Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-11-13
Are Christian Missions a Failure?
STARTLING STATEMENTS FROM AN ENGLISH cLER.
GYMAN.

STARTLING STATEMENTS FROM AN ENGLISH cLER-
GYMAN.
From the New York Tribune
Canon Isaac Taylor, of the English church, is
a courageous man. little more than a year
ago he read telling paper before the English
church congress, in which he took the ground
that the religion of Islam is not only equal to
Christianity in some respects, but is far better
suited to the needs and capacities of many peo-
Piles in Asia and Africa. Now his article. emit
tied The Great Missionary Failure" in The
Fortnightly Reue,r ia likely to attract even more
attention than his paper of last year.
The most important point which he makes is
that at Its present rate of progress Christianity
can never hope to overtake heathenism. Esti-
mating the excess of births over deaths in Asia
and Africa as IL 600. 900 year. and the annual
increase OF Christians as $4,000, it would take
the missionary societies 1873 years to overtake
one years increase in the heather population
This seems hopeless enough if statistics only
are to be the test of success or failure in relig-
Gus propagandism. But Canon Taylor must be
aware that the great majority of Christians
would not concede this. Even if the statistics
were more hopeless than he makes them ont to
be, Christians generally would still believe in
missions-if for no other reason than that they
react bene6cially upon those who promote
them.
The canon then adduces some figures that
will doubtless startle the practical British
reader whoshappens to be a supporter of the
Church Missionary Society. 1t seems that ac-
cordng to official reports the 424 agents of this
society in Ceylon spent a little more than
sos. 900 last year in making 100 converts out of
population of nearly three million. And as
there were $50 relapses from Christianity the
same year this great expenditure counted
for less than nothing. The same thing
was true, IN measure, of China, Egypt,
Arabia, and Palestine. Moreover, the converts
which are made in these. countries at a cost
OF from $500 to $500 are. in many cases, no
credit to the religion whose claims they
acknowledge. As an illustration of this we
are told OF a robber who promised to abstain
from robbing for ten days, and of quarrel
which broke out among the natives of the
nomlnally Christian village. in which the VIC
tors cooked and ate the vanquished. In order
to make good reports to the home societies
missionaries are altogether too eager to enrol
such unworthy men and women among their
converts-a fact which minimizes still more the
small showing made by modern missions.
1t must not be supposed, however, that Canon
Taylor Is disbeliever in missions. On the
contrary, he believes that they may be made
great success if the missionaries would only
show larger degree of sympathy with the
natives whom they are trying to evangelize.
and make an honest effort to understand their
point of view. He also believes that mission
aries should as far as possible, live like the
natives 1.-The preachers hut" he says, Ibis
goods, his dress, his food, should be the same
as the natives. European missionaries fail be-
cause they attempt to make Asiatics or Africans
into middle-class English Philistines. Islam
succeeds better than christianity. largely be-
cause it leaves the people undisturbed in all the
outward circumstances of their lives. 1t has
been well said that the teachers who would ap-
peal successfully to Asiatics or Africans should
be as unlike as possible to English rectors or
dissenting ministers"
The canon here seems to touch the root of
the difficulty. If Christian missions are a fail
ure, as, in the light of these facts, We must con-
fess them to be, it is due almost entirely to our
faulty methods of prosecuting them. Certain
it is that the mighty religion which conquered
the paganism of Rome and of the north has in
1t to-day enough OF vitality to displace the
moribund religions of the east. But we mus
remember that the Oriental can neither under
stand nor appreciate the religious ideals of the
Anglican or American Christian And to i'm
pose such ideals upon him seems to be not
only foolish but unjust in view of the fact that
Christianity was originally an Oriental religion,
and should therefore revert to its primitive
form when brought back to the east.