acceptance of Christianity; while conversely there is no lack of examples that the systematic way through civilization to evangelization has been not only a circuitous but a wrong way." Now, as to education in missions-That higher education, the study of the arts and sciences, constitutes any preparation for Christianity or gives any necessary bias toward the acceptance of the Gospel we cannot believe true. It certainly does not in America. Why should it in India? On the contrary, we know of thoughtful Christian fathers who cherish considerable dread as to what the university course may do in unsettling the faith of sons and daughters who already believe. For example, the study of philosophy and biology, as now generally conducted, seems to be fraught with not a little peril to young students. This we have sometimes heard conceded even by experts in those departments. That eminent missionary founder, John Evangelist Gossuer, who was also an accomplished university scholar, took perhaps an extreme view of this question when, in training his missionary students, he substituted the Scripture classics for the heathen classics, contending that Ovid and Homer could furnish no preparation for the understanding of Matthew and John; and when, on being presented with the writing-desk of Hegel as an interesting relic, he turned it into a kitchen-table, suggesting that it was likely to do higher service in its last than in its first estate. But, conceding much more as to the value of philosophy than the eccentric preacher did, it cannot be said to be the handmaid of faith. As experience shows it is much more likely to prove a hindrance to faith, especially to a faith in that supernatural which lies so largely at the foundation of our holy religion. Well has Bishop Butler said, "The miracles are a satisfactory account of events, of which no other satisfactory account can be given." And what is this satisfactory account?" They saw and believed" is the simple and artless language in which the acceptance of the miracle of the resurrection is recorded in the New Testament-reception by faith. When philosophy comes forward to give its satisfactory account it is quite likely to do so by denying the supernatural reality. "You should have heard a Hindu graduate of a missionary school discoursing on the story of the miraculous conception of our Lord," said one to us who was reporting what he overheard on an Indian railway. This Hindu's satisfactory account of the miracle was that Jesus Christ was of illegitimate birth, and the missionary school which had taught him this divine story had for years been whetting his intellect for a keener philosophical refutation of it, which he was now circulating in a tract, accompanying its distribution with an oral exposition. A quaint old divine justifies God's ways in affliction by telling us that "the Lord sometimes sharpens his saints on the devil's grindstone," but we ought to see to it that the devil does not sharpen his instruments on the Lord's grindstone, using teachers paid by missionary money to turn the crank. In a word, why should missionary societies spend their funds in training heathen to resist that faith which they have been organized to propagate? Certainly here is a practical inquiry. If venerable educators in India and Japan think that we are not qualified to dogmatize on this point they will at least permit us to ask this question: How do our marching orders read? The great commission under which we act contains two significant words, "disciple" and "teaching." The one is imperative and primary, the other is participial and secondary. Each is followed by Tavτа, "all." The first all is unlimited-" all nations." The second all is limited-"all things whatsoever I have commanded you." No missionary is in danger of getting beyond the bounds of his preaching commission, for that is unbounded, but one may get beyond the bounds of his teaching commission, for that covers only the commands and doctrines of Christ. Philosophy, biology, mathematics and physicswe know not how to include these under the specification of the great commission, and therefore we know no reason why missionary agents should be employed to teach these sciences. It no doubt sounds petty and narrow to say this, yet a return to the simple terms of the original commission has often been found to work wonders. To drop all secular teaching and to turn the whole force of missionary men. and missionary resources upon the direct work of evangelizing the heathen would constitute an immense revolution in present methods. And what if some impartial historian, reviewing the whole field of present operations, should repeat Dr. Warneck's verdict with the variation of a single word, and tell us that "the systematic way through education to evangelization has proved not only a circuitous but a wrong way." But is the statement of Mr. Phillips, which constitutes the text of this article, borne out by the facts? In order to present the opinion of one competent to judge of the question we transcribe an interview just held with Rev. William Powell, of Nursaravapetta, India, for many years a devoted and successful missionary among the Telugus: "Mr. Powell, you have seen the statement of Rev. Maurice Phillips with reference to the opposition of the educated Hindus to the Gospel. What do you say of it?" "I perfectly agree with it. Of course there is other oppositionnotably that of the priests, but I concur that the strongest organized opposition which we have to encounter comes from Brahmans who are being or have been educated in our Christian high schools and colleges." "Can you give examples of such opposition?" "Yes; while preaching at Madras, one evening in November, 1889, I was interrupted by a band of students from the Christian college of that city, who flung quotations from Bradlaugh and other infidels into my face, to the effect that Christianity is a fraud and Christians deceivers. After striving in vain to persuade them to desist I was obliged to call in the police to prevent their breaking up the meeting." "Is it common for students in the mission colleges to express such opposition?" 66 'Yes; not long ago six graduates of the Christian college at Madras, on receiving their degrees and taking leave of the principal, made public exhibition of their contempt of Christianity by tearing their New Testaments and trampling them under their feet." up "And yet these students had been educated at the partial expense of the mission which maintains the college, had they?" "Yes; they receive special consideration in reduced tuition, paying only about half what they would have to pay in the government colleges. Therefore they are virtually aided by Christian funds in getting their education." "Do you believe that education in India is contributing largely to the conversion of the heathen?" "I do not. It is enough to say that in some Christian colleges there is not known to have been a single conversion for more than twenty years." "Do you think that higher education in any way predisposes the hearts of the heathen toward Christianity ?" "Most decidedly not. It rather fills them with pride and conceit, and, as a consequence, with hatred and contempt of the Gospel. I have found that the same boys who have listened eagerly and respectfully as I have spoken to them in their villages, after being two years in a Christian school, have hooted me as I have been preaching, and done their best to prevent the people from listening to me." "Do you think that native preachers need to be highly educated in order to cope in argument with the subtle, metaphysical Brahman ?"" "By no means. I have one preacher, Rev. Kundla Subbiah, who was formerly a cowboy. He has been educated in our theological school with a good grounding in the common branches and thorough biblical training. He is one of our most powerful preachers, and can gather hundreds at any time to listen to him. I have frequently heard him close in with learned Brahmans who have interrupted his preaching and so completely worst them in argument that they have been driven from the field amid the derision of the spectators. But his success is due to the fact that he is mighty in the Scriptures,' and not at all that he is mighty in metaphysics." "How far would you have missions go in the work of education ?" "I would confine education for the most part to Christians, making the Bible the primary and principal study. If, in order to meet the government requirement, a school must devote five-sixths of its time and attention to secular topics I would prefer to forego government aid and carry on the school independently." What, then, shall we say to these things? This certainly, that the method outlined in our commission is the best method; preaching the Gospel first and educating in the doctrines of the Gospel secondly. Missions are not called upon to erect barriers to their own success by raising up a class of educated opponents to that Gospel which they preach. In Boston the most scornful objectors to the simple evangelical faith are those who have been lifted above it by their lofty literary culture. To bring men of this class into submission to Christ is so rare an achievement that we are often led to exclaim inwardly: "How hardly shall they that have learning enter into the kingdom of heaven!" John Foster did not write without occasion his famous. essay on "Objections of Men of Cultivated Taste to Evangelical Religion." Other kinds of religion may indeed win them-latitudinarian religion and ceremonial religion-but that religion which "casts down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," gains them only in the rarest instances. Such is our experience at home, and why should it be different abroad? If one holds a true evangelical faith before beginning his career of high literary and philosophical study he may, by the grace of God, hold it to the end. But the chances of gaining him to that faith after the mind has been thoroughly pre-empted by human philosophy are certainly lessened. Therefore to educate men in order to convert them, to promote high culture as a matriculation to a lowly faith in Christ, seems to us something worse than a mistake. All this we say thoughtfully, and with the profoundest appreciation of education and of the exceeding value of high culture. Yet learning, like wealth, has such perils connected with its possession that the missionary is not called to embarrass his work by putting it into the hands of those who have not yet the faith to sanctify it. The following from the pen of a successful and experienced missionary in India, Rev. Dr. McLaurin, appears in the Lone Star, and is an admirable putting of the "Objections to Education as an Evangelizing Agency" : 1. It is secularising Christian missions. It spends many times more time, men and money on merely secular than upon religious subjects. It makes missionaries satisfied with and apologists for indirect and intangible results rather than direct conversion to Christ. 2. It tends to exalt intellect at the expense of heart in religion. The tendency is to confound mental force and training with spiritual power. The two may co-exist, but there is no necessary connection between them. 3. It tends to discourage work among the poor and in the mofussil. Though the work of the teaching missionary is more exacting than that of his itinerating brother, yet the regularity of his work, social advantages, the postal, telegraph, railway and scores of other advantages to which the mofussilite is a stranger makes the educational work very desirable to our ease-loving natures. It also fosters the idea of the greater importance of the conversion of the higher classes, which is contrary to God's plan. 4. The system tends to produce a class of missionary government apologists. The man who has an entrée to government house, who is in constant official connection with government, and who is dependent upon government and its officials for a large part of his funds, will be strongly tempted to at least keep quiet, if he does not become an open partisan when government iniquities are under discussion. The action of leading educationists at the late Decennial is a case in point. 5. Besides, it assists the classes which least need help in India, and which in the past and now oppress God's poor and oppose Christianity. We are hoping and praying for the day to come when all this money and talent will be expended in preaching the Gospel and training Christian workers. R 66 In Memoriam. L. W. PILCHER, D.D. 'Looking for that blessed hope." Titus ii. 13. EV. LEANDER W. PILCHER, D.D., was born at Jackson, He was the son of Rev. Elijah H. Pilcher, D.D., one of the pioneer preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Michigan. His father was a man of scholarly tastes and attainments, and notwithstanding the inconveniences and hardships incident to his labors in the new and unsettled country, requiring much travel through unexplored forests and swamps, where, as was the custom with the early settlers, he often had to blaze his way with an ax, in order to retrace his steps, and preaching on an average twenty-eight times a month he managed to pursue his studies, on horseback or around the fire in the rude cabins where he was entertained. Believing that it would be of use to him in his ministerial work he studied and was regularly admitted to the bar, both in the State and in the United States Circuit Courts. He always took an active interest in education, and for six years was one of the regents of the University of Michigan. While stationed at Ann Arbor he also studied medicine and received his degree in regular course. He was the author of several books, and his literary labors were continued |