Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1908-02-06


a prayer meeting in the saloon, while
a noisy drinking cotcrie is uproarlous.
~ gambling in the smoking room. 1
freely criticise much in the conduct
Of 1any missionaries aboard ship, but
! believe in "A square deal" The
man who drinks whisky on shipboard
should be given no advantage over
the man who drinks water, other
things being equal, nor the man who
CANDLES over the man who prays, nor
the woman who sings "risque" songs
over the one who prefers "Old Hun.
drod" Plain words need to be spoken
to the missionaries, and other plain
words to the officers of tn, 5amship
companies, especially the transPacific
lines.
If a person has maintained a reason.
able familiarity with missionary re-
ports he goes to the foreign mission
field expecting to see evidences Of
| tremendous Successes Has he not
been told that Japan, China, India are
on the verge Of admittance into the
| Christian church? There is. sudden
| Jolt to this expectancy when he finds
| the blank wall Of hoathendom rising
up before the missionaries as cold, as
| strong and at first sight, as sCathless
as ever. He learns later Of the sue,
cesses in the line Of mining and sap
ping this wall, which, up to date, have
been the principal missionary meth
| DDS; but his general impression is one
| Of disappointment He cannot but feel
| that the triumphs of missions have
been overstated At this point enters
| the need for better supervision, as |
| have already intimated.
For example, the observer recalls
the statement, printed times without
| number in American publications,
| that China has made Sunday legal
| holiday This he finds to be utterly
untrue. Where China touches the
west the first day of the week has
| gradually become, in some measure,
| holiday But it is nowhere a Sabbath,
except among the few Christians. At
another time it was widely reported
| that certain city had thrown away
| it's idols, but investigation shows the
| city as anti-Chrstian as ever, and the
| only basis for the tale is the fact that
| one temple discarded its old idols for
new. Here a great revival is reported
| to have swept over the community;
! the westerner naturally thinks of this
| in terms of a Moody and Sankey cam
| paign. Specifically, however, there
are no signs of the revival, although
closer search reveals an unusual
earnestness on the part of the handful
of Christians.
How may these missionary eXagger-
atoms be accounted for? | have talked
with many missionaries upon this
point The expectation of the boards
| that the workers shall send in favor
able reports, the necessity for show
! ing successes to stimulate gifts, the
natural human tendency to enlarge
upon the favorable side, all have been
given as reasons. THE fact is re.
marked one missionary, when a man
gets home and begins to make
speeches he finds himself saying what
the people want to hear, and losing
sight of the facts of the field. | know
| have caught myself doing this. |
work, yet the people at homo were so
determined to make me out a martyr
that | almost came to believe myself
one before | left Amrica."
All the stronger men on the field re.
gret the distorted and misleading
statements that are so frequently
made by interested enthusiasts con-.
corning missions and missionaries;
they are farsighted enough to know
the consequences when these reports
come back to the field. | have known
more than one missionary to be seri-
ously embarrassed by being presented
to the community in which he lives in
the light in which he is seen by his
admirers at home.
There is another side to the ques-
ton; dread of this sort of thing has
kept more than one worker from send.
ing home reports of Northumberland
successes and endorsements. I'm
American woman at the head of one
of the Presbyterian mission schools
for girls in China has been asked by
the officials of the important province
in which she works to take charge of
the female education in the province,
but never word of this has she writ
ten home to her board 1T will be
time enough when | have actually
been given the work" says this eau.
tious woman, who knows China;
there's many slip 'twiXt the cup
and the lip
A Reconnaissance, Not a War.
The most serious of all the unin.
territorial misrepresentation made by
missionaries is that the whole heather
world is on the verge of becoming
Christian. Faith, not facts, is the
, basis of the common observation
e The world is being won for Christ
Making due allowance for rhetorical
feYor, it still remains true that a
seriously erroneous impression is left
! upon the Christian public's mind by
the days missionary representations
For a frSt-hon6 stu1y, CC III, G.,1