In Livingstonia, an industrial mission in Africa, an engineering feat was accomplished in bringing a supply of pure water a distance of three miles across a valley 300 feet deep. The natives did not believe the water could possibly travel. They thought the Europeans were deceiving them when they talked of water running down one hill and up another. The two or three preliminary tests did not succeed, and this increased the natives' incredulity. But one afternoon in January, 1904, a nozzle was screwed on to a hydrant, and the engineering staff awaited results with certainty. The screw was turned and, true enough, the water had climbed over the hill, for a jet of it rose in the air amid cheers. Think of the enormous benefit Christian civilization is in the dark places of the earth. (Text.)
(417)
Christianity and Survival—See Social Strength. CHRISTIANITY AS A CIVILIZER James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea, said: I have had twenty-one years' experience among the South Sea Islanders, and for at least nine years of my life I have lived with the savages of New Guinea. I have seen the semi-civilized and the uncivilized; I have lived with the Christian native, and I have lived, dined and slept with the cannibal. But I have never yet met a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civilization without Christianity has civilized. Wherever there has been the slightest spark of civilized life in the Southern Seas, it has been because the gospel has been preached there; and wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, or a people that will welcome you, there the missionaries of the cross have been preaching Christ. (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.
(418)
CHRISTIANITY, CRITICISM OF
There is a humorous poem by John Godfrey
Saxe about the four blind Hindus who
went to see an elephant. They could not
see the elephant, but they told what they had
seen. One happened to lean against the elephant
and declared it was much like a wall.
Another got hold of his tail and described
him as being like a rope. Another got his
trunk and said he was like a serpent, and
the fourth ran against his tusk and said he
was shaped very much like a spear. The
fact is that they had not seen the elephant
at all.
So there are objectors who have never
seen Christianity at all. They have seen
mere fragments. Their criticism is correspondingly
worthless.
(419)
CHRISTIANITY, EARLY INFLUENCE OF
Let the temperature of a lake fall to the
freezing-point; apply a piece of ice to it
and see the radiating lines of crystallization
shoot singing from that center of force in
all directions, while other rays start from
their thousand nodes of maximum intensity,
until the whole surface of the water becomes
a solid sheet of ice. Just so the Roman
empires, east and west, were subjected to
a superficial crystallization of Christianity
started in Judea by Jesus Christ.—J. P.
Lesley, The Forum.
(420)
CHRISTIANITY, EFFECT OF
The thoroughgoing effect of the Christian religion upon a black chief of Africa is seen in the following account:
When, after many provocations, the crisis
came, and notwithstanding oft-repeated
warnings, there was drunken violence and
uproar, the good Khama wore a stern face
which always meant fixt purpose. He went
and saw with his own eyes how his laws
were trampled on, and then he said: "You
despise my laws because I am a black man.
Well, if I am black, I am chief of my own
country, and I rule here and shall maintain
my laws. Go back to your own country.
Take all that is yours, and go. If there is
any other white man who does not like my
laws, let him go, too. I am trying to lead
my people to act according to the Word of
God, which we have received from you white
people, and you, white people, show them an
example of wickedness such as we never
knew. You know that some of my own
brothers have learned to like the drink, and
that I do not want them even to see it that
they may forget the habit; and yet you not
only bring it and offer it to them, but try
to tempt me with it. I make an end of it
to-day. Go, leave my town, and never come
back!"—Pierson, "The Miracles of Missions."
(421)
Christianity in the Home—See Family Religion.
