3. The Qualities of Missionaries to Buddhists.
The life of a missionary to Buddhist peoples is full of interest. Each people has many attractive qualities and the life has much of delight. Certain special qualifications may be worth mentioning:—
(a) A Genuine Sympathy.—A missionary will make very little impression upon the people and especially upon their leaders in Buddhist countries who is unable to think himself, to some extent, sympathetically, into their point of view, and to be friendly toward the better aspects of their life and beliefs. There are many things which are "lovely and of good report." The spirit of friendliness and of appreciation goes far toward establishing good relations with the people.
(b) A Sense of Beauty and of Humour.—They are lovers of beauty and enjoy humour, and respond readily to these qualities in the missionary. More over, without such gifts life in the tropics is very trying to oneself and to others.
(c) Christian Convictions.—Along with these qualities, the missionary must have a passionate loyalty to Christ, a clear understanding of the essential Christian message to such a people, and a firm conviction of the right of Jesus Christ to claim these attractive peoples for God, and to make them great.
(d) A willingness to appreciate fresh truth.—It is very desirable that the young missionary should face such people, themselves often creative in their thinking, with a belief that the Holy Spirit, who has guided the nations in their search for truth, is still seeking to lead them on, at least into fresh realisations of the power and meaning of the truths which have meant so much in past ages. Every such missionary will be thrilled in his contact with the inner "soul of the people" to whom he goes, by the hope that they will find in Christ hitherto undiscovered riches and by the desire on his own part to catch something of a continually enlarging vision of Christ and His Church.
4. A Great Opportunity.
The missionary to Buddhists may find encouragement and inspiration in the growing conviction that Oriental Christianity will definitely add strength to the universal Church in coming days. God's kingdom will not be complete without the peoples of Southern Asia. They are deeply religious. It may be far from being an idle dream that God should give to some missionary of to-day the privilege of training a St. Paul, an Origen or an Augustine of the East, who will give to the Church other great chapters of Christian interpretation, and a truly convincing apologetic of the gospel to the world.