USA > New York > New York City > Recollections of persons and events, chiefly in the city of New York; being selections from his journal > Part 8
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merly done, and that, to their honor be it said, chiefly by our Moravian brethren. Next to nothing was done in foreign lands; and though the Indians were at our doors, it is both humbling and aston- ishing when we reflect upon the small scale on which missions even to them were planned and conducted.
The New York Missionary Society had existed for some time. It was composed of members from three denominations-the Presbyterian, the Re- formed Dutch, and Baptist; and with their strength united, they supported only two mission- aries, one among the Tuscaroras, and one among the Seneca Indians. The usual contribution from our able men who gave any thing, was three dol- lars a year. Thirty dollars, if paid at one time, made the donor a life-member of the Society, and his certificate of membership was often viewed as receipt in full, precluding all further demands on his purse for the conversion of the world to Chris- tianity.
Indeed, on the abstract question of what was duty to the heathen world, a mistaken and con- tracted view prevailed with some of our greatest and best men. When the first missionaries to
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India, as Newell, Judson, Hall, and others, were sent out by the A. B. C. F. M., they came on to New York, previous to leaving our shores. Their purpose was openly and loudly condemned by some of our leading clergy as undutiful and Quix- otic. It was said they should stay at home and preach the Gospel to the destitute in our own country ; and that their zeal to go abroad was so wild and vain, that if they could not be reasoned or rebuked out of it, they should be left to them- selves, to be cured of their presumption by their own bitter experience.
Many of these good men lived to change their views, and entered on the great work with such zeal as if they felt they had time to redeem, and would make amends for their former error. They fell in with the current, which in a short time became so strong, as to extend itself to all evan- gelical denominations in our land. Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and Epis- copalians have since taken up the work of preach- ing the Gospel to all nations, laying the founda- tions of those noble enterprises which are now going on "conquering and to conquer;" and I believe I am fully justified in saying, that every
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period which has been marked by extraordinary zeal and liberality in the cause of Foreign Missions, has been distinguished in an equal degree by unusual spiritual prosperity in the churches at home. No doubt, there is a mutual reaction of the one upon the other, and so we should expect. "He that watereth," we are told, "shall be watered also himself;" and while the Church gains more strength to go on in her work of watering others, she draws a still more abundant blessing upon her own members, qualifying them "more abundantly for every good word and work."
In the work of awakening the spirit of Missions in our churches, there was one instrumentality which should not be overlooked, and which, as we think, has not always been properly estimated.
When Christians in England began their mis- sionary operations in the East, they met with much opposition from the East India Company; and to such an extent was this hostility carried, that for years no missionary was allowed to sail for India in a ship which the Company could bring under their control. Accordingly, when Dr. Morrison and his companions were sent to China and to India, they left England for America, and it was
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from New York that this distinguished man of God sailed for Canton. The visit which he made to us was not of long duration, while some of those who came with him remained with us after he had left. But, filled as their hearts were with the importance of the great work to which they had devoted themselves, they talked about it, preached about it, and prayed about it, whether in the pulpit or in the parlor, by the wayside or the fireside. They could not fail to produce a deep and wide impression on the minds of Christians, and we may date from that period a great advance in zeal for the conversion of the world in the American Churches. So does God make the wrath of man to praise him. If the hostility of the East India Company would not allow those brethren to embark for their field of labor directly from England, and obliged them to go by the way of New York, it was because God had work for them to do in New York in furtherance of their great object. Dr. Morrison's influence especially can be well remembered by many of us. When he left home, he had made some very painful sacrifices to his zeal for the cause, and there was a melting tenderness in his appeals which rendered them
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peculiarly powerful. He was "a man full of the Holy Ghost," raised up and richly qualified for "the work whereunto he was called;" and his subsequent labor in translating the Bible into the Chinese language, is a memorial of his worth that cannot be too highly estimated.
But whatever cause or causes may have con- tributed to produce it, the growth of a holy zeal for the conversion of all nations to Christianity has become a marked characteristic of the last fifty years, in all Protestant Denominations of our land. Annual contributions to the cause, which formerly seldom reached even a few thousand dollars, now approach a million and a half. Missionary Stations, instead of being few in number and feeble in growth, are now found in every quarter of the globe, exhibiting a strength and stability which is every year increasing ; and our missionaries, instead of being faint-hearted and discouraged by the smallness of their numbers and the apathy of the Churches at home, are counted by thousands, and in view of the success attending their labors, and, the sympathies that follow them from Christian lands, are animated with the confidence that they see the dawn of the day when "the kingdoms of
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this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ."
This growing and expanded zeal is indeed found in all the Churches of Protestant Christen- dom, especially in England. But, even in England, the rate of increase in contributions both of men and of money has not been so great as it has been in America ;* and we are bound to take the lead in this respect, if we take into consideration the greater rapidity of our growth in population and in wealth.
But there is still another consideration which should excite our churches to increased activity and
The Congregationalist has recently presented the following sta- tistics. "The British missionary societies are twenty in number, employing 6,216 agents, having 184,000 Church members, 201,000 scholars, and an annual income of $3,094,000. The continental soci- eties are twelve in number, one-half having their head-quarters in Germany, having 811 agents, 70,000 Church members, 12,000 pupils, and an annual income of $287,000. The European total of Protes- tant missions there is 32 societies, 7,027 agents, 263,000 Church members, 213,000 pupils in the school, and an annual income of $3,381,000. The American missionary societies are sixteen in num- ber ; 2,388 agents, 54,000 Church members, 22,000 pupils, with an income of $1,100,000. The grand total of Protestant missionary operations, then, is 48 societies, 9,415 agents, 317,000 Church mem- bers, 285,000 pupils, and a combined income of $4,481,000." It is supposed by many who ought to know, that the estimate of income to the American Societies is too low, by at least $200,000.
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enlarged plans of operation. There is a responsibility lying on the churches of America in this great work, arising from her geographical position and the char- acter of her population, which cannot be too often presented to our minds, or too carefully weighed. I love to dwell on the subject, though at the risk perhaps of being charged with repeating myself.
No Protestant nation stands so directly face to face with the Pagan world as ourselves. From our shores on the Pacific, we look immediately, not only on the inhospitable wilds of Siberia, but upon the vast and populous empire of China; upon Far- ther India, and upon the islands of Japan and the Eastern Archipelago ; regions "where Satan's seat is," and where his unclean and cruel dominion, as yet, has been scarcely invaded. A new way of access to them is now opened. The ocean which divides us from them, is already bridged by our flying steamers, freighted with the wealth of the world. While our merchants are so actively employed in gathering golden harvests from com- merce with these dark and long inaccessible countries, Christians among us should be equally engaged in sending them "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." They present a field for
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Gospel conquests that seems to have been reserved for the American Churches; and we should con- sider it a duty specially required of us to "go up and possess the land," covering it with the bless- ings of Christian truth and Christian freedom.
But we have a work to do at home as well as abroad, for Christianizing the world, which, in a great degree, is peculiar to ourselves. Our coun- try is the home of the emigrant, and to furnish an asylum for the oppressed and destitute of other lands, is one of the destinies which we are appointed to fulfil. I do not share in the fears which some entertain on this subject. I do not believe that our institutions are jeopardized by the crowds seen flying to us from abroad. I entertain the higher hopes of our country when I see it becoming a Bethesda, a house of mercy for the suffering; for it thus secures to itself the blessings of them that were ready to perish. The nation has possessed a character from the beginning, too distinct and enduring, too strong and determined, to be changed by any exotic influence acting upon : it at this day of its maturing strength. Let wise legislation and active Christian benevolence take care that foreigners be made to understand and
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appreciate our civil and religious privileges; and so far from having any thing to fear, we have much to hope, both for ourselves and for them, by their residence in the midst of us. It is indeed true that they bring with them lamentable displays of igno- rance and superstition. But we should look upon them as sent to us to be enlightened and relieved. We should consider it as so much work brought to our doors, that it may be done the more effectually. They are sent to us that they may gain lessons which they could not have learned so well, nor would we so earnestly have taught them, had they remained in their former homes. When they become inhabitants of a country held in common by them and ourselves, we feel that we are so shut up to our duty that the penalty of our neglect must be our own ruin; that we must give the truth to them, or lose it ourselves; and thus are we stimulated in our duty by the conviction that, · while we are acting for the good of others, we are also laboring for our own welfare, and the welfare of our children in future generations.
But the good which may thus be done among the strangers within our gates is far from being confined to those who may live and die among us.
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Through them we are sowing a seed which is yet to spring up and bear its most abundant fruit in the countries from which they have come. There is an incident in New Testament history which has a pregnant meaning on this subject. When Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, was made the radiating point of " saving light" to the world, " there were dwellers in the city out of every nation under heaven; Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and prose- lytes, Cretes and Arabians," who received the Gospel, and "were baptized in the name of Christ." The time had come when repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem; and here do we see the all-wise God preparing the right means for accomplishing that great end. He shed down His Spirit, and brought into His church men "of every nation under heaven," while they were " dwellers" or " sojourners" among His people, that they might be constrained and the better qualified to carry His Gospel into all the various lands from
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which they had come, and to which they belonged. The result was soon made known in the speed and the power with which His kingdom was spread in that day of its glory.
We believe that by a similar instrumentality the Gospel is again to be carried to distant and now darkened regions of the earth; and that such a service as was then rendered by "the dwellers' at Jerusalem from every nation under heaven," again be performed by "the sons of the stranger" already among us, or now clustering to our shores from all quarters of the globe. We view them as sent to us by the overruling providence of God, that they may here learn our religion, our laws and institutions, and become the means of carrying these privileges back to the home of their fathers. In this way a new leaf is to be opened up in the history of missions. Much credit as may be due to the noble-hearted men who have gone abroad from Christian lands as missionaries to the heathen, it is vain to expect that the great mass of Pagan nations can be brought to Christianity by their labors. They can but sow the seed; "and herein is that saying true, one soweth and another reapeth." The harvest must be gathered in by
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those who belong to the land where the seed shall have taken root. No people can be so advantageous- ly and universally instructed as where the teachers and the taught speak the same vernacular language, and sympathize with each other through the countless chords of the heart, which a foreigner cannot so happily touch. Native instructors must do the work, and they can never be so amply qualified for their task as by having lived in the midst of a people, and mingled with a people, where they have not only learned the truths of Chris- tianity, but have also seen its practical workings, and have been witnesses of the blessings it bestows.
Our age and our country have already fur- nished a remarkable demonstration of this. Time has fully shown how little can be done for Africa unless by those who properly belong to her own race of the human family. Long, painfully long, has she remained what she has often been called, " opprobrium humani generis," the reproach of mankind, because of her deep and unrelieved degradation. Notwithstanding the most perseve- ring efforts made by some of her best and most devoted friends, sad experience has shown that she
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never can be elevated and enlightened by the labors of white men. They are under the ban of her climate; and she has written her stern decree for their exclusion along her coast, in the graves of those to whom it was allowed only to die for the cause for which they had hoped to live and labor. All now admit that if ever Africa is redeemed from darkness, it must be the work of her own sons, and of their descendants, trained for a successful entrance on the service by having enjoyed the privileges of a Christian land. And since the work has passed into their hands, a success has followed it that has silenced even the scoffer. "Ethiopia is stretching out her hands unto God." Regions on her coast, lately "filled with the habitations of cruelty," are blessed with the light of life. A cordon of moral health begins to surround her, not to confine pestilence within, but to exclude pirates from without, whose ruthless violence has long soaked her sands in the tears and blood of her children. Liberia is a Christian and a free country ; and, like " a city set on a hill," is showing to the world what Africans can become, and can accomplish, when moulded under the power of the Gospel. It was in America, and while dwelling in the midst of us,
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that the men who have thus begun the work of evangelizing the land of their fathers were trained for their high enterprise; and our nation has enjoyed the opportunity of showing how success- fully colonies may be planted, without entailing on them the evils of colonial dependen ce.
Let us also look at China. Missionary means and labors have been expended there without in- terruption for many years, but with comparatively small success. The land still continues walled in from the approach of the Gospel, and the inhabitants boast that its citadels of darkness remain impregnable, whether assailed by one de- nomination of Christians or another. Their habitual jealousy and studied contempt for foreign- ers seem to shut their cars against the truth which its ablest advocate may present to them ; and their language is so intricate and perplexing that it costs him the labor of years before he can either speak or write it with freedom and confi- dence. No argument can be required to show what an impulse would be given to the spread of Christianity in China by the native Chinaman, who, having witnessed and felt the power of the Gospel in a Christian land, would then return with
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a heart yearning for the salvation of his country. men, "beseeching them in Christ's stead to be recon- ciled to God." But where and how are the proud, jealous sons of that long-secluded and wide empire to be qualified for such an important service ? Not many years since, it would have been scarce possi- ble to give an answer to the question. Recent events, already noticed, suggest a reply. The advance of our nation with her institutions, both civil and religious, to the shores of the Pacific, was an important step in the civilization of the world; and now, when, under the ægis of her protection, she is bringing to light the rich resources of that long-neglected region, the dormant faculties of the various nations in Eastern Asia will soon be quickened into new activity. The Celestial Empire already Begins to lose the spell which bound the Chinaman in the belief that it contains within itself every thing of value, and that every thing " on the outside" of its confines is barbarous and worthless. The new, but restless desire to learn the secret of our strength, when we have opened a new way to their doors, has already led thousands and thousands of Chinese to become resi- dents within our borders; and when the Chinaman
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comes he will soon be followed by others. When our country shall have become, as it is fast becoming, the great highway for the commercial wealth of the world, as it passes from nation to nation and from continent to continent, it will call to our shores myriads from North, South, East, and West, until every language shall be spoken, and every tribe and race of the human family shall be seen among us. The effect of such a state of things on the religious interests of mankind, was not overlooked by the "holy men of God, speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." A commerce which will bring together countries now far distant from each other, a commerce which forms that very branch of enterprise and industry in which our nation is fast taking the lead, is distinctly described, in prophetic language, as yet to have a wide-felt influence in turning the whole earth to the Lord. "Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel."
When I look forward to that day, a day of such large, if not measureless means of doing good
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to mankind, yet to be intrusted to the hands of this nation, I admit that I "rejoice with trembling." It will bring with it a responsibility to God and to man for which we should be anxious to be well prepared. Many of our sainted fathers, as Ed- wards, Davies, and others, " after they had served their generation, by the will of God fell on sleep," cheered to their dying hour with the conviction that from the Churches in America the Gospel will be first exhibited, with that light and power which will subdue every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, to the obedience of faith. Events which they could little foresee seem to be prepar- ing the way for the fulfilment of their expectations. Are Christians among us animated by a zeal which corresponds with these brightening indications of God's holy providence ?
In the review of what has been lately done in our land for the sacred cause, we may well " thank God and take courage." But when we compare all that has been contributed, whether in men or means, with the hundreds of millions still re- maining in the darkness of Paganism, we may well ask, " What are these among so many ?" and should feel ourselves called to fresh earnestness in
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praying "the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest." Let me add, that in contemplating what is yet to be done in order to meet our high responsibilities in the conversion of the world, I have long desired to see a step taken which is essential to the right discharge of our duties. I care not much whether we are to have a separate Theological Seminary for the special training of our missionaries, or whether we shall superadd to our Seminaries now existing, a separate Department for the purpose: on some account, perhaps, the latter would be most advisa- ble. But no one who will carefully consider the subject can fail to realize the importance of giving to our missionaries an education or a training adapted to the distinctive character of their work. The experience of the Church, both in England and on the Continent, as at Islington and Basle, has fully tested and demonstrated the importance of such a measure; I rejoice to see that some of our Churches have recently formed their plans and are soliciting endowments for the object. God speed them! The path before them is plain. We have men now in the missionary field, and men among our returned
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missionaries, amply qualified to take a leading part as instructors in such Institutions. Let them be so employed, and the mantle of these Elijahs will fall on Elishas, who will go forth, anointed with a double portion of the Spirit, to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 12
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CHAPTER XI.
IMPORTANCE OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. -OUR LORD'S MIRACLES OF HEALING, AS SIGNS OF HIS COM ING .- LUKE, "THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN," AS A COMPANION AND . AID TO PAUL .--- DANGERS IN THE WAY OF MEDICAL STUDENTS. -DUTY OF CHRISTIANS IN REFERENCE TO THEM .- DESCRIPTION OF AN ACCOMPLISHED AND SUCCESSFUL PHYSICIAN.
IN this age of Missions, and of general zeal for the conversion of the world, the instrumentality of the Medical Profession in the work seems to be too much overlooked. It should be remembered, that the miracles by which our Lord proved the divinity of His own mission, and the coming of His kingdom, were generally the miraculous healings of disease, rescuing the bodies of men from pain and deformity. When John the Bap- tist was anxious to obtain some decided proof that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the promised Messiah, he sent, asking, " Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?" And the reply of our Lord to the message was, "Go and show John again those things that ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame
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walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them;" thus primarily and mainly referring to the displays of His power in removing disease from the body as a proof that He was indeed the Christ. Now why was this work made so prominent, as a token both of His character and His mission ? Not dwelling on all the reasons for it, let us remem- ber that, by the very laws of our nature, he who relieves us from bodily suffering enlists our kind sympathies in his favor-secures almost the sanction of law to both his views and his wishes. Accord- ingly, you see from His history, that whether our Lord healed the sick, cleansed the leper, or gave sight to the blind, the relief bestowed usually inclined the man to follow Him. So we might expect it to be. It arises, as we see, from the essential sympathies of the heart, that when I feel myself either cured or convalescent under the skill of any man, he shall have not only my gratitude, but my confidence in many things, if not : in all. He has made his way to the inner sanctuary of my bosom; and if he is an enemy to religion, he may do infinite evil; while, if he is a friend of Christ, he may do more than any other
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