The Value of Christian Missions
By Editor
THE recently published statement of Lieutenant Wood, of the U.S. navy, that missions in China are a failure, has called out considerable evidence to the contrary. The most recent expression of this character is from ex-Minister Benjamin, until recently our representative at Teheran, who gives in the current Unitarian Review striking testimony to the value of Christian missions. No one, he says, who has lived amid foreign missions but must be aware, and will admit, if candid, that the influence of missions in a reduction of tyranny and cruelty, an enlightenment more rapid than ordinary events would have caused, a general amelioration of society, and a greater readiness to welcome the progressive movements of the period, has been very great, and is gaining constantly in geometric ratio. It has proved, in truth, one of the great factors in awakening the Orient from its lethargy.