LEGITIMATE MISSIONARY WORK

LEGITIMATE MISSIONARY WORK.

“I see no reason to change our attitude, and I hope our people at home will think long and carefully before they allow themselves to be drawn into the same secular swirl. It is true, we have started no ‘universities,’ as have some of our sister denominations, to give a western secular education to men of the world up to the most recent standards of science and philosophy. This does not imply on our part any lack of appreciation of what a western training can do, nor an indifference to China’s progress in that direction. What it does mean is that we exalt our own proper and legitimate work, and that we will not turn aside from it to ‘meet a demand’ which the secular world may see fit to make upon us. We are a missionary organization. We exist for missionary purposes, and we will stick to legitimate missionary work. Our object is to evangelize the nation, and to Christianize those who are ready to repent and believe the Gospel. This direct work is enough, and more than enough, to utilize all the energies and the resources that we can command. Indeed, we have not enough now wherewith to do our own direct work. Therefore we have nothing to spare for bestowal on men who have no sympathy with our Christian work—who come to us to be educated for civil advancement, and that alone.”