Crossing the Pacific to the east brings up the South American Continent; and Central America, the connecting stretch of land with our own continent; and Mexico, which is commonly grouped with foreign-mission lands.  South America has been spoken of both as the “neglected continent” and as the “continent of opportunity.”  The common characteristic religiously of all this vast section from Mexico to the “Land of Fire,” at the southernmost toe of South America, is that it is under the sway of the Roman Catholic Church.  Some parts of it have been spoken of as “baptized heathenism.”  A vast network of church forms and organization, practically lifeless, holds these peoples in an iron grasp.  The need of the Gospel of Jesus is fully as great as in civilized China or savage Africa.

One more long easterly stride, across the Atlantic, brings black Africa, and completes this rapid run around the globe, so far as distinctly heathen lands are concerned.  Africa is peculiarly the savage continent, though it has the oldest civilization in its northeast corner, and the newest British civilization rapidly developing on its southern edge.  It is the “dark continent,” both in the color of its inhabitants and in its sad destitution and degradation.  About a tenth of the world’s population is here; with as many missionaries as in civilized India, but unable to reach the people as effectually as there because of the lack of national organization and the absence of great highways of travel.

Africa is essentially a great mass of separate tribes, larger and smaller, most of them in deepest savagery, with sorest need not only of salvation, but of civilization.  The sore need of its very savagery has seemed to make it a magnet to missionary enterprise.  And yet all that has been done, and is being done, seems almost swallowed up in the depth of its degradation and savagery.

I have taken you with me in this very rapid run that we might try to get a simple practical grasp of the heathen world.  And if you and I might often take just such a run, with map or globe and Bible at hand, and our knees bent, it would greatly help us in getting close to the world our Lord died for; and which He means to win; and to win through you and me; and which He will win.

Christian Lands.

But I must talk with you a bit about our Christian lands, Europe and America, with huge Russia sitting astride both Europe and Asia, with a foot dangling on each side of the globe.  For these, too, are mission lands. Foreign-mission lands, would you call them?  Well, that depends entirely on what spot you happen to call home.  They are all mission fields.  The whole world is a mission field to God. Foreign-mission field? or home-mission?  Which?  It makes no practical matter which term you choose to use.

It will be well to remember just what that common phrase, “Christian lands,” really means.  It may help us in our praying.  And it may help us, too, to keep humble as we think about heathen lands.  It means, of course, the lands where Christian standards are commonly recognized as the proper standards of morals and of life.