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WHEN I was a boy in France
I saw the Scots, a people living in Britain, eating human flesh; and
although there were plenty of cattle at their disposal, yet they would
prefer a ham of the herdsman, or a slice of a woman’s breast." Such is the
testimony of St. Jerome, the greatest Christian scholar of the fourth
century, and it is a startling reminder to us that we have been brought up
"out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay." Like the Jews of old, to
whom it was said, "Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite,"
we also come of heathen parentage. We are, in fact, the children of
cannibals. It is a far cry from the fourth century to the twentieth, from
the cannibal mercenaries of Jerome’s day to the immortal 51st Division,
but it cannot be denied that the most potent factor in the evolution of
the Scottish people has been the coming to our land of Christian
missionaries, and the gradual saturation of the national character by the
truths of the Gospel. It would seem, therefore, a matter beyond dispute
that our foremost duty is to communicate to other less fortunate peoples
that living Word of God which has redeemed our own nation from the lowest
depths.
I
The question, however, has
been raised whether the need of the heathen world is as bitter as has been
represented, and whether the work of the Christian missionary is as
beneficial as its supporters claim. It is obvious that, unless these
doubts are resolved, men will not intelligently and wholeheartedly support
the Church’s work abroad, but will regard it as wasted energy.
It is conceded, of course,
that the heathen man, as well as the Christian, has his own natural
virtues. The filial piety of the Chinese, the sobriety of the Mohammedan,
the patience and good-humour of the African are notable illustrations. A
Bengal tea planter, looking down upon a picturesque village in Scotland,
suddenly exclaimed, with emphasis, "I have as many decent, honest,
hard-working folk in my tea garden as there are in that village." Such
people, doubtless, are to be found among the workers of every land, and
their natural goodness runs like a vein of gold through the whole earth.
Besides that, the vices of
Christendom have to be taken into account if a comparison is to be fairly
made. This is an aspect of the matter which the educated men of
non-Christian lands are pressing home upon us with increasing insistence.
They see Christendom with its drunkenness and prostitution, its white
slave trade, its war spirit, its mad race for riches and pleasure, and it
stands condemned in their sight. A recent writer says of the Chinese,
"They are not conscious of any moral superiority in Western civilisation.
They know the Cowgate and Broomielaw, Princes Street and Sauchiehall
Street, and these things are not found in China, except, perhaps, where
Westerners or Western industry have appeared. They meet some moral
temptations in Scotland in a form more difficult to overcome than in
China. That part of our life which we have been most nearly successful in
making Christian—our homes—they are seldom or never allowed to see."
Similarly, in many a quiet African village, decent heathen parents
bitterly deplore the degradation and corruption of their sons and
daughters in the mining cities. It may be taken, then, that throughout the
heathen world the moral superiority of Christendom is seriously
challenged, and the question is defiantly put, "What have you to teach us,
and wherein have you the better of us, except it be in the control of
material forces and the applications of science ?
We are not concerned to
deny these charges, nor do we hold a brief for the defence of Western
civilisation. Comparisons are invidious, and it may be freely granted that
there are sins and vices of Christendom which may put us all to shame. It
may even be granted that, as the corruption of the best is always the
worst, so the vices of Christendom may be more ingenious, more
thoroughgoing, more diabolically organised than those of heathenism. Human
nature is corrupt in all lands, and, but for the saving and restraining
grace of God, will bring forth everywhere the same evil fruit.
These considerations,
however, are really beside the point. The vital element of difference
between Christendom and the heathen world lies in this, that in the former
the powerful leaven of the Gospel is at work. As a consequence, public
opinion is largely on the side of Christian morality, the forces of
resistance to evil are alert and vigorous, the standards of life and
conduct are elevated, and, in general, the Christian ideals of law and
order, peace and sobriety, truth and honour, civic justice and universal
brotherhood, are in the ascendant, and are working steadily towards a
beneficent goal. In the heathen world almost the reverse is true. There is
not the same public opinion to keep evil in restraint, there is not the
same aspiration after betterment, but, on the contrary, a vast moral
paralysis which leads to a dull content with things as they are, however
gross the state of things may be. In Christendom the Gospel is at war with
vice and wickedness in every form; in heathenism abominable evils are
wrought under the sanction of religion. It is this profaning of religion,
this debasing of the highest, this awful desecration of the holy of
holies, which constitutes the blight of heathenism. It casts its deep
shadow over many lands, wrapping men’s souls in gross darkness till the
very windows of heaven are obscured and the light of life is lost.
II
If we consider somewhat
more in detail the religious and moral condition of the heathen world,
certain vital elements are seen to be lacking, which Christ alone can
supply. First may be noted a knowledge of the true God and of life
eternal. It is not going beyond the facts to speak of the average
heathen man as "having no hope and without God in the world." Doubtless,
even the lowest races have some conception of a divine Power over all, but
the conception is so dim, and that Power so remote, that in actual
practice it becomes negligible, and the worshipper’s immediate concern,
instead of being with this Power, is with his local or tribal gods, and
those fearsome spirits that haunt his home and beset his path. This is
equally true of the millions of India and China as of the lowest tribes of
darkest Africa. Any real conception of the Fatherhood of God such as sheds
a radiance over all Christian thought, any idea of man as the son of God
and the object of redeeming love such as ennobles Christian life, may be
said to be entirely lacking in heathenism. When the border line is
crossed, it is as if one left the sunshine and the free air of heaven to
wander in the gloomy depths of some haunted forest where there is no path
to guide the traveller’s steps and none can tell what fearful shapes may
be encountered.
It is this grim, unearthly
power of superstition which has given birth to all those rites of heathen
worship which seem so shocking to the Christian conscience. It is not the
sheer, unprovoked wickedness of the people which has produced these rites.
The real cause is deeper. They are the offspring of fear. They are the
ghastly fungus-growth which has sprung up in minds darkened by
superstition. These cruel rites are rather a measure of human misery than
of human wickedness. The merciless treatment meted out to witches in
Scotland a century or two ago has often been commented on as if it implied
great barbarity on the part of our ancestors, yet nothing is more certain
than that men to-day would act with the same ferocity if they were gripped
by the same fears. Nothing is so utterly unnerving, so apt to overwhelm
the mind with unreasoning and abject terror as the sense of a spiritual
enemy hovering near, unseen, impalpable, whom no weapon can injure nor
wall shut out, who can strike at will, and in the dark. Not even the
strongest mind could bear for long the strain of such a fear. The impulse
would become irresistible to strike out madly, or, giving up the unequal
contest, to grovel in abject submission, and yield obedience to the most
extreme demands. It is only when we realise the atmosphere of superstition
which pervades the heathen world that we are able to view with pity the
most dreadful rites and customs, and to see in them the desperate efforts
of burdened souls to ease themselves of an all-too-crushing load.
Such being man’s relation
to the unseen world, any one can appreciate in some degree the prevailing
religious gloom that has settled over heathenism. It has no real hope even
in death. The naked soul, driven from its home in the body, continues an
existence which is but a hollow mockery of life. It may hover feebly about
the grave, it may become a haunting object of dread to be warded off by
incantations from its former home, or, worst of all, it may be doomed to
return to earth again in an endless succession of lives in various shapes
of beast or bird or loathsome reptile. There is no bright prospect of a
heavenly home to cheer the weary, nor any hope of blessed reunion to
comfort the bereaved. Even Buddha, noblest of heathen sages, when he meets
a distracted mother cherishing in her arms the dead body of her baby, can
only bid her seek refuge from her sorrow by quenching love in her heart
and ceasing from all desire.
III
It is to be noted further
that the heathen world lacks a worthy standard of social morality.
Obviously there are great and manifest differences between the various
races and peoples. The South Sea Islander is not on the same moral plane
as the ancient nations of the East. Yet there is the overruling fact that
unregenerate human nature is the same all the world over, and it is
astonishing when the evidence is collected and compared, how strong are
the resemblances which emerge, and with what oppressive uniformity the
same dark tale comes from all heathen lands.
Instead of religion being
the bulwark of morality as in Christendom, the darkest crimes are
committed under its express sanction. Human sacrifice and the cannibal
feast are religious observances; so also is the lewd African dance and the
prostitution which, defiles the Hindu temple. And how callous it can be to
human suffering! A boat’s crew on Lake Nyasa, hearing the cries of a man
whose arm had been gripped by a crocodile, pulled near enough to see who
it was and then paddled off, leaving the unhappy wretch to his fate. Their
explanation simply was, "He did not belong to our village."
The same spirit is seen in
the oppression of the weak. Think of the inhuman treatment meted out to
slaves, women, and children ! Only the Great Day will reveal all that they
have suffered. Slavery is an institution which has the fullest religious
sanction in heathen countries. Under it millions have been forcibly
deprived of all their essential rights as human beings, unnumbered homes
have been desolated, vast territories have been laid waste, and
unspeakable atrocities committed. All this without any protest or sense of
revulsion in any quarter outside Christendom.
And what of the
disabilities imposed upon woman? Throughout the whole of the East her
inferior position has been notorious. Everywhere she has been, more or
less, at the disposal of her husband, frequently to be beaten and tortured
without remedy, or even, as in parts of Africa and the South Seas, to be
buried alive in her husband’s grave. It was only the intervention of the
British Government in India which put an end to the hideous custom of
Sati, according to which the Hindu widow, with solemn religious ceremony,
was burned alive on her husband’s funeral pyre.
The children also, like the
women, are regarded as having no personal rights. When they are born it is
for their parents to say whether or not they shall be suffered to live.
Accordingly the custom of infanticide is widespread. The work of Mary
Slessor in West Africa has recently given prominence to the fact that in
that region the birth of twins is regarded as a curse, and the poor
infants are flung down in the forest to die, but there has long been
evidence from many quarters of the fearful amount of child murder
prevailing in Africa. The record of India and China is far from clean. In
certain provinces of India, even under British government, the death-rate
among female infants is suspiciously high; while the pathetic fact has
often been commented on that there are "no children’s graves in China."
Now such things are
possible, because the heathen world has never enjoyed the inspiration of
an adequate moral impulse. It has never been quickened by any conception
of a progressive advance of the race. Such an idea is distinctively
Christian, and is of immense moral value. It kindles hope, inspires moral
effort, and underlies all social reform. In a word, it gives the assurance
that life is worth living, that service and sacrifice shall not be in
vain. It is not so with the great heathen world. To it life appears as a
weary round, a path that leads nowhere, or if it reach the end it is but
to make a fresh beginning. "As it was in the beginning, and is now, so
shall it ever be," is the supreme law of life. And thus, finding
themselves bound to the great wheel of existence, men surrender to fate,
but are left without incentive and without hope either for themselves or
for posterity. Is it to be wondered at that under such conditions these
peoples are unprogressive ? What they lack is the moral stimulus of a
great ideal. Only when they come into contact with Christian civilisation
do they begin to waken up, as throughout the East to-day. But left to
himself, the Indian ryot and the Chinese coolie plods along as patiently
enduring as the oxen he drives, with but little to purify and uplift his
soul. Surely, when imagination brings to view some vision of those dim
millions, faring onward under auspices so dark, one cannot but be touched
with a sense of the mystery of life and the unutterable pathos of it all,
and breathe a prayer that upon them also the Sun of Righteousness would
arise with healing in His wings.
IV
In the light of all these
facts, it surely becomes our urgent and paramount duty as Christians to
spread through the whole world that light which by the infinite grace of
God has come to us, and to this duty the Church has gradually been
awakening during the last century and a half. Two other objections,
however, have been raised, which it may be well to deal with briefly. On
the one hand it is maintained that all that is needed is to let the
natural forces of Western civilisation operate upon the lower races, and
on the other hand it is alleged that in actual practice missions have been
a failure, because, in popular phraseology, "the missionary spoils the
native."
With regard to the first
point, it must be borne in mind that Western civilisation is a composite
of very various and diverse elements, but its living principle is
Christian and its finest fruits are Christian. No one would deny that by
good government, education, honest commerce, and the like, Western
civilisation has done much for the uplift of the world. But its influence
has also in many respects been baneful. Too often it has meant merely the
exploiting of the native, the ruin of native life, and even the
extermination of whole tribes. It has carried in its train strange
diseases, it has given birth to forced labour, the mining compound, and
many of the worst evils of industrialism. Some of the darkest pages in the
history of Western civilisation are those which record the white man’s
dealings with native races. Had it not been for the restraints imposed by
Governments, under the strong pressure of Christian opinion, there can be
little doubt that these races would have gone down before the advance of
the white man or been reduced to a state of permanent servitude. Here, as
elsewhere, the Gospel is the saving salt, and a challenge may confidently
be issued to those who believe in the regenerating power of Western
civilisation to produce even a single instance where any people, apart
from the influence of Christian truth, has received a moral uplift.
In the light of what has
just been said, it is easy to estimate at its true value the second
allegation that "the missionary spoils the native." It would be strange
indeed if it were true, but its absurdity is manifest the moment it is put
to the proof. It is not, of course, a question of the efficiency of any
individual missionary or mission method, but of the value of the whole
work. That missions spoil the native has never been alleged by any
responsible government, by any competent educationist acquainted with the
facts, or by any one interested in the welfare of these peoples. The
charge comes from the colonist, the white trader, the man who regards the
native population only as so much black labour, and has no interest in
anything but making what he is pleased to call "a white man’s country." It
may be frankly admitted that for him and from his point of view missions
do tend to spoil the native. If the policy be to keep the native
under, to retain him for ever in the position of a hewer of wood and a
drawer of water to the white man, then to educate him, to teach him a
trade, above all, to quicken his soul with Christian truth, is to spoil
him utterly. But that this policy of repression is hopelessly wrong, and
would be disastrous if carried out, needs no showing. The millions of
coloured men will not be for ever exploited and kept under. To attempt to
do so is simply to sit on the lid of the boiler and invite a terrific
explosion.
The history of our own
country is fitted to teach us a better way. Many landowners and employers
in the past were bitterly opposed to education and social reform. All that
was necessary, in their view, was to teach the common people to keep their
place, that is, as underlings. Had that fatal policy prevailed, as it did
prevail before the War in Russia, the Scottish people of today, maddened
and brutalised, might have equalled the worst excesses of the Bolshevists,
and drenched their native land in blood. But, happily for us, a wiser and
more Christian policy was followed, a steady policy of enlightenment and
emancipation and progress.
The position in regard to
the lower races is very similar, and needs to be handled with the utmost
care and Christian wisdom. It is idle to conceal from ourselves the fact
that a world-wide crisis is approaching, if it be not already upon us. The
dominance of the white race is seriously challenged, and demands are being
made which it becomes increasingly difficult to resist. For Christians, at
least, it is impossible to go on preaching the universal Fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of all mankind, and at the same time acquiesce in the
permanent subjection of any people. What solution will be found for the
great racial problem, none of course can predict. It may be that, as the
dominance of Rome had to be broken and her prestige had to pass away to
make room for the community of nations in modern Europe, even so the
dominance of the white man may be doomed to pass and give place to a
world-wide community of all the races of mankind. And it may be also that,
as Rome’s most precious gift to modern Europe was the preservation and
handing on of the treasure of the Gospel, so the white man’s greatest
service to humanity may be the sending forth of that same Gospel to be the
light of every land. These high issues are in the hand of God, but the
present duty is clear. If the Kingdom of Heaven is ever to come on the
earth and the brotherhood of man to be realised, then we must publish
abroad the Gospel to all nations. For there is no rallying centre for the
broken fragments of the human race save in the Cross, nor any hope of
stable progress but under the leadership of Christ. |
