The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1927-01-15
PRAISES
MISSIONS

Bishop William +. Mcdowell, AT
a recent meeting of the foreign
board answered several questions
regarding missions. He said in
part:
1T was my fortune to visit In.
dia, China. the Philippine Islands
and Japan in 1910 and 1911. Many
questions have been asked since
that visit. / mention two or three
of them. As frequent as any is
this: Have Christian missions in
those lands achieved anything like
real success?
1.-THE answer is, that, considering
the difficulties in the way, the diff.
ficulties due to language, customs.
points of view, historical back.
grounds, and all the rest; and con.
sidering how hard it is for people
holding one religion to change their
allegiance to another; and consider.
ing the relatively small number Of
people the Christian church has had
at work in those lines. and the linz
tied facilities with which they have
been compelled to do Their work,
the work of the church Of Christ IN
the non.Christian world has sue
ceeded far and away beyond all hui
man explanation.
What has bene done can only
he explained on the theory that
the living God has been with his
missionaries.
Another question very often asked
is this: Are not the people of the
non Christian world getting along
pretty we'll perhaps well enough,
with the religions they have? They
are used to these religions. They
have grown up with them, and is it
not a good deal of a blunder 10 at
tempt to impose upon them another
religion like Christianity in view Of
what they already have?
II think the one thing that / most
hoped, as I went to India and the
other countries, was that 1 would
find the religions already there
doing for the multitudes who held
them what religion ought to do.
There are such millions of people
and they do so greatly need all that
the best religion can do to comfort
them in their sorrows and to save
them from their sins and to give
them something like Christian social
life.
But after the months OF close
and sympathetic contact with the
people and study of what their re-
ligions were actually doing for them,
was compelled to say with en-
phasis that they are not getting on
pretty we'll with the religions thev
have. They are not getting on well
enough.
Indeed. my solemn conviction
can only be expressed in this state
ment. that nobody anywhere is get.
ting along we'll enough without
Jesus Christ. He is not a convent
ence to the world, not simply an
advantage to it. he is an absolute
necessity to it.
"The third question relates to the
things that Christianity does for
the people who embrace 1t. But
Christianity does in India and the
other countries exactly what it does
everywhere when it gets a chance.
The people Of those lands acquire
genuine Christian experience, an
experience as vital and beautiful as
any l have ever seen or known.
They have the intellectual awak.
ening that Christianity always
brings. They have the new social
standards that Christianity always
seeks to establish. They get bet.
ter chance at health and life of
every sort just because the gospel
of freedom has gone to them. l
have serious questions about a good
many things in the world, but l
have no question at all about the
mission Of Jesus Christ through His
Church to the nom Christian, world y