Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888», страница 5
REPORT ON CHINESE WORK.
BY REV. SIMEON GILBERT, D.D., CHAIRMAN
1. Is it worth while to attempt Christian missions among the Chinese in our own country?
2. If so, of how much importance is it?
3. Who should do it?
4. If anything is to be done by us, how much should be done?
5. And is there any case of urgency about it?
To the first question we answer: Yes, verily! It is worth while. There is no form of Christian missions within the circuits of the earth more worthy of being done, and of being done with all possible alacrity and vigor, than this. The American Missionary Association is exactly the Society to do it. It is the glory of this Society to hasten to the rescue of the despised and the exceptional races and classes in our own land. It has already done grand things toward the evangelization of the Chinese among us. It has set an example, most conspicuous in the eyes of all the people, of definitely planning to make known to this peculiar people the Gospel of Redemption; a Gospel whose supreme peculiarity it is, that it is fitted to meet the inmost necessities of all men, of all men alike.
The success in winning the disciples of Confucius to the cross and the grace of Christ has been signal enough to show how completely practicable the undertaking is.
If it were not worth while to press our missionary effort among the Chinese right here in America, it would be absurd to talk of missionary effort among the Chinese in China. The importance of this work cannot be measured by its bulk. Nor is it to be estimated by any census of countable immediate results. It is a kind of work, which, according as it is done, or left undone; or as it is done with slack and nerveless hand or with vim and vigor, will test the very character of our churches; will touch the conscience and well-being of the nation; and will, without a doubt, have vital and decisive connection with the future of that most populous empire on the globe.
There is China, with its four hundred million souls, subject to a single sovereign—a heathen empire. Here is America, Christian America; the foremost republic among the nations, and soon to be the leading power among the Governments of the earth. It holds already the position of moral leadership in the far East. What shall be done with this leadership? Right here in our midst are some two hundred thousand representatives of that empire, every one of whom with hardly an exception hopes some time to return to his native Orient. What will the Christianity of America do for them?
There is an unmistakable providence of God in the presence, in the country, at such a time as this, of so many representatives of the great empire. Such providences are to be reverently heeded. They are as the banners of the Almighty, meant to lead forth His loyal people to the gracious conquest of the world. As for ourselves, what are we disposed to do about it?
This conquest of the world for Christ is not to be achieved by hap-hazard dashes. There is need of transcendent wisdom in the strategic methods of the campaign. We have not wisdom enough for this except as we have the wisdom to note which way the manifest hand of God is pointing for us. Then is the time for assurance, for obedience, and for enthusiasm in the fullest meaning of the term.
A few thousand Chinamen are here. The Chinese Empire is open to us—and more too! To doubt the practicability of the Christianization of the Chinese would be treason to the Gospel of Christ; would be blindness to the facts of Christian history, as well as to the foreshadowings of prophecy.
The success already in this department of the work of the American Missionary Association has been signal enough to amount to a demonstration. If suitably reinforced and pushed it might presently be made vastly greater than it has as yet been.
It is the glory of this Society to do precisely this kind of work. All its history and traditions, all the confidences and affection of the people in our churches toward it, favor the most resolute pushing forward of what has been undertaken.
The reactionary effect of this peculiar form of home-foreign mission work upon the Christian character and culture of our own people is of importance; of too much importance for it to be either safe or wise for us to neglect it. Suppose this work were to be neglected, this duty ignored, this clear providential summons slighted, what a mockery it would be of our professed zeal for foreign missions. The spectacle of what the Society is doing for the Chinese, especially of what it ought to have the power and the commission given it to do, is fitted to be peculiarly impressive, as an object lesson, to the nation. The radical character of a nation comes out in no other way so distinctively, as in the way it treats its weakest and most helpless subjects.
A grand part of the good done by the American Missionary Association has been in its influence, first on the conscience of the churches, and then, through this, on the moral sense and the moral sentiments of the nation itself. This has been the case as regards the nation's treatment of the emancipated negroes. It was this Society which, so promptly and gloriously, lifted up and bore aloft with something of a divine intrepidity, God's own banner of human rights and the divine sympathy. It is this Society which has done more than any other one agency, to revolutionize and harmonize the national sentiment as regards the rights of the Indian to civilization and to Christianization. If now the churches of our country will hasten to do their duty, as in sight of him who is Father of us all, towards our Chinese neighbors, it will not be long before the National Government will wake to its shame and wipe off the deep disgrace of its recent demagogy and international perfidy.
Moreover, a more complete mistake could not be made than to imagine that the Imperial Government of China is unobservant, whatever the seeming invincibility of its pride and exclusiveness. China is neither blind nor insensible. Japan has awakened; China is wakening. Its hour is at hand; the dust of ages is stirring. The Chinese wall is vanishing. The Supreme Government of the four hundred millions of the Empire is at length getting in touch with the other great and advancing Powers of the world. And the startling sublime fact of the new world sociability, if we will but see it, is giving tremendous urgency to every possible means of originating, multiplying, communicating, and sending on and around from nation to nation, the forces of the world-redeeming Gospel of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, are most earnestly agreed in the conviction that, not only is the noble work of missions among the Chinese in our country, now being done by this Society, of inestimable value, but that it ought by all means to be greatly and immediately enlarged and re-enforced.
That great missionary, St. Paul, once said—and he may have often said it—that he gloried in his own infirmities; adding that the power of Christ might rest on him. This is our glory—if we have any. Here is this American Missionary Association; and over against it, face to face, is China. What proportion is there between the two? How preposterous, one may say, the thought which we are trying to frame into actual purpose for the regeneration of this enormous part of the human family? Most true. And yet, along with Paul's thought, how infinitely inspiring this purpose should be. Just the thing for us to do is to "build better than we know." It is not our eye, but His, which sees the end from the beginning. And it is his providence—sometimes as a pillar of fire, sometimes as a pillar of cloud—which shows us the way. Then it is for us to follow close up.
When some fifteen years ago, that slender, forlorn-seeming Japanese lad landed in Boston, with the strange, vague, resistless, heaven-enkindled longing in his heart; what if there had been no kindly hand to grasp his own, no heart to discern and respond to his? How easily might young Neesima have been lost, and the fateful turn in the destiny of Japan at the moment of its supreme opportunity for regeneration been vastly, disastrously different! What Chinese Neesimas to-day God's eye may have under His gracious watch and merciful leading, we cannot know beforehand; but this is certain, that we know enough to know that we do well to walk softly all the day long as seeing things invisible, and that with these thousands of Chinese among us, walking so noiselessly, so observantly in and out beneath the very tree of life that grows beside the river of life clear as crystal, and which proceeds direct from the throne of the Lamb, there are doubtless God's hidden ones, whose lives, if we will do our part; shall yet be woven in as shining and mighty threads into the divine plan wider than any nation, larger than the world, sure and strong as the word of Him who, at the first, said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
* * * * *
REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE.
BY DR. L.C. WARNER, CHAIRMAN
Your Committee have made a careful examination of the books and reports of the Treasurer, with special reference to the methods of keeping the various accounts, the security of the invested funds and the economy and prudence of the expenditures.
We find the system of bookkeeping as thorough and complete as that of any business concern. Each item of receipts or expense appears in its proper place, where it can be found without delay. The different departments of the work are classified and separated so that a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the work is always before the officers and Executive Committee. All payments are made by checks, and each check requires the signature of two officers of the Association; thus reducing to a minimum the chances of error or loss in the disbursement of the funds. At the end of each quarter the disbursements of the Association are carefully examined by the Auditors, two responsible business men, who go over and verify the accounts item by item. The Treasurer and other officers of the Association are to be especially commended for the thorough and business-like methods which prevail in the conduct of their business.
The invested funds of the Association amount to $230,375.78, yielding an income last year of $10,936.46. These funds are chiefly invested in mortgages in the city and State of New York and in Government bonds. In view of the forgeries of real estate mortgages recently discovered in New York City, the mortgages of the Association in New York and Brooklyn have, at the request of the attorney of the Association, been personally examined by a member of the Finance Committee and all found to be valid and correct. An examination of the schedule of securities held by the Association shows that there is not a single poor investment among them, or one on which the interest is in default.
Besides the invested funds the Association owns real estate in various Southern States and in the Northwest to the value of $600,274. This is the working plant of the Association. The buildings, apparatus and fixtures upon this property are protected by insurance.
The expenditures of the Association during the past year have been $328,788.43. This is an increase over the expenditure of last year. The Association commenced the year with a balance of $2,193.80; it closes the year with a debt of $5,641.20. It has therefore spent $7,835.01 in excess of its receipts. This debt is to be greatly regretted, for it should be the policy of the Association to plan its work in accordance with the funds at its disposal. They are obliged, however, to make their plans partly on faith, and it is not to be expected that their faith will always exactly measure the benevolence of the people.
The increase in expenditure has been entirely in the work done upon the field; the cost of agencies and administration being less this year than last. This increase has been mostly in the Southern field, and has been imperatively demanded by the natural growth of the work. Very little new work has been undertaken, four new schools only being added during the year; but the schools already organized have grown in size and therefore in expense. Eleven hundred and twenty more pupils are in attendance than one year ago, an increase of over 12 per cent. This has required the employment of twenty additional teachers.
Friends of the Association have added new buildings at some of the schools, and these new buildings, greatly needed and greatly increasing the effectiveness of the schools, also bring increased expense. The churches and schools of the Association are doing all they can for their own support. The spirit of self-help is constantly encouraged among them, but they are too poor to bear any considerable part of the expense.
The Association must therefore meet one of the three following alternatives: First, the growth of its work must cease, and the increasing number of pupils who apply to its schools year by year be denied admittance; or second, some of the schools which have been fostered by the Association for years must be abandoned, that funds may be left to strengthen and develop the remainder; or third, the churches and Christian givers of America must largely increase their gifts to this Association to meet its increasing wants.
The work of the Association for the coming year cannot be efficiently carried on without increased appropriations; $300,000 is the smallest amount which should be expended in the South, and a much larger amount could be wisely used. The mountain work among the poor whites is full of promise, and calls loudly for our aid, and the Association only waits for the necessary funds to greatly enlarge its efforts in this field. In addition to the Southern field, the Indian work requires at least $60,000, and the Chinese work $15,000. This makes the total amount needed by the Association next year $375,000. This we believe to be a moderate and conservative estimate.
This great work for the Negro, the Indian and the Chinese has been laid upon the American Missionary Association, and upon our denomination, as it has not been laid upon any other society or denomination in this country. It is our duty, yea, rather, our great opportunity. Shall we not then meet it as the stewards of God, whose servants and disciples we are?
* * * * *
MEMORIAL SERVICE.
ADDRESSES IN EULOGY OF THE LATE DR. JAMES POWELL
An interesting and impressive memorial service was that held in honor of the loved and venerated Secretary, Dr. James Powell. Tender, loving, graceful and eloquent eulogies upon his life and character were pronounced by Rev. Dr. Gilbert, Rev. Dr. Ide, Secretary Strieby and President Taylor, followed by an earnest prayer by Rev. Addison P. Foster, Roxbury, Mass.
EULOGY BY REV. DR. GILBERT
It would be impossible for the officers and friends of this Society to convene on this occasion and not feel profoundly the absence of one whose presence for so many years has done so much to fill these occasions with the spirit of welcome, of lofty animation, joyance, cheer and renewed courage.
Last Christmas the "sweet chariot" of God "swung low," and our brother Powell was suddenly taken up from these great services here to other and larger tasks and joys in the heavens. A life so radiant and beneficent on earth, what must it be now that it has been translated, and transfigured into the celestial?
Among the richest inheritances of any people is that of the living names and ever living influence of its noblest men and women. Even though they have joined "the choir invisible," they still remain, a possession and a power for all time. For there are no influences more real, if any that are stronger, than the silent-working influence of personal ideas; and whoever it is that helps to ennoble our ideal conceptions of character, and to make these clearer and more vivid, does us a vital service for which we may fitly be thankful, both to God and to them. This American Missionary Association is already rich in its "inheritance in the saints."
It is no exaggeration to say, although it is very much to say, that James Powell had come to be the most peculiarly and widely beloved man in our denomination. That this was so was not owing to any one quality, but must have been due to a singularly happy combination and balance of qualities. Every one thought of him as a man having a genius for popular eloquence. But he had also as truly unique gifts and graces for personal friendship. Without a particle of cant, he possessed profound religious faith and devotion. He walked with God and had no gifts which were not consciously devoted to his service. At the same time he was intensely human. He never affected to be ethereal. He was a son of man, a child of nature. And he touched life at many points. His sympathy was immensely more than mere pity. He was instinctively, as well as religiously generous. Open hearted, open minded, genuine to the core, quick, sensitive, responsive, impulsive, enthusiastic; whatever he did, he did with a will and noble zest. Happy in a certain "divine sense of victory and success," he also delighted keenly in the successes of others; and there was that about him which made every one wish him to succeed, expect him to succeed, and apt to tell him so when he had done well. And yet he was, to a singular degree, free from any promptings of personal vanity. He had pride but was not proud; least of all was he conceited. He never did poorly; he almost always did brilliantly; there was not an indolent fibre in his being. He did well because he exerted himself to do his best. He was happy in the power God gave him, and accepted joyously the opportunities which others eagerly offered him for doing the things that were in line with the main purpose of his life.
He had an exquisitely sure and alert sense of honor. He could not do a mean thing. He won friends, and never lost any; because all felt that he was not only so genuine and unselfish, so bright and full of happy humor, so deep and exuberant in affection, but that he was so perfectly to be trusted. No one knew better his own rights, or was less wanting in any courage that might be needed to maintain them. He was capable of high degrees of indignation, and his life work, championing the rights of wronged and depressed classes and races, furnished him with but too many occasions for holy anger. His soul often burned with intensest indignation. When one night the people in Quitman, Georgia, burned over their heads the seminary for colored girls, or when the Georgia Legislature was enacting the infamy of the Glenn Bill, his heart was hot as any Babylonian furnace, aflame with indignation, as though touched with the divine wrath, the anger of love. And yet not for a moment could one detect in him any spark of bitterness or malice.
But chilled now is that heart of flame; stilled now are the mighty pulsations of that better than chivalric spirit, which up and down the land, all over the East and the West, during those fourteen years, did so much to educate the churches, and to remind the country of the "kindness and love of God our Saviour, which hath appeared toward man," and which ought with all possible celerity to be manifested by men, by men of all races and of all classes, toward one another, and to promote which this American Missionary Association finds supremely its reason to be.
The Society has had, has, and will have, other men in its service of splendid personal characteristics and having peculiar fitness for the signally providential parts assigned them in this great work, which ought to fire the heart of every Christian in the land. One we have, thank God, still among us, equally loved and revered, who has long stood at the front in this mighty and benignant enterprise—may the day be slow in coming when his great heart shall be missed from these yearly councils! And still we may be sure that the resources neither of our humanity nor of the grace of God are in any danger of being exhausted.
James Powell's Welsh blood was in his favor. His American boyhood and training helped fit him for what was to come. That whispered word of a Christian lady to a young man whose conversion, in turn, led to the conversion of young Powell, proved to be a word of destiny. And his experience abroad with the Jubilee Singers, in whose tones was voiced the pathos of three silent centuries, had, also, not a little to do in fitting him for the work God had in store for him.
It is, therefore, easy to see how fortunate this society was in having such a man for its personal representative; and, how fortunate the churches also were in having the most characteristic spirit and motive and aim of the cause he stood for so fittingly impersonated. That fond mother of the famous English missionary who is reported to have said, that "as for her son, the race of God could find but little to do in him," did not speak for James Powell. God had given him splendid gifts to begin with, but it was the grace of God in him that first saved him from making shipwreck of those gifts, and then taught him how to use them so exhaustively in his service.
This Society represents above all things an educational enterprise. It has many schools, chartered and unchartered, throughout the South and West. We can never admire too much this far-reaching educational undertaking. But, the Society is itself, in certain most fundamental respects, the very "head-master" in the school of the churches, in the school of the nation. And how beautifully, how superbly, how effectively did this brother of ours shine and burn among the churches of our land, as one commissioned of heaven to help teach us the reality of meaning there is in this word of our Lord, how he said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
His memory we shall all, and always, affectionately cherish. For the service which he rendered to the cause which we also love, we will be devoutly thankful. If we have gotten any good from the life which he lived before us, we can show it by the growing warmth and completeness of our own enlistment in the same cause. Cries Mrs. Browning at Cowper's grave:
O Poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing;
O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging;
O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling
Groaned inly while he taught you peace and died while ye were smiling.
But not in that way was Powell the teacher of hope and of peace and of joy to us. He showed the way of the cross and all the morning light of hope, because he himself had found it! And how lustrous and mighty and winning did his own way of life serve to make all this way appear to be.
O face, all radiant with light of love;
O eyes, so laughing in their tenderness.
So quick to read the language of distress;
O lips, so touched with flame as from above—
We have seen that sweet vision, and all the way before us shall be the clearer, and we the stronger, because of it. And the sweet memory of our brother shall remain to us.
Like some clear large star, which pilgrims,
At their back leave, and see not always;
Yet wheresoever they list, may turn,
And with its glories gild their faces still!
For himself, he has ascended to the mountains of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, and has seen the day break and the shadows flee away. But, brothers, let us cherish no such idle notion as though James Powell had now forgotten, or has ceased to be interested in the Chinaman, the Indian and the Negro, in America.
EULOGY BY REV. DR. IDE
If there is any special fitness in inviting me to speak on this occasion, it lies in the fact that Dr. Powell was an intimate friend of mine. Outside of the circle of my own home, there was no one with whom I ever held such close and familiar relationship as with him. Our acquaintance began in the early days of college life, when our nation was in the throes of a civil war. We were not members of the same class, but were brought together quite frequently through the literary society to which we both belonged. During this period our relations were simply cordial. Unconsciously the advice of that witty old divine, Thomas Fuller, was being followed: "Let friendship creep gently to a height; if it rush to it, it may soon run itself out of breath."
Dr. Powell graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1866, while my graduation took place the previous year, in the class of 1865. My first year out of college was spent in teaching in my native town. When the decision was reached of entering the Theological Seminary, it was mutually agreed that we should go to Andover and room together. From that time on our intimacy grew apace. We passed three years together as chums; but that relation did not cease when we separated and each went his own way to the field of labor where the Lord had appointed. The last letter that I received from him, (and I have been informed that it was the last letter that he ever wrote, which reached me only the day before the despatch that apprised me of his death), began in that same old familiar fashion, "My dear Chum." I have thus made reference to matters somewhat personal, that the standpoint from which I speak may be more clearly understood. I have "summered and wintered him;" I have been permitted to know him within and without; I have been with him in season and out of season; I have studied with him; I have prayed with him; I have loved him as a brother.
It is more in accord with the promptings of my heart to speak a few words suggested by intimacy and long acquaintance with Dr. Powell. Many learned to respect and honor him through the abundance of his labors in the broad field to which God in his providence called him for service. But there is another side to that life, private, personal, even more attractive and richly suggestive to those who knew him best and were permitted to enjoy his friendship.
Our brother did not possess the conventional qualities which sometimes are associated with the "cloth." He was without that endless gravity which could almost fittingly grace a pedestal. That pious deacon who had not "snickered" for above forty years, would have found his moral sensitiveness somewhat disturbed by the free, untrammelled way in which he spoke and acted. There was no monotony in his make-up. He was natural—natural as devoid of all cant and affected airs. When you met him, you had not come upon some person trumped for the occasion; it was Powell, the very man you wanted to see. He could not be anything but himself. Genuineness and unaffected simplicity were revealed in him, as in few others. He could be as serious as a country judge; but he was serious because the matter was in him, and it was the hour for seriousness. He could be as playful as a child, but it was because the play was in him and it was time for play. When our brother was pastor of the North Church, in Newburyport, it was our custom to meet every Monday morning in Boston. On one occasion, a brother-in-law of mine, a boy in his teens, accompanied me to Boston, where we were to meet Mr. Powell. We soon found ourselves tramping about the city on errands. Mr. Powell was effervescing with fun. At such seasons, and they were very frequent, he took great pleasure in making me the victim of his frolicsomeness. On this occasion, I found that Mr. Powell had enlisted the boy in the scheme of hiding away from me every chance they could get. Passing through a crowd, I would look around and discover that they had absconded; and then it devolved on me to hunt them up, I never shall forget how this manoeuvering interested that boy. He came up to me and whispered the first opportunity he had, "He is the funniest minister that I ever saw in my life." That was his first visit with Mr. Powell, but it was not the last. On that day an attachment was formed which has lasted through all these years. A little boy, four years old, in Oak Park, where Mr. Powell resided for some time, was asked by his father, what he wanted to do when he got to be a man, and answered: "Be a minister and go hunting like Mr. Powell." He was a man for the boys. He touched a responsive chord in their nature. He could enjoy what they enjoyed with as keen a relish as they themselves.
He was the very soul of friendship; he had a genius for it. The friends that he made are only limited by the want of personal contact with him. In the making of them it may be said "He came, he saw, he conquered." How wide he opened his arms to receive us! There were no partition walls to be levelled before we approached him. It required no studied effort to get at him. The way was always clear; the door was without a latch-string even; it was open. You never had to ask, Is Mr. Powell in a proper mood to see his friends to-day? Why, it was worth a journey of fifty miles just to meet that man and receive a grasp of his hand! I remember going to a depot in Chicago to meet him as he came in on the train. As soon as he singled me out from the crowd, he rushed towards me, exclaiming in his bantering way: "Well, well, well, this is the first sensible thing I ever knew you to do, come on old fellow;" and he grasped my arm and hurried me away, saying, "I am just glad to see you." When it is said, that he is the "best beloved of all," is it not because he first loved us? The generosity and friendliness of his soul captured our hearts. I imagine that many thousands of dollars were poured into the treasury of the A.M.A. evoked by the love kindled in hearts for our brother. Men came to love the cause through him who loved them.
Mr. Powell was a man of enthusiasm; he worked at white heat. The logic of his whole life seemed to be, "What I do I must do quickly." He could not stop; he must hurry on. He could pass easily from one thing to another. In all the years of my acquaintance with him I never knew him to rest as other people rest. If his body was not active his mind was. The river of his life had no sluggish intervals; it was a torrent from first to last. His step was a bound; his thought rushed in its movement. He could write a sermon in less time than any other man in the seminary, so far as I know. Plans came to him like an inspiration and were unfolded with a rapidity that seemed to me wonderful. His scholarship was not technical. He always enjoyed the larger sweep of things. He would have been the last man to devote his life to the Greek preterite, and to question whether it would not have been better to have confined himself to the dative case! Such minutiae of erudition might be fascinating to others; it was not for him. His large-heartedness, his sympathy, his wealthy and generous spirit could not be condensed into a bookworm, or a recluse. They rather equipped him to become a watchman, that he might declare what he saw. He needed the whole Republic to range up and down in. His ringing words might be heard on our Western frontier; but before their echoes had scarcely died away, their wakening notes might be taken up and reiterated on our New England coast. He was a voice crying in the land. Like the Great Master, he was sent to "heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised." It was the down-trodden races for which he lived. Such a candle of the Lord would burn down to its socket before the day was half spent. Such hot haste and burning zeal must consume to ashes before the meridian is turned.
