History of the Christian church (Volume 5) online

and the glory of the Baltic provinces, was Russianized.
All administrators, judges, schoolmasters, and univer-
sity professors were replaced by Russians. In the
year 1889 the final step was taken, and the teaching of
the German language was made a crime, and the Ger-
man local administration was destroyed. The same
course of procedure was begun in the last of the cen-
tury in Finland, whose liberties were protected by the
strongest treaty and constitutional guarantees. We
are forced to the sad conviction that civil and religious
liberty and Russia can not dwell together, a convic-
tion strengthened by the last twelve years of persecu-
tion of the Russian Jews, which has driven hundreds
of thousands of them to America. There are said to
be 12,000,000 of Dissenters in Russia ; that is, of those
who are Greek Christians in faith, but out of com-
munion with the State Church. Unless the oppressive
policy of the government ceases, there will be more
of them in spite of constant emigration.

A marked feature of Russian religious life is a ten-
dency to mysticism and utter distaste and disregard
for this world. This was seen in Gogol, who, for the
last twenty years of his life, lived as a recluse in
Rome. This was a strange end for the author of
''Dead Souls'* and '' Taras Bulbas." Count Tolstoi
shows the same tendency in his later years. This is
also seen in different Russian sects, of whom the
Dukhoubers are the most familiar to us. To the



684 History of the Christian Church,

great Slavic race and the great Russian nation an
awakening must come. May the railway bring the
spelling-book, and, in the new era, may the Church
of Jesus Christ in Russia triumph in light and rule
in love!
statistics, Russian Greek Church, 92,500,000;

Population. Greek Oriental Church, 10,000,000; other
Eastern Churches, 10,000,000. Total, 122,000,000.

At the end of the nineteenth century, of those peo-
ple from whom sprang the I735; Asia, 368,000; Africa, 430,800; America,
1,103,135 ; Australia, 16,000. There were reported in
the United States at that date 301 rabbis, 570 syna-
gogues, and they claimed a population of 1,058,135.
These are almost all in the large cities, 600,000 being
said to be in New York alone.



Chapter IX.

OUTER CHRISTENDOM.*

Outer Christendom is that body of Christian
people, clergy, and laity, who live where Moham-
medan or heathen religions prevail, and including the
early home and conquests of the Christian faith now
under the rule of the Turks, and who are included
in that body of one hundred and thirty millions of
Christian believers who compose Eastern Christen-
dom. Outer Christendom then includes the mission
fields of the Christian Church.

Unfortunately, late and reliable accounts of the
missionary activity of the Roman Catholic Church are
not accessible. France has always been R^^^n
the protector of Roman Catholic Missions, cathoHc
even when her government has been nifi-
del, and never more than at the close of the century.
There is little missionary activity in the former Span-
ish or present Portuguese colonies. Austria and Italy
have no colonies. Leopold II, of Belgium, would be
a queer protector of any Christian enterprise. Hence
the field is clear to France, and nowhere m the world
are Roman Catholic missions more strenuously fur-
thered by the government than in all the French col-
onies. Madagascar will do as a specimen of all.

:^^;;7T^ormation here given is from many «°"'-".'' ^^*;^^^;;'fp^
from the "Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, by Harlan P.
Beach. New.York, 1S92.

685



686 History of the Christian Church.

Other Roman Catholic missions are in Evangelical
and Slavic countries, or in such non-Christian lands
as China, Japan, and India. They have also large
establishments in Syria and Palestine under French
protection. In China it is estimated there are
1,000,000 Roman Catholics. They have had missions
there since 1550; the Evangelical Churches only since
1840, to reach the population. In India the census
returns 1,315,000 Roman Catholics, a little less than
half of the Christian population. In Africa the
activity of the Roman Catholic missionaries is very
conspicuous, especially within the territory protected
by the flag of France. Eastern Christians do little
mission work outside of Turkey in Asia and Europe
and the territories of the Russian Empire.

Hence our consideration of Outer Christendom is
largely concerned with the work of the Evangelical

Churches of America, Great Britain, Ger-
^ivusslons^' ^^^y' Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and

the Churches of France and Switzerland.
There are in this Outer Christendom 435 Mission-
ary Societies and organizations at work. Of these, 134

are American, 211 are British, including
sodl^"eY.^ ^I'itish Colonies and dependencies, and 90

are Continental in Europe, or Asiatic.
Many of these are strong organizations. The Church
Missionary Society of Great Britain has an income a
little less than $2,000,000. The London Missionary
Society comes next with $666,526; then the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, $661,775. The
Wesleyans follow with $557,901 ; the Baptists, with
$376,657; English Presbyterians, $117,985; English



Outer Christendom. 687

Universities Mission, $174,950. Of this amount, the
Church of England is represented by $2,725,860 in
the three large Societies. The English Nonconform-
ists contributed from their chief Societies $1,880,922.
But there are so many organizations, many for work
among the Jews, others for educational or medical
work, including missions to the lepers and the blind,
that the total contribution of the Evangelical Mission-
ary Societies of Great Britain in the year 1900 was
$7,766,740.

In America the Societies connected with the large
Churches contributed, approximately: the Presby-
terian, $1,387,694; the Methodist, $1,092,184; the
Baptist, $730,180; the Congregationalist, $644,200;
the Protestant Episcopalian, $235,029; the Disciples,
$144,000; the Lutheran, $72,000; in all, $4,620,579.
The total contributions of other Societies was but
$100,000, or, in all, $4,720,579.

The chief of the Continental Societies are the Basel,
with an income of $250,000; the Berlin, $100,000;
the Moravian, $125,000; the Rhenish, $120,000;
Leipzig, $100,000; Hermannsburg, of Pastor Harms,
$58,000; Gessuer, $40,000. Besides these German
Societies are the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish
Societies; the two latter contribute annually 358,000
and 315,000 kroner annually.

The Paris Missionary Society's income is $75,000;
the Free Church of Switzerland, $15,000; or in all
the Continental Societies, $ i ,886,744. Adding to these
the income of the Societies in Canada, Australia,
Africa, and Asia, mainly British, $966,779, the grand
total at the beginning of 1900 for foreign missions



688 History of the Christian Church,

from the Evangelical Churches of the world was $15,-
360,693, and this amount has increased a million a
year each year since.

But the contributions of these Societies have been
greater in men and women than in money. Mission-
aries, like Bishops Selwyn, Patteson, and
ChristlnTm' Hannington, the two latter who fell as
martyrs ; like Mackay and Paton ; like
James Gilmore, of Mongolia, and Falconer, of Arabia ;
like Moflfat and Livingstone ; like Ashmore and Mar-
tin; like William Taylor and James M. Thoburn,
with others of the uncounted host best known to
God, — would make illustrious in any age the annals
of the Christian Church. The men and women of
Outer Christendom will stand with the martyrs and
saints on yonder holy ground. Their converts have
not been unworthy of them, as has been often proved
in the South Sea Islands, among the cannibals, in
Africa at Uganda, and in the Chinese uprising of
1898. There were as true martyrs and as holy seed
of a future Church as any Christian century saw.

Let us now look a little nearer at this Outer Chris-
tendom, and see what it is. In the first place, it
does not include Siberia, Eastern Turkestan, Thibet,
Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Arabia, or French Indo-
China, which are practically unoccupied by Evangel-
ical Christian missionaries, and are the only countries
so unoccupied.

In America we have missions among the Indians,
the Chinese and Japanese in the United States, mis-
sions in Alaska, and in Canada. In these

America. /. , , ,

fields there are 813 foreign missionaries
and 413 native workers. There are 17,657 communi-



Outer Christendom, 689

cants, with 14,875 adherents, or a total of 32,526.
There are 211 day-schools, with 5,307 pupils; 35 high
schools, with 780 pupils and 12 hospitals. There is
in these fields about one foreign worker to 1,250 of
the people.

In Mexico, 21 societies are at work with 2 10 foreign
and 547 native workers. These have the care of 20,-
769 communicants and 17,000 adherents, or a total
of 37769. In educational work there are 148 day-
schools, with 7,073 pupils, and 18 high-schools, with
2,217 pupils, and there are four hospitals and dis-
pensaries. There is one foreign missionary to 64,502
of the people.

In Central America there are 11 societies at work.
There are 102 foreign and 293 native workers, with
4,969 communicants and 6,454 adherents, or a total of
11,423 ; one foreign worker to 34,804 of the people.

In the West Indies the work has been carried on
much longer, and largely among the Negro population.
There are 36 societies at work. There are 444 foreign
and 4,073 native workers. The number of communi-
cants is 68,807, with 170,773 adherents, or a total of
259,580. These have 494 day-schools with an at-
tendance of 54,608; and weight high-schools, with 163
pupils.

In South America there are 36 societies at work.
There are employed 682 foreign missionaries and 1,087
native workers. There are 37,843 communicants, with
55,173 adherents, a total of 93,016, or almost as many
Evangelical Christians in South America in 1900 as
there were Roman Catholics in the United States in
1800. Of the schools, there are 200 day-schools, with
16,437 pupils; and 14 high-schools, with 943 pupils.
44



690 History of the Christian Church.

There was a foreign worker to 54,935 ot the people.
That is, in Spanish America and Brazil the Evangel-
ical Churches have 1,438 foreign workers, 6,000 native
workers, 132,388 communicants, 249,400 adherents, or
a total of 381,788. What may these not come to in
the next fifty years as these countries come to be
opened up to civilization and econonomic develop-
ment? These Christians have 735 pupils in the day-
schools, and 3,323 in the high-schools. In these latter
lies the hope of speedy and rapid advance.

Now let us add to these the work in Papal Europe.

There are at work 27 societies. They have 274

foreign and 930 native workers. There

Papal Europe. ^ . . , ^

are 10,007 communicants, with 18,502 ad-
herents, a total of 28,509. These have 106 day-schools,
with 7,910 pupils; and nine high-schools, with 462
pupils; and seven hospitals and dispensaries. That
is, in Roman Catholic countries on the fringe of this
Outer Christendom, there are nearly 1,800 foreign
missionaries and nearly 7,000 native workers, with a
communicant membership of 139,395, and a total con-
stituency of over 410,000 in these countries, not far
from and soon to be half a million of people ; and all
of this, except a little work in British West India, in
the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. Why
should we not expect full as large an Evangelical pop-
ulation in these lands, as Roman Catholic population
in Evangelical lands? Would it not be a blessing to
entire Christendom ?

This outer Christendom, not according to our defi-
nition, but in fact, comes in contact with the Sons of
Israel. There are 112 societies working for the re-
demption of Israel. In these are 812 foreign and 204



Outer Christendom. 691

native workers. There is one foreign worker to 13,777
of the Jewish people. There are 35 day-schools, with
1,594 scholars, and 35 hospitals and dis-
pensaries. There are on record in the nine-
teenth century, the names of 250,000 Jews who have
become Christians. Among these were such men as
Mendelssohn, the great musician ; August Neander,
Delitzsch, Philippi, and Stahl, and eminent scholars
in England as well as in Germany. The work seems
scattering. Perhaps the time may come for stronger
and more concentrated effort to win the people of
whom was our Lord according to the flesh.

In Persia are six societies in the field. There are
85 foreign and 281 native workers. These have charge
of ';,i20 communicants and 79 adherents,

. ,, AT^, , Persia.

or 3,199 in all. There are among them 1 14
day-schools, with 3,060 scholars; one high-school,
with 70 scholars ; and 1 1 hospitals and dispensaries.
There is a foreign worker to 105,882 of the people.
In Turkey there is much activity. There are 31 so-
cieties at work. They employ 637 foreign and 805
native workers. There are 168,367 communicants
and 51,244 adherents, a total of 219,611. In no mis-
sion is more attention paid to education. There are
767 day-schools, with 36,719 scholars; and 51 high-
schools, with an attendance of 3,251. There are also
63 hospitals and dispensaries. There is one foreign
worker to 37,416. In these two Mohammedan coun-
tries there are 722 foreign and 2,086 native Christian
workers. There are 171,487 communicants, with a
total constituency of 222,810. Certainly not a small
number, when we remember that there are 40,000 in
in the day-schools and over 3,300 in the high-schools.



692 History of the Christian Church.

But, alas ! but few of these are Mohammedans. This
work is largely for the regeneration of Eastern Chris-
tendom in Bible lands. When will the day come that
will open these countries to Evangelical Christian
missions, as Papal Europe was opened to them in 1870?
Certain it is, that in India converted Mohammedans
make the best of Christian preachers and teachers.
May that be true of Turkey, Persia, and Arabia in the
days in which we live !

We are now come to the real Outer Christendom
We will consider, first, Oceania, in the Pacific. There
are nine societies. In these are 338 foreign

Oceania. , ^ • i atai

and 3,058 native workers. There are 75,-
681 communicants, 277,458 adherents, — a total con-
stituency 353,139. There are 2,756 day-schools, with
an attendance of 72,638; and 38 high-schools, with
over a thousand pupils. Thirteen hospitals are also
established among them. Here the English Wesley-
ans won their great triumph at Fiji, and the American
Congregationalists in Hawaii.

In New Zealand, among the Aborigines of Aus-
tralia, and in New Guinea, there are 14 societies on

the ground. They have 135 foreign and

Australasia. . v^s^ o

548 native workers. These have 4,958 com*
municants and 28,942 adherents, a total of 33,900.
There are loi day-schools, 4,451 pupils. There are
three high-schools, with an attendance of 81 ; and
there are ten hospitals.

In Malaysia there are 26 societies employed, hav-
ing 30 foreign and 1,553 native workers. There are
37,746 communicants and 56,494 adherents; a total of
94,240. For these there are 393 day-schools, with an
attendance of 19,190. There are also 15 high-schools,



Outer Christendom. 693

with 250 pupils ; and there are 8 hospitals. In all
these islands — that is, in Oceania and Malaysia — there
are 778 foreign and 5,159 native workers. These have
the care of 118,385 communicants, and a total con-
stituency of 481,279, with 95,000 in day-schools. This
is not a small result of Christian effort.

As we come to Asia, we first consider the Japanese
Empire. There we find at work 47 societies, employ-
ing 772 foreign and 1,817 native workers.
There are 42,835 communicants and 41,559
adherents, a total of 84,394. There are 148 day-
schools, with 87,094 pupils ; and 54 high-schools, with
3,735 scholars. Thirteen hospitals also are main-
tained. There is one foreign worker to 60,172 of the
people.

Korea, an independent kingdom, once owning al-
legiance to China, has a population of some 12,000,-
000. There are 1 1 societies at work. These

Korea.

have 141 foreign and 157 native workers.
There are 8,288 communicants, with 2,042 adherents,
a total of 10,330. Among these are 43 day-schools,
with 600 pupils; and 6 high-schools, with 113 pupils.
There are also 12 hospitals.

China, India, and Darkest Africa are the three
great centers of Outer Christendom. In this most
populous of the nations, there are in the ^.^^
field 68 societies; these employ 2,735 for-
eign and 6,388 native workers. There are 112,808
Chinese communicants and 91,111 adherents, a total
constituency of 204,072. As China is a literary nation^
of course there must be schools. There are 18 19 day-
schools, with an attendance of 35412 ; and 170 high-
schools, with 5,150 pupils. There are no less than



694 History of the Christian Church,

259 hospitals. Not in vain, we believe, has been this
sowing, among a great people, capable of producing
great Christians. There is one foreign worker to 132,-
136 of the people.

In all India there are 9 societies at work in
Siam, lyaos, and the Straits Settlements; there are

11 in Burmah, 11 in Ceylon, and 93 in

India. -r i- -r ■^^ -k • i

India proper. In all these countries there
are 4,431 foreign and 28,411 native workers. There
are, in the larger India, 437,482 communicants and
703,423 adherents, a total Christian constituency, in a
population of over 300,000,000, of 1,140,905. Soon
every two hundreth person in the population will be
a Christian. There is one foreign worker to about
70,000 of the people. In education there are 9,758
day-schools, with the large attendance of 421,740.
There are also 444 high-schools, with 27,535 scholars.
There were, besides, 349 hospitals and dispensaries.

Africa and her islands make our last division. In
Africa there are 95, and in Madagascar and the islands,

12 societies in the field. These employ

Africa. _ . , . ,

3,341 foreign and 22,279 native workers.
There are in the Dark Continent and these African
islands, under the care of these workers, 342,857 com-
municants, with 679,695 adherents, or a total Chris-
tian constituency of 1,022,502, excluding white set-
tlers. In the 6,528 day-schools there is an attendance
of 369,650, and in the 132 high-schools there are
4,880 pupils. There are 143 hospitals and dispensa-
ries. There is one foreign worker in Africa to 49,559
of the people.

In this Outer Christendom, with the large exten-
sion before given, there are 16,668 foreign mission-



Outer Christendom. 695

aries, including medical missionaries. There are also
75,381 native workers, or over 92,000 missionary
workers. Not a bad result for 107 years
work, only the last half of which could be,
in any sense, productive; and these are, of course,
mainly those, in these years, gathered into the
Churches. To these workers is committed the care of
i>397>042 communicants and 2,216,349 adherents, or a
total Christian constituency of 3,613,391 gathered
from non-Christian people. Care is taken of the body
as well as the soul, in 347 hospitals and dispensaries.
From one of these went that Methodist woman-
physician, Miss Leonora Howard, who successfully
treated the wife of Li Hung Chang, and opened the
way to the highest circles of Chinese society. This
work is to be perpetuated, as the activity of 23,723
day-schools, with 1,093,205 scholars, attests. These
will be taught from the graduates of 1,005 high-
schools, some of them equal to high-class colleges and
universities, which now have 54,648 students.

These figures speak with decisive voice in answer
to the question, " Are missions a failure?" They are,
indeed, when the obstacles are taken into the account,
the great success of an age of successes. But figures
can not express the spirit of a great movement. It is
this spirit that is the judge of the ultimate success, in
the largest sense of the word, of Christian missions.

This spirit was shown in the organization of the
Students' Volunteer Movement in 1886, until it has
gathered volume and power in each year s>xn^inxs'
since. It appeals to the consecrated man- volunteer
hood and womanhood among the best- °^*"*
trained minds and lives of the schools of America and



696 History of the Christian Church.

of the world. So great is its success that soon, from
the United States alone, five hundred well-trained men
and women will go each year to foreign fields. For
the last years of the century the Church Missionary .
Society, the largest and wealthiest Evangelical Mis-
sionary Society, sent out every applicant, of whose
fitness they were assured, without respect to the funds
on hand, believing that the needs of these workers
God and his Church would supply. Wonderfully was
their faith justified by the result. When God raises
up the men, the means have not been lacking. Won-
derful as the century has been, in nothing has it been
more wonderful than in the creation of this Outer
Christendom, with its noble men and women, its reflex
influence on Christendom at the centers, its calling
millions of money into this service, like waters from
the rock at the touch of Moses' rod, and its results in
Christian character and in the new Christian society.
This is, then, the thin, red line of conquest.

The crowning event in this development in this

era of Outer Christendom was the Ecumenical Mis-

Ecumenicai siouary Conference in New York, April 2 1

Mission tQ ]y[ay i^ 1900. There were 1,666 mis-

Conference,

New York, sionary members; 50,000 tickets were sold;
1900. 2,500 were present at its first session. Ex-
President Benjamin Harrison, President William Mc-
Kinley, and his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, spoke
from the platform of the Conference. Such indorse-
ment from three Presidents of the United States could
scarcely have been received in any of the earlier
decades of the century. The proceedings were of great
interest and value, and were published by that accom-
plished missionary editor. Dr. John T. Gracey.



Chapter X.

CHARACTERISTICS AND TENDENCIES.

ThkrK are certain plainly-marked characteristics
of every age of Church life. These are as evident in
this era as in any other. It was an era, Enlargement
especially in America, of expansion and g^^,^^^^„j
enrichment of the life of the Christian of christian
Church. The eighteenth century, in preva- ^''*-
lence and permanence, gave us the prayer-meeting and
the revival ; the first half of the nineteenth century,
the Sunday-school and the missionary societies. To
these permanent elements in the life of the Evangel-
ical Christian Church, the latter half of the nineteenth
century added woman's work for women in organized
form.

In this period arose the Woman's Foreign and the
Woman's Home Missionary Societies in all the
Churches, which, in America alone, collect, woman'i
annually, over a million "and a half of dol- work in the

^ -.«- ^ -NT Church.

lars, and the Deaconess Movement, No
work was more needed in foreign fields and at home
than this Christlike ministration to tliose who could
have no other helpers. The second contribution, of
the later years of the nineteenth century, was the
great Young People's Movement, and the establish-
ment of Young Men's and Young Women's Christian
Associations in all large centers of population through-
out the world.

697



698 History of the Christian Church.

These characteristics are plainly seen in two organ-
izations originating in the United States, but of world-
wide extent, the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union and the Society of Christian Endeavor, and the
different Church I^eagues and Unions of Young
People.

The spirit ot the age was a spirit of political and
of social reform. The great triumph of the Christian
spirit in this era was the overthrow of slav-
christian ery in America, and so throughout the
Temperance world. This reforming spirit could not
pass by on the other side, and leave the
drunkard and his family, his business, his reputation,
and character at the mercy of the liquor-traffic. These
two tendencies, the enlarged scope of effort for Chris-
tian women, and this reforming spirit, came together
in 1874, and, as a result of the Women's Crusade in
Ohio, founded the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union. Of that organization, for the twenty years
preceding her death, Frances E. Willard was the soul