2000 B.C., came the Aryan, or Indo- European, immigration across the Punjab, crowding on- ward the Dravidian families into the ethnological and linguistic snarl which vastly increases the difficulties of our mission work in North-eastern and Farther India.
But these very difficulties magnify the importance of the work we are here endeavoring to do. Wherever the bodies or the souls of human beings are the more in danger, there it is the spirit of Christianity to make the more earnest effort to save. These multiplied tribal dis- tinctions and varieties of language, together with the natural alienations and hostilities they create, while greatly complicating mission work, present the advan- tage of less weight of resistance. For example, an im- pression upon the Nagas or the Garos, once made, has not the mountains of opposition still beyond, as among many millions of Bengalese or Chinese. And tribes do not, as a general rule, hold on as firmly to their heathen religions as do populous homogeneous nations, and in their conscious weakness they are the more on the alert to improve any advantages, as of the instruction of the mission teacher and his personal influence. I know that there are special incentives in mission work among a mighty population speaking the same lan- guage and able to read the same literature, but nearly
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all the missionaries I have met of all lands engaged in tribal work have expressed to me their decided prefer- ence for it, feeling that the advantages for evangelizing enterprise among the thousands are greater than among the millions. And this, in Assam, is illustrated when we compare the labors and results among the one hundred thousand Garos with the same among the two millions of Assamese. Among the former, with less outlay of missionary toil, there are thrice as many converts con- nected with our stations.
Brahmanism is the religion of a majority of the natives in the great Brahmaputra valley, while the hill-tribes are chiefly pagans or believers in demonolatry and ghost- worship. The terrible caste system of the former, as also the Hindu possession of an ancient, extensive, and much-venerated religious literature, greatly complicates and embarrasses Christian work among them. I am con- fident there is more nobility of character to work upon with a Hindu than with a Buddhist, as also more fun- damental religious truth ; yet in these very elements of the great problem special difficulties are involved. The ancient Vedic religion made prominent the unity of God. The Rig-Veda (or "Veda of Praise"), the oldest and chief of the four Vedas, or sacred Hindu writings (1400 B. c), declares repeatedly, " There is, in truth, but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the Universe, whose work is the universe." This is plainly a remnant of God's revelation ; but there was associated with it the idolatry of nature. The ritual was simple, and the faith unencumbered with the doctrine of transmigration. In- deed, the Code of Menu (900 b. c.) claims that the wor- ship of one Supreme Being is of chief importance, though
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practically absorbing attention with an absurdly compli- cated ritual and a deified sacerdotal caste. The Vedic ground-truths of Hinduism became still farther covered up with the Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva rubbish of the epics Ramaydna and MaJid-bJidrata (200 b. c.) and the voluminous works called Puranas and To ntr as {^oo-\6oo A. D.). Siddhartha, called also Sakya-Muni and Gautama, and his Buddhism ; Vrihaspati and his atheism ; Kabir and his Kabir Parthis ; and Nanak and his Sikh relig- ious movement, — all have had modifying effects upon the Hindu ceremonialism and sacerdotalism. Neverthe- less, the polytheistic conception has advanced, and the Avatars of Vishnu and the Lingam of Siva have been introduced. Hinduism has always allowed a great deal of freedom of thought, notwithstanding the rigidity of its observances ; and there is abundant liberty to-day for its more intelligent classes to emphasize the old Vedic truths, consigning caste rules to mere social custom. There is scarcely more than this, in reality, in the move- ment of the Brahmo Somaj, in part under the celebrated Chunder Sen, whose annual address I heard in Calcutta, and whose acquaintance I formed. Herein, then, are great elements of strength in Hinduism which Christian missions have to encounter. It is more difficult to argue with the Hindu than with a Buddhist; but then, back of the argument, the difficulty with the latter in relig- ious consciousness and moral perception is the greater. After the last word has been spoken, the deadlier effect of Buddhism is apparent.
Much in the history of our Assam missions has been very mysterious. Why did not Dr. Brown and Rev. M. Bronson have their attention at the beginning turned to-
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ward the Garos ? Or why were they not providen- tially located first at Sibsagor or Nowgong, instead of at the unfortunate station of Sadiya? That sudden death of Rev. J. Thomas in 1837, w^hen.just in sight of his expected life-work, a tree fell over on his boat from the bank of the Brahmaputra, killing him instantly — what could God have meant by this ? Miss Bronson, who was to assist her brother among the Nagas, fell at her post in seven short months. In a few years Mr. Barker was buried at sea. The earnest German mission- ary Daiible was called home by his Master after only three years of service. Rev. C. F. Tolman broke down in two years, and had to retreat. Certainly, the mission has passed through great trials which must have driven the toiling band more and more to cast themselves on God, many of whose " ways are past finding out." Yet there have been many visible tokens of favor. The labors of Rev. N. Brown, D. D., were extended over twenty years, and were of great and permanent value, particularly in Bible translation. He gave the Assamese the New Testament and large portions of the Old. Dr. Bronson has given forty years of service. The native preacher Kandura was raised up from among the orphans of the Nowgong Institution, and his record at Gowahati has been an inspiration to all the missionaries and to all the friends of Assam. Multitudes have read of Omed, the first convert from among the Garos, convicted by a Christian leaflet swept out of a door where he was sta- tioned as sepoy guard, and whose ministry among the Garo hills has been wonderfully successful. For nearly a dozen years Assam had the services of the present ad- mirable Secretary of the Women's Baptist Missionary
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Society for Connecticut. And, as another special smile of Providence upon this often sorely-tried field, we may note the large immigration of the Kohls from Chota Nagpore, in Central India, to work in the tea-gardens of Assam ; many of them have brought with them relig- ious impressions received from the German missionaries, and in connection with our stations have professed their faith in Christ.
The Garos have well been called the Karens of As- sam. There is similarity in form and in feature, but especially in disposition and superstitions. They prove to be peculiarly accessible to the gospel, and to make unusually strong and useful Christians. Often their courage has been shown in the handling of weapons of iron, and now they are manifesting a still higher heroism in wielding the sword of the Spirit. Tura is our most advantageously located station among this people ; the mission force there consists of Rev. and Mrs. M. C. Mason, Rev. and Mrs. E. G. Phillips, and Miss M. Russell. Rev. and Mrs. P. H. Moore and Miss Orell Keeler are at Nowgong, carrying on the work of Rev. Ira J. and Mrs. Stoddard and Rev. and Mrs. Neigh- bor. Miss A. K. Brandt is to be added to this station. At Sibsagor, where Rev. and Mrs. Whiting labored so faithfully. Rev. and Mrs. A. K. Gurney are meeting encouragement. Rev. Messrs. E. W. Clark and C. D, King, with their wives, are following up the work among the Nagas. Gowahati recalls the names of Revs. W. Ward and Danforth and Comfort.
The normal school for the Garos at Tura is meeting one of the most important wants of the field. There are many village schools, but the supply of qualified native
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Christian teachers is too small, and the required super- intendency of the missionaries takes too much of their anxiety and time. The training of native preachers and the preparation of a Christian literature are pressing du- ties. Among the fourteen hundred members at all the stations, over half of whom are Garos, we may hope there are many other Kanduras and Omeds ■ ready to be educated for the ministry, and to release our missiona- ries, in part, for the vast amount of surrounding work as yet untouched. •
CHAPTER XV.
INDIA.
THE last census returns of India give a population of 252,500,000. An enormous population indeed — five times that of the United States, and outnumbered only by China. The census of 1872, which was equally accurate with the one just taken, reported 238,830,958. In but eight years, therefore, the population has increased nearly 14,000,000. But for the late famine, there would have been from 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 more. No other great nation is multiplying in this proportion. China is not having the opportunity, with its oppressive government, its more sweeping famines and more sanguinary insur- rections, and the comparatively backward state of its civilization. Every year now in India additional safe- guards are constructed by the government at vast ex- pense, such as railways, canals, and river-dams for 'irri- gation, in order to render the recurrence of destructive famines improbable, I travelled for several hundred miles over the south-eastern portion of India, through the regions which had been so terribly scourged by the drought, and I saw that all the large resources of engi- neering skill and of British wealth and power are brought to bear upon the problem of saving these vast popula- tions from their fearfully devastating periodical famines. The works are colossal at Bezwada, upon the Kistna,
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and a little below Rajah-mundry, upon the Godavery. The vast deltas of these two rivers have been trans- formed from an annual desert into a perennial garden. I could readily believe that this reclaimed territory is the leading grain-producing part of India. The popula- tion of the great peninsula is, therefore, to increase prob- ably at a still more rapid rate. One or two hundreds of millions more would not overcrowd the country, when all the land has been brought under safe cultivation and government has abolished opium production. These facts deserve the prayerful attention of the Christian churches, as also another — that the disposition to emi- grate, in annually-increasing numbers, is taking posses- sion of the people. I met many Tamils and Telugus in Burmah, where our missionaries are already encouraged by work among them. Indian colonists I saw also in the Malayan Peninsula, in Siam, in Persia, and at Baghdad. Well, then, may all evangelical missions take profound interest in such a vast, multiplying, and swarming pop- ulation ; and especially thankful may we be that English, American, and Canadian Baptists have been led providen- tially to so considerable a share of the responsibility.
There is, indeed, an immense amount of degradation and wretchedness in India ; yet it seemed like coming home again, after the strange far-away feeling the travel- ler cannot throw off in Japan, China, and South-eastern Asia. The majority of the people have a much darker complexion than our own ; yet their features are very similar to the Caucasian. We take more than ethnolog- ical pleasure in tracing back the Aryan, and even Dravid- ian, streams of immigration. It has often been report- ed that the Parsees of Bombay have proved themselves
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quite equal to the English in the arena of trade, but I was told repeatedly in this city that Hindu merchants had been coming forward of late years, and were dis- tancing both in the race for wealth. Multitudes of the Hindus have considerable education, outside the large number who have availed themselves of the mission and government schools. I have seen many of them, in dif- ferent parts of the country, able to read and converse readily in several languages, such as Sanskrit, Hindu- stani, and Persian, besides their own Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, or whatever it may be among the ninety-eight vernaculars and still larger number of dialects of India. The Brahmans pride themselves upon their familiarity with Sanskrit, which in itself is an education in history, composition, and thinking. And when, as many thousands of them have, they add to this intellectual training the advantages of the foreign schools, a very learned class indeed is created to be the leaders of these one-sixth of the population of our globe.
Whitherward are they leading to-day ? We know the direction for many ages of the past, from two, and even perhaps three, thousand years before the Christian Era. It was away from God, and yet with an effort for many centuries to carry a recognition of him into the deifica- tion of the objects and powers of nature. In the times of the Vedas the endeavor was to serve both God and Mammon ; but gradually the idolatrous and polytheistic tendencies distanced all the theism of early revelation in the cradle of the races, and Brahmanism became fully de- veloped. The sacerdotalism had reached its extreme in the deification of the Brahman caste. I have seen hun-
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dreds of Brahmans worshipped as gods. Sometimes, as I have stood by, and blinded devotees would fall at the feet of these monsters of imposition, making their offer- ings and saying their prayers, I could not repress the finger and the look of scorn at the blasphemous assumer of divinity. And usually the well-dressed and gentle- manly-appearing scoundrel would leer at me smilingly, as if to say, " Of course, I know I am humbugging this poor fool ; but I want his money." The indolence of the priesthood and the poverty of the lower castes con- spire to multiply idols which could release the Brahmans from the weariness of being constantly worshipped, and, at least after the first outlay, prove economical to the Sudras, and even to the Vaisyas and the Kshatriyas until they became extinct. Thus Hinduism came to claim three hundred and thirty millions of deities over and above the score at least of millions of Brahmans.
Such numbers appear fabulous, but they are not so. Idols are to be found in almost every Hindu house or hut. They are to be met on every roadside, in every grove, and almost under every convenient shad^-tree. The polytheistic reaction from the Buddhistic move- ment, introducing the symbols of Vishnu's Avatars and Siva's Lingam, made the multiplication, especially of the latter class of idols, the easiest thing in the world for masses sunk into beastly degradation. The mini- mum of labor could mould the clay, or scratch the rock, or gather the stones of obscenely-suggestive shapes. It is denied that there is any obscenity in the Hindu wor- ship of the Lingam of Siva. I must acknowledge a sur- prise that the conduct of the devotees at such places as the ghauts and the Golden Temple at Benares was so 17
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proper; yet it is impossible for religious sentiment to purify such indecency. And there are many evidences of the gross immorahty of the people, and of its en- couragement from this hideous phase of its complicated religious system.
In noting the drift of the ages in India away into the darkness and degradation of a heathenism only less wretched than Buddhism, we must take into account the Moslem element of the population. Over fifty roil- lions — or nearly one-third — of all the Mohammedans of the world are to be found in this Asiatic Empire of Great Britain. Immense as is this number, and powerful as was the sway of Islam in India from the days of Tamer- lane to those of the Mogul Aurungzebe, never have the followers of the false prophet been able to do the good they did in Western Asia in the destruction of idolatry ; while, at the same time, they have been able to exert all their characteristic influences for evil. When Sultan Mahmiid of Ghuzin invaded the country, he marched about in the old iconoclastic fashion ; but the idolatrous multitude was too vast, and the milder policy of tolera- tion had to prevail. However, the polygamy and the slavery of the now ruling class contributed to the greater demoralization of the Hindus. Zenanas multiplied under the shadow of the harem. The slavery of woman be- came even more wretched ; for, though the Code of Menu made her a mere thing belonging absolutely to her hus- band, it recognized some proprieties of treatment, while the Koran denied her even the privilege of accompany- ing her husband through the funeral-fire. After the ter- rific blow which Buddhism struck at the Hindu caste sys- tem, I find no satisfactory explanation of the more than
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complete reaction, and the existence of the caste system to-day in all its most extremely complicated and terrible character, except in the influence of the Mohammedan- ism of India.
But the leadership of the present is not in the direction of an idolatrous Brahmanism — rather, of a civilized athe- ism. It is the same as we have already noted in Japan. Multitudes of educated Hindus have come to look with utter contempt upon idolatry, but, alas ! they consider, at the same time, our Christianity as a superstition of our advanced civilization. They have imported all the best- known infidel literature from England, Europe, and Amer- ica, and it has been read, not only by tens of thousands from the original text, but by millions in the translations which have been made into various languages. A few hundred leading Hindu minds have revolted against this strengthening sway of atheistic thought, but their efforts have not been attended with much success. Thirty-two years ago Rammohun Roy thus inaugu- rated a movement which resulted in the well-known Brahmo Somaj. At the first professing to be only a reformed Hinduism, it subsequently became deistic and eclectic. But the fewness of the members, and their re- peated divisions and subdivisions and lapses, have abun- dantly illustrated the inability of India to save herself from an atheism and irreligion which would be worse than Brahmanism.
Christianity alone is equal to the task of saving India — not such a Christianity as Babu Keshub Chunder Sen portrays so eloquently with his Hinduized conceptions of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man ; not such a Christianity as the Brahmos strive to appre-
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hend and recommend, more successful even than Unita- rians in eliminating all that is supernatural and essential ; nor such a Christianity of dead formalism and moral im- potency as the great majority in the civil and military and commercial services from England are still living before this myriad population; but such a Christianity as is rep- resented by six hundred and eighty-nine ordained mis- sionaries of the various evangelical churches toiling to- day throughout India to lead away both from idolatry and from the negation of all faith to belief in God and in the gift of his Son.
In this work Baptists are honored of God in being permitted to share abundantly. Our missionary ope- rations are carried on among the two, and perhaps the three, most numerously populated sections of the coun- try ; while, in addition, the American Freewill Baptists, with sixteen missionaries, occupy eight stations among the 2,000,000 of Orissa. The English Baptists support thirty-nine ordained missionaries in India, chiefly among the 68,000,000 of Bengal and the upward of 100,000,000 of the Hindi- and Urdu-speaking populations of the Gangetic basin and Rajpootana. They have four in Ceylon among the 1,700,000 Singhalese, one in Madras preaching to Telugus and Tamils, and one at Poonah, in the West, among the 15,000,000 Mahrattas. The General Baptists of England have sixteen missionaries and 1,073 church-members in Orissa. American Bap- tists of the United States and the Canadian Dominion — the former with twenty-two missionaries and the latter with eleven — confine their labors to the nearly 1 7,000,000 Telugus in the South-east. Although it is true be- yond the land of the Telugus that other evangelizing
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forces largely outnumber those of our own denomina- tion, yet, as we have already seen, the duty was assigned, in the providence of God, to Baptists to lay the founda- tion at Serampore of nearly all the mission work in India. The labors of Drs. Carey, Marshman, and Ward did not simply antedate those of the hundreds from England, Germany, and America who have followed them, but they were of that marvellously general and thorough character which has made them a moulding power in all the evangelization and general education of the whole country.
The island of Ceylon, very efficiently occupied in the Colombo, Kandy, and Sabaragamdwa districts by Eng- lish Baptist missionaries, was not untruthfully described by Marco Polo as "the best island of its size in the world." It is nearly as large as Ireland, with a popula- tion of about two and a half millions, of whom the majority are Buddhists, and its geographical situation, securing two monsoons a year, keeps it covered with luxuriant vegetation. The Greek geographers called it " the utmost Indian Isle, Taprobane ;" it was the Serindib of the Arabians, and the Lanka Dwipa of the Sankcrit historians. There is a railway from the capital into the interior, passing through immense cocoanut-forests, thousands of square miles of coffee-plantations, and in view of much veritable Alpine scenery. At Kandy are the celebrated Buddhist Wiharas, or colleges, and the well-known temple of Dalada Maligawa, guarding " the sacred tooth of Buddha." Both the Buddhism of the Singhalese and the Brahmanism of the Tamils include a large elAnent of devil-worship. " The Light of Asia " here in its special home is Egyptian darkness. But by 17*
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missions is being written a poem of conquest more beautiful than the Ramayana, which sang, two centuries before Christ, the conquest of Ceylon by Rama. And the methods are essentially different from those with which the Dutch of the last century sought to enforce Christianity.
It was our privilege in Calcutta (population, 683,329) to meet socially nearly all the laborers of the Baptist mission of that vicinity, to become somewhat familiar with their varied and important work, and to occupy their pulpit in the Circular Road Chapel. With General Litchfield — a most faithful Baptist missionary, though American Consul-General to India — I gladly made a denominational pilgrimage to the other, and still older, chapel of the Lall Bazaar, to see the baptistery where the ordinance was administered to Dr. Judson at the hands of Dr. Ward. A great deal of itinerating work is done here and throughout Bengal. Nothwithstanding the widely-extended and incalculable influence of the press department of this mission, under the efficient charge of Rev. G. A. Rouse, and the extreme prominence given here in Calcutta to general and collegiate education under missionary auspices, it is gratifying to see the em- phasis laid upon chapel and house and street preaching to heathen adults. While nearly all the other leading missions of this vicinity have yielded to the school-room and book-making temptations, our Baptist brethren, espe- cially of late years, have striven to keep in the foreground the proclamatioH of the gospel by the living voice to men and women.
The last annual report from London thus rejects the experienced and intelligent judgment of the English Bap-
INDIA. 199
tist missionaries to India, who have had exceptional op- portunity to study the school theory of evangelization, or that method which largely withdraws the mission forces from living contact with adults and brings them chiefly to bear upon the more pliable minds of the youth. " Ever since the commencement of the mission," say the committee, " one of its leading characteristics has been the placing in the forefront of principle, as well as prac- tice, that God has ordained the direct preaclmig of the gospel to be the main instrument for teaching and sav- ing men ; and certainly the reports for the past year seem to testify that bazaar preaching, open-air preaching, vil- lage-street preaching, and all other like forms of making known the gospel to the heathen in the vernacular, have been followed with marked and blessed results. No other plans appear more efficient for the wide-spread diffusion of the gospel message than those of preach- ing to the masses of the people in the public thorough- fares and other places where they congregate." Though as yet the English Baptist India mission reports only 4,466 members, its prospects are not surpassed by any other British or European mission, and its plan of mak- ing direct preaching the main instrumentality is fully justified by comparison of results. Eight new ordained missionaries are expected to be sent out the present year, a Baptist brother of Bristol nobly guaranteeing the outfit and passage of all.
In Delhi, as well as at several other stations, the plan is successfully tried of encouraging the principle of self- support by arranging for contributions of whatever the native Christians have to give ; if not money, then rice, or fowls, or anything else that has market value. Here,
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as at several other points, our missionaries report " in- creasing vitality and independence of the native Chris- tian churches."
A number of the missionaries have adopted the Moody-and-Sankey method of introducing a great deal of the preaching of the gospel by singing. There is especially the " Khoolnea Singing Band," which usually accompanies Rev. G. C. Dutt upon his evangelistic tours ; and so increasingly attractive have the services thus proved that others are following the example.
The enterprise of this brother seems quite American in another particular. Last year he suggested a Chris- tian iiiela, or fair, at Kuddumdy — not in church, but in the open fields ; a several days' camp-meeting, only that trade might be carried on, as customary at heathen melas, though all gamblers and bad women and wine-sellers and obscene singers were to be excluded. The Hindus and Moslems declared that without these accompani- ments mere trade and religion would not be sufficient to attract and hold multitudes for several days. This was quite generally the derisive talk about the " Dhurmo Uddipony Mela " — a sad commentary upon the great Hindu and Moslem religious gatherings! But it was a success. Three hundred stores were opened, congrega- tions of six thousand daily crowded the pavilion, and over thirty thousand different heathen persons heard the message of salvation.
It is very encouraging to see the eagerness of the natives at different points to purchase tracts and copies of the Scriptures from our missionaries. Only a few years ago the utmost expected was to find those who would receive them as gifts and then not use them for
INDIA. 201
waste-paper ; now the supply is frequently not equal to the demand of those who are ready to pay all that is asked. And sometimes the Moslems are as anxious to buy as are the Hindus. In Monghyr, Rev. T. Evans sold during five months of last year seven thousand copies of Scripture or Christian literature, and down in Eastern Bengal Rev. R. Bion has needed three men to help him from morning to night passing over religious books and tracts to the crowds of purchasers, and re- ceiving and counting the eagerly-proffered money.
The native Christians — how, indeed, we did learn to love some of them ! The genuine piety, the intelligence and effective work, of many of them gave us more satis- faction to behold than did the splendors of Calcutta and Lucknow and Delhi and Agra. They are witnessing faithfully by their lives to the truth of Christianity before these multitudes of heathen, and they are likewise ready to prove as true to their Lord in death as one of their number lately in Muttra. To the idolaters, who alone were around him, his last words were, " I am a Chris- tian. My dear Lord is calling me, and I am going to him." No wonder a Hindu at his burial was heard to pray, " O thou the Christian's God ! the Christian's God ! turn thou my heart !" /
CHAPTER XVI.
INDIA {Continued).
AMERICAN Baptists had their attention first directed to India. Here the English Baptists Drs. Carey, Marshman, and Ward had begun their immortal labors, and thither Dr. Judson went, persuaded that there was no mission field throughout the world more needy and more hopeful. But it proved that the providence of God was cherishing a different purpose. Burmah became our pioneer mission, and not until twenty-three years after, in 1836, did we begin to participate in the evangelization of the vast population of Hindustan. The year before, the Board had been authorized by the Convention in session at Richmond to " establish new missions in every unoccupied field where there was a reasonable prospect of success." That was a very brave and thrilling reso- lution, and it resulted in the immediate establishment of our Telugu mission. But there was more to it, and I believe that thus is explained, in large rpeaSure, the long, dreary dearth of spiritual prosperity that repeatedly tempt- ed our denomination to the abandonment of this mission. The God of missions was insulted by the way that res- olution and its accompanying promises were followed up by those members and delegates who had voted them, and by the ministers and churches which were repre- sented upon that occasion. There had been an unusual 202
INDIA. 203
amount of eloquence expended upon various missionary- subjects. Able delegates from the English Baptists were present, and with their glowing accounts of the Seram- pore enterprise helped to awaken a missionary en- thusiasm which had never before been equalled. The Convention arose as one man, flung aside the timid pol- icy that had chiefly characterized its previous operations, authorized the Board to nearly double its expenses, pledging the Convention, the ministers, and the churches to raise the funds, and directed the establishment of new missions in all unoccupied and encouraging fields through- out the whole world. The spectacle was sublime. But three years subsequently the Treasurer was compelled to report that the contributions were not at all larger than before this great enthusiasm of words and conse- cration of resolutions. The members of the Convention went home to rest, feeling that they had done their duty — that somehow or other their "good time" would in- spire the denomination, and their cheap promises would be cashed at the banks. No wonder that in a few years the debt rolled up to forty thousand dollars — equal to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to-day — and that it ver}' seriously threatened all our missionary op- erations. How could God consistently prosper the Te- lugu mission, established under such circumstances ? It is surely a serious thing to go up to our anniversaries as members of the Societies or as delegates, and pledge God on our own behalf and in behalf of the churches, and then, Ananias- and Sapphira-like, keep back part of the price.
Rev. and Mrs. S. S. Day first began at Vizagapatam the Telugu work the home ministers and churches had
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SO compromised, removing subsequently to Chicacole, then to Madras, and finally to Nellore, It was truly among a most interesting people our mission was thus established — interesting because they are so numerous and so degraded. I have seen many of them in differ- ent parts of the country who would rank well with the better native classes in any portion of India; yet evi- dently the Telugus have been crushed beyond many others under the terrible weight of Hinduism. Their very name probably tells the dreadful story. The tra- dition is that their god Siva, in the obscene form of a Lingam, descended upon three mountains of their re- gion, and hence Tri- or Te-lingana, or " the people of the Telingas," or Telugus, This phase of Hinduism is its ut- most abomination, and it is a special privilege to rescue immortal souls from such thraldom.
Their language is very sweet and musical. It has been appropriately named "the Italian of India." The Seram- pore missionaries had long before been attracted by it, as well as by the multitudes reported from that distant field, and with their almost miraculous enterprise had accom- plished a Telugu translation of the entire Scriptures. The London Missionary Society established its first India mis- sion in this field (1806) at Vizagapatam, and the Church Missionary Society of England began its important mis- sions here (1841) at Masulipatam. The former, with leading stations also at Cuddapah and Nundial, and the latter, strongly occupying also Ellore and Bezwada, sus- tain nearly twice as many missionaries among the Telu- gus as do the American Baptists, including the Canadi- ans, and they have done considerably the most in the line of schools and of a native Christian literature. And
INDIA. 205
yet in the great and ultimate work of evangelization the blessing of God has rested the more abundantly upon our own long-embarrassed and waiting labors. It would seem that God was punishing for thirty years the delin- quent American constituency of the Telegu mission; yet, at the same time, not to visit our iniquity upon the Telugus themselves, he saw to it that others should largely scatter the seed from which we have been since privileged to reap so glorious a harvest.
Ten years passed — ten years of faithful and wisely- directed mission work, during which, for five years, Mr. and Mrs. Day were assisted by Rev. and Mrs. S. Van Husen ; but at the end sickness compelled the return of all to America, and apparently all the fruit that had been gathered from among the millions of Telugus was two converts at Nellore. Our churches thought it not wise to continue the support of so poorly-paying a mission. They had not yet taken to heart God's rebuke of their neglect to redeem their solemn promises in 1835, made to him and before the churches and the world with so much parade of prayer and eloquence and formal consecration. They were not prepared to humbly confess how they had withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars which they had pledged the mission treasury, and how they had spent them on their own religious luxuries and dissipations at home. And so they would seem to have been quite ready at the anniversary to vote to abandon the Telugu mission, when Dr. Judson arose, in all his feebleness of body, but sublime strength of faith — present, probably, to do a work for the India of his first love second only to that he had accomplished for Burmah — and said : " I would cheerfully, at my age, cross the Bay of Bengal and
18
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learn a new language rather than Hft up my hand for the abandonment of this work." Mr. Day also, and Mr. Sut- ton, from Orissa, united their protests. There can be no question that these three vacationed missionaries saved the Telugu mission that time — a fact which might well be taken into account in considering the wisdom of grant- ing missionaries home furloughs.
The readiness of Rev. L. Jewett, D. D., now of Madras, to go, and the ability of Mr. Day to return, saved the mis- sion the following year. Upon this consecration through the dark overhanging clouds the Lord smiled a little encouragement — enough to keep Mr. Jewett at Nellore even after Mr. Day was again compelled to return home ; but evidently his time had not yet come for laying aside the rod of correction from over the heads of disobedient American Baptists. God had not forgotten 1835, if Ave had. He remembered the promises — so demonstrative, so liberal, so unqualified — with which we accompanied the establishment of the Telugu mission — all, alas ! broken. Again it was proposed at the anniversary, not to humble ourselves in the very dust of repentance, but to abandon. It was upon this occasion that Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D., well known as the author of
" My country, 'tis of thee,"
penned those "prophetic" stanzas one of which was the following :
" Shine on, Lone Star! The day draws near When none shall shine more fair than thou; Thou, born and nursed in doubt and fear, Wilt glitter on Immanuel's brow."
Meanwhile, Dr. Jewett was reinforced by Rev. F. A.
INDIA. 207
Douglas ; visited Ongole ; consecrated the adjoining hill with the memorable prayer for a missionary for that dis- trict, laying hold with his wife and a native Christian com- panion of that promise of God to the "two or three;" held on nine years more through occasional encour- agements, but chiefly discouragements ; and then, for- tunately— nay, providentially — again broke in health, and was compelled to return and be at home among his distrusting and impatient brethren just in time once more to save the mission.
Thirty-one years had now elapsed since the broken resolutions of 1835. A generation had passed away. Almost all of those ministers and churches which had failed in their most solemn promises to the God of mis- sions— faithful in many other directions, but here most faithless — had gone to their account. It was then God's time to turn away from us and our Telugu mission his marked displeasure. He graciously forebore to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children ; and so, in 1 866, Rev. J. E. Clough, with the vision already before him of a great multitude of Telugu converts, advanced from Nellore to Ongole. The prayer offered twelve or thirteen years before was answered, and henceforth the light of most wonderful prosperity has poured down upon our whole Telugu mission field.
There are at this writing nearly 20,000 converts en- rolled in the Baptist churches of the Ongole district, and the numbers are steadily increasing at the rate of about 1,500 per quarter; and there are nearly 1,400 more mem- bers in connection with the other stations of Nellore, Ramapatam, Secunderabad, Kurnool, Madras, and Han- amaconda. The several Canadian Baptist stations still far-
208 ALOXG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
ther to the north must include over 1,000 more church- members ; so that we may rejoice with joy unspeakable over a present enumeration of nearly 22,400 converts among 89,600 Telugu adherents. This exceeds by sev- eral hundred the total number of all the Karen, Burmese, Shan, and other native converts in Burmah ; by almost 2,000, the great ingatherings of our Swedish stations ; and is surpassed only by the wonderful harvest God has granted to our missionaries in Germany.
It is no wonder that I was eager for my first glimpse of the land of the Telugus, and that thereafter the three hundred miles of journeying, chiefly overland by the tedious canals, though including delightful intercourse with all the Canadian and maritime provinces mis- sionaries, and much of their work, were impatiently accomplished, until four o'clock that glad morning, when Brother Clough welcomed me to Ongole.
We will not linger at Bimlipatam, our first post after leaving Burmah, where Rev. and Mrs. Sanford and Miss Hammond are laying well the foundations in this north- ern district of the Telugu field ; nor advance still far- ther to the north to Chicacole, where Rev. and Mrs. Armstrong are reaching multitudes and favorably im- pressing with Christian truth many even of the higher castes (since left and succeeded by Rev. and Mrs. I. R. Hutchinson) ; nor stop, though our steamship does a day, at Vizagapatam and see the London missionary Hay, who has labored here since 1839, to whom all honor, though he has given us Baptists some trouble in re- gard to New Testament translation : we will hasten on with our Bimlipatam and Chicacole mis.sionaries to the anniver- saries of the Canadian Dominion missions at Coconada.
INDIA. 209
This city, which is about twenty-five miles north of the upper mouth of the great Godavery River, may be said to be the headquarters of the Canadian Baptist mis- sion. Here Rev. John McLaurin and Rev. A. V. Tim- pany subsequently, after several years of useful service in connection with the stations of the Missionary Union, established most wisely a new central station, the Bap- tist churches of the Dominion assuming the support. Others have been added to this heavy draft upon the Union's Telugu force, till there are now eleven mission- aries in the northern field. The anniversary Conference was delightful. The reports from the Coconada district, under Rev. Mr. Timpany, and from Rev. Mr. Craig's district, to the south-west, were specially encouraging, showing the approach of the Ongole tidal-wave. The union of spirit and work manifested gave indication that it cannot be long before the Baptists of the Dominion will see their way over all real and fancied obstacles to the combining of all their home forces into one foreign- missionary organization. The political estrangements between the maritime provinces and the up-country- should not hinder that same unity which is being so beautifully betokened here, and for which all the mis- sionaries are continually praying. May the brethren of the Canadian Dominion, by their wisdom and example, teach us of the States how to close up our lamentable and unnecessary chasm ! It was gratifying to note also the harmony of view and co-operation with the missionaries of the Union upon the important subjects of Bible trans- lation, revision, and publication.
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CHAPTER XVII. ONGOLE.
THE city of Ongole is nearly two hundred miles north of Madras. The latter contains a popula- tion of 405,948, of whom not far from one-fourth are Telugus. Among these, it will be remembered, Mr. Day located our mission, though wisely moving three years after to Nellore for a more central station. Yet, since the wonderful ingathering among these people of late, it has become evident that Madras should be reoccupied ; and there was special fitness in assigning the task, even as that also of Bible translation, to Rev. L. Jewett, D. D. It had been abundantly proved that he knew well how to lay foundations, to gather little companies of " two or three " and with them take hold in prayer of the Al- mighty Arm, and to face unflinchingly the greatest dif- ficulties that can be presented in the whole Telugu field. Among the thousand mission stations in many heathen lands I never saw a more beautiful sight than on a Sun- day morning in Madras, when in the small temporary chapel the same number that gathered with the Saviour in the upper room met to hear Dr. Jewett preach, and to receive Sunday-school instruction from him and his most efficient wife, and from their daughter, Mrs. Nich- ols, who has since died. Almost the same scene was repeated in the afternoon in an adjoining suburb in a 210
ONGOLE. . 211
humble mud- and thatch-covered room. I never saw- more tact and interest in the work than on the part of this young widowed missionary sister. The picture of her father preaching, and of her watching the street from the door, ready to step quickly out and encourage any seeming to halt in the passing heathen crowd and hesi- tating whether to enter, — I wish all could have seen it. And yet, again, in another Telugu ward of Madras, as the sun was setting that same day, right in the dusty, filthy street, surrounded with hovels of whose wretched- ness Americans can form no conception, indifferent women pounding rice upon our left, ugly men and noisy boys congregated upon our right, the mission- aries singing, to introduce the services,
" Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched. Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity joined with power : He is able. He is willing; doubt no more." ,
Join the three scenes in one, and remember that hun- dreds— perhaps thousands — of this father's spiritual chil- dren were gathering that day in the Nellore, Ramapatam, and Ongole districts, and that other thousands would eagerly and respectfully crowd with them the places of divine worship ; and yet that here the veteran of Nel- lore, with wife and child, should stand, almost alone, surrounded by every discomfort and discouragement, because the time had come when this most difficult part of the Telugu field must be held. Indeed, it was sur- passingly beautiful in its heroism, its humility, its self- sacrifice. I am glad that the Rev. and Mrs. N. M, Wa-
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terbury are soon to assist at Madras, and Rev. R. Maple- son of this city also has received appointment.
I was glad to reach Nellore after an all night's ride in a bandy, a cart drawn by several men, who are changed every ten miles. The town was in its gala-dress, for a great neighboring maharajah had just arrived with a troop of richly-caparisoned elephants. But I hastened directly to the mission compound, more interested to witness the scene of so many years of heroic, patiently- waiting missionary labor. With very economical outlay, Rev. D. Downie has given to the premises a quite attract- ive appearance, but nature has done more in maturing the grand old mango trees, which were planted in the early days of the mission, and now symbolize by their shelter and fruit the glorious results of that other planting. The chapel is not yet completed. A delightful oppor- tunity was arranged for meeting many of the native Christians in the school-room, which serves as a tem- porary place for religious gatherings. Here, as so often elsewhere, I w&s privileged to address through the mis- sionary in charge ; and thus and afterward acquaintances were formed with the native Christians that will ripen in eternity. It was especially interesting to listen to the weird singing of Christian Telugu hymns, led by Mrs. Downie. Her labor in gathering up the native tunes and adapting to them Christian hymns is deserving of all praise. Miss M. M. Day, daughter of the founder of this mission, is the assistant missionary. The station schools are very prosperous. The work of the Bible- women is encouraging. Between the missionary care of nearly four hundred and fifty church-members in the district, the frequent evangelizing tours, the labor of Bible
ONGOLE. 213
revision, and the treasurership of the whole Telugu field, Mr. Downie is fully occupied.
Again our perspiring and panting human horses, hav- ing been on the run for nearly all the last ten miles, dropped the shafts of my bandy in front of a mission home. It was this time in Ramapatam, about fifty miles from Ongole. At midnight one of the relays of eight coolies lost the track a little, and emptied me from out of a sound slumber into a shallow river. I was safe enough so far as drowning was concerned, but very un- comfortable, especially as I could not express my mind in Telugu. However, it was a little more of the mis- sionary's experience ; and I was better able to appre- ciate jungle-touring as also toward morning a tiger crossed right ahead of us as we were passing through a forest.
But chill of both water and brute was quickly forgot- ten amid the cordial greetings of Rev. R. R. Williams, President of our Ramapatam Theological Seminary. Mr. Brownson's generous endowment of this institu- tion was a most wise investment. Nowhere in all the mission world can there be found so large a number of students together in preparation for the ministry. Up- ward of two hundred earnest, intelligent young men, gathered from all parts of the Telugu field, but chiefly from among the multitude of converts in the Ongole district, are here working faithfully, especially over the Bible, to be ready to be the pastors of the many churches that are being established. I met them in their class- rooms, talked with them collectively and individually, and received such impressions of the genuineness and permanency of the late Telugu work as are calculated
214 ALONG THE LINES AT THE EROxNT.
to fill every Christian heart to overflowing with gratitude to God.
The special prominence given all through the course to the study of the Scriptures — its history and doctrines, its prophecies and their fulfilment; the memorizing of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles ; and the anal- ysis of the Epistles, — all impressed me most favorably. More teachers and buildings are needed. Mr, Williams is the only missionary now here, Rev. A. A. Newhall being in America, and some of the classes of the insti- tution and of the other two schools are compelled to study and recite out under the trees. Quite a number of the seminary students are married, and it was very pleasing to notice their wives by their side taking notes of the lectures on Church History and Homiletics, and writing out their analyses of the Pauline Epistles. Sev- eral of their copy-books which I examined indicated many months of diligent labor in this efibrt to become thoroughly qualified to help their husbands in the gos- pel ministry. There are forty-seven members of the senior class. Would that there were a hundred ! The demand is so great !
We must pass on to Ongole. To the west of us, be- yond yonder mountain-range, are three lately-established stations of the Missionary Union. Kurnool, upon the Toombudra, fifty miles above its junction with the Krishna, is occupied by Rev. and Mrs. F. E. Morgan, and the churches here and at the neighboring Atmakoor together number three hundred members. Rev. D. H. Drake is home on furlough. Secunderabad, near Hy- derabad, is an important field cultivated by Rev. and Mrs. W. W. Campbell, and fifty seven converts were last
ONGOLE. 215
reported as part of the early fruits. In Hanamaconda, also under the Nizam's government, and therefore la- boring under special embarrassments, Rev. and Mrs. A. Loughridge have commenced work with a little band of fifteen native Christians.
I approached Ongole from the north, and had been travelling one week overland from Coconada. Upon the last day I abandoned the canal-boat of the regular line, hiring a swift one to take me through by nightfall. A Brahman and a high-caste woman requested leave to accompany me ; and during the day they gave me some lessons as to the amazing strength and difficulty of the Indian caste system. At noon they begged to be allowed to go ashore to buy, cook, and eat their food. I told them, through my servant interpreter, of my special haste, and that I could stop only long enough for them to make purchases. However, it was against the rules of their caste to cook and eat on the boat with me ; and though they were invited to use my stove arrangements, and then repeatedly urged to eat food which had been prepared elsewhere for me, they refused, and, though evidently at great discomfort and pain, insisted upon fasting all day.
It was not till midnight that I reached the place, eight miles from Ongole, where the ox-team and cart had been waiting two days for my arrival. They were trotting- oxen and the cart had springs ; otherwise, the weary traveller would not have been so grateful.
'Never have I met a man who in his person and work reminded me so much of Mr. D. L. Moody as Rev. J. E. Clough, the Ongole missionary — the same build, the same impressive sincerity, the same energetic, business-like
2l6 ALONG THE LINKS AT THE FRONT.
way in preaching and management. When he is talk- ing, the natives listen spellbound. Even in the open air and in the outlying villages there is none of that straggling from his congregation which I have hundreds of times witnessed elsewhere. He illustrates very largely, is very simple in what he says, and the natives see at once that he means every word. I observed no tears in his eyes, but often his language was full of them, and as he would rehearse the story of the cross or tell some pa- thetic incident of Christian experience his hearers would very generally exhibit emotion.
He took me to Prayer-Meeting Hill, where twenty- eight years ago God was asked to send a missionary to Ongole. There we knelt together and thanked God for the abundant evidence around us that he had blessed the labors of him whom he had sent in answer to that prayer, as also of those who have toiled so nobly by his side. And as I looked out upon the far-extending plain, with its dense population, its twenty thousand converts scattered among more than five hundred villages, it was impossible to leave that hallowed place without earnestly supplicating God to send more missionaries to Ongole, and to bless still more abundantly the efforts at Ramapatam to train up a large number of the native ministry. I be- lieve Mr. Clough will break down under the pressure, uh- less he is much more largely and speedily relieved. Rev. and Mrs. W. R. Manley are still learning the language. Rev. and Mrs. W. B. Boggs, who have here very effect- ively taken hold of the missionary work, must soon "re- lieve Mr. Williams at Ramapatam. And these are all at present besides Mr. Clough. The much-needed high school has a teacher, but still it has to be under mission-
ONGOLE. 217
ary supervision and constant care. So, in part, with both the boys' and the girls' schools, the numbers in all three of which equal three hundred and twenty-six. Every hour messengers and letters were arriving, sometimes from a distance of from one to two hundred miles away upon the field, requiring the most serious and thoughtful attention upon the part of the senior missionary. I met on his veranda at one time six delegations from different villages to consult him regarding a pastor or a teacher ; or the erection of a school-house or a chapel ; or the re- ception or exclusion of a member ; or the procuring of Scriptures ; or some other matter. But then, in addi- tion, Mr. Clough must travel over the field several months in the year. Then the rule every day — tenting at four villages, four sermons, four inquiry-meetings, with any number of consultations interspersed, not only with those of the village, but with the constantly-arriving delegations. If the man is ever again seen in America, it will be almost a miracle. No wonder that he is pressing the importance of the division of the Ongole field into four districts, with their central stations at Ongole, Cumbum, Guntoor, and Vinakonda. But this means several new missionary fam- ilies, in addition to Rev. and Mrs. I. F. Burditt, who are soon to reinforce Ongole. American Baptists must pro- vide them. Not for Mr. Clough's sake — he does not ask any personal consideration, being perfectly willing to be crushed, if it is best for Christ's cause among the Telu- gus — but for the sake of twenty thousand converts and eighty thousand adherents scattered among five hun- dred villages — nay, for Emmanuel's sake — the call from the Ongole field should speedily be met.
It was my privilege to preach to five hundred of the
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2l8 ALONG THE LINES AT 7 HE FRONT.
Telugu Christians in their comfortable Ongole chapel. No longer the followers of Siva and Vishnu, they come together to worship God. Everywhere perfect order and propriety, Ezra, the third with Dr. and Mrs. Jewett in that memorable prayer-meeting on the hill, is my inter- preter. I hope I fed them; the scene was such as greatly to intensify a desire so to do. A large company of very humble Christians indeed, nearly all from the lower so- cial castes — farm-laborers, weavers, cobblers, tanners, and the like. The vast majority of the Telugus are of low caste, but God's call to work especially among them has been very unmistakable; and through them it would seem to be the divine plan that the Brahmans and other high castes are to be reached, even as the Burmese through the Karens. At first Mr. Clough met with some encour- agement from the aristocrats of the country; but when a few conversions took place among the low-caste Telugus, all his proud native friends threatened to leave him and have nothing more to do with his school and his religion. It was a time of great perplexity and trial — the beginning of the late mighty harvest, which he could not see com- ing in, and all the upper classes in society giving him the alternative : the poor and despised masses, or they, the rich, the learned, the influential. The crisis came one evening. Both husband and wife, in different rooms, were prompted, without cither's suggestion, to turn to God's word for counsel. Each took a Bible from piles that had lately come from the printer, and neither of which had ever been opened for use, and both turned to the same passage. First Corinthians, chapter i. Surely it was God's hand that handled for them those two new Bibles in separate rooms, and made both Mr. and Mrs.
ONGOLE. 219
Clough read at the same moment, for the relief of the same anxious heart-load, " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are."
After the five hundred had scattered from the morn- ing service, twenty native preachers came together to pray before going out that Sunday afternoon into the harvest-field of the surrounding villages. Then they went two by two forth to distances of from three to ten miles from the city. The next morning one of the preachers presented himself at the mission house with three men as candidates for baptism. It was suggested by Mr. Clough that as these men had never conversed with the missionaries, and were fair samples of the many thousands already gathered in, it was a providential op- portunity for me to examine them myself in the presence of as many of the church as could be assembled that day. I eagerly availed myself of the opportunity, giving them for over an hour as thorough an examination as I could have given any candidate for baptism before a church at home. Indeed, many of the questions — some of which the Chinese Christians taught me in Swatow — were more searching than would have been allowed in America. They were asked if they owed anybody any money ; if anybody owed them any money ; if they wanted to get anything from the missionaries ; and if they were deter- mined to give as much to Christ and his cause as they had given to the devil and his heathenism.
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" Who converted you," said I — " Teacher Clough, or Teacher Boggs, or the native Christian who has been preaching at your village ?" — " Neither — oh, neither, sir," was the reply. " God did it. His Spirit has used his truth." It can well be appreciated that such an intelligent and thoroughly satisfactory reply quite took me by surprise.
"Why do you want to be baptized?" — "Our Lord was, and asks us to follow his example." — " But you may fail and go back to heathenism." — " We cannot, if we keep trusting and praying." — " But you cannot read the Bible, and preaching cannot be around you all the time." — " But we have some of it in our hearts, where it won't lose." — "Will you be discouraged if we do not baptize you and receive you into the church now ?" Two of the three men said promptly, through Ezra, our interpreter, " No, not till we die ;" while the third qualified a little, saying he thought a year or two or three months longer might discourage him about joining church ; but for life it was settled — Christian, not heathen.
I then turned to the leaders of the Ongole Church, and inquired if generally their examinations of the mul- titudes received had been as thorough ; and, a little to my discomfiture, they replied, " More so." — "And were the majority of the candidates as satisfactory in their answers ?" — " Yes," they responded, " and more so."
I believe they were right. Missionaries, and espe- cially pious, intelligent, and educated natives, are best able to probe native conduct for motives. Evidence has accumulated all around me here that confidence may be placed in the judgment which has admitted especially
ONGOLE. 221
the multitude since the time of the famine. It was wis- dom that postponed the reception of members until after the necessity for government labor and charity support was over, not only on account of the character of the ingathering, but also because of the general impression made regarding Christianity, the object of the mission- aries, and the constitution of a church.
Finally, a blessed good-bye. " Will you baptize those men whom you have examined ?" said Brother Clough. "The church will act upon their applications; and, be- sides, there is the mother of the wife of one of our preach- ers already accepted and awaiting the ordinance. She will make a fourth candidate." What a privilege indeed to the tourist ! Never was an opportunity more gladly im- proved. The sun was just going down. At the door were my coolies and the bandy and the torch-bearer and the servant, all ready for my departure. The good-bye was to be at the waters where hundreds before had been buried in the likeness of their Lord. The beautiful bap- tistery is on the compound, in the direction from the dwelling and chapel toward which we strolled the other day on a visit to a ward of the city whose dethroned idols, in my possession, are too obscene for exhibition or for description. Can it be that Christianity has such a power to lift up men and women from the lowest conceiv- able depths of degradation, where the organs of lust are worshipped as the only gods of this world, and to purify and elevate the thoughts and the affections, until out of those most loathsome of the vile such Christians are cre- ated as I am about to baptize ? How is it ? Verily, because its " gospel is the power of God unto salvation ;" " With God all things are possible." These are miracles
19*
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of his grace, I feel like taking off the shoes from my feet, for assuredly this is holy ground. They sing one of their beautiful Telugu hymns. Brother Clough prays, and then through him I address the surround- ing congregation. The venerable native preacher — the " Prayer-Meeting Hill " Ezra — accompanies me down into the water to interpret all that I say during the ordinance. How their dark faces shone with the light of heaven ! How beautiful their answers, their whole conduct !
A hasty change of apparel ; the hands of the mission- aries and the native preachers shaken again and again. It was so very hard to do it for the last time ! Brother Clough joins me for a little distance in the bandy upon the road ; our hearts were knit together, and they un- ravelled slowly. And so, with tears in my eyes, but with song in my heart, I left Ongole repeating the lines referred to in the last chapter :
" Shine on, Lone Star ! thy radiance bright Shall spread o'er all the eastern sky; Morn breaks apace from gloom and night; Shine on, and bless the pilgrim's eye,
" Shine on, Lone Star ! till earth, redeemed, In dust shall bid its idols fall; And thousands, where thy radiance beamed. Shall crown the Saviour Lord of all."
CHAPTER XVIII. AFRICA.
THIS is indeed a great and populous continent, which is beginning to arrest with absorbing interest the attention of all Christian churches. It contains one- quarter of the land area of our globe, equal to both North America and Europe together, and has a popu- lation of more than two hundred millions, or one-seventh the entire human race. There is considerable civilization in Cape Colony and its immediate neighborhood, as also in Egypt and along the Mediterranean ; but the great masses of the people are very degraded and barbarous. In regions such as Uganda, Mtesa's kingdom, to the north of Victoria Nyanza, and various parts of the vast interior Soudan, there are large populations very far re- moved from the wretchedness of the Wahombo and Hot- tentots, but it is all a " dark continent," with a darkness that only grows more dense with the advancing light of the many modern explorations. A quarter of the popu- lation are Mohammedans and nearly all the rest are pa- gans, there being, in addition, some four millions of Abys- sinians, Copts, Jews, Protestants, Roman Catholics, and various other sects.
Central Africa, included between the Desert of Sahara, Cape Colony, and the low malarious eastern and western coasts, is a high table-land of an average elevation of
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three thousand feet, with many great lakes and lofty mountains, is very salubrious and productive, and, but for the constant warfare and cruel slavery and inhuman sacrificial rites, would be one of the most densely-popu- lated portions of the globe. Although it is crossed by the equator, and although the sands of Guinea and of Nubia are so hot at times as to roast an ^tg'g or blister a foot, yet some of the mountains of Central Africa are covered with perpetual snow, and there are vast regions where Europeans and Americans would find much more health and comfort than in Southern Asia. Nowhere in the world is vegetation more luxuriant and beautiful. Its rivers — the Nile, the Congo, the Zambeze, and the Niger — are vast watercourses, the Congo, for example, pour- ing into the Atlantic three and a half times the volume discharged by the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. The discovery of this interior — equal in extent to the United States east of the Rocky Mountains — by Living- stone, Speke, Grant, Burton, Schweinfurth, Rohlfs, Cam- eron, Stanley, and others, may prove to have contributed as much to the world as did Columbus and Americus Vespucius by their voyages across the Atlantic.
To evangelize Africa is to pay an honest debt which Christendom long ago incurred. From the learned priests of Heliopolis, Herodotus and the Greeks re- ceived that instruction which largely underlies the civil- ization of Europe. Here, also, Moses and the Israelites gathered many elements which contributed to the pros- perities of David and of Solomon and to the glories of the Hebrew people. The Alexandrian school with Or- igen and Athanasius, and that of Carthage with Cyprian and Tertullian, have exerted world-wide influences in
AFRICA. 225
philosophy, doctrine, ecclesiasticism, and literature. The Greek-speaking populations received the Old Testament in the African Septuagint, and the leading theological in- structor of the Latin Church was Augustine, from Africa ; and because of his mother, Monica, the womanhood of the world is the more ennobled and beautiful. As has been truly said, "not in mere charity so much as in, simple justice should all Christians remember Africa, for' more than once has this Dark Continent been the chief source of light to other nations."
Concerning the entire work of Christian missions at pres- ent in Africa ; the six hundred and sixty-four ordained mis- sionaries at five hundred and eighty- five stations, chiefly upon or near the seacoast ; the various Protestant So- cieties which are supporting them — English, Scotch, American, German, French, and others, — I must refer the reader to my fuller and more general volume, Aroiind- the- World Tour of Christiaii Missions. But the great fact of the forward movement into the vast interior of the con- tinent, which of late years has begun so vigorously on the part of several of the leading missionary Societies, should be made specially prominent before the minds of Amer- ican Baptists. A golden opportunity is ours, and a spe- cial weight of obligation rests upon us. The Christians of no other nation and of no other denomination are so loudly called upon to-day to consider the subject of the evangelization of interior Africa. The Freedmen are the best-qualified material for the large proportion of this work ; and they are, providentially, American ; and their prevailing denominational convictions and affiliations are Baptist.
The Church Missionary Society of England followed
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up quickly the encouragement given by Mr, Stanley's report from Uganda, and, with the fifty thousand dollars promptly placed at its disposal for the purpose, estab- lished the Victoria Nyanza mission. Its stations are upon the north and west of the great lake ; and though King Mtesa is proving very unreliable, and trials are multiplying, chiefly through Moslem and French Cath- olic intrigues, the important advanced position is evi- dently occupied not to be relinquished.
The London Missionary Society has made its heroic advance into the neighborhood of Tanganyika. Its mis- sionaries, though at the cost already of several lives, have planted the standard of Emmanuel upon both sides of the lake, and are meeting with very great encouragement at Uramba, King Mirambo's capital. A steamer is being con- structed at the expense of Mr. Arthington of England.
The most accessible approach to the great interior from the east has been utilized by the Free and the Established Churches of Scotland. Their stations are upon Lake Nyassa, which has direct navigable water- communication with the Indian Ocean by the Shire and Zambeze Rivers. The only interruption is at some cataracts in the Shire, around which a road has been con- structed. Above and below, mission-steamers have been placed.
On the west coast the Church Missionary Society of England has been prospecting from its Niger stations far up into the interior, by way of the Binue branch, in the direction of Lake Chad. For five hundred miles the messengers upon the mission-steamer were continually meeting tribes ready to welcome Christian laborers. Un- doubtedly, Moslem and Roman Catholic intrigue and the
AFRICA. 227
hostility of slave-traders can materially modify much of this cordiality, even as in the Nyanza and Nyassa mis- sions ; but it is an occasion for gratitude and an unmis- takable indication of providential leadership.
The English Baptists, long engaged in mission work upon the west African coast, in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Cameroons River, have lately entered vig- orously upon the advance into the regions beyond by way of the Congo, or Livingstone. They have reached Stanley Pool, are locating ten missionaries at different stations from San Salvador to this grandly-important basis for work in Central Africa, and are placing two mission steam-launches upon the river — the one for navigation of the Lower Congo, and the other for the farther advance into the interior.
The Livingstone Inland Mission is following up the same Congo line of communication with the interior. This is an enterprise specially connected with the East London Faith Institution, and is conducted on similar principles with the China Inland Mission. Its plan is to send as many Christian workers as possible, and then soon to throw them upon their own secular labor for support. The leaders profess to see reasons which ren- der this much more practicable in Africa than in Asia, but they impress me as very illusory. The superintend- ent of their missionary force of seventeen upon that field had the good sense last year to so far realize the situa- tion as to write to the directors in London : " Self-sup- port is, however, at present, utterly out of the question." The movement professes to be undenominational and to illustrate the practical working of sanctified faith ; yet it is the most intensely denominational, Avhether upon the
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Congo and in East London, or in China and the Bristol Orphanage, or among English Plymouth Brethren and American Perfectionists and Higher-Life Christians, And alongside of declarations of reliance alone upon prayer to God for funds comes the widely-circulated appeal this year from headquarters beginning, " Will friends kindly remember the Funds of the Institute? They are very low just now. Several brethren are leav- ing for the regions beyond," etc. We sympathize with our English Baptist missionaries upon the Congo, on account of the friction and the embarrassment which these impracticable and inconsistent efforts will doubt- less produce, and pray that soon the pious and heroic band of the Livingstone Inland Mission may enter into that real unity of spirit which prevails among the vast majority of evangelical missions, discarding all monop- oly of the most holy faith and consecration.
The American Board (Congregational) have lately made a very wise choice of a point of approach into the interior by striking directly through Benguela two hun- dred and fifty miles and occupying Bihe. This station is in a very healthy location, surrounded by a dense pop- ulation, and in the line of the kingdom of Muato Yanvo, described as equal to Mtesa's Uganda. Eventually this Society may join its forces at work now from the oppo- site coasts, even as the Church Missionary Society be- tween Victoria Nyanza and the Binue Soudan. Such planning for combination is full of wisdom and inspiration.
Upon the north, through Egypt, the American Mis- sionary Association is entering Central Africa by locat- ing a first station in Khartoom, west of Abyssinia. Mr. Arthington has paid fifteen thousand dollars toward the
AFRICA. 229
fifty thousand which they are raising for the estabhsh- ment of this mission.
Mention should also be made of the International Association for the Suppression of the Slave Trade and Opening of Central Africa. This is not a church mis- sionary organization, yet is a noble philanthropic under- taking, with the Belgian King as President, and support- ed by leading Catholics and Protestants. Its object is " to explore scientifically the unknown parts of Central Africa, to facilitate the opening of roads by which civ- ilization may be introduced, and to find means of sup- pressing the negro-slave trade." Its expeditions are already at work in the country, carrying out the main practical measure of forming a line of relief stations across the continent from Bagamoyo, on the east, to Loanda, on the west, and at other commanding centres. These stations are to be provided with stores of every kind ; to furnish resting-places for travellers, explorers, and missionaries ; to supply necessaries and gather in- formation. They are not to be distinctively commercial nor religious, but " missionaries," says the Secretary, "will be free to come and establish themselves in the neighborhood." Mr. Stanley's expedition, now proceed- ing up the Livingstone River, is under the auspices of this Society.
It is depressing to turn from so much evangelizing and philanthropic enterprise to the still waiting and watch- ing attitude of American Baptists. As Rev. H. L. Way- land, D, D., editor of the National Baptist, said a year and a half ago, in that most admirable mission report on Africa, " that Baptists who professionally act through the Missionar}'^ Union should be doing nothing for this 20
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land is a matter of humiliation and regret." That our woman's societies have lately made appropriations to two widows of our former missionaries in Liberia is hardly a feather to the weight of our obligation, and only renders more conspicuous the neglect, not of the Society, but of the denomination, whose servant it is.
Our record in Africa, upon its Liberia coast, has been long and full of sorrow, I have neither space nor heart to give much of it here in detail. It began — where again it should be taken up most vigorously — among colored Baptists of the South. They received encour- agement from the Board of the General Convention as early as 1820. Missionaries were now forwarded at in- tervals, and at times their labors met with a good meas- ure of success. The first life sacrificed was that of Rev. C. Holton, whose support had been divided with the Col- onization Society, and who died after only three and a half months' service. Mr. Cary was killed by slavers. In 1830, Mrs. Skinner fell in two months, and her hus- band in three months, after reaching Monrovia. Mrs. Mylne was a victim to the dreadful coast-fever a {q^n days after landing in 1835, and her husband broke down completely in three years. Two others were soon after likewise sacrificed, and still, during all the sixteen years, not one heathen was reported as converted, the visible results being only among the American colonists. Yet the dark cloud continued over our African work. Mrs. Crocker endured the Liberian climate but one year; her husband, after reducing to writing the Bassa language, and after a rest at home, died of hemorrhage the day after his return to Monrovia. Mr. Fielding endured the climate at Edina but seven weeks. Mr. Clark — from
AFRICA. 231
whom so much was expected, as he seemed to have be- come accHmated and had accompHshed much translation into the Bassa — was buried at sea on his first vacation. Mr. and Mrs. Goodman broke down in two years. Mrs. Shermer died in ten months, and her husband had to abandon the field two months later. From 1856 to 1867 the work of the Missionary Union was suspended, the Liberian Baptists, still mostly among the twenty-five thousand colonists, sustaining their own worship in a rather indifferent manner, but showing little interest in the evangelization of the six hundred thousand native idolaters. Rev. R. Hill, one of their preachers, on a visit to our churches aroused fresh interest, but he died before return. However, assistance was sent to four of his colaborers, among whom was Rev. J. Von- brunn, whose labors, until his death, in 1876, were very remarkably blessed to Bassa native conversions. With his death the work of the Union in Liberia was again suspended.
In Liberia and in Yoruba the Southern Baptist Con- vention has supported a large number of faithful labor- ers. From the former they have pressed forward chiefly into the interior Beir country. In the latter region sta- tions are occupied at Lagos, Gaun, Abbeokuta, and Og- bomishaw, and ninety-two church-members have been gathered. It is the earnestly-expressed judgment of this mission that white men are needed for the most effective superintendence, and that unless first-class qual- ified colored help be sent from America better material can be found on the ground. In the forward movement of American Baptist forces, to which we shall presently refer, the Yoruba mission of our Southern Board should
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join, with the ultimate object of uniting with the Upper Niger enterprise upon the great field of Soudan.
Of Liberian Africo-Americans the Baptist Association reports two thousand church-members, and the anniver- sary paper to which we have referred states that " we have good authority for saying that the Baptist element embraces the most valuable and efficient portion of the population." But it is to be feared that, after all, this is not saying much, in view of the weakness mani- fested in self-support, the lack of missionary spirit to- ward the native tribes, and the general depressing effect of the malarious climate in their lowlands on Africans who had become thoroughly acclimated to America. The fever-stricken coast-line of equatorial Africa is plain- ly too much even for the American negroes; and, though in a less degree than with white missionaries, it is essen- tial that they also live and labor away from the swampy lowlands near the shore, in the up-country of Central Africa. From thence, in turn, must be the main reli- ance for missionaries to the coast. Quite similar are the records and the impressions they furnish of the mission operations of the American Methodists, the Presbyte- rians, and the Episcopalians in Liberia. For all, Liberia has been a school, a discipline.
The English and Jamaica Baptists have had an expe- rience upon the west coast of Africa quite like our own. It began soon after emancipation, and in the heart of a col- ored man named Keith, who, that he might preach the gos- pel to his tribe, worked his passage from the West Indies to the very place whence the slavers stole him. Others followed him, protesting, in the face of cautions, " We have been made slaves for men : we can be made slaves for
,\
AFRICA. 233
Christ." Following these providential indications, the English Committee in 1840 began a mission upon the island of Fernando Po, a little north of the equator. Well-supplied missionaries and teachers were provided. Languages were learned and reduced to writing, and portions of Scripture were translated. But soon disease and death and strife clouded the prospects of the mis- sion. Spain sent its Jesuit priests and ordered all Prot- estant Christians off the island. They fled to the conti- nent, and took shelter at the foot of the great Cameroons Mountain. In succession seven missionaries early lost their lives, and six others broke down quickly and were driven from the field. Five are still at their dangerous posts in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Came- roons River, and at last reports they are surrounded by only one hundred and fifty native Christians — a more dis- couraging exhibit, after forty years, than American Bap- tists have in Liberia.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, English Baptists are to- day at the front in the great movement forward into inte- rior Africa. Undismayed by their experience, they were ready to second promptly the proposition of the noble friend of Central African missions, Mr, Arthington, and to push on up the Congo. The Committee were encouraged to call at once for four, and then for six, ad- ditional men, to thoroughly equip them, and to provide them even with two steam.-launches. They say they " feel they are now plainly called upon to go foTwardl' and "very earnestly urge the churches to make this mat- ter also a subject of special and importunate prayer that the gracious Lord of the harvest will touch the hearts of some of his choicest and most gifted servants — men of 20*
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conviction and culture, of courage, enthusiasm, endur- ance, and wisdom, and full of love for souls — and lead them to offer themselves on the altar of missionary service,"
Such is the enthusiasm for Central African evangel- ization in old conservative England among Baptists. Strange, indeed, that in America we are lagging so far behind ! Brave words have been spoken, but we do not move forward. There stood for many months Mr. Ar- thington's liberal offer of thirty-five thousand dollars' assistance. Committees have reported ; the Board has prayerfully and thoughtfully considered. Why is not the grand movement begun ? Ah ! because the great body of ministers and churches throughout our denomi- nation are not yet as responsive as in England. Strange- ly, Africa is not upon their heart. Hundreds and thou- sands are not yet coming forward and saying, " Here is support in addition for an advance into Central Africa." None are more eager than those at the Rooms for the very first indications of such response. But they must guard other interests ; missions already established must be their first care. God grant they may not have to wait for Central Africa much longer, but may soon feel war- ranted to issue the order for advance !
But at what point shall we make our advance ? The providence of God seems turning our thoughts and hearts toward the Soudan. This is the great heart of negro-land, containing a population of from sixty mil- lions to one hundred millions. It is probable that a majority of the people compare not unfavorably with the inhabitants of Uganda. The great intermingling of Mohammedanism has lifted the masses above the lower
AFRICA. 235
pagan degradation. Additional hindrances, indeed, are placed in the way by the former conquests of Islam ; yet there is probably more than compensation in the blows given to idolatry, and in the preparation, by the general use of the Arabic Koran, for the introduction of the Arabic Bible. The Foulahs, the Bornuese, and the Hausas — accessible by the Niger and the Binue Rivers — present inviting fields. As the Church Missionary Society has so long occupied stations upon the Lower Niger, and has lately been exploring the Binue for five hundred miles with a view to locating new missions, there should be conference and agreement. It is cer- tain there would be no difficulty in a fraternal arrange- ment as to division of territory, since the unoccupied regions are so vast and so inviting. It is probable that the English preference would be to advance up the Binue in the direction of Lake Chad, leaving the Upper Niger to American Baptist enterprise. Here, for the latter, are vast populations, with comparatively advanced civiliza- tions, along for one thousand miles between the last station of the Church Missionary Society and the famous city of Timbuktu. The flooding of EI Juf from the Atlantic — an enterprise ere long to be ac- complished— will render part of this field still more accessible from the Atlantic and from America. At the same time, the vantage-ground in Liberia should not be forgotten. An advance thence overland into the interior, with the ultimate object of joining forces with the Upper Niger, would probably be wise. Li- beria and the colored Baptists of America are in great need of the inspiration of such a double advance. The English brother's generous offer of seven thou-
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sand pounds to assist the Missionary Union in establish- ing a Lake Chad mission is considered impracticable by the Executive Committee. While in duty bound to be- lieve that all the requisite tact in negotiation and enter- prise in calculation have been given to the question at the Rooms, it is a great disappointment to turn from so immediate a prospect of co-operating in Central Africa evangelization. We had thought that if the burden of advance movements from Yoruba and Liberia into the interior v^ere carried by our Southern white and colored Baptist churches, our Northern churches would be able to establish the Upper Niger mission, and at the same time respond to the Lake Chad proposition, and by actual trial test its practicability. It is so far north of the Binue as not to interfere with the Church Missionary Society's prospective work. A steam-launch, such as is being constructed for the Upper Congo, could be transported in pieces over the two hundred miles from the Binue to the lake, and I believe we have some Livingstones and Stanleys equal to all the extreme perils of the under- taking.
It is to be devoutly hoped that the decision of the Ex- ecutive Committee will not close the negotiations with the great friend of Central Africa ; that now the Mission- 2xy Union will not allow Northern Baptists to rest their responsibility for Africa upon the possible interest the Freedmen may be induced to take in their fatherland ; and that prayerful, tactful, and enterprising thoughts of the Upper Niger, Lake Chad, and the vast Soudan will continue to engage attention at our foreign-mission Rooms until our denomination shall be doing its share in the grandly-opening work of this vast continent.
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CHAPTER XIX.
NORTHERN EUROPE.
HASTENING down from Russia at the close of the summer of 1867, it was our great privilege to be in Hamburg at the Triennial Conference of the North- western, Prussian, Middle, Southern, and Danish Asso- ciations, as also to attend some of the services connected with the dedication of Rev. J. G. Oncken's beautiful new chapel. As we hastened over to the meetings early the next morning after our arrival from Liibeck, the first one to greet us was this venerable father of our German mis- sion, and, indeed, of our mission work also in Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Russia, Hungary, and Tur- key. He had changed much since 1853, when he play- ed ball with me in my father's home, or rested those weeks from over-fatigue with Mrs. Bainbridge's parents in Cleveland. It strengthened our impression that he was growing old to have him recall with wonderful minuteness articles of food and fireside scenes we had entirely forgotten. It seemed as if the hand of Time was beginning to open for him the book of everlasting remembrance.
Much, indeed, of thrilling interest is recorded upon its pages, as also in the memories of many of these hundred missionaries assembled from all parts of our North European field. Here, also, we met Rev. J. G.
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Warren, D. D., the great-hearted Secretary of the Mis- sionary Union, and the German pastor at whose home in Rochester I boarded when trying to learn this lan- guage of such marvellous richness and power. We went down to the bank of the Elbe, and, looking in the direction of Altona, in Hanover, pictured that scene in the darkness of the night when Rev. Barnas Sears, D. D., baptized Mr, Oncken and six other candidates, the first- fruits of so glorious a harvest. Entering immediately that year (1834) upon missionary service for American Baptists, Mr. Oncken was soon permitted to welcome those efficient colaborers Rev. Mr. Koebner of Copen- hagen and Rev. G. W, Lehmann of Berlin. It hardly seems possible that leaders of this great and beautiful city bearing the honored name of the father of the German Reformation could so late as 1840 enter upon a violent persecution of our mission. But they then began by casting Mr, Oncken into prison, following it up by repe- titions of like cruelty for eight years, and then, though they were shamed out of their unchristian conduct by the Good Samaritanism of the Hamburg Baptist Church shown so conspicuously on the occasion of the great fire, other cities and towns, under the inspiration of the Lu- theran clergy, continued the persecution of all promi- nently connected with our work in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, as well as in Hanover, Berlin, Stuttgart, Mar- burg, Oldenburg, Bavaria, Pomerania, and in other cities and districts of Germany.
Little did Mrs. Ann H. Judson dream, while she was enduring so much cruelty at the hand of the Burman King, that her heroic fortitude was to be the special help in another generation to many Baptists of Northern
NORTHERN EUROPE. 239
Europe in experiences of heartless persecution. With Americai;! funds an edition of five thousand copies of her record of toil and suffering was issued in German, and multitudes took fresh courage. It was God's way — by the cross to the crown ; out of great tribulation to the blessed heaven of present prosperities. Rev. A. Moen- ster was a year in the Copenhagen prison ; Rev. G. Alf was eleven times thrown into jail by the Polish author- ities ; Rev. F. O. Nilsson was thrice imprisoned by the Swedish magistrates, and then banished from the coun- try. But all such trials turned out unto the furtherance of the cause ; and now, as way marks along the path to present glorious attainments, we also found that Dr. Oncken loves, as Dr. S. F. Smith has described in his valuable Missionary Sketches, to guide his visitors through the streets and alleys of Hamburg to those upper win- dows where he was stoned by the mob, to the filthy dun- geons where he almost died, and to that dark entrance to their hidden meeting-place which they called " The Valley of the Shadow of Death."
It was a privilege of a lifetime to meet these brethren, who by labors and sufferings abundant had laid the foundation for our now 444 churches with 46,157 mem- bers. The tread of mighty continental armies had stopped for a season, and the mission forces from the battlefield, from the hospital, and from beside many a new-made grave had gathered to prepare for future conquests under Emmanuel with the sword of the Spirit. A goodly number of recruits for the ministry were there who had been faithfully studying in Ham- burg and elsewhere to be qualified to preach the gospel among their countrymen, afflicted to so large an extent
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by formalism, rationalism, and infidelity. Reports of wonderful revivals were pouring in from Sweden, Po- land, Russia, and elsewhere. Two foreign missionaries were to be appointed — one for South Africa, whose in- troductory labors there followed up have been greatly blessed ; and the other for China — a mission, however, which was subsequently withdrawn to allow reinforce- ment in Russia. From scenes so absorbingly interest- ing it was hard to break away and take the steamer across the North Sea to Hull, England.
Thirteen years passed, and we were permitted to re- visit some of these scenes where Christian labor, en- couraged by the sympathies, the prayers, and the contri- butions of American Baptists, has been so signally blessed. Baptists are much better known. In society and from the public press they are receiving more respectful, if not yet thoroughly appreciative, treatment. Prussia has formally acknowledged the legal rights of our churches, and even Russia has given them an official recognition. A strong Baptist Church has just been organized in St. Petersburg, and the materials are gathering for one in Moscow also. Though persecution continues in Austria, our mission influences have reached around this barrier of Roman Catholic intolerance, and in Turkey — particu- larly in Bulgaria — very hopeful foundations are being laid for strong and aggressive Baptist churches. Some of our largest churches in Germany are in Memel, Rum- my, Konigsberg, Altona, Hamburg, Berlin, Reetz, Ho- henkirch, Ikschen, Grodszisko, Albrechtsdorf, and Goy- den. Notwithstanding Austrian persecution, our church in Buda-Pesth numbers 162, and that of Vienna 70. The Baptist Church in Copenhagen is 341 strong, while those
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in Danish Vandlose and Jetsmark have almost equal numbers. The Polish Baptist churches of Kicin and Zezulin have each upward of 500 members, and like- wise the Russian at Odessa, Riga, Windau, Neudorf, and Gross-Essen.
There is evidently very special reason for encourage- ment in Russia and Poland. Within the Czar's domin- ions dissent is rapidly on the increase, and, as almost universally immersion is considered the only scriptural mode of baptism, none are so cordially welcomed as Baptist missionaries. The Evangelical Bible Society of Russia, the Russian Bible Society, and the British and Foreign and the American Bible Societies have dis- tributed, chiefly during the last five years, nearly two million five hundred thousand copies of God's word throughout the huge Empire ; and upon this founda- tion of so extensive Bible reading Baptist missions should be specially eager to build. For such work our German brethren have great advantages. Many thousands of their fellow-countrymen have colonized in the vicinities of Kief, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, Kasan, Samara, and Saratov, and the numerous Baptists among them provide at once standing-room for German mission- aries. Our twelve Baptist missionaries, with two thou- sand converts, in Russian Poland, and our over three thousand Baptist churCh-members in Courland and Livonia, prove that even the strongest holds of Roman Catholic bigotry and superstition can be carried in the name of a thoroughly scriptural Christianity.
If we are to judge from the comparative results of work, the missionaries from our German churches to the majority of the Roman Catholic populations of Eu- 21
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rope are better qualified than those sent from English and American churches ; they seem to understand the people better. The history of their country has largely been that of a conflict with Rome, and a much greater proportion of their population than of ours is Catholic. Not only have they thus had better opportunity, but it is certain that the Roman Catholicism the English and Americans study in their countries is different from that in Europe, and from that which Europe has moulded in South America, Mexico, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Moreover, evangelization by German missionaries in their neighboring Catholic countries is much more eco- nomical. They require smaller salaries, and their trav- elling back and forth is much less expensive. France, and to an extent Spain, are exceptional, on account of political and race alienations. Americans especially can succeed much better among the French than can the Germans. And so it would seem that Infinite Wisdom had been so arranging that the principal Baptist mission responsibility to Roman Catholic Poland, Austria, Hun- gary, and prospectively to Italy also, should fall upon laborers sent from our German churches, while for France and Spain missionaries should be drafted from our English and American churches. From present light, it would appear that the best way also to help for- ward evangelization in Russia, and other countries where the Greek faith prevails, is to strengthen financially the hands of the missionary Committees of our German Baptist and Swedish Baptist churches. Our missionary brother in Greece is a native, which gives him correspond- ing advantages ; and our Southern representative in Rome is exceptionally qualified for any Christian service.
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The development of our denominational work in Swe- den has been quite as remarkable as that in Germany. It may be that history is preparing to repeat itself— at least, upon the battlefields of spiritual conflict. As early in the seventeenth century Gustavus Adolphus came to the rescue of German Protestantism, and hurled back the Catholic legions of Tilly and of Wallenstein, so in the not- distant future evangelical Protestantism in Germany, in its fourfold conflict with Rome, Lutheran formalism, rationalism, and infidelity, may be in even greater ex- tremity than was Saxony after the horrors of Magde- burg, and as were all the Protestant estates before the battle of Lutzen ; and deliverance may come from the North. Swedish power may again be required for the rescue — that power which has been developing of late in connection with our Baptist missions far more sur- prisingly and gloriously than did the character and the genius of the royal Scandinavian hero.
Various influences conspired to the opening of the work in Sweden. German pietism and Moravian enter- prise and an English mission had awakened a new spir- itual life among many in the established Lutheran Church. The glowing light of our Baptist mission in Germany very quickly cast its rays across the Baltic upon Swedish shores. Hardy sailors from this northern realm were converted at sea or in America, and returned to testify freely of heart-religion and to illustrate true piety in their lives. A few Baptists were drawn together at dif- ferent points, but persecution arose, driving part of them away to America ; and the time was ripe for some leader of marked spirituality and intelligence to rally the scat- tered forces and lead them forward to victory. What
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the German mission had in Mr. Oncken, the Swedish Baptist interests needed. Providentially, at this junc- ture, Rev. A, Wiberg, an eminently capable Lutheran clergyman of Sweden, was led to the acceptance of our denominational views; visited America; commended him- self in his person and his work to the confidence of our churches ; and was commissioned by the American Baptist Publication Society as Superintendent of colportage in his native land. This was in 1855, and the arrangement continued for ten years, .\^hen the Publication Society transferred the responsibility to the Missionary Union. Meanwhile, others were associated with Mr. Wiberg in colportage work; a successful religious journal was es- tablished ; much Christian literature was circulated ; va- rious persecutions were heroically encountered ; such CO laborers as Drake, Broady, Edgren, and Truve were welcomed ; and the Bethel Chapel — the beautiful sanctu- ary in Stockholm — was nearly completed at a total cost of thirty-five thousand dollars. A second house of wor- ship, the Salem Chapel, in the southern part of Stockholm, was lately finished.
A Swedish theological seminary was established in 1866, and is proving an incalculable blessing to the churches. Gradually the influences of the mission reached over into Norway and Finland, where the in- gatherings are becoming very encouraging. The For- eign Mission Society of the Swedish Conference has been led to evangelizing efforts among the Laplanders. The present statistics of 306 churches with 19,501 mem- bers in Sweden, even though attesting such remarkable results, do not represent all that has been accomplished. Evangelical impressions have been made upon multi-
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tudes in the State-Church ; and, while legal restrictions and persecutions have not been entirely removed, the sympathy, and even the co-operation, of many influen- tial Lutherans have been secured. Moreover, the strong tide of emigration to America has brought to us several thousand members of the Swedish Baptist churches, and they are scattered especially throughout our North-west, a most valuable part of its population and of its religious life. The self-sacrificing character of the converts is seen in that in Stockholm alqne twenty missionary evan- gelists are supported in work throughout Sweden and Norway, While there is disposition to so nobly help themselves, it is wise for American Baptists to continue their assistance.
We have three substantial churches in Switzerland, and ground for hope that among this interesting Alpine population our mission work will soon be very much enlarged.
When in Berlin it was not our privilege to meet Rev, G. W. Lehmann, who has since died, at a very advanced age (February 21, 1882), but his work continues and speaks for itself; and in all that great proud capital there is nothing so hopeful for good as the various mis- sion enterprises and church-life influences centring in the Baptist chapel and dwelling on Schmidt Strasse.
The new enterprise of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society in assisting the Baptists of Germany in their efforts to establish a publication-house at Hamburg, un- der Rev. P. W. Bickel, D. D., to do in that country a work similar to that which has been accomplished at Philadelphia under Rev, B. Griffith, D. D., is worthy of all praise and support. All who knew of Dr. Bickel and 21*
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his labors in Cleveland and elsewhere in America had full confidence in the new work which he was called to undertake in 1878. The expectations have not been disappointed. With some assistance from the National Bible Society of Scotland, twenty colporteurs are now employed; a large quantity of tracts, periodicals, and books are circulated; and in various other ways our Baptist interests have been strengthened by this enter- prise.
There should be no doubt of the duty of sustaining evangelical missions in these Protestant lands. Their prevailing formalism, though hostile to Rome, is not loyal to Christ. The divine approval is plainly resting upon our efforts to assist in saving the Christianity of Northern Europe. From Germany especially we have received great religious blessings. It is now our turn to give. Perhaps again it may be our turn to receive. Indeed, now there is reciprocity.
CHAPTER XX. SOUTHERN EUROPE.
GREAT changes have taken place since our former visit to France, Italy, and Greece, not only in the condition and the prospects of American and English Baptist missions, but in governments, in general religious convictions, in the attitude of the people regarding edu- cation, in the sensitiveness of national conscience, and in the intelligence of the masses regarding affairs of Church and State, the rights of society and of the indi- vidual, and the mutual obligations resting upon the dif- ferent nations and the different ranks in society. Then the Emperor Louis Napoleon was upon his throne, daz- zling France and the world with his gorgeous capital and his international exposition; now republicanism is in the ascendency, the arm which sustained the temporal power of Rome has been withdrawn, and from the humil- iation of Sedan and the Commune the people have arisen to question the instruction of the priesthood, to esteem more highly a common-school system than the infalli- bility of the Pontiff, and to conquer Europe upon the peaceful battlefields of industry and trade. In Rome, in 1867, the police detectives of Pius IX. searched all our baggage to keep us from taking a Bible into the Holy City; now God's word is freely read there in many homes, there are upward of eighty common schools,
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Protestant missions and chapels are established, Italy is reunited, and the king occupies the Quirinal. Then the ecclesiastics of the State-Church in Greece were exulting in having extinguished our American Baptist mission ; now not only has it revived, but the Bible has been introduced into all the day-schools. Athens has become a beautiful city ; the port of the Piraeus has dou- bled the amount of its commerce ; and higher education especially is advancing with rapid strides.
Let us first land in this harbor of Athens. By way of Cyprus, Rhodes, Smyrna, and Syra we have come directly from Beirut, where ended our long journey overland from Baghdad to Babylon and Nineveh (an account of which we hope soon to publish in the volume mentioned. From the Gardeii of Eden to the Isle of Patinos : A Complete Tour of Bible Lands). Indeed, this shore on which we now step from the little boat that has brought us from the steamer is a part of the Bible lands, and has therefore a greater interest to us than because it is classic with the names of Sophocles and Euripides and yEschy- lus and Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. Paul was a greater and a grander man than any one of them or than all of them together ; and Demosthenes delivering his oration De Corona from yonder Bema was far from ris- ing to the eloquence of the apostle to the Gentiles when, standing here on this very spot where we are now stand- ing, upon Mars' Hill, pointing, doubtless, at the Parthe- non, upon the Acropolis, he exclaimed, " God, that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands."
Seated as one of the Areopagites, I requested our
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native missionary, Rev. D. Z. Sakellarios, to read, from a Greek Testament, Paul's address to the leaders of Athens. To hear the Greek language read so beauti- fully reminded me of Rev. A. C. Kendrick, D. D., of Rochester, his class-room, and especially those winter evenings three of us spent in his home over the pages of Aristotle. I could see the way up the Propylsea to the majestic Parthenon crowded with the statues of the gods of Grecian mythology ; the Athenian plain strewed with temples, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, and with idols formed by the master-hands of Phidias, Scopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. I could see the grove of the Academy, where Plato discoursed with words of supreme human wisdom, but with no knowledge of Christ. Yet above the horizon crowded with classic memories, in the words the missionary was reading from the book of Acts, I could see the matchless pioneer of Christian mis- sions pleading with heathen to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the footsteps of Paul, rather than in those of the Hellenic sages, our brother Demetrius Sakellarios has been toiling here for ten years since his ordination to the ministry. Previous to his labors, for various periods, the work was carried on by Rev. and Mrs. A. N. Arnold, Rev. and Mrs. R. F. Buel, Miss S. E. Waldo, Mrs. H. E. Dickson, and the founders in 1836, Rev. H. T. Love and Rev. C. Pasco. Some of their labors had been at Patras in North Peloponnesus, on the island of Zante, in Corfu, and at the Piraeus; but chiefly the mission work has been done in Athens. And it has been faithful work; personal acquaintance with several of the former missionaries is abundant evidence that it could not have been other-
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wise. And to us it has been very plain here in Athens that the present toilers are doing all that lies in their power, or in the power of any others who could be se- cured for the work. Yet there are not so many converts with them as Christ had around him in the upper room when he instituted the Supper. All seven, however^ were at the weekly prayer-meetings, save one young Christian woman, to whose sick-bed side we carried part of the meeting. And if apparently but little impression has yet been made, we remember that even the apostle Paul met with only partial success in Athens, being mocked of some and told by others that they would hear him again of this matter. I have become acquaint- ed with one who will answer for Djonysius the Areopa- gite, another for the woman Damaris, and then there are certain others here cleaving unto Christ and be- lieving ; and if Paul was not discouraged over the evan- gelization of Greece, but spent more of the time at his disposal during the rest of his missionary life there than anywhere else, American Baptists should not lose heart or withhold what is needed to give the mission a fair op- portunity of success.
That means, first of all, a chapel — not a room away around up in the second story of a private house (the best our brother can do with the funds at his disposal), but a chapel in appearance, a neat little sanctuary open- ing directly and invitingly off from a main street of the city. If I were an unconverted Greek, there would seem to be very little likelihood that I should ever go through that front door and that passage; then ring a bell and pass up through the hall and stairs of a family not in sympathy with the*mission, for the purpose of joining in
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the service of God in the room which has the table and the benches. It would be wrong to neglect the oppor- tunity furnished in that retired apartment, but I am afraid I should do it, even if there were a dozen of the very best missionaries in the world praying and singing and exhort- ing there. In almost every mission station in the world a chapel-building is provided; the treasury of the Mis- sionary Union should be enabled to provide one in Athens. There is a very available lot at present, fa- cing the Academy — that magnificent marble structure upon which two millions of dollars are being expended. Doubtless, with an attractive Baptist chapel thus close at hand, many of these hundreds of young men would be induced to hear the gospel. The city will soon have a hundred thousand population, and it is rapidly becom- ing now a great centre of commercial and political power. Whoever would furnish the needed funds — ten thousand dollars for the ground and building, or even the five thou- sand to secure the location — would make a most wise in- vestment for the cause of evangelization in Greece, which Paul inaugurated upon Mars' Hill.
A few days up the Adriatic bring us to Trieste, Austria ; from whence a night's sail, and we land in Italy, at Venice. The burden of Baptist evangelizing work in this country has been borne chiefly by churches in England and in our Southern States. No portion of Europe, not even excepting Spain or Turkey, is more sadly in need of the influence of Protestant missions. The land, indeed, is beautiful ; nowhere is there so much perfection of art. Even the squalor and the wretched- ness are made to add to the picturesqueness of Italian scenes. The lens of the photographer and the brush of
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the artist do not communicate the tainted exhalations from the united dwellings of the people and the domestic animals, or the infection of the slimy, seething heaps to be met in most of the streets of the cities and villages. The traveller on the railways, in the English or the French hotels, driven rapidly around by guides in Rome or Naples, in Florence or Milan, in Turin or Genoa, or lounging in the numerous art-galleries — at least, on his first hurried visit to this land of sunshine and verdure — sees very little of the dirt and dinginess and raggedness of the masses, their homes, and their habits. Attention is the rather arrested by the picturesque costumes, the quaint buildings, the mediaeval architecture, the vine- covered arches and splendid ruins of a far-off past, when Rome and Rome's Italy were the imperial centre of the world. Palaces and hovels — palaces for the Catholic clergy and the other princes, hovels for the masses of the people — such is Italy as man has made it, despite the lavishness of nature's God.
The causes of the deplorable situation are not so gen- erally and so thoroughly understood as even in France. There is a strong national sentiment — sufficient, possibly, to hold the country together — but the masses are very ignorant, very superstitious, very fearful of the spiritual weapons of the church, and they are trying the impos- sible task of being loyal to both king and Pope. Only a few years ago, and the national troops were welcomed to the Capitol with the most enthusiastic demonstrations. But in the last municipal election the church party nearly swept everything before them. There are many who have discarded all religion, who can insult the corpse of a dead Pope, greet the exiles of the Commune, talk
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wildly about annexation to Austria and of punishing France for interference with Tunis ; yet the vast major- ity are conscientious Catholics. They are experimenting with the kingdom, not with the hierarchy. They have learned only very imperfectly the lesson Cavour gave them — a free Church in a free State. Nothing is settled. The situation is only one of opportunity — opportunity for evangelical missions. Left to herself, Italy would eventually fall back, I believe, into fragments and cring- ing servility to the Vatican. The people are too blind and the darkness around them is too dense for them to be trusted to work out the problem of their national re- generation. The utmost that the spirit of freedom, of improvement, of enterprise, can be expected to achieve is to hold open the present door of opportunity for evan- gelical Protestant missions a few years, perhaps a gen- eration or two — long enough for the Christian churches to decide whether or not to enter with full force. If Christian missions do not rescue Italy, Rome will come off triumphant in the present conflict.
Undoubtedly, the Roman Catholic Church is more corrupt at its centre than anywhere else. Here there is the most pride, the most deception, the most evidence of immorality among the priesthood and the monastic or- ders. On the Pincian Hill I counted one Sunday after- noon fifty ecclesiastics riding out with women of the world. But with the corruption there is a great deal of cunning. The methods of Protestant missions are being adopted, and by the establishment of schools, the distribution of religious literature, and the prosecution of various philanthropic enterprises, the Church of the Vatican is striving to perpetuate its power.
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There is a world of interest to the tourist in Rome, but nothing to the lover of Christian missions so attractive and inspiring as the various evangelical movements which are being inaugurated. Perhaps my reader also has stood upon the Capitol or the roof of St. Peter's and counted the seven hills ; and shuddered on the edge of the Tarpeian Rock; and traced far out the Appian Way; and strolled around the uncovered Forum ; and endeav- ored to untangle the labyrinthian excavations among the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill ; and visited the Coliseum and the Pantheon and the Baths of Caracalla and the Mamertine Prison and the Cata- combs and the Inquisition ; yes, perhaps our guide- books have alike been checked off amid the bewilder- ing multitude of interesting sights and associations in Rome. But here is something better.
Not a palace ; yet the King of kings inhabits it. The attention of the passer-by might not be arrested ; yet it is the prosperous mission of our Southern Baptist Con- vention, and is doing more good to Italy than all the glittering processions and lavish fireworks and imposing pontifical displays with which the Roman Catholic Church strives to hold the attention of the masses. This work was organized in 1870, just after the occupancy of Rome by Victor Emmanuel, with Rev. W. N. Cote, M. D., as its first missionary. Rev. G. B. Taylor, D. D., whose praise, so well deserved, is in multitudes of our Ameri- can churches, both South and North, was assigned to the superintendency in 1873. His wife and Rev. and Mrs. J. H. Eager are the only other American members of the mission, but native assistants are supported also in the stations at Torre Pellice, Milan, Modena and Carpi,
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Naples, Bari and Barletta, island of Sardinia, Venice, and Bologna. The total number of church-members does not yet exceed one hundred and seventy-five, but much truth has been disseminated, many foundations of a per- manent character have been laid, and here in Rome a very suitable chapel has been erected at a cost of ;^30,5 19. It is a very gratifying fact that part of this amount was contributed in our Northern States:
The English Baptist mission was commenced in Rome the same year under Rev. J. Wall. Associated with him are Rev. W. K. Landels at Naples and Rev. R. Walker at Genoa, besides native assistants at these stations, and al%o at Civita Vecchia, Trapani in Sicily, Turin, Flor- ence, and Leghorn. Very encouraging progress has been made among the students of the Naples University, and the prospects are very bright among the masses of the people in Genoa. Over the door of the chapel in the latter city are these words, to which multitudes have responded : " Sala Cristiana : Ingresso Libero." Not long can it be before the one hundred and thirty-three converts of this mission shall become a much larger number.
Again we are in Paris — always so beautiful to look upon, yet seldom left by the seriously-minded and the true with regrets. I know there is a great deal that is lovely and of good report here ; yet the average life, even of the better classes, is more superficial than in London, Berlin, or New York. Our home for the past two months has been close to the Arc de Triomphe, in the residence opened especially for her American friends by Madame Rostan, daughter of our first missionary to France.
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Here and at other Christian homes in Paris we have met many of the missionaries of the various Societies who are heeding the voice of God so loudly speaking through the present situation in this great country. And none of them have impressed us more favorably than those associated with our Baptist mission. All speak well of them — their piety, their intelligence, their zeal in work, and the fraternity of spirit they are manifesting.
The new and wide-spread movement in France is an opening opportunity rather than the accomplishment of any considerable evangelical results. There is more to it than in Italy, but in both the protest against Rome is far more political than religious. The people have largely yet to learn that their revolution, in order to be successful and permanent, must ground itself in the deep- est religious convictions. And these are asleep with the masses. Upon the Latin populations Rome has aited like an opiate, putting to sleep the religious conscience, and filling up their spiritual experiences with merely troubled dreams. It is very easy now to gather good- sized congregations in the capital and in the provinces ; yet as I have repeatedly looked into their faces it was plain that many, at least, did not care to receive truth, but simply to avail themselves of an opportunity to express opposition to Rome. This is undoubtedly the explana- tion of frequent recognition and encouragement on the part of officials, which missionaries and native evangel- ists report. But if this is not all we could wish, it may justly count for much ; it is far better than the Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes and the night of St. Barthol- omew, and every effort should be made to improve the evangelizing opportunity.
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Let US stroll down the Champs Elysees, through the Place de la Concorde, and, leaving the Louvre and the ruins of the Tuileries on our left, cross the Seine, and make our way a little beyond, to the Rue de Lille Bap- tist Chapel. It is a convenient and attractive place of worship, and I have enjoyed meeting here with the little church and addressing them through interpreters. But it has been a long and often wearisome way that our mis- sion has travelled to such evidences of prosperity. We recall the names of Willmarth, Willard, Sheldon, Devan, and those native laborers, Thieffry, and Cretin, and Le- poids, and Foulon, and Dez, Andru — editor of Echo of Truth, with one thousand subscribers — Vignal, Alain, Le- maire, Cadot, Ramseyer, Vincent, and others. I have richly enjoyed hearing several of them tell the story of Baptist evangelization in France. Their hearts are in it. In all the stations as yet, including Paris with its several districts, Chauny, Lyons, La Fere, St. Sauveur, and Denain, there are but seven hundred and thirty-six church-members. But when we take into account the difficulties which have been encountered, the active hostility of the gov- ernment under Louis Philippe, and even Louis Napoleon, the numerous fines and imprisonments, and the deter- mination of the Catholic priesthood to use every means to thwart our mission efforts at every point, the visible results furnish sufficient ground for encouragement.
The Baptist theological-seminary enterprise in Paris, which Rev. E. C. Mitchell, D. D., is pressing forward with energy and confidence, assisted by Professors Dez and Andru, is most assuredly in the right direction. The celebrated Rev. Edmond de Pressense has been secured as instructor in the Department of Church History.
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Several of the students are very promising, and the funds and promises secured in America and England, to carry forward the work for several years and to pre- pare such young men for the gospel ministry in France, are an investment of great wisdom ; only I fear the ex- periment is made upon too economical a scale.
In Brittany, English Baptists have supported a mission since 1834. They have three missionaries at the three central stations of Morlaix, Tremel, and St. Brieuc. Though the present number of converts is small — only sixty — yet the prospect at last is brightening. The at- tention of many workingmen has been seriously ar- rested, very many copies of the Scriptures have been sold, and the new right of colportage granted by the republican government is exercised.
Our Baptist work in Spain has been much more recent. Rev. W. I. Knapp commenced missionary labor in Mad- rid in 1869, and the following year he received appoint- ment from the Missionary Union. The responsibility is now in the hands of the native missionaries Canencia* at Madrid, Benoliel at Alcoy, and Cifre at Hospitalet, Cor- nelia, and Figueras, The number of converts is one hundred and forty-six. Some priests and prominent officials are manifesting a very friendly spirit. There is a large measure of religious liberty — not that of France nor that of the late republic, but sufficient for evangelistic purposes. The way out from Rome is not always easy at first. If the life of our missions has not absolutely required special trials, still the discipline has been overruled for good by him in whose hands are all governments and all popular movements.
* Since entered into his rest.
CHAPTER XXI.
WEST INDIES, BRAZIL, AND MEXICO.
A GREAT and very special responsibility rests upon the Christian churches regarding all the populations south of the United States. Nominally Christian civil- ization has created the deplorable situation, furnishing conditions less tolerable in the majority of countries than in China or Turkey, and contributing more of wrong and of misery than have the social and relig- ious customs of the aborigines. Had the West Indies, Central and South America, and Mexico never come into contact with Spanish and Portuguese Roman Cath- olic influences, they would probably have furnished to modern missionary enterprise as encouraging fields as Japan or India or Madagascar. The races found by Columbus in the beauteous islands of the Caribbean Sea, by Americus Vespucius upon the southern conti- nent, by Cortez in Mexico, and by Pizarro and Almagro and De Solis and others, were far superior to those we are now discovering in Central Africa ; but they were not able to resist the superior weapons and cunning of those who came to enslave them. It may be an evidence of their natural nobility and sensitiveness of character that so rapidly they disappeared under the indignities and cruelties they were made to suffer. In a very few years the Spanish and Portuguese colonists found that
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they had nearly exhausted their slave material by their terrible system of unrestrained tyranny and lust, and so recourse was had to importations from Africa. Many millions were torn from their home-lands and brought across the Atlantic to fill the places made vacant by the savage wickedness of nominally Christian colonists under the sanction of the Roman priesthood. I know that oc- casionally disapprobation was shown by the Pope and the kings, and a few bulls were issued against the horrible cruelties ; but the colonies and their priests disregarded them, and for three centuries and a half these lands con- tinued the most wretched quarter of the globe. The situation is, indeed, improving where the same influences still control — more, however, because of the enforced ces- sation of the slave-trade and the consequent stoppage of supply than because Spanish and Portuguese Chris- tian civilization has materially changed for the better.
Though not the most active and successful of the various churches in meeting the consequent evangeliz- ing responsibility among these terribly-afflicted popu- lations. Baptists have a very prominent and gratifying record in the West Indies, and have commenced of late to lay the foundations for a corresponding one in both Brazil and Mexico.
Members of the Church of England, Moravians, and Wesleyans were already engaged in mission work in the West Indies when, in i8i3,the English Baptist Mission- ary Society planted its first station in Jamaica. The established clergy, however, had not undertaken native evangelization, and there was room for still other socie- ties— indeed, for all, when these islands are considered a natural base for operations throughout the vast regions-
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beyond. It is interesting to know that the beginning of the religious awakening among the slaves in Jamaica, •which has developed into 1 1 1 Baptist churches with 25,422 members, was through God's blessing upon the labors of some colored Christians from America. It was this work of grace which arrested the attention of our de- nomination in England and secured the first appoint- ment of missionaries.
Great difficulties were experienced up to the time of emancipation, in 1834. The negroes were chiefly fetish- worshippers, and almost as degraded as possible. Mar- riage and the family were hardly known among them, and the grossest immoralities were common among their masters. The 20,000 whites who held in such wretched bondage the 800,000 blacks were almost unanimously opposed to the introduction of missionaries, and did all they could to embarrass their work. Ministers found teaching a slave were imprisoned, and a fine of one hundred dollars was imposed upon them for every black discovered in their congregations. The most heartless punishments were inflicted upon even those negroes who ■ dared to meet together by themselves for religious service. At last the British Parliament was compelled to do justice to the slave. The system could not live deprived of the African supply : it was too voracious a monster. The colonies were rapidly going to ruin. Production and trade were becoming more and more contracted every year. This touched the official heart of England, and drew from its purse one hundred millions of dollars to pay the cost of emancipation. There were at the time, as there had been long previously in Great Britain, earnest and able advocates of the rights of the slave, but
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I think it will be plain to the impartial student of his- tory that their influence was not sufficient to give a gratifying character to the emancipation act. Christian ' philanthropy can rejoice over the result, but overruling Providence alone deserves the credit.
The storm which cleared the British atmosphere had also its accompanying terrors. There were insurrections and executions. The enraged planters destroyed many of the negro chapels, for which the English Government subsequently paid an indemnity of ;^5 5,000. And after the act of emancipation the old ruling class were deter- mined not to accept the situation in good faith, but raised every possible opposition to the elevation of their former slaves, persisting in starving out all educational enter- prises among their colored fellow-citizens. But for the generous sums of mission money brought from England, and the persistent endeavor of the missionaries, not only to evangelize, but also to educate, the hostile efforts would have been successful, and many of the benefits of eman- cipation would have been invalidated.
Of that first day of freedom, here is a specimen picture, taken from one of the native congregations by one of our missionaries : " On the joyful morning the apprentices were seen at an early hour, clothed in clean and white attire, flocking from all parts of the country into the town. Thousands repaired to the different places of worship. At ten o'clock my chapel was so crowded that I could scarcely find my way into the pulpit. It seemed as though I was in a new world or surround- ed by a new order of beings. The downcast eye, the gloomy countenance, and even the vacant, unintellectual physiognomy, had vanished. Every face was lighted
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with smiles. I called on several of my sable brethren to pray. Their prayers were a flow of mingled suppli- cation and gratitude, adoration and love. After the service gifts were distributed. At two o'clock the chil- dren had again assembled, clothed in their best attire. Medals, bags, and books were given them. In the evening another overwhelming congregation assembled. Every heart rejoiced, every tongue was loosened, and every countenance wore a smile. Everything seemed to say that this was the dawn of brighter days, the birthday of liberty, the earnest of the speedy and uni- versal reign of righteousness and peace."
But clouds soon gathered in these bright skies. No one act of even the British Parliament could destroy the evil which had accumulated during centuries of slavery. The commercial depression from causes which had long been gathering; very imperfect legislation on the part of colonists who were not qualified, perhaps, to do much better than they did ; and frightfully fatal epidemics sweeping over the islands, — conspired to darken again the prospect throughout the West Indies. Many of the freedmen made but little Christian growth, and were far from being men and women in Christ Jesus. And mul- titudes of the negro population continued to reap what had been sown of falsehood, dishonesty, and immorality. Nevertheless, gradual progress was made through all this discipline of trial. Though not as rapidly as had been hoped, yet there was advance from year to year in the foundation-work of Christian character. Eng- lish generosity had to be drawn upon frequently and largely, as in 1845 for ;^30,000 to help to lift off Baptist chapel debts; in 1850 for ;^io,000 for medical stores to
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our Baptist congregations in the joint ravages of cholera and small-pox; in 1865 for $20,000 after a desolating drought; and at other times with rather extraordinary frequency ; and yet so much wisdom accompanied the distribution of these special charities, as also the dis- bursements of annual support to the mission, that the cultivation of the spirit of self-reliance was not neglect- ed. The total expenditures of the English Baptist Mis- sionary Society last year were but little in excess of ;^2O,O0O in all its West India missions, including Jamai- ca, the Bahamas, Trinidad, Hayti, and the Kingston or Calabar College, among 27,839 native church-members. This is a much better showing in the line of self-support, even after all allowances are made, than that of Amer- ican Baptist missions in Burmah, begun the same year (18 1 3), and reporting at present not far from the same number of church-members (21,968), on which the Mis- sionary Union expended last year upward of $117,000. There is, indeed, a much larger proportion of English colonists in the West Indies than in Burmah from whom to secure local assistance in the support of the native churches ; but then it must be remembered that there are two-thirds as many members of the Church of England and over three times as many Wesleyans as Baptists in the West Indies, besides many thousand Moravians and Presbyterians and Independents, or Congregationalists, with all of whom has to be divided the local assistance in mission support derived from moneyed foreign colo- nists. But for the very special effort of the last few years on the part of the Bassein Sgau Karens to build and endow their Normal and Industrial Institute, I should be compelled to mark even them far below the Baptist
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Christians of the West Indies in the matter of self-sup- port; and, as it is, all, I think, that can be claimed by American Baptists in behalf of their worthy favorites in Western Burmah is that they do as well as their negro brethren in the West Indies. I trust this fact will help to excite interest on the part of my readers in these numerous Baptists so near to our own shores, yet so little known throughout our denomination in America.
A great act of justice has been accomplished in the disestablishment of the Church of England in Jamaica. Not only will this save to the revenues of the island nearly ^200,000 a year, but it will, even as it has to a very noticeable extent already, strengthen the bonds of unity among all the Christians and make many of the circumstances more favorable for the general acceptance of gospel truth. At Kingston, the principal city and seat of government, the Baptists have very good build- ings for their Calabar College — an institution specially designed to educate a native ministry and to qualify teachers for the native schools.
The English mission to the Bahamas has been blessed to the planting of Baptist churches in sixteen of the islands. The missionaries are provided with a schooner, which enables them to visit regularly their widely-scat- tered churches, whose members number 2,953. -^^ in- dicating the policy of the home Society, the Committee declares that its " desire with regard to all these island churches is to develop, as far as possible, and as speedily as may be practicable, their independence and self-sup- port, gradually reducing the European staff, with a view to withdrawing such agency altogether and leaving the native churches to their own resources."
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Some steps have lately been taken by the American Southern Baptist Convention in the direction of estab- lishing a mission in Cuba. A few Baptists upon this great and populous island have made such application, with promise of partial support. The enterprise will be followed with great interest. The situation, as far as opportunity for evangelization in Cuba is concerned, is portrayed in a lately-written communication from an Episcopal missionary in Havana. " Recently," he says, " I have dared to have notices printed and posted in the hotels and at prominent places throughout the city. In a few instances they have been torn down, but with these exceptions there has been no difficulty occasioned either by the district magistrates or the police force of Havana. Several attempts have been made, with persons of influ- ence here, to secure permission to build, but it has seemed unwise to push the matter to a decision until the island of Cuba shall be fairly represented in the Spanish Cortes and the promised reforms distinctly promulgated as the law of the land. Nine years ago it was a punish- able offence for a clergyman not of the Roman Catholic communion to hold a church service here, and we were compelled to meet for prayer and praise in the harbor of Havana. Eight years ago we held our service with closed doors, having succeeded so far as to establish ourselves on shore. In January, 1879, we held our first service in our present rented hall." Surely, American Baptists have responsibility . in Cuba, and the door of opportunity seems to be opening.
The present Brazilian mission was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1879. Its station is at Santa Barbara and vicinity, near San Paulo. However,
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the missionaries are still prospecting for one or two more advantageous centres for evangelization among the native Brazilians. The Convention began a mission in 1859 in Rio de Janeiro, but it was abandoned in 1861, on account of the broken health of the missionary and various local obstacles which have ceased to exist. There are three missionaries and forty-four church- members. Rio, the capital of these ten millions of pop- ulation, has a Church-of-England chapel and Presby- terian and "Methodist congregations. There are many persons here holding Baptist principles, but known by the name of " Evangelistas," and mostly of Scotch de- scent. Although it is desirable that with this material a Baptist Church should be organized in this great and beautifully-located city, it is of greater importance that some advantageously-situated field be occupied for mis- sion work among the native Brazilians. For them sta- tions have been located by other denominations in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, San Paulo, and several other cities. The Baptist missionaries are directing their attention to Para, a city of 50,000 population, with a large commerce, the capital of one of the leading provinces of the Empire, and commanding the entire valley of the Am- azon. There are two other unoccupied fields of special importance in Brazil- — the province of Minas Geraes with a population of 2,000,000, and the province of Parana with a population of 126,000. The language which our mis- sionaries must use chiefly is Portuguese. The prevailing religion is Romanism of the most superstitious and de- grading type. The constitution of the Empire is liberal and tolerant, and the present head a very enlightened monarch. But chancres are imminent. The last Em-
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peror is probably on the throne. Two powerful factions are struggling for the coming mastery, the Roman priest- hood and the rejecters of all religious faiths. Such con- flict produces a situation in some respects especially fa- vorable to evangelical work.
The prospect for evangelization in Mexico is in ad- vance of that in Brazil. Indeed, there are few fields in the world to-day holding out more encouragement to missionary enterprise than our neighboring republic. It has a population of nine millions, of whom three- fourths are of Indian descent. These latter are superior to the average Indian of the United States, and are more inclined to agriculture. They have been entirely neglect- ed by the dominant Spanish Romanists, whose attention has been confined to securing the nominal allegiance and the contributions of these lower classes. The outrageous excesses of the priesthood up to the last revolution have alienated multitudes. Many of them have been driven into pronounced infidelity. The government is show- ing a very tolerant and liberal spirit, and though Rev. J. O. Westrup, appointed by the Southern Convention a year ago to Mexico, has been murdered by a band of Indians and Mexicans, the chief authorities doubtless have no sym- pathy with the outrage. Rev. W. M. Flournoy has been sent to take the place of the martyr-missionary. An own brother also, Rev, T. M, Westrup, has received appoint- ment from the American Baptist Home Mission Society, its work in Mexico, begun in 1869 and suspended in 1876, being thus resumed. There are 200 members of Baptist churches in the states of New Leon and Coahuila, and a few scattered in Zacatecas and Durango, Our mission field for the present would thus seem to lie in the north-
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eastern portion of the country upon the Rio Grande. But other sections, especially in the south, are indicating an evangelical religious interest, and will soon claim from us also a share of attention. In railways and manufac- tories Mexico is welcoming American capital and enter- prise, and will ere long draw heavily upon the mission resources of Baptists, as well as of Episcopalians, Pres- byterians, and Methodists.
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CHAPTER XXII.
RE TROSPECTIVE.
IT is our last day upon the Atlantic, and of my thirty- seventh voyage at sea. Looking out upon the broad expanse, I have been thinking of the wide diffusion of Baptist missions. As these waters cover two-thirds of the globe, so the evangelizing enterprise of our denom- ination reaches two-thirds of the populations of the world. There are varying depths, some icebergs, and many a grand Gulf Stream of religious influence. There should be no rest until we have missionaries among every people, in every tongue. Especially at present should it be our endeavor to participate in the evangelization of Central Africa.
To do our work abroad more thoroughly and more comprehensively, it is above all things needful that we do our work at home more perfectly and more generally. Every better-conducted church service; every improve- ment in preaching the gospel ; every advance in thor- oughness of preparation for Sunday-school instruction; every increase of ability to wield the power of the relig- ious press ; every new effort to make education subser- vient to the development of true Christian character; everything that is made better at home, — is hastening the day when the gospel of Jesus Christ shall triumph throughout the world,
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In many lands I have been strongly impressed with the adaptation of Baptist views to missionary work. The emphasis we give to the literal interpretation of Scripture satisfies the inclinations of those accustomed to attend to the strictest meaning of the words in Con- fucian and Mencian classics, in the traditional sayings of Buddha, and in the Veda and Shasters of Hinduism. The prominence given by Baptists to regeneration is best adapted to meet the various widely-prevalent caste sys- tems. Our congregational form of church government is calculated to develop individuality and enterprise and to limit difficulty. And our mode of baptism — interpret- ed, not as by the Disciples, for that would be a constant temptation to heathen familiar with water-salvation, but as symbolic — is a special help to the missionaries and native churches in drawing the lines of separation from the world. A missionary of the Church of England in Tokio, Japan, told me that the advice of Rev. Canon Liddon to him on departure for his mission field was, "You had better go back to the old apostolic mode of baptism in the case of all adult converts from heathen- ism." And so in both the Church-of-England chapels in Tokio there are baptisteries. I have no doubt that the fidelity of the early church to the ordinances as in- stituted by the Lord had much to do with its remark- able evangelizing success during the first two centuries.
Sometimes, even among our own missions, it has seem- ed to me that the tendency to over-school it needs to be resisted. It is easier to stay most of the time upon mis- sion premises, comfortably built and furnished, specially guarded by treaties and consular supervision, where ob- ligation renders all specially deferential to the mission-
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ary teacher, and any scholars pecuharly annoying can be dismissed promptly ; it is altogether a more untroubled life than one which largely itinerates the streets and homes and surrounding villages, is continually meeting unre- strained and unobligated heathenism face to face, and which in public or private has to depend upon tact and patience and forbearance rather than upon school-room authority and commissarial discipline. Moreover, while mission schools have their place, and many have been converted through them, it is very easy to be mistaken as to the Christianity of those brought within their so- cial influence. Everywhere, the world around, is met the temptation of the school theory of the church. Bap- tists believe as heartily as any in parental Christian train- ing and Sunday-schools, and in the various religious educational institutions for the youth, but we do not be- h'eve that altogether they can make Christians. That is the office-work of the Holy Spirit ; and that work can- not pass unobserved by those who are watching intently for it, and who believe that its evidences are more im- portant than all possible favorable surrounding circum- stances.
By no means are all our missionaries living the same lives of physical and social sacrifice. A residence in Henthada is a very different matter from a residence in Rangoon ; or in Calcutta in comparison with Ongole ; or in Shanghai instead of in Zoa-hying. In all places the missionary is far from many kindred, and there is the distressing sight of the heathen continually. And when the children must be sent home, it is as hard at Canton as at Tung-chow-fu ; at Maulmain as at Shway- gyeen ; at Madras as at Secunderabad. Nevertheless, it
RETROSPECTIVE. 2/3
is true that most of the comforts of life and a great deal of excellent society can be found at all the chief commer- cial ports, and many of our missionaries command quite as much of them as they could in the home-land.
Our foreign-mission forces have impressed me favor- ably. With variety of gifts and some mistakes as to the call, they are yet equal to any. And the same is true of our home missionaries. It is a mistake to suppose they represent the illiterate and the incapable of the ministry, for whom, otherwise, provision could not be made. The fact is that many of our most able sermonizers, our most at- tractive public speakers, our most thoroughly-disciplined intellects, have been touched with a live coal from off God's altar in behalf of home-mission and colporteur work, and they have gone forth with their little salaries and their little bundles of books and tracts into the des- titute regions of America with all the same heroic con- secration that sent Carey to India and Judson to Burmah.
I do not believe that so much of this breaking down of the health of missionaries is necessary. More thor- ough and reliable examinations by physicians before ac- ceptance; more utilizing of the experience of others upon the field; more self-restraint in work; more regularity of habits ; and sometimes, I must be bold to say, more per- severance and will-force to rise above depressed feelings, and to throw off the beginnings of disease, and to refuse to entertain the thought of falling back upon the invalid corps, — would save a large percentage of these wrecks of health and life-plans. Piety and consecration are no substitute for the utmost obedience possible to the laws of health.
Some missionaries who have been years upon the field
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have still very imperfect knowledge of the language. It is very hard to go beyond house- and bazaar-talk and master a practical vocabulary of heart- words ; understand the religious terms in common use; learn what words and phrases will best convey the new thoughts of Chris- tianity to the dark heathen mind, and how to meet na- tive objections and difficulties. There is too much haste in giving and receiving tasks which interfere with this first and most important responsibility. There is wis- dom in the vernacular examinations of new missionaries at the ends of first, second, and third years, insisted upon by some English and German Societies.
Missionaries with special theories should not be sent to tangle affairs. The Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was right in lately declining to forward the two excellent brethren appointed to China when it be- came evident that they held peculiar views upon the inspiration of the Scriptures. There is enough trou- ble in evangelizing heathen without borrowing any. The missionaries on the field have already sufficient exercise in controversy. The place for all people with divergent opinions is at home, no matter how pious and intelligent they are, and however much they may possess the mis- sionary spirit.
I very much question the wisdom of missionaries adopt- ing native children, or even of selecting a number of the unusually bright and agreeable and making them practi- cally a part of the mission household. Much jealousy and much suspicion are thus created ; for human nature is the same everywhere.
In Maulmain, at least, where there are fourteen women missionaries to three missionary men, we are not preserv-
HE TR OSPE CTIVE. 2/5
ing a wise proportion. While it is true that female mis- sionaries have some advantages in evangelizing labor among the heathen, it is equally true that men mis- sionaries have their advantages. Rarely should the for- mer be much in excess of five to three, especially in those countries where women are not generally secluded. The new movement of " woman's work for woman " is a cause for devout gratitude, but it can prosper only as auxiliary to the general work at home and abroad.
In their foreign missions Baptists are behind several other denominations in the use of physicians. I fear that, in the lack of funds, we have been adopting prin- ciple to justify economy in this respect; but certain I am that none of our denominational leaders could see what I have seen of the medical mission work of other societies in many lands without being thoroughly en- listed in this department of evangelization.
Our missionaries to the Telugus have a plan which is designed to keep back such information about their local troubles as would do more harm than good at home. While every missionary has inalienable personal rights, as of communication with home authorities and churches and friends ; and while general information of the life and trials of missionaries and of the principles and methods of their work is desirable, — there are other rights and interests, quite as important, which require to be guarded. The utmost unity and co-operation need to be secured and preserved among the great host which forms the mission constituency. A mis- sionary in controversy with his associates or the home executives may be right as to some detail of work or wisdom of appropriation, but rarely will it be wise for
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him, with the great cause at stake, to seek to vindicate himself before the denomination through the press and through extensive correspondence. Better suffer the smaller wrong than do the greater.
American Baptists are not making enough of the press in their foreign work. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and English Baptists are in advance. When I see what our Publication Society has done to aid the publication work in Hamburg, I wish it was enabled to give an impulse also to the work at Yokohama, Shang- hai, Bangkok, Rangoon, Gowahati or Tura, Madras or Ongole, Stockholm, Paris, and elsewhere. It would probably be the best solution of the Bible question abroad as well as at home. And I believe that the remaining work of the Missionary Union would derive from the arrangement various advantages similar to those which our Home Mission Society receives from the companionship of the Publication Society.
There should be more familiarity with the work of other denominations, their principles and methods of labor, the history and results of their experiments, and the difficulties they encounter.
Many missionaries at home and abroad have mistaken views of the average minister's life. They gather their impressions chiefly through the religious papers, which give principal attention to the few brilliant pulpit lights shining forth from a few centres of intelligence and wealth. The picture is not correct of the self-sacrifi- cing, limited, plodding, painfully economical life which more than nine-tenths of those ministers are living who by their own example and pleading raise the larger proportion of missionaries' salaries.
RETROSPECTIVE. 2//
When we land to-morrow at New York, I wish there could be with us some of the missionaries whom we have left ten or twelve thousand miles behind. We have a little daughter to meet us in the morning, whom I cabled from Liverpool to come on from Cleveland to welcome us upon the City of Berlin. Ah ! like greet- ings some of them could have from children from whom they have been separated for more than our two years. These separations for the cause of missions are the hardest part of the sacrifice, except those untimely graves in the lonely little station cemeteries. We shall soon visit a spot of ground in the Swan Point Cemetery of Providence ; but how different its surroundings to those of graves beside which we have so often stood with the bereaved missionaries !
Soon after landing I shall want to see some of the Ex- ecutive Officers of the missions. I used to think they had an easy time and were too numerous. It was a great mistake. Both our Home Mission Society and our Missionary Union need additional Secretaries. The appointment of a Foreign Secretary for the latter is a special present necessity. He should be a man without any family, of large experience, perfect health, and iron constitution, and he should forthwith be sent, as the Lon- don Mission sent Dr. Mullens, to solve our American Baptist question for Central Africa. It would be a most hazardous undertaking, and perhaps there would be an- other grave of a Foreign Secretary in the interior of that vast continent. But when was ever such a call to duty more plain? The youthful missionaries to be located somewhere up the Niger or the Binue or on Lake Chad need the accompanying judgment of some one of our
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wisest, most experienced, and most thoroughly-informed brethren.
Next to our proposed mission into the Soudan, that of one into the interior of China has most deeply im- pressed me. The new treaty gives to Protestants the same rights a few years ago guaranteed to Roman Cath- olics. Like Africa, it has an unexplored interior with many scores of millions of population.
But I must go below. The lights will soon be out, and rest is needed before the busy morrow.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PROSPECTIVE.
" Home, sweet, sweet home ! Be it ever so humble, There's no place like home."
FREQUENTLY, since enjoying again our home upon the Narragansett, my thoughts recur to the missionary concert. Every church should ac^opt it. Painstaking can make the services the most interesting and the most profitable of any of the general meetings of the month. It is not for the best interest of foreign missions that the work of our Home Mission and Publi- cation Societies should be considered an intrusion upon these stated occasions. Twelve times a year is not too often to entertain the subject of world evangelization. Some ministers and churches allow this, but crowd the concert from the Sunday evening into the week, because they do not appreciate how popular it can be made, and how conducive to revival influences.
The morning sermon as well as the evening service of the first Lord's Day of the month should be given to the work of home and foreign evangelization. There is no better preparation for commemorating Jesus Christ in his supreme self-sacrifice than the consideration of the world-cause for which he laid down his life. Indeed, the most suitable time of all the month for the celebration
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of the Lord's Supper would be at the close of a Sunday evening's full, intelligent, prayerful, and stimulating mis- sionary concert. Too often do Christians receive the emblems of the broken body and the shed blood in a most contracted, selfish temper of mind, Christ said, indeed, " Do this in remembrance of me," but he did not mean to confine the recognition of him to the narrow range of the believer's own little soul, its necessities, its aspirations.
Occasionally, in order to revive the interest in mis- sions, recourse is had to the adoption of a special field or to the support of a native scholar. But it does not work well for either a native or a missionary to be select- ed for special favoritism. I have seen many children in heathen lands becoming thus spoiled, as well as native helpers thus rendered unmanageable. And even mission- aries are accessible to the harmful influence. It causes them to drift away practically from the counsel, supervis- ion, and control of thoroughly- informed and capable Executive Officers to the impulsive, unenlightened, and frequently unwise encouragement of generously disposed but comparatively irresponsible supporters. A pastor should be dependent upon his whole church ; a mis- sionary, upon his whole denomination.
An individual, a church, or a Sunday-school concen- trating interest and giving upon one native scholar, or one native preacher, or one missionary, does a great injustice to others and to self. It is denying others the privilege of contributing to that one's support, and the already appropriated funds limit the giver from giving elsewhere. It is quite probable that many churches and individuals could be induced to make very generous con-
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tributions if it should be said to them, " You may have the entire responsibihty of the support of Dr. Ashmore and his work at Swatow, or of Rev. C. H. Carpenter at Bassein, or of Rev. J. E. Clough at Ongole." But it is not wise for the hearts of thousands of others to be chilled by the information that no longer are their sacrifices to be appropriated at all in the direction of these brethren and their signally-blessed labors.
There is no more fruitful line of subjects for Sunday- school concerts than that furnished by Christian mis- sions. Thoroughly adequate preparation would not be more exacting of time and effort than are many of the floral and other spectacular exhibitions which are so common.
It is a mistake to suppose that if a pastor and his church are apathetic on missions, there is no help for the few who are heart and hand in the cause. They can pray about it. Three sisters did so lately in Pennsylva- nia, and now their three churches have new pastors, in- terested and interesting others in missions.
Ministers should give, as leaders of their people. How- ever small their salaries, reasons that would excuse them from annual contributions to the general mission treas- ury would equally excuse one-half to two-thirds of the members of their churches from the same duty.
Very much, in any church, depends upon the selection of collectors. • Many are repelled, not by the cause, but by the solicitor. If subscription-papers are to be cir- culated, it should be done by those whose head and whose heart are in the subject, whose own benevolent record has been consistent with the duty they are press- ing upon others, and whose time is worth something.
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There are both loss and gain in " the envelope sys- tem." The few well qualified for the canvassing work, whose intellifrent, earnest conversations among- the mem- bers would be informing and successful in awakening mis- sion interest, are excused. A labor-saving machine is substituted. It is well, if only the mission brethren will turn their saving of time and effort to the promotion of the cause in other ways.
Every church and every Sunday-school should be provided with missionary maps and standard mission- ary literature.
Hardly anything is more important among the home churches than the maintenance of confidence in our Mission Boards and Executive Officers. Many Chris- tians lean to the side of mistrust and criticism, and form an available constituency for disaffected mission- aries. With the latter's surroundings of life and climate, it is very easy to become unduly depressed or impatient or suspicious, and the Rooms are their safeguard as well as that of the churches.
If any feel that serious mistakes are being made in home or foreign administration, the wise and honorable course is to make direct representations to the Execu- tive Committees. Pending their judgment, or the right of appeal to Boards and anniversaries, there should be no indiscriminate faultfinding; no working up of preju- dice among the rank and file of church-members ; no preparation to say as a last word, " I will have my own way, anyhow, and have friends enough to support me." There should be public sentiment sufficient in the mission- ary management of our democratic denomination prompt- ly to extinguish any such imprudence.
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It is evident that our anniversary meetings should be thoroughly representative. Radical changes are sug- gested, but I incline to the belief that the providential development of our American Baptist mission enterprise has been in this respect also along the line of the highest wisdom. The machinery we have is not perfect, but it is capable of doing better work, and is probably more adapted to our denomination than is any that could be substituted.
The best present to send a missionary is money. I have seen or heard of but few boxes whose cost in a draft on London or New York would not have been more welcome. Commerce has so spread over the world that money everywhere can buy almost every- thing, and at prices differing very little in different places.
When selecting books or periodicals to send to mis- sionaries, do not pass hastily by all the light and secular literature. It is .more than likely that there will come to them seasons when this is what will do them the most good. They need at times to be lifted out of their sur- roundings, even though it be into cloudland or merri- ment. To laugh occasionally is as good for them as for ministers and other pious people at home. On those dreary jungle-tours or those dismal journeys far into the interior, often an amusing paper is better than Baxter's Sainfs Rest, and the wisdom of some of our American humorists than the philosophy of Bacon.
That the good done by woman's societies be not com- promised, it is necessary that our sisters appreciate the vastly greater importance of the general work ; the locat- ing of missionary families in the destitute parts of our
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country and throughout the heathen world ; the regular preaching of the gospel ; the preparation and distribu- tion of Christian literature ; and the education of a native ministry. The school-room work and the family visitation of our single-women missionaries, though very useful, are subordinate.
The Home for Missionaries' Children established at Newton Centre, near Boston, by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, is a very deserving enterprise.
Mission societies are multiplying, and Christians need to be increasingly on their guard against undeserving solicitations. While the duty of incidental giving is not to be neglected, and while there are a few well-conducted and greatly-blessed union societies which deserve our co-operation, it should be remembered that our great denominational Societies have experience, abundant proof of wisdom in management, and that none of their Executive Officers claim to be on such terms with Su- preme Wisdom as to make general consultation and pre- cedents and the study of consequences superfluous.
Mission work must not lose sight of business princi- ples. Presumption is not faith. God is not honored by that impatience which overlooks his limitations. Re- sources, also, must be considered. Our Societies, in their extensive dealings with banks and other lines of business, must not imperil their credit. They must do nothing dishonorable in the eyes of the world.
Appointments on the Boards should be, not less orna- mental, but more useful. Regarding the work of their Society all members should be radiating centres of in-* formation and influence. There is great encouragement in the late sfrovvth of this conviction.
PROSPECTIVE. 285
After the example of several other denominations, the time is drawing very near, if it has not already come, when a general gathering of Baptists from all parts of the world could be made very helpful to our missionary and educational enterprises.
But these suggestions must draw to a close. Since arriving again in America, a year ago, I have scarcely turned- from the pleasant task of recording impressions from a two years' around-the-world tour of Christian missions. Though a much larger, and undenominational, volume has preceded this, I feel that I have not yet told half my story. Indeed, direct narration never could do it without the assistance of a veil of fiction to the extent of concealing many names and locations and of disasso- ciating many home references.
The conflict of the ages is at its height. Never has the battle been waged more fiercely or with deadlier w^eapons. It is glorious to participate, when questions of centuries are at their crises, when history is making volumes every day, and when all heaven must be spe- cially interested.
The Baptist part of the responsibility is vast. The Divine Commander has shown us marked honors in our enlistments and equipments and assignments. Our pres- ent is grand in its opportunity and its resources. It is almost bewildering to contemplate the possibilities of the next score of years — the rich conquests that Baptists may make in Immanuel's name.
Meanwhile, under God, everything depends upon or- ganization and loyal co-operation. Rapidly forming for the future of American Baptists are three vast army corps, or we may say three branches of our mission
286 ALONG THE LINES AT THE FRONT.
service. The Home Mission Society is leading our evangelizing infantry out into all the destitute sections of our land, closing up everywhere in hand-to-hand con- flict with the enemy, which would hold this fairest land of the globe in the interest of infidelity and priestcraft and irreligion and ignorance ; the Publication Society leads the cavalry of our evangelizing host, scouring the highways and the by-ways, dashing through the serried ranks of the foe, or more often flanking them and com- pelling retreat by its Christian literature and its Sun- day-school enterprise ; and the Missionary Union com- mands the artillery, doing its glorious execution at long range, planting shot and shell, far over through the bas- tions and the walls, in the very citadels of Buddhism and Brahmanism and Paganism and Formalism. None can say which is the most important branch of this three- fold mission service. It is not profitable to inquire. They are all evidently essential ; each is dependent upon the other, even as the infantry and the cavalry and the artillery of the late war. Had either been dispensed with or rendered inefficient, there would have been inevitable failure. The blue, the yellow, and the red which desig- nated the soldiers on the one side, and corresponding signs the equally heroic and conscientious soldiers on the other ; soldiers and citizens all one now, one in history, in loyalty, and in destiny, — let there be no cher- ishing a distrust of it, and there will be no occasion; these signs of the military uniforms told of those who shared equally in the sympathies and the prayers and the sacrifices of those at home in their various States, from Maine to Georgia, and from Texas to California. Oh those sacrifices ! Many remember them. They
PROSPECTIVE. 287
eclipse entirely what we are doing in the cause of missions to-day; yet the issues of the present are far more important. That a nation should live is not to be compared with the necessity God has laid upon the present generation of Christians of rendering their great mission enterprises in the highest degree efficient, at this very time, which has been maturing through the cen- turies, and which bears in the arms of its opportunity the hopes and the fears of untold ages of the future.
APPENDIX.
BAPTIST STATISTICS OF THE UNITED STATES. From American Baptist Ykar-Book for A. D. 1882.
States
AND
TERRITORIES.
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut ....
Dakota
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana .......
Indian Territory . .
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts . . .
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire . .
New Jersey
New Mexico ....
New York
North Carolina . . .
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania ....
Rhode Island ....
South Carolina . . .
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington . . . .
West Virginia . . .
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Statistics of 1880 . 25
"5S 1 130
1,751
I
1,143
915
534
98
411
408
1,678
780
257
45
291
357
159
1,554
1,443
136
2
81
179
3
873
1,905
619
69
555
62
1,184
1,331
1,929
I
"5
1,337
22
399 169
26,373
26,060
655 9 16
119 18
13
28
216
1,732
I 675 326
978
453 169 42 346 322
71
879 847
87 201 2 786 ,060 470
41 455
85 685
16,514 16,596
501 227
49
99
1,436
7,110
2,613 1,619
157 638 472 8,213 1,780 291 690
1,370 869 237
9.469 959 195
210 1,178
3,545 5,689
587
94
2.379
186 8,640 2,631 1,830
3.264
198 205 182 311
43
77
696
4,006
701
154
22
8
283
230 1,160 938 "3 3,730 470 268
181
8,107
63
1,870
250
2,797
1,361
348
125
1,459
178
779 1,1 1,310
42
224
1,116
3,769
122
1,7671
50
555
27s
81,570 33,474
102,724 41,702
225 592
36 247
73 1,056
195 340 136 719
1,335 19: 32
165 377
1,598 1,335 178 20 776 194 5" 506 500
160 2,099
147 94 60
329
46
65
651
4,222
641 894 27 797 380
2,023 500 261 193
1,013
1,031 91
4,310 510 213
172 876
2,910
1,470 444 117
1,402 204 719
1,805 985
217
2,063
17
826
321
16,837 36,815
17,662! 42,702
167,650 14
54,305 6,083
1,5/ 20,880
731 1,991
8,837 23,126 238,975 20 67,089 42,484
5,973
24,264
17,109
162,423
58,744
20,637
8,755
48,994
26,844
6,985
126,984
95,176
4,803
110
8,915
32,323
45
113,862
192,658
49,114
2,752
62,877
10,662
150,792
110,877
108,340
16
9,614
203,050
5"
26,968 10,9 '
lOI
2,336,022
2,296,327
289
290
APPENDIX.
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES.
(so FAR AS REPORTED.)
States
AND
Territories.
Eh o
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Dakota
Delaware
District of Columbia , Florida .......
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Indian Territory .
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts . .
Michigan
Minnesota .... Mississippi ....
Missouri
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire . New Jersey .... New York .... North Carolina . .
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania . . . Rhode Island . . . South Carolina . .
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
Washington .... West Virginia . . . Wisconsin .... Wyoming
Statistics of 1880
1,262,505 40,440 802,525 864,694
194.327 622,700
135,177 146,608 177,624 269,493
1,542,180 32,610
3,077,871
1,978,301 68,152
1,624,615 996,096
1,648,690
939-'946 648,936
934.943 1,783,^85 1.636.937
780.773 1,131,597 2,168,380
452 ,402 62,266
346,991 1,131,116 5,082,871 i,399'75o 3,198,062
174,768 4,282,891
276,531
995,577 1,542,359 1,591.749
332,286
1,512,565
75,116
618,457
1,315.497 20,789
3
250 55
24
120
1,538
650 550
50 254 131 360 130 240
45 275 329
80 404 843
74
1,317 652
540
77
800
941
15
325
140
4,305
4
1,250
300
80
2,189
75
221
354
350
6,950
10
6,381
3,700
150
2.5'7
1,850
2.550
1,040
2,500,
753 2,500 4,022
757 2,650 6,460
625
3.837
13,161
13,000
6,870
250
6,250
1,450
3,878
2,600
2,000
1,219
7,108
42
120,678
"6,355
42,500
160
11,500
4,650
600
15,926
820
1,763
3,100
3,000
54,000
90
58,862
19,182 7,500
27,000 7,500
16,463 6,282
20,000
26,524
6,455 21,200 51,680
5,239 100
8,791 27,799 "2,345 81,500 59,000
1,500 56,250
13,191 46^91
8,434 56,864 980 10,000 9,681 240
1,006,412
926,979
208 IS
790
141
289
42
298
153 104
4.034
502 1,152
1 89 200
1,035
149
2,500
63
14
118
639
15,306 988,915
13,356 I 950,926
APPENDIX.
291
^■H^y^<f/Oi:z""KC~i;-KC>
i5-'2.2ft
' I a lA. W „ g i
TO °.'-Z 3 c O
" 5 »
Associations.
Baptisms.
Total Mem- bership.
1 |
-1 ^ |
3 ST |
2: ^ 1 /I (a > > > |
Z |
"1 t -) ; 5* • 3 : > : ■a : S : n : > ; |
'11 |
C.-o |
>• 3 > > |
n 0 c z H 2 w |
|||||
\ '^ |
<^ M '. H |
• H M* |
4^ ■ |
Associations. |
||||||||||
p r |
r |
.^^„„„ ? |
M„5 8,u, Ips |
%Hccu>5;'i^"* |
Churches. |
KO M *» *. (
Baptisms.
Total Mem- bership.
INDEX.
ABA A.
Abandonment, 205, 206.
Abbott, 65, 112, 151, 163.
Abbeokuta, 231.
Abelard, 86.
Aborigines, 47, 259.
Abyssinia, -ns, 223, 228.
Academies, 36, 81.
Academy (Greece), 249, 251.
Acropolis, 248.
Acts, 85, 249.
Adaptation, Baptist, 271.
Adequacy of supply, 89, 162, 163, 164.
Adopting missionaries, 280, 281.
Adopting native children, 274.
Adriatic, 251.
Adults, Heathen, 198, 199.
Advance, 160, 163.
.ffischylus, 248.
jEsthetic, 133, 177, 178.
Africa, -an, 34, 35, 68, 93, 97, 100, 102, 153,
223, et seq., 260, 261, 278. Africa, Central, 97, 223, 224, 225, 227, 228,
229, 232, 233, 234, 236, 259, 270, 277. Africa, South, 110, 240. Africa, West, no, 227, 232. Agra, 201. Agriculture, 268. Aims, 95.
Alabama Institute, 51.
Alain, 257.
Albrechtsdorf, 240.
Alcoy, 258. '
Alexandria, -n, 86, 224.
Alf, 239.
Alienations from mission societies, 28.
Almagro, 259.
Almost through, 153.
Alpine, 197, 245.
" Altar of Heaven," 128.
Altona, 238, 240.
Amarapura, 154. Amazon, 267. Ambrose, 87, 179.
America, -ns, 35, 46, 49, 67, 68, 70, 87, 94, <j^, loi, 106, 107, no. III, 112, 116, 118,
25*
ANT
120, 129, 148, 150, 153, 158, 175, 183, 19s, 197, 242, 243, 244, 258, 273, 285.
America, Central, 259.
American, 19, 25, 29, 36, 42, 43, 44, 54, 71, 73, 97, loi, 106, 107, III, 114, 138, 171, 180, 196, 198, 200, 225, 228, 232, 239, 244, 269.
American Baptist Home Mission Society,
22, 23, 24, 27. 28, 29, 30, 31, 39, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56, 60, 69, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 88, 92, 94, 99, 268, 276, 277. 279. 3^6-
American Baptist Missionary Union, 22,
23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 53, 55, 56, 60, 67- 73, 75. 77. 7S, 79, 80, 86, 88, 93, 94, 100, loi, 104, 105, 106, 117, 144, 148, 151, 175, 209, 214, 229, 231, 236, 244, 251, 258, 264, 276, 277, 286.
American Baptist Publication Society, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 37, 42, 54, 55, 56. 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69. 74, 77, 7S, 79, 80, 86, 88, 93, 94, 100, 106, 244, 245, 276, 279, 286.
American Baptist Year-Book, 31, 35, 57.
American Bible Society, 241.
American Missionary Association, 228.
America, South, 3;, 93, 242, 259.
Americus Vespucius, 224, 259.
Amherst, 154, 156, 157.
Amoy, 124, 133.
Ananias and Sapphira, 203, 205. Ancestral tablet, 127. Ancestral worship, 12S. Anderson, 167. Andru, 257. Anglo-Saxons, 114. Annihilation, 127. Anniversaries, 71, 75, 76, 106, 282. Anniversaries, Representative, 283. Anniversary haste, 205, 206. Annual reports, 60, 75, 76. Anselm, 86. Anti-Christian, 87, 96. Anti-Mission Baptists, 35. Anti-Mission churches, 92. Anti-Mission pastors, 281. Anti-Mission spirit, 72, 97, 98. Antioch, 86. Antiquarians, Theological, 86.
. 293
294
lAWEX.
ANY Anywhere, 87, no. Apostles, 117. Appeal, Right of, 282, Appian Way, 254. Arabians, 197. Arabic, 235. Arc de Trioraphe, 255. Areopagiie, -s, 248, 250. Arianism, 86. Aristotle, 248, 249. Arius, 86. Armstrong, 208. Arnold, 249. " Around-the- World Tour of Christian
Missions," 17, 18, III, 112, 225, 285. Arracan, 163, 173.
Arthington, 226, 228, 233, 234, 235, 236. Arthur, 117, 118, 120. Arts, 129, 251, 252. Aryan, 184, 191. Ashamed, 121.
Ashmore, 131, 134, 135, 152, 281. Asia, 35, 67, 68, 72, 73, 89, 93, 109, 113,
147, 152, 157, 158, 159, 160, 165, 169, 179,
182, 191, 194, 224, 227. Assam, 73, 127, 165, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185,
1S6, 187, 188, 189. Assamese, 119, 183, 185, 187. Associations, 25, 40, 232. Astor House Rooms, 52. "At first hand," 103. Athanasius, 71, 86, 224. Atheism, 127, 186, 195. Athens, -ian, 248, 249, 250, 251. Atlanta, 51, 165. Atlanta Seminary, 51. Atlantic, 71, III, 112, 224, 235, 260, 270. Atmakoor, 214. .
Audience with royalty, 149. Augustine, 71, 86, 87, 225. Aurungzebe, 194. Australasia, 35.
Austria, -n, 35, 240, 242, 251, 253. Auxiliary, S3. 80, 106, 275. Avatars, 186, 193.
Babylon, 248. Bacon, 283. Bagamoyo, 229.
Baghdad (Bagdad), 158, 191, 248. Bahamas, 264, 265. Bahia, 267. Bailey, 177. Bakufu, 115. Balathe dhourga, 108. Baldwin, 71, 72. Baltic, 243. Bamboo, 113, 141. Bandy, 212, 213, 221, 222. Bangkok, 131, 146, 147, 148, 153, 276. Baptism, 18, 19, 119, 134, 137, 162, 198, 219, 220, 221, 222, 238, 241, 271.
BEL
I Baptist, 35, 37, 53, 57, 62, 71, 77, 80, 99, 109, no, 117, 122, 125, 131, 138, 199, 207, 209, 225, 232, 240, 241, 243, 244, 256, 257, 258, 263, 267, 270, 285.
Baptist churches, 37, 54, 106, 207, 260, 261, 265.
" Baptist General Tract Society," 63.
Baptist Home Mission Society, Scotland, 100.
Baptist Missionary Magazine, 80.
Baptist Missionary Society (Foreign, Great Britain), 99, 100, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, log, no, 145, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 233, 251, 255, 260, 264, 265.
Baptist " QJcumenical Council," 285.
Baptist*priiiciples, 36.
Baptists, 18, 19, 20, 34, 35, 6i, 63, 86, 96, 120, 121, 196, 197, 241, 243, 264, 265, 266, 269, 271, 275.
Baptists, American, 19, 21, 28, 31, 32, 36, 37. .39. 41. 42, 47. 48, 49. 52, 54, 55. 60, 65, 71, 72, 81, 88, loo, loi, 103, 105, 112, 117, 121, 123, 131, 148, 149, 151, 154, 160, 162, 164, 166, 191, 196, 202, 204, 205, 206, 217, 225, 229, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238,
240, 245, 247, 248, 250, 264, 265, 266, 276, 283, 285.
Baptists, Colored, 31, 32, 34, 46, 230, 232, 235, 236.
Baptists, English, 22, 38, 71, 72, 99, 100, loi, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 123, 132, 144, 145, 1S3, 191, ig6, 197, 198, 199, 20c, 201, 202, 203, 204, 227, 228, 232, 233, 234, 247, 251, 25s, 258, 261, 265, 276.
B.iptists, Europe, 99, iio._
Baptists (Freewill), America, 196.
Baptists (General), England, 196.
Baptists, Germany, 100, 237, 238, 239, 240,
241, 242, 244, 245, 246. Baptists, Jamaica, 232. Baptists, Liberia, 231.
Baptists, Sweden, 243, 244, 245, 246. Baptist Tract and Book Society (Great
Britain), 100. Baptists (United States), South, 29, 32, 34,
132, 143, 144, 231, 236, 242, 251, 254, 266,
267, 268, 274. Barchet, 138, 139, 140. Bari, 255. Barker, 187. Barkley, 177, Barletta, 255. Barrows, 176. Bassa, 230, 231. Bassein, 107, 151, 157, 161, 163, 167, 168,
170, 171, 173, 178, 179, 180, 264, 281. Bassein " Institute," 167, 168, 170, 171,
179, 264. Bavaria, 238.
Baxter's " Saint's Rest," 283. Baynes, loi, 102.
Beecher, 163. Beir, 231. Beirut, 248. Belgian, 229.
INDEX.
295
BEM
Bema, 248.
Benares, 193.
Benedict Institute, 51.
Benevolence, 27, 33, 69, 70, 92, 95, 142,
159- , Benevolences, 41, 59, 6S, 95, 180. Bengal, t6i, 196, 198, 201. Bengal, Bay of, 205. Bengalese, 184. Bengali, 108, 192. Benguella, 228.
Bennett, 118, 119, 158, 160, 172. Benoliel, 258. Berlin, 23S, 240, 245, 255. Bethel Chapel, Stockholm, 244. Bethsaida, 67. Bezwada, 190, 204. Bhamo, 177, 180. Bible, 18, 22, 39, 41, 44, 46, 55, 61, 62, 66,
68, 74, 96, 108, no, 117, 119, 143, 145,
161, 187, 188, 204, 213, 214, 235, 247, 248,
258, 275. Bible destitution, 66. Bible-lands, in, 248. " Bible-women," 120, 131, 134, 139, 212. Bible-work, 29, 41, 54, 61, 62, 117, 119,
143, 176, 209, 210, 241, 276. Bickel, 245. Bigotry, 241. Bihe, 228. Bimlipatam, 208. Binney, 158, 162, 169, 174. Binue, 226, 228, 235, 236, 277. Bion, 201.
Bishop Baptist College, 51. Bixby, J78.
Blessing of merriment, 283.
Blindness, 98.
Bluff, Yokohama, 118, 120.
Board, 50, 52, 58, 75, 78, 103, 121, 202, 203,
<234, 282, 284. Boardman, 162. Boaz, 17. Boggs, 216. BoUes, 71, 72. Bologna, 255. Bombay, 191.
Books, Christian, 41, 63, 64, 65, 94. Bornuese, 235. Boston, 24, 28, 52, 56, 57, 61, 65, 77, 87,
loi, 103, 105. Boxes or money, 283.
Brahma, i86.
Brahman, 192, 215.
Brahmanism, 185, 192, 195, 197, 286.
Brahmans, 160, 192, 193, 218.
Brahmaputra, 182, 183, 185, 187.
Brahmos, 195.
Brahmo Somaj, 186, 195.
Branches, Publication Society, 65.
Brandt, i88.
Brayton, 158, 161, 174.
Brazil, -ian, -s, 259, 260, 266, 267, 268.
Bristol, 199.
CAR
Bristol Orphanage, 228.
British, 33, 87, 100, 106, no, 125, 126, 157,
159, 190, 199, 261, 262, 263. British and Foreign Bible Societies, 241. British and Irish Baptist Home Missions,
99, 100. Brittany, no, 258, Broady, 244. Bromley, 177. Bronson, 186, 187. Brotherhood, 34, 195. Brown, 117, 118, 120, 183, 186, 187. Brownson Theological Seminary (Rama-
patam), 213. Bryson, 176. Bucknell, 56, 66, 174. Buda-Pesth, 240. Buddha, 127, 197, 271. Buddhism, 116, 127, 151, 152, 156, 159, 165,
186, 194, 197, 286. Buddhist, 115, 116, 185, 186, 197. Buddhistic, 193. Buel, 249. Bulgaria, 240. Bunker, 174, 178. Burditt, 217, 220. Burmah, 22, 23, 35, 68, 72, 73, 79, 94, 107,
127, 146, 151, 154, et seg., 164, et seq.,
182, 183, 191, 202, 205, 208, 264, 265, 273. Burman, -s, -ese, 73, 159, 160, 161, 162,
163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175,
176, 17S, 179, 208, 218, 238. " Burmese Messenger," 174. Burton, 224. Bushell, 174. Business Department, American Baptist
Publication Society, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
64, 65. Business principles, 284.
Cadot, 257.
Caesars, 254.
Caffraria, no.
Cairo, 158.
Calabar College, 264, 263.
Calcutta, 107, 108, 109, no, 183, 186, 198,
201, 272. California, 43, 65, 69, 87, 112, 286. Cambodians, 148. .
Cameron, 224. Cameroons, Mount, 233. Cameroons River, 227, 233. Campbell, 214. Camp-meeting, 200. Canadian Dominion (Baptist), 35, 191, 196,
204, 207, 208, 209. Canals, 190, 208. Canencia, 258.
Canton, 124, 130, 132, 143, 144, 272. Cape Colony, 223. Capernaum, 67, 95. Capital, 33, 269. Capitol, Rome, 254. Caracalla, Baths, 254.
296
INDEX.
CAR
Carey, 23, 71, 107, 108, 197, 202, 273.
Caribbean, 259.
Carpenter, 151, 161, 16S, 179, iSo, 2S1.
Carpi, 254.
Cartilage, 224.
Cary, 230.
Caste, 160, 185, 186, 192, 193, 194, 195,208,
215, 21S, 271. Castle Street, ig ; Holborn, 19, loo, 104. Catacombs, Rome, 254. Caucasian, 191. Cavour, 253. Cawnpore, 47.
Central Baptist Church, 20, 173, 175, 178.
Centre of operations, 56.
Centres, 92.
Ceylon, 100, 109, 127, 196, 197, 198.
Chad, Lake, 226, 235, 236, 277. Champs felysees, 257. Chandler, 149, 150. Chang-chow, 124. Chapel needed, 250, 251. Character, 270. Charities, 99, 264. Charlemagne, 86. Chastening of God, 205, 206. Chau-chau-fu, 135. Chauny, 257. Chefoo, 124, 130. Cherokees, 53.
Chestnut Street (1420), 53, 62, 63. Chiang Lim, 138. Chicacole, 204, 208. Chicago, 65, 112. Chickasaws, 53. Chilcott, 153.
Children, Separation from, 277, 284. Chili, 126.
China, 22, 35, 68, 73, 79, 86, 97, 100, 107, III, 119, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, et seq., 152, 165, 167,
China Inland IMission
228.
China, Southern, 131. Chinese, 114, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131,
133, et seq., 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 1S4. Chinese classics, 142. Chinese dress, 145. Chinese history, 125. Chinese language, 108, 117, 119, 131. Chinese (United States;, 45, 49, 112, 148. Chin-kiang, 124. Choctaws, 53. Cholera, 264. Chorazin, 67. Chota Nagpore, 188. Christ, 18, 23, 35, 38, 46, 68, 69, 71, 77, 82,
85, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 117,
120, 138, 154, 161, 163, 196, 201, 217, 233,
246, 249, 254, 285. Christendom, 98, 224. Christian, 18, 35, 37, 46, 63, 64, 68, 69, 81,
190, igi, 240, 259, 274, 278. China, Eastern, 131, 139
143,
= 7,
COM
82, 83, 86, 92, 94, 97, 112, 115, 116, 117, 122, 148, 151, 201, 256. Christianity, 22, 23, 44, 46, 69, 83, 84, 87,
97, 109, ii6, 123, 127, 128, 152, 159, 184, 195, T96, 198, 2oi, 221, 241, 246.
Christians, 18, 20, 68, 70, 74, 89, 91, 97,
98, 123, 134, 263. Christlieb, b5. Christological, 86. Chrysostom, 87. Chunder Sen, 186, 195.
Church, 38, 47, 51, 96, 97, 121, 145, 191,
223, 257, 259. Church and State, 116, 247, 248, 253. Church attendance, 84, 85. Church buildings, 42, 49, 53, 60, 70, 92. Church-edifice Benevolent Department,
50- Churches, 68, 71, 75, 76, 79, 82, 87, 89, 91,
92. 93, 94, 96, loi, 102, 104, 106, 117, 119.
Churches, Feeble, 39, 54. •
Churches, Seh-sustaining, 42, 54, 100, 109,
136, 179, 180, 199, 200. Church government, 271. Church members, 66, 87, 94, gS. Church nierabv;rship, ib, 19. Church Missionary Society, England, 204,
225, 226, 228, 235, 236. Cifre, 258. Cincinnati, 105. Circular Road Chapel, 198. Cities, 67, 68, 90. " Citj' of Berlin," 277. Civilization, 112, 115, 116, 123, 152, igo,
195, 223, 224, 259, 260. Civil Service, 47, 126, 157, 196. Civita Vecchia, 255. Clark, 188, 230. Cleanliness, 114. Clevcl.md, III, 237, 245, 277. Climate, 157, 158, 182, 232. Clough, 151, 2u7, 208, 215, et seq., 281. Coahuila, 268.
Coast-fever, Africa, 230, 232. Coconada, 20S, 209, 215. Co-educatiun of races, 170, 171. Colburn, 172. Coliseum, 254. Collectors, 2S1. College-feeders, 169.
Colleges, 36, Si, 83, 84, 85, 109, 197, 198. Colombo, 197.
Colonies, Great Britain, 38, 261, 263, 264. Colonies, Spanish, Portuguese, 259, 260. Colonization Society, 230. Colonizing, 126, 191. Colorado, 4;. Colportrtge, 21, 28, 55, 58, 61, 70, 87, 244,
258.273. Colporteurs, 22, 54, 61, 62, 65, 66, 77, 92,
93, 94, 117, 246. Columbia, South Carolina, 51. Columbus, 224, 259. Comfort, 188.
INDEX.
297
COM
Commerce, 105, 130, 196, 248, 263, 283.
Commune, 247, 252.
Communion, Restricted, 19.
Comstock, 163.
Concentration, 165.
Cone, 72.
Conference, 209.
Confidence, 282.
Confucian, 116, 128, 271.
Confucianism, 127.
Confucius, 127.
Congo, no, 224, 227, 228, 233, 236.
'■ Congregational Auxiliaries," English,
106. Congregationalist, -s, 19, 61, 103, 120, 121,
122, 158, 164, 204, 228, 264, 276. Connecticut, 188.
Conscience, 19, 81, 97, 120, 247, 256. Consecration, 88, 103, 144, 206, 228, 273. Conservative, 172, 234. Consistency, 281.
Constituency, 72, 169, 205, 275, 282. Consultation, 284. Contributions, 59, 76, 80, 88, 8g, 91, 92, log,
136, 17s, 199, 240, 281. Conventions, 25, 40, 99. Conversation, Religious, 65, 91. Converse, The, 155, 157. Conversion, 38, 64, 84, 93, 150. Converts, 48, 74, 93, 108, no, 119, 131, 135,
150, 153, 179, 180, 187, 188, 199, 201, 207,
208, 216, 217, 245, 250, 258, 271. Co-operation, 80, 104, 275, 285. Copenhagen, 238, 239, 240. Copts, 223. Corfu, 249. Corinthian, 249.
Cor., I. (i : 26-29), '^> '2.1%, 219. Cornelia, 258. Cortes, 266. Cortez, 259. Cote, 254. Councils, 86.
" County Auxiliaries," English, 106. Courland, 241.
Craig, 209.
Crawford, 144.
Crawley, 160, 163.
Creeds, 19.
Creeks, 53.
Cretiu, 257.
Crises of Centuries, 285, 287.
Criticisms of Mission Societies, 28, 76, 282.
Croakers, 177,
Crocker, 230.
Cronkhite, 177.
Cross, 178.
Cross, The, no, 239.
Crozer, 56, 66, 84.
Crump, 178.
Cuba, 266.
Cuddapah, 204.
Culture, 37, 125,
Cumbum, 217.
Curriculum, 87,
DIS
Cushing, 163, 178. Custom-house, 113. Cutter, 1S3. Cyprian, 224. Cyprus, 248. Czar, 241.
D.
Dai-Buts (Butsu), 113.
Dakota, 44.
Dalada Maligawa, 197.
Damaris, 250.
Danforth, 188.
Daniells, 134.
Danish, 108, 237, 241.
" Dark Continent," 223, 223.
Daiible, 187.
Davenport, 152.
David, 224.
Davis, 61.
Day, 151, 203, 205, 206, 210, 212.
Dead weight, 40.
Deafness, 98.
Dean, 131, 140, 149, 150, 152, 153.
Deception, 253.
De Corona, 248.
Deficit, 79, 203.
Degradation, 191, 193, 194, 204, 221, 223,
235, 261, 267. Deification of nature and man, 192, 193. Deistic, 195. Delegations, 102, 103. Delhi, 102, 199, 201. Democratic, 107. Demonolatry, 185. Demosthenes, 248. Denain, 257. Denmark, 35, 237, 238. Denominationalism, 19, 20, 64, 122, 227. Denominational loyalty, 18, 64, 66. Denominational rivalry, 82. Depositories, 62, 65. Depression, 273, 282. Desert, 223. De Solis, 259.
Destitute, 89, 91, 95, 96, 97, 99. . Details, 75, 79, 97. Devan, 131, 257. Devil-worship, 197. Dez, 257.
" Dhurmo Uddipony Mela," 200. Dickson, 249. Diet, 158. Difficulties, 93, 151, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187,
210, 211, 233, 257, 258. Dionysius, 250. Disciples, 271.
Discipline, 87, 137, 232, 258, 263. Disciplined mind, 82. Discomfort, 211. iDiscord, 145, 282. Discouragement, 151, 153, 207, 211, 233,
250. Disestablishment, 265.
298
INDEX.
DIb
FIC
Dishonest government, 126.
Dissent, 241.
District Secretaries, 79, 80, 106, 179.
Dobbins, 118. Dock-bungalow, m. Doctrine, 225. Donations, Specific, 175. Doric, 249.
Double Island, 131, 133. Douglass, 163, 175, 207. Downie, 212, 213. Doyen, 118.
Drake, 214, 244. Dravidian, 184, igi. Drifting, 121. Drought, 190, 264.
Durango, 268. Dutch, 64, 198. Dutt, 200.
E.
Eager, 254.
Eastman, 179.
East, United States, 34, 44, 48, 97, 112,
"3- Ebal, 54-
Ecclesiasticism, 225. " Echo of Truth," 257. Eclectic, 195. Economy, 89, 242.
Eden, iii, 248.
Edgren, 244.
Edina, 230.
Educational, 37, 41, 47, 50, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 95, 107, IIS, "6, 136, 167, 168, 192, 197, 198, 247, 24S, 262, 270,272, 285.
Egypt, -ian, 21, iii, 158, 197, 223, 228.
Elbe, 238.
Elephant, 173, 179, 212.
El Juf, 235.
Ellore, 204.
Elwell, 179.
Elwin, 176.
Emancipation, 46, 97, 109, 232, 261, 262,
263. Emigration, 46, 191. Emmanuel, 25, 90, 98, 206, 217, 226, 239,
285. Emperor, Chinese, 125,
Encouraging, no, 202.
Endowments, 36, 50, 51, 88, 121, 122, 213.
England, 35, 72, 99, 104, 105, 109, 125, 130,
145, 195, 196, 197, 204, 225, 226, 234, 240,
258, 261, 262. England, Church of, 19, 121, 138, 163, 204,
260, 264, 265, 267, 271. English, 48, 99, 101, IU2, 105, 106, 107, 108,
109, 126, 138, 145, 168, 174, 176, 178, 192,
225, 228, 233, 235, 242, 243, 252, 262, 263,
264, 265, 274. English language, 45, 170, 171.
English language in mission schools, 170.
Enlargement, 66, 93, 96, 121.
Enterprise, 54, 64, 65, 82, 86, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 99, 100, 107, 121, 122, 125, 147, 14y, 150, 160, 172, 229, 236, 269, 270.
Enthusiasm, 85. 102, 234.
Enthusiasm of resolutions, 202, 203, 205, 207.
" Envelope System," 70, 282.
Ephesus, 86.
Epidemics, 263.
Episcopalian, -s, 19, 121, 232,266, 269.
Epistles, Pastoral, 85.
Esprit de corps, 87, 89, 90.
Eternity, 70.
Ethnological, 183, 184, 191.
Eurasian, 176.
Euripides, 248.
Europe, -an, 21, 33, 35, 36, 43, 44, 73, 93
99, 100, 107, no. III, 112, 114, 116, 129 143. 195,. 199. 224, 242, 247, 251, 265.
Europe, Northern, 237, 238, 243, 246.
Europe, Protestant, 23, 246.
Europe, Southern, 247, 257.
Evangelical, 35, 191, 253, 254.
Evangelical P.ible Society, Russia, 241.
Evangelical flavor, 83.
Evangelist, 41, 42, 100, 139, 245.
" Evangelistas " (Baptists), 267.
Evangelization, 17, 18, 21, 28, 31, 35, 38 42, 44, 48, 54, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92 93, 95, 97, 98, 101, 107, 109, 112, 119, 122 123, 137, 145, 151, 160, 171, 197, 199,205 242, 251, 257, 266, 268, 279.
Evans, 176, 201.
Eveleth, 178.
Examination of candidates, 137, 219, 220.
Excuse, 93.
Executive Officers, 25, 26, 27, 39, 40, 51 56; 73. 75. 7<5. 77. 78, 80, 88, 95, loi, 102 103, 105, 151, 236, 277, 280, 2S2, 2S4.
Exegesis, 85.
Experience, 73, 2S4.
Exploration, 223.
Ezra, 218, 220, 222.
Facility, 103.
Faith, 63, 96, 118, 151, 155, 205, 284.
" Faith Institution," East London, 227,
228. Faith, " Sanctified," 227, 228. Family visitation, 284. Famine, 126, 190, 221. Farewell meeting, 105. Fatherhood of God, 195.
Fernando Po, 233. Fetichism, 128, 261. Feudalism, 114.
Fiction, 285.
INDEX.
299
FID
Fidelity, 88, loi.
Fidelity to ordinances, 271.
Field and native favoritism, 2S0.
Fields, 131, 137, 152.
Fielding, 230.
Figueras, 258.
Figures, 74, 75, 77.
Finland, 35, 244.
First-class or none, 231.
First convert, 161.
Florence, 252, 255.
Florida Institute, 51.
Flournoy, 268.
Fo, 127.
Food, 158, 171.
Foot-boat, 141.
Forbearance, 272.
" Foreign Concession," iiS.
Foreign Missionary Society, Swedish, 244.
Formalism, 74, 86, 196, 240, 243, 246, 286.
Forum, Rome, 254.
Foulahs, 235.
Foulon, 257.
Foundations, 36, 89, 93, 109, 131, 135, 197,
210, 240, 241, 255, 260, 263. Four hundred millions, 125, 130. Forward, no. Forward into Africa, 231, 233, 234, 235,
236.
France, 35, 48, 73, no, 242, 247, 252, 253,
255, 256, 258. Fraud, 148. Freedmcn, 21, 28, 41, 49, 50, 54, 66, 67,93,
94. 97. 225, 236, 263. Freedmen's schools, 22, 50, 51, 52, 54, 70. Freedom, Baptist, 59. Free labor, 33. Free Mission Societj', 117. Freiday, 177, 180. French, 114, 225, 226, 242, 252. French language, 64, 129. French, United States, 45, 49. Fretting, 15S. " From the Garden of Eden to the Isle of
Fatmos," in, 112, 248.
Fnchow, 124, 133, 172. Fuji-yama, 113. Full consecration, 84. Fuller, 72, 1-.7, 108, 134. Funeral fire, 194. Fungshway, 128, 129. Furman, 72.
G.
Gage, 175.
Gambling, 14S, 200.
Ganges, 125, 196.
Garos, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189.
Gaudama (Gautama), i6o, 186.
Gaun, 231.
General Missionary Convention, 73, 202,
Z03, 230. Generosity, loi, 105. Genoa, 252, 255.
HAM
Georgia, 286. Gerizim, 54. German, -s, 64, 119, 144, 187, 188, 225,237,
238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 244, 274. Germans, United States, 45, 49. Germany, 35, 42, 66, 73, 107, 145, 197, 208,
23S, 240, 243, 246. Ghauts, 193. Ghost-worship, 185. Ghuzin, 194. Gleaning, 17. "Glimpses of Mission Life in Many
Lands,' in, 112. Gnadenhiitten, 47. Gnosticism, 85. Goble, 117. God, 1 8, 28, 38, 45, 61, 70, 71, 83, 88, 89,
93' 97' 9S. 107. '22, 128, 161, 192, 196,
201, 206, 218, 220, 248. Godavery, igi, 209. '
Goddard, 131, 139, 140, 152. God's leadership, 22, 23, 55, 56, 72, 116,
119, iSi, igi, 202, 227, 233, 258, 283. " Golden Gate," 112. " Golden Temple," 193. Gold-mine, 108. Goodman, 231.
" Good time" at anniversaries, 203. Gospel, 68, 69, 70, 82, 89,' 91, loS, 128, 130,
134, 160, i8o, 221. Government, United States, 46. Gowahati, 169, 187, 188, 276. Goyden, 240. Grace, 150, 158, 222. Graduate, 88. Grand Canal, China, 129. Grant, 224.
" Grants-in-aid," 171, 172, 176. Gratitude, 214, 227. Graves, 143. Great Britain, 23, 36, 38, 99, 100, 104, 125,
130, 183, 194, 261. "Great Commission," 82. Great Wall, 124. Greece, -ian, 35, 73, 242, 247, 248, 249, 250,
251. Greek, -s, 197, 224, 225, 250. Greek faith, 242. Greek language, 122, 142, 149. " Greeting the angels," 174. Gregory, Great, 86. Ijriffich, 56, 105, 245. Grodszisko, 240. Gross-Essen, 241. Guinea, 224. Guntoor, 217. Gurney, i83. Gustavus Adolphus, 243. Gyobingouk, 177.
H.
Hale, 178.
Hamburg, 237, 238, 239, 240, 245, 276.
300
INDEX,
HAM
INT
Hamilton, i68. Hammond, 208. Hanamaconda, 207, 215. Hancock, 176. Hang-chow, 124, 142. Han-kow, 124. Hanover, 238. Harem, 194. Harris, 178. Hascall, 176, 178. Hasweli, 162, 176. Hausas, 235. Havana, 266. Hay, 208. Hayti, 264.
Headquarters, 56, 63, 77, 99. Health, Breaking down, 273. Heathen, 29, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74,
87, 91, 92, 96, 98, ti6, 130, 155, 156, 175,
184, 201, 230, 249. Heathen deities, 117. Heathenism, 22, 95, 127, 128, 134, 140, 144,
156, 169, 194, 219, 271, 272. Hebrew, 224. Heliopolis, 224. Hellenic, 249. Helping hand, 80. Hendricken, 129.
Henlhada, 157, 163, 164, 165, 177, 272. Herodotus, 224. Heroism, 154, 155, 211, 238.
Higby, 176.
" Higher-Life Christians," 145, 176, 228. Hill, 231.
Himalayas, 127, 182, 183, 184. Hindi, 108, no, 192, 196. •
Hindu, 185, 186, 192, 193, 194, 195, 200, 201. Hinduism, 156, i85, 193, 195, 204, 211. Hindus, 159, 192, 194, 195, 200, 201. Hindustan, 202. Hindustani, 108, 192.
History, 85, 94, 97, loi, 109, 192, 243, 257, 262, 285.
Hohenkirch, 240.
Holcomb, 144.
Holland, 35, 237.
Holmes, 144.
Holton, 230.
Holy Spirit, 38, 46, 95, 117, 188, 220, 239,
272, " Home," Newton Centre, 284. Homes, 39, 97, 120, 140, 165, 177, 256, 279. Hong-kong, 124, 130, 131, 133, 138, 144,
146. Hospitalet, 258. Hospitality, 19, 26, 34, 78, 80, 134, 138, 156,
T '75- Hottentots, 223.
House-boat (" Providence"), 174, 175.
House of Lords, 87.
House-rent, 78.
Hovey, 64, loi, 103.
Hull, 240.
Human nature, 77, 274.
Humility, 211. Humorists, 283. Hungary, 237, 242. Hutchinson, 208. Hyderabad, 214.
Iconoclastic, 194.
Idolatry, -ies, -trous, 67, 108, 127, 192, 194,
195, 196, 201, 231, 235. Idols, 151, 193, 221, 249. Ignorance, 47. Ignorant, 252. Ikschen, 240. Illinois, 48. Immersion, 19, 241. Immigration, 33, 39, 42, 43, 44, 43, 97, 148,
184, 188, 191. Immoralities, 116, 194, 253, 261, 263. Impatience, 207, 282, 284. Imprudence, 2S2. Incidental giving, 284. Indecency, 194. Independents, 264. India, 19, 22, 23, 35, 68, 73, 97, 100, 102,
107, 108, III, 120, 125, 126, 127, 131, 145,
157, 159, 160, 165, 167, 183, 184, 188, 190,
et seq., 202, et seq., 210, et seq., 259,
273- Indiana, 48, 104. Indian, Mexico, 268. Indian Ocean, 226.
Indians, American, 21, 47, 48, 49, 53, 94. Indian Territory, 53. Indifference, 68, 71. Indo-European, 184. Indolence, 126, 147, 159, 171, 193. Industrial Departments, Mission Schools,
171. Industry, 125, 137, 148, 159, 247. Infallibility, 247.
Infidelity, 69, 100, 195, 240, 243, 268, 286. Influence, 45. Information, Mission, 75, 79, 91, 93, 94, 95,
102, 106. Ingalls, 163, 176. " Ingresso Libero," 255. Inland sea, Japan, 113. Inquisition, Rome, 254. Inspiration, 6g, 97, 103, 274. Instruction, Classical, 73, 81, 85, 167, 168,
170. Instruction, Theological, 73, 81, 83, 85,
121, 122, 123, 167, i63, 225, 244, 257. Insulting God, 202. Insurrections, 190. Intelligence, 37, 79, loi, 103, 104, 105, 125,
201. Intemperance, 148.
International Association for the Suppres- sion of the Slave Trade and Opening of
Central Africa, 229. International Lessons, 37.
INDEX.
301
INT
Interpretation, 271.
Intolerance, 240, 266.
Intrigue, 226.
Inveen, 140.
Ionic, 249.
Iowa, 43.
Ireland, 35, 42, 99, 104, 197.
Irish, United States, 45.
Iroquois, 48.
Irrawaddy, 169, 183.
Irreligion, 195, 286.
Irrigation, 190.
Islam, 97, 194, 235.
Israel, -ites, 54, 224.
" Italian of India," 204.
Italians, United States, 45.
Italy, -ian, 35, 84, 242, 247, 248, 251, 252,
253. 254. 256. Itinerant work, 42, 135, 198, 272.
Iwakura, 115. lyemitsu, 113. lyeyasii, 113.
J.
Jamaica, 35, 102, 108, 232, 260, 261, 264,
265. James, 68. Jameson, 160, 179. Japan, 22, 27, 73, 97, 100, 107, m, 113,
114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123,
127, 152, 157, 165, 167, 183, 191, 195,259,
271. Japanese, iii, 113, 114, 120, 122. Japanese history, 115. Japanese inns, 113, 114.
Japanese revolution, 115, 116. avanese, 108. Jenkins, 131, 141. erusalem, 22, 95. esuit, 233. etsmark, 241. Jewett, 151, 206, 210, 218. Jews, 223.
Jin-riki-sha, 113. Johnson, 105, 131, 144. Jones, 145, 151, 152.
Jubilee Fund, Home Mission, 51, 52. Judicial mind, 77.
Judson, A., 23, 70, 71, 73, 160, 161, 162, 198, 202, 205, 273.
Judson, A. H., 71, 154, 238. udson, E., 53. Jungle-fever, 73. Jungles, 160, 166, 167, 171, 172, 173, 179,
180, 213, 283. Juvenile missionary meetings, 106. "Juvenile Missionary Society," England, X06.
KYI
Kabir, 186. Kabir Parthis,
26
K.
Kacharis, 183.
Kagos, 113.
Kakchie, 133.
Ka-Khyens, 180.
Kamakura, 113.
Kanagawa, 122.
Kandura, 187, 189.
Kandy, 197.
Kansas, 43, 87, 89.
Karens, 23, 94, 159, 160, 162, 167, 169, 170,
171, 175, 176, 178, 179, 188,208, 218. Karens, Bghai, 159, 178. Karens, Paku, 159, 178. Karens, Pwo, 159, 161, 174, 179. Karens, Red, 159. Karens, Sgau, 159, 161, 162, 167, 172, 173,
174, 179, 180, 264. Karen Theological Seminary, 167, 168, 169,
170. Kasan, 241. Keeler, 188. Keith, 232. Kelley, 163, 176. Kendrick, 249. Khamtis, 183. Khiirtoom, 228.
" Khoolnea Singing Band," 200. Khyens, 163, 178. Kicin, 241. Kidder, 118, 120. Kido, 115. Kief, 241. Kincaid, 160, 162. King, 188.
" Kingdom of Rising Sun," iii. Kings (Royalty), 148, 149, 150, 152, 229,
238, 247, 248, 252. Kingston, 264, 265. King-wo, 142. Kistna (Krishna), igo, 214. Kiu-kiang, 124. Kiyoto, 113, 169. Kiyoto Training-School, 121, 122.
Knapp, 258. Knowiton, 131.
Kobe, 113, 118, 122. Koebner, 238. Kohls (Kolhs), 183, 188. Kolarian, 184. Konigsberg, 240. Koran, 194, 235. Kosaris, 183. Ko Thah-byu, 162.
Ko Thali-byu Memorial, 161, 167, 168, 170, 171, 179, 264.
Kshatriyas, 193.
Kublai Khan, 125, 129. Kuddumdy, 200. Kung, Prince, 125. Kurnool, 207, 214.
Kwang-tung, 135.
Kyiah-wo, 141,
302
INDEX.
LAB
Labor, Division of, 39.
Labor, Foreign, 43.
Lactantius, 87.
" Ladies' Branches," England, 106.
La Fere, 257.
Lagos, 231.
Lalce Bivva, 113, 122.
Lall Bazaar, 198.
Landels, 255.
Lanlca Dwipa, 197.
Laos, 148, 150.
Laou-tsze, 127.
Laplanders, 244.
Latin, 129, 142, 225, 256.
Laundries (Department Girls* Schools),
171. Lawrence, 176.
Learning language, 274. Leavenworth, 105. Lectures on Missions, 88. Legation, 125. Legge, 130. Leghorn, 255. Legislation, 47, 263. Lehmann, 238, 245. Leith, 100.
Leland University, 51, 52. Lemaire, 257. Leo, Great, 86. Lepoids, 257.
Liberality, 18, 19.
Liberia, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236.
Liberian Africo- Americans, 232.
Liberty, Religious, 152, 258.
Library, 62, 64.
Liddon, 271.
Lightfoot, 140.
" Light of Asia," 197.
Li-hung-chang, 125, 129.
Lingam, 186, 193, 204.
Linguistic, 1S3, 184.
Lisle, 153.
Litchfield, 198.
Literal observance, 38.
Literary institutions, 36.
Literary style, Japan, iig.
Literature, Christian, 22, 40, 41, 54, 55,
61, 64, 65, 66, 74, 100, 108, 143, 189, 204,
244, 284, 286. Literature, Denominational, 39, 40, 64, 65,
66, 88, 100. Literature, General, 88, 225, 283. Literature, Heathen religious, 185. Literature, Infidel, 195. Literature of missions, 30, 88, 91, 94, 108,
no, 122, 170, 174, i8i, 182, 253, 2S2. Literature, Sunday-school, 37, 61, 64, 65,
176, 286. Live Oak, Fla., 51. Liverpool, 178, 277. Livingstone, no, 224, 236. " Livingstone Inland Mission," 227, 228. Livingstone, R., 227, 229.
MAR Living voice, 40. Livonia, 241. Loanda, 229.
Loan-fund, Church-edifice, 49, 50. London, 99, 100, loi, 102, 106, 198, 227, •
255- London Missionary Society, 130, 204, 208,
226, 277. " Lone Star," 151, 206, 222. Lord, E., 131, 138, 140, 141. Lord's Day, 44, 115, 136, 143, 153, 279. Lord's Supper, 18, 19, 250, 279, 280. Lough ridge, 215. Louisiana, 34. Louis Philippe, 257. Louvre, 257. Love, 249. Loyalty, 89, 90, 285. Liibeck, 237. Lucknow, 201. Lust, 260. Luther, 71.
Lutheran, -s, 19, 238, 243, 244, 245. Lutzen, 243. Lyons, 257. Lysippus, 249.
M.
Macgowan, 131. Madagascar, 259. Madras, 196, 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 212,
272, 276. Madras, Presidency, 158. Madrid, 358. Magdeburg, 243. Maha-bharata, 186. Mahmud, 194. Mahomet, 194. Mahometanism (Mohammedanism), 193,
234. Mahometans (Mohammedans), 159, 194,
223. Mahrattas, 196. Maine, 286. Malacca, 130.
Malay, -an, loB, 130, 146, 148, 191. Malcom, 72. Mamertine Prison, 254. Mammon, 192. Manchu, 125. Mandalay, 175, 177. Manicheism, 85. Manley, 216. Manufactories, 269. Ma-oo-ben, 157, 174. Mapleson, 212. Maps, Mission, 282. Marathi, 192. Marburg, 238. Marco Polo, 197.
Maritime provinces, Canadian, 20S, 209. Market, 54.
Married missionaries, 132. Marshall, Texas, 51. Mars' Hill, 248, 251.
INDEX.
303
MAR
Marshman, 108, 131, 197, 202.
Martin, 170.
Martyr-missionaries, 226, 230, 231, 233,
268. Maryland, 61.
Mason, 161, 162, 174, 183, 188. Massachusetts, 104. iMasulipatam, 204. Materialism, 116, 127. Maulmain, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 167, 171,
175, 178, 272, 274. " May Meetings," 71, 75, 76.
McAllister, 179.
McCullough, 144.
McKibben, 134.
McLaunn, 209.
Medhurst, 130.
]\Iediterranean, 47, 223.
Meinam, 146, 153.
Mela, Christian, 200.
Mela, Heathen, 200.
Members, Christian churches, 89, 90, 95,
98, 100, 104, 105, 155. Memel, 240.
Memorizing Scripture, 214. Men, 89, 165, 166, 167, 274, 275. Men and women missionaries. Proportion,
274. 275 Mencian, 271. Menu, Code of, 185, 194. Methodist, -s, 19, 120, 121, 138, 163, 164,
172, 232, 267, 269, 276. Methods, 95.
Metropolitan Tabernacle, 99. Mexican mission, 53. Mexicans, United States, 45. ]Mexico, -ans, 242, 259, 260, 268, 269. Mexico, Gulf, 224. Michigan, 48. Middle States, 43, 48, 114. Mid-ocean, 112. Mikado, 115. Milan, 252, 254. ]\Jilitary service, 157, 196. Milne, 130. Minas Geraes, 267. Ming dynasty, 125, 129. JNlinister's giving, 281. Ministers' lives, 276. Ministry, 24, 27, 36, 39, 57, 60, 65, 66, 68,
75> 7^, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 90, 91, 93,
95, loi, 105, 155, 156, i6d, 273. Mirambo, 226. Misery, 259. Mission agencies, 91, 96, 104, 105, 165, 173,
265. Missionaries (1000), 155, 210. Missionaries, Disaffected, 282. Missionaries, Foreign, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27,
71. 73. 74, 75. 76, 77. 78, 89, 91, 92, 100,
102, 103, 104, 106, 109, no, 116, 117, 119,
121, 125, 126, 130, 131, 134, 154, 157, 196,
208, 273. Missionaries, Happy, 139, 140. Missionaries' health, 273.
MIS
Missionaries, Home, 22, 27, 41, 44, 47, 48, 49, 54, 55, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, S3, 89, 91, 92, no, 154, 155, 156, 273.
Missionaries, Independent, 117.
Missionaries, Sunday-school, 22,- 54, 55, 61, 62, 65, 66, 74, 76, 77, 78, 89, 91, 92, 154, 155, 156.
Missionaries' temptations, 198, 199.
Missionaries with special theories, 274.
Missionary atmosphere, 84, 90.
Missionary children, 140, 272, 277, 284.
Missionary communications, 275.
Missionary companionship, 135, 144.
Missionary concert, 60, 61, 91.
Missionary Department, American Bap- tist Publication Society, 58, 61, 62, 106,
270, 273, 286.
Missionary idea, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 95. Missionary mothers, 140, 165. Missionary physicians, 122, 135, 138, 139,
175. 176. Missionary sacrifice, 23, 75, 77, 78, 109,
141, 142, 145, 155, 156, 159, 163, 177, 178,
272, 277. " Missionary Sketches," 239. Missionary threats, 76, 282. Missionary toil, 77, 78, 119, 120, 140, 144,
145, 151, 156, 184, 185, 217. Mission cemeteries, 277. Mission dwellings, etc., 119, 139, 144, 171,
»77, 214- Mission families, 283. Mission interest, gi, 94, 104, 105, 210. Mission lectureships, 88. Mission professorships, 88. ^
IMissiun results, 73, 74, 75, 93, 96, 100, 121,
140, 144, 151, 185, 199, 205, 207, 208,214,
239, 257-
Missions, 20, 23, 34, 37, 44, 48, 57, 70, 71, 72, 75, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 95, 97, 99, 105, 109, no, 116, 121, 124, 131, 149, 150, 186, 191, 198, 225, 253, 270.
Missions and science, 1S3.
Mission schools, 100^ 120, 135, 140, 217,
271, 272, 284. See Christian Schools. Mission Secretaries, 25, 26, 27, 56, 58, 73,
75. 77. 78. 79. 80, 88, 102, 103, 104, 105,
106, 238, 277. Mission sermons, 106, 279. Missions, Foreign, 38, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 82,
88, 89, loi, 106, no, 153, 156, 157, 270,
279. Missions, Home, 21, 22, 23, 38, 39, 40, 41,
42, 44, 45, 54, 67, 69, 72, 82, 87, 88, 89,
99, no, 154, 270. Mission Societies, 58, 59, 60, 99, 100, no,
130, 164, 204, 225, 256, 260, 274, 275. Mission spirit, 18, 24, 75, 82, 84, 89, 90,91,
92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 140, 157, 184, 232,
274. Mission steamers, 226, 227, 233, 236. Mission support, 17, 37, 78, 96, 157, 158,
237. Mission Treasurers, 25, 27, 58, 75, 77, 80. Mississippi River, 42, 43, 48, 112, 224. Missouri, 43.
304
MIS Missouri River, 44. Mistrust, 282. IMitchell, 176, 257. Mix, 178. Modena' 254. Moenster, 239. Monasteries, 113. Monastic, 253. Money, 45, 89, 91, 103, 106. Monghyr, 201. Mongol, 125, 194. Monica, 225. Monrovia, 230. Monsoon, 146, 197. Montanism, 85.
" Monthly," Home Mission, 53. Moody and Sankey, 151, 200, 215. Moon, 144. Moore, 188.
Moravian, -s, 243, 260, 264. Morehouse, 51, 105. " More so," 220. Morgan, 214. Morioka, 118. Morlaix, 25S. Mormonism, 112. " Morning Star," Karen, 170. Morrison, 130. Morrow, 162. Morse, 152. Moscow, 240, 241. Moses, 224. Moslem, 194, 200, 226. Moslems, 200, 201. Mosul, 158.
Motive, 69, 82, 92, 95, 220, Moung Nau, 73. Mtesa, 223, 226, 228. Muato Yanvo, 228. Mullens, 277. Munson, 118.
Murdock, 78, loi, 103, 105. Muttra, 201. Mylne, 230. Mystery, 179, 180. Mythology, 249.
N.
Nagas, 183, 184, 187, 188. Nagasaki, 113, 121. Nanak, 186.
Nan-king (Nankin), 124, 143. Naples, 252, 255. Napoleon, Louis, 247, 257. Narragansett Bay, 178, 278. Nashville, 51. Nashville Institute, 51. Natchez, 51. Natchez Seminary, 51. " National Baptist," 229. Native tunes, 212. Nature, 128, 192. Nazareth, 95. Nebraska, 43.
INDEX.
OKU
Negation of faith, 196.
Neglected classes, 68.
Negro, 252, 261, 262, 263, 265.
Negro-land, 234.
Neighbor, 188.
Nellore, 204, 205, 206, 207, 2J0, 211, 212.
Nestorians, 86, 129.
Neudorf, 241.
Nevada, 43.
New England, 43, 97, 114.
Newhall, 214.
New Leon, 268.
New Mexico, 44.
New Orleans, 51, 52, 112,
New Testament, 117, 119, 122, 161, 187,
208, 218, 219, 249. New Testament commentary, 64. Newton, 84. New York, 21, 24, 28, 48, 52, 53, 56, 57, 65,
77, 84, 103, 105, III, 255, 277. New York State, 104, 168. Ngan-king, 124.
Nice, 86.
Nichi-nichi-shinbun, 122.
Nichols, 173, 210, 211.
Niger River, 224, 226, 235, 277.
Niger, Upper River, 232, 236.
Nijni-Novgorod, 241.
Nikko, 113.
Nile, 224.
Nilsson, 239.
Nineteenth century, 86, 87.
" Ninety and Nine," 68.
Nineveh, 248.
Ning-po, 124, 131, 138, 139, 142. 15Z1 169.
Nirvana, 127.
Nizam, 215.
Norris, 176.
North America, 34.
North Sea, 240.
North, United States, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34.
46, 72, 94, 96, lOI. Norway, 35, 244, 245. Norwegian, 64. Norwood, 134. Novelty, 113. Nowgong, 187, 188. Nowgong Institution, 187.
Nubia, 224.
Nundial, 204.
Nyassa, Lake, 226, 227.
o.
Obligation, 39, 40, 54, 69, 70, 72, 76, 83,
225, 230, 287. Obscenity, 193, 200, 204, 221. Occident, 112. Ocean Grove, 145. Odessa, 241. Ogbomishaw, 231. Ohio, 48, 104, III. Okubo, 115.
INDEX.
305
OLD
Oldenburg, 238.
" Old Men's Home," 153.
Omed, 187, 189.
Oncken, 237, 238, 239, 244.
Oneidas, 48.
Ongole, 87, 107, 151, 169, 178, 207, 208, 209,
210, et seq., 272, 276, 2S1. On the rack, 76. " Open communion," ig. Opium curse, 107, 126, 127, 139, 191. Opium war, 130. Opportunity, 17, 22, 39, 48, 55, 93, 97, 112,
116, 121, 122, 124, 125, 130, 189, 225, 250,
253, 256, 266, 285. Ordinances, 38, 46. ■Oregon, 43. Organization, 285. Orient, 112, 114, 126. Oriental, 108. Origen, 86, 224. Orissa, 196, 206. Ornamental appendages, Si, 82. Osaka, 113, 122. Osgood, 160, 162. Otaheite, 161. Otsu, 122.
Oung-pen-la, 73, 154. " Our own church," 79, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96,
^97,99- Out-stations, 135.
Overcrowded schools, 171. Over-schooling, 271.
Pacific Coast, 42, 49, 65, 112.
Pacific Ocean, 23, 28, iii, 112.
Packer, 168, 169.
Pagans, -ism, 67, 185, 223, 235, 286.
Pagodas, 129.
Palanquin, 113.
Palatine Hill, 254.
Palestine, 21, in, 154.
Pantheon, Rome, 254.
Paper money for the dead, 126.
Para, 267.
Paramats, 159.
Parana, 267.
Parents, 91.
Paris, 255, 256, 257, 276.
Parish calls, 177, 178.
Parliament, British, 261, 263.
Parsees, igi.
Parthenon, 248, 249.
Partridge, 134, 153.
Pasco, 249.
Pastoral, 41.
Pastorate, 20, 87, 120, 166.
Pastors, 54, 55, 60, 87, 91, 94, 96, 100, 106,
Patience, 161, 272. Patmos, III, 248. Patras, 249.
26*
POO
Patronage by government, 116, 150, Paul, 63, 156, 248, 249, 250, 251. Payne, 176.
Peace policy, 48.
Pe-chili, Gulf, 124.
Peck, 72.
Pedobaptists, 20, 64, 66.
Peguans, 148.
Peiho River, 124, 129.
Peking, 124, 125, 128, 170.
Pelagianism, 86.
Pelagius, 86.
Peloponnesus, North, 249.
" Peng-on !" 138.
Peninsular, 87.
Peninsular and Oriental Company, 146.
Pennsylvania, 104, 281.
Pensions, 78.
Perfectionists, 145, 228.
Periodicals, 37, 57, 62, 65, 80, 91, 94, 103,
182, 246. Pcrnambuco, 267. Perquisites, 78. Persecution, 116, 150, 238, 239, 240, 243,
244. Perseverance, 151, 161, 273. rersia, 191. Persian, 192.
Personal impressions, 102, 103, 176. Personal labor, 78, 83, 84, 85. Pessimism, 127.
Phidias, 249.
Philadelphia, 24, 28, 52, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62,
63, 71, 73, 77. i°5, "8, 174, 245. Philanthropy, 229, 253, 262. Philippines, 242. Phillips, 1S8. Philological, 183. Philosophy, 225. Phinney, 172. Phonetic, 119.
" Physician's certificate," 166. Pietism, German, 243. Piety, 32, 37, I2S, 201, 243, 256, 273. Pilgrim's Progress, no. Pincian Hill, 253. Pioneers, 22, 28, 44, 48, 71, 72, 97, 130, 131,
154, 173, 183, 202. Piraeus, 248, 249. Pius IX., 247. Pizarro, 259.
Place de la Concorde, 257. Plato, 248, 249. Plymouth Brethren, 145, 228. Poate, 118, 119, 120, 122. Poland, 35, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242. Polish, 239, 241. Politeness, 114, 120. Politics, 105. Polygamy, 194. Polytheism, -tic, i86, 192, 193. Pomerania, 238. Pontiff, 247. Poonah, 196,
3o6
INDEX.
POP
RIC
Pope, 252, 260.
Population, Colored, United States, 39,
46, 51, 170, 261. Population, Density of, 136. Port Hudson, 165. Portland, 105. Portuguese, 259, 260, 267. Power, Spiritual, 37.
Prairies, 157.
Praxiteles, 249.
Prayer, 28, 45, 80, 91, 95, 96, IS3, i6ij ^73.
207, 210, 216, 233, 240, 281. " Prayer-Meeting Hill," 207, 216. 218. Prayer-meetings, 60, 85, 134, 137, 139, 174.
207, 216, 218,250. Preachers, Native, 41, 47, 73, 74, 93, 107. 121, 123, 131, 135, 163, 167, 169, 189,213, 219, 265, 284. Preaching, 45, 49, 82, 87, 144, 160, 198, 199,
211, 217, 270, 284. Preaching, Popular, 92. Precedents, 284. Pre-empted, 38. Pre-emption, 164.
Presbyterian, -s, 19, 103, 118, 120, 121, 138, 139, 144, 149, 164, 172, 232, 264, 267, 269, 276. Press, 40, 53, 54, 57, 59> i°7. 109. "°. ''S, 116, 122, 149, 160, 170, 172, 174, 198,240, 244, 270, 276. Pressense, 257. Presumption, 284. Price, 178. Pride, 159, 171, 253. Priestcraft, 286. Priesthood, 126, 127, 151, 193, 247, 253,
257, 260, 268. Primary schools, 165. Production, 261. Progress, 36, 48, 49. Prome, 157, 162, 163, 167, 168, 169, 177. Promises, 161, 207. Promises, Cheap, 203, 205, 206, 207. Prophetic, 206. Prophets, 85, 117. " Propagation Society," 164, 168. Proportion off field, 166. Propylsea, 249. Proselytism, 127. Prospect of centuries, 97. Prospect of success, 161. Protestant, -s, -ism, 44, 48, no, 125, 129,
131, 223, 233, 243, 248, 251, 253, 278. Pruitt, 144. Prussia, 240. Prussian, 237.
Providence, 18, 22, 23, 29, 34, 41, 55, 56, 66, 71, 121, 126, 181, 188, 197, 207, 218, 219, 234, 262. Providence, City of, 20, 105, 129, 173, 175, 178, 277.
Publications, 65, 209.
Public schools (Government), 81, 115, 116,
171. Public spirit, 90, 282.
Pulpit, 40, 60, 104.
Punjab, 184.
Puranas, 186.
Purchasing missionary literature, 200, zoi,
258.
Q.
Qualification, 120. Queue, 145, Quirinal, 248.
R.
Railway, 157, 168, 183, 190, 197, 252, 269. Rajah-mundry, 191. Rajpootana, 196. Raleigh, 51. Rama, 198.
Ramapatam, 107, 207, 211, 213, 216. Ramayana, 186, 198. Rammohun Roy, 195. Ramseyer, 257. Rand, 176.
Rangoon, 73, 87, 154, IS7. '61. 162, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 182, 272, 276. Rangoon College, 167, 168, 169, 170. " Rangoon Missionary Society," 174. Rank, Social, 82. Rathbun, 175. Rationalism, 240, 243. Rats for food, 180.
Readers, gi.
Reciprocity, 246.
Reed, 1.S3.
Reetz, 240.
Reference-books, 64.
Reflex benefits, 93, 96.
Reformation, German, 238.
Reformed churches, 19.
Regeneration, 18, 38, 271.
Regularity of habits, 273.
Reinforcement, 93, 108, 122, 143, 149, 150, 167, 174.
Religion, 83, 185, 186, 194, 200.
Religious luxury, 87.
Reports, Annual, 75, 76, 94.
Republicanism, 247.
Resources, 31, et seg., 73, 81, 88, 89, 96, 99, 100, loi, 265, 269, 285.
Respected, 19.
Responsibility, Baptist, United States, 40, 42, 52, 56, 90, 96, 97, 122, 123, 149, 164, igi, 260, 266, 277.
Responsibility, Personal and General, 79, 87, 90, 130, 150, 169, 191, 259, 285.
Revelation, 192.
Revival of religion, 87, 94, 96, 240, 279.
Revocation, Edict Nantes, 256.
Revolution, 48.
Rhees, 118, 120.
Rhode Island, 20, in, 152,
Rhodes, 248.
Rholfs, 224.
Rice and curry, 156, 158.
Rice, L., 71.
INDEX.
307
RIC
Richard, 125.
Richmond, 51, 165, 202.
Richmond Institute, 51.
Riga, 241.
Rig-Veda, 185.
Rio de Janeiro, 267. '
Rio Grande, 44, 269.
Ritualism, 100, 186.
Roberts, 177, 180.
Rochester, 84, 168, 238, 249.
RoclLwood, 179.
Rocky Mountains, 112, 224. ■
Roman Catholic Church, 45, 48, 97, 129, 223, 226, 240, 241, 242, 243, 246, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 266, 267, 268, 278.
" Romance of Missions," 173.
Rome, 242, 247, 252, 253, 254, 255.
Rose, i6o, 174, 175.
Rostan, 255.
" Round-the-World Letters," iii, 112.
Rouse, 198.
Routine, 80.
Rue de Lille, 257.
Rummy, 240.
Running expenses, 59.
Russell, 188.
Russia, -n, 35, no, 237, 240, 241, 242.
Russian Bible Society, 241.
Russians, United States, 45.
Ruth, 17.
Ryland, 72, 107.
Sabaragamdwa, 197.
Sabellianism, 85.
Sabellius, 86.
Sacerdotal, 186, 192.
Sacrifice, 95, 109.
Sacrifices, 286.
Sadiya, 183, 187.
Sahara, 223.
Sakellarios, 249.
Sakya-Muni, 1S6.
Salaries, 25, 26, 27, 49, 58, 78, 96, 109, 155,
157, 158, 242, 273, 276. Salem, 71.
Salem Chapel, Stockholm, 244. Salt Lake City, 112. Salvation, 94. Salwin, 154, 156. Samara, 241. Samurai, 123. " Sanctified !" 145. Sands, 118, 119, 120, 122. Sanford, 208.
San Francisco, 21, 27, iii, 112. San Paulo, 266, 267. San Salvador, 227. Sanskrit, 108, no, 192, 197. Santa Barbara, 266. Saracens, 47. Saratov, 241. Sardinia, 255.
SHE
Saxony, 243.
Scandinavia, -n, 42, 243.
Scandinavians, United States, 45, 49.
Scattering forces, 135.
Scepticism, 86.
Schmidt Strasse Chapel, 245.
Schoenbriin, 47.
Scholars, 100.
Scholarship, 122.
Scholastic theology, 86.
Schools, Advanced, 167, 168, 170.
Schools, Christian, 47, 51, 74, 87, 88, 165,
175, 176, 192, 204, 212. Schools, Denominational, 83, 84, 85, 88,
253- Schools, Graded, 169. Schools, Secular (Government), 115, 116,
192, 247, 248. School-theory, 19, 38, 198, 199, 272. Schweinfurth, 224. Science, 88, 129, 183. Scopas, 249. Scotch, 19, 225, 267. Scotch National Bible Society, 246. Scotland, 35.
Scotland, Established Church, 226. Scotland, Free Church, 226. Scythian, 184. Sears, 238. Sectarian, ig.
Secunderabad, 207, 214, 272. Sedan, 247. Seine, 257. Selfishness, 67, 68, 70, 84, 92. in, 127, 156,
280. Self-reliance, 135, 136, 264. Self-restraint, 273.
Self-sacrifice, 89, 91, 157, 211, 245, 279. Self-support, 161, 176, 179, 199, 227, 233
264, 265. Selma, Ala., 51.
Semi-centennial, Home Mission, 51, 52. Semi-centennial, Publication Society, 57 Seminoles, 53. Semple, 72. Sendai, 118. Sepoys, 47, 187. Septuagint, 225. Serampore, 71, 73, 107, 108, 109, 131, 183,
197, 203, 204. Serindib, 197. Sermons, 63, 90, 91, 134. Servants for missionaries, 147. Seward, 125. Shanghai, 124, 129, 132, 138, 142, 172, 272,
276. Shanghai colloquial, 143. Shans, 159, 163, 170, 180, 208. Shan-si, 125, 126, 132. Shan-tung, 124, 132, 144, 145. Sharp, 72. Shasters, 271. Shaw University, 51. Shechinah, 181. Sheldon, 176, 178, 257.
308
INDEX.
SHE Shen-si, 126, 129. Shermer, 231. Shintoo, 116, 117. Shintooism, 115, ii5, 127. Shire, 226. Shogun, 115. Shrines, 151. Shuck, 131.
Shwaygyeen, 158, 168, 178, 272. Siam, -ese, 22, 127, 131, 140, 146, 147, 14S,
149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158, 159, 165, 191. Sibsagor, 187, 188. Sicily, 255. Siddhartha, 1S6. Sidon, 69.
Sierra Nevadas, 112. Sikh, 1S6. Sikok, 118. Simmonds, 143. Simons, 162. Sindh, 184. Singapore, 146. Singhalese, 108, 196, 197. Singphos, 183. Siva, 186, 193, 204, 218. Skinner, 230. Slafter, 153. Slavers, 230, 232, Slavery, 224, 259, 260, 261, 263. Slaves, 46, 97, 160, 162, 194, 232, 261, 262. Slave-trade, -ers, 227, 229, 260. Small-pox, 264. Smith, loi, 148, 149, 150, 169, 170, 174,
206, 239. Smyrna, 248. Social rank, 35, 247. Societies, Multiplication of, 41. Society for missionaries, 273. Socrates, 248.
Soliciting mission funds, 228. Solomon, 224.
Song, 64, 178, 211, 212, 222. Sophocles, 248.
Soudan, 223, 228, 232, 234, 236, 278. Southern Baptist Convention, 29, 132, 143,
144, 231, 236, 242, 251, 254, 266, 267, 268,
274. South, United States, 23, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34,
46, 49. 73, 93, 132. 143- Spain, 35, 73, 233, 242, 251. Spanish, 64, 259, 260, 266, 268. Specialty, 88. Speke, 224. Spiritual life, 72. Spurgeon, 99.
Squalor, 251.
Standard, Intellectual, 81.
Standard of Christian literature, 55.
Standard of instruction, 51.
Stanley, 224, 226, 236.
Stanley Pool, no, 227, 229.
States, 65, 92, 99, 104, 125.
State Secretaries, Woman's Society, 106.
TAP
Stations, 135, 136.
Statistics, 29, 35, 36, 37, 48, 49, 53, 73, 74,
75, 77, 80, 81, 92,93, 100, 114, 121, 129,
130, 131, 144, 167, 189, 190, 196, 199, 231,
264. Staughton, 72. Stearns, 84. Stein, 143.
Stereoplicon, 178, 179. Stevens, 160, 163, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178. Stockholm, no, 244, 245, 276. Stoddard, 188. Strategy in missions, 163. Strong, 84. Study, 85. Stuttgart, 238. St. Bartholomew, 2^6. St. Bernard, 86. *^ St. Brieuc, 258. St. Louis, 65. St. Paul, city, 105. St. Peter's, 254. St. Petersburg, 240. St. Sauveur, 257. Subscription-papers, 281. Subscriptions, 91.
Success, 89, 92, 93, loi, 103, 161, 271. Su-chow, 124, 142, 143. Si^dras, 160, 193. Suffrage, 47. Sultan, 194.
Sunday-school concerts, 281. " Sunday-School Missionary Associa- tions," England, 106. Sunday-schools, 21, 22, 28, 37, 39, 45, 55,
61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 70, 93, 94, 96, 106,
210, 270, 272, 286. Superficial, 255. Supernatural, 128, 196. Superstition, 74, 126, 128, 159, 188,195,241,
252, 267. Suspicious, 282. SutcUffe, 72. Sutlej, 183. Sutton, 206.
" Swan Point Cemetery," 277. Swatow, S7, 107, 124, 131, 133, 134, 144,
148, 169, 219, 281. Sweden, 35, 73, 107, no, 208, 237, 238,
240, 242, 243, 244, 245. Swedish, 64, no, 239, 243, 244. Switzerland, 35, 112, 245. Sympathy, 45, 79, 89, 95, 155, 156, 228,
240. Syra, 248.
Tact, 28, 176, 210, 236, 272. Tahlequah, 53. Tamerlane, 194. Tamil, 108, 191, 196, 197. Tanganyika, 226. Taouism, 127. Taouist, 128. Taprobane, 197.
TAR
Tarpeian Rock, 254.
Tartar, 143.
Tavoy, 161, 162, 163, 164, 169.
Taylor, 254.
Teachers, 87, 88, 96, 100, 171, 179, 189,
257, 265. Teachers, American Baptist Home Mis- sion, 48, 54. Teachers, Native, 47. Tears, 137. Telford, 152. Telugu, -s, 23, 35, 151, 174, 191, 192, 196,
202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210,
et seq., 275. Temperance, 107.
Temples, 116, 127, 128, 151, 248, 249. Territories, 65, 92, 125. Tertullian, 224. Texas, 43, 286. Theism, 192. Theological Institutions, 36, 51, 8r, 83, 84,
85, 121, 122, 213, 216, 244, 257. Theology, Practical, 85. "The Rooms," 26, 27, 28, 56, 76, 77, 78,
79, 80, 100, loi, 102 10:5, 104, 105, 234,
236, 282. Thibet, 127. Thieffry, 257.
Thomas, 161, 163, 177, 178, 187. Thompson, 134.
Thongzai^i57, 163, 165, 167, 176. Threshold and temple, 181, Tibeto-Burman, 183, 184. Tie-Chiu, 133, 135, 148. Tientsin, 124, 125, 129, 130, Tiger, 213. Tilly, 243. Timbuktu, 235. Time, 237. Timidity, 150. Timpany, 209.
To-day, 87, 97, 98. Tokaido, 113, 122. Tokio, 87, 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122,
123, 271. Tokushima, 118. Toleration, Religious, 115, 150, 152, 194,
267, 268. Tolman, 187. Tontras, 186. Toombudra, 214. Torre Pellice, 254. Total abstinence, 107. " Touch of nature," 173. Toungoo, 158, 162, 168, 169, 174, 178, Touring churches, 79.
Tract-distribution, 21, 41, 61, 63, 64, 74,
100, 109, 176, 187, 246. Trade, 192, 200, 247, 261. Tradition, 159, 271. Translation, 74, 107, 108, 109, no, itg, 120,
143, i6i, 187, 195, 204, 208, 209, 210, 233. Transmigration, 185. Trapani, 255.
INDEX. 309
VED
Travelling, in, 113, 124, 130, 157, 182, 183,
191, 242. Treasury, 104. Treaty-ports, 114, 130, Tremel, 258. Tremont Temple, 53. Tribal missions, 184, 185. Triennial Conference, 237. Triennial Convention, 73. Trieste, 251. Trinidad, 264, Tritton, loi.
Tropical vegetation, 146, 147, 197, Tropics, Within, 147. Trust, Sacred, 77, 81, 85, 88. Truve, 244. Ts'ing dynasty, 125. Tsulciji, 120. Tuileries, 257. Tung-chow, 124.
Tung-chow-fu, 132, 144, 158, 272, Tunis, 253. Tura, 188, 276. Turin, 252, 255.
Turkey, 35, 112, 237, 240, 251, 259. Tyranny, 260. Tyre, 67.
u.
Ubique, 87, no.
Uganda, 223, 226, 228, 234.
Unbelief, 64, 86, 98.
Undenominational, 18, 227.
Underbill, loi, 102.
Union Missionary Societies, 284.
Union work, 119, 209.
Unitarians, 196.
United States, 31, 34, 35, 138, 190, 196,
209, 224, 268. Unity, 20, 228, 256, 265, 275. Unity of God (Vedic), 185. Universities, 36, 81, 118, 142, 170, 255. Universities, State, 81. Unmarried women-missionaries, 135, 165,
284. Unselfishness, 96, Upham, 179. Uramba, 226. Urdu, 196. Utah, 112. Utilizing mission facts, 181, 182,
Vacancies, 135.
Vacations, 90, 156, 166, 167, 206, 276.
Vacation-support, 78.
Vaisyas, 193.
Value received. For, 92.
Vanlose, 241.
Van Husen, 205.
Van Meter, 163,
Vatican, 253.
Vedas, 185, 192, 271.
3IO
INDEX.
VED
Vedic, 185, 186. Vegetation, 224. Venerable, 157, 158, 166, 172. Venice, 84, 251, 255. Vernacular examinations, 274. Vernacular preaching, 199.
Vice, 143, 148.
Victor Emmanuel, 254.
Victoria Nyanza, 223, 226, 227, 228,
Vienna, 240.
Vignal, 257.
" Vile Jesus doctrine," 117.
Vinakonda, 217.
Vincent, 257.
Vinton, 162, 167, 172, 173.
Virginia, 34, 165.
Virihaspati, 186.
Virtues, Masquerade of, 128.
Vishnu, 1S6, 193, 218.
Visitation, Family, 165.
Vizagapatam, 203, 204, 208.
Vonbrunn, 231. Voyaging, 270,
^^'■.
Wade, 162. Wahombo, 223. Waiting, 161. Waldo, 249. Wales, 35. Walker, 143, 255. Wall, 255. Walled cities, 125 Wallenstein, 243. War, 47.
Ward, 108, 188, 197, 198, 202. Warren, 238.
Washington City, 50, 51, 57, 61, 73. Watchword, 88. Waterbury, 211. Watson, 179. Way land, 229. Wayland Seminary, 50, 51. Weakness, 145. Webb, 72. Webster, 176. " Week of prayer," 117. Wellington, Duke of, 87. " Well settled," 91 Wenger, no. Wesley, 71, 158. Wesleyans, 260, 264.
West Indies, 35, 100, 107, 109, 232, 259, 260, 263, 264, 265.
ZON
Weston] 84.
Westrup, 268.
West, United States, 22, 23, 33, 42, 43, 44,
48. 49. 67, 72, 93. 97. "2- Whilden, 143. White, 123. White ants, 139. White men needed, 231. Whiting, 187, 188. Wiberg, 244. Wiharas, 197. Williams, 2r3, 214, 216. Willmarth, 257. Windau, 241. Winning the heart, 120. Wisconsin, 48.
Wives of native preachers, 214. Womanhood, 225. Woman's Foreign Mission, 53, 80, 103, 106,
120, 165, 187, 230, 275, 283, 284. Woman's Home Mission, 53, 80, 283, 284. Women, Slavery of, 194. Works, 68. World, 82, 83, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98,
III, 126, 270, 279, 285. Worldliness, 95, 156. Worship, Houses of, 39. Worship of ancestral tablet, 127, 128. Worship of evil spirits, 127. Worship of powers of nature, 128, 192. Wretchedness, 191, 211, 223, 251, 260, 261. Wuhu, 124. Wycliffe, 71. Wyoming, 43.
Y.
Yang-tse-kiang, 124.
Yates, 108, 143,
Yokohama, 113, 117, 118, 119, 276.
Yoruba, 231, 236.
z.
Zacatecas, 268.
Zambeze, 224, 226.
Zante, 249.
Zao-hying, 124, 140, 141, 142, 158, 272.
Zeal, Evangelizing, no, 256.
Zeegong, 157, 176.
Zenanas, 94, 165, 194.
Zezulin, 741.
Zion, 145, 153.
Zong-pah, 142.
Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." Luke xii. 48.
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