Still moving east, we come to the newly awakened and very attractive island-nation of j.a.pan, which, because of its geographical and territorial situation, has been called the Great Britain of the Orient. j.a.pan stands at present as the exception to the common stagnation of the heathen world.
It has made a record nothing less than phenomenal as a student of Western life. It has absorbed, and imitated, and adapted to its own use, the Western knowledge and spirit with a wonderful power and intelligence.
j.a.pan is both bright and ambitious to an almost abnormal degree, and as tricky in its dealings, and morally unclean in its life, as it is bright and ambitious. They have been called the Frenchmen of the Orient, and that characterization fits remarkably in many respects. Great progress has been made in giving the Gospel to j.a.pan, but the present moral need is immensely intensified by the very aggressiveness of the j.a.panese spirit.
With j.a.pan, the island-kingdom, it is easy to group the whole island-world lying to the east and south, though these are utterly different peoples.
This includes the great number of islands scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean. The conditions are largely those of savagery except where affected by Christian civilization through the missionary enterprise. The Gospel has done some wonderful feats of transformation here. And there is plenty of room for more. Australia, the "island continent," is a British colony, and of course now reckoned among Christian lands; as is also the large island of New Zealand, also a British colony, which has been a leader in some of the most advanced steps of modern civilization.
Crossing the Pacific to the east brings up the South American Continent; and Central America, the connecting stretch of land with our own continent; and Mexico, which is commonly grouped with foreign-mission lands. South America has been spoken of both as the "neglected continent"
and as the "continent of opportunity." The common characteristic religiously of all this vast section from Mexico to the "Land of Fire," at the southernmost toe of South America, is that it is under the sway of the Roman Catholic Church. Some parts of it have been spoken of as "baptized heathenism." A vast network of church forms and organization, practically lifeless, holds these peoples in an iron grasp. The need of the Gospel of Jesus is fully as great as in civilized China or savage Africa.
One more long easterly stride, across the Atlantic, brings black Africa, and completes this rapid run around the globe, so far as distinctly heathen lands are concerned. Africa is peculiarly the savage continent, though it has the oldest civilization in its northeast corner, and the newest British civilization rapidly developing on its southern edge. It is the "dark continent," both in the color of its inhabitants and in its sad dest.i.tution and degradation. About a tenth of the world"s population is here; with as many missionaries as in civilized India, but unable to reach the people as effectually as there because of the lack of national organization and the absence of great highways of travel.
Africa is essentially a great ma.s.s of separate tribes, larger and smaller, most of them in deepest savagery, with sorest need not only of salvation, but of civilization. The sore need of its very savagery has seemed to make it a magnet to missionary enterprise. And yet all that has been done, and is being done, seems almost swallowed up in the depth of its degradation and savagery.
I have taken you with me in this very rapid run that we might try to get a simple practical grasp of the heathen world. And if you and I might often take just such a run, with map or globe and Bible at hand, and our knees bent, it would greatly help us in getting close to the world our Lord died for; and which He means to win; and to win through you and me; and which He will win.
Christian Lands.
But I must talk with you a bit about our Christian lands, Europe and America, with huge Russia sitting astride both Europe and Asia, with a foot dangling on each side of the globe. For these, too, are mission lands. Foreign-mission lands, would you call them? Well, that depends entirely on what spot you happen to call home. They are all mission fields. The whole world is a mission field to G.o.d. Foreign-mission field? or home-mission? Which? It makes no practical matter which term you choose to use.
It will be well to remember just what that common phrase, "Christian lands," really means. It may help us in our praying. And it may help us, too, to keep humble as we think about heathen lands. It means, of course, the lands where Christian standards are commonly recognized as the proper standards of morals and of life.
It does not mean that the people are all Christian. Only a minority so cla.s.s themselves; the great majority do not. Neither does it mean that that minority called Christian is controlled in daily life and in business by the principles of Jesus. For by pretty general consent they are not so controlled. It is not too much to say that there is more of that same spirit of selfishness that marks the heathen world, dominating the personal lives of people in Christian lands, than there is of the unselfish Christ spirit. That may sound unkind and too critical to you. It is not said in a critical spirit, but simply in the desire to get the facts as they are. I am fully persuaded that the more you think about it the more you will come to see that this is simply the truth.
Nor yet does that term, "Christian lands," mean that these lands are as distinctly Christian through and through as heathen lands are distinctly heathen, or non-Christian, through and through. As a matter of fact, Christian lands are not dominated as thoroughly by the Christian spirit as heathen lands are by the heathen spirit. We really don"t deserve our distinctive phrase as much as they deserve theirs.
It does mean chiefly this, that here in these lands the Christian Church has its stronghold; that Christian standards are commonly recognized, though in practice they are so commonly disregarded. It means that the enormous incidental blessings, in material and mental life, that always follow the preaching of the Gospel are here enjoyed most fully. And it means, too, that much of the humanizing, softening, and energizing power of the Gospel of Christ has seeped and soaked into our common civilization and affected all our life.
This is true; yet the ma.s.s of persons living in this atmosphere, and enjoying its great advantages, are wholly selfish in the main drive of their lives, and so in being selfish are un-Christian. While Christian ideals dominate so much of our life, the term "Christian lands" really describes our privileges more than it does our practices.
The Greatest Need.
A word now about these great Christian lands of Europe and America. The Catholic countries of Europe have been regarded as mission fields by the Protestant churches, and missionary operations have been conducted in them for many years. Russia has likewise been commonly regarded as missionary territory, and a very difficult one at that. In portions of Great Britain, in our own Western States and frontiers, in the Southern mountain States, and in other sections, and among special cla.s.ses, missionary work has been regularly carried on.
And the cities, those great, strange, throbbing hearts of human life, are all peculiarly mission fields. It is remarkable how the modern city reproduces world conditions morally. The city is a sort of miniature of the world. All the varying moral conditions of the heathen world, atheism, savagery almost, crude heathenish superst.i.tion, degradation of woman, neglect of children, and untempered l.u.s.t, may be found in New York and Chicago, in London and Paris, in Vienna and Berlin, and in varying degree in all cities of Christian lands. The grosser parts are hidden away, more or less.
These conditions are softened in intensity by the commonly recognized moral standards of life. But they are there. The man immersed in mission service in any of these cities is apt to think that there can be no greater nor sorer need than this that pushes itself insistently upon him at every turn.
The slum ends and sides of our Christian cities and huge heathendom, jostle elbows in the likeness of their moral conditions. The need is everywhere, crying earnestly, wretchedly out to us. There is good mission ground anywhere you please to strike in.
But--but, by far the greatest need, with that word "greatest"
intensified beyond all power of description, is in the heathen lands. The vastness of the numbers there, the utter ignorance, the smallness of their chance of getting any of the knowledge and uplift of the Gospel, all go to spell out that word "greatest." The awful c.u.mulative power of sin, unchecked by the common moral standards of life, with the terrific momentum of centuries; the common temptations known to us, but with a fierceness and subtlety wholly unknown to us in Christian lands--and yet how terrifically fierce and cunningly subtle some of us know them to be!--these all make every letter in that word "greatest" stand out in biggest capitals, and in blackest, inkiest ink.
Groping in the Dark.
That is a bare suggestion of the need of the world in bulk. But we want to get a much closer look than that. These are men that we are talking about; our brothers, not merely hard, unfeeling, statistical totals of millions. Each man of them contains the whole pitiable picture of the sore need of the world vividly portrayed in himself.
The very heathen religions themselves are the crying out, in the night, of men"s hearts, after something they haven"t, and yet need so much. Strange things these heathen superst.i.tions and monstrous practices and beliefs called religions! It has been rather the thing of late to speak somewhat respectfully of them, and rather apologetically. They have even been praised, so strangely do things get mixed up in this world of ours. It has been supposed that G.o.d was revealing Himself in these religions; and that in them men were reaching up to G.o.d, and could reach up to Him through them.
They really are the twilight remnants of the clear direct light of G.o.d that once lightened all men; but so mixed through, and covered up with error and superst.i.tion and unnatural devilish l.u.s.t, that they are wholly inadequate to lead any man back home to G.o.d. In almost all of them there is indeed some distinct kernel of truth. But that kernel has been invariably shut up in a sh.e.l.l and bur that are hard beyond any power of cracking, to get at the kernel of truth for practical help, even if the people knew enough to try.
They tell pathetically of the groping of man"s heart after G.o.d. But the groping is in the pitch dark, and amid a ma.s.s of foul, filthy cobwebs that blind the eyes with their dust, and grime all the life. I have no doubt that untold numbers of true hearts in heathen lands are feeling after G.o.d, and in some dim way coming into touch with Him. He is not far from any one of them; but they find Him chiefly in spite of these religions, rather than through any help found in them.
The story is told of a Chinese tailor who had struggled hopelessly for light, and had finally found it in finding Jesus. He put his idea of the heathen religions that he knew, and had tried, in this simple vivid way:
"A man had fallen into a deep, dark pit, and lay in its miry bottom, groaning and utterly unable to move. He heard a man walking by close enough to see his plight. But with stately tread he walked on without volunteering to help. That is Mohammedanism.
"Confucius walking by approached the edge of the pit, and said, "Poor fellow! I am sorry for you. Why were you such a fool as to get in there?
Let me give you a piece of advice: If ever you get out, don"t get in again." "I can"t get out," said the man. That is Confucianism.
"A Buddhist priest next came by and said: "Poor fellow! I am very much pained to see you there. I think if you could scramble up two-thirds of the way, or even half, I could reach you and lift you up the rest." But the man in the pit was entirely helpless and unable to rise. That is Buddhism.
"Next the Saviour came by, and, hearing his cries, went to the very brink of the pit, stretched down and laid hold of the poor man, brought him up, and said, "Go, sin no more." This is Christianity."
The awful moral or immoral conditions prevalent throughout the heathen world are the most graphic comment on the influence of these religions. It can be said thoughtfully that, instead of ever helping up to G.o.d and the light, they drag down to the devil and to black darkness. There is not only an utter lack of any moral uplift in them, but a deadly downward pull. The very things called religions point out piteously the terrible need of these peoples.
Living Messages of Jesus.
Now, what is it that these people need, and that we can give to them? May I first remind you what they don"t need? Well, let it be said as plainly as it can be that they don"t need the transferring to heathen soil of our Western church systems, nor our schemes of organizations. It is not our Western creeds and theology that they stand in need of.
Of course, there need to be both churches and organizations. Only so will the work be done, and what is gotten held together. But these are in themselves temporary. They are immensely important and indispensable, but not the chief thing. The great need is of the story of Jesus. That is, plain teaching about sin--the hardest task of all for the missionary, whether in Asia or America--and the d.a.m.nable results locked up in sin.
Then the winsome telling, the tirelessly patient and persistently gentle telling of the story of love, G.o.d"s love as revealed in Jesus. The telling them that Jesus will put a new moral power inside a man that will make him over new.
But they need even more than this, aye, far more. They need men--human beings like themselves, living among them in closest touch--whose clean, strong, sweet lives spell out the Jesus-story as no human lips can ever tell it.
To live side by side with men who like themselves are tempted sorely, but who show plainly in their lives a power that downs the temptation--this is their great need. The good seed, after all, is not the message of truth merely, but the "sons of the kingdom,"[9] men living the message of Jesus, and more, the power of Jesus, daily.
A kindergarten teacher opened a mission among the slum children of a very poor section of Chicago. She began her work by gathering a number of dirty, unkempt children of the street into the neat mission room. Then, instead of preaching or praying or something of the conventional sort at the first, she brought in and set on a table a large beautiful calla lily, bewitching in its simple white beauty.
The effect of the flower on one child, a little girl, was striking. No sooner had she looked at it than she looked down at her own dirty hands and clothes, with a flush creeping into her face. Then she quickly went out into the street. In a little while she was back again, but with her face washed, her hair combed, her dress tidied up, and a bit of colored ribbon added. She walked straight up to the lily again, and looked long, with deep wondering admiration in her eyes, at the beautiful white flower.
The flower"s purity was a mirror in which she saw her own dirtiness. It was a magnet drawing her gently but strongly up to its own higher level.
It was an inspiration moving her irresistibly to respond to its own upward pull.
A simple, pure, human life is the greatest moral magnet. Jesus Himself down here was just such a magnet. Such a life is impossible for us without Jesus. It tells His power as no tongue can. It spells out loudly a standard of life and, far more, a power that can lift the life up to the standard. It doesn"t simply tell what we should be. That may only tantalize and tease. But it tells what we actually can be.