like potatoes
better than rice. That is to say, most of us like things the way we
are used to having them rather than some other way. What is to be our
attitude on the mission field? Are we free to try to have things the
way we would like them, and to live, as much as possible, as we would
at home? Or ought we to attempt, as far as we can, to conform to the
way of life of the people among whom we live? This, of course, brings
us to other questions: Does it matter to the people to whom we go
whether we conform or not? And, more important, does it matter insofar
as the progress of the Gospel is concerned? Will our conforming help
to win souls to Christ?

The first thing to be said in answer to these questions is that the
standards of missionary living necessarily must vary with local
conditions. In some places there is a mixture of races and peoples,
each in general keeping with its own customs and dress, and yet mixing
freely with the others. In such places there may be many Westerners,
and Western ways may not only be familiar, but even adopted to a
certain extent by the local people. In situations like this there may
be little or no need for the missionary to change his ordinary way of
life.

Most missionaries go to places where the way of life is different from
their own, and to people to whom their way of life is strange and by
whom it is not understood. It is natural for us to like people who do
things in the way in which we like them done. We are attracted to
those who seem the same as ourselves, and turn (perhaps unconsciously)
from those who seem queer and different. People of other lands are the
same. When we see someone whose complexion, features, clothing,
language, manners, and customs are different from our own, our natural
reaction is to stare, or laugh, or both. It is not natural to be
attracted to those who are different from ourselves. The missionary
wants to attract people. People must be attracted to him before they
can be attracted to his message. They must accept him before they will
accept his message. The more we can conform to their way of life, the
easier and more natural and more rapid their acceptance of us will be.

The report of a China Inland Mission conference of missionaries held
in England a few years ago includes as one of the lessons learned from
past experience of missionary work in China, "the will to conform as
nearly as possible to the social and living conditions of the people