THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF ASIA dfcorse Xectures 1893 THE PLACE OF CHRIST IN MODERN THEOLOGY. By Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D. 8vo, $2.50. 1894 THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. By Rev. William Elliot Griffis, D.D. 12mo, $2.00. 1895-THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN. By Professor John M. Tyler. 12mo, $1.75. 1898 THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF ASIA. By Rev. John Henry Barrows, D.D. 12mo, $1.50. THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF ASIA STUDIES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF ORIENTAL RELIGIONS tbe /!Ror0e ^lectures of 1898 BY JOHN HENEY BAKKOWS, D.D. PRESIDENT OF OBERLIN COLLEGE ; HASKELL LECTURER ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO; BARROWS LECTURER FOR INDIA AND JAPAN, 189C-9T ; AUTHOR OF "CHRIS TIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION," ETC. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 1899 BL EMMANUa COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY REV. K. S. MACDONALD, D.D. OF CALCUTTA THE EXPERIENCED MISSIONARY, TRUSTED COUNSELLOR BROAD-MINDED CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL FRIEND I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME WITH HAPPY AND GRATEFUL MEMORIES OF INDIA PREFACE THE Christian Conquest of Asia began with the com the first of His ing of Jesus Christ and proclamation has not been the chief Gospel, but the great continent arena for the working of the Christian forces which the world s Saviour set in motion. Christianity, which became made such rapid conquests in Asia Minor, its mis stereotyped dogmatically and ecclesiastically; after a few centuries sionary energies were dried up, and it came into conflict with the more aggressive monothe ism of Islam. The last hundred years have witnessed the efforts of the purer and more life-giving Christian to re-enter the wide Asiatic ity of Europe and America world. India, China and Japan had, at various times, been fields for missionary activities, but those efforts and sometimes were sporadic, were often unspiritual, were almost completely stamped out. Since the fourth, there has been a Chris and possibly an earlier century, tian church in India, but it never possessed the elements and ancient needed to grapple with the various strong systems of non-Christian faith. Until Protestant missionary work, with its schools, its hospitals, its purer ideals and its aggressive energy, made its way into Western Asia, and into the lands of the East and Far East, the Asiatic world may almost be said to have missed any accurate knowledge of that which is apostolic type of the Christian religion pure X PREFACE and vigorous enough to command the world s future. The results already achieved, not only in the making of converts, but particularly in the improvement of social conditions, the lifting up of new ideals, the removal of gross abominations, and the purifying and energizing of the non-Christian systems, have been such that no Christian, widely and accurately acquainted with these early victories, is justified in a pessimistic outlook into the Christian future of Asia. The Christian literature which vindicates Christian optimism in regard to Asia is encyclopaedic, and should enter into the minds of millions in Europe and America who are now ignorant and indifferent. Asiatic Chris tians themselves are recognizing their opportunity and responsibility, and are coming, through the agency of daring "Western enterprise like that represented by the Students Volunteer Movement, into a spiritual fed eration. What are yet to become national churches, perhaps not in the European sense, but in a deeper and truer sense, are beginning to emerge in India and Japan. The following lectures will make it plain that I do not cherish any expectations of the swift evangelization of countries where such proud and tough-fibred relig ions as Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism have held but there are long sway ; many evidences that the East is being penetrated by Western thought, is coining into fellowship with the Western Christian spirit of brotherhood, and, when Christendom is more thoroughly unified and Christianized, and pur sues its aggressive missionary work with more wisdom and sympathy, I have no doubt that the acceptance of the Christian Gospel will be far more wide and rapid. PREFACE xi National isolation lias given way in the last half cen not Great tury to a commercial cosmopolitanism ; only Britain, but also Russia, Germany, France and the United States are compelled to have regard for the life of distant peoples. America, perhaps the chief com mercial, political and moral power of the second half of the twentieth century, has been providentially forced out of its sluggish self-satisfaction into vitally intimate connection with the world of Asia. The echoes of Admiral Dewey s artillery from the harbor of Manila have brought the Asiatic peoples seven thousand miles nearer to many Americans than ever before. The United States possesses at the present hour stepping- stones for its commercial and moral pathway across the Pacific. The peoples of Asia, the Chinese and Japanese and Hindus, with whom America will be brought into closest relations, represent, not only half the human race, but also very much of the intellectual and moral possibilities of the future. If the Chinese Empire is to undergo dismemberment American sympathies will go out to those European nations participating therein, which represent popular education, open commerce, even-handed justice and a true toleration. I deem it very fortunate that these lectures go to the public at a time when the American mind, I may add, the Christian mind generally, is more open than ever before to the vast possibilities of the Asiatic peoples. One result of the international Religious Congress, held in Chicago in 1893, has undoubtedly been that the re ligious systems of the Orient are more real, less vague, and remote to the minds of western peoples. We have come to a truer appreciation of the good, as well as of faiths realize that it is the evil, inherent in those ; we Xll PREFACE no task to holiday supplant them with something better; we perceive that one of the best missionary agencies in the Orient, is the spirit of brotherhood and Christian we are that sympathy; learning our western theologies cannot be bodily transplanted into the soil of the Asiatic mind we are ; discovering that our missionaries should have the amplest possible equipment for their glorious work, and we are seeing clearly that one of the chief hinderances to Christian expansion in Asia, is the im perfect, and sometimes thoroughly evil character of those nominal Christians, in the cities of Asia, from whom China India, and Japan get their strongest im pressions of what Christianity really is. Since my return from the East and Far East in May, 1897, 1 have delivered more than two hundred addresses in various parts of the country, in which I have set forth some of the impressions and conclusions which are found in this volume. These lectures were on the Morse Foundation of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, and were delivered in the Adams Chapel in the winter of 1898. I desire here, gratefully, to acknowl edge the very kind reception accorded me by President Charles Cuthbert Hall and the other officers of the Seminary. The present book is a supplement to my " previous works, The History of the World s Parliament of " the Keligions," Christianity World Eeligion," and a volume of travels called " The World Pilgrimage." My own spirit has been refreshed and I trust widened what I have seen by and learned in the last five years, and my own faith in the possibilities of the Gospel, as interpreted by modern evangelical scholarship, has been greatly strengthened. This volume be may deemed the literary completion PREFACE xiii of my connection with the Parliament of Eeligions, a connection which began in 1891, with my appointment as Chairman of the General Committee on Keligious Congresses for the Columbian Exposition. This ap pointment was made by the Hon. Charles C. Bonney, LL.D., the originator and president of the whole series of world-meetings. It is a pleasure to close these pref atory words, with a renewed expression of my appre ciation of the great service which President Bonney has rendered to human enlightenment, and of my deep admiration for the comprehensive wisdom and ability with which he conceived and carried out the memorable series of World Congresses, which were the crowning glory of the Exposition. JOHN HENRY BARROWS. OBEBLIN, OHIO, January 7, 1899. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTEE I PAGE BEGINNING AT JEKUSALEM; OK, CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM 1 Founded on the Asia, the continent of diversities. Christianity Asiatic. older Judaism. Early Christian conquests carried forward by the Jews. Evidence Ubiquity of the Jew in Asia and in History. Israel, the supreme world the of of Christianity. Reasons for entering the Asiatic by gate Jerusalem. Intimacies of Judaism and Christianity. Four chief facts in A A Suf Jewish history: (1) A Chosen Nation ; (2) Separated People; (3) The Messianic Contrasts of Judaism with fering People ; (4) People. the of a Christianity. The Cross, a stumbling-block to the Jew, symbol world-conquering Faith. CHAPTEE II THE CEOSS AND THE CRESCENT IN ASIA 27 Prevalence and dominance of Islam in the Orient. The Turk and Islam. Ameer Ali s defence of Turkish atrocities. A wide survey of Moham medanism. Connections with the Bible. Pere Hyacinthe s eulogy of Is lam. Rise of Mohammedanism. Life and character of the Prophet. De generacy of Mohammed s later years. His fundamental truth. Conquests of the Crescent. The Koran and the Bible. Strength of Islam. Sins of Christendom. Jesus and Mohammed. Perfection of the Christianity of Christ. Islamic reform impossible.