A LARGE amount of consecrated missionary effort has been given to India since Wm. Carey's coming. Still it needs light, more light. Said the Calcutta Indian Witness (Methodist) the other day:—
“When one sits down in sober thought to consider the condition of affairs in India, it is utterly discouraging to find that after a century of evangelical missionary work there is not a solitary self-governing, self-sustaining native mission, conference, or community, in the whole land, and the prospect of having one in the near future is by no means as bright as one could wish.”
No human organization of missionary effort can do the work. There is need of the Word that builds up and bears fruit and works effectually. India needs more of the Word. If so desperate is the need of evangelized India, what of the millions of Hindu idolaters and Mohammedans? Hideous images express the cruel character of the divinities worshiped. Small wonder that human nature sinks always lower as it deifies its own iniquities. In more than one of the unholy places of Hinduism, as in Babylon of old, in the very precincts of the temples, virtue and womanhood are systematically sacrificed as a part of the degraded religion.
Not only native India, but Europeans and mixed classes as well, need the message for this time, telling where we are in the world's history, and revealing the Gospel as actually the power of God for the life of righteousness. One of Kipling's soldiers talks of the regions—
". . . east of Suez,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments, and a man can raise a thirst."
There are many in all parts letting their light shine and waiting for more light, but nominal religion does not flourish amid heathen darkness, and human nature away from the restraints of society proves its innate paganism. And, strange to say, in the face of the lawlessness of heathenism there are pulpits here ready to oppose the preaching of the perfect law of God's righteousness. Only the other day a leading Calcutta pastor declared the Bible to be full of errors. Yes, in the face of idolatry, and feebleness, and apostasy, India to-day, as never before, needs the message of more abundant life by the living Word. Who will have a part in the glorious work?
Solomon Island Chief.
The Attitude of the Earth
The attitude of the earth as regards Christianity. Each small square represents a million; the black squares, those who are in the darkness of paganism; the two lone white squares, what has been done toward their conversion. In civilized lands 140 million nominal Christians, but how few real ones!
MEXICO.
By D. T. Jones
BY ELDER D. T. JONES.
THE first constitution adopted by Mexico is known in history as the Constitution of the Three Guarantees. One of these guaranteed that Roman Catholicism should be the only religion tolerated by the government. It was not until 1867 that the laws of reform which had been enacted by Congress ten years before went into effect. The laws of reform abolished all monastic orders, confiscated all property held by the church, except that actually used for public worship, made marriage a civil contract, placed the cemeteries under municipal control, forbade religious processions and other public demonstrations, and conferred upon every citizen and stranger freedom and protection in his religious faith and practise. The noble and patriotic men who have given civil and religious liberty to their country have also opened up before it an era of prosperity such as has not been known before in its history. A splendid system of public schools has been established, all the useful arts and sciences are fostered, all benevolent and philanthropic enterprises calculated to benefit society encouraged, and enterprising and experienced foreigners welcomed.
A Street Scene in Guadalajara. Mexico.
But Roman Catholicism is endeavoring to maintain, through clerical influence, what it has lost at the hands of the civil power. Every effort is being made to keep the people wholly under the influence of the Church of Rome. Protestantism is misrepresented and scandalized. But God has prepared the way for His truth to go to all these millions of Spanish-speaking people. They are still in almost total darkness in reference to the love of God and of the saving power of faith through the Gospel. The Bible has been, and still is, almost unknown among the masses. But the way is open for the Bible to be placed in the hands of the people, and for the Gospel to be preached to them. God has done wonders in opening up the way. It now remains for His people to do the work the Lord has enjoined upon them.
Spanish is more extensively spoken than any other modern language except the English. At a moderate estimate, 75,000,000 people speak Spanish, and very few of all these speak any other language. More people speak Spanish to-day than spoke English at the beginning of the century. Spanish-speaking nations encircle the globe. They may be summed up as follows: Spain, 17,000,000; Mexico, 13,000,000; Central America, 3,000,000; South America, 30,000,000; West Indies, 3,000,000; the Philippines and other Pacific islands, 8,000,000; North Africa, 1,000,000.
OPEN JAPAN.
THE "Sunrise Kingdom" needs light, the light of the Gospel.
Typical Japanese Laborers.
The Japanese Empire is not large, and that is in its favor. Its 3,500 islands more or less, cover an area of about 147,600 square miles. Its population is set at 40,072,000. Its largest island, Nippon, embraces more than one-half the empire.
Its people, of Mongolian type, perhaps of Tartar origin, are enterprising, hospitable, brainy, patriotic, skilful, quick to learn and imitate. In religion they adhere to Shintoism and largely Buddhism, religions of self-salvation, the results of which are continually before the people.
Christianity is needed, but not the Christianity of England, or Germany, or France, or America. There has been too much of such kind of Christianity laid before the people of the East for their acceptance. Missionaries are needed who will carry and proclaim the religion of Christ, irrespective of race or nation. For this religion they will not need to apologize or be ashamed, whatever any nation may do. The power of God will go with such a Gospel, proclaimed in the love of Jesus; and the shrines of ancient man-made religions will crumble before its divine power.
THE DARK CONTINENT.
ETHIOPIA shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. She is now doing it. Her very condition, her open doors to commerce, sin, and religion, her breaking up, are appeals to the servants of God to enter and proclaim the Gospel.
The area of Africa is over 11,500,000 square miles. Its population is 168,500,000. It is divided into nearly forty States, provinces, colonies, and districts, a half dozen of which are independent.
It is the home of the black race, many of them sunken in pagan ignorance and the grossest superstition; many of them Mohammedans; some of them, as in South Africa and Abyssinia, nominally Christians, but with few real followers of Christ.
Native Egyptian Woman and Child.
There are to be met fevers, pestilences, violence, cannibalism, poisonous insects, death-dealing reptiles, wicked, treacherous nations, and hearts as hard as steel and dark as night. Missionaries are demanded who are wholly consecrated to God; who know how to care for the body as the temple of God; who have faith in God for physical as well as spiritual ills; who are full of the Word and Spirit, to win souls.
WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA.
By Elder G. H. Baber
BY ELDER G. H. BABER.
THIS field consists of four republics, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, thus extending from the equator to Cape Horn, four thousand miles in a direct line, varying in width from one hundred to eight hundred miles, containing one and a half million square miles, and more than eight million people. Among all these millions true Christianity has done but little. But the larger part of the people are Roman Catholics.
Over these millions is the Roman hierarchy, composed of four archbishops, nineteen bishops, thousands of priests, monks, and nuns, financially and otherwise supported by the civil governments. Many are sunken in worse than heathen darkness. With what but the power of God through His preached Word, can it be hoped to accomplish anything against such a stronghold?
In this field the people are taught that they are Christians, having been made such by unconsciously receiving baptism during infancy; hence it is rather a Gadarenian than a "Macedonian cry" we usually hear. However, there are some genuine exceptions, and for these we thank God, and labor, and pray.
THE WEST INDIA FIELD.
By C. A. Hall
BY ELDER C. A. HALL.
T[[FIGURE]]HESE hundreds of islands lying off our southern coast have been brought into prominence by the events of the past few months.
Their history is a peculiar one, embracing, as it does, discovery, wars, conquest, and oppression in varied forms. At the present time their territory is divided among five powers,—Great Britain, France, Denmark, Holland, and the United States, with the island of Haiti as an independent republic. They contain about 95,000 square miles, with a population of 5,000,000. Of this number, two-thirds are black; and the remaining one-third consists of whites, Chinese, coolies, and the colored or mixed people. Cuba, with its one and a half millions, has one and a quarter millions of blacks and colored, the others being of Spanish descent. Haiti is credited with but few whites, while Puerto Rico is about equally divided between the two races. In Barbados the whites average one in eighty-five, while Jamaica is credited with three per cent. of whites in her population of 700,000.
The moral condition of the masses is indicated in the fact that the official record of births in Jamaica shows that over sixty per cent. are illegitimate.
The great need of a message that will change men's hearts and lives, and of pastoral work that will bring preacher and people into closer relationship, is everywhere apparent. The message of a soon-coming Saviour, and the call to obey all God's commandments, altho much opposed by the clergy, are well received by the people; and, tho they have been proclaimed here but a few years, yet many are rejoicing in a new-found hope and a changed life. And now, with wide-open doors, all these islands demand at our hands the saving message that God has intrusted to us.
Typical Chilean Woman.
ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC.
By Captain J. E. Graham
BY CAPTAIN J. E. GRAHAM.
THE islands of Polynesia number thousands, and their inhabitants millions, of various races.
Apart from the large groups and islands adjacent to Southeastern Asia, their inhabitants are estimated at 5,600,000. The Philippines, now open to the Gospel, let us hope, add from 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 more. Yet it is said that the population of Polynesia is much less since the vices brought by the white man were introduced.
A little over one hundred years ago the London Missionary Society was organized, and the Duff, the first known missionary ship that ever plowed the ocean, carried a company of missionaries from England to the South Sea islands. After sixteen years of toil and patient waiting, the first-fruits of the Gospel seed appeared at Raiatea, one of the Society Islands. Soon the mass of the people of the entire group renounced idolatry and professedly accepted the Christian religion. From there the message of peace was carried to the Cook, Samoan, Tongan, Fijis, and adjacent groups of islands. Much has been done for the people, but much still remains to be done. While many of the people have the outward form of the Christian religion, the heart retains its idols. Within the past two years a white trader was killed and eaten by the cannibals of the Northern New Hebrides. The Solomon islanders still engage in head-hunting. When a new war canoe is launched, it is christened with the skulls taken from the heads of neighboring tribesmen.
Typical West India Natives.
Two years ago, when I visited the Santa Cruz Islands, there were but two white men there. One of the men, Mr. Forest, had spent eight or ten years in the group, had acquired the language, reduced it to writing, and had translated portions of the Scriptures into the native tongue. Three mission schools had been opened, and some of the people were being taught to read their own language. Of the 6,000 inhabitants, seventy or eighty were professed adherents to the Christian faith.
In New Guinea, the mass of the people still cling to their idols and are sunken in heathenism.
Mission stations have been established on the southeastern and eastern shore of New Guinea,24but the western end and the interior of that vast island have scarcely been touched by the missionary. There are yet millions of heathen in these islands to hear the Gospel. "The isles shall wait for His law." How long must they wait?
EUROPE.
By W. T. Bartlett
By W. T. BARTLETT, London, England.
FROM a religious standpoint, Europe falls into three great divisions, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek. The Protestants, numbering some 88,000,000, are found principally in Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom; but the religious standard is generally low. In Germany, with a total population of 53,000,000, there are nearly 18,000,000 Roman Catholics, and of the Protestant portion, at least 10,000,000 must be without even a portion of the Scriptures. The Lutheran pastors, in many instances, discourage the reading of the Bible among their flocks, and Socialism, associated almost invariably with avowed infidelity, makes rapid growth in numbers and influence.
The principal Roman Catholic countries are Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The Church of Rome has in Europe 170,000,000 adherents; but, notwithstanding ecclesiastical tyranny and the poverty of people largely dependent upon charities administered by priests, there is, in more than one country, an evident breaking away from Rome. While this too often develops into a violent hatred for all religion, the faithful and persistent efforts to circulate the Scriptures are, in many places, beginning to bear fruit. In Italy, Rome is rapidly regaining her old influence over the populace, yet priests and monks are leaving her ranks and preaching the Gospel to large audiences. The same is true in France, where a number of the priests, desiring the purification of their church, have formed an Evangelical Reform Association, which publishes a paper of its own. In France, as in other countries, the secularist hatred for all forms of religion grows more and more bitter. One missionary says that nine-tenths of the so-called Liberals would cast out any member of their family who would dare to read the Bible. There are 700 Protestant pastors in France, as against 43,000 Roman Catholic officials. Nearly 8,000,000 of the population refuse to make any declaration of religious belief; yet the Gospel finds a footing. The McAll Mission, now in its twenty-sixth year, has established eighty-two stations where the Word is preached. It also sends a floating mission hall, Le Bon Messager, which will seat 160 persons, up and down the rivers and canals of France.
In priest-ridden Spain various societies distribute nearly 100,000 copies of the Bible annually, and fruit occasionally appears.
The Greek Church comprises the Slavonic races in Russia, Greece, and the Balkan Peninsula, and has a following of 88,000,000. This church, tho showing little mercy to Dissenters, unlike the Roman encourages the circulation of the Bible, and the Russian Government offers many facilities to the societies engaged in this work, such as free passes over the railway for books and colporters. In view of this friendly attitude toward the Bible, it is easy to see how the Lord can turn to good account the rapid expansion of the Russian Empire over Northern Asia.
In Turkey there are, besides Greeks, about 6,000,000 Mohammedans. These are mostly in deep poverty and a continual state of revolution. If any among them receive the Gospel, they are subjected to considerable persecution; but the seed is being sown.
There are also about 7,000,000 Jews scattered throughout Europe, for whose conversion to Christianity a number of societies are laboring, with very small success.
Europe is abundantly supplied with ecclesiastical organizations, but, considered as a missionary field, its need is not less than that of any other dark continent.
