p. 25 | Suggestions for the Study of Mission Fields

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1907

Suggestions for the Study of Mission Fields

By A. C. Selmon

SINCE coming to the mission field, the importance of a missionary education has impressed me very much. I can look back and see how much better preparation I could have secured for the field if I had only known how to get such a preparation. Anything that will increase the efficiency of the messengers of truth calls for the most serious consideration. I shall be glad to offer a few suggestions that I have had in mind for some time.

For the study of early mission history in China, there are the biographies of such men as Morrison, Parker, and others. To study the field as it is to-day, there are a few books that are indispensable. These are, for missionary biography, “The Retrospect,” by J. Hudson Taylor, and the “Life of J. Hudson Taylor,” which will soon be printed, will no doubt be a very valuable book. For a study of the people and their customs, Dr. Arthur H. Smith’s two books—“Chinese Characteristics” and “Village Life in China”—are without peers. In addition, there are two intensely interesting, as well as instructive, books dealing with Chinese life, written by Mrs. Howard Taylor. One is “Pastor Hsi, One of China’s Scholars;” the other is “Pastor Hsi, One of China’s Christians.” While there are scores of other books, yet there are none that are more reliable and instructive than these, and any one having a burden for the field should by all means carefully read all of them. And those who may not have a burden for China should read these books, in order that they may pray more intelligently for the work here.

A plan that we follow, which is very profitable to us, even here on the mission field, and which I am sure would be of great service in teaching, is to secure extra files of our different papers, and cut out all the pictures dealing with life in our different mission fields. Arrange them systematically, with a brief description appended. Having the pictures of the people and their surroundings comes the nearest to living among them of any plan I can think of. Many good pictures may be secured also from other missionary magazines, especially the monthly magazine, China’s Millions, published by Morgan and Scott, Paternoster Buildings, London, England; price, one shilling sixpence per annum. It contains many pictures of Chinese scenes. There is a China’s Millions published in Toronto, Canada, but it is not equal to that put out in England.

I want to mention the importance of correspondence. The student should correspond with some missionary who is in the field. It will be a great stimulus and help in every way, and the information gained in this way will be of a very practical nature. Every worker with a deep heart burden for the people for whom he is working will be only too glad to have such correspondents. Lastly, but by no means least, there should be definite prayer for the mission field. I mean by this that, in addition to prayer for the progress of the message in all lands, there should be definite prayer for a worker in some particular field. From experience, I can testify that it leads one to feel that he is a coworker with the one for whom he is praying. Any one acquainted with missionary history knows what God has done in answer to such prayers.

I trust that these suggestions may be of some use to students in our schools, and earnestly pray that the young people in these training-schools may receive such a training that they will go out by the scores to do efficient work in such fields as our own benighted China.

A. C. SELMON.