The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-06-09
THE GREAT CoNFERENcE.

formerly professor of history IN the Uni
Versity of Kansas at Lawrence. Prof.
Kellogg is one of the ablest authorities
on history in this country, and is espe-
c1ally versed in the worlds church life
and literature He has been engaged in
various forms OF literary work since his
connection with college work. One of his
notable recent labors, so successfully con-
cluded, was the editorship of that great
work, the American edition of the Ency-
clopedia Britannica His old friends In
Kansas will be pleased TO read the APP
pended article; the State Journal regards
it as an honor to be selected as the med
ium of presentation:
FEATURES OF THE MISSIONARY
CONFERENCE.
Protestant Christendom has fixed its at
tent1on on the great Missionary Confer
ence held recently in Carnegie hall. over
Its sessions ex-President Harrison ruled
with benignity and enthusiasm. By
misleading perversion of words the gath
sionary Conference - but it was in no sense
''ecumenical, which properly means rep
reSentat1Ve of ChriStendom throughout
the habitable world The-Word has
venerable and controversial use, and the
ant churcheS hold that there has been no
ecumenical council or representative body
of all Christendom since the ecclesiasti-
cal schism between the east and west was
consummated a millennium go. The Ro-
man church claims to be ecumenical by
denying to other ecclesiastical Organiza-
tions real participation in the Catholic
faith and body. OF course there are Cath
Ollie missions and Oriental missions
and even Anglican missions that took no
part in this New York conference
Again the gathering was far from uni
versal, for even Protestant missions,
out of two hundred and forty indepepd-
ent missionary societies enumerated in the
last almanac of the American board of
commissioners for foreign missions. and
its list is far from complete, only one
delegates at the Carnegie Hall assembly.
and of these more than half are in the
United states and Canada. The, Nora
Wan church, which IS through and
through and by its very constitution an
organization for the conversion of heath
en-, was not officially represented, nor was
the venera BILE British Society for Propa-
eating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, now
in its tWo-hundredth year, and the Oldest
strictly missionary association among the
English speaking races
It is wrong to call such gathering
'ecumenical' and 1t Savors of presump-
ton at least, if not of bombast No good
can come out of such misrepresentation,
even if the false claim involved be made
with innocent exaggeration.
Yet the conference was notable in many
ways. 1t is estimated that the delegates
represented over SO, 1000 foreign and native
persons in the service and pay of foreign
missionary boards, out of a total, as given
in the almanac of the American board al
ready mentioned of 5000 to whom ad-
here ,5S5 coo native converts. The number
of delegates participating in the meeting
was over two thousand. OF these one
ninth represented societies on the CONT
nent of Europe, as German. Dutch, Scan
dinavian, Swiss and Finnish. The rest.
an enormous majority, belonged to Eng
disappearing lands
1t was an imposing assembly animated
with ardent enthusiasm and actuated by
highly consecFated motives. With all its
limitations. and before all other charac-
teristics, was its intense evangelicism of
a Wesleyan or pietiStic type, it was in
spired by a deep Observation-Disclosures for
its purpose and aim was disinterestedly
to convey to others the highest benefits
of western civilization.
Perhaps it is just in this aim that Pro-
testant missions have found their great
est embarrassment The message they
carry to the heather is not simply an
| ethical evangelicism, but that in an Oc-
! cidental garb. An Episcopal bishop to
| Shanghai once, on being questioned as to
| whether there was anything in Chinese
| religions to which he could attach the
| evangelical doctrines 50 that there might
! that it impossible. so ingrained were
! all Chinese thoughts and preceptS with
| pantheistic superstitions. He said more
/ over, that the ancestor worship and the
extreme sense of fllial duty could not be
| Joined with the Fifth commandment as
| an initial point OF development In fact
| he wanted no Chinese type of Christian
| ity-wOuld not trust it. When the pig-tail
/ was cut off and John Chinaman was in
| Western habiliments, then there were edi-
| flying evidences that he had accepted the
| gospel. But this meant for the China
| man a virtual expatriation. an ostracism
from his family and kindred and dis
| owning of all his natural heritage of Gus
toms and literature.
It is this uncompromising rejection of all
| native characteristics, this violent wrench
/
| the task of the Protestant foreign mis-
/ sionary arduous and his progress so
| slow. He presents Christianity to the civ
/ lllZed heathen as requiring the eXtrpauon
/ of all his history and traditions, and not
as the development of any ethical or re-
| ng1ous principle TO be formed IN his past,
| although st. Paul appealed to the Greeks
| by quoting what certain of your own
| poets have said" and Conyers Middleton
i showed a century and a half ago that
/ Western Christianity gained its ascend
ency in the Latin world by Incorporating
int ISIS a of
So it happens that the Protestant Mis-
| siOnary takes a distinctly foreign religion
| into the foreign field and keeps its repug-
! nant side to the front. In consequence OF
| this he is obliged to build about him
| what in present parlance is called an In
| Stitutional Church. That is he has re-
| course TO schools for orphans, hospitals
| medical Stairs charitable suceors, etc,
| thus anticipating in heather lands type
| of propagandism that the church at home
| Is Visibly entering upon to regain a hold
upon the working classes. In fact, he vir-
| tually adopts the principle of that most
! successful apostle of the south seas. John
| Williams, who in the beginning of this
| century brought the Society and HerVey
Islands into obedience to the gospel by
/ adding to his catechetical work instruc-
| ton in mechanical arts, saying the Chris
tianity was the mother of physical prog
ress.
Three important things came into view
in the discussions of this Carnegie hal
congress. FIRST there was SHOWN the I'M
evangelization of the world. They had
sessions especially devoted to their mis-
sionary functions. OF the missionaries
sent out by societies about half are wo
men. There are parts of the Asiatic anC
Mohammedan world where women are in
dispensable if any lasting hold is to bt
got upon family life and therefore upoI
the young. Where native mothers ant
wives are secluded, even beyond the re
lief of the medical man in times of emer
gency, there the woman missionary car
enter the harems and Zenanas and find
welcome Hence over nearly all of civ
ilized Asia and over northern Africa hal
the people are accessible only. TO women
For this reason the services of such mis-
sionaries are doing much to settle what
woman's functions in a Christian churcl
may profitably be.
Again. a few years ago a bitter contro
versy arose in the American board owe
the eligibility to foreign appointment o
those who held or hoped that the heath
en- who died without hearing the gospe
might have time of probation at leas
in the future life. The very conservative
element in the board thought that suel
| q hope would cut the nerve of mission