Читать книгу A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography онлайн

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So the question was kept constantly before me. But during the first two years, the difficulty of the acquisition of a foreign language by a person not gifted in his own, seemed an obstacle well-nigh insuperable. Conscience suggested a compromise. Within the field of Home Missions was there not equal need of men to bring the bread of life to those who were perishing without it? With the object of finding some such opportunity, I spent my last vacation, in the summer of 1855, in Texas as agent of the American Sunday School Union.

Texas afforded, indeed, great opportunities for Christian work; but in the one object of my quest—a field where Christ was not preached—I was disappointed. In every small village there was already a church—often more than one. Even in country schoolhouses Methodists, Baptists, and Cumberland Presbyterians had regular Sunday appointments, each having acquired claim to a particular Sunday of the month. Conditions were such that the growth of one sect usually meant a corresponding weakening of the others. It was possible, of course, to find local exceptions. But it is easier even now to find villages by the hundred, with three, four, and even five Protestant churches, aided by various missionary societies; where all the inhabitants, working together, could do no more than support one church well. This may be necessary; but it is surely a great waste.