Christian Endeavor Society, Dehra Dun Girls' School, India.... 248 The Indian National Congress.... 260 ▾ American College for Girls, Scutari, Constantinople... ✓ Wards of American Missions in Turkey.... American Educational Work in Turkey... › American Educational Work in Turkey... 275 277 287 293 The University of Bombay, India, a Government Educational Institution ▾ Christian Work among Indian Students, New Building, Students' Branch, ..... 331 .... 360 371 375 Young Men's Christian Association Buildings, Tokyo, Japan, and Madras, India 380 ✓ Laying the Corner Stone of the New Y. M. C. A. Building, Madras, January 29, 1897...... 388 Indian Y. M. C. A. Convention, Madras, 1894.. A Group of Missionary Bishops-Church Missionary Society.... Educational Efforts in South America.... A New Era of Education for Mexican Girls..... The Medical Staff of the Woman's Board of Missions (Congregational).... Facing page 391 394 412 418 423 433 437 Christian Endeavor Convention in China (Shanghai) 443 447 Lovedale Institution, South Africa, Classes in Industrial Department.... ....... 451 455 ▾ Serampore College, Bengal; College Square, Calcutta... Some First Contributions of Missions to India............ A Happier Day for Woman in Persia ..... 1 Lovedale Institution, South Africa, Classes in Industrial Department.... ...... ✓ The Blantyre Church, British Central Africa (Church of Scotland Mission).. 459 V ABBREVIATIONS OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES USED IN VOLUME I P. B. F. M. S. Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, South. (U. S. A.) P. E. M. S. Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society. (U.S. A.) Ref. C. A. Reformed Church in America. (Dutch.) S. P. G. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. (Eng.) U. M. C. A. Universities' Mission to United Methodist Free W. C. M. M. S. Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Missionary Society. (Eng.) W. M. S. Wesleyan Missionary Society. (Eng.) W. U. M. S. Woman's Union Missionary Society. (U. S. A.) Y. M. C. A. SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE I The lecture is a study of the social influence and humanitarian scope of missions, with a view to emphasizing their power as a sociological factor in the non-Christian world. The evangelistic results have always been prominent, and need no accentuation; but in order to a fully rounded survey of the potentialities of missions as a factor in social regeneration, we must measure their possibilities as a reconstructive force. The subject is introduced with some preliminary remarks bearing upon the following points: (1) The social influence of missions affects the ethical and humane rather than the economic status of society. (2) The testimony of history to the social power of Christianity has always been emphasized in apologetic literature. (3) The fact that this deeper and broader view of the indirect results of missions has been very imperfectly recognized. (4) The special timeliness of this theme in the present horoscope of missions. The relations of Christian missions to sociology are discussed, and an important place claimed for them as a factor in social progress. The sociological power of the religious environment is insisted upon, and the broader view of sociology as a philosophy and an art, as well as an exact science, is advocated. Sociology is a study of the history and laws of social groupings, but it includes also philosophic ideals and a practical ministry to the higher welfare of society. It is constructive and utilitarian in its larger scope and wider influence. Like theology, medicine, law, and political economy, it cannot be restricted in its applied aspects to a scholastic discipline. race. The question whether universal evolution in its rigid and exclusive sense is the only postulate of a true sociological system is considered, and a place is claimed for the supernatural as an essential factor of the divine training and government of the The function of Christian missions as a power divinely ordered and introduced into the history of belated civilizations with a distinct purpose of giving impulse and direction to social changes is discussed in several of its aspects. The contention that Christianity is a religious and ethical environment which is conducive to the development of the highest type of moral character is supported and emphasized. The dignity of the evangelistic aspects of missions is maintained as in no way affected by this larger view of mission possibilities. Some a priori arguments are advanced in support of this optimistic outlook, based upon analogy, history, and the prophetic import of Scripture. ... "Roman belief in right and law had ended in scepticism, whether there was such a thing as goodness and virtue; Roman public spirit had given place, under the disheartening impression of continual mistakes and disappointments, to a selfish indifference to public scandals and public mischiefs. The great principles of human action were hopelessly confused; enthusiasm for them was dead. . . . But over this dreary waste of helplessness and despondency, over these mud-banks and shallows, the tide was coming in and mounting. Slowly, variably, in imperceptible pulsations or in strange, wild rushes, the great wave was flowing. There had come into the world an enthusiasm, popular, widespread, serious, of a new kind; not for conquest or knowledge or riches, but for real, solid goodness. ... This second springtide of the world, this fresh start of mankind in the career of their eventful destiny, was the beginning of many things; but what I observe on now is that it was the beginning of new chances, new impulses, and new guarantees for civilized life, in the truest and worthiest sense of the words. It was this by bringing society a morality which was serious and powerful, and a morality which would wear and last-one which could stand the shocks of human passion, the desolating spectacle of successful wickedness, the insidious waste of unconscious degeneracy-one which could go back to its sacred springs, and repair its fire and its strength. Such a morality, as Roman greatness was passing away, took possession of the ground. Its beginnings were scarcely felt, scarcely known of, in the vast movement of affairs in the greatest of empires. By and by its presence, strangely austere, strangely gentle, strangely tender, strangely inflexible, began to be noticed; but its work was long only a work of indirect preparation. Those whom it charmed, those whom it opposed, those whom it tamed, knew not what was being done for the generations which were to follow them. They knew not, while they heard of the household of God and the universal brotherhood of man, that the most ancient and most familiar institution of their society, one without which they could not conceive its going on-slavery-was receiving the fatal wound of which, though late, too late, it was at last to die. They knew not, when they were touched by the new teaching about forgiveness and mercy, that a new value was being insensibly set on human life, new care and sympathy planted in society for human suffering, a new horror awakened at human bloodshed. They knew not, while they looked on men dying, not for glory or even country, but for convictions and an invisible truth, that a new idea was springing up of the sacredness of conscience, a new reverence beginning for veracity and faithfulness. They knew not that a new measure was being established of the comparative value of riches and all earthly things. They knew not of the great foundations laid for public duty and public spirit. . . . They little thought of what was in store for civil and secular society, as they beheld a number of humble men, many of them foreigners, plying their novel trade of preachers and missionaries. . . . Slowly, obscurely, imperfectly, most imperfectly, these seeds of blessing for society began to ripen, to take shape, to gain power. The time was still dark and wintry and tempestuous, and the night was long in going. It is hard even now to discern there the promise of what our eyes have I suppose it was impossible then." DEAN CHURCH. seen. ... 22 |