R. Ray Eldred: I bring you greetings from Africa. I wish to talk half a minute about Bolenge. From the beginning of 1899 until now Bolenge has grown to be a marvelous land. The first convert was baptized in November, 1903. Since then 757 have been baptized. And from a small beginning of a few cents given, a very poor people have grown in liberality until in one single year they have given $969 for missions. Last year it was our opportunity as a mission to begin the new station at Longa. This was through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Lascell, who gave $10,000 to make this great work possible. In October it was our privilege, with Dr. Jaggard and others, to go in canoes four days up to Longa. Seven months have passed since we left the Congo, and they have to-day a membership at Longa of 102. Thirty-eight have been baptized in Longa and Longa Territory. And they gave in that seven months over $57 for missions. Christian friends, you do not know the good it is doing. Perhaps you never can know. I wish to state one thing, that the field is great.

      Mrs. R. J. Dye: We only do what is our duty to do and our great pleasure to do. If we did not do what we could, whether in writing of books or in healing the sick, or in preaching the gospel, or in teaching school, we would be afraid that while we are preaching to others we ourselves might be castaways. What do you think? Has each one of you in this great audience to-day done your share? If you have not, then you will be called to account. While you may be preaching the gospel at home you yourself may be a castaway. Think of the scores of young people in this [122] great Convention. How many of you will lay your lives on the altar during the sessions of this Convention, that you may go forth and do likewise in this most great, glorious service? And how many of you older ones love the Lord's work, and with your hands and the Lord's money in your pockets--how many will send them forth?

      Mr. A. F. Hensey: The true test of any missionary work is not the kind of missionary which it turns out, but the type of native church. And so I come this morning only to remind you of the splendid apostolic church at Bolenge, the most apostolic in all the whole brotherhood. And I come to remind you of that splendid band of native evangelists sent out and supported by that church who go through swamp and jungle at the risk of life in order that their brethren in the region beyond may have the precious word of our God. And so this morning my only word to you is that you may give a larger support to these men who have wrought so nobly and suffered so splendidly that our Christ may be exalted in the Congo land. I thank you.

      Mrs: Hensey: The message I would like to give you this morning is very short. Do you know as much about Bolenge as Bolenge knows about you? You ought to know all you possibly can, and there is just now a broad means of informing yourself, and with the broader information will come a great inspiration. And then follow it out consistently and pray for the work there. Do everything you can do. At least, every person can pray for that work. The information you have will give you the inspiration of these prayers.

      Mr. R. S. Wilson: I am to tell my reason for going to Africa. It is this: Jesus Christ in his inspired Word has commanded that we should go and make disciples of all nations, and as God has blessed me with health and strength, and as he is providing the means, what excuse can I offer for not going and devoting my life to the salvation of those who sit in darkness? And as I stand here this morning, my great desire is that as I go into the new field I may do nothing that will bring shame upon the church which so loyally volunteers to support me and the society under which I shall labor, but that my labor shall be blessed of God, and that as I labor there from time to time the many of those who to-day are bowing the knee to idols of wood and stone may by my labors soon bow the knee down to the true and living God. I thank God this morning for the privilege of this. Dear Lord, I offer my life upon the altar of service. Let me live, let me labor and let me die, if need be, that the name of Jesus Christ may be extolled in the dark continent of Africa.

      Mr. Meigs: Now is our opportunity as a people in China if we expect to preserve our identity, or, what is better, if we expect that the plea for which we stand shall find a permanent entrance among the Christian people in China. It has come to be recognized by missionaries in China as a fact, that modern denominationalism can never meet the same degrees of success that it has attained in this country. There are many evidences of that. First and most important of all the evidences is, that the people are beginning to unite. Missionaries are beginning to say all over China, among all the denominations, that it is futile for us to attempt the establishment of our modern denominationalism among the Chinese. The Chinese are beginning to demand independence of thought and independence in government, I mean in church government, and already they are organizing to bring about that condition of things. The missions themselves have begun to organize and unite. So that at the present time all of the denominations in China representing the same kind of government and the same faith, have already united, so far as organization is concerned, and federation is universal or coming to be universal in China. This is the day of our opportunity.

      Miss Edna P. Dale: There is one message to-day which helps the heart of every missionary from China, and that is the message of her great awakening and the wonderful possibilities of Christian work because of this awakening. The changes are coming rapidly in [123] China to-day, for China no longer is asleep. She is no longer the sleeping giant; she is awake and she is moving. Mr. Clinton, of the Y. M. C. A., says China has changed more in the last five years than any other nation in all history has been known to change within a quarter of a century. Great material changes are coming all over China, railroads are being built, telegraphs extended even to the Tibetan foothills. The Chinese are sending abroad their students to all the countries of the world, that they may study politics, that they may study public-school systems, that they may prepare themselves by taking courses in schools of technical training to go back to China and give to China the best the world has. What does it mean, dear friends, to us that China is thus awake? It means this: the greatest responsibility, the greatest opportunity that the church in her whole history has faced. God has opened China to us, she is before us, we can reach her, we can give to her to-day the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is possible for us to undertake on a large scale the evangelization of China to-day as never before. Shall we be true to the opportunities and the responsibilities which rest upon us? A few years ago Japan was at the same critical stage in her development that China stands in to-day. She was reaching out for civilization, for enlightenment, and she got these things, but she did not get Christianity as she should have done, and the result is to-day that Japan is largely atheistic, and Japan is making it harder for us to win China to Christ.

      H. P. Shaw: Down in Shelbyville, Ind., some time ago, I heard a man say that he would not give twenty-five cents for the preaching of the gospel in heathen lands. But I thank God that we have Grandmother Lee, whom God has used for the salvation of three hundred souls, and that is the difference between the Lees and twenty-five-cent species of such a man. Jesus Christ is writing his name on these heathen lands. What are we doing to help him?

      Mrs. C. S. Weaver: It is wonderful to be a woman now and over across the seas to have a threshold of your own, a little kingdom over which you are head and queen, all yours, in the villages with vast scores of people who know not Christ. I would let my life so shine that by it my Father in heaven may be glorified. I hope all the mothers and fathers here will take this little Centennial gift home to your children, and thereby remember Japan and the missionaries in Japan. Pray that, with the knowledge of American food and dress, for which they seek, we may give them Christ.

      Miss Rose Armbruster: While we are celebrating this glorious Centennial, over in the Sunrise Kingdom our friends are celebrating the jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionary in Japan. And when you look over the work that has been done in Japan in the last fifty years, you may appreciate what the Japanese people mean to this world. As has been said on this platform, Japan is influencing China. Japan is now strongly atheistic. The students in her schools have given up the worship of the old gods because they do not harmonize with the scientific knowledge that they have received, and so they are in despair. Every year there is a roll-call of from one to five hundred suicides, mostly young men students, who despair of the life in which they find themselves. Others are coming to the missionaries and asking the way of truth and life, and there is a great need for us to go there and teach them the way of the cross.

      W. D. Cunningham: "As goes America, so goes the world," may be true, but, "As goes Japan, so goes the Orient," we know to be true. I had no choice in going there; that is, I blame no one, because I was compelled to choose between going as an independent worker in Japan or remaining at home. I believe the Lord has blessed me in those seven years in Japan, and I am going back this month for another seven-years' term, and I want to thank all here who have helped to support the work that has been carried on there.

      Miss Bertha Clawson: A father was exhorting his son to greater efficiency in service and to higher nobility of character. Emulating the poet [124] Longfellow, he quoted in stilted terms and stately measure:

      "Why, father," said the twentieth-century son, "who wants to leave footprints in this day and age of the world?" "And what do you want to leave?" said the father, in rather subdued tones. "Tracks," bawled the son. "It is my ambition to leave tracks of my ninety-horse-power motor on the sands of time." My friends, in the interest of the Christian religion in the Far East, I stand before you this morning. I tell you that I sympathize with that son and appreciate his ambition. The day is passed when we as a people should be content with leaving mere footprints. The day has come when we must begin, not to make tracks, but to leave tracks in the wake of our work.

      I present before you this morning the cause of Christian education among women in the Sunrise Kingdom of Japan. And it is our burning ambition to leave behind us tracks in the wake of our work. Let me tell you a little about our girls' school. The school was begun four years ago in a little eight-room dwelling-house that accommodated us for two years. We now have a new building, a fine new building that is heated by gas and lighted by electricity, and we can accommodate in our dormitories one hundred girls. Our classrooms will accommodate twice as many more day pupils. We have a fine laboratory and a fine gymnasium with no equipment, but we do not despair, because this must come. And we have a chapel which is the joy and delight of our hearts.

      Mr. Hagin: Dear friends, I have come from Tokyo, a city of two million, the center of the universe, the very soul of things diplomatic and commercial and educational in all the Orient. We have representatives from India and Siam and the Philippines and China, and they come up to Tokyo to see how to do things, and we teach them how. We have a hundred thousand students there in our schools.

      Things are greatly changing in Japan. They are teaching the English language in Japan. Children are studying the English language in the primary grades. It is sometimes bewildering and amazing to see them talk and study in English. I heard of an engineer one time who introduced himself as a locomotive. Another man had on his laundry sign, "This is where we wash ladies inside and out. Fifty cents a dozen." They are studying English in Japan, and especially in Tokyo.

      We think Japan is a Christianized ration. They tell me in its policies it is as Christian as any of the so-called Christian lands. But when you consider that there are two great temples to every believer in the land and one idolatrous priest for every two Christians in the land, there remains much land to be possessed. We are going to send our youngest as a medical missionary some day to China. We came here with her from Japan. She has been doctoring her dolls for years, and I forewarned the secretary that she will make application. She says that when she grows up to be big she is going to marry a preacher and he has got to promise that he will go out as a missionary.

      Melvin Menges: We come from a part of the world that is frequently afflicted with revolutions. And we have learned to believe in revolutions. Since we went there we have become revolutionists ourselves. We are trying to effect a revolution. Revolutions grow slowly, but we are trying to produce a revolution that will mean something and will be lasting. Cuban people, above all else, need the gospel of Jesus Christ. Civil and political liberty is a failure unless it is founded on Christianity, and we believe in the revolution of the missionaries in Cuba. They are the true revolutionists, and their work is worth more than interventions and troops and all the other political machinery that our Government has sent there.

      J. H. Versey: I bring to you this morning greetings from England. And we are delighted to have the Restoration movement in that country. We are but few workers there, but I want to [125] say that we are moving all England, and that soon we shall see the work of God united, which we are praying earnestly, working faithfully and seeking to bring about. For twenty-five years I have longed to come to one of these Conventions. When W. T. Moore brought me to Christ, he told me of the great work in this country and of these great gatherings on this side, and I said: I want to see one. For I believe they forecast the grandest movement in the world, and I believe the American people know that movement, and I believe it is so great that they know and believe that the whole world is indeed to be brought into that oneness in Christ Jesus our Lord.

      G. W. Brown: I am glad to be here, and I am glad to be able to go back and tell the people of India how you have turned out in this immense gathering, inspired by the love of Christ, to encourage us to go back to our great work. We have more than twice as many people in India to preach the gospel to as we have Disciples of Christ in America, and nobody else preaching to those people. Every one of you is responsible for these two souls in India, and I am trying to do my best along with others to bring the gospel to these people. I have charge of our Bible school there, and my work is to prepare the Christian young men and women of that country to carry the work to their fellow-people. I wish you would come over into our booth and see a picture of a young man and a young woman, who are now going out to preach the gospel after they have been through the college of Jubbulpore. And one interesting thing is that this young woman was baptized by Mr. McLean, when he was in India some years ago on a visit. Now, she is out there teaching her fellow-countrywomen, and in that way Mr. McLean is in one more way carrying the gospel to a heathen land.

      E. W. Pease: Jesus told us in the parable about sowing good seed in good ground. We know that good seed will bear good fruit. Much depends on the soil. But He also said, "Go preach the gospel to every nation," which command not only includes China and Africa and Japan and India and the Philippines, but also the little new-born nation of Norway. When I was over at the other hall, Mr. Rains asked me to speak a little of the difficulties of Norway. In Norway we have a state church, and if you are not baptized in infancy into that state church you are called a heathen. Therefore I am a heathen and my children are heathen. Therefore we have heathen missions. And I think it is a pretty good place to preach, because when we come to preach heathen missions we are going to strike something.

      I want to say that there are difficulties. The state church on the one side, and many theories and dogmas on the other. But I can say that the state church is breaking away more and more. The door is being opened wider and wider, and in another decade the doors will be opened and the best entrance to Europe will be through Norway. But there are difficulties. Tongue-speakers on the one side, people that are spiritually raised with Christ on the other. The people that are spiritually raised with Christ say they are no more in the body, they are no more upon the earth, they are resurrected, they have no feeling of any sort; they say they can cut themselves and they do not feel it, and everything is spiritualized and no more in the body. Other people go around and preach against organization, and preach that we should be free of all these things. So that we have to contend with all these difficulties, but the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes it. Pray for Norway. I do not want this assembly to forget that little nation there, but I want you to pray until you get, not only what you give, but ten times as much.

      H. P. Williams: I feel like taking advantage of this occasion to assume a quasi representative status, and thank the American brotherhood, on behalf of some forty Filipino churches, for their magnificent gift of $25,000 to establish a school for evangelists at Vigan. That you may know that the Filipino people [126] appreciate any efforts in their behalf to bring to them the advantages of civilization and the treasures of truth, I would say that at the present time in Drake University, Des Moines, there are six of our young brethren, who have come at their own charges to America, by way of the Vigan College, to perfect their education in America, that they may return to be evangelists and doctors and professional men among their own people.

      Now, there are a great many things that I could say. As an illustration of what the gospel does along all lines of human progress, I may say that I was visiting the justice of the peace, who is not a member, but is a friend. He took me out to his Manila plantation, far up on the mountains. He said that formerly that plantation could not be developed, because the people would not come out and work; they were afraid of the evil spirits that were supposed to inhabit the trees and mountains and streamlets, but as soon as the Protestants had come to the town, they were not afraid of the evil spirits and would come out and work. One of the preachers in that town was formerly a bandit, and a devotee of the cock-pit. He took his favorite cock rooster, killed him, plucked him, and invited the brethren to enjoy eating him.

      Fraternal delegates who brought greetings to the Convention are as follows: A. C. Rankine, D. A. Ewers, G. B. Moysey, Thomas Hagger and Mrs. Margaret Bagnall, all of Australasia; Prof. K. Ishikawa, of Drake College, Tokio, Japan; Alexander Ying Lee, of China; Canuto Farinas, of the Philippines: Frank and Mrs. Coop, Eli Brearley, J. H. Versey and Leslie W. Morgan, of England.

[CCR 122-127]