06 THE MAKING OF PASTORS

Chapter 6 THE MAKING OF PASTORS

It is now generally acknowledged among Evangelical missions that the aim of the work is the formation of independent churches of native Christians. DR. GUSTAV WARNECK. TO seek to evangelize the Chinese by the Chinese has ever been the policy of the Manchurian Mission. This is desirable in all mission work, but may not always be possible. In China, however, experience has abundantly proved that the Chinese converts to Christianity are equal to the task. They possess a positive talent for the work of evangelisation, and herein lies the great hope of a Christianised China. The Chinese are a nation of talkers. They spend little time in amusement, and less in light reading, and they have no newspapers, as we have, with which to occupy their leisure hours. They spend much of their time in talk, and, generally speaking, they talk well. When a Chinese comes to Christ, he begins straightway to speak about his new faith. He cannot help himself. It is not because he has more grace than the young convert at home that he makes more converts to his faith. It is due to his instinct to tell others the new thing he has learned, and to the different social conditions under which he labours. As he tells his story he finds himself the centre of an admiring group of listeners, and he probably feels flattered as he dons the much- coveted mantle of public teacher. With some biblical instruction, and the constant practice in preaching which the daily chapel work affords, it is astonishing to what a degree of fluency and efficiency these men attain in the art of evangelizing They are the real makers of converts. For every convert the foreigner makes, they will bring in a hundred. The foreign missionary is not the pastor of a single congregation: he is the overseer of many. He is the moral force at the centre of the mission organization He sends the natives out, charged with his own enthusiasm, to grapple with heathenism at first hand; his work begins after the converts are made. He has to examine inquirers, baptize converts, organize the raw material into churches, and generally to take oversight of the whole.

Experience proves that this method has obvious advantages: (1) It is the most economical, for by the use of the natives the foreigner is able to multiply himself. His influence passes through them to the multitudes, and he is thus able to cover a wider area. Thirty natives can be supported on the same sum as it takes to support one foreigner. (2) It neutralizes the anti-foreign antipathy of the people. Friction is reduced to a minimum. The native agency forms a sort of buffer territory between the foreigner and the heathen population. The fewer foreigners, who can overtake the work, the better. We need not disguise the fact of the deep - seated anti-foreign feeling of the Chinese, and if by any means we can present the gospel to them in such a way as to disarm them of this prejudice, it ought to be welcomed. (3) It is likely to ensure a more purely native type of Christianity. There is always a danger of foreigners thrusting their own conceptions of Christian doctrine and practice upon the Chinese. Everything in our teaching which tends to denationalize must be rigorously avoided. The temptation, always present to the missionary, to follow the line of development with which he is familiar in the West, will end in creating a Western cult on Chinese soil, which must weaken the testimony of the native Church and discredit her witness among the heathen around. That the Chinese people will make their own contribution to the sum total of the Christianity of the future we firmly believe, and for this reason the work of propagation should be from the first intrusted to their own hands, that in the providence of God, and under the guidance of His Spirit, they may be able to work out their own salvation. (4) It would seem to be in line with the Divine purpose; for how else, it may be asked, are we ever to evangelize the four hundred millions of the Chinese people? Certainly not by the sprinkling of foreigners scattered over the Empire. Or how else are we ever to attain to our ideal of a self-supporting and self-governing native Church? The foreigner’s best work is in the training of a band of native workers who may be looked to as likely to take his place in the future.

He is the teacher of the teachers, ever on the outlook for " budding talent " among the raw material of his converts. Wherever he finds a young man of average education, the gift of speech, and a love for souls, he takes him apart, and, after some grounding in Scripture knowledge, places him in the street preaching chapel, where he can be under his own eye. For the first four years the evangelist attends lectures, and has examinations to pass. The cream of these evangelists ultimately find their way into the Theological College, where, under the instruction of two professors, they receive a thorough training in Scripture Knowledge, Church History, Theology, Comparative Religion, and the Elements of Science. The course extends over four years of six months session each year. Those who pass through this curriculum are considered qualified for the work of the pastorate. The present Theological College in Moukden is only of yesterday. It was instituted in 1900. The rapid growth of the Church after the Japanese War, and the widespread demand among the members for an educated ministry, made the establishment of such an institution a necessity. In the early days of the mission, each missionary trained his own evangelists; but shortly after the Union with the Irish Presbyterian Mission, it was felt that this was not only a waste of power, but failed to yield the best results. After the Union (1890) a more systematic training became possible, and senior missionaries were appointed to lecture to all the evangelists together. The advantages of this method over the old one were apparent at once. It made a uniform course of study possible, and it created an esprit de corps among the evangelists themselves, and gave a sense of unity to the work of the Church all over the country. Still, this arrangement only turned out evangelists, and as the membership grew in knowledge, and organization became fixed, it was felt that something higher should be attempted to meet the growing needs of the Christians scattered all over the land. It was in this way that the Theological College was established. The entrance to the native pastorate is guarded by the missionaries with jealous care. While they seek to make all legitimate provision for an educated ministry, they have ever placed moral character and spiritual earnestness before merely academic equipment. The mission was fortunate in its first native pastor. Pastor Liu, both in his private life and public capacity, has set a high ideal before his younger brethren in the ministry. He was the choice of the Moukden congregation, who became responsible for his support. He was ordained on 14th June 1896, and the event marked a distinct advance in the development of the life of the native Church. Liu is a born preacher, graceful, self-possessed, fluent, dramatic, at times rising to a high level of pulpit eloquence. He holds his congregation of nine hundred members in complete command, speaking for an hour or more without the use of a note. His doctrine is always intensely evangelical. He could hold his own with the men in our pulpits at home, and might, if comparisons were not odious, leave some of them far behind.

Here is the impression produced by a sermon of Liu’s on Rev. John Macintyre. The occasion was the ordination of Mr. Chang of Tiehling, the second native pastor :

" The event of the day, I should fancy, will generally be regarded as the sermon by the moderator, Pastor Liu: Ye are the salt of the earth. I feel I am but giving the opinion of the mission when I say it was a thing of culture and of power. Save perhaps that his introduction might have been shorter, though there was nothing to be complained of as irrelevant, it sounded to us like a sermon which would have been reckoned of a high order in any of your home congregations. I was not myself prepared to see Liu take such a high stand. He is naturally eloquent, and seems simply to play with words and to conjure with them as he will. But what one felt was the clearness and the width of his view, the power of returning always to his main point from most interesting excursions in the search for illustrations, the power of adding illustration to illustration in such wise that the light seemed simply to beam upon his main topic, and one forgot all else but the spiritual truth he was enforcing. It will interest home readers to know that he was always correct when he touched on physical science ; and his eloquent allusion to the ocean as embracing all and sweetening all, as receiving all manner of contaminating matter, yet ever pure, will long be remembered as a powerful stroke of imagery. What a step from the servant of a mandarin who could be asked fiercely, Does his excellency know that you are here in a detested street chapel, red-tasseled hat and all, proclaiming this detestable doctrine? I have never forgotten my first impression of him as a bold, earnest man who could ward off such an attack with gentleness, and who so won the authorities that he was never interfered with. And now no Chinese literate need feel ashamed to sit under his ministry. Without being technically a student, he is a brain- worker, and has so mastered the necessary mental processes that he delivered this magnificent sermon without a scrap of paper. It was a proud day for the man who attracted him to the mission, and who has been his teacher all through his career, his right hand in the pastorate." When Liu was ordained he was little over forty years of age, and had at that time been connected with the " Jesus religion " for up wards of twenty years. Before throwing in his lot with the new religion he made a careful study of it. His occupation at that time gave him ample opportunity for so doing. He was seal-bearer to one of the mandarins, and was only on duty for some two hours every second day. While still in the employ of the Yamen, he preached much; but shortly after the return of Dr. Ross from his first furlough, he became, at some personal sacrifice, an agent of the Church. As an evangelist he was abundantly successful. Old Wang (Dr. Ross s first convert) and Liu bore the brunt of the opposition at the commencement of the work in Liaoyang; they never flinched, and ultimately their courage triumphed. Once Liu fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him and used him badly, but all these things he counted as nothing for the " excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord."

Liu seems to have been one of those men spoken of by Augustine, " whose hearts are restless till they rest in God." He had knocked at the doors of all the religious faiths that flourish in China, but he never found the rest he sought till, in his own words, he " met Pastor Ross and the Bible." Such men are religious in spite of the superstitious forms through which they seek to approach the unseen " They stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what they feel is Lord of all ; " but it is not until they come into the full knowledge of Christ that the burden of guilt and unrest rolls from them for ever. There is no doubt as to the perfect satisfaction which Liu now enjoys in the " life that is hid with Christ in God." Surely the history of one such man is fitted to strengthen the faith of the Church at home. It proves if proof were needed that the mission has not " labored in vain in the Lord." At the jubilee of the United Presbyterian Church (1897), Pastor Liu was chosen to represent the mission field of Manchuria. He threw himself with zest into the project, and the Mother Church had no worthier trophy to show on that occasion than the silk banner which he bore from the " land of Sinim," and which spoke of the " Beginning of Happiness in Manchuria." His sojourn in this country enlarged his horizon. The superior position of women, the excellence of our educational system, and, above all, the enthusiasm and energy of the Home Church in all forms of Christian work, greatly impressed him, and sent him back to his own people with fresh hope to labour for their emancipation. That the life of this man has been mercifully spared to the native Church during the recent persecution is a matter that calls for devout thankfulness. The last text from which he preached before the Moukden church was burned to the ground by the Boxer incendiaries, was surely prophetic of the coming conflagration. " Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering ? " (Genesis 22:7). The sermon was scarcely ended before the Christians were fleeing for their lives, and many were called upon to seal their confession with their life’s blood. Liu made his escape with difficulty, in the guise of a Buddhist priest, to a village among the eastern hills, and there he managed to live in hiding till the storm passed. But with the restoration of order and the coming of the Russians, he returned to the city and led his little flock in worship in the open air, and over the ashes of the burned building. The hand of the wicked had thrown down the scaffolding, but the spiritual building remained steadfast, indestructible, standing out in its naked reality in clearer relief than ever before. In Pastor Chang the second native pastor the example set by Liu has been worthily maintained. Of him on the day of his ordination November 1898 Mr. Macintyre wrote: " He is the more pleasing presence of the two, and for years I have regarded him as the most winsome man on our Presbytery roll. A man of spirit, however, like Liu, and capable of temper; I have seen him flash up in Presbytery like a European, under a fancied insult from us foreigners. But it was the generous, unsolicited apology which he made next day that won him to me for life."

It would be impossible to close this chapter without a word of tribute to the memory of Elder Hsii. He was under call to the pastorate of the newly-formed congregation in West Moukden when the hostilities began. The last thing I did before leaving Moukden was to read the warrant for his ordination. Hsii was a remarkable man. He had received a careful training, chiefly from Mr. Fulton of the Irish Mission, and would have been the first native pastor of that mission. He was laboring at Fa-ku-men when the storm broke; and, being a marked man, he and his son were arrested and instantly beheaded. A scholar himself, Hsu was unwearied in his exertions in the cause of Higher Education. Through his labours a prosperous church had been built up in Fa-ku-men, and he gave great promise of a useful and influential ministry in West Moukden. By his noble Christian character, his scholarly attainments, his modesty, and, above all, his zeal for the conversion of his countrymen, he endeared himself to every foreigner in the mission. His place will be difficult to fill. We could ill afford to lose such a man, but he was ripe for martyrdom. To us his life’s work seemed just beginning, but to Him who "seeth not as man seeth," it was finished. "He had fought a good fight, he had kept the faith, and he now wears the crown of righteousness that fadeth not away."