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 Henry C. Mabie, D. D. 
 
 American Baptist Missionary Union 
 Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass, 
 
The Evangelization of the Heathen 
 a Distinctive Work 
 
 The Essence of Evangelization 
 
 T HE essence of evangelization is to make 
 known to those who are ignorant of it, 
 the work accomplished for them by the 
 atonement of Christ. This atonement has 
 its peculiar worth in the kind of death Christ 
 died in behalf of mankind. This death was 
 more than mere mortal dying; it was a judg¬ 
 ment-death. That is, it was a judicial death, 
 necessitated by the relation of the divine gov¬ 
 ernment to sinners needing to be ransomed 
 from the guilt and power of sin. Hence, it 
 was something vastly more than, and intrin¬ 
 sically different from, mere martyrdom. 
 
 Bronson Alcott, the transcendental philoso¬ 
 pher, at one time introduced into his boys’ 
 school in Boston a form of discipline which 
 might be called judgment-infliction. For a 
 certain transgression the master himself in¬ 
 stead of the pupil was to receive the punish¬ 
 ment. The first time it was applied, the cul¬ 
 prit broke down, and the school broke down. 
 
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In principle, this gracious judgment-inflic¬ 
 tion was akin to that which under grace is 
 employed in the atonement; and for a saving 
 mastery over human nature the principle is 
 unequalled. 
 
 The judgment-death of Jesus was a purely 
 voluntary matter, costing the Father no less 
 of sacrifice than it did the Son. Jesus “tasted 
 (spiritual) death for every man.” He thus 
 dealt as the moral situation required with the 
 vast issues involved, as between God and the 
 sinner — issues which Satan as the person¬ 
 alized head of the realm of spiritual evil had 
 occasioned. In so dealing, the judgment- 
 death of Jesus, in principle, embraced every 
 last moral reality that can enter into the final 
 judgment. For example, he acknowledged 
 and endured in his experience, the due judg¬ 
 ment which attached to the sin-principle; he 
 set at nought, cast out, and judged to its de¬ 
 struction, as unworthy of recognition in hu¬ 
 man life, the world-principle or self-principle, 
 of which Satan is the author; he broke the 
 bond between sin and death which the fall 
 occasioned ; and he brought in as a reversion¬ 
 ary right and treasure, all mankind, poten¬ 
 tially, to be his own. 
 
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A Microcosm of the Last Judgement* 
 
 In these important respects the death of 
 Christ was amicrocosm of the last judgement; 
 it turns that judgement into a potential salva¬ 
 tion, even a coronation day, for all mankind, 
 if they can but know and avail themselves of 
 its benefits. That judgement-death antici¬ 
 pated every moral issue that can cause dread 
 to the human soul as it looks forward to the 
 last day. The penal difficulty with respect 
 to past sin was potentially met; sin can be 
 pardoned. Satan, man’s arch enemy, was 
 potentially destroyed; the accuser will have 
 no standing in that final court. The power 
 of indwelling sin was potentially broken; we 
 need not spiritually and finally die. And 
 man, sinner though he is, is potentially the 
 ransomed of the Lord. It is in anticipating 
 and providing for all these things that the 
 divine love has its peculiarity and precious¬ 
 ness. On the basis of such love, man, if 
 penitent and believing, may cherish the cer¬ 
 tain hope of becoming ultimately a holy, as 
 well as a redeemed being. 
 
 All this was in view when Jesus, facing his 
 coming death, said, “Now is the judgement 
 of this world; now shall the prince of this 
 
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world be cast out; and I, if I be lifted up from 
 the earth will draw all . . . unto myself.” In 
 this text we have the assertion that through 
 the cross, all men are drawn into new, final, 
 judgement-relations, because of certain values 
 and implications in that cross. That cross, 
 when its meaning shall stand revealed, will 
 prove the touch-stone of all character and 
 destiny. 
 
 The Heathen Destitute of this Microcosm 
 
 Now the heathen world, without revelation, 
 is wholly destitute of the benefit of this great 
 anticipatory judgement which took place 
 in the soul of Christ. They have nothing 
 (adequate) to prepare them for their final 
 destiny ; nothing except what may be derived 
 from the poor hints which exist in their nat¬ 
 ural consciences, and that as fallen and per¬ 
 verted. That is better than nothing. God 
 will not despise it; he will have regard to it, 
 so far as it goes. In the last day, on the 
 ground of the cross-enactment, such of the 
 heathen as in their interior moral attitude 
 before him have regarded their highest light, 
 may be acquitted. 
 
 Ramke, one of the first two converts from 
 the Garos in Assam, before he ever heard of 
 
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Christianity, seems to have been in this 
 moral attitude. While all Ramke’s people 
 were devil worshipers, Ramke refused to 
 propitiate evil spirits, stoutly asserting that 
 there was one great, good spirit, far above all 
 the evil spirits feared by his countrymen. 
 Ramke worshipped him. Accordingly, when 
 Dr. Bronson, the missionary, met him and 
 * preached the love of God in Christ, Ramke 
 promptly accepted the gospel. 
 
 Said a heathen Chinese woman to her 
 neighbor, as they heard a missionary describe 
 the loving character of the Christian God, 
 “ Didn’t I tell you that there ought to be a God 
 like that ?” Grant that these are exceptions 
 to the great multitude, yet let us thank God 
 that they exist. God only, who sees the 
 heart, knows whether they be few or many. 
 But even though the possibility of a sort of 
 embryonic or infantine salvation exists for 
 some, yet who would admit for a moment that 
 this is sufficient for the heathen ? 
 
 The Natural Conscience of the Heathen 
 Insufficient# 
 
 Without the light of Christ’s historic cross, 
 the heathen certainly cannot be saved in any 
 such assured, full and glorious way as God 
 
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desires, and as they need. They can have 
 no certainty of salvation; almost universally 
 they live under the tortures of superstitious 
 fears; and they are without the converting, 
 educating, transforming and sanctifying pow¬ 
 er of the first judgement in the cross. Then 
 how woeful is their estate! The great thing 
 the heathen need, in order that they may have 
 a confident and “ abundant entrance into the 
 everlasting kingdom of our Lord,” is the 
 benefit of the great anticipatory judgment 
 expressed in Christ’s cross. Could they have 
 this, as we do, in advance of the great day 
 itself, they might lay hold of that which is 
 both “ the wisdom of God and the power of 
 God.” The denial of this, age after age, to 
 the heathen, is their spiritual poverty and 
 the Church’s crime. 
 
 Thus our very possession of the knowledge 
 that the death of Christ was a saving judge¬ 
 ment-death, while the heathen are wholly 
 without such knowledge, places the matter of 
 giving it to them on an entirely distinctive 
 plane of Christian enterprise, and constitutes 
 a unique obligation. It is a work unlike in 
 kind to the work of edification—confessedly 
 secondary, however important — which is 
 
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carried on as between Christians, among 
 themselves. Christendom has the advantage 
 of the opportunity of meeting the judgment- 
 day in advance of its arrival, while the heathen 
 have not. 
 
 Evangelization as Distinguished from Rendering 
 
 Evangelical 
 
 Real as is the duty in its place, to edify 
 the Church and to extend it in all lands where 
 it exists, yet the obligation to the heathen 
 and to Christ, is that of creating the Church, 
 of giving existence to it where now its exist¬ 
 ence is impossible. The duty in a Christian 
 land is, so far as we may, to keep Christendom 
 evangelical, it already having been evangel¬ 
 ized ; while the duty to heathen people is that 
 of downright fundamental evangelizing, or in 
 other words of giving them the benefit of that 
 judgment which has already occurred at the 
 center of the world’s moral history, in Cal¬ 
 vary’s cross. 
 
 When, therefore it is said, as it often is, 
 that “missions are missions, they are all one,” 
 the language is used in a confusing sense. 
 “ Missions ” are not “ missions ” when the 
 term “ missions ” is used in two senses, any 
 more than a nursery is a university. Both 
 
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these are educational institutions, but their 
 functions are widely different. So missions, 
 in the sense of effotrs to introduce Christian¬ 
 ity where it before was impossible, are a work 
 standing upon a plane by itself; they are en¬ 
 tirely sui generis. Missions which seek to 
 edify churches already existing in communi¬ 
 ties which have long had the gospel are some¬ 
 thing different in kind; such missions also 
 stand on their own distinctive plane. Doubt¬ 
 less both forms of work are obligatory, even 
 reciprocal in their relations. It is, however, 
 only just to the interest of truth, to the divine 
 realities involved in the case, and to mission 
 work itself of all kinds, that we use terms 
 with accuracy ; and that we discountenance 
 the growing habit of obliterating distinctions 
 which in the very nature of things exist, be¬ 
 tween different forms of Christian work. 
 For these are distinctions which the Scrip¬ 
 tures make and emphatically teach. 
 
 Missions of whatever kind, in so far as 
 they are true, the product of the Spirit of God, 
 are of course one in spi?-it\ but they ought 
 never to be represented as one in kind, or as 
 serving the same functions. The tendency to 
 class all forms of mission work alike as “ one 
 
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work” overlooks the distinction above point¬ 
 ed out, and the result is to level down the 
 higher forms of work to the grade of the lower. 
 On the lower grounds the higher forms cannot 
 flourish. The higher work is thus often ob¬ 
 scured altogether. 
 
 Variant* Planes of Mission Effort* 
 
 Certain forms of effort, denominated “ mis¬ 
 sions, ” are justified in popular appeal upon 
 the ground that they are humane, prudential, 
 philanthropic, self-preservative, etc., results 
 in themselves good; but secondary when 
 measured by the evangelical standard. 
 
 When missions, as thus understood, are 
 syndicated and argued on these lower grounds 
 of sentiment, however worthy the sentiment, 
 the plea for them is practically removed from 
 the distinctive Christain basis, the evangeli¬ 
 cal basis, to a confessedly lower plane. Of 
 course corresponding harm then accrues to 
 that form of work which derives its central 
 motive and incitement from the anticipatory 
 values in Christ’s cross. So, also, correspond¬ 
 ing dishonor, even though not intended, is 
 done to Christ. God’s sensitive point is the 
 regard in which Christ’s judgement-death is 
 
 n 
 
held. This is the supreme reality; and afford¬ 
 ing, as it does, the chief reason for the evan. 
 gelizatton of the heathen, no intelligent Chris¬ 
 tian can be indifferent to its suppression or 
 obscuration. 
 
 The work of evangelizing pagans must 
 always stand on a plane entirely distinct from 
 the work of edification of others than pagans 
 in evangelical aims and ideals. Moreover, 
 this form of mission work is primary, elemen¬ 
 tal and foundational in Christianizing the 
 world. 
 
 1 ED., 5M.-4, * 04. 
 
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