Read Ebook: The Call of the World; or Every Man's Supreme Opportunity by Doughty William E William Ellison

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 282 lines and 30290 words, and 6 pages

"This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who shall annul it? and his hand is stretched out and who shall turn it back?"

No man who is willing to accept the facts which have been stated can escape the conviction that Christ is possessing the world in an unmistakable way. Although there are still great battles to be fought out, and problems to be solved,--greater probably than men have ever grappled with in the history of the world,--the final issue cannot be in doubt. In the midst of all the disturbing forces, when many leaders are bewildered by the swiftly moving scenes incident to the transformation of great and ancient civilizations, at a time when the cries of race and clan are deafening and when there is a struggle between age-long forces on a gigantic scale never before witnessed, serene and confident of the outcome moves our Christ.

As Mr. Robert E. Speer puts it, "Christianity is moving out over the earth with ever-enlarging agencies, with ever-increasing success, and with open and undiscouraged purpose to win the world."

With the change of a single phrase we may join in the song of Christ's triumph which Longfellow left as an inspiring heritage to the world.

FOR ADDITIONAL READING AND FOR REFERENCE

Edinburgh Conference Report . Missionary Education Movement, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. .00.

World Atlas of Christian Missions. Student Volunteer Movement, 600 Lexington Avenue, New York, .00.

The Statesmen's Year Book, 1913. Macmillan Company, 64 Fifth Avenue, New York. .40.

Taylor, Alva W. The Social Work of Christian Missions. The Foreign Christian Missionary Society, Cincinnati. [CO].50.

Gulick, Sidney L. The Growth of the Kingdom of God. Fleming H. Revell Co., 158 Fifth Avenue, New York. .00.

Brace, Charles Loring. Gesta Christ, A History of Humane Progress. George H. Doran, 25 West 32nd Street, New York. .00.

Ross, E. A. The Changing Chinese. The Century Company, 33 East 17th Street, New York. .40.

Dennis, James S. Christian Missions and Social Progress . Fleming H. Revell Co., 158 Fifth Avenue, New York. .25.

Dennis, James S. Commerce and Missions . Laymen's Missionary Movement, 1 Madison Avenue, New York. 5 cents.

Goucher, John F. Growth of the Missionary Concept. Eaton & Mains, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. [CO].75.

THE CHALLENGE OF A GREAT TASK

One of the best tests of the measure of a man is in his relation to great forces and opportunities and tasks. A small man will either be unconscious of their presence and significance, or will be overwhelmed by them, and therefore inactive or inefficient. On the other hand a man who is really alive will rejoice that it is given to him to relate himself to life's greatest forces and opportunities and tasks.

It would be difficult to conceive of any combination of human and divine energies, of golden opportunities and inspiring tasks, comparable with those centering in the world-wide propagation of Christianity. In our day more men are undertaking with relentless courage the whole program of Christ than ever before, notwithstanding its immensity, its bewildering complexity, and its taxing difficulty. The first long step toward a solution of the missionary problem is this willingness to face the total issues involved without reserve and without fear.

The following pages present a condensed and swift survey of the unfinished task of the Church of Christ. The size of the task is sketched in its bold outlines. In this chapter is heard the cry that is flung out across the world to every Christian man. It is a cry of neglect and need, of urgency and crisis, the united voice of multitudes among whom the forces of the new age are battling for mastery. The limits of the chapter make it impossible to discuss many important features of the missionary task, such as the social evils of the non-Christian world, the inadequacy of the vast religious systems to meet the deepest needs of mankind, the strength of the customs of centuries, and many more. The reader is referred to the books listed at the close of this chapter for a discussion of these elements of the problems. These pages will give but a glimpse of the task but enough surely to strike a high note of summons to every man to whom Christ is indispensable to make Christ known to all other men in the world to whom he is also indispensable.

Christianity may be said to be naturalized in a land when the native Church has reached the point where it is capable of governing and supporting itself and of completing the work of evangelizing the country. Therefore the naturalization of Christianity is the joint task of the foreign missionary and the native Christian Church. In the process the foreign missionary must decrease, as the native Church increases.

While the definitions given must not be interpreted too strictly, since the processes overlap and there is no absolutely sharp line of distinction between them, in general it is true that it is the duty of each generation of Christians to evangelize its own generation; it is the joint duty of Christendom and the native Church to naturalize Christianity in every land and among all races, and it is the task of the native Church in each land to press with all possible urgency the Christianization of the country. Evangelization and naturalization are the immediate aim: Christianization the final aim of the Church of Christ in the world.

"The man who minimizes the importance of any department of missions leaves himself without ground for the strongest appeal for any department of missions.

"We shall never be able to develop a great conscience concerning any one department of our missionary work, except we develop a great conscience concerning it all.

"Though he may not think so himself, a man whose appeal is wholly for foreign missions may be as truly provincial as one who is all for home missions, for his field does not comprehend the whole world."

No man who has candidly studied the home problems in Canada with all their significance to the future of the Dominion, and the splendid way in which the Canadian leaders are seeking to solve those problems can talk lightly of the task there. The total immigration to Canada in 1910-11 was the largest in its history,--311,084. While the large majority were from England and the United States, the total included representatives of 64 nationalities. The Bible has been called for in 110 languages in the Dominion. There are about 900,000 Protestant Church members out of a total population of 7,200,000. The Catholic Church claims 2,538,374 members. There are about 3,000,000 French Canadians. Montreal has 70,000 foreigners; Winnipeg, 50,000. There are 12,000 Orientals in Vancouver. The great western provinces have all the problems of the frontier.

Looking at the situation in the United States we are confronted with the fact that there are 34,796,077 people over ten years of age who are outside the membership of all the churches. That in itself constitutes an enormous spiritual opportunity and responsibility. Tens of thousands of these people are unreached because the Church has not seriously attempted to reach them. Recent investigations have shown that thousands of our country churches are entirely abandoned, and that in large rural sections the rising generation is practically deprived of all religious training. Until America solves its rural and city church problems, it will be greatly handicapped in its world-wide missionary operations.

There are certain neglected and overlooked groups in American life, such as the Mountaineers of the South. Concerning these sturdy Southerners, who are serving an altogether too long apprenticeship, and who have remained in isolation while modern progress has rushed by them, W. G. Frost says, "I expect to see the mountain regions of the South as peculiar a joy and glory to America as old Scotland is to Great Britain."

Several millions of illiterate Negroes sorely need education and Christianity if the civilization of the country is to be safe. Progress in the solution of these problems has been great, and the Churches are addressing themselves to the task with growing conviction and power.

The loudest call to missionary devotion in the United States is presented by the unprecedented tides of immigration from all corners of the globe. While Canada is feeling this pressure in an unusual degree, the magnitude of the problem in the United States is much greater, not only because of the great numbers but also because of the character of the immigration. The sheer size of the task may be made concrete by comparing the numbers of people who have come to the United States in the last few years with some of the other great migrations of history.

The leading of the children of Israel out of Egypt was one of the outstanding movements of a great population in ancient history. According to the census figures in Numbers i. 46, there were 603,550 men of twenty years of age and upwards. Some were heads of families but many of these were single men, so that, if we multiply the number given in the Bible by five, it will probably give the approximate number of the entire population, or 3,017,750. In the last ten years nearly three times as many people have come to America as the number Moses led out of Egypt. Furthermore, immigrants to America are not all of one race as in the case of Israel, but represent a Babel of races and languages.

The hordes of barbarians which overwhelmed Rome have left a mark on Europe that can never be forgotten. The size and vigor of the movement made a profound impression which history cannot outgrow, and yet Genseric, one of the greatest of their leaders, never had more than 80,000 warriors in his palmiest days.

There have been great successive waves of immigration into China and India from the plains and the mountains of the north and east, but so far as we have knowledge of the numbers they dwindle into comparative insignificance when measured by this greatest of all invasions.

The numbers involved in the Norman Conquest of England would hardly make a ripple on the sea of races and populations crowding to American shores.

The Crusades stand out as epoch-making and unparalleled up to that time in the number of nations disturbed. They covered a period of more than a century and a half and involved several millions of people, but more men, women, and children from other lands have come to the United States and Canada in the last six years than swept across the face of Europe in a century and a half in the Crusades.

To assimilate and Christianize these multitudes is one of the supreme tests of the reality of our faith and the vitality of our national life.

The glory of immigration is fourfold:

These lands lying to the south are America's nearest foreign missionary field.

In each case in which the number of missionaries is mentioned in this volume, unless otherwise stated, it may be understood to include all missionaries, both men and women, except wives of missionaries. This is thought to be fair, not because missionaries' wives are not as devoted as their husbands or other workers, but because it is not to be expected that a woman with household cares should be responsible for the same amount of direct Christian work that is expected of other workers on the field. In other words, the family or the single worker is considered the unit.

The people in Mexico are nominally Roman Catholic, the census returns showing thirteen and a half millions of that faith. Conditions are difficult for Protestant missions. The population of Mexico is more than fifteen millions. Among these millions there are 249 representatives of Protestant Christianity. In 1895 more than ten millions in Mexico could neither read nor write, and while conditions have improved somewhat since then, it is safe to say that seven out of every ten of the population are illiterate. In Central America, including Panama, there are 96 missionaries.

These simple facts will illustrate the truth that there are still parts of the North American continent inadequately cultivated by the Protestant churches.

The South American lands are nominally Roman Catholic. They know considerable of the phraseology of Christianity, but its vital truth has not been largely realized. Here are seven million square miles of opportunity which call loudly for the Christian application of the Monroe doctrine. While the majority of the people are of European blood , every principle of justice indicates North America's obligation to hasten the redemption of South America. These lands followed the example of the United States in adopting the republic as their ideal of government. They have not hitherto enjoyed our religious freedom along with our republican form of government. Free government cannot be fully and permanently enjoyed by any people without actual religious liberty. Freedom of conscience produces the intelligence and virtue essential to a democracy. The South American lands have lacked such freedom. This in itself constitutes a real challenge to the faith of North American Christians.

A brief glimpse of two or three of the lands will indicate the character of the problem a little more clearly.

Bolivia, which is fourteen times as large as the State of New York, has only sixteen workers, counting wives, so that each worker in Bolivia has a parish larger than the entire State of Pennsylvania. The same proportion would give five workers to the Province of Quebec. Since these words were written however a party of three new missionaries sailed from New York to enter this field.

The Argentine Republic is the most advanced and prosperous country of South America. It has, according to figures given by Mr. Robert E. Speer at the Rochester Student Volunteer Convention, a per capita export three and a half times as great as the United States, one hundred and twenty times as great as the Chinese Empire and the total exports were nearly equal to those of the entire continent of Africa. The Argentine Republic has but one worker to every 8,737 square miles. The illiteracy of this, the most enlightened land of South America, is 50 per cent. of the population. Thus it is seen that the brightest spot in South America has appalling need of Protestant Christianity.

Looking at the problem in the large, there is in South America a population of approximately 49,000,000. In the whole continent there are only 881 Protestant missionaries. If we omit the wives of missionaries from the calculations this gives to each worker a population of 83,050 and a field of 12,450 square miles, or more than nine times the size of Rhode Island.

New York State has 42,558 primary and high school teachers. If we omit the teachers in the two lands farthest north in South America; namely, Venezuela and Colombia, New York has as many teachers as all of the South American continent.

The illiteracy of the United States, even including all those who cannot read or write among immigrants and Negroes, is only 10.7 per cent., while the lowest per cent. of illiteracy in any country in South America is 50 and the highest nearly 90.

It would perhaps be a fair estimate to say that at least three out of four people in the South American lands live where they will probably not hear the message of Christ from Protestant missionaries in any adequate way in this generation unless the Church greatly multiplies its missionary agencies in South America.

There are three Africas, each with its difficult problems.

The intellectual task on this educational frontier of the world is indicated by the fact that there are 843 languages and dialects on the continent. The Edinburgh Conference estimated that in Pagan and Mohammedan Africa combined there are a hundred millions of people without a written language or even an alphabet of their own.

On the whole continent of Africa there are 3,244 missionaries, each with a parish of 3,614 square miles and 46,239 people. There is only a handful of missionaries to guard 3,000 miles of Mediterranean coast from Egypt to Gibraltar. From Khartum to Uganda, along the rich Nile valley, a distance of 1,000 miles, there are about a dozen missionaries.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet