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Missions, Their Rise and Development

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Missions, Their Rise and Development DIVERSITY LIBRARY ?tr 3- ?(T m HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE No. 55 Editort: HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A. PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LiTT.D., LL.D., F.B.A. PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTKR, M.A. THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE i6mo cloth, 50 cents net, by mail 56 cents PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION Just Published PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY . By BERTRAND RUSSELL BUDDHISM By MRS. RHYS DAVIDS ENGLISH SECTS By W. B. SELBIE THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT By B. W. BACON ETHICS By G. E. MOORB MISSIONS By MRS. CREIGHTON Future Issues THE OLD TESTAMENT .... By GEORGE MOORE BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS By R. H. CHARLES COMPARATIVE RELIGION . By J. ESTLIN CARPENTEB A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT By J. B. BURY MISSIONS THEIR RISE AND DEVELOP MENT BY LOUISE CREIGHTON " AUTHOR OF "A FIRST HISTORY OF ENGLAND," LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH," "LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. CREIGHTON," ETC. NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE COPYRIGHT, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I MISSIONS BEFORE THE REFORMATION .... 1 II THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY THROUGH DIS COVERY AND COLONISATION 21 III THE REFORMATION AND THE BEGINNING OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS 47 IV THE BEGINNING OF MODERN MISSIONS AND THEIR RELATIONS TO GOVERNMENTS 65 V METHODS OF MISSION WORK AMONGST NON- CHRISTIAN PEOPLES 88 VI WOMEN S WORK FOR MISSIONS 112 VII THE MOSLEM PROBLEM 128 VIII MISSION WORK AMONGST COLONISTS 144. IX THE CIVILISING WORK OF MISSIONS .... 164 X THE PRESENT EXTENT OF MISSIONS .... 195 XI THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 INDEX 255 MISSIONS CHAPTER I MISSIONS BEFORE THE REFORMATION SINCE the days of the first Apostles, the great work of spreading the religion of Christ throughout the world has never ceased. At some times zeal and progress have been greater than at others, but the advance has been continuous, and the methods by which that advance has been secured have been singularly alike in all ages, so that in the record of the successes and failures of the past, the Church of the present day should find its best guidance for further progress. The spread of Christianity has always been allied with the spread of civilisation, partly of course because Christianity itself is one of the chief, if not the chief, of civilising agencies, partly because the spread of new ideas is easier and more rapid amongst those 7 8 MISSIONS who have attained to some measure of civil isation. It was the ready means of commu nication, the peace and order, the education, throughout the Roman Empire which made possible the development of the early Church. Success brought with it its own dangers, for when after the conversion of Constantine (A. D. 312), Christianity became fashionable, many called themselves Christian who cared little for the faith, and the Church began to face all the difficulties resulting from its association with political power. When once the Roman Empire was nomin ally Christian, the question of the conversion of the fierce pagan tribes who surged round its frontiers and constantly invaded its terri tories was the next task of the Church; an urgent task in the mind of the Churchman, eager to save these sinful souls from destruc tion, and an equally urgent task in the eyes of the statesman, since he judged it to be the best means of leading these rude and restless men to settle down and develop into peaceful and industrious nations. The early missionaries were for the most part monks, men who had renounced the world and given up their lives to the service BEFORE THE REFORMATION 9 of God. Though many of them were but ignorant and simple men, it was through them, taken as a whole, that knowledge, education and the peaceful arts were spread amongst the peoples. The history and methods of the gradual advance of the Christian faith during the early centuries is to a large extent unknown, but some great teachers and some great events stand out amidst the general obscurity. Amongst the Goths around the Danube, Ulfilas (A.D. 313- 383) not only taught and ministered, but showed himself their friend by obtaining for them a grant of rich pasture land within the Roman border, where they could settle and feed their flocks in peace, so earning for him self the name of a new Moses. He also, as so many missionaries since his day have done, reduced their language to writing, and made an alphabet for it. He translated the Bible for the use of his people, but he would not include the Books of the Kings in his trans lation, lest he should encourage the Goths in their warlike tendencies. Patrick, a Christian boy who was carried off from Scotland by Irish pirates and sold into slavery as a swineherd, was so moved 10 MISSIONS with pity at the sight of the ignorance of the Irish, that when he had escaped after six years captivity, his one desire was to go back to preach the true faith to the people amongst whom he had toiled as a slave. He returned to Ireland (A.D.405) with a littleband of followers. His previous knowledge of the country and of the language, joined to his dauntless courage and burning zeal, enabled him not only to convert many to Christian ity, but to lay with wise forethought the foundations of the Church in Ireland. The Irish have ever honoured him as their pat ron saint. The great missionary amongst the Ger mans, . Winfrith, afterwards called Boniface (A.D. 680-755), was an Englishman born in Devon. The stories he heard in his youth of the English and Irish missionaries who laboured amongst the pagan German tribes, inspired him to follow their example. His work was marked by devotion and wisdom. He founded monasteries, notably the famous monastery of Fulda, as centres of learning, with schools attached to them, and brought civilisation amongst the barbarous tribes. But in his life we see already many of the BEFORE THE REFORMATION 11 difficulties of the future. He wished to or ganise the work of the missionaries, and to bring it into close connexion with the au thority of the Pope at Rome. Christian communtites which had grown up independ ently were not always willing to come into line, either in matters of organisation or of doctrine. There were conflicts with heretical teachers as well as with careless Christians and wild pagans. But through all his strug gles, whether as Bishop or Archbishop, to uphold the authority of Rome, the zeal of the missionary never waxed cold in Boni face s soul. At the age of seventy, he re signed his office as Archbishop of Mentz and went as a missionary to the still heathen Frisians. There, together with fifty-two followers, he was massacred by a band of pagans just as he was preparing to confirm a number of his converts. The work begun by individual missionaries was carried on by the monasteries which they founded, and which served as training-places for missionaries and teachers. The monas teries did much for the civilisation as well as for the conversion of Europe, as may be learned from the history of the famous 12 MISSIONS monasteries in Britain lona, Lindisfarne, Whitby, Croyland and many others. But the conversion of the peoples did not always proceed by slow and peaceful means. Some times the conversion of a king was followed by the wholesale conversion of his people, as was the case with Clovis, king of the Franks, who with all his warriors became a convert (496) in consequence of a victory over his enemies, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, whose baptism was at once followed by that of thousands of his followers. Then the real work of the missionary had to follow the baptism of the people, who, though they might become nominal Christians, still clung often for generations to their pagan habits and customs. Thus history shows us the same problems which perplex the modern missionary, the doubt whether it is best to begin from above with the rulers and leaders, or from below with the people, and the diffi culties attending the mass movements of whole peoples to Christianity. Sometimes force was used by the kings to compel conversions. Charles the Great, in his attempts to bring the indomitable Saxons to submission, compelled them to receive BEFORE THE REFORMATION 13 baptism at the point of the sword, in spite of the remonstrances of Alcuin, the learned Englishman, his adviser and friend, who said, "Carry on evangelisation according to the example of the Apostles; of what use is baptism without faith?" Vladimir of Kief (972-1015), having once decided that Chris tianity was the best religion, threw down and destroyed, amidst the tears of the Slavs, the idols they revered, and at his orders men, women, and children plunged naked into the Dnieper for baptism, whilst the priests prayed on the banks. Small wonder that with such methods, when self-interest, if not the desire for self-preservation, com pelled conversion, the real progress of Chris tianity was slow. The desire for the conversion of the Saracens was one of the chief motives that inspired the Crusaders, and the work of bringing the remaining pagan peoples in the north of Europe to Christianity was under taken by a military religious order, the Teutonic knights. They brought order into the frontier districts of North-eastern Eu rope, and subdued the wild peoples that lived on the shores of the Baltic, converting 14 MISSIONS them to Christianity in the early thirteenth century and sending mission clergy to min ister to them.
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