TOURING MISSIONER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1059, 25 August 1930, Page 14

TOURING MISSIONER

FAMOUS PREACHER’S SON IN AUCKLAND WORLD-WIDE TRIP A tour of the world, during which he is visiting mission stations in nearly every country, is just being completed by Mr. Delevan L. Pierson. He is a through passenger on the Aorangi and on his return to New York he will write his considered opinion of the world as he sees it today. This will be publised in “The Missionary Review' of the World,” of which Mr. Pierson is editor. It will interest many people in New Zealand to know that Mr. Pierson is a son of Dr. A. T. Pierson, who occupied the pulpit of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London for two years after the death of the famous preacher, C. H. Spurgeon. Dr. Pierson was Presbyterian minister of North America and his biography was written by his now much-travelled son. In his w’orld-wide tour, Mr. Pierson has had many curious experiences. He flew from Cairo to Bagdad, a trip which took 12 hours in an airplane. In Arabia he visited the excavations of the famous city of Babylon on the Euphrates and Ur of the Chaldees. FEELING OF UNREST From Mesopotamia Mr. Pierson went to India, where he spent 10 weeks j visiting various parts of the country. A feeling of unrest was everywhere and riots w'ere starting in Calcutta and Bombay. Ghandi’s pilgrimage had just started, but the general feeling was that, politically, he was a spent force. “Ghandi lost his great chance seven years ago,” said Mr. Pierson, “and now all the native States are in favour of British rule. I spoke to students in many of the colleges and they had no hesitation in saying that if British rule w T ere withdrawn from India, the whole country w'ould soon be in a state of chaos.” From India Mr. Pierson passed through Burma, Siam and Malaya and Visited Chinar which he found to be in an appalling condition. On one occasion, while going down a river, he saw the dead bodies of bandits floating in the water. They had been killed in a battle higher up the river. From China Mr. Pierson travelled to j Korea and Japan. “The contrast betw'een China and Japan is tremendous,” he said. “China is all disorder. Japan is order; China is inefficient, Japan is efficient; one country is material chaos, the other material prosperity. Japan has made j immense progress since the earth- j quake.” Then followed another trip to China, | on to Philippines and Australia, and j then to Papua and back to Australia. Mr. Pierson will lecture today to students at the Bible Training Insti- j tute, and will go on by the Aorangi to j visit the mission stations in the | Pacific. In addition to his work as editor of j the “Missionary Review,” Mr. Pierson ! is director of the National Bible In- \ statute and the American Mission to Lepers. He is an author of some repute. His works include the life of his father, “For Each New Day,” and “Pacific Islanders.”