On the Sunday before the opening I listened to a really great sermon by Dr. Barrows on “Christ the Light of the World.” I attended every session of the Parliament, save at the hour from 11 A.M. to 12, when I usually went over to the Moody meetings to hear John McNeill, as he was familiarly called, preach his trenchant sermons.
If any one went to the Parliament—as possibly some did—hoping to hear Christianity demolished, he certainly was disappointed. But there was one criticism which occurred to me. Whatever may have been thought of the wisdom of the original conception and inauguration of the Parliament, the Protestant churches might have made a much more imposing front, if the ablest men of the different denominations had not stood aloof, either indifferent or hostile to it. It was surely the opportunity of a lifetime for many, who could not hope otherwise ever to address personally the votaries of non-Christian religions, to bring forward their strong reasons to bear on so many of the most intelligent and presumably the most earnest seekers after the truth.
While attending these meetings in Chicago, I received news that our son, the Rev. Evander B. McGilvary, had felt himself constrained to resign from the Lāo mission. No good can come from now reviewing the issues which led to this step; and it is needless to say how bitter was the disappointment to his parents, who had looked forward to his carrying on their work, and to him, who had specially prepared himself for that work, and for no other. But I must say that bitter as was the disappointment, I sympathized with his position, and respected his motives.
At the meeting of the General Assembly in the following May, to which I was a delegate, the one all-engrossing business was the trial of the Rev. Henry P. Smith, D.D., for heresy on the question of the “Higher Criticism.” Viewing the matter from this distance, and entirely apart from the merits of this particular case, I doubt whether critical and scientific questions are proper subjects for trials before such a body. If tried at all, such questions should be tried by a commission of experts. Biblical criticism and science will go on, and the questions involved will be decided according to their own lines of evidence, quite irrespective of the decrees of Popes, Councils, and General Assemblies. I am much mistaken if the good sense and temper of the church would now sanction heresy trials on such questions.
One day some fifteen years earlier than the point we have now reached in our narrative, a letter came to our mission from a Mr. Robert Arthington of Leeds, England. The letter, like all his subsequent ones, was on small sheets of notepaper, written over once, and then written again crosswise, so as to be almost illegible. The writer had somewhere learned of the journey of a French explorer who, from the upper Mê Kōng and the headwaters of the Mê Ū, had crossed to the China Sea through the region now known as Tonking. The traveller had passed through certain tribes possessed of a written language and supposed to be of Aryan stock. By some means Mr. Arthington had heard of our mission, and wrote to enquire whether some of us could not visit those tribes and distribute among them “the Gospels of John and of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles,” particularly “telling them that the Acts followed Luke, and was by the same author.”
We had not the slightest idea who the writer was; but the devout spirit of the letter was charming, and such interest in obscure tribes along the northern border of our field was most surprising. His strong desire to send the Gospel message to “the regions beyond” appealed to me. He appeared to be a man of means, for he offered to bear the expense of circulating those three books. At the same time he was evidently somewhat eccentric and impractical in his ideas. He seemed not to have thought that to circulate books among newly discovered tribes would require—since the cessation of the gift of tongues—acquisition of their languages, translation, printing-presses, etc., etc. But the case, at all events, seemed worth following up.
I acknowledged the receipt of his letter, pointing out the obstacles which he seemed to overlook, directing his attention to our own mission as occupying a new and interesting field, with many hill-tribes on our own border which we hoped to reach. I invited his coöperation, stating that as soon as we were properly enforced, we intended to go as far north as we could.
Almost to my surprise, Mr. Arthington replied immediately, expressing his interest in our work, but still reverting to his scheme for evangelizing the “tribes of Aryan stock” found by his French traveller. That was, of course, impossible for us to undertake, though I did propose to Dr. Cushing of the American Baptist Mission in Burma to join me in a tour through that region at Mr. Arthington’s expense. This plan had attractions for us both; but Dr. Cushing’s college work made it impossible. Still, we might be able to make some compromise with our unknown correspondent. So, for some years, I kept up an occasional correspondence with Mr. Arthington, just sufficient to keep us in touch with each other. He always replied immediately to my letters, breathing the same deep interest in missions, and especially in the tribes hitherto unreached by the Gospel. Touring within my own appointed field engrossed the whole of my available time; but since that field was already in part supplied, it did not specially appeal to him.
After the tour, longer than usual, taken with my daughter in 1890, I sent him a report of it. In response he sent me thirty pounds, which aided in the work of 1891 among the Mūsô. The tour taken with Mr. Phraner in 1892 was nearer to his idea; and the one taken with Mr. Irwin in 1893 intensely interested him—but chiefly because it seemed to be a stepping stone toward reaching his “Aryan tribes” beyond. He thoroughly approved of that tour; expressed his regret that we could not meet in order to come to a clearer understanding about the geography of the region—since all our maps were defective; and suggested, “I should like your daughter to go with you on your next trip, as I can well conceive the idea that she will be a valuable help.” He was, moreover, “particularly interested that the Cambodians also should have the Gospels of Luke and John, and the Acts.”