o ■ 
 
 To 
 
 <V\ - 
 
 Ser. 
 
 » 
 
 MR. 
 
 WEST’S 
 
 MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 

A 
 
 MISSIONARY 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. N. WEST, JR., 
 
 MINISTER OF THE SECOND PRESBYTEEIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. 
 
 gelibereb in groolrlp, October 10, 1801, before % Spob of Jfrto gork, 
 
 BY ITS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF FOREIGN 
 MISSIONS OF TUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 MISSION HOUSE, 23 CENTRE STREET. 
 1862. 
 
EDWARD 0. JENKINS, 
 yrlnttr, 
 
 No. 20 Noktii William St. 
 
ADI) R E S S . 
 
 Fathers axd Brethren: Never, perhaps, since the memo- 
 rable epoch when the gray-haired and venerable Erskine, 
 battling against the moderatism of the General Assembly of 
 the Church of Scotland which had crushed out the missionary 
 spirit from the heart of her ministers, and taught that the 
 Church was under no obligation to send the gospel to rude, 
 unlettered barbarians, rose from his seat, and stretching forth 
 his trembling hand, and lifting up his quivering voice, ex- 
 claimed, “ Moderator, rax me the Bible ; rax me the Bible ” — 
 Beach me the Bible ; reach me the Bible — turned to the first 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Komans, and read the impressive 
 words of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, “ I am debtor 
 both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and 
 to the unwise ; so much as in me is, I am ready to preach the 
 gospel to you that are at Borne also;” — never, perhaps, since 
 that time, more than during the past ten or fifteen years, have 
 the enemies of the cross of Christ put forth more strenuous 
 efforts to bring into disrepute the great enterprize for the 
 prosecution of which the Church of God is organized and ' 
 established upon the earth. By a variety of methods, deriv- 
 ing plausible but fallacious argument, sometimes from the pre- 
 
4 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 tended observations of travellers, and sometimes from pretended 
 philosophical considerations, the so-called advocates of social 
 reform and national progress have violently assailed the cause 
 of Christian missions, and, with attempted proofs of mission- 
 ary failure, sought to lodge, in the Christian mind, the convic- 
 tion that the labors of the Church in this cause, are not only 
 misdirected but altogether unnecessary and unwarranted. It 
 has been vigorously urged that the Church is at fault in her 
 attempts to evangelize the heathen by mastering their different 
 languages and dialects, and giving them the gospel therein, 
 when as yet they have not been lifted up from their social 
 degradation by those ordinary processes and appliances of civili- 
 zation which, it is maintained, are pre-requisites indispensable 
 as a foundation for successful church action. 
 
 But the other day, when casting my eyes over one or two 
 of the more popular periodicals of Europe and America, my 
 attention was arrested by language such as the following: “It 
 is questionable,” says one writer, “ whether the Church has 
 not made the exclusive idea of Christianity too prominent, at 
 the first, and too forcible for the minds of the heathen, thereby 
 defeating the good sought to be accomplished.” “ Until late- 
 ly( ! ) ” says another, “ the Church proceeded on the ground 
 of saving souls from hell. All idolators were undoubtedly 
 supposed to be damned, and to rescue as many as possible 
 from perdition was the simple object of her missions. Those, 
 however, who do not believe in the damnation of the heathen, 
 on account of their ignorance, take a wider view than the old 
 missionaries, with the hope of raising whole nations out of a 
 state of idolatrous corruption of morals into a condition of 
 Christian civilization.” “ Nothing,” says a third, when refer- 
 ring to the residence of the Rev. Dr. Bettleheim in the Loo 
 Choo Islands, “nothing can atone for such a complete removal 
 from the world of civilized men.” 
 
 Thus it is, at the present day, that first, by doubt, then by 
 derision, then by denial, the missionary enterprize is insidiously 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 assailed and actually pronounced an unpardonable crime, that 
 for which there can be no atonement. It requires, however, 
 but a moment to see that, upon such views and theories as 
 •hese, nothing whatever could atone for the removal of the 
 Lord Jesus himself, down from the heights and glory of heaven 
 above to the depths of human degradation beneath, nothing 
 atone for the acceptance of humiliation* on his part in order to 
 accomplish the great errand of redeeming love, nothing for 
 submission by him to contempt and personal suffering, and the 
 endurance of that state of poverty which left him without a 
 place whereon to lay his head ! Such a mission as his, to 
 “save souls from hell,” is, on this view, utterly unwarranted. 
 Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, Samaria, the 
 manger, the garden, and the cross, — all are without excuse, 
 without justification ! 
 
 But, in opposition to all such semi-infidel and rationalistic 
 opinions, we have the clearest and most indisputable authority 
 for asserting that the true and proper work of the Church of 
 God, on earth, is the missionary work. It is the work of the 
 Father, the work of the Son, the work of the Iloly Ghost. 
 Upon this point the language of the Scriptures is explicit. In 
 that sublime address of the Eternal Father to his Son, recorded 
 by Isaiah, Jehovah thus speaks, “ I the Lord have called thee 
 in righteousness and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, 
 and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the 
 Gentiles, to open blind eye's, to bring out the prisoner from 
 the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison- 
 house.” “I will give thee fora light of the Gentiles, that thou 
 mayest be my salvation to the ends of the earth.” Thus was 
 the Father engaged in the work of missions in the counsels of 
 eternity, pre-arranging all the steps of grace whereby, in due 
 time, he should send his only begotten Son into the world that 
 whosoever believes upon him might not perish but have life. 
 God sent his Son into the world. And in strict accordance 
 with this it is that Christ himself speaks : “ The Lord possessed 
 
6 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I 
 was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the 
 earth was.” It is in the Father, the Original Source of all 
 things, we find the fountain and spring-head of missionary 
 spirit and missionary love. “ In this was manifested the love 
 of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten 
 Son into the world, that we might live through him.” “ God 
 sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that 
 the world through him might be saved.” Here, too, we discover 
 the missionary obedience of the Son himself. “ I came down 
 from heaven,” said he, “not to do mine own will, but the will 
 of him that sent me. And this is the will of him that sent 
 me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him, 
 may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last 
 day.” And just as the Saviour was sent by the Father, so did 
 He in turn, send his Church on earth to carry forward the 
 great work of the salvation of sinful men. “ As thou hast sent 
 me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the 
 world.” From the diadem of brilliant titles which sat upon 
 his own matchless and beaming brow, he selected some to place 
 upon the heads of his disciples, that men might see that He 
 and they together were engaged in one and the same glorious 
 work, the work of diffusing the light of salvation around souls 
 shrouded in the darkness of sin. He who is the “Licrht of the 
 
 O 
 
 world,” said to his Church, in the persons of his Apostles, “ Ye 
 are the light of the world.” He who is “ the Amen, the faith- 
 ful and true witness,” declared to them, “ Ye shall be witnesses 
 unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, 
 and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” And when about 
 to withdraw himself from their immediate presence, then and 
 there did lie invest them formally with the gospel and mission- 
 ary functions pertaining to himself, binding them, by his su- 
 preme authority, to the exercise of the same, throughout all 
 coming time ; “ All power is given unto me, in heaven and in 
 earth, Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 7 
 
 in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you, and lol I am with you alway, even unto the end 
 of the world.” To render effectual this divine commission, lie 
 graciously promised to his Church the gift and indwelling of 
 the Holy Ghost, whom, in the fullness of his powerful energy, 
 as a couvincer of sin, righteousness and judgment, He was 
 about to send, after He had seated himself, throned in glory, 
 upon the right hand of the majesty on high. 
 
 But while, on the one hand, the justification of the church, 
 in prosecuting the missionary enterprise, is found in the design 
 of the Father, Son, and Spirit, as also in the proximate com- 
 mand of Christ, and the gift to the church of the Holy Ghost, 
 it is, on the other hand, moreover found in the inner harmony, 
 the spiritual oneness of the church herself with Christ her 
 Head. United to Him by divine and indissoluble bonds of 
 faith and love, her spiritual life ripens into one common pur- 
 pose with His own. Sent from the Father, through the Son, 
 the Holy Ghost inhabits the humanity of all believers, forming 
 Jesus within them, the hope of glory ; thus identifying all the 
 parties in a blessed and heavenly unity of life, love, and work, 
 — “ I in them, and thou in me, that they all may be one in us.” 
 Thus is it that believers are possessed of God, and inflamed 
 with the Spirit of Christ. Thus is it that, in their union to 
 Jesus, they are, though not meritoriously, yet imitatively and 
 practically, and in some sense mediatively, inaugurated into 
 the offices of Christ, as prophets, priests, and kings, teaching 
 sinful men the will of God for their salvation ; offering their 
 bodies and souls living sacrifices unto God, but in behalf of 
 their fellow-men, for whom they live, and labor, and pray, and 
 ruling, through divine grace, by the influence of their conduct 
 over the hearts of men. In other words, the missionary char- 
 acter of the church is the inevitable and legitimate result of 
 the missionary character of Jesus Christ. It is a character not 
 simply as consequent upon an outward and formal investiture 
 
8 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 of the church with evangelistic functions, nor merely depend- 
 ing on an authoritative commission, but flowing forth, by irre- 
 sistible necessity, from that spiritual union to Christ, whereby 
 she partakes of His life and shares in His work. Christ and 
 believers are one. They are but the perpetuation of the Sav- 
 iour on earth in the form of his mystical body, humbled, it is 
 true, as was once the divine Head, now glorious in heaven. 
 To appropriate the beautiful words of another, “ In the church, 
 the Lord speaks words of truth and consolation to fallen man. 
 In and through her He heals the sick, raises the dead, distrib- 
 utes the heavenly manna, gives himself, as spiritual food, to 
 the hungry soul. In her are repeated his sufferings and death ; 
 and in her, too, are continually celebrated anew His resurrec- 
 tion and ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. In 
 her militant state, like her Head in the days of His humilia- 
 tion, she bears the form of a servant. She is hated, despised, 
 and mocked by the ungodly world. But from this lowly form 
 beams forth a divine radiance, “ the glory as of the only-begot- 
 ten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Redemptive and 
 illuminative, she is like her Master. Apostolicity, in the wid- 
 est and most comprehensive sense, is her crowning attribute. 
 It was breathed into her soul by the Spirit of Christ. Her 
 authority to u Go, teach all nations,” was no sooner announced 
 than it found a waiting response in the inwardly-felt and upris- 
 ing welcome of a bosom filled with love to the Saviour. She 
 already coveted a work the same as His own, even to seek and 
 save the lost. The celestial impulse which moved her onward, 
 in the toil of human salvation, was the Spirit that dwelt in the 
 person of Jesus. The complementary grace necessary to an- 
 swer the outward divine commission, He shed upon her heart, 
 so that she could not but do what the lips of her Lord had 
 commanded. 
 
 Having thus vindicated the church of God from the re- 
 proach of folly cast upon her by those who, in the disguises of 
 hypocrisy, feign themselves friends of the ultimate object of 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 9 
 
 her endeavor, while they deride the means by which she seeks 
 to secure it, allow me to pass on and say that, just in proportion 
 as the church has been true to the missionary spirit has she 
 prospered in the world, and just in proportion as she has 
 proved faithless to this great principle of her organization, has 
 she forfeited the divine blessing and experienced adverse tor- 
 tune. Ecclesiastical history, whether as recorded by inspired 
 or uninspired pens, is a witness of the correctness of this state- 
 ment. The moral power of the church, in primitive apostolic 
 times, is a theme of familiar eulogy among all the heralds of 
 the Cross. Fresh with descending grace upon her, tilled with 
 love to Christ, and moved with pity for a perishing world, she 
 went forth in the true spirit of missionary enterprise to bless 
 mankind. Full of sacrifice and self-denial, consecrating her 
 property, comfort, riches, ease, influence, energy, and life itself, 
 upon the altar of her devotion to Christ, she attracted to her 
 bosom the present and conscious reward of a faithful servant, 
 and won for herself those amazing victories, the record ot 
 which adorns the pages of inspiration. Her progress was sig- 
 nalized by the strewing of her path with monuments of tri- 
 umph and trophies of the most glorious success. One after 
 another the gods of the heathen fell from their pedestals be- 
 fore her. One after another Pagan temples crumbled into 
 dust. The bloody altars of superstition were overthrown ; the 
 hallowed shrines and oracles grew mute ; the institutions of 
 the laud surrendered to the soldiers of the Cross ; and career- 
 ing onward in her majestic and heavenly course, multiplying 
 her converts and her power, she ceased not until mounting the 
 imperial throne she robed herself in the purple of the Caesars, 
 and interweaving the Ten Commandments of God and the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, with the code of Theodosius, gave Chris- 
 tian Law to the world ! 
 
 How different her history when we turn to the record of 
 some of her subsequent periods ! From the moment the 
 church became careless of the great missionary law of her or- 
 
10 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 ganization, the character of her existence, and the pledge of 
 her prosperity, violating that upon which the preservation of 
 her life and health depended, we discover the symptoms of 
 rapid decline. When the church lost sight of her expansive 
 character, smothered in her breast the attribute of love for 
 souls, and ceased to be aggressive for Christ, then it was she 
 began to experience the loss of her moral power, together with 
 the conquered ground acquired by her former zeal. When, 
 lured from her duty by the temptations of the world, she com- 
 promised so much of her warrior-character as to agree not to 
 be aggressive, or when confident and satisfied she rested from 
 her toils and her sacrifices to find enjoyment in the retrospect 
 of past achievements, or when the spirit of worldly-mindedness 
 and sordid selfishness gained access to her heart and closed the 
 hand of Christian liberality, or when, complacent in prosperity 
 and blessed with abundance, she thought only of herself, and 
 left the world to perish or find its life elsewhere than from 
 her, then it was that, for these departures from the express pur- 
 pose of her constitution, for these infractions of her organic 
 law of growth and expansion, she felt a frightful recession from 
 her high position, a decrease of her spiritual might and effi- 
 ciency, and a marked diminution of her numbers. Discord 
 and strife began to utter their cries within the pale of her com- 
 munion, and the very energies with which God had endowed 
 her for the conquest of the world, were turned in upon herself 
 only to distract and destroy. Ceasing to move forward to vic- 
 tory, she became the prey of her enemies. Renouncing her 
 lofty trust as the almoner of Christ’s bounty in the work of 
 grace, to perishing men, she became the extortioner of the 
 world. Prosperity forsook her and left her to the curse of her 
 own withholdings, and the mildew and blight of Jehovah’s 
 displeasure settled down upon her. The history of the Seven 
 Churches of Asia ; that, too, of Geneva, the fortress once and 
 stronghold of evangelic doctrine, — and the startling record 
 that, because of the check which the Great Reformation re- 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 11 
 
 ceived, no nation on earth that did not adopt the gospel princi- 
 ples of that mighty movement previous to the close of the six- 
 teenth century, lias ever adopted them since, are proofs enough, 
 if others are wanted than those before our eyes, to illustrate 
 and seal the truth, that only in earnest, constant, untiring, mis- 
 sionary and aggressive zeal, the prosperity of the church of God 
 on earth is to be found. 
 
 But I proceed to mention that, though there is much to be 
 regretted, as the missionary history of the church passes under 
 close review, still there is much, very much, for which to give 
 thanks as we look at what has indeed been accomplished. 
 The great enterprise of Christian missions has not been a fail- 
 ure. Modern Protestant missions may safely be said to date 
 from the beginning of the present century. Their history is 
 about that of sixty years, or a little more. The apostolic spirit 
 was arrested by the early corruptions and crimes of the church 
 in consecpience of her amazing prosperity, too unwisely enjoyed 
 when possessed, her wealth, power, ambition, and increasing 
 conformity to the world. Fortunate for the time as was the 
 union of Church and State, under Constantine in the fourth 
 century, and many as were the advantages reaped by the 
 church from this union, still it but prepared the way for eccle- 
 siastical corruption and spiritual decline, as also defection from 
 doctrinal truth. From this epoch unto the period of the Re- 
 formation we have an ecclesiastical history, the records of 
 which show more of controversy, contention, wealth and cor- 
 ruption, than they do of pure, simple apostolic devotion to the 
 work of saving souls. Not indeed that a brilliant exception is 
 nowhere to be found. Nor indeed that the missionary spirit 
 had altogether slumbered in the bosom of the church. Every 
 intermediate century shows the diffusion of at least a nominal 
 Christianity in the different parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. 
 The chief instrumentality, however, by which it was propa- 
 gated, was worldly policy in connection with martial power, a 
 spirit which seems to have been impressed upon the church 
 
12 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 from the days of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of 
 Rome. The results of this policy were territorial aggrandize- 
 ment and nominal submission to ecclesiastico-political authority. 
 The unavoidable consecpience of this mode of propagating the 
 religion of Christ was the still greater worldliness of the 
 church, and the still greater corruption of doctrine, practice, 
 and worship. Ages of spiritual darkness began to roll over 
 the world. 
 
 The seventeenth century was an age of missionary prepara- 
 tion and promise. The open Bible which the Reformation had 
 given to the church, and the new impulse imparted by the 
 Spirit of God to many of His people, together with the death- 
 stroke that fell upon that corrupt system which, organized 
 within the precincts of the church, sought to establish only a 
 merely nominal Christianity by the power of fire, sword, and 
 torture, called into being the dawn of a fresh hope for the 
 nations of the earth sitting in the regions of darkness and 
 shadow of death. It is about this time we begin to read the 
 names of Mayhew and Eliot, Guericke and Swartz, the fore- 
 runners of a few such spirits as Brainard and Sargeant in the 
 beginning of the succeeding century. In the eighteenth cen- 
 tury we meet, in our researches, the record of the organization 
 of various Protestant missionary associations, of feeble strength 
 it is true, but yet heralds of the missionary spirit about to burst 
 forth with unusual brightness and heat, in approaching years. 
 Such were, the “ Baptist Missionary Society,” the “ London 
 Missionary Society,” and the “ Edinburg Missionary Society.” 
 Others also of minor importance appeared about the same time. 
 
 The beginning, however, of the present century, the year a. d. 
 1800, marks the epoch of modern missions. It is about this 
 time we meet with the names of Gutzlaff and Carey and Vau- 
 derkemp, Buchanan and Mills, Judson and Martyn and Ileber, 
 all illustrious on the scroll of missionary fame. At this time, 
 too, Missionary and Bible Societies are organized and multi- 
 plied wherever the Church of God is awakened, and under the 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 13 
 
 descent of the Holy Ghost, in the midst of the world’s convul- 
 sions, the inauguration afresh of that great work which is des- 
 tined to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the 
 Lord, is commenced. The church prays. God hears. Mission- 
 aries are sent forth. The Spirit attends them. Souls are 
 saved. The salvation of the world begins to appear. 
 
 And what has the Christian church accomplished during 
 this period ? Much, every way, notwithstanding all her diffi- 
 culties and trials, and derelictions of duty. We are wont to 
 speak in praise, and very justly too, of the period of apostolic 
 Christianity, as one preeminent in ardent missionary zeal, and 
 one to be paralleled, if possible, by the church in all ages. 
 And yet, without the least disparagement of apostolic zeal and 
 the primitive spirit of Christian self-sacrifice, we may safely say, 
 though the church has fallen short of her duty, though she en- 
 joys facilities such as the apostles had not, though they encoun- 
 tered opposition such as we do not meet, and though our victo- 
 ries might have been multiplied a hundred fold had we only 
 been more devoted and faithful, yet a comparison of the results of 
 missionary labor, in its modern era, with those of apostolic labor 
 immediately succeeding the ascension of Christ, will afford us 
 abundant cause of thanksgiving to God, and furnish renewed 
 and powerful encouragement to press on, heart and soul, in the 
 great work Christ has given us to do. Take, then, the period 
 of sixty years from the ascension of the Saviour into heaven, 
 and compare it with the equal chronological period of sixty 
 years from the beginning of the present century, and mark the 
 results. It has been computed by several of our foreign mis- 
 sionaries, most reliable in every way, that the result of apos- 
 tolic labor during the sixty years succeeding the departure of 
 Christ, was the conversion to him of about one million 
 (1,000,000) of souls, or an increase of about 16,666 souls 
 every year to the church, in all the various fields of Christian 
 labor. This is indeed a monument to the mercy and the grace 
 of Christ. 
 
14 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 And what lias the church to show, of success, under the bles- 
 sing of her divine Head, during the sixty years of her labor, 
 since the modern Protestant era of missions was inaugurated ? 
 Perhaps, previous to the year 1800, though the seed of God’s 
 word had been sown in many places, hardly a soul was known to 
 be converted to Christ, or but very few, as a result of missionary 
 effort. Dr. Carey had gone to India, and a few' others had fol- 
 lowed him. Some had sailed for the South Sea Islands. Tw r o 
 had gone to Africa, and two to the West Indies. The rest of 
 the world was an awful blank ! But look now ! How changed 
 the scene ! The wilderness and the solitary place have been 
 made glad, the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. 
 It has blossomed abundantly and rejoiced even with joy and 
 singing. The glory of Lebanon has been given to it, and the ex- 
 cellency of Carmel and Sharon ! According to the most accu- 
 rate and recent computations, in India there are 112,000 native 
 Christians, and the empire more open than ever before to the 
 diffusion of the gospel. In Burmah 110,000 Karens rejoice in 
 the light of divine truth shed upon their soids by the preach- 
 ing of the word. In Africa there are 250,000 native converts 
 in those habitations of cruelty where, at the beginning of this 
 century, the Hottentot, the Fingoe, and the Kaffre, Avere hunted 
 down like the beasts of the field. Of Negroes in the West 
 Indies and America, there are 340,000 under the care of Chris- 
 tian pastors, catechists, and teachers, emancipated, w T e trust 
 from a more than merely human slavery, and blessed with the 
 freedom that is in Jesus Christ. In the Sandwich Islands there 
 are 80,000, almost the entire native population, professedly 
 converted to Christ, the Sabbath day being observed better 
 there than it is in Brooklyn, or in New York, or in Philadelphia, 
 or in London, or Edinburg, or in any great commercial city or 
 metropolis in this or any other land, and the Bible itself taken 
 as the standard of the civil code and social manners. In New 
 Zealand there are 100,000 native Christians. In other islands, 
 laved by the waters of the Pacific ocean, the Georgian, the 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 15 
 
 Friendly, and the Society isles, there are 70,000 more. In the 
 South Sea Islands, where the missionaries followed the track of 
 Captain Cook until island after island and tribe after tribe 
 threw away their idols to the moles and the bats, there are 
 200,000 souls who have bowed to Jesus Christ and crowned 
 Him Lord of all. In China, where only seventeen years ago 
 the ports of the empire were open to missionary work, there 
 are now 3,000 Chinese Christians, and 80 Protestant mission- 
 aries, while province after province is being revolutionized 
 from idolatry, and that vast territory prepared in the most 
 amazing manner for the reception of the gospel. In the island 
 of Madagascar, where twenty years ago native and other 
 Christians were either poisoned, burned, or driven into the sea 
 until ’ but fifty who loved Christ were left behind, there are 
 now more than 5,000 native converts, the fruit of that martyr 
 blood which is ever the seed of the church. Between the 
 Tigris and Euphrates, on the plains of Mesopotamia, once the 
 dwelling-place of Abraham the father of the faithful, long 
 given over to superstitious belief, there are 6,000 more re- 
 claimed from error to faith in the Promised Seed, in whom all 
 the nations of the earth are to be blessed. 
 
 Other examples might be adduced and the list enlarged, but 
 these are sufficient to illustrate our statement. One million 
 two hundred and fifty thousand souls (1,250,000) have been 
 attracted to Christ during the last sixty years of missionary 
 labor, who, but for this, must have been cast into the gloom of 
 outer darkness, and must have sunk into the depths of eternal 
 woe 1 All this is exclusive of those who, in foreign lands have, 
 during this time, fallen asleep in Jesus, and whose flesh now 
 rests in hope. Besides these, there are now in the field 1,600 
 foreign missionaries, who are laboring with 16,000 native 
 preachers, catechists, and teacher’s. The Bible, too, is trans- 
 lated into more than 150 languages and dialects, and a distri- 
 bution in these has been made of more than 40,000,000 of 
 copies, throughout the world, whereas at the beginning of the 
 
16 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 present century not more than 4,000,000 could have been 
 found in the whole earth. Thus the bread of life has been 
 multiplied. Thus souls have been saved. Thus there has 
 been a yearly increase to the church of God, among the hea- 
 then, since the era of modern Protestant missions began, of 
 20,833, leaving entirely out of consideration the whole number 
 of converts in Christian lands. Surely then, when w r e com- 
 pare the success of the church now with that of the apostolic 
 times, during the equal period of trial for both, there is noth- 
 ing whatever to discourage, but on the contrary abundance to 
 cause us to magnify the grace of God, and to take encourage- 
 ment for still more earnest and believing effort for the future. 
 God is graciously fulfilling His promise to His people, and 
 keeping his covenant with Christ, rewarding Him for the tra- 
 vail of His soul. His voice to His church is in mercy, love, 
 and encouragement. He bids her rejoice. He calls to her 
 and says, “ Lift up thine eyes round about and behold. All 
 these gather themselves together and come to thee. As I live, 
 saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as 
 with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth. 
 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me 
 these? ” No ! the missionary enterprise is not a failure ! 
 
 But there is another view of this mighty work, fathers and 
 brethren, which justice to ourselves, to the world, and to God, 
 requires us seriously to take. I have spoken thus far of encour- 
 agements, of glorious successes, and grounds for rejoicing. Let 
 us not think, however, that the missionary work of the church 
 is almost done. The thought of 1,250,000 heathen souls re- 
 deemed to Christ during the past sixty years, is indeed a 
 thought well calculated to awaken gratitude towards God, 
 and thankfulness that our prayers and labors have not been in 
 vain. There is enough here to assure us that the promise of 
 Christ and the gift of the Spirit have been made good, and 
 still are made good to the church. But what are 1,250,000 
 souls in comparison with the population of the world \ As a 
 
A. MISSION ARY ADDRESS. 
 
 17 
 
 drop in the bucket ; as the light dust of the balance ! What 
 are they compared with the population of India alone ? In that 
 vast empire there are 180,000,000 of Hindus and Mohamme- 
 dans alone ! All the converts to Christianity from all portions 
 of the heathen world, bear to the remaining heathen, in India 
 alone, the proportion of but 1 to 152 ! There are 112,000 con- 
 verts in India, i. e ., 1-1 600th part of the population of the 
 empire, or, in other words, the religion of Christ is to heathen- 
 ism and Mohammedism in that one empire as 1 is to 1600 ! 
 What are 3,000 converts, in China, to nearly 360,000,000 yet 
 unconverted, and w r ho inhabit that vast land ? As 1 to 12 3,000 ! 
 What are 250,000 to the 89,000,000 of Africa? And yet 
 more, what is all Christendom in comparison with all Heathen- 
 dom ? 
 
 John Wesley, in his sermon on the “ Great Assize,” calcu- 
 lated the population of the earth, in his day, to be about 
 
 400.000. 000, — evidently a calculation falling much below the 
 reality. Dr. John Dick, of Glasgow, eminent both in science 
 and religion, calculated the number to be just double that of 
 Wesley, namely, 800,000,000. One more recent than Dr. Dick, 
 computed it at about 900,000,000. The most reliable compu- 
 tation, however, is that of M. Dietrici, General Director of Sta- 
 tistics in Berlin, wdio, availing himself of information derived 
 not only from the most recent and authorized statistics of the 
 world, but also from large acquaintance and correspondence 
 with home and foreign State ministers, has calculated, during 
 the last year, that the existing population of our globe num- 
 bers one billion, tivo hundred and eighty-three millions of souls , 
 
 1.283.000. 000 ! — estimating the billion at a thousand millions, 
 according to the French method of numeration in use on the 
 continent of Europe and in the United States, and not a mil- 
 lion of millions according to the English method. Of this 
 number there are in Europe 272,000,000 ; in Asia 720,000,000 ; 
 in America 200,000,000 ; in Africa 89,000,000 ; and in Aus- 
 tralia 2,000,000. 
 
18 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 And what proportion of this vast multitude, these twelve 
 hundred and eighty -three millions of souls, are Christians? 
 There are, in the world, according to the most probable 
 and reliable computation, Jews 8,000,000 ; Mohammedans, 
 
 120.000. 000; Pagans 880,000,000; and Nominal Christians 
 
 275.000. 000. This last number, we must bear in mind, in- 
 cludes all the Greek Church, all the Armenians and Nestori- 
 ans, all the Roman Catholic Church, all the Protestant deno- 
 minations, orthodox and heretical, and the entire 'population 
 living in those countries which are nominally Christian, as dis- 
 tinguished from heathen : England, Ireland, Scotland, Amer- 
 ica, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc., etc., 
 making in all not quite one-fifth of the world’s population. 
 
 But what proportion of these 275,000,000 of persons in 
 nominally Christian lands, are the true disciples of Christ? Of 
 Romanists there are 135,000,000; of Greek 50,000,000; of 
 Armenians and Nestorians 5,000,000 ; and Protestants 85,000,- 
 000, this last number including all , whether professing religion 
 or not, those of some religious faith, true or false, those of no 
 religious faith, sceptics and infidels. IIow many of these are 
 truly the disciples of Jesus Christ ? If we say one-twentietli 
 of the whole number, (and this seems a large allowance) then 
 there are not quite 14,000,000 of real Christians in existence. 
 And how many of these are cold and inactive in the service 
 of Christ ! But if we believe the declaration of the Scriptures, 
 then Judaism, Mohammedism, Paganism, Popery, and Infidelity 
 are all to give way before the power of the Cross of Christ, 
 and a time come when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
 shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea. So that, 
 according to the present population of the globe, there are 
 altogether, including unbelievers in Christian as well as heathen 
 lands, twelve hundred and seventy-four millions, 1,274,000,000, 
 of souls yet unconverted to the truth as it is in Jesus ! And 
 for the accomplishment of their salvation, instrumentally, there 
 are, according to the liberal allowance of one-twentieth just 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 10 
 
 made, 14,000,000 of truly converted persons, three-fourths of 
 whom, certainly, are lukewarm, uninterested and idle in the 
 work of the Lord, leaving about three millions, 3.000,000, 
 in all the world, to engage actively in advancing the kingdom 
 of Christ, and leading sinners to the Saviour ! In view of all 
 these considerations, well may we exclaim “ Who is sufficient 
 for these things?” How mighty is the task ! how stupendous 
 the undertaking ! What gigantic proportions does the mis- 
 sionary enterprise assume, as we think of the millions upon 
 millions in the world, who in heathen lands, have not yet 
 learned the name of Jesus, not to mention the millions more in 
 Christian lauds, who hear it with indifference, dislike, or hatred! 
 What prayer! what labor! what expense! what self-denial ! what 
 patience, and faith, and love, and hope are required ! And as 
 we contemplate the multiplied obstacles that stand in the path 
 of missionary progress, the natural opposition of all mankind, 
 immemorial idolatries, savage customs, false philosophies, des- 
 potic political organizations, and all that Satan, the world, and 
 the carnal heart can array against the gospel of Christ, it is, to 
 human apprehension, folly and madness to urge upon the 
 Church the duty of addressing herself to a work the dimen- 
 sions of which are so unparalleled and prodigious, and the 
 difficulties of which are so apparently unconquerable and ap- 
 palling as these. So impossible does it seem to the eye of car- 
 nal reason, that the world should, one day, be converted to 
 Christ, and so much does the mind stagger back, overborne by 
 the contemplation of the thought, that mental relief is only 
 obtained by the present relinquishment of all hope. 
 
 Nevertheless, the glorious work shall be triumphantly and 
 magnificently accomplished. Leaving out of consideration the 
 various and conflicting theories built upon various views of the 
 order in which prophecy is to be fulfilled, and the method by 
 which predicted events are to be grouped, the fact is beyond 
 all contradiction that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
 shall cover the earth as do the waters the sea. In Christ, the 
 
20 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 promised Seed, in whom all the families of the earth are to he 
 blessed, the assurance given to Abraham, the father of the 
 faithful, that he should be the “ heir of the world,” finds its 
 fulfilment. The covenant of grace secures the world to Christ. 
 God’s promises have pledged it, Christ’s blood has bought it. 
 The heathen are already given to Christ for His inheritance, 
 and already the uttermost parts of the earth are His possession, 
 in purpose, in promise, in fact, though not yet in the universal 
 diffusion of His grace, nor universal display of his glory. But 
 the time hastens on, amid judgments and mercies intermingled, 
 when graciously and gloriously too, He shall have dominion in 
 the hearts of men “ from sea to sea, and from the river to the 
 ends of the earth.” “ All kings shall fall down before Him ; 
 all nations shall serve Him.” “ Men shall be blessed in Him ; all 
 nations shall call Him blessed.” “ All His enemies shall be put 
 under His feet.” All systems of error, oppression, iniquity, ir- 
 religion, false religion, superstition, and idolatry, all obstacles, 
 shall be entirely removed. Judaism, Mohammedism, Pagan- 
 ism, Popery, and Infidelity, with every corrupt practice and 
 policy in the governments, institutions, and kingdoms of men, 
 shall utterly disappear, and the one glorious kingdom of Jesus 
 Christ be established over all the world, and embrace mankind. 
 The promise is explicit, “Every valley shall be exalted, and 
 every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked 
 shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the 
 glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it to- 
 gether, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” “As I 
 live, saith the Lord, the whole earth shall be filled with My 
 glory.” Here are God’s averment and oath, and heaven and 
 earth, and all that ever God made in them, shall sooner pass 
 away, than one jot or tittle of what He has said shall fail ! To 
 Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess ! 
 Though the work is stupendous, and human instrumentalities 
 are weak, and human hearts are cold, still the promises of God 
 are unfailing, and the power of God is all-mighty. Upon these, 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 21 
 
 the Church, as the ordained evangelist of the world, goes forth 
 depending, and in her holy progress, reaps the present earnest 
 of a future, glorious and complete success. If hut sixty years 
 have accomplished so much already, since the modern mission- 
 ary work began, what may not be accomplished before the 
 close of the present century ? And if, as we are entitled to 
 believe, the Holy Spirit is to be poured out in mighty, copious, 
 and continuous effusion, in the last days, more abundant in 
 times of refreshing and restitution than ever before, what 
 amazing results may we not anticipate, what multiplied facili- 
 ties, what increase of power, what amazing victories of grace, 
 all preparing the world for the meridian blaze of millennial 
 splendor and glory ! This, then, is our greatest encouragement, 
 even the almighty power of God, promised in Christ, to give 
 success to the Church. Faith lays hold of the power and the 
 promise together, while hope reaches forth to enjoy, in blessed 
 anticipation, the glorious result. The missionary cause is one 
 to which we can commit ourselves with all confidence and zeal, 
 for it is the cause dearest to the heart of the triune God. Its 
 principle is love, its end is salvation, its path is suffering, its 
 crown is glory. 
 
 Fathers, and brethren, and members of the body of Christ, 
 the voice of the ascended Master speaks to us, not only in His 
 authoritative Word, but calls to us loudly in His peculiar pro- 
 vidence, to engage in this blessed work. The times in which 
 we live are portentous and propitious. From the Arctic Ocean 
 to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Atlantic to the Caspian 
 shore, yea, throughout all the world, revolutions are beginning, 
 wars are waging, thrones are tottering, empires, kingdoms and 
 states are dissolving. He who sits King in the holy hill of 
 Zion, is dashing the nations as a potter’s vessel, with His rod of 
 iron. He chastises them in His sore displeasure. But what if 
 all this is the ansioer to our awn 'prayer ? What if the agita- 
 tions which now convulse the world are but the proofs of 
 Christ’s faithfulness to His people, the awaking of the Master to 
 
22 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 avenge His own elect who cry unto Him day and night, and, 
 in making their prayer for Him continually, long for the 
 coming of His glory ? What, if all the apparent present dis- 
 couragements arising from civil and political convulsions in the 
 world, are hut mighty c?tcouragements from Him who is won- 
 derful in counsel and excellent in working? It is even so. 
 After the night comes day, after the storm the calm, after 
 judgment mercy, after the dark dominion of Satan in this 
 world the bright appearing of the glory of the Lord. When 
 the Apostle John beheld in vision the seven angels, to whom 
 were given the trumpets by which the mighty revolutions, in- 
 strumental in the overthrow of the powers of darkness in this 
 world, and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ univer- 
 sally, were to be announced, he saw Jesus Himself, the Angel 
 of the Covenant, standing before the throne of God, present- 
 ing with incense of His own, the prayers of His people ! 
 “ There was given to Him much incense that He should offer it 
 with the prayers of all saints, upon the golden altar which was 
 before the throne ; and the smoke of the incense which came 
 with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God, out of 
 the Angel’s hand.” “And when the seventh angel sounded, 
 there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of 
 this world are 'become THE KINGDOM of our Lord and of 
 His Christ.” Thus it is that in answer to our own petitions, in 
 answer to the prayer Christ Himself taught us to pray, “ Thy 
 kingdom come,” the revolutions and wars of the earth take 
 place, the dominion of Satan is destroyed, and the triumphs of 
 the great Captain of Salvation are achieved. These “ troublous 
 times ” are but part of our true encouragement to pray more, 
 to work, and hope, and believe, "as never yet we have done. 
 They are Christ’s call to us to push forward, with increased 
 determination and zeal, the mighty work whereby, with His 
 grace, the world is to be redeemed to Himself. 
 
 O for a baptism of missionary zeal equal, at least in power, 
 to that of patriotic fervor which has fallen upon the nation ! 
 
A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 23 
 
 O for a liberality in the cause of Christ, such as that we have 
 shown in the cause of our country ! O for a union of purpose 
 and effort under the banner of the cross ! If but the wealth 
 that is poured forth to save the American nation from ruin, 
 had been consecrated to Jesus, and given to rescue a perishing 
 world from sin ; if but the will and devotion that are mani- 
 fested by men in an earthly cause, had been given to one that 
 is heavenly, ever-blessed, and divine, how magnificent had 
 been the results of missionary labor, how vast the victories of 
 the church, how glorious the name of the Saviour in all the 
 universe ! While we are loyal to our country, let us be loyal 
 to Christ. Let our faith, and work, and love, and hope, con- 
 spire to give perishing men the knowledge of Christ, and Him 
 crucified. God has a mighty work for this nation to do, and 
 with mighty energies He has graciously endowed her. He 
 punishes her now for her sin, but refined by the fire, she shall 
 only serve Him the better in after days. He calls the church 
 to repentance and renewed consecration of herself to Him. 
 Among the mighty instrumentalities He is about to employ 
 for His own glory, who can doubt that he designs to use the 
 x\merican nation ? With a territory unsurpassed in heavenly 
 favor by any on the face of the earth ; with resources uue- 
 qualed and inexhaustible ; with a geographical position cen- 
 tral to all the nations of the globe ; with an area, extending 
 over rock, and mountain, and river, and lake, and forest, and 
 prairie, from Atlantic to Pacific, and from tropics to polar re- 
 gions, equal to three-fourths of all Europe ; a prospective pop- 
 ulation, too, at the close of this century of one hundred and 
 fifty millions of souls, and crowned with gospel privileges and 
 peerless institutions, what might she not accomplish for the sal- 
 vation of mankind, if but the grace of Christ were shed upon 
 her ? For this let us pray. For this let us labor. For 
 this let us stir up our strength as a Christian people, and en- 
 gage afresh in the work God has given us to do. Let our 
 hearts’ desire and prayer to God be that our land may become 
 
24 
 
 A MISSIONARY ADDRESS. 
 
 Immanuers land, a crown of glory in tlie hand of the Lord, a 
 royal diadem in the hand of our God, Hephzi-bah, a land in 
 which the Lord delighteth, Beulah, married to the Lord, no 
 more desolate nor forsaken, hut one over whom her God shall 
 rejoice as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride. Then, bap- 
 tized with the spirit of love and self-sacrifice for the sake of 
 Christ, and rising to the full appreciation of the solemn and 
 momentous trust committed to our hands, holding in our grasp 
 the key that unlocks a glorious and eternal future to the dying 
 millions of our race, we shall go forth and bid them enter the 
 open door of mercy, faltering not and fainting not, until the 
 saving knowledge of Christ shall fill and cover the earth as the 
 waters cover the sea.