10-2 



RET. F. BAYLIS^ M.A., OX 



mail party to^ be cut to pieces by some turbulent tribe, and for 

 letters to be missing for many montlis. 



Perhaps as powerfully in an indirect way science helps the 

 missionary by tiie prestige it inevitably gives him. Some- 

 times it is merely as one of the people of the wonderful AVest 

 that he is great among his hearers. But at other times it is 

 because every article of his simple kit, every convenience of his 

 daily life witnesses to an ignorant people of the wonderful 

 power and science of the white man. Some of the simple 

 people of Uganda were on one occasion a little tempted to 

 discredit the good news of a missionary, but one of their 

 nmnber challenged his fellows to dare to doubt what came from 

 men of such wonderful wisdom. " See," he said, referring to 

 some lightning conductors erected to church and house, these 

 are men who can put up a hand into the sky, and catch the 

 very lightning and dash it down into the ground so that it 

 cannot do any harm. How can we doubt the wisdom of what 

 these men tell us { " This is, of course, not cited as in any 

 wise the basis on which the missionary likes his message to 

 rest, but it shows the prestige that goes into the mission-field 

 with the commonest scientific knowledge from our homelands. 



Men with eyes to see the great events of world history have 

 been telling us of recent years that the greatest happenings are 

 those where mighty peoples are awakening to Natiomditt/ as 

 their chief need and possibility, as the thing for which they 

 must let go the old unifying forces of religion to find the new- 

 forces mightier still. Think of this in Japan, China, India, 

 Turkey and other lands. It shows us the crisis of missions. 

 Then dwell for a moment on the obvious course of national 

 progress for these peoples. It is in their eyes above all things 

 necessary for them to get the material civilisation, in a word, 

 the science of the West. Their faces are all turned to Europe 

 and America. The very lands that want to send them Christian 

 missions are the lands from which they are hopmg and 

 expecting to receive Hght and leading. 



A believer in the Providence of God will not fail to find his 

 faith strengthened by all he can learn of the synchronising, in 

 the world's history, of the age of missions and the age of applied 

 science. It is possible to argue with some force that God 

 meant the science of our day to serve great purposes of His in 

 " turning the world upside down " as part of His agency in 

 extending to all the world the Kingdom of His Christ. It is 

 prima facie evidence that missions and science come of the love 

 and wisdom of one and the same Lord. 



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