THE Supreme Business OF THE Church Delivered Before the North Carolina and Virginia Christian Conference and Published by Its Reguest By PRESIDENT W. A. HARPER Elon Collate, N. C. THE Supreme Business OF THE Chur eli IN THREE PARTS Delivered Before the North Carolina and Virginia Christian Conference and Published by Its Request By PRESIDENT W. A. HARPER Elon College, N. C. Southern Christian Publishing Co.. Elon College, N. C. “Foreign Missions, therefore, is not a side issue, the subject of an occasional ‘collection’ ; it is the SUPREME DUTY OF THE CHURCH, the main work of the Church.” — Arthur J. Brown PART I God’s Missionary Program for His Church WHY? Why should we give money to save the heathen abroad, when there are heathen iii our own eountry to save? There are other “whys” equally logical. Why should 1 give money to save those in other parts of the country, when there are needy ones in our own state? Why should I give for those in other parts of the state, when there are needy ones in my own town? Why should I give to the poor in the town, when my own Church needs the money? Why should I give to the Church, when niv own family wants it ? Why should 1 give to my family, when I want it myself? Why? — Because 1 am a Christian: not a heathen. — A. P. Upham. In a great Laymen's Missionary Movement Convention, which it was my privilege and pleasure to attend some two years since, many motives were assigned for carrying 3 the Gospel to the non-Christian world. The idea of man’s brotherhood was prominent in many addresses. The demands of philan- thropy appealed strongly to others. Even the gains resulting to commerce were offered as sufficient justification for the evangeliza- tion of the world. And in the vast library of missionary literature today coming from the presses of the great publishing houses all these motives and many others are given commensurate elaboration. But the one cen- tral motive advanced in the great convention to which reference has been made and in all the books that now gladden the Christian world is God’s own plan in the matter. This viewpoint is central, fundamental, illuminat- ing. To the members of the Christian Church, one of whose cardinal principles teaches that the Holy Bible is sufficient rule of faith and practice, this motive should naturally make a most powerful and convincing appeal. What, then, does the Bible teach is respect to missions? Does God really wish His Church to be a missionary Church? Has He a missionary program for it? Let us with due reverence and humility open His Word and search for guidance in answering these vital questions. It seems to me that the very first verse of the Bible makes it plain that God intends His Church to be a missionary body. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’’ (Gen. 1:1). Why did God create the heaven and the earth? It was that lie might glorify Himself in this act and reveal 4 His fatherly care for all His creatures — not a part of them. The petty nations surrounding the He- brews had tribal Gods. All the great nations of antiquity had gods — but they had grown from tribal to national gods, and were inter- ested in their own subjects only, a sufficient explanation this of the policy of extermina- tion practiced by every nation of antiquity that undertook to influence the current of world events. But here is a Deity who claims to have created all things — both heaven and earth. He is universal Sovereign and it is His will that all men should serve Him and acknowledge Him as King. But how? We get light on God’s method of winning the nations to Himself in the call of Abra- ham. Here are the words, simple in their grandeur, potentous in their import, world- wide, eternity-wide in their scope and em- brace, in which this first direct unfolding of God’s plan for His Church is stated: “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that 1 will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that eurseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3.) In this passage we see not only Abraham’s faith, but God’s design for the nations. He calls Abraham, not that He may bless and prosper him and make him great as an end, but as a means to a grander 5 eml, the blessing of all the families of the earth. And Abraham is called the father of the faithful, not because he left his father's house at God's call to go to a strange land — that was being done by all Bedouin chief- tains of his day without any divine call, but because he believed that God through him would bless all the families of the earth. Through this great man of faith, the first man chosen to shadow forth to us God’s missionary program for His children, we have been blessed. Is it God’s will that the blessing should cease with us? The very name that God gives himself when he calls Moses from Midian to lead His people from Egypt plainly indicates that He is no tribal or national Deity, but the only true God, and, if the only true God, then the God of all nations and of each indi- vidual human being, and that His Will will never be accomplished in the world till at His name every knee shall bow. “I am that I am,” said God to Moses, and you shall say that “I Am hath sent me.” Moses could never after that think of Jehovah as other than the God of the universe, and of the Israelites as the chosen race through whom He would reveal Himself to the world. When the law was given by the Lord to Moses at Sinai, God not only gives definite statement to His sovereignty over the He- brew race in the first four commandments, but makes it perfectly plain that these com- mandments applied as much to other nations as to the Hebrew, when he forbids Sabbath desecration to the ‘‘stranger that is within 6 thy gates,” for these strangers were those of other nations intermingling with the Ho- brews. If the law was intended for the nations, surely God wished the nations to be won to obedience to this law. It was as difficult, however, for the Jews to understand their duty in this direction as it is for many Christians today to give for the extension of the Kingdom. Soon after Sinai was passed au in- stance of racial bigotry had to be severe- ly rebuked by God. Miriam and Aaron became jealous of Moses and his Cushite wife. Why should a Cushite woman have chief place in their social and religious life? So they complained. The Lord made Miriam a leper for this narrowness of heart. His Kingdom was wide enough for Israelite and Cushite and for all the nations besides. What is the book of Jonah, but God’s Spirit teaching the bigoted Jews that His Kingdom is wider than their nation? How tender in its sentiment of all-embracing love is the conclusion of that book: ‘‘And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that can not discern between their right hand and their left hand and also many cattle?” (Jonah 4:11). Surely a God who is solic- itous for the welfare of cattle cares for the immortal souls of the heathen world. Shall God have to afflict us, as He did Jonah, to induce us to do His will, and will we be sullen when the heathen show signs of ac- cepting the Gospel because it will impose on us larger burdens to send it to them as Jonah did? God forbid! The book of Ruth is a missionary book through and through. The Moabites were a race whose corruption was so great as to merit annihilation and the commission had been given the Jews to exterminate them. Yet out of this hated and sentenced race God calls this beautiful character and be- cause of her sincerity of heart and purpose she is worthy to become the ancestor of His own Son. How tender her words to Naomi when given permission to return to her own people: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." (Ruth 1:16.) God could not refuse the privileges of His Kingdom to a convert as genuine as that, nor did the Hebrews. And from her exaltation among her adopted race, the chos- en race, that chosen race learned that God accepts all those who seek Him from right motives, whether Israel or Moabite or Cush- ite or what not. The prophets, both major and minor, are a unit in voicing the universality of Jeho- vah’s Kingdom and the duty of the chosen race to give all men a part in it. Isaiah could not conceive of God as limited to his race. II is Gospel is world-wide. “Look unto me," we find him preaching, “and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for 1 am God, and there is none else." (Isa. 45:22.) Jeremiah’s message is to the whole earth: “O Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of Jehovah." (Jer. 22:29.) Micah preaches of that glad 8 •lav when the Lord’s name shall be estab- lished on the mountain top, when all nations shall flow to it, and when “He will judge between many peoples, and will decide con- cerning strong nations afar off ; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-liooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Mic. 4:3.) Habakkuk, with prophetic vision, sees the spread of the Kingdom of God till “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” (Habakkuk 2:14), and Zechariah saw the same grand triumph of His domin- ion. Malachi takes up the refrain and fore- tells Kis greatenss among the Gentiles: “For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Mai. 1:11.) The Psalms, too, bear unmistakable testi- mony to the missionary teaching of the Old Testament. When people sing missions, you may be sure they believe in missions — for in our songs are found only the sincere as- pirations of the soul. “God be merciful un- to us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, that Thy way may be known upon the earth, Thy salvation among the nations.” (Psa. 67:1-2.) The people who could sing that sentiment and the hundred 9 other psalms breathing the same spirit, could not b'e other than missionary. And while there were always narrow Jews, just as today there are narrow Christians, there can be no doubt on the part of any student of his- tory that in the century preceding and in that following the Advent, the Jews were the greatest missionaries under the sun. Proselytes, their enemies called them, but they were bent on making Jehovah known to the ends of the earth, as their great preachers and prophets had declared it His will that they should do. When Christianity toward the end of the first century of our era had shown a power of winning the hearts of men that pure Judaism could not equal, they called in their missionaries and assumed the position of the chosen people, which they have retained until this day. Are we to infer that God took from them the leadership of the religious forces of the world because they ceased to give to others the light they had? Or was it the will of God that they who had rejected His Son should also be prohibited from propagating a partial revelation of the plan of salvation? Be these matters as they may, we cannot doubt that the entire spirit of the Old Tes- tament is missionary, for we see it in the universal creatorship of God announced in its opening words, in the name which He takes for Himself showing that He is all in all, in the law given at Sinai, in the Psalms and Prophets, in the books of Jonah and Ruth designed to transform Pharisees into missionaries, as well as in those inspiring 10 words spoken to the father of his race. “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. ’ ’ The missionary teaching of the Old Tes- tament has thus been set forth at length that it may be clearly seen that God in His Son Jesus Christ fulfilled His original design for the nations and that in this respect as in all others the Savior but fulfilled the Old Testament. It is generally conceded that Christ willed that the Gospel should be preached to all nations, but an examination of the specific teachings of the New Testa ment on this point can but strengthen our faith in God’s missionary program for us and so let us briefly inquire into it. The connecting link between the old and new dispensations is found in the book of Hebrews. The missionary teaching of this book is evident. We read: “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spok- en unto us in His Son. whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.’’ (Heb. 1:1-2.) The Son who made the world could not be just and wish Himself revealed to only a part of its inhabitants. And again we read in this book: “Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to 11 bondage.” (Heb. 2:14-15.) Since all men of every nation are ‘‘sharers in flesh and blood” and fear death, Christ came to de- liver every man of every nation under heav- en. The writer of this book in chapter seven shows that the priesthood existed and was ordained of the Most High God before the existence of the Hebrew race, and that Christ was priest after the order of Melchizedek and so a priest to all men. And to make it perfectly plain that all who have faith in God and His Son are to be saved of every nation, a Gentile, Raliab, is included in the roll-call of the faithful given in the eleventh chapter of this book. If Hebrews were the only book left us of the New Testament rec- ord, we should still be sure that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost in every nation. The principal writers of epistles in the New Testament are Paul, John and Peter. All of these were strict Jews; yet their mes- sage is a mighty chorus calling to mission- ary effort. Peter preached his great pente- costal sermon, offering salvation through re- pentance and faith in Jesus Christ, to ‘‘Par- thians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians.” (Acts 2:9-11.) And it was he who after the memorable housetop vision and the won- derful meeting in the home of Cornelius de- clared: ‘‘Of a truth I perceive that God is 12 no respecter of persons; but in every nation lie that feareth Him and worketh righteous- ness is accepted of Him.’’ (Acts 10:34-35.) Paul, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, believing most ardently in the bigoted view of the chosen race, this Paul becomes the greatest missionary to the Gentiles that the world has yet seen. Hear him as he sums up God’s missionary program for the world, in his matchless sermon delivered on Mars Hill: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, aud breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all na- tions of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and both determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation: that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, though He be not far from every one of us; for in Him we live, aud move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver, or stone, graven by art and man ’s device. And the times of this ignor- ance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained: whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath 13 raised Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:24-31.) Do you wonder that a preacher who believed that all men are of one blood, made so by God whose offspring they are, and that God commands all men to repent against His judgment day for the whole world, do you wonder that a preacher holding these articles of faith could be other than a missionary? And what of John, that son of thunder, who was anxious for a large place in God ’s King- dom, who would forbid a disciple to cast out demons because he did not flock with his own section of the Master’s followers, who was willing to call down fire from heaven on Samaritans who did not desire Christ to enter their village, what of him, bigoted, narrow Pharisee, high churchman that he was? Turn to the Revelation, where after fifty years of service and suffering for his Master, we find him writing: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue and people and nation.” (Rev. 5:9.) And again, “And the spirit and the bride say come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, say Come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22:17.) No bigoted, narrow, selfish Jew now, but a man of catholicity of life and heart and a missionary aflame with love for the entire world! But more than anywhere else do we see the missionary teaching of the New Testa- ment in our Master Himself. He Who came 14 from the portals of glory and took upon Himself the form of man, who had not where to lay his head, Whose entire life was devot- ed to doing good, — all, that you and I should enjoy the peace of God that passeth all un- derstanding, surely the force of His example and gratitude for His unspeakable benefit to our souls would compel us never to rest till His name and His salvation should be as freely given to all the world as it has been given to us. But He did not leave us the silent teaching of His example only — He wished that there should be no doubt about His mission to men. In the conversa- tion with Nicodemus He had said: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.’’ (John 3:16-17.) And when He, at His disciples’ request, taught them to pray, did He not therein reveal to them the brotherhood of man and God’s fatherhood, when they were instructed to address God as “Our Father”? And how could they pray, how can we today pray, ‘ ‘ Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” without believing in and practicing missions? Sure- ly if His followers denied the force of His life and example, they could not deny the binding duty of His positive statement. But the Master would not leave a single possibil- ity for misunderstanding, and so He gives His disciples and through them us that mem- 15 orable commandment to which reverent men have reverently given the title of the great commission. Hear Him, as He takes His de- parture from them in visible form, say to them: “All power is given unto Me in heav- en and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.’’ (Matt. 28:17-20.) Men and brethren, if we do not obey His command to teach the nations, all of them, His will concerning them, how can we claim a part in His sweet invitation, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 1 will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28.) Can we rightly claim a part in His precious promises to the Saints, when we deliberately refuse to do His will? Can Christians who will not or do not undertake God’s mission- ary program for His Church have the heart to expect of God the blessings designed for those who know His will and do it? Let us pray. Our Father, Who art in heaven, help us. Thy children, creatures of Thy hand, to trust Thee and Thy Son, Whom Thou didst send to save the world to Thyself, and to use the power He did promise us to make known Thy matchless love to the uttermost parts of the earth. Give us the spirit of the Cross, which is the spirit of missions, and prosper Thou our poor efforts on behalf of our fel- l(i lows ami hasten the day when every knee shall bow at the utterance of Thy name and every tongue shall praise Thee for salvation and everlasting life. And ever may the con- sciousness that unto us Thou hast entrusted this great work and at our hands dost require it, thrill us to undertake this duty and to faint not, knowing that a greater joy than we now know will come into our own hearts. Amen. 17 PART II An Adequate Missionary Policy In the Church The goal of history is the redemption of the world. Christians have believed it for nearly twenty centuries. They have not only believed it, they have sacrificed for it, many of them. Yet with all power in heaven and earth promised them in its prosecution, they have not succeeded in these twenty centuries in winning to the banner of the Cross, more than six hundred million persons, Protestant, Greek and Catholic communions combined. There are at least a thousand million souls who, after two millenniums of Christian ef- fort, have never heard the Gospel story. Itn’t it a shame? Yes, it is a shame, but it is a shame of such nature that we do not need' to hang our poor heads in discouragement, but to put forth every effort to remove its stigma. It is not a debatable question as to wheth- er we should undertake this unfinished task. Our marching orders are plain and unmis- takable. Christ commissioned us to the task and we cannot refuse it or postpone it and be loyal to Him. A Christian is a mission- ary or he is not a Christian at all, and Chris- 18 tians generally recognize this. The trouble with the Church in its missionary activities has been, not its unwillingness, but its lack of an adequate missionary policy. The flood of missionary literature now is suing from our presses, the almost innumer- able missionary conventions held in all parts of the world, and Christian leaders generally have been devoted in recent years to the working out of such a policy. To undertake in brief space to set forth all the methods that have been and are being emphasized in the practical application of the now gen- erally accepted policy would be to undertake the impossible, but it is not impossible even in brief compass to state the cardinal or basic principles of this policy, leaving the consecrated common sense of the individual workers in the churches to make the appli- cation to local conditions. These principles, constituting what may be regarded as an adequate missionary policy for the Church, are five in number and are all worthy the prayerful study of every for- ward-looking Christian, whether minister or layman. (A) Missionary Education It goes without saying that we cannot be interested in what we are ignorant of. The first condition of interest is knowledge, ac- quaintance with the facts. And this infor- mation should be all-inclusive. By this is meant that it should include a knowledge of what the Bible teaches in regard to the missionary obligation and then a knowledge 19 of the work in the mission fields today — ac- quaintance with what has been called the Modern Acts of the Apostles. I know no surer method of developing an abiding inter- est in missions than for the Christian to study the needs of foreign lands and what is actually being done to meet those needs, and the literature bearing on the subject is enormous, and increasing. To mention only one source of information, the eight volume report of the great Edinburgh, 1910, Con- vention, will turn any doubter into a zealot for the Cause. The local Church should not onlj' believe in the necessity of missionary education, but should diligently institute a system that will insure it. Every organization of the Church should be included in the system. The Sun- day-school should be made an effective sem- inary of missionary need, and can be by adopting in it the plans and methods set forth in such books as Hixson’s Missions in the Sunday School and Trull’s Missionary Methods for Sunday School Workers. This instruction should be systematically and in- telligently planned for all the grades and de- partments, so that by the time a pupil reaches the age of manhood he will be a missionary devotee. We have not paid enough attention to training up our children to be misionary in sentiment and practice. Let us learn a lesson from the great temperance wave now so wonderfully sweeping over our country. How does it come about that we are witnessing these glorious changes? The explanation is found in the fact that a gen- 20 eration ago we began studying ouce each quarter in our Sunday-schools the great ques- tion of temperance. It will be equally so with respect to missions. Rut this will necessitate teachers trained to teach missions, which in turn suggests the mission study class wherein such preparation may be had. It will not do to say that the teachers will not take such a course. They have done it elsewhere and they will do it in your Sunday-school if it is goue at prop- erly. There are numbers of pamphlets and books, which the mission board will procure for anyone desiring, which set forth fully how to proceed in this work. You can never do your full duty till you have examined this literature and applied its suggestions. The Christian Eudeavor Society, of all grades, should be and can be made an effec- tive and efficient medium of missionary prop- agation. Its missionary committee can be utilized for a wonderful awakening of mis- sionary interest, and its missionary prayer- meetings offer a rare opportunity for dissem- inating information and quickening zeal for the cause. There should certainly be a Women’s Mis- sionary Society and it should meet, not sim- ply to pay the monthly dues, but also to study the mission question in all its aspects. Likewise there should be a Laymen ’s Mis- sionary Movement Committee for the men, of which more will be said later. The pastor, of course, will be superlatively missionary and will preach missionary ser- mons and use missionary illustrations in his 21 other sermons just because he is so full of missions that he cannot keep from it. Too many preachers are afraid to talk missions, fearing their members will be offended or their salaries will be cut short. Which is better, to offend a few moss-back Church dig- nitaries and lose a little salary, or to offend the great Captain of our Salvation and lose your own soul? But it isn’t necessary to choose between these alternatives, because the best loved and best paid ministers aro those who preach missions and insist that their members do their full duty. There should also be provision for public exercises participated in by the Church mem- bership — a Laymen’s Rally Day, a Women’s Missionary Evening, a Children’s Missionary Exercise, and many others. Speakers from other Churches and especially returned mis- sionaries should be heard occasionally — all as a part of a thoroughly organized and specially planned missionary educational pol- icy. Such a policy in thorough working order over many years will generate such enthus- iasm for the world’s evangelization as we cannot now conceive of. (B) A Sense of Stewardship David Livingstone said, “J will place no value on anything 1 have or may possess, except in its relation to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” This great missionary had mastered the principle of stewardship so prominent in all the Scriptures. God’s own- ership of all material things is taught throughout the Bible. He is absolutely pro- 22 prietor. In the opening chapter of Genesis it is clear that all things are God’s by cre- ation. Abraham recognized it when he de- scribed God as the “possessor of heaven and earth.” (Gen. 14:22.) The writer in Chron- icles declares that “all that is in the heaven and earth is thine; thine is the Kingdom, O Lord.” (1 Chron. 29:11.) David sings, “The earth is the Lord’s and'the fullness thereof.” (Psa. 24:1.) And again, “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” (Psa. 50:10.) And Haggai declares: “The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. ” (Hag. 2: 8.) These and many other passages leave no shadow of uncertainty as to the real own- ership of wealth. God is owner. Men are His trustees, His stewards. As between man and man, we may say that a man owns, but not with reference to God — it is all His. But God’s ownership applies to more than property. He owns man himself, not merely his soul, but his hands and his feet and his tongue and his heart as well. This is a legitimate inference from His having cre- ated us, but many passages specifically state it, as: “What! know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6: 19-20.) If God owns us, body and spirit, surely He owns all that our body and spirit produce. But the Christian stewardship involves 23 more than material things and what we our- selves can produce. Paul says, ‘ ‘ A steward- ship of the Gospel is committed unto me.” (1 Cor. 9:17.) And if to Paul, then to you and to me. Peter declared that every Chris- tian is a ‘‘steward of the manifold grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10.) It is a much more serious thing to be a steward of the Gospel and of the manifold grace of God than of a million dollars. But what does Christian stewardship in- volve? We know that God owns the uni- verse, that it is rightly His. We know that we ourselves are Ilis by creation and by redemption.- But what does that ownership of His involve for us? It involves first of all faithfulness. ‘ ‘ Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” (1 Cor. 4:2.) If we are faithful in the dis- charge of our stewardship, we will make proper use of our Lord’s possessions. We will realize that we are tenants at His will and put forth every effort possible to return His own to Him with increase through faith- ful occupancy. We will also be glad to ren- der account to (Him when we shall come to the end of our stewardship, and will not fear, because the consciousness of duty well done will cast out fear. The Christian world needs to understand the tremendous meaning of its stewardship. It is freighted with eternal consequences and in it are the issues of life — even of the Christian life. We read in the early chapters of the Word of Abraham’s steward and find it said of him, ‘‘All the goods of his Master were in his hands.” 24 (Gen. 24:10.) It is even so with us today. All the goods of our Master are in our hands. Jesus Christ alone can save the world, but He cannot save the world alone. May God help us to help Him do His religious work and may such a sense of the duty of Chris- tian stewardship possess us and incite us to action as that we shall receive His com- mendation in the final hour of accountability before the great white throne! But how shall we get this sense of Chris- tian stewardship? By a program of educa- tion similar to that suggested for the incul- cation of missionary information. Shall we enter upon such a program? (C) The Practice of Scriptural Giving There will be no doubt or hesitation about the matter of the practice of Scriptural giv- ing, if Christians realize their stewardship relation to God. Stewardship includes giv- ing, but is much more comprehensive than giving. Some Christians feel that their duty is done when they give to the church and its enterprises, but this is not the teaching of the Scriptures. We are to give our money, to be sure, but first we are to give ourselves. We need the spirit of William Carey, who declared that his business was serving the Lord, but he cobbled shoes for a living. When we get a correct sense of our stewardship, we will not need to be begged to give to missions, for we will be seeking the privilege of giving for them, for we will be in love with them, and, while we may give without 25 loving, we cannot love without giving. Many Christians put on the light pedal when the matter of giving is mentioned and many ministers speak in subdued whispers when money is asked for, but preach with clarion tones of faith, hope, repentance, and other Christian doctrines and graces. Tn this they are not patterning after the Bible, which speaks more than twice as often of giving as of any other Christian duty. We should put first things first. Nay, have we any right to reverse the importance of things? The Old Testament teaches very plainly the duty of tithing and enjoined it upon the Levites as well as upon the people. The Jews also paid besides the annual tithe, two other tithes, — one for the feast of the taber- nacles and applying only to corn, wine, oil, and the increase of the flock; the other, the poor-tithe, which was laid on the land and payable every third year, and they were also encouraged fo make free will offerings be- yond these tithes, which the more spiritually- minded among them regularly did. The tithe antedates the Hebrew race, for we find Abra- ham paying tithes to Melehizedek and we know that many pagan religions required it. But there were always Jews as well as pag- ans who refused to do their duty in respect to giving. Do you wish to know what God considered such action? “Ye have robbed Me. But ye sav, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings.” (Mai. 3:8.) Have any of us been robbing God? If so, our condition is awful, for we read in the 26 very next verse: “Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed Me.” But someone objects that the tithe was done away with in the New Testament. There a new principle is given us. But this objection is fatal — for the objector will read- ily agree that the principle of the New Tes- tament is love, and surely a man will not do less for love than the law requires. But the objector is mistaken. Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. He says so Himself. If He had never directly com- mended tithe-paying, we would know that He endorsed it from the purpose of His com- ing. But He does specifically authorize it. In His woes pronounced on the Scribes and Phraisees, we find His plain command: “Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (Matt. 23:23.) The Pharisees were doing right to pay tithes and were commend- ed in tithing even the condiments of their table, for mint and anise and cummin cor- respond to our salt and pepper and mustard, but are condemned because they thought their Christian duty ended with paying the tithe. They needed to live Christian Stew- ardship and because they lived it not, Christ pronounced His woe upon them. To give without a sense of Christian Stewardship in giving, even to the minutest fulfillment of the law of tithing, is a hollow mockery with Christ. Woe to that man who does it! But wherein does the New Testament 27 teaching fulfill the tithing system enjoined by the law? It fulfills it in giving us a system that will make tithe-paying easy and that will develop our spiritual natures constantly. Here it is. Paul is the author of it. He was on his way to visit the churches of Asia and proposed to take an offering for the Jerusalem Church from their Corinthian brethren — a foreign mission offer- ing, this — but against his arrival sends the Corinthians instructions how the offerings for the Lord’s work should be taken: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as the Lord hath prospered him.’’ (1 Cor. 16:2.) This would keep the tithe-paying from being mechanical and cultivate the spirit of sacrifice constant- ly, which spirit is the Christ spirit. This fulfillment of the law of giving laid down in the Old Testament is noteworthy in three particulars. First, our giving is to be done systematically, regularly. “Upon the first day of the week,’’ that is, each Sunday, we are to lay by in store. If we have week- ly preaching, we should pay it weekly. If we have monthly service, we are, to pay then. If we are absent at a regular service, we are to give it the next time we have service or attend. Secondly, every one of us is to give. Father or mother cannot give for son or daughter. It is to be individual giving. This necessitates that parents should devise some plan by which their children earn the money and more than their gift, else the third por- tion of the plan cannot be fulfilled, that nur gifts should be proportionate, “as God hath 2S prospered him.” That is where the rub comes. We would be willing to give system- atically and individually, but not proportion- ately. Those who are doing it are the hap- iest Christians I know. Wouldn’t you like to experience their joyf But proportionate giving in the Scriptural sense has another meaning than the mere donating of a proportional part, not falling below the tenth of our income to the Lord’s work. It means that we should not be local or narrow or selfish in the directions we give for the application of our gifts. Christ said that the last six of the ten commandments could be briefly summarized in the injunc- tion, ‘‘Thou slialt love thy neighbor as thy- self.” This means that we shall see to it that our local church should not have spent on it more than half the money coming into its treasury. Or stating the principle posi- tively, Christians should give to support the Kingdom outside their local church just as much as they give for their local church. This is loving neighbor as self, and nothing less than this will satisfy the demands of the King of all the earth. But how shall we provide for this system- atic, individual, proportionate giving? As with the other planks in this missionary plat- form, by a campaign of education and en- lightenment, making use of a proper system of accounting and soliciting and introducing some such device as the duplex or bipoeket envelope, which will make the duty natural and easy and so successful. For general in- formation on this matter, write to the Duplex 29 Envelope Company, Richmond, Virginia. System, not spasm, is God’s method. We need religion in business, business in religion. As an example of what system rather than spasm, or the practice of Scriptural giving rather than the ordinary slipshod method so long prevalent in the financial administration of the Kingdom, I may humbly and grate- fully call your attention to the good results it has yielded at Elon. We have 175 mem- bers, 101 only of them in reach of the church, and many of them orphan children. Before we adopted the Duplex Plan of week- ly giving we could hardly have preaching twice a month. With this system we are able to have preaching every Sunday in the year, and we will be able to give three times as much for missions as ever before, and we are all happy in it. (D) A Permanent Missionary Committee An adequate missionary policy includes not only missionary education, knowledge of the duties of Christian Stewardship, and prac- tice of the Scriptural plan of giving, but it includes organization designed to supply these desiderata. It is useless to suppose that the pastor should do this work. He can- not do it and God never intended that he should. The men and women of the church need the opportunity of service which this work will give them, and under their leader- ship it will prosper as it never can in the pastor’s already overburdened hands. This is not to say that the pastor should have nothing to do with the working out of the 30 elements of this policy, — his part is large and necessary, hut he should not be held re- sponsible for its success. There should be a committee in each Church made up of repre- sentatives from the church, the Sunday- school, the Christian Endeavor Society, the Laymen ’s Missionary Movement Committee, the Women’s Missionary Society, the Ladies’ Aid Society, and all the other organizations of the Church. This committee should be charged with the duty of educating the Church and its adherents in missions, ac- quainting them with the principles of Chris- tian Stewardship, teaching them the obliga- tion of Scriptural giving, and providing ways and means by which the proper fruitage of each line of this endeavor should be abund- antly harvested. Such a committee should have the pastor as one of its members and should give coherence to the missionary ac- tivities and teachings of the Church. It should plan its educational curriculum with as great care as a College faculty plans the course of study for the A. B. degree and should use the same caution in undertaking to finance the Kingdom and provide its in- come as the Board of Directors of a great corporation in launching their enterprise of whatever nature. There is not time nor need to go into de- tailed suggestion for such a committee, be- cause there is a wealth of literature treating on the subject, which may be had by address- ing the Mission Board, but I feel that at least one item should be treated briefly. This committee should see to it that there is an 31 every-member canvass at least once a year and that opportunity is given each to sub- scribe a definite amount each week for mis- sions, and then that the money so given be used for that exclusive purpose. In collect- ing such pledges, the simplest device yet invented is the duplex or bi-pocket envelope. The standing committee of the local Lay- men’s Missionary Movement organization would be glad to be this canvassing commit- tee and will do the work well. (E) Intercessory Prayer Do you wonder that I have placed prayer, intercessory prayer, last in the constituent elements of an adequate missionary policy in the Church? It is because it is most import- ant. In our Master’s life it held the central place. The men who have been most wonder- fully useful in advancing the Kingdom have been men of prayer. You cannot do more than pray till you have prayed, but after you have prayed, you can do more. The re- quest of the missionaries on the foreign field to the home Church is ever, “Brethren, pray for us.’’ They know the value of prayer, and the beauty of it is that in this prime privilege of the Kingdom we can all meet on equal footing, great and small, rich and poor. Yes, we can all pray, and our prayer will be availing. J. Campbell White says: “Prayer is the first and chief method of solving the mission- ary problem. Among all the methods that have been devised none is more practical, more fruitful than this. If we could get a 32 definite group of people at home into the habit of supporting by prayer each mission- ary in the thiek of the fight, by this simple method alone the efficiency of the present missionary force could probably be doubled without adding a single new missionary.” What a wonderful opportunity for the Church at home! ‘‘Prayer is the only element which can quicken information into inspiration, trans- mute interest into passion, crystallize emo- tion into consecration, and coin enthusiasm into dollars and lives. Resolved, that we seek,” says the National Laymen’s Mission- ary Movement Committee, ‘‘by every means to convince every man that, whatever may be his contribution of money or service, he has not exercised his highest influence, per- formed his whole duty, nor enjoyed his high- est privilege until he has made definite, be- lieving pfayer for missions a part of his daily life.” Realizing the strategic value of the prayer- life in generating missionary enthusiasm, many communions have instituted prayer covenant bands. I herewith give you one of these covenants: ‘‘Recognizing that the supreme need of missions is prayer, I purpose to intercede each day, so far as may be possi- ble, (1) for the peoples of the mission lands; (2) for the missionaries and their native co- workers; (3) for those who administer the work at home; (4) for my own and all other churches, that they may give themselves more earnestly to the study and support of mis- sions; and (5) for the young people of our 33 churches, that a large number may hear the call of God to missionary service. ” Have you, my brethren, made such a prayer cov- enant with the Lord? Will you not do so? Let us pray. Our Father, we thank Thee that through prayer we become one with Thee and one with those who are the objects of our inter- cession. Help us to exercise this precious privilege humbly in co-operating with those who in foreign fields are breaking the bread of life to the hungry souls of heathendom. Grant that Thy Church shall become a pray- ing Church and that Thy cause through its intercession may come upon a new day of growth and prosperity. Amen. 34 PART III The Adoption of God's Program As the Church’s Policy — Its Fruitage The Duke of Wellington was once asked if he believed in foreign missions. True to his military railing, his reply was in the form of a question, “What are your marching or- ders?” This question goes to the very core of the issue — we are to propagate the gos- pel because our Captain commissioned us to do so. We have no other alternative, if we are not to be considered rebels. We are not to bother about results either — that is His concern. We are to go forward, leaving results to Him. Yet we have perfect right to consider the blessings that will come to us through obeying His command, for our Cap- tain would never send us on a fruitless cam- paign. The cliiefest blessing that will come to us is the consciousness that we did our best. Robert E. Lee said that duty is the sublimest word in the English language. It is also the finest element in the Christian life. When we do our Christian duty, the peace 35 that passeth all understanding illumines our life and makes it one glad song. Duty well performed will give us an abundant entrance into the joys of our Lord. But what if we do not do our duty? Can we expect salvation, when we deliberately refuse it to others? Ought we? So that this mission problem be- comes not simply a question of reaching the non-Christian world, but equally a question of saving ourselves. The keenest observers of our modern life are unanimous in their fears that the enor- mous multiplication of wealth and of the conveniences and luxuries of life will develop selfishness to such an extent that canker will set in in the people and bring our civiliza- tion to disaster. It has always resulted thus in the past. The only thing that can save our civilization, declared the late Prof. Wil- liam James, is the moral equivalent of war. That equivalent is found in moral blood-shed for others, in the sacrifice of self for those less fortunate, and the spirit of sacrifice is the spirit of missions. The editor of the London Quarterly Kevicw admirably states the philosophy linking national safety and national sacrifice into an indissoluble oneness, when he says: “Where- in lies our safety? In spiritual magnanimity. If you want to take care of your empire, take care of your missions. The guarantee for your splendor is your sacrifice. You keep your wealth as you give it away in noble causes. The tonic for luxury is the generos- ity that does and dares for the perishing. If you want to keep your place with the top- most nations, you must do it by a tremen- dous stoop to those who are at the base. If you want to put a ring of fire around the grandest civilization that this world has ever seen, put a belt of mission stations around your empire, and your empire will last until the millennium.” We see the evil of great wealth without great sacrifice in the ruin that comes to the children of very rich parents often. The children receive and do not give, and so lose their spiritual fiber. It is much the same in the Church. It would seem that the Church would never become selfish, but it does. Whenever the Church has become wealthy and has not used that wealth in splendid sac- rifice for the poor and needy, its spiritual life has suffered a speedy and awful deple- tion. The Church was never so rich, unless it be today, as when Martin Luther led the Reformation against her immoral and sinful practices. God has given the Church in our day a disproportionate part in the enormous wealth of the world. Will the Church rise to her opportunity 1 ? Let her consider these paradoxical words, which every one who has ever put them to the test knows to be abso- lutely true: “There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more; and there is that with- holdeth more than is meet, but tendetli to poverty.” And also the command of the Savior, with its consoling promise: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good meas- ure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give unto your bosom.” Then let her ponder well these trenchant 37 words of that Christian statesman, John R. Mott: "The only thing which will save the Church from the imminent perils of growing luxury and materialism is the putting forth of all its powers on behalf of the world with- out Christ. Times of material prosperity have ever been times of danger to Christian- ity. The Church needs a supreme world-pur- pose — a gigantic task, something which will call out its energies, something which will throw it back upon God. This desideratum is afforded by the present world-wide mis- sionary opportunity and responsibility.” May the Church realize her responsibility and grasp her opportunity! May our Chris- tian Church, may this Conference, do this! The anti-missionary Church is doomed. God will not let it live, becausd it is not worthy to live. It has denied its Master’s authority, deliberately refused to do His will, and He will not permit it to prosper. Let me give you some facts to prove this, in 1832 the Baptists of Indiana separated on mission and anti-mission lines, each division numbering about 3,000. Fifty, years later, the anti-mission Baptists still numbered about 3,000 while the mission Baptists had increased to 37,000. In 1836 the Baptist Association of Ohio divided along similar lines. Nineteen of the Churches of the Asso- ciation with a membership of 742 expelled six Churches with 441 members because they had the missionary spirit. Fifty-two years later the nineteen anti-mission Churches had decreased to five and one has since died, and the 742 members had decreased to 151. But 3S the six missionary Churches had increased to 63 and their 441 members to 7,212. In our own State in 1840 the Baptists separated along these same lines, the missionary Bap- tists numbering about 24,000 and the anti- missionary about 12,000. The missionary Baptists today number more than 300,000, while their anti-missionary brethren have barely held their own. These facts are elo- quent in establishing the will of Christ con- cerning His Church. Shall the Churches of this Brotherhood continue? Then we must be missionary. We must study missions and practice missions. We must inaugurate an ade- quate missionary policy and see that it goes. We must imbibe the principles of Christian Stewardship and learn how to give according to the Scriptural standard. And when we do, we will be ashamed as a Church to undertake to raise less than ten cents per member for foreign missions and as a Con- ference to undertake to raise less than five cents per member aud actually not to raise that mere pittance. You say we are not growing. Brethren, can we expect to grow? Ought a people grow who will not do their duty? The verdict of history is against it. Let us learn its lesson and let us on our knees seek God’s will and ask His strength to do it. But, says romeone, we are too poor; it will impoverish the Church. If we as a church were to send up to Conference as much as we spend on our local expenses, it would bankrupt the church. It would do just the 39 opposite, it would make it rich. It would result in your spending still more on your local enterprises. That is God ’s way. Every Church that has tried the Scriptural plan of giving has experienced a wonderful growth, not only in contributions, but also in spir- itual power. As one enthusiast puts it: “The more we have exported, the more we have had at home.” Twenty Churches taken at random in the United States and Canada, which for the first time last year instituted the system of Scriptural giving, paid more than ever before for local expenses, and yet increased their gifts for foreign missions from $79,100 to $214,281, an increase of $135,- 181, or 170 per cent. The most remarkable instance was that of the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, N. C., which increas- ed its gift to foreign missions from $517 to $22,099, a net increase of $21,592, or 4,176 per cent., which meant $30.39 per member. These were city Churches. Seventeen country Churches selected at random increased their foreign mission of- fering from $2,252 to $15,04*3, a net in- crease of $12,791, or 567 per cent., which is three and one-half times as large as the rate of increase for large city Churches. How was it done? Not by magic or automatically. In each instance there was the plan, definite, thorough, completely thought out. And back of the plan were the men — consecrated, earnest, anxious to serve the Lord. And back of the men was the prayer-wrought purpose to do their Mas- ter’s will according to their Master’s stand- 40 ard. Will you be oue of the men to make these glorious accomplishments of others pos- sible in our own Brotherhood ? And remem- ber that the best remedy for a sick Church is a missionary diet, sible in our own Brotherhood ? Not only does the Christian Church in tho home land stand in imminent peril today be- cause of great wealth without the saving grace of Charity in its use, but many are beginning to doubt the power of Christianity to uplift mankind. Numberless associations of various names and types are being organ- ized, giving organic expression to this doubt. The social settlement workers much prefer that the Church should let them alone, be- lieving that they can do the work of regen- erating and uplifting society better without interference from the Church. The laboring classes in this country and throughout the Christian world are beginning to distrust the Church’s power to uplift and help them. Where shall the Church regain its ancient prestige best — where can it make its best apologetic? Not in argument with skeptics and doubters at home, but by showing to the world the results of propagating the gos- pel in heathen lands. At home, influences due to the Church are readily by the preju- diced doubter assigned to other causes, but in the foreign field there can be no doubt. And the marvelous instances of individual and social uplift that are constantly occurr- ing in non-Christian lands as the sole result of the regenerating, uplifting power of Chris- tianity, give the Church at home its best 41 answer to carpers and critics alike and re- new the hope and deepen the faith and inten- sify the love of the membership for the Church and its enterprises. The best anti- dote we can give to this age of doubt is to point them to the marvelous conquests and victories for Christ on the mission field. Even those who are most pious in their devotions and most consecrated in their lives have not fathomed the depths nor wit- nessed all the beauties of the Faith. The bringing into the Church of the nations out of Christ will teach us things about Chris- tianity which we do not know and cannot know till these down-trodden, neglected races have made their contribution to its inter- pretation and its understanding. Do not mis- understand me. 1 have no patience with those misguided theorists who insist that the world’s perfect and final religion will be Christianity in the main with a few truths added from the teachings of Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, and the other non-Chris- tian religious teachers. That appeals to me as the veriest nonsense. I know that Chris- tianity is to be the universal religion, be- cause our Master assumed it should be when He commissioned us to preach it to every creature and promised to be with us when we did. There is no doubt about that in my mind. But 1 do believe that His religion will not be complete until all nations of the earth have made their contribution to its inter- pretation and meaning. We have not known the depth of suffering which the Christian religion will enable men to endure and will 42 not till our African brethren shall teach it to us. The Hindu has yet to reveal to us the beauty in the meditative Christianity. Korea has already shamed us in her rare willingness to give that the Kingdom may grow. China and Japan and the islands of the sea have each their lesson of faith, of love, of sacrifice, of hope, of confidence to teach us. Jt is Christ’s will for us to know the complete Christianity, but it cannot be known till the world is redeemed. Recent testimony from Christian business men has tended to establish the fact that Scriptural giving will lay the foundation for a successful business career in teaching men to be systematic in handling their finances, and laying by in store for their own business success. The Jews have practiced tithing more generally than any people and they fur- his fewer candidates for the almshouse and penitentiary than any other nation. I know nothing better for a young business man than at the very beginning of his career to tithe his income rigidly, opening an account with the Lord. If he fails, it will greatly sur- prise me. Sometimes young men begin life in debt and do not quite clearly see how they can give to the Lord’s work till their debts are paid. The weakness of this excuse is that God owns them and all they have and produce, not they themselves, and the real question for them to answer is, How dare 1 take money belonging to my Lord and pay my own debts with it? It is not a question of how much we will give of our money to the Lord’s work, but how much 43 of His money we dare keep for our owu pur- poses. And certainly we ought to be willing to do our duty, when we consider that in doing so we will be laying the foundation for a crowning business success. It is said that ninety per cent, of the merchants of our country must eventually go into bank- ruptcy and that the majority of our free- hold farmers will ultimately lose their farms, because they do not know how to system- atize their expenditures. They would know how if they would practice Scriptural giving and live up to the obligations and privileges of Christian Stewardship, for God has prom- ised to open the windows of heaven and to pour out upon all such a blessing so great that they cannot receive it. And then the blessing that our generosity will confer on the heathen should be a source of splendid encouragement to us. All who have studied the situation at first hand and who are able to speak authoritatively in re- spect to the issue are unanimous in agreeing that this is the strategic era ' of Christian history for the evangelization of the world. Our business enterprises have encircled the globe and carried to the heathen the phys- ical benefits of our higher civilization, for Mammon’s sake. Shall the Christian ele- ment of our civilization be less energetic, less alert for Jesus’ sake? Again and again the mission writers assure us that now is the decisive hour. The heathen and non-Chris- tian worlds are dissatisfied with the religious they have, and the importance of Western ideas in business and commerce, has made 44 them so. The reunaissance is ou in every one of these lands. Shall it be “a rennais- sance without a reformation f ” If so, the latter condition of these people will be worse than their former condition, and we will be to blame for it. We must quicken their in- dustrial and intellectual awakening with the moral principles of the Christian life, or grieve the great heart of Christ. Time was when results in converts on the mission field were discouraging even to the most zealous, but not so today. The native Church in foreign lands is growing much more rapidly relatively than the Church at home. The Protestant Churches in America have an annual increase of .0283 per cent, while the increase on the foreign field is .0685. per cent., nearly three times as great. In the Presbyterian Churches of America last year, each minister had to his credit an ac- cession of ten communicants. Of this same Church, each foreign missionary, which in- cludes the wives of foreign missionaries too, had to his credit thirty-four converts, more than three times as many. The cost of bring- ing a heathen convert into the Church is about one-ninetieth as much as that for bringing in one convert in the homeland. There are more than a million active mem- bers in the Church of the foreign field and there are about two million others who are adherents. Christians in foreign lands are increasing relatively faster than the popu- lation — not so in America. The last decade in India witnessed a fifty per cent, increase in the membership of the Church, as against 45 a two and one-half per cent, increase in pop- ulation. The gain in China in the last twen- ty years, and remember thousands of Chris- tians were murdered during the Boxer Re- bellion, has been more than one hundred per- cent. There has been a Christian convert in Korea for every hour of the day and night since the first missionaries entered the coun- try in 1886, and annually now about 200,000 Christians are received into membership on the foreign field. Truly are the fields ■white unto harvest, and just as truly are we able to harvest the fields. For if every Christian in America would give two dollars a year to foreign missions, we could completely man the entire field immediately and the evangel- ization of the world w r ould be accomplished in our day. Many churches now 7 exceed that average per member, but the general average is only about fifty cents, while nine-tenths of the membership of the Churches are es- timated as having no part in the evangeliza- tion of the w 7 orld. What an opportunity we have of helping others and of saving our own souls! The door is open and no man can close it, but we can block the w r ay by stand- ing in it. Let us resolve to do our duty — our full duty, in this critical hour, for the Kingdom. There are many other good results attend- ant on missionary efforts and they are worthy of careful consideration, but we have not time to treat them here, such as the up- lift of w r oinan, the relief of sickness, the establishment of colleges and universities, the introduction of printing, the multiplica- 46 tion of books, the increase of commerce, the civilization of the heathen, any one of which would be well worth special treatment. The reaction spiritually on the home church has been suggested again and again, and would certainly justify any expenditure of money reasonable. But perhaps next to the con- sciousness of having discharged our Chris- tian duty, the growth of Christian Unity directly attributable to missions is the great- est blessing to the Church. We sometimes speak of the Lord’s prayer as Christ’s prayer. That is not Ilis prayer, but His instruction to us as to what we should pray for. His prayer is recorded in John 17, and the re- frain that runs throughout its twenty-six verses is ‘ ‘ that they all may be one. ’ ’ The foreign field is teaching us the necessity for unity and the method of it. Already in many foreign lands the Christians are standing for a united Church with that name we love so well, Christian. It is significant that the first world’s Convention of all denomina- tions should be in the interest of missions. “Experience has already shown,” says John B. Mott, “that by far the most, hopeful way of hastening the realization of true and tri- umphant Christian unity is through the en- terprise of carrying the Gospel to the non- Christian world. Who can measure the fed- erative and unifying influence of foreign mis- sions? No problem less colossal and less baffingly difficult will so reveal to the Chris- tians of today the sinfulness of their divis- ions, and so convince them of the necessity of consecrated effort, as actually to draw 47 them together in answer to the intercession of their common and divine Lord. It is a gain to the home Church, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated, that, as a re- sult of its foreign mission work, there should be coming bac-k to it from lands not yet Christian powerful influences that are help- ing to heal its divisions and restore its brok- en unity. ’ ’ The union of all God’s people has long been a eherished ideal of our Brotherhood. If we really believe it as much as we think we do, we will, from this hour forth, have a larger interest in foreign missions, as the best demonstrated means of ushering it in. And can there be a stronger appeal to Chris- tian men and women than this of Christian unity, the one thing for which our Master prayed, and which we now see can come only through carrying out His great commis- sion to preach the gospel to every creature f Our Lord’s own prayer for His people and His great commission to them form in them- selves a rare and beautiful Christian unity. May the Church of God obey the great com- mission with all their might and may the heart of our Lord rejoice when through their obedience to this great commission His own prayer for His people shall receive its full and perfect answer! Our Father, grant, we beseech Thee, that Thy word shall be preached to the uttermost parts of the earth, as Thy dear Son did command it should be, and may the Gospel so possess Thy people in all lands that they shall all be one, even as our Lord did pray Thee. Amen. 48