Читать книгу The Call of the World; or, Every Man's Supreme Opportunity - William E. Doughty - Страница 7

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The Number and Growing Efficiency of Missionary Societies.—More than two hundred years ago Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and his colaborer Plütschau were ordained missionaries to India in the city of Copenhagen; and two years later, in 1707, at Tranquebar, the first Protestant Church of the non-Christian world was established in South India among the Tamil people. Later the great Schwartz and others carried on the work resulting in the founding of the missionary work of the present day in India.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were two important missionary organizations in Great Britain. On the continent the Lutherans and Moravians were struggling heroically in the carrying on of their missionary operations. There were scarcely more than a dozen missionary societies altogether in the whole world, either well established or just beginning. It was a very small and feeble list of organizations compared with that of the present day. The Edinburgh Missionary Conference reported that there were 994 missionary organizations in Christendom in 1910. These have nearly all come into existence within the century.

Among the indications of increased efficiency the following may be named:

1. Unity and Coöperation. It has been well said that "The three dominant notes of our time are unity, reality, and universality." That there is a growing spirit of unity in the home Church is illustrated by the way the mission boards are coöperating in the work of the interdenominational missionary movements, by the growing number of interdenominational training-schools for missionary candidates, and by organizations like the Home Missions Council and the Conference of Foreign Mission Boards in which there is interchange of ideas and plans and methods among the leaders of the home and foreign missionary activities.

Nowhere have Christian unity and practical coöperation made greater progress than in the foreign missions of American Churches. In several lands there are now conspicuous illustrations of the practical working of this spirit in the organization of union colleges, theological seminaries and training schools and in united campaigns of many different kinds.

In Korea a union hymnal was issued some time ago and the first edition of 24,000 copies was sold within the first few weeks. In this same land, in dividing the territory between the different missions, the Methodists and Presbyterians exchanged several thousand converts, and now, Korean Christians moving from a territory occupied by one mission into that occupied by another automatically transfer their membership to the other denomination.

2. The Science of Missions. Modern Missionary leaders are doing much to create an interest in and to develop the science of missions. The Edinburgh Conference took a great advance step when it appointed the Continuation Committee. This committee represents Christendom in making a scientific, continuous and united study of missions. The International Review of Missions, a quarterly magazine, is the Committee's organ for reporting investigations to the Christian world. The committee has appointed a number of commissions which are at work on the various problems of missions. Their reports from time to time are awaited with great interest.

3. The Principles of Strategy. There never has been a time in the history of the missionary enterprise when the principles of strategy in the promotion of missions were so well understood and applied as to-day.

The Edinburgh Missionary Conference called special attention to these strategic principles and pointed out how they apply to the evangelization of the world. The application of these principles is another evidence of the fact that the leaders of the Church are facing in a thoroughgoing way, not a fragment of the plans of Christ, but his total program for the world. Some of these principles are quoted here:

(1) "Accessibility, openness, and willingness to attend to the gospel message. During the past ten years the people of pagan Africa have been peculiarly ready to listen to the presentation of the facts and arguments of the Christian religion.

(2) "The responsiveness of the field. Korea and Manchuria are examples of nations in which the people of every community show readiness to yield to the claims of Christ when presented to them.

(3) "The presence or concentration of large numbers of people. Obviously, the Chengtu plain of the westernmost province of China, with its population of 1,700 to the square mile, or the densely populated valleys of the Ganges and lower Nile, should receive attention commensurate with the massing of the people.

(4) "Previous neglect. With a gospel intended for all mankind the policy of the Church should be influenced by the existence of any totally unoccupied field, like extensive tracts of the Sudan.

(5) "Conditions of gross ignorance, social degradation, and spiritual need. Christ came in a special sense to seek and to save that which was lost, and the history of the Christian Church has abundantly shown how the blessing of God has attended efforts to reach the most unfortunate and depressed classes and peoples, such as the Pacific Islanders, the outcasts of India, the lepers, and the aboriginal tribes of the East Indies.

(6) "As has already been made plain, the Church, while recognizing the importance of advancing along lines of largest immediate promise, should, under divine guidance, direct special attention to the most difficult fields of the non-Christian world. In the light of this principle, Moslem lands present an irresistible appeal to the Church.

(7) "The prospective power and usefulness of a nation as a factor in the establishment of Christ's kingdom in the world, and the probable weight of its example as an influence over other nations. Japan is especially fitted to become, in intellectual and moral matters no less than in material civilization, the leader of the Orient. This attaches transcendent importance to its attitude toward Christianity.

(8) "The principle of urgency should as a rule have the right of way; that is, if there is to-day an opportunity to reach a people or section which in all probability will soon be gone, the Church should enter the door at once; for example, if there is danger that the field may be preoccupied by other religions or by influences adverse to Christianity. Equatorial Africa in a most striking degree is just now such a battle-ground. It is plain to every observer that unless Christianity extends its ministry to tribes throughout this part of Africa the ground will in a short time be occupied by Mohammedanism."

Increase in the Number of Missionaries.—Not only does the expanding spirit of conquest express itself in organizations to extend Christianity, but also in the increasing number of lives that are dedicated to the service.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the missionary force was a mere handful. There was not one representative of the churches of North America anywhere in the non-Christian world. The Buddhist world and the Brahmin world were closed, and the millions of the Mohammedan world were practically untouched. The vast regions of South America and Africa were almost unknown. To-day there is an army of 24,000 missionaries, counting wives, or about 17,000 missionary families and single missionaries scattered over all the continents, and in almost every country of the world.

In North America the evidence of the growth of conviction regarding foreign missions is seen in the following record of the Student Volunteer Movement. In the report made by that Movement every four years the following facts appear:

Number of Volunteers Sailed
1898–1902	780
1902–1906	1,000
1906–1910	1,286

In the year 1911 the total reached was 410, indicating the fact that the goal of two thousand sailed volunteers for the quadrennium is not an impossible number to expect to see go out before the next convention in 1914.