Preface

\HERE are now 18,591 Protestant foreign missionaries in non-Christian lands, and the Christians of

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Europe and America gave last year for their maintenance, and that of the churches, schools, hospitals, printing presses and other work under their care, $21,280,147. The stations and out-stations occupied aggregate 36,748. The number of definitely known adult converts and adherents is already 6,202,631 and it is rapidly increasing. An enterprise so vast in itself, representing such a great constituency of intelligent people in Europe and America and recognized by the governments of the world as a force of the first magnitude, challenges the attention of all thoughtful persons.

The missionary who incarnates this enterprise is therefore a man to be reckoned with in dealing with the phenomena of our age. It is he of whom we instinctively think when the subject is mentioned, he who does the actual missionary work, whose support is the largest single item of missionary expenditure, whose wisdom or folly is the chief human factor in the success or failure of the missionary movement and whose character and methods are the objects of the sharpest criticism.

Nevertheless, there is a singular lack of books about him. He figures more or less prominently, of course, in volumes on mission lands and on the general subject of missions, while there are many detached discussions of separate phases of his life and policy; but, so far as we know, there is no one book which attempts a clear and comprehensive reply to such questions as Who is the missionary? What are his motives? What is he trying to do? What are his methods? Is he wise in his dealings with proud and ancient peoples and their

social and religious customs? Does he make unnecessary trouble for his own and other governments? What are his real difficulties? Is he succeeding in his work? Why should he have a more generous support? How are the boards organized? How do they select missionaries? How do they administer mission funds? Is money being spent to the best advantage? etc. Most criticisms of missionaries are based upon misapprehension as to these questions. Many supporters of the cause have never heard them answered. They give when their pastors ask them to and because of the general ideas of God's relations to the world which their Bibles teach; but they often have only vague conceptions as to the details of the work, and when they hear objections, they are unable to meet them. Indeed, there are missionaries who have never actually worked out for themselves a definite missionary aim and a policy for attaining it.

This book has been prepared because the author has frequently heard expressions like these and, in particular, because friends connected with the Student Volunteer Movement and the Young People's Missionary Movement have urged him to write a book on this subject which could be recommended to mission study classes in colleges and churches. The author claims no knowledge that is not shared by other board secretaries and by many experienced missionaries. He has simply tried to gather into one volume the consensus of the best missionary opinion and practice. A large correspondence with missionaries has been freely utilized, and, in order that these chapters might be representative of general missionary positions, most of them were submitted in manuscripts to the criticisms of such experts as the Rev. Drs. H. K. Carroll, Secretary of the Methodist Board, Thomas S. Barbour, Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Union, Mr. John W. Wood, Secretary of the Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Walter R Lambuth, Secretary of the Southern Methodist Board, S. H. Chester, Secretary of the Southern Presbyterian Executive

Committee, Mr. F. P. Turner, General Secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement, Mr. C. C. Michener, General Secretary of the Young People's Missionary Movement, Dr. T. H. P. Sailer, Honorary Educational Secretary of the Presbyterian Board, and David Bovaird, Jr., M. D., of New York, Medical Adviser of the Presbyterian Board.

While, however, the author gratefully acknowledges his obligations to these friends for suggestions which have greatly improved the book, readers should not hold them responsible for any views herein expressed; for no one of them read all the chapters, nor does commendation of another's volume necessarily imply that one would have written in the same way himself.

New York City, June, 1907.