Missionary alliance 1888.pdf - DSpace

------,,-------------------------------------------------------------\I. " ....... ~ :::... ' .INTER-SEMINARY M[SSIONARY ALLIANCE.west began to faU upon those waiting archipelagoes which crowd togetherin the great seas, and, from them, at last, to touch the r emotestmainlands of tbe world,There is another passage in the early missionary history of islandswhich is also of very deep interest. When the intrepid Captain Cookpublished his Voyages Around the lI' orZd, the mystery and wonder ofthe Polynesian seils were for the first time made known. Not only werethe adventurous enchanted by those thrilling chronicles of discovery,but more than one spirit of a finer sympathy was touched by their disclosuresof human degradation and spiritual darkness. William Careytraced his first zeal for souls beyond the seas to those same seafaringtales, and when, at last, he had broken down the middle walls of partitionbetween the Church and" all the world," it was to the islands ofthe sea that he turned his eager eyes. He had even selected for h isfuture destiny Tahiti, the "Queen of the Pacific," when it was decided,providentially, that he should be hOllored as the apostolic successor ofZiegenbalg and Swartz in India. He went obediently to his im mortalwork, leaving to others the hopes cherished [or Polynesia. It was onemore fine example of"--the famou s might that lurksIn reaction and recoil,"when that Bengal mission of Carey cast out upon P olynesia its firstripe seeds of influence. The humble shoemaker's longing for Otaheitewas fulfil.le~, when, in 1795, as Chri'stlieb tells us, "veIlPrable, gray­~eaded IDllllsters frOID:-the English Church and dissenters fell weepingmto each other's armEl, in the :hapel of Lady Huntingdon, and, claspin£h~nd s over aU narrow denommationallimits, founded the London Mis­SMna1'Y Socie~y.1I The same remarkable narrative which had arousedCarey, n o~ dIrected this enthusiastic society to think lovingly of thepoor canDlbal . . races of the sea . As many as thirty men, SIX'f0 Wh ombore their wives. and children with them, sailed out of the Thames,August 10, 1796, 10. . a. vessel bearing the prophet'leall Y SlgOl ' ' fi cant nameof D uff, '. The ShlP was bound for Tahiti ,en and the m an d women w h0sangh .their touch1Og farewell hymns from its deck f II 'j) . . were 0 owmg theerote I orav l~n , Do?er, that they might "glorify the name of the LordGod . of Israelm S. the Isle3 of the sea." So began the grea t L on d on "I'lJ. I S-slOllary OCl~ty. Under its unflagging zeal the islands of all but t hewestern PaCIfic have been turned to Christ It '.t f PI' . s miSSIOns have spreadou rom 0 yoes1&. to. India, China, Africa, :Madagascar and the West~odi es . ~he five miSSIOnaries of 1795 had increased to upwards of 150lD 1884, With more than 400 ordfLined natives 4500 'no 000 '. " native preachers,'" commUDlcants, na.tlve adherents to th b ''U' d 110000 e num er of a thud of aml l?n, an : boys and girls in their native schools. I thvear Its annual1Ocom t d t h ' n e sameoJ e B 00 ate magmficent sum of £128,000.WHAT OF TITE SEED THAT HAS FALLEN? 75When the fir.t victories of the L~ndon society had been purchasedby the perseverance of its faithful servants and proclaimed abroad,other organizations followed rapidly into the ocean world. The stupendousresults of this missionary zeal among the islands of the sea,since the heart of Zinzendorf was moved to rescue the poor slaves ofSt, Thomas, are chiefly confined to the present century and can only begiven approximately. The conditions and nature of the work precludethe possibility of obtaining accurate and timely summaries only fromthe more important fields i yet, as the result of careful estimates, it is believedthat there are nearly one million an d a quarter of Okristia7ls inthe islands of the East and West Indies, Australasia, PolyneEia, Micronesiaand Melanesia, together with- other scattered groups in the remoterseas, Dr. Smith, of Edin burgh, Scotland- the eminent missionl:l.rywriter- estimated the total of native ChriEtians tbroughout theworid in 1884, to be f ully 2,700,000, Of this number, 1,250,000 havebeen won to Christ from the grOBs darkness that has covered the seasalone. Add to this great number that other host to which the peacefulsum mons of death has come, the martyr.church of Madagascar, thevictims of the hundred inter-tribal wars, and the 35,000 ChristianFijians who fell before the terrible epidemic of 1875, and then reflectthat aU this host of living and dead has been won in the century, stillunfinished, since W illiam Carey turned away from dreams of Tahitito the awful trials that awaited him in India. With this brief summarythe different fields in which the Gospel has had this century oftriumphs, may now he passed in review.I. The great l\l aJayo-Indian Archipelago, the largest island clusterin the world, has been occupied by a nominally Christian nation longenough to have been turned into a stronghold of Gospel light; but itpresents to-day, despite this fact, a spiritual destitution simply appalling.The blessing of India overflowed early upon this broken worldof islands, and Carey's missionaries had begun the evangelization ofJava, when the conquest of Lord Minto restored that island again toHolland. Once more the irresponsible Dutch heJd sway over thedestiny of Java's thirty millions. " It deserves to be remarked," saysone authority, "that UoUand has not only been guilty of a shamefulneglect of its Christian duty towards the natives of these its possessions,but has also, up to a recent date, shown favor to the Mohammedan religion,"The Rev. Dr. Schreiber, Secretary of the Rlitmish MissionarySociety, said at the Mildmay Conference ten years ago, " Wherever inDutch I ndia a heathen population is in contact with Mohammedanismthe latter is steadily advancing." "In fact," another adds, in co mment~ing on Dr. Schreiber's words, "Wherever the Dutch government extendsthere Mohammedanism is spreading." After two centuries anda half of Dutch rule in Java, there are only 12,000 na.tive Christiansand twenty-five mission stations. Among the 27,000,000 under the