Missionary work in its initial stage has only to do with first principles.
Given shelter, food, power of utterance in a foreign tongue, a preaching spot, a company of hearers, and you have bounded the horizon for the present.
No sooner, however, is a goodly company of believers gathered, but problems, numerous and weighty, confront the missionary.
How shall the company of believers be organized and governed? Shall it be exactly on the model of the church which the missionary represents? If not, what modifications shall be made? Shall the seedling ten thousand miles away be roped to the mother tree or shall it be encouraged to stand alone? What advantages in independence? What perils? What shall be the status of the foreign missionary before the native church just organizing? What relation shall he sustain to the home church?
The answers to these questions have been as various as the denominations represented in Oriental lands. The answers of missionaries representing the same denomination have not even tallied.
After the gracious awakening and ingathering at Amoy and in the region about, had taken place, the question of church organization became foremost. The missionaries gave the subject earnest thought. Men like Elihu Doty and John Van Nest Talmage and Carstairs Douglas, were not likely to come to conclusions hastily.
But they were born pioneers. Conservative enough never to lose their equilibrium, they had adaptability to new circumstances.
Quite willing to follow the beaten path so long as there was promise of harvest returns, they were prepared nevertheless to blaze a new road into the trackless forest if they were sure some of God's treasure-trove could be brought back on it. There was no divergence of view as to what the foundation of the new church-structure must be. 'For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' So long, however, as the general proportions were the same, there was no fear that the new edifice would topple over if it did not conform exactly in height and length and breadth, in column and pilaster and facade, to the venerated model in the mother countries. The brethren expressed their views to the churches in the home land. They did more. They plead their cause and hoped for endorsement. The following is part of a lengthy but very interesting communication written by Mr. Talmage and sent to the Synod of the Reformed Church in 1856:
"Amoy, China, Sept. 17, 1856.
"To the General Synod of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church.