THE HOME AND THE FOREIGN HEATHEN.

Western Star, Issue 1540, 28 February 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE HOME AND THE FOREIGN HEATHEN.

The ancient problem—the relative needs of home and foreign mission work —has been raised again. The marked increase of interest in the foreign field has revived in some minds the old doubt whether the needs of what are erroneously called “ the home heathen ” are not being neglected for those of other lands. But a fundamental error underlies all these anxious questionings. It is impossible to compare the quasiheathen at home with the veritable heathen abroad ; for in the one case they are men and women who never live very many yards from church or chapel, who can hardly stir far from their doors on Sunday without meeting some more or explicit invitation to recognise the claims of God, who can purchase a copy of the New Testament for a penny, and often have Christian literature offered without price. Nay, more than this, they are not seldom men and women who have a thorough in tellectualapprehension of the Gospel, although they absolutely reject its message. In a word, they sin against light. Now, the heathen of China or of equatorial Africa, or the Mohammedans of the Punjaub, are in a sadly different case. They may never even have heard the Gospel stated once; never have learned to read, still less have had easy access to Christian literature in their own language. From a spiritual point of view they are in absolute destitution ; whilst the outcast of Spitalfields or the Borough lives contiguous to a wealth of knowledge which he does not care to touch. But why should it be needful to point this out at all l lt is the blessed privilege of every believing follower of Christ to send help to either

field. Experience, however, has shown that love of the home work increases interest in the foreign field, and vice versa. Many a missionary abroad is the fruit of mission enterprise at home, whilst the ppiritual,life of not a few congregations has been lifted to a higher plane by the stimulus that first came from touch with the agonising necessities of heathendom.