JOHN 
 
 JOHNSTON 
 
Class BXto333 
 Book .t Jc»S"Q^ 
 

THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
■ - i.-.;oi i 
 
 
 OTHER MESSAGES 
 
 1905. 
 

 
THE 
 QUESTION OF THE HOUR 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER MESSAGES 
 
 J 
 
 JOHN T/W'JOHNSTON, D. D. 
 
 press OF 
 
 E. W. STEPHENS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COLUMBIA, MISSOURI 
 
 1905. 
 
^ 
 
 
 ©ebicafeb 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LITTLE WOMAN I LOVE 
 
 WHO FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS 
 
 HAS FILLED MY HEART 
 
 WITH INSPIRATION AND 
 
 MY HOME -WITH SUNSHINE. 
 
 By Transfer, 
 31JV06 
 
 Delmar Study 
 
 St. Louis, U. S. A. 
 
 December Twenty-Fifth 
 
 Nineteen Hundred and Five. 
 
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BY WALTER WILLIAMS. 
 
 The theme, the occasion, the speaker — these 
 three make for the success or failure, upon the 
 human side, of spoken words. The sermons and 
 addresses which this volume contains are upon 
 the greatest themes which may engage man's 
 mind. They touch the deeps of life. The occa- 
 sion of the speaking has been notable — a great 
 city pulpit, a college platform, the gathering of 
 the Baptist churches of a mighty state and nation, 
 the assembling of the Baptists of the world. With 
 noble theme and with the inspiration of occasions 
 such as these the personality of the speaker has 
 full play to make impress for lasting good. When 
 there is added the Spirit's blessing it is not 
 strange that this preaching of one has been God's 
 means for the healing of many. 
 
 The presentation in printed form of impor- 
 tant and inspiring words is ever to be commended. 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Audiences come and go but the printed words re- 
 main for permanent usefulness. The wine of 
 speech thus makes glad for years and years. Not 
 all spoken words are thus desirable for preserva- 
 tion. What have been here gathered assuredly 
 come within the scope of the desirable. "The 
 Question of the Hour," the sermon which gives 
 title to the volume, pleads eloquently for a recog- 
 nition of the Deity of Jesus Christ, the cardinal 
 fact of Christianity. Other addresses and ser- 
 mons are filled with helpful thoughts, expressed 
 in clear and sparkling phrase. Gems which merit 
 quotation and remembrance will be found on 
 every page. The author says that which is worth 
 while. Moreover he says it in fitting phraseology. 
 The skeleton of thought has clothing of the attrac- 
 tive flesh and blood of language. 
 
 Back of every spoken word stands the speak- 
 er. His personality lends strength or gives weak- 
 ness, wins hearers or loses. The personality of 
 John T. M. Johnston gives strength, attracts 
 hearers. He is strong without abatement of gen- 
 tleness, energetic without subtraction of con- 
 sideration. Born in an interior Missouri countv, 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 he had the best of all training, the farm and the 
 country town. He knew toil and never shirked. 
 The knowledge stands him in good stead in the 
 multitudinous duties of a metropolitan pastorate. 
 Some preachers are preachers first, and afterward, 
 or not at all, real men. Dr. Johnston reverses 
 this. He was a man among men before he en- 
 tered the pulpit and has never gotten over it. He 
 has never forgotten that which he learned in busi- 
 ness and political life. He turned aside from the 
 allurements of politics and business to take up 
 the work of teaching from the pulpit. Hence his 
 sermons show the grasp of a man who knows 
 business from the inside, who understands the 
 temptations of politics, remembers the worka- 
 dav world. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 /I. Question of the Hour 
 
 •II. Planning for the Kingdom 
 
 III. The Universal Law 
 
 «*•*" iv. The Family 
 
 V. The Loving Father 
 
 VI. The Wonder of the New Life 
 
 VII. The Greatest Sentence in Literature 
 
 VIII. An Epoch in Baptist History 
 
 IX. The Upreach for a Crown 
 
 X. Visions and Plans 
 
 XI. The Name Above all Others 
 
 XII. The Bible in Building Character 
 
 XIII. John Mason Peck 
 
 XIV. Joseph Parker 
 
 XV. Charles H. Spurgeon 
 
 XVI. W. Pope Yeaman 
 
 XVII. E. W. Stephens 
 
 XVI II. Louisiana Purchase and Protestantism 
 
 XIX. Effect Louisiana Purchase Exposition on Religion 
 
 XX. Battle of Virginia Baptists 
 
 XXI. World now Ready for Bible Truths 
 
 XXII. Baptist World Congress 
 
 XXIII. Observations in Great Britain 
 
 XXIV. Winning Missouri to God 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 35 
 47 
 59 
 69 
 81 
 
 9 1 
 105 
 119 
 
 135 
 
 147 
 
 J 59 
 
 179 
 199 
 221 
 
 227 
 
 2 33 
 249 
 257 
 269 
 277 
 291 
 3°7 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 "Whom say ye that I am?" 
 
 Baptist World Congress, Sunday. 
 Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 
 London, 
 11 A. M., July 15, 1905. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Aside from the exact sciences there is hardly 
 a question that engages the mind of man that 
 is not susceptible of apparently sound reason- 
 ing in support of either side. 
 
 The most prominent character of history 
 asks this vital question, "Whom say ye that I 
 am?" This question has engaged the thought 
 of individuals and nations for centuries. It is 
 worthy your consideration on this Sabbath of the 
 Baptist World Congress, the first meeting of 
 its kind in the world, a gathering that should 
 mark an epoch in the Kingdom of God. 
 
 This question has engaged the thought of 
 men with such tremendous force as to change 
 the current of events, and lift the world from 
 the period of its lowest ebb in morals to its 
 present comparatively high plane of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 "Whom say ye that I am?" The One who 
 asks this question answers it, "He that hath 
 seen Me hath seen the Father, I and the Fa- 
 ther are one." This declaration of Jesus that 
 He Himself was one with God, answers the 
 question of the hour, of the century, of the 
 ages. 
 
 (3) 
 
4 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 That great gatherer and dispenser of intel- 
 ligence, " the daily press," now goes into almost 
 every home. Its disposition in a great meas- 
 ure, is that of an iconoclast; it gives promi- 
 nence to the expressions of men who, in the 
 pulpit, question or deny the divinity of Christ. 
 One of the preachers whose utterances have 
 been given special publicity, is highly favored 
 mentally, and by painstaking industry has 
 equipped his brilliant mind, with a wealth of 
 riches which he has lavishly given to the 
 world. Through tongue and pen he has sent 
 forth messages that have been an intellectual 
 and spiritual feast to thousands. 
 
 In a recent sermon, published in a magazine 
 widely read in both England and America, he 
 tells the life story of Jesus beautifully, but 
 treats Him as a mere man, "the son of a car- 
 penter." He credits Him with an exalted char- 
 acter, and places Him above all other men, 
 yet only a man. He finishes his charming pic- 
 ture with these words : "I leave the story of 
 Jesus with you. I wish I could have given it 
 better. For myself there is no man in history 
 whom I so wish to follow. A life that is set 
 to make the world happier, full of peace, purity, 
 goodness and truth, a life that is all patience 
 and love with all men, that life is the one life 
 that is worth living." 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 5 
 
 This portrait of Jesus painted by this skill- 
 ful and talented artist, lacks the central, the 
 main motif, it lacks the basal truth of Christi- 
 anity, the Deity of Christ. 
 
 This minister earnestly affirms that Jesus 
 was the ideal man of the race, that His life 
 was perfect. — Nay: "Christus non Deus non 
 bonus." If Christ is not God he is not good. 
 If He is not worthy of worship He is not 
 worthy of respect. How can we regard Jesus 
 an ideal character if He claims to be what He 
 is not? Truth was the vital element of His 
 teaching. If we deny His heavenly origin, His 
 was not a perfect life, but that of a dissembler 
 and deceiver. He claimed to be one with God 
 the Father; if He is not He is an imposter, an 
 imposter who polluted his lips with blasphemy. 
 No mere aesthetic admiration can hide the hid- 
 eous moral rent in the character of Him who 
 said, "I and the Father are one, all men should 
 honor the Son even as they honor the Father," 
 if he knew He did not possess the real essence 
 of the Father . 
 
 The life of Jesus zvas a perfect life. We put 
 no unbelieving restraint on the annunciation, 
 — "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and 
 the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, 
 therefore that Holy One that shall be born 
 of thee shall be the Son of God." 
 
6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Not only the five thousand disciples gathered 
 here in London from all parts of earth testify 
 to His perfection and deity, but the friends and 
 enemies of Jesus who lived in His days on 
 earth in the flesh, who were with Him and 
 watched Him under all sorts of circumstances, 
 testify that he did no sin, that He was worthy 
 of worship. Judas who betrayed Him, in an 
 agony of remorse so powerful that he killed 
 himself, confessed it was innocent blood he had 
 been the guilty means of shedding. Pilate, 
 the Roman Governor, who signed His death 
 warrant, says, "I find no fault in him." The 
 officer in charge of the crucifixion affirms, "Of 
 a truth this man was the Son of God.'' 
 
 The denial of the divinity of Christ is fatal 
 to Christianity, it inevitably leads to the de- 
 struction, one after another, of all its doctrines. 
 As the sun is the day, so the divine Christ is 
 Christianity. Standing out in the New Tes- 
 tament is one masterful "I" claiming unshared 
 and unsharable sovereignty and He who 
 utters it is Jesus of Nazareth. He never 
 said, "thus saith the Lord," but "verily verily, 
 / say unto you." He spake as one having au- 
 thority, original authority, and in no sense as 
 did Moses and the prophets. The prophets 
 spoke as servants, Christ spoke as Master. 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 7 
 
 In deciding a question, especially one so con- 
 sequential, we should not only examine and 
 weigh the testimony, but the character of the 
 witnesses should be considered in giving cre- 
 dence to what they say. The Old Testament 
 bristles with prophecies pointing to Christ as 
 the coming Savior of the world. This theme 
 is the golden thread running through all its 
 pages. The moral law written on tablets of 
 stone is a schoolmaster leading to Christ. The 
 symbols and rites of the ceremonial law are 
 finger boards pointing to Him. It was of Je- 
 sus Moses wrote when he said: "The seed of the 
 woman" — mark the distinction, "the seed of wo- 
 man," not the seed of man — "shall bruise the 
 serpent's head." Isaiah prophesied that the 
 coming Christ was to be "The mighty God, 
 the everlasting Father," Daniel "The Mes- 
 siah," Haggai "The desire of all nations," 
 Malachi "The Messenger of the Covenant, the 
 Sun of Righteousness." 
 
 The angels of heaven were filled with won- 
 der when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and 
 their anthems of praise broke forth in such 
 volume as to be audible on earth. The shep- 
 herds hearing their song were filled with fear, 
 when the soloist of the heavenly choir said to 
 them: "Fear not, for behold I bring you good 
 
8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 tidings of great joy, which shall be to all peo- 
 ple, for unto you is born this day a Savior, 
 which is Christ the Lord." The wise men who 
 followed the star, recognized the babe as a 
 King and worshipped Him. 
 
 When Jesus was baptized by John in the 
 river Jordan as He came up out of the water, 
 that voice, the witness from heaven, said, 
 "This is my beloved Son." And of Jesus, 
 John the Baptist said "Behold the Lamb of 
 God that taketh away the sin of the world." 
 
 Hear the loving John whose head was so 
 often pillowed on the bosom of Jesus: "In the 
 beginning was the word, and the word was 
 with God and the word was God." Saul was 
 honored with words from Jesus some three 
 years after His ascension: "Saul why persecut- 
 est thou me?" "Who art thou, Lord?" "I am 
 Jesus whom thou persecutest." Listen to the 
 testimony of this eminent barrister: "He is the 
 blessed, the only Potentate, King of kings and 
 Lord of lords." 
 
 When Christ asked His disciples "whom say 
 ye that I am?" Peter answered "Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said, 
 "Blessed art thou Peter." And the same liv- 
 ing Christ in Bloomsbury church this morn- 
 ing, in all England and America, every where 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 9 
 
 throughout the world is promising blessings 
 this very hour to the man who answers this 
 question as did Peter. 
 
 Thomas refused to believe the testimony of 
 others as to the resurrection, but when Jesus 
 appeared and said "Thomas reach hither thy 
 hand and thrust it into my side, and be not 
 faithless but believing," Thomas exclaimed 
 "My Lord and my God." If Jesus was not God 
 could He be honest and accept without pro- 
 test the title of God and receive the worship 
 of man ? 
 
 When on the Island of St. Helena, where en- 
 forced idleness gave time for meditation, Na- 
 poleon, the man who never met defeat till he 
 met an Englishman, said, "I think I under- 
 stand somewhat of human nature, and I tell 
 you all the heroes of antiquity were men, and 
 I am a man, but not one is like Jesus Christ, 
 who was more than man. Alexander, Cae- 
 sar, Charlemagne and myself founded great 
 empires ; but on what did the creations of our 
 genius depend ? 'Upon force.' Jesus alone founded 
 His empire on love and to this day millions would 
 die for him." 
 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott, in the prime of his men- 
 tal vigor, at the age of 57, thirteen years ago, 
 said, "I acknowledge no other Master than 
 
io THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Christ. I wish to follow where He leads, I be- 
 lieve whatever He says and I have no ambi- 
 tion. Oh : I wish it were true that I never had 
 any other ambition than to be like Him. He 
 is my Master because He bids me follow where 
 He leads, because He gives what I can take, 
 because He promises what He can fulfill. / 
 believe in the Divinity of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 Surely with all this testimony it is not too 
 much to suppose that Jesus was honest. He 
 was a fervent hater of shams, imposture, hy- 
 pocrisy, false tradition and deception of every 
 kind. His character and life have been searched 
 with lighted candles, but no man has been so 
 base as to tarnish His spotless name. 
 
 Listen to his first message when entering 
 His ministry at His home synagogue: "The 
 spirit of the Lord God is upon me, He hath 
 sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to give 
 them beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, 
 praise for heaviness." Who can bind up the 
 broken hearted but Jehovah ? 
 
 The Samaritan woman at Jacob's well said 
 to Jesus, "I know the Messiah cometh, which 
 is called Christ ; when He is come He will tell 
 us all things." "I that speak to thee am He." 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR, n 
 
 Bartimeus who was born blind and had been 
 given sight by Jesus, when he was cast out of 
 the synagogue for confessing Him, Jesus 
 sought him and said "Dosjt thou believe on the 
 Son of God?" "Who is He Lord that I might 
 believe on Him ?" "It is He that talketh with 
 thee." Bartimeus said "I believe," and wor- 
 shipped Him. "The Jews said unto Him 'thou 
 art not fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abra- 
 ham ?' " "Verily I say unto you, before Abra- 
 ham was, I am." 
 
 Philip said to Jesus, "Show us the Fath- 
 er and it sufnceth us." "Have I been so long 
 with you and hast thou not known me, Philip ? He 
 that hath seen me hath seen the Father." His 
 Apostles were slow to realize that the mission 
 of Jesus was two-fold, to reveal God and re- 
 deem man. "God was in Christ reconciling the 
 world to Himself." 
 
 On many other occasions He declared He 
 was one with God and the whole tone of His 
 teachings was that of a King. 
 
 He was not like other men. He never asked 
 forgiveness of sin. There is no trace of sin 
 in His life, and no evidence of repentance. This 
 was not the case with any other man. Mo- 
 hammed only claimed to be a prophet of God. 
 He attached no importance to his person, nor 
 
12 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 would he allow his followers to do so. When 
 in the Orient a few years ago, I heard often 
 the call to prayer from the minaret of the 
 mosque, "There is but one God and Moham- 
 med is his prophet; come to prayer!" Gauta- 
 ma, the founder of Buddhism, and one of the 
 greatest of moral teachers, refused to allow his 
 followers to entertain any idea of himself other 
 than that of teacher. 
 
 Confucius, one of the noblest of sages and 
 moral philosophers, gathered and transmitted 
 many truths that are living in his followers to- 
 day, but nothing is thought of his person aside 
 from its association with the truths he pro- 
 pounded. Homer, Socrates, Plato, Horace, 
 Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, and many 
 others have enriched the world with their 
 thoughts, but their persons have not entered 
 man. Not so with Christ. He gets into the 
 hearts of men with His own personality, dom- 
 inates their lives and through them continu- 
 ously reveals Himself to others with an ever 
 widening force, which is to-day the greatest up- 
 lifting and transforming power in the world. 
 It was the personality of Christ engrafted in 
 such men as Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody, Carey, 
 Judson and thousands of others, that filled 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR 13 
 
 their hearts with love for the Divine Master 
 and joy in extending the glories of His King- 
 dom. 
 
 With the name of Jesus orators inspire pa- 
 triotism, poets linger over His story as bees 
 about a clover blossom. His life has lent 
 sweetness to the music of Bach, Beethoven and 
 Handel ; majesty to the chisel of Angelo, and 
 genius to the brush of Raphael. 
 
 The great names of history are many, and many 
 more will adorn its future pages, but the name 
 of Jesus towers above them all as the sun 
 above the clouds. His name is in a class alone. 
 His teachings, reinforced by His spotless life, 
 together with His power to save, will continue 
 to redeem man for all time. 
 
 The lever will never be forged in the 
 smithy of criticism sufficiently strong to 
 overturn the Rock of Ages, — the Divine 
 Christ. The fiercest gale that will ever 
 rage in the turbulent sea of investigation, will 
 never blow out "The Light of the World." 
 We need not fear the theories of mistaken 
 friends, nor the attack of open enemies. When 
 they have passed away the glorious truth that 
 the Divine Christ is the perennial fountain from 
 which flows eternal life, will stand as unmoved 
 as the Rock of Gibraltar by the waves of ocean. 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 
 
 "Thy Kingdom come." 
 
 Introductory Sermon. 
 Missouri Baptist General Association 
 Chillicothe. Mo., 
 October 17, 1904. 
 
II. 
 
 PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 
 
 The General Association of Missouri Bap- 
 tists is not gathered here in the city of Chilli- 
 cothe to commemorate past achievements nor 
 for the joys of social hand grasp, neither to be 
 entertained with eloquence, but to plan work 
 and to work plans. With this- thought in mind 
 I have chosen as a subject, "Planning for the 
 Kingdom. " Scripture "Thy Kingdom Come." 
 
 When the Spaniard meets his neighbor he 
 has a habit of greeting him with the question, 
 "Manana?" "What of the morrow?" Thus 
 he throws life into the future and makes it the 
 important period of time. In the story of our 
 lives, and the story of the world, and the story 
 of the Kingdom the Spanish question is time- 
 ly. "What of the morrow?" 
 
 Christ stands ready with the answer, "Ye 
 shall see greater things." Jesus stands before 
 Nathaniel and the whole world and opens 
 wide the door of the future when he says, 
 "Ye shall see greater things." Ye shall. Shall 
 is the language of hope. Shall is an oft 
 repeated word with Jesus. He is ever using 
 it as a trumpet to call man to look with confi- 
 dence to the unmeasured possibilities of the 
 future. 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
18 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 This earth has had a great past. It has 
 fed and clothed the millions that have trod 
 its soil during the ages of its existence. Is 
 the old earth wearing out? Are her greatest 
 glories in productiveness in the past? Nay, the 
 acme of her producing power is yet to come, 
 for she is constantly adding to the number, var- 
 iety and perfection of grain and fruit. Mother 
 earth has not grown poorer from her centuries 
 of bearing, but richer, and we are yet to have 
 larger and better grain and fruit ; and flowers 
 in greater variety and richer in fragrance and 
 beauty. 
 
 A few thousand years ago there was only 
 one kind of rose, the wild rose. Now, there 
 are three thousand varieties. Twenty years 
 ago there were but few kinds of chrysanthe- 
 mums. To-day there are seventeen hundred 
 varieties. It has not been many millenniums 
 since there was only one kind of apples, the 
 wild crab. Just a few years ago the seedless 
 orange was produced and only a few months 
 since seedless peaches and grapes were grown. 
 
 The history of man has ever been a record 
 of achievement. Such genius has he displayed 
 in making the world's forces serve him, that 
 the most startling inventions cease to be a 
 wonder. 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 19 
 
 In St. Louis to-day are evidences of the 
 world's material progress sufficient to daze the 
 thinking mind, but the Louisiana Exposition- 
 does not reveal one tithe of what the future 
 has in store. 
 
 Scientists and inventors are to reveal se- 
 crets more marvelous than radium or wireless 
 telegraphy. Do you not believe that in the f 
 near future we are £9 fly with the birds, and I 
 converse with the inhabitants of other worlds ? \ 
 
 Not only has our material past been a pro- 
 gressive one but our spiritual condition has im- 
 proved with the centuries. The story of the 
 Kingdom, its beginning and growth, its trials 
 and triumph, its battles and victories, is thril- 
 ling enough to stir the blood. But the story 
 of the Kingdom is not half told, for messengers 
 of the Gospel, in increasing numbers are to 
 push into all quarters of the globe, witnessing 
 with such power that nations are to be born 
 in a day. Much of the soul-winning history- 
 has been wrought, but the greater part is 
 stretching away into the beyond. 
 
 Our Baptist denomination has had a glor- 
 ious past. Standing as it ever has for liberty 
 of soul, freedom of conscience, an open Bible, 
 separation of church and state, a voluntary 
 membership, and old-fashioned religion of ex- 
 perience. 
 
20 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 When we consider the influence of these bas- 
 al doctrines on the world's uplift, we rejoice 
 in her splendid past, but the truths for which 
 our Baptist churches stand are to prevail in 
 far wider range. 
 
 Augustus Strong, in "Our Denominational 
 Outlook," says : "Baptist principles will stand 
 the test of advancing intelligence and the tre- 
 mendous march of culture and civilization." 
 "For," says he, "they are the only principles 
 that can stand the test, for they are built on 
 Christ, the solid Rock and on the conception of 
 a spiritual church against which He Himself 
 has said, 'The gates of Hades shall not pre- 
 vail/ " 
 
 But my message is not of the denomination's 
 future but of your own in its relation to the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 What are you planning for the future of 
 God's Kingdom? This is a proper ques- 
 tion, for man lives mostly in the future. The 
 beast lives altogether in the present, but God 
 is ever talking to man of the future. Take 
 the future tense out of the Bible and you will 
 reduce its pages one-half, and rob it of all hope, 
 promise and power. 
 
 To know a man's plans is to know the man, 
 and to forecast his future. He who is our ex- 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 21 
 
 ample faced His earthly career with definite 
 aim and perfect plan. And the burden of His 
 planning, preaching and praying was for the 
 Kingdom. His oft-repeated word, "Kingdom." 
 The very heart of our Lord's prayer, "Thy 
 Kingdom come." What precedes this sentence 
 are pure expressions of worship. 
 
 "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed 
 be thy name." 
 
 What follows is only a specialization of life's 
 daily needs. "Give us our daily bread, for- 
 give our debts, lead us not into temptation, de- 
 liver us from evil." 
 
 But all the great purposes of our Master's 
 mission, all that one could wish or ask or hope 
 for himself or for mankind are epitomized 
 in the petition of our text, "Thy Kingdom 
 Come." Christ's prayer was not for the com- 
 mencement of the Kingdom. For God's king- 
 dom existed before the first planet was launch- 
 ed on its celestial journey. Christ Himself 
 was the founder of the Kingdom for "by Him 
 were all things created." He did not establish 
 it by force of arms, but by witnessing for the 
 truth, by humble ministers, by deeds of love, 
 by sacrificial suffering. 
 
 As it was founded, so it is to be ruled, not by 
 tyranny, but by the suasive influences of love 
 
22 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 over freely surrendered hearts. Christ is the 
 vital germ of the Kingdom. In Him its power 
 and graces are manifest. He made its laws 
 and established its principles. He is King. 
 
 The realm of the Kingdom is not confined 
 to the inner life. Though Jesus never speaks 
 of the effects of His gospel on art. on litera- 
 ture, on commerce, on politics, nor on econom- 
 ical or social reform, yet its regenerating 
 spirit has gone forth into all these departments 
 of society and state. Its life-giving principle 
 is working from within outwards and is des- 
 tined to renew and transform every sphere of 
 earthly existence. 
 
 Friends, when the burden of Christ's pray- 
 ing and planning was for the Kingdom, should 
 not His disciples catch His spirit and make the 
 controlling passion of their lives to pray and 
 plan for the Kingdom? 
 
 Before the achievement of any great thing 
 is the plan, back of the plan a vision, the 
 dream. 
 
 What are your dreams? What are your 
 plans for the Kingdom of God? 
 
 You have visions and plans for your own fu- 
 ture ; visions and plans for an enlarged bus- 
 iness, plans for your children's education and 
 start in life, plans for your ease and comfort 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 23 
 
 in your old age, plans by insurance and invest- 
 ments for your family after you have left them 
 and gone into the immediate presence of your 
 King. What will you say when asked, "What 
 plans did you leave for the advancement of 
 My Kingdom?" "When you were providing 
 Jn your will for your loved ones on earth did 
 /you remember Me?" 
 
 I am persuaded that you have had visions of 
 advancing the Kingdom by your own labors 
 and gifts which have never been realized, be- 
 cause the vision was not followed up by de- 
 vout, courageous planning. There is no life 
 so powerless as the life without a plan. None 
 so powerful as the one with an adhering plan. 
 One of the largest wholesale houses in the 
 world has for its motto : "Plan thoroughly your 
 work, then thoroughly work your plan." 
 
 Moses planned for the release of God's peo- 
 ple from bondage. David planned for the uni- 
 fication of Israel's kingdom, and the building 
 of a temple to Jehovah. Nehemiah planned 
 for the restitution of Jerusalem. Jesus became 
 the embodiment of all God's great plans for 
 the redemption of the world. Jesus ever clung 
 to His planned purpose to reveal God and to 
 redeem man. 
 
24 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Many of us have failed in advancing the 
 Kingdom, not because we lack knowledge, 
 faith or brotherly love, but because we had 
 no well denned plan. While the word plan is 
 not found in Scripture, the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, reveal plans of God for the extension of 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 The words plan and plant are derived from 
 the same root. The three essentials to plant 
 life are the root, the foliage and the fruit. The 
 root or basis of spiritual life is faith, the fo- 
 liage is the plan, the fruit is the work. 
 
 The law of spiritual life is the same law that 
 governs all life. There can be no fruit with- 
 out the foliage, there can be no work with- 
 out the plan. 
 
 Jacob had a vision from God, but it would 
 have been valueless to the Kingdom had it 
 not been followed by devout, courageous plan- 
 ning. Not till Jacob vowed to give one tenth 
 of his possessions to God did he come into line 
 with Providence and power. Not till he rec- 
 ognized his stewardship was he transformed 
 from Jacob, the rascal, to Israel, the Prince of 
 God. Any man who will recognize that he is 
 God's trustee and plan as earnestly and sys- 
 tematically for the Kingdom as did Jacob, will 
 also become a Prince of Heaven. 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 25 
 
 God has given us in the past an age of proph- 
 ets, then an age of poets; to-day we have an age 
 of money-makers. Prophets and poets work- 
 ed in their day and in their way for the increas- 
 ing of the Kingdom. And now, God means 
 that the monetary power he has given us, 
 whether in modest sums or in millions, shall 
 be used to bring His Kingdom to come on 
 earth. 
 
 An old Jew came into my prayer meeting 
 a few weeks ago and asked for the privilege 
 of speaking. He was from the oldest city on 
 earth. The city where dwelt the "Friend of 
 God." A patriarch who also gave one-tenth of his 
 possessions to the Kingdom. The old Jew 
 said : "I am going up and down the earth with 
 a single message, to call the people to the giv- 
 ing of tithes," When he added that Jesus said 
 of tithing, "This ye ought to have done," I 
 felt that I too should make my mission the call- 
 ing of God's people to the divine doctrine of 
 stewardship. 
 
 "To whomsoever much is given, of him shall 
 much be required." 
 
 This is the closing, clinching sentence of our 
 Lord's parable on stewardship which teaches 
 that life is God's most sacred trust. That life 
 
26 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 is not ours to do with as we please, but it must 
 be accounted for, every power, every possi- 
 bility of it. If you forget what I have said, re- 
 member this — whatever God has given you 
 whether it be physical strength or mental 
 ability, whether it be deftness of hand, clearness 
 of head, or warmth of heart, that whatever 
 you may possess of culture, of education, of 
 personal attractiveness, or of this world's 
 goods, in no case is it entrusted to you because 
 of God's favoritism, but in every case it is a 
 call of God to service in his Kingdom. 
 
 In planning and giving Missouri Baptists 
 have not kept pace with their blessings. In 
 the past twenty years we have increased in 
 wealth 500 per cent, but in gifts not quite 100 
 per cent. In 1884 under the magnificent lead- 
 ership of Dr. Yeaman we raised for State Mis- 
 sions $16,000. Since that time the wealth of 
 the farming community has increased 400 per 
 cent. And in the cities, the manufacturing and 
 commercial wealth one thousand per cent. So 
 you see we are falling short of our fathers in 
 proportionate giving. 
 
 I hail the laymen's conference of Wednes- 
 day afternoon. God grant that our noble lay- 
 men may be moved to plan for the Kingdom 
 with the same zeal and acumen that charac- 
 terize their business brain. 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 27 
 
 Laymen of Missouri, will you not be stirred 
 to larger planning and giving by Missouri's 
 pioneers? Wm. Jewell, a layman, gave one- 
 half of all his possessions to further the King- 
 dom. To-day he is known and reverenced by 
 multiplying thousands, while his neighbors 
 who clung to their money lie forgotten in their 
 graves. 
 
 The self-centered man is soon forgotten, the 
 self-sacrificing man lives in the affections of 
 coming generations. 
 
 Jas. L. Stephens, a layman, gave about one- 
 half of his wealth to advance the Kingdom. 
 Chas. Hardin, whose wife so recently joined 
 him in heaven, gave one-third of his belong- 
 ings to increase the kingdom. Stephen Wil- 
 hite, Roland Hughes, Wade M. Jackson, R. E. 
 McDaniel, Uriel Sebree, these honored lay- 
 men who planned and wrought so mightily 
 gave at least one-tenth of their means to the 
 Kingdom. 
 
 If such sacrificing zeal should characterize 
 Missouri Baptists to-day, what mighty mar- 
 vels would be wrought! 
 
 The average annual income of the Baptists 
 of Missouri is now $20,000,000.00. The tithe 
 of that is $2,000,000.00, Surely we ought to 
 give God one-tenth of the bounty he bestows 
 upon us. 
 
28 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 I plead for personal responsiveness in the 
 matter of gifts. The beast is not responsive, 
 therefore not responsible. The capacity to re- 
 spond carries with it responsibility. 
 
 When one beholds the achievements of the 
 past — gathered up in such serene, resplendent 
 glory as are seen from the base of Louisiana 
 monument, or the gliding gondola, when mil- 
 lions of electric stars are sparkling, and God's 
 stars are casting a silver glow upon the en- 
 chanting scene — that picture nearest to the 
 New Jerusalem ever seen by man — he can but 
 ask, "Shall we see greater things?" When 
 all the electricity pent in earth's bosom shall 
 shine forth in resplendent brightness ; when 
 her mines shall pour forth in rivers of gold ; 
 when all her hidden forces have been discov- 
 ered and brought to perfection ; when every be- 
 ing shall have mastered the material universe ; 
 then, even then, man must not be satisfied, for 
 God is not satisfied. Not till all things shall 
 be overshadowed by the divine element; not 
 till every hill shall reverberate with the echoes 
 of salvation ; not till every tongue shall confess 
 Jesus as Lord; not till the fulfillment of the 
 promise of a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness, will the prayer be answered, 
 "Thy Kingdom come on earth." 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 29 
 
 "Watchman, what of the night?" In this 
 the morning of the twentieth century, let the 
 past speak. 
 
 A hundred years ago there were fewer Bap- 
 tists in all the world than are represented here 
 this evening. In 1800 the census of the United 
 States shows that only seven per cent were 
 church members. The census of 1900 gives 
 34 and 6-10 per cent. A century ago in the 
 Empire of China, with its four hundred mil- 
 lions, there was not an evangelical believer. 
 Among India's millions there were only three 
 Christians. Sixty years ago there was not a 
 native in black Africa who had ever heard of 
 Jesus. To-day in these countries there are 
 thousands of heralds of the Cross and millions 
 of subjects of the Kingdom. 
 
 A hundred years ago between the Mississip- 
 pi river and the Pacific ocean there was not 
 one Protestant church, today, there are over 
 25,000. A hundred years ago the United 
 States and continental Europe were saturated 
 with infidelity and atheism. The writings of 
 Voltaire and Paine were gospels for millions. 
 Now one seldom meets an infidel or an atheist. 
 
 It was only fifty-one years ago that Commo- 
 dore Perry sailed into Japan harbor with our 
 seven ships of war. Japan had been a sealed 
 
30 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 nation for two hundred and fifteen years, al- 
 lowing none of her citizens to leave and 
 no foreigner to enter. Not an avowed Chris- 
 tian in the nation. Signs were posted all over 
 the country, threatening death to any who 
 should become a Christian. To-day the name 
 of Jesus is known all over the "flowery king- 
 dom." That little nation is making a great 
 sacrifice of life and property to retain and en- 
 large her kingdom. The Mikado may win at 
 Port Arthur and increase his kingdom: The 
 Czar of Russia with his hordes may defeat Jap- 
 an and temporarily enlarge his kingdom, but 
 it matters little who wins or who is the Czar 
 of Russia, the Emperor of Japan, the Dowager 
 of China, or the King of England, for these 
 kingdoms are to increase and diminish and 
 sooner or later to come to an end, but the 
 King of the Pierced Hand will increase His 
 Kingdom until it becomes universal. "Of the in- 
 crease of His government, there shall be no end." 
 France once had dreams of a universal em- 
 pire with Napoleon as Emperor. A late au- 
 thor portrays a Universal Republic. Says he : 
 "All monarchies and kingdoms must perish, 
 but out of the chaos will come a world-wide 
 republic. That all mankind will be welded in- 
 to one nation with one President, with laws 
 
PLANNING FOR THE KINGDOM. 31 
 
 so just, free and equal that every man will be 
 a loyal citizen." 
 
 Never ! Never ! ! Republics and Monarchies 
 alike shall pass away. The only reign that can 
 become universal and eternal is that of the 
 "King of the Nailed Hand." He is to reign 
 forever and ever." 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 
 
 'Give and it shall be given onto you.' 
 
 Delmar Pulpit. 
 
 April 2, 1905. 
 
 Morning Service. 
 
III. 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 
 
 The axioms given by Euclid, "Things that 
 are equal to the same thing are equal to 
 each other, things that are halves of the 
 same thing are equal, the whole is greater 
 than any of its parts," and so on through the 
 twelve are accepted as self evident truths, but 
 Euclid's axioms do not enunciate principles 
 so positively certain as the maxim set forth 
 in these words of our Saviour, "Give and 
 it shall be given unto you." This statement 
 of Jesus is not only a maxim, it is a principle 
 that pervades all God's laws material and 
 spiritual ; it applies to every realm of His Uni- 
 versal domain. 
 
 "Give and it shall be given unto you" not 
 only in kind but in greatly increased quantity. 
 A pious mother took her boy of ten to Echo 
 Valley in the mountains of Switzerland. The 
 lad had never heard the echo. His mother told 
 him there was a boy in the valley who would 
 answer if he would call him. At once the lad 
 cried, "Hello Sir !" The mountain echoed back 
 "Hello Sir!" Surprised, the boy cried: "Who 
 are you?" and the mountain answered "Who 
 are you?" Irritated the boy cried out "I don't 
 
 35 
 
36 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 like you!" Straightway the voice answered 
 "I don't like you V s This reply was too much 
 for the child's sensitive nature. His lips began 
 to quiver, and his eyes filled with tears, as he 
 said, ''Mother, I think that is a very disagree- 
 able boy." 
 
 She advised the lad to give kind words to 
 the unseen stranger. He sent a kindly greet- 
 ing and in return received overtures of friend- 
 ship. "Hello Sir! I like you." — The moun- 
 tain echoed "I like you." — "Come over here 
 and I will show- you my things." The answer 
 came, "Come over here and I wall show you 
 my things." The boy gave a shriek of glad- 
 ness. The mountain echoed it several times, 
 each time growing softer and sweeter. "Give 
 and it shall be given unto you." This law per- 
 vades your life and mine. Give kindness and 
 kindness is returned, give love and love is sent 
 back, give hatred and you are answered with 
 antagonism. 
 
 "Nature's echoes die in yon rich sky. 
 
 They faint on hill, and field and river, 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow forever and forever." 
 
 "Give and it shall be given unto you." 
 Christ here states a universal law. All deeds 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 3? 
 
 are seeds, give them time and they will bear 
 fruit. If the deed is good, the fruit will be 
 happiness; if bad the reward is misery. 
 
 The farmer gives the seed, nature returns 
 the sheaf; the woodman gives the sturdy 
 stroke of the axe, in return the cross-tie, the 
 beam, the shaft ; the inventor gives his genius, 
 in return the loom, the sewing machine, the 
 reaper, the engine. Each gives his labor and 
 nature responds with rich increase. 
 
 There is nothing magical about God's gifts 
 to men. Everything is controlled by his laws. 
 The good, the evil, the selfish, the unselfish all 
 give and all receive in like quality, but in 
 greatly increased quantity. This is the law of 
 spiritual harvest. 
 
 If you would know the scholar's joy, you 
 must pay the price of hours of study; if you 
 would have the inventor's reward, you must, 
 like Howe, Stephenson, Goodyear, Watt and 
 Edison give yourself intensely to an idea. 
 
 The more you give the greater harvest you 
 will receive. He that soweth sparingly shall 
 reap sparingly. He that soweth bountifully 
 shall reap bountifully. 
 
 The universal law of give and receive, is il- 
 lustrated constantly before our eyes in every 
 field of nature. The soil gives itself to the 
 
38 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 roots of the tree and each season the falling 
 leaves return to the soil making it richer than 
 before. The grain of wheat in seed gives it- 
 self to stalk, the stalk ripens a thousand grains 
 giving them back in return, and in one gener- 
 ation will return enough to sow the world. 
 
 But Christ in this exposition was speaking 
 more particularly to His twelve apostles whom 
 He had just chosen and His reference in the 
 words of our text is to spiritual things rather 
 than material. Yet he uses the processes of 
 nature with which His disciples are familiar 
 to illustrate the truths and all His illustra- 
 tions show the universal harmony of God's 
 laws. 
 
 This law of give and it shall be given unto 
 you has no better illustration in the annals of 
 the world than the story of Christ. He pour- 
 ed forth His treasures of unstinted love and 
 the world in return has given treasures back 
 to Him. 
 
 He gave His love, which is the bread of life, 
 even to the extent of dying on the cross that 
 the bread of life might go out to the lost world, 
 and many thousands in return have died the 
 death of martyrs in love and loyalty to Him. 
 
 He gave His work which is the salt of life, 
 and millions in return have given a life of la- 
 bor to His Kingdom. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 39 
 
 He gave to the world the sweetness of life, 
 hope, and multitudes have given back to Him 
 the incense of their gratitude and their hope 
 is centered in Him. 
 
 He gave to the world the water of life, 
 faith, and millions who drink at this fountain 
 give to Him confiding hearts. 
 
 Jesus arose above all limitations, yet never 
 for one moment did He forget man but spent 
 all His treasures of mind and heart in love and 
 service. In return the common people still 
 hear Him gladly and in abandon of love give 
 themselves back to Him. 
 
 He gave himself to childhood, He took the 
 little children in His arms and blessed them. 
 To-day millions of children linger over the 
 story of Jesus, and give Him their songs, 
 their love, their lives. 
 
 How glorious this life of Christ, how won- 
 drous its beauty ! Jesus gave beauty to every 
 phase of life. In return the artist gives the 
 beauty of a "nativity" "the transfiguration." 
 The architect the majesty of a cathedral. The 
 musician the inspiration of the "Gloria." The 
 poet the praise of his heart, and so on un- 
 til civilization itself is a great pouring forth 
 of gifts that men are measuring to Him who 
 gave Himself for them. 
 
40 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Christ gave his love to recanting Peter and 
 Peter in return gave his whole life to Christ. 
 Christ gave His affections to the loving young 
 disciple, John, who, in return, gave the treasures 
 that are found in the greatest of the gospels. 
 Christ gave Himself to Paul, and Paul in re- 
 turn gave the riches of his life and epistles. 
 
 The blessings which Christ gives carry with 
 them conditions. The wonderful workings of 
 this wonderful law must become operative in 
 those to whom He gives. They must become 
 givers. They must apply in their own hearts 
 and lives the maxim, "Give and it shall be giv- 
 en unto you." 
 
 He gave His love to Bunyan, and Bunyan 
 in return gave his whole heart and soul to God, 
 and as a result we find in ''Pilgrim's Progress" 
 and "Grace Abounding" the rich returns for 
 thus giving his heart to God. And to Bunyan's 
 giving he has a double harvest. He gives the 
 riches of his grace, his love, his hope, to his 
 fellowmen and their hearts in turn go out to 
 him. On Elstow Green recently I saw more 
 than two thousand from all parts of the world, 
 representing millions, gather to bless his mem- 
 ory and return to him at least a tribute to the 
 fruits of his giving. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 41 
 
 So it was with Spurgeon. He gave his labor, 
 his love, his heart, to his Lord and to his fel- 
 lowmen, and in return his harvest was almost 
 unprecedented in the life of a worker in 
 Christ's vineyard. His body is buried but 
 his spirit still lives and influences those who 
 were blest through his ministrations. 
 
 We cannot compute the returns that come 
 to a man from doing a generous or good deed 
 to his fellowman, for in so doing he does it un- 
 to Christ, who said, "In so much as ye did it 
 unto one of these least ye did it unto Me." A 
 good act blesses him that gives and him that 
 receives; it enlarges the heart of the giver, it 
 expands the soul, it builds character which is 
 the great purpose of life. 
 
 Our text does not here refer to the giving of 
 money or material aid, although that comes 
 within the scope of the universal law, but it 
 refers to that which is more precious and 
 brings larger returns, it refers to your heart, 
 your love, your individual self. A kind word, 
 a warm grasp of the hand that carries with it 
 unquestioned evidence of love, the giving of 
 sympathy and personal interest will do more 
 to win the world to Christ and bless humani- 
 ty than dollars. 
 
42 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Fannie Crosby gave her heart to God and in 
 return He flooded her life with the beauty of 
 His truths, which she in turn gives to the 
 world in sacred song. Can you conceive of the 
 joys and blessings that came to the heart of 
 blind Fannie Crosby in return for giving her 
 life unreservedly to God? 
 
 How rich the returns to Watts, to Cowper, 
 and to Tennyson who said he felt the con- 
 sciousness of the presence of Christ as dis- 
 tinctly as that of his niece who was walking 
 by his side. He gave his heart to God and the 
 riches of the returns are feebly expressed in 
 the beautiful words of his poems which have 
 done, and are still doing so much to bless the 
 world and for which he is receiving the hom- 
 age of grateful hearts throughout civilization. 
 
 And this law works with equal certainty on 
 the side of retribution. The evil as well as 
 the good have their reward. "Whatsoever a 
 man soweth that shall he also reap." If he 
 sows laziness and sloth he reaps poverty and 
 want. If he sows lies and deceit, he reaps 
 dishonor and disgrace. 
 
 If you give to God purity you shall receive 
 a vision of righteousness. If you give 
 thoughts to the beauties of nature, and medi- 
 tate on the grandeur of God's universe of land 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LAW. 43 
 
 and sea, of sky and earth, He will clothe your 
 spirit with grandeur and beauty. If you con- 
 template the goodness of God — goodness will 
 enter your soul. 
 
 If thou wilt come to Christ and give Him 
 thy penitent heart He will give to you Him- 
 self as Savior. Give Him your tears and His 
 tender pierced hands will wipe them away and 
 replace them with a smile. Surrender to Him 
 your will, and He will set up in your heart the 
 kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 The genius of Christianity is the giving of 
 one's self in service to Christ and one's fellow- 
 man. Christ is the source of the Christian's 
 happiness, wisdom, faith, love and hope, and 
 His voice is ever calling to His disciples say- 
 ing, "freely ye have received freely give." 
 
 The story of Paul, and all of earth's true no- 
 bility, is that of a life whose talents, posses- 
 sions, in fact all gifts and graces, are held as 
 trusts to be used in service. 
 
 Oh, how good God has been to you, and you, 
 and you, to trust you with so much. Will you 
 be true to that trust? 
 
THE FAMILY. 
 
"THE FAMILY." 
 
 'God said it is not good that man should be alone. I will 
 make him an helpmeet for him." 
 
 Dblmab Pulpit. 
 April 9, 1905. 
 Morning Service. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE FAMILY. 
 
 Our text gives the origin of the family. Altho 
 Adam and Eve lost their first estate, God in 
 His mercy allowed them to bring the ordi- 
 nance of marriage from the garden of Eden, 
 an ordinance which has proved a blessing to 
 all the ages of the world. 
 
 Divine wisdom and beneficence are no- 
 where more clearly seen than in the institution 
 of the family. 
 
 From the family sprung the clan, from the 
 clan the tribe from the tribe the nation. Our 
 own great nation is but a family of states, and 
 each state is but a family of municipalities, 
 and the municipality is but a family of famil- 
 ies, all united for mutual help and protection. 
 
 Our church, Delmar, is a family of families 
 united for mutual help, social, intellectual, 
 spiritual, and the volume of our mutual help 
 and power for good, depends on the puri- 
 ty, the harmony, the happiness and spiritual 
 strength of the individual families which con- 
 stitute the church. 
 
 Incidents of the past week have led me to 
 
 4? 
 
48 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 direct my message this morning to the individ- 
 ual family and to each member of it. 
 
 "Children obey your parents for this is 
 right, — honor thy father and mother: which 
 is the first commandment with promise: that 
 it may be well with thee and thou mayest live 
 long on the earth." "And ye fathers, provoke not 
 your children to wrath : but bring them up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
 
 The home is the chief school of human vir- 
 tues. Its responsibilities, joys and sorrows, 
 smiles and tears, hopes and solicitudes, form 
 the chief interest of human life. But this sacred 
 place is not exempt from suffering if sin is al- 
 lowed to abide within its portals. No family can 
 keep sin from the home unaided. Parents who 
 introduce religion into the home, dig a well of 
 living water, they secure a fountain of blessings 
 that will help them in the struggle against evil. 
 
 Family religion promotes family blessings: 
 temperance, frugality, industry, discretion, 
 peace, quietness, harmony, love and the favor 
 of Almighty God. 
 
 David said "I have been young and now am 
 old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsak- 
 en, nor his seed begging bread," and a greater 
 than David said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness and all these 
 
THE FAMILY. 49 
 
 things shall be added unto you" — that is pros- 
 perity so far as will be good for you and your 
 family. 
 
 How shall we introduce Jesus into our fam- 
 ilies and keep Him there ? Not by introducing 
 gloom. Jesus came to the world to bring hap- 
 piness. He made His purpose clear in His 
 first sermon: "Behold I came to bring beauty 
 for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for heavi- 
 ness." 
 
 The neglect of family duties is alien to the 
 spirit and teaching of Christ, in fact the doing 
 of them is an important part of His teachings. 
 
 Religion is not something distinct and 
 apart from every day duties. When one is 
 rightly performing the duties incident to busi- 
 ness in any of the relations of life, he is serv- 
 ing God "Diligent in business, fervent in spirit 
 serving the Lord." 
 
 The Christian home is the sphere for exer- 
 cising practical religion. Therefore we should 
 make the home safe, attractive, instructive, in 
 fact a preparatory school for life. 
 
 Our children do not read the Bible enough 
 
 to guide them, or even to find out what God 
 
 would have them do, but they do read us. We 
 
 are almost the only book on Christian evi- 
 4 
 
50 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 dence they read, their eyes are constantly up- 
 on us. Let us keep the book of evidence clean 
 and pure, a constant witness for Christ. 
 
 One way of showing wise love for our chil- 
 dren is by reproof of their errors. It is a mer- 
 cy to give reproof for wrong, and much mercy 
 to give that reproof to the young. Strange as 
 some parents may think it, the self-indulgence and 
 self-will they so carelessly foster in their children, 
 instead of making them happy and strong, gives 
 rise to all sorts of pettishness and weakness. 
 Our indulged children come to think that all 
 must dance to their music, and when things go 
 wrong, they fly to pieces and flood the very at- 
 mosphere with their discontent. 
 
 It is not the pampered, self-willed, indulged 
 child that develops the most charming personal 
 traits or the noblest ideals, but the one that has 
 encountered rebuffs and endured hardships. 
 
 Dr. Breckenridge once said to his mother: 
 "Mother, I think you ruled us with too rigid 
 a rod in our boyhood, it would have been bet- 
 ter had you used gentler methods." The old 
 lady straightened up and said, "William, when 
 you have raised three as good preachers as I 
 have, then you can talk." 
 
THE FAMILY. 51 
 
 I do not mean to convey the idea that we as 
 parents should necessarily extend to our chil- 
 dren corporal punishment, — but they should 
 know that we abhor evil, and that our tender 
 love and solicitude for them add to that ab- 
 horrence great pain when the evil is in one so 
 dear to us. 
 
 I met a mother who had spent several 
 months from home at a summer resort. Her 
 son, a youth almost a man, was with her, and 
 leaving in advance for home, said to her, 
 "Mother I have done nothing since we came 
 here that I would not do in your presence." 
 This young man's love and respect for his 
 mother prevented him from doing what he 
 knew would give her pain. 
 
 Dr. Cuyler recently paid this tribute to his 
 mother: "My mother was one of the best God 
 ever gave to a son. She was more to me than 
 school and college, and pastor all combined. 
 It was her constant influence that led me to a 
 religious life." 
 
 The character of the mother stamps its in- 
 fluence on the child for weal or woe, beginning 
 with early infancy when the mind is plastic. 
 Her influence is in advance of the Sunday 
 school or any other agency in or outside the 
 home. 
 
52 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 It is mainly the mother who shapes the 
 home influence and imparts to it its prevail- 
 ing atmosphere: and the most important part 
 of moral education is atmospheric. 
 
 The purity or impurity of the atmosphere 
 of the home depends largely on the mother. 
 She can make or mar the destiny of an immor- 
 tal soul beyond any power this side of the 
 throne of God. Susannah Wesley's hand rings 
 the Methodist church bells around the world to- 
 day. 
 
 . The mother is chiefly responsible for the 
 moral and spiritual welfare of the household. 
 If she is frivolous and prayerless or even care- 
 less of the spiritual condition of her children, 
 the home atmosphere catches the contagion of 
 her spirit. The downward pull of her six days 
 home preaching is too strong for the upward 
 pull of the best preaching in God's house on 
 the Sabbath. 
 
 If the mother does her utmost to make re- 
 ligion attractive to her family, if she is watch- 
 ful of every opportunity to lead them Heaven- 
 ward, if she follows the effect of the Sabbath 
 gospel with the powerful influence of home 
 gospel, God will send into that home his con- 
 verting and sustaining grace. 
 
THE FAMILY. 53 
 
 And the life of the father is but little less im- 
 portant than the mother's in its influence on 
 the home atmosphere. Especially is this the 
 case as the children advance in years. His pres- 
 ence in the home should not only give gladness 
 and strength to the mother, and happiness and 
 good cheer to every member of the family, but 
 he should be so strong in character and honest 
 in purpose that his spirit will be ingrafted into 
 every member of the household. 
 
 The father's position as the head of the fam- 
 ily makes it imperative that his example be one 
 that his children can follow. 
 
 Robert E. Lee at one time, when at home, 
 walked out in the early morning to his barn, 
 and as he turned he observed his young son 
 intent in his efforts to step in his fathers tracks 
 which were made in the snow which had fal- 
 len the night before. He said it was a solemn 
 moment when he realized that his son was fol- 
 lowing in his footsteps. 
 
 However, we have many examples where 
 unfortunate sons and daughters have brought 
 sorrow to the home — children of pious par- 
 ents reared with the same environs as others 
 who brought joy. It was so in the first fami- 
 ly. Cain and Abel were characters of marked 
 
54 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 contrast. Isaac had his Jacob and Esau. The 
 sons of the pious Samuel brought sorrow to his 
 heart. The father of the prodigal had also an 
 obedient son, but his love for the prodigal 
 was unceasing, and if any of us have erring 
 children we should bear the cross with forti- 
 tude never closing our hearts to the unfortu- 
 nate son or daughter. 
 
 "Children obey your parents for this is 
 right." Obedience is the law of the universe; 
 without it everything would rush to anarchy 
 and chaos. 
 
 Law is all pervasive. It covers every depart- 
 ment and relationship of life, and its breach in any 
 sphere carries with it its own punishment. 
 
 Obedience to parents in things lawful is no 
 hardship. It is becoming and commendable be- 
 cause it is right. Disobedience is a willful di- 
 vergence from recititude and is the essence of 
 all sin. 
 
 It is no merit to do our duty, but such is the 
 goodness of God that he attaches a special 
 blessing to the child who obeys its parents. 
 
 Dutiful obedience of children is declared by 
 God in the fifth commandment to be the foun- 
 dation of all social happiness and every virtue. 
 
 Disobedience to parents is in the black list 
 of crimes. It is classed with the worst: lying 
 theft, adultery, and even murder. 
 
THE FAMILY 55 
 
 The sons' or daughters' love to parents 
 should show itself in acts of gentleness, re- 
 spect and kindness, and in strict and ready- 
 obedience. Both parents and children need the 
 hallowed influences of a Christian home 
 with its self-denial and consecration to worthy 
 ideals, as a retreat from the noisy pleasure seek- 
 ing distracting spirit of the age. Clubs and 
 unions and lodges are well enough in their place, 
 but the home should overtop them all. The outer 
 settings of life have been exploited far beyond 
 their intrinsic worth. The inner world of man's 
 personality which revolves around the home must 
 come to its own. 
 
 We have only begun to taste of the riches of 
 pure love and unspeakable happiness that is 
 possible when our lives are attuned to the 
 lives of others; and the Christian home affords 
 the true starting point of this treasury of mutual 
 affection. 
 
 Here tenderness and purity, manhood and 
 womanhood find their finest expression and 
 truest growth. Here such noble ideals and gen- 
 erous purposes may be cherished as to make 
 the pretentious display of mere riches seem 
 commonplace. 
 
 Three essentials to the ideal home : The in- 
 
56 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 tegrity and unity of the family circle, the 
 submission of children to parental authority, 
 and a pronounced purposeful Christian atmos- 
 phere. 
 
THE LOVING FATHER. 
 
"THE LOVING FATHER." 
 
 'And when he was afar off his father ran and fell on his 
 neck and kissed him." 
 
 Delmar Pulpit. 
 April 16, 1905. 
 Morning Service. 
 
V. 
 THE LOVING FATHER. 
 
 The words of this text are from the deepest, as 
 well as the most tender and pathetic of the word- 
 pictures of Jesus. 
 
 The name commonly given to this parable 
 "The Prodigal Son" is of purely human origin. 
 
 The central and dominant figure of the pic- 
 ture is the "Loving Father," and the most 
 striking characteristic and precious feature, 
 the loving reception of his returning, repent- 
 ant son. 
 
 What are the lessons taught by the parable ? 
 
 One may answer, "Forgiveness;" another, 
 "The unsatisfaction of unrighteous pleasures;" 
 another, "The joy of heaven over a returning 
 prodigal." True, it teaches all these, but the 
 truth that lies at the core and gives it greatest 
 value is the infinite, the inexhaustible, the uncon- 
 querable Love of God. 
 
 Charles Wagner in "The Simple Life" says: 
 "At the very heart of the Christian faith, the 
 most sublime of its teachings, and to him who 
 penetrates its deepest sense, the most human 
 is this: To save lost humanity, the invisible 
 God came to dwell among us in the form of 
 man, and willed to make Himself known by 
 this single sign, LOVE." 
 
 59 
 
60 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 This parable of the Loving Father does not 
 necessarily teach wisdom; it may not have 
 been wise to give the inexperienced younger 
 son his portion of the estate. 
 
 It may not teach the lesson of justice. Pos- 
 sibly the father was not just to the other mem- 
 bers of his family, in making this prodigal who 
 had wasted his share of the estate in profligate 
 living, the special object of his attention and 
 favors. The great thought of the picture is, God's 
 eternal, yearning love. 
 
 The prodigal, who by many is regarded the 
 central or motif figure of this group, is some- 
 times spoken of as a generous soul. Was he 
 generous? NO: Prodigality and generosity 
 are often confused but prodigality and generos- 
 ity are never characteristics of the same person. 
 He, who is prodigal with his money in the grat- 
 ification of his own desires and pleasures, has 
 neither the means nor disposition to be gener- 
 ous to others. It is the industrious, the thrifty, 
 the frugal and not the spendthrift who is gen- 
 erous. 
 
 Was it the spendthrift nature in such men as 
 Richard M. Scruggs and James E. Yeatman 
 that made them generous? It was my good 
 fortune to be frequently with and see much of 
 
THE LOVING FATHER. 61 
 
 the noble man, the late Richard M. Scruggs. 
 His generous gifts reached near if not quite 
 a million dollars yet he never wasted one. 
 James E. Yeatman, the banker and philanthro- 
 pist, was frugal that he might be generous. 
 
 Was the prodigal's return home prompted 
 by noble impulses? Methinks it was his ap- 
 petite which craved to be satisfied from the 
 abundance of his father's table. There was 
 nothing in the son's character to attract and 
 draw the father to his wayward boy. It was 
 the love and compassion of his own bosom. 
 The elder son had much more in his character 
 to admire than the prodigal ; he was a dutiful, 
 faithful, obedient son, on whom the father, 
 doubtless leaned for comfort. The great les- 
 son of the parable is God's unquenchable love 
 for lost man. It is that LOVE that gives 
 pathos and power to this masterpiece of 
 Christ's parables. 
 
 Notice, the prodigal suffered. The soul in 
 sin must sooner or later suffer. Even God 
 cannot make sin blessed. If so He would be 
 false to his own nature. 
 
 The prodigal had not only to suffer the 
 pangs of hunger, and the humiliation of feed- 
 ing swine, the most degrading service for one 
 of his caste, but he suffered loneliness and 
 friendlessness. 
 
62 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Yes, the prodigal suffered want. Sin always 
 spreads in its wake a famine of some kind. 
 Want of food not only entails physical suffer- 
 ing, but when brought on by profligacy, keen 
 mental suffering is added to the physical. 
 
 The prodigal was friendless, alone in his 
 suffering; no friends, no companions, nobody 
 caring for him. With all his banquets and 
 lavishness, he had not gained a single friend. 
 Sin never joins a bond of real sympathy and 
 true friendship. Sin is not a means by which 
 friends are made. 
 
 Walking in paths, and living in the circle of 
 the Father's love is the only right way to 
 make friends ; business friends, church friends, 
 enduring friends. 
 
 The prodigal became a slave. A citizen of 
 that far off land sent him to feed swine and 
 eat with them. The man who yields to his 
 physical desires and appetites sinks to the level 
 of the animal, and grovels in the same mire. 
 
 Who can tell the suffering of this young 
 man whose sin had brought him to such a 
 plight? But relief comes to this intensely 
 painful feature of the picture, with the words, 
 "He came to himself." He had been beside 
 himself, had been living without thought of 
 his father, or home or moral responsibility. 
 
THE LOVING FATHER. 63 
 
 When he came to himself repentance began, 
 and he was filled with humiliation and shame. 
 Some recollection of the old home and father's 
 love kindled a spark of hope which said, "I 
 will arise and go to my father." With no 
 trunks to pack, no friends to bid "good-bye" 
 and no ticket to purchase he is soon off on the 
 happiest journey of his life. 
 
 When, from an elevation, he catches the 
 first glimpse of the home of his childhood, 
 memory crowds upon his mind his ingrati- 
 tude and disgrace. His trembling limbs re- 
 fuse to bear him on. With an anguish un- 
 speakable he is almost ready to fall, when he 
 feels the encircling arms of his loving father. 
 In all his defilement, in all his raggedness, in 
 all his misery, the tender father clasps him 
 to his bosom and imprints upon his wan cheek 
 the kiss of love. That kiss was a fitting seal 
 of complete reconciliation. That warm em- 
 brace assured the prodigal that he was not on- 
 ly forgiven but that he was loved with a love 
 that could not be consumed by the fires of sin, 
 nor quenched by the floods of iniquity. 
 
 Girdled by his father's arms, pillowed on his 
 father's bosom, receiving his fond caress, the 
 poor outcast realizes that his wanderings are 
 over. 
 
64 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 But the lesson of this parable is not confined 
 to men who have reached the lowest depths 
 of degradation and sin. I know some men of 
 good morals and fine characters, noble fellows, 
 men with big brains and large capacities for 
 achievement to whom the lessons of this parable 
 should appeal with as much force as to the poor 
 wretch whose prodigality brought him to want. 
 Men who have been highly endowed by nature, 
 but have turned their back on God, on His house, 
 on His book, on His love. They are sinking be- 
 neath the wave of prosperity and are uncon- 
 scious of the need of some almighty hand to bear 
 them up. 
 
 There are times in life when the pressure of 
 business is off, and times in its grind and whirl 
 when one's best self longs for the help, the up- 
 lift, the inspiration of Him who is mighty to 
 save. 
 
 It is hard to fight the lower nature. There is 
 a warfare that goes on in the secret places of 
 the soul, and in this battle we need a reserve 
 force beyond our own, to give us the victory. 
 
 There are dark days, bitter experiences, dis- 
 appointments , sorrows, bereavements, when 
 our strength fails, it is too weak for the emer- 
 gency. It is then we want a loving tender hand 
 to guide us from this dark valley to the hills 
 where the sun is shining. 
 
THE LOVING FATHER. 65 
 
 We shall not be here long. The curtain 
 will soon drop, and the 4 drama in which we 
 are all actors will shift to another world. 
 
 Nothing will make it so safe for us to pass 
 from this to that life, as to become a Chris- 
 tain ; 'It doth not yet appear what we shall 
 be, but we know that when He shall appear, 
 we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as 
 He is." 
 
 Is this not reason enough to be a Christian ? 
 
 Will you not settle the matter now and 
 make the supreme resolution — I will take the 
 first all important step which entitles me to the 
 royal name CHRISTIAN? Men who are so 
 absorbed in getting, or in gratifying worldly 
 ambitions, have said to God: "I want to be 
 free from the restraints which thy paths im- 
 pose." This was the spirit of the prodigal when 
 he asked to be freed from the restraints of his 
 father's home and love. 
 
 While in health and strength will you not 
 pause and consider your soul's poverty, which 
 is the direst of all want? Will you not "come 
 to yourself," and enter the conscious circle 
 of God's love and the joys of a life in harmony 
 with heaven? 
 
 There is no joy in the highest sense, no abid- 
 ing bliss save in walking in the paths and liv- 
 ing in the environs of God's approving love. 
 
66 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 And to you who are blessed with health and 
 abundance but living without the love of God 
 in your heart, — oh my friends, there is just as 
 much relief and joy awaiting - your return to 
 your heavenly father as there was for this poor 
 prodigal on his return to his earthly father. 
 
 'Tis religion that can give 
 
 Sweetest pleasures while we live; 
 'Tis religion must supply 
 
 Solid comforts when we die; 
 After death its joys will be 
 Lasting as eternity. 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE. 
 
 "If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creation. ' 
 
 Delsiab Pulpit. 
 April 23, 1905. 
 Morning service. 
 
VI. 
 THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE 
 
 The greatest miracle of which we have re- 
 cord, is the life of Jesus Christ. The crowning 
 miracle of history is God manifest in the 
 flesh: not manifest in a book, manifest in the 
 flesh. 
 
 If we should blot out all the miracles in the 
 Bible, Christ remains an unanswerable proof 
 of the truth of Christianity. 
 
 The world does not now see Jesus in the flesh, 
 but as long as there is a Christian living and 
 Christ lives in him we need no other miracle. 
 Christly character is the proof of the new 
 creation in Christ, the demonstration that the 
 world needs to-day. The reason the world is 
 growing better and Christianity is spreading 
 more rapidly than ever before is because more 
 men and women are more worthily representing 
 Christ. 
 
 Neither new science, new thought, agnostic- 
 ism nor criticism of the Bible can make head- 
 way against truth, where the beauty and holi- 
 ness of Christ shine forth in the life of the 
 Christian. Shall we consider some of the won- 
 ders of the new creation in Christ? It is 
 wonderful in its origin; in fact all life is 
 
 69 
 
7o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 fraught with wonder. Philosophers will never 
 pluck the heart out of the mystery of life. 
 
 They cannot penetrate the depths of the life 
 of the smallest flower that blooms with a dew- 
 drop in its petal, nor can they unravel the se- 
 cret of the life of the tiniest insect that floats 
 and flutters in the sunbeam. 
 
 Man has never been able to fathom the se- 
 cret of life of any living thing that God 
 created. 
 
 Geologists have delved into the rocky strata 
 and have paused and said: "Here is the first 
 trace of life." 
 
 When life began on earth no man knows; it 
 was away back ages ago, but we do know that 
 since man appeared on this planet no new form 
 of life has shown itself. Many forms have be- 
 come extinct but no new form has been created. 
 
 The Government exhibit at the World's Fair 
 showed many specimens of life now extinct, 
 but it did not give one new form of life. If one 
 should appear biologists from all lands would 
 gather about the wonder. 
 
 Natural life is perpetuated and propagated; 
 but no new creation has appeared in the phys- 
 ical world since Adam looked up to God from 
 the garden of Eden. 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE 7i 
 
 The Christ life, the new creation in the soul 
 of man, is not transmitted life, not propagated 
 life, nor is it life that dates back to the begin- 
 ning of the creation, it is fresh from the spirit 
 of God. 
 
 Natural birth is the beginning of natural life, 
 spiritual birth is the beginning of spiritual life. 
 "That which is born of the spirit is spirit." 
 
 The same terms that were used in describ- 
 ing the beginning of physical life are employ- 
 ed in describing the beginning of spiritual life. 
 God said, "let there be light" and light flashed 
 all over that dark chaotic mass, and then it 
 was under the influence of the brooding spirit that 
 life emerged upon this planet. In the begin- 
 ning God created the heavens and the earth, 
 and the earth was without form and void and 
 darkness was upon the face of the deep. 
 
 God, who in that old creation commanded 
 the light to shine out of darkness, has shined 
 in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge 
 of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. "No 
 man can call Jesus Lord and Savior except he 
 be born of the spirit." That same spirit im- 
 parts a new life in the depths of the soul, and 
 it was over this new creation that the morn- 
 ing stars sang together, and the sons of God 
 shouted with joy. 
 
72 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Wonderful this life in its source, wonderful 
 in the transformation it works. 
 
 This transformation is not so marked in the 
 little child that sweetly looks up to its mother's 
 face and sings : "J esus loves me, this I know, for 
 the Bible tells me so." Beautiful blessed child- 
 hood, even before the spirit imparts the geim 
 of eternal life. And yet there is a change when 
 the child receives Christ, though not so dis- 
 tinctly marked. 
 
 And so it is in the moralist whose life un- 
 der the influence of a Christian home has been 
 fairly good — the outward transformation is 
 less perceptible. 
 
 How different Saul of Tarsus. Behold him 
 hounding the Saints to death. With blood- 
 thirsty zeal he heads for Damascus, but when 
 he enters the gates of that old city he had been 
 transformed into a lamb, and meekly enquires 
 the way to the house of a disciple named An- 
 nanias and pleads humbly to know what he 
 shall do to be saved. A wonder has been 
 wrought; something has happened to Saul. The 
 Christ life has entered into his soul. 
 
 The name of the profane drunken tinker 
 of Bedford, from whom mothers hid their chil- 
 dren, was a byword even in that wicked town. 
 
 Something happened to John Bunyan the 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE. 73 
 
 tinker. He had taken no Keely cure, been 
 through no reformatory, was not lifted to 
 a higher life by the social settlement or any 
 means of culture or education, but he was con- 
 victed of sin, of righteousness and judgment. 
 He cried, what must I do to be saved. He heard 
 the voice of Jesus say "Look unto me and be 
 ye saved all ye ends of the earth for I am God 
 and there is none else." What nothing else 
 could do for John Bunyan the grace of God 
 could do in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
 eye. 
 
 Behold Augustine the reckless profligate 
 who for ten years was the anxious object of 
 Monica's prayers suddenly changed from a 
 noted sin loving libertine to a revered teacher 
 of gospel truths. 
 
 John B. Gough the notorious drunkard made 
 resolutions time and again only to be broken, 
 till the spirit of God touched his heart and 
 transformed Gough the drunkard castaway to 
 Gough the Christian gentleman and orator. 
 
 I know a man now preaching the gospel in 
 this state whose change was as marked as that 
 of Augustine or Gough. 
 
 These are not idle tales but a few facts of 
 the multitude. Abandoned men and women 
 
74 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 have been transformed into ministering saints 
 who with shining faces walked the world 
 breathing their benedictions on the sorrowing 
 sons and daughters of men. 
 
 These indisputable wonders have been 
 wrought by the transforming power of the 
 spirit of God. 
 
 Such transformations are occurring all about 
 us. I am now speaking to men and women who 
 can say "He brought me up also out of the 
 horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my 
 feet upon a rock, and established my goings, 
 and he hath put a new song in my mouth even 
 praise unto my God." 
 
 When one who once delighted in the ways 
 of sin, turns his beaming face on his old com- 
 panions and assures them that they need not 
 pity him, for he has given up nothing that 
 is worth having, that he finds sweeter satis- 
 faction in the new life than in the paths he 
 used to tread, they can but say, here is some- 
 thing beyond comprehension. 
 
 Have you thought of the Christian life in 
 the manner of its sustenance? We know 
 something of how the body is nourished; a large 
 part of our life and labor is employed in endeav- 
 oring to meet its needs. We know something of 
 the mind's necessities; thousands of intellectual 
 sources are available, and never more than now. 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE. 75 
 
 But the new spirit life that comes from God 
 would starve if merely fed from material or 
 even intellectual sources. God has sent down 
 from heaven prepared provisions for this new 
 life, manna for the soul in the sincere milk of 
 the word, and the strong meat of its doctrines. 
 
 The wonder of the unregenerate is how the 
 Christian can thrive on such nourishment, yet 
 the Christian's meditations and his goodness 
 of God are sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. 
 Besides the Book there are secret ducts of pray- 
 er through which the Christian receives fresh 
 supplies of grace from heaven. 
 
 Jesus has said "If any man shall drink of 
 the water that I shall give him, it shall be in 
 him a well of water springing up into ever- 
 lasting life." The Christian, as his Master, has 
 meat to eat the world knows not of. The Chris- 
 tian life is a wonder also in the secret and super- 
 natural motives that impel it. Yonder is a bal- 
 loon sailing majestically in the air, but sailing 
 in a course directly opposite to that of which the 
 wind is blowing on the surface of the earth. We 
 wonder until we come to understand that at that 
 high altitude there is another current and in that 
 the balloon is moving. 
 
 Here is a mighty iceberg that towers above 
 the surface of the ocean glittering in the sun 
 
76 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 and heading toward the south in the very hear: ;- 
 the Gulf Stream that is sweeping toward the 
 north. 
 
 We wonder till we come to know that the 
 iceberg has its base way down in the depths — 
 that the Gulf Stream is only surface water: that 
 this iceberg from the north is propelled by the 
 mighty sweep of the Arctic current below that 
 is moving it resistlessly toward the south. 
 
 There are heights and depths in the Chris- 
 tian life that the world can never understand. 
 Festus said to Paul: '"Thou art beside thyself; 
 much learning has made thee mad/' Why 
 seems the great apostle mad? Let Paul reply: 
 "We look not at the things that are seen and 
 temporal, but at the things that are unseen and 
 eternal." Oh, my friends if our eyes could but 
 see the splendors of the Celestial world, if we 
 could see the angels that compass as about we 
 should cease to wonder that early Christians 
 when confronted by persecution said with rejoic- 
 ing hearts : "None of these things move us, neith- 
 er count we our lives dear unto ourselves." 
 
 The Christian life is also wonderful in the 
 ease with which it may be attained. 
 
 Most things that are worth having must be 
 won by long, patient endeavor, but this the 
 most precious of all things, may be had in a 
 
THE WONDER OF THE NEW LIFE. 77 
 
 moment. In the twinkling of an eye man is 
 saved forever. 
 
 The new creation is a wonder in complete- 
 ness of its salvation from sin. Man's sins may 
 be as scarlet, yet they are made whiter than 
 snow. 
 
 Wonderful in the peace that it imparts, a 
 peace that passeth all understanding. The joy 
 that floods the Christian soul is unspeakable 
 and full of glory. Wonderful in the strength 
 it gives for duty, wonderful in the courage it 
 bestows to meet danger, wonderful in the 
 sweetness of its solace in life's darkest hours. 
 
 I recently had a call from a Christian wife 
 at the bedside of her dying husband. Her face 
 beamed like an angel's as she said "The Lord 
 giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be 
 the name of the Lord." 
 
 The dying husband with almost his last 
 breath, his countenance placid in sweet con- 
 tentment said "The Lord is my shepherd I 
 shall not want. My precious Jesus; blessed be 
 his name." 
 
 Friends, could we have seen the wonders that 
 opened to that soul when on the wings of 
 immortality it swept through the gates of glory 
 and entered into the joys of heaven we would 
 have a keener appreciation of the new creation 
 in Christ. 
 
78 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 If any man be in Christ he is a new creation 
 with a new destiny. Lay hold of Christ and 
 you shall know by blessed experience, that the half 
 has never been told. 
 
THE GREATEST SENTENCE IN 
 LITERATURE. 
 
THE GREATEST SENTENCE IN 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 God is love. 
 
 DELilAE PrLPIT. 
 
 April 30, 1905. 
 Morning service. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE GREATEST SENTENCE IN 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 The greatest sentence in literature is a sin- 
 gle announcement of the beloved disciple. A 
 short sentence. A breath can utter it, a sig- 
 net ring contain it. It is the truth that shone 
 brightest at the advent, and it will overspread 
 the world in millennium lustre. It is a truth 
 on which no man has mused too much, even 
 though he has pondered it all his days. A 
 truth to which no anthem can do justice, ex- 
 cept that in which angels mingle, and in which 
 the redeemed are inspired by seraphim. It is 
 the most precious gem in gospel truth. Hun- 
 dreds of volumes have been dedicated to its 
 exposition. 
 
 Hear it: "God is Love." This sentence of 
 three words contains so much of truth, that the 
 world has been pondering it for nineteen cen- 
 turies but has not reached its depths. 
 
 Every gospel message delivered to-day, every 
 song of praise that breaks forth from Chris- 
 tian hearts, and all the mission work of Chris- 
 tendom revolves around this axis — "God is 
 love." 
 
 fi 8 1 
 
82 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 That sentence sums up the whole contents 
 of the Bible. It is the subject of the first chapter 
 of Genesis and of the last chapter of Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 The Bible is God's love story, the story of 
 the love of a holy God fcr a sinful world. It 
 began with a love scene in the Garden of Eden, 
 it continued in the tragic love scene in the Gar- 
 den of Gethsemene. It will end in a triumphant 
 love scene in the Garden of Paradise Regained. 
 
 When Mr. Moody organized a church in 
 Chicago he was so anxious that everybody 
 should know this truth, and was so afraid that 
 some preacher might forget to tell it, that he 
 had put on the gas globes above the pulpit, 
 so that the first thing one would see when en- 
 tering, the words : "God is love." 
 
 One stormy night before time for the meet- 
 ing, the doors stood ajar. A man, slightly in- 
 toxicated stepped in thinking to Avarm himself, 
 not knowing what kind of a place it was. When 
 he saw the text blazing out in letters of fire, 
 "God is love," he turned and left, muttering, 
 "God is not love. If God is love He would love 
 me. God does not love a wretch like me." 
 
 But it kept burning in his soul, "God is 
 love;" "God is love;" "God is love." After 
 awhile he retraced his steps and took a seat in 
 
THE GREATEST SENTENCE. 83 
 
 the corner. When Mr. Moody walked down the 
 aisle after the meeting he found the man weep- 
 ing. "What is the trouble," he asked. "What 
 was in the sermon that touched you?" "I did 
 not hear a word of your sermon." "Well what 
 is the trouble?" "That text up there." Mr. 
 Moody sat down, took his Bible, showed him 
 the way of life, and he was saved. 
 
 "God is love." This truth stands, full and clear, 
 sublime, but if that be all, if we only know it 
 as a great fact concerning the nature of God, 
 then it is really nothing to us. But God's love 
 has found expression in the most persuasive of 
 ways, by a gift which involved an extreme 
 sacrifice. A gift which so precisely meets our 
 needs, that it carries His love right into our 
 hearts. We realize love through manifestation 
 and expression ; we can feel it in no other way. 
 
 That God is love is revealed to us through the 
 person of Christ. This was God's way of giving 
 identity and form to his love, something tangi- 
 ble on which we may fix our affections. 
 
 As the rays that come from the Sun are not 
 the Sun, even so the rays of love and pity, 
 that come from God are not God, but a weak 
 image and reflection of Him, yet from Him 
 alone they come. If there is mercy in any 
 heart it comes from the fountain of mercy, if 
 
84 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 there is light and love, it is from the source of 
 light and love. 
 
 In that great ocean of the divine love we 
 live, floating in it like some sea flower which 
 spreads its beauty and waves its tresses in the 
 depth of mid ocean. The sound of its waters 
 is ever in our ears ; and above, beneath, and 
 around us its mighty currents run for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Love is the highest, purest, holiest motive 
 from which we can act. Faith makes us strong 
 by keeping before us the great truths and real- 
 ities of the unseen world. Hope helps us on 
 our way, by filling our souls with the long- 
 ing expectation of the blessedness in store for 
 us, but faith is cold and hope is selfish without 
 love. Love is the going forth of the soul to- 
 ward God and man, tender, glowing, generous, 
 unselfish. 
 
 Love will do all things. Love will bear all 
 things. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." If 
 we love God we shall fulfill our duty to God. 
 If we love man we shall fulfill our duty to man. 
 To love the Lord our God with all our hearts, 
 and our neighbors as ourselves, is all we have 
 to do. There would be no need of any other 
 law if all obeyed perfectly the law of love. 
 
 As love is the best motive for our actions, 
 
THE GREATEST SENTENCE. 85 
 
 so love of God is the best sort of love. If we 
 truly love God we are sure to love His crea- 
 tures also. O let us love each other. It is the 
 way in which God would have us show our 
 love for Him. 
 
 To separate ourselves from each other is to 
 lose power. Half dead brands heaped close 
 will kindle one another, and flame will spar- 
 kle beneath the film of white ashes. Fling 
 them apart and they go out; rake them together 
 and they glow. Let us not be little feeble tapers 
 stuck in separate sockets twinkling a strug- 
 ling ray over some inch of space, but draw 
 near our brethren and be workers together, 
 that there may rise a glorious flame from our 
 collective brightness which shall be a guide 
 and a hospitable call to many a wandering and 
 weary spirit. 
 
 True Fatherly love carries with it brotherly 
 love. John affirms that love is not genuine 
 that is fixed only upon God and restrained from 
 one's brother-man. "He that loveth not his 
 brother knoweth not God." 
 
 When our love to God and to our brother 
 has grown into full strength it proves a splen- 
 did power in our lives ; it casts out all fear. There 
 is no fear in love. Love elevates us to meet 
 all occasions. Love inspires the noblest and 
 best in man. 
 
86 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 When we love God and fully realize God's 
 love through Christ, our love naturally finds 
 expression in self-sacrificing acts to our breth- 
 ren. A perfect love to God will give us bold- 
 ness by showing the mutually exclusive na- 
 tures of love and fear. Love moves toward 
 others in the spirit of self-sacrifice. Fear 
 shrinks from others in the spirit of self-pres- 
 ervation. In all relations perfect love excludes 
 fear, and fear prevents love from being per- 
 fect. 
 
 '"Perfect love casteth out fear because fear 
 hath torment." It worries us. causing fretting 
 and anxiety, because it keeps our thoughts 
 circling around self and self-interest. There 
 is no fear in love because it takes us out of 
 ourselves, and makes us spend ourselves in 
 the service of others. Anxiety about others is 
 altogether different from fear which concerns 
 ourselves. If we live in this serene atmosphere 
 of pure sympathy with God and man, Christ 
 is in us and we in Him, because God is love 
 itself. Sharing His nature, therefore we must 
 be like Him : and the more completely we al- 
 low this Divine love towards our Father and 
 brothers to transform our whole being, the 
 more we shall be like our Judge and the less 
 cause to fear His judgment. 
 
THE GREATEST SENTENCE. 87 
 
 Where our love is well grounded and set on 
 a perfect being, its serenity is in proportion to its 
 sincerity. 
 
 There is a law of worship that is universal 
 and involuntary and that is the law of resem- 
 blance which the deity and devotee are cer- 
 tain to bear one another. They who worship 
 an idol are like unto the idol in the very begin- 
 ning, for they fashion it after the model of 
 something within themselves; and they grow 
 more and more like it afterwards, by sharing 
 and copying the qualities with which they 
 fancy the false god to be endowed. 
 
 No man is better than that to which he 
 burns incense, but every man takes on more 
 and more of the character of his divinity. How 
 came love so rich in the breast of human par- 
 ents? It came there through the being who 
 made them in the image and likeness of God. 
 Parental love is salvage from the wreck of the 
 fall. 
 
 There are other attributes of God, but this 
 one alone expresses the very soul of His being; 
 "God is love." Oh how richly this attribute is 
 embodied in Jesus Christ, the Friend of little 
 children, the Companion of sorrowful women, 
 the Comforter of penitent outcasts, the Refuge 
 of publicans, the hope of sinners, a haven of 
 
88 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 rest for the world of the ungodly. God is love 
 — Christ is love. 
 
 We want both "love" and "God." Call 
 Christ "God" or call Christ "Love" as you 
 need Him at the moment, for He is both. Be- 
 ing both makes Him the Mediator. We are, 
 first the inhabitants, with Christ for a dwell- 
 ing, and then we are the house in which Christ 
 makes His home. 
 
 One of history's noblest records of love is 
 given in the devotion of Pythias who offered 
 to forfeit his life to save his friend; but God 
 commended His love to us in that while we 
 were yet sinners Christ died for us. W r e have 
 not seen the greatest gift of all — the heart of 
 God, the love of His heart, the heart of His 
 love — and will He in very deed show us that? 
 Yes, unveil the cross and see ! The cross was 
 God's way of showing us His heart. The 
 cross is infinite love laboring to reveal itself — 
 agonizing to utter its fulness. Apart from that 
 act a boundless ocean of love would have re- 
 mained shut up and concealed in the heart of 
 God ; but now it has found an ocean channel. 
 Beyond this He cannot go. Once and forever 
 the proof has been given in Jesus Christ that 
 "God is love." 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 
 
 "The field is the world." 
 
 Delmar Pulpit. 
 
 September 3. 1905. 
 
 Morning service. 
 
VIII. 
 AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 
 
 The year 1905 will be noted in Baptist his- 
 tory for two special events. These events 
 "have created a Baptist world conscience." The 
 vision of Baptists is enlarged. Their view now 
 takes in the world. They must henceforth think in 
 continents. 
 
 It required centuries to climb to this moun- 
 tain height. This world conception was not 
 reached till many men had circled the earth 
 and modern conditions had made all nations 
 neighbors. The World Congress has brought 
 nearer the Christ idea. Although Jesus never 
 went beyond the narrow boundary lines of 
 Palestine, yet He thought for the world, loved 
 the world, died for the world. His last messages 
 were : "The field is the world ;" "Go ye unto all 
 the world." 
 
 The first of these monumental events was 
 the union of the Baptist forces of America 
 last May in St. Louis. That meeting intensi- 
 fied the fraternal spirit of American Baptists; 
 it inspired enlarged endeavor. 
 
 A world meeting of Baptists was urged by 
 
 9i 
 
92 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Dr. Rippen of London more than a century 
 ago, but the time had not come. When the 
 hour for this great gathering was at hand, Dr. 
 Prestridge of Louisville, Ky., gave voice to the 
 sentiment of Baptists of the world to come to- 
 gether in counsel and co-operate to more ef- 
 fectively extend the reign of Christ. 
 
 It was wise that this first meeting should 
 be in London, earth's largest city, a pulsating 
 center whose heart-throb is felt on all parts of 
 the globe. 
 
 It was an opportune time for the meeting. 
 A time when religious thought is more in- 
 tense on the British Isles than any other part 
 of the world. A time when the struggle for 
 religious freedom is more marked than ever 
 before in the history of Europe. A time for 
 distinctive Baptist principles, individual free- 
 dom and separation of church and state to 
 stand boldly out. A time for Baptists to show 
 the strength of united millions. An opportune 
 time to herald their principles and proclaim in 
 volume of voice that would command the re- 
 spect of kings and all who have to do with hu- 
 man governments, "that the last shackle which 
 binds the free spirit of man must be broken.'* 
 
 It is conceded by observers of human prog- 
 ress that Baptists have ever been the leading 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 93 
 
 champions of religious liberty. Mason, in his 
 life of Milton, speaking of the church near 
 New Gate, established in 1612, says: "This 
 obscure congregation seems to have been the 
 depository of all England, for the absolute 
 principle of liberty of conscience expressed 
 in the Amsterdam confession, as distinct from 
 the more stinted principle advocated by the 
 general body of Independents. It was from 
 this little dingy meeting house in old London, 
 that there flashed out first in England the ab- 
 solute doctrine of religious liberty." 
 
 At that period their declaration of absolute 
 religious freedom, as an essential right of the 
 human soul, was regarded as rank heresy by 
 the governing powers, but in the Baptist 
 World Congress in this same city of London, 
 the four thousand representatives of twenty 
 million adherents, not only gave an object les- 
 son of the power of this fundamental truth, 
 but of their strength, their culture, their mis- 
 sionary activities covering the earth. 
 
 This congress was not only an object lesson 
 to the world, but here they met from every 
 land and tongue, and in personal hand-clasp 
 realized their strength and experienced the 
 power of the spiritual bonds that bind togeth- 
 er the Baptist brotherhood of the world. 
 
94 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The initiatory meetings were held in twelve 
 churches in different parts of London, Monday 
 evening, July 10. At the one held in Regent 
 Park I represented America. I never spoke 
 to a more responsive audience except in the 
 Baptist Convention of Wales. 
 
 On Tuesday the 11th, the congress formally 
 opened in Exeter Hall. It has a seating capac- 
 ity of three thousand. This hall is made dear 
 to Baptists by memories associated with Spur- 
 geon. Here he delivered his burning mes- 
 sages during the construction of the Metropol- 
 itan Tabernacle. 
 
 No tongue or pen can describe this first 
 meeting of Baptists from all parts of the world. 
 Every Baptist community was represented ex- 
 cept Java and Palestine. The hall was packed, 
 every face beaming with love, every heart 
 beating with expectancy, every soul aglow 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 The walls were decorated with flags of all 
 nations and maps showing the number and lo- 
 cation of Baptists in different parts of the 
 world. But it was the great panorama of men 
 and women representing twenty million Bap- 
 tists, that riveted the attention, roused the im- 
 agination, that thrilled us with love for each 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 95 
 
 other and renewed consecration to Christ. 
 After the opening hymn: 
 
 "From distant climes, from every land, 
 Behold us Lord before Thee stand," 
 
 Rev. Owens prayed: "Lord lift thou the 
 light of thy countenance upon this congress." 
 There was fervent response from thousands. 
 One could but feel, "surely this is like unto pen- 
 tecost." Some wept, some smiled, others groan- 
 ed. It was an intense moment. 
 
 Rjev. J. H. Shakespeare, secretary of the con- 
 gress, one of the first in England to respond to the 
 suggestion of a world meeting of Baptists, and 
 one of the most effective agencies in making 
 the vision a reality, made a brief statement. 
 Said he : "This is a dream that has come true ; 
 it is an achievement of faith which must be 
 added to the 11th chapter of Hebrews. We rep- 
 resent, including our Sunday schools and those 
 who attend our services and are at heart Bap- 
 tists, at least twenty million adherents. We 
 are a vast community and are ready to keep 
 the great ordinances of Christ till he come." 
 
 The chairman, Judge Willis, president of the 
 Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 a leading jurist of England, a man of broad 
 grasp and practical force, and above these a 
 
96 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 lofty spirit loyal to Christ, welcomed the mes- 
 sengers. Among many good things he said: 
 "This is the greatest gathering of baptized be- 
 lievers since pentecost. We are not assembled 
 for scenic display, nor by numbers to claim 
 momentary triumph over any other Christian 
 community, but for high moral purposes, and 
 chiefly to recognize the grace of God exhibited 
 in each other." 
 
 Said he : "Having recently visited many of 
 the churches in England, I noticed how the 
 members enjoyed spiritual life; I was so im- 
 pressed at the close of these visits, I could but 
 exclaim, O Savior, thy words are true. Thou 
 didst come to give spiritual life, and thou hast 
 given it more abundantly. Be assured breth- 
 ren the spiritual life which Christ awakens and 
 sustains is best seen in fellowship with other 
 minds and hearts. Such a proof of Christ's 
 power as I now see and experience I never 
 expected to behold." 
 
 He urged union in work with other followers 
 of Christ, even though external union was im- 
 possible. Said he : "We cannot, we must not 
 compromise any vital truth. We must main- 
 tain allegiance to Christ at all cost. We believe 
 the only baptism approved by Christ and 
 known to his apostles was baptism by immer- 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 97 
 
 sion, the prerequisites to which were personal 
 faith and repentance." 
 
 Closing he announced : "All hail the power 
 of Jesus' name." I wish every one of you could 
 have experienced the feeling and heard the vol- 
 ume of the voice of thousands that poured forth 
 to the tune of Diadem. 
 
 The secretary began the roll call. The first 
 to answer was Mr. Copek of Austria-Hungary. 
 In broken English he said: "We have five 
 churches with five hundred members, but there 
 are twenty-five million Slavonians in Austria 
 and Hungary, and who will deny that they need 
 the gospel just as much as the Chinese and 
 Japanese." He concluded with a song in his 
 native tongue. 
 
 Pastor Broholm responding for Denmark: 
 "As a Dane we can boast that England got her 
 noble Queen from Denmark; as a Danish Bap- 
 tist I am proud to say, we have the same Lord, 
 the same faith, and the same baptism, as this 
 great gathering of witnesses." 
 
 Pastor Jansen for Finland said: "It is a 
 great pleasure to be here and see so many who 
 had the same faith that they had in Finland 
 where they had suffered many persecutions, 
 but were determined to go forward at what- 
 T 
 
98 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ever cost. I feel sure there are brighter days 
 in store for us." 
 
 H. Cadet, the delegate from France, made 
 a bright, happy speech, in which he said : "Yes- 
 terday I was so happy I was ready to kiss ev- 
 ery man of you that I met. Oh, if you were 
 French how I would embrace you !'' He then 
 embraced and kissed Judge Willis greatly to 
 the amusement of the congress. 
 
 Pastor Hermann was the voice from Ger- 
 many : '''We are glad to be here and see and 
 hear the wonderful things the Lord has done 
 through Baptists throughout the world. I look 
 into the future with great confidence, assured 
 the work will go on with increased success.'' 
 
 Signor Pachetto representing fourteen hun- 
 dred believers, spoke for Italy, saying: "We 
 have fifty-three mission stations, each having 
 an organized church and many out-stations. We 
 have a union, a publication department issu- 
 ing a journal, a theological training school for 
 ministers. The spiritual blessings that have 
 come to our people were through the interest 
 of American Baptists." 
 
 There were twenty-six responses to the roll 
 call: Austria, Hungary. Denmark, Finland, 
 France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 99 
 
 Russia, Sweden, China, India, Japan, Congo, 
 South Africa, National Baptist Convention, 
 Southern Baptist Convention, Northern Bap- 
 tists, Lott-Cary Convention, Canada, Mexico, 
 West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil 
 and Great Britain. 
 
 The responses to the roll call were in many- 
 cases memorable. After the three minute 
 speech, the speaker and his associate delegates 
 rose and sang their national song or a charac- 
 teristic hymn. In almost every case the effect 
 was impressive and thrilling. 
 
 From Russia the speaker was Gospoden 
 Pavloff, who told the story of his persecutions 
 and banishments for preaching the gospel. 
 Said he : "My two banishments covered a pe- 
 riod of eight years. If a man did not worship 
 according to the rites of the state church it 
 was as if he had murdered a man." "But," 
 said he, "we have more freedom now since 
 last April, yet the laws against us are not fully 
 abolished." The incidents he gave of persecu- 
 tions and loyalty to Christ were like unto the 
 days of the apostles. 
 
 The words of Dr. Broady, representing Swe- 
 den, were inspiring. The story of the cross 
 was learned by an immigrant while in America 
 about the middle of the last century. He be- 
 
ioo THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 came a Baptist and returned to carry the story 
 to his friends in his native land. It has been 
 largely through his and Dr. Broady's efforts 
 that Baptists of Sweden now number over for- 
 ty thousand. Said Dr. Broady: "It is an in- 
 spiration to be here, and I praise God that 
 through his Son he has raised up so many wit- 
 nesses." 
 
 Dr. Timothy Richards, representing China, 
 received an ovation. Said he: "China is the 
 eldest sister of the nations of the world; she 
 was a thousand years old when Homer began 
 to sing. She has preserved her provinces with- 
 out war, yet when the crisis came and she was 
 about to be despoiled, it was the spirit of Christ 
 in the breast of that American statesman, John 
 Hay, that saved her from dismemberment, and 
 when she fully learns and realizes this truth 
 it will be a great factor in turning that ancient 
 nation to receive the King of kings." 
 
 Rev. Thompson answered for twenty-five 
 hundred Baptists in Japan who stand loyally 
 for religious freedom. He believed Japan would 
 presently become Christian. 
 
 Dr. Curtis Laws, responding for the South- 
 ern Baptist Convention, expressed delight at 
 the warm and hospitable reception they had 
 experienced, but said he : "We have come for 
 
AN EPOCH IN BAPTIST HISTORY. 101 
 
 higher things and are realizing them in full 
 measure." 
 
 Dr. Crandall in response for the Baptists of 
 the North gave expression to a number of hap- 
 py thoughts. Closing he asked the congress 
 to join in singing "My Country Tis of Thee." 
 
 Dr. Clifford, the great English apostle of 
 religious liberty, answered to the call of Great 
 Britain. Said he: "I should like to speak of 
 the things that have greatly impressed my 
 mind while listening to the responses to the 
 roll call. First, was the place that Christ oc- 
 cupied in Baptist thought and speech. Second, 
 the love that was so evident for one another. 
 It was apparent that there is one common 
 heart-throb, the love of Christ. Third, the ab- 
 solute fidelity to conviction ; there is no note 
 of surrender. 
 
 "The sufferings of Russia and some other 
 countries reminded us of the seventeenth centu- 
 ry, and they showed the same pluck and devo- 
 tion to Christ. There is the same note of soul-lib- 
 erty that Roger Williams sounded when he 
 founded Rhode Island." 
 
 In tones that forced conviction he said, "Soul 
 liberty leads to political liberty; the Russians 
 will have it yet; it is the indefeasible right of 
 
102 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 In closing he summed up what was evident 
 from the responses to the roll call. "First, Bap- 
 tist faith places Jesus Christ in absolute and 
 unapproachable supremacy. Second, Bap- 
 tists love each other with a great love. Third, 
 they are invincibly faithful to conviction; im- 
 prisonment and banishment will not shake 
 them. Fourth, soul-liberty they will have, and 
 this inevitably leads to political liberty, which 
 they will achieve for all the world. Thus peace 
 on earth is the great goal of their corporate 
 life." 
 
 This brought to a close the most memorable 
 meeting in the history of Baptists — spectacu- 
 lar, inspiring, unprecedented — an epoch in Bap- 
 tist history. 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN, 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. 
 
 "Be thou faithful and I will give thee a crown." 
 
 Baccalaureate sermon. 
 Stephens College. 
 Columbia, Mo. 
 May 28, 1905. 
 
IX. 
 THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. 
 
 As I look into the faces of a graduating class 
 of Stephens College joyous memories are 
 awakened, memories of happy days, of luscious 
 days when all the world was music, poetry and 
 pretty girls. Appreciative memories of that 
 prince of gentlemen, Pres. R. P. Rider, who did 
 not force me to hide behind the bushes nor 
 scale the walls and climb in at the window 
 when I wanted to see one of the seniors, but 
 invited me into the parlor brought the girl in 
 and left the room. 
 
 As I look into the bright eyes and winsome 
 faces before me this evening, and had I not 
 been so fortunate in those days I might feel 
 a tinge of regret that my lot was not cast twen- 
 ty-five years later. I am sure I would have 
 made trouble for some of these young men that 
 are now looking so wistfully this way. They 
 pretend to be looking at the speaker, but I 
 know, from experience, that where the heart 
 is there will the eyes be also. 
 
 Those who appreciate the elements that 
 make for happiness and prosperity are more in- 
 
 105 
 
106 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 terested in a graduating class of young women 
 than of young men. 
 
 Men have fought battles, built rail-roads, 
 constructed steamships, spanned rivers, tun- 
 neled mountains. Men have developed the 
 sciences, stripped the earth of its mysteries, 
 and harnessed its forces to service. Men have 
 penetrated the Universe, they have followed 
 the planets in their flight through the labyrinth 
 of space. Men have given to the world its mas- 
 terpieces in painting, in sculpture, in architec- 
 ture. 
 
 Women have given to the world monuments 
 of far greater value: the statues they have 
 chiseled throb with life, and live to uplift hu- 
 manity when those of bronze and marble are 
 dissolved into dust. The most important work in 
 this world has to do with the heart. It is on this 
 canvas woman is painting. Her masterpieces are 
 immortal men and women. 
 
 Young ladies of the graduating class of Ste- 
 phens College, you will receive your diplomas 
 next Wednesday in the presence and with the 
 blessing of Dr. Shailer Mathews. A diploma 
 from Stephens is more than a testimonial of 
 accomplishment, it is an expression of conn- 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. io7 
 
 dent expectancy, a promise and prophecy of 
 a bright future. 
 
 The philanthropic spirit and liberality which 
 provided the beautiful college grounds, build- 
 ings and equipments, and surrounded you 
 with the many advantages here enjoyed; the 
 pangs of separation experienced by your par- 
 ents and their sacrifice to give you culture ; 
 this large gathering here assembled, all bear 
 witness to the interest centering in you, and the 
 part you are to play in the drama of life. 
 
 This is an epochal event for you, and should 
 be a time of aspiration, of dream, of vision. 
 
 Many of you saw in the Varied Industries 
 building at the World's Fair the display of the 
 crowns of the world's empires. Each king- 
 dom seems to have vied with all the others in 
 placing in its crown the richest jewels and rar- 
 est gems. 
 
 I wish to place before you a vision of a 
 crown, not a crown of gold and precious stones 
 that weighs heavily on the brow and is attend- 
 ed with heavier cares, but one that brings per- 
 ennial joy, one that each of you may wear with 
 becoming grace and beauty. 
 
 The upreach for this crown is my theme. 
 Scripture, "Be thou faithful and I will give 
 thee a crown." 
 
io8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Human life in all its nobler activities is an 
 upreach for a crown. Men and women by the 
 royalty of their natures are kingdom seekers 
 and they should not rest till they find their 
 kingdom and wear their crown. 
 
 The crowns which beckon young men and 
 women are as numerous as their realms of ex- 
 perience and faculties of achievement.' The 
 crowns which beckon men are worthy of high 
 endeavor. But those that beckon women are 
 cast in a finer mold and are decked with rarer 
 jewels. 
 
 The kingdom of wealth beckons man to 
 come and wear its crown and he who wins fin- 
 ancial supremacy may wield a mighty power 
 for good. 
 
 Another kingdom which beckons man is 
 that of industrial sovereignty. This crown 
 confers a power above the hereditary sway of 
 kings. Captains of industry who marshal ar- 
 mies of workmen against the world's idleness 
 and want are of royal blood. The man who 
 puts a shovel into another's hand is a better 
 friend than the one who puts a dollar into his 
 pocket. There is more religion in putting men 
 to work than in giving them bread. 
 
 The empire of discovery : who can estimate 
 the blessings opened to the race by men who 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. 109 
 
 through scientific upreach placed this diadem 
 on their brow. Think of Newton, Watt, Edi- 
 son. 
 
 The kingdom of political ascendency is 
 also alluring men. The desire to wear this 
 crown when prompted by patriotism is a no- 
 ble ambition. In it sparkle gems of oratory 
 and statesmanship when on the brow of such 
 men as Cicero, Burke, Webster, Clay, Rollins. 
 
 The kingdom of philanthropy: what a no- 
 ble crown to grace the brow ! and I am proud 
 to say that dear old Boone has many names 
 that wear this crown: Jewell, Bass, Hickman, 
 Harris, Hardin, Stephens, Conley, Parker, Sap- 
 pington, Jones. These names will live in 
 the hearts of generations to come, while those 
 who cling to their wealth are long forgotten. 
 
 "That man may last, but never lives 
 Who much receives and nothing gives ; 
 Whom none can love, whom none can thank 
 Creation's blot, creation's blank, 
 
 But he who marks from day to day 
 By generous acts, his path-way 
 Treads the path his Savior trod 
 The path to glory and to God." 
 
no THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The kingdom of art is an enchanting one. 
 To seek to give the world uplifting thoughts, 
 on canvas, in marble, or in music, thrills the 
 heart and expands the soul. 
 
 Think of the gem in Raphael's crown, the 
 "Sistine Madonna" or that pearl in the crown 
 of Hunt "The Light of the World" or that 
 star in Ruben's crown "The Descent from the 
 Cross" or the sparkling jewel in Millet's crown 
 "The Angelus" — what a marvelous portrayal 
 of honest toil, wedded love, reverent worship, 
 — or that poem in chiseled marble, Michael An- 
 gelo's "Moses." 
 
 Music, with its melodies that charm, sym- 
 phonies that soothe, harmonies that inspire, is 
 ever calling the gifted to come and win its 
 ciown, saying: I can voice joy or grief. Take my 
 wondrous wings and soar to new heights of 
 felicity or depths of feeling. I can give added 
 beauty and power to the Psalms and hymns 
 of David, of Watts, of Fannie Crosby, of How- 
 ard Payne, of Samuel Smith. Laurels in this 
 noble art are not only worn by Bach, Bee- 
 thoven, Handel and Mozart, but by those who 
 interpret them, Patti with voice divine and 
 Paderewski with touch sublime and I am sure 
 by many of this audience. 
 
 The kingdom of literature suggests a splen- 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. 1 1 1 
 
 did crown, one that high souls both men and 
 women have ever coveted. It is better to wear 
 the diadem of intellectual dignity than be heir 
 to an earldom. 
 
 Scientists and inventors are benefactors, 
 but men and women of expression who reveal 
 truth, tipped and winged with the fire of a 
 great personality, give treasures more precious. 
 From all times, and all lands, these riches are 
 in our hands. We may choose from these treas- 
 ures vast, left us by the storied past, the 
 crowns we wish to wear. 
 
 With David's crown we may lie down in 
 pastures green, and walk by waters still. Sol- 
 omon's crown mirrors wisdom and folly. 
 
 We may wear the crowns of Homer, of Soc- 
 rates, Gautama, Confucius, Horace, Virgil, 
 then place on our brow the crown of Whittier 
 and find all the gems that deck those crowns are 
 in the Book our mother read. 
 
 With the crown of the myriad-minded 
 Shakespeare we may penetrate the secrets of 
 the heart when swayed by the passions of jeal- 
 ousy, envy, hatred, revenge, or thrilled by the 
 ecstacy of love. 
 
 When on our brow rests the crown of Han- 
 nah Moore we cannot speak an ungenerous 
 word or think a low thought. With sweet 
 
ii2 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Mrs. Browning we keep our soul's large win- 
 dow pure from wrong, and we know that only 
 the good discern the good. Wearing the 
 crown of Pope we act well our part. With 
 Longfellow's Psalm of Life, we may be heroes 
 in the strife. Cowper's diadem will open to us 
 the blessings of friendship and love and un- 
 fold the joys of religion. 
 
 Communing with Edward Everett Hale 
 we open the door of our heart to things that 
 abide, holy thoughts that lift our souls like 
 stars at eventide, fadeless flowers that bloom 
 in realms of song and art. With Kingsley we 
 will do noble things and so make life one grand 
 sweet song. 
 
 With Milton we may view the glories of 
 Paradise. With Goethe learn that God has 
 given us a nature as a kingdom grand, with 
 power to feel and enjoy it. Schiller tells us 
 that to woman is given roses with which to 
 strew the path to heaven. 
 
 With the crown of Gray, we can drop a tear 
 of sympathy and gain from heaven a friend. 
 Holland will help us build the ladder on which 
 we rise from the lowly earth to the vaulted skies. 
 With Bryant we learn to so live that when our 
 summons comes, we go not like a galley slave 
 scourged to his dungeon. 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. .113 
 
 Wearing Bunyan's laurel we may fight the 
 battles of Pilgrim's Progress and with him feel 
 grateful to his humble wife, the influence of 
 whose gentle spirit led him from a drunken 
 tinker, to the glories of a life in Christ. 
 
 Wagner would have us love virtue so beauti- 
 fully portrayed by Parsifal, virtue covering 
 him with a coat of mail, against which the 
 darts of sin cannot prevail. 
 
 With Burns in the Cotter's home, we can 
 share pure hopes, join in songs of praise, and 
 dream of youth, and truth, and love. With 
 Poe, listen to the melody of wedding bells, and 
 picture the happiness their harmony foretells. 
 With Kipling, "God be with us yet, lest we for- 
 get." 
 
 But there is a kingdom that gleams above 
 the literary — the kingdom of home. Here wo- 
 man wears the crown and love is law. 'Tis 
 here she paints living pictures on human hearts. 
 Great men whose virtues shine to bless man- 
 kind have recognized the woman from whose 
 fidelity and devotion has sprung the inspira- 
 tion that enabled them to win the crowns that 
 beckoned them. 
 
 A diadem has often been worn by a man 
 whose wife placed it upon his brow. The 
 3 
 
ii 4 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 source of many a man's achievements may be 
 traced to the influence and culture of the lit- 
 tle woman to whom he plighted his troth in 
 earlj- manhood. 
 
 William E. Gladstone, Premier of England 
 and Premier of men, through the devotion of 
 his wife, Katherine, made his ideal life double 
 because the two made a double life one. 
 
 The crown that best becomes the brow of 
 woman, is loyal, loving wifehood. In God's 
 plan of creation he wove a wreath for woman 
 more glorious than can be attained by man. 
 When God crowned woman Queen of the 
 home He placed in her diadem jewels more 
 rare than she can find in any other earthly 
 kingdom. 
 
 As the heavens are higher than the earth, 
 so there is a kingdom transcendently above 
 all those we have mentioned. 
 
 This kingdom offers a crown more resplen- 
 dent and enduring than all others. Tis the 
 crown of life which the King of Glory gives to 
 the faithful. "Be thou faithful and I will give 
 thee the crown of life/' Without this crown 
 all others are unsatisfying. Byron's literary 
 crown sparkled with many gems but he did not 
 have the crown of life. At thirty and six in- 
 stead of joy and gladness — listen to his wail: 
 
THE UPREACH FOR A CROWN. 1 1 5 
 
 "My days are in the sere and yellow leaf 
 The flowers and fruits of love are 
 gone, 
 
 The worm, the canker and the grief 
 Are mine alone." 
 
 Without the crown of life there can be no 
 abiding joy or satisfying beauty in the life. It 
 is the only crown that gives beauty for ashes, 
 joy for mourning, praise for heaviness. 
 
 One may win crowns in all other kingdoms 
 yet miss the one that best becomes the brow, 
 the crown which Jesus promises for faithful- 
 ness in his kingdom. 
 
 The crown referred to in our text is a symbol 
 of attainment and reward for service in the 
 Kingdom of God. There is a vast difference be- 
 tween eternal life and the crown of life. Eter- 
 nal life is given when one is born into the 
 Kingdom, the crown of life is in addition a re- 
 ward for faithful service in that Kingdom. "I 
 know thy works — Be thou faithful and I will 
 give thee the crown of life." "He that believ- 
 eth on the Son hath eternal life." He that la- 
 bors for the Son hath the crown of life. 
 
 Jesus yearns to crown you with all the graces 
 and glories of Heaven, but His law of cor- 
 onation is the law of faithfulness. 
 
n6 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Faithfulness beautifies the face, it perfects 
 the character, it transforms the life, it illumines 
 the soul causing it to bloom with the laurel of 
 love and the diadem of service. 
 
 Does not the splendor of this crown stir you 
 to faithful service in the Kingdom of God? It 
 is the crown transcendent, the crown immor- 
 tal, the crown of glory that fadeth not away. 
 
 This crown is decked with the ruby of Christ's 
 atoning blood, the diamond of His perfect charac- 
 ter, the emerald of His boundless love, the pearl 
 of His saving grace. 
 
 The price of this crown — "Be thou faithful." 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 
 
 "Your young men shall see visions." 
 
 Baccalaureate sermon. 
 
 Blebs Military Academy. 
 
 Macon, Mo. 
 
 June 4, 1905. 
 
 Son J. Lawrence B., member of graduating class. 
 
X. 
 VISIONS AND PLANS. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, Young men of Blees 
 Military Academy : On last Sabbath I stood 
 before a graduating class somewhat different 
 from this. They wore no swallow tail coats, 
 no shining brass buttons, no stripes on their 
 sleeves, no epaulets on their shoulders. 
 
 Their hair was not pasted down so sleek 
 that a passing mosquito would be liable to 
 slip and break his neck if he chanced to alight. 
 I saw no sign of training for a future mustache. 
 
 No, that class wore white dresses, and rosy 
 cheeks and looked as tempting as peaches and 
 cream. I wish you boys had been there. You 
 might have had an experience similar to the 
 one I had twenty-five years ago when I went 
 to a commencement at this same college. I 
 wore my Sunday best, a standing collar so 
 high I could just peep over it, patent leather 
 shoes number five, they should have been num- 
 ber ten. I had squandered my last dollar on per- 
 fume and hair oil — that was before the gray mat- 
 ter had pushed out my hair — I hadn't a cent left 
 to buy flowers for the girls. I was swept off 
 
 119 
 
120 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 my feet by the charms of the valedictorian. 
 So was another fellow. He was large, I was 
 small, he was old, I was young, he was rich, I 
 was poor, but Togo never planned and fought 
 more vigorously to win than did I, nor was he 
 more victorious. I did not capture the w r hole 
 fleet but captured the Admiral without a 
 wound. 
 
 Young men, the completion of your course 
 here marks for you an epochal event. Your 
 graduation from Blees implies that you have 
 reached an elevation, a plane, where you pause 
 but an instant in the march of life, which is 
 constantly graduating into new^ fields. You 
 will always be coming to commencement days, 
 each of which gives you a broader view, an 
 increasing capacity for achievement. 
 
 Commencement days should be days of 
 visions and planning to realize them. My sub- 
 ject: "Visions and Plans." Text, "Your 
 young men shall see visions." 
 
 Interest centering in young men has ever 
 been characteristic of thoughtful minds. It 
 was emphasized by Plato when he told the 
 Assembly of Athens they must educate their 
 young men or the Republic would perish. It 
 was emphasized by Harvard, Yale, Brown, 
 Cornell and other philanthropists who gave 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 121 
 
 of their wealth to found institutions of learn- 
 ing for young men. This splendid Academy 
 is a monument expressing the interest of Col. 
 Blees in young men. 
 
 It was hope centering in young men that 
 led the founders of our government to make 
 liberal provisions for their education. Those 
 who love our country and yearn for its perpe- 
 tuity are looking to you, young men, for its 
 preservation and continued advance to greater 
 things. The sacrifice of parents that your minds 
 may be trained to use their marvelous capacities 
 in successful endeavor, testifies their love and 
 interest in you. 
 
 There never has been, there could never have 
 been a period in the life of the world so full of 
 potent possibilities for young men as that of 
 to-day. You are citizens of the grandest coun- 
 try, the noblest government that has existed 
 since Adam was driven from the garden of 
 Eden. 
 
 You have the storied urn of the past, with 
 its treasures of thought, experience and 
 achievement. Every morning you have the 
 history of the world of yesterday, its pulsating 
 mental beat and progress in every field. 
 
 The pedestal on which you stand was built 
 by men of visions and plans and the world 
 
122 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 is looking to young men for larger visions and 
 broader plans. 
 
 The day is but dawning. You will see greater 
 changes and advances in science, commerce 
 and religion than have been hinted by the 
 prophetic ken of our fathers. There is an ever 
 increasing demand for better work, higher 
 skill, with greater results; and rich rewards 
 await the man who can advance present 
 thought and methods. 
 
 There is no: a tool or machine but needs im- 
 provement. There is not a flower or fruit but 
 can be brought to higher perfection. Burbank 
 is transforming weeds to wholesome vegeta- 
 bles and homely buds to lovely flowers. Our 
 government recently gave him a hundred 
 thousand dollars to extend the scope of his 
 vision. 
 
 Animals must be brought to higher beauty 
 and usefulness. Ever}- mineral and vegetable 
 must be made to serve man. Wireless tele- 
 phones must be made to communicate, rail- 
 roads to run from pole to pole. 
 
 The sun must furnish all mechanical power 
 and the bottom of the sea made a playground. 
 The composition of the stars and the planets 
 is to be analyzed and their inhabitants are to 
 be communicated with. This vision inspired 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 123 
 
 the couplet in the New York Mail of yester- 
 day, 
 
 "Twinkle, twinkle, little star 
 Now I know what you are." . . . 
 "Where in the thunder is your press agent." 
 
 To accomplish these things men with visions 
 and plans are needed, strong men, men with 
 purpose, men with pluck, men with power. 
 
 The avenues to best success are being clear- 
 ed and made wider, so that thousands may now 
 achieve greatness where only hundreds could 
 win in the last generation. The gates to wis- 
 dom, to wealth, to happiness, to religion, now 
 open so easily, they turn at the touch of the 
 manly man. 
 
 Young man be a visionist, dream of a place 
 in the world's progress and plan to fill it ! 
 
 Columbus had a vision of a land across the 
 sea. With perseverance and dauntless courage 
 he opened a new world. The Pilgrims had a 
 vision of a place where they could worship God 
 according to the dictates of conscience. Break- 
 ing the ties of association, they faced the per- 
 ils of the deep, and hardships of the wilderness, 
 planting their banner on Plymouth Rock. 
 
 Watt, looking at the lid of his mother's tea 
 
i2 4 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 kettle as it was raised by an invisible power, 
 had a vision of a steam engine. This fired his 
 imagination and developed a mechanical skill 
 that resulted in harnessing the mighty power 
 which now turns the wheels of the world. 
 
 Fulton had a vision of a boat propelled by 
 steam,, moving on river and sea, plowing its 
 way against currents of wind and wa- 
 ter. Planning and perfecting his dream, we 
 have the fruits of all lands on our table and 
 travel the ocean with the comforts of home. 
 
 Stephenson, working in a coal mine for a 
 shilling a day, had a vision of the locomotive. 
 He planned and made his dream a reality. As a 
 result we have the rail-road. 
 
 Howe, looking at his delicate wife as she 
 plied the needle making garments for his chil- 
 dren, had a vision of the sewing machine. 
 Mothers may now spend their mornings at the 
 golf links and their evenings at the woman's 
 club. 
 
 McCormick had a vision of a reaper; the 
 farmer now rides under an umbrella while do- 
 ing his work in the harvest field while he furn- 
 ishes the world with bread, sports a carriage 
 or automobile and is no longer the man with 
 the hoe. 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 125 
 
 Morse had a vision of an instrument for the 
 quick transmission of thought. We now fol- 
 low armies in their march to battle on land and 
 on sea, listen to the statesman in his flights 
 of oratory regardless of where he speaks, to 
 our President when he talks to women's clubs 
 about race suicide, or the former President 
 when he tells them they should be at home 
 darning husband's socks and tending the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Bell had a vision of the telephone. We sit 
 in our homes and talk to our friends next door 
 or in New York and cannot injure our health 
 by hasty eating as our friends at a distance 
 insist on talking during the dinner hour. 
 
 Edison selling papers on a train in Michigan 
 had a vision of the possibilities of electricity. 
 As a result of his dreams, when earth is wrap- 
 ped in the mantle of night, our homes, business 
 houses and streets are illumined with a bril- 
 liancy that rivals the noonday sun. We hire 
 a carriage for a nickel ; the city council has a 
 traffic in franchises; and lawyers with a pas- 
 sion for civic righteousness have subjects for 
 prosecution. 
 
 Hoe had a vision of the rotary printing press. 
 Fifty thousand newspapers are printed in an 
 hour. Every morning we are awakened by the 
 
126 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 cry: "Papers" — "Morning papers." We learn 
 when and where it will rain, the proper cloth- 
 ing to wear, what to eat for breakfast, lunch 
 and dinner, who and where they played at ten- 
 nis, golf, basket, foot and base ball, the horse 
 that won the race, where the Stork called, if 
 he brought a boy or a girl, the price of stocks 
 and grain, and what is going on in the realm 
 of religion. 
 
 Palissy had a vision of white enamel to cov- 
 er the pottery he was making. The dream 
 kept alive for sixteen years his determination 
 to produce it. He had nothing left but his fur- 
 nace, his home, the fence around it and his furn- 
 iture. Not a billet of wood could he procure for 
 love or the promise of pay. The pailings were 
 ripped from the fence and thrown in to keep 
 the furnace going, yet the enamel had not melt- 
 ed. There was a crashing in the house; the 
 children were in dismay ; the wife with friends 
 who had come to console her were loud in re- 
 proaches. Palissy was breaking up the tables 
 and chairs, carrying them body and legs to the 
 all consuming fire. Still the enamel did not melt. 
 There was more crashing and hammering in 
 the house, the visionist was tearing up the 
 floor to use the planks for firewood. Frantic 
 with despair, the wife rushes off to raise the 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 12? 
 
 town against him. She was starved by his per- 
 tinacity, he was fed by his vision. While she 
 was gone the sacrifice of sixteen years flowed 
 in the clear beautiful coating that became the 
 rage of kings and connoisseurs and adds to 
 the beauty and cleanliness of the homes of the 
 world. 
 
 Thirty-three years ago, a young man came 
 to St. Louis with a few thousand dollars and a 
 vision of a great shoe business. He had hab- 
 its of industry and thrift, and an integrity that 
 would not compromise with falsehood or de- 
 ceit. He is now the head of the largest shoe 
 business in the world. His vision went beyond 
 a large business and great fortune to the field 
 of philanthropy where he is using much of his 
 wealth for the good of man and the glory of 
 God. 
 
 When a practical man says he can achieve 
 without a vision, he does not understand him- 
 self. There is some vision stimulus in every 
 kind of work, none the less definite because the 
 worker appears unconscious of it. 
 
 The farmer in his planting is moved by the 
 vision of golden grain. The vision of bread 
 for his family, comforts for the home, of in- 
 dependence and enlargement impels the sturdy 
 
128 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR 
 
 shove of the carpenter's plane and the vigor- 
 ous stroke of the blacksmith's hammer. 
 
 Poets are not the only ones who see visions. 
 James Howard Payne had a vision of a home 
 which found expression in that exquisite song 
 "Home, Sw^eet Home." The homes that dot 
 our land are all the creation of visions. 
 
 Garfield when a lad walked the tow path of 
 a canal boat driving a mule for six dollars a 
 month, all of which he sent to his needy moth- 
 er. When a youth he was asked w T hat he pro- 
 posed to make of himself. Said he. "First of 
 all I must make myself a man. If I do not suc- 
 ceed in that I can succeed in nothing." His 
 vision was that of a noble character. That 
 dream was the first step to the White House. 
 
 "To succeed in any plan the chiefest thing 
 is to be a man." 
 
 "Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide, 
 And let in manhood — let in happiness; 
 
 Admit the boundless theatre of thought 
 From nothing up to God." 
 
 Character is the greatest power in the world : 
 it reveals man at his best. It is men of high 
 principle and sterling honesty who command 
 the homage of mankind. Burns's father gave 
 his boy good advice, 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 129 
 
 "He bade me act a manly part, though I had 
 
 ne'er a farthing, 
 For without an honest manly heart, no man 
 
 is worth regarding." 
 
 In the affairs of life it is not intellect that 
 tells so much as character, not brains so much 
 as heart. Wisdom and goodness are always 
 linked together, for wisdom makes a man good 
 and goodness makes a man wise. 
 
 An ideal vision produces an ideal man. In 
 every field of endeavor there are obstacles to over- 
 come, mountains to climb, rivers to cross. Our 
 vision must be rooted in purpose, in plan, in order 
 to realization. Character is being, not seeming, 
 doing, not dreaming. 
 
 Young men, keep before you the vision of a 
 manly heart, a noble character. Without 
 these, gold has no value, birth no distinction, 
 station no dignity, beauty no charm, age no 
 reverence. 
 
 Character is influence, character is capital, 
 character is power. It wins friends, secures hap- 
 piness, creates wealth and opens the way to 
 honor and distinction. 
 
 Young man, I would place before you a vis- 
 ion of your own future. You are to be so gen- 
 tle and the elements so mixed in you that all 
 nature will stand up and say to the world, there 
 is a man. 
 
130 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 You are to stand on the solid rock of truth, 
 which assures confidence in you, as no confi- 
 dence can exist where truth is wanting. You 
 are to be pure in thought and deed, as influ- 
 ences that make for manliness will not dwell 
 with impure souls, nor keep company with 
 low motives, and lecherous thoughts. 
 
 You are to possess the grace of friendship 
 and scatter sunshine in the pathway of others, 
 to delight in truth and beauty, to "gather up 
 sunbeams lying about your path, keep the 
 wheat and roses, casting out the thorns and 
 chaff." 
 
 In choosing a vocation follow the bent of 
 your mind, for you will succeed best in the bus- 
 iness for which you have an aptitude, that 
 which is congenial. Your habits of industry 
 and thrift will be rewarded with the comforts 
 that merit commands. 
 
 Your wife will be adorned with the pearl of a 
 loving heart, the gems of Christian graces. Your 
 home will radiate with love and gladness, as an 
 Eden fragrant with sunshine and flowers, the 
 place where "two souls with but a single thought, 
 two hearts that beat as one" travel life's journey 
 together ennobling every being you touch. 
 
 Your comrades of school days will be uplift- 
 ed by the strength of your personality and 
 
VISIONS AND PLANS. 131 
 
 manhood, your business friends made better 
 and wiser by association with you. Through 
 your public spirit the state and nation are to 
 be elevated and citizenship exalted. 
 
 You are to be vitally connected with relig- 
 ion, with the church of the living God, and be 
 potential in extending the reign of Christ in 
 human hearts. 
 
 Your life is to reach beyond home, and bus- 
 iness, and friends and earth and take hold of 
 eternity. It is to be touched by the perfect 
 One, the Redeemer, the man of Galilee. Trans- 
 formed into his likeness you are to share his 
 power and glory and reign with Him amid the 
 splendors of Heaven throughout eternity. 
 
 To realize this vision, you have resources 
 far greater than Togo who destroyed the pow- 
 erful Russian fleet in the great naval battle of 
 the Sea of Japan. You have Heaven's army at 
 your command and Heaven's help at your right 
 hand. 
 
THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHEBS, 
 
'•THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS. 
 
 "His name shall be above all other names." 
 
 Baccalaureate sermon. 
 
 LaGrange Colli: i 
 
 LaGrange, Mo. } June 7. 1905. 
 
XII. 
 THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS. 
 
 I count it a privilege to address a graduating 
 class of LaGrange college. There is not an 
 educational institution in the state that has 
 proportionately more sterling men among its 
 alumni. 
 
 The public spirit that secured the location of 
 the college was assurance that the influence 
 and environs would be conducive to the up- 
 building of high character. 
 
 From this institution have gone forth many 
 of the leading men of this and other states, in 
 the ministry, in politics, in secular professions, 
 to grace the judicial bench and the presidential 
 chairs of academies and colleges. 
 
 The citizens of LaGrange builded broader 
 than their vision when they secured the loca- 
 tion of this college. LaGrange has been taken 
 from the list of obscure hamlets and placed in 
 the ranks of towns that will live through the 
 distinguished names that go forth from this 
 college. 
 
 Names are the monuments of civilization. 
 Names stand for principles, for measures, for 
 truths. 
 
 135 
 
136 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Into one's name are garnered the treasures 
 of his soul. "Good name in man or woman 
 dear, my Lord, is the immediate jewel of their 
 souls." With wisps of straw the farmer binds 
 the wheat into bundles; with ribbon the flor- 
 ist ties blossoms into bunches. Your name is 
 the band that binds together the qualities of 
 your heart. 
 
 Without names history would be impossible, 
 individuals would be lost in the sea of the mul- 
 titude, and so it would be of cities, states and 
 nations. By name men make contracts, form 
 partnerships, assume commercial obligations. 
 By name men take the oath of office, and enter 
 into the holy bonds of marriage. By name 
 penalties are imposed on the guilty and honors 
 bestowed on the worthy. 
 
 The ambition to make a good name is com- 
 mendable because it involves the storing in the 
 name of enduring virtues. 
 
 "Names of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime; 
 And departing leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 Footprints that perhaps another 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main 
 A; forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
 
 Seeing may take heart again." 
 
THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS 137 
 
 Good names are footprints on the sands of 
 time. It is the virtues garnered in the names 
 of Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Samuel, and Da- 
 vid that make them a potent force in he world 
 to-day. The graces and beauties in the 
 thoughts that are bound in the names of Ho- 
 mer, Plato, Virgil, Horace, Dante, and Milton 
 endure through the centuries as granaries for 
 mental nourishment and soul food. 
 
 When a man dies the scaffolding falls away, 
 but the name epitomizes his character and re- 
 mains. Cities become heaps, empires ruin, 
 bronze tablets and marble monuments dissolve 
 into dust, but the names of the great and good 
 endure as the years of God. 
 
 Great movements in the progress of civili- 
 zation have found expression in characters who 
 possessed in an eminent degree the spirit of 
 the work and time, and around these names 
 clusters the story of the events. The history 
 of the reformation is written in the names of 
 Luther and Calvin. The tragic events of 
 France, during the life of Napoleon are linked 
 inseparably with his name. The Christian 
 character and virtues of Victoria during her long 
 reign gave expression to the spirit of her best 
 people and were the bulwark of England's 
 laws. Victoria's name gave to England's ar- 
 my and navy strength and courage. 
 
138 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The spirit of freedom and determined resist- 
 ance to British oppression was formulated and 
 was moulded into action by Washington, Ad- 
 ams, Madison, Jefferson and Henry. In this 
 cluster of names is preserved the true spirit of 
 the revolution. 
 
 Paul with a mental survey of the great 
 names of history says, "God hath highly ex- 
 alted Jesus and given him a name above ev- 
 ery name." All the qualities that are distrib- 
 uted among many names and that confer re- 
 nown upon each are swept into this one pre- 
 eminent the name above every name. As the 
 tree is above the grass it shelters, as the star 
 is above the cloud it illumines, so the name of 
 Jesus is above all the names of earth and heav- 
 en. From a captive nation, a degraded prov- 
 ince, an humble village, an obscure peasant's 
 cottage, comes this unschooled youth. Born 
 in poverty, working with his hands at hard la- 
 bor, doomed to thirty years obscurity, spurned 
 by rulers, despised by priests, mobbed by the 
 common people, counted a traitor to his coun- 
 try and religion, executed by a method de- 
 signed for criminals. 
 
 He wrote no book, no poem, no drama, in- 
 vented no instrument, fashioned no law, out- 
 
THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS. 139 
 
 lined no philosophy, contributed nothing to 
 geometry or astronomy. At the end of his 
 career He stood solitary and silent, deserted, 
 doomed. 
 
 With his last breath he said: "It is finished." 
 He had completed the work that was to place 
 His name above every other name. 
 
 Centuries have come and gone. The name 
 of Jesus has lifted the gates of Empires from 
 their hinges and turned the stream of humanity 
 from a downward course upward. 
 
 His name has leavened literature, made 
 laws just, governments humane, manners gen- 
 tle. It has builded cathedrals, refined art, in- 
 spired music. His name has so glorified the 
 cross, that, instrument of torture, that queens 
 and beautiful women seek to enhance their love- 
 liness by hanging it about their necks. 
 
 Milton divides honor with Dante, Bacon 
 with Newton, Moltke with Napoleon but none 
 has risen to divide with Jesus. 
 
 He eclipses all others as the noonday sun 
 hides the stars which deck the heavens. 
 
 The influence of Christ in securing the up- 
 ward movement of society is apparent to all 
 students of the science of progress. 
 
 Wherever the name of Jesus is known it 
 
140 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 is an inspiration to higher ideals. Within its 
 circle are encompassed gentleness and justice, 
 wisdom and mercy, sympathy and tenderness, 
 courage and self-sacrifice, and above all love, 
 love divine, love excelling. 
 
 His wonderful name purifies the life. The 
 most difficult of all arts is the art of living. 
 Man understands and controls fire, wind and 
 water, he tames the beast and makes it his 
 burden bearer, changes poisons into healing 
 balms, and the time seems near when he will 
 hold every secret in nature, of land, of sea, 
 of sky. 
 
 Although man has become master in every 
 other realm, he breaks down when it comes to 
 living righteously. To-day he is reason, to- 
 morrow passion ; to-day sympathy, to-morrow 
 repugnance; to-day charity, to-morrow ven- 
 geance. In a single day he runs through the va- 
 rious moods that are repugnant to each other. 
 As Ben Jonson says : "We differ from ourselves 
 as well as others." 
 
 Man's ambition struggles for precedence; he 
 is swayed by a collusion of interests; his un- 
 ruly tongue in one hour pours out consolation, 
 sympathy, love, the next it is a club for anger, 
 a poison for envy, a dagger for hatred. Tis 
 
THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS. 141 
 
 here that Christ transcends all others, — midst 
 all the distractions of life He maintained peer- 
 less perfection. He entered life at the lowest 
 period of morals in the world's history of the 
 race. The village where he spent his early 
 life was so low in the scale of morals that won- 
 der was expressed that any good could come 
 out of Nazareth. With these environs He 
 grew to be the fairest flower that ever bloomed 
 in the garden of humanity. 
 
 Jesus is a contradiction of all laws of culture, 
 wealth and family. He was an untrained 
 youth. No teacher or school fed His genius. He 
 had no access to Grecian literature or Roman 
 law. Yet He discovered childhood and empha- 
 sized the importance of early training. He set 
 forth the true principles of education, and left 
 for us the germinal teachings that have de- 
 veloped into the schools and colleges of to- 
 day. There is not an Oxford, a Cambridge a 
 Harvard, a Yale, a Vassar, a William Jewell, 
 a LaGrange, that was not founded by His fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 So with his relations to industry and wealth. 
 He was poor. For nearly thirty years he 
 pushed the carpenter's plane to earn his daily 
 bread. He knew nothing of money through 
 
142 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 handling large treasures, yet He grasped the 
 principles of property and wealth and so re- 
 lated them to industry and integrity that in- 
 dividuals and nations have prospered in pro- 
 portion as they have adopted His principles in 
 business methods. 
 
 Although he was crucified at thirty-three, 
 His teachings guide the wisest thinkers of to- 
 day. One of America's leading financiers re- 
 cently said: "All political economy of to-day 
 is being written under the influence of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 Jesus established no home and sustained 
 none of the relations of husband and father, 
 yet He founded the Christian home and en- 
 throned love as law. 
 
 But the preeminence of Jesus' name lies in 
 a greater realm than any of these, the sphere 
 of the spirit, of the soul. 
 
 It is in that name and through that name 
 alone that we may approach God the Father. 
 "Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name 
 He will give it you." 
 
 Every true prayer must be made in the name 
 above every name. "If ye ask anything in my 
 name." Any check drawn in that name will be 
 honored by heaven's bank. 
 
THE NAME ABOVE ALL OTHERS. 143 
 
 No other name is given in Heaven or on earth 
 whereby we can be saved. Through that name 
 man is redeemed, saved, transformed, glorified. 
 "Thou shalt call his name Jesus for He shall 
 save the people from their sins." 
 
THE BIBLE IN THE BUILDING OF 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 During the past few weeks I have been doing historic, cultured 
 New England, and my heart has been thrilled more than once. The 
 founder of the State whose motto is ''Hope," and of this historic 
 church the very sight of which thrills every Baptist heart, wrote these 
 words at the age of 74: "From my childhood the Father of light and 
 mercies touched my soul with a love to himself, to his only begotten, 
 and to his holy Scriptures." 
 
 Who doubts that Roger Williams' love and loyalty to the holy 
 scriptures, caused him to cling tenaciously to the doctrines of regen- 
 eration, believers' baptism, and religious liberty which have wrought 
 so mightily during the past two and a half centuries in the world's 
 civil and religious conquest. 
 
 10 
 
THE BIBLE IN THE BUILDING OF 
 CHARACTER 
 
 Address. 
 
 To convention of Baptist Young People's Union of America. 
 
 Providence. R. I.. July 11. 1902. 
 
 Fibst Baptist CHrECH founded by Roger Williams. 1639 
 
XII. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN THE BUILDING OF 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 Some one has said that the greatest pleasure in 
 life is love; the greatest treasure, contentment; 
 the greatest possession, health. There may be a 
 sense in which this is true, but in reality the great- 
 est pleasure, the greatest treasure and the great- 
 est possession in all human existence is highly 
 developed Christian character. There is no posses- 
 sion on earth or in heaven or in all the universe of 
 God so valuable as a Christly character. 
 
 Christ-like character is more to be desired; than 
 .wealth, position, power or any attainment within 
 the range and reach of man. Therefore, that 
 which contributes most largely to this end 
 should be prized above all values. 
 
 The Bible is God's instrument — God's means 
 for forming and developing character. The pur- 
 pose of God in giving the Bible to man was that 
 its formative truths might be transmuted into 
 character. The Book of God was not given to man 
 for its history, its imagery nor its poetry, but it 
 was given as a basis and builder of character. 
 
 Christian Character! What is it? It is a 
 character that is Christ-like; a character that 
 thinks as Christ thought; that lives as He lived; 
 
 i 4 7 
 
148 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 that loves as He loved; that serves as He served, 
 and the only way of knowing how the Master 
 thought, lived, loved and served is through the in- 
 spired word of God. No wonder that its verities 
 are eternal and its value priceless. 
 
 The Bible and the Christ are inseparable. They 
 are each called the Word; and to minimize the 
 written Word is to dishonor the living Word; to 
 magnify the Book is to glorify Christ. The Bible 
 and the Christ stand or fall together. The storm 
 centers of the Christian religion, to-day as in cen- 
 turies past are the inspiration of the Scriptures 
 and the divinity of Jesus. Is Jesus what He 
 claimed to be — the Son of God ? Is the Bible what 
 it claims to be — God-breathed ? If so, it must be 
 the meat and drink of all spiritual life and 
 growth. 
 
 The spiritual life has only one text-book, and 
 the Holy Spirit is its author and interpreter. 
 
 The Spirit of God is the agent and the Word of 
 God is the instrument in the work of man's regen- 
 eration and development into Godlikeness. 
 
 Every grace found in the Bible is placed there 
 to be used as a constructive force in character 
 building. Jesus possessed all of them in the high- 
 est degree, and the one who knows these graces 
 best and appropriates them to his daily life ap- 
 proaches nearest the ideal character of Christ. 
 
THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 149 
 
 The Christliest character in attendance upon this 
 convention of the Young Baptists of America is 
 the one who most sincerely loves the Book and 
 most consistently lives its teachings. 
 
 President Roosevelt recently wrote to the Ep- 
 worth Leaguers gathered at Baltimore: 
 
 "Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes 
 that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven 
 with our whole civic and social life that it would 
 be literally impossible for us to figure what that 
 life would be if these teachings were removed. 
 We would lose almost all the standards by which 
 we judge both private and public morals." 
 
 He closed the letter with these significant 
 words: "We plead for a closer and wider and 
 deeper study of the Bible so that our people may 
 be in fact as well as theory 'doers of the word and 
 not hearers only.' " 
 
 Bible truths are transmitted into the moral fiber 
 of the one who loves them. Love for the Word 
 assures the assimilation of its truths into charac- 
 ter, therefore love for the Word ought to be the 
 distinctive characteristic of every young Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 The keynote the battlecry of this Convention 
 is CONQUEST. Conquest of Self— of the 
 Word— of the World. But the conquest of the 
 
150 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Word is infinitely more important than the con- 
 quest of Self or of the World, because the con- 
 quest of the world is basic and inclusive. 
 
 Conquest of the Word impels conquest of Self. 
 "Thy word have I hid in my heart that 1 might 
 not sin against thee." "I write unto you young 
 men because the Word of God abideth in you and 
 ye have overcome the evil one." 
 
 We grow rich as we search for golden treasures 
 in God's mine. Some time ago, when among the 
 glaciers of Alaska I visited the largest gold-mine 
 on earth. Its 680 steel stamps were grinding out 
 a stream of gold continuously, never stopping day 
 or night. But the Psalmist discovered a far richer 
 mine. Listen! "The words of thy mouth are 
 dearer to me than thousands of silver and gold." 
 
 We grow rich and wise and strong as we wel- 
 come into our hearts and consciences the thoughts 
 of God. We become spiritual athletes by giving 
 expression to God's ideas in lip and life. 
 
 Again, Conquest of the Word inevitably leads 
 to the conquest of the World for no one can truly 
 know the Word of God without a yearning zeal 
 to give it to the lost. 
 
 While Cary was working at his last he kept his 
 Bible lying open before him and herein was the 
 promise and prophecy of his marvelous mission- 
 ary conquests. 
 
THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 151 
 
 Our times demand emphatic cleavage to the 
 Book. The striking characteristics and tendencies 
 of the hour can only be met by the Bible. Com- 
 mercialism predominates everywhere. Men have 
 always traded but never on such a collossal scale 
 as now. 
 
 There is real danger lest the spirit of commer- 
 cial conquest dwarf even the desire for conquest 
 of self and the world. I can conceive of nothing 
 that will check this grasping spirit save searching 
 of the word, thereby implanting in human hearts 
 its cardinal truths, the Father-hood of God the 
 Brotherhood of man, the Spirit of the Golden 
 Rule, and above all to learn that true greatness 
 consists not in getting but giving ; that real glory 
 comes not from being served but from serving. 
 
 The Christianity of the Bible has brought our 
 nation to its present imperial position and the 
 Bible alone can defend our beloved country against 
 the dangers which our prosperity has produced. 
 The central principle of the Book — "Sacrifice and 
 Service" is the only antidote for the dangers of 
 this hour. 
 
 Again, If the twentieth century is to solve the 
 social problem it will be consummated through 
 Bible developed characters. When the true spirit 
 of the Book is imbibed there will be no clash be- 
 tween the classes and the masses. The Bible is pe- 
 
152 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 culiarly adapted to our day because this is an age 
 of the people and the Bible is pre-eminently the 
 book for the people. 
 
 The degree of enlightenment in the world is in 
 the exact ratio with the prevalence of the ethical 
 principles of the Word of God. Why is it that the 
 United States, England and Germany are leaders 
 in the world's onward and upward movements? 
 It is because in these countries you will find an 
 open Bible and an efficient ministry holding forth 
 the Word of life. 
 
 Why is it that Italy, Spain, Mexico and the 
 States of South America are so far behind ? Is it 
 not because the Bible is kept from the people? 
 Is it not because the current of God's thought is 
 withheld from the masses? The religion of the 
 Bible is the only religion that can lead a nation or 
 a world to the highest civilization. This Book is 
 inspired of God and given to man for the pur- 
 pose of teaching him how to construct out of his 
 ruined and fallen condition a Christly character. 
 
 God has an ideal plan for every earthly life and 
 that plan is revealed in his Word. Would that we 
 could realize that God is talking to us through 
 His word ; would that we could feel as did Jeremy 
 Taylor who would open his Bible and say, 
 "Speak Lord, thy servant heareth." 
 
THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 153 
 
 Great indeed is the privilege of opening a book 
 and communing with great authors such as 
 Homer, Shakespeare, Milton — to live in their 
 presence — to listen to their voices — to think their 
 thoughts — but infinitely greater is the privilege of 
 opening the Bible and communing with the 
 eternal God; to live in His presence; to think His 
 thoughts and to realize that he is talking to me 
 personally and has given me a pattern and plan 
 for my life, and revealed it with such distinctness 
 that I can follow it, and in the following will be 
 transformed into a character like that of the Son 
 of God. 
 
 Jesus is our model in all things. He possessed 
 no characteristic more striking than His remark- 
 able familiarity with the word of God. 
 
 At the age of twelve we find him asking and 
 answering questions about the Scriptures. He 
 quoted them all through life using them daily for 
 argument, illustration and instruction. He also 
 used them for His own personal support in times 
 of trial. 
 
 In that strange scene of His temptation, three 
 times He quotes Scripture in conquering the 
 tempter, and again on the cross three times He 
 quotes the Word for support and comfort. His 
 last sentence, "It is finished," was a quotation 
 from the sacred writings. 
 
154 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 I say it reverently, Jesus found it necessary, in 
 temptation and trial, in teaching and preaching, 
 in sorrow and suffering, to turn to the Scriptures 
 for support and strength. 
 
 If the Son of God, with His kingly character 
 and divine personality, felt the necessity of know- 
 ing and utilizing the Scriptures, how much greater 
 is our need in the development of a character like 
 unto His own? 
 
 Would that I could induce every Christian in 
 America to search daily earth's greatest book. No 
 field of knowledge is so inviting; no information 
 so far reaching and consequential; no book so 
 precious. 
 
 I learned to love it when a boy. Mother died be- 
 fore I could read and father soon followed. Well 
 do I remember the day when at the age of twelve 
 I left my Uncle's home to go forth into the world 
 to fight life's battles alone. 
 
 The morning I left a sister older than myself 
 took me into a room and read to me out of a little 
 pocket Bible. After reading we kneeled down 
 and with her arms around my neck, with tears she 
 pleaded with God that I might take the Bible as 
 the guide of my life. Then she gave me the book 
 exacting a promise that I would read it daily. 
 
 That little pocket Bible I carried for years. It 
 was a shield against temptation and its daily read- 
 
THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 155 
 
 Ings prepared my heart to receive the Savior. I 
 now count it my highest privilege and divinest 
 duty to search the book of infinite wisdom. 
 
 My friend, when you take the Bible into your 
 hand you hold the greatest work visible in all the 
 world. You hold God's guide book for your life. 
 
 When life has lost its charm; when business 
 ceases to allure; when music fails to fascinate and 
 poetry no longer stirs the soul; when things of 
 earth cannot satisfy, you will find this book the 
 source of sweetest peace and divinest comfort. 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 
 
 Address. 
 
 Missouri Baptist General Association. 
 
 Marshall, Mo. 
 
 October 22, 1903. 
 
XIII. 
 
 JOHN MASON PECK. 
 
 Were this the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century instead of the twentieth, John Mason 
 Peck would be an unimportant study, and the 
 history of Missouri Baptists could be told in 
 a single sentence: "Not a Baptist organiza- 
 tion west of the Mississippi." 
 
 Yon tiny stream trickling down the moun- 
 tain side attracts little notice as the traveller 
 steps across and passes on to grander scenery, 
 but had he started with Clark and Lewis just 
 opposite Alton and followed the Missouri back 
 to its source in the Rockies, noting day by day 
 the vast territory it was fertilizing, that little 
 rivulet so thoughtlessly stepped across would 
 have had a very different meaning. 
 
 With somewhat similar interest we may 
 trace a tiny thread of life that had its source 
 back among the New England hills and grew 
 into a mighty stream of spiritual power, en- 
 riching all this Western territory, especially 
 the state of Missouri. 
 
 During the infancy of a republic is an auspic- 
 ious time to be born ; a country farm house a 
 most charming place to be reared; a common 
 grammar school supplies the best training for 
 
 159 
 
160 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 a growing mind; and poor, honest and relig- 
 ious parents furnish a boy the best chances 
 to become a great man. All these advantages 
 conspired to make John Mason Peck distin- 
 guished. 
 
 He was born on a farm near Litchfield, Conn., 
 1789. 
 
 The American Republic was scarcely five 
 years old ; the Nutmeg State was justly proud 
 of her common school system ; and Asa and 
 Hannah Peck furnished their boy with the 
 other pre-requisites to achievement, for they 
 were poor, honest and religious. 
 
 John was their only child and early became 
 their support, for the father was a cripple, the 
 mother an invalid. His early education was 
 limited to a few months each year in a country 
 school. 
 
 At the age of eighteen he was converted and 
 joined the Congregational church. Soon there 
 was an outburst in this new-born soul : "Lord, 
 what wilt thou have me to do?" "Thou art a 
 chosen vessel to bear my name." "Not so, 
 Lord, I have invalid parents, my education is 
 limited, my purse empty, I must abide the use- 
 ful calling of husbandry and serve thee in a 
 private station." 
 
 Now I touch a responsive chord in the heart 
 of every man called of God to preach the gos- 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 161 
 
 pel, for Peck suffered the same agonies away 
 back in the beginning" of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury that the young minister does to-day. No 
 sooner did he feel called of God to proclaim the 
 "glad tidings," than he was taken with that 
 consequent, malignant disease which so often 
 proves fatal to the young preacher. I refer to 
 that lingering, languishing, hungering, grippy 
 disease, matrimonitis. Matrimonitis under- 
 mines the system more surely than meningitis, 
 tonsilitis, gastritis, iritis, peritonitis, appendi- 
 citis or any other itis. 
 
 Peck caught the contagion when he was 
 scarcely eighteen and grew rapidly worse when 
 he had found Sallie Payne, a bright New York 
 girl. The disease, however, terminated happily 
 in marriage when he was nineteen years old. 
 
 A year of married life in the home of the 
 "Old Folks," ended as usual with a moving, 
 and in this case it was to another state. It was 
 to the Rip Van Winkle country he went, and 
 old Van might have slept a hundred years in- 
 stead of twenty and awakened to find no 
 change in that mountainous region, save here 
 and there a small clearing and a log cabin in 
 which the settler and his family lived. 
 
 John Peck and his wife thoroughly agreed on 
 
 all vital points, and from the reading of the 
 11 
 
162 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 word they had been led to believe that they 
 had not received scriptural baptism. So, on 
 a beautiful autumn morning in this very month 
 of October, ninety-two years ago, there might 
 have been seen a man, twenty-two years of 
 age, slender, of medium height, wiry, alert, 
 brown eyes, black hair, and determined fea- 
 tures, carrying in his arms a babe one year old, 
 while by his side walked his wife, wending 
 their way over the Catskill mountains by a 
 winding, unfrequented path, bound for a lit- 
 tle Baptist church five miles away. 
 
 One month later this mountaineer and fam- 
 ily made a second journey to that little church 
 in the mountains, and after a long series of 
 questions by pastor and deacons, the young 
 couple were baptized in a clear mountain 
 stream. Pastor Harvey, recognizing the 
 bright mind and ready tongue of the new con- 
 vert, insisted that he "exercise his gift" at 
 their next meeting. Strange, Peck took for 
 his text : "Go ye into all the world and preach 
 the gospel to every creature." 
 
 "He has a gift," said the brethren; "he must 
 preach," so they licensed him to use his gift. 
 His first work was in Catskill, N. Y,, where 
 he taught school for a living and preached 
 three or four times a week, his only salary be- 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 163 
 
 ing the penny collections on Sunday. He lov- 
 ed work rather than wages, and the brethren 
 saw that he had his preference. 
 
 This young preacher started out by keeping 
 a journal in which he recorded the most min- 
 ute account of his work, and this journal has 
 been of great value to modern historians. 
 Peck's "Western Annals" are to-day text 
 books on Pioneer History. 
 
 Hear an extract from his Journal of March 
 12th, 1812 : (He has now been a Baptist six 
 months.) "I find by enumeration that I have 
 had the privilege of hearing twenty-four Bap- 
 tist preachers improve. I have seen, besides 
 my wife and myself, three persons baptized. 
 Seven times I have communed since I became 
 a Baptist. I have attended nine monthly meet- 
 ings and five extra meetings for cases of dis- 
 cipline ; have voted for the exclusion of two 
 members, and have used my gift twenty-seven 
 times." 
 
 Just now there is a rustle among the dry 
 leaves of Baptists. News comes from over the 
 seas that Judson and Rice have been converted 
 to Baptist views. The story goes around and 
 Baptist hearts are fired. Peck soliloquizes: 
 "My heart is grieved for the heathen in Jug- 
 gernaut and Ganges ignorance. O, how I wish 
 I might bear the gospel to them." 
 
i6 4 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Three years later he met Luther Rice, who 
 had returned from India and was posting from 
 one association to another, fanning the flame 
 of missionary zeal. It needed but little effort 
 to kindle a soul already aglow and Peck soon 
 found himself visiting associations in the cause 
 of missions. 
 
 Peck writes in his journal : "I cannot for- 
 bear opening my mind. I learn that it is in 
 contemplation to establish a mission in the 
 Missouri Territory. I have ever had my mind 
 upon the people west of the Mississippi. If 
 it is in my lot to labor among the heathen, the 
 Louisiana Purchase, of all parts of the world 
 would be my choice." 
 
 This earnest desire reached and touched the 
 hearts of the Philadelphia Board of Missions 
 and arrangements were made for Peck to take 
 a theological course in Dr. Staughton's sem- 
 inary at Philadelphia. His seminary chum 
 was a young licentiate from David's Fork, Ky., 
 James E. Welch. Here was formed a friend- 
 ship that lasted until death. 
 
 After two years study and graduation came 
 the trying ordeal of examination before the 
 mission board. Peck writes: "The agony is 
 over. The board has accepted Mr. Welch and 
 me as missionaries to the Missouri Territorv. 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 165 
 
 From this moment I consider myself most sac- 
 redly devoted to missions, O, Lord, may I 
 live and die in the cause." The board required 
 him to pledge himself to missions for life. 
 
 The following two months were spent in a 
 hurried preparation for the journey to Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 Friday afternoon, July 25th, 1817, sees John 
 Peck in a little one-horse gig, with his wife 
 and three children, leaving the door of his old 
 Connecticut home, never expecting to see his 
 father and mother again. They were starting 
 on a journey of more than twelve hundred 
 miles, a far greater undertaking than to circle 
 the earth to-day. 
 
 This son now leaving the parental home is 
 not a thoughtless youth, unacquainted with the 
 depth and tenderness of a father's heart and a 
 mother's love. He is twenty-eight years of 
 age. His mother, with Christian spirit rises 
 above even maternal love, and while her lips 
 quiver her soul is firm. There were tears in 
 her eyes, but her heart said : "If the Lord has 
 need of him, only son that he is, let His holy 
 will be done. He gave, and though precious 
 this gift, if there need be a sacrifice of it, God 
 forbid that I should hinder." 
 
166 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Not so with the father. He was aged and in- 
 firm and had not the faith or fortitude of the 
 mother. He wept aloud and the last sounds 
 that fell on the little wagon as it left the old 
 home, were the agonizing cries of the aged 
 father. 
 
 After three months of travel this lonely com- 
 pany was joined by Mr. Welch and wife, who 
 met them at Lexington, Ky. Another month's 
 travel brought them to their objective point, 
 St. Louis, Dec. 1st, 1817, then a village of sev- 
 en hundred people. 
 
 A glance as to conditions. Only fourteen 
 years before Peck's arrival marked the world's 
 greatest stroke of statesmanship. It was a 
 date when an empire almost as large as all 
 Continental Europe, and larger by fifty-five 
 thousand square miles than the thirteen orig- 
 inal states, passed from an intolerant monarchy 
 to a liberty loving republic, without the shed- 
 ding of one drop of blood. 
 
 Nothing has happened since Pentecost, save 
 the Lutheran Reformation and the Declaration 
 of American Independence, that counts so 
 much for the civilization, enlightenment and 
 uplift of the world as the Louisiana Purchase. 
 If the Mississippi had remained the western 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. i67 
 
 limit of this nation the progress of Protestant- 
 ism would have been arrested, and therefore, 
 humanity, centuries. 
 
 A century ago there was not a Protestant 
 church between the Father of Waters and the 
 mighty Pacific. There were a few scattered 
 Protestants here and there, but they were not 
 permitted to gather together for worship ex- 
 cept under specified restrictions. They were 
 forbidden to ring a bell, perform a marriage 
 ceremony, baptize a convert or observe the 
 Lord's Supper. 
 
 When Peck and Welch landed in Missouri 
 they found at least 1,000 Catholics to every 
 Protestant — 1,000 to 1 ; now there are five times 
 as many Protestants as Catholics. 
 
 One hundred years ago there was not a 
 single Protestant church west of the Missis- 
 sippi, now there are over 40,000 and 13,797 are 
 Baptist. In fact, Baptists were pioneers in the 
 Protestant occupation of Missouri and the 
 West. They had the first preachers, and the 
 first houses for evangelical worship. 
 
 At the time of the purchase there was only 
 one Protestant preacher on Louisiana Terri- 
 tory. In fact, under Spanish rule the law re- 
 quired every settler to be a bona-fide Catho- 
 lic. 
 
i68 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The first Protestant preacher to enter was 
 John Clark, a Baptist, who four years before 
 the purchase went down the Mississippi alone 
 in a small canoe, camping in the woods at 
 night. He settled in St. Louis county. He 
 found in St. Louis a Baptist layman named 
 Abraham Musick. 
 
 Musick addressed a letter to the Spanish 
 commandant Trudeau, then located in St. 
 Louis, requesting that Rev. Clark be allowed 
 to hold services in Musick's home. The com- 
 mandant replied that such a request was con- 
 trary to the law and could not be granted. 
 "You must not put a bell on your house and 
 call it a church, or suffer your children to be 
 christened by anyone save the parish priest." 
 
 A few years later, Thos. Musick, a Baptist 
 minister, walked from Kentucky to Missouri, 
 and in 1807 organized the Fee Fee church, now 
 the oldest living Protestant church in the 
 Louisiana Territory. This mother of all the 
 Protestant and Baptist churches of the West 
 is only an hour's ride on the electric car from 
 the World's Fair Grounds. 
 
 Within three months after the arrival of 
 Peck and Welch they raised $3,000 to build the 
 first Baptist church in St. Louis, and this in a 
 village where there were only seven Baptists 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 169 
 
 and about twenty Protestants. That church 
 was the mother of all St. Louis churches. It 
 stood at the corner of Third and Market 
 streets. I recently visited the spot. It is now 
 a busy market place and the hundreds of Bap- 
 tists and Protestants that pass it every day 
 are not aware of the sacred associations that 
 cluster around it. Could this old corner speak 
 it would tell of many heart aches, trials and 
 struggles and disappointments that came to 
 these pioneers who suffered without complaint, 
 determined, in the strength of the Lord, to an- 
 nul the edict that had been so boastingly set 
 forth : "Protestantism shall not cross the Mis- 
 sissippi." 
 
 Peck spent his first nine years of missionary 
 life following the bridle paths through the wil- 
 derness of Missouri and Illinois. Wherever 
 he found a nucleus of Baptist families he called 
 them together into some farm house and 
 preached to them. We hear of him now down 
 about St. Genevieve and Cape Girardeau, 
 where he found a few small churches. Later 
 he makes a trip to the Boone's Lick country up 
 about old Franklin, Howard county. He mentions 
 the names of two with whom he stopped in this 
 section, James Wiseman from Virginia and a 
 Brother Callaway, the son-in-law of Daniel Boone. 
 
i7o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 He writes: "Here I first met Daniel Boone. He 
 was eighty years old. Instead of being the rough, 
 burly, uncouth pioneer and Indian fighter I im- 
 agined him to be, he was a modest, refined, 
 cultured old man. Intelligent, for he had treas- 
 ured up a wonderful experience of adventure 
 for four score of years. He was sociable and 
 communicative. He spoke feelingly and with 
 solemnity of being a creature of providence 
 ordained by heaven as a pioneer in the wilder- 
 ness to advance the civilization of his country." 
 
 Peck was a great organizer. He planted, 
 then he organized that the planting might 
 avail. In his second year he organized "The 
 United Society for the Spread of the Gospel," 
 by uniting St. Louis and Illinois Baptists. Ev- 
 erywhere he went he organized mite societies 
 for collecting money for missions. 
 
 Just previous to his first visit to the Boone's 
 Lick country had been the Indian war, in 
 which many lives were lost and much property 
 destroyed. In consequence he found much un- 
 rest among settlers and great excitement over 
 the sale and confiscation of lands. Many an 
 honest, hard working settler was forced out of 
 his clearing and made to delve deeper into the 
 forest and clear another spot for home and 
 family. And as Mr. Peck would ride up to the 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. i7i 
 
 fence of a farmer, with his big heart full of 
 love and concern for him, he was accosted with 
 the words : "Are you one of the land specu- 
 lators, stranger?" 
 
 Early in 1819 Peck and Welch decid- 
 ed that St. Charles was the most prom- 
 ising place for an academy. But the 
 school was short lived, for just at this 
 time the eagerly watched for mail brought a 
 very unwelcome letter. It was from Dr. 
 Staughton, the Secretary of the Board, and 
 read : "The Western Mission must be closed 
 at once for want of funds and lack of results. 
 Brother Welch is requested to remain in St. 
 Louis, but not as a missionary and Brother 
 Peck is requested to report at Fort Wayne and 
 join Brother McCoy in his labors among the 
 Indians." 
 
 Now was conceived in Peck's brain the Am- 
 erican Baptist Home Mission Society. Peck 
 saw the greatness of the work in the West. He 
 saw the future greatness of the American re- 
 public. He saw that a society must be formed 
 that would comprehend the whole field of 
 North America, and began the agitation which 
 resulted in the organization of such a society. 
 
 In 1832 delegates from five hundred churches 
 met in the city of New York and organized the 
 
1 72 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society, the 
 outline of whose constitution Peck conceived 
 in St. Louis and carried with him to Xew York. 
 
 This society was the parent of the Home 
 Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and 
 these two organizations have been the parents 
 or foster parents of almost every state mission 
 board. 
 
 Peck being no longer supported by the Phil- 
 adelphia board found it necessary to enter some 
 land and labor for the support of his family. He 
 moved to Rock Springs, 111., and entered a half 
 section of land. But his heart was so full of 
 mission work that he took much time from his 
 farm and worked among the churches scatter- 
 ed over Missouri and Western Illinois. One 
 of his greatest trials was the opposition he met 
 to missions among the Baptist preachers. 
 
 Shortly after the Philadelphia board had dis- 
 missed Mr. Peck the Massachusetts board ac- 
 cepted him and he was permitted to continue 
 his itinerary work. 
 
 In April, 1824, he began organizing Sunday 
 schools in Illinois and Missouri. This was the 
 beginning of Sunday schools in the Mississippi 
 valley. This was a year before the Sunday 
 School Union was formed in Philadelphia. 
 Let Missouri continue to lead in good works. 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 173 
 
 I quote from his journal a few months later : 
 "Iamnowat Liberty, Clay county, Mo. Around 
 me is the wilderness over which the Indians 
 roam after the buffalo. Could I but succeed in 
 planting the Bible here it would greatly re- 
 joice my heart. The people who have settled 
 this country are destitute of public spirit and 
 there are a hundred families without a Bible." 
 Had not Peck sown good seed in the hearts of 
 the Liberty heathen Dr. Green might possibly 
 be out of a job. 
 
 While East Peck secured $500 from the Bap- 
 tists of Massachusetts to start a theological 
 seminary at Rock Springs. Think of starting 
 a theological seminary on $500. But a mighty 
 hand held that $500. 
 
 The seminary opened one year later. Peck 
 was the faculty, professor of abstract theology, 
 homiletics, Old and New Testament, Greek 
 and Latin, literature and science, the whole 
 show. In less than three years the seminary 
 had one hundred students. Later Peck went 
 East again and secured $20,000, $10,000 of this 
 from that eminent Boston physician, Dr. Shurtleff. 
 
 Then the seminary was merged into Shurt- 
 leff College at Upper Alton, 111., which is still 
 a great educational power. 
 
1 74 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Peck established and edited the first religious 
 newspaper published in the west — "The Pion- 
 eer." Nicholas Brown, the founder of the old- 
 est Baptist university on earth gave Peck $500 
 to establish the paper. The profits were to go 
 to the seminary. Who ever heard of profits on 
 a religious newspaper? 
 
 We have only touched on the labors and 
 plans of evangelization set on foot by this pion- 
 eer preacher during the first dozen years of his 
 work. Preaching the gospel, establishing 
 churches, instituting Sunday schools, organiz- 
 ing mission societies, establishing a college and 
 theological seminary, and to further all these 
 and bind them together, he establishes a relig- 
 ious newspaper. 
 
 But his work still extends. In his journal 
 of July, this same year, 1834, he writes : "Re- 
 ceived a communication from Mr. Allen, agent 
 of the Baptist Tract Society, urging me to en- 
 gage for the agency of the Mississippi valley. 
 'A great work, it must be done, I feel bound to 
 give the matter a prayerful consideration.' ' ; 
 It was largely Peck's zeal and influence that 
 led to the development of this tract socie- 
 ty into the great American Baptist Publication 
 Society. 
 
JOHN MASON PECK. 175 
 
 In addition to all these duties he assumed 
 the pastorate of the Rock Springs church, serv- 
 ing one fourth of his time. What a joy was 
 that fourth to his weary tired soul. That bles- 
 sed pastorate! O, the many years since the 
 precious word "pastor" has been applied to 
 him! He places among his sweetest memories 
 those happy days with the Rock Springs 
 church. 
 
 A most remarkable trait in the character of 
 Dr. Peck was his volubility. He was informed 
 on every subject and his resources in conver- 
 sation were inexhaustible. In social circles he 
 was the acknowledged autocrat. He talked 
 because all wished to hear him talk. He and 
 Charles Dickens had a little tilt one day in St. 
 Louis. Dickens was a talker, so was Peck. 
 Dickens had traveled, so had Peck. Each tried 
 to lead the conversation, but Peck was usually 
 ahead. Dickens, however, got the earnest ear 
 of Peck when he told him the story of how he 
 was cared for and educated by a Baptist 
 preacher. 
 
 Let me say to you young ministers present 
 that the inwardness of Peck's power was 
 his supreme devotion to Christ and the cause 
 of missions. Peck kept himself fresh and 
 strong by preaching the fullness of the gospel 
 
1 76 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 of salvation through Christ and His atoning 
 blood. He knew that every sermon must draw 
 its whole strength from the Cross of Christ, 
 and that he could preach it best when he felt it 
 most. To Peck the Bible was as much a sym- 
 bol of the presence of God as was the Ark of 
 the Covenant to Obededom. He saw in every 
 line of the book the finger of God and felt the 
 very presence of God. 
 
 A while ago I went to Bellefontaine Cem- 
 etery and with difficulty found the grave of Dr. 
 Peck. Standing by the little mound and mod- 
 est monument that marks his grave, I said to 
 a friend: "Here lies the man who has done 
 more to make the West Protestant, evangel- 
 ical and Baptist than any other one man." 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 
 
 12 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 
 
 An example of the spirit and methods of God's great mess- 
 engers. 
 
 Commencement Address. 
 
 Southbbn Baptist Theological Seminaby. 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, 
 
 June 1, 1903. 
 
XIV. 
 JOSEPH PARKER. 
 
 Many precious memories have been awakened 
 since my arrival at Louisville. In Oct. 1885, 
 when I entered the Seminary, Boyce, Broadus, 
 Manley, Whitsitt and Hawes were my teachers 
 and Kerfoot, my classmate, my seatmate. Since 
 *Boyce and Broadus were translated their pictures 
 have been hanging in my study, just over the 
 desk, so that my eyes when raised from book or 
 manuscript would rest on their inspiring faces. I 
 laud Boyce — I loved him — the wise great-hearted 
 preacher, teacher, theologian, financier, statesman. 
 It was a high privilege to be directed, upborne, 
 and pinned down to earnest, conscientious hard 
 thinking by James Pettigru Boyce, the man to 
 whom Southern Baptists are largely indebted for 
 the existence of this institution — the largest Prot- 
 estant School of prophets on earth, and perhaps 
 the most potential agency in evangelizing the 
 world. 
 
 It is a sweet privilege for me now and then in 
 my study to take in my hand Boyce's "Abstract of 
 Theology," stroke it tenderly with a prayer that 
 God would inspire me with a keener desire for 
 more of the spirit of the author. 
 
 I revered the gentle, sweet-spirited, high-born, 
 
 179 
 
i8o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 unpretentious Manley, the man who found Jesus 
 as Savior when eight years of age and never 
 seemed to get ten feet away from him during his 
 long life of sendee. 
 
 I honor the unique, original, historic Whitsitt. 
 I believe in "Uncle Billy" — God bless him for- 
 ever. I admire the enthusiastic, systematic, me- 
 thodical, arguing Kerfoot. I respect the gifted, 
 tactful, manful, eloquent Hawes. His magnetic 
 personality has entered mv life as an inspirational 
 force. 
 
 I am indebted to Doctor John Albert Broadus 
 for a larger view of life and owe the strivings of. 
 my soul "to t be" and "to do," more largely to him 
 than any other person, save my own father and 
 mother, and the little woman I love. I shall never 
 forget one morning he came before his Homiletic 
 class: he had just returned from Xew York. 
 Holding up a small bag he said, "Young men this 
 contains a check for $55,000.00 for the Seminary 
 from Mr. Rockefeller." Great was the enthus- 
 iasm, shouts of joy and clapping of hands. With 
 a twinkle in those speaking brown eyes he said 
 "Hold on boys, I have something better than that 
 for you. When Mr. Rockefeller gave me the 
 check, I asked him to give me in a single sentence, 
 that I might deliver to you, the secret of his suc- 
 cess. Tell them it is 'stick-to-ativeness.' " 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 181 
 
 Doctor Broadus' keen wit and quick repartee, I, 
 also, shall never forget. One afternoon in his 
 New Testament class, we were studying the Acts, 
 when Dr. Broadus asked me this question : 
 "Brother Johnston, what does it mean here, where 
 it says, "Saul sat at the feet of Gamaliel?" I re- 
 plied: "Gamaliel was on an elevated platform 
 something like the one you are sitting on, Doctor, 
 and Saul was sitting near, but below in something 
 like the position we are occupying with you at this 
 time, and, Doctor, permit me to say that I feel that 
 I am as fortunate to sit at your feet as Saul was to 
 sit at the feet of Gamaliel." He replied, "I sup- 
 pose you would have me to say that I am as for- 
 tunate to have you as a pupil as Gamaliel was to 
 have the Apostle Paul" — The boys clapped and 
 yelled, and from that day 1 was called "Paul." 
 Seventeen years ago this incident occurred, and I 
 still receive letters from my classmates addressed, 
 "My Dear Paul." 
 
 The older students I am sure appreciate the 
 tender memories that cluster about our Alma 
 Mater, the institution which our dear teachers and 
 ideals founded. 
 
 When I received President Mullins' letter re- 
 questing me to deliver an address, this subject 
 took hold of me: "The Spirit and Methods of 
 God's Great Messengers." 
 
i8z THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 We have come to know that there is no distinc- 
 tion among missions, consequently none in mis- 
 sionaries. That there is no distinctive difference 
 between City Missions and Country Missions, be- 
 tween Home Missions and Foreign Missions. 
 
 A Missionary is one who is sent on Mission, a 
 messenger with a message. 
 
 The pastor of the rich, fashionable church in 
 the city is as truly a missionary as the colporteur 
 preaching in the mountains of Kentucky, or in 
 the hall over the saloon down on the levee. The 
 man sent of God with a message is a Missionist, 
 whether he is delivering that message to students 
 of a theological Seminary in America or telling it 
 to savages in the wilds of Africa. 
 
 Every God-called., God-sent Preacher is a mis- 
 sionary chosen and appointed to bear a specific 
 message somewhere, somehow. 
 
 Every Christ-sent man ought to be a swift 
 messenger, an efficient messenger, a great mes- 
 senger. My aim in this study is to stir the young 
 minister with the thought that he can be a great 
 messenger of God. When God would speak :: a 
 people, he expresses himself through a personal- 
 ity, the stronger the personality the more telling 
 the message. The spirit and method of the mes- 
 senger measure the power of the message. I 
 never known or read of a great preacher who was 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 183 
 
 not great in spirit and individual in methods. I 
 do not say original in methods, but individual. 
 There is a vast difference between originality and 
 individuality. 
 
 God's great messengers, in the past or present, 
 in home or foreign fields, have been swayed by a 
 passion for souls so earnest, so intense as to com- 
 pel individuality in methods. The spirit of Ezekiel, 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, of Paul, Peter, John, of Cary, 
 Judson, Clough, of Boyce, Broadus, Fuller were 
 practically the same. They all possessed hearts 
 ablaze with love for lost men, and a burning thirst 
 to save them, but the work of each in method, was 
 as distinct and different as their features. The 
 great characters of the Old Testament, whom 
 Doctor Sampey has been portraying so vividly in 
 the Baptist Argus, were controlled by the same 
 spirit, but God used the distinct personality of 
 each in making known his truths. The method of 
 one was severe, tragic, denunciatory, announcing 
 God's judgments ; that of another was tender and 
 persuasive, pleading God's love. The two great 
 missionaries of the New Testament, the two most 
 effective of the thirteen — Peter and Paul — how 
 different in manner and method of presenting 
 truth. Peter used Bible illustrations only; his ser- 
 mons were confined almost wholly to Old Testa- 
 ment warnings, prophecies and promises; while 
 
184 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Paul, like Moses, learned in the wisdom of his 
 age, uses logic, quotes the heathen poets, gathers 
 illustrations from nature and from well known 
 athletic games and current political events, always 
 adapts himself to the intelligence of his hearers. 
 If Paul were on earth to-day he would keep in 
 touch with the vital happenings and great forces 
 that are working for the betterment of mankind. 
 Perhaps Peter would not, but if he didn't, who 
 would condemn him, for when God expresses 
 himself with power he does it through a personal- 
 ity distinct, unique, individual. 
 
 The spirit that makes God's messengers great 
 is always the same; it is the spirit and mind of 
 Christ. The spirit of yearning love for lost men; 
 the spirit of intensity; the spirit of aggressive in- 
 dustry; the spirit of unselfish service. This same 
 spirit may express itself in thoughtful meditative 
 dignity, it may express itself in meekness and 
 quietness, which in the sight of God "is of great 
 price;" or it may express itself in forceful fear- 
 lessness, or in unbounded enthusiasm, which, in 
 the sight of God, is of greater price. Yes, the 
 spirit is the same, but God uses the unique and 
 (distinctive personality of the messenger, that 
 which differentiates him from all others to make 
 the message spoken a living convincing power. 
 
 The ministerial student who would make the 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 185 
 
 most of God's message should cultivate fervency 
 of spirit and that innate naturalness which induces 
 a manner and style natural to himself. 
 
 Julius Caesar on one occasion in the Forum, 
 when young Brutus was pleading a case, re- 
 marked : "Yon youth will make his mark, for he 
 intends strongly." The young man of the class of 
 1903 who intends strongly will make his mark, if 
 he utilizes his own innate God-given personality 
 instead of aping Mullins, Dargan, Robertson, 
 Carter Helm Jones or some other "Kentucky 
 Cardinal." 
 
 We get more from the study of great men than 
 we think. Since we too are composites, the more 
 we know of Spiritual giants the better composites 
 we make. 
 
 In a recent study of the life and character of 
 Joseph Parker I have been greatly helped. His 
 early life is veiled in obscurity, except as he re- 
 veals a little of it in his own writings. He comes 
 of a long line of Puritans. 
 
 His father, like the father of Thos. Carlyle, 
 was an illiterate stone-cutter, and a stern old non- 
 conformist, who, the son says, had the strength of 
 two men and the will of ten. He brought up his 
 children on the Bible and the shorter catechism. 
 He taught them the fiercest kind of theology, and 
 the deepest love of prayer. He writes, "When I 
 
186 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 was a boy I sincerely believed if I had touched a 
 card or box of dice, there might have been mur- 
 der under our roof. A pack of cards in my 
 father's house; the very thought is blasphemy ! To 
 him the word theatre, meant the devil; all actors 
 were hypocrites, and all actresses harlots. And 
 woe to the boy that touched a novel !" "This," he 
 says, "was the atmosphere m which I was brought 
 up." 
 
 But in spite of all this training Joseph early de- 
 cided to become a preacher, and before he was 
 eighteen he preached on the streets and wher- 
 ever he could get an audience. He did not enter 
 a pulpit because none was opened to him, but on 
 the village green, and near the blacksmith's door 
 he thrilled groups of men and women with his 
 boyish eloquence. Echoes of his doings went to 
 London, and at twenty-one he was asked to be- 
 come assistant to Dr. Campbell, at Whitefield Tab- 
 ernacle. The assistantship did not last long, for 
 Parker was too great in spirit and individual in 
 methods to be bound to a master. 
 
 His first call was to Banbury, a small town of 
 5,000 souls, fifteen miles from London. 
 
 His boyhood had not been spent at Rugby or 
 Eton: his youth had not seen Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge : nor had his early manhood been spent in 
 a theological seminary. But on to Banbury he 
 
JOSEPH PARKER i87 
 
 went, armed with the call of God, the strength of 
 his great spirit and power of his personality. Vic- 
 tory was his. He routed that city of Secularists 
 and took it for Christ. That conquest won for 
 him a place in the estimation of England that car- 
 ried him to a larger field. He remained in Ban- 
 bury five years and was called to Manchester. 
 
 The Manchester pastorate of ioj years 
 marked for him a definite advance in power of 
 thought and expression. There he touched life at 
 many points and he touched Alexander McClaren. 
 
 He learned how to comfort men's hearts as well 
 as to convince their heads. 
 
 London is the Mecca of all clever English min- 
 isters, so to London Joseph Parker was sure to go 
 sooner or later. Despite the earnest pleadings of 
 his devoted congregation, he left the crowded 
 house at Manchester and went to empty Poultry 
 Chapel in London. 
 
 His friends thought he had made a mistake, 
 but his rapid intelligence, ready resourcefulness, 
 capacity for work and faith in God led him on, till 
 he built a $350,000 Temple in the heart of roaring 
 London. 
 
 Parker was a broad, burly man, with a massive 
 rough-hewn head with lofty forehead from which 
 long gray locks fell on either side like a lion's 
 mane. His small piercing eyes looked out from a 
 
188 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 bold clean-shaven face. He had a big head, 
 a big hand, a big heart. He was an ideal of the 
 robust type of man, a sort of Boanerges, having 
 many of the features as well as characteristics of 
 Beecher, whom he admired extravagantly. 
 Their friendship was something like that of Car- 
 lyle and Emerson. 
 
 His church "The City Temple" is the largest 
 Non-Conformist church in Great Britain except 
 Spurgeon's and, since Spurgeon's death, Parker 
 has been the best known preacher in London. For 
 the past thirty-five years Dr. Parker has preached 
 three sermons a week to crowded houses. Two 
 on Sunday and one at noon on Thursday. His 
 Thursday noon services have been very remarka- 
 ble in that he preached 10 a crowded house of 
 business men every day, from twelve to one 
 o'clock, the year around, for over a third of a cen- 
 tury. In all these years there was no diminution 
 in his power or popularity. 
 
 He was an untiring worker, as is shown by the 
 number of periodicals, papers and magazines to 
 which he contributed, and the 38 books which he 
 wrote. His "People's Bible" in 30 volumes might 
 be the work of a life time for an ordinary man. 
 His most unique and popular work in his "Peo- 
 ple's Family Prayer Book." It may be found in 
 thousands of humble cottages all over Great Brit- 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 189 
 
 ain. It is a collection of a hundred short prayers 
 printed in large type for the use of the illiterate 
 in family worship and on other occasions. 
 
 Dr. Parker has suffered the fate of all great 
 men, that of being criticised and misjudged. He 
 has been called egotistical, eccentric for a purpose, 
 sensational, and uncultured. And all this he 
 might have been to the prejudiced man, but the 
 reality of his faith, the largeness of his courage, 
 the directness of his aims are qualities that every 
 one must recognize, and without which he could 
 not have held his pulpit and his popularity for 35 
 years. 
 
 His study was a work shop well fitted out for 
 efficient work and rapid work. A large comforta- 
 ble room, well lighted, well heated, and most of 
 all well ventilated. At his easy hand the choicest 
 and best collection of books to be had. There were 
 encyclopaedias, Biographies, Histories, Commen- 
 taries, dictionaries, volumes of sermons, poems 
 and novels. His walls were decorated with pic- 
 tures of his favorite friends and great men whom 
 Che admired and studied. There were 26 pictures 
 of Gladstone in his study. Pointing to one of 
 them one day he said: "That is the greatest man in 
 the world," and turning to a large bust of Queen 
 Victoria said : "And that is the greatest woman." 
 Beecher's f ~ee was seen many times in that won- 
 
190 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 derful room, also pictures and books of Tennyson, 
 Browning and Shakespeare. He said of these 
 three poets : "I learn more from these men, than 
 from any books except the Bible. They permeate 
 all my preaching." Said he to a friend, "Yes, I 
 read novels. What would I do without Barrie's 
 'Little Minister' and Kipling's 'Tales from the 
 Hills?' What would I do without their humor? 
 Any one who helps me to see the comical side of 
 life is my best schoolmaster in his own way. We 
 preachers would soon dry up without humor. 
 When I see one of my colleagues looking grum 
 or hear that his sermons are getting prosy, I send 
 him a funny story to read. If there is any sap 
 left in his system, that will start it." 
 
 He gave as a reason for wearing a gown in the 
 pulpit, that his best coat was often too shabby to 
 wear, and the gown saved a tailor's bill. 
 
 Dr. Parker has been caricatured more than any 
 preacher in the world, and his wife framed the 
 pictures and hung them in her room which proved 
 a source of great amusement. Parker edited the 
 "London Sun" for one week Jan. 10 to i7, 1901. 
 He yearned to see the day when London and all 
 our great cities would have great religious dailies. 
 
 Up to the time of his last illness he was still in 
 the prime of his popularity and in universal de- 
 mand. Notwithstanding his fifty years of hard 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 191 
 
 work, he was still doing his full quota. It had 
 been a long road from that first sermon in 1848, to 
 his acquired eminence, but he stood the journey 
 well. 
 
 Such a light as this, flashing as it does all over 
 England and Great Britain, and even across the 
 Atlantic and the farthermost seas, would lose its 
 force to us did we not study the source of its 
 brightness and strength. 
 
 Humanly speaking, Dr. Parker's success was 
 all his own. Some men owe much to hereditary 
 momentum. They have a family of great men 
 back of them. Back of Beecher there were Beech- 
 ers; back of John Quincy Adams there were 
 Adamses; back of Astor were Astors, and so of 
 the Vanderbilts, but there were no Parkers back 
 of Joseph Parker. In the item of success he was 
 his own ancestor, as were Abraham Lincoln and 
 Daniel Webster. 
 
 I do not think his success was due to his man- 
 nerism, his sensationalism, his humor or dramatic 
 power. These elements take for a while, but they 
 do not last a half century. 
 
 I would say the secret of his success was, first 
 of all, he preached a pure gospel in his own indi- 
 vidual way and ever honored the Book of God. 
 He kept himself full and strong with the fulness 
 
192 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 of the Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ 
 and his atoning blood. 'The Old Book, there is 
 none like it," was his motto. 
 
 He says: "1 have studied the Bible for over 
 half a century. I accept the Old Testament as in- 
 spired. To me it is a revelation of God and his 
 Sovereignty, of the Father and his Providence, of 
 the Creator and his Dominion. It is infinitely ma- 
 jestic and solemn. Without God, the Holy Ghost, 
 it could never have been written. In it I feel the 
 breath and see the very finger of God !" He says 
 "I am an evangelical preacher. I want the evan- 
 gelical doctrine spoken in the pulpit so strongly 
 that if the man who comes after me wants to 
 tead an ethical essay on a social subject that the 
 Congregation of City Temple will rise in their in- 
 dignation and leave him to preach to empty seats." 
 It is gratifying to know that J. Reginald Camp- 
 bell, a young man whom Parker trained, is his 
 successor. Again he says : "I am more and more 
 convinced that every sermon should draw its 
 whole strength from the cross of Christ. We 
 preach it best when we feel it most." 
 
 On preaching old sermcns he says, "Nothing 
 grows old so soon as a sermon. I never preach an 
 old sermon. I do not hesitate, however, to repeat 
 a new one several times." 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 193 
 
 Another point, Dr. Parker was a power because 
 he was a growing preacher. There is a vast dif- 
 ference between his early sermons and his later 
 ones. A critic once said of Spurgeon that he 
 never excelled the sermons he preached at twenty- 
 one. But Parker grew in mental grasp and spiri- 
 tual power with the years. Again, Parker placed 
 great stress upon his physical manhood. Beecher 
 went once to a phrenologist to have his head 
 charted. The first exclamation was: "My! what 
 a splendid animal." Parker was also a typical an- 
 imal. He appreciated the necessity of good health 
 for a minister. For years he walked to the church 
 from his home and took a bath just before enter- 
 ing the pulpit. He was so careful of his voice 
 that he refused to speak to any one just before 
 preaching. These were eccentricities, but they 
 added to his strength and power as a preacher. 
 Large avoirdupois, strong heart beats, full circula- 
 tion accounted for the fact that age and decay 
 were never associated with him after fifty years of 
 ministerial, editorial and platform work. Again 
 Dr. Parker was a success because of his un- 
 bounded enthusiasm in his work. He put his 
 whole soul into it. It is said of Angelo that when 
 he was filled with the spirit of his art, that he fairly 
 threw himself upon his marble and smote it with 
 the fury of an enraged mad-man. It seemed that 
 IS 
 
194 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 he would destroy the whole work. The only thing 
 that saved it was the fact that the fiery hand was 
 controlled by a will that knew when and where to 
 strike. Such was Joseph Parker in the pulpit. 
 His enthusiasm was unbounded. He struck right 
 and left, dramatic, perhaps stagey, forceful at 
 times, but always strong, severe, powerful. 
 
 One of the triumphs of his later life was his 
 great speech during the Queen's Jubilee. No one 
 spoke the praises of the Queen more large-heart- 
 edly than he, and no one ever set before the 
 Queen the unvarnished truth as he did. After 
 speaking words of unbounded praise of her, and 
 of his love and loyalty, he was faithful to remem- 
 ber his church and his religious belief. Said he; 
 "I am aware that our Queen has never been in 
 an English-dissenting chapel; that she never 
 heard an English-dissenting preacher, and I want 
 to say something now that she will hear. These 
 men have helped to make the British Nation and 
 have extended its dominion, and they have been 
 allowed to live and toil and contribute unrecog- 
 nized by her Majesty as though they were not. 
 We owe much to the Queen, but the Queen owes 
 infinitely more to us." 
 
 He closed the illustrious speech by saying: 
 "Let her Majesty relinquish titles which are not 
 in the power of man to confer, and let her close 
 
JOSEPH PARKER. 195 
 
 her splendid ireign by restoring to God the titles, 
 "Head of the Church" and "Defender of the 
 Faith/' If these titles must be claimed by an im- 
 pious usurper, leave them to the Pope of Rome, 
 who from the crown of his head to the sole of his 
 feet is officially a lie." 
 
 That was indeed an act of heroism. A Knox, a 
 Luther, an Elijah in the 20th Century. When he 
 finished the speech the audience rose in a body 
 and literally went wild with shouts of applause. 
 
 The highest source of Parker's power was the 
 great love he bore to Jesus Christ. His master 
 passion was his love to God, the Son. He heard a 
 preacher once say that Christ was a founder of re- 
 ligion as was Confucius, Buddha, or Zoroaster; 
 he said with deep feeling, "I cannot listen to such 
 words ; it pains me that miy Lord should be spoken 
 about in such a way. Jesus stands alone, unique ; 
 he transcends all human classification." Rever- 
 ence, love, fidelity and devotion to God the Son 
 was the supreme source of his power. His con- 
 stant prayer, the one ever on his lips, "Jesus be 
 near me, near me, very neajr me, near me all the 
 time; speak thou through me." 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPUKGEON. 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 
 
 An object lesson in prayer and work. 
 
 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. 
 Louisville, Kentucky, 
 December 1. 1905. 
 
 
XV. 
 CHAKLES HADDEN SPUKGEON. 
 
 Young men, I rejoice with you in the high priv- 
 ileges enjoyed here. Few memories are so prec- 
 ious to me as those that cling about the Seminary 
 and none are of more value. It was here my soul 
 was stirred by Dr. John A. Broadus to love and 
 value biography. 
 
 Through Biography we may place ourselves in 
 close contact with the noblest of earth. The man 
 who possesses qualities that inspire pure living, 
 right thinking, and earnest endeavor we ought to 
 know. 
 
 More portraits of Christ were painted on hu- 
 man hearts by Charles Hadden Spurgeon than by 
 any man since Paul. 
 
 Before he reached his twenty second year his 
 congregations on many occasions numbered from 
 twelve to twenty thousand. 
 
 Although he bore no degree, his publications 
 bear unquestioned evidence of scholarship. As 
 an editor his reviews of books reveal wide sweep 
 of reading. His keen analytical mind sifted truth, 
 separating grain from chafl. As a general he 
 ranked with his contemporary, Moltke. His 
 early London church of two hundred members 
 
 199 
 
200 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 was the nucleus of the great army he marshalled 
 to fight the battles of his King. Every convert 
 captive was enlisted in the ranks of his well or- 
 ganized battalions. 
 
 Spurgeon's ancestors for generations were of a 
 religious, independent spirit. Some of them were 
 imprisoned for religious convictions. His father 
 and grandfather were "independent" preachers. 
 
 When fourteen months old his mother being in 
 delicate health he was sent to his grandfather at 
 Stambourne where he remained eight years. Dur- 
 ing these formative years his environs were fav- 
 orable to the development of character. He was 
 a favorite of his grand-father who w r as a strong 
 personality, a pastor of one church 54 years. 
 
 The old Manse was delightfully located midst 
 beautiful natural scenery. Here Charles early 
 learned and loved to read and his scholarly grand- 
 father gave him opportunity to gratify his taste. 
 
 He soon learned to love the stories of the Bible. 
 At the age of five he read Pilgrim's Progress 
 which influenced his whole life. 
 
 His indulgent grand-parents allowed him to 
 roam at will over the premises. He wandered in 
 the pastures, waded in the clear running brooks 
 that played fantastic tricks about his feet. He 
 laughingly chattered to the mosses and ferns 
 which laced the banks. He eagerly sought pebbles 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 201 
 
 which his imagination magnified into gems. 
 There were books in these running brooks which 
 his young mind unconsciously read. 
 
 When eight he read Scripture at family prayer, 
 giving evidence of an enquiring mind by frequent 
 questions. On one occasion Rev. Richard Knill 
 visited the Spurgeon home. He heard the lad read 
 for family prayers, was deeply impressed and spent 
 much of his time with the boy. Just before leav- 
 ing he took him on his knee and said : "I feel in> 
 pressed that this child will preach the gospel to 
 thousands and God will bless him with many 
 souls. So sure am I of this that when he 
 preaches at Roland Hill which I am sure he will 
 some day, I want him to promise he will begin 
 service with giving out the hymn, 'God moves in 
 a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.' ' : 
 This prophecy and request was literally fulfilled. 
 
 Charles returned to his parents at Colchester at 
 the age of ten where he attended school four 
 years. He then spent a year at the agricultural 
 college of Maidstone. From there he went to New 
 Market where he served as usher to help pay his 
 expenses. Here he made a specialty of Greek and 
 French. 
 
 When fifteen he became deeply concerned about 
 his salvation and passed through a period of 
 doubt and distress. He attended service at differ- 
 
202 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ent churches trying to get relief. One Sabbath 
 morning when at home on vacation his father be- 
 ing away filling an appointment, he started to a 
 church some distance; on account of a storm he 
 stopped in a small primitive Methodist chapel. 
 The minister preached from the text "Look unto 
 Me and be ye saved.' ' Fixing his eyes on young 
 Spurgeon he said : "Young man you are in trou- 
 ble. You will never get out till you come to 
 Christ.'' Then lifting his thin hands he cried, 
 "Look! Look! Look!" The youth looked. 
 
 After his conversion he felt to follow Jesus he 
 must be immersed. Having obtained the consent 
 of his father who did not baptize by immersion, he 
 walked eight miles to Islehem the nearest Baptist 
 church where he was received and the following 
 day baptized in a small river. 
 
 At sixteen to secure better educational advan- 
 tages he went to the great seat of learning, 
 Cambridge, where he again engaged as usher. 
 He united with the Baptist church of which 
 Robert Hall was pastor. He joined the lay- 
 preachers association and aided in conducting ser- 
 vices in villages near-by. One evening he was 
 asked to go with a young man to the hamlet 
 of Teversham four miles distant. As they walked 
 along Spurgeon said: "I hope you will be blessed 
 in your sermon tonight." "Why," answered his 
 friend, "I never preached in my life. You must 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 203 
 
 preach if there is to be any preaching." Here in 
 an humble cottage Spurgeon preached his first 
 sermon at the age of sixteen. 
 
 His name soon become known and the Baptist 
 church at Waterbeach (a village of thirteen hun- 
 dred) called him as pastor. He accepted, the sal- 
 ary one hundred and twenty-five dollars a year, 
 and walked from Cambridge, a distance of five 
 miles, every Sunday morning. The membership 
 was forty which under his pastorate soon in- 
 creased to one hundred. His salary was increased 
 to two hundred and fifty dollars. He then re- 
 moved to the village and gave his whole time to 
 the work. 
 
 December 1853 he received a letter from the 
 deacons of New Park Street Church, London, re- 
 questing him to come and preach for them. In re- 
 ply he wrote : "The letter is certainly intended for 
 some one else as I am only nineteen and not quali- 
 fied to fill a London pulpit." In answer they wrote 
 him they had made no mistake and asked him to 
 name a Sabbath that he would come. He went. 
 The congregation in the morning numbered about 
 one hundred. In the evening it was larger and the 
 four following Sundays the church was filled with 
 eager listeners. 
 
 Shortly after returning to Waterbeach he re- 
 ceived a call from the London church at a salary 
 of seven hundred and fifty dollars, per annum. 
 
204 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 He declined to accept for a longer time than 
 three months, stating that at the end of that time 
 the church could know if he would be useful as 
 pastor ; if not he could withdraw with less embar- 
 rassment to both the church and himself. His 
 terms were accepted and he began the pastorate 
 which continued till his death. 
 
 At the end of the three months he was unani- 
 mously called although at first a good minority had 
 voted against him. The Chapel seated eleven 
 hundred. It had been a great and powerful church 
 under the pastorate of Dr. Rippon with a member- 
 ship sufficient to fill every pew. When Spurgeon 
 preached his first sermon in this pulpit the mem- 
 bership was less than two hundred and less than 
 one hundred were present. Within six months the 
 Chapel could not hold the congregation. In less 
 than one year the rear wall was removed and the 
 seating capacity increased to eighteen hundred. 
 While the enlargement was under way the congre- 
 gation secured Exeter Hall, the building used the 
 past summer by the Baptist World Congress, with 
 a seating capacity of three thousand. This was in- 
 adequate to hold the crowds that gathered to hear 
 the young preacher deliver his burning messages. 
 The throng attracted the attention of the press 
 which spoke lightly of the country-boy preacher. 
 He was the subject for many caricatures which 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON 205 
 
 only whetted the desire of the multitude to hear 
 him. They heard a man who was master of Anglo 
 Saxon. He did not preach about the drift of cur- 
 rent theological thought, nor draw a parallel be- 
 tween Paul's Epistles and the dialectics of Aris- 
 totle. He had no literary or professional ambition 
 to gratify. He used the simple English of 
 Bunyan. He spoke directly to the soul and talked 
 to each of his hearers as if the two were alone 
 with God. 
 
 On closing one of his sermons to an immense 
 audience he used these words : "Will you accept 
 Christ?" "I will think about it." "That is not the 
 question," "Will you accept Christ?" "I will go 
 home and pray." "No, that is not the question." 
 "Will you accept Christ ?" "I will leave off swear- 
 ing." "No, that is not the question." "Will you ac- 
 cept Christ ?" As he pressed the question it seemed 
 that no one in the great audience could avoid de- 
 ciding then and there the issue of eternity. 
 
 Spurgeon seldom repeated in sermon or prayer. 
 He made a close and constant study of the Bible. 
 He regarded it a book not to be read as a task, but 
 to be enjoyed, believed, obeyed. It was his coun- 
 selor in perplexity, his solace in trial. When he 
 read Scripture in public the ancient disappeared. 
 It became a book of to-day, every verse instinct 
 with life, his running comments adding interest 
 to every sentence. 
 
206 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 His voice was one of the most wonderful ever 
 given a public speaker. His prayers were lofty sen- 
 timents expressed in simple language. He carried 
 the devotions of the closet into the pulpit lifting 
 the souls of multitudes to the very gates of heaven. 
 His prayers were usually pleadings for more of 
 the love of God. 
 
 The growing congregations became too large for 
 Exeter Hall and the new Music Hall just complet- 
 ed, seating six thousand, was secured. It was fill- 
 ed. It was apparent before the enlargement of its 
 Chapel was completed that Park Street church 
 must provide a larger building. So the Metropoli- 
 tan Tabernacle with a seating capacity of six 
 thousand was erected at a cost of one hundred and 
 fifty five thousand dollars. 
 
 The money to erect this building was raised 
 through the personal efforts of Spurgeon — no, not 
 his personal efforts unless we count prayers as ef- 
 forts. Praying more than preaching gave Spur- 
 geon what he received and made him what he was. 
 Those who are looking for the secret of his power 
 will find it in his constant communion with Jesus. 
 When asked the secret of his power he replied. 
 "For more than twenty years there have not been 
 fifteen minutes of my waking moments that I have 
 not been conscious of the presence of Jesus. 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 2o7 
 
 A few months ago I met Evan Roberts in the 
 Welch mountains. I asked him to give me in a 
 sentence the secret of his power with God and 
 man. He thought a moment and replied: "The 
 conscious presence of Jesus." My young friends 
 of the ministry if I have a message for you it is 
 that you may cultivate the presence of Christ and 
 let your life emphasize communion with him in 
 prayer. Remember, the first deacons were chosen 
 that the Apostles might have more time to pray. 
 
 The Metropolitan Tabernacle is a monument to 
 prayer. The funds that came to pay for its con- 
 struction were in answer to prayer. 
 
 A man from Bristol who had never seen Spur- 
 geon sent him twenty thousand dollars. As the 
 work progressed the workmen were paid every 
 week. Frequently there were no funds in hand, 
 but there was not a moment's hesitation in going 
 forward and when completed there was not a dol- 
 lar of indebtedness. 
 
 The first service in the Tabernacle was a prayer 
 meeting on Monday morning at seven o'clock at- 
 tended by more than a thousand. After this it was 
 filled each Sabbath. Frequently the regular attend- 
 ants were requested to remain away to enable 
 others to hear the gospel. 
 
 During Spurgeon's pastorate twenty thousand 
 were added to the church, eight thousand by letter 
 and twelve thousand by experience and baptism. 
 
208 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 The audience included all classes from all coun- 
 tries of the world. Shaftsbury, one of the greatest 
 spirits of any age, was of the number ; also Glad- 
 stone. On the diary of Garfield was found this 
 entry made on the day he was there, "God bless 
 Spurgeon. He is helping to work out the problem 
 of civil and religious freedom of England in a way 
 that he knows not of." 
 
 Among those converted at the almost continuous 
 revivals which began with his earliest labors in 
 London were several young men called to preach. 
 They were usually poorly educated and without 
 means. Spurgeon feeling the existing colleges al- 
 lowed the literary to prevail over the spiritual, 
 opened a pastors college with one student and one 
 teacher. The number of students increased and 
 more teachers were employed. The expenses were 
 about four thousand dollars a year which he per- 
 sonally paid. The civil war in the United States 
 affecting the sale of his books cut off the revenue 
 he was using to support the college and he resort- 
 ed as usual to prayer. He received notices from 
 one of the banks that one thousand dollars had 
 been placed to his credit for the use of the pastors 
 college. This was followed by many other thous- 
 ands which resulted in the erection of a building at 
 a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars free of debt. 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 209 
 
 The greatest teacher of this college was Spur- 
 geon, his lectures, inspiration, kindness, encour- 
 agement, example. 
 
 My beloved teacher, John A. Broadus, said to 
 the students one day : "Any man can do the work 
 of one person. The great man is the one who can 
 enlist others and thus multiply himself." This col- 
 lege was one of Spurgeon's ways of multiplying 
 himself. 1 say it with reverence; through this col- 
 lege Spurgeon multiplied himself as the Master 
 repeated himself in the Apostles. 
 
 In 1892 this college had six hundred and thirty 
 preachers in the field. They meet once a year at 
 the college, remaining one week renewing friend- 
 ships, exchanging experiences, and planning for 
 the Kingdom. Would it not be well for all of us 
 seminary boys to meet here in this dear old college 
 with its hallowed associations at least once in 
 every five years? 
 
 Spurgeon mentioned in his magazine, the 
 "Sword and Trowel," the need of a home for or- 
 phan boys, not simply to provide them a home but 
 to educate and turn their young lives into channels 
 of usefulness and above all lead them to Christ, 
 and for this he began to pray. Within a few days 
 the knocker is heard. 'Tis the alarm of the morn- 
 ing postman. He brings a letter from an unknown 
 14 
 
210 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 lady containing a check for one hundred thousand 
 dollars for the orphans home with the condition 
 that he would take charge of it. 
 
 This he set aside as a start of an endowment, 
 and through his magazine and church he presented 
 the claims of the orphan boys. His church engag- 
 ed in a season of prayer that God would move men 
 to provide the means. The money came in sums 
 of one dollar to twenty-five thousand. Coming 
 out of the Tabernacle a man at the door handed 
 him an envelope containing ten thousand dollars. 
 The same day another called at his home leaving 
 five thousand, neither giving his name. A pros- 
 perous merchant gave his wife twenty-five hund- 
 red dollars on her silver wedding anniversary. She 
 sent the whole to Spurgeon for the orphans home. 
 The day the corner stone was laid he received ten 
 thousand dollars through the mail; a few days 
 later from an unknown source five thousand for 
 the orphans and five thousand for the pastors col- 
 lege. 
 
 The Baptists of England sent him eight thous- 
 and dollars as testimonial of their love and esteem. 
 This he refused to accept for himself but turned it 
 over to the orphans home. 
 
 The orphanage was soon completed and two 
 hundred and fifty boys were being clothed, fed and 
 educated. Later he suggested in his magazine a 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 211 
 
 similar home for orphan girls. This suggestion 
 had a like experience and soon a home for two 
 hundred and fifty girls was provided. 
 
 The cost of maintaining these two homes is fifty 
 thousand dollars annually, most of which is pro- 
 vided from the income of the endowment. On one 
 occasion a visitor entering the gate to the home, 
 Spurgeon pointed to the inscription above the en- 
 trance and said : "That is our bank." The words 
 were : "The Lord will provide." When looking at 
 this inscription a few months ago I could but ex- 
 claim, the Lord has provided, for the home is to- 
 day larger and more prosperous than when Spur- 
 geon was translated, fourteen years ago. 
 
 The colportage association was started in 1875 
 with five men in the field. At his death there were 
 eighty four. The association up to that time had 
 sold six hundred thousand Bibles, one million re- 
 ligious books and distributed fifty million tracts. 
 
 Through the usual channels funds were raised 
 to build an alms house and an endowment suffici- 
 ent to take care of twenty needy widows of de- 
 ceased church members and a ragged school for 
 four hundred children of poverty. 
 
 When Spurgeon died his church had twenty- 
 three missions in London with a membership of 
 three thousand seven hundred. The membership of 
 
212 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the Tabernacle was five thousand three hundred; 
 a total of nine thousand with eight thousand Sun- 
 day school scholars. 
 
 There were sixty six organizations in his church 
 originated and directed by his wonderful adminis- 
 trative genius. 
 
 As to Spurgeon's scholarship there seems to be 
 a misconception. This advertisement appeared in 
 one of the newspapers of Cambridge : "No. 60 Up- 
 per Park street. Mr. C. H. Spurgeon begs to in- 
 form his many friends that after Christmas he will 
 take six or seven young men as day pupils. He 
 will teach Arithmetic, Algebra,. Geometry, Men- 
 suration, Grammar, Composition, Ancient and 
 Modern History, Astronomy, Scripture, Drawing, 
 Latin and the elements of Greek and French; 
 terms five pounds per annum." 
 
 A modest young man of eighteen would not in- 
 sert such an advertisement in a university town 
 unless he was a well advanced scholar. 
 
 On one occasion an English judge was discuss- 
 ing Spurgeon with an associate Justice and some 
 members of the bar, when one of them stated that 
 Spurgeon had comparatively no education. This 
 statement provoked some discussion. The Judge 
 said: "We will settle the question; we will have a 
 dinner with Spurgeon as one of our guests and 
 without his knowledge we will discuss subjects 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 213 
 
 that require extensive information in many realms 
 and appeal to him to settle our dispute." Some ob- 
 jected stating it would be cruel to subject him to 
 the humiliation this would involve. These scruples 
 were overcome and the dinner arranged. Said the 
 Judge: "The discussion covered a wide field in 
 science and literature. In every instance Spurgeon 
 was not only familiar with the subject, but gave 
 the different writer's views followed by his own 
 clear analysis of the principles involved." At the 
 next meeting Spurgeon was declared the best edu- 
 cated man at the banquet. 
 
 Like Gladstone and our president, Roosevelt, 
 Spurgeon's capacity for reading was enormous. 
 He would master several volumes at a sitting, tak- 
 ing in a page at a glance. He made it a rule to 
 read each week five or six of the hardest books, he 
 said "to rub his mind against the strongest." 
 
 No author was more thorough in research and 
 few more prolific in number of books produced. 
 In preparing the "Treasury of David" he read 
 every commentary published on the Psalms, and 
 sent his secretary to the British museum to trans- 
 cribe all manuscripts relating to David. These 
 volumes reached a circulation of one hundred and 
 twenty thousand. "John Plowman's Talks to 
 Plain People," a storehouse of wit and wisdom 
 out-ranking our Franklin's "Poor Richard," had 
 
2i 4 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 a sale of four hundred and fifty thousand. 
 "Salt Cellars/' two volumes containing a proverb 
 for every day for twenty years, reached a sale 
 of one hundred and fifty thousand. "Lectures to 
 My Students," filled with wise counsel to young 
 ministers, sparkles with wit and shines with piety. 
 His book "Commenting and Commentaries," em- 
 braces brief notes on fourteen hundred commenta- 
 tors. The reading required to enable him to com- 
 ment on the merit or demerits of all these staggers 
 the mind. 
 
 He prepared a hymn book for his church. It 
 contained of his own production fourteen psalms 
 and ten hymns. He published a number of small 
 volumes that reached a wide circulation. His roy- 
 alty on books the last ten years of his life was 
 fifty thousand dollars annually. 
 
 Within a few months after going to London he 
 began to have his sermons published. They were 
 sold at a penny each. The first year he published 
 twelve. After this, one each week, the regular cir- 
 culation being twenty-five thousand, but many 
 reached one hundred thousand and a few of them 
 a quarter million. In many cases these sermons 
 were read in pulpits without pastors. Their dis- 
 tribution circled the earth. A number were pub- 
 lished in the New York Independent." For four- 
 teen years one appeared each week in the "Christ- 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 215 
 
 ian Herald." Forty volumes of his sermons were 
 bound, the sales exceeding four hundred thousand. 
 Many of them were translated in twenty lang- 
 uages. Two thousand of his sermons were pub- 
 lished and at his death over a thousand were in 
 the hands of his publishers that had not gone to 
 press. These are still appearing in the English 
 and American papers. 
 
 In 1865 he began to publish a magazine, "The 
 Sword and Trowel." In a few years it had a large 
 circulation although the price was three dollars 
 per annum. In this publication he showed marked 
 ability as an editor and critic. The editorials were 
 clear-cut and revealed familiarity with current 
 thought. His review of books covered a wide 
 field. Of Beecher's sermons he says: "Beecher 
 professedly deviates from the old standard of or- 
 thodoxy, and in the same proportion, we think, 
 from truth. As an improvement on the theology 
 of the Puritan Fathers his teachings will be reject- 
 ed by the best men of this and every other age. 
 Lessons of moral wisdom and practical piety may 
 be gathered from these sermons; but for sound 
 doctrine we must look elsewhere. It is a lawful 
 book if a man use it lawfully." Force is added to 
 this comment when it is remembered that Beecher 
 and Spurgeon were warm friends. 
 
216 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Commenting on the many poetic effusions 
 which sought a place in his magazine he says : 
 "We do not know how newspapers were conduct- 
 ed in that ancient time but during some recent ex- 
 cavations in Assyria a poem, "The Silver Moon/' 
 was dug up. It was engraved on a tile. Close be- 
 side it was a large battered club and part of a hu- 
 man skull. You may draw your own conclusion. 
 We mention this as a warning to many small 
 poets who send us verses. Happily we have no 
 club and have a gentle temper, but really we are 
 tried to the boiling point by the poetic coals that 
 are heaped on our head.''' 
 
 When asked to review 'Tngersoll Answered" he 
 replied : ''We neither care for Ingersoll nor the re- 
 ply to him; there is enough to do in England 
 with cutting our own brambles; nine out of ten 
 of our people know nothing of this American 
 briar and there is no need they should." 
 
 When twenty-two he was married to Susannah 
 Thompson, of London, a charming woman, cultur- 
 ed and pious. This union was blest with two sons 
 (twins) Thomas and Charles, both preachers. 
 Thomas succeeded to his father's pastorate. I 
 heard him in the Tabernacle in 1895, 1900 and 
 1905. He is above the average preacher but has 
 not the genius of his distinguished father. 
 
CHARLES HADDEN SPURGEON. 2i7 
 
 Soon after Spurgeon married he purchased a 
 modest home in which he lived happily until 1880 
 when he disposed of it and purchased Westwood, 
 one of the most elegant homes in the suburbs of 
 London. The grounds embraced thirty acres 
 which he transformed into an ideal park. His col- 
 lection of plants and flowers was among the rarest 
 in England. He gratified his taste for art by 
 adorning the walls of his spacious mansion with 
 the best from the brush of the great masters, af- 
 fording a rare treat for his many visitors. Most 
 of his time was spent in his library and study. His 
 collection of books was one of the most valuable 
 in Great Britain and I am gratified to say seven 
 thousand volumes of this fine collection have been 
 purchased and are enroute to William Jewell col- 
 lege of Missouri. 
 
 During the last years of Spurgeon' s life he 
 was in poor health and spent a portion of his win- 
 ters at Menton in Southern France where he 
 died at the age of 58. 
 
 As a preacher the name of Spurgeon is the most 
 illustrious in the records of a thousand years. For 
 a third of a century he stood preeminently above 
 his contemporaries, and has not lost his high place 
 in the minds of the Christian world. The unveiling 
 of his statue at the Baptist World Congress was 
 the high tide of that great meeting of climaxes. 
 
218THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 As a writer of books he ranks with distin- 
 guished literary men. Yet his books are not the 
 only tablets that perpetuate his memory. The great 
 shafts which stand above all others of his life's 
 work are the monuments of his organizing and 
 administrative ability. The Metropolitan Taber- 
 nacle is the largest Protestant church in the world, 
 a church of organized activity without a parallel. 
 The Pastors College, a creation of his brain, in the 
 work of winning souls is in a class alone. 
 
 The Orphanage takes every few years five 
 hundred young lives from the chill of penury and 
 the path of vice, clothes, feeds and educates, and 
 turns their young lives into channels of virtue and 
 usefulness. 
 
 In Spurgeon was a remarkable combination of 
 gifts. A mind that absorbed knowledge from men, 
 from books, from nature. An eye that saw every- 
 thing within its range. A memory that stored and 
 retained subject to call. A voice musical, majestic, 
 adding weight to his words. A practical com- 
 mon sense in doing things sacred and secular. A 
 transparent honesty that made him trusted by all. 
 A great heart on fire with love for God and the 
 souls of men. 
 
 My friends, you may leave a biography that will 
 receive the smile of God and the favor of men, if 
 you will make the distinctive features of Spur- 
 geon's life, prayer and work, yours. 
 
W. POPE YEAMAN 
 
W. POPE YEAMAN. 
 
 Preacher, Statesman, Orator, Friend. 
 
 This appreciation was written at the request of Dr. Maple 
 for insertion in his biography of Dr. Teaman. 
 
XVI. 
 
 W. POPE YEAMAN. 
 
 On the pages of Missouri Baptist history no 
 name outranks "W. Pope Yeaman." 
 
 His great spirit ever vibrated to the touch 
 of love, sympathy, honor and justice. 
 
 In leaving the profession of the law in an- 
 swer to a call to the ministry, he put aside the 
 promise of wealth and political preferment, 
 which his titanic intellect, coupled with his bril- 
 liant powers of oratory, assured him. His study 
 and practice of law fostered patriotism which is 
 a passion of lofty natures. His speeches on po- 
 litical issues ranked with those of Clay and Web- 
 ster. 
 
 After entering the ministry his love of coun- 
 try prompted him to offer for congress. It 
 was my privilege to be a delegate to the nom- 
 inating convention. It was fortunate for the 
 Baptists of Missouri that the honor was given 
 to another. He was a patriot and statesman, 
 not a politician. 
 
 In matters of state and religion he thought 
 in continents, and often required new words 
 to express his ideas, which he coined while 
 speaking. These created words were distinct- 
 ively Yeamanic. 
 
 221 
 
222 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 As a preacher the thoughts of his great ana- 
 lytical mind, which - found expression in a pow- 
 erful eloquence, added largely to the dignity 
 and strength of the Baptist denomination. 
 
 Missouri Baptists are indebted to him 
 largely for their present well organized mis- 
 sionary work. He originated and executed 
 the plans which brought order out of chaos, 
 under the most unfavorable conditions. 
 
 But it as a friend I speak of Dr. Yeaman, his 
 uplift was invaluable to me. 
 
 His dignified bearing made him seem dis- 
 tant to those who did not know him well, "But 
 to those that sought him, sweet as summer." 
 
 What a joy was the personal friendship of 
 this man of God. When I grasped his strong 
 hand, I could feel the generous beat of his 
 noble heart thrilling my soul with the thought 
 that I had such a friend. 
 
 In that large courtly body was carried a 
 heart as warm and tender as ever moved amid 
 the conflicts of time. 
 
 His inspiring influence came into my young 
 life and encouraged me to answer the call of 
 God to preach the gospel. His counsel was 
 the deciding force that led me to the theologi- 
 cal seminary at Louisville. When the course 
 was completed he suggested the capital ot 
 Missouri as my first pastorate. 
 
W. POPE YEAMAN. 223 
 
 Ten years later he wrote me that it had long 
 been his desire that I should become pastor of 
 the church in St. Louis which he had founded 
 — Delmar Avenue Baptist Church. He affec- 
 tionately called it his child. Only a few weeks 
 before he was translated, he preached from its 
 pulpit one of the most eloquent sermons of his 
 life. On this occasion he said it was the greatest 
 joy of his life, to see realized the vision he had 
 when the church was established, the vision 
 of Delmar church becoming a mighty power 
 for the kingdom of God. Said he: "This 
 church is the proudest monument of my life." 
 
 Dr. Yeaman is now a citizen of Heaven, yet 
 his hallowed and forceful influence still lives 
 on earth, not only in the hearts of his family 
 and friends, and the membership of the church 
 he founded, but the Baptists of Missouri will 
 feel the uplift of his life and labors for centuries. 
 
E. W. STEPHENS. 
 
 15 
 
E. W. STEPHENS. 
 
 Nomination for 
 
 President Southern Baptist Convention. 
 
 Kansas Citt, Mo., 
 
 May 12. 1905. 
 
XVII. 
 E. W. STEPHENS. 
 
 When planning to advance a great cause, 
 wise men choose as leader one whose name em- 
 bodies the spirit of the enterprise. 
 
 Into one's name are garnered the treasures 
 of his soul. The name summarizes the char- 
 acter; it epitomizes the life. 
 
 In the name of E. W. Stephens are bound the 
 qualities, the traits, the experiences and 
 achievements which make it preeminently the 
 name to place at the head of the Southern Bap- 
 tist Convention. 
 
 The name of E. W. Stephens stands for bus- 
 iness success, for tact, for integrity, industry 
 and practical piety. It stands for character, 
 Christian character; it stands for education, 
 it stands for Baptist principles and denomin- 
 ational loyalty; it stands for the ideal home 
 and the exaltation of the family; it stands for 
 progress, it stands for leadership. 
 
 When other states of the Southern Baptist 
 Convention come to know E. W. Stephens as 
 Missouri knows him, they will rejoice in the 
 day that made him president. 
 
 I speak at close range; born and reared in 
 the same county, having intimate and confiden- 
 
 227 
 
228 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 tial relations with him for a third of a cen- 
 tury, social, political, financial and religious, 
 I have found him always true ; loyal in friend- 
 ship, patriotic in politics, clean in business, 
 faithful in religion. 
 
 Baptists of Missouri have availed themselves 
 of his splendid character and capacity. He is 
 president of the board of our college for young 
 women, President of our Home and Foreign 
 Mission board, Moderator of the General As- 
 sociation of Missouri Baptists. In all these 
 positions he has honored the office which hon- 
 ored him. One's past is a forecast of his fu- 
 ture. He would honor the presidency of this 
 convention. 
 
 Never has the time been so ripe in the histo- 
 ry of Southern Baptists for larger visions of 
 greater things. Her resources have never 
 been so vast, and the world never so keenly 
 alive to an interest in the spiritual. 
 
 In E. W. Stephens we have a leader with an 
 increasing vision, one whose outreach and 
 upreach will widen the horizon of Southern 
 Baptists; one whose practical sagacity will 
 give weight and momentum to all our move- 
 ments in Home and Foreign Fields. 
 
 He is a gentleman, the embodiment of gen- 
 tleness, dignity and justice. He is a clear 
 thinker, a cogent writer, a forceful speaker. 
 
E. W. STEPHENS. 229 
 
 As a parliamentarian he is the peer of Boyce 
 and Mell. His myriad-minded grasp of Bap- 
 tist interests is not bounded by state lines but 
 is as broad as the scope of this convention. 
 
 Few men have been so highly favored as 
 E. W. Stephens, and none have used his fa- 
 vors more worthily. Though blest with a dis- 
 tinguished parentage, he did not depend on his 
 father's name, but carved one for himself. His 
 honored father did not burden his son with his 
 wealth but turned it into channels of philan- 
 thropy, giving a large portion to endow Ste- 
 phens College, our state Baptist school for 
 young women. The father loved his only son 
 too well to hamper him with riches, but sought 
 that he should have habits of industry, thrift 
 and the priceless possession of Christian man- 
 hood. 
 
 Young Stephens chose Journalism as his 
 profession and established a country newspa- 
 per. Under his guiding hand "The Columbia 
 Missouri Herald" is to-day a marvel of me- 
 chanical perfection and journalistic achieve- 
 ment, the most influential weekly in the 
 West. Through his Journal he has advanced 
 the material interests of his town, county and 
 state, and shaped political policies, but these 
 and all other interests he made subservient to 
 religion. 
 
2 3 o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 He has built up the largest law-book pub- 
 lishing house in the West, a monument to his 
 business acumen and organizing power. 
 
 Though urged to hold political office he per- 
 sistently refused, but always responded to the 
 call of religion. 
 
 Having been president of the Press Asso- 
 ciation of the state of Missouri and president 
 of the Editorial Association of the United 
 States, he is in touch with that mighty agency 
 the "Press" which is saturating the world with 
 pulsating thought. 
 
 He has incorporated his large business inter- 
 ests, entrusting the details to younger men in 
 whom he has grafted his spirit and methods, 
 thus enabling him to give more time and 
 thought to religious work. 
 
 The Southern Baptist Convention is the 
 largest representative body of Baptists on 
 earth. Seven-eighths of the Baptists of the 
 world are in America. Three-fourths of these 
 live within the territory of the Southern Bap- 
 tist Convention. 
 
 The position of President of this Convention 
 is the highest honor within the gift of the Bap- 
 tists of the world. By nature, grace and ex- 
 perience God has prepared Edwin Washing- 
 ton Stephens for this lofty place. 
 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LOUISIANA 
 PURCHASE. 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND 
 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 May Anniversaries. 
 Buffalo, N. Y., 
 May 21, 1903. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND 
 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Two hundred twenty-two years ago, an edu- 
 cated, ambitious, travelworn explorer, after 
 having paddled the full length of the Missis- 
 sippi River, reached the Gulf of Mexico. He 
 immediately stepped ashore, planted a cross, 
 fired three volleys from a few old rusty flint- 
 lock muskets, and with shouts of "Long live 
 the King," took possession of a vast territory 
 in the name of Louis XIV. In honor of his 
 king who was then the most powerful monarch 
 on earth, LaSalle called that unknown, un- 
 measured region "Louisiana." 
 
 Just at that time the Huguenots were being 
 driven out of France because they were 
 Protestants and believed in religious liberty. 
 Would they not sail across the seas to the new- 
 ly discovered Louisiana and there set up ban- 
 ners of religious and political freedom? Nay, — 
 even that western wilderness had no hospital- 
 ity for Protestants, for the door of religious 
 freedom was as firmly closed in New France 
 as in Old France. 
 
 233 
 
234 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 After holding the Louisiana Territory for 
 eighty years France sold it to Spain. Spain 
 now lay along the entire south and west of 
 the Thirteen Colonies like a huge whale. Her 
 rule in America at that time extended from the 
 Lake of the Woods to the Gulf, — including 
 what is now Florida, Texas, Mexico, Califor- 
 nia, as well as the twelve states and two territories 
 which have been carved out of Louisiana. 
 Spain was then sovereign over a larger domain 
 in America than was England, and if it be pos- 
 sible, was more intolerant to Protestantism 
 than was France. 
 
 For forty years Louisiana belonged to Spain, 
 until 1801 when France regained the territory 
 by granting Spain a political favor. Two years 
 later, on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, Na- 
 poleon Bonaparte was attending an Easter 
 Service in Notre Dame Cathedral in the city 
 of Paris. But his great mind was not contem- 
 plating the triumphs and glories of the risen 
 Redeemer, nor was his heart rejoicing in the 
 far reaching consequential effect on human joy 
 and destiny which that day and hour was cele- 
 brating. In fact his mind was ill at ease. In- 
 stead of having visions of the risen Savior, 
 his thoughts were on England's hostile fleet 
 now sailing toward his American possessions. 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE— RELIGION. 235 
 
 As he sat listless, under the rapturous tones 
 of that great organ of "Our Lady," pealing 
 forth glad notes of Easter joy a bran new idea 
 took possession of him. "I will sell Louisiana 
 to the United States for France can not cope 
 with England's Navy." He immediately left 
 the church, sent for the members of his cabi- 
 net, and put before them his newly formed 
 plan and purpose. Robert Livingston, then 
 United States minister to France, was hur- 
 riedly sent for. James Monroe at that time 
 was enroute to France having been sent by 
 Jefferson to secure free navigation of the 
 Mississippi River, and such territory at New 
 Orleans as would make the desired privilege 
 useful. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson did not conceive theideaof 
 buying Louisiana, nor did any other Ameri- 
 can, but that thought was born in Jehovah's 
 mind and God first impressed it on Napoleon's 
 brain 100 years ago last Easter. 
 
 Twenty days after that memorable Easter 
 Sunday, papers were signed by Marbois, Liv- 
 ingston and Monroe, and Louisiana was ours — 
 ours for the insignificant sum of two cents an 
 acre. 
 
 April 30, 1803, marks the word's greatest 
 stroke of statesmanship, a date when an Empire 
 
236 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 almost as large as all Continental Europe, larger 
 by fifty-five thousand square miles than the Thir- 
 teen Original States, passed from an intolerant 
 monarchy to a liberty-loving Republic with- 
 out the shedding of one drop of blood, and at 
 a price less than many a block in her chief city 
 would bring today — fifteen million dollars. 
 
 The dedication of the World's Fair grounds in 
 St. Louis, April 30, 1903, by Pres. Roosevelt, 
 former Pres. Cleveland, dignitaries of the Fed- 
 eral Union; Governors of forty states, sovereign 
 diplomatic messengers representing thirty of the 
 world's nations, and a magnificent military 
 pageant of fifteen thousand troops, was poster- 
 ity's emphasis and mark of appreciation of that 
 mighty event. 
 
 The Exposition in 1904, to commemorate 
 this event, is to be larger in conception, broad- 
 er in scope, and superior in educational value 
 to all its predecessors. 
 
 Five great epochs since Bethlehem's mir- 
 acle! The Resurrection of our Lord, the 
 outpouring of the Spirit, the Lutheran Re- 
 formation, the Declaration of Independence, 
 the Louisiana Purchase. These epochs are 
 so many steps in the Divine plan for evangeliz- 
 ing the world. Nothing has happened since 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 23? 
 
 Pentecost, save The Reformation and The 
 Declaration of American Independence that 
 counts so much for the civilization, enlighten- 
 ment and uplifting of the world as the Louis- 
 iana Purchase. That event is a pivot on 
 which this country and the Orient turn. 
 
 If the Mississippi had remained the western 
 limit of the new nation, or had the Mason and 
 Dixon's line made a chasm in it, the progress 
 of humanity and the emancipation of the Ori- 
 ent would have been arrested many centuries. 
 
 The full significance of this epochal event 
 is just beginning to dawn upon us. It was a 
 mighty stride toward national development 
 and world wide service. In the first place the 
 acquisition of this territory provided for 
 Protestants, a new home, a sufficient home, 
 an expansive home. That new expansive 
 home was an absolute necessity. For at this 
 crucial period evangelical Protestantism must 
 expand or die. At this time the only coun- 
 tries where civil and religious liberty could be 
 enjoyed were Great Britain, Scandinavia, The 
 Netherlands and western Germany; and even 
 in these only in a restricted measure, while in 
 all the rest of Europe Protestantism was strict- 
 
238 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ly prohibited. And in America, the United 
 States, then small, struggling and almost sur- 
 rounded by intolerant Romanists, offered the only 
 refuge. 
 
 In the nick of time God opened a wide door 
 to Protestants. True, religious motives did 
 not enter into the sale or purchase of Louis- 
 iana." Neither Napoleon nor Jefferson thought 
 of God or His kingdom in that momentous 
 transaction. But God often uses men who 
 think not of Him to work out His plans and 
 further His kingdom. 
 
 Think what we were before we bought 
 Louisiana! A century ago there was not a 
 Protestant church between the Father of 
 Waters and the Mighty Pacific. There were 
 a few scattered Protestants here and there, but 
 they were not permitted to gather together to 
 worship except under specified restrictions. 
 They were forbidden to ring a bell, perform a 
 marriage ceremony, baptize a convert or ob- 
 serve the Lord's Supper. Behold what the 
 Louisiana Purchase hath wrought for Protes- 
 tantism. 
 
 One hundred years ago in that territory 
 there were at least one thousand Catholics to 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 239 
 
 every Protestant; now there are six times as 
 many Protestants as Catholics. Of the twenty- 
 one millions of population between the Great 
 River and the Great Ocean there are eighteen 
 millions non-Catholic. 
 
 I refer to the entire west because the addi- 
 tion of Oregon, Florida, California and Texas 
 became an inevitable and logical consequence 
 of the Louisiana Purchase. 
 
 One hundred years ago not a single Protes- 
 tant Church west of the Mississippi; now there 
 are over forty thousand. Baptists were pioneers 
 in the Protestant occupation of Louisiana. They 
 had the first preachers. And the first houses for 
 evangelical worship erected on Louisiana soil were 
 Baptist. First there was the voluntary going 
 of a few pioneer Baptist preachers, then the 
 Triennial Convention sent Peck and Welch. 
 A little later the American Baptist Home 
 Mission Society began its work; finally the 
 Southern Baptist Convention entered the field. 
 
 But to the Home Mission Society, more than 
 to any other agency do we owe this marvel- 
 ous transformation. This Society has ex- 
 pended on the Louisiana Territory for missions 
 over two million dollars and has helped to erect 
 hundreds of church edifices. Today the so- 
 
240 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ciety has in that region over 300 missionaries 
 laying solid foundations in new localities, 
 building on foundations laid by pioneer pre- 
 decessors, and winning thousands to God. 
 
 At the time of the purchase there was on- 
 ly one Protestant preacher on Louisiana Ter- 
 ritory. John Clark, a Baptist, four years be- 
 fore the purchase went down the Mississippi 
 alone in a small canoe, paddling his little 
 barque by day, camping in the woods at night. 
 
 Among the men to whom Protestants of the 
 west and especially Baptists are most indebt- 
 ed, John Mason Peck stands perhaps at the 
 head. But I should name with him two other 
 pioneer preachers whose effective labors 
 wrought mightily in making the millions west 
 of the Mississippi Protestant, evangelical and 
 Baptist. They are James E. Welch and the fer- 
 vent spirited Dr. G. J. Johnson. 
 
 Another point. Protestantism in its new 
 home has greatly strengthened Protestantism 
 all over the world. This western Protestantism 
 being intensely vigorous, missionary, aggres- 
 sive, and independent has leavened the civil 
 and religious thought of the world. Western 
 Protestantism has prayed, argued, labored, de- 
 bated and fought for political and religious 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 241 
 
 freedom, and its logical consequent, separa- 
 tion of Church and State. 
 
 Protestants in this territory, especially Bap- 
 tists, have made the world to know that the 
 inherent right of man to political liberty is im- 
 possible, if the religious conscience is held in 
 subordination to ecclesiastical domination. 
 
 Then the Louisiana Purchase has been a 
 large factor in the making of the mightiest 
 Protestant nation on earth. If Louisiana had 
 remained a French Catholic Province there 
 is no reason to believe that Spain would have 
 relinquished Florida or any of her western 
 provinces. So the United States would have re- 
 mained one of the smaller nations of the world, 
 l a^circumscribed political community, practi- 
 cally surrounded by nations of different and 
 hostile civil and religious institutions. 
 
 Our national progress and expansion would 
 have been checked, and our present position 
 as mightiest of, all nations would have been 
 impossible. 
 
 Again this purchase not only secured for us 
 the most magnificent and resourceful terri- 
 tory ever inhabited by man, but it gave to our 
 national life, an impulse, an inspiration, a vis- 
 ion, a sweep and reach which decided our des- 
 
 16 
 
242 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 tiny as the world's foremost and most poten- 
 tial power. 
 
 Another point: The Louisiana Purchase 
 has opened a way to the Pacific ocean and thus 
 to Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, China, The Philip- 
 pines, the whole Orient. It has made the 
 quickest route to the far east by way of the 
 west, for traffic, for commerce, for the message 
 of salvation. 
 
 Again, who believes that the expansion pol- 
 icy of our nation, which was made decisive and 
 irrevocable by this masterstroke is at an end? 
 Will not Cuba, Mexico and perchance Canada 
 some day knock at our door? Instead of the 
 United States having a population of six millions 
 as under Jefferson, or eighty-five millions as un- 
 der Roosevelt, are we not destined to have before 
 the 200th anniversary of the Napoleon- Jefferson 
 trade, a population of four hundred millions ? 
 
 The highest type of Protestantism stands for 
 democracy, for a republican form of govern- 
 ment. The Louisiana Purchase made it pos- 
 sible for the world's greatest nation to be 
 a Protestant Republic, and without this pow- 
 erful Protestant nation who believes that there 
 would be toleration for Protestants in France, 
 Italy, Austria, Spain, or Mexico today? And 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 243 
 
 who does not believe that the United States 
 will put an end to Russia's intolerance of the 
 Jews? 
 
 This country has not only furnished a refuge 
 for the oppressed and persecuted of all lands, 
 but this Republic's prestige and power have 
 been felt in mitigating the severity of the laws 
 in all earth's monarchies. 
 
 The new world across the sea, with liberty 
 of conscience as its watchword, has thrilled the 
 older nations and electrified them with higher 
 conceptions of civil and religious rights. Old 
 world monarchies and oligarchies have caught 
 the contagion of liberty-loving, manful Amer- 
 icanism. 
 
 Strange , isn't it, that the vote to ratify the 
 Louisiana Purchase barely passed Congress? 
 New England, cultured New England, with 
 one exception voted solidly against it. 
 
 Fisher Ames, the brilliant, imaginative ora- 
 tor from Boston District, in his speech op- 
 posing the ratifying of the Purchase said: "By 
 adding an unmeasurable world we rush 
 like a comet into infinite space. In our wild 
 career we may jostle some other world out of 
 its orbit, but we shall, in any event, quench the 
 light of our own." True we have jostled other 
 
244 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 worlds out of their orbits, but the light of our 
 own instead of being quenched, is shining on 
 with enduring and increasing brilliancy, and 
 will continue to do so through the centuries. 
 
 Josiah Quincy, the Massachusetts States- 
 man, and President of Harvard, uttered these 
 words in 1811 : "The Constitution never was and 
 never will be strained to lap over all the west- 
 ern wilderness to formi a covering for the in- 
 habitants of the Missouri and Red Rivers, the 
 wild men of Missouri and the half civilized 
 Americans who bask in the sands of the Mis- 
 sissippi." I suppose the speaker is one of the 
 wild men Josiah Quincy portrayed for he was 
 born on the banks of the Missouri and for six 
 years has been basking in the sands of the Mis- 
 sissippi. 
 
 I heard Grover Cleveland use this sentence 
 the other day in his dedicatory speech: "It is 
 a solemn thing to belong to a people so favor- 
 ed of God/' Yes, God's favor has been upon 
 us. His providence has been in every step of 
 American progress, expansion and achieve- 
 ment, and above all in her unselfish, world- 
 wide service along the higher lines of liberty, 
 conscience and the spiritual life. 
 
 When we consider that our government was 
 founded and builded and governed on distinc- 
 
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 245 
 
 live Protestant principles we can but know- 
 that God is the author of them. Protestant 
 principles have produced a race of heroes 
 whose greatest victories have been those of 
 peace and whose greatest conquest is yet to 
 come, that of evangelizing and saving the 
 world. 
 
EFFECT OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
 EXPOSITION ON RELIGION. 
 
THE EFFECT OF THE LOUISIANA PUR- 
 CHASE EXPOSITION ON RELIGION. 
 
XIX. 
 
 EFFECT OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
 EXPOSITION ON RELIGION. 
 
 We understand the present, which is the 
 fruit of the past and the germ of the future, by 
 a study of the effect of past events. A study 
 of the past gives a storehouse of wisdom from 
 which to draw r in forming our opinion of the 
 influence of events of the present on the future. 
 History of the past exhibits the steady pro- 
 gress of the Christian religion, assuring contin- 
 ued advancement and the ultimate triumph of 
 our system of education. His disciples have 
 Christ furnish the elements on which are built 
 our system of education. His disciples have 
 founded virtually all of our great institutions 
 of learning. 
 
 Nothing is so hard for man as reflection, and 
 the essential destiny of the soul is to see, to 
 know, to reflect. To reflect is one of the toils 
 of life, a means of arriving, a passage by which 
 to reach its true destiny. 
 
 The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was a 
 world university of the highest order, the wid- 
 est scope. Although by reason of previously 
 acquired knowledge and thought training ad- 
 vanced students could see and gather more 
 
 249 
 
250 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 from the grouped illustrations, representing 
 the progress of the world in every field, yet 
 this school was an incalculable advantage to 
 the multitude in the intermediate and primary 
 classes. They were lifted to a higher plane of 
 thought, advanced in knowledge of men and 
 things, which placed them on an elevation giv- 
 ing them a new and broader view of life and 
 their relation to God. This great university 
 gave shape and reality to the dim ideals of the 
 masses. Their ideals were transformed into 
 facts, became a part of their being, a founda- 
 tion for enlarged mental and spiritual struc- 
 ture ; they could read a volume at a glance ; 
 they had the encyclopedia of the world with 
 every page alive with illustrations ; the fruit- 
 age of the world's work — in agriculture, horti- 
 culture, mechanism, manufacture, science, art, 
 history, all condensed in one great panorama — 
 a feast for the mind, a nourishment for the 
 soul. 
 
 In the Louisiana Purchase neither Napoleon 
 nor Jefferson, who played such important 
 parts in the transaction, realized or conceived 
 that the guiding hand of Jehovah was using 
 them as instruments to extend the glories of 
 His kingdom. Nevertheless the transfer of 
 
EFFECT OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 251 
 
 the domain of the Louisiana Purchase was a 
 consequential event in the advancement of a 
 purpose too great for finite minds. 
 
 So the promoters of this monumental mile 
 post in the world's progress did not in its con- 
 ception or management have in mind the 
 thought of making it a distinct means of ex- 
 tending the reign of Christ in human hearts. 
 They treated it as an educational and commer- 
 cial enterprise. Yet the blessings of divine 
 providence were invoked on the dedication of 
 the grounds, and God's ruling hand was rec- 
 ognized in all its movements. Each week it 
 gave the multitude in attendance from our 
 own and all other nations and climes an object 
 lesson in the proper observance of the holy 
 Sabbath by closing its gates. 
 
 It brought into close intercourse people of 
 all countries, it engendered brotherly love and 
 respect, it stimulated the patriotism and civic 
 pride of our own people, it gave to the United 
 States a greater influence over other nations, 
 thus adding materially to the efficiency and 
 success of our missionaries in pagan fields; it 
 stimulated in Americans more respect for and 
 interest in people of other nations. 
 
 The best brains of the world were drawn on 
 to plan this great university which required 
 
252 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the well directed toil of thousands to complete. 
 The pupils who came together at this school in- 
 cluded all races of all nations. The semester 
 closed in seven short months and the people 
 returned to their homes in every land, but this 
 closing did not mark the end of this the great- 
 est of all universal expositions. The material 
 ensemble was razed, but the knowledge gained 
 became the asset of individuals, and scattered 
 to the four quarters of the globe, broadening 
 and uplifting humanity. 
 
 The hospitality of The Fair was world-wide. 
 In the enclosure were grouped the nations of 
 the earth, not only with their shops, stores and 
 factories, but their villas and famous struc- 
 tures with gardens and lawns surrounding. 
 The highest type of this cosmopolitan people 
 mingled in social intercourse, giving illus- 
 trated force to the universal brotherhood of 
 man. The world was here living in miniature 
 on a section of Missouri soil. The graces, the 
 virtues, the experience, the knowledge of all 
 were merged into one fountain which was fed 
 by the Christian religion, and from this foun- 
 tain all consciously or unconsciously drank. 
 
 The value of The Exposition to the material 
 world, in science, in art, in varied industries, 
 in commerce, cannot be measured. These les- 
 
EFFECT OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 253 
 
 sons added material and mental wealth to man, 
 yet the physical and mental are closely linked 
 to the spiritual, and the spiritual being the 
 greater shared more largely in the benefits. 
 
 We need not refer to the many meetings and 
 conventions in the realm of religion where 
 bright minds from all parts of the world ex- 
 changed thought and counsel, stimulating 
 courage, pride and enthusiasm in religious 
 work, "as steel sharpeneth steel, so mind sharp- 
 eneth mind." To these conventions the secu- 
 lar and religious press have given wide pub- 
 licity. 
 
 The multitude of individual Christians, in- 
 cluding preacher and layman, was inspired to 
 more exalted views of God and His wisdom ; 
 they saw His hand in the great works of art ; 
 they heard His voice in the hum of industrial 
 machinery, and this enlarged thought became 
 a part of them and through them is being dif- 
 fused through all parts of the earth. 
 
 These earnest students filled the pews of our 
 city churches on the Sabbath both morning 
 and evening. On communion days at my 
 church we distribute communion cards; on 
 these the names and addresses showed vis- 
 itors, each Sabbath, from twenty to thirty 
 states, also a number from foreign countries. 
 
254 EFFECT OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
 
 Our city church members yielding their seats 
 to visitors and attending the duties of hospital- 
 ity incident to the entertainment of the large 
 inflow, were not so regular in attendance dur- 
 ing the exposition, but since they have resum- 
 ed their church duties with enlarged and 
 broader Christian spirit, with increased broth- 
 erly love which embraces a larger circle tak- 
 ing in the whole human family. 
 
 The effect of the Louisiana Purchase Expo- 
 sition on religion was a great stride in the tri- 
 umphant march of truth and righteousness. 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS FOR 
 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
XX. 
 
 BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 
 
 The present generation of American Bap- 
 tists is in the full enjoyment of civil and re- 
 ligious liberty. We are living at a time of ex- 
 traordinary prosperity and happiness, in a 
 nation of the highest national honor, distinc- 
 tion and power. 
 
 "Lest we forget" the cost of this priceless 
 boon, and fail to appreciate its value, let us re- 
 view the struggle which secured to us this pre- 
 cious heritage and pay the tribute of grateful 
 hearts to the heroes of the battle. 
 
 We would not rob the patriot's crowns that 
 justly adorn the brow of the heroes of the New 
 England and other Southern colonies of one 
 jewel ; they nobly did their part in the struggle 
 for freedom. The facts of unquestioned his- 
 tory point to the Baptists of Virginia as one of 
 the most, if not the most, potent factors in the 
 memorable crisis that gave to America civil 
 and religious liberty. 
 
 Conditions made the fight for religious free- 
 dom, and the separation of church and state, 
 more fierce in Virginia than in any of the other 
 colonies, and the complete victory there was 
 several years in advance. 
 
 17 
 
258 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Virginia was settled by a cavalier class from 
 England. They were not driven from the 
 mother country by stress of religious restraint, 
 but brought with them the established church. 
 So strong was the Episcopal church entrench- 
 ed in the political organization of the colony, 
 that Baptists were not able to get and main- 
 tain a hold in that commonwealth until after 
 the toleration act of William and Mary, 1689. 
 
 The charter of Virginia, 1606, provided that 
 "The true word and service of God and Chris- 
 tian faith be preached, planted and used ac- 
 cording to the doctrines, rites and religion now 
 professed and established within our realm,'' 
 which was the Episcopal. 
 
 This provision in the charter was strength- 
 ened by subsequent legislation of the colony, 
 and under this exclusive system, the Episco- 
 pacy became persecutors of all dissenters. Per- 
 sons who settled in the colony were required 
 to appear before the Episcopal minister and 
 state their religious views, and failing to do 
 so were publicly whipped. They were not al- 
 lowed to worship except in the meeting house 
 of the established church. Taxes were levied 
 to support Episcopal ministers and purchase 
 glebe lands. Should a dissenter fail to attend 
 the regular service he was heavily fined. The 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 259 
 
 penalty for refusing to have an infant baptized 
 was a fine of two thousand pounds of tobacco. 
 We here quote from the laws of Virginia: 
 "Whereas, many persons out of their averse- 
 ness to the orthodox established religion, or 
 out of the new fangled conceits of their hereti- 
 cal inventions, refuse to have their children 
 baptized, Be it therefore enacted, that all per- 
 sons who in contempt of the divine sacrament 
 of baptism, shall refuse when they may carry 
 their child to a lawful minister in that county 
 to have it baptized, shall be amerced two 
 thousand pounds of tobacco, half to go to the 
 informer and half to the public treasury." 
 
 Notwithstanding these persecutions Virgin- 
 ia Baptists refused to have their infants bap- 
 tized and their ministers continued preaching 
 the gospel; and today in Virginia there are a 
 number of Baptist meeting houses built on 
 ground hallowed by the preaching of Baptist 
 martyrs through prison bars. 
 
 In 1774 James Madison, not a Baptist, wrote 
 to a friend in Pennsylvania: "That diaboli- 
 cal, hell-conceived principle of persecution 
 rages here, and to the eternal infamy of the 
 persecutors be it said the clergy can furnish 
 their quoto of imps for such purposes. There 
 are at this time, in an adjacent county, not less 
 
260 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 than five or six well meaning men in close jail 
 confinement for publishing their religious sen- 
 timents, which in the main are very orthodox." 
 These men were Baptist ministers. 
 
 The persecutions of Virginia Baptists in 
 their determined struggle for soul-freedom 
 developed an enduring and uncompromising 
 spirit of liberty which made them a potent 
 force in the revolutionary struggle. 
 
 The young lawyer, Patrick Henry, in 1763, 
 in the famous case of the people resisting the 
 Episcopal ministers, gathered his inspiration 
 from the spirit of persecuted Virginia Bap- 
 tists, and this was the beginning of the devel- 
 opment of his patriotic spirit which blazed 
 forth in an eloquence that lighted the spark of 
 resistance to British oppression lying dormant 
 in the hearts of Americans. 
 
 The protracted persecutions of Virginia 
 Baptists made them vigilant in seizing every 
 opportunity to contribute to the growing com- 
 plications between the American colonies and 
 England. As citizens they struggled for civil 
 liberty, as Christians for religious freedom. 
 They never lost sight of the abolition of all 
 legal ecclesiastical distinction. The crisis 
 growing out of the exactions of the mother 
 country impelled them to struggle more vig- 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 261 
 
 orously for religious freedom and separation 
 of church and state, not only for themselves 
 but for all, Christian, Jew and Infidel. 
 
 In 1775 the General Association of the Bap- 
 tists of Virginia memorialized the Virginia 
 Convention to make military resistance to 
 Great Britain setting forth in a declaration of 
 principles, "that the mere toleration of relig- 
 ion by the civil government is insufficient — 
 that no state religious establishment ought to 
 exist: that all religious denominations ought 
 to stand on the same footing." The committee 
 in charge of this memorial secured some con- 
 cessions, which only stimulated the Baptists 
 to greater energy and more vehement protest. 
 
 The Episcopal clergy circulated a petition to 
 make the Episcopacy a permanent legal estab- 
 lishment. The efforts of Virginia Baptists to 
 counteract this measure secured the names of 
 ten thousand freeholders to a petition to de- 
 feat it. As a result the constitution of Virgin- 
 ia adopted in 1776, enjoys the distinction of 
 being the first written constitution for a free, 
 sovereign and independent state which the his- 
 tory of the world was called forth. As first 
 written it provided for the fullest religious tol- 
 eration, but the Virginia Baptists with the as- 
 sistance of James Madison had the word toler- 
 
262 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 ation struck out and inserted the famous sec- 
 tion, "That religion, or the duty we owe to our 
 Creator and the manner of discharging it, can 
 be directed only by reason and conviction, not 
 by force or violence, and therefore all men are 
 equally entitled to the free exercise of religion 
 according to the dictates of conscience; and 
 that it is the mutual duty of all to practice 
 Christian forbearance, love and charity toward 
 each other." 
 
 Animated by victories achieved Virginia 
 Baptists set in motion every current possible 
 against the existing established church. They 
 circulated petitions and secured the introduc- 
 tion of a bill, which, after a conflict of nearly 
 one month, was passed repealing the laws 
 which restrained religious freedom. This was 
 a blow which shook the tottering Episcopal 
 supremacy, and its friends made a desperate 
 effort to stay the falling fabric. They succeed- 
 ed in securing a declaration that provisions 
 ought to be made for continuing the succes- 
 sion of the clergy and superintending their con- 
 duct. The Virginia Baptists, in 1777, petition- 
 ed the legislature to repeal all laws still stand- 
 ing on the statute books interfering with re- 
 ligious liberty and protesting vehemently 
 against maintenance of a state church. This 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 263 
 
 was met by a counter petition of the Episco- 
 palians and Methodists. The result was the 
 repealing of all laws authorizing- the collection 
 of taxes to support the clergy. 
 
 The next move of the Virginia Baptists was 
 to secure the sale of the glebe lands and defeat 
 the bill which had been introduced and en- 
 grossed authorizing the collection of a general 
 tax for the support of all teachers of Christian 
 religion. In their remonstrance they stated 
 "That it was repugnant to the spirit of the gos- 
 pel for the state to support religion by taxa- 
 tion, that its holy Author needed no compul- 
 sive measures for the support of His cause, 
 that the proposed law would be destructive to 
 religious liberty." 
 
 In this fight they had the assistance of 
 Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George 
 Mason, and against them were arrayed George 
 Washington and John Marshall who feared 
 morals and religion would greatly suffer if the 
 preachers were not supported by taxation. See- 
 ing there was danger of the success of the 
 measure if brought to a vote the opponents 
 postponed action till the next session, when 
 the legislature was overwhelmed with remon- 
 strances secured by Virginia Baptists, and its 
 advocates surrendered without further strug- 
 
264 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 gle. Jefferson seized the opportunity and in- 
 troduced the bill that secured liberty of con- 
 science and the separation of church and state. 
 This was soon followed by the sale of the glebe 
 lands, turning the proceeds into the state treas- 
 ury. 
 
 Dr. Hawks, the Episcopal historian, says : 
 "Persecution had taught the Virginia Baptists 
 not to love the establishment. In their asso- 
 ciation they had calmly discussed the matter 
 and resolved on their course. In this course 
 they were consistent to the end, and the war 
 which they waged against the established 
 church was a war of extermination. They 
 seem to have known no relentings, and their 
 hostility never ceased for twenty-seven years." 
 The Virginia Baptists, in a struggle lasting 
 twenty-seven years, had won the victory of 
 civil and religious liberty and the separation of 
 church and state. 
 
 The most important event affecting the in- 
 terests of Baptists in the history of the Amer- 
 ican colonies was the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. In that instrument Thomas Jefferson 
 poured out the soul of the Baptist spirit. The 
 inspiring influence of this monumental docu- 
 ment on the character and political conduct of 
 the people of this Republic is beyond compute. 
 
BATTLE OF VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 265 
 
 It was the greatest stride toward civil and re- 
 ligious freedom in the world's history — an in- 
 vincible bulwark in support of the dignity of 
 man, the sacredness of personality, the sancti- 
 ty of religious freedom. The influence of this 
 classic statement of political truths. is now felt 
 in all countries and is gradually robbing the 
 autocrat of arbitrary power over the individu- 
 al. With the altruistic spirit of this instru- 
 ment America is influencing the world and 
 will gradually spread through it her religion. 
 
 Virginia Baptists did much to place the 
 laurel wreath of freedom on America's brow. 
 Their determined spirit was a potential factor 
 in securing her independence. It permeated 
 with its leavening influence such men as Jef- 
 ferson, Henry and Madison, securing their co- 
 operation in the successful fight for freedom of 
 conscience, which carried with it civil liberty. 
 
 To Virginia Baptists, liberty lovers of the 
 world owe a debt of gratitude. 
 
WOELD NOW EEADY FOR BIBLE 
 TRUTHS. 
 
WORLD NOW READY FOR BIBLE 
 TRUTHS. 
 
 A greeting from America to the Baptist World Congress. 
 
 Initiatory Service. 
 
 Baptist World Congress, London. 
 
 Regent Park, July, 10, 1905. 
 
XXI. 
 
 WORLD NOW READY FOR BIBLE 
 TRUTHS. 
 
 American Baptists esteem it a high privilege 
 to meet the Baptists of the world on the soil 
 of their mother country, the country of Shake- 
 speare who gave to mankind its richest legacy 
 of literature, a potent factor in making English 
 the dominant language of the race, the coun- 
 try of those contemporary lovers of liberty, 
 Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan, whose very names 
 are loved by every intelligent American. The 
 home of Spurgeon, the memory of whose life 
 we cherish as an object-lesson in prayer, faith 
 and work. 
 
 We rejoice to greet, in person, the venerable 
 Dr. Maclaren whose sermons for two score 
 years have been a mighty help to the preachers 
 of America. 
 
 We are happy to be in touch with this great 
 gathering in the historic city of London, which 
 for centuries has been the radiating centre of 
 the world's progress, civilization and Chris- 
 tianization and here in the heart of this throb- 
 bing life gather information and inspiration 
 from the lips of representative Baptists from 
 all parts of the earth. 
 
 269 
 
27o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Four-fifths of the Baptists of the world live 
 in America, and, shall I say, it is one of the 
 greatest countries with the best and freest 
 government that has existed among men. I 
 am sure you will pardon the pride of an Amer- 
 ican Baptist in his country, when you remem- 
 ber that American Baptists were the most po- 
 tential force in planting the tree of civil and 
 religious liberty whose fruitage is now ripen- 
 ing throughout the world. It was in America 
 that the free spirit of man threw off its last 
 fetters. American Baptists planted the seed of 
 religious liberty. They nurtured and defended 
 it with their lives and fortunes. This plant 
 struggled in its growth, watered by the tears 
 of persecuted Baptists, protected by their fi- 
 delity and devotion to truth, for a hundred and 
 fifty years, when it bloomed into the beauty 
 and glory of civil and religious freedom. 
 
 To flourish, Baptist principles must have in- 
 dividual freedom. This truth was illustrated in 
 England where under the political ascendency of 
 Cromwell, Baptists increased to 120,000, while 
 under the arbitrary rule of restored King Charles 
 II they were reduced to less than 20,000. Since 
 this period the increase of Baptists in England 
 has been in proportion to her advance in civil 
 and religious liberty. 
 
READY FOR BIBLE TRUTHS. 2?i 
 
 In 1 63 1 Roger Williams, an apostle of relig- 
 ious freedom, left the religious restraint that 
 existed in England, and went to America 
 where he preached a few years to the colonists 
 of Massachusetts when they refused to toler- 
 ate his advanced ideas of separation of church 
 and state and banished him. With a few fol- 
 lowers he went to the wilderness of Rhode 
 Island and founded a commonwealth, based on 
 freedom of conscience and separation of church 
 and state. In 1639 he organized a church on 
 the lines of those with which he had been asso- 
 ciated. Later, in his search of Scripture, he 
 could find no authority for the baptism of un- 
 believers or infants, so he and the entire church 
 were baptized, becoming the first church of 
 baptized believers in America. 
 
 From that moment Baptists grew in strength 
 and numbers, though followed with bitter per- 
 secutions by the state and by other denomi- 
 nations, especially the Episcopal, which was 
 the established church in a number of the col- 
 onies. They were branded as heretics, their 
 preachers were imprisoned, and they were 
 heavily fined for refusing to have their infants 
 baptized. Yet they continued loyal to truth 
 and conviction. Their zeal for truth and free- 
 dom furnished inspiration for the eloquence of 
 
272 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Patrick Henry. It inspired the Declaration of 
 Independence voiced by Thomas Jefferson. In 
 their fight for separation of church and state 
 they had to resist the powerful influence of 
 Washington. After more than a century of 
 struggle, Baptists unhampered by state inter- 
 ference, the influence of pope, bishop, or eccles- 
 iastical edicts, had a congenial home in Amer- 
 ica where they could worship God in simplic- 
 ity and truth with no man-made creed between 
 them and the inspired Book. Where they could 
 emphasize the basal fact for which Baptists 
 stand — the spirituality of the Kingdom of God 
 and loyalty to its King — Christ alone — the on- 
 ly source of eternal life. 
 
 A century ago in America we had only 900 
 churches with less than 90,000 members. We 
 now have 46,000 churches with 4,800,000 mem- 
 bers. 27,000 Sunday schools with more than 
 2,000,000 scholars, 218 institutions of learning 
 with 47,000 students, school property and en- 
 dowment $48,000,000 and $102,000,000 in 
 church property. 
 
 We gave, during the past year for missions 
 aside from the support of our churches and 
 the immediate mission work connected with 
 each church, $1,617,931.00. 
 
READY FOR BIBLE TRUTHS. 273 
 
 The increase of population of the United 
 States, during the past century is without a 
 parallel in history, yet the ratio of increase of 
 Baptists is five times that of population. 
 
 The world is making rapid strides toward 
 individual freedom, and with the wonderful 
 increase of knowledge is getting a clearer view 
 of truth, and becoming keenly alive to an in- 
 terest in spiritual things. These conditions are 
 conducive to the spread of Baptist principles. 
 God in His wisdom has opened the secrets of 
 nature, enabling all the inhabitants of earth 
 to live as neighbors, enlarging the scope of the 
 command, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." 
 Baptists have but one lamp by which they are 
 guided, Christ "The Light of the World." His 
 light shines in all its effulgence in his last com- 
 mand, "Go make disciples." 
 
 The world is largely indebted to English 
 Baptists who sustained the immortal Carey 
 in the missionary field, and to America for 
 the support of Judson. What a change in the 
 world's condition since Carey and Judson 
 wrought! The Bible is now translated into 
 every language and almost every dialect. With 
 the printed page we can give every message 
 of Christ a million tongues, and with rapid 
 transit send missionaries to every family of 
 earth. 
 18 
 
274 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Shall we not make this gathering, the first 
 of its kind in the life of the world, this epochal 
 event in Baptist progress, count for the King- 
 dom of God? Shall we not plan to send the 
 gospel in its purity to every nation and in- 
 dividual on Earth ? Shall we not return to our 
 homes with purpose, clear and definite, to in- 
 spire the millions we represent to renewed and 
 glowing zeal to extend the reign of Christ in 
 human hearts? 
 
 The world was never so ready for the gos- 
 pel as now, resources in the hands of Baptists 
 never so great, facilities for effective work nev- 
 er so perfect, our people never so harmonious 
 and united, our knowledge of truth and duty 
 never so clear. The world is now ripe for Bap- 
 tist principles. Will not the great army of world 
 wide Baptist Brotherhood move mightily for- 
 ward in the strength of their God, under the 
 command of their King, "Go ye into all the 
 world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
 ture r 
 
THE BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 
 
THE BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 
 
 Address : 
 Missouri Baptist General Association, 
 Waebexsburg, Mo., 
 October 26, 1905. 
 
XXII. 
 
 THE BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 
 
 The history of the world is the story of God 
 revealing Himself to man. His presence is in 
 every movement that marks the progress of 
 the race. His first code of laws was written 
 on tablets of stone, but on the day of Pente- 
 cost He sent His spirit to write them on human 
 hearts. 
 
 For nineteen centuries the Christian world 
 has been reading and listening to the story of 
 the out-pouring of the Spirit in that upper 
 chamber. Christendom has not yet fully grasp- 
 ed the mighty significance of that momentous 
 event ; nor has it utilized all the powers then 
 bestowed. 
 
 We cannot compare the Baptist World Con- 
 gress to Pentecost, in importance, but an ob- 
 server can see too much wisdom in the time 
 and place of the meeting, and its spiritual pow- 
 er to exclude the guiding hand of Jehovah from 
 the influences that brought it to pass. 
 
 Pentecost was an opening of the windows of 
 heaven to endow the church with power from 
 on high. So the world meeting of Baptists in 
 London was an opening of heaven's windows 
 through which flowed the "Kindly Light" on 
 
 277 
 
278 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 an assembly representing more tongues than 
 were spoken at Jerusalem on the day of Pen- 
 tecost. 
 
 No event in Baptist history has done so 
 much to lift us above the boundary lines of 
 nations, and give us a view of our field, the 
 world. No event has given us such a concept- 
 ion of the universal sweep of our mission, the 
 discipling of all nations. 
 
 This meeting revealed Baptists to one an- 
 other, it intensified Christ-born love, it created 
 a co-operative unity for world wide work. Here 
 disciples of all countries and tongues met, and 
 in fellowship, in prayer, in hand clasp, struck 
 fire from soul to soul. 
 
 Soul helps soul in spiritual climbing. Great 
 meetings are a part of God's divine economy, 
 enabling believers, by mutual sympathy and 
 unity of purpose, to multiply their powers. 
 
 Where thousands of souls aflame with God 
 meet in accord it gives the opportunity to sit 
 together in heavenly places, to cultivate spir- 
 itual fervor, to inspire larger vision. 
 
 Momentum comes with organized numbers. 
 An army feels something not felt by a crowd ; 
 every soldier receives something from the com- 
 bination, and unconscious of giving, he is 
 strongly conscious of receiving. Likewise in 
 
BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 27 9 
 
 spiritual fellowship, all gain something. There 
 is an evidence of that invisible presence, whose 
 life, pressing upon all, overflows from each to 
 each, awakening subtler sympathy, kindling 
 fresh enthusiasm, inspiring nobler impulses, im- 
 parting higher ideals, creating greater power. 
 
 This multiplication of power, resulting from 
 the assembling of thousands of all tongues and 
 climes, was needed by Baptists. 
 
 At the roll call of nations, in a flash of words 
 of three minutes, the speakers gave a vivid pic- 
 ture of the trials and triumphs of the country 
 they represented. Strong Baptist communities 
 were made stronger by giving sympathy and 
 courage to the weak, and the weak were 
 strengthened by the consciousness of the spir- 
 itual bond that bound them to the strong. This 
 call of the roll of the nations of the world was 
 an intense moment. From every land came 
 assurance of oneness of spirit, oneness of doc- 
 trine, oneness of loyalty to Christ. 
 
 Few things are so uplifting as coming in 
 contact with a great man whose life embodies 
 the cause he espouses. The spontaneity and 
 enthusiasm with which Dr. Maclaren, the Pres- 
 ident of the Congress, was greeted revealed 
 appreciative hearts for this man of God. In 
 this generation of great preachers he is easily 
 
28o THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the first. His exposition of gospel truth bears 
 striking evidence of faithful study of Scripture 
 and nearness to God. This., with his high char- 
 acter, led the Congress to listen with eager- 
 ness to every word that fell from his lips. Sail 
 he. "I beseech you to remember two crystal 
 phrases which carry everything I wish to say. 
 'In the name of Christ" 'By the power of the 
 Spirit.' 
 
 "If you are not right in the relation of the 
 living Christ and the relation of the indwell- 
 ing Spirit., you are all wrong however ortho- 
 dox, eloquent, and learned." Said he. ''The 
 Christian church of to-day is more fully pos- 
 sessed with longing for the experience of that 
 higher life that comes from the indwelling Spir- 
 it than ever before, and Christian theology is 
 following the leading of Christian experience. 
 
 T look forward to the time when there will 
 be far more prominence given to the indwelling 
 Spirit, and life of holiness and power than has 
 been, — I pray this Congress may do something 
 to bring all our brethren nearer to the only source 
 of life and power." 
 
 The greeting of the Free Church Council 
 was a great object lesson to the wider exercise 
 of brotherly love. It was timely, and opened 
 broader channels for the flow of Christian fel- 
 
BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 281 
 
 lowship. Dr. Maclaren expressed the feeling 
 of the Congress when, in answer to their warm 
 greeting, he gave expression to reciprocal feel- 
 ings of fraternal love to dear friends who, 
 though differing in some points, felt the same 
 heart throb of love for Christ. 
 
 Dr. Prestridge, speaking for America, said: 
 "We extend to you the greeting of warm and 
 sympathizing hearts in your struggle for free- 
 dom of conscience. There is one fundamental 
 division of the human family, the free and the 
 not free. Freedom is the choicest fruit of civil- 
 ization. In the spirit of freedom I extend the 
 hand of American Baptists to the representa- 
 tives of the Free Church Council and bid you 
 God speed." 
 
 One cannot observe the warm fellowship ex- 
 isting among all the Protestant denominations 
 of England, their unity and co-operation, not 
 only to resist laws oppressive to freedom of 
 conscience, but in work of philanthropy and 
 evangelism, without being led to think that 
 the Protestants of America would add greatly 
 to their spiritual progress and multiply their 
 power for resisting public evils by closer unity 
 and co-operation. In England they not only 
 unite to promote measures for social advance- 
 ment, and liberty of conscience, but in the Kes- 
 
282 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 wick movement they come together for spirit- 
 ual uplift, the cultivation of brotherliness, and 
 the glory of their oneness in Christ. 
 
 When the grievances of the Non-Conformists 
 were brought before the Congress, the great 
 Welch layman, Lloyd George, M. P., aroused 
 feelings of indignation when he poured forth 
 in burning eloquence his arraignment of Par- 
 liament for the iniquitous educational act. The 
 feeling became more intense when Dr. John 
 Clifford, the champion of religious liberty, the 
 foremost Baptist of England, and now Presi- 
 dent of the Baptist World Alliance, explained 
 the workings of the law and in thunder tones 
 pronounced its doom. Said he, "The law of 
 liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over 
 race, of class over class, faith over faith, and 
 we shall not rest till we see our primary edu- 
 cation fashioned in obedience to that law." 
 
 The question of missions is the vital one 
 with Baptists, and the word pictures of the 
 trials and triumphs in foreign fields gave a 
 panoramic view of the condition and needs of 
 the world. 
 
 Dr. Mabie, our prime minister of foreign 
 missions, stirred by the graphic pictures given 
 by missionaries, was at his best. His address 
 showed that his great heart was in his work. 
 
BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 283 
 
 He said it was when in China that his eyes 
 were opened to the fact that missionary work 
 was the extension of the incarnation of our 
 Lord. That to be a missionary of Jesus was to 
 move out of one's self. 
 
 Dr. Morehouse told the thrilling story of 
 Home Missions in America. He said "America 
 is a world magnet," drawing to her shores peo- 
 ple of all the countries of Asia and Europe. 
 These people we must meet with the gospel, 
 not only for their salvation, but for our own 
 preservation. 
 
 A splendid paper by Dr. Carver was pre- 
 sented with telling effect. In closing he said, 
 "England touches no land without lifting it 
 into larger life and bringing it nearer heaven. 
 As Americans, we rejoice that our own coun- 
 try has come to be a factor for opening of doors 
 and building of highways for the new day that 
 is now dawning." 
 
 Dr. Richards held up the great empire of 
 China so as to enlist the entire Congress in her 
 teeming millions. Dr. Gardner drew a portrait 
 of Japan with like effect. 
 
 Almost every country and clime was placed 
 before the Congress, its condition and needs 
 painted in burning words by those fresh from 
 the scenes. The Congress was a great school 
 
284 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 for Baptists. It gave them a higher conception 
 of their mission and stirred them to fulfill it. 
 
 In the largest Protestant church in the 
 world, the great church founded by Spurgeon. 
 Dr. Strong delivered the Congress sermon. 
 His subject was "The Greatness of Christ." 
 It was a masterful exposition of gospel truth, 
 setting a high standard of spiritual power, 
 opening bright visions and holding out hopes 
 for realizing them. 
 
 The papers on modern criticism evidenced 
 thought and research. They were character- 
 ized not only by culture, but by a reverence 
 for and a faith in the revelations of God con- 
 tained in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 The paper by Dr. Mullins was the best in its 
 line it has been my privilege to hear or read. 
 He unfolded the blessings and consistencies of 
 the gospel and carried one along with convinc- 
 ing power. "With gentle, but strong and skil- 
 ful hands he removed the harsh characteristics 
 sometimes attributed to Jehovah, yet declared 
 His right to be sovereign. Said he "All men 
 have equal right to direct access to God. All 
 believers have equal privileges in the church. 
 To be responsible man must be free.'' Calm 
 and deliberate, with a clear conception of truth, 
 he expressed his thoughts in a way that does 
 

 BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 285 
 
 not antagonize, but draws and makes one feel 
 the truth of what he says. I count this paper 
 the strongest and most brilliant contribution 
 to religious literature made by the Congress. 
 
 A few words spoken by the greatest laymen 
 among English Baptists, Judge Willis, appeal- 
 ed to me as a stronger support of gospel truth 
 than any of the words of the educators and 
 preachers. Said he ? "Faith in Christ has its 
 origin in and rests upon experience. It does not 
 rest on the trembling foundation of New Testa- 
 ment criticism. Christ says : 'Ye that believe are 
 my witnesses, not to my birth, death and res- 
 urrection do you testify, but you have exper- 
 ienced my power to save.' " 
 
 The great meeting at Albert Hall was a fit- 
 ting close to the Congress which had evolved 
 into a Baptist World Alliance. The venerable 
 Dr. Maclaren in the opening prayer carried the 
 great gathering tenderly to the very gates of 
 heaven as he led them to their fathers' God. 
 No speech of the Congress so moved those pres- 
 ent as this prayer. 
 
 This meeting was largely one of rejoicing 
 over the great benefits that had come and 
 would come from the Congress. Yet one of 
 the greatest speeches of the Congress was made 
 at this the closing hour. It was by our own 
 E. W. Stephens. 
 
286 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 With the brush of his analytical mind he re- 
 touched the features of the Congress and im- 
 pressed the blessings it had been and would be. 
 not only to Baptists, but to the world. Said 
 he: "It has given us a better understanding of 
 each other and knit us into closer sympathy, 
 enriched us in knowledge of our denomination- 
 al polity, and brought Baptists of the entire 
 world into a unity of organization, a singleness 
 of thought and purpose they never had be- 
 fore."' Said he, "No assembly in the history of 
 Baptists and few in the annals of mankind 
 have been of more far-reaching importance." 
 
 Mr. Stephens outlined a standard for preach- 
 ers that we would do well to hang in flaming 
 letters on the walls of our studies and theo- 
 logical seminaries. But the feature of his ad- 
 dress was the appeal to laymen of whom he 
 is one. If the great army of laymen would 
 follow his suggestions the problem of evangel- 
 ism would be solved. 
 
 We have said the great meeting at Albert 
 Hall marked the closing of the Congress. X: ! 
 The climacteric close was on Elstow Green, fifty 
 miles from London. It was amid scenes hal- 
 lowed by memories associated with Bunyan 
 that the Congress reached the high tide of the 
 power of the Spirit. To Baptists no spot in old 
 
BAPTIST WORLD CONGRESS. 287 
 
 England is more sacred than Elstow Green, 
 for Bunyan who was Baptist faith incarnate, 
 here lived and loved. Clifford was the orator. 
 He held the great standing audience of thou- 
 sands spell bound as he portrayed John Bun- 
 yan. He spoke of "Grace Abounding to the 
 Chief of Sinners," as the greatest religious 
 classic, and a picture of Bunyan's heart exper- 
 ience, and of "Pilgrim's Progress," both of 
 which were inspired in Bedford Jail where 
 Bunyan for twelve years was shut out from the 
 world and shut in by prison bars to close com- 
 munion with God. 
 
 Not every Peter has been released by an an- 
 gel for the world's benefit. More have been 
 retained for the same purpose. Dungeons have 
 exerted a telling influence on the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 Joseph's prison career shaped the history of 
 Israel. Daniel's experience in the lions' den 
 is influencing millions of Sunday School chil- 
 dren to-day. In the solitude of the Mamer- 
 tine prison Paul's Epistles bore richer fruitage 
 than all his active labors. The sea side cell 
 on Patmos still exhales the fragrance of John's 
 vision. 
 
 It was behind the bars of Bedford jail Bun- 
 yan in close communion with God lent his 
 
288 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 light to millions of pilgrims from the City of 
 Destruction to the City Celestial. 
 
 We do not know how much the world owes 
 to enforced confinement by which noble lives 
 have been pressed into prolonged and secret 
 communion with God, but we do know that 
 every life may cultivate at liberty commun- 
 ion with God and receive His power. Evan 
 Roberts, breathing the free and bracing air of 
 the Welch mountains, is a living embodiment 
 of the phrases Dr. Maclaren so strongly im- 
 pressed on the Congress, "In the name of Christ,'"' 
 and "By the power of the Spirit." 
 
OBSERVATION OF MEN AND 
 CONDITIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 19 
 
OBSERVATION OF MEN AND 
 CONDITIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Summer 1905. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 OBSERVATION OF MEN AND 
 CONDITIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 The activity in religious thought which now 
 prevails in England and Wales, and the meet- 
 ing of representative Baptists of the world in 
 London, made my observations the past two 
 months rich in contact with leaders of relig- 
 ious progress. 
 
 In America all are free to worship according 
 to dictates of conscience. There is no connec- 
 tion between church and state, and no favors 
 to any denomination by civil laws, consequent- 
 ly there is little friction and no opposition be- 
 tween Protestant denominations, and scarcely any 
 between Protestant and Roman Catholics. 
 
 In England it is vastly different. All Prot- 
 estant denominations are closely allied. This 
 union is an organization called the Free Church 
 Council composed of representatives of all 
 protestant churches, and is the result of dis- 
 crimination by the general government against 
 all Protestants and in favor of the established 
 church. 
 
 This condition has drawn them together in 
 their fight for freedom of conscience and sep- 
 aration of church and state. What is called 
 
 291 
 
292 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the minor differences have largely disappeared, 
 resulting not only in a close union and fellow- 
 ship for united resistance to objectionable leg- 
 islation, but in work of philanthropy and evan- 
 gelism. 
 
 Dr. F. B. Meyer, a Baptist, recently elected 
 president of the Baptist Union of Great Brit- 
 ain and Ireland, one of the most effective 
 among the preachers of London in the spread 
 of gospel truth, and one of the world's leaders 
 in the propagation of religious thought, is now 
 pastor of the largest Congregational church in 
 London — Christ's church, made famous by the 
 pastorate of Rowland Hill. 
 
 The recognized leader of the Free churches, 
 or to make it more clear, the united non-con- 
 formists, in resisting encroachments on liberty 
 of conscience by the established church in con- 
 nection with the government, is Dr. John Clif- 
 ford. He is to-day easily the first man in Eng- 
 land in the battle for religious freedom. 
 
 He is not only great in declaring gospel 
 truth but an active force in the social and polit- 
 ical life of England. He is an intrepid leader 
 who does things, a man with boundless energy, 
 a bright highly cultivated mind, alert to grasp, 
 quick to analyze problems, prompt to act on 
 convictions. He sees the best in men and hopes, 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 293 
 
 prays and works to achieve the best. He of- 
 ten repeats a phrase that reminds one of the 
 words of our own Garfield which he used to 
 calm the avenging spirit aroused by the as- 
 sassination of Lincoln, "God is in His heaven, 
 all's well with the world." 
 
 I can say nothing so well to give an idea of 
 the iniquitous educational act that has roused 
 the free spirit of man to resistance in Britain, 
 as to quote Dr. Clifford's burning words to the 
 Baptist World Congress. It carried us back 
 to the time when the action of the established 
 church in the colonies called forth the burn- 
 ing eloquence of Patrick Henry. Americans 
 present learned to appreciate anew the boon of 
 freedom that came to them through the strug- 
 gle and heroism of their patriot fathers. 
 
 Said Dr. Clifford : "The act has created a na- 
 tional revolt in Wales, and the passive resist- 
 ance movement in England. In eight thousand 
 parishes there is only one school for all the 
 children whatever their antecedents, whether 
 of dissenting or Anglican parents; that school 
 is the Anglican school. To it the children 
 must go, and in it they may hear their fathers 
 and mothers denounced as schismatics, the 
 church of their parents condemned as hereti- 
 cal, and the belief in which they are trained at 
 home labeled as false and wicked. 
 
294 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 "Wales is in revolt through its chosen repre- 
 sentatives from one end to the other. A large 
 number are suffering the distraint of their 
 goods rather than pay the rates. Magistrates 
 have left the bench rather than discharge the 
 odious responsibilities of sending men to jail 
 for refusing to submit. Nearly two hundred 
 persons have been sentenced to imprisonment 
 because they would not be disloyal to their 
 convictions. They resist the act as did the 
 Americans under King George more than a 
 century ago on the grounds of no taxation 
 without representation. 
 
 "It is not that we seek to abolish a theologi- 
 cal test as a condition to State service, but 
 chiefly that we refuse to be coerced into financ- 
 ing schools to propagate Anglicism, basing 
 our opposition on the broad ground that the 
 state is usurping functions that do not belong 
 to it, robbing the subject of his liberty of con- 
 science, thereby imperiling the well being of 
 the nation." 
 
 This speech stirred the blood of Americans 
 to fever heat, and raised an indignant blush, 
 to think such conditions could exist in a land 
 so near to them in tongue, in social, commer- 
 cial and blood relations. 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 295 
 
 Dr. Alexander Maclaren of Manchester is 
 recognized as the greatest preacher of this gen- 
 eration, not as an evangelist, nor as an ag- 
 gressive factor in advocating reforms or meas- 
 ures of progress, but for his ideal life and lofty 
 character together with his highly cultivated 
 and fruitful mind, which has poured forth a 
 steady stream for more than sixty years laden 
 with rich expositions of gospel truths. Through 
 the pulpit and press the stamp of this man of 
 God has had a powerful influence on the re- 
 ligious thought of the world. I feel that to 
 grasp his hand and to hear the rich flow of elo- 
 quence from his chaste lips, giving all honor 
 and glory to Christ was one of the highest 
 privileges of my six weeks' stay in London. 
 
 While there has been during the year almost 
 a continual revival in England and specially 
 in London, among the prominent leaders being 
 Meyer, Campbell, Torry and Morgan, all of 
 whom are known throughout the religious 
 world, the awakening has been more marked 
 in Wales under the leadership of Evan Rob- 
 erts. 
 
 The Welsh are the most deeply religious 
 people on the British Isles. I was entertained 
 in a Welsh home among the mountains and 
 mines of the most prolific coal district on 
 
296 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 earth. There stood the harp in the corner. A 
 harp is in many homes in Wales. They cultivate 
 song from childhood and the voice of the 
 Welsh is the most musical and rich for relig- 
 ious song I ever heard. Often in their meet- 
 ings when they have sung one hymn, without 
 announcing, some one will begin another and 
 they will sing five or six before stopping. 
 
 In an audience of about a thousand men to 
 whom I spoke at the Wales Baptist conven- 
 tion, I could discern but one who did not join 
 in the singing, an old man. He was over ninety, 
 and stood gazing in rapt and joyous attention. 
 This was the most warmly responsive audience 
 I ever addressed. When I closed they shouted : 
 "Hear, hear. Go on, go on !" I continued and 
 closing again met the same, "Hear, hear. Go 
 on ! go on !" 
 
 I was disappointed in not seeing Evan Rob- 
 erts at the convention, and learning he was 
 resting about forty miles distant, decided to 
 go and see him, but was told he would not be 
 disturbed, and was refusing hundreds seek- 
 ing an interview. I wired, requesting to see 
 him. He answered, "Come, I will see you." 
 
 He was in the home of John Davis, a miner, 
 the father of Anna Davis, the leader of song in 
 the Evan Roberts meetings. When I arrived 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 297 
 
 at the village and enquired for the home of 
 Mr. Davis, I was told by a reporter it was use- 
 less to try to see Roberts as he had refused to 
 see any one for two weeks; that a large party 
 from Canada went to the house yesterday but 
 was not admitted. I found the home, near the 
 last in a row of miner's cottages. It was plain 
 but fresh and cleanly, surrounded with flowers. 
 Looking through the window in the parlor I 
 saw an open Bible on the table. Mrs. Davis, 
 a sweet faced matronly woman, gave kind sal- 
 utation and conducted me to the parlor and 
 brought in Evan Roberts. He gave me a 
 warm, a typical Welsh greeting and began at 
 once to tell of deep experiences in that room 
 away from the world, with Jesus and His 
 word. Said he, "Satan has been wrestling with 
 me for many days but through Christ I have 
 overcome and have the sweetest joys and ho- 
 liest experiences of my life. This morning I 
 rose early and went with Christ into the lone- 
 liness and agonies that He suffered for me. 
 O, we do not realize how much Jesus has done 
 for us, and how near he is to us each hour. 
 He is with me this very moment. I feel it. 
 I know it." He arose and as he spoke he clasp- 
 ed my hand and held it tightly in his grasp 
 while he poured forth rich experiences with 
 
298 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Christ, as the tears rolled down his cheeks ; he 
 then broke forth into a strain of thankfulness, 
 gratitude and rejoicing. 
 
 I said to him "could you not give me, in a 
 single sentence the secret of what you be- 
 lieve to be your power with God and man, that 
 I may use it in America to stir men to glorify 
 Christ?" Closing his eyes and clasping his 
 hands, he opened them quickly, "I have it." 
 "I am with thee;" claim and appropriate this 
 promise, it is the source of service and power. 
 "Christ with you, surrender ev'ry sin and self 
 ambition and make every moment of your life 
 emphasize these words: Tn His name/ 'For 
 His sake.' " When he repeated these words, "I 
 am with thee, in His name, for His sake," they 
 seemed to fill the atmosphere and stand out 
 like a blazing flame in the sky on a starless 
 night. 
 
 These words have continued sounding in my 
 soul ever since: "I am with thee, in His name, 
 for His sake." Said he: "He is with you to 
 comfort, to strengthen, to guide, to give wit- 
 nessing power." 
 
 I insisted that he come to America, that he 
 come with me on the Baltic and spend a month 
 at Delmar. He closed his eyes and clasped his 
 hands. In a few minutes he said : "I have no an- 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 299 
 
 swer. I could not go unless the Spirit leads, 
 but I hope to be led to America later on. If 
 so, I will come to St. Louis first." 
 
 After being with him an hour and a half, 
 Miss Anna Davis, a young lady of nineteen, of 
 fine figure with a beautiful sincere face, came 
 in and said, "Mr. Roberts, we must start." I 
 found they were going to Cardiff, the same place 
 for which I was bound. We took a compartment 
 and traveled together. 
 
 At the stations crowds of people and a num- 
 ber of reporters gathered about him, but to all 
 he said, "I have nothing to say." It is said 
 Miss Anna Davis is some day to be Mrs. Rob- 
 erts. If so he will have a worthy helpmate. 
 
 Evan Roberts is a prodigy in spiritual in- 
 sight. From a tram driver in the coal mines 
 he went to the blacksmith shop. Feeling called 
 of God to pray for the salvation of Wales, he 
 spent many hours each day for more than a 
 year in secret prayer to God before making 
 known to men the passion of his life. 
 
 He is young, smooth face, only twenty- 
 seven, yet within the past year he has awak- 
 ened Wales, and his influence has reached the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. In Wales alone 
 one hundred and fifty-two thousand have made 
 profession of faith in Christ and united with 
 
300 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 the churches. Forty-one thousand of them are 
 now baptized believers in Baptist churches. 
 
 Tfye interest continues and many are still be- 
 ing added. Thousands of apparently worth- 
 less and thoughtless men have been transform- 
 ed into zealous followers of Christ and worthy 
 citizens. The police courts are without occu- 
 pation, and the saloons are deserted. This re- 
 ligious movement is one of the most striking 
 and effective in the history of Christianity. 
 
 On former visits to Europe, my thought and 
 attention were given largely to Cathedrals, 
 Museums. Art Galleries and places of historic 
 interest: this time more to people and condi- 
 tions. 
 
 Ten days of my six weeks stay in London, 
 I was entertained in the home of Hon. Albert 
 Spicer, M. P. The family life in this elegant 
 home was ideal. The evidence of generations 
 of gentle breeding and culture was apparent. 
 The members of the household were numerous, 
 there being eleven children and a dozen ser- 
 vants. They were all cheerful and joyous, but 
 gentle in word and action. There was not a 
 harsh note to mar the beautiful harmony of 
 the family circle during my stay. The scene 
 at the family altar every morning was elevat- 
 ing, impressive, sweet. The father read the 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 301 
 
 Scripture, the family, including all the servants, 
 joined in a hymn of praise, followed by prayer 
 led by the father, closing with the Lord's pray- 
 er in which all joined. 
 
 My host being a member of parliament gave 
 me entree to the House of Lords and Com- 
 mons. In listening to the speeches in both 
 Houses, also to leading preachers in Lon- 
 don, I was impressed by the marked 
 difference in the manner of public speak- 
 ing in England and America. There it 
 is Platonic, didactic, conversational, the 
 Oxford style. Not once did I hear the 
 oratorical, or grandiloquent so often heard 
 here, both from pulpit and platform. A happy 
 medium would be advantageous to both. The 
 English manner induces thought and reflec- 
 tion, while the American arouses enthusiasm 
 and action. 
 
 The Tories still hold the reins of govern- 
 ment. While I was there the Liberals gained a 
 victory, Balfour refused to resign, but in the next 
 election the Liberals will win overwhelmingly 
 as the passive resistance movement of England 
 and Wales has been practically made a plank 
 in their platform. 
 
 It was gratifying to see the growing favor 
 in the hearts of the people for King Edward. 
 
302 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 On a former visit, ten years ago, there was a 
 misgiving as to how the sportive prince would 
 conduct himself on his accession to the throne. 
 There was a fear that he would lack wisdom, 
 dignity, and grace sufficient for the exalted 
 place. He has shown himself fully equal to the 
 demands of the high position. He spends vir- 
 tually all of his salary of two and a quarter 
 million dollars in the interest of his country 
 and people. He paid the expense of entertain- 
 ing the French navy at Cowes recently, 
 some $200,000. This meeting stimulated feelings 
 of friendship, displacing those of enmity be- 
 tween the English and French, and was the 
 first of that nature since the battle of Water- 
 loo. 
 
 Thinking of this growing friendship between 
 England and France I was impressed with the 
 changes made by modern achievement. I left 
 London at 4 p. m. arriving in Paris at 10, six 
 hours. We crossed the English channel in one 
 and a half hours, the great steamer defying the 
 billows of its fateful waters. 
 
 While in Paris I was told by a distinguished 
 guide that 75 per cent, of the tourists in con- 
 tinental Europe were from America. Twenty- 
 five per cent, from all the rest of the world. 
 I noticed increased attention and respect for 
 
OBSERVATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. 303 
 
 Americans in evidence everywhere. President 
 Roosevelt is now the best known man in Eu- 
 rope. The editorials of the leading papers of 
 England, France and Germany are as eulogis- 
 tic of Mr. Roosevelt as those of the American 
 press. Our President is to-day easily the first 
 man of the world. 
 
 Returning I was gratefully impressed with 
 the advanced conditions of ocean travel. Ten 
 years ago I was thirty-one days on the ocean, 
 and thirty of them as sick as Mark Twain's 
 Judge, but had not an uneasiness on this trip. 
 The modern floating palace with all the com- 
 forts of our best hotels, now plows the ocean 
 impervious to storm. The Baltic on which I 
 returned cost four million dollars, and when 
 she drops into the ocean loaded, displaces forty 
 thousand tons of water, and when she starts it 
 is as if eighty thousand horses were linked to her 
 each pulling his best. 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 
 
 Address: 
 Missouri Baptist General Association 
 Wabbensbueg. Mo.j 
 October 24, 1905. 
 
XXIV. 
 WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 
 
 I recently read the story of a big hearted 
 man who determined to reform the world. When 
 he approached the task he concluded he would 
 best first make his dream a reality in his own 
 country. But the task was still too large, so 
 he determined to start with his own family; 
 here he found something still lacking, and real- 
 ized if he would succeed in reforming the world 
 he must first put the household of his own 
 heart in order. 
 
 My plea is for Missouri Baptists to put their 
 own state in order; to see that the gospel of 
 Christ is preached to every man, woman and 
 child within her borders; to appreciate the 
 high privilege, and seize the golden opportu- 
 nity of winning their own state to God. 
 
 Our times are giving great inventions that 
 are setting the wheels of the world spinning. 
 Within a few short years forces have been set 
 in motion that have changed the face of the 
 earth and revolutionized the history of the 
 world. 
 
 These discoveries, together with our great 
 natural resources, free institutions, and the 
 character and energy of our people, have made 
 
 3 o7 
 
3 o8 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 America the head servant in God's household 
 of nations. 
 
 Mixed blood of the Caucasian race has al- 
 ways been the most hardy and enterprising. 
 Americans are the most thoroughly mixed peo- 
 ple the world has ever seen. In the midst of 
 the hardiest, the most powerful of earth's na- 
 tions, stands Missouri, the central, the pivotal 
 state. 
 
 With boundless resources and a progressive 
 spirit, Missouri is rapidly advancing in mater- 
 ial and intellectual wealth. Shall we, the Bap- 
 tists of this fair state, do our utmost to make 
 her spiritual progress keep pace with her ma- 
 terial ? 
 
 Brethren, we should not rest on the thought 
 that there is little mission work to do in our 
 beloved state. There are more than two mil- 
 lion people within her borders who have not 
 accepted Christ as Savior, and her natural in- 
 crease is being reinforced annually by thou- 
 sands from other countries. Over a million 
 foreigners will land on American soil the pres- 
 ent year and of these thousands are making 
 their way to Missouri. 
 
 What of the future of this imperial common- 
 wealth? Who is to control it people, its 
 wealth, its forces, God or Satan? 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 309 
 
 Ours is a Christian state. Churches and 
 Christian influences are growing in Missouri, 
 but evils are growing also. Friends, I do not 
 believe there is a more important work for 
 Missourians than winning their own state to 
 God. 
 
 Patriotism and pride in one's own state are 
 a basic virtue of high citizenship. If we would 
 have for our children environs that make for 
 righteousness and happiness, if we would hand 
 down unsullied the blessings we enjoy, we 
 must meet the strangers coming to our doors 
 with the gospel, we must throw out the life- 
 line not only to them, but to the rapidly grow- 
 ing home born children who are crowding into 
 the ranks of our social and industrial life. 
 
 If Cicero was right when he said a grateful 
 heart was the greatest virtue, and the mother 
 of all virtues, then the Missourian deeply sins 
 who is ungrateful to his God for placing him 
 in this state of beauty and bounty. 
 
 Jesus said to His disciples, "Begin at Jerusa- 
 lem," and again, "Go home to thy friends and 
 tell them what the Lord hath done for thee." 
 Missouri is our home and here are our friends. 
 
 Missouri is a pivotal state in the world of 
 religion as well as that of commerce and fi- 
 nance. Our peculiar position as related to 
 
3 io THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 North, South, East and West, and to our great 
 missionary boards, gives us an unique and po- 
 tent position in the religious world. In a meas- 
 ure Missouri is in a position to influence the 
 spiritual welfare of the nation more than any 
 other state. 
 
 I appeal to the laymen of Missouri to take 
 a stronger hand in redeeming the people of 
 their own state. If the great army of laymen 
 of the Baptist churches of the state will make 
 the saving of their neighbors the passion of 
 their lives, the problem of our state evangeli- 
 zation will be solved. 
 
 The church in London that is doing the most 
 effective work in saving men, has fifty laymen 
 who not only give of their means, but give 
 themselves as witnesses for Christ. Many of 
 them speak to groups of listeners on the greens 
 of London and are leading hundreds to Jesus. 
 We do not need great preachers in Missouri, 
 so much as great laymen who will talk face to 
 face to men about the saving Christ. 
 
 John Wanamaker, one of the greatest mer- 
 chants of America, employing ten thousand 
 people, selling annually at retail thirty million 
 dollars' worth of goods, is equally great as a 
 layman witnessing for Christ. With his great 
 mercantile enterprise he carries along his du- 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 311 
 
 ties to the great enterprise of God's kingdom. 
 In 1876, nearly thirty years ago, I was in his 
 great store, also the Sunday school in which he 
 was a teacher. His earnest words on that Sab- 
 bath morning made an impression on my 
 young heart that influenced my after life. I 
 was again in Philadelphia last week and found 
 he was still teaching the Sunday school class 
 that had grown to two thousand, the largest in 
 the world. The State Sabbath School Asso- 
 ciation of Pennsylvania of which he is pres- 
 ident was holding its forty-first anniversary 
 meeting. I heard him make a simple, earnest 
 plea for the extension of the work and within 
 a few moments twenty thousand dollars were 
 subscribed for the purpose. 
 
 The magnet that draws to Christ is not great 
 intellectual ability, nor phenomenal exper- 
 iences, but the love of one man's heart for an- 
 other. I plead for personal service and the 
 larger giving of self to the saving of souls. 
 
 The larger gifts of our denomination are 
 going into channels of philanthropy and ed- 
 ucation. It is high time for a larger portion 
 of our prayers, tears, time and gifts to be pour- 
 ed into state mission work. Nothing will take 
 the place of evangelism. Education and cul- 
 ture are good, but of little value without Christ 
 in the heart. 
 
312 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Missourians who are blest with the genius of 
 accumulating should remember that they owe 
 something to the state that gave them the op- 
 portunity for winning success. While sani- 
 tariums and educational institutions are of in- 
 estimable value, they should not darken our 
 vision for soul saving. Healing, feeding, cloth- 
 ing, and educating people will not save them. 
 The Christianizing of Missouri is the aim of 
 our State Mission Board, and with the achiev- 
 ing of this, the political and commercial forces 
 of what we call the world will co-operate in 
 a certain measure. Great corporations are rec- 
 ognizing more and more the value of Chris- 
 tian character in men they employ, and today 
 the avenues for reaching the industrial armies 
 of our cities are open to the gospel messen- 
 gers, and next w^eek when Drs. Chivers and 
 Woelfkin begin their work of evangelism in 
 St. Louis, they will find the doors of our cor- 
 porations open to them. 
 
 The great industrial army w T hich now forms 
 so large an element in our state must come un- 
 der the sway of the kingdom where love is 
 law. 
 
 Winning Missouri to God ! What an inspir- 
 ing vision ! What a stirring purpose ! A lofty 
 purpose becomes an inspiration and feeds all 
 high aspirations. 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 313 
 
 Missouri Baptists need what the plant has, 
 the innate law of upward growth, an affinity for 
 the light, a tendency toward the sun. All this 
 is found in a noble aim, and where that strikes 
 deep root it will struggle toward its object with 
 strength and constancy. A purpose can ac- 
 complish nothing without action, and action 
 little without plan. Therefore we must plan 
 larger things for state missions; men who are 
 giving tens must give twenties, and fifties; 
 men who are giving hundreds must give thou- 
 sands. 
 
 If we win Missouri for Christ, politics will 
 reform, our city and state governments will 
 dissolve partnership with iniquity, business 
 strike hands with honesty, labor and capital 
 become friends and our state become happy 
 and content. 
 
 Let me make a special plea for our city of 
 St. Louis. One of the most pathetic incidents 
 in the life of Christ was His weeping over the 
 city of Jerusalem. In His triumphal march 
 when the city came in view, like a flash the vis- 
 ion of its woe and shame spread before Him, 
 and He wept over it. In the spirit of Christ 
 His disciples today are weeping over cities as 
 they behold their needs and sorrows. 
 
314 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 Advancing civilization has not banished 
 from the city its woe, nor diminished its shame. 
 There is but little change in cities since the 
 Psalmist three thousand years ago testified: 
 "Wickedness is in the midst thereof, deceit 
 and guile depart not from her streets." 
 
 Here extremes meet: Dives and Lazarus 
 are brought face to face, the rich and the poor 
 meet and appeal to God the maker of both. The 
 wretched tenement house and the squalid hut 
 of poverty contain no monopoly on sin and suf- 
 fering. The gray stone mansion and the bril- 
 liantly illumined palace have their sins and 
 sorrows and need a Savior. Lindell Boulevard, 
 Portland Place and Westmoreland need Jesus 
 as sadly as does the river front. 
 
 The congestion in cities multiplies wicked- 
 ness by increasing facilities and opportunities 
 for crime. Association is recognized as a tre- 
 mendous power for good; but it is as great a 
 power for evil. 
 
 St. Louis is the nerve center of Missouri. 
 It contains nearly one-fourth of its population 
 and one-third of its wealth. In this concentra- 
 tion of wealth is the centering of business. St. 
 Louis does not produce, but manufactures the 
 products from many of the communities of the 
 state. It is the depot for accumulating and 
 
 
WINNING MISSOURI TO GOD. 315 
 
 redistributing the surplus and manufactured 
 product. It thus becomes the magnet drawing 
 to itself the ability of the state. The develop- 
 ment of business brains leads active men to 
 the city in answer to the law of supply and de- 
 mand. 
 
 Social and educational advantages also draw 
 many to the city, and the unemployed move to 
 the city in the hope of rinding employment or 
 an easier and more idle life. 
 
 With this steady inflow from all parts of the 
 state making closer the tie between city and 
 country, ought not we to see that the environs 
 of this incoming tide shall be such as will make 
 for righteousness? 
 
 Temptations to evil are many and active in 
 the city; the saloon, the low theatre, and houses 
 of shame are wide open, ever enticing all to 
 drink of their poison. 
 
 The remedy is not good government-clubs, 
 moral reforms, prohibition crusades, nor so- 
 cialistic schemes. The very best of these heal 
 but slightly. All human means are destined 
 to fail. The divine remedy is the gospel. The 
 only power that can save the city is the power 
 that can save a soul. If moral reformation will 
 not save a soul, neither will it save a city. 
 
316 THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR. 
 
 In spite of the fact that all the denominations 
 are building up great churches in St. Louis, the 
 awful fact remains that the masses are dying 
 without Christ. 
 
 The problem of city missions is the greatest 
 that taxes the mind and moves the heart of the 
 church of Christ to-day. 
 
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