A very prominent and able Baptist minister,—who has long been a laborer in the Foreign Missions field,—and a well-known Methodist minister, who has been similarly engaged, are responsible for the statements made by the Jeffersonian.
One of these noble men said that the most discouraging thing about the Foreign Missions work was, that when the rations to the “converts” were cut off, the convert lost interest in the Christian faith.
What words could we employ that would arraign the system more severely?
The idea of the Jeffersonian is that each nation of the world should take care of its own poor. We are not responsible for pauperism, vice and crime in China. There is no more reason why we should be taxed for contributions to maintain a commissary in Pekin or Hong Kong than in Paris, Berlin or London. We leave to the French the task of providing for the Parisian poor; we don’t think of supplying food, raiment and medicine to Berlin paupers; and we consider it the duty of the English to provide for London outcasts. Why, then should we virtually coerce our American Christians into sending money to heathen lands for the purpose of relieving the physical distress of the heathen?
While penning this editorial, it occurred to us to glance at a New York exchange, for the purpose of noting some contemporaneous instance of starvation, or of suicide because of hunger and lack of employment. The newspapers of the North have been gruesomely full of many ghastly incidents of that kind.
Yes, there it was, page 3, of the N. Y. Evening Journal, of December 4th, 1908.
A white woman, sick and starving, and with a babe at her breast, fell exhausted on Fifth Avenue,—the home-street of the richest men the world has ever known. All of them are Christians. When prosecuted for their criminal methods of taking other people’s property away from them, they blandly perjure themselves, escape the feeble clutches of the law, turn up serenely at church, next Sunday, and contribute handsomely to Foreign Missions.
The woman who fell starving, on the street where these richest of men live, was named Mrs. Mary Schrumm. She was young, thinly dressed, and had not tasted food for two days. The child was nearly famished, almost frozen and had acute bronchitis. Her husband was out of work; an old woman with whom she had found shelter had been given notice to vacate; and Mrs. Schrumm had gone into the streets to seek refuge in some one of the charitable institutions. She had been turned away from each of these that she could reach. She had begged that her babe, at least, might be taken in. No; the babe was sick, and they could not take in a sick child!
God! And we talk about what the heathen need! The hardest-hearted heathen that Jehovah ever made are some of the seared hypocrites who call themselves Christians.