Discourse Commemorative of REV. Rufus Anderson; D.D., LL.D., Late Corresponding Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Together with Addresses at the Funeral (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ...his increasing advocacy. In order to promote Christian self-reliance as well as spirituality among those who come under missionary influence, he became deeply convinced that there was always need of guarding against every method of virtual bribery. The presentation of a reward in some form--the form of pecuniary, social, or political advancement--is a practice to which, knowingly or unintentionally, even Protestants have sometimes resorted. The perquisites of civil promotion were held out largely, for instance, by the Dutch in their East India possessions, as an inducement for the natives to become Christians. Hence, when Holland lost some of her Oriental colonies, the people lost their motive for hypocrisy. The mere presence of missionaries, with a superior culture, with money to disburse, asking no pay for their own services, among a people perhaps oppressed and impoverished, presents a consideration which dark-minded heathen are not slow to appreciate; but sometimes it requires keen discernment to detect the selfish motive, and much skill to avoid fostering it. Catholicity in the best sense might be expected to characterize the man now portrayed. There was nothing narrow about him. If he was a man of one idea, that idea was as broad as the whole harvest field of earth. Every man, whether living at the next door or among the antipodes, was a neighbor. He began acquaintance with Boston as a City Missionary during the spring vacation of his first year of theological study, and the religious welfare of the neglected classes near at hand always had a place in his heart. Few persons read more constantly or with deeper interest the Christian Education. 31 periodical of the Home Missionary Society. Our land, our whole land for the world, and the whole...