<yi tUe mtohgicitt ^/^ ^'" 
 
 ^v"*^ 
 
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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 2060 
 
 .P59 1891 
 
 \ 
 
 Pierson, 
 
 Arthur T. 
 
 1837- 
 
 1911. 
 
 
 
 The divine enterpr 
 
 ise of 
 
 missions 
 
 
j13b ^rtl)ur QT. person. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS; or, The Voice Out 
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 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE OF MISSIONS; i6mo. 
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 EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PRINCIPLE AND 
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THE 
 
 Wxmu €nkxpxm of ittissions 
 
THE DIVINE 
 
 nterprise ot fflissions 
 
 A SERIES OF LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED AT NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J., BEFORE THE 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE REFORMED 
 
 CHURCH IN AMERICA 
 
 "GRAVES" FOUNDATION 
 
 IN THE MONTHS OF JANUARY ANO FEBRUARY, 1891 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR T/PIERSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO 
 
 740 AND 742 Broadway 
 
Copyright, 1891, by 
 Thb Baker & Taylor Co. 
 
 t^ taxfon (presm 
 
 [73 Macdougal Street, New York 
 
TO 
 
 NATHAN F. GRAVES, Esq. 
 
 Of Syracuse, New York 
 
 to whosb discriminating munificence this lectukeship 
 owes its foundation j 
 
 AND TO WHOSE DEVOUT AND INTELLIGENT INTEREST IN THE 
 
 GREAT WORK OF A WORLD'S EVANGELIZATION 
 
 SO MANY OF 
 
 THE FRIENDS OF MISSIONS TRACE THEIR OWN INCREASED ZEAL 
 
 FOR THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS APPBCTIONATBLY AND MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 3Sg ttie ^vL\\)ov 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BY REV. D. D. DEMAREST, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PASTORAL THEOLOGY, NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J. 
 
 IN introducing to the Christian pubHc this 
 volume of Lectures on Missions, dehv- 
 ered before the Theological Seminary of 
 the Reformed Church in America, at New Bruns- 
 wick, N. J., it is proper that a brief account should 
 be given of the origin of the lectureship. 
 
 On the 1 6th day of April, 1888, Mr. Nathan 
 F. Graves, an Elder in the Reformed Church of 
 Syracuse, N. Y., and an active member of the 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church 
 in America, addressed the following letter to the 
 Rev. Prof. Mabon, of the Theological Seminary : 
 
 " Syracuse, N. Y., April i6th, 1888. 
 ''Rev. Prof. W. V. V. Mabon, D.D. 
 
 " My dear Sir — I understand that there is no Semi- 
 nary or Professorship of Missions in the United States. 
 I may be mistaken, but I am quite sure that there is no 
 adequate provision made fOr a service so important. I 
 have noticed that the missionaries that are instructed at 
 Basle have quite an advantage over those who receive 
 
I O IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 no special instruction to fit them for their important 
 work. 
 
 " I write to enquire if the subject has ever been con- 
 sidered in the Seminary ; and if you consider it desirable 
 and practicable to establish such a professorship, I will 
 be greatly obliged for a reply at your convenience. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "N. F. Graves." 
 
 The Faculty having declared that, in their opin- 
 ion, it was desirable and practicable that some 
 agency for missionary instruction should be estab- 
 lished in the Seminary, conferences were held by 
 Mr. Graves with a Committee of the Faculty, with 
 Rev. John Mason Ferris, D.D., for many years 
 Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Reformed Church in America ; with Rev. Henry 
 N. Cobb, D.D., present Secretary, and with vari- 
 ous friends of Foreign Missions. The result was 
 a proposal by Mr. Graves to provide liberally the 
 means for a course of lectures for the year 1888- 
 89 ; the lecturer or lecturers to be appointed by 
 the Theological Faculty in connection with the 
 Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Reformed Church in America, while further action 
 of a more permanent nature was to be left for 
 more mature consideration. 
 
 Accordingly, a course of six lectures was deliv- 
 ered in the S. A. Kirkpatrick Chapel, the use of 
 which was kindly granted for the purpose by the 
 authorities of the College. The lecturers and 
 subjects were as follows : 
 
INTRODUCTION, n 
 
 1. Rev. Henry Stout, of Nagasaki, Japan — 
 The Unique Characteristics of the Missionary 
 Work in Japan. 
 
 2. Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., formerly of Con- 
 stantinople — Fifty Years of Missionary Education 
 in Turkey. 
 
 3. Rev. Leonard W. Kip, D.D., of Amoy, 
 China — A Heathen Stronghold. 
 
 4. Rev. E. M. Wherry, D.D., of Saharanpoor, 
 India — The ReHgion of Islam. 
 
 5. Rev. F. F. EUinwood, D.D., Secretary of 
 the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
 Church — The Undesigned Testimony of False 
 Religions to the True. 
 
 6. Rev. John H. Wyckoff, of the Arcot Mission 
 — Brahmanism and Christianity. 
 
 In their report made to the Board of Superintend- 
 ents, May 20th, 1889, the Faculty said: *' These 
 lectures were able and instructive, and the impres- 
 sion made was so salutary that we earnestly hope 
 that the thought so generously conceived by Elder 
 Graves will be matured in permanency, and that 
 hereafter oui* students may be able every year to 
 receive instruction from men of wisdom and ex- 
 perience in this great subject. The thanks of the 
 Seminary and of the Church are due to the Elder 
 whose heart, in its deep sympathy with Christian 
 effort in evangelizing the world, has projected the 
 scheme, and inchnes him to provide liberally for 
 its accomphshment," 
 
12 iNTR on uc rioN. 
 
 Mr. Graves being satisfied with the experiment, 
 very promptly and cordially expressed his wish 
 and readiness to provide for a course of lectures 
 for the year 1889-90, and also for one for the 
 year following, so that the lecturer might have two 
 years for preparation. He has since made pro- 
 vision for the future, including the year 1892-93. 
 
 The second course was delivered in the winter 
 of 1890 by the Rev. John Hall, D.D., LL.D., of 
 New York City, embracing lectures on the follow- 
 ing subjects : 
 
 1. The Bible Basis of Missions. 
 
 2. The Missions of the Early Centuries of 
 Christianity. 
 
 3. Missions Previous to the Reformation. 
 
 4. Missions and the Reformation. 
 
 5. Missions from the Reformation to the 19th 
 Century. 
 
 6. Modern Missions, their Difficulties and En- 
 couragements. 
 
 The Faculty, deeming it to be right and wise 
 that the Christian pubhc should have the benefit of 
 these lectures, and that ample opportunity should 
 be afforded for the attendance of the largest num- 
 ber, obtained from the Consistory of the Second 
 Reformed Church the use of their house of wor- 
 ship for the purpose. The spacious building was 
 crowded every evening with attentive listeners. 
 
 The third course, by Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, 
 D.D., comprising the lectures contained in this vol- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 ume, was delivered in the winter of 1891,* in the 
 First Reformed Church, which was kindly granted 
 for the purpose. The lectures were heard by large 
 congregations with increasing interest to the end 
 of the course. 
 
 At the close the following resolutions, offered 
 by Rev. Prof. T. Sandford Doolittle, D.D., of 
 Rutgers College, were heartily and unanimously 
 adopted by the large audience present : 
 
 Resolved. — i. That our hearty thanks are due to Rev. 
 Arthur T. Pierson, D.D,, for the zeal and efficiency with 
 which he has presented so much valuable information 
 in regard to the mission field and the claims of the 
 Master upon us to act as missionaries in spirit, if not in 
 person. 
 
 2. That thanks are due also to the Faculty of the 
 Theological Seminary for not limiting these lectures to 
 their class-rooms, but for making them public in one of 
 the churches of the city, so that the people of various de- 
 nominations are allowed the privilege of hearing them. 
 
 3. That we take a special pleasure in exhibiting a 
 grateful recognition of the wise and noble generosity of 
 Mr. N. F. Graves in establishing this annual course of 
 lectures for enlarging the knowledge and intensifying 
 the interest in Christian missions. 
 
 While the students of the Seminary for whom 
 these lectures were especially intended have de- 
 rived inestimable benefit from them, it is gratifying 
 to know that many Christian people of all denom- 
 inations have been sharers in the benefit. It is 
 beheved that announcements of future courses 
 ^ In January and February, 
 
1 4 IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 will be received with great satisfaction by the 
 Christian public. It is hoped that they may prove 
 to be a great stimulus to missionary zeal, be pro- 
 motive of unity in Christian faith and work ; and 
 of intelligent and untiring service in the kingdom 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all the glory. 
 
 D. D. Demarest. 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 T was a wise maxim of Cicero, that, in 
 the opening of an address, the speaker 
 and his audience should come to a mutual 
 understanding. Let the author thus early acquaint 
 his readers with the supreme aim which has 
 controlled his utterances. 
 
 In the preparation of these lectures two paths 
 lay open before the lecturer. He might, acting 
 as an annahst, trace that march of missions, which 
 is the marvel, if not the miracle, of this modem 
 age ; or, like the historian, he might seek to ex- 
 amine into those fundamental laws and philo- 
 sophical principles which are the keys of history. 
 In the Books of the Kings, for example, we have 
 the historical annals of the Kingdom ; in the Books 
 of the Chronicles, the ethical survey of the The- 
 ocracy : in one case a simple record of events ; in 
 the other, a lesson on the faithfulness or faithless- 
 ness of the kings toward the King of Kings, with 
 the rewards and retributions consequent upon such 
 opposite courses. 
 
 I have chosen, as the theme, The Divine Enter- 
 
l6 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 prise of Missions; and shall modestly attempt a 
 Philosophy of History, dealing with the " Theoc- 
 racy " rather than the " Kingdom." The annals, 
 both of ancient Israel and of the modern Church, 
 record mingled success and failure. Whether it 
 be the one or the other cannot depend on any 
 chance or accident. There is no fatalism in his- 
 tory. Our instincts tell us that success must be 
 the consequence and crown of conformity to the 
 pattern shewed us in the mount ; and failure, the 
 result of departure from the divine standard. 
 Some golden calf which some Aaron may have 
 cast, out of unhallowed offerings ; some carved 
 altar, which some idolatrous Ahaz may have set 
 up in place of the unhewn altar of the divine 
 simpHcity that is in Christ — in a word, some dis- 
 placing of the pure and perfect type of doctrine 
 and method, prescribed in the Word of God, may 
 account for the withholding of blessing, and for 
 defeat and disaster in our missionary work. 
 
 We have need, perhaps, to begin again, and lay 
 anew the basis of missionary enterprise ; or, if we 
 find the former foundation firm and sound, we 
 may need at least to see whether, on that founda- 
 tion, we have been building gold, silver, precious 
 stones ; or wood, hay, stubble. Possibly, into the 
 structure of our mission work some errors have 
 been built, which are serious if not radical. To 
 get God's own conception of missions informed 
 and infixed in oiu- minds, our hearts and our prac- 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 tical methods, might lead to the partial and even 
 total revolution of our present mission work. 
 
 Feeling the solemnity of this trust, as the in- 
 cumbent of this lectureship, for my own sake and 
 that of my readers, and for the sake of a cause 
 wider and broader than all, I have given myself, 
 Bible in hand, to a careful, prayerful study of this 
 theme, seeking to be rid of all bias, either of prej- 
 udice or prepossession, and to be led into all truth. 
 And, as the studies which, for more than a year 
 before the delivery of these lectures, were largely 
 hmited to this one subject, have rent the veil from 
 much that was hitherto hidden or at best obscure 
 to my own mind, it will not be strange if some 
 things which found utterance in the lecture-course 
 may strike other minds as new, and even as untrue. 
 The lecturer ventures to ask the confidence of his 
 indulgent readers and, on their part also, patient 
 study of the principles laid down. Let there be 
 applied to them, not the test of human authority 
 or opinion merely; but the touchstone of the 
 Word of God, and of His manifest working in the 
 History of Missions. 
 
 Human tradition is a dangerous ally of the 
 Bible, for, too often, it '' makes void the Word of 
 God." At first only a vassal, it becomes a con- 
 sort, and finally a sovereign, usurping all authority. 
 And, as Luther found it necessary to question 
 even the venerable traditions of the elders, and 
 separate the infallible Scriptures from all the chaff 
 
1 8 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and alloy of mere human teaching, it behoves us 
 to pray for grace to go back to the very beginning, 
 and inquire of the Master himself what are the 
 eternal and immutable principles of mission work. 
 
 Arthur T. Pierson. 
 
 2320 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, 
 October, 1891. 
 
I. 
 
 THE DIVINE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 
 
 HEN, on the 15th of May, 16 18, after 
 more than twenty years of patient ex- 
 periment, Johann Kepler completed his 
 discovery of the so-called " Harmonic Laws," or 
 the relations of the planets ; when the secret doors, 
 that had waited six thousand years for a key, were 
 at last unlocked by the theory of an elliptical orbit, 
 the great astronomer of Magstatt, no longer able 
 to contain his rapture, cried, '' O Almighty God, 
 I think Thy thoughts after Theef' 
 
 What the '* Legislator of the Heavens " did, in 
 the department of astronomy, we seek to do in 
 the department of missions — think God's thought 
 after God. The words " idea " and " theory " are, 
 to some linguists, sacred, because of a possible 
 derivation of the one from the Latin, deus, and of 
 the other from the Greek, Qeoq ; and of a possible 
 design by those words to express conceptions as 
 they he in the mind of God. If such be the real 
 roots, the word idea {in deo) would mean a thought 
 first conceived in God, and then expressed to men 
 — a theory would be a sacred image, pattern, or 
 plan of God. The ancient Platonists used the 
 
20 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 word i^efflj of an eternal immutable and immaterial 
 form or model of an object, an archetype, a pat- 
 tern.* In this sense, ideas were the pattern accord- 
 ing to which the Deity fashioned the phenomenal 
 or ectypal world. t 
 
 An idea^ therefore, properly implies a perfectio7i 
 of image. If we can, at the outset, get before us 
 the divine conception of missions, what a starting- 
 point will that be, and to what an advanced goal 
 might we hope to reach, if, true to our starting- 
 point, we keep on our course without deviation ! 
 
 The four Gospel narratives have, at the close of 
 each — as has also the Acts of the Apostles, that 
 *' Fifth Gospel," at its beginning, — certain words 
 of our Lord which are evidently meant for the 
 guidance of His disciples, in all time to come, as 
 to their great mission and commission. Each of 
 these accounts contains something, different from 
 the others, yet essential to the full and complete 
 expression of our Lord's will and our duty. As, 
 in a composite photograph, various facial forms 
 and features blend, combining individual pecuhari- 
 ties in one collective result, so, if we may project, 
 as upon one sensitive plate, these five forms of the 
 Great Commission ; and, instead of looking at 
 them separately, behold them all, blent in one 
 composite view, we may at one glance see the 
 mutual relations of these various words of instruc- 
 tion and get the grand total. 
 
 * Worcester's Dictionary. f Sir Wm. Hamilton. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 21 
 
 With this aim, we may reverently venture to 
 combine these five fragmentary utterances into 
 one, without implying that, in our Lord's original 
 teaching, they were thus blended; or that it is 
 possible to determine either their logical or chro- 
 nological order. We seek simply to frame a general 
 summary, without omission of any particulars; 
 and to group together words of instruction or 
 promise which, by affinity, belong together. The 
 attempt so to arrange and combine has been at- 
 tended with such profit to the writer, that he can- 
 not but hope it may at least prompt abler students 
 of the Word to improve upon the imperfect result. 
 Close study of these farewell words of our Lord will 
 reveal an exquisite poetry of thought, a certain 
 rhythm and rhyme of conception, which need the 
 aid of parallelism to convey this correspondence. 
 
 I. 
 
 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying: 
 "PEACE BE UNTO YOU!" 
 
 And when He had so said He shewed unto them His 
 hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad when 
 they saw the Lord ; then said Jesus to them again : 
 
 " PEACE BE UNTO YOU ! " 
 
 H. 
 "ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME 
 
 IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH. 
 AS MY FATHER HATH SENT ME, 
 
 EVEN SO SEND I YOU." 
 
22 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 III. 
 
 Then opened He their understanding that they might 
 understand the scriptures; and said unto them; 
 " Thus it is written, 
 And thus it behoved Christ to suffer 
 And to rise from the dead the third day ; 
 
 AND THAT 
 
 REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS 
 SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME 
 
 AMONG ALL NATIONS, 
 BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 AND YE ARE WITNESSES OF THESE 
 THINGS." 
 
 IV. 
 
 "GO YE THEREFORE INTO ALL THE WORLD 
 
 AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY 
 
 CREATURE. 
 
 GO, MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS, 
 
 Baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 
 of the Holy Ghost ; 
 
 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
 
 commanded you. 
 
 He thai believeth and is baptized shall be saved, 
 
 But he that believeth not shall be damned. 
 
 V. 
 
 AND, BEHOLD I SEND THE PROMISE OF MY FATHER 
 UPON YOU. 
 
 Depart ye not from Jerusalem, 
 
 But wait for the promise of the Father 
 
 Which ye have heard of Me. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 23 
 
 Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, 
 
 UNTIL YE BE ENDUED WITH POWER FROM 
 
 ON HIGH. 
 
 For John truly baptized with water, 
 
 But ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many 
 
 days hence. 
 
 Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
 
 Coming upon you ; 
 
 AND YE SHALL BE WITNESSES 
 UNTO ME 
 
 Both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, 
 
 And in Samaria, 
 
 And unto the uttermost part of the earth." 
 
 And He breathed on them 
 
 And saith unto them, 
 
 " Receive ye the Holy Ghost." 
 
 VI. 
 "AND LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY, 
 
 EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE AGE. 
 
 And these signs shall follow them that believe : 
 
 In My name shall they cast out demons ; 
 
 They shall speak with new tongues ; 
 
 They shall take up serpents ; 
 
 And if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
 
 them ; 
 
 They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." 
 
 VII. 
 
 And He led them out as far as to Bethany. 
 So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, 
 
 He lifted up His hands and blessed them ; 
 
 And it came to pass, while He blessed them. 
 
 He was parted from them ; 
 
24 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 And while they beheld, He was taken up, 
 
 And a cloud received Him out of their sight. 
 
 And He was carried up and received up into heaven, 
 
 And they worshipped Him 
 
 And returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 
 
 And were continually in the temple 
 
 Praising and blessing God. 
 
 AND THEY WENT FORTH AND PREACHED 
 
 EVERYWHERE, 
 
 THE LORD WORKING WITH 
 
 AND CONFIRMING THE WORD, 
 
 WITH SIGNS FOLLOWING. 
 
 AMEN I 
 
 Thus, combining all these farewell words of our 
 Lord, and grouping together sayings that bear to 
 each other a peculiar relation, we find that the 
 whole natiu"ally falls into seven parts. 
 
 First, we have a double salutation of Peace. 
 
 Secondly, a declaration of Divine Authority, and 
 a distinct, authoritative Commission — sending the 
 disciples forth, — a transmission of this authority. 
 
 Thirdly, an unfolding of the essential truths of 
 Redemption, the Atoning Death and Resurrection 
 of Christ, and the substance of the message to be 
 borne in His name. And here occurs that phrase 
 central and vital to the whole commission, ''Ye 
 are witnesses of these things ^ 
 
 Fourthly, we have the universality of the com- 
 mission indicated in three unmistakable terms: 
 two of which are collective, — " all the world," and 
 " all nations," — and the third of which is distribu- 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 25 
 
 tive, — " every creature," — showing us that while 
 the message is universal, it is also individual. 
 
 Fifthly, we have the great qualification for the 
 proper discharge of the commission ; the Endue- 
 ment with Power by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Sixthly, we have the assurance of the Saviour's 
 personal presence, and of signs following those 
 who believe. 
 
 Finally, we have the Lord's parting blessing 
 and ascension and the brief record of the fulfil- 
 ment begun, both of the duty of the Chiu-ch and 
 of the promise of her Lord. 
 
 In this whole body of instructions there is one 
 word, so central, so vital, so emphatic, that it is 
 the only word which is made especially prominent 
 by repetition ; it is the word witness. " Ye are 
 witnesses of these things " ; '' Ye shall be tvitnesses 
 unto me." The only other word that rivals this 
 for prominence is the word '' preach, ^^ which really 
 conveys essentially the same meaning, since the 
 soul of preaching is witnessing. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that if, at the outset, we 
 desire to grasp the divine idea of missions, here 
 we shall find our starting-point toward the most 
 advanced goal. It is like God to be simple ; and 
 in that one word, witfiess, is condensed the whole 
 wisdom of God as to this world-wide work. We 
 are to be witnesses unto Him. Let us seek to 
 enter more fully into this thought of God as con- 
 veyed in this word. 
 
26 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 The race of man is lost in sin — lost to God, and 
 to holiness and heaven. Beside the generic, fed- 
 eral fall of the race in its head, there has been a 
 voluntary and personal fall, each sinning soul for 
 itself, in departing from the living God. Jesus 
 Christ, the second Adam, takes man's place. He 
 obeys the law which Adam transgressed, and 
 proves obedience possible ; then He dies in the sin- 
 ner's place to make his redemption also possible. 
 We do not here tarry to consider the philosophy of 
 the plan of salvation : the fact is enough that, in 
 some way and sense, " He bare our sins in His 
 own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, 
 should live unto righteousness," and that " by His 
 stripes we are healed." While the Word of God 
 repeatedly and constantly affirms this fact, it never 
 attempts to exhaust its philosophy. Nor need we. 
 
 The only condition of salvation is the acceptance 
 of God's free gift of eternal hfe through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. As Chalmers taught, this is the 
 supreme glory of the Gospel, that it is simply to 
 be accepted. Repentance is only that godly sorrow 
 for sin and that sense of need which dispose us to 
 faith ; obedience is only the natural fruit of that 
 new life begun in believing. And so faith is cen- 
 tral and all-inclusive, and faith is believing, and 
 believing is receiving. "To as many as received 
 Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons 
 of God, even to as many as believe on His name." 
 That one verse proves that to believe is to receive; 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 27 
 
 and, in all the instances in the Gospel according 
 to John where that word, believe, occurs, we may 
 substitute the word, receive, and find the sense 
 unaffected. 
 
 We need to take one step further, and we reach 
 another equally simple but equally vital truth. 
 " God would have all men to be saved and to 
 come to the knowledge of the truth." The salva- 
 tion is broad enough to cover the sin of all man- 
 kind. The rescue is ample for the ruin of the 
 race. How shall the unsaved be reached % Be- 
 hold again how divinely simple is the thought of 
 God: let every believer become a witness — let 
 every man, who is saved, seek to save. It is no 
 irreverence to say that God's whole idea of mis- 
 sions may be found, in essence, in that one word, 
 wit)iessing. The salvation of God is full and free. 
 To accept it freely is immediate justificatioti; to 
 accept it fully is complete saiictification; to witness 
 to it fully and freely is complete service — it is to 
 be a missionary wherever we are. 
 
 Let us dwell a moment on the simplicity of wit- 
 nessing for Christ. Nothing can be more primitive 
 and simple. The word itself has a lesson : it is 
 from the Saxon, witan, to know, the root of many 
 kindred words, ''wit," ''wist," "wisdom." A 
 witness needs, therefore, but two characteristics : 
 knowledge and utterance. To know and to tell 
 makes a witness, and hence even a little child is 
 now admitted to our courts of law as competent 
 
28 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 to testify. And in the higher Court of Humanity, 
 the Parhament of Man, even a little child is admit- 
 ted, to bear witness to Jesus and the great salva- 
 tion, before the tribunal of public opinion ; be- 
 cause a child can sin, can repent, can beheve, 
 and can therefore tell what he knows of salvation 
 by faith. In fact, no testimony is more convinc- 
 ing than that of a guileless child. 
 
 This simplicity is in order to universality ; for 
 it brings the privilege within the range of all be- 
 lievers. As the Gospel is marked by its universal 
 adaptation to man as man, so the missionary charge 
 is pecuHar for its universal adaptation to believers 
 as believers. It requires but the least measure of 
 capacity, to sin, and whoever can sin, can be saved 
 from sin ; and so it requires but the least measure 
 of capacity to be a witness, for whoever can sin 
 and can be saved, can tell of salvation. 
 
 We repeat, it is simple that it may be universal. 
 This duty, this privilege, is committed to all 
 believers, and has reference to the whole race of 
 man. It is therefore doubly universal; all be- 
 lievers are to witness, and are to witness unto all. 
 All who are saved are to bear testimony, and all 
 who are unsaved are to hear that testimony. 
 
 Here we meet, at the outset of this discussion, 
 the first of those traditions of men which have 
 practically made the Word of God of none effect. 
 Believers commonly have no sense of either per- 
 sonal duty or responsibility toward lost souls. What- 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 29 
 
 ever be their duty, it is believed it may be done 
 indirectly and by proxy. Nay, during the ages, 
 the Church of God has come to recognize a divid- 
 ing line, not found in the New Testament, between 
 the clergy and the laity ^ so-called. A small mi- 
 nority of church members are set apart for the 
 preaching of the Gospel and the care of souls. 
 The very terms "preacher," ''pastor," "curate," 
 have come to embody this conception, that these 
 men are especially ordained to preach the Gospel, 
 shepherd believers, and care for souls. What, 
 then, is the duty of the " laity ^^ but to take care 
 of the " clergy^'' hear the Gospel which they preach, 
 keep in the fold, or follow with the flock where 
 the pastor leads ; and to see to it that, while the 
 " curate" is caring for souls, he shall be paid for 
 his professional work ? This is the theory, judged 
 by the practice. The great bulk of professing 
 Christians have no systematic work for unsaved 
 souls ; many of them have never yet even looked 
 upon it as a duty to seek and to save that which 
 was lost. In their conceptions of the Christian 
 life this does not enter as a necessary integral fac- 
 tor. To go to church with reasonable regularity, 
 to pay pew-rent punctually, to be honest and hon- 
 orable and charitable ; to behave like a Christian 
 in the church, in the home, and in society, espe- 
 cially if, to all else, be added a generous gift now 
 and then to missions at home and abroad ; this is 
 — to most professed believers — to live the life of a 
 
30 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 disciple. O for the trump of Gabriel, to peal out 
 this truth as with the voice of the thunder ! — in 
 all this a tnie child of God sees but the beginnings 
 not the end, of holy living/ Where shall we find 
 adequate room for that grander thought of ditrct 
 service to God in witnessing to souls in Christ's 
 name? 
 
 We here unhesitatingly affirm that the concep- 
 tion of Christian Hfe which leaves out personal 
 labor for lost souls, is as radically wanting as that 
 conception of salvation which leaves out faith : for 
 beHeving is not more prominently connected with 
 salvation than is witnessing connected with ser- 
 vice to God ! And, because all new energy or 
 enterprise in missions hinges on^a revival of this 
 apostolic faith and practice, we give it intensest 
 emphasis here at the outset of this discussion. 
 
 Careful comparison of the various accounts, 
 given by the evangelists, of our Lord's last inter- 
 views with his disciples, has led Rev. Dr. Robinson 
 and others to conclude that the gathering on the 
 *' mountain in Galilee " was the occasion when, as 
 Paul says, "He was seen of above five hundred 
 brethren at once." * It was not needful that He 
 should go into that northern province simply to 
 meet the eleven, whom He repeatedly met in Jeru- 
 salem ; nor could it be any of them who '' doubted," 
 since even the sceptical Thomas had ceased to 
 question. But Christ had spent the bulk of His 
 
 * Of. Matt, xxviii. i6 ; I. Cor. xv. 6. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 31 
 
 active ministry in Galilee : there He had spoken 
 most of His wondrous words and wrought most of 
 His marvellous works ; and there most of His dis- 
 ciples were found. That parting interview in 
 Galilee seems meant to commit formally and finally 
 to the great body of His followers the work of wit- 
 nessing for Him. 
 
 To clothe that closing scene, depicted by Mat- 
 thew, with such an environment, is to invest it 
 with a new grandeur. Not to a few apostles 
 alone, in some secluded chamber in Capernaum, 
 but to a multitude numbering upwards of five 
 hundred ; His pulpit a mountain peak ; His audi- 
 ence chamber bounded only by the horizon, and 
 roofed in only by the canopy of heaven, the cathe- 
 dral of nature ! How fitting that the world's 
 Redeemer, stretching out His pierced hands as 
 though to touch the farthest limits of the globe 
 from sunrise to sunset, where no narrow walls 
 could confine His voice, should say to all His disci- 
 ples : " Go ye into all the world and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature ! " 
 
 This ought to be granted, as beyond all dispute : 
 preaching the Gospel, in its original and proper 
 sense, is the privilege and prerogative of no ex- 
 clusive class : it inahenably belongs to all behevers. 
 Those terms, " clergy " and " laity," are the inven- 
 tion of the devil in the Dark Ages. The former, 
 from KXrjpog, a lot, is an Old Testament conception 
 brought over into New Testament times. The 
 
32 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 tribe of Levi was the "lot," or heritage of the 
 Lord ; and the " clergy " have been conceived as 
 being specially and exclusively chosen, like the 
 Levites, to perform this ministry. On the other 
 hand, the term " laity," from "kaoq, the people, in- 
 dicates the current impression that the body of 
 behevers — the people of God at large — are shut 
 out from the exercise of ministerial functions. 
 As Gibbon says: ' The progress of ecclesiastical 
 authority gave birth to the memorable distinction 
 of the laity and clergy which had been unknown 
 to the Greeks and Romans. The former of these 
 appellations comprehended the body of the Chris- 
 tian people ; the latter was appropriated to the 
 chosen portion that had been set apart for the ser- 
 vice of religion." 
 
 The introduction of this distinction into the 
 Church of Christ was not only an invention of the 
 devil, but a master-stroke of Satan-craft. Where 
 in the New Testament is to be found a trace of 
 that rigid hne that so sharply separated priests 
 and people in the days of Judaism ? The older 
 conception of a kingdom of priests,* which ante- 
 dates the separation of Levi's tribe for the service 
 of the Tabernacle, now comes once more to the 
 front. No believer finds himself fenced into an 
 outer court, — even the veil that hid the Holy of 
 Holies is rent in twain ; and, without priestly or 
 high priestly mediation, every child of God comes 
 
 * Exod. xix. 6, 
 
THE THOUGH f OF MISSIONS. Z2y 
 
 boldly to the mercy seat, having access through 
 Christ by one Spirit unto the Father. Every be- 
 liever is, therefore, by right a preacher. No 
 sooner does Andrew find Jesus than he goes after 
 Peter ; or Philip, than he seeks Nathanael. Nay, 
 even a woman, and she a Samaritan and an out- 
 cast, when she finds the Messiah at the well, 
 immediately leaves her water-pot, in her haste to 
 impart, as from an inner spring, greater than 
 Jacob's well, a Hfe-giving draught to thirsty souls 
 in Sychar ! 
 
 No more significant statement can be found, 
 even in that great book of missions, — the Acts 
 of the Apostles, — than that which follows the 
 account of Stephen's martyrdom : '' There was a 
 great persecution against the Church which was at 
 Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad 
 through all the regions of Judea and Samaria, 
 except the Apostles : therefore they that were 
 scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the 
 Word." * 
 
 With what divine care is this fact framed into 
 sacred history ! The Spirit of God records a gen- 
 eral scattering abroad, but records also that, in 
 that scattering, the Apostles are not i7icluded; those, 
 then, that went everywhere preaching the Word, 
 were simply ordinary believers. Behold them — 
 the elect dispersion, driven by the red hand of 
 persecution into the remote parts of Judea and 
 
 * Acts viii, 1-4; xi. 19, 20. 
 
34 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Samaria, and afterward to the Phoenician coast, 
 to Cyprus, to Antioch. Without one ordained 
 apostle, even to lead the way, they preached the 
 Lord Jesus; and God, who by His Providence 
 dispersed them, by His grace set His seal upon 
 their work, for " the hand of the Lord was with 
 them, and a great number beheved and turned 
 unto the Lord." * 
 
 Thus far, certainly, we find no rigid line sep- 
 arating and dividing disciples in proclaiming the 
 good news. 
 
 Those who are infected with the " High Church" 
 tendencies of our day may do well to note that, 
 in the Acts of the Apostles, there is not found 
 any sacred line of limitation even in the admifiis- 
 tration of the sacraments. Philip, who acted as 
 an evangehst, and went down to Samaria and 
 preached Christ with such power, also baptized 
 both men and women, as he did the eunuch of 
 Ethiopia ; t and yet this Philip was at best only a 
 deacon, set apart, it is true, but not set apart as a 
 preacher, but as a server of tables ; and one case 
 of such exercise of sacramental rights is enough to 
 break down the limiting line. The whole trend of 
 New Testament teaching is in the direction of the 
 universal priesthood of believers. In this divine 
 Charter of the Chiurch, these truths are self-evident, 
 that all believers are new-created and equal in 
 their inherent privileges, endowed with certain 
 
 * Acts xi. 21, f Acts viii. 5, 12, 38, 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 35 
 
 original, inalienable rights, among which is wit- 
 nessing. 
 
 It would be unfair to interpret these words as 
 a fling against an ordained ministry. There are 
 many good grounds for setting apart godly men to 
 the service of pulpit and pastorate. We cordial- 
 ly concede this, in the interests of law and order, 
 of sound doctrine and good government, of organ- 
 ization and leadership, of aptness to teach and 
 wise, systematic curacy of souls. But to erect 
 Christ's ministers into a clerical caste ^ to build a 
 barrier between them and the rest of God's people 
 in the matter of witnessing for Christ and winning 
 souls — that is both false to Scripture and fatal to 
 missions ! We must turn back and retrace our 
 steps and get once more upon the primitive apos- 
 tolic platform. We need another Luther who 
 shall nail up his theses upon the doors of the 
 " church of all saints," and assert, in behalf of all 
 saints, their " Declaration of Independence," with 
 these original, inalienable rights. We must brush 
 away the rubbish of human inventions and devices 
 of the devil, and plant our firm feet on the broad 
 basis laid down in the Word of God, that, by 
 right of redemption in Christ, all the Lord's peo- 
 ple are prophets, priests, and kings. Whatever 
 function, inhering in believers, may, in the inter- 
 ests of expediency and for the general good, be 
 conceded to a certain class, one universal right 
 must be retained — or if, in any measure, practically 
 
36 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 given up, it must be reclaimed and restored, viz. : 
 the common right of all believers to proclaim the 
 Gospel. This can be surrendered only with dis- 
 aster to the best interests both of the Church and 
 of the world. No mistake can be more fatal — 
 fatal not only to a world's evangelization and re- 
 demption, but to the service, growth, and even 
 spiritual life of the disciple himself. 
 
 Often as this great truth has been wrested from 
 the clutch of ecclesiasticism, it needs to-day again 
 to be recovered and reasserted — proclaimed as 
 with the clarion voice of the Apocalyptic Angel. 
 Three centuries, and nearly four, have rolled away 
 since the lamp of the Reformed faith lit up the 
 darkness, and still the subtle foe of Christian mis- 
 sions, both at home and abroad, is clericaHsm. 
 The bulk of church members find their strength in 
 sitting still — ^it is only the few to whom it is a 
 necessary part of a Christian hfe to bestir them- 
 selves, and serve — to give alms and minister to 
 want and woe — to teach others the truth, to win 
 others for Christ, to bear a dying world on the 
 heart, and by prevailing prayer and daily testimony 
 seek by all means to save some. 
 
 This witness, which is thus simple and universal, 
 is also experimental; and, in this sense, is not, after 
 all, either so simple or so universal ; for it demands 
 knowledge, not that of the schools, but of the school 
 of Christ — and is based on the high attainment of 
 experience. It is because so few knozn, beyond 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 37 
 
 doubt, — because so few reach to the certainties of 
 spiritual things, — that so few are competent to 
 give effective testimony. There should be fixed 
 firmly in our minds this axiom of spiritual life, that 
 experience Iwiits testifnofiy. We can witness only 
 so far as we kno^u. Settled conviction, intelligent 
 and immovable faith, however narrow its bounds, 
 is indispensable to convincing others or develop- 
 ing faith in others. Better — like the Wind man 
 whose eyes Jesus opened — to be able to say, " One 
 thing I know," than to be half confident on many 
 things ; for it is only the certainty of assured con- 
 viction that enables us to convince. 
 
 This is an age of doubt, and not only so, but it 
 is an age when it is fashionable to doubt. It is 
 coming to be a mark of intellectual aristocracy to 
 be sceptical. The first families in the world of 
 intellect have adopted a new coat of arms ; their 
 escutcheon is a shield, bearing an interrogation 
 point. Faith is confounded with credulity. The 
 simple confidence of a child-hke behever, who 
 takes the Bible as the Word of God, is met by the 
 learned and cultured with a complacent if not 
 compassionate smile — and the Gospel is treated 
 by some with even a lofty contempt, as though it 
 would do for women and children and small men, 
 but not for gixat minds and highly cultured people. 
 
 It is well for us all to understand that, so far 
 as doubt invades and controls our Christian life, 
 our witness for Christ is at an end. There may 
 
3^ THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 be a formal testimony, but it is soulless and pow- 
 erless. The world, and the Church too, wait for 
 men of strong conviction, who can, upon matters 
 upon which others are uncertain, say ''I know,'' 
 and can give an answer to every one that asketh 
 a reason of the hope that is in them. Emerson 
 declared that we need positive men, not negative 
 men — affirmations, positions; not denials, nega- 
 tions. Goethe, with a despair begotten of habitual 
 doubt, cries, " Give us your convictions ! as for 
 doubts, we have quite enough of our own." And 
 Mr. Spurgeon quaintly adds : " It may be a great 
 thing to doubt, but it is a greater thing to hold 
 your tongue till you get rid of your doubts." 
 Those who, in this sceptical age, are sowing the 
 seeds of doubt, may do well to consider whether 
 one firm conviction of truth is not of more service 
 to mankind than a thousand denials, or questions, 
 or uncertainties. 
 
 On this subject, Rev. Dr. C. F. Deems has 
 given young men a wise maxim : " Beheve your 
 behefs and doubt your doubts. Never make the 
 mistake of doubting your beliefs and believing 
 your doubts." Faith and unfaith are both sus- 
 ceptible of nurture, of culture. He who presumes 
 that what he has been taught to believe is, for that 
 reason, to be questioned ; and that what he has 
 been led to question is therefore unworthy of un- 
 questioning confidence, and that his doubts are 
 more trustwortliy than his faiths, will find him- 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 39 
 
 self drifting away from all the moorings of truth 
 and duty, — on an open sea, where clouds hide 
 the stars and fogs obscure all headlands ; and 
 where, without compass, chart, or rudder, he is 
 driving on bhndly toward the utter wreck and 
 ruin of all rehgious faith. 
 
 Blessed be God ! it is possible to know God and 
 the truth, and to find verity and reahty even in 
 the subtle, elusive, evasive sphere of the spiritual 
 and eternal. There is an unseen world — and we 
 have senses more subtle than the five physical 
 senses — which, being exercised to discern both 
 good and evil, become keen-edged, sharp-pointed, 
 and acutely discriminating. Reason, which sep- 
 arates between truth and falsehood ; conscience, 
 which detects the right and the wrong ; sensibility, 
 which discriminates between the attractive and 
 the repulsive, — these are examples of these subtler, 
 liner senses, which pertain to the sphere of the 
 unseen. God has given us physical senses as 
 media of communication with an external, material 
 universe ; and so He has given us these more 
 delicate senses, whereby to detect truth, right, 
 beauty, and communicate with the invisible and 
 the eternal. 
 
 Columbus discovered the New World before 
 he saw it. By the testimony of ancient writings, 
 by a broad and clear induction from many facts, 
 by the observations of other navigators, by the 
 calculations of his own science, he had the ^\\- 
 
40 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 dence before him of a continent not seen as yet 
 by European eyes.* And so it is possible by ex- 
 periment to know whom we have beHeved, and 
 what we hold as true. Even God needs not to 
 be " unknown," — as at Athens. We may " taste 
 and see " that He is good ; " hear and know " the 
 truth ; " feel after " and " find "Him who is not 
 far from every one of us, " handle " Him in the 
 closet and " see " that it is He Himself. The 
 Bible, referring to experiment in spiritual things, 
 thus uses terms kindred to those that we ordinarily 
 apply to sense perceptions, and applies them to 
 spiritual cognitions and recognitions. 
 
 When Professor Morse, the electrician, in the 
 closing part of the session of Congress in 1842-3, 
 sought aid to the extent of $30,000, to build the 
 experimental line of telegraph between Baltimore 
 and Washington, he had reached the last days of 
 the session in apparently fruitless and hopeless 
 endeavor, and was preparing for his return home. 
 The committee appointed by Congress had met, 
 and, after a morning's discussion, could reach no 
 unanimous conclusion. During the recess, how- 
 ever, Mr. Morse had taken the chairman to a large 
 room in the hotel, where a small telegraphic circuit 
 was erected. Bidding him take a position at one 
 end of the room, he himself went to the other, and 
 for an hour the most satisfactory trial was made of 
 the telegraph. And, when the committee re-as- 
 
 * Exeter Hall Lectures, 1854-5. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 4 1 
 
 sembled, the chairman said : " Gentlemen of the 
 Committee — When we adjourned this morning 
 you were equally divided as to the expediency of 
 recommending to Congress to make this appropri- 
 ation, and it fell to me to give the casting vote. 
 I am now ready to give my emphatic decision in 
 favor of the appropriation, for I have both sent 
 and received messages across the wires ! " 
 
 The wires are up between this world and the 
 unseen ; and he who enters into his closet, and 
 prays to the Father who is in secret, sends to the 
 Throne of God the message of beheving prayer, 
 and gets back the answering message of a faithful 
 God ! He can give his emphatic voice and vote 
 for the reality of things unseen, for he has come 
 into sympathetic, personal touch with God Him- 
 self. 
 
 The oratory of the soul is also its observatory 
 — the place of observation and revelation ; and, if 
 there were more constant and close fellowship with 
 God, there would be more knowledge of God and 
 more capacity for witness. Answered prayer is 
 the open path that leads to knowledge of a prayer- 
 hearing God. Obedience is both the organ of 
 spiritual perception and the school of spiritual 
 education ; for, " if any man will do his will, he 
 shall know of the doctrine." * '' To love God 
 and keep His words, is to have the manifestation 
 of God as it is impossible to the world." t It is 
 
 * John vii. 17. f John xiv. 23. 
 
42 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 possible to walk with God and be in constant 
 contact with Him. Our doubts, instead of being 
 our glory, are our shame — they come from mind- 
 ing earthly things, from living on a low level, and 
 walking according to the course of this world. 
 
 This witnessing, being thus based upon experi- 
 ment and experience, must therefore be co7tfined to 
 believers. 
 
 Two words we have already found to be con- 
 spicuous in the Great Commission, — "preach," 
 and "witness." To preach is to proclaim as a 
 herald ; to witness is to testify from personal knowl- 
 edge. The two widely and essentially differ, yet 
 they complement each other. A herald is only 
 the mouth of a message; a witness is the mouth of 
 an experiefice. The public crier may announce or 
 proclaim, for hire, tidings in which he feels no 
 interest, and of the truth of which he has no knowl- 
 edge. But a witness can speak only what he 
 knows and testify only what he has seen, heard, 
 felt. He is a herald, indeed, and a herald of good 
 tidings, but he is more — he is an example and 
 proof of their verity and value. And therefore 
 only a behever can be a witness. 
 
 The Gospel ministry is not a learned profession 
 into which men may go at their own option or at 
 the beck of avarice or ambition. It is a divine 
 vocation, to which men are called by the voice of 
 an Indwelhng Spirit, who qualifies them to bear 
 wit7iess for God. No man, however gifted or 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 43 
 
 learned, is competent to preach, except so far as 
 the truth he proclaims is the girdle which firmly 
 and closely embraces his very vitals and holds in 
 place all his other annor.* In countries where 
 there is an Established Church, the danger always 
 is that unconverted men will find their way into 
 this sacred oflSce, who, as Norman McLeod used 
 to say, preach the truth — truth which is the 
 world's hfe and which stirs the angels, — but too 
 often as a telegraphic wire transmits the most 
 momentous intelhgence ; and who grasp that truth, 
 only " as a sparrow grasps the wire by which the 
 message is conveyed." Let this be engraven on oiu" 
 hearts : that no human being is prepared to pro- 
 claim the good tidings, unless, and except so far 
 as, those tidings have become to him or to her the 
 means of salvation and sanctification. If a man 
 could combine in himself the intelhgence of a 
 cherub and the love of a seraph, he could not, 
 even then, be a witness, if grace had not trans- 
 formed his own soul. 
 
 Doubtless the angels would gladly have been 
 the bearers of these good news. We are divinely 
 told how they stand overawed before such a dis- 
 play of grace to sinners, and, as from the verge 
 of some unfathomable abyss, gazed down into the 
 depths of a love which they " desire to look into," 
 but cannot explore. And, had they been entrusted 
 with this message, on what joyful wings would 
 
 * Ephes. vi. 14, 
 
44 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 their legions have swept round the world trump- 
 eting forth the blessed news ! It would not have 
 been nineteen centuries before even one-third of 
 the race had been practically reached with the 
 Gospel. But there was one fatal deficiency in 
 angelic preaching : 
 
 " Never did angels taste above 
 Redeeming Grace and dying Love ! " 
 
 And so God crowds them back, and thrusts 
 forward, into the coveted place, saved sinners. 
 The poorest, humblest, most unlettered believer, 
 who has known penitence and faith, can do a work 
 for God to which Gabriel himself would be un- 
 equal. Thus only can we explain the fact that, 
 while an angel hovers about the chariot of the 
 inquiring Ethiopian,* he does not himself speak 
 to the eunuch, but bids Philip approach and guide 
 him ; and, even when the angel appears to Cor- 
 nehus and announces to him God's acceptance of 
 his alms and his prayers, he is restrained from fur- 
 ther announcing to him the words of life and sal- 
 vation, and significantly says : " Send men to Joppa 
 and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter ; 
 he shall tell thee words whereby thou and thy house 
 shall be saved." f 
 
 How few behevers appreciate this great truth, 
 that while God is thus pressing upon them this 
 solemn duty of preaching the Gospel, it is dipivi- 
 
 * Acts viii. 26. f Acts x. 1-5 ; xi. 13, 14. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 45 
 
 lege so high and holy as to be coveted by angels ! 
 An archangel himself could not preach the Gospel 
 as you or I can. We can say, I was a lost sinner, 
 but now by grace I am saved — that, no angel of 
 any rank in the whole hierarchy can say ; and, 
 because God will have witnesses for His heralds, 
 only believers are admitted to this privilege. 
 
 But there is quite another side to this matter. 
 If beheving disciples are essential to witnessing 
 for God, witnessing for God is not less essential to 
 believing souls. In the Sermon on the Mount, 
 our Lord begins by a graphic portrait of a true 
 disciple — and immediately passes from character 
 to influence, which He presents in two simple 
 famihar figm-es : " Ye are the salt of the earth," 
 " Ye are the light of the world." Salt that has no 
 savor neither savors nor saves ; light that has no 
 ray neither shines nor bui'ns. In those very forms 
 of figm"e our Lord is saying to us that a believer 
 without a witness is worthless as savorless salt, or 
 a rayless lamp. We must get beyond the con- 
 ception of service to God as a mere help to growth, 
 — it is a condition of life. Salt without saltness is 
 no longer salt. A Hght without a ray is no longer 
 a light. It is of the nature of the Christian life 
 to witness, and, when there is no witness, is it too 
 much to say, that, logically, there is no life ? 
 
 When we look abroad and see between thirty 
 and forty millions of professed believers, the major 
 part of whom impart no godly savor to season 
 
46 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 society, and bear no witness to the power of a 
 saving Gospel to enlighten the world, it is only 
 judging the tree by its fruit to say of such, 
 "having a form of godliness, but denying the 
 power thereof." We shall never reach the heart 
 of the difficulty in our foreign missionary work 
 until, by sharp, resolute, fearless thrusts of the 
 sword of the Spirit, we reach the consciences of 
 many professing Christians ; and dare to arouse 
 them from a self-complacent apathy and lethargy 
 by a bold application of the truth. We must dare 
 to use God's own touchstone of piety. Down 
 beneath outward ordinances and formalism thou- 
 sands of church members are living a life essentially 
 ungodly and unregenerate. They are not ** new 
 creatures," in whom "old things have passed 
 away, and all things have become new." There 
 has never been a surrender to God ; the will is un- 
 subdued, the heart is unchanged, they are under 
 the dominion of the flesh, the natural man, the 
 carnal mind. Worldly amusements ensnare them 
 because they have no relish for higher joys — they 
 are greedy of gain because they know nothing of 
 the higher gain of counting all things loss for 
 Christ. Their names are on church rolls, but are 
 they on the Book of Life! They cannot be 
 depended on to work for God, or even to give^ 
 because their hearts are not right in His sight. 
 
 Such words as these cannot be written or spoken 
 without giving personal anguish to one who is 
 
THE r HOUGH T OF MISSIONS. 47 
 
 compelled to utter such testimony. But let us 
 remember Christ's own words : " If any man wil 
 come after me, let him deny himself and take up 
 his cross daily .and follow me." Cross-bearing is 
 the one condition and sign of discipleship. What 
 is cross-bearing? In nothing, perhaps, has the 
 tradition of men more made void the Word of God 
 than in the common popular abuse of this phrase. 
 We talk of " crosses," Httle and great. Every trial 
 of our patience, every vexation of daily life, every- 
 thing that crosses our inclination, is a c7'oss. We 
 make crosses so common that we lose sight of that 
 unique and sublimely solitary self-offering which 
 our Lord meant to convey by the phrase. 
 
 Let us notice that the word cross never in the 
 Scripture occurs in the plural. There is but one 
 cross : it is the cross of self-abnegation. To Christ 
 the cross meant one thing, and nothing less : His 
 sacrifice of Himself to save others. And that is 
 what it must mean to every disciple. To take up 
 the cross and bear it after Christ is to undertake, 
 like the Master, a life of self-denial for the saving 
 of others. It is to lose life and lose self for His 
 sake. It is to be willing to die, if need be, that 
 others may live. When our Lord hung upon the 
 cross His enemies tauntingly said : " He saved 
 others : Himself He cannot save." No sneer ever 
 hid a truth so subhme. In the Christian life, 
 saving self and saving others are utterly incom- 
 patible ; and the one great difficulty with the whole 
 
48 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 body of professed disciples is that most of them 
 are trying to save themselves and yet be saved. 
 And so it comes to pass that, while thousands go 
 to church, come to the Lord's table, say their 
 prayers, and bear the name of Christ, they live a 
 life essentially worldly, are engaged in no soul- 
 saving work, and have no relish for it ; they have 
 no experience of the sweetness of a voluntary self- 
 denial for His sake, and spend a thousand times 
 as much on self-indulgence as they give to feed 
 the hungry, clothe the naked, or even give the 
 living bread to dying souls ! 
 
 Consider what would be the immediate result, 
 if every professed child of God could burn with 
 Paul's passion for souls — could know the " great 
 heaviness and continual sorrow of heart " for the 
 unsaved, that made it possible for him to wish 
 himself accursed that they might be blessed ! 
 
 That was cross-bearing ; he died daily, he was 
 crucified with Christ, he bore the very marks, the 
 GTtyfiara, of the Lord Jesus. Could ten thousand, 
 of the thirty or forty milhons of professed Protest- 
 ant believers, burn with such a Christ-like passion 
 for souls as that, for one year, the Gospel would 
 within that year be carried round the globe ! 
 But arguments and appeals are vain, while you 
 argue with the deaf and appeal to the dead. 
 Before the Church can " convert the world," the 
 Church must be converted. The remedy for 
 this widespread indifference must be radical. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 49 
 
 The difficulty is not in unsanctified purses, or un- 
 sanctified cradles ; it is deeper — in unregenerate 
 hearts. " By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 If you have no witness for Christ, have you any- 
 thing to witness ? 
 
 We strike here the very bottom of this divine 
 philosophy of missions. We are to conceive such 
 witnessing as a necessity to a truly saved soul. A 
 hght that does not shine, a spring that does not 
 flow, a germ that does not grow, is not more an 
 anomaly or a contradiction than a hfe in Christ 
 which does not witness to Christ. " We cannot 
 but speak the things which we have seen and 
 heard," is the natural utterance of every behever 
 whose eyes and whose ears have been opened to 
 behold the charms and hear the voice of Jesus. 
 He who has thirsted for God as the hart panteth 
 after the water-brooks, who has known the gift of 
 God, who has asked of Him and has drunk the 
 living water, will find not only his satisfied soul 
 thirsting no more, but he will find the water of life 
 springing up within him, a living well. And, if 
 there be a spring within, there will flow a stream 
 without. " He that beheveth on me, as the Script- 
 ure hath said, out of his inward being shall flow 
 rivers of living water." If therefore there be no 
 impulse outward, how can there be any life inward ? 
 If there be no stream, is there any spring ? if no 
 ray, is there any light % if no witness, is there any 
 experience! These are serious and searching 
 
50 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 questions ; and, as Christlieb has hinted, that dis- 
 ciple who has no testimony for Christ, no spirit of 
 missions, is rather himself the subject for Gospel 
 conquest, presenting in himself a field for mission- 
 ary labor. He who has no passion to convert 
 needs conversion. 
 
 This is God's test of piety : " If any man have 
 not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." If 
 any one thing marks, above all else, the Spirit of 
 Christ, it is the unselfishness of service. To seek 
 even salvation, for its own sake alone, is utterly 
 repugnant to the whole disposition of a thoroughly 
 regenerate disciple who is recreated in the image 
 of Jesus. 
 
 In the Jerry McAuley Mission, in New York 
 City, was a poor victim of drink and of vice who 
 bore in his body the marks of his crimes. Nature 
 herself resented his violation of her laws, and 
 avenged herself in his person. He had become 
 bowed and bent until he was a mere dwarf, and 
 the very fibres and tissues of his throat had been 
 eaten away until there was no palate, tonsils, or 
 vocal chord, and he was without power of speech. 
 When Christ found him, the grace that healed his 
 soul bore help to his body, and, in course of time, 
 the dwarf and cripple, like the woman with the 
 spirit of infirmity that could in nowise lift up her- 
 self, was made straight and glorified God. And, 
 though the lost vocal chords were never restored, 
 this old man could not endure to be without his 
 
THE rilOUGIIT OF MISSIONS. 51 
 
 witness to restoring grace ; and, night after night, 
 the assembled thieves and drunkards at 316 Water 
 Street would behold him giving his testimony. He 
 would first bend low and bow down, as if hope- 
 lessly crippled and crooked, and then raise himself 
 to an erect posture, stretch himself to full length 
 and Hft his hands and eyes toward heaven, his 
 face lit up with the radiance of inward peace ; and 
 every beholder knew what all this meant. '' The 
 lame man leaped as a hart, and the tongue of the 
 dumb " sang praise unto God. It was his witness 
 in pantomime. If he could not testify to the ear, 
 he must to the eye. The saved man was not 
 content to have unsaved men go unwarned, and 
 the saving power of God go unwitnessed. And 
 the superintendent of that mission says that no 
 audible testimony was more effective than that 
 visible witness to Him who had Hfted the cripple 
 of sin into the erectness of a saved man. 
 
 This word witness has in it a whole world of 
 suggestion and inspiration touching the work of 
 missions. It outhnes, in one word, the great pur- 
 pose of our Lord in connecting His saints with His 
 service. In both Testaments it is one of the prom- 
 inent and dominant words. Around it the whole 
 philosophy of missions crystallizes and the whole 
 history of missions centralizes. 
 
 The idea of such a witness to all men is sug- 
 gested in the Old Testament, Hke many other Old 
 Testament truths — a veiled revelation faintly seen 
 
52 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 and feebly grasped by Old Testament saints. It 
 belongs to the gradual unfolding of that missionary 
 idea, which may be traced hke a silver rill back to 
 its spring in that germinal promise that the seed of 
 the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. 
 In the New Testament the veil is withdrawn and 
 the truth clearly revealed, but now it is the eyes of 
 disciples themselves which are blinded ; even Peter 
 slowly accepts the lesson thrice given him on the 
 house-top at Joppa, that no man was to be called 
 common whom God had cleansed. But in all 
 ages, however dim the vision or revelation of this 
 truth, witnessing to God has been the grand duty 
 and privilege of disciples ; and from the martyr 
 Abel until now every true believer has, by his life 
 and death, witnessed to men the power of faith. 
 This was the basis of apostohc succession and of 
 prophetic succession — yes, it lies beneath priestly 
 and kingly succession as well. It is the golden 
 thread which binds the ages together. God was 
 the first, the original witness to Himself; then 
 He committed that witness to prophets as He 
 more and more withdrew Himself into the secret 
 place ; then came the Last Seer, and prophets gave 
 place to Him in whom all their witness terminated 
 and culminated, the Lord Jesus Christ ; then He 
 became God's witness ; and, when He was received 
 up into heaven, the Holy Spirit witnessed to Him, 
 and quahfied saved and sanctified disciples to bear 
 witness, and so carry on the blessed succession 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 53 
 
 until the end of the age, — one chain of many links 
 reaching from a Lost Eden to a Regained Para- 
 dise ! 
 
 This is an " apostolic succession " indeed, in 
 which the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the 
 holy company of the apostles, the noble army 
 of martyrs, Jesus Christ Himself, all take part, with 
 God the Father of all, in testimony to the truth. 
 It may well be doubted whether he who bears no 
 part in this testimony has any part in the salvation. 
 Would that every reader might feel the full force 
 of this paradox of missions : 
 
 ** Christ, alone, can save this world ; 
 But Christ cannot save this world, alone." 
 
 In the plan of God, every beHever is a witness. 
 In the wide field of the world, every disciple is 
 needed as a workman. Without him, God cannot 
 do this work, unless He abandons His plan ! The 
 Church must be aroused to this great truth and 
 fact, that both Christ and the world are waiting for 
 disciples, as such, to become heralds of the Gos- 
 pel and witnesses to Christ ; that a few thousand 
 missionaries, scattered through cities and states 
 at home or empires abroad, can never overtake 
 the awful destitution of a thousand miUion of souls 
 who know not the Gospel. The only hope of the 
 race is that, as in apostoHc times, the whole 
 Church shall become a body of evangelists, and 
 every converted soul consider it a necessary part 
 
54 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 of discipleship to witness to all men that Christ 
 died for all. 
 
 Christian missions originated with God. The 
 commission of the Church is from Heaven, and 
 can be wrought out, only as it was thought out, 
 along the Hues and within the limits drawn by a 
 hand divine. Here there is no room for human 
 invention or innovation : all such is interference 
 and interruption to the plans of God. All human 
 accretions forming about the pure thought and 
 plan of God, — like fungus growths and parasitic 
 mosses about a tree, that both obscure its growth 
 and endanger its life, — need to be torn away that 
 we may look again upon the plan of God in its 
 bare simpHcity. 
 
 Our Lord's chosen definition of the work of His 
 Church in this age, hangs on this same Httle word, 
 witness : *' This Gospel must first be preached as 
 a witness among all nations ; * and then shall the 
 end come." This was, first and last, His form of 
 statement. The very terms used compel the in- 
 ference that not only is this work to be carried on 
 to the very end of the age, as a limit, but that the 
 end, as a consummation, somehow waits for this 
 as a preparation and preHminary. This we believe 
 — and it is a mighty impulse to a world's evangeH- 
 zation — that neither the complete salvation of the 
 race of man nor of the Church of God can be 
 reached until this condition is fulfilled. To you 
 * Matt. xxiv. 14; Etc f^aprvptov. 
 
THE THOUGHT OF MISSIONS. 55 
 
 and me it belongs to *' fill up that which is behind 
 of the afflictions of Christ, in our flesh, for His 
 body's sake, which is the Church " — and so com- 
 plete, by our own travail, the travail of His soul ! 
 
 The Gospel witness, that is thus simple in char- 
 acter and universal in obligation, natural and nec- 
 essary to a new-born soul, essential to the plan of 
 God, experimental, and therefore effectual, is de- 
 signed to be Siho perpetual. 
 
 If the Book of the Acts be carefully examined 
 it will be seen to be the one incomplete book of the 
 Bible. At the beginning we read — '* The fonner 
 treatise " — " of all that Jesus began both to do and 
 teach, until the day in which He was taken up." 
 These words, "former," "began," "until," imply 
 something going before in the Gospel narrative, and 
 imply that, in the book which follows, the wTiter 
 is to give us the latter treatise of all that Jesus 
 conthmcd to do and teach by the Holy Ghost, after 
 that He was taken up. And so the Book of the 
 Acts implies something going before it. 
 
 If we turn to the close of the book, we observe 
 equally plain signs of something to come after. 
 " And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired 
 house, and received aU that came in unto him, 
 preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those 
 things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with 
 all confidence, no man forbidding him." The 
 Gospel according to Matthew ends with a manifest 
 conclusion, that leaves nothing to be added ; the 
 
56 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 Apocalypse ends with a special injunction, for- 
 bidding any addition or subtraction ; but here the 
 curtain simply falls on Paul, teaching and preach- 
 ing, without even bringing to a close the scene in 
 which he last appears. And the reason is because 
 this book is the Book of a Witnessing Church, and 
 that book never will be closed until that witness 
 is also concluded ; until the Gospel is borne to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth and the last witness 
 has been uttered, and beheved or rejected. 
 
 Any one of us, any believer to the end of the 
 age, may write his own name where Paul's now 
 stands and fill out the record with his own witness 
 for Christ. Or, if he be too humble in his own 
 esteem to venture on a record, there is Another 
 who, while he is living and working for his Master, 
 is writing a new chapter to record how he also 
 passed the years teaching and testifying of Christ 
 and of the grace of God. 
 
 When the Bishop of Ripon read that narrative 
 of John WilHams' labors in the South Seas, he laid 
 it down, exclaiming, " There is the Twenty-ninth 
 chapter in the Acts of the Apostles ! " Every be- 
 hever has only to take his place among God's wit- 
 nesses, and in his generation to testify to all men 
 the Gospel of His grace, to be admitted to a place in 
 the holy company of the apostles, and have his name 
 and life history recorded in that unwritten sequel of 
 the Acts, which is to be read before an assembled 
 universe in the Day when the Books are opened ! 
 
II. 
 
 THE DIVINE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 
 
 HEN, on the site of Byzantium, Constan- 
 tine, in the year 328 A.D., was himself, 
 in person, marking out the boundary 
 hne for the proposed city of Constantinople ; and 
 when his attention was called to the vast extent 
 of the area he was enclosing, and the improbabihty 
 that the City of the Caesars would ever occupy it, 
 he calmly answered : "/ am following Him who 
 is leading meT 
 
 The Church has attempted a gigantic task, in 
 extending and enlarging the place of her tent and 
 stretching her canopy over a world-wide area. 
 The work is so stupendous that it has inchned 
 some to remonstrate, and even to ridicule. But, 
 be it ever remembered, that in so doing we are 
 "following Him who is leading" us. It is He 
 who has bidden us " Lengthen our cords and 
 strengthen our stakes." No task can be too 
 colossal in magnitude if He plans it and entrusts 
 to us the execution of what is really His plan. 
 And here is the threefold dependence of His ser- 
 vants : the plan^ the promise^ and the providence 
 of God. 
 
58 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 The idea, or thought of God in missions, as we 
 have akeady seen, is this : a Gospel message, re- 
 ceived by faith in the heart, and proclaimed, by 
 the mouth of every believer, in the ear of every 
 other human being. 
 
 The Plafi of God is akin to His Thought; but 
 though closely related to it, not identical with it. 
 The English word "plan" — from the \dXm. pla7i2is, 
 flat — originally refers to a representation of any 
 object or conception drawn upon a flat surface, 
 like the map of a country, or the plan of a build- 
 ing. We can all readily distinguish, in our own 
 minds, between the conception of a cathedral, as 
 it lay in the brain of Brunelleschi, and the draught 
 of Santa Maria's Cupola, as put upon paper. 
 Now God has an idea of missions: He projects 
 His thought upon the pages of His Word, and still 
 more clearly defines it by the pencil of History. 
 His idea and ideal become real in the practical 
 plane of action ; and that is His Plan. 
 
 The importance of studying and understanding 
 His plan cannot be overestimated. The late 
 Prince Albert said no wiser word to the younger 
 men of his generation than this : " Find out the 
 plan of God in your day ; and then beware that 
 you do not cross it, but fall into your own place 
 in that plan." Sydney Smith expressed the same 
 thought in his quaint way, when he compared men 
 to pegs, and their spheres of service to the holes 
 into which the pegs must be fitted. 
 
rilE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 59 
 
 Nothing perhaps is more fundamental to a truly 
 serviceable life than to know what God's plan is, 
 and knowing it, come into right relations to it. 
 When His mind guides, no mistake is possible ; no 
 failure is conceivable, when His will controls. 
 Faber writes truly : 
 
 " He always wins who sides with God, 
 To Him no chance is lost." 
 
 To God's chariots two celestial chargers are 
 yoked : Omniscience and Omnipotence ; the rim 
 of those chariot wheels is so high that it is dread- 
 ful, and full of eyes before and behind. To set 
 oneself against God's purpose is to be trampled in 
 pieces under the feet of those steeds, and ground 
 to powder beneath those wheels ; but it is no less 
 certain that, to work for and with God is to be 
 borne along irresistibly toward the goal of con- 
 summate victory and final glory ! 
 
 There are two ways of finding out God's plan, 
 and they are to be pursued along parallel lines. 
 One is to study His Word^ and the other, to study 
 His work; on the one hand to search the Script- 
 ures, and on the other, to watch that march of 
 God in history which is His preceptive teaching 
 wrought into the form of acts and facts. "We say 
 these two methods should be pursued side by side, 
 for they mutually complement and correct each 
 other, or, rather, our understanding of both. 
 
 In addition to these, we need also, and above 
 
6o THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 all, a receptive itiind. There must be a clear-seeing 
 eye, otherwise in vain is the plainest handwriting 
 of God on the pages of the Word or on the walls 
 of the ages. The " natural man " does not receive 
 the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he 
 know them, for they are spiritually discerned ; the 
 "carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject 
 to His law, neither indeed can be " : so far there- 
 fore as we search the Scripture with the natural 
 mind only, we shall not see His plan ; and, so far 
 as we approach it with the carnal mind only, we 
 shall not obey^ even if we perceive. His will. 
 
 Scripture and history are the two books of 
 God on missions, and each throws light upon the 
 pages of the other ; but one may read both and 
 still be as blind to their real meaning as is the 
 Jew, who reads the prophecy of Messiah without 
 seeing in it the forecast of history, and reads the 
 history of Messiah without finding in it the fulfil- 
 ment of the prophecy ! 
 
 To come to the study of God's plan of missions 
 with the merely natural eye as the organ of vision, 
 or the merely carnal mind as the organ of knowl- 
 edge, is to see double, if at all. Either the plan 
 of missions, as seen in the Word, will be modified 
 and distorted by our defective vision, or it will 
 seem to be in conflict with that same plan, as un- 
 folded and developed in history. We shall either 
 start with wrong conceptions and so misinterpret 
 history ; or we shall start with correct ideas and 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 6i 
 
 then, misreading history, wander in a maze of 
 confusion and perplexity, misled by the apparent 
 failure of history to realize the ideal. 
 
 We may therefore lay it down as an axiom that 
 any supposed plan of God in missions which is 
 not scriptural, cannot be really historic; nor can 
 that be really historic which is not scriptural. In 
 other words, the true plan of God must be read 
 by these two guides. If we get the right focal 
 centre, it will be seen that, like the twin pictures 
 in the stereoscope, they harmoniously blend: if 
 they do not, the fault is not in their disagreement, 
 but in our seeing. 
 
 The writer may be permitted to address the 
 reader personally and familiarly. He wishes to 
 be honest with God, his readers, and himself. 
 For many years he confesses that he could not 
 bring into apparent agreement the promises and 
 prophecies of God's Word as to missions, and the 
 providence of God in human history. From the 
 lofty summits of Holy Scripture there was an in- 
 spiring outlook, a prophetic prospect, which lost 
 all its reahty, if not its romance, when one de- 
 scended to the lower level of actual fact, as the 
 purple mantle and the golden veil of the mountain 
 lose their soft enchantment as we come near 
 enough to see and touch the bare, bleak, rugged 
 crags of rock. There was an instinctive conscious- 
 ness that the conflict was only apparent, that the 
 difficulty lay in my own vision : either I , read 
 
62 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Scripture wrongly or I read history wrongly, or 
 both. 
 
 There was but one way out of the maze of per- 
 plexity : to retrace steps already taken and begin 
 anew, to lay aside as far as possible all bias, 
 whether of prepossession or prejudice, and, in a 
 prayerful spirit, humbly, hke a little child, seek 
 open, unveiled eyes * wherewith to read the Word 
 and will of God. The results are now, in brief, 
 to be laid before the readers of these pages. Is it 
 too much again to ask that, before pronouncing 
 hasty judgment, the indulgent reader will under- 
 take to get at the truth in the same spirit % 
 
 Looking first at God's Word, one book in the 
 Bible seems entitled to a special rank as God!s 
 own commentary on missions. The Acts of the 
 Apostles is the Missionary Encyclopedia of the Ages. 
 Here, if anywhere, will be found in full, both the 
 Divine idea and the Divine plan. 
 
 This book- opens with the repetition of the Great 
 Commission, and the prediction of the Great 
 Anointing. It briefly outlines the whole scheme 
 of missions, as Giotto drew a perfect circle at one 
 stroke : ^^Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in 
 Jerusalem aiid in all Judea; and in Samaria, and 
 unto the uttermost part of the earths t Then it 
 proceeds to trace the history of the witnessing 
 Church, through the first age — the hfetime of one 
 generation — showing how God went before to 
 * Ps. cxix. i8. f Acts i. 8. 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 63 
 
 Open doors of access wide and effectual, and how 
 the Church, following His lead, gave her witness, 
 in the exact order which our Lord had indicated — 
 in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria ; then in the 
 uttermost part of the earth, Rome, Greece, and 
 the regions beyond. 
 
 Surely this is no accident. The New Testa- 
 ment opens with four Gospel narratives, all of 
 which end with the great commission, presented 
 in foiur various aspects, like a building viewed 
 from as many sides. Then immediately follows 
 this fifth book, in which God's leadership of His 
 witnessing Church by His providence and grace, 
 during one entire generation, serves this double 
 end : first, it stands as a permanent illustration of 
 His purpose, and of the duty of every successive 
 generation of beHevers toward those who at the 
 same time live on the earth ; and, secondly, it fur- 
 nishes us a practical example of the general results 
 which we are to expect to follow faithful witness. 
 In one word, this book is the typical history of 
 the first age of missions ; and a key to all future 
 ages of Church history. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba came to King Solomon, 
 *' to prove him with hard questions, and there was 
 not one thing hid from her which he told her not." * 
 Here, in this book of the Acts, is the perpetual 
 audience-chamber of the Prince of Peace. No 
 perplexity or difficulty has ever arisen, or will ever 
 
 * I. Kings X. 1-3. 
 
64 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 arise, in the missionary work of the Church, for 
 which there is not here an adequate answer and 
 solution. We shall therefore reverently inquire, 
 first of all, at this Holy Oracle ; and, possibly, 
 even in this closing decade of the nineteenth cent- 
 ury, the Church may find something yet to be 
 learned as to the true methods and principles of 
 missions. 
 
 Seven grand features are here plainly marked in 
 God's plan: the ruling idea and word is still, 
 WITNESS, but this witnessing is qualified by certain 
 definitions and limitations : 
 
 I. Its Purpose : the evangelization of the world. 
 
 II. Its Result: the out-gathering of an elect 
 Church. 
 
 III. Its Order : to the Jew first and then to the 
 Gentile. 
 
 IV. Its Scope : a whole Church, witnessing to 
 a whole world. 
 
 V. Its Method : a division of the field, and a 
 distribution of the force. 
 
 VI. Its Stress : service rendered to the existing 
 ; generation. 
 
 i VII. Its Power: essentially superhuman and 
 ^supernatural. 
 
 Within these seven landmarks will be found 
 comprised the whole duty of the Church, with all 
 those details which serve for her complete guidance 
 in carrying out the great commission. 
 
 These seven features it is our design, in course 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 65 
 
 of these chapters, to survey. One of them, the 
 duty of the whole Church to witness to the whole 
 world, has been already touched upon in the pre- 
 vious pages, and others will naturally be considered 
 later on. But, just now, we may confine ourselves 
 to one great question : What is the purpose which 
 God has in view, and what are the results therefore 
 which we are warranted in expecting"? 
 
 This question we seek to answer in the double 
 light of the Scripture and of history. We find it 
 to be God's declared purpose to have the Gospel 
 preached throughout the worlds and thereby to 
 gather out from the world a believing people, the 
 Church or Bride of Christ. If this be so, then our 
 true aim is divinely defined, and our reasonable 
 hope is suggested, which need not be disappointed. 
 
 Our Lord Himself defines the bou7ids of our 
 work : First of all, the purpose of this world-wide 
 witnessing is a world ^s evangelization. 
 
 It behoves us carefully to notice our instruc- 
 tions, for they not only define our duty, but they 
 limit our responsibility. In some matters absolute 
 accuracy is indispensable ; as, for example, in as- 
 tronomical calculations. A soldier studies his 
 orders, as an ambassador his instructions, mi- 
 nutely ; and, in this work of missions, we who are 
 both soldiers and ambassadors need clear concep- 
 tions of the orders and instructions of our King. 
 
 If we closely examine the entire commission 
 entrusted to the Church by our Lord, we shall be 
 
66 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 struck by the peculiar words which he used. 
 " Go ye," '' preach the Gospel," " make disciples," 
 " witness " ; there is another word, properly trans- 
 lated " teach^' but that evidently refers to an after- 
 training of those who have been first evangelized 
 and made disciples. . No unbiased reader can 
 examine the body of instructions, given to the 
 early Church by the Lord Himself, without observ- 
 ing that, first of all, He meant that there should 
 be a simple heralding of good tidings^ accompanied 
 by personal witness to their truth and power, and 
 a consequent making of disciples ; and, then, that 
 these converts should be gathered into chuixhes, 
 baptized, and further trained in fuller knowledge 
 of divine truth and preparation for service. 
 
 To confound preaching and teaching, evangeli- 
 zation and indoctrination, is a mistake that is 
 fundamental and initial. The didactic process is 
 secondary and subordinate. Men are asleep — 
 dead in sin: they must be aroused, awakened, 
 quickened. When a house is on fire, a ship is on 
 a rock, a pestilence is raging, or an avalanche is 
 falhng, one does not wait to give minute instruc- 
 tions, but peals out the trumpet note, *' Escape 
 for thy Hfe ! " So our Lord saw this world, lying 
 in sin, and its milHons going down to the death 
 of the grave and the second death of hell with 
 fearful rapidity ; and He urged a correspondingly 
 rapid proclamation of the Gospel. He urged on 
 His heralds — He bade them not wait for others to 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 67 
 
 come to them, but "go " to every creature — sweep 
 round the globe and trumpet forth the warning 
 and the invitation until " every creature " shall 
 have heard. 
 
 Nor are we anywhere taught to wait for i-estdts. 
 These we cannot command or control. Noah, 
 the ancient preacher of righteousness, preached 
 for a century — preached an illustrated sermon, in 
 which the Ark was his grand object lesson, and 
 every hammer's blow punctuated and emphasized 
 his appeal ; yet he made not one convert, and 
 was compelled to see the whole world of the un- 
 godly sink, lost in the angry flood of wrath. 
 Isaiah, the Messianic minstrel, sung in twenty- 
 seven chapters the epic and lyric of the suffering 
 Saviour ; yet he cried, " Lord, who hath believed 
 our report, and to whom hath the arm of the Lord 
 been revealed ! " And the Son of God Himself, 
 w^ho spake as never man spake, and wTOUght as 
 never man wrought, found His words of grace used 
 as traps and snares for His feet, and His works of 
 love attributed to the agency of the devil. The 
 disciple is not above his Master nor the servant 
 above his Lord; and there has not been one 
 preacher of Christ in all the ages whose witness 
 has not been met by more rejectors than behevers. 
 We are both to look for and pray for results, but 
 we are not to gauge oiu: fidelity or our success, or 
 our Master's approval by the number of converts ; 
 nor is the herald to wait in any one field until 
 
6S THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 conversion has done its work, before he goes to 
 the regions beyond. The danger is common to 
 all ; Death and Hell are mounted on their awful 
 steeds, and are hotly pursuing the whole host of 
 mankind: if those whom we warn will not hear 
 and heed, perhaps others will; and, in any case, 
 we owe to all the same privilege and opportunity 
 of hearing and heeding. With all possible haste 
 should the Church push her heralds on to the very 
 limits of the globe. Without an hour's delay, for 
 any cause, on any pretext, save only to receive 
 power from above, should we who believe urge 
 on this holy crusade for God until every living 
 soul has heard of Christ. This Gospel of the 
 Kingdom must first be preached among all nations 
 as a witness — and "then shall the end come." 
 Whether these words refer to the end of the Jewish 
 age, in the destruction of Jerusalem, or to the end 
 of the Gospel age, in the second advent of the Son 
 of Man, or to both, there is here indicated a vital 
 relation which the general proclamation of the 
 Gospel bears to the consummation of God's plan. 
 He is working toward an end, and that end is con- 
 ditioned upon this world-wide evangelism. God 
 told Lot that He could not do anything in judg- 
 ment upon Sodom until he should come to Zoar. 
 The announcement of the Gospel, among all 
 nations and to every creature, is the Zoar to 
 which the Church of God must come, before 
 those grand events move to their consummation 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 69 
 
 which at once bring judgment to sinners and sal- 
 vation to saints. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that "preaching the 
 Gospel as a witness " is our Lord's own chosen 
 definition of the work to be done, this phrase has 
 met vigorous and violent opposition, and been 
 pelted with the blows of ridicule as the sum of all 
 absurdities. And yet, from first to last, this is 
 His form of statement, ahke before His death and 
 on the eve of His ascension.* 
 
 Is " witnessing," then, so superficial, artificial a 
 process, that we are to picture to ourselves some 
 flying courier, galloping on horseback through 
 village after village, announcing the good news, 
 and then hastening away elsewhere? To bear 
 testimony unto all nations is no such short, hasty, 
 inadequate proclamation of the Gospel message. 
 However important the mere work of the herald, 
 other forms of testimony are needful to confirm, 
 corroborate, establish this witness. The conver- 
 sion of souls, which witnesses that this Gospel is 
 the power of God unto salvation ; the out-gathering 
 of converts from the world and their in-gathering 
 into the Church, which witnesses both against the 
 world, by separation, and unto God, by consecra- 
 tion ; the erection of the Christian home, which 
 witnesses to what Christ can do, not for man only, 
 but for woman and children, making the wife 
 man's equal companion, instead of his slave and 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 14 ; Acts i. 8. 
 
70 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 victim, and the mother the radiant centre of a 
 happy household; the setting up of Christian 
 school, college, printing press and medical mission 
 — these trees of life whose fruit is food and whose 
 leaves are healing ; the whole array of Christian 
 institutions which are the peculiar product of the 
 faith which works by love — all these belong to 
 that " witness " for Christ which helps one to 
 judge whether indeed •' He is able to save to the 
 uttermost all who come unto God by Him." This 
 is the testimony which vindicates His claim to 
 universal homage and world-wide dominion. We 
 believe the work of witnessing in all the world will 
 not be complete until, in every nation, the contrast 
 between the teaching and practice of the true 
 faith and of all false faiths shall thus be made to 
 appear, somewhat as the Kho-Thah-Byu Memorial 
 Hall in Burmah confronts the Schway Mote Tau 
 Pagoda on an opposing hill, a witness to Christ 
 that boldly faces and challenges that forsaken 
 fane of idolatry, as though to assert and maintain 
 the Supreme right of Jesus to worship and service. 
 We are not jealous for any human theory, nor 
 are we warring about words. But something is 
 wrong. Our Lord, more than eighteen and a half 
 centuries ago, urged an immediate and world-wide 
 proclamation of the Gospel to every creature; 
 and yet, in this closing decade of this nineteenth 
 century, at least one-half of the population of this 
 globe remain as entirely strangers even to \\it fact 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 71 
 
 that Jesus died for them, as though they were 
 inhabitants of another planet ! We have been 
 going about this work leisurely — we have gone to 
 nations here and there, set up the cross as a rally- 
 ing point, sought to convert the nations and 
 subdue whole empires for Christ. We have waited 
 to complete this work, while the regions beyond 
 have remained in the unbroken shadow of death. 
 All this seems, in some respects, directly opposed 
 to our Lord's orders. 
 
 Often as we hear in these days of the " conver- 
 sion of nations," and the '' converstion of the 
 world," we shall in vain seek any Scriptural war- 
 rant for such phrases or such hopes. More than 
 this, we need not be left either to doubt or 
 conjecture, for God has revealed His purpose 
 concerning His kingdom. It is to grow, not by 
 assimilation and incorporation of worldly elements, 
 but by their separation and displacement. That 
 was an all-comprehensive saying of our Lord to 
 Pilate : " My ki?igdom is not of this worlds It 
 is not to be built of earthly materials, sustained 
 by human patronage, defended by worldly power, 
 extended by carnal weapons. The strongholds 
 of Satan are to be captured, not that they may be 
 converted into the fortresses of faith, but that they 
 may be '' cast down and destroyed." 
 
 Let us understand this sublime truth : God 
 disdains to use for His holy ends even the *' high 
 towers, that exalt themselves against the knowl- 
 
72 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 edge of Christ." The turrets of an insolent and 
 blasphemous infideHty or a defiant idolatry are 
 never to be turned into spires for God's cathedral 
 of the ages. Those who imagine that this world 
 is to be gradually assimilated to God, until what is 
 now earthly and carnal society shall be embodied 
 in the Christian state, should carefully study, for 
 example, the second chapter of Daniel. The 
 image which Nebuchadnezzar beheld is the object 
 lesson from which we are to learn out of what 
 material God will build His kingdom which shall 
 have no end. That head of massive gold sur- 
 mounted arms and breast of silver, belly and thighs 
 of brass, and feet of iron and clay. A stone, cut 
 out the mountain without hands, smites the image 
 of world-empire upon its brittle feet; then that 
 stone moves and grinds like a millstone, and, with 
 resistless force and weight, it crumbles and crushes 
 that entire image into powder. Mark the emphasis 
 of detail : " then was the iron, the clay, the brass, 
 the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together 
 and became like the chaff of the summer threshing- 
 floors ; and the wind carried them away, that no 
 place was found for them: and the stone that 
 smote the image became a great mountain and 
 filled the whole earth ! " * 
 
 Words could not teach more plainly these two 
 truths: first, that all these world kingdoms are 
 alike doomed to fall; for that Kingdom "shall 
 
 * Daniel ii, 35. 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 73 
 
 break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms " ; 
 and secondly, that God shall alike reject the clay, 
 the iron, the brass, and even the silver and the 
 gold ; they are to be broken in pieces together and 
 swept away as worthless chaff before the wind. 
 From worst to best, this material offers nothing 
 worthy to enter into the composition of that Eter- 
 nal Kingdom, just as our flesh and blood, however 
 comparatively fair and faultelss, cannot enter into 
 the structure of that resurrection body, which is 
 of the nature of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 King Solomon's " drinking vessels, and all the 
 vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon, 
 were of pure gold — none were of silver ; for silver 
 was nothing accounted of in the days of Solo- 
 mon." * In the imperial splendor of his revenue 
 and riches, '' he made silver to be in Jerusalem as 
 stones for abundance " ; and he disdained to use 
 such common metal even for his vessels, as the 
 Phoenician sailors are said to have found silver in 
 such plenty in Spain that they made their anchors 
 and common implements of it. This was a type 
 of greater things to come, when the Prince of 
 Peace sets up His kingdom, and when even gold 
 shall be only as the paving of streets. Everything 
 is to be on a scale of such celestial magnificence 
 and munificence, that no earthly material, however 
 choice, shall be worthy to enter into that structure. 
 The New Jerusalem is not to be made out of this 
 
 * I. Kings X. 21-27. 
 
74 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 world's best elements ; but " let down out of heaven 
 from my God" — and only colossal pearls can 
 represent its gates, and precious stones, burning 
 with imprisoned fire, its walls. 
 
 When God sets up His kingdom, it is '' a stone 
 cut out without hands " and growing of itself ; 
 instead of co7?ibmation we have comimni{tio7i; for, 
 in comparision with the elements out of which that 
 imperial state is to be built, the best this world can 
 offer is but chaff. 
 
 Must we not reconstruct oui* conception of the 
 kingdom v/hich is to come ? When God sets up 
 His kingdom in a human heart, it is by no recon- 
 struction of the old man, but by the introduction 
 of the " new man which after God is created in 
 righteousness and true holiness " ; and the growth 
 of the new crowds out the old, somewhat as the 
 farmer, by the patient culture of grain, displaces 
 weeds and thistles. " If any man be in Christ he 
 is a new creation : old things are passed away ; all 
 things are become new." He learns the expansive, 
 expulsive, explosive power of a new affection, that 
 drives out every lower love or lust. So when 
 God's kingdom fills this earth, evil will be over- 
 come with good. 
 
 We lay stress on this, simply to maintain a 
 Scriptural principle. So long as we labor or hope 
 for a Christianizing and spiritualizing of the king- 
 doms of this world, our work is in vain and our 
 hope is without fruition. Whatever assimilation 
 
THE FLAN OF MISSIONS. 75 
 
 there may be, it is external, superficial, deceptive ; 
 it will never become transformation. That very 
 closeness of contact between the Church and the 
 world, by which the Church seeks to penetrate and 
 permeate the world with godliness, endangers the 
 Church-life, while seeking to transform the world- 
 life. The mystery of cndosmosis and exostnosis 
 reappears in the spiritual realm. Currents flow both 
 ways : the Church does permeate the world and 
 make it more churchly, and outwardly, perhaps, 
 more godly ; but, by the same intimate contact, the 
 world permeates the Church, and makes it more 
 worldly and even ungodly, till neither remains 
 what it was and still would be in separation. In- 
 stead of what is decidedly " hot " and decidedly 
 '' cold," there is what is " neither hot nor cold, but 
 lukewarm " — and it is that which God hates. "/ 
 would thou luert cold or hot I " 
 
 The law of separation is written, as in huge 
 capitals, all over the Word of God, inscribed as in 
 flaming letters upon the altars of tabernacle and 
 temple, typified in the separation of clean and 
 unclean in the Levitical law,* and then whispered 
 from Calvary with a still small voice as impressively 
 and imperatively as when thundered from Sinai's 
 summit : " Come out from among them and be ye 
 separate, and touch not the unclean," etc. 
 
 The stress of God's own Word upon separation 
 impresses us as heavier, according as we ourselves 
 
 * Levit. XX. 24-26; II. Cor. vi. 17. 
 
76 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 become more imbued with the spirit of Scripture 
 and the mind of Christ. The Chmxh runs no risk 
 to-day, whether in the sphere of holy hving or of 
 mission work, so great as that found in the un- 
 scriptural notion that the world is to be won by 
 courting it; that the severe standard of godhness 
 is to be let down lower, that so worldly souls may 
 the more easily step over into the Church. In 
 this there has been alarming success, and the 
 success is itself awful disaster. Our churches are 
 largely made up of two classes, the wholly worldly 
 and the worldly holy. The notions and maxims, 
 treasures and pleasures, pursuits and policy — nay, 
 the very spirit of the world — have found in the 
 sanctuary of God their shrine and throne. Men 
 who do not even confess Christ as Saviour and 
 Lord, sit upon boards of trustees, and control the 
 affairs of God's House. Godless musicians preside 
 at the key-board of the instrument whose melodies 
 and harmonies should accord with the harps and 
 lutes of glorified saints and angels ; star singers 
 from the opera are hired to displace the praise of 
 the people of God by a concert display of a few 
 artists. The ministry is degraded from a divine 
 vocation to a learned profession, whose requisite 
 is culture, and whose perquisite is whatever price 
 it can command. Churches rival each other in 
 garniture and furniture, costly architecture, and 
 often costlier debts and mortgages ; the cross be- 
 comes the badge of a religious club whose exclu- 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 77 
 
 sive, expensive privileges demand an elect, select 
 membership. Pure, simple Gospel preaching gives 
 way to intellectual essays, poetic effusions, moral 
 lectures, or political harangues ; while prayer-meet- 
 ings languish or are turned into entertaining talks 
 or chui'ch '' conversazioni." 
 
 The result is that missionary effort either ceases, 
 or begets missionary converts on a level with the 
 home churches. And if, in such churches, there 
 be no flaming zeal for evangehsm, it is neither 
 strange nor to be much lamented, since it is doubt- 
 ful whether such a type of piety has much diffusive 
 tendency, or whether it is even desirable exten- 
 sively to diffuse such a type of piety, even if we 
 could. The higher the type of piety maintained 
 by Christian disciples, the more rapid will be its 
 diffusion and the more will such diffusion be an 
 extension of the Kingdom of God, and not of a 
 secularized Christianity. 
 
 When we hear so much about ^^co7iverthig na- 
 tions,^' the careful student of Scripture cannot but 
 ask. Do the Scriptures warrant any such hope? 
 What is a nation but an aggregation of individuals 
 under one government! It has no corporate 
 existence or personality — no mind to be convinced, 
 no heart to be renewed, no conscience to be 
 aroused, no will to be subjected. How any '^7ia- 
 tion " can be Christianized, apart from the individ- 
 uals composing it, it is hard to see. But if, as 
 such, a nation, by pubUc official act, accepts 
 
78 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Christianity, acknowledges the Bible as the law 
 of the land, the Sabbath as a sacred day of rest, 
 protects pubHc worship, and even estabhshes the 
 Church as national, while some advantages may 
 follow, is there not a peril involved, far greater 
 than any danger from open opposition or malignant 
 persecution % 
 
 How soon and how surely th^form of godHness 
 takes the place of Xht power I Political preferment 
 beckons worldly men into the Church, To be a 
 disciple comes to be in the fashion ; it is the way 
 of the majority, which is always fraught with risk. 
 The law of self-denial gives place to the habit of 
 self-indulgence. Piety is the best poHcy, and 
 heavenly principles are weighed in the brazen 
 scales of earthly expediency. We dare to say 
 that, through the whole Christian era, no nation 
 has ever, as such, become nominally Christian, 
 without introducing into the Church marked, mani- 
 fest, and rapid spiritual decHne. And this fact is 
 both so conspicuous and so significant that we 
 need only to adduce a few historical examples, for 
 the sake of the lesson which they teach us as to 
 modern missions. 
 
 When Paul sent from Rome the salutations of 
 the saints, "Chiefiy those of CcBsar's household^'' he 
 did not know that, in that greeting, a shadow, no 
 larger than a man's hand, appeared on the horizon 
 of Church life that was soon to overspread with 
 dense clouds the whole heaven. Three centuries 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 79 
 
 passed by, and in the year 310 A.D., the head oi 
 Caesar's household, himself, in camp near Mentz, 
 claimed to see a flaming cross in the sky, with the 
 motto : Ev rovTG), viKa ! and thenceforth, on the 
 shields of Roman soldiers and the banners of the 
 Empire, that symbol shone. 
 
 To the early Church the red hand of persecution 
 brought no calamity comparable with the so-called 
 " Christianizing of the Roman Empire." The 
 bloody cross of the Ten Persecutions was infinitely 
 more a blessing than the golden cross of Royal 
 Patronage. 
 
 The disciples of Christ found via Crucis, the 
 way of self-sacrifice, changed to via Lucis, the 
 way of self-indulgence ; and via Dolorosa^ where 
 they bore the cross after Jesus, changed to via 
 Gloriosa^ where they wore a crown with an earthly 
 sovereign. To confess Christ was now to bid for 
 place and power ; the millennium had come ; in 
 the person of Constantine, the King of kings had 
 mounted the throne of the world, and in the new 
 capital, on the shores of the Bosphorus, was the 
 realization of the New Jerusalem ! No more the 
 little assembly of disciples, with doors closed 
 against the world, but with Jesus within ; no more 
 the Church of the Catacombs, hiding from pur- 
 suing foes in the bowels of earth ; no more a band 
 of pilgrims, strangers, sojourners, taking joyfully 
 the spoiHng of their goods for the sake of that 
 better country with their enduring substance ! 
 
8o THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Henceforth, a court whose splendor outshone 
 those of Oriental princes ; a hierarchy of officials 
 which to this day remains the model of the most 
 extravagant, elaborate, and voluptuous courts of 
 Europe. To Constantine are traced the very titles^ 
 which in these modern skies of empire shine thick 
 as stars — " excellency," '' right honorable," *' seren- 
 ity," "duke," "count," "viscount." Enormous 
 outlay, vast standing armies, gorgeous temples and 
 elaborate ritual, became the features of the Chris- 
 tian State. To this day the Church of Christ has 
 never recovered from that deadly blow at her very 
 life ! A nation was converted indeed, but the 
 Church was perverted. Petrifaction — the loss of 
 godly sensibility, and putrifaction — the loss of 
 godly savor, now marked the so-called " Body of 
 Christ." The Roman Empire was transformed 
 into a Christian state, but the true Republic of 
 God, the Commonwealth of Christ, was deformed, 
 and, not until a thousand years after, was it re- 
 formed. 
 
 See how history is a commentary on the Word 
 of God. Mark how He, whose hand is behind 
 the shifting scenery of the drama of the ages, is 
 teaching us what peril there is in the close alliance, 
 or even contact, between His kingdom and the 
 kingdoms of this world. To turn the household of 
 God into the Court of Empire, means to exchange, 
 for the Bride of Christ, leaning on her Beloved, 
 the Scarlet Woman, seated on the beast and from 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 8i 
 
 him deriving power and authority ! The conver- 
 sion of a nation seems a goal of hope toward which 
 the passionate ardor of faith reaches ; it is in fact 
 an illusive vision, a dream of a misguided fancy, 
 that draws the Church away from her simple work 
 of witnessing, to follow a deceptive and even 
 dangerous expectation. 
 
 Modern history furnishes another example of the 
 *' conversion of a nation." On March 31, 1820, 
 the brig Thaddcus anchored off Hawaii, with the 
 first missionaries of the American Board. God 
 had gone before them, and, instead of a long., hard 
 fight with the bloody altars and human sacrifices 
 of Paganism, they found that superstition had 
 already struck down her own idols, and abolished 
 the Tabu and priesthood throughout the islands.* 
 Ten months before, Kamehameha I. had died; 
 and, strange to say, he forbade human sacrifices, 
 whether, during his illness, for his recovery, or, 
 after his death, in his honor ; and thus, before the 
 viissionaries landed^ a professed idolater had dealt 
 the first blow at idolatry. The High Priest, resign- 
 ing his office, first apphed the torch to the fanes 
 of a pagan faith. Idols came under the ban of 
 law and temples were reduced to ashes. For the 
 first time in history, a nation had flung away a false 
 faith without a new one to replace it, and was 
 without a rehgion. The first convert was the 
 king's mother, Keopuolani, and, at the close of 
 
 * Anderson. Hawaiian Is, p. 49. 
 
82 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 1825, Kaahumanu, the Regent, and nine chiefs, 
 became members of the Chiu'ch of Christ, after- 
 ward dying in the faith. Within six years after 
 the missionaries landed, schools covered the islands, 
 with 400 teachers and 25,000 pupils. 
 
 As early as 1825, the Spirit of God moved 
 powerfully on the hearts of the Hawaiians. 
 About fifty families in Lahaina began to pray, and 
 the number grew. Inquirers, and then converts, 
 flocked like doves to the churches ; and, in ten 
 years more, the American Board thought the 
 beginning of the end of its missionary work in the 
 ^Hawaiian Islands had been reached. 
 
 To completely Christianize this group of islands, 
 they here largely concentrated their working force, 
 sending in 1836 thirty-two additional laborers. 
 Scarcely had these new laborers come, when a 
 tidal wave of revival swept over the islands and 
 bore away on its crest all remaining traces of idols 
 and their fanes. Three years more, and the Word 
 of God was given to the people in their own 
 tongue; another three years and the professing 
 disciples numbered 20,000. Mr. Coan, alone, 
 admitted 5,000 in one year, and 1,700 in one day. 
 And in 1863, less than fifty years after these labors 
 began in the Pacific, the Hawaiian churches took 
 their place among self-governing, self-supporting, 
 and self-propagating chiu-ches of Christendom. 
 The marvels of the Apostolic age seemed to have 
 been reproduced after a lapse of eighteen centuries. 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 83 
 
 This nation, thus Christianized within half a 
 century, was boldly held up before the Church as 
 a "glorious exempHfication and proof of the power 
 of the Gospel in missions, for the encouragement 
 of the Church of God in its efforts for the con- 
 version of the world." * 
 
 That the work here done was, and still is, one 
 of the most marvellous triumphs of the Gospel in 
 all modem times, the writer of these pages would 
 be the last to deny : but here stands another warn- 
 ing to us of the illusiveness and deceptiveness of 
 any hope of converting nations or converting the 
 world, within the bounds of this Gospel age. If 
 we trace the subsequent history of the Sandwich 
 Islands, we shall find the story of the Christianized 
 Empire of the Caesars, repeated on a minor scale, 
 but teaching the same lesson. 
 
 Rev. James Bicknell and others have been con- 
 strained to publish tracts, revealing the present low 
 condition of religious hfe on the Hawaiian Group ; 
 and, in crossing the Atlantic in 1888, the writer 
 came into contact with an intelligent and prominent 
 Christian gentleman, residing on the islands, who 
 more than confirmed Mr. Bicknell's statements. 
 He reluctantly conceded the existence of the Hoo- 
 manamana idolatry. For a long time these idola- 
 trous customs have been concealed, Kaahumanu, 
 herself both a convert and Christian teacher, re- 
 pressed them by edicts ; and the desire of the peo- 
 * Anderson. Hawaiian Is. p. 25. 
 
84 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 pie to be respected by other Christian peoples, and 
 the fear of being ridiculed with the opprobrious 
 name of " pagans," acted as additional restraints. 
 Those addicted to practical heathenism were kept 
 from public avowal ; but, behind this show of Chris- 
 tian forms, hid a fetich-worship alarmingly com- 
 mon. The small pebble — Kaue O Kapohakaa — 
 the wooden fetich, Kailaipahoa — ^beheved to have 
 power to destroy life at bidding of its possessor — 
 and the counter-charm, Kauila, also of wood, with 
 many others, each of which stands for a god, may 
 be found worn on the person even of professed 
 disciples ! The king himself boldly stands forth 
 as an idolater, and is suspected of a design to take 
 the headship of a fetich system. So says Mr. 
 Bicknell. 
 
 In a palace-room lies a copy of David Malo's 
 " History of Hawaii," with the legends, traditions, 
 and superstitions of the islands. Before reading, 
 seven circuits are made around the sacred table ; 
 then the book is reverently opened, and the cred- 
 ulous High Priest of this royal Sanctum beheves 
 himself in converse with the gods. This book 
 furnishes the basis of the present system of Hale- 
 naua, or the '' House of Wisdom." That house 
 has three divisions, embracing those devoted to 
 astrology, chirography, etc. ; and four orders of 
 Kahunas, who respectively practice medicine, in- 
 cantation, fatal imprecation, and represent divine 
 power. And these Kahunas preface their idola- 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 85 
 
 trous incantations with texts of Scripture ! There 
 are, of course, different classes of adherents of this 
 system : some who are actuolly worshippers, others 
 who have imbibed the idolatrous spirit, and others 
 who propitiate heroes — all known by different 
 names. 
 
 The pulpit of these islands has not hitherto 
 pubhcly exposed and denounced these idolatries, 
 says Mr. Bicknell, and many professed behevers 
 think this fetich-worship harmless. But it is 
 another example of a people, fearing Jehovah and 
 serving their own gods. They read their fetichism 
 into Old Testament narratives and New Testament 
 miracles ; and even when death approaches, with 
 its august exchange of worlds, they turn for rehef 
 to the Kahunas and their false gods. From the 
 time of Kamehameha V. idolatry has advanced 
 and Christianity declined. 
 
 Of course, the mission work done on these 
 islands is not a failure, nor are its results such as 
 should dishearten any true believer. Everywhere 
 the preaching of the Gospel has met the same 
 obstacles ; in Christian Britain and America we 
 have the same, external lump of dough, with the 
 same subtle leaven of worldliness and wickedness 
 permeating and penetrating the whole three meas- 
 ures of meal. And so it will be until He comes 
 whose New Epiphany is to smite the Man of Sin 
 and put the chains upon Satan. 
 
 On Christmas morning, 18 14, the devoted Sam- 
 
86 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 uel Marsden preached in New Zealand, and for 
 the first time told the natives the story of Christ 
 and His cross. After a dozen years, a rehgious 
 enthusiasm kindled its strange fires among the 
 people; the schools and sanctuaries were filled 
 and thousands asked to be admitted into the 
 churches ; and the very hfe of the people seemed 
 to be undergoing transformation. In 1 842, twenty- 
 eight years after Marsden first announced those 
 " tidings of great joy," Bishop Selwyn took charge 
 of his new diocese, and he enthusiastically wrote 
 home, "We see here a whole natio?t of pagans 
 converted to the faith." These words glow with 
 the fires of a sacred passion for the souls of men, 
 and we do not doubt that of the 5,000 church 
 members, there were hundreds who, as the good 
 bishop said, exhibited "signal manifestations of 
 the presence of the Spirit, and were living evidences 
 of the kingdom of Christ." But the phrase, " a 
 whole nation converted," then as now, became a 
 deceptive golden veil, hiding the truth. The vast 
 bulk of those 100,000 people were yet living in 
 sin. The last instance of cannibalism was in 1 843 ; 
 XhQpahs, or fortified villages, have given place to 
 unguarded homes and farm-houses; barbarous 
 tribal wars have quite ceased, and the sea fights, 
 which were like ocean storms, have yielded to the 
 potent voice which stills even the deep. But the 
 bishop's enthusiastic report only prepared the way 
 for bitter disappointment and morbid discourage- 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 87 
 
 ment by encouraging the illusive hope that the 
 nation was converted. After this glowing descrip- 
 tion had kindled the fervor and ardor of his fellow- 
 countrymen to a confident expectation that in this 
 manner the whole world was about to yield before 
 the Gospel, it was found that this "converted 
 nation " had only changed the form and complex- 
 ion of its ungodliness ; nay, to use Luther's phrase, 
 had scarcely ''washed the dirt from its face." 
 European vices had taken the place of the vices 
 of savagery ; beneath the garb of civihzation hid 
 an unchanged nature : and two years later serious 
 wars again broke out, nor was peace restored until 
 1848. The severe earthquake which followed was 
 a type of volcanic fires which had only been 
 slumbering, but were not dead. And although, 
 in 1850, Canterbury province was settled on the 
 basis of EngHsh ecclesiastical and aristocratical 
 principles, with bishop, priests, lords, and baronets, 
 — as the province of Otago had been two years be- 
 fore settled by the Free-churchmen of Scotland, — 
 ten years later, in 1 860-1, among these converted 
 Maoris the new rehgion, the Pai Afarire, was 
 propagated by a body of natives called Hati-Haus^ 
 who pretended to the miraculous gifts of tongues 
 and of prophecy ; hundreds who did not resume 
 their old heathenism, at least renounced their 
 Christianity ; with some the tomahawk and war- 
 paint again took the place of the decent dress and 
 pious prayer-book of the convert ; and even those 
 
88 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 who retained the externals of Christianity at- 
 tempted to combine as they pleased the practices 
 and doctrines of Christianity and heathenism. 
 The Mabris, in their unconverted state, had a 
 ceremony which was a sort of baptism known as 
 rohi^ or irilri; and the consternation of the mission- 
 aries may be imagined when, within twenty years 
 after Bishop Selwyn had pronounced this a con- 
 verted nation, thousands of men who had been 
 baptized into Christ, but had not put on Christ, 
 were in one day baptized out of Christianity back 
 again into heathenism ! * 
 
 Nothing can be farther from the thought of a 
 true advocate of missions than to behttle the 
 triumphs of the Gospel or dishearten the heart of 
 any hopeful disciple. But, if we would avoid and 
 avert a disappointment which is almost suicidal to 
 Christian effort, we must hold up before ourselves 
 and others no unscriptural expectation. In every 
 community where the Gospel has been preached, 
 however grand its triumphs, it still remains true, 
 from the days of Paul at Rome until the days of 
 that modem Paul, the saintly Duff, at Calcutta, 
 that *' some " there have been " who believed not."t 
 If we do our work of witnessing, expecting nothing 
 more than the Scriptures warrant, we shall not be 
 so liable and likely to give up in despair when 
 only the common discouragements of all Christian 
 work confront and baffle us. 
 * Hodder's Conquests of the Cross, i. 35. f Acts xxviii. 24. 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 89 
 
 The warning notes which these modern exam- 
 ples peal out are louder and more startling, be- 
 cause God's trumpet sounds at our very ears, and 
 not at the remote distance of ages. He warns us 
 against a vain and misleading attempt io Christian- 
 ize men in masses and by the wholesale. Our work 
 is with individuals, even as our message is to and 
 for every creature. One by one men are born into 
 the family of God. In the natural world, as the 
 scale of being ascends, there is a strange decrease 
 in the number of offspring at a birth. Among the 
 lowest forms of life, the fertility is overwhelming 
 — milHons in a day. But, as the grade of life rises, 
 the number of progeny falls, until we reach the 
 race of man, where even a twin birth is so rare as 
 to be exceptional. Each human soul bears the 
 stamp of a priceless worth, being coined in God's 
 mint, one at a time. Every man may look upon 
 himself as an individual bought by the blood of 
 Christ, and say, " He loved ?ne and gave Himself 
 for me^ 
 
 The great snare of our day is the mad passion 
 for numbers. The Diana of the modern Ephesians 
 is the statistical table, and many are the makers 
 and venders of these shrines of our great goddess. 
 We have fallen upon a mathematical age. To 
 report so many converts in one year, or boast so 
 many accessions at one communion, is the devil's 
 bait to catch the superficial winner of souls. We 
 measure the prosperity of our churches, not by the 
 
90 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 spiritual strength of the members, but by the nu- 
 merical length of the roll, and some ministers lack 
 courage to purge the roll of unworthy and even 
 unknown and deceased members, lest it seem Hke 
 a mark of waning prestige and declining popularity. 
 Evangelists are too often caught in the same snare 
 of numbers, and continually tempted to parade 
 mere numerical results as a test of success, and so 
 hundreds are counted as converts who rapidly 
 relapse into their old hfe, while hundreds of others, 
 swept into the Church on the crest of a revival 
 wave, are as surely borne back when that wave 
 recedes. This insane clamor for " numbering the 
 people " is one of the main foes to missions. As 
 in David's case, it leads to spiritual famine, pes- 
 tilence, or defeat — and sometimes to all three. 
 There was a year in the little church in Blantyre, 
 Scotland, when but one convert was welcomed to 
 the Lord's Table ; but that lad was David Living- 
 stone. Converts are to be weighed, not counted. 
 One Cihcian Saul is worth ten thousand Hke the Sa- 
 maritan Simon. Not how many, but how much, is 
 the question. When he who seeks souls is content 
 with one at a time, and content even then only as 
 that one is completely transformed by the power 
 of the new Hfe into a new man, we shall have a 
 new era of Church history and a new epoch of 
 missions. In this age, at least, God's kingdom is 
 to come in the individual soul, by the slow annex- 
 ation of the little territory won by grace within 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 91 
 
 that little world, a human heart : the kingdom of 
 God comes not with observation. 
 
 There are some who seem niore concerned 
 about getting everybody into heaven than about 
 making anybody fit for heaven. In God's eyes it 
 is of far more consequence that the Heavenly City 
 should be clean than that it should be crowded. 
 And we must learn, in our work for souls, that 
 salvation is measured more by the depth to which 
 it penetrates than by the surface over which it 
 spreads ; and that it is for duty, not for results, 
 that we are to be held accountable. 
 
 All eyes now turn to Japan, the Island Empire, 
 in which the rapid and remarkable changes of ten 
 years have left ''nothing as it was before, save 
 the natural scenery " ; and where even missionaries 
 have led us to hope that another decade will find 
 the " Sunrise Kingdom " taking her place among 
 acknowledged Christian nations. But just what, 
 and how much, would that mean ? England and 
 the United States are leading Christian nations. 
 Does God's sceptre sway our Congress and Britain's 
 Parliament ? What atrocious iniquities, and even 
 idolatries, have these foremost " Christian nations " 
 both practiced and promoted ! See the great re- 
 pubhc, holding in bonds 4,000,000 slaves, till God's 
 hammer of War struck off their fetters ! Think of 
 such *' Christian nations " flooding Africa with 
 rivers of rum ! of the land which sent Carey to the 
 Indies, forcing opium upon China even at the 
 
92 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 cannon's mouth, and setting a premium upon lust, 
 in Hindostan ! 
 
 What does '' Christianizing a nation " mean % 
 If it be anything short of the transformation of 
 the individuals that make up the nation, it is dis- 
 aster. It is the mixing up of a profession of piety 
 with political trickery ; it is clothing abominable 
 abuses with the sanction of rehgion ; it is substitut- 
 ing popularity for purity, and the loud voice of 
 the majority for the still small voice of the Spirit 
 of God. The "witness" of the Chmxh before 
 the world implies not only separation, but antag- 
 onism, not amalgamation and assimilation. Strange 
 to say, the way to win the worldly to Christ is not 
 by courting them, but by making them hate us for 
 our likeness to God and our unlikeness to them- 
 selves. To come to their broken cisterns keeps 
 them from coming to the Living Fountains. 
 
 Conscious that, in presenting these views, the 
 writer represents a small minority, he takes courage 
 both from the depth of his own conviction, that 
 this is God's truth, and from the remembrance 
 that, historically, the truth has never yet been on 
 the side of the majority. Both God's word and 
 God's working, even in this, the missionary age, 
 teach us that during the present dispensation, our 
 watchword is evangelization. We are not to look 
 for a world's conversion, which, after all these 
 centuries, seems perhaps no nearer than at the 
 accession of Constantine. We are to evafigelize 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 93 
 
 the world, and if the result proves to be, not the 
 world's conversion, but the out-gathering of the 
 Churchy the eKKXrjaia, the called-out assembly, the 
 Bride of Christ, is it not exactly the Scriptural 
 goal of this age ? This is the only hope, warranted 
 either by the Scripture or the history of missions, 
 and therefore it is the only hope not possible to 
 be disappointed. To some behevers, this truth is 
 so clear that it is a marvel that any reader of the 
 Word or observer of history can doubt. In Acts 
 XV. 15, the Apostle James in inspired words out- 
 lined^ at that first Church council^ the whole plan 
 of the Divine Architect and Builder, and furnished 
 a key to all evangelical history and a kind of min- 
 iature chart of the whole missionary age. 
 
 *' Simeon hath declared how God at the 
 
 FIRST DID VISIT THE GeNTILES TO TAKE OUT 
 OF THEM A PEOPLE FOR HiS NAME. AnD TO 
 THIS AGREE THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS, AS 
 IT IS WRITTEN : ' AfTER THIS I WILL RETURN 
 AND WILL BUILD AGAIN THE TABERNACLE OF 
 
 David which is fallen down ; and I will 
 
 BUILD AGAIN THE RUINS THEREOF, AND I WILL 
 SET IT up; THAT THE RESIDUE OF MEN MIGHT 
 
 SEEK THE Lord and all the Gentiles upon 
 
 WHOM MY NAME IS CALLED, SAITH THE LORD 
 WHO DOETH ALL THESE THINGS.' " And the 
 
 apostle significantly adds, as though to assure dis- 
 heartened disciples that God's plans steadily 
 advance toward completion, — ^' known unto God 
 
94 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 are all His works from the begiiming of the 
 world. ^^ 
 
 Here is plainly an election and out-gathering of 
 the Church from the world. The discerning stu- 
 dent of the Bible and Biblical history sees a mani- 
 fest progress in the dispensations, but this elective 
 principle is always present. 
 
 In that former age, the Jewish, an elect nation^ 
 was called out to guard an elect truth, the unity 
 of God, and to forecast, in type and rite, the 
 advent of His dear Son. During that age, the 
 body of believers was mainly confined to one 
 nation, and the Holy Spirit's chrism was bestowed 
 on elect individuals, such as prophets, priests, and 
 kings. Then came this latter age, the Christian, 
 when an elect Churchy gathered out of every nation, 
 is called out from the world, to proclaim a uni- 
 versal Gospel for the whole world, and in the elect 
 body of Christ to incorporate all believers. And, 
 now that the Son of God has come, just as the 
 altar of burnt offering in the Jewish age pointed 
 back to the fall, and forward to the cross, so the 
 Lord's Table witnesses backward to His advent, 
 and forward, to His second coming. "As oft as 
 ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show 
 the Lord's death till He come." 
 
 As, in this age, there is a widening of the elect 
 body to embrace converts from all nations, so 
 there is a corresponding widening of the Spirit's 
 work. He is now bestowed on all behevers of 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS, 95 
 
 the elect Church. But, in all the New Testament, 
 we search in vain for any promise that, during this 
 age, the Church will be co-extensive with the world. 
 There are glimpses of a cofuing age, sometimes 
 mistakenly called the "world to come," when 
 God's plan shall still broaden out — when the 
 world-wide proclamation of the Gospel shall be 
 followed by a world-wide knowledge of Christ ; 
 when the Holy Spirit shall again, and still more 
 plentifully, be poured out from on high ; not on 
 elect individuals in an elect nation, nor on all be- 
 lievers in an elect Church gathered out of every 
 nation, but, in a peculiar sense, " upon all flesh "y 
 and so Joel's words, which found their foretaste 
 in the Pentecost, shall have their fulfilment, — their 
 iill-full-ment. Then, and not till then, is the family 
 of God to become co-extensive with the family of 
 man. And yet, even in that millennial age, the 
 revolt at the end hints that there will still be 
 those who persistently reject the Gospel and re- 
 fuse to have this King Jesus to reign over them, 
 and are to be dashed in pieces like a potter's ves- 
 sel. It would seem that, until the very end of 
 that millennial age, sin is not to be exterminated. 
 The Gospel is to triumph more and more widely, 
 but to the end there will be, as in Paul's day, some 
 who believe not. 
 
 Each successive dispensation has thus prepared 
 for, and has ushered in, a greater age to come. 
 At first a nation, chosen out of the world ; then a 
 
96 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Church gathered out from the nations ; and, finally, 
 the nations of the world transformed into the 
 Redeemer's people and subjects. In that age to 
 come whereof we speak, all that was in the former 
 and latter ages shall be found, and much more. 
 Inclusion then displaces exclusion. And thus the 
 three ages present three concentric circles, with 
 ever-widening circumference. The circle of the 
 believing brotherhood enlarges from Jewish nation 
 to Christian Church, and from Christian Church 
 to a saved humanity. The sphere of the Holy 
 Spirit expands from elect individuals to a believing 
 ecclesia, and then to all flesh. And yet those who 
 hold to such doctrine as this, scriptural as it is, 
 are ridiculed and stigmatized as " pessimists ! " 
 
 Hundreds and thousands of the noblest mis- 
 sionaries have been found to hold substantially the 
 position here taken. David Livingstone, that 
 " missionary general and statesman," early learned 
 that the conversion of individuals is really a nar- 
 rower and more near-sighted aim than the evan- 
 gelization of the multitude. He was the last man 
 to undervalue the conversion of one of the least 
 and lowest of God's creatures ; and,* in the earHer 
 part of his missionary hfe, bent his whole mind to 
 work and pray for the salvation of a single soul, 
 and with some small success. But — though he 
 neither grew weary of this work nor impatient at 
 the slow fruit which was gathered, one by one, 
 like a hand-picked harvest — his view of God's plan 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 97 
 
 widened. He saw that the universal spread of the 
 good tidings and the wide diffusion of Christian 
 principles was the greater good, and in the end 
 would yield a grander harvest. "To the con- 
 verted " man, individually, his own conversion was 
 of overwhelming consequence ; but with relation to 
 the final harvest, it is more important to sow the 
 seed broadcast over a wide field than to reap a 
 few heads of grain on a single spot.* 
 
 We repeat the caution, that we must beware 
 how we measure our work or our success in this 
 world-field by the appareiit harvest. If, by the in- 
 gathering of a large number of converts, God is 
 pleased to set His seal on mission work, as being of 
 a godly sort, yet this is not the infallible criterion 
 either of fidelity or of success. Many a devoted 
 servant of God has, Hke Enoch and Noah, Isaiah 
 and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and even Jesus Himself, 
 met with what to human eyes is not only rejection 
 but failure. The most honest and earnest witness- 
 bearing seems sometimes not so much to deliver 
 man from as to the just judgment of God ; and, 
 instead of the hearers being justified by faith, the 
 preacher is justified in his fidelity to souls, and God 
 is justified in their judicial abandonment. In such 
 case is the prophet or the preacher any less faith- 
 ful or is God's true servant any less rewarded be- 
 cause the hearer is faithless f 
 
 To measure success in missions in India, China, 
 
 * Personal Life of Livingstone, p. 157, 
 
98 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Africa, or even in transformed Western Polynesia, 
 by iiwnerical results, would be a fatal mistake. 
 No : the true criterion everywhere is the wide 
 diffusion of the Gospel. It is a question of ex- 
 tensity rather than intensity ; and hence the true, 
 divine principle of missions is not concentration^ 
 but diffusion. 
 
 The field is the world ; the seed is of two sorts : 
 first, the Word of God ; secondly, the children of 
 the kingdom; and both of these sorts of seed must 
 be sown, and sown broadcast over the whole field. 
 Depth is important, but breadth is of first conse- 
 quence. It will in time be seen that God's policy 
 of diffusion was far better than man's policy of 
 comparative exclusion and seclusion. Ultimately 
 it will appear that the abundance of individual 
 conversions will be in exact proportion to the 
 wide-spread scattering of the seed of the kingdom. 
 The Gospel message is, as we have seen, charac- 
 terized by two universal terms — " the woidd,'' which 
 is collective ; " whosoever," which is distributive ; 
 but the great collective term, ^'all the world,'' pre- 
 cedes the distributive term, ''every creature." 
 Let us learn that our duty is to the world, and we 
 must leave to God the "whosoever." 
 
 We have thus sought to find by searching what 
 is God's plan or purpose concerning the Church 
 and the world. Certain we are that He wills the 
 largest and promptest proclamation of the Gospel, 
 the presence of witnessing believers and a witness- 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. 99 
 
 ing Church everywhere, even to the uttermost 
 part of the earth. Beyond that we are sure of 
 nothing save this, that His Word will not return 
 to Him void, and that our labor will not be in 
 vain in the Lord. 
 
 To all believers the divine command is, that we 
 outgrow our babyhood — cease to be mere objects 
 of care, and become care-takers; that we enter 
 into that divine plan which takes in the whole 
 Church, the whole world, and the whole age. We 
 must be satisfied with the hope that has its anchor- 
 age in Scripture promises, do our duty, and leave 
 results with God — undertake a world's evangeliza- 
 tion, and not be disheartened if we find that, to 
 the end of the age, there is only an out-gathering 
 of the Church ; and that, as in the Apostolic age, 
 some believe the things which are spoken and some 
 believe not. The stress of the command is on oc- 
 cupatmi^ evaiigelization. A loyal servant or soldier 
 simply obeys, implicitly, orders which are explicit. 
 Here are our marching orders ; and to follow them 
 is to win what is better even than apparent vic- 
 tory, the approval of Him who will say, " Well 
 DONE, good and faithful servant." 
 
 Now of the things which we have spoken, this 
 is the sum : Every saved soul is called to be a 
 herald and a witness ; and we are to aim at nothing 
 less than this : to make every nation^ and every 
 creature in every nation, acquainted with the Gos- 
 pel tidings. This is the first and ever-present duty 
 
lOO THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 of the Church : it is the heart of the whole mis- 
 sionary plan. God will give us souls as our hire 
 and crown ; large results in conversion of indi- 
 viduals and the transformation of whole com- 
 munities will follow, as they always have followed, 
 a godly testimony. But we are not to wait for 
 results : we are to regard our duty as never done, 
 while any region beyond is without the Gospel. 
 Let all men have a hearing of the Gospel at least ; 
 then, when evangelization is world-wide, we may 
 bend our energies to deepening the impression 
 which a first hearing of the Gospel has made. 
 But, again, let it peal out, as with a voice of 
 thunder, to be heard wherever there are believers ! 
 The first need of the world is to hear the Gospel, 
 and the first duty of the Church is to go every- 
 where and tell every human being of Christ, the 
 world's Saviour. To stop, or linger anywhere, 
 even to repeat the rejected message, so long as 
 there are souls beyond that have never heard it, 
 is at least unjust to those who are still in absolute 
 darkness. Instead of creating a few centres of 
 intense Hght, God would have us scatter the lamps 
 until all darkness is at least relieved, if not removed. 
 And if to any reader it appears that this is em- 
 phasizing a distinction that is of little consequence, 
 let such an one stop a moment and consider what 
 would be the result if our Lord's plan were fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 There are, we will say, about forty million mem- 
 
THE PLAN OF MISSIONS. loi 
 
 bers of Protestant churches, and at least eight 
 hundred milHons yet in ejitire ignoraiice of the 
 Gospel. Let us suppose that the whole Church, 
 under some^-mighty baptism of fire, should under- 
 take to bear the Gospel message to every hving 
 soul, at once. If every Protestant behever could 
 so be brought into active participation in this work 
 as to be the means of reaching huenty of these 
 souls, now without the Gospel, the work would be 
 done. All cannot go, but all can send. Let us 
 suppose again that Protestant churches should 
 se7id out 07ie missionary teacher for every four 
 hundred communicants; we should have a mis- 
 sionary force of ojie hundred thousand ; and, by 
 distributing this force in the entire field, each 
 teacher would have to reach but eight thousand 
 souls, in order to evangelize the world. Allowing 
 twenty years for that work, each laborer would 
 have to reach but four hundred of the unevan- 
 gelized each year ! 
 
 We must push this work — ^let men call us fools, 
 fanatics, madmen — we can afford to bear it for the 
 sake of doing the will of God. When Judson had 
 biu-ied himself in Burmah, and ten years' work 
 could show but eighteen converts, he was asked : 
 " What of the prospect ? " His heroic answer 
 was : '' Bright as the promises of God ! " When 
 John Wesley proposed to go to Georgia as a mis- 
 sionary to the Indians, an unbeliever ridiculed him : 
 "What is this? Are you one of the knights 
 
I02 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 errant ? How, pray, got you this Quixotism into 
 your head ? You want nothing, have a good pro- 
 vision for life, and a prospect of preferment ; and 
 must you leave all this to fight wind-mills — to 
 convert American savages ? " Wesley calmly re- 
 plied : '' If the Bible be not true, I am as a very 
 fool and madman, as you can conceive. But if 
 the Bible is of God, I am sober-minded. For He 
 has declared, There is no man who hath left house 
 or friend or brethren for the kingdom of God's 
 sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this 
 present time, and, in the world to come, Hfe ever- 
 lasting ! " 
 
 With such heroic missionaries as Adoniram 
 Judson and John Wesley, we are content to follow 
 our Lord's leading without regard to apparent 
 results. The command is plain : "Go ye also 
 into the vineyard," and the promise is sufficient : 
 " Whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive." God 
 is a liberal rewarder, and He always exceeds His 
 own promise. That workman is surest of blessing 
 who does his Lord's work without the misgivings 
 of unbelief or the exactions of a carnal spirit. The 
 path of the missionary is the way to Calvary, but 
 beyond the cross shines the crown. 
 
III. 
 
 THE DIVINE WORK OF MISSIONS. 
 
 ASTOR MO NOD, of Paris, beautifully 
 suggests that all true work done by a 
 disciple is really a part of God's own 
 eternal, universal work, assigned to the believer. 
 If we conceive God's work as a grand sphere, 
 filling immensity and eternity, then every disciple's 
 work is a part of that sphere, a small segment that 
 lies over against him ; and, if he has spiritual eyes 
 to discern his duty, he may read upon that work 
 of God which belongs to him to do, his own name 
 and the date of the present year. In other words, 
 in God's plan each one of us is embraced, and 
 has a definite assignment, and, for each year, 
 month, day, and hour, a specific duty to do. 
 What dignity and beauty and glory such a con- 
 ception imparts to human hfe, to know that "in the 
 great mechanism of the ages, I am a part and 
 have a place and sphere ! 
 
 This thought I would now bring to the front : 
 the work of missions is not only a toil for God, 
 but a work with God. This is very fully and re- 
 markably set forth in three principal passages of 
 
I04 
 
 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Scripture, whose full force appears only as we set 
 them side by side and carefully compare them. 
 
 " For we are La- 
 borers together -with 
 God: ye are God's 
 husbandry : ye are 
 God's building. . . . 
 We then as ivorkers 
 together -with Hhn, 
 beseech you also that 
 ye receive not the 
 grace of God in 
 vain."— I. Cor. iii. 9 ; 
 vi. I. 
 
 " Who now rejoice 
 in my sufferings for 
 you, and Jill up that 
 ■which is behind 0/ 
 the afflictions of 
 Christ in my flesh, 
 for His body's sake 
 which is the church, 
 whereof I am made a 
 minister." — Colos- 
 sians, i. 24. 
 
 "When the Com- 
 forter is come, even 
 the Spirit of Truth, 
 He shall bear witness 
 of me ; and ye also 
 shall bear -witness, 
 because ye have been 
 with me from the be- 
 ginning."— John, XV. 
 26, 27 ; Com p. Acts, 
 V. 32. 
 
 Even in the New Testament no words can be 
 found more pathetically beautiful. Here our work 
 for souls is set forth as a co-operation with the 
 Triune God, in three various aspects, as co-labor, 
 co-suffering, and co-wit?iessmg. But that which is 
 far more remarkable and impressive in these pas- 
 sages is, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit are individually, successively, and separately 
 presented as personally sharing with the believer 
 the dignity of this exalted service. 
 
 In the passage from the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians a careful glance shows that the word 
 God there means the first person of the Trinity, 
 as distinguished from the others. As to the other 
 two quotations, no doubt can arise, because, in 
 one the person of Christ, and in the other the per- 
 son of the Spirit, is particularly mentioned. To 
 compare Scripture with Scripture, to combine these 
 fragments as in a mosaic, is to get a wonderful 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 105 
 
 picture, in which the whole conception and execu- 
 tion of the plan of Redemption is spread before 
 us in a new light, from its eternal idea and purpose 
 in the mind of the Father, to its execution in the 
 person and work of the suffering Son, and its 
 divine appHcation in the witness of the Spirit to 
 the truth and by the blood. 
 
 There is something awe-inspiring in the fact 
 that, in each separate department of this work, 
 and with each separate person of the Trinity, the 
 behever is thus made a direct partaker ! God the 
 Father is represented as beseeching men and 
 building up a living temple out of believing souls ; 
 and the behever also joins with God in beseeching 
 men to be reconciled to Him, and in building 
 upon the one foundation, the temple of living 
 stones. God the Son is represented as vicariously 
 suffering for the salvation of the lost, and gather- 
 ing believers into the mystical body of which He 
 is the head ; and again, the believer is represented 
 as sharing with Him this vicarious sacrifice and 
 ministry, and as filling up somewhat, which, with- 
 out the behever, would be lacking. God the 
 Spirit is represented as a witness-bearer, first of 
 all to the truth which He brings to bear upon the 
 mind and heart; and then to the blood whose 
 power he reveals in the death,. and especially in 
 the resurrection, of Christ ; and now, once more, 
 the believer is presented as also witnessing with the 
 Holy Ghost, as though needful to complete and 
 
lo6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 confirm the testimony of the Spirit, according to 
 the Levitical law, that in the. mouth of two wit- 
 nesses every word be estabHshed. 
 
 These passages, thus jointly considered, present 
 the humblest human beHever and disciple as a co- 
 worker with God the Father, a co-sufferer with 
 God the Son, and a co-witness with God the Spirit. 
 Taken thus together, they suggest the highest 
 dignity and privilege of every child of God. He 
 is lifted to a divine level. His humble work for 
 God is exalted to a work with God ; his sacrifice 
 and service is raised to a plane that is higher than 
 angehc ministry. These words of the Scripture 
 hint, if they do not affirm, that the believer is 
 necessary to the completeness and completion of 
 the work of redeeming a lost world. He is a part 
 of a divine mechanism, and, until he drops into 
 his place and co-works with other parts to produce 
 one result, something is lacking to complete ad- 
 justment, perfect movement, and ultimate success. 
 
 I. How is this work of missions thus a co- 
 operatiofi with God the Father ? 
 
 We may take the exact thought of Paul, " As 
 though God did beseech you by us." God, hke 
 a loving father yearning over a rebellious son, 
 or a sovereign over a revolted subject, beseeches 
 men to be reconciled to Him. But how does 
 He beseech, save by us ? How is His yearning 
 brought to the knowledge of the rebel sinner % It 
 finds expression in the good tidings of the Gospel, 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 107 
 
 but good tidings will not bear themselves ; they 
 imply messengers^ whose feet are shod with the 
 winged sandals of the alacrity of the Gospel, 
 whose hands hold forth the Word of Life, and 
 whose lips send forth words, their errant daugh- 
 ters. The Gospel message needs a voice, and 
 John the Baptist subhmely said : "I am the 
 Voice." Observe, a voice, not a mere sound, 
 but intelligent, articulate, sympathetic, soulful 
 utterance. 
 
 That word, " ambassador," used by Paul, holds 
 in itself a whole body of divinity. It imphes an 
 authorized messenger, a representative of a gov- 
 ernment at a foreign comt, with a definite mission 
 and commission, and a specific body of instruc- 
 tions. So long as an ambassador acts within the 
 limits of his instructions, the government which he 
 represents speaks in his words, acts through his 
 acts, and stands behind him with all the power, 
 authority, and resources of a republic or an em- 
 pire. An insult to such an ambassador is a blow 
 in the face of his sovereign, an outrage upon the 
 whole nation, which the whole government resents ; 
 while a respectful hearing accorded to him is an 
 audience given to the monarch whose court he 
 represents. In the ambassador, therefore, his 
 government is virtually present. 
 
 So far as the behever teaches God's truth and 
 bears witness to Christ, he is God's ambassador. 
 So long and so far as he keeps within the limits 
 
io8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 of his instructions, faithfully speaking God's Word, 
 it is God who speaks in and through him. Behind 
 him stand all the authority and power of the God- 
 head. And so Christ says to such ambassadors : 
 *' He that receiveth you, receiveth Me^ and he 
 that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me." 
 He who gives us a hearing hearkens to God, and 
 he who rejects our words turns his back upon 
 God. Not at the last great day, only, but all 
 through the Gospel age, the Judge is saying, 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto 
 Me." He would have us remember that, when- 
 ever we beseech men to be reconciled to God, 
 God Himself beseeches through us. 
 
 Again Paul uses the figures of " bidlding " and 
 of ''husbandry,'' to represent this co-working with 
 God. In both these common forms of labor, 
 architecture, and agriculture, there are the superior 
 and the inferior workmen, and both are essential 
 to the perfect product. In building, the architect 
 and contractor furnishes plan and material ; from 
 his brain comes the idea of the structure, from his 
 pencil, the draught in all its details, and from his 
 quarry and shops, the material. But to the com- 
 mon workman are committed all the details of the 
 actual work ; he receives the building material, as 
 brought to the ground, he studies and minutely 
 follows the plan, and according thereto puts in 
 place stone and timber. The architect may fur- 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 1 09 
 
 nish only instructions and material, and may him- 
 self never appear in person on the site. 
 
 So in husbandry. The owner of the estate pro- 
 jects the improvements, furnishes the implements, 
 and supplies material. His are the soil and seed, 
 the field and crop. But he works the farm through 
 his serv^ants, and may himself never tread the field, 
 plough the furrows, sow the seed, or reap the 
 harvest. 
 
 The veil of parable does not hide the truth. 
 God is building up a temple of believers. The 
 plan and work are His ; He designs the worldng 
 plan. He provides the building material, and, 
 when brought to the temple platform, no tool 
 needs to be lifted upon it to fit it to its foreor- 
 dained place in the great structure. But who are 
 His builders ? Paul and other apostles, as wise 
 master-builders, laid the foundation, in Jesus 
 Christ, and you and I are to caiTy on and carry 
 up the Temple of the Ages. 
 
 The centuries go by ; God buries workman 
 after workman, but the work never ceases. The 
 world itself is but the scaffolding about the Church 
 of God, made to aid in its erection, but to be torn 
 down and burned up when the cap-stone of God's 
 cathedral is laid. 
 
 The whole work is therefore one. Every dis- 
 ciple who faithfully witnesses to God, is one of 
 God's builders. It matters not hov/ prominent 
 or obscure, however great or small in human eyes. 
 
no THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 He may be working down in the quarry, where 
 the crude material is hewn and shaped for the 
 building, or in the shops, where the timbers of 
 immortal cedar are gotten ready for the frame- 
 work, or the beaten gold for the furnishing and 
 garnishing; or he may stand on the platform 
 where the living stones are Kfted to their place, 
 builded together for an habitation of God through 
 the Spirit, and where the whole building, fitly 
 framed together, groweth into an Holy Temple in 
 the Lord ; but, wherever his place and whatever 
 his work, he is building for God and working with 
 God. God has chosen to work by him, and can- 
 not, without abandoning His eternal plan, do 
 without him ; and when, in all its final glory, the 
 building stands complete, each workman shall, in 
 beholding its perfection, trace the living stones 
 which his hands have shaped for it and placed in 
 it; and — how could it be otherwise? — he shall 
 share in the glory, as he has shared in the toil ! 
 The Divine Architect of the Ages condescends to 
 choose human beings to carry out His thought 
 and plan, according to the pattern shewed in the 
 Mount ; and so, reverently, let it be said, God waits 
 for man's co-operation in His temple-building ! 
 
 We turn to consider, a Httle more in detail, the 
 agricultural figure: "Ye are God's husbandry," 
 i.e.^ the product of God's tillage. But Paul says 
 just before, " I have planted, Apollos watered, but 
 God gave the increase." All our labor of plough- 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. m 
 
 ing, sowing, reaping, would yield no crop if He 
 did not give soil and seed, sunshine, dew, and rain. 
 Equally true is it, that all these gifts of God could 
 produce no harvest, without human hands to till 
 the soil and sow the seed, to put in the sickle and 
 gather in the sheaves. God's harvest hangs on 
 your toil and mine : it is the union of the divine 
 and human husbandmen that gives the crop ! 
 
 Yes, the field is the world, and the " good seed " 
 is not only " the Word of God," but it is also " the 
 children of the Kingdofn.''^ And for a double rea- 
 son. If the good seed of the Word of God is 
 sown and scattered at all, the children of the 
 Kingdom must be the sowers ; and if the blessed 
 harvest of souls is ever to be reaped, the children 
 of the Kingdom must sow not only the Word, 
 but themselves, in the soil of society ! And so 
 they of whom the world is not worthy, and of 
 whom it contemptuously says that they "bury 
 themselves out of sight among the heathen," do 
 indeed ''bury themselves," because seed never 
 sprouts until it is buried in the soil ! Like their 
 Master, they dread most of all to abide alone, 
 and, like Him, shrink not from Gethsemane and 
 Golgotha, so that, dying, they may no longer abide 
 alone, but dying, live, and, living, bring forth much 
 fruit. And, because there are some who, as God's 
 good seed, are buried for His sake, this missionary 
 age has its harvest-fields which give both seed for 
 the sower and bread for the eater. The field 
 
112 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 IS THE WORLD ! * That, only, bounds missionary 
 activity ; and who dares remove the ancient land- 
 marks which the Lord Himself hath set up ! The 
 field is world-wide ; we must not narrow it down 
 within a smaller circumference, nor select any 
 portion of it as the exclusive or favorite spot for 
 our tillage. 
 
 Our Lord's figures of speech never veil the sense. 
 His illustrations illustrate. They are windows 
 that let in the hght upon the inmost recesses of 
 His doctrine, and we may walk safely so that our 
 feet do not stumble. We have seen windows 
 whose elaborate carved frame-work and stained 
 glass patch-work seemed ingeniously devised to 
 shut out hght. But, when our Lord sets a window 
 in the structure of His discourse, Hght pours 
 through it unhindered, as through transparent 
 panes. 
 
 This metaphor needs no explanation. "The 
 field is the world." What object more common 
 and familiar to the eye of His hearers than a field 
 at some stage of tillage ! And, when He would 
 point disciples to the sphere of their work for God 
 and for souls, He stretches His hands toward the 
 cardinal points of the compass and says, ''the 
 world .'^ Wherever on this globe man is, there is 
 the soil for our sowing ; and so long as man is 
 found on earth, so long is this holy husbandry to 
 go on, until no part is left desert, or unchanged 
 
 * Matt. xiii. 38. 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 113 
 
 into the garden of the Lord. What a conception 
 of work for and with God ! A field that has no 
 Hmits of territory but the space of the habitable 
 earth, and a labor that has no limits of duration 
 but the Gospel age itself ! Wherever there is a 
 human creature, and so long as the race survives, 
 the work goes on. 
 
 The field is the world. Vast indeed is this field. 
 Probably two-thirds of the entire area of the solid 
 surface of the globe is inhabited, and in some 
 parts densely; the aggregate population of the 
 earth is close to 1,500,000,000, a number too large 
 to be easily comprehended. A pendulum whose 
 arc measures a second would take fifty years ^ day 
 and night, to mark so many seconds ; in other 
 words, it would take half a century, day and night, 
 for this immense multitude to pass by a given 
 point at the rate of one every second. And, in 
 that august procession, we should find but 07ie m 
 fifty a member of any Protestant communion, and 
 but 07ie ill two hundred and fifty thousand a mis- 
 sionary from Protestant churches to heathen lands ; 
 and so the field Hes yet waiting for the workmen : 
 the larger part of it has yet to be broken up with 
 plough and harrow and sown with the good 
 seed. 
 
 The field is not only vast, but it is one of ever- 
 recurring need. We cannot till any field for all 
 time to come. Every spring brings the sowing- 
 time and every autumn the reaping-time, so that 
 
114 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 every new season presents a new field for the 
 plough and the sickle. And it is so with the field 
 of the world. Three times in a century, the pop- 
 ulation of our globe gives place to a new genera- 
 tion ; so that if to-day the whole world were 
 evangelized, within thirty years a new generation 
 would present a new need of the Gospel message. 
 And hence the greater demand for constant, per- 
 sistent, and world-wide missions: the more this 
 work is neglected, and the longer, the more it gets 
 beyond us : the thicker and ranker the vile growths 
 become which must be uprooted to make room 
 for the Gospel. Whereas, if the Church of Christ 
 should once overtake the wants of one generation, 
 it would be comparatively easy to keep the ground 
 clear and occupy the entire field in the generations 
 to come. We thus owe a double debt, first to a 
 world lying in sin, to sow it in every part with 
 the seed of the kingdom ; and secondly, to the 
 Church of the generations to come, to prepare the 
 way for the successful work of those who are to 
 follow after us. 
 
 Every nobler motive combines to inspire prompt 
 and energetic world-husbandry. Delay compli- 
 cates the problem and dupHcates the task. Once 
 let the Gospel message be proclaimed to every 
 hving creature, and henceforth there has been one 
 complete sowing of the whole field ; everywhere 
 harvests begin to appear, and their yield supplies 
 additional seed for another sowing. Once to meet 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 115 
 
 the needs of the race is to render comi:)aratively 
 easy the supply of recurring need. 
 
 But again, every field has its crises. When the 
 sowing time comes, the seed must be put in the 
 furrows — it is now or nevei'. When the harvest 
 ripens, the sickle must be immediately put at work ; 
 again it is now or never — ripeness borders on rot- 
 tenness, and the crop which is not reaped is soon 
 not worth reaping. So the world-field presents its 
 crises. When the soil lies fallow and waits for the 
 sower, if he goes not forth with his seed, he loses 
 his chance ; and, when the fields are white with 
 harvest, to wait is to forfeit both his chance and 
 his crop. And, in some part of the wide field, it 
 is always a crisis : either the sower or the reaper 
 is in demand, and sometimes both, for sometimes 
 God's harvests come so fast that the ploughman 
 overtakes the reaper, and the treader of grapes him 
 that soweth the seed. 
 
 Our Lord, whose apt metaphor thus teaches us 
 so many lessons about the fields is not less instruct- 
 ive as to the seed. It is a curious fact that, as 
 ahready intimated, in the great chapter of the king- 
 dom, Matthew xiii., two parables out of the seven, 
 and these the first two, present the sameyf^/^/, the 
 world, but not the same seed. In the former 
 parable the ''seed is the Word of God''* — in the 
 latter, " the good seed are the childre7i of the K'mg- 
 dotn.'' t In this difference lies a sublime lesson. 
 * Luke viii. 11. f Matt. xiii. 38. 
 
ii6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 God sows His field with two kinds of seed : His 
 Word and His disciples. It is the Bible with the 
 believer behind it — the Gospel of salvation, with a 
 gospeller, a saved soul, to proclaim it ; the message 
 of life, borne by the living messenger, the Word 
 of God with the witness of God. Both the truth 
 as it is in Jesus and the renewed soul as he is in 
 Jesus are necessary in this seed-sowing of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 But, more than this, there is a connection between 
 these two parables and these two sorts of seed. 
 At the first sowing, the Son of man Himself was 
 the sower, and the seed was the Word of God ; 
 but, when that Word sprang up and yielded fruit, 
 that fruit was not a new message or word from 
 God, but a believer. And thus we sow the Gospel, 
 and the crop is a crop of souls; we get from that 
 first sowing of the Word of God a harvest of the 
 children of the kingdom, who, in turn, become 
 seed for a new crop of believers. Here is the 
 great hope of missions, and the real secret of 
 God's plan. Were we to bear the seed of the 
 Gospel at once into all the world, and faithfully 
 sow it, there would be a crop of converts through- 
 out the world, who, in their turn, would become 
 God's good seed, to sow the regions beyond. It 
 is a very remarkable fact that the native converts, 
 in every land where missions have been estab- 
 lished, have within one generation furnished, on 
 the average, five times as many evangeHsts, teach- 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 117 
 
 ers, and native helpers as the original missionary- 
 force. To-day, out of somewhat more than 40,000, 
 that represent the total force of the workers in 
 mission lands, over thirty-Jive thousand have been 
 raised on the spot, as the crop of missionary labor. 
 In China, India, Africa, the South Seas, by far the 
 bulk of all evangelists are converted natives. And, 
 if the Church could be aroused to such holy effort 
 as would once insure the sowing of the whole 
 world-field, within fifty years the number of native 
 converts that would take up the work of missions 
 among their own countrymen might make un- 
 necessary all foreign missions in the Church. 
 Christian nations might speedily be left free to 
 turn their attention to developing the life and 
 power of the Church within their own borders, 
 and to evangehze their own territory. 
 
 Hence again appear the crime and folly of this 
 long delay. Not only is the field left without the 
 seed of God ; not only does the crisis of oppor- 
 tunity pass, and generation after generation perish 
 without God ; but we are losing crop after crop 
 that would furnish seed for the sower — nay, would 
 sow itself^ and soon make our further work almost 
 needless. A land like Japan or China or India, 
 thoroughly occupied for Christ, once sown in all 
 its exte?it with the Gospel, would be changed from 
 barrenness to fertility, and be turned into a field 
 of supply, hke some vast stretch of waste land 
 which has been overgrown with tangled thickets, 
 
Il8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 prolific thistles, rankest weeds, and poisonous 
 creepers, transformed not only into a fruitful 
 meadow, but into a gigantic seed-farm, from which 
 all the supplies for future sowers might be drawn ! 
 
 It would be a mistake not to call attention to 
 yet another of those marvellous analogies sug- 
 gested by this figure, used by our Lord. No 
 crop is perfectly developed or ripe until its " seed 
 is in itself after its kind." Compare again these 
 twin, parables. The former presents four kinds 
 of soil ; in the first, the seed gets no hold, but is 
 borne away by birds of the air. In the second, 
 the seed gets no root, and soon withers away. In 
 the third, it gets hold and root, but no roorn ; the 
 soil is preoccupied with germs, and they crowd 
 the good seed : the consequence is that, while it 
 lives and grows, it never attains perfection. A 
 long thin blade shoots up, but it has no ear, and 
 so no full-grown corn in the ear. It has in itself 
 no seed of propagatioii and no power of reproduc- 
 tion : there may be straw, but not grain — there is 
 root and blade, but no ear or kernel. 
 
 What is that but the professed disciple who 
 does not believe, or takes no part in missions ! It 
 would perhaps be harsh and uncharitable to say 
 that such are not believers ; but, if so, they are so 
 choked with cares of this world, deceitfulness of 
 riches and lust of other things, that they bring no 
 fruit to perfection. Life everywhere, in plant and 
 animal, shows its maturity and perfection by the 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 119 
 
 power to beget other life like itself. And hence 
 the disciple that does not make disciples, the 
 Christian that has no passion for souls and no 
 power to win souls, who has no work for Christ, 
 who is not himself a seed of God to drop into the 
 soil and yield a crop of other holy lives, should 
 candidly ask whether indeed he is himself a child 
 of God ? The new life of God in man is never 
 fully developed until it becomes hfe-producing, 
 hfe-begetting. Where there is no seed, there is 
 probably no genuine divine plant. 
 
 No more alarming sign exists in the Church of 
 to-day than this, that so small a part of our church- 
 members ever convert a soul to God ! With all 
 our so-called refinement, education, culture, social 
 influence, the Church has but few who are at 
 work for souls, and who will at last bring in arm- 
 fuls of sheaves. 
 
 It is a curious fact in botany, that we may 
 cultivate a plant until we destroy the ovaries or 
 seed-vessels, so that the plant can no longer prop- 
 agate itself. The wild rose, for example, has a 
 fully developed ovary, but the beautiful double 
 rose, full of leaves and beauty, the crown of horti- 
 culture, reveals no seed-vessel. We find an an- 
 alogous fact in the world of mankind. There is 
 a sort of culture which is fatal to service. It 
 develops a fine mind, a ready tongue, graceful 
 manners, a beautiful person, but there is no love 
 of souls, no power to win them — no holy self- 
 
I20 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 propagating seed of new lives. And, while the 
 Church perhaps never stood so high as now in 
 wealth, in culture, in commanding worldly in- 
 fluence, it is only here and there one blade in 
 God's harvest-field that bears the ear swelling with 
 the full, ripe com that God can use to sow His 
 field, and bring thirty, sixty, an hundred fold re- 
 turns ! 
 
 We seem more solicitous about large crops and 
 thick crops, than about heavy crops. To have a 
 great church-roll of cultured, distinguished people, 
 to boast of numbers, social standing, riches, in- 
 tellect, is our snare. The beloved Moravians that 
 lead the van of the missionary host have no pride 
 of numbers, and care only for fruitfulness in ser- 
 vice ; and the genius of Herrnhut finds utterance 
 in their Litany : ''Fro?n the unhappy desire of be- 
 coming great, gracious Lord and God, preserve 
 us!" 
 
 The attentive student of the Word of God will 
 observe a progress of doctrine — an unfolding of 
 the Divine purpose as to missions. The Old 
 Testament type of piety emphasizes the preserva- 
 tion and conservation of truth and goodness. The 
 New Testament lays stress rather upon the pro- 
 7nulgatio7i and propagatio7i of the Gospel. To the 
 prophets of old, the body of believers was a flock 
 to be shepherded, and the sacred courts, a fold 
 for their in-gathering. But, when Christ begins to 
 reveal to His disciples the genius of the new age, 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. I2I 
 
 He says, " Follow me and I will make you Jis hers 
 of men y In this one phrase, "fishers of men," 
 there lies a little world of suggestion. While a fold 
 suggests the Church, and the sheep, the disciples, 
 and the shepherd, the pastor and teacher ; the lake 
 or sea suggests the world ; the fish, the unevangel- 
 ized and unsaved ; and the net, the means of grace 
 by which they are to be surrounded, and, in a 
 blessed sense, ensnared, or taken captive ; and the 
 fisher stands for the evangelist who goes to tell the 
 Gospel story to those who know it not. Sheep 
 are not to be caught^ but fed : fish are not to be 
 fed, but, first of all, caught. In the New Dis- 
 pensation, whatever prophetic office the minister 
 of Christ is to fulfil in shepherding the lambs and 
 feeding the sheep, he is never to forget that the 
 more important office, certainly the more emphatic 
 function, is that of the eva?igelist. He is to look 
 for h.\s field, therefore, not in the church, alone, or 
 mainly : the 'field is the world'' ; and — as we shall 
 have occasion often to repeat — beUevers, far from 
 being merely plants in the Lord's garden, to be 
 tended by Him, absorbing His thought and care, 
 are themselves the '' seed of the Kingdom," to be 
 sown in that broad field of the world, as the germs 
 of a new harvest for God. How many inteUigent 
 disciples there are, who have not yet gotten from 
 the Old Testament into the New ! They still think 
 of themselves simply as the objects of pastoral care. 
 They are the Lord's frail plants, and not a few of 
 
122 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 them are very frail and need a great deal of tend- 
 ing. The pastor must move constantly about 
 among them, digging about their roots, gathering 
 out the stones, pulling up the weeds, watering 
 them, shielding them from too much sunshine, 
 plucking away their dead leaves, pruning away 
 their dead twigs, tying up their drooping stems 
 against a support, to prevent them from falling 
 altogether prostrate. There are thousands of these 
 sickly plants, that never grow healthy and strong 
 — in fact, the very means taken to remedy their 
 feebleness keeps them sickly and dependent. And 
 what is the result ? Our pastors cannot be evan- 
 gehsts : it takes so much time and thought to care 
 for the insiders that they have neither time nor 
 strength to care for outsiders. The minister of 
 Christ is resolved — we had almost said dissolved — 
 into the mere shepJm-d^ and ceases to be in any 
 large sense 2. fisher of 7nen. 
 
 Beneath the very shadow of our church-spires in 
 our great cities, the " great majority " Hes, almost 
 utterly neglected. The ''bitter cry of outcast 
 London " arises unheard and unheeded in the ears 
 of hundreds of church members, who imagine that 
 they have done their duty when they have built 
 churches, hired ministers, and then themselves 
 helped to fill the churches and claim the ministers 
 as their own hired servants ! And if, in addition 
 to this, they ring a church-bell and announce public 
 worship, and provide preaching, they are not to 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 123 
 
 blame if the great unwashed majority stay away 
 and perish in dirt and sin ! 
 
 The evil we are exposing and rebuking is a 
 radical one — so deep-seated that to uproot it would 
 overturn the very soil of society. Church mem- 
 bers selfishly claim the minister, and even the 
 evangehst. It has long been with the maturest 
 disciples a question whether, in our Church econ- 
 omy, the place of the evangelist has not been 
 perverted. Here, in our great cities, from one- 
 half to two-thirds of the poorer workmen live in 
 neglect of the Gospel. If there be any class of 
 home heathen that has a claim on the evangelist's 
 labors, it is those who, in " highways and hedges," 
 do not yet " come in." It is to them that our 
 Lord says, ''Go ye.'' And yet, when evangelists 
 come into our centres of population, instead of 
 going down among these lost souls for whom 
 nobody seems to care, they labor for the most part 
 in our churches, where the people are often over- 
 fed and overfat on their fare. Nay, to assure the 
 more eclat and enthusiasm of numbers, from three 
 to twenty churches will unite, and call an evan- 
 geHst to labor among them ; and then Christians 
 will crowd the places of assembly so that those 
 who are not habitual hearers would find but little 
 room if they came. 
 
 That much good is done by these devoted men, 
 who even in this fashion labor as evangehsts, we 
 are not disposed to deny. But whether this is 
 
124 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 the normal sphere for evangelistic work, we more 
 than doubt. During thirty years of pulpit and 
 pastoral labor, my own mind has been more and 
 more impressed with the conviction that, instead of 
 the Church's needing the labor of an evangelist to 
 supplement that of the faithful pastor among his 
 own membership, the pastor needs to reach beyond 
 his own flock and be more than a shepherd, a 
 *' fisher of men," casting his net into the wider sea 
 of the world ; and that, instead of encouraging his 
 people to think of themselves as plants to be tilled, 
 he is to instruct them, in God's name, that they 
 are themselves to be fellow-helpers with him in sow- 
 ing the whole world with the Gospel, and planting 
 this wide field with behevers. Nothing needs to be 
 emphasized more, in this Laodicean age, than this, 
 that the Church is not the ''field,'' but the ''force "y 
 not the object of the labors of God's husbandmen, 
 but itself the body of laborers who are to be thrust 
 forth into the field, which is the world. Until this 
 is understood and felt, and practiced upon — until, 
 from the sphere of dim and distant idealization, it 
 passes into prompt and practical realization, we 
 shall have no new era of world-wide missions ! 
 
 The whole Church of God should be a great body 
 of evangelists ; and, instead of first absorbing pastor 
 after pastor, and then, like insatiate sponges, de- 
 manding the ministrations of evangelists besides, 
 church-members should say to their minister : " Let 
 us alone, and go after the lost; when we need 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 125 
 
 you, we will send for you or come to you ; but we 
 leave you free to seek the unsaved, and whatever 
 we can do to help you, we are ready to do. Be 
 our leader and we will follow — lead us out into the 
 world-field and set us at work — lead us out into 
 the battle-field and set us fighting." What a new 
 epoch will dawn on the Church and on the world 
 when disciples are ready, as soon as they have 
 found Jesus, to leave even His immediate presence 
 and go, hke Andrew and Philip, to find a Peter 
 and a Nathanael and bring them to Jesus ! 
 
 We have not touched the depths of this great 
 truth, even yet. Every witness for God who goes 
 forth to sow the seed, and himself become seed for 
 this harvest, prepares for not one crop alone, but 
 many successive crops. And remember our Lord's 
 singular words: ''Thirty, sixty, an hundred fold." 
 It is of the nature of crops that they are cumulative 
 — successive harvests advance, not by arithmetical, 
 only, but by geometrical, progression. Each crop 
 yields seed for the next, and every seed brings 
 forth an ear, with seed in the ear. A single seed 
 thus yields a blade, whose ear furnishes thirty fold ; 
 and so the second crop is nine hundred fold, the 
 third crop nearly thirty thousand foM, and the 
 fourth crop nearly a 7niUion fold, upon the seed first 
 sown. 
 
 Let the seed and its harvest become to us God's 
 own parable of missions. To measure the fruit of 
 one life, or even of one witnessing word or godly 
 
126 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 deed, we must stand at the end of all things, when 
 the sheaves of the last harvest are garnered. The 
 immediate results of a hfe of labor for God often 
 seem small ; but results which are effects, become 
 in their turn new causes for new effects, and so the 
 harvest multiplies, with a rapidity so marvellous, 
 that the ultimate outcome of a single Hfe staggers 
 not only faith, but imagination itself ! Saul the 
 persecutor voluntarily tiuned from a tempting 
 worldly career to become Paul, the disciple of the 
 Nazarene and the apostle of the Gentiles. Not 
 to speak of the glory of his attainments, who 
 became more and more radiant with godlikeness 
 '' as he neared the perihehon point," look at his 
 service as a preacher, a winner of souls, an organ- 
 izer of churches, a writer of epistles ; and remember 
 that the influence of his character, life, and writ- 
 ings is growing with every new year of Christian 
 history ! 
 
 An example may help us to form some slight 
 conception of the possible fruit of one godly mis- 
 sionary Hfe. In darkest Africa, in Chitambo's vil- 
 lage in Ilala, beneath a moula tree, lies buried the 
 heart of that great missionary explorer, of whom 
 Dr. Blailde aptly says, that the Romans would 
 have surnamed him Livingstone Africanus. In 
 his rude grass hut he was found, at four o'clock 
 in the morning, not in bed, but kneeling at the 
 bedside, his head buried in his hands, and both 
 buried in the piUow. Without attendant or com- 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 127 
 
 panion, on this furthest journey, he had, hke 
 Enoch, been translated while walking with God 
 along the pathway of prayer. But, long before his 
 pulseless heart had been deposited beneath that 
 moula tree, that heart had been bicried i?i Africa 
 for Africa's redemption. And, for all time to 
 come, it will be the germ and seed of other holy 
 Hves, both among the sable sons of that dark 
 continent and among those who dwell in other 
 climes. 
 
 To-day there is one who walks among princes, 
 on w^hose breast flash the shining medals of high 
 honor, whose praise is in every mouth, and whose 
 well-earned rewards fall about him like a rain of 
 gems — one whom History already crowns as 
 Africa's great explorer — whom we hope History 
 may on her future scroll record as Africa's greater 
 emancipator. 
 
 Henry M. Stanley is himself but one fruit of 
 that buried heart at Ilala. It was, according to 
 his own confession, those four months and four 
 days, spent in the same tent or boat with David 
 Livingstone, which made of that intrepid explorer 
 a new man. Mr. E. D. Young had already said 
 of that lowly spinner of Blant)n:e, '' He was the 
 best man I ever knew." But, when Stanley sought 
 to pay his tribute to that humble missionary, he 
 could find no words adequate, except Pilate's con- 
 fession as to his divine Master, ''I find 710 fault 
 in this man / " Reviewing these months of com- 
 
128 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 panionship with Livingstone, he says : ** My days 
 seem to have been spent in an Elysian field ; " 
 and, when the parting hour came, and he sought 
 by one long, last look to fix those blessed features 
 upon his memory, Stanley found that he could see 
 but dimly. The hero of a hundred battles, with 
 nerves of steel, was not a stranger to tears when 
 he turned away from the man who was the great- 
 est blessing and benefactor of his life. Already 
 had his sceptical habits of mind found their over- 
 whelming refuting argument in that saintly life 
 whose every lineament was vocal with godliness. 
 
 Two scenes in England's famous Abbey have 
 already become historic. One was April i8, 1874, 
 when, in the centre of the nave, the dust of Africa's 
 great hero was laid to rest; and when Stanley 
 lifted his hand from the pall of his great friend, to 
 lay it upon his unfinished work, and that same 
 year start from Zanzibar to explore Equatoria. 
 And the other scene was July 12, 1890, when, as 
 he led his bride to the altar, the marriage proces- 
 sion halted to lay one more tribute on Livingstone's 
 grave in token of the debt which could never be 
 paid ! And yet Henry M. Stanley is but one 
 fruit of that buried heart. Who shall say what 
 harvests, world-wide and enduring as eternity, 
 shall yet wave, as the product of the seed that was 
 sown by David Livingstone in the soil of Africa, 
 when he ''buried himself" in the Dark Conti- 
 nent! 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS, 129 
 
 II. We are also represented as being brought, 
 in the work of missions, into close fellowship with 
 Christ. 
 
 The language used by Paul, and already quoted, 
 is extraordinary. Let us hear again his words : 
 " Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and 
 fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of 
 Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is 
 the Church, whereof I am made a minister." 
 
 Such language is starthng : it suggests a sort of 
 incompleteness in the sufferings of Christ, a lack 
 which only the disciple can fill. To understand 
 this, we must remember that the redemptive work 
 advances to completeness by successive stages. 
 When our Saviour, on the cross, said, " It is 
 finished," " atojiifig death " was complete. When 
 He rose from the di^did, justify i?ig work was com- 
 plete. When He sent the Holy Spirit, the applying 
 agency was complete. 
 
 But one more step must be taken. The cross, 
 the rent tomb, the coming Spirit, needed a pro- 
 claiming voice, to tell of Him who was dehvered 
 for our offences and rose for our justification ; and 
 to be the mouth of the inspiring Spirit. Three 
 links there were in this golden chain by which man 
 and God are to be reunited. There was the link 
 which the cross supplied in the place of a broken 
 link of Law; there was the Hnk that the Resur- 
 rection supplied, in place of a broken link of Life; 
 there was the link which the Holy Spirit suppHed 
 
ISO THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 in place of a broken link of Love; but still the 
 chain did not reach to man. It was. one link 
 short. How was the work of Christ on the cross 
 and in His rising — how was the power of the Spirit 
 in His coming, to lay hold on men ! Hear this 
 same Paul : '' Whosoever shall call on the name of 
 the Lord shall be saved. How, then, shall they 
 call on Him in whom they have not believed ? 
 And how shall they beheve in Him of whom they 
 have not heard ? And how shall they hear without 
 a preacher % And how shall they preach except 
 they be sent ? " * Give us the Church, moved by 
 passion for souls, sending forth the herald and wit- 
 ness — give us the herald and witness, proclaiming 
 everywhere the good news ; then we have men 
 hearing, hearers beHeving, behevers calling, and 
 being saved. 
 
 Will any one tell us how, without this last link, 
 the other three are to reach mankind with saving 
 power? Is the blood-stained cross to plant itself 
 on every hill and in every valley, and then the 
 dumb Tree of Curse to speak to men of Him who 
 on that cross bore their sins % Is the sepulchre 
 in the garden to transport itself into the regions 
 beyond, and there repeat the awful scene that 
 made angels rejoice and demons turn pale and 
 soldier guards become as dead men ? How is the 
 Holy Spirit to find utterance for these great truths 
 of salvation, except through believers ? 
 * Rom, X. 14, 15, 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 131 
 
 Paul was neither extravagant nor irreverent; 
 yes, something remains, after Christ's finished aton- 
 ing passion and justifying work, — after even the 
 Spirit's descent, — to "/// tip that which is behind:' 
 A preacher, a witness, who is cleansed by the 
 blood, justified by the life of Christ, renewed by 
 the Spirit, is needful, is necessary, if all this stupen- 
 dous display of grace is to reach the unsaved soul. 
 The believer is the missing link — add this, and 
 God the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, brought into 
 close contact with the lost, can apply the blood, 
 the Word, the regenerating power. But, while this 
 last link is lacking, what is to secure the needful 
 contact and connection ? 
 
 There is something awful and overpowering 
 about this truth. Yet it is not too high to be 
 apprehended. I have been wont as a pastor, hke 
 many of my brethren, to seek, in every case of 
 conversion, to trace the human hnk by which the 
 new soul was united to God. I have never yet 
 found one case where some human agency had 
 not been used by God. Some godly father or 
 mother, sister or brother, Sunday-school teacher, 
 pastor, evangeHst ; perhaps a stray word dropped 
 by the way, a simple invitation to a church service 
 or a prayer-meeting, a tract or book slipped into 
 the hand — in some cases, nothing more than a tear 
 that told of deep fountains of feeling, or an earnest 
 look in which the soul found a voice ; but alwaj's 
 a human soul somehow coming between God and 
 
132 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 another soul and filling up that which would other- 
 wise be lacking. 
 
 We are not prepared to say that this rule is so 
 universal as to be without an exception. Mission- 
 aries tell strange tales of souls prepared, like Cor- 
 nelius, for the visit of the preacher, before he 
 came ; or led by some stray copy of a fragment of 
 the New Testament, to call on the unknown God. 
 But, even here, who can tell what human agency, 
 that can no longer be traced, has left its footsteps 
 on heathen soil — may this not be the springing up 
 of seed, sown in darkness, by some hand now 
 again turned to dust in the grave ? And is not 
 the very Bible itself the work of man, though it be 
 the Word of God? However many exceptions 
 there may be^ even exceptions prove the rule, and 
 the rule is that, without the agency of beUevers, 
 itnbelievers are not made believeis. A saved soul 
 always comes in to be the means by which sinners 
 are turned to saints. 
 
 It is the old story of rescue repeated on a more 
 august scale of appHcation. God's ladder will not 
 reach the lost in this House of Doom unless you 
 add your own length to the ladder! And so, as we 
 are co-workers with the Father, we are co-sufferers 
 with the Son. His cross is dumb. His tomb is 
 dumb, until we give to them a voice. We are to 
 tell men how He died, and rose. Even the Word 
 of God needs a human witness. If we ask the 
 Ethiopian eunuch who is intently reading the 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 133 
 
 Messianic poem of Isaiah, " Understandest thou 
 what thou readest f " he answers : " How can I, 
 except some man should guide me? Of v/hom 
 speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some 
 other man % " And thus, even to those who have 
 the Word of God, there is needed one who has 
 learned, by experience, to interpret that Word to 
 others. 
 
 Paul uses a phrase which is itself an interpreta- 
 tion of his meaning : " For His body's sake, which 
 is the Church." In a body, all is mutual depend- 
 ence and interdependence. '' The eye cannot say 
 unto the hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again 
 the head to the feet, I have no need of you;" 
 *'nay, much more, those members of the body 
 which seem to be more feeble are necessary." * 
 Here is the Divine parable of the Body of Christ. 
 That body is one with many members, and all, 
 however feeble, uncomely, less honorable, are 
 necessary, if not to vitality, at least to vigor. The 
 hand depends on the feet, and both, on the eyes 
 and ears. Nay, even the head depends on the 
 activity of the members over which it presides. 
 If the head wills to go — how can it unless the legs 
 and feet bear it elsewhere — or, if it would have 
 some work done which the brain devises, how, 
 unless the hands produce what we call handi- 
 work ? We have an exalted " Head " — He might 
 have been divinely independent of us ; but, when 
 
 * I. Cor. xii. 22. 
 
134 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 He chose to be Head and take the Church for His 
 body, He chose also to depend on the co-operation 
 of the humblest member. Henceforth, even the 
 Head cannot say to the feet — the highest to the 
 lowest — " I have no need of you ! " 
 
 Now, whenever beHevers neglect souls, and, for 
 the sake of their own indolence and indulgence, 
 leave the lost to die unsaved and unwarned, there 
 is schistn ifi the body — axLOfia, — rent, division. The 
 head yearns to reach out and save, but the great 
 nerves no longer act. It is as though a sharp 
 blade had cut through the spinal cord, and motion, 
 if not sensation, is gone ; the muscles and sinews 
 no longer respond to the will, and, in sight of the 
 lost, the body stands inactive. 
 
 This universal evangelism is thus necessary alike 
 to accomphsh the will of God, overtake the wants 
 of the world, and energize and exercise the hfe of 
 the Church. It is the one thing needful from any 
 and every point of view. If missions languish, in 
 so far God and man part company, the human 
 race sinks lower in vice, crime, and sin, and the 
 Church runs the risk, not of apathy only, but of 
 a_postasy. 
 
 Everything else depends on the health, strength, 
 growth of the Body of Christ. As soon as missions 
 fall into neglect, that body becomes enfeebled; 
 and when any part of the body is inactive the whole 
 body is more or less crippled, if not paralyzed. 
 No truth is more enforced in the Word than the 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 135 
 
 unity of the Body of Christ * We are taught that 
 both development and activity depend on the 
 whole body's working together. Both edification 
 and evangelization demand that " the whole body, 
 fitly joined together and compacted by that which 
 every joint supplieth, according to the effectual 
 working in the measure of every part, maketh 
 increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in 
 love." t 
 
 As Mr. Hudson Taylor well says, one may stand 
 near a burning house or sinking ship and yearn to 
 save those who are in danger of death ; but by no 
 possibihty can the outstretched arms reach one 
 that is a yard and a half away, unless the legs and 
 feet carry the whole body forward to the scene of 
 action. It is comparatively in vain that a few 
 members of the Church, which is Christ's Body, 
 seek to be heroic in self-sacrifice for the lost, and 
 to uplift and redeem heathen and pagan peoples, 
 while the Church as a whole is idle and indifferent. 
 The best effort is both restrained and restricted, 
 and there can be no large outreach, no strong 
 uphft ; the most consecrated missionary band 
 finds, in an apathetic Church at home, a hindrance 
 more fatal to success than the most violent opposi- 
 tion where Satan's strongholds stand. 
 
 Never yet — certainly not since the apostolic 
 age — has the whole body moved together in the 
 * Rom. xii. ; I. Cor. xii. ; Eph. iv. 
 f Ephesians iv. 16. 
 
136 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 direction of missions. Whatever reaching out 
 there may have been on the part of some of the 
 more active and vigorous members, the body, as 
 such, moves very slowly, if indeed it is not stand- 
 ing still. The Christian Church has volume of 
 voice enough to make the whole earth hear the 
 Gospel message, if the whole capacity of that voice 
 were but used ; and if the whole energy of that 
 body were once put forth the results would be 
 astounding. 
 
 Wherever there is a true passion for souls and 
 a will to co-operate with, God, no beUever can be 
 kept idle by any felt incapacity, or by the iron 
 bonds of ''circumstances." Tabitha may have 
 been a bed-ridden cripple, to whom nothing was 
 left as a means of serving but her hands. But she 
 could hold a needle, and that needle was the angel 
 of God to the poor orphans and widows of Joppa, 
 and has been the suggestion of Dorcas societies 
 ever since. 
 
 There is in Matthew x. 41 a remarkable word 
 of promise : ** He that receiveth a prophet in the 
 name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's re- 
 ward." To the Jew the prophet outranked both 
 priest and king — because, while they represented 
 man before God, he^ the prophet, represented God 
 to man, the medium of divine communication. 
 Hence a prophet's reward was regarded as highest. 
 And it is noticeable that the only two human 
 beings ever translated without death were Enoch 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 13 7 
 
 and Elijah, two prophets. Our Lord says tliat to 
 receive a prophet for his office' sake is to receive a 
 prophefs reward ^ i.e., to rank as a prophet, and 
 share his recompense. This is a wonderful unfold- 
 ing of God's method of administering rewards. 
 But there is a divine philosophy in it. A prophet, 
 however charged with a divine message and the 
 Divine Spirit, is but a man — compassed about 
 with human infirmities and Hmitations. He has 
 but the voice, the strength, the power, the life, of 
 one man. You are not a prophet, but suppose you 
 do, and can do, no more than 7nake that prophet a 
 greater power. You can welcome him to your 
 home with a generous hospitality; your board 
 feeds his hunger and quenches his thirst ; yoiu* bed 
 rests him when weary, your sympathy cheers him 
 when despondent ; your love and kindly ministry 
 put new vigor in his frame, new hght in his eye, 
 new force in his voice, new courage in his heart. 
 He feels stronger and hves longer because you 
 have been to him a source of help and hope. 
 Have you not really shared his work, and is it not 
 meet that you share his reward ? 
 
 We may borrow from the two Testaments fa- 
 vorite forms of figure, given to illustrate God's 
 thought ; the trumpet in the Old, the lamp-stand 
 in the New. What is a trumpet but a mere means 
 of adding volume to the voice, so that he who, 
 otherwise, could reach but a few hundreds, may 
 now speak with power to hundreds of thousands ? 
 
138 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 What is a lamp-stand but an arrangement for rais- 
 ing a bm'ning lamp so that its ray may pierce the 
 darkness more effectually, by being hfted above 
 obstructions % 
 
 The body of behevers constitutes a trumpet, to 
 give to the voice of the preacher penetrating power 
 — a lamp-stand, to Hft the light of testimony so 
 that it may shine farther. And, as every atom of 
 the trumpet or lamp-stand contributes to the result, 
 so every true believer helps to make the Gospel 
 message and the Gospel witness sound louder and 
 reach the farther. The dumb man may thus help 
 the speech of others to be heard, and the most 
 obscure disciple help to lift others to a higher level 
 of service. And so, " if there be first a wiUing 
 mind it is accepted according to that a man hath, 
 and not according to that he hath not." Nothing 
 can prevent you from being, if you will, a mis- 
 sionary, a prophet, a burning and shining hght — 
 in God's eyes, you are what, with all your heart, 
 you will to he; and the work you will to do, but 
 cannot, is the work which to Him you do and for 
 which you are rewarded. 
 
 An example from history may help to make this 
 plain. While Livingstone was in Africa, a Mrs. 
 McRobert of Scotland, unable in person to share 
 his toils, sought prayerfully to help his labors 
 to greater effectiveness. She had saved twelve 
 pounds, and gave her consecrated offering to him 
 that he might hire a native African as a body- 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 139 
 
 servant. This good woman received God's prophet 
 in the name of a prophet. She sought to promote 
 his comfort, spare him needless toil and the ex- 
 haustion and exposure that might bring a fatal 
 strain to mind and body amid African wilds. 
 Livingstone used the gift to hire the faithful 
 Mebalwe ; and, when at Mabotsa, a lion seized 
 Livingstone by the shoulder, tore his flesh and 
 crushed his bone, there seemed no hope for his life 
 except God should work a miracle. While that 
 beast's paw was on his head, Mebalwe, that native 
 teacher, diverted the lion's attention from his 
 master to himself and risked, as he nearly lost, 
 his own life, to save that of Livingstone. How 
 little did that humble Scotch woman foresee that 
 her twelve pounds would indirectly be blessed to 
 the prolonging of that priceless hfe for the toils 
 and triumphs of thirty more years ! And who 
 shall dare to say that Mrs. Mc Robert was not, in 
 God's eyes, a sharer in the wonderful work which 
 he was spared to do in opening Equatoria ? Who 
 shall presume to say that she who received a 
 prophet for his office's sake, and after her manner 
 and means helped him in his work after a godly 
 sort, is not a sharer also in his reward? That 
 twelve pounds made Mrs. McRobert joint owner 
 in those thirty years, with all their glorious fruit. 
 Through David Livingstone she lived and wrought 
 among Africa's sable children. 
 
 Ah, ye who live at home and sigh for larger 
 
140 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 service — ye whose are the silver and the gold, 
 and the rich jewels of the cradle — what if you, 
 who cannot yourselves ^^, would send I What if 
 the fruit of your grounds, and brains, and the 
 more sacred fruit of your bodies, were given to 
 God ! How many large gifts would fill missionary 
 treasuries to overflowing and make missionary 
 hearts swell with even fuller hope and joy ! How 
 many small gifts, bestowed out of the abundance 
 of poverty, with self-sacrifice and prayer, like seed 
 steeped in tears, God would use as He knows 
 how, as the germs of a great harvest ! How 
 many children, begotten in prayer, filled with the 
 Holy Ghost even from the womb, would be sent 
 forth from homes that had nothing else to give, 
 and make parents partakers in the prophet's work 
 and reward, by the giving of Samuels and Johns 
 and Timothys to the work ! 
 
 God invites us all to join Him in the work of 
 missions. And once again, with solemn intensity 
 of emphatic conviction, I record the growing, life- 
 long conviction, that the supreme charm of mis- 
 sions is that it represents God's own march through 
 history ; and that, therefore, he who is most en- 
 amored and engrossed of this work of giving the 
 Gospel to the destitute milHons of the race, is most 
 closely in link with God and in Hne with His 
 march. There are modem Enochs and Elijahs 
 whose close walk with God invites translation : they 
 are the Careys, the Morrisons, the Livingstones, 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS, 141 
 
 the Hanningtons, the Judsons, the Williamses, 
 the Hunts, the Pattesons, whose absorbing pas- 
 sion is Christ and He alone — and who in the 
 sublime work of world-wide witness join the 
 Triune God in winning the world for Immanuel. 
 
 This explains the promise of Christ's personal 
 presence with the witnessing host. The last com- 
 mand, " Go ye into all the world," is very emphatic, 
 but not less marked are the preface and the con- 
 clusion between which it stands. Before it is the 
 declaration : ''AH power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth;" after it, the prophecy and 
 promise : " Lo I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the age," By no accident is it that 
 the perpetual command, " Go ye — make disciples 
 of all nations," is placed between this declaration 
 and this promise : they are the buttresses of 
 adamant by which that commission is supported. 
 In that word, '' Therefore," all the logic of mis- 
 sions is centred. Our Lord says, " Because the 
 All-Power is mine, and my All-Presence is yours, 
 all the days, even to the end of the age, there- 
 fore go ye into all the world," etc. And, so far 
 and so fast as the Chiu-ch obeys, and goes every- 
 where and to every creature with the Gospel mes- 
 sage, the All-Power will be manifested and the All- 
 Presence enjoyed ! 
 
 We need then to think of Christian missions as 
 pre-eminently God's work — and ours, because it 
 is God's and we are His and workers together 
 
142 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 with Him, permitted to share this supreme priv- 
 ilege. The power and energy are not therefore 
 human, but divine, and in any and every exigency 
 we have but to appeal to Him, get new courage 
 and confidence in the secret place of prayer ; and, 
 because His trumpet never sounds retreat, we 
 shall never take a step backward, but always for- 
 ward ; and even those steps which seem backward, 
 if we are following Him, are really advances, as 
 waves recede only to rise to a higher flood-mark. 
 III. Our survey would be very incomplete 
 without at least a glance at the believer's co-opera- 
 tion with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was especially 
 promised as Christ's witness. ''He shall testify of 
 me," and will " guide you into all truth " ; for " He 
 shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall 
 hear that shall He speak " ; and ''He will shew 
 you things to come." " He shall glorify me ; for 
 He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto 
 you." This language is explicit.* The peculiar 
 office of the Holy Ghost is testimony to Christ ; 
 and, like any other true witness, He does not 
 speak of Himself, testify to Himself, or glorify 
 Himself. He brings Christ forward into prom- 
 inence — His person and character. His obedient 
 life and vicarious death, His resuiTection, ascen- 
 sion, and second coming. He testifies to Him, 
 before He comes, by the prophets He inspired ; 
 then He testifies to Him, when He comes, by the 
 
 * John xiv., XV., xvi. 
 
'■ THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 143 
 
 evangelists whom He guided and whose memories 
 He quickened ; and so to each new believer He 
 continues to open the word and unveil Christ's 
 blessed person, and in the heart disclose His power 
 to save and sanctify, and so to witness to Christ 
 still. 
 
 Our Lord says : ''And ye also shall bear wit- 
 ness* " ; it is in the Greek, the same word as that 
 applied to the Spirit. In what sense is this co- 
 witness true? 
 
 Of course there was a special sense in which 
 those early apostles and disciples witnessed to 
 Christ, because they had from the beginning been 
 with Him, and could testify to His words and 
 works. His life and death and resurrection and 
 ascension. But we have now to do with the wider 
 question — of the co-witnessing in which all true 
 believers share ; and in its way it is fully as impor- 
 tant as the other. First of all, the behever testifies 
 with the Holy Ghost to the power of Christ, as a 
 personal and present Saviour. And it is no 
 irreverence to say that believers can bear witness 
 to some truths which even the Spirit of God can- 
 not so effectually attest. He can hold up the 
 Christ of prophecy and the Christ of history — 
 present Him on the cross and on the throne ; and 
 keep Him before our eyes as the object of admir- 
 ing, adoring Love. But the Holy Spirit knows 
 nothing of sin and salvation from sin ; and, unlike 
 * John XV, 25-27 ; Acts v. 32. 
 
144 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 Christ, having never taken upon him our nature, 
 knows nothing of our infirmities and temptations 
 as one who has suffered in the flesh. The Holy 
 Spirit, therefore, needs and requires the believer 
 to witness, from personal knowledge, to the actual 
 work of Christ /;/ the soul, as He Himself witnesses 
 to His work/?r the soul. 
 
 We may pass this obvious thought, in order to 
 develop another, far less obvious, but perhaps 
 more important. The Holy Spirit needs beheving 
 witnesses as the channels of His utterances and the 
 vehicles of His Power and grace to unbelieving 
 souls. 
 
 When our Lord first brings out clearly the work 
 of the Spirit, He expressly says, '' I will pray the 
 Father and He shall give you another Comforter 
 that He may abide with you forever ; even the 
 Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive^ 
 because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him ; 
 but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you and 
 shall be in you." * Paul reminds the Corinthians 
 that, the natural man does not receive, and cannot 
 discern, the things of the Spirit of God ; t and that 
 even to the princely intellects of this world the 
 wisdom of God is foohshness. 
 
 The remarkable and emphatic testimony of these 
 
 and kindred passages is that the Holy Spirit, who 
 
 is perceived and recognized by disciples; who 
 
 dwells with and abides in them, and is by them 
 
 * John xiv. i6, 17. f I. Cor. ii. 12. 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. 145 
 
 received and known, is not in unbelievers, and is 
 not by them either perceived or received, and 
 cannot be. And, yet, we are taught with equal 
 exphcitness that, unless by the Spirit of God men 
 are convinced of the sin of unbelief, are renewed 
 in mind and heart and v/ill, are born again from 
 above, and made new creatures in Christ Jesus, 
 they cannot enter, or even see, the kingdom of 
 God. At this paradox many have stumbled. The 
 Spirit of God must work a saving and radical 
 change in the natural and carnal man, and yet 
 such a man is incapable of either receiving the 
 Spirit or even knowing His nature. 
 
 There is but one way to explain this enigma or 
 resolve this paradox — the Holy Ghost reaches 
 iifigodly souls through the godly. He dwells in, 
 and works through, believers. He cannot abide 
 in a sinful and unbelieving heart, but He can 
 dwell with him who is of a humble and contrite 
 spirit and trembleth at the Word of God; and 
 can use his faith and utterance and experience 
 and witness, to lead unsaved souls to repentance 
 and faith. Christ said to the woman at the well, 
 "Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give 
 him, it shall be in him a well of water, springing 
 up into everlasting life." Mark the rapid progress 
 of thought : first a draught of living water received 
 — then a zvell or spring of water opened and 
 gushing up within — then a stream of water flowing 
 out. The believer first drinks — then becomes a 
 
146 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 spring, and then a channel for the outflow. And 
 so that woman no sooner drank, than the new 
 spring of Hfe sent out its waters even to the thirsty- 
 souls of Sychar. Again, at the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, as the water from Siloam was poured out 
 on the morning sacrifice, Christ cried aloud, " He 
 that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow 
 rivers of living water — this spake He of the Spirit 
 which they that believe on Him should receive." 
 
 Now to what purpose does the spring send forth 
 streams, but to quench the thirst of the needy ? 
 Why does the Holy Spirit make the believer a 
 fountain of life, but to flow through him to the 
 souls of the dying! Here is the grand mystery 
 of this fellowship with the Holy Ghost: He 
 chooses to employ human vessels and channels 
 for conveying His own power and grace. 
 
 If the New Testament be carefully examined, 
 it will be found, in almost if not quite every in- 
 stance of conversion, that the Holy Spirit used a 
 believer as His instrument. Andrew was used to 
 reach Peter ; Philip, to reach Nathanael ; Philip 
 the Evangelist, to teach the eunuch; even Saul 
 probably got his first impressions from the dying 
 Stephen. Peter became the channel of the Holy 
 Ghost to Cornelius and his kinsmen and friends. 
 Paul and Silas were the vehicles of communication 
 with the Philippian jailer; and, in brief, in the 
 whole work of the Spirit upon unbelieving souls, 
 He appears to have been dependent upon believers 
 
THE WORK OF MISSIONS. I47 
 
 as media of impression and communication. So 
 far as we know, in all His ordinary workings, 
 human agency is indispensable to the completeness 
 of His operations. 
 
 While we carelessly say that the '' Spirit of God 
 strives with ungodly men, moves in their hearts, 
 is influencing their conscience and conduct," have 
 we any warrant for affirming that the Holy Ghost 
 in any case dispenses absolutely with this agency 
 of the disciple f or if He ever does, is it not, as we 
 have said, so rare as to constitute an exception ? 
 
 In the inception of the work in Japan, it is said 
 that the first six converts to the Christian faith 
 were the consequence of picking up a stray copy 
 of a Testament that was found floating in the Bay 
 of Yeddo, and of the inquiry thus aroused ; and 
 that, before the first missionary had landed on those 
 shores, the Holy Spirit had led these natives to the 
 knowledge of Cliiist. But even here, exceptional 
 as was this case, the Gospel narratives which were 
 thus blessed to the conversion of souls were the 
 work of human pens, witnessing to Christ. 
 
 The bearing of these thoughts on missions is 
 vitally important. We pray for the Holy Spirit to 
 " descend upon all people," even upon those among 
 whom no laborers have yet gone. How much war- 
 rant have we for such prayer ? What if no blessing 
 can come to the souls in inland China or interior 
 Africa, in the Soudan and in Thibet, until believers 
 are there as chaiinels of blessing I What if this be 
 
148 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 our Lord's meaning, that the Gospel must be first 
 preached as a witness, by a witnessing Chmxh 
 among all nations, before the end comes ! What 
 if the one condition of the Spirit's descent "on all 
 flesh " be that God's witnesses must be wherever 
 "all flesh" is found, to become the medium for 
 such descending blessing — to call it down, and to 
 receive, recognize, and convey it when it comes ! 
 
 Let this very remarkable fact be duly empha- 
 sized that, in the whole course of missionary history, 
 no people have ever been brought to salvation ; 
 and, so far as we know, no individuals have re- 
 ceived the Spirit of God, until some one or more 
 of God's messengers have been a??wfig them, either 
 in person or through the products of their pen. 
 Some wandering evangehst, colporteur,^ tract dis- 
 tributor — it may be some simple unlettered dis- 
 ciple — has passed that way ; a Bible, a tract, a word 
 of counsel, a prayer, a testimony has been left be- 
 hind ; and, years after it may be, blessing has come. 
 But the records of missionary biography and his- 
 tory may be searched in vain, to find a modern 
 Pentecost without some Peter or Paul, some 
 Dorcas or Lydia, some Philip or Priscilla, or at 
 least some obscure human instrumentality, to be- 
 come a receiving and distributing reservoir for the 
 water of hfe ! 
 
 It is this deep conviction that the Spirit of God 
 will not accomplish His sacred travail for souls, 
 until believers are everywhere present as His 
 
THE WORK or MISSIONS. 149 
 
 human agents, that leads me to press, with persist- 
 ent exhortation and entreaty, the immediate and 
 world-wide scattering of missionaries. While we 
 concentrate our forces in a few fields we may in- 
 deed insure blessing to those fields — but we are 
 rendering blessing impossible where there are no 
 laborers. If the Church would but obey her Lord, 
 and take whatever men and means are at her 
 disposal and distribute them over the whole world- 
 field, the most important condition would be sup- 
 pHed for an out-pouring of the Spirit on all flesh, 
 because in every part of the habitable earth some 
 of Christ's witnesses would be found ! 
 
 Such thoughts may well absorb and entrance us. 
 They set the ministry of missions in a new hght. 
 Round about the lowliest sphere of work for God, 
 a rainbow bends, like that which curves its sacred 
 bow about His throne. It gilds and glorifies the 
 darkest cloud of trial, and turns even tears of an- 
 guish into radiant prisms of promise. In remotest 
 regions beyond, — in inland China or darkest Africa, 
 there may be those who, unknown and unobserved 
 of men, toil hard to teach the ignorant and to save 
 the lost ; but there is not one of them all who is 
 not intimately sharing the work of the Blessed 
 Trinity, actually supplying some lacking instru- 
 mentahty or agency, necessary to fill up to com- 
 pleteness, and carry to success, that divine work. 
 How important even the most obscure worker is, 
 only eternity can show. 
 
150 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 The work of witnessing derives its principal 
 charm from its close association with God. When, 
 in that eleventh chapter of Hebrews — that " West- 
 minster Abbey of Old Testament Saints," — Paul 
 gives examples of the witness-bearers of past ages, 
 next to Abel, the first martyr, comes Enoch, whose 
 brief record was : "And Enoch walked with God." 
 All witnessing to God is walking with Him ; and 
 to bear witness to Him is to have Him bear wit- 
 ness to us, as He did to Enoch, who, before his 
 translation, ''had this testimony that he pleased 
 God." This is, of itself, the all-sufficient reward 
 and recompense of our vfork for Him: it is also 
 work with Him, and brings us into close and 
 conscious fellowship with Him. When we under- 
 take this world-wide witness to Christ, He comes 
 and walks beside us, and His personal presence 
 becomes our heaven. And, like Thomas of 
 Aquino, when offered our choice of a reward for 
 service, we could answer, ''Non alium nisi Te, 
 D online. ^^ 
 
IV. 
 
 THE DIVINE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 
 
 ORD LYTTON called color, ''visible 
 music." To study missions and become 
 absorbed in this work, is to find in it the 
 fullest visible expression of the invisible Spirit of 
 God, the incarnation of godliness. 
 
 Some motives and impulses belong to a low 
 level, such as those which spring from appetite, 
 avarice, and ambition, the lust of the flesh, the 
 lust of the eyes, and the pride of Hfe. One needs 
 to be scarce more than an animal, at most an in- 
 tellectual animal, to feel the sway of such aims as 
 belong to our grosser nature. 
 
 Rising a httle in the scale of motives, we reach 
 a class that belong to a higher level, such as spring 
 from man as a member of the household, of society, 
 of the state, of the human brotherhood. We call 
 these impulses domestic, patriotic, philanthropic. 
 Self-love, if not selfishness, is largely mixed up 
 with these three measures of meal, and leavens 
 the whole lump. No human being who guards 
 self-interest can be indifferent to the purity and 
 harmony of the family, the unity and prosperity 
 of the state, or the progress and welfare of man 
 
152 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 as man. We are not independent of each other, 
 but dependent members of one body. 
 
 To a yet higher level of motive, which few reach, 
 it is now my privilege to point — may I not also 
 say? — lead, my readers. But let us understand, 
 beforehand, that this is an altitude in which the 
 worldly and the carnal nature can no longer breathe 
 freely. Such a height has an atmosphere of its 
 own, too pure, too rare, for sensual, sordid, selfish 
 souls to inspire. And, of those who have climbed 
 to those lofty heights, and there abide, there is 
 but one possible explanation : it is because God 
 hath given them of His Spirit. The spirit of 
 missions is not only akin to the Spirit of Christ : 
 it is the Spirit of Christ. And we shall now try 
 to find what it is which, in the missionary spirit, 
 constitutes the divine and Christlike element, to 
 which so few really attain. 
 
 Our inquiry touches the work of missions at its 
 root : ''As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he " : 
 out of the heart flow the issues of life. Whatever 
 lack there is in missions as an enterprise is to be 
 traced to something wrong or wanting in the spirit 
 of disciples. And here all new beginnings must 
 themselves begin. Like Elisha, we need to follow 
 the bitter and brackish stream back to its fountains, 
 and cast in the salt at the spring ; then all that 
 flows from it will give evidence of new conditions 
 at the fountain head. Let us carefully search, 
 then, the real source of our lack. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 153 
 
 The great practical problem, whose solution 
 demands the prayerful and prompt attention of 
 every behever, is this : How may the Church of 
 Christ carry the good tidings round the world, 
 during the hfetime of this generation? For the 
 present generation of the saved to reach the pres- 
 ent generation of the unsaved, is the one question 
 of the hour that leaves all others far in tlie dis- 
 tance. To the solution of that problem in God's 
 own way, the Church, and every member of it, 
 should bring all the brains, heart, conscience, will, 
 money, intelligence, and enterprise at command. 
 To aid, so far as we can, in the accomplishment of 
 this work, it behoves each of us solemnly to give 
 ourselves and our substance, our tongues and our 
 pens, for whatever time may be left us. To this 
 work let me once more earnestly invoke others. 
 
 The solving of this problem is not a matter of 
 method, or means ; but primarily of a mind and 
 heart and will, that is according to Christ. All 
 machinery, however complete, depends for effect- 
 iveness upon its motive-power. Here force is 
 generated. Wheels and levers are but the chan- 
 nels through which power has play ; and, however 
 intricate and compHcate the mechanical adjust- 
 ments, there cannot even be motion, much less 
 efficient action, unless and until force is created 
 or applied. The gigantic ordnance-gun, ball, 
 charge, all wait for the spark. And all our best, 
 wisest, most complete methods of mission work 
 
154 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 will stand like a motionless machine, until the 
 Spirit of God becomes in disciples a spirit of mis- 
 sions, and generates spiritual force adequate to 
 move and to keep moving the wheels of Christian 
 enterprise. 
 
 1. Of course, the Spirit of Faith is the secret of 
 all other Christian attainment. This we assume 
 as beyond the need of argument. What the root 
 is to the plant, what the spring is to the stream, 
 that faith is, to all the beauty and growth and 
 power of a child of God. Not only in prayer, 
 but in all our work, " without faith it is impossible 
 to please Him." We must first of all receive 
 Christ by believing, and in beheving He must 
 receive us, so that we are His and He is ours, by 
 the mystic bond of unity. When we are in Him 
 by faith, and He in us by love, all else becomes 
 possible ; and without Him we can do nothing, 
 and are nothing. 
 
 Taking this as granted, we proceed to ask what 
 are the x^dX fruits of faith, which the true spirit of 
 missions reveals and ripens in us ? 
 
 2. We answer, first of all, the Spirit of Obedience, 
 There is no justification for missions that is 
 
 either possible or needful, except the plain, explicit 
 repeated command of Christ. We have our 
 " marching orders " : that is enough. " Go ye into 
 all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature." That settles the matter, and leaves no 
 argument or vindication to be added or needed. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 155 
 
 The question, "Do missions /<:?>' /" is both irrele- 
 vant and irreverent. It always pays to obey 
 authority, especially when authority is supreme. 
 And so clear is our Lord's command, that the 
 process, by which that command can be made of 
 none effect, would make void the whole Word of 
 God. Eyes that are so dim as to see no such 
 duty enjoined on the Church must be bhnd. And 
 only in the dark ages, when the very candlestick 
 of God almost ceased to shine, was the debt of a 
 Christian to a lost world even doubted. Nothing, 
 to-day, is to the Church its shame and its crime, 
 as is this, that, since Christ gave this last com- 
 mand, nineteen centuries have struck on the clock 
 of the ages ; and more than sixty generations have 
 lived, sinned, suffered, and died, with an aggregate 
 population from ten to twenty times the present 
 number of the human race. And yet, with this 
 positive command standing before us hke Christ 
 Himself, and pointing to the great world-field; 
 and with the facts of awful spiritual destitution 
 staring us in the face, the great bulk of the human 
 family has perished, and will, in this century, con- 
 tinue to perish, not unsaved only, but unw^amed ! 
 For such a state of things, no adequate apology 
 or excuse is possible. 
 
 Our obedience to our Lord's will should be im- 
 viediate. It has been long enough delayed, and 
 the time is short. We firmly believe, and the con- 
 viction enters into the very marrow of our being, 
 
156 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 that the disciples of Christ should at once organize 
 efforts and occupy the whole world; that the 
 whole field should be mapped out, and the whole 
 force be massed together; that we should then 
 proceed carefully to divide the field, so that no 
 part should be overlooked ; and then to distribute 
 the force so that no part should be unprovided 
 for. This lesson is taught in the miracle of the 
 loaves ; the first command of Christ was, " Make 
 the multitude to sit down in companies of fifty 
 and a hundred." That showed the disciples just 
 how many people there were to be fed, and helped 
 them to make sure that each company and each 
 person should have attention, and provision for 
 their needs. 
 
 In apostolic days we have this miracle of the 
 loaves translated into action. What were perhaps 
 a thousand disciples, in all, among so many as the 
 world's population % And yet they undertook to 
 ''preach the Gospel to every creature." Peter 
 and James went to the '' circumcision " : James 
 became bishop of the Church in Jerusalem, and 
 looked after Judean Jews. Peter went to the far 
 East, among the Jews of the *' elect dispersion," 
 and the peoples among whom they dwelt. John 
 went to Ephesus, the centre of the Diana wor- 
 ship, and the gathering-place of vast multitudes. 
 Paul went westward and travelled over most, if 
 not all, of the countries of Europe, between the 
 Golden Horn and the Straits of Gibraltar. Philip 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 157 
 
 went down to Samaria, and, if tradition be trust- 
 worthy, the eunuch whom he led to Jesus went 
 further down into Ethiopia and founded the Alex- 
 andrian Church. And, on this principle of division 
 of the field and distribution of the force, the 
 Church, when fewest in numbers and feeblest in 
 strength, — when there were no steamships or steam 
 carriages, no printing-presses, or even New Testa- 
 ments, actually accomplished more nearly the 
 evangelization of the world than the Church, in 
 the pride of her prosperity and power, with every 
 door open before her, and every facility that even 
 modern progress has supplied, has ever done since ! 
 The prompt and universal obedience, in the apos- 
 tolic age, to Christ's last command, made the very 
 priests of pagan fanes tremble lest the altars of 
 their false gods should be forsaken ! 
 
 Our obedience should be implicit as well as im- 
 mediate. We should mark even the minutiae of 
 our Lord's command, and follow exactly as He 
 leads. For example : He indicated an onicr^ " to 
 the Jeiu first, and then to the Gentile.'^ " Begin- 
 ning at Jerusalem " is a phrase constantly perverted 
 to mean that home-work is to take precedence ; 
 and we forget that its true meaning is that, first of 
 all, God's choseft people were to be sought and 
 taught. Those early disciples everywhere began 
 with the Jews; whether at Jerusalem, Antioch, 
 Rome, Alexandria, or Constantinople. Wherever 
 Paul went, from Antioch in Syria, to Antioch in 
 
158 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Pisidia, to Salamis, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, 
 Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, 
 Troas, Miletus, Rome, he first went into the syn- 
 agogue of the Jews, or, if there was no synagogue, 
 sought out and spake unto the Jews, wherever 
 they resorted and he could get a hearing; and 
 only after they rejected his message did he turn 
 to the Gentiles. Has it nothing to do with our 
 comparative failure in modern missions, that the 
 despised Jew has been perhaps more shamefully 
 neglected than any of the worst heathen, lowest 
 pagan, or most bigoted Moslem peoples? Mis- 
 sions among the ancient Israel of God, as an 
 organized movement, are but of recent date, and 
 even now the eight milhons of God's chosen nation 
 are scarce approached by us. Here and there a 
 few scattered laborers have been all that God's 
 people have sent to open the blinded eyes of those 
 who see the Messianic prophecies as yet through 
 a veil. The grandest epoch of missions will not 
 begin until God's Church undertakes to do as 
 Christ bade her, beginning at Jerusalem. 
 
 The way of exact obedience is the way of con- 
 stant blessing and of sure success. God has " not 
 cast away His people whom He foreknew," and 
 He will have the Gospel proclaimed to them first 
 of all, not last of all. It is a noticeable fact that 
 the missionary enterprises which to-day are reaping 
 largest harvest in other fields are those which em- 
 brace missions to Israel among their forms of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 159 
 
 labor. To pass by the Jew in the effort to reach 
 the Gentile, is a plain violation of the declared 
 plan of God, and the slightest neglect of His plain 
 command or revealed mind imperils all our other 
 work. The blindness which is upon the mind of 
 the Hebrew people, is no excuse for our neglect 
 — for only when they turn to the Lord can that 
 blindness be taken away ; and how can any man 
 be expected to turn to the Lord unless the truth 
 is preached to him ? 
 
 The Prussian army is the terror of Eiu-ope, be- 
 cause every citizen is a soldier, and, when the 
 order goes forth, the army can be mobihzed in a 
 day. And it is only such faith and such obedi- 
 ence of faith that begets heroic courage. Confi- 
 dence in God takes no account of obstacles. When 
 Martin Luther, at Augsburg, was asked, ''What 
 will you do now, with kings and priests, cardinals, 
 and even the pope himself arrayed against you f " 
 " Put myself under the shield of Him who hath 
 said, ' I will never leave thee nor forsake thee ' ! " 
 True missionaries are always heroes ; they have as 
 their helmet, breastplate, and shield, the Divine 
 promise, " Lo, I am with you alway," and that 
 Presence is vanguard and rereward. To know 
 that one is in the exact path of duty is to know 
 that all things work together for good, in a divine 
 harmony. 
 
 Nothing will be so irresistible as the Church of 
 God when her obedience to her Lord is absolute. 
 
i6o rilE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 In the 277th year of the Hegira, and, in the 
 vicinity of Cufa, that famous Arabian preacher, 
 Carmath, assumed the imposing titles of Guide, 
 Director, Demonstration, Camel, Representative 
 of Mohammed, John Baptist, Gabriel, Herald of 
 Messiah, the Word, the Holy Ghost. After his 
 death his name was even more revered by his 
 fanatical followers. His twelve apostles spread 
 themselves among the Bedawins, '' a race of men 
 equally devoid of reason and of religion " ; and 
 so successful was their preaching that all Arabia 
 was threatened with a new revolution. 
 
 The Carmathians were ripe for rebellion, and the 
 secret of their power was a vow of blind and 
 absolute submission to their Imam ; a secret and 
 inviolable oath was their bond of brotherhood. 
 Leaving tracks of blood, they moved along the 
 Persian Gulf, and the province of Bahrein bowed 
 before them ; far and wide the desert tribes lowered 
 their standards before the sword of Abu Said and 
 Abu Taher, his son, until they could muster on 
 the field a force of over 100,000 fanatics. Their 
 approach was like that of an avalanche — they 
 neither asked nor accepted quarter, and bore 
 everything before them. 
 
 Even the Caliph trembled as they advanced. 
 They crossed the Tigris, and, with desperate 
 daring, with only five hundred horse, knocked at 
 the gates of the capital. By special order the 
 bridges were broken down, and the lieutenant, in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. i6i 
 
 behalf of the Caliph, told Abu Taher that he and 
 his force were in danger of annihilation. " Your 
 master," repHed the fierce commander, " has thirty 
 thousand soldiers, but, in all his host, not three 
 such as these." Then, turning to three of his fol- 
 lowers, he bade one plunge a dagger into his 
 breast, a second leap into the Tigris, and a third 
 fling himself from a precipice. Without a moment's 
 waiting or a murmur of discontent, each one 
 obeyed. " Go," said he, '' and tell what you have 
 seen ; and before the night falls, your general shall 
 be chained among my dogs." It was so ; before 
 the sunset, the camp was surprised and the threat 
 executed ! * 
 
 What could not our Lord do, against the most 
 defiant strongholds of Satan, if He had even a 
 Httle band of followers who, without hesitation, 
 questioning, or reasoning, simply obeyed ? Nothing 
 can stand before a Church whose only law is the 
 Will of God, and the motto of whose crusade is 
 ''Deus vultP 
 
 3. It is almost superfluous to say that the spirit 
 of missions is a spirit of Love^ for in Love it finds 
 both its comer-stone and cap-stone. 
 
 But Love itself is a virtue and grace which few 
 possess, or even understand. There are two kinds 
 of love : one is that of complacence, finding pleas- 
 ure in its object and evoked by the discovery of 
 admirable and attractive traits. The other is the 
 * Gibbon, v. 323-4. 
 
1 62 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 love of benevolence, which depends upon an in. 
 ward impulse rather than an outward attraction. 
 It is this latter sort of love which was not found 
 in Greek philosophy. It was conceived as Jesus 
 was, of the Holy Ghost, although, like Him, born 
 of a regenerate humanity. It is not a personal 
 affection, founded and grounded on moral esteem ; 
 for such love in the nature of things reaches only 
 to those whom we personally know, and to com- 
 paratively few of them. The love to which we 
 refer now, is charity, good will expressed in good 
 deeds, whether to friend or foe, and extending 
 even to those personally unknown. While com- 
 placent love is exclusive and intensive, this love 
 is inclusive and extensive ; it is universal and im- 
 partial ; and is not so much an affection as it is a 
 principle, and so James calls it " The Royal Law" 
 or rule of life. 
 
 Only as we understand such love can we know 
 the spirit of missions. God loved us when we 
 were enemies, and in this commends His love 
 both to our gratitude and our imitation. We are 
 to love as He loved, without respect to the 
 character of the object, or any recompense even 
 in kind. Nay, the more unlovely and unlovable 
 the object, the more will such love be drawn into 
 exercise, for the greater is the debasement and 
 need of the object, and therefore the more be- 
 nevolence is evoked. 
 
 Such love embraces, of course, all beifig. It is 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 163 
 
 absolutely a stranger to caste and all invidious 
 distinction. To such love, no human being is 
 remote. Selfishness counts all who are not neigh- 
 bors and friends, as barbarians, as Thales, though 
 wisest and best of Greeks, looked on all outside 
 of Greece ; and even those who are geographically 
 near are often sympathetically remote, as the 
 Samaritans were to the Jews ; for selfishness will 
 have no dealings with those who give no promise 
 of a return in temporal advantage or reciprocal 
 favors. 
 
 No barrier between man and man has ever 
 been so formidable as caste; and whether based 
 on blood and birth, brute force or brain force, 
 money or culture, social position or rehgious pride, 
 it still remains the most persistent foe to human 
 brotherhood. Against its walls of adamant, Love 
 arrays her mightiest artillery, and, could Love but 
 sway all our hearts, these walls would fall like 
 those of Jericho. In the brotherhood of faith, 
 the Church of Christ, God meant that, for once, 
 the world should find a true democracy, with no 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, male or female 
 — all, in Christ Jesus, one. And He meant that 
 this Brotherhood of Christ should, in the whole 
 world without, recognize one brotherhood of viaii^ 
 among whom no discrimination should be made, 
 save in favor of the most distant, destitute, and 
 degraded. And, where Love's law rules, the least 
 and lowest, the worst and most worthless, actually 
 
1 64 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 take precedence in her holy ministry. All lines 
 of color, race, blood, birth, clime ; all differences 
 of intellectual development, emotional life, or even 
 moral purity, are to fade away before the charity 
 that, like the mantle of snow, falls from heaven to 
 fill up all inequalities and cover over all defects. 
 The caste spirit, wherever it prevails, is the fatal 
 foe of Christian missions and of Christian brother- 
 hood. It is vain to abolish slavery and serfdom 
 if this survives. It is possible to hold men in 
 slavery by fetters of prejudice as well as of iron. 
 There may be " uttermost parts of the earth " not 
 a stone's throw from our churches and homes, be- 
 cause their inmates are absolutely strangers both 
 to our acquaintance and sympathy. 
 
 All this is impossible where Love sways her 
 golden sceptre. She makes all mankind one 
 brotherhood and all the world one neighborhood ; 
 and every human soul that needs help becomes 
 on that account our neighbor and brother. The 
 negro is " God's image carved in ebony." Judea, 
 which is at our doors, will not hide Samaria, which 
 is near by but with an alien population, nor will 
 either or both cause us to forget the regions be- 
 yond, even to the uttermost part of the earth. 
 
 Nay, let it be repeated, if Love lays stress upon 
 any class among the objects of her divine minis- 
 try, she will tiu-n, first of all, to those most remote, 
 because their darkness is deepest, their need the 
 sorest, their degradation the most extreme : in this 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS, 165 
 
 case distance is the measure of destitution and of 
 the demand for help. 
 
 That anonymous proverb, " Charity begins at 
 home," if not invented by the devil, is appropri- 
 ated by him to serve his ends. Love counts every 
 needy soul a neighbor, and counts no cost in re- 
 lieving with heart and hand every want or woe. 
 If Love begins at home, it is only a beginning, a 
 starting-point for the farthest goal of service. But 
 selfishness begins at home, and stays there. To her 
 a neighbor is one who will return favors by favors, 
 and who pays in some form for every gift bestowed. 
 
 It takes but httle experience of worldly society 
 to see how hollow and shallow it is. Even its 
 courtesies and attentions, its generosity and cordi- 
 ahty, have selfishness at the root. Parties are 
 given, where every invited guest is one who has 
 acted, or is expected to act, as host to those in- 
 viting ; presents are given to those who have laid 
 the givers under obligation by their previous gifts. 
 One call is a return for another, and if the friend is 
 out and the card can take the place of the call, just 
 so much time is saved. Courtesies are returned 
 for courtesies, just as shghts are returned for 
 sHghts ; and how often, could the veil of decent form 
 be removed, would it be found that the gift was 
 grudgingly bestowed, the invitation reluctantly 
 given, but a dire necessity compelled both, simply 
 because it never would do to be under uncomfort- 
 able obligations. What is all this but a commercial 
 
1 66 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 system of exchange? Hear our blessed Lord: 
 " When thou makest a supper call not thy friends, 
 nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich 
 neighbors ; lest they also bid thee again and a 
 recompense be made thee. But when thou makest 
 a feast call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the 
 blind; for they cannot recompense thee, for thou 
 shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the 
 just !" * " Love ye your enemies, and do good and 
 lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward 
 shall be great and ye shall be the children of the 
 Highest, for He is kind unto the unthankful and 
 the evil." t Matthew adds, '' Be ye therefore /<?r- 
 fect even as yoiu: Father which is in heaven is 
 perfect," but in the corresponding and parallel 
 passage, Luke says, "Be ye therefore 7nercifnl 
 even as your Father in heaven is merciful." The 
 perfection we are to aspire to is the perfection of 
 love, of unselfish benevolence. Ah, yes, that is 
 the perfection of the missionary spirit. It asks 
 only, who has need of vie, my money, my witness, 
 my ministry ? No bargaining for returns in kind 
 or otherwise, no thought of personal gains, now or 
 by-and-by ; no calculating policy or worldly ex- 
 pediency. The seed is cast upon all waters to 
 float, it may be, to most distant shores, where the 
 harvest never will be seen until eternity reveals it. 
 And in nothing do we need more a new spirit in 
 missions than in the utter and final abandonment 
 * Luke xiv. 12-14. f Luke vi. 35. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 167 
 
 of that selfish poHcy which bestows money and 
 labor most lavishly only where the returns in some 
 form are likely to be most abmidant and rapid. 
 In God's eyes many a gift, so called, is but an in- 
 vestment made on a commercial basis for the sake 
 of the profits it is expected to yield to the giver. 
 
 Paul wrote to the Galatians of the ''Offe7ice of 
 the Crossy Wherein consists that offence? Not 
 only in this, that it demands the renunciation of 
 self -righteousness as merit, of the world as an idol, 
 of worldly wisdom as my pride, of personal achieve- 
 ment as my glory — no, the cross is to the natural 
 and carnal heart most of all an offence, because it 
 teaches me that self must be C7'ucified, that I am to 
 give without hoping to get, and lose my hfe to 
 save hfe ; to love where I am hated and to serve 
 where I am met, even in serving, with the scourge 
 and the thorns, the wagging head and the scoffing 
 tongue, the mocking and the spitting — in a word, 
 the cross instead of the crown ! 
 
 How utterly the Crucified lost sight of self ! 
 He emptied Himself of all that heaven held to 
 come to earth, and then emptied Himself of all 
 that earth had left Him, for the sake of Love's 
 divine mission. Who was ever so poor as He ! 
 He had nothing but a stable to be bom in, noth- 
 ing but a manger to be laid in. He had not so 
 much as a place where to rest his head ; even His 
 cross was not His own, and His grave belonged 
 to another. It is pathetically written that, to the 
 
1 68 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 traitor He left His purse ; to the soldiers, His robe ; 
 to the beloved disciple, His mother ; to the dying 
 thief. His promise of paradise ; to the penitent 
 Peter, His pardon ; to His Father, His last breath 
 and departing spirit, and to His followers, His 
 peace. Naked He came into this world; while 
 here He got nothing, though He gave everything ; 
 and naked He went the way to the tomb. Do 
 you wish to follow Him? Count the cost; for 
 along that way self must be left behind to walk 
 with Him. This is bearing the cross, to accept 
 self-abnegation as the badge of discipleship, and 
 consent to lose ourselves to save the lost. 
 
 The spirit of missions we need, for it measures 
 our likeness to our Master and the value of our 
 service. To cherish and cultivate that spirit is to 
 grow in the image of our Lord. It will fill the 
 heart to overflowing, and out of the abundance of 
 the heart the mouth will speak and the hand will 
 give ; then, witnessing and working will react upon 
 the heart which inspired them, and so the very 
 love which compels utterance and endeavor is 
 relieved, refreshed, and reinvigorated by the words 
 and works of love. See how God ordains that 
 duty shall bring delight ! The spring makes the 
 stream, but the outlet helps the inlet. Choke up 
 the spring and it ceases to be a spring. When 
 water stops flowing it stops running. Only a rill, 
 locked up in ice-bonds, becomes motionless. Ac- 
 tion reacts on the actor. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 169 
 
 And as surely as we grow God-like by cultivat- 
 ing the spirit of missions, we shall rapidly decline 
 and decay, in all that is most vital to our soul's 
 life, when we quench that spirit. While some are 
 asking, especially as to the weaker churches, how 
 can they do mission work or give to the mission 
 cause? I would ask, how can they live without 
 it \ Of the Church, as of the individual, it is true 
 that to save life by such means is to lose it. The 
 Church that leaves the lost to die without the 
 Gospel, risks its own destruction. It is therefore 
 a question how, if we do not undertake to save 
 the world, we can save ourselves. During the 
 ages when missions to the heathen comparatively 
 ceased, the Church scarcely survived ; and Bishop 
 Thobum has said that God would sweep away the 
 Church from the earth if missions were deliberately 
 abandoned. 
 
 Dr. Bums Thompson calls attention to the fact, 
 in botany, that the light, heat, moisture, and nutri- 
 tion which are so helpful to growth where life exists, 
 actually promote and hasten decay where life is 
 not. It is a corresponding fact in spiritual ex- 
 perience, that the most abundant blessings become 
 only curses where they are not used for the ends 
 which God designed, and the peril of our souls 
 and of our churches lies in the very conditions 
 which, if we are faithful, insure prosperity. 
 
 It is not a question, therefore, merely of evan- 
 gehzing the world and fulfilling our mission : it is 
 
lyo THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 a more vital question of preventing heresy in 
 doctrine and iniquity in practice from petrifying 
 or putrifying the very hfe of the Church. Paral- 
 ysis in missions is the sign of death to piety. 
 
 In Retzsch's illustrations of Faust, there is a 
 representation which is not easily forgotten. The 
 demons are contending for the soul of Faust and 
 trying to drag him down into the abyss of ruin. 
 The angels from above watch, with intent eyes 
 and absorbed attention, the desperate struggle ; 
 and, plucking the roses from the bowers of Para- 
 dise, fling them down, as though they were hail- 
 stones with which to pelt the heads of the fiends. 
 And as those celestial roses fall, and pass into the 
 sulphurous atmosphere of the pit, they are suddenly 
 transformed into burning coals, which, as they 
 touch those demon forms, bum and blister and 
 torture. A parable lies in that etching. All bless- 
 ings, though they leave heaven as the very blooms 
 of Eden, when they touch the disobedient and 
 ungrateful soul turn to withering curses. The 
 Church that leaves a dying world to die, a lost 
 race to wander in the dark, feeling after the God 
 whom the Gospel would reveal as not far from 
 every one of us ; the Church that turns the very 
 privileges which God gives her into a silken ham- 
 mock of selfish ease, and the very means of a 
 world's evangehzation into the provision for 
 worldly indulgence ; the Church that, with large 
 numbers, great wealth, high social standing and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 171 
 
 culture, perverts the golden sceptre God gave her 
 for universal conquest, into the weapon of self- 
 enthronement, sitting as a queen and revelling in 
 luxury, making the courts of God her court of 
 empire, and leaving a world in destitution, while 
 she furnishes and garnishes her palaces, — such a 
 Church would do well to read that Epistle to 
 Laodicea which contains perhaps the most terrible 
 rebuke which God has ever administered to His 
 professed, people. 
 
 We need this warning note to sound all around 
 the horizon hke a thunder-peal : the Church that 
 does not take up her work for a world of lost souls 
 is already a dying Church. To keep out Jezebel 
 and the Nicolaitanes, to prevent the sanctuary of 
 God being turned into the synagogue and seat of 
 Satan, and the ardor and fervor of a first love with 
 its first works from giving place to the disgusting, 
 nauseating lukewarmness of a formahsm that is 
 neither one thing or the other, — for all this disaster 
 God's great antidote is this, to be all, always, and 
 altogether engaged in bringing unsaved souls to 
 the knowledge of the truth. This is the tonic, the 
 stimulant, the preventive and preservative medi- 
 cine. 
 
 There is now-a-days a Laodicean tendency to 
 undue self-gratulation. We talk of our world-wide 
 organizations for missionary work, of our millions 
 of money given for Gospel triumphs, of our great 
 army of 6,000 men and women, and 35,000 native 
 
172 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 evangelists and helpers. But how little do we 
 think of the disgraceful disproportion between our 
 opportunity and our endeavor, the laborers we 
 send to the field and the immense multitude of 
 disciples that remain at home ; the milHons we 
 give to missions and the billions of wealth we keep 
 in selfish coffers or spend in selfish luxiu-y. Think 
 of some thirty or forty milHon of Protestant church- 
 members, sending one man or woman out of every 
 5,000 or 6,000 to the foreign field — where one out 
 of 500 would give us at least 60,000 missionaries ! 
 Think of giving ten or twelve milHons of dollars 
 a year to represent all these milHons of Protestant 
 disciples — a paltry pittance of forty cents a year 
 as the average contribution, less than two mills a 
 day ! Behold that awfully accusing pyramid of 
 comparative expenditure, that reveals a diminutive 
 apex of $12,000,000 for missions, while as we 
 descend, we find twenty times as much spent on 
 public education ; forty times as much on boots 
 and shoes, and as much more on cotton fabrics ; 
 fifty times as much on woolen goods ; sixty times 
 as much on meat ; one hundred times as much on 
 bread ; one hundred and fifty times as much on 
 tobacco ; and from one hundred and eighty to two 
 hundred times as much on strong drink ! One 
 hundredth part of the annual income of professed 
 disciples in Protestant congregations would yield 
 to missions annually at least 200,000,000 dollars ! 
 We congratulate ourselves that we are now 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 173 
 
 completing a full century of organized missions ; 
 but do we remember that it is but the first century 
 of modern missions? that, after apostolic days, 
 there were a thousand years when missionary effort 
 so far ceased that we call that millennium the Dark 
 Ages ! that, after the trumpet tongue of Luther 
 sounded the clarion peal of the Reformation, the 
 awakened Church waited three hundred years 
 longer before even the debt to a dying world was 
 commonly acknowledged ; and that, even now, 
 not one-third oi the church-membership are actually 
 either working, giving, or praying for a world's 
 evangelization ? If looked at from a true point of 
 view, we shall see that all that is yet done or 
 attempted is an insignificant fraction of what is 
 both possible and practicable. 
 
 Never, even in the joy of missionary conquests, 
 can the thoughtful disciple forget this shame and 
 reproach of the Church, that, since our Lord, as- 
 cending to His throne, said, "Go ye into all the 
 world and preach the Gospel to every creature," 
 sixty generations of men have lived and died, 
 embracing an aggregate multitude estimated at no 
 less than twenty times the present population of 
 the globe ; that is, from twenty thousand to thirty 
 thousand millions of our fellow-men ! a number 
 so vast that if they could march, one by one, past 
 a given point, one a second, it would consume 
 from seven to ten centuries, day and night ! And 
 yet — again we put it on record — with the command 
 
174 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 of Christ in her ears and the word of Hfe in her 
 hands, the Church has permitted this immense 
 multitude to go down to death, without even the 
 knowledge that a Saviour has died, reaching the 
 great masses of them ! 
 
 4. The spirit of missions is the spring of tireless 
 and ceaseless endeavor. May we not call it, Pas- 
 sion for Souls, and for Christ's conquest of the 
 world ? 
 
 The Moravians lead the whole missionary host 
 in their devotion to a world's redemption. Their 
 leader, Count von Zinzendorf, hke John the Bap- 
 tist, seems to have fallen heir to a legacy of grace, 
 and his whole Hfe bore the seal of a pecuHar con- 
 secration. When but four years old, he covenanted 
 with Christ : *' Be Thou mine dear Saviour, and I 
 will be Thine," and from the window of his grand- 
 mother's castle used in his childish simplicity to 
 toss out letters to the Lord in which he told Him 
 all that was in his heart. When at ten he was 
 Franke's pupil at Halle, he formed Httle prayer 
 circles, and instituted the '' Order of the Grain of 
 Mustard-seed," whose members were bound by 
 sacred pledge to seek the souls of others. Tho- 
 luck's famous motto became his own : ** Ich hab' 
 eine Passion und die est Er, nur Er." Parisian 
 seductions and social cups of enchantment vainly 
 sought to draw him from Christ. When he wedded 
 a countess, it was still only in the Lord, and they 
 two cast away all rank and richeS; and girded 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 175 
 
 themselves like pilgrims, ready to start for any 
 field if God should show them His will. The 
 world became his parish; and his property, the 
 Lord's offering. 
 
 The seal of the Unitas Fratrimi was a lamb, 
 bearing the cross of resurrection, from which de- 
 pends a triumphal banner with the device : *' Vicit 
 Agnus Noster: Bum Seqtiamury No wonder that 
 Dober and Nitschmann, at St. Thomas, were 
 ready to sell themselves as slaves to reach slaves ; 
 that Stach and Boemish were ready to go to the ice- 
 bound pole, Schmidt to the Bushmen and Hotten- 
 tots at the Southern Cape, and that Pagell and 
 Hyde and Jaschke laid siege to the stronghold 
 of the Grand Lama on the frowning heights of 
 Thibet. Pagell and his wife spent at Poo a quarter 
 century of toil, and then in death were not divided. 
 For five months their colleague at Kyelang could 
 not visit them, for the impassable snows of the 
 Himalayas block the roads for three-fourths of the 
 year. Pathetic as is the tale of their self-denial, 
 sickness and death, the brethren at the Nicobar 
 Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, perished after suffer- 
 ings that were even more extreme, and with not 
 even a native catechist or solitary convert to close 
 their eyes. Such are the men and women of 
 whom the world was not worthy ; of whom even 
 a worldly Church is not worthy. 
 
 Where this enamoring passion for Christ 
 and for souls is found, consecration of self 
 
176 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 and substance is as natural and necessary as 
 breathing. 
 
 On Henry Clay's sarcophagus Fred Graeff has 
 chiselled this, Clay's noblest utterance : " I can with 
 unshaken confidence appeal to the Divine Arbiter 
 for the truth of the declaration that I have been 
 influenced by no impure purpose, no personal 
 motive — have sought no personal aggrandizement ; 
 but in all my pubhc acts I have had a sole and 
 single eye, and a warm, devoted heart, directed 
 and dedicated to what, in my best judgment, I 
 beheved to be the true interests of my country." 
 That is the voice of patriotism ; and shall the 
 disciple not be able to say as much for the sake of 
 his Redeemer and His Kingdom % Shall a states- 
 man's devotion to his country outrank our absorp- 
 tion in God? 
 
 Besser tells the story of a redeemed slave — 
 bought in a slave-market by a rich and generous 
 Englishman for twenty pieces of gold, and then 
 presented with a purse of sovereigns with which 
 to buy a home and begin a freeman's honest life. 
 " Am I free, to go where I will and do as I will % 
 Then let me be your slave, I owe all to you — I 
 have been by you redeemed.* " 
 
 The same spirit breathes in the birthday resolve 
 of Miss Frances E. Willard, to give herself wholly 
 to her Redeemer and Lord, '' for the fulfilment in 
 the highest possible degree in body, soul, and 
 
 * Lange. Commentary, I. Pet. p. 25. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 177 
 
 spirit, of the declaration, 'A habitation of God 
 through the Spirit.' " When Ehzabeth Fry, the 
 " female Howard," died at sixty-five, after such a 
 hfe of Christlike philanthropy as few women have 
 ever known — for half a century she had been able 
 to affirm that she had never awakened from her 
 sleep in sickness or in health, by day or by night, 
 without her first waking thought being, ''How best 
 may I serve my Lord ? " * When not more than 
 eighteen years of age she established a school for 
 eighty poor children in her father's house. Fifteen 
 years later the deplorable phght of the women in 
 Newgate prison drew her to their side, and alone, 
 unguarded, she entered the inner prison, where 
 one hundred and sixty of the worst were immured, 
 and won them by her mingled dignity and court- 
 esy, her holiness and humility. Many of them 
 then for the first time heard at her lips the word 
 of grace. Before three years more had passed 
 she was a systematic visitor. Newgate's dark 
 cells began to be ht up with the gospel of love, 
 order, sobriety, neatness; intelligence began to 
 displace riot, lust, filth, ignorance, and indolence. 
 She established schools within prison walls, found 
 work for women and Christian instruction ; studied 
 how to abohsh slavery, advance education, and im- 
 prove the condition of British seamen ; and dis- 
 pensed her charities with an unbounded liberaHty. 
 And, like many a saint whose name is not in man's 
 
 * " Christian Womanhood," p. 241. 
 
178 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 calendar, she could say, '' Nothing is too precious 
 for my Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Not until we can measure the value of the blood 
 paid for our redemption can we measure the extent 
 of our infinite debt to the Redeemer. There is 
 but one way to pay that debt even in part — we 
 are ''put in trust with the Gospel." Debtors to 
 Christ and, for His sake, to a dying world ; and 
 trustees of the Gospel of His grace that, with the 
 boundless riches committed to us as trustees, we 
 may discharge the obligation we owe as debtors ! 
 
 No form of selfishness is more subtle and fatal 
 to spiritual life than the polite form of fashionable 
 greed. The worship of the golden calf is carried 
 on in our very sanctuaries. Avarice is insatiate ; 
 it cries give, give, and lives to get and keep and 
 hoard, and feast the evil eye and lust of gain on 
 the sight of its gold. 
 
 In a British manufactory, a merchant comes in 
 at 9 o'clock in the morning, and goes out at 5 
 o'clock in the afternoon, having done nothing else 
 but count his sovereigns, and arrange them in piles 
 of ten ; and this he has done every day but Sun- 
 day for twenty years. Gold is his master, and he 
 is an abject slave — the sovereign is indeed his 
 Sovereign. He himself has been electroplated — 
 changed into a coin — has a metallic ring, and will 
 ** drop into his cofiin with a chink." 
 
 Passion for Christ and for souls checks such 
 greed and makes all giving of our substance a 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 179 
 
 free-will offering. Redemption includes not only 
 me, but mine. A great Gennan defines socialism 
 as decreeing, " What is thine is mine," and Chris- 
 tianity as teaching us to say rather, "What is 
 mine is thine." But Dr. R. *^V. Dale finely says 
 that the epigram needs further correction. Chris- 
 tianity teaches us to say, ""What seems thine is 
 not thine ; what seems mine is not mine : whatso- 
 ever thou hast or I have belongs to God ; you 
 and I must use it according to His will." 
 
 The revival of the Scriptural doctrine of stew- 
 ardship is the only hope of the Church in the 
 direction of a larger and an adequate giving. So 
 long as we think of our money as our own, we 
 shall hold it as our own ; but when in our eyes it 
 is God's, we shall learn to give Him back what is 
 His own. 
 
 The spirit of missions is the spirit of absorption 
 in God. And, strange to say, we are never so 
 strong and puissant in our own individuahty and 
 personality as when we are lost to ourselves be- 
 cause absorbed in Him. We find our lives in 
 losing them, and find ourselves in losing oiu-selves. 
 One of our ciurent cant phrases is "losing our 
 will in His will," and too often this condition of 
 complete consecration carries with it the idea of 
 a sacrifice of positive manhood, manhness, charac- 
 ter, power. We all feel that the will is the focal 
 centre of all being ; in the will all other elements 
 of power converge, and thence diverge again or 
 
l8o THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 radiate into action. To have no will of our own 
 suggests, to many, a body without a backbone — 
 like a flabby jelly-fish — with no real energy even 
 in resistance to evil, not to say in aggressive move- 
 ment. 
 
 To be absorbed in God is the loss of nothing, 
 but the gain of everything. It is the paradox of 
 life, that you are never so fully and mightily your- 
 self as when you lose yourself in God. 
 
 Here is a man whose mill is moved by a water- 
 wheel. That wheel depends on a small stream 
 which at times runs low and almost dry, and at 
 such seasons the wheel moves slowly and feebly, 
 if at all. But near by flows a mighty river, fed by 
 exhaustless mountain springs and melting snows. 
 He taps that river: he digs a channel from its 
 banks to his own little rill ; he turns into that nar- 
 row sluice-way the mighty, steady momentum of 
 those everflowing waters, and now he has not lost 
 his rill — he has only gained a river. 
 
 Even so, when we surrender our will to God, 
 there is no loss of human will-power, but only the 
 gain of divine will-power. Through the narrow 
 channels of our uncertain, unsteady choice. He 
 pours the mighty flood of His resistless resolution 
 — the will of God energizes, quickens our will ; 
 and the wheels of action move with a firmness, 
 fulness, force, and fervor to which we were before 
 strangers. In our weakness we are strong; in 
 our folly, wise. We can do all things and bear 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. i8i 
 
 all things through Christ, who strengthens us. 
 The youths faint and grow weary and the young 
 men utterly fall, but we wait on the Lord and 
 renew our strength ; mount upon wings as eagles, 
 run and are not weary, walk and do not faint. 
 Our Lord began His active career while yet a boy 
 of twelve years, with a significant motto : " Wist 
 ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness ? " His identification with the Father was 
 such that it was natural, necessary, involuntary, to 
 be engaged always in His Father's work. And 
 this makes all work easy, that I am doing it for 
 God, with God, in God. He abides in me and 
 I in Him ; I work for Him, and He works in and 
 through me. There is no hurry or worry or flurry 
 about a true work for God. Why should I be 
 anxious and disturbed and careful if I am simply 
 bearing His yoke — the yoke which He shares, 
 and in fact bears. Will He not take care of the 
 biu-den and see that the load is borne or is drawn ? 
 From the moment that you take God as your sole 
 Master and Lord, remember this — you are hence- 
 forth to take no anxious thought for the morrow 
 — to be careful for nothing, but trust and not be 
 afraid, trust and be kept in perfect peace. If there 
 be anything you are doing in which you find it 
 needful to worry, be assured that is not God's 
 work, but your work — something you have taken 
 upon yourself to do at the beck of pride, ambition, 
 greed, or some worldly impulse, For if it is only 
 
1 82 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 God's work you are about, He is at the head and 
 will not suffer it to come to naught. This lesson 
 of perfect peace is the first and last lesson taught 
 and learned in His school : if it were sooner 
 learned, all hfe would be vested with heaven's 
 charms. Take up your work as His commitment, 
 do it for Him and unto Him, and in dependence 
 on His Providence and Spirit ; nothing will so 
 banish all undue anxiety and carefulness. 
 
 There is no higher seal and sanction put by 
 God on missions than this, that those who work 
 in this great field manifest His spirit in a marked 
 degree. Here is the apostohc succession because 
 here is the apostolic mission and spirit. Faith 
 begets implicit obedience, self-sacrifice, consecra- 
 tion, absorption in God, the marks of the highest 
 heroism and loftiest unworldliness. Robert M. 
 Gust, Esq., has pronounced the true missionary 
 the highest type of human excellence, and his call- 
 ing, the noblest ; missionaries, he says, are the salt 
 of the earth. 
 
 May we not say even more, that they seem to 
 be identified with the goodly fellowship of the 
 prophets, the holy company of the apostles and 
 the noble army of martyrs ? They have been the 
 pioneers in all lands, like Carey in India, Perkins 
 in Persia, Morrison in China, Judson in Burmah, 
 Allen in Korea, Hepburn in Japan, Williams in 
 the South Seas, Livingstone in Africa. They 
 have gone nowhere without leaving the traces of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 183 
 
 God. They have compelled recognition, respect, 
 and even homage ; as Mrs. Grant compelled Nes- 
 torian bishops to think of her body as the temple 
 of God, as Mrs. Judson won the Burmese so that 
 they kissed her passing shadow, and Ehza Agnew 
 at Oodooville led a thousand daughters of Ceylon 
 to bow at the feet of her Saviour. To-day if even 
 ungodly men seek the grandest types of manhood 
 and womanhood they turn to Paul, to Ehot, to 
 Brainerd, to Gutzlaff, to Schwartz, to Moffat, to 
 Hunt, to Patteson, to Zinzendorf, to Mackay, 
 to Scudder, to Taylor, to Thoburn, to Harriet 
 Newell, Fidelia Fisk, Rosine Kraff, Mehnda 
 Rankin — in fact, their name is legion, and it is 
 vain to discriminate by individual mention, among 
 such a host. 
 
 In 18 1 8, the Colonial Government, fearing the 
 spread of leprosy, erected a temporary asylum in 
 the romantic valley of Hemel en Aarde (Heaven 
 and Earth), so called because, far from human 
 habitations, it was walled in by rocks, with only a 
 strip of sky above. In course of time a larger 
 hospital was built, and Lord Somerset, the gov- 
 ernor, wrote to the directing board of the Mora- 
 vian Church, asking for a missionary to manage 
 the institution and teach the inmates the faith of 
 Christ. 
 
 In January, 1822, Rev. Mr. Leitner and wife 
 became voluntary exiles for Christ and entered 
 upon their repulsive and self-denying work. They 
 
1 84 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 were in constant contact with those who were 
 crippled and deformed by this loathsome disease, 
 though they supposed such contact to be conta- 
 gious and fatal. Love transfigured their toil with 
 celestial charms. For more than seven years they 
 sought to heal and save the souls of those whose 
 bodies were wasting away. And when Mr. Leit- 
 ner died, in 1829, in the same devoted spirit his 
 successors wrought for ten years more. In 1846, 
 the hospital was removed to Robben Island, near 
 Cape Town, and Missionary Lehman and wife 
 followed the lepers to their new home amid the 
 dangerous rocks of Table Bay, and were met by 
 the joy of those poor lepers, who broke forth in 
 praise to God. They began to teach ; and in 1 860 
 John Taylor left all to bury himself among these 
 lepers and lunatics, where he likewise toiled till 
 death. For forty-five years, and until the appoint- 
 ment of an EngHsh chaplain dispensed with their 
 services, these Christlike Moravians clung to this 
 leper home. 
 
 Such absorption in God is the soul and secret 
 of heroism. What has nerved timid men, and 
 even delicate and shrinking women, to face death 
 with every attendant torture, firm and fearless, but 
 this — that they were lost in God ? 
 
 When Jerome of Prague was led to the stake, 
 he embraced it with smiles of gladness. As 
 around him the wood and fagots were piled he 
 sang, " Hail, happy day ! " and then broke forth 
 
THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 185 
 
 again into chanting the Creed, which, as he said 
 to the throng about him, was the song of his Faith. 
 When the executioner went behind him to hght 
 the pile, he said to him, " Come hither and kindle 
 the fagots before my eyes ; for, had I feared, I had 
 not come here, having had so many opportunities 
 of escape." And when the flames leaped high 
 and the wood crackled in the fire, high above rose 
 the calm clear notes of the martyr's voice, while his 
 body was consuming as a whole burnt-offering on 
 the altar : " This soul of mine, in flame I offer up, O 
 Christ, to Thee ! " And to this day few spots on 
 the continent are more sacred to Christian pilgrims 
 than the place where those last words proved that 
 death had lost its sting. 
 
 As I stood in April, 1890, on the highest tier of 
 seats in the Coliseum at Rome, one scene of past 
 ages stood most vividly, almost visibly, before my 
 imagination. Beneath the canvas canopy a vast 
 throng is gathered, of 80,000 spectators. Yonder 
 on his raised marble throne sits the Emperor 
 Trajan, and near him the proud senators, and 
 vestal virgins with their lamps. Amid the surge 
 and swell of this sea of human voices, impatient 
 for the sport, an old man comes, trembling with 
 age, into the arena, his long white hair falling to 
 his waist and mingling with his beard. It is 
 Ignatius, the disciple of John ; and if tradition be 
 true, the "httle child " of Mark xi. 36. He bears 
 the second surname, Theophoros, or the Christ- 
 
1 86 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 bearer ; and in his interview with Trajan showed 
 himself so utterly unworldly that the emperor gave 
 him the opprobrious name (KaKodaLfioyv), one 
 possessed of a demon, and condemned him to be 
 led a prisoner from Antioch to Rome, and there 
 fed to the wild beasts for the delectation of the 
 people. 
 
 As the fierce hons are let loose upon him, the 
 old saint falls on his knees and is heard to say : 
 " O ye Romans, know ye that not for any crime 
 am I brought here, but that by this means I may 
 attain to the fruition of the glory of God, for love 
 of whom I am made prisoner. / am as grain of 
 God''s field^ and must be ground by the teeth of lions 
 that I may become bread for His people^ fit for His 
 table." 
 
 How long, think you, the world would wait for 
 the knowledge of this salvation, did the spirit of 
 that martyr burn in Christian bosoms ! Such a 
 flame of holy zeal consumes all greed, all pride, 
 all ambition, all selfishness, while it burns and 
 glows and shines with celestial fires, and makes 
 life itself a reflection of shekinah glory ! When 
 God's people would rather be ground between 
 lions' teeth than that the hungry souls should go 
 without bread, the world will soon find spread 
 from pole to pole the banquet board of Redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 The spirit of missions not only brings its own 
 reward; it is itself a heavenly gift and its own 
 
rilE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS. 187 
 
 compensation. Walter Scott puts into the mouth 
 of Jeanie Deans, when pleading for her sister's life 
 with the Queen, those memorable words : 
 
 " It is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily 
 ourselves that we think on other people's suffer- 
 ings. Our hearts are waxed hght within us then, 
 and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fight- 
 ing our ain battles. But when the hour of trouble 
 comes to the mind or the body, and when the 
 hour of death comes that comes to high and low, — 
 lang and late may it be yours ! O, my leddy, 
 then it is na what we hae diuie for oursclls, but 
 what hae dune for others^ that we think on maist 
 pleasantly." 
 
 Yes, but long this side of that august hour when 
 hfe passes before us as in procession, for review, 
 the true child of God who hath partaken of His 
 Spirit has learned the higher compensation of fel- 
 lowship with Jesus. His yoke is easy and His 
 burden is light, and even His cross is no longer 
 heavy. 
 
 Somewhere I have met a fable, that when God 
 first made the birds He made them without wings. 
 With gorgeous plumage and sweet voices endowed 
 they could shine and sing, but could not soar. Then 
 He made wings and bade the birds go take up 
 these burdens and bear them. At first they seemed 
 a heavy load, but as they bore them upon their 
 shoulders and folded them over their heart, lo ! 
 they grew fast — the burdens became pinions, and 
 
1 88 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 that which once they bore now bore them up 
 toward heaven. The fable is fact. We are the 
 wingless birds, and our duties are the pinions. 
 When at the beck of God we first assume them, 
 they may seem but burdens. But if we cheerfully 
 and patiently bear them, they cease to be a load. 
 The burdens change to wings — they bear us up 
 and on toward the cloudless heaven of His pres- 
 ence. As the beloved Samuel Rutherford says, 
 " The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that 
 ever I bore : it is such a burden as are wings to 
 a bird or sails to a ship, to carry me forward to 
 my desired haven. 
 
 ^'Schola crucis est schola lucis." 
 
 Fellow-disciples, let us cheerfully take up our 
 duties, and the wingless birds shall find those 
 duties turned to dehghts, and the burdens borne 
 for Christ transformed to pinions to bear aloft the 
 burden-bearer to the cloudless realm of the divine 
 presence ! 
 
THE DIVINE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 
 
 ROM man's creation until now, one great 
 question has occupied human research, 
 viz: What is Power ? 
 
 Whence comes, in any sphere, the faculty or 
 ability to do — to accomplish a work, to achieve a 
 result % Back of effects he causes, but many causes 
 are also effects, and it is power which makes a 
 cause efficient and sufficient to produce an effect. 
 The question we now suggest concerns the origin 
 of force and the primal secret of efficacy. 
 
 What men have sought in the sphere of natural 
 philosophy, we are now to seek in the sphere of 
 the moral and spiritual. In the prosecution of 
 Christian missions what is the secret of success, the 
 source of power % In discussing this question we 
 are getting further toward the heart of our great 
 theme. We have seen what constitutes the spirit 
 of a true missionary ; but this inquiry is even more 
 radical. 
 
 The secret of power is not human, but divine, 
 and even so far as it is found in humanity has an 
 element of divinity. The Word of God, which 
 
190 
 
 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 proves in all things such an adequate guide, teaches 
 us the whole truth that we need to know upon this 
 subject. 
 
 We select two representative passages, which 
 again we put side by side for comparison and 
 completeness of view. 
 
 " And Jesus came and 
 spake unto them saying : 
 
 "All POWER is given un- 
 to me in Heaven and in 
 Earth. 
 
 " Go ye therefore and 
 teach all nations. . , . 
 
 "And lo I am with you 
 alway even unto the end 
 of the age. Amen." 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 18-20. 
 
 "And behold I send the 
 promise of my Father upon 
 you ; 
 
 " But tarry ye in the city 
 of Jerusalem until ye be 
 endued with power from 
 on High." Luke xxiv. 49. 
 
 " But ye shall receive 
 
 power after that the Holy 
 
 Ghost is come upon you." 
 
 Acts i. 8. 
 
 It will be noticed that here three times we have 
 this word " power," and the repetition is significant. 
 In the first case, it is associated with the Son, 
 who here claims for Himself omnipotence, both in 
 heaven and in earth. In the second case, it is 
 associated with the Father, as proceeding forth 
 from Him, and as His gift in connection with the 
 mission of believers ; and in the third case, it is 
 associated with the Holy Spirit, as His enduement 
 and endowment. 
 
 Again, it is noticeable that in one case the power 
 is linked with Christ's promised presence ; and in 
 the other it is distinctly termed " the promise of 
 the Father." Where such manifest care is taken 
 in the discrimination of language, it would be 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 191 
 
 trifling to suppose that there is intended to be no 
 corresponding discrimination in the thoughts. 
 
 Long and close study of this theme satisfies me 
 that the hne of distinction here drawn is not only 
 clear, but very important. The power, vested in 
 the Son and exercised by Him, and the power, 
 bestowed by the Father and realized by the Holy 
 Ghost, resident in and exercised by believers, is 
 not and cannot be the same. The subject touches 
 all missionary work at points so vital that it is well 
 to give careful attention to the exact language 
 used in each case. The inspired Word of God is 
 written with divine care and discrimination. It 
 reminds us of a master-painting, in which not 
 only the bolder and more prominent outlines and 
 strongly contrasted objects repay close study ; but 
 where the most delicate shades of color and hues 
 of drawing have a significance, hke the most 
 minute features of the Parthenon where, as Penrose 
 has shown, every line was the sign and fruit of 
 artistic genius. 
 
 Our Lord says, "All power is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth ; and lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end," etc. The word here used is 
 not power {dwafiig), but (e^ovaia), authority, 
 rule, dominion, jurisdiction. Christ is head over 
 all to the Church, and governor among the na- 
 tions. His is administrative power, on the throne 
 of universal empire and on the field of battle and 
 conquest. This truth is further beautifully and 
 
192 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 impressively set forth in two conspicuous passages 
 of Scripture, one of which is a didactic psalm and 
 poem, the other a historic narrative which hides 
 an undoubted allegorical meaning behind the 
 historical fact. Comparing spiritual things with 
 spiritual, we may draw from these Scriptures some 
 grand and instructive and inspiring lessons ; and 
 because they are representative passages, we may 
 well examine them minutely. 
 
 I. The first of them is the second Psalm. Here 
 the Psalmist has a far-sighted vision of Messiah, 
 as set by Jehovah, upon the throne of dominion ; 
 and it clearly pertains, not to the trhimp/iant, but 
 to the militant period. All are not subdued under 
 his sway, but in a state of rebellion and revolt. It 
 is not a converted world over which Messiah holds 
 the reins of empire, but over a godless and faith- 
 less host of rebels. " The heathen rage," as in a 
 tumultuous assembly, and the peoples of many 
 lands meditate and cogitate in anger and malice, 
 how they may overthrow the kingdom of Imman- 
 uel. " The kings of the earth set themselves " in 
 a posture of defiance, as did Gohath against the 
 army of Israel and Israel's God, in resistance both 
 to Jehovah and to His anointed Theocratic King ; 
 while the rulers, like a great sanhedrin of Satan, 
 meet in council to conspire against them, and, like 
 yoked oxen that chafe under restraint, seek to 
 break asunder their "bands" and cast off their 
 "cords." There is no mistaking such a figure, 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 193 
 
 We seem to see the enemies of God rising up 
 against the Father and the Son with frantic tumult ; 
 at first hke the wild surge of a stormy sea, a dis- 
 organized mob of rebels, raging heathen, and 
 angry peoples. Then the opposition takes form 
 — is organized under leaders ; their kings take a 
 stand against God, and their rulers meet in council 
 to conspire and combine in a league of hatred. 
 Already they feel the bands of Messiah's yoke 
 tightening about them and the cords of His rule 
 holding them fast, and they toss and plunge Hke 
 a mad bull to get rid of His restraint. The whole 
 sound and movement of the original, by a rhythm 
 that is as majestic as iambics and as musical as 
 rhyme, conveys the fury and rage of these plot- 
 ting foes, who rashly rush against the bosses of 
 Jehovah's buckler. 
 
 But Jehovah, seated unapproachable in the high- 
 est heaven, laughs, scoffs, at their vain resistance, 
 as the stars scoff in derision at those who would 
 quench their eternal fires or shoot them down from 
 their place in the heavens. God sees their plan- 
 nings and kickings against Him to be vain ; they 
 only hurt themselves on His goads ! 
 
 In the midst of their vain boasting, and as they 
 are gathering for organized assault, Jehovah in 
 holy wrath speaks and acts. Herder and others 
 compare the rhythm of the original and the choice 
 of terms to words rolling hke thunder, followed 
 in the second clause by a deadly scattering of 
 
194 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 lightning-bolts. While they mutter helplessly on 
 earth, God thunders from heaven and hurls down 
 the bolts of His displeasure. 
 
 " Yet" — notwithstanding all this impotent rage — 
 " Yet upon my holy mount, as for me, I have set 
 my King." The reference is to David ^ who, as 
 type of Messiah, was thrice anointed and was 
 God's acknowledged king on Zion, while as yet 
 seven years of hostihty were to intervene before 
 all the tribes submitted to his rule. And now 
 Messiah takes up the word of Jehovah and de- 
 clares the Divine decree. He says, " I will tell of 
 a decree eternal, unchangeable by virtue of which 
 I reign. Jehovah said unto me. Thou art my Son, 
 and as Son, heir to my empire." *' This day have 
 I, even I, begotten Thee." As Messiah is repre- 
 sented as uncreated and eternally begotten, this 
 cannot refer to existence, as then begun, but to a 
 new existence, or career, a re -begetting by virtue 
 of which Messiah now takes the throne of the 
 world, and of all that it involves. What that day 
 is, other Scriptures leave us in no doubt — it was 
 the day of Christ's Resurrection.^ Hebrew scholars 
 tell us that the word here translated " begotten " 
 may refer to either parent, but more strictly be- 
 longs to the jnothcr. The earth, from her womb, 
 His gi-ave, on that day brought forth God's first 
 born from the dead, henceforth to have in all things 
 the pre-eminence ; and to reign over the earth 
 
 * Acts xiii. 33 ; Rom. i. 4 ; Col. i. 18. 
 
rilE FORCE OF MISS/OXS. 195 
 
 that, in this new birth out of death, brought Him 
 forth, declaring Him to be " the Son of God with 
 power by the resurrection from among the dead." 
 
 The examination of this psalm has been thus 
 tediously explicit, because, upon our right under- 
 standing of the circumstances in which these 
 words are spoken, all else depends. Jesus, rising 
 from the dead, claims the throne of the world, 
 which the first Adam forfeited by sin. The world 
 is not ready for His rule, though He is ready to 
 rule the world. His sceptre is in His hand and 
 the decree has gone forth ; from that Resurrection 
 Day when He rose for our justification and broke 
 the power of death and the devil, the throne of 
 the world was His. But the heathen and the 
 peoples at large were yet in revolt both against 
 Jehovah and against His Messianic King. Amid 
 this confusion of tumult and riot, God again says : 
 
 "Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen 
 for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of 
 the earth for thy possession." That is to say, like 
 an irresistible monarch, even the revolted subjects 
 are part of His " inheritance," and the uttermost 
 parts of the earth that have neither yielded to His 
 rule nor heard of His resurrection belong to His 
 "possession." This verse has, in countless cases, 
 been made the text for missionary sermons ; and 
 from it have been drawn prophecies of Christ's 
 gracious conquests in converting all mankind. 
 But does this verse or this psalm bear any such 
 
196 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 construction ? Read the next verse : '' Thou shalt 
 break them with a rod of iron : thou shalt dash 
 them in pieces hke a potter's vessel." Remember 
 the nations and their kings are in trvolt, and they 
 are broken with an iron sceptre, dashed into frag- 
 ments like a potter's vessel that cannot be mended. 
 (Jer. xix. 1 1 ; Matt. xxiv. 5 1 ; Rev. ii. 27; xii. 5 ; 
 xix. 15.) And what is the conclusion? The 
 Psalmist counsels immediate and universal submis- 
 sion ; seeing the resistless power of Jehovah and 
 of His anointed, and the impotency of human 
 rage, He appeals to rebels to lay down their 
 weapons, and, instead of kicking against the rule 
 of Messiah, kiss Him in homage and serve Him 
 with holy trembling and trust. 
 
 This psalm may be regarded as the key to a 
 large part of both New and Old Testament truth, 
 and we have followed it, verse by verse, that this 
 key might be in our hands with which to unlock 
 the prophecies and open the real inner meaning 
 of the promises. Christ, when He rose from the 
 dead, ascended to the throne, and assumed the 
 sceptre. He had already been secretly anointed 
 for kingship far back in the ages of eternity. 
 Now a second time anointed by the Holy Ghost, 
 He took the throne with the concurrence of His 
 chosen Church. The time is coming when, by the 
 consent of a converted humanity. He will be once 
 more anointed universal King, and reign over a 
 regenerate earth. Meanwhile the sevenfold period 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 19? 
 
 of resistance must pass, and in that period we are 
 now. When Christ, risen from the dead and 
 about to take another step upward to the throne, 
 said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
 in earth. Go ye therefore and disciple all nations, 
 and lo, I am with you alway," He knew that 
 hundreds and thousands of years lay before Him 
 and His Church, during which that rule was to be 
 disputed and antagonized ; He was sending dis- 
 ciples forth as sheep among wolves ; they would 
 be persecuted, imprisoned, slain ; His witnesses 
 would be martyrs — death would be the end of 
 their service and suffering — instead of seeming 
 victory, apparent defeat. And so He held out no 
 false hopes — no assurance that the time had come 
 to restore again the kingdom to Israel, or to begin 
 His millennial reign. He knew that, while two 
 tribes might acknowledge Him, ten would be in 
 revolt. Century after century would pass and still 
 the world would not have Him to reign over them ; 
 and even the Church would fall into apostasy 
 and a form of godliness take the place of its power. 
 But He says, " I go to my Father and yours, my 
 God and yours," " I go to take my sceptre," "All 
 power is mine in heaven and in earth. Go ye 
 therefore — make disciples from all nations — every- 
 where preach — bear witness. You shall be hated of 
 all men for my name's sake ; you shall be scourged, 
 put in prison, put to death, but all this shall turn 
 to you for a testimony — a part of your witness- 
 
198 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 bearing. You will find the heathen raging, the 
 peoples plotting, kings and rulers conspiring ; let 
 them try to demolish my throne and break the 
 bands of my rule ! Their efforts shall be met 
 with derisive scorn." The wrath of man shall 
 praise Him, and the remainder of wrath will He 
 restrain. When crises come which can in no 
 other way be met, and violence reaches its height 
 of daring and defiance, the Messianic King vin- 
 dicates Himself and His servants ; He stretches 
 out His hand and with His iron sceptre breaks 
 into pieces His foes. 
 
 Here is the hope of missions in the darkest days 
 — this Psalm, so often applied to the Church 
 Triumphant, was meant for the Church Militant ; 
 and never was it needed more than now, when, 
 in so many parts of the field of missions, we seem 
 met, as among the Brahmans of India and the 
 Mohammedans of Persia, by persistent resistance. 
 Christ has all power and is on the throne, " Go 
 ye," missionaries — He is " with you alway," even 
 to the end of this age of organized and violent 
 opposition. When you find yourselves driven to 
 the wall and the cause seems hopeless, appeal to 
 Him, and He will appear for you : it may be in 
 the conquest of grace, it may be in the awful con- 
 quest of wrath, but rejoice, He is King ! 
 
 An example or two of this interposition should 
 be put on permanent record. The year 1839 was 
 the great pivotal year of Turkish missions. Per- 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 199 
 
 secution bared her red right arm. The bitter 
 hostiHty of the Armenian Church broke out in a 
 storm. The despotic head of the Turkish govern- 
 ment, Sukan Mahmoud, united his civil power 
 with their ecclesiastical, to extirpate the Christian 
 heretics. The work, begun in 1831 by WiUiam 
 Goodell, seemed hkely, after twenty years, to fall 
 in a crash into ruins. Mr. Sahakian, an evangel- 
 ical Armenian and teacher, was thrown into prison 
 without trial, or even knowledge of the charges 
 made against him. He and Boghos Fizika, an- 
 other of like character, were sent four hundred 
 miles into exile. Der Kevork, a pious priest, was 
 put in a cell. The Greek patriarch thundered out 
 a bull of excommunication, and nothing less than 
 the banishment of all the missionaries was deter- 
 mined upon. The persecution waxed hotter and 
 fiercer, and the missionaries were formally accused 
 before the Sublime Porte, and Messrs. Hamlin 
 and Goodell, who were the only ones at that time 
 in the country, expected summary orders to leave. 
 An order was obtained from Mahmud for their 
 expulsion, and that of all missionaries. Commo- 
 dore Porter could not interpose, as the treaty with 
 the United States was only commercial, and there 
 seemed no human hope. In that darkest hour of 
 Turkish missions, the pioneer Goodell, in his 
 peculiar way, said : " The Great Sultan of the 
 Universe can change all this." The missionaries, 
 sorely beset, took refuge in the 91st Psalm. They 
 
2 00 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 besought the Lord to come down as in the days 
 of old, and make the mountains flow down at His 
 presence. While their hands were yet lifted in 
 prayer, on July i, 1839, Sultaii Mahmtid died. 
 Not only did God interpose, but by a series of the 
 most striking providences on record in history, 
 the power of their foes was broken. Six days 
 before, the Turkish forces had been routed near 
 Aleppo ; an exhausted treasury absorbed govern- 
 mental attention ; a fearful conflagration visited 
 Constantinople, August 9th, and from 3,000 to 
 4,000 houses were reduced to ashes. God's hand 
 was laid heavily on the Armenians who led in the 
 persecution. And so marked was the evidence 
 of a divine interposition that it was a common 
 saying that God was taking the side of the perse- 
 cuted and vindicating their cause. In fact, a 
 council was called and the exiles were recalled, 
 and all rigorous measures suspended. The leaders 
 were unchanged in spirit, but they were not un- 
 awed. They saw an Almighty Hand uphfted to 
 arrest the arm of intolerance, and they dared not 
 go forward. 
 
 Abdul Medjid, at sixteen, succeeded his father. 
 God's work took a fresh start, and four months 
 later, before a grand imperial Diet, he caused to 
 be read to the august assemblage the first formal 
 Bill of Rights, the Magna Charta of Turkey, the 
 Hatti Sherif of Gul Hane, the primary charter of 
 hberty which was the first of a series of constitu- 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 201 
 
 tional guarantees culminating in the Hatti Huma- 
 youn of 1856. When it is remembered that the 
 Sultan's throne represents one of the most despotic 
 governments ever known, nothing can account for 
 such concessions except the power of Him in 
 whose hands are the hearts of kings, and who 
 tumeth them whithersoever He will. 
 
 Siam furnishes another marked illustration. 
 From the time, in 1819, when the first Christian 
 book, a catechism from the hand of Mrs. Ann 
 Hasseltine Judson, was printed in Siamese, and the 
 first step was thus taken toward the evangelization 
 of that Oriental Eden, down to 1851, but little 
 progress was made. Dr. Gutzlaff and Rev. Mr. 
 Tomlin, who arrived in 1828, appear to have been 
 the first Protestant missionaries to set foot on 
 Siamese soil. They undertook labor among the 
 Chinese residents in Bangkok, began to heal the 
 sick, and distribute books. The Jesuits sought 
 their expulsion ; the suspicious natives charged 
 them with being spies and seeking to incite the 
 Chinese to rebellion. Mr. Tomlin was taken ill 
 and went back to Singapore ; Dr. Gutzlaff himself, 
 after less than two years' stay, sailed for China, 
 leaving behind him the whole Bible translated into 
 Siamese, and one baptized convert. Then, twelve 
 days later, came David Abeel, the first American 
 missionary to Siam. Dr. D. B. Bradley, of the 
 A. B. C. F. M. ; and Dr. Wm. Dean, of the Ameri- 
 can Baptists, came in 1835 ; ^"<^ the merit-making 
 
202 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Buddhists became jealous, and complained to the 
 government. Various events conspired to excite 
 the people and distiub the king, and it was rumored 
 that a plot was on foot to burn down the houses 
 of the mission. Five days were given the little 
 band to leave the premises, and they were scattered 
 in different directions, finding shelter as best they 
 could. In 1840, the Board of Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church of the United States assumed 
 the entire work of evangelizing the Siamese. Rev. 
 W. P. Buell and wife, who came that year, had to 
 leave in 1844. Three years elapsed and Rev. 
 Stephen Mattoon and Samuel R. House, M.D., 
 came in their stead. They undertook the work 
 bravely, studied, preached, printed books, and 
 practiced medicine. But the suspicious king, jeal- 
 ous of their growing influence and the "merit- 
 making " of the physicians, actively though secretly 
 opposed them. This malignant despot threw all 
 his influence against the missionaries. He so con- 
 trolled his slavish subjects that none of them would 
 sell or rent a house for the use of the mission- 
 aries, or even a site on which to build. Their native 
 teachers were thrown into prison, their servants 
 fled, and the people would not so much as sell them 
 food. Opposition, carried to the point of star- 
 vation, seemed to leave room for no choice : they 
 must leave Bangkok by the next steamer. To 
 make things worse. Sir James Brooks, who came 
 to treat with the Siamese king in behalf of Great 
 
THE FOKCE OF MISSIONS. 203 
 
 Britian, was so insulted that he left in anger, threat- 
 ening to invoke the aid of force in opening the 
 country. Humanly speaking, the missionary labors 
 begun thirty-two years before were about to come 
 to a disastrous conclusion. There was but one 
 hope ; it lay in an appeal to the throne of Grace. 
 The missionaries looked, for dehverance, to God. 
 The kings of the earth again took counsel to break 
 His bands asunder and cast away His cords. But 
 at this critical juncture, when all these complica- 
 tions were culminating, He who sits on the throne 
 stretched forth His rod of iron and broke in pieces, 
 like a potter's vessel, this treacherous king. April 
 3, 1 85 1 , he died. And, — what is far more wonder- 
 ful, — upon that death hung a change in the whole 
 state of affairs, and all succeeding history was to be 
 cast in a new mould. We write it in large charac- 
 ters, that he who runs may read, even at a cursory 
 glance. There was one man in the kingdom, 
 Maha Mono Kut, in the cell of a Buddhist mon- 
 astery, who had been taught in language and 
 science by Rev. J. Caswell, a missionary of the 
 American Board. His heart was full of friendli- 
 ness toward the missionaries and of the liberal and 
 catholic policy imbibed through familiar contact 
 with his Christian teacher. Upon him the choice 
 of the assembly of nobles fell, and the priest left his 
 cell to mount the throne of the " Sacred Prabahts." 
 For seventeen years he reigned, a scholar and a 
 gentleman who appreciated civilization, and in- 
 
204 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 augurated the most enlightened and progressive 
 policy ever known among Asiatic sovereigns ! 
 Every condition was changed. Missionaries found 
 permanent homes — and even a welcome at com-t. 
 And that very year the women of the mission were 
 admitted as teachers into the royal harem. The 
 work begmi by the deft and delicate hand of the 
 seraphic Mrs. Judson was, after a generation had 
 passed away, earned on by her sisterhood. And 
 from that time to this, dm-ing forty years, the world 
 has looked with astonishment upon the attitude of 
 the Siamese nation, that in one day was changed 
 from hostihty to friendship in answer to believing 
 prayer. Maha Mong Kut proclaimed religious 
 liberty throughout the land, in 1870, and his son 
 has followed his example in all Hberal policy. 
 
 Chulalangkorn, who succeeded Maha Mong 
 Kut, has been called the '' wisest and best ruler " 
 the kingdom has ever known, and with his wife 
 has been the friend of Christian missions. Born 
 in 1853, he is now but thirty-eight years old, and 
 has reigned since November 11, 1868. 
 
 These two instances, out of hundreds, are chosen 
 as striking illustrations of Christ's divine adminis- 
 tration of missions. Here rulers conspired against 
 God's anointed ; everything to human eyes threat- 
 ened the wreck of years of work for His kingdom. 
 And, when the crisis came, He sent forth His 
 word, and His invisible messenger brought death 
 to impious monarchs, Like a potter's vessel, they 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 205 
 
 were shivered in pieces, beyond repair or remedy. 
 And of such interpositions of Providence mission- 
 ary history is full. 
 
 2. The other passage which throws Hght upon our 
 Lord's promised presence and power, is the story 
 of the Capture of JericJio. No one can study that 
 narrative without saying within himself, " Which 
 things are an allegory." The book of Joshua is 
 the book of a mihtant Church, the wars of the 
 Canaanites ; it is the book of entrance and con- 
 quest, possession and dispossession ; even in the 
 promised land God's people found long, hard 
 fighting, and every inch of advance disputed. 
 The capture of Jericho is the first great step, the 
 typical conflict ; and notice how it was conducted. 
 A strange personage appears on the scene and 
 announces himself to Joshua as " the Captain of 
 the Lord's host." Joshua perceives his divine 
 character, and humbly and adoringly gives into 
 his hands the sceptre of leadership. 
 
 His directions were exphcit, and were imphcitly 
 followed. The city was to be compassed about 
 once a day for six days, and seven times on the 
 seventh day. The Ark of the Testimony was 
 borne — the priests blew the trumpets, and at a 
 given signal the whole host shouted with a great 
 shout of anticipative victory. Then, without one 
 blow being struck, or one carnal weapon being 
 used, the walls fell flat, and it remained only for 
 the host to march over the ruins and take the city 
 
2o6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 captive. What an object lesson on missions ! A 
 militant Church undertakes to take possession of 
 the earth promised to her as her joint inheritance 
 with her Lord and Head. At every step her 
 advance has met with deadly opposition. But the 
 Invisible Captain of the Lord's host is on the 
 battle-field, and his orders are explicit. We are 
 to surround every stronghold, we are to bear the 
 sacred treasure, our testimony for God, in the very 
 van, and blow the trumpet of the Gospel herald. 
 We are not to meet violence with violence, or hate 
 with hate ; we are to use no carnal weapons, rely on 
 no worldly alHances of power or patronage, wisdom 
 or wealth. It is not by pov/er nor might ; the 
 weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of strongholds, 
 casting down imaginations and every high thing 
 that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, 
 and bringing every thought into captivity to the 
 obedience of Christ. This is the way to fulfil our 
 obedience, and so revenge the disobedience of 
 men. Let men deride our methods ; as we scorn 
 worldly policy and simply blow the Gospel trumpet, 
 God is pleased by the foolishness of preaching to 
 save them that believe — that the excellency of the 
 power may be of God, and not of us. 
 
 This, then, is the dual power of Christ's promised 
 presence. He is on the throne, watching over the 
 affairs of His Mihtant Church. He scorns the 
 impotent malice of His foes and, when they persist 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 207 
 
 in rage, breaks them in pieces. The same sceptre 
 that to His Church is golden — the sceptre of de- 
 fence and protection and blessing — is to implac- 
 able enemies an iron rod of destruction and wrath 
 and cursing. And He, who from the throne sends 
 forth law and judgment, from the battle-field directs 
 the fray and leads on the host; and, if we but 
 cultivate the clear- seeing eye, we may behold His 
 white plume and white horse as He rides forth 
 conquering and to conquer. 
 
 This story of Jericho is full of inspiration in the 
 work of missions. It shows us the Invisible Cap- 
 tain of our salvation, standing sword in hand on 
 the very field of battle, our General-in-Chief. He 
 is not only our captain but, '' Captain of the Lord's 
 Host," i.e., the afigelic host, for the armed men 
 of Israel are never once called the host of the 
 Lord — though once, in Exod. xii. 41, referred to 
 by a kindred title. And here again we observe the 
 cuiious correspondence between the scene at Jeri- 
 cho and the words of that last commission. "All 
 power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth " 
 — on earth, for He is Leader of a militant Church ; 
 in heaven, for He is Captain of the angelic host. 
 While we go on sounding the cornets of Jubilee 
 and proclaiming the Gospel, surrounding the 
 strongholds of Satan, He is with us, and com- 
 mands an innumerable company of angels ; the 
 powers of heaven are arrayed on our side, and, 
 were our eyes open, we might see the horses and 
 
2o8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 chariots of fire — they that be for us are more and 
 mightier than all they that be against us. The 
 angels of God encamp round about us and fight 
 for us in the dark day of battle. Here, then, is 
 the first and foremost hope and faith of the 
 Church in her mission work. The Lord Jesus is 
 on the throne holding the reins of empire, and on 
 the field of conflict directing the campaign. No 
 defeat is possible, for all the heavenly host are our 
 allies. In the midst of the dust and smoke of 
 battle, when victory seems to perch Hke a bird 
 of evil omen on the banners of the foe, and when 
 we know not which way the tide of battle is turn- 
 ing, we are to stand, like the famous gunner of 
 Waterloo, by our guns and our flag, and Hft the 
 eyes of faith upward. 
 
 And now, it may be asked, what more is 
 needed? Let it be observed that, thus far, we 
 have power, exerted on behalf of the Church, guid- 
 ing, guarding, and governing disciples, and assuring 
 final triumph over all foes of the kingdom. This 
 is administrative power. 
 
 But there is another field for the display of 
 power. The work of missions is primarily con- 
 structive, not destntctive. It aims to save, not to 
 slay, and seeks to destroy foes by making them 
 friends. We want another sort of power, working 
 upon the minds and hearts of men and converting 
 the sinner into the saint, and the unbeHever and 
 disbehever into the believer. We need a power 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS, 209 
 
 that shall induce men voluntarily to yield to Christ 
 — not simply compel them involuntarily to sub- 
 mit ; to take His yoke upon them of choice, not 
 of dire necessity, hke vanquished foes. And just 
 this is the Power of the Holy Ghost, promised of 
 the Father, and which our Lord counted of such 
 importance that He bade disciples tarry until they 
 were endued with this power from on high. Here 
 the word is not authority, e^ovaia, but power, 
 dvvafiig. A new dynamic force was to be communi- 
 cated. The Son of man came to seek and to 
 save that which was lost — not to destroy men's 
 Hves, but to save them. And therefore, while He 
 holds the rod of iron, and when necessary will 
 use it. He would have all men to be saved and 
 come to the full knowledge of the truth. And so 
 He holds this rod of iron in reserve, while He 
 extends the golden sceptre of His grace and love 
 and pardon. His holy anger tarries until the en- 
 duement from on high has done its work on disci- 
 ples and v/rought its sweet persuasion on unbeliev- 
 ers ; then, when only obstinate and obdurate 
 and reprobate rejectors of grace remain. He turns 
 about His gracious sceptre and uses the iron end 
 of it for destruction. 
 
 The promise of the Father, then, is the bestow- 
 ment of the Spirit of all power and grace. Pente- 
 cost was the beginning of the fulfilment of that 
 promise, and Pentecost was typical. AVe see how 
 this power is to be manifested all through this Gos- 
 
2IO THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 pel age, from the manifestation of it then. First it 
 catne upon disciples, an enduement and endow- 
 ment. It was a baptism, a chrism — a clothing 
 with heavenly energy, an anointing with celestial 
 unction. This imparted to the whole man a new, 
 pervasive, persuasive charm, which wrought won- 
 ders — convincing the mind, persuading the heart, 
 converting the will. Three thousand under one 
 simple sermon yielded immediately to God. Here 
 is power in the disci-pie, fitting him to witness, and 
 working on the nnbeliever, moving him to repent- 
 ance, faith, conversion, and confession. And now 
 nothing more can be required. The full secret 
 of success is absolutely found. The Chui'ch of 
 God, tarrying at Jerusalem for the Divine anoint- 
 ing, now goes forth to work and to war. Her 
 witness is convincing and persuading, and all be- 
 cause a heavenly and indescribable charm invests 
 her messengers. Wherever they go, taught what 
 to say, and how to speak, they win a hearing. 
 Men tremble even on the throne; peasant and 
 prince alike bow before a divine message borne 
 by a messenger who is manifestly clothed with the 
 livery and insignia of heaven. 
 
 Then, when, grace has done its work and per- 
 sistent foes who will not yield to love would con- 
 spire to ruin and wreck a believing Church, the 
 power that Christ holds in reserve for the crises 
 of His kingdom is brought into awful exercise. 
 
 3. Moreover, it seems plainly taught us that there 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 211 
 
 are times when this protective and destructive 
 power acts co-ordinately with the grace that con- 
 verts and saves, both by way of preparation and 
 co-operation. Judgment sometimes paves the way 
 for mercy, so that mercy rejoices in judgment. 
 The judgments of our King are abroad in the 
 earth, and the inhabitants of the world learn right- 
 eousness. The penalties with which He visits 
 evil-doers operate as a check upon ungodliness 
 and turn the less obdurate transgressors unto God. 
 
 Who has not been struck with certain phrases 
 in the Old Testament, as when God calls the 
 swarms of locusts, Joel ii. 25, ''My great army 
 which I sent among you!" And anyone who 
 has ever lived in tropical cHmes and witnessed the 
 terrible devastation they leave behind, will under- 
 stand such a phrase. These swarms come hke a 
 living deluge ; they cover the entire face of the 
 firmament. In Southern Asia and Northern Af- 
 rica they frequently appear in clouds that hide 
 the sun and sky; the noise they make in their 
 marching and feeding is hke that of a heavy rain 
 or hail falling on a forest. And the fields where 
 they forage are swept clean of every green thing, 
 and a thousand miles is not an extraordinary 
 stretch for them to cover with desolation. A great 
 army indeed, both in their countless hosts and 
 awful power. 
 
 There is something awe-inspiring in the thought 
 of the whole creation constituting God's obedient 
 
212 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 host of armed warriors, the winds His messengers, 
 flames of fire His ministers, the sea moving at His 
 bidding, and the hghtning-flash acting as His vassal. 
 Caterpillars and canker-worms, flies and locusts, 
 floods and droughts, snow-flakes and summer 
 heats, all obey and fulfil His Word. But let us 
 consider that they not only avenge His broken 
 law, but prepare the way for His Gospel ! How 
 many doors has the skeleton key of Famine un- 
 locked in India, in China, in Persia, in Syria ! 
 The floods recently prevalent in the Middle King- 
 dom were God's evangelizing agencies. The in- 
 habitants see the impotency of their false gods to 
 avert calamity, and the indifference of their own 
 people to their extremity, while the " foreign 
 devils " deal bread to the hungry and clothing to the 
 naked, and give shelter to the homeless ; and thus 
 famine, pestilence, plague, drought, and a thou- 
 sand forms of evfl are God's preachers, that with 
 loud voice proclaim the powerlessness of all idol- 
 atry to save or help, and point to the hving God 
 and the cross of Christ, as the hope of the world. 
 We need to get new conceptions of Christian 
 missions and the Power behind the mission band. 
 We are waging warfare against iniquity and idol- 
 atry; the campaign is world-wide and age-long, 
 the foes are daring, desperate, diabolical ; the 
 strongholds crown every hifl-top, and are seemingly 
 impregnable ; but the Leader is Divine ; His 
 strategy. His methods. His weapons, insure vie- 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 213 
 
 tory. His hosts are not earthly and human only, 
 but heavenly, and the Church has only to be 
 obedient, cultivate unity within and loyalty to her 
 Lord, and in faith blow the cornets of Jubilee and 
 use the mighty rod of prayer, and His banner is 
 over the whole host. Every Roman soldier saw 
 in the outspread pinions of Rome's silver eagles a 
 signal of two things : first, a triumphal flight in 
 wars of conquest, and secondly, a sheltering wing 
 for every Roman citizen in the hour of peril. So 
 to us must the banner of the Cross mean victory 
 and safety, conquest for Christ, defeat of all foes, 
 defence for all beHevers. God is the guard of 
 His people. *' The nation and kingdom that will 
 not serve Thee shall perish." Has our Lord given 
 His Spirit to save and sanctify? He has also 
 " created the Waster to destroy " ; He used Baby- 
 lon as a hammer wherewith to smite the nations 
 on the anvil of judgment ; and then broke the 
 proud hammer itself in pieces. And, when the 
 kings and rulers conspire to wreck His Church 
 and break His rule, His holy wrath, like angry 
 waves on the seashore, shall sweep over them, 
 and as with the sand-hills and forts which children 
 build on the strand, leave not a trace behind ! 
 
 4. Before bringing this discussion to a close, the 
 power of the Holy Ghost should be considered in 
 '\\.^T€[.2X\on\.o otir fitness to proclaim the good tidings. 
 The authority of Christ in government and warfare 
 touches our security and final success. But this 
 
214 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 touches our duty and responsibility^ and the extent 
 to which His power is exerted in oiu: behalf may 
 depend upon the measure of our conformity to 
 His will. Let us now therefore look, for a little, 
 at the effect of the enduement of power in making 
 the missionary mighty in his work for God. 
 
 In all work in which man co-operates with God, 
 the power is in part human and in part super- 
 human and divine ; or, to speak more exactly, the 
 power is to be viewed from both its human and 
 divine side, in order to be fully apprehended. 
 
 Bearing in mind that great word, "witness," 
 which is the key to our whole work, it is manifest 
 that we can never separate from a complete con- 
 ception of power in mission work, the character 
 and qualification of the witness-bearer. Buffon 
 said of *' Style, it is the man " ; and the manner of 
 man the missionary is will limit even the exercise 
 of the power of God. Power depends for effect- 
 iveness upon the apphances and instruments 
 through which it finds play. Friction is resistance 
 to motion, and practically, reduction of motive- 
 power. Even God's power may be hindered in 
 action. 
 
 The element of 7iaturalness in testimony is one 
 of the first conditions of power. Constraint and 
 restraint, if they do not tie the tongue, put fetters 
 upon speech and limit its freedom. And besides, 
 they are contagious and infectious. What embar- 
 rasses the witness, hinders the hearer from a ready 
 
THE FORCE OE MISSIONS. 2 1 5 
 
 reception and a frank response. But, when we 
 speak out of the fulness of our heart, the speech 
 is easy, fluent, natural, necessary ; we win a hear- 
 ing by our earnestness and absorption in our 
 theme. He who ''cannot but speak,'^ will find 
 others who cannot but hear. There is a strange 
 eloquence, convincing, persuading, in any man 
 who has a message which he must dehver ; there 
 is about any speaker who is thoroughly enamored 
 of his theme, a fascination which even an unlet- 
 tered and stammering utterance cannot altogether 
 destroy. 
 
 The efficiency of a true witness, set on fire of a 
 deep heart experience, is next to omnipotence : it 
 carries before it all opposition like a flame fed 
 with oxygen and fanned by high winds. Again 
 we afiirm it : the power to convince and persuade 
 is the power of being convinced and persuaded. 
 A doubt on our part begets a doubt in others ; 
 confidence that knows no hesitation draws others 
 after us as a mighty ocean steamer draws in its 
 wake smaller craft. Hence it was that Theremin 
 defined " eloquence, a virtue''' An uncertain 
 utterance moves nobody : the whole man must be 
 behind his message, the vir behind the vis. A 
 positive man may be wrong, but like God's 
 anointed king he melts or welds other wills into 
 his own, by the white heat of his own conviction. 
 And hence the simplest believer may attain a 
 power as a witness which none of the princes of 
 
2i6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 this world knew. It is not the rhetoric or the 
 logic of the schools which charm and sway, fas- 
 cinate and captivate the souls of men. They 
 listen as to musical sounds, or curious echoes, or 
 the deep swell of the sea, but they are not moved. 
 The Latins heard Cicero's enchanting speech, and 
 they said, " How beautifully he declaims ! " The 
 Greeks heard Demosthenes' energetic, impassioned 
 utterance, and they clenched their fists and said, 
 " Let us go and fight Philip ! " 
 
 Sir WilHam Hamilton one day said to Dr. 
 McCosh, ''Your friend. Dr. Guthrie, is the best 
 preacher I ever heard." He answered that he did 
 not wonder at the opinion, but was surprised to 
 hear it expressed, by so great a logician, of one 
 not specially possessed of large logical power. 
 Sir William replied with great emphasis, *' Sir, he 
 has the best of all logic ; there is but one step 
 between his premise and conclusion." We are 
 not sure that the great Scotch metaphysician ever 
 uttered a profounder saying.* On the other hand, 
 how we instinctively detect, through the glamour of 
 fine oratory, the features of the disingenuous and 
 dishonest man ! '' Surely," said Dr. Guthrie himself 
 to Dr. James Hamilton, " there must be something 
 great about that man " — referring to a demagogue 
 who for some years had been drawing the people 
 after him. " Well," said Dr. Hamilton, in his quaint, 
 quiet way, " no doubt ; he is a great impositio7i I " 
 
 * Life of Guthrie, i, 322. 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 
 
 217 
 
 Paul uses the significant phrase, " Demonstra- 
 tion of the Spirit." There is no process of logic 
 that is equal to His, for convincing of sin, of 
 righteousness, and of judgment. The most elabo- 
 rate human argument often fails to demonstrate : 
 the Spirit of God opens the blind eye and flashes 
 conviction instantaneously upon the soul. 
 
 . The pilgrim to Scotland reverently stands in the 
 graveyard of old Greyfriar's Church in Edinburgh. 
 Here, on the 25th of February, 1638, the National 
 Covenant was signed, the old Earl of Sutherland 
 setting the example. A moved and mighty multi- 
 tude surrounded a raised horizontal gravestone in 
 the open air of heaven. And they were not con- 
 tent to sign that Covenant in ink. Ah, there were 
 vien in those days ; they were seen to open a vein 
 in their arms and fill their pens with their blood, 
 to mark how they would shed that blood when 
 the battle-day came ; and nobly did they redeem 
 their pledges." * That tombstone is vocal, and, 
 when men want to be heroic, they go to that 
 churchyard and stand mute before the martyrs' 
 tablet and the sacred slab, and breathe and drink 
 in the spirit that makes hearts brave and wills 
 strong. 
 
 Paul's logic was this of the new life : '* We also 
 believe and therefore speak" ; and so, though they 
 ridiculed his bodily presence as weak, and his speech 
 as contemptible, wherever he went he got a hear- 
 
 * Life of Guthrie, i, 363. 
 
2i8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 ing, for there was that in him which compelled it. 
 " Father Vassar," in Boston, had a marvellous 
 fascination, which gave him access to those who 
 seemed to repel all ordinary approach. One day 
 he accosted a worldly and fashionable woman, 
 and, although an entire stranger, asked her plainly 
 whether she had ever believed in Jesus to her 
 soul's salvation. When her husband, as woridly 
 as she, came home to his dinner, she told him of 
 the strange man who had met her and at once 
 engaged her in conversation about her soul. 
 " Had I been there," said her spouse, " I would 
 have told him to go about his own business." 
 " But, husband," said she, " if you had been there 
 you would have thought that he was about Ms 
 own business y 
 
 " He that winneth souls is wise," but the wis- 
 dom is not learned in human schools. Experience 
 of God's grace, a rich schooHng in God's uni- 
 versity, is the only adequate qualification : this 
 power to witness is the power of the Holy Spirit 
 indwelling, and inworking, and then outworking 
 though the lips and the tongue, and the grander 
 utterance of the life. When God dwells in us and 
 gives us a true, deep knowledge of Himself, He 
 lays the foundation for power in testimony. It is 
 the baptism of the Spirit that made such a mighty 
 witness even of Peter, turning cowardice into 
 courage, and the traitor into the leader, so that 
 he, who once could not face an accusing maid, 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 219 
 
 Stood and faced the great Jewish Council, daringly- 
 defying the august Sanhedrin ! If we are to have 
 new power in missions, we must have a higher 
 standard of living. The believer who is trans- 
 formed into the likeness of Christ is himself the 
 apologetic for Christianity ; for in him even the 
 unbelieving, gainsaying world must see 'and read 
 the '' many infallible proofs " of a God, a Christ, 
 a Holy Spirit, a regenerate character. 
 
 And therefore do we steadfastly maintain that 
 no great power can attend Christian missions, 
 while in the Church Christian life sinks to a low 
 level. Such a Hfe can beget no life of a higher sort, 
 and our missionaries will, in their work, represent 
 our uncertain convictions and our divided affec- 
 tions, and their unbelief and worldliness will make 
 God's many mighty works impossible on the foreign 
 field. 
 
 It was October 7, 1805, thirteen years almost to 
 a day from the day when that mission compact 
 was signed at Kettering, that Carey, Marshman, 
 and Ward, at Serampore, drew up their famous 
 spiritual " Covenant." It covered twelve printed 
 pages octavo, and was read publicly at every 
 station at least once a year. 
 
 If any one would see what sort of men God 
 chose to lead the van of His modem missionary 
 post, let him study that '' Form of agreement 
 respecting the great principles upon which the 
 brethren of the mission thought it their duty to 
 
2 20 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 act in the work of instructing the heathen." Dr. 
 George Smith calls it a Preparatio Evangelka, 
 and well adds that it '' embodies the divine prin- 
 ciples of all Protestant scriptural missions, and is 
 still a manual to be daily pondered by every mis- 
 sionary, and every church and society which may 
 send a missionary forth." * 
 
 We give here its most important parts, for per- 
 sonal reflection : 
 
 ''IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY: 
 
 1. "That we set an infinite value upon immortal 
 
 souls. 
 
 2. " That we gain all information of the snares and 
 
 delusions in which these heathen are held. 
 
 3. " That we abstain front all those things which 
 
 would increase their prejudices against the 
 Gospel. 
 
 4. " That wc watch all opportunities for doing good. 
 
 5. " That we keep to the example of Paul, and 
 
 make the great subject of our preaching, 
 Christ the Crucified. 
 
 6. " That the natives should have an entire confi- 
 
 dence in us and feel quite at home in our 
 company. 
 
 7. ''That we build up and watch over the souls 
 
 that may be gathered. 
 
 8. "That we form our native brethren to useful- 
 
 ness^ fostering every kind of genius and 
 cherishing every gift and grace in them, 
 
 * Short History of Missions, p. 165. 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 22 1 
 
 especially advising the native churches to 
 choose their own pastors and deacons from 
 amongst their own countrymen. 
 
 9. " That we labor with all our might in forward- 
 
 ing tni7islations of the Sacred Scnptiwes in the 
 languages of India. 
 
 10. "That we establish native free-schools and 
 recommend these estabhshments to other 
 Europeans. 
 
 11. " That we be cofistafit 171 prayer and the culti- 
 vation of personal religion^ to fit us for the 
 discharge of these laborious and unutterably 
 important labors. Let us often look at 
 Brainerd in the woods of America, pouring 
 out his very soul before God for the perishing 
 heathen, without whose salvation nothing 
 could make him happy. 
 
 12. "That vft give ourselves unreservedly to this 
 
 glorious cause. Let us never think that our 
 time, our gifts, our strength, our families, or 
 even the clothes we wear, are our own. Let 
 us sanctify them all to God and His cause. 
 O, that He may sanctify us for His work ! 
 No private family ever enjoyed a greater 
 portion of happiness than we have done since 
 we resolved to have all things in common. 
 If we are enabled to persevere, we may hope 
 that multitudes of converted souls will have 
 reason to bless God to all eternity for sending 
 His Gospel into this country." 
 
222 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 In this solemn compact, which sounds hke an 
 apostohc document, twelve cardinal principles are 
 carefully set forth. 
 
 1. Valuing human souls at an infinite worth. 
 
 2. Informing themselves as to their actual needs. 
 
 3. Avoiding all putting of stumbling blocks in 
 their way. 
 
 4. Watching opportunity to do good unto all. 
 
 5. Preaching Christ Crucified as their one 
 theme. 
 
 6. Inspiring confidence by a Christlike life. 
 
 7. Establishing schools for Christian education. 
 
 8. Watching over and training native converts. 
 
 9. Raising up a native ministry for service. 
 
 10. Translating the Holy Scriptures into the 
 vernacular. 
 
 1 1 . Cultivating prayer and self-culture in piety. 
 
 12. SmTendering self unreservedly to God and 
 service. 
 
 To this nothing^remains to be added to give 
 completeness and symmetry. It reads like an 
 inspired paper. The marks of the Holy Ghost 
 are upon it. And we commend it to all friends of 
 missions, and especially to all who have in view 
 or in thought the field of missions. It need be no 
 matter of wonder that, although the first Hindu 
 convert, Krishna Chundra Pal, was not baptized 
 as a Protestant believer until 1800, fifty years 
 after Carey's death, the native Protestant com- 
 munity, in 1884, numbered half a miUion, with 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 223 
 
 ordained native pastors outnumbering the mission- 
 aries, and every decade witnessing an increase at 
 the rate of eighty-six per cent. ! 
 
 Let this covenant be to the Church of Christ, 
 as we start on a new century of missions, a trumpet 
 peal of God for a new advance. A higher type 
 of piety is the great demand of oiu- day. Spiritual 
 power depends upon spiritual life. Never will the 
 Holy Spirit set a premium upon low spiritual at- 
 tainment by resting, in Shekinah glory, upon a 
 Church in whose courts are the idols of this world. 
 While the Word of God is neglected, prayer de- 
 generates into a form, and worship into ritual ; 
 while the line of separation is obhterated between 
 the Church and the world, and the whole life of 
 the Church is on the lowest level, we shall look in 
 vain for the anointing from above. 
 
 How preaching and witnessing may be made 
 more attractive and effective is a question whose 
 vital importance transcends almost any other. The 
 great need of the modern pulpit is spiritual power. 
 With all the learning and culture of the ministry, 
 a nameless deficiency exists ; and the lack, to 
 whatever traceable, is a lack of power. Even 
 where preaching attracts, how seldom it effects 
 that great end, the salvation of souls ! Why is it 
 that even those sermons which gratify, do not 
 satisfy, and many preachers who draw the crowd 
 do not win men to Christ? There seem to be 
 scholarship, intellectuality, and sometimes spirit- 
 
2 24 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 uality, and yet but little of that seal and sanction 
 which the Spirit sets on the most successful preach- 
 ing by using it to convict and convert. 
 
 The lack of power may exist where there is no 
 lack of truth. Without God's truth there will not 
 be God's power; but there is not always power 
 even where there is truth, for these two are not 
 synonymous in this wicked world — would they 
 were ! We have carelessly adopted that pagan 
 maxim : " Magna est Veritas et prcBvalebit^' though 
 all human history shows its fallacy and falsity. 
 Men have always known more truth than they 
 \\2iNQ practised. God Himself preached the truth 
 in Eden, yet even there Satan's lie proved mightier. 
 Noah preached truth for a century in the antedi- 
 luvian world, and made not a convert. Greece 
 and Rome and France knew truth enough to have 
 saved them, but these, the most refined and martial 
 and cultured of nations, have crowned falsehood 
 and vice with the diadems of truth and virtue. 
 
 Truth, spoken in a sinful world, finds wrong 
 and error mighty enough to keep the mastery : 
 the Gospel itself, the very truth of God, needs 
 something added to make it the power of God ; 
 and, what that is, the promise of the Father, ful- 
 filled in part at Pentecost, reveals. We are now 
 studying the science of spiritual dynamics, and 
 may learn what makes om' witness a dynamic 
 force : " Ye shall receive the power of the Holy 
 Ghost coming upon you." Unction, as it 13 called 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 225 
 
 by John, the Chrism {Kpiajjia), is that anointing 
 for service which helps men to reach, touch, move, 
 and mould the mind, heart, will, of the hearer. 
 Our mistake is fatal if we conceive of power in 
 missions as human. Even the most convincing 
 argument, the most captivating rhetoric, the most 
 exalted eloquence, do not imply this power. 
 Unction has a logic, rhetoric, eloquence of its 
 own. 
 
 The power to move men Godward is a power, 
 purely of God, and must be carefully distinguished 
 from all channels through which it flows, or means 
 by which it works, as the lightning is distinct from, 
 the cloud it charges, or the wind from the wave 
 it heaves and rolls. This enduement of power 
 defies all analysis. The secret seems to lie now 
 in the glow of ardor and fervor, and then in tears 
 of tenderness ; now in the logic of reason on fire with 
 conviction, and then in the logic of love warning 
 and inviting. So also does it defy description, like 
 savor, flavor, fragrance. But one may be pro- 
 foundly sensible of its presence or absence. A 
 sermon may be full of learning, empty of life — the 
 mummy of the Gospel, the form without the soul 
 — dead orthodoxy, wrapt in the cerements of the 
 grave and having the odor of decay. 
 
 But, while we may not describe, define, analyze 
 Unction, we may know its evidences and effects. 
 First, when the power of the Holy Ghost comes 
 upon us our eyes are anointed as with eye-salve, 
 
226 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 and we see. We have a new apprehension of 
 divine truth. Light takes color from the media 
 through which it passes. Oiu: minds and hearts 
 and tempers and temperament give color to our 
 notions of God. A tyrannical temper makes His 
 will seem arbitrary and unreasonable ; a vindictive 
 spirit gives His wrath a Im^id glare ; a morbid heart 
 makes even His promises seem gloomy, and a 
 forceless, nerveless amiability makes even His 
 mercy seem lax and His love insipid. 
 
 No man is fit to teach God's truth until he is 
 taught of God, and, to be taught, he must come 
 into vital contact and sympathy with God. And 
 so the power to witness implies a power to think 
 rightly of God. Then we vividly see the real lost 
 state of souls, and their awful need, and the won- 
 ders of grace and the possibility of salvation. 
 This sense of reality of divine things no man has 
 until the Spirit of God unveils his eyes and anoints 
 them with His own eye-salve. 
 
 Then we need power to present what is thus 
 conceived. The modes of the preacher have as 
 much to do with the effectiveness of his message 
 as have the moods of the hearer. If he is clothed 
 with power from on high, whether he thunders forth 
 the peal of the law or with still small voice whis- 
 pers the grace of God, Sinai and Calvary will be 
 alike subduing. 
 
 God's preachers and witnesses are the interpreters 
 of His truth, Like a musician, who gets beyond the 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 227 
 
 mechanical performance or the originating genius, 
 and enters into the secret life of the composer, 
 the preacher must interpret to the hearer God's 
 idea or thought. Many a humble man, who has 
 no fluency of speech, or grace of gesture, no power 
 to flash auroras or rain meteors, has power to 
 make God's truth clear and cogent, and move 
 minds far superior to his own in culture and power. 
 This we must understand and feel as we never 
 have felt it. As Dr. T. H. Skinner used to say, 
 God may give to a church and its pastor every 
 type of piety but that which is found in a setise of 
 the powers of the tv or Id to come^ and men will remain 
 unconverted, but he who is to save souls must 
 have this sense. This gives logic both of argu- 
 ment and feeling — this makes words now like 
 drawn swords, keen at the edge and keener at the 
 point ; now like a hammer, that breaks even the 
 rock ; and now hke fire, that burns and melts. 
 The hearer feels a spiritual force grapphng with 
 his convictions, conscience, will ; and, if he is not 
 compelled to yield to Christ, he is at least com- 
 pelled to consider and make a decision. 
 
 This power of the Holy Ghost is probably the 
 one gift and grace that cannot be feigiied. An 
 unconverted man may build a symmetrical dis- 
 course, faultless both in matter and style ; a hypo- 
 crite may assume, hke an actor, what he neither 
 feels nor beHeves ; but to wield the sword of the 
 Spirit so as to pierce to joints and marrow, — that 
 
2 28 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 requires Holy Ghost power, holding, nerving, guid- 
 ing the arm. 
 
 This promised " anointing " gives quality to the 
 witness-bearer as well as to his message. The an- 
 cients thought purest virtue aromatic to the sense, 
 and it is true that this divine chrism makes the 
 whole man fragrant, investing even his person and 
 presence with a nameless charm, so that, hke Lord 
 Chatham, "there is something in the man finer 
 than he ever said." The anointed witness is like 
 Aaron ; even to the fringes of his garments the 
 holy oil runs down, and all his robes smell of the 
 myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory pal- 
 aces of the Heavenly King. He becomes like 
 some instrument, long played upon by some master 
 musician, whose very fibre loses its harshness and 
 coarseness and takes on a new quality. 
 
 This power clothed Peter at Pentecost, made 
 Stephen irresistible even before his stoners, and 
 made Wesley and Whitefield the mightiest preach- 
 ers of the last century ; this power made Edwards 
 at Enfield, and Nettleton, in the simplest repetition 
 of a text, mighty to move and sway a whole audi- 
 ence. 
 
 Be assured, the greatest lack of missions, both 
 at home and abroad, is the want of this anointing. 
 Tany before God till you get it. No waiting for 
 this is wasting time. Better one day, with power 
 from on high, than a hundred or a thousand in its 
 absence. God would not have us neglect the nat- 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 229 
 
 ural basis of studious and systematic preparation, 
 for grace sets no premium on sloth, and a mind 
 and heart fitted by devout study of the Word of 
 God is most likely to be endued. 
 
 Nor would God have us neglect the spiritual 
 basis, in general purity and piety of character. 
 The anointing implies previous cleansing, as the 
 Levites were washed with water before they were 
 anointed with oil. But, beside and beyond this, 
 God would have us feel our deep need of the 
 promise of the Father. May the Spirit of God 
 be to us all a Socrates, to bring us from ignorance 
 and impotence unconscious to ignorance and im- 
 potence conscious. Then let oiu" need drive 
 us to God. Let the securing of this unction be 
 our supreme aim and absorbing prayer. Putting 
 away the ambition to originate brilliant and start- 
 hng thoughts, or weave the golden and silver 
 tissues of ornate speech — we must get so near to 
 the heart of God that we shall care more for the 
 groan of one wounded soul than for the shouts of 
 thousands that praise the beauty of the bow or the 
 grace of the archer. " Tarry until you are en- 
 dued with power from on high." What is needed 
 is a heart that can hurl hot shot at the citadels of 
 Satan ; not the iron tongue of passionate denuncia- 
 tion, or the silver tongue of flashing rhetoric, or 
 the golden tongue of persuasive oratory, but the 
 tongue of fire set aflame by a coal from heavenly 
 altars. 
 
230 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Here — reverently let it be recorded — here lies 
 the basis and bottom of all power in subduing this 
 world for Christ. After the whole armor of God 
 is endued, there must still be vigor and vitality to 
 wear it and wield it. Our weapons are mighty 
 only when we ourselves are first strong in the 
 Lord and in the power of His might. The pan- 
 ophed soldier needs still the nameless charm and 
 investment of a divine baptism and chrism. 
 
 This, then, is the complex yet simple power of 
 missions — Christ on the throne ruling the Church, 
 restraining the powers of darkness, and extending 
 His shield over His own ; Christ on the battle- 
 field riding His white horse and leading His 
 Church to conflict and conquest ; marshalling His 
 heavenly host and the great armies of an obedient 
 creation to bring His plans to consummation ; 
 then the Holy Spirit, enduing His witnesses and 
 making them the power of God to win souls. 
 When our ministers and missionaries recognize and 
 reahze this need, cherish this aim, and breathe 
 this prayer on every field of missions, a new force 
 will be felt and a new power manifested. Then 
 we shall see results on the whole field. Doors will 
 open, until not a hermit nation remains or one 
 shut gate confronts us. 
 
 Gigantic barriers will be removed and walls of 
 adamant will crumble. Converts will be multi- 
 phed till they spring up like grass along water- 
 courses. Congregations will gather, churches will 
 
THE FORCE OF MISSIONS. 23 r 
 
 be organized, schools will be established — every- 
 where, even in the deserts, streams will burst forth 
 and flow God-ward, turning the wilderness into 
 Eden ; native evangelists will press into the regions 
 beyond, opposition will only make disciples strong, 
 and martyr fires only kindle flames of love to 
 God and man. Before a Church that enthrones 
 Christ in the heart and follows Him everywhere, 
 before a Church baptized with the fire of the Holy 
 Ghost, nothing can stand. Francis Xavier stood 
 before China and saw its vastness loom up hke a 
 mountain that shut out the very sky, and he cried, 
 " O rock, rock, when wilt thou open to my Mas- 
 ter ? " And that rock still stands, the Gibraltar 
 of heathenism. God waits to be asked, and wills 
 to give us all this power simply for the asking. A 
 dying world is about us — nay, a dead world — but 
 the Word of Life is in our hands. O for the Spirit 
 of Life ! Let Him endue us, and our speech is 
 no more with enticing words of man's wisdom, but 
 with demonstration of the Holy Ghost. In the 
 Valley of Indecision the wind of Heaven breathes, 
 signs of life appear — the dry bones move — bone 
 cleaves to bone : the skeleton of creed is clad 
 with the flesh of faith, and, where the slain of Satan 
 lay, the hosts of God encamp. For such power 
 from on high let us so earnestly seek, that every 
 breath of spiritual life shall become a prayer ! 
 
VI. 
 
 THE DIVINE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 
 
 HE fruit of missions constitutes a seal 
 from God upon the work and the work- 
 men. 
 
 When Mark brings his Gospel narrative to a 
 conclusion, he significantly says, " And they went 
 forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working 
 with (them) and confirming the word with signs 
 following." The Lord co-operated with His 
 appointed and anointed workmen, and confirmed 
 their work and His own word by appropriate signs. 
 In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, at least 
 one representative instance is given of the various 
 signs promised. Take Paul's experience alone. 
 At Philippi, he cast out the demon from the 
 divining damsel ; at Ephesus, he laid his hands on 
 disciples and they spake with new tongues; at 
 Melita, he shook off the deadly viper that fastened 
 on his hand and felt no harm ; and at Ephesus 
 likewise special miracles were wrought by his hands, 
 so that from his body were brought unto the sick 
 handkerchiefs or aprons,* etc. 
 
 * Acts xix. II, 12. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 233 
 
 There are those who affirm that, at no time in 
 subsequent Christian history, have supernatural 
 signs ever been absolutely lacking, as evidences of 
 the presence and power of Him who promised, 
 saying, " Lo, I am with you alway." It is quite 
 noticeable that, while this promise of the Lord's 
 presence extends " to the end of the age," no such 
 language is used about the signs; the difference in 
 terms is very remarkable : '' And these signs shall 
 follow them that believe." Here it is not said 
 that those particular signs shall continue to be 
 WTOught, alway, even to the end of the age ; but 
 only that they ''shall follow," as they did, for an 
 indefinite time. Had our Lord meant to assure 
 us that such signs should be as perpetual as His 
 presence, it was easy for Him to add one word, 
 " alway," to make that plain. But He did not, 
 and we infer that there was and is a deep reason. 
 He foresaw that, while some signs would always 
 follow faithful preaching and true believing, these 
 were not to be perpetually \vrought ; and that, 
 while so?ne signs would always be needful to ac- 
 credit the work as His own, these particular signs 
 might not always be necessary, or even expedient. 
 As a structure rises from base to cap-stone, we 
 find it best to change the form, face, and even 
 nature, of the material. The huge unhewn blocks 
 which are laid as the foundation would be awk- 
 ward, ungraceful, and unduly massive, in the super- 
 structure ; and so stones of lighter weight, chiselled 
 
234 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 into beauty and polished into lustre, wrought often 
 into dehcate forms, slender columnar shapes with 
 capitals of exquisite tracery, airy arches and lance- 
 like pinnacles, rise toward heaven. There is not 
 more difference between the rough, bulky bulb of 
 a hyacinth and the tender, slender petals, than be- 
 tween the rude and massive basal stones and the 
 white blossoms which burst into stony flowers 
 above them. But all are equally parts of one 
 building. And so the primitive signs, wrought in 
 the apostohc age, had their special design and 
 served their special purpose. They laid the base 
 of apostoHc work and testimony ; but, when foun- 
 dations were thus laid, it was perhaps better that, 
 as the structure rose upon this base, the supernat- 
 ural character of the work should be attested in 
 different ways, and the form of such attestation 
 change with the demand of each new age ; so that, 
 while supernatural signs should never cease, they 
 should acquire new force from their very variety. 
 And, with Professor ChristHeb, we firmly hold 
 that, in the history of modern missions particularly, 
 we find numerous occurrences which unmistakably 
 remind us of the apostoHc age ; * and, he adds, 
 " We cannot, therefore, fully admit the proposition 
 that no more miracles are performed in our day." 
 In fact, it is not rash to assert that there are 
 still, in this remote day, supernatural signs curi- 
 ously corresponding to the miracles of the first 
 * •• Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," 332. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 235 
 
 century.* Perhaps we need not hesitate to call 
 them " modern miracles," since a miracle is simply 
 a uwnder and a sign combined, i.e.^ something 
 transcending the power of man, to which God ap- 
 peals as a sign of His power. " The bhnd receive 
 their sight," when eyes, long blinded to sin and 
 hoHnesSj are opened to see the deformity of the 
 one and the beauty of the other. "The lame 
 walk," when moral impotency and inability are 
 divinely displaced by power to resist even the 
 most mighty temptations and to break the bonds 
 of the most enslaving vices. ''The lepers are 
 cleansed," whenever the very blood becom.es rid 
 of the vile virus of lust, and the unclean beast be- 
 comes virtuous, humane, holy. '' The deaf hear," 
 when ears, hopelessly insensible alike to the warn- 
 ings of justice and the invitations of mercy, and 
 which even the thunders of Sinai could not pierce, 
 now catch the whispers from Calvary and the still 
 small voice of that Spirit that comes not in earth- 
 quake, storm, or roaring conflagration. "The 
 dead are raised up," when those who have been 
 destitute of all the energy, the sensibiHty, the 
 vitality, and the activity of spiritual life, waken 
 like Lazarus to cast off the death-damps and 
 grave-clothes, and walk with God and work for 
 God, and war against sin and Satan ; when that 
 upper story of oiu- triple being, the true observa- 
 tory of the spii-it, which sin turned into a death- 
 
 * " Modern Miracles," by Lelia Thomson. 
 
236 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 chamber, again becomes the shrine and throne of 
 the Holy Ghost. It is by no means certain that 
 these moral miracles are not in their way more 
 convincing signs of divine power than any others 
 wrought in a lower sphere. 
 
 That great Messianic prophecy and poem, in 
 Isaiah,* more than hints that earher signs may give 
 way to later ones, not less convincing and conclu- 
 sive in their way. " Instead of the thorn shall 
 come up the fir-tree ; and, instead of the brier, 
 shall come up the myrtle-tree ; and it shall be to 
 the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that 
 shall not be cut off." 
 
 The exact language here used must not escape 
 us. In Genesis iii. 17, 18, we read: "And unto 
 Adam he said. Because thou hast .... eaten of 
 the tree of which I commanded thee, saying thou 
 shalt not eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy 
 sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of 
 thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring 
 forth unto thee." A tree was the occasion of 
 sin, and so the very soil which bore the tree was 
 cursed, and thorns and thistles borne by the ground 
 became signs of curse. 
 
 When Jesus, the second Adam, bore up to the 
 cross the sin that cursed the first Adam and the 
 Adamic race, He bore on His royal head a " croivfi 
 of thorns:' Little did those soldiers know that in 
 their mockery they were unconsciously prophesy- 
 
 * Isaiah Iv. 13. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 237 
 
 ing ; for He who lifted up the thorns on His own 
 bleeding brow was to remove the curse even from 
 the ground. The whole creation has a redemp- 
 tion, and in His crucifixion that redemption was 
 signified and symboHzed. As a tree brought the 
 curse, so a tree bore the curse away. He who 
 hung on the cursed tree has transformed the tree 
 of the knowledge of good and evil into a tree of 
 life, and He wore as His crown the thorns that were 
 the signs of curse. And now hear the prophetic 
 promise of what is to be the ultimate result : 
 " God's word that goeth forth out of His mouth " 
 shall be like " the rain that cometh down and the 
 snow from heaven," pure, celestial condensations 
 and distillations, and it shall not return to Him 
 void, but shall accomplish His gracious pleasure, 
 and shall prosper in its holy mission. Under the 
 distillations of that life-giving Gospel, the earth, 
 which caused to bud * thorns and briers, shall cause 
 to bud a harvest of heavenly fruits which give 
 '' seed to the sower and bread to the eater." And 
 the sign of this accomplished redemption shall be 
 that, "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir- 
 tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the 
 myrtle-tree." 
 
 Can any figurative expression be plainer ? In- 
 stead of the vile, accursed, vexatious, and vicious 
 products of the soil, shall be trees and plants, the 
 most beautiful, useful, fragrant, and fruitful. And 
 
 * Gen. iii. 18, Margin. 
 
238 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 this shall prove a divine husbandry. All the toil 
 and skill of man has not been able, in six thousand 
 years, to expel thorns and thistles. They are 
 found everywhere, they spring up spontaneously, 
 grow with great energy, hold with great tenacity, 
 and multiply with inconceivable rapidity, so that 
 one variety of thistle might from the fifth succes- 
 sive harvest of a single seed, supply seeds sufficient 
 to plant every square foot of soil in the solar sys- 
 tem, from Mercury to Neptune ! But let the 
 Divine Husbandman come, and with incredible 
 swiftness the whole moral aspect of human nature 
 is changed. In the soil of society, the vile and 
 vicious and virulent growths of sin, that no effort 
 of man has been able to extirpate, are surely 
 eradicated. Forms of evil, of crime, of rebellion 
 against God and revolt against humanity, that 
 generations have vainly sought to destroy, or even 
 reduce, disappear ; and, in their place, are found 
 beautiful characters, with charms that never fade 
 or fall, as does the fohage of deciduous trees, sym- 
 metrical lives, fruitful and fragrant, like the bowers 
 of paradise. " Thy people also shall be all right- 
 eous ; " and it is surely no marvel if in such a 
 transfoi'mation God says men shall see God's hus- 
 bandry — ''that they might be called Trees of 
 Righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He 
 might be glorified." * 
 
 And now let us note that, of such results of the 
 
 * Isaiah Ix. 21, Ixi. 3. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 239 
 
 going forth of His word out of His mouth, God 
 says, "And it shall be to the Lord for a name," 
 i.e.^ a reputation or fame — establishing His glory 
 — " for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut 
 offr This is the only sign that is called everlast- 
 ing, and " that shall not be cut off." Reverently, 
 let us add, this is perhaps the only sign that is in 
 its nature fitted to be everlasting. The progress 
 of human discovery and invention has gone far 
 toward ameliorating, relieving, and removing the 
 ills to which the body is heir. Modem medicine 
 and surgery have, by methods ^purely scientific, 
 caused the bhnd to receive their sight, the lame 
 to walk, the lepers to be cleansed, the deaf to 
 hear, and even the apparently dead to be raised. 
 What future medical, surgical, and sanitary art 
 and science may do, like Pharaoh's magicians, to 
 imitate with their enchantments certain miracles 
 of God, we cannot say. But there is one point 
 at which all competition is at an end, viz., the 
 transformatio)i of moral and spiritual character. 
 The soul of man and the soil of society, even 
 under the most careful culture, never lose sin. 
 There is a strange sinfulness even in our nature 
 that crops out everywhere, and at all times. Its 
 forms of manifestation change from coarser and 
 grosser, but are more subtle and dangerous even 
 under their refinement. Education has never yet 
 eliminated sin from man's nature or society. Here 
 is a sign of divine power that cannot be counter- 
 
240 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 feited by science or art or culture, or even reform. 
 Between moral reformation and spiritual regenera- 
 tion there is still a great gulf fixed, and man can- 
 not bridge it. The seven golden ages — of Egypt 
 under the Ptolemies, Greece under Pericles, Rome 
 under Augustus, Italy under Leo the Great, France 
 under Louis the Magnificent, Russia under Ivan 
 IV., England under Elizabeth, — were ages of 
 awful profligacy, infidelity, and immorality. God 
 has never given to man the key of life, though 
 He may have given him the key of knowledge. 
 Only He who is the Alpha and Omega has the 
 keys of hell and of death, and can release the soul 
 held in chains of hellish habits and deadly vices. 
 And here is God's " everlasting sign which shall 
 not be cut off." 
 
 Those who have the widest acquaintance with 
 the history and progress of missions, are rather 
 oppressed with the sense of comparative ignorance, 
 inasmuch as so much remains to be known, and 
 the very vastness of the field baffles the industry 
 that investigates it. But the further these studies 
 are carried the deeper is the impression left on the 
 mind, that the story of missions is, as the Bishop 
 of Ripon finely intimated, a continuation of the 
 Acts of the Apostles: yes, of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, with all its essential supernaturahsm. 
 No exhibition of a Power unmistakably divine, or 
 a Presence unmistakably divine, has ever presented 
 to mankind proofs more obvious than those found 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 241 
 
 in these new chapters in this modern Book of the 
 Acts. The devout student of missions, but most 
 of all the devoted worker in missions, bows before 
 these evidences of a providential and spiritual in- 
 tervention which to his mind defy doubt, not to 
 say denial. 
 
 These proofs need only to be put before the 
 candid and conscientious observer, to compel 
 conviction. We read how, in the days of Christ, 
 " the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb 
 to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to 
 walk, and the bhnd to see ; and they glorified the 
 God of Israel." * Corresponding marvels are to 
 be found in the history of missions, and, when the 
 doubting disciple, or even the sceptical unbeliever, 
 is confronted with them, wonder is excited, and if 
 there be a readiness to be convinced by evidence, 
 conviction becomes irresistible, and God is again 
 glorified. Would that all who profess to be dis- 
 ciples would diligently read this new Book of the 
 Acts, which is the book of facts of modern mis- 
 sions ! There may be seen features correspondent 
 to all the most distinctive and distinguishing marks 
 of the apostolic era. The same Pentecostal out- 
 pouring ; the same marvellous opening of doors, 
 great and effectual ; the same call of God separat- 
 ing the modern apostles to the work of evangeliza- 
 tion ; the same grace, converting the Gentiles, 
 purifying their hearts by faith, and anointing con- 
 * Matt. XV. 31. 
 
242 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 verts for service; the same transformation of 
 individuals, and even communities, by the power 
 of the Word and the Spirit ; the same overcoming 
 of obstacles and triumph over difhculties ; the same 
 supernatural answer to believing prayer. That 
 great world's conference in London in i888 — 
 what was it but another gathering of the Church 
 to hear the missionary laborers rehearse all that 
 God had done with them ? etc. 
 
 What a new epoch of missions will begin when 
 the Church of God will but read with open eyes 
 these new chapters in the history of grace, and see 
 how God is yet present and powerfully working in 
 the world, to honor the witnesses to His Gospel ! 
 
 John Williams' progress through the South Seas 
 was a triumphal march. Even in the career of 
 Paul as, from Antioch to Athens, and from the 
 Golden Horn to the Pillars of Hercules, he went 
 on his great errand of evangelism, there are not 
 more convincing signs of God's power than in 
 John WilHams' voyages, from the shores of Eimeo 
 to the fatal coast of Eromanga ! His missionary 
 career covers but twenty-two years, from 1817 to 
 1839. Yet, like a flying messenger of Jehovah, 
 with a flaming torch, he sped from island to island, 
 and group to group, Aitutaki, Atiu, Raratonga, 
 Mangaia, Raiatea, Samoa, and one unbroken 
 series of successes crowned his work, till not only 
 islands, but groups of islands, came in rapid succes- 
 sion under the sway of Christ's golden sceptre ; 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 243 
 
 and until, in 1834, five years before he fell, he 
 could calmly say : "At the present time, we do 
 not know of any group, or any single island of 
 importance, within two thousand miles of Tahiti, 
 in any direction, to which the glad tidings of sal- 
 vation have not been conveyed ! " In some cases 
 he saw the spears, which a year before were used 
 in desolating warfare, serving as pulpit balustrades ; 
 and the wooden images of the great god of war, 
 ONO, and other similar deities, turned into sup- 
 ports for the roof of common wood-sheds, and 
 other inferior buildings ! The inhabitants of these 
 islands turned with unparalleled rapidity from the 
 worship of idols and the practice of cannibahsm, 
 burned their Maraes, and laid their false gods at 
 the missionaries' feet as trophies of Gospel triumph. 
 
 When Rev. Jas. Calvert was asked to give in 
 one sentence a proof of the success of missions, 
 he said, " When I first arrived at the Fiji group, 
 my first duty was to bury the hands, feet, heads, 
 and bones of the arms and legs of eighty victims 
 whose bodies had been roasted and eaten in a 
 cannibal feast. I hved to see the very cannibals 
 who had taken part in that inhuman festival gath- 
 ered about the Lord's Table." 
 
 The cannibalism of Fiji was not simply the re- 
 sult of an impulse of passsionate hate or revenge, 
 but an institution inwoven with the very fabric of 
 social life, and even religion. It was not the re- 
 sort of, hunger, for with plenty and variety of food, 
 
244 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 human bodies were regarded as a delicacy to be 
 prefen-ed. Rev. S. McFarlane, LL.D., has sug- 
 gested that the Fijians regarded cannibahsm as 
 an act of supreme revenge upon a fallen enemy ; 
 a kind of vindication of the national honor, which 
 patriotic pride demanded ; and to devour a slain 
 enemy might also imply the transfer of his strength 
 and prowess to him who ate him. But, more than 
 this, Dr. Seemann suggests that cannibal feasts 
 belonged to the ceremonies of religion. The 
 ovens are never used for any other purpose, and 
 whereas fingers are the only forks used in eating 
 ordinary food, for human flesh a peculiar fork, 
 with three or four prongs, made of hard wood, 
 and each fork known by its peculiar name, is used. 
 These forks are evidently regarded as sacred, and 
 as profaned by the touch of a foreigner. Under 
 the great banyan-tree, the sacred Akautabu, can- 
 nibal feasts took place, and certain parts of the 
 bodies of victims were hung on this tree. Here 
 the famous cannibal chief, Thakombau, kept his 
 abominable revels.* 
 
 Where this practice of cannibalism was thus 
 associated with social custom, appetite, revenge, 
 patriotism, and even rehgion, we might expect that 
 the higher the rank the more indulgence there 
 would be in this revolting practice ; and the fact 
 is, that many of the chiefs gloried in the number 
 of human bodies they had eaten, and kept a regis- 
 
 * "Among the Cannibals of New Guinea," 100-102. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 245 
 
 ter by making a line of stones, one stone being 
 added for each body eaten. The stones thus 
 placed by two chiefs, Wangka Levu and Ra 
 Undre Undre, were counted by a native teacher, 
 and found to number nearly nme hundred ; and 
 as many as fifty bodies have been cooked for a 
 single feast. What a dynamic power must be 
 found in a simple Gospel message that could 
 eradicate customs so deeply rooted in the very 
 soil of society ! 
 
 This story of Fiji it would be difficult to surpass, 
 either for the depth of cruelty, iniquity, and idola- 
 try there confronted by the Gospel, or for the 
 rapid, radical, and revolutionary changes which 
 that Gospel wrought. Human life was held in 
 reckless disregard. An Englishman named Jack- 
 son was witness to the sacrifice to earth spirits. 
 A chief was building a new hut, and deep holes 
 were dug to receive the main posts on which the 
 house was to rest. To propitiate the gods to up- 
 hold the dwelling, men were forced to stand in 
 these holes and clasp these posts while the earth 
 was filled in and buried them alive. At the launch- 
 ing of a war canoe, Hving human bodies were used 
 as rollers, and they were crushed to a shapeless 
 mass beneath the weight. The sacrifice of human 
 hfe was wanton, as though, instead of crime, it 
 implied merit. 
 
 In 1835 there was not a single disciple. When, 
 fifty years later, in 1885, ^^^ Jubilee was kept, not 
 
246 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 an avowed heathen was left in all the large group 
 of eighty inhabited islands; and the returns of 
 that year show a total of 1,322 churches and other 
 preaching places, 3,021 missionaries, catechists, 
 and teachers, only ten of whom were ivhite mis- 
 sionaries, and, out of a population of 110,000, 
 104,585 attendants at public worship. To-day 
 not a vestige of cannibaHsm, widow-strangling, 
 infanticide and like cruelties, exists, and the Fijian 
 Church sends native evangelists to other distant 
 shores to preach Christ in other tongues. Mr. 
 Calvert himself testifies : " We had no night of 
 toil. God was with us from, the beginning, and 
 all along, even to the present time, and he Has 
 ever confirmed His Word with signs following." 
 
 That same chief, Thakombau, who, under the 
 sacred Akautabu, cut out the tongue of a captive 
 chief who with it was begging for a speedy death, 
 and jocosely ate it before his face, afterwards 
 built a chapel at Bau, and at his own death-bed 
 preached to his attendants faith and salvation. 
 Ten days after the big death drums had summoned 
 the people to a cannibal feast, in 1854, those same 
 drums were by his orders sounded as a signal for 
 the assembling of the people for divine worship ! * 
 The last act of Thakombau, in October, 1874, 
 was to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria, and, through 
 Sir John B. Thurston, his Prime Minister, present 
 his war club to her Majesty, with the significant 
 
 * Jas. Calvert, iii. 
 
TIIR FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 247 
 
 confession that, " until of late that war club was 
 the only known law of P'iji." That club, with 
 his yanggona bowl, may be seen in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 How little would Canon Taylor's and Mr. 
 Caine's criticisms of missions affect minds that 
 were familiar with the great facts of missionary 
 biography and history ! For example, when Cap- 
 tain Cook touched at Tahiti, he wrote: "This 
 island can neither serve pubhc interests nor private 
 ambition, and will probably never be much 
 known," About the close of the eighteenth cent- 
 ury, William Carey and his fellows so aroused the 
 dormant missionary spirit in the churches, that 
 the London Missionary Society sent missionaries 
 to this island. There was a long " night of toil." 
 Sixteen years went by without a sign of blessing. 
 One day a missionary, with a group of savages 
 about him, read, from a manuscript copy of the 
 Gospel according to John, the third chapter. As 
 he came to the sixteenth verse, which Luther 
 called " the Gospel in miniature," a rude warrior 
 in the group asked him to read that verse again 
 and again. Then he said, "This, if it be true, is 
 iox you only, not for such as w^." But the mis- 
 sionary repeated that wonderful word, '^Whoso- 
 ever^' and dwelt upon its meaning. " Then," said 
 the warrior, "your God shall be my God ; for we 
 have never heard such a message as this ; our 
 gods do not love us so." 
 
248 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 It is not yet seventy-five years since that first 
 convert, who was also the first-fruits of all Poly- 
 nesia, was brought from darkness to light ; yet 
 now in Polynesia there are about eight hundred 
 thousand converts ; and the work has spread till 
 it has reached New Guinea. A band of not less 
 than one hundred and sixty young men and women, 
 going from Tahiti and the neighboring islands, as 
 evangehsts, seek to carry the hfe-giving Gospel to 
 other benighted tribes; and, of all these native 
 workers, not one has ever proved recreant or faith- 
 less. Yet these are the people who, at the begin- 
 ning of this century, had lost all idea of God save 
 that, somewhere afar off, some strange being dwelt, 
 who exercised sovereignty as a tyrannical despot ; 
 and at the graves of their ancestors, they were 
 wont to go and beseech them to plead with this 
 unapproachable Deity ! 
 
 No more expressive and laconic tablet is to be 
 found in the world than that raised by grateful 
 native converts to Dr. John Geddie on Aneityum, 
 one of the Loyalty Islands, or New Hebrides. It 
 bears in their language the now famous but unique 
 parallelism : 
 
 "WHEN HE LANDED HERE 
 
 IN 1848, 
 
 THERE WERE NO CHRISTIANS ; 
 
 WHEN HE LEFT HERE 
 
 IN 1872, 
 
 THERE WERE NO HEATHENS." 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 249 
 
 On most of the islands of Western Polynesia a 
 similar tablet might be erected, a brief epitome of 
 the wonderful work of God within less than a 
 century. And in these lands, where missions have 
 had their modern triumphs, some of the most 
 heroic converts and evangelists have been found. 
 
 Who has not read the story of Lugalama, the 
 first martyr of Uganda ! The cruel Mwanga seized 
 him and Seruwanga and Kakumba, his compan- 
 ions ; and, apparently from no other cause than 
 because these lads had found their way to firm 
 faith in Jesus while yet the king was halting be- 
 tween two opinions, he determined in a rage to put 
 them to death by torture. Mujasi, the cruel 
 wretch who wreaked upon these poor boys the hate 
 of Mwanga, mocked them. " O, you know Isa 
 Masiya (Jesus Christ), do you ? . . . . Youbeheve 
 you will rise from the dead, do you? Well, I 
 shall burn you and see." The lads answered the 
 mockery by a sacred hymn : 
 
 " Killa siku tunsifer !" 
 
 (" Daily, daily, sing the praises," etc.) 
 
 A dismal swamp, Maganja, was the chosen 
 Golgotha for these young martyrs. The jeering 
 crowd build a rude frame-work and heap fuel 
 beneath. First they mutilate Seruwanga and 
 Kakumba, and fling their bleeding bodies upon 
 the frame-work for the agony of the flame. Then 
 the executioners approach Lugalama, and he cries, 
 " O do not cut off my arms : I will not struggle 
 
250 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 nor fight — only throw me into the fire ! " What 
 a sad prayer : " Only throw me into the fire ! " 
 But cruelty insists on butchery, and the armless 
 trunk is flung upon the frame-work for slow fires 
 to finish what the sharp blade has begun. But, 
 until their tongues are crisped in the flame, those 
 martyrs continue to sing praises. Cranmer and 
 Ridley and Huss and Jerome did not honor the 
 Lord more truly ; and when Musah, standing by, 
 was threatened with a hke fate, he boldly said to 
 Mujasi, " I am a follower of Isa, and I am not 
 ashamed of Him." 
 
 A young Sunday-school teacher, a poor seam- 
 stress, one Sunday gave to a rough street arab a 
 shilling to go to Sunday-school. That boy, Amos 
 Sutton, was converted, went to India as mission- 
 ary, and led the American Baptists to begin work 
 among the Telugus. How little they knew the 
 stupendous results that were to hang on that mis- 
 sion ! In 1853, the American Baptist Missionary 
 Union, meeting at Albany, seriously considered 
 whether it would not be best to give up that work 
 altogether — so unfruitful had it been. It was on 
 that occasion that the poet. Dr. S. F. Smith, wrote 
 the now famous verses, '' Shine on, Lone Star." 
 The mission was continued and reinforced. 
 Twenty-five years after, that mission gathered 
 ten thousand converts in one year — a result of 
 Christian labor which probably surpasses in mag- 
 nitude any other ever known in Christian history. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 251 
 
 The work of the American Baptist Missionary 
 Union covers seventy-seven years (1814-1891). 
 Their first station was begun in 18 14; six years 
 of sowing passed before they had one convert to 
 baptize, in 1 8 1 9. At the end of ten years they had 
 but one small church of eighteen, to reward a 
 decade of trial, self-denial, persecution, imprison- 
 ment, and delayed fruit. Now, looking back over 
 the whole period, and including that first decade, 
 on their mission fields they have organized one 
 church for every three weeks, or about seventeen 
 a year, and baptized one convert for every three 
 hours, day and night, or about three thousand a 
 year — over two hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 in all. 
 
 In 181 9, one baptism; in 1886, 9,342. In 
 1824, one church of 18 ; 1886, 123,580 members. 
 In 1814, $1,230.26 income ; 1886-7, $351,889.69. 
 In 1814, Mr. and Mrs. Judson the whole force; 
 1887, 1,986 laborers. In 18 14, Burmah the one 
 field; 1886, sixteen fields. 
 
 When Adoniram Judson found that some of 
 the friends of foreign missions were beginning to 
 lose heart, he exhorted them to '' wait twenty or 
 thirty years, and then perhaps," said he, '' you will 
 hear from us again." Once, while sick, he occu- 
 pied the empty cage of a lion which had just died. 
 After the lapse of years, the King of Burmah, at 
 his own expense, built a Christian church, a par- 
 sonage and a school-house, near the very spot 
 
252 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 where the Hon's cage had stood. And the king's 
 sons were pupils in the school taught by the Chris- 
 tian missionaries. 
 
 In Turkey the missionaries have made seven 
 new translations of the Word of God within one 
 generation ; there are in Constantinople twenty- 
 one sets of electrotype plates for as many editions, 
 and over two million copies have been distributed. 
 Rev. Charles Wheeler's work on the Euphrates is 
 another example of the fruits of missions, and of 
 the peculiar fruit of that field. All along that 
 ancient river he planted little Christian churches 
 of an apostolic sort. He taught the converts to 
 give a tithe of their small income to the Lord, 
 and so out of tcji converts he would organize a 
 church — a self-supporting church ; for over such 
 a httle flock he could set a native pastor, who 
 could live on the average level of his own people, 
 since their ten tithes would assure him a support 
 equal to their own. Probably no such self-sup- 
 porting churches are to be found elsewhere except 
 among the Unitas Fratrum. 
 
 In the Mumahassa, or North Peninsula of 
 Celebes, Riedel and Schwarr were the means, after 
 1829, of turning to Christ more than half the popu- 
 lation of one hundred and fourteen thousand.* 
 John G. Paton went to Aniwa, that little island 
 where every atrocity and iniquity had a home, and 
 in three years and a half saw a transformed com- 
 
 * George Smith, " Short History," p. 180. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 253 
 
 munity, the chief himself leading the way both in 
 the espousal of Christ and the public confession 
 of Him ; and no book of modern missions has 
 more fascinated every lover of missions than the 
 story of Aniwa. Wm. A. B. Johnson went to 
 Sierra Leone in 18 16. He found there the ac- 
 cumulated refuse of slave ships, thirty African 
 tribes represented, horrible crimes of lust and drink 
 and violence, holding Satanic carnival. He lived 
 only seven years ; but before he died he saw that 
 whole community transformed into a model state, 
 like Duncan's Metlakahtla among North Ameri- 
 can Indians ; in fact, before eighteen months had 
 passed, Mr. Johnson saw a revival so wide-spread 
 and deep-reaching that it could be compared only 
 to Pentecost. 
 
 " Comparative theology," says Dr. Flint, " is a 
 magnificent demonstration, not only that man was 
 made for religion, but what religion he was made 
 for." It is true that results have come slowly at 
 the first in most cases, like the most valuable har- 
 vests. In the Hawaiian group, five years passed 
 by before the first convert, the Regent Kauhumanu, 
 yielded to Christ; six years in Burmah, before 
 Moung Nau, and as many years among the Karens, 
 before Kho-Thah-Byu, rewarded the toil. In India, 
 it was seven years before Krishna Chundra Pal 
 was baptized ; and in Siam it was twelve before 
 Nai Chune became the first-fruits. Mr. Henry and 
 Mr. Nott waited at Tahiti sixteen years before 
 
254 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Pomare II., the king, took the lead in conversion, 
 and at New Zealand Samuel Marsden lived on 
 hope alone for twenty years. In Australia, in 
 i860, Nathaniel Pipper was the first convert, after 
 thirty-six years ; and so great was the event that 
 a pubhc meeting was called to celebrate it, with 
 the governor in the chair ; and in the mountains 
 of Na Vita Leva, in the Fiji group, paganism sur- 
 vived for more than fifty years after the first mis- 
 sionaries had landed. Notwithstanding the fact 
 that the Fijians had, as a nation, long since 
 renounced idols, paganism survived in this moun- 
 tain district till about ten years ago. 
 
 But all this waiting has had its reward. The 
 Hawaiian Islands more than twenty years since 
 took their place among Christian nations ; where 
 Adoniram Judson toiled there are now more than 
 thirty thousand converted Burmese ; where Mr. 
 Boardman baptized Kho Tha Byu in 1828, in 
 1878, when the Memorial Hall was built to keep 
 the Jubilee of that event, there were thirty thousand 
 Christian Karens who had fallen asleep beside as 
 many more who were living for Christ. Sir Charles 
 Bernard recently stated that the Christian Karens 
 number two hundred thousand, or fully one-third 
 of the Karen people. About five hundred con- 
 gregations are practically self-supporting. They 
 tithe the produce of their land for the support of 
 their pastors. They also send missionaries to 
 Siam and furnish all their support. 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 255 
 
 Where Carey and his colaborers sowed in tears, 
 there are not less than eight hundred thousand 
 baptized East Indians, and Christian communities 
 numbering four or five times as many. That first 
 convert of all Western Polynesia was the leader of 
 a host now numbering eight hundred thousand 
 living disciples in the South Seas. Samuel Mars- 
 den's twenty years of patience has its reward : in 
 1842, twenty-eight years after he landed in New 
 Zealand, a bishop was sent from Britain to take 
 charge of a diocese which included the whole 
 nation ; and among the Fiji group not one pro- 
 fessedly heathen village can be found since that 
 last mountain citadel yielded to Christ. 
 
 These are but a few examples among many. 
 We might multiply them indefinitely, showing that, 
 even where the laborers have been called to exer- 
 cise long patience, the latter rain has come though 
 the early rain was withheld, and the harvest has 
 proved abundant. 
 
 Mission work proper began in China with the 
 cession of Hong Kong in 1843. Then the labor- 
 ers were very few and the converts in all, seven ; 
 in 1888, 34,555. The rate of increase is notice- 
 able : in the twenty-five years from 1863 to 1888, 
 the rate was eighteen-fold ; at the same rate, the 
 next quarter century would show over 850,000, 
 and a half century more would show fifteen milHon, 
 or one in every twenty-five inhabitants a professed 
 disciple. This increase of ratio is one of the com- 
 
256 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 mon facts of missionary history : the progression 
 is not '' arithmetical," but " geometrical " — not 
 along the slow lines of addition, but by the rapid 
 process of multiplication ; not, like a line, in one 
 direction of length only, but like an expanding 
 cube, in breadth and depth and height also. Let 
 the Church but do her duty and God will show 
 greater wonders still; thirty-fold shall become 
 sixty, and an hundred-fold. 
 
 The fruit of missionary toil must be judged nega- 
 tively as well as positively — by what it has displaced 
 as well as by what it has created. 
 
 Rev. William Ward gives the testimony of a 
 Hindu Pundit, that in the province of Bengal 
 alone, ten thousand children were every month 
 put to death by their own mothers. On the coast 
 of Malabar evil spirits have for centuries been 
 worshipped by all classes except Brahmins, all 
 other Hindus paying them homage. To the low- 
 est caste, that of slaves, is attributed the power to 
 let loose upon men the evil demon, and exorcists 
 are called in with noisy native drums, charms, and 
 incantations, to drive out the malignant spirit. In 
 the district of Canara alone were 4,041 temples 
 to evil demons, beside 3,682 to other fanes, only 
 as long ago as 1842; and it was emphatically 
 " Satan's seat." 
 
 Claudius Buchanan, in 1806, knew his approach 
 to Juggernaut, when yet fifty miles off, by the 
 human bones which paved the way. He called 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS, 257 
 
 it *' the Valley of Death," hkening it to the valley 
 of Hinnom, and Juggernaut, to the ancient Mo- 
 loch. He found the temples of this hideous 
 monster decked with the symbols of sensuality, 
 walls and gates bearing indecency, wrought in 
 massive sculpture as in the buried city at the foot 
 of Vesuvius. Two kindred idols, Boloram and 
 Shudubra, brother and sister, were borne along 
 with Juggernaut in festive procession. The priests 
 taught the people that the great weight of the 
 huge car would be moved only as they, the dev- 
 otees, pleased the hideous god with lascivious 
 attitude, gesture, and song. The green slime of 
 the leprosy of lust and the red stains of blood 
 covered the worship of Juggernaut. And yet a 
 quarter century ago the crowds were so great at 
 his festivals that '' one hundred thousand attend- 
 ants would not be missed." 
 
 For two hundred and fifty years England 
 seemed blind to Divine Providence in British oc- 
 cupation of the East Indies^ and her rulers fought 
 against the evangelization of India. Up to the 
 time of the new charter of the East India Com- 
 pany, in 1813, the opposition was open, systematic, 
 and often mahgnant and violent. Tongues and 
 pens were used, and ignorance united with viru- 
 lence against missions. The arguments employed 
 were so absurd that Dr. Duff has compared them 
 to curious " fossil rehques of antediluvian ages." 
 
 When, in 1793, in a bill pending for renewal 
 
258 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 of the Company's charter, clauses were introduced 
 meant to encourage the propagation of the Gospel, 
 they were promptly and peremptorily ftegatived. 
 A learned prelate in the House of Lords, a 
 champion of orthodoxy, too, argued against any 
 interference with the religion, laws, local customs 
 of the people of India, alleging that upon English- 
 men rested " no obHgation to attempt the conver- 
 sion of the natives," even were it possible — which 
 he denied ; and that " the command to preach the 
 Gospel to all nations did not in this case apply ! " 
 
 In 181 3, in the British House of Commons, 
 Mr. Charles Marsh likewise protested against the 
 introduction of Christianity into India: 
 
 " When I look at the peaceful and harmonious 
 alliances of families, guarded and secured by the 
 household virtues ; when I see amongst a cheerful 
 and well-ordered society the benignant and soften- 
 ing influences of rehgion and morality ; a system 
 of manners founded upon a mild and poHshed 
 obedience, and preserving the surface of social 
 hfe smooth and unrufled, I cannot hear without 
 surprise, mingled with horror, of sending out Bap- 
 tists and anabaptists to civilize and convert such 
 a people, at hazard of disturbing or deforming 
 institutions which appear to have been hitherto 
 the means ordained by Providence of making 
 them virtuous and happy." * 
 
 This was seventy-eight years ago; and while 
 
 * Exeter Hall Lectures, 1850-1, 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIOXS. 259 
 
 Mr. Marsh was indulging his philippic against 
 missions, a class of Hindu procurers, called 
 " Panwas," made it their profession to provide 
 victims for a hideous human sacrifice in the Meriah 
 groves. These victims, or " Meriahs," might be 
 selected without regard to age or sex, bought or 
 stolen from the poorer classes ; then conveyed 
 from the plains to the hills, they were sold for so 
 many lives, i.e., cattle, sheep, pigs, or fowls, — the 
 medium of exchange where there is no metalHc 
 currency. As a life unbought would be an abom- 
 ination to the gods, a price must be paid. 
 
 In all the villages young persons were reared 
 and kept in readiness for this slaughter, and within 
 a comparatively small district four or five hundred 
 such sacrifices have been annually offered for 
 probably two or three thousand years. Human 
 blood enriches the soil in the spring-time, and in 
 the autumn must sanctify the harvest ; and mean- 
 while drought, dearth, disease, and other crises call 
 for similar sacrifices. 
 
 Dr. Duff has described these horrid orgies of 
 death : " In the centre of the sacred Meriah grove 
 is an open space. The festival lasts three days, 
 the first of which is consumed in riotous excess of 
 drink and other abominations ; on the second, amid 
 the clang of many instruments, the victim, in gay 
 attire, is borne to the centre of the grove, fastened 
 to a post, and there remains while lust and super- 
 stition revel in nameless indecencies. The victim. 
 
26o THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 smeared with oil, butter, and turmeric, is the ob- 
 ject of homage and worship. The third day is 
 the chmax of horror and cruelty. The victim 
 must neither resist nor be bound, so his arms and 
 legs are usually broken to insure passiveness. A 
 large tree or branch is brought, with a rift or slit 
 up the middle, into which the neck is inserted, the 
 ends being bound with cords ; and thus held fast, 
 the poor creature is ready for the last rites. The 
 hatchet of the priest strikes the shoulders as a 
 signal, and then, with the swiftness and the fury 
 of madmen, the whole multitude pounce upon 
 him, tear every shred of flesh from the bones, 
 and fling these bloody fragments over the fields, 
 an offering to the deity." These are a part of 
 those "means ordained by Providence of mak- 
 ing them virtuous and happy," — those beneficent 
 " institutions," the " hazard of disturbing or de- 
 forming" which filled Mr. Marsh with surprise 
 and horror. 
 
 It need not be said that, notwithstanding Mr. 
 Marsh and his coadjutors, the Christian sentiment 
 prevailed, and the new charter gave sanction to 
 the efforts of missionaries, though, until the East 
 India Company ceased, in 1858, to control, it was 
 always the secret or open foe of missions. The 
 teaching of the Gospel was a hindrance to greed 
 and lust and all injustice and robbery ; and we 
 can understand why one of the directors should 
 have frankly declared that he would rather a band 
 
rilE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 261 
 
 of devils, than of missionaries, landed in India.* 
 We can also account for the spirit that led some, 
 even amid the horrors of the mutiny and massacre 
 of 1857, to throw up their hats and cry, " Hurrah ! 
 We shall get rid of the saints." But instead, the 
 saints got rid of them. 
 
 Before the transfer of the Company's possessions 
 in 1858, noble men led the way in the reformation 
 of India. In 1829, Lord WilHam Bentinck, gov- 
 ernor, decreed that all aid, assistance, or partici- 
 pation in any suttees should be construed and 
 punished as murder. The Brahmins replied that 
 their conscience dictated that the widow ought to 
 be sacrificed, and asked whether Englishmen did 
 not teach all men to obey conscience. Bentinck 
 repHed : " Obey your conscience: but the English- 
 man's conscience dictates the hanging of every 
 one of you that is a party to such rehgious miirder. 
 Follow your conscience, and I will follow mine ! " 
 Infanticide has been similarly suppressed ; the last 
 link between idol fanes and state patronage was 
 broken in 1863, and Sir John Lawrence's utterance 
 justified, that " Christian acts done in a Christian 
 way will never ahenate the heathen." 
 
 Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, enumerates as fol- 
 lows some of the benefits of British rule in India : 
 
 Horrors and iniquities removed : 
 
 I. Murder of parents by suttee, exposure on 
 river banks, and burial ahve. 
 
 * Exeter Hall, Lectures, 1850-1, pp. 9092. 
 
262 THE DIVINE ENTERFx^ISE. 
 
 II. Murder of children, by dedication to the 
 Ganges, to be devoured by crocodiles, by Rajpoot 
 infanticide. 
 
 III. Human sacrifices, in temples, by wild 
 tribes, and in the Meriah groves of the Khonds. 
 
 IV. Suicide ; by crushing under idol cars ; by 
 devotees drowning themselves in rivers and casting 
 themselves from precipices ; widows leaping into 
 wells ; by Traga. 
 
 V. Voluntary torment: by hook-swinging, 
 thigh-piercing, tongue-extraction, falling on knives, 
 and austerities. 
 
 VI. Involuntary torment : by barbarous execu- 
 tions, mutilation of criminals, evidence under tor- 
 ture, bloody and injurious ordeals, cutting off 
 women's noses, etc. 
 
 VII. Slavery : hereditary, predial, domestic, im- 
 portation of slaves from Africa. 
 
 VIII. Extortions : by Dharana, by Traga. 
 
 IX. Religious intolerance : prevention of propa- 
 gation of Christianity ; requiring Christian soldiers 
 to fire salutes on heathen festivals, saluting gods 
 on official papers, managing affairs of idol temples. 
 
 X. Support of caste by law : exclusion of low 
 castes from office, exemption of high castes from 
 appearing in evidence, disparagement of low caste. 
 
 These results indicate the effect of British 
 occupation of India, only in one direction ; and 
 in spite of all the unfavorable impressions left by 
 the administration of the British East India Com- 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 263 
 
 pany and by all the disastrous mistakes of British 
 residents and provincial governors and their sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 When Dr. Duff began work in Calcutta he 
 looked upon female education as an impossibility. 
 " You might as well try to scale a wall five hun- 
 dred yards high, as attempt female education in 
 India." To-day there are in the province of Ben- 
 gal alone probably not less than 100,000 receiving 
 instruction, and into the higher education not only 
 the lower castes, but many of India's most gifted 
 daughters, are pressing forward. What half a 
 century since was the missionaries' despair has 
 now become their brightest hope : the far-off goal 
 of fifty years ago, so remote as to be invisible, is 
 the starting-point to-day, and will be left far be- 
 hind in the new starting-point of to-morrow. The 
 keenest observers of India's condition, even the 
 natives themselves, frankly confess that the future 
 of that country is to be Christian ; and many of 
 them have said that, while they cannot change, 
 their children will forsake the gods of India. 
 
 In 1834, Mr. Abeel, of China, moved the 
 women of Britain by his appeals to carry the 
 Gospel to women in India and China. This at- 
 tempt was the parent of zenana missions. At 
 that time even Christians and missionaries held it 
 to be impracticable — it was attem.pting to force 
 one's way through gates of steel and walls of 
 stone, to seek access to harems, etc. In 1884, 
 
264 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 the Jubilee year of the ''Society for Promoting 
 Female Education in the East " found one hundred 
 and sixty lady missionaries enrolled, and pupils in 
 zenanas numbering thousands and, in day schools, 
 tens of thousands. In prominent and populous 
 cities, Bible women were entering the richest 
 homes, and enlightened Hindus were clamoring 
 for the education of their wives and daughters. 
 At the Jubilee meeting Shaftesbury said: "The 
 time is at hand when you will see the great dimen- 
 sions of the work you are doing : not only in 
 India, but throughout the East, great changes afe 
 in the future." 
 
 At that Jubilee year zenana missions were 
 established in Japan, Africa, Egypt, Ceylon, Persia, 
 etc. A prominent Hindu says : " If these women 
 reach the hearts of our women they will soon get 
 at the heads of the men of our country." 
 
 The way in which, the key by which, these long- 
 shut zenana doors were actually opened, is interest- 
 ing and suggestive. Mrs. EHzabeth Sale, of Hel- 
 ensburgh, Scotland, writes me : "As soon as I knew 
 enough of the language to make myself understood, 
 I began going into the villages of India among 
 the women, in 1852. In 1856, I got the first en- 
 trance into a zenana proper. In 1858, I began 
 work in Calcutta, and worked more than a year 
 in my first house before I got any one to take 
 anything out of my hand. It was very difficult to 
 get one of the ladies to look at a book, as they 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 265 
 
 feared being made widows if they desired to know 
 anything of the outside world. As soon as some 
 httle bits of work were finished, a little pair of 
 shoes and a bit of canvas work, I had them made 
 up, which so delighted the husbands and brothers 
 that the " wonderful work " was taken to other 
 houses, when invitations came to teach there also. 
 The needle-work had to be made the bribe to 
 learn to read. I had been so far blessed that the 
 ladies in their zenanas were daily hearing the 
 Scriptures read, and some had so far broken 
 through their fears that they were learning to read. 
 
 '* In i860, my husband was ordered to Europe. 
 When I heard of the arrival of Mrs. Mullens and her 
 daughters, I wrote to her of this opening, when she 
 came and was introduced to the ladies of the three 
 zenanas; and from that time the work rapidly spread. 
 Now there is no need of work as a bribe to learn 
 to read, so anxious are the women for instruction." 
 
 It is perhaps worth while to compare the con- 
 ditions of woman's work in India in 1851 and 1881, 
 and see the growth of thirty years. 
 
 1851. 1881. 
 
 Female workers, foreign and native . 1,390 2,485 
 
 Boarding Schools 91 171 
 
 Pupils ...'.... 11,549 49>55o 
 
 Zenanas accessible . 1,300 9,506 
 
 " Pupils 1,977 9,288 
 
 Total under Christian Instruction, 
 
 male and female 77,850 234,790 
 
 Sunday Schools none 83,321 
 
266 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 In thirty years the workers multiplied nearly 
 twofold, the boarding-school pupils over fourfold, 
 the number of open zenanas over sevenfold, and 
 zenana pupils about fivefold, and total number 
 taught, threefold. But as yet this work is but 
 begun. The walls of age-long prejudice are but 
 just giving way ; and what astonishing results may 
 now begin to appear ! 
 
 In such a stronghold of Satan as India, results 
 cannot be estimated by the number of professed 
 converts. Within the Madras Presidency, in the 
 thirty years from 1851 to 1881, churches multi- 
 pHed eighteenfold, Christian adherents fourfold, 
 communicants sevenfold, and lay preachers five- 
 fold; but the Indian Witness, in 1889, makes the 
 public confession : '' Secret beHevers are rapidly 
 multiplying. For every convert avowing faith 
 are hundreds withholding confession for fear of 
 their kin and caste. Thousands are ready when 
 a break shall come." 
 
 We, who hve amid Christian institutions, can- 
 not understand the almost impenetrable barriers 
 through which a convert in India must force his 
 way. Here are 260,000,000 of people, sunk in 
 poverty so deep that a hungry man will pray for 
 tigers because they do not completely devour 
 their victims, and he may, from what they leave, 
 appease his hunger ; and in idolatry so low that a 
 human being will pray to a hole in a rock ; and 
 these millions are bound together in the iron bonds 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 267 
 
 of a caste system which is a '' cellular structure of 
 society, with isolation so complete that the cells 
 never interpenetrate," and yet to break through 
 whose arbitrary restraints is to meet a penalty 
 worse than death. AVhat chance for woman in a 
 land where two propositions form the unit on 
 which all sects and classes agree : " The cow is a 
 holy animal, and entitled to divine honors ; " 
 '* Woman is a wicked animal, entitled to no re- 
 spect!" 
 
 A native Hindu paper thus summarizes the 
 work of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, at Seram- 
 pore : " They created a prose vernacular literature 
 for Bengal ; they established the modern method 
 of popular education ; they gave the first great im- 
 pulse to the native press; they set up the first 
 steams-engine in India ; in ten years they translated 
 and printed the Bible, or parts thereof, in thirty- 
 one languages." 
 
 Hear another witness : " Missionaries come 
 from Britain at a great cost, and tell us that we 
 are in heathen darkness, and that a bundle of 
 fables, called the Bible, is the true Vedanta, which 
 alone can enlighten us. They have cast their net 
 over our children by teaching them in their 
 schools, and they have already made thousands 
 OF Christians, and are continuing to do so. 
 They have penetrated into the most out-of-the-way 
 villages and built churches there. If we continue 
 to sleep as we have done in the past, not one will 
 
2 68 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 be found worshipping in our temples in a very 
 short time ; why, the temples themselves will be 
 converted into Christian churches ! Do you not 
 know that the number of Christians is increas- 
 ing, and the number of the Hindu rehgionists 
 DECREASING cvery day? How long will water 
 remain in a well which continually lets out, but 
 receives none in ! If our reUgion is incessantly 
 drained by Christianity without receiving any ac- 
 cessions, how can it last ? - When our country is 
 turned into the wilderness of Christianity, will the 
 herb of Hinduism grow % We must not fear the 
 missionaries because they have white faces, or 
 because they belong to the ruling class. There 
 is no connection between the Government and 
 Christianity, for the Queen Empress proclaimed 
 neutrahty in all religious matters in 1858. We 
 must, therefore, oppose the missionaries with all 
 our might. Wherever they stand up to preach, 
 let Hindu preachers stand up and start rival 
 preaching at a distance of forty feet from them, 
 and they will soon flee away. Let caste and sec- 
 tarian differences be forgotten, and let all the 
 people join as one man to banish Christianity from 
 our land. All possible efforts should be made to 
 win back those who have embraced Christianity, 
 and all children should be withdrawn from mission 
 schools." — From a Tamil Hindu Tract. 
 
 "At a recent missionary meeting in Bombay, 
 Sir Charles ElHot, fearing they might be forgotten, 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 269 
 
 restated the interesting facts presented two years 
 ago, as to the numerical progress made by Chris- 
 tianity in Hindustan from 1870 to 1881, which 
 showed that, while the general population of India 
 increased by eight per cent, during the ten years 
 closing with the year 1881, there was an increase 
 of thirty per cent, during the same period in the 
 number of Christians. In some portions of India 
 there was a still larger relative increase. In the 
 province of Bengal, while the increase in the num- 
 ber of Hindus in ten years was thirteen per cent., 
 and that of the Mohammedans eleven per cent., 
 that of native Christians was sixty-four per cent. 
 In the province of Assam, in the extreme north- 
 east of India, while during the decade already 
 mentioned the general increase of population was 
 eighteen per cent., there was an increase of one 
 hundred and fifty per cent, in the number of 
 Christians in the eight valley districts, and in the 
 Khasia hills, where a devoted band of Welsh mis- 
 sionaries are doing a grand work, the increase had 
 been at the rate of two hundred and fifty per 
 cent. ! What may have been the comparative 
 results of missionary labors during the decade just 
 closed, and according to the census recently taken, 
 will be known in due time. It will undoubtedly 
 present a greater relative percentage in the increase 
 of native Christians in the sections now named, 
 and also in others. In the face of such facts, he 
 who assumes to say that missions are a failure, 
 
270 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 only shows his own ignorance or a perverse de- 
 termination not to recognize the truth." * 
 
 Eighty-five years ago, says the Missionary Her- 
 ald, the Directors of the East India Company 
 placed on solemn record : '' The sending of 
 Christian missionaries into our Eastern possessions 
 is the maddest, most expensive, most unwarranted 
 project that was ever proposed by a lunatic en- 
 thusiast." A few months since. Sir Rivers Thomp- 
 son, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, said : '' In 
 my judgment. Christian missionaries have done 
 more real and lasting good to the people of India 
 than all other agencies combined." 
 
 And yet there are some who persist in belittling 
 the work of evangeHzation. The London Times, 
 of 1863, accounted for "prevailing apathy as to 
 the propagation of the Gospel by the lack of sat- 
 isfactory results"; and yet, already in 1863, mis- 
 sions had left on record some of the most apostohc 
 biographies and histories ever written. Already 
 the new book of the Acts of the Apostles had re- 
 corded the modern miracles wrought under Wil- 
 liam Carey, Robert Morrison, and Robert Moffat, 
 William Johnson and Adoniram Judson, John 
 Hunt and John Williams, Justin Perkins and Peter 
 Parker, Latimer Neville and Dr. Krapf, John 
 Geddie and Charles Gutzlaff, WilHam Goodell and 
 Charles Wheeler, Jonas King and Eh Smith, 
 Henry Martyn and David Brainerd, Eliza Agnew 
 
 * Correspondent of New York Evangelist, 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 271 
 
 anci Fidelia Fiske, Rosine Krapf and Mrs. Grant, 
 and Melinda Rankin, Dober and Nitschman and 
 John Wilson and William Bums, and Chamber- 
 lain and Lansing and Hogg and Butler and 
 Coleridge Patteson. '' Truth against the world " 
 is the motto on encaustic tiling in Tennyson's 
 vestibule. 
 
 Again, at the very time of the great World's 
 Conference of Missions at London, the London 
 7}mes gave the same challenge as that of a quar- 
 ter century before, as though a Rip-Van-Winkle 
 sleep had meanwhile buried its editor in oblivion. 
 On June 15, 1888, referring to the appeals for 
 more men and money, the editorial thus closes : 
 "Before the promoters of missionary work can 
 expect to have greater resources confided to them, 
 they will have to render a satisfactory account of 
 their trust in the past. Their progress, it is to be 
 hoped, is sure ; indisputably it is slow. A con- 
 gress Hke the present would be better employed 
 in tracing the reasons for the deficiency in quan- 
 tity of success than in glorifying the modicum 
 which has been attained. The cause it advocates 
 has vanquished the obstructions interposed at 
 home to the accomplishment of its aims. It en- 
 joys a sufficiency which, according to ordinary 
 estimates, might seem an abundance of good-will 
 and funds. Still it marches at a pace which, un- 
 less it be registered by the enthusiasm of Exeter 
 Hall, appears httle more than funereal. If Carey 
 
272 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 could have foreseen the magnificence of the means 
 which his successors were destined to command, 
 and the removal as if by magic of all the barriers 
 which hemmed him in, he would have supposed 
 that the foes were beaten and the harvest was be- 
 ing reaped. Exeter Hall says it is, and that the 
 only thing now to be done is to hold the conquered 
 forts and to push on to fresh conquests. For 
 eyes, not endowed with the second sight of the 
 platform, the principal citadels of heathendom 
 continue to flaunt their banners as before. If 
 some people profess to beheve, as one speaker 
 deplored the other day, that they hear too much 
 of foreign missions, the explanation is that they 
 see too Httle of their results." The writer, who 
 was a delegate to that World's Conference, was 
 moved to say in answer to this challenge, that, 
 whatever the editor of the Ti7nes might know of 
 human Empires, he evidently knew very little of 
 the progress of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 It behoves not Christian nations, which owe all 
 their civilization to Christianity, brought to them 
 by missionaries, to depreciate missions. St. 
 Jerome states that when " a boy, living in Gaul, 
 he beheld the Scots, a people of Britain, eating 
 human flesh; and though there were plenty of 
 cattle and sheep at their disposal, yet they would 
 prefer a ham of the herdsman or a slice of the 
 female breast as a luxury." * 
 
 * "Among the Cannibals," 100. 
 
rilE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 273 
 
 The Scots then were once cannibals. When 
 Julius Caisar landed at Deal, he found the Britons 
 a mere horde of half-naked savages, Hving in rude 
 huts, and clad in skins, sunk in ignorance and 
 degradation. What has lifted Great Britain from 
 barbarism and savagery to the foremost place 
 among the Christian nations of the world, and the 
 leadership of a world's missions ? 
 
 From the middle of Elizabeth's reign to the 
 long Parliament the British people were the people 
 of a book, and that book the Bible. Elizabeth 
 might silence or tune her preachers, but not the 
 prophets.* And, while those who prepared the 
 EngHsh Bible for the people were burned at" 
 the stake or treated with indignity, there was one 
 martyr who prayed, " O Lord, open the King of 
 England's eyes ; " and that king introduced, with- 
 out knowing it, that very Bible among the common 
 people, as a mere stroke of state-craft ; and to that 
 Bible, and to the missionaries of the cross, every 
 nation that takes rank among the enlightened 
 leaders of the world owes to-day all its lofty level 
 of national life. That man in a Christian nation 
 who ridicules missions is hke the cub who kicks 
 the dam by which he was born and suckled ! 
 
 Yes, even modern missions have their '' critics." 
 As Oscar Wilde found fault with the Atlantic 
 as monotonous, and with Niagara as wanting 
 variety of Hne, there are those who stand and look 
 
 * Green's Short History. 
 
2 74 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 on the marvellous work of a century, whose re- 
 sults, considering all the hindrances, and the feeble 
 force employed, can be compared to no other ever 
 wrought in human history, and find only occasion 
 for blame ! 
 
 Mythology tells us how Pan, the god of shep- 
 herds, opposed his rude reed music to Apollo's 
 wondrous lyre; and how Mt. Timolus pro- 
 nounced Pan defeated in the contest. Only 
 Midas dissented from the decision, and, as a reward 
 for his obtuseness and obstinacy, his ears were 
 lengthened to the dimensions of an inferior animal. 
 Midas tried to hide the ass's ears, and his attend- 
 ant, when he discovered the secret and could not 
 keep it, dug a deep hole and whispered it to 
 the mother earth. But the reeds that grew, moved 
 by the wind, whispered : " King Midas has ass's 
 ears ! " Let these critics who set their judgment 
 against not only the verdict of wiser men, but the 
 very facts of the age, beware lest the very soil of 
 society bear witness to their stupidity, "preten- 
 tious inaccuracy " and "presumptuous ignorance." 
 
 Mr. Darwin, though the apostle of materialism, 
 was still too honest to withhold a tribute when it 
 was due. In his recently published " Life and 
 Letters," he has recorded his impressions of Tierra 
 del Fuego, when he visited that land in 1833-4; 
 he wrote : 
 
 " The Fuegians are in a more miserable state 
 of barbarism than I had ever expected to have 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIONS. 275 
 
 seen any human being." He describes them as 
 absolutely naked, in primitive wildness ; he says 
 that, as they were seated on a rocky point, throw- 
 ing their arms wildly about, yeUing, they seemed 
 the troubled spirits of another world, the expres- 
 sion of their faces inconceivably wild, and their 
 tones and gesticulations far less intelligible than 
 those of domestic animals." * 
 
 To Admiral Sir Jas. SuUivan, Mr. Darwin often 
 expressed the conviction that, " to send mission- 
 aries to such a set of savages, probably the very 
 lowest of the human race, was utterly useless." 
 
 Subsequently, in 1869, and still later, up to 
 1880, he bore witness that the recent accounts of 
 the mission proved to him that he had been wrong 
 in his estimates of the native character and of the 
 possibility of doing them good through the mis- 
 sionaries ; as an expression and testimony of his 
 interest in the Society's work he enclosed his 
 check for ^^5. He pronounced the success of the 
 mission so wonderful that only the proof that it 
 was fact made it to him credible. And he says, 
 " I certainly should have predicted that not all 
 the missionaries in the world could have done 
 what has been done." t 
 
 Similarly this same impartial unbeliever records 
 his impressions of the work at Tahiti and New 
 Zealand. "It is admirable to behold what the 
 missionaries (both here and at New Zealand) have 
 
 * Life of Darwin, i., 227. \ Idem ii, 307, 308. 
 
276 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 effected ; I firmly believe they are good men work- 
 ing for the sake of a good cause. I much suspect 
 that those who have abused or sneered at them 
 have generally been such as were not very anxious 
 to find the natives moral and inteUigible beings. 
 They forget, or will not remember, that human 
 sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood ; 
 a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other 
 part of the world ; infanticide, a consequence of 
 that system ; bloody wars, where the conquerors 
 spared neither women nor children ; that all these 
 things have been abolished ; and that dishonesty, 
 intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly 
 reduced by the introduction of Christianity. In 
 a voyager to forget these things is a base ingrati- 
 tude ; for, should he chance to be at the point of 
 shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most 
 devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary 
 may have extended thus far." " The lesson of 
 the missionary is the enchanter's wand." 
 
 After Rev. WiUiam Robertson, of Edinburgh, 
 had made an address on missions, a man accost- 
 ing him said, " I was captain of the Ruby, that 
 bore Bishop Sterling to Tierra del Fuego, and it 
 was Bishop Sterhng's reports of the work there 
 that made Charles Darwin a convert to missions. 
 There, where Allen Gardiner found the most de- 
 based savages, a society is now organized to 
 rescue shipwrecked mariners." 
 
 We reluctantly bring to a close this brief survey 
 
THE FRUIT OF MISSIOiVS. 277 
 
 of the fruits of missions. Where the field is the 
 world, it is impossible to bring even one blade 
 from all its various harvests to show a specimen 
 of what the seed of the kingdom yields. We have 
 culled here and there what suffices to exhibit the 
 proofs that in no part of the world have such fruits 
 been lacking as prove that it is God's husbandry. 
 In the islands of the sea, the Fiji and Hawaiian 
 groups, Tahiti, Aneityum, and in the South Seas 
 generally ; in the most ancient and colossal king- 
 doms, like Turkey, China, and India, where the 
 most gigantic and stubborn growths of evil were 
 found, and deep-rooted as the ages could make 
 them ; where an iron caste system and the imprison- 
 ing law of zenana life and harem seclusion made 
 all work seemingly fruitless ; again, among com- 
 paratively degraded and low caste tribes and peo- 
 ples, like the Siamese, Burmese, and Karens ; even 
 where the " habitations of cruelty " seemed to 
 have their stronghold, as in Malabar and Calabar ; 
 where the people seemed, as Charles Kingsley 
 thought, meant to show that it was possible to 
 sink too low for even the Gospel to reach them, 
 like the Austrahan aborigines, or the Maoris of 
 New Zealand, or the Fuegians ; everywhere, among 
 high and low, the Gospel has been the same power 
 and wisdom of God to salvation. 
 
 And now what is the grand conclusion ? God 
 has not only fulfilled His promise to His mission- 
 ary band, but His royal challenge is, in the very 
 
278 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 successes of a century, thundering in our ears : 
 " Go ye into all the world — preach the Gospel to 
 every creature " — in every part of the field which 
 is the world sow the good seed of the kingdom. 
 And the fruit of the handful of grain shall yet 
 shake hke the forests of Lebanon. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE DIVINE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 
 
 JMONG the attractions of the famous 
 museum at Marseilles, the foremost is 
 the great painting by Auguste Barthe- 
 lemy Glaize, of Montpellier, which is known as 
 Le Pilori. It fills the entire end of the saloon, 
 and is one of the most suggestive paintings in all 
 France. Theophilus Gautier has described it in 
 language scarcely less artistic than the picture. 
 
 Occupying the central place in this group, is the 
 figure of the Saviour, in whose stead Barrabas was 
 preferred ; Jesus, who w^as scourged, bound to a 
 pillar, spit upon, crowmed with thorns, and hung 
 upon the cross of slaves. Behind Him an angel 
 unrolls a little scroll, on which we read : " Father 
 forgive them ; for they know not what they do." 
 
 At the bottom of the scaffold are four huge 
 allegorical figures, symbohzing Misery, Igfiorafice, 
 Violence, and Hypocrisy. These figures, placed 
 back to back, and arranged in two groups hke 
 those of the tombs of the Medici, are a monu- 
 mental and Michael- Angelesque combination of 
 sculpture-like forms. 
 
2«o THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Misery is a dismal looking female, wrinkled and 
 ghastly, from whose dry breast an infant is vainly 
 seeking to suck nourishment. Ignorance sinks 
 beneath his flabby flesh in a careless attitude, and 
 makes to appear conspicuous his shallow skull 
 crowned with hairy ass's ears, hke the head of 
 King Midas or of Bottom. Violence swells his 
 bloated muscles, contracts his knotted sinews, 
 arches his athletic back, with the stolid indiffer- 
 ence of a murderer or hangman. The neck of a 
 bull joins his huge shoulders to a bestial head 
 which lacks brain. Hypocrisy holds a painted 
 mask, with which to conceal at will her livid vis- 
 age, and the feet, which fold beneath her, end in 
 the claws of a demon. These four monsters, are 
 they not the persecutors of these great men, and 
 is not their proper place at the base of the pillory ? 
 
 We see standing on the right of the central 
 figure, Christ, Socrates holding the cup of hemlock 
 and pointing heavenward ; beyond him ^sop the 
 fabulist, who was made a slave, and hurled from 
 the rock, Hyampea, by the angry Delphian priests, 
 in spite of the divine wisdom that dwelt in his 
 distorted frame ; still further on, the beautiful and 
 learned Hypatia, whom fanatical ecclesiastics, be- 
 coming in their turn persecutors, dragged from 
 her chariot, tore in pieces, and whose palpitating 
 members were drawn through the streets of Alex- 
 andria and burned. Beyond her, Kepler, who 
 discovered the laws of the celestial mechanism, 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 281 
 
 and died unable to procure from the imperial as- 
 sembly his arrears of 8,000 crowns ; Galileo, 
 recanting in presence of the Inquisition, and whis- 
 pering the famous words, ''E pur si muove." 
 There is Bernard de Palissy, the maker of the 
 king's rustique pottery, and the predecessor of 
 Cuvier, burning all his furniture for lack of wood 
 for his furnace ; Correggio, selling his painting for 
 sixty crowns and succumbing beneath the heavy 
 sack in which he bore the copper coins received 
 in payment. 
 
 At the left of the Saviour stands Homer, whom 
 seven cities claimed after he was dead, but who, 
 during hfe, poor, blind, wandered about, his lyre 
 hung about his neck, chanting his immortal poems 
 to obtain a meagre alms ; Dante, the exile, out- 
 lawed, showing to mankind the golden ladder to 
 Paradise, and then mounting the staircase of a 
 stranger at Verona.* Cervantes is further on, the 
 illustrious cripple who was maimed at Lepanto's 
 battle, the " Captive " of Algerine Corsairs, sad, 
 imprisoned for debt, burdened with infirmities, 
 and buried in the convent of the nuns of Trinity 
 without any tombstone until 1835, ri'^ore than 200 
 years afterward, forgotten even by his own coun- 
 trymen. Joan of Arc, whom the funeral pyre of 
 Rouen recompensed for the heroism that made 
 her the savior of France ; Christopher Columbus, 
 
 * A reference to Can Grande della scala, with whom 
 he took refuge at Verona, 1313-1318. 
 
282 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 receiving fetters as the price of unveiling the New 
 World ; Salomon de Caus, locked up in the insane 
 hospital of Bicetre, and with the grimace of a fool, 
 showing the first outlines of the steam-engine of 
 which Arago counted him the true inventor; 
 Denis P.apin, the physicist and machinist, forerun- 
 ner of James Watt and Fulton, in a moment of 
 despair breaking the model of the paddle-steamer 
 which he had invented ; Etienne Dolet, the free- 
 thinker, hung and burned in Paris in 1546, who, 
 marching to his death, and seeing the impatient 
 multitude clamoring for his torture exclaimed : 
 '^ Non dolet ipse dolet ^ sed pia tiirha dolet." * 
 
 The picture bears at the extreme right-hand 
 corner the name, Glaize, with the date, 1855. 
 And beneath is the inscription, fit companion to 
 such a work of art : 
 
 They are persecuted ; 
 They are hidden in oblivion ; 
 Until, after a long time elapses, 
 They have a monument, inscribed ; 
 
 "To THE GLORY OF THE HUMAN RACE." 
 
 *The critics and deriders of missions have often 
 attempted to make out Christian missions a failure, 
 but they have succeeded only in making themselves 
 appear ridiculous ; and those whom they have put 
 in the pillory of their derision are now beginning 
 to be recognized as the heroes of the human race, 
 
 * It is not himself whom Dolet bewails. 
 But the pious mob that seeks his blood. 
 
THE CHALLENGE OE MLSSLONS, 283 
 
 and the far-seeing sages who beheld the true 
 future which is to dawn on the world. The story 
 of the successes of Christian missions is from 
 many witnesses, and their testimony is unimpeach- 
 able. However ''limited their knowledge, it 
 cannot be set aside on account of the ignorance 
 of others, however extensive." 
 
 The contest between Christianity and paganism 
 has been waged with all the advantage on the side 
 of the powers of darkness. And yet, — notwith- 
 standing we have sent out less than six thousand 
 men and women to meet a thousand millions ; not- 
 withstanding the little band have to master foreign 
 tongues, and often create a hterature in those 
 tongues ; have to overcome difficulties of cHmate, 
 caste, customs, superstition, bigotry, depravity ; 
 have had even to face death by martyrdom for 
 the truth's sake ; notwithstanding it was less than 
 one hundred years ago that the Church of Christ 
 began the organized movement in this direction, 
 and has never given over ten or eleven millions 
 of dollars a year even in these days of ample re- 
 sources, — there is scarce a land into which the 
 missionary has not gone ; and, wherever he has 
 gone he has planted the cross, and about it the 
 Christian home, school, church, college, theolog- 
 ical seminary, printing-press, hospital, dispensary, 
 and every characteristic institution of Christian 
 lands. The work of modern missions, begun a 
 hundred years ago amid innumerable obstacles 
 
284 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 and discouragements — the very leaders in this 
 grand enterprise being put in the pillory as the 
 objects of derision, scorn, and ridicule — that work 
 has compelled from all intelligent and impartial 
 observers the candid confession that, for the men 
 and means invested, no success has ever been so 
 great ! 
 
 The Reformation period was a sort of signal 
 gun in modern history ; and, if ever God unfolded 
 a purpose of His own to men. He did it then. 
 He sounded the signal for a rapid advance all 
 along the lines. 
 
 Dr. Croly,* in an admirable sermon, preached 
 in St. Paul's, before the Bishop of London, nearly 
 a half century ago, called the Reformation the 
 '' third g7'eat Birth of Tijne.'" There was a won- 
 derful conjuncture of events and inventions, all in- 
 dicating the opening of a new era of world-wide 
 evangelism. The magnet, guiding all vessels over 
 hitherto untraversed seas, opened the whole world 
 to commercial intercourse. Then the steam- 
 engine became the great motor, propelling vessels 
 on the sea and carriages on the land, and shorten- 
 ing time of transit, so that where Ziegenbalg took 
 seven months to reach Zanguebar, and Carey five 
 months to reach Calcutta, we can go in three 
 weeks. Then came the printing-press, which 
 threw open the mind of the world to European 
 literature, as the mariner's compass and the steam- 
 * Exeter Hall Lectures, 1846-7. 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 285 
 
 engine had thrown open the gates of empires 
 and the ports of the sea ! And now, while 
 these three greatest inventions or discoveries of 
 modern ages afforded all these facilities for mis- 
 sions, behold three of the miracles of history 
 standing side by side, in their combination and 
 culmination more wonderful than in their succes- 
 sion and accumulation. In the midst of this period 
 comes the Fall of Constantinople, i543- The 
 storming of the Turks humbled the Queen City 
 of the Golden Horn, but scattered Greek learning 
 through the West. Then followed the passage to 
 India, the solution of that problem of ages which 
 was to find afterward a happier solution by the 
 Isthmus than by the Cape, and all the quickening 
 of opulent commerce was added to the contact of 
 remote nations. Britain and India, the very 
 centres of European and Asiatic civilization, were 
 brought together, and permanently hnked. And 
 at the same great signal hour of history the cur- 
 tain rose that unveiled a New World. God gave 
 mankind a new hemisphere in which to exercise 
 all the accumulated power of five thousand years 
 — a new treasury of wealth, a new granary of 
 food, a new arena of civilization and Christianity. 
 '* Never before was there such a series of briUiant 
 excitements heaped upon the human race." All 
 society felt the thrill, and the amazing combina- 
 tion of events dazed the very eyes that beheld 
 them. Constantinople fell in 1453, Vasco de 
 
286 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Gama turned the Cape of Storms into the Cape 
 of Good Hope in 1497, and Columbus touched 
 the shores of the West Indies in 1492. These 
 three events thus occurred within less than half a 
 century ! 
 
 The mariners' compass appears to have come 
 into general use about 1400 ; the first book printed 
 with movable types was brought out by Gutenburg 
 about 1450, and the steam-engine seems to have 
 begun to attain to practicable form under Blasco 
 de Jaray in 1543. And now let us remember 
 that just at this time, and in the very centre of 
 this brilliance, Luther nails up his theses. Scarce 
 twenty years before America was discovered, 
 Luther preached his first sermon at Wittemberg ; 
 and, scarce twenty years after he startled all Europe 
 by his beating a hole in Tetzel's drum, the Bar- 
 celona engineer is said to have propelled a vessel 
 by a water boiler.* 
 
 Thus the Church, after a sleep of a thousand 
 years, awoke once more to the sense of duty and 
 debt to the lost race of man. If there be a divine 
 providence — if the end of all history is Redemp- 
 tion, and the goal of all redeemed life is the restora- 
 tion of man to the image of God, — we should 
 expect to see the most wonderful developments of 
 history side by side with these awakenings in the 
 Chiu-ch. We should look to see at least three de- 
 velopments : first, the wide opening of doors ^ mak- 
 
 * Appleton's Encyclopedia. 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 287 
 
 ing the whole world accessible ; secondly, the 
 provision of new and more perfect facilities for uni- 
 versal contact and communication; thirdly, the 
 7nore thorough organizing of the Church itself for 
 the work. The first is a question of opportunity^ 
 the second of equipment, and the third of activity 
 and advance. What are the facts ? Precisely in 
 the line of these expectations have come the inter- 
 positions of God, only, as usual, when He does 
 anything, it was on a scale of majesty, might, and 
 overwhelming grandeur, the like of which man 
 never saw, exceeding abundantly above all we 
 could ask or think. Let us stop in our hurry and 
 cast a backward look. 
 
 Some of our readers may have thought it extrav- 
 agant language to affirm that the modem age, 
 hke the Apostolic, has abounded in the supernat- 
 ural. But the marvellous developments and coin- 
 cidences of history in the world and the Church 
 admit no explanation without God. The unde- 
 vout historian, Hke the undevout astronomer, 
 must be mad, if he is not overwhelmed by these 
 miracles of intervention. 
 
 Another wonderful age has come to us ; may we 
 not call it the Fourth birth-hour of human history ? 
 Gladstone says that the first fifty years of this cen- 
 tury marked more progress than the previous five 
 thousand, in art, science, invention, and discovery ; 
 the next twenty-five, more than the previous fifty ; 
 and the next ten, more than the previous twenty-five. 
 
288 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Probably the statement is not an exaggeration. 
 God never sounded a louder signal-gun than now, 
 and no combination of events ever startled the 
 attentive observer like the present. William Carey 
 led the way in the organization of the Church for 
 modern missions in 1792. In rapid succession 
 followed the organization of the great missionary 
 societies and the sending forth of missionaries, 
 until now between two hundred and three hundred 
 societies are represented by 6,000 laborers. 
 
 At this present time, we seem to have reached 
 not only a crisis, but the crisis of missions. The 
 whole world is open to missionary labor, but there 
 are not enough workmen to occupy the field ; and 
 again there are many workmen offering to go to 
 the field, and there are not enough means at our 
 disposal to secure them a support in the field. 
 And, still worse, the missionary boards of most 
 of our Churches are so crippled by debt or by 
 insufficient funds, that, at a time when every voice 
 of God or need of man cries '' Expand " and 
 " Advance," the only course apparently open to us 
 is to contract the work and retrench the costs ! 
 
 Nothing is more calculated to awaken surprise 
 than to see how mistaken and short-sighted are 
 the views of many inteUigent members, and even 
 ministers of the Church, as to the existing crisis. 
 
 For example, it appears to occasion alarm and 
 awaken hostile criticism. It is said, there is some- 
 thing wrong in the Church's work when its de- 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 289 
 
 mands exceed the supply ; that our Boards ought 
 to lay out no more expenditure than the receipts 
 warrant — that the work should be cut down to 
 meet the income, etc. One would suppose that 
 the present aspect of missions is one of dishearten- 
 ing failure, and that those who have charge of 
 our missions are seriously to blame for allowing 
 the demand for men and money to be so impera- 
 tive, and increase so fast. But let thoughtful men 
 and women reflect, whether this is not an entire mis- 
 apprehension of the existing state of things. Like 
 Elisha's servant, we need our eyes opened to see 
 that, where some behold only cause for discourage- 
 ment, God means an incentive to joy and praise. 
 Such a crisis in missions is sign and proof not 
 of failure, but of success. Our keynote should not 
 be set to the minor strain of despondency, but 
 the major key of thankfulness. All this means 
 growth, and growth always brings a demand for 
 new conditions, provisions, accommodations. The 
 growing plant must have more space, more room 
 to grow ; the old pot must be discarded for a new 
 and more spacious one. The growing boy must 
 have new clothes ; he cannot wear the same suit 
 that he wore a year ago ; the cripple who has no 
 growth, and perhaps cannot move a foot or lift a 
 hand, may wear one suit for years ; but not so the 
 stalwart, growing lad. Who finds fault with these 
 demands of growth! and who would exchange 
 such a healthy boy for a cripple ? 
 
290 THE DIVTNK KNTRRPRISE, 
 
 'I'he growing family must liavc a larger house, 
 a more ample board. A growing business needs 
 new shops and factories, a larger stock and heavier 
 outlay : no merchant complains when, because he 
 has double the custom, there must be more care 
 and cost, and more clerks and goods. 
 
 Now, how comes it to pass that, when the work 
 of llic Lord outgrows all past provision for its 
 suc(X'ssful prosecution ; when its very successes 
 call for more room to grow, more men and money, 
 more churches and schools and colleges, more 
 preaching stations and evangelists, more books 
 and l>il)lcs, more medical missions ; and, in a 
 word, more of everything that goes to supply the 
 wants of an awakening community, we should 
 1)egin to be heavy-hearted because what was in- 
 adequate ten years ago is absolutely and hopelessly 
 imcqual to the demand to-day ! This is certainly 
 a paradox and anomaly. There is but one place 
 where there is no new necessity created by growth ; 
 and that is where there is no longer hfe. In a 
 sepulchre or a cemetery, death is regnant. A 
 mummy wears the same wrai)pings as when, 3,000 
 years ago, it was embalmed. lUit T.azarus, when 
 loosed from the sepulchre, left his grave clothes 
 behind him, and it was the price of his resuscita- 
 tion that he must henceforth have food and rai- 
 ment. L'ife is costly, and growth adds to the cost 
 even of life. And, because the work of missions 
 is a growing child yet in its infancy, and not a 
 
TJIE CHALLEXCE OF MfSSlOXS, 291 
 
 cripple witliout a future ; because it is a living 
 form and not a mummy, the conditions change 
 and the demands increase every day. 
 
 This crisis of missions is in fact an answer to 
 prayer. Jt is not one hundred years ago since 
 the whole world stood over against the Church, 
 like a gigantic fortress with double-barred gates 
 of steel. Devout disciples who, like Simeon, 
 lt)oked and waited for the Kingdom of God, were 
 earnestly beseeching God that the doors of the 
 nations might be opened and the way be prepared 
 for the Church to carry out her great commission. 
 It was because God heard that strong crying, 
 and so marvellously answered, that, within the past 
 fifty years, pagan, papal, and heathen territory 
 which a century ago defied the approach of Prot- 
 estant missionaries with an open Bible and a jiure 
 (iospel, now admits, if it does not welcome, the 
 message of life. 
 
 So rare and exceptional is it that any nation 
 like Thibet should yet lock itself in hermit seclu- 
 sion, that we may now .say, with almost literal 
 truth, that the whole world is now accessible, and 
 that the Gospel herald may go where he will. A 
 great door and an effectual is opened, though 
 there are many adversaries ; and that door opens 
 upon a domain that is world-wide. 
 
 No student of political history needs to be told 
 that changes in the attitude of governments 
 toward questions involving pojjular customs and 
 
^92 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 religious faith are effected very slowly. Centuries 
 are the hours upon the dial of national life. To 
 move a whole people is a process that often re- 
 quires the leverage of ages, so that we have been 
 wont to think of Oriental peoples as petrified in 
 their immobiHty. 
 
 The rapidity with which these doors of access 
 were thrown open, the keys whereby they were 
 unlocked, the singular preparation for the entrance 
 of the Gospel which they revealed, the fitness and 
 fulness of times which marked these new and start- 
 ling developments, have impressed the writer's 
 mind as nothing else ever has, in a life largely 
 given to historic studies. 
 
 One example might be cited in detail, as an 
 illustration. The year 1858 is the "Annus mirabi- 
 hs " of modern missions. Probably no one year 
 in human history has been marked by changes 
 more stupendous and momentous, as affecting the 
 evangehzation of the world ; and it is the more 
 appropriate that it here have due emphasis, inas- 
 much as, so far as he is aware, the writer has been 
 the first to set in array the wondrous events that 
 marked that pivotal year of missions. 
 
 First of all, the winter preceding had been dis- 
 tinguished by one of the most remarkable outpour- 
 ings of the Spirit known in modern times. In all 
 parts of Christendom there was an alm.ost simul- 
 taneous blessing, which suggested a gigantic tidal- 
 wave that moves from equator to pole, that washes 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 293 
 
 with its giant swell the coasts that border the 
 ocean's bed, all along the shores of vast conti- 
 nents, and sweeps over those continents themselves. 
 Churches in every part of the world were quick- 
 ened into new life; converts sprang up like 
 willows along the water-courses; hundreds of 
 thousands were gathered into the Churches, and 
 to this day the grand results are visible. 
 
 One special result of the revivals of that autumn 
 and winter of 1857-8 was a new spirit of prayer 
 for 7Tiissio7is. As yet a large portion of the earth's 
 vast population was shut out from Christian labor, 
 and the awakened Church besought God to make 
 bare His mighty arm and burst open the barred 
 gates, that all the ends of the earth might see the 
 salvation of our God. 
 
 Behold the marvellous and majestic move- 
 ments of a prayer-hearing God ! Great Britain 
 approaches Japan, which, from 1640 to 1854, had 
 closed her ports even to the commerce of Christian 
 nations. The Earl of Elgin, on August 26, 1858, 
 concluded that new Treaty which broke down the 
 barriers of two centuries between the Sunrise 
 Kingdom and the foremost Protestant nation of 
 Europe. About the time of the conclusion of this 
 treaty, the reigning Tycoon died, and left the 
 throne to his son, the present emperor, a young 
 man of great intelligence and singularly liberal 
 sentiments touching both commerce and pohtics. 
 Here, by one master-stroke, the Island Empire, 
 
294 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 with nearly 40,000,000, became accessible to 
 British ships and the Gospel loved by British 
 Christians, while at the same time governmental 
 changes took place which doubly assured progress. 
 What was the consequence ? No nation has, for 
 eighteen centuries, moved at such a pace toward 
 Christianity. Ten years later, a vast number of 
 Buddhist temples were confiscated for pubhc uses, 
 chiefly educational, and the Mikado pledged him- 
 self to promote complete rehgious toleration. 
 How well he kept his word will appear from the 
 decree of July 11, 1884, that thenceforth there 
 should be no official priesthood, and that all re- 
 hgions, Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity 
 alike, should be impartially protected and occupy 
 the same platform of legal equality ! Four years 
 later there were reported 28,000 church communi- 
 cants in the Reformed or Protestant churches, and 
 church buildings, Christian schools, theological 
 seminaries. Young Men's Christian Associations, 
 rehgious newspapers, and all the distinctive feat- 
 ures of a Christian community, were to be found. 
 With a swiftness that reminds us of the rapidity 
 with which dawn advances to full day, this empire 
 has earned its right to its proud title — that of " the 
 Rismg Siiny Where in 1853 there was only an 
 impenetrable wall of- exclusion, we have now, less 
 than forty years later, a whole land penetrated and 
 permeated by occidental influence. 
 
 During that same memorable year, changes 
 
THE CHALLENGE OE MISSIONS. 295 
 
 almost as great took place in China. We have 
 seen what occurred in Japan, August 26. The 
 day previous, the Atlantic Cable flashed across the 
 Atlantic its first news dispatch that, after nearly a 
 year of war, peace had been concluded between 
 the allied forces and the Middle Kingdom. The 
 famous Treaty of Tientsin, signed June 26, en- 
 larged the provisions of the Treaty of Nankin, of 
 1842, which opened five ports to foreign trade. 
 British subjects are henceforth allowed to travel 
 for business or pleasure to all parts of the interior,* 
 under passports issued by their Consul ; and, what 
 is most significant, the Christian religion is to be 
 protected by Chinese authorities.f The language 
 is as follows : " The Christian religion, as professed 
 by Protestants and Roman Catholics, inculcates 
 the practice of virtue and teaches man to do as 
 he would be done by. Persons teaching or pro- 
 fessing it, therefore, shall be alike entitled to the 
 protection of the Chinese authorities ; nor shall 
 any such, peaceably pursuing their calhng and not 
 offending against the laws, be persecuted or inter- 
 fered with." 
 
 Thus, to one quarter of the population of the 
 globe, access was given, in one diplomatic docu- 
 ment ; and the Church of Christ may now preach 
 the Gospel through the Celestial Empire. It is 
 difficult to apprehend or appreciate what such a 
 step means : it is not a step, but a stride — the stride 
 
 * Art. ix. f Art. viii. 
 
296 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 of a giant in seven-league boots, from mountain- 
 top to mountain-top. China is in itself a world, 
 containing a population larger than the whole 
 world at the time of Christ. And yet in one year 
 that world of China was made accessible to 
 Christian missions. 
 
 Let us go still Westward. What is, during this 
 same year, 1858, occurring in India, itself another 
 great world of many languages and peoples and 
 rehgions ? 
 
 The mutiny of 1857, which, in the opinion of 
 godless and greedy men who would make money 
 out of traffic in human bodies or souls, was to 
 rid India of the saints, ope?ied India to them. God 
 gave it to such Christian heroes as Sir John Law- 
 rence and Sir Henry Havelock and Sir Cohn 
 Campbell, to save the British army from massacre. 
 It was this formidable revolt of 1857 which called 
 attention to the mismanagment of East Indian 
 affairs by the East India Company, whose powers 
 had gradually grown, until, long before its aboli- 
 tion, it had become a court from whose decisions 
 there was no appeal. And the result of investiga- 
 tion was that, not only in this memorable year 
 1858, but in that same month, August (2d) all the 
 territories previously under the government of the 
 Company became vested in the British Queen, and 
 Victoria became Empress of the Indies. This 
 was a change that can be appreciated only by 
 those who have studied minutely the history of 
 
THE CHALLENGE OE MISSIONS. 297 
 
 the Company, which from the year 1600 had 
 been growing more and more despotic ; who re- 
 member how, when the devoted Robert Haldane, 
 in 1796, sold his estate at Airthrey and proposed 
 to estabhsh a new mission at Benares, the centre 
 of Brahminical idolatry, at his own expense, the 
 Company defeated his scheme, one director re- 
 marking that he " would rather a band of devils 
 than a band of missionaries landed in India " ; 
 who remember how Wm. Carey and Henry Martyn 
 had encountered the bitter hostility of this same 
 East India Company, so that the flag of Britain, 
 now the symbol of a Christian civilization and the 
 pledge of both civil and religious liberty wherever 
 it floats, was in India the signal for hatred and 
 jealousy of mission work. 
 
 But now the 300,000,000 of India were brought 
 under the sway of the British sceptre and made 
 accessible to the mightier sceptre of the King of 
 kings. Surely it was a momentous epoch in his- 
 tory which opened on the day when British courts, 
 laws, and judges, churches, schools, and colleges, 
 presses, books, and Bibles had freedom to plant 
 over those wide domains the institutions of a 
 Christian state ! Here opened another world, 
 almost as large and populous as China, and some 
 think that an accurate census would show India 
 to be the more populous, as it is undoubtedly the 
 more important of the two — the pivot of Oriental 
 life. Meanwhile, in that same India, another 
 
298 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 transformation was taking place, scarcely less 
 important. 
 
 We all know how heathen and pagan institu- 
 tions have shut women out from all contact even 
 with the uplifting influence of knowledge. The 
 zenana, hke the harem and seraglio, has stood 
 for thousands of years as the polite name for a 
 domestic and social Bastile, in which, without 
 cause, at the will of a domestic despot, in India 
 alone one hundred millions of women and girls 
 have been effectually imprisoned. 
 
 Now that the zenana work has grown to such 
 dimensions, there are more claimants for the 
 honor of its origination than for the honor of 
 cradhng Homer ; but, as near as can be traced, 
 it was in 1858 that Mrs. Elizabeth Sale, of Hel- 
 ensburgh, Scotland, began work in Calcutta among 
 the women, using needle-work embroidery as the 
 key that unlocked these long-shut doors.* From 
 that first attempt at organized work among women 
 in the zenanas, the harvest has already become 
 wonderfully fruitful. 
 
 And now, to the marvellous events already noted 
 which make 1858 the Year of the Open Doors, we 
 must add three more. In that year the revolution- 
 ary changes in Papal Europe prepared the way 
 for Free Italy and Protestant missions; in that 
 same year the revolution in Mexico under Benito 
 Juarez paved the path of the Gospel in Central 
 * Miss. Review^ Ju^y^ 1890, p. 554. 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 299 
 
 America ; and in the same year David Livingstone 
 sailed a second time for Africa to complete his 
 explorations and pioneer a road into the interior 
 for the missionary. Thus in Japan, China, India 
 and its zenanas, Italy and papal Europe, Central 
 America, and even Africa, 1858 was the great 
 year when doors were unlocked for the Gospel. 
 
 Thus, at risk of tediousness, we have expatiated 
 on the providential interventions in answer to 
 prayer which show that the crisis in missions, 
 which is the result and the sign of growth, is also 
 the direct proof of a prayer-hearing God. And 
 what follows? That what appears to be an 
 emergency to which we are unequal, is in fact a 
 divine challenge to renewed prayerfulness, conse- 
 cration, dependence on God, and confidence and 
 courage such as faith inspires. Such crises have 
 occurred at various turning-points of Christian 
 history; and everything depends on how the 
 Church meets the exigency. 
 
 From the voluminous records of missions we 
 select two representative instances of how every- 
 thing hangs upon the spirit in which critical and 
 pivotal conditions are met by the people of God, 
 in hopes that we may learn the lesson of the hour. 
 
 The only way to meet such a crisis in missions 
 is to appeal to God in beHeving prayer, and then 
 take new courage. Even discouragements are 
 thus transformed into incentives and incitements 
 to duty. Where we have our Lord's plain com- 
 
300 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 mand, especially when backed by such providential 
 openings and leadings, the apparent hopelessness 
 of our task is only designed to try our faith and 
 develop our courage. 
 
 First, we may find a representative and impress- 
 ive example of this principle in the story of Tahiti. 
 
 The missionaries seemed for fourteen years to 
 have labored in vain and spent their strength for 
 naught. Their zeal, their toil, their long journeys 
 and faithful exhortations, did not even awaken 
 interest or inquiry on the part of the natives. 
 Not one instance of conversion had yet rewarded 
 them. Not only so, but the missionaries, driven 
 away from the island by war, their houses burned, 
 were actually cut off from all communication with 
 it. The first missionaries of the London Mission- 
 ary Society had landed in 1797, and so many 
 years had passed in fruitless effort that, about 18 13, 
 the directors, disheartened, proposed to abandon 
 the mission altogether. A few firm friends of the 
 work resolutely resisted all such proposals. Dr. 
 Haweis, for example, added to his former dona- 
 tions another of two hundred pounds, and pressed 
 the society to new efforts and more earnest 
 prayers. Rev. Matthew Wilks, John Williams' 
 pastor, joined with Dr. Haweis in remonstrance 
 against such unbehef and abandonment of the 
 Lord's work, and with his pecuhar vehemence 
 said, " I will sell the garments from my back be- 
 fore I will consent to give up this mission," and 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 301 
 
 instead, proposed that a special season of prayer 
 for the mission be observed. The suggestion was 
 accepted, and in place of letters of recall, let- 
 ters of encouragement and hopefulness were de- 
 spatched to the discouraged laborers in the South 
 Seas. 
 
 Thus they vanquished Satan by the shield of 
 faith and the rod of prayer. Nothing in human 
 history is more remarkable as a proof of a prayer- 
 hearing God than the events which now trans- 
 pired. The vessel which bore from England to 
 Tahiti these letters of inspiration and encourage- 
 ment crossed in her passage another ship from 
 Tahiti, bearing letters from the missionaries, an- 
 nouncing the entire overthrow of idolatry, and 
 bearing Hkewise the rejected idols of the people 
 brought by them to the missionaries and by them 
 sent to London, where they now stand in the 
 museum of the society. God had literally fulfilled 
 His word : " Before they call I will answer, and 
 while they are yet speaking I will hear." 
 
 His set time to favor the work had fully come, 
 and He chose a way to do it which would both 
 glorify Himself and stimulate confidence in prayer. 
 The missionaries had been compelled to seek refuge 
 in the New South Wales, and Mr. Nott, at Eimeo. 
 Reports suddenly reached Mr. Nott, and others 
 who, in 1 8 1 1 , had returned to Eimeo, that remark- 
 able changes were in progress at Tahiti. Messrs. 
 Scott and Hay ward, by request, went to the island, 
 
302 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 and to their astonishment found praying men 
 there, and two of them, Oito and Tuahine, the 
 first natives that had ever prayed to the true God, 
 returned with them to Eimeo, where the first great 
 meeting was held in 1813. 
 
 It appeared that these two natives, formerly 
 servants in the famiHes of the missionaries, had, 
 unknown to them, received impressions which led 
 them to pray to God after the expulsion of the 
 missionaries ; so that on the return of the latter 
 they unexpectedly found a people prepared of the 
 Lord. From this time one unbroken series of suc- 
 cesses followed, in fact attended, the labors of the 
 missionaries, so that island after island and group 
 after group received the Gospel with a rapidity 
 unknown before or since.* 
 
 Another conspicuous example may be chosen 
 from the later annals of missionary enterprise. 
 
 Ongole, about 200 miles north of Madras, has 
 been the scene of an in-gathering which perhaps 
 exceeds any other ever known for the display of 
 God's power. In the close of 1853 and the be- 
 ginning of 1854, Dr. Lyman Jewett, a missionary 
 from Nellore, still living at Madras and connected 
 with the American Baptists, was touring in this 
 desolate though densely populated district, and 
 upon the summit of a mountain near Ongole he 
 prayed God to send a missionary there. But let 
 
 * " Missionary Enterprises in the South Seas," John 
 Williams. 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MLSSIONS. Z^Z 
 
 us enter more fully into details which deserve a 
 permanent record. 
 
 The first mission of the American Baptist Mis- 
 sionary Union had been planted in the Telugu 
 country in 1835, at the suggestion of Rev. Amos 
 Sutton, an Enghsh Baptist ; Rev. Samuel S. Day 
 and wife sailing Sept. 22, 1835, for this field. In 
 1837 Mr. Day made a tour of some 120 miles and 
 back from Berhampore, visiting forty villages, of 
 which one-half had probably never before seen a 
 missionary, or even a Christian. In 1840, he, 
 with Rev. and Mrs. S. Van Husen, were found at 
 JVeilore, which was regarded as a good centre for 
 the work, being in the midst of a dense Telugu 
 population and about midway from Cape Cormorin 
 to the upper boundary of the Telugu country. 
 
 In 1853, the thirty-ninth annual meeting of the 
 American Baptist Missionary Union was held at 
 Albany, N. Y., May 17. The moment was so 
 critical that the very destiny of the Telugu mission 
 hinged on the decision then reached. Mr. Day 
 and Mr. Jewett and their wives were now at this 
 Nellore station. Mr. Day had been in India 
 eighteen years, and Mr. Jewett five, having sailed 
 in 1848. As early as 1846, the executive commit- 
 tee had discussed the propriety of abandoning the 
 work, but were prevented by the vigorous protest 
 of Mr. Day, then in this country for his health. 
 But now again, in 1853, the question of abandon- 
 ing this field was raised, no results that seemed to 
 
304 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 justify the expenditure having been attained. No 
 more than three persons had been baptized since 
 the mission was recommenced in 1 849 ; there were 
 no native helpers in training or in prospect, and 
 the annual expense was over $2,600. 
 
 At the evening session at Albany, the great 
 question to be considered was ''Shall the Telugu 
 work be abandoned? " and one of the speakers, 
 pointing to Nellore on the map, the only station 
 in the Telugu country, gave it the name which 
 has since clung to it — ''The Lojte Star.^^ That 
 epithet inspired Dr. S. F. Smith, the poet, and his 
 pen put on paper the following prophetical verses, 
 which we here place on permanent record : 
 
 Shine on " Lone Star" ! Thy radiance bright 
 Shall spread o'er all the Eastern sky ; 
 
 Morn breaks apace from gloom and night ; 
 Shine on and bless the pilgrim's eye. 
 
 Shine on "Lone Star" ! I would not dim 
 The light that gleams with dubious ray; 
 
 The lonely star of Bethlehem 
 
 Led on a bright and glorious day. 
 
 Shine on, " Lone Star " ! In grief and tears 
 
 And sad reverses oft baptized : 
 Shine on amid thy sister spheres : 
 
 Lone stars in Heaven are not despised. 
 
 Shine on, " Lone Star " ! Who lifts a hand 
 To dash to earth so bright a gem ! 
 
 A new " lost pleiad " from the band 
 That sparkles in Night's diadem ! 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 3^5 
 
 Shine on, " Lone Star" ! The days draw near 
 When none shall shine more fair than thou ; 
 
 Thou, born and nursed in doubt and fear, 
 Wilt glitter on Immanuel's brow. 
 
 Shine on, " Lone Star" ! Till earth, redeemed, 
 
 In dust shall bid its idols fall ; 
 And thousands, where thy radiance beamed. 
 
 Still crown the Saviour Lord of All ! 
 
 Those verses proved so prophetic that the very- 
 details of the prediction, ventured by the poet, 
 have been accompHshed. 
 
 Notwithstanding all discouragements, it was 
 resolved that the Teliigu mission be cotitinued and 
 suitably reinforced. 
 
 Toward the close of this eventful year another 
 turning-point was reached in the mission's history. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jewett, with Christians, Nersu, Juha, 
 and Ruth, touring northward, reached Ongole 
 about the end of December, and on January i, 
 1854, before sunrise, this httle band, as stated in 
 previous pages, mounted the hill which overlooks 
 Ongole and the surrounding country. They saw 
 the large, populous town with its mosques and 
 temples, and counted fifty villages dotting the 
 plains — and all, like Athens, " wholly given to 
 idolatry." There, kneeling, each in turn besought 
 God to send to Ongole a true missionary, and en- 
 joyed assurance that they were heard. 
 
 For a time Mr. and Mrs. Jewett were the only 
 active laborers among the millions of Telugus. 
 
3o6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 But the Union had, at Albany, settled the question 
 that the Lone Star Mission should Hve, and Mr. 
 Jewett earnestly pleaded in 1855 for a missionary 
 to be located at Ongole, with its 10,000 people. 
 
 Mr. Jewett's health compelled his return to 
 America in 1862, and finding that again the ques- 
 tion of abandoning the Lone Star Mission was 
 before the Board and Chmxhes, he emphatically 
 insisted it should not be deserted, and declared that 
 he would go back, if only to die there. 
 
 In 1865 he returned, with Rev. and Mrs. J. E. 
 Clough, and anived in the Telugu country. Of 
 Mr. Clough one word ought to be said : he was 
 trained as a civil engineer, and, not until his third 
 appHcation, was he accepted by the Baptist Union 
 and sent to the field. 
 
 The work went on for another twelve years, 
 with slow progress ; the wail of disappointed hope 
 went up to God, Hke Isaiah's cry — " Lord, who 
 hath beheved our report ■ " The " lone star " had 
 shone for twenty years, but how few had by it 
 found the Light of the World ! 
 
 In 1866, in September, the new station was 
 opened at Ongole, seventy miles north of Nellore, 
 and Mr. Clough took charge. Another feeble 
 luminary was added to the " Lone Star " of 
 Nellore; and in March, 1867, two converts were 
 baptized. Mr. Clough undertook a tour among 
 the villages around, sending out word that he had 
 come to tell the people of Jesus. The next day 
 
THE CHALLENGE OE MISSIONS. 30? 
 
 after arriving at Tula Conda Padu, he found from 
 thirty to forty persons, who had come to his tent 
 ii. the tamarind grove — had prepared to stay for 
 days, and brought not only provisions with them, 
 but ^ change of clothes to put 011 whefi they were 
 baptized^ for they had come to learn of Christ, with 
 the expectation of confessing Him ! On Sunday, 
 January 20, twenty-eight were baptized, and a 
 Pentecost seemed begun. Native preachers vis- 
 ited more than eight hundred villages lying about 
 Ongole, and in 1867-8 the httle church had swelled 
 to seventy-five members. Meanwhile, the Canada 
 Auxiliary, organized in 1866, had sent A. V. 
 Timpany to Nellore, and the arrival of this new 
 laborer and wife, in 1868, was the signal for a 
 new era in the history of the mission. 
 
 Mr. Clough had been singularly impressed that, 
 if he could join Mr. Jewett in labor among the 
 Telugus, 10,000 souls would be given them in one 
 harvest. This, which was regarded as the sign 
 of excessive enthusiasm, if not of unsound mind, 
 by the members of the Baptist Board, was in fact 
 a prophecy of coming triumphs. 
 
 Many a time, when far away among the jungle 
 villages, in 1869, would those words come to him : 
 " Be still and know that I am God. I will be 
 exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in 
 the earth." In December, 1869, three hundred 
 and twenty-four more were baptized; and, sud- 
 denly, from one of the most unpromising, the 
 
3o8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Telugu field became one of the most inviting. 
 And already, in 1870, the little church of seventy- 
 five had grown to seven hundred and nine. In 
 187 1, Ongolehad 1,200 members; in 1872, 1,658 ; 
 in 1873, 2,092 ; and the number of baptisms was 
 limited only by the inability of the missionaries to 
 visit the villages and examine and baptize converts. 
 At Ramapatam, where, four years before, a mis- 
 sionary had preached the first Sabbath in his own 
 sitting-room to a congregation of his own servants 
 and a few others, there were, in 1873, 500 com- 
 municants, and a theological school for native 
 ministry with fifteen students ! The field, of which 
 Ongole was the centre, and over whose area of 
 7,000 square miles a milHon of people were scat- 
 tered in 1,300 villages, was then divided into 
 eight parts, and over each was placed a native 
 preacher and assistant, to go from village to village 
 teUing the Gospel story. 
 
 In 1873-4, 1,026 Telugus were baptized; in 
 
 1875, Ongole reported 2,642 members; and in 
 
 1876, the " Lone Star " mission, at Nellore, which 
 in 1845 had not a missionary, and whose utter 
 abandonment was so often considered ; which in 
 1865, when the veteran Jewett was returning with 
 his new recruit, Mr. Clough, had but thirty-eight 
 living members ; had now 4,000 members, six 
 stations, and twenty missionaries ! 
 
 The famine of 1877 exposed hundreds of thou- 
 sands to starvation, and just now it became obvious 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MLSSIONS. 3^9 
 
 why God had chosen a civil engineer for that field. 
 Mr. Clough obtained a government contract for 
 completing the Buckingham Canal, and on this 
 work he employed thousands of natives, to whom 
 the Gospel was preached after the day's work was 
 done ; gangs of men, successively employed, heard 
 the Word of Life, and the next year, thousands 
 came forward to ask baptism. On one day 2,222 
 were baptized ; between June 16 and July 7, about 
 three weeks, 5,429 were baptized by Mr. Clough 
 and his assistants at Ongole. And Mr. Clough 
 adds : " Perhaps not one hundred had ever received 
 from me, directly or indirectly, the value of a pice 
 (one-quarter of a cent) from the famine fund, or 
 ever expected to receive from me any financial aid." 
 Up to July 31, in less than seven weeks, 8,691 
 had professed faith and received baptism. In 
 twelve years, a church of eight had thus grown to 
 one of 12,000! The wild dream of John E. 
 Clough, and the long waiting prayer of Dr. Jewett, 
 had been fulfilled. Within less than twelve months 
 the number of baptized converts had swelled by 
 10,000 ; and to this day the revival work goes on, 
 without interruption ; the last reported year is one 
 of abounding fruitfulness, and one of the largest 
 in the in-gathering of converts. 
 
 This Telugu field furnishes another marked 
 illustration of the answers to prayer. Mr. Clough, 
 on coming to Ongole, was waited upon by high- 
 caste citizens, who gave him support and placed 
 
3IO THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 sixty-two of their sons in his school and furnished 
 the funds for carrying it on, without restricting his 
 rehgious teaching. One day three low-caste men 
 presented themselves as converts, and were made 
 welcome ; but at once an indignant committee in- 
 formed him that if he had anything more to do 
 with Sudras and Pariahs, the high-caste scholars 
 would be at once withdrawn. Two more low- 
 caste converts applied for admission. The crisis 
 had come — the school was likely to be wrecked 
 against this Gibraltar of caste, and the social sea 
 was in a wild tumult. 
 
 Mr. Clough and his wife went at the same time 
 to different apartments to pray for divine guidance. 
 Each cried for direction in this great extremity, 
 and each took up a Testament to seek in the Word 
 of God guidance. In the hand of each the Tes- 
 tament of its own accord opened to the same 
 passage — I. Cor. i, 26—29: "Ye see your calling, 
 brethren, how that not many wise men after the 
 flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called : 
 but God hath chosen the foolish things of the 
 world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen 
 the weak things of the world to confound the things 
 which are mighty ; and base things of the world, 
 and things which are despised, hath God chosen, 
 yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought 
 things that are : that no flesh shall glory in His 
 presence." 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Mr. Clough, '' I see it — I have 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS 3^ 
 
 not been building on God's plan : it must tumble 
 down, and I must begin anew." And he left the 
 room to go and tell his wife, whom he found 
 coming into the study with her hand on the same 
 Scripture. By this striking coincidence God led 
 them henceforth to build from the broad bottom 
 of the social pyramid, where the many are found. 
 They at once announced their purpose, and every 
 .scholar left ! But, though the upper classes at 
 once changed from friends to foes, God on this 
 new basis built the greatest single Church of 
 modern times, and the greatest revival since om* 
 Lord's ascension ; and of the thirty thousand 
 Ongole communicants, more converts from the 
 upper castes have been gathered than Mr. Clough 
 ever would have hoped under the previous plan. 
 
 These two instances have been previously re- 
 ferred to in these pages, but are here given 
 somewhat in detail that they may stand as repre- 
 sentative examples of what blessing would have 
 been forfeited had the Church of God at these 
 critical times deserted her post and abandoned 
 her work ! God had in store the greatest bless- 
 ings known since Pentecost — one in the South 
 Seas, the other in the East Indies. He allowed 
 the faith and patience of His people to be sorely 
 tried, and when they proved faithful He poured 
 out a blessing. And so it will be to-day, if this 
 new crisis be met in the true spirit. 
 
 The great signal-gun of God is sounding out 
 
312 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 the call to ADVANCE! Those old Greeks- 
 princes in the wisdom of this world — showed their 
 sagacity in the Olympic games. Three pillars 
 were reared in the ancient stadimii, respectively 
 at the starting-point, the midway-point, and the 
 tm-ning-point, or goal. Three Greek words were 
 inscribed upon these pillars respectively : on the 
 first opLorevEy " Do your best " ; on the second, 
 OTTEvdej " Speed you " ; and on the third, Kajiipov, 
 " Stop." When the racer was starting, the first 
 pillar incited him to show himself a man ; when 
 he reached the third, he was reminded that he had 
 reached the goal, or turning-point ; but it was at 
 the middle pillar that he met the caution, ''Speed 
 you / " ''Make haste I " 
 
 There was philosophy in that. No risk is so 
 great as the risk of over-confidence in a success 
 but half attained. He, who at first outran the rest 
 and at the middle of the course found himself 
 ahead, would be tempted to relax his efforts ; and 
 so some other racer, who had reserved his strength 
 for the supreme effort at the end of the race, 
 would pass him by and get first to the goal. 
 
 Paul was in the spiritual sphere a trained 
 athlete. His law of life was, " Forgetting those 
 things which are behind and reaching forth unto 
 those things which are before, I press toward the 
 mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus." Spinoza wisely said, that there is 
 no foe more fatal to progress than self-conceit and 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. Z^% 
 
 the laziness which self-conceit begets. To think 
 and feel that we have already attained, or are 
 already perfect, is the narcotic and sedative that 
 brings on the sleep of the sloth and the sluggard. 
 At the present critical hour of missions the banners 
 of God's hosts should bear one word emblazoned 
 in capitals : FORWARD ! 
 
 The motto of the great Apostle to the Gentiles 
 was, "The Regions Beyond." Satisfied with 
 no work already done, content with no other 
 man's Hne of things made ready to hand, he 
 yearned to evangelize the regions beyond, where 
 Christ had not been named.* That motto of 
 Paul is the true watchword of this new age of 
 missions. After all the work of a century, we 
 have only just begun, and are not even at the 
 midway pillar. God says, " Speed ye ! Make 
 haste ! Forget what is behind, reach toward, 
 press toward what is before ! Push for the re- 
 gions beyond ! " Our work is not done — in -a 
 sense is not fully begun — so long as there remains 
 one country or people or family where the Gospel 
 has as yet not been proclaimed. A salvation 
 provided for all and free to all must be at least 
 announced to all. 
 
 The other signal word for this supreme hour of 
 
 missions is PRAYER. In the Pantheon at Paris 
 
 is a superb painting of the death of St. Genevieve, 
 
 the patron saint of the city. And the picture sug- 
 
 * II. Cor. X. i6. 
 
314 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 gests the marked contrasts of history. Above is 
 a triumphal procession entering the gates with all 
 the pomp and pageantry of victorious war — the 
 legions of soldiery, the captives in golden chains, 
 the spoils of priceless value, all suggest the im- 
 perial glory of human power in the insolent boast- 
 fulness of conscious success. Beneath, in a dimly- 
 lighted chamber. Christians gather about the rude 
 couch of the dying saint. It is but a convent 
 cell, and a little band of praying disciples ; yet in 
 gazing you feel that this is the far grander scene 
 — and that, in the circle of prayer, and not in the 
 march of battalions, lies the secret power which 
 is yet to overturn the empire of the Caesars and 
 make the banners of the Church more victorious 
 than the silver eagles of Rome ! 
 
 The autobiography of Charles G. Finney is 
 confessedly one of the most remarkable narratives 
 in the English tongue. At a time when the 
 American Church was well-nigh enwrapt in a dead 
 orthodoxy, and vital godliness was in peril, this 
 wonderful man swept like a flaming evangelist 
 through the churches, kindling into a fierce fire 
 the smouldering embers on God's altars. Tens of 
 thousands of formal Christians were quickened 
 into life, and converts sprang up like willows along 
 the water-courses. The power of that whole move- 
 ment was the power of believing prayer. Mr. 
 Finney himself, from the very hour of conversion, 
 had his hand on the throne of God. His princi- 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 3^5 
 
 pal co-workers were men and women of marked 
 power in intercession. Rev. Daniel Nash, famil- 
 iarly known as " Father Nash," had inflamed 
 eyes, and was for weeks at a time shut up in a dark 
 room ; but that room became a holy of holies, 
 in the secrecy, sohtude, silence, separation of which 
 he communed with God at the mercy-seat. His 
 closet was the throne-room of God, and as he 
 could neither read nor write. Father Nash gave 
 himself up almost entirely to prayer. From that 
 hiding-place he went forth with a double black 
 veil on his face to work for souls, full of the power 
 which only prayer can bring. He had a ** praying 
 list " of persons for whom daily, and in some cases, 
 many times in a day, he prayed. And his faith 
 was so marvellous that the hardest hearts yielded 
 when he began to beseech God for them. The 
 bar-room of a low groggery would become a 
 prayer-meeting room and the blasphemous bar- 
 tender the leader of the meeting. When the devil 
 reared especially high bulwarks against the truth, 
 and impassable walls seemed to defy progress, 
 Mr. Finney and Father Nash would simply over- 
 come all obstacles by this one resort : they would 
 go together to some retired place, a grove perhaps, 
 and give themselves up to prayer until they knew 
 that God heard and would answer; and often, 
 while Mr. Finney gave himself to the preaching, 
 his brother Nash would pray without ceasing, and 
 the most brazen-faced and stiff-necked opposers 
 
3i6 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 would give way. Such mighty praying gave 
 Father Nash the power of a prophet. For ex- 
 ample, when at Governeur, N. Y., a band of god- 
 less young men joined hand in hand by ridicule 
 and every other means to resist the revival, Father 
 Nash, coming forth from his closet with awful 
 solemnity, as if he were striking chords from 
 Ezekiel's iron harp, thus solemnly warned them : 
 " Now, young men, mark me ! Within one week 
 God will break yom- ranks, either by converting 
 some of you or by sending some of you to hell ! 
 He will do this as certainly as the Lord is my 
 God !" Down came his hand on the pew before 
 him, and the very house seemed to • shake with 
 the presence of God. He sat down, dropped his 
 head, and groaned with agony for souls. 
 
 Even Mr. Finney was startled at the boldness 
 of the prediction. But two days had not passed 
 before the leader of those young men, in the 
 deepest distress, came to Mr. Finney and, broken 
 down with contrition, submitted himself to God ; 
 and at once went back to his companions, besought 
 them to turn unto the Lord, and prayed with 
 them. Before the week was out that band of 
 mockers were rejoicing in hope. 
 
 Abel Clary, of Rochester, was another of these 
 praying saints to whom more than to his own 
 pungent and powerful preaching Mr. Finney traced 
 the mighty revival tide that swept over the Eastern 
 and Middle States. Though he was Hcensed to 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 317 
 
 preach, such were his hunger for souls and his thirst 
 after God, that he forsook the pulpit for the closet, 
 and gave to prayer his time and strength, night 
 and day. The absorption of his soul was often 
 such that he could not stand, but would writhe 
 and groan as he travailed in birth for souls. He 
 never appeared in public, but gave himself wholly 
 to the secrecy of divine communion. Is it any 
 marvel that the whole city was moved as it never 
 was before or since f How slow are we to learn 
 that from the secret springs of the closet flow the 
 rills and rivers of grace, by which the deserts are 
 transformed into gardens of paradise ! 
 
 In his revival lectures Mr. Finney tells of another 
 man in New York State, whose name he does not 
 give — a consumptive, poor and sick, unable to do 
 anything but pray. Yet his intercession brought 
 answers to one soul and one community after 
 another, and even to distant fields in pagan and 
 heathen soil. Revivals sprang up as if spontane- 
 ously and unaccountably ; but after his death his 
 diary revealed the secret cause. Daily he set 
 apart certain hours for certain ministers, churches, 
 communities, and mission stations. Often in these 
 pages would be found such an entry as this : " To- 
 day I have been enabled to offer what I beUeve 
 to be the prayer of faith for the outpouring of the 
 
 spirit on , and I trust in God that there will 
 
 soon be a revival there." And not long after 
 would follow the record of the answer, even in 
 
3i8 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE, 
 
 places as distant as Ceylon. What is more re- 
 markable, the revivals followed in the order named, 
 as though to defy any explanation but that found 
 in prevailing prayer. During his sickness, as death 
 drew nigh, he was specially engrossed with prayer 
 for the town he hved in. After he died^ his works 
 followed him, and that last prayer found gracious 
 and abundant answer in the place of his residence. 
 The prayer was recorded on high and his tears 
 put into God's bottle; and, though the praying 
 lips were dumb, and the holy tears were wiped 
 from his eyes, the prayers he had offered came back 
 in converting grace, and the tears he had shed 
 descended in abundant showers of blessing. That 
 the Church of God can neglect a motor like prayer 
 is a sure sign of apostasy ! Were it possible for 
 one man to speak in a voice of thunder, that 
 should peal around the world and reach every 
 Church and every Christian bdiever, it would 
 be my desire to sound, as the motto of the pres- 
 ent hour, these two words, viz. : '' Forward ! " 
 " Pray ! " or they might both be included in the 
 counsel given by that Japanese preacher, Dr. 
 Neesima, lately deceased: ^^Adva?ice on your 
 knees J " 
 
 Could the whole Church just now determine in 
 God's strength to allow no retrenchment, surrender 
 no station, withdraw no workman, but rather mul- 
 tiply her laborers, enlarge her gifts, and at once 
 vigorously push for the regions beyond — could 
 
THE CHALLENGE OE MLSSIONS. 319 
 
 the Church but resolve that within this generation 
 every human soul shall hear the Gospel proclaimed, 
 there would come, as we solemnly and confidently 
 beheve, a new era of blessing, of which even 
 Pentecostal outpouring was but a forecast and 
 first-fruits ! All prophecy and promise paint a 
 glorious future for the Kingdom of God. 
 
 The visitor at Florence enters that grand apart- 
 ment in the Museum of Natural History known 
 as La Tribuna Galilei. The walls are inlaid with 
 precious stones and the ceiling is glorious with 
 elaborate frescoes. Around are the master achieve- 
 ments of sculpture, each in its own httle shrine. 
 In the centre of a large and semicircular window, 
 at the extremity of this temple of science, stands 
 the colossal statue of the man who first with tele- 
 scopic eye penetrated to the arcana of the heavens. 
 And around that central figure all else is clustered, 
 and toward that all else in this costly Cabinet of 
 the Medici seems to point. The surrounding 
 busts of great men all face toward him who was 
 greater than they all, and the very glories of that 
 ceiling, which sets forth the leading events in the 
 career of the famous Florentine, rains down on 
 his head its lavish splendors. 
 
 All history is the Tribuna of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 He is the central glory of the ages. The very 
 universe was built to be His temple. The greatest 
 of prophets, priests, and kings, the foremost of 
 poets, philosophers, and statesmen, the leaders in 
 
320 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 art, science, and invention, turn toward Him who 
 is greater, wiser, and mightier than all. The ages 
 move about Him, and the very heavens shine for 
 Him. His supernal glory a stable could not dim 
 nor a manger hide. A hating world nailed Him 
 to a cross of shame, but they were only lifting 
 Him up to draw all men unto Him. His very 
 crown of thorns became a diadem of royalty, and 
 His death destroyed death and turned the grave 
 into the gateway of paradise. The cross was not 
 the symbol of defeat and shame, but of conquest 
 and glory. 
 
 By the cross of that Nazarene, the Church is to 
 conquer. Missions represent, not a human de- 
 vice, but a divine enterprise. Its thought was a 
 divine idea, and its plan, a divine scheme; the 
 work is a co-labor with God ; the field is a divine 
 sphere ; the spirit of missions is a divine inspira- 
 tion, and the fruit of missions a divine seal, an ever- 
 lasting sign that shall not be cut off. 
 
 There are some watchwords which, as with 
 trumpet tongue, should peal out all along the hues 
 of the Church ; our great motto should be, " The 
 world for Christ and Christ for the world, in this 
 our generation." The Fulness of the Times has 
 come. The cup of God's preparation overflows. 
 The open door of the ages is before us. The 
 whole world invites and challenges occupation. 
 FaciUties, a thousandfold multiplied, match the 
 thousandfold opportunities. If it is the open door 
 
THE CHALLENGE OF MISSIONS. 321 
 
 of the ages, it is also the crisis of the ages. Some 
 one will enter these open doors ; if an inactive, 
 indifferent Church delays, the arch advers"ary is 
 always on the alert. Satan never yet lost his op- 
 portunity. He was in the garden of Eden as soon 
 as man was ; he not only occupies, but preoc- 
 cupies ; with sleepless vigilance he watches while 
 even disciples sleep. His missionaries are every- 
 where ; his synagogues and seats throng the great 
 centres of population and plant their subtle influ- 
 ences through the hills and valleys ; his pioneers 
 go before the boldest and bravest who pierce the 
 unknown lands ; he sets up his printing-presses 
 long before the Christian literature scatters its 
 heahng leaves. 
 
 Christ is waiting for His final Coronation. The 
 Kremlin, that island in a sea of domes, is the 
 sanctuary of Russia. But, in all this maze of 
 temples, towers, ramparts, and palaces, nothing 
 impresses one more than that singular Treasury 
 where are seen the many crowns worn by the 
 rulers who swayed their sceptres over the king- 
 doms of Poland, the Crimea and Kasan, before 
 they were absorbed in the ever-encroaching gulf 
 of Russian conquest. 
 
 The structure of the future has its Throne-room ; 
 there lie the crowns of empire, waiting for Him 
 to whom by right they all belong. And, when 
 He shall return to mount His throne, these crowns 
 shall be all laid at His feet, He waits for the 
 
32 2 THE DIVINE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 grateful suffrages of a redeemed people, brought 
 out of every nation, before He assumes His right- 
 ful dominion. What can you and I do to hasten 
 that consummation ! 
 
 Let my closing appeal be to young men. Some 
 of us have passed middle life and our sun is de- 
 clining ; with others of us the sunset hour already 
 reddens the horizon. With you the dawn has yet 
 to climb to its noontide. History is dense with 
 its events. Every year, every day, every hour, is 
 the prolific parent of opportunities that might 
 make angels rejoice, and responsibilities that might 
 make even angels tremble ! These pages are now 
 bringing to a conclusion a series of appeals which 
 have been written as with my heart's blood, and 
 in them the energy and enthusiasm of the inmost 
 life have found utterance. And now let the last 
 words be put in capitals, as their emphasis de- 
 mands : 
 
 GOD IS MOVING ON. 
 
 HIS MARCH IS SWIFT, AND OUR TIME IS SHORT. 
 
 NO SUCH AGE HAS EVER BEFORE SHONE ON THIS PLANET. 
 
 NO SUCH DOORS EVER BEFORE OPENED TO HIS CHURCH. 
 
 WHO WILL FALL INTO LINE WITH GOD, 
 
 JOIN IN HIS MAJESTIC MARCH, 
 
 AND IN THE SURE ADVANCE OF HIS PLAN 
 
 REACH THE GOLDEN FRUITION OF THE AGES 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abeel, Rev. David, 201, 263. 
 
 Abdul Medjid, 200. 
 
 Absorption in God, 179, 180. 
 
 Abu-Said, 160 ; Abu-Taher, 
 160. 
 
 Acceptance of salvation, 26. 
 
 Activity, tireless for God, 174. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, incom- 
 plete, 55 ; new chapters in, 
 56, 240 ; the Missionary 
 Manual, 62. 
 
 Age to come, 95 ; Ages, 
 Seven Golden, 240, 
 
 Agriculture, to illustrate God's 
 work, no. 
 
 Albert, Frince Consort, to 
 young men, 58, 
 
 Alexandria, Church at, 157. 
 
 Ambassador, 107. 
 
 America, Discovery of, 285 ; 
 Central, 299. 
 
 American Baptist Miss. Union, 
 
 251, 303- 
 Aneityum, 248. 
 Angelic Host, 207. 
 Angels, Relation to preaching 
 
 the Gospel, 43, 44. 
 Aniwa, 252. 
 Annus mirabilis, 292. 
 Anointing of the Spirit, 213 ; 
 
 of Christ as King, 196. 
 Apostolic succession, 53. 
 Architecture,illustrating God's 
 
 work, 109. 
 
 Aristocratic titles, 80. 
 Army, God's great, 211. 
 Ass's ears, 274, 280. 
 Avarice, Power of, 178. 
 
 BABVLON,God's hammer,2i3. 
 
 Baptist, John the, 107. 
 
 Bau, Chapel at, 246. 
 
 Believers, Needed as channels 
 of Grace, 144 ; Secret, 266, 
 
 Believing is receiving, 26. 
 
 Benevolence, 161. 
 
 Bengal, 256. 
 
 Bentinck, Gov. William, 261. 
 
 Bernard, Sir Charles, 254. 
 
 Beseeching men, 106. 
 
 Besser's story of redeemed 
 slave, 176. 
 
 Bible Translations, 267. 
 
 Bicknell, Rev. James, 83. 
 
 Birds without wings, 187. 
 
 Birth hours of Time, 284. 
 
 Blaikie, Rev. Dr., on Living- 
 stone, 126. 
 
 Blantyre, Scotland, 90. 
 
 Blessings, Turned to curses, 
 169. 
 
 Blood, Signing covenant in, 
 217. 
 
 Body of Christ, 133 ; its 
 health, 134 ; its unity, 135. 
 
 Boemish, 175. 
 
 Botany, Curious fact in, 119. 
 
 Bradley, Rev. D. B., 201. 
 
324 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 British rule in India, 261. 
 Brotherhood in Christ, 163. 
 Brunelleschi, 58. 
 Buchanan, Claudius, D.D., 
 
 256. 
 Buell, Rev. W. P., 202. 
 Buffon, on style, 214. 
 Building, God's, 108. 
 Burdens and pinions, 188. 
 Burmah, loi ; Missions in, 251. 
 Business, About the Father's, 
 
 218. 
 Byzantium, 57. 
 
 Calcutta and Zenana work, 
 
 264. 
 Calvert, Rev, James, 243. 
 Campbell, Sir Colin, 296. 
 Canara, 256. 
 Cannibalism in Fiji, 243 ; in 
 
 New Zealand, 86 ; of Scots, 
 
 272. 
 Carey, 267, 271, 288, 297. 
 Carmathians, 160. 
 Carnal Mind, 60, 
 Caste, 163 ; in education, 
 
 church-life, etc., 310; in 
 
 India, 262, 267. 
 Caswell, Rev. J., 203. 
 Celebes, 252. 
 
 Chalmers on the Gospel, 26. 
 Channels of Grace, 146. 
 Charity, "begins at home," 
 
 165. 
 
 Children, Consecrated, 140. 
 
 China, 91, 255, 295. 
 
 Chitambo's village, 126. 
 
 Christ, as Captain of Lord's 
 Host, 206 ; Personal pres- 
 ence of, 141. 
 
 Christlieb, Prof, Theodore, on 
 Miracles, 234 ; Spirit of 
 Missions, 50. 
 
 Chula Lang Korn, 204. 
 
 Church, apostasy and death 
 in, 171 ; Council at Jeru- 
 salem, 93 ; God's idea of, 
 163 ; Influence on masses, 
 122 ; Life and growth of, 
 169; Militant and trium- 
 phant, 198 ; Outgathered 
 from nations, 93, 94. 
 
 Cicero, 216. 
 
 Clary, Abel, 316. 
 
 Clay, Henry, and sarcophagus, 
 176. 
 
 Clergy and laity, 29, 32, 
 
 Clough, Rev. Dr, J, E,, 306. 
 
 Coan, Rev, Titus, 82, 
 
 Coliseum at Rome, 185, 
 
 Color and music, 151. 
 
 Columbus and New World, 39. 
 
 Commission, The Great, 20, 
 
 31. 
 
 Complacent love, 161. 
 
 Composite photograph, 20, 
 
 Constantine, Accession of, 92 ; 
 Conversion of, 79 ; Court of, 
 80 ; Planning Constanti- 
 nople, 57. 
 
 Constantinople, Founding, 57 ; 
 Fall of, 285. 
 
 Constructive Work of Mis- 
 sions, 208. 
 
 Consummation of salvation, 
 
 54. 
 Conversion of men in masses, 
 
 87; of nations, 71, 77, 83, 86, 
 
 89, 92. 
 Converts, Native, 116, 117 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 325 
 
 made how, 131, 132 ; first, 
 
 253- 
 Co-operation with God, 104. 
 Coronation of Christ, 321. 
 Covenant, Carey's, 219. 
 Co-witness with the Spirit, 
 
 143- 
 Cows, Sacred in India, 267. 
 Creation, obeying God, 211 ; 
 
 sharing redemption, 237. 
 Cripple, Testifying to Christ, 
 
 50. 
 Crisis in harvest-field, 115 ; 
 
 of Missions, 288, 299, 300. 
 Critics of Missions, 282. 
 Croly, Rev. Dr., 284. 
 Crops, Cumulative, 125. 
 Cross-bearing, 47. 
 Crucifixion of self, 167. 
 Cruelties, suppressed in India, 
 
 261, 262. 
 Crusade for Christ, 161. 
 Culture, False type of, 119. 
 Cust, Robt. M., 182. 
 
 Dale, Rev. R. W., D.D., 179. 
 Daniel's prophecy, 72. 
 Darwin, on Tierra del Fuego, 
 
 274, 275. 
 David, Thrice anointed, 194. 
 Dean, Rev. Wm., 20. 
 Deans, Jeanie, 187. 
 Death-drums, 246, 
 Debtors to man and to Christ, 
 
 178. 
 Deems, Rev. C. F., D.D., 38. 
 Delay in fruits, 253. 
 Demonstration of the Spirit, 
 
 217. 
 Demosthenes, 216. 
 
 Dependence of members of the 
 
 body, 133. 
 Destructive work of Missions, 
 
 208. 
 Diffusion vs. Concentration, 
 
 98 ; Diffusive piety, 77. 
 Disposition and conceptions 
 
 of truth, 226. 
 Dober, Rev. Mr., 175. 
 Dolet, 282. 
 
 Doubt limiting testimony, 37. 
 Duff, Rev. Alex., D.D., 257, 
 
 259, 263. 
 Duncan, William, and Metla- 
 
 kahtla, 253. 
 Dynamics, Spiritual, 224. 
 
 East India Co., 296; and 
 Missions, 257, 270 ; new 
 charter, 260. 
 
 Edinburgh, Grey friar's Church 
 in, 217. 
 
 Education of women, 263. 
 
 Efficiency of witness, 215. 
 
 Eimeo, 242. 
 
 Elect, Church, 94 ; Nation, 94. 
 
 Elective Principle in God's 
 working, 94. 
 
 Elgin, Earl of, 293. 
 
 Elisha, Casting in salt, 152. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 273. 
 
 Elliot, Sir Chas., 268. 
 
 Eloquence, defined, 215. 
 
 Emerson, on positive con- 
 viction, 38. 
 
 Empress of India, 296. 
 
 End of Age, 54 ; Connected 
 with witnessing, 68. 
 
 Endosmosis, 75. 
 
 Enduement of Spirit, 214. 
 
326 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Enoch and Elijah, 136, 137. 
 
 Ephesus,and John the Apostle, 
 156. 
 
 Eromang-a, 242. 
 
 Eunuch of Ethiopia, 132, 157. 
 
 Euphrates, Missions on, 252. 
 
 Evangehst, Work of, 121, 123. 
 
 Evangelist vs. Prophet, 121. 
 
 Evangelization of the world, 
 100 ; immediate, 100 ; neces- 
 sary, 114; practicable, loi. 
 
 Evangelization, the watch- 
 word, 65, 92. 
 
 Everlasting sign, 236. 
 
 Exigencies, How to be met, 
 299. 
 
 Exosmosis, 75. 
 
 Expansion needed, 288. 
 
 Extravagance, 172. 
 
 Eyes, and eye salve, 225. 
 
 Faber, F. W., 59. 
 Facilities provided, 287. 
 Faith, Fruits of, 154 ; Spirit 
 
 of, 154. 
 Famine among Telugus, 308. 
 Faust, Retzsch's illustrations 
 
 of, 170. 
 Feast of Tabernacles, 146. 
 Female education, 263. 
 Fetich worship, 84. 
 Fidelity vs. Success, 97. 
 Field and Force, 124. 
 Field and Seed, 93, iii. 
 Field is world, iii. 
 Fiji Islands, 243. 
 Finney, Chas. G., 314. 
 Fish vs. Sheep, 121. 
 Fishers of men, 120, 121. 
 Flint, Rev. Dr., 253. 
 
 Flock and Fold, 120. 
 Following divine leadership, 
 
 57. 
 Form of godliness, 46, 78. 
 Forms of society, 165. 
 Fruit of Missions, 232. 
 Fry, Elizabeth, 177. 
 
 Galilee, Christ's interview 
 
 with disciples, 31. 
 Galileo, Tribune of, 319. 
 Gama, Vasco de, 286. 
 Gardiner, Allen, 276. 
 Gautier, Theophilus, 279. 
 Geddie, John, at Aneityum, 
 
 248 ; Epitaph to, 248. 
 Genevieve, St., 313, 
 Gibbon, on clergy and laity, 
 
 32 ; on Carmathians, 161. 
 Giotto, and the circle, 62. 
 Giving, Generous, 172; Selfish, 
 
 167. 
 Gladstone, Hon. Wm., 287. 
 Glaize, Auguste B., painter, 
 
 279. 
 Goethe, on doubts, 38. 
 Golden Ages, and profligacy, 
 
 240. 
 Good Hope, Cape of, 286. 
 Goodell, Dr., 199. 
 Graeff, Fred., and Clay, 176. 
 Grain of God, 186. 
 " Grain of mustard seed," 
 
 Order of, 174. 
 Greed, 178. 
 
 Growing demand, 989. 
 Growing family, 290. 
 Growth of Missions, 289. 
 Guthrie, Rev. Thos., 216. 
 Gutzlaff, Dr., 201. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 327 
 
 Haldane, Rev. Robert, 297. 
 
 Halenaua, " House of Wis- 
 dom," 84. 
 
 Hamilton, SirWm., 216. 
 
 Hamilton, Dr. Jas., 216. 
 
 Hamlin, Dr. Cyrus, 199. 
 
 "Harmonic Laws," Kepler's, 
 19. 
 
 Harvest, the ultimate, 126. 
 
 Harvests, apparent and real, 
 96. 
 
 Hatti.Sherif, 200. 
 
 Hau-Haus, 87. 
 
 Havelock, Sir Henry, 296. 
 
 Hawaiian Islands, 81, 253; 
 Revival at, 82. 
 
 Haweis, Dr., 300. 
 
 Head, Dependence of, 133. 
 
 Hemel en Aarde, 183. 
 
 Heralding good tidings, 66. 
 
 Himalayas, Missions in, 175. 
 
 Hindrances to Missions, 135. 
 
 Hindustan, Progress in, 269. 
 
 Holy Spirit's work, 96, 142 ; 
 Co-operation with, 142. 
 
 Holy Spirit, not received or 
 discerned by natural man, 
 145 ; works through believ- 
 ers, 145. 
 
 Hoomanamana idolatry, 83. 
 
 House, Rev. S. R., 202. 
 
 Hunger in India, 266. 
 
 Husbandry, God's, 108, 109, 
 238. 
 
 Hyde, 175. 
 
 " Idea "—Word, 19. 
 Idols of Tahiti, 301. 
 Idolatry in India, 266. 
 Ignatius, Martyr, 185. 
 
 Ilala, 126. 
 
 Illustrations in discourse, 112. 
 
 India, British rule in, 261 ; 
 Mutiny in, 296 ; Missions 
 in, 257, 269 ; Opening to 
 Gospel, 296 ; Passage to, 
 285. 
 
 Individualism on religion, 89. 
 
 Infanticide suppressed, 262. 
 
 Introduction, 9; Author's, 15. 
 
 Inventions and Discoveries, 
 284. 
 
 Inventions, Theology of, 284. 
 
 Isaiah's Preaching, 67. 
 
 Israel, Missions to, 158. 
 
 Italy, 298. 
 
 James and John, 156. 
 Japan, 91, 293 ; Beginning of 
 
 Missions in, 147 ; Rapid 
 
 changes in, 91. 
 Jaschke, 175. 
 Jericho, Capture of, 205. 
 Jerome of Prague, 184. 
 Jerome on Scots, 272, 273, 
 Jewitt, Dr. Lyman, 302. 
 Jews, BUndness, 158, 159 ; 
 
 First in order, 157, 158 ; 
 
 Missions to, 157. 
 Joel's Prophecy, 95. 
 Johnson, Wm. A. B., 253. 
 j Juarez, Benito, 298. 
 Judgment, Preparing for the 
 
 Gospel, 211. 
 Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 251. 
 Judson in Burmah, loi. 
 Judson, Mrs. Ann Hazeltine, 
 
 201. 
 Juggernaut, 256. 
 Julius Caesar, 273. 
 
328 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kaahumanu, Regent, 82, 83. 
 Kahunas, 84, 85. 
 Kamehameha I., 81. 
 Kamehameha V., 85. 
 Karens, 254. 
 Keopuolani, 81. 
 Kepler, Johann, 19. 
 Key to all Church History, 93. 
 Kho-Tha-Byu Memorial Hall, 
 
 70, 254. 
 Kingdom of God, How built 
 
 up, 71. 
 Kingsley, Rev. Chas., 277. 
 Kremlin, 321. 
 Krishna Chundra Pal, 222, 
 
 Lack, Filling up a, 129. 
 
 Laity and Clergy, 29. 
 
 Lamp-stand and Trumpet, 137. 
 
 Laodiceanism, 124, 170, 171, 
 
 Lawrence, Sir John, 261, 296. 
 
 Lazarus, and the tomb, 290. 
 
 Leadership of God, 57. 
 
 Lehman, Rev. Mr., 184. 
 
 Leitner, Rev. Mr., 183. 
 
 Lepers, Missions to, 183. 
 
 Le Pilori, 279. 
 
 Life implying growth, 290. 
 
 Life, Sacrifice of, 245. 
 
 Life, Spiritual signs of, 119. 
 
 Light of world, 45. 
 
 Link to be supplied, 130. 
 
 Livingstone, David, 90, 96, 
 126, 299 ; Burial, 128 ; Buried 
 Heart of, 127 ; Body-servant 
 of, 138, 139; His death, 126 ; 
 Mrs. McRobert and, 139. 
 
 Locusts, God's army, 211. 
 
 London Missionary Society, 
 300- 
 
 London Times, 270. 
 
 "Lone Star," 304. 
 
 Lord Lytton on color, 151. 
 
 Love of Benevolence vs. 
 Complacence, 161,162; Law 
 of, 162 ; Spirit of, 161. 
 
 Lugalama, 249. 
 
 Lukewarmness, 75, 
 
 Luther, 286 ; at Augsburg, 
 159 ; and Reformation, 173. 
 
 Madras Presidency, 266. 
 
 Maganja Swamp, 249. 
 
 Maha Mong Kut, 203. 
 
 Mahmoud, Sultan, 199. 
 
 Malabar, 256. 
 
 Malo, David, " History Ha- 
 waii," 84. 
 
 Maoris, 87. 
 
 Marching orders, 99, 154. 
 
 Mariner's compass, 284. 
 
 Marsden, Samuel, 86, 254, 255. 
 
 Marseilles, Painting at, 279. 
 
 Marsh, 258. 
 
 Marshman, 219. 
 
 Martyr, Rev. Henry, 297. 
 
 Martyrs of science, 280. 
 
 Martyrs of Uganda, 249. 
 
 Massacre of Punjab, 261. 
 
 Mattoon, Rev. Stephen,- 202. 
 
 McAuley Mission, 50. 
 
 McCosh, Dr. Jas., 216. 
 
 McFarlane, Rev. S. , 244. 
 
 McLeod, Norman, 43. 
 
 McRobert, Mrs., and Living- 
 stone, 139. 
 
 Mebalwe, Servant of Living- 
 stone, 139. 
 
 Mercy, Exercise of, 166. 
 
 Meriah sacrifices, 259. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 Messengers, 107. 
 
 Messianic covenant and reij^n, 
 192. 
 
 Metlakahtla, 253. 
 
 Mexico, 268. 
 
 Midas and ass's ears, 274, 
 280. 
 
 Mikado of Japan, 294. 
 
 Militant church, 207. 
 
 Millennial Age, 95. 
 
 Ministry, An ordained, 35, 42. 
 
 Miracle, Defined, 235; Loaves, 
 156 ; Missions, 234. 
 
 Missionary force, and its 
 increase, loi, 172 ; Inade- 
 quacy of, 172. 
 
 Missions, Opposition to, 258. 
 
 Modern Miracles, 235, 
 
 Moloch, Modern, 257. 
 
 Money and its expenditure, 
 172. 
 
 Monod, Pastor, 103. 
 
 Moral miracles, 236. 
 
 Moravians, 120, 183 ; Their 
 Litany, 120 ; Zeal, 174. 
 
 Morse, Prof. S. B., 40. 
 
 Motive power in M ssions, 153. 
 
 Mujasi, 249. 
 
 Mullens, Mrs., and Zenanas, 
 264, 265. 
 
 Musicians and preachers, com- 
 pared, 226. 
 
 Mwanga, Chief, 249. 
 
 Nankin, Treaty of, 295. 
 Nash, Father, 315. 
 National Covenant, Scotland, 
 
 217, 
 Native Converts, 116. 
 Natural man, 60. 
 
 Naturalness in testimony, 
 214. 
 
 Na Vita Leva, 254, 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's golden im- 
 age, 72. 
 
 Needle and Zenanas, 298. 
 
 Ncesima, Dr., 318. 
 
 Neglect of souls, 134. 
 
 Negro, and God's image, 164. 
 
 Newgate Prison, 177 ; Revival 
 in, 86. 
 
 New Jerusalem, 73. 
 
 New Zealand, 86, 275. 
 
 Nicobar Islands, 175, 
 
 Nineteenth Century, 287. 
 
 Nitschmann, 175. 
 
 Noah's preaching, 67. 
 
 Nott, Rev. Mr., at Tahiti, 253. 
 
 Numbers, Snare of, 67, 70. 
 
 Numerical results mislead- 
 ing, 90. 
 
 Obedience and knowledge, 
 41 ; Absolute, Power of, 
 159, 160 ; Implicit, 157 ; 
 Spirit of, 154 ; to be prompt, 
 155 ; of soldiers of Car- 
 math, 160. 
 i Occupation of whole field, 
 
 i 99- 
 
 ; Offence of the Cross, 167. 
 ; Olympic Games, 312. 
 I Ongole, 250, 302. 
 
 Ono, God of War, 243. 
 ' Opening of doors, 286, 
 j Opium curse, 91. 
 
 Opportunity, 287. 
 
 Ordained Ministrj-, Reasons 
 for, 35. 
 
 Order of Missions, 157. 
 
330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Outpouring of the Spirit on 
 
 all flesh, 149. 
 Ovaries in plants, 119. 
 
 Pagell, 175. 
 
 Pai Marire, 87. 
 
 Pan, 274. 
 
 Pantheon, Painting in, 313. 
 
 Pantomime,Witnessing in, 51. 
 
 Panwas, 259. 
 
 Papal Europe, 1853, 298. 
 
 Paradox of Missions, 53. 
 
 Passion for numbers, 89, 120 ; 
 
 Souls, 48, 174. 
 Paton, Rev. J. G., 252. 
 Paul an athlete, 312. 
 Paul as miracle worker, 232. 
 Paul's methods, 157 ; First to 
 
 Jews, 158. 
 Paul's service to God, 126. 
 Paul's sphere of work, 156. 
 Peace, Salutation of, 24. 
 Pentecost, Typical, 209. 
 Perfection of benevolence, 166. 
 Pei-petuity of witnessing, 55. 
 Persecuted benefactors, 282. 
 Persecution in time of Stephen, 
 
 33. 
 Persecutions, The Ten, 79. 
 Peter and James, 156. 
 Peter at Joppa, 52. 
 Philip baptizing, 34. 
 Philip the Evangelist, 156. 
 Phoenician sailors in Spain, 
 
 73- 
 
 Piety, a higher t3^e, 223 ; 
 Prevailing type of, 76, 77. 
 
 Pipper, Nathaniel, 254. 
 
 Plan of God, 103, 104; Mis- 
 sions, 57. 
 
 Plan, the Word, 59. 
 
 Planting of the Lord, 238. 
 
 Plants in Lord's garden, 121. 
 
 Polynesia, Missions in, 248. 
 
 Pomare II., 254. 
 
 Poverty of Christ, 167. 
 
 Power of Holy Ghost, 23, 25 ; 
 Spirit, 209, 210 ; in Missions, 
 189. 
 
 Prayer, 314 ; against becom- 
 ing great, 120 ; and con- 
 viction, 41 ; answered in 
 Missions, 291 ; answered, 
 309, 310. 
 
 Preaching, lack of power, 
 223 ; of primitive disciples, 
 
 33- 
 Preparatio Evangelica, 220. 
 Presence of Christ, 25, 141, 
 
 190. 
 Printing, Discovery of, 286. 
 Problem of Missions, 153. 
 Progress of the race, 287. 
 Progress of doctrines as to 
 
 Missions, 120. 
 " Promise of the Father," 22, 
 
 190 ; Christ, 141. 
 Propagation of Gospel, 118. 
 Prophet, Receiving a, 136 ; 
 
 Reward of, 136. 
 Prussian army, 159. 
 Psalm II., 192. 
 Purpose of God in this age, 
 
 64, 65. 
 
 Quixotism in Missions, 102. 
 
 Ratio of conversion, 256; 
 
 Progress, 256. 
 Recompense not to be sought 
 
 from man, 166. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Zl"^ 
 
 Reformation, 284. 
 
 Regions beyond, 313. 
 
 Resistance to Messiah, 196. 
 
 Responsibility for lost souls, 
 28. 
 
 Results not to be waited for, 
 67, 100. 
 
 Resurrection of Christ, 195. 
 
 Rctzsch's Illustrations, 170. 
 
 Revival of 1857-8, 293. 
 
 Revolt against Christ, 196. 
 
 Reward, God's administra- 
 tion of, 97, 136, 137. 
 
 Ridicule of Missions, 273. 
 
 Ripon, Bishop of, 56, 240. 
 
 Robben Island, 184. 
 
 Robertson, Rev. Wm., 276. 
 
 Robinson, Rev. Edwd., D.D., 
 30. 
 
 Roman citizens, 213. 
 
 Roman Empire, Conversion 
 of, 78-80 ; Soldiers, 213. 
 
 Roses turned to burning coals, 
 170. 
 
 Rum curse, 91. 
 
 Sacramental rights of be- 
 lievers, 34. 
 
 Sale, Mrs. Elizabeth, 264, 
 298. 
 
 Salt of the earth, 45. 
 
 Samaritans and Jews, 163. 
 
 Sandwich Islands. See Ha- 
 waiian. 
 
 Saving self, 47, 167. 
 
 Scattering abroad of Early- 
 Christians, 33. 
 
 Schism in the body, 134. 
 
 Sclimidt, 175. 
 
 Schway-Mote-Tau Pagoda, 70. 
 
 Scots and cannibaHsm, 272, 
 
 273- 
 Seed of the Kingdom, 111,115, 
 
 116; for propagation, 118; 
 
 Vessels, lack of, 119. 
 Seeman, Dr., on cannibalism, 
 
 244. 
 Self-abnegation, 47, 167, 168. 
 Selfishness, 178 ; in social 
 
 life, 165 ; and self-love, 151. 
 Self-sacrifice, 47, 78, 167. 
 Selwyn, Bishop, 86. 
 Separation, 75. 
 Serampore, Carey, etc., 267. 
 Sevenfold Plan of Missions, 
 
 64. 
 Sheba, Queen of, 63. 
 Siam, and Mrs. Judson. 201. 
 Sierra Leone Missions, 253. 
 Silver accounted nothing of, 
 
 73- 
 
 Simplicity of witnessing, 27. 
 
 Skinner, Dr. T. H., on preach- 
 ing, 227. 
 
 Smith, Geo., LL.D., 220 ; Dr. 
 S. P., 250 ; his poem, 304. 
 
 Socialism, 179. 
 
 Society for Promoting Female 
 Education, etc., 264. 
 
 Solomon and Queen of Sheba, 
 
 63. 
 
 Solomon's splendor, 73. 
 Speed, when necessary, 312. 
 Spinoza, on conceit, 312. 
 Spirit of Missions, 151 ; Love, 
 
 162. 
 Spirit of Prayer, 293. 
 
 Tabitha, 136. 
 
 Tabu, system abolished, 81. 
 
332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tahiti, 247, 275, 300. 
 
 Tamil testimony to Missions, 
 
 268. 
 Taylor, J. Hudson, 135. 
 Taylor, John, 184. 
 Telegraph, First line of, 40, 
 Telugus, Missions among, 250, 
 
 303. 
 Tempers of mind as affecting 
 
 conception of God, 226. 
 Tennyson, Lord, 271. 
 Testament, Old and New con- 
 trasted, 121, 137. 
 Testimony to Missions, 283. 
 Testimony of Spirit to Christ, 
 
 142. 
 Tetzel, 286. 
 
 Thakombau, Chief, 244. 
 Thakombau, Last act of, 246. 
 Thales, 163. 
 Theory, Word, 19. 
 Theremin, on eloquence, 215. 
 Thibet, 219. 
 
 Thinking rightly of God, 226. 
 Thoburn, Bishop, On Church 
 
 and Missions, 169. 
 Tholuck's motto, 174. 
 Thomas of Aquino, 150. 
 Thompson, Dr. Burns, on 
 
 botany, 169. 
 Thompson, Sir Rivers, 270. 
 Thorns, Crown of, 236. 
 Thorns, sign of curse, 236. 
 Throne room of KremUn, 321. 
 Tientsin, Treaty of, 295. 
 Tierra del Fuego, 274. 
 "Times," The London, on 
 
 Missions, 270. 
 Tomlin, Rev. Mr., 201. 
 Touchstone of piety, 46, 50. 
 
 Tradition, 17. 
 Treasury, Kremlin, 321. 
 Treaty of Nankin, 295. 
 Tribuna Galilei, La, 319. 
 Triumphs of Missions, 270, 
 
 271. 
 Trumpet and lamp-stand, 
 
 137. 
 Trustees of Gospel, 178. 
 Truth against the world, 271. 
 Truth and its interpreters, 
 
 226. 
 Truth and majorities, 92. 
 Truth vs. Power, 224. 
 Truth not sufficient, 224. 
 Turkey and Missions, 252. 
 Turkish Missions, crisis of, 
 
 198. 
 Tycoon's death, 293. 
 
 Unction, 225, 230. 
 Unfruitfulness, 120, 
 "Unitas fratrum," Seal of, 
 
 175- 
 Universal priesthood, 32. 
 Universal terms, 98. 
 Universality of witnessing, 
 
 28, 35. 
 
 Vassar, " Father," 218. 
 Vedanta, 267. 
 Virtue, Aromatic, 228. 
 Virtue, in eloquence, 215. 
 "Voice," 107. 
 
 Voice, Giving a voice to the 
 Gospel, 132. 
 
 Ward, Rev. Wm., 256. 
 Ward, Rev. Mr., 219. 
 Water, The Living, 145, 146. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 2>2>l 
 
 Weapons of war, 207. 
 
 Wesley, John, in Georgia,ioi. 
 
 Westminster Abbey and 
 Epistle to Hebrews, 150. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, Two 
 scenes in, 128. 
 
 Wheeler, Rev. Chas., 252. 
 
 Wilde, Oscar, 273. 
 
 Wilks, Rev. Matthew, 300. 
 
 Will, Losing ours, gaining 
 God's, 179. 
 
 Willard, Francis E., 176. 
 
 Williams, John, 56, 242, 300. 
 
 Willing mind, 138. 
 
 Wilson, Rev. Dr. John., Bom- 
 bay, 261. 
 
 Winged sandals, 107. 
 
 Winning the world, 76. 
 
 Winning souls, 218. 
 
 Witness among all nations, 
 
 54, 69. 
 
 Witnesses to Christ, 22, 25, 
 27, 142. 
 
 Witnessing, confined to be- 
 lievers, 42. 
 
 Witnessing, Efficiency of, 215. 
 
 Witnessing, Experimental, 36. 
 
 Witnessing, Naturalness of, 
 214. 
 
 Witnessing, Necessary to a 
 saved soul, 49. 
 
 Witnessing, simplicity of, 27, 
 218. 
 
 Witnessing, Universality of, 
 28, 35. 
 
 Woman in India, 267. 
 
 Woman of Samaria, 146. 
 
 Word and Work of God to be 
 studied, 59. 
 
 Word Witness, a key to the 
 Bible, 51-53- 
 
 Working with God, 59, 103. 
 
 World's conference, 272. 
 
 World-field, Its character- 
 istics, 113. 
 
 World, Kingdoms to be de- 
 stroyed, 71-74. 
 
 Worldliness, Danger of, 76. 
 
 Worldly society. Hollow and 
 shallow, 165. 
 
 Xavier, Francis, 231. 
 
 Year 1858, 292, 
 Year, Wonderful, 29*,. 
 Young, E. D., 12'/. 
 Young men. Appeal to, 322. 
 
 Zanguebar, 284. 
 Zenana Missions, 263, 298. 
 Ziegenbalg, 284. 
 Zinzendorf, Count von, 174. 
 Zinzendorf, Count, conse- 
 cration of, 174. 
 
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