I have said little of his passionate love for me; but it will ever be one of the sweetest memories of my life in Africa. And when my own time comes and I shall see with unholden eyes the land that is fairer than day, I am thinking that among those who first shall greet me will be Ndong Mba, the little scholar.
XVI
A CHURCH
“Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God.”—Psalm 68:31.
There are many who seem to think that the heathen, the world over, are reiterating the ancient cry of Macedonia, “Come over and help us,” and that multitudes are converted to Christianity at the first hearing of the Gospel; notwithstanding that in our own land those who know its transcendent import and ample evidence, and those who have even been trained in Christian households, are not so easily won. Degradation and ignorance are a poor preparation for Christian faith.
To the cultured heathen of old the Gospel was foolishness, and it is not less foolish to the uncultured heathen. The inspiring vision of a nation in a day is more poetic than factual. Neither the nation nor the individual is won in a day. Evangelism would be a simple process if it were only to say, as Philip said to Nathanael: “Come and see.” Nathanael, however, was not a bloodthirsty savage, but a pious Jew. It is certain that our duty does not end in merely announcing the Gospel to the heathen, and giving them the opportunity to hear, while we pass the word on to others; for this does not evangelize, nor accomplish anything else worth while. The watchword, lifted with battle-cry fervour, that appeals for the evangelization of the world in this generation, has inspired the zeal of many and has thereby done good service; but it is liable to look for geographical rather than moral results, and the policy of missions, if it respond to this exigent desire, becomes spectacular, the aim being to cover the utmost territory. New work is begun before the old is half done, with a consequent waste of the labour already expended. New stations are opened before the old are half manned for thorough work; and since only a thorough work can ever become self-sustaining and be left to take care of itself, it follows that this principle of forced extension defeats every other principle, and in the end defeats itself.
I know eleven missionary societies working in West Africa, and in most of those societies there is need of a policy based upon reality versus romance. In most of them the missionaries agree that the stations are seriously undermanned. I know one mission station at least which has been opened for more than sixty-five continuous years, and missionaries are still there without the least likelihood of their moving on; for the simple reason that the station has been so undermanned in all these years that they have not yet trained a native ministry; whereas, if instead of making haste to open new stations they had concentrated their forces there in sufficient numbers to do a thorough work, they might have left it long ago to the care of the natives themselves, and the missionaries might have opened new fields, with the likelihood that those also would in a reasonable length of time be sufficiently evangelized to be left to themselves.
Nothing retards progress like too much haste. The cause of the undermanned stations and the resultant crippled work is not, as many will say, that there are not enough missionaries, but that there are too many stations. The policy cannot make missionaries, but it does make stations, and a wise policy will adapt the number of stations to the number of missionaries, instead of so scattering the missionaries that not one of them can do a work that will remain. In the arithmetic of missions two men can do not only twice as much but ten times as much as one. The French Protestant Society, whose work on the Ogowé River in the Congo Français is without doubt the most successful work in all West Africa, have only two stations, but have ten missionaries at each station. Neither can it be said that the crippled force at work in most of the missions is due to the hostile climate, inasmuch as every year, and almost every month, the unexpected happens, and missionaries are obliged to lay down their work suddenly and go home. I reply that elsewhere (as I have said before) it is the unexpected that happens, but in Africa it is the unexpected that we expect. We know the climate. It is one of the exigencies of the situation, and since the policy cannot change the climate, the climate ought to change the policy.
A policy of true evangelism must aim to establish a self-sustaining church, that is, a church which is independent of foreign money, and which is manned with its own ministry; and this is a slow process. It involves a threefold work, that of preaching (not on Sunday only, but daily, probably itinerating) that of teaching (at least in Africa, where there are no native schools) and the higher training for the ministry. If any one of these departments is wanting, the work is not progressing towards a self-sustaining church, and the policy is so far defective. But here is work for several men, at least, at one mission station. To place them at several stations means that no thorough or progressive work can be done at any station. And as such scattering of forces is poor policy it is also poor economy. For a station is usually an extensive property, expensive to build and expensive to maintain. The unnecessary multiplying of stations is extravagance. In our Presbyterian mission these considerations are being fully realized, and the present policy evinces a determination to do thorough work in the field already occupied rather than to enlarge our territory at the expense of crippling the established work. We have learned by our failures as well as by our successes.
The result of an inadequate force of missionaries at a station is not so much that the missionary is overworked—most missionaries are not making any such complaint—but that the work is not adequately done. And this wears on mind and heart; for the work is one, and if a part of it be neglected the whole must suffer. It is not the work that the missionary actually does that wears him out, but that which he does not do and cannot do, although perhaps his success depends upon it.