"HOW SHALL WE FIRE THEM WITH THE MISSIONARY 
 
 194) PASSION AND MAKE THEM LEADERS OF fy 
 . MISSIONARY CHURCHES | Ay 
 
 
 
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 PRESENTED AT THE 
 
 ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 NEW YORK, APRIL 28, 1900 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL, D.D. 
 
 President of Union Theological Seminary 
 Printed by permission 
 
 The Board of Foreign {Missions 
 
 REFORMED CHURCH BUILDING, 25 EAsT 22D STREET, NEW YORK 
 ff 1900 
 

 
THE YOUNG MEN OF THE FUTURE MINISTRY 
 
 HOW SHALL WE FIRE THEM WITH THE MISSIONARY 
 PASSION AND MAKE THEM LEADERS OF 
 MISSIONARY CHURCHES 
 
 PRESENTED AT THE 
 
 ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 NEW YORK, APRIL 28, tg00 
 
 BY 
 
 REV; COAREESS@U LH BER ISD ALES. Dy: 
 
 President of Union Theological Seminary 
 
 Printed by permission 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions 
 REFORMED CHURCH BUILDING, 25 EAST 22D STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 1900 
 
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THE YOUNG MEN OF THE FUTURE MINISTRY. 
 
 According to the New Testament standard, the passion 
 of a Christlike love for human lives is a greater thing than 
 eloquence, knowledge, or faith. “If I speak with the 
 tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am 
 become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I 
 have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all 
 knowledge, and if I have faith so as to remove moun- 
 tains, but have not love, I am nothing.”” The passion of a 
 Christlike love for human lives develops in the soul of a 
 Christian disciple from the presence in himself of powers 
 and activities that reflect the mind of Christ. These are: 
 Clear vision of the world, deep feeling toward ABs world, 
 actual effort for the world. 
 
 Our Lord saw all human life clearly. He saw the world 
 as itis. No mists of optimism deceived Him—no veils 
 of pessimism blinded Him. While taking note of every 
 local interest, while loving and toiling for the individual, 
 ever with clear eyes He saw the world, loved of God, cursed 
 by sin, groaning and travailing for redemption. 
 
 And with this clear vision of all human life our Lord 
 joined the deep feelings of perfect appreciation and divine 
 compassion, What He saw He felt. Upon His own holy 
 soul He bore the griefs and carried the sorrows of human- 
 ity. The sighing of the prisoner came up before Him, 
 and the cry of the oppressed was in His ears. When He 
 beheld the city He wept over it. He had compassion on 
 the multitude because they were as sheep without a shep- 
 herd. With unwavering face He turned toward Jerusalem 
 
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 that He might be lifted up and draw all men unto Him- 
 self. 
 
 And to this clear vision of the world and this deep feel- 
 ing toward the world our Lord added actual effort for the 
 world. His sorrow was not the impotent lament of one 
 who fain would do, yet cannot. His burden was not the 
 crushing burden of pessimism. It was the weight of the 
 Sacrificial Cross. It was the Mediatorial burden. For 
 the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, 
 despising the shame. He came not to lament but to re- 
 deem. Hecame not to be ministered unto but to min- 
 ister, and to give His life a ransom for many. 
 
 And out of this holy triad of powers, His clear vision 
 of the world, His deep feeling toward the world, His ac- 
 tive effort for the world, issues the passion of His love for 
 human lives —the love of Christ which passeth knowl- 
 edge; the love which for us to know is for us to be filled 
 with all the fullness of God. No conception within the 
 range of human intelligence is so magnificent as this — 
 the love of Christ for man; the boundless, fathomiess, 
 deathless love of the Son of God. 
 
 It is this conception that underlies the theme which 
 engages our attention. We are attempting to answer this 
 question: How shall we fire the young men of the future 
 ministry with the missionary passion? How make them 
 leaders of missionary churches ? 
 
 The minister of Christ must have the spirit of Christ or 
 he is none of His. ‘If any man have not the spirit of 
 Christ he is none of His.’’ He may speak with the tongues 
 of men and of angels, but if he have not the passion of a 
 Christlike love he has not the spirit of Christ. He may 
 have all knowledge, he may have a faith that could move 
 mountains, but if he have not the passion of a Christlike 
 love, he has not the spirit of Christ. 
 
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 To ask, therefore, how we shall fire with missionary 
 passion the young men of the future ministry is to ask 
 not how shall we add unto them something beyond and 
 additional to their ministerial training, but how we shall 
 make them true ministers of the Lord Jesus. For with- 
 out the missionary passion they are not able ministers of 
 the New Testament. They are disabled, deficient, half- 
 equipped. They lack the fullness of the spirit of Christ. 
 
 The problem of the divinity school is this: Not how to 
 train an occasional man for the foreign field, but how to 
 kindle the missionary passion in every man that passes 
 through the school that he may thereby become an able 
 minister of Christ. For if, as Canon Edmonds said in his 
 address on the translation of the Holy Scripture, “the 
 missionary idea is conquering the life of the churches,” 
 then the missionary idea must conquer the life of every 
 man who proposes to enter the ministry of the churches, 
 whether abroad or at home. In the last analysis it is a 
 secondary consideration whether any individual student 
 in the divinity school has volunteered for service abroad. 
 The primary and essential thing is that there shall be 
 within the school a sacred altar of missionary passion, 
 whereat the torch of every man shall be kindled and the 
 lip of every man shall be touched with the living coal. 
 
 This conception of the life of the divinity school as a 
 life transfused and saturated with the spirit of missions is 
 founded upon two practical needs, — the need of the man 
 who, possibly, may have the gifts for service abroad ; the 
 need of the man who may enter the pastorate at home. 
 
 As for the man who, possibly, may have gifts for service 
 abroad: it is his need, it is his right, to have an atmosphere 
 about him that shall promote the deep self-discovery 
 which may lead him to volunteer; or that shall stablish, 
 strengthen, and settle the purpose formed in college days 
 
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 to do his life work upon the foreign field. The divinity 
 school should be hot with the zeal for evangelization ; it 
 should be radiant with the appreciation of missionary 
 heroism ; it should be alert and eager for contact with the 
 living workers ; it should be charged with solemn anxiety 
 for the world’s condition, so that no man can live within 
 its walls without facing for himself the vital issue: “Is 
 it Christ’s will for me that I go forth to serve Him in the 
 regions beyond?” 
 
 As for the man who shall enter the pastorate at home: 
 he cannot be an able minister of the Lord Jesus until his 
 torch has been kindled at this altar, his lip touched with 
 this living coal. Deny him this access in the days of his 
 ministerial training, fail to provide him with the world- 
 wide interest, neglect to teach him how to lift up his eyes 
 and look upon the white harvest fields of the world, omit 
 to conquer him with the missionary idea, and he goes 
 forth to his life work lagging behind the eager spirit of 
 his time, shackled with disadvantage, condemned in an 
 age of catholicity to lead a life of provincialism. 
 
 If he has not found within his training school the at- 
 mosphere that feeds the missionary passion, if in his im- 
 maturity and inexperience he has been suffered to pass 
 through and pass out into the active ministry ignorant of 
 the mighty world of missions, he has been robbed of 
 his birthright. For this knowledge, this atmosphere,’this 
 impulse belong to him in his own name and in the name 
 of the Church he seeks to serve. 
 
 He requires it for himself that he may become a man 
 of vision, a man of large and powerful conceptions, a man 
 of capacity to inspire others; he requires it for himself 
 to protect him against a dry scholasticism, to advance him 
 beyond intolerance and emhittered partisanship, to lift him 
 above feeble, petty, and trivial ambitions, disputes, and 
 
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 jealousies ; he requires it for himself to make him great in 
 sympathy, meek and lowly in heart, apostolic in his view of 
 Christ and Christianity. 
 
 He requires this missionary passion not for himself 
 alone, but in the name of the Church he seeks to serve. 
 For four great functions belong to him who in the Chris- 
 tian pastorate of these latter days expresses the relation of 
 the ministry at home to missions abroad. 
 
 It is his to overcome the resistance of uninstructed 
 prejudice. In the mighty consensus of this Conference 
 it requires effort to realize that in any Christian heart 
 there can be resistance of Foreign Missions. Yet such 
 resistance on the part of some has come within our obser- 
 vation ; a resistance negative rather than positive, born of 
 misapprehension and the lack of knowledge. God grant 
 that the vast influences radiating from this Christian 
 gathering may help to dissolve the last vestiges of that 
 strange, unreasoning antagonism ! 
 
 It is his to awaken the attention of apathetic minds, 
 which, content with the form rather than the life of Chris- 
 tianity, are blinded by local religious interests to the 
 larger questions of the world’s evangelization. This 
 apathy can be broken. The same keen interest that 
 springs to the realization of political events can be awak- 
 ened toward the facts of the kingdom of Christ. But the 
 man who thus conquers others must himself first be con- 
 quered and set on fire of God. 
 
 It is to educate the Church’s intelligence. Knowledge 
 is the true and substantial basis of an interest in missions. 
 Vague perceptions of duty may help a flagging interest to 
 survive, but the zeal that endures, the zeal that grows, the 
 zeal that rises to the level of consecration is the zeal that 
 is according to knowledge. The educational function of 
 the missionary pastor cannot be over-stated. He must 
 
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 mediate between a great but little known literature and 
 a community of minds not likely to come under its influ- 
 ence except through his leadership. 
 
 It is to raise at home supplies for the church abroad ; to 
 find the means that shall maintain the work of God. The 
 far-off workers at the front depend upon him to cooperate 
 with them by maintaining their supplies. He is a mis- 
 sionary as well as they, for the effects of his influence are 
 telling on the maintenance of evangelization. By his ac- 
 ceptance of the pastorate he accepts an implied obligation 
 to codperate with those who are face to face with heathen- 
 ism. To place a man in the pastorate in whom there is 
 not the missionary passion is a twofold disaster: it breaks 
 faith with those who have gone to the front, believing that 
 the leaders of the church at home will keep pace with 
 their advance ; it occupies the place of a better equipped 
 man, who, having that passion, might stir a whole com- 
 munity to acts of sacrifice. 
 
 These considerations bring before us the relation of the 
 divinity school to world-wide missions. The question now 
 under discussion — How shall we fire the young men of 
 the future ministry with the missionary passion ?— is al- 
 ready in process of solution, and it is not impossible to 
 show the main lines along which that solution is destined 
 to advance. 
 
 The study of missions is slowly rising to the rank of a 
 theological discipline. That it has not done so sooner is 
 not altogether so strange as at first appears. The litera- 
 ture of missions is comparatively a modern literature, and 
 recognition of its importance has not been unduly delayed. 
 The church is making her modern evangelistic history so 
 rapidly and abundantly that it is but time to begin to feel 
 the thrilling effects of that history reacting upon the divin- 
 ity school. At many points that most salutary reaction 
 
9 
 
 is taking place and the study of missions is finding its 
 appropriate rank and proportion, while the opulent and 
 splendid literature of missions is pouring into the library, 
 It will soon be impossible in all the divinity schools that 
 seek to keep pace with the times for a man to pass 
 through his course of training without having the world- 
 wide point of view, without seeing the world-wide vision, 
 unless he rejects it for himself, and shuts his eyes 
 against it. The contact of living missionary workers with 
 the divinity school life shall become frequent and _inti- 
 mate. The realism of missions shall demonstrate itself to 
 many who once had but a speculative interest therein. 
 The philosophical aspects of missions shall appear in the 
 light of the modern literature, and the whole subject of 
 missions in its largest and noblest relations shall take its. 
 place in the curriculum beside the study of ancient lan- 
 guages, of Church history, of the doctrines of faith. 
 
 But the study of missions as a discipline of the divinity 
 school cannot by itself bring to pass that setting on fire of 
 the future ministry with the missionary passion. 
 
 I see other forces at work which make for that glorious. 
 end. 
 
 I see developing at many points a new conception of the 
 ministry. It must attract toward it many of the most gifted 
 and consecrated of our young men. The college and the 
 seminary are drawing closer together. The study of 
 missions in the colleges is bringing out a type of man- 
 hood which is full of heroic beauty, enthusiasm, and faith. 
 The under-graduate is studying the world to-day as never 
 before, is feeling in his fresh young heart the thrill of the 
 new conceptions of applied Christianity, is realizing Christ’s 
 love and Christ’s present salvation for the world in terms 
 of reality. And in many a college to-day is found the 
 very flower of our youth to whom the ministry appears, 
 
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 not as areserved and gloomy world of ecclesiastical techni- 
 calities, but as the King’s own highway to joyful and 
 abundant service. 
 
 I see a spirit developing among our young men that 
 portends a vast accession of missionary enthusiasm for 
 the ministry of the future. The Lord Jesus Christ is 
 manifesting Himself in His Absolute Godhead, in His 
 Availing Atonement, in His Enlightening Word, to a 
 great company of our most educated and most gifted 
 youths. Personal consecration for personal service is a 
 conception of living that grows more and more attractive 
 to a multitude of our finest minds; and out of this class 
 of minds shall be gathered the ministry of the future. 
 
 It shall be a ministry devoted to the highest scholarship 
 and to the most fearless search for truth: looking upon 
 the culture of the mind as no foe to spirituality of life. 
 
 It shall be a Christ-filled ministry: beholding the glory 
 of God in the face of Jesus Christ ; worshiping Him with 
 the enthusiasm of an absolutely fearless affection, and 
 presenting Him as the only Name given under heaven 
 whereby men must be saved. 
 
 It shall be a Biblical ministry: holding fast the faithful 
 Word and preaching that Word as the one great, sufficient 
 message and revelation of God to man. 
 
 It shall be a missionary ministry: full of passion to re- 
 deem ; clear-eyed to discover the ongoing of Christ’s work ; 
 faithful in its stewardship at home and abroad; apostolic 
 in its assurance that Christ has ordained it to bear much 
 fruit; apostolic in its eagerness to spread far and wide 
 the Gospel of the Risen and Ascended Lord; apostolic in 
 its blessed hope that that Unseen and Crowned Saviour 
 shall surely come again. 
 

 
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