The Present Situation in Missions
The first century of modern missions has closed under circumstances of
great encouragement, not without its element of deep solicitude. The
last ten or fifteen years have brought to the home Church the report of
more triumphs of the gospel than any like period since the days of the
apostles. All lands are open, or are being opened, to the missionary.
Converts are coming by the tens of thousands annually into our mission
Churches, where even a quarter of a century ago the same missions would
have been content with scores. Missionaries formerly had only those
difficulties to adjust which met the little band of converts, while
to-day they have the problem of the rapidly-growing Church, so recently
gathered out of heathenism.
China has had an upheaval; but all missionaries believe the future
of the Chinese missions is bright with hope. The martyrdom of the
missionaries and the Chinese converts has been as heroic as any in
Christian annals. Whatever the Chinaman may or may not be generally, as
a Christian he has proven himself worthy. The persecuted young Church
will be worthy of the millions of converts that are to be gathered in
when the country has been settled again.
In Southern Asia there has been the famine, far more terrible in its
consequences than the mobs and wars in China. But the famine has been
greatly relieved, and the impress of Christianity and civilization
relieving its worst distress has been wholly good. Many thousands
of converts are presenting themselves to the Church. Baptisms were
discontinued in the famine districts during the year of greatest
distress. But since the famine has ended, we hear of two conservative
brethren baptizing eighteen hundred in three days in Gujarat, with the
prospect of eight or ten thousand others coming into the Christian
community after them in that district alone.
All over the vast Indian field people hitherto counted difficult of
access are ready to listen to the gospel. The Burmese were counted,
until recently, so fortified in their Buddhism that they could not
be induced to accept the gospel; but we find it is not so now. One
missionary, new to the field too, baptized more than one hundred last
year, and he might easily have added many more if he had been properly
supported. What could not a mission, aggressive and large enough to
have momentum, do? It would be easy to add to the young Church in
Southern Asia, being gathered by Methodism, twenty-five thousand
converts annually, if we could be re-enforced only slightly. Yet, as
it is, we must keep accessible people waiting for years till we can
receive them.
There is just now an important movement going on in far away Borneo,
the Southern limit of this vast field. There has recently been
established a colony of Chinese Christian immigrants in the island.
Bishop Warne visited them, and placed a preacher in charge. They are
immigrants from Southern China. Other Christians will follow these
pioneers. They are in immediate contact with the Dyaks, head hunters
of the island, and must have much to do in influencing and probably
beginning a work of conversion among these savages of the Borneo jungle.
All eyes are upon the Philippine Islands, where a new reformation
appears to be going on. Thousands of Catholics, who have never known
the comfort of a pure, simple faith, nor the joy of reading the Word of
God, are crying out for the full gospel light. They are appealing to
the Protestant missionaries for instruction, and they are being led to
a purer faith.
All this array of current mission facts declares that God is owning
his messengers in every land; that he is fairly crowding success on to
the missionaries, to cheer them and quicken the Church in home lands
into something of a true conception of the magnitude and urgency of his
plans for giving the gospel to every creature, and to lift the age-long
night from the Christless nations.
Thus success of missions throws a great burden of work and
responsibility upon the missionaries at the front. It can hardly be
understood in America. In the home land most pastors have Churches,
the whole machinery of which has long been in working order, and
they pursue that work along well-established lines. Their entire
surroundings are of, or are influenced by, the Christian Church, and at
least a Christianized civilization. The pastor is not required to go
outside of the well-known methods of carrying on our Church work.
In the foreign field the contrary is the case. The missionary is
compelled to be a pioneer in methods of work. He is against a living
wall of idolatrous humanity, and he often feels very sorely the lack of
human support and sympathy. He has to carry the finances of the mission
as well. Oftentimes he is the only resource the mission enterprise
has. In the Methodist mission in Southern Asia more property has been
secured by the unaided missionary than through Missionary Societies. In
addition to all the burdens of a surrounding heathenism and of mission
business, the missionary has charge of more Church members than the
average pastor at home. In the Methodist Episcopal Missions of Southern
Asia the members of Annual Conferences, including missionaries and
native members, have more than twice as many Church members to care
for, per man, than the pastors at home, the average being taken in both
cases.
The greatest need of every mission with which the writer is acquainted,
and pre-eminently so in the Methodist Episcopal Mission, is more
well-equipped missionaries. Yet this is exactly what we can not get. We
can only hope that we can maintain about the number of missionaries
on the whole field which we now have. This means if there is any
extension of the field so as to require missionaries in new places,
they must be thinned out in the older parts of the mission. The Church
has candidates for the foreign field, but the Missionary Society has no
money to send them. Recently some of the finest candidates have been
refused for the lack of money for their support, while the missionaries
on the field are fairly staggering under the load they carry, hoping
for delayed re-enforcements, who do not arrive. The disproportion of
work actually in hand, to the men and women who do that work, is most
distressing.
There are great questions of missionary policy to settle. A strong
force of missionaries, adequately superintended by men who are
acquainted with the work they superintend, is the least that can
be asked in our missions. A close and detailed oversight of all
mission interests, working out a far-sighted policy, which changes
only by light that comes by actual experience in mission work, is
of the greatest value. It is clear this superintendency can not be
accomplished by periodical visits of some official whose whole life
has been spent in the home field. A secretary or a Mission Board
is of little account in determining the internal management in any
far-distant field. An occasional visit by some such official may do
incidental good in acquainting the missionaries with the condition in
the home Church, and in bringing to the people at home fresh facts from
the field. But for administrative purposes on the field such visits
are of little or no value.
The Methodist Episcopal Missions in Southern Asia have been most
highly favored in thirteen years of the missionary episcopacy, with
Bishop Thoburn to fill the office of superintendent and leader.
His administration is sure to become more and more monumental as
time reveals its scope and character. It is now clear that no other
episcopal supervision hitherto provided by Methodism is equal to this
missionary episcopacy for the far-distant mission fields.
The success of this policy and of Bishop Thoburn in that office
determines the question of the future policy of the Church in the
administration of the mission field of Southern Asia. The General
Conference of 1900 by a decisive vote increased the missionary
episcopal force in this field, and by an equally decisive vote elected
Dr. E. W. Parker and Dr. F. W. Warne to the missionary episcopacy, and
in co-ordinate authority with Bishop Thoburn.
The election of Dr. Parker as bishop was a general recognition of his
long and pre-eminently successful missionary career. The election of
Dr. Warne to a like office was in response to a like choice of India,
for this younger, but very efficient missionary, whose pastorate
and presiding eldership in the city of Calcutta had been of such a
character as to make him well qualified for the larger office to which
he has been called. But one year has passed since their election, and a
great change has come. Bishop Warne has been eminently acceptable in
his new office, and he has traveled widely throughout the great field
where Methodism has its foothold in the southlands of Asia. But Bishop
Parker’s stalwart form has yielded, after a prolonged battle with an
obscure disease which laid its hand upon him within a few months after
his election. His death demands a reverent pause, while we drink in
renewed inspiration from reflection on his noble Christian manhood and
really pre-eminent service as a missionary.
Bishop Parker had labored over forty-two years as a missionary to
India, and it is a safe statement that in this more than twoscore years
he did more work than any missionary in India of any Church, or perhaps
in any land, in the same time. The work which he did in laying broad
foundations, winning men to Christ, calling into being valuable mission
agencies, and as a masterful, statesman-like administration in the
Church, has classified him, from two separate and distinct sources, as
“the most successful missionary in India.” Every element of his noble
Christian manhood and eminent ability measured up to the requirements
of this exceptional estimate of the missionary and his work.
He has now ascended to his heavenly reward, to be forever with the Lord
and to share in his glory. The cablegram that reached us in America was
brief, but laden with a great sorrow and a greater triumph, “Parker
translated!” We will no more have his counsels, his inspiring presence,
the grasp of his strong hand, or hear his manly voice in Indian
Conferences. For this loss we weep. He was “translated.” In this glad
triumph we are filled with joy. Death is abolished to such a saintly
follower of his Lord passing from mortal vision.
Bishop Parker was ready for other worlds. His recent testimony was
triumphant, in keeping with the godly life he lived. It was fitting
that the good bishop should take his departure from amidst the glorious
Indian hills he had loved so long. His last days were spent in Naini
Tal, amid the most varied mountain scenery in India. Here lies the
lake of wonderful clearness, stretching for a mile in length, filling
the basin. Around the lake is the mall, or broad road. From this
road others branch off, some circular and others zigzagging up the
mountains, which rise a thousand and more feet above the lake, their
sides clad from base to top with, evergreen, pines, and oak. Here
residences, churches, and schools nestle among the trees wherever
space can be found. Here tired missionaries go in May and June to rest
from the fiery heat of the plains below, and to gird themselves anew
with strength as they look upon God’s mountains. From the northern
ridge they look upon the whole mountain amphitheater with its glorious
lake “shimmering” in the sunlight, high-rimmed with its border of
living green, while to the north, stretching hundreds of miles to
east and west, rise the perpetually snow-covered Himalaya mountains.
The picture, one of nature’s wonders, has few equals for inspiring
beauty and grandeur combined. As the man looks through the rare, clear,
mountain air, on peaks and range resting in quiet strength and majesty,
he almost feels as if he was in sight of the eternal hills where God is.
Amid such scenes, with his brave wife by his side, companion of his
missionary labors about him, and a host of God-fearing Christians all
over India, among whom were a multitude of the dusky natives, waiting
in sorrow because they “should see his face no more,” the bishop was
“translated.” As his Lord on the Mount of Olivet took one look upon his
disciples, and then a cloud received him and he ascended on high, so
his servant was translated from the hills of Naini Tal; was caught up
amid the clouds to be forever with his Lord.
So the workmen fall. Others labor on, but they are overburdened. They
must be re-enforced. The young native Church must be shepherded.
Thousands of others will join the flock.
Just here we missionaries have our greatest fear. We are the Church’s
representatives. God is with us, and the doors are all open. We have
done all that men and women can do. Will the Church at home sustain us
in the great and glorious task that is appointed to us? This is our
only fear. So loyal and true are many of the hearts at home to the
cause of missions, that it seems unkind to speak of any lack. Yet,
while we love every generous impulse of those who give money and time
to that which, as missionaries, we give our lives and our loved ones,
we love our cause so much the more that we must be true to its urgent
needs and its perils for the want of a little money.
That our advance is retarded over a vast area, that many of our
institutions are imperiled, that native preachers are being dropped
for the lack of the small salary they require, and that we are being
compelled to ask of our Board to give up a section of our India Church
because missionary appropriations are cut down, is but an outline of
our care at this time. To the home Church we look for relief.
This relief can come only in one way. Our people at home, in the most
wonderful prosperity America ever knew, are not increasing their gifts
to missions with their growth in wealth. Some are, but most are not.
The aggregate of all moneys given by the Methodist Episcopal Church
for preaching the gospel in heathen lands is only about twenty-two
cents per member. This is all that is given to declare Christ to the
Christless nations! Our people are giving about forty times as much for
their own religious instruction and for the gospel in Christianized
lands. This proportion is distressing to the missionary who stands
among millions of people who have been waiting nineteen centuries, and
have never yet heard that a Savior had been born into the world.
The writer is convinced that the measurable failure to give to the
cause of missions as our people are able to give, is due to the failure
to get the information to them in an effective way. It is not the
writer’s intention to locate the responsibility or discuss a policy of
raising missionary funds, but clearly a virtual standstill in receipts
under present conditions is defeat for the missionary cause.
One fact is certain, our present methods of raising funds leaves the
majority of our people without feeling the immediate and imperative
need of this cause, or inspiring them with the certainty of gaining
a great result by the investment of money in missions. We are in the
second year of the “Thank-offering” movement, and more than eleven
million dollars have been pledged toward the “Thank-offering,” and
certainly not nearly one hundred thousand dollars of this amount has
gone to missions. Not one dollar in a hundred!
One chief reason why this disparity exists is because all other causes
have employed special agencies to reach every nook and corner of the
Church, and the cause of missions is being operated at long range and
on general principles, often as only one of the “benevolences,” and
must necessarily fail to advance to any considerable extent under
present conditions and absolute restrictions.
But there are hopeful indications. Some officials and some pastors
begin to see the situation and to inquire what can be done to relieve
the straits. A number of loyal souls are tenderly giving their most
cherished treasures to the cause of missions. In a year’s campaign at
home I have come in heart-touch with so many such that I would gladly
believe there is a multitude who cherish the cause of missions as
supreme, as it really is.
The Mission Conference in Burma, little company that it is, is being
re-enforced by a promising band of six missionaries, long overdue it is
true, but now gladly and gratefully received. Nearly all of these are
being sent by the sacrifice of people who give largely of that which
is a sacrifice to give. One missionary family is being sent out and
sustained for a part of this year by more than fifteen hundred dollars
given by the preachers of the Kansas and the St. Louis Conferences.
This very large giving of men of very small resources to a special
object that touched their hearts has put new courage into all our
little Burma Mission. In this giving they have helped put true-hearted
missionaries in the field, and I believe permanently enlarged their
sympathy for missions, if indeed they have not also indicated an
improved policy of raising mission funds.
The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, through some of its young lady
Auxiliaries, is doing most generous things for the re-enforcements to
Burma.
Burma has waited long for even small re-enforcements, and needs yet
many other things before it is fairly launched as a mission. But with
the re-enforcements we have now in immediate prospect, we are so
encouraged we can return to our field and take up the work with renewed
courage and hope, knowing of the increased number of friends of
missions who support us with money and prayerful sympathy.
A hope I often cherished in times of great weariness and discouragement
seems in part being realized. Many times in Rangoon, when wearied to
exhaustion with the work of two or three men, I have gone up to the
Sway Dagon Pagoda, and, looking upon its gilded mass and the Burmans
chanting their meaningless laudations, I have longed for heralds
enough to bring these people the gospel instead of Buddhism, and to
replace the pagodas of the land with Christian Churches; longed for
re-enforcements that came not. Then I turned into the northeast corner
of the pagoda area and looked upon the graves of the British officers
who fell in the war of 1852 while storming that pagoda. Then down the
slope up which that band of Anglo-Saxons charged, to the graves of
soldiers who were buried where they fell. My blood warmed with the
thought that these men gave their lives without a word of complaint for
their queen whom they loved, and the flag which they raised over this
far-distant land, to the immense benefit of the land of Burma. Then I
remembered that the world-wide empire of which this is a part had been
secured and maintained by men who, as these, had laid down their lives
for the flag they loved.
From this scene and its suggestions I turned away, encouraged to hold
my post till re-enforcements would come up for the preaching of the
gospel of the Son of God, who sent me to Burma. Here was a very human
kind of encouragement. Looking up the shining pagoda shaft I saw a
sprout of the peepul-tree, the sacred tree of Buddhism, which grows
anywhere on any surface where its spores can find lodgment; which when
neglected has torn to fragments hundreds of pagodas, here springing
from the great pagoda two hundred feet from the ground. It had found an
opening through the gold leaf, or perhaps had been buried in the mortar
with which its surface had been plastered, and had sent its roots deep
into the brick mass of the pagoda; while its green branches grew in a
thriving cluster over the gilded sides. What did it matter that this
tree was two hundred feet from the ground, and had no moisture save
what its roots could extract from the dry bricks and its leaves draw
out of the air! This peepul-tree can thrive anywhere!
Beautiful symbolism! The gilded colossal pagoda represents the lifeless
system of hoary Buddhism. The growing young tree represents the
religion of Jesus Christ, filled with the life of the Son of God. It
will crumble Buddhism back to dust, as that tree, if fostered, will
destroy the pagoda, Buddhism’s most ornate symbol. Looking on this
scene, my heart took new courage, as under Divinely-given cheer, to
labor on for the salvation of the Buddhists and other people of Burma.
When describing the pagoda and its surrounding, at Adams, New York,
I dwelt at some length on the graves of the English soldiers there,
and spoke of their courage and self-sacrifice. There was a large
congregation present, nearly all of whom were strangers to me. At the
close of the service I saw a little man start from the rear of the
church and make his way down the side aisle, then across the church,
and as he came he quickened his step; and grasping my hand he exclaimed
with trembling voice: “I tried to come to church this morning, having
heard a man from Burma was to speak; but I could not get here. I live
nine miles back in the Adirondacks, and I drove in to-night to hear
you. I am so glad those graves of the English soldiers are cared for; I
was in the regiment that stormed that pagoda hill in 1852.” He wrung my
hand and shed tears of gladness because I came from Burma and brought
him a voice from the land of the stirring scenes of his soldier life of
forty-eight years ago.
There will be a day when every pagoda will crumble down, every mosque
and Hindu temple fall into decay, and Christian churches stand in their
places, and Burma, as all other parts of this needy world, will be
fully redeemed. In a brighter world there will be a time of rejoicing
over the gospel triumphs, and all who in person or by proxy aided in
the gospel victories in all the world, shall strike glad hands, like
the old soldier, and say, “I was there and helped in the glorious
work.”