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Summer , 1972 Vol. XX I I I , No .8 LIBRARY Subs cription: $3 a ye ar; 1-15 copi e s , 35¢ Broadway (a t 120th Street ), New York, N. Y . 10027 Telephone: (Area 212) 662 -7100 each ; 16 -50 copie s, 25¢ each ; EDITORIAL AND CIRCULATION OFFICE more t han 50 cop ies , 15¢ each Room 678. 475 Riverside Drive, New York, N. Y . 10027 T el ephone : (Area 212) 870-2 175

NO TICE TO SUBSCRIBERS: Due to cir cumstances of printing and distribution over which the editor ha s no control, t he Occasiona l Bul let i n has fallen f ar be hind publication schedule . The present number i s designated Summer, 1972 . Ba ck issue s wi l l be pub l ished du r ing t he remai nde r of the year. R.P.B.

THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE

by Donald C. Lord Texas Woman's University

It is fashionable among his t orians to interpret political, rel igi ou s , and social r eforms as the produ cts of me n i nsecure about their status i n society. One manife s t at ion of this interpretation is t he psychoanalysis of an indi v id~ al .r e fo r me r by some modern s cholar . But a more t ypical pr ocedure i s t o f ind common , unconscious , instinctive ki nds of be ­ havior which sugge st the anxi eties of the group which turned its members i nto ref or me r s i n an effort t o gain s tatus i n the society that had r ejected t hem. The most famous ex amples of t his school of t hought are David Donald' s analysis of t he abol i t ionists and Richard Hofstadter 's study of the progressives . l

Thi s appr oach has not ye t been appl i ed t o the missi onary movement , but one can suspect that t he status- r evolution scholars would l ook for s i gns of restlessness, f r ustration, anxiety, and co nscientious s tat us-seeking i n the missionary 's background , and for a wide range of subconscious assumptions and impulse s in his concept of his cal l i ng . The mission­ ar y ' s quest for martydom, his wil lingness t o suffer i n a hostile environment, and hi s utopian notions ab out the result s of hi s work, would all come under close scrutiny from such a scholar . But a s t udy of t he many diar ies l eft behind by the 19th-cent ury mis s i on­ aries t o suggest that the se questions, and this approach , are not ve ry useful to an understanding of the missionary impulse , ma i nly because the co nve ntional tools of intellectual history indicate that the ological assumpt ions were at the he ar t of the missionary i mpulse; simple Christian opt i mi sm can be a motivating force a s dist i nctive and powerful as status-seeking . Fur thermore , while al l people have ul t er ior mo t i ve s , men often me an what they say, no mat ter how deep-seated and devious t heir inner mo t ivations might be .

The missionar i es who jour neyed t o Thailand in the 19th ce ntur y make an inter esting case study on t he missionary impul se. The diaries of s ix of t he f i r s t e ight Prote stant mis sion­ 2 aries to Tha i land , or those of their wi ve s , are now depos i t ed in Ame r ican archives . The letters of the r emaining two were reprint ed in the Mis sionary Heral d, a pe riodical widely read by the 19th-century churchmen. I n addi t ion to these i mport ant manuscr ipts, many other cont emporary Thail and missionari e s l e f t written records of their exper iences . 2

The most important journal kept by the apostles to Tha iland i s that of Dan Bea ch Br adley, a medical missionary who l abored in the Land of t he White Elephant as a doctor , publisher , pr i nter , diplomat, and evangel ist from 1835 un til his death i n 1873. The detailed twent y ­ five vo lume Bradley diary i s one of t he most impor t ant documents of both the missionar y movement and Thai hist or y.

Born in Marcellus, New York , in 1804, Bradley was raised in a pious Congregational i s t atmosphere by his f at her, the Reverend Dan Bradley . He recorded few import ant spirit ual de velopments in h is lif e unt i l 1825, when Marcellus sust a i ned a revival that was so power ­ ful it tran sf or med Bradley from a store clerk i nto a miss i onar y . The Marcel lus revival was not unique s i nce Bradl ey ' s home wa s situated i n the hear t of Western New York, an area so ch aract erized by fiery religious revivals that it i s known as the Burned-over District. The se revivals were produc ed by the intellectual attack mounted by certain 19th­ century theol ogians against the Calvinistic concept of a God t hat divided people i nt o two clas ses- -the saved and the damned -- an assumption alien to the democratic ideology of the pe r iod . 3

Until r e cently , t he causes of religious revivals have been misunderstood as irrational outpourings of t he spirit. But as Wi l l iam McLoughlin has shown , revival s are usual ly caused by serious t heological reorientations and the ecclesiast i cal conflict s t hey set off. Due to this particular theologi cal collision, the Second Great Awakening wa s characterized by the ascendency of l ay control over the clergy, the r egeneration of i nt erdenominational brother hood , the r epla cement of dogma by ethical concern, and the replacement of Calvinist i c predestination by the free will of Armini us.

Ar mini an views as t hey ap pear ed in America can be summed up brief l y by stating that the Arminian s did not believe in the concept of the chosen few . Each ind i vi dual could be chosen i f he acquired the ne ce ssary grace through a program of good works . This simple concept spread eventually t o become a search fo r Christ ian per fe ct ion which culminated in the reform movements of the early 19th century. The Armi nians ' confrontation with the Calvi nists, which r esult ed in the rise in Ame r ican society of Chr istian ethics over Chr isti an dogma , coupled with t he indi vidual' s search f or personal f ait h and holiness , was the poor man ' s Tr ans cendent alism. The se attacks upon Calvinism, and the sense of social r e sponsi­ b i l i ty t hey created, made the religious revival which permeated Western New York t he progenitor of the Soc ial Gospel . Samuel Robb i ns, an Andover gr aduat e and Thailand mission­ ary, s p o l~ e for h is col leagues when he stated t hat were not concerned only wi t h s oul s. They l abored for the "elevation of the whole man" to accomplish "t he wi l l of God on eart h. ,,4

It should be not ed, however, that there wa s no great i ntel l e ct ual "shoot-out " in America between the Calvinists and the Armi nians , but rather a gradual modi f ication of the t wo until the once great chasm bet ween them was br i dged and t he i r di fferences bl urr ed . No better illus t r at i on of t his exists t han the changing mot i vat ion for the mi ssionary enterprise. Before the rise of the American Boar d of Commis sions for Foreign Missions (ABCFM ) i n 1810 , Gloria Dei, Christ ian compassion for the eternal loss of immor tal souls, the ne ce s sity of being co -workers with Chr ist as advocated by J onathan Edwards, and the concept of disinterested benevolence stressed by Samuel Hopkins , were the dominant forces of t he mission i mpul se. 5 But by the time the f i rst overseas mission boards were created, the glory of God ceased to be t he pr ime mot ivating factor in the missionary i m­ pulse , and benevolence was no longer "disintere s t ed". Christ ian compassion and co -worki ng with Chris t were sti l l strong mo t i vat i ng forces, but othe r, more powerful impulse s had been ge ner at ed . 3

One of the se, oddly enough , was national ism. I t was no co i nc idence that American na tion­ al i sm and or gani zed missionary e ndeavor were created a t t he same t ime . The Tha iland mi s sionarie s and the l ay members of the society of ten commented on t he inter ­ r elationship be t wee n and ci vi l i zat ion . 6 This idea had be en developing i n t he Chr ist ian mind for mo re than t wo ce nturies , but as nat ionalsi m grew in Ame r ica, the American missionary expo rted Amer ican , not Western ci vi l izat ion . John William Ward noted that during the time that Andrew J a ck son' s name became a household word , that i s, sho rtly af ter t he creat ion of the ABC FM , Ame ricans had no mo re r e spect f or the "effete" ci vi l iza ­ tions of Europe than they had for the "savage" I ndians. Only t he Ame rica civil ization , l oca t ed somewhere on the cul t ural spect rum be twe en savagery and decadence , was worthy of exportat ion . 7 It wa s this egocentric nationalism that helped t o create the mi ssionary i mpul se , and i t was this brand of nat iona lsim that was expor ted .

But there wer e ot her s t rong forces which worked ove r t he years to create t he missionary mind. One of the se wa s t he ideas of t he Scott ish Common Sense School which f ound their natural habitat on the American fr onti ~r. The spread of this ph i losophy led to t he modi f ica­ tion of Calvi nism i n Ame r ica as the i dea s of the Scottish School were disseminated i n Ame rica by the s t andar d course on mor al philosophy r e quired in al l di vini ty schools . Mo ral philosophy 's "prime purpose was to counter the skept icism, at he ism, and i nfidelit y of t he Age of Rea s on ..• "8 The Sco ttish ph i losophe rs f ound proof of God' s moral laws both in na t ure and man 's "commo n-sense" knowledge of h is own "frai lty, immoralit y, a nd spi r i t ual ne ce s sitie s."9 The ir argument that man understood t he nat ure of validit y of abs t ract i deas like immortality, so ul , and sal vat i on , wi th no mo re he lp than his i nnat e common sense , f ound a f ertile ground on the American f r ontier. Possibly the greatest contribution to t he changi ng concept of the missionary impulse provided by t he Scot tish ph i losophers was the i r conviction that God had i mplan t ed man with a sense of sel f - love which taught h im how to pu rsue hap piness and avoid pa in. This helped cr eat e both a more human God and a be nevol e nce t hat was no l onger di s intere s t ed. l O

A third f orce whi ch helped reshape the missionary mind were t he i dea s of the native Ame r ican r ational t hi nkers , part icular ly the Deis t s, who f orce d t he Calvinist s t o alter t he ir t heology i n order to survive in Ame r ica. Al t hough most Amer icans l ater rej ected de ist i c r ationalism be cause i t fit l e s s wel l int o the American pysche t han common sens e piety , Deists forced co ncessions f r om t he Calvinists which he lped close t he gap be tween Cal vini sm and Ar mini sm i n America. Under the r ationalists onslaught , God became less wrat hf ul and more l oving, and man be came l e s s a pawn and mor e a product of his free wi ll. By 1835 as t he Sec ond Great Awake ni ng st ar ted t o wane, Calvinism had been modified s o gr eat ly t hat there was little distinction be tween i t and Ar mi nianism. As a result, America ceased t o have a systematic for the first t ime i n its history. So gr eat was this change that minist ers cal led t hemselve s Evangeli cals , not Calvinists , concentrated on savi ng souls , and avoided cr eeds, doct r ines and dogmas . l l

A f ourth f a ctor in the mis sionary i mpulse was Arminianism itself. ~~ i le it had been basi ­ cal ly the r ecipient of the ch anges brought about by ot her forces, i t contribut ed to i t s own ascendency in Amer ica. Tr ue , f ew Ame r icans sat down and consciously argued the rela­ t ive me r its of compet i ng t heo logies , but Arminianism was natural f or the American environ­ ment. Pre sde stination in an egalitarian l and where man bel ieved he co ntrol l ed his own non-spiritual dest i ny was doomed f rom t he begi nn ing of the colonial enter pr ise . Arminian i deas had onl y t o l ay dor mant while the American culture eroded Calvinism. This finally occurred in t he ear ly 19th ce nt ury as r ise of nati onalism, rationalism, and de mocracy modified Cal i vi nism until it was "Arminianised". The l ove of God, par ticularly as advocated by Char les Grandison Finney , creat ed a great desire f or the evangel ical preaching which character i zed t he Second Gr eat Awakening. 12

It sho uld also be no ted , a t this juncture , that t he frontier was also one of the gr ea t est for ces creating the mi ssionary impulse. The great number of missionar ies from the Burned­ ove r Di strict of New York i s under s t andable only when one r ealizes t hat the frontier 4 produced the unique brand of nationalism which was expor t ed by t he mi s sionar ies , created t he natural hab i tat f or a common sense pragmat ic approach t o life, and re-inforced the gr ow i ng concept in Ame r i ca that Christianity, like democracy, was a religion of p r o g ress . ~ 3 The s i mpl i st i c logic of the frontier mind stres sed t he conviction that man was of ten , wi t h God 's help, the key to his own sal vat ion , and that the demands of the frontier existan ce f orced men t o acce pt the idea that their survival was d i rect ly r elated t o the sur vi va l of his fellow frontiersmen. Their i deas combined wi t h the ot her f orce s mentioned pre viously to develop the Sec ond Great Awakening and its s t epchi l d , the missionary impulse. l 4

One s igni f icant de velopment of the Second Great Awakening, crucial t o the underst andi ng of the missionary impulse, was the fact that many men came t o believe t hat be ne volence-­ the i mpl ementat ion of the Gol de n Rule--was the es sence of Chr i s t iani t y . The success of this nevT vi ew was so pervasi ve that Thomas Paine would have been amazed t o dis cover that the nation he helped conceive with his r ational ideology, worked t o fulfill its democratic promise through t he power of evangelical faith. According t o Timothy Smith, the emanci­ pat i ng glor i es of the Gr eat Awakening made Chr ist ian l iberty , Christian equal i ty , and Christian fraternity the passion of early 19th-century America. The one - t reasured Gospe l of t he cho sen few gave way to the age of the baptized many. Common grace, not common sense , wa s t he keynote of the age .C15 alvinism did not di e, howe ver; it lingered on in many churches and penetrated the secular culture . Its co ncept s of thrift, sobriety, industry, and piety, were interwoven into Ben Franklin' s concept of success , and returne d l ater as the hom ilie s of t he McGuffey Readers on which generat i ons of 19th-century Americans cut their intellectual teet h .

The dominant f orce i n t he Se cond Gr eat Awakening we st of the Huds on River was Char les Grandison Finney, e vangelist and professor of theology at Ober l in College. Much of Finney's success was du e t o the s i mpl ici t y of his theology and his great f aith in men, God , and the future. His God was a just God who rewarded good and punished evil. Doing good f or others, he sai d , was one way of working f or the grace of God . This belief was not a t otal departure from the Calvi nistic concept of benevolence, but in Finney' s vi ew, benevolence was no l onger merely a duty; it was now a pleasure that bore fruits f or t he giver and the recipient. The essen ce of Finney's appe al can be f ound in his view that "God i s l ove," a concept that was welcomed b people who had thought of God as a vengef ul ruler who was both capricious and arbitrary. 16 Af ter Finney went t o Obe r l i n in 1834 , his theology became an important f orce i n ante-bel l um societ y ; its i mpac t was felt i n bot h t he abol ition cr usade and the missionary movement. As \ihitney Cross sugge sts , Finney, his disciples, and his predecess ors were so successful that between 1794 and 1825, a child i n New York could hardly have e s caped experiencing at least one religious r evival. Testimony t o this i s f ound in Bradley' s yournal, f or he exper ienced three revivals--one in Marcellus and two in New York Ci t y . 7

Bradley' s jour nal r eveals an ex t raor di nary man who was moved by the great r evival and its intellectual forces to be come an apos t l e for Christ. The ordinary man of the pe r iod did not want t o be a missi onary, but a study of the letters and diaries of Bradley' s associates i l l ust rates that the Thailand mis sionarie s were ex traor dinary people . Br adley' s close friends and f ellow missionaries, the Samuel McFar lands , were t ypical of those who went to Thailand. Once, af t er waiting many months for a j ar of petunia seeds which f inally ar r ived on the Sabbat h , the McFarlands forced themselves t o wai t until the f ollowing morning to start t heir garden. McFarland, whose s on, George Bradley McFarland, was born in Bradley's home and named af t er the man who delivered him, was often aware of his uni quenes s. On vacat ions in the United Stat es , strangers of t en treated his f amily as freaks of nature. Their r usti c, home spun clot hes were considered styl eless and their children were ridiculed whenever they spoke the Thai l anguage.18

Bradley ' s missionary associates were different from their contempor arie s in othe r ways. Most of them posses sed more sensitive cons cience s than t he average pers on. Bradley' s 5 associate, friend, and sometime boarder, Dr. Samuel Reynolds House, felt that whenever someone died who had not been led to Christ, he (Hous e) had f ailed his Master. A man of intense sympathy and understanding, House suffered whenever he could not relieve the suffering of ot her s .19

Like Bradley, House was a doctor, an educated man, and a product of the Burned-over District. The motivation of such men arouses curiosity. What drove them forth t o save and reform the world? Were they, as David Donald had suggested of other 19th-century reformers--the ab olitionists--the lineal and intellectual descendants of the Puritan cl er gy who l ost the power and pr e st i ge their forefathers once held and were now trying t o restore these trappings by their activities as reformers? The abolitionists and the missionaries derived from the same stock, Puritan New England and the firebrands of the Burned-over District, and often, as in the case of the American Mis sionary Association, from the same organizations. But t o f ollow this anal ogy and to speak of the Thailand missionaries as t ortured souls i n search of powers once held would be misleading. The men and women who jOQYneyed to the four corners of the world carrying the Cross wer e products of a force more powerful than their own personalities; they were products of the Second Gr eat Awakening and the missionary impulse it revived. Thus most of the missionarie s who ser ved in Thailand wi t h Bradley became disciples of Christ in their early teens; a f ew wer e even pr e - teenager s when they decided to take up the Cross. Their desire t o work for Christ was based on the theological axiom that heathen peoples were doomed unless Christian missionaries opened their he arts and soul s t o Christ. 20

Not hi ng up set the missionaries more than the l ost souls unexposed t o the Gospel, or as the missionaries usually referred t o it, "the bread of life." Each of the missionaries to Thailand who left a record of his work testifies to this; each of them also quotes Christ who told them to "go ye, therefore and teach al l nations ... even unto t he end of the world." This belief was the dynamic force whi ch sent them forth t o "brave the unkown terrors of a mysterious and dangerous world."21 Bradley often an swered inquiries about his motivation wi th the s i mpl e statement that Christ t old him to go into the world and preach to all creatures. He of ten stat ed that t he "Lor d seems to have called me to this vor k ." Like his col l eagues , he felt that Jesus l aid down hi s life f or al l sinners, be they American, Chine se, or Thai. "God or dai ned " them to "work in Hi s vineya rd." One can look in vain for theological arguments t o the writings of the missionaries be cause few points were debatable. The Go spel was the truth and it was their duty to spread it. It was often as simple as that. 22

Si nce there were many sinners in the in the 19th century, we might wonder why American missi onaries went abroad in search of l ost souls. Why did they not take up the Cros s in their native land? Daniel McGilvary, Bradley's son-in-law and a famous missionary himself, once tried t o answer this que st ion f or prospective missionaries. McGilvary f elt that the Christian church had t o be dynamic t o grow. The missionary coul d not remain in nominally Christian lands but had t o seek new horizons if Christianity was to expand. The saving of American souls was thus l eft t o the l ocal ministers. McGilvary admi t ted that ex otic l ands might seem like more alluring pastures f or the Lord's shepherds, but in reality, he s aid, it was no more adve nt urous t o save souls in a f oreign country than in one ' s native land. As Stephen J ohnson, another missionary, said, "Nothing but love t o God and to souls can r econcile the true Christian to an exile from the pr i vi ­ l eges of his native land."23

Because she was all of nineteen ye ars of age when she united her heart with "the Savior in indissoluble union," Bradley's first wife, Emelie Royce Bradley, cons i der ed herself a laggard Christi an. She berated herself because she never had any real st r ivi ng of the spirit until she was thirteen. Like many of her contempor ar i e s in the missionary movement, Mrs. Bradley lived in a communi t y that experienced a r eligious r evival when she was little more than a child. The revival spirit which struck Emelie's home t own of Glinton, New York, had a pervasive effect on Emelie. Her friends, al l of whom accepted 6

Christ a s their Savior long before sh e did, worried about her lack of religion and be­ seeched her to accept Christ as they had. Even af ter Emelie' s conversion and her subse­ quent decision to become a missionary, she doubted herself. She feared her desire t o go t o heathen l ands might be a device of her own rather than the desire of the Lord. Later she di smi s sed these doubts when she realized how much it would pain her t o l eave her f amily and friends. 24

Mrs. Bradley' s f ear that she might be act i ng selfishly illustrate s t hat she, like most of her missionary as sociates , was merely God's instrument. This belief is evi dent in her decision to marry Bradley. She committed the subject "entirely to the Lord" and abi ded by his decision, bel i evi ng that if she f ollowed God's directives she would be re­ warde d spi r i t ual ly "100 fold" i n t his life, part i al compens ation for the pain she felt when she l eft her friends and her home. Once Emelie commi t t ed hereself, t here was no equivocating, and eventually, af ter consideri ng many pr oj ects , she went t o Thailand t o fulfill t he de s i r e s she first felt whe n she heard a sermon on Isaiah 1: 2 which spoke of the l ack of vision of the multitudes. 25

One man important t o an understanding of the missionary mind was Samuel J. Smith who as an orphan had bee n brought t o Tha iland by J ohn Taylor J ones, the first Baptist missionary t o Thailand, a publisher, and an expert on Thai culture. When his f oster f ather died, Smit h took his f oster mother, t he t hird Mrs. J ones, as his bride. Smith had no qualm s ab out marryi ng his f oster mother s i nce his marriage would f acilitate the Lord' s work and he had of t en advi sed his missionary brethren that they shoul d not ask what the wor l d would like but what t he world needed and God would appr ove . Smith felt the mis sionar i e s should not seek t o accompl ish their wills, but their duties. He als o advised that they shoul d love everyone s i nce they were all memb ers of one gr eat f amily, "claiming a brother ' s sympathy. " Thus the missionaries' belief in an other-directed life was tempered by a sense of duty, ob l igat ion~ and l ove. Fa i t h and good works would r e sult in emotional warmth and spiritual ecstacy .2b

But if God brought emo t ional warmt h and spi r i tual e cstacy, he also br ought life, death and other event s . Bradley once had s ome money s t olen due t o his own car eles snes s , but he assured himself that God ordained the event"for his good" so he would not be so care­ less in the f uture. God's hand was also evident t o the missionaries in the birth of their chi l dr en . Jes se Caswell, a missionary t o Thailand and a nother disci ple of Finney, recorded on June 10, 1841, that the Lord "permitted us t o l ook upon a little daughter" whom they would train "for His service." Emelie Royce Bradley made a similar notation in her diary on November 26 , 1836 , t hat God gave her a little daughter who would be trained, as Br adl ey al so stated i n hi s j ournal, to serve the Lord. In the eye s of t he mis sionaries, the "Lord was often pleased t o lay his hand upon them in such a manner . " or gave them "Chastising stokes" for which they were grateful, or prevented them from sai l i ng in jUnks that were sunk by storms. 27

God' s design was even more evident in the death of the mis sionaries and their chi l dren . Wh en Bradley' s seven- mont h-ol d daughter, Harriet, died af t er seventeen days and nights cradled in her mother' s ar ms , Mr s. Bradl ey willingly gave the "loveliest flower of her garden to the Savior." Even her own appr oachi ng de ath held little fear for Mr s. Bradley as Jesus would l ead her t hr ough t he "valley of the shadow of death." Her last ambition was t o "go to Jesus" i n the aft er noon as a witne ss t o the Thai that Christians had nQ fear of de ath. No one knows what the Thai thought, but she did die before s undown. 2 ~

A car eful study of the diarie s of the Thailand missionaries illustrates that t his particular gr oup was moved by a simple desire t o t ake t he Chr ist ian Gospel a t f ace value. But a s Paul Var g has stat ed , theology is no longer a popular vehicle for ex­ pressi ng the more profound impre ssions of t he human experience ; thus a social -psychia­ trist or a historian interested in psychoanalys is mi ght try t o explain the missionaries' ~eligious experiences in modern psychological terms. Nineteenth-century ref orm move ments, 7 therefore, have been mi sint erpret ed as a st r uggl e by displaced persons for renewed st at us . Certainly the missionaries were not obl i vious to status; it ha s al ways been an important proponent in the American s ocial structure. But cont rary t o the st at us revolution co n­ cept, most of those who worked i n Thailand and died there realized that they could r e­ turn home t o their native land and achieve the status they left behind. But f ew ever returned except f or extremely poo r he alth. Asa Hamingway, a native of Shoreham , Vermont, and a graduat e of both Middlebury and Andover, wrote that his sojourn in Thailand would give him cons i de rabl e s tat us if he would r eturn t o America, but he believed that God had not or da i ned him to gain status, but t o preach the Go spe l t o the heathens . Bradl ey and his as sociates were likewise aware of t he stat us they r ejected by remaining i n Thailand. This is par t i cular ly significant as most of the missionaries shared an intense longing for the homeland. In their own words, they endured the cr i se s of mis sionary work "only because they l oved Christ more than t hey l oved their family and friends."29

It would be fruitless t o deny that once reform movements become popular they at t r act para sites and opp ortunists, but middle class r eform movements- -and practically al l suc cessf ul r eform movements begin with the middle class- -are not cr eated by paras i tes or stat us -seeker s . They ar e creat ed by the definite need for r eform. Historians would do better t o turn to s ocial, intellectual, or economic history, r ather than t o psychology , t o discover why historical movements occur when they do. If t hey did, they would dis cover that the Burned-over District owed its rapid evange l i zat ion to Finney' s attacks upon Calvinism and the concur rent e stablishment of the Erie Canal which moved his dis ciple s and his ideas we stward mo re t han it d i d t o any psychological qui r ks the Christian evange ­ lists may have pos se s sed. Finney's simpl e l ogic that good would be rewarded and evil punished was not a seed f or displaced minds. Whatever we may think t oday about Finney' s evangelical met hods , his sermons combi ned r eas on wi t h emot ion , f aith in the Bible with f aith in human intelligence, and belief in the benevolence of God with be l i ef in the perfectibility of man. God was no l onger the unjust Maker the Cal vi ni st s pictured. He was a reas onable God who aSked men t o do r easonable t asks. The i ntellectual appe al of this new theology, marked by the r ationalism of the enl ight e nme nt and the growing bel ief in the d i gnity of man , coupled wi t h the rapid growth in transportation and comm'lDication, ac count f or the rise of missionaries and r eligious reformers in the first quarter of t he 19th century. This is particularly evident in the diaries of the Thailand mis sionarie s. All of their diarie s at test t o the cul t ural i mpact of t he new t heology; all of them were motivated by a s impl e desi r e t o fulfill the oppor t uni t y this new theology offered; al l of them were converted at an age when they were l ess suscept ibl e t o concepts of s tat us than they were t o the emot i onal i sm and the rea son i mparted t o them by the anti-Calvinist evangelists. They were, of course, bot her ed by fears and doubts, but their worries were not long-lasting. The ver y narrownes s of their purpose gave them gr eat stability. In­ deed, one outstandi ng character istic of the diarie s l eft behind by the Thailand mi s s ion­ aries i s the basic stabi lity of the writers. Due t o their intense dedication, the mis sion­ aries and r eformers were undoubtedly f ar more st abl e than the ac ademic world which t oday suspects the motivation of the 19th-century evangelists. The origin of the mis sionaries' narrowne s s of purpose coul d have all so r t s of ps ychologi cal connotations, but none of these would over come the basic premise of the missionaries that the Christian gospel was a gospel of love. The missionaries believed t hat t he "Ministry of r econciliation was so weighty a charge that mort als could not endure it without God . " As they saw it, their t asks were "Heaven descended work, fit f or angels," but given to mortals in order to re­ capture the love which led God t o send "His only begotten Son into t he wor l d . It was l ove .•. whi ch led him to r eveal himself, it was l ove that sent them t o t he heat hen , it was l ove that bid t hem t o do t he Ma ster 's work . " ~

Pos sibly be cause of the orthodox bel iefs of t he missionaries , the moveme nt they l ed i s now suspect . But t o empha size the conservative nature of the missionaries and i gnore their strong inclination t oward the Social Gospel would be a mistake. Their simple or t ho ­ doxy was not much like the later varietie s t hat pre ceded and fol lowed the movement. Un­ like their Puritan forefathers, the Thailand mis sionari e s were not pe s s i mist i c in their 8 nar rowness . This is probably due t o the fact that they were motivated by the New rather than the Old Testament as the Puritans were . Matt hew, the Gospel most devoted t o Chr ist 's t eachings, was by far t he ir favori te . Even the s impl e pietistic view of these missionaries which might appear anti-intel lectual at f i rst glance were misleading. In r ealit y, the most i mport ant and i nf l uent i al missionar ies to Thai land- - Br adl ey , Caswell, House, J one s, and Smith- -were al l well-educated men who studied in col l eg e at the height of the enl ighten­ ment and made great contributions to Thai land 's i ntellectual growth. Though t he se men t ended to accept the Bible at face value, thei r be l iefs wer e not basical ly irrational. The Bi ble was accepted at face value because t he mi s s ionari es emphas i zed the teachings of Christ as a way of lif e . As their writings show, t o be l ieve was t o walk i n His steps; t o be lieve was to be concerned for al l men because Christ was concerned for al l men; to be ­ l i eve was to love because the essence of the Gospel to these men was 10ve .3l

Finally, the Tha iland missionaries were further dist inguished f rom t he i r Puritan fore ­ fathers by their concept of predestination. God, they be l ieved, was omnipotent and their own l ives were other-directed, but they could not accept the pure and simple predestination of the early Puritans . All who be lieved could be saved. This be l ief was the driving force behind the missionary movement and the revival ism of t he Second Great Awakening. Despite the fact that their anti-Calvinistic bent could never completely eradicate all t he i r own Calvinistic ideas, the missionaries were di rected t o go abroad and achieve the "millenni al glory of the church which was about to be ushered i n. "32

They be l ieved that t he church was so close to victory that their increased activity would achieve the ultimate t r i umph i n t heir lif etime.

It i s i mpos sible t o t ell from a l i mited study how wide-reaching the implications drawn he re are, but sever al striking general i zat ions can be made about the missionary community in Thailand. First the "Vint on Book" in t he r ecords of the Ame rican Board of Connnissioners for Foreign Missions shows t hat everyone of the missionaries sent to Thailand by that organ­ izati on were f rom the Burned-over Dist rict or New England . Without an extended study no one can unde rstand what other f or ce s ope rated on t he f uture missionaries , but existing recor ds, including their own written t estimony, document that t he paramount force was the extended r evi val which control led t heir for mative years. Sometime be tween the age of ten and fifteen each of these apostles was subject ed to a revival which altered t he ir future and t he r eli gi ous character of their community.33 Other missionary groups i n Thai land were near ly as homogeneous as the ABCFM .

A second generalization which can be made is that the Thailand miss i onarie s were a wel l ­ educated group . Al l but a few of t hem were college graduates who at tended t he best schools in New England at the height of the enl ightenment . Those who did not have bachelor 's degrees, like Dan Bradley, were self-educated men who qual ified for graduate educa tion .

A t hird generalization can be drawn about t he Thailand missionaries from t he views of them held by t heir contemporaries . Lay Westerners in Bangkok , a group which might have been uncomfortable in the presence of the missionaries , developed a lasting community of interest wi t h the apostles . Conflict between the two groups was minimal and the merchants and diplomats of Bangkok praised and respected their missionary colleagues . Even mo re important, however, the Thai people whose live s the missionaries had come to condemn and change, admired the Americans . In t he eyes of , Thailand's most famous king, t he missionaries were "just and upright men who never meddled" in the affairs of government . Research has shown that the missionary contribution t o Thailand was so basic that every Thai king since Mongkut has spoken glowingly of t he i r accomplishments . Such was the status of the Americans that the crown often used t hem as advisors i n negotiations with a foreign power, even the United St.aces . Never successful i n achieving converts, the Thailand missionaries were the best unofficial ambassadors America has ever had. Thai records reveal no "ug ly Americans" among the missionaries . This evidence supports the ~heory that the apostles were r ati onal, stable people who were evange lizing the world not 9 because th~y were themselves insecure, but because they had a great truth they wanted to share. 3

One reason for the high contemporary evaluation of the Thailand missionaries was the religion they preached. Never able to accept Christian mysticism, the Thai admired the practical standards and simple ideas of good and evil preached by Finney's disciples and herein lies a fourth generalization because Finney's theology remained the basic philoso­ phy of the missionaries while they were in Thailand. Except for a dispute over Finney's belief in "sanctification in this life," the letters, diaries and sermons of the Thailand missionaries show no basic departure from the theology that generated the missionary impulse. All could be saved and salvatio~ was aimed at the whole man. Furthermore, the interdenominational nature of the revivals of the Second Great Awakening was extended in Thailand. Before and after the perfectionist conflict, the several churches which com­ prised the missionary group in Thailand worked together harmoniously. Controversy was avoided at any cost. During the American Civil War when the missionaries split on their political loyalties, they limited their discussion of political subjects to English taxes and other esoteric subjects rather than risk a schism. Interdenominationalism, the salvation of all souls and the elevation of the whole man were still preached in Thailand long after they were no longer popular in the United States. Due to their isolation in the Orient their theology remained intact. The theological conservatism which gained con­ trol of the American church after the war never took root in Thailand until a third and fourth generation of apostles arrived in the Land of the White Elephant with them. 35

In conclusion then, the missionary impulse among the Thailand missionaries was a product of anti-Calvinistic revivals, Finney's humanism, intellectual and religious ferment and a transportation revolution which accelerated the process of change in 19th century America.

NOTES

David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), pp. 19-36. Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage Books, 1960).

The first eight Protestant missionaries to Thailand were Gutzlaff, Tomlin, Abeel, Robinson, Johnson, Bradley, Jones and Dean. Their stories have been recorded in David Abeel's Journal of a Residence in (New York: Leavitt, Lord and Company, l834); ,-unpublished-Yournal of twenty-five volumes; Pharcellus Church, Notices of the Life of Theodesia-Ann Barker Dean (: Heath, 1951); William Dean, TheChinaM"iSsiOn (New York:Sheldon, 1859); Karl Gutzlaff, Journal of Three Voyages Along the Coast of China, 1831-1833 (London: Thomas Ward, 1834?); ­ Eliza Jones, Memoirs~hiladelphia: American Baptist Publishing Company, 1853); Nancy Royce, A Sketch of the Life and Character of Mrs. Emelie Royce Bradley (New York: American Tract Society-,-n.d.); and Jacob Tomlin,-X MISsionary Journal (: Mission Press, 1832). The letters of Stephen Johnson and-Charles Robinson, the other two missionaries, were reprinted in various 19th-century pUblications. The manuscripts of their letters and those of their colleagues are on file at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. At least thirty of their colleagues had their memoirs published.

3/ William G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: From Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York: Ronald Press, 1957), p. 7.

Timothy Smith, Revivalism and So~ial Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), pp. 8, 16,-and 80 and Samuel Robbins to Rufus Anderson, May 30, 1838, in the unpUblished letters and papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Vol. III, number 9. 10

R. Pierce Beaver, introduction to To Advance the GOSP~: Selections From the Writings of Rufus Anderson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1 7), p. 17.

6/ Ibid., p. 13. and Donald C. Lord, Mo Bradley and Thailand (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 55.

The well-documented thesis is presented in John William Ward, Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age (Palo Alto: Stanford, 1957).

~ William G. McLoughlin (ed.) The American Evangelicals, 1800-1900 (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 2. 21 Ibid. Ibid., p. 3.

Ibid., pp. 4-5.

Ibid., pp. 5-11. Love as a motivating force appears in all the writings of the Thailand missionaries. Their views on this subject will be developed in the course of the paper. Thus to avoid redundancy they are not discussed here to support the thesis.

While this sounds much like the ideas of Frederick Jackson Turner, they are more derivative from John William Ward's Andrew Jackson and Whitney R. Cross, The Burned Over District (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950).

14/ For an entirely different picture of the frontier mind see Arthur K. Moore, The Frontier Mind (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1957).

Smith, p. 7.

Ibid., p. 103. and McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, pp. 5-6, 15-17. The best statement of the motivation of love is The Grand Motive to Missionary Effort, by one of the secretaries (S. L. Pomroy), Boston: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1853. (ABCFM Tract 13)

Cross, pp. 8, 18 and 27.

Bertha McFarland, McFarland of Siam (New York: Vantage Press, 1958), pp. 36-40.

George H. Feltus, Samuel Reynolds House of Siam (New York: Fleming Revel Company, 1924), pp. 25-29. ------­

Oliver Elsbree, Rise of the Missionary )Pirit in America (Williamsport, Pa.: Williams­ port Printing and Binding Company, 1928 , p. 25.

Kenneth Landon, Southeast Asia: Crossroads of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 166-167.---- -­

Dan Beach Bradley to Rufus Anderson, February 26, 1846, in Letters and Papers of the ABCFM, Vol. I, number 311; Stephen Johnson and Charles Robinson to the ABCFM, December 12, 1834, ibid., Vol. I, number 4; Lyman Peet to the ABCFM, undated report, ibid., Vol. II, number 19; BradJ.ey, January 8, 1836, May 14, 1837, and Tomlin, August 14, 1831, p. 42. See, R. Pierce Beaver, "Missionary, Motivation Through Three Centuries" in Reinterpretation in American Church History, ed. by Jerald C. Braner (Essays in Divinity, Vol. V), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 139-145. :l:l

Stephen Johnson, quoted in the Missionary Herald, Vol. XXXIII, 1837, p. ll2, and Daniel McGilvary, A Half Century Among the Siamese and Lao (New York: Fleming Revel Company, 1912) pp.-9-16. -­ - --

Royce, pp. 9-2l.

Ibid., p. 3l.

Samuel J. Smith in the Siam Repository, Vol. I, 1869, pp. 8-16.

Bradley, December 5, 1867; George Feltus (ed.) Abstract of the Journal of the Reverend Jesse Caswell (Troy, New York: Typewritten, 1831), June 10, 1846: David Abeel to ABCFM, undated letter published in the Missionary Herald, Vol. XXIX, 1833, p. 303; Stephen Johnson to ABCFM, annual report for 1836, published in ibid., Vol. XXXIII, 1837; Samuel Robbins to Rufus Anderson, April 30, 1839 in the Letters and Papers of the ABCFM, Vol., III, number 18.

Royce, pp. 122, 133-345; Bradley, November 26, 1836 and February 23, 1835 and Stephen Johnson to ABCFM, October 23, 1835, published in the Missionary Herald, Vol. XXXII, 1836, p. 181.

Paul Varg, Missionaries, Chinese and Diplomats (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), vii-viii. Varg's study is an excellent monograph using modern in­ sights from the social sciences without distorting them. For other excellent examples, see John William Ward, Andrew Jackson: Sf}bOl of an Age and Marvin Meyers The Jacksonian Peruasion (Palo Alto: Stanford, 1957. Royc~ pp. 17-19 and Hemingway to Rufus Anderson, April 6, 1859 in Letters and Papers of the ABCFM, Vol. I, paper number 356 .

Samuel Robbins to Rufus Anderson, December 1, 1838, ibid., Vol. III, paper number 29.

Elsbree, pp. 144-145.

Ibid., pp. 144-145.

The "Vinton Book," an unpublished manuscript, lists all the ABCFM missionaries and their earliest religious experiences.

34/ This subject has been covered elsewhere. See Donald C. Lord, "Missionaries, Thai and Diplomats," Pacific Historical Review, XXXV, (1966), pp. 413-431 and Donald C. Lord, "The King and the Apostle, ff South Atlantic Quarterly, LXVI, (1967), pp. 326- 340 .

Donald C. Lord, Mo Bradley and Thailand, Passim.

THE AUTHOR. Donald C. Lord received his undergraduate education at and his Ph. D. in history was awarded by Western Reserve University. He is Assistant Professor of History at Texas Women's University at Denton. Dr. Lord is the author of many articles and of Mo Bradley and Thailand. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) He has completed a biography of Emelie Royce Bradley.