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MISSIONARY REVIEW.

INCREASED HEATHEN POPULATION.

▲ STATEMENT with an argument based on it concerning the alleged increase of the heathen population of the globe, which has been current for a few years past, is worthy a passing word. It has been commonly claimed that the increase of the non-Christian populations of the world within the past century so far exceeds the accessions of Christianity among them that there are many millions more non-Christians now in pagan and Moslem lands than at the commencement of the nineteenth century when the modern missionary movement took its rise.

There are several facts to be considered in reaching any conclusion about this claim. The motive of the writers, generally, who elaborate the argument places the argument itself in a suspected category. They, for the most part, aim to support in this way the theory that the world is not to be brought to Christ in the present dispensation-only a limited number being converted-and that the present dispensation requires only the proclamation of the Gospel as a witness among all nations, when the divine scheme will be changed.

We have no disposition here to argue the question as to the limitation on the Gospel, in the present effort at evangelization. Many devout Christians hold the view mentioned, and their zeal seems thereby greatly quickened to spread the knowledge of Christ. Our present purpose is only to say that the theory is liable to prejudice their view as to statistics, and hence warrants the challenge of their estimate regarding the pagan and Moslem populations of the world.

Let us consider a few statements needing attention. It is not easy to establish the fact of the increase of heathen populations in Africa. There are no statistics of a hundred years ago that can be at all relied on for the population of the continent at large, nor are there any now which are more than guesses. It is more than probable that causes have been operative which have greatly reduced the population of overwhelmingly large parts of the "Hinterland," the slave-raiding alone having practically depopulated large areas of the continent. The vast population of China is known to have been greatly reduced over large sections, as by the Taiping rebellion, and the constant trend of investigation is to lower the estimated figures for the country as a whole. These two sections, Asia and Africa, may be safely set down as containing one half of the unchristianized population of the race, and it is impossible to prove that there has been a numerical advance in their populations. Turning to India, it may be conceded that statistics appear to show a considerable increase in that country within a score of years; but even this claim is not established. The far greater accuracy of the last 42-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XV.

British census would seem to show an advance on the preceding ten years; but the inaccuracy of the previous census must be reckoned with, before the contrast can be assured, and the extension of the latest tables so as to include geographical segments not embraced in previous counts must also be remembered. It must therefore be manifest that no reliable argument can be constructed on so precarious a premise.

On the other hand, it is well known that the conditions of life in Christian countries greatly accelerate the numerical growth of popula tion, so that the ratios are constantly shifting in favor of these nations. They are severally doubling every twenty-five or fifty years, while even the census of India on its face shows that its population would not double in a hundred years. Thus, the increase of Christians who do the work of evangelizing, is out of all proportion to the increase of heather, and there certainly is a growth in zeal for evangelization.

Furthermore, the penetration of Christian civilization and thought tends to change the character of the several systems of heathendom. If there are more Brahmans, there follows a weakened Brahmanism; if there are more Buddhists, there results less Buddhism. The intelligent Moslems in certain parts of the world recognize that they cannot hold their own without acquiring the learning and adopting some of the features of Christian civilization. The late Sayud Ahmad, who founded a Moslem college in India to teach Western learning, was only one of a multitude now coming to see that if they trust to strictly Moslem methods they must all be distanced in the race. The undermining of Hinduism has already awakened the suggestion that there may any day come an avalanche, carrying off whole mountain sides of the community and resulting in a great landslide of heathenism.

If the extension of Christian governments over uncivilized people goes on it will tend to an increase of the population of the present heathen nations, and there may be, a half century hence, far more mul titudes to reach than there are now. There is little prospect that the population of the world will decrease. But there is a moral certainty that the ratio of Christians will be greater, by the increase from birthrate alone. A vast religious preparation has been accomplished for acquainting the people with the Christian religion, through the efforts of the Churches in the century just closed. The providence which has made the Christian nations politically dominant, which has thrown the wealth of the world into their coffers, and which has made them the teachers of other nations through the discoveries of modern science, now places the Christian Church in such a position of influence that there may be a greatly accelerated movement in the near future even a great national turning to the Christian religion.

Thus, if it were true, as some have made bold to assert, that there are two hundred and fifty millions more non-Christians in the world than there were a century ago—a statement which we again say is not susceptible of being established-the new conditions for reaching them

would antagonize the claim that the world cannot be brought to Christ under the present dispensation, because it is not in the divine plan.

It is not proposed in these observations to say that the divine economy may not suddenly be changed and a new dispensation be inaugurated, but only to affirm that the argument based on the mere fact of the greater aggregate of heathen as compared with a century ago affords no support for the theory of the impossibility of the conversion of the world in the existing dispensation. All the factors necessary to be considered in this argument cannot be stated.

THE CONGO RAILROAD AND INTERIOR MISSION WORK IN AFRICA. ALL the Christian world should be interested in the completion of the Congo Railroad, as it bears on the question of the evangelization of interior Africa. The river Congo is navigable for ocean steamers of twentyfive feet draught only for one hundred miles from its mouth, or, to Matadi. For two hundred miles above that point navigation is interrupted by cataracts, which, like a series of locks in a canal, let the water down from the great plain along which they have poured for an unbroken thousand miles, though there are some spaces between these cataracts which can be traversed by small boats and steam launches. It has hitherto been necessary to unload ocean steamers at Matadi and transport goods for the interior on men's heads to Stanley Pool, where the cataract system begins. During the past year the railroad has been completed between Stanley Pool and Matadi, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. From Stanley Pool the river is navigable for a straight thousand miles to Stanley Falls; and the great affluents of the Congo within this distance furnish another four thousand miles of water highway on which ply, at present, some fifty steamers. Beyond the point at which the steamers meet with obstructions on this great water highway are eight thousand more miles of water paths over which small steamers may go until boats and canoes must be used.

Any thoughtful person can see at a glance that these highways for trade are also available for the evangelization of the people. Last fall or winter a representative of the Church of England Missionary Society stationed at Uganda, in East Central Africa, returning to England chose the way of the Congo to reach the sea, and surprised the missionaries of the Upper Congo by happening in to spend the night with them. This has stirred a fresh desire to complete the "chain of missions" from "salt sea to salt sea." In fact, only two more stations are now necessary to complete the links of the chain, though the distances between the stations are very considerable. Krapf, the early missionary to East Africa, charged the Christian world to establish a "chain of missions across Africa." He left it, he said, as "a legacy" to all branches of the Christian Church. Bishop Taylor attempted the line from St. Paul de Loanda to the Upper Congo as a short cut for the chain. The open

ing of the Congo Railway, however, makes the shortest way to be the passage up the great river. Vast difficulties had to be overcome to make the link of two hundred and fifty miles referred to around the cataracts. That having been completed, the forward movement into the interior of West and Central Africa must be greatly facilitated, and, if the government will subsidize the railway to aid in cheapening freights, there is no reason why the opportunity does not imply greater responsibility to advance on the interior of the "Dark Continent."

The retention of the Congo Free State in the hands of the king of Belgium is seemingly very important to the successful occupancy of the region by the Protestant missions. If he has been bankrupted, as is hinted, and there must be a redistribution of territory among the European nations, and if France should fall heir to the north bank of the Congo River, there would be a limitation of the prospective privilege of doing thoroughly evangelical work, not only because of the leaning of France to Romanism, but because she would probably do as she has done elsewhere in Africa, require the exclusive use of the French language in all schools.

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE FOR CHINA.

ELEVEN years ago a society was formed in China with a view of reaching the mandarins, the learned class of the empire, and others who in the providence of God are the leaders of one fourth of the human race. The effort has served to spread knowledge as to Christian countries and the foundations on which their prosperity rests. There is a spirit of inquiry unprecedented in this slowly-moving country, and great eagerness for information in regard to Western religion and civilization. The land is astir, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Literature has helped to bring about this state of things. The recently deposed emperor sent for books to the number of one hundred and twenty-nine, of which eighty-nine were publications of this society. One of the members of the Reform Society petitioned Li Hung Chang to memorialize the throne to make the Review of the Times, published by this agency, the organ of the government, and to have ten thousand copies printed monthly. This, of course, did not avail, but the Reform Society did print a paper called Chinese Progress, which attained a circulation of ten thousand, with branches in Hunan and Macao. This was one of the results of the attempt to stir the people through literary channels, though the paper was entirely independent of the Chinese Literature Society. When the Hunan people began to study the cause of China's defeat by Japan the Chancellor of Education advised the gentry to study the publications of this society, and they changed from a province the most violently antagonistic against Christianity and foreigners to one of the most friendly. All this emphasizes afresh the importance of literature as one of the agencies for the advance of the kingdom of Christ among such literary nations as China, India, and Persia.

FOREIGN OUTLOOK.

SOME LEADERS OF THOUGHT.

Paul Schwartzkopff. By several recent publications this writer has brought himself into prominence as a believer in the doctrine that Jesus Christ was not only not omniscient but that he erred in several instances. He affirms that these errors are the outgrowth of his human, as distinguished from his divine, nature, and that they do not affect his work as Saviour and Redeemer because they pertain in no case to the essentials of Christianity. He rejects the notion that Jesus was naturally omniscient, but voluntarily chose to desist from using this attribute. He holds that these errors in no way contradict the facts of Christ's sinlessness and deity. Some of Schwartzkopff's critics have tried to make it appear that since the matters in which Jesus is supposed to have erred were beliefs which he held in common with his times they cannot be regarded as evidence of errancy on the part of Christ. They argue that it is impossible to determine whether anyone is in error, except by referring his opinions to the existing state of knowledge, and that it is not proper to speak of the errors of those who lived in a past age and who held opinions which we now reject, but that we must simply regard their state of knowledge as less advanced than ours. If this were true, then Jesus could be held as errant only in case he misunderstood the teachings of his times. If he understood them, on the other hand, he would have to be regarded as inerrant. We have no disposition to defend his inerrancy on unreliable grounds. This, we think, these critics of Schwartzkopff have done. Take a special example of alleged error, for illustration. Schwartzkopff says that Jesus erred in taking the story of Jonah for real history. Now, if it should be assumed for the sake of argument that it is not real history, the fact that the people of Christ's time held it to be such does not relieve Jesus of the charge of error, if he believed as they believed. The truth, on that supposition, was on one side, and Jesus and his contemporaries were on the other. If to err is to miss the truth he and they must be held to have erred. It does not relieve his case to say that he could not have gone beyond his age. That would be only to say that Jesus was capable of error, which is what Schwartzkopff asserts. On the other hand, if to err is merely to misunderstand the beliefs of one's times, one might err by erroneously understanding one's times to teach what later ages will see to be exact truth. The whole subject of the infinity of Christ's knowledge needs study and elucidation.

Carl Clemen. Should he live to complete a work which he has undertaken, entitled Die Christliche Lehre von der Sünde (The Christian Doctrine of Sin), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1897, and should

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