Christian missions and social progress; a sociological study of foreign missions . ed individual conscience, and in the formof public opinion it is a factor of amazing force and stability. It hasback of it the dominant spirit of national or tribal history, and is usuallyin line with those regnant forces which have always swayed the fallennature of man. Christian missions are among the very few influenceswhich can seriously or permanently disturb it. In fact, the spiritualenergies of Christianity represent almost the only power which with anytransforming results has ever grappled with it aggres
Christian missions and social progress; a sociological study of foreign missions . ed individual conscience, and in the formof public opinion it is a factor of amazing force and stability. It hasback of it the dominant spirit of national or tribal history, and is usuallyin line with those regnant forces which have always swayed the fallennature of man. Christian missions are among the very few influenceswhich can seriously or permanently disturb it. In fact, the spiritualenergies of Christianity represent almost the only power which with anytransforming results has ever grappled with it aggressively, under theinspiration of a positive purpose. Public opinion may be said to exist under varied aspects. It isfound generally in the form of a sodden, stagnant incubus upon thesocial consciousness, saturated with evil traditions, characterized by anelusive, mirage-like expansiveness, inaccessible in its vastness, yet so 1 The lapan Evangelist, February, 1896, pp. 170-172. 2 On the genesis and importance of public opinion, cf. Giddings, The Prin-ciples of Sociology, p. > CO ^ u THE DAWN OF A SOCIOLOGICAL ERA IN MISSIONS 25 surely and insistently present that when you touch it you seem to comeat one and the same time into contact with the whole mass, upon which,however, even the earnest, aggressive Christian reformer is unable ap-parently to make the slightest impression. If he seems to impinge uponit at any one point, then the whole immense body appears to rally itsweight and influence against him at that very point of contact. Thenthere is the proud, alert, defiant, and determined phase of it, whichmeets one with militant energy and patriotic spirit, and offers a stoutand unrelenting resistance to every attempt at modification. There isthe sentimental and rhapsodical phase, the indifferent and contemptuoustemper, the selfish, the conservative, the timid, the weak and nervelessspecies of it. It brings to its aid and protection, in opposition to allefforts to change
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectmissions, bookyear189
