the population of Russia alone is about
170,000,000, that the natural increase goes on at the rate of four
millions annually, and that in twenty years the population will amount to
about 250,000,000. Think of the mighty task laid upon the Church to keep
abreast of such a growth, and at the same time to keep the Faith alive in
the mass,--for the great majority of this vast population are attached to
the Orthodox Church. And this is the task to which the Greek Church
addresses herself, to carry the blessings of Christianity to the farthest
Russian outpost, and to keep the flame alive where it has already been
kindled. Yet this is the Church which English-speaking Christians call
non-missionary. "If we take the English Church, for example, which prides
itself on its missions, and if we exclude all its missions from the
category of mission work which lie within the vast Empire of England's
dominions beyond the seas (that is to say, from India, Africa, Canada,
Australia, to English sailors, etc.), we would find how very few and weak
English missions really are. What a poor role, then, do English missions
play outside English lands! Why, then, do English folk gird at the great
Russian Church for a lack of missionary zeal when she is labouring hard
in her immense county in Europe and Asia for Christ? In Siberia and Asia
generally she is ever spreading the Faith, and that among many tribes and
tongues and peoples; and she has missions in Japan, China, Persia,
Palestine, Alaska, the Aleoutine Islands, and elsewhere."[2]

What the Greek Church is doing in Russian dominions, she is doing also in
her ancient lands, although under quite different auspices. In Turkey and
Asia Minor she keeps the flame aglow amid adverse conditions, and
provides spiritual food for her vast household. Besides, she is the most
active missionary agency in the Levant.

But enough has been said. If we could only overtop the mountains of
prejudice, and we fear we must add, for it is the parent of prejudice,
ignorance, which divide the West from the East, we should be able to look
down not upon a barren wilderness, but a fruitful vineyard, in which the
servants of Christ are working under the eye of their Master, even as we
are working in our separate sphere. Let us think about these things.

----------

[1]_Vide_ an article in the _Re-union Magazine_, by F. W. Groves
Campbell, LL.D., March, 1910 (London: Cope & Fenwick).

[2]_Vide_ footnote, p. xvi