RELATION OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION TO CIVILIZATION.
BY REV. F. L. KENYON.
There are two civilizations in this nineteenth century that are striving for the mastery. They differ in their source; the one is from heaven, the other from earth. They differ in their objects. The one has for its object the elevation of the animal in man to the supreme place. The other has for its object the elevation of the intellectual and moral and spiritual in man to the dominant place. They differ also in their supports and instrumentalities. The superstructure of the one rests upon ignorance and vice. The other rests upon and is built up by and through the school, the church, and the home. Thus it will be seen that the higher civilization has a triangular foundation, and when we remember that the triangle represents the highest perfection, we may get a hint at least that this must be the final civilization. The school, where the mighty power of a true education dispels and destroys the threatening illiteracy of the world. The church, where the wonderful transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ incarnates itself in true manhood and womanhood. The home, where the love principle is dominant and all controlling.
The higher civilization, which is to be the ultimate civilization for humanity, must include within its bounds, as constituent factors, every portion of the human race. The defect of previous civilizations was in their omitting one or more of these great and necessary factors.
The first of these is the idea of God. And this, first, as a personal God. This is necessary so as to make God accessible to us. In the second place, the true idea of God must include righteousness. He must be a righteous God. This involves the ideas of justice and law, without which no civilization can be perfect. Eliminate these qualities from civilization and in the place of government will come anarchy, which always and naturally produces destruction. In the third place, the true idea of God includes the fact that he is a loving God. The Johannean conception on this line is the ultimate of all conceptions, viz.: God is love. It is very clear that the final civilization must have this idea of God in all the breadth which I have simply outlined.
The second great idea is the “equality of man,” an equality not of conditions but of rights. Equality before God’s law and love, before human law and institutions. From this equality of man comes the great doctrine of freedom for all. Slavery cannot exist in a final civilization, because this final civilization is built up in part on the idea of equality of man. From this equality of man comes that other great social doctrine of the brotherhood of man. Any civilization which ignores the equality of man, and these great included ideas, freedom and brotherhood of man, cannot, in the very nature of things, be the higher and the final civilization. All former civilizations failed to recognize this great fact, and this is one of the reasons why they became effete and passed away. I believe God has chosen this land, and has raised up this Association for the purpose of working out this problem.
The physical view is a low one, and really belongs to the lower civilization. In comparison with the intellectual, and moral, and spiritual, the physical sinks into insignificance.
The third great idea of the permanent civilization is “the true idea of woman.” In the earlier civilizations woman was held as inferior to man, because perhaps she could not endure the fatigues of the chase or engage in wars, and such brutalizing pursuits. The very signs of her superiority were read as evidences of her inferiority. In some her position was hardly anything but that of a slave or a toy. In that civilization which had the highest culture of any of the old civilizations, an educated woman was classed in the common thought of the people as an impure woman. Thank God such a civilization as that was not the final one. In the final civilization woman has her place alongside of man—co-equal and co-ordinate.
The fourth great idea necessary to a permanent and final civilization, is the true idea of childhood—its worth and place in the elevating forces of humanity. That civilization which holds in cheap esteem the life of a child, is a low and vanishing one. There is probably among the secondary tests of nobility no truer one than man’s regard for children. All the ancient civilizations were very low in this respect. Think of such a thing occurring in this nineteenth century, of any ruler commanding the slaughter of the innocents. No, the final civilization holds, must hold, to the sacredness of child-life. Jesus is bringing that about. He brought heaven to earth through the auroral gates of childhood. Bethlehem’s manger gave to the world a new and potent civilizing idea in the sacredness of child-life. These four constitute the elemental ideas, the living, molding, working forces of the higher civilization. The relation of the American Missionary Association to this higher civilization is now to be noticed, and so transparent is this relation that only a few words are necessary to set it forth. First. It is related in its work, in a similar way, be it spoken reverently, in which Jesus, the Son of God, is related to the children of men. He came down into humanity to its very lowest. So the A. M. A. goes down with its thousand tender hands and its five hundred beating hearts to the very bottom of the lower civilization. This is both human and divine wisdom. It is related to the higher civilization in the second place because it carries into and permeates the lower civilization with these great ideas of the higher. “No fleet can outsail its slowest vessel.” So no civilization can advance higher than the lowest elements or parts of it advance. These people to whom this Association carries these ideas are elemental factors in our civilization, and I know of no other royal road by which they can be brought into the higher civilization; and unless so brought they will drag higher civilization down, and give the victory to the lower civilization, and this nation will fall into the long procession of nations that, failing to rise to their great opportunities, have gone down in dishonor and disgrace to eternal death. To prevent this dire catastrophe, I believe God, whose favors have been manifold to our land, has raised up and commissioned this great Association. It is virtually related, therefore, to the higher civilization as its saviour, and also as the purifier and perfector of the higher by bringing the lower up to its proper place in it on these high idea lines. Incarnate these great ideas of the higher civilization into the lower, which, as I understand it, is the work of the A. M. A., and you have given the victory to the higher civilization in this the leading nation of the world; moreover, you have hastened the coming of the day of the Son of Man.