The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-03-07
VOL. VII.
THE MISSIONARIES.

ST. Louis has 500, 600 inhabitants,
and its churches can contain only 30
600 people, and yet St. Louis sends
missionaries to TimbHctoo and Shang-
hal. Capt. Silas Bent, an admirable
scholar and gentleman, says that when
be was last In Canton, the Oldest Prot
estant missionary confessed that the
Chinese became "Chnstians" to be en-
ployed as servants Of Christians and
that when relations of employer and
employed ceased "faitE" in the Savior
was supplanted by that in Confucius.
Sincere Chinese believers, said the old
missionary, are 9 most meager mi
nority of so-callsd tsconverts." But
st. Louis Christians forget the heathens
at home that they may bless some re-
mote :.BorIioboola-Gha. Bayard Tay-
lor and William 81. Russell, in their
''note books of travelD in India, tell
much the same story. The latter says
he ''doubts whether twenty high caste
Hindoos" have ever been converted
since the British entered India. Mis-
sionary effort in the Sandwich Islands
was confessed failure even though the
natives were all nominal Christians.
10 fact the islands are almost de-
populated by "Christlan" vices. The
loss in numbers has been seventy
five per cent. in thirty years. In
the presence of facts of this charac-
ter, Silas Bent was forced 20 say in
his lecture delivered last Sunday
In st. Louis that "our system of
foreign missions is mistake and
its work an utter failure" If
the Christians of st. LOUIS would
invest mission funds in modest, plain
chapels in the suburbs of the mighty
city and in its poverty-pinched dis
tricts, where women wearing calico
and sun bonnets could hear Gods gos-
pei addressed to the poor; if elegant
philanthropists could be content to do
good at home rather than demand the
noisy, sensational fame of adventure
and travel in foreign lands if the press
would recount the stories of good deeds |
done among the poverty stricken of |
America as gladly and resonaatly as
when achieved in Shanghai, Calcutta
or Timbuctoo, the millions wasted |
among barbarous peoples-ef the Old |
and New World would be wisely ex-
pended in extending the forces of |
Christianity in America. The st. Louis
Repu6licaR says that whether the friends
of foreign missions will ever have the
moral courage to accept the logic of
facts and confine' missionary labor to
the home department is exceedingly
doubtful. Such a course, sensible as
it is, and demanded by pressing ne
cessities, would involve the abandon
ment of too many fondly cherished |
ideas, too many amiable delusions, too |
many stoutly intrenched pulpit theo-
ries, too many deep-rooted theological |
dogmas. We shall probably continue
to neglect the heather of our own
blood and at our own doors, for the
sake of making vain attempts to con-
vert heather on the other side of the
globe. We shall probably continue to
let human beings In the next street
suffer from cold and hunger in order
to send Bibles and preachers to the
disciples of C1nfucius and Budha.
We shall probably continue to let vice
and crime increase and multiply under
the very caves of our half-filled
churches in order to urge Christianity
upon strangers and aliens who do not
want it and will not have it. We
shall probably continue to disregard
the plainest teachings of common
sense, history and experience, in or
der to ride the foreign mission hobby;
and in due time we shall reap our re-
ward in a civilization more degraded
asd dangerous than any on which the
sun Shines"