A WRONG CONCEPTION OF MISSIONARY WORK.
By Editor
DR. JOHN FRYER, professor of oriental languages and literature in the University of California, has a paper in Ainslee’s Magazine for August on "Missionary Work in China." Dr. Fryer, more perhaps than any other man in America, understands China and the Chinese character and the Chinese languages. He has been a resident of China for many years, has, we understand, translated many and various works into Chinese, has even acted as interpreter between Chinese officials of different provinces and dialects, and has intimate acquaintance with leading nobles and officials. Certainly, such an one from the view point of scholarship and opportunity of observation should be listened to with respect. Mr. Fryer scorns "the missionary tramp—with little education, but with vast amount of conceit instead. He is sent out perhaps by a small Christian denomination or church, and is half paid or even self-supporting." This class Mr. Fryer tells us is imprudent, and before long "finds himself involved in serious riots or other difficulties, and makes a passionate appeal to his consul for protection." Doubtless this class is in evidence. Presumption with such is mistaken for faith. Mr. Fryer condemns the "debauched Americans," to whom the Chinese point with scorn, among which are found even well-to-do merchants. The Chinese class these with the missionary, and tell the latter to begin at home. That they are classed together is, we believe, largely the fault of the missionary. Among the mistakes of the missionaries, as Mr. Fryer conceives them, is on the one hand making too much of the converts, and another is in not recognizing in any way the many good features in the religious beliefs and practises of the Chinese. . . . These good missionaries overlook the fact that Christianity does not go to China to destroy the existing religions; but as Christ came to fulfil the desire of the Jewish prophets, so Christianity seeks the fulfilment of all the better aspirations of the Chinese sages and religious teachers. To regard any of these oriental religious systems as wholly false is now coming to be considered as a mistake of the past. As we grow into juster views and discriminations, we are beginning to see that all the great historic religions of the world are only the products of seeking after God. As the same sun shone on China that shone on Judea, so it was the same Spirit of God that moved the Chinese prophets and sages to write down what they believed God had inspired . . . Should not the missionary therefore recognize and acknowledge all that is good among the Chinese beliefs and religious practises? Should he not make of them a foundation upon which the higher precepts of the Gospel of Christ should stand? Of the American missionary in general Dr. Fryer speaks highly. He says of the nearly 1,000 in China:— They are men and women of whom America may well feel proud. The home of the missionary is a center of light for all the surrounding districts. The children of the mission schools and colleges see the home life of the missionary families, learn the meaning of the stars and stripes on the national flag, understand their feeling of patriotism in its highest sense, and delight to learn the history of the country7that has sent them so much help from purely philanthropic motives. It is the spirit of patriotism that the Chinese need next to the spirit of Christianity; and it is the American missionary who is eminently qualified to teach it to them even in the face of the corrupt government of China. Of the difficulties which the missionary has to encounter Dr. Fryer enumerates the following:— 1. The enormous size of the nation and the extent of country. . . . The emperor of China rules over one-tenth of the surface of the habitable globe, and nearly half of the population of our planet. Both the land and the people are not only immense and overwhelming, but strange, unique, and without analogy. The methods used for preaching the Gospel in our own lands or among uncivilized races have to be modified greatly, if not entirely changed, when applied to the civilization of China. The mass to be moved is enormous, and the power applied must be in proportion. The complexity of the language. The old saying that "the devil invented the Chinese characters to keep Christianity out of China," appears to have some show of reason when we find that in place of a Chinese alphabet there are tens of thousands of formidable hieroglyphics or pictorial characters, and that each constitutes a separate monosyllabic word. Furthermore, this written language is to be seen and not heard, to be read and not spoken. Then there is the official or court language used in the northern and central provinces, with hundreds of different dialects spoken south of Yang-tse. The missionary there has therefore to learn the local dialect, the court language, and the written or classical language, before he can preach, read the translations of the Scriptures, and carry on oral and written intercourse with all the different classes of natives he meets. This alone is the work almost of a lifetime. 2. But when the missionary has overcome these difficulties, which few succeed in doing beyond a certain limited extent, his task is only just begun. He has to learn all that the ordinary Chinese know from their classical and other books and teachers, in order to meet them on their own ground. Then he must begin to attack the sentiments the Chinaman holds most dear, and which are hallowed by the earliest associations and parental love. 4. Another serious difficulty the missionary has to contend with is the complicated form of the religion of the Chinese. Instead of one system of doctrines and teachings, there are three great and separate religions, dwelling side by side and with little if any friction or want of harmony. Altho radically different in their origin, characteristics, and general aims, each seems to be a complement of the other. A Chinaman may select and follow as much of all these as he pleases, without being inconsistent. The missionary has therefore to study all their religions in their history, doctrines, and practical influence upon the heart and every-day life of the people, before he can begin to meet them on their own ground and answer all their objections to Christianity. He has three separate citadels to attack instead of one. [These are the doctrines compiled by Confucius from the ancient kings and sages, a collection of high moral precepts and sayings; the philosophy of Tao-teh-king, or Taoism; and Buddhism.] . . . The Western Paradise, the Buddhist Hells, the transmigration of souls, the vegetarian diet, the doctrines of Karma and Nirvana, and the worship of the goddess Kwan-yin, who has power to save and to bestow sons upon her votaries, are all so firmly engrafted on the ordinary Chinese mind that it seems impossible that they should be modified, much less effaced by the teachings of Christianity. Yet the missionary is expected to go forward boldly to attack this giant also, in the name of the Lord, and armed only with its sling and his stone. 5. As if all these difficulties were not sufficient, Buddhism had hardly settled down harmoniously with its two sister religions when Mohammedanism entered the empire, pushing its way into imperial notice with great effect, and contesting with its monotheistic doctrine against the corrupt religious practises that had grown up in the other three religions. . . . Most missionaries who have come in contact with Mohammedans, would much rather work in places where they are not to be found. 6. Perhaps the greatest difficulty of all is ancestral worship, which may be called the national religion, and which will die the hardest. Some of the above difficulties are real; some are manufactured; and some are based on a wrong conception of the Christian religion. The great field of China, its enormous mass of people, the unwholesomeness of its climate, and the fearful apathy and deadness of conscience wrought by centuries of perverted truth and heathen formalism, are no doubt tremendous obstacles to Gospel work; but all these things can be met and overcome in the only way they have ever been overcome,—by the Gospel of Christ. In the italics above we have indicated certain statements and conceptions which are worthy of more than passing notice, and upon which we are moved to make the following observations:— Dr. Fryer's misconception lies in looking upon Christianity as he looks upon all these other religions. He considers it better, vastly better, doubtless, than any other of these great historic religions; but still one of them, somewhat more advanced, in fact, the embodied developed wisdom of the ages. Many others in Christendom hold similar views. Now the simple fact is that there is no comparison between Christianity and Buddhism, or any other religion. The latter is a form, a system, a cult; the former is the life of God, sent down from heaven to a dying world. The teachings of Confucius and Buddha and Socrates are dry, dead forms, with no more life behind them than is possessed by the tombs of their authors; but the teaching of Jesus Christ is replete with the life of God to all who receive it by faith. Sinful man may know what is right, but that knowledge will impart no power to do what is right. Some of the great moralizers of the world have been unregenerate men. One of the best lectures we ever heard against gambling was delivered by a gambler to a boy who had invested in the gambler's game to the gambler's gain. Some of the best utterances against the liquor curse have come from the lips of confirmed drunkards. It has been one of the schemes of the arch enemy of all good to get men to be content with the naked precept. He has even deceived Christians. He has led many to believe that God's living truth could be conserved by writing it in cold, dead creeds to which men have subscribed their names. Creed has been compared with creed, and creeds with heathen system, and the subscriber to "Christian" creed settles down to self-satisfied complacency, if not hypocrisy, cold, formal, powerless, dead. The theories are good, but possess no life, and it is life the great sick, dying world needs. Of what use is it to tell a sick, dying man that he is sick and ought to be better or well. He knows he is sick; he longs to be well; and it is only the refinement of cruelty to lay before him another set of rules and formulas and precepts and theories and the highest civilization, and say to the poor, impotent, starved soul, Do these and be blessed. He looks back to the centuries of human doing, and sinks into discouragement. O, it is but a wretched caricature of Christianity to present it as a superior system of morals! It is a hope-destroying perversion of the Gospel song to present it as a mere creed, set to the music of war drum and cannon. The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes. It has no three citadels to attack, but one,—the carnal, unregenerate heart of man. The bearer of the message of life needs not to know the numberless creeds of earth. He needs not to know the devious, subtle ways of sin's sowing. David needed not to know the feints and thrusts and parries and strokes of Goliath of Gath; he needed only to know his stone and sling—and he did know it effectually. The missionary needs not to know how to "move the mass," but how to reach the individual soul. God will care for the mass. The apostles needed not to know the subtle philosophies of heathen nature-worship to reach the citadel of the longing heart lost in the mazes of them all. The mighty life and love of God in the message were all-sufficient. Subtle philosophies were dissipated, idol fanes crumbled, and heathen gods and goddesses fell before the simple word of life of the Gospel. It was not till a sickly, worldly Christianity felt it necessary to study heathen philosophy, and endeavor to find a basis for Christianity in it, that her power to save men was lost, and the counsel of God was darkened by the great cloud of words without knowledge. Life was substituted by its shadow, truth by its form, and soon both form and shadow were perverted. But the Dark Ages are in the past, praise God. The Reformation betokened the dawning, and now God again wishes His church to present to the world the great "everlasting Gospel," with its solemn admonition to turn from man and "fear God, and give glory to Him," and "worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." What the missionary needs to know above all things else is God and His Word. In that Word is all that is necessary to meet the combined and complicated antagonistic religions of the ages. The best detector of discords is he who best knows harmony. He needs not to study the discord. It would, in fact, ruin his ear for harmony. The missionary to China also needs to know that God has given him his mission to that particular field of his labor. He should know how to care for his own body, the temple of God. He should yield himself to God for the best and wisest service for the purchase of Christ's blood in China. He should go not representing America, nor American civilization, nor American patriotism, nor American Christianity even, but representing Christ and His religion alone. He would then have no lame apologies to make for American sinners or American "Christians." He could proclaim in all steadfastness the one Saviour, the one life, the one Gospel, and he could say that all others were spurious or weak imitations at best. Such a missionary would not become involved in political troubles. He would not be considered, as soon as he was known, as an enemy of the government. He would not appeal to foreign powers, or to consuls, but to God, and God would hear and as manifestly answer and interpose as in ages past. Every soul who accepted Christ as the life would nevermore be troubled about ancestral worship. The acceptance of the Gospel of truth would meet all the soul's need, and utterly demolish the unholy systems of heathen idolatry. And yet this would not be done by long arguments or direct attack upon the hoary battlements of error. The light of the Gospel of Christ let within the heart will shine away all that is dark and obscure. The real difficulties call for the self-sacrifice and devotion characteristic of God's work in all ages, but as man yields to God, God will make plains of the mountains, and multiply every consecrated gift among native Christians. Civilization, as men may measure it, may not follow, but God will warn all and will gather out those who will glorify His name to all eternity.