p. 14 | Into All the World by William A. Spicer

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 11, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 40.

Into All the World

By William A. Spicer

By W. A. Spicer

Geographical Progress and Missions

It was surely no accident that the dawn of the Reformation era in Europe was also the dawn of the era of geographical discovery.

The time had come when not only the truth of God was to be revealed again to men, but the way into all the world was to be prepared, for the final work of spreading the light of truth among all peoples.

The progress of geographical discovery fits closely in with the progress of the missionary idea. Down to the fifteenth century Europe knew little more of the world than was known in the early centuries. In fact, by the Moslem invasion Africa and Asia had been largely obscured to European vision. But at the very time when Reformation truth was preparing to spread its wings of light in Europe, some impelling force in providence moved the hearts of navigators to undertake the discovery of the world. The following is a brief schedule of the early voyages:

1492 — Columbus discovers the New World. 1493 — Columbus’s second voyage, discovering Jamaica. 1497 — Vasco de Gama rounds the southern cape of Africa. 1497-98 — The Cabots, of England, find the coast of North America. 1499 — Vespucci discovers South America. 1502 — Columbus on his fourth voyage reaches Honduras. 1519 — Cortez conquers Mexico. 1519 — Magellan sails, to pass through the Straits of Magellan and into the South Pacific, being slain in 1521 in the Philippine Islands. 1577-79 — Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe, touching the Pacific Coast of America, from San Francisco to the Columbia River.

Next followed the centuries of settlement in the New World, while all the time the forces were at work to continue the progress of reformation until these last days, when the final message of reform is to be carried to all the world.

The nineteenth century opened the age preeminently of modern missions. And if the era of the Reformation was an era of world-discovery, this century of modern missions has been the century of world-exploration.

The missionary movement was not concerned with mere coast lines. For three centuries the sails of the traders had swept the seas and touched at the trading ports. But under the great commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,” the inland wildernesses were to be penetrated, and the message of life brought to tribes and tongues hitherto unknown.

Again it is surely no accident that just as the call of missions was meeting a response in the church, there came also into the hearts of men a desire to open up the countries of the world, and to lay bare the secrets of unknown lands. It was

Providence Overruling

the natural spirit of adventure. And to many an explorer and martyr to science and the extension of human knowledge might be applied the word spoken by the Lord to Cyrus: “I girded thee, tho thou hast not known Me: that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me.” Others have been conscious of the divine impulse upon them to press on and on into the regions beyond, blazing many a trail along which later the Gospel missionary passed.

There was Mungo Park, for instance, the Scottish surgeon in the service of the African Society, seeking the route to Timbuctoo for the benefit of trade. When at last he reached the upper Niger, flowing eastward, “broad as the Thames at Westminster,” he fell on his knees and “gave fervent thanks to God” who had granted him success in his perilous journeyings. And after two years he returned, in 1797, having collected, it is said, “more facts as to the geography, manners, and customs of the country than all preceding travelers.” And these were the facts that began to give West Africa a place in the thoughts of the church abroad.

While William Carey, apostle of India and pioneer of modern missions, received his inspiration from the Gospel of life and love alone, it was his study of the journals of Captain Cook’s voyages among the Pacific islands that helped to deepen the conviction that the time had come when not alone explorers, but missionaries of the cross of Christ, must be out in the wilds, telling the good news among the heathen peoples. Speaking of the later years of the eighteenth century, Jules Verne wrote:

“During the eighteenth century

Africa was Literally Besieged by Travelers

Explorers endeavored to penetrate into it from every side. More than one succeeded in reaching the interior, only to meet with repulse or death. This discovery of the secrets of this mysterious continent was reserved for our own age, when the unexpected fertility of its resources has astonished the civilized world.”

In our own time Livingstone was the prince of African missionaries, and his motive was wholly and solely the missionary motive; but he really spent a good share of his life in what would be regarded as purely geographical work. Notwithstanding the disapproval of the missionary society at home, he felt laid upon him the burden to seek to open up to the knowledge of the world the heart of the great Dark Continent. Where the geographical part ends, he said, the missionary problem begins. And the results abundantly justified his course.

The following paragraph from Mills’s International Geography shows how organized geographical work has been exactly timed by Providence to fit into the great plan of world-wide evangelization in these last days:

“The first [geographical society] was founded at Paris in 1821, the second at Berlin in 1828, and the third, which is now the largest and most influential, at London in 1830. There were in 1896 no less than 83

active geographical societies in Europe, 6 in Asia, 6 in North America, 4 in South America, 4 in Africa, and 4 in Australia; 107 altogether, with a total membership of 50,000 persons. There are also at least 153 different geographical journals or magazines published regularly in all parts of the world. It may safely be said that this argues a more wide-spread interest in geography than exists in any other science.”

As we study the up-to-date missionary map of a heathen land, we may little understand how many factors have entered into the making up of such a map. For instance, take the missionary atlas of China, just put out by the China Inland Mission, and drawn by Mr. Stanford, of London, the king’s geographer. In spite of the fact that the paragraph will look a very solid one, I want to give, as an interesting illustration of the point, the following account by the geographer of the recent surveys used in the preparation of this latest and best map of a region into which all the missionary societies are pushing their forces:

“For the Kukunor district, compilations at the Royal Geographical Society; for Southwest Mongolia, the Russian Frontier Survey. For regions in the northeast of Tibet, Carl Futterer’s route; for Southern Chili, the Topographical Section by the British War Office, also the China Field-Force Survey. For Inner Mongolia, Lieut.-Colonel Wingate’s Survey; and for Manchuria, the Topographical Section by the British War Office. For Shantung, Honan, Chekiang, and Szechwan, the Topographical Sections by the British War Office. For Eastern China, the German War Office map; and for Kiangsu, the map by the Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster-General’s Department, Dehra Dun. For Anhwei, the Surveys of Lieut.-Colonel Wingate; and for the region of the Poyang Lake, charts by the Admiralty and by Consul W. J. Clennell. For the region of the Tungting Lake, the Admiralty Chart; for Yunnan, a map by Major Davies; for Western Kwangtung, maps by the Chambre de Commerce de Lyon; and for Hainan and Indo-China, the Carte de la Mission Pavie. For India and the adjacent countries, the maps compiled in the Burma Surveys Drawing Office.”

In These Last Days

the time has come when the message of the everlasting Gospel, as described by John in the fourteenth of Revelation, is to be carried to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. For such a time as this it was essential that every nation and people should be brought out of obscurity. This generation in which we live is the first generation in which it could be truly said that all the world is known. This, then, is the generation in which the last Gospel message long foretold is to be carried to the whole world. This is the explanation of the unparalleled missionary activity of our time.