God's missionary plan for the world

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface vii

I The Divine Purpose i

Preface

In Chungking, China, in January, 1905, I found a very suggestive volume by Rev. R. F. Horton, entitled The Bible a Missionary Book. It was the only volume in West China and had just arrived. Hence I could not accept the loan of it so kindly offered, and I had only a little time to read it while busy with other cares. But the argument and the title of the book took possession of me ; and during the succeeding months of travel and meditation, I read the Bible through from the missionary view-point ; and the present volume took shape.

If the volume does not speak for itself no further words can now avail. I need only add that I am indebted to Dr. H. K. Carroll, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for valuable suggestions and also for the title of the volume, which is a more ambitious one than I had selected ; to Rev. Stephen V. R. Ford for valuable statistics; and to Dr. F. D. Gamewell, Mr. Charles H. Fahs, Mr. Morris W. Ehnes, and Mr. G. F. Sutherland for exceedingly valuable information ; and to Rev. C. H. Morgan, Ph. D., for preparing the running titles and the index.

It seems absurd indeed to attempt an inter-

Preface

pretation of the Bible and an expression of the divine plan for the race in a small volume prepared under tremendous pressure of other duties, and even more absurd to hint at a philosophy of history in a brief closing chapter. But it is large movements which are simple and easily foreseen ; while details introduce complexity and confusion. It is impossible to forecast the death of any single individual, but quite easy to calculate the life of a generation. It is impossible to foretell where gravity and the wind will leave any single leaf of the forest ten minutes after it loses its hold upon the branch, but quite easy to foretell the exact spot in the universe which one globe will occupy a thousand years from today.

I have dared to sow, the harvest will test the seed, and also the soil. Let us pray God that the seed prove sound, the soil good, and the harvest a hundredfold.

Tiii

CHAPTER I The Divine Purpose

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ : even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love : . . . making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth." Eph. I. 3-1 1.

The divine purpose contemplates the evangelization of all peoples in pagan lands and the complete Christianization of the races. Draw the line clearly for a few moments between evangelization and Christianization. As soon as every man, woman, and child on earth hears the Gospel, learns the good news, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life," the human race has been evangelized. When every human being accepts Christ as Saviour and Lord, and when the inner spirit and the outward conduct of each are transformed by Christ, then the Christian-

I

Our Two Tasks ization of the race will be accomplished. We confine our attention first to the lighter task of the evangelization of the race. China a We should like to consider the problems which

confront us in each unevangelized land. In order to speak from personal knowledge and with greater definiteness we shall draw our illustrations largely from China. Other nations probably would afford equally strong illustrations, were we familiar with them. Besides, the same fundamental difficulties meet us in all parts of the field, and in studying the problem in one field we are studying it in its essential features in all the unevangelized portions of the earth.

Population of The best estimates put the unevangelized peothe Empire ^ s Q £ ^ WO rld at between eight and nine hundred millions. For the sake of clearness let us compare the problem which confronts us in the evangelization of one single empire with the problem which confronted the church in the evangelization of Europe and the United States. The best estimates make the population of the Chinese empire four hundred and twenty-nine millions, and the population of Europe and America combined four hundred and sixty-two millions. This comparison of the population of China with that of Europe and America reveals in some measure the size of the task w r e have undertaken in that empire alone. Contemplate briefly the efforts which have been required to secure the evangelization and the partial Christianization of Europe and America.

i. Think of the number of men and women who have devoted their lives to the spread of the Gospel in Europe and the United States. There are 154,320 ministers of the Gospel in the United States today for a population of 85,568,159. In a word, there is one minister of the Gospel in the United States for every 554 of the population. There are in China in all the churches, substantially two thousand persons, including some women, engaged in the work of evangelization. This does not include the missionary physicians, or teachers, but it does include ordained Chinese preachers. This gives us one minister of the Gospel in China, including all ordained Chinese, for each 219,000 of the population. This perhaps is the fairest basis of comparison. In a word, we have three hundred and seventy-seven times as many ministers of the Gospel in the United States in proportion to the population as we have in the Chinese empire.

Including all active Christian workers in China, men and women, native and foreign, we have in the empire one minister, physician, teacher, or Bible woman for each 44,693 of the population; while in the United States we

Inadequate

Gospel

Agencies

United States in Comparison have a minister, teacher, or physician for each no of the population. In a word, we have four hundred and six times as many ministers, teachers, and physicians laboring for the transformation of the United States as we have in China, including native workers.

proportion of Omitting the native workers and not count- Missionaries .1 • r .-, ... 1 1

ing the wives of the ministers, teachers, and physicians, who are not counted in the United States, but including among the missionaries not only the ministers proper, but all men and women who have gone to China as missionary teachers and physicians, we have in the Chinese empire one missionary for every 156,428 persons as compared with one preacher, teacher, or physician for every no of the population in the United States, or fourteen hundred times as many in proportion to the population as in China. But putting the comparison in any one of the three forms we have in the United States from three hundred and seventy-seven to fourteen hundred times as many people laboring for Christ in proportion to the population as we have in the Chinese empire. The longer one dwells upon these facts, the more fully will he realize how pitiful are the resources, how few the agents placed at God's disposal for the evangelization of the heathen world as compared with the resources and agents employed in Christian lands.

Periods of Evangelization

With so few workers how and when can the church at home reasonably expect the evangelization of the human race?

2. In the element of time, it has taken nineteen hundred years for the Gospel to spread through Christendom. Counting twenty years as the period of service of Christian workers, the evangelization of Europe and the United States has required ninety-five generations of workers. Think of the number of men and women whose lifelong labors have been required during the last ninety-five generations to lead Europe and the United States with their 462,000,000 people to that state of Christian life which thus far they have attained. If we are to demand any similar period of time and any similar number of workers for the evangelization and the partial Christianization of the Chinese empire with almost equal population, a very large and heavy problem confronts the Christian church. When we enlarge our undertaking from the evangelization of the 429,- 000,000 Chinese to the enlightenment of the 900,000,000 of India, Africa, China, and the islands of the sea, the task becomes an appalling one.

3. Think of the money which is required even comparative to maintain the churches and to make the slight advances which we are able to make at home. It has been estimated that the members of

Expenditures the Methodist Episcopal Church alone give for all purposes some $40,000,000 a year — an average expenditure of over twelve dollars per member. If the same proportion is maintained by the other churches, the annual expenditure for all church and benevolent purposes is $4.25 for each man, woman, and child in the United States. Using the same ratio for Europe, the total expenditure made by governments and by individuals for the maintenance of religious and charitable institutions of Christendom would be $1,963,500,000 per year. It is safe to count the total expenditure for Christianity including churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, charity, etc., at $1,500,000,000 a year. Upon the other Contributions j ian( j w hen we return to the evangelization

for China ' . . -

of China, the Methodist Episcopal Church through the Parent Board, the Woman's Board, and private donors gives $250,000 a year for that purpose. True, this church is not alone responsible for the evangelization of China. But neither is this church alone responsible for the Christianization of the United States. From the statistics available we estimate the contributions of all the Protestant churches and Roman Catholic churches, combined, at approximately $2,000,- 000 per year for China. In a word, the expenditure for the United States and Europe is seven hundred and fifty times as much as the expenditure for the evangelization of China with almost as large a population.

Summing up the three factors which we have summing up thus far considered, we find that to evangelize the 462,000,000 of Europe and the United States and to maintain our Christian institutions in their present degree of efficiency, there were required 1900 years of time, ninety-five generations of evangelists, with the lives of millions of ministers, teachers, and lay workers, and at present an expenditure of one and a half billion dollars a year. Human nature remains much the same the world over. The Chinese are much the same as Europeans or the Americans, only they are a little firmer in devotion to their existing civilization and to their existing customs than are Americans. Enlarging our task so as to include all the unevangelized people on earth — more than double the number in China — surely the problem which confronts us is a discouraging one.

Moreover, Europe at the time of her evan- Chinese

,. -..--. , Solidarity

gelization was divided into more than two score nations, and the very rivalries of these countries led part of them to accept Christianity out of strife and to pour out their lives and money for its spread. At the time of the Reformation, for instance, certain nations poured out their money and blood like water for the propagation of the Protestant faith, and others made equal sacrifices for the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith, each of them making enormous sacrifices for the propagation of a branch of the church. So, "even through strife," as Paul wrote, the kingdom spread. But the Chinese are a compact people. They have one written language. They are dominated to a large extent by a single type of civilization. They constitute one great empire. Here, therefore, we attacked, not a divided people which could be conquered piecemeal and one part of which could be turned against the other part, as in Europe; we attacked a solid mass, pagan throughout. Looking at the problem from this point of view, the task was indeed an enormous one,

In addition is the difficulty of mastering the Chinese language. When one learns the twenty-six characters which constitute the English alphabet, so that he can recognize them at a glance, pronounce them at will, and write them readily, he can with the use of a dictionary read and write our language intelligently. A student twenty years old ought to master our alphabet in a day and be able to read and write in a few weeks. To learn Chinese, one must master a new character for every word which he acquires. Kang-hi's lexicon contains 44,449 Chinese characters. Fortunately less than a third of this number of characters appear in the current liter-

Language a

Barrier ature of the empire. Indeed I suppose one might claim to be a fair Chinese scholar who had mastered five thousand characters, although a native telegraph operator is required to master six thousand characters. These five thousand characters are exceedingly complex and exceedingly difficult to differentiate. Our "m" resembles our "n"; "u" resembles "w" ; "o" resembles "q," etc. Think of the infinitely minute variations which must be made in order to differentiate not simply twenty-six characters, but five thousand characters from each other. It requires a constant and almost an absorbing exercise of the memory to keep these characters differentiated in one's mind after they once have been mastered. Here, then, is an almost insuperable barrier to the conquest of Chinese civilization and to the winning of four hundred and twenty-nine millions. While no Difficulties of single language in India perhaps presents so great a barrier, our missionaries there are now preaching in thirty-seven different languages or dialects, and must master a hundred more in order to reach all her 300,000,000 people. In Africa we are obliged to create a written language out of an infinite variety of dialects for her 150,000,- 000 people. Similar barriers to these found in China, India, and Africa confront us in every mission field on earth.

Moreover, in attempting to overcome the most

Other Fields io God's Missionary Plan

Roman enduring pagan civilization ever produced we Abuses^ suffer in China, as in South America and Mexico, from the disadvantage of having Christianity misrepresented by the Jesuits. We must do the Roman Catholic Church the justice to say that John of Montecorvino translated the New Testament and the Psalms into Chinese and that thousands upon thousands of Chinese have caught through Roman Catholic teaching enough of Christ to enable them to die for him in times of persecution. Upon the other hand, the Jesuits, as indeed all orders of the Roman Catholic Church, believe in the union of church and state, and from the first have mixed in the political affairs of eastern nations. So notorious was Jesuit interference with the political affairs of Japan that the Japanese, like many European Jesuit Efforts na tions, were compelled to banish them from the and china empire. In 1898 the Jesuits induced the French government to secure from China by pressure a treaty granting to all Roman Catholic missionaries civil as well as ecclesiastical authority over their converts and conceding to foreign Catholic priests in the empire the rank of mandarins, or officials, and to the bishops the rank of viceroys. The Chinese government, in order to prevent too gross an abuse of civil power by the Catholic priests and also in order to treat all nations alike, offered the same privileges to Protestant mission-

The Divine Purpose n

aries. Through the good sense of these missionaries and the wisdom of their governments, this offer was declined and the Chinese were informed that in the leading nations of the West church and state are entirely separated. The granting of civil power to the French priests in China has increased the abuses which had already sprung up, and the French Catholic priests are continually using this civil power for the acquisition of property, and are insisting upon the civil as well as the ecclesiastical control of their converts. But the great mass of the Chinese no more distinguish between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians than people in America distinguish between a Cantonese and a Peking Chinese. Hence the Protestants are suffering and must suffer for years to come through the travesty of Christianity presented by the Roman Catholic officials.

A further difficulty, in this case peculiar to English China, arises from the fact that even Protestant- ° pium War ism largely secured her entrance to the empire through the Opium War. That war and the continued introduction of opium into China through force by the English government are a blot upon the English flag. But it was the Opium War which opened to the missionaries the five leading ports of the empire, and gave us our foothold for the propagation of Christianity.

American Again, our work in China suffers humilia- Exciusion t j Qn |3 ecause Q f our American Exclusion Act.

This act is a plain violation of a solemn treaty made by us with the Chinese. The act is so humiliating in its terms that we dare not impose it upon Japan or any nation possessing military strength and spirit. I do not believe it wise or fair to admit the Chinese coolies to free and unrestricted competition with American laborers while the standard of living for the Chinese remains so much below that of the Americans. At any rate, if there is any wisdom in protecting manufacturers in America from foreign competition by tariffs, the same principle demands the protection of the workingmen. Fortunately the Chinese government on economic grounds and the Chinese people on religious grounds are opposed to emigration. China is largely agreed with the United States on the end to be reached. But the terms of the present law which exclude the Chinese by name are humiliating to Chinese self-respect, as similar terms would be humiliating to the pride of any other nation. If we would make the law mutual, forbidding any Chinese to come to America and engage in manual labor and any American to go to China and engage in manual labor, I think it would be acceptable to the Chinese. Surely with substantial agreement by both nations as to the end to be reached, American lawyers can frame a bill which shall not be so offensive in its terms. Besides, the exclusion law was for years enforced in a harsh and cruel manner. Fortunately, President Roosevelt has stopped this harsh enforcement of an offensive law. But the past harsh enforcement and the present terms of the law arouse the Chinese against Americans, and make Christian work in China more difficult and dangerous upon the part of all missionaries. Moreover, although the Chinese government is making an heroic effort to abolish opium, we must now deal with a people probably a quarter of whom are demoralized by the drug.

Once more, Protestant Christianity in China Taiping has suffered for more than a generation to some Rebellion extent from the odium of the Taiping Rebellion. Foreigners The rebellion was started by a young Chinese, who had had some slight contact with Christianity through one of our Protestant schools. He claimed that during an illness he received a vision of Jesus Christ. He later went to one of our Protestant missionaries and spent a few weeks with him, professing to seek to fit himself for the ministry of the Gospel, but fortunately was refused baptism because he demanded a guarantee of monthly wages following his baptism. This young man, Hung Sui-tseuen, while he was not received into any Christian Church, nevertheless conducted his agitation under the guise of a Christian, giving instruction in the New Testament and proposing to establish the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace upon earth, so that the very name of the rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, means the Great Peace Rebellion. Later he claimed to be a younger brother of Jesus Christ. Thus the name of Christ was used to sanction more horrible lust and plunder and butcheries in China than have disgraced the church in Europe. The rebellion spread throughout China and the loss of life by sword, famine, and pestilence during the thirteen years is estimated by the careful author of The Middle Kingdom at twenty million people. Finally, Christianity has suffered in China and in every other unevangelized land more than can ever be expressed, by the greed of some foreign traders, by the drunkenness of some foreign residents, by the injustice of some foreign governments in seizing territory, and by the lust of some visitors from Western nations finding shameful manifestation in the absence of home restraints and in the presence of heathen peoples. Embarrass- j n i n( ii a w hile the embarrassments have India not been the same, perhaps they have been

equally great. No one likes to be governed by others even though the despotism be benevolent. There is not the slightest doubt that English

African authority in India has tended to the decline of wars, famines, pestilences, and disorders among 300,000,000 people, and has set the Indian in the path of modern civilization. Upon the other hand, we believe that the imposition of alien authority upon the people of India is now causing much chafing upon the part of the young leaders; and, while aiding on the one side, is upon the other side a serious embarrassment to missions.

In Africa missionary effort is still more handicapped by the horrible cruelty which the United an lcaps States inflicted upon that continent in the American slave trade, in the yet unforgotten cruelties of the earlier English slave trade, in the present barbarities of the rum traffic, and the atrocities of the Congo government. In a word, we are seriously handicapped in our efforts for the evangelization of the world by the imperfect Christianity of the governments and the civilizations which Christians have thus far developed.

When we recall the countless numbers of the Ron of Chinese, the solidarity of the heathen civiliza- an d Evils tion which prevails among them, the difficulties of their language, the misrepresentation of Christianity by part of the missionaries in the exercise of civil authority, the disgrace of Protestant England in the Opium War, the embarrassment caused by the terms and enforcement of the i6 God's Missionary Plan

American Exclusion Act, the travesty of Christian civilization by the drunkenness and lust of some traders and travelers in the Orient, the greed and wickedness of foreign nations in seizing Chinese territory and exploiting China for commercial gain, the embarrassment of foreign domination in India, the devilish greed of slavery and rum in Africa, the abuse of civil and religious authority in South America, we must surely recognize that the battle of the ages is on for the redemption of these vast empires. Satan is making his last stand in order to save these vast populations from contact with the living Christ.

The cry of Possibly in what we have written above we imism ^^y seem to be contributing to the sentiment which many of the weaker members of our church already hold: possibly friends of missions will regret that we are presenting so dark a picture of the task which confronts the church. Indeed, the great majority of those who are not interested in missions say that the task is simply appalling, that we have more than we can do to take care of heathenism at home, that it is absolutely impossible for us to conquer China for Christ, and especially not only to conquer China, but India, and Africa, and the islands of the sea; that it is worse than useless for us to summon our people to such a quixotic and impossible task, and that our wisest course is to still the fanatics and leave heathen nations with the religions they have followed for centuries and devote our energies to the salvation of America. We can only say in response to this criticism that we have attempted to speak the truth and the whole truth without concealing or abating one jot or tittle for effect. The first condition of successful war is sitting down and counting the cost. We have only two words to add in correction of the false conclusions which the discouraged may draw from the facts presented above.

First, personally we do not summon a single Missionary soul to this task. The missionaries in foreign f^m"^"* fields are not the persons summoning the church at home to contribute men and money for the evangelization of the world. The churches at home are not the authorities summoning their members to make the tremendous sacrifices of men and money required to conquer the world for Christ. In a word, the summons is not ours. The summons was issued by Almighty God through his son Jesus Christ. All that any of us who are interested in missions pretend to do is simply to repeat the command : "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations/' If, therefore, you recoil before the summons, if you say it is a quixotic scheme which can never be carried out and which ought never to have been underi8 God's Missionary Plan

taken, put the blame where it belongs, back of the missionaries on the field, back of the Missionary Society at home, back of the churches at home, put the blame back on Jesus Christ; nay put it back upon Almighty God who sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to begin this enterprise ; fight out your battle with him. It was not the Methodist Episcopal Church, nor all Christendom combined, which issued the summons, but Jesus Christ himself who said: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation." The problem, therefore, is not a human problem. While sin is a human and Satanic act, and contradicts rather than reveals the divine will, nevertheless the possibility of sin was contemplated by God from the first and Christ was a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It is an immense relief to feel that while the problem is human in its origin, it is divine in the prevision of its possibility, and in the provision to meet it. infinite Our second word is this : Not only is the com-

Avaiiabie 8 man d God's, but the power is his also. The task is indeed appalling; but upon the other side are the resources of the Infinite. Put China with her countless millions, equaling the numbers in the United States and Europe combined, upon one side of the scale; recall again that it has taken ninety-five generations of Christian workers,

Whole World- Problem

1900 years of time, millions upon millions of lives and billions upon billions of dollars to bring Europe and America up to the point of civilization which we have thus far reached ; throw into the scale in which China rests India, Africa, Japan, and the islands of the sea ; raise the number of the unevangelized from four hundred millions up to nine hundred millions and face the Facing the whole world-problem on its quantitative side at once; remember, further, that we cannot separate evangelization from Christianization, that God will not let us rest even when we have carried the message of salvation to the last human being on earth, but that we must help transform the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and thus face the whole world-problem on its qualitative side at once. Now, put upon the other side of the scales, not our finite resources but the infinite resources of Almighty God, and if your soul has faith to catch the vision of the unseen, you will say: "Those that are for us are more than they that be against us." It is only as the problem drives us to God; it is only as the church hides in him, seeks from him wisdom and grace and power for the task, that there is the slightest hope of success. On the other hand, if we seek for the divine resources placed at our command, if we avail ourselves of the power of prayer, of the indwelling of the Spirit, of the consecration of men and women and money which the Holy Ghost will inspire, and above all, if we remember that he goes before us and will be with us even unto the end of the world, and that our task is not to conquer nine hundred millions for Christ or even Letting Christ a single soul, but simply to obey Christ and let Make the ^im ma i Ke j-ftg CO nquest, then the task becomes

Conquest A

an exceedingly simple one. If we reject any part of the commission, the task is indeed impossible ; but if we believe and obey every clause of the commission, the task is not only possible, but comparatively easy, because the commission is preceded by the assurance that all authority in heaven and earth is given to Jesus and followed by the promise that he will be with us to the end. "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you : and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."