Mission field

“ So long as foreign missions are presented to us in that way, so long as any mission may serve any purpose, we cannot possibly take any intelligent share in foreign missions as a whole. We are lost. We cannot co-ordinate in thought the activities of the missions, as we see plainly that they are not co-ordinated in action in the field itself. ”

“ DUTY OF A PERSON CALLED ON A MISSION. When a man is called to go on a mission, and a field of labor is assigned to him, he should, I think, say in his heart, "Not my will be done, but thine, O Lord."—Deseret Weekly News, Vol. ”

“ Let us improve and make good use of our time, let us walk worthy of the vocation in which we were called, let us work out our spiritual salvation, with fear and trembling, and that of our brethren, with the most ardent charity and zeal, and let all glory be to our great God. In connection with this, I took great pleasure in learning that your reverence was preaching a mission at Ivisa when Padre Commissary Verger passed through there. ”

“ The time will come when there will be one in the center of temples we shall build, and on the top, groves and fish ponds.”5
Success in Foreign Mission Fields The missionaries sent out to various parts of the earth in 1849 and succeeding years, met with varied success. The Church membership in the British Mission, before heavy emigration set in, was about twenty-eight thousand souls. Outside of Great Britain perhaps the greatest success in any foreign field fell to the lot of Erastus Snow and his companions, who introduced the Gospel in Scandinavia. ”

“ The first is no crowding; the mission already at work in a field, to be left in sole possession, provided it will render the service needed there; the second is, no possession without occupation; no leaving of souls to perish because somebody’s dog is in the manger, and a field has been entered but not worked. ”

“ Already, since the movement began, 600 young men and women have entered the mission field, and thousands of others are waiting on a hesiPage 256tating church to furnish the means to send them to work in foreign lands. ”

“ Our home-mission work needs to be ‘written up.’ The foreign field has found a large increase of interest in its labors from the numerous books that have been written,—interestingly written,—giving descriptions of the work, the countries where the missionaries toil, and the lives of the missionaries themselves. ”

“ For is it not in the power of the God of the beautiful in nature to proclaim thus His appreciation for the heroic charity of one of His servants, especially to strengthen the faith of the sorely tried convert Indians who clung so lovingly to the mission in the days of its trials? ”

“ And those who to-day in mission fields take their valises well stocked with tracts and sermons and go out into the country on long evangelistic tours can feel that they are following in the footsteps of worthy exemplars. ”

“ There are great questions of missionary policy to settle. A strong force of missionaries, adequately superintended by men who are acquainted with the work they superintend, is the least that can be asked in our missions. A close and detailed oversight of all mission interests, working out a far-sighted policy, which changes only by light that comes by actual experience in mission work, is of the greatest value. ”

“ Now when our missions are presented to us and we are asked to support them on all sorts of grounds, as though a society with its slight funds could really successfully practise every kind of philanthropic work, we begin to doubt whether it can really be wisely guided. Each mission station, each institution, seems to be an isolated fragment. The missionary in charge often appeals to us as an exceedingly good and able man, and we support him, and we support the society which sends him and others like him. ”

“ If we take the widest expression of such mission activity we find that to estimate the true value of such work we should be compelled to survey not only the mission and its activities but the social, moral, material, and spiritual state of the people among whom the mission was planted, and seek for signs of a change which we could trace with some certainty to the influence of the mission. ”

“ The definition of districts for the mission stations is commonly recognised, and in planning new work directors of missions frequently allow themselves to be influenced, in some way and in some degree, by the position of existing mission stations. There are also in some parts of the world bodies composed of leading members of many of the missions that work in the country, who meet to consider the progress of the Christian faith in the province or the country as a whole, and deliberately plan their work with some consideration of the position and character of the work done by the others. ”

“ Turning now from the force at work we must consider the force in training, for this is prophetic. Let us then take first a table which shows the proportion in which students are being trained for pastoral and evangelistic work, for medical mission work, and for educational mission work, in the province or country, regardless of the place at which they are being trained, whether that place is inside or outside the area under consideration. ”

“ This force consists of permanent and more or less temporary members. Some will in all human probability remain in the place till they die; they are of it, they belong to it; others will probably depart elsewhere; they are not of the place; they speak of home as far away; they are liable to removal; sickness which does not kill them takes them away; the call of friends or business carries them back to their own land; they are strangers all their days in the mission district. Nevertheless, they are generally the moving, active force ”

“ Would not the rigid definition of the aim of our foreign missions, by excluding a great many legitimate aims and methods, weaken and beggar our missions, which are strong in proportion as they admit all sorts of different aims and methods? There are men who speak and act as if they thought so, and in consequence welcome as a proper part of the missionary programme all Christian, social, and political activities. ”

“ We cannot doubt that missions have a high place in forming this opinion; and among mission agencies I believe there is no one which has told and is telling more beneficially on the people than our mission schools. ”

“ And when each man is at liberty to follow his own inclination and to direct his work according to his own sweet will, mission work will have lost its homogeneity. Each section and department of the mission will be changed in direction and method of work upon the arrival of every new missionary; and thus every blessing of continuity in work and of a wholesome mission policy will be lost. ”

“ The greatest need of a mission is a good, strong, native agency. And in its desire to furnish this agency the mission, as well as the individual missionary, eagerly seizes upon every boy and girl who shows any signs of promise as an applicant to be trained for missionary service. ”

“ But in dealing with work in the province or small country we cannot simply repeat the table prepared for the mission district. In the province or country there are often missionaries at work who give themselves up wholly to one class. ”

“ The only question on which all of the Mission Societies will unite is opposition to any attempt to limit in the least degree, for any purpose whatsoever, the extension of mission work. On all other questions they are drawn up in armed camps against each other. ”

“ Where innumerable forces are at work such as are implied in the impact of western civilisation upon the peoples of the East, or of Africa, it would be extremely difficult to state the exact impression made by the mission, even if we could survey the whole state of the people at regular and definite periods. ”

“ When our Lord sent out his first missionaries, he sent them two by two. The real trial of the missionary is more mental than physical. He greatly needs companionship. Silence in the midst of the beating of heathen tom-toms becomes enervating and appalling; it may make a man insane. We are learning the value of team-work in missions. What one man alone could never accomplish, he can do with the help of others. The American Board in its mission at Madura, India, has acted upon this principle, and the result is seen in an aggregate of twenty-two thousand church-members. ”

“ I am charged to open—and keep open, if possible—all such districts and countries as I may explore for the commercial world. The mission is supported by a philanthropic society which numbers noble-minded men of several nations. ”

“ We do not for a moment doubt that all Christian missions do exercise an influence of this wide and far-reaching character, and from time to time we can see results which clearly spring from it, but we cannot think it wise to set out this vague influence as the primary purpose of a mission. We believe that the Christian missions which aim directly and primarily at the conversion of men and the establishment of a living native Church produce this fruit by the way. ”

“ If I were presiding over such a man I would send him home, so that I might get rid of the poisoning influence of his company. I want a man: that is going on a Mission to say wife, children, the Lord gave you to me, I will go and do my duty, and hereby show to him and to all men that I am worthy of you.
In this case the Mission to which you, brethren, are called is to build a city; it calls for wives, children, for machinery, for mechanics, for every thing that is calculated to add to the comfort and happiness of the citizens of a city. ”

“ Besides, evangelistic work is growing on our hands; the native churches are strong; labourers are abundant; the groups lying to the north and west are more open than ever; and the Directors are called upon to look fairly in the face a large extension of the South Sea Mission among three hundred islands, containing millions of people who are heathen still. All the objects desired through the entire range of the Society's interests and the Society's work, can with ease be secured by a vessel of our own, commanded by a truly missionary captain, officers, and crew. ”

“ It has been my endeavour in the ensuing narratives to bring together such of the more distinguished Missionaries of the English and American nations as might best illustrate the character and growth of Mission work in the last two centuries. It is impossible to make it a real history of the Missions of modern times. ”

“ A special feature of his method was the return of the missionaries, after an interval of some months, to the scene of their labours to consolidate their work by what was called the "renewal of a mission." ”

“ By-and-by, when by God's blessing things are more ripe for definite departments of work, and men can have distinct duties at once assigned to them, and our mode of carrying on the Mission has been fairly tested, then it will be high time to think about first-rate men. ”

“ It is possible to build an organisation too narrow at the base and too heavy at the top, and then to fill the higher schools with non-Christian pupils without any definite understanding of the way in which that practice is to serve the main purpose of the mission. ”

“ In the past the appeal has been rather to blind obedience, and immense stress has been laid upon the "command"; the appeal has been to the emotions, and love for Christ, love for the souls of men, hope of eternal blessings, hope of the coming of the Kingdom, and (for direction of the work) trust in the wisdom of great missionary leaders or committees, have been thought sufficient to inspire all to put forth their best efforts; but to-day, as in the labour world, as in commerce, as in the army, so in the world of missions, the intellect is taking a new place. ”

“ All honor to the men and women of character and ability who, as Home Missionaries, are devoting their lives to such fields—the most difficult in the world—where no picturesqueness of scenes or people relieves the strain—where sordid sin, monotony, crudity, and newness prevail, but where the returns in character-building contribute to the life of a nation whose mission is the world. ”

“ Viewing the peculiar nature of this enterprise it is impossible to resist the conviction how entirely the work of missions is the work of the Lord. He must appoint the men for it; He must endue them with the needed qualifications ”

“ The most important and basic place in all this organization structure must be assigned to the women's, young women's and children's missionary society, auxiliary, or mission band, in the local church. Here in the local society each one finds her particular place and work. ”

“ The training of some of the highest members of the native Christian community in the responsibility of missionary administration is a serious duty of every mission. The day must come when the whole administration of the Christian work carried on by missions will be in the hands of the native community itself—when missions, as such, shall have accomplished their work and shall be disbanded. What is being done by our missions today to make that consummation possible and desirable at the earliest moment? ”

“ We need to know what facts must be taken into consideration before any mission, evangelistic, educational, or medical, is planted in any place, what facts decide the question whether work is begun, or reinforcements sent, to this place rather than to that. ”