|oattH of Jjordp j|i3sions of llji! ][fformfd :|liui[ch hi Imerina. 
 
 VV^ V. V C<^ » 
 
 PAPERS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE FIFTH 
 
 Generkl Missionhry 
 
 H 
 
 RENC 
 
 H 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 FON DA, N. Y. 
 
 November 18 , 1885 . 
 
ioaiiH of forfljn J issioiis of tl|i| ^ffomctl ||liuiich in Imcrica. 
 
 ^ J J J J • 
 
 PAPERS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE FIFTH 
 
 ENERRL MiSSIONHRY CoNFERENC 
 
 H 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 FONDA, N. Y. 
 
 NOVEMBER 18 , 1885 , 
 
 New Yoek : 
 
 KOGERS & SHERWOOD. 
 
 1886. 
 
“CHRIST FOR THE WORLD.^THE WORLD FOR CHRIST.” 
 
 The KellgiouH Faiths of Mankiud. 
 
 PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS, 116 MILLIONS. 
 
 NON-PROTESTANT CHRISTIANS, 275 MILLIONS. 
 
 PAPISTS, 190 MILLIONS. 
 
 (Armenians, Etc., 7 Mil. 
 
 !■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 
 
 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■I 
 
 iniasQBmniiiiaBiiiaBHn 
 
 GREEKS, 78 MILLIONS. 
 
 JEWS, 8 MILLIONS. 
 
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 O 
 
 X 
 
 > 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 m 
 
 a 
 
 > 
 
 z 
 
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 o 
 
 3 
 
 F 
 
 r 
 
 o 
 
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 v> 
 
 Each square in this diagram represents one million souls. The division according to reli¬ 
 gious faiths is based on the estimates of Keith Johnson in the English Church Missionary 
 Atlas. Behm and Wagner estimate the population of the globe somewhat higher, making it 
 E434»oc>o,C)00. The diagram shows that there are : — 
 
 Protestant Christians. 
 
 { Papists.190,000,000 
 
 Greek.78,000,000 
 
 Armenians and other sects, 7,000,000 
 
 f jews.8,000,000 
 
 Mohammedans. . . . 170,000,000 
 
 Pagans.8c;6,ooo,ooo 1,034,000,000 
 
 Population of the Globe. 1,425,000,000 
 
 1 his shows that about 8 })er cent, are Protestant C hristians, 20 per cent. Non-Protestant 
 Christians, and yj per ceyit. J\igan or JMohattunedan. 
 
 IFrom the Missionary Herald, A. B. C. F. M.\ 
 
 116,000,000 
 
 275,000,000 
 
THE FIFTH GENERAL 
 
 Missionary Conference. 
 
 In the Conference at Fonda, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 17 
 and 18, 1885, the Missionary interests of our Church, both Domestic and Foreign, 
 undoubtedly touched high-water mark. For earnest and sustained enthusiasm, 
 for spiritual power and uplift, no such meeting has, in the opinion of experienced 
 and judicious observers, been held for a long time, if ever, in our Reformed 
 Church. Its influence should, and, by the blessing of God, will be great and 
 lasting. 
 
 The Conference opened rightly, an entire hour being devoted to prayer and 
 brief devotional addresses, conducted by the Rev. E. A. Reed, D.D., of New 
 York, Chairman of Synod’s Committee. The presence of the Holy Spirit was. 
 manifest, and His influence powerfully felt. The impress of this hour was on all 
 the subsequent sessions to the close. 
 
 Morning Session, November 18. 
 
 The sessions devoted to Foreign Missions were held on Wednesday, the 
 second day, and were begun with a prayer-meeting of half an hour, led by Dr. 
 Wells, of Flatbush, L. I. 
 
 The first paper was read by the Corresponding Secretary, entitled “ Our Op¬ 
 portunity and Our Responsibility.” This was followed by an address on “The 
 Educational Policy in Foreign Missions,” by the Rev. James F. Riggs, of Bergen: 
 Point, N. J. 
 
 After singing the hymn. “ Jesus shall reign where’er the Sun,” etc.,* a paper, 
 prepared by Mrs. M. E. Sangster, on behalf of the Woman’s Board, on “ Help 
 for Heathen Women,” was read by Rev. H. N. Cobb. The paper treated of the 
 various agencies by which heathen women are to be raised from their present 
 benighted, repressed, and apathetic condition, to the privileges and blessedness 
 of women in Christian lands. The agencies specified were: Girls’ Schools, 
 Bible Readers’ Work, Zenana Work, and the Work of the Medical Missionary. 
 As Mrs. Sangster requests that this interesting and admirable paper be withheld 
 from publication, it is not presented here with the other papers and addresses. 
 
 The Rev. J. Elmendorf, D D., of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., followed with an elo¬ 
 quent, spiritual, and closely reasoned paper on the “ Reflex Influence of Foreign 
 Missions ” 
 
 After singing, an animated expression of opinions and experience was enjoyed 
 by those who listened, during more than an hour. This instructive comparison 
 of views led to the following action, preseted by Rev. James Demar est, Jr., 
 D.D., of Fort Plain, N. Y.: 
 
 Resolved^ That it is the sense of the Conference that our churches should supply the funds- 
 needed for the current expenses of the Sunday-schools, so that the contributions of the school 
 may be given to the missionary and benevolent objects of the Church, thus educating the ris¬ 
 ing generation in the principles and habit of benevolence from youth, inculcating in their 
 minds enlarged and ever enlarging ideas of Christian work. 
 
 The morning session then adjourned, with the Benediction. 
 
4 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 Ladies’ Meeting. 
 
 In the afternoon, at two o’clock, a meeting of the ladies exclusively was held 
 in the lecture-room of the church, continuing about an hour and a half, when 
 both Boards were represented by ladies conversant with their work, and several 
 very pleasing addresses were made. 
 
 Afternoon Session of Conference. 
 
 The Conference assembled at half past two o’clock, when Rev. Dr. James 
 Demarest read the Scripture and Rev. Mr. Vroom led in prayer. 
 
 The Rev. Alexander R. Thompson, D.D., gave a glowing account of the recent 
 seventy-fifth annual meeting of the American Board, which he attended as the 
 representative of the Foreign Board of our own Church. 
 
 Rev. J. H. Wyckoff, of Tindivanam, India, followed with a strong plea for the 
 Arcot Mission, in answer to the question, Shall our missionary force in India be 
 increased ? or. Shall a portion of the field be transferi'ed to some other missionary 
 society } ^ 
 
 The hymn “ Hark, the Song of Jubilee,” etc., was sung, and Rev. Peter E. Kipp, 
 of Schenectady, N. Y., delivered a stirring address on “ The Divine Purpose in 
 Missions.’’ This purpose was educed from Prophecy, the Promises, Providence, 
 the Progress of Christianity, the Potency of the truth, the Persons engaged in 
 the work. 
 
 Rev. M. H. Hutton, D.D., of New Brunswick, N. J., in an address abounding 
 in points and terse expressions, replied to the question, “ Have we Reached the 
 Limit of our Ability and Duty.^” 
 
 After Dr. Hutton’s address no less than eleven definite, practical ten-minute 
 speeches were made, chiefly in regard to the best method of bringing the work 
 and its wants before the people. 
 
 Evening. 
 
 The evening session was in the interest of both Domestic and Foreign Missions, 
 and was opened with prayer by Rev. T. Walker Jones, of Holland, Mich. 
 
 The Committee on Foreign Missions, consisting of Rev. 1 . S. Hartley, D.D., 
 W. W. Clark, and Judge Danforth, presented the following resolutions, which 
 were heartily and unanimously adopted : 
 
 1. That it is the solemn conviction of this Conference that the happy day for whose golden 
 dawn the Church of Jesus Christ has so long been praying is now upon us. 
 
 2. That as its brightening sun rises and scatters far and wide its invigorating rays, it sum¬ 
 mons all Christians to thoroughly awaken, to freely sow the seed of the eternal Word and make 
 ready for the promised harvest. 
 
 3. That in view of the marked advance of Foreign Missions and the numerous fields at this 
 anour open and inviting the messenger of the Gospel, we are recreant to this holy cause and all 
 which it represents were we not now publicly to express and put on record our deepest gr.ititude 
 ito the great Head of the Church in permitting us to witness that He is the hearer and answerer 
 of prayer, and in seeing the beginning of the fulfilment of that sublime prophecy, “ the king¬ 
 doms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” 
 
 4. That as the field of Foreign Missions is ever enlarging, it is only by renewed consecra¬ 
 tion, by renewed effort, and by constantly increasing contributions, that we can meet this solemn 
 responsibility now so surely resting upon us. 
 
 5. That the increasing usefulness of the “ Woman’s Board” has a most profound claim upon 
 the benevolence of all who love the Redeemer’s kingdom; that the attention of our pastors be 
 especially called to its purpose, and, in the judgment of this Conference, it should find an 
 organized representation in every church constituting our communion. 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 5 
 
 6. That we heartily and unanimously ratify the suggestion of the General Synod that 
 ^100,000 is not too great a sum due the Foreign Mission work for the current year; and that 
 we earnestly urge upon all our pastors, elders, and the congregations under their charge, to use 
 every effort for the accomplishment of this desired result. 
 
 7. That the Conference recognizes an educated native ministry as a prime factor in the suc¬ 
 cess of Foreign Missions; and that it herewith commends the question of careful and more 
 abundant provision for the support of educational institutions in connection with our Zion. 
 
 8. That the work in the Arcot Mission rather than suffering depletion, if possible, be imme¬ 
 diately increased by more help, and that the Board be requested to give special consideration 
 to the appeal made to this Conference in its behalf. 
 
 9. That this Conference encourages the Board to believe that the Church will sustain it in 
 sending to the field every qualified, attested, consecrated son or daughter of the Church for 
 whom it may have actual place and work; and we believe that the Church will ratify such 
 action; and further, as representative churches, we do herewith pledge ourselves to do all in 
 our power to make this assurance good. 
 
 10. Since all power is of God to do His work and all success is of Him, since this Divine 
 power is needed now as never before, and will continue to be needed more and more, and 
 since we know that there is power yet undeveloped in the Church to accomplish all and more 
 than all we are now called upon to do, we would invite our entire Church to more frequent, 
 earnest, and united prayer, that the Spirit of the Lord may fall in power and giving power on 
 all our churches, girding them anew for the blessed work He has given us to do. 
 
 11. That the Boards of Foreign and Domestic Missions be requested to prepare for gratuitous 
 distribution, in such forms as,their wisdom suggests, the several papers and addresses which 
 have been read and delivered; also such resolutions as have been introduced relating to their 
 united interests. 
 
 12. That so soon as possible after the publication of these resolutions they be read from all 
 the pulpits in our Reformed Church. 
 
 After the adoption of this report and that on Domestic Missions, stirring ad¬ 
 dresses were delivered by Rev. F. S. Schenck and Rev. Ame Vennema on Do¬ 
 mestic Missions, and on Foreign Missions by Rev. John G. Fagg and Rev. J. H. 
 Wyckoff. 
 
 Closing addresses and farewells were spoken by Rev. F. V. Van Vranken and 
 Dr. DeBaun, and by Dr. P. D. Van Cleef, who had admirably presided during the 
 sessions of the Conference, 
 
 After singing the hymn 
 
 “ O Spirit of the living God, 
 
 In all Thy plentitude of grace, 
 
 Where’er the foot of man hath trod, 
 
 Descend on our apostate race !” 
 
 and the three following verses, with the Doxology, the benediction was pro¬ 
 nounced by Dr. DeBaun, and the Conference adjourned. 
 
 The singing was remarkable for volume, power, and harmony. The attendance 
 and interest were marked and sustained throughout. The hospitality of the 
 good people of Fonda and Fultonville was unbounded. 
 
 In compliance with the nth Resolution of the Conference, the following papers 
 and addresses are printed in the order in which they were delivered, by the 
 Board of Foreign Missions. Through a very liberal arrangement with the 
 American Board, the very striking and eloquent diagram of “ Religious Faiths 
 of Mankind ” is prefixed. 
 
 Upon this publication and its distribution among the Churches, the blessing of 
 the Lord of Missions is fervently invoked. 
 
 New York, January, 1886. 
 
6 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 PAPER ON OUR OPPORTUNITY AND OUR 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 By Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. 
 
 From this church, one of the smaller Christian bodies of our country, as we 
 all know, have ^one out, since the departure of Dr. John Scudder in 1819, 45 or¬ 
 dained missionaries, 3 unordained physicians, 44 married and 21 single ladies—a 
 total of 113, of whom 49 are now in the service of the Board. 
 
 To these may properly be added the 19 ordained native pastors, and 186 other 
 helpers, making a total working force, native and foreign, of 254. 
 
 To maintain this work the Church has given, since 1857, but little less than 
 $1,700,000 ($1,685,881.80), an average, for the twenty-eight years of separate action, 
 of about $60,000, and increasing from $27,000, the average of the first five years, to 
 $76,000 and upwards ($76,308), the average of the last five. It is not easy to say 
 how much was given before the separation from the American Board, but prob¬ 
 ably not less than $300,000 in twenty-five years—thus making a round $2,000,000 
 since the organization of this Board. 
 
 Of the tangible results of this labor and liberality, let forty-one churches speak, 
 of 3,200 members, giving in one year, out of their deep poverty, nearly $5,000 for 
 the work of.the Lord. Nine seminaries, or academies, enrolling 420 pupils, and 
 ninety-three dav-schools with more than 2,300 scholars, all of them studying, 
 among and above other things, the Word of God. But who shall estimate, or 
 by what arithmetic shall be computed, or in what tables stated, the indirect 
 results of all these godly and devoted lives, these faithful labors, these successful 
 and influential institutions.^ It is surely, then, no time for us to falter. What 
 ca7i we do but address ourselves reverently, heartily, courageously to the future, 
 to the opportunities and responsibilities that now await us } 
 
 OUR OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 It is not possible, though it would no doubt be profitable, to enter upon those 
 general considerations, favorable to progress, and calling for it, which are appli¬ 
 cable to all Christians and all churches alike—arising out of new and favorable 
 conditions both at home and abroad, the onward march of a world-embracing 
 Providence. What affects the Church at large affects us also, and conditions fav¬ 
 orable to the wide and vigorous prosecution of missionary work in general, cannot 
 but be felt in the fields and work that God has given to us. But necessity com¬ 
 pels us to narrow the limits of this discussion—to restrict our vision to our own 
 present sphere of operations. 
 
 Regarding which I have to say that, great and blessed as the work already is» 
 it is yet totally inadequate to the demands of the present time, in all our fields ; 
 and that, whether we consider the location and extent of our mission fields, the 
 need of missionary work, or the conditions that favor its extension. 
 
 These missions are located in the most prominent, the most important, and 
 the most promising fields in the world to-day. They partake, not only of the 
 vastness and importance ot those great empires, but they share also in the more 
 
Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 7 
 
 favorable conditions, the improved facilities for missionary labor which are found 
 in them—the openness, the ease and frequency of acces^s and communication, the 
 breaking down of barriers, the new spirit of inquiry, the possession of the Scrip¬ 
 tures in the native tongues, the prestige of Western civilization and the introduc¬ 
 tion of its most characteristic improvements and inventions, and, above all, in 
 the great and rapid advance of the Redeemer’s cause in all these lands in the 
 last twenty years. So far as we are in this work we are in a successful move¬ 
 ment—whose progress is marked by rates of increase that may well surprise us. 
 These fields share, too, in the dangers that come, not unmarked nor inconsider¬ 
 able, from the diffusion of intelligence and from the unrestricted intercourse of 
 nation with nation. If success gives opportunity, the unsettling of the old faiths and 
 customs and the spread of the irreligion, the rational philosophy, and even the 
 scoffing and ribald infidelity of Western nations into Japan and India, and even 
 China, make that opportunity most critical. Added to these considerations is 
 that most important and solemn one, of extent, of numbers, of niMltitudes igno¬ 
 rant of the way of life and perishing for lack of knowledge. Who shall say that 
 for these millions dependent on us for the knowledge of that way, we have yet 
 begun to make adequate provision } 
 
 To beginwiih China .—We have beenwont to say and think that here 3,000,000 
 of people are to be counted as so depending upon us. This would be, of itself, 
 enough to claim our most serious thought and most earnest endeavor. But even 
 this our veteran Dr. Talmage resents as an unwarranted limitation, claiming, with 
 good show of reason, that it would be more correct to say that 10,000,000 are 
 within our reach. And these in China, that great empire, that crowded bee-hive 
 of industrious humanity. And these accessible to missionary effort. It was not 
 always so—not until comparatively recent years. Till lately, missionary effort 
 was of necessity confined chiefly to the coast. It is so no longer. Every province 
 is accessible, and every part of every province, that in which Amoy is situated 
 among the rest. Missionaries may go where they will and find a welcome. 
 Their wives meet, in towns far in the interior, with throngs of eager and atten¬ 
 tive women, anxious to see and hear a foreign woman who can speak to them in 
 their own tongue, and, more than all, can tell them the story that has in it hope 
 for women who hitherto have had no hope for themselves. 
 
 In the rapid progress of the Gospel in Japan, its near neighbor, the scarcely 
 less wonderful progress in China has been overlooked. Since 1878, the year of 
 the Shanghai Conference, the number of missionaries of both sexes in China has 
 increased from 473 to 851, about 80 per cent., the number of native preachers 
 from 750 to 1,450, nearly 100 per cent., and of converts, from 13,035 to 26,287, or 
 more than double. Other missions, meantime, have been pushing their way 
 into the interior, planting their stations in many inland towns. We, with like 
 opportunities, still cling to the coast. No missionaries have yet been stationed 
 outside of Amoy since we first went there forty years ago, while towns of in¬ 
 fluence and importance invite our occupation, and millions of heathen wait and 
 perish. Is there no opportunity for enlargement here 1 
 
 Of India, there is less need that I should speak at length, because happily 
 our Arcot Mission is represented by one of its own honored and successful mis¬ 
 sionaries. But I may call your attention in the briefest way to a few facts that 
 go to show the extent and importance of our opportunity there. The first is that 
 each year our brethren report the application of heathen villages to be received 
 under Christian instruction, which they are compelled to decline for lack of men. 
 I quote from one of them words written only a short time ago : “ Again and 
 
8 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 again it has resulted from such preaching (among the heathen) that the people of 
 some village or hamlet, or cluster of hamlets, have said, ‘ We are convinced of 
 the truth of what you say, and of the worthlessness of our idols. Send us a 
 teacher to instruct us in the gospel way, and we will give up our old way and em¬ 
 brace It.’ We have not been able to furnish them a teacher, and after months 
 of waiting they have lost their awakened desire for Christian instruction, and 
 dropped back into all their heathen observances, and been harden to reach again.” 
 “ When our mission is so crippled for funds, there have been times ’’—think of it,, 
 brethren—“ when we have almost dreaded to have people say, * We will embrace 
 Christianity now if you will give us a teacher,’ and have almost hesitated to tour 
 in a region where the people have shown an inclination to accept the Gospel in¬ 
 vitation.” And yet, as Christian influence increases, and the Gospel is proclaimed 
 more widely, the number of such applications must increase. 
 
 Another fact noted by our brethren is the gradual loosening of the bonds of caste, 
 the breaking down of its odious and oppressive system of restrictions, its bitter 
 prejudices and obstacles to Christian effort and success, and the greater and 
 marked readiness everywhere to listen to the Word of God with attention and re¬ 
 spect. Add to this the undoubted waking up of the Hindoo mind, even in “ the 
 benighted Presidency” of Madras, to the great evils and inequalities that darken 
 their social and family life and the condition of their women—all these are opening 
 and may be expected still to open an ever wider door, and more effectual to our 
 brethren in this field. 
 
 A paper recently prepared by Drs. Chamberlain and Wm. Scudder, and 
 carefully revised by Mr. Wyckoff, contains the names of eight “centres of 
 population and influence,” five of them among the Telugus in the North Arcot 
 district, “which ought to be occupied by missionaries,” in addition to those now 
 occupied by us. For the immediate necessities of the Telugu work two mission¬ 
 ary families would not be too many. Already our failure properly to supply it 
 has invited the encroachment of the German Lutherans adjoining us on the 
 Northeast. And now, for the second time, the mission formally and earnestly 
 ask that this whole district, represented b)'" Madanapalle and Palamanair, held so 
 long by Dr. Chamberlain, and now by Dr. William Scudder, be given up, or its 
 equivalent in the southern portion of the field, unless a considerable increase 
 can be made in the means provided by the Church for carrying on their growing 
 work. This is our opportunity in India. 
 
 Of fapan, the marvelous progress of the Gospel there, the growth of the 
 native church, the great and multiplying opportunities for labor, it is impossible 
 to speak at length. Perhaps it is not needful, so widely is the wonderful story 
 known. Speaking as men, we have not dealt ungenerously by Japan. Our con¬ 
 tributions of men and money for her benefit have for several years outstripped 
 those for India, and been double those for China. The last has literally been 
 first with us and the first last. It has not been our fault that it is so. The provi¬ 
 dence of God has led us on in this direction, as it has led other churches also. 
 Yet even so we have not kept—we cannot keep—pace with the opportunities for 
 Christian effort that offer there. So great and promising are these, within reach of 
 the capital, especially in Sendai and in Tosa, that one of our brethren has not hesi¬ 
 tated to suggest the withdrawal of our entire force from Nagasaki, that these new 
 fields may be occupied at once. 
 
 On the other hand, the hard, discouraging field of Nagasaki and Kiu Shiu at 
 last yields in a manner that surprises those w^ho knew it best, and longed and 
 hoped and prayed for such a day to come. The hide-bound prejudice—the en- 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 9 
 
 venomed hatred of “the Jesus doctrine” and the blessed Name, show signs of 
 weakening—organized opposition is breaking down. It used to be said, “ Who¬ 
 ever gets Satsuma’s men, controls Japan ”—and Satsuma’s men are listening to 
 the Gospel. 
 
 What wonder that our brethren there, especially he who has toiled and 
 waited there alone so long, before whose eyes such things are coming to pass, 
 plead earnestly for the fulfilment of their hopes—for schools and men and women. 
 “ There are inquirers everywhere,” they say. “ Are we not on the eve of a great 
 and glorious ingathering of souls ?” 
 
 Such is the opportunity, too briefly and incompletely stated, that presents 
 itself to us in every field. It is an opportunity that can be met only by a large 
 increase in men and means. 
 
 It is a special and hopeful phase of this situation, that the advance for which 
 it calls may be largely made through native agents trained for the work. Its 
 very wideness—the greatness of its demands upon us, lend new importance to the 
 provision of such agency, and of the means by which it may be secured and 
 trained. For the establishment of missions and Gospel institutions, for the 
 supervision of labor, for the training of helpers, for the conduct of schools, the 
 missionary is indispensable, and more could not only be advantageously employed, 
 but are sorely needed in all our fields. But for wide-spread evangelization, the 
 opportunity for which is opening before us everywhere, the main reliance must 
 be on native workers. This agency is home-born. It is of the people and comes 
 near to them. It is comparatively inexpensive. As compared with the cost of 
 maintaining a missionary family, the ratio of expense is as one to ten. Before 
 the wide fields open to our view and to our labor, how wise, how vastly impor¬ 
 tant to make liberal provision for a large increase in this invaluable agency, 
 and for those institutions by means of which its development and training must 
 be secured and carried on. No need is more pressing, at Amoy and Nagasaki, 
 than provision, in teachers and buildings, for such schools. Our useful and 
 valued institutions in India and at Tokiyo, in Japan, need strengthening and de¬ 
 velopment if they are to accomplish their best work. The church that prepares 
 and sends out the largest number of worthy native evangelists to work among these 
 great peoples, will no doubt exercise the largest influence for their speedy and 
 complete enlightenment. In every field we have existing institutions which only 
 need to be fostered and developed to supply the need. 
 
 We may well give thanks to God that He has put it into the heart of one of 
 His servants, the President of the Board of Foreign Missions, to bestow the 
 generous gift of $5,000 to provide such a school at Nagasaki. The gift accentuates 
 the Church’s opportunity to do greater and better things for Nagasaki, for Kiu 
 Shiu, and for Japan. 
 
 Another feature of our opportunity, and one that has at times been most per¬ 
 plexing, has reference to the supply of men. Other Boards lack them, cannot 
 find them—publish their appeals for them. The American Board, at its late an¬ 
 niversary, asked for fifty, and declared it more difficult to find the men to go 
 than to obtain the means to send them. With us it is not so. Whether the fire 
 of missionary zeal burns more brightly in our seminary and in the hearts of our 
 young men than elsewhere, we may not say. But this is true, that for every post 
 now waiting supply from us, the men have offered or stand ready to make offer 
 of their services. One of the last, two of the present Senior Class, and probably 
 others, are at the service of the Church for foreign work. I could name six 
 whose wish has directly or indirectly come before the Board—students of medi- 
 
10 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 cine and Theology—and at its last meeting, in the midst of profoundest silence 
 one of the classical missionary agents present rose and offered himself —to go to 
 “ any of the foreign fields of the Church, where his presence may be desirable or 
 necessary.” Do not such facts as these, and others that might be added, consti¬ 
 tute a part of our opportunity which we may not rightly overlook ? Is it not as 
 though the Lord Himself, pointing with His left hand to the fields, were saying 
 as we gather here to-day, “ Look upon them, they are white already unto har¬ 
 vest,” and with His right were leading up His laborers, called and chosen for us 
 to send, if we will, into the harvest in His name ? 
 
 OUR RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 I have little time and space to speak of our responsibility. And I confess I 
 know not how to speak of it as I would and ought. Somehow it staggers me. I 
 know it staggers others, for they have told me so. It does certainly seem that 
 where the providence of God opens to us such opportunities. He expects us to 
 advance. 
 
 1. The very success and blessing of the past involve responsibility. We are 
 bound by the holiest considerations to go on and complete the work we have 
 begun, so fast and so far as we are able. We have come under obligations that 
 cannot be thrown off, to the missionaries we have sent into the field, to the 
 churches we have planted, the schools we have established, the helpers we have 
 trained and put into the work, the heathen communities in the midst of whom 
 and for whose benefit all this work has been carried on. “ Sir,” said a heathen 
 to one of our missionaries, “ why do you come and preach to us just often enough 
 to make us dissatisfied with our own way, and not enough to explain to us your 
 way, that we may understand it and embrace it.’’ We have no right to go about 
 unsettling the faith of men, even in India and China, unless we mean and really try 
 to give them a better faith in its place. The work we have done is all of it and. 
 every part, only a beginning. It is a virtual if not a verbal promise of more. If 
 such were not our conscientious purpose, our deliberate intention, in going to 
 China or Japan or India, we might better have stayed at home and left the work 
 to other and more faithful hands and more believing hearts. 
 
 2. By both the blessing and work of the past and the opportunity of the present,, 
 we come under increased responsibility to the Lord from whom they all proceed. 
 The calls that come to us are His calls. He will not cease to call till His work 
 is done—completely done—His high and broad commission executed by his dis¬ 
 ciples, and His Gospel preached to every creature—His kingdom established over 
 all the earth. But to him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not 
 shall be taken. If we have really no more that we can do to meet His calls and 
 do his work, be it so. But then we may expect—we ought to expect—that what 
 we have will be taken from us. But, blessed be His name, it is not taken. He 
 does not so judge. He looks upon the past and says, “ I give you more to 
 do,” and opens our opportunity before our eyes. It is a gift of grace. It carries 
 with it solemn responsibility for souls and for the glory of the Lord. 
 
 3. If responsibility can be summed up in dollars, there is every reason to be¬ 
 lieve that if the $100,000 suggested by the General Synod for this year could be 
 obtained, and such a rate of contribution maintained for years to come, the ad¬ 
 vances indicated in this paper could be made within two years, and the work and 
 Church made ready for the next onward step to which the Lord may call. The 
 Amoy Mission could be brought to something like equality in numbers and re¬ 
 sources with our other missions—the Telugu portion of the Arcot Mission 
 manned with force sufficient to show real occupancy and an earnest purpose to 
 
Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 11 
 
 supply its multitudes with the Gospel—and the immediate wants of the Japan 
 Mission, both at Tokiyo and Nagasaki, be supplied. If a new,estimate of the im¬ 
 portance of the missionary work, and a new spirit of consecration shall take pos¬ 
 session of the hearts of all our people, it will not be difficult to raise $ioo,ooo. If 
 there be no such spirit it will prove impossible. 
 
 4. I cannot forbear a word concerning the responsibility of the Church to her 
 earnest-hearted sons and daughters, and to the Lord for them and for the use 
 she makes of them. It is not likely to be any other than the Spirit of the Lord 
 who moves them to go far hence unto the heathen. The Church has too many 
 promising openings here for her promising young men. Ought she, then, ever to 
 say No ! or suffer her Board to say it, to properly qualified, duly attested, sin¬ 
 cerely consecrated men or women who offer for this service ? 
 
 5. And finally, are we not responsible, before God, for such methods, such 
 thorough organization, above all for the promotion and prevalence of such a 
 spirit as shall secure the means necessary for the work committed to us. “ Doing 
 great things for the heathen ”—and these are confessedly great things for us to 
 do—“ doing great things for the heathen has ceased to be a question of power ; 
 henceforth it is simply a question of will.” So wrote Mr. Secretary Treat, of the 
 American Board, so long ago as 1867. If it were true then, much more is it true 
 to-day. We all confess it in regard to ourselves. It was confessed here yester¬ 
 day, on this floor, when it was said more than once, “ there is money enough in 
 the Church.” Yes, brethren and sisters, we do well to remember that it is not a 
 question oi power. But power undeveloped is as useless as though it had never 
 been. What, then, shall make the latent power we all confess, the effective power 
 we all desire } What but a consecrated will, under the constraining influence of 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 To those who will do great things for Him, He will give great grace, great 
 opportunities, great power, and great success. May such gifts be ours, and to 
 His blessed name shall be the praise. 
 
 11 . 
 
 A NATIVE MINISTRY. 
 
 Address by Rev. James F. Riggs, Bergen Point, N. J. 
 
 . THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 The great commission is to bring all men to Christ. A genuine native min¬ 
 istry will be found the most mighty instrument for the accomplishment of this 
 end. 
 
 In the opening of.Christian work in heathen lands, the agents are by necessity 
 of foreign birth and training ; but it is our firm belief that an excessive reliance 
 has been put in this same foreign education. After the pioneer comes the 
 preacher, and after the preacher comes the teacher, the instructor, the man who 
 sees clearly the supreme need of a body of natives qualified to carry on the work. 
 The evangelist must prepare the way for the pastor; the pastor must do a like 
 work for the professor of theology, and thus, in due time, as God shall enable 
 us to do so, we will pass over the entire administration of the work of Christ into 
 native hands. 
 
12 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 Has not the time now come for a fuller committal of ourselves to this educa¬ 
 tional policy in our foreign work ? We fully recognize the spiritual nature of 
 that charge which Christ gave to his disciples ; we know perfectly that the Gos¬ 
 pel is designed to reconcile sinners to God, not to impart culture ; we have no 
 purpose of departing from this accepted law, but we believe that the best way to 
 preach is to preach through the lips of men who are akin to those that listen. 
 Englishmen, Greeks, or Japanese, let them have a simple Gospel spoken by their 
 own brethren. 
 
 There has always been a measure of educational influence associated with the 
 work of our missionaries, because the Gospel cultivates the entire man, not the 
 soul only. The men sent abroad by all our foreign Boards have recognized the 
 training of native youth as one important means of grace, to be noted with care, 
 as a method co-ordinate with others. But our plea is that it should be, in these 
 days, something more than a method, that it should be the policy of our work. 
 
 In support of this plan we argue : 
 
 I. The time for such a system has arrived. 
 
 II . There is a demand for it on the field. 
 
 III. The history of our schools is a vindication of such a policy. 
 
 First —The time has arrived for the adoption of an educational policy. 
 
 The progress of evangelical work is nearly the same on a small scale or on a 
 wide field. Whether we look at a village ora continent, the essential phenomena 
 of religious life will be found the same. The dashing method, the boldness of 
 some apostolic messenger opens the way for the entrance of the light. Then the 
 preaching method, the laborious presentation of the Gospel by the missionary 
 who lingers in one spot, imparts new and higher views of truth, preparing souls 
 to accept salvation and to live by the Gospel as a rule, both of faith and practice. 
 S® much as this has been done in a very large number of places; the missionary 
 who was a pioneer, broke through into the heart of heathenism, and the missionary 
 who was a preacher, organized a church, or a community of listeners. Now the 
 time has come for something higher yet; it is time to turn these listeners into- 
 preachers ! it is time to pass from preaching to training, and to exchange the 
 giving for stimulating, and instead of imparting the Gospel, show the converts 
 how to impart it. 
 
 Work is quite as necessarf fora man as food ; and this applies to spiritual work 
 as well as material. After a man has been fed, give him his proper task, and 
 when the heathen has been rescued from his folly, and taught the elements of 
 the Gospel, when he has been ied with the true manna, let him find his work 
 also; let him who has received freely impart freely. 
 
 Another fact bears upon this view, namely, the substantial completion of the 
 great work undertaken by the Bible societies, the effort to make the Scriptures- 
 accessible to all men. Half a century of most remarkable effort has been ex¬ 
 pended on this work of translation, and it has been accomplished. Revisions 
 will doubtless come in due time, as required, but the foundation has been laid t 
 the Bible is translated into all the most important tongues of men. In view of 
 this significant achievement, and in view of the close relation that must subsist 
 between exegetical study and the preaching of the Gospel, we conclude that the 
 completion of these versions in several hundred languages is in itself a call to 
 converted young men to take the Bible and go with it into every home, carrying- 
 the love of God, the light of a dark world. It is now time to advance in this 
 matter of multiplying native preachers. 
 
Fonda Conference Papers» 13 
 
 Second —There is a demand for the native minister in the field. 
 
 This demand shows itself both in a loud call for preachers who are ready to 
 take hold of the work, and in an earnest request for higher education on the part 
 of young men who have been awakened, In this respect, in the sincerity of the 
 demand, the present is a golden opportunity that may never return. Students 
 come to the college at Aintab (Turkey), and volunteer to do any kind of work 
 that may be assigned them in the effort to meet necessary expenses. They do 
 thus very nearly pay their way in some instances, and the last annual report 
 states that about thirteen thousand hours of labor were expended by the students 
 under the direction of the faculty during the academical year 1883-4. The 
 students wash dishes, build walls, dig cisterns, and, in a word, do all sorts of mis¬ 
 cellaneous work that may be within their range. 
 
 This eager desire to be taught is in itself a very important fact; it is a sound 
 basis for effort; the missionary not being hampered by indifference, as in the 
 earlier stages. A serious and genuine desire of this sort will find some supply 
 in time, and if we do not furnish an education that is evangelical, some spu¬ 
 rious education will be thrust in that is not at all evangelical. The Mohammedans 
 are moving along lines of their own in this matter; so are the Gregorian Ar¬ 
 menians ; so are the Greeks, both in Greece and in Turkey, and the power of a 
 symmetrical Protestant education must be shown promptly, or we shall lose the 
 vantage ground we now occupy. Thus far there is nothing to compete with our 
 Protestant institutions in the large majority of cases, as in Syria, Egypt, and 
 Turkey. But as yet the supply is very far short of the demand. Prussia, a sin¬ 
 gle State, has 13,000 university students, and the immense empire of the Turkish 
 Sultan hib a few hundred only ! We may admit that education has been over¬ 
 done in some places, but it is not so in the outlying desert of the heathen world. 
 Shall we give them a Christian training that will furnish a supply of preachers, or 
 shall we let the whole work of shaping the intellectual future of the nations go 
 into the hands of those who are in league with our foe ? 
 
 Third—T he history of mission-schools is a complete vindication of this plan. 
 
 The experiment has been tried ; schools have been organized and faithful work 
 done in them. It has been proved that a young man can be educated in many 
 places at an expense of fifty dollars a year. It has been proved that the expense 
 is increasing, and that it will cost more in the future than at present. These 
 young men have shown a good spirit, a courageous spirit, and they have vindi¬ 
 cated their right to stand up for truth in Christian pulpits. They can speak in 
 perfect freedom to their brethren ; they have no brogue in utterance; they can 
 begin at onc^, while the foreign missionary requires a long training to get into 
 sympathy with native modes of thought and expression. 
 
 Another evidence of success in what has been done already may be seen in 
 the estimate of that work on the part of the enemy. Mission schools are not 
 viewed with indifference by those who represent hostile systems, as we may 
 readily see in the general reference to such institutions in the native press. An 
 example of this may render the case more clear. 
 
 Rev. George Washburn was once treasurer of the missions of the A. B. C. F. M. 
 in Turkey. After some years he beame the President of the Robert College, 
 Constantinople. Upon this one of the Armenian papers, in an unfriendly article, 
 made this comment (quoted from memory) : 
 
 ‘‘This man Washburn is a wonderful manager; he used to sit behind a desk paying out 
 money to make men Protestants; but he has found a better trick than that; now he sits be¬ 
 hind a desk taking in money to make men Protestants ! He is a wonderful man !” 
 
14 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 The value of this remark as a verdict is that it comes surprisingly near the 
 truth. We think that it is decidedly better that men should pay in certain ways 
 for being made Protestants ! 
 
 The educated native preacher can do a work that no other can. And our work 
 is now looking that way. We do not profess to set forth finished results. We 
 do not claim to play on the harp of a thousand strings, but we are trying to put 
 it in tune, so that in the time appointed He may come who shall reign, and when 
 His hand sweeps the strings there will be melody, and there will be harmony, 
 celestial music. 
 
 HI. 
 
 THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 By Rev. J. Elmendorf, D.D., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
 
 My theme grows out of and is inseparable from the broader and more funda¬ 
 mental topic—The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 A Christian missionary is any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in obedi¬ 
 ence to His command, is preaching the Gospel to some creature who had not re¬ 
 ceived it. Primarily, location, whether near or afar, enters not into the idea. 
 Andrew exemplified the missionary spirit and its normal action, when self-moved, 
 he found his brother Peter, and brought him to Jesus with the argument: “ We 
 have found the Messias.” 
 
 This case shows that Christ s parting command—His Church’s greaf commis¬ 
 sion of evangelization for all time—was the formulation of a law of Christian 
 duty, that voiced the first promptings of souls made alive by the faith of Christ. 
 The words of the Holy Ghost on the sacred page and on the fleshly tables of the 
 renewed heart are identical. And the reflex or retroactive influence of all obedi¬ 
 ence to divine commands deepens and makes more distinct the soul’s conscious¬ 
 ness of their correspondence. Hence the self-evidencing power of divine truth, 
 and the reason of Jesus’ words, “ If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know 
 of the teaching whether it be of God.” 
 
 The reflex influence of missions is of this kind, because missionary effort is 
 obedience to the most impressive, comprehensive, unqualified order that ever 
 fell from our Lord’s lips. It is the most enduring also, for its force cannot be at 
 all lessened until the great voices in heaven shall declare : “ The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign 
 for ever and ever.” 
 
 Obedience to this command is, therefore, not only universally and perpetually 
 obligatory, but disobedience destroys all claims to Christian discipleship. For 
 within the sound of Christ’s words and within sight of His example, the heart 
 that is not moved, in some degree, to give the bread of life to those who are per¬ 
 ishing for lack of it, is no more Christian than is the heart human, that is un¬ 
 touched by the piteous moans of the starving and refuses them food. Christian 
 development is no more predicable of such heart than is growth of a stone, to 
 which the Scriptures liken it. Yet growth is as certainly the law of the spiritual 
 life in human souls as it is of vegetable or animal life in the organisms it vitalizes, 
 And the real progress of Christ's kingdom in the earth is measured by the spiritual 
 growth of individual believers. 
 
 Moreover, such growth, while it implies, is most certainly and successfully 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 15 
 
 secured by missionary effort, because it involves increasingly such action of the 
 intellectual, 77 ioral, and spiritual faculties as clears and deepens the believers con¬ 
 sciousness of u 7 iio 7 i in thought, purpose, sympathy, and satisfaction with Jesus 
 Christ in the objects and end of His own mission to our world. 
 
 The new-born soul, tasting that the Lord is good, and rejoicing in hope of His 
 glory, inevitably sends the inquiry heavenward, “ Lord what wilt Thou have me 
 to do?” And the converted Saul of Tarsus was no more directly and definitely 
 sent into the city with the promise, “ It shall be told thee what thou must do,’' 
 than IS each inquirer since, sent to the Scripture record of Jesus’ life and teach¬ 
 ings for the same object. 
 
 Yet, until the question of Christian duty is considered in the light of the: 
 Scriptural missionary idea, intellectual perceptions and convictions concerning: 
 Christ’s teachings and examples on the subject do not amount to adequate re¬ 
 ligious forces. 
 
 It is the missionary idea that enlarges the view and deepens the conviction of 
 Christian obligation, as it is missionary effort through these that preaches the-. 
 Gospel in the regions ever “ beyond you.” And as all the direct influence of the: 
 missionary idea, and the direct benefits of missionary effort are toward and for 
 their objects, so the beneficial influence of the idea, no less than of the effort,, 
 upon the missionary worker, must be reflex. The enlarged views and deep¬ 
 ened convictions react upon the idea to clear and elevate it, and this again 
 stimulates the thoughts to grasp more fully the thought of the Lord, and the 
 feelings to respond to his pity for the lost. As compared with the intellectual 
 illumination of Christendom at the commencement of this century, that of to-day 
 concerning the missionary work the Church 77 iust do, is a fulfillment of the pro¬ 
 phet’s radiant vision—“The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and 
 the light of the sun shall be sevenfold.” 
 
 And yet, the proportions of this duty have only fairly begun to dawn upon the 
 apprehension of the Church. Truly did Secretary Judson Smith declare in his 
 paper presented at the late Anniversary Meeting of the A. B. C. F. M., “ It is 
 but the fringes of heathenism which we have touched thus far. Nothing that we 
 have thought of or attempted is yet finished. Everywhere our work is just begun, 
 or is reaping the first fruits, or is preparing, upon the ground of certain positive 
 gains, to go forward on a larger scale to a broader result. While the countless 
 hosts of heathenism still include the vast majority of the human race ; and while 
 this great mass of heathenism moves on its dark way unillumined and unchecked 
 and while in nominally Christian lands so large an amount of godlessness and 
 practical atheism confront us,” can any thoughtful Christian feel that the work 
 of the world’s salvation has been more than just begun ? 
 
 It is the sight of the 7nultitudes harassed and destroyed by sin, that moves the- 
 disciple with deepest compassion for them, as it did the Master, and inspires, 
 earnest prayers for more laborers. Certainly, the prayerful contemplation of the. 
 expanding field for missionary labor which missionary labor discloses, must scv 
 react upon the intellect of the Church, as to compel it to face the weighty prac¬ 
 tical questions concerning a corresponding expansion of its missionary plans and 
 efforts. And so, 
 
 2. The moral faculties of believers are exercised and proved by this influence. 
 
 Can the ever enlarging vision of perishing myriads, which makes the Christian s 
 brain throb with conviction, and his heart palpitate with emotion, constrain his 
 will to such determined, persistent, self-denying effort in getting the knowl¬ 
 edge of God’s salvation to them, as shall show that the indwelling Spirit of Christ 
 
i6 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 is dominant in his soul? This is the ever continuing test, by which the ever 
 exigent cause of Missions discloses to us our moral harmony with Jesus Christ, 
 in the great work of the world’s recovery to God : a work given directly to His 
 beloved Son by the Eternal Father, and as directly committed by that Son, clothed 
 with resurrection-authority and power, to His disciples who should be in the world. 
 
 The growing needs of the cause must call for more and more prayer, for larger 
 gifts of our money, for more earnest efforts to enlist the sympathies and help of 
 our companions : may call for our sons and daughters to recruit the hai dly pressed 
 company of laborers in heathen fields; may give the cry “come over and help 
 us ” a personal direction, through providential indications and deepening con¬ 
 victions, which shall demand the measure of consecration that answers, “ Here 
 am I, send me !” But whatever the service or sacrifice demanded may be, blessed 
 are they whose consciousness of moral union with their Lord shall enable them 
 with some measure of His holy and triumphing submission to say : “ Father, not 
 my will, but Thine be done.’’ And thus: 
 
 3. This demonstrated moral union with Jesus shall make more definite and 
 deep their sympathy and satisfaction with Him, in the objects and end of His 
 mission to our world, through the quickened action of the spiritual faculties. 
 
 ft is by spiritual apprehension that the things of the Kingdom of God become 
 verities to the soul made alive by His Spirit. The elemental powers or faculties 
 of His life are faith and love, so intimately united that faith can express its work¬ 
 ings through love, and yet not become identical with it. The distinction must 
 be maintained. In the outward as well as inward workings of the spiritual 
 life, faith must energize the will, while love moulds the effort. Faith accepts the 
 obligation ; love fulfils it. Faith grasps the divine and brings the soul under the 
 power of eternal realities ; love assimilates it to them. In every effort of a child 
 of God to obey his command, faith must hear the order, accept the pledged aid, 
 while love constrains and consecrates the whole soul to the service. And it is 
 in the manifest and mighty reflex influence of Foreign Missions upon Christian 
 faith and love that its reality and importance most appear. 
 
 As we have seen, missionary work properly begins with the nearest accessible 
 souls that have not received a knowledge of the way of life. Every sincere effort 
 to convert such is a “work of faith and labor of love,” and reacts beneficially 
 upon these fundamental fruits of the spirit. But when missionary work becomes 
 distinctively foreign, its reflex power is much increased for manifest reasons. It 
 is more certainly unselfish. Nearer labors may be, but they are likely to be prose¬ 
 cuted with motives and feelings quite complex. The promptings of kinship, 
 common nationality, patriotism, may be large factors in the enthusiasm which 
 would purify and mould the public life of one’s own community or country by the 
 principles of the Gospel of Christ. And while these elements are lawful and 
 admirable, they make devotion to the cause less disinterested, less Christlike, 
 less single for the glory of God in the salvation of souls. And all observation, 
 historic testimony and experience prove that, according to the unselfishness of 
 service done for God and man, is the measure of blessing reflected upon its authors. 
 
 Moreover, the reflex influence of Foreign Missions greatly strengthens faith, 
 both by the increasing demands which the work makes upon it, and the equal en¬ 
 couragement it gives to it. 
 
 The prophet’s vision of the “ open valley ” of very dry bones finds its most 
 fearful realization in the vast wastes of heathendom, and the stark spiritual death 
 and unutterable desolation which reigns there. And the unceasing appeal of the 
 Foreign Missionary work to every interested believer is : “ Can these bones live ?” 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 17 
 
 Can such howling^ wilderness ever be made like Eden, and such desert like the 
 garden of the Lord ? Then, while struggling faith clings to the word : “ All 
 power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” it gains literal assurance as it 
 gazes entranced at the radiant transformations which Christ’s power through His 
 Gospel is effecting. The comprehensive reviews of the work which have just 
 been made so thoroughly and presented by so many eloquent pens and tongues, 
 •clearly authorize Dr. Storrs’ weighty characterization of its progress : “ It admits 
 no parallel and outruns expectation.” 
 
 Single facts and scenes amount to conclusive earnests and divine pledges of 
 the final and universal triumph of the cause. 
 
 Thus we conclude, as we regard the baptismal font in the great church at Bau 
 in the Fiji Islands, and remember that it is the transformed famous stone which 
 for ages stood in front of the chief heathen temple there, and against which the 
 heads of innumerable victims of cannibal orgies-were crushed. 
 
 This we feel, as we contemplate the memorial tablet of Dr. John Geddie in 
 the pretty church at Anelcanhet on Aniteum, the first island christianized of 
 the New Hebrides group. Drawn to the shameless and fierce cannibals there, 
 from his home in Nova Scotia, by a divine call scarcely less distinct and resistless 
 than was that which carried Paul to Macedonia, he began and prosecuted for 
 years his work amid difficulties, dangers and discouragements, that could not have 
 heen greater. But the result is told in yonder inscription, in the native language 
 of the people : “ When he landed in 1848 there was no Christian here; and 
 
 when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.’’ 
 
 By the same reflex influence Christian love is intensified for the numberless 
 souls yet perishing, and for the Saviour who has provided for them an adequate 
 salvation : Christian zeal is warmed incalculably, by the radiant examples of con¬ 
 secration and self-denial, which in the lives and labors of missionaries illumine 
 the dark places of the earth; true Christian unity in its idea and spirit is de¬ 
 veloped resistlessly, by the common desire breathed in the prayers and echoed 
 in the praises of all Christendom, and by the demonstrated worthlessness of 
 denominational distinctions in evangelizing heathen lands. 
 
 So every distinct foreign missionary call, appeal, result, report, quickens and 
 stimulates the divine life in believing souls, and qualifies them for more abundant 
 sacrifices and more glorious acquisitions. Its inevitable forces cause a mighty 
 action and reaction in the minds and hearts of those they reach, which bear them 
 through the sublime realizations of peace by agitation, strength by weakness, in¬ 
 crease by dispersion, exaltation by humiliation, until the full blessedness of giv¬ 
 ing over receiving pervades their souls with a thrilling foretaste of millennial 
 rapture, and tunes their tongues to swell the praises of Him, who by the cross 
 obtained His crown. 
 
 My single thought from our theme of exhaustless suggestiveness, has been— 
 The divine life or Spirit of Christ in believers the earthly source and measure of 
 the Church ; missionary power and the development of this power by the reflex 
 influence of missionary undertakings and successes. But we need to see and 
 ever feel that the divine order of the growth of this power is within and from 
 individual souls. As these with increasing truthfulness can say, For me to live 
 is Christ,” the Church will become more demonstrably her embodied, living, lov¬ 
 ing, triumphing Lord. 
 
 When then, nations are ready to be born in a day, but the Church is not strong 
 enough to bring them forth ; when kingdoms closed against it since the “ king¬ 
 dom of heaven’’ came to earth, have opened wide their gates and are inviting the 
 
i8 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 entrance of gospel truth and grace, but the Church is not able to go up and pos¬ 
 sess them, must we not conclude that her inability to grow to the full stature 
 thus marked for her by providential opportunity, is due to the feebleness of her life ? 
 
 But, when He who is His people’s life declares, “ I am come that they might 
 have it more abundantly,’’ why does not His life abound in them ? When, in 
 Him who is their life “ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead,” why are they 
 not “ filled with all the fullness of God ”? Clearly, because the circulation of His 
 vitalizing spirit in them is resisted by the remaining, deadening life of self and sin. 
 And the only cure for this is closer, conscious union of His disciples with their 
 Lord in His thought, purpose, sympathy, satisfaction in the work of the world’s 
 salvation. And we all know that this can be secured only by the Holy Ghost, 
 who takes of the things of Christ and shows them to believers. The divine life 
 in them can grow only by the abiding and pervading presence and power of Him 
 who quickened them when they were dead'in sin. But the relation of my thought 
 to this truth is that the work of Foreign Missions is the Spirit’s mightiest, even 
 indispensable, instrumentality in effecting this growth, because by His blessing it 
 is an ever enlarging and strengthening cause of it. 
 
 In natural things, when the growth of the life principle is checked or culmin¬ 
 ates, the vigor of the organism it vitalizes begins to fail. It is so in spiritual 
 things. The individual Christian ; the Church ; the Christian denomination that 
 ceases to grow commences to / wane. 
 
 The instances are innumerable like that in Dr. Andrew Fuller’s pastoral ex¬ 
 perience, when the languishing graces and dying spirituality of his church, which 
 his best efforts had been unable to rally, were wonderfully revived and developed 
 by the cause of Foreign Missions which then arose, and which was warmly es¬ 
 poused by his people. 
 
 Dr. Anderson declared, “ It was painfully certain that the infant churches on 
 the Sandwich Islands, regarded as a whole, could not be raised to the level of en¬ 
 during and effective working churches, without a stronger religious influence 
 than could be brought to act upon them from within their own christianized 
 islands. It is also evident that the missionaries themselves then needed an addi¬ 
 tional motive power beyond what the islands any longer afforded. It was 
 precisely this discovery—for discovery it was—which gave rise to the mission to 
 Micronesia.” 
 
 Because the field of Foreign Missions is ever enlarging, the growth of the life of 
 the Spirit in the souls that push the cause must be unlimited. And as, by the very 
 reflex influence of the expanding work, the spiritual vigor of the workers is made 
 equal to its increasing demands upon them, all that is needed for its consumma¬ 
 tion is the reduction of this simple, certain philosophy to universal fact. 
 
 Can we brethren, and those we represent, so pray, “ Thy kingdom come,” etc., 
 that the answer shall be the conscious growth of the life of Christ in our souls 
 Can we so gain His meekness and lowliness of heart, and so learn of Him—under 
 the stress of His work laid upon us—that essential greatness in His kingdom is by 
 service, enrichment by imparting, enjoyment by self-denial, life by death, as that 
 the divine vitality of the self sacrificing love which bore Him to the depths of 
 Gethsemane and Calvary, shall declare ffself in His followers, going with “shoes 
 of swiftness ” to all lands of darkness, and telling of the salvation that is in Him 
 to the last of those sitting in the region and shadow of death } If so, the ever 
 quickened pulsations of the ever strengthened heart of Jesus’ mystical body shall 
 send the life-blood coursing to its farthest extremities, until it shall fill the earth, 
 and then forever be filled with the glory in which He and all His shall appear. 
 
F:,nda Conference Papers. 
 
 i9 
 
 IV. 
 
 PAPER ON THE ARGOT MISSION. 
 
 By Rev. John H. Wyckoff, Tindivanam, India. 
 
 Shall our missionary force in India be increased, or shall a portion of the Arcot 
 Mission field be abandoned by our church and transferred to another missionary 
 society.^ This is the subject that we are to discuss in this paper. 
 
 The Arcot Mission was organized in 1853, with three missionaries occupying 
 three stations—Vellore, Chittoor and Arni, all in the North Arcot district, and 
 from which the mission derives its name. In 1855, two more missionaries ar¬ 
 rived, when two new stations, Arcot and Palamanair, were taken up, and work 
 also begun at Coonoor, on the Neilgherry Hills. In 1861, the five missionaries 
 had increased to nine, and so confident were the Mission that they would be still 
 farther re-enforced, that, with the approval of the Board, they very considerably 
 extended the Mission boundaries, opening stations at Madanapalle in tlie north, 
 and Tindivanam in the south—points 130 miles apart. The field thus occupied 
 embraced the greater part of the North Arcot district; two counties in the South 
 Arcot, and three counties in the Cuddapah districts—covering an area of more 
 than 8,000 square miles, with a population exceeding two millions. The above 
 has, since 1861, been regarded as the field of the Arcot Mission, from no 
 part of which has the Mission felt at liberty to withdraw without the sanction of 
 the Board. To this must be also added the hill station, Coonoor, with its de- 
 pendenc es. 
 
 Let us now see how the Reformed Church has cared for the field entrusted to 
 Ler in India. 
 
 Please note that this immense district was occupied when there were nine men 
 in the Mission, with the prospect of that number being increased. But not 
 only was the number of missionaries not increased, but after 1862, the ex¬ 
 isting force was year by year weakened. In 1863, the nine missionaries were re¬ 
 duced to eight; in 1864, to seven ; in 1869, to six ; and in 1872 there were but five 
 men in the field. The outbreak and progress of the Civil War during a part of 
 this period, no doubt, tended largely to retard the efforts of the Church at home ; 
 but will that suffice to account for the astounding fact that from i860 to 1872—a 
 period of twelve years—not a single re-enforcement was sent to the Arcot Mis¬ 
 sion, to take the place of the four men who had been compelled to retire ? 
 
 A reduction of appropriations for the general expenses of the Mission, also, 
 followed the decline of the missionary force. In 1871, the Board were obliged 
 to call upon the Mission to retrench to the amount of $5,000. The work had to 
 be contracted in every department, and received an injury from which it has 
 never recovered. Evangelistic tours, which had been considered one of our most 
 important agencies, were entirely suspended ; the Ranipett Hospital, which had 
 greatly increased the influence of the Mission, passed under the control of gov¬ 
 ernment, and became almost completely secularized; the educational work was 
 also largely curtailed, as well as other important interests sacrificed. 
 
 Discouraging as the greater part of this period was, the decade that followed 
 {1871 to 1881) was far more disheartening. 
 
 True, three new men arrived during the first half of.the decade; but one of 
 them soon became disabled, three of the oldest and best missionaries returned 
 home, and the Mission was left at the beginning of 1876, with a working force of 
 
20 
 
 Fonda Co7iference Papers. 
 
 three men,one of whom was unordained. Throughout the greater part of six 
 years (1875 to 1881), three men, and part of the time two men, cared for the en¬ 
 tire interests of the Mission, carrying a burden for which nine men had been 
 thought insufficient. Thus the history of the Arcot Mission for nearly a score of 
 years is the history of an attempt to work an immense field with a force lament¬ 
 ably inadequate to compass it. 
 
 The year i88i marked a new era in our mission history. The three mission¬ 
 aries were then increased to four; the following year they numbered five; the 
 next year six; and at the close of 1884, the Mission was composed of eight men. 
 The annual meeting of the Mission, held in January last, was attended by seven 
 missionaries, a larger number than had assembled for eighteen years. 
 
 But the Church must not stop here. The Mission has not yet recovered the 
 force it had in i860. Our evangelistic work is almost as extensive as it was then, 
 while the pastoral and educational work has increased fourfold. Are eight men 
 sufficient to compass a field as large as the State of New Jersey, with double its 
 population? We do not expect, we do not ask the Church to place a foreign 
 missionary in every town or village in our field. We do not believe that India 
 IS to be evangelized, except indirectly, by foreign missionaries ; we are certain 
 that the native converts themselves are to be the chief instruments in their 
 country’s conversion. All we ask is that missionaries be stationed at a few cen¬ 
 tral points from which they can train and direct a native agency. 
 
 Let us now inquire directly, what are the present needs of the Arcot Mission. 
 Speaking for the Tamil field, the first great want is a trained teacher to take 
 charge of the Arcot Seminary. For years have the Mission pleaded for a man 
 for this institution. In 1881. although the missionary force consisted of but four 
 men, the Mission, feeling it to be supremely important, placed the seminary 
 under Rev. Mr. Conklin’s care, directing him to give it his first attention, even 
 at the expense of other work. The steady advance in efficiency that the school 
 has made since that date, proves that the step taken by the Mission was wise. 
 But the wants of the institution have only been partially met. With a station and 
 several out-stations on his hands, Mr. Conklin cannot give his whole time to the 
 seminary. What is needed is a Christian layman to take charge of the secular 
 department, leaving the theological class and the work of the station to the or¬ 
 dained missionary. Could a competent man, normal trained, be secured, it is 
 more than probable that one-third of his salary would be met by the Government 
 of India, which is making liberal grants to all educational institutions. 
 
 Our next want is one more missionary for the Tamil field. Two new stations 
 —Guriattam in the north, and Wandiwash in the .south—ought to be occupied 
 with as little delay as possible. As early as 1862, Guriattam was adopted as a 
 mission station, and Dr. John Scudder appointed to reside there; but the mis¬ 
 sionary force being suddenly reduced, the station was relinquished. Twice during 
 the last twelve years have other societies asked to be allowed to enter this place, 
 but we have forbade their doing so, hoping to occupy it ourselves. 
 
 A new station should also be opened at Wandiwash in the south. This town 
 lies midway between Arni and Tindivanam, and is the centre of a field even more 
 promising than Guriattam. If these two points are not speedily taken up by us 
 other societies*will enter into the very midst of our mission field. 
 
 A third want is an increased appropriation for the general work of the Mission. 
 Not only should the annual grant to the Arcot Seminary be increased, so that a 
 more efficient staff of teachers may be employed, but the standard of the prepar¬ 
 atory schools at the various stations, which act as feeders to the central institu¬ 
 tion, must be likewise raised. 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 21 
 
 In the matter of education, we stand at the the tail-end of all missionary 
 societies of the Madras Presidency; and, as a consequence, we have to go to 
 other missions for teachers for many of our schools. All the best positions in 
 our higher institutions are held by men educated in other societies. 
 
 We ask also to be enabled to resumeevangelistic work which has been virtually 
 suspended since 1871. There are whole counties where the gospel has scarcely 
 been preached for fifteen or twenty years. We have men now to do the work, 
 but means must be provided to meet expenses incurred in traveling about the 
 district. 
 
 Such are some of the immediate wants of the Tamil field. We would like to 
 enlarge upon their importance, but time forbids. 
 
 We shall now consider the claims of the Telugu field. It covers an area almost 
 as large as the Tamil district, but with a population considerably less. Let us 
 briefly recount the history of the field. The central station is Madanapalle, 
 which stands in the centre of a district about equal in^size to the State of Con¬ 
 necticut. Into this wide and weary waste of heathenism. Dr. Chamberlain en¬ 
 tered for the first in 1862, and labored for twelve years single-handed, appealing 
 again and again for help, but in vain. In 1873, just as he was beginning to reap 
 the fruits of his labors, he was stricken down bv illness, and returned home after 
 fourteen years continuous service. Mr. Heeren, who had arrived the year be¬ 
 fore, was appointed to take charge of the field ; but he had no sooner acquired 
 the language and was ready for work than his health failed, and he returned 
 home to die. The Tamil field was at this time left with but two ordained mis¬ 
 sionaries. To relieve Madanapalle was out of the question. From 1873 to 1878 
 the station was left without a resident missionary. 
 
 Nor was that all: the necessities of the mission in caring for the many villages 
 that came over in the Tamil district, and the lack of funds to employ more 
 native assistants, compelled them to move down all the native helpers from the 
 Madanapalle out-stations, so that when Dr. Chamberlain returned to India, at 
 the close of 1878, he found but one native assistant left to care for the station 
 and out-stations twenty miles away. The people in the villages had been 
 left as sheep without a shepherd, and it is no wonder thev were scattered. 
 
 Dr. Chamberlain began with his wonted energy to rebuild his work, and within 
 three years the station exhibited a marked change. Efficient native helpers were 
 secured; village buildings that had fallen to decay were repaired; new out-stations 
 were occupied ; boarding schools were established, and buildings for the same 
 erected, and a house for the missionary begun. But the physical strain was too 
 great. In 1881, he was prostrated with severe illness. A voyage to Australia only 
 partially restored him; but he returned to his station, resumed his work, and al¬ 
 though advised by his physicians to leave the tropics, for more than a year he 
 kept his post, and would not and did not desert it till some one was sent to re¬ 
 lieve him. Will the Church abandon a post maintained so long under such diffi¬ 
 culties ? But, if it is to be held, two more missionaries must be sent to the field. It 
 is absurd to suppose that one missionary can work a field as large as one of our 
 States. Is it not a cause for humiliation that the Church should have furnished » 
 the Telugu field with but one laborer since it was first occupied twenty-three years 
 
 ago ? 
 
 Let us now consider what such enlargement of the work, as I have suggested, 
 would cost. To maintain three new missionaries, one for the Tamil and two for 
 the Telugu field, as well as a teacher for the seminary ; to raise the standard of 
 our educational institutions, and carry them on efficiently ; to resume evangelistic 
 
22 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 tours as formerly, would require an additional outlay of not less than $9,000, an¬ 
 nually. It is not, of course, expected that this sum would be granted in a single 
 year; but cannot the appropriation to the Arcot Mission be increased by annual 
 increments of $3,000 until the above amount is reached } The present appropria¬ 
 tion to our mission is about $27,500. We ask to have it increased to $36,500. Is 
 this too much to expect of the Church } It is $3,000 less than the Japan Mission 
 has received for the last two years; and $5,000 less than the American Board 
 grants to its mission in southern India, which occupies a district one-third 
 smaller than ours. The average appropriation to the Arcot Mission for the five 
 years, 1870 to 1875, was $28,742, or $1,242 more than it is now. The average con¬ 
 tributions of our Church for those same years was $65,969. Now they amount to 
 $80,000. Had the appropriations to these missions been proportionately advanced, 
 the Arcot Mission would to-day be receiving $39,500 of this sum. We do not 
 grudge a single dollar that goes to Japan. God grant that the Church may be 
 able to double and even quadruple its appropriation to the mission there, and 
 may our hopes regarding the speedy evangelization of that country be realized ; 
 but is it not a question worthy of consideration, whether work in an old mis¬ 
 sion should be retarded, in order to advance in a new field ? 
 
 And is not the Arcot Mission worthy of the Church’s confidence and sup¬ 
 port.? Glance for a moment at the results of her missionaries’ labors. Scarcely 
 thirty-two years have elapsed since the Mission was founded. We have seen 
 how utterly inadequate to the field the Missionary force has been. And yet at 
 the close of last year, we find reported twenty-three organized churches with 
 1,600 communicants, and 3,832 baptised members; congregations at seventy-five 
 different points,with a Christian community of 5>376 souls; eighty-five schools 
 in which are reading 2,180 pupils; 747 of whom are girls. Our church mem¬ 
 bers and native Christians have more than doubled with each decade. 
 
 Nor has the advance been merely in numbers. Our church members have 
 made steady progress in all that tends to give strength and stability to a Christian 
 community. We maintain (and here we give substantially the testimony of Dr. 
 Caldwell regarding the Tinnevelly Christians) that the Christians of our Indian 
 Mission have no need to shrink from comparison with Christians in a similar 
 station in life, and similarly circumstanced in America or any part of the world. 
 We think we do not exaggerate when we affirm that they appear to us in general 
 more teachable and tractable ; more respectful to superiors; more patient and 
 gentle ; more trustful in Providence ; better Church-goers, yet free from religious 
 bigotry; and, in proportion to their means, more liberal than Christians in 
 America, holding a similar position in the social scale. We do not pretend for a 
 moment that they are free from imperfections, but we are bound to say that 
 when we look back upon the Christians of India from a distance, when we com¬ 
 pare them with what we have seen and known of Christians here in America, we 
 find that their good qualities have left a deeper impression upon us than their 
 imperfections ; and we further see and know that in the Christians of Arcot, as 
 well as in the Christians of America, may be traced distinct marks and proof of the 
 power of the Gospel—new sympathies and virtues, and a new heavenward aim. 
 Nor is the fact that a majority of our converts have come from the lower classes 
 any reason for discouragement. It is universally admitted b}'' all who are ac¬ 
 quainted with the social and religious systems of the Hindus, that it is better for 
 Christianity to begin in the manner it has—from the lower classes, and work up¬ 
 wards. In no other way do we see how the pernicious caste distinctions which 
 are the bane of Hindu society, can be kept out of our churches. Although the 
 native church may be longer dependent upon the liberality of Christians in 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 23 
 
 America, still she is more firmly*^established, her members are stronger and 
 holier, and the spirit of unity and brotherly love that they exhibit are a constant 
 rebuke to the-proud caste spirit of the heathen. As the native church advances 
 in intelligence and influence, the high-caste Hindus cease to think of the low 
 origin of her members, and are attracted by the kindness and love that they ex¬ 
 hibit. Already the gulf that separates high-caste heathen from the native 
 Christian community has been considerably narrowed, and the day will soon 
 come when it will be completely bridged. 
 
 Let the Reformed Church consider well before she decides to contract her 
 work in India. Other lands have their points of interest and attraction, but out¬ 
 side of Christendom, no land presents such claims upon the Church as India. 
 “ The evangelization of this vast empire is the greatest distinctive enterprise ever 
 attempted by the Church of Christ.” Not in China nor Japan ; not even in 
 Ancient Greece and Rome, has the Gospel encountered such an antagonist as in 
 India. We do not hesitate to affirm that when Hinduism falls—as fall it will— 
 Christianity will have gained its greatest single triumph. The various churches 
 of Europe and America are now vieing with one another as to which shall ac¬ 
 complish-the most in this great field. The last Decennial Conference Report 
 shows no fewer than forty-five missionary societies laboring in India. The same 
 report tells us that the native Christian community there is doubling every 
 twenty years. 
 
 But we hear some one say, Japan will be a Christian country in twenty-five 
 years ; let us evangelize Japan first, and extend our efforts in India afterwards. 
 Should the Reformed Church adopt such a policy, there will be no ground that 
 she can call her own in India at the end of a quarter of a century. 
 Missionary societies are crowding upon our field upon every side. The Danish 
 and Leipzig Lutherans are pressing us on the south, the Hermannsburg Lutherans 
 and the London Mission are advancing upon us on the north, and the English 
 Wesleyan and Scotch Societies are forcing us to contract our field on the east and 
 west. We repeat it, we must be re-enforced, and that speedily, if we are to hold 
 our own. 
 
 If it cannot be done ; if our force cannot be increased so as to carry on the 
 work efficiently, then let us adopt the other alternative, relinquish a part of the 
 field, and hand it over to some other society that is able to care for it. The 
 Church should not force her missionaries to follow a “ dog in the manger 
 policy any longer. Is it not positively wrong for us to prevent other societies 
 from entering our field when we do not work it ourselves } 
 
 We must either advance, or let others advance in our stead. Which shall itbe.^ 
 
 V. 
 
 THE DIVINE PURPOSE IN MISSIONS. 
 
 By the Rev. P. E. Kipp, Schenectady, N. Y. 
 
 Christianity is here; it has imbedded itself in the world. It asks no favors of 
 the world. Its language is not, by your leave I will take this humble corner in 
 the family of nations ; but, I am on a march of conquest. I have planted one foot 
 on Europe, another on America, the next will be on Asia, the next on Africa,, 
 then the world will be mine. Will you go with me ? Will you take a seat in my 
 
24 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 triumphal car, or must its glowing wheels roll over your obstructing body? The 
 day for apologies has gone; this is the day of Christianity’s challenge. It places 
 itself squarely before the world and challenges men with, “ Come and see.” Look 
 at my claims, they are world-wide. Look at my credentials, they are the auto¬ 
 graph of God. Unroll the promises and look at my charter. A splendid destiny 
 is marked out for me ; already the world is casting up the highway for my 
 triumph. And Christianity is saying to you and me—run, knock at the door of 
 nations and demand their surrender to Jesus, tell them the King of Glory is 
 coming, and He demands the key. 
 
 It is time to change our ground. Missions must no longer stand on the defen¬ 
 sive, they must assume the aggressive. We must change our whole tone, no 
 longer timidly ask the Church for its leave to introduce the subject. We must 
 place it in the forefront. Tell the Church this is the object for which she was born, 
 accomplish it or die. This was no afterthought of God, it was carefully planned 
 from the beginning. Christianity was meant for the whole world; when missions 
 are pushing their conquests they are but carrying out the divine purpose. That 
 purpose I shall try to show by sketching in the most rapid way six lines of 
 proof. 
 
 1. Prophecy. This has made the boundary of Christ’s kingdom coterminous 
 with the horizons of the world. Prophecy has not been afraid to go on record. 
 The sibyls never wrote, they spake. The prophets wrote and left their words to 
 be tested by time. Place history by the side of prophecy and see whether they 
 agree. Ezekiel has left a hand-book on the future of Tyre. So accurately does 
 history confirm prophecy that one is almost tempted to believe that Ezekiel 
 wrote after the events ; that it was a post-diction rather than a prediction. Raw- 
 linson has given the history of Egypt and Babylon almost in the language of 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Mr. Layard corroborates Zephaniah in 
 every detail of his prophecy concerning Nineveh. 
 
 It would almost seem that the types which have printed the destruction of 
 Jerusalem had been set up by the hands of Jesus and the prophets, and had been 
 kept in press until the events had come round to justify them. 
 
 There are more than 400 distinct and particular prophecies relating to the per¬ 
 son of Christ. Are they true? Are every one of them true, down to the most 
 minute detail true, as the photograph is true to its subject. If so, then we 
 must give some confidence to the voice of prophecy. Now what has that voice 
 to say of the extension of Christ’s Kingdom? This—Zech. ix: 9, 10. “Rejoice 
 greatly O daughter of Zion ; shout O daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king 
 cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an 
 ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. (There can be no mistake in the person.) 
 And He shall speak peace unto the heathen, and His dominion shall be from sea 
 to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.” 
 
 Now if Tyre and Sidon and Egypt and Babylon and Nineveh and Jerusalem 
 followed exactly in the track marked out for them by the finger of prophecy, 
 shall we not expect the church to do the same ? 
 
 2. Promise. God has recorded His promises in a book which He has Himself 
 been careful to preserve as a witness to His fidelity or to His faithlessness. This 
 is His sacred promise to His Son.—“ I will declare the decree ; the Lord hath said 
 unto me. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall 
 give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for 
 thy possession.” Will the unbroken record of covenant faithfulness fail here ? 
 The heathen shall be Christ’s or the decree of God for the first time shall be 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. * 25 
 
 broken ; the uttermost parts of the earth shall be His possession, or the will and 
 testament of Almighty God is not worth the paper on which it is written. 
 
 Just here let me throw out the suggestion that this is the inheritance of the 
 saints. The Christian s inheritan^ce is not that cloudy thing we have dreamed 
 of, it is here, right at our hands, tangible and visible; it is the heathen. God’s 
 promise makes it sure. 
 
 3. Providence. History’is a chaos except in one light. Leave out the factor 
 of the Church of Christ and the facts of history are as so many beads scattered 
 on the floor. Follow the line marked out by the Church and you will see that 
 every bead is strung on that thread and sparkles with glorious meaning. Would 
 you understand the significance of the Roman Empire } Its arms which held 
 conflicting tribes in peace ; its citizenship, which made it safe for a Roman to 
 go where he would; its roads, which opened such facilities for travel ; its lan¬ 
 guage, which became the vernacular of the world } The significance of all these 
 concentrates in the Church of Jesus. When that Church had been fostered and 
 had spread to the bounds of that empire, Rome could do no more for her and 
 Rome fell. 
 
 The Greek language had been developed to its highest perfection when Christ 
 came ; why } That it might be the classic alabaster box to hold the precious 
 ointment of the Gospel. Soon after it became a dead language, because it was 
 necessary that the box should be closed and sealed. 
 
 See how the downfall of the empire turns out to the interest of the Church. 
 The barbaric tribes must come under the influence of the Gospel; they can be 
 tempted out of their dark forests to come down where more genial influence 
 shall soften their character, only by the prospect of plunder. So the empire shall 
 be dismembered and divided among them, and lo, they receive something richer 
 than spoils. 
 
 The victors accept a religion at the hands of the vanquished. In the first cen¬ 
 tury persecution sends the Gospel to the heathen ; in the fifth century the heathen 
 are brought to the Gospel, and so it extends over all Europe. 
 
 The wonder is, not that religion was crude and the age so dark immediately 
 before the great reformation, rather the w^onder was that the slime and sediment 
 brought down by the streams of the inflowing tribes had not overlaid the church 
 with a thicker crust of sensuality and sin. 
 
 Then comes the Reformation and the translation of the Bible into the language 
 of the people. But the Bible is translated not too soon, not too late. The press 
 is ready to take up the word of God and scatter the seed broadcast And so the 
 Bible and the printing-press meet and are married, and hand in hand they go on 
 under the lead of Providence. 
 
 Commerce finds its way to India under the charter of the East India Company. 
 Why } To put the Gospel in India. China’s walls of exclusiveness must go down, 
 even though it be at the mouth of the cannons of the opium war. Why } Be¬ 
 cause the Gospel had knocked for entrance. Japan opens her port to salute the 
 flagship which brings her the Gospel. 
 
 And now what is the meaning of all this progress of the nineteenth century } 
 This is to the world what the Augustan age was to Rome, and you will find the 
 key to unlock the meaning of this age back in the age that preceded the birth of 
 Christ. 
 
 To-day the arts of peace take the place of the arms of Rome; railroads are 
 substituted for Rome’s marvelous post-roads; the English, like the Latin, is rap¬ 
 idly becoming the universal language, we too are entering the era of universal 
 
26 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 peace, public opinion is hushing the conflict of nations instead of Roman legions. 
 And what is it all for? Onlyto give speed to the feet of them that publish good 
 tidings. The world is rapidly getting ready for another coming of Christ. 
 
 Formerly it was said : “ All roads lead to Rome.” Now watch the roads on 
 which Providence is conducting the world. If you cannot see that they all lead 
 to the Church of Christ you are either biased or blind. 
 
 4. Progress. Whatever Christianity has gained it has fairly won in the face 
 of the strongest opposition. Herod sought the young child’s life, but he was 
 only leading the opposition of Judaism. Behind the opposition of Pilate stood 
 the whole power of the Roman Empire. Ten times that Empire hurled its might 
 against the Christian Church in dreadful persecution, from Nero to Diocletian. 
 
 Then Paganism entered the lists, “ Take your place peaceably by our side, said 
 the religions of the world to Christianity, and we will give you room.” No! 
 Christianity has come to displace all other religions. “Then prepare for a war 
 of extermination.” She prepares and she conquers. 
 
 Next infidelity hurls itself against this hated religion, from the courtly polished 
 Julian down, way down, to the ribald Ingersoll. 
 
 But upon the tombs of all may be written the words which the angel spake of 
 the first opposers of Christianity, “ They are dead which sought the young child’s 
 life.” They—their books, their influence, their memory—are all dead, buried and 
 long ago forgotten, but the young child lives. That is not all. Human nature 
 itself is opposed to Christianity. Every single convert must be captured, not 
 one voluntarily surrenders. 
 
 But with all this against her, how goes the battle? Can there be any progress? 
 To-day all the strongholds have been taken and turned against the enemy. The 
 foremost nations of the world are Christian. A new spirit of missions has been 
 breathed upon the Church within the last few decades, and the progress of the 
 Church has been beyond all precedent. Pentecost has literally been outdone, and 
 the nineteenth century has thrown the first into the shade. 
 
 The story of the progress of missions for the last twenty-five years reads like a 
 romance, its triumphs have almost been beyond belief. I have no time so much 
 as to glance at them. ^ Read them. This age is writing long chapters in the 
 second book of the Acts of the Apostles. But remember, please, that these blood¬ 
 less triumphs mean conquests; not concessions. And best of all, the tide of 
 thought in the Christian world is rising steadily in favor of missions. Never, 
 since Pentecost, such wide interest and such vast efforts as now. 
 
 5. Its Potency. Christianity meets the demand of the whole world. All 
 men want Christianity. Their souls want it, because there is salvation in none 
 other, their intellects crave it, for their is no true psychology without it; their 
 bodies need it, for the most blessed physical effects have followed it; their poli¬ 
 tics require it, for there can be no lasting settlement of national and international 
 questions without it. 
 
 “ Nature abhors a vacuum,” said the old-time physicists. There is a big 
 vacuum in the world, and Christianity alone can fill it. Christianity is not an 
 ethnic religion, it is a catholic religion, it is bounded by no geographical lines, 
 hindered by no climatic changes. Other religions will not bear transplanting* 
 Brahminism grows only where it was born, it flourishes in India, but not in 
 America. Confucianism thrives in China, because it adapts itself to that people 
 only. Mohammedanism will not take root in the temperate zone. But Chris¬ 
 tianity is not tribal, it is universal. It binds up the broken heart as well in 
 Africa as it does in England; it satisfies the craving of an immortal soul as well 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 27 
 
 in Japan as in Germany, The peace of God is just as soothing to a wounded con¬ 
 science under the equator as in our latitude. Its own potency is proof that God 
 meant Christianity for the world. And 
 
 6. The Persons Engaged in it. God the Father planned it; God the Son 
 executed it; God the Spirit is operating it. Put God the Triune in any move¬ 
 ment and what must be the result? 
 
 The First Person of the blessed Trinity is the Father of Foreign Missions; the 
 Second Person of the blessed Trinity is the Pioneer of Foreign Missions; the 
 Third Person of the blessed Trinity is the Spirit that broods over and animates, 
 the whole missionary cause. 
 
 And good men are in it. Call the roll of names that deserve the highest men¬ 
 tion, and they will be those who have fallen in line with St. Paul. That line is 
 the galaxy of brilliant stars that spans the firmament above our earth. Yes, and 
 wealthy men are in it. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who has just gone to join the 
 peerage whom the Sovereign of heaven has knighted ; he loved it. Merchant 
 princes, who can command public statues, gave their time to it, and have be¬ 
 queathed their millions to the spread of missions. Wealth is pouring rapidly 
 into the treasury. Jesus has always had myrrh, He is now receiving the world’s, 
 gold and frankincense. 
 
 Now given these two factors—the Triune God to manage missions, and ten 
 millions a year as a free-will offering, and arithmetic fails to compute the results.. 
 Why put only five barley loaves and two small fishes in the hands of Jesus, so 
 that He can bless, and at least 15,000 people go away fed and leave twelve baskets- 
 full unused. 
 
 Put one dollar in the hands of Christ, so that He can bless it, and no one can 
 tell what it may accomplish. Only be sure that God is in the movement and suc¬ 
 cess is sure. And God must be in it; prophecy, promise, providence, progress,, 
 potency, persons engaged in it, all unite in overwhelming proof that a divine 
 purpose has marked out for missions a course to universal conquest. “Jesus, 
 shall reign where’er the sun does his successiveqournies run,” and nothing can 
 prevent. 
 
 Missions are marching on to victory, and it is only a question of time when 
 Christ shall seize and sway the universal sceptre. 
 
 Jesus Christ is no longer riding the ass’ colt; He has mounted the locomotive, 
 and His hand is on the throttle valve; Christ’s own finger touches the electric, 
 line that is gone out through all the earth, whose words flash to the end of the 
 world. The magnificent enginery we call civilization is in His hand. And the 
 question narrows itself down to this—do you want a share in the glorious triumph ? 
 
 I will no longer ask the aid nor the alms of men for Foreign Missions. I shall 
 say to them ; Brother men! Jesus Christ has pre-empted the world ; the Foreign 
 Missionaries are His surveyors to stake out His claim. They are driving down 
 those stakes at the northern and the southern, and the eastern and the western 
 extremities of every continent, and every foot between belongs to King Jesus. 
 
 . This is the biggest bonanza that ever opened its subscription books on earth 
 how many shares do you want ? 
 
 The dreams of the fabulous wealth of the Indies, that animated the early dis¬ 
 coverers, are all true, nay they are far beneath the truth. The wealth of the 
 Indies, of China, of Africa are beyond description of the most excited fancy;, 
 whole continents of the rarest jewels may be had for the gathering. 
 
 The Foreign Missionary Society is the firm in which God the Triune, you and 
 I are partners for the mining of this fabulous wealth. I shall say : Men ! by God’s. 
 
28 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 condescending grace I am permitted to offer you the opportunity of investing in 
 this Eldorado. It is a safe investment, our eyes have already seen its success. 
 
 “ Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. For verily I 
 say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those 
 things which ye see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye 
 hear and have not heard them.” And yet those men invested their all in this 
 great project. Say ! in full sight of the great consummation, from this Pisgah 
 height from which the promised land is plainly visible, what do you wish to in¬ 
 vest in this partnership with the Almighty } Now is 3^our chance ; in all eternity 
 3^ou will never have one like it. 
 
 No; no ! I will not ask men to give as a favor. When did Christ ever ask 
 favors of any man ? He always bestowed favors : He does so now. 
 
 When He gives you this opportunity He is bestowing upon you the greatest 
 boon you ever had next to your own eternal life. 
 
 My brothers, this is the most advanced age of all the ages. But 1 tell you, the most 
 advanced movement in this most advanced age is the missionary movement. He 
 who does not keep abreast with this movement is behind the age. Ah, worse ! 
 he is losing the golden opportunity of his life. 
 
 VI. 
 
 HAVE WE REACHED THE LIMIT OF OUR ABILITY 
 
 AND DUTY ? 
 
 By Rev. M. H. Hutton, D.D., New Brunswick, N. J. 
 
 The subject assigned by the Committee to Dr. Hutton was ‘‘Have we reached the limits 
 of our Ability and duty ? ” After an introduction speaking of the difficulty in adequately 
 handling such complicated topics as “ Ability ” and “ Duty ” in twenty minutes, Dr. Hutton 
 proceeded substantially as follows : 
 
 I.— “Ability”—Have we reached our proper limit in that 
 
 Our answer to that question might seem to be conditioned largely by our an¬ 
 swer to another—what is ability } Do you mean by the word what a man will 
 do with an ample sense of reserve power? Or do you mean what one can do 
 without serious taxation or impairment of his resources ? Or do you mean liter¬ 
 ally the utmost limit of his power, as when one who must leap .for his life, with 
 every muscle tense and every nerve strained, springs as far as he is able, and 
 then sinks fainting, or dead with heart-stroke, as he gains his leap? Many a 
 man has said, “ I cannot do that; I am not able,” who, when stern need has laid 
 its compelling hand on him, has found that he could do what he had to do. 
 Necessity often conditions “Ability.” 
 
 But we need not stop to discuss in which of these senses we shall use the term, 
 for we are still considerably inside the lightest one. Look for a moment at the 
 confessed state of the case. Our denomination, from the sobriety of its views 
 and practices, does not greatly attract to it the more volatile elements in the 
 community who live on excitement, and whose pecuniary responsibility is as 
 volatile as themselves. Our people belong for the most part to the producing, 
 and not to the non-producing class of society. We are indeed no longer the rich¬ 
 est of the denominations for our size. But we are still composed, as a rule, of 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 29 
 
 sober, industrious, frugal, thriving men. Calvinism does not promote pauperism. 
 There is no miracle about it. It could easily be shown that the logico-practical 
 effect of that Scriptural system of doctrine which we hold so vigorously and ten¬ 
 aciously, is to promote physical and material prosperity. 
 
 Now we stand—so say our latest reports—eighty-three thousand seven 
 hundred and two members strong. A few of these are really poor, but very few. 
 There are also child-members who earn nothing. But even deducting these, it is 
 not an excessive computation to reckon that an average amount of two and a-half 
 cents a week would be within the ability of every one. Under the old Jewish law 
 of the Tithe, every man who earned six dollars a week, would have had to give 
 sixty cents a week. But God never taxed any man, we may be sure, beyond his 
 “ ability.” Surely the same man can give two and a-half cents under the Christ, 
 ian dispensation without hardship. But that alone from our members as above, 
 would bring in one hundred and eight thousand, eight hundred and twelve dol¬ 
 lars and sixty cents. Nor is that all the source of income. Not more than two- 
 thirds of our ordinary congregations are church-members. Add then, this third 
 who contribute as regularly and as willingly as do the members. It would give 
 us for Foreign Missions, one hundred and sixty-three thousand, two hundred and 
 eighteen dollars and sixty cents a year, and that without a strain, to a people who 
 had an organized willingness. 
 
 Dear brethren, we surely cannot be said to have reached “the limit of our Abil¬ 
 ity ”—scarcely to be within sight of it. 
 
 Or, look at it from another side. 
 
 “Ability?” Of old it was observed that where there is a will there is a way. 
 Our Dutch forefathers in the Hollow Land of Europe, showed us the deep foun¬ 
 tains from which “ability ” flows, and we are their sons. It was not only in the 
 shrewd and stealthy statesmanship of William the Silent. It was not in the 
 martial sagacity of Maurice alone. It was not only in the great fortunes of the 
 rich. It was the plain Dutch citizen who showed that the open secret of finan¬ 
 cial ability lies in the heart behind. Year after year—with pierced dykes drown¬ 
 ing all income from the harvests—with commerce cut off the high seas because 
 their ports were closed, their wharves idle—with a vindictive and atrociously 
 cruel war, trampling with its bloody hoof those naturally fertile acres into a red 
 desert—they somehow carried all that fearful financial burden. Who has for¬ 
 gotten Leyden ? When shall perish the deathless story of the high-hearted citi¬ 
 zens who, pressed to surrender because they had not the ‘ anility” to sustain 
 themselves, cried “We will fight with our right arm, and feed on our left!” 
 These were our ancestors ecclesiastical. The blood of “ the Church under the 
 Cross ” is in our veins. We, too, can do the like : as they for liberty, so we for 
 our blessed Lord and for His kingdom. Let the winds which blew across the 
 Holland polders blow across our lives once more, and the same ^Eolian strings will 
 vibrate in the ancient harp. Let the Holy Spirit consecrate us wholly, and our 
 “ ability ” will be a surprise to Christendom. “We can do all things through 
 Christ which strengtheneth us.” 
 
 Have we reached the limit of our “ Ability ” ? As before the white throne of 
 the Awful God, Answer ! 
 
 H. —I MUST PASS TO THE SECOND POINT ASSIGNED ME. HaVE WE REACHED THE 
 
 LIMIT OF OUR “ Duty ” ? 
 
 Theologians will tell us that in some aspects, at least, lack of ability does not 
 discharge from duty. But, laying aside that consideration, there are other 
 sources from which light rays in on this question. Observe three things : 
 
30 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers, 
 
 One of them is the familiar fact of the non-limitation of our duty by our Lord’s 
 last command. It is not merely that we are to go and preach the gospel; we are 
 to do it to every creature. It is not merely that it is to be done for a while. His 
 ‘ lo, I am with you to the end of the world,” implies that to the end of the world 
 —the Eon—the Dispensation—He expects us to preach it. -The world is not 
 ended yet; it shows no sign of ending. Its end—inconceivably remote, if science 
 be pointing her finger correctly—its end is the limit of our duty. 
 
 The second thing which throws light upon the subject is the work still to be 
 done. The world’s population is reckoned at fifteen hundred millions. Nominal 
 Christendom is still less than one-third of the whole. Of that third, Pro¬ 
 testantism is but a half. Of that sixth of nominal Christians, more than half 
 are reallv godless, worldly, criminals, debased. Only one twelfth, at generous 
 reckoning, yet won for Christ. And then there is heathenism, rooted and 
 grounded. 
 
 In India, it is said, after almost a century of labor, there are two millions of 
 Christians. It looks brilliant—until you set against it the two hundred and sixty 
 millions of dusky pagans yet untouched in Hindustan. And that is a favored . 
 land. Look at China, Burmah, Corea, Africa’s heart. No man can look steadily 
 at that wide sweep of labor yet to be done, and say honestly, “We have reached 
 already the limit of our duty.” 
 
 Finally, light is thrown on the matter by the example of our blessed Lord. He 
 left us an example that we should walk even as He walked. What did He think 
 His duty.^ Not to us—looking toward us it is all grace; undeserved favor. 
 But He thought it right to throw Himself headlong into this very work to which 
 He calls us. He sent forth no mere compassionate glances—He sent no angel. 
 “ In the volume of the book it is written of Me, lo, / come to do Thy will, O God.” 
 He left the vast immeasurable glory of His Father’s house. For our sake He be¬ 
 came poor. That was His idea of what He ought to do to save men, and further 
 His kingdom. He thought it sober duty to give Hz 77 j self body, soul and spirit. I 
 lift eyes and heart toward that shining example, and say, Brethren have we 
 reached the limit of our Duty.^ 
 
 VII. 
 
 MISSIONARY INFORMATION. 
 
 By Rev. John G. Fagg, Lawyersville, N. Y. 
 
 The old maxim, “ knowledge is power,” applies most emphatically to every 
 sphere of Christian activity. Information is the basis of inspiration. Informa¬ 
 tion is the basis of generous, intelligent giving. How can we measure the claims 
 of a subject about which we are ignorant. How can we give or pray or work for 
 that about which we know scarcely anything? 
 
 The enthusiasm awakened by brilliant addresses and the magnetism of large 
 gatherings no one will disparage. The flame kindled from those strong fires has 
 sometimes burned through a lifetime. Nevertheless, it will not be denied that 
 many on these occasions are galvanized into the semblance of genuine en¬ 
 thusiasm, and no sooner is the special electric current cut off, but every trace of 
 it is gone. 
 
Fonda Conference Papers. 3 ^ 
 
 Shall our inspiration be more than a “ patty-pan ” inspiration ? Shall our en¬ 
 thusiasm be more than a “ small-pot, soon-hot ” enthusiasm, it must be fed from 
 the storehouses of a rich and varied missionary literature. Our missionary liter¬ 
 ature divides itself into two classes, missionary papers and magazines, and mis¬ 
 sionary biography. Secular papers are found in nearly every home. The most 
 secluded backwoodsman and loneliest prairie farmer can tell you the news. In 
 thousands of Christian homes, a religious paper, much less a missionary paper, 
 has never entered. Crops and stock, scandals and crimes they must know about, 
 but the contemporary life of the Church, the record of great awakenings, the in¬ 
 flow of giant errors, the victories of the Lord’s advance-guards over the strong¬ 
 holds of heathenism are to them matters of comparative indifference. Like in¬ 
 difference during the war of the Revolution or the Rebellion would have 
 impeached a citizen’s patriotism. Is not our loyalty to Christ called in question 
 by such indifference } How many can consistently plead the excuse of poverty } 
 To be truly grateful for encouragements, to give more liberally and intelligently, 
 we must know of missionary successes. To pray more definitely and earnestly, 
 to be less exacting in our demand for results, we must be familar with the dis¬ 
 couragements, the strong grip of hoary superstitions upon the benighted mil¬ 
 lions, the ostracism and persecution following confession of Christ. To that end 
 we must read missionary papers. 
 
 And m this matter we ought to cross denominational lines. We ought not to 
 be satisfied with our own monthlies however valuable they may be. Papers like 
 the Missionary Herald (Congr.) and Foreign Missionary (Presb.) ought to be 
 found on every pastor’s study-table and in many of our homes, where the addi¬ 
 tional expense would be a very small consideration. They are ably edited, and, 
 in addition to den(>minational information, give a general missionary outlook. 
 In military campaigns, a victory on any part of the field is an inspiration to the 
 whole army. So every victory by any battalion of the advance-line of the Lord, 
 ought to inspire us with more fidelity and zeal in that part of the field entrusted 
 to us. 
 
 Missionary Biography. In almost every home, lives of our great national 
 heroes and statesmen may be found—Washington and Franklin, Clay and 
 Webster, Lincoln and Garfield. In how few Christian homes do we find the lives 
 of Livingstone and Judson, Duff and Martyn, Patteson and Williams, men whose 
 lives would form a second eleventh chapter of Hebrews full of the highest and 
 holiest inspiration. 
 
 Go through the library of many a theological student and Christian pastor, 
 and you may see shelf upon shelf of theology and Church history and belles-let¬ 
 tres, but not one volume of missionary biography. And yet, who can read the 
 liyes of any of these men without having his faith strengthened, his hopes 
 brightened, his love deepened, his zeal awakened to do and dare for Christ’s 
 sake.^ Whose heart will not be stirred by the dauntless courage, the unflagging 
 perseverance, the Christ-like sympathy of David Livingstone } Whose faith will 
 not be strengthened by the lofty heroism and deep piety of Adoniram Judson ? 
 Said Theodore Parker, after reading President Wayland’s “Life of Judson’’: 
 “ If Christian missions had done nothing more than to build up such a character 
 it is worth all it cost.” What pastor will not feel rebuked and blessed as well, 
 who after a few years of faithful preaching and no apparent results, has im¬ 
 patiently cried out “ How long, Oh Lord, how long.?”—when he reads the lives of 
 Hans Egede and Christian David, of Moffat, Morrison, the missionaries of 
 Samoa, and the Baptists among the Telugus. Hans Egede went to Iceland, 
 
32 
 
 Fonda Conference Papers. 
 
 “ To break through barriers of eternal ice, 
 
 A vista to the gates of Paradise, 
 
 And light beneath the darkness ot the Pole, 
 
 The tenfold darkness of the human soul.” 
 
 He had to break away for six years before the vista was opened and the light 
 brought to a single soul. 
 
 Moffat waited and watched and worked for seven years, Morrison for fourteen 
 years, the missionaries of Samoa sixteen years, the Baptists among the Telugus 
 twenty-five years, before one piece was broken from the granite rock of heathen¬ 
 ism. Who will not be encouraged by the successes of Titus Coan, who, on one 
 day baptised 1,700, and in one lifetime led 10,000 souls to Christ; of Williams,, 
 who preached the gospel to 300,000 South Sea Islanders, and in the great taber¬ 
 nacles led thousands to the feet of the great Master, as repentant sinners. 
 
 Caesar pored over the life of Alexander in the camps of Gaul. Napoleon fired 
 his ambition with the conquests of Caesar. Even so shall we be quickened 
 with a holy and abiding enthusiasm from contact with the lives of the heroes of 
 our modern Christendom. 
 
 We trust the time will come—if the time ever comes, when men seek first the: 
 Kingdom of God—that Christian men and women will no longer remain indif¬ 
 ferently ignorant of the great work of God in all lands. When they will not wait 
 a month to glance over the few pages of a missionary magazine, but will want to 
 know the latest news of the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom every week or 
 every morning, before they look to see the stock-list or the scandal-list of the 
 day before. When the question of the morning will be, “ What new progress, 
 what new delays, what new needs for the advancing hosts of Christian warriors ?’’ 
 May God speed that day. May the Lord inspire us all to inquire, not in derision,, 
 not indifferently, but believingly of the watchmen on Zion’s walls, “ What of the 
 night? What of the night ?” 
 
 
 
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