A MISSIONARY GATHERING

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14525, 12 November 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MISSIONARY GATHERING

Edinburgh, 1910 : An account and interpretation of the World Missionary Conference, by the Rev. W. H. T. Gairdner, M.A. (Oliphant, Anderson, and Fcrrier, Edinburgh), deals fully with the great missionary congress, which was held in Edinburgh during the present year. Here is an extract :—

" But possibly the most interesting, certainly by far the most significant figures of all, were those of the Oriental and African delegates, yellow, brown, or black in race, that were scattered among the delegates in that world conference. For not only by their presence but by their frequent contributions to the debates, they gave final proof that the Christian religion is now rooted in all those great countries of the Orient and the South; and not only so, but that it possesses in. those countries leaders who, for intellectual ability and all-round competence, were fully worthy of standing beside tho men who have been mentioned, even without the traditions of two milleniums of Western Christianity at the back of them. Seated among the members of the Conference Business Committee, which sat round the table just under the president's chair, was Kajinosuke Ibuka, in whose face, immobile as a Budha, lurked the suspicion of the enigmatic twinkle of an Eastern image when some missionary delegate, in a confidential moment, tells the conference what missionaries think about the Japanese, or what they suppose the Japanese think about- them. This man is one of the foremost Christians of Japan, a theologian, a college principal, one of the nine who were formed into the first Protestant communion in. Japan. Not far off is his friend'and equally notable fellowChristian, '. the first Japanese Bishop (Methodist Episcopal! Yoitsu - Honda, and Tasuku Harada, well-known, in all Japan as the successor of Neesima, famous founder of the most famous Christian college in Japan. Here too are other eminent Christians of the yellow race : from Korea, one who is a graduate of an American university, and a former ViceMinister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. T. H. Yun Chi-Ho, who, with a great secular career before him has preferred to sacrifice it all, and give his life for Christ and the Church. Chinese delegates too, mostly in irreproachable Western dress but one of them, a sturdy nationalist, Tong Tsing-en, who, in the debates is to speak up for the permanent value of the Confucian classics as a subject of Christain study, is in full Chinese costume— skull-cap and pigtail, and stuffed, quilted jacket of richest peacock-blue silk. From India come some whose light-brown colour and clear-cut features proclaim the Aryan, and some whose Dravidian blood is shown by their darker skin. Belonging to the former is yonder venerable, one might say high-priestly figure, a pure Brahman by descent, with long, silky-white beard, tall, upright figure, aristocratic, gentle features, and mild Indian voice a Bengali convert of the great Dr. Duff, now an honoured minister in the Punjab; chosen to be the Moderator of the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in India, and yesterday, together with his Japanese fellow-Christian Tasuku Harada, made doctor of laws by the ancient university of this city of" Edinburgh. And finally, men of African race, one, a negro of immense size, glorying in his African race, from Liberia, the only independent negro organised State in Africa."