RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD
This chart indicates the magnitude of the task before the Christian forces of the world in bringing humanity up to Christian standards. The significance of Christian missionary and evangelizing work may be represented as an attempt of one-third of mankind constituting the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Greek Christian countries through a small band of picked workers, to change the religious habits, opinions and faith of the other two-thirds. But God has provided that this great task shall be accomplished.
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RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
A friend tells me that one of her earliest childhood memories is of being awakened by her mother before daybreak on a June morning. “Come, child,” she said, “come with me over to the pines, to hear the thrushes sing.” Across the dew-wet meadows they went, in the early flush of morning, and the child, her hand clasped in her mother’s, listened with her to the exquisite music of the thrush in the holy hour and place.
What need of words? It is the spirit that giveth life. The flame was kindled in the heart of the child because it burned undimmed in the mother’s heart. Not by preaching, nor even by much speaking, will our teachers teach religion. But they will surely teach whose lives abide in the shadow of the Almighty. We can not but speak the things we have seen and heard. Striving to do His will in the school-room, we slowly learn of the doctrine, and the truth we have made our own we are enabled to share.—Sarah Louise Arnold, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1905.
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RELIGIOUS INFRACTIONS OF PROPRIETY
There are religious infractions of propriety, and they are serious. The Chinese word for propriety is an ideograph made up of two parts; one means to proclaim, or to reveal; the other means a sacrificial vessel. That is, propriety in the group of countries dominated by Chinese etiquette is a matter of religion and so is not to be lightly regarded. But what does one witness at the temples? Not infrequently one sees a missionary stalk boldly into a temple. He may not take off his shoes in Japan before walking over the polished temple floors. Very possibly he walks up to the idol and familiarly pats him with his ever-present cane. It is to the believer in those faiths like taking hold of the Ark of the Covenant in ancient Jewish times. We should remember that ridiculing the beliefs of people is poor missionary policy. They are usually the best that that country, or people, know. Let us not profane those things which are held most sacred. We may argue against them and reason about the unwisdom of holding them, but let us never laugh at the religious views and practises of the non-Christian world.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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