Smaller Unoccupied Mission Fields Waiting
By J. N. Anderson
APART from the unreached millions of Central Asia (35,000,000) and the still larger masses of benighted peoples in the heart of Africa (50,000,000), there are scores of smaller areas in different parts of the heathen world where millions are waiting for the pioneer missionary who for the love of souls will gladly carry the gospel of healing to the remotest parts. In the Malay Peninsula are four large districts that have recently come under the British flag, aggregating in population about 1,000,000. In none of these have we begun missionary operations. A population of 21,500,000 is to be found in French Indo-China which, but for the presence of one solitary mission station with four workers, must be classed as unentered territory. On the eastern half of Sumatra, together with some of the adjoining islands, are to be found 3,200,000 souls untouched by the gospel of our Saviour. The central and western parts of the island of Borneo are still pagan, and no messenger of Christ is among the 400,000 in those regions. Madura Island, just off the northeast coast of Java, together with Sumbawa, Flores, Timor, Bali, and Lombok Islands, strung along to the southeast and representing a population of 2,000,000, are without a single witness for the truth. These peoples are either already in the grasp of Islam or fast falling under the power of the false prophet. The entire central and southern part of Celebes (east of Borneo), with a population of at least 200,000 distributed over a large area, has no messenger of the Great King. Still farther east, the island of Ceram, in the Molluca group, is an unentered field. In northern and central Papua, or New Guinea, a large area, with an unknown population, is another untouched field—the objective mission field of the great missionary, James Chalmers, who died a martyr a few years ago. A population aggregating about 127,000, mostly Mohammedans, is to be found in the Sulu Archipelago, the Palawan and the Tawi-Tawi groups in the Philippine Islands. They have no missionary. Besides, there is the island of Samar, with a population of 266,000, in the same plight. Buka and Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands group, having a population of 60,000; and Socotra Island, south of the Arabian peninsula, once Christian and now wholly Moslem, are waiting for the first missionary. In this connection should be mentioned the three great provinces of Nejd, Hedjaz, and Hadramaut, in Arabia, peopled with about 4,000,000. No missionary is there. In old Syria east of the Jordan are sections of country whose populations aggregate 500,000, and these all wait for the gospel. The Sinaitic Peninsula, the ancient land of Midian, where Moses cared for the sheep of his father-in-law, has 50,000 souls, but no spiritual shepherd. Passing once more up toward the "roof of the world," we find there right under the eaves as it were, two independent kingdoms not included in the masses of Central Asia. Both of these kingdoms are unentered territory. Nepal, about 500 miles long from east to west and 150 miles broad, with an area of 54,000 square miles, has a population of about 5,000,000, mostly of the Hindu faith and descent. Nestled within the Himalayan range of mountains, is the little kingdom of Bhutan, 160 miles long by 90 miles wide, with a population of at least 300,000. It lies between Tibet and Assam, resembling the former in government and religion, though far in advance of that land in point of fertility, progress, and civilization. But it has been absolutely closed to all foreigners for centuries. Crossing over from Asia to Africa and Madagascar, we find here, also several of those smaller areas, not included in that vast sweep of the untouched interior. The large island of Madagascar, now under French control, has for some time been in the class of entered fields, but its slender force of workers is so located that the larger part of the island is an unentered field. In West Africa there are great gaps between the few mission stations; and the same is true in the Portuguese territories on the east and the west coasts, so making extensive districts where the gospel has not yet been carried. North Africa is nominally an occupied mission field, but the pathetic fact remains that a mere handful of missionaries are so widely distributed over that vast stretch of territory, once Christian, so far apart and so slenderly manned, that the many large untouched areas make North Africa practically an unoccupied field.13 To summarize: this hasty survey of the two greatest continents of the world sets before us the very impressive and overwhelming figures representing in the aggregate not less than 60,000,000 souls in Asia and 70,000,000 in Africa who are unreached by any missionary society (Protestant) whatsoever. Nor is this all; these masses are quite outside all the immediate projected plans and hopes of all Protestant missionary societies. These unreached millions are a challenge to the entire Christian world after all these decades of world missions; but what shall we say they mean to us as a people who are looking for the soon-coming King? But the great problem of fulfilling the commission of our Lord is not confined to the figures and facts set forth in the foregoing paragraphs. There is also the great task of fully preaching the message in those lands that are counted as entered and occupied. I am still dealing with the work of Protestant missions in general. In the relatively small field of Japan there are large sections that must be looked upon as unoccupied territory. India is even less adequately manned, leaving millions without resident missionaries. As for the Chinese field, it is perhaps sufficient to say that out of the 2,033 walled cities in the provinces only 476 have missionaries residing in them, nor is this fact so strange when it is remembered that there are only about 4,000 foreign missionaries in China. Such a picture may, with the first view of it, seem depressing. It may even seem that the world has brought forth masses that yesterday were not. This catalogue of countries, races, and peoples indicated in these brief articles may seem to create a new geography, or to rudely revise the old maps. Such, however, is not the case. These lands and peoples have been just what they are and where they are for generations. Our knowledge has been circumscribed, limited, and hence these peoples have been to us as though they were not. It is of God that our vision of the world and its needs is being cleared. We are called to "look on the fields," not that we may falter and waver, but that we may "pray . . . the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers;" and this praying must be of such a character that it will, first of all, make us true missionaries at heart, prepared to say with the great apostle to the Gentiles, "So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel;" and second, it will drive us to God for the fullest cooperation of the divine. It is not sufficient that we passively follow Jesus, inquiring, as the disciples did, "Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" for the same Jesus is still saying to his followers, "Give ye them to eat," "Ye shall receive power," and, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth." Of our Saviour we read, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law."