OJorncU Ittittcjrattg Hibtarg 
 
 Strata, INem ^orfe 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 CLASS OF 1676 
 1918 
 
/ Cornell University Library 
 BV^70.T44 
 
 Missionary addresses. 
 
 3 1924 023 021 508 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023021508 
 
MISSIONARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 REV. Jit M. THOBUR^, D.D. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PEILLIP S & HUNT. 
 
 CINCINNA TI: 
 
 CRANSTON & STOWE. 
 
 1888. 
 
 (i 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ' I ""HE first five lectures contained in this little 
 volume were delivered before the students of 
 the Garrett Biblical Institute, February 14-18, 1887, 
 and were published early in April. The remaining 
 five lectures were delivered before the students of 
 the School of Theology of the Boston University, 
 March 12-16, 1888. The edition of the first series 
 having become exhausted, the whole ten lectures 
 have been incorporated into a single volume, and in 
 the hope of contributing in some small measure to 
 the advancement of the great missionary enterprise 
 they are in this form presented to the Christian 
 public. J. M. T. 
 
 Kingston, Ohio, March 30, 1888. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Spieit op Missions 1 
 
 II. The Young Missionary's Call and Equipment. 33 
 
 III. Missionary Methods 43 
 
 IV. The Moral State of the Heathen 66 
 
 V. Missionary Service as a Career 86 
 
 VI. The Farewell Commandment 107 
 
 Vn. The Beggar at our Gate 137 
 
 Vni. The New Missionary Era 148 
 
 IX. The World's Pentecost 171 
 
 X. The Prophet to the Nations 196 
 
MISSIONARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 
 
 I HAVE a very vivid recollection of the excitement 
 which attended the first discovery of gold in Cal- 
 ifornia. It spread all over the country and pervaded 
 all classes of society. Every city and town and village 
 and rural community sent forth its representatives to 
 the then unknown regions of the Pacific coast to join 
 in the search for gold. It was a great movement, and 
 one which in many of its features had never before 
 been witnessed in our country. If we ask, What was 
 the animating principle of that movement ? it is not 
 difficult to give a full and sufficient reply. First, and 
 chiefly, there was that love of gold so strong in our 
 common human nature, and which responds so easily 
 to every appeal which is made to it. Bright and 
 eager hopes were cherished by the adventurers who 
 sallied forth to those distant fields, that in a short 
 time and with comparatively slight effort they would 
 succeed in gathering from the golden sands enough 
 treasure to make them rich for life. Then there was 
 that love of adventure which forms so striking an 
 element in the Anglo-Saxon character, and which 
 especially manifests itself among young men who are 
 fitted for daring enterprises. Ambition, too, put in 
 its appeal, and not a few ©f these wk© vestured forth 
 
2 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 saw in the future growth of a great golden State on 
 the Pacific coast opportunities to rise to eminence 
 and power. Added to all these motives, there was a 
 spirit of romance which seemed to add a glow to the 
 whole picture as it presented itself to the imagina- 
 tion, and which contributed not a little to the interest 
 with which the movement was regarded. 
 
 In the closing years of the last century the great 
 modern missionary movement of the world was in- 
 augurated. Tt was some time in getting in motion, 
 and in gaining sufficient momentum to make it a rec- 
 ognized movement of the Christian world ; but with 
 every succeeding year it has been gaining steadily 
 both in the extent of its operations and in the hold 
 which it has secured upon the minds and hearts of 
 the Christian public. It was never more potent for 
 good and never more full of promise than at the 
 present. It can never again be left out of any esti- 
 mate either of the character of Christianity as a whole, 
 or of its present operations, or its future prospects. 
 It becomes, then, a most important and interesting 
 inquiry as to what has been and still is the animating 
 spirib of this movement. Like the exodus to Cali- 
 fornia in former days, this greater movement of 
 Christian evangelism toward the heathen nations of 
 the world may be traced distinctly to certain animat- 
 ing causes, and if we would understand it fully we 
 must study these carefully and see how far they enter 
 into the work as we are accustomed to view it, or as 
 we may be personally interested in it. In a work so 
 vast, so widely extended, and so complicated, it would 
 be impossible to point out all the various influences 
 which affect it, but in its best phases we may safely 
 
The Spieit of Missions. 3 
 
 assume that a genuine missionary work will be dis- 
 tinguished by the following marks : 
 
 First — It is prompted supremely by the constrain- 
 ing love of Christ. This is a lofty standard, but it is 
 a true standard, and should never be lowered. It is to 
 be feared, however, that to many persons missionary 
 work means little or nothing more than a civilizing 
 agency. It is, perhaps, well for governments to re- 
 gard it as such, and it of course must be recognized 
 as one part of the missionary's work to purify and 
 elevate the civilization of the people to whom he goes; 
 but this is only a secondary part of his mission. The 
 motive power which animates him supremely is the 
 love of Christ — a love which, as every Christian knows, 
 comprehends in its embrace the whole human race. 
 The Christian loves as his Master does. His love is 
 not and cannot be circumscribed by national boundary 
 lines, by race differences, by popular prejudices or by 
 any artificial restrictions. A recent popular writer 
 has said that the belief of future punishment has 
 one compensating advantage, in that it prompts Chris- 
 tians to go. to the waste places of the earth to try to 
 save the nations which they honestly believe to be 
 perishing, and he half consents to waive his objections 
 to a repugnant doctrine in view of the good that re- 
 sults from it. He, and all others who talk like him, 
 hardly understand the alphabet of the subject which 
 they discuss. The language of the true missionary 
 every-where in our day is precisely that of the first great 
 missionary whom the world ever saw : " The love of 
 Christ constraineth us." When that love is first kin- 
 dled in the human heart its possessor at once begins 
 to feel an irrepressible longing to have others share 
 
4 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 it with him. He has, it is true, a vivid realization of 
 the awful consequences of willful sin and willful re- 
 jection of God's promises, and may thus be said to 
 "know the terror of the Lord," but, although know- 
 ing this terror, his controlling motive as an animating 
 principle is not the fear, but the love, of Christ. It is 
 a notable fact that a man -who ignores or denies the 
 terror of Jehovah and his law seldom seems to have 
 any thing like a fervent realization of the love of 
 Christ, and while he does not try to save the heathen 
 world from an awful hell, he tries just as little to win 
 it to the love of Christ. The true missionary does 
 not tamper with the truth, does not shut his eyes to 
 facts, does not believe sin to be harmless, but none 
 ■the less is he constrained, at every step of his Christian 
 pilgrimage and at every stroke of his Christian labor, 
 by the supreme love of Christ in his soul. He goes 
 to a heathen land in the same spirit in which his Mas- 
 ter came to a heathen world. He is impelled by love, 
 and love sits enthroned in his heart throughout his 
 whole career. 
 
 It may be said that all Christians are partakers of 
 the love of Christ, and hence that there is nothing 
 distinctive in the love which a missionary is said to 
 possess. But it must be remembered that the same 
 love may be possessed in varying degrees, and that it 
 may affect different persons differently, according to 
 the width of their views, the scope of their operations, 
 and the extent of their plans. A man will not love 
 those whom he does not know, or of whom he has not 
 heard. The great majority of people live in a very 
 circumscribed world. Their thouglits, their hopes, 
 their interests, are limited . by their ©wn immediate 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 5 
 
 surroundings. In tlie first, generation after the' 
 Eeformation the Christians of the Protestant world 
 were so absorbed in their own struggles that they had 
 little time to think of the nations sitting in darkness, 
 and but limited means with which to reach them or 
 attempt to do them good. But with the great spiritual 
 revival of the eighteenth century in England and 
 America came the dawn of a better day. The minds 
 and hearts of the most evangelical Christians of that 
 period began to be enlightened, and here and there 
 m'en began to be moved with strange longings for 
 the salvation of the heathen world. They were filled 
 not onlj' with the constraining love of Christ, but 
 they chei'ished this love together with an enlarged 
 view of the necessities of the world. They were not 
 better, perhaps, than others who had gone before 
 them, but God had planted their feet upon a higher 
 eminence. They possessed a better vantage ground. 
 They saw great nations as clearly as others had seen 
 neighboring towns and villages. They perceived that 
 the Saviour from his throne in glory was looking upon 
 all the nations with an impartial love, that he had 
 died for all alike, and tliat he still loved all alike, and 
 their hearts were fired with a new and unquenchable 
 desire to see all the nations gathered into the Chris- 
 tian' fold. That was the true spirit of modern mis- 
 sions, and nothing can take its place. The young man 
 who is not thus constrained by the love of Christ to 
 devote himself to missionary work, should never be 
 constrained by any thing else. In other words, it is 
 not worth his while to go to the mission field. He 
 will be disappointed if he goes, and will be a disap- 
 poiatment to those to whom he goes. 
 
6 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 Second — Obedience- to a specific conimand of 
 Christ is another element in what may be called the 
 spirit of modern missions. It seems like a mere truism 
 to say it, but it has to be repeated over and over again a 
 thousand times before people give heed to the fact 
 that our Saviour has left on record a specific com- 
 mand to his people to " disciple all nations." This is 
 the great work which is required of his disciples of 
 the present day. It is not a matter of choice, or of a 
 balancing of advantages, or of a comparison of rival 
 claims, but a supreme question of obedience to the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 No man has any more right to question our duty 
 to evangelize the nations than he has to set aside the 
 observance of the Sabbath, or the keeping of any 
 other of the Ten Commandments. ISTo other work can 
 take the place of this. No fidelity to any other cause 
 can atone for the omission of this duty. That which 
 is sometimes called home mission work might be 
 proved to be a thousand times more fruitful than real 
 missionary work among the nations who know not 
 God ; its workers might be more devoted, and in tlieir 
 way better men and women, and money expended in 
 it might produce greater results than if sent abroad ; 
 butall these considerationswonld notaffect intheslight- 
 est particular the fact that the Lord of heaven and earth 
 has given his people this S2)ecific work of evangelizing 
 all the nations that sit in darkness. Do all conceiv- 
 able kinds of good work done in one country excuse 
 the omission of one specific duty in another? " This 
 ought ye to have done, and not have left the other 
 undone" will, I fear, be the language of Him that sit- 
 teth upon the throne in the last day to those in the 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 7 
 
 churches who, with an open Bible before them, have 
 failed to obey the last command left on record for ns 
 by the Saviour before his ascension. I often think 
 that in our day, when the tendency to substitute a 
 sentimental religion for one of deep spiritual life and 
 power is so apparent, there is great danger of looking 
 lightly upon the solemn consequences of disobedience 
 to God. It seems to be assumed that if a man is a 
 Christian his Christianity will be accepted as a com- 
 pensation for a certain degree of disobedience. In 
 other words, the law of God must not be too rigidly in- 
 terpreted and applied ; and it thus happens that not only 
 individuals but whole congregations seem to forget 
 that faith and obedience are inseparable. People can- 
 not exercise faith while they are disobedient to even 
 one duty. In the New Testament the two words are 
 used in some instances interchangeably. Those who 
 do not obey cannot believe, in the 'New Testament 
 sense of the word, and persistent disobedience to one 
 of the most important commands ever given cannot 
 but paralyze the faith of the Church and enervate 
 her right arm of power in the day of battle. May 
 not the feebleness of the universal Church, which so 
 many mournfully lament, be owing in a great measure 
 to this conspicuous neglect of duty? The Lord of 
 heaven and earth has given the word. Go. It is spe- 
 cific. We are not to wait until the distant nations 
 come to our shores ; we are not to wait until indirect 
 Christian influences slowly permeate through the 
 world ; we are not to trust to secondary agencies, but 
 we are to go to the nations themselves, as they are 
 found in the dwelling-places which God has marked 
 out for them. "We are to evangelize, disciple, in short. 
 
8 MissioNAET Addeesses. 
 
 Christianize them. Heaven and earth alike have 
 heard the command. The very heathen know that 
 every consistent Christian miistbe intent upon execut- 
 ing this great commission, and before heaven and earth 
 alike the universal Church is inconsistent and unfaith- 
 ful so long and so far as she neglects to obey this 
 solemn command of her risen Master. She can 
 never be strong, never shine forth in her true glory, 
 never rise in her true dignity before the nations, never 
 move forward in the pathway of victory marked out 
 for her, while closing her ears to the very marching 
 orders of the Captain of her salvation and neglect- 
 ing the very purpose for which she has been organized 
 on earth. It should be the duty of every preacher, 
 of every watchman commissioned to stand upon the 
 walls of Zion, to lift up his voice against this wide- 
 spread spirit of disobedience. The welfare of the 
 Church in Christian lands, as well as the hope of the 
 Church in heathen lands, alike depend upon immediate 
 and implicit obedience of the original command, not one 
 iota of which has been withdrawn, to go to the utter- 
 most parts of the earth and disciple all the nations of 
 mankind. 
 
 Third — The true missionary spirit implies an in- 
 tense devotion to the great work undertaken. This 
 devotion knows no limitation and can admit none. It 
 takes its model from Him who left the riches and 
 glory of tlie kingdom above and for our sakes became 
 poor ; who literally " emptied himself of all but love ; " 
 who shared not only our low estate, but accepted the 
 lowest place among the lowly ; who became a servant 
 while heir to the crown of the universe. There is a 
 cheap devotion abroad in the world which is of no 
 
The Spieit of Missions. 9 
 
 service in the mission iield, and which cannot be Tnade 
 a substitute of this higher devotion which partakes of 
 the very nature of Christ himself. It is a very easy 
 thing, when one thinks of going as a missionary to a 
 foreign iield, to so dwell upon a few sacrifices that 
 are to be made as to make it seem that a very noble 
 devotion is being exhibited. But a very brief expe- 
 rience in the missionary work never fails to dispel 
 the illusion. Christian devotion can never be limited 
 to specific details, no matter how many or how im- 
 portant they may seem. It is simple in its nature, 
 although comprehensive in its influence. It simply 
 means that the disciple is devoted to the service set 
 before him, as his Master who requires this act from 
 him was when on his mission to earth. He literally 
 keeps nothing back ; he waives his own rights, relin- 
 quishes his own advantages, erases all his hopes, and 
 places himself unreservedly at the disposal of Him 
 whose he is and whom he serves. 
 
 It is sometimes easy to make great sacrifices 
 without being thus wholly devoted. If any one 
 were to ask me for marks of true devotion on the 
 part of a young missionary I should not point to 
 his forsaking his native land and bidding adieu to 
 all his friends, but I should watch him when with 
 his brother missionary he enters the cabin of the 
 vessel which is to convey him to his distant field. I 
 should notice how willing he was to give his broth- 
 er missionary the best berth and the most conven- 
 ient places for his articles of baggage. I should 
 notice how habitually willing he was not only to 
 prefer his brother in honor, but also in all lit- 
 tle matters pertaining to comfort and convenience. 
 
10 MiSSIONAEY AdDEKSSES. 
 
 A man who cannot sacrifice a little, will not relinquish 
 greater things. The missionary, like his Master, who 
 was more homeless than the jackal and the birds, will 
 think every thing of his work and little of himself. 
 He will be among his humble converts like one who 
 serves, and not like one who rules. He will yield his 
 own preference in a second whenever the interests of 
 liis great work seem to demand it. He will remem- 
 ber he is for the work and not the work for him. 
 
 It may be, and very probably will be, said that a 
 similar devotion should be exhibited in Christian lands 
 as well as in mission fields. Very true ; but that which 
 is important here is a necessity there. As a matter 
 of fact, it is to be feared that thousands of Christian 
 ministers act too much upon the principle that the 
 churches are for them, and not they for the churches, 
 but their mistake cannot be imitated by the foreign 
 missionary without bringing an absolute paralysis 
 upon his work. As before remarked, he goes to his 
 distant field as his Master first came to earth, and he 
 must look to that Master as his model rather than to 
 frail worms of earth who sometimes carry, without 
 wearing, the prophetic mantle of ministers of Chris- 
 tian churches. 
 
 But it is not to be supposed that those who go 
 abroad as missionaries are to have a monopoly of this 
 devotion. The whole work must be carried on in this 
 spirit. As a matter of fact it must be conceded that 
 the missionaries who go abroad are faithful repre- 
 sentatives of the Church which sends them. Here, as 
 elsewhere, the law of nature asserts itself ; the stream 
 does not rise higher than the fountain. The home 
 churches engaged in this work must cherish the de- 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 11 
 
 votion which makes success in the work a possibility. 
 As individuals and organized congregations they must 
 lay their all upon the altar of sacrifice ; they must be 
 willing and ready not only to give their silver and 
 gold, but their sons and daughters, the young men 
 and women from their Sunday-schools and training 
 institutions. They must appreciate the honor and the 
 responsibility which the Saviour has laid upon them, 
 and they must prepare like him to yield up, if need 
 be, every thing for the great enterprise which hag 
 been intrusted to them. Until they do this they 
 cannot and do not consistently prosecute missionary 
 work. How far our churches fall short of this high 
 standard I need not point out. They are abundantly 
 able to prosecute all the work which has thus far 
 been set before them. In our own Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church it would be easy to find possibly one 
 hundred, but certainly two hundred men who could 
 take up the whole work in our foreign fields as it ex- 
 ists to-day, and carry it forward vigorously and suc- 
 cessfully without embarrassing themselves in busi- 
 ness or curtailing their business enterprises in any 
 particular ; and yet in a church like this, where rich 
 men are not rare, where poor men are but too few, 
 and where general comfort is the rule, this great mis- 
 sionary cause is obliged to walk up and down the 
 aisles of our sanctuaries once a year in the garb of a 
 beo-firar — has to stand at the door of the luxurious pew 
 of the rich man and beg for a few dollars to be given 
 as a favor, instead of accepting a noble offering laid 
 upon the altar of sacrifice. Here and there we may 
 see a better state of things, but, taking the whole 
 country over, this is what we behold. The standard 
 2 
 
12 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 wliicli sliould be waving high in the sky of heaven is 
 trailing low in the dust of earth. The true spirit of 
 devotion is limited to a few, and these few are for the 
 most part made up of God's own poor. If we would 
 win the world for Christ, if we would expect success 
 in the Church commensurate with the boundless work 
 to be accomplished, we must exhibit a purer and 
 nobler devotion than any thing which the world is 
 witnessing to-day. We must realize that this work is 
 a common work, and that Christian devotion is not 
 the monopoly of the few, but the privilege and duty 
 of the multitude. 
 
 JFourth — The true missionary spirit has an element 
 of heroism in it, which qualifies its possessor for faithful 
 service in great emergencies and a firm adherence to 
 duty in tlie most fierce furnace fires. Here again, 
 however, we are to distinguish between the spurious 
 and the genuine. As with devotion so with heroism ; 
 there is a cheap substitute, which sometimes passes by 
 that name, tliat possesses very little of the material 
 out of which heroes are made. In an ordinary mis- 
 sion field no special act of daring may fall to the 
 missionary's lot. To go, for instance, to a mission 
 field in India does not call for the exercise of a 
 greater physical coiirage than is required in ordinary 
 Christian woi'k in the United States. If a missionary 
 to the jungle dwellers, he stands in no fear of the 
 ravages of the wild beasts around him. He goes 
 among Hindoos and Mohammedans alike, without 
 fear of outward persecution or personal harm. He 
 lives in a country infested with poisonous serpents 
 but rarely sees one, and practically is exposed to no 
 more danger from them than you are from a light- 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 13 
 
 ning stroke in an American summer. Now and then, 
 it is true, an emergency may give him an opportunity 
 for exercising his courage, but the general rule is 
 otherwise. The missionary's career in a country like 
 India is apt to grow monotonous rather than become 
 romantic, and it serves no good purpose to speak of 
 dangers wliich do not practically exist, and to laud 
 the simple missionary as one of the world's great 
 heroes. To do so is to set up a false standard of her- 
 oism which is really unworthy both of the missionary 
 and the cause which he serves. 
 
 But while thus protesting against this false stand- 
 ard I do not hesitate to affirm that the true missionary, 
 however common-place his career may be, ought to 
 have the spirit of a hero in him. It is moi'al courage 
 which he needs rather than physical, although in 
 some iields the one may be as needful as the other. 
 We all know but too well that those who plunge into 
 the wilds of Africa need the spirit of a martyr as 
 well as the courage of a pioneer. It was only yester- 
 day that the same courage was required in Madagas- 
 car; it has been called for very recently in some 
 fields in China, and it may be in demand in any other 
 non-christian country at any unexpected hour. 
 
 I have long been persuaded that the devil will stir 
 up more vigorous and cruel persecutions in all non- 
 christian countries, as soon as it becomes evident that 
 the Christian Church is really in earnest in her deter- 
 mination to pull down his strongholds and win the 
 world for Christ. The latent power of the kingdom 
 of darkness in this world is greater than we are apt 
 to suspect. While we pursue our desultory, half 
 earnest methods, we need not expect to encounter 
 
14 MissioNAEY Addbesses. 
 
 very fierce opposition. People very often ask me if 
 I think another mutiny may be expected in India like 
 the bloody catastrophe of 1857. I tell them no ; that 
 I do not think that bloody drama vi^ill be enacted 
 again, but at the same time I sometimes anticipate a 
 great convulsion in India before that mighty empire 
 shall all be won for Christ. In what form this catas- 
 trophe will take place, from what quarter the danger 
 will come, I cannot tell ; I only know that in a land 
 where Satan has so long held his seat he will not 
 yield up his kingdom without a desperate struggle. 
 I am by no means sure that this struggle will be of a 
 political character. I do not know or pretend to 
 foresee whether the blow will come from the Eussians, 
 from the Mohammedans, or from the misguided poli- 
 ticians of Europe ; I oiily know that we can judge the 
 future by the past, and in all past history great relig- 
 ious revolutions have been attended by great national 
 convulsions, and hence in India we need, and for 
 ages we shall need, missionary heroes. The same is 
 true all over the world. Even in Japan, where a na- 
 tion seems about to be born in a day, and where the 
 process of conversion seems to be attended with no 
 more disturbance in the empire than is produced by 
 the dawn or the sunrise, I cannot feel assured that 
 the transformation of so great a nation will be effected 
 without the fierce struggles and great convulsions 
 which have attended all similar movements in other 
 lands. 
 
 But even if this view should prove a mistaken one, 
 if the whole world should be converted by a quiet 
 process going on as silently as the leaven spreads 
 through the meal, or as the little germ of mustard 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 15 
 
 seed expands into a great tree, yet even then the 
 highest type of heroism will still be demanded from 
 the missionary. Moral heroism is as much superior 
 to physical as the soul is superior to the body. The 
 obscure missionary who carries on his quiet work in 
 some remote corner of the earth is tested again and 
 again in a way which people in a country like Amer- 
 ica can hardly appreciate. His courage is tested at a 
 thousand different points. He has to be firm and 
 brave in standing for the right when a little yielding 
 would seem to hold out assurance of great success ; 
 he has often to stand firm and true against conduct 
 which seems to involve but a little wrong, and yet 
 which would if tolerated for a day soon become too 
 strong for him, and, cutting its way thi-ougli every 
 barrier, sweep like a devastating flood over his fair 
 field. His courage needs to be all the greater because 
 he stands alone. Most of you living in a Christian 
 land, surrounded by Christian influences and held up 
 as you are by Christian friends, little know how 
 much you really lean upon these outward supports. 
 "Not one man in a thousand in a country like this 
 knows what it is to stand alone. We mutually sup- 
 port one another. We bear up one another's hands ; 
 we cheer one another's hearts, and we often think we 
 are brave and strong when each of us is leaning upon 
 tlie courage and strength of a thousand others. Many 
 a man who has been regarded a pillar of strength at 
 home proves as weak as a shorn Samson when he' 
 goes to live among strangers. Many a man who re- 
 sists the devil as he would a roaring lion while living 
 in his home, surrounded by true friends, yields to 
 every form of temptation when living in a community 
 
16 Mission AEY Addeesses. 
 
 where no one helps him to resist evil. The mission- 
 ary should be a man who is not only brave enough to 
 stand in the ranks on the battlefield, but if need be 
 to stand alone at his remote outpost for a long series 
 of years, keeping his face like flint against the foe, 
 yielding nothing, shrinking from nothing, asking for 
 nothing, but steadily maintaining his ground with a 
 courage which nothing can daunt, with an ardor 
 which nothing can chill, and with a faith as steadfast 
 as the eternal foundation upon which it rests. 
 
 Fifth — A genuine, perhaps I might say an apos- 
 tolic, enthusiasm is another distinguishing mark of a 
 true missionary spirit. A century ago this word en- 
 thusiasm was an epithet of opprobrium, and was very 
 commonly used in the sense in which we now employ 
 the word fanaticism. A man fired with enthusiasm 
 was supposed to be more or less a reckless fanatic, and 
 it was long before it began to be noticed that some- 
 how or other many of this kind of men managed to 
 succeed better than their cold, calculating and some- 
 times heartless critics. Little by little it became 
 clearly recognized that there was an element of power 
 in genuine enthusiasm, until at last the word has 
 been redeemed from its former misuse, while another 
 and more suitable term has been employed to represent 
 that evil spirit of fanaticism which never fails to 
 make havoc in any Christian work where it finds a 
 recognition. A hearty enthusiasm is a natural out- 
 growth of genuine Christianity, and nowhere is it 
 more in place — nowhere is it more indispensable — 
 than in the wide mission fields of the Church. Paul 
 the apostle, the first great missionary of the Christian 
 dispensation, was an enthusiast in the best sense of the 
 
The Spieit of Missions. 17 
 
 term, and we need not wonder that men of the world, 
 incapable of comprehending such a character, did not 
 hesitate to regard him as beside himself. He was a 
 man who had unwavering confidence in his work, ap- 
 preciated the grandeur of the enterprise and the sub- 
 limity of the great commission with which he had 
 been intrusted. He loved his work ; it was more to 
 him than his meat and drink, indeed than life itself. 
 He was wholly absorbed in it. There was not the 
 smallest corner in his heart in which any doubt or 
 question could find lodgment in reference to his call, 
 to the character of his work, to the infinite resources 
 at his command, to the victorious career set before 
 him, and to the certain victory with which both he 
 and his work were at last to be crowned. Such is the 
 enthusiasm which the modern missionary needs and 
 should exhibit; and such is the enthusiasm with 
 which both the Church at home and the missionary 
 abroad should engage in their great work. Cold cal- 
 culations with reference to possibilities and probabili- 
 ties have no place here. Perfunctory work and 
 conventional services are as much out of place as they 
 would have been in the tours of Barnabas and Paul. 
 The Church must believe in the work, and, accepting 
 the great responsibility which her Master lays upon 
 her, must send forth her children in the spirit of the 
 old Spartan mothers who bade their sons farewell as 
 they went forth to battle, telling them to return 
 either bearing their shields or being borne upon them. 
 She must have supreme confidence in the success of 
 this great enterprise. Her missionary meetings should 
 be convocations of great joy, her songs should be full 
 of exultant hope and confidence, and her prayers should 
 
18 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 ascend unceasingly for the consummation so long 
 hoped for, so distinctly promised, so faithfully assured, 
 that all the earth shall be the Lord's. And the mis- 
 sionaries who go to their distant fields should go in 
 the same spirit. They do not go to try an experi- 
 ment, they do not dream of going in the spirit of ad- 
 venture, like the tourist wandering amid the ruins of 
 antiquity, they do not go because they fail to find 
 congenial employment at home, they do not go to 
 spend a term of years that they may return again to 
 an honorable rest at home, tlius burying their ripest 
 experience and throwing away the very best years, 
 perhaps, of their possible service ; but they go to live 
 and labor and die among the people to whom God 
 sends them. They love the work which God gives 
 them ; they love the people among whom they dwell ; 
 they love the associations by which they are sur- 
 rounded ; they are full of hope and confidence; their 
 songs are songs of victory, and, while they live in the 
 day of small things, they see their triumph from afar 
 and bring it nigh by the power of a vivid faith which 
 never for a moment fails them. 
 
 The value of such enthusiasm cannot be estimated 
 too highly. It is easy to disparage it, it is easy to 
 say its possessors are too sanguine, that they are rash 
 and impetuous, or shortsighted, or unwise, but the 
 men who win upon moral battle fields are, in nine 
 cases out of ten, men of this very kind. 
 
 General Grant relates in his Memoirs how it was, 
 during the closing battles of our civil war, that the 
 daily increased enthusiasm of his soldiers made them 
 capable of extraordinary endurance. They marched 
 twice as far in a day as before had been thought pos- 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 19 
 
 sible ; they seemed never to grow weary, were always 
 eager for battle, were animated by extraordinary 
 courage, and were equal to all the demands which 
 were made upon them. Fifty thousand such soldiers 
 were really equal to one hundred thousand similar 
 men lacking their enthusiasm. So it is in the mis- 
 sion field to-day. Without this holy enthusiasm the 
 noble workers who occupy the frontier posts of Chris- 
 tianity must be weak and in a measure timid, and un- 
 equal to the tremendous strain which from time to 
 time will be laid upon thera. They are men from 
 whom both God and the Church expect great achieve- 
 ments, and to be equal to their stupendous task they 
 need to be fired with a hoi}' ardor which will only 
 burn more brightly in the midst of discouragement, 
 and which all the powers of earth and hell can never 
 quench. 
 
 I have for some years past noticed, at times with 
 deep concern, the development of a certain spirit in 
 connection with missionary work which does not 
 seem to foster this enthusiasm upon which I place so 
 high a value. In things non-essential we can nev6r 
 be too careful to concede to a brother Christian the 
 right to differ from us, and hence in the discussion of 
 opposing views concerning the date and character of 
 the millennial reign I have long conscientiously 
 tried to avoid anything which would seem like antag- 
 onizing the views of those who differ from me, and 
 who seem to be not only as conscientious, but much 
 more intense in their convictions than myself. If a 
 Christian brother is persuaded that the second advent 
 is to be expected at an early period I am more than 
 content to let him maintain his view. Like him I, too. 
 
20 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 believe that this same Jesus will come again, and like 
 hira I live in hope expectant of being made like my 
 glorified Master when he appears ; but that which fills 
 me with concern is the apparent eagerness with which 
 many, apparently feeling it necessary for the main- 
 tenance of their views, teach that the Gospel is essen- 
 tially too weak to cope with the powers of darkness 
 which are now abroad in the world. We even hear 
 it taught that the Gospel was never intended to be 
 the means of converting the world, and has already 
 nearly fulfilled its mission. In many quarters we 
 hear less and less about the power of a victorious 
 Saviour, and more about the advancing powers of sin 
 and hell. The world is given up as lost, and the ut- 
 most that we are to attempt is to save as many souls 
 as possible from the sinking wreck before it goes 
 down forever. We search in vain for any trace of 
 missionary enthusiasm here. We almost seem to 
 concede victory, in the supreme contest between 
 Christ and the devil, to the prince of darkness. We 
 forget how to sing, 
 
 Jesus ! the name high over all 
 
 In heaven, or earth, or sky; 
 Angels and men before it fall, 
 
 And devils fear and fly. 
 
 When Barnabas and Saul sallied out of Antioch on 
 their momentous mission they knew no such dismal 
 story as this. They preached a living, conquering, 
 triumphant Jesus. 
 
 Every picture of our risen Master which the New 
 Testament gives us after the morning of the resurrec- 
 tion is one in which he is portrayed as a victorious 
 
The Spirit of Missions. 21 
 
 leader. The Christian of every age is pointed to him 
 going forth' on a victorious career, conquering and to 
 conquer, with the sharp two-edged sword of the word 
 forever proceeding from his lips, breaking in pieces 
 and subduing all the nations of the earth, even as the 
 wonderful prophet in his vision in Babylon had fore- 
 told that he should do. Let us enter, then, this great 
 missionary campaign, which is to culminate in the sub- 
 jugation of all the nations, with the confidence of 
 soldiers who follow a victorious leader and who serve 
 an omnipotent King. Let it never for a moment be 
 conceded that the powers of hell are stronger to-day, 
 or the resources of the kingdom of darkness greater, 
 than those of the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. 
 Let us carefully cherish the enthusiasm of soldiers 
 who fight in a noble warfare, and who are reaching 
 that period in a great campaign when victories are to 
 be won upon a larger scale than has ever been wit- 
 nessed before. Let us see in what God is doing, as 
 well as in the sure word of promise which is given, 
 the earnest of that final consummation when our 
 Saviour shall have broken in pieces and consumed all 
 the kingdoms of this world, and entered upon his 
 eternal reign of peace and love. 
 
 My dear young brethren, not many of you will be 
 sent forth into the great mission field, but I trust that 
 all of you will be filled with the true spirit of mis- 
 sions, and serve in your own land the great cause as 
 faithfully as if preaching on the banks of the Ganges. 
 You are to bear a most important responsibility. You 
 are to be the trumpeters of the militant host of the 
 King of kings. Let your trumpets never give forth 
 an uncertain sound while the great conflict goes on 
 
22 MissiONAEY Addkesses. 
 
 between the children of God and the hosts of evil. 
 Preach a gospel of victory. Tell your people, and 
 never cease telling them, that Satan is a conquered 
 foe, and that his works throughout the world are to 
 be utterly destroyed. Wars are to cease to the ends 
 of the earth, and all the great iniquities which dis- 
 grace our civilization are to be utterly abolished. 
 Jesus shall indeed reign over ail the nations, and our 
 poor earth shall become the happy dwelling-place of a 
 redeemed race. 
 
The Young Missionary's Call. 23 
 
 THE YOUNG MISSIONARY'S CALL AND 
 EQUIPMENT. 
 
 IT has been an accepted doctrine among all the 
 different branches of the great Methodist family 
 since the days of John "Wesley, that no man has a right 
 to preach until he is called of God to do so. In an age 
 when most of the pulpits of England were occupied 
 by men who knew no call except that of choice, and 
 who performed their duties in a perfunctory and lifeless 
 manner, God began to raise up men of his own choice 
 and to thrust them out as preachers of the Gospel. 
 Such men were naturally looked upon as intruders by 
 those who had been quietly assuming that they were 
 the official guardians of this duty, and the sharp chal- 
 lenge with which the preachers of the new order 
 were met led them to consider well their credentials. 
 Hence they were not long in assuming the true and 
 only safe position which any preacher can occupy : 
 that the primary call to this work comes not from 
 flesh and blood, but from God himself. The true 
 preacher of the gospel is a man moved by the Holy 
 Ghost to engage in this hallowed work. In like man- 
 ner it has generally, though not universally, been ac- 
 cepted as a most important truth, that a missionary 
 going out to heathen lands should first receive a 
 specific call from God to this work. Many reasons 
 might be stated showing how needful to the mission- 
 ary such a call is, but it will suffice to point to the 
 
24 MissioNAET Addresses. 
 
 fact that since the days of William Carey large num- 
 bers of foreign missionaries have been accustomed to 
 bear witness to the reception of such a call. The very 
 nature of the work implies that God would himself 
 summon the messengers whom he sends forth, and 
 the experiences of vast numbers of missionaries of 
 the present as well as of past generations attest that 
 such a summons is actually sent to the laborers. I 
 think it well to call attention to the importance of this 
 call, more especially because we begin to hear it ques- 
 tioned in many quarters. Young men are urged to 
 select this work on their own responsibilit}', because 
 it may seem to be an urgent one, or because it affords 
 them excellent opportunities for usefulness, or for any 
 other reason which is not inconsistent with religious 
 duty. For one I cannot advise, much less urge, any 
 young man to enter so lightly upon a work of such 
 transcendent importance. While allowing freely that 
 there may be exceptions in the case of a man going 
 abroad for a limited period, and for exceptional 
 service, such as preaching to an English congregation, 
 or teaching in an English school, I must insist with 
 all the earnestness of my heart that the missionary 
 who goes abroad to give his life to this woi'k needs 
 for his own sake a special divine call, while the inter- 
 ests of the work no less imperatively demand that 
 only those thus called and set apart should be admit- 
 ted into the ranks of the great missionary host. 
 
 There is always reason to fear that the doctrine of 
 the special call and guidance of the Spirit will be 
 practically overlooked in the Church. We are so 
 prone to allow every thing to become conventional, 
 to let routine usurp the place of power, and to lose 
 
The Young Missionary's Call. 25 
 
 sight of the divine while watching keenly the human 
 agency employed, that we need ever to be reminded 
 that it is the prerogative of the Holy Spii'it, given in 
 answer to faithful prayer, to call and thrust out 
 laborers in every part of God's vast field. The mis- 
 takes of fanatical men certainly should not lead us 
 to make a still greater mistake, and if we see some 
 misguided Christians following their own fancies in 
 the name of God's Holy Spirit, we are not justified 
 thereby in rejecting the guidance of that Spirit, and 
 quietly assuming that we have in practical life no 
 clearer light than that of our own fallible judgment. 
 As a matter of fact, God is forever in the midst of 
 his people, calling, prompting, guiding and guarding 
 them, and but for this precious aid the universal 
 Christian Church would be little better than a vast 
 army of blind men and women. There is no danger 
 whatever of error in this respect if we follow as God 
 leads and not as our fancy dictates. Ever since the 
 call of Abraham God's people have been a called 
 people, and ever since our Saviour's first commission 
 to his disciples the Lord of the vineyard has been 
 sending out, fi-om time to time, men and women to 
 special tasks assigned directly by himself, and to be 
 performed in his blessed name. The great mission- 
 ary work is one into which the Lord of the harvest 
 sends forth reapers, and every young missionary 
 should clearly settle the question of his own personal 
 call before he ventures to set foot on a foreign shore. 
 This call ordinarily of course comes directly through 
 the Holy Spirit; but an experienced Christian will 
 seldom accept any inward impression, however clear 
 and powerful it may be, without first carefully test- 
 
20 Mission AKY Addkesses. 
 
 ing it bj such means as God places within liis 
 reach. 
 
 This testing process is seldom difficult and is always 
 possible. As a general rule, three agencies will be 
 found working together in indicating to the candidate 
 his pathway of duty. First, he will have the direct 
 call of the Holy Spirit in his heart. This may be in 
 the form of a general impression that he should go, 
 or a strange yearning desire to go, or a conviction 
 that sooner or later God will open his way to some 
 mission field ; or it may in some cases take the shape 
 of a direct call, in which, although no words are 
 spoken, yet the candidate knows that the Holy Spirit 
 has commanded him to devote himself to missionary 
 work. If this impression or conviction be of God, it 
 will in nearly all cases be found that those Chris- 
 tian friends to whom he has a right to look for ad- 
 vice will be somewhat similarly led to think or feel 
 that God would have Mm go as his messenger to tlie 
 nations sitting in darkness. Then, in addition to this 
 token, the providence of God sooner or later will be 
 found indicating the same pathway of duty ; and when 
 these three agencies all combine to point in the same 
 direction the candidate may assume without any hes- 
 itation that he is not mistaken in his convictions, and 
 that God in very deed does call him to this work. 
 
 It will not do, however, to assume that sucli calls 
 are always given in any one particular way. As a 
 matter of fact they vary more or less in every one of 
 a thousand cases. One man may receive his iirst im- 
 pression by a direct inward call from tlie Spirit of 
 God, another receives his from a word spoken by 
 a friend, while a third has his attention called to the 
 
The Young Missionaey's Call. 27 
 
 subject by some remarkable development of God's 
 pi\.vidence ; but whichever of these agencies may be 
 lirst employed, the other indications needed will not 
 be wanting if the candidate is willing to be taught 
 and looks constantly upward for light. It matters 
 not what the first or second impression may be, pro- 
 vided that the ultimate ground reached is that of an 
 unquestionable conviction that God has pointed out 
 the way in which the young missionary is to walk. 
 If any of you are in doubt upon this subject, my 
 counsel to you is not to cast it all aside because you 
 do not feel such an undoubted call as I have described, 
 but rather wait upon God for further light. 
 
 It was recently said at a great missionary meet- 
 ing in the East that every man should go into 
 the foreign mission field who does not feel a specific 
 call to remain at home. While admiring the enthu- 
 siasm which prompts such a remark I cannot com- 
 mend the advice. I would say, rather, let every 
 young man whose way in life has not yet been marked 
 out, who is not sure whether God would have him 
 labor in his native land or among the heathen, bow 
 before the mercy-seat of God and seek until he finds 
 the guidance which he needs. For one, I should not 
 like to work anywhere unless sure that I was in the 
 place God had chosen for me, and I certainly should 
 not wish to venture out in any part of the heathen 
 world as a messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ unless 
 commissioned by the Saviour himself to go in that 
 character. But, on the other hand, in view of the im- 
 measurable opportunities afforded in that vast field, in 
 view of the unspeakable urgency of the demand for la- 
 borers in it, and in view of the fact that in this country 
 3 
 
28 Mission AEY Addeksses. 
 
 )'oung ministers go out from their theological schools to 
 compete with one another for positions which are too 
 few in number to give employment to all who seek 
 them, I should certainly make the question of my 
 going into the mission field one of earnest and 
 constant prayer until God should decide in the 
 negative. 
 
 When the question of a personal call is settled 
 the next step in the young missionary's course is that 
 of equipping himself for the life-work that is set be- 
 fore him. It will never do to assume, as is sometimes 
 done at the present day, that all the equipment re- 
 quired is the fact of the call. God would not call 
 any one, we sometimes hear it said, who was not qual- 
 ified for tlie work to be done, and hence, if a man 
 really has been moved by the Holy Spirit to under- 
 take any task whatever, he should at once proceed to 
 the discharge of his duty without taking counsel with 
 flesh and blood. Such, however, is not the divine 
 rule, and in many conspicuous instances we may see 
 how God often calls a workman long before he is 
 ready for his work. 
 
 The youthful David was anointed many years be- 
 fore he was prepared to wear the crown, and the 
 newly converted Saul of Tarsus received his extraor- 
 dinary call to go to the Gentiles while he was pray- 
 ing in the temple, long before he was prepared to 
 undertake his mission, and long before his way liad 
 been prepared for him in the Gentile world. Tlie 
 mission fields of the present day are full of men who 
 have had a similar experience. The call marks a 
 man for duty, but every step of his subsequent course 
 is subject to successive manifestations of God's will, 
 
TuK Young Missionary's Call. 29 
 
 and it may be a month, a year, or a dozen years after 
 his receiving the summons before his life work actually 
 begins. It may sometimes happen, and it no doubt 
 does sometimes happen, that immediate service is ex- 
 pected to follow such a call ; but this is by no means a 
 general rule, and it would be extremely unwise, and 
 often more than nnwise, to assume that every one 
 upon whom God has put his seal for this service is 
 thereby immediately and fully qualified to enter upon 
 such a responsible work. 
 
 The question of natural ability is hardly to be con- 
 sidered in connection with this equipment, and yet 
 it can hardly be passed by. Many inquiries ai-e pre- 
 sented in regard to this feature of the subject, and 
 many are prone on the one hand to shrink from so 
 great a work because conscious of their own mode- 
 rate abilities, while others are tempted rashly to push 
 forward under the mistaken impression that an in- 
 ferior grade of talent will amply suffice for any kind 
 of work among the ignorant heathen. As a general 
 rule it may be assumed that the very best men and 
 women whom the Church can give are needed in the 
 mission field. The man who does not succeed at home 
 could not possibly succeed abroad. A very high 
 order of talent is needed even among the most igno- 
 rant heathen tribes, but it is a mistake to suppose, as 
 is usually done, tliat. exceptional mental ability in one 
 or more given directions is always a qualification for 
 a successful career in life. The most able men are by 
 no means the best scholars or the most richly endowed 
 in their mental gifts. A high order of ability in 
 practical life is that which enables its possessor to use 
 all the powers God has given him. Some men have 
 
30 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 this gift in a rare degree. A man with a few hun- 
 dred dollars capital once said to me that he could get 
 a comfortable living out of his money, although it 
 seemed such an insignificant sum, simply by turning 
 it over once every week or ten days. The capital was 
 small, but every cent of it was constantly in use, and a 
 hundred dollars actually used every week in the year 
 is worth much more than five thousand dollars which 
 is put to use perhaps only once in twelve months. It 
 is often thus with men's natural talents. Some men 
 of very moderate ability have an extraordinary faculty 
 for using every shred of talent God has given them. 
 It is sometimes said that this was the secret of 
 General Grant's great success. He was not a 
 great man in scholarship, in literature, in science, 
 or oratory, and even in his own chosen profes- 
 sion of arms, when put to the test of examination 
 he ranked far below the highest of his class ; but 
 when in active service he knew how to concentrate 
 all his ability upon the task immediately before him, 
 and hence his uniform success. In the mission field 
 this practical ability is the highest order of talent, and 
 many a man, who perhaps in his seliool days was re- 
 garded as a very moderate student, takes a high rank 
 as a worker because he has no talent of any kind care- 
 fully folded in his napkin or put away out of sight 
 and out of mind. In a few words, it may be said that 
 a man who succeeds at home will succeed abroad, and 
 men who are not in demand in their own land need 
 not be sent to any other part of the world. 
 
 When we come to consider the personal equipment 
 for service required by a young missionary, I am in- 
 clined to place, first of all, a clear personal experience 
 
The Young Missionaey's Call. 31 
 
 of the salvation which he goes forth to preacli. It 
 may seem superfluous to even mention this, but botli 
 at home and abroad the tendency is always apt to be 
 manifested to assume too mach in reference to the 
 piety and spiritual knowledge of the candidate to be 
 sent forth. It is not enough that a young man should 
 be pious, God-fearing, conscientious and devoted, but 
 he should know whereof he speaks, and go to the 
 heathen land prepared not only to tell of the Saviour 
 who once rose from the dead, but of one whom he 
 knows as a personal Saviour and friend. He should 
 have no hazy views on the subject of an inner Chris- 
 tian life, but should know what is meant by having 
 Christ revealed in the soul, by having the Holy Spirit 
 as the light of the temple of his heart, and by pos- 
 sessing the witness of his adoption into the family of 
 his heavenly Father. 
 
 In respect to their personal experience of these 
 great verities missionaries abroad are, perhaps, very 
 much like ministers at home. Some speak positively 
 and clearly, and in demonstration of the Spirit and 
 with power sent down from heaven, wliile others 
 speak with much more hesitation, and some even are 
 almost wholly destitute of that power wliich was tlie 
 universal gift to preachers in tlie apostolic day. I do 
 not complain of, and God forbid that I should up- 
 braid such missionaries for tlieir shortcomings ; I 
 merely state an undoubted fact. Missionaries abroad 
 are no better and certainly no worse than their breth- 
 ren at home; and you all know, or will know before 
 many years, how easy it is for men to gain access to 
 Christian pulpits in this country, who, while perhaps 
 learned in theology, scarcely know the alphabet of 
 
32 MissioNAKY Addeesses. 
 
 the living Christianity which they are expected to 
 preach. Many men holding Tinchallenged positions 
 in the pulpit have not the skill of a Sunday-school 
 child in leading a belated soul out of the darkness of 
 this vrjcked world and into the sunlight of Christ's 
 presence. I need hardly say that such men would be 
 perfectly useless in trying to bring the benighted hea- 
 then to a knowledge of a living Saviour. In the 
 mission field we need men who can say out of the 
 experience of a full heart, " We speak that which we 
 do knowy 
 
 Another element in this equipment very closely 
 connected with the personal experience of which I 
 have just spoken, is what may be called the art of 
 soul-winning. The missionary should be a soul- 
 winner, and his right to this title should be fully 
 tested before he is sent abroad. The great work of 
 his life is to be that of winning souls for his Master, 
 and if he does not learn how to do this before he 
 leaves his native land it is by no means certain he 
 will acquire the divine art after reaching a foreign 
 field. There are too many precious interests at stake 
 to admit of any experiment in such case as this. It 
 is always easy to ascertain whether a young man or 
 woman has succeeded in this definite work before be- 
 ing enlisted for missionary service, and yet as a sad 
 matter of fact I am bound to say that scores and 
 hundreds of missionaries are sent abroad without such 
 a question being asked in reference to them. I once 
 heard a young lady say in India that she had been 
 asked most minute questions about her family con- 
 nections, their standing in society, her education and 
 accomplishments, her religious views and all that 
 
The Young Missionary's Call. 33 
 
 pertained to a responsible standing as a Christian lady; 
 but not a single inquiry had been made concerning 
 her knowledge of divine things, her spiritual state, or 
 her success as a Christian worker. This lady was ex- 
 <;eedingly surprised at the omission, but it is greatly 
 to be feared that in all missionary fields of the world 
 men and women can be found who, up to the time of 
 their entering the missionary service, had not suc- 
 ceeded in leading one soul to Christ. You may very 
 naturally ask how it is that they afterward succeed 
 in doing so. I simply have to reply that some of 
 them never do succeed. As before remarked, it may 
 generally be accepted as a rule that those who do not 
 succeed in their own country will have no better suc- 
 cess in a strange land ; and hence my counsel to you 
 would be that, whether deciding the question of yonr 
 own personal duty in after years or when advis- 
 ing others, always to apply this test : Can, or does, the 
 candidate succeed in winning souls? If not it will 
 be well to pause, although it does not inevitably fol- 
 low that this divine art cannot be acquired. He who 
 taught people to " catch men " can teach any of you to 
 lead souls to himself. I do not say that you should 
 dismiss all thoughts of missionary service if you liave 
 not yet learned to do this work, but I certainly do 
 say that if called to the service you certainly should 
 learn how to perform it before leaving your native 
 land. 
 
 Another part of the equipment is the anointing 
 to preach which God bestows on those set apart to 
 do this work. I refer, of course, to those who go 
 out to foreign lands to preach the gospel. Lay 
 workers may go for other departments of labor, and 
 
34 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ordained ministers may also go for special brandies 
 of service; but, whatever exceptions may be tolerated 
 in this country, I should certainly say to every young 
 missionary who expects to be a preacher to the hea- 
 then that unless anointed to preach he should not 
 think of going abroad. What I mean by this anoint- 
 ing is simply the anointing of the Holy Spirit, or, in 
 other words, the gift of the Spirit enabling him to 
 do the work effectively. I have no time, and it is no 
 part of my present task, to discuss the propriety, the 
 advantages, or the disadvantages of reading sermons. 
 I merely say that the missionary must be able to do 
 something more than this. It may be that some men 
 are anointed to read the gospel here, but I have yet 
 to meet with any minister among the heathen who has 
 succeeded in making any impression whatever by the 
 use of manuscript. The gift of preaching, which 
 practically is about the same as the gift of prophecy 
 spoken of in the New Testament — I mean prophecy 
 in the New Testament sense of the word — is an abid- 
 ing gift of the present dispensation. It is put by the 
 apostle Paul chief of all the special gifts which the 
 Spirit bestows upon Christian laborers. We are to 
 covet this gift, seek after it and, above all, exercise it. 
 We can no more afford to let it die out of the Church 
 than we can afford to give up extemporaneous prayer ; 
 and the Church which relinquishes so precious a gift 
 deliberately throws away her most effective weapon 
 t)f warfare, and of necessity ceases to be an aggressive 
 organization. I say it, then, without hesitation, that 
 we cannot do without anointed preachers in the mis- 
 sion Held. We do not want men who cannot preach ; 
 who cannot preach as the Spirit gives them utterance ; 
 
The Young Missionaey's Call. 35 
 
 and a candidate who has not received such an anoint- 
 ing should wait at the mercy-seat until the Spirit 
 comes upon him — until, like his Master, he can stand 
 before the people who wait for the words from his lips, 
 and say, " The Lord hath anointed me to preach." 
 
 Next to these more spiritiial qualifications an im-* 
 portant part of the missionary's equipment consists 
 in the education which he should receive before enter- 
 ing upon his work. I assume at once that there should 
 be an education in every case. If not acquired before 
 the call is received, the young missionary should at 
 once make it a leading object to secure the best pos- 
 sible training within his reach. It is a bad sign, I 
 think I may say a very bad sign, in a j'oung man, 
 for him to say that he has no time to acquire an educa- 
 tion, or that he can do without one, or that he would 
 backslide if he turned aside to get one — or to make any 
 other excuse for neglecting this duty. I have marked 
 sucli 3'onng men for many years, and have been sur- 
 prised and often startled to notice how seldom they 
 attain success and how frequently they sink out of 
 sight in utter failure. But, while attaching so much 
 importance to an intellectual training, we must always 
 remember that the whole system of education in the 
 case of missionary workers must be extremely flex- 
 ible, so as to adapt it to the peculiar cii'cumstances 
 and abilities of each individual. Much will depend 
 upon the age of the candidate, upon his ability to 
 pursue a certain line of study, upon his previoiis ex- 
 perience and proposed field of labor. In the main, 
 I should say tliat a thorough training in what is called 
 an English education is worth more than a superficial 
 course in the classics. I have often had occasion to 
 
36 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 regret, when watching the course of young American 
 missionaries in India, that so little attention is given 
 in this country to thoroughness in the elementary 
 branches of study. It is better not to know the 
 Greek alphabet, and to be wholly ignorant of Hebrew 
 and Latin, than to have a smattering of these and yet 
 not to be able to write a correct English letter, or not 
 to be thoroughly grounded in the branches usually 
 taught in a common school. But when a thorough 
 foundation in the elementary English branches is 
 secured, then, if the candidate is not too old, let hira 
 by all means pursue a regular college course ; let him 
 aim to become a scholar and take time to accomplish 
 the undertaking. In all foreign missions we greatly 
 need not only men of fair education, but of real schol- 
 arship. I need hardly remind you that such men are 
 rare every-where. They are, however, needed every- 
 where, and in no part of the vineyard of our Master 
 is the demand more urgent than in the mission field. 
 In every one of these fields a literature must be cre- 
 ated, a theological course of study framed, institu- 
 tions of learning must be founded, and young men 
 and women prepared for the positions which the 
 Church of the next generation will ofEer them. For 
 such work superficial scholarship is of little use, and 
 hence I always look with peculiar interest upon any 
 young man enlisted for the foreign field who gives 
 promise of eminence in the field of scholarship. 
 
 But while pressing the importance of securing this 
 higher standard of Christian scholarship, let no one 
 suppose that a young man of much more limited abil- 
 ities cannot usefully be employed in the mission field. 
 I have little fear of the success of any young man 
 
The YotJNG Missionary's Call. 37 
 
 of average ability who has secured a thorough English 
 education, and who has industrious habits of both 
 study and labor, provided he throws his whole soul 
 into the work and engages in the study of the lan- 
 guage of the people to whom he goes with the de- 
 termination to master it. It would be better if he 
 could pursue a more extensive course before going 
 abroad, but if this is impossible he need not despair. 
 In every part of the foreign field men may be found 
 succeeding well as missionaries who never had the 
 advantage of a thorough college training. I do not 
 counsel any one to throw aside such a training if he 
 can possibly secure it, but where this is impossible 
 let no young man, otherwise qualified, ever despair of 
 succeeding as a missionary ; he can in a large measure 
 compensate for the absence of a liberal education by 
 diligence in study while in the mission field. 
 
 The young missionary should have a clear and well- 
 grounded theology before going abroad. I do not 
 mean that he should be thoroughly drilled in what is 
 called a theological course, so much as that his views 
 of vital theological truth should be clear and settled. 
 The Christian Church of America cannot afford to 
 export doubt or even religious speculation to foreign 
 fields. The people of India, and I may add of other 
 lands, are abundantly able to provide all the doubts 
 and all the unprofitable speculations which any 
 Church will care to contend with, and one important 
 qualification of the missionary should be a positive 
 faith as opposed to doubt, and a clear system of liv- 
 ing truth as opposed to profitless speculations. He 
 may go on throughout his entire lifetime, as, in- 
 deed, every successful worker should, adding to his 
 
38 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 store of truth, drawing more and more from the rich 
 treasury of God's word, but what 1 mean is that he 
 should be grounded in those truths wliich are vital to 
 his Christian life and his Christian usefulness. We 
 are all learners, or at least we should be learners 
 until our dying day. All Christians are disciples, or 
 learners, and he who would impart valuable teaciiing 
 to others must constantly be adding to his store of 
 knowledge, else he will be utterly unqualified for his 
 work. The neglect to do so accounts for the fact 
 that so many ministers in Christian lands pass the 
 zenith of their usefulness long before reaching tlie 
 noonday of an ordinary life. 
 
 And this leads me to say that every 3'oung mission- 
 ary should acquire settled habits of study. The work 
 which a college training really does for an ordinary 
 student is not so much that of imparting to him 
 valuable knowledge, or training him for important 
 work, as of teaching him how to study. Not very 
 many people have acquired this habit, and among 
 Christian ministers it is an accomplishment altogether 
 too rare. In the luission field a successful worker 
 cannot dispense with this qualification. The mis- 
 sionary is, and in the nature of the case must be, a 
 student all his life. When asked how long it takes a 
 missionary to master a native language of India, I 
 sometimes reply thirty or forty years ; in other words, 
 he must study it all his days.~ He may be able to 
 preach, very possibly, in twelve months or a little 
 more, but he preaches with a limited vocabulary, a bad 
 idiom, a false accent, and consequently with little 
 force. He speaks very much better at the end of five 
 years, but probably even then feels the necessity for 
 
The Young Missionaky's Call. 39 
 
 further study more keenly than he did at the end of 
 his first year. And if you were to go to the mission 
 fields of the East to-day you would, probably, find 
 most of the veterans still engaged in the close study 
 of the language, or languages, with which they are 
 supposed to be familiar. Then, aside from the study 
 of language, nearly every missionary has more or less 
 literary work to do, or is, perhaps, engaged in educa- 
 tional woi'k, which requires as close application as a 
 similar work in an American school or college. I 
 should hesitate a long while before advising any 
 young man to venture into a mission field witliout 
 acquiring this most important and indispensable habit 
 of close, patient and successful study. I could pro- 
 long these remarks almost indefinitely, but suffice it to 
 say that whatever preparation is needful in America 
 for a successful career is doubly important in the mis- 
 sion field. 
 
 I cannot sufficiently deprecate the unwise haste, I 
 think I may say the culpable ambition, of many 
 young preachers, both at home and in the mission 
 fields. A candidate for service in our Indian mission 
 said to me not very long since, that he could not con- 
 sent to devote two or three of the best years of his 
 life to the acquisition of a new language, and hence 
 he thought it the part of wisdom to abandon all 
 thought of entering the missionary service. Three 
 years may seem like a long time to wait before enter- 
 ing upon the busy stage of active life, but a man who 
 can see no farther than two or three years ahead is 
 not one of those who is destined to succeed in life. 
 I have often heard young men appealing to the 
 examples of the first Napoleon and the younger Pitt, 
 
40 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 one of whom was Dictator of Europe at the age 
 of twenty-seven, and the other Prime Minister of 
 England at twenty-three. But aside from tlie conceit 
 implied in such a reference — the impatient young man 
 apparently assuming that he has the brains of these 
 colossal giants of a stormy age — it umst be remem- 
 bered that both of these great men were really fail- 
 ures. Both died prematurely, both failed to attain 
 the real eminence which Providence had evidently 
 intended for them, and both should be regarded by 
 the young men of to-day as conspicuous warnings 
 rather than illustrious models. 
 
 The young Christian has a far nobler example set 
 before him in the case of one of the greatest men of 
 any age ; I mean the renowned law-giver of the Jews. 
 Moses is one of the most conspicuous figures in all 
 liistory. His career was extraordinary, from his first 
 appearance on the stage of history to his latest hour. 
 He was a servant of God, a leader of the people, an 
 illustrious legislator, an inspired prophet, and a man 
 of undoubted genius in the best sense of the word. 
 When forty years of age he was the most gifted man 
 then living on the face of the globe, and yet, in order 
 to prepare him more thoroughly for the greater work 
 for which he had chosen him, God drew him aside 
 from the influences of the world and subjected him 
 to a> discipline of forty years before his real life- 
 work began. I never talk with ambitious youths who 
 fancy they are throwing away valuable time, or neg- 
 lecting golden opportunities, if they pause a year or 
 two to prepare themselves before entering upon the 
 great work of preaching the gospel, without thinking 
 of the extraordinary contrast between these impatient 
 
The youNG Missionary's Call. 41 
 
 tyros and the magnificent man of God who pursued 
 his way among the bleak, barren crags of the Arabian 
 mountains for forty long years before he was pre- 
 pared to stand face to face with Him who dwelt in the 
 bush, who spoke from out the living flame, and who 
 sent his servant forth upon perhaps the greatest career 
 which has ever been assigned to any mortal. 
 
 It is said that it is an essential feature of true 
 genius that it is never in a hurry. I beg of you, my 
 young brethren, to be on your guard against impa- 
 tience as against sin itself. Good men, like great men, 
 can afford, if need be, to move slowly in our day, as 
 in the age of Moses. Men and women are still some- 
 times subjected to long years of training before their 
 real life-work begins. If you set yourselves apart 
 unreservedly for God, if you allow him to fashion 
 and mold you according to his will and prepare you 
 for any service which may be pleasing to him, you 
 may forever dismiss from your minds the misgiving 
 wliich disturbs the peace of so many ministers, that 
 perhaps soon after passing your fiftieth year you will 
 cease to be in demand for service in the pulpit. If 
 you are fully equipped according to the mind, not of 
 the conventional minister, but of the Holy Spirit, and 
 if 3'ou go on growing in knowledge and grace, mak- 
 ing the first twenty or thirty or forty years of your 
 service but a part of your preparatory training, j'on 
 will in all probability do your best work after you are 
 sixty years of age. One year in our last decade ought 
 to be equal in its results to five, or possibly ten, years 
 in our first. In any case, remember that God will 
 give you abundant time to do all the work which he 
 has commissioned you to accomplish. 
 
42 MissiONAKY Addkessks. 
 
 My young brethren, you may not all become mis- 
 sionaries, but you may, one and all, become the hon- 
 ored subjects of a divine call. Let your life-work 
 be chosen for you by Him who sitteth between the 
 cherubim. It matters but little what that work may 
 be, but it matters every thing that it be given you of 
 God. A clear, distinct, unmistakable call from God 
 will strengthen you for every step of life's journey. 
 Wait on God in perfect submission to his will, with 
 perfect indifference to personal interests, and you 
 will in due time hear the voice, or see the token, or 
 feel the touch, which will be to you like a pillar of 
 fire rising out of a pathless desert. Be willing and 
 ready, and even eager, for any service. Let the lan- 
 guage of your hearts be : 
 
 "Is there some desert, or some patUess sea, 
 Where thou, great God of angels, wilt send me ? 
 Show me the desert, Father, or the sea; 
 Is it thine enterprise? Great God, send me. 
 And though this body lie where ocean rolls, 
 Father, write me among all faithful souls." 
 
MissioNAEY Methods and Policies. 43 
 
 MISSIONARY METHODS AND POLICIES. 
 
 SOME twenty odd years ago I called on a Chicago 
 pastor and found him in his study ready to receive 
 me, and apparently prepared to give ine a good deal of 
 instruction in reference to missionary work. I cannot 
 now remember all he said, but one question which he 
 put to me with singular confidence was this : '• How 
 do you account for the failure of our foreign mis- 
 sions?" Without heeding my remark, that I was not 
 aware of any such failure, he proceeded to say that he 
 had given much earnest thought to the subject and 
 was trying to devise some new plan or method by 
 which this work might be made successful. I have 
 since found many people who, like this pastor, fan- 
 cied that success on a large scale in the mission field 
 was to be attained by the discovery of some new 
 method of labor ; and in the current missionary liter- 
 ature of the day it is easy to discover the presence of 
 this same notion. It seems to be taken for granted 
 that all the missionaries who have ever gone abroad 
 have worked in precisely the same way, have adopted 
 the same methods, have tried no experiments, have 
 learned nothing by experience and, on the whole, 
 have been rather dull and plodding workmen. There 
 could be no greater mistake than to form any such 
 impression. In fact, so many experiments have been 
 tried,- so many different methods adopted, that I 
 sometimes doubt whether any more new plans can be 
 4 
 
44 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 devised for the prosecution of the work. But wliether 
 successful or not in lighting upon new discoveries, 
 enterprising and earnest men may be expected to 
 persevere in the effort to improve upon former 
 methods, and hence when we get within missionary 
 circles we find questions of policy and method en- 
 grossing more or less attention every-where. Both in 
 the mission field and at home a deep interest is felt 
 in the general subject, and it is well worthy of atten- 
 tion for a brief hour this evening. 
 
 If you were to accompany me to India, we would 
 land at Bombay and immediately come in contact 
 with missionaries pursuing half a dozen different 
 methods of labor, and yet all standing shoulder to 
 slioulder, all working for the same Master, and work- 
 ing to attain the same result. In every part of India 
 similar spectacles would meet us ; and if we pursued 
 our journey around the coast to China and Japan, in 
 every field we would find earnest men and women 
 using methods both old and new, profiting by their 
 own experiences and by those of former generations, 
 and striving in any way and every way to help for- 
 ward the great work in which they are engaged. 
 Time will not permit me to speak of all these differ- 
 ent methods of missionary labor, but a few of the 
 more important may be briefly noticed. 
 
 In the first place it is generally conceded in all 
 mission fields that the primary work of the mission- 
 ary is that of preaching. While some personally feel 
 themselves called to other spheres of labor, all evan- 
 gelical missionaries are prepared to admit that the 
 honor of precedence over every other form of labor 
 must be given to the work of preaching. And yet it 
 
MissioNAEY Methods and Policies. 43 
 
 is surprising to find how large a proportion of mis- 
 sionaries in most fields are absorbed more or less in 
 other forms of labor. It is felt by many that there is 
 great danger, as cares and duties of various kinds 
 multiply, that most missionaries will be drawn away 
 in a large measure from this most important part of 
 mission work. The fact that such danger exists only 
 illustrates what I have just said, that very many forms 
 of labor and many methods are employed in connec- 
 tion with the work. Some of these are wise and 
 judicious, some are unwise in a measure, and some 
 are questionable if not bad. 
 
 Of this last class I may mention wliat will un- 
 doubtedly surprise you very much : the sacerdotal 
 theory that the true way to Christianize a people is 
 not to begin by preaching the Gospel, but by first 
 bringing them within the pale of the Cliurch. It is 
 believed, as you perhaps know, by those holding sacer- 
 dotal views, such as Roman Catliolics, and that section 
 of the Anglican Church known as Ritualists, that tlie 
 grace of God flows to the heart of the believer through 
 the ordinances of the Church. The Church is snjj- 
 posed to be literally the body of Christ, and hence 
 the way to bring the heathen to Christ is to unite 
 them to the Church, when they become literally mem- 
 bers of the body of Jesus Christ. They are then in 
 a position to receive grace through the medium of 
 the Christian ordinances. The rite of baptism unites 
 them to the Church, and consequently to the body of 
 Christ, and thus by a logical process this extraordi- 
 nary method of conversion is carried on by men of 
 great earnestness and intelligence. The sacerdotal 
 missionary is convinced that he is making Cliristian 
 
48 MissroNAET Addresses. - 
 
 converts when he gathers in whole villages of Hindus 
 and makes them what we call nominal Christians. 
 There are missionaries, and many of them, too, who 
 adopt this method in India. Incredible as it may 
 seem to you, the present Bishop of Bombay, a learned 
 and able man, at the very threshold of liis career pro- 
 claimed in unmistakable terms this sacerdotal method 
 in opposition to the old-time plan of relying upon the 
 preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Missions con- 
 ducted on this plan are not conspicuously successful. 
 In Burmah and various parts of India such mission- 
 aries have succeeded by taking advantage of disputes 
 among existing converts to draw off considerable num- 
 bers and enroll them as members of their own flock; 
 but in dealing with what we in India sometimes 
 call the "raw heathen," they seem to have little or no 
 success. There is nothing in the plan to commend it 
 to non-christian people, and certainly nothing to im- 
 press their minds and hearts. 
 
 Just here let me refer to a very common and 
 wholly mistaken notion which I often meet with even 
 in India with reference to Roman Catholic mission- 
 aries. It is often said of them that they conform to 
 the habits of the people to wliom they go, that they 
 adopt the same mode of life, and even so far adapt 
 their religious usages to the customs of the people as 
 to make the process of conversion comparatively easy. 
 This method of work we are constantly told acicounts 
 for their extraordinary success, and Protestant mis- 
 sionaries are often exhorted to imitate them as far as 
 they can do so without compromising themselves. 
 So far as India is concerned, I have only to say that 
 the whole story is almost a complete myth. In very 
 
Missionary Methods and Policies. 47 
 
 early times the policy of appropriating heathen festi- 
 vals and idolatrous usages by simply introducing a 
 few changes and substituting Christian names for 
 heathen terms was undoubtedly adopted. But I am 
 not aware that any such method prevails at the pres- 
 ent day. In those regions where this fatal compro- 
 mise was made the so-called Catholic Christians can 
 now hardly be distinguished from their heathen 
 neighbors, and it is simply nonsense to talk about the 
 success of this dishonest policy which is sometimes 
 tacitly applauded even by Protestants. But as I have 
 just remarked about the sacerdotal missionaries of the 
 Anglican communion I may say also of the Roman 
 Catholics with whom I have come in contact : they 
 are not succeeding as well as Protestants ; they are 
 making fewer converts, and they are wielding less 
 influence among the people. As a class they are de- 
 voted, self-denying men ; but after spending twenty- 
 seven years in India, during which time I came in 
 contact with missionaries of almost every society in 
 the empire, I must report that I never once met with 
 a Roman Catholic missionary who had succeeded con- 
 spicuously in making converts. The Protestants sur- 
 pass them in this respect in every part of India, how- 
 ever different it may be in China or elsewhere. 
 
 Just here I may as well notice in its general bear- 
 ing the method which has so often been commended 
 to missionaries, and which in many countries has been 
 faithfully tried, to adopt the dress, food and general 
 style of living of the people to whom the missionary 
 goes. In some countries the rule is a good one and 
 can be practically carried out, while in others it is 
 both unwise and impracticable. In China, for in- 
 
48 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 stance, the missionary who goes into the intei'ior 
 makes himself much less conspicuous bj adopting the 
 Chinese dress, and thereby avoids a great deal of 
 annoyance. He also gains more ready access to the 
 people, and no doubt reduces tlie cost both of travel- 
 ing and ordinary living. In almost all parts of India 
 the circumstances of the missionary are entirely dif- 
 ferent. The people every-where are familiar with 
 the sight of tha English, and a foreigner coming, to 
 them in their own dress would attract the attention 
 which in China the missionary is happy to escape. 
 In short, the rule of good taste and good sense which 
 prevails in all countries comes in force here. Sensible 
 people every-where prefer to dress in such a way as 
 to attract the least possible attention. In a country 
 like India, American and European missionaries will 
 attract less attention if they appear in their own dress 
 than if they put on what seems to the mass of the 
 people a disguise. Their high motives will by no 
 means be generally appreciated. In the remote noi-th- 
 west frontier, where English people are very seldom 
 seen, a number of missionaries have for years con- 
 formed more or less to the native style of dress, and 
 with satisfactory results. The members of the Sah'«- 
 tion Army have been conspicuous in India for their 
 attempts to adapt their uniform to the native style 
 and native taste, but after a year or two of experi- 
 ment most of their leaders dropped this and put on 
 the dress of Indian devotees. The result was that 
 they were regarded by the mass of the people simply 
 as an order of Christian devotees ; and while I do not 
 wish to speak too positively of the experiment made 
 by these devoted men and women, yet my impression 
 
Missionary Methods and Policies. 49 
 
 is that they lost rather than gained by this extreme 
 attempt to lay aside every vestige of English style 
 and to become more Indian even than most of tlie 
 Indians themselves. My friend, General Haig, of 
 London, who spent many years of a very active life in 
 India, and Mrho was more closely identilied with mis- 
 sionary work while there than most of his country- 
 men, has recently proposed a scheme to send mission- 
 ai'ies to the Bedouin tribes of Arabia in their own 
 deserts, and in order to reach them he would have the 
 missionaries not only adopt the Arabian style of dress 
 but accept also the common lot of the tribes to which 
 they are respectively attached. He would have the 
 missionaries accompany them in all their wanderings, 
 wear the same clothing, eat the same food, and in 
 every respect become like them in order to make 
 their stay among them possible. And yet General 
 Haig, while proposing this course to a missionary 
 going to the Bedouin tribes, does not for a moment 
 advise missionaries going to India to adopt the Indian 
 style of dress or mode of life. I mention tliis simply 
 as an illustration of the general rule which must be 
 followed. 
 
 We must remember, tbo, that the missionary who 
 adopts entirely the style of living of the people to 
 whom he goes must, in many cases, expose himself to 
 hardships which comparatively few Europeans can 
 safely endure. In some countries the experiment 
 would be barely feasible, but in most parts of the 
 tropical world, including nearly all of Africa, nearly 
 all of India, the islands of the great Indian Archi- 
 pelago and more than half of China, the mission- 
 ary, especially if he has a family, would be subject to 
 
50 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 exposures which it would be almost criminal for him 
 to encounter, living as he would in a small unventi- 
 lated hut, wearing the most scanty clothing, and eating 
 the coarse food of the common people. The experi- 
 ment has been tried but too often, and I think I may 
 say tliat it has never been tried successfully. I cannot 
 recall a single instance where such a style of living 
 has been persisted in after more than a very few years 
 of honest trial. 
 
 The great mistake into which so many fall in con- 
 sidering this question is that of confounding social 
 differences with moral distinctions. Some twenty-one 
 years ago I met for the first time the Rev. George 
 Bowen, of Bombay, well known throughout India as 
 one of the most devoted and self-sacridciug mission- 
 aries in the empire. He had received a finished ed- 
 ucation, had traveled and studied in Europe, was 
 familiar with French, Spanish and Italian literature, 
 and had leftaluxurionshome in New York to devote 
 himself to the work of India's regeneration. In order to 
 get nearer to the people and to convince them that he 
 had no sordid motives in coming to them, he relin- 
 quished his salary as a missionary, gave up all the 
 ordinary comforts of his home and lived in a small 
 hired room in the native quarter of the city. He re- 
 duced his expenses so low that his entire annual out- 
 lay did not probably exceed $150, and his simple 
 habits and frugal manner of living were in most 
 striking contrast with the kind of life which the na- 
 tives saw in the European quarter of Bombay. "When 
 I first met him he had been pursuing this course for 
 a dozen or more years, and I lost no time in asking 
 how far the experiment which he was trying had 
 
MissioNAET Methods and Policies. 51 
 
 proved successful. His reply, which I have never 
 forgotten, was substantially this : " I have not been 
 wholly disappointed, but I have not been successful 
 enough to make me feel like advising any one else 
 to follow my example. And yet I have not so com- 
 pletely failed as to make me regret the course which 
 I have pursued. I have discovered that the gulf 
 which separates the people of this country from us is 
 not a social one at all ; it is simply the great impass- 
 able gulf which separates between the religion of 
 Christ and an unbelieving world." In this reply we 
 have the key to this whole problem ; this great gulf 
 cannot be bridged over, much less filled up. There 
 may be reasons, and there are no doubt many reasons, 
 to justify missionaries in adopting a simple mode of 
 living, but less depends upon any peculiar method 
 adopted than upon thie spirit in which it is prosecuted. 
 
 As a matter of fact, in all lands God often blesses 
 the bhmdering efforts of faithful but mistaken Chris- 
 tians, and we may safely assume that he will bless 
 all efforts in the mission field if the work is done 
 in the right spirit; but it will not do to assume, 
 even for a moment, that there is any royal road to 
 success, or any secret art by which success may be 
 achieved, or that any one man's success is to be ac- 
 cepted as proof that his method is necessarily the light 
 one and all others wrong. 
 
 But it is time to consider some broader questions 
 of method and policy than these minor topics. So 
 far as missionary methods are concerned the greatest 
 battle that has yet been fought in India has been over 
 the question of education. Up to the time of Dr. 
 Duff but little prominence had been given to schools 
 
C2 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 as an evangelizing agency. Wlien, however, tliat 
 great leader arrived in India lie at once formulated a 
 new policy which has left its impression not only 
 upon missionary work, but upon the whole educational 
 movement in the empire.' Without depreciating 
 preaching, and without opposing any other agency. Dr. 
 Duff and his society adopted a plan of establishing ed- 
 ucational institutions of a high grade, hoping so to 
 impress the minds of the rising generation of India as 
 to prepare them for the reception of Christian truth, 
 and at the same time to win converts to Christianity 
 who would be able to assume a leading position in 
 society. In Calcutta, Eombay, and Madras, these 
 Scotch missionaries founded successful Christian col- 
 leges, and very soon their course began to attract wide 
 attention not only in India, but also in Europe and 
 America. Their policy has been warmly attacked 
 from time to time, and while as warmly defended it 
 has sometimes happened that education has been put 
 forward as a more successful agency than preaching. 
 This opinion now prevails to some extent botli in 
 Europe and this country. Tiie warmth of tiie battle 
 in India has in a large measure abated, but tlie ques- 
 tion still remains, and the young missionary is often 
 called upon to decide, when he chooses his life-work, 
 whether he will occupy a professor's chair or become 
 a preacher of the word. Beyond all question the right 
 view to take of this whole subject is that of giving 
 every man the work to whicli he is called, and every 
 work the position which the providence of God indi- 
 cates for it. Preaching can never be dispensed with 
 and can never be made secondary to any other work ; 
 but still, conceding this, it must also be accepted as 
 
MissiONAEY Methods and Policies. 53 
 
 equally true tliat Christian education cannot be dis- 
 pensed with in any mission field. In some countries 
 for a generation or two this education may be of an 
 elementary character, but in others it will, and in the 
 nature of the case must, aim much higher. India, for 
 instance, is a land of colleges. You have very few 
 colleges in America that will, in point of attendance, 
 compare with some of ours in Calcutta. In the in- 
 stitution founded by Dr. Duff when he first went to 
 India I have with my own eyes seen 1,400 students, 
 and in the second institution, founded by him at the 
 time of the Free Church secession, I iiave seen a thou- 
 sand or more. 
 
 There are four orfive colleges in Calcutta having over 
 a thousand students each. In the face of such educa- 
 tional activity as this, missionaries would be blind and 
 deaf to all the indications of God's providence, if tliey 
 did not throw themselves heartily into the work of edu- 
 cation. The question in all its bearings is too broad a 
 one for me to discuss at the present. Perhaps I 
 ought to say before dismissing the subject that there 
 is danger, and the dangei' is fully recognized in India 
 itself, that in the vigorous competition which these 
 colleges encounter the instructors may be tempted to 
 forget that they are there primarily as Christian teach- 
 ers, working in Christian colleges, and avowedly in 
 the interests of Christian evangelism. 
 
 You must not, however, understand me to mean 
 that all the missionaries in India are divided into these 
 two classes of teachers and preachers, and that one 
 never does the work of the other. As a matter of 
 fact, nearly all preaching missionaries are compelled 
 to eive more or less attention to school work. If not 
 
54 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 among nonchristian people, yet among their converts 
 they will find the necessity for maintaining eflBcient 
 schools, and if they themselves are not compelled to do 
 the work of teaching they must supervise those who 
 do, and hence the average missionary is obliged to be 
 a school superintendent as well as a preacher. And I 
 may here add that, with regard to many kinds of mis- 
 sionaiy labor carried on in India, every missionary 
 ought to be able to do more or less in any department 
 at any time an emergency may demand it of him. 
 
 The death or illness of a colleague may throw un- 
 expected and untried labors upon the missionary, and 
 hence he needs to be both able and willing to make 
 himself useful not only in his own chosen department, 
 but wherever the exigencies of the common cause may 
 seem to demand. 
 
 As a question of policy rather than method I may 
 next refer to the question of self-support, which of late 
 years has been the subject of a great deal of warm dis- 
 cussion. It is conceded by all parties that the ultimate 
 object of the missionary is to establish self-support in 
 the field to which he goes ; but there may be differ- 
 ences of opinion existing as to the best means of at- 
 taining this end. At the very outset of the discussion 
 we must pause to ask what is meant by the term self- 
 support. It is defined in several different ways. For 
 instance, Paul, we are told, illustrated self-support 
 when he worked at his trade as a tent-maker, and not 
 a few missionaries in foreign fields support themselves 
 by some form of personal labor. In this case the mis- 
 sionary supported himself. Others assume that one 
 or more workers should go to a foreign country and 
 by applying themselves to some industry provide the 
 
Missionary Methods and Policies. 55 
 
 means of sustaining one or more laborers in direct 
 missionary work. A third definition is tliat of raising 
 up one or more churches in a foreign country on the 
 self-supporting basis — that is, each church organized 
 being required to support its own pastor and pay its 
 own current expenses ; while still a fourth definition 
 is that each missionary shall be supported by the 
 people to whom he ministers. We thus see a very 
 wide question presented before us. 
 
 With regard to the first, we must concede at once 
 that here and there tlie plan is a good one, and that 
 under exceptional circumstances in every age some of 
 God's servants will be called upon to do as Paul did 
 at Corinth ; but tlie rule can never be made universal. 
 
 Even in Paul's case it was exceptional, and in our 
 busy world, with so vast a work to be accomplislied, 
 but few laborers can spare the time for such manual 
 labor as this policy would involve. The second plan 
 is likewise admissible under exceptional circumstances, 
 but attended with more or less danger. It has been 
 tried repeatedly by German missionaries, sometimes 
 with success, but sometimes only to end in utter fail- 
 ure. A number of young men go abroad and com- 
 bine together to prosecute some industrial enterprise 
 as a basis for missionary support. If tliey succeed 
 they are very apt to be secularized, while if they fail 
 their missionary enterprise is very apt to fail with 
 them. The plan is very foreign to the original mis- 
 sionary spirit, and yet under some circumstances it is 
 perhaps the best plan that could be adopted. It can- 
 not, however, be accepted as a rule, and should be 
 tried very sparingly. The third plan, that of organ- 
 izing churches capable of taking care of themselves, 
 
53 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 is good as far as it goes, but it is very limited in its 
 scope. 
 
 It may be a good thing to establish a self-sup- 
 porting church in a foreign land, but that does not 
 solve the question of the evangelization of tlie coun- 
 ti"y in which it is organized. The problem to be 
 solved is that of self-supporting missions, not that of 
 self-supporting churches, and this brings us to the real 
 question. How can men who are wholly given up to 
 preaching tlie gospel of Christ be supported by the 
 people to whom tliey preach ? How can a church in. 
 India, for instance, not only support its pastor and 
 pay its own expenses, but also press out into all the 
 surrounding regions and lay foundations for other 
 churches, or, in other words, propagate itself in every 
 direction, without falling back upon resources on the 
 other side of the globe ? 
 
 This question is one which is girt about on all sides 
 by formidable difficulties. It is not difficult in some 
 countries, but in others it puts a severe strain upon 
 the highest wisdom and strongest faith of the best 
 missionaries in tiie field. It has not yet been fully 
 solved anywhere in all the English world, although 
 some progress, for which we ought to be very grate- 
 ful, has been realized in the right direction. God 
 will throw light on the subject, no doubt, but thus far 
 the chief difficulty is found in the extreme poverty 
 of the people. In all non-christian countries of the 
 world nine tenths of the people are wretchedly poor. 
 Indeed, the word poor conveys to your mind no ade- 
 quate idea of their miserable condition. I have seen 
 hundreds of native Christians together, not more than 
 two or three of whom had an income of more than 
 
MissioNAEY Methods and Policies. 57 
 
 $25 a year. In tlie country villages all tlirongli the 
 empire a man with such an income would be consid- 
 ered fairly well off. To expect snch people to sup- 
 port an American missionary, no matter how simple 
 his habits, is unreasonable in the last degree. 
 Whatever else may be done, whatevtjr other policy 
 may be adopted, it may as well be assumed once for 
 all that missionaries sent from America and Europe 
 cannot be, and ought not to be, supported by the 
 poor people to whom most of them go. In a vei-y 
 few cases it may be otherwise, but as a rule it 
 may be expected throughout the empire that tlie 
 foreign missionary cannot be supported by iiis na- 
 tive flock. 
 
 But even when this is conceded the problem still 
 remains, How will these people be able to build 
 their own places of worship, support their own pastor, 
 and yet evangelize the millions around them ? I con- 
 fess I do not see clearly how it is to be done, and yet 
 it will be done, and must be done if India is ever 
 evangelized at all. The ultimate organization of the 
 work in that empire will be very different from the 
 pattern shown to the missionary by the American 
 churches. We have much to learn, and I trust we 
 are all learning, but it is far too soon to assume that 
 the whole problem has been solved. Much has been 
 done in one district in Burmah, to which attention has 
 been called by Mr. Carpenter's writings, but it must 
 be remembered that the Christians of that district are 
 relatively men of wealth as compared with the bulk 
 of converts found in Northern India. I am strong in 
 the faith that God is leading us in India in the right 
 direction, and in due time we will see indigenous, 
 
5S Missionary Addresses. 
 
 self-propagatiug, self-supporting churches all over the 
 empire. 
 
 Closely connected with the policy of self-support 
 we find another method or policy popularly known in 
 some mission fields as " faith-work." The well-known 
 orphan work of the venerable George Mnlleris taken 
 as an illustration of the principle upon which mission- 
 ary work should be conducted, and men and women 
 go forth to mission fields avowedly trusting in God 
 alone for support. They accept what is sent them 
 unsolicited, and generally make it a rule never to ask 
 directly for any contribution for their work. In 
 many instances, however, this feature of the policy is 
 not rigidly adhered to, and some of these faith mis- 
 sions in process of time have become known as suc- 
 cessful collecting agencies. The most noted luove- 
 luent of the kind is that known as the Cliina Inland 
 Mission, which is practically maintained and directed 
 by the faith and administrative skill of one man, the 
 well-known J. Hudson Taylor. Dr. Cullis, of Boston, 
 has sent out missionaries upon the same plan, and 
 numbers who have adopted the same policy have been 
 sent from England and Germany. 
 
 The missionaries of this class are, with rare excep- 
 tions, devoted and sincere workers, but if we care- 
 fully examine their operations it is difficult to escape 
 the conviction that the plan, in its original simplicity, 
 can only be worked efficiently by individuals who 
 have the peculiar gift which this peculiar kind of 
 work demands. Comparatively, there are few men 
 who can repeat the work of George Muller, as the 
 failure of many in England and America will testify. 
 So in the mission field various weak points will be 
 
MissioNAEY Methods and Policies. 59 
 
 found in the management of these faith missions. In 
 many cases the workers are found to depend not so 
 much upon their own faith as upon that of their 
 leaders, or upon the parties sending them out. Others 
 quickly fall into the habit of soliciting help and soon 
 cease to differ from ordinary Christian workers in 
 this respect. Others, again, become conspicuous ex- 
 amples of begging by indirect solicitation. They 
 publish far and wide accounts of their labors, not 
 omitting touching and almost pitiful statements of 
 their personal trials, painting in graphic colors how 
 they have to walk upon the very verge of starvation's 
 line, and keeping prominent the fact that they do not 
 personally ask for help, and thus make about as effec- 
 tive an appeal to a sympathetic reader as could be 
 made. With the very best and kindest feelings for 
 the excellent men and women engaged in this kind 
 of work, I cannot avoid the conviction tliat a great 
 deal of their so-called faitli work involves much less 
 of the kind of faith taught and illustrated in the New 
 Testament than the workers themselves suspect. In 
 fact, in some cases shrewd, far-seeing business men 
 have little hesitation in attributing their success in 
 collecting funds to the same business principles which 
 lead so many men in secular pursuits to advertise so 
 widely. But do not understand me to say that I 
 decry all this kind of work and all these kinds of 
 workers. Among the many there are a few who con- 
 sistently and practically act upon the lofty system 
 which they adopt. I only say that such workers are 
 and always will be exceptional persons, and that the 
 policy of George Muller, while excellent in the case 
 of individuals, can never be applied to an organized 
 5 
 
60 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 community, where in the nature of the case his ex- 
 ceptional faith will be the gift of but a few. 
 
 Let none who hold this so-called faith principle 
 dear be discouraged by what I have said. In every 
 mission field there is, and always will be, ample room 
 for the exercise of all the faith which any Christian 
 can be expected to possess. The work is expanding 
 so rapidly, its needs are so great and its home resources 
 so limited, that the missionary can make but little 
 progress before be iinds himself in the midst of press- 
 ing emergencies which test at once his faith in God, 
 and compel him to lean hard upon the divine prom- 
 ises. There is abundant room for one hundred George 
 Mullers in every mission field of the world, and the 
 magnificent. faith which he has so long illustrated can 
 find ample scope without the organization of special 
 missions founded upon a principle which can only be 
 imperfectly aceep|;ed by the majority of those enlisted 
 in the service. 
 
 As one result of the educational controversy, some 
 influential missionary leaders have assumed an ex- 
 treme position in reference to the necessity of making 
 all missionaries preachers of the gosj^el. They would 
 not only have them all be preachers, but they insist 
 that they must all be evangelists. They would ex- 
 elude them alike from the school-room and the pas- 
 toral relation. It is probable that most of those who 
 assume this extreme position do not use the word 
 evangelist in its strict New Testament sense, but in 
 any case their policy is an extremely narrow one and 
 can hardly prove successful on a large scale. When 
 we notice how few Christian preachers are evangel- 
 ists in any proper sense, and how few of them have 
 
MissioNAEY Methods and Policies. 61 
 
 the evangelistic gift, it is easy to see that unless mis- 
 sionaries are chosen with extraordinary care, only a 
 limited proportion of them will be fitted for this pe- 
 culiar work. But unless thus fitted, the missionary 
 thus compelled to labor as an evangelist must in the 
 very nature of the case find his position uncomfort- 
 able and spend most of his labor in vain. Many ex- 
 cellent young men have been sent to the foreign 
 field to engage in this kind of work who have scarcely 
 any qualification for the service, and it is not strange 
 that they seem to fail although they labor faithfully 
 and devote their lives to their Master. If evangelists 
 can be found in sufficient numbers it might be pos- 
 sible to conduct a mission upon this basis, but cer- 
 tainly this essential condition should not be overlooked. 
 I do not for a moment decry evangelists as a class. I 
 would put them forward in the very front of the 
 battle ; I would concede to them the place of honor 
 all along the line ; I would to God that their number 
 could be multiplied a thousand-fold ; but at the same 
 time we must remember that the militant host of the 
 Captain of onr salvation is made up of what military 
 men would call various arms of a common service. 
 The evangelists compose a most important arm, but 
 yet they constitute only one branch of a common 
 service. They are needed in every mission field, but 
 in connection with them should be found all other 
 classes of laborers needed, and to each class should be 
 assigned the peculiar work which both the spirit and 
 providence of God indicate as the one to which its 
 members are adapted. 
 
 Another most important question of policy, to which 
 I can only briefly call your attention, but which is 
 
62 MissioNABY Addeesses. 
 
 worthy of careful study, is that of the organization 
 and development of the churches formed in heathen 
 lands. This question presents itself to the missionary 
 as soon as he gathers around him his first half dozen 
 converts, and, simple as the problem may seem to one 
 looking at it from a distance, it becomes very grave 
 indeed when the missionary on the ground remem- 
 bers that the organization of his little band will tell 
 for good or ill upon the future Christianity of the 
 people among whom he labors, long after he is in his 
 grave. In a country where every thing Christian is 
 new, where not a stone of any foundation has been 
 laid, where precedents are rare if not unknown, and 
 where advisers are perhaps all on the other side of 
 the globe, it requires ripe wisdom and abounding 
 grace to enable those upon whom the responsibility 
 rests to do their work. To say they are liable to 
 make mistakes, and perhaps serious mistakes, would be 
 superfluous, and yet it ought to be accepted as a 
 settled policy of missionary administration, that in all 
 foreign countries or mission fields those on the spot 
 shall be intrusted with the responsibility of adminis- 
 tering the ecclesiastical affairs of their converts, 
 effecting the organization of churches, and directing 
 in all the development of the work. 
 
 I do not mean that the missionaries in the field 
 should themselves do this, but rather that they, with 
 the co-operation of their converts, should bear the re- 
 sponsibility. The idea prevails very widely that all 
 converts from heathenism must be treated like so 
 many children, and prepared by a slow process, ex- 
 tending over a generation or two, for bearing any 
 responsibility in the management of the churches to 
 
Missionary Methods and Policies. 63 
 
 wliich they belong. This notion is a very mistaken 
 one. Ignorant and inexperienced as a convert may 
 be, he nevertheless is a Christian member of a Chris- 
 tian Church and must be treated' accordingly. They 
 may be fitted for only a very simple organization, but 
 let them have such a one as will be suited to them. 
 They must in every case be intrusted veith important 
 responsibilities in the little churches to which they 
 belong. The missionaries cannot safely assume that 
 their converts are so many children, nor, on the other 
 hand, can missionary authorities in England or 
 America commit the more serious mistake of sup- 
 posing that foreign missions must have their ecclesi- 
 astical affairs administered by parties on the other 
 side of the globe. In every living church there are 
 laws of growth as natural and yet as inseparable from 
 life itself as the corresponding laws which we see in 
 plants and trees, and we must assume that the devel- 
 opment of every little church and of every Christian 
 community will go on according to fixed laws, the 
 development being from within and not from with- 
 out. Hence I have long been of tlie opinion that the 
 whole machinery of ecclesiastical administration ought 
 to be present in every mission field. As a matter of 
 fact the great missionary societies of the world have 
 for the most part been very slow in conceding this 
 point, and hence it happens that men of ripe expe- 
 rience in India meet together annually, propose 
 changes and make arrangements for the work of the 
 ensuing year, and then have to wait until their pro- 
 posals are sanctioned by parties on the other side of 
 the globe before they can take a step in carrying 
 them into effect. Our own Church has perhaps gone 
 
04 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 farther than any other in laying the responsibility of 
 the administration in our foreign fields upon those on 
 the ground, and I am glad to add that the general 
 tendency every-whe're seems to be in this direction ; 
 but it ought to be at once accepted as the fixed policy 
 of all missionary boards. And in sending men out 
 as missionaries, care should be taken in every case to 
 have at least a fair proportion of tliose chosen, men 
 who have capacity to organize and to administer 
 affairs generally. 
 
 While touching at this point upon the home ad- 
 ministration of missionary aifairs I can hardly omit 
 to call your attention to what has long seemed to 
 many a radical error on the part of our own Church. 
 I refer to the singular plan of organization by wliich 
 the missionary work of the Church, in the sense iu 
 which the whole Christian world understands the 
 term missionary work, is combined witli what is 
 known as the work of Home Missions. It is easier, 
 perhaps, to unify the administration in this way than 
 to have two distinct organizations, but it is felt by 
 very many, especially those who appreciate the orig- 
 inal missionary idea of tlie age, that such an arrange- 
 ment can only be effected at the serious expense of 
 the foreign work. There is something about it which 
 seems to obscure the very idea upon which the mis- 
 sionary enterprise is founded. Had William Carey 
 when about to leave England been asked to adopt 
 such a policy in connection with his enterprise he 
 could hardly have regarded it otherwise than as a 
 proposal practically to abandon his scheme. His was 
 a distinct conception altogether, and such is the gen- 
 eral conviction of the Christian world to-day. Evan- 
 
Missionary Methods and Policies. 65 
 
 gelistic work in Christian lands is distinctly diflE(3rent 
 from the work of evangelizing non-ehristian nations, 
 and Christians generally recognize it as such. Money 
 asked for the missionary cause in our churches is 
 nearly always asked in the name of the heathen, and 
 it ought to be expended for the purpose for which it 
 is given. It would be difficult at this late day to sep- 
 arate the home from the foreign work, but sooner or 
 later this must be done, and the sooner it is attempted 
 the fewer will be the difficulties encountered. For 
 my own part I have not the slightest doubt that both 
 of these departments of labor would gain by the sep- 
 aration. Our Church, by the very plan of its organi- 
 zation, is a home missionary Church. The foreign 
 work was not provided for in this original organiza- 
 tion, and should have been allowed the exclusive ben- 
 efit of its own organization from the first. Our 
 great Church can never move forward in the career 
 of uniform and wide-spread conquest which might be 
 rightfully expected from so powerful a body of 
 Cliristians, until our missionary forces are cut loose 
 from all other entanglements, and their undivided 
 energies thus turned upon the specific work which God 
 has set before them. 
 
66 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 THE MORAL STATE OF THE HEATHEN. 
 
 THE words heathen and pagan, as you are no 
 doubt aware, originally signified little more than 
 villager or countryman. They were terms applied to 
 the villagers or country people living at some dis- 
 tance from the cities and lars;er towns, and who from 
 their remote situation were the last to accept Chris- 
 tianity. It thus happened that for a considerable 
 space of time the country people, that is, the inhabit- 
 ants of the pagus in Latin-speaking countries, and the 
 heath-dwellers among our own ancestors, were the 
 only people known who did not profess the Christian 
 religion, and hence the terms pagan and heathen 
 gradually lost their original meaning and were ap- 
 plied to all people in all parts of the world who ad- 
 hered to their ancient religions and rejected Chris- 
 tianity. At the present day the former word is 
 applied to the more barbarous non-christian nations 
 and tribes, while the word heathen is received in a 
 slightly better sense, and applied to the more civilized 
 nations who reject Christianity and Mohammedanism, 
 and retain their ancient idolatry. In the present 
 address I use the term heathen more in the sense of 
 non-christian than in the more narrow acceptation 
 which a strict definition would require. It is a sign 
 of the times, and I certainlj'- regard it as a favorable 
 sign, that the more intelligent people in India have 
 so keen a perception of the disfavor with which this 
 
The Moeal State of the Heathen. 67 
 
 word is viewed in England and America that they 
 strongly object to have it applied to themselves. 
 They insist that tliey are not heathen in the sense in 
 wliicli the civilized world generally accepts that term, 
 and for one I should be very sorry to apply it to them 
 while they so heartily disclaim it. As a matter of 
 fact, large numbers of them are not heathen in any 
 proper sense, and if I were to use the term at all in 
 its strict application, I should insist on applying it to 
 large numbers of depraved people in Christian lands 
 as well as to those who bow down to idols in non- 
 ehristian lands. The question which I wish to dis- 
 cuss at present may perhaps be stated thus : What is 
 the moral and religious condition of the nations which 
 do not accept Cliristianity ? or, How do such nations 
 compare morally with those nations in which Chris- 
 tianity is the popular religion ? 
 
 This question is one of extreme interest at the 
 present time. It very naturally afEects the mission- 
 ary enterprise in a practical way, and it also enters 
 largely into the religious controversies of the age. 
 Two views are held, diametrically opposed to one 
 another, and both, I regret to say, extreme, and con- 
 sequently inaccurate. On one hand, it has been the 
 custom for many years to take a verse or two out of 
 the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Eomans, and 
 make it descriptive of all the heathen in the world. 
 Some intelligent people seem to assume that if they 
 (lit! not succeed in painting as black a picture of tlie 
 moral state of every heatlien community as tliat 
 drawn in sucli terrible outline in this cliaptcr, the 
 vei-y inspiration of the epistle will be impeacilied ; nnd 
 hence we are told over and over again that we have 
 
C8 MissioNAET Addeesses. 
 
 in this brief outline a faitliful portraiture of the 
 heathen of the present daj'-. Others, again, are im- 
 pressed with the conviction that tlie only way to 
 stimulate an ardent missionary spirit among Cliris- 
 tians is to show the deploi-able condition of the 
 heathen world, and thus appeal to the pity, sympathy 
 and Christian love of those living in Christian lands. 
 Hence, perhaps more or less unconsciously, there has 
 crept into missionary literature a spirit which I have 
 long regretted, which depreciates every thing found 
 in non-christian countries, which exaggerates tlie 
 faults of the people, magnifies their defects, and pict- 
 ures them as living in almost absolute darkness and 
 misery. This is one extreme. The other goes quite 
 as far in the opposite direction. Professor Max Mul- 
 ler, for instance, is so carried away by his enthusiasm 
 that he discovers virtues where they have but sliglit 
 existence, finds gems strewn all around where ordi- 
 nary eyes cannot perceive them, and elevates tlie 
 religion of the Hindu to a plane which to the Hindus 
 themselves seems as high as that of Christianity. 
 Edwin Arnold is another illustrious example of this 
 same class of extremists. "Without any sei-ioiis attempt 
 to follow the line of sober scholarship, he gives wings 
 to his imagination, and places in a seat of honor 
 hardlj' second to Christianity one of the most barren 
 and soulless religious systems which has ever afflicted 
 the human race. All over the world those who are 
 eclectics in religion, that is, who decline to accept 
 Christianity as the only true religion, given by God 
 to the human race, are anxious to prove that the great 
 systems of Hinduism and Mohammedanism, like 
 Christianity itself, are moi-e or less of divine origin. 
 
The Moeal State of the Heathen. C9 
 
 and have been providentially developed for the use 
 of the race. In order to make good their theory they 
 naturally try to magnify all the virtues of the people 
 whom we are accustomed to call heathen ; and hence 
 we meet with beautiful pictures, painted in glowing 
 colors, descriptive of simple virtues which the mis- 
 sionary always fails to discover. 
 
 I need hardly say that both these extreme views 
 are wrong. No people in the world are so utterly 
 wretched and miserable as some of the dark pictures 
 drawn by friends of missions would represent. Close 
 attention to the words of Paul in the first chapter of 
 Komans, will show that he does not affirm that all 
 heathen were such as he describes, but rather that the 
 deliberate forsaking of God and the acceptance of 
 base and gross idolatry, did produce undoubtedly such 
 effects as he mentions. It is undoubtedly true tliat 
 in modern heathen lands this terrible picture can be 
 verified but too easily ; but the apostle Paul was too 
 wise a man, ^nd too well informed to assume for a 
 moment that all people living in heathen lands were 
 of this kind. When he was expostulating with the 
 multitude who wished to worship him and his com- 
 panion at Lystra, he said, in a more cheerful strain, 
 that God filled their hearts " with food and gladness." 
 
 In his day, as in our day, we may find much sun- 
 shine in the darkest corners of our darkened earth. 
 I have never met any people so bad, so degraded, 
 that joy had ceased to be an experience of their 
 hearts. It would be impeaching both the goodness 
 and grace of God to assume that any human beings 
 are so miserable and so depraved as the mass of the 
 heathen world are sometimes depicted. It should be 
 
70 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 our joy and onr boast to maintain constantly that 
 God sends his Spirit into every human heart, en- 
 lightens every conscience, quickens the religious sen- 
 sibility of every individual, and does this not daily 
 but constantly. But for this gracious and never 
 ceasing interposition of our loving heavenly Father 
 our poor world would become a hell in less than 
 twenty-four hours. But the worst parts of our earth 
 are better than a hell. That is a place utterly forsaken 
 by God. There is more joy than sorrow in the most 
 unhappy corner of our poor earth, and bad as the 
 condition of the majority of the human race un- 
 doubtedly is, there are still in every land manifesta- 
 tions of goodness for which we ought to be unspeak- 
 ably thankful. 
 
 With regard to the other extreme, I can hardly 
 seriously discuss it. It is based upon man's imagina- 
 tion, and not upon any known and accepted facts. 
 When I meet a man who seriously argues that the 
 condition of the heathen is better than that of people 
 living in Christian lands, I simply feel that he is not 
 a man to be argued with. His imagination must be 
 too active, or his knowledge too limited, or his mem- 
 ory too treacherous, or his judgment too warped to 
 fit him for a serious discussion of such a subject. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that there ai'e some 
 very strange contradictions which meet the careful 
 and candid observer when he begins to compare hea- 
 then lands with those known as Christian — when, for 
 instance, he compares India with England or China 
 with the United States. It is not difficult to array 
 certain facts in such startling contrast that the super- 
 ficial observer might easily enough be led to think 
 
The Moeal State of the Heathen. 71 
 
 that tlie two western countries surpass their eastern 
 rivals in violence and vice. You may have heard of 
 the first Dr. Scudder, when he brought one of his 
 sons, who had been born in India, to this country, 
 rebuking a man on the docks at New York for swear- 
 ing. " My son," he said, " never before heard God's 
 name blasphemed, although he was born and has been 
 brought up in a heathen land." I have myself felt this 
 most keenly when returning to America. You may 
 hear more profanity in an ordinary smoking-car in 
 the course of an hour than you would hear in a 
 heathen village in a whole year. Then we have the 
 startling spectacle of the English gin shop and the 
 American saloon, practically unJsnown in heathen 
 lands until carried there by what we call Christian 
 civilization. The sad story of the opium trade forced 
 upon China is but too well known. In India 
 Europeans of low character are much more violent in 
 their lawlessness than the corresponding classes of 
 Hindus, and the simple-minded natives very naturally 
 conclude that there is a worse kind of depravity in the 
 English nature than in their own. Stranger still, I 
 may mention a fact which always astonishes inquirers 
 in this country : I am often asked if the people of 
 India are not, like all heathen, given up to licentious 
 habits, and when I reply that the most horrible inde- 
 cency to be found in the whole empire is witnessed 
 in the European quarters of Bombay and Calcutta, 
 my questioners are always surprised beyond measure ; 
 and yet such is the fact. In short, at every turn we 
 meet with these surprises, and with contradictions 
 which need explanation. 
 
 In studying this compHcated and perplexing ques- 
 
72 Missionary Addkesses. 
 
 tion we must always remember that human nature, 
 apart from saving grace, is every-wliere the same. 
 The Hindu, the Chinaman, the Englishman, and 
 the American, are all precisely alike in the essential 
 features of their moral constitution, and when we 
 discover differences these may always be traced to 
 some adequate cause ; hence it follows that hea- 
 tlienism, in the proper acceptation of the term, can- 
 not be confined within geographical limits. The man 
 who forsakes God in order to worship wealth, is pre- 
 cisely on a par with the man who forsakes God for 
 tlie worship of an animal or a stone. Both of them 
 may be expected to lapse into a state of fearful moral 
 declension, and hence we ought not to be surprised when 
 when we discover even more startling habits of unnat- 
 ural depravity in our great Christian cities than appear 
 on the surface of society in heathen lands. St. Paul's 
 well-known picture is a more faithful description of 
 extremes of vice now practiced in Paris and New 
 York than of any thing I have ever become cogni- 
 zant of during more than a quarter of a century's 
 residence in India. I am not surprised at this in 
 the least ; I should be surprised if it were otherwise. 
 Human nature being the same essentially every- where, 
 it is but reasonable to expect that those who utterly for- 
 sake God in New York and Paris, being more intelligent 
 and having greater resources to be employed in the 
 service of sin, would surpass in atrocious wickedness 
 tlie more simple and less capable idolaters of non- 
 christian lands. It is a startling thought that the 
 great progress which our race is making in what we 
 call civilization adds facilities not only for Christian 
 work, but for the practice of every species of iniquity. 
 
The Moeal State of the Heathen. 73 
 
 Every new invention, every discovery in the arts, 
 every great advance in knowledge, involves inevitably 
 immense perils. The man who ceases to fear God 
 acquires an awful capacity for turning all blessings 
 into so many curses, and hence the greater our advance- 
 ment in civilization the more terrible is the liability 
 incurred if our civilization is not kept permeated 
 through and through with a Christian spirit. 
 
 Another explanation of this singular anomaly may 
 be found in the fact that sin committed against light 
 is more fearful in its consequences than if committed 
 in the midst of darkness. The higher the elevation 
 upon which a man stands the deeper will he sink 
 when he plunges into the mire before him. Those 
 who sin in a Christian land stand upon a higher plane 
 than that occupied by persons living in heathen lands, 
 and hence when they abandon themselves to evil ways 
 they seem to sink deeper into the horrible pit than 
 the poor creatures in heathen countries whom we are 
 accustomed to think of as the worst of the human 
 race. The same law will explain the fact that a 
 woman who is utterly abandoned to evil ways so often 
 seems worse than a reckless sinner of the other sex. 
 She has fallen from a loftier height, she has taken a 
 leap from an eminence which a man never occupies, 
 and by the operation of a simple law sinks to a lower 
 depth. We see this law operating constantly all over 
 the world. It is better never to have the truth at all 
 than to hold it in unrighteousness. I often hear it 
 said that the Mohammedans are so much better in 
 their morality than the Hindus because they possess 
 so much more vital truth. They believe in the one 
 ever-living God, they receive as his word large por- 
 
7'i MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 tions of our Scriptures, and in point of religious 
 intelligence are, no doubt, far in advance of any other 
 non-christian people except tlie Jews — and yet, as a 
 matter of fact, the morality of the Hindus is supe- 
 rior to that of the Mohammedans. I once lived in a 
 province inhabited exclusively by Hindus, and I dis- 
 covered that some of the most terrible vices known 
 in the Mohammedan parts of India were never even 
 mentioned among those simple bat ignorant villagers 
 who had never known any worship excepting that of 
 idols and false gods. This unexpected fact I have al- 
 ways accounted for in one way. Mohammed gave to his 
 followers a large amount of vital truth, but he taught 
 them how to hold it in unrighteousness. Hence, so 
 far from regarding the progress of Islamism in Africa 
 and other barbarous regions as a blessing to the peo- 
 ple, I am inclined to look upon it as a great calamity. 
 You are, perhaps, expecting me to go on with 
 these admissions until I sliall have almost conceded 
 that in the comparison before us Christianity has no 
 advantages peculiarly its own. I am very far, how- 
 ever, from any such thought or purpose. I merely 
 wish to put the actual facts of the case honestly 
 before you. But when I have conceded every thing 
 the sad truth remains, when viewed broadly, about as 
 you have, perhaps, always been accustomed to view it. 
 The moral state of the heathen at its very best is de- 
 plorable. I do not mean that the people are all utterly 
 depraved, or brutal, or violent, or devilish, or gross, or 
 sensual, or inhuman, as so many have been accustomed 
 to picture them ; but two or three prominent facts 
 have met me every-where in India and cannot escape 
 the attention of any close observer. 
 
The Moral State of the Heathen. 75 
 
 In the first place, the people are " without God." 
 As a simple matter of fact, they do not know him. 
 Tliey believe in liis existence, they admit, as a general 
 rule, that he is the Creator and upholder of all things, 
 and many of them' may go farther and admit that he is 
 the Father of all men ; but aside from a vague admission 
 of these truths you may search day after day, week 
 after week, month after month, without finding a man 
 or woman who, in the spiritual sense of the word, 
 knows God. What this lack of knowledge fully im- 
 plies I need not attempt to state. Take out of our 
 own country the thousands and the millions who know 
 God, take away all the light and knowledge and spir- 
 itual power and restraining influences which accom- 
 pany these persons, and you have robbed our country 
 of three fourths of its power in every good direc- 
 tion at a single stroke. I do not speculate upon this 
 subject; I do not say that the heathen have no belief 
 in God's existence, or that they are not accessible to 
 good influences, or that they have no conviction of 
 riglit and wrong, but I simply state the fact that in the 
 course of a long residence in India, during which I 
 talked with hundreds and thousands of the people, I 
 never met with any person who was not a Christian, 
 or who had not been in close contact with Christians, 
 who had a personal knowledge of God as his Father, 
 much less of a divine Saviour or indwelling Com- 
 forter. 
 
 I may mention another fact which is closely con- 
 nected with the foregoing and which may be regarded 
 as a corollary of it. The heathen are destitute not 
 only of the personal knowledge of God, but also of 
 that hope which is essential to a genuine religious 
 
7G MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 life. Among tliose who have been in close contact 
 with Christians the case may be different, but the 
 mass of the people never think of a future state, 
 and are absolutely destitute of any thing wliich could 
 properly be called a living hope. I have questioned 
 scores and scores of intelligent and thoughtful men 
 on the subject, and have always received the same 
 answer. "When I ask. Where do you expect to go 
 when you die? I am always obliged to explain my 
 meaning at some length before I can make myself 
 understood clearly, and then the answer almost inva- 
 riably is : " How can I know ? " Hope as a living, 
 active power in the heart is something they seem to 
 know nothing of. While they rarely seem concerned 
 about their future, while they almost invariably die 
 in a state of apparent apathy rather than alarm, yet 
 they seem, as far as the observer can possibly perceive, 
 to launch forth upon an untried and shoreless sea 
 without a star in the sky, or a single ray of light to 
 guide them on their unknown course. Wliat this 
 means only Christian people can, perhaps, fully appre- 
 ciate. How much the Christian hope which dwells 
 in the hearts of the believers all over this land is 
 really doing for the people we little know. It puts 
 brightness, and life, and buoyancy, and strength into 
 the great heart of the nation. It is an unspeakable 
 blessing to us for this present life, even if it did not 
 point to any thing beyond ; and when we remember 
 how it illuminates the pathway of so many millions, 
 how it throws out bright rays into the darkness and 
 gloom whicli gather arouud every weary pilgrim as 
 he nears the end of his journey, how it seems to 
 bring heaven near, how it lifts the soul above the suf- 
 
The Moral State of the Heathen. 77 
 
 fering and sorrow of our present life, we are almost 
 startled to think of the millions upon millions of 
 people who " have no hope and are without God in 
 the world." I do not say that they have no hope of 
 any kind, but I do affirm that this living hope, 
 this divine spark in the human heart, is something 
 one seeks for in vain among the millions of hea- 
 thenism. 
 
 It must be admitted, too, that the moral standard 
 in heathen nations is much lower than that in Chris- 
 tian lands, at least in those lands where the Bible cir- 
 culates freely. It is needless to give ra.any specifica- 
 tions here, but with regard to the truth of the gen- 
 eral statement I think there can be no reasonable 
 doubt. Some forms of sin abound in America more 
 than in India, and I am glad to add that some vir- 
 tues are practiced in India to an extent which the 
 Americans have never attained and which they ought 
 to make haste to imitate. But after making all rea- 
 sonable and possible concessions, I see no escape from 
 the conclusion that heathen morality in its best 
 estate is measured by a very low standard. It is not 
 only low, but has no power to elevate itself. Special 
 pleaders, like Max Muller, forget that by their own 
 showing all these Oriental systems have been losing 
 ground, morally, for centuries upon centuries. The 
 golden age of every religion except Christianity is 
 in the past. The ancestors of the present Hindus 
 maintained a purer morality three thousand years ago 
 than is known in India to-day. Through all the long 
 generations which have since passed, every system 
 of religion which has been introduced into India has 
 gravitated downward from the very first. We do not 
 
78 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 discover in Brahminism, or Buddhism, or Moham- 
 medanism, the slightest power to rise upward or 
 advance forward in any good direction. All these 
 systems alike have failed to do any thing for woman, 
 have failed to extend sympathy to the poor, to elevate 
 the lowly, to minister to the sorrowing, to bind up 
 the broken-hearted, or, in short, to perform any of 
 the chief offices which a religion sent 'from God may 
 be expected to accomplish. Tour mighty nation has 
 a stupendous struggle on its hands in trying to sup- 
 press the infamous polygamy of Utah. Do any of 
 those who contend that heathen morality is practically 
 as good as that of Christian nations, ever reflect for 
 a moment that if the United States were a heathen 
 country Mormonism would take its place among tlie 
 other religions of the land without so much as creat- 
 ing a ripple upon the surface of society ? 
 
 It is quite popular in some circles, and is supposed 
 by many to savor of learning and philosophy, to scout 
 the old Christian idea that all the great religions of 
 the world except Christianity are the offspring of the 
 devil, and to hold in its place the preposterous view that 
 they were all originated and developed by God himself, 
 that they all have been, and still are, serving their 
 purpose, each in its own sphere, in the education of 
 the human race, and all jointly contributing to what 
 might be called the religious evolution of mankind. 
 For one, I confess to a little impatience with this kind 
 of so-called philosophy. I have no more respect for 
 Mohammedanism as a system than for Mormonism. 
 I do not believe that God had any more to do with 
 the foundation of the one system than of the other, 
 nor do I believe that he was in any way more respon- 
 
The Moral State of the Heathen. 79 
 
 sible for the origin and development of Brahminism 
 or Buddhism, than for the origin of the worship of 
 Baal, or the sacred animals of Egypt. It is simply 
 nonsense to talk in this way with the facts of the 
 religious life of the race spread out before us as 
 they are. That God lias had much to do in guiding, 
 restraining, and oftentimes resisting, the progress of 
 these various systems, every one will admit who 
 believes in the divine administration of the govern- 
 ment of this world ; but to make the Judge of all 
 the earth responsible for sin, and folly, and error, 
 and falsehood, and injustice, and iniquity in a thou- 
 sand forms, is a kind of philosophy which intelligent 
 Christians can well afford to discard. 
 
 But while making these severe charges against what 
 we call heathenism, do not understand me for a mo- 
 ment as bringing railing charges against the heathen 
 themselves. I have little sympathy, perhaps I ought 
 to say, a great deal of repugnance, for the extrava- 
 gant misstatements made about the horrible condition 
 of the heathen nations. While their condition is a 
 sad one, while every ti'ue Christian heart must be 
 stirred with deep sympathy in tlieir behalf, yet there 
 is much to alleviate their hardships and to make their 
 lives not only endurable, but oftentimes bright and 
 happy. The longer I have lived among the people of 
 India the better have I liked them, and I can say to-day 
 without any shadow of affectation that I love thera 
 perhaps better than the people of my native land. 
 They have many noble traits of character ; they have 
 elements of moral goodness and greatness which, 
 when sanctified by grace, will give them a noble posi- 
 tion in the great family of our common Father ; they 
 
80 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 are by no means hard, and selfish, and cruel, and base, 
 and destitute of all good qualities. Millions of them 
 in their little hamlets live quiet, happy, and peaceful 
 lives, and exemplify many noble virtues in their hum- 
 ble little homes. In a land cursed with polygamy 
 there are yet millions of faithful wives and affectionate 
 husbands. The parents love their children with a 
 passionate affection, and the children respond with a 
 dutiful love which is sometimes beautiful in its man- 
 ifestations. Many of the stories told about the cruel 
 treatment of old parents, or the sacrifice of infants 
 to the Ganges or to wild beasts, have been undoubt- 
 edly true, but in all my life in India I never knew a 
 single case of an infant being thrown into the Ganges 
 as a sacrifice to the goddess. I have known of cruel 
 treatment to aged parents, and yet I have seen some 
 of these old persons brought at the last extremity to 
 the banks of the Ganges to die, and have with my 
 own eyes seen their children waiting upon them with 
 an affection and tenderness which were truly touch- 
 ing. Hence I feel bound to maintain that the people 
 of India are a more noble people, a better people, 
 and a more promising people, than the outside world 
 has ever been disposed to admit. And yet, while 
 conceding all that I possibly can in their behalf, so 
 keenly do I feel their need of a higher and purer 
 life, of a brighter and more living hope, of a better 
 and nobler civilization, and of a grander future as a 
 nation, that if I had no knowledge of a future state of 
 existence at all, I would still gladly devote the best ener- 
 gies of my remaining days to the work of bringing the 
 people of India to a knowledge of Jesus Christ, for the 
 sake of the unspeakable benefits which they would 
 
The Moeal State of the Heathen. 81 
 
 receive even during this present life. The service of 
 our Saviour is profitable for all, having the promise 
 of the life which now is, and if we could not add, 
 " and of that which is to come," I should still give 
 mj'self freely to securing the benefit of this promise 
 for the present life, to the people whom God has 
 taught me to love with an affection which must be the 
 offspring of his own blessed Spirit. 
 
 But, strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, 
 that just at the present moment more interest seems 
 to be taken in the future condition of the heathen 
 than in their present state. Even intelligent Chris- 
 tians seem to be more anxious to speculate in refer- 
 ence to their condition in the next world, tlian to 
 ascertain the actual facts connected with their present 
 life. " The fate of the heathen " is a theme which 
 profoundly interests the religious public, and you 
 would no doubt think that I made a serious omission 
 if I did not notice it this evening. I have no wish 
 to evade it, but you must allow me to protest against 
 the impatient urgency with which this discussion is 
 usually pressed. It is foreign to the spirit of the 
 New Testament. God would have us open our eyes 
 to the facts of the present, rather than speculate about 
 the future, or concentrate our attention upon a distant 
 future, even apart from a spirit of speculation. The 
 pervading spirit of the New Testament is that of 
 intense interest in the facts of our present life. Sal- 
 vation is a present salvation fi-om present sin, rather 
 tlian from a future hell. The heathen in Paul's day 
 listened to a very simple gospel of present deliver- 
 ance, and no room was left for questions about their 
 fate as distinct from the fate of other people. The 
 
82 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 early Christians seem to have been well content to 
 leave the judgment of men and nations to him to 
 whom it belonged, and applied themselves diligently 
 to the worlc of saving all men from sin and death. 
 
 But while protesting against the distorted shape in 
 which this question is presented I have no wish to 
 evade it. When I first went to India I formed a 
 harsh judgment of the people whom I first met, and 
 could see little hope in their future. For instance, 
 not one among them seemed to observe an ordinary 
 standard of truth. They would deviate from the 
 truth, often without any concern whatever, and when 
 I remembered the doom of " all liars " their fate 
 seemed sealed forever. As time passed, however, I 
 learned to discriminate more wisely, and to shrink 
 from rash judgment in a case involving such awful 
 interests. I began to notice, too, that while the mul- 
 titude seemed bent on evil ways, the people themselves 
 drew a line of distinction between good and bad men. 
 I would here and there meet one who by common 
 consent would be called a good man. He would not 
 be exact in speaking the truth, but the general rule 
 of his life was that he preferred good to evil, chose 
 good ways rather tlian bad ways, or, in other words, 
 loved light rather than darkness. Such men were 
 few, but they could be found, and when found would 
 be respected, and trusted, and loved. 
 
 My next step was to remember that God would 
 judge his creatures not by a common absolute stand- 
 ard, but by the measure of light which each receives. 
 In exact proportion to the amount given will be the 
 amount required. The standard of truthfulness even 
 may differ in the case of different individuals. " Lies 
 
The Moral State of the Heathen. 83 
 
 of conrtesj " are not unknown in Christian lands, and 
 are not regarded by a polite Oriental as in the faintest 
 degree criminal. 'No man is or can be absolutely 
 truthful, and we who allow prejudice to warp our 
 statements, or fail to curb imagination at times, or sin 
 by careless speaking, need to be slow in setting up 
 the standard by which the heathen are to be judged. 
 For my own part, I learned in time to recognize 
 among the heathen those whose word I trusted, and 
 who could be depended upon in any clear case of 
 right and wrong to adhere to the truth. They had 
 but little light, but, such as it was, they preferred it to 
 darkness. Now we have only to remember that men 
 are condemned, not for rejecting a personal Saviour, 
 but for loving darkness rather than light, and the dif- 
 ficulty, of which so much has been made recently, at 
 once vanishes. " This is the condemnation, that light 
 is come into the world, and men love darkness i-ather 
 than light." Men and women in heathen lands, one 
 and all, receive a measure of light. They all know 
 the difference between right and wrong, between 
 good and evil, although they do not sharply draw a line 
 of demarcation between the two. They do not get 
 this moral discrimination from their false systems, but 
 the Holy Spirit writes it upon their hearts. Hence 
 they have no more urgent need of a second probation 
 than the mass of those living in Christian lands. 
 
 But it will be said that the number of those rela- 
 tively good, such as I have described, is very, very 
 small, and hence practically we must give up the 
 heathen as lost. Does it ever occur to you that the 
 same remark might be made about the people of 
 Chicago? A veil of awful mystery hangs over every 
 
Si MlSSIONAEY AdDEESSES. 
 
 glimpse which we can get of human life, past, pres- 
 ent and future ; and yet I know no problem connected 
 with our future which wears darker hues, or is 
 shrouded in greater mystery, than some of the ques- 
 tions which confront us in our every-day life. A 
 thousand questions press upon us for answers at every 
 turn, in the presence of which the whole world stands 
 dumb. God's word sheds light upon our own path- 
 way, but does not assist us in prying into all the 
 mysteries which veil the future of the human race. 
 We know that sin works ruin, that its fruit is death, 
 and that the stars in their courses do not move more 
 resistlessly onward than punishment follows in the 
 pathway of transgression and ruin in the wake of sin. 
 We know, too, that in the clearer light of the final 
 day God will vindicate his ways in the presence of a 
 gazing universe, and we can well afford to wait for 
 the revelations which God is reserving for that great 
 day. The Christian believer who sits at the Master's 
 feet has a faith which does not so much solve mys- 
 teries as penetrates beyond them. A lady who had 
 passed through a severe struggle with skepticism 
 emerged into clear sunshine when she found Christ. 
 Her doubts and difficulties all vanished as if in a mo- 
 ment. A friend asked her, " Have you solved all the 
 difficulties which troubled you ? " " J^o," was her 
 noble reply, " but I seem to see beyond them." So 
 may we all do. We cannot fathom all mysteries, but 
 we need not put out our eyes because we cannot see 
 every thing at a single glance. 
 
 As a missionary I look upon the present state of 
 the heathen world as deplorable in the extreme. I 
 have and can have no sympathy with the notion 
 
The Mokal State of the Heathen. 85 
 
 wliieh prevails in many quarters that the heathen are 
 in no special danger. I find the word perish in the 
 New Testament, and I see immortal souls perishing 
 before my eyes every day I live. The man who does 
 not see them needs to have his eyes anointed, and 
 that speedily. There is hope, there is salvation for 
 the heathen nations and for sinners every-where, but 
 it is not found in speculating about their future or 
 founding hope upon guess-work. Whatever may 
 happen in eternity, there is hope and help now for all 
 men. Our duty is plain; our work is before us. 
 Darl^ as is the outlook to-day, a brighter day has al- 
 ready dawned, and the time is hastening when all 
 the nations will walk in the light of God. 
 
MlSSIONAEY AdDKESSES. 
 
 MISSIONARY SERVICE AS A CAREER. 
 
 THE subject announced for this address may pos- 
 sibly have given you some surprise. Through- 
 out the previous addresses I have steadily maintained 
 that Christian workei's have no right of choice, and 
 should have no concern in reference to the particular 
 employment which falls to their lot. The Lord of 
 the vineyard himself sends forth the laborers and 
 assigns to each his special task, and hence it may 
 seem that a discussion of the character of the service 
 is somewhat out of place at the close of addresses in 
 which such a view is upheld. That, however, is by 
 no means the case. No good work ought to be mis- 
 represented or needlessly misunderstood. Much harm 
 may be done to the work itself by depriving it of 
 the sympathy, good-will and hearty support which 
 otherwise would be given to it. Intelligent Chris- 
 tians wish to give their money in aid of the most de- 
 serving objects within their reach, and sincere young 
 men and women are often, in a large measure, guided 
 in their decision of duty b}^ the representations made 
 to them of the work for wliich their services are 
 asked. Asa missionary myself I feel something like 
 a godly jealousy for the reputation of tlie service. I 
 regard the great missionary army of tlie world to-day 
 as composed of as noble men and women as are to be 
 found in the world. I regard the enterprise in which 
 they are embarked as the grandest ever committed 
 
Missionary Sekvice as a Caeeee. 87 
 
 into the hands of mortal man, and as I honor the 
 workers and the work, so I must be permitted to clear 
 away some mistaken impressions which -prevail too 
 widely in regard to the true character of this service. 
 The popular notion which has long prevailed with 
 regard to the missionary service is that it is a good 
 work, carried on by good men and women, who work 
 with good aims and accomplish good results; but 
 that it is a very simple work, requiring a very moder- 
 ate grade of talent in the workers, and having notli- 
 ing in its modest routine to challenge a higli order of 
 courage, or to call forth the best energies of those en- 
 gaged in it. A little hut with a palm-tree near the 
 door, a group of half-clad and tawny (diildren under 
 a small arbor, and a benevolent-looking missionary 
 teaching them out of a spelling-book, make up the 
 outline of the picture with which missionary life is 
 popularly identified in the minds of many, including 
 often intelligent persons. Young men of promise 
 are often urged not to sacrifice their talents in a 
 service so far beneath their merits. They are told 
 that scholarship and culture would be thrown away 
 in such a field, and to many it seems like absolute 
 folly to take a man from the pulpit of a cultured city 
 church, and put him down under a palm-tree on a 
 tropical island, or in an obscure hamlet on a distant 
 mountain slope. I have myself heard such a pro- 
 ceeding stigmatized as a living burial, and perhaps 
 the general impression, even at the present day, with 
 the majority of intelligent persons is that, at the 
 very best, life in the foreign mission field involves a 
 great deal of sacrifice to young men of talent, and 
 offers nothing better than a quiet, uneventful, though 
 
88 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 good and useful career in some obscure corner of the 
 earth. I need not say that I utterly repudiate this 
 whole idea. I have long counted myself fortunate 
 and honored and, I may add, blessed, in having been 
 allowed a place in the missionary ranks and a post in 
 the great mission field, with an opportunity to work 
 for God under circumstances which give better prom- 
 ise of abiding results than perhaps could have been 
 found in any other part of the wide world. 
 
 In trying to remove this misconception let me first 
 of all remind you that all heathen people are not by 
 any means mental babes. The young missionary who 
 goes to India goes to a people whose leaders had 
 attained a high grade of culture a thousand, or pos- 
 sibly two thousand years before our own ancestors 
 h4d emerged from barbarism. He goes among a 
 people whose sacred scriptures rank in point of an- 
 tiquity with our own, and are written in a language 
 much more polished, and a great deal more fully de- 
 veloped, than the ancient Hebrew, in which our own 
 earliest Scriptures were given to the world. If the 
 Indian people have not maintained the high promise 
 with which their ancestors first appeared upon the 
 world's stage, they have nevertheless preserved dis- 
 tinct marks of the ancient genius of their race, and 
 the youth who goes to them with a feeling of con- 
 tempt for their mental capacity will probably have 
 this delusion dispelled somewhat rudely before he has 
 been long in contact with them. The case will be 
 very similar if he goes to China, or Japan, or any part 
 of the Buddhist world. 
 
 But the popular idea to which I first alluded lias 
 reference chiefly to the more barbarous heathen races. 
 
MissioNAEY Sekvice AS A Caeeeb. 89 
 
 The old notion was that all idolaters were necessarily 
 ignorant and degraded. This is by no means the case 
 every-where, but it may be assumed that the mission- 
 ary who goes to Africa will find himself in the midst of 
 a barbarous people whose religious notions are of the 
 most primitive kind, and who may be supposed to re- 
 quire religious teachers of only very moderate ability. 
 With regard, however, to this whole misconception, 
 let me say here, once for all, that the missionary makes 
 a great mistake who puts too low an estimate upon 
 the natural abilities of any members of our common 
 human family. The human mind, however sluggish 
 it may be in the abnormal state into which dense and 
 ignorant heathenism plunges it, is by no means dull 
 and stupid when once fully aroused. The ignorant 
 barbai'ian ceases to be a child in thought when once 
 his mind begins to lay hold of the mighty problems 
 whicli cluster around the most primary conceptions 
 of a supreme God and of an eternal life beyond the 
 grave. He has a thousand questions to ask, and he is 
 not satisfied with the evasive answers which might 
 perhaps silence, without instructing, little children. 
 The Christian world, only about a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago, received a striking and certainly a very 
 startling illustration of the danger which attends the 
 sending of inferior or unsound men to heathen ti-ibes, 
 even though not far removed from the domain of 
 barbarism. You have all heard the story of the late 
 Bishop Colenso, whose faith in his own Scriptures was 
 almost wholly overthrown by the questions of an in- 
 telligent Zulu convert. The learned bishop was not 
 only unable to answer questions proposed to him by 
 this recent convert from African barbarism, but was 
 
90 Missionary Addkesses. 
 
 actually constrained to give up his own confidence in 
 the historic value of the books which he had always 
 before regarded as the writings of Moses. Those 
 who defend the policy of sending third-rate mission- 
 aries out to heathen lands, should ponder well the 
 extraordinary failure of this learned and in some 
 respects able Anglican bishop while working among 
 a people who had never known the use of letters be- 
 fore becoming Christians. 
 
 But even if we were to concede that all the heathen 
 were like so many children, and that for several gen- 
 erations to come they will remain like childi'eu, it 
 does not follow that the missionary sent to them need 
 only be a man of moderate ability. It is a very great 
 mistake to suppose that children and childlike adults 
 can be successfully taught or governed by inferior 
 persons as well as by those specially fitted for such 
 duties. It is well known by those who have given 
 special attention to the subject that it requires a 
 higher order of genius to govern small children than 
 older ones, and the same remark is true in regard to 
 teaching them. A similar mistake is widely enter- 
 tained with regard to what is called childhood liter- 
 ature. It is assumed that almost any person can 
 write a book good enough to take its place among the 
 thousands of worthless publications which are put 
 forth in the name of our little ones, but those who 
 really possess the high gift of being able to speak 
 through the printed page to the little folks are few 
 indeed, and deserve a great deal more fame than they 
 have usually acquired. The successful writer of 
 stories for children is as much superior to the popular 
 novelist as General Grant was superior to a second- 
 
Missionary Service as a Caeeee. 91 
 
 rate cavab'y raider. Hans Christian Andersen, for 
 instance, was a man of a finer and higher order of 
 genius by far than Wilkie Collins or any sensational 
 writer of his popular but worthless class. I recently 
 met with a statement in an English review which 
 strikingly sustained this opinion. The writer re- 
 marked that in all the range of literature no higher 
 genius was required than that which could produce 
 such a book as the very simple little story known as 
 Alice in Wonderland ; and yet it is more than prob- 
 able that nine tenths of those who have read that sin- 
 gular little book have in their own minds put it down 
 as a hastily written production of some ordinary per- 
 son, and a work which could be easily imitated by 
 any one familiar with the writing of stories for chil- 
 dren. Those who have had experience, however, with 
 teaching children, or writing for them, or governing 
 them, or, in short, who have taken any pains to inter- 
 pret childhood as it is, will have no difiiculty in under- 
 standing how true such a remark really is. You see, 
 then, that whether we look at the ignorant and bar- 
 barous tribes of Africa, or the degraded islanders of 
 some of the groups in the Pacific Ocean or the Indian 
 Archipelago, or, on the other hand, at the civilized and 
 intelligent Buddhists, Brahmins, or Mohammedans 
 of Asia, in any and every case we need workers who 
 are able to deal with men ; workers who would be able 
 to succeed in a country like America' or England ; 
 workers who can stand up in the presence of any 
 people of the world, and quit themselves like men in 
 any moral contest in which they may become engaged. 
 It would be well for those who plead for the policy 
 of sending half-taught school-teachers — men and 
 7 
 
92 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 women hardly competent to take charge of the lowest 
 grade of a common school in onr American States- 
 out into the heathen world as missionaries, to remem- 
 ber that some of the greatest men of the century have 
 not thought it beneath them to go to the lowest and 
 most difficult parts of the mission-field ; I mean, to 
 work among the barbarous heathen tribes. Few 
 names of the ninteenth century have become more 
 illustrious than that of David Livingstone, and yet this 
 great man did not think that he had found an occupa- 
 tion below his actual merit when, with chalk and black- 
 board, he laboriously toiled with ignorant Kaiir and 
 Hottentot negroes, to make them understand the use 
 of letters as a preliminary step to teaching them how 
 to read. Other men, perhaps really as great in genius, 
 and certainly superior in scholarship and general cult- 
 ure, have devoted themselves in other fields to work 
 quite as rudimentary, without a single thought of the 
 work being beneath them, or of their education or 
 culture having been thrown away. Such men com- 
 prehend, what other men with smaller souls and in- 
 ferior culture, perhaps, never can comprehend, that 
 genuine culture is never thrown away ; and that the 
 place of honor in the field of Christian labor is not 
 determined according to the standards of a world 
 which is ruled by short-sighted selfishness. Had 
 David Livingstone thought himself too good or too 
 great for the" elementary work which he undertook, 
 and so successfully accomplished, in the earliest days 
 of his missionary career, he would have been alto- 
 gether unfit for the grand achievements with which 
 God honored him later in life. In nine cases out of 
 ten the place of honor among Christian workers is 
 
MissiONAKY Seevice AS A Caeeee. 93 
 
 the ordinary place ; the place which, according to the 
 world's standard, every young man would try to 
 shirk. The road to success in the mission field, as in 
 every other sphere of noble moral achievement, is not 
 a highway of ease, but a pathway through the midst 
 of downright earnest toil, of unselfish labor for the 
 good of those who are the most needy of perhaps all 
 the human race. 
 
 Let me now call your attention to several advan- 
 tages which the missionary possesses over his brethren 
 in the home field, both in the position which he oc- 
 cupies and in the opportunities which are afforded hira 
 for accomplishing good and great results. In tlie first 
 place, nearly every missionary is, or, at least, may be 
 if he chooses, a founder. He has before him a wide 
 field, a field, indeed, so very wide that to him it is 
 practically boundless. He goes where the foot of a 
 Christian laborer has never before pressed the soil, he 
 enters village after village where no Christian church 
 has been organized, and he is permitted in the course 
 of an active lifetime to found church after church 
 and school after school. He may be permitted to 
 establish a press, or an orphanage, or a hospital, or a 
 dispensary, or an asylum, or some other agency con- 
 nected with the missionary enterprise. 
 
 I do not know how it may be with others, but to 
 myself there has always seemed something like a 
 strong fascination in the laying down of abiding 
 foundations. I think, too, that there are few Chris- 
 tian minds which are not susceptible to a feeling of the 
 same kind. Let any one, for instance, go out a month 
 or two hence and plant a tree, and as he does so think 
 of the fruit which other hands will gather from its 
 
94 MiSSIONABT Addeesse8. 
 
 branches after he is dead, or the shelter which weary 
 passers-bj will find beneath its foliage long after his 
 weary hands are at rest forever, and if he can do so 
 without finding intense satisfaction in the thought, he 
 certainly differs from most members of the common 
 race' to which he belongs. I do not wonder that 
 among the many works of merit practiced in India, 
 the planting of a tree, or the opening of a fountain, 
 or the digging of a well, or the construction of a tank, 
 or similar works by wliich generations of the distant 
 future may be blessed, all occupy a place of high 
 honor, for they all appeal to a principle which is 
 strong within us ; and although the meritorious value 
 of such works maj' be all wrong, yet the thought 
 which lies at the root of such enterprises is not a bad 
 one. It is a noble ambition to wish to do some- 
 thing which will make others happier and better long 
 after we have been forgotten on" earth. As with 
 founding, so with building. Paul was very sensitive 
 with regard to building upon foundations laid by 
 other men, and yet he recognized the fact that such a 
 division of labor must exist in the Christian Church ; 
 that while some men would put down the foundation 
 it would be left to others to build thereon. He 
 pointed out also the necessity of liaving wise master- 
 builders for this department of labor. In all parts of 
 the universal church to-day we may see this double 
 work going on ; some are founding, while some are 
 building upon foundations laid down for them. If it is 
 a noble aspiration, and one which appeals to a sanctified 
 ambition, to desire to lay foundations, it is scarcely a 
 less worthy aspiration to desire to carry forward a 
 building which has been begun by other hands. The 
 
Missionary Sektice as a Caeeee. 95 
 
 mission field furnishes constant and grand opportuni- 
 ties for this kind of labor. Enterprises of many kinds 
 meet the young missionary at the very threshold of 
 his work, and he is made to feel constantly that he is 
 building for years and generations yet far in the fu- 
 ture. There is a feeling of profound satisfaction 
 which attends all labor of this kind. . There is an 
 element of permanency in it which is so often absent 
 in other spheres of human effort. Nothing could be 
 more baffling and utterly wearisome than to be com- 
 pelled to spend years in beating tlie air; and yet 
 among the multitude of earth's great toilers very 
 many can be found who seem to be engaged in this 
 kind of unremitting effort. They struggle and toil 
 and work, often painfully, and yet seem to accomplish 
 nothing. There is no element of permanency in any 
 thing which they do. They die, and all their efforts 
 seem to be buried in the grave with them. A month 
 has hardly passed away until every trace of their ex- 
 istence in this world has utterly vanished. They liave 
 not foimded any thing, or built any thing, or planted 
 any thing, which lives or abides. They have not 
 made human hearts better, or human lives happier, or 
 human homes brighter, by their stay among their fel- 
 fow-men, and so they die, and accordingly are speedily 
 forgotten. If any man in the mission field leads such 
 a career, or leaves liehind him such a record, to be al- 
 most absolutely eifaced in a single day, the fault is 
 altogether his own. His opportunities are so grand 
 that if he neither builds nor founds the fault must 
 lie wholly at his own door. 
 
 I hope, my young brethren, that you appreciate 
 what I have just been trying to put before you. 1 
 
OG MissiONAEY Addresses. 
 
 ain not appealing to yom* ambition as such, bnt to a 
 nobler and a very much higher motive. I believe that 
 the constraining love of Christ in the unsellish lieart 
 will prompt you to seek the opportunities of which I 
 speak, and that it becomes as natural for the Christian 
 laborer to incorporate an element of permanency into 
 his labor, as -it is for the coral insects to build tlieir 
 shining reefs, or for the vine to clothe itself with 
 clusters of purple fruit. I have observed, sometimes 
 with deep concern, what seems to be an increasing am- 
 bition on the part of young ministers in this country to 
 win a position of a very different character. The stand- 
 ard of success which is recognized by perhaps the 
 majority of ministers in this country at the present day 
 is to my mind a very false one. The young minister 
 counts himself happy, and his friends regard- him as 
 successful in the highest degree, if he secures the pas- 
 • torate of a church whose foundation has been laid and 
 whose walls have been built by other hands. He has 
 not done a stroke of labor, he has not laid a stone in the 
 foundation, or a brick in the wall, eitlier of the material 
 building or the spiritual structure which it so fitly 
 represents. The very salary which is regarded as a 
 conspicuous element of the success wliich lie is sup- 
 posed to have obtained, has been won for him by 
 other laborers. He takes possession of his pulpit and 
 is happy if he can command a large audience at the 
 Sunday service. He holds what is given him, and at 
 once begins to look for a similar but still better posi- 
 tion, to be secured at the earliest possible date. In 
 due time he succeeds in his wishes, and is inducted 
 into another pulpit iinder precisely similar circum- 
 stances, and thus he goes through life, always entering 
 
Missionary Seevice as a Caeeee. 97 
 
 into other men's labors, always occupying pulpits 
 erected by other hands, preaching to congregations 
 gathered by others, and enjoying the fruits of other 
 men's toil. He regards himself and is regarded by 
 all his friends as successful, but probably as he nears 
 the end of his course he begins to discover what 
 faithful friends should have pointed out to him at the 
 outset, that such a career at its best estate is but a 
 long series of conspicuous failures. He has neither 
 founded nor built any thing, but has simply succeeded 
 in diligently entering into other men's labors and 
 eating the f i-uit thereof. You have all no doubt read 
 Professor Drummond's well known Natural Law in 
 the Spi/rilnial World. If so, you will romeaiber his 
 striking illustration of the hermit-crab, the little 
 creature which refuses to construct its own shell but 
 takes possession of a cast-off shell of some other little 
 fellow-creature of the sea, in which it can live and 
 grow at its pleasure. The little crab finds the home 
 which it seeks, but nature punishes it l)y degrading 
 it, as every species of parasite in the world is degraded. 
 The minister of the present day who is regarded as 
 attaining a high ideal — I mean in the judgment of 
 the popular mind — always seems to me to be but a 
 conspicuous illustration of the hermit-crab. He con- 
 structs nothing for himself, but seeks and clings to 
 that which some one else has left, and instead of being 
 brilliantly successful is really but a conspicuous illus- 
 tration of the law which degrades the ecclesiastical 
 parasite as relentlessly as it does the little crab by the 
 ocean shore. He never really attains to a high ideal, 
 although engaged in the noblest service which, per- 
 haps, engrosses the energies of any body of living 
 
98 Missionary ADDEfessES. 
 
 men. He achieves little o^ nothing, and at the close 
 of life discovers to his dismay that he has really 
 accomplished nothing, and is leaving behind him no 
 living, growing work of any kind to bear witness to 
 his labors after he is gone. 
 
 , I am glad to assure you, my dear young brethren, 
 that the missionary service can set before you a higher 
 ideal than this. I think I may add that it will spread 
 no such snare for your feet as that I have just described. 
 It will give you abundant opportunities for founding 
 and building in places where other laborers have not 
 preceded you, and where you can always be happy in 
 the assurance that you are preparing the way for men 
 to follow you who will complete the structures which 
 you commence. If it is more blessed to give than to 
 receive, it is certainly more blessed to prepare the 
 way for others than to follow in a way which has been 
 prepared for you. It will develop a nobler manhood 
 in you, it will teach you to bring all your best resources 
 into active exercise, it will bring to you a knowledge 
 of the luxury to be found in living and working in 
 the name and in the spirit of your ever blessed Mas- 
 ter, and it will deliver you at a stroke from the 
 wretched heart-burnings which attend upon the inter- 
 minable rivalries of the overcrowded ministry in 
 your native land. 
 
 There is another feature of missionary work which 
 further illustrates what I have been saying, and also of- 
 fers a wide range for the exercise of the highest abilities 
 and best culture which the young missionary can bring 
 into exercise. I refer to what may be called his 
 administrative work. He may not at the outset have 
 any thing to do' in this particular line, but as soon as 
 
Missionary Seevice as a Oareek. 99 
 
 he begins to gather converts around him he will be 
 called upon to direct the labors of preachers of vari- 
 ous grades, colporteurs, teachers, and other laborers, 
 such as are always needed in successful mission fields. 
 In our older missions — for instance, in India, as at pres- 
 ent organized — a presiding elder is in reality more lilfe 
 a bishop, than like a presiding elder such as you are 
 familiar with here. The preacher in eacli mission 
 station is more like a presiding elder, than like what 
 you in this country are accustomed to call preachers, 
 or ministers. The ordinary missionary whose name 
 figures in the list of Conference appointments, has in 
 his particular station five, or ten, or twenty preach- 
 ers working under his direction, each of whom again 
 will have from one to ten villages, in each of which 
 will be found organized bands of Christians. The 
 presiding elder is thus in reality superintending a 
 group of districts, rather than a group of stations 
 such as you are familiar with in this country. The 
 District Conference in that part of India is really 
 a much more important assembly than the Annual 
 Conference. But it is not merely in the supervision 
 of these numerous preachers and scattered congrega- 
 tions that the missionary has opportunities for exer- 
 cising his administrative ability, but he has schools as 
 well, and in many cases his responsibilities as super- 
 intendent of schools are hardly less weighty than 
 those of a superintendent in any of your flourishing 
 towns or smaller cities. 
 
 There is still another phase of his work which any 
 zealous, love-inspired preacher of the Word may 
 innocently covet; I refer to the opportunities for 
 leadership which he enjoys. It is one thing to admiu- 
 
100 Missionary Addkesses. 
 
 ister successfully the affairs of existing clmrches ; it 
 is quite another, and, as I venture to think, a much 
 nobler thing to lead forward a body of Christian 
 workers, and, winning captives from the hosts of sin 
 and Satan, gather them into churches and establish 
 them in the Christian life. In all the mission fields 
 of the world God sets before the willing missionary 
 magnificent opportunities for this kind of leadership. 
 I am not sui'e that the very idea which I am trying 
 to convey to you has not become obscured to a great 
 extent in this country ; but fifty years ago our fathers 
 were perfectly familiar witli it. The great leaders 
 during the first two generations of our own church 
 life were all militant leaders, and while some of them 
 were able to administer, yet their most enduring fame, 
 no doubt, rests to this day upon their achievements 
 in the field rather than upon the exercise of their 
 administrative functions. It is quite possible that 
 great leaders of our militant hosts may yet be raised 
 up in America, but present indications certainly seem 
 to point the other way. In the mission field, how- 
 ever, such opportunities are found in every direction, 
 and will continue to be found for at least centuries to 
 come. I would not appeal to a vain ambition, and I 
 trust, my dear brethren, that there is very little of 
 such ambition lurking in your hearts, but believ- 
 ing, as I do, that the heart of every young man whose 
 spirit has been touched with living flame from tlie 
 Shekinah of the upper temple, glows with an intense 
 desire to push forward to the front, and bear a part in 
 the advance movement of the great hosts of the Cap- 
 tain of our salvation, I think it but right to point out 
 to you the magnificent opportunities which God pre- 
 
Missionary Seevice as a Caeeee. 101 
 
 pares for tliose who are willing to embrace tliem. 
 There are victories yet to be won which will far tran- 
 scend any that have ever been achieved in the past ; 
 there are battle fields awaiting us in the future which 
 will call for more stupendous exertion,, for greater 
 sacrifices, and, perhaps, for even greater heroism than 
 any which have been witnessed in all the past of Chris- 
 tian history. You should count yourselves happy 
 that you live in such an age, and that such magnificent 
 opportunities are thus set before you. 
 
 I have spoken of the work of founding, and build- 
 ing, and administering, in connection with labor in the 
 foreign field. It would be well for you, however, 
 not to limit the terms founding and administering to 
 the narrow little sphere which I have used in illustra- 
 tion of my meaning. Those who go forth into the 
 heathen world to lay foundations and to build thereon 
 often found and build mf>re wisely than they know. 
 The faithful man who in an obscure corner of a dis- 
 tant province faithfully labors to lay the foundation 
 of a little church of Christian converts is, perhaps, 
 laying the foundation of a Christian empire. The 
 little districts of which you read in an ordinary mis- 
 sionary report from India or China are in reality like 
 so many of your American States. When I first 
 went to India I was posted at a station in the Him- 
 alayas, in a mountain district inhabited by Hindus. 
 It seemed to me as if I had a very remote station in a re- 
 mote part of the world, but I was really trying to plant 
 Christianity in a province about equal in population 
 to the State of West Yirginia as it is to-day. My 
 second station was in a still more remote district, but 
 at a point midway between two provinces about equal 
 
103 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 in extent and population to the one I had just left. 
 My third station was in a district containing nearly a 
 million people. My fourth was in a city containing 
 250,000 inhabitants, and the capital of a province 
 containing .11,000,000 people. My fifth was in a 
 city of 800,000 inhabitants, and the capital of a 
 group of provinces containing no less than 60,000,000 
 people. I have thus by my own practical experience 
 fully discovered how nai-row was my iirst view and 
 how mistaken my impression, that I was laboring but 
 for a little group of remote villagers in a place where 
 very great results could not be expected, and where 
 the outer world could never feel the influence of the 
 work accomplished. Long ago I learned fully to 
 appreciate the fact that wherever I went, and in what- 
 ever particular spot I might succeed in founding and 
 building a Christian church, I was working for mill- 
 ions rather than for hundreds, for the future rather 
 than for the present, and for an empire rather than a 
 village. 
 
 I wish I could impress upon your minds even faintly 
 an idea of the magnitude of the field which God has 
 set before his people. India, for instance, is another 
 Europe. It is more than twice as populous as the 
 Roman Empire was when Paul and Barnabas sallied 
 out of Antioeh to enter upon the missionary work of 
 converting the then known world. It is a group of 
 nations with different languages, but with similar 
 customs, similar religions, and many features of a 
 common nationality, and yet separated by influences 
 which have thus far kept them from blending into 
 one mighty empire. That which neither a common 
 faith, nor common interests, nor military power, has 
 
Missionary Seevice as a Caeeee. 103 
 
 ever been able to fully accomplish, will be done by 
 the gospel of Jesus Christ. When the caste system 
 shall be destroyed, when idols shall be cast away, when 
 Mohammedanism shall be overthrown, and the teem- 
 ing millions of that bright land become the servants 
 of a common Master, these separate nationalities, under 
 the fostering and beneficent government of England, 
 will be welded into one mighty empire to take its 
 place among the great empires of the world. The 
 missionaries of India have thus the task set before 
 them of building up a spiritual empire such as the 
 world of the present day has never seen. They need 
 to be men of purity and devotion and unselfish love, 
 of ripe experience and of the wisdom which cometJi 
 down from above. They need, also, to be men of 
 a very high order of Christian statesmanship. In all 
 the wide world there is no field of Christian activity 
 which calls for a better or an abler class of workers than 
 the India, and, I may as M'ell add, the China, of to-day, 
 and nowhere else in all this bustling, active world can 
 better opportunities be found for young men and 
 women who seek not for ease or personal comfort or 
 local fame, but for possibilities of the most extended 
 and most enduring usefulness. The very angels in 
 heaven might almost envy those of you whom . God 
 may honor by choosing you for service in this great 
 field. 
 
 A career in the missionary field is one which angels 
 might envy and which men should never despise. Its 
 rewards are sometimes in the future, but always sure 
 and always worthy of a service which stands second 
 to no other on earth. The world may despise it or 
 undervalue it for a few years longer, but a century 
 
104 MissioNAKY Addresses. 
 
 hence even the world's estimate will have wholly 
 changed. The change which has taken place in pub- 
 lic opinion in the century now nearing its close can 
 hardly be sufficiently appreciated. One hundred 
 3'ears ago William Carey was just entering upon his 
 first pastorate, and the great missionary movement of 
 our day had not yet been heard of. A few years 
 later Carey turned his face toward the East, and 
 entered upon what seemed the wildest and most hope- 
 less project of that worldly era. Theologians opposed 
 and denounced him, traders and politicians persecuted 
 and hindered him, the protection of his country's flag 
 was denied him, the heathen misunderstood him, while 
 his own countrymen wei-e often his most unrelenting 
 enemies. He braved dangers, endured hardships, 
 turned a deaf ear to the voice of obloquy and rid- 
 icule which ever and anon I'eached him from his 
 native land, and stood bravely at the post where 
 God's own hand had placed him. Denounced in the 
 House of Commons, ridiculed in the Edhiburgh 
 Review by Sidney Smith, from whom he received 
 his now famous title of " consecrated cobbler," and 
 jeered at by all the fashionable world, he held stead- 
 fastly on his way, and lived and died a simple mis- 
 sionary of Jesus Christ. But long before his death 
 his. Master had vindicated his servant even in the eyes 
 of the world. He lived to be an honored guest and 
 a trusted adviser in the vice-regal palace from which 
 the edict of banishment had once been issued against 
 him. He won the confidence of the people for whom 
 he lived and labored, and gained the esteem of his 
 countrymen among whom he moved as a venerated 
 saint of the Most High. As old age drew near hon- 
 
Missionary Sekvice as a Caeeee. 105 
 
 ors began to cluster thickly around him, but he was 
 still a simple missionary of Jesus Christ. On his 
 tombstone he directed that this couplet should be 
 ^graved : 
 
 A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, 
 Into thine arms I fall ; 
 
 and the words expressed the spirit of the man. 
 
 Long years have passed since the death of William 
 Carey, but each year has only added luster to his 
 fame. The very names of his former persecutors, 
 once leaders in Calcutta society, would have long 
 since perished but for their connection with this great 
 man. The epithet coined by Sydney Smith will prob- 
 ably survive every other word and phrase written by 
 that popular satirist, who in future centuries will only 
 be remembered as the man who ridiculed William 
 Carey. During a residence of a dozen years in Cal- 
 cutta I met many tourists from England and America. 
 Among them all I recall but one who wished to see 
 the house in which Macaulay had lived. One asked 
 to see the house in wliich Thackeray had been born, 
 and two or three inquired for the residence of War- 
 ren Hastings. But, literally, scores upon scores have 
 asked to be led to the grave of William Carey, and 
 the little burying ground in the old Danish settlement 
 of Serampore has become like a pilgrim's shrine, to 
 which Christian men and women come from all 
 parts of the world. No man ever entered a more 
 despised service, and no man was ever more signally 
 honored and rewarded by the service to which he 
 s:ave himself. The missionarv's calling is a noble 
 calling, and it has enlisted the service of a long line 
 
106 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 of noble men and women. God forbid that I should 
 ever regret that a humble place has been given me 
 among men so noble and so great. 
 
 I crave no higher honor than to retain this place, 
 and trust that God will permit me to finish my course 
 in the mission field, and to die at last in the ranks in 
 which I have long counted it a joy to serve. The 
 lowest place in such a service might well become the 
 object of an angel's envy. Happy, thrice happy, is 
 the young man who is chosen of God for it. For 
 such a signal mark of the divine favor he should 
 praise God evermore, and make haste to consecrate 
 all his ransomed powers and all his earthly days to 
 the high calling with which God has honored him. 
 Among those who listen to me now there are, I trust, 
 those who will ere very long be called and enlisted 
 for this noble service. Let such be the recipients of 
 no man's pity. They are fortunate and favored among 
 the sons of men. They have a happy lot and a joy- 
 ous service on earth, and will ever be numbered 
 among those saints whose works shall follow them in 
 the everlasting rest above. 
 
The Farewell Commandment. 107 
 
 THE FAREWELL COMMANDMENT. 
 
 WE are all familiar with the Ten Command- 
 ments, and the New Commandment, and the 
 imperishable words in which they are expressed meet 
 our gaze in almost every sanctuary and almost every 
 Christian home. It is right that this should be so, 
 and yet it is strange that another commandment, 
 equally binding, and peculiarly sacred because the 
 last command of our Saviour befoi'e ascending from 
 Olivet, should have been almost overlooked. Before 
 his death Jesus had spoken of the great work of 
 preaching his Gospel among all the nations of the 
 world, and after his resurrection he repeatedly en- 
 joined this duty upon his disciples. The very brief 
 and fragmentary record which we have of his sayings 
 during those eventful days between his resurrection 
 and ascension makes it clearly evident that this was 
 kept prominently before the minds of the disciples to 
 the very last. On the evening of the day of his 
 resurrection he unfolded this great plan to his assem- 
 bled disciples. On the mountain in Galilee he en- 
 joined it as a solemn duty upon them, and from the 
 brief story given in the first cliapter of Acts it is evi- 
 dent that this was the subject of conversation as the 
 Master and his disciples neai'ed the crest of Olivet, 
 over which the cloud was already hovering which 
 was to veil him forever from mortal sight. The dis- 
 ciples, like too many in our own day, were eager to 
 
lOS MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 know more about tlio date of wliat tliey snpposerl a 
 near event, but Jesus had other lessons for them. 
 " Do not trouble your minds," he said, in substance, 
 '' with such matters ; God alone knows the dates of 
 eternity. Your duty is practical and immediate. 
 You are to be clothed with authority and power, and 
 are to witness for me, and of me, in all this region 
 round about, and beyond those eastern mountains, 
 and far beyond that great western sea, even to the ut- 
 termost part of the earth." "Words could not have 
 been uttered under more solemn and impressive cir- 
 cumstances, and this farewell commandment of our 
 I'iseu Lord and Master should be received by the uni- 
 versal Church in every land as the expression of an 
 obligation which is forever binding, which takes pre- 
 cedence of every other duty, and which never can be 
 laid aside, even for a day, till the original commission 
 shall have been fully executed. It is an obligation to 
 evangelize the world, to preach the Gospel to every 
 nation and every creature, to make disciples of, or 
 Cliristianize, all nations. 
 
 If we carefully examine the terms of this com- 
 TTiandment we will find that the task set before the 
 Christian world is a striking one in four particulars : 
 
 1. It is world-embracing in its extent. All the 
 nations of the earth are to hear the joyful sound of 
 the Gospel. The little kingdom of Solomon had 
 once seemed like a vast realm to the loyal Hebrews, 
 and David's son was regarded as a mighty monarch 
 because he ruled from the river of Egypt to the end 
 of the habitable region on the north-east ; but David's 
 greater Son was to sway his scepter over all the na- 
 tions of the wide earth. Ilis Gospel was to be pro- 
 
The Farewell CoMiiANDJiENT. 109 
 
 claimed every-where, and lest any erring disciples in 
 any after age might be tempted to limit the commis 
 sion to artificial boundary lines, God's word, both 
 l)efore and after Christ, was made very specific. The 
 King seen by Daniel in the night-vision received a 
 kingdom which embraced all people, nations, and 
 languages, and when John, who was the Daniel of the 
 New Testament, saw the angel flying in mid-heaven 
 having the everlasting Gospel to preach, it was for 
 " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." 
 Jesus had died for all the race, and his message of 
 salvation was to all for whom he had died. History 
 tells us of ethnic religions, but God's word recognizes 
 nothing of the kind ; and the Christian messenger who 
 goes forth in his Master's name dare not pass any 
 nation, or tribe, or family by. Christ is tlie Saviour 
 of all men, and Christianity is to be the religion of 
 all nations. 
 
 2. The work, is to he done thoroughly. Eveiy 
 creature is to be reached. The disposition is very 
 general in our day to assume that this great work 
 will have been accomplished when once the Gospel 
 is preached in a town, or a community, or a province. 
 Some think the task before us has already been 
 almost accomplished, and that it only remains to push 
 a few preachers into a few remote regions, so that 
 it may be said that the Gospel is preached in every 
 country, or among the people of every nation on the 
 globe. But Jesus meant nothing of this kind. His 
 language is very specific, "Preach the Gospel to 
 every creature." The work must be done thoroughly. 
 We have learned in our day to us6 the word " preach" 
 in a perfunctory sense, meaning thereby that Christian 
 
110 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 preacliers shall deliver formal addresses at certain 
 times and in certain places ; bnt Jesus meant very 
 much more than this. Every creature is to be sought 
 out, and the message sent by the Saviour is to be so 
 delivered to him that he will be able to under- 
 stand it, and intelligently to receive it or reject it. 
 This world will never be evangelized, in the New 
 Testament sense of the word, till it is done in this 
 way, and we must not for a moment allow ourselves 
 to dream of a less thorough performance of our duty 
 than this. 
 
 I must confess that I have learned to listen with a 
 certain degree of misgiving to all eloquent talk about 
 giving the Gospel to millions, or tens of millions, of 
 human beings. Underlying such talk too often will 
 be found the utterly false notion of giving a very 
 little Gospel to a very few persons among the mill- 
 ions to be evangelized. I have never been able to 
 forget a good missionary who once wrote to a fellow- 
 laborer asking him not to enter a province containing 
 a million of souls, alleging that he had already occu- 
 pied the field by sending one man to live in a small 
 town within its limits. This is trifling with duty ; 
 trifling with the most awful duty ever committed to 
 mortal hands. The proclamation of the Gospel is 
 not a mockery. It is offered in very deed to every 
 human being. It cannot be carried to all in a single 
 day, but every plan we form sliould contemplate tlie 
 fullillment of this duty in the most complete sense at 
 the earliest possible day. 
 
 3. It is to he executed hy a special gift of power. 
 For some strange reason the fact is generally over- 
 looked that the original promise of the gift of power 
 
The Faeewkll Commandment. Ill 
 
 to Christian believers was that they might be 
 equipped for this great work. The promise of 
 power was associated with the command to evan- 
 gelize the nations. At the very last moment, on 
 Olivet itself, Jesus renewed the promise of spiritual 
 power, and upon this, for the second time, ba.sed his 
 commission to evangelize the nations. He gave no 
 intimation that such a gigantic task would ever be 
 practicable unless executed by men clothed with spe- 
 cial power. The Gospel is really not the Gospel if 
 presented apart from the power which makes it ef- 
 fectual. In this great work the message and the 
 Spirit which inspires it are inseparable. It is a thou- 
 sand pities that men, often good men, so often seem 
 to overlook this union. We see, on the one hand, 
 many who talk much about the gift of power, who 
 make it the subject of special teaching and special in- 
 quiry, and yet who seem to take little or no interest 
 in the work for which this gift is promised; and 
 again, on the other hand, we find others who talk 
 much of missions, give freely, and labor earnestly for 
 the heathen, and yet who do not seem for a moment 
 to understand that Pentecost and the missionary en- 
 terprise stand inseparably connected. It was no 
 part of our Saviour's plan to send his servants forth 
 for the mere sake of founding a new system, or teach- 
 ing new truth. The mouth of each speaker was to 
 be as the mouth of God, and the power of God was 
 every-where to attend the spoken word. The Gospel 
 was to be aggressive. It was to confront every enemy 
 with boldness, and grapple fearlessly with all the com- 
 bined powers of evil in the world. 
 
 i. It was to he successful. The paralyzing notion 
 
112 MiSSIONAEY Addeesses. 
 
 which too many in recent times have adopted, that 
 Jesus set before his followers an impossible task, that 
 he conmianded them to go forth to a work of dis- 
 couragement and ultimate failure, finds no founda- 
 tion in the terms of the farewell commandment 
 itself, or in any of the conditions connected with it. 
 The work to be done included toil, danger, difficul- 
 ties, and determined opposition, but it was to end in 
 victory. Strongholds were to be encountered, but 
 only encountered to be thrown down. Triumph was 
 to attend the footsteps of those who were to follow 
 a triumphant Lord. The contest might seem long, 
 but in the end temples were to crumble away, idols 
 be thrown down, altars forsaken, and hoary systems 
 of error perish from the face of the earth. The 
 spirit of the Gospel — I mean more especially the 
 missionary Gospel, which is the real Gospel — is one 
 which breathes hope into every crushed heart and 
 hurls defiance at every wicked power on earth. It 
 knows neither fear nor defeat, and can never yield 
 until our great Leader shall send forth judgment unto 
 victory. 
 
 The supreme power and the assured triumph of 
 our risen Master are set fortli in characters of most 
 impressive grandeur in one of the revelations made 
 to Daniel. In a vision of the night the prophet saw 
 the Ancient of days seated upon his throne of fiery 
 flame.' Instead of the river of living water which 
 John saw, Daniel beheld a river of living fire, an- 
 other type of the Spirit, proceeding forth from the 
 throne. Myriads of the heavenly host stood round 
 about, or waited in ministering service before the 
 awful Presence. The vision shifts the scene for a 
 
The Faeewell Commandment. 113 
 
 moment, and a new Personage is seen approacliing, 
 coming robed in the clouds which had just received 
 him upon Olivet, coming in the glory of the heavenly 
 world, and yet coming in the foi'm of a member of our 
 own poor human race. A myriad of angels hasten 
 to escort him to the burning throne, and there in the 
 midst of redeemed spirits and chanting angels Jesus 
 received his kingdom and his throne. The penitent 
 thief was in the throng which looked on in adoring 
 wonder; and with the promise that all people, and 
 nations, and languages should serve him, and with 
 })ower over all realms, Jesus returned to his stricken 
 disciples, and proclaimed, " All power is given unto 
 me, in heaven and in earth." 
 
 Tiiis risen, glorified, and enthroned Jesus is our 
 Leader. He sends us forth to complete the work com- 
 menced by himself. All people, and nations, and 
 languages shall, indeed, serve him, and the command- 
 ment left with us is simply this : that we shall carry 
 on to its final and successful execution the great work 
 of overthrowing sin, and all the strongholds of sin, 
 and bringing in the day when all the peo])le, and 
 languages, and tribes, and nations of our poor earth 
 shall receive the law at his mouth, rendering him a 
 willing and joyful service. 
 
 Such being the terms of the great Farewell Com- 
 mandment, let us next consider the superlative im- 
 portance of immediate and unconditional obedience 
 to it on the part of the Church. 
 
 1. In the first place, we ought always to remember 
 that it is for this that tlie Church exists. It is a very 
 great mistake, a fearful mistake, indeed, to assume 
 that obedience to this command is optional, and that 
 
Hi Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 Christian Churches and Christian people can assist in 
 evangelizing the nations or not as may seem best. In 
 fact, the modern missionary movement is to a great 
 extent paralyzed by this mistaken notion. It is 
 spoken of as a great benevolent enterprise, and even 
 our own Church officially places it among the benevo- 
 lent objects for wliich contributions are solicited. In 
 other words, Christians are importuned to be kind 
 enough and good enough to assist Jesus Christ with 
 a passing contribution as he marches by on his way 
 to the conquest of the world ! This is very danger- 
 ous trifling with a very serious duty. Our Saviour 
 rebuked in scathing terms the pious mockery by 
 which children tried to evade their obligation to their 
 parents. Their service was consecrated to God, and 
 hence it could not be owing to their parents. Any 
 thing given on their part to the parents to wliom 
 they owed life and being must be a purely voluntary 
 gift. But what have we been doing? Our great 
 duty, our life-work, our most solemn obligation, is 
 laid aside, and in its place we substitute an occasional 
 act of benevolence, often ostentatiously performed, 
 and yet think God will hold us guiltless ! 
 
 This is simply trifling, whether we intend it as 
 such or not. Jesus Christ left his Church in tlie 
 world for the supreme purpose of completing the 
 work commenced by himself. He sent His followers 
 into the world, even as the Father had sent him. To 
 accomplish this work he maintains the Cliurch to-day. 
 For this the Church exists. This is the object, the 
 very essence of the purpose, for which the Church 
 has a right to exist. But for this our earth would 
 be wrapped in flame in a second. Let Christians 
 
The Faeewell Commandment. 115 
 
 every-where deliberately resolve to abandon this 
 work, and refuse to obey this great commandment, 
 and one of two things wiH inevitably follow. God 
 will cast off his recreant people and raise up a new 
 spiritual seed or else the kneJl of time will sound, 
 and the world be overtaken by its final doom before 
 the rising of another sun. 
 
 2. Disobedience to this comtnand thwarts our 
 Sa/viour''s purpose in trying to save the world. 
 Christ died for the race, rose from the dead for the 
 race, received from the Father the Spirit for the race, 
 and thus put salvation within reach of the race ; but 
 the practical work of bringing men into contact with 
 this salvation was committed to Christian believers. 
 God made men co-workers with himself in this work. 
 Why he did so we may not know, and need not in- 
 quire. It is sufficient for us to be assured that this 
 is the fact, and that God will not change his plan. 
 No angel, no seraph, no redeemed spirit, can deliver 
 the Gospel message, or explain a Gospel promise, 
 or point to Christ, or invoke the Spirit, or assist iu 
 saving a soul. The angels can minister to the heirs 
 of salvation, but cannot assist in making sinners heirs. 
 Tliis work must be done by Christian disciples. 
 God has done his part, and every thing is now ready 
 for the ingathering of the nations, for the salvation 
 of the race. But this work cannot be done till Chris- 
 tians start up from their slumber, recognize their re- 
 sponsibility, and address themselves to their gigantic 
 task. They must tell the nations that Jesus lives to 
 save. They must go in his blessed name, clothed 
 with his power, armed with his authority, and search 
 out every soul of man until the mighty task is done. 
 
116 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Until they do this they really stand in the way of 
 the salvation of the nations. 
 
 "We cannot dwell npon this thought too seriously, 
 we cannot study it too carefully or too prayerfully. 
 Between Calvary and the millions of earth's perishing 
 children there is only one medium of communica- 
 tion — the lips of Christian disciples. To refuse to 
 preach Christ, to refuse to hold up Calvary before 
 the heathen nations of the world, is to make Christ's 
 message of love of no effect so far as the great mass 
 of mankind is concerned. No words can express the 
 extent of the awful responsibility which is thus made 
 to rest upon us as co-workers with God in the stu- 
 pendous work of saving the world. Jesus Christ 
 unites us to himself, not only as the member to its 
 living Head, but in his character as Saviour. He 
 unites us to himself, shares his mission with us, and 
 makes the realization of his salvation among men 
 almost wholly dependent upon us. Weil may we be 
 startled as the thought of this unspeakable responsi- 
 bility flashes upon our minds and hearts. The word 
 " missionary " assumes a new meaning to us from this 
 time forth. We seem to move in full view at once 
 of Calvary and of the judgment throne. We look 
 upon our fellow-men with a new affection, and we 
 think of the nations sitting in darkness with a new 
 concern. The very mention of the fate of the 
 heathen startles us as if out of a guilty sleep, and we 
 hear so many putting forward their surmises and 
 their theories, we almost tremble to think that the 
 fate of great nations, the fate about which so many 
 idly speculate and dispute, largely depends upon our 
 action ; upon our fidelity to a simple, plain command. 
 
The Faeewell Commandment. 117 
 
 3. Disobedience to this conwnandment puts the 
 Chiorch in a false position. The Chnrch of Christ is 
 a witnessing Church, but in this ease the value of the 
 testimony depends very much upon the consistency 
 of the witness. The work of the first disciple is 
 practically the work of all Christian disciples, of 
 every age and clime. They must bear witness to the 
 fact that the Saviour of sinners rose from the dead, 
 that he lives and reigns to-day, and that he has com- 
 mitted to his people the great work of bringing the 
 whole world into subjection to himself. But such a 
 testimony becomes lifeless and powerless if it is not 
 supported by conduct on the part of Christian be- 
 lievers in harmony with such a claim. If the story 
 told by the New Testament is true, if Jesus Christ 
 really does assert his claim to the love and allegiance 
 of all nations, and if that claim is to be enforced by 
 the earnest co-operating efforts of his disciples, then 
 most certainly the spectacle of millions of professed 
 disciples of this risen Master living in perfect indiffer- 
 ence to the state of himdreds of millions of their 
 fellow-men is more than an inconsistency. It is a 
 practical denial of the very testimony which they are 
 supposed to offer. It is a practical denial of an es- 
 sential part of the Gospel message, and the Chnrch 
 which fails of her duty at this point becomes guilty 
 of either glaring inconsistency or daring neglect of 
 duty, if not indeed of both. 
 
 It has long been the fashion to speak in disparaging 
 terms of a sect of somewhat uncultured people, found 
 in the "Western States, known as Anti-mission Bap- 
 tists. I must confess that these people have one 
 merit for which they deserve our praise : they are 
 
118 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 consistent. They boldly avow their faith, or rather 
 their want of faith. They do not preach a Gospel of 
 present, free, and full salvation and at the same time 
 act as if this Gospel were a monopoly of a mere hand- 
 ful of Pretestant Christians. They do not proclaim 
 that the whole world has been redeemed by the blood 
 of Christ and at the same time treat whole nations as 
 if they had no interest whatever in Christ's atoning 
 work. They do not pretend to believe in a brother- 
 hood of the race and at the same time recognize only 
 a brotherhood of their little circle. They do not 
 pretend to accept a doctrine of individual responsi- 
 bility and then adopt a life of utter indifference to 
 the most awful responsibility which God ever laid 
 upon human hearts. No ; for one, I cannot ridicule 
 these people ; I have no heart for sncli a thing. They 
 might cast ridicule upon many of their detractors 
 much more consistently than become the objects of 
 ridicule themselves. Their position is absurdly false, 
 their creed fatally narrow, and their religious growth 
 stunted and gnarled, but they nevertheless are con- 
 sistent in maintaining a wrong position. 
 
 If the modern missionary movement does nothing 
 else, it certainly deserves credit for this one thing : it 
 rolls away a reproach from the door of the Christian 
 Church, it restores a leaf torn from the Gospel procla- 
 mation, and it puts the Christian preacher in a position 
 of consistency in the eyes of men and nations. But 
 to do all this effectually this great enterprise must be 
 prosecuted in a new spirit. The beggarly rate at 
 which men have been accustomed to give for this 
 cause must be abandoned. The devotion of the Church 
 of Pentecost must be brought back again to earth, and 
 
The Farewell Commandment. 119 
 
 Christian men and women must address themselves to 
 their task in the spirit of Him who gave up all for 
 us, who became poor for our sakes, who emptied him- 
 self of all but love, and who found it more than his 
 daily food to do the work which he had been com- 
 missioned to do. It is absolutely humiliating to see 
 the spirit in which this work is prosecuted in many 
 quarters. In some of the most prosperous sections of 
 onr country, our own Methodist people, singing their 
 joyous hymns, professing to share the love of Christ, 
 talking of this love as their most precious inhei'itance, 
 and praying for the hastening of Christ's ultimate 
 triumph, absolutely fail to give as much as half a 
 cent a week for the salvation of the human race. The 
 men and women who present this beggarly offering 
 are more ignorant than guilty, but they little think 
 how much harm they do by putting the Chiirch in a 
 false position, by bringing their lofty profession into 
 utter contempt, and by ostentatiously robbing God 
 and wrongina: Jesus Christ in the name of Christian 
 benevolence and evangelistic enterprise. Hardly any 
 single enterprise of the devil can be named whicli 
 does not receive a more unstinted support. The 
 traveling circus, the debasing theater, the gambler's 
 den, not to speak of the omnipresent saloon and other 
 more glaring forms of vice — any one of these evils 
 will collect a larger revenue than the competing church 
 will give for the rescue of the world. A single fash- 
 ionable reception in a large city is made to cost more 
 than all the Christians attending it will give in a 
 whole y-ear for this cause. Sin is a cruel tax-collector, 
 but folly is equally heartless, and sin and folly together 
 collect frightful sums from Christian people. Money 
 
120 MissiONAET Addresses. 
 
 is poured oat like water when the world demands it, 
 and doled out in the meanest driblets when our Lord 
 and Saviour asks for it. Sometimes we smile when 
 we hear of the absurdly mean parsimony of some 
 givers, as -of the well-to-do man who subscribed his 
 name for ten cents to be divided among four great 
 charities, but I confess the whole subject is too grave 
 for amusement. If God's word has any meaning, 
 this kind of conduct imperils the souls of those who 
 indulge in it, while the whole Church of Christ suf- 
 fers unspeakably from such a public and formal denial 
 of her most solemn obligations. 
 
 If our Saviour wei"e to come again at some mid- 
 night hour during this present year, in what attitude 
 would he find his people ? Their task has been clearly 
 set before them, and more than eighteen and a half 
 centuries have elapsed since their work began. In 
 all these long centuries God has been willing to help, 
 the promises have all remained constant, the Spirit 
 has been present to convince and renew, and the way 
 before the messengers of truth has been as open as 
 when the farewell was spoken on Olivet. What has 
 been accomplished ? What is being done ? The 
 very thought of such a coming is startling. Millions 
 upon millions of Christians are slumbering. The 
 doors of the nations are all ajar, and yet hundreds of 
 millions have not yet ever heard the name of the 
 great Deliverer. At home, whole communities are 
 living in utter, blind ignorance of Christian truth. A 
 Bible woman who speaks to a girl in a Christian city 
 of Jesus Christ is told that no such person lives in 
 her street. Abroad, a nation, an empire, is equally 
 ignorant. Is this all that the followers of Jesus 
 
The Farewell Commandment. 121 
 
 Clirist can show for all these long centuries of work ? 
 Would his living disciples of to-day dare to present 
 the record before him if he came in person to demand 
 his own with usury ? No, they would tremble at the 
 thought. But the record stands, just as it is, seen of 
 men and angels, proclaiming the unfaithfulness of 
 those who bear the name of Christ, and robbing the 
 Church of the power which she would wield in the 
 world if she could present a consistent attitude as the 
 true and faithful servant of an absent and coming 
 Lord. 
 
 4. The very life of the Church depends on obe- 
 dience to this command. It has often been said that 
 the missionary enterprise is the life of the Church. 
 Dr. Durbin used to say that it was "the hope of the 
 Church abroad, and the life of the Church at home." 
 This is usually supposed to be owing to the reflex in- 
 fluence of such a work upon those engaged in it. 
 Every good work reacts in a blessed way upon those 
 who carry it on, and this missionary work forms no 
 exception to the rule. This is very true, but it is 
 easy to find a more direct and striking explanation of 
 the undoubted fact which has arrested the attention 
 of so many thoughtful men. 
 
 That which we call the life of the Church is in- 
 reality the Spirit of God dwelling in and pervading the 
 hearts of believers, creating Christian love and zeal, and 
 guiding and empowering Christian workers in their 
 various fields of labor. God s spirit is given every- 
 where, and to all alike, upon the unvarying condition 
 of fidelity and obedience. The man who trusts and 
 obeys will as surely receive the Spirit, and walk in 
 the Spirit, as he will receive and breathe the free air 
 
123 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 of Iieaven. He may shut oS tlie air, destroy the ven- 
 tilation of his dwelling, and lose the vigor of health 
 in consequence, but this must be by his own act. So 
 a man may shut himself away from the free operation 
 of the Holy Spirit, either by disobedience or unbe- 
 lief, and when he does so a vigorous, buoyant, spirit- 
 ual life becomes impossible to him. He may pray, 
 and wrestle, and fast, and labor for a thousand years, 
 but it will all be in vain. The spiritual side of his 
 being will be dwarfed, his spiritual strength will wane, 
 and his spiritual life sink lower and lower. As with 
 the individual, so with the Church. Her life is made 
 dependent upon her fidelity and obedience, and any 
 dehberate and continuous course of neglect of duty 
 must inevitably cause the sacred fire to burn low upon 
 her altars, and the spiritual life of her membership to 
 become more and more feeble and inconstant. 
 
 Keeping this rule of spiritual action in mind, it 
 follows, of course, that disobedience to the Farewell 
 Commandment must inevitably depress the spiritual 
 life of the Church, but the case is not one of ordinary 
 disobedience. The gift of the Spirit, in the plenitude 
 of his grace and power, is for the special purpose of 
 enabling Christ's disciples to execute this great com- 
 . mission. To neglect or refuse to engage in that work 
 is to put ourselves, if I may use the expression, out 
 of range of the Spirit's action. It is like an attempt 
 to hide from the influence of a cooling breeze, like a 
 shutting off the free ventilation of the room we oc- 
 cupy. God will not work a miracle to give life and 
 health to those who refuse to breathe the free air of 
 heaven, and no more will he send the Holy Spirit 
 upon those who refuse to move where the Spirit 
 
The Faeewell Commandment. 123 
 
 wafts them, who refuse to act as the Spirit prompts 
 tliem, and who refuse to attempt the work for which 
 Jesus promised the robe of power. 
 
 We hear much in these days about Pentecost, about 
 the fullness of blessing, about the possibilities of the 
 holy living, and the measure of spiritual power which 
 a believer may expect to receive. The whole subject 
 is one of surpassing interest, but for one I have ceased 
 to look for a reappearance of Pentecost, even apart 
 from its miraculous features, till God's people become 
 willing to recognize the object of Pentecost. The 
 Church of Jesus Christ must become obedient to her 
 great trust before the Spirit in his fullness will again 
 come upon her from on high. We often hear it said 
 that if all Cliristians would get down on their knees, 
 and pray, and wait, and watch, as did the few in the 
 upper room, God would open the windows of heaven 
 and pour out a blessing which there Avould not be 
 room enough to receive. But I am by no means sure 
 that this is the kind of waiting and praying that is 
 needed. Tlie ten-days' waiting in that upper room 
 sufficed for all time. The Spirit was given as a per- 
 manent gift, to abide throughout the dispensation, and 
 now it is our privilege to receive tlie living water 
 freely without any weary delay. What we need to 
 do is not so much to meet together to pray as to 
 gird up our loins for obedient service. Let Christians 
 every-where simply face about, turn toward tlie 
 heathen world, and begin to plan for an immediate 
 advance and early triuinpli, and at once the Spirit of 
 life would begin to move with new energy, a new 
 throb would be felt in ten million hearts, and every- 
 where it would be realized as never before that a new 
 9 
 
12i MissiONAEY Addresses. 
 
 vitality had taken possession of the Church of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 It is needless to pursue these thoughts further. The 
 simple statement of the real bearings of this great 
 commandment, so neglected and so nearly fo)"gotten 
 by the majority of Christians, ought to suffice to 
 rouse every lover of the world's Saviour to the over- 
 whelming importance of putting it in the very fore- 
 front of all Christian duties. The Sunday-school 
 teacher should make it as prominent as the command- 
 ments of Moses, the parent should include it among 
 the very first lessons of childhood. The preacher 
 should hold it up as a solemn obligation, binding 
 upon all Ciiristians, and never to be slighted without 
 incui-ring guilt. He should no longer timidly present 
 it as a suggestion, or an exhortation, or a request, but 
 as a supreme command, given under the most solemn 
 circumstances, and no more to be set aside than any 
 one of the Ten Commandments. A Christian has as 
 much right to steal as to refuse to obey this plain and 
 unequivocal command. He may as well trample on 
 the Sabbath, or reject the sacraments, or refuse to 
 join in public worship, or, in short, boldly and defi- 
 antly neglect any otlier plain duty, as calmly to go 
 on his way and utterly neglect to enter heartily into 
 this great and holy enterprise. The preacher who 
 knows his duty will not neglect to enforce the imper- 
 ative nature of this obligation. He will see clearly 
 that the welfare of the souls committed to him, the 
 life of the Church which he serves, depend on fidelity 
 to this duty, and he will teach and preach accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 We are entering upon an era of Christian aggress- 
 
TiiK Fauewell Commandment. 125 
 
 iveness, when no preacher can hope to stand well to 
 the front unless he not only understands, but enters 
 into, the Spirit of this great commission. The per- 
 functory preaching of a sermon on missions once a 
 year, and the reluctant gathering of the annual ofEer- 
 ing in the shape of a collection, will do for a wooden 
 man in a formal pulpit, but the preacher of the new 
 day now dawning nmst handle the trumpet of a 
 crusader. He must preach a gospel of conquest and 
 victory. He must thoroughly master the terms o-f 
 his commission. He must have a vision wide enough 
 to take in all the broad earth, and he must be en- 
 nobled by the consciousness that he too, although 
 standing in a Christian pulpit in a Christian land, is 
 none the less doing his part in the great work of 
 saving the world. He must lirst feel, and then teach, 
 that all the disciples of Christ are moving together, 
 that all march in a common phalanx, and that all are 
 to share a common victory. 
 
 This view ennobles every Christian, and when 
 fully realized will give new power to every disciple 
 of our common Master. There is a wonderful elas- 
 ticity in the step of a soldier marching to assured 
 victory, and keeping step with a vast host of equally 
 confident comrades. He has the bearing of a hero, 
 and every fiber of his being thrills with unwonted 
 life. What a change would come over the universal 
 Church of Christ if all could only be made to hear 
 the bugle call from the skies, and be led forth to a 
 great and victorious advance upon the kingdom of 
 darkness in this world. Such a movement would 
 transform the Christian world. The weak would he 
 made strong, the despondent filled with hojje, the idle 
 
126 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 nerved for work, and all filled with lofty courage, 
 deep devotion, and unquenchable love and zeal. The 
 world will never see, can never know, what a really 
 living, aggressive Christian Church is till this great 
 advance begins. May it come soon. May the nerve- 
 less, drowsy, selfish Churches of Christendom soou 
 hear the command of Him whose name they bear, 
 and rise as if from tlie dead to address themselves 
 to the work which has been neglected through all 
 these weary centuries ; and may such an advance be 
 sounded as may carry dismay through all the ranks of 
 Christ's enemies, and assure the early and complete 
 deliverance of all nations from the cruel grasp of the 
 prince of darkness ! 
 
The Beggae at ouk Gate. 127 
 
 THE BEGGAR AT OUR GATE. 
 
 THE parable of the rich man and Lazarus presents 
 to the thoughtful Christian a wonderful combi- 
 nation of most important lessons. Its indirect sug- 
 gestions are hardly less important than its direct 
 teaching. It has powerfully influenced Christian 
 thought, and has done much in helping to mold 
 Christian doctrine, especially in all that relates to the 
 awful realities of the future world. It sternly re- 
 bukes the rich, and at the same time tenderly com- 
 forts the poor. It shows the sin and folly of living 
 only for the present life, by putting time in the 
 scales to be weighed against eternity. It points out 
 the danger of neglecting present opportunity, and 
 the hopelessness of every effort to recall the past. It 
 makes idle luxury a crime, and powerfully suggests 
 the peril of neglecting the helpless poor at our doors. 
 It reveals with awful vividness the outlines of that 
 unseen realm into which we are all passing, and the 
 startling relation of our brief sojourn here to the 
 endless and changeless existence which awaits us 
 there. It speaks to communities as well as to in- 
 dividuals, to the nation as well as to the particular 
 citizen, to the Church as well as to the single dis- 
 ciple. It illustrates principles and laws which are as 
 wide as the world, and as comprehensive as the inter- 
 ests of the human race. 
 
 Selecting one lesson from the many taught in this 
 
128 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 parable, I wish to consider in the present lecture the 
 relation in which we as a Christian nation, or as a 
 Christian Church, are placed to that vast aggregation 
 of humanity wliich we are accustomed to call the 
 heathen world. The individual heathen, from what- 
 ever land brought, may well stand as the representative 
 of his class. The term heathen, being used in its 
 popular sense, may be accepted simply as an equiva- 
 lent for non-Christian, and may represent alike 
 Brahman and Buddhist, Mohammedan and pagan, 
 demon-worshiper and devotee of the jungle fetich. 
 Non-Ciiristian people may, it is very true, be found 
 in Christian lands, but such people differ from those 
 just enumerated. They profit by their contact with 
 Christianity in spite of themselves, and are not for a 
 moment to be reckoned with those who are without 
 its pale. They enjoy in a measure the light which 
 shines around them, they share the blessings which 
 the general community enjoys, and they stand face 
 to face with ever-present golden opportunities for 
 seeking and finding the highest good. But it is 
 all different with the nations which sit in darkness, 
 nations witliout God's revealed word, and without a 
 knowledge of the Saviour of men. They are poor, 
 spiritually and temporally poor ; they are helpless 
 and bruised, are covered with festering sores, and 
 now in these modern days of accelerated travel they 
 may be said to lie at our very gate, and by their 
 presence they powerfully appeal to us for pity and 
 help. 
 
 In thus applying the picture of Lazarus at the gate 
 of Dives to the heathen prostrated before our own 
 doors, let us consider : 
 
The Beggae at Oue Gate. 129 
 
 1. The deep poverty of the non- Christian world. 
 Whetlier we consider the actual condition of these 
 people, using the word poverty in its literal sense, or 
 have regard to the deep spiritual destitution in which 
 they live, in either case a faithful picture of their 
 state is truly startling. The common impression 
 that those who neglect (jod gain most of this 
 world's good things, and prosper more than those who 
 fear him, is founded deep in error. It is the meek 
 who inherit the earth. In the face of a thousand 
 seeming contradictions the fact remains that tiiose 
 who forsake God do not permanently prosper, and 
 the nations which, through long ages, have persistent- 
 ly forsaken him are to-day wretchedly poor. Indeed, 
 the word poor, as popularly used in the United States, 
 fails to convey any thing like a correct idea of the 
 extreme wretchedness of the great mass of those liv- 
 ing in the heathen world. As a matter of fact, only 
 a mere handful of the human race can be said to be 
 even moderately well-to-do. Five hundred millions 
 of our fellow-beings will sleep to-night in rude huts, 
 with the earth for a floor, a thatch of grass or leaves 
 for a roof, with walls of mud or perhaps of matting 
 of reeds or leaves, while fifty, or very possibly a iinn- 
 dred, million more will lie down to sleep under the 
 open sky, or at best under the shelter of a hospitable 
 tree. Labor is so cheap in the vast regions of the 
 East, that is, among almost half the people on the 
 globe, that its reward would be regarded as a cruel 
 mockery if offered as wages in this country. The 
 average income of millions upon millions does not ex- 
 ceed twenty-five dollars a year for a whole family. 
 Millions of laboring men toil all day long only to rj- 
 
130 MissioNAKY Addresses. 
 
 ceive five cents at night as the day's wages. The 
 strong men in America who combine in gigantic 
 strikes usually decline to accept a scale of pay which 
 would represent forty or fifty times the priqe of or- 
 dinary labor in most parts of the non-Christian world. 
 
 What all this means people in America can hardly 
 realize. The people earn a mere subsistence, but 
 nothing more. The daily meals, if indeed inoi-e than 
 one full meal is enjoyed, are eaten in quiet resigna- 
 tion, if not contentment, but too seldom do parents 
 and children eat to satiety. It is a startling thought 
 that, while we shall lie down to-night to sleep in com- 
 fort, in homes of positive luxury, probably five hun- 
 dred millions of our fellow-men will seek their rest 
 on earthen floors, after having partaken of a stinted 
 meal ; with barely enough to sustain life,' but not 
 enough to meet the full demands of hunger. And 
 this, too, you must remember, in prosperous, or at 
 least in ordinary, times. But among such a people 
 scarcity means suffering to millions, and the failure 
 of a single crop means famine and death to vast mul- 
 titudes. Famine, or even the shadow of a famine, has 
 never once visited America ; but in India I have 
 known no less than five of these awful visitations in 
 less than thirty years. In one of these, in a com- 
 paratively small province, no less than two million 
 human beings were swept away in less than a single 
 year. In the face of an awful fact like this we may 
 well pause and ask ourselves if we understand the 
 meaning of the word poor. 
 
 It is a painful fact, and one which the missionary, 
 of all men, cannot afford to forget, that we belong to 
 a poor race. Poverty walks in the footsteps of sin, 
 
The Beggae at ouk Gate. 131 
 
 and hejice it was that when the Saviour of sinners 
 came among men he " became poor." He was made 
 in the likeness of those whom lie came to save, and 
 as he was to save to the uttermost, so he must needs 
 go down to the lowest depths of human misery. 
 Over and over again, when wretchedly poor and 
 helpless people have come to me in India, and 
 poured out all the painful story of their suffering and 
 woe, I have found it an unspeakable comfort to be 
 able to say, " Your Saviour, the Saviour of all men, 
 when here on earth was poorer than you." And this 
 enables us to see why it was that Jesus made his 
 Gospel in a very special sense the Gospel of the poor. 
 It could not otherwise have been a Gospel to the 
 whole race. When the Saviour of men looked down 
 npon our lost and helpless race he saw that which 
 Lazarus in the parable most strikingly illustrates — a 
 beggared race maintaining existence by gathering, 
 meager crumbs; a race not only poor, but lying in 
 helpless wretchedness and misery. 
 
 The missionary, I say again, cannot afford to over- 
 look this fact. Go where he may in the non-Chris- 
 tian world he will iind his dwelling-place among the 
 poor. His converts will for the most part be poor. 
 He may wish to have it otherwise, but he cannot 
 make it otherwise. It is an eternal law of the 
 Gospel that its first proclamation is the special right 
 of the pool", and the fact that the heathen, as a mass, 
 are so very poor gives them a first claim upon Chris- 
 tian preachers every-where. The messenger who is 
 sent to proclaim this Gospel must go as his Master 
 went, to the poor and the neglected ones of the earth. 
 God can and will do great things among these poor 
 
132 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ones. Tlie Gospel will lift them up. I sometimes 
 tliiuk tliat very possibly the solution of some of the 
 great social and industrial problems of the age will 
 be worked out, not in the halls of philosophy, or the 
 chambers of legislation, but in the abodes of the 
 lowly disciples of Jesus Christ in mission-fields. The 
 crisis is nearest its culmination there, and believing, 
 as I do, that God intends to solve these problems, and 
 to do it successfully, I look with hope and expectation 
 to the developments of the future among the surging 
 millions of eartli's suffering poor in heathen lands. 
 
 2. The spiritttal poverty of heathen nations is no 
 less striking than their material destitution. It is 
 even more distressing and appalling, and appeals in 
 the strongest possible way to the pity and sympathy 
 of every Christian in more favored lands. Of non- 
 Christian people generally it may be said that while 
 they are not poor in spirit they are spiritually poor. 
 I do not mean that they are all embrnted and debased. 
 I have no sympathy with the notion that we must 
 paint horrible pictures of heathen life in order to 
 rouse Christians in their behalf. God has not left 
 any people in sucli utter darkness that all goodness and 
 virtue have perished from their midst. But what I 
 mean is this : All those blessings and privileges which 
 are peculiarly ours through the Gospel, those bless- 
 ings which would not be ours but for the Gospel, are 
 unknown in the heathen world. The knowledge of 
 the forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, com- 
 munion with the Heavenly Father, the manifestatiou 
 of the living Christ to the soul, the renewal of the 
 heart, the living hope of the believer, power over 
 sin, the blessedness of Christian fellowship, the sweet- 
 
The Bkggar at our Gate. 133 
 
 ness of tlie Christian liome, the precionsness of the 
 written word of God, the hallowed day of sacred rest, 
 light in darkness, comfort in sorrow, and life in deatli 
 — all these blessed realities are practically nnknown 
 in heathen lands. What is meant by sucli poverty, 
 what is the height and depth of such spiritual desti- 
 tution, you good people here in this Christian country 
 do not know and can hardly understand. You have 
 always lived in tiie midst of Christian privileges, you 
 have always walked in the light of Christian institu- 
 tions, and hence you are not able to realize what it is 
 to live in the midst of a people not one of whom 
 knows what is meant by a living hope, or what the 
 power of divine love is in the soul, or what it is to 
 hold communion with God. Take the living ele- 
 ments of Christianity out of this country at a stroke, 
 and you will in a moment's time Jiave enveloped the 
 whole land in spiritual twilight. You will have re- 
 duced to deep spiritual poverty those who are enriched 
 above all computation, and you will have taken out 
 of life all that makes life a joy or a blessing in such a 
 world as ours. 
 
 It is an awful thought that there are hundreds of 
 millions of human beings in the world to-day who 
 cannot possibly obtain a single page of God's word, 
 who could not, no matter how anxious, find a living 
 person to tell them of a Saviour, and who are march- 
 ing on toward eternity without a single soul to speak 
 a word of cheer to them, or point them to a star of 
 hope beyond the present life. Even in India, with 
 Europeans scattered all over the empire, the darkness 
 seems almost unbroken save at long intervals. A 
 good man once told me that when he was first awak- 
 
131 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 ened he longed for help, but only knew of one pray- 
 ing man, and he was iive hundred miles distant. I 
 knew a Mohammedan who had gone from place to 
 place in search of a Christian who could tell him 
 the way of salvation, and a whole year passed be- 
 fore he succeeded in liuding the kind of man he 
 sought. A country in which God's word cannot be 
 obtained is of all possible countries the most desper- 
 ately poor. 
 
 3. The heathen, like Lazarus, is sorely afflicted. 
 The poor neglected beggar was full of sores. The 
 non-Christian nations of the world carry plague-spots 
 which tell of their desperate condition, and which 
 belong to them as distinct from those nations which 
 have been brought in a large measure under Christian 
 influence. Tlie missionary of the present day has a 
 wide choice of fields, but go where he may he goes 
 into the midst of sorrow and suffering. Tribes and 
 nations are still found who are given to cannibal 
 practices. Only few weeks ago I was busy collecting 
 information about Malaysia, and the most needy 
 fields in that vast region, when I was startled to dis- 
 cover that the people in Sumatra, who killed and ate 
 two American missionaries fifty years ago, are canni- 
 bals still. The cruelties of the debased heathenism 
 of Africa are only too well known. But we need not 
 seek the lowest forms of paganism in order to lay 
 bare the festering sores which appear in every part of 
 the world where Christ is not known. Tn India, we 
 have in Brahmanism the most intellectual, the most 
 polished, the most thoroughly organized, and in its 
 origin, with one exception, the most pure of all non- 
 Christian faiths. But what are its fruits ? The 
 
The Beggae at oue Gate. 135 
 
 burning of widows as a religions duty has only been 
 suppressed by the strong arm of a Christian govern- 
 ment, and would be resumed to-morrow if the restrain- 
 ing power of that arm were withdrawn. Among the 
 most noted Indian statesmen of the present century 
 was Sir Jung Bahadur, late Prime Minister of Nepaul. 
 He visited Europe, was knighted by the Queen and 
 enjoyed the society of leading statesmen of England. 
 And yet when the death of this great man occurred, 
 but a few years ago, in an independent state beyond 
 the reach of the British law, four of his wretched 
 wives were burned alive on the funeral pyre! And 
 this, be it noted, was not done in spite of religion, 
 but in the name of religion, and with its special 
 sanction. 
 
 Less than twenty years ago the practice of hook- 
 swinging, that is, suspending living men by steel 
 hooks passed through tlie muscles of tlie back, was 
 suppressed by a government order, and this horrible 
 custom would be revived at once, even, in Calcutta 
 itself, if the order were Avithdrawn. This too was 
 distinctively a religious practice, done under the 
 special sanction of the most powerfnl heathen system 
 in the world. And in the name of the same religion 
 devotion is every-where distorted into cruelty and 
 self-torture, and the way of supposed holiness made 
 a long course of physical degradation, and often of 
 moral corruption as well. I have known men who 
 were regarded as holy in a peculiar sense, men before 
 whom hundreds prostrated themselves in profound 
 reverence, who were saluted with the utmost respect 
 by every passer-by, whose sole title to moral and re- 
 ligious superiority lay in the fact that they disfigured 
 
136 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 their persons, went half-naked, and ate every loath- 
 some and disgusting thing which might be offered to 
 them for food, 
 
 Nor is it in exceptional cases that we find these 
 plague-spots. The enforced widowhood of India is a 
 cruel blight which affects millions of innocent victims. 
 Child marriage, polygamy, the degradation of women, 
 and in some sections infanticide, all are so many fes- 
 tering sores which belong to heathenism alone. Nov 
 need we confine our attention to Brahmanism, with its 
 many ramifications, all combining to build up the 
 great system popularly known as Hinduism. Moham- 
 medanism is no better. It is essentially a religion of 
 cruel intolerance, of war and rapine, the ally of the 
 slave-trader, and the abettor of vice. The Hindu is 
 a better man than the Mohammedan, so far as the 
 general average is concerned, and the nations profess- 
 ing the faith of Islam are as helplessly wretched and 
 appeal as strongly to our Christian sympathies as any 
 people in the world. Nor can it be said of the 
 Buddhists, the followers of that much-lauded faith 
 which some would exalt to a pinnacle higher than 
 Christianity, that it presents its subjects in any 
 better plight than other members of the great non- 
 Christian world. Burmah with its Buddhism is, 
 morally and socially, more benighted than Bengal 
 with its Brahmanism. China sits in a darkness as 
 deep and dense as India ever knew, and her patient 
 millions have as strong a claim upon the Christian 
 world as the people of any nation on the face of the 
 globe. 
 
 4. This sufferer at our gate is not only wretched, 
 hut helpless, No heathen nation can elevate itself 
 
The Beggae at que Gate. 137 
 
 morally above its present level. There is absolutely 
 no help in any of them — any possible help must come 
 from without. Among all the non-Christian nations 
 of the globe, not one has elevated itself, in a moral or 
 religious sense, one inch above the position occupied 
 when Christ lived on earth. So far from it, we may 
 indeed doubt whether any one of these nations has 
 held its own in this respect. India and China have 
 both most certainly retrograded during this period. 
 Any slight advance that can be pointed out will be 
 found to have occurred since the contact of the nation 
 in question with the Christian world. The golden 
 age of every religion except Christianity is in the re- 
 mote past, and deterioration is a law which works 
 every-where outside the pale of Christian light and 
 trnth. 
 
 The great nations of the heathen world, no less 
 than the degraded tribes of Africa and New Guinea, 
 are in a state of absolute moral helplessness, and must 
 be lifted up if they ever rise at all. This is not 
 owing to the fact that there is any thing peculiar in 
 the character of these nati<?ns, but simply to the fact 
 that they belong to the human race. A great truth, 
 affecting alike individuals and nations, was spoken 
 through the ancient prophet when God said, "O 
 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy 
 help." Every human soul must be lifted up out of 
 sin and error by a power external to itself, and this 
 law applies to the nation as to the individual. Pow- 
 erful corporations may build railroads, and extend 
 telegraphs, all through India and China, and every 
 appliance of modern civilization may be transplanted 
 to those regions, and in this way a little material ele- 
 
138 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 vation may be effected from without, but the moral 
 elevation of the people must be effected by the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ. These great nations will be the 
 world's paupers for all time to come, unless this 
 mighty elevating agency is introduced, and the duty 
 of doing this devolves upon the disciples of the 
 world's Saviour. 
 
 We should never for a moment forget that but for 
 the Gospel we ourselves would still be groping our 
 way through a region of dense moral darkness, and 
 no doubt living very much as our ancestors did before 
 the light of Christian truth dawned upon them. It 
 was not by their own right arm that the Anglo-Saxon 
 nations have achieved the proud pre-eminence which 
 they hold in the civilized world. God has lifted 
 them up and given them empire and power because 
 they have received, and held, and defended his word, 
 and because they have been true to certain great 
 principles of Christian liberty. There is some danger 
 that as a race we may become vain and self-sufficient, 
 and forget that we too were once a beggared people, 
 helpless and impoverish^, and that God had mercy 
 on us and sent us that Gospel which alone can elevate 
 and enrich a nation. We have very little, indeed, of 
 wliich we can boast apart from Christianity. Our 
 ancestors made but slow progress until they came in 
 contact with Christian influence, and if they had 
 been left to themselves they would probably have re- 
 mained for many centuries a race of " naked savages 
 wandering in the forests of northern Europe." So 
 far from allowing ourselves to be puffed up by our 
 great advancement, we of all others should be forward 
 to acknowledge that we owe all to Christian truth and 
 
The Beggar at o'uk Gate. 139 
 
 Cliristian institutions. We lay for centuries in utter 
 helplessness till God lifted us up. 
 
 5. Having thus noticed the condition of the hapless 
 sufferer at our gate, it may be well to pause for a mo- 
 ment to examine our own sumptuous home. The 
 Americans, of all people in the world, are the best 
 housed. They are the palace-dwellers of the earth. As 
 a nation they have almost rebuilt their homes during 
 the past twenty-live years. They are rapidly merging 
 comfort into luxury. Kich fools vie with the royal 
 spendthrifts of the Old World in squandering money 
 upon useless palaces. The craze becomes infectious, 
 and in every town and village men are busy burying 
 money in walls of brick and stone. Within our 
 homes we fare sumptuously, and dress expensively, 
 if not elegantly. Many fashionable ladies in New 
 York society, in order to keep up with the chang- 
 ing fashions of the day, spend as much in dress and 
 jewelry as would feed and clothe and educate one 
 thousand orphans in a heathen land. A devotee of 
 fashionable pleasure at Saratoga or Long Br9,ncli squan- 
 ders as much in unworthy pursuits as would feed and 
 clothe the people of a dozen villages in India. Nor 
 is it the vain man or woman of pleasure alone who 
 fares thus sumptuously. The average American every- 
 where sits down to a royal repast, as compared with 
 the mass of men in other lands. We know no real 
 poverty. Our artificial and feverish style of living 
 misleads many, who fancy they are poor because they 
 desire many things which they cannot get ; but as a 
 matter of fact the people of any one of our American 
 States waste enough to feed a province in the Eastern 
 world. Famine, or even scarcity worth the name, has 
 10 
 
1 -to MlSSIONAllY AiJdkesses. 
 
 never been known within our borders. Wealth ac- 
 cumulates at a rate never known before in the world's 
 history, and certainly not witnessed among the people 
 of any other nation. 
 
 Tiie enormous wealth of the United States can be 
 expressed in figures, but these figures convey no cor- 
 rect idea to an ordinary mind. Beyond a certain 
 point a group of figures becomes merely an arithmet- 
 ical expression. The mind fails to grasp it. Like 
 the measurement of the celestial spaces, we speak of 
 vast distances, but cannot conceive of the ratio of 
 such a distance to a league on the earth's surface. 
 The wealth of this country has long since marched 
 beyond the point where the mind can grasp its ex- 
 tent. Both in resources and developed wealth Amer- 
 ica is the richest country on the globe. Of the earth's 
 inhabited surface our people could buy up two thirds, 
 and have many millions, and even billions, left. And 
 tins wealth is increasing steadily and rapidly. Every 
 week six million dollars are added to the enormous 
 aggregate — enough money to lay the foundations of 
 a state or empire. Truly may it be said of the Amer- 
 ican people tiiat they are palace-dwellers, that they 
 fare sumptuously, that they are clothed in rich at- 
 tire, and that they abound in every form of material 
 wealth. 
 
 6. We must remember that this heathen sufferer is 
 lylt^g at our very gate. "When the missionary enter- 
 prise was first begun every appeal was made in be- 
 half of a distant people. The missionary going 
 abroad started as if to another planet. It added 
 mncli to the difficulty of tlie undertaking, and no 
 doubt lessened the force of the obligation to evan- 
 
The Beggak at our Gate. 141 
 
 gelize the lieatlien, to liave to go so far to find thein. 
 But all this has been wonderfully changed within the 
 present generation. The heathen seem to be just 
 outside our gate. God has been bringing the nations 
 closer together, opening up swift communication be- 
 tween them, sending steamers across every sea, build- 
 ing lines of rail across great continents, piercing 
 mountains, exploring the wilderness, subduing the 
 desert, and preparing the way for tlie messengers of 
 peace. The missionary hastening to his holy war in 
 the East plunges through the Alps in twenty-seven 
 minutes, thinking meanwhile of the long and painful 
 struggles of Hannibal and Napoleon to scale the 
 heights above. When I first went to India I was 
 •one hundred and twenty-seven days at sea. When I 
 last went I made the journey in twenty-seven days ; 
 just one hundred days less than at first. A missionary 
 goes to China or Japan, to India or Africa, with less 
 exposure, in less time, and with less expense than 
 would have been involved in sending him to points 
 on our frontier less than a generation ago. The most 
 distant point on the globe is probably as near to us 
 to-day as the towns on our own Pacific coast were 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 Nor is it only in the facility with which mission- 
 aries can be sent to the heathen that their nearness to 
 us can be made to appear. We can reach out our 
 hand and minister to them almost without an eifort. 
 You can relieve the want of a poor man on the banks 
 of the Ganges as easily, and almost as quickly, as 
 Dives could have sent out a breakfast to Lazarus 
 sitting at his gate. If you wish to send five dollars 
 to Lucknow you can do so by simply paying in the 
 
113 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 money at tlie post-office, with as little trouble and no 
 greater expense than it would have cost you to post a 
 letter to Cincinnati less than fifty years ago. You 
 can help these people, can do it easily, and can do it 
 quickly. For all practical purposes you are as near 
 to them as Dives was to Lazarus. They are vi^ithin 
 touch, their imploring gaze is fixed upon you, their 
 siglis and groans are falling upon your ears, and it 
 will be impossible to pass them by and be held guilt- 
 less in God's final reckoning with you. 
 
 7. This nearness imposes obligation. The parable 
 of the Good Samaritan teaches how to discover per- 
 sonal obligation. Three men came along and saw 
 the poor wounded traveler by the way -side. Two 
 passed over to the opposite side of the road, and 
 slipped by without even a pitying look for him. The 
 other went at once and devoted himself to his relief. 
 The only obligation in the case of each was the fact 
 of contact with a needy member of the race. It was 
 the obligation which nearness imposes. The priest 
 shrugging his shoulders and hastening by, and the rich 
 man closing his door and gathering his purple robe 
 about him, were guilty of the same sin. They needed 
 no one to expound their duty to them ; the sight of 
 a suffering fellow-being sufficed to do that. They 
 saw, knew, and felt the obligation thus set before 
 them, and, neglecting it, became guilty of awful sin 
 against God and man. 
 
 If this view be correct, •what are we to say of 
 Christian America, and especially of the Christian 
 Churches of America, if the heathen at our very 
 gate are allowed to suifer on unrelieved, shrouded in 
 darkness, wearied with grievous burdens, and strug- 
 
The Beggar at oue Gate. 143 
 
 gling in vain attempts to escape from the hard lot 
 which has befallen them ? Can we close our eyes to 
 the sight of their misery, and stop our ears to tlieir 
 bitter cry, and be guiltless? Can we, dare we, dream 
 that there is one law for the merciless Levite and an- 
 other for the selfish Christian ? Can we, dare we, 
 assume that the rich man of the parable was a heart- 
 less worldling, while we, acting in the same way, are 
 devout and faithful Christians? "We cannot do it. 
 We cannot evade our plain duty and be innocent. 
 The sighs of a sorrowing, suffering world float in upon 
 us, and our wealth and luxury become henceforth our 
 condemnation unless we go forth in the great Master's 
 name to minister to those whom his providence has 
 laid at our doors. 
 
 Both the American nation and the American 
 Cliurch need to ponder well this stupendous obliga- 
 tion which God lays upon them. It has been often 
 said of late by thoughtful Christian men that the 
 greatest peril of our nation at the present hour is 
 found in its wealth. No school of vice can develop 
 so heartless, and worthless, and vile a type of human- 
 ity as that of wealthy idleness. Poor old Dives is 
 often spoken of as a comparatively harmless man. 
 He may have been such a man, but if so he misrep- 
 resented his class. Take the wealthy idlers of New 
 York, London, and Paris to-day, and settle them in a 
 community by themselves, with no restraints of any 
 kind upon them save such as they themselves see fit 
 to impose, and in less than three years you will see 
 Sodom and Gomorrah reproduced on earth. Now, 
 this school of wealthy idleness is turning out its grad- 
 uates upon American society in alarming numbers, 
 
144 MissioNAKY Addresses. 
 
 and here is a source of peril to the nation which has 
 hardly yet commenced to attract attention. A fear- 
 ful social leprosy threatens us at this point, and the 
 danger is imminent. 
 
 But the danger which arises from an excess of 
 wealth, especially from its rapid accumulation, is not 
 confined to the few who become enormously rich. A 
 nation of eager money-seekers is simply a nation of 
 idolaters. That wealth is sought too eagerly and 
 prized too highly in America cannot for a moment 
 be doubted. With all our affected contempt for arti- 
 ficial distinctions in society, the man of wealth is 
 treated with a deference which is withheld from the 
 man of culture, and still more from the man of moral 
 worth. The world sets up and maintains its own 
 standard, and no purely Christian influence can com- 
 pare with it in its eficct on what we call society. 
 Two ladies might be named in New York wliose 
 word in the social world of that great city has ten 
 times the weight of the word of Jesus Christ. They 
 are excellent ladies in their way, no doubt, and yet 
 the fact that such an influence can be secured, and 
 retained, and used by the power of wealth is a phe- 
 nomenon which deserves very careful study. It is 
 but an illustration of a general tendency, and a tend- 
 ency which bodes no good to the highest and best 
 interests of the nation. 
 
 Wealth will del)ase and degrade the nation unless 
 it is held and used as a sacred trust from God. When 
 God blesses a nation it is that he may make it a 
 blessing to other nations. The promise given to 
 Abraham contained the statement of a great law : 
 " I will make of thee a great nation, and 1 will bless 
 
The Beggae at ouk Gate. 145 
 
 thee, . . . and thou shalt be a blessing." God has 
 no pupose in raising up a great nation in this west- 
 ern world save to help in the general elevation and 
 redemption of the race. National selfishness is like 
 all selfishness, blind, and miscalculating, and self- 
 deceiving. The nation that loves all other nations, 
 that dares govern itself and direct its policy by Chris- 
 tian pi-inciples, will stand foremost in the world, will 
 achieve the highest destiny, and live in the enjoyment 
 of the highest possible measure of blessing. America 
 is debtor to all the wide world, and God expects her 
 to go forth to the suffering peoples who wait at her 
 gate, and minister to them freely of the great sub- 
 stance with which God has intrusted her. 
 
 But if a sense of obligation should rest upon the 
 nation, how much more vividly should it be realized 
 by the Church ! As Christians, we cannot misun- 
 derstand our duty. "We have the Gospel of Christ, 
 we enjoy the light of God's word, we live in full 
 sight of eternity, we know the infinite value of eter- 
 nal things, we know how frail and fleeting are all the 
 things of earth, and we are the accredited represent- 
 atives of Christ on earth. As such we cannot, we 
 dare not, close our doors and shut ourselves up in our 
 Christian homes while a wailing world lies in help- 
 less wretchedness outside our gate-way. We have no 
 time for discussion, no time for speculation, no 
 time for any thing but immediate and earnest action. 
 Our whole resources, our best energies, our most 
 cherished hopes, our very lives, must be freely given 
 lip at the call of such a sufferer. Not another hour 
 of delay can be justified, not another excuse of any 
 kind can be admitted, but the whole great Christian 
 
146 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 family must make haste to the front gate, and at once 
 begin to minister to the hapless stranger lying there. 
 
 Many good men have been intensely interested in 
 the discussions of the past few years in relation to the 
 ultimate fate of the heathen. If theologians or spec- 
 ulative thinkers wish to spend time upon inquiries 
 of this kind it is not for me to sit in judgment on 
 them, but as a missionary I must confess to a feeling 
 of something like impatience when I see the energies 
 of strong Christian men diverted to a side issue of 
 this kind. Dives has many sins to answer for, no 
 doubt, but it is not said of him that lie called in 
 learned friends to discuss the future probabilities of 
 the poor beggar who lay at his gate. The beggar 
 toas there, was there in his misfortune and misery, 
 and tliis sufficed to teach Dives his duty. So with us 
 as Christians. A heathen world lies at our very gate, 
 lies there in darkness, and wretchedness, and helpless- 
 ness. Sin has wrought the ruin, and God makes it 
 ours to save. Let this suffice. God can be trusted 
 to administer his own judgment. Let it be our con- 
 cern to save this heathen world. In all seriousness I 
 state it as my profound conviction that it is less 
 ground of alarm for the heathen who die without the 
 Gospel than for Christians who deliberately disobey 
 God by refusing to give the Gospel to the heathen 
 for whom Christ died, and to whom they are com- 
 manded to carry it. 
 
 It was an appalling surprise to the rich man, when 
 he lifted up his eyes in his place of torment, to see 
 the poor beggar, whom he had seen so constantly at 
 his gate, enjoying the blissful rest from which he was 
 himself excluded forever. It will be a joyful sur- 
 
The Beggae at oue Gate. 147 
 
 prise to many faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, when 
 admitted to the eveiiasting rest above, to recognize 
 close beside them many a redeemed soul from the 
 throng which lay outside their gate on earth. In this 
 work, perhaps as in no other, we can realize what the 
 Saviour taught in the parable of the unjust steward. 
 We can so spend and be spent, so minister to souls in 
 need, so go forth or send forth the Jiapless stranger 
 before our door, that the reward of the just shall be 
 secured ; and when we get our release from earth and 
 go up to find our bright home in the everlasting hab- 
 itations prepared for us in the city of light we shall 
 be received by a great multitude of tliose who through 
 our efforts shall have been lifted up, and fed, and 
 clothed, and rescued from sin's low estate, and made 
 adopted children of the Great King. The noblest 
 work ever assigned to men or angels is set before the 
 Church to-day. May it be ours to recognize our 
 golden opportunitj', and in our Master's name to go 
 forth to seek, lift up, and save the suffering, despair- 
 ing, dying heathen at our gate ! 
 
lis Missionary Addresses. 
 
 THE NEW MISSIONARY ERA. 
 
 A GENERAL conviction seems to have taken 
 hold of earnest Christians, in both Europe and 
 America, that the great missionary enterprise is about 
 to enter upon a new era. The most remarkable thing 
 about this conviction is that it is as spontaneous as it 
 is general. No single individual, and no particular 
 body of Christians, can be said to have had a leading 
 part in producing it. Like the coming of all great 
 movements of the kind, like the dawning of the morn- 
 ing, or the coming of the warm spring-time, it appears 
 every-where, and heralds its approach by a thousand 
 tokens which fill the Christian mind and heart with 
 new courage and hope. Every-where Christians are 
 awaking to a sense of greater responsibility in connec- 
 tion with this work. Every-where yonng people are 
 asking to be enlisted as missionaries, and evei-y-where 
 God's stewards are beginning to bring forth treasure 
 for the support of the work on a scale which has 
 never been witnessed before. A spirit of hopeful- 
 ness, of expectancy, and of earnest devotion begins to 
 manifest itself, and many tliink they see tokens of a 
 coming movement which bids fair to assume the pro- 
 portions of a world's crusade. 
 
 It is a fitting time for us to expect such a move- 
 ment as this. We are, as has often been remarked of 
 late, just closing up the last chapter of the first century 
 of modern missions. About a century ago William 
 
The New Missionaky Era. Ill) 
 
 Carc}' set fortli upon liis great mission to the East, 
 and although ]ie was not the first Protestant mission- 
 ary who engaged in this work, he was the most con- 
 spicuous man of his era in this department of Chris- 
 tian enterprise, and the most truly representative 
 man in all the earlier mission fields of the world. 
 The modern missionary movement grew out of the 
 great spiritual awakening of the last century, and it 
 speedily took root wherever that awakening had pre- 
 pared a way for it. Some of the great Protest- 
 ant churches were slower than others in embarking in 
 this great undertaking, but practically we may say 
 with truth that the movement, as a whole, is just clos- 
 ing the first century of its history, and that the time 
 is singularly opportune for a new, more widely ex- 
 tended, more vigorous, and more determined effort to 
 Christianize all the nations of the globe. We ought 
 not, no, not for a moment, to despise the labors of our 
 fathers, to belittle the results thus far achieved, or to 
 discard the lessons which have been learned, but none 
 the less we should open our eyes to the inspiring fact 
 that God summons his people everj'-where to a new 
 consecration to this great work, to enlarged plans, to 
 more systematic labor, to a very large increase of 
 workers, to a greater outpouring of treasure, and to an 
 immediate advance all along the line of the hosts of 
 Christ's army upon the strongholds of the prince of 
 darkness. 
 
 Before considering the new claims which are made 
 upon us, the character of the new era upon which 
 we are entering, it may be well to examine briefly 
 the nature of the work thus far accomplished, and set 
 before us in as clear a light as possible the results 
 
150 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 obtained during the era now closing. Let us ask 
 therefore, 
 
 I. What has been done thus far f — Yery much 
 has been done, and done in many ways. The hum- 
 ble beginnings of great enterprises may not always 
 attract the admiration of men as much as subse- 
 quent achievements, but they are none the less im- 
 portant, and those engaged in them will secure in the 
 next world the reward which is often withheld from 
 them here. The past century has been one of pre- 
 paratory work, much of it experimental, and, in the 
 nature of the case, much of it fruitless ; but it has 
 all been a necessary part of a gigantic enterprise of 
 this kind, and as absolutely indispensable to it as a 
 foundation is to a house. Looking over these hun- 
 dred years we can easily see the outHne of what has 
 been done. 
 
 1. The Churches of the Protestant world have been 
 aroused. A little more than a century ago they knew 
 very little, and cared nothing, about the heathen. 
 The average Christian of the last century had no 
 more thought of personal duty owing to the nations 
 sitting in darkness, than he had of obligation to 
 support Mohammedan mosques or Roman Catholic 
 churches. It was no easy task to rouse Christians, 
 even good Christians, a century ago to a realization 
 of this duty. It required line upon line, patient, 
 faithful teaching in both homes and pulpits, and actual 
 labor performed abroad, to secure even a moderate 
 degree of attention to the Saviour's great conimand- 
 ment. We of the present day can hardly understand 
 what an obstacle was presented to the first leaders of 
 this movement by the almost universal spiritual inertia 
 
The New Missionaey Era. 151 
 
 which they encountered. The idea was new, the proj- 
 ect seemed wild, the heathen seemed lilce dwellers of 
 another planet, and it was a task of surpassing diffi- 
 culty first to rouse, and then to hold, the attention of 
 the Church while this claim was presented. But this 
 work has been done. We of the present day are 
 understood, and gain an immediate hearing, when we 
 come forward to plead for the heathen. The whole 
 world knows what the missionary enterprise is, and 
 for this we are indebted chiefly to the noble pioneers 
 who were called of God two and three generations 
 ago to act as the first heralds of this, the greatest en- 
 terprise of the Christian era 
 
 2. The past century has been a demonstration of 
 possibilities. To many things which were urged a 
 century ago in behalf of missions to the heathen, the 
 universal response was, " Impossible." If the con- 
 version of a pagan was spoken of, men were quick to 
 assert that an ignorant, degraded pagan could not be- 
 come an inteUigent, conscientious Christian. Even in 
 our day this form of incredulity lingers in the Chris- 
 tian churches, and returned missionaries are too often 
 asked if converts in heathen lands become genuine 
 Christians. Then, when tliis objection was answered 
 • — when it was proven that the Gospel was adapted to 
 the condition of all human beings — unbelief cried out 
 that even if individuals could be saved nations could 
 not be Christianized, and that the dream of a con- 
 verted world was a wild freak of the imagination. 
 And again, when this objection was met in its turn, 
 it was said that men from Christian lands, with a 
 strange language and a strange civilization, could 
 never become the successful agents by whom such a 
 
152 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 mighty work could be accomplished. Thus one ob- 
 jection followed another, one supposed impossibility 
 was piled upon another, until it was made to seem as 
 if the proposed work was utterly and wholly beyond 
 the range of moral possibilities. But now all this is 
 changed. A hundred years of labor have demon- 
 strated the fact that men of every clime and every 
 creed, of every language and every type of civiliza- 
 tion, accept the same Gospel, upon the same terms, and 
 with practically the same results. Far ofE auiong the 
 mission fields of heathen lands may be found Christian 
 disciples who are as saintly and as devoted as any men 
 who walk the earth. In like manner the possibility of 
 saving the nations has been demonstrated. God, by 
 his providence, led many of the earliest missionaries to 
 isolated communities, such as the Sandwich Islanders, 
 and other little island tribes and nations in the South 
 Pacific, and there had them demonstrate, upon a small 
 scale, before the eyes of .the world the fact that a 
 whole people could be turned from a life of hideous 
 vice and error to one of Christian faith and Christian 
 virtue. That which has been done upon a small 
 scale can be done with equal success upon a larger 
 scale. Madagascar is showing how this may be real- 
 ized, and Japan may follow at almost any day. When 
 the American missionaries succeeded in Christian- 
 izing the Hawaiian people they demonstrated the pos- 
 sibility of converting the four hundred millions of 
 China, or, in short, of Christianizing any and every 
 nation on the face of the globe. 
 
 3. Another great work accomplished during the 
 past century has been that of testing methods. The 
 work to be done was the same in all lands, but in dif- 
 
The New Missionaky Eka. 153 
 
 ferent countries it was placed under many and widely 
 differing conditions. Each type of civilization, each 
 system of error, called for more or less of special 
 adaptation to the condition in which the people were 
 found. Experiments alone can determine the value 
 of many forms of labor, and a method employed in 
 one country with success may utterly fail in another. 
 An immense amount of work of this kind has been 
 done, work which will not need to be done again, be- 
 cause nearly every possible kind of method has been 
 attempted during the past century, and in most cases 
 it only remains for the living missionary to profit by 
 the experience of those who have gone before him. 
 And j list here it may be well enough to say that much 
 labor which has worn the brand of failure in the past 
 was not really done in vain. It is worth something 
 to demonstrate by actual failure that a certain method 
 is unwise or impracticable, and it is well worth while 
 to remember that one man's failure in the last century 
 may mean success to a hundred or a thousand men in 
 our own day. 
 
 4. Another great work accomplished has been done 
 in the way of laying foundations and collecting ma- 
 terial for future campaigns. The organization of the 
 first little church in a heathen nation means more than 
 the ingathering of a thousand congregations after the 
 first one has been formed. The literary work in- 
 volved in mastering a language, and in many cases 
 reducing it to writing, elaborating dictionaries and 
 grammars, composing hymns, and laying the founda- 
 tion of a Christian literature, is simply enormous. 
 This preliminary work has now been nearly accom- 
 plished, so far as all the leading languages of the 
 
Iji Missionary xVddeesses. 
 
 world are concerned. Not less tlian six hundred 
 millions of the race have had God's word given to 
 them in their own tongues during the past hundred 
 years. And then we must remember that churches 
 have been formed, organizations completed, and 
 formative processes begun which will make it possible 
 for the missionaries of the coming century to move 
 nimbly forward, working in the fields prepared for 
 them, following the methods approved for them, and 
 building upon the broad and deep foundations which 
 the hands of others have laid for them. The mis- 
 sionary who goes to India or China now ought to ac- 
 complish more in five years than the men of the last 
 generation did in fifteen years. Indeed, he ought to 
 do much more than this. One year of the coming 
 century will probably be worth as much as ten of the 
 last, and this enhanced value will be almost wholly 
 owing to the fact that the labors of those who first 
 entered the field have made it possible for the men of 
 later years to eclipse the small measure of success 
 achieved by them. 
 
 II. Let us next look at the new era. 
 
 A new century will soon dawn upon us ; a new 
 missionary century is already here. In what respects 
 will it differ from the era now closinop ? 
 
 1. It will present a vastly widei- field to tlie mis- 
 sionary. When William Carey felt called to go forth 
 into the great eastern world to preach Christ he found 
 almost the whole of that world sealed against him. In 
 all the vast continent of Asia there were not fifty 
 square miles freely open to him as a messenger of Jesus 
 Christ. Indeed, at that not vei-y remote period there 
 were but two or three little spots on the globe where 
 
TiiK New Missionaey Eea. 165 
 
 a Christian preacher could claim the right to preach, 
 or where he could freely distribute God's word. 
 Three of five great continents and two thirds of a 
 fourth were sealed against God's messengers and 
 God's truth. The missionary was rigorously excluded 
 from tlie whole Eoman Catholic world, from the 
 whole Greek Catholic world, from the whole Buddhist 
 world, from the whole Mohammedan world, from 
 nearly all the pagan world, and only admitted to parts 
 of Brahmanical India by the sufferance of the rulers 
 of the day. 
 
 How signally all this is changed I need not point 
 out. To-day the Christian goes almost every-where, 
 not by sufferance, but in the exercise of his unchal- 
 lenged right. God has opened the gates of the na- 
 tions. Even in our own da}' this process has been 
 going on, and it will continue to go on till the last 
 gate has been unbarred and every human being 
 brought within the reach of the precious Gospel of 
 Christ. This gate-opening process has never at any 
 period of the world's history been so active as in our 
 day. Since I became a missionary, less than thirty 
 years ago, God has opened a door of access to not less 
 than 700,000,000 members of our race. 
 
 We live in startling times ; we witness the march of 
 tlie most stupendous events ever seen in the world's 
 liistory. Changes occur with astonishing rapidity. 
 And the end is not yet. The world fairly quivers 
 with expectancy as 8,000,000 armed men, terribly 
 armed too, are waiting for the word which is to make 
 rivers of blood to flow in Europe, and perhaps in 
 Asia also. What changes will come we know not, 
 but of one thing we may be assured : every change, 
 11 
 
156 MissioNAKY Addresses. 
 
 everj' convulsion, every pulling down or setting np of 
 a tlirone, will contribute something towai'd the final 
 and complete enfranchisement of the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 One feature of this enlargement of the mission 
 field seldom receives any notice, and yet it is most im- 
 portant. It is one thing to open the outer gate of a 
 nation ; it is quite another to gain access to communi- 
 ties, and especially to homes. The outer gates of 
 China were opened only to find all the inner doors, 
 both of hearts and homes, sealed against intruders. 
 The missionary gained access to India, but no access 
 to the people. Caste, prejudice, fear, and national 
 antipathy stood in his way. Now all this is changed, 
 or changing. Vast connminities are accessible in a 
 way not known even a few years ago. In both India 
 and China the home begins to open to sti-angers, and 
 the people are reached. Africa, too. is wonderfully 
 opening what might be called her inner doors. For 
 ages sealed against the civilized world by physical 
 barriers, real or imaginary, her gates are now open, 
 and all over her verdant plateaus are found tribes and 
 nations waiting to extend a cordial welcome to any 
 missionary coming to them in the name of the world's 
 Kedeemer. And every-where it is the same. As a 
 country is entered so many inner doors fl}' open, so 
 many inviting fields present themselves, that each so- 
 ciety finds itself in danger of being overwhelmed 
 with work, and all its energies absorbed in any single 
 country which it enters. 
 
 2. The new era will be one of gigantic enterprises. 
 God is setting before his people mightier tasks than 
 have ever been given to any people in the past. In 
 
The New Missionary Eea. 157 
 
 the century now closing the conversion of a tribe has 
 seemed an immense undertaking ; in the new era tlie 
 conversion of an empire will be accepted with as lit- 
 tle misgiving. JSTor is it in the magnitude of the 
 undertaking alone that the difference consists. Fewer 
 men in the coming era will be expected to accomplish 
 tenfold greater results than have been witnessed in 
 the past. Fifty years ago, or less, a force of fifty 
 missionaries were employed in evangelizing some 
 island groups in the South Pacific containing 250,000 
 inhabitants. In my own day I have seen twenty men 
 set to the task of evangelizing L7,000,000, and it may 
 be noticed that experienced missionaries often ask for 
 men at the rate of one or two per million of the peo- 
 ple to be Christianized. 
 
 Nor is it alone in the extent of the work to be done 
 that its magnitude will consist. Giant systems of er- 
 ror must be utterly overthrown. To induce cannibals 
 to abandon their rude forms of worship may be diffi- 
 cult enough, but it is as nothing to the task of pull- 
 ing down the strongholds of systems which have 
 been built up and strengthened through long centu- 
 ries, systems which have rooted themselves in tiie his- 
 tory and traditions, in the manners and customs, in 
 the civilization and social life of the people until 
 they seem to be inseparable from them. But this is 
 the very work which must be done in the course of 
 the coming century. Before its close Moliammedan- 
 ism will be utterly paralyzed, Brahmanism largely dis- 
 integrated, and Buddhism will be melting away before 
 the warmth and sunshine of Christian truth. Truly 
 the missionaries of the new era, the young men now 
 in our schools and soon to be abroad on mighty bat- 
 
158 MissiONAEY Addresses. 
 
 tle-iields, need to be moral giants, men of a spiritual 
 stature far surpassing that of any past era. 
 
 3. The new era will be marked by vastly augmented 
 resources for the prosecution of this work. The 
 Christian churches were all comparatively poor when 
 this enterprise was first und'ertaken, and resources of 
 all kinds, whether of money or workers or the appli- 
 ances needed, seemed absurdly out of proportion to 
 the work to be accomplished ; but all this has been 
 wonderfully changed, and the people stand upon the 
 threshold of a new century with resources behind 
 them which cannot but help greatly to hasten the 
 glorious consummation for which they labor and 
 pray. 
 
 In the first place they have money. They are not 
 poor. The Christians of the United States could 
 provide a revenue of $25,000,000 a year for the prose- 
 cution of this holy war and not be conscious of any 
 sacrifice. A tax of two per cent, laid upon ordinary 
 Cliristians in this country is paid without a murmur. 
 A war tax imposed by the King of kings of one third 
 of one per cent, would give the $25,000,000, and 
 leave a large surplus over. The time is near, must 
 be near, when Christians will begin to see that they 
 must give more consistently for tliis cause or else be 
 guilty before God, and from their overflowing treasu- 
 ries they will bring fortli wliat the great work de- 
 mands. The world cannot be converted by a parsi- 
 monious Church. God will not iionor himself by 
 committing such a work to such a people, and we may 
 assume it as certain that if those now intrusted with 
 the work do not do their duty God will thrust them 
 aside and raise up others to do the work for which 
 
The New Missionaey Era. 159 
 
 they prove themselves unworthy. Money is needed, 
 and will be needed, in this work, and needed in vastly 
 increased quantities. Schools and churches, orphan- 
 ages and asylums, hospitals and dispensaries, presses 
 and distributing agencies, must be provided, and pro- 
 vided upon a scale such as we have not dreamed of 
 hitherto. God will call upon his people for many 
 millions, and the signs of the times are so manifest 
 that a blind man cannot help seeing that the churches 
 will be abundantly able to respond to the full demand 
 made upon them. 
 
 But men will be needed as well as money, and in the 
 new era it is evident that men will be found accord- 
 ing to the necessities of the hour. In 1859, a few 
 days after my first landing in India, I went with the 
 four missionary brethren and their wives who made up 
 our party to call on Dr. Duff. The old vetei-an was 
 wondei'fully elated as he saw the party of nine stand- 
 ing before him. " They used to come by twos and 
 threes," he said, " but you bring them by platoons." 
 That was not very long ago, but in our day a party of 
 nine missionaries landing at Calcutta will attract no 
 attention whatever. As many as forty have been 
 known to arrive by a single steamer. And yet this 
 is as nothing compared with what is soon to be. As 
 I said before, all over the world there is a new and 
 extraordinary desire found among young Christians 
 to enlist for service in the mission field. This is a 
 sign of the times. The Church has the men. They 
 can be given for the work ; and as with money so with 
 men, God's demands must be met, and met in full. 
 
 Just here another powerful contingent appears 
 upon the scene, to be added to the resources with 
 
IGO Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ■which we enter upon the new era. For two fnll 
 generations the idea never dawned upon the ininds 
 of the missionary leaders of the Cliurch tliat a special 
 sphere of labor might he found in the foreign field 
 for Christian women. The work, it was assumed, was 
 such as women could not successfully perform. Here 
 and there a lady teacher found her way to the field, 
 and in a general way the wives of missionaries were 
 expected to render assistance in the work ; but no one 
 ever thought of enlisting Christian women in large 
 numbers for this kind of work, and no one dreamed 
 that a time would ever come when it would be found 
 possible to employ such workers in the far-off waste 
 places of the earth. But God has his own plans, and 
 can execute them according to his sovereign will. 
 About thirty years ago the Spirit began to stir up 
 holy women in Europe and America to go forth as 
 missionaries to distant lands, and as they obeyed, and 
 one after another took up the line of march, organi- 
 zations to direct and support them sprang into exist- 
 ence, and almost before the Christian world per- 
 ceived what was going on a new and powerful con- 
 tingent of magnificent workers had joined the grand 
 army already in the field. This new movement is so 
 recent that it seems as if it were but of yesterday, and 
 yet already it has over nine hundred workers in the 
 field, and the number is increasing steadily and rap- 
 idly. These ladies are acquitting themselves splen- 
 didly, and are taking up all departments of mission- 
 ary work. They have greatly strengthened the work- 
 ing forces abroad, and in numerous instances have 
 done much to extend the work. 
 
 This sudden development of woman's work in the 
 
The New Missionary Era. 161 
 
 foreign mission field is so extraordinary that its im- 
 portance is not at all appreciated as yet. In many 
 places it has practically doubled the working force in 
 the field. In the great city of Calcutta, where may 
 be found tlie strongest body of workers in any one 
 place in the heathen world, the majority of the regu- 
 lar workers are ladies, and this bids fair to become the 
 proportion in other great cities, if not in the country 
 districts also, throughout India. Indeed, I do not 
 esitate to say that for practical missionary work theh 
 various woman's societies of Europe and America 
 are better equipped, and give more promise of suc- 
 cessful labor abroad, than all the missionary societies 
 of the world did less than half a century ago. In 
 other words, it looks as if we are about to enter upon 
 the missionary era with our resources in workers 
 doubled almost at a stroke. 
 
 And there is still another contingent appearing in 
 view which bids fair to double this working force 
 again. "When the late Earl of Beaconsfield was in 
 power, and the nations of Europe were in a state of 
 feverish excitement over the Eastern Question and the 
 probability of a general war, a startling sensation was 
 produced by the sudden appearance of a body of Indian 
 sepoj'S on the island of Cyprus. They were few in 
 number, and the exact military duty which they were 
 to perform was not at all apparent, but their some- 
 what dramatic appearance upon the great European 
 war stage was quickly interpreted. It was Lord 
 Beaconsfield's method of reminding Europe that En- 
 gland had an immense military reserve force in the per- 
 sons of her Indian army of several hundred tliousand 
 men. Europe had known of this force before, but had 
 
162 Missionary Addkesses. 
 
 never realized what it meant till those sepo^'s caino 
 through the Suez Canal and landed in Cyprus. In 
 like manner, as we sit down to number our forces at 
 the beginning of this new missionary era it is but 
 fitting that we include the workers raised up from 
 the converts in our mission fields. How many are 
 there? Over thirty thousand! Nearly ten times 
 as many as all the missionaries sent out from Chris- 
 tian lands combined ! And tliis proportion is destined 
 to increase steadily. The thirty thousand will be 
 one hundred thousand long before the close of the 
 first half of the coming century. Compare this with 
 one hundred years ago, and the difference is simply 
 amazing. William Carey had to wait years before he 
 had one convert; his successors to-day find them- 
 selves surrounded and supported by hundreds and 
 thousands of Christian brethren, ready to assist them 
 in their work, or even to go before them and pioneer 
 their difficult way. 
 
 III. This new era demands a reconstruction of 
 plans and methods. — From what has been said 
 any thoughtful person can readil}' see that we can 
 no longer work upon the narrow scale which thus 
 far has been adopted. The practical meaning of 
 the new departure is that the Church is now, for 
 the first time, about to enter in sublime earnest 
 upon her great mission of converting all nations; 
 of saving the world. To do this, or even to attempt 
 so gigantic a task, will require a general change 
 of policy at home and abroad. The conflict before 
 us will differ from that of the past as the great 
 war for the union differed from the war of inde- 
 pendence. The very first of Grant's great battles 
 
The New Missionary Eea. 103 
 
 involved a greater expenditure of powder, ball, and 
 blood, than all the battles of the Revolution combined. 
 In the era before us great conflicts must be waged 
 compared with which all the struggles of the past 
 will seem like so many skirmishes. The devil will not 
 let go his hold upon the great seats of his earthly power 
 without a desperate contest. The missionaries of the 
 new era will have no child's play to engage in ; they 
 will march to no dress parade. Earnest, desperately 
 earnest, work is before them. In all the history of 
 the world, stronger and braver men have never been 
 required for any task than will be needed in the early 
 future for the supreme struggle between the sons of 
 light and the hosts of darkness. Let us then, with 
 this great struggle and with our sublime opportuni- 
 ties in view, see what is needed in the way of new 
 plans and new policies. 
 
 1. It should be assumed at once, and for all time 
 to come, that our missionary forces must be vastly 
 increased. We have resources of men and women, 
 and we must draw upon these freely. It is not to be 
 expected that men enough will be sent abroad to fur- 
 nish a pastor for every village, but we have a right to 
 expect and demand that enough men will be sent to 
 plant Christianity in every center, in the midst of 
 every community. One man cannot do all this work 
 of planting in a given place. The teacher and other 
 laborers follow, or in some cases precede, the preacher, 
 and the conversion of large numbers of heathen often 
 increases the demand for men rather than diminishes 
 it. Conceding as I have already intimated, that in the 
 new era men will attempt more and accomplish more 
 than in the past, the fact remains none the less patent 
 
164 Mission AEY Addresses. 
 
 that God would have his Church use the resources of 
 men and women with which he has so plenteously 
 blessed her. Where we have been heretofore send- 
 ing out one worker we must now send ten. A waste 
 of precious labor is a waste of one of God's most 
 precious treasures. 
 
 In passing through the country I hear the whistle of 
 the engine and notice that the train is slowing up at 
 a way station. I look out and see a pretty little town, 
 and the conductor passing to the door calls outBlank- 
 ville. I take out my railway guide, and find that 
 Blankville contains 1,430 inhabitants. I notice three 
 church spires, which indicate that at least three de- 
 nominations of Christians are planted there. The 
 train moves on, and I begin to reflect that there are 
 three pastors in that little town, and that it is not 
 probable that any one of the three preaches to a 
 moderately full house. It is more probable that they 
 feel a little cramped for working room, that they 
 sometimes jostle one another uncomfortably, and that 
 they are in a large measure wasting their lives for 
 want of room in which to expand the full measure of 
 their energies. Then I say to myself, If those three 
 dear men would only pull up stakes and come with 
 me to India I could find for each one of them a wide 
 enough field. Instead of being one of three to 
 preach to 1,430 souls, I could give each one of them 
 iiis choice of 1,430 towns in not one of which the 
 gospel of Christ has ever been preached ! 
 
 This startling inequality in the division of Chris- 
 tian labor must be corrected. The mission field must 
 have ten men at least for every one now abroad, and 
 must have them at once. If we are really in earnest, 
 
The New Mission aky Eua. 165 
 
 if we really intend and expect to finish tbe task set 
 before us, we must at once re-enforce the men in the 
 field upon a scale comineasurate with the work to be 
 done. If we refuse, if we hoard these resources of 
 men and women, God's law will work as in every 
 parallel case. Hoarding will impoverish. Our men 
 at home will dwindle in numbers, and grow feeble in 
 strength. 
 
 It is well to say, however, that a demand for an 
 immediate increase of workers does not mean— no, not 
 for a moment — that mere numbers will suffice. It 
 does not mean that untrained soldiers should be sent 
 to the front, that men and women and children 
 should be Imrried off without much regard to their 
 ability to succeed in the work which tliey are sent to 
 do. So far from it, the exigencies of the new era 
 demand that the training of workers be begun on a 
 broad scale, and that only trained and tried workers 
 be permanently enlisted. The English government 
 does not send a soldier to India until he has learned 
 his drill, does not send an officer to command until 
 he has passed his examination, and does not send a 
 civilian to administer in the provinces until he has 
 been put through a succession of rigorous tests which 
 reduce the chances of failure to a minimum. In the 
 greater and more important service of the militant 
 Church a similar system should be pursued. It 
 would be wise conomy if our own Church would spend 
 $50,000 a year in training and testing its candidates 
 for missionary service. 
 
 2. Our plans must be enlarged. Only a few years 
 ago our own Church thought it a great thing to attempt 
 the evangelization of seventeen millions in India, but 
 
166 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 God by his providence lias enlarged that task, until 
 now a vast empire waits to receive our workers. A 
 few weeks hence the General Conference will be 
 asked to decide the question of planting a powerful 
 mission in Malaysia, a mission which will have a field 
 embracing fifty millions of people within its bounds. 
 Thus at the very threshold of the new era we are called 
 upon to decide a most momentous question of policy. 
 Shall we contract our lines or extend them? Sliall 
 we sit down in remote little fields, or shall we march 
 across continents? Shall we work on as if we ex- 
 pected the completion of our task 2,000 years hence, 
 or shall we plan for early, and decisive, and complete 
 victory? For one, I cannot but hear the voice of 
 God bidding us plan upon the largest possible scale. 
 We should accept the whole wide world as our field ; 
 we should be more than ready to bear a part in the 
 conquest of every nation under the sun. We should 
 expect before the close of the present generation to 
 see our own Church sustaining not less than one 
 thousand men, and perhaps twice as many women, 
 in the heathen world alone, and our plans should be 
 made to correspond with such an expectation. 
 
 Do I dream ? Is this a wild expectation, founded 
 upon fancy or hasty assumption only ? I am not an 
 old man yet, and yet I can remember well when our 
 Church first entered upon her work among the 
 heathen. Even as late as when I myself became a 
 missionary we had less than ten men in all the vast 
 heathen world. I do not include Liberia, for that 
 was a mission to Christian colonists. What have we 
 done since? We have increased our missionaries 
 slowly enough, and yet we have now nearly one hun- 
 
The New Missionaey Eea. 167 
 
 dred men in Asia alone, and a still larger force of 
 women. Even if we did no more in the future, made 
 no more rapid advance than we have been doing, we 
 would still have one thousand missionaries at work in 
 Asia before the close of the present generation. 
 
 The meaning of all this is plain. The signs of tlie 
 times, the lessons of the past, the indications of the 
 future, the call of providence, and the voices which 
 come borne to us by every breeze, and from every 
 nation under heaven, all alike bid us lay our plans 
 upon a scale worthy of men who expect to conquer a 
 world. The Christian policy of siich an age as ours, 
 to be Christian, must be imperial. We do not belong 
 to a Roman empire ; we are heirs to the empire of 
 the world. Augustus was a great ruler in his day, 
 but he would be a second or a third rate potentate in 
 our stirring age. God gave Paul a magnificent field 
 in which to move and act, but he gives us one twelve 
 times as populous, twenty times as large, and a hun- 
 dred times more fruitful of every resource which can 
 make a Christian empire great and good and glori- 
 ous. This is no age in which to sustain little feeble 
 mission stations in remote corners of the earth, with- 
 out plan, without method, planted without expecta- 
 tion of large success, and carried on without hope of 
 early or even ultimate victory. Again I say, the 
 policy demanded is an imperial policy. The king- 
 doms of this world are to become the kingdoms of 
 our Lord, and the time has fully come for his servants 
 to go forth, and in his royal name assert his royal 
 claim to every crown and every throne. 
 
 3. These enlarged plans must include what might 
 be termed internal development as well as external 
 
168 Missionary Addkesses. 
 
 expansion. A large plan does not necessarily mean 
 one of vast circumference. It must not be only 
 broad and wide, but deep and high. It must include 
 the highest and best results, as well as those capable 
 of the largest euuraeration. We must plan for the 
 future Christianity of a nation as well as for its con- 
 version. Hence we must expand our definition of 
 the word education, and enlarge the capacity of our 
 mission presses. 
 
 With regard to this latter agencj', I am bound to 
 say that nothing in all the wide range of missionary 
 operations in modern times has so surprised me, and 
 nothing to this day seems so utterly unaccountable, 
 as the almost universal, deliberate, and persistent 
 neglect of the press as a powerful missionary agency. 
 Here and there you may see a mission-press, but 
 nearly always conducted on a narrow basis, badly 
 equipped, half-starved, and intended only for the im- 
 mediate wants of a limited missionary constituency. 
 The idea of making it a powerful aggressive agency, 
 of using it as the world uses it and as the devil uses 
 it, of recognizing its power, and utilizing its power, 
 never seems to have dawned upon the good but un- 
 wise children of' light who have been intrusted with 
 the administration of the great missionary societies of 
 the world. In the new era this error miost be cor- 
 rected. The press must be worked for all that it is 
 worth, and it is worth more than can be expressed in 
 ^ords and figures. 
 
 Education, too, must be put on a broader basis. 
 We shall have more to do than merely teach re- 
 claimed savages how to read the Bible. We are 
 working among some of the most intellectual races 
 
The New Missionary Eea. 169 
 
 on the globe. We are raising np Cliristians who will 
 need to have as carefully educated minds as can be 
 found in any land. We must have in all the rising 
 Christian empires of- the East men whose mental 
 equipment will fit them for noble service in any de- 
 partment of intellectual effort. We cannot educate 
 all such men, generation after generation, but we can 
 sow the seeds now out of which such an education 
 will grow. In other words, we must educate, in the 
 highest and best sense of the word, a race of intellect- 
 ual pioneers, a class of men who will take up this task 
 themselves in due time, and carry it on through com- 
 ing generations. We have organized a thousand ele- 
 mentary schools in foreign lands, and in doing so we 
 liave done a noble work, but in the new era we must 
 build the college as well as the school, and foster the 
 highest education as well as the lowest. 
 
 i. It only remains to say, what perhaps might go 
 without saying at all, that in the new era God's peo- 
 ple must pour out treasure as they have never done 
 before. We have seen that they have the ti-easure, 
 that the Church is not wanting in financial resources. 
 It must be a settled policy in entering upon this era 
 that the Church ought to make this advance, and a 
 settled article of faith that she will make it. Twenty 
 years ago I stood with a brother missionary upon the 
 grassy summit of one of the lower Himalayan peaks. 
 We were near the separating boimdary line of two 
 mountain provinces. We were about to part, and 
 were earnestly discussing some plans pertaining to 
 the future of our work. I looked out over the great 
 mountain ranges, gazed northward, and then turning 
 round swept in within my radius of vision a country 
 
170 Mission AEY Addeesses. 
 
 larger than a New England State, and as I thought 
 of three hundred thousand precious souls living on 
 those mountain slopes I said, " For such a field our 
 Church will not refuse to give us at least three men. 
 Plan accordingly. Assume that the work will be 
 carried on upon such a scale. Our Church will not 
 do less." 
 
 That was twenty years ago, and in the years which 
 have since elapsed I have often had in vision tu climb 
 higher mountains than any found in the Himalayan 
 range, and gaze out over provinces, and nations, and 
 empires, and ask myself on what basis God would 
 have me lay my plans. I must confess that too 
 often, and far too long, I shrank back at such times 
 and thought of the beggarly revenue with which we 
 were expected to fight campaigns and found em- 
 pires. If Grod will forgive me I shall shrink back 
 no more. We sometimes sing : 
 
 " My Father is rich in houses and lands." 
 
 Our Father's Church is rich also, and we must enter' 
 the new missionary era with a settled faith that she 
 will speedily learn to dispense her bounty as becomes 
 a royal princess of heaven's realm. Her bountj'^ in 
 the past has been unworthy of a princess, a positive 
 reproach to the name of Him who has commissioned 
 his people to save the nations. May that reproach 
 soon be rolled away, completely and forever. 
 
The Woeld's Pentecost. 171 
 
 THE WORLD'S PENTECOST. 
 
 THE Christian world has long been accustomed to 
 take a very limited view of the great event re- 
 corded in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. 
 Pentecost is usually regarded as a primitive prayer- 
 meeting of an extraordinary character — a meeting 
 which was attended by some very unusual manifesta- 
 tions, and followed by some remarkable results— but, 
 after all, as but a prayer-meeting, and as not essen- 
 tially more important than any one of a million of 
 similar meetings which have been held since. A 
 more inadequate view could hardly be taken of any 
 past event. So far from being a mere early prayer- 
 meeting, held in Jerusalem under extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances, Pentecost stands out in God's clear light 
 as one of the great headlands of history. It was the 
 real starting point of Christianity. It was an exhibi- 
 tion both of the potency and the promise with which 
 God endowed the new faith as it entered upon the 
 active stage of its career among men. It was the 
 opening chapter of a new dispensation, the full sun- 
 rise of the morning whose dawn had been mellowing 
 earth's eastern sky for seven thrilling weeks. It was 
 the initiation upon a permanent basis of Christ's 
 great work on earth, an illustration of its feasibility, 
 and a pledge of its final consnmmation. Pentecost is 
 thus made to stand in a very near and very practical 
 relation to the great missionary enterprise, and it will 
 12 
 
172 MissioNAKY Addkessks. 
 
 greatly assist us in prosecuting tliis grand work if we 
 curefuliy study this event, especially in its pi'actical 
 liearings, and in its relation to the greatest of all 
 human undertakings in ancient or modern times. 
 
 I. What was Pentecost ? 
 
 What was the full meaning of the manifestation 
 made on that morning, and what lessons were taught 
 by the events which followed ? 
 
 1. In the first place, it was the inauguration of a 
 new dispensation. The present is sometimes, but not 
 very correctly, called the dispensation of the Holy 
 Spirit, and is made to date from the morning on which 
 the Spirit in full measure was given. It would be 
 more correct to say that this is the Christian dispensa- 
 tion, and that the gift of the Spirit completed its in- 
 auguration. The work was not done when Jesus cried 
 on the cross, " It is finished ! " One stage had been 
 completed, but only one. Nor was it done when the 
 risen Saviour came forth from the tomb and proclaimed 
 his victory over death and the grave. The great work 
 was hastening to its glorious consummation, but the 
 end was not yet. Olivet followed with its glory, but 
 the ascension was not the final act. From his throne 
 in heaven Jesus was to issue the word of power which 
 was to complete the inauguration of his dispensation 
 among men, and when the Spirit came, when the dis- 
 ciples in the fullest sense were made temples of the 
 living God, when Jesus personally became manifested 
 to each and every follower, in each and every place, 
 at all times, and for all ages, when the ministry of 
 Galilee was expanded into the ministry of the whole 
 ciirth, and tlie highest elements of spiritual power 
 were made a permanent gift to all believers, then, and 
 
The Woei.d's Pentecost. 173 
 
 only tlien, was the dispensation of Jesus Christ, tlio 
 dispensation of the New Covenant, fully established 
 among men. This is indeed the dispensation of tlie 
 Holy Spirit, but it is also more than this. It is, in 
 the broadest sense, the New Dispensation — the dis- 
 pensation of grace and truth spoken of by the beloved 
 disciple, the dispensation in which the world's Messiah 
 .supersedes the lawgiver of the Jewish nation. 
 
 2. Pentecost was the initiation of a new work. 
 Jesus had showed his disciples how to preach, had 
 given them a formal initiation into that work, but the 
 preacher's power had not yet been displayed, and the 
 work had not yet been projected upon the world's 
 broad stage. That was done in a most remarkable 
 way upon the eventful morning of Pentecost. The 
 gift of tongues and, more especially, the appearance 
 of tongues of living flame upon each disciple were 
 intended to teach two lessons : first, the momentous 
 fact that in the new dispensation the spoken word was 
 to be the chosen medium of truth and blessing, the 
 human tongue being made to speak for God ; and, 
 second, the power to speak in the tongue of every 
 nation represented in the city was a promise of the 
 coming day when the Gospel of Jesus Christ should 
 be preached in every language of earth. The great 
 work of preaching the Gospel to the nations was 
 tltus formally initiated with extraordinary results, and 
 with a sublime token of God's immediate presence 
 and power. Nor was it the initiation of the work of 
 preaching alone. It was the beginning of active 
 Christian work in all its phases — -the first master- 
 stroke in the great struggle which was to go on till 
 the work of earth's redemption should be completed. 
 
174 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Tlic tongue of flame was not alone for the formal 
 preacher, but it sat upon every disciple. In all the 
 world, ill every age and clime, all the followers 
 of the common Master were to share his work, 
 and in and through them he was to pull down and 
 build up, to turn and overturn, to kill and make 
 alive, until judgment should be sent forth to its final 
 victory. 
 
 3. Pentecost was the bestowal of new and enlarged 
 spiritual gifts and graces. The tone of piety had 
 hitherto been low. The standard of holy living had 
 been low. The age of dim shadows had just closed, 
 and the substance, the reality, the grace and truth of 
 the Gospel, were to shine forth in the clear light of 
 the new day. The fruits of the Spirit were to ripen in 
 every believer's heart, and enrich and beautify every 
 believer's life. The life of Jesus Christ on earth was 
 to reappear in the life of every disciple. All this was 
 made real when the Spirit came upon the band of 
 praying disciples in that little upper room. A ne^v 
 spiritual life was bestowed, and its power and fruits 
 were henceforth to be exhibited before men. 
 
 And with the grace of the Spirit came also the gift 
 of the Spirit. The disciples were equipped for the 
 work which they were to do. Priceless gifts were put 
 in their possession, each of which was to play a part in 
 the performance of the great work committed into 
 their hands. The power to speak with tongues was 
 for the moment the most prominent of these, but it 
 was by no means the most valuable. The highest 
 gift was that of prophecy, or the power to speak by 
 the special aid of the Spirit. The gift of miracles, the 
 gift of healing, the gift of tongues, all these took 
 
The Woeld's Pentecost. 175 
 
 secondary places. The gift of prophecy, or preach- 
 ing, the gift of special faith, of spiritual discernment, 
 of teaching, of prayer, of exhortation, of the evangel- 
 ist and the pastor — all these were endowments of the 
 Spirit which fitted eacli happy recipient for the full 
 measure of duty required in, the particular sphere as- 
 signed to him. ISTothing was lacking. Not only did 
 each receive what he personally needed, but the om- 
 niscient Spirit so made the distribution that the body 
 of Christians present were fully equipped for the 
 magnificent career upon which they were about to 
 enter. 
 
 4. Pentecost was an exhibition of the full measure 
 of spiritual power. The special promise of Jesus in 
 reference to this event connected it almost wholly 
 with this special feature. Other gifts were distrib- 
 uted, but this was the gift of all. Other gifts had 
 their value, but this made them all effective. For all 
 ages to come, divine power was to accompany Ohi'is- 
 tian workers, and in the fulfillment of tlie great com- 
 mission to evangelize the race this gift of power was 
 to be especially prominent. Peter, standing up like a 
 new Elijah, with face radiant with joy, and heart glow- 
 ing with fervid love, hewing and cleaving the multi- 
 tude before him with the sword of truth, was the first 
 of a long line of Christian prophets who were to 
 preach the Gospel of Christ with power sent down 
 f I'om heaven. And the little assembly of believers, 
 each witnessing to the inquiring multitude, was the 
 forerunner of millions upon millions of other assem- 
 blies upon wiiich, in after ages, the power of the Spirit 
 should descend. This power was a permanent gift, 
 and on that eventful morning God gave a formal ex- 
 
176 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 liibition of it which should arrest and hold the atten- 
 tion of his Church in all the generations which were 
 to follow. 
 
 5. Pentecost was the creation, or, perhaps more 
 properly, the manifestation, of the ideal Christian 
 Church. The little Church of Pentecost had a brief 
 but brilliant career. It should never be confounded 
 with the later Church, of which James was bisiiop. 
 It was utterly broken up at the martyi-dom of Stephen, 
 and never reorganized on its primitive basis. It 
 was truly a glorious Church. During its brief day 
 of four, or possibly seven, years, God dwelt among 
 and in his people. Christian unity, fraternal love, 
 and the highest type of Christian living were ex- 
 hibited on a scale such as the world has never wit- 
 nessed since. Christian communism was put into 
 practical operation on a basis which was the exact 
 opposite of the pernicious doctrine which bears that 
 name in our day, the inspiration of the one being 
 self-denying love and of the other grasping se^lfish- 
 ness. No wonder that great power rested upon the 
 little Church, and that the first Christians enjoyed the 
 praise of all people. 
 
 The Church of Pentecost has disappeared ; but, for 
 one, I do not, and cannot, believe that it has vanished 
 forever. We read of it as of an old event, and look 
 back upon it as if to take a last view of a beautiful 
 picture fading in the receding distance. It is not a 
 last view. I verily believe that God has lifted that 
 glorious picture of a spotless Church, and placed it 
 in the forefront of his advancing hosts, and hence- 
 forth it becomes a practical ideal to which we are 
 to approach, instead of a vision of beauty from 
 
The World's Pentecost. 177 
 
 wliicli we are forever to recede. The details may 
 differ, but in outline, at least, that glorious Church 
 is to reappear again on earth. Christians are to be- 
 come one great brotherhood in very deed, and the 
 sweetness, and light, and power of the Christian 
 life are to exhale every-where, like the sweetness of 
 tiie myriad flowers which deck the bosom of our fair 
 earth. 
 
 II. The permanent and the transient in Pente- 
 cost. 
 
 At this point it will b3 necessary to examine care- ' 
 fully how far the element of permanency enters into 
 the various manifestations which accompanied the 
 first descent of the Spirit upon the Christian Church. 
 What was permanent and what transient among the 
 gifts bestowed and the wonders displayed % 
 
 1. One cause of the light esteem in which Pente- 
 cost is held by so many is the very common impres- 
 sion that it was a special event, and that all, or nearly 
 all, the peculiar manifestations connected with it were 
 transitory. It is assumed that as tongues of flame no 
 longer appear, and as disciples are no longer empow- 
 ered to speak in unknown tongues, so all the other gifts, 
 and all the special graces, bestowed on that occasion 
 were for that time only, and have no special signili- 
 cance to us. This is a very great and very sad mis- 
 take. If there is any one truth taught in the New 
 Testament which we need to emphasize it is the 
 Saviour's assurance that when the Paraclete should 
 come it would be to abide forever. On the morning 
 of Pentecost the bright river of life, which John saw 
 proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, 
 burst forth in its earthward flow, and it has been 
 
178 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 flowing in fullest measure ever since. The Holy 
 Spirit in his fullness is a permanent gift. 
 
 But while the Paraclete has come among us to 
 abide, all the manifestations of the first morning of 
 blessing have not been permanent. Some of those 
 first gifts were permanent and some transient. The 
 graces were all periiiauent, as abiding and unchang- 
 ing as their unchanging Source. But among the 
 gifts we must distinguish between those given as a 
 seal upon a great epochal event, and an attestation of 
 God's presence in an age when revelation was still 
 incomplete, and those other gifts whicli belong to the 
 Christian all through the dispensation, and whicli are 
 essential to the prosecution of the work which God 
 lias given his people to do. Msiking this distinction, 
 we at once cease to look for the appearance of tongues 
 of flame, or to listen for the sound of a mighty rush- 
 ing wind. We find no necessity for these tokens, 
 and we cease to expect them. And as we cease to 
 look for these signs we must in all consistency give 
 up all thought of expecting any manifestations which 
 are strictly miraculous. The wonderful will remain, 
 the preternatural, and the supernatural, but in the 
 strict interpretation of the word we need not expect 
 the miraculous to appear. The spiritually miraculous 
 will remain, the divine element will remain, and all 
 purely spiritual gifts will remain. 
 
 2. The discussion of this question of the perma- 
 nent and the transient in Pentecost really turns upon 
 an examination of facts.' As a matter of fact certain 
 features of the first Pentecost have disappeared, and 
 certain other features abide. It will not do to say 
 that it is the defective faith of the Church which 
 
The World's Pentecost. 179 
 
 causes the disappearance of these features, for it is a 
 striking fact that it is the most precious of all bless- 
 ings given which still abide. Weak faith forfeits the 
 highest blessings first. But the richest blessings 
 given on the morning of Pentecost are still the 
 heritage of the Church, and attest the fact that God 
 still has a faithful and believing people. 
 
 3. The disappearance of the gift of tongues has occa- 
 sioned no little disquiet in the minds of many, espe- 
 cially those who have supposed that this gift was orig- 
 inally bestowed for missionary purposes. We often 
 iiear it said that modern missionaries do not enjoy the 
 immense advantage which the apostles did of being 
 able to speak in each and every tongue which they 
 encountered, but it is certain that the Gospel was not 
 ordinarily preached under the influence of this pe- 
 culiar afflatus. Paul tells us that God gave this 
 power of speaking in unknown tongues as a " sign " 
 to unbelievers, and, so far from having preachers em- 
 powered to speak directly to people of any one of a 
 dozen nationalities, Paul gave direction to have an 
 interpreter provided for the man speaking in an un- 
 known tongue, that the people might be able to un- 
 derstand him. The first missionaries, like those of 
 the present day, encountered the language difficulty 
 in all its formidable proportions, and if the ancient 
 gift of tongues were to return again to God's people 
 it would not lighten the labors of missionaries go- 
 in o; to foi'eign fields the smallest degree. 
 
 4. In looking for permanent features of this great 
 visitation from on high, we cannot bnt be struck by 
 the appearance of other pentecosts. At Samaria God 
 gave Peter and John a token which might have led 
 
IS.) Missionary Addresses. 
 
 tliein to think of a wide expansion of this blessing, 
 but it was not understood. Then at Cesarea Peter 
 received a second gracious intimation of God's pur- 
 pose, but neither he nor his brethren gave full heed to 
 the lesson. Some years passed away, and again in the 
 great city of Epliesus, while Paul was expounding the 
 promise of the Spirit to a dozen disciples, the old 
 scene of the first morning, without, however, its out- 
 ward sign, was re-enacted, and this time a man stood 
 forth who knew how to follow such an indication as 
 this afforded. That great missionary held the disciples 
 together, taught them to use the gifts imparted to them, 
 extended the work, and soon produced such a scene 
 of spiritual activity as has not yet been witnessed in 
 the growing Christian Church. Two years of such 
 labor, pusiied forward under the powerful stimulus of 
 that little pentecostal beginning, sufficed to rouse the 
 whole city, to shake its idolatry to its very founda- 
 tions, and to produce a profound impression upon 
 all the region round about. This case of the little 
 pentecost at Ephesus, with its immense results, in- 
 troduces us to the missionary bearing of the whole 
 question. In a mission field, under the labors of the 
 greatest missionary of the age, God showed what 
 could be done, and what in any age might be done, 
 by a repetition upon a larger or smaller scale of the 
 great scene described in the second chapter of Acts. 
 Just here we must pause long enough to explain 
 that these minor or later pentecosts differed from the 
 first in several particulars. They were repetitions of 
 certain features only of Pentecost. They marked 
 the beginning of no dispensation, they brought no 
 new gifts, they introduced nothing new of any kind. 
 
Thk Woeld's Pentecost. ISl 
 
 Tliey -were simply a continuation of what had begun, 
 a part of the current of the river which had been 
 flowing steadily all through the intervening years. 
 The original gathering in the upper room was a 
 prayer-meeting, and as a prayer-meeting it will stand 
 as a model to Christians in every age. The outpour- 
 ing of the Spirit upon those first disciples may be 
 repeated in the case of others a thousand or a million 
 times as the centuries go by, but these repeated 
 scenes of blessing, so much like repetitions of the 
 first great Pentecost, detract nothing from the tran- 
 scendent importance of that event, and change noth- 
 ing in the cliaracter which has been assigned to it. 
 
 III. Let us next consider Pentecost in the hearings 
 upon the missionary enterprise. 
 
 The story of the extraordinary revival at Epliesus, 
 with its far-reaching results, starting as it did from a 
 repetition upon a very small scale of the scene in the 
 upper room at Jerusalem, has a most important bear- 
 ing upon missionary work in our own day, and ought 
 to stir the hearts of all workers to their profoundest 
 depths. What happened then may happen again, and 
 indeed has happened again in its essential features, in 
 modern cities as large and as important as Ephesus 
 was in the days of her greatest prosperity. Let us 
 consider for a moment the possibilities which this 
 statement opens up before us. 
 
 1. Let us suppose that instead of one Epliesus and 
 one little meeting we witness a tliousand such all at 
 once, or in rapid succession, in a thousand of the most 
 influential cities of the globe. If Paul's little meeting 
 shook the great city of Ephesus and all tlie adjacent 
 provinces with the power of a moral earthquake in 
 
1S2 Missionary Addeesses. 
 
 the short space of two years, would not a thousand 
 similar movements in our own day send a quiver 
 round the globe, and shake the nations to their very 
 foundations ? Does not the very mention of such a 
 possibility seeui to put missionary enterprise upon a 
 new basis, reduce the magnitude of the task before us, 
 and increase the resources of the Christian Church a 
 thousand-fold ? 
 
 Now this supposed possibility is the practical 
 reality toward which God is leading his people. In 
 the upper chamber and at Ephesus alike, the prelimi- 
 nary condition was the collecting together in one as- 
 sembly of a number of believers, with one mind, one 
 heart, and one faith. They were a prepared people, 
 prepared as earthen vessels to receive the expected 
 treasure, prepared as obedient servants to discharge 
 the new and amazing obligations which were to be laid 
 upon them. In our day God is preparing and scat- 
 tering over the earth many believing bands of like 
 character. I have said that a thousand such, scattered 
 over the earth, if filled with the Spirit in pentecostal 
 measure, would make the very earth tremble ; would 
 send a quiver all through the human race. But God is 
 preparing more, many more, than a thousand such 
 bauds for his great day of blessing. At this very hour 
 there are probably one hundred thousand such bands, 
 or at least bands of true Christian believers, scattered 
 over the world, all waiting on God, all believing in the 
 Holy Spirit, all prepared when the signal is given to 
 startle the communities in which they live by signal 
 displays of new spiritual power. I say one hundred 
 thousand, but the number is probably greater. If we 
 enumerated all evangelical Churches the number 
 
The Wokld's Pentecost. 183 
 
 would be greater, but as many of these are formal and 
 almost lifeless, without expectation of blessing and 
 unprepared for service, they cannot be considered in 
 such a calculation. But on tlie other hand there are 
 many, very many, bands of true and earnest believers 
 not formally connected with any Chui-ch, that is, not 
 as bands, although the members may be as individ- 
 uals. Put all these into the estimate and the number 
 would probably exceed one hundred thousand. And 
 this number is increasing rapidly, and the dispersion 
 is becoming wider every year. China and India have 
 become dotted all over with such little companies, and 
 soon the progress of others like them will be ascend- 
 ing from the depths of Africa, and from almost every 
 valley and mountain slope on the face of the earth. 
 
 2. Whatever we may say or think as to the possi- 
 bility of a great pentecost upon all these bands, the 
 fact that God has prepared them, is still preparing 
 them, and that they are becoming dispersed all over 
 the globe, is too full of significance to be overlooked. 
 Nor is it necessary to seek for special proof of God's 
 purpose. In every case, in all ages, and in all lands, 
 God's purpose in associating believers together is that 
 their united faith may be used, and their common 
 blessings shared, and the divine glory revealed in and 
 through them. If there were no race to be saved 
 each believing band would still need its pentecost, 
 and hence we dare not doubt that God intends every 
 little and every great flock of disciples in all the wide 
 world to be enriched with blessing, and crowned 
 with glory, and robed with power, as were the hand- 
 ful of disciples at Ephesus. But we have a more 
 sure word of promise. The mouth of Jehovah hath 
 
184- Missionary Addeksses. 
 
 spoken it, that the Spirit of God ia to be poured out 
 upon all flesh, and we cannot doubt, as we see God 
 preparing the way before us, that the whole wide 
 world is being set in order, like another Jerusalem, 
 for such a manifestation of the Spirit as shall con- 
 found all nations and call forth the stricken cry from 
 millions upon millions, "Men and brethren, what shall 
 we do?" 
 
 3. Will this great outpouring upon the nations 
 come on a single morning, or will it be a constant 
 succession of similar events extending over a cen- 
 tury or an era? Shall we reach a time, perhaps very 
 soon, when by the electric wire all believers on the 
 globe can be summoned at a fixed hour to the mercy- 
 seat, so that the expectant faith of all Christians may 
 be united at a given moment in looking up to God, 
 and are we to expect that every-where, in the same 
 moment of time, the blessing will descend on all 
 alike ? Or shall we go on maintaining our faith, 
 cherishing our expectancy, and hearing every morn- 
 ing tidings from near and from far of towns and. 
 cities and nations being shaken by visitations from 
 on high ? I do not pretend to answer such questions 
 as these, God sometimes reveals his purposes to 
 men, but so far as times and seasons and methods and 
 details are concerned we are left in ignorance, and 
 are wise if we do not try too anxiously to peer behind 
 the veil which hides the future from our sight. 
 
 But while we may not know the day nor the hour 
 of such an event, it does certainly assist our faith 
 and kindle our zeal to contemplate tlie event as one, 
 and to look for its realization as if all Christians in 
 the world were collected in one assembly and waiting 
 
The World's Pentecost. 1S5 
 
 for tlie expected blessing to descend, as of old, as 
 suddenly as if it were the voice of the living God. 
 The week of prayer, now so universally observed, was 
 originally suggested with this idea in mind. It is 
 not generally known that the idea of a week of united 
 prayer was originally a missionary conception. The 
 first call was issued from a mission field, and was 
 written by the late Dr. J. H. Morrison, 'of the Amer- 
 can Presbyterian Mission in North India. The 
 thought of that eminent man was that the whole 
 Christian world might be united in earnest prayer for 
 the promised outpouring of the Spirit upon all na- 
 tions, and the first call made mention of this as tiie 
 sole object of the united petitions before the throne 
 of mercy. It was a sublime idea, and it is a thousand 
 thousand pities that it was so soon set aside. Tlie 
 Evangelical Alliance at an early day assumed the man- 
 agement of this great movement, and in the hands of 
 men, some of whom did not know what a prayer- 
 meeting meant, and wlio did not dream that a pente- 
 costal scene had appeared on earth for eighteen cent- 
 uries, the grand idea of Dr. Morrison was quickly 
 thrust aside, and so completely thrust aside that at 
 least on one occasion the annual call contained no al- 
 lusion to the Holy Spirit at all ! It is time to insist 
 on a reform in this respect. The work of united 
 prayer — a prayer in which all the nations unite — 
 ought, in the very nature of the case, to be a mission- 
 ary week, a week of missionary prayer. It is a week 
 of prayer for the world, and for sucli a world as ours 
 prayer can hardly be other than missionary in its 
 character. It ought to be prayer, too, for the fall and 
 final outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for this is the 
 
ISO Missionary Addkksses. 
 
 consummation of all missionary labor, the realization 
 of all missionary faith and hope. 
 
 4. This hope of a world's pentecost, and especially 
 its connection with the work of the world's conver- 
 sion, puts a new meaning into the word missionary. 
 A missionary is usually regarded as a good kind of a 
 man engaged with indifferent success in doing an 
 impossible work. He is saving a few fellow-creatures 
 from a wreck which is fast sinking, but he succeeds 
 in saving but a few. He is trying to stem a flood- 
 tide of wickedness which rises faster every year, and 
 he is doomed to certain failure. Of all human tasks 
 his is usually regarded as the most hopeless. As a 
 good man once expressed it to me, " You are doing a 
 good work, and I respect and honor you for it, but I 
 must say it seems like trying to dip out the water of 
 the ocean with a tea-cup." As if Moses had to use 
 a tea-cup to clear the water out of his way when he 
 crossed the Red Sea ! God did the work, and yet if 
 there had been no Moses there the work would not 
 have been done. The missionary's chief work, his ul- 
 timate work, is that of preparing agencies for the 
 divine co-operation. A century ago men could not 
 have believed that huge steamers would soon plow the 
 ocean in the very eye of the fiercest wind, that heavy 
 cars would fly over the country as if on wings, that 
 they would plunge through mountains or scale their 
 summits, and all the year round move over the world 
 with the ease and precision of a clock on the mantel- 
 piece. In those dull days no boy in the world seemed 
 more idly employed than the little Scotch lad watch- 
 ing the lid of his mother's kettle rising and falling 
 by the force of steam. And yet tliat boy was equal 
 
The World's Pentecost. 187 
 
 to any hundred million men at that time living on the 
 globe. He was to teach men how to co-operate with 
 the tremendous natural forces which surrounded them 
 on every hand, and in doing so was to revolutionize 
 the industi'ial world. 
 
 The missionary is no dreamer. He is a practical 
 man. His vision pierces the heavens above him and 
 penetrates far into the dim regions before him. He 
 sees the hand of (jod upon the nations. He reads 
 the promise of God in letters of light ever before 
 him. He knows that he is surrounded by omnipotent 
 spiritual forces, by co-operating with which the relig- 
 ions world can be revolutionized. His mission is in- 
 deed to save men, but his iiltimate mission is to pre- 
 pare effective agencies tiirough which the great 
 spiritual forces of Christ's kingdom can be made to 
 co-operate in the work of the salvation of the race. 
 He never forgets that a Christian in liis best estate is 
 but a co-worker with God, and lie applies this law of 
 the kingdom of grace in all its length and breadth to 
 the work which he has in hand. He has surveyed the 
 work before him, has studied the situation carefully, 
 has grasped the full magnitude of his task, but he has 
 done more than this. He has studied the resources 
 of liis Master, has weighed the spiritual against the 
 material, and has calculated the changed conditions of 
 the moral world when a Stephen shall walk the street 
 of every village, when a Paul shall reason in every 
 college, when an Apollos shall preach in every cathe- 
 dral, and when a Niagara of blessing shall pour down 
 where now there flows only the silent little rill. He 
 is working for coming years, building for future 
 generations, and of all human workmanship none will 
 
188 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 be found, when tested by time and change, to be 
 more abiding than his. 
 
 5. This hope of a world's pentecost furnishes an 
 effectual reply to what might be called a new gospel 
 of despair, an affirmation, and too often a proclama- 
 tion, of tlie inefficiency of the Gospel. The very 
 foundations of the faith and zeal of thousands are 
 sapped by a doctrine somewhat like this : that where 
 grace abounded sin did much more abound ; that 
 mighty as is Jesus to save, Satan is still mightier to 
 destroy ; that great as are the victories of the cross, 
 the triumphs of the serpent are greater ; and that, de- 
 spite all that God and holy men are doing, or can do, 
 the world is growing worse, and is hastening to its 
 doom. The Gospel has failed, is failing, and must 
 continue to fail even unto the end. It is easy to un- 
 derstand how plausible such views may be made to 
 appear, especially to those who labor hard and long 
 without sign of fruit ; who see sin enthroned in the 
 world's high places, and who see iniquity in a thou- 
 sand forms running riot among the perishing multi- 
 tudes of earth ; but, no matter how easy it is to ac- 
 count for such mistaken views, it is high time to cor- 
 rect them. It is more than time to proclaim to the 
 ends of the earth that the power of the Gospel of 
 Christ has never yet been fully tested, has never been 
 half tested, and tliat tlie great victories of the cross 
 are still in the futui-e. The power that came to earth 
 on the morning of .Pentecost has never been in- 
 creased, and never can be increased, but it has never 
 yet been utilized' in full measure by the universal 
 Cbnrch of God, and until it is so utilized it is useless 
 to talk about a limit to Christian ^possibilities. The 
 
The Woeld's Pentecost. 189 
 
 manufacturer who builds his mill at the edge of Ni- 
 agara has no riglit to talk about want of power in the 
 stream until he connects his machinery with the cata- 
 ract. The doleful cry of those who insist on giving 
 up the struggle, and who maintain that the Gospel 
 cannot win its way among all nations and was never 
 intended to save all nations, is prompted by the mis- 
 taken notion that the resources of Pentecost are ex- 
 hausted, that the Gospel has already done its best, and 
 that it is useless to hope for victory to rise out of the 
 ashes of failure. 
 
 Over against this mournful and harmful error we 
 should set up our banner inscribed with the motto, 
 " Grace abounds." We should look back at Pente- 
 cost and take new hope and new courage. Beautiful 
 as is the picture which it presents to our view, it is 
 but an opening flower. It conceals more of beanty, 
 and sweetness, and grace, and power than it displays. 
 The great social problems of the day are to be solved 
 by it, the bitter streams of human life sweetened by 
 it, the dark places of the earth illuminated by its 
 brightness. To say that the idols shall all be thrown 
 down is to say but little indeed. The great sins of 
 the nations, the abominations of mankind, the flaunt- 
 ing wickedness of men, the oppression of the poor, 
 the crimes which defy heaven, and darken earth for 
 evermore, the whole viper brood of black iniquities 
 taught to the race by the prince of darkness, shall be 
 nprooted and destroyed, and the Prince of Peace shall 
 in very deed reign over the children of men. 
 
 6. JSTot only many Christian thinkers, but many 
 who think little of Christianity as a permanent factor 
 in the development of the race, look with gloomy 
 
190 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 apprehension at the rapid changes which are taking 
 place in the social world. Sometimes it looks as if 
 we would soon have to recast our modern civilization. 
 All manner of forces seem abnormally active. The 
 man of toil begins to speak in a tone never heard 
 from his lips before. The man of wealth widens and 
 deepens the gulf which separates between him and 
 his fellow-men, and the man of poverty gazes at him 
 across the gulf in sullen defiance. Social madmen 
 put out their eyes, and then grope around in 
 search of huge supporting pillars which they may 
 pull down upon innocent and guilty, and thus invoke 
 ruin for ruin's sake. Man deserts the sweet and 
 beautiful country, and busies himself in the noisome 
 city. Yast multitudes of young people are growing 
 up in habits of dangerous vice. Strange doctrines 
 are heard on every hand, and thoughtful men are 
 disquieted more and more as they open their eyes 
 every morning to see some new token of change, 
 some new menace to what we have regarded as our 
 settled civilization. 
 
 That we are living in the midst of portentous 
 changes, and on the eve of great events, is but too 
 evident. But to the Christian there ought to be in 
 all this no ground of discouragement, much less of 
 despair. God knew of all these changes, of all this 
 ferment, of all the necessities of the crisis, before he 
 appointed the date of Pentecost, and before he fixed 
 the measure, or filled out the list of blessings to be 
 vouchsafed to the race in connection with it. As 
 has often been said, God is never taken by surprise. 
 What the Gospel can do for the world is yet to be 
 seen. It is quite possible that amazing changes will 
 
The World's Pentecost. 191 
 
 be introduced into onr civilization, but why must we 
 assume that they will all be for the worse? Why 
 not, in the spirit of Christian hope, look for a healing 
 of social ills, a lessening of human woes, and a sweet- 
 ening of human sorrows ? For one, I look toward the 
 future with a calm expectation of a better time com- 
 ing. I live in the confident assurance that in Pente- 
 cost God included abundant provision for every spir- 
 itual emergency to the end of time, and that instead 
 of yielding to despair we should seek for help and 
 guidance at the only source of help to which we 
 can go. 
 
 It has long seemed to me that as Christians we are 
 inclined to be a little ashamed of the history of the 
 Church of Pentecost. The words communism and 
 socialism are terms of evil omen in our generation, 
 and hence we incline to shrink from commending 
 th« example of the first Christians, who had all things 
 in common. The explanations of this phase of their 
 social life by some commentators would be ludicrous 
 if they were not pitiable. The poor Christians of 
 that day — as magnificent men as ever trod the earth 
 — are said to have been simple, child-like people who 
 fell into a great error. They knew no better ! They 
 set us no example, and we must not imitate them 
 lest we become socialists ! I cannot here discuss this 
 question, but may only say that every line of that 
 brief history is precious, and is worthy of most 
 prayerful study. The early Christians knew nothing 
 of modern socialism, but they knew and to a large 
 extent brought into active operation the socialism of 
 love. That their example will ever be copied in full 
 is not certain : that their spirit will be imbibed by 
 
192 MissioNAEY Addresses. 
 
 the nniversal Churcli of Christ is as certain as is tlie 
 coming of a great pentecostal noonday of Christian 
 life throughout the world. 
 
 We do wrong to sliirk the great questions of the 
 coming days. We do wrong to shrug oiir shoulders 
 and turn away when we hear of anarchist, and Nihil- 
 ist, and communist, and socialist. These men are 
 the victims of some great errors, but beyond all pos- 
 sible doubt they are the possessors of some vital 
 truths. The very worst among them have grasped 
 a few great principles, while the best among tliem 
 are any thing but crazed madmen or dangerous fa- 
 natics. They live and move where the sigh of the 
 oppressed is forever falling upon the ear, and in their 
 hatred of oppression, their love of right, and their cry 
 for justice, they have a right to the sympathy of 
 every disciple of Jesus Christ. What are we do? 
 Have we no hope for such men ? 'No answer to tlieir 
 questions? Notliing to say to them, unless it be to 
 assure them that the world is so very bad that God 
 will destroy it soon ? No ; we can tell them some- 
 thing better than this. There is hope for the world. 
 God will, by a wide effusion of tlie pentecostal bless- 
 ing, bring in a better spirit among men. He will 
 make every man a giver, every man a helper, and 
 by reversing the law of selfishness will take bitter- 
 ness out of human life, and transform society as eas- 
 ily and as thoroughly as he now transforms a human 
 heart. 
 
 7. One of the most powerful writers on missionary 
 topics of the present day has recently said that he 
 dare not speak of a second century of missions. 
 Aside from prophecy, he sees in the rapid increase of 
 
The Woeld's Pentecost. 193 
 
 population -a necessity for the eariy termination of 
 the present dispensation. Tlie over-taxed earth will 
 no longer be able to support its dwellers. This is 
 brought forward in a missionary discussion, and tlie 
 missionary in the East, who toils in a counti-y so 
 thronged with inhabitants that it seems like a vast 
 human anthill, is often oppressed with similar 
 thoughts. The question of a redundant population 
 is one of the great questions of the day. The mis- 
 sionary has to face it, and it stands connected with 
 the whole subject we have just been discussing. The 
 Darwinian philosopher looks coldly on, and sees with- 
 out emotion the strongest race emerging from a tierce 
 struggle and building its home upon the graves of 
 the weaker races which it has destroyed. The states- 
 man surveys the scene, and sees relief from the com- 
 ing pressure only in great famines and wasting pesti- 
 lences, which must periodically devastate the earth in 
 order to keep down its population. Christian think- 
 ers divide into two camps. In one are found men 
 who see no relief from any source, and hence accept 
 the easy but awful conclusion that God will soon de- 
 stroy the wicked from the earth, and wind up the dis- 
 pensation. In the other camp are found children of 
 hope, those who believe that Pentecost did not exhaust 
 the divine reservoir, that on earth no exigency can 
 arise for which God's prevision has not furnished 
 every thing needed to meet it, and who consequently 
 look calmly on, and wait to see God's omnipotent 
 hand performing mighty wonders for the teeming 
 race. 
 
 The writer referred to speaks of the impossibility 
 of furnishing employment to the myriad workmen 
 
19i Missionary Addresses. 
 
 who will clamor for it. Let uo man be disturbed by 
 such a misgiving. God will find in every age abun- 
 dant work for the human race. Man has hardly yet 
 learned the meaning of the word labor ; he has hardly 
 commenced the big task given him to do. In the be- 
 ginning he was set to work to subdue the earth, and 
 that great contract still lies unfinished before him. 
 He has but lightly touched it as yet, and many gen- 
 erations must pass before it is completed. Men talk 
 of the race dying of starvation — why, the undrained 
 swamps of the world would, if cleared and cultivated, 
 almost feed all the race now living. Talk of no labor 
 being found ! The time will come when five hun- 
 dred million men will be employed in reclaiming the 
 African Sahara, and as many more the deserts of 
 Asia. When all the wide earth blooms in verdure 
 and beauty, and gratefully yields up its rich fruitage 
 to those who lightly toil upon its surface, men will 
 smile as they read of a time when grave men were 
 persuaded that God had made a world which was not 
 big enough to hold the men whom he himself had 
 placed upon it. They will tell the story, and wonder 
 how so strange an error could have found acceptance, 
 till some sage will explain that it was because they 
 had put limits upon their faith, limits upon the Gos- 
 pel, and limits upon the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 "We all love to think of the immortal splendor 
 which awaits us when Christ shall be manifested in 
 his glory. We shall be like him. The frail earthen 
 vessel shall be changed into the likeness of him who 
 now dignifies it by making it his temple. That final 
 consummation will be unspeakably glorious, but in 
 the meantime we do not despise the "earnest" which 
 
The Woeld's Pentecost. 195 
 
 we enjoy even here. Heaven begins to the believer 
 in this present life, and the breaking of the earthen 
 vessel is what Charles "Wesley beautifully calls " more 
 of heaven." As with man and the tabernacle in 
 which he lives, so with the earth on which he lives. 
 The brief but sublime description which Paul gives, 
 of weary nature groaning with intense expectancy as 
 she waits for the manifestation of the sons of Grod, is 
 not surpassed in the grandeur of its conception by 
 any thing ever expressed in human language. When 
 we put on our immortal robe the dear old earth shall 
 be robed also, and become the immortal home of an 
 immortal race. But in the meantime is she to have 
 no "earnest" of that eternal day of glory? My 
 Bible speaks of such a time ; a bi'ight and happy time 
 when a Christian race shall live upon this very earth 
 of ours, when the powers of evil shall have been sub- 
 dued and the powers of nature brought iinder a won- 
 deriul degree of control. 
 
 Man and earth alike shall then enjoy a long earnest 
 of that eternal spring-time when God shall make all 
 things new. 
 
196 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 THE PROPHET TO THE NATIONS. 
 
 "I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." — Jer. j 
 
 THE prophet is, perhaps, the grandest character 
 to be seen upon the stage of history. Pie is 
 God's spokesman. He is the messenger of the King 
 of kings to his subjects, and as such he ranks the 
 earthly monarch on his throne. He must be a man 
 of lofty courage and lofty character — brave, and 
 pure, and true. He is, and has always been, the 
 apostle of freedom and the apostle of truth, and 
 hence his voice has ever been heard in the high 
 places of human progress. 
 
 Among the prophets mentioned in the Bible there 
 were two, one in each dispensation, who received 
 peculiar commissions. When Jeremiah was a J'oting 
 man he received his call to go forth and speak for 
 God, but, unlike most of his brethren, his message 
 was not to one people, or even to two or three. He 
 was ordained to be "a prophet unto the nations." 
 Centuries passed, and the greatest prophet of the New 
 Testament dispensation was on his lonely isle of ban- 
 ishment when God opened before his vision the most 
 wonderful revelation of hidden mysteries ever voueli- 
 sat'ed to any inspired seer. He saw heaven opened 
 above him, and earth torn and tossed beneath him, 
 but in the midst of the overwhelming grandeur of 
 these revelations his personal duty was not to be for- 
 gotten. His work was not done. It was to open up 
 
The Prophet to the Nations. 197 
 
 anew. " Thou must prophesy again before manj' 
 peoples, and nations, and tongues," was the commis- 
 sion given him, and henceforth the world was to be 
 liis field of labor. 
 
 It has often seemed to me, especially of late, that, 
 of all men, the missionary receives a commission most 
 like that given to these two holy men of old. He is 
 a prophet sent unto the nations. His field, especially 
 in recent years, has become a very wide one. He 
 often passes from nation to nation, he moves In the 
 midst of vast multitudes, he hears many different 
 tongues, and he finds himself confronting many hos- 
 tile interests which are the common heritage of many 
 nations. He is no longer a prophet sent to a tribe, 
 but a messenger of God sent to great nations ; and in 
 this character it will be well for us to examine briefly 
 his commission, his audience, his message, and the 
 wide scope which his work assumes. But before 
 speaking of the missionary in this character it is but 
 proper that we briefly consider the office and charac- 
 ter of the Christian prophet. What is a prophet, in 
 the ISTew Testament sense of the word ? 
 
 The gift of prophecy, as you no doubt know, is 
 generally understood to mean the power to foretell 
 future events. But this is not the scriptural meaning 
 of the term. It is a modern interpretation which has 
 incorrectly been thrust upon the word, and which 
 finds no sanction in the Bible. In the days of King 
 James the word prophecy, or prophesying, was very 
 commonly used in England in the sense of our word 
 preaching, and the restricted use of the word in our 
 current English was then unknown. A prophet is 
 not necessarily a man who foretells, but a man who 
 
193 Mission AET Addkesses. 
 
 forth tells ; a man wlio speaks for God, and who 
 speaks not only by God's authority, but by the help 
 specially given of God's Spirit. He can speak for 
 God, in the most literal sense of the word, without 
 foretelling any event whatever. The power to fore- 
 tell events is incidental to the prophet, and it is not 
 probable that it is exercised to any great extent by 
 even the most deeply inspired Christians of the pres- 
 ent day. 
 
 The earliest prophets were called seers, and were 
 men who saw scenes passing in vision before the eye 
 of their minds which they were able to describe in 
 elevated or inspired language. Balaam was a seer, 
 and illustrated very vividly this ancient mode of 
 jDrophesying. This method of conveying truth to 
 the mind gradually gave way to more direct utter- 
 ances, the speaker being directly inspired by the 
 Spirit of God and speaking as the Spirit gave him 
 utterance. Moses was a prophet in the highest and 
 best sense of the term, and in his day the gift of 
 prophecy became somewhat diffused among the peo- 
 ple, notably so in the case of the elders who proph- 
 esied. It was not until a later age, however, that an 
 order of prophets arose among the Hebrews, and it 
 is chiefly to those noble men known as " the proph- 
 ets" that we must look for the forerunners of the 
 New Testament prophets. Among these Elijah 
 stands pre-eminent, but from Samuel to Malachi a 
 long succession of gifted, true, and noble men ap- 
 peared from time to time among God's chosen people, 
 and, speaking in the name of the great Jehovah, 
 kept them from utterly abandoning the faith of their 
 fathers, and lapsing into the gross idolatry of the 
 
The Pkophet to the Nations. 199 
 
 nations around them. One of the earliest of these 
 prophets taught the people that the precious gift ex- 
 ercised by him was in a later day to become much 
 more widely diffused among God's servants. It was 
 no longer to be the special heritage of a chosen few, 
 but the common privilege of the great mass of be- 
 lievers. The very servant-girls of the household were 
 to exercise the gift, and sons and daughters alike were 
 to open their mouths and speak as the Spirit should 
 give them utterance. In short, the people of God 
 were to become a prophesying people. 
 
 How all this was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost 
 need not be told. It all came to pass, literally as the 
 olden prophet had foretold, and among the first 
 Christians the gift of prophecy was the very common 
 gift of large numbers of believers. This was the 
 chief of all the gifts bestowed, even as love was the 
 chief of the graces. It was through the exercise of 
 this gift that sinners were convicted and believers 
 edified, and hence Paul exhorted the Corinthian 
 Christians to covet to prophesy, while the more 
 highly prized gift of tongues was spoken of as a 
 thing to be tolerated only, but not as an object of 
 desire. In the public meetings of that day it was a 
 common exercise for one or more disciples to proph- 
 esy, and the life and efiiciency of the whole body 
 very largely depended upon the proper use of this 
 gift. But while many were accustomed more or less 
 frequently to exercise this gift, all were not known as 
 prophets. Among the early Christians, as among 
 the ancient Hebrews, certain men and women were 
 known as prophets in a special sense, as those upon 
 whom the prophetic unction rested more coutiuu- 
 
200 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 onsly, and in a fuller measure, than in the case of 
 others. These were specially recognized as prophets, 
 and occupied a position of great responsibility among 
 the people. They were the preachers of that early 
 day, men and women anointed to preach the word by 
 the help of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. 
 
 These New Testament prophets did not utter in- 
 voluntary speech, but ratlier spoke by the aid of the 
 Spirit. The spirit of each prophet was subject to the 
 prophet ; that is, each one consciously used the light 
 which the Spirit graciously shed upon his mind and 
 heart, but the words and reasoning were under his 
 own control. In such cases God only gives needed 
 light, and within certain limits no special illumination 
 is necessary, but to whatever extent special light is 
 necessary it is graciously given. A prophet is not a 
 man speaking in a trance, or a man so filled with 
 lioly rapture that he does not know what he is saying, 
 or a man carried along by a torrent of impetuous 
 feeling who does not pause to measure his words. 
 Ho is quite the opposite of all this. He is a man 
 who remembers that God has sent him, that he 
 speaks for God, that he has a message which he must 
 deliver faithfully, and who in consequence measures 
 his words carefully, keeps a firm hand on his fancy, 
 eommands liis own spirit, and relies constantly upon 
 the Spirit of God to help him. When God spake 
 through Balaam's ass the dumb brute was gifted with 
 involuntary speech, but when he sends a message by 
 human lips the responsible messenger is expected to 
 perform his duty as a responsible agent of the Lord 
 and Master of us all. 
 
 This prophetic gift is held in larger or more re- 
 
The Peoi'het to the Nations. 201 
 
 .stricted measure as God in his infinite wisdom sees 
 fit to bestow. lu botli ancient and modern times tiie 
 rule has been the same. Not only do some receive a 
 larger measure of divine aid than others, but some re- 
 ceive a larger measure at certain times, or for certain 
 special emergencies, than at other times. God is the 
 author and finisher of this and every gift, and wc 
 must accept reverently and thankfully what he gives, 
 as he gives it, and when he gives it. But in what- 
 ever measure given, the Cimrch of Ciirist should 
 covet earnestly this best gift. A living Church 
 cannot do without it. If the lips of Christians gen- 
 erally could only be unsealed, if men and women in 
 every congregation could be found ready and able to 
 speak as the Spirit gave them utterance, a new vigor 
 would be infused into our modern Christianity. A 
 "witnessing Church is a prophesying Church, and testi- 
 mony, to be effective, must take on this peculiar form. 
 The dumbness of Christendom to-day is, perhaps, the 
 chief cause of the spiritual weakness of Christianity ; 
 and not in the mission-fields of the world alone, but 
 in all the Churches of Christendom the demand of 
 the hour is for a mighty host of anointed prophets of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Having thus briefly noticed the character of New 
 Testament prophecy, let us proceed to consider the 
 calling and career of the modern prophet unto the 
 nations : the missionary sent forth from Christian 
 lands to preach Clirist to tribes and nations sitting in 
 darkness, sitting in the shadow of moral and spiritual 
 death. 
 
 1. The missionary, like the prophet, is a man serit. 
 Of John the Baptist it was said that he was " a man 
 
2:)2 Missionary Addresses. 
 
 sent from God." That brief statement places John 
 upon a pedestal of moral greatness above his fellows. 
 His commission from God was like adamant under 
 his feet, and glory above his head. The modern 
 prophet to the nations, no less than John, is a man 
 sent from God. He, too, has a divine commission. 
 A prophet without a call is like an embassador with- 
 out his credentials. I trust that many of you will 
 yet go to the mission-field, but if so, let it be said of 
 each one not only that he went, but that he was sent. 
 It will add to your conscious strength to know that 
 God has sent you forth ; it will add to your moral 
 weight among those to whom you go, and it will arm 
 you agaiust a thousand temptations in the weary days 
 and years which lie before you. " Have not I sent 
 thee ? " was the appeal of Jehovah to the hesitating 
 Gideon, and the assurance nerved that extraordinary 
 man for the otherwise hopeless task which lay before 
 him. To a thousand missionaries out in the field to- 
 day the recollection of God's call, the quiet assurance 
 that they are at the post which God has chosen for 
 them, is enough to dispel every lowering cloud of 
 doubt, and nerve both heart and arm for new 
 struggles and new victories. 
 
 I know but too well how ready the adversary is to 
 take advantage of statements of this kind, and to 
 suggest that inasmuch as you have never received an 
 extraordinary call such as Moses or Paul received, 
 therefore it would not be well for you to think 
 further of entering the mission field. I find very 
 many young people hesitating over doubts of this 
 kind, and too many of them apparently willing to ac- 
 cept any excuse which will set their conscience at 
 
The Prophet to the Nations. 203 
 
 rest, and permit them to remain at home. To all 
 such I would say that it is no new thing for a prophet 
 to hesitate, and beg to be excused, and ask for addi- 
 tional tokens, and look almost eagerly for any possible 
 way of escape from an unsought and undesired duty. 
 To one who has had experience in snch matters the 
 presence of this kind of hesitancy often seems bnt 
 another evidence of a genuine call. It is well enough 
 to examine the ground carefully, to weigh the evi- 
 dences, to try the spirits, and resolutely to refuse to 
 run before being sent, but it is positively perilous to 
 dismiss the subject from the mind simply because the 
 young prophet has not received the peculiar kind of 
 a call which he thinks ought to be given. God has a 
 thousand ways of arresting the attention of the mind, 
 and impressing the heart, and directing the purpose, 
 and in every case he will select a method other than 
 that which frail human wisdom dictates. If a clear 
 call has not been received, or if doubt of any kind 
 intervenes, the safe and only proper course to pursue 
 is to wait on God for light, and not to give up the 
 issue until clearly convinced that God himself leads 
 the inquirer in another direction. 
 
 Long years ago, before any of us who are here to- 
 day were born, an illustration of what I have been 
 saying occurred in Ohio, and led to the first organiza- 
 tion of the Missionary Society of our Church. A 
 colored man named John Stewart, living in the town 
 of Marietta, was awakened and very clearly converted 
 to God. He became an earnest and deeply spiritual 
 Christian, but did not at first give special promise of 
 usefulness. He was a man of prayer, and one day 
 when talking with God there came to him, as often 
 14 
 
2 )J: Missionary Addresses. 
 
 comes to people of his race, a strange vision. He 
 thought he heard strange voices, and became im- 
 pressed that God would have him go to some people 
 who lived in a north-east direction. He set out 
 through a pathless wilderness, going he knew not 
 where, to a people of whom he had never heard, to 
 deliver God's word as best he could. He was a 
 man sent from God. He had no peculiar gifts, and 
 went upon his own responsibility, because there was 
 no one at hand to send him, or to sanction his 
 going, fie wandered on until he reached a tribe of 
 Wyandot Indians, wild heathen living in the forest. 
 He found a drunken half-breed whom he enlisted 
 as his interpreter, and through him he began to de- ' 
 liver his message in the name of Jesus Christ. The 
 simple word was attended with extraordinary power. 
 Many were awakened and converted, a church was 
 organized, and in this way was begun our first mis- 
 sion among the heathen. When the tidings of Stew- 
 art's success reached the white settlements an ex- 
 traordinary impression was produced, and very soon 
 some leading parties began to collect funds, and both 
 East and West a cry was heard for the organization of 
 a missionary society. The opportunity was a golden 
 one, the lesson was manifestly from above, but the 
 Church did not know the time of her visitation. A 
 tardy and timid commencement was made, not among 
 the heathen, but in the more favored home regions, 
 and thus nearly half a century of precious time wiis 
 lost before we became fairly and fully committed to 
 this great enterprise. But the lesson taught in tlie 
 beginning should never be forgotten. God himself 
 sent our first missionary, and in his person illustrated 
 
The Pkopiiet to the Nations. 205 
 
 his method of choosing and sending forth missionar}'- 
 prophets. Other John Stewarts are yet to be called, 
 other tribes in forest wilds or on desert wastes are to 
 be reached, and we must for all time to come recog- 
 nize the fact that God sends forth his own mes- 
 sengers. 
 
 2. Let us in the next place take a glance at the 
 audience to which the missionary prophet is sent. 
 The old ideal of a missionary at work, so widely pop- 
 ularized by cheap wood-cuts, was that of a good, 
 kind-hearted, and patient man, sitting in front of a 
 hut and in the scant shade of a crooked palm-tree, 
 engaged in teaching half-clad little children the mys- 
 teries veiled within the leaves of an American spell- 
 ing-book ; or, if a more advanced stage of the work 
 is presented, the missionary has an audience of two 
 or three dozen simple men and women to whom lie 
 is expounding God's word, and who constitute the 
 flock over which he has been made overseer. As a 
 matter of fact, many a good and faithful missionary 
 does preach to a mere handful of converts, and many 
 an able scholar may to-day be found teaching tlie 
 alphabet to children, but initial work of this kind 
 must not be taken as a sample of a missionary's life- 
 work. He is a man sent to a nation, or may be to a 
 group of nations. So far from being confined to a 
 dozen children gathered under a palm-tree, he is soon 
 to speak to a thousand children and ten thousand 
 adults, scattered all over the hills and plains around 
 liim. His ultimate audience is always a large one. 
 
 An illustration occurs to me which will make this 
 plain. About three years ago we opened a mission 
 station in Bengal. A little village school was opened 
 
2UG MissiONAEY Addkesses. 
 
 in a small mud-walled building. One man had been 
 baptized in the village, and five or six others were in- 
 quirers. I visited the place and made inquiries about 
 the region round about. 
 
 " How many villages have you like this one in this 
 immediate vicinity ? " I asked. 
 
 " About fifty, but more if you take in a wider 
 region." 
 
 " Are the people all like these villagers ? " 
 "Yes ; just such as you see here." 
 " And are the villages as large as this ? " 
 " Some are larger and some smaller, but the average 
 will be as large as this." 
 
 " Then you have fifty thousand people in the dis- 
 trict, all accessible, all eager to learn, all free from 
 strong prejudice, and all ready to receive God's 
 word?" 
 
 " Yes, that is the condition of these villages." 
 Now you can see at a glance tliat a missionary sent 
 to that village is really a missionary sent to fifty 
 thousand souls, and in all our great mission-fields in 
 the heathen world it seldom happens that a prophet 
 is sent to so small a community as the one just de- 
 scribed. His ultimate audience is counted by the 
 hundred thousand. He may not with his own lips de- 
 liver his message to all these thousands, but directly 
 or indirectly he will reach them. He will gather a 
 band of prophets around him, he will make long 
 tours through the country, his voice will be heard at 
 fairs and every place of public concourse, his face will 
 become familiar on every highway, and every-where 
 he will impress himself upon the people through the 
 word with which God has intrusted him. 
 
The Prophet to the Nations. 207 
 
 The wonderful manner in which God has opened 
 the doors of the nations to his prophets is one of the 
 most striking of the signs of the times. No preacher 
 in Europe can go up and down among the nations 
 preaching the word as can tlie prophet among the 
 nations of the East. Just before leaving India I re- 
 ceived urgent calls to visit two cities which were 
 more than four thousand miles apart in opposite di- 
 rections ! Mr. Hart, our missionary brother from 
 China, told you but yesterday of more than two 
 hundred million of people in that amazing empire 
 who speak the same tongue, and among whom the 
 missionary passes freely preaching the Word. An- 
 other brother writes to me in a somewhat depre- 
 ciatory tone of his field ; he almost complains that 
 it has not ■ more than fifteen million inliabitants ! 
 Surely these are the times when men are sent forth 
 to prophesy unto great nations. Never in all the 
 course of human history have any class of public 
 speakers had such vast audiences, and never before 
 have mortal men been called iipon to bear such 
 weighty responsibilies as now fall to the lot of those 
 whom the Lord God of the holy prophets' calls and 
 sends forth to represent him even unto the ends of 
 the earth. 
 
 3. Such being the audience of the prophet, let us 
 next consider the message with which he is intrusted. 
 A prophet is a man sent from God, and a man sent 
 as a messenger must in tlie nature of the case be in- 
 trusted with a message. He would be discredited in 
 a moment if unable to produce his message. God's 
 prophet to the nations has a commission received 
 directly from the Holy Spirit, and he is assisted in 
 
208 MissioNAEY Addeesses. 
 
 delivering it by tlie same power as tliat which inspires 
 it. What is this message ? 
 
 It is not the constant repetition of a single sentence, 
 like Jonah's proclamation in the streets of Nineveii. 
 Indeed, it may be doubted if in that case we ha\'e 
 more than the text of the prophet's discourses. The 
 humble repentance of the king and people would in- 
 dicate that their sins had been rebuked, and the cause 
 of their impending judgment faithfully declared to 
 them. In like manner the prophet of Jesus is sent 
 with a message which is not so much contained in a 
 certain formula as in the spirit which pervades all he 
 says. The Christian preacher or prophet is sent 
 forth in the name of Jesus Christ, and commissioned 
 to testify concerning his Master. He is to tell the 
 world wtiat he knows about the Saviour of sinners, 
 about his death, his resurrection, and his living 
 forever among men. Christ himself is his theme, a 
 living theme, forever bright, and forever new. John 
 tells us in his wonderful Kevelation that " the testi- 
 mony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." This does 
 not mean, as is usually assumed, that all the Old 
 Testament prophets bore such uniform testimony to 
 the coming Messiah that this part of their prophecies 
 became the dominating element of the whole, that 
 the spirit of all their utterances was the testimony of 
 Jesus Christ. The word prophecy had a wider mean- 
 ing in the age in which John wrote. It was a gift 
 well understood, highly prized, and widely exercised 
 among the Christians then living, and the spirit of 
 thei/r prophecies, the spirit of Christian prophecy in 
 every era, is the testimony of the world's Saviour. 
 Whatever else may be incidental to the special dis- 
 
The Prophet to the ITations. 209 
 
 course, this is ever to be the main theme. The the- 
 ologian, the essayist, tlie lecturer, the orator, may each 
 in turn enter a box called a pulpit, and discuss any 
 one of the thousand different topics, but when a man 
 prophesies, when he speaks by the direct aid of the 
 Holy Spirit, and as the Spirit gives him utterance, 
 his theme is chosen for him, his message is in his 
 heart and on his lips, and he tells his hearers about 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Just here, if I may be allowed parenthetically to 
 throw in a word of caution, when you young brethren 
 come to have charge of meetings you will greatly 
 enhance the value of your class-meetings, love-feasts, 
 and meetings of- all sorts in which testimony forms a 
 part of the exercises, if you make the people under- 
 stand that the most genuine testimony is that which 
 concerns the Master rather than the disciple. Good 
 men and women sometimes unconsciously fall into a 
 habit of talking about themselves, and while an indi- 
 rect testimony to the power of Christ may thus be 
 given, yet the impression produced is not alwaj's 
 what it should be. Each disciple should tell what he 
 knows about Jesus Christ, and ever make it his chief 
 object to convince men that he is a personal witness 
 to the fact that Jesus lives, and lives to save. 
 
 The prophet who goes among the heathen should 
 at once announce in whose name he comes, and the 
 purpose of his coming. He need not waste a minute 
 in arguing to prove the existence of a supreme 
 Creator. No one, not even the demon-worshipers, 
 will deny the existence of God. But the story of a 
 divine Saviour is new, and the prophet who begins to 
 tell what he knows about Jesus Christ quickly dis- 
 
210 MissioNAEY Addkksses. 
 
 covers that liis story is a long one. It is the old, sad 
 story of sin, and the ruin and death caused by sin ; 
 and next the coming of God incarnate among men, 
 his ministry, suffering, and deatli, his rising again, 
 and, above all, the fact that he now lives, is present, 
 loves men, and is mighty to save them. This is the 
 message, this is the story, old as the Gospel, and yet 
 forever new. A wise missionary, one who under- 
 stands his errand and is too wise to be easily diverted 
 from it, will avoid irritating discussions, and will 
 spend more time in proclaiming truth than in expos- 
 ing error. He is not concerned for Christianity as 
 opposed to heathenism, and will not be betrayed into 
 making odious comparisons between his own faith 
 and that of his hearers. His mission is a higher one, 
 and he remembers whose messenger he is and with 
 what message he is intrusted. His sole purpose is to 
 hold up Jesus Christ before the people, to present 
 him as the very embodiment of the truth, as the 
 Saviour of men, and the hope of the race, and froui 
 this supreme purpose he will not allow himself to be 
 diverted. 
 
 I need not remind you that I am but repeating 
 Paul's description of liis own preaching, " We preach 
 Christ crucified ; " not Christianity, or Christian doc- 
 trine, but Christ, and Christ as crucified for a sinning 
 and perishing world. In these modern times this is 
 sometimes regarded as too narrow a basis for a suc- 
 cessful preacher, but such a mistake could only be 
 founded on a greater mistake. Some men talk about 
 preaching only the Gospel, and seem to be narrow 
 men in consequence, but it is because they do not 
 preach Christ. They master a dry and emotionless 
 
The Pkophet to the Nations. 211 
 
 statement of Christian doctrine wliich tliey call the 
 Gospel, and proclaim this over and over again, all the 
 while persuaded that they are displaying extraordi- 
 nary fidelity to the truth, and wondering that men 
 do not heed their words, but they are not preaching 
 Christ. Their platform is a narrow one, but Paul's 
 was as wide as humanity, as wide as the universe. 
 The man who preaches Christ has a new story and a 
 new song forever. His message never changes, and 
 yet it ever and forever seems to be clothed with new 
 beauty and instinct with new life. Hold up a prism 
 in that sunlight streaming through the window and 
 you throw a beautiful little picture on the oppo- 
 site wall. It has the colors of the rainbow, arrayed 
 in perfect order, and blended in pefect proportion. 
 Turn the glass and the picture changes, but its beauty 
 remains, and it is the same picture. Turn the glass a 
 thousand times, and a thousand variations appear in 
 the picture on the wall, and yet it is the same. The 
 colors never change their order, and never cease to 
 blend together in the same proportion. Thus it is 
 with the presentation of Christ to men. He is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and yet he is 
 forever new. Hold him up before men, and you 
 show beauties, and glories, and truths which will en- 
 trance the minds and hearts of all peoples, and you 
 can make this impression new every moment. The 
 idea of a preacher of Jesus Christ saying he is afraid 
 the Gospel will become a little stale if he keeps it 
 before the people all the time ! It is the one subject 
 which never will become stale. 
 
 Tell men of Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, and they 
 will listen to you. Tell the story of his dying love, 
 
212 MissiosAEY Addkesses. 
 
 and risen power, and enthroned glory ; present it con- 
 tinually as something which will come into their 
 hearts, and into their homes, and meet them in all tlie 
 vicissitudes of life, soothe their sorrows, sweeten their 
 griefs, lighten their burdens, and fulfill their every 
 want, and you will never find the people growing 
 weary ; never. That is as true in this country as in a 
 heatlien land. 
 
 4. We have thus seen wliat the prophet's message 
 is, and may next inquire what the full intent of his 
 mission is. Wliat is he to accomplish ? What are to 
 be the results of his mission to the nations ? 
 
 The prophet Jeremiah received his commission in 
 very extraordinary terms. He was to " root out, and 
 pull down, and destroy, and throw down, and also to 
 build and to plant." The prophet to tlie nations in 
 our era enters upon a career which strikingly fulfills 
 all these conditions. He holds aloof from political 
 strife and turmoil ; he defers to authority, and obeys 
 the powers that be ; he respects the traditions and 
 prejudices of the people ; he is a messenger of the 
 heavenly King, and hence he does not entangle him- 
 self with earthly things ; he lives for one object, and 
 that is of a spiritual nature; and yet he inevitably 
 will be found pulling down and throwing down, root- 
 ing out and destroying. From the very beginning it 
 has been so. When Paul was in Ephesus he had not 
 the opportunity which I enjoy in Calcutta. I can 
 preach against any iniquity in the empire, but Paul 
 hardly dared to mention above a whisper the great 
 sins of the Roman Empire, scarcely dared to lift up 
 his voice against any of the great iniquities of that 
 day in the organized form in which they met him ; 
 
The PfioPiiET TO the ^S'ations. 213 
 
 but lie quietly worked away, and no one would have 
 noticed that he was pulling down any thing. Two 
 years, however, had hardly passed until all the city 
 was aroused. The great idol in its temple was 
 thought to be trembling, and the people of Ephesus 
 were in a frenzy lest the little obscure Jew in their 
 midst should throw their whole system of idolatry. 
 
 This illustrates the simple but mighty power of 
 the prophet. He has but to put the simple truth 
 before the people, and keep it before them, and in 
 due time it will develop a power to pull down and 
 overthrow which neither friend nor foe at first could 
 have anticipated for it. He is a man appointed to 
 turn and overturn, and, whether he intends it or not, 
 strongholds will fall down and abuses be rooted up 
 before him wherever he goes. The first missionaries 
 to India landed upon those distant shores with 
 timid footsteps, and dreamed of nothing more than 
 permission to deliver their Master's message. They 
 were only too glad to hold aloof from all political 
 interests, but as the years went by the eternal laws of 
 truth began to manifest themselves as in every past 
 age. The missionary was in due time found pulling 
 down the suttee, rooting out caste oppression, over- 
 throwing the semi-serfdom of the indigo districts, 
 warring against the opium plague, crying out against 
 the liquor traffic, and contending for the liberation of 
 widows, and abolition of infant marriages. It is idle 
 to say that he ought not to meddle with such matters. 
 He cannot help it. His Master is the Friend of hu- 
 manity, the Deliverer of the oppressed, and wherever 
 the Christian prophet goes there will be a pulling 
 down, and rooting, out, and overthrowing of old 
 
2li Missionary Addresses. 
 
 abuses. It follows that the missionary prophet must 
 be a man of broad views, a man who, while not losing 
 sight of his message, will have his eye fixed upon tlie 
 ultimate results to be expected, and who will have a 
 mind and heart wide enough and warm enough to 
 grasp every real interest of the people to whom he 
 goes. A prophet is disarmed and unfitted for ef- 
 fective duty whenever he allows himself to become 
 afraid of the results of his own preaching. He must 
 be a man who calmly delivers his message, and awaits 
 the result with equal unconcern whether a leaf or a 
 universe shall fall. 
 
 But the missionary prophet must not only pull 
 down and root out, he must also plant and build up. 
 The man who can destroy and pull down, but who 
 has no power to create and build up, is not a safe 
 man to be intrusted with power among the nations. 
 Hence God does not leave his prophet to stand in help- 
 less wonder among the ruins which he heaps up 
 around him, but makes him a planter and a builder, 
 and this latter part of his mission is vastly greater 
 than the former. Almost any man can pull down a 
 house, but not one in a thousand could build it up 
 again. 
 
 The prophet has both to plant and build. He 
 plants tlie church, the school, the press, the orphan- 
 age, each of which is to expand and grow long after 
 he is in his grave. He builds, too, by laying down 
 great principles which are to remain as firm as granite 
 in the foundations of churches and nations through 
 all the years. He needs to be a statesman as well as 
 a prophet, a man who can grasp firmly a great com- 
 plexity of interests, and estimate correctly the im- 
 
The Pkophet to the Nations. 215 
 
 portance of each. He must know how to bring order 
 out of confusion, and cause the vision of the new to 
 rise to view before the wreck of tlie old overwhehiis 
 the public with apathy or despair. 
 
 It will be said, no doubt, that the prophet is not 
 this kind of a man ; that he is seldom a man of afEairs, 
 and rarely a man of constructive genius. There may 
 be more or less of truth in this. The prophet inay 
 not be a great financier, and as a class, his brethren 
 may not have been successful men of business, but 
 nevertheless the voice of the prophet is heard wher- 
 ever the work of planting and building goes forward. 
 Every Zerubbabel needs his Haggai and his Zechariah, 
 and every great enterprise needs its prophets. They 
 are the men who walk in advance, who create thought, 
 and mold opinion, and, warm the heart, and kindle 
 enthusiasm, and thus make it possible for other men 
 nearer at hand to accomplisii results which they see 
 from afar. Whether you go back to the remote past, 
 or survey the condition of the world to-day, you will 
 every-where find the prophet in the van of every 
 great religious advance. 
 
 5. And now, in conclusion, allow me to say that 
 the great demand of the hour in our mission-fields is 
 for the voice of the living prophet. Other men are 
 needed too, and will be needed, but the man needed 
 above all others is the prophet. We need the man 
 upon whose head has come the invisible tongue of 
 flame, whose lips have been touched by a living coal 
 taken from the altar in the skies. We long for men 
 who have courage and wisdom to fit them to stand 
 before kings and before nations, and speaking in the 
 name of the Most High God, deliver the message of 
 
216 Mission AEY Addresses. 
 
 living truth which the Spirit puts upon their lips. 
 "We pray for men who shall be able to stand at the 
 forefront of every nation, and tribe, and kindred, and 
 people of this wide globe, and speak directly from 
 God and for God, tliat all the people of the world 
 may speedily know that Jesus lives to save. • 
 
 Do you aspire to be one of such a band of anointed 
 men ? No doubt some of you begin to feel that a 
 new fire burns within your hearts, and you timidly 
 venture to hope that it may be your favored lot to go 
 forth before many years have passed to prophesy 
 unto the nations. I would not for a moment urge 
 you to decide the question of 3'our future rashly, or 
 trusting in your own wisdom, but at the same time I 
 would urge you not to stifle the Spirit's conviction, 
 not to quench the holy fire which begins to glow 
 within your hearts. If you seek congenial associa- 
 tions, rapid promotion, and quickly fading fame, you 
 can find these things in any city or town at home. 
 If you seek splendid opportunities for great achieve- 
 ments, the development of a noble manhood, and the 
 final reward of a royal victor, go forth among the 
 prophets to the nations. You may choose your ideal 
 to-day, and at once proceed to read your future. You 
 may become a lineal descendant of Elijah, of the man 
 of Jehovah who compelled fire and rain to obey him, 
 who rebuked his angry monarch, and who spoke to 
 tlie people as one who had been made the very mouth 
 of God. See him yonder at the mouth of his cave 
 on Horeb. Earthquake and fire and tempest have 
 passed, and now at the sound of the still small voice 
 the man of God, with his face reverently veiled in 
 his old cainel's-hair mantle, goes forth to speak face 
 
The Pkophet to the Nations. 217 
 
 to face with Jehovali. He lias a sad report to render. 
 He speaks of the nation to wlaich he had heen sent, 
 and faithfully recounts all the sad lapses of the peo- 
 ple. Now contrast with this mighty man one of our 
 modern conventional prophets. Hehas just returned 
 from an evening party. No leather strap girds his 
 swallow-tail coat about him, but his neck is girt about 
 with a strip of faultless cambric. He is a dainty 
 man, and in elegant phrase he tells the story of his 
 success. He is on a high tide of prosperity. More 
 pews have been rented than in former years, and the 
 price realized has been higher than ever before. 
 The music is more expensive, and the sanctuary 
 made more inaccessible to the poor than it has ever 
 been, and this is called success ! The man who best 
 succeeds in setting up that abomination of Protestant 
 desolation, the exclusion of the poor from the sanc- 
 tuary, is regarded as a very successful preacher ! 
 
 My young brethren, choose your model. Will you 
 become conventional ministers, or anointed prophets ? 
 In the wide mission-field we have no work for the 
 former class, but we do want the prophet. We want 
 men who have the courage, and rugged strength, and 
 mangificent manhood of good old Elijah. But we 
 want those features softened a little. In Elijah's 
 time the best of the servants of God did not move in 
 the midst of the softening influences which we have 
 around us in this late day of the Christian era. He 
 did not understand, as we understand, the constrain- 
 ing power of the love of Christ. As we look at him, 
 standing out in the dim twilight of that far-off age in 
 which he lived, he presents a noble picture of a mag- 
 nificent man, but he was a man of a dispensation of 
 
218 Mission AEY Addeesses. 
 
 shadows, and the prophet of Jesus Christ must be a 
 better man than even Elijah. 
 
 A few weelcs ago while searching for information 
 about the Eastern Archipelago I chanced to fall upon 
 a story of missionary adventure and martyrdom which 
 stirred my heart as it had seldom been stirred before. 
 A little more than half a century ago two young men 
 sailed from this very port for those beautiful islands 
 in the far-off eastern sea. They landed in Java, and 
 leaving their wives in Batavia sailed to Sumatra to 
 select a permanent field of labor. They landed in 
 due time, met with encouragement, and soon set out 
 on an exploring expedition into the interior. For 
 some days all went well, but one afternoon as they 
 were nearing a village they were suddenly set upon 
 by men who had been lying in ambush, and in a few 
 minutes both were murdered. The body of one of 
 them furnished a repast to the savages that evening, 
 and the other was eaten the following morning. The 
 mothers of both these young martyrs were widows. 
 When the dreadful tidings reached this country, the 
 mother of one of them, Henry Lyman, was alone at 
 home. Henry had been the eldest born, and the 
 other children were at school. The widow's brother 
 called, and soon he was followed by her pastor, and 
 only too soon she knew that they were the bearers of 
 heavy tidings. When she learned that her son was 
 dead the stricken mother was so prostrated that she 
 threw herself upon a couch, and seemed like one ut- 
 terly crushed. In the meantime the children had 
 been called from school, and when they came in the 
 bereaved mother rose, gathered them ai'ound her, and 
 asked that the letters be read. Up to this time she 
 
The Peophet to the Nations. 219 
 
 had supposed that her son had died at home, with his 
 wife by his bedside, and that a green grave in that 
 distant land would mark the spot where his ashes 
 rested. But as the letters were read the awful truth 
 flashed upon her that her son had been murdered ; 
 and as they read on the horrible fact was added that his 
 body had been eaten by cannibals. The poor suffering 
 disciple of Jesus Christ, heart-broken and crushed as 
 she was, ready to sink as she had seemed but a mo- 
 ment before, after a groan of unutterable anguish, ex- 
 claimed, " O, what can those poor people do without 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ?" And when the reading 
 was finished, and she was able to join in the conversa- 
 tion she said, " I bless God who gave me such a son 
 to go to the heathen, and I never felt so strongly as I 
 do this moment the desire that some other of my chil- 
 dren may become missionaries and go to teach those 
 savage men who have slain Henry." 
 
 My young brethren, add this spirit of Christian 
 love, the constraining love of Jesus Christ, to the 
 spirit of Elijah, and you have the kind of spirit which 
 must inspire the prophet who goes forth to the na- 
 tions. That noble woman knew what the dying love 
 of Jesus was, and she breathed the spirit of him 
 whose name she bore. While such disciples live we 
 may hope for our race. The world is waiting for 
 prophets who can go forth in the rugged strength of 
 Elijah, and yet with the tenderness and quenchless 
 love of the mother of Henry Lyman. God is calling, 
 the Church is calling, a dying world is calling, and 
 my prayer is that some of you may hear and heed the 
 trumpet notes which summon yon to go forth. I 
 would lay no burden upon you, would put no undue 
 15 
 
220 MissiowAET Addresses. 
 
 pressure upon you, but I beseech you not to turn 
 lightly away from the question of personal duty. I 
 come as a prophet to you, in nanie of the Master of 
 us all. I appeal to you for him. If he calls you, iu 
 his name I bid you go forth. 
 
 THE END.