INTER-BLENDING OF MISSIONARY WORK.
The great London Missionary Conference, recently held, awakened much enthusiasm on the spot in behalf of foreign missions, and we believe that the published records and addresses will intensify and perpetuate that salutary influence. The Christian world needs arousing to the great work of the church in heathen lands.
There is, however, an inter-blending in all parts of missionary work that should never be overlooked. The home field is the source of the means, and men, and prayers, that must energize the work in the foreign field. Dead churches at home cannot give life to mission work abroad.
There is another form in which the home and foreign fields are blended. The American Missionary Association is ranked, and properly, as a home missionary organization, but it has its relations to the foreign field.
1. It is called to train the Freedmen of America for mission work in Africa. White men meet a speedy death in malarial Africa, and they come to the natives as strangers. The Freedmen can better endure the climate of their fatherland and will be welcomed by the people as brothers. We believe that the great problem of African evangelization is destined, in the providence of God, to be largely solved by the ex-slaves of America.
2. The Indians of the United States have been ranked heretofore as coming under the work of foreign missions. At one time the American Board had the largest share of its work among these people. Other Christian denominations so classed their Indian missions, in part, at least—and all this properly, for the mass of the Indians are still heathen. The day will come when the Indian will be lost in the man, and then gospel work for him will be home or parish work. But at present the American Missionary Association is doing foreign mission work in the home field, among these Indians.
3. The Chinaman in America, like the Negro in America, is cultured and Christianized here very largely for the sake of China. He comes here not to stay, but to go back to the home of his fathers. Now, if we don’t stone him, or mob him, but imbue him with the gospel, he goes back home as a missionary. A specimen of the spirit in which he returns can be seen in the touching letter from a Chinese convert in another column of this magazine. The Hong Kong Mission, established under the auspices of the American Board, and to which our converted Chinamen on the Pacific Slope contributed both men and money, is an illustration of the way in which the American Missionary Association touches the foreign field in China.
4. Last, but not least. The battle against caste must be fought, and the victory won, in America. As the last battle against slavery was fought and won here for the world, so we must fight the battle of caste here for India as well as for America. Fifty years ago very wise and good brethren said: “You Abolitionists are right theoretically, slavery is wrong and ought to be abolished immediately; but practically you are a set of visionaries. Slavery is a local institution, and if you wish to push your denominational interests in the South, you must establish your churches there and let the question of slavery alone.” We have lived long enough to hear these brethren confess their mistake. There are wise and good brethren now that say: “Theoretically, caste is all wrong, but it exists and can’t be overthrown, and if you wish to press your denominational work in the South, you must ignore that question and plant your churches on the color line.” Somebody will live to hear those who take this position confessing their mistake. The American Missionary Association stands now on the caste question just where it once stood in regard to slavery. It will neither dodge nor compromise, and will plant schools and churches in the South, if at all, openly and avowedly disregarding class distinctions. It makes no effort to bring the races together, yet any man, woman or child, otherwise qualified, will be welcomed to its schools and churches, even if God has made him black. In waging this warfare in America, it is doing a Christian missionary work against caste in heathen nations of the old world.