;2, . ,j~, /6 
 
 ^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BY 2650 .P37 1888 
 Paton, J. B. 1830-1911 
 The inner mission 
 
THE INiNER MISSION. 
 
Bi-tiicr & Tanntr. 
 
 7 he SehooDd Printing 1^'orki. 
 
 Fremf, and London. 
 
<^^^- 
 
 DEC r. 1916 
 
 The Inner Mission. 
 
 
 FOUR ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 J. B. PATON, M.A., D.D 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WM. ISBISTER, Limited, 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 1888. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 
 
 MR. SAMUEL MORLEY, 
 
 WHOSE LIFE WAS AN EXAMPLE, 
 
 AND WHOSE FRIENDSHIP AN INSPIRATION, 
 
 TO MANY AS TO MYSELF, 
 
 IN THE WORK OF THE INNER MISSION. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When I saw Mr. Samuel Morley before the 
 lingering illness which terminated in death, 
 I requested him to permit me to inscribe 
 this little volume to him, and he most wil- 
 lingly consented. 
 
 There was no one else from whom I 
 could so fittingly ask the privilege. Through 
 many years I had often conversed with him 
 about " The Inner Mission of the Church," 
 and, like many others, I had received from 
 him counsel and support in attempting any 
 work that fulfilled, though in smallest mea- 
 sure, the purport of that Mission. 
 
 The phrase *' Inner Mission," with which 
 
 b 
 
VI Preface. 
 
 I became acquainted in Germany, was new 
 and strange to him ; but when I explained 
 its meaning, as it had been used by Dr. 
 Wichern in Germany, he approved and liked 
 it. 
 
 It also struck me when first I heard it, and 
 it growingly chimes upon my inner ear of 
 sense as a very happy phrase. In contrast 
 to the foreign or "outer" mission of the 
 Church, it sets forth its mission zvitJtin the 
 land in which it is planted, bringing into 
 vivid relief and definite vision the immediate 
 and practical work of the Church among all 
 the people of that land. And its object is, 
 that the country it thus occupies, shall be- 
 come, not nominally but in reality, a part 
 of Christendom in which the institutions 
 and usages of society, and the condition 
 of the people, harmonise with the righteous 
 will of God. It further suggests a combi- 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 nation of Christian agencies directed to this 
 end, — a union of Christian Churches, that 
 consciously and with definite aim seek to 
 fulfil the command and inspiration of their 
 faith ; and by union, encourage and sustain 
 each other in their great undertaking. 
 
 It will be seen therefore, that the phrase 
 "Inner Mission," is taken by me, in a general 
 sense, to denote the social redemptive work 
 of the Church of Christ, by the diffusion of 
 those regenerative influences which the Liv- 
 ing Spirit of Christ, in His grace and truth, 
 imparts to it for the well-being of society ; — 
 and in a more specific sense to denote a 
 union of Christian Churches, the object of 
 which is, to give consistency, higher intelli- 
 gence, and mightier effect, to their separate 
 and conjoint labours for the good of the 
 people. 
 
 This Inner Mission of the Church roots 
 
vlii Preface. 
 
 itself in the evangelic faith of the Church, and, 
 though it may seem formally distinct from, 
 is vitally associated with, the preaching of 
 the gospel of salvation to individual men. 
 It will make, as I have said in the following 
 pages, the '' good news " of God's forgiving 
 and healing love to sinful men, intelligible, 
 and credible, and real to them, as it shows 
 the love of those whom He has so richly 
 and wondrously blessed, spending itself, in 
 ways like God's own, though infinitely lower, 
 in undoing wrong, assuaging sorrow, and re- 
 storing " Peace and goodwill among men." 
 And assuredly it is God's own redeeming 
 love poured into the hearts of His servants 
 — touched as it is with fervent sympathy, 
 and instinct with righteous wisdom that alone 
 will inspire and rightly guide men in the 
 " service of humanity." 
 The true key-note of the " Inner Mission 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 of the Church " accordingly was, it seems to 
 me, sounded in a circular issued by a com- 
 mittee appointed by the Conference held in 
 Nottingham, at which the first paper now pub- 
 lished in this work was read. That circular 
 contains these words : " It is the sentiment 
 of Christian obedience and love that alone 
 can give unity and living energy to this 
 Catholic movement to promote, in the name 
 of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God, 
 the well-being of the people. The com- 
 mittee accordingly beg to remind you, what 
 were the convictions that animated the Con- 
 ference, and which, as they give birth to this 
 movement, must combine to be its inspira- 
 tion; viz., that they who believe in Jesus Christ 
 as their Divine Lord and Redeemer, acknow- 
 ledge the absolute authority of His law as re- 
 vealed in His example and precepts, and are 
 constrained by His measureless love to the 
 
^ Preface. 
 
 devotion of obedience to Him. Further, that 
 the Lord Jesus Christ summons His believers 
 to be the witnesses of His redeeming truth 
 and love, by their example and their willing 
 sacrifice to promote the good of men ; and 
 that they should unite to confess the Lord 
 Jesus Christ as the Saviour of men from 
 every form of evil, and to prove that He is 
 such, by working under His leadership, for 
 the removal of every evil from society, so 
 that all men may be blessed in Him, and 
 'confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the 
 glory of God the Father.' 
 
 " These sentiments have always been, and 
 are now professed by the universal Church 
 of Christ. The object of the Inner Mission, 
 wherever it is formed, will be to give clearer 
 utterance and manifestation to these senti- 
 ments, and to make them operative in re- 
 vealing, at once, the true nature of the Chris- 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 tian religion by its regenerative influence in 
 society, and the true unity of Christian be- 
 lievers, who, however they differ, are One in 
 their obedience to Christ and their service 
 to men." 
 
 J. B. PATON. 
 
 Congregational Institute, 
 Nottingham, 
 October^ 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I'HE Inner Mission of Germany and its 
 Lessons to us i 
 
 The Inner Mission of the Church , . 45 
 
 The Present State of Europe in Relation 
 TO THE Spread of the Gospel . . 83 
 
 Woman's Great Work in the Church .115 
 
C^vistianitg anb lljc ^dl-bein0 of t^c ^toplt. 
 
 THE 
 
 INNER MISSION OF GERMANY, 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS LESSONS TO US. 
 
This Paper was read at a Coiifereiice held in Not- 
 tinghajn on Sept. nth, 1873, ^^ consider the practical 
 relatio?is of Christianity to the social wants and evils 
 of our time. 
 
 The Circtila? stimmoni7ig that Co?iference, a?id the 
 Resolution which was unani77tously adopted by the 
 Cofiference, ai-e printed at the close of the Paper. 
 
 J. B. Paton. 
 
At the close of the war of deHverance, viz. 
 in the years 1814 and 18 15, the fearful 
 miseries of the people in Germany, after the 
 long years of incessant turmoil and blood- 
 shed which the Napoleonic wars had caused, 
 touched the heart of some devoted German 
 Christians, chiefly women ; and in simple 
 fashion a few orphan homes were established 
 for children, famished and lost, whose parents 
 had been slain in these wars. This century 
 is distinguished among all the Christian 
 centuries for its munificent exhibitions of 
 Christian charity in all lands and among 
 all Churches. So in Germany also, these 
 few individual efforts, peering like first faint 
 spring flowers from the barren wastes of a 
 long winter of wars, were the forerunners of 
 larger and more nobly organized societies and 
 
The Inner Missiofi of Germany^ 
 
 institutions for the relief of the sorrows and 
 wants of the people. These were, chiefly, 
 associations for the care of the poor and 
 the nursing of the sick, refuges for lost chil- 
 dren. Conspicuous, however, among all other 
 charitable institutions were the now famous 
 Deacones-s Institute at Kaiserwerth, and the 
 " Rauhe Haus," near Hamburg, described so 
 accurately and graphically in a book which I 
 cannot too highly recommend to all interested 
 in the subjects of this Conference — Dr. Flem- 
 ing Stevenson's "Praying, and Working." 
 
 Meanwhile, another spirit than that of 
 Christian charity, especially during the years 
 1830-48, was abroad in Europe, and propa- 
 gated itself s^wiftly and secretly till, in the 
 great explosion of the Revolution in 1848, its 
 rampant power and its destructive aims were 
 alike suddenly disclosed— I mean the spirit of 
 Communistic infidelity, which not only aimed 
 at the abolition of religion, but at the dissolu^ 
 tion of the moral bonds that hold society, 
 even in- its elemental form of the family life. 
 
and its Lessons to us. 5 
 
 The manifestations of this evil power, and the 
 proofs of its mah'gn ascendency over large 
 masses of the people, especially in large 
 towns, during the Revolution, startled all 
 classes of the Christian world in the several 
 German States, and awoke many to discern 
 the appalling crisis of their time, and to rally 
 with instant and resolute energy to fulfil their 
 Christian duty to society. Here was an 
 infidel propaganda with a social doctrine, 
 which had infected multitudes, and had well- 
 nigh shaken modern Christian society back 
 into a barbaric chaos. The passionate long- 
 ing for some new social state which had 
 seized these multitudes had been caused by 
 the sore crushing evils of the existing social 
 state, for which they wildly and wrongfully 
 sought redress. Now, then, must the Chris- 
 tian Church rise up from its sinful apathy, 
 with its social doctrine and its saving health, 
 to grapple with these evils which it had 
 largely ignored, to redress them by its Divine 
 teaching and life ; and thus to save society 
 
6 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 by healing its wounds, tempering its vital 
 principles by the Christian spirit, and shed- 
 ding over it the balm of a holy charity. 
 
 The vastness of the duty thus revealed, and 
 the violence of the social convulsion which 
 revealed it, urged together Christians of all 
 the divers German States and of the two 
 great Protestant confessions. These walls of 
 division were thrown down, and at Witten- 
 berg, in the September of 1848, the " Kirch- 
 entag," or " Church Assembly " of 500 
 representatives of all German Churches, met 
 together for the first time, binding together 
 these Churches of different confessions and 
 kingdoms in the bond of a German Evangelic 
 Union. And then the " Inner Mission " was 
 established as the principal and practical 
 object, and, therefore, as the cementing prin- 
 ciple — the actual rivet, of their Union. 
 
 This mission was founded on occasion, and 
 at the instance, of a memorable address by 
 Dr. Wichern, picturing in powerful traits the 
 state of the German people — how great 
 
and its Lessons to lis. 
 
 masses of the industrial population were 
 fallen from, and alien to, the Church of Christ, 
 — receiving no invigorating and purifying in- 
 fluences from the Church, which should be, as 
 it professed, the People's Church, but organiz- 
 ing themselves more and more under the 
 impulses of an anti-Christian spirit, often also 
 immoral and dissolute ; how growing poverty 
 was accompanied with resentful and revolu- 
 tionary bitterness against the more favoured 
 classes in society; and how through drunken- 
 ness and vice a deep swamp of pestilential 
 corruption lay festering in the depths of 
 society and breathing a dangerous miasma 
 through all its ranks : — a picture not unlike 
 what in our land, so happily conditioned in 
 many respects, might be photographed from 
 its present state. And the Inner Mission 
 was founded, in the words of the first report, 
 **that the Christian Church with all its 
 resources, and through all means, might fill 
 and quicken the whole life of the people in 
 all circles ^nd ranks ; that it should inspire 
 
8 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 all social arrangements and institutions with 
 the might of a Love energising heart and life, 
 and that it should, through all its living 
 members, labour to save the neglected and 
 the poor." Further, every movement begun 
 in this spirit and faith must not, it was said, 
 stand separate and alone, but must be fos- 
 tered and strengthened in its labours of love 
 by a common sympathy ; and all of them 
 must be drawn together into manifest union 
 with each other, as the ministries of one 
 Divine Spirit — the Spirit of the redeeming 
 love of Christ. 
 
 A Central Committee was at once formed 
 of eminent Christian laymen — statesmen of 
 Germany — and of leading ministers of the 
 several Churches, to carry out the objects of 
 the Inner Mission. They at once established 
 their agencies in all parts of Germany ; 
 entered into correspondence with every insti- 
 tution that was carrying out in any depart- 
 ment the objects of the Inner Mission, so as 
 to bring them into open fellowship with each 
 
ixnd its Lessons to us. 
 
 other as ministries of Christ and His Church ; 
 pubh'shed a statesmanlike volume, showing 
 the scope of their work, and stimulating all 
 Christians to take a share in it ; and, further, 
 gradually originated what fresh agencies it 
 was in their province and in their power to 
 establish. As the result, I learn by the last 
 report that in connection with this Central 
 Committee there stand now 23 Provincial 
 Unions for the Inner Mission, whose action 
 covers the different states and provinces of 
 Protestant Germany ; 14 City Unions for the 
 Inner Mission founded in the chief large 
 towns of Germany ; 19 Pastoral Conferences 
 or Associations of Ministers, which thus co- 
 operate in the Inner Mission ; 131 Orphan- 
 ages, Children's Refuges, and Idiot Asylums ; 
 5 Institutions for the training of men for 
 different spheres of the Inner Mission ; 14 
 Deaconesses' Institutions; 22 Children's Hos- 
 pitals and Unions for the care of the sick and 
 the poor ; 5 Homes for young women ; 7 
 Magdalen Asylums; 17 Societies for the care 
 
10 TJie Inner Mission of Germany^ 
 
 of Prisoners, especially on leaving prison ; 
 176 Young Men's and Workmen's Societies ; 
 15 Bible, Tract, and Colportage Societies, 2 
 Building and Art Societies, 1 Association of 
 Teachers, and 3 Societies for the Scattered 
 German Population in Europe and America, 
 etc. 
 
 Now, that we may fully comprehend the 
 spirit and scope of the Inner Mission, I must 
 adopt the great divisions of its work mapped 
 out by Dr. Wichern in the " Memorial Vol- 
 ume," issued by the Central Committee, 
 which may be said to give in one masterly 
 and organized form the whole scheme and 
 living forces of this mission ; and which by 
 its profound, calm, resistless earnestness 
 evoked the spirit of the Inner Mission and 
 established its operations in all parts of 
 Germany. He surveys the need of German 
 Christendom, i.e. of the Christian nation, to 
 whose well-being as such the Christian Church 
 was pledged, under four aspects : i. That 
 which is properly civil, belonging to the sphere 
 
and its Lessons to us. r i 
 
 of the State. 2. That which is properly 
 spiritual, belonging, therefore, immediately 
 and supremely to the Church. 3. That which 
 relates to public morality. 4. That which 
 belongs to the divers and manifold social 
 relations of life. In each of these spheres, 
 answering to the whole need of the nation, 
 the Inner Mission of the Church is called to 
 labour— nothing being foreign to it which 
 promotes in any way the true well-being of 
 the people. 
 
 Under the first division, whilst it takes no 
 side in purely political controversy, yet as 
 against the principles of Communism, sap- 
 ping the foundation of civil society, it main- 
 tains the authority of Law as the foundation 
 of all social order, and declares the eternal 
 sanctity of marriage and of individual rights 
 and responsibilities as symbolised hy personal 
 property — which are the two chief pillars of 
 the social fabric. Under this division, how- 
 ever, the Inner Mission mixes in the public 
 affairs of the State chiefly with respect to the 
 
12 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 criminal population. The prisons of the 
 State are its chosen field of labour, for its 
 mission is to reform and save the criminal. 
 Its desire and its purpose are, that the entire 
 official staff of each prison should be men 
 inspired by a Redeemer's love, and having 
 grace from Him to awaken in the callous, icy 
 heart of the criminal the longing and a prayer 
 after a better life. " I was in prison, and ye 
 visited me," Wichern says, is a forgotten text. 
 Christ, in the person of these guilty, hardened 
 sinners, has waited in vain for the coming of 
 His own redeemed servants ! Then, when 
 the prisoners leave prison — strange that the 
 emissaries of the devil's church should be 
 there with open arms to welcome, nay, to 
 force them back to vice and infamy, but no 
 messenger of Christ's Church should be there 
 to lead them, if they would, into new paths 
 of virtue and peace ! The solicitous care of 
 prisoners in the prison, and their rescue and 
 protection after leaving prison, is thus the 
 labour of the Inner Mission. And here 
 
and its Lessons to us. 13 
 
 Wichern emphasizes with a strong accent, 
 what recurs again and again in his volume, 
 that this noble work of Saving Love is not 
 a matter of idle fantastical sentiment, a mere 
 Utopian dream of enthusiasm. It must be 
 intensely real, and lay a firm hold on the 
 hard realities with which it has to deal. It 
 is a sober, practical business, to be fulfilled 
 with patient wisdom and rigorously dis- 
 ciplined agency. Hence he insists that men, 
 devoting themselves to such prison service 
 and all other practical work of the Inner 
 Mission as their life calling, should be men 
 selected, proved, and trained for their arduous 
 vocation ; and hence, likewise, you will recol- 
 lect — we learnt that the Inner Mission has 
 established five training institutions for such 
 men, and fourteen deaconesses' institutions. 
 
 The department of work properly spiritual, 
 and belonging therefore immediately to the 
 sphere of the Church, is one with which 
 happily we are better acquainted in this 
 country : and our Christian activity, especi- 
 
14 TJie Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 ally in large towns, has saved England from 
 the religious destitution and widespread god- 
 lessness that are so sadly apparent in German 
 cities. Wichern first insists upon the forma- 
 tion of Bible Societies in order that the Word 
 of God may be put everywhere into the hands 
 of the people, and the institution of house 
 meetings for the reading and simple explana- 
 tion of that Word ; then of book societies, 
 laying hold of shops and all other available 
 means for the sale and diffusion of good popu- 
 lar books and journals, which have in them the 
 glow of a bright and healthy Christian spirit, 
 while along with these he urges the institution 
 in every locality of small lending libraries. 
 He does not conceal the difficulties that be- 
 set the production of such literature, especially 
 of such journals, but he believes that earnest 
 Christian love is more than able, when roused 
 and fixed to the undertaking, to meet these 
 difficulties. The passion of doing good in 
 Christ's name has ever shown itself compe- 
 tent for its sublime task ! Then follows, in 
 
and its Lessons to ns. 15 
 
 his list, colportage — the colporteur being a 
 man of sense as well as of zeal, able there- 
 fore, not only to commend and sell his books, 
 but also to speak the truth of God's Word 
 as he found entrance for it, and to awaken 
 interest, not only in the Christian books he 
 sells, but in the doctrine and life they por- 
 tray. After the colporteur, he would send 
 the travelling and street preacher — or Volks- 
 prediger — the herald of the Church, announc- 
 ing its good news, and leading the wanderers 
 back to its fold. Together with these 
 agencies, he desires the multiplication of the 
 regular ministers of the Church in over- 
 crowded districts. 
 
 All these latter agents must, of course, be 
 wholly employed by the Inner Mission — men 
 called out and sent forth on its service. But 
 what must be the work of the innumerable 
 members of the Church, who, as belonging 
 to the believing priesthood of Christ, have to 
 serve with Him in His saving work, as He 
 would succour the people in their sorrow, and 
 
1 6 The hiner Missio7t of Germany^ 
 
 bless them with all good? Largely, he thinks, 
 this work will be found in the two next de- 
 partments of the Inner Mission, where public 
 morality and the social needs of the people 
 are considered. 
 
 But ere he enters on these departments he 
 asks the question : What time have Christian 
 people for this Christian work, this redeeming 
 work, this business of their Lord, who would 
 save society, as He would save each soul, 
 from all evil ? Would I could give his 
 answer! Suffice it to say, the love of God 
 and man which has been kindled by, and is 
 akin to; Christ's yearning compassion, will 
 create, perforce, some time for its own most 
 blessed need. If public business in the State 
 commands freely the best services and the 
 time of our ablest citizens, then too the 
 special business of God's kingdom with 
 which, indeed, the welfare of the State and 
 interests of humanity — grander than those of 
 the State — are bound up, may find even a 
 nobler willinghood. He asks women to let 
 
and its Lessons to us. r/ 
 
 this ministry of Christ be their own. And 
 men of business, men of wealth, who have 
 reahzed a competent fortune, he asks to de- 
 vote their whole time and experience, and 
 their energies which have been trained in 
 their worldly business, to this Divine business 
 of their Lord ; letting the ripe Sabbath years 
 of their life be thus consecrated to the god- 
 like work of blessing, with the good it needs, 
 a suffering and sinning world. 
 
 In the department of public morality, Dr. 
 Wichern centres the work of the Inner Mis- 
 sion on three points — prostitution, corrupt 
 popular literature, and drunkenness. The 
 protection of young women, their rescue from 
 vice, and the punishment of vice ; the ex- 
 posure and combating, by every means, of 
 corrupt literature, the supply and propagation 
 of good literature in its place ; and the action 
 of temperance societies, either teetotal or not, 
 are the duties involved in this sphere of the 
 Inner Mission. 
 
 And now Dr. Wichern enters on the large 
 
 B 
 
1 8 TJie Inner Mission of Germany^ 
 
 and critical questions that agitate society, 
 which arise out of our vast social evils, widen- 
 ing and deepening in the midst of even pros- 
 perous, communities, and which can only be 
 solved by the practical, because wise and 
 patient, love of the Christian Church. These 
 questions relate to the three great ordinances 
 of the family, of property, and of labour. The 
 stability, purity, and honour of the Family 
 life lie at the root of all social welfare. 
 Hence to restore these everywhere among the 
 people is a first work of the Inner Mission. 
 Here Communism and Christianity come into 
 direct conflict. To track the causes that give 
 such a power to Communism in our day 
 must be the study of Christian men ; for 
 to encounter that foe we must know the 
 springs of its strength. Communism also 
 assails the other ordinances of Property and 
 .Labour, annulling the one, and degrading the 
 other to a mechanical uniformity, whilst it 
 deprives the labourer of the reward that spurs 
 and cheers fhim. 3ut its strange and delusive 
 
and its Lessofis to tis. 19 
 
 potency has arisen only from the sins of that 
 society which it would destroy. And now 
 Christian men and women have both to 
 assuage the evils which these sins have in- 
 duced, and to assail the sins from which they 
 spring. Communism would destroy society ; 
 it is given to Christianity to save it. Accord- 
 ingly, Wichern reviews what has been done, 
 and what may be done, to reform the lawless 
 and depraved family life ; to save neglected 
 and lost children ; to alleviate the wants of 
 the poor, and aid their efforts after independ- 
 ence ; to nurse the sick ; to consecrate the 
 use of property, and to heal the feud between 
 the possessing and non-possessing classes of 
 society; to bring the mass of the working 
 classes again under the healthy influence of 
 Christ's doctrine of righteousness and love. 
 
 Here he surveys what has been done in 
 other lands, signalling with honour efforts 
 made in this country, and the services ren- 
 dered to Roman Catholic countries by the 
 modern societies of Vincent de Paul and of 
 
20 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 St. Regis ; and then, with a wise statesman- 
 ship, considers and propounds what must be 
 done for Germany by the Inner Mission. I 
 wish I had time to quote his words on the 
 care of the poor. In England, more than in 
 any other country, is the curse of pauperism 
 felt. There is terrible poverty in other coun- 
 tries ; but the suction of that great maelstrom 
 which drags down our respectable poor from 
 the consciousness of a virtuous self-reliance ; 
 and the hereditary taint which propagates 
 itself, vitiating and degrading a whole class 
 of the community known as the pauper class, 
 exist nowhere as in England. Both the great 
 forces now at work to relieve our poor, both 
 State alms and the ordinary bounties of 
 charity, to a large extent foster the vice of 
 pauperism, and so multiply the class and 
 aggravate the evils which they would relieve. 
 Here is one vast social problem which only 
 the Christian Church, allying all willing 
 agencies with itself, can effectually solve. 
 But to do it, the Church, in its earnest living 
 
a)id its Lessons to us. 21 
 
 members, must study the problem under the 
 complex conditions engendered in modern 
 English society, and then labour right ardu- 
 ously and patiently for its removal ; for, as 
 Wichern says, " In all cases it is by the Inner 
 Mission of the Church that the Christianly 
 moral principles, which alone can work with 
 an educating influence among the people in 
 the treatment of the poor, can be made effec- 
 tive ; and there only in the form, and by the 
 means, of a personal relationship and inter- 
 course, begotten of love, between the volun- 
 tary friends and helpers of the poor, and the 
 poor themselves ; and by uniting together in 
 a vital and necessary connection, all outward 
 and inward, material and moral, intellectual 
 and spiritual, help — so that the former of 
 these, the outward and material, shall lead to 
 and prepare for the latter ; and the latter, the 
 inward and spiritual, shall be recognised and 
 felt to be the true power that enables men to 
 acquire and rightly use the former." 
 
 Now how does Wichern contemplate the 
 
22 The hmer Mission of Germany^ 
 
 accomplishment of so manifold and great a 
 work ? How is the Inner Mission actually 
 carried out ? True, the scheme may, like all 
 right ideals, shine above us as something 
 toward which we must always aspire and 
 strive. But his method is wise, as his ideal 
 is right ; and where his method is adopted, 
 gradually the ideal will become real. I omit 
 all references to country districts or to the 
 larger operations of the Inner Mission in pro- 
 vinces and kingdoms. I confine myself to 
 the Inner Mission in towns like our own. 
 Here then he desires a union of earnest, wise, 
 faithful, Christian men and women, who 
 understand the object and the scope of the 
 Inner Mission as it concerns the well-being of 
 the people. This union should be the active 
 organizing body, and form *' the direction " 
 of the Inner Mission in the town. In this 
 union he would have representatives of every 
 institution and society in the town that has 
 a distinctly Christian spirit, and has an evan- 
 gelistic or philanthropic aim : not that these 
 
and its Lessons to us. 23 
 
 societies or institutions should in any way 
 be interfered with or merged into a greater 
 organization, but that they may work in con- 
 cert, be acquainted with each other's work, 
 assist each other, and above all, manifest in 
 such an alliance the unity of the Christian 
 spirit that animates them all, so that the 
 world may learn thus impressively how Christ 
 Himself is the inspiring Spirit of their multi- 
 farious ministries of love. Along with such 
 representatives of existing societies, others 
 must be added who shall be representatives 
 of the several district or denominational 
 Churches, which, divided as they may be 
 locally, or in minor points of creed, have one 
 faith — in the redemption of Christ ; one spirit 
 — of His redeeming love ; and one work — in 
 the redemption of humanity from all evil. 
 
 The object of the Inner Mission, thus con- 
 stituted, is fourfold. i. To inform all the 
 Evangelic Churches of Christ with respect to 
 their great social and philanthropic duty in 
 our time ; to awaken their sympathies in such 
 
24 The Inner Missioii of Gervia7iy, 
 
 work, that thus they may show Christ's re- 
 demption to suffering and sin-worn men, in 
 forms palpable to their grossest sense, and 
 touching them with some deeper understand- 
 ing of our Redeemer's unutterable love for 
 them in the deepest evils of the soul, because 
 they have felt the relief it brings in the out- 
 ward miseries of life. 2. To associate with 
 itself, and so to bring into harmonious and 
 helpful co-operation, every existing agency — 
 now working in broken and separated fashion ; 
 if necessary, to quicken or sustain these 
 agencies ; to take counsel and action with 
 the civil officers of the town in matters be- 
 longing to their department, which relate to 
 public health, the well-being of the poor, the 
 charge of the neglected youth, and of the 
 fallen and criminal members of society. 3. 
 To study carefully and comprehensively the 
 whole of the existing social and moral con- 
 dition of the town ; to note whatever special 
 evils and wants appeal for Christian action ; 
 by " flying leaves " to make the Christian 
 
and its Lessons to tis. 25 
 
 Churches otherwise usually absorbed in their 
 local and separate affairs, acquainted with 
 these facts ; to stimulate and direct the 
 action of Christian men and women, and of 
 Christian Churches, to separate or concerted 
 action in respect of them ; and then to make 
 regular reports to the whole of the Christian 
 Church which they represent, of the needs 
 that have been thus portrayed and of the 
 answering Christian ministries that may have 
 striven to meet them. 4. To initiate and 
 continue practical measures that require 
 united action ; to begin special agencies, as 
 they may be needed, which may be handed 
 over to the charge of special societies, united, 
 however, in the bond of the Inner Mission ; 
 or to establish institutions and conduct agen- 
 cies on its own responsibility, in the name of 
 *the Church of Christ and its Inner Mission." 
 Dr. Wichern also recommends that, if pos- 
 sible, the larger central body which represents 
 and conducts the Inner Mission should be 
 subdivided into district divisions, so as more 
 
26 TJie Inner Mission of Gennanyy 
 
 effectually to superintend certain kinds of 
 service that need close local attention, such 
 as the conduct of poor-relief, and the nursing 
 of the sick poor. 
 
 I have now sketched the history, the aims, 
 and the method of the Inner Mission in 
 Germany. Let me, in a few concluding 
 words, ask its lesson for us in England ! 
 rather, I say, for Nottingham ! for whilst its 
 lessons avail for all England, I know no town 
 that is so happily circumstanced as Notting- 
 ham for taking the lessons of the Inner 
 Mission and putting them into practice. If 
 we cannot do it here, I should despair of its 
 being done elsewhere. To know these les- 
 sons, let me point out the great principles 
 that underlie the Inner Mission and give it at 
 once form and life. These principles are its 
 lessons. Can we apply and embody these in 
 our town ? First, and most emphatically, 
 that Christianity is a social religion — in a 
 different sense from that often put upon these 
 words. It is a religion for society. It is a 
 
and Us Lessons to us. 27 
 
 religion which saves society as well as indi- 
 vidual man, which brings health — the sta- 
 bility, purity, freedom, and peace, of a healthy 
 well-being — to the community which it vita- 
 lises and rules with its spirit. Accordingly 
 we believe that every institution of society, 
 every association of men in all classes of 
 the people, every relationship of life, should 
 be founded on a Christian idea and hallowed 
 by a Christian spirit ; and, further, that the 
 true Church of Christ has to assert and 
 carry out the redemptive work of Christ 
 in society, and that its grand, if not its 
 supreme, object, is to build up a true Chris- 
 tian nation, the whole atmosphere of whose 
 varied life, and the widespread roots of whose 
 social and public institutions, shall be distinc- 
 tively Christian ; so that these gracious words, 
 " Christendom " and " Christian nation," ex- 
 pressive of the spheres within which the 
 Church of Christ exerts its influence, may 
 have a definite, actual, and glorious meaning. 
 (2) That all personal or aggregate efforts 
 
28 The hmer Mission of Germ any. 
 
 inspired by Christian love should somehow 
 or other be united publicly in the name of 
 Christ, and have some , means of communi- 
 cating reciprocal knowledge and help ; that 
 they should thus exhibit, in their union and 
 their open confession of Christ, the reality 
 and magnitude of the practical and saving 
 work now done in society by our Lord and 
 Redeemer through His members, in order 
 that men may know Him, and, as of old, 
 honour Him and believe on Him for His 
 work's sake. (3) That the Church, so far as 
 it is the communion of believing men and 
 women, has to reveal to the world Christ's 
 compassion for the people. It is the treasury 
 of His saving grace for man. Wherever there 
 is sickness, poverty, sorrow, temptation, vice, 
 there is its mission to make known Christ, 
 not only by words, but by deeds of saving 
 love — to heal, to comfort, to protect, to 
 rescue, to bless, in His name. Men oppressed 
 by the actual evils of life can hardly appre- 
 ciate the tidings of a salvation which does not 
 
and its Lessons to us, 29 
 
 relieve from them ; but let these be encoun- 
 tered and relieved by the great love of Christ 
 in His Church, and then with strange longing, 
 and with an answering love, they may follow 
 Him who has thus blessed them, to learn the 
 richer blessings of His greater salvation. At 
 the present day, especially, we must show to 
 men a real Christianity ; redemption in its 
 broadest, fullest, and most blessed sense ; re- 
 demption from the evils that actually oppress 
 humanity. (4) That the universal priesthood 
 of believers taught by all Protestant Churches 
 is a glorious truth that has yet tp be fully and 
 practically accepted and carried out. All 
 must join in the ministries of Christ's saving 
 love for mankind. But multitudes have not 
 the gift of grace for teaching or for direct 
 spiritual work. Indeed, this usually implies 
 an eminency in grace which we can hardly 
 expect in all. But in this blessed social 
 practical ministry to want and sorrow, all — 
 the youngest, the weakest, the most ignorant 
 — can join. The cup of cold water— any 
 
so The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 Christian hand can give. To soothe a fevered 
 brow for Christ's own sake is impossible to 
 no Christian woman. Here is a field for 
 all. This is the world's need ! And it is 
 the Church's need — that all her members 
 may engage in service they can render for 
 Christ, thus fulfilling their own duty and 
 receiving the rich rewards of His promise. 
 And, lastly, that the social work of the Church 
 must be done systematically and under the 
 guidance of the highest wisdom of the 
 Church. All must join it. But the leaders of 
 the Church must unite in studying the great 
 problem with which they deal, so that all may 
 work wisely to secure the ends sought, with- 
 out marring each other's work or idly beat- 
 ing the air. Union, organization, and wise 
 spiritual statesmanship, are necessary here. 
 
 Now, may I venture to ask, nay, to plead, 
 that such a work as the Inner Mission may 
 be established in our town. I do not pro- 
 nounce the jeremiad over modern society 
 that some of our public writers are now fond 
 
a7id its Lessons to us. 31 
 
 of wailing forth. But, amid great material 
 prosperity, there are deep cankers in our 
 social estate which may work the corruption 
 of death, if, in Christ's name, we do not bring 
 to them His healing. In our town I might 
 name many such social evils, but I only men- 
 tion three, which have recently been brought 
 under public notice : — i. Mr. Manning last 
 winter summoned a meeting of ministers to 
 learn the alarm with which, in his office as 
 mayor, he had viewed the spreading pest of a 
 corrupt licentious literature among the youth 
 of the town. 2. Again, we were told last 
 winter that thousands of young females came 
 to Nottingham, tempted by the great demand 
 for female labour, who are without the shelter- 
 ing care of a home. 3. Nottingham is a most 
 prosperous town, yet we see how the vice of 
 pauperism clings to us and deepens among 
 us. Now these and such like general facts 
 concerning our moral and social condition do 
 not come under the cognisance of an indivi- 
 dual or district Church. It cannot deal with 
 
32 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 them. They can be dealt with only by all 
 the Churches combined. Having one faith, 
 and one Spirit, and one Lord, they have here 
 one work in the town. May we not then have 
 such a Union in this town, containing repre- 
 sentatives of all existing Christian charities 
 and societies, working for social ends, and 
 representatives of all Churches having faith 
 in Christ's redemption, that shall do these 
 things: (i) collate and study all the facts 
 bearing on the physical, moral, and social 
 condition of the town, and show the practical 
 relation and duty of the Christian Church 
 with respect to them ; (2) incite and direct to 
 needful efforts in view of these facts, so as to 
 relieve distress, save from vice, and regulate 
 and inspire all social institutions with Chris- 
 tian principles ; (3) take counsel, and co-oper- 
 ate, with our civil agencies towards the highest 
 well-being of the people ; (4) initiate and 
 conduct new agencies that may be required 
 to meet any special and urgent wants of the 
 town ; (5) exhibit to the people of this town 
 
and its Lessons to iis. 33 
 
 the unity of all who love Christ — in their love 
 for men — that they may know that we are 
 one in Him, and that He is the " Anointed " 
 of God for a world's redemption. 
 
34 The. Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 COPY OF RESOLUTION ADOPTED UNANI- 
 MOUSLY BY THE CONFERENCE. 
 
 " That a Union be formed in the town, 
 consisting of the representatives of all ex- 
 isting Christian charities and Christian 
 societies working for social ends, and of the 
 representatives of the Church of Christ in 
 this town. Its object shall be, — first, to 
 strengthen by such union these several Chris- 
 tian societies and charities, to make them 
 acquainted with each other's work, and to 
 manifest the unity of the Christian spirit that 
 inspires them all ; secondly, to collate and 
 study facts connected with the physical, 
 moral, and social condition of the town, 
 and to impress on the public mind the 
 practical relation and duty of the Christian 
 Church with respect to these facts ; thirdly, 
 to take counsel and action with the civil 
 agencies of the town on matters with which 
 they are connected, and which affect the 
 
and its Lessons to us. 35 
 
 social well-being of the people ; fourthly, to 
 incite and direct individual and Church 
 labours, so as to relieve distress and save 
 from vice, and to inspire and regulate all 
 social institutions with a Christian spirit ; 
 fifthly, where existing agencies and individual 
 or separate Church action do not meet any 
 special and urgent wants of the town, to 
 institute and conduct such agencies as shall ; 
 and sixthly and lastly, to exhibit by such 
 combined action for the well-being of the 
 people the reality of Christian unity, and 
 the social redemption that is effected by 
 Christian love." 
 
36 The Imier Mission of Germany, 
 
 PROGRAMME AND CIRCULAR CONVENING 
 THE CONFERENCE. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 A Public Conference will be held in the 
 Lecture Hall of the Mechanics' Institution, 
 on Thursday, nth inst., Morning, lo a.m., 
 and Evening, 6.30 p.m., to consider the prac- 
 tical relations of Christianity to the social 
 wants and evils of our time. 
 
 Papers will be read on the following sub- 
 jects ; and discussion, with prayer, will follow 
 the reading of each paper : — 
 
 (i) Christianity and the higher Education 
 of the People. By James Stuart, Esq., 
 Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 (2) Our Neglected and Criminal Children : 
 
 their claims on the Christian Church. By 
 
 Rev. T. Bowman Stephenson, B.A., of 
 
 jthe Children's Home, Bonner Road, London; 
 
and its Lessons to ns. 37 
 
 and by T. J. Barnardo, M.D., Home for 
 Working and Destitute Lads, Stepney Cause- 
 way, London. 
 
 In connection with this subject. Orphan 
 Asylums, and other means of rescuing our 
 Pauper Classes, will come under considera- 
 tion. 
 
 (3) The Nursing of the Sick : especially 
 of the Sick Poor in our large towns. By 
 Miss Merryweather, of Liverpool. 
 
 (4) The Care of Prisoners : especially of 
 female prisoners discharged from prison. 
 By Miss Wilson, of Leeds. 
 
 (5) How to Improve the Public-house. 
 By Mrs. J. HiND Smith, the founder of the 
 " British Workman " Public-houses. 
 
 (6) Our Workhouse Children. By Miss 
 Mathews, of Birmingham. 
 
 (7) The " Inner Mission " of Germany, and 
 its lessons for England. By the Rev. J. B. 
 Paton, M.A. 
 
38 The I7i7ier Mission of Germany, 
 
 In addition, it is hoped that the questions 
 of " Pauperism," " The Agricultural Poor," 
 " The Elberfeld System of aiding the Poor," 
 as also of ** Workhouse Life," etc., may be 
 considered at the Conference. 
 
 It becomes Christian men and women to 
 study the grave social wants and evils of 
 our time, and to labour unitedly and earnestly 
 for their alleviation and entire removal. 
 
 (i) Because the true principles, that can 
 alone reform, heal, and elevate society, are 
 the principles of God's kingdom, revealed 
 in Christianity, which are Righteousness and 
 Love. Christianity is the true Social Science. 
 
 (2) Because the energies and sympathies 
 engendered of living faith in Christ alone 
 suffice to grapple with these evils, — to en- 
 counter and share the miseries which they 
 inflict, and to pierce with searching and 
 healing touch to the roots from which they 
 spring. 
 
and its Lessons to us. 39 
 
 (3) Because every Christian is pledged by 
 his own redemption to be a fellow-worker 
 with Christ and his brethren in the holy 
 work of rescuing his fellow-men and society 
 from every form of evil. 
 
 The Christian Church, so far as it is a 
 communion of Christian men and women, 
 receives "gifts of Christ's grace" for the 
 solace of human sorrows, and the lessening 
 of human sin. The leaves of the tree of life, 
 planted in the Church, are for the healing 
 of the nations. We are responsible as the 
 stewards of these Divine and healing gifts, 
 for their wisest and most effective administra- 
 tion. 
 
 The evidences by which Christ, when on 
 earth, proved to men His Divine mission, and 
 revealed to them, as they were able to receive 
 it. His profounder compassion for them in 
 their deeper spiritual needs, and His richer 
 gifts of spiritual healing and life, were His 
 beneficent wonders— works of sympathy and 
 
40 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 mercy to the needy and the outcast. It is 
 also by such evidences that the Christian 
 Church, which is now His " living body " on 
 earth, must still make men know the fulness 
 of His compassion for them, and lead them 
 to understand and realize the fulness of His 
 saving health, which crowns body and spirit 
 alike with the " Eternal Life." 
 
 In our time, especially among the wx)rking 
 classes, there is a widespread impression that 
 Christianity has no reality in it, that it deals 
 only with " the other " world, and not with 
 this ; or, that, at any rate, it brings no pal- 
 pable blessing to them in this world. This 
 is, we believe, a great mistake. There is 
 scarcely any good thing in modern society 
 but springs from a Christian root. The 
 multitudinous agencies that labour especially 
 for the good of the poorer classes, are in- 
 spired chiefly, even if not confessedly — by 
 Christian faith. Yet there may have been 
 much in the conduct of Christian people to 
 give rise to this injurious conception of 
 
and its Lessons to us. 41 
 
 Christianity. Christian preaching and Chris- 
 tian Hfe may have been sundered too much 
 from the practical social jiecessities of the 
 Time. And what has been done from Chris- 
 tian faith has not been known to spring 
 from that source. If so, we must now 
 endeavour to represent more faithfully the 
 religion of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and to 
 show that Christianity alone is the true 
 Secularism — having richest blessings for the 
 life that now is. We must show that the 
 mighty inspirations which come into the soul 
 of man from faith in the Eternal world, 
 which is " Now " as well as " Hereafter," all 
 quicken and constrain him " to do good 
 and to communicate " in this world — in the 
 living society of men of which he is a 
 member. 
 
 The social and philanthropic labours in 
 which Christian men and women must neces- 
 sarily engage, afford the best field for mani- 
 festing the true unity of all Christians who 
 have, with whatever differences of opinions. 
 
42 The Inner Mission of Germany, 
 
 this spirit of their Master — the enthusiasm 
 of humanity, the desire to do good, and to 
 lessen the miseries of their fellow-men ; and 
 who merge their differences of opinion in 
 the face of the darkening evils we would 
 combat, and in the memory of that great 
 Redeeming Love that saves us — and sends 
 us, laden with saving blessings, to the needy 
 that suffer and are lost. 
 
 Led by these sacred considerations, we 
 have been glad to assist in arranging for a 
 Conference of Christian men and women, to 
 be held (according to the programme) in the 
 Lecture Hall of the Mechanics' Institution 
 on Thursday, the nth instant, in the Morn- 
 ing at 10 a.m., and in the Evening at 6.30 
 p.m. And we cordially invite such persons, 
 who share to any extent these convictions, 
 in the town and neighbourhood, to be pre- 
 sent and take part in the deliberations of 
 that day. We hope that these deliberations 
 will prepare for, and lead to, more zealous 
 philanthropic labours for the highest well- 
 
and its Lessons to us, 43 
 
 being, — physical and moral, social and spiri- 
 tual, — of the Community. 
 
 We are grateful that several well-known 
 Christian workers, in different parts of the 
 country, who have been honoured to in- 
 augurate different kinds of Christian philan- 
 thropic labours, and who have gained rich 
 experience therein, are willing to assist our 
 deliberations. 
 
 We acknowledge that the study of com- 
 plicated social problems in the light of 
 Christianity needs to be conducted with 
 wise and earnest thoughtfulness ; that our 
 " ministry of good " is a Divine service which 
 must tax our best powers of thought, as well 
 as our zeal and endurance ; in order not 
 only that our good may not be evil spoken 
 of, but that it may be unattended with evil 
 — ignorantly caused, and that it may accom- 
 plish the ends that are sought, most effec- 
 tively and happily. In our Conference, 
 accordingly, we must look to Him who has 
 given us the Spirit of power, of love, and 
 
44 The Inner Missioft of Germany. 
 
 of a sound mind ; and who giveth liberally 
 the wisdom from above, which is " full of 
 mercy, and of good fruits : without partiality, 
 and without hypocrisy." 
 
 FRANCIS MORSE. 
 J. B. PATON. 
 
 Nottingham, Sept. 3, 1873. 
 
THE INNER MISSION 
 OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE CONGREGATIONAL 
 INSTITUTE, NOTTINGHAM, 
 
 On the Occasion of the Celebration of the 
 Majority of the Institute. 
 
 45 
 
THE INNER MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 By the " Inner Mission " of the Church I 
 mean its mission in a so-called Christian land, 
 i.e. a country like our own, in which the Church 
 of Christ has been effectively established, and 
 among whose people Christian truth has been 
 widely diffused, and is generally accepted. I 
 use this term, therefore, in contrast to the 
 foreign or external mission of the Church, 
 when she goes to assail heathen idolatry, and 
 to unveil amid the darkness in which it has 
 imprisoned the nations of the earth, " the light 
 of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the 
 image of God." The Inner Mission of the 
 Church in England, accordingly would include 
 all the prayer and labour of her great redemp- 
 
 47 
 
48 The Inner Mission of the Church. 
 
 tive ministry, in order that in this land of 
 ours the kingdom of God may fully come, — 
 that His will may be done here as it is done 
 in heaven. 
 
 Now I must distinguish these two concep- 
 tions of " the Church " and " the Kingdom," 
 and the doctrine or teaching of Scripture with 
 regard to each of them respectively ; for they 
 have been confounded together, and great 
 mischief has resulted from the confusion. 
 The three synoptic Gospels set forth promi- 
 nently the doctrine of the Kingdom, named 
 by Mark and Luke the kingdom of God, and 
 by Matthew the kingdom of heaven. They 
 announce its laws and its beatitudes ; they 
 describe the manner and conditions of its 
 gradual growth ; they reveal the Divine, heal- 
 ing, and regenerative powers, which are mani- 
 fest in its growth, and will insure its final 
 triumph. And they thrill and glow with the 
 good tidings of great joy, that the kingdom 
 of heaven has actually come down to this 
 world, in " the brightness of the coming " of 
 
TJie Inner Mission of the Church. 49 
 
 its true Lord and Redeemer, and that it will 
 extend and prevail against all obstruction, 
 till great voices in heaven exclaim, " The 
 kingdoms of this world are become the king- 
 dom of our Lord and of His Christ." The 
 doctrine of the kingdom accordingly sets be- 
 fore us in its entirety, so far as this world is 
 concerned, the object and result of our Lord's 
 incarnation and redeeming work. The doc- 
 trine of the Church, on the other hand, shows 
 us the institution and agency which He has 
 created, and which He uses in order to 
 accomplish this sublime purpose — and this 
 doctrine fills the epistles of His Apostles. 
 
 The Church consists of men and women 
 who, conscious of the redemption from the-* 
 enthralling power and the guilt of sin which 
 has been given to them by the marvellous 
 grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, sur- 
 render themselves, in the obedience ot faith,- 
 to Him who has bought them with His' 
 own blood, in order to fulfil all His blessed 
 will' and work in the world ;— who are touched' 
 
 i> 
 
50 The Inner Mission of the Church. 
 
 and quickened in the inmost fibres of their 
 being by the redeeming Spirit of their Lord ; 
 — and who by this one Divine Spirit, which 
 animates them all, and by the inspiring con- 
 sciousness of the transcendent work which 
 they have to carry on together for the world 
 around them, are drawn and bound together 
 in a unity of fellowship which is eternal. 
 
 Two figures are used in the Epistles to 
 portray this sacred living unity of the 
 Church, and its redemptive function in the 
 world, (i)' " It is a holy temple," says the 
 apostle, "in which we are buiided together 
 for an habitation of God through the Spirit." 
 And from this temple, as from the temple 
 of old, the light and truth of God shine 
 forth to illumine and bless the whole world. 
 (2) There is that wondrous figure which is 
 repeated so often in the Epistles, and which 
 sets' forth the Church of Christ in the exact- 
 est form in which human thought can con- 
 ceive, or human speech can reveal it. The 
 Church of Christ is His body — the immortal 
 
The Liner Mission of the Church. 5 1 
 
 body of Christ on earth — the members of 
 which Hve by His Spirit, partake thus in 
 common of one Hfe which is His, and Hve 
 in that Body to reveal the mind and do the 
 will of Him whose body they form. Christ 
 thus lives ever in His Church, as of old in 
 His mortal body, and His work in it now, as 
 of old, is by the revelation of the righteous- 
 ness and love of Godj and by His ministries 
 of mercy to bring the kingdom of heaven 
 down to earth. 
 
 The Church then is not the kingdom. It 
 lives, created and inspired by the redeem- 
 ing Spirit of Christ, to form the kingdom of 
 God, and to extend it ever more and more 
 widely upon earth : and this is done, as our 
 Lord has taught us in His prayer, just in the 
 measure in which, in the hearts of individual 
 men, and in the social relationships of men, 
 — the home, friendship, business, the State — 
 the will of God is done here on earth as it is 
 done in heaven. 
 
 Now three great evils have arisen, as it 
 
52 The Inner Mission of the Church, 
 
 seems to me, from the confusion of the con- 
 ceptions of the Church and the kingdom : 
 First, the parables which set forth the gradual 
 diffusion of Divine righteousness and love in 
 the world, — the commixture and conflict in 
 the world of these elements of good with the 
 evil, and their final separation in the Day of 
 Judgment, have been perversely taken to re- 
 present the necessary and proper state of the 
 Church on earth. And hence a doctrine of 
 the Church has prevailed which has fashioned 
 the entire constitution and administrative pro- 
 cedure of the Roman and Greek Churches, 
 and which has sadly depraved and weakened 
 many of the Protestant Churches, that have 
 followed Augustine in his interpretation of 
 the parables. I allow that the doctrine of the 
 Church presented in the Epistles is the ideal 
 Church, which must, like every ideal in this 
 world, shine ever above us as not yet fully 
 attained. But it furnishes the law accord- 
 ing to which the Churches must ever organize 
 and discipline themselves, and the aim after 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 53 
 
 which they must sedulously strive. On the 
 contrary, however, the parables show us the 
 world, and the kingdom of heaven strug- 
 gling to realize itself there through the pa- 
 tient, mighty redemptive forces which Christ, 
 in His true Church, pours into it ; — the world 
 therefore, with its sin and wildering sorrows 
 on the one hand, and its hungering need and 
 desire on the other, groaning for deliverance ; 
 and amid all, the kingdom of heaven silently 
 establishing itself, thrilling along its shrunken 
 veins the saving health of God, allaying the 
 fever of its diseases, and restoring in it a new 
 order and harmony which brings Divine peace 
 on earth. Such is the wondrous picture which 
 Christ gives of the world with the new glory 
 of heaven brightening over it and within it. 
 
 But to make this picture a representation of 
 the Church itself, which is Christ's body — in 
 which and by which He is working out this 
 redemption of the world, the organ through 
 which He manifests His truth, and enforces 
 it with the endless tenderness and might of 
 
54 The Inner Mission of the Church. 
 
 His suffering love — is to degrade the Church 
 to the world which it redeems, to bring into 
 the Church itself the conflict and confusion 
 of the world, and so undoing her true nature, 
 to paralyse her Divine force, and cloud with 
 sickly eclipse her Divine radiancy. Yet this 
 is the famous doctrine of Multitudinism, as 
 it is called. This is the doctrine of Rome, 
 and of all sacerdotal and Erastian Churches, 
 in which men become members of the Church 
 by birth or baptism, regardless of their moral 
 character and spiritual faith. Such Churches 
 are incoherent masses, with no principle of 
 organic unity, no common life, no powers or 
 possibilities of self-government. Of necessity, 
 therefore, to ensure their continuance, their 
 government, and moral or religious discipline 
 of any kind, authority has to be created and 
 imposed upon them from without, either by 
 the State or by a self-replenished hierarchy. 
 The second evil I shall but briefly indicate, 
 though it has worked and is working disas- 
 trously in the world. Because the Church and 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 55 
 
 the kingdom are affirmed to be the same, and 
 because the kingdom of God is confessedly uni- 
 versal, — for His authority holds, and His law 
 should reign, everywhere, alike in the council 
 chamber of the State, and in the secret cham- 
 ber of the soul ; — therefore the priestly ruler 
 of the Church claims to have the right to rule 
 in every department of man's life, to direct the 
 public policy of nations, to govern the econ- 
 omy of homes, and even to direct the secret 
 currents of the inner life of every living being. 
 He claims the place of God, for he declares 
 that his rule in the Church means the rule of 
 God's universal kingdom. The logic is irre- 
 sistible, but the evil consequences have been 
 terrible, and show how false is the premiss on 
 which the logic is built. 
 
 And now the third evil which has arisen 
 from this confusion of the Church and the 
 kingdom brings me more immediately to the 
 subject of my paper. 
 
 Christian men have thought the Church and 
 the kingdom of Heaven were the same, and 
 
56 The Inner Mission of the Church, 
 
 so the full scope of the redemptive mission and 
 the ministry of the Church have been miscon- 
 ceived or obscured. The aims of the Church 
 iiave been confused. Her methods have been 
 indefinite and inadequate, and the glorious 
 ardour of her members which would have been 
 evoked by the grandeur and blessedness of the 
 v/ork given them to do, has been repressed. 
 The fires of redemptive love have burnt low 
 in the Church because the objects and needs 
 of Christ's redemptive work -in the world have 
 not been clearly seen by His own people so 
 as to stir those fires into steadfast flame. The 
 kingdom of God is not, cannot be, the Church, 
 for it is the continuing prayer of the Church 
 that the kingdom of God may come ; and be- 
 cause this is her prayer it is likewise her con- 
 tinuing labour — into which she breathes that 
 spirit of redeeming love which, as her very life 
 blood, pulses through her members from the 
 broken heart of Christ — that this kingdom of 
 God our Father may come in the world, that 
 here, everywhere, by all men and among all 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 57 
 
 men, in all relationships, His blessed will 
 may be done as it is done in heaven. This 
 prayer of the Church shows, I say, that the 
 kingdom is not the Church. But its brief, 
 great words define exactly and fully the im- 
 port and issue of the ministry of the Church, 
 and of every member of it. The Church 
 lives, we live as members of the Church, 
 simply in order that by us in this world, now 
 so dark and weary with sin and sore distress, 
 the bright, pure, peaceful kingdom of heaven 
 may come. 
 
 Let us gratefully rejoice that many elements 
 of this ministry of the Church have been 
 active and most powerful, and blessedly suc- 
 cessful in the world. Especially let us rejoice 
 to-day in the evangelic faith of our fathers, 
 which we confess with them, — the faith that 
 declares the solemn and awful power and 
 curse of sin, which is in the nature of men, 
 which lies at the root of all human evil, and 
 which by every means we seek to reach and 
 overcome, so that men may return penitently 
 
58 TJie hiiier Mission of the Church. 
 
 to the obedience and love of their God and 
 Father ; — the faith which declares further that 
 truth which is the very heart of the gospel, 
 that God's own redeeming love has come 
 down into this world to encounter and break 
 this dire enchantment, and loose the heavy 
 bonds of this curse of sin in man ; and that it 
 has spent, and does ever spend itself with 
 its infinite powers, even unto the sacrifice in 
 death of His Son, and the gift of eternal life 
 by His Spirit, to redeem men from the guilt 
 and the death of sin, and to give them power 
 to be the sons of God. These sublime and 
 marvellous truths have been preached. So 
 far, we say, the ministry of the Church has 
 been fulfilled. The great, yea, infinite powers 
 that are thus with us, ready to act for human 
 redemption, are confessed and made known. 
 What then has hindered them in their most 
 glorious redemptive work ? Do we not see 
 that these truths form chiefly the theme of 
 our pulpits and our Sunday classes t They 
 form, accordingly, the doctrinal ministry of 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 59 
 
 a few persons in the Church called and set 
 apart to proclaim them. But this is not the 
 ministry of the whole Church. That redeem- 
 ing love of our death-crowned Immanuel must 
 be translated and seen in the redeeming love 
 and ministry of all His people in the world 
 around them. It must become practical, hu- 
 man, real, so as to be understood and felt of 
 men. They will believe and know it, we may 
 be sure, when with a tender sympathy, and 
 a healing power, and a righteous purpose, it 
 deals with the present, sore-pressing evils of 
 the world, and saves from them ; when by its 
 redeeming grace and truth it brings to men a 
 fairer, nobler life, which otherwise they wist 
 not of ; when, as of old, it heals all manner 
 of diseases, and brings the kingdom of Heaven 
 nigh unto them. Anew, in another sense, but 
 with equal truth, it may be said, the Word 
 must h^Qovix^ flesh and dwell among men, so 
 that they may behold its glory, full of grace 
 and truth. 
 
 The ministry of the Church in the world, 
 
6o The Inner Mission of the Church. 
 
 accordingly, as it appears to me, is twofold : 
 First, there is the proclamation of the great 
 mysteries of the kingdom, which have been 
 made known to the Church by our Lord, the 
 deep cause of all human evil in sin, and the 
 redemption wrought for men, and given to 
 men, by the infinite grace of God. These 
 supreme truths nothing must obscure or 
 weaken. They indeed relate chiefly to the 
 conversion and regeneration of the individual 
 soul, but they underlie and give quickening, 
 solemn, and almighty inspiration to all the 
 redemptive work of the Church for human- 
 ity ; whilst that work again makes real and 
 intelligible, and credible to suffering and 
 sin-burdened men, this saving love of their 
 Father of which we speak, and the unsearch- 
 able riches of Christ that are brought to 
 them. 
 
 Secondly : His Gospel is the good news 
 of a kingdom here on earth. Christ, through 
 His Church, brings redemption also to human 
 society. His religion, we are wont to say, 
 
The hitler Mission of the Church. 6i 
 
 is for society — for mankind, as well as for 
 individual men. But, we may say, further, 
 that it is the true religion for individual men, 
 because it is a religion for human society. 
 A man is saved not only by Christ, but into 
 Christ, so that he is touched, and fired with 
 His redeeming Spirit, and yearns to share 
 with Him, in his measure, in the work of 
 saving men from evil. Thus the Church has 
 not only those great mysteries to declare, of 
 which I have spoken. There have also been 
 given to it, by our Lord, the Divine and 
 essential laws of human society, the laws of 
 human conduct, according to which human life 
 can be healthful, and pure, and blessed ; the 
 laws by which this world of mankind can 
 become in very truth the kingdom of Heaven 
 on earth. And this is the ministry of the 
 Church, viz. : in a world where these laws 
 have been ruthlessly ignored and defied and 
 broken by men, and where the endless mis- 
 eries which afflict humanity have come, the 
 sharp and dreadful penalty of their sin, — to 
 
62 The Inner Missio7i of the Church. 
 
 magnify these laws again, and make them 
 honourable ; to win for them recognition and 
 obedience ; to reveal, apply, and incarnate 
 them in human life, as can only be done by 
 the inspiration and force of Christ's own Spirit 
 in His Church ; and then, finally, by bearing 
 in sympathy and unselfish love like Christ's 
 all these sad and manifold evils of men, grad- 
 ually to assuage and destroy them. In a 
 world gangrened with the festering vices 
 and sores of human sin, nothing, be sure, 
 but the omnipotent power of a love in the 
 Church of Christ which has clear vision of the 
 righteous will and truth of our Lord, and 
 yet thrills with the ardour of His passion, 
 the pathos of His pity, can bring the healing 
 that it needs, can reach and stanch the deep 
 wounds of our social malady, and awaken the 
 new powers of a healthful social life. For 
 such love alone will win men to learn and do 
 the will of God ; — and His kingdom comes 
 only as His will is done. 
 
 Now this second ministry of the Church 
 
The Inner Mission of the ChiircJi. 63 
 
 is what I mean by the phrase, " The Inner 
 Mission of the Church," and in regard to it 
 there are two passages of Scripture which 
 have to me profound and most vital signifi- 
 cance. The first is that passage, "And they 
 went through the towns preaching the gos- 
 pel and healing everywhere," a passage, you 
 will remember, which in substance is often 
 repeated in the Gospels ; as thus, " As ye 
 preach, say, The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers," — 
 words which, spoken of the Church in its first 
 days, when the little chosen band of disciples 
 were being taught the message and ministry 
 of the Church, are true of the Church in all 
 times. And they show us these two truths. 
 Remember, that the miracles of mercy 
 wrought in Galilee but condense and reveal 
 in bright and sudden splendour, — as electric 
 fires condense and reveal the electric energy 
 of the atmosphere, — the action of the ever- 
 living, healing, all-powerful Spirit of redeem- 
 ing grace, which animates Christ's Church in 
 
64 The Inner Mission of the Church, 
 
 every place, and which does now greater 
 works — wonders indeed of power and love 
 equally with His miracles of mercy, but 
 greater than these, — as Christ Himself told 
 us. Now such miracles of healing mercy 
 must ever attend the preaching of the gos- 
 pel for two objects, (i) in order that the 
 kingdom of God may be truly known among 
 men as a Divine, social, regenerative power, 
 which brings here and now life and health, 
 peace and goodwill to men, and so heals the 
 ills of a suffering world ; and (2) that the 
 gospel, with its most blessed truth of the 
 unutterable pity and love of our Father to 
 His sinful children, may be interpreted to 
 them, and may find wondering and delight- 
 ful credence by them, because of the pity 
 and the help which that love brings to them 
 in their present wants and sorrows. 
 
 The second passage is spoken of our Lord 
 Himself, and reveals likewise two truths 
 which must never be forgotten by us. " If 
 I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 65 
 
 the kingdom of God is come unto you." 
 Now this passage shows us, as so many other 
 words of Scripture, that the myriad evils of 
 human Hfe — evils that afflict alike the body . 
 and the mind, — have their deepest root in a 
 mystery of iniquity, in powers of darkness 
 which lurk behind the scenes and movements 
 of this world's drama, and infest even hidden 
 places of the human soul. These have to be 
 met and overcome and cast out, if the evils 
 that oppress humanity are to be destroyed. 
 Are you appalled, then, by the difficulty of 
 our redeeming work } Remember the second 
 truth in His word, "/ cast out devils by 
 the Spirit of God." He is with us, who has 
 received all power, and has vanquished all 
 enemies. We are but the members of His 
 Body, and it is He who through us still 
 casts out devils by the Spirit of God. 
 
 I have thus indicated what I mean by the 
 " Inner Mission of the Church " establishing 
 everywhere in the world the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 E 
 
66 The hill e 7' Mission of the CJiurcJi. 
 
 Does the Church of Christ hft up her 
 hands in despair, standing in the midst of 
 this awful world of human sin, with its 
 foul turbid depths of impurity, its wild 
 cruelty, its raging waves, as of the sea, foam- 
 ing out their own shame, and the wailing 
 lament of an exceeding bitter cry, which 
 sometimes pierces the soul and makes it 
 shudder with infinite anguish and the pathos 
 of its melancholy moan ? 
 
 Ah ! well did I say that it was only the 
 passion of our Redeemer's love burning in 
 the breast of the Church that could inspire 
 her for such a mission as this, to face and 
 quell these monstrous wrongs, and solace 
 these great sorrows of our fallen, sin-worn 
 world. 
 
 But such love is ours, for it is Christ's. 
 Nor let us think that ALL is so dark and 
 terrible in the world. Man is fallen ; but the 
 Spirit of God has ever brooded over the dark 
 waters of the weltering a yss in this sinful 
 world, and even in the darkest heart, the 
 
TJie Liner Mission of the CJnircJi. Gy 
 
 most depraved and saddest life, we shall find 
 some seeds of good, which we can nourish 
 into blossoming life. There are endless 
 powers, believe me, working for us in the 
 souls of men and in the providence of God, 
 if we lay hold of this redemptive mission of 
 Christ. Think, too, since the Sun of right- 
 eousness has risen on this dark world, with 
 healing in His wings, what progress has been 
 made in human Society. Despite the failures 
 and corruptions of His Church — that one 
 Institution through which alone He can effec- 
 tively work out a world's redemption, the 
 kingdom of heaven has been coming nigher 
 to mankind. And in how many hearts and 
 homes has it truly come in its power and 
 joy ! Then, best of all encouragement in all 
 our work, remember. He, our Lord, is with 
 us, with His infinite patience and wisdom, and 
 His victorious grace. 
 
 It seems to me that this redemptive minis- 
 try of the Church is now being understood 
 and fulfilled as never before. The ministry 
 
68 TJie Inner Mission of the ChiivcJi. 
 
 of the Church, I have said, has been miscon- 
 ceived ; and therefore it has been but too 
 feebly and ignorantly attempted and carried 
 out. Now, however, that cloud has passed, 
 the dimness of our vision is taken away, and 
 the Church awakes to see the glory of the 
 arduous mission to which her Lord summons, 
 and for which He equips her. If, then, in the 
 weakness and dimness of the past, so much 
 has been, what may not there now be accom- 
 plished ! What brightness of exulting hope 
 may now gladden our hearts, as we go forth 
 in His name conquering and to conquer ! 
 
 But if I thus speak hopefully, I must 
 state in conclusion the requirements that are 
 essential for the attainment of the noblest 
 and speediest success in the Inner Mission ot 
 the Church. 
 
 (i) This Inner Mission of the Church 
 requires and provokes, and gives fitting oc- 
 casion for, the union of all Christ's Churches. 
 I can understand how, for purposes of preach- 
 ing and teaching, and oi spiritual edificairffen, 
 
TJie Inner Mission of the CJiurcJi. 69 
 
 modal differences with regard to doctrine, 
 worship, and church order, may have given 
 rise to, and in a sense may justify in the 
 present, the different sections of Christ's 
 Church in our country. But in this social, 
 philanthropic work of Christ, no such reason 
 for division exists. On the contrary, every 
 motive impels to concerted action. Other- 
 Vv^ise the vast and varied work that has to 
 be done will be performed irregularly. One 
 Church will traverse, and it may be thwart, 
 the work of the others : and the broken 
 and disjointed efforts of each, which by har- 
 monious combination had sufficed for our 
 mighty task, will necessarily fail if such union 
 do not exist. And oh ! how glorious the 
 vision in our land, when by this confederacy 
 and oneness of all Christ's own redeemed 
 people, engaged in this redemptive work, 
 He is exalted and revealed among all men, 
 as our one only Lord, the Redeemer of the 
 world. Then shall His prayer be fulfilled 
 and answered, " that they all may be one. 
 
JO The Iimer Mission of the Church. 
 
 that the world may beheve that Thou hast 
 sent Me." 
 
 (2) This Inner Mission of the Church will 
 find a definite service — a special and suited 
 work for every member of His Church, how- 
 ever weak or ignorant or poor. All cannot 
 preach or teach. The ministrations of the 
 Spirit, how various they are ! and His gifts are 
 equally various. There is no Christian man 
 or woman, who has felt the love of the Cross 
 glowing in his heart, but has felt a desire to 
 do something for Christ, to give some help, 
 some cheer, to those who need it in His 
 name. This redemptive impulse of the 
 Christian heart has been too often stifled. 
 It has not been taken up and used and dis- 
 ciplined in the great ministry of the Church. 
 Now, in this vast field of the Church's redemp- 
 tive mission each will be summoned and able 
 to take his part, if it be only to give a cup of 
 cold water to the thirsty, and by this service 
 of all, under wise and definite direction and 
 guidance, the great work of the Church will 
 
The Inner Mission of the Chnrch. 71 
 
 be surely fulfilled. Thus no Divine element 
 in the life of the Church will be wasted, no 
 breathing of the Spirit but shall transmute 
 itself into holy deeds of charity, no faculty 
 or gift and talent of any one of its members 
 but shall be used with the noblest usury in 
 the Master's service. 
 
 (3) This Inner Mission of the Church must 
 become the business of the Church, to be ac- 
 complished with rigorous method, indomitable 
 persistency, the wise application of means to 
 ends, the employment of specific natural en- 
 dowments and spiritual gifts in specific and 
 suitable offices and duties. That is what we 
 intend by the word "business." It is that 
 which always makes business successful. Ah ! 
 brethren, this is indeed a great business which 
 the Church has undertaken — the " Business of 
 the Kingdom of God," needing, as no other 
 business in the world, the highest faculties, 
 the noblest wisdom, the fittest agencies, the 
 most economic methods, the most resolute 
 enthusiasm. To be truly successful this 
 
72 TJie Inner Mission of the CJiiircJi. 
 
 ministry of the Church must be the business 
 of each of her members, and the Church 
 must organize and train and use every power 
 and the grace of all her members so that 
 thus most efficiently, economically, and suc- 
 cessfully, this work of the Lord be done by 
 her. It is this great business which the 
 Church has been formed, and is sustained by 
 our Lord, to carry out. Let our motto, my 
 brethren, to-day, be those sacred words of our 
 Lord, " Wist ye not that I must be about my 
 Father's business y 
 
 (4) And now, finally, if you think of this 
 business of the redemptive work of the Church 
 in all its magnitude and difficulty, — to under- 
 stand and vanquish the complicated and 
 deep-rooted evils of human society, and to 
 inweave the equities and charities of the 
 Divine righteousness into the divers relation- 
 ships of human life, you will agree with me, 
 that in this work there is the pre-eminent 
 need of Divine wisdom. Here, hitherto, has 
 been the lack and the failure of the Church. 
 
TJie Inner Mission of the C/iitrch. 73 
 
 In every age, as in our own, where the 
 ardours of the Cross have been kindled, I 
 see teeming activities of charity, dealing with 
 human poverty and wretchedness. But 
 charity alone, unguided by wisdom, worketh 
 evil, although she thiiiketJi none. For this 
 redemption of humanity the Church must 
 give her wisest, her ablest men, and they 
 must give their best and wisest thoughts : 
 men profoundly versed in the Divine laws 
 of human society, skilled and expert in the 
 study of social phenomena, and baptized 
 with the Spirit of Christ's own redeeming 
 purpose and love. And the continual con- 
 ference and counsel of these men should give 
 direction to all the activities of the Church. 
 
 I have sketched, as some of you know, a 
 plan by which local councils in every town or 
 district should be formed ; and ultimately, 
 perhaps, a central council should be formed 
 in London for the whole country, in which 
 the wisest representatives of all sections of 
 the Catholic Church of Christ, chosen by the 
 
74 TJie Innei' Mission of the Church. 
 
 Church and acting on its behalf, should thus 
 meet regularly and confer together, — studying 
 earnestly, in the light of the revealed will of 
 God, the intricate problems of society, ex- 
 ploring the accessible, though often remote 
 and concealed, sources of human evil ; and 
 then direct by their wisdom the myriad 
 ministries of the whole Church, so that these 
 ministries may sustain and assist each other, — 
 adjusting them most truly to the ends they 
 seek, and co-ordinating them so that they 
 will conspire with a resistless power and in 
 a glorious harmony to achieve a world's re- 
 demption. Assuredly, for this work we must 
 confess, as never before, that the redeeming 
 Spirit of Christ is the spirit of wisdom ; and, 
 brethren, " Wisdom IS from above, first pure, 
 then peaceable, full of mercy and good works, 
 . . . AND THE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 IS SOWN IN PEACE OF THEM THAT MAKE 
 PEACE." 
 
The circular sent out by me, inviting former 
 students and many friends of the Institute to 
 celebrate its 2ist anniversary, contains the 
 following paragraphs, and the mission appeal 
 which is appended was issued in connection 
 with mission services held in the town and 
 county of Nottingham at that time. 
 
 "The Committee (and I strongly share the 
 feeling) are desirous that this celebration of 
 our * majority ' should magnify the great 
 missionary idea and purpose of the Church, 
 which the Institute lives to promote, and 
 give some blessed impulse to the redemptive 
 ministry of our Churches in this town and 
 county, and throughout England ; and that it 
 should also strengthen and develop the work 
 of the Institute, and of all who have been 
 associated with it. 
 
 • " You know that the redemptive' mission 
 
 75 
 
']6 The Inner Mission of the Church. 
 
 of the Church — the gospel which we are to 
 preach, and for which this age is earnestly 
 crying out, is to my mind much grander and 
 more human and real than some conceive it 
 to be. We need all the fire and spiritual 
 unction of the glorious evangelic faith of our 
 fathers ; for, the first fundamental harmony 
 to be restored is that of the soul to God ; but 
 the love that can win the souls of men back 
 to His heart, shows itself as in Christ Him- 
 self, in bearing and taking away the diseases 
 and sorrows of men in the present evil world. 
 "Thus our Gospel is not the sacrifice of this 
 world to the next, or other-worldliness, as 
 Infidel Socialism says. It is the bringing 
 down, in sacrifice and service by the Church 
 of our Lord, of the Grace and Truth, the 
 Harmony and Peace of the eternal world to 
 this distracted and sinvvorn world ; so that 
 now here on earth, among sinful men and 
 women, the kingdom of Heaven is seen to 
 come. Our prayer, and therefore our mission 
 and our' labour is, that this kingdom may 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. yy 
 
 come, here, in the souls of individuals, and in 
 the society around us. 
 
 " Let us make this Anniversary an occasion 
 for uplifting among men, especially among 
 the millions of our working people, this old 
 true Gospel, that the Kingdom of Heaven 
 has come nigh unto them. 
 
 "To this end I ask you to come and join us 
 at a series of meetings to be held from the 
 24th to the 26th of this month. 
 
 "J. B. PATON." 
 
 The Good News. 
 
 " Be ye snre of this, that the kingdom of 
 God is come nigh unto you." — Luke x. i r. 
 
 * * * >K H< ^ * 
 
 " For unto you is born a Saviour, who is 
 Christ the Lord." 
 
 "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, 
 and on earth peace, good will towards men." 
 — Luke ii. II, 14. 
 
y^ The Liner Mission of the CJiurch. 
 
 READ, AND ASK, ARE THESE THINGS SO? 
 
 This is good news for the world : " THAT 
 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS COME NIGH 
 UNTO US." Too good to be true : some of 
 you will say. But many in this town can 
 assure you that it is true. And we want you 
 on Wednesday night, at 7.30, to hear some 
 of us " shoivifig these glad tidings ! " 
 
 What makes the joy and harmony of 
 heaven ? It is this, that the love of God, our 
 Father, fills every heart, and that His sons 
 and daughters there do His good and perfect 
 will in everything. And the KINGDOM OF 
 Heaven comes here, when our Father's love 
 fills our heart, and we learn to do what is 
 right and helpful to one another in everything 
 — which is our Father's will concerning us. 
 
 Now, dear friends, this is THE GOOD NEWS 
 we have to tell. Some of you mistake the 
 glorious gospel of the blessed God. The 
 Gospel is just this — that God wants this 
 world to become like His heaven, and that 
 
The Inner Mission of the Church. 79 
 
 He fills those who believe it and who become 
 His sons and daughters with the same intense 
 desire as His own, so as to labour with Him 
 for this end. 
 
 You know there is great evil and great 
 sorrow in the world — you may feel them in 
 your own heart. How are these to be taken 
 away } How can the kingdom of Heaven 
 with its pureness and peace come into a 
 wicked world like this — into hearts like ours ? 
 It is no easy matter : God has shown that 
 He thinks it is not an easy matter. But 
 this '' Good news " of which we speak tells 
 us what He has done, and what He makes us 
 do for so great a result : and God's way, we 
 know and can show you, is right and will 
 certainly succeed. 
 
 For, THE Gospel shows us the Infinite 
 Love of our God, seeking us and spending 
 itself in measureless sacrifice, and labour, and 
 suffering, to win us back to Himself, to free 
 us from the bondage and the curse of all evil, 
 and to restore in us and in human society the 
 
8o The 1 filter Mission of the Chtirch. 
 
 order, health, and happiness which spring 
 only from His righteousness. 
 
 Yes, it is the power of an Eternal Divine 
 Love which has stooped even to the cross 
 and the grave for weary, sinful men, that 
 alone can lift them up from their dark 
 troubles and sins, break their heavy bonds, 
 give them true love to one another, and so 
 bring to this world tJie brightness, and peace of 
 heaven. And we want to tell you that His 
 love, breaking in its passionate desire for you 
 now, as it broke in the heart of Christ on 
 the cross, seeks yon nozv to save and bless 
 you. 
 
 Is not Redeeming Love like this, seen in 
 the life and death of Christ, worthy of our 
 God, our Father. It is the very Noblest, 
 Highest, Best that man can conceive. There- 
 fore magnify our God with us, who has done 
 such great things for us. Come in penitence 
 and joyful trust to our Father and yours, and 
 receive forgiveness and a new life through 
 His Son, who has shown us His love. 
 
TJie Inner Mission of tJie CJuircJi. 8 1 
 
 But more than this, God fires the hearts of 
 all who come to Him with love like His own. 
 They only are true Christians who have the 
 Spirit of Redeeming love, which seeks with 
 sympathy, and with self-denying service like 
 Christ's to save men from the sin and igno- 
 rance and misery that beset them. We are 
 thus co-workers with God. 
 
 It is true, Christian men and women have 
 not done what they ought in the spirit of 
 their beloved Master. We who write this are 
 Christian men, and we confess our guilty 
 shortcoming in this, which is our highest 
 work on earth — our Father's business. It is 
 our fault, not Christ's. He rebukes us ; and 
 we call upon ourselves and all who love Him 
 to follow in His steps, and labour and pray 
 as He taught us, that the kingdom of God 
 may come upon earth, and that His will may 
 be done on earth AS IT IS done in Heaven. 
 
 Yet, in our town is not Christ seen in His 
 people helping the poor, relieving the sick, 
 raising the fallen.'' If you look around and 
 
 F 
 
82 The Inner Amission of the Church. 
 
 ask, you will find men and women doing 
 untold service, and making great sacrifices, 
 every day, for Christ's sake. Nearly every 
 good thing in human society to-day comes 
 from the teaching and the Spirit of Christ. 
 Think what the world would be without Christ ! 
 How much better He has made the world ; 
 and He will make it vastly better still, so 
 that it shall indeed become the KINGDOM OF 
 Heaven. 
 
 Come and join us in this glorious ** busi- 
 ness," which we have got in hand, of raising 
 the world nearer heaven, and making all men 
 brothers indeed, whatever their class or their 
 country, for God is the Father of us all. Let 
 us know and do His will : and poverty, and 
 ignorance, and sorrow will die out of the 
 land. The kingdom of Heaven will 
 
 THEN have come TO US IN NOTTINGHAM. 
 
THE 
 
 PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
THE PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE 
 
 IN RELATION TO THE SPREAD OF THE 
 
 GOSPEL* 
 
 With the summer, Englishmen and English- 
 women, hybernating in their island of mist 
 and storm, sweep in flocks across the wide 
 kingdoms of continental Europe. They flee 
 their winter-home for rest and change, with 
 the recreation that these bring, — for the plea- 
 sures that come of seeing bright, deep, sunlit 
 skies, of sauntering through picturesque me- 
 diaeval towns, of mixing with many peoples 
 of strange tongue and attire, or of gazing on 
 scenes of historic interest, and inhaling health 
 in Europe's grand sanatorium — the Alps. I 
 wish to open up to Christian travellers 
 
 * Address delivered at the annual meeting of the 
 Evangelical Alliance at Southport, in October, 1879. 
 
 85 
 
86 The Present State of Etirope 
 
 another and deeper source of interest and 
 pleasure — the study of the religious condition 
 of the countries through which they travel. 
 Everywhere on the Continent there are 
 zealous, holy Christian men and women, 
 labouring with high faith, amid great diffi- 
 culties, for the Gospel of our Lord. These 
 are delighted with the sympathy of English 
 Christians who visit them. It is from such 
 friends that I have learnt most of what I 
 relate in this paper. And I relate it that I 
 may have the opportunity of exhorting 
 Christian travellers, in whatever European 
 country they visit, to seek out their Christian 
 brethren there, and learn from them some- 
 thing of the religious work and warfare that 
 are being carried on in that country. Let 
 them thus endorse, supplement, or correct 
 what I report as the result of my inquiries ; 
 for I desire to present the most conspicuous 
 and important facts, so far as I have dis- 
 cerned them, in modern Europe which set 
 forth its present religious state, and indicate 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel, ^y 
 
 at once our opportunities and our methods 
 for spreading the Gospel and establishing 
 the kingdom of our Lord in Europe. 
 
 These facts will show us how, everywhere 
 and in every sphere, the question of religion 
 and the claims of Christ's doctrine and 
 Church are engaging the minds of men ; 
 that the age of indifference is past ; that 
 not only the educated and the governing 
 classes, but the masses of the people, are 
 being agitated, from various causes and in 
 various ways, in regard to the position, the 
 true nature, and the authority of Christianity 
 — both as a Doctrine and an Institution ; and 
 that amidst all this ferment of excitement 
 and fervid antagonisms, there are emerging 
 into ever clearer light and more definite ac- 
 tivity certain principles which either favour 
 or directly support the Evangelical faith and 
 freedom of that spiritual Christianity which 
 we who are present here unite to testify, and 
 desire to promulgate and extend throughout 
 Europe. 
 
S>8 TJie Present State of Europe 
 
 L 
 
 T\\Q first momentous fact is the astounding 
 development, the organized activities, and the 
 aggrandized influence of the Roman Church 
 during this century. Who that witnessed the 
 decrepitude and senile decay of the Roman 
 Catholic Church during the last century, or 
 that saw the convulsions of its seeming final 
 dissolution during the turbulent Revolution- 
 ary epoch at the beginning of this century, 
 could have conjectured its wonderful resur- 
 rection, its haughty assumptions, and its 
 ascendency during these latter years? That 
 stormy Revolution re-tempered the spirit of 
 the Roman Catholic Church. And more ! 
 though it dissolved the old fabric of its 
 organization, it fused, like a strong fire, the 
 different elements which it embraced, and 
 even the separate national churches that 
 owned fealty to the Pope, into one closely 
 compacted body. And with this new organi- 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 89 
 
 zation a new life possessed and awoke that 
 body. 
 
 Now, the causes of this recent development 
 of the Roman Church I am not to trace. It 
 is the fact itself I have to exhibit in its full 
 significance. This development, then, though 
 inspired in all its forms by one spirit, and 
 drawing vitality from one source, may be 
 viewed in two aspects — the inward and out- 
 ward. The imvard development of the 
 Church shows a rigorous uniformity impres- 
 sed on every part of the Church, and its 
 direct, universal, unconditional subjection to 
 one despotic human authority. The Roman 
 Church — one of Pharaoh's lean kine ! — has 
 devoured the Catholic Church ; and of this 
 Church the Pope says, as Louis XIV. said 
 of the State, " It is I." He now concen- 
 trates in one solitary person the authority, 
 grace, truth, and honour, which the Lord 
 gave His universal Church. Accordingly the 
 very antagonistic pole of true Catholicity has 
 been reached. Its most schismatic denial 
 
90 The Present State of Europe 
 
 has now been proclaimed. The " All " is now 
 merged in One. Against the Universal has 
 been raised the Unit. 
 
 Together with this reconstruction of the 
 Roman Church on the Jesuit model of abso- 
 lute obedience to one will and of dependence 
 upon one head, — a task which has been ac- 
 complished almost entirely by the efforts ot 
 the Society of Jesus, and of those modern 
 " Orders " that are affiliated with it, — there has 
 been a corresponding change in the religious 
 discipline and in the moral teaching of the 
 Church. The fevered, highly-stimulating re- 
 ligious exercises, the ascetic and mystic liter- 
 ature, the vivid, continuous excitement of 
 emotion, the sensuous and imaginative in- 
 fluences, and the vigilant personal priestly 
 superintendence which mark the modern 
 propaganda of Rome, all savour in like 
 manner of the Jesuit Fathers and their dis- 
 cipline. Liguori is the modern Loyola, who 
 has rule now over the whole Church, and 
 not over a separate Order ; and the discipline 
 
m Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 91 
 
 which he has instituted and directs through 
 the thousands of Roman priests, is such as 
 intoxicates the feehng, darkens the reason, 
 destroys the sense of independent respon- 
 sibility, and subjugates the will. This teach- 
 ing and discipline, therefore, harmonize 
 perfectly with the Jesuit polity of despotic 
 and resistless authority that is now impressed 
 on the Church. And as this Jesuit discipline 
 directs and fashions the religious experience 
 of Roman Catholics, so Jesuit morality directs 
 and fashions their conduct. The text-books 
 on " Morals," in all important Roman Catholic 
 seminaries, are written by Jesuits. The Jesuit 
 morality, which Pascal scathed with the min- 
 gled flames of his keen irony and hot indig- 
 nation in the "Provincial Letters," has become 
 the recognised authoritative moral doctrine of 
 the whole Church. And this Jesuit polity, 
 discipline, and morality are all parts of one 
 system which fit together and supplement 
 each other. The imvard development of the 
 Roman Catholic Church may accordingly be 
 
92 The Present State of Europe 
 
 briefly, but most accurately summed up in 
 one word — that Church is now transformed 
 into a gigantic Jesuit Society. 
 
 Its outivard development reveals the same 
 terrible energy and controlling purpose of the 
 Jesuit Society and its affiliated orders, in the 
 attempt to dominate the ruling secular powers 
 of the world, in the lust to conquer men by 
 every means — legitimate or illegitimate — by 
 which they may be conquered into submis- 
 sion to the Church. When kings ruled as 
 well as reigned, then to enthral and govern 
 kings was the policy and boast of the Jesuit 
 priests. Ours, however, is a democratic age. 
 The people now rule, while kings reign. 
 Hence the methods that are now adopted 
 by the Roman Church to subdue and enthral 
 the people, and through them to gain hold of 
 the secular governing power — the coercive 
 arm of authority, without which the Roman 
 Church feels its miserable impotence and a 
 hungry discontent. Two of these methods 
 are well known to all of us ; viz., the popular 
 
iji Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 93 
 
 excitement of awe-inspiring prodigies and of 
 enthusiastic pilgrimages, and the use of all 
 educational agencies and influences — plying 
 them from earliest years, and over all classes 
 of the people, so that young minds, indoc- 
 trinated and drilled by them, must, in all 
 human probability, become either their bonds- 
 men for life or apostates from all faith for 
 ever. But, besides these, the Church in all 
 parts of Europe is using the two chief instru- 
 ments for leading and governing the people 
 which our age has in a manner discovered ; 
 viz., the cheap press, and the powder of organ- 
 ized associations. Both of these are sedu- 
 lously and skilfully employed with indefatig- 
 able energy and craft. The extent to which 
 the modern principle of co-operation and the 
 modern impulse towards associated action 
 are utilized by the Roman priesthood for 
 their objects, has not been duly appreciated. 
 These associations are formed for all the 
 several classes of society, and they ostensibly 
 seek the most varied objects of philanthropy. 
 
94 TJie Present State of Europe 
 
 social recreation, or trade. But be they what 
 they may, the priesthood by their means 
 stimulate and secure the religious faith or 
 zealotry of their people through the com- 
 bination that is formed with themselves and 
 with one another, and so train the people for 
 concerted, obedient action in any arena to 
 which they may lead them. Now, these 
 latter methods are in themselves legitimate, 
 and even serve as models for other churches 
 to follow^ Unfortunately, however, they are 
 manifestly used by the Roman priesthood as 
 engines of one supreme purpose and policy; 
 viz., to gain political power, to exalt the 
 supremacy of their Church over civil society, 
 and to overthrow those individual liberties of 
 conscience and of faith which are obnoxious 
 to their Church, but which are guaranteed by 
 modern civihzation. On the other hand, for- 
 tunately for mankind, the press and the prin- 
 ciple of association cannot be worked without 
 awakening the intelligence of the people, and 
 giving them to feel their power ; so that we 
 
in Relation to the Sp7'ead of the Gospel. 95 
 
 are assured the Roman priesthood, in evoking 
 and using these moral forces, are creating a 
 Frankenstein, which, ere long, will destroy 
 those that have called them into being. 
 
 Thus we see the Church of Rome realizing 
 and perfecting its own ideal in the rigid, 
 mechanical unity imposed on the Church 
 everywhere, and in the iron despotic bands 
 with which it girds and imprisons the people 
 that are subject to it. From this Church, 
 thus relentlessly fulfilling its hard, selfish 
 destiny, educated men have for centuries re- 
 volted, and have either fallen into sullen, in- 
 fidel indifference, or risen into indignant and 
 violent hostility not only against the Church, 
 but against the Faith which it professed to 
 embody. This process is going on in all so- 
 called Catholic countries to-day. But since 
 1870 an organized protest and testimony by 
 many eminent Catholics has been made 
 against the last developments of the Roman 
 Church in the Vatican ; and an Old Catholic 
 Church has been formed. In Austria, Bohe- 
 
96 The Present State of Europe 
 
 mia, and Italy, this Old Catholic movement 
 is tainted at its source by Rationalism, which 
 makes any Church organization and life 
 utterly impossible ; but in Germany and 
 Switzerland it holds firmly the positive faith 
 of Christianity, — is rapidly freeing itself from 
 mediaeval superstitions, as it has denounced 
 and renounced the modern Jesuit practices 
 of the Church, — and in some of its foremost 
 leaders is inspired by a noble evangelism — 
 a spiritual Evangelical faith which gives hope 
 for its future. Hitherto the Old Catholic 
 Church has chiefly drawn to itself educated 
 men and women ; hitherto, likewise, it has 
 chiefly been engaged in defining its principles 
 and organizing itself for independent exist- 
 ence and activity. It not only wears the 
 Catholic name, but it exalts, as against Pro- 
 testants, two Catholic principles in regard to 
 which I confess my sympathy with it. The 
 first is that all local or national Christian 
 Churches should seek some visible expression 
 before the world of their unity in Christ, and 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 97 
 
 stand in relations of helpful communion with 
 one another ; and the second is that the 
 Church is not, as most of our Protestant 
 symbols teach, an institution which exists 
 only for the faithful preaching of God's Word 
 and the right administration of the sacra- 
 ments ; but that it is a living and life-giving 
 organization, which, if it be compacted of 
 living members and be thus living in Christ, 
 its abiding spirit, does impart grace and heal- 
 ing to men, of which its sacraments are but 
 the signs. Now, my earnest prayer is that 
 the Old Catholic Church, recovering the 
 primitive spiritual faith of the Church, and 
 inspired by these grand Catholic principles, 
 may no longer be content with learned and 
 vehement protests against Papal despotism 
 and infallibility (for these negations will not 
 move and convert the Catholic peoples of 
 Europe), but that it may press valiantly 
 among the peoples with missionary ardour to 
 proclaim the divine and saving faith which it 
 has recovered, and which it knows the Roman 
 
 G 
 
98 The Present State of Europe 
 
 Church has long buried underneath its frauds 
 and idolatries. 
 
 II. 
 
 The second important fact to be noticed is 
 the relation of the Governments of Europe to 
 the Christian Church. Religion is now in 
 Europe too active and obtrusive a force to be 
 ignored by Governments ; nor can it now be 
 leashed and harnessed by them to serve mere 
 purposes of statecraft. It is too vigorous and 
 independent for that ! We behold two great 
 powers in modern Europe that have grown 
 contemporaneously during this century, and 
 yet are in every point contrasted with each 
 other. One is the modern constitutional State, 
 which draws its authority and powers from 
 the people, and exists in order to protect and 
 guarantee the freedom of its members ; the 
 other is the Papal Church, which imposes its 
 absolute authority upon the people, and exists 
 to annul the freedom of its members. Now 
 wherever these two powers are in any sense 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 99 
 
 co-ordinate — i.e.^ claim or exercise a sway 
 over the same people — conflict between them 
 is inevitable. This conflict breaks out in the 
 political arena. And the saddest fact in the 
 religious history of modern Europe is this, 
 that in many countries the two great op- 
 posing political parties are respectively styled 
 Catholics and Liberals — the Liberals mostly 
 infidel, as they know no Christianity but the 
 Papal, fighting for freedom without religion ; 
 the Catholics fighting against freedom in the 
 name of religion. Now in this conflict be- 
 tween the State and the Papal Church, or 
 any Protestant Church which claims a Pope- 
 like dominion over its members, the State 
 has been obliged to repress and check the 
 domination of the Church over its members, 
 and to restrain it within the domain of 
 spiritual influences, — in order that it might 
 preserve against the gigantic forces and ter- 
 rorism of the Church as a corporate body, 
 the individual rights and liberties of its own 
 citizens, who were at the same time members 
 
100 The Present State of Europe 
 
 of that Church. In some cases the State 
 has pushed its authority to this end too 
 far. But I wish to fix attention on two 
 momentous principles, wholly good as I deem 
 them, which, as the result of this conflict, are 
 being generally recognised in Europe. First : 
 Many influences have conspired to awaken 
 the " Church " idea and impulse in our time. 
 It is not only their own salvation that con- 
 cerns men. The thought of the " Church " of 
 Christ — of the larger commonwealth of His 
 members — fills the Christian world every- 
 where. Now, the modern State, whilst it 
 has had to repress a " Despotic Churchism," 
 is yet obliged by the principles of liberty — 
 of religious liberty and liberty of association 
 — which it guarantees, to concede a right 
 of independent existence and of freedom to 
 Christian Churches which in former centuries 
 was unknown. Consequently throughout 
 Europe the Church of Christ is recovering for 
 itself, though slowly, an autonomy — a dis- 
 tinct organization and right of self-govern- 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. loi 
 
 ment — which, till this century, has had no 
 existence since the fourth century. Second : 
 The modern State necessarily recognises and 
 protects the rights of the laity of each 
 Church. It cannot regard property, devoted 
 to the uses of its subjects who are members 
 of a Church, as being the property of an 
 ecclesiastic appointed by a foreign spiritual 
 potentate. It must protect its own subjects, 
 and maintain their right over that which 
 exists, and is guarded by the State, for their 
 behoof Consequently in Germany recent 
 legislation has restored to the parochial com- 
 munity and the episcopal chapter their 
 ancient rights in the appointment of the 
 parish clergyman or bishop, and in the use 
 of parochial or capitular property. In Italy, 
 too, the present Government has sustained 
 the right of the parish to elect its own priest 
 and confer upon him the parish manse and 
 glebe — against the claims of the bishop to 
 impose a priest of his own choice upon them. 
 In France, likewise, as we may foretell, if we 
 
102 TJie Prese7it State of Europe 
 
 read the signs of the times, this great revolu- 
 tion in the administration of the Church will 
 follow inevitably from the constitutional free- 
 dom enjoyed by the people under the Re- 
 public. And yet, by this simple right of 
 constitutional law and liberty, a change is 
 being introduced into the Roman system 
 which saps its very base, and will shake it 
 to its fall. 
 
 In one direction, however, a great evil has 
 ensued from this conflict between the modern 
 State and the Church. The Church has 
 jealously sought the authority and resources 
 of the State in order to enforce its dogmas 
 and discipline in the education of children. 
 Well, where the so-called Liberals are pre- 
 dominant, as in Holland, they have made the 
 National Schools secular, and these secular 
 schools have not been, as is often innocently 
 conjectured in this country, schools that are 
 free from all religious bias or complexion of 
 any kind. No ; the Liberals have done that 
 which they so indignantly reproach the 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 103 
 
 Church for doing. They have used these 
 schools to enforce their irrehgious doctrines, 
 so that in many places in Holland both the 
 Jesuit and the Evangelical Churches have 
 been obliged, whilst paying the school-tax, to 
 erect and maintain their own separate schools 
 in order that the children might not be per- 
 verted by the anti-Christian teaching of the 
 public schools. Gambetta, too, in France, has 
 declared the want of France to be National 
 Schools, in which the dogma shall be taught 
 that science is the only providence for man. 
 Secular schools may therefore be, in Holland* 
 actually are, secularistic : and the State in 
 refusing its support to the Church has given 
 in that country effective support to infidelity. 
 Leaving, however, on one side the diffi- 
 cult question of public education, if we 
 look at the religious state of Europe, so 
 far as it is affected by the action of Go- 
 vernments, we shall see these three things. 
 
 * In this year, 1887, the same may be said of many 
 National Schools in France and Switzerland. 
 
I04 The Present State of Europe 
 
 First, it is generally recognised that re- 
 ligion is the mightiest and most impor- 
 tant fact in the life of a people, and that 
 the character of their religion vitally affects 
 their political history. At a recent meeting 
 of the editorial staff of the Journal des Debats, 
 which was attended by a friend of mine, all of 
 them, though either nominally Roman Catho- 
 lics or professedly sceptic, confessed that 
 the exhaustion and near extinction of Pro- 
 testantism in France by the St. Bartholomew 
 massacre and the dragonnades of Louis XIV. 
 had wrought in her that moral impotence 
 which made her such an easy prey alternately 
 to revolution and despotism. Second, the 
 Churches of Christ are gradually assuming a 
 distinct and a more independent form of 
 existence, apart from the State, though they 
 are being vigorously restrained by law within 
 their proper spiritual sphere. And, third, the 
 laity of each Church are recognised as having 
 rights of their own in the Church — as against 
 any ecclesiastical superiors, whatever au- 
 
in Relation to the Spread of tJie Gospel. 105 
 
 thority these latter may have usurped and 
 may attempt to enforce. Now these preva- 
 lent ideas gaining acceptance throughout 
 Europe — even Catholic Europe — seem to me 
 to show a glorious opportunity for the ac- 
 ceptance through them of evangelical truth. 
 For evangelical truth vindicates that indi- 
 vidual liberty which the modern State main- 
 tains ; and secures it by the highest religious 
 sanctions — bringing each man into immediate 
 fellowship with God through Christ, and assert- 
 ing his responsibility to God alone. Further, it 
 seeks only the adhesion and consent of an intel- 
 ligent, willing faith ; it draws men into a free 
 communion with one another only because 
 they are filled with one Spirit ; and it abjures 
 absolutely the coercive powers of the law in 
 the operations and discipline of the Church. 
 Whilst, lastly, it proclaims the ministry of 
 the Church to the State and to society to 
 be not the dictatorship and rule of a despotic 
 power, but the self-sacrificing service of a love 
 which blesses those that freely accept its 
 
io6 The Present State of Europe 
 
 divine gifts. This Evangelical doctrine, I 
 say, corresponds to the needs of modern 
 Europe, and fulfils its ideas, at once, of a 
 true religion, and of a true Church. Hence I 
 believe it will, ere long, have general accept- 
 ance and an ascendency in Europe. 
 
 III. 
 
 The two facts I have recited are mainly 
 objective, and belong to the outward history 
 of events. The next is rather subjective, and 
 belongs to the inward history of thought. 
 Those transcendental philosophies that ruled 
 the mind of Europe in the early part of this 
 century, and which sublimated Christianity 
 into a series of philosophic ideas, have disap- 
 peared. Along with them that cloudy phan- 
 tasmagoria of the mythical theory, which 
 Strauss propounded, according to which the 
 supernatural truths and events recorded in 
 the Bible are but a mirage or fata morgana 
 painted in the air, which reflects and mocks 
 the credulous dreams and desires of a reli- 
 
t}i Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 107 
 
 gious people, has utterly dissolved, and " left 
 not a rack behind." The mystical Ration- 
 alism, so popular in Europe during the last 
 fifty years, which idly sought reconciliation 
 between Christianity and philosophy by com- 
 promises hung like Mahomet's coffin 'twixt 
 heaven and earth, resting on nothing, — by 
 ideal truths, most indefinite and ghost-like, 
 which haunted an intermediate realm be- 
 tween the Supernatural and the Natural, and 
 belonged strictly to neither, is likewise 
 rapidly losing ground. Opinions and Faiths 
 are becoming much more definite, concrete, 
 and positive ; — though by the process they 
 assume direct and aggressive antagonism to 
 each other. Thus, on the one hand, we see 
 throughout Europe a hard scientific Mate- 
 rialism or Naturalism supplanting the Ideal 
 speculations that used to delight and nourish 
 the schools of unbelief. On the other hand, 
 the Christian Church everywhere is securing 
 itself within the entrenchment of a positive, 
 emphatic faith in a Supernatural Revelation 
 
io8 The Present State of Europe 
 
 from God, and a Supernatural Redemption 
 that is accomplished by His omnipotent 
 grace. I do not say that the Church abjures 
 philosophy. There is a philosophy of Chris- 
 tianity ; but Christianity is not a philosophy. 
 Nor do I say that the old definitions of 
 orthodox faith are accepted without revision 
 or change. The spirit of the Lord giveth 
 liberty, whilst it leads — from stage to stage — • 
 into all truth. But everywhere the faith of 
 the Church is being stripped from all ration- 
 alistic glosses and entangling compromises : 
 and she witnesses boldly and clearly to men 
 of a divine supernatural truth and grace 
 which she has been created and is commis- 
 sioned to testify. 
 
 There are two other phenomena of our 
 times full of significance and hope. Under- 
 neath and amid the cold, dark shadow of 
 materialistic infidelity that has settled on 
 large portions of Europe, there are to be 
 heard the moanings of a sad despair and a 
 yearning after God, if haply He may be 
 
ill Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 109 
 
 found. From Bohemia in the south-east, 
 where Protestantism was butchered into 
 silence, to Sweden in the north-west, where it 
 has been drugged into stupor; amid the bigoted 
 and superstitious Cathohc peasants of Italy 
 and Spain, and the freethinking working men 
 of Germany and France, — we hear of won- 
 derful revivals in insulated places — a spark of 
 truth suddenly igniting a prepared people, 
 and flaming into a marvellous light. Lord 
 Radstock can tell us of the welcome to the 
 Gospel in Russia, and probably of secret 
 Bible meetings among eminent Russian no- 
 bility in Paris and Wiesbaden ; and I have 
 heard through friends of a splendid awaken- 
 ing of evangelical life in Macedonia and 
 Epirus, and the regions round about. I be- 
 lieve, however, there is vastly more of this 
 anxious desire, this dumb, aching need of the 
 glorious Gospel of the grace of God than we 
 are at all aware of ; if only the Evangelic 
 Churches were to probe deep and wide for it, 
 search for it, appeal to it, and evoke it by the 
 
I lo The Present State of Europe 
 
 persistency and power of their own faith. 
 The Revival meeting which stands out in my 
 memory above all others as the one most 
 profoundly moved and inspired by the Divine 
 Spirit was one in Paris, when Reginald Rad- 
 cliffe addressed a large assembly of Parisian 
 otivriers, in a public hall, on the story of 
 the Prodigal Son. His English words were 
 translated by good old Frederic Monod ; but 
 though spoken in English, they thrilled and 
 broke with resistless power the hearts of that 
 crowd. Yet these were all French working- 
 men, said to be the most reckless and obsti- 
 nate of unbelievers. Yes, there is everywhere 
 a stir among the dry bones — a lamentation 
 and crying goeth up from the burdened 
 stricken hearts of men. They seek their God, 
 and would be at peace with Him. And in 
 response to this feeling, I notice another phe- 
 nomenon of our time ; viz., that the Evan- 
 gelical Churches of Europe are again becom- 
 ing Missionary Churches in Europe. I need 
 not say of the young Churches of Italy and 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 1 1 1 
 
 Spain, how they glow with evangehcal zeal. 
 It is their very life. But a change is coming 
 over the spirit of the Protestant Churches of 
 France, Germany, and Scandinavia. Hitherto 
 the notion has prevailed that all the Baptized 
 were Christian, and that though living in 
 open unbelief or contemptuous indifference 
 of God, the Church by offering its public 
 ordinances fulfilled its duty to them. It did 
 not regard them as unregenerate and unsaved, 
 as making a very world of heathenism at 
 home which must be invaded, conquered, and 
 won for Christ by precisely the same intrepid 
 onset and organized missionary crusade as 
 the heathen abroad. Now, I believe these 
 Churches are preparing themselves more or 
 less for this glorious home mission. And I 
 conceive that it is thus that English Churches 
 can best aid in diffusing the Gospel in Eu- 
 rope, by inciting these Evangelical Churches 
 to an earnest, spiritual propaganda of this 
 kind, and sustaining them in it. It is poor 
 work to help Churches on the Continent 
 
1 1 2 The Present State of Europe 
 
 simply to drag on year after year a starved, 
 drivelling existence. It is a blessed work to 
 help them, few though they be in number, if 
 they are aroused by this mighty Inspiration, 
 and are with dauntless courage and tireless 
 zeal labouring to bring these great Conti- 
 nental nations to the obedience and freedom 
 of a living faith in Christ. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My last division will be very brief. It sets 
 forth, however, another prominent fact which 
 must not be overlooked. The spirit of our 
 age is socialistic. Individualism is accounted 
 to be selfishness. Men place before them- 
 selves the glory of the commonwealth — the 
 larger interest and greater good of the society 
 of which the individual is a member — as 
 the noblest end of life. Even Materialism 
 preaches this doctrine ; it is the very gospel 
 of Comtism. The great movement on the 
 Continent which has the title of the " Social 
 Democracy," though infidel, is inspired with 
 
in Relation to the Spread of the Gospel. 1 1 3 
 
 this generous sentiment. English Secularism 
 is touched with the same elevated thought. 
 Now, we believe that only the mighty impulse 
 of GRACE — i.e., of self-sacrificing love, which 
 seeks the righteousness of God, and to estab- 
 lish His righteous law everywhere — will suffice 
 to achieve any true social reform among men. 
 Christianity is the true Secularism. Its Divine 
 powers are all embodied in the Church for 
 the healing of the nations. I have accordingly 
 viewed with intense interest the establishment 
 of the " Inner Mission " on the Continent, 
 which seeks to apply the energies of Christian 
 love and righteousness to the removal of pres- 
 sing, darkening social evils, and so to make 
 men everywhere see that Christianity aims at 
 the regeneration of society, and that Christ 
 our Lord is the Saviour of mankind — of 
 society as of individuals. For it is thus I 
 conceive and picture to myself the Church of 
 the Future : — it is thus I would have all see 
 it with me : — having an Evangelic mind ; a 
 Puritan conscience ; a Catholic heart ; and a 
 
 H 
 
114 ^/^^ Present State of Eu7'ope. 
 
 body apparelled and radiant with blessed 
 Charities that will give help and healing to 
 mankind amid all sorrows, and that will help 
 them to understand and believe the eternal 
 CHARITY — the Love embosomed in the heart 
 of Christ, and poured out in His Blood and 
 Spirit — that will lift them all into the LIFE 
 eternal. 
 
WOMAN'S GREAT WORK 
 IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 "5 
 
WOMAN'S GREAT WORK IN THE 
 CHURCH.* 
 
 The study of the miracles of our Lord and 
 of the Apostolic Church may, I think, be 
 widened so as to include other views than 
 are common of their nature and import ; and 
 so as to show us certain Divine powers abid- 
 ing in the Church which should flow contin- 
 ually from the Church into the world, leading 
 it to the faith and obedience of Christ. Mir- 
 acles are not merely the manifestations of a 
 supernatural or Divine power, which clothe 
 with the credentials of a Divine authority 
 him who works them. They are such, and 
 as such have a permanent place among the 
 evidences of Christianity ; but they are more. 
 They reveal in the clearest form, in that world 
 
 * Address delivered at a Conference in Nottingham, 
 in 1875. 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 VVoman^s Great Work 
 
 of sense which all men feel and understand, 
 as though they were majestic symbols or 
 pictures, the redeeming love and mission 
 of our Lord and His Church. And they 
 typify in express and significant visible acts 
 the mightier spiritual salvation which the 
 Spirit of the Lord accomplishes in men. 
 They are all works of mercy as well as 
 works of might. In them we see the wounds 
 and woes, though but external, of sin-stricken 
 nature healed and assuaged. The imperfect 
 is lifted up, and crowned with perfection. 
 Death is subdued and quickened into life. 
 But yet more — they are not only evidences 
 and symbols of Christ's redemption, they have 
 further a marvellous exciting and magnetic 
 power. You see in the Gospels how they 
 draw multitudes to witness and experience 
 them. They startle indifference and compel 
 attention. They strike the dull senses of 
 men, and sharpen them with eager curiosity 
 and questioning. They surround Christ and 
 His Apostles with crowds, who otherwise had 
 
m the Church. 119 
 
 passed heedlessly, but who now listen with 
 awed spirits to the words of life which they 
 speak. 
 
 Accordingly we find three words used in 
 the New Testament to designate these three 
 aspects of miracles. They are styled mighty 
 works, or works of power, signs or symbols, 
 and zvonders. These three phrases are the 
 only ones used to describe the miracles of 
 the New Testament ; and they do with happy 
 and perfect accuracy set forth their threefold 
 nature and intention. It is interesting, more- 
 over, to observe how gradually in the Gospel 
 history the first conception of miracle, and 
 the word which denotes it, as a mighty work 
 or work of power, give place to the other two 
 conceptions of miracle, in which its moral use 
 is discerned, as well as its subserviency to the 
 spiritual truth which it illustrates, and upon 
 which it fastens the serious attention of men. 
 Either phrase — "signs" or "wonders" — occurs 
 but rarely in the Gospels of Matthew and 
 Mark, and towards their close, but con- 
 
120 Woina7i's Gi^eat Work 
 
 stantly in the later Gospel of John, in the 
 Book of the Acts, and in the Epistles ; 
 whilst throughout the three early Gospels 
 the '* mighty works " occurs on every page. 
 So we see how the thought of power — mere 
 power — dies away in the glory of that saving 
 love which the miracles exhibit, and which 
 they flash upon the astonished gaze of the 
 world. 
 
 We learn accordingly how our Lord repeats 
 in His works the gracious but necessary conde- 
 scension of His advent and presence amongst 
 men. The Word was made flesh and dwelt 
 among us, in order that our eyes might see, 
 and our hands handle, that body which clothes 
 and reveals Him. And so in His miracles 
 He clothes the naked word of His truth, as 
 it were, with a body of living flesh — a rich 
 humanity which thrills upon every sense. He 
 touches and vivifies it with bountiful human 
 sympathies. He surrounds it with, and ex- 
 plains it by means of, tender healing works 
 which come down at once to the rudest ap- 
 
/;/ tJie Church. 121 
 
 prehension of men, which stand forth bodily, 
 to be, as it were, seen and handled of men, 
 which graciously draw their heart and open 
 it to the higher influences of love ; and which 
 exhibit in glorious outward symbols, so that 
 all shall be compelled to understand them, 
 the nobler works of spiritual healing and sal- 
 vation which He has come here and dwells 
 here for ever to accomplish. He is visibly 
 manifest in them, as One who bears our grief 
 and carries our sorrows. And as men see how 
 mightily, willingly, blessedly He does this in 
 the sensible sphere of bodily disease and sor- 
 row, they are helped and led to understand 
 how He carries the deeper, deadlier burthens 
 of our sin and its hidden woe. His grace 
 shines upward through the senses to the soul. 
 The outward speaks, in language which can- 
 not be gainsayed and is promptly understood, 
 to the inward spirit. Men must see, as well 
 as hear, ere they believe. 
 
 Now such power abode in the human body 
 of Christ — does no such power abide in the 
 
122 Woman's Great Work 
 
 Church, that mysterious, ever-living, visible 
 body of our Lord on the earth, in which 
 He dwells, and in which He finishes the 
 work the Father gave Him to do ? Has it 
 but a Divine doctrine to teach, a Divine truth 
 to proclaim, and no gracious works of human- 
 ity to perform, wherewith to bless mankind, 
 and draw them to learn its higher mysteries 
 of love, or wherewith to interpret and explain, 
 as with bright symbols, to the outer world, 
 and to every sense of man, the true Spirit of 
 her Lord, and the glory of the redemption 
 which He offers to men ? Is not the spiritual 
 word which she possesses to be now incar- 
 nated for men — touched as it were with the 
 instincts and passions of our flesh — animated 
 and clothed by human sympathies, so as fitly 
 to dwell among men ? And is the love of 
 God, of which it is the minister, to be pro- 
 claimed to suffering men by weak speech 
 only, and not by the winning, mighty voice 
 of sympathetic ministries, miracles of mercy, 
 deeds of love — which thrill home to all hearts, 
 
in the Church. 12 
 
 and which none fail to understand ? Are 
 there no mighty works ^ no signs and zvonders, 
 as of old, to be wrought now by the Church, 
 which shall be to the world the vouchers of 
 its Divine mission, the heralds of its Divine 
 message, the symbols of its Divine salvation ? 
 Yes, verily ! in a deep sense we affirm, grace 
 as well as truth ever comes into the world, 
 through the Church, by Jesus Christ. The 
 supernatural energies which first asserted and 
 vindicated the authority and mission of the 
 Lord, and of His Church, in the world, do 
 not exist, are not needed now, save in the 
 realm of the spirit. But the faith and love, 
 awakened as Divine supernatural energies in 
 the spirit of believing men and women, are 
 to accomplish, though by simple and natural 
 ways, mighty works which shall be blessed 
 wonders to men, causing them to marvel, 
 and drawing them by the subtle magnetic 
 forces of sympathy to hear and understand 
 the Divine truth they speak ; and which shall 
 be signs — glorious pictures and symbols — re- 
 
124 Woina7t's Great Work 
 
 vealing the infinite compassion of Christ, and 
 the blessing of His salvation. 
 
 Miracles ceased to be required, and there- 
 fore ceased to be performed, as soon as the 
 corporate Church grew in vigour, so as to 
 command by her very presence the atten- 
 tion of men, and as soon as the great moral 
 powers of the regenerate life awakened and 
 disciplined in the Church could manifest 
 themselves with due glory by regular and 
 systematic offices of charity, for the healing 
 and purifying of the people. Nevertheless 
 the great fact remained that the life of the 
 Church was manifested in the miraculous love 
 which it inspired in its members, and that 
 this love offering itself, after the example of 
 Christ, in ministry to the good of men, at 
 once gathered souls by a most potent and 
 Divine spell under the gracious influences of 
 the Church, and exhibited to the humblest, 
 weakest, weariest of men, as by a living par- 
 able, the great truths of Christ's suffering and 
 redeeming love. 
 
in the CJiiircJi. 125 
 
 I am led now by this preamble to mark 
 what I conceive to be a great, if not the chief, 
 blemish and weakness in the mission-ministry 
 of all our Protestant, and especially Noncon- 
 formist, Churches, and also to look upon 
 what seems to me to be woman's special 
 and appropriate department in the evangel- 
 ising- labours of the Church. Our Churches 
 have presented their truth and faith — that 
 which is the substance of their life — in too 
 abstract a form, too naked a guise. But the 
 Church is not always, as it should be, draped 
 in blissful charities so that it comes to the 
 homes of the people, as a mighty living 
 Christ-like presence, that has a care of them, 
 that lifts up them that are bowed down, that 
 always bends with a bright, heavenly com- 
 passion over their misery, and lays a healing, 
 soothing touch on their sickness. There is 
 much and able preaching in the Churches. 
 They trust to the utterance, often emphatic 
 and powerful, of the doctrines of the Gospel; 
 but yet there is somewhat awanting. There 
 
126 Woinaiis Great Work 
 
 is the word of love, but where, we ask, are 
 the mighty works of love that shall be as the 
 symbols of their faith, and as wonders draw- 
 ing the people ? Now to restore these evi- 
 dences of the divinity of the Church, and 
 these needful influences of the Church in 
 evangelising the world, we must restore what 
 I conceive to be almost a lost ministry in the 
 Church — the ministry of Christian women in 
 work which they are specially qualified to do; 
 and which, by reinstating them in their proper 
 place in the Church, affords them an oppor- 
 tunity of taking a distinctive and essential 
 part in its great mission, and thus of fulfilling 
 that duty to Christ and His Church which all 
 loyal, loving souls must feel to be supreme. 
 
 I do not afiirm that woman's work in the 
 Church, even when we only consider its out- 
 ward and evangelising labours in the world, 
 should be confined to offices of charity, to 
 which I shall mainly confine my attention 
 in this paper. There are distinct spheres 
 and methods of teaching for which I believe 
 
in the Clmrch. 127 
 
 a Christian woman is pre-eminently adapted, 
 such as in the mothers' meeting, or in the 
 kinds of labour which we have seen carried 
 on so nobly by Miss Marsh among navvies ; 
 by Mrs. Bailey among the brickmakers at the 
 East of London, detailed in her " Ragged 
 Homes, and how to mend them " ; by Mrs. 
 Wightman among drunken men, detailed in 
 her "Annals of the Rescued"; or by ladies 
 better known to some of us. It will, how- 
 ever, be found that woman's public teaching 
 of Christian truth, to be efficient and condu- 
 cive to the general good of the Church and 
 its work, should be limited to two spheres ; 
 namely, to gatherings of their own sex, and to 
 classes or meetings of men where the proper 
 personal female influence of holy charity is 
 felt and honoured by each man attending 
 them. I believe that whilst I dare not say 
 exceptional cases may not occur in which the 
 Spirit of the Lord has manifestly called a 
 woman to preach publicly before promiscu- 
 ous assemblies, they must always be regarded 
 
128 Woma?i's Great Work 
 
 as exceptional. Many good women minis- 
 tered to Jesus and for Him when on earth. 
 These, however, were not called out among 
 " the Seventy " or " the Twelve." Phoebe was 
 a deaconess ; but no Phoebe was an elder or 
 an evangelist in the Apostolic Church. No ! 
 Woman's special work in fulfilling the great 
 commission of the Church is defined at once 
 by her distinctive sympathies, and by the ur- 
 gent need of the Church. For, such services 
 of charity Christian women are prompted to 
 seek, and can render without violating or 
 diminishing the sacred reserve of modesty, 
 which is the secret of their influence. 
 
 I am led then briefly to inquire — I. What 
 kinds of work are Christian women specially 
 called to in the Church? and, II. Why should 
 this work be organized and sanctioned by the 
 Church ? 
 
 I. The fundamental idea of the Church 
 ruling the New Testament descriptions of 
 its membership and mission in the world is, 
 that it is the Body of Christ. Consequently 
 
ill the ClmrcJi. 129 
 
 in each locality where a true Church exists 
 there the Spirit of Christ dwells in an organic 
 and visible form, assuming a bodily presence 
 again to be known of men. The Church is 
 not only to publish the Gospel of salvation, 
 and the righteousness of God, but like Jesus 
 Himself is to be known as a Divine Friend in 
 the locality where it is planted, having a care 
 of the poor, and sick, and homeless, and lost. 
 From it, as the body of Christ, a healing 
 virtue is to be felt to flow, and by remedial 
 healing influences it is to uplift and purify 
 the whole society of men in its neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Now, in such a view of the Church's min- 
 istry among men, it is plain there are speci- 
 fic duties which personal service and sisterly, 
 motherly sympathies alone can discharge, and 
 which I think constitute woman's work in the 
 Church. I look more closely at these duties, 
 and divide them into two classes, as they are 
 to be fulfilled in the homes of the people or 
 in connection with institutions founded by the 
 
 I 
 
130 Wo7naji's Great Wo}'k 
 
 Church. In the first class or category there 
 is every kind of sympathetic tender help which 
 can be given by loving hearts to those wha 
 need our succour, and which may mirror ta 
 them the greater love of our Lord in whose 
 name it is done. How often our Lord exalts 
 the honour and reiterates the importance of 
 this service ! The cup of cold water to the 
 thirsty, the visit of consolation to the sick — 
 these to the poorest, the least worthy, are 
 great if done in His name : and great is the 
 reward ! We inevitably think of help in times 
 of suffering, when we contemplate such Chris- 
 tian ministries as these ; and I know of no 
 preaching to the poor like that which steals 
 into their hearts from the grace of women, 
 who, inspired by love of Christ, visit the sick 
 home to make it clean and pure, to assist in 
 nursing, to cool the fevered head, or wet the 
 white burning lips. But that is in fact only 
 one out of countless modes in which this kind 
 of service to Christ may be tendered. There 
 are blind, with whom an hour's kindly chat 
 
in the Church. 131 
 
 or pleasant reading — aged poor, to whom a 
 daughter's visit to tidy their hearth and glad- 
 den their dim days — lonely women, to whom 
 a sisterly word saving them from sin — gutter 
 children, to whom a mother's smile — may be 
 a priceless boon, a glimpse of the heavenly 
 love. Wherever and however kindness may 
 be shown, and will be blessed, there let the 
 Church's heart, the heart of its Lord, be 
 shown. I would that in every neighbour- 
 hood, instinctively, in trouble and suffering, 
 men looked to the Church, as Christ's very 
 presence among them, for such relief as He 
 can blessedly give. We know how the Rom- 
 ish Church has gained in every land, and is 
 gaining in ours, an immense influence among 
 the poor. And by what means? Not by their 
 preaching. There is little of that with them. 
 By the sedulous, beautiful, gentle charities — 
 the womanly service — of their sisters of char- 
 ity. Their visits, shedding a tender grace in 
 the homes they enter, do give the poor a 
 vision of the reality of the Divine mercy, 
 
132 VVojnan's Great Work 
 
 and win them to the faith of a Church that 
 inspires such ministries. Why should not 
 all the redeemed women of every Church — 
 godly women who follow Christ — be sisters of 
 mercy, doing such work for Christ ? Why is 
 not the Church itself a sisterhood of mercy ? 
 And why is not the entrance of Christian 
 women into the Church to be accepted as 
 their vow to consecrate some time and en- 
 ergy to unselfish, loving service to Christ and 
 mankind ? 
 
 Let it, however, be distinctly understood 
 that the CHARITY for which the sisterhood 
 of the Church is formed is not alms-giving. 
 Christ had no money to give, and His Church 
 has not much. And it is well. A little money 
 given discreetly, and when its use is immedi- 
 ately inspected and directed by the donors, 
 may be helpful ; but abundant, uncontrolled 
 alms-giving is a frightful evil, which breeds a 
 helpless dependence, the indolence and crime 
 of pauperism. The Church may not bribe, 
 a-T it cannot bless, men with money. Nor is 
 
in the Church. 133 
 
 the world ever to dream, like a Simon Magus, 
 of money as the Church's benison — the good 
 which the Church brings them, and for which 
 it is to beg piteously at its gates. Such a 
 conception, when it exists in a neighbour- 
 hood, depraves the whole work of the Church, 
 and destroys the possibility of spiritual good. 
 No ; what the Church has to give is what 
 money cannot purchase, and is beyond 
 money's worth — heart-service^ pity, willing 
 personal help, all the rich ministry of holy 
 love. Silver and gold it may not have ; but 
 these, which the Lord freely gives it, it should 
 freely give. 
 
 With respect to the second class of duties 
 I have indicated ; viz., those that may be ful- 
 filled in connection with institutions founded 
 by the Church, let me say how glad I am 
 that to-day a reactionary and beneficial move- 
 ment has begun with respect to public charit- 
 able institutions. Hitherto these have been 
 stupendous organizations. Orphanages, asy- 
 lums, hospitals, all of immense size, have 
 
134 Woman's Great Work 
 
 been erected. In consequence, the service — 
 the whole life in these institutions — has been 
 to a large extent mercenary, mechanical, and 
 driven by routine. Individual sympathy, per- 
 sonal interest, cannot exist in them. I confess 
 I do not like to think of one thousand children 
 — all girls or all boys — being reared in one 
 establishment. How drear the monotony 
 of those children's life ! No motherhood or 
 fatherhood, no sisterhood, no brotherhood can 
 be there. The children are counted by the 
 head ; but what of their poor hearts ? Now 
 we have introduced a happier plan — long 
 in operation on the Continent — of forming 
 homes. Orphan homes are raised, in which 
 there shall grow and twine round the young 
 hearts of the children the sweet instincts, and 
 memories, and close attachments of a family 
 life — a home. But these orphan homes we 
 build and support at a distance. Why should 
 not every important Church have its own or- 
 phan home in its own neighbourhood, so that 
 the people round about shall see how Christ's 
 
ill the Church. 135 
 
 Church gathers the homeless under its wing, 
 and how Christ still says, by its voice, "Suffer 
 little children to come to Me"? I read of one 
 service in Manchester, where a visitor at the 
 Sunday worship was touched to the heart 
 hy seeing the children of the Church, orphan 
 children, to whom the Church had become a 
 home, gathered together, and by hearing the 
 prayers of the Church for them. Now I plead 
 for such Church orphan homes, where the 
 children are trained as a family ; and I plead 
 for them not only for the sake of the children, 
 who can alone be healthily trained in this 
 fashion, and for the sake of the influence of 
 a Church in its neighbourhood, but for the 
 sake of Christian women in the Church. You 
 send guineas to a far-off orphanage, but you 
 cannot send your loving sympathies in the 
 envelope : and to give them to the orphans 
 whom you know, for whom you care, in the 
 orphan home of your Church, which you are 
 happily enabled to visit, is, believe me, to give 
 to the orphan far more than your money, and 
 
136 lVo;/ians Great Work 
 
 is to enrich yourself with a blessing which 
 the Christian women of a Church ought not 
 to lose. I have envied for the ladies of our 
 Churches the god-like joy which I have seen 
 two or three women, a mother and daughters,, 
 realize in the care of an orphanage and of 
 bright orphan children committed to them. 
 In the same way I would have home re- 
 formatories, like Dr. Wichern's at Hamburg ;. 
 cottage asylums, like M. Bost's at Laforce ; 
 even small hospitals, like the village infirm- 
 aries so wisely advocated by the late Sir 
 James Simpson of Edinburgh. I would have 
 these, according to its means, conducted 
 economically by a large Church in its own: 
 neighbourhood, for the sake of the suffering 
 or vicious there, under its own management. 
 And in these I would have the Christian 
 women of a Church fulfil their womanly and 
 Christ-like ministry of charity, in the name 
 and by the sanction of the Church. Then 
 would the Church, like her Lord, bear the 
 sicknesses of the people, and reveal in un- 
 
in the Church. 137 
 
 mistakable language her profound love for 
 men, and the nature of the redemption she is 
 to accomplish among them, whilst she found 
 for her best members — devout, sympathetic 
 women — spheres for the discipline of their 
 Christian sympathies and the doing of Chris- 
 tian duty. 
 
 Now, in conclusion, I state several reasons 
 why these charitable ministries, constituting 
 woman's work in the Church, should be or- 
 ganized and sanctioned by the Church. 
 
 1st. That all female members of the Church 
 may be engaged in its service. The scriptural 
 doctrine with respect to the Church is, that 
 each member who joins it is to join in its 
 work, is to have some distinct and recognised 
 part in the accomplishment of the great duty 
 of the Church. But what part or place do 
 Christian women take in the Church } In 
 what Church-work do they engage ? We call 
 a few of them to the Sabbath-school ; a few of 
 them join in a monthly Dorcas meeting ; and 
 that almost sums up their Church labour. 
 
13^ Woman's Great Work 
 
 But it may be that Christian women, even 
 devout and earnest women, have not the 
 desire or the aptitude for teaching ; and 
 none of them can feel that a quiet, social 
 Dorcas evening, with its sewing and friendly- 
 talk, is really a fulfilment of their part of 
 the great mission of Christ's Church. But all 
 Christian women, being women and Christian, 
 have the gifts and the calling for such works 
 of charity as I have mentioned. These are 
 no alien tasks to woman; they are her proper 
 delight. For Christ and His Church they 
 constitute just the kind of service which 
 holy women long to undertake. And it is in 
 the Church with which they are immediately 
 associated in their own neighbourhood that 
 this service can be most fitly and happily 
 discharged. Some religious women sunder 
 the relationships of home, abandon the sphere 
 of private domestic duties, and enter convents 
 or sisterhoods, to give their life to self-deny- 
 ing labours of love. Life-long vows are always 
 a snare and an evil ; and I believe, for the 
 
in the Church. 139 
 
 great majority of women, it is infinitely better 
 that, as daughters, sisters, and mothers, in the 
 presence of friends and neighbours, begirt with 
 the honourable sanctities and duties of their 
 own Christian home, and secured by its be- 
 nign protection, they should go forth into the 
 world on Christ's special errands of mercy. 
 Then, in this way, all can engage. Few can 
 go far away to join a nursing corps or a sister- 
 hood of charity, but all can join the corps 
 — the sisterhood, comprising every woman of 
 the Church of which they are members, and 
 in which every one redeems and gives some 
 time for womanly, compassionate ministries 
 to the weak, suffering, and dying round about 
 them. 
 
 2nd. This work must be organized and sanc- 
 tioned by the Church, in order that it may 
 be systematically and efficiently carried on, 
 with order and constancy, under the safeguards 
 which such work requires ; in order, likewise, 
 that there may be proper education and 
 training given to the young members of the 
 
140 VVomajis Great Work 
 
 Church in the work. It is a mistake to think 
 works of charity can be done anyhow, with- 
 out preparation or skill. No ! there is a tact, 
 a discretion needed in all ; and in some, — fo'* 
 example, nursing, teaching ragged children, 
 etc., — a certain specific training is almost 
 essential. Hence I should like the elder 
 women, the mothers and widows of our 
 Churches, to go forth, with their younger 
 sisters or daughters, to instruct them in the 
 ways of the Lord's work. We don't usually 
 want scientific training, but the training which 
 experience and Christian wisdom impart ; and 
 that can be given, and ought to be given, in 
 the Church. 
 
 3rdly, and chiefly, this work ought to be 
 organized and sanctioned by the Church, 
 in order that the Church may speak forth 
 to men, and reveal itself with the united 
 strength, the grand collective voice — of all 
 its members. Individuals are broken up 
 through society. Their influence is per- 
 sonal, and is recognised as such. Christ 
 
Ill the Church. 141 
 
 is not clearly recognised and honoured as 
 working in them and by them. But in the 
 Church, where work is done openly and con- 
 stantly in Christ's name, Christ receives the 
 glory due to Him. 
 
 There is a vast amount of Christian char- 
 ity, I know, which is done to-day by individ- 
 uals, by Christian women. Our infirmaries 
 and our benevolent institutions are mainly 
 supported — private charities innumerable are 
 daily wrought — by men and women with 
 whom the inspiring motive of their benevo- 
 lence is the love for men which Christ has 
 quickened. But this motive is not realized 
 and felt by the world as it would be — Christ 
 is not seen in these self-sacrificing ministries 
 as He would be — if they were done in con- 
 nection with the Church, and professedly, 
 therefore, for the sake of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 4thly. I desire that this work be organized 
 and sanctioned by the Church, in order that 
 Christian women in all they undertake may 
 
142 Wouian's Great Work 
 
 feel they have the support of the great 
 brotherhood of Christ in their work — that 
 they have an authority higher than their own 
 — that they are called, commissioned, sus- 
 tained by the Church, and that they act in 
 its name for the fulfilment of its mission and 
 for the glory of its Lord. Let the sympa- 
 thies and prayers of the Church surround to 
 shield and arm every holy woman doing its 
 work for Christ in the quenching of this 
 world's woes. 
 
 And lastly, I desire it for the Church's own 
 sake, that the philanthropic work undertaken 
 by its own members by its authority, may be 
 ceaselessly before its attention, may be made 
 the subject of deliberation, of counsel, and of 
 prayer in its meetings ; and that the reports 
 made to it by those whom it sends forth to 
 fulfil this service of humanity may engrave 
 this sacred truth in lines of heavenly fire 
 upon its heart — that within the Church is 
 the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the 
 healing of the nations — that the Church has 
 
i7i the Chtirch. 143 
 
 been founded upon earth as an institution 
 that is to labour unwearingly for the uplift- 
 ing, reform, and sanctifying of all the societies 
 of men, for the removal of all evil, and the 
 universal redemption of mankind from the 
 original curse of sin with which they are 
 grievously wounded, even unto death. 
 
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