PRACTICAL.
A SIDE
LIGHT.
Mr.
and Mrs. Shelden walked leisurely home, after Mrs. Dale's handsome
"dinner." They could not always afford a carriage for such
formalities, but they enjoyed the social occasions as such gentle
folks should, and it was the husband's standard home joke, that his
wife needed these frivolities as an off-set to her missionary
propensities.
"How
well Mrs. Greene talked tonight," remarked Mr. Shelden. "She
was really quite brilliant when she answered Prof. N—;
clever, well-read woman, and not too opinionated either! She evidently
had facts on her side, since the professor deferred to her arguments
and knowledge. I fancy she made some good points, though I don't
profess to be up on the Indian question. I like to see a woman abreast
of the times in her reading. Why don't you let some of your
everlasting missionary meetings go, my dear, and give more time to
general reading? I noticed that Mrs. Greene appealed to you once
during the conversation—member
of your Book Club, I suppose?"
"No,"
demurely responded Mrs. Shelden, "I have met her elsewhere."
"Well,
she doesn't ride a hobby, that's evident!" continued her husband.
"And her conversation denotes decided ability and information.
Take my advice, eschew your poky missionary meetings, and go in for
culture."
"Now,
John Shelden," gaily cried his wife, "out of your own mouth
you shall be judged. From a missionary meeting came most of Mrs.
Greene's facts and arguments. It was her study of the subject of the
month, necessary to the preparation of a paper for the missionary
meeting; her diligent reading of missionary magazines, that stored her
mind with material for her accidental encounter with Prof. N—,
this evening. When she appealed to me it was on a point that we
discussed in the meeting, and the last Missionary Magazine furnished
the data right from the field. Take this fact home to your masculine
understanding—the
knowledge of the great work done by the church for missions, is a
liberal education of itself, and if it is studied with real, loving
interest, it brings such wide information as will go far towards a
really broad culture."
"Hear,
hear!" ejaculated the astonished husband.
"Oh,
I could say much more on the subject," said Mrs. Shelden,
"but I'll prescribe a course of reading for you, young man, so
that you may be 'up' on the Indian question, as you say, and you'll
get some light on other points, too. The Missionary Magazines will
give you abundant food for thought and research.
"You
shall have the last numbers as soon as you get home," she added,
teasingly.
"Well,
I surrender!" said the honest man, "but to me that's truly a
new light in which to look at the missionary movement."—Home
Mission Monthly.
THE
GROWTH OF MISSIONARY LITERATURE.
The
growth of missionary literature is one of the wonders of this century.
Dr. Arthur T. Pierson has been reading and studying the literature of
missions for thirty years, and his observation is that the field is
widening. Yale University now has a special missionary library made up
of thousands of volumes. Such a library would have been an
impossibility a hundred years ago. Page after page is taken up in the
"Encyclopedia of Missions," with the titles of missionary
books and the names of their |
authors.
This marvelous growth may be traced in various ways.
1
The material for a good missionary literature is now abundant. There
is a mine of literary wealth in the life, times, and labors of such
men as Wm. Carey, Adoniram Judson, Alexander Duff, David Livingston,
Bishop Taylor, Robert Morrison, and John Livingston Nevius. The task
of shaping this material into good literary form has inspired the
genius of such men as Dr. Arthur T. Pierson and Dr. George Smith, LL.
D., to say nothing of scores of other able writers.
2
The style of modern missionary writing is very much improved. The
Missionary Review of the World demands a high grade literary style for
all leading articles admitted to its pages. Mere annals, dull and
lifeless, are not tolerated. A good missionary book is a living soul,
shining through a beautiful face. Such a work is Dr. Pierson's
"Enterprise of Missions."
3
Some of the old missionary books remind one of old tombstones and
neglected graveyards. Page after page of solid printed matter, with
hardly a paragraph to break the monotony. Not so in many recent
missionary papers and books. The printer's art, the engraver's art,
the mapmaker's art, the bookmaker's art, and the literature's art all
combine to make an up-to-date missionary book.
4
Another indication of growth is seen in the fact that the subjects
treated now are specific, not so general as formerly. Dr. B. C. Henry,
a missionary to China, does not write of the whole Celestial Empire,
but in and around Canton. Dr. J. L. Nevius writes of specific work in
the Shantung Province. Dr. John C. Paton gives special attention to
the New Hebrides.
5
As a result of these many improvements in missionary literature
Christian people are reading missionary periodicals and books with a
pleasing and growing interest. The time has been when it was
fashionable to know but little about missions. But times are changing.
The Cross-Bearer's Missionary Reading Circle, a three years' course of
systematic reading and studying on missions in all lands, was
inaugurated six years ago, as an educational movement among our
thousands of Christians who remain in the home land. The literature of
the C. M. R. C. for 1896-7, is as follows: The Life of "John
Williams," the Life of "Dr. J. L. Nevius,"
"Medical Missions," the Life of "Alexander Duff,"
and the "Missionary Review of the World." All this
literature is of the very best. For further information inclose six
cents in stamps to Rev. Marcus L. Gray, President C. M. R. C., St.
Louis, Mo.
*
* * If we contemplate God aright, we shall do something for the
toiling, helpless, hopeless wickedness of the world. When Isaiah saw
His glory he spoke of him in that wonderful sixth chapter of his. The
outcome of the glory was the response, "Send me!" If we see
anything of the glory of the Lord, let us turn it into active kindness
to men. To be moved to do this we must catch the fire from other
hearts. Missionaries are heat-centers, light-radiators, therefore we
must put ourselves into "contact with them; we must come into the
nearest possible communication with their lives and the results of
their lives. To receive their inspiration we must live with them, if
not actually, then through their life histories. Missionary literature
is made up, for the most part, of the life histories of men and women
who have devoted themselves to the cause. Their lives, of course,
include their work,—that
is, what the life effected. Much other literature generalizations of
the result of such labor, estimates of different races, countries,
customs—has
grown out of the individual labor of these devoted people. Such books
as Dr. Pierson's "Crisis of Missions" are possible only
through these individual labors. If we want to get at the primal
sources and partake of the life-fire at the focus, we must absorb the
life and work of the men who have lived the life and done the work of
God.—Life
and Light.
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