The life of a missionary to Buddhist peoples is full of interest. Each
people has many attractive qualities and the life has much of delight.
Certain special qualifications may be worth mentioning:--
(a) _A Genuine Sympathy_.--A missionary will make very little
impression upon the people and especially upon their leaders in
Buddhist countries who is unable to think himself, to some extent,
sympathetically, into their point of view, and to be friendly toward
the better aspects of their life and beliefs. There are many things
which are "lovely and of good report." The spirit of friendliness and
of appreciation goes far toward establishing good relations with the
people.
(b) _A Sense of Beauty and of Humour_.--They are lovers of beauty and
enjoy humour, and respond readily to these qualities in the
missionary. More over, without such gifts life in the tropics is very
trying to oneself and to others.
(c) _Christian Convictions_.--Along with these qualities, the
missionary must have a passionate loyalty to Christ, a clear
understanding of the essential Christian message to such a people, and
a firm conviction of the right of Jesus Christ to claim these
attractive peoples for God, and to make them great.
(d) _A willingness to appreciate fresh truth_.--It is very desirable
that the young missionary should face such people, themselves often
creative in their thinking, with a belief that the Holy Spirit, who
has guided the nations in their search for truth, is still seeking to
lead them on, at least into fresh realisations of the power and
meaning of the truths which have meant so much in past ages. Every
such missionary will be thrilled in his contact with the inner "soul
of the people" to whom he goes, by the hope that they will find in
Christ hitherto undiscovered riches and by the desire on his own part
to catch something of a continually enlarging vision of Christ and His
Church.