This swing away has had a great influence upon the mass of church-members,
and upon their whole thought of the foreign-mission enterprise. There is a
vaguely expressed, but distinctly felt idea both in the Church and outside
of it, for the two seem to overlap as never before--that the sending of
missionaries is really not to save peoples from being lost. That sort of
talk is almost vulgar now.

Mission work is really a sort of good-natured neighborliness. It is
benevolent humanitarianism in which we may all help, more or less (usually
less), regardless of our beliefs or lack of beliefs, our church-membership
or attendance. We should show these heathen our improved methods of
living. We have worked out better plans of housekeeping and schooling, of
teaching and doctoring, and farming and all the rest of it. And now we
want to help these poor deficient peoples across the seas.

We think we are a superior people in ourselves, as well as in our type of
civilization, decidedly so. And having taken good care of ourselves, and
laid up a good snug sum, we can easily afford to help these backward
far-away neighbors a bit. It is really the thing to do.

Such seems to be the general drift of much of the present-day talk about
foreign missions. The Church, and its members individually, have grown so
rich that we have forgotten that we were ever poor. The table is so loaded
with dainties that we are quite willing to be generous with the crumbs,
even cake crumbs.



Great Incidental Blessings.