Preaching in Four Asiatic Languages
In other chapters are given the facts concerning the beginnings and
development of the English work in Rangoon. The beginning among
the natives is of equal interest to the inquirer after missionary
information. When a mission without resources begins operations in a
foreign country, it may be supposed that it would be very modest in
its undertaking. But in the case of Methodism in Burma, and some other
parts of Southern Asia as well, rightly or wrongly, it has pursued
exactly the opposite course. With a mere handful of workers, including
missionaries and their helpers, our people have from the beginning
undertaken about every kind of mission work possible. Within two
weeks from the time Bishop Thoburn landed in Rangoon he had organized
an English Church of seventy members and probationers, and from the
membership thus brought together there were volunteer workers raised
up to preach among peoples of three different native languages. As the
streets were always thronged with these people, it was always easy to
get a congregation. This hopeful beginning was in perfect keeping with
the theory of missions long in vogue in a large portion of India--that
from these self-supporting English Churches there would be raised up
the workers who would evangelize the heathen peoples around them.
William Taylor was the great apostle of this policy, and most of the
Methodist missions not included in the North India Conference were
founded on this theory by him and those that caught his spirit.
This theory has fatal defects we now know, but it was believed and
put to the test in the way indicated; and while it did not succeed
in accomplishing all that it was hoped at the beginning, it did
accomplish more than any other theory of missions has done in the
same time in proportion to the number of missionaries employed, while
its expenditure of mission money for years was almost nothing. This
movement carried Methodism into every city in Southern Asia that had a
considerable English-speaking population. It gave us English Churches
in all these centers. Our methods aroused other missions to do more
for these people than they had ever done before. More than this, it
committed us to general mission work over this area, and that with no
outlay of mission money until safe foundations were laid in all the
centers occupied.
Moved by this impulse and flushed with the warmth of a great revival,
these laymen in Rangoon began to preach in Tamil, Telegu, and
Hindustani. It will be noticed that all these are languages of India
proper, indicating that these English-speaking laymen had themselves
come from India, and so were familiar with the languages of the native
immigrants to Burma. But most of our English-speaking laymen were from
Madras or the Telegu country, so that the preaching in Tamil and Telegu
were continued; but for a long time we were unable to keep a layman
interested who could preach in Hindustani, and it was discontinued,
except at irregular intervals.
There were converts from among the heathen Tamil and Telegu people from
the start. They were baptized, and later on some Church organizations
were formed and some schools kept for the children of these people.
Preaching was kept up in the English Church and at half a dozen other
places in Rangoon; in Dalla, across the Rangoon River from Rangoon,
among the coolies in the mills, and in the jungle villages, and in
Toiurgoo, and later in Pegu on the railway. The Tamils and the Telegus
were generally found together, and we could sometimes get a layman
who could preach in both languages, though generally we had to engage
different preachers.
As time went on we learned several important facts about these people
and this work that we did not know at first. We very soon discovered
that we lost heavily among our converts by these immigrants returning
to their own land, and that our people were not so distributed in India
that they could care for them in their native land on their return.
But this continual loss made it out of the question to hope for much
permanency in this kind of work. Another weakness was that the men did
not bring their families with them. And while we got the men converted,
they were still connected with heathen relatives in India to whom they
would return. But the immediate weakness was in the fact that there
were few women and children to complete the Christian families and
Christian communities. So family life, school, and Sunday-school work
was not possible.
As the work extended somewhat, we were met by the fact that we must
depend on paid agents, and could not hope to go beyond a very narrow
limit by unpaid volunteer preaching and subpastoral care. Applicants
for such places were not wanting. Many of these men in course of years
applied, and in turn were found, with few exceptions, wholly unfit for
permanent responsibility. In the case of the Tamils especially, this
was true. The breakdown of this class of mission employees was nearly
complete. This was due to two causes. The one seems to be in the Tamil
race itself. They do seem to lack the element of reliability generally
in everything that has not the highest monetary value attainable as its
goal. It is astonishing how many of these employees failed us at this
point. There was the further difficulty, in that we had to employ the
men who drifted into Burma as the dislodged members of other missions
in India, who were either unwilling to accept the regulations of their
own missions, or were not of its better material. We seldom employed a
man without certificate of character, and we imported some agents under
special recommendation; but our experience with them was generally
unsatisfactory for the highest interest of the mission. But I am happy
to record that some were very true and reliable.
But the greatest weakness was on our part, in being unable to give the
missionary supervision necessary to insure the highest success. We
have never been strong enough to give a missionary to this work among
immigrants to Burma. Without this close missionary supervision, we can
not hope to succeed largely. Then we did not have the money to extend
the work largely so as to acquire the momentum, and that would place
at our disposal enough candidates to enable us to sift them and employ
only the most worthy. But a great deal of good has been done with a
very little outlay of money, and this work will be continued, though
only incidental to the larger mission plans. We must make the Burmese
people our real objective.
For reasons already given, we have been slow in taking up work among
the Burmese people. These reasons were in brief, too few missionaries
to spare even one man or woman to make the beginning, and for years
no missionary appropriation at all was made to Burma. When a little
money was given us, we made the best use of it. But we did baptize
Burmese before we had any missionary appropriations or missionary to
these people. Some inquirers from several miles out on the Pegu River
came into Rangoon, and sought out our missionaries. Bishop Thoburn
being in Rangoon at the time, a boat was secured and a party made up
to visit the village and investigate this new opening. The village
was found, and the bishop preached, with a young Eurasian girl as his
interpreter. The interest created was considerable, and before the
day was over several candidates were baptized. The initial step could
not be followed up as we could wish, but two years later I arrived in
Burma, and after some months was able to visit this village and the
surrounding country. It was a great joy to find some of these converts
still true to all they knew of the gospel. One of them could read the
Bible, and he had a copy of the good Book and some good tracts. Later
on in this region, but a little further from Rangoon, we had our first
considerable awakening among the people.
In Rangoon we had one Burmese boys’ school, which for two or three
years gave promise of much usefulness. These boys came from the
country and city, and were bright young lads from nine to fifteen
years of age. They were instructed in the secular studies, and at the
same time taught the Bible. A Sunday-school was kept up also. If this
school could have been well cared for under a missionary who knew the
language, it could have become largely useful and permanent. It finally
was broken up by the Burmese teacher going wrong. But if a trained
missionary had been in charge, another teacher could have been employed
and the school sustained. During the continuance of this school there
were a number of boys baptized in the school, and that with their
relatives’ knowledge, and there was no special opposition to it.
Bishop Thoburn was much impressed with this fact, as such an occurrence
in one of the schools in India among the Hindu or Mohammedan boys would
have broken up the school. In all the schools we have had, mostly in
large villages in the district, the same accessibility to the young
Burman has been found.
Among the missions which have become strong enough to found a good
school or system of schools, they find not only that the Burmese are
ready to send their boys and pay the fees according to the Government
school code, but that these same schools are the best missionary
agencies, both for the conversion of the Burmese and the Christian
training of prospective preachers and teachers. For the latter, years
under immediate Christian training are indispensable. As Buddhism
is founded on a system of monastic schools, where the boys are
indoctrinated in the teachings of that faith, it would seem that any
policy which looks to the overthrow of Buddhism should contemplate
replacing these Buddhist schools with Christian schools. And when we
find the Buddhists themselves seeking education in Christian schools,
and willing to pay good fees for the privilege, the prospect for the
Christian schools becoming the greatest auxiliary of evangelism is very
encouraging. It is my conviction that no nonchristian country in the
world presents the prospect of extensive usefulness of the Christian
system equal to Burma.
So eager were we to begin mission work among the Burmese, that we
took up with whatever opening presented itself. So sure were we that
we would not get the ear of the home Church, and so get the necessary
funds really to establish the Burmese mission work, that we were ready
to accept whatever the field offered that promised to give us access to
the Burmese people.
Our first opportunity was thrust upon us. We embraced it with perhaps
too much eagerness. But this is a question raised in the light of
subsequent experience which no man could foresee. In the early part of
1893, I received a message from the deputy commissioner of the Pegu
District, saying that he was opening a large tract of newly-drained
rice land to settlement and cultivation in his district, and if I
would start a colony of Burmese cultivators on it, he would put at the
disposal of the mission from two to three thousand acres of land. This
was a very singular proposition, as I had never seen that official but
once, and had never been in that part of his district, and had not
planned such an undertaking. I went up and made a hurried investigation
of the region, and found it a part of a large plain that for a short
time each year had too much water for even rice cultivation, which
grows in water often a foot deep. The Government felt certain its new
drainage canals, dug at considerable expense, would drain this plain.
And as its soil was the most fertile possible, and covered with a
light grass, which would easily yield to the ordinary native plow, it
seemed desirable to co-operate with the district officials, and take
up a large section of the land. The deputy commissioner offered to
put at our disposal three thousand acres of land, for which we were to
have a title as soon as we put it under cultivation. Having no mission
money of any account to go on in the conventional method of founding a
mission, it does not at all seem to be wondered at that this inviting
offer of land was looked upon as a providential way of founding an
industrial mission.
Just at this time, in a thickly-populated part of the district, some
forty miles away, a company of twenty-eight Burmans, whom I had not
seen before, sought me out, and asked me to help them get some land.
Taken with the offer of the land by the district officer, it seemed a
rare opportunity to get forward with our mission.
The season being far advanced, it was imperatively necessary to act
quickly because these Burmans had to make their arrangements for
the year, and the opportunity to get this land or any other so well
situated we thought would never come again. This combination of urgent
features led us to take the land and make the venture at once.
There was a great deal of planning to launch such a scheme. We did not
want to be involved financially. We did want to lay a good foundation
of evangelism and to establish schools. The plan finally adopted was
that we were to aid the Burmans in their dealings with the Government,
and in selling their rice. We were to furnish schools for their
children and to preach to them. But we were not to become financially
involved, either for the running expenses of the colony, or for the
tax due the Government. The plan was one of mutual helpfulness. To this
plan all parties cheerfully agreed.
It was nearly time for the rains to begin when the papers were secured
allowing us to move upon the land. Meantime a good many of the people
who would have gone with us a month earlier dropped out during the
delay in getting the land. But we succeeded in gathering one hundred
and twenty people, and moved on to the land about the first of May. We
still had time to build a village out of the bamboo poles and thatch,
out of which these cultivators’ houses are always made. This was rather
a hopeful beginning, and we had assurance of twice as many people to
follow.
Just at this time we met with an example of the careless disregard of a
financial obligation often found in the Burman. His cool indifference
to a promise, however well secured, is frequently refreshing in its
audacity. The Burmans were to furnish all the cattle to work the land.
We were to lay out no money whatever on the business features of the
colony. Four head men of the colony had been recognized by the deputy
commissioner. They had pledged _two hundred cattle_ security for the
tax due on the land. Their cattle would have been entirely sufficient
to cultivate at least a thousand acres the first year. But when the
houses were built and the colony began business, it became clear that
only a small number of these cattle were really in the hands of the
colonists. Their explanation was that many of the men having most
cattle dropped out, as the uncertainties of getting the land for the
crop remained over the venture. This we learned later was true in part.
More of them had dropped out because they did not want to put in all
their cattle, while some of the colonists had none, or only a few, and
they were heavily mortgaged.
But these men had pledged to the Government, officially, cattle which
they did not possess. In this they deceived us, a not very difficult
matter, as we were new to the country and unacquainted with the
characteristics of the Burmese people. But if we were deceived, the
deputy commissioner had more reason to regret having been duped, as he
was an officer in the province for many years, and supposed he knew
the Burman. He also drew up the revenue bond which they signed. He
indeed planned and extended this bond, entirely apart from the revenue
regulations, I believe. Therefore, when we reproached ourselves in not
being as farsighted as we should have been, we still could shield our
humiliation behind the much greater defeat of the pet measure of this
official.
If we had been willing simply to save the mission from all financial
obligations, and retreat from the enterprise without any dishonor, we
could have done so when we learned that these Burmans were unable to
carry out their part of the contract. But it would have been equivalent
to the utter collapse of the enterprise. While we were in no way
financially obligated to meet what they had failed to meet under our
general agreement, yet in my mind I have never been convinced that it
would have been the wisest thing to do, even if we could have foreseen
the final outcome, which we did not at that time even suspect. Then
every honorable man must give his character to the enterprise he
launches.
Our second surprise came only a few weeks later. I had secured money
outside of mission funds, for we had none of the latter, and bought
sufficient cattle for the colony. This was beyond all our agreement.
The men began work well enough, and soon had a promising beginning of
cultivation. As the young rice began to show in the fields, the water
which had been slowly rising over the plain during the increasing rains
suddenly covered all the fields to a dangerous depth. A foot of extra
water will not hurt much if it goes down within two or three days.
But this flooding of our land covered a score of square miles of the
country. Then it slowly dawned on us that the Government engineers’
drainage system was a failure, and with it our colony was doomed. We
had depended upon the work of the engineers, and their canals could
not carry off the water, and we were the sufferers. The colony slowly
melted away while the water remained.
Let it be noted that though the Burmans failed us, and some of our
acutely sympathetic friends have assured us all these years that this
failure of the Burmese character was inevitable, yet it was the failure
of the work of the Government engineers that destroyed our colony. The
Burmans were at work until the floods came, and they remained weeks
after all ordinary hope of making a crop was gone; while the failure
of the drainage scheme developed early, and the whole plain remained
flooded for six years until supplementary canals were dug. If we failed
by overconfidence in the adroit Burman, we failed with double effect
when we trusted to the skill of the Government engineers.
A very unpleasant incident occurred about the time the colony was
drowned out. The deputy commissioner, who had gone out of his way to
induce us officially to enter upon this colony scheme, turned against
us in a very unaccountable way. He misrepresented our undertaking
to his superiors. He accused us of exacting oppressive terms of the
Burmans, when the exact opposite was true. We had gone far beyond
all our agreement with them, and gave them better terms than any
other people ever gave to any cultivator in Burma. In the end it
was easy enough to show wherein this unwise official was wholly in
error. But it was not until his official opposition had wrought its
work on scattering the colony, and had made success in recognition
impossible. This episode is an unpleasant matter to record. I would
omit it entirely if it did not bear a vital relation to the defeat
of a missionary enterprise. But I am glad to be able to say that
he is the only official of British blood who ever gave our mission
or missionaries in Burma during my experience there any annoyance
or ungenerous treatment in a business way. The officials have
been courteous gentlemen always, and I have been much in business
transactions with all classes of them for a decade. Our missionaries
of long experience in other parts of the empire have been delighted in
making much the same report.
While the colony was broken up and scattered in a way that forebade
us to hope for any good to result from our undertaking, it was not
really so bad as we believed at the time. We had not baptized any of
the colonists, though a number of them had indicated that they wished
baptism in the early beginnings of the colony. When they scattered
abroad in the country doubtless they made reports very discouraging.
But we have much reason to know that there came to be quite a general
feeling that we had sought the good of the people. There have been many
evidences of this, but that which is clearest proof, is that every year
since Burmans in the same neighborhood have urged us to undertake some
such enterprise again. But there were other evidences.
The colony was begun in April, 1893, and was abandoned entirely by the
end of the year. Just at this time Rev. G. J. Schilling and wife came
to us to take up the Burmese work. I had been the only man among our
small band of missionaries for nearly three years. My assistants were
supplies picked up in the country. I got very weary often with the heat
and much work. But I was often worn greatly for lack of counsel in the
responsibilities of the mission. There have always been some of the
truest friends among the laymen in Rangoon, but naturally they can not
take the responsible care of the mission. The coming of Mr. and Mrs.
Schilling was a great joy to me and all our lady missionaries.
A little incident occurred the second day after the arrival of our
friends, which shows the playful side of missionary life. They arrived
in the afternoon, and early next morning I took Mr. Schilling with me a
day’s journey by steam launch through one of Lower Burma’s many tidal
creeks to a village where we had some Christians. We were so busy we
did not allow the new missionary even a day to look around the city
of Rangoon, but hurried him immediately into the district. I had the
journey planned, and could not delay the trip for pressure of work in
the city.
At six o’clock in the evening we arrived at the village of Thongwa, a
place of five thousand people. After some three hours’ looking about
the town we were tired, and as always in Burma when taking exercise,
very much heated. I proposed a swim in the river to cool us down so
we could sleep. Mr. Schilling, being a strong swimmer, plunged out
into the stream, and did not pause till he reached the opposite side
of the river. I, being a very moderate swimmer, remained near the
shore. But I was impressed with the dark river lined with palm-trees
on a moonless night, with no light except from the stars and a faint
glimmer from the lamps of the village. I wondered at the temerity of
my fellow-missionary on this, his first night in a tropical country!
Perhaps I was not wholly innocent in the practical joke I attempted.
Just as I heard a splash on the opposite side of the stream I called
out, “Brother Schilling, I forgot to tell you that there are alligators
in this river.” There was a splash, a plunge, and heavy breathing of a
swimmer exerting all his power in the haste to recross the stream. I
was amused at the effect of this bit of information on the missionary
recruit. But his amusement arrived only as an afterthought. His first
efforts were all spent in getting to my side of the river. He reasoned,
“In haste there is safety.” When he recovered his breath he told me
that just as I shouted “alligator” he had stepped on some slippery
member of the tribe that lives in the muddy ooze of all tropical
tidal creeks, and to his imagination the word “alligator” made that
squirming creature a very real menace to his personal safety. There
were alligators in the stream, but they were several miles further down
and, as far as I knew, quite harmless.
Another experience which befell some of us some months before this had
features about it too grim for humor, but which may be recorded to show
the reality of life in a tropical land. Shortly after the colony was
flooded, I made one of my visits to the people. Several times I had to
travel in a small boat, a dug-out log. To return to Rangoon I took to
the stream after nightfall, and traveled within a mile or two of the
railway, and then, the current of the stream becoming too swift for
the oarsman, we took to the water, and waded against the current until
we reached the station. The particular occurrence occurred when the
water was at its highest over an area many miles. The occasion of my
making these journeys at night was that I could catch a train bringing
me to Rangoon in the morning for my many duties there. As the whole
country was flooded, we undertook to guide our boat thirteen miles from
the colony to the railway all over an overflowed, treeless plain. Our
party consisted of a young Swiss I had in charge of the colony, a Malay
servant of the Swiss, who acted as steersman, and a Telegu, a very lazy
man, who would not row, and so got a free ride, grudgingly allowed
by myself. The Swiss and I had to do all the rowing, no easy task
through the protruding elephant grass, which rose several feet above
the water in some places. In addition, I undertook to pilot the boat,
the open hollow-log canoe, always difficult to keep bottom downward.
Without any object to serve as a guide, my own sense of locality, as
we had no compass, being my only resource, the downpour of rain every
half-hour--all made a combination of circumstances calculated to fill
us with doubts as to our success in reaching the railway at all, while
the dark hours of the night passed slowly on. We had no light with
us, and at times it was exceedingly dark; but the moon showed its
half-filled face occasionally. Late in the night we came near to some
abandoned grass hut. As an unusually heavy storm was approaching,
revealed to us by the beating of the rain on the quiet water of the
plain, we concluded to steer our unstable craft in through the open
doorway of the hut. There were several feet of water in the hut and on
the adjacent fields. As the hut was large enough to accommodate our
boat and the roof was intact, we hoped to have shelter until the rain
had passed.
We had our misgivings, because we feared the snakes, driven from the
grass of the plain by the water, would be finding quarters in the
house. This proved to be a very true surmise. We had just got into
the house, when our free passenger, the Telegu, took out his matchbox
and a cigar and prepared to smoke. I thought I could use that match
to better advantage, and demanded it. As the match flashed and then
burned steadily for a moment, we searched the thatch sides and roof
and bamboo supports for snakes. We were not disappointed. Here and
there were the glistening coils of snakes tucked away; but our greatest
nervous shock came on looking immediately over our heads, when we were
startled to see a very large snake coiled on top of the rafter, while
the glistening scales of his whitish belly were only two or three feet
above some of our heads. We immediately prepared to leave this place
in possession of its venomous occupants. Softly we moved lest we shake
snakes into our boat. The Swiss was very eager to avoid colliding with
a post and shaking a snake into the boat, especially as we were all
barefooted, having removed our shoes.
We took to the storm again, the worst of that weary wet night, thankful
to have escaped keeping company with the snakes. About one o’clock at
night we found the railroad, and rested until the train came. I look
back on that night’s experience with vivid recollections. The long
piloting of the boat without guide of any kind for thirteen miles, and
then to have made our exact destination, was no ordinary achievement,
of which I have always had some pride. The experience with the snakes
in the abandoned house seen by the flash of a match makes a memory too
vivid to avoid an inward squirming to this day. These disconnected
experiences are given to break the monotony of prosaic account of
mission work, and to indicate to the reader that there are realities in
journeyings about the inhabited parts of a tropical country calculated
to impress the memory.
Mr. Schilling’s coming to us was very timely. He began Burmese very
soon, in which Mr. Robertson joined him. We at once planned to open a
station for a missionary outside of Rangoon. We selected Pegu, a town
on the railway fifty-six miles from the capital city, and on the road
to Mandalay. We chose this town because it was the nearest station to
our broken-up colony, from which also we could work another region
which had been given to the people for the colony, and from whence
we could reach half a hundred villages of Burmans unsought by any
missionary. We needed a town, also, where we could have a physician
for the missionary’s family. A place was desired where land and
missionary buildings could be secured economically.
[Illustration: LARGE IMAGE AT PEGU]
Mr. Schilling was supported by the vigorous missionary Church of
Montclair, New Jersey. They paid his passage and his salary, and for
the mission house. So prompt was their response and so generous, that
the mission was very greatly uplifted. Mr. Robertson lived with Mr.
Schilling, and they both made rapid progress in learning the language.
In a few months inquirers began to be found. Some lapsed Christians
were picked up, and they tried to work them into some Christian
usefulness. Before the end of the year they were beginning to preach in
the vernacular. Altogether our prospect of doing mission work among the
Burmese was becoming promising, and we were all filled with cheer.
Within a little more than a year each of these brethren was doing
aggressive evangelistic work. Mr. Schilling remained at Pegu, and
traveled somewhat widely in the regions east and north. Mr. Robertson
was given the district south of Pegu and east of Rangoon. He lived at
Thongwa, the village where our Burmese work was first undertaken in a
systematic way. Mr. Robertson had married Miss Haskew, of Calcutta.
Mr. Schilling, at the suggestion of some of the Burmese who had been
with us in the colony enterprise, organized a new movement to build a
village near the place where we had formerly located, but not subject
to floods, into which the Christians and their families would move,
separating the Christian community and providing a school for their
children. About one hundred and fifty people came to the village, and
a simple church was built and a school begun. Quite a number of these
people were with us in the original enterprise, and they and their
friends had had some Christian instruction. Mr. Schilling preached
earnestly to the village, and baptized about thirty people in a few
months’ time. So we came to have a visible Christian community in the
wake of our colony scheme, and that within two years of our first
beginning. If, as we are accustomed to say, we failed in the colony,
still but for the colony we would not have been in that region at all.
If we had not founded the colony, we would not have had a village.
We are encouraged this much, that though we failed in our unusual
departure in this region for reasons stated, we had more to show at
the end of the two years from the failure than the most successful
enterprise on the conventional mission lines that I know of in Burma
has had during an equal length of time at the beginning of their
history. If we count the money invested, the same comparison holds good.
The village still exists, and though it has suffered many vicissitudes,
due in part to the nature of pioneer mission work, and partly to lack
of continuous missionary direction, yet we have contact with the entire
community of that region, and within the last year and a half our
missionary in charge has baptized a number of converts in the village
and community.
Before a year from the time he took up his residence in Thongwa, Mr.
Robertson’s health failed seriously, and he had to give up his labors
and go to the hills of India. This was in 1896. At first we thought he
would soon be with us again; but this was not to be. He has been kept
in India by the exigencies of his health at first, and latterly by the
exigencies of the work. The Thongwa circuit has been supplied as best
we could do it to this day, and has never had continuous missionary
residence or supervision such as is needed. It has had only such
attention as could be given it by men whose hands were more than full
elsewhere.
During 1896 two young men were sent out by individuals who wished to
do a generous thing for missions through a representative. Mr. Krull
arrived in April, and Mr. Swann came in October. Much was hoped from
this arrangement. The young men were religious, and faithful in their
efforts. A mistake had been made in both cases, in that neither man was
educated sufficiently to enable him to master a foreign tongue, or to
meet the responsibility of leadership. After a few months the supporter
of Mr. Swann declined to pay the small salary he had agreed upon, and
the young man had to retire from the field, as he was not sent out by
the Mission Board. Mr. Krull continued as an auxiliary mission agent
for nearly five years, for which he contracted, and his friend loyally
supported him to the end. Then, he being convinced that he was not
adapted to do the work of a missionary, returned and began secular
work. However, he still has responsibilities as a local preacher.
These young men were not qualified for the work for which they were
chosen. In this they were not to blame, as they could not have
understood the needs of a mission field. They were not selected by a
Mission Board. But the whole experience is added to like experience
elsewhere in proof that the best way to aid missions is through regular
channels, or through men whose judgment has been proven in responsible
positions.
Mr. Schilling’s health was impaired during 1897, and early in 1898 he
and his family returned to America. So within two years we lost two
missionary families from our ranks, greatly to the distress of those
that remained, and the detriment of the entire work. Our promising
beginnings among the Burmese suffered most.
For a year we awaited re-enforcements. Early in 1899, Rev. Mr. Leonard
and wife were sent to us from India. Mr. Leonard at once moved into the
mission-house at Pegu. Without delay he began the study of the Burmese
language, and as he had high linguistic ability, he acquired a working
use of the language. Before the end of the year he was preaching
without an interpreter, and was doing some necessary translation.
One of the first steps towards putting the Burmese work on a better
foundation was the beginning of a school for the boys of our Burmese
Christians. For years I had hoped to see this done. Pegu had been
chosen for the residence of a missionary partly with this end in view,
as it is accessible, is free from some of the evils of a great city
like Rangoon, and simple habits of life can be maintained more easily.
The last is most important. Expensive habits are so easily learned
and so difficult to unlearn, that we can not be too careful about the
training of the children of our Christian community.
This school was begun with about six boys, and soon grew to an
attendance of twenty. Some of these paid full school fees. Their
instruction was the best. They were given regular lessons in secular
subjects and daily Bible instruction. Much of the latter was committed
to memory. It would surprise some of our Sunday-schools and some of
our Christian people to find how carefully the Bible is taught in
mission schools. Mr. Leonard did most thorough work in this matter, and
we hope in this school to prepare for future service promising boys.
Those who know what it means to work with the only material available
in the beginning of a mission can appreciate our solicitude for enough
properly-trained workers. These preachers and teachers so much needed
must come from our own schools.
Mr. Leonard has been very successful in getting access to the Burmese.
He baptized more than one hundred converts from Buddhism during 1900.
This shows how accessible the Burmese people are. If it were true that
the Burmese have been exceptionally hard to reach hitherto, it is not
so now. We have access to all classes of them, and we are positive of
winning them to Christ and of founding our Church among them just as
rapidly as we can be re-enforced to do this work. Mr. Leonard has twice
the territory to look after that one missionary should have.
Our latest work to be done is that among the Chinese. We were led into
this work by two circumstances. In Rangoon we found a few Chinese
Christians who were not looked after by anybody, and to these were
added some of our own Chinese converts from Malaysia and some from
China. As Rangoon and Burma are the natural termini of the immigrants
from China by sea and overland, we have a large Chinese population in
Rangoon, and this same population is very evenly distributed in all
important villages of the province. These Chinamen marry Burmese women,
so that they become identified with the Burmese people. As we aimed at
the conversion of the Burmese, it was easy to begin preaching for those
that were Christians, and to fortify the foundation of our mission to
the Burmese.
As in other work, we had to employ just such preachers as we could
pick up. But in 1897 we secured a young man trained by Dr. West, of
Penang, who has done faithful preaching in Rangoon and vicinity. There
have been some thirty baptisms since he came to us. This work is so
important that it must be done by somebody. There is a demand for as
great a school for these people as we have founded in Singapore or
Penang. But its support is not in sight.