Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1910-06-24

dred." Plain words need to be spoken
TO the missionaries, and other plain
words to the officers of the steamship
companies, especially the trans-Pacific
lines.
IL a person has maintained a reason
able familiarity with missionary re-
ports he goes to the foreign mission
neld 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 a sudden
Jolt to this expectancy when he finds
the blank wall of heathendom 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 a 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. n
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
its idols, but investigation shows the
city as anti-Christian 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 Moody and Sankey cam
IaiSn. 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-
atiOns 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
l have caught myself doing this.
have no hardships in my missionary
work, yet the people at homo were so
determined to make ne out q 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 cJn-
corning missions and missionaries;
they are far-sighted enough to know
the consequences when these reports
come back to the field l 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 uues-
ton; dread of this sort of thing has
kept more than one worker from send
ing home reports of Northumberland
successes and endorsements. An
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 l 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
is that the whole heather
world is on the verge of becoming
Christian. Faith, not facts, is the
basis of the common observation.
The world is being won for Christ"
Making due allowance for rhetorical
ferVOr, it still remains true that a
seriously erroneous impression is left
upon the Christian public's mind by
the days missionary representations.
For a first-hand study of the field
reveals that, with an occasional nota-
Bile exception like Korea, heathendom
has scarcely been budged by the mis-
sionaries' work. The great mass of
the pagan world is as yet practically
untouched by the gospel If Chris
tians are determined to bear their re-
ligion to the whole earth, as is appar.
emily their purpose, they must do
things on vastly larger scale than
Thus far only a mere be-
ginning has been made. Instead of a
war, it is only reconnaissance in
force-a brave, brilliant and success
full reconnaissance, it is true, but
nevertheless, only a reconnaissance
The real fighting can hardly be said I'd
have begun.
Copyright, by Joseph B. Bowles)
A Lottery At Best.
nd r.