right use of power. In a word, knowledge of the opposing religion, and
especially of alien language, literature and ways of feeling and
thinking, lengthens missionary life. A man who does not know the moulds
of thought of his hearers is like a swordsman trying to fight at long
range but only beating the air. Armed with knowledge and sympathy, the
missionary smites with effect at close quarters. He knows the vital
spots.

Let me fortify my own convictions and conclude this preliminary part of
my lectures by quoting again, not from academic authorities, but from
active missionaries who are or have been at the front and in the
field.[8]

The Rev. Samuel Beal, author of "Buddhism in China," said (p. 19) that
"it was plain to him that no real work could be done among the people
[of China and Japan] by missionaries until the system of their belief
was understood."

The Rev. James MacDonald, a veteran missionary in Africa, in the
concluding chapter of his very able work on "Religion and Myth," says:

The Church that first adopts for her intending missionaries the
study of Comparative Religion as a substitute for subjects now
taught will lead the van in the path of true progress.


The People of Japan.


In this faith then, in the spirit of Him who said, "I come not to