§9. Foreign Missions. XVI. Later Theology. Vol. 17. Later National Literature, Part II. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XVI. Later Theology.

§ 9. Foreign Missions.

A third great factor in destroying the isolation of Christianity from human life, worthy to be mentioned with Biblical criticism and the theory of evolution, was the wide-spreading interest in the foreign missionary enterprise. The various monographs in the excellent American Church History series indicate that missions share with education and the federation of the sects the chief interest of the denominational life of this period. An increasingly large number of intelligent men and women went into the lands “occupied” by other religions for the sake of Christianizing them. They returned frequently with the reports of their activity, their successes, and their difficulties. The chief difficulty which confronted them in the civilized lands of the East was the firmly rooted conceptions and emotions at the base of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism. It became borne in upon the Christian consciousness that Christianity and religion were not synonymous.