One of the most interesting and significant features of the time is the rapid growth of the mission movement. In itself, it is surely full of the deepest interest to the Christian heart, the awakening of the Lord's people (though even yet but very partially,) to their responsibility to carry out His command to " preach the gospel to every creature." The results, too, have been striking proportionately to the effort made. The history is one full of stirring incident and power to arouse the deepest emotions. The work and the workmen call out our fullest sympathy, and demand our most earnest support ; and here our prayers at least can penetrate into all fields, unhindered by what may and must often limit cooperation of another kind. Alas! how much are we strangers to what is (in the main,) of Christ and for Him ! We know little, because we care so little ; and then, again, it is assuredly true that we care so little oftentimes because we know so little.
A singularly interesting book has been published in the last year,* from which some idea may be gained of how God has been moving within the last century to open the world to the blessed gospel of His grace, as well as, in some measure, of how He has moved in humiliation hearts to send the gospel into these open doors. *"The Crisis of Missions," by Rev. T. Person, D. D. This book may be had of Loizeaux Bros., 63 Fourth Ave., New York. Price, $1.25, post-paid.* It would be a pleasure to be able to transfer to these pages some sufficient extracts to induce others to get the book itself, or to convey to those who may not be able to do this a scanty outline of the story there so well and wisely told. Dr. Pierson may without reproach be styled an enthusiast upon his subject. Yet he one who expects no conversion of the world as the result of present evangelizing, but the speedy coming of the Lord Himself.
As to the conversion of the world, a few figures, culled from a pamphlet* issued about the same time with the book just mentioned, should demonstrate how little has the century almost passed (since Wm. Carey went to India) done to give any national hope in this direction. *"A Century of Missions and Increase of the Heathen," by Rev. Jas. Johnston, F.S.S.* The population of the world is set down in it as about 1,470,000,000. Of these, the Protestants number 135,000.000 ; the Greek church, 85,000,000 ; the Roman Catholics, 195,000,000. The total of Christendom is thus 415,000,000.
It does not need to argue how much, if we could ascertain the proportion among these of true Christians, these numbers would be reduced. Over against these 415,000,000 of professing followers of Christ (many, indeed, not even that, for what is the meaning in a census of the first class-Protestants ?) we must place 8,000,000 of Jews, 173,000,000 of Mohammedans, and 874,000,000 of heathen,-1,055,000,000 in all. "When Carey wrote his famous inquiry, in 1786, he estimated the Mohammedans at 130,000,000 and the Pagans at 420,000,000,- equal to 550,000,000. This would give an increase of 493,000,000. But as we have come to the knowledge of vast populations in Africa and the East which could not be even guessed at in Carey's time, we must largely increase his estimate, but I am not prepared at present to say to what extent. Of this, however, I am sure, that the actual increase during the hundred years is much more than the 200,000,000 at which I have put it."
As "results" of this century of missions, Mr. Johnston gives,–
"870,000 adults, converts from among the heathen, are now in full communion with the Church of Christ, as the result of Protestant missionary labors. These, with their families and dependents, form Christian communities scattered over almost every portion of the habitable globe; numbering, in the aggregate, at least 2,800,000 souls."
Thus, after a hundred years of missionary labor, we have 197,000,000 more of heathen to be reached by the gospel than when we began ! " It is enough to note the fact," adds Mr. Johnston, "and its bearing on the possibility of Christian missions, with their three millions of converts, overtaking the increasing one thousand millions of heathens and Mohammedans in the world." The italics are his own.
Other considerations make the outlook in this respect even more hopeless. The same writer adds,-
"It is full time that the Church of God looked this fact in the face, that no religion which had been formulated into a system, or is possessed of sacred books, has even been arrested in Us progress by our modern missions. Hindooism, Buddhism, and Islam not only stand their ground, they are yearly making proselytes by tens of thousands. For one convert from any of these systems, they gain thousands from the inferior races, which they are absorbing into their systems."
He qualifies this statement thus far, that- "It is true that Christian missions have made an impression on all these systems; many agencies have combined to unsettle the belief of Hindoos and Mohammedans, and it is no hyperbole to say that these systems of error have been shaken. But it depends upon the future of the Church's efforts whether the shaking is to lead to an awakening followed by a new lease of superstition and fanaticism, or to their overthrow. The shaking may not move the foundations of these systems, but, like the agitation of some chemical compounds, they may crystallize into new forms of error, more dangerous and deadly than the old."
To this last consideration the dechristianization of Christendom which is going on, spite of all real or apparent revivals, gives alarming force. We shall, however, speak of this, if the Lord will, at another time. It is enough to show here that the logic of facts is coming with irresistible force to demonstrate the truth of Scripture- that the world is not to be converted by present agencies. It has been indeed promised, and will be fulfilled, to Christ:"Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession ;" but how to be fulfilled is also declared to us :" Thou shall bruise them with a rod of iron ; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Ps. 2:9.)
If it were simply ignorance that had to be removed in the case of the heathen, then the light of Christianity might be counted on to dispel it. But it is not so ; else their condition would be more their misfortune than their sin. In fact, Christendom itself, but for the sovereign mercy of God, had before this returned into utter heathenism. We have come already through the dark ages of professing Christianity. Before our eyes, men are lapsing into a deeper darkness which the sure word of prophecy declares. When the glory of the Lord shall arise (as yet it will) upon Israel, "darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples." (Isa. Ix. 2.)
Yet this should not damp our zeal for the spread of the gospel, which the Lord's word directly enjoins, and with which His power will never be lacking. Results are not indeed what we would desire, and yet they are full of encouragement. Says Mr. Johnston once again,-
"The annual increase in mission converts averages, so far as we can learn, about six or eight percent., while the increase to the membership of the churches at home does not average one per cent, per annum."
In many places, the testing of the reality of the work also has been sufficiently severe ; as, for instance, in Madagascar ; and some of the most notable records of faithfulness and endurance in modern times have come to us from the mission fields.
Dr. Pierson's book will give, in a short compass, the best idea of what has been accomplished and what is accomplishing in this way. And one of the most striking facts he brings before us is the way in which God has, by His providence, been opening door after door to the divinely given faith that laid hold upon the command to publish the gospel as a sure pledge of power to go before and to accompany it. Who will not be moved at this record of one only of His marvelous doings among the Pacific islands?-
"Sixty years ago, the brig Thaddeus was nearing the Sandwich Islands, with the first missionaries to those habitations of darkness and cruelty, on board. Never was an enterprise, humanly speaking, more hopeless. Seventeen persons were going to these ten isles to evangelize them, to upheave the ocean, and flood them with the knowledge of the Lord:and against coast-barriers as formidable as ever the gospel encountered,- barbarism, sensuality, superstition, brutality. These people, lost to shame, went almost naked. Husbands had many wives, and wives had many husbands; and they exchanged as they would trade in any other commodity. Two-thirds of all the children died in infancy by the hands of their mothers, who would choke a babe, or bury it alive in the earth floor of the hut, to stop its crying. A nation of thieves, gamblers, drunkards, they sacrificed human beings as victims, and had neither science nor literature, however rude. Government was a farce; a taboo system made death the penalty for offenses so small that they might be committed without either will or knowledge; for a common man to allow his shadow to fall upon a chief, for instance, could be atoned for only as his head lay at the feet of that chief. No words can do justice to the moral and spiritual condition of those islands. It was a question whether such a people could be saved, even by the gospel; not a few doubted whether they were worth saving. Could yon expect the sea to sweep against such barriers and wash them away ? It would take a thousand years !
"But as the boat drew near the coast, Hopu, a native who, having found his way to this land and to Christ, was now going back, put off in a small boat for shore, and at once returning, swung his hat and shouted, 'Oohu's idols are no more!' God had gone before these pioneers. The old king was dead, the images of the gods all burned, and the first death-blow struck at the taboo system,-all this before the vessel's prow touched the beach. The missionaries wrote in their journal, ' Sing, 0 heavens, for the Lord hath done it !'
"Ah, yes, the island system was sinking, and the huge barriers subsiding; the sea need not change its level, but only move in upon the sinking land. And so in two years the missionaries began to give them a written language and literature. The first convert was Keopulani, the king's mother. Within four years, the Christian Sabbath and Ten Commandments were formally recognized by government; and so the work went on, until within fifty years the islands took their place with other Christian nations, and became themselves centers of gospel light for the darkness around."
This is only a sample, though a striking one, of how God has been working to remove hindrances and open doors within the century past. At the beginning of it, " there was little or no access to the great nations of the heathen world. China was walled about, Japan's ports were sealed, India was held by an English power hostile to missions, Africa impenetrable even to the explorer, and the isles of the sea crowded with cannibals more to be dreaded than the devouring waves of the angry ocean." Mohammedanism made death the penalty of change of faith; and " there was less hope of proper missionary work among Roman Catholics than among Polynesian cannibals." Beside all this, "tediously slow travel and transportation made neighbors foreigners; languages, strange and hard to master, hindered even converse and communication, and, formed in the matrix of heathenism, offered no mold for spiritual ideas; moreover, at least sixty such tongues must be reduced to writing, having no literature, nor even lexicon, nor grammar." Woman, again, among these nations, was secluded, degraded, and "denied all social status and individual rights, and even a soul. Worst of all, caste, that gigantic foe of human progress, forbade not only conversion, but communion among converts."
These are but some of the external hindrances that existed. It is most interesting to see how largely, and in what manner these difficulties have been overcome. With the exception of one country-Thibet, soon likely to throw clown its barriers with the rest, the whole world is now accessible to missionary labor ; and here and there peoples, themselves evangelized, are helping to send out the gospel to others. The Bible is in almost every tongue, and the number of those who offer themselves for missionary labor is so increased that means are lacking to send them out.
No doubt, if we look at the work and its methods, there are many things that hinder full and unalloyed satisfaction. Yet who but must own that God has been working, and wonderfully working? Who but must be reminded of the words, "The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come"? Far off, assuredly, the end cannot be; and this going out of the gospel to the ends of the earth is, among so many signs, not the least. But not only in this way,-not only as onlookers,-should we be interested in it. It is Christ's work,-it is the proclamation of His dear name, that as such calls for our fellowship. How far behind are we, most of us, in this respect! And how often do we allow blemishes in the work to take away our interest in it, when they should rather stir our hearts to intercession and greater fervency of prayer in its behalf ! "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints!" Alas ! how little we do this ! How little are we able to lift ourselves out of the circle of our own horizon to link ourselves with what is dear to Christ upon earth !
Henceforth we may, if the Lord will, often return to look at features and details of the mission work, and in the meanwhile would recommend warmly Dr. Pierson's book, as a most helpful introduction to, and a means of engaging a more intelligent and practical interest in it.