Part 4 (1/2)
The hordes of barbarians which overwhelmed Rome have left a mark on Europe that can never be forgotten. The size and vigor of the movement made a profound impression which history cannot outgrow, and yet Genseric, one of the greatest of their leaders, never had more than 80,000 warriors in his palmiest days.
There have been great successive waves of immigration into China and India from the plains and the mountains of the north and east, but so far as we have knowledge of the numbers they dwindle into comparative insignificance when measured by this greatest of all invasions.
The numbers involved in the Norman Conquest of England would hardly make a ripple on the sea of races and populations crowding to American sh.o.r.es.
The Crusades stand out as epoch-making and unparalleled up to that time in the number of nations disturbed. They covered a period of more than a century and a half and involved several millions of people, but more men, women, and children from other lands have come to the United States and Canada in the last six years than swept across the face of Europe in a century and a half in the Crusades.
To a.s.similate and Christianize these mult.i.tudes is one of the supreme tests of the reality of our faith and the vitality of our national life.
The glory of immigration is fourfold:
1. _G.o.d has written much history in terms of migratory peoples._ It is the impatient, unsatisfied, vigorous peoples that have made the history of the world. If the meaning of the past is correctly interpreted, then the blending of these races together on a Christian basis into one united people is America's superlative opportunity to make history.
2. _Immigration is compelling America to study the languages, the history, the achievements, the religions, and the characteristics of these mult.i.tudes of people._ Such study is imperative in order that America may adequately bear to the incoming millions the deepest message of her religion and her Western inst.i.tutions. This fact in itself furnishes an intellectual and moral task of transcendent importance. On this continent the modern gift of tongues must be given if America fails not her Christ.
3. _Immigration is leading millions to study the English tongue._ This is of great importance if the mult.i.tudes of future Americans are to understand and appropriate the principles of democracy and Protestantism enshrined in English literature. The German and Scandinavian and other tongues will contribute to America the best they possess, while at the same time they are themselves greatly enriched.
4. _The mingling races are challenging America to demonstrate the truth of those principles of freedom and democracy of which such proud boast has been made in days gone by._ The principles of democracy can scarcely be thoroughly and finally tested among people who are of the same race and have a common speech and who have a more or less common purpose. Democracy can be adequately tested only amid the complexities of race and clan, of diverse speech and history. These principles of democracy have never been literally applied in any large way yet, but one of G.o.d's greatest challenges to the manhood of the United States and Canada to-day is that literal application of the principles of democracy shall be made to the whole population gathered within their vast domains. Here is a call for statesmans.h.i.+p and spiritual pa.s.sion worthy of the finest life America has produced.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SIZE OF PARISHES AT HOME AND ABROAD
Figures Give the Number of People to Each Protestant Minister]
II. MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
These lands lying to the south are America's nearest foreign missionary field.
In each case in which the number of missionaries is mentioned in this volume, unless otherwise stated, it may be understood to include all missionaries, both men and women, except wives of missionaries. This is thought to be fair, not because missionaries' wives are not as devoted as their husbands or other workers, but because it is not to be expected that a woman with household cares should be responsible for the same amount of direct Christian work that is expected of other workers on the field. In other words, the family or the single worker is considered the unit.
The people in Mexico are nominally Roman Catholic, the census returns showing thirteen and a half millions of that faith. Conditions are difficult for Protestant missions. The population of Mexico is more than fifteen millions. Among these millions there are 249 representatives of Protestant Christianity. In 1895 more than ten millions in Mexico could neither read nor write, and while conditions have improved somewhat since then, it is safe to say that seven out of every ten of the population are illiterate. In Central America, including Panama, there are 96 missionaries.
These simple facts will ill.u.s.trate the truth that there are still parts of the North American continent inadequately cultivated by the Protestant churches.
III. SOUTH AMERICA
The South American lands are nominally Roman Catholic. They know considerable of the phraseology of Christianity, but its vital truth has not been largely realized. Here are seven million square miles of opportunity which call loudly for the Christian application of the Monroe doctrine. While the majority of the people are of European blood (if we do not count the unknown numbers of millions of Indians), every principle of justice indicates North America's obligation to hasten the redemption of South America. These lands followed the example of the United States in adopting the republic as their ideal of government. They have not hitherto enjoyed our religious freedom along with our republican form of government. Free government cannot be fully and permanently enjoyed by any people without actual religious liberty. Freedom of conscience produces the intelligence and virtue essential to a democracy. The South American lands have lacked such freedom. This in itself const.i.tutes a real challenge to the faith of North American Christians.
A brief glimpse of two or three of the lands will indicate the character of the problem a little more clearly.
Brazil, the greatest of the South American lands, about 2,700 miles in extent from east to west and fully the same from north to south, with an area nearly as great as the entire continent of Europe, has, according to the _Statesman's Year Book_, a population of more than twenty-three millions or nearly one half of the population of the continent. Its great forests and mineral wealth are but little used.
According to the _World Atlas of Christian Missions_, there is but one Protestant mission station near the mouth of the Amazon River and not a single missionary in all the vast territory through which that river and most of its tributaries flow. Algot Lange, who has spent many months exploring the Amazon Basin, says there are 373 tribes speaking a variety of languages in the Amazon territory. These are practically all unreached by the gospel. The mission stations are scattered along the coast with very few in the interior. The majority of the missionaries are within three or four hundred miles of Rio Janeiro.
Eighty-five per cent. of the population is reported illiterate.
Bolivia, which is fourteen times as large as the State of New York, has only sixteen workers, counting wives, so that each worker in Bolivia has a parish larger than the entire State of Pennsylvania. The same proportion would give five workers to the Province of Quebec.
Since these words were written however a party of three new missionaries sailed from New York to enter this field.
The Argentine Republic is the most advanced and prosperous country of South America. It has, according to figures given by Mr. Robert E.
Speer at the Rochester Student Volunteer Convention, a per capita export three and a half times as great as the United States, one hundred and twenty times as great as the Chinese Empire and the total exports were nearly equal to those of the entire continent of Africa.
The Argentine Republic has but one worker to every 8,737 square miles.