The Foreign Society has borne an honorable part in the achievements of the century. Sixty-six of these eventful years had passed before its birth. At that time the Disciples of Christ did not have a single missionary in any heathen land. Like the Master, whom it seeks to serve, this society began in an humble way. He was born in a stable and cradled in a manger; this society was born in the basement of the First Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., and cradled in the storeroom of the Standard Publishing Company. It was a noble company of Spirit-filled men who gathered in that lower room thirty-four years ago. There was a sense of the divine presence, a conviction that they were helping to work out the eternal purpose of God. In the early years its policy was exceedingly conservative. The members of the Executive Committee used boxes and windows for chairs, and the clerk used his knee for a desk. Ten years passed before a secretary was employed for full time. While money came in slowly, it was a greater problem to find men. Seven years went by before workers were sent into the heathen field. In the meantime, work was begun in Europe, because men were willing to go there and the openings seemed providential. The first workers were sent to England through the influence of Timothy Coop, who was ready to contribute liberally to such a mission. H. E. Earl went over in 1876, and was followed by M. D. Todd and W. T. Moore in 1878. Other able men have served this mission.

G. L. BUSH.

Twenty churches have been organized with 2,300 members, and valuable church property has been secured. These English churches have contributed to our American work a number of our best pastors and evangelists, and have furnished eight missionaries for India and China and a like number for the West Indies.

      The Scandinavian mission was also opened in 1876. Dr. A. Holck was sent to Copenhagen. He built up a strong church there and led in the erection of the best Dissenting house of worship in the city. There are two congregations in Denmark, two in Sweden and twenty in Norway. The total membership is about fifteen hundred. G. N. Shishmanian and wife went to Constantinople in 1879. He taught the people publicly and from house to house. Churches were organized, schools were opened and the gospel preached extensively throughout the empire. Other men were sent into this field, but political conditions hindered this mission.

      During the seven years of fruitful [153] service in Europe there was much dissatisfaction at home because no mission had been established on heathen soil. The Convention of 1881 urged the speedy founding of such a mission. The following year, 1882, marks the beginning of real heathen missionary effort upon the part of the Disciples of Christ. So it was not until after seventy-three years of pleading for Christian union among the religious bodies of America and Europe, that we were led to begin the evangelization of the nations where Christ had not been named. India was the first field of such endeavor. G. L. Wharton and Albert Norton and their families were appointed to open this mission. The Indian mission is located in the Central Provinces, and has grown until the force now numbers thirty-four missionaries and 140 native helpers. There are eight churches and 852 converts. The Bible schools are teaching 2,036 children and there are 1,383 pupils in the day schools. The eight hospitals treat 60,000 patients annually. The two orphanages are caring for 213 children, and there are ninety-four inmates in the two leper asylums. Twenty-three young men are in the Lathrop Cooley Bible College at Jubbulpore. The converts have a mission of their own at Kota, twenty miles from Bilaspur. They support and direct it, and are thus being trained for the task of evangelizing their own people. Japan was entered in 1883. C. E. Garst, G. T. Smith and their families were the pioneers there. The force now numbers thirty-one missionaries and sixty-eight native helpers. The gospel is preached regularly at forty-one places. There are nineteen churches and 1,620 members. There are 2,417 pupils in the twenty-five Bible schools. Thirty-three young men are in the Drake Bible College at Tokyo. The Woman's College was opened in 1906, and is proving a great blessing. Dr. W. E. Macklin founded the China mission in 1886. The force has increased to forty-three missionaries and 128 native helpers, making this our largest force in the heathen field. There are ten churches and 714 converts. The four hospitals treat about 50,000 patients annually. Fifteen young men are studying for the ministry. E. E. Faris and H. N. Biddle sailed for the Congo country twelve years ago. They located at Bolenge, seven hundred miles from the mouth of the river and exactly on the Equator. Dr. Biddle died before the station was opened, and Royal J. Dye and wife were sent out to reinforce Mr. Faris. This work has been the marvel of all our missionary enterprises. From darkest Africa, out of unspeakable heathenism, a church of Christ has been born that stands forth as a great light in the dense darkness surrounding it. This church has 561 members, who come from fifty towns and villages. There are fifty native evangelists. Every nine members support the tenth as a missionary in the regions beyond. The Bible school enrolls 1,500 pupils and the Endeavor society has 900 members. The missionaries had to give these people an alphabet. The Gospels and some of the Epistles have been translated. A hymn-book and some school-books have been prepared. There are seven hundred inquirers at one preaching-place. In one village the people threatened to tell God on the missionary if he passed them by. A new station has been opened at Longa. Oregon gives the much-needed steamer, and the Bible College is assured.

      Cuba was entered in 1899. Work is maintained in two stations. The Cubans are nominally Christians, but have little of its grace and power.

      Two families were sent to the Philippines in 1901. From the beginning this has been a most fruitful field. There are thirty-four churches and 3,000 members. One church with but ninety members has twenty young preachers. There are 171 native evangelists. While our colleges at home are praying for ministerial students, the young preachers in the Philippines are praying for a Bible College. This prayer will soon be answered.

      In 1903, Dr. Susie Rijnhart and Dr. and Mrs. Shelton went to the borders of Tibet. The workers now number four and are located at Batang, the most remote mission station on the globe.

      Our work goes forward on four continents and in thirteen countries. We have 167 missionaries and 594 native helpers in our forty-eight stations and 128 out-stations. The organized churches [154] number 117, and there are 10,435 native Christians. Some have died in the faith, some have moved away, others have gone back to the old life. There were 1,314 converts the past year. The Philippines led with 550, Japan 244, Africa 216, India 162, China 92 and Cuba 44. There are 130 Bible schools with 7,789 pupils, and sixty-two schools and colleges with 3,669 students. The patients treated in the seventeen hospitals numbered 127,882. There are 149 students for the ministry. These converts gave for all purposes last year, $50,564. Of this amount, $10,368 was for missions. This was an average of almost one dollar per member. In the States where we are strong, only California and Ohio surpass this record. Bolenge's $609 for missions is equal to $6,000 from any American church of alike membership. The value of our mission property is about $500,000.

      These figures give but a faint idea of what God has wrought through us in these waste places of the earth. It has been largely a time of seed-sowing. These firstfruits are but the earnest of the glorious harvest awaiting our reapers. The influence of the teachings of the missionaries and the example of their lives and homes upon these heathen communities can not be reckoned in the figures of the mathematician and defies recital by the tongues of men. Thousands who have not accepted Christianity have been leavened by its influences. Each one of there stations is a great radiating center from whence goes forth healing for the bodies and salvation for the souls of these people. New standards have been set for civic righteousness, for social life, for personal purity. The gospel leaven is working mightily in the meal of heathenism. Our missionaries are all optimists. They see the darkness, but they also see the light, and with one voice proclaim the coming of the morning in every heathen land. They are the prophets of the golden age, soon to be. They are the glory of the churches, the happiest children of the King. Twelve of these workers have been promoted to more glorious fields of activity. Some of their names were household words in our homes. All were well known in heaven. To this society has been granted the honor of adding their names to Paul's Roll of Immortals. Their graves mark these lands as the possessions of the church and call upon us to make haste and occupy them for the King. These stations are great missions and growing greater every hour. Our representatives are great missionaries; they are heroes and heroines of whom we have no cause for shame; they have far more ground to be ashamed of some of us and the churches we serve. This work has far exceeded all that its noble founders dared to hope.

      The influence of this society has been no less marked upon our work in the home land. The receipts of the Home Society in 1875 were only $4,671. Many of its opponents "regarded the American Society as dead, and were eagerly and rejoicingly anticipating the funeral services." It was a period of bitter controversies over organization and methods of work. Under such conditions the Foreign Society began its career of education at home and conquest abroad. The great men who guided its destinies steadfastly refused to enter the arena of discussion, but resolutely set themselves to the task of persuading the churches that had gone into camp to pull up their stakes, to advance their banners, to resume the march! Our secretaries found difficulty in securing admission into many of our pulpits. The churches were content to remain in idleness and were not ashamed of their unfruitfulness. When A. McLean began his great crusade for a going church, some of the leading preachers received him with fear and trembling and almost tearfully besought him to "preach the gospel." These men were more careful about the brand of their soundness than the measure of their service. Missions were regarded as optional, and not as essential, in the life of the church. His voice has stirred the hearts of our people in hundreds of our conventions and churches. He has given us a vision of the lost in every land, and made us hear the myriad calls for help. Many of the churches have caught this vision and are alive to their mission as churches of Christ. Hundreds of the preachers have had their hearts touched, their souls fired, and with tongues of flame are preaching [155] a world-wide gospel to their people. Thousands of the members have been lifted out of narrowness and selfishness into the brotherhood of men. All of our States and Territories have entered this movement and contribute to its treasury. England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have joined hands with us in this divine enterprise. They are giving their silver and their gold, their sons and their daughters to the work of world redemption. During the first year only twenty churches sent an offering. The churches had not been taught to give to heathen missions. F. M. Rains was called to lead us into larger liberality. He began with broken doses and put the truth of Christian stewardship in capsules of wit and humor, so the brethren would swallow them and keep them down. He applied the lesson taught by A. McLean.

      He waged a mighty warfare against baptized stinginess. Wherever he has gone, there is no excuse for one of our members dying with a full purse and leaving an empty missionary treasury. The twenty churches of the first year grew to 3,457 last year. The income increased from $1,700 to over $300,000. The children began to give before they were asked. Children's Day was first observed in 1881. Last year 3,742 schools gave $75,180. One hundred and ten churches support their own missionaries. A few individuals have taken this advance step. The University Place Church in Iowa gave almost as much last year as our whole brotherhood gave thirty-three years ago. The society has received $132,000 from bequests and $291,899 in annuities. The total income amounts to $3,448,659. Thus the tides of liberality are steadily rising and the flood-tide is surely coming for our missionary work.

      With the growth of our missionary interests has come a desire for fuller information about the great world fields, the forces, the results achieved, and the prospects for the future. To meet this demand, a vast amount of literature has been created, missionary libraries and mission-study courses have been prepared. Mission-study classes have been organized in our colleges and in many of the churches. These classes are helping to stay the tides of worldliness and turn the lives of our young people into the channels of Christly service.

      The Student Volunteer Movement is deeply intrenched in our colleges, and scores of our brightest and best young men and women are pledged to go wherever the church will send them. There has been a wonderful awakening. "The scandal of our apathy" is being removed, the awful hurt of anti-missionary sentiment is being healed and a "new spirit of conviction" with respect to missions has come upon our people. The great churches and the great preachers have come to regard missions as "their first concern, their supreme business."

      Here is the answer to Spargo's wail in his "Modern Socialism." "Where to-day are the dreamers of dreams setting the hearts of men aflame with holy enthusiasms, setting the feet of young men and maidens marching toward the vision? Where is there faith in mankind, faith in the future of the race, in the capacity of mankind to rise higher and higher, to complete the chain of evolution from brute to brother?" The answer is convincing. In all the colleges in Christian lands, in every mission station and missionary church in the world. There is no lack of dreamers of dreams; of hearts aflame with enthusiasm of the cross; of young men and maidens marching toward the vision of world redemption! During the recent Yale Commencement, memorial tablets were presented to the university of three missionaries--Bingham, of Micronesia; Harding, of India, and Mann, of China. In his address of presentation, Dr. Andrew D. White, recently Ambassador to Germany, said: "We have named them because their ideals were the highest, and because they sacrificed most to make those ideals real . . . Men like these have given to the world something better than any material success in making savage races into twentieth-century men of labor and business. These classmates of ours gave to our land, to us, to all our thinking fellow-citizens, something more precious than this--noble ideals of self-sacrifice, of the spirit of St. Paul, something of the spirit, we may say reverently, of Christ himself. . . . These names, [156] therefore, we deliver to our alma mater, for the inspiration of successive generations of students in Yale University during all of the coming centuries." Slowly, but no less surely, are the standards of the Man of Galilee becoming the standards of the men of America. There has been a marvelous change in missionary sentiment and remarkable growth in missionary activity during the life of this society. The mists are falling from beclouded eyes. The spirit of Christ is possessing his people. The churches are being filled with a new and lasting fragrance. The friends of the society rejoice in having helped to make possible this Centennial gathering. We come to celebrate our thirty-fourth birthday, bearing sheaves from many lands. We bring you reports from the flying squadron of the army of conquest. It is a wonderful story, of the best year of our foreign work. There has been enlargement and advancement on every hand. From every station comes the call for more reapers. We are standing upon historic ground and rejoice in the achievements of one hundred glorious years. We have climbed the mountain-tops and are looking back upon the land we have conquered. Well may we spend these glad days in praise and rejoicing. God has done great things for us and we are glad. But God is calling us onward and forward. Look upon the fields that are ripe and waiting. Gird up your loins for the conflict. The new century calls for larger things, more workers, greater liberality. Every church must be enlisted and the whole army be brought into action. Thus shall we make ready for the Golden Jubilee of this society in 1925.

[CCR 153-157]