THE LAYMEN’S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 
 
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 The Interests of the 
 Nation in the Missions 
 o£ the Church. 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 J. A. MACDONALD, 
 
 Editor-in-Chief, The Globe, Toronto. 
 
 CANADIAN COUNCIL 
 TORONTO 
 
The Laymen’s Missionary Movement 
 
 The Interests o£ the Nation 
 
 in the Missions of the 
 
 Church 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 
 J. A. MACDONALD 
 
 Editor-in-Chief, The Globe, 
 Toronto 
 
 Canadian Council, Toronto, 
 
The Interests of the Nation in the 
 Missions of the Church. 
 
 By J. A. Macdonald, Editor-in-Chief, 
 
 The Globe, Toronto. 
 
 By “the nation” is meant very concretely this 
 nation to which we belong, this complex unity of 
 peoples gathered together in the north of this great 
 continent, this Canadian nation, which of late years 
 and by events beyond our reckoning or control has 
 been pushed out into the limelight on the great 
 world-stage, with its new world-parts to play, its 
 new world-obligations that cannot be shirked, its 
 new world-problems that will not be put by. And 
 by “the church” I mean that complex and compre¬ 
 hensive body of people, of whatever name, who be¬ 
 lieve in Jesus Christ as their own and the world’s 
 Redeemer, who profess allegiance to Him and who 
 are not unmindful of His world-wide programme. 
 
 Now this is my question: What great interests of 
 this Canadian nation are involved and at stake in 
 the undertakings and achievements and ideals of the 
 Canadian Church? In raising this question I should 
 like to keep in mind those who, like myself, have to 
 do day after day chiefly with the business and pol¬ 
 icies of the state, with national administration at 
 home and with expansion and influence abroad. I 
 should like to help some statesmen to appreciate 
 more justly than is sometimes done something of 
 how and to what degree Canadian democracy is de¬ 
 pendent on the Canadian church not only for its 
 vitality at home but also for its virility and pres¬ 
 tige abroad. And I should like, too, to help you 
 delegates to appreciate the national bearing and 
 worth of all those religious services and all this 
 missionary endeavor to which here and in your 
 home congregations you give yourselves with such 
 
 3 
 
enthusiasm and devotion. I would have you feel 
 the throb of your nation’s life throughout the en¬ 
 tire range of your church activities. When you go 
 back to the routine of your congregation’s work, I 
 would have you ever remember that what you do 
 unselfishly and without applause or recompense in 
 the obscurity of your parish carries in its heart a 
 handful of the life-seed of the nation and that some 
 day, somewhere, on some mountain top, the fruit 
 of that sowing shall shake like Uebanon. 
 
 A moment ago I used the word democracv-—Can¬ 
 adian democracy. That great word is full of mean¬ 
 ing alike for the nation and for the church. It 
 means more for the people of this North American 
 continent to-day than for any other people in any 
 age of the world’s history. It signifies the enfran¬ 
 chisement of the crowd, the day of power for the 
 average man. On this continent, in the United 
 States and in Canada, the seat of authority is not 
 in the dictum of the ruler, but in the will of the 
 people. The compelling power behind Parliament 
 is not that which comes downward from the crown 
 but that which comes upward from the crowd. This 
 is the land and this the day of the man in the 
 street. That significant political fact means much 
 for the church. It offers the most splendid oppor¬ 
 tunity and involves the most urgent obligation. It 
 may be that under monarchy the government of a 
 city or of a country might grow corrupt and sink 
 into decay and yet the church be free from blame, 
 but if in any city or nation where the people rule 
 there flourish political crime and unabashed public 
 evil, the church cannot be held guiltless, for in the 
 democracy the church has its supreme chance. 
 
 The two great organs of the democracy are the 
 state and the church. Democracy has many other 
 organs—the press, school, social and industrial or¬ 
 ganizations, benevolent societies, clubs, unions, 
 leagues, associations of all sorts. These all, in sc 
 
 4 
 
far as they educate and mould opinion among 
 their members and direct or enrich the life of the 
 community, are organs of the democracy. Indeed, 
 it often happens that these secondary and voluntary 
 institutions in the democracy create and organize 
 public opinion on great questions which ultimately 
 find their way into Parliament and there are regis¬ 
 tered as the will of the people. 
 
 It remains true, however, that the state and the 
 church are the two chief organs of the democracy. 
 They are the most important because they are the 
 most representative and most truly democratic. 
 They come nearer to the people. They speak for the 
 people and to the people with more undisputed au¬ 
 thority. ICach has its own sphere. Their functions 
 are distinct. They act and react on each other. If 
 either fails the other suffers loss. If churchmen hold 
 back from their duty as citizens of the state they 
 sow seeds of evil for their church. If citizens di¬ 
 vorce the state from the ideals and obligations of 
 religion, tares and dragon’s teeth will spring up for 
 the nation. 
 
 Let us now think for a little about some of the 
 great national interests which must be conserved 
 and safeguarded, if the nation itself is to come to 
 its own and to endure. And let us see, as we pass 
 along, how the guarding of these national interests 
 is at once the great opportunity and the inescap¬ 
 able obligation of the church: 
 
 National Ideals. 
 
 i. The nation cannot retain unimpaired its own 
 strength or secure to its own citizens either true 
 happiness or real liberty, unless the atmosphere of 
 its life is kept pure and its ideals of nationhood 
 high. Like the individual, the nation lives by an 
 invisible flame within. If that flame burns low in 
 the fogs of national selfishness or goes out in the 
 darkness of sensual indulgence, no wealth of mater- 
 
 5 
 
ial resources or external pomp and pride of power 
 can save the nation from inevitable and utter decay. 
 
 Unless there be integrity and purity in all the re¬ 
 lations of life, unless the home is kept sacred as the 
 citadel of the nation, unless family life and social 
 ties are sanctified, unless there is awakened and 
 made strong a community of interest and of feeling 
 between class and class in the industrial world, un¬ 
 less honesty is maintained in trade and patriotism 
 in politics, the nation cannot be held together ex¬ 
 cept by the corroding lust for gain or for power 
 which eats away the fiber of national character and 
 poisons the blood of national life. 
 
 And it is at once the opportunity and the respon¬ 
 sibility of the church so to relate itself to the Can¬ 
 adian situation as to be a savor of life unto life for 
 the nation. There is no substitute for the church 
 as the moral leader of democracy on this continent. 
 Think of the church’s equipment: its agencies every¬ 
 where, its message to the heart and conscience of 
 the individual, its ideal a regenerated social order, 
 its emphasis on moral distinctions, 'moral obliga¬ 
 tions and moral retributions, its motive the re¬ 
 demptive power and constraining love of a Divine 
 Personality. What is there, what could there be, so 
 equipped for service and so set at the strategic 
 points as is the church in Canada to-day? 
 
 Of course the church has its limitations, but they 
 are the limitations of its human environments and 
 human instruments, not of its genius or ideal. Of 
 course the church makes mistakes, is sometimes 
 narrow in its vision and warped in its judgment 
 and stinted in its service. Of course it sometimes 
 misplaces the emphasis, misconceives its own func¬ 
 tion, and plays at precedence with the state when 
 it should be out in the great world of struggle and 
 high endeavor. But when the worst is said it will 
 still be true that more than any other agency or in¬ 
 stitution the Canadian church stands as the bul- 
 
 6 
 
wark of what is most worth while, and the inspira¬ 
 tion and the agent of what is most worth doing, 
 in the abounding life of this Canadian nation. 
 
 World-Wide National Obligations. 
 
 2 . If this Canadian nation would indeed be great 
 among the nations of the world its citizens must 
 cherish supremely a sense of obligation for the en¬ 
 lightenment and uplift of mankind, and for the 
 peace and higher civilization of the world; and it is 
 the business of the church to teach that essential 
 lesson and to lead the way. 
 
 We hear on all sides, and in some quarters with 
 growing emphasis, the cry “Canada for the Cana¬ 
 dians.” On the other side of the line it is “Amer¬ 
 ica for the Americans.” Very good, and very im¬ 
 pressive. But who gave the present generation of 
 people in Canada and the United States the title 
 deed to this continent? By what authority can our 
 seven millions and their seventy millions divide su¬ 
 premacy over this western world, over its land, 
 over its natural resources, over its trade? Who are 
 we, holding as we do for but a brief moment our 
 places and doing as best we may our day’s work— 
 who are we that we should say to all the world, 
 “Hands off!” Is it by the accident of present occu¬ 
 pation, or by the fact of last century’s conquest, or 
 by the boast of this century’s power? Let history 
 tell us whether by titles such as these any nation 
 has held its own. Let events on these lakes and 
 lands now called America tell us if mere occupation 
 or mere conquest or mere display of power is a 
 title deed inalienable in the arbitraments of war. 
 
 No; we must learn as nations what the church 
 teaches us as individuals, that no gift or opportun¬ 
 ity or resource is ours for our own sakes or selfish 
 uses alone. This continent with its riches is no 
 more an unassailable heritage of the present gener¬ 
 ation that occupy and use it than it was of the In¬ 
 i’ 7 
 
 
dians or the mound-builders who were displaced and 
 driven back with each rising tide of new civiliza¬ 
 tion. World-service is the only tide by which in a 
 world like ours this claim of supremacy can be 
 other than a mocking echo of our own selfishness 
 and folly. 
 
 And within the two great nations, holding this 
 continent, a great new thing may even yet be done 
 for mankind. It is not too late but that democracy 
 might have a new chance to make good what was 
 only dreamed in ancient Greece and missed in the 
 French Republic. In the wholesomeness of our so¬ 
 cial life, in our industrial brotherhood, in the hon¬ 
 esty of our trade and the integrity of our politics 
 and the idealism of our nationhood, democracy in 
 America may strike out for some new and noble 
 thing and may present to the world a realized ex¬ 
 ample on the plain of the nations of what Jesus 
 meant by the true greatness in life when he said: 
 “Whosoever would be first among you, shall be 
 your servant.” 
 
 The Standard of National Righteousness. 
 
 3. True greatness for the Canadian nation re¬ 
 quires that truth and honor and justice shall char¬ 
 acterize all the relations of this nation with the out¬ 
 side world and especially with the nations of the 
 Orient and with the heathen and pagan lands. And 
 the maintenance of this standard of national right¬ 
 eousness is involved in the church’s devotion to the 
 enterprises of foreign missions. 
 
 Of all the uncivilized remainders of life in our 
 Christian civilization this is perhaps the largest, 
 that having outgrown the suspicions of savagery as 
 between individuals we still cherish the pagan and 
 barbaric idea that other nations must be our enem¬ 
 ies, and our prosperity dependent upon their embar¬ 
 rassment. We have come to apply the Ten Com¬ 
 mandments to our social and business life, but in 
 
 8 
 
our dealings with other nations we readily discount 
 the Decalogue and regard as chimerical in the realm 
 of international politics the Master’s command : 
 “Love one another.’’ But there can be no national 
 greatness on any basis that would make greatness 
 for the individual impossible. “Noblesse oblige” is 
 for the nation as truly as for the man. And the 
 nations of this continent must learn more per¬ 
 fectly the lesson of the Great Life. 
 
 And the church by its unselfish services to “the 
 regions beyond” leads the way for the nation, and 
 the reflex of that missionary service will make de¬ 
 finitely for honesty in the trade and integrity in the 
 treaty regulations between this country and the na¬ 
 tions of the non-Christian world. The men in the 
 churches of America cannot go on forever giving of 
 their wealth and of their blood for the redemption 
 of Africa and of Japan and of China and of India, 
 and then stand idly by to see their work undone and 
 their sacrifice turned to shame by the accursed 
 opium trade and rum trade and slave trade, or by 
 the legalized or unlegalized dishonesty of our com¬ 
 merce or the chicanery of our political relations. 
 The going of influential laymen from the churches 
 of Canada and the United States and Great Britain 
 on tours of investigation among the great mission 
 fields of the heathen world will awaken echoes in 
 our Boards of Trade and will have its effect on the 
 legislation at Ottawa and Washington and London. 
 
 World Neighborhood and World 
 Brotherhood. 
 
 4. In this crisis-time among the nations on the 
 Pacific, the century of service by the missionaries of 
 the church will mean more for North America than 
 would a standing army or a costly navy. 
 
 It is true, as Mr. EJlis said recently, that “there 
 is something doing” among the nations of the 
 
 9 
 
world. The strategic points are now on the Pacific 
 and the storm centres have shifted from the Medi¬ 
 terranean and the Atlantic to the shores of the erst¬ 
 while sleepy East. There never could have been iso¬ 
 lation for Canada, being as she is the halfway 
 house of a world-wide empire. And never again can 
 there be isolation for the United States. Canada 
 and the United States now are in world-politics and 
 must remain there forever. There can be no going 
 back. Chance happenings which were not on their 
 programme but which were brought to pass in the 
 increasing purpose running through the ages give 
 these nations world-wide obligations which cannot 
 any more be obscured or put away. Without ventur¬ 
 ing on the disputed ground of United States politics 
 of imperialism, I for one cannot repine over the ob¬ 
 vious and meaningful fact that Britain, who for too 
 long has had to carry the burden of Anglo-Saxon 
 civilization almost alone, has now at her side this 
 strong-armed and brave-hearted republic loyal to 
 the same ideals of humanity and dominated by the 
 same faith in God that sent the leaderless legion 
 from zone to zone with the flag of freedom and the 
 cross of service. 
 
 And now, almost in the twinkling of an eye, the 
 whole world situation is changed. There are no 
 longer any “foreign countries.” By our transcon¬ 
 tinental railway systems and our transoceanic 
 
 steamship services we have made the whole world 
 a neighborhood. Biit nearness of touch and ready 
 exchange of speech and of goods have not changed 
 the hearts of men or made brethren of those who 
 by race and tradition have been aliens and enemies. 
 World-neighborhood without world-brotherhood 
 means war, and such a war as might one day be on 
 the Pacific would mean hell—hell for the w'orld. 
 
 The supreme purpose of Christian missions for a 
 whole century has been the brotherhood of all men 
 under the fatherhood of God through the redemp- 
 
 I o 
 
live love and sacrificial service of Jesus Christ, fo 
 make that dream come true would be to turn the 
 Armageddon of the world into the peace and good¬ 
 will foretold in the Bethlehem song. 
 
 The Path to World-Peace. 
 
 5. The securing and maintaining of peace among 
 the nations, especially between the West and Hast, 
 depends not so much on trade regulations and 
 treaty rights as on the dominance of common ideals 
 and the vitalizing touch of a common life. Tariff 
 walls and exclusion laws as between America and 
 the Orient may be necessary in the exigencies of our 
 industries and politics, but they do not make for 
 brotherhood and peace. They may be necessary, but 
 that necessity of the state makes still more urgent 
 and compelling the obligation resting upon the 
 church, as the other great organ of our democracy, 
 to go through those walls and overleap those laws, 
 and to create in Japan and China and India centres 
 of interest and thought and life that will under¬ 
 stand and appreciate things in the Canadian and 
 United States situation that are deeper than tariffs 
 or trade. Channels must be opened through which 
 the faith and love and truth that have made us free 
 may pass unchecked to them, and from them may 
 come in return their great contribution to the new 
 age’s interpretation of the mysteries of the Chris¬ 
 tianity of Jesus Christ. Faith alone goes deep en¬ 
 ough into life to give that touch that makes all 
 men kin. Our forms of civil government will not fit 
 the genius of the Orient, and our religious creeds 
 will not express the faith that is in Christ as it 
 comes to them, but the Christ in whom we believe 
 is larger than our understandings of him, and when 
 he becomes incarnated again in the life of the Orient 
 there will come a depth and richness to our gospel 
 such as will give a new significance to his world¬ 
 mastering evangel. 
 
The missionaries of the church have indeed been 
 the pioneers and first ambassadors of the nation. 
 Not for conquest, not for commerce, but for the 
 world’s redemption they 
 
 “Yearned beyond the skyline, 
 
 Where the strange roads go down.” 
 
 By the blood of their martyrs the ways of civiliza¬ 
 tion were blazed the world around. By their gospel 
 of love and service, not in Asia alone, but in Eu¬ 
 rope, in Britain, in America, a nation is born in a 
 day. And this new birth of Christian nations into 
 a life of world-service means a new brotherhood of 
 world-peace into which the nations of the world 
 shall bring their glory and honor. To help on that 
 redemption of our national ideals at home and that 
 evangelization of heathen nations abroad is the su¬ 
 preme purpose of this daymen’s Movement for mis¬ 
 sions among the churches of this continent. And 
 that is A MAN’S JOB. 
 
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