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 1853. 
 
 
 
 
 
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THE 
 
 WORLDS REVOLUTION, 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT T. MIDDLEDITCH. 
 
 “These that have turned the world upside down.”—<Acts xvii. 7, 
 
 A Prise Eract on MAissfons. 
 
 CHARLESTON: 
 SOUTHERN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 1853. 
 

 
Colorly’s Revolution. 
 
 A FEW years since an individual, in declining to 
 subscribe to a missionary fund, said, “‘I dont like your 
 Christian missions. They make religion a transaction 
 of bustle. They give it something of a revolutionary 
 character.” His censure was a compliment more val- 
 uable than any donation grudgingly bestowed could 
 have been. Modern evangelization, having this revo- 
 lutionary feature, is, in one respect at least, proved 
 identical with primitive efforts. They who feared the 
 results of the Apostles’ labors described them as men 
 who had “turned the world upside down.” 
 
 THE WORLD IS TO BE REVOLUTIONIZED. The assur- 
 ance of this we have in the irrevocable promises of 
 that Being who controls all worlds. His language to 
 the Son is, ‘‘ Ask of me, and I shall give thee the hea- 
 then for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
 the earth for thy possession.””? ‘‘ The kingdoms of this 
 world” are to “become the kingdoms of our God and 
 of his Christ.”’? These sure words of prophecy cheered 
 the heart of many a good soldier of Jesus Christ before 
 
4. THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 his translation to the great cloud of witnesses. Even 
 here he learned the words of the anthem which shall 
 celebrate the universal empire of his Lord, and now, 
 no uninterested on-looker, he waits for the glorious era 
 when, “as the voice of many waters,” all holy intelli- 
 gences shall unite in the grand chorus, ‘“ Alleluia, for 
 the Lord God omnipotent reigneth !” 
 
 Christians, as well as other men, ery, ‘ Revolution.” 
 But while others have in view the elevation of the in- 
 habitants of a few small states, they contemplate the 
 world as the only boundary of its application. They 
 watch with intense interest the efforts of those who 
 struggle toupheave the mountains of despotism. Their 
 hearts are gladdened when mighty tyrannies are torn 
 from their strong-holds. But they can not regard such 
 achievements as consummations. The philanthropy 
 which forgets that we are more than creatures of me, 
 may deem its object gained by the fall of thrones and 
 the establishment of new principles of government. It 
 seeks not such results as that which is born from above. 
 Its aim is to secure the well-being of man for this life, 
 the other contemplates his interests as the heir of 
 immortality. The one would enfranchise him with 
 exalted national privileges, but the other, aware that 
 in these he can not ‘* continue by reason of death,” 
 seeks that he may be ‘ blessed with all spiritual bless- 
 ings,” and directs him to a “better country”’ which God 
 has established forever. 
 
 The revolution Christians cantemplate, being thus 
 different from that which others seek, altogether differ- 
 ent means are required for its accomplishment. Per- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 5 
 
 suasive instrumentalities alone can be employed with 
 effect, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” 
 Those engaged in its prosecution need to go forth, 
 “ With unction from the Holy Ghost supplied 
 To war with error, ignorance, and sin; 
 
 To exalt humility, to humble pride, 
 To still the passion’s stormy strife within.” 
 
 Curses and imprecations dwell in the hearts of those 
 who are subdued in conquests obtained by the sword, 
 They who are made submissive by ‘the truth as in 
 Jesus,” are filled with gratitude and rejoicing. Men 
 who triumph in contests prompted by worldly ambition 
 ‘make a solitude and call it peace,” but far different 
 are the results of the victories of the Christian war- 
 fare. ‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be 
 glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom 
 as the rose,” 
 
 THE WORLD NEEDS THIS REVOLUTION. To the 
 Divine mind our world presents a vast panorama of 
 wickedness, ‘The Lord looked down from heaven 
 upon the children of men, to see if there were any that 
 did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, 
 they are altogether become filthy; there is none that 
 doeth good, no, not one,” The correctness of this 
 world’s exhibition we can not question. The conscious- 
 ness of man’s fall rests on us everywhere, With all 
 the wonderful manifestations of his genius and skill, 
 we are nevertheless daily reminded that there is some- 
 thing wrong in his moral machinery. With all his 
 advances in philosophy, science, and art, we can not lose 
 the conviction that his mind is “foolish” and “dark. 
 
 = 
 
6 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION, 
 
 ened.’”? ‘‘Though we had never read it in the Bible, 
 we think we could read it in the world, that man is no 
 longer what a Holy Creator made him.” 
 
 As a consequence of sin, degradation and misery 
 overspread the world. ‘Darkness covers the earth and 
 gross darkness the people.” ‘The Gentiles walk in 
 the vanity of their mind, having the understanding 
 darkened, being alienated from the life of God through 
 the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness 
 of their heart, and, being past feeling, have given them- 
 selves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness 
 with greediness.” ‘The dark places of the earth are 
 full of the habitations of cruelty.” The reverse of 
 this representation can be affirmed of only a very lim- 
 ited portion of the earth’s population, Others have 
 made some advance; but they are yet so involved in 
 ignorance and superstition, that they present only a 
 slight improvement from that brutality of manners and 
 viciousness in morals which hold uncontested empire 
 whereyer barbarism exists. The great majority of 
 men to this very hour present a living counterpart of 
 the worst forms of degradation, misery, and cruelty 
 portrayed in the volume of inspiration. Could we 
 “take the tides from our waters and leave them stag- 
 nant, and the stars from our heavens, and leave them 
 in sackeloth, and the verdure from our valleys and leave 
 them in barrenness,’’ we could have but a feeble im- 
 pression of the mental and moral condition of hundreds 
 of millions of our race. We can not know the contract- 
 edness of soul there must be when a litile image is 
 believed invested with almighty power. Who can un- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. v4 
 
 derstand the miserable un-rest of the Hindoo with mil- 
 lions of deities to propitiate, or the debasement of the 
 Chinese worshiping their fathers, and expecting their 
 children will worship them? Who, we may ask, can 
 tell us how gross is that darkness which prevails over 
 Africa, when at the death of a prince, or a chief, slaves 
 are murdered in large numbers to form a cortege for 
 his spirit to the unknown world? Who can describe 
 the burning anxiety of men, when, to gain acceptance 
 with their gods, they inflict on themselves excruciating 
 torments, and even rush into death, fraught with the 
 most intense agony? Can any one portray to us that. 
 society where human sacrifices are offered? In some 
 parts of the world these arecommon, While the read- 
 er’s eye is traversing these pages, there is reason to 
 believe that many are gloating themselves with the 
 sufferings of terrified human victims. Apart from 
 Gospel influences, men are everywhere debased, igno- 
 rant, and miserable. 
 “ The slaves to hate, revenge, and lust, 
 Fiends to their neighbors, to themselves unjust.” 
 
 They exist, but they have no true guidance for life; 
 and they die, but death opens no portal of peace. They 
 are immortal, but to them eternity is an unknown pre- 
 cipice. Tho present life nas no blessings, and the future 
 is ‘‘ without form and void.” In their condition all 
 horrors concentrate, for they are ‘‘ without God, and 
 having no hope” in the world. 
 
 Can any desire more proof of the necessity of this 
 revolution ? 
 
 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION Is HOPEFUL, Christians 
 
8 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 throughout the world, expect the Gospel of Christ to 
 obtain universal empire. Nowhere has this belief 
 become more thoroughly impressed on Christian char- 
 acter than in the United States. In this hope there is 
 an element of success ; for nothing tends so much to 
 make us earnest, courageous, and patient in any cause, 
 as the belief of ultimate victory. 
 
 Investigation will teach us that man, left to himself, 
 is everywhere debased and sensual, and that only where 
 the religion of Jesus is received and prized, is there 
 any change for the better in his opinions, habits, and 
 hopes, So, also, we may learn that where the Gospel 
 is possessed in its scriptural integrity, the best evidence 
 is given of its power to elevate and bless the human 
 family, For this reason we regard it as the means of 
 a world’s revolution, 
 
 The population of the globe is variously estimated 
 from seven hundred and fifty, to one thousand of mil- 
 lions. If we make nine hundred and fifty millions the 
 basis of calculation, we may conclude, that with the 
 exception of a small fraction of adherents to the Jewish 
 faith, three fourths of the population of the world are 
 wedded to Paganism and Moharmmedanism. One fourth 
 only of the dwellers of earth bear the name of Chris- 
 tians, Two thirds of these are fettered by the decep- 
 tions and puerilities of the Romish and Greek churches, 
 while a large proportion of the rest are beguiled by 
 philosophy, falsely so called, or immersed in ecareless- 
 ness concerning their immortal interests. 
 
 To effect our purpose, the ponderous superstitions of 
 heathenism, the monstrous deceptions of Anti-Christ, 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 9 
 
 and the miserable subterfuges of infidelity and practical 
 unbelief, must be overcome. All this we believe the 
 religion of Jesus can accomplish. 
 
 Those who expect religion to change the character of 
 the nations, proceed on principles which accord with the 
 human constitution. ‘‘ Man,” remarks Burke, “is, by 
 his nature and constitution, a religious animal. Atheism 
 is against not only our reason but our instincts.” 
 
 In our own land we behold, on every hand, edifices 
 for worship according to the Christian’s faith. If we fly 
 to the uttermost parts of the earth, we find provision 
 made for devotion. As the traveler passes over the con- 
 tinent of Europe, the Cross meets him everywhere. One 
 of the first objects which attracts his attention on the 
 shores of India is an idol’s temple. In China the lofty 
 pagoda rears itself above every other structure. The 
 pointed minaret and swelling cupola unfolds to his 
 view as he approaches a Mohammedan city; and the 
 Fetish erections and sacred groves of Africa, all attest 
 that religion is natural toman. It is by acting on this 
 religious sentiment, we expect a revolution to be 
 wrought which shall elevate and bless all people. 
 
 Are we in error when we express the belief that the 
 Gospel of Jesus is the instrumentality to remedy human 
 woes? Every other religious faith is incompetent for 
 good. Idolatry has had the widest range, and it has 
 proved a curse everywhere. It has nothing to satisfy 
 the cravings of the true human soul. It teaches ‘* gods 
 many’ and “lords many,” but none of these can in- 
 spire a love for principles which ennoble our nature. 
 It prescribes a thousand performances, but accomplishes 
 
10 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 no reformation. Mohammedanism presents to its vo- 
 taries the prospect of a future world of sensual grati- 
 fication, and therefore can not purify them in this. It 
 has no satisfying revelation, no sanctifying power, and 
 no true peace. Judaism was intended for only one 
 people, who, living generally in a small territory, should 
 be able to come to one center of worship. It is now a 
 thing of the past. Its author has pronounced it abro- 
 gated. It only lingers in the world as an empty form. 
 The principles and practices of men professing Infidelity 
 give us no reason to believe that it has any antidotes 
 to the woes of humanity. Affecting to be something 
 new and grand, it is continually raising its banner, rich 
 in the embroidery of promise, to flaunt the unwary to 
 disappointment and death. What could infidelity ac- 
 complish where heathenism exists? The ignorance of 
 the heathen might almost realize the idea of that elys- 
 ium for which it sighs. Religious faith there presents 
 no restraints with which it could war. It effects no 
 moral improvement to awaken hatred, and the hope it 
 affords beyond death is too miserable to invite robbery. 
 
 Christianity has a benevolent aggressiveness. The 
 Mohammedan seeks to gain the submission of men to 
 his faith, but his motive is enlargement of empire. A 
 Jew does not strive for proselytes. An idolater is not 
 concerned to obtain converts. Romanists seek to ex- 
 tend their faith, but it is that they may count more 
 subjects to the Papal see. Only the purer forms of 
 Christianity seek after man from exclusive regard to 
 his well-being. 
 
 The Gospel is adapted to secure man’s present good. 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. Il 
 
 It subserves in the highest degree the interests of 
 nations and individuals. The American States are in- 
 _ debted to Christianity for their grand and much-coveted 
 position. Itinfused that love-of freedom which anima- 
 ted and gave strength to those who fought the battles 
 of liberty. It seals and keeps fast the tomb of despot- 
 ism. The capacity to appreciate and enjoy our civil 
 privileges is one of its blessed benefactions. Our 
 testimony to its beneficence is not solitary. All nations 
 where Christianity has influence have a superiority 
 which none can question, and which no other agency 
 has ever produced. We may, then, fearlessly affirm 
 that it is the only lever which can elevate the nations 
 of heathenism to the dignity of civilization, or raise 
 the masses of so-called Christendom to true liberty. 
 There is a reason for this. ‘The heart of man is not 
 right with God, nor is it right with his fellows, and 
 every ameliorating scheme which overlooks this two- 
 fold depravity is sure to end in frustration.” The Gos- 
 pel reaches the springs of human disorder. It gives all 
 who receive it “‘a new and holy vitality—the highest 
 kind of life—the life of God in the soul of man—a Di- 
 vine spark, which, though now but as the smoking flax, 
 shall, when all that hinders its ignition is removed, burst 
 into a pure bright flame, trembling, yet rising in contin- 
 ual aspirations to its Eternal Source.’’* 
 
 The Gospel serves man’s eternal well-being. Ii alone 
 opens the way of peace to the soul. It unfolds the at- 
 tributes and perfections of God. It develops our im- 
 mortality. It makes known our depravity and misery, 
 
 * J, A, James. 
 
12 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 and the wonderful scheme Divine Love has devised 
 and provided for our restoration. Its disclosures of the 
 unseen world lift up the heart with gladness. One 
 fact concerning the Lord Jesus expresses its whole 
 design: He “ appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice 
 of himself.” Its grand requirement is presented in one 
 word—BELIEVE. [tsgreat glory is this: that man every- 
 where may be the subject of its blessings, and finding 
 him any where, it makes a tender of justification, sanc- 
 tification, and eternal life, if he will give the Crucified 
 One his confidence. It carries to all men alike the 
 proofs of adaptation. It comes in contact with some in 
 the early days of life, and they pass through life under 
 its guidance. By others its importance has only been 
 realized as they approached the incarceration of the 
 grave, yet it afforded them “immortal hopes in dying 
 moments.”? As a mirror, it presents to view our real 
 state, and by its accurate revelations shows its ability 
 to relieve our difficulties. ‘‘By its universal adaptation 
 to the universal state and character of humanity, it is 
 fitted to establish its own moral supremacy in every 
 territory where man is found.” 
 
 Thus adapted for universal prevalence, Christianity 
 seeks to accomplish its purpose in the most feasible 
 manner. It addresses itself to individuals, and seeks to 
 create in them a new spiritual life. Thus, as successive 
 persons are born from above, nations are to be revolu- 
 tionized. It is as one and another submit themselves 
 to Christ, God works the fulfillment of prophecy, that 
 ‘Call nations shall serve him.” 
 
 The power of the Gospel to accomplish its end in men 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 18 
 
 of all classes and conditions, has been abundantly dem- 
 onstrated. It has formed and fashioned the character 
 of the vilest into moral beauty. Among the subjects of — 
 its power have been barbarians accustomed to orgies of 
 human blood, and ethers favored with all the mental 
 culture and refinement of a far-advanced civilization ; 
 “ philosophers who could traverse the region of the stars, 
 and peasants who could but imperfectly utter their moth- 
 er tongue; monarchs who lived in palaces, and beg- 
 gars who pined in the hovel or on the dunghill.”’? No 
 obstacles are in the way of its progress whose like it has 
 not met and vanquished. .Who can read its history 
 and doubt its ability to meet every form of opposition ? 
 A writer in a foreign review, speaking of the Bible, 
 says: “It has not been given to any other book of re- 
 ligion thus to triumph over national prejudices, and lodge 
 itself securely in the heart of great communities, vary- 
 ing by every conceivable diversity of language, race, man- 
 ners, and customs, and, indeed, agreeing in nothing but 
 a veneration for itself. It adapts itself with facility to 
 the revolutions of thought and feeling which shake to 
 pieces all things else, and flexibly accommodates itself 
 to the progress of society and the changes of civilization. 
 Even conquests, the disorganization of old nations, the 
 formation of new, do not effect the continuity of its em- 
 pire. Itlays hold of the new as of the old, and trans- 
 migrates with the spirit of humanity, attracting to 
 itself by its own moral power, in all the communities 
 it enters, a ceaseless intensity of effort for its propaga- 
 tion, illustration, and defense.”” When Romish agents 
 entered China, the ance tral tablet appeared to have 
 
14. THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 so great a hold on the people that they thought it neces- 
 sary to permit its use in connection with a Christian 
 profession; but with a purer testimony the supersti- 
 tion has been overcome in many a heart, and not a few 
 have turned from the worship of parents who are dead, 
 to seek the blessing of that Father, whose “days are 
 throughout all generations.”? At the commencement 
 of modern missions in India, in addition to a religious 
 faith which had held empire almost undisturbed for 
 centuries, the institute of caste made the profession of a 
 new religion a fearful sacrifice. To embrace Christi- 
 anity was to forfeit all that a man possessed. It made 
 him inconceivably infamous, and sundered the dearest 
 relations of life. Nevertheless, the Gospel gained con- 
 quests. A half century has “ unequivocally proved that 
 there is nothing in the characteror, the condition, or 
 the creed of any among its numerous tribes that presents 
 an insurmountable obstacle to its advancement and 
 success. Before its potent influence the Maulavi has 
 abandoned his Koran, and the Pundit his Shastres ; 
 the pilgrim his wandering, and the devotee his asceti- 
 cism; the aboriginal his devil-worship, and the wizard 
 his enchantment; the bather in the Ganges has sought 
 the washing of a holier baptism, and the Brahmin, 
 ‘the thrice-born of heaven,’ has assumed the ‘badge of 
 discipleship into a nobler and purer faith.’’”?* The “new 
 religion” has gained the Burman, though Boodhism 
 was commended to him by the veneration of cen- 
 turies. Its holy hymns have penetrated the mountains 
 and jungles where the nomad Karen makes his uncertain 
 * The Rey. J. Makepeace, Missionary in Northern India. 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 15 
 
 dwelling. In Asia its power has been demonstrated 
 against religious systems which flourish where heathen- 
 ism presents its greatest enlightenment. And had we 
 space, we might show that in Africa its efficacious 
 competency to overcome superstitions which exist in 
 connection with the utmost ignorance has been abund- 
 antly manifest. 
 
 The history of the Gospel, from apostolic times to the 
 present, is one of conflict and triumph. Mighty mon- 
 archs have found the most specious temptations they 
 could present to its professors, futile. It has maintain- 
 ed its empire in the midst of tortures. It has had a 
 noble army of martyrs, whom it made heroic in suffering 
 and triumphant in death. And now while other sys- 
 tems exhibit evidences of decay, it manifests the energy 
 and vigor of primitive times; pursuing its course of 
 conquest, rendering its adherents more confident, and 
 inspiring them to go forward till, every knee bowing to 
 Christ, the world shall be revolutionized to truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 Those who now go forth to make war on the territory 
 of darkness, have no miraculous powers by which to 
 force conviction of the truth of Christianity ; neverthe- 
 less, as Dr. Chalmers well remarked, “the self-evi- 
 dencing power of the Truth, which is the laughing- 
 stock of many adversaries, is more and more a thing of 
 experimental verification.” Native superstitions may 
 pre-oceupy the mind, but the faith of Jesus is ac- 
 companied with a power which .makes it superior 
 to all besides. It uproots idolatry, but can not be 
 supplanted by it. It eclipses the Mohammedan crescent, 
 
16 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 but the false prophet’s faith never can shade the 
 Cross. 
 
 The Gospel does not win its way with the speed many 
 conceive desirable, but there is a reason found in the 
 analogy of all things. All remedial agencies are slow 
 in accomplishing their ends. The cure of the accident 
 of a moment often requires a long period. Shall we 
 expect a nation’s sin and depravity to be remedied 
 without time? In the cure of the disorders of the 
 world, as well as in minor providences, 
 
 ‘God moves in a mysterious way 
 His wonpers to perform.” 
 
 The paucity of the forees engaged in this grand en- 
 terprise does not receive enough consideration. Many, 
 seeing notices of different missions, form the opinion 
 that the various missionary boards of the world could 
 present to view an exceeding great army of soldiers of 
 Jesus Christ. Yet, what are they among so many ? 
 
 It is generally thought that the claims of British In- 
 dia have been met, as well as those of any idolatrous 
 country. Its population the best statists consider not 
 far from 160,000,000. In this vast territory, Christian 
 men dwelling in India inform us that it is doubtful if 
 there are two hundred European and American mis- 
 sionaries. This allows only one missionary to every 
 800,000 people. If the United States were supplied on 
 this seale, we should have about thirty-one ministers 
 for our whole confederacy. One evangelical minister 
 to a State! Can we conceive of such a ‘‘ famine of the 
 word of God?” Dr. Duff, after several years’ labor in 
 India, truly says that, “when we think of the dispro- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 17 
 
 vortionateness of the evangelistic means employed in 
 India, we are forcibly reminded of the design to illumi- 
 nate the darkness of night by a few lamps.” Let 
 China be another example. It has been said that 
 were any one to sit down and count sixty in a minute 
 for twelve hours every day, it would take him more 
 than twenty-two years to enumerate the population of 
 China. For the whole of its vast population, embracing 
 more than one third of our race, we have about seventy- 
 five Protestant missionaries. According to a recent 
 missionary ehart, there are 2,944 ordained mission- 
 aries in all the world, and these are to labor for the con- 
 version of at least 700,000,000 of souls. There have 
 been generals who could remember the names of all the 
 men under their command. It would not require a 
 memory so retentive to recollect the name of every 
 European or American missionary now in the fields of 
 heathenism. But what number of men could take 
 a census of the nations destitute of the Gospel? 
 Though so few have personally engaged in the war- 
 fare, yet God by them has given deep and deadly hurt 
 to the kingdom ef darkness. In many places refinement 
 has displaced barbarism to a good degree; modesty re- 
 strains licentiousness ; and man, instead of being degrad- 
 ed, aspires to glory, honor, and immortality. Thousands 
 of heathen have been converted to Christ, and many of 
 these have died in hope. Onee the victims of squalid 
 misery, loathsome degradation, and brutish ignorance, 
 they are now before the Throne “ equal unto angels,” 
 and companions to the good and holy of all ages and 
 nations. Many are now the living evidences of the 
 
18 THE WORLD’S REVOLUOUTION. 
 
 success of missionary efforts. Recent statistics give 
 us 333,604 members in missionary churches. . The sac- 
 rifice of infinite value offered for their redemption, and 
 the triumphant joy which fills the courts of heaven 
 over “ one sinner that repenteth,”’ make such conquests 
 a reason of holiest exultation. At the same time other 
 matters of a favorable character are to be noted. 
 Wherever our missionaries labor, they engage in trans- 
 lating the Scriptures, and these translations throw 
 light on the pathway of millions. The schools they 
 have instituted have given thousands of youth the es- 
 sential cultivation of a Christian education. The En- 
 glish language is spreading. Long-cherished prejudices 
 are being overcome. Sanguinary usages are not so 
 extensively observed. Idol temples are losing in ven- 
 eration. Heathens are waking to the greatness of 
 Christian governments. All these things are power- 
 ful auxiliaries. 
 
 Looking at the measure of means employed, we can 
 not avoid the belief that missionary reports are records 
 of triumph. The success has been great; and in this 
 noblest of causes the smallest success is better, for it is 
 more beneficial and more lasting than the grandest tri- 
 umphs in any other. 
 
 If with a band so feeble, such results have been ac- 
 complished, who can estimate the triumphs the Gospel 
 shall obtain when the demands of the enterpise shall 
 be generally realized? Hitherto we have had here 
 and there a laborer toiling in almost hopeless isolation ; 
 then we may hope to have an agency more proportion- 
 ate to the vastness of the field. This of itself would 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 19 
 
 indicate that preparedness for extended conquests 
 which God has never failed to regard. 
 
 Protected by his relation to either an European or 
 American government, there is scarcely a land where 
 a missionary is not safe in his work. A few nations 
 may be barred against the Gospel, but as well might 
 we imagine that a fisherman’s seine will prevent the in- 
 flux of the tide, as that the kings of the earth, who now 
 “t take counsel together against the Lord and His Anoint- 
 ed” should prevent its progress. 
 
 We have no cause for uneasiness about the future, 
 when we contemplate the past. In surveying the pop- 
 ulation of the globe we find few real Christians. 
 Those who belong to churches maintaining the purer 
 forms of Christian, seem to be a “little flock.” They 
 do not form a fourth of the so-called Christian world, 
 and then we have the mournful consideration, that all 
 are not Israel who are of Israel. We must make de- 
 ductions still. But yet there remains a force who can 
 do all things through the strength and presence of 
 Christ. It has been shown, that if only five hundred 
 thousand Christians (we have twice as many Baptists 
 in the United States) were to address themselves to 
 the conversion of one soul a year, and if from year to 
 year they, and all converted by their instrumentality, 
 were thus honored of God, that with a liberal calculation 
 for the increase of population and decease of laborers, in 
 thirteen years the revolution would be accomplished. 
 “The Lord will hasten it in his time.’ 
 
 It is no hopeless undertaking we contemplate. Mo- 
 hammedanism had its origin with a false prophet. 
 
90 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 Jesuitism, which now exerts so great and terrible an in 
 fluence, sprang from the strong mind and determinea 
 will of one man. Dare we think that they who act 
 under the guidance of the spirit of all wisdom, and who 
 carry the weapons God has provided to pull down the 
 strong-holds of wickedness and superstition, can fail of 
 success? 
 
 A true Christian might be satisfied to turn from all 
 the favorable indications which present themselves, to 
 grasp the certainties of Divine promise. We know that 
 the Great Sacrifice is now ‘‘ set down on the right hand 
 of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be 
 made his footstool. We know that “ all power’ belongs 
 to Him, ‘‘in heaven and on earth,’”’ and we can believe 
 that working all things after the counsel of His own will, 
 the period is not distant when ‘‘ His enemies shall be 
 clothed with shame, and upon Himself shall His crown 
 flourish.’ 
 
 CHRISTIANS HAVE SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITIES CON- 
 CERNING THIS Revoturion. The Gospel is the agency 
 by which men are to be converted to Christ. It has 
 words which are spirit and life. These must be brought 
 to bear upon the minds of men. ‘Then, as leaven hid 
 in meal assimilates it in character to itself, shall the 
 souls of men be won to Christ. To bring the Gospel 
 thus in contact with the mind, it must be made known. 
 The duty of publishing it devolves upon those who them- 
 selves have partaken of its benefits. The command of 
 Jesus is, ‘Go ye into all the world and preacn.” This 
 instrumentality by which the tongue manifests the truth 
 to the conscience by the ear, though especially com- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 21 
 
 manded of Christ, is not necessarily the exclusive means 
 of promulgating the truth. At the time Christ gave his 
 commission to his followers, the voice and ear were the 
 common and usual means of conveying and receiving 
 information. Books existed only ina writtenform. In 
 the revelations the Saviour gave to his disciples, he did 
 not predict the discoveries of human art. They were not 
 informed that printing would be invented. If so, the 
 curious would have been prompted to many experiments 
 without profit. Preaching was the most common and 
 available means for instruction, and the Redeemer took 
 it for the promulgation of his Gospel. Were he’now on 
 earth, we have little reason to doubt that he would urge 
 the use of the printing press to the utmost. Evangeli- 
 cal missionaries, in obeying the command of Christ, look 
 at its spirit, and translate and print the Scriptures, as 
 wellas preach. When the Jesuit is driven from a coun- 
 iry, all trace of his teachings is soon lost, for he never 
 gives the people the word of God. But let every Prot- 
 estant missionary be banished from the field to-morrow, 
 the Bible, left behind, would still assert its supremacy 
 and be ameans of conquest. Though years have elapsed 
 since the servants of the Cross were expelled from Mad- 
 agascar, the Bibles they left are continually making con- 
 verts. Many have been brought to Christ by Seripture 
 translations and tracts who have never seen our mis- 
 sionaries. Such facts may well silence all who would 
 confine the servants of the Cross to one mode of warfare. 
 
 In whatever form the Gospel is made known, whether 
 by preaching or printing, human agency is indispensable. 
 The translator must go abroad. The preacher must be 
 “sent.” 
 
92 THE WORLD’S REVOLOUTION. 
 
 It may be asked, shall we not wait for indications that 
 a heathen nation want the Gospel—some leadings in 
 providence? The Bible would teach us by no means to 
 do this. Men will not inquire for the Gospel. The 
 wise men visited the infant Christ, to seek the birth-place 
 of a king, not a Saviour. The Macedonian messenger 
 was sent to the apostle from heaven, not from earth— 
 Paul would have waited years without any such visit- 
 ant coming from Macedonia itself. Occasionally we 
 hear of the representatives of a heathen tribe visiting 
 a mission station, asking for a “‘God man,” or one of 
 “ Jesus Christ’s men ;” but it is because they have been 
 electrified by the news of the results of the Gospel, near 
 to them. The world being turned upside down around 
 them, they have felt the rocking of the moral earthquake. 
 Allured by the story of gold, heathens have come to our 
 shores, but we have had none coming to ask for the un- 
 searchable riches of the Christian’s faith. Let even a 
 new Village rise in Christian America, without any pro- 
 fessors of godliness, and the only means by which its 
 population will have the Gospel, will be by its being 
 taken to them. If sought by the people themselves, it 
 is to be feared that the chances of improved speculation 
 to be made by a Church, would have more to do with a 
 minister’s introduction, than any desire for a deeper 
 acquaintance with saving verities. 
 
 Jesus waited for no indications from our world of a 
 desire for salvation, before he came to ‘seek and to save 
 the lost.’”? The whole creation groaned because of man’s 
 fall and man’s misery, but we were yet ‘enemies’? when 
 Christ died for our sins. It is only when we are made 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 23 
 
 acquainted with the great fact of the Divine incarnation 
 and death, that we become conscious of our ruin or seek 
 deliverance. Had no purpose of kindness been shown 
 by the Great Lawgiver to the rebellious, and no offer 
 of forgiveness been made to the impenitent, Christendom 
 would now be vicious, degraded, and hopeless as the lands 
 of heathenism and its dwellers, equally unconcerned for 
 deliverance from the terrible evils in which our nature 
 is involved. 
 
 According to the teaching of the Divine Word, it is 
 evident that all Christians have important relations to 
 the promulgation of the Gospel. It is, therefore, our duty 
 to inquire what relation we individually hold to this 
 work. 
 
 Every Christian is to seek the subjugation of the na- 
 tions to Christ by his prayers and efforts. To every 
 disciple are the promises given, that asking he shall 
 receive, and not ‘‘ weary in well doing”’ he shall reap. 
 
 Prayer is an instrumentality which all can use. 
 In this way any disciple, however poor, may be useful. 
 Though secret in its operation, it is most potential in 
 its effects. It is no mere flash of rhetoric, but solemn 
 truth, that prayer ‘‘moves the arm that moves the 
 world.’? Humble may be the part of many a disciple 
 in the salvation of souls, to the view of man, yet as an 
 intercessor with God, great may be his reward in heav- 
 en. Far hid away in the secluded dell, or in the rug- 
 ged mountain side, are the tiny springs to which the 
 mighty river is indebted for existence, and thus re- 
 tired from the world, a Christian may have his life hid 
 with Christ in God; but his prayers may be the means 
 
24 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 of spiritual influences which shall make in the “ thirsty 
 land, pools of water.” 
 
 The purity of Messiah’s reign can only be secured by 
 Divine Power. God’s blessing is indispensable. With- 
 out his interposition no laborers will be raised up, and 
 no proper degree of liberality found for their support. 
 He alone truly knows the character of the work, and 
 where men can be found with the qualifications it 
 demands. And what can men, the most pious and skill- 
 ful, effect any where without his aid? Nothing. Un- 
 til God shall appear in power, merchandise and frivol- 
 ity will have sway with the educated, and superstition 
 and error will beguile the ignorant. The Jew will 
 still be blinded. The heathen temple will lose no 
 worshiper, its altar no offering. Votaries will throng 
 the approaches to the tomb of the Impostor, rather than 
 the narrow way that leadeth unto life. The Rom- 
 ish altar will still keep men from Calvary’s Cross. 
 Divine power only can avail to remove this depravity 
 and delusion, and this we are to seek in earnest prayer. 
 Christians are to pray for the Holy Spirit. In the view 
 of the advent of this gracious Agent, our Lord deemed 
 his own departure ‘“ expedient.” . It is his office to con- 
 vert, enlighten, and regenerate souls. It is only by his 
 energy that the Gospel can achieve a victory over the 
 depravity of a single heart. How essential, then, are 
 his influences, if the world is to be turned from its false 
 religions to Christ—from vice to virtue—from sin to 
 holiness ! 
 
 Let every Christian ask himself whether he prays 
 as much as he ought. Many, it is to be feared, never 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 25 
 
 realize their calling as intercessors? How criminal 
 are we inthis matter. Here is a means of power which 
 the humblest disciple may make available, but it some- 
 times seems altogether put out of sight. We look to 
 outward machinery, and forget the engine which most 
 honors God, and is most acceptable with him. In the 
 “ fullness of time”? God purposes to ‘“ gather together in 
 one all things in Christ.” When will that “fullness of 
 time” dawn? Has a waiting, prayerful spirit, which 
 shall honor Omnipotence, no relation to it? Let any 
 Christian ask himself how much time he spends in a 
 day, a week, or a year, praying for the world. Let him 
 suppose his prayers an average of all the prayers of 
 Christian professors in intensity of desire, and of time 
 devoted to the object, and when can he believe God 
 will consider the church prepared for the harmony of 
 all things? When Christians are better intercessors 
 with God, we may expect him to verify his oath, “I 
 will fill the earth with my glory.” 
 
 The time for God’s gracious appearing to Zion, is 
 when his people manifest concern for her interests. 
 “Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion, for the 
 time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy 
 servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust 
 thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the 
 Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” 
 
 Every Christian has responsibilities concerning the 
 promulgation of the Gospel extending farther than his 
 prayers, for an obligation is laid on all the disciples of 
 Jesus to ‘go into the world and preach the Gospel.” 
 This commission was not given to the apostles exclusive- 
 
26 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 ly, but to the whole body of the disciples. And so when 
 all the members of the church were scattered abroad “ er- 
 cept the apostles” (Acts viii. 1) ‘‘ they went everywhere 
 preaching the word.” It is not likely that their preach- 
 ing partook of the set form to which we are accustomed 
 now; for very brief proclamations, and very unartifi- 
 cial gospel testimonies, are called preaching in the New 
 Testament. The simple sentences which Jonah em- 
 ployed in proclaiming judgment to the people of Ninevah, 
 and by which John declared the coming of the Kingdom 
 of God, are called “‘ preaching.’””? The preaching of Jesus 
 consisted not in laborious.treatises. It was the simple 
 and sincere utterance of one who felt an overpowering 
 concern for the lost and miserable. 
 
 Any believer can undoubtedly do much in compli- 
 ance with this requirement. In his own family, in 
 daily intercourse with men by speech, by example, he 
 may preach, and powerfully preach of the Gospel of the 
 peace of God. Nothing should occasion more profound 
 sorrow, than that to so small an extent Christians in- 
 fluence religiously the communities in which they dwell. 
 
 But while Christians have a solemn duty to manifest 
 the Gospel wherever their lot is cast, shining as “ lights 
 in the world,” and ‘“ holding forth the Word of Life,”’ 
 yet all have obligations to the whole world. However 
 far their efforts may extend, or however long a period 
 may be occupied in disseminating the truth, they have 
 assurance of the presence and blessing of Christ. ‘‘ Lo 
 I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” 
 Possessing a remedy for the sins and sorrows of hu- 
 manity, it is their duty to extend its knowledge to every 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 2% 
 
 region where man is found. Paul understood this re- 
 sponsibility. This led him to an earnest, self-denying 
 consecration of himself to Christ. His view of the 
 value of the Gospel and of his duty, is made evident 
 when he speaks of “ the glorious Gospel committed to 
 my trust.” It was his trust to preach everywhere. 
 So every Christian ransomed by the blood of the Cross, 
 has it in trust for his fellow-men. He is not arrogant 
 but right when he considers himself a trustee for the 
 world. All who know the truth are bound to propa- 
 gate it to the extent of their ability. 
 
 Difficulties are in the way of a personal fulfillment of 
 the duty in many instances. But there are means by 
 which every one may contribute to its accomplishment. 
 In revolutionary times, all who desired the independ- 
 ence of their country, were equally under obligations 
 to serve in the contest for freedom, but if all had been 
 willing, only a portion had the ability, or could be 
 sustained. It therefore devolved on some to stay at 
 home and provide supples for their brethren in the 
 field. It was only as they did this that victory could 
 be achieved. So is it in the prosecution of the cause 
 of God in the great battle-field of the world. Every 
 one is equally bound to come up to the help of the Lord ; 
 yet, as all do not possess the same talents, or means, each 
 one may, by devoting himself to a particular province, 
 promote the grand end. A charter for associated mis- 
 sionary effort may be found as long ago as David’s time. 
 “God be merciful unto us and bless us, that thy 
 way may be known upon earth, thy saving health 
 among all nations.” One Christian may have talents 
 
98 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 which mental culture would make available, but never- 
 theless he is without appliances for education, and des- 
 titute of the means to place himself where his powers 
 would be most useful. Others have money, which 
 “answereth all things” in procuring literary advant- 
 ages for a missionary student, giving him an outfit, 
 sending him to his station, and sustaining him there. 
 One can translate the Bible, and others pay for mate- 
 rials and printing. In this way all ean be honorably 
 engaged in the great work. It becomes, therefore, the 
 duty of each one to find his own place, and then obey 
 the aposile’s requirement. ‘Having, then, gifts differ- 
 ing, according to the grace that is given to us, whether 
 prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion 
 of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering ; 
 or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, 
 on exhortation; he that giveth, let him do it with sim- 
 plicity.” Here we have different qualifications and 
 abilities, and different duties. In fulfilling the work 
 for which God gives us functions, or power, we are in 
 the way of duty. ‘‘ All members have not the same 
 office.” 
 
 Some are called to yield themselves to the great en- 
 terprise. In many instances the sacrifice which it de- 
 mands may cause hesitation; but it is, however, evi- 
 dent from the manifest tokens of Divine favor which 
 have rested on our missions, that some one ought to 
 enter the field. Ought not every one to give himself to 
 prayerful consideration before he regards it settled that 
 he is not called of God to go to the heathen? A call, 
 which we have reason to believe, the Lord himself ex- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 29 
 
 tends, is more honorable, and compliance with it, will 
 obtain richer rewards than can be gained by disobedi- 
 ence to his will. A missionary, whose physicians de- 
 clared return to his native land imperative, writes: 
 ‘¢ My missionary race was short. God made it so. But 
 looking back this day, I would not for the universe 
 have that brief space blotted from my existence.” 
 Christian young men, whatever their present position, 
 need to consider their responsibilities with respect io 
 the world’s revolution. The knowledge and skill 
 which they have acquired when contemplating only 
 secular pursuits, God may call them to dedicate to his 
 service. The intellect which has been trained 'to un- 
 ravel subtleties at home, may be demanded to make 
 dark things clear abroad. Some who have gained 
 medical knowledge, may be anointed to connect with it 
 the holier calling—to bind up the broken in heart. 
 Some who now are expertly setting type for thoughts 
 which are born to-day, and die to-morrow, may be 
 called to use a printer’s stick, to transfer into what is 
 now an unknown tongue, the “word of God which 
 abideth forever.” By the consecration of employments 
 now pursued with only the laudable object of an honest 
 livelihood, God may intend young men to discharge 
 their debt of sympathy to a world lying in wickedness. 
 Some are called to yield their sons or daughters to 
 the missionary cause. In this way God answers the 
 prayers of his saints for more laborers. In a Christian 
 household, intercessions for a perishing world will be 
 continually presented ; can a parent reasonably com- 
 plain when any of that circle whose devotions he has 
 
80 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 led, are found exclaiming, ‘‘ Here am I, send me.” If 
 love to Christ, and concern for the lost and miserable, 
 had proper empire in their minds, strong as are our so- 
 cial affections, parents would esteem it no. small honor 
 to have their children enduring the “‘ hardness’ of a 
 missionary station. 
 
 The trust of the great majority of Christians is espe- 
 cially that of pecuniary liberality. It is a pleasing fea- 
 ture of associated efforts, such as missionary boards 
 present, that Christians, however limited their resources, 
 may aid in relieving the misery of the heathen world. 
 Before these plans of united effort were pursued, though 
 such might contemplate the boundless waste, and weep 
 bitter tears, they could do nothing, save by prayer. 
 Now, the smallest offering may be of service. Just as 
 cents form our dollar, so every fraction tells in the sum 
 necessary to send out and sustain a missionary. We 
 
 read lately of a dying man, in the midst of heathen rel- 
 atives, finding all his hope in one single leaf of the 
 psalms of David. Small was the sum required to 
 print that leaf. Whose money paid for it, we know not. 
 Peradventure, some very poor disciple, when he arrives 
 in heaven, may ‘‘shine as the stars in the firmament,’ 
 because of that heathen’s being turned to righteousness. 
 
 The pecuniary aspect of our schemes of evangeliza- 
 tion makes them repulsive to many. They think that 
 money has too much prominence, and is regarded as 
 too essential an element. Nevertheless, we discover 
 that when apostles were turning the world upside down, 
 it was not dispensed with. The character of the mis- 
 sionary enterprise in this day, makes it more necessary 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 81° 
 
 now, than in their time. We have no persecutions to 
 scatter Christians abroad, to “ go everywhere preaching 
 the word.” They perform less of labor themselves, and 
 this supplies one of the many causes why we need lib- 
 eral offerings. 
 
 In our endeavors to evangelize the nations, money 
 is required at every step. The missionary must have 
 an outfit for his voyage and future labors. His passage 
 must be secured to his destination. Bibles and tracts 
 need to be printed, and these require type, presses, and 
 paper. The servants of Christ need, like other men, 
 food and raiment, and for all these things money is es- 
 sential. 
 
 Prophecy would lead us to suppose the consecration 
 of wealth inseparable from a true reception of Christi- 
 anity. ‘All they from Sheba shall come: they shall 
 bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the 
 praises of the Lord.” “Surely the isles shall wait for 
 me, and the ships of Tarshish first to bring thy sons 
 from far, their silver and their gold with them.” The 
 New Testament abounds in exhortations and examples 
 in this matter. Christians are required to be ‘‘rich in 
 good works, ready to distribute, willing to communi- 
 eate, and those who possess these graces are declared 
 to be “laying up in store for themselves a good founda- 
 tion against the time to come.’”’? Not only the “ pray- 
 ers’? but also the “alms” of Cornelius came up for a 
 memorial before God. Pecuniary beneficence is not a 
 matter in which Christians are at liberty to act their 
 own pleasure. Though our offerings are to be volun- 
 tary, we have no reason to think neglect, or refusal to 
 
*32 THE WORLD 8 REVOLUTION. 
 
 give, innocent. God demands the consecration of our 
 possessions. His word gives us no sanction for hoarding 
 or waste. Sufficient is allowed us for our well-being, 
 for He who teaches us “‘ not to muzzle the mouth of the 
 ox that treadeth out the corn,” giveth us all things 
 liberally to enjoy. He requires that we only use for 
 ourselves what is necessary. While he makes it a 
 duty for every man to “ provide for his own,’ yet he 
 teaches us that every believer, whatever he possesses 
 of talents, or of possessions, is to regard himself as a 
 steward. The most general stewardship is that of 
 money. ‘ Itis required in stewards. that a man be found 
 faithful.” A man who indulges in a lavish expend- 
 iture, surrounding himself with all things rare and 
 costly, and faring sumptuously every day, yet giving 
 no aid to the cause of missions, can not be deemed 
 “ faithful” to his trust. Every believer has a share in 
 the obligation to extend the knowledge of the Divine 
 purposes of merey, and when money will forward this 
 end, none ean be guiltless of a fearful dereliction who 
 withhold contributions. Our operations in the terri- 
 tories of darkness are limited, not so much beeause we 
 lack those who are willing to enter the field, as that 
 believers fail to appropriate their wealth for the Lord 
 whoboughtthem, Yet that wealth thus withheld is re- 
 quired for the highest and noblest purposes. With the 
 blessing of God, it would serve to overturn the temples 
 of idols, enlighten those who are in the “region and 
 shadow of death,” and bring in that period, which the 
 Saviour is ‘‘expecting,” when “his enemies” shall be 
 “made his footstool,” and the whole earth rejoice in his 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 endless dominion. Does it comport with Christian obli- 
 gation and hope, that any should chiefly devote their 
 substance to worldly splendors, and entertain, as one of 
 ~ their chief desires, the ignoble ambition of dying rich ? 
 It has been remarked that it is very suspicious for a 
 steward to die wealthy. The statement has become 
 trite, but its truth is not to bequestioned. Even Roman- 
 ists have recognized and acted upon it. An old record 
 states, that if upon the death of a monk, any money be 
 found upon him, it should be buried with him in the 
 dunghill. But it is added, “‘ not all the money: thirty 
 pence will be sufficient as a sign of his damnation.” 
 The superstition we reject, but we all must acknowl- 
 edge that dishonor is the just desert of unfaithfulness. 
 “The silver and the gold are the Lord’s.””? A faithful 
 steward will not withhold them from His service. 
 
 In bearing testimony to the piety of the Christians of 
 Macedonia, the apostle informs us that their ‘ poverty 
 abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” ‘‘ Be- 
 yond their power they were willing themselves.’? Such 
 liberality as this is rare; but we hope to see more of it 
 in coming years. It is not too much to anticipate that 
 Christians, ceasing to ask themselves, ‘‘ How much shall 
 I give?” may inquire, ‘‘ How little shall I keep?’ 
 “Self-denial,” it has been said, ‘‘may yet furnish a 
 vast fund for the eause of God.’’? We have known of 
 one who, from a sermon of Andrew Fuller’s—in which 
 the doctrine was laid down that a man ought not only 
 to give his superfluities, but cast his bread upon the 
 waters—determined on a life of enlarged liberality. 
 The adoption of this principle involved what many 
 
 
 
34 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 would think a great sacrifice. A residence which had 
 peculiar attractions to his mind, he declined purchas- 
 ing, because there his annual expenses would consume 
 all his income, and ‘‘nothing,’’ said he, ‘would com- 
 pensate me for the pleasure I have of living within it, 
 that I may serve God with the surplus.” ‘Living 
 within ’’ that income, was made the means of raising 
 many faithful ministers, and building several beautiful 
 houses for evangelical worship. If Christians gave heed 
 to the calls of duty, we should not think of giving admi- 
 ration to any man because of his liberality. A large 
 heart and an open hand ought to be considered insepar- 
 able from consistency of religious character. We live 
 inan age of great display, and few think of the super- 
 fluities which might be dispensed with, of a humble cot- 
 tage instead of a costly mansion, of dress which might 
 be plainer, of expensive entertainments—matters, not ot 
 hospitality, but affairs of pride and emulation, which 
 might be abandoned—or of excursions of pleasure which 
 might be relinquished for Christ’s sake, and because 
 “even Christ pleased not himself.” Christians can not 
 always remain thus selfishly thoughtless. 
 
 Even churches might make sacrifices for the cause of 
 Christ. Oftentimes an expenditure is ventured on by 
 religious societies, in no way essential for the Divine 
 honor, and appeals for works of beneficence are met by 
 considerations of a church debt. “Charity begins at 
 home.” But, it may be asked, has a church a right to 
 incur a debt which will paralyze its power to devise 
 and execute liberal things for souls? Can they ex- 
 pect ‘‘showers of blessings,” when the woes of those from 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 385 
 
 whom the Gospel has been kept back, have entered 
 into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth? Churches, 
 in building houses for God, do well to avoid all penurious. 
 dealing with Him; but nevertheless when they offer 
 the work of their hands, they ought, while saying, “Of 
 thine own have we given thee,” to be satisfied that 
 they have used the Lord’s money in a way most ac- 
 ceptable to Him. 
 
 The spectacle may perhaps yet be presented of a 
 church who, from conscience to Christ, may be willing 
 to build a house of worship for five thousand dollars, 
 instead of twenty-five thousand, or for ten thou- 
 sand dollars, instead of fifty thousand. In such a 
 course, the same mind would be exhibited which David 
 had, when, for the sake of starving men, he took the 
 shew-bread from the temple, lawful only for the priests 
 to eat, and was justified. ‘Though no house can be toa 
 good for the worship of the Most High, yet to heed the 
 wanis of the perishing, is more acceptable to Him than 
 the most magnificent structure. He dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands, but delights to take up his 
 abode in the humble and contrite heart of the most de- 
 spised and ignorant child of earth. 
 
 Christian men of business must recognize their re- 
 sponsibilities to the cause of the world’s salvation. 
 How can they live for Christ, but by carrying on busi- 
 ness as to the Lord? Let them consecrate their busi- 
 ness talent,.and it would give an impulse to diligence 
 that nothing besides could supply. It would bring the 
 success which diligence seldom fails to command. A 
 man who should have the nobility of character, while 
 
386 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 gaining money, to rest satisfied with a moderate com- 
 petence and yield his profits to the Lord, would by this 
 personal disregard of wealth manifest a noble elevation 
 of character. Heroism does not always require the 
 field of action the world imagines. It may shine forth 
 as impressively from a small store as from a martyr’s 
 stake. We have heard of one doing business in a very 
 humble way, accustomed to send an annual contri- 
 bution to a missionary society,which year after year 
 was increased twenty dollars. He sent this sum with- 
 out his name, and only after a long time was he dis- 
 covered, yet when we heard of his annual offering it 
 had risen to nearly three hundred dollars. Here was 
 one who believed that ‘‘it is more blessed to give than to 
 receive.’ He consecrated his gains unto the Lord, while 
 many borrow and trade with their Lord’s money, and 
 grudgingly pay the smallest installment. 
 
 Many would give more than they have done, but 
 they scarcely know how to begin. They wait for con- 
 gregations unitedly to enter into schemes of Christian 
 beneficence, instead of considering their personal re- 
 sponsibilities, and appropriating the Lord’s money they 
 have in charge. A fixed period and stated proportion, 
 according as God hath prospered, present the most 
 soriptural and assuredly the most philosophical means 
 for every Christian to discharge his pecuniary obliga- 
 tions. The manner and time of his personal efforts for 
 the good of souls are independent of rule. They are 
 as he has ‘‘ opportunity.”’ His pecuniary contributions 
 may in a great measure be reduced to system. In ac- 
 eordance with the voluntariness which distinguishes 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 387 
 
 Christianity, no law is given us in the New Testa- 
 ment as to the proportion of our substance which is 
 to be devoted to the Lord. Readiness to make saeri- 
 fices for Christ is, however, frequently insisted on as the 
 duty of his disciples. In deciding for himself what part 
 of his income shall be yielded for purposes of beneficence, 
 a believer needs to remember the grace of our Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, his own indebtedness to redeeming mercy, 
 the slightness of his tenure of all earthly good, and the 
 value of souls for which Divine mercy has made “an 
 unspeakable gift.”? If these motives are allowed their 
 proper influence he will not manifest penuriousness in 
 his allotment. 
 
 The scale of benevolence resolved on demands a rigid 
 adherence ; ‘‘ for better or for worse, for richer or for 
 poorer.” Many in the early days of their profession 
 gave a liberal proportion of their incomes to the cause 
 of Christ, but they make no increase of contributions 
 commensurate with their worldly prosperity. In many 
 instances the young man who had always his dollar for 
 every good object when not worth fifty dollars, as the 
 professional man, merchant, or farmer, has not more 
 than five dollars to give out of fifty thousand. Lib- 
 erality ought to advance with acquisition, rather than 
 be diminished. It is a fearful thing to “rise in the 
 world,” and not to rise high enough to pay our obliga- 
 tions as ‘‘ debtors to the world.” 
 
 Some, we know, defer their liberality to a future pe- 
 riod. They intend to “act handsomely” when they 
 die. But do they in this way fulfill God’s requirement. 
 David served his “own generation,” and this was ‘“ ac- 
 
88 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 cording to the will of God.” Can any one suppose he 
 is doing the will of God, when he postpones doing good 
 with the wealth entrusted to his care, to another gen- 
 eration? Serving his own generation, is the best way 
 to insure blessings to the next. God demands a “‘liv- 
 ing sacrifice’’ for his service. We are told: 
 “ Tis infamy to die and not be missed,” 
 
 and very questionable is that honor which comes to a 
 man only as the result of liberality when he has gone 
 to a world whither he ean take nothing. There are 
 instances in which Christian men may feel it imper- 
 ative to delay the execution of some part of their benev- 
 olent purposes till death, and it is well, when having 
 devoted to the Lord a fair measure of interest in life, 
 the munificence of their bequests supplies a closing 
 proof of their thanksgiving for the Divine salvation, 
 and the conformity of their ‘‘ wills” to the will of God. 
 
 In this enterprise, God looks to all his people. “In 
 Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female.’ 
 
 Woman’s Influence ought to be felt. We find Napo- 
 leon, when engaged in his struggles with other nations, 
 in writing to one of his friends, calling on him to enlist 
 his wife in his service by the disuse of articles of 
 foreign manufacture and importation, and giving as 
 his reason that the contest was for life and death, and 
 he must have the aid of all by whom he was surround- 
 ed. Christ likewise calls on woman to aid in his grand 
 and glorious warfare, and happy is the Christian 
 sister who has the satisfaction that ‘‘ she has done what 
 she could.” 
 
 Christianity elevates woman to a position of dig- 
 
THE WORLD'S REVOLUTION. 89 
 
 nity, influence, and responsibility, never conceded to 
 her under any other system of religious belief. Favor- 
 ed, then, by its influence, and made oftentimes the ad- 
 viser of her husband, how important is it that, in her 
 own department of things, the wife should be ever 
 ready to discourage rather than urge great expenditure. 
 Many a Chistian sister ‘‘ unequally yoked” is arrayed 
 in goodly apparel, and is called to preside over domes- 
 tie concerns, placed on a seale demanding a large outlay, 
 which we doubt not she would rather see, in good part, 
 devoted to the cause of Christ. Such occupy stations 
 which require peculiar prudence, that their “ good be 
 not evil spoken of.” In other cases. the wife has no 
 such hindranees to liberality. Both parties are profes- 
 sors of godliness. Do they unitedly covenant to practice 
 economy for the Lord’s sake? Or are they prevented 
 from liberal offerings by maintaining an establishment 
 which may cause their children to occupy a higher 
 and more perilous position in the world than their pa- 
 rents ? 
 
 Well would it be if Christian mothers would bear in 
 mind the eminent services they could render to the 
 cause of Christ. The most suecessful and honored 
 servants of the Cross were taught by a mother’s lips 
 the excellency of those unsearchable riches they bear 
 to a dying world. Within Christian homes, and by 
 maternal wisdom and love, must the preparatory work 
 be done, if we are to have faithful men raised up to 
 meet the demands which will press upon the churches 
 in coming years. The minds of children need to be 
 impressed with the dignity and nobleness of Christian 
 
 * 
 
40 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 beneficence. They ought to be taught the true honor ¢ 
 of wealth, as not consisting in its acquirement, but in 
 its use, and that while minds the most contracted are 
 often competent to get, noble hearts are needed to give. 
 Youthful minds must be taught how much greater 
 honor there is in a life consecrated to the service of 
 the Lord of the whole earth, than in a career devoted 
 to lawsuits and merchandise. These principles moth- 
 ers can most surely implant. Who shall tell us what 
 would be the moral stature of another, generation of 
 Christian men, if they would fulfill their trust ? 
 
 Every Christian has duties to this cause; we know 
 of no exceptions. It is vain to leave it to ministers. 
 They can not accomplish the work. In the forcible 
 language of Baptist Noel: ‘‘ Often has a road been con- 
 structed when there was no engineer to guide, and a 
 house has been built when there was no architect to 
 direct, and a battle has been fought when there were 
 few or no officers to lead on; but where has a road 
 been constructed only by the director, or a house built 
 only by the architect, or a battle won by the officers 
 alone? Never! and never will Christ’s battle be won 
 in this world till every Christian feels he is bound, by 
 loyalty to his Master, to fight if he fights alone, and to 
 go on in that good work which Christ, his Lord, has 
 assigned him.” 
 
 AMERICAN CHRISTIANS HAVE ESPECIAL RESPONSI- 
 BILITIES FOR THE REVOLUTION OF THE worLpD. So 
 far as wealth is concerned inthis enterprise, the Chris- 
 tians of no land possess a fairer measure of means, and 
 in no country are there such facilities for every de- 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. At 
 
 nomination to educate those who are called to go forth 
 to the battle for the Lord of Hosts. 
 
 Many of the nations are peculiarly open to Missions 
 from this country, and we can believe, therefore, that we 
 are sent of God for their evangelization. India and 
 China have been opened to the Gospel by the means 
 of hostile armies from motives of cupidity and national 
 aggrandizement. The opium war, by which China 
 was rendered much more accessible to the servants of 
 the Cross, is yet a great barrier to success in their work. 
 A missionary of the Chureh of England, in bearing his 
 testimony against this iniquitous traffic, says: ‘“ Would 
 that those who profess to doubt or deny the magnitude of 
 this obstacle to the progress of Christianity in China, 
 could hear many a patriotic Chinese, with sarcastic smile, 
 ask the missionaries whether they were connected with 
 those individuals who brought the poison, of which so 
 many of their countrymen eat and perish!” Happily 
 missionaries from this land can disclaim the connec- 
 tion, and be freed from the difficulties which embarrass 
 others. Similarity of speech may sometimes cause a 
 native population to keep aloof from an American 
 missionary, but he has only to prove his relation to an- 
 other people and the difficulty is overcome. 
 
 We would not unduly magnify our calling, but it 
 does appear that the very fact, that Americans are 
 so clear of the blood of heathen nations, intimates that 
 they are to be highly honored in their salvation. Ifto 
 Solomon was given the work of building the temple, 
 because David his father “had shed much blood,” we 
 may believe that this country is to take an important 
 
42 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION, 
 
 part in rearing the Lord’s house in lands which Britain 
 has subdued. 
 
 Wherever a nation aequires territory, its Christian 
 people ought to feel a deep responsibility concerning 
 the salvation of its inhabitants. It is well when these 
 obligations are realized to the extent they are by trans- 
 Atlantic Christians, but the certainty of greater ac- 
 cessibility lays on others an equal obligation. 
 
 American Christians have remarkable facilities for 
 bringing the Gospel to bear upon the nations of the 
 earth. Commercial relations of an extensive charac- 
 ter give the opportunity of placing a missionary of the 
 Cross in juxtaposition with any people to whom we 
 could have access. In what port has not the Ameri- 
 can flag been seen? Where is there a prospect of com- 
 merce, that American enterprise does not enter, toshare 
 the peril and the profit? The sails of American ship- 
 ping whiten every sea. American vessels may be 
 found in every haven in Europe, and along the coast of 
 Africa. They enter every httle harbor of South 
 America. They thread the channels of the countless 
 islands in the Chinese seas, and continually bring the 
 treasures of Asia to our feet, The tonnage of vessels 
 employed in eommerce, would show the United States 
 to be the first commereial nation of the whole world, 
 “The States of North America,” it has been remarked, 
 “are to be the commercial center of the globe.” 
 “Shortly the carrying trade of the globe must be in 
 our hands. Upon our shores are the gates through 
 which must pass the world’s merchandise.” Is this 
 “ carrying trade” given to this country for no higher 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 48 
 
 purpose than ‘‘merchandise?”’ The very constitution 
 of things which makes nations dependent on one an- 
 other for the comforts and luxuries of life opens a vast 
 means of good. Commerce affords a sure means of 
 promulgating that faith by which men of all kindreds, 
 tongues, and tribes are to be brought to heaven, Never 
 was transit from one part of the globe to another so ex- 
 peditious, and still steam is accomplishing new mar- 
 vels. We believe that every thing, which assists and 
 facilitates commerce, is to be subordinated to God’s pur- 
 poses, by carrying unsearchable riches to distant lands, 
 
 The facilities which we have, will lay us under fearful 
 condemnation if not improved, If while an Apostle 
 waited at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him 
 because he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, how 
 m ght he be impressed by a single day in a Christian 
 city now. Were he to ask from whence we obtained 
 not a few of the luxuries and comforts of life, we must 
 reply, idolaters, Let him ask for the origin of many 
 a beautiful fabrie worn by a Christian lady, he would 
 hear that it was the handiwork of an Asiatic idolater. 
 Let him share the hospitality of a Christian family, he 
 would find most of their luxuries supplied by idolaters. 
 The tea, so indispensable to many, he would find was 
 gathered and packed by idolaters. His coffee would in 
 most cases be traced to the idolater. Would it not be 
 natural for one who knew nothing “ save Christ, and 
 him crucified,” to ask, what had been done for these 
 idolaters? What overwhelming mortification would 
 such a question occasion many a Christian family ! 
 Such an inquiry must yet be met, and only as woe 
 
44 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 7 
 
 have “‘done what we could”? can we expect to dispose 
 of it satisfactorily. 
 
 Buj theugh there are these facilities, by which we 
 may carry the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the 
 earth, there are those who will ask us to “look at 
 home,” to go down into the caverns of misery which un- 
 dermine our cities, or look into the garrets at the wretch- 
 ed beings crowded there. We admit that the destitute 
 and degraded have a claim on. our sympathies. The 
 friends of foreign missions, we trust, are not unmindful 
 of them. Many, however, when pleading the cause 
 of the poor at home, seem to look upon the money 
 spent on the heathen as squandered. Butit isno rash 
 expenditure. Foreign missions benefit the needy at 
 home by the employments which they give. Who 
 make outfits for missionaries? American citizens. 
 Manufactures wrought in our own factories are con- 
 tinually being used. Vessels manned .by American 
 hands convey the missionary to his destination, and the 
 passage money—for ship-owners do not all yet appre- 
 ciate the honor of giving “‘ free course’’ to the ‘‘ word 
 of the Lord’’—goes with other little streams into the 
 great ocean of. mercantile resources, which labor is 
 constantly exhaling, Bibles and tracts for the heathen 
 require presses, type, and paper, which generally only 
 the civilized workman can furnish. Small is the sum 
 spent in heathen lands. Generally, as in China, or 
 India, it is expended with merchants who must pro- 
 eure their stock from countries more civilized. In 
 most cases, the presence of a missionary with the wants 
 of civilized lite, is creating a demand. which, only our 
 
 -% 
 ; 
 
THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 45 
 
 artisans at home can meet. A British Consul in the 
 South Seas, says: ‘There is now on these islands a 
 great consumption of foreign articles.’”? These ‘‘ foreign 
 articles’? must have makers. They favor the market 
 of labor somewhere. They make the unemployed so 
 many less. And there is no truer charity, than that 
 which gives men remunerative employ. It elevates 
 those who labor, while the claimants on small and in- 
 adequate charities are reduced. All these things show 
 that foreign missions befriend the poor. A man might 
 support missons, and give a good reason, if he stated 
 that patriotism was his inducement. 
 
 But it may be asked whether spiritual destitution at 
 home is not neglected by the prosecution of our enter- 
 prises abroad? We believe not. Those churches 
 which are most active for foreign missions, are fore- 
 most in aiding home evangelization. Find a religious 
 body opposed to this object, and within an easy dis- 
 tance of any of their churches we will find villages and 
 settlements into which they have never attempted to 
 introduce the Gospel. There are a few religious 
 bodies which have done nothing for the foreign cause ; 
 and these will be found to have made the smallest in- 
 crease of any in the last quarter of a century. On 
 the contrary, the denominations which have been ‘in 
 labors more abundant”’ for ‘‘ the world” have been tak- 
 ing deeper root and extending on every side. ‘‘ There is 
 that scattereth, and yet increaseth—there is that with- 
 holdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.” 
 
 We admit that a thousand dollars expended on a 
 foreign mission is no longer at our service for domes- 
 
46 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
 
 tie benevolence. But the very persons whose contri- 
 butions made that $1000, will be most likely to con- 
 tribute a thousand for home. An advocate for any 
 philanthropic object finds his best field with econgre- 
 gations accustomed to contribute. In such a case the 
 fountain of sympathy has been well opened. In the 
 other case it will be found that there is all the peril 
 and discomfort of digging for it, and in many instances 
 after a long time wasted on a blue galt of selfishness, it 
 will be abandoned in despair. They who give know 
 the blessedness of giving, and “all the feelings of char- 
 ity, a willingness to distribute, a readiness to commu- 
 nicate, are enhanced by the exercise.’ * Facts and 
 philosophy alike prove that foreign and home mis- 
 sions are indebted, the one to the other. The prosperity 
 of one is an earnest of good for the other. 
 
 We must seek a world’s revolution. The degrada- 
 tion, misery, and danger of the myriads of our race, 
 the substantial efficacy which has been found in the 
 Gospel to elevate and bless the most abject, conjoined 
 with the success which God has given on past efforts, 
 urge us to activity for ‘‘ all the world.” Never was 
 there so grand an enterprise. Never does man appear 
 so ennobled as in its prosecution. Great as was his 
 glory in his primeval state, as a little lower than the 
 angels, and glorious as is his destiny which makes him 
 “equal” with them, he can not be more truly illus- 
 trious than when permitted the most humble co-opera- 
 tion with the Divine Spirit in the regeneration of all 
 things. Even now Christ addresses to us the word of 
 
 * Dr. Chalmers. 
 
THE WORLD § REVOLUTION. AT 
 
 command, bidding us “go”? even as he “came” to 
 “seek and to save the lost.” The Spirit hovering over 
 the miserable and degraded, says, ‘‘Come.” God 
 from his lofty throne speaks unto us, ‘‘Go forward.” 
 Dare we slight these commands? Shall we be thus in- 
 sensible of honor? Canhebe aminister of Christ who 
 would think it beneath him to oceupy the humblest 
 station in the prosecution of this great work? Canany 
 Christian decline aiding this cause because be would 
 amass a fortune which shall make his neighbors envi- 
 ous and supply temptations to his children? Can 
 there be a Christian mother who would not believe 
 herself “‘ blessed among women” if her child was called 
 to bear the name of Christ before the Gentiles? Can 
 there be a young disciple who prefers prospects of 
 worldly ease, to. toil for souls? 
 
 Reader, “The night cometh!” Whatever your 
 ministry for the world’s evangelization, ‘fulfill it.” 
 Distant from the field, you may yet divide the spoil. 
 Less conspicuous you are not-less needed. Consecrate 
 yourself to God for this crusade on the territories of 
 error, ignorance, and sin. Then when death shall 
 call you to put off the harness, you shall be able to 
 say, ‘I have fought a good fight,” and shall know 
 that your influence has been exerted to make a nation 
 pre-eminent in its privileges, pre-eminent in its con- 
 quests for our God and His Christ. 
 
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Spivit af Missions 
 
 Is THE 
 
 Neel OT OE RLS 1 
 
 Charleston: 
 SOUTHERN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 
 1853, 
 

 
THE 
 
 Spirit of Missions is the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 THE spirit of an individual, or body of men, is only 
 another name for the habitual disposition, the practical 
 principles, the blending of temper and judgment, which 
 give harmony and stability to the character, and subor- 
 dinates the conduct. But as this is an unseen agent, 
 we can arrive at its characteristics only by experiment 
 We must decide upon its nature and qualities, as we 
 do concerning those of every other invisible cause, by 
 observing the effects it produces. The conduct may 
 indeed, in some instances, imperfectly represent the 
 character, and lead to false estimates of the spirit. In 
 cases, however, where a long series of actions, with 
 the cireumstances and consequences attendant upon 
 
 them is accurately known, and is known to have been 
 
+ THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 subservient, through its entire extent, to a definite de- 
 sign, where no occasion for imposture is discoverable, 
 and where nothing in the conduct and associations of 
 an individual clashes with his avowed purposes, the 
 test may be applied with the utmost confidence. For 
 example, there is hardly a possibility of mistake when 
 we ascribe the prolonged, arduous, and unrewarded 
 labors of a professed patriotism to public spirit ; or un- 
 ostentatious and habitual self-sacrifices for the well- 
 being of others, to the philanthropic spirit ; or a contin- 
 uous reference of every earthly interest to the will of 
 God, to the spirit of piety. 
 
 No difficulty interferes with the application of this 
 process of induction to the actions of Christ. The 
 Gospels, which have been recorded by inspired men, 
 and which are themselves a transcript from the uner- 
 ring mind of the Omniscient, display the general con- 
 duct of his early life, and enumerate the various and 
 minute particulars belonging to his public history. 
 They accurately describe the times and the associations 
 in whose midst he acted, and by whose means the 
 definite purpose of those actions may be clearly seen. 
 With unexampled frankness they relate the weaknesses 
 and humiliations over which prejudiced friends might 
 have wept in silence, while they also display the ma- 
 jestic expressions of holiness and power which con- 
 

 
 THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 5 
 
 scious enemies would have feared to remember. They 
 tell us of the manger and the judgment-hall, of Geth- 
 semane and Calvary, of subjection and poverty, of 
 shame, of anguish, of a detested death; but they also 
 tell us of the Spirit’s descent upon his baptism in Jor- 
 dan, and of the heavenly splendors on the heights of 
 Tabor ; of the anthems of angels, and the hosannas of 
 men; of the authority that stayed disease, and of the 
 power that conquered death. And as an actual life, 
 with all its variety of incident, so a decided character, 
 signalized by one purpose, is revealed in the Gospels. 
 Every act of the Redeemer bore a relation to a distinct 
 and single end. Every enlargement of the field of his 
 labors, every addition to the measure of his sufferings, 
 was a contribution to a determinate object. His lan- 
 guage was that of one whom some great thought pos- 
 sesses in every company and amid every scene; and 
 his conduct confirmed the testimony of his speech, un- 
 vailing, as it did, more and more of the exalted under- 
 taking to which his life was devoted, and unbosoming 
 with more and more distinctness the sublime enthusi- 
 asm by which his life was controlled. 
 
 This design of Christ, a design of which his whole 
 history is the expression and the proof, originated in a 
 disposition and purpose to communicate to men the 
 blessings which he alone could bestow. The Spirit of 
 
6 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 
 
 Christ is therefore the spirit of philanthropy. With 
 this sentiment all the circumstances of his earthly life, 
 and all the authority of his mediatorial throne, must be 
 connected. What object, but the salvation of men, 
 could have led to his assumption of our nature? What, 
 but the lamentations of a lost world, could have atiract- 
 ed to its dwellings ‘‘God manifest in the flesh ?”’ What, 
 but the tender sympathies of humanity, could have de- 
 tained him so long among its polluted scenes and 
 humble companionships? What, but “the joy set be- 
 fore him’’—joy to such a nature the highest of all— 
 the joy of souls redeemed, could have induced this ex- 
 alted Being to submit to still deeper humiliations, ‘ to 
 endure the cross and despise the shame?’ And who, 
 but “a faithful and merciful High-priest,” has for 
 eighteen hundred years held the scepter of universal 
 empire with such glorious strength and patience, and 
 still labors, and intercedes, and waits, until “the 
 heathen shall be given to him for an inheritance, and 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession ?” 
 The philanthropy of Christ must be estimated by the 
 infinite nature to which it pertains, and by his relations 
 to men, as their Creator and Sovereign. Its compass 
 is boundless. It is adapted to secure the happiness of 
 all. In the midst of an isolated Judaism, the Great 
 Shepherd expressed his kindly interest in human kind 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. t 
 
 committing to his disciples the care of ‘‘ other sheep, 
 not of this fold.’ In an age when national selfishness 
 was the highest style of patriotism, and when a haughty 
 self-righteousness was confounded with piety, he cheer- 
 fully bore the name of ‘‘the Friend of publicans and 
 sinners.” He set apart a little company of converts, 
 and after inspiring their souls with the enthusiasm of 
 children of God and heirs of heaven, directed them to 
 the world as the appointed field, in which all this en- 
 ergy was to be expended. The apostles were trained 
 by his personal teachings, they were stimulated by the 
 manifested power and forgiving love of a risen Saviour, 
 they were wrought to an unearthly courage by the won- 
 derful gifts and presence of the Spirit, and they then 
 went forth, constrained by the urgency of the Lord’s 
 command: “Go, teach all nations.” And of this char- 
 acter was the message they bore (1 John ii. 12): ‘‘ We 
 have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, tho 
 Righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and 
 not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
 world.” 
 
 Such being evidently the Spirit of Christ, philan- 
 thropy is with equal clearness the duty of all men. 
 The example of Christ is authoritative. Not only does 
 it claim the admiration, which certain Atheists have 
 
 been constrained to render to it, even when they re- 
 
8 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 
 
 garded it as a merely fanciful picture of excellence. 
 This beautiful and pure model has been construeted by 
 Divine hands, and perpetuated on earth by a series of 
 providences, that men, through a faithful conformity 
 to it, may subserve the will of their Creator. Besides, 
 the directions to his people, by which the Spirit of 
 Christ is evidenced, are also commands, emanating 
 from a Sovereign authority. And the Spirit of Christ 
 in prophecy harmonizes with the spirit of his life, and 
 with his uttered will, in declaring that the philan- 
 thropy which he ineuleates, will, however slow in its 
 extension, at last pervade all the churches consecrated 
 to his service. They shall ‘put on Jesus Christ.’ 
 Won by his example, guided by his law, animated by 
 the grand hope of bringing the prospective glories 
 of his kingdom within the compass of their own day, 
 they shall work with a zeal and a diligence, with a 
 forethought and a prayerfulness, they have never 
 known before. The world has yet to see, in accordance 
 with the prophetic symbols, the majestic spectacle of a 
 host of God, drawn together by the constraint of a Re- 
 deemer’s love, panoplied in one resplendent Spirit, led 
 by one conquering banner, the righteousness thereof 
 going forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as 
 a lamp that burneth—the strongholds of error yielding 
 to their assaults, and the shrines and temples of super= ~ 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 9 
 
 stition falling beneath their tramp—the captives and 
 bondmen of the earth, its nobles and its kings, the thou- 
 sand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, 
 gathering with tears and rejoicings in its train; a host 
 never pausing on its high career, until the circuit of 
 the globe has been run, and every nation and city and 
 hamlet has one altar and one law, and Christ reigns 
 the universal Victor, the everlasting King. The 
 Church is yet destined, by the appointment of its Au- 
 thor, to bring the world under the power of a moral 
 cultivation, and by the husbandry of labors and inter- 
 cessions to pour new life along its marble veins, and 
 cover its nakedness with an unwonted verdure: labors 
 never to be given over, intercessions never to be silenc- 
 ed, until the matured fruits of righteousness shall cover 
 every land, and the yellow sheaves shall wave over 
 every pleasant isle and every smiling continent, and 
 the thanksgivings of the cultivators shall suddenly be 
 returned by the anthems of the reapers, and Heaven 
 shall ery, ‘ Harvest home !” 
 
 It is our object to show that the missionary enterprise 
 constitutes an important department of this philan- 
 thropic work; that, in other words, THE SPIRIT OF 
 Missions IS IDENTICAL WITH THE Spirit or Curist. 
 This will appear, not only from their employing the 
 
 same Divine agency, the Word of God, but specialiy 
 
10 THR SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 from the end which each proposes to itself, and to which 
 each is really subservient: the increase of human 
 knowledge, holiness, and happiness. 
 
 We observe, then, in the first place, that the identity 
 of the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit of Christ is 
 discoverable 2m the contributions of each to the sum of 
 human knowledge. 
 
 It has frequently been said, that sincerity of con- 
 viction is the only quality of religious belief about 
 which men should be concerned, and that it is alto- 
 gether a matter of minor importance whether they are 
 the faithful servants of truth or of error. This obser- 
 vation has been answered by Christian moralists in 
 various ways. They have contended that ignorance is 
 voluntary, and therefore criminal: inasmuch as the 
 human mind has the ability to think and reason, to 
 collect and weigh testimony, and to draw conclusions ; 
 and as the merciful and wise Providence, who has 
 thus constituted human nature, has provided in its be- 
 half a system of Christian knowledge—a system at- 
 tended by appropriate evidences, and claiming for itself 
 the obedience of faith. They have pointed to the sad 
 effects of error, to the necessary and actual influences 
 exerted by unholy objects of worship upon their wor- 
 shipers; and have drawn triumphant contrasts be- 
 
 tween the state of Christian and that of Mohammedan - 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 11 
 
 and Heathen nations. And they have argued the im- 
 portance of religious truth, as it more concerns our 
 present purpose to remark, from the high estimate put 
 upon it by the great Teacher. Did it not prepare the 
 way for his Divine Mission by the inspirations of 
 prophecy? Was it not his Spirit, by which those 
 great minds were caught up “to visions of enraptured 
 thought,’’ and those musical hands were guided across 
 the chords of the Hebrew lyre, and those eloquent lips 
 brought such oracles, as a tribute and increase to the 
 Book of God, and was it not the design of these earlier 
 revelations to prepare the souls of men for holier words, 
 such as floated, like a trumpet call, down the current 
 of the Jordan, and summoned the tribes of Israel to 
 their King; or such as fell, like a fertilizing shower, 
 upon the wilderness of Judea, and softened the desert 
 soil, and prepared it to be the garden of the Lord? 
 The life of Christ and the cross of Christ are but the 
 Gospel written in living characters. As such they 
 must be recognized. Only “he that hears the Word of 
 God and does it,” shall share in the salvation wrought 
 out by our Immanuel “in tears, and agonies, and 
 blood.” And the holy teachings which Jesus Christ 
 lived and died to proclaim were not restricted to one 
 age. He left them as a precious legacy to his disci- 
 
 _ ples, commanding them to preach to the world the Gos- 
 
12. THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 
 
 pel of the Resurrection, and thus diselose to its despair- 
 ing millions the way from earth to heaven. 
 
 If, then, the diffusion of Divine Truth was a promi- 
 nent and essential feature in the enterprise of Christ, 
 and also occupied the labors of his inspired servants, 
 and if, on the other hand, a scheme of benevolence has 
 been instituted in modern times, which chiefly contem- 
 plates the preaching of the Gospel, who can doubt that 
 the sacred structure, “‘ built upon the foundation of the 
 Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being its 
 corner-stone,”’ has the Spirit of Christ within it? And 
 if, as the result of that plan, the heralds of salvation 
 have gone forth—shrinking not from the self-denials 
 involved in the relinquishment of their homes, and in 
 dwelling for long years in heathen lands, and undis- 
 mayed by the cruelties of heathen hearts—and have 
 proclaimed in the waste places of the earth, “‘ Prepare 
 ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert the 
 highway for our God,’’? who ean doubt that the Spirit 
 of Christ presided over that solemn assembly, whose 
 minds conceived and whose liberalities effected the pos- 
 sibility of that holy work; that it ever moves in those 
 heroic hearts that breast the dangers of its prosecu- 
 ‘tion; that it now inspires the prayers, ascending at 
 morning and at eventide from the multitudinous homes 
 of Christendom: ‘Lord, bless our missionaries; bless 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 1d 
 
 thy Word, as it is preached in Asia, and Africa, and 
 the islands of the sea !” 
 
 And this is indeed the picture which the missionary 
 enterprise exhibits. It has called forth the prayers and 
 efforts of the Christian world by carrying into heathen 
 lands those blessed truths which, among us, fill every 
 closet of devotion, every sanctuary, every Sabbath day, 
 with the brightness and the power of a world to come. 
 It has stirred heathen hearts innumerable with the 
 eloquence of inspiration. It has transported to those 
 regions the conflict going on in ours—the conflict 
 against the deification of Nature and the idolatry of 
 Self, and is there smiting the errors and delusions of 
 the human mind with the sword of the Spirit, the Word 
 of God. It has led men to despoil themselves of their 
 sweet native speech—the treasury in which the intel- 
 lectual glory of their country is garnered, the language 
 of home, the medium through which they came to the 
 knowledge of Jesus—that heathen tribes might hear, 
 “each in its own tongue, the wonderful works of God.” 
 It has constrained men to engage in the Herculean 
 labors, ahd support the vast expenditures, attendant on 
 the translation and wide diffusion of the Holy Oracles, 
 
 that the grand scheme of divine Providence should be 
 known by those for whose salvation it was intended ; 
 that every heathen home should enshrine the prophetic 
 
14 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 record ‘of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that 
 should follow ;”? and that the vail upon every heathen 
 heart, which has so long hidden the spiritual and the 
 future from the heirs of immortality, should be indig- 
 nantly torn away. Thus the ground has been prepared 
 upon which the monuments of missionary success might 
 be erected; and upon this divinely appointed founda- 
 tion churches have been built, schools established, the- 
 ological seminaries endowed. The truth, once shut up 
 in the hearts of the missionaries, has found new chan- 
 nels of conveyance, and developed new sources of 
 power. The sympathy and courage of numbers, united 
 for a common object; the pliant, communicative mind 
 of youth, receiving a new direction; the social exalta- 
 tion and domestic influence of the female sex ; the arts, 
 sciences, and refinements, that have fixed the centers 
 of a new civilization amid barbarian wilds, and have 
 decked with intellectual and moral beauty the volup- 
 tuous culture of ancient pagan cities; such influences 
 have resulted from the preaching of the Gospel, and 
 have given new efficacy to it. The missionary enter- 
 prise ineludes these agencies, and contemplates this 
 result. It designs to produce a revolution of the earth, 
 to bring the regions of night beneath the rays of the 
 Sun of Righteousness. The missionary stations already 
 reflect its luster, as the peaks of a mountainous country 
 
THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 15 
 
 catch the first glories of the morning. The light in- 
 creases. The slant rays leap from peak to peak, or 
 more slowly travel down the sides of the mountains. 
 The mists are falling, and farther and farther down 
 “the shadows are fleeing away.’”’? The sheltered nooks 
 of verdure appear. The icy summits melt with un- 
 wonted heat ; and such pure streams descend into the 
 valleys, as make glad the city of our God. Sun of 
 Heaven! we rejoice, as thou along thy mighty way 
 rejoicest! O ascend, till thou standest fixed in the 
 meridian ; till the deepest hamlet shall have felt thy 
 beams, and ‘the earth shall be filled with the knowl- 
 edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea !”” 
 
 We observe, in the second place, that the identity of 
 the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit. of Christ is dis- 
 coverable in the contributions made by each to the sum 
 of human holiness. 
 
 The necessities of the heathen are not only to be esti- 
 mated by the ignorance prevailing among them, and the 
 false systems of belief they have embraced, but much 
 more by the consequences of irreligion upon their moral 
 natures. The religious creeds of Polytheism are sys- 
 tems of gross impurity. The gods to whom idolatrous 
 worship is rendered, are deified monsters. They pre- 
 side over temples where prostitution is worship, and 
 
 over lands where crime is religion. The homage they 
 
16 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 receive is the adoration of demons, by those who were 
 made to glorify God; and nothing but a demon’s malice 
 seems sufficient to have originated schemes so various, 
 and yet so adapted to the brutalizing of human nature; 
 and to have made such provisions of consecrated woods 
 and caverns and magical rites, of temples and cloisters 
 and priestly privileges, of national governments and 
 social arts and domestic usages, for the shelter and en- 
 couragement of such otherwise unimaginable sins. It 
 is true, that here and there a professed moralist or a 
 real philosopher may be found in pagan countries. But 
 systems of morality, which are based upon selfishness— 
 and such are the systems of pagan morality, whether 
 displayed in a gloomy asceticism or a lifelong search 
 after pleasure, have always been—present no barriers 
 to popular practices which are induced by the same 
 principle. And systems of philosophy, cautiously ex- 
 pounded within the narrow walls of a school, carefully 
 hidden from the knowledge of the multitude, and tim- 
 idly deferential to the religion of the state—and such 
 has been the historical character of pagan philoso- 
 phers—can not train a race of active and bold reform- 
 ers, or correct the polluted fountains of popular opinion. 
 The idols of all nations would never have ceased to 
 populate the banks of the Tiber, and the white-footed 
 train of matrons would this day be descending a stream 
 
THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 17 
 
 of corruption, into its current, to wash away their sins 
 in its wintry wave (Juvenal vi. 406), had no purer 
 moralist appeared than the Stoic Seneca, who lauded 
 virtue in his stately periods, and disgraced it by his life. 
 And the indiscriminate altars of Athens never would 
 have fallen; but still the Greek would have fancied a 
 council of adulterous and cruel gods enthroned on the 
 gigantie height of Olympus, and would have continued 
 to repair to the dark wilds of Cithaeron to celebrate 
 with clashing cymbals and savage yells the orgies of 
 incest, drunkenness, and murder, had he submitted to 
 no higher motives than those conveyed in the hints of 
 Socrates and the eloquence of Plato. 
 
 Such was the state of the most refined heathen na- 
 tions—such was the desperate corruption of the world, 
 when Jesus Christ, the Benefactor of man, appeared 
 among them. He came to dispossess the principalities 
 of darkness of the high places of their dominion by 
 settling and enforcing the principles of a pure morality. 
 He came to exalt the nature they had degraded, by in- 
 stilling into it the self-respect and virtue suited to its 
 reason and its immortality. He came to establish on 
 earth a holy kingdom, to whose citizenship all men 
 might aspire. To this object his life was consecrated, 
 He preached, and lived, and died, to declare to men the 
 danger and guilt of sin, to achieve pardon for transgrese 
 
18 THE SPIRIT Of MISSIONS 18 
 
 sors, and to display to a rebellious race, in the bright 
 mirror of his own person, such revelations of the pater- 
 nal tenderness and majesty of Heaven, “that every 
 knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is 
 God ;”’ and that “we, with open face, beholding the 
 glory of the Lord, should be changed inte the same 
 image from glory to glory.” His ascension was the 
 solemn triumph of this cause. It transported the first- 
 fruits of man’s redemption to the holy harmonies of a 
 better world. His mediatorial throne was established, 
 as a fountain of spiritual influences in behalf of men; 
 thence the Pentecostal issues streamed ; and in all sub- 
 sequent ages the graces and deliverances of his people, 
 and the conversion of sinners, have demonstrated the 
 beneficent design and mighty power of its scepter. 
 Thence he has continued to appeal to the piety of his 
 disciples by fair visions and impassioned hopes—prom- 
 ising to the soul devoutly conscious of its infirmities a 
 way of deliverance in every temptation, and to the tried, 
 grace for every day of need, and to the constant, a fel- 
 lowship with, and a conformity to, Him, who is the 
 center of Heaven and the brightness of God. 
 
 Now what is the missionary enterprise, but a project 
 for the extension of the same holy influences? Where 
 have missionaries repaired, but to earth’s publicans 
 and sinners in their darkest and foulest abodes? Mark 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 19 
 
 the men to whom the ambassadors of the Cross now 
 preach the Gospel: the enervate Greek and the licen- 
 tious Turk; the Hindoo, soft and cruel as the tiger of 
 his native plains, the crafty, unfeeling Chinese, the 
 haughty Persian, the filthy Siberian, and the avaricious 
 Jew; the bestial Bushmen and the bloody Ashantee ; 
 the unlettered South Sea islanders, and the untamed 
 Indian of our Western wilds. To all these they have 
 spoken. Within the noisome, hopeless tomb, where 
 “the world lieth in its wickedness,” they have pro- 
 claimed “Jesus and the Resurrection.’”? Where they 
 stand—each animated by the spirit of philanthropy, 
 and uttering words which are the spells of Omnipo- 
 tence—and prophesy to the slumbering millions around 
 them, the scenes of Ezekiel’s vision begin. In the 
 dark charnel, bone is coming to its bone, and the flesh 
 covers them. The blood resumes its wonted play. 
 The eyes, which darkness so long has sealed, behold 
 the glory of the cross of Jesus descending softly through 
 the midst of the valley of death. Here one Lazarus, 
 _and there another, rises and comes to the Prophet’s 
 side. Through the instrumentality of the Word, and 
 the energy of the Spirit, a church of God is formed. 
 Each disciple carries back to the spot in which he lay 
 the same Divine summons which constrained him to 
 arise. Where they go, the priestly hyenas, who fatten 
 
90 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 
 
 upon human spoil, retire gnashing their teeth. The 
 ghostly shadows, that seemed gods, vanish. The num- 
 ber of living men increases, men with the real and 
 honorable attributes of humanity about them, men of 
 industry and virtue, men just and fearing God. 
 
 Such is the unfinished history of modern missions, 
 for ‘‘ the end is not yet.’’ But who can fail to trace the 
 resemblance between this sketch and chapters in the 
 history of the apostolic churches? Who ean doubt 
 that they are displays of the same Divine Spirit, and 
 pledges of the same auspicious future? O, we can not, 
 we dare not, separate from Christianity the glorious 
 results of our own missions, or even the examples that 
 our dead on heathen shores have left as a rich bequest 
 to the faithful of all coming times! The heroism of 
 Mrs. Judson—the sufferings and labors unsurpassed, 
 till the saintly spirit rose to its rewards, and the frail 
 body was buried beneath the hopia tree—how power- 
 fully has it acted upon, how greatly has it ennobled, 
 the female piety of our native land! The exhausted 
 Boardman, expiring like a soldier on the field of victory, 
 “with the faithful Karens kneeling around him in 
 prayer,’’ and that aged convert from idolatry, waving his 
 withered, death-struck arm, and exclaiming, ‘“‘ The best 
 of all is, God is with us!’’* that picture and that ery 
 
 * Brief History of the Burman Mission, p. 32. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 91 
 
 have wrought like burning eloquence on the masculine 
 devotion of our churches. And others have died, and 
 others will die, before the sublime aspiration of God’s 
 laborers is realized, and ‘‘the Lord shall cause righteous- 
 ness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” 
 But they die not as the fool dieth. To their graves the 
 thoughts of the Christian world shall pilgrim for ages, 
 as to holy shrines. Their ashes shall minister to the 
 eause of God, like martyr blood. Their examples shall 
 influence with the Spirit of Christ generations yet un- 
 born. And there, as they lie on heathen shores, their 
 whitening bones shall revive the courage of the future 
 heralds of the Cross, as they pass beyond to more dis- 
 tant conflicts, by marking the spots where idolatry 
 once was, and where the Gospel of Jesus illustriously 
 triumphed. 
 
 And we observe, in the third place, that the identity 
 of the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit of Christ is dis- 
 coverable in the contributions of each to the sum of human 
 happiness. 
 
 To the question whether perfect happiness can be 
 enjoyed on earth, but one answer can be given. And 
 yet in view of the various and frequent miseries of 
 men, it becomes Christian philanthropy to make all 
 possible additions to the number of their enjoyments. 
 And, in view of the debasing gratifications of men, 
 
92 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 Christian candor must admit, that the characier of their 
 enjoyments may be greatly ennobled. Such provisions 
 are especially needed by the inhabitants of heathen 
 countries. Separated by false religions from the ‘‘ Su- 
 preme Good,” possessed of no certain principles, by 
 which the diverse relations of life may be harmonized, 
 and made subservient to the well-being of all; the 
 victims of social disorganizations and civil despotisms ; 
 and bearing, each in his own breast, an irreconcilable 
 discord, the heathen have vainly chased the phantom 
 of happiness from the cradle to the grave. They suffer 
 and create suffering. They pass away; and the groan- 
 ing and travailing earth brings forth a new generation 
 to the same heritage of woe. Throughout society a 
 system of selfishness and wrong prevails. The priest. 
 hood dignify religion by the cruel and unshared suffer- 
 ings of its devotees. The mother, faithless to her first 
 and last of duties, curses the infant daughter, whose 
 fate is to be so like her own, or hushes its cries in an 
 untimely grave. From day to day she moves, an im- 
 pure, despised menial in the house of her husband and 
 herchildren. The relentless hands of his own offspring 
 finish the dark tragedy of an aged parent’s life. Poisons 
 and assassinations adjust the disputes of social rivals. 
 Fierce and cruel wars, and bloody retaliations balance 
 
 the claims of contending kings. And yet a common 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 23 
 
 misery has taught none to cherish the kindly charities 
 of life, or to pour the balm of sympathy into these 
 bleeding wounds. But in all the animal appetites are 
 now gratified, now loathed; and the moral judgments 
 are racked and torn by the changeful agonies of con- 
 science. Amid the practices of religion, they see a 
 savage gloom resting on the features of the gods,* 
 while the impenetrable pall of death hangs over the 
 future, and terminates the melancholy scene. 
 
 But the Christian system has made suitable provision 
 for human happiness, such happiness at least as may 
 flourish in a state of probation. It lays the ground for 
 human trust and gratitude, for meekness and charity, 
 by one glorious revelation: God is Love! It brings 
 men near to each other by representing them as the 
 subjects of his blended authority and tenderness. All 
 duties toward all relations are there summed up in one 
 pregnant word ; and love to God and man are the sub- 
 stance of its moral law. Its author is Love incarnate, 
 and he has sought to reconcile all internal discords by 
 bringing the whole nature of man under the power of 
 sanctified affections, and all external schisms by the 
 conviction, that the veins of every human creature 
 swell with a brother’s blood. He has sought to break 
 down every wall of division between men of every 
 
 * Reinhard’s Plan of Christianity, p. 131 
 
24 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 nation, and to assemble all into one great family, bound 
 together by the sense of a common origin, and by com- 
 mon experiences and hopes; by faith in one Saviour, 
 and by dutiful reverence for one Father in heaven. 
 
 Let but these principles be adopted by the world, and 
 what a change would take place in society! Every. 
 where woman would be recognized as its ornament, 
 and cling with a deathless love to him who should stana 
 by her side beautiful in gentleness and strength. Home 
 would echo with the unwonted glee of happy infancy. 
 The expectant silence of later generations would wait 
 upon the counsels of old age. A meek and thankful 
 spirit, and a quiet. conscience, would flush the lives of 
 all with the verdure of a perpetual spring. Affliction 
 would be lightened by being divided, and sanctified by 
 being overruled; and the sorrow and sighing of discon- 
 tent would flee away from the haunts ofmen. The bow, 
 and the sword, and the battle-axe should be broken like 
 the visions of a troubled sleep, neither should men learn 
 war any more; but the conquests of blood should give 
 place to the triumphs of benevolence, and the only 
 ensign should be the Root of Jesse, and to it should the 
 nations seek, and its rest should be glorious. 
 
 Now let the Spirit of Missions be tested by their re- 
 sults upon human happiness. All competent witnesses 
 
 concede that they have greatly checked the vices of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 25 
 
 theft and drunkenness, adultery and murder: But how 
 much beyond this have they not done? They have 
 been the honored means of converting many precious 
 souls to God. They have moved many selfish hearts 
 with filial submission to a heavenly Father, and to self- 
 sacrificing benevolence in behalf of their fellow-men. 
 They have transfigured many unhappy homes by the 
 services of Christian courtesy and the habits of spiritual 
 devotion. They have trained many an immortal in the 
 pupilage of the sanctuary for the honor and glory and 
 blessedness of the heavenly courts. They have origi- 
 nated and exalted many societies, by impressing the 
 sanctions of eternity upon the rights of the weak, and 
 by founding among the barbarous the arts of industry 
 and the institutions of justice. And they have brought 
 forward in beautiful distinctness the great fact of 
 human fraternity. The Christian hears of burning 
 idols, of extinguished suttees, of guarded infancy, of 
 converted manhood, and of apostolic zeal in heathen 
 lands, and finds new glories in the Cross; and as a 
 stronger interest in its advancement flows into his 
 prayers and liberalities, his heart also throbs with an 
 unwonted tenderness for the world. And the hardy sea- 
 man melts with the sense of man’s brotherhood to man, 
 as he sweeps around “‘ The Cape,” and hears the musie 
 of thanksgivings mingling with its storms; or as he 
 
26 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 skims the smooth Pacific, and sees the spires of Christ- 
 ian churches—the beacons of life and immortality— 
 rising from every seagirt isle. Thus the walls of divis- 
 ion are falling from between the families of the earth. 
 The lnes of light and love are drawing the nations 
 nearer together. O, can we doubt, that these are ‘the 
 years of the right hand of the Most High?” Can we 
 mistake the pledges of that universal jubilee which the 
 earth shall raise, when one glorious and happy family 
 populates all her coasts, and which heaven shall echo, 
 when the Great Father looks with complacency over his 
 universe, and again proclaims it ‘‘ good.” 
 
 - The Spirit of Missions is the spirit of philanthropy. 
 It is the spirit beneath whose fostering care bloom the 
 knowledge, the holiness, the happiness of man. It is 
 the unearthly Spirit of Jesus operating through human 
 instrumentalities. 
 
 And if this is indeed the character of the missionary 
 enterprise, it is the business of the people of God to en- 
 gage in its prosecution. They can not, without guilt, 
 neglect a work which the Spirit of Christ has sancti- 
 fied. They are under the most solemn obligations to 
 promote it, for it is a work which, in every essential 
 feature, is identical with the sublime undertaking 
 which lured the Prince of Glory from his throne, and 
 gave a lost world its Saviour. Their essential, their 
 
THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 27 
 
 first duty is to follow Christ; to follow the guidance of 
 his example, to submit to his ordinances, to foster his 
 Spirit. And it would seem, that it was only in view 
 of the temptations, self-denials, and dangers attending 
 their fidelity to the apostolic commission, that the great 
 promise, which follows it, was given to his disciples: 
 “Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world!” Besides, the option has never been given to 
 the Christian, whether he shall serve Christ or no. He 
 is not his own. Body, spirit, and possessions are so 
 many talents which have been committed to his charge. 
 They shall be numbered with their increase at the 
 judgment bar of Christ; and there the deepest deeps of 
 hell shall be opened to receive the most polluted of 
 criminals—the men who, under the cloak of religion, 
 have multiplied their worldly gains by robbing God of 
 his due. There ‘‘ wrath to the uttermost’ shall de- 
 scend upon the idolaters whose knees have bent indif- 
 ferently to the Creator or the creature; and the blas- 
 phemers, whose affections have mingled the defilements 
 of Mammon with the purities of Deity; and the im- 
 pious, who, with greater madness than Ananias, would 
 have bribed the justice of the Eternal with empty pro- 
 fessions ; and the apostates, who, with less conscien- 
 tiousness than Judas, died clasping to their bosoms the 
 
28 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I5S 
 
 thirty pieces of silver with which they had betrayed 
 their Lord. 
 
 But the true servant of Christ will not need the force 
 of fear to drive him to his duties. Him the love of 
 Christ constraineth. Enough for him to know that, as 
 a servant of his blessed Master, he also can advance 
 the knowledge, the holiness, and the happiness of his 
 race. His faith contemplates Christ upon the media- 
 torial throne, waiting for the world’s redemption. He 
 sees the intense interest with which the Mediator 
 watches the spires of flame that here and there shoot 
 up amid the darkness of heathenism ; or the tender, re- 
 proachful look, as he turns toward his disciples, bring- 
 ing so tardily the oil and wine of sacrifice to those sacred 
 altars of worship. He feels that that reproach would 
 make his heart melt and die within him. He thinks 
 that sinners, who have never heard of Jesus, are pass- 
 ing daily into eternity. He makes the cause of the 
 Saviour his. He is ready to sacrifice time, fortune, 
 station, life itself, to save them from ruin. He laments 
 that the utmost he can do is so little, but he brings his 
 counsels, his toils, his gifts, and knowing by experience 
 how their efficacy may be increased, he steeps them in 
 prayer, and submits them to the Lord. Freely he has 
 received, freely he gives. 
 
 And the Christian may go forth into this work with 
 
THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 29 
 
 all the supports and encouragements to be derived from 
 the faithfulness of God. He has promised that the 
 cause of Christ shall be co-extensive with the bounds 
 of the universe; and his promises are never made in 
 vain. For many centuries, indeed, the predictions of 
 the millennial day must have been confounded with the 
 mysteries of the Scriptures. Generation after genera- 
 tion of believers passed into the tomb, while yet the 
 Gospel had made no sensible advances toward the evan- 
 gelization of the world; and the prayer, “Thy king- 
 dom come !” must have fallen coldly from many lips, 
 and the high trust, due to God’s incorruptible Word 
 must have been clouded in many hearts. But the 
 pledge of God was not to renew the age of miracles, but 
 to bless the instrumentality of the churches in the 
 preaching of the Gospel; and it must be admitted, that 
 up to the close of the last century, the churches had 
 not begun to realize the claims of the world upon them. 
 But no sooner were the divinely appointed connections 
 established between the dying nations and the grace of 
 God, than the Spirit of “the Faithful and True’ de- 
 scended upon heathen shores. The promise, delivered 
 1,800 years ago, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
 unto me,” has been fulfilled again and again, wherever 
 missionary hands have planted the ensign of the Cross. 
 Dusky idolaters have been drawn together by its attrae- 
 
30 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 
 
 tions, and have knelt in worship around it. They have 
 risen animated by a new spirit, “declaring their reso- 
 lution to make known the Eternal God, and the dying 
 love of Jesus on all the banks of their native streams.’’* 
 And as missionary operations have been enlarged, the 
 conquests of the Cross have extended. The heralds of 
 salvation pass on their way, as Israel marched from 
 Egypt; the light of prophecy brightens before them 
 like a pillar of fire. The hard rocks melt beside them 
 into fountains of living water. The idolatrous tribes 
 submit to the power of the new religion they proclaim, 
 “for Jehovah, their God, is with them, and the shout 
 of a King is among them!’ The history of missions 
 declares, that God is able and ready to answer the 
 prayers of his people, to bless their labors, to transmute 
 their liberalities into the sterling currency of heaven. 
 Look at the rewards he has already bestowed in return 
 for their desultory efforts and limited sacrifices. "What 
 blessings will he not bestow when Christians shall 
 see that ‘their hands are stained with pagan blood,’ 
 and shall toil, and pray, and give, as men who must 
 render account? Listen to the Oracles of Prophecy, as 
 they declare that the world shall be converted, and con- 
 
 verted through the agency of the Chureh.t Why 
 * Burm. Hist., p. 32. 
 + Compare Daniel xii. 8, 4; Matt. v. 18, 14; xxiv. 14; xxviii, 19; 
 Psalm Ixxyiii. 5; cii. 13-15; Isaiah lxii, 1-12, ete. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 31 
 
 should any Christian shrink from the support of this 
 grand enterprise? Why should any advocate of this 
 cause despair of the success which is pledged by the 
 promises and providences of God? ‘‘ Hath he said, and 
 shall he not do it? Hath he spoken, and shall he not 
 make it good? The grass withereth and the flower 
 fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever !’ 
 Let his children carry this assurance to the mercy-seat. 
 Let them bear the salvation, with which it is connect- 
 ed, to a sin-stricken world. Let them vindicate the 
 cause, in which they are engaged, by the argument of 
 that fearful Name that dwells in the conquering taber- 
 nacle of Israel. ‘‘O Zion, that bringest good tidings, 
 get thee up into the high mountain! O Jerusalem, 
 that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with 
 strength. Lift it up; be not afraid! Say unto the 
 cities of Judah, Behold your God !” 
 But, alas, it is only here and there among the multi- 
 tude of professed Christians that these duties are exem- 
 plified. The advocates of missions throughout our land 
 are many; but the actual friends of missions may be 
 numbered by tens and units. For that is not friendship 
 to the cause of God which is content, while Christianity 
 maintains a few hundreds of missionaries to represent 
 it amid the hundreds of millions in heathen lands, or 
 which, out of its abundance, doles a ‘widow’s mite” to 
 
382 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 
 
 supply the destitution of these perishing immortals. 
 That is not conformity to the Spirit of Christ, that has 
 never wept over the guilty miseries of mankind, that 
 has never sacrificed to its utmost for their salvation. 
 That is not the philanthropy of the New Testament, 
 that has never felt a thrill of anguish at the thought 
 that every passing moment strikes the knell of a hea- 
 then soul—launches another creature of God, another 
 undying spirit, upon the lake that burneth forever and 
 ever. 
 
 Reader, permit the writer of these pages to beseech 
 you, for God’s sake, and for the sake of your undone 
 fellow-creatures, to examine your relations to this im- 
 portant subject. You may test for yourself the Sav- 
 iour’s Spirit by the Saviour’s Life. You can approach 
 him, as he stands on the Mount of Olives, and weeps 
 over Jerusalem. You can hear him, as he glories in 
 the Cross. You can see, and wonder, and adore, as 
 exulting in the prospect of a world’s redemption he 
 gives his heart to the soldier’s spear. Then turn from 
 the Saviour to yourself. Ask your life if its acts have 
 borne, even in their unworthiness, some traces of his 
 philanthropy. If you have devoted your all to his 
 service, if you are willing to go, in obedience to his com- 
 mands, and for his dear sake, into the regions of heathen 
 darkness, or if in the post in which you feel it your 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 33 
 
 duty to remain, yours is yet a career of self-denial and 
 sacrifice for the salvation of others, this is a fair copy 
 of a spotless example. You have reason to thank God 
 for his discriminating mercy, which has conformed you 
 to the image of his Son. But if you have yet to learn 
 
 ‘the majesty and sweetness of self-sacrifice ; if the cause 
 
 of God and man has never found that within you which 
 it could melt into tears or kindle into enthusiasm, ‘“ ask 
 the wisdom,” which he who now addresses you has 
 been unable to impart—“‘ of him who giveth liberally 
 and upbraideth not.’”’ Or fall upon your knees and im- 
 plore the regenerating mercies of the Gospel; for if 
 histories which can not be impeached declare that the 
 Spirit of Missions is the Spirit of Christ; an authority 
 not to be questioned adds, “If any man have not the 
 Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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