Foreign Missions
The action of the South Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church in voting $65,000 to Foreign Missions, last week, moves the Jeffersonian to say another word upon that subject.
Some time ago, the New York World published a statement to the effect that, out of every ninety dollars contributed in this country to the Foreign Mission fund, only one dollar reached the heathen. This is a sweeping arraignment of the honesty and efficiency of the management of the funds which we are not prepared to indorse.
Our criticism follows a different line. The question raised by the Jeffersonian is this,—What moral right have American Christians to leave their own poor,—unfed, unclothed and unredeemed,—and to drain off into foreign lands millions upon millions of American dollars to feed and clothe and redeem the poor of those foreign lands?
It is a most serious question, Brother.
You tell us, as per formula, that we are commanded to carry the Gospel to all the world. Granted. But where are we commanded to leave our own poverty-stricken wretches to die like poisoned rats in their holes, while we relieve the physical distress of the Chinese?
What moral right have we to deny the beggar at our gate, and to heed the plaint of the Chinese beggar?
One of our private correspondents a little while ago, wrote us that a certain preacher, whose attention he called to our statements on this subject, declared that said statements “were misleading.”
Wherein? They could not mislead. If what we have said about our foreign missionaries furnishing food, clothing, medicine, fuel, etc., to foreign “converts” is the truth, our people are entitled to know it.
If our statements are false, we want to know it.
A very prominent and able Baptist minister,—who has long been a laborer in the Foreign Missions field,—and a well-known Methodist minister, who has been similarly engaged, are responsible for the statements made by the Jeffersonian.
One of these noble men said that the most discouraging thing about the Foreign Missions work was, that when the rations to the “converts” were cut off, the convert lost interest in the Christian faith.
What words could we employ that would arraign the system more severely?
The idea of the Jeffersonian is that each nation of the world should take care of its own poor. We are not responsible for pauperism, vice and crime in China. There is no more reason why we should be taxed for contributions to maintain a commissary in Pekin or Hong Kong than in Paris, Berlin or London. We leave to the French the task of providing for the Parisian poor; we don’t think of supplying food, raiment and medicine to Berlin paupers; and we consider it the duty of the English to provide for London outcasts. Why, then should we virtually coerce our American Christians into sending money to heathen lands for the purpose of relieving the physical distress of the heathen?
While penning this editorial, it occurred to us to glance at a New York exchange, for the purpose of noting some contemporaneous instance of starvation, or of suicide because of hunger and lack of employment. The newspapers of the North have been gruesomely full of many ghastly incidents of that kind.
Yes, there it was, page 3, of the N. Y. Evening Journal, of December 4th, 1908.
A white woman, sick and starving, and with a babe at her breast, fell exhausted on Fifth Avenue,—the home-street of the richest men the world has ever known. All of them are Christians. When prosecuted for their criminal methods of taking other people’s property away from them, they blandly perjure themselves, escape the feeble clutches of the law, turn up serenely at church, next Sunday, and contribute handsomely to Foreign Missions.
The woman who fell starving, on the street where these richest of men live, was named Mrs. Mary Schrumm. She was young, thinly dressed, and had not tasted food for two days. The child was nearly famished, almost frozen and had acute bronchitis. Her husband was out of work; an old woman with whom she had found shelter had been given notice to vacate; and Mrs. Schrumm had gone into the streets to seek refuge in some one of the charitable institutions. She had been turned away from each of these that she could reach. She had begged that her babe, at least, might be taken in. No; the babe was sick, and they could not take in a sick child!
God! And we talk about what the heathen need! The hardest-hearted heathen that Jehovah ever made are some of the seared hypocrites who call themselves Christians.
Denied everywhere, poor Mrs. Schrumm wandered about the streets, in the bitterly cold wind, until she fell, completely tired out.
Then, indeed, charity had to sit up and take notice. The starving woman was put into an ambulance, and carried to a hospital. She will probably recover; her child will probably die.
Then, what moral right have you to let such unfortunates as these fall starving in your streets, while you are sending hundreds of millions of dollars abroad to feed, clothe, physic and make fires for the hungry, “thinly clad,” sick and shivering Chinese?
Doesn’t your own “mother wit” tell you that Foreign Missions could not consume such vast sums of money, if the missionaries limited themselves to preaching the gospel!
Put on your think cap, son.
In the New York World of December 5, 1908, is reported the case of George Schulze who shot himself to death, in spite of the pleadings of his wife and children, because he was out of work, had tried in vain to secure employment and was in despair.
If these were not typical cases, we would not dwell upon them. But they are typical cases, and you know it.