In Livingstonia, an industrial mission in Africa, an engineering feat was accomplished in bringing a supply of pure water a distance of three miles across a valley 300 feet deep. The natives did not believe the water could possibly travel. They thought the Europeans were deceiving them when they talked of water running down one hill and up another. The two or three preliminary tests did not succeed, and this increased the natives’ incredulity. But one afternoon in January, 1904, a nozzle was screwed on to a hydrant, and the engineering staff awaited results with certainty. The screw was turned and, true enough, the water had climbed over the hill, for a jet of it rose in the air amid cheers. Think of the enormous benefit Christian civilization is in the dark places of the earth. (Text.)
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Christianity and Survival—See [Social Strength].
CHRISTIANITY AS A CIVILIZER
James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea, said:
I have had twenty-one years’ experience among the South Sea Islanders, and for at least nine years of my life I have lived with the savages of New Guinea. I have seen the semi-civilized and the uncivilized; I have lived with the Christian native, and I have lived, dined and slept with the cannibal. But I have never yet met a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civilization without Christianity has civilized. Wherever there has been the slightest spark of civilized life in the Southern Seas, it has been because the gospel has been preached there; and wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, or a people that will welcome you, there the missionaries of the cross have been preaching Christ. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.
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CHRISTIANITY, CRITICISM OF
There is a humorous poem by John Godfrey Saxe about the four blind Hindus who went to see an elephant. They could not see the elephant, but they told what they had seen. One happened to lean against the elephant and declared it was much like a wall. Another got hold of his tail and described him as being like a rope. Another got his trunk and said he was like a serpent, and the fourth ran against his tusk and said he was shaped very much like a spear. The fact is that they had not seen the elephant at all.
So there are objectors who have never seen Christianity at all. They have seen mere fragments. Their criticism is correspondingly worthless.