Some by-products of missions

Preface

Some three or four years ago I began speaking on the influence of missions as a factor in the civilization of the world, holding that outside of all religious considerations missions had justified themselves by their influence in the government, the education, the science, the health, the wealth, and the trade of the world. Persons who were interested in the method of the presentation of the subject were still inclined at times to say, ' ' But this is not mission work. ' '

I was willing to admit that it was not, and yet I insisted that it was a product of mission work. In traveling about the country I was taken to visit various great enterprises, and was shown their products, but was told that a larger proportion of their income was a result of their by-products than of their direct products, and it one day popped into my head that all these things that I had been thinking of as the products of missions were in reality but

4 PREFACE

by-products. The products of missions are regenerated human beings, while all these other things are simply by-products, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the result of mission work.

There are those of my friends who have thought that I gave the gospel too much credit for our Western — I will not say Christian — civilization. That it is the result of Greek and Eoman pre-Christian forces, all of which I have considered in my thinking, and have accorded them their place; but I believe that, after all credit is given to all other influences, it is still the power of regeneration, the method of obtaining which Jesus Christ communicated to His followers, that best accounts for it all.

I have called the book "Some By-products of Missions ' ' because I have only touched upon a few of the great subjects that might be treated under this head. Dr. Barton, from whom I have quoted in several of my chapters, published a few months ago an interesting series of articles in the Misisonary Herald, under the title "By-Products of Foreign Missions." In these he treated of "Industrial Advance," "New Social Order," "Blunted Sense of Ke-

PREFACE 5

sponsibility, " ''Co-operation and Unity," "Modern Medicine in the East," "A New Commerce, " " Modern Education, ' ' etc., all of which, and many others, might properly be taken up under this head. May I not hope that many of my readers will take up other lines of thought and call the attention of the people to the direct as well as the indirect influences of Christianity in the development of all phases of modern progress?

I make no apology for publishing the book, as I have been asked by the publishers to write it, and repeatedly urged the past two years to put my thoughts into print. The chapters as they stand were given to the theological department of Boston University, and my only hope is that they may be as kindly received by the public as they were by the students.

I. T. H.

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. An Age of By-Products, . . .11

II. By-Products in Government, . 15