MISSIONARY SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 
 Jfcjwatto of ^ittjsbuvgti ami gew tyoxk 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. G. LANSING, 
 
 MISSIONARY IN EGYPT. 
 
 PITTSBURGH: 
 
 United Presbyterian Board of Publication. 
 
 PRINTED BY W. 8. HAVEN. 
 
 1864 
 
SERMON. 
 
 “So FIGHT I, NOT AS ONE THAT BEATETH THE AIR.” 
 
 1 Oor. 9 : 26. 
 
 Of earthly warfare you have all of late heard much — 
 so much, that many of you doubtless think yourselves 
 qualified to sit in judgment upon and criticise the tac- 
 tics and management of colonels and generals ; and 
 some of you may think, that had you only the opportu- 
 nity, you could lead to victory and glory great armies, 
 and save your country from her enemies. My text 
 speaks of a warfare ; but it is a warfare of a very dif- 
 ferent character. True, it also has had its bloody fields ; 
 for those engaged in it have sometimes been forced “ to 
 resist unto blood, striving against sin ; ” but its contests 
 have usually been spiritual conflicts, and its victories, 
 peace. Its “garments rolled in blood” have been 
 martyrs’ robes, in which, like Elijah, they have gone up 
 from earth to heaven ; but they have left them to other 
 Elishas, proud to wear them and ready to honor them 
 by following their masters. Its standard is not the 
 proud-soaring eagle, nor the rampant lion, nor yet the 
 prowling northern bear, but the olive-branch. The 
 inscription on its angel-given banner, handed down to 
 us by the leaders of “the heavenly host,” on the plains 
 of Bethlehem, is, “ Glory to God in the highest, and on 
 earth peace, good will toward men.” Its martial music 
 is “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;” its book 
 of tactics, “ the gospel of peace and its captain, 
 
4 
 
 “Immanuel,” the “Prince of Peace.” But yet this 
 warfare is of much more consequence than most war- 
 riors in the field and would-be champions in the parlor 
 and tap-room imagine or are willing to admit. Its ends 
 are noble, nay, glorious ; its policy and system of tac- 
 tics perfect; its list of heroes, dead and living, enrols 
 most of the noblest names of earth ; its battle-fields are 
 widely extended and keenly contested, and its issue is 
 not dubious, but certain ; it will be the triumphant and 
 eternal victory and establishment of truth and right- 
 eousness and peace. So important is this contest, that 
 all others in comparison sink into insignificance. Even 
 this your war, which looms up so largely before the pub- 
 lic vision, is chiefly, if not altogether, important as 
 being (if it be,) a part of this great moral and spiritual 
 warfare; and if it be not, why, in the name of God 
 and of suffering humanity, why all this bloodshed and 
 woe ? When the excitement and passion of the actual 
 conflict shall have passed, and there be left the mangled 
 forms and wrecked morals of our brave ones who have 
 returned, the bitter memories of the thousands who have 
 been hurried away to their last account, the desolated 
 hearths, and these weeds of mourning covering broken 
 hearts ; what then will be the verdict of the nations of 
 the earth, of posterity, of our own consciences ? And 
 how will we justify ourselves, if this great moral conflict 
 has not been fought, if our national sins have not been 
 repented of, and especially if our bondmen have not 
 been freed ? 
 
 But it is not my intention to dwell on this topic, 
 though it be one of intense and pressing importance ; 
 nor yet, in general, on the great spiritual contest with 
 the powers of darkness, which is going on in the world. 
 To do so, to describe the opposing hosts, as at present 
 they lie entrenched in serried ranks, or arc engaged in 
 deadly conflict; to trace back to the earliest ages, the 
 history of this great warfare; to linger on its world- 
 renowned battlefields; to delineate the character and 
 
recount the deeds of its past champions ; to examine 
 the kinds and temper of the spiritual weapons furnished 
 in its gospel armory; to study the principles which gov- 
 ern and the tactics which direct the warfare, as laid 
 down in the Bible, the great statute-book of the king- 
 dom; all this would be interesting and profitable, but 
 all this is beside my purpose. The apostolic precedent 
 assigns to me a different task. We are told, that when 
 Paul and Barnabas returned from the first great mis- 
 sionary campaign of the Christian church at Antioch, 
 whence they had been recommended to the grace of 
 God, for the work which they fulfilled, they gathered 
 the church together and rehearsed all that God had 
 done with them, and how he had opened the door of 
 faith to the Gentiles. Having been thus commissioned 
 by you, and committed to the grace of God, and sent 
 forth to fight for Him in the high places of the field, far 
 in the interior of the enemy’s territory, it becomes me, 
 on returning, to tell you something of what God has 
 done by and through us, some incidents of the warfare, 
 the principles on which it has been conducted, and the 
 present situation ; and I trust the sequel will show, that 
 although we have made some mistakes, and met with 
 some partial defeats, which in my accounts I shall not 
 attempt to palliate or conceal, our progress has still 
 been, on the whole, substantial and encouraging, so that 
 we may apply to ourselves and the warfare in which we 
 are engaged, the words of the apostle, “ So fight I, not 
 as one that beateth the air,” 
 
 That missionary tour of the Apostle Paul, with his 
 associate Barnabas, and their servant John, to which 
 reference has already been made, together with the 
 other similar ones of which we have the account in the 
 Acts of the Apostles, were more of the nature of what 
 in modern parlance would be called “raids” into the 
 enemy’s country, than regular, settled warfare. Their 
 circumstances favored, nay, demanded such a course. 
 It was important that as soon as possible after the crucL 
 
 1 * 
 
6 
 
 fixion and resurrection of the Saviour, the standard of 
 the cross should be displayed as -widely and set up in as 
 many places as possible. It -was important that it should 
 be done while the men were yet living who had witnessed 
 and could testify to the facts proclaimed. The state of 
 the people to whom they went favored a speedy and wide 
 success, and promised what was soon after realized, a 
 mighty rallying to the gospel standard. The enemy 
 was then unprepared to offer an organized resistance. 
 The tall castles of entrenched error and superstition, 
 which former generations had built, had, in God’s prov- 
 idence, as by a mighty earthquake, been shaken to pieces 
 and leveled with the ground : and the apostles, by their 
 supernatural endowment with the gift of tongues and 
 the power of working miracles, were prepared at once 
 to carry the war into the enemy’s country. But our 
 circumstances are now in all these respects different. 
 We must now have our military schools and training 
 camps, and we must secure and entrench our base of 
 operations before we can safely or to good effect spread 
 ourselves over the enemy’s country. Still we have been 
 enabled, as you will see from rhe sequel, to make some 
 extensive and very successful raids into the enemy's 
 country. And the apostles too had their bases of opera- 
 tions, first at Jerusalem and Antioch, and then at Alex- 
 andria and Rome, at which they laid more regular and 
 systematic siege to the enemy’s works: and afterward 
 Paul boldly planted his batteries and worked his guns 
 first “ for the space of three months in the Jewish syna- 
 gogue, where he boldly spake disputing and persuading 
 the things concerning the kingdom of God, with all 
 humility of mind, and witli many tears and temptations 
 which befel him by tho laying in wait of the Jews and 
 then daily for two years in the school of one Tyranus ; 
 60 that he spent before the two great citadels of Jewish 
 and heathen superstition and error, in the great city of 
 the great Diana of Ephesus, three years; and glorious 
 was the victory which he thus achieved : for “the name 
 
i 
 
 of the Lord Jesus was magnified, and many that believed 
 came and showed their deeds, many of them also which 
 used curious arts brought their books together and 
 burned them before all men, and they counted the price 
 of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver, so 
 mightily grew the word of God and prevailed .” Thus 
 we trust it will be found that although there may have 
 been some difference in detail, yet the principles of our 
 warfare have been substantially those which are laid 
 down and exemplified in our divinely inspired book of 
 tactics. 
 
 Let us trace out the whole campaign; first, in its 
 preliminary preparations, and then the actual service ; 
 and in so doing let us begin with 
 
 The Enrollment. Here two modes of procedure pre- 
 sent themselves, voluntary enlistment and impressment, 
 or the draft. The former has hitherto been mostly de- 
 pended upon to recruit the missionary ranks. It has 
 secured many noble men for the service. But its supply 
 has been inadequate to the demands of the work, and 
 with all our Mission Boards the cry still is for more men, 
 men of the right stamp. The latter 1 believe should be 
 at once resorted to. A strong prejudice, I know, exists 
 against this; but it is not well founded. This prejudice 
 with its grounds is fairly stated in the following extract 
 from Missionary Tract No. 2, published by the A. B. C. 
 F. M. (the oldest missionary society in the country, and 
 the one which in this and most other matters has given 
 law to the rest.) It is there said: “But fey missionaries 
 would be obtained in this way, (viz., by the call of the 
 Church or Board.) The missionary spirit has not yet 
 strong hold enough upon the churches or upon the colle- 
 ges or theological seminaries for the adoption of such a 
 plan. Were the responsibility thus taken from the stu- 
 dents, they would seldom be found in a state of mind to 
 give an affirmative answer'to the call.” Is this state- 
 ment true? Is it not a slander upon our theological 
 students? It is true that but few of them now step for- 
 
ward and offer themselves for the work ; and as men of 
 modesty, that modesty which usually accompanies merit, 
 we can justify them in this; but we cannot believe that 
 the large majority of those who, by their presence in 
 the theological ranks, have professed their belief that 
 they are called by that divine call and commission, 
 whose terms are “the whole world,” would be found so 
 wanting in the spirit of that commission, as to refuse to 
 go, were they regularly called to the work by the high 
 authority of the church of Christ. Or, if it be true 
 that such a spirit exists in their ranks, it must be owing 
 to the inculcation of a doctrine which further on, in the 
 same tract, we find enunciated; viz. “that consecration 
 to the missionary work for life involves a somewhat 
 peculiar experience of its own.” This we cannot be- 
 lieve. The command and commission of the Saviour 
 are, “Go ye into all the world;” and if our young men 
 profess to have a different one, they should be plainly 
 asked on what authority they have received it; and if 
 they cannot satisfactorily answer this question, they 
 should be sent back again to their farms and merchan- 
 dise. The Saviour wants no such temporizing, half- 
 hearted servants. His service admits no such mental 
 reservations. Paul was not thus called out to that good 
 fight which he fought ; to that warfare in which, to use 
 his own words in the text, he was “not as one that 
 beateth the air.” His first question on beholding the 
 vision of Christ, was, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
 do?” and he received for answer, “Arise, go into the 
 city, and it sliall be told thee what thou must do.” Blind 
 and passive, led along by the hand, he was to follow the 
 divine direction; and unto Ananias it was revealed 
 what the Lord’s purpose concerning him was: “He is 
 a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the 
 Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” To 
 this divine call and heavenly vision, Paul, to use his own 
 words subsequently to Agrippa, “was not disobedient.” 
 By act, though not, it may be, in express terms, he said 
 
y 
 
 with Isaiah, “Here am I; send me " — a very proper 
 form of answer to the divine call when inspired by the 
 divine Spirit; not (as now usually quoted) a formula, to 
 be used by a young man offering himself to, it may be 
 obtruding himself upon, a church or mission board. It 
 is the response of self-consecration to the call of God, 
 in his word, his providence and by his Spirit. The call 
 of the church is differently arranged. We have it thus 
 in our divinely inspired manjial: “As they (viz. the 
 prophets and teachers, the presbytery of the church of 
 Antioch) ministered unto the Lord and fasted, the Holy 
 Ghost said, Separate for me Barnabas and Saul for the 
 work whereunto I have called them.” The Holy Ghost 
 did not say to Barnabas and Saul, “ Offer yourselves 
 unto the church for the work,” but he said to the 
 church, “Separate them;” and this is authoritative pre- 
 cedent. Thus it was that Paul was “ appointed a 
 preacher, and an apostle and a teacher to the Gentiles.” 
 Thus it is that the Lord of the harvest thrust forth 
 laborers into his harvest. “No man taketh this honor 
 unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.” 
 And Aaron’s call consisted in God’s commanding Moses 
 to set him and his sons apart to minister unto Him in 
 the priest’s office. See also Num. 8: 9-11. Thus the 
 divine rule is established, and it should be sufficient for 
 us, without further reasons, many of which suggest them- 
 selves. We will, however, briefly mention two. 
 
 1st. Young men fresh from our theological halls, with 
 but little experience of the world, with little ability and 
 less leisure to take a deliberate and comprehensive view 
 of the world’s great battle-field, cannot be supposed 
 qualified to make an intelligent choice of a field for 
 their life labor; and even much of the missionary liter- 
 ature of the day, and that which is most attractive to 
 imaginative and enthusiastic minds* is very illy suited to 
 help them forward in the matter. Their theological 
 professors, who have long and closely studied their hab- 
 itudes of mind, and their fathers and elders in the 
 
10 
 
 presbytery, who have long been accustomed to take a 
 comprehensive and intelligent view of the work and the 
 world’s wants, are much better qualified to judge in the 
 matter, and they should decide; and the young men 
 should, in all ordinary cases, consider their decision 
 authoritative as the call of God through his church, and 
 act accordingly. And if, at any time, the fathers of the 
 church should find themselves in uncertainty as to a 
 choice, they should then prayerfully and reverently ap- 
 peal to the lot, as was done in the selection of Matthias 
 to be an apostle; and the decision of the lot should be 
 considered the decision of God. “The lot is cast into 
 the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” 
 2d. Most young men find after going out, that the 
 work is a very different one from that which, in their 
 day-dreams, they had pictured to their imaginations. 
 They find, in the first place, that the smattering which 
 they had obtained at home of Latin, Greek and He- 
 brew, and perhaps of several modern languages, gave 
 them no idea whatever of the herculean task of master- 
 ing a foreign language in the manner in which they 
 must now acquire it, in its ancient roots as well as in its 
 modern idioms, so as to read, write and speak it, not 
 only on the subject of religion, but on all subjects, and 
 that with fluency and power. This is a labor of long, 
 weary years, perhaps in a debilitating climate, and often 
 with many distracting cares, without comrades and class- 
 mates to emulate, or surrounding Christian influences to 
 encourage and stimulate; with all around, on the con- 
 trary, calculated to chill, and paralyze and corrupt. 
 Hie labor , hoc opus est. And then when he is able to 
 make his first weak attempts at evangelization (and for 
 a long time they must bo very weak), he finds those to 
 whom he has come, so different from what he had fan- 
 cied, so corrupt in morals, so entrenched in error and 
 superstition, so diverse in their mental habitudes and 
 modes of thought and feeling from all his past experi- 
 ence, that he is often ready to give up in despair. He 
 
must meet days and Weeks of discouragement and des- 
 pondency, when all is so dark around that it seems no 
 ray of light can penetrate, when nothing but a deep and 
 settled sense of duty can “lift up the hands that hang 
 down and the feeble knees.” Oh how comforting and 
 sustaining is it to him then, to know that he has not 
 undertaken this warfare on his own charges, or even at 
 his cwn suggestion ; that he has not run unsent or sent 
 only on his own blind and pertinacious obtrusion of 
 himself upon a church half-awake to its duty, to do 
 something for the heathen, and half-willing to humor 
 him in his romantic, youthful whim*; that he has been 
 sent, in a word, by the enlightened and deliberate call 
 of the church, nay, by God himself speaking through 
 his church, and that it is his duty, though in the midst 
 of darkness and under the most discouraging circum- 
 stances, to go on in the good warfare even unto the end, 
 and irrespective of all views of present success. Nothing 
 hut such a sense of duty can then support a man ; and for 
 these and other reasons, and above all, because it is the 
 divine plan ; we believe in impressment and the draft , and 
 that without any provision for substitutes or three hundred 
 dollars commutation ; and let those who question the “con- 
 stitutional authority” of King Jesus to draft his men, who 
 resist or refuse, be-called “copperheads,"' or leadhearts, 
 or any other name you choose. I think the prophet who 
 called a certain class of the priests of his day, “dumb 
 dogs that could not bark,” would call these weak, faint- 
 hearted brethren, “poodles,” fit only to wear a red 
 ribbon around their necks, to lounge on the sofas of 
 luxuriantly furnished parlors, and hang about the apron 
 strings of ancient maiden ladies. 
 
 I have connected with the enrollment two other very 
 important principles, which I shall barely state, without 
 enlarging. 
 
 1st. And it is a point which can only be secured by 
 the impressment or draft above advocated. The best 
 men in the church should be sent — the Pauls and Barna- 
 
12 
 
 bases, “sons of consolation and sons of thunder,” men 
 who will carry with them the full and implicit confidence 
 of the churches at home, and cause the heathen to say, 
 “The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men,” 
 and tempt them to sacrifice to them as to other Jupiters 
 and Mercuries. Such are the men who should be sent ; 
 and your raw recruits, and men weak in body or heart, 
 should be retained at home in your training schools, in 
 camp convalescent, and to man the home defenses ; also, 
 all such young men as think themselves, or are thought 
 by their doting parents and friends, too talented to go 
 forth and have the* - talents buried in a far-off heathen 
 land. These also should remain at home; they have 
 no call. 
 
 2d. Such men should be sent in sufficient numbers to 
 accomplish the work to be done. Fresh in your minds 
 is the senseless cry, “On to Richmond,” the shameful 
 repulses of Bull Run, the disastrous defeats of Freder- 
 icksburg and Chancellorsville, the blood-stained high- 
 lands of the Peninsula, and our brave ones rotting 
 by thousands in the malarious swamps and marshes of 
 the Chickahominy ; and all now agree that this awful 
 waste of human life has resulted from the want of a due 
 appreciation of the work to be done, and then a delibe- 
 rate, determined and adequate preparation therefor. 
 And such has been for the last half century the warfare 
 of the Protestant church with earth’s rebeldom against 
 the kingdom of God. The church was then awaked to 
 a tardy but inadequate sense of her duty. The war 
 cry, “On to the battlefield,” and the “Battle-field is 
 the world , the whole world,” was taken up; men were 
 sent forth singly to many great battle-fields, in pairs or 
 in small bands to others. They have fought nobly. As 
 leaders of a forlorn hope, they have bravely thrown 
 themselves against the bristling battlements of the 
 enemy, and fallen gloriously. What has been effected 
 in many places is sufficient evidence of what might have 
 boen done, and pledge of what will bo done, when the 
 
13 
 
 church enters upon the work in earnest and with ade* 
 quate forces. Sixteen hundred missionaries from all 
 Protestant Europe and America ! What are these 
 among so many? Is the prophecy that one shall chase 
 a thousand, the rule of our duty? But even were it so, 
 how inadequate the force ! One must chase not a thou- 
 sand, but ten thousand! It is not the policy of the Cap- 
 tain of our salvation that we merely strive to hold our 
 own, that we keep within internal lines and defend our 
 frontiers. The heathen are his covenanted inheritance, 
 and the uttermost parts of the earth his promised posses- 
 sion. We must conquer and retake a rebel tvorld for him ; 
 we must surround and blockade, as with a wall of fire, all 
 the enemy’s coasts; we must lay siege to all his strong- 
 holds, though protected by walls of granite heaven-high; 
 avc must fall upon and route all his marshaled hosts, 
 though myriad strong, upon their own chosen battle- 
 field. And to do all this, what is a handful of sixteen 
 hundred men ? Must they not be as men beating the air ? 
 
 We have lately seen what a nation in earnest can 
 do in furnishing thousands of men and millions of money 
 in an earthly contest. 0 that the church were thus in 
 earnest ! 0 that men could be thus mustered into the 
 
 Redeemer’s service ! 0 that treasure and blood could 
 
 thus be poured out for Him ! When, six years ago, the 
 Spirit of God, like a rushing mighty wind, swept 
 over this land, we in the foreign field said, this will 
 send hundreds of soldiers of the cross to our aid, and 
 thousands of gold into the Lord’s treasury ; but we were 
 mistaken. Perhaps it was not the Lord’s will that it 
 should be so, that he would then prepare a people for 
 the present crisis and day of trial. Be it so ; but even 
 on this supposition that will was not revealed. It was 
 one of those secret things which belong to the Lord our 
 God, while his revealed will was, and is, that we should 
 disciple all nations. Now at least it may be said, that 
 there is work enough for these men at home. There is 
 work enough, and as I revisit these scenes, so endeared 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 by past associations and enshrined in affection’s inmost 
 heart, and see on every side abounding iniquity and the 
 love of many waxing cold, I feel it, Oh how deeply! 
 and I would here close my plea for the foreign field, 
 could I believe that this would at all carry us safely 
 through the present crisis, and stay this all-engulfing 
 flood of demoralization and crime. But I cannot believe 
 it. True, there is work enough at home, but is it being 
 done? Will it be done, except by a church which has 
 come up to a sense of her duty to the world? “This 
 should be done, and that should not be left undone.” 
 There are men, Christian men enough to do this and 
 that, and there are means enough in the church, means 
 now squandered in folly and vanity, in lust and luxury. 
 But it is said we cannot command these men and means, 
 tve must work with the material at hand. Have they 
 been claimed in the name of God and for him ? And 
 is it necessary that the available material be so exclu- 
 sively consumed at home? Whd would have thought 
 three years ago that a million and a half of young and 
 able-bodied men of the country, and hundreds of millions 
 of capita], could have been taken from our farms and 
 Workshops, and yet all go on as we see at present, 
 almost as if nothing had happened? And who docs not 
 now say that, if necessary, the country can stand this 
 drain yet for years ? And thus too would it be with the 
 church, were she thus to enter upon her great wariare. 
 And all these men and means are needed at home, are 
 they ? or at least will not go abroad ? And what if God 
 should continue dashing against each other the conflicting 
 elements, not only South but North, of which this great 
 Union is composed, this great Babylon, which the vapor- 
 ing crowds say our hands have made for the house of our 
 kingdom and our hands shall restore, until chaos and 
 ancient night come back again, these fair fields be deso- 
 lated, these cities in ruins, and God s people scattered 
 abroad everywhere to preach the word ? All this came 
 Upon the King Nebuchadnezzar, lie was driven from 
 
15 
 
 men and did eat grass as oxen, ‘ until seven ti'nes passed 
 over him, and he knew and confessed tl at t ie Most 
 High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and g ve h it to 
 whomsoever he will,’ that all his works are truth and 
 his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is 
 able to abase.’’ Thus, too, he scattered at the persecu- 
 tion of Stephen the first Christians, who wished to settle 
 down at ease at Jerusalem. Perhaps we should then see 
 that the kingdom is the Lord’s, and that he giveth it to 
 whomsoever he will; and in a more sober, subdued 
 and chastened spirit, set about the upbuilding of that 
 kingdom whieu hath no end and is over all. All these 
 men needed at home ! ! Were not Paul and Barnabas 
 needed at Antioch? They had there several prophets 
 and teachers, but they had not a superabundance, for 
 there was a great work to be done, a large, newly- 
 gathered church to be built up in the faith, and a vast 
 surrounding population yet to bt? brought into the fold 
 of Christ (see Acts 11 : 20-2G). But they had more 
 than their share, and the Holy Ghost said, “ Separate 
 unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I 
 have called them.” 
 
 But we will suppose the men enlisted, and pass on to 
 consider, next, 
 
 The Preparatory Training, First. The mastery 
 of the language. As has already been hinted, this is a 
 much more formidable work, and more men partially or 
 wholly fail in it, than is imagined at home. We have 
 heard of some who have not even seriously attempted it. 
 They have fought with a scabbarded sword in attempting 
 to preach through an interpreter; or they have spent 
 their time and strength in teaching the natives English, 
 that is, in drillincr soldiers for Satan’s white recruiting 
 agents. This work must, for the most part, be performed 
 on the field. The elements might be mastered at home, 
 but a man must live, move and breathe in the atmos- 
 phere of a foreign language, in order thoroughly to 
 acquire it. He must be content to suffer his carefully 
 
16 
 
 selected library from home to rust and mould on its 
 shelves, while he forces all his waking thoughts and 
 dreams by night to flow into the new channel. It 
 should be begun as early as possible, while the organs 
 are yet pliable and the mind elastic. It is a pity that 
 some arrangement could not be made by which this work 
 could be performed before the age of twelve or fifteen. 
 This is the age at which language is readily acquired, 
 and philosophy and mathematics should be left for the 
 maturer mind. But, with present arrangements, this 
 cannot be, except in the case of missionaries’ children, 
 and they are usually surrounded by such debilitating 
 influences, both to body and mind, that bv this time 
 they are often unfitted for the work. They should 
 be made the subjects of the earnest prayers and special 
 care of the church, and then we might have more Scud- 
 der families, in which seven sons have so nobly trodden 
 in their father’s footsteps. 
 
 But the language is not all. The missionary must 
 make himself thoroughly acquainted with all the cus- 
 toms, superstitions, ceremonies, feelings, motives, hopes 
 and fears of the people to whom he goes. Otherwise he 
 can only draw his bow at a venture, and he must be as 
 one that beateth the air. I shall never forget the say- 
 ing of that veteran in Eastern service, the lamented Dr. 
 Eli Smith, when on landing at Beirut, nearly thirteen 
 years ago, I expressed to him the earnest desire that I 
 could then speak the Arabic so as at once to begin the 
 work, he answered, “Then you would probably do more 
 harm than good; there are many things to be learned 
 besides Arabic;” and I can now testify that he was 
 right. This knowledge must, for the most part, be 
 acquired on the ground, and it must be the result of 
 years of careful study and keen observation. Still, 
 much more might be done than at present, to prepare 
 men for foreign work. This division of the church at 
 home into sects should not be, and is not, unless the 
 “esprit du corps” degenerates into sectarianism, an 
 
17 
 
 unmixed evil. This division ol' the church into corps at 
 homo, should secure the sending out of missionaries in 
 regiments and brigades. Each church should select its 
 field, and then strive thoroughly to occupy it, instead of 
 scattering its men like mere skirmishers, over the whole 
 field of battle, and then leaving each man, as it were, to 
 fight on his own hook. Many good results would flow 
 from such a course. The one to which I now wish to 
 call attention is, that thus, in many cases, special 
 attention could be given to the partial training of men 
 in this country. For example, the strongest missions 
 of the United Presbyterian Church are in Arabdom, in 
 Egypt and Syria. Suppose all her missionaries should 
 be sent to the Arabic-speaking population of the world 
 (and this population, estimated at one hundred millions, 
 furnishes ample field for the ambition of our church); 
 suppose our church, in order to fill up her full comple- 
 ment of luen, supply the places of those who fall on the 
 field or are disabled, and to meet the demands of a con- 
 stantly-increasing work, should determine to draft and 
 send out annually two men (surely this could and should 
 be done). This would require eight men constantly in 
 the theological seminary preparing for this work, and 
 this would justify the importation to this country and 
 the employment of a native Arabic professor; and the 
 training he would be able to give, not only to these 
 young men, but to all the students in Arabic and oriental 
 literature, would be the best they could possibly have, 
 for dead Hebrew cannot be properly studied, except 
 through the living Arabic; and thus these young mis- 
 sionaries would be able to take their place in the field, 
 with at least one year’s advantage, and a great outlay 
 would be saved to the church. The Arabic field pre- 
 sents peculiar inducements to such a course ; but • it 
 might be adopted with advantage in other fields. In the 
 Arabic field, in this supposition, I have only included 
 Egypt and Syria, but from the above point of view, 
 India should also be included. A large portion of the 
 
 2 * 
 
18 
 
 population of India is Mohammedan. There Moham- 
 medanism can be attacked with pccu'iar facility, for that 
 chain armor of burnished steel, the civil power, in which 
 it is so safely encased in Turkey, has there been knocked 
 off from its weak and flabby members, and all bare and 
 quivering it stands exposed to the cleaving blow of 
 the sword of the Spirit. But in the Koran, God is rep- 
 resented as saying to Mohammed, “We have sent it 
 (the Koran) down to thee in Arabic.” Consequently the 
 Mohammedans insist that no attempt should be made to 
 translate it, and our English translation, notwithstanding 
 its general literal faithfulness, proves that the book can- 
 not be understood or appreciated in a foreign dress, and 
 consequently (and because their learned men at least 
 understand Arabic), the attack upon this system should 
 there be sustained by a strong Arabic r< serve, and that 
 although the common vernacular may be Hindustani or 
 some other language. We have long felt that in this 
 point, the missionaries in India have failed. 
 
 But besides this, should not something be done in a 
 different direction? We have, at present, in our theo- 
 logical seminaries, chairs of didactic, polemic and pas- 
 toral theology, of ancient languages and scripture 
 hermeneutics and church history. Should there not be 
 a missionary professorate ? All this training is called 
 evangelical. Should there not be more of the evangel- 
 istic ? Should not more be done to have our young men 
 posted on the theory, principles, po icy and history of 
 modern missions and the present wants of the world ? 
 Especially so, if they are yet to be left to decide for 
 themselves the question of personal duty ? And will it 
 not be so when the church comes up to a sense of her 
 duty, and to realize that the great work to which she is 
 called is the evangelization of the world. Then will 
 our theological students be in truth cadets training for 
 the warfare in which they are to engage, buckling on 
 the aiinor which they are to wear, practicing with the 
 weapons which they are to wield ; and when they go 
 forth they will not be as men beating the air. 
 
n» 
 
 1 now come to the actual service , and here I shall 
 change mood and tense, and instead of speaking of what 
 should be done, shall briefly describe what has been done 
 in the special field from which I come. 
 
 That you may understand the battle, you must know 
 something of the position and numbers of the opposing 
 forces. The great mass of the population of Egypt 
 (about four millions) is Mohammedan, and Mohammedans 
 are the sworn and bitter enemies of Christianity. It is 
 believed by many that the Mohammedan system is worn 
 out and effete, that it has renounced its old intolerant per- 
 secuting principles, and that its adherents are ready in 
 mulitudes to embrace the Gospel. All this is xot true. 
 Mohammedanism cannot become effete until supplanted 
 by a living Christianity. It is a system which lays too 
 strong a hold upon the passions and pride and lusts of fall- 
 en humanity, to be dislodged by anything short of the 
 regeneration of the heart into which it has found a place. 
 Mohammedanism would to-day be flourishing and ram- 
 pant in these United States, had not your intolerance 
 (shall I call it?) driven it to Salt Lake; for Mormonism 
 is Mohammedanism. Joe Smith, the prophet of the 
 golden plates and the stone spectacles, soon after start- 
 ing on his career said, “ I will be a second Mohammed.”* 
 What Christian sect, be it as pure and evangelical and 
 zealous as it may, could, under the disabilities and per- 
 secutions which that system of Mormonism has endured, 
 have made such inroads as it has made upon the Chris- 
 tian nations of Europe and America ? Suppose that 
 system to be established here, numbering a hundred to 
 one of the whole population, with the reins of govern- 
 ment in its hands, as well as the sword of proselytism 
 and persecution, with all the concomitants so well fitted 
 to flatter pride and pamper lust, and withal with much 
 more to satisfy the cravings of earnest religious natures, 
 and what could dislodge it, thus entrenched? In this 
 supposition you have the statu quo of Mohammedanism 
 in the East. Much has been expected from the advanc- 
 
20 
 
 ing march of civilization and modern improvement, and 
 they are not without a certain circumscribed influence 
 in preparing the way for better things. Still, it is a 
 significant fact that the most enlightened Mohammedans, 
 those who have received in England and France a liberal 
 education, are almost without exception, while infidels at 
 heart to their old faith, the most keen of all to observe 
 the immunities and privileges which that faith secures to 
 them as the ruling race, the most tenacious in clinging 
 to it, and the loudest in their professions of the unity 
 and apostleship. This view presents the most dark and 
 impracticable side of this frowning stronghold of super- 
 stition and error. The other side presents some vulner- 
 able and hopeful points of attack. 
 
 1st. The native Christians of Egypt and the Muslims 
 live on better terms of friendship there than anywhere 
 else in the Turkish empire. They have been together 
 crushed to the earth for centuries in Egypt, that “ basest 
 of kingdoms,” and their common sufferings have begot- 
 ten a common sympathy and fellow-feeling, and a common 
 longing for something better, for some great deliverance ; 
 and all their past training, as well as the deeply religious 
 bent of the oriental and especially the Egyptian mind, 
 lead them to look for it in the direction of religious 
 reform. When the Coptic Church is reformed, purified 
 from its idolatry and delivered from its puerile supersti- 
 tions, it will form a lever which will take a strong hold 
 upon this inert mass. It will powerfully appeal to 
 thousands of earnest Mohammedan minds not now satis- 
 fied with the pure deism of that system, and longing for 
 a purer prophet and more potent mediator than Moham- 
 med, one who can put away sin. 
 
 2d. The traditionary policy of the house of Moham- 
 med Ali, the reigning dynasty, has been to encourage 
 Frank innovation and to break down the old bigotry. 
 The last viceroy went farther and dared more in this 
 than even his Christian and Protestant advisers could 
 consider safe. By his decided and often harsh measures 
 
in crushing all uprisings of the old spirit of Islam, he 
 often endangered his life and his throne. 
 
 3d. We, the missionaries, by our position as educators 
 of the people in a land which is just awaking to a sense 
 of the value of education — by our political influence, 
 protected and backed as we have been by our American 
 Consul General, especially by the speedy justice and 
 heavy retribution which we were enabled to obtain in 
 the case of Faris, one of our native agents, who was 
 almost killed by a Muslim mob acting on the judgment 
 and by the instigation of the Muslim authorities, and by 
 the manifest patronage of the highest authority in the 
 land, in the gift to us by the viceroy, of a splendid 
 house for mission purposes, and other smaller favors ; by 
 these things and such as these, we have obtained a power 
 in the land which, among a people who have been accus- 
 tomed to regard might as right, is most noble. Under 
 the aegis of the stars and stripes, which we always unfurl 
 from the mast of our Nile boat on our missionary tours, 
 we are enabled to speak boldly to Muslims everywhere 
 the truth of the Gospel, and to controvert the claims of 
 Mohammed, which we could never do in Syria. Often 
 we meet with most interested hearers, who, when they 
 are taught as we hold them, the doctrines of the Trinity, 
 the divinity and sonship of Christ, and the atonement, 
 exclaim delighted, “ Is this the religion of Seyedha Aesa, 
 our Lord or Master Jesus? (for they also admit his apos- 
 tleship,) we never thus understood it.” Many also are 
 reading the Bible and our religious books ; several have 
 given evidence of a personal interest in the Saviour, and 
 with boldness proclaim their belief in the gospel, though 
 they cannot yet profess their faith by openly uniting 
 with the church. Among these are the native teachers 
 of our school in Alexandria, who daily and with zest 
 and intelligence .teach their pupils the way of life. Thus 
 we have here and there breached the walls; sharp skir- 
 mishes are daily occurring under them between small 
 parties sent out from the belligerent camps, and soon 
 
22 
 
 must come the storming of the fortress and the hand-to- 
 hand struggle with the cold steel; and be assured (I 
 speak not now figuratively, but literally,) there will then 
 be bloody work. 
 
 Passing on to the other classes of the population, we 
 have in Alexandria and Cairo large Frank colonies. 
 These for the most part are composed of the off-scourings 
 of Southern Europe, men who have left their country 
 for their country’s good. I need hardly say, that ex- 
 cept in individual cases, we have not had much success 
 in laboring for them, and their general influence on the 
 natives is bad. They have brought demoralization and 
 vice into the camps. I am sorry to add, that even our 
 Protestant residents from England and Scotland have 
 shown, that although their piety might have passed mus- 
 ter and stood upright while shouldered up by the ranks 
 of the Christian churches at home, it lacks the needful 
 stamina in that debilitating climate, and they have turned 
 out renegades and deserters. There are some bright 
 exceptions, and nobly have they stood by us in the battle. 
 
 2d. The Jews. “Blindness hath happened unto 
 Israel.” They are the most impracticable of all the 
 classes with which we have to deal. The native Jews 
 are strict and bigoted Talmudists. Many of the Frank 
 Jews are infidels, and ,we may hope their infidelity to 
 their superstitions may, as we have often found to be 
 the case with the superstitious Eastern Christians, bo 
 the bridge from superstition to faith. Formerly, they 
 sent many of their children to our schools in Alexandria, 
 and thus much precious seed was sown, as well as in the 
 distribution among them of many Bibles. But hitherto 
 we have waited in vain for fruits or any other result 
 than the awakening of a deep interest in Christianity 
 in the minds of some of the children, which has thor- 
 oughly aroused the fears of the parents, and led them, 
 at great expense, to establish schools of their own. 
 
 All this is dark enough; but now we come to the last 
 class of the population, concerning whom and the bright 
 
23 
 
 pledges and prospects of a glorious success among thcni) 
 
 I have little hope of conveying to you an adequate idea 
 in the short space of time left me — (he Copts. 
 
 The Copt 8 are the remnants still left of the ancient 
 Egyptians, that noble rate that gave birth to the arts 
 and sciences, and built the pyramids, and temples and 
 tombs, which are to this day the wonders of the world. 
 Though they seldom' boast of this their noble descent, 
 they oftener say, in their self-degradation, We are the 
 race of rebellious, hard-hearted Pharaoh. Still this 
 parentage is undoubted. The old Egyptian, corrupted 
 with Greek, is their sacred church language, and their 
 physiognomy is after the stereotype model which to this 
 day remains on their sculptured temple walls. Their 
 present number is between two hundred and three hun- 
 dred thousand. The Coptic Church is the successor of 
 the church of Athanasius, and Cyril and the Martyrs, 
 and claims the Evangelist Mark as its founder. It ad- 
 heres to the three first councils. At the council of Chal- 
 cedon, it separated from the Greek Church, on the 
 monophysite controversy, which is still between Copts 
 and Greeks a living one. In political and social position, 
 it is the most degraded of the Eastern Christian sects. 
 As to intelligence, however, it compares favorably with 
 them, as well as with their proud rulers, the Muslims. 
 The latter usually address a Copt as “muallem” 
 (teacher). They are the hereditary accountants and 
 scribes of the government and nation, and in this de- 
 partment they have few superiors in any land. 
 
 In religion, the) have most of the errors of the Ro- 
 mish Church. Indeed, more of those errors, as well as 
 the ancient Greek and Roman mythology, than is usually 
 imagined, have their rise in Egypt. But the Coptic 
 Church has not run to the same excess of riot as the 
 mother of harlots, in perfecting her master-piece of 
 iniquity. A married priesthood, retaining their sympa- 
 thies and associations with the laity, and an open Bible, 
 have kept the Coptic Church nearer the truth. They 
 
 
 
24 
 
 are a people of earnest convictions and deep religious 
 feelings. We do not find generally among them the 
 infidelity of the Catholic, nor the flippancy of the Greek. 
 
 The manner in which they have endured for twelve cen- 
 turies the high-handed persecutions of the Muslims, and 
 withstood the wiles and machinations of the emissaries 
 of Rome, merits all praise, as it attests their fortitude 
 and deep earnestness. Their superstitions are a heavy, 
 unendurable yoke. Their prayers and public services 
 are long and tedious, and mostly performed in the dead 
 Coptic language. Their fasts are most strict and aus- 
 tere, and extend over seven months of the year. They 
 pay tithes of all they possess, besides many other heavy 
 pecuniary burdens. 
 
 This 'people is awaking from the sleep of ages. It is 
 not too much to say that this whole church is undergoing 
 a great and glorious reformation. This people is scat- 
 tered all along the valley of the Nile, in the numerous 
 villages which dot that fertile vale. In most of these 
 villages a Protestant nucleus, larger or smaller, is now 
 to be found. Most of these are not yet in any formal 
 connection with us. Indeed, we have not sought to 
 precipitate an exodus from the Coptic Church. The 
 young plants of Protestantism have been suffered to 
 remain in their native soil, until they obtain strength 
 and stamina to bear transplanting, and the shock and 
 storm of persecution which they must then endure. The 
 leaven has been left for a while in the lump, where it 
 comes into closer and more intimate contact with the , 
 mass to be leavened. Thus, too, we have avoided the 
 charge and imputation of being proselvters, who have 
 come to their land with selfish intent, to establish a sect 
 of our own ; and this adds much to our moral power. 
 Thus, while, as has been said, much of this new move- 
 ment has not yet any formal ecclesiastical connection 
 with us, we are everywhere welcomed as friends and 
 teachers, and gladly heard; and tvhere we have not been 
 able to go, our Bibles and books have gone, and done 
 
25 
 
 their work. Picture-worship is being very generally 
 abandoned. In several churches, without any personal 
 influence from us, priests and people have met, and by 
 common consent, removed the pictures from the churches. 
 The fasts are being more and more generally disregarded, 
 the confessional forsaken, and the priestly authority, 
 when attempted to be enforced, renounced. The Bible 
 is everywhere acknowledged the standard of appeal in 
 controversy, and what is better than all mere contro- 
 versy or lopping off of errors, spiritual religion is being 
 revived, and our most devotional and evangelical books 
 are much sought after. Many of the priests are obedient 
 unto the faith, and we have now two of them in connec- 
 tion with us who are able evangelical preachers, and 
 others are preparing for the work. 
 
 Thus I have described in brief the numbers and posi- 
 tion of our enemies. It remains to give some statistics, 
 showing the number and disposition of our forces. When 
 all on the field, we are six male missionaries with their 
 families, and three single female teachers, who have 
 charge of our three female schools. We have in all six 
 schools, in which, during the latter half of the last year, 
 the average daily attendance was two hundred and ten 
 boys and two hundred and thirty girls. We might have 
 many more schools, had we the means to support them 
 and the trained teachers to conduct them. Our main 
 stations or bases of operation are Alexandria and Cairo; 
 but three years ago we purchased a Nile boat, with which 
 we have since made two or three annual trips, as far as 
 the Cataracts, about seven hundred miles up the Nile, 
 preaching and selling books from village to village. We 
 have now a second smaller boat, which is to be con- 
 stantly engaged in this work. The sales of Bibles 
 and religious books for 1862, was five thousand five 
 hundred and sixteen volumes, for which we received 
 one thousand one hundred and ninety-one dollars. 
 In the Nile boat, we have besides sold, in three 
 years, over five thousand volumes, for one thousand two 
 
26 
 
 hundred and fifty -seven dollars. We have forty-five 
 native church members, of whom twenty four were re- 
 ceived last year, and thirty-two native agents. These 
 work for us (or rather, they have been taught to feel that 
 they work for the Lord), at the low average rate of about 
 five dollars per month. This is not a remuneration for 
 their services, for most of them could make much more 
 at other businesses; but when they are found unwilling to 
 make sacrifices for the Lord, they are suff’ei*ed to leave. 
 It supports them on bread and water, while in and by 
 the work they are being trained for the work in more 
 extended fields of effort. And here is wisdom, and “he 
 that hath ears to hear let him hear.” This, in which we 
 are engaged, is a warfare, and war has its tactics and 
 its policy, and these change with the progress of time. 
 Anciently, as in the days of Goliah of Gath, and David 
 and his mighty men, and to this day, among the wild 
 Arabs of the desert, and among their ancestors, the 
 heroes of the thousand and one nights, much depended 
 upon the personal prowess and heroism of the leaders 
 and champions of the respective armies. The Greek 
 phalanx and Roman legion introduced a new era into 
 the tactics of European warfare, and it long held its 
 place. In modern times, the long gun to breach the 
 works and the cold steel to take them, are in vogue. 
 
 Now, too, it must be noticed that every country and 
 every place has its key. Cronstadt and Sebastopol were 
 the keys of Russia in the Turkish war, and to them the 
 allies hastened. The Malakof was the key of Sebasto- 
 pol, and it was in vain that the allies spent months of 
 random firing before its walls and awful sufferings in the 
 trenches, until one of the English commanders, pointing 
 to the Malakof, said, “There is the key of the place.” 
 It was taken, though with terriblo carnage, and Sebas- 
 topol fell. In the Italian war, the famous “ quadrangle ” 
 was evidently considered the key of Austria’s possessions 
 in Italy, and in the battle of Solferino the eminence 
 known as La Spia d’ltalia (the spy of Italy,) was the 
 
27 
 
 key of that awful battle-field. New Orleans was the 
 key of the whole Valley of the Mississippi. It was 
 hardly fought for. By a quick and bold movement it 
 was wrenched from the grasp of the enemy, and after 
 that it might be a question of time, but Vicksburg, Port 
 Hudson, and all other strongholds on that river, must 
 fall. Yes, and I believe that this great rebellion has its 
 key. At its inauguration, its authors proclaimed that 
 slavery was the corner-stone of their confederacy. It 
 was so, and more, it was and has been their citadel and 
 stronghold. I mean not this in the restricted sense of 
 negro slavery as obtaining among them, for it, in this 
 point of view, must be regarded, not only as an institu- 
 tion for breeding, rearing and training human- chattels, 
 for which this Western Continent must (as they would 
 have it) be the market, but as a great training school for 
 rearing and training despots and tyrants, who, not con- 
 tent with the narrow domain and petty tyranny of the 
 cotton plantation, must step up to the higher arena of 
 politics, and make this great republic their political 
 plantation and its men and women their willing slaves. 
 When Lincoln was elected, this spell was broken, the 
 yoke was snapped under which we were held as their 
 political vassals, and they rose in rebellion against the 
 best government in the world. Then they put forward 
 negro slavery as a watchword, by which they thought to 
 cement their ill-starred confederacy and unite the cotton 
 and border States. So slavery is their bond of union, 
 as it first begat and fostered the spirit which is the ani- 
 mus of the rebellion, and it has secured their base and 
 furnished the sinews of war, and here, as a pure war 
 measure, bur united and heaviest blows should have been 
 struck ; and, as a consequence, Butler found the key, 
 when at Fortress Monroe he invented the term contra- 
 band ; Fremont grasped it, but presumptuously, and 
 was forced again to drop it; Hunter, too, pointed at it, 
 and finally, Lincoln took it up, and, as appears from his 
 last manifesto, still holds it, but with too trembling and 
 
28 
 
 nervous a grasp; while Democrats and Republicans, 
 border and New England States, are pulling and tugging 
 at it, hither and thither, and the fear now is, that in less 
 than a year’s time it will be sold — exchanged for the 
 bauble of a four year’s crown.* 
 
 But I am laying my foundations too broad. What I 
 would come to is, that in the spiritual warfare in which 
 we are engaged, there is also a key of the position. And 
 if asked what is the key of Egypt in our spiritual war- 
 fare, I answer, the securing of an intelligent, well-dis- 
 ciplined, pious native agency. The work in which we 
 are engaged is a great work. Our predecessors have 
 left it unfinished— hardly begun. We cannot expect to 
 accomplish it, nor can our successors. The work may 
 be initiated by us, but it must be carried on to comple- 
 tion by natives. Foreigners may general, but natives 
 must fight, the battle. We labor under too many dis- 
 qualifications and difficulties. We are strangers in a 
 strange land. The people, their language, customs, 
 modes of thought, everything, is strange. They are in 
 a state of degradation which few can realize until they 
 become eye-witnesses. Many foreign missionaries who 
 are sent out should never have been sent. They of the 
 church mistook their calling. Some after a short trial 
 give up in despair and go home. Others settle down 
 and plod along, but never do anything effectually. Others 
 of the more romantic sort go out with extravagant no- 
 tions, which are soon dashed to the earth — they work for 
 a time with a zeal partaking of desperation, and then 
 break down and go home. Meanwhile, the churches at 
 home are most impatient of results. They must have 
 them or the interest soon flags, the supplies arc with- 
 held and the missionaries withdrawn, to be succeeded 
 by others, who in turn attempt experiment, grow weary, 
 
 * This was written several months ago. The “logic of facts and 
 the irresistable current of popular feeling” have since convinced the 
 politicians that this is the key which is also to open the “ White 
 House” to its next occupant. 
 
29 
 
 and give place to others. If the history of modern evan- 
 gelical missions in Egypt and many other places, for 
 the last forty years, were written, the foregoing would 
 be found a true epitome. What has been done as well 
 as what should now be done, is well set forth to us -by 
 the military tactics of that country. Former viceroys 
 spent millions of money in fortifying Alexandria. Walls, 
 moats, dikes, towers and forts are scattered around the 
 toAvn, as if made at random, without purpose or plan. 
 Many of the most salient points are left unprotected. 
 The government granaries are outside the walls of the 
 town, and fifty men landing a few miles above the city, 
 could in an hour let out the water from the Mahmudiyeh 
 canal, and the city would have no supply except the lim- 
 ited one in her tanks. When that great European “ bal- 
 ance of power,” of which the extremes are now Russia 
 and America, and the supporting fulcrum the “ entente 
 cordiale” (?) of France and England, becomes again dis- 
 turbed ; when these two nations, no longer forced by 
 external pressure to act together, return again to their 
 hereditary and natural antagonism, then their fleets will 
 have a race for Alexandria, and he who first arrives will 
 lazily take it, but he will not have grasped the key of 
 Egypt, but of India. The former is now being made at 
 the Buraj, about ten miles above Cairo on the point of 
 the Delta. Thousands of men have there been at work for 
 years, building forts, mills, aqueducts, granaries, &c. Let 
 war come, and the Pasha of Egypt retire there with his 
 fine army, and it will take a first-rate power to dislodge 
 him. He will be “master of the position.” He will 
 command the two branches of the Nile, and no ships 
 capable of reaching his works will be able to reach him 
 by either. He will have ample stores of grain, and the 
 supply of water cannot be cut off. A besieging army 
 would be exposed to terrible hardships on the plains of 
 Egypt, now burning under a tropical sun, now flooded 
 by the Nile ; from such a centre he could constantly and 
 most effectively make excursions to the right and left 
 3 * 
 
30 
 
 upon the enemy. Egypt can never be considered con- 
 quered until that stronghold is taken. 
 
 Now such has been the missionary position in Egypt. 
 The Alexandrian tactics and engineering have been the 
 rule in the past, but now the mission or church which is 
 to succeed in putting into the field, and properly working 
 the agency which is to regenerate Egypt, is the one 
 which shall have the wisdom and energy to storm this 
 Malakof, to take this stronghold, and fortify this Buraj 
 of an educated native agency. To do this, good, thorough 
 training schools must be possessed, and we have them. 
 Not such schools as are often dignified with the title of 
 missionary schools, in which an illiterate and perhaps 
 unconverted native teaches a company of urchins the 
 first elements of an education and can take them no 
 further, nor yet schools in which the missionary himself 
 shall spend his time and strength in qualifying ambitious 
 young natives with languages and secular science for 
 lucrative commercial or civil posts; but schools into which 
 earnest young men are gathered, who are willing to re- 
 ceive such a training as shall specially fit them for the 
 work of the Lord, and in which the missionary shall find 
 it worth his while daily to labor and impress upon a 
 company of choice lads the image and superscription of 
 his own mind, not only as a scholar, but as a missionary 
 and man of God. Such lads in goodly number we now 
 have in our schools, and besides, God is showing us that 
 he can raise up adults for this work. It has been the 
 general impression, and we too shared it, that men 
 brought in adult life from the ranks of heathenism or 
 dead Christianity, might themselves be saved, yet so as 
 by fire, but that we could not expect to recruit from 
 their number the ranks of efficient laborers for their 
 brethren, but in this we limited the Holy One of Israel. 
 He has raised up for his work many men , and some of 
 them men who had a good deal of mental discipline and 
 training, as well as an extensive knowledge of the letter 
 of the Word, and these men are rising up in the zeal and 
 
31 
 
 warmth of a first and only love, their acquirements 
 sanctified, their literal knowledge of the Scriptures em- 
 bued with life and radiant with light; they are asking 
 with an earnestness which only men who have long suf- 
 fered under that galling yoke can experience, how they 
 may deliver their brethren from that yoke — what it is 
 that the Lord would have them do. Many of them are 
 priests, the most intelligent and influential of the Coptic 
 Church, and they bring with them all the respect and 
 reverence with which their sacred character inspires a 
 superstitious people. 
 
 I have two other points, which time will barely allow 
 me to propound for your consideration. 
 
 1st. When you have sent forth your Pauls and Barna- 
 bases (and as has been said, none others should be sent), 
 then trust them to fight, the battle, aye, and general it 
 too. They may have been such only in germ when sent 
 out, but men grow r in the foreign field as well as at home, 
 and when they have spent years in the actual service, 
 they require an experience and knowledge of the field 
 and work, and the way to do it, which cannot be possess- 
 ed by men at home, however comprehensive in other re- 
 spects may be their minds and far-reaching their views. 
 An industrious and observing mole in Uranus could give 
 Lord John Rosse, with his long telescope, much useful 
 information as to the structure and properties of that 
 distant planet. Missionaries are not puppets, who can 
 only be moved by wires drawn thousands of miles away. 
 Many Mission Boards have cultivated far too assiduous- 
 ly the modern science called the science of missionary 
 management. One chief element of our success has 
 been, that our Board has trusted her missionaries, and for 
 the most part thrown upon them the responsibility of 
 movements and measures. This responsibility (and it is 
 often a crushing one, causing anxious days and sleepless 
 nights,) we would shirk and throw upon others, could we 
 do so, but we cannot ; our duty to the great Captain of 
 our salvation forbids it. “Stonewall Jackson” was a 
 
32 
 
 great general, though he fought in an evil cause. It was 
 not an altogether vain boast which his friends made of 
 him, “ that in four weeks he marched three hundred and 
 fifty miles, won four victories, and monopolized for the 
 amusement of the world the attention of six distinguished 
 generals.” He did not do all that in leading strings of 
 red tape, and he expressed all we wish to say on this 
 point in his laconic dispatch, “ Send me more men and 
 no orders, or more orders and no men.” How much 
 have we learned the last two years, and how much more 
 would we know were the secret history of this war writ- 
 ten, of the disastrous results of the interference of 
 meddling, selfish, unmilitary politicians, and how sad 
 would now be the state and prospects of the country did 
 not all feel that whatever may have been his mistakes 
 or shortcomings we have still one man, and he the one 
 whose hand is on the helm, who is more than a politi- 
 cian — who is an honest man. 
 
 Not long since, in looking over a missionary periodical, 
 I saw a cut and description of a beautiful mission house 
 in the adjoining metropolis, “three stories high, costing 
 $25,000, with a valuable museum containing several 
 hundreds of gods, and other objects of interest from 
 missionary countries, and a library of 4,000 volumes, 
 besides 1,000 volumes more of Chinese books by native 
 authors” — (very essential, indeed, if the meaning of 
 Chinese works is to be decided by kmg discussions in this 
 country.) This is what is said, but this implies much 
 more — salaried agents, secretaries, clerks, servants, &c., 
 a large portion of the missionary income to be absorbed 
 by home machinery — yes, and should there not be, as 
 I lately saw in the War Department at our capital, bundles 
 of telegraph wires going in at the windows, and stretch- 
 ing out to the ends of the earth, the walls covered with 
 great maps, giving in its length and breadth the world’s 
 great battle field in all its minutiae of hill and vale, 
 woodland and water, and with desks and closets filled 
 with docketed and numbered and red-tape-bound mes- 
 
33 
 
 sages and dispatches, and all presided over by the cold, 
 stiff, formal genius of bureauocracy — let us be thankful 
 to God that our church has not hitherto been tempted 
 to indulge in such luxuries, while the world is perishing 
 for the bread of life. No; a committee of pastors in 
 this goodly city of brotherly love, who need to have the 
 ties of social and Christian fellowship strengthened by 
 an occasional meeting in a little room in the basement 
 of one of your churches, and who need a great soul- 
 enlarging subject of conference ; a treasurer who is not 
 so bound to the chariot of King Mammon, that he cannot 
 find time occasionally to cast an account or dispatch a 
 remittance for King Jesus; and a secretary who has the 
 work so deeply at heart as to be willing to arise long 
 before day, to attend to the necessary correspondence; 
 this is all of machinery that we have. This is all ive 
 need. 
 
 2d. As to the invalid corps. We missionaries are 
 men, with all the frailties and liabilities to disease and 
 death, of other men. Pastors at home, in these days of 
 hard work, and high pressure and abounding nerve, need 
 their “autumnal furlough,” and we, like the Jewish land, 
 need our seventh-year Sabbath. We need thus often at 
 least, to be called back from the front. We are there 
 in the van and forefront of the Redeemer’s host, in the 
 midst of the din and roar of battle, with its wear and 
 tear excitement by day, its marching and counter- 
 marching on the double-quick, and by night the toil of 
 the spade and the mattock ; and we need thus often at 
 least, to be recalled to the rear, that we may rest awhile, 
 and then, refreshed and quickened, we can rush forward 
 again under fire in the thickest of the melee. We must 
 bear our own cumbrous harness and rifled guns, and 
 push forward our heavy ordnance, under a tropical sun 
 and in a climate every breath of which is malarious; 
 and we need occasionally to breathe again the invigor- 
 ating air of our native hills. It is a cruel, short-sighted 
 policy, and, in the end, wretched economy, to suffer mis- 
 
34 
 
 sionaries to sacrifice themselves on the field, when a 
 timely visit to their native land and season of recreation 
 might have saved them to the work for years. All, in 
 general terms, will agree to this, and yet I do not think 
 I misstate when I say, that most men prefer not to hear 
 of missionaries returning. Probably the pecuniary con- 
 sideration is, more than most people would admit even to 
 themselves, at the bottom of this feeling. The impres- 
 sion is, that it is a very expensive matter to bring a 
 missionary home, support him while here, and then send 
 him hack; but the impression is erroneous. We who 
 live in Egypt and Syria do not need to come home from 
 China nor India, nor to sail around the Cape; the jour- 
 ney can be performed in a month, and at a cost of one 
 hundred and fifty dollars ; and, according to the rules of 
 our Board, a mission family of ordinary size can be 
 brought home, kept here a year and sent back, at a cost 
 not greater than it would have been to support them on 
 the field. But even in cases where it is not thus, they 
 must be brought home when necessary, or greater sacri- 
 fices must result. 
 
 While home, the missionaries should be regarded and 
 treated by the church and its authorities as invalids . It 
 is not their business to go from Dan to Beersheba of our 
 American Zion, canvassing the churches to raise the 
 means for carrying on the foreign work. When able for 
 the wear and tear of this duty, the sooner, in all ordinary 
 cases, they are sent back to their distant fields of labor, 
 the better. You would not call your trained soldiers 
 home to serve as tax-gatherers. 
 
 I know it is pleasant and very satisfactory for people 
 to hear from the mouths of missionaries themselves, the 
 narration of the Lord's doings in far-distant lands; and 
 that it has a tendency to increase their interest and con- 
 sequent contributions. But the pastors should see to it 
 that their people abound in this grace (of liberality) also. 
 A missionary who, by long years of toil, has prepared 
 himself for the foreign work, is too precious a man, too 
 
35 
 
 expensive a luxury, to be sent through the country as a 
 traveling agent. I have spent thirteen years in the for- 
 eign work, and I now feel that I am just prepared for 
 efficient duty. It has cost the church about thirteen 
 thousand dollars, to prepare me for it. The church 
 cannot now afford to use me in any other business. 
 Not that I have, personally, any antipathy to this 
 work. I do not at all sympathize with the feeling of a 
 returned missionary whom I lately met, who had done 
 much in visiting churches, who said, that while he would 
 go to the churches and make his statements, he would 
 have nothing to do with the collection of money. I have 
 no scruple in telling Christian men or congregations, 
 that it is their duty to contribute liberally to this cause, 
 and to ask them to do so; and it is pleasant, too (we 
 missionaries have enough of old Adam remaining in us 
 to feel it so), to go through the churches, as was said of 
 one, like a “burning seraph,” and to be honored and 
 feted and lionized, but it is not our business. It is not 
 our duty. No! difficult as it is to decline the pressing 
 invitations which come from many beloved fathers and 
 brethren in the ministry, I cannot feel that it is my duty 
 to undertake the work. Another work I can do, though 
 on the invalid corps. It is that for which so many of 
 our veterans have so recently been called back from the 
 front to our great metropolis. I also stand before you 
 with some claims to the character of a veteran, having 
 seen some actual service. I have seen blood, and am 
 not afraid of it. It is red, and thicker than water, and 
 I stand upon the floor of this house to-day prepared to 
 enforce the draft. Should the Holy Ghost say of this 
 Paul or that Barnabas, Separate him to take the place 
 of our dear brother Frazier, who has just fallen in the 
 high places of the field, are you , as a court of the Lord's 
 hortse, using the means — have you placed yourselves in 
 the attitude to hear that voice ? 
 
 Such, brethren, is the warfare in which we are en- 
 gaged. In it, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, 
 
36 
 
 but against principalities, against powers, against the 
 rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wick- 
 edness in high places.” In it, we can say, not boast- 
 ingly, but with deep humility and gratitude to the 
 Captain of our salvation, who has led us, that we have 
 not hitherto been as men beating the air. We ask you, 
 for the time to come, like Aaron and Hur, to support 
 our arms by your prayers and efforts, so that, at length, 
 when we shall be called upon to exchange our weapons for 
 the crown, we shall also be able to say with Paul: “/ 
 have fought a good fight , I have finished my course , I 
 have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a 
 crown of righteousness , which the Lord , the righteous 
 Judge , shall give me at that day , and not unto me only , 
 hut unto all them also that love his appearing .”