AMERICA'S POSITION IN THE WORLD BATTLE
That was a great day for the world when the Pilgrim Fathers started on
their history-making journey across the Atlantic to America. There is
no more thrilling scene in the beginnings of the history of any
nation. A service of solemn consecration was held in the church. Then
the immortal company marched to the sea led by their pastor, John
Robinson, reading from an open Bible those words in Genesis xii. 1-3,
which must have had a prophetic meaning to every man within the sound
of the pastor's voice.
"Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will
show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will
bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse:
and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
It was a summons across the centuries to a new and profound application
of the principles of religion to nation building. The conviction burned
in their hearts that God was sending them out on a divine mission and
that they were to found on this side the sea a nation which should bear
an important part in the world plans of Christianity. There are no
words in the Bible which have a more wonderful meaning in the light of
the expanding purpose of God for America than these words of commission
to Abraham which were accepted as God's commission to the Pilgrim
Fathers. In the days that followed God was as good as his word and the
Pilgrim Fathers were as good as theirs.
There is a growing conviction with many leaders in America that one of
the central features of our religious life should be this sense of
mission. In the history of the expanding Kingdom, God has evidently
given to America a commanding place of leadership and power. This is
nothing less than a divine appointment. To have such an appointment as
this in a time like ours, from our God, is to have a share in a task
like no other task the world has ever seen. To make men see that the
redeeming of America is strategy of a high order is to strike a high
note of summons to extend the sway of Christ to the remotest bounds of
our own continent. To hasten the time when this conviction shall
leaven the thinking of American Christianity and when this sense of
mission shall liberate the measureless spiritual and material energies
of America to bless the world should be the aim of every Christian
American.
What are some of the signs that America has been called to a place of
leadership in the Kingdom? Are there certain principles according to
which God selects men and nations for the fulfilment of his world
purposes? Do these principles and purposes emerge in God's dealing
with America? The answer to these questions has a deep missionary
significance.
Among the principles which God has evidently applied in choosing his
prophets through the ages, the following are unmistakably clear:
1. PROPHETS ARE STRATEGICALLY LOCATED.
2. PROPHETS ARE CHOSEN BECAUSE OF A CERTAIN FITNESS OF CHARACTER.
3. PROPHETS HAVE RESOURCES SUFFICIENT FOR THEIR TASK.
4. PROPHETS REMAIN SUCH ONLY SO LONG AS THEY HAVE VISION AND
CONSECRATION ADEQUATE TO THEIR TASK.
These principles apply to the outstanding prophetic figures of all
times. Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Malachi in the Old Testament, Paul
in the New, Luther and Wesley in modern times, all illustrate the
working of these laws.
The principles stated above apply to nations as well as to individual
men. Israel may be taken as an illustration. Palestine was the
crossroads of the world. Israel was centrally located so that she had
an unusual opportunity to influence the known world. Her leaders had a
message and a spiritual insight unique in their day. They were a
people chosen not for privilege but for service, and when in the
supreme test the nation failed to understand and accept its world-wide
mission, God was compelled to move westward in his choice of a new
prophetic race to bear his message to the world.
There is a tradition that Christ died with his face turned westward.
Whether this be true or not, men in these Western lands, with the
missionary principle at the center of life, may well be steadied and
strengthened by the thought that Christ saw across centuries and
civilizations the new peoples in the West who were to be called to a
prophet's place in his Kingdom. At any rate the westward movement
outlined in Acts and later history, from Palestine to Europe, to the
Anglo-Saxon race, to America, is an unmistakable indication of God's
plan. For two thousand years this movement has been gathering momentum
for impact on the mighty East.
The United States and Canada are standing together solidly in all the
great religious and missionary movements of our time. In the
discussions that follow there is no thought of minimizing Canada's
position of leadership. She has vast dimensions and almost unlimited
latent resources. Her response to the call of world-wide missions is
inspiring. The national missionary policy adopted by the Canadian
churches at the conclusion of the National Campaign of the Laymen's
Missionary Movement in 1909 set a definite goal for the Dominion which
is much more nearly realized to date than that suggested for the
United States by the National Congress in Chicago in 1910. These two
nations are inseparably united in common missionary ideals and plans
and in a common missionary purpose. On both sides of the border
Huntington's hymn may be sung with real sincerity.
Two empires by the sea,
Two nations great and free
One anthem raise.
One race of ancient fame,
One tongue, one faith we claim,
One God whose glorious name
We love and praise.
Now may the God above
Guard the dear lands we love,
Both east and west.
Let love more fervent glow
As peaceful ages go,
And strength yet stronger grow
Blessing and blest.
Canadians will find it easy to apply to their own land the principles
here stated. Some of the illustrations are taken from Canada, but of
necessity a majority refer to the United States. A pamphlet entitled
"5,000 Facts About Canada," published by Canadian Facts Publishing
Co., Toronto, is illuminating reading.
AMERICA'S PLACE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS INDICATED BY
HER STRATEGIC LOCATION AND OTHER GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS.
Provincialism has no place in true statesmanship, especially the
statesmanship of the kingdom of God. It was Salisbury who, in the
English Parliament, took as the basis of one of his greatest speeches
the phrase "Study large maps." It was Carey who said that he received
his call by studying the Bible beside the map of the world. Gladstone
had great power of discriminating judgment and it was he who said,
"America has a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever
established by mankind."
The strategic position of America is indicated by the following facts:
1. The United States faces the two great oceans. So does Canada, but
with that exception there is no other commanding nation that has a
great coast-line on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. With many
miles of coast-line on the east, America looks out toward the
history-making nations of the past. Westward she faces that sea upon
which look out the eyes of one half of the human race where life is
all athrob with the new awakening.
The six great naval powers of the world in the order of their strength
are Great Britain, Germany, the United States, France, Japan, and
Russia. The coast-line of the United States is very extensive on both
the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is surely significant that God has
given America control of so much coast-line on both oceans and so many
harbors for commerce and as distributing centers for the gospel. The
most significant thing about our past is that we grew out of the best
life of Europe and inherit the intellectual and moral fiber of the
Anglo-Saxon. One of the most significant facts about our future is
that with three thousand miles of coast-line we face toward the Orient
where the coming world conflicts are to be waged.
2. The United States is the nearest commanding power to the
undeveloped parts of the world. The great undeveloped regions are the
Canadian Northwest, Alaska, Siberia, Australia, South America, Africa.
All these face on the Pacific Ocean except Africa, and in the
aggregate America is nearer to them all than any other great
Protestant Christian power. The Panama Canal will make the nearness
all the more significant since its completion will bring Shanghai much
nearer New York by boat than it is now.
3. The United States has many great harbors. Not one of the nations of
Europe has more than two or three great harbors, several of them have
none. Russia is too far north. Germany is at a disadvantage because
she has no direct access to the Atlantic. Great Britain commands that
ocean. The United States has several harbors on the east coast, and
the Gulf of Mexico on the south, while on the west coast there are two
of the most important harbors in the Western Hemisphere opening into
the Pacific Ocean--San Francisco Bay, where come and go the navies of
the world, and Puget Sound, the Mediterranean of America, with its
1,500 miles of coast-line.
4. Navigable rivers. The _Encyclopedia Britannica_ says that the
Mississippi River with its branches affords 35,000 miles of navigable
waterway. All Europe has 17,000 miles, or less than one half the
length of the great central waterway of the United States. It is no
wonder that Napoleon said, "The nation which controls the Mississippi
Valley will be the most powerful nation on earth." There are only two
navigable rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean in the Western
Hemisphere, the Yukon River, navigable for thirteen hundred miles, and
the Columbia, opening into a great inland empire. Almost the entire
navigable extent of both is within the territory of the United States,
although they drain great sections of Canada.
5. Isolation from other commanding powers. The favorable location of
the United States for internal development is equaled by no other
nation in the world, because of the fact that it is separated by many
thousands of miles of sea from the other world powers of our time.
Great Britain, Germany, France, and Russia must continually guard
their frontiers and are never for a moment free from the tremendous
pressure of mighty and aggressive peoples. Our nation has been favored
with the one great block of territory in the North Temperate Zone,
capable of vast development and with almost infinite variety of soil
and climate, remote from other powers. Otherwise it might have been
necessary for America to devote her strength to defense rather than
the development of her vast resources.
AMERICA HAS QUALITIES OF CHARACTER NEEDED FOR A WORLD TASK
As Emerson has well said, "The true test of civilization is not the
census, not the size of its cities, nor the crops, but in the kind of
men the country turns out." Leroy Beaulieu has this to say about
Americans:
"The history of nations like the history of individuals proves beyond
peradventure that no economic strength, no material prosperity, is
lasting unless it be sustained by real moral worth.
"Moral worth, which includes the recognition of duties as well as of
rights, self-respect and respect for one's fellows, has contributed
fully as much as the magnificent resources of their country to the
brilliant success of the American people.
"Of the qualities that have cooeperated to elevate them so rapidly to
such a commanding position, the most impressive is a great, a tireless
energy."
1. Our debt to the pioneers. The early history of American life has
many wholesome chapters for modern men to read. The religious basis of
the state was a much more evident and vital fact in the life of the
founders of the Republic than of many modern leaders. Quotations from
the early charters make it clear that there was a wonderful religious
significance in their nation building. "This thing is of God," said
the London Trading Company to the Pilgrim Fathers. "In the name of
God, Amen," are the opening words of the Mayflower compact, and that
document ends with these words, "For the glory of God and the
advancement of the Christian faith." The early settlers of North and
South Carolina declared themselves to be actuated by laudable zeal for
the propagation of the gospel. America owes much to the character and
vigor of the German and Scandinavian elements in her population as
well as to those of English parentage. No land has had a higher grade
of founders than has the United States.
Leroy Beaulieu says, in _The United States in the Twentieth Century_:
"The Americans have been the product of a selection and of a double
selection. Only the boldest, the most enterprising of men have the
courage to traverse the sea for the purpose of carving out a new life
in an unknown and distant land. Then, having arrived, only the most
energetic, the wisest, and the most gifted in the spirit of
organization succeed in a struggle which is more severe, more
merciless to the feeble, in new countries than in old ones. Thus
America, so to speak, has secured the cream of Old World society. That
is why the human standard is higher there than in other countries."
2. Mechanical genius. In the world-wide propagation of the gospel the
ability to master the forces of nature and so make modern progress
possible has a place in the fitness of character displayed by American
life. A large number of the modern labor-saving inventions have come
from America as shown by the fact that in one of the great International
Expositions five gold medals were offered for the greatest labor-saving
inventions. When the awards were made, it was discovered that all of
them were bestowed for inventions in the United States.
3. The public school. It is generally acknowledged that whatever may
be the faults and imperfections of our intellectual life, the American
public school has demonstrated to the world on a larger scale than
ever before the possibility of the education of the masses. Japan was
quick to see that this was one of the secrets of the power of Western
nations. Nowhere is there a more marvelous example of an entire nation
going to school than in recent years in Japan, where probably a larger
percentage of children of school age are actually in school to-day
than in any other country in the world. It is generally acknowledged
that America has set the pace for the world in her system of common
schools. Education, not ignorance, is everywhere the mother of devotion.
4. The character of the home missionary. The United States and Canada
have produced a great race of home missionaries, such as Robertson,
who helped to dot the land with Presbyterian churches, and whose name
is a household word in Canada, or John Eliot, who wrote the first book
published in America, of whom the poet Southey says, "No greater man
has ever been produced by any nation;" David Brainard, whose life of
prayer has been an inspiration to many thousands of students of
missionary history; or Sheldon Jackson, with his eye ever on the
horizon, but with practical zeal, not only preaching the gospel
throughout the vast regions of the West but introducing the reindeer
into Alaska, thus making a great economic contribution to the blessing
of mankind. These men are typical of those intrepid heroes, who on the
prairies of western Canada, in the mining sections of the United
States, or in the heart of great cities, are the founders of empires
as well as the builders of churches; as Dr. C. L. Thompson has well
said, "The march of our civilization is to the music of our religion."
When the historian correctly interprets the story of national progress
in the nineteenth century, he will first of all take account of the
home missionary. No one has helped more than he to make the nation
great and strong. As J. Wesley Johnston puts it, "The home missionary
was a founder of schools, a builder of churches, a maker of states, a
signer of treaties, an unfurler of flags, and always and everywhere a
genuine American."
5. The home of great world movements. It must not be forgotten that
out of American faith and courage and vision were born the most
conspicuous missionary movements of modern times. The Moravians and
Lutherans in Germany and William Carey and others in Great Britain
blazed the way for the modern missionary uprising. In America the
movement for world evangelization was greatly quickened and expanded
by companies of students at Williams College and Andover Seminary. The
purpose of these young men to carry the gospel abroad when North
America was not represented by missionaries anywhere in the
non-Christian world, was at the same time a mighty challenge to faith
and a rebuke to the narrow vision of American Christianity one hundred
years ago. Since that day practically all the conspicuous
interdenominational missionary movements have begun their career in
America. What student of missionary history can forget that the
Student Volunteer Movement was born in a conference called by Dwight
L. Moody! This Movement caused America to dream of a union of college
men throughout the world for the world-wide propagation of the gospel.
The fruition of that vision is The World's Student Christian
Federation, binding together the students of many lands and thousands
of institutions of higher learning. Let it not be forgotten that God
planted here the conviction that missionary education is central in
the life of the Church and that ten years ago at Silver Bay on Lake
George, began what was then known as the Young People's Missionary
Movement but which has recently been renamed the Missionary Education
Movement of the United States and Canada. This Movement has spread to
other lands. In North America alone in the ten years, more than one
million copies of text-books and large numbers of other publications
have been circulated by this Movement.
The latest of these evidences of the missionary life of North America is
the Laymen's Missionary Movement, which is now organized in fourteen of
the principal denominations of North America, with affiliated movements
in three others, and in six other lands, with the first steps taken
toward the forming of three additional national organizations. Never,
until the Laymen's Missionary Movement flung out the challenge have
Canada and the United States so powerfully felt the call to proceed
seriously to undertake to evangelize their share of the world.
AMERICA HAS RESOURCES SUFFICIENT FOR THE TASK OF A CHRISTIAN WORLD
POWER
There is abundance of intellectual, moral and spiritual power
available. Here are great vigorous churches with many millions of
members. Without any thought of minimizing all these moral and
spiritual resources, let us think of the problem first from the
standpoint of the "sinews of war."
1. Size. Bigness is not always to be mistaken for greatness, yet size
gives a great advantage to a powerful people. There are vast regions
of the earth that will probably never be inhabited by a dense
population because they are too far north. This fact puts a limit on
the future population of the Russian Empire that is not true of the
United States. Brazil has a territory nearly equal to the United
States, but it is in the tropics, and it may be generations before the
vast regions in Brazil are opened up to civilized life. China is the
one formidable rival of the United States because of her size and
enormous resources. It will, however, take a long time to develop her
powers. The character of the territory of the United States, capable
as it is of almost infinite variety of agricultural productions, in a
most favorable location in the North Temperate Zone, with so little
waste territory, may lay claim to favorable possibilities, equaled
perhaps by no single political unit in the world except China. In
short, it is not only size that counts but a combination of great
extent with other favoring forces. If we add together the eighteen
provinces of China proper, Japan, European Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece,
Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany,
Austria, Denmark, and Great Britain, they equal only about the same
geographical area as the United States exclusive of Alaska and our
island possessions. In the countries named the census shows a
population of more than 700,000,000 people. A few illustrations may be
illuminating at this point.
There are only three States west of the Mississippi as small as all
New England.
California is three fourths as large as France. There are forty
millions of people in France, only a little more than two and a third
millions in California.
Arizona is about the same size as Italy, and New Mexico is only
slightly smaller than Great Britain.
Oregon has only 672,765 population now, but if it were as densely
populated as New Jersey there would be thirty-two millions of people
in Oregon.
If the United States, including Alaska and the island possessions,
were as densely populated as the island of Java, we would have in this
country one and one-half times the present population of the entire
globe, and yet the United States would not then be more densely
populated than Belgium.
Taking the State of Texas as an illustration, if France were an island
and Texas a sea, and the island were in the midst of the sea, the people
on the island would be out of sight of land in every direction. Counting
the population of the world as seventeen hundred millions, if all the
millions of Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, North America, etc.,
were in the one State of Texas,--not a man, woman or child anywhere else
in the world,--there would be only ten to the acre!
Sections of America are not capable of sustaining a large population,
it is true, but on this topic we quote a third time from _The United
States in the Twentieth Century_:
"If the dry lands of the West account for one third of the 3,000,000
and more square miles of the United States, at least four fifths of
Australia and the same proportion of South Africa are far more barren
than this arid zone; three fourths of Canada is unfertile, or rendered
so by cold; one half of Argentina consists of steppes or semi-desert
country; and, finally, fully two thirds of the enormous Russian Empire
is uncultivable, either by lack of heat or by lack of rain.
"More than this, in respect to mineral wealth, in respect to water
power, and in respect to agricultural possibilities, all of the
countries just mentioned are far less endowed than is the United
States."
God has made America a giant in size that America may do a giant's
share in the world-wide propagation of the Gospel.
2. Mineral resources. The United States furnishes the world to-day
with 63 per cent. of its petroleum. Copper is indispensable in this
electric age, and 57 per cent. of the world's supply comes from the
United States. In the production of coal, America leads the world, and
according to the _Statesman's Year Book_ all Europe has only one
fourth as much coal as the United States. The gold output of the
United States is many times that of any other country, except the
Transvaal in Africa.
3. Railroads. Railroads are an indication of wealth and progress and
power. Canada has more railroad mileage than all the continent of
Africa. Almost 38 per cent. of the total mileage is in the United
States; or, putting it in another way, the United States could
duplicate all the railroad mileage of Asia, Africa, South America, and
Australia and then have enough left to build a single track line three
and three-fourths times around the globe! The United States has six
and one-half times as many miles of railroad as any other country in
the world There are no railroads where Christ has not gone.
[Illustration: WEALTH OF THE UNITED STATES 1850-1910]
4. Wealth. According to the latest summary prepared by the Bureau of
Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the wealth of the
United States equals 42 per cent. of the total wealth of all Europe.
In 1910 the deposits in savings banks exceeded the amount for 1900 by
sixteen hundred and eighty millions of dollars. The depositors
increased more than three millions in the same period of time. The
latest figures show that the people of the United States as a whole
are now saving an average of about nine million dollars a day. The
statistics of wealth as represented by manufactured products show that
our nearest competitor is Germany, but that the United States
furnishes millions of dollars more of manufactured products annually
than any other country. The trade of the United States with foreign
lands and its own island possessions, according to reports of the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1912, set a high-water mark of
$4,000,000,000.
As an illustration of the growing wealth of a single city, a statement
is in circulation that in 1885, according to the city records, there
were only twenty-eight millionaires in New York City; now there are
more than two thousand.
5. Agricultural products. Two of the staple agricultural products are
corn and wheat. The United States had two and four fifths times as
many acres of corn in 1910 as all the rest of the world. According to
figures given out by the Bureau of the Census the cotton crop of the
United States in 1909 was five eighths of the total grown in the
world. Russia alone of all the countries in the world grew a few more
bushels of wheat last year than the United States.
The value of the farm products of the United States in 1909, according
to the report of the Department of Agriculture, was $8,760,000,000.
The farm products have considerably more than doubled in ten years,
equaling in value eighteen times the world's output of gold. In
commenting on these figures, a writer in the _Literary Digest_ gives
the following concrete illustration of what they mean: If the money
were all in twenty-dollar gold pieces, it would make a pile 720 miles
high, and if the gold pieces were laid on the earth touching one
another, the value of the farm products of that one year would make a
line of twenty-dollar gold pieces reaching across Alaska, Canada, the
United States and Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama, and there would
then be enough of these coins left to make a line of gold from New
York to San Francisco, and some pieces would fall off into the Pacific
Ocean before they were all used! Even this fabulous amount of wealth
produced on the farms was increased by one hundred and sixty-eight
millions of dollars in 1910.
These few facts, startling as they are, are only the beginning of an
exhibit of the prodigality of power centering here. The moral and
spiritual meaning of these resources constitutes a challenge to our
best civilization.
God needs tremendous financial resources for the work of winning the
world. Vast resources are needed for the educational, evangelistic,
philanthropic, and industrial work of missions. There seems to be no
place on earth where in our time there are such available resources
for this task as here in this land.
One of the supreme tests of our civilization is the use we are making
of this God-given treasure, for cash and consecration should increase
in proportionate ratio. How to be rich and religious at the same time
is one of the burning issues in our land to-day. The release of a
legitimate portion of this wealth for the blessings of mankind and
the refreshing of the thirsty earth is evidently a part of the purpose
of God. If the riches of America are to be a resource and not an
incubus, a highway and not a terminus, American men, to whom God has
given the ability to get great wealth, must be brought face to face
with the challenge of the needy world in order to save them from the
disaster of selfishness and sin. God is not grieved when his men get
rich, but he is grieved when riches are not invested for the
enrichment of the world. It seems inconceivable that America could
throw away this supreme opportunity for service. "Napoleonic energies
require an international program."
AMERICA CAN RETAIN HER PLACE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD ONLY
BY DEVELOPING VISION AND CONSECRATION ADEQUATE TO HER TASK
It will be well for American Christianity if it learns the eloquent
lessons which are written on many pages of the world's history, telling
of the setting aside of nations and men who have had a great opportunity
but have failed to carry out the divinely appointed commission.
All the facts given above emphasize the imperative necessity for
greatly enlarged home missionary effort. The world battle cannot be
won unless the attack upon sin and the defense of the bulwarks of
righteousness at home are aggressive and victorious. The home battle
and the world battle are one.
_What then is America's share of the world task?_ How much will be
required of money and men if America does her duty to the
non-Christian world?
How to determine a nation's share of the world task is a very complex
problem, and mathematical statements have many serious limitations. In
the first place it is no doubt true that whenever the Christian Church
really sets out seriously to obey Christ's command there will be such
a pouring forth of the power of the Spirit as will upset all numerical
computations. Again, the varying conditions in different parts of the
field make any uniform standard impossible. In parts of Africa and
Asia where the populations are scattered, perhaps one missionary to
every 5,000 people will be necessary. In other fields a large and
sudden increase in missionaries might precipitate an anti-missionary
uprising, which would greatly retard the growth of the Kingdom.
Mission boards are by no means unanimous in judgment as to the most
effective way to present the appeal. The condition of the native
Church is another factor which is variable in different lands. Account
must be taken of quality as well as quantity in the work.
Since this is a spiritual enterprise and dependent upon superhuman
forces, no arithmetical statement can be considered as authoritative
and final. The great resources in this task are the spiritual energies
which God alone can give. But the following study at least has the
virtue of being a definite and concrete statement of some factors in
the problem. Men are thinking and acting in the realm of the concrete
in business and professional life. The call of God is not less sacred
when it is stated in terms of every-day life which grip and hold the
mind and conscience. The task may be accomplished much more rapidly
than now seems probable. That is clearly a possible thing with God.
But stating the best judgment of some of the most spiritually-minded
men in the conflict as to the visible resources needed is not
limiting God.
Therefore as a temporary estimate, leaving the way open for adjustment
and reconstruction as new light is thrown on the problem, the
following statement may be helpful.
It is the conviction of many that the smallest force of missionaries
which can make possible the evangelization of the world in this
generation is one for every 25,000 of the population.
Looking at North America's share of this world task, the following are
factors in the problem.
1. In view of the fact that North America is now furnishing nearly one
half of the Protestant foreign missionaries and about one half of the
foreign mission contributions, and also in view of the fact that the
resources of North America are greater than those of many other parts
of Christendom, it is probably fair to estimate North America's share
of the non-Christian world as 500,000,000 people. This includes the
portion of the world now being evangelized by American missionaries on
the field.
2. Toward the evangelization of this vast number of people there are
now abroad, representing the churches of the United States and Canada,
approximately 6,000 single missionaries and missionary families. On
the basis given above these 6,000 missionaries can evangelize one
hundred and fifty millions in this generation. This leaves three
hundred and fifty millions still to be provided for or seven tenths of
the whole number for whom America is responsible.
3. In view of the above facts, in order to occupy their field the
churches of North America will therefore need to multiply by two and
one third their output, that is, to send out and maintain 14,000
additional missionaries, making 20,000 in all.
4. For the support of the missionaries from the United States and
Canada now on the field the Mission Boards spent in 1912 about fifteen
millions of dollars, or an average of a little more than $2,000 per
missionary. This does not mean that each missionary received a $2,000
salary. Missionary salaries average only half or less than half of
that amount. The balance was spent for all other expenses such as
traveling, equipment, etc. If we accept this amount as approximately
what will be needed for each new missionary sent out, the United
States and Canada must increase the amount of money given to about
forty-three millions of dollars annually.
_Can America furnish the men and the money?_
There are about twenty-two millions of Protestant church-members in
the United States and nine hundred thousand in Canada, about
twenty-three millions in all. In order to secure the required number
of missionaries American churches must send out and maintain about one
in 1,150 of the membership. This is clearly possible and has been
largely exceeded by the Moravian Church. This leaves 1,149 out of
every 1,150 church-members to carry on the work on this continent.
A majority of the volunteers will come from the colleges and
theological seminaries. There were 195,724 students in these
institutions in the United States in 1909-10. It would therefore take
about one in fourteen of these students to furnish the 14,000 workers
required to secure America's share of the missionaries.
As far as the financial problem for America is concerned the support
of 14,000 new missionaries involves increasing our annual offerings
from about $15,000,000 a year to approximately $43,000,000 a year.
When reduced to actual figures the average per church-member is
pitifully small. To secure the entire budget for 20,000 missionaries
would require an average gift from the twenty-three millions of
church-members in the United States and Canada of a little less than
two dollars per year or two postage stamps a week! And this for the
redemption of the world! Many thousands of Christians and hundreds of
churches should go far beyond this average.
"Shall America Evangelize Her Share of the World?" This is the ringing
challenge flung down to American Christianity.
O America, America, stretching between the two great seas, in whose
heart flows the rich blood of many nations, into whose mountain safes
God has put riches of fabulous amount, in whose plains the Almighty
has planted the magic genius that blossoms into harvests with which to
feed the hungry multitudes of earth, nursed by Puritan and Pilgrim,
defended by patriot and missionary, guided by the pillar of cloud by
day and of fire by night, sanctified by a faith as pure as looks up to
heaven from any land, O America, let thy Master make thee a savior of
the nations; let thy God flood thee with a resistless passion for
conquest; let thy Father lead thee over mountains and seas, through
fire and flood, through sickness and pain, out to that great hour when
all men shall hear the call of Christ, and the last lonely soul shall
see the uplifted cross, and the whole round world be bound back to the
heart of God!
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING
Love, J. F., The Mission of Our Nation. Fleming H. Revell Co.,
158 Fifth Avenue, New York. $1.25.
Coolidge, The United States as a World Power. Macmillan Company,
64 Fifth Avenue, New York. $2.00.
Van Dyke, Henry, The Spirit of America. Fleming H. Revell Co.,
158 Fifth Avenue, New York. $0.50.
Reinsch, World Politics. Macmillan Company, 64 Fifth Avenue, New
York. $1.25.
Stead, W. T., The Americanization of the World. Horace Markley.
New York, $1.00.