Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions
by
Roland Allen
Part 2 out of 3
is not certainly evangelistic work, though it is commonly organised by
evangelistic workers; it is not educational in the sense that
educational missionaries accept it as a definitely recognised part of
their work, though educational methods are employed and it often has a
distinctly educational purpose. It is sometimes a form of Sunday service
almost akin to a Church service. It is often a form of children's school
where the religious teaching given, or neglected, during the week in the
day school is supplemented: it is sometimes a form of elementary school
for adults, Christian, or inquirers: it is a form of Bible school for
adult Christian workers. It is a method of propaganda for the conversion
of heathen children or adults. It is a form of work where untrained
Christian voluntary workers find opportunity for expressing their
religious zeal; it is a form of work in which experts in certain types
of elementary religious teaching revel. It is educational work carried
on by those who are not technically educationalists: it is evangelistic
work carried on by those who are not technically evangelists.
What sort of information then are we to seek concerning it? It is so
important that it cannot be omitted; it is so widespread that it almost
demands special consideration; it is so protean that tables designed to
reveal all its aspects and values would be with difficulty designed, and
tediously minute. From the point of view of this survey it would be
futile to ask, as most of the societies ask, simply for the number of
Sunday schools, the number of teachers, and the number of scholars. From
those bare numbers we can gain no information which really enlightens
us. We want to know what the Sunday schools exist for, and whether they
are accomplishing the object of their existence. But we cannot define,
nor even enumerate all the objects. We therefore arbitrarily select
three which are directly related to the establishment of a native
Church, and make one table serve. We inquire: (1) How they are related
to the Christian constituency; from this we hope to learn the extent to
which Sunday schools are a part of the Church life. (2) How the teachers
are related to the communicants (or full members); from this we hope to
learn the extent to which the voluntary effort of the communicants finds
expression in this work. (3) How the scholars are related to baptisms
and confirmations (or admission as full members); from this we hope to
learn to what extent the Sunday-schools are a recruiting ground for the
Church.
The table then is as follows:--
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
District | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Sunday Schools. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Sunday Schools to Christian Constituency. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Sunday School Teachers. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Communicants. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Sunday School Scholars. (M./F.) | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Sunday School Scholars | |
Baptised in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Scholars Confirmed | |
or Admitted Full Members in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
CHAPTER V.
MEDICAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.
Thus far of the force in its general aspect. When we turn to closer
consideration of the medical and educational work we meet with a
difficulty. Medical and educational work, as we have already pointed
out, often, if not generally, have a definitely evangelistic character,
but each, nevertheless, appears to be designed to meet a special need of
the Church and people. There is a strong tendency in thought, and often
in speech, to emphasise this special need and to make it a distinct,
separate need. Herein lies a danger. Medical missions are sometimes
urged upon our attention as though they were founded to meet a medical
need of the people, as if it were the recognised and accepted duty of
missionary societies and of missionaries to supplant the native medical
practice by western scientific methods as certainly and fully as it is
their recognised and accepted duty to supplant native religion by the
faith of Christ. But that we for our part emphatically deny. The one may
be a philanthropic duty; the other certainly is a religious duty.
Consequently we deny that there is a medical need which it is the duty
of missionaries to supply in the sense in which we affirm that there is
a religious need which it is the duty of missionaries to supply. Medical
missions are, and ought to be, evangelistic in their aim, mere
handmaids[1] of evangelism. Similarly we deny a separate and distinct
educational need which it is the duty of missionary societies to supply.
The missionary societies ought not to take upon themselves the supply of
every need. We think the Christian Church is misled when it allows the
medical need of a country to be presented as a distinct need which it is
the duty of missionaries to meet, and when it allows the ignorance of a
country to be presented as a distinct need which it is the duty of
missionaries to meet. From such a presentation educational missions
become detached, medical missions become detached, each designed to meet
a distinct and separate need of the people.
[Footnote 1: If any reader experiences a revulsion at this expression,
he will know at once what we mean when we say that a distinction has
been drawn between evangelistic, medical, and educational missions as
though they were three co-equal and separate things. They are not
co-equal and they ought not to be separate. Education does not
necessarily reveal Christ, medical science does not necessarily reveal
Christ, only as education and medicine assist the revelation of Christ
are they proper subjects for Christian missionary enterprise, that is,
only when they are clearly and unmistakably subordinate to an
evangelistic purpose. Of course we do not undervalue medical and
educational efficiency: efficiency should increase evangelistic power.]
One result of the sharp distinction which is drawn between medical and
educational and evangelistic work is that in some countries there are
distinct medical and educational associations which collect information
about the state of medical and educational missions in the country,
dealing with these missionary activities most prominently, if not
wholly, from the point of view of medical and educational efficiency.
These associations issue _questionnaires_ and publish reports often more
full, detailed, and carefully compiled than any evangelistic reports.
Consequently it is peculiarly dangerous for a layman unacquainted with
the working of these associations to trespass upon their preserves.
These departmental surveys should be treated separately by experts.
Nevertheless, since we are dealing with the work of the station in its
area, and this work includes often medical and educational work, we
cannot pass over it with no more than the general treatment which we
have hitherto given. We need to know what is the medical and what the
educational work carried on at the station, when these are viewed, as
they are viewed, separately, as distinct expressions of missionary zeal.
Dealing first with medical missions we suppose that the question might
be put in this form, What are the medical missionary resources available
in the district in relation to the need which it is proposed to meet?
Here again there arises the difficulty that there is no common agreement
as to the purpose of the medical work of the missionary societies. What
are the doctors there for? What does the hospital exist to do? Who can
tell? So diverse are the ideas of different men on this subject, so
little thought out, that a man of unusual experience told us that he had
met few missionary doctors who could answer the question: "On the basis
of what facts ought the question of the establishment of a hospital to
be decided?" Few could tell him whether in sending doctors the
missionary societies ought to consider the duty of caring for the
health of their missionaries first or last. Few could tell him whether
the care of the health of the children in schools and institutions was
the first duty, or the last, or any duty at all, of the medical
missionary. Yet obviously, those two points if they were once admitted
would influence largely the location of doctors and hospitals. Again, we
hear it argued that missionary societies ought to establish medical
schools, hospitals, and institutions of the finest possible type in
order to show how the thing really ought to be done, to demonstrate the
very best example of western medical work, and to train natives to a
western efficiency. That would not only influence the location of
doctors and hospitals, it would also affect the character of the
buildings and would demand a special type of medical missionary. Or
again, we hear it argued that medical missions are the point of the
missionary sword; but if it is the point of the sword then it ought to
be in front of the blade. That, too, would direct the location of the
doctors and hospitals. It would also affect the character of the
building unless the missionary sword is to become an immovable object,
which having once cleft a rock remains fast in the breach until a
God-sent hero, like King Arthur, appears to pull it out and set it to
work again. We cannot state all the different aims. They are not simple
and formulated; they are complex and confused. Very often the
establishment of a medical mission turns upon no more thorough
examination of the facts of the situation than the conviction of a
capable missionary that there is need for medical work in his district,
and that he must supply it if he can, and that he must persevere in
appeals till he can supply it. When a man asks: "On the basis of what
facts ought this or that to be done in the mission field?" he has got a
long way into the complexity of the problem, and the need for survey, if
a society is to act with wisdom, is already apparent to him. But most
men in the past have acted simply, without much argument: they said,
"Here is a need; I can supply it," and the societies were the feeders of
such men. Naturally. So one hospital and a doctor was the point of a
sword which in twenty years' time was stuck fast in the rock; and then
the hospital was enlarged and became a medical school under the fervent
direction of a doctor who was a natural teacher; and then it became an
institution, and then part of a college. And in all this there may have
been no definite policy, any more than there was any definite policy in
the guidance of its twin brother, which, instead of changing its
character, remained what it had always been, the point of a sword, only
buried in a rock, competing feebly with a Government institution. When
one writes of mixed motives, and mixed policies, and mixed methods, it
is natural to use mixed metaphors.
But to return to our point. It is not easy to say what some hospitals
are there for. If we knew, we could at least formulate tables to set out
the progress which they have made towards the object proposed. That
would be reasonable survey as we have defined it. To collect all
possible information concerning all the things which the doctor or
hospital might do, or may be doing, unrelated to any end, is to collect
a mass of information which we cannot use; and that we have declined to
do. What course then can we pursue? We propose first to accept the
notion that the medical mission is there to supply a medical need of the
people, and to consider how far it does that; and then to look at the
medical work at the station as definitely designed to assist the
evangelisation of the people, as evangelistic in its purpose. We have,
therefore, designed a double set of tables to serve these two purposes.
First, tables to show the medical work in relation to the presumed need
of the district for western medicine.
Here, as before for evangelistic work, so now for medical, we have
expressed the relation between the medical work and the district in
terms both of area and population in order that each table may be a
check upon the other. Thus:--
(i) In terms of area.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| |Number of| | | |
| |Qualified|Number of |Number of |Number of|Number of
| |Medicals.|Assistants.|Hospitals.| Nurses. |Dispens-
| | | | | |aries.
District.|Area.|---------|-----------|----------|---------|---------
| | M. | F. | M. | F. |For | For | M. | F. |
| | | | | |men |women| | |
---------|-----|----|----|-----|-----|----|-----|----|----|---------
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | | | | |
_________|_____|____|____|_____|_____|____|_____|____|____|__________
(ii) In terms of population.
----------------------------------------------
District. |Population. |
---------------------------------------------|
Proportion of | | |
Medicals to | | |
Population. | | |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of | | |
Assistants to | | |
Population. | | |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of | | |
Nurses to | | |
Population. | | |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of | | |
Beds to | | |
Population. | | |
----------------------------------------------
Proportion of | | |
Dispensaries to | | |
Population. | | |
----------------------------------------------
It will be observed that in this second table the items are not
identical with those in the preceding table. In the place of hospitals
we have beds; because in relation to the area the thing of importance is
the number of the hospitals; but in relation to population the thing of
importance is the number of beds available. Two hospitals in a single
area are probably not in the same place and imply more widespread
influence; but if each has twenty beds, in proportion to population it
is of no importance whether the forty beds are in one place or two:
forty in-patients fill the beds.
But in medical work, when we are considering the need of the district,
another factor of importance often enters. The medicals of the mission
are often not the only men meeting that need. There are often others,
Government officials, or private practitioners, who, from the point of
view of medical practice, are doing the same work. The medical need of a
district where the missionary doctor is the only exponent of western
medicine is not the same as that of the district where he is competing
with Government or private doctors fully trained as he is. Consequently
it is essential in order to understand the position that we should know
what other, non-missionary, medical assistance is available, and we
need the following table:--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Hospitals.|Qualified|Assistants.|Nurses.|Dispensaries.|Beds.
| |Practi- | | | |
tioners. | | | |
--------|----------|---------|-----------|-------|-------------|---
| | | | | |
Mission-| | | | | |
ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
Non- | | | | | |
Mission-| | | | | |
ary| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ___
| | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
If any surveyor finds it difficult to fill in such a table, he must make
an estimate, but he ought to realise that a table of the kind is a
necessary part of any appeal for increased support; for support cannot
be reasonably given to his work _on the ground of this medical need_
unless these facts are known. Of course that does not mean that support
ought to be given or withheld solely on the statistics so provided.
There may be a thousand reasons for strengthening and enlarging work
where this table would suggest less need; but no support should be given
in ignorance of these facts.
Then we need tables to reveal, as far as such tables can reveal
anything, the extent of the medical mission work done in the year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
District|Area|Popul-|Hospital |Dispensary,|Total|Propor- |Remarks
| |ation |Patients in|Patients in|Pat- |tion of |and
| | |Year |Year |ients|Patients |Conclu-
| | | | | |to Popul-|sions
| | | | | |ation |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
| | |M.|F.|Child|M.|F.|Child| | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | | | | | |
________|____|______|__|__|_____|__|__|_____|_____|_________|________
Turning then from the medical need to be met, we proposed to inquire
into the medical work as an evangelistic agency. This inquiry is hard to
formulate; but we suggest that the three tables appended, taken in
conjunction with the preceding, would throw certain light on this
question, and would help towards a true understanding.
First, we inquire into the relative extent to which the medical workers
make use of the assistance of evangelistic workers. This table would
_not_ reveal the evangelistic influence of the hospital. On the one
hand, there is sometimes a tendency for the medical men and women to do
medical work exclusively, and to leave all religious work to the
evangelistic workers, and to give way to the temptation to imagine that
if evangelistic workers read or preach in the waiting-room and visit the
patients, the medicals can be satisfied that they have done their duty
as medical missionaries. On the other hand, a medical who does his
medical work in the Spirit, who speaks to and prays with his patients,
exercises an evangelistic influence wider and deeper than that of many
of the evangelistic workers directly so called, and in such a case the
fact that the evangelistic workers are apparently lacking in the
hospital does not at all show that the medical work is not a strong
evangelistic force. But any danger of misguidance which might arise if
this table stood alone must be counteracted by the other tables; for the
three can be taken together. And when this allowance has been made the
table is useful with the others, and lights one side of the question
before us.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Hospitals | Dispensaries
| | (Where these
| | are not attached to
| | hospitals)
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Number of Medicals | |
on Staff.[1] | |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Proportion to Patients. | |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Number of Evangelistic | |
Workers on Staff.[1] | |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Proportion to Patients. | |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
-------------------------+--------------+----------------------------
[Footnote 1: By "on staff" we mean regularly attached to, or regularly
visiting.]
When we have seen the extent to which the medicals use the evangelistic
workers in their institutions, we need to know the extent to which the
medicals assist the evangelistic workers outside the institutions. We
put this in the form of a table designed to reveal the extent to which
the medicals assist in evangelistic tours, helping the evangelistic
workers on tour, either by healing the sick on the spot, or by sending
them to the hospitals, or by preaching, or in all these ways.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of |Number of |Number of |Number of |Number of |Remarks
Evange- |Evangelistic|Medicals |Days spent by|Days spent|and
listic |Workers |Assisting.|Evangelistic |by |Conclu-
Tours. |Assisting. | |Workers. |Medicals. |sions.
----------|------------|----------|-------------|----------|-------
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
__________|____________|__________|_____________|__________|_______
Finally, we inquire how far the direct evangelistic influence of the
hospitals and dispensaries can be traced. We might at first suppose that
this could be done by asking the number of inquirers enrolled as a
direct consequence of attendance at hospitals and dispensaries; but it
is not surprising that patients are willing to enrol their names as
inquirers simply to please the doctors or nurses, without any intention
of pursuing the matter further when they leave the hospital; and
consequently such a question by itself might be very misleading. We
therefore add two further questions, the first, what number of
communicants trace their conversion to their visits to hospitals or
dispensaries, the second, what number of places have been opened to
Christian teachers and preachers by the influence of doctors and
patients. Some missionary doctors are much interested in this inquiry,
and we all might well be interested in it. The answers would be a most
important contribution to our study, and might go far to justify medical
missions as an evangelistic agency.
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Inquirers Enrolled in the Year as a Direct | |
Consequence of Attendance at Hospitals and Dispensaries.| |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Total Inquirers. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Enrolled in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Communicants Derived from Attendance | |
at Hospitals and Dispensaries in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Communicants Enrolled in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Number of Places Opened to Christian Teachers through | |
the Influence of Doctors or Patients in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Proportion of Total Places Opened in the Year. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
Conclusions and Remarks. | |
+-------------------------------------------------------+-----+
CHAPTER VI.
EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE STATION DISTRICT.
The difficulty of providing tables for the survey of educational work is
as great as that of finding tables for medical work, and for the same
reasons. There is the same separateness, the same diversity of immediate
aim, the same alteration of character, the same uncertainty of policy.
Educational missions have been designed to convert the young whilst they
were yet pliable, to influence the growing generation in order to
prepare for a great advance of Christianity later, to Christianise
society, to educate young Christians in a Christian atmosphere, to
prepare leaders for the Christian Church, to elevate an ignorant and
illiterate Christian Church. All these various objects have been set
before us as the reasons for the establishment of schools, both
separately, each in different circumstances, and unitedly, all at the
same time, as though one school could fulfil all these different
purposes without any confusion. At one and the same moment Christian
children were to be educated in a Christian atmosphere, and
non-Christian children in large numbers were admitted, and non-Christian
teachers employed. At the same time non-Christian children were to be
converted and not converted, but filled with Christian ideas.
All these aims and objects are confusedly set forth, each as its turn
comes round, as the immediate aim of our educational missions; but the
attempt to draw tables for a survey which shall embrace impartially all
these objects is enough to satisfy the inquirer that they are not easily
combined into one. We propose, therefore, in this bewildering maze of
mixed purposes and ideas, to follow the line which seemed possible in
the case of medical missions--to accept the idea that there is an
educational need of the people which it is the business of the
educational mission to meet so far as it can; and then to add a further
inquiry concerning the direct evangelistic influence of the educational
mission, and its relation to the evangelistic and medical work.
But in educational mission survey there is an added difficulty which
arises from the fact that scholastic education is divided into many
grades, and this division has no common standard in different countries,
sometimes not even in the same country. We, then, who are seeking light
not from one country only but from all, are compelled to simplify these
grade distinctions as much as possible, and to accept the local
definitions. This does not really invalidate comparisons between
different areas so seriously as we might at the first glance be tempted
to expect. There is in every country a grade which is primary; there is
a secondary, or middle, or high school; there is a normal, or college,
or arts course. The primary in one country may run into higher primary
and be at its best far in advance of the primary in another country; and
so far the two are incomparable; but, nevertheless, this primary grade
is the lowest grade in each country, and if the inquiry is, what number
of pupils are taught in this local first grade, then the comparison is
admissible. Similarly of the second grade and the third. If the inquiry
is understood to imply no more than it states, and no conclusion is
drawn as to the relative stage or merits of the education in the two
countries in relation to one another, it may justly be argued that the
primary pupils in one country stand in relation to the illiterate and
more highly educated pupils in their own country in a similar position
to that in which the primary pupils in another country stand to the
illiterate and more highly educated pupils in their own country; though
the primary pupils in the one may be far more advanced than the primary
pupils in the other. On this basis a possible comparison can be made.
But since colleges and normal schools generally serve a larger area than
the station district, these are reserved for provincial survey, and the
present tables deal with nothing above the secondary, or middle, or high
school. In the station district area the matter of chief importance is
the extent to which the need of the district for primary and secondary
education is met, and the proportion in which the needs of the many and
the few are met.
Of course where the surveyor has before him more elaborate tables
prepared for some board, he can serve all purposes best by keeping those
tables carefully and sending copies of them to those who may be
interested. Our hasty division into primary and higher than primary is
only designed to save trouble in those districts where no elaborate
distinctions and definitions have been made. If it is desirable for
purposes of comparison to reduce tables from different parts of the
world to a common basis, so long as the tables supplied from any part do
not contain _less_ than the tables here suggested, the comparison can
easily be made, for what it is worth.
We begin then with the educational work done in the station district as
designed to meet a distinct educational need. The first tables,
therefore, correspond to the first evangelistic and medical tables and
set forth the quantitative extent of the educational work in relation to
the area and to the population.
_______________________________________________________________
| | | Number of |
| | Number of | Secondary or | Remarks and
District.| Area.| Primary Schools.| Middle or | Conclusions.
| | | High Schools.|
_________|______|_________________|______________|_____________
| | | |
| | | |
_________|______|_________________|______________|_____________
---------|------|-----------------|--------------|--------------
_________________________________________________________________
| | | Propor-| | Propor-|
| | Number | tion | Number | tion |
| Popula-| of | to | of | to | Re-
District.| tion. | Primary | Popula-| Higher | Popula-|marks.
| | Teachers.| tion. | Teachers.| tion. |
_________|________|__________|________|__________|________|______
| | | | | |
_________|________|__________|________|__________|________|_______
Here it will be noted that whereas in the area it is the number of
schools which is considered, in relation to population it is the number
of teachers, because in the area the point of importance is the
accessibility of the schools; whilst in relation to the population it is
the number of teachers which reveals to what extent the population is
served.
Then similar reasons to those which led us to take into account the
non-missionary medical assistance in the area force us to consider the
non-missionary education. If we are to consider scholastic education as
a need of the people at all, we must acknowledge that the presence of
Government or private schools makes a great difference to the situation,
and if an appeal for medical missions ought to be affected by the
presence or absence of non-missionary medical assistance, equally ought
an appeal for educational missions in any area to be affected by the
presence or absence of non-missionary educational facilities.
It may be true that if the aim of educational missions were defined as
the provision of educational facilities under Christian influence, the
presence of non-Christian educational facilities, in proportion to their
magnitude, might be a challenge to Christians to increase theirs. On
this basis the mission would deliberately compete with Government
schools where Government schools were strongest. But if the mission is
designed to supply a liberal education for Christians, the presence of
Government schools does not necessarily induce competition. We might
well ponder the question put by a Christian convert in India, when
discussing the use of educational missions by the missionary societies:
"Hindus," he said, "are not deterred from sending their children to
Christian schools by the fear that they will cease to be Hindus, and do
the societies think so little of our religion that they are afraid that
our children would cease to be Christians if they attended a Government
school?" Whatever answer we give to that question, in either case the
existence of non-Christian schools is a serious and important factor in
the situation.
We therefore inquire into the non-missionary educational work done in
the area. We are well aware that in many cases the surveyor will find it
difficult to supply the required information, and may be driven to make
an estimate; but the information ought to be provided for any true and
just administration of educational mission funds, and estimates must be
here regarded as at the best a poor substitute, though under existing
circumstances perhaps a necessary one.
_____________________________________________________________________
| | |
| | |Propor- | Higher | | Propor- |
|Primary| |tion of | or |Teach-| tion of |Re-
|Schools|Teachers|Teachers| Second-| ers. | Teachers|marks.
| | |to Popu-| ary | | to Popu-|
| | |lation. |Schools.| | lation. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Missionary| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Non- | | | | | | |
Missionary| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we need to consider the extent to which the educational efforts of
the mission are used to meet the needs of the better educated and of the
more ignorant. This will be revealed by the average attendance in the
different classes of schools.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Total | | |Propor-| | | Propor-| Re-
Scholars| | |tion of| | | tion of|marks
in |Primary |Scholars|Total |Secondary| Scho- | Total | and
Mission |Schools.| | Scho-| Schools.| lars.| Scho- |Conclu-
Schools.| | |lars. | | | lars. | sions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | |
________|________|________|_______|_________|_______|________|_______
Then we must inquire into the proportion in which the education given in
the schools is given to boys and to girls. This is peculiarly important
in considering the influence of school education upon the rising
generation of Christians, since well-taught girls make intelligent and
helpful wives and mothers, and this tends enormously to the advancement
of the Christian community. And the same truth applies to the
non-Christian population.
| Mission | Mission |Remarks and
|Primary Schools.| Secondary Schools.| Conclusions.
-----------------+----------------+----------------------------------
| Boys. | Girls. | Boys. | Girls. |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------------------+--------------
Christian or | | | | |
From | | | | |
Christian homes. | | | | |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+--------------
Non-Christian | | | | |
-----------------+-------+--------+-------+-----------+
Here we divided Christians from non-Christians, and thus the table
serves a double purpose. It tells us the division of the scholars by sex
and also by faith. It throws light upon the condition of the Christian
community and upon the extent to which mission school education is given
to Christians and non-Christians.
One other point must be considered in connection with mission schools
because it throws great light upon the character of the schools and
their purpose. It is the extent to which the educational mission
receives Government support. If there is any doubt as to the dominant
aim and purpose of a school, the fact that it receives Government aid
reveals at once that in the eyes of the Government it stands for the
general enlightenment of the population rather than for any direct
evangelisation. The dominant aim of the Government is general
enlightenment, and the Government gives no grant without some sort of
control. If then a school receives a Government grant the dominant idea
of general enlightenment will certainly exercise great influence over
its direction. Consequently, if we know what proportion of the schools
in any mission receive a Government grant, we have at least some
guidance as to the extent to which the mission accepts the aim of
general enlightenment. We have also some assurance that the schools
reach the Government standard of efficiency in the teaching of secular
subjects.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary | Proportion | Higher | Proportion | Remarks
Schools | Receiving | Schools. | Receiving | and
| Government | | Government | Conclusions.
| Grant, if any. | | Grant. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
________|________________|__________|____________|___________________
Hitherto we have dealt only with schools in which the pupils are
probably for the most part children; but in some countries the mission
makes a great effort to enlighten the illiterate adults, especially the
illiterate adult Christians, and thus, as in China, missionaries
propagate simplified systems of writing the language, or in other
countries have reduced to writing, languages which possessed no script.
We have already set out the reason why this appeals especially to
Protestant missionaries. The reading of the Bible is a keystone in their
evangelistic system, and with them Christianity and reading go hand in
hand. We must then make room in our survey for a movement so profound,
so widespread, and so vitally important, and a movement of this
character deserves and demands a separate table. It cannot be confounded
with the establishment of ordinary primary schools. It is essential that
we should inquire what education is given to the illiterate adults of
the area; and we must inquire in what proportion this teaching is given
to Christians and non-Christians, because this proportion is very
significant. The teaching of reading to the illiterate is by some
missionaries viewed as a means preparatory to the preaching of the
gospel, a gift to be given as widely as possible, in the belief that
the more who can read, the better will be the hearing given to the
preachers of Christ; by others the teaching is given rather to
illiterate inquirers and converts, and it is given to them as a
definitely Christian gift for the edification of the individual and of
the Church.
By the one this teaching would be classed with the general work of
Christian educational missions for the whole community, the meeting of
the general intellectual need of the district; by the other it would be
classed as a part of the work done by the educational mission for the
enlightenment of the Church, the meeting of a need of the Church. By the
one it would be classed with the tables which deal with the relation of
the educational to the evangelistic work; by the other with the tables
which deal with the educational work viewed as meeting a special need.
The table suggested is:--
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Population. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Illiterate Population. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Number of Teachers of Illiterate Adults. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Number of Illiterate Adult Scholars. |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Christian. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Non-Christian | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Proportion of Illiterate Population. |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Proportion of Teachers to Illiterate Population. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
--------------------------------------------------------+------|
This table leads us naturally to consider the educational work done in
the station area from an evangelistic point of view. We must inquire
then into the extent to which evangelistic missionaries assist in the
schools, and educational missionaries assist in evangelistic work, and
the evangelistic results so far as they can be traced of the work in
schools.
We ask first the extent to which educationalists employ the services of
evangelistic workers in their schools and institutions. As we pointed
out in dealing with the relation between medical and evangelistic work,
so here we would insist that this particular table is not by itself a
good guide. There is a serious danger in an institution, whether medical
or educational, of dividing the work in this way. We have already
asserted our conviction that medical missionaries should be
evangelistic, and educational missionaries evangelistic also. But when
evangelistic workers distinctly so called are on the staff of hospitals
or schools, there is a danger lest the medicals and the educationalists
should consider themselves absolved from personal effort by the
occasional presence of an evangelist. "Let him do the religious
preaching, and let me do the secular teaching. Preaching is his job,
teaching is mine." Thus a division is created which reacts seriously
upon the work of both. The pupils learn to distinguish the one work from
the other, as separate and distinct departments. They prefer the one,
they are bored by the other. No man can serve two masters; and if the
religious teaching is plainly in the hands of one teacher and the
secular teaching plainly in the hands of the other, they will tend to
think that they can hold to the one and despise the other. This we say
is a danger, but it is not an unavoidable danger. Only we must not judge
that an institution is doing good evangelistic work because evangelistic
services are held in it. The table is as follows:--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Schools. | Number of Schools | Proportion of Schools | Remarks and
| Regularly Visited | Visited by | Conclusions.
| by Evangelists. | Evangelists. |
| | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |
_________|___________________|_______________________|____________
Then there is a most important work which the educational evangelist
does, or might do, outside the school. Perhaps we ought to explain this;
for many supporters of missions are unfamiliar with the idea. They think
of the work of educational missionaries as necessarily bound up with
schools and institutions. A teacher without a school, or outside a
school, seems to them rather like a gunner without a gun. If an
educational missionary goes on an evangelistic tour it is, they think,
as an evangelist that he goes, not as an educationalist. Yet, if we
understood the work of an evangelistic educationalist, we should not
think it strange to meet an educational missionary on tour, doing
evangelistic educational work. Evangelistic work is educational to the
core, and it leads to educational results. No evangelistic work amongst
an illiterate, or a literate, people can be really complete, if it does
not lead at once to the organisation of education amongst the converts
and hearers. The illiterate must be taught to read the Gospels, and it
demands an expert in the teaching of illiterates to direct their
studies; the illiterate and the literate converts alike must be taught
to transform that education which they all give daily to their children,
whether in the home or in a school, into Christian education, and this
too demands the attention of a skilled educationalist. This work is
invaluable and most exciting and interesting work, and must produce
results which, for the establishment of the Church, are almost
incalculably important. As then for the medical missionaries, so for
the educationalists we ask:--
------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------
Evangelistic| Number of | Number of | Number of |Conclusions
Tours. |Evangelistic|Educationalists|Days Spent by|and Remarks.
| Workers. | Assisting. | Evangelists |
| | | on Tour. |
------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------
| | | |
------------+------------+---------------+-------------+------------
When we turn to the immediate evangelistic results of the education
given in the station district, we labour under difficulties even greater
than those which we met when we tried to formulate tables to reveal the
extent to which medical missions were effective as an evangelistic
agency.
The difficulty lies in the fact that the educational missionaries who
set before themselves as the aim of their work a far distant goal to be
attained by the cumulative effect of Christian influence brought to bear
upon generation after generation of children who do not themselves
become Christians, naturally resent a table which seems to demand a
present, immediate, result in the tabulation of baptisms, and we fear
that the other tables will hardly reconcile them, because we are afraid
that few educational missionaries have yet learned to understand what a
vast and important and absorbingly interesting work the education of the
converts outside the schools affords. Consequently we shiver when we
think of the reception which these tables are likely to receive at the
hands of some of our friends in foreign countries, and our ears tingle
in anticipation.
Nevertheless, if we are to be told, and to act on the hearing, that
Christian schools are founded because it is easier to convert the young
than the old, and the twig can be bent while the tree resists till it
breaks, we must inquire how far this saying is justified by experience.
A survey which neglected the factors which throw light upon it would be
a partial and unjust one.
Hence we ask first--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Scholars | Baptism | Baptism | Confirmation | Remarks
| | of | of | or Admission | and
| | Scholars | Parents | as Full | Conclusions
| | | | Members |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary | | | | |
Schools | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Secondary| | | | |
Schools | | | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
and secondly--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Places Opened to | | Remarks
Christian Teachers by the | Proportion of Total | and
Influence of Scholars. | Places Occupied. | Conclusions.
----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
___________________________|_____________________|______________
These two tables will give us some idea of the direct influence of the
educational mission as an evangelistic force.
Some are anxious to know what support the educational and medical work
call forth from the natives for whom these are set in hand. They want
this information, we suppose, as a help towards an understanding of the
influence exercised by these different forms of work. If the natives
support them generously then they have obviously been impressed by them
favourably. And perhaps the extent of native support may suggest the
measure to which our work as medical and educational missionaries is
approaching a successful end.
We therefore include a table identical for medical and educational
workers:--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Total | Total | Total Native | Volunteers
| Expense | Foreign | Contribution | for
| of Work in | Contribution. | Fees and | Training.
| Station | | Donations. |
| Area. | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
------------|------------|---------------|--------------|------------
Educational | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN THE MISSION.
We have now surveyed the evangelistic, medical, and educational work in
the station district, viewed separately. It remains to unify the
results, that we may get, if possible, a definite conception of the
whole. The effectiveness of the mission machinery largely depends upon
the relation of these parts to one another. The mission ought not to be
three separate things but one thing; for the impression produced upon
the non-Christian population is the result of the combination of all the
various forms in which the one missionary spirit expresses itself. The
spirit which produces them all is one, and it is that one spirit which
influences and converts the heathen.
Now we already know the proportion in which workers and funds are
divided between the three branches (p. 68). We already know something
of the work done by evangelists in hospitals (p. 83), and by doctors in
evangelistic tours (p. 84); and of the extent to which the work in the
hospitals opens up the way for evangelists (p. 85). We already know
something of the work done by evangelists in schools (p. 99), and of the
evangelistic influence of the educational work (p. 102, 103), and of the
extent to which educationalists assist in evangelistic tours (p. 101).
If then we now add tables to show the help given by the medicals in the
schools and the work done by the educationalists in the hospitals we
shall be able to gain a fairly complete idea of the co-operation between
the three branches.
But it is just at this point, the relation between the medical and
educational work, that we shall probably find most difficulty. This
relationship has not been carefully thought out in the past, and
co-operation between medicals and educationalists is, we fancy, somewhat
rare. Few men could tell us exactly what policy is followed, or ought to
be followed. This is partly due to that confusion of purpose of which we
spoke in the first chapter, a confusion which obscures and confounds
our medical and educational missions. If both medical and educational
missions had had one common dominant purpose, the relation between them
would have been more easily seen; but since they were separated in
thought, each having its own particular and separate objects to pursue,
they naturally worked along parallel lines and consequently did not
meet. If they had had one common dominant object they would have met.
But generally speaking there is no clear understanding whether the
medical mission has any definite relation to the educational mission, or
the educational mission to the medical.
On the medical side, it is not clearly understood whether it is the
first duty, or the last duty, of medicals to attend to the children whom
we gather together in such large numbers, whether the medicals ought to
inspect all the children, whether they ought to be at hand to treat
children who are obviously sick, whether these considerations ought to
influence the location of the hospital, or of the place of residence of
the medical missionaries, or whether this work, if they really gave much
time to it, should be considered as withdrawing them from their _proper_
work. Consequently, the health of the children in mission schools has
often suffered, and the work of the school been hindered. In one school
something approaching to a revolution was produced by the constant care
and attention of a doctor. Phthisis, which had been a continual source
of trouble and weakness, was reduced considerably, and the whole work
and tone of the school improved enormously. If medical missionaries and
educational missionaries always realised that they were engaged in a
common work, this experience would be almost universal.
In our tables we cannot possibly enter into any details. The work of
medicals in schools cannot be exactly stated, it varies greatly in
extent and character; but it would, we suppose, always include attention
to the health of the children and consultation with the teachers, both
about the welfare of the school as a whole and of the care of individual
pupils. It might also include lectures in hygiene and kindred topics,
sanitation of buildings, and other assistance too varied to specify.
The table can only include visits and inspection of pupils.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Total | Number | Total | Number | Remarks
Number | Regularly | Number | Regularly | and
of Schools. | Visited by | of | Inspected. | Conclusions.
| Medicals. | Scholars. | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The relation of the educational mission to the medical has not been
thought out any more carefully. There is in hospitals an opportunity of
extraordinary importance, a field of great fruitfulness which is largely
neglected. If the hospital is a missionary hospital, founded to heal the
souls as well as the bodies of men, ought not the patients in them to be
taught as well as medically treated? Have they any claim upon the care
of educational missionaries? Have the educational missionaries any duty
in hospitals? Very few, we think, have given much attention to these
questions: no society, so far as we know, has followed any definite
policy in regard to them. A single instance will reveal how important
they may be. A doctor who was deeply interested in the teaching of
Chinese illiterates took steps to have the illiterate convalescents in
his hospital taught to read. The average time which these patients spent
in the hospital was three weeks, and in that time they could learn to
read the Gospels in simplified script fluently. They thus left the
hospital not only healed in body, but with a new interest in life, and a
considerable knowledge of Christian truth, and a power to advance in it,
and a power also to instruct others. In a hospital for Chinese coolies
in France this doctor taught one patient to read the Gospel. The patient
was then removed to another hospital where he taught no less than forty
of his fellow-patients to read. If such results can be obtained, it
would be well to consider whether we are making full use of the
opportunities afforded by the gathering of large numbers of patients
into hospitals all over the world. Illiterates are not the only people
who might profit by Christian teaching, classes for literates might be
equally valuable. Large numbers might leave our hospitals with a
considerable knowledge of Christian truth, and a new interest in life,
with power to advance and to teach others, if they were systematically
taught. In one missionary hospital regular courses were given on
Christian Evidences, and courses on the education of children might well
be given to parents in hospitals.
Here again a table cannot reveal the type and character of the work
done: it can only tabulate visits. The work would include the teaching
of illiterates to read, and instructing convalescents of higher
education either in classes or individually.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Total | Number | Total | Number | Remarks
Number of | Regularly | Number of | of | and
Hospitals. | Visited by | Patients. | Scholars | Conclusions.
| Educationalists. | | Taught. |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
| | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We might now sum up this branch of our inquiry thus:--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Foreign | Native |Assisting|Assisting|Assisting|Remarks
| Mission | Assist | in |in |in | and
| -aries. | ants. | Evangel-|Hosp- |Schools. |Conclusions.
| | | istic |itals. | |
| | | Tours. | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evange-| | | | | |
listic | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educa | | | | | |
-tional| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ----
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Then we shall surely have some idea of the extent to which the whole
force works together towards one end.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NATIVE CHURCH.
In the Introduction we pointed out that the end for which the work
surveyed is undertaken ought to govern the survey of the work. Now we
are constantly told that the end for which the station is founded is the
establishment of a Christian Church in the district so strongly that if
the station with its foreign staff disappeared, the Church would remain
and bring up each generation in the Christian Faith.
This proposal sets before us a real end for the mission station. It
suggests a point at which the station will have done its work; the
mission would then have no more place in those parts. The station has
thus an end, not only in the sense that it has an object at which it
aims, but a point at which it ceases. But this end is not simply a point
in the far distant future; it is a condition, or state of the Church in
the district, into which it must be growing. Then the growth of the
native Church is more important than the growth of the mission, and all
things should be directed primarily to that end, so that as the native
Church waxed the mission should wane, and thus the end should be reached
naturally and easily and not by a catastrophe. If that is the end, then
the survey of the station and its district cannot fail to take the form
of an inquiry how far progress in this direction has been made.
Since our ideas of missionary work are wrapped up with the establishment
of mission stations and consequently with the purchase of land and
buildings, since we rely almost wholly upon paid workers for the
prosecution of the work, since we employ most expensive methods of
propaganda, such as the establishment of great medical and educational
institutions, since our societies at home are almost wholly absorbed in
the effort to procure funds to pay for all these things, it is not
surprising that money takes a supremely important position in our
thought of all missionary work. Consequently, when we think of the
growth of the native Church in power to carry on the work which we have
begun we naturally think first of self-support.
Self-support is now one of the most common missionary catchwords. We
hear it on every platform at home; we hear it in the mouths of large
numbers of our converts abroad. There exist in the mission field large
numbers of what are called "self-supporting churches". Our missionaries
often set this self-support before their converts as a status of honour,
and offer them encouragements of various kinds to induce them to become
self-supporting as soon as possible. At home, if we ask concerning the
progress of the native Church, they often answer us by telling us the
numbers of these self-supporting churches.
What then is meant by a self-supporting Church? We might naturally
suppose that a self-supporting Church was a Church which was independent
of external support; we might suppose that it could maintain itself
without any assistance from mission funds; we might suppose that, when a
Church became self-supporting, the mission, so far as finance was
concerned, could withdraw and move to some fresh place. That is
sometimes the case, but very rarely. We know, for instance, a case where
fourteen Christians in a small town provided their own chapel and its
furnishing and upkeep, and all subsidiary expenses without any
assistance. They had no paid ministers and therefore no salaries to
pay. They were from the very beginning entirely self-supporting, and the
missionary could, and did, leave them and go to others who needed him
more. But in this case there was no mission compound, no elaborate
system of mission education, and no mission fund from which the chapel
could be built and a pastor provided, before the converts were ready to
provide these things for themselves.
Most commonly the mission does all these things, and then self-support
does not necessarily imply independence of foreign support. We have met
native Christians who assured us in one breath that they were members of
a self-supporting Church and that their Church did not receive its fair
share of mission funds. Self-support does not necessarily mean
independence of external pecuniary aid.
What then does the status of a self-supporting Church imply? Nothing
certain, but just what the society, or the missionary, chooses. Take a
case. In a newly opened outstation the converts subscribed $5 Mexican, a
head, per annum. The missionary in charge of the district estimated that
$500 per annum would pay the rent and upkeep of the chapel, and the
salary of the pastor. Therefore he calculated that when the membership
of the chapel reached 100, the congregation would be self-supporting.
But if a school were founded and fees paid, then the day of self-support
would be very far off.
Hence it is obvious that self-support is an arbitrary standard fixed on
no certain grounds; and progress towards self-support is simply a
progress towards a line which the foreigner prescribes. Just as each
father among us here in England, according to his class and standard of
living, fixes a standard for his son, saying, "When he earns so much he
will be able to maintain himself," so the society, or the individual
missionary, fixes the standard for converts. In this case, the foreigner
insisted on the salary for the pastor, he created the building, its
ornaments and expenses; and where this is done the day of self-support
must be more or less delayed. More or less, for what one man considers
abundant another thinks hardly decent, simply because each has learnt in
a different school different ideas of what is necessary or desirable.
Consequently one man makes the day of self-support easy of attainment,
another loudly proclaims that his people are so poor that they cannot
possibly be expected to provide for themselves.
Furthermore, we must observe that in the first case the converts
arrived speedily at self-support because the foreign missionary never
for a moment allowed them to be anything else, whilst in the second the
missionary provided what he thought necessary until such time as the
Church was sufficiently wealthy to pay for it. The one Church decided
for itself what it needed, and what it needed it took the necessary
steps to supply: the other accepted what was given to it and was asked
to subscribe more and more to pay for it. But when the provision is
first made largely from some more or less mysterious foreign source, the
converts will never subscribe to a fund so organised as they will to a
fund which they raise and administer themselves to supply what they
themselves want, and cannot have unless they provide the necessary money
to get it. Self-support then, as the word is most commonly used, means
anything but genuine self-support, and does not represent the power of
the people to supply their needs. It means only the subscription of
money sufficient to pay for certain things which are more or less
arbitrarily fixed by the missionary or his society.
Neither is it any sure evidence of the zeal and liberality of the Church
which is called self-supporting. The existence of self-supporting
churches is indeed sometimes used as an argument to show that the Church
is growing in this Christian virtue. But this is largely deceptive. The
existence of self-supporting churches does not necessarily prove
Christian liberality. Take the case which we quoted above where the
Christians subscribed $5 a head. It was said that when they numbered 100
members they would be self-supporting. But, if they still subscribed $5
a head, there would be no more liberality in the Church of 100, which
was self-supporting, than in the Church of ten, which was not
self-supporting. There might be more, if the ninety members added were
very poor; there might be less if one wealthy man joined the Church.
Since the status of a self-supporting Church is one of honour and
privilege, the members might even be tempted to admit an unworthy member
who was well off in the hope that his subscriptions might aid them to
attain that glorious position without much self-denial or effort on
their own part.
Moreover, the collection of money is a highly developed art. It is
extraordinary what pressure men can bring to bear upon converts to
induce them to subscribe, so that the contribution is in many cases
little different from the payment of a tax. It is truly amazing to read
how many forms of appeals and fees can be invented to collect money from
more or less unwilling givers.[1] We cannot then accept the existence of
self-supporting churches as an evidence of liberality, nor base our
calculation on the sum subscribed for the upkeep of such churches.
[Footnote 1: This is a list of the means employed to raise money by one
missionary in order to assist the people in his district to arrive at
self-support:--
(1) Sunday collections. (2) Share of first fruits (crop seasons). (3)
Monthly membership family assessment. (4) Special missionary or harvest
thanksgiving (twice a year). (5) Pinch of rice at every meal as
thanksgiving (women's share). (6) Box in houses for prayer meetings,
etc. (7) Church box. (8) Dedication of special pepper or cocoa-nut trees
for church repair. (9) Bible society collections. (10) Hospital
collection. (11) Baptism offerings. (12) Marriage offerings. (13) Lord's
Supper offerings. (14) Special gifts for church building or equipment.
It is not surprising that he adds that he is told that some of the new
converts have gone back because they see the regularity and frequency of
giving.]
Nevertheless, seeing that self-supporting churches are widely
recognised, let us begin with these and seek to find out what
information a table of inquiry might supply. We should ask first for
the number of self-supporting churches in relation to (_a_) the number
of communicants (or full members) in the district, and (_b_) the number
of Christian Churches organised, but not self-supporting. By an
organised Church we understand a body of Christians in any place who
hold regular religious services, and may send delegates to any council
which may exist for the whole station district.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants.|Proportion of |Organised|Proportion of |Remarks
|Communicants |Churches.|Organised |and
|connected with | |Churches |Conclusions.
|Self-supporting| |Self-supporting.|
|Churches. | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
_____________|_______________|_________|________________|____________
From this we should learn briefly, and as a starting-point, the
proportion of the self-supporting churches, and that might help us to
understand the progress made towards self-support as it is understood in
the district, and enable us to compare it with that of other districts.
But this by itself would not be of any great value in assisting us to
understand what progress had been made towards the establishment of a
Church which could stand alone, if the station with its foreign staff
were withdrawn. No Church which does not advance can stand, and the mere
attainment of this arbitrary standard does not necessarily prove
capacity to advance or to stand. The effort to attain it sometimes leads
the converts to concentrate their attention upon themselves. They set
self-support before their eyes as an end to be attained for their own
sake. It has consequently sometimes happened that native churches,
established on this self-supporting basis, have become self-absorbed,
self-seeking. They have so looked on their own things that they have
tended to lose sight of the things of others. They have become, like
many little Christian communities at home, so entangled in the effort to
maintain their own dignity, their own services, their own progress in
outward prosperity, that they have forgotten the real purpose of their
existence, and, instead of becoming centres of light and attraction and
active zeal for the spread of the gospel, have degenerated into
self-contained units indulging a self-satisfied pride in the glorious
position to which they have attained as self-supporting churches. The
history of some churches on the West Coast of Africa and in South India
suggests the need for such a warning, and urges us to pursue the
inquiry further.
We should inquire, then, what number of inquirers, adherents, hearers,
catechumens, etc., are seeking entrance into the Church in connection
with the self-supporting churches as compared with the total number of
such inquirers, adherents, etc., in the district and compared with the
number of communicants in connection with those churches.
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In District (excluding Self-supporting Churches). |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Inquirers and Adherents. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Inquirers to Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In Self-supporting Churches. |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Inquirers and Adherents. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Inquirers to Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Such a table should, we think, prove illuminating as revealing the
influence and zeal of the members of the self-supporting churches.
A further light on this subject might be gained by comparing the number
of unpaid workers connected with the self-supporting churches with the
number of such workers in the whole district, excluding the
self-supporting churches.
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In District (excluding Self-supporting Churches). |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Unpaid Workers. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Unpaid Workers to Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
In Self-supporting Churches. |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Unpaid Workers. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Unpaid Workers to Communicants. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
This would supplement the previous table and tend to correct any
mistakes to which it might give rise.
Thus far of the missions which recognise self-supporting churches. As
for the mission districts in which no such distinctions have been made,
all that I think we need to do is to recall the tables which we made
when considering the native force (p. 54 _sqq_.), and to supplement them
with tables designed to reveal (1) the power of the Christians to
conduct their own religious services independently of the foreigner; (2)
their power to direct their own Church government; (3) their power to
supply the material needs of their organisation according to the ideas
which they have received and hold.
With regard to the first question, all that we need to know is what
proportion of the Christians are in a position to carry on their own
religious life independently of foreign help. In the Anglican Communion
that involves the presence of a duly ordained priest: in some societies
which deny the necessity of ordination, yet give a position not unlike
that of the priest to their ordained men, it would involve the presence
of a pastor. Others deny the necessity or advantage of any ordained
ministers. Under these circumstances we cannot use accepted
ecclesiastical terms; but by capacity for conducting their own religious
services we must certainly at least mean capacity to perform all
necessary religious rites, and that, for Anglicans at any rate, must
include Baptism and Holy Communion. Suppose then that we accepted the
"organised churches" as a basis and inquired what proportion of these
organised churches could, and did, perform _all_ necessary religious
rites, we should indeed omit the floating and isolated members of the
unorganised Christian community which in some districts might be very
large, but we should nevertheless, we hope, get a definite and common
basis which would really give us some light on this difficult but
important problem, and if we added a question as to the proportion of
the Christian constituency connected with these organised churches we
should have some check upon a serious misunderstanding.
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Organised Churches. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Christian Constituency | |
Connected with these. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Churches Capable of Performing _all_ | |
Necessary Religious Rites without External Assistance. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of these to Number of Organised Churches. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
The second question is, How far the Church in the district can direct
its own life and order its own government. The difficulty here arises
from the very diverse forms of Church government which have been taught
to the natives by their foreign teachers, some of them late and
difficult representative systems, not easily grasped even by educated
men. Is there then any general question which will suffice to throw
light on this problem, where the people are in the midst of the process
of learning an unfamiliar form of government?
Were very simple and almost universal ideas always followed, as for
instance in episcopacy, which naturally adapts itself to the simplest
and most common conceptions and experiences of men, in that the bishop
is closely related in idea to the father of the family, or the head man
of a village, or the governor of a province, or a chief of a tribe, or
an autocratic emperor, or a constitutional monarch, according to the
notions and experience of the people--so that a bishop is as easily
understood by a nomad family, or a village community, as by a democratic
nation, according to its stage of development, and if native bishops
were universal, as they are not, the problem would be comparatively
simple. Indeed then we need scarcely ask the question at all. Either
patriarchal episcopacy, or monarchical episcopacy, or constitutional
episcopacy all men can understand, whether the bishop is elected by his
people, or appointed by his predecessor, or by his fellows, or both
elected by his people and confirmed by his fellows--such things all men
can understand and maintain, each the form suited to their own stage.
But constitutional episcopacy when the people are at the patriarchal
stage of development, or republicanism when the people are at the
monarchical stage, they cannot understand, until they have learnt to
understand it by long and slow experience. But many of the systems
introduced by us are the latest and most advanced systems. How then can
we discover to what extent the Christians have mastered them? We can
find no question which solves this problem. We can only suggest the bare
questions, what proportion of the people take a proper and active part
in the system of Church government under which they live; and what
proportion of the congregations take an active part as congregations in
that system of Church government.
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Christians who take any part in Church | |
Government by Vote or Voice. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Total Christian Constituency | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Number of Congregations who take a share as | |
Congregations in Church Government. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Proportion of Christian Congregations. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
By the first question we understand the number of Christians who vote or
speak or act in any way, either personally or by electing
representatives, in the direction of the common action of the whole
Christian community viewed as a unity; by the second question we
understand the number of congregations which are represented at any
council higher than the council of their own congregation.
We think these questions most unsatisfactory, but we can devise no
others. We have no doubt that, if all the foreigners disappeared
suddenly, the native Christians would either perish or would speedily
adopt a form of Church government which they understood. The whole
necessity for these questions arises from the fact that we have foisted
upon them foreign systems and are uncertain to what extent they have
really grasped them. The consequence is that when we think of a Church
capable of standing alone we are in doubt. We do not feel certain that
the converts could carry on their government; and some of us think a
change in the form of Church government as serious a matter as the
change from Paganism to Christianity: it is an excommunicating matter.
Inevitably then in an inquiry such as ours we must try to discover how
far the people are advanced in the understanding of the organisation
which they have been taught. Until they are quite sound in this faith
and fully trained in this system, whether it is a circuit or a
presbytery or a democratic episcopacy, or a papacy, they cannot possibly
stand alone. Who would dare to suggest such a revolutionary idea! Why,
they might adopt a native governmental system--something which they
understood at once, quite easily, and then where should we be? We know
how to administer the system in which we were brought up: it is better
that they should learn that.
Finally we make an inquiry concerning the power of the Christians to
supply the material needs of their religious organisation. We want to
know to what extent they are really dependent on foreign funds, and to
what extent they can stand alone financially.
It is tempting to imagine that we can discover this by a mere
calculation of the total expenditure on all work carried on in the
district and comparing this either with the number of Christians and
their relative wealth or poverty, or simply with the contribution which
they actually make, concluding that the difference between their
contribution, or their estimated power to give, and the cost of the work
carried on in the area is the difference between their power to supply
their needs and their real needs. But foreign funds are largely spent
upon things which, however excellent they may be in themselves, are not
really _necessary_ for the religious life of the Christians, such as
missionaries' salaries, high schools, colleges, medical institutions,
and expensive buildings. Consequently to know the total expenditure in
the area is not to know the necessary expenditure. The native Church
might maintain its life and conquer the whole district without spending
in actual money a tithe of that which we spend on providing the people
with medicine and education and buildings and foreign missionaries.
Yet the question cannot be avoided. Missionaries all over the world
carefully count every penny which the converts subscribe, and search
diligently for some new method of doubling it, in order to lead their
converts towards the goal of self-support. What that goal is we do not
know. We cannot tell how far the Christians can supply their own needs,
if we do not know what the needs really are. And that we do not know. In
a certain very real sense Christians can always provide what is
necessary for their religious life. They could all always be
self-supporting, if we did not invent needs and insist upon them; and
what we insist upon depends entirely upon the school in which we were
brought up. The standard set, as we have already explained, is purely
arbitrary.
Under these circumstances how can we express the position of the native
Church with any approximation to truth? We can only suggest that these
arbitrary standards should be accepted, and ask that they should be
defined in every case. We should ask the missionaries, or the societies,
to estimate the amount required to supply that minimum upon which they
insist. If we did that, remembering always that the estimate made must
be doubtful and arbitrary, and that the native contribution, whilst
comparatively large funds are regularly supplied from a foreign source,
will never represent the power of the Christian community to supply its
own needs, we should at least have some standard by which we might
estimate the position of the Christian Church in the country, and its
progress. We suggest then that three items should be included in the
table: (1) the total expense of carrying on all the work in the station
district, whether the funds were provided from foreign or native
sources; (2) the amount estimated to cover the necessary expenses of the
native Christian Church; and (3) the amount subscribed by the native
Christian community. We think these three items taken together would
help us to understand the situation.
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Total Expense of Church and Mission in the Area | |
per Head of Christian Constituency. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Amount Estimated to Cover all Necessary Expenses of the | |
Native Christian Constituency per Head. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Amount Subscribed for all Purposes by the Native | |
Christian Constituency per Head. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
Remarks and Conclusions. | |
---------------------------------------------------------|-----|
We have now, we hope, some light on the question how far we are really
succeeding in attaining a purpose which we hear constantly proclaimed,
as if it were indeed a governing object of our work, the creation of an
independent native Church.
CHAPTER IX.
SURVEY OF DISTRICTS WHERE TWO OR MORE SOCIETIES ARE AT WORK AND SURVEY
OF MISSIONS WITH NO DEFINED DISTRICTS.
I. Districts in which Two or more Societies are at Work.
Hitherto we have taken for granted that only one missionary society is
at work in the district and that the survey is therefore simple; but in
many mission station districts some other society is also at work.
Occasionally the district of one station overlaps part of the district
of a station of another society. In many districts Roman Catholics are
at work, and certain forms of their work cannot be ignored, and no form
of their work ought to be ignored in surveying the district.
If two missions sent by different societies are at work in the _same_
district then, it would be an immense advantage if the survey of the
district could be made a joint production. Union for study is often
possible, when union in work is impossible, and the common understanding
of the situation is most useful.
But if that is impossible, then each society must survey the whole
district, and, what an immense amount of labour would be wasted in the
preliminary survey, the physical toil of travelling over the country to
see the villages and towns, which must be seen to be known, and must be
known to reveal the secret of the task which the mission is founded to
fulfil, that labour is known only to one who has undertaken such a task,
and will soon be known to anyone who starts out conscientiously to
survey any district. But it is helpful and illuminating labour, and it
would be far better that the heads of two missions should survey the
whole of the same district separately than that neither should survey
any of it. If both feel that in any real sense that is "_their
district_," then they ought both to survey it all; for to call a
district _mine_ which I have not even surveyed and do not know even by
sight is absurd; but it would lighten their labour and help their mutual
understanding if they surveyed it together.
If a part of the district overlaps part of another mission district,
that part should be surveyed together if possible, or if that is not
possible, by each separately.
In this survey the work of no Christian society, however remote
ecclesiastically or theologically from the surveyor's point of view,
should be omitted. Ignorance of the work done by others is the worst
possible form of separation. There is a sense in which it is true that
the more remote the ecclesiastical position of another is from our own,
the more near we are to definite opposition, the more important it is
that we should know what his work is. We may find in it so much to
admire that our annoyance at what seem to us his ecclesiastical
absurdities may be softened. If we survey the district together we shall
perhaps find there is room for both, even if we each start with the
persuasion that there is no room for the other anywhere in the world.
On no account must we fail to consider another's work. In educational or
medical work we must recognise that a school or a hospital which exists,
by whomsoever created, in the district makes a difference to the
situation. To deal with the district as if that school or hospital did
not exist is to deal with an imaginary district, not with the real one;
and no one supposes that there is any advantage in dealing with things
that are what they are as if they were something else.
We have observed a certain tendency to recognise this truth in the
matter of education and medicine, and to introduce into survey proposals
a note, when the educational and medical tables were reached, to remind
the surveyor that the educational and medical work of some society of
which he is afraid, or from which he thinks himself widely separated, as
extreme Protestants from Roman Catholics, must not be ignored; but in
the evangelistic and Church tables no such note is inserted. This is, we
suppose, a tacit acceptance of the idea that the opposite party's
evangelical and church building work can be ignored with trifling
loss--that to ignore it does not much matter. But if a man is surveying
what he calls habitually "his" district, he is surveying it presumably
to get at the facts, and one of the most important facts which he needs
to know is how far the preaching of Christ has extended and where
Christian churches have been established. Unless then he is prepared to
deny the name of Christ to the opposite party (and that is a very
serious thing to do), he cannot ignore their churches. The people claim
to be Christians and declare that they believe in Christ. If the
surveyor without further inquiry rejects them because they belong to a
society which he does not like, that may be an exhibition of
ecclesiastical zeal, but it is not the science of surveying.
Whatever he may think of them, as a surveyor he has no right to ignore
them. He is surveying "his district". There are in it so many persons of
various religious belief, amongst them his own converts and these
Christians of the opposite party. He perhaps refuses to recognise the
latter as Christians; but they are undoubtedly neither Moslems nor
Confucianists, nor Buddhists, nor Hindoos, nor do they belong to any of
the non-Christian religions. He cannot ignore them. He must take count
of them. Therefore if in a district the Protestant and the Roman
Catholic cannot survey together, the Protestant who does survey must
carefully consider the facts before his face, and endeavour to find out
what the facts really are as well as he possibly can. The facts are that
Roman Catholics are working in what he calls "his district"; the facts
are that there are churches here, and here, and here, and people who
call themselves Christians so many, and that the heathen population is
by so many less. And there are so many mission priests, and they win
converts, and the converts won by them cease to be heathen, for they are
sometimes persecuted by their heathen neighbours, even as his own
converts are persecuted.
Happily all leading surveyors are realising these obvious facts and are
now taking these things into serious account; but it is still necessary
to insist on their importance.
In these tables, when other missions are at work in the district, all
that is necessary is to add one column of the work of the other missions
so far as it is known, or can be ascertained. We are well aware that
that easy phrase covers in many cases great practical difficulty. Here
is one of the places where estimates may be inevitable. If they are
inevitable, they should be estimates, not guesses, and a note should be
made of the process by which they were reached. The difference between
an estimate and a guess is that an estimate is the result of a definite
train of reasoned calculation and a guess is not. For an estimate
reasons can be given, for a guess none other than--it occurred to me.
II. The Mission which has no Defined District.
We believe that the vast majority of missions accept a territorial
district; but there are missions where the station district has not and
cannot be defined.
The idea of the mission is not territorial. The object proposed is not
to cover any area with mission stations, nor to establish in every town
and village a church or chapel, but to create at a centre a Church of
living sons trained and educated by many years, perhaps generations, of
care to become the centre of a movement which may cover the whole
country; or it may be to influence movements which arise in the
religious, political, or social life of the people, and to direct these
into Christian channels. In such cases a territorial foundation is
impossible. The mission exists in the midst of a people and influences
the people; it makes converts, it establishes them in the faith, it
cares for them in mind and body, it prepares them to set the moral and
religious standard for any Church of the future. It is not concerned
directly with the widest possible preaching of the Gospel. When the
native Christians whom it is painfully and slowly educating and training
come to maturity they will spread the Gospel throughout the length and
breadth of the land. It is not, we are told, the business of the Foreign
Mission to preach the Gospel in every village of a defined area nor to
make itself responsible for such preaching directly: it should give to
converts in every country the highest and best and fullest teaching of
Christian civilisation, in order that by so doing it may show to all the
people of the country an example, by which they may be attracted and
influenced. If we take the widest expression of such mission activity we
find that to estimate the true value of such work we should be compelled
to survey not only the mission and its activities but the social, moral,
material, and spiritual state of the people among whom the mission was
planted, and seek for signs of a change which we could trace with some
certainty to the influence of the mission. That would be a stupendous
and most intricate undertaking. Where innumerable forces are at work
such as are implied in the impact of western civilisation upon the
peoples of the East, or of Africa, it would be extremely difficult to
state the exact impression made by the mission, even if we could survey
the whole state of the people at regular and definite periods. We do
not for a moment doubt that all Christian missions do exercise an
influence of this wide and far-reaching character, and from time to time
we can see results which clearly spring from it, but we cannot think it
wise to set out this vague influence as the primary purpose of a
mission. We believe that the Christian missions which aim directly and
primarily at the conversion of men and the establishment of a living
native Church produce this fruit by the way.
If, however, we take the narrower expressions in the statement of aim
which we have set out above, we find in it the purpose of establishing a
Church, but the establishment is viewed as the result of a long and
elaborate training and cultivation of a comparatively small body of
Christians, rather than as the immediate result of widespread work. In
such a case we ought to be able to trace progress and to place these
missions in a common scheme.
The early tables of work to be done and of the force in relation to that
work on a territorial basis certainly fail. The leaders of the mission
have not the information and do not want it, but they could almost
certainly provide the facts concerning the force at work contained in
the tables without the proportions for the district, and they would
perhaps be able to fill up most of the other tables omitting proportions
to area and population.
Now if they did that we should be able to see the force at work and the
type of work in which the mission was strongest and weakest, and the
relation of the different types of work to each other, though it is
probable that the tables dealing with the native Church as distinct from
the Mission would not be filled up. With that information we could
almost certainly define more or less exactly the place of the mission in
a large area such as the province, or the country; for in dealing with
the province or the country we must necessarily mass figures, and we
have there a known, or estimated, area and population, to use as a basis
for calculation of proportions and comparison, and we are aiming at
placing each mission in a larger whole and trying to see what part each
takes in the performance of a great work which is world wide in its
scope. If the missions then which decline a territorial basis for their
work would fill up those tables which reveal the nature of their work
and the force engaged in it we should be able to advance to the next
stage. This is what we meant when at an earlier stage we remarked that
we had drawn our tables to serve a definite purpose, but that we had not
ignored the case of the man whose idea of the purpose of a mission
differed from our own.
CHAPTER X.
SURVEY OF THE WORK IN A PROVINCE.
In few parts of the world is a mission station really an isolated unit.
In most of the countries to which we go there are many stations of many
different missions, all aiming more or less definitely at the
establishment of a native Church, whatever their conception of the
Church may be. In the vast majority of cases these stations have some
relationship to one another. The definition of districts for the mission
stations is commonly recognised, and in planning new work directors of
missions frequently allow themselves to be influenced, in some way and
in some degree, by the position of existing mission stations. There are
also in some parts of the world bodies composed of leading members of
many of the missions that work in the country, who meet to consider the
progress of the Christian faith in the province or the country as a
whole, and deliberately plan their work with some consideration of the
position and character of the work done by the others. Now in all this
there is a manifest approach to the idea that mission work in the
country or province is a common work, and that the various missions
engaged in it are not antagonists, but allies. It is certainly true that
we are far from having reached the stage of a common direction and a
real unification of work Rivalry and antagonism are still rampant, but
the recognition of the fact that we must consider the position and
character of other missions in directing our own is a most important
advance; and it implies that we ought, in some measure at least, to be
able to express the work of any mission station in relation to all the
mission work done in the province or country, and to understand, at any
rate in some degree, what place it takes in the mission work in the
province viewed as a whole. It is true that a great many missionaries
would refuse to admit that the recognition of other stations in the
planting of our own is an acknowledgment of the unity of our work; but
whether they acknowledge it, or whether they do not, it is so, and we
for our part recognise it with thankfulness and look forward to a day
when missions will not only recognise others by avoiding them, but by
planning missions deliberately to assist each other. For that seems to
us the necessary conclusion. The moment we recognise a station as a
Christian mission station which we must not disturb, we have gone a long
way towards recognising it as a mission station which our own must not
only not disturb, but must complement; and when we know that one mission
must complement another we are really not far removed from establishing
our missions with common consultation each to supply what is lacking to
the other.
Holding this view, we desire to discover what place each mission station
occupies when we take a wider view and survey the province or country.
Here we shall be able to adjust many apparent inequalities in the
mission stations viewed by themselves. From our previous survey of the
mission stations one by one we may have got the impression that some of
them as mission stations designed for work in a district were very
ill-balanced. The medical work, or institutional work of some kind, may
have seemed to be out of all proportion to the other forms of the work,
and this impression may remain when we view the province. But on the
other hand it may be seriously modified; because when we review the
work of the province as a whole, we may find that the institutional work
of the province as a whole is out of proportion to the evangelistic
work, and in that case we should think the disproportion at the station
more serious. On the other hand we might find the institutional work in
the province inadequate, and in that case the emphasis which seemed
undue in the one place, and may really be improper in that one place,
nevertheless, in view of the situation in the whole province, may be
shown to be reasonable in relation to the whole province. How then can
we gather together the returns from all the stations so as to present a
view of the work in the province? For that is the first thing. We cannot
put the station into its proper place in the province until we have a
view of the work in the province treated as a unity.
In provinces, large cities and towns, which are not reckoned as part of
any mission station district, have to be taken into account. These large
cities, capitals of provinces, countries, or empires, need special
consideration, and must often be surveyed separately. They are centres
in which many societies have their head-quarters, and many missionaries
live, yet the work done in them is not always so impressive or
extensive as the numbers of missionaries might suggest: occasionally the
missionaries are all congregated in one quarter of the city, and large
portions are practically untouched. In them, too, are sometimes large
city congregations, self-supporting indeed and self-governing, but
sucking into themselves all the more vigorous elements of the Christian
community and employing them within a somewhat narrow circle. The
problem of the evangelisation of these cities is a very serious one.
We suggest that these great cities might be treated either as one
district or as several, and that they ought to be surveyed
systematically by a body representative of all the missions in each
city. If a proper survey were made and the facts tabulated, the
statistical tables would be similar to those for the station district,
and we could use them to complete a survey of the work done in the
province treated as a unity.
But to view the work in the province as a unity we do not need all the
detail of the station districts, indeed we should only find the
multiplication of detail confusing. To gain a general view of work in a
large area such as a province or a small country we must first of all
select those features which are common to all the parts and vitally
important. We venture to suggest that the important features to be
represented are five. (1) The work to be done in the whole area. (2) The
strength of the whole force at work in relation to the work to be done.
(3) The extent to which emphasis is laid on various forms of work. (4)
The extent to which different classes, races, and religions in the area
are reached. (5) The extent to which the Church has attained to
self-support.
1. If the mission stations and their allotted districts covered the
whole country, we should need to do no more than add together the
returns obtained from the station statistics which we have already drawn
up. But in most countries there are large unoccupied areas of the size
and population of which we are more or less ignorant. What we have is,
either a census return for the whole province, or an estimate of its
area and population. In dealing with the whole province then we must
treat the station returns of towns and villages occupied and of the
numbers of the Christian constituency as work done; and then we must
find out the relation of these to the whole area and population. This
would have to be done probably first on a large scale map which would
show the density of the population in different parts of the area, and
would show the stations and the strength of the Christian constituency
in relation to the area and population. These facts could then be
expressed in a table, and we should gain at once an idea of the extent
to which the missions were in a position to reach the population. The
table would be exceedingly simple and give us no more than the barest
idea of the work to be done in its vaguest expression.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | Christian Con- | Non-Christian
Province. | Area. | Population. | stituency. | Population.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | |
__________|________|______________|________________|____________
If, in addition to this, there was either a census return or a credible
estimate of the cities, towns, and villages, in the area, a table could
be drawn of the cities, towns, and villages occupied, in the sense that
there were Christians resident in them, and the work could be expressed
in that form also, which would greatly assist the understanding of the
other.
________________________________________________________________
| |
| Occupied. | Unoccupied.
Province.|__________________________|___________________________
| | | | | |
|Cities.| Towns.| Villages.| Cities.| Towns.| Villages.
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________
| | | | | |
_________|_______|_______|__________|________|_______|__________
We ought here to repeat that we do not imagine for a moment that the
Foreign Missions are to occupy all the villages or even all the cities
and towns. We believe that a careful statement of work to be done in
this form would very speedily force us to realise, with a clearness and
power never before experienced, the truth which we often repeat, that
the conversion of the country must be the work of native Christians.
2. The force at work in relation to the work to be done. Here again it
would not be sufficient to add together the figures returned from the
stations, because in a large area like a province or a small country
there are often many missionaries not at mission stations but at some
large centre engaged in work for the whole province rather than for any
particular mission district; as, for instance, translators or
journalists; men engaged in hostels or Y.M.C.A. work; or in large
institutions, such as training colleges, medical or educational or
industrial; or in some special form of Christian philanthropy, such as
work amongst lepers, blind, deaf and dumb, and other infirm or defective
persons; or men engaged in assisting the missionaries all over the
country as directors, or forwarding agents; and all these must be taken
into account in considering the foreign force in the province. Including
all these we should get a table for the foreign force similar to that
which we had for the station, and that force we could relate directly to
the work to be done.
____________________________________________________________________
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | Re-
| | | | | | | |marks
Popu- | Total |Propor-| |Propor-| |Single|Propor-| and
lation.|Foreign|tion to| Men. |tion to| Wives.|Women.|tion to| Con-
| Force.| Popu- | | Popu- | | | Popu- | clu-
| |lation.| |lation.| | |lation.|sions.
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______
| | | | | | | |
_______|_______|_______|______|_______|_______|______|_______|______
We cannot sacrifice the proportions, because the life is in them.
Comparison of conditions in different areas can only be made on
proportions. The mere statement of the figures with the suggestion that
anyone can work out the proportions would reveal a singular ignorance of
human nature.
For the native force all that we need for the present purpose is a
table that will show us the Christian constituency, communicants, and
workers in the whole province in proportion to one another. Here also we
must include many workers and some congregations in large towns which
the station district survey may have omitted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Total.| Proportion| Proportion |Proportion |Remarks
| |of |of Christian |of |and
| |Population.| Constituency. |Communicants.|Conclu-
| | | | | sions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian | | | | |
constituency| ---- | ---- | | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communicants| ---- | ---- | ---- | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Paid workers| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unpaid | | | | |
Workers | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3. It is important to consider carefully the proportions in which the
force is engaged in different forms of work since, as we have already
explained, these different forms are often, if not generally, treated as
distinct and separate methods of propaganda, and men want to know what
is the effectiveness of each. They ask, what are the fruits of medical
and educational work, and they expect an answer in terms of additions to
the Church. If the dominant object of missions is the establishment of a
native Church this is indeed not unnatural; but, as we have already
said, many educational and medical missionaries might resent this
demand, for they have other ideas of the nature and purpose of their
work. Nevertheless, since this native Church is constantly presented to
us as the dominant purpose of all our efforts, it is only right that we
should make the inquiry here, as we did in the earlier chapters, and ask
how the force in the field is divided. It seems almost absurd that we
should have no idea in what proportion medicals, educationalists, and
evangelists should be employed in any field. In some countries medical
work is by far the most effective, if not the only possible form of
propaganda; in some fields the evangelists can work effectively almost
alone, and medical institutions are not the same necessity, and their
establishment does not produce great results in the building of the
Church when compared with the work of evangelists and educationalists.
In some places their aid was at first apparently necessary to success,
but as time went on that first desperate importance ceased. We have not
so large a medical force that we can afford to use it for any but the
most important and necessary purposes; yet, if the establishment of a
native Church is the dominant purpose, large numbers of medicals are
doing work which is (from this point of view only) of second-rate
importance, whilst work which only they could do is left undone, and
cries aloud for their assistance. Similarly, if the establishment of a
native Church is really the dominant object, educationalists are often
wrongly directed and placed. They are not producing fruit in this regard
(of course in this regard only) in anything like the abundance which
they might produce if they were free to attack the real questions of the
education of the native Church. In many centres they are doing splendid
work for the enlightenment of the people, but close beside them are
large bodies of Christians who from the point of view of the
establishment of a native Church need their help much more.
We ought then to know in each province how the force is divided and what
is the fruit of the labours of each class of missionaries viewed from
the standpoint of the building up of the native Church.
Now if we know the proportions of the workers in each class in each
country, and if we could have a table which told us with any degree of
accuracy the numbers of the inquirers, communicants, and places opened
by the labours of each class, we should surely have some facts from
which we might gain light on this most practical question, in what
proportion the work of each class of workers was most effective in each
country as an evangelistic and church-building agency. We propose then
two tables (see opposite page).
(i)
_____________________________________________________________________
| | Paid |Amount of| Amount of | Remarks
| Mission-| Native | Foreign | Native | and Con-
| aries | Workers.| Funds. |Contributions. | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic| -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical | -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational | -- | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Other forms | | | | |
of work. | -- | -- | -- | -- |
_____________________________________________________________________
(ii)
_____________________________________________________________________
| Inquirers | | Places Opened | Remarks
| Derived | Communicants | Directly Through | and Con-
| From | Derived from | Influence of | clusions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Evangelistic| -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Medical | -- | -- | -- |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Educational | -- | -- | -- |
_____________________________________________________________________
If we desire to know the influence of our medical and educational work
upon the native Church we ought certainly to have a table which, for the
schools at least, would show us what proportion of the pupils who passed
through the schools became valuable members of the Church. But every one
who has had any scholastic experience, and has tried to follow the
after-history of his pupils, knows that that is not easy, even in
external and material affairs, and when the inquiry is concerned with
internal convictions and religious influence that difficulty is
insuperable. A few specially endowed and devoted educationalists could
indeed tell the after-history of a considerable number of their pupils,
and ideally all schools ought to have a record of the history of pupils
for at least a few years after leaving the school; but there would
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