02 - The Challenge of a Great Task
CHAPTER II. THE CHALLENGE OF A GREAT TASK
One of the best tests of the measure of a man is in his relation to great forces and opportunities and tasks. A small man will either be unconscious of their presence and significance, or will be overwhelmed by them, and therefore inactive or inefficient. On the other hand a man who is really alive will rejoice that it is given to him to relate himself to life’s greatest forces and opportunities and tasks.
It would be difficult to conceive of any combination of human and divine energies, of golden opportunities and inspiring tasks, comparable with those centering in the world-wide propagation of Christianity. In our day more men are undertaking with relentless courage the whole program of Christ than ever before, notwithstanding its immensity, its bewildering complexity, and its taxing difficulty. The first long step toward a solution of the missionary problem is this willingness to face the total issues involved without reserve and without fear. The following pages present a condensed and swift survey of the unfinished task of the Church of Christ. The size of the task is sketched in its bold outlines. In this chapter is heard the cry that is flung out across the world to every Christian man. It is a cry of neglect and need, of urgency and crisis, the united voice of multitudes among whom the forces of the new age are battling for mastery. The limits of the chapter make it impossible to discuss many important features of the missionary task, such as the social evils of the non-Christian world, the inadequacy of the vast religious systems to meet the deepest needs of mankind, the strength of the customs of centuries, and many more. The reader is referred to the books listed at the close of this chapter for a discussion of these elements of the problems. These pages will give but a glimpse of the task but enough surely to strike a high note of summons to every man to whom Christ is indispensable to make Christ known to all other men in the world to whom he is also indispensable. The Unity of the Race.—In this survey it will be of great value to remember that God “made of one every nation of men” (Acts 17:26). The unity of the race is a great and solemnizing truth. Men can not be classified by the color of their skin or their language. It is impossible for a scientist to tell the difference between the blood of an Arab, a Chinese, and an Englishman. Sin is not a heathen characteristic, it is a human characteristic. If the gospel had gone eastward instead of westward civilization would have traveled that way. As we speak about the backward races let us remember that the chief difference between them and us is that we have Christ and they have him not.
Explanation of Terms.—It is essential that the meaning of three terms which are current in the literature and discussion of missions be understood before we proceed. These terms are, the evangelization of the world, the naturalization of Christianity, and the Christianization of the world. What do these terms mean, and whose task is indicated by each? The Evangelization of the World.—This phrase means the giving of every person in the world an adequate opportunity to know and receive Jesus Christ. This is the present and urgent task of all Christians. It is a universal obligation organic in the gospel. By this we do not mean simply giving the message of Christ once in the hearing of all men. That is not adequate. There must be repeated instruction in the gospel, until the need of Christ is made clear and influence brought to bear upon the will so that an intelligent decision to accept and follow Christ is made possible. Many will reject the message, no doubt, but the responsibility of Christians to any man is not discharged until that man has had opportunity to know and receive Jesus Christ. Wherever there are belated countries and races, or religions that do not meet the deepest needs of mankind, wherever there is no adequate opportunity to enjoy the deliverance from sin, the freedom, the intelligence, the purity, the safety, the justice and equality, the rewards of honest labor, which the gospel of Christ brings, it is the duty of those who possess all these to pass them on to others. The Naturalization of Christianity.—By the naturalization of Christianity in a country is meant the permanent planting of the Christian Church and Christian institutions in that land. When a foreigner becomes a naturalized American he must meet certain educational and financial requirements and take the oath of allegiance to the United States, in return for which he is guaranteed the privileges and rights of citizenship. The process of Americanization is not completed by this act of naturalization; it is only well begun. Many years are required to thoroughly assimilate the spirit of our institutions and life. Naturalization is a first not a final process, Americanization is the goal.
Christianity may be said to be naturalized in a land when the native Church has reached the point where it is capable of governing and supporting itself and of completing the work of evangelizing the country. Therefore the naturalization of Christianity is the joint task of the foreign missionary and the native Christian Church. In the process the foreign missionary must decrease, as the native Church increases. The Christianization of the World.—This involves the application of the principles of the gospel to the total life of mankind. In a strict sense this is not yet true in any country. There are of course many countries where the evangelization of the people is being vigorously carried out and the naturalization of Christianity is without question; but the complete redemption of society is not yet a fact. This final stage in the missionary enterprise is the task of the native Church in each land. There will still be fellowship with the Church in all lands and interchanges of ideas and service. There will no doubt be greater unity than ever, but the final responsibility rests with the naturalized Church in each land to complete the Christianizing task.
While the definitions given must not be interpreted too strictly, since the processes overlap and there is no absolutely sharp line of distinction between them, in general it is true that it is the duty of each generation of Christians to evangelize its own generation; it is the joint duty of Christendom and the native Church to naturalize Christianity in every land and among all races, and it is the task of the native Church in each land to press with all possible urgency the Christianization of the country. Evangelization and naturalization are the immediate aim: Christianization the final aim of the Church of Christ in the world.
I. AMERICA’S HOME PROBLEM A primary missionary obligation is to purify the fountains out of which the missionary streams flow. Unless there is a genuine Christian civilization in America the impact of America on the non-Christian world will not be life-giving. As Dr. Love well says, in The Mission of Our Nation:
“The man who minimizes the importance of any department of missions leaves himself without ground for the strongest appeal for any department of missions.
“We shall never be able to develop a great conscience concerning any one department of our missionary work, except we develop a great conscience concerning it all.
“Though he may not think so himself, a man whose appeal is wholly for foreign missions may be as truly provincial as one who is all for home missions, for his field does not comprehend the whole world.” No man who has candidly studied the home problems in Canada with all their significance to the future of the Dominion, and the splendid way in which the Canadian leaders are seeking to solve those problems can talk lightly of the task there. The total immigration to Canada in 1910-11 was the largest in its history,—311,084. While the large majority were from England and the United States, the total included representatives of 64 nationalities. The Bible has been called for in 110 languages in the Dominion. There are about 900,000 Protestant Church members out of a total population of 7,200,000. The Catholic Church claims 2,538,374 members. There are about 3,000,000 French Canadians. Montreal has 70,000 foreigners; Winnipeg, 50,000. There are 12,000 Orientals in Vancouver. The great western provinces have all the problems of the frontier.
Looking at the situation in the United States we are confronted with the fact that there are 34,796,077 people over ten years of age who are outside the membership of all the churches. That in itself constitutes an enormous spiritual opportunity and responsibility. Tens of thousands of these people are unreached because the Church has not seriously attempted to reach them. Recent investigations have shown that thousands of our country churches are entirely abandoned, and that in large rural sections the rising generation is practically deprived of all religious training. Until America solves its rural and city church problems, it will be greatly handicapped in its world-wide missionary operations.
There are certain neglected and overlooked groups in American life, such as the Mountaineers of the South. Concerning these sturdy Southerners, who are serving an altogether too long apprenticeship, and who have remained in isolation while modern progress has rushed by them, W. G. Frost says, “I expect to see the mountain regions of the South as peculiar a joy and glory to America as old Scotland is to Great Britain.” The Mormon menace is appalling. Every citizen should read Bruce Kinney’s Mormonism, the Islam of America, and then do his part to eradicate this evil from the land.
Several millions of illiterate Negroes sorely need education and Christianity if the civilization of the country is to be safe. Progress in the solution of these problems has been great, and the Churches are addressing themselves to the task with growing conviction and power. The loudest call to missionary devotion in the United States is presented by the unprecedented tides of immigration from all corners of the globe. While Canada is feeling this pressure in an unusual degree, the magnitude of the problem in the United States is much greater, not only because of the great numbers but also because of the character of the immigration. The sheer size of the task may be made concrete by comparing the numbers of people who have come to the United States in the last few years with some of the other great migrations of history. The leading of the children of Israel out of Egypt was one of the outstanding movements of a great population in ancient history. According to the census figures in Numbers i. 46, there were 603,550 men of twenty years of age and upwards. Some were heads of families but many of these were single men, so that, if we multiply the number given in the Bible by five, it will probably give the approximate number of the entire population, or 3,017,750. In the last ten years nearly three times as many people have come to America as the number Moses led out of Egypt. Furthermore, immigrants to America are not all of one race as in the case of Israel, but represent a Babel of races and languages.
[Illustration: RELIGIOUS CENSUS OF THE UNITED STATES
SHOWING PROPORTION OF THE POPULATION REPORTED AS PROTESTANT, ROMAN CATHOLIC, AND “ALL OTHER” CHURCH MEMBERS, AND PROPORTION NOT REPORTED AS CHURCH MEMBERS FOR EACH STATE AND TERRITORY. PUBLISHED BY THE UNITED STATES CENSUS BUREAU] The hordes of barbarians which overwhelmed Rome have left a mark on Europe that can never be forgotten. The size and vigor of the movement made a profound impression which history cannot outgrow, and yet Genseric, one of the greatest of their leaders, never had more than 80,000 warriors in his palmiest days.
There have been great successive waves of immigration into China and India from the plains and the mountains of the north and east, but so far as we have knowledge of the numbers they dwindle into comparative insignificance when measured by this greatest of all invasions. The numbers involved in the Norman Conquest of England would hardly make a ripple on the sea of races and populations crowding to American shores. The Crusades stand out as epoch-making and unparalleled up to that time in the number of nations disturbed. They covered a period of more than a century and a half and involved several millions of people, but more men, women, and children from other lands have come to the United States and Canada in the last six years than swept across the face of Europe in a century and a half in the Crusades. To assimilate and Christianize these multitudes is one of the supreme tests of the reality of our faith and the vitality of our national life. The glory of immigration is fourfold:
1. God has written much history in terms of migratory peoples. It is the impatient, unsatisfied, vigorous peoples that have made the history of the world. If the meaning of the past is correctly interpreted, then the blending of these races together on a Christian basis into one united people is America’s superlative opportunity to make history.
2. Immigration is compelling America to study the languages, the history, the achievements, the religions, and the characteristics of these multitudes of people. Such study is imperative in order that America may adequately bear to the incoming millions the deepest message of her religion and her Western institutions. This fact in itself furnishes an intellectual and moral task of transcendent importance. On this continent the modern gift of tongues must be given if America fails not her Christ.
3. Immigration is leading millions to study the English tongue. This is of great importance if the multitudes of future Americans are to understand and appropriate the principles of democracy and Protestantism enshrined in English literature. The German and Scandinavian and other tongues will contribute to America the best they possess, while at the same time they are themselves greatly enriched.
4. The mingling races are challenging America to demonstrate the truth of those principles of freedom and democracy of which such proud boast has been made in days gone by. The principles of democracy can scarcely be thoroughly and finally tested among people who are of the same race and have a common speech and who have a more or less common purpose. Democracy can be adequately tested only amid the complexities of race and clan, of diverse speech and history. These principles of democracy have never been literally applied in any large way yet, but one of God’s greatest challenges to the manhood of the United States and Canada to-day is that literal application of the principles of democracy shall be made to the whole population gathered within their vast domains. Here is a call for statesmanship and spiritual passion worthy of the finest life America has produced.
[Illustration: SIZE OF PARISHES AT HOME AND ABROAD Figures Give the Number of People to Each Protestant Minister] II. MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA These lands lying to the south are America’s nearest foreign missionary field. In each case in which the number of missionaries is mentioned in this volume, unless otherwise stated, it may be understood to include all missionaries, both men and women, except wives of missionaries. This is thought to be fair, not because missionaries’ wives are not as devoted as their husbands or other workers, but because it is not to be expected that a woman with household cares should be responsible for the same amount of direct Christian work that is expected of other workers on the field. In other words, the family or the single worker is considered the unit. The people in Mexico are nominally Roman Catholic, the census returns showing thirteen and a half millions of that faith. Conditions are difficult for Protestant missions. The population of Mexico is more than fifteen millions. Among these millions there are 249 representatives of Protestant Christianity. In 1895 more than ten millions in Mexico could neither read nor write, and while conditions have improved somewhat since then, it is safe to say that seven out of every ten of the population are illiterate. In Central America, including Panama, there are 96 missionaries.
These simple facts will illustrate the truth that there are still parts of the North American continent inadequately cultivated by the Protestant churches.
III. SOUTH AMERICA The South American lands are nominally Roman Catholic. They know considerable of the phraseology of Christianity, but its vital truth has not been largely realized. Here are seven million square miles of opportunity which call loudly for the Christian application of the Monroe doctrine. While the majority of the people are of European blood (if we do not count the unknown numbers of millions of Indians), every principle of justice indicates North America’s obligation to hasten the redemption of South America. These lands followed the example of the United States in adopting the republic as their ideal of government. They have not hitherto enjoyed our religious freedom along with our republican form of government. Free government cannot be fully and permanently enjoyed by any people without actual religious liberty. Freedom of conscience produces the intelligence and virtue essential to a democracy. The South American lands have lacked such freedom. This in itself constitutes a real challenge to the faith of North American Christians. A brief glimpse of two or three of the lands will indicate the character of the problem a little more clearly.
Brazil, the greatest of the South American lands, about 2,700 miles in extent from east to west and fully the same from north to south, with an area nearly as great as the entire continent of Europe, has, according to the Statesman’s Year Book, a population of more than twenty-three millions or nearly one half of the population of the continent. Its great forests and mineral wealth are but little used. According to the World Atlas of Christian Missions, there is but one Protestant mission station near the mouth of the Amazon River and not a single missionary in all the vast territory through which that river and most of its tributaries flow. Algot Lange, who has spent many months exploring the Amazon Basin, says there are 373 tribes speaking a variety of languages in the Amazon territory. These are practically all unreached by the gospel. The mission stations are scattered along the coast with very few in the interior. The majority of the missionaries are within three or four hundred miles of Rio Janeiro. Eighty-five per cent. of the population is reported illiterate.
Bolivia, which is fourteen times as large as the State of New York, has only sixteen workers, counting wives, so that each worker in Bolivia has a parish larger than the entire State of Pennsylvania. The same proportion would give five workers to the Province of Quebec. Since these words were written however a party of three new missionaries sailed from New York to enter this field. The Argentine Republic is the most advanced and prosperous country of South America. It has, according to figures given by Mr. Robert E. Speer at the Rochester Student Volunteer Convention, a per capita export three and a half times as great as the United States, one hundred and twenty times as great as the Chinese Empire and the total exports were nearly equal to those of the entire continent of Africa. The Argentine Republic has but one worker to every 8,737 square miles. The illiteracy of this, the most enlightened land of South America,
Looking at the problem in the large, there is in South America a population of approximately 49,000,000. In the whole continent there are only 881 Protestant missionaries. If we omit the wives of missionaries from the calculations this gives to each worker a population of 83,050 and a field of 12,450 square miles, or more than nine times the size of Rhode Island.
New York State has 42,558 primary and high school teachers. If we omit the teachers in the two lands farthest north in South America; namely, Venezuela and Colombia, New York has as many teachers as all of the South American continent. The illiteracy of the United States, even including all those who cannot read or write among immigrants and Negroes, is only 10.7 per cent., while the lowest per cent. of illiteracy in any country in South America
It would perhaps be a fair estimate to say that at least three out of four people in the South American lands live where they will probably not hear the message of Christ from Protestant missionaries in any adequate way in this generation unless the Church greatly multiplies its missionary agencies in South America.
IV. AFRICA There are three Africas, each with its difficult problems.
Christian Africa is at the southern end of the continent where live nearly five and one-half million people. This is more nearly evangelized than any other portion of the continent. Some notable Christian leaders have been developed in South Africa, of whom the Rev. Andrew Murray is one of the most widely known. In Abyssinia is the old Coptic Church which is without much real Christian life.
Pagan Africa comprises the greatest solid mass of paganism on the earth.
Mohammedan Africa numbers at least forty millions of population spread over the vast regions from the Equator to the Mediterranean Sea. With the exception of Abyssinia, Liberia and Sierra Leone, practically the whole of North Africa is under the sway of the false prophet and even in the lands mentioned the pressure of Mohammedan invasion is rapidly growing more severe. The intellectual task on this educational frontier of the world is indicated by the fact that there are 843 languages and dialects on the continent. The Edinburgh Conference estimated that in Pagan and Mohammedan Africa combined there are a hundred millions of people without a written language or even an alphabet of their own. On the whole continent of Africa there are 3,244 missionaries, each with a parish of 3,614 square miles and 46,239 people. There is only a handful of missionaries to guard 3,000 miles of Mediterranean coast from Egypt to Gibraltar. From Khartum to Uganda, along the rich Nile valley, a distance of 1,000 miles, there are about a dozen missionaries. As far as the proportion of missionaries to population is concerned, Africa is much better supplied than Asia, yet in Africa there are five great blocks of territory which are unoccupied and other areas with missionaries only around the fringes or reaching only a small fraction of the people. These areas are irregular in shape and the lines bounding them have been drawn so as to exclude all mission stations. Some of the people in them no doubt are hearing the gospel, but there are no resident missionaries in any of them, according to the maps of the World Atlas of Christian Missions. The smallest of these five unoccupied areas is in Portuguese and German East Africa. It is four times the size of the State of New York. A second near the west coast, south of the equator, has three times the extent of New England. The third near the west coast, south of the equator, would make eight States as large as Iowa. In Iowa there are at least 4,000 ordained ministers, to say nothing of other Christian workers, but in this block of territory, eight times as large as Iowa, there is not a single ordained missionary.
Another region, some distance north of the one just mentioned, without missionaries, is 1,500 miles long and 500 miles wide.
Last of all, if we omit the mission stations on the Nile and a few scattered workers around the fringes, there is in the upper half of the continent a block of territory nearly as large as the United States but with a scattered population estimated at fifteen millions, without resident missionaries. Starting from the Nile River, 1,000 miles from its mouth, a traveler could go directly westward through the heart of the continent nearly three thousand miles before reaching the next mission station on the west coast. If he started at the mouth of the Sobat River, about 2,000 miles from Cairo, the nearest mission station to the west is 1,500 miles away, in Northern Nigeria. In all those weary miles there is not a single church spire pointing toward the stars or a home where a missionary family lives.
Taking the continent as a whole, there are at least fifty millions of people who are not only entirely outside the reach but even of the plans of any missionary society now at work on the continent.
V. ASIA In Asia live more than one half of the human race. Accepting the figures of the Statesman’s Year Book, the population of the world is 1,698,552,204. The population of Asia is given as 958,781,233. Of every hundred people in the earth fifty-six live in Asia. Of these fifty-six, forty-three out of every hundred live in China and India. Asia as a whole has 9,013 workers, according to the World Atlas of Christian Missions, each having an average parish of 1,781 square miles, containing an average of 106,377 people. Let us survey the continent, “beginning from Jerusalem.”
1. The Near East.—The Asiatic Levant, or Near East includes Turkey, Persia, and Arabia. This territory has an area of 2,381,310 square miles and a population of a little more than thirty-four millions. This region where Christ was born and wrought his mighty works is to-day in desperate need of his message and life.
(1) Turkey has an area of 693,610 square miles, and is therefore more than eighty-six times the size of Massachusetts. This great area has only 2,836 miles of railroad, while Pennsylvania with one fifteenth its area has 15,415 miles. Turkey includes Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, Syria, and a portion of Arabia. Turkey has a population of 17,683,550, fourteen millions of whom are Mohammedans and the rest divided among Christian churches; a majority of these are in Asia Minor and Armenia. There are only 354 missionaries, including wives, in all Turkey. The Mohammedan population is practically untouched, since a majority of the missionaries for political and other reasons have devoted comparatively little of their time to them.
(2) Persia is nearly as large as Turkey but has not more than one half of the population. The country extends about 700 miles north and south and 900 miles east and west. Millions of the people are difficult of access because Persia has only six miles of railroad, and political conditions have been unfavorable to missionary effort. This railroad was opened in 1888, and since that time no other railroads have been built. Not only are there no railroads but only a few good carriage roads. Twelve of these cities have a population ranging from thirty thousand in Kashan to two hundred and eighty thousand in Teheran, the capital. Four of the large cities have not been occupied by missionaries. There are eighty-four missionaries for the more than nine and a half millions of population.
(3) Arabia includes a territory 1,500 miles long by 1,200 miles wide. Much of this country is only partially explored. The eight millions of population are almost all Mohammedans. Of the six provinces only three are occupied by missionaries, and in the coast-line of 4,000 miles there are workers in only four centers—Aden, Muscat, Bahrein, and Busrah, and not one in the interior. Along the 1,500 miles of Red Sea coast from Suez to Aden, passing the Sinai Peninsula and the forbidden city of Mecca on the way, there is not one missionary. From Aden to Muscat is a journey of nearly 1,500 miles, from there to Bahrein is 550, and Busrah is 400 miles further on. The judgment of the Edinburgh Conference was that at least six of the eight millions are beyond the reach of the present missionary force. Unless there is adequate response in Christendom six millions of our fellow beings in this one land must lie down and die without a knowledge of Christ.
2. Central Asia.—Between the Near East and the Far East is Central Asia. The lands located here are comparatively little known, and in part unexplored. They have an area of 2,700,000 square miles, nearly as great as the United States. Out of this area we could carve fifty-two Englands, or nearly eight provinces the size of British Columbia, or twenty-four countries as large as Italy. The population is quite dense in the oases and along the rivers, but in other parts widely scattered, so that the numbers are not nearly so great as in the countries with which its geographical area has been compared. There are, however, 23,368,000 people. We have here a bewildering array of races and languages. The most important of these lands are Afghanistan, Chinese Turkestan, Tibet, and Russian Turkestan. The entire region is overwhelmed by the intellectual stagnation and moral rottenness of Mohammendanism, except Tibet, which is the stronghold of Lamaism, a corrupt form of Buddhism. In all this region there are only three mission stations, and not a physician or hospital anywhere. It
Afghanistan is unoccupied by Christian missions. Fanaticism and hatred of Christ hold sway everywhere. According to Dr. S. M. Zwemer, 94 per cent. of the people are illiterate. Mohammed has swept the field. Only fearless workers can win this land.
Tibet is still the Gibraltar of the non-Christian world, and although a line of missionary outposts is drawn around it, in one place there is a gap of 1,500 miles between stations.
3. India.—India is the burning heart of Asia. It has a genius for religion unsurpassed in the world.
India has been called the Mother of Religions. Of the four great faiths which were born in Asia, two came from India.
India is a menagerie of races and languages. According to the Edinburgh Conference Report there are 147 languages in India. Some of these are spoken by only a few people, but there are ten languages, each of which is spoken by ten millions or more. The census of 1911 gives the population of the country as 315,132,537. Of every hundred people in the world eighteen live in this one land. Among them there are two hundred and seventeen millions of Hindus, more than sixty-six and a half millions of Mohammedans and 3,876,196 Christians. There are ten millions of Buddhists in Burma. George Sherwood Eddy says there are four and one-half millions of mendicants or holy men. These figures are all the more startling when it is recalled that the holy men outnumber the Christians by several hundred thousand. The caste system makes India one of the most difficult mission fields in the world. There are 2,378 principal castes and tribes, but all these are subdivided so that there are 100,000 caste divisions in India and no two of these can intermarry. The Brahmins have 886 sub-castes. Of the 144,000,000 women, in 1901, according to the Statesman’s Year Book, there were 26,000,000 widows, or one in six. On account of the fact that they are not allowed to remarry and other hard social conditions their lot is pitiable indeed. Of these widows it is reported there are 115,285 under ten years of age, 19,487 under five, and 1,064 under one year of age.
India has only 3,555 newspapers and periodicals of all kinds, while the United States with less than one third the population has more than six times as many. Only about five out of each hundred people can read or write. Of 39,000,000 children of school age, 28,000,000 are growing up without schooling.
India has 5,200 missionaries, counting wives, or one to every 60,293 of the population. If wives are not counted, each worker has a parish of 93,901. The preamble of the constitution adopted by the National Missionary Society of India two years ago, states that only one third of India has been reached by missionaries and that one third only partially. There are whole districts, densely populated, where there is no missionary, and in some not even a native Christian. In the Bombay Presidency it is reported that there are thirty districts, each with a population of over 50,000, in not one of which is there a missionary or a native worker. In Sind there are 3,000,000 people and only three mission stations in the province. “In northern Bengal,” says George Sherwood Eddy, “there is only one missionary to every two million of the population.” The problem of determining the exact situation for the whole of India was so complex that the Edinburgh Conference was not able to give a definite statement regarding even the approximate number of people who are not reached, but considering all the facts it seems a fair estimate to say that there are living to-day in India at least 150,000,000 people largely untouched, none of whom can hope to know of Christ unless the force of missionaries and native workers is greatly increased.
4. Bhutan and Nepal.—These two wholly unoccupied states north of India are usually overlooked, yet Bhutan has a population of 250,000, and Nepal, which is not quite as large as Michigan, has five millions of people, or twice as many as there are in that State.
5. French Indo-China.—This portion of Asia is six times as large as New York, with a population of about sixteen and a half millions. Roman Catholics are allowed in all parts of French Indo-China. In all this region there are but two Protestant mission stations, one in Annam and one in Laos. Except in the two missions mentioned, there is not a hospital or even a physician or trained nurse in the whole territory. The attitude of the government has been unfriendly to missionary effort. Vast populations are absolutely ignorant of Christ and his gospel. No Protestant mission work is carried on in Cambodia, Cochin-China, or Tongking.
6. Japan.—Everyone who has studied the geography of Asia has been impressed with the strategic geographical position of Japan. This line of islands circling the seacoast of Asia from Siberia to southern China is truly the gateway of the Orient. The Japanese Christians and some of the missionaries have strongly advocated independence and also the union of the Christian forces.
Many think that Japan is largely evangelized, but one fact will make it clear that this is an erroneous idea. Half of the population of Japan are farmers and have scarcely been touched at all. It will be readily seen why this is so when it is stated that 60 per cent. of the missionaries are in eight cities, Tokyo alone being the headquarters of 279 of the total of 1,029 missionaries in the Empire. These figures include wives.
7. Korea.—This land, only slightly larger than Kansas, was closed to foreign influence until twenty-five years ago. It has a population of approximately twelve millions. There are 307 missionaries, including wives, two fifths of them in the south, in one fourth of the area of the country. Korea is a conspicuous example of an entire nation divided up among the missions at work in it. That division is now complete, and the eight denominations having representatives in the country each have a clearly defined territory. Responsibility for every foot of soil is definitely assigned, although millions of the Koreans have not yet had the gospel preached to them in an adequate way.
8. China.—This is the world’s newest and largest republic. Bishop Bashford’s statement is no doubt true that the greatest compliment ever paid to the United States in its history was when the leaders of China’s new era accepted its form of government as their model.
According to the Statesman’s Year Book, the population of the Chinese Empire is 433,533,030, with an area of 4,277,170. If we omit India alone there are more non-Christians here than in all the rest of the world. According to the World Atlas of Christian Missions there are at present in China 4,197 missionaries of all classes. This gives a total of 103,300 people and a parish of 1,018 square miles to each missionary. All the provinces and, except Tibet, all the dependencies have some mission stations, yet there are great populations which are yet unreached.
Let us look at two or three sections of the problem.
Sin Kiang has thirty-eight walled cities, but there are missionaries in only two of these cities.
Mongolia, twenty-four times the size of the State of Iowa or six times as large as the Province of Ontario, has but ten missionaries. One’s heart is deeply moved as thought goes back to the time when Gilmour began his heroic labors in Mongolia. When he came within sight of the first native hut he fell upon his knees and thanked God for a redeemed Mongolia. In our time there is need of a thousand Gilmours with the same daring of faith and uttermost devotion of life to carry the gospel message to these vigorous and wonderful people just now emerging into the light of modern life.
Manchuria has a population estimated at 20,000,000, but only the southern and western portions are occupied at all. One of the missionaries in reporting to the Edinburgh Conference says that two thirds of the population in his field have not even been approached.
Dr. Fulton reported to the Edinburgh Conference that within 140 miles of the scene of the labors of the first missionary to China, Robert Morrison, there are three counties containing some ten thousand villages, averaging two hundred and fifty inhabitants each and so near one another that in some cases from a central point six hundred villages may be counted within a radius of five miles. He says that in hundreds of these no missionary or Christian preacher has ever set foot.
Some time ago a striking map appeared in China’s Millions, and is reproduced in The Unoccupied Fields, contrasting England and Wales with the province of Honan. While conditions have changed somewhat since the map was made, it is still sufficiently accurate for illustration. On this map are shown 1,846 villages and cities. There are 106 walled official cities, only twenty-six of which have resident missionaries. Three other large towns are occupied as mission stations, only twenty-nine places occupied out of the 1,846.
ENGLAND AND WALES HONAN Area 58,309 sq. miles 67,940 sq. miles.
Population 32,526,075 (1901) 35,316,800 (1901) Ordained Ministry 32,897 112 missionaries (including wives and single ladies) Local Preachers 52,341 159 Chinese helpers (including women) Average area of parish 1-3/4 sq. miles 1,788 sq. miles.
Average population of parish 1,000 929,389 The dimensions of the task remaining in China are sufficiently summarized by stating that there are 2,033 walled cities in the Empire and that only 476 of them have missionaries, leaving 1,557 of the principal cities unoccupied.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS IN THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 1. Fields Unoccupied but Open (1) Large portions of Mongolia, Manchuria, and Central Asia (2) Many parts of Africa 2. Fields Unoccupied by either Protestant or Catholic Missions because Closed to All Christian Work
(1) Tibet
(2) Nepal
(3) Bhutan
(4) Afghanistan 3. Fields Unoccupied by Protestant Missions because of Government Opposition (1) French Indo-China (2) French Possessions in Africa These three lists represent the work yet to be begun.
4. The Religion Least Reached is Mohammedanism
Conservative estimates state that not less than 150,000,000 Mohammedans are not being reached in any adequate way by the Christian gospel.
5. The World as a Whole. (1) The Edinburgh Conference Report says that there are 119,000,000 people in Asia and Africa who are not even included in the plans of any missionary society on earth. (2) There are many more millions—and no one knows accurately how many—who are included in plans which have not yet been carried out. (3) In view of the facts presented it is probably a safe estimate to say that with the present forces in the field 500,000,000 people will pass out of this generation without having a fair chance to know Christ and his message of redemption, unless the Church pours out a princely offering of lives and money and prayer to give them that opportunity.
[Illustration: RELIGIOUS CENSUS OF THE WORLD World Population, 1912 1,700,000,000] When it is remembered that there are such multitudes of people who have never had a chance to adopt a living creed adequate to the facts of life; that there are still whole nations which are the habitations of nameless cruelty; millions for whom as yet Christ died in vain; vast regions where there are a starless sky, a bottomless need, a life full of fear and a future without hope—this certainly presents a task which may well test to the utmost the vitality and devotion of Christendom. One look at the immensity of the problem drives us back upon the measureless resources of God. Over against the greatness of the task we place the greatness of our God. He alone is sufficient for these things. The great question to be answered now is whether or not there have been developed in Christian lands a faith and power sufficient for this most momentous hour for the human race. The supreme question of missions is the development in Christendom of a vitality equal to carrying the faith of Christ to the last man in the world. Is my Christianity equal to this task? Will the Christianity of my Church go to the limit of devotion to the plans of Christ? Is American Christianity strong enough so God can anchor a planet to America without wrecking America? In this great hour you must answer and so must I and so must the Church. Accepting the great opportunity with an unmoved confidence in final victory, let every man joyously put his hands between the King’s hands to follow him forever.
Some questions in parliamentary law are undebatable. Having been faced squarely and the decision made, the vote is cast in silence. When a Christian man has once understood what the call of Christ is, and what moral and spiritual demands that call makes upon men, the only possible attitude which a real man can take is obedience without debate.
BOOKS FOR ADVANCED READING Carrying the Gospel to All the World. Vol. 1. Edinburgh Conference Report.
Zwemer, S. M. The Unoccupied Mission Fields of Africa and Asia.
Student Volunteer Movement, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York. $1.00.
Barton, James L. The Unfinished Task. Student Volunteer Movement, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York.
Dennis, James S. Social Evils of the Non-Christian World. Student Volunteer Movement, 600 Lexington Avenue. $0.35.
Moscrop, Thomas. The Kingdom Without Frontiers. Eaton & Mains, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. $1.00.
Eddy, Sherwood. The New Era in Asia. Missionary Education Movement, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. $0.50.
Pott, F. L. Hawks. The Emergency in China. Missionary Education Movement, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. $0.50.
Winton, George B. Mexico To-Day. Missionary Education Movement, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. $0.50.