San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-07-02
MISSIONARY WORK.
THOMAS STEVENS GIVES THEi RE-
Suits OF HIS OBSERVATIONS.

Quite Difference Between the Ideal
and the Real-MuIishness Of the Aver.
age Mohammedan - Statistics Which
Prove q Very Cold Fact.
As boy at the Sabbath school the average
man has been taught to drop his nickels into
the contribution box for the conversion of
the heather. The poor missionaries were out
in those wild, benighted countries, rishing
their lives and suffering untold hardships for
the purpose Of gathering heathens and idola-
tors into the fold. For these he has gone
without chewing gum weeks at time In or
der to contribute money and has done it with
scarcely whimper. He has grown up with
an ideal missionary and an ideal missionary
life wildly pictured on his fancy.
In the course of time his ship comes over,
and he decides to take trip around the
world He visits Asia Minor, India, China
and Japan. The first missionary settlement
he comes to he finds it as different from his
long cherished ideal conception as cheese Is
different from chalk. The traveller is as
founded
"Why, bless my soull" he gasps, ''these
missionaries are living in decent houses, eat
decent food and are as safe here as if they
were in New York"
A RASH CONCLUSION.
He finds that he has been nursing de-
he doesn't stop to think that the delusion has
been all his own, that he has permitted his
childish conceptions to remain unchanged.
Instead Of this, he jumps to the rash con-
clusion that foreign missions are an imposi-
tion on the credulous public at home, and
when he gets back he has no hesitation in
saying so.
The first impressions of man who has not
taken the trouble to correct infantile impress
sions before starting out are very apt to be
something like this; but, as matter Of fact,
the missionaries do the very best they can.
The trouble lies, not with the men and women
who go forth in obedience to an honest
yearning to save everybody, but with the in
nate cussedness of the people whom they wish
to save.
The mulishness Of the average Mohamme-
dan, for instance, when it comes to being
saved, is something appalling to a person
who has his eternal welfare in view. The
Mohammedan Is as stubborn, or stubborner,
than the Christian even about forsaking his
own religion for another. Few Mohamme-
dams can understand the perverseness of
Christians in refusing to come over bodily
to Islamism and be saved
HARD TO CONVERT.
On the other hand, it seemed to me that to
beard the Mussulman in his own country and
try to convince him that any other religion
is better than his own must be good deal
Like trying 10 pull 800 pound pig through
knot hole. The Mohammedan regards the
Christian missionary much as we should re-
gard Persian mollah who should come over
here and proselyte for the religion Of the
Prophet As matter of fact think the
mollah would have the advantage. A Per-
sian mollah in his flowing robes and big
white turban, prostrating toward Mecca and
signing away down into his heels, is pict-
ure not devoid of certain amount of fasci-
nation have seen mollahs in Persia who,
if they would only make themselves up and
come over to, say, Boston, and start up re-
vival, would convert lots of people by the
mere magnetism of their appearance and the
strange fervor of their devotions.
It is a cold fact that among the teeming
millions of Asia discovered twice as many
Christians who had embraced Mohammedan-
ism as did Mussulmans who had entered
into the Christian fold-twice as manyl To
come down to actual statistics, compiled at
odd times as I went from country to country,
figured up one Mohammedan who had ex-
perienced a change of religion and two
Christians There may be more than this in
the whole world, perhaps, but these are all
obtained positive evidence Of. All three were
very interesting cases from the standpoint Of
an outside party. Their experiences were
also interesting to themselves Ste
ems in New York Sun