Denominational Privilege 
 
 -and- 
 
 Denominational Obligation 
 
 Rev. Robert M. Martin 
 
 
 sc )i » BOSTON : sc sc sc sc 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY 
 UNION. TREMONT TEMPLE 
 
following address was delivered 
 by Rev. Robert M. Martin at a 
 Missionary Conference held in the First 
 Baptist Church, Salem, Mass., No¬ 
 vember, 1901. 
 
Denominational Privilege a^nd 
 Denominational Obligation 
 
 P ROVIDENTIAL guidance is more 
 easily traced in the careers of some 
 persons and organizations than of others. 
 The divine hand is plainly seen in 
 the foreign mission work of our Bap¬ 
 tist churches. God honored us in making 
 the English Baptists the pioneers of the 
 modern missionary movement under the 
 leadership of Carey, whom Mr. George 
 Smith calls the greatest missionary since 
 Paul. It was a notable providence which 
 brought our American Baptist foreign 
 missionary society into being. Who but 
 God would have planned the conversion 
 of Judson and Rice to Baptist views, 
 while they, on different ships, were sailing 
 to India to begin a work in distant lands 
 to which they had called the Congrega- 
 tionalists who sent them? Happv men, 
 Judson and Rice, to have had so conspic¬ 
 uous a part in the formation of the 
 American Board of Commissioners of 
 Foreign Missions and of the American 
 Baptist Missionary Union! 
 
 The Baptists followed God’s pillar of 
 cloud, when we organized our foreign 
 missionary society in 1814. The pillar of 
 cloud led us also to our first field of for¬ 
 eign labor. Judson was limited to one 
 
 I 
 
ship sailing from Madras, on which he 
 could leave the inhospitable domain of the 
 East India Company. That ship going to 
 Rangoon carried Judson against his own 
 choice to Burma, the country of God’s 
 choice. We were beckoned to Assam by 
 its English Commissioner, Capt. Francis 
 Jenkins, whose finger, we must believe, in 
 view of the achievements in that field, was 
 the finger of God. The God who gave 
 us Judson and Rice from an unex¬ 
 pected quarter, made us yet another gift 
 quite as noteworthy, when by the hand of 
 Dr. and Mrs. Guinness, in 1884, the Liv¬ 
 ingstone Inland Mission on the Congo, 
 with six stations and twenty-five mission¬ 
 aries, was transferred to our Missionary 
 Union, a transaction without a parallel in 
 missionary annals. 
 
 The providence which so plainly as¬ 
 signed our tasks has generously bestowed 
 prosperity. We have today in Burma 
 39,065 communicants. Mention of the 
 triumphs of Christianity in the regions 
 beyond may not fail to give prominent 
 place to the signal grace of God bestowed 
 on us in the furtherance of the gospel 
 among the Karens of Burma, who have 
 flocked to our missionaries, seeking the 
 Redeemer of their dreams. Our Telugu- 
 land, which after thirty years of almost 
 fruitless toil was “the lone star” of the 
 Baptists in India proper, whose light was 
 several times in danger of extinction, has 
 now 58,418 baptized Christians. We re¬ 
 member the Pentecostal summer of 1878, 
 
 2 
 
when natural famine gendered spiritual 
 plenty, and one brief month and a half 
 witnessed the baptism of 8,691 persons, 
 2,222 in one day. Not unmindful of the 
 marvelous missionary achievements in 
 the Fiji Islands, in Hawaii, in Japan, and 
 even in Madagascar, we may perhaps re¬ 
 cord the victory of the gospel in Telugu- 
 land as the crown of glory in the modern 
 missionary enterprise. Even yet without 
 abatement our Telugu Zion is going from 
 strength to strength, the largest, and per¬ 
 haps the most hopeful field under the care 
 of any body of Christians on the whole 
 earth. In its fields in Asia and Africa the 
 American Baptist Missionary Union has 
 112,163 communicants, a conquest of souls 
 from heathenism far exceeding that of any 
 other missionary society anywhere,—aeon- 
 quest not won by Baptists, but granted 
 them by the gracious heart of God. 
 
 To ascertain our Missionary Union’s 
 place of privilege on the foreign field let 
 us compare the results of its endeavor 
 with the results of the five other societies 
 of our own country, which made the 
 largest pecuniary contributions to foreign 
 work according to the reports of 1899- 
 1900. Far be it from a Baptist to enter 
 into this comparison in any spirit of vain¬ 
 glory. The statistics themselves will 
 show that according to standards of 
 human measurement the larger fruitage 
 should have been gathered by others 
 rather than by us. With humiliation, not 
 with boastfulness, the inquiry is pursued. 
 
The five organizations in the estimate 
 with our own are, in the order of the 
 amounts contributed, the Methodist Epis¬ 
 copal (North), the Presbyterian (North), 
 the Congregational, the Protestant Epis¬ 
 copal, and the Disciples. Note that the 
 estimate excludes the work of any of 
 these agencies in European countries. 
 The Methodist contributions were nearly 
 twice as large as ours. The combined 
 amounts of the Presbyterians and Con- 
 gregationalists were almost three times as 
 large. The five societies contributed six 
 times as much money as our Missionary 
 Union. They have four and a half times as 
 many American workers in foreign lands. 
 Yet our Union’s increase of members for 
 the year reported, was more than half 
 the increase of the five other societies, 
 about 52.8 per cent (15,690—8,283). Our 
 Union also reports a total of more than 
 half as many comunicants as the five 
 societies together, about 55.4 per cent 
 (189,638—105,212). 
 
 No man will assert that this advantage 
 has come to the Missionary Union be¬ 
 cause of any superiority in our spirit, in 
 our agents, or in our methods. There 
 was probably as much consecration in the 
 gifts of our brethren, as much devotion 
 and ability in their workers, and as much 
 wisdom in their methods. The figures 
 demonstrate that we have not merited 
 these large returns. Who may attribute 
 our prosperity to any source but to the 
 inscrutable ordering and the mysterious 
 
 4 
 
grace of Him who holds in his hands the 
 seven stars? Not to our brethren dis¬ 
 credit, and to us praise; but to the divine 
 name the glory. 
 
 While, moreover, the Baptists of the 
 United States have been doing something 
 for the heathen, they have grown from a 
 hundred thousand or less to about four 
 million, four hundred thousand at home. 
 By reason of our signal favor from the 
 Most High we are not to count ourselves 
 the favorites of heaven. We are rather 
 to reflect that high privilege imposes deep 
 obligation. This blessing should stir us 
 to gratitude and praise. Heaven’s loving 
 kindness should win us to love and devo¬ 
 tion. Great reward, undeserved, should 
 bring us to humility. We shall show 
 ourselves renegade, if gracious exaltation 
 does not induce to a sense of serious 
 responsibility. Unto whom much is given, 
 of him is much required. We shall not 
 mistake in accounting God’s goodness as 
 his loud call to more strenuous service, 
 more service in money, more service in 
 men. 
 
 What now is the Baptist response to the 
 divine entreaty? It may not be said that 
 we have turned a deaf ear. In the decade 
 closing with 1891 the annual receipts of 
 our Missionary Union from all sources 
 averaged less than $375,000; whereas in 
 the last decade the receipts averaged 
 nearly $600,000 ($599,172). In the pre¬ 
 vious decade the average of male mission¬ 
 aries sent out was eleven; in the last dc- 
 
 5 
 
cade the average was thirteen and five- 
 tenths. This is progress; but not the 
 progress worthy of our blessings or com¬ 
 mensurate with the demands of the work. 
 While the advancing cause has required 
 enlargement, our laggard giving has ne¬ 
 cessitated retrenchment in recent years. 
 New doors open to us in vast, untouched 
 realms of darkness; few are entered. 
 The name of the Philippines springs from 
 the lips of us all, but that is a door into 
 which we were thrust. In this new day 
 we confront an anomaly. Once we 
 prayed for open doors and men. Now, 
 doors are open, and men are begging to 
 be permitted to enter; while a meagre 
 treasury keeps them begging. Money is 
 cheaper than men and generally is easier 
 to obtain, but alas! the covetousness of 
 the many now fetters feet which long to 
 be on the mountains to bring glad tidings, 
 to publish peace. 
 
 A goodly heritage is our Baptist fellow¬ 
 ship, and nobly worthy of the respect of 
 us all; though at one thing some Baptist 
 cheeks redden and some Baptist hearts 
 beat low. That one thing is the feeble¬ 
 ness of our answer to urgent calls of God 
 for the best investment of money; that 
 one thing, that with inappreciation and 
 distrust and on halting foot we follow the 
 ark of Jehovah. O, the sin and the shame 
 of it in view of heaven’s exceptional grace 
 to us, superadded to the grace which 
 shines upon all in “the light of the knowl¬ 
 edge of the glory of God in the face of 
 
 6 
 
Jesus Christ”! Our denomination’s privi¬ 
 lege is our denomination’s obligation. 
 Receiving more than others should find 
 its meet adornment in giving more than 
 others; the giving, of course, not of hu¬ 
 man measurement, but of divine, the first 
 giving of the “willing mind, which is ac¬ 
 cepted, according to that a man hath 
 and not according to that he hath not.” 
 We are called into the kingdom for such 
 a time as this. If we rise mot to our task 
 of honor, we need not be surprised if with 
 shame and confusion of face we see an¬ 
 other people, more faithful than ourselves, 
 chosen by God to bring deliverance 
 to the unevangelized whom we neg¬ 
 lected. 
 
 The law of rivers is that they shall in¬ 
 crease their volume of water as they ap¬ 
 proach their mouth. Some recent writer 
 has noted the fact that the river Nile 
 violates this law. Its waters diminish 
 from a point a thousand miles above its 
 mouth. The thirsty sands make exacting 
 draughts on the mighty stream. Nature, 
 in apparent resentment at the transgres¬ 
 sion of the Nile, has withheld tributaries 
 for the last eleven hundred miles of its 
 course. 
 
 “There is a sea, which day by day 
 
 Receives the rippling rills [plains. 
 And streams, which spring from sunny 
 Or fall from cedared hills. 
 
 But what it thus receives it gives 
 With glad and generous hand; 
 
 7 
 
And a stream more wide with a fuller 
 Flows down from land to land. [tide 
 But doth it lose by giving? Nay, 
 
 Its shores of beauty see 
 The life and health and fruitful wealth 
 Of Galilee. 
 
 “There is a sea which day by day 
 Receives a fuller tide; 
 
 But what it gains it keeps, nor gives 
 To shore nor sea beside. 
 
 What gains its grasping greed? 
 
 Behold, barrenness round its shore; 
 
 Its fruit of lust, like apples of dust. 
 Rotten from rind to core; 
 
 Its Jordan water turned to brine 
 Lies heavy as molten lead. 
 
 And its dreadful name doth e’er proclaim 
 That sea is dead.” 
 
 Denominational privilege is denomina¬ 
 tional obligation. Failure to meet our 
 obligation will be dishonor in the sight 
 of other churches and in the sight of the 
 world. Failure to rise to our high privi¬ 
 lege will be humiliation in the eye of our 
 gracious Lord, who will mourn over us, 
 “How often would I, and ye would not!’ 
 To meet our obligation will be high privi¬ 
 lege glorified. 
 
 LITERATURE DEPARTMENT 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION 
 TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 8 
 
EAFLETS, Collection Boxes, En¬ 
 
 velopes and other helps for 
 stimulating missionary interest and 
 giving can be obtained by addressing 
 Literature Department, American 
 Baptist Missionary Union, 
 Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.