Ten years in Burma

by Julius Smith

The success of this policy and of Bishop Thoburn in that office determines the question of the future policy of the Church in the administration of the mission field of Southern Asia. The General Conference of 1900 by a decisive vote increased the missionary episcopal force in this field, and by an equally decisive vote elected Dr. E. W. Parker and Dr. F. W. Warne to the missionary episcopacy, and in co-ordinate authority with Bishop Thoburn.

The election of Dr. Parker as bishop was a general recognition of his long and pre-eminently successful missionary career. The election of Dr. Warne to a like office was in response to a like choice of India, for this younger, but very efficient missionary, whose pastorate and presiding eldership in the city of Calcutta had been of such a character as to make him well qualified for the larger office to which he has been called. But one year has passed since their election, and a great change has come. Bishop Warne has been eminently acceptable in his new office, and he has traveled widely throughout the great field where Methodism has its foothold in the southlands of Asia. But Bishop Parker’s stalwart form has yielded, after a prolonged battle with an obscure disease which laid its hand upon him within a few months after his election. His death demands a reverent pause, while we drink in renewed inspiration from reflection on his noble Christian manhood and really pre-eminent service as a missionary.

Bishop Parker had labored over forty-two years as a missionary to India, and it is a safe statement that in this more than twoscore years he did more work than any missionary in India of any Church, or perhaps in any land, in the same time. The work which he did in laying broad foundations, winning men to Christ, calling into being valuable mission agencies, and as a masterful, statesman-like administration in the Church, has classified him, from two separate and distinct sources, as “the most successful missionary in India.” Every element of his noble Christian manhood and eminent ability measured up to the requirements of this exceptional estimate of the missionary and his work.

He has now ascended to his heavenly reward, to be forever with the Lord and to share in his glory. The cablegram that reached us in America was brief, but laden with a great sorrow and a greater triumph, “Parker translated!” We will no more have his counsels, his inspiring presence, the grasp of his strong hand, or hear his manly voice in Indian Conferences. For this loss we weep. He was “translated.” In this glad triumph we are filled with joy. Death is abolished to such a saintly follower of his Lord passing from mortal vision.

Bishop Parker was ready for other worlds. His recent testimony was triumphant, in keeping with the godly life he lived. It was fitting that the good bishop should take his departure from amidst the glorious Indian hills he had loved so long. His last days were spent in Naini Tal, amid the most varied mountain scenery in India. Here lies the lake of wonderful clearness, stretching for a mile in length, filling the basin. Around the lake is the mall, or broad road. From this road others branch off, some circular and others zigzagging up the mountains, which rise a thousand and more feet above the lake, their sides clad from base to top with, evergreen, pines, and oak. Here residences, churches, and schools nestle among the trees wherever space can be found. Here tired missionaries go in May and June to rest from the fiery heat of the plains below, and to gird themselves anew with strength as they look upon God’s mountains. From the northern ridge they look upon the whole mountain amphitheater with its glorious lake “shimmering” in the sunlight, high-rimmed with its border of living green, while to the north, stretching hundreds of miles to east and west, rise the perpetually snow-covered Himalaya mountains. The picture, one of nature’s wonders, has few equals for inspiring beauty and grandeur combined. As the man looks through the rare, clear, mountain air, on peaks and range resting in quiet strength and majesty, he almost feels as if he was in sight of the eternal hills where God is.

Amid such scenes, with his brave wife by his side, companion of his missionary labors about him, and a host of God-fearing Christians all over India, among whom were a multitude of the dusky natives, waiting in sorrow because they “should see his face no more,” the bishop was “translated.” As his Lord on the Mount of Olivet took one look upon his disciples, and then a cloud received him and he ascended on high, so his servant was translated from the hills of Naini Tal; was caught up amid the clouds to be forever with his Lord.

So the workmen fall. Others labor on, but they are overburdened. They must be re-enforced. The young native Church must be shepherded. Thousands of others will join the flock.

Just here we missionaries have our greatest fear. We are the Church’s representatives. God is with us, and the doors are all open. We have done all that men and women can do. Will the Church at home sustain us in the great and glorious task that is appointed to us? This is our only fear. So loyal and true are many of the hearts at home to the cause of missions, that it seems unkind to speak of any lack. Yet, while we love every generous impulse of those who give money and time to that which, as missionaries, we give our lives and our loved ones, we love our cause so much the more that we must be true to its urgent needs and its perils for the want of a little money.

That our advance is retarded over a vast area, that many of our institutions are imperiled, that native preachers are being dropped for the lack of the small salary they require, and that we are being compelled to ask of our Board to give up a section of our India Church because missionary appropriations are cut down, is but an outline of our care at this time. To the home Church we look for relief.

This relief can come only in one way. Our people at home, in the most wonderful prosperity America ever knew, are not increasing their gifts to missions with their growth in wealth. Some are, but most are not. The aggregate of all moneys given by the Methodist Episcopal Church for preaching the gospel in heathen lands is only about twenty-two cents per member. This is all that is given to declare Christ to the Christless nations! Our people are giving about forty times as much for their own religious instruction and for the gospel in Christianized lands. This proportion is distressing to the missionary who stands among millions of people who have been waiting nineteen centuries, and have never yet heard that a Savior had been born into the world.