(JOAU OF Fi^l® FKOM OFF THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto deaths And those that are ready to he slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; Doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it f And He that keepeth THY soul, doth not He know it f And shall not He render to every man accordiny to his worksf Proverbs xxiv. 11-12. MISSIONARY SOCIETY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 805 Broadway, New York. 18 8 8 . Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Columbia University Libraries https://archive.org/details/coalsoffirefromoOOpuns Christ Enthroned, the Sufficient Inspiration. By Rev. W. M. PUNSHON, LL.D. The more we connect this missionary work with a personal Christ, a living Jesus, the more thoroughly will it commend itself to our sympathy, and be an inspiration to everything we have to do. Christ is enthroned; we know He is enthroned; we do not see yet all things put under Him; but He sits upon the throne, and the holy hill of Zion upon which God has set His King is a heavenly and not an earthly mountain. From the triumph of the cross and the triumph of the sepulchre He arose to the triumph of the throne. The Ascension ig the last royal fact in a magnificent series—prophecy, advent, expiation, resurrection, empire. There they are, and it is our Emanuel that is exalted King of kings and Lord of lords. When the triumphal chariot came to fetch Him from the summit of the Mount of Olives He would not drop the body; 4 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF the humanity to which He had stooped, which He had worn, in which He had suffered, in which He had triumphed, shared the exaltation as it had shared the agony and the shame; and it is our Jesus, ours still, ours always, who sits upon the right hand of Power, and who sways the scepter of the worlds. We may rest here. Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ enthroned. We may rest here. Oh! I want us to do this, and it is this to which oui’ faith legiti¬ mately carries us. Bring your offerings, then, bring your prayers, do not cease your personal service, for you have enlisted on the winning side. I tell you, as a warm friend of missionary opera¬ tions, cease your efforts, disorganize your societies, call home your missionaries, despond, hopelessly and forever despond, if you believe in a dead Christ. If you do not believe in a Christ who, dying once, dieth now no more, who is Christ enthroned, looking for the establishment of His kingdom, and watching over the progress of His chosen Church, your enemies will overthrow you, the fiends will be too many for you, the world’s woes will mock you to relieve them if you believe in a dead Christ. But if you have a living faith in a living Jesus, if you know and feel that in this work you are doing, you are working to lift the world, not so much from sin as for Christ, and to Christ, and with Christ; if you realize in your heart of hearts the promise whose music is louder than the storm at its wildest—“Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ”— then you can do everything: you can subdue king¬ doms, you can stop the mouths of lions, you can THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 5 quench the violence of fire, you can turn to flight the armies of the aliens, you can confront an em¬ battled -world, you can dare, if need be, the fiercest demons of the pit and of the flame. —Mildmay Missionary Conference. Christ Crucified, the Sufficient Message. By Rev. G. PATTERSON, D.D. The great means which the apostle employed was the preaching of Christ crucified. We have some of his discourses, and we have declarations as to the matter and manner of his preaching, but all show that his great theme was salvation through the sufferings unto death of the Son of God. “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling- block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 22-24). If he ever tried a discussion of a different kind, it was when, contending with the philosophers of Athens, he delivered his magnificent discourse on Mars Hill, in which he treats of some of the high themes which have engaged the thoughts of men; but nowhere that we read of did his labors prove of so little avail. And it does seem significant that immediately after, when coming to Corinth, depressed in spirit, he determined to know nothing among her licentious crowds, or before her philoso¬ phers and rhetoricians, but Christ, and Him crucified, the result was the gathering of much people to tlie Lord. So the missionary now must go to the 6 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF heathen, not to civilize the savage or to discuss phi¬ losophy with the cultured, but to preach salvation to sinners through the great Atonement; and the mes¬ sage is found, as in the apostle’s day, “ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” —“ The Heathen World; Its Need of the Gospelf etc. Christ’s Love, the Sufficient Motive. By Rev. jyr. HERDMAN. We want a motive-power sufficient to impel dis¬ ciples alway with uniform force, which will survive romance, which will outlive excitement, which burns steadily in the absence of outward encouragement and glows in a blast of persecution; such a motive as, in its intense and imperishable influence on the con¬ science and heart of a Christian, shall be irrespective at once of his past history, of any peculiarities in his position, and of his interpretation of prophecy. We have it; we have it in the clear law of Christ and His constant love. —Mildmay Missionary Conference. Christ’s Words, the Sufficient Foundation. By Rev. JOSEPH COOK, D. D. Precisely these four alls are the corner-stones of the historic Church of Christ. I venture to affirm that the sublimest and the most effective words known to* human history are those in which these four colossal alls were proclaimed as the foundation of the kingdom of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Christian Church. Where, in the whole THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 7 range of recorded thought, have you anything possessing such scope and sublimity as these com¬ mands ?— “J.ZZ power is given unto Me, in heaven and on earth. “ Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them into the one name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. “And, lo! I am with you at all times, even unto the end of the world.”— Matt, xxviii. 18-20. So closes the first Gospel, and well it may close here, for the seventh heaven has been reached in the height of outlook: All power. All nations. All commands. All times. These four alls of Christ, from His supreme commission to His disciples, are the four corner¬ stones of the Church of Christ. —From the Boston Lecture delivered March 22nd, 1886. Truths Essential to Missionary Success. By Rev. JOSEPH COOK, D.D. The strength of Missions has been found, by prolonged and most varied experience, to consist of these three things: The belief in the necessity of the New Birth, the belief in the necessity of the Atone¬ ment, the belief in the necessity of Bepentance in this life. 8 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF “No Other Name/’ By Professor STOWELL. We know of no salvation for ourselves but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ. It is only by virtue of the universal aspect of this Gospel that we are guided to any personal hope of forgiveness, and meetness for a happier futurity. What we were without the Gospel, that the heathen are now. What we are now by means of the Gospel, that the heathen may become, will become, when the Gospel is preached to them as it has been to us. Whosoever'- helieveth in CJu'ist shall not perish. —From “A Missicniary Church.'^'’ Agreements of Evangelists in all Ages. By Rev. JOSEPH COOK, D.D. What are the agreements of the most effective evangelists of all Christian ages? We know what the disagreements are. Here are Calvinists, and there Arminians; here a John, there a Paul; here a Peter, there a James. We have now a Melancthon, now a Luther; now a man poorly educated, except fi’om on high; now a man equipped in the learning of the schools. God has, to all these varied agents, given spiritual efficiency. There is a unity in this variety, and it is from the unity that the efficiency proceeds. Dismissing all consider¬ ation of the dissimilarities, concentrate your thoughts on the agreements of those who have been most honored by their spiritual fruits in the religious awakenings of all ages. THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 9 If time permitted, it would be useful to support each position by a large enumeration of biographical details; but here and now I can only give outlines and ask you to meditate upon each specification until it enlarges to a chapter:— 1. The most effective evangelists in all ages agree in being filled with one and the same divine fire. 2. They agree in having obtained this fire by the two greatest means of grace—attention to religious truth and self-surrender to it. 3. They agree in the use of these two means as instrumentalities for the renovation of indmduals, nations, and ages. 4. They agree in loyalty to all the facts of Scrip¬ ture, and not merely to a fragment of it; and espe¬ cially in mental hospitality for awakening and severe truth, as well as for the opposite. 5. They agree in teaching with the power of vital and vivid convictions the necessity of the New Birth. 6. They agree in teaching with vital and vivid convictions the necessity of the Atonement. 7. They agree in teaching with vital and vivid convictions the necessity of Bepentance in this life. 8. They agree in standards as to the conditions of salvation. 9. They agree in being men of prayer, under¬ stood as including adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, and immediate self-surrender to God. 10. They agree in teaching the universal neces¬ sity and efficacy of prayer thus understood. 10 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF 11. They agree in being men of humility, empty of self and full of a consciousness of God. 12. They agree in being men of great boldness for the truth, and instant, in season and out of sea¬ son, to reprove and rebuke iniquity with all authority. 13. They agree in preaching largely from their own religious experience. 14. They agree in making large use of special measures to bring men to an immediate decision to accept God as both Saviour and Lord. 15. They agree in varying these measures as the Divine Spirit seems to suggest, and in not depend¬ ing on them, but on God alone, as revealed in Christ, the Truth, and the Holy Spirit. 16. They agree in David’s prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit Avithin me. Restore unto me the joys of Thy sah^a- tion, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.”—Pscdm li. A Few Examples of Personal Service. Rea^ Samuel Dyer. ‘‘^If 1 thought anything could prevent my dying for China, the thought ivould crush wje.” Do you ask me what I think of China, looking at it from the gates of the grave ? Oh, my heart is big to the overfloAv: it SAvells, and enlarges, and expands, and is nigh unto bursting: Oh, China, when I think of thee, I wish for pinions of a dove. And sigh to be so far away. So distant from the land I love! THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 11 If I thought anything .could prevent my dying for China, the thought would crush me. Our only wish is to live for China, and to die in pointing the Chinese To His redeeming blood, and say, Behold the vs ay to God I —From “ Life of Rev. Samuel Dyer.'^ Kev. John Hunt. “O/i, let me pray once more for Fiji!'' When those who had just united in committing their great, crushing care to Him who cared for them, stood looking at the dying man, they marked how he kept on silently weeping. In a little while his emotion increased, and he sobbed as though in acute distress. Then, when the pent-up feeling could no longer be suppressed, he cried out, “Lord, bless Fiji! save Fiji! Thou knowest my soul has loved Fiji: my heart has travailed in pain for Fiji!” It was no sorrow on his own account that made the Christian weep. His own prospect was all unclouded brightness, and he had safely stored his last treasures —his wife and children—in heaven. They were in God’s keeping. But there was something that clung about his heart more closely than these. That object to which all the energies of his great soul had been devoted was the last to be left. He had lived for Fiji, and his every thought, and desire, and purpose, and plan, and effort, had long gone in this one direc¬ tion—the conversion of Fiji. For some weeks he had been laid by from his work, his voice hushed, and his hand powerless. Yet he had never ceased to pray for the people of the islands; but now his prayers 12 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF also were to cease. Never till then did he feel how Fiji had become identified with his very life. And, in his utter feebleness, the spirit within him strove and struggled with its great burden. Those who stood by feared to see the weak frame so tossed about, and tried to soothe him. Mr. Calvert said, “The Lord knows you love Fiji. We know it; the Fijian Christians know it; and the heathen of Fiji know it. You have labored hard for Fiji when you were strong; now you are so weak you must be silent. God will save Fiji. He is saving Fiji.” At this the dying missionary was calmer for a little while, but still he wept. The burden was there yet; and his spirit, strengthened with the powers of an endless life, shook the failing flesh as it rose up and cast the great load down at the cross. He grasped Mr. Calvert with one hand, and lifting the other—mighty in its trembling—he cried aloud, “Oh, let me pray once more for Fiji! Lord, for Christ’s sake, bless Fiji! Save Fiji! Save Thy servants, save Thy people, save the heathen in Fiji!” After this he gradually quieted down, and his peace was unbroken. —From Life of Rev. John Hunt.*’ Dr. Livingstone. “iH?/ Jesus, my King, my Life, my All, 1 again dedicate my whole self to Thee.” “ Nothing earthly will make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God, and go forward.” He pursued his investigations; but at length the strong man was utterly broken THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 13 down. They had reached Ilala; and as he could go no further, his followers built a hut, and laid him beneath its shade. The next day he lay quiet, and asked a few questions. On the following morning (4th May, 1873), when his boys looked in at dawn, his candle was still burning; and Livingstone was kneeling by the bed, with his face buried in his hands upon the pillow. He was dead! and he had died upon his knees, praying, no doubt, as was his wont, for all he loved, and fur that dear land to which he had devoted three and thirty years of his laborious life! There is a touching entry in his journal, written upon the last birthday but one of his eventful life, and it reveals at once the motive and the earnestness of his whole career: “My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All, I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.” —Modern Heroes of the Mission Field. A Tamil Chkistian. ‘‘Met me go; give me a guide, I must go." From an Address by Major-General F. T. HAIG, R. E. There are noble men among those native Chris¬ tians. Some three or four years ago I was at a little mission with which I was connected,* eight hundred or nine hundred miles from Tinnevelly, and I was very anxious that a new station should be formed. I was aware that it was of no use writing home for men, and I thought to myself, “Why should not the Tinnevelly Church send us men?” I wrote to Bishop Sargent, and he laid it before the Native Church *Dummagudem, Koi Mission, River Godavery. 14 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF Council, for the churches there are self-governed, and have their councils and committees. The Council replied, “We will send you two men; and what is more, we will pay them.” They did so. One man died soon after he arrived; the other was left without a companion, in the midst of lonely jungles, eighty miles from the nearest mission station. He wrote to Tinnevelly to have some one sent to him, but the country in his neighborhood was very unhealthy, and, at first, no one would go. At last an old man sixty years of age said, “If nobody else will go, I will go. ” And though this old man had never been outside of his own little village, he at once prepared to set out on a journey of nearly a month. He reached the headquarters, and then found that in his hurry he had left his little box of clothes behind him on the coast. They tried to persuade him to wait until his box came, but he said, “Let me go; give me a guide, I must go, ” and at once set oT through the jungles to join his brother. Some months afterwards, when a missionary went up that way, the people of the district said, “Who is that strange old man, who, whenever he comes, has only two words to speak to us in our language?” The old man was a perfect stranger to the place, and, being a Tamil man, he did not know their language; but he had learnt the words, “Believe in Jesus,” and he said them on every possible occasion. He spent about a year there, but at last got very ill, and had to be sent back to his native place, which he had hardly reached ere he died. I say that old man laid down his life for Christ, and for the Kois. I often wish I THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 15 could put up a tombstone, or some memorial to him, in that wild country, and just write upon it, for the people to read, these words: “ He laid down his life for us. ” Missionary Prayer-Meetings. By Rev. WM. STF.IX They should be increased tenfold. If a right spirit pervade the frequenters of them, I would augur great thiugs to the cause. But I think one great purpose of such meetings is, by many, almost wholly overlooked. They pray for missionaries. They pray for the heathen. They pray for the influ¬ ences of the Spii'it to descend upon the teachers and the taught. They pray for success to the work at large—and, so far, Avell. But they forget to pray that they themselves may be enabled to know and to do their duty in helping the work. A man fallen into a pit, and another at the pit’s mouth praying to God to help him out, is a flt emblem of a prayer¬ meeting where the members never think of their having anything more to do in the work. If the perishing man overheard such a petitioner offering up his prayers, and then going away about his own business, he would surely question his sincerity. But if he heard the man praying for courage to descend into the pit, or for wisdom and zeal to find out and employ proper means for his deliverance, he Avould conclude he was in earnest, and believe that such a prayer would undoubtedly be heard and answered. I should like, therefore, to hear the members of 16 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF missionary prayer-meetings making this a prominent part of their supplications, that they themselves and others also, may be stirred up to devise, and act, and suffer what they ought, that the heathen may be brought out of darkness into the marvelous light of the Gospel. —Letters on Missions. “That Glorious Work for which Christ Died.” Testimonu of Rev. Dr. MOFFAT. Oh! how much there is to be done in this wdde, wide world! and what a regret it is that there are so many spending their strength and their talents for nought! I remember what my feelings were when a young man, and I remember, too, when I was waver¬ ing between one object and another; and I look back with trembling, and think that had I chosen what I was sometimes inclined to do, I should never have been a missionary. Providentially—I thank God for it, and will thank Him as long as I live-—I had a pious mother; I had a mother with a missionary spirit; and it was the stories that I heard from her lips, when a little boy at her knees, that afterwards revived in my mind, and turned my attention to be a missionary to the perishing heathen. Think w’hat is life if not carried out in the service of God. What is life, my dear friends? I have been engaged these fifty-seven years as a missionary; I have been exposed to dangers, I may say to deaths; I have had narrow escapes—escapes I had like Job’s, sometimes with the skin of my teeth, but it was a glorious work; it was doing the work of God; it was THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 17 doing the will of God; and- had I perished beneath it, I should have lost nothing and gained everything! Is there anything, my dear friends, beneath the sun of such importance compared with that mission for which the Lord of glory descended into this world! Oh! when we think of the boundless majesty of that God who reigns supreme; that glorious Being, who “weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;” when we think that He looks down on this world and has given each his work to do; when we think of Him who could annihilate the world in a moment, condescending to look to you and to me to help Him carry on that glorious work for which Christ died on the cross,—oh, my friends, let us remember the words of the wise man, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave,” whither we are all hastening. A short time and we shall be no more! This is the time when we can work! This is the time when we can help our¬ selves, and help others, and glorify God. This time is passing fast away. Oh! do it—whatever requires to be done for your own salvation and for the salvation of your fellow men, do it, do it noiv! I have labored in Africa for fifty-three or fifty- four years, and oh, I would willingly go back. I have toiled there at work by day and by night, under a vertical sun; I have there been exposed to hunger and thirst; I have often had to put on what I call the fasting girdle, but I never complained. I never felt a murmur. I knew that the work in which I was engaged was the work to which God in His merciful 18 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF providence had appointed me, and I knew that if I labored and did not faint I should surely reap! “The Church of God can Do So If, If—” By Rev. E. K. ALDEN, D.D. Are we wild in the supposition that there may be a possible rapidity with which the Word of Life shall be carried through the world which shall be far beyond what we have yet achieved? May we not “attempt for God,” may we not “expect from God,” not only the “great things” of which we often make mention, but the “greater works” of the twelfth verse of the fourteenth chapter of John?. .. . In the “ fervid and earnest appeal ” sent forth to the Christian world by one hundred and twenty Protestant missionaries in China, representatives of twenty-one societies assembled in conference a few months ago, the question is asked, “Ought we not to make an effort to save China in this generation And the answer is returned “ The Church of God can do it, if she be only faithful to her great commis¬ sion. ” And then follows the stirring call, “When will young men press into the mission field as they struggle for positions of worldly honor and affluence ? When will parents consecrate their sons and daugh¬ ters to missionary work as they search for rare openings of worldly influence and honor? When will Christians give for missions as they give for luxury and amusements? When will they learn to deny themselves for the work of God as they deny themselves for such earthly objects as are dear to THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 19 their hearts? Or rather, when will they count it no self-denial, but the highest joy and privilege, to give with the utmost liberality for the spread of the Gospel among the heathen?” . .. .May this spirit be communicated from heart to heart, from church to church, from continent to continent, until the whole Christian world shall be aroused, and every soldier of the Cross shall come to the help of the Lord against the mighty! —From ^^Shall we have a Missionary Revival?'" “Not the Meanest, But the Mightiest.” By Rev. J. C. VAUGHAN, D.D. The Church at home must learn to give up with¬ out a murmur to foreign service, not her meanest, but her mightiest. She must never speak of any man as too learned, or too eloquent, or too useful, or (in any sense) too good to be sent abroad. On the contrary, she must impress early upon the hearts of her children, of those who are to be hereafter her chiefest and her foremost ones, the dignity, the honor, the sanctity, of that most responsible trust, of that indeed highest “preferment.” She must take pains to incul¬ cate from the professors’ chairs and from the preachers’ pulpits of her universities, the true idea, the just estimate, of her work among her own colonists, and of her work among the heathen popu- • lations around or beyond them. She must expand the very notion of the Church into a co-extensiveness with the earth. “The field”, even of the Church of one country, “is the world.” —^'‘Forget Thine Own People." 20 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF The Age of Opportunity. By Rev. WM. ARTHUR, M. A. To Christianity this is pre-eminently the age of opportunity. Never before did the world offer to her anything like the same open field as at this moment. Even a single century from the present time, how much more limited was her access to the minds of men! Within our own favored country, a zealous preacher w^ould then have been driven away from many a sphere where now he would be hailed. On the Continent of Europe, the whole of France has been opened to the preaching of the Word, though under some restraints. In Belgium, Sardinia, and other fields, it may now be said that the Word of God is not bound. A century ago, the Chinese Empire, the Mohammedan world, and Africa, contain¬ ing between them such a preponderating majority of the human race, were all closed against the Gospel of Christ. China is opened at several points. The whole empire of the Mogul is one field where oppor¬ tunity and protection invite the evangelist. Turkey itself has been added to the spheres wherein he may labor. Around the wild shores of Africa, and far into her western, eastern, and southern interior, out¬ posts of Christianity have been established. Wide realms beyond invite her onward. In the South Seas, several regions, which a hundred years ago had not been made known by the voyages of Cook, are now regularly occupied. Could the churches of England and America send forth to-morrow a hundi’ed thou¬ sand preachers of the Gospel, each one of them might find a sphere, already opened by the strong hand of THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 21 Providence, where a century ago none of them could have come without danger. —From ‘‘‘‘The Tongue of Fire.'’ The Moral Condition of India. By Rev. WM. ARTHUR, M. .4. Oh, that God would give to His Church a heart large enough to feel the sublimity of this call! Think, Christians, on the state of the world. Dream not of the Gospel as already known everywhere. Feel, oh feel, when you pray, that one-half of your brethren never heard of the Pedeemer! Bone are they of your bone, flesh of your flesh, conflicting, sighing, bending to the grave, like you, but croAvn for their conflicts, comforter in their sighs, hope in their grave, they see none. Think of every land where Satan has his seat, and give to them all a part in your prayer. But oh, think long on the land where the throne whose sway you love has heathen subjects outnumbering sevenfold the Christians of the British Isles! Think long, long on the fact, “ I belong to an empire where seven to one name not the name that is life tome!” Think that yonder, under the rule of your own Queen, a full sixth of Adam’s children dwell. Take a little leisure and say, “ Of every six infants, one first sees the light there. To what instruction is it born? Of every six brides one offers her vows there; to what affec¬ tion is she destined? Of every six families one spreads its table there; what love unites their circle ? Of every six widows one is lamenting there; what 22 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF consolations will soothe her? Of every six orphan girls one is wandering there; what charities will protect her ? Of every six wounded consciences one is trembling there; what balm, what physician does it know ? Of every six men that die, one is departing there; what shore is before his eyes?” —From Mission to the MysoreF “Men of Education.” By Dr. LIVINGSTONE. The sort of men who are wanted for missionaries are such as I see before me: men of education, standing, enterprise, zeal, and piety. It is a mistake to suppose that any one, so long as he is pious, will do for this office. Pioneers in everything should be the ablest and best qualified men, not those of small ability and education. This remark especially applies to the first teachers of Christian truth in regions which may never have before been blessed with the name and Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the early ages the monasteries were the schools of Europe, and the monks w^ere not ashamed to hold the plough. The missionaries now take the place of those noble men, and we should not hesitate to give up the small luxuries of life in order to carry knowledge and truth to them that are in darkness. I hope that many of those whom I now address will embrace that honor¬ able career. Education has been given us from above for the pui'pose of bringing to the benighted the knowledge of a Saviour. If you knew the satisfaction of performing such a duty, as well as the gratitude THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 23 to God which the missionary must always feel, in being chosen for so noble, so sacred a calling, you would have no hesitation in embracing it. —From Lecture before the University of Cambridge. “Oh, it is a Glorious Work!” Testimony of Rev. GRIFFITH JOHN. It is not my habit to say anything to induce young men to devote themselves to this work, for I have a wholesome dread of man-inspired missionaries. But I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without telling you young men who are preparing for the ministry that I thank God most sincerely and devoutly that I am a missionary. I have never regretted the step I took many years ago, in opposi¬ tion to the strongly expressed wish of my best friends; and if there is a sincere desire burning within my breast, it is that I may live and die in laboring and suffering for Christ among the heathmi. Oh, it is a glorious work! I know no work like it—so real, so unselfish, so apostolic, so Christ-like. I know no work that brings Christ so near to the soul, that throws a man back so completely upon God, and that makes the grand old Gospel appear so real, so precious, so divine. And then, think of the grandeur of our aim. Our cry is, China for Christ! India for Christ! The world for Christ! Think of China and her hundreds of millions becoming our Lord’s and His Christ’s! Is there nothing grand in that idea ? Is there nothing soul-stirring in the prospect ? Is that not an achievement worthy of the best efforts 24 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF of the Church, and of the noblest powers of the most richly-endowed among you? And then think of the s unspeakable privilege and honor of having a share in a work which is destined to have such a glorious issue. Oh, young men, think of it; dwell upon it; and if you hear the voice of God bid you go, man¬ fully take up your cross and go, and you will never cease to thank Christ Jesus our Lord for counting you worthy to be missionaries. —/h “ Hope for ChinaF The Work an Archangel May Envy. By Rev. G. S. BARRETT. I see numbers of young men present here to-day. Many of you are hoping to become heads of large business establishments in this city; many of you, I daresay, have the ambition to take your share in the great political agitations of the state. It is an hon¬ orable ambition, but a nobler ambition is before you. The love of Christ may constrain you, and, filled with the grandeur and glory of Christ’s kingdom—that kingdom which shall have no end—you may to-day, on your knees, say to Him, “Lord, Thou hast said the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Lord, wilt Thou take me as one of the laborers for Thy harvest?” It may require sacrifices, but you will not speak of sacrifice to Christ in the presence of His Cross. Men may sneer at you or blame you; even your friends may question your motives; but that will not move you. You have given up your life to the noblest of all works—the work that arch- THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 25 angels who surround the Throne of God may well envy—the work of preaching Christ to the heathen. That is enough. And often and often, when you go to your work in the far-distant land, amidst days of loneliness and toil, away from all the English love and English home which now surrounds you, Christ will come, and, oh! He will come with that look and smile which means, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Talk of sacrifice with Christ’s look thus upon you! You will say— “Happy if with my latest breath I may but gasp His name; Preach Him to all, and cry in death, Behold, behold, the Lamb.” The Companionship Essential in Missionary Service. By Bishop SELWYN. Words of love and tenderness spoken at the Consecration of the Rev. John Coleridge Patteson as Bishop of Melanesia. May every step of thy life, dear brother, be in company with the Lord Jesus. May Christ be with thee, as a light to lighten the Gentiles; may He work out in thee. His spiritual miracles; may He, through thee, give sight to the blind, to see the glories of the God invisible; and open the ears of the deaf, to hear and receive the preaching of His Word; and loose the tongues of the dumb, to sing His praise; and raise to new life the dead in trespasses and sins. May Christ be with you, when you go forth in His name and for His sake to those poor and needy 26 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF people; to those “strangers destitute of help,” to those mingled races who still show forth the curse of Babel, and wait for the coming of another Pentecost. May Christ be ever with you; may you feel His j^resence in the lonely wilderness, on the mountain top, on the troubled sea. May He go before you, with His fan in His hand, to purge His floor. He will not stay His hand until the idols are utterly abolished. May Christ be ever with thee to give thee utter¬ ance, to open thy mouth boldly to make kno’vvn the mystery of the Gospel, Dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips, thou wilt feel Him present with thee, to touch thy lips with a live coal from His own altar, that many strangers of every race may hear in their own tongue the wonderful work of God. May Christ be ever wdth you; may you sorrow with Him in His agony, and be crucified with Him in His death, be buried wdth Him in His grave, rise with Him to newness of life, and ascend with Him in heart to the same place whither He has gone before, and feel that He ever liveth to make inter¬ cession for thee, “that thy faith fail not.” Honor of Parents whose Sons and Daughters are Called to be Missionaries. By Rev. Dr. WARDLAW. Our blessed Master, when His heart was melted to tender pity by a survey of the multitudes whom he saw “ fainting and scattered abroad, as sheep having 210 shepherd,” said to His disciples: “The harvest THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 27 truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth laborers into His harvest.” Do we, my Christian friends, obey the gracious mandate? Is it our prayer that He may provide suitable laborers, that He may impart the qualifications, that He may inspire the disposition and desire for the work ? Do we leave Him to select His instruments, according to His pleasure, as His own wisdom and grace may direct? And shall we then shrink or murmur if, in answering our prayer and in making the selection. He should be pleased to come within the limit of our own domestic circle? Shall we venture to restrict Him, and to say: “Take whom Thou wilt, but take not mine?” No, blessed Eedeemer. Far from everv Christian parent’s heart be such a thought! Oh, let us rather esteem it a favor conferred on us and ours, when Thou art thus pleased to employ any of them in a work so full of honor. The Book. By Mr. JOHN RUSKIN. How much I owe to my mother for having so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make me grasp them in what my correspondent would call their “concrete whole” : and, above all, taught me to reverence them as transcending all thought, and ordaining all conduct. This she effected, not by her own sayings or personal authority, but simply by compelling me to read the book thoroughly for myself. As soon as I was able to read with fluency, 28 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF she began a course of Bible work with me, which never ceased till I went to Oxford. She read alter¬ nate verses wdth me, watching at first every intona¬ tion of my voice, and correcting the false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly and energetically. It might be beyond me altogether; ihat she did not care about; but she made sure that as soon as I got hold of it at all, I should get hold of it by the right end. In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, and went straight through to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, Numbers, Levitical law, and all; and began again at Genesis next day; if a name was hard, the better the exercise in pronunciation —if a chapter was tiresome, the better lesson in patience—if loathsome, the better the lesson in faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken. After our chapters (from two or three a day, accord¬ ing to their length, the first thing after breakfast, and no interruption from servants allowed—none fi’om visitors, who either joined in the reading or had to stay up stairs—and none from any visitings or excursions, except real travelling), I had to learn a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I had not lost, something of what was already known; and, with the chapters above enumerated, I had to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, which are good, melodious and forceful verse; and to which, together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear in sound. It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 29 which was, to niy child’s mind, chiefly repulsive— the 119th Psalm—has now become of all the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the law of God. The Wail of Humanity in Asia. By Rev. JOSEPH COOK, D.D. As I coasted along Ceylon, and the Malay penin¬ sula, and vast China, day after day, I seemed to hear across the roar of the waves the turbulent sound of the billows of humanity breaking with a wail on the stern coasts of our yet barbaric days: three hundred million billows in China, half of them women; two hundred and fifty million such billows breaking on the shores of India; multitudes upon multitudes coming out of the unseen, and storming across the ocean of time to break on the shores of eternity. And the sound of that sea Avas a wail from servile labor, the dwarfing of the loftiest capabilities of the soul, through ignorance and false faiths; infanticide, polygamy, concubinage, enforced widoAvhood, and many a nameless condition preventing the develop¬ ment of woman into that angelic thing she is by nature, even without education. I heard the wail of these hosts until I found myself resolved, whatever else I might do or might not do, to echo the sound of that ocean in the ears of Christendom, until, if God should permit, some adequate enthusiasm for the reform of Avoman’s condition in Asia is awakened in the Occident. I Avish every city of tAventy thousand 30 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF inhabitants in America and Europe would send one female missionary into pagan lands. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ We have power to send medical missionaries to these populations; we have power to send both secular and sacred education to women throughout Asia; and he who knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is a sin. Let this wail sound in the ears of sensitive women. Let it sound in the ears of strong men. Let it fill the whole atmosphere of Occidental Christendom until we are aroused to make God’s opinion our own as to Avhat should be done for women in Asia, Africa, and all the isles of the sea. —“TFonan’s Work for Woman in AsiaF What the Bible is to Me. By the Rev. Dr. TYNG. AVhen I go to that book, God speaks to me. I need no succession. I go at once to the fountain¬ head. It is not man that speaks. It is God who speaks, and He speaks to me as if there were but one single Bible on the earth, and that Bible an angel had come down and bound upon my bosom. It is my Bible. It was written for me. It is the voice of God holding communion with my own soul, and never will I forfeit my right to commune with God. Nor is that communion to be held before councils, or in open temples, or in the presence of sects and of priests, and through the intervention of others. It is an act to be transacted in the most secret sanctu- THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 31 aiy of the Lord. No sects, no priestly interference can be admitted. It is an’ affair between God and my soul; and as Abraham bid the young men abide with the ass at the foot of the mountain, so will I ascend and go to meet God alone upon the top. That book is the book of God, and when I go out and commune with it I hold communion with my God. I am Moses, just come down from the burning mountain, his face shining with joy and the glory of the Lord. I am Isaiah, and have come from the golden courts where the seraphim and cherubim shout Hallelujah to the Lord God of Hosts. I am Paul, and have seen the third heavens opened, and can tell what is uttered there, and have seen glories inefPable which no tongue can tell nor imagination conceive. I am John, and have laid my head upon the Master’s bosom, and have caught, warm with His breath, the very whispers of the sweet counsel which He has breathed into my ear. It is not from any intervention or interpretation of man that it derives its power. God gave it to me. He made it, and He has preserved it. It is still bread and food for all the world. —From a Sjyeech by Dr. Tyng, reported in the History of the American Bible Society. An Illuminated Bible. By the late Rev. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D. Suppose that each man were to mark in vermil¬ ion the verse that first convinced him of sin, or first made him anxious for the saving of his soul. In the Bible of the Apostle Paul the tenth command would 32 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF be inscribed in red letters; for, as he tells us, “I had not known sin, except the commandment had said. Thou shall not covet. ” In the Bible of Alexander Henderson it would be, “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber for that was the shaft which pierced the conscience of the unconverted minister. In the Bible of the Iron¬ side soldier the rubric would be found at Ecclesiastes xi. 9; for it was there that the bullet stopped, w^hich, but for the interposing Bible, would have pierced his bosom; and when the battle was over he read, “Bejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and w^alk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know’ thou, that for all these things God will bring‘thee into judgment. ” Or, suppose that each were to mark in golden letters the text which has been to him the gate of Heaven; the text through whose open lattice a recon¬ ciled God has looked forth on him, or through whose telescope he first has glimpsed the Cross. The Ethiopian chamberlain would mark the fifty-third of Isaiah; for it was wdien reading about the lamb led to the slaughter that his eye was directed to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, and he went on his w’ay rejoicing. The English martyr Bilney would indicate the faithful saying, “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief”; for it w^as in sight of these w’ords that the burden fell from his back which fasts and penances had only rendered more w^eighty. There THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 33 was a “stricken deer,” who had long been panting for the water-brooks, but he- had yet found no com¬ fort ; when, one day, listlessly taking up a Testament, it opened at the words, “ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, ” and instantly he realized the suffi¬ ciency of the atonement, and embraced the Gospel; and, doubtless, the Bard of Olney would signalize by the most brilliant memorial the spot where the Sun of Bighteousness first shone into his soul. “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen. ” These were the words which instantly converted into a living temple the calm and stately mind of Jonathan Edwards; and we may be sure that, like Jacob, who, at Luz, would always see lingering the light of the ladder, every time he returned to the passage, even in his most cursory perusal, the devout theologian would perceive a surviving trace of that manifestation which into his vacant, wistful soul brought “the only wise God,” and in glorifying that God gave him an object worthy of the vastest powers and the longest existence. Let Me be a Man of One Book. By Rev. JOHN WESLEY, M. A. I am a creature of a day—passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more 34 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF seen: I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing-—the way to Heaven; how to land on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from Heaven. He hath written it down in a book! Oh, give me that book 1 At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be ha^no units lihri (a man of one book). Here, then, I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone; only God is here. In His presence I open, I read His book; for this end, to find the way to Heaven. Writing from South Africa to her father and mother, Mary Moffat said:— “You can hardly conceive how I feel when I sit in the house of God, surrounded by the natives; though my situation may be despicable, and mean indeed, in the eyes of the world, I feel an honor con¬ ferred upon me which the highest of the kings of the earth could not have done me; and add to this, seeing my dear husband panting for the salvation of the people with unabated ardor, firmly resolving to direct every talent which God has given him to their good and His glory—I am happy, remarkably happy, though the present place of my habitation is a single vestry-room, with a mud wall and a mud floor. It is true our sorrows and cares we must have, and, in a degree, have them now from existing circumstances at the station; but is it not our happiness to suffer in til is cause?” THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 35 Bishop Hannington. ''If ihis is ihe last chapter of earthly history., then the next loill he the first page of the heavenly."" Starvation, desertion, treachery, and a few other nightmares and furies hover over one’s head in ghostly forms, and yet, in spite of all, I feel in capital spirits, and feel sure of results, though, perhaps, they may not come exactly in the way we expect. In the midst of the storm I can say:— Peace, perfect peace, the future all unknown; Jesus we know, and He is on the throne. 4 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 7^ 7^ 'n 7^ And now let me beg every mite of spare prayer. You must uphold my hands, lest they fall. If this is the last chapter of earthly history, then the next will be the first page of the heavenly—no blots and smudges, no incoherence, but sweet converse in the presence of the Lamb! —Extracts from Letter written July 25th, 1885, three months and a few days before he was killed. Spiritual Power for Missionary Work. What do we want ? I will express it to you in one word. We want a great revival of personal piety. We want a great effusion of the Holy Spirit. We want another Pentecostal season. Then the numbers of God’s servants who will be prepared to go forth as missionaries will be multiplied; the silver and the gold will be multiplied, too. The same blessed Spirit which stirs up the hearts of men to go and minister to their fellow-creatures will stir up the hearts of His people also to supply the silver and the gold. There- 36 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF fore I close with the prayer: “Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south wind; blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow forth.” — Rev. Daniel Wilson, Vicar of Islington. In every age and every land the greatest and most constraining stimulus to labor and sacrifice in the cause of evangelism is loving loyalty to Christ, a sensitive concern for His honor, enthusiasm for the coming of His kingdom, and a determination that His will shall be done on earth, even as it is done in heaven. — Rev. James Gall. The more we connect the missionary cause with the person of Jesus Christ, luther than with effort and organization, the more divine will be the inspiration for each detail of the work. We belong to Christ! Then His cause is our cause. His work ours. His triumph ours. We shall be so wrapped up in His honor that we shall feel enriched when He is glorified, and His kingdom is enlarged, and His soul satisfied in the salvation of sinners. —Miss A. Braithwaite. The Mighty Power of Prayer. By Major MILAN. The ivhole 'poioer of fhe Church of Clu'isi lies in prayer. The promises of God are nnlimiied to believing prayer. “HZ/ things whatsoever ye shall ask in j^'^'oyer, believing, ye shall receive.'’’’ How tliankful I am that Livingstone wa-s found on his THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 87 knees! Does it not tell us whence came the power for his self-denial, his courage, his endurance ? Oh, the mighty power of prayer! How it opens the doors of the heart! how it quickens the energies of the soul! how it revives hope! how it strengthens faith! Only let Christians pray earnestly for the spread of the Lord’s kingdom throughout the earth, they will find their purse-strings loosed. The Lord will honor them to answer their own prayer. Only let them pray the Lord of the harvest to thrust forth laborers into the harvest, in sincerity and truth; they will soon find themselves employed in various ways ill His service. Has the Church given sufficient value to our Lord’s example in prayer? His nights and His early mornings of prayer, have they no voice for the Church in these days? South African Missions. “It is Emphatically no Sacrifice.” Testimony of Rev. Dr. LIVINGSTONE. For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the conscious¬ ness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the 38 COALS OF FIRE FROM OFF word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us paase, and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing Avhen compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in, and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us: “Who being the brightness of that Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” —Cambridge Lectures. V/ho Will Go? By REGINALD RADCLIFFE, Esq. Some thirty years ago, as I was alone in a friend’s house in a lovely part of Hertfordshire, there walked up to me, calmly and gently, a man dressed in dark blue, carrying his blue cap. This unobtrusive stranger was David Livingstone. Already he had been in the jaws of the lion; but his heart was absorbed with love for Africa’s dark sons. What was the secret of such loving, not in words, but in deeds? Too much engrossed in my own puny work, at that time con¬ fined to Britain, little did I then think of the wonders THE MISSIONARY ALTAR. 39 that unassuming man was to perform—of his weary wanderings, sometimes under a tropical sun, some¬ times wading through swamps, often agonized by the heartrending derastations of the slave-dealer. He mingled his tears with those of the captives, the 'widows and children. He writes do'^ni his prayer for a blessing on every one—Christian or Turk— “who will help to heal this open sore of the world!” And at last, after ti’ailing himself along, he dies of dysentery. But what was the secret of his power? Africa had been hidden. Our traditions of it and the knowledge of it possessed by the world's wisest men, were altogether astray, both as to its geography and as to its people. Livingstone flooded the world with light as to both. Now hear his secret in his own words from a touching entry* in his jour¬ nal, written upon the last birthday but one of his eventful life. It reveals at once the motive and earnestness of his whole career:— “ My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All, I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.” Like Stephen, Livingstone also was a man full of the Holy Ghost. At Stephen’s death there sprang forth multitudes who forthwith spread the Gospel, but that was under the stimulus of persecution. Now is it possible, in this day of the love of money, of luxury, and of ease, that the Church can, without persecution, but remembering the life and love Livingstone poured out for Africa, be aroused to rescue her and claim her for Livingstone’s Master? *See “Modern Heroes of the Mission Field.'’ Hodder and Stoughton. 40 COALS OF FIRE. If not, how immensely does it add to our responsi¬ bility that we have suffered his shattered remains to be brought from afar and buried in Westminster ^ Abbey! He craved no following to AYestminster, but he did crave and implore Christians to follow him to Africa. Much has been done since, but oh, how little compared with the compassion of Livingstone’s Master! AYhat a feeble response to His command, and what a feeble reply to His challenge, “ If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” The slave trade still cruelly burns, starves, chains, and kills its vic¬ tims; still the civilized Europeans barter useless gin and brandy for valuable goods; and even the great International African Treaty of Berlin, though some of the powers opposed, authorizes the introduction of this fire-water, that will destroy such noble fellows as those who faithfully and affectionately bore Livingstone’s remains from the interior of their bleeding country. Yet, if the AYord of Livingstone’s great Master were introduced and lived., the slave trade would vanish like smoke. AA'ho will go? Many are wanted. Yet better far God’s three hundi-ed than Gideon’s thirty-two thousand. Yea, should any go who cannot from his heart write his name under Livingstone’s secret, “My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All, I now dedicate my whole self to Thee” ? vrSrnmmmmmm , ^^Pe3B>^y.y;»WK:'y/l=======g S)IJ^GRAM Showing the Estimated Population of the World. ( 1 , 424 , 000 , 000 .) Each Square represents One Mieeion Sodes. wuHnmiinHL.,,^_ ■■■■■■■■■■■iiSinI UBHBBHBBniinni_ asssssssBoaHiicsiEic _Hiiatamlninii ■ipMm BBinB||l||l iBiWEa ■■HilBWUilBIlllilBBi_ The three white squares represent 3,000,000 Mission Converts. Bee Century of Protestant Missions,*’ by Bev. Jas. Johnston, F.S.S. Is it not a solemn fact that, taking the world at large, of every three persons walking on the vast globe, two have never heard of the Saviour, have never seen a Bible, know nothing of heaven and nothing of hell ?— Rev, Daniel Wilson^ Vicar of Islington,