IL
Sin W. Hester, quoted by Canon Taylor in the article on the Great Missionary Failure, to which we referred the other day, affirms that the controversial method has failed in proselytizing the Hindu.
He tells us that an argument between a Brahmin and a Missionary seems to the populace to resolve itself into a wrangle as to the comparative merits of the Hindu triad and the Cinistian trinity. Further, that the natives regard a missionary as a charit~ able Englishman who keeps an excellent cheap school, speaks the language well, preaches a European form of certain parts of their own faith and drives out his wife and his little ones in a pony carriage. Another cause of failure was pointed out by the late Bishop Steere, of the African mission: that amen of an inferior social class are sent out, after be imperfectly educated, Half-taught men, the Bishop says, such as the so-called mission colleges turn out, are much more likely to be useful in England to preach to those who share their ignorance and their prejudices, than among nations whom the cleverest among us only imperfectly understand. " Naturally' these inferior and ill-educated men are narrow and bigoted, of a type that would not be! ordained by any English bishop thought good enough for the curacy of a country village in the fens. Yet they are sent out to do the difficult work of preaching in Tamil and Swahili, atid coping with the acute intellects of Hindus and Moslems." Canon Taylor is treating of Indian missions when he say: but the remonstrance and the warming which his words convey make them applicabletoother partof the-world. He is patting his opinion in the plainest guage, so as to support his charge that the present methods of Protestant missionary enterprise are altogether wrong, and that a return must be made to those methods which were crowned with such marvellous triumphs in the centuries which saw the conversion of the Roman. Empire and of the Northern nations, "If the work is to be done we must-have more men influenced with the apostolic spirit of St. Paul, of St. Columba, St.
lumbanus and. St. Xavier." "In those districts where Xavier laboured 90 per cent. of the native Christians are Roman Catholic." As we said before, the principles on which the Salvation Ary conduct their missions find great favour with Canon. lor—these are absolute self-renunciation, voluntary poverty, and conformity to the conditions of native life. Would, he asks, a Chinaman with his pig-tail, feeding on snails, birds-nests andlizardshave any chance of converting English ploughboys to Buddhis. To try audimake Asiatics into Europeans as well as Christians, is as though a Chinese missionary strove to make Europeans into Chitamen as a preli-minery to making them into Buddhists." There would certainly be little difference in the processes, if they were ever attempted, but who ever heard of a missionary here or elsewhere who set about making a Chinaman into a European either as a preliminary to his conversion to Christianity or as putting the crown to it? If we were to admit all that Canon Taylor says of the mental and educational deficiencies of the Protestant missionaries, we do not think we could fairly change any of them with the folly of undertaking this impossible task. Of course the Missionaries have to instruct the Chinese in Western thought and theology, and if they sue-ceed they do so far make a Chinaman into a European; and we should like to hear from the Canon how the couversion of the Chinese to Christianity, or their mental improvement in secular matters, is to be successful without this change in their thoughts. Such pas-sayes in the paper we are noticing raise a doubt that the writer is so biassed against the methods of Protestant Missivnary work, that he has not taken the trouble to understand it but has caught at anything that seemed a weapon which could be used against it.
But the facts remain that missions in the East cost much, in money and life, and effect little. That is not a new discovery, but as it is the truth it is well that the public should be reminded of it every uow and then and until the necessary changes in missionary methods, which will alter the results, have been made. The first thing which we think should be done is to raise the standard. of mental and other fitness by which those who aspire to be missionaries in the East, and especially in China, shall be judged before being sent out. The standard cannot be made too high; there must be knowledge of the fullest kind. That has always been necessary in China, but it will be still more so when the extended and more enlightened educational process shall have done its work in the country. In a recent address
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.