already have civilizations of their own, more ancient than ours and, so far as moral questions are not involved, quite as well adapted to their needs, while our own civilization is not by any means wholly Christian. Whether men are civilized or not, and whether they trade with us or not, we must continue our missionary work. The achievements of a hundred years of missionary effort are encouraging; but if they were not, our duty would not be affected. We are to do what is right, though we never see visible results. Christ's life was a failure, from the viewpoint of His own generation; so were the efforts of Paul and Peter and Stephen; but later generations saw the rich fruitage. Like them, the true missionary toils from motives that are independent of present appearances. He knows that he is working with God, for God and in obedience to God, and, with Faber, he is confident that in the end,

"He always wins who sides with God;

With Him no chance is lost."

Still less do the changes in the political and economic life of the world, in the attitude of the Christian nations towards the non-Christian and their attitude in return towards us, impair the primary missionary motives. Rather do they increase it. There may indeed be a change of emphasis in the motives that prompt men to engage in it. Some that stirred our fathers are not as strongly operative to-day, but others have emerged that were then but vaguely discerned.

It is generally recognized now that, in the future, mission work must be prosecuted amid changed conditions. Our constituency has a knowledge of the non-Christian world that in the past it did not have. Men in our churches are no longer so ignorant of other peoples. Books and magazine articles have dissipated the mystery of the Orient. Electricity enables the newspapers to tell us every morning what occurred yesterday in Seoul and Peking, in Rangoon and Teheran. Our treatment of the Chinese and the Negro testify to the fact

that race prejudice is still strong. Nevertheless, the white man does not look down upon the man of other races as he did a century ago. He recognizes more clearly the good qualities that some of the non-Christian peoples possess. He hears more of the industry of the Chinese and the intellect of the Hindu. This recognition is not unmingled with fear. No white man of to-day despises the Japanese, certainly not in Russia, nor can any one view with unconcern the evidences of awakening and powerful national life among the teeming myriads of the Oriental world.

The transition from the first century of Protestant missions to the second century is attended by no more significant change than this. People at home are no longer under illusions as to what the heathen are, and the heathen are no longer under illusions as to what we are. (The romance of missions in the popular mind has been dispelled. The missionary is no longer a hero to the average Christian, but a man with a message to his fellow man.

There are, too, certain movements of theological thought which must be considered. Whatever we may think of them, we cannot ignore their prevalence, nor should we argue that they are inconsistent with missionary interest. No man should be allowed to feel that he is exempt from the missionary obligation because he is not influenced by our particular motive, or because he adopts a different interpretation of the Bible teaching regarding certain doctrines. We may deplore his interpretation, but we cannot admit that it releases him from the duty of coöperating in this work. Every man who believes in God and who finds joy in Christ, aye, every man who receives the benefits of Christianity, whether he is personally a disciple of Christ or not, is bound to aid the effort to communicate those benefits to races that do not have them.

No changes that have taken place or that can possibly take place can set aside the great central facts that Jesus Christ means the temporal and eternal salvation of men; that it is the

duty of those who know Him to tell others about Him; that no matter how distant the ignorant may be, no matter how different in race, we must get to them. There may be questions as to method, but no objection lies against the essential enterprise that does not lie with equal force against the fundamental truths of the Christian religion. Through all the tumult of theological strife, the one figure that is standing out more and more clearly and commandingly before men is the figure of the Son of Man, the Divine and Eternal Son of the Ever-Living God. In Him is the true unity of the race and around Him cluster its noblest activities. No matter how much Christians may differ as to other things, they will be more and more agreed as to the imperative duty and the inspiring privilege of preaching Jesus Christ to the whole world.

I

II

THE MISSIONARY AIM

T is important that both the missionary abroad and the
Church at home should have a clear idea of the aim of the

missionary enterprise. The motives stated in the preceding chapter prompt gifts and prayers for the cause and perhaps a strong desire to go to the foreign field. But what object is the missionary to seek when he gets there and by what methods is he to accomplish his purpose? Of course all know in a general way that it is proposed to convert the heathen; but beyond that, many who support the work and even some who apply for appointment appear to have only vague ideas. But the missionary movement is not a mere crusade. It has certain definite aims, and these aims must be kept clearly in mind if the work is to be intelligently and efficiently done.

We need not repeat the negative considerations in the first chapter further than to state that as it is not the motive, neither is it the aim of the missionary to improve men's physical condition as such or to increase the world's knowledge or to extend trade or to civilize the heathen. These are concomitants and results of the missionary enterprise, but they are not what the missionary primarily seeks. His aim is something more fundamental.

First of all, the aim is to present Christ so intelligently to men that they will accept Him as their personal Saviour. More is involved in this than might at first be supposed. He who would achieve this immediate aim must first know Christ himself, must exemplify the spirit of Christ in his daily life, must know the language of the people to whom he is to preach and must know how to win and hold the attention of men of a

different race and temper of mind. Some of these points are so important that they require the special consideration that will be given in later chapters. Other points will doubtless occur to the thoughtful reader.

Emphasis should be laid upon the words intelligently known. This idea excludes the hurried and the superficial presentation of the gospel. It is not enough to go into a heathen community, proclaim Christ for a few days or even for a few months, and then pass on in the belief that we have discharged our responsibility. Even Americans and Europeans with all their general knowledge do not grasp new ideas so quickly as that and we cannot reasonably expect other races to do so. To a large part of the non-Christian world, Christ is still unknown even by name, and a large majority of those who have heard of Him know Him only in such a general way as most people in this country have heard of Mencius or Zoroaster. Of his real character and relation to men, they know nothing, nor does it ever occur to them that they are under any obligation to Him. Moreover, what little they have heard of Him as a historical personage is beclouded and distorted by all the inherited and hostile presumptions of age-old prejudices, superstitions and spiritual deadness. In such circumstances, to make Christ intelligently known is apt to be a long and perhaps a wearisome effort. Carey in India and Morrison in China toiled seven years before their hearts were gladdened by one solitary convert. Tyler in South Africa saw fifteen laborious years pass before the first Zulu accepted Christ, while Gilmour preached for twenty years in Mongolia before visible results appeared. After the heathen mind once fairly grasps the new truth, progress usually becomes more rapid, but at first and sometimes for long periods, it is apt to be painfully slow.

missionary and the church that supports him often have need of patience.

This becomes more clear when we remember that our immediate aim includes conversions. We are to make Christ so