Do missions pay? : on the commercial value, commercial advantages, and the successes of Christian missions
Hood, George, 1807-1882
3 vvl Nl \<$ c. t i DO MISSIONS PAY? OR THE COMMERCIAL VALUE, COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES, AND THE SUCCESSES OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. \ -/ T. i4 oo a -V V • * •. • DO MISSIONS PAT? OR THE COMMERCIAL VALUE, COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES, AND THE SUCCESSES OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. BY Rev. GEORGE HOOD, Chester, Pa. NEW YORK: MISSION HOUSE, 23 CENTRE STREET. 1872. DO MISSIONS PAY? Americans are peculiarly practical ; they examine an enterprise to see if it will pay ; if it will, they give it their hearty approval and co-opera¬ tion. The question of missions is not an exception. Home Missions long ago were universally acknowledged to be not only a necessary, but a paying investment. Foreign Missions have not so generally come to that point of acceptance ; but they will bear satisfactorily the same tests. It is the design of these pages to look at I. The Commercial Value of Missions. II. Incidental Advantages of Missions. TTI. Their Direct Successes. I. the commercial value of missions. I The day we Christianize a heathen, we create in him a desire for a better physical condition. One of the first manifestations for good among the Sandwich Islanders, was the desire for clothing. The same is seen in other missions. In Africa the naked Grebbo buys an English silk hat, and regards himself as dressed, until his ideas of propriety demand additional / articles of clothing. They see in the mission dwelling and family, that , civilization is better than savagism ; industry, than idleness ; and cleanli- J ness, than filth. So they seek knowledge, and begin to adopt the ameni¬ ties of life. Their laziness gradually disappears, and with it their utter desti¬ tution. Soap obtained from America is used to remove their superabund j ant dirt. They see the impropriety of nakedness, and cloth and clothing are required of our manufacturers. Instead of floorless and windowless huts, they aspire to houses with doors, windows, floors and furniture ; and com- f merce supplies this from a nail to a sofa. Husbandry is improved, and all kinds of farming implements, as plows, hoes, shovels, forks, etc., are de¬ manded, so that the value of plows alone exported from Boston to the Zulus in 1870, amounted to more than all that was expended on that mis¬ sion during that year. “ One missionary at Harpoot, East Turkey, has or¬ dered, for natives in that region, more than a hundred fanning mills. In. deed, all sorts of implements for use in agriculture and in the mechanic arts, and school furniture, to the amount of thousands of dollars a year- are passing through the mission house at Boston, ordered and paid for by the natives at the instance of the missionaries.” There is an increasing demand from the countries where we have mis- n 4 DO MISSIONS PAY? sions, for almost every kind of manufacture. During the year ending I June, 1871, twenty-five grain-mills, the first reaper, two Lamb’s knitting machines, and a hundred dollars’ worth of out-line maps were sent to East Turkey ; improved plows, mowing and reaping machines to Turkey and South Africa ; seventy-five sets of out-line maps to Ceylon, with sewing machines and cabinet organs to various fields. Such improvements have created a commerce amounting to $4,406,426, with the Sandwich Islands | alone ;* while the whole expenditure for Foreign Missions, by all denomina¬ tions in our country was, in 1870, only $1,633,891, less than one and three- fourths millions against a trade of $4,406,426 ; which trade has been created by our missions, and one-half of which is with the different ports of the United States. Now $4,406,426 to $1,633,891 is nearly as eleven to four ; that is, we pay out four dollars for missions in all the world, and t commerce receives in return trade, eleven dollars from the one mission of ' the Sandwich Islands. Again, the whole cost of the A. B. C. F. M. for the year 1871, for all its missions, was $420,844. The profit on the trade with the Sandwich Islands I for 1871, at 15 per cent., would be $660,964. But $420,844 to $660,964 is as two to three, nearly. Now, if all the profit of that trade for the year 1871, were given to the A. B. C. F. M., whose missionaries have created it, it would pay the expenses of all their missions for 1872, and leave a surplus of $240,120 to enlarge their operations more than one-half. Again, the whole amount expended on the Sandwich Island missions, from the beginning, is $1,250,000. The profit on the trade with the Is¬ lands, as above, at 15 per cent., would be $660,964, which is 53 per cent, of the entire cost of civilizing and Christianizing that people ; or the profits of the commerce, which the mission has made, would now pay the whole expense, from the beginning, in less than two years. Again, the commerce between the British Possessions in Africa and the ports of New England, during the year ending June 30, 1871, amounted to $2,671,913.f Fifteen per cent, gain on the trade gives $400,786 profit. The whole amount expended by the American Board, in all its missions, the same year, was only $420,844 ; so that New England received in real gain, from Africa alone, within $20,000 as much as the American Board expended on all its Foreign missions in the whole world ; and probably $75,000 more than the people of New England gave to support that Board. But there are large exportations to Africa, f Syria, Northern Turkey, India, the Islands of the Pacific and many other ports. We have no means of knowing the extent of this commerce, which Christian missions have created, but from the facts already given, we confidently claim, that the gains of trade are many times greater than the cost of missions. These exports have brought increased business profits to our manufacturers ; they have given work and competence to our mechanics ; they have added to the business of railroads and vessels, increasing the wealth of individuals, * Annual Report of A. B. C. F. M., 1870. p, 91. f See Appendix— Table II. DO MISSIONS PAY? 5 companies and the nation. It has been estimated that for every dollar England expends in missions, she receives ten back in trade. We are send¬ ing to mission fields for the natives, in sufficient quantities to be noticed, farming implements, machinery, furniture, household utensils and conven¬ iences, clothing, books and various other articles ; and we receive from them importations of native productions. These increase commerce, and commerce enriches a nation by its transportation, by the sale of its exports and imports, by revenue on imported articles, and by its competition, giv¬ ing better articles or cheaper rates. We affirm, then, that missions do pay, cent for cent, dollar for dollar ; two, five , ten dollars per dollar even now, and that every year their commer¬ cial value shows an increasing ratio. H. INCIDENTAL ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. Suppose •6es. suppose a vessel sailing from moisco, to experience heavy adverse winds, with severe The first advantage, though not the greatest, we shall mention, is that Christian Missions produce and provide safe Christian ports. Our vessels are scattered ever every ocean and sea, and nowhere are they free from disasters. In all waters ports are needed in which to repair damages, refit and take in water and provisions. Eat it needs no argument to prove that this is next to impossible among s Sumatra to San Era] storms, her spars carried away, her provisions short, and pumps at work, how they would, rejoice to make a Christian port of Micronesia, or reach Honolulu ? What could savages do for them ? Could they supply medi¬ cines and nursing for the sick, rigging or sails for the ship, or provisions for the future voyage ? But at Honolulu,* a Christian port of only thirty years, the work of missionary effort, every needed thing for the ship or crew, can he as readily supplied as in Philadelphia. The voyage to and from China, for sailing vessels, is long and irksome, and it is all the easier and safer, for these Christian ports, all the more endurable and healthy, for the fresh provisions and water, now easily obtained, where the missionary has not only brought in Christianity, but trade and commerce as well. We aver that the mere commercial advantage of these Christian ports, by fur¬ nishing to commerce comparative safety, comfort and health, is a good in¬ vestment of money, giving back ten-fold more, every year, than the entire aggregate of their cost. But the same Christian ports are needed at Alaska and on the Fox Is¬ lands for the North Pacific; for in 1870 our fleet of whalers numbered, according to the Protectionist, two hundred and twenty-six, averaging three hundred tons each, and most of these in the North Pacific. In the Southern Ocean, and in all waters, we need Christian ports to facilitate and increase commerce and to add to its permanent safety and comfort. * As early as 1840 the United States Exploring Squadron, under Commodore Wilkes spent $60,000 for supplies at this one port. See History of Sandwich Islands by Dr. Anderson, p. 177. f 0 DO MISSIONS PAY ? Not alone upon the highways of the ocean do we need Christianity, but also on the land. Had we sent as many missionaries into our Western Ter¬ ritories as we have soldiers, at one-tenth of the expense, how many scenes of bloodshed and massacre might have been spared, and the traveler or the sojourner be as safe there as here. Even the railroads across the continent would be safer, more profitable and far pleasanter, were all our Aborigines converted to Christianity. Christian Missions incite enterprise and thus facilitate intercommunica¬ tion. The day has come when the great highways of the world must be shortened. And this is being done. Fifty years ago a short voyage to China occupied many weary months. Now wTe see emblazoned, “ Round the World in Seventy-four dayts.” We can no longer endure or afford the old ways of travel. They are too slow, too long. Rapid communica¬ tion is essential to the present condition of the activities of life. Hence the great thoroughfares must be shortened, new routes opened, and greater speed in travel attained. The first visitors to California were content to go around Cape Horn. Soon dreams of gold urged them across the Isthmus of Panama by great labor and exposure. Now it is crossed by rail ; and not content with that, commerce seeks a ship canal across the south of Mexico, from the Bay of Campeachy to the Gulf of Tehuantepec, shortening the distance to San Francisco more than 16,000 miles. And this is no light matter when the annual trade with the western coast will not be less than $300,000,000. The commerce of Europe and Asia was formerly carried on around the Cape of Good Hope. Now a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Suez short¬ ens the distance to Calcutta, Bombay, or Canton, more than one-half. Soon that will be too long, and a railroad from Beyrut, on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean, by Tadmor, in the Wilderness, to the Euphrates and thence to the Persian Gulf, will be demanded. This will again greatly shorten the time to Bombay. From Beyrut to the Euphrates is about 350 miles, and thence to the Persian Gulf about 500 miles — a railroad no longer than from Philadelphia to Louisville, Ky. Now, the success of new routes depends upon the civilization and Chris¬ tianization of the people among whom they are laid. Christianity creates enterprise, begets commerce, inspires energy and ensures success. Com¬ merce and its facilities do not prosper with ignorance and barbarism. The light and energizing spirit of true, living Christianity are necessary. Spain is not barbarous, but for lack of vital religion she is inactive, and hence almost without railroads and lighthouses. Mexico is the same. They are each missionary fields, and must have the Bible and the true Gospel to pre¬ pare the way for the success of commercial enterprise. Cupidity has open¬ ed Australia and New Zealand. But in those lands the missionary has gone with the pioneer gold digger, making his life tolerable and his work a suc¬ cess. But gold is not found in most heathen countries, and the Gospel must be the pioneer, and commerce and trade be content to follow in its DO MISSIONS PAT? wake. As the vernal sun and rain must prepare the earth for the plow and the seed, so must the Gospel and education prepare a people for commerce and trade. Missions increase permanent wealth. “ God created this world not in vain ; he formed it to be inhabited.’’ It is Christ’s ; and we, as loyal sub¬ jects, are bound to bring it into subjection to him. He is our elder brother, and love to him should prompt us to subdue and beautify his domain. The Gospel of J esus Christ alone has power to make the desert bud and blos¬ som as the rose. Its gentle reign brings peace and prosperity ; its magic touch thrills every nerve, awakes every power of man, and sets the grand¬ est machinery of society at work. Some of the richest portions of the earth are yet to be subjected to civilization and to Christ. The basin of the Amazon contains over 2,000,000 square miles, over 1,280,000,000 square acres, or more than 64,000,000 farms of twenty acres each. Allow six per¬ sons to each farm and it gives a population of 384,000,000, or one-third of the present population of the earth. Its present population is only two or three millions, with an average of over two hundred acres to each person, when, with its vast fertility, every rood might yield bread for a man. Carry the Gospel thither and people the country with active, intelligent Christians, and what treasures of wealth will be created for commerce and for Christ ! With its plentitude of vegetation all utilized, what a magnifi¬ cent domain for him who created it ! Think of our own country increased ten fold in population and in wealth, and you have what the basin of the Amazon will be. We have not time to speak of those vast peninsulas, Southern Asia and Africa, the heart of the latter extending 3,000 miles east and west, and nearly 2,000 miles north and south, embracing a territory of almost 6,000,000 square miles, producing the choicest indigenous products of the Torrid Zone, and capable of supporting the entire present population of the earth. Cotton, that king of products, is perennial, the same plants lasting several years, and often giving two crops of good staple a year. What missions propose is to open such countries to commerce, to de- velope their various resources, to improve and increase their agriculture, to cultivate the arts, to establish manufactories, to enrich the world with their products, to educate and convert the people, and make them product¬ ive in commerce, arts, literature, civilization and Christianity. Christian missions aid science, art and literature. Missionaries to our Indians first explored and demonstrated the practicability of a wagon route over the Rocky Mountains. The missionary, Whitman, saved for us Oregon and Washington Territory, and perhaps California. American missionaries have explored and mapped out Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Persia, etc.; German missionaries, Abyssinia and Eastern Africa; the English, Madagascar and the Islands of the Pacific ; the Moravians taught us about all we know of * the Greenlanders and the Esquimaux; while Moffat and Livingstone have been leading geographical authorities on Southern and 8 - "> DO MISSIONS PAY % Central Africa. In astronomy, botany, mineralogy, in collecting rare specimens of Oriental curiosities illustrative of almost unknown nations, their labors are invaluable. The learned Karl Ritter says : “ Their con¬ tributions, diffused through essays, quarterlies, and various other publica¬ tions, have become a part of the world’s knowledge.” The value of these contributions has been acknowledged by many of our most learned men. For important labors, then, in favor of science, literature, art, commerce and religion, the world of commerce and letters owes Foreign Missions a large balance over and above what they have cost. Had a World’s Congress appointed a High Commission to make the same scientific investigations, collect and communicate the same informa¬ tion, and set at work the same educational and philanthropic influences, to say nothing of the cultivation of morality and religion, .their main work, instead of costing $5,242,716* annually, it would have required a greatly increased sum. in. - THE SUCCESS OF FOKEIGN MISSIONS. It is a very common impression among those not well read in the his¬ tory of missions, that their support is a very doubtful kind of charity — that much of what is given never reaches the foreign field, being swallowed up in the salaries of agents and officers, rents, exchange, etc., little being left for direct mission work. Pertinent to this impression is the sarcasm of one who being asked for a donation, said, “ Here is a dollar for the heathen and four to get it to them.” The following statement from “ The Hand-Book of Foreign Missions,” f is a definite and sufficient answer for all such objections : “ During the first seventeen years of its history, the Board expended in its administra¬ tion 111 per cent. ; for the next seventeen years 4-i- per cent. ; for the last four years 4 per cent.” Our Missionary Boards will not suffer in comparison with any other charitable or commercial financial management in our land ; and if put in comparison with some of our popular commercial institutions, they will command unlimited confidence for their financial sagacity, prudence and economy. Again, there is a common impression that very little has been done by our missionaries — that they work under great discouragements, and are to be praised for the constancy of a cheerful hope, rather than for the abund¬ ant fruits and success of their labor. A few facts will correct this false impression. The foreign field for the past ten years has yielded more converts in pro¬ portion to the labor expended, than the home field. * Land of the Veda — Table IV. f Published by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. DO MISSIONS PAY? 9 The number added to the Presbyterian Church in our land in 1870 on profession of faith, compared with the whole membership was .... The gain of Foreign Missions as a whole. Gain of the A. B. 0. F. M. as a whole “ Presbyterian Missions in India A. B. C. F. M. in Eastern Turkey Presbyterian Missions in China. et u 6 per cent. 12 “ 14 per cent. 16 18 25 u <c « This statement shows a heavy preponderance in favor of conversions on the foreign field. In the Sandwich Islands alone, “the number of persons received into church fellowship on profession of faith, is more than equal to the present population over four years of age, amounting in all to 55,300, or on an average about 1400 to each ordained missionary.”* “ The number received into twenty churches in the twenty-six years following 1837, was 49,713, which is an annual average of about 1900.” f Not much less than 300,000 Christian converts in communities having renounced heathenism, and numbering 1,151,721, testify to the eminent success of Christian missions. Over 31,000 Christian laborers are to-day in the field of the world. More than 626,000 youth are in Christian schools. In India and Burmah there are 7,480 missionaries, native preachers and catechists ; nearly 3,000 stations and out-stations ; 70,857 communicants ; 137,326 youth in schools, and 3,584 pious hoys being educated for a life of Christian labor.”;]; The Baptists have made the Karens of Burmah a Chris¬ tian people ; the American Board have done the same for the Sandwich Islands ; the Moravians for Greenland ; the Wesleyans for the Feegee and Friendly Isles, and the Independents for Madagascar. Extensive self-sup¬ porting churches, and even whole conferences, have been organized in Aus¬ tralia, Eastern British America, Canada, France, Siberia, Sandwich Isles and Oceanica, all of which were once “ missions,” and are now not only self-supporting, but even aiding the parent church in their evangelizing efforts, or else supporting missions of their own. In more than three hundred Islands of the Pacific, in Northern Turkey, in Persia, in Hindoostan, in Burmah, in China, in Madagascar, South Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone, a great multitude have been won to Christ. The largest church in the world, numbering 4,500 members, is in Hilo, on the •island of Hawaii, not yet fifty years removed from the most debased sav- ageism. Over 90,000 Feegeeans gather regularly for Sabbath worship, who, within a score of years, feasted on human flesh. In 1860 Madagas¬ car had only a few hundred scattered and persecuted converts. Now the queen and her prime minister, with more than 200,000 of her subjects are adherents to Christianity. The island is Christian. Fifty years ago there was not a native Christian in the Friendly Islands. Now 30,000 regularly f Annual Report of A. B. C. F. M. for 1870, p. 29. Anderson’s History of Sandwich Islands, p. 135. \ Tables in the Land of the Vedas. 10 DO MISSIONS PAT? meet for worship, and $15,000 are yearly contributed to religious objects. “ Sixty years ago there was not a solitary native Christian in Polynesia. Now it would be difficult to find a professed idolator in the islands of East¬ ern or Central Polynesia, where Christian missions have been established. On the return of the Sabbath a very large proportion of the population at¬ tend the worship of God, and in some instances more than half the adult population are recognized members of Christian churches.’’ On the western coast of Africa “are found over 100 organized churches and some 15,000 converts. In Sierra Leone 50,000 civilized Africans worship God every Sabbath.” Two thousand miles of coast have been wrested from the slave- trade, and the church and school-house substituted for the slave-pen. The various mission boards or societies are taking possession of the world in the name of Christ. All the important heathen countries are more or less occupied, and influences set at work which will soon and certainly evangelize them. There remain but few countries to enter, and those of little influence among the nations. The principal exceptions are Central and Northern Asia, Arabia, the heart of Africa and the Indians of British America. Scattered over China, Japan, Hindoostan, Persia, Turkey, East, South, West and North Africa, Madagascar, Greenland and the isles of the Pacific, occupying the best stragetic points, are the 31,000 Christian laborers of all kinds, instituting a system of operations, which, with God’s blessing, will, in reasonable judgment, within the next generation, leave not a vestige of heathenism on now occupied fields. In China so recently opened to the Gospel, “ missions have been estab¬ lished in 40 walled-cities and 360 villages, making a total of 400 stations and out-stations, which constitute centres of Christian light and knowledge to regions adjacent.”'* “ Over 400 native preachers have been raised up who are constantly employed in preaching the Gospel to their countrymen. About 10,000 converts have been received into the churches, of whom some have already gone home to be with Jesus, while some 7,000 are at present communicants, f There are at this present time being educated in primary or common schools, in female seminaries, in training schools, in colleges and in theo¬ logical seminaries, over 600,000 youth of both sexes, nearly all of whom are Protestant, and many hopefully pious. These are to go out and work for Christianity. “ To compute the results of modern missions is simply impossible. Figures cannot express them; nor are they visible to the human eye. But it is interesting to know, that outside the bounds of Christendom there are four thousand centres of Christian work and Gospel teaching ; 2,500 congregations, 273,000 communicants, and 1,350,000 nominal Chris¬ tians.” The Rev. Dr. Mullens, Corresponding Secretary of the London Missionary Society, says : “ In more than three hundred islands of Eastern * There are 1700 walled cities in China with scores of thouscrads of villages. f Premium Tract by Rev. J. Knowlton. DO MISSIONS PAY? 11 and Southern Polynesia, the Gospel has swept heathenism entirely away. The missionaries of the four great societies (English) have gathered 400,000 people under Christian influences, of whom a quarter of a million are liv¬ ing, and 50,000 of these are communicants.” But the success and value of Christian missions are not manifested alone by the number of converts ; they are seen as well in the fact that the work of missions has blest the Church with a new love and devotion to the Master’s work. It is a significant fact that the revivals that blest the churches in 1815-20 followed the development of the spirit of missions in 1812 ; and those churches that have been most prayerful and liberal, have ever been most blest. And the same truth is patent in our missions. Their reflex spirit has richly paid in souls at home as well as in heathen lands ; and this is only the fulfilment of the Master’s promise : “ He that watereth, shall be watered also himself “ Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Missions have taught the Church lessons of self-denial, benevolence and consecration, by such labor and self-sacrifice in converts , as have seldom been witnessed since the days of the Apostles. The converted Friendly Is¬ landers of their deep poverty, during the year 1870, raised all the expenses of their mission, and contributed beside, $17,500 to send the Gospel to re¬ gions beyond. The native Christians of India contributed, in 1870, $43,101 towards the support and extension of missions.* The Hawaiian churches gave, in 1870, $31,070 in gold, and last year $40,000 to carry the Gospel to the Marquesas Islands. Fourteen of that group have been Christianized solely by the labor and at the expense of the Hawaiian Churches, the mem¬ bers of nine native churches giving upon an average $4.10 for each mem¬ ber.} One single church, in 1867, had in the field five Foreign Missionaries with their wives, and others preparing to go. China has over 400 native preachers — one in every twenty-five of their converts. Native teachers at Corisco, on three dollars a month, give one-fifth of their earnings to Christ. Fifty-seven churches in the Sandwich Islands sent abroad seven¬ teen Foreign Missionaries. At the same ratio the Presbyterian Church should send 1372, or ten times our present number. Their 14,000 church members gave, last year, $40,000. Missions have developed a better way of giving, and a higher standard of Christian Faith. Blind Johannes’ sermon on Tithing is worth to the Christian Church tenfold more than all the Turkish missions have cost. It is like a new revelation ; and its Biblical spirit wull certainly make it in the Church the manner and measure of giving. The mission churches and converts are a living example to us of self-denial and almost Apostolic zeal ; and they have given renewed witnesses to the power of Christian faith ; thus refreshing the Church with the assurance that the constancy of the martyr is not lost. The persecutions in Madagascar, in India and Turkey, * Christian World, , Jac. 1872. p. 19. f History of Sandwich Islands, by Dr. Anderson, p. 323. 1 o Ijj DO MISSIONS PAY? are illustrious examples of unwavering faith and love even unto death. Old Soman persecution and its Christian firmness, have hardly exceeded examples in our own missions. Do you say the Gospel is not needed to help commerce ? that the products of enterprise are independent of religion ? In reply we only ask, why commerce, arts, manufactures, agriculture and literature, flourish only in Christian lands ? Why inventions are only found there ? Why knowledge, virtue, enterprise, skill and success grew in the light of a pure Christianity, and ignorance, degradation and poverty, so repugnant to the progress of society, cluster in the darkness of its absence ? Look where you will and just in proportion to the knowledge and purity of the people, just in proportion to their Bible piety, are the industries flourishing, and wealth, comfort and happiness equally distributed. We say, then, missions do pay. Not only are they a good investment, but the best a Christian nation can make. They give returns as coon as their machinery is at work, and continue in a constantly increasing ratio. We ourselves, and the very land on which we live, bear ample testimony to their value as an investment. Our ancestry, “immeasurably more de¬ graded than the natives of China and India are to-day/’ were raised from that condition by Christian missionaries ; and every rood of our land, ser¬ viceable to commerce and the arts, has been reclaimed from the waste of heathenism by Christian labor. In conclusion, the world is white, all ready to harvest, and the Church has ample means and power to carry the Gospel ever the whole earth by this generation, so that our children’s children might be translated from the millennium church to the church glorified. Did we possess a tithe of the spirit of the Apostles, and first Christians, when they went everywhere preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, or the spirit of many of cur con¬ verts from heathenism, with our vast facilities, how mightily vU 0 Oi VJ spel would roll on, until the earth should be filled with the glory of the nord as the waters cover the sea. We have money enough. Drinking con¬ sumes $600,000,000 annually, more than one hundred times as much as Foreign Missions. Tobacco nearly as much more. What the Church needs is to get rid of her carnality, and to “arise, and shine,” and “ put on her beautiful garments.” She needs consecration to the Master’s work— deep, intense, unaffected, personal holiness. She needs the same energy, enter¬ prise and perseverance in her work for Christ’s Kingdom, as we now give to the world ; and then speedily might the nations join in that glorious jubi¬ late : “ The kingdoms of this Would are become the Kingdoms of cub Lord and of his Christ ; and ee shall reign forever and ever.” DO MISSIONS PAY? 13 APPENDIX. — Table I. Statement showing trade with the Sandwich Islands during the year ended June 30, 1871, supplied by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, Washington, D. C. Ports. Imports. Exports. Domestic Merchandise and Produce. Foreign Merchandise. Boston, Mass .. New Bedford, Mass. New London, Conn. New York, N. Y. ....$5,357 ....59,675 • . ... ..105 . $152,980 . $1,504 . 359 . 33 Oregon, Oregon. . ..108,957 . 26,744 Puget Sound, W. Terr’y. San Francisco, Cal. . 4018 . 38,537 .. .901,114 . 604,424 . 41,509 Willamette, Oregon. . .. .... 73^928 . 17,700 Total. $1,153,154 . $840,385 . $43,730 APPENDIX.— Table II. Statement showing trade with the British Possessions in Africa during the year ended June 30, 1871, supplied by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department at Washington, D. C. Exports. Ports. Baltimore, Md. Boston, Mass. New Bedford, Mass. . .. New London, Conn. . .. New York, N. Y. Salem, Mass. Total , Imports. $1,710,492 . 2,319 . 1,498 ...229,585 ....10,350 $1,960,250 Domestic Merchandise and Produce. $16,038 905,139 146,067 ,.23,376 .$1,091,220 Foreign Merchandise. ,$11,843 . 774 .116 $12,733 APPENDIX.— Table III. Statement showing trade with Liberia during the year ended June 30, 1871, supplied by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, Washington, D. C. / Ports. Imports. Expc Domestic Merchandise and Produce. )RTS. Foreign Merchandise. Baltimore Md. . ..$11,642 . $9,246 . $1,396 Boston Mass .. . 24,620 . 622 New York, N Y .62 322 . 57,960 . 1,425 Total. . $91,826 . $3,443 14 DO MISSIONS PAY? APPENDIX IV. As we have referred in this tract prominently to the Sandwich Islands, for any who may doubt, or wish to know concerning the present civil and religious status of that people, we copy the following brief testimonies from the Rev. Dr. Anderson’s “ History of the Sandwich Islands/’ The Hon. C. C. Harris, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a speech at the National Jubilee of the Islands, held at Honolulu, June, 1870, says: “In 1825, the Hawaiians were ignorant and debased. ... In 1870, we see them advanced to a high degree of Christian knowledge, general education, civ¬ ilization and material prosperity. The result is due for the most part, under God, to the labors of the American Missionaries.” See p. 351. The Rev. N. G. Clark, D. D., Foreign Secretary of the American Board of Missions in his address at the Jubilee of 1870, said of the Islands : “ A heathen nation has become Christian ; the Bible, a Christian literature, schools and churches are open and free to all ; law and order have taken the place of individual caprice ; an independent government shares in the respect and courtesies of the civilized world ; a poor, wretched barter with a few passing ships, has been changed for a commerce that is reckoned by millions of dollars ; but more than all, and better than all, the seeds of Christian culture, ripened on this soil, have been borne by the winds and found lodgment in lands thousands of miles away — in Marquesas and in Micronesia.” See p. 348. The missionaries assembled at Honolulu in the year 1857, bore the fol¬ lowing testimony in their annual letter to the A. B. C. F. M. “ Our towns are rising, our roads are improving. Agriculture and in¬ dustry are assuming increasing importance. Our government, in its legis¬ lative, executive, and judiciary departments, has acquired organic form, and is moving on in the discharge of its functions. Our schools are sus¬ tained. Our islands are being dotted over with improved church edifices. Law is supreme ; order prevails ; protection of all human rights is nearly complete; there is little complaining or suffering in the land; shocking crimes are rare ; and it may be doubted whether the sun shines upon a more peaceful people.” See p. 266. As early as 1853, Chief- Justice Lee, recorded this testimony: ccIn no part of the world are life and property more safe than in the Sandwich Is¬ lands. Murders, robberies, and the higher class of felonies, are quite un¬ known here ; and in city and country we retire to our sleep conscious of the most entire security. The stranger may travel from one end of the group to the other, over mountains and through woods, sleeping in grass huts, unarmed, alone and unprotected, with any amount of treasure on his person, and without a tithe of the vigilance required in older and more civilized countries, go unrobbed of a penny.” See p. 267. CHRISTIANITY PROMOTES COMMERCE. “The £3,000 we have just paid from the Samoa Islands to the Bible Society, what does that represent ? So much native produce passed into the stores of merchants. And when you hear that the Samoans give to the London Missionary Society a contribution of £1,000 a year, mark the commercial side of that ; it represents £2,000 of native produce — cocoa- nut oil, arrow-root, cotton (for the natives are now cotton-growers) — passed into the stores of merchants. It is just the same with clothing, which they require nowadays. Why do they require clothing ? Ask a young woman, selecting her dress at the counter of the merchant, what she is going to do with it ? She will stare at you for putting such a question, and, if she condescends to reply, it will be some such curt reply as this, £ Why should I not be as other people in the house of God on the Lord’s day ?’ Ask the young man, while he is selecting a black coat, what he is going to do with it ; he will give you the same reply, perhaps ; or, per¬ haps, he will tell you that, as this is the month in which they are in the habit of giving a present to their native ministers, that he is going to give this year the minister a present of a black coat. These natives now expend from £50,000 to £100,000 a-year ; and if you ask them why, simply that they may appear decent in the house of God on the Lord’s-day. Thus you perceive to what a large extent the advancement of Christianity is at the same time the advancement of the interests of commerce. Nay, more — I would say, blot out Christianity from Samoa, and send the people back to their native heathenism, and what then ? The merchants may shut up their stores to-morrow, the trading vessels may be sent elsewhere, nothing would remain there. I say, nothing would remain there. There might be a little traffic in powder and shot, spirits and tobacco — at the best a disreputable traffic among such a people. It would not pay expenses ; for it could only be carried on amid treachery of every name and form.” Spiritual Results. when they die as you and I have. If one soul is of more value than a whole world, tell me what we have to say? of these twice five thousand ? No combination of the most gifted minds is sufficient to answer the question. Eternity, and the vantage-ground of the intelligence of the angels of God, are required to form even a distant approximation to the solution of the great problem, Would that the men who speak against missions knew what they were talking about ; would that they would cease speaking on a subject of which they know so little ! For their incoherent revilings are just as absurd as might be the utterances of a man born blind, if he were to attempt to describe the colors of the rainbow. After all, it is not so much to wonder at. You hear these men talk about the failure of missions. The same men will, perhaps, tell you that salvation through Christ is a failure. They will tell you that the Christian Sabbath is a failure — that the preaching of the Word of God is a failure — nay, more, that the very Bible itself is a failure. The secret of it, I think, we have in the simple "words of the Apostle Paul, * The carnal mind is enmity against God.’ Given the carnal mind, and you can easily conclude what will follow its enmity towards God’s servants and God’s work, of whatever name and form.” — Dr. Turner. 