A Lively Discussion

A LIVELY DISCUSSION

PRECIPITATED BY JUDGE HARRIMAN'S PAPER YESTERDAY.

The Judge Thought Foreign Missionaries Made No Real Converts.--- Other Speakers Differed from Him.

Judge Harriman read his paper on Foreign Missions before the Business Men's class of the Congregation at church yesterday as per announcement. He paid great tribute to the simplicity and transcendent spirit of Christ's words and teachings as uttered by himself and applied by the great missionary St. Paul. He said he hoped the time would come when the whole world would know, understand and be permeated with this spirit. He feared, however, that the spirit of the great teacher and his disciple, the great missionary, did not always imbue those who "went to preach in his name, but that instead they tanght their own special theology.

The judge thought these missionaries never made any genuine converts. This statement caused considerable discussion and was the principal point relative to which the speakers, who followed Mr. Harriman, took issue with him. The paper was highly commended for its literary merit and contained much food for reflection.

Mr. Bradshaw who followed Mr. Harriman, read extracts from high officials from Japan and elsewhere showing that in their judgrnent the work accomplished by the missionaries was of the highest character and deserving of all praise and that it was a very powerful agent in bringing these people up to a higher standard of civilization.

Judge Cheever thought the church should be criticized for not doing more in the cause of righteousness. He said only five and a half millions were spent for foreign missions and more than six hundred millions for alcoholic drinks. Senator Campbell in upholding foreign missions said one who was not imbued with the spirit which sent these men to their arduous duties could not judge of the value and success of such work. Mr. Sessions thought Mr. Harriman had not fairly presented his subject in as much as he instanced the failures but did not give the successes. Thought upon the whole the work of foreign missions had been important. The results had been so important in fact that he saw the hand of God in it all.

Next Sunday Prof. Springer will read a paper on the subject "Can a Practical Politician be a Christian?"