New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable AwakeningBrown, Arthur Judson
History
New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable Awakening
Brown, Arthur Judson
China -- Commerce; China -- Foreign relations; China -- Politics and government; Missions -- China
But this method of itself would hardly solve the problem.
However well adapted to the beginnings of mission work, it
fails to provide a properly qualified native leadership. To do
efficient work, a native pastor must give his whole time to it,
and to that end he must have a salary that will make him ``free
from worldly cares and avocations.'' We insist on this in the
United States and the reasons for such a policy are as strong
on the foreign field. The minister in Asia as well as the minister
in America must have a salary. The labourer is worthy of
his hire.
Fourth:--Insist upon a larger measure of self-support. The
native churches must be led to a fuller responsibility in this
matter. Grave as are the temporary embarrassments which the
increased cost of living is forcing upon them and trying as is
the permanent distress of some of them, yet as a whole the
economic revolution will undoubtedly enlarge the earning
capacity of the native Christians. Indeed, the new principles
of life which the gospel brings should make them among the
first to profit by the changed conditions, and as their wealth
increases, their spirit of giving should, and under the wise lead-
ership of the missionaries undoubtedly will, increase. For
these reasons, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions took
the following action July 2, 1900:--
``As having reference to the question of self-support of the native
churches on the mission field, and in view of the fact that some of its missions
are proposing to increase the salaries of native preachers and helpers
on account of the increased cost of living, the Board is constrained to look
with no little apprehension upon the prospect of continuing and increasing
demands of foreign aid in proportion to the contributions made by the
churches themselves. Increased intercourse of eastern nations with those
of the west has led and will still further lead to a gradual assimilation to
western ways and western prices, and unless the self-reliant spirit of the
churches can be stimulated to a proportionate advance, there is a sure
prospect that the drafts upon mission funds will be larger and larger in
proportion to the amount of work accomplished. In view of these considerations,
it was resolved that the missions in which such increase is
proposed be earnestly requested to arouse the churches to the purpose and
the endeavour to meet this increased expenditure instead of laying still
larger burdens upon the resources of foreign funds. The Board deems
this necessary not merely to the interest of its expanding work but to the
self-reliant character, the future stability and self-propagating power of
the churches themselves.''
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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