Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-01-09
WATSON'S OPPOSITION TO FOR.
EIGN MISSIONS.


bodies of this country, together with
Watson's refusal to meet the chal-
lenger on the ground that he is not in
/. his, Watson's, class, but expressing a
. illingness to meet William Jennings
I IN in a debate on the subject, has
I'd attention anew to the posi-
ti0S Son assumes will. respect to
missS efforts amond hose gen
orally fssAsssd to as heatRsts.
Watson 49, his attacks on mis-
sions and mis- l4saries twP7or three
years ago in the I4mA his maya
zine and has since, tbed at the
work whenever an " offered.
Originally, apparently posed the
right of any church, sempt to
thrust it's faithr---1on & - avhose
religious views were at variaHSA If
missionaries thought fit to enter 80
eign lands with creeds that were W
noXious to the people there and We're
! slaughtered as a result Watson Simply
| regarded it as their own fault and
maintained that the government had
no business to interfere in the matter.
| Since then he has apparently taken a
| somewhat different tack. His ground
against mission movements now is that
they take away money from this coun-
try that should properly be spent here
| in the education of the ignorant, the
| relief of the distressed, the civilization
of the barbarous in our own cities and
remote country districts. His position
as given in his recent letter is as fol-
lows:
Allow me to say that you do not ac-
! curately state my position when you
! say that l am opposed to foreign mis-
| sions. To the principle of foreign mis-
siOns. I am not antagonistic On the
! ether hand. I believe in the Pauline
method of doing the work, which the
Christians racticed in the first 1900
years after Christ 1t is the modern
innovations which have thrown aside
/ the apostolic model and example that /
combat. l say that there is no Scrip
! ture for it, no common sense in it, no
| patriotism, no true religion.
My contention is that we are not
| commanded to carry to "the man of
! Macedonia" or to any other heather,
| other help than that of preaching and
| teaching the law and the message of
| Christ. My opposition is directed to
| the charity works which have been es-
| tablished in pretty nearly every heath
! en- country, at the expense of the peo-
| pie of our own country. We take UP
| collections for foreign missions and
we devote that money to the establish
| ment of orphanages,' widows homes
| leper colonies, asylums for the blind
and the deaf and the dumb, free apoth-
| ecary shops, free medical and surgical
! service, free books and free tuition for
! the old and the young of heathendom
| We not only do this, but we actually
| in many cases, buy the orphans that
| are to be supported and educated in
| these orphans homes All over Africa
| the missionaries have been buying lit
| tie negro children from their relatives
| in order that these orphans may be-
! come the property of the missionaries
and the objects of the charitable re-
| lief furnished by the orphanages. Right
| now there is call being made thru
| one of the strongest UNCONVENTIONAL
papers of this country appealing to
American Christians to furnish money
| to buy dear little Dora, a negro in
| Africa.
| In the name of the God of our ia
Tiers! how far is this ministering 10
the heather going to carry us? Have
we any right to take the bread out of
the mouths of our own orphans and
carry it abroad to yellow children,
brown children and black children
Have we any right to neglect the sick,
the afflicted, those who are in need of
medical and surgical service in our
own country, and carry free medicine,
and free medical and surgical service,
to hundreds of thouands of destitute
people of the Orient, of Mexico, of the
Antilles, of Central and South Amer
lea? Have we any moral right to leave
the destitute widows of our own race
to perish of want in our great centers
of poulation while we rake and scraDe
the congregations of this country to
get the funds wherewith to build and
to maintain widows homes in Hindus-
tan? Have we any right-we of the
Southern states, disgraced with a per-
centage illiteracy that ought to make
us hang our heads in shame-to make
hundreds OF thousands of dollars to
build, equip and operate secular
schools in Japan, China, India, Korea,
South America and Mexico? My con-
tention is that we have not.
These views will undoubtedly meet
with certain amount of endorsement.
Particularly will those applaud who
are not in the habit of contributing
either to home or to foreign missions
Experience in all churches has shown
that the interest in home missions can
generally be pretty we'll gagged by the
interest in foreign missions, that the
men and women who give freely of
their means to the one class of uplift-
ing work are very apt to be found CIV
ing literally to the other as we'll. AS
general proposition it has been as
certained that those who decry foreign
missions, and deplore the sending of
money to heather lands, are very slow
to open theinr purses for work among
the poor, the illiterate, the immoral,
the heather, at home.
While we are not aware as to the
philanthropies of Mr.. Watson one can
not help feeling somewhat curious, af-
ter reading his remarks on the subject,
to know how much he actually gives in
a year for the work among the South
ern mountaineers, among the South
ern negroes, or among the poor miser-
able outcasts of the country generally.