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 ^ PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Purchased by the Hammlll Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 2060 .P62 18^4 ^ 
 Pierson, Arthur T. 1837- 
 
 1911. 
 The new acts of the Apostles 
 
 
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The New Acts of the Apostles 
 
J6^ Brtbur c:. pierson. 
 
 The New Acts of Ihe Apostles ; or, the 
 
 Marvels of MODEr.N Missions. A Series of 
 Lectures upon the Foundation of the " DufF 
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THE 
 
 ]^EW Acts of the Apostles 
 
 OR 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 B Series ot Xectures 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 FODNDATION OF THE "DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP" 
 
 Delivered in Scotland, in February and March, 1893 
 
 With a chromo-lithographic Map of the World, and Chart, which 
 show the Prevailing Religions of the World, their compara- 
 tive areas, and the Progress of Evangelization- 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR T. PIERSON 
 
 Author of the " Crisis of Missions," " Miracles of Missions : Many Infallible 
 Proofs," Etc. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 Of Edinburgh, Scotland 
 
 NEW YOKK 
 THE BAKEE & TAYLOK CO. 
 
 5 AND 7 East Sixteenth Street 
 
Copyright, 1894 
 By the baker & TAYLOR CO. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 t^t Cation (prtbB 
 
 New York, U. S. A. 
 
DeDicatfott, 
 
 AS A GRATEFUL OFFERING TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 THE REV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 WHO, BEYOND MOST OTHER MEN OF THIS CENTURY OF MISSIONS, 
 
 CONTRIBUTED TO THE NEW CHAPTERS OF ITS MISSIONARY HISTORY; 
 
 AND WHO, 
 
 HAVING "SERVED HIS OWN GENERATION BY THE WILL OF GOD," 
 
 "BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH :" 
 
 AND, AS AN AFFECTIONATE TRIBUTE TO 
 
 THE REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 OF EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, 
 
 SENIOR MEMBER OF THE DIRECTORY OF THIS LECTURESHIP, 
 
 WHO, HAVING PASSED FOUR SCORE YEARS, AT HIS ADVANCED AGE 
 
 STILL HOLDS FORTH THE WORD OF LIFE, 
 
 PREACHING THE MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 AND URGING THE CHURCH OF CHRIST TO GREATER FIDELITY 
 
 IN HER MISSION TO MANKIND, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 By Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D., F.R.S.E., 
 
 Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
 THE DUFF MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP. 
 
 The Duff Missionary Lectureship was founded 
 by William Pirie Duff, Esq., son of the Rev. Alex- 
 ander Duff, D.D., LL.D. Dr. Duff was a man dis- 
 tinguished alike by his fine genius, his glowing 
 eloquence, and his Christian zeal — a man whose name, 
 familiar as a household word in many parts of India 
 at the present day, stands in the front rank of those 
 great missionaries who have been incalculable blessings 
 to India during recent generations. When Dr. Duff 
 died on the twelfth of February, 1878, leaving his 
 son, his heir, Mr. Duff immediately proceeded to 
 make arrangements for the establishment and endow- 
 ment of a quadrennial course of lectures on some 
 subject *' within the range of foreign missions, and 
 cognate subjects," as a suitable memorial of the 
 venerable missionary. He was prompted to this at 
 once by filial piety and by the fact that, during his later 
 years, his father had repeatedly expressed a wish that, 
 as a means of perpetuating his influence, a considerable 
 portion of the bequest which he would leave behind 
 him, should be consecrated to this end. 
 
 Trustees were appointed to arrange and admin- 
 ister the trust, and these, being selected from the 
 various evangelical denominations, fitly represented 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dr. Duff's catholicity of spirit. In the same spirit, 
 it was provided that the lecturer should be a minis- 
 ter, professor, or godly layman of any evangelical 
 church, and that he should hold the lectureship for 
 four years. The course must consist of not fewer 
 than six lectures on his chosen subject, and these 
 must be delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow dur- 
 ing the second year of his tenure of the lectureship, 
 on consecutive Sabbath evenings in the months of 
 January and February, and re-delivered at such 
 other times and places as the Trustees might direct. 
 A further condition, binding on the lecturer, was 
 that he should print and publish, at his own expense 
 and hazard, at least one hundred copies of his lectures, 
 which he should distribute free of cost among the Trus- 
 tees and libraries of evangelical churches and mission- 
 ary societies at home and abroad, it being understood 
 that then he should be at liberty to publish as many 
 further copies as he might see fit, and the profits of 
 which should belong to himself. In 1880, the ar- 
 rangements had been completed, and, between that 
 year and the present, four courses of lectures have 
 been delivered, showing an interesting and edifying 
 variety in the particular branch of the great subject 
 treated by the lecturers, but each and all making a 
 valuable contribution to the literature of Christian 
 Missions. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., professor of 
 Evangelistic Theology in the Free Church of Scot- 
 land, was chosen to deliver the first course of lee- 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 tures in the Duff Missionary Lectureship. Being 
 amply satisfied with his quaHfications in other re- 
 spects, it was felt by the Trustees, as well as by Dr. 
 Duff's own family, that there would be a seemly 
 gracefulness in Dr. Smith's being appointed to lead 
 the van of lecturers, arising from the fact that he had 
 been associated with Dr. Duff in mission work, first 
 in Bengal and afterwards in Edinburg^h, for the long 
 period of forty years, during all which time the 
 friendship of the two men had been most intimate 
 and uninterrupted ; while, to quote Dr. Smith's own 
 words, ' ' he shared with the universal Church the 
 sentiment of admiration of his gifts and veneration 
 of his graces." 
 
 Dr. Smith's lectures were delivered in Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow in the spring of 1880, and were seven in 
 number. His selected theme was Mediaeval Missions, 
 and the lectures were mainly historical and biograph- 
 ical. But when we consider that the mediaeval ages 
 extended over a period of a thousand years, namely, 
 from the fifth century to the Reformation, and that 
 the geographical range of the word included all 
 Europe and even large portions of Asia and Africa, 
 besides; it will be seen that the history of Christian 
 missions, during so many ages and over so vast a 
 space, could only be touched by the lecturer at certain 
 points, and many of them not referred to at all. 
 Nevertheless, Dr. Smith has done much within his nar- 
 row limits to increase our knowledge of those periods 
 in which attempts were made to Christianize nations 
 in the mass and at the point of the sword, and when 
 the change effected was, of course, little more than 
 nominal. In almost every page, we can discern 
 
3t INTRODUCTION. 
 
 evidence that the lecturer knew a great deal more 
 on the subjects treated by him than he was able to 
 compress within the compass of seven lectures. He 
 has done good and permanent service in separating 
 the fabulous from the real, in disentangling knots 
 that had perplexed earlier writers, in shedding addi- 
 tional information at times upon the struggles of light 
 with darkness, and in giving us good reasons for believ- 
 ing that, even in the midst of much error that was 
 mingled on some occasions in what was written, 
 there was sufficient truth to lead anxious hearts 
 to Christ. At times men rise before us in the 
 narrative who were not missionaries merely, but 
 reformers, influencing extensive regions and trans- 
 mitting their light to succeeding generations ; and 
 who, like St. Patrick in Ireland and St. Columba in 
 Scotland, with the sea-girt island of lona as his centre 
 of action, sending forth his evangelists over wide 
 districts of Scotland to found Culdee settlements and 
 ** houses of Christ," did almost Apostolic work, and 
 helped to prepare the way for the glorious Refor- 
 mation that was to come. 
 
 II. 
 
 The second of the Duff missionary lecturers was 
 the Rev. William Fleming Stevenson, D.D., minis- 
 ter of Rathgar Presbyterian Church, Dublin, and 
 convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the 
 Irish Presbyterian Church and Synod. He stood 
 preeminent as a preacher among the ministers of his 
 church, and his position as convener of its Foreign 
 Mission Committee kept his mind in unbroken con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 tact with missions and missionaries. Everything 
 was looked at by him from this sacred centre, and 
 was coloured by it. Nor was this his only qualifica- 
 tion; for before the period of his being engaged to 
 be one of the Duff lecturers, he had visited nearly all 
 the great mission fields in the world, especially those 
 scattered over India, and had brought back with him 
 gathered stores of knowledge from many lands, and 
 a heart glowing with zeal and full of hope for the 
 great future which seemed to brighten before him, 
 for India and the world. 
 
 He chose as the title of his course, " The Dawn of 
 the Modern Mission," his intention being to restrict 
 his lectures to the ages which immediately followed 
 the Reformation, when the Protestant Churches had 
 not yet been fired by the missionary spirit, or be- 
 come alive to the all-embracing authority of the 
 great gospel commission which included in it every 
 Christian disciple : " Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." While indi- 
 vidual men, such as Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf and 
 Schwartz, as if they had been born before their 
 time, did noble work in their narrow spheres, arfd 
 were as morning stars which foretold the rising of 
 the sun, the Churches themselves were not yet 
 awake. It is not unlikely that Dr. Stevenson hoped 
 to have time and opportunity to record the later 
 history of foreign missions, when the Churches should 
 have awakened to their responsibility, and the dawn 
 of the mission should have passed into the day. 
 But this was not to be. Even his course of lectures 
 on the Dawn of the Mission was never completed. 
 In 1884, he delivered four lectures in the appointed 
 
xii IN TR OD UC TION. 
 
 places. And these, in so far as he had strength to 
 give them a full revision, were worthy of himself, 
 distinguished by vigorous thought, comprehensive- 
 ness of view, and literary beauty. His finely 
 appreciative and living portraits of the great pio- 
 neers of missions whom we have named, and of 
 many others, could scarcely have been surpassed in 
 their rich colouring and felicitous touches by any 
 writers of his day. But death came with its sad in- 
 terdict, the effect of overwork, and *'in the mid- 
 time of his days" he was summoned upward. His 
 accompHshed widow, who had been ''of one heart 
 and soul " with him in all his cares and toils, super- 
 intended the publication of the four lectures which 
 he had delivered, under the felicitous title which he 
 himself had chosen. In its incomplete form, the lit- 
 tle volume is like a broken pillar, but the pillar is 
 composed of the finest marble and it is chiselled 
 with a master's hand. 
 
 in. 
 
 Sir Monier Monier Williams, the distinguished Orien- 
 tal scholar, was the third lecturer appointed in con- 
 nection with the Duff Missionary Lectureship. His 
 chosen subject was Buddhism. And his first inten- 
 tion was to present in seven lectures a scholarly 
 sketch of true Buddhism. But he very soon per- 
 ceived that in order to do justice to this form of false 
 religion, which was the faith of so large a portion of 
 the human race, it was necessary that he should ex- 
 hibit it in connection with Brahmanism and Hindu- 
 ism, and even Jainism, and also in its contrast with 
 
INTRODUCTION. . xiii 
 
 Christianity. And as the subject expanded in his 
 mind, he became more and more convinced that any 
 endeavour to give an outline of the whole subject of 
 Buddhism in seven lectures would be ** like the effort 
 of a foolish man trying to paint a panorama of Lon- 
 don on a sheet of note-paper." The result of this 
 conviction was that the seven lectures multiplied 
 into eighteen, the greater number of these far ex- 
 ceeding in length the dimension of ordinary lectures 
 which might be delivered in an hour. The literature 
 of Buddhism has immensely gained by this expan- 
 sion into a massive volume of 563 octavo pages; the 
 parts which formed the lectures which were de- 
 livered in Edinburgh in 1888 having been absorbed 
 into the volume. 
 
 In a modest and manly preface, the learned author 
 claims for his elaborate treatise an individuality 
 which separates it from those which have been 
 written on the same vast subject by others, — an 
 individuality which, as he says, may '' commend it 
 to thoughtful students of Buddhism as helping to 
 clear a thorny road, and to introduce some order and 
 coherence into the chaotic confusion of Buddhistic 
 ideas." The unanimous favourable opinion of Ori- 
 ental scholars, and the continuous and extensive sale 
 of the book ever since its publication, far more than 
 realized the hopes of the accomplished scholar; 
 while its value and authority are greatly enhanced 
 by the fact that, on three occasions. Sir Monier 
 Monier Williams travelled through the '^ sacred 
 land" of Buddhism, and carried on his investiga- 
 tions personally in the place of its origin, as well as 
 in Ceylon and on the borders of Thibet. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The fourth and most recent Duff Lecturer was the 
 Rev. Arthur T. Pierson,D.D., of Philadelphia, U.S.A., 
 whose name is pleasantly familiar to the Churches 
 of Christ on both sides of the Atlantic. The title of his 
 lectures, which form the contents of the present vol- 
 ume, is, *'The New Acts of the Apostles ; or, The 
 Marvels of Modern Missions," and their design was to 
 compare the Christian Church in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury with the Church in the first century, especially 
 in their missionary aspects, and to bring out the fea- 
 tures of resemblance and of contrast between them. 
 They were addressed in the early months of 1893, 
 to crowded audiences, not only in Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, but in Aberdeen, Dundee and St. An- 
 drew's, and some individual lectures were also 
 delivered in other places, as in Arbroath. I had 
 the pleasure of listening to some of them, and 
 knowing as I did, that they had been composed by 
 Dr. Pierson while he was occupying Mr. Spurgeon's 
 place in the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London — a 
 task which of itself would have exhausted and even 
 overstrained the energies of most men — I was aston- 
 ished at their power, and freshness, and varied excel- 
 lence. They were as new and fragrant as the flowers 
 of spring. His vigour and originality of thought, 
 his extraordinary knowledge of all subjects connected 
 with Christian missions, his ingenuity and skill in the 
 exposition of Scripture, and in extracting from famil- 
 iar texts new and unexpected stores of instruction, 
 his inexhaustible command of anecdotes which 
 helped to enrich and enliven his addresses, his power 
 
IN TR OD UC TION. x V 
 
 of making external nature pay tribute to spiritual 
 instruction, as well as the glowing fervour of his ap- 
 peals — made multitudes listen unwearied for hours in 
 hushed silence. I trust that the powerful impres- 
 sions and healthful impulses, produced by his lectures 
 when spoken, will be equalled in their influence and 
 blessing when they are read, and I am sure that my 
 honoured and beloved friend will own himself to 
 have received in such results his richest reward. 
 
 ANDREW THOMSON. 
 Edinburgh, March, 1894. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In the winter of 1890, while wandering among the 
 ruins of the picturesque abbey at Arbroath, Scotland, 
 my eye rested upon an old and much worn headstone 
 which had marked the grave of some member of 
 that large family whose name I bear. Along the 
 side of this slab could be distinctly traced the letters, 
 PiERSON, and the ancestral ''coat of arms" graven 
 upon the stone had not been quite obliterated by the 
 unsparing hand of Time. In presence of such a 
 memorial of my forefathers, I felt like a lad visiting 
 the old homestead where his ancestors had dwelt, and 
 ready, in a filial spirit, to render to dear old Scot- 
 land any service asked of me. 
 
 One might well hesitate to attempt to fill the ap- 
 pointment to the '' Duff Missionary Lectureship;" to 
 follow such men as the heroic missionary, Rev. 
 Thomas Smith, D.D., the seraphic advocate of 
 missions. Rev. William Fleming Stevenson, D.D., 
 and the accomplished scholar, Sir Monier Monier 
 Williams; but, like Franklin at the Court of Ver- 
 sailles, I may say, I come, ''not to succeed^ but only 
 to follozv " those who have gone before me. 
 
 To Dr. Alexander Duff, America owes a debt 
 which can never be paid; and the visit of one of her 
 sons to Scotland upon this errand was but a slight 
 acknowledgment of that obligation, a tribute of the 
 gratitude of my fellow-countrymen for that new im- 
 
xviii PREFA CE. 
 
 pulse imparted to missions by that eloquent advo- 
 cate, who, in the year 1854, visited our shores and set 
 us all aflame with his holy enthusiasm. 
 
 By an undesigned coincidence, the opening lecture 
 of this course fell, in Edinburgh, upon the exact 
 anniversary of the death of Doctor Duff, February 
 12, 1893, fifteen years after the departure of that 
 illustrious man, who was the Raimond Lull of our 
 century. 
 
 One of the conditions of this trust is that each 
 course of lectures shall, so far as practicable, be de- 
 livered in the various academic centres of Scotland. 
 Hence, I undertook to give the full course in Edin- 
 burgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, and three 
 lectures in St. Andrew's also. 
 
 Another condition of the lectureship is that the 
 lectures shall, after delivery, appear in printed form. 
 This made preparation with the pen necessary and 
 proper, on a scale more extensive than was available 
 for oral delivery, within the usual limits. In the 
 lectures as given there was a fragmentary and 
 perhaps disconnected character, which, it is hoped, 
 may be relieved by that fuller and final form in 
 which they now appear. 
 
 For many years my habit has been to speak not 
 only without manuscript, but without much pen- 
 work in preparation. It was perhaps well that the 
 necessity of furnishing material for the press com- 
 pelled the writing of these lectures; for the theme 
 became so absorbing that, but for this check upon 
 my utterance, the treatment of it, like some of our 
 American railways, might have lacked ** solid foun- 
 dations," '^ close connections," and '' terminal facili- 
 
PREFA CE. xix 
 
 ties." Even in seeking finally to revise the manu- 
 script for publication, Rousseau's remark seems 
 forcibly verified, that ''one half a man's life is too 
 little to write a book — the other half too little to 
 correct it when written." 
 
 To make this volume as far as possible complete, 
 I have undertaken, at no little cost both of toil and 
 money, to add to it a Map of the World, which may 
 exhibit to the eye the prevailing religions of the 
 world, with their comparative territory and area, 
 and may also show the progress of the Protestant 
 missions of the world toward permeating and 
 penetrating the habitable globe. In this part of 
 my work I owe especial thanks to my friend, 
 Mr. William E. Blackstone, of Oak Park, Illinois, 
 whose careful research largely forms the basis of this 
 valuable addition to my published lectures. 
 
 It would be ungrateful to close this introductory 
 word without acknowledging the many unselfish and 
 untiring efforts of various friends who, in the several 
 places of delivery, so largely contributed to whatever 
 measure of success crowned my humble efforts to 
 demonstrate and to illustrate the essential corre- 
 spondence between the features of this missionary- 
 century and the age of the Apostles. 
 
 Arthur T. Pierson. 
 
 2320 Spruce St., Philadelphia, May, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 F>ART I. 
 
 THE NEW LINKS OF MISSION HISTORY. 
 
 SECTION PAGE 
 
 I. The New Chapters, .... 3 
 
 II. The New Pentecosts, . . . 11 
 
 III. The New Times and Seasons, . . 19 
 
 IV. The New Open Doors, ... 28 
 V. The New Era, 38 
 
 F>A.RT II. 
 
 THE NEW APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 I. The Calling of the New Apostles, 51 
 
 II. The New Pioneers, .... 63 
 
 III. The New Apostolate of Woman, . 133 
 
 IV. The New Lessons, . . . .141 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THE NEW VISIONS AND VOICES. 
 
 I. The Leading Voice — The Voice of 
 
 THE Master, i47 
 
 II. The Call to all Disciples, . .152 
 
 III. The Vision of the Field, . . 171 
 
 IV. The New Lesson of the Power, . 189 
 V. The New Ministry of the Spirit, . 196 
 
XXll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 F»ART IV. 
 
 THE NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 
 
 :tion 
 
 I. The Miracle of Conversion, 
 
 II. New Converts and Martyrs, . 
 
 III. Transformed Communities, 
 
 IV. The New Witnesses and Workers, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 249 
 285 
 
 PART V. 
 
 THE NEW SIGNS AND WONDERS. 
 
 I. The New Miracles, .... 293 
 
 II. New Opportunities and Preparations, 305 
 
 III. Providential Preservations, . . 309 
 
 IV. New Judgments of God, . . . 318 
 V. General Administration, . , .322 
 
 VI. Miracles of Grace, .... 329 
 
 VII. Rapidity of Results, .... 340 
 
 VIII. Answers to Prayer. . . . 352 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 THE NEW MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES. 
 
 I. The Look Forward, .... 375 
 
 II. The New Order of Things, . . 377 
 
 III. Medical Missions, .... 382 
 
 IV. The New Activity of Woman, . 386 
 V. New Lessons from Experience, . . 389 
 
 VI. New Incentives to Giving, . . 395 
 
 VII. The New Appeal of Man, . . .405 
 
 VIII. Harmony with God's Purpose, . 410 
 
 IX. The Blessed Hope, .... 414 
 
 X. The New Outlook, .... 428 
 
Part I. 
 THE NEW LINKS OF MISSION HISTORY 
 
THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Part I. — The New Links of Mission History. 
 
 THE NEW CHAPTERS. 
 
 God's coin has the mark of His mint, and bears 
 His image and superscription. When His Son came 
 to earth, though His divinity wore the disguise of our 
 humanity, behind His robe of flesh there flashed upon 
 His breast " the star of empire." And so, when the 
 word of God came in the dress of human speech, it 
 shone with the glory of God. 
 
 The manifold uses of the Holy Scripture grow 
 clearer as we study the inspired book. It is the key 
 that unlocks all perplexities. As Arthur Hallam 
 said, it proves itself God's book, because it is man's 
 book, fitting every turn and curve of the human 
 heart. Bengel's motto was: '* Apply thyself wholly 
 to the scriptures, and apply the scriptures wholly to 
 thyself." The Son of God Himself found in His 
 Father's word. His sword in temptation. His stay in 
 trial. His guide in teaching ; its prophecies were the 
 seals of His messiahship, its precepts the rule of His 
 obedience, its promises the balm for His suffering ; 
 through life He had no grander theme, and in death 
 no richer legacy. Modern critics often handle it with 
 irreverent hands, but to Him it was sacred in every 
 part; and Michel Angelo's romantic devotion to the 
 famous torso of Hercules in the Vatican, seeking to 
 feel through touch the thrill of delight no longer 
 granted through his blind eyes, is but a faint image 
 of the divine and holy rapture with which Jesus 
 studied the inspired Scriptures. 
 
 World-wide missions present for solution a most 
 perplexing practical problem. Where shall we come 
 
4 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 for guidance if not to these oracles of God ? Over 
 these ** pillars of Hercules " is fore vermore written, 
 ne plus ultra. Beyond this word there is nothing sat- 
 isfactory, nothing needful. God has magnified His 
 word above all His name, and here are hid all the 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
 
 This principle we seek now to apply to one book of 
 the New Testament, which will be found to be both 
 a history and a philosophy of missions in one. That 
 book is the Acts of the Apostles. Here, what is 
 found in the gospels in precept, is found in practice ; 
 gospel teaching as set forth by the Evangelists, ap- 
 plied actually and historically, by the coming of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Luke, who, in the gospel, tells us what Jesus ^^ be- 
 gan,'' in the Acts tells us what He " continued, both 
 to do and teach," by the Spirit, through disciples, as 
 to the kingdom of God. Here, as in the very order 
 of the gospels, the door of faith is successively 
 opened to Hebrew, Roman, and Greek believers. 
 Pentecost links Old Testament prophecy with New 
 Testament history. This is the book of witness : 
 both man's witness to God, and God's witness to man ; 
 the sequel of the gospels, the basis of the epistles; 
 not so much the acts of the apostles, as the acts of 
 the Holy Spirit and of the risen Redeemer in the 
 person of the Paraclete. 
 
 Here the Spirit is seen, first applying the truth 
 and the blood to penitent believers, then anointing 
 believers for service, then sending them forth as 
 heralds and witnesses to preach the kingdom, to 
 make disciples, and to organize disciples into 
 churches. What meaning is wrapt up in the fact 
 that the period of time covered by this book is only 
 about thirty-three years — the length of our Lord's 
 human life, the average of one generation — as though 
 plainly meant to teach us what may be and should 
 be done in every successive generation, until the 
 end of the world-age itself ! 
 
THE NEW CHAPTERS. 5 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles thus forms one great 
 inspired book of missions : God's own commentary 
 and cyclopedia for all ages, as to every question 
 that touches the world's evangelization. 
 
 The opening verses of each gospel narrative show 
 a fourfold completeness and comprehensiveness; 
 and what Bernard calls ''a progress of doctrine:" 
 
 MATTHEW: 
 
 " The Book of the 
 Generation of Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of 
 David." etc. 
 
 MARK: 
 
 " The beginning of 
 the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of 
 God," etc. 
 
 LUKE: 
 
 .... "A declara- 
 tion of those things 
 which are most 
 surely believed 
 among us," etc. 
 
 JOHN: 
 
 " In the beginning 
 was the Word, and 
 the Word was with 
 God and the Word 
 was God," etc. 
 
 Thus Matthew links on messianic predictions of the 
 Old Testament to the historic chain of New Testa- 
 ment events, tracing our Lord's human beginning 
 as born of Mary but begotten of the Holy Spirit. 
 Mark starts with His mature manhood, and shows 
 the Divine messenger delivering his message. Luke 
 sets forth an orderly statement of facts and truths 
 held to be beyond dispute by primitive believers. 
 John goes back beyond them all, to the eternity of 
 the Divine Word. 
 
 So do the initial chapters of the Acts bear marks 
 of design as the sequel not of Luke's former treatise 
 only, but of all the four accounts which this book 
 follows. It braids together into one their four 
 strands of testimony. In the structure of the New 
 Testament this is the entablature resting upon and 
 uniting the four columns which support it and which 
 it surmounts. Hence, to read this book aright, we 
 must perceive its fourfold character or aspect. It is 
 the book of the advent of the Holy Spirit, and of the 
 generation of the Church of Christ, begotten of the 
 Spirit in the womb of our humanity. It is the 
 beginning of the gospel of the Holy Spirit, the third 
 person of the Godhead. It is the orderly setting 
 forth of the great fact and truth of the Spirit's 
 outpouring, as most surely believed among those 
 who were eye-witnesses of His majestic advent. And 
 
6 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 it is the first clear revelation of the person of Him 
 who as the Spirit of God was in the beginning with 
 God and was God. 
 
 In a word, just what the fourfold gospel is to 
 Christ, the Acts of the Apostles is to the Spirit — the 
 inspired account of His advent, and of the birth of the 
 Bride of Christ; the beginning of the gospel of the 
 Spirit's presence and power ; the declaration in order 
 of that supreme secret of all holy living and faithful 
 service, His inward working; and finally, the unveil- 
 ing of His eternal identity ^ with, and procession 
 from, the Godhead. Truly this book is the Acts of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Thus the advent of the Spirit, and His activity in 
 and through the Church, are the keys which open 
 the doors to all the chambers in this House of the 
 Interpreter. From the first chapter to the last, the 
 theme is the same : the coming of the Spirit, to 
 apply the truth, arouse the conscience, soften the 
 heart, subdue the will, anoint the tongue, and hallow 
 the lip — to take the place of the absent Lord — nay, to 
 make real to believers the promise of His perpetual 
 presence, by becoming to every renewed soul all that 
 Christ would have been had He remained on earth. 
 
 Upon one grand fact we lay great stress, and shall 
 recur to it from time to time, that by blow upon 
 blow repetition may deepen impression. This book 
 of the Acts, which is to the Church the Principia 
 embodying the great laws and principles for our 
 guidance in the work of missions ; this book, which 
 is the history of primitive missions, and like all his- 
 tory is " philosophy teaching by examples," illustrat- 
 ing the practical operation of these laws and principles 
 during one whole generation — this book is manifestly 
 and designedly incomplete, unfinished. 
 
 This unfinished character is shown both by its be- 
 ginning and its close. That '' former treatise of all 
 that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day 
 in which He was taken up," implies this latter trea- 
 
THE NEW CHAPTERS. 7 
 
 tise of all that He continued ^to^h to do and teach after 
 that He was taken up. This introduction stamps this 
 book as a continuance and sequel to a previous narra- 
 tive, which is necessary to its full interpretation. 
 Accordingly, we are prepared to see Christ in the 
 Acts continuing His words and works through the 
 Spirit. He who for forty days after His resurrec- 
 tion gave in His personal presence many infallible 
 proofs of the reality of that resurrection, here gives 
 equally infallible proofs of His perpetual presence in 
 the work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 How long will He continue thus to do and teach ? 
 So long as He has a believing body of disciples who 
 still go forth into all the world as witnesses bearing 
 His message. The wondrous story opens with the en- 
 duement of power, and throughout exhibits its effect 
 in qualifying witnesses for their work : nor is there 
 any hint that this Power ever was, or will be, with- 
 drawn. The narrative stops, but the history goes on. 
 Wherever devout disciples claim in prayer and by 
 faith their full share in that Pentecostal fulness, they 
 may go forth endued with power from on High. 
 Wherever, from that day to this, Christ's witnesses 
 have gone forth in obedience to His word, the same 
 essential marks as in the Apostolic age have attended 
 their service and explained their success. 
 
 If now we turn to the conclusion of the Acts, we 
 find a close so abrupt that it suggests yet again a con- 
 tinuance and sequel. The curtain of silence suddenly 
 falls upon a scene of continued action. Paul, dwell- 
 ing in his own hired house, is still seen receiving all 
 who come unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, 
 and teaching those things which concern the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Not only the act, but even the scene, 
 is incomplete. Paul's life is not brought to a close, 
 and his work at Rome is yet going on. Surely this is 
 an unfinished picture ; the canvas awaits other touches 
 and tints from the Divine Artist ; new scenes in mis- 
 sionary history are to supply new material for sug- 
 
8 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ■ gestion. These last two verses furnish a formula for 
 record for all true witnesses through all aftertime. 
 Change but the name, and the number of the years, 
 and each successive disciple may here find a brief 
 epitome of his life and labour; for whoever, by ful- 
 filling his mission, adds one more unpretending entry 
 to this Apostolic record, belongs to the Apostolic suc- 
 cession. You may think of yourself as less than the 
 least of all saints, yet if, in obedience to your Lord 
 and dependence on His Spirit, you spread the good 
 tidings, to you is this grace given to add and form 
 one more link in that golden chain that reaches from 
 the upper chamber of the Jewish capital to the bridal 
 chamber of the New Jerusalem, and which unites in 
 one glorious succession all in whom Jesus thus con- 
 tinues by the Spirit to speak and work. 
 
 We have therefore written intelligently and dis- 
 criminatingly, in referring to the Acts of the Apostles, 
 as closing rather than ending, for the story comes to 
 no proper conclusion, and is designedly left incom- 
 plete. Here is the story of a generation; and no gen- 
 eration ever reaches completeness, but is linked and 
 woven into the next, and its history merges into that 
 of its successor as to-day melts into to-morrow. So, 
 most of all is it in the work of missions. It is so 
 far one work that no eye can trace the point where 
 the mission of one of God's witnesses ends and that 
 of another begins. Paul's preaching and teaching 
 still form threads in the fabric of missionary history, 
 and will unto the end. 
 
 But in a grander sense the Acts of the Apostles 
 reaches no conclusion. When the late Bishop of 
 Ripon characterized the thrilling story of the Apos- 
 tle of the South Seas as the ** Twenty-ninth chapter 
 of the Acts of the Apostles," he was but partly right. 
 To that striking remark history adds one criticism 
 and correction : that was a new chapter, but not the 
 first new chapter added since Apostolic days. Long 
 before John Williams sailed upon his holy mission. 
 
THE NEW CHAPTERS. 9 
 
 many additions had been made to that unfinished 
 book. Of some of these chapters we have no human 
 memorial : they are written only by the Recording 
 Angel in God's Book of Remembrance, to be un- 
 sealed when those other books are opened and read 
 amid the flaming splendours of the Great White 
 Throne. But it is sublimely true that the triumph- 
 ant advance of that Tottenham lad who became the 
 great witness for the gospel in the Pacific Polynesia, 
 added a new and glorious chapter to the annals of 
 Apostolic Missions. And so far and so fast as Apos- 
 tolic working and witnessing have survived and re- 
 vived, so far and so fast have new chapters in the 
 Acts been enacted, if not written. Nor will the age 
 of missions ever end, until this Divine Mission of 
 witness to men is accomplished. And therefore is 
 this book left incomplete, as it always will be while 
 one believer is left to teach and preach those things 
 which concern the Lord Jesus Christ and to fill up 
 that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in 
 his own flesh for His body's sake, — which is the 
 Church. 
 
 Our present purpose, then, is declared in advance. 
 We shall treat the age of Modern Missions, and 
 especially the century of organized missionary ac- 
 tivity since Carey led the way, as an illustration of 
 this continuation of the Acts of the Apostles. We 
 shall note some points of comparison and of con- 
 trast between the Apostolic age and our own. We 
 shall look in this book for the clue to some of the in- 
 tricate, complicate problems of missions, and care- 
 fully and prayerfully search to find the secrets of 
 success in world-wide witness. 
 
 As both brevity and unity of treatment will be 
 conserved by setting proper limits to this discussion, 
 we shall consider, first, the new Pentecosts and the 
 new openings of doors ; then the calling and sending 
 forth of the new apostles; then the new voices and 
 visions ; then the new converts and martyrs ; then the 
 
10 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 new signs and wonders; and finally, the new hopes 
 and incentives. 
 
 For such a study both the writer and reader may 
 well invoke higher help. There is something un- 
 usually solemn in treating such a theme. We are to 
 occupy our minds with the New Chapters in the 
 Acts of the Apostles. Only a spiritual eye can read 
 them : only a spiritual mind interpret them. With 
 no careless hand would we venture to fill out the 
 sacred outlines of missionary biography and history, 
 and, peradventure, add another touch to God's un- 
 finished book. But if that same Spirit who guided 
 the pen of the Evangelist as he wrote this latter 
 treatise, shall deign to open our eyes and direct our 
 gaze, we shall be able to read the records which 
 history has imperfectly written, and gather inspira- 
 tion for such holy living and heroic serving as shall 
 add yet other chapters in the days to come ! 
 
II. 
 
 THE NEW PENTECOSTS. 
 
 Owen, in his Pneiunatologia^ affirms that every age 
 has its own test of orthodoxy or apostasy, and that 
 the criterion of a standing or falling Church in this 
 age is found in its attitude toward the Spirit of God. 
 
 The gospel age is especially His dispensation. 
 This divine person peculiarly fills the horizon as we 
 study the Acts of the Apostles ; and we cannot open 
 the pages of this book of the Acts without starting 
 an inquiry which is first in order and fundamental 
 in importance. What is the actual place which 
 Pentecost fills in Christian history? Was that out- 
 pouring both the first and the last, or only the fore- 
 most in a series of similar effusions? Was that 
 revelation of the Spirit's power and presence full 
 and final, or was it, like Christ's own advent, but the 
 beginning of miracles and wonders with others to 
 follow? and is that first advent of the Spirit to be 
 succeeded by another, even more glorious, at the 
 end of the age? 
 
 Christ's Incarnation w^as, in fact, a hiding of His 
 true self behind a veil of flesh. His star in the East, 
 seen by a few wise watchers, guided them to his 
 cradle, and a few holy souls who waited for His 
 salvation were not taken by surprise. A little band 
 of disciples felt His charms and bowed to His claims : 
 they saw His glory shine at times when, as in the 
 Transfiguration and Ascension, His disguise was laid 
 aside. In fact. His Baptism, Transfiguration, Resur- 
 rection, Ascension, were so many stages of revela- 
 tion of His glory, which is to be fully disclosed 
 when, at His second coming, the curtain is finally 
 lifted, and the last act in this divine drama completes 
 the marvellous manifestation. 
 
12 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 There is a mystery of correspondence between 
 Christ and the Paraclete. Possibly that upper cham- 
 ber was but the cradle of the Spirit's revelation : other 
 and higher unfoldings and unveilings of His grace 
 and glory are yet to follow; more signal triumphs 
 over Satan; louder and clearer voices and visions of 
 God; new raptures and radiances when devout souls, 
 transfigured in His presence, are changed from glory 
 to glory by the Lord the Spirit, as they with open 
 face behold His supernal beauty. That coming of 
 the Spirit may have been, like the blush of the " con- 
 scious water" at Cana, only the beginning of mira- 
 cles, wherein He showed forth His glory, a type and 
 prophecy of things to come. This question is not 
 one of idle curiosity, but of practical value; and is 
 reverently raised at the vestibule of this theme, be- 
 cause upon our answer all that follows is dependent. 
 
 It has been commonly assumed, without Scriptural 
 warrant, that on the day of Pentecost the Spirit was, 
 once for all, poured out, thenceforth to dwell in the 
 individual believer, and especially in the collective 
 body of believers — the Church; and some hold that 
 to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit, either upon 
 saints or sinners, implies absurdity and contradiction, 
 since He is already bestowed upon and abiding in 
 the Church. 
 
 To this position exception may certainly be taken. 
 First of all, there is in the way an exegetical diffi- 
 culty. The inspired Scriptures are marked by an 
 exactness in the use of words which shows that the 
 Spirit guided in language as well as in thought. When 
 Peter quotes that unique prediction of Joel, '* I will 
 pour out of my Spirit upon all flesJi,'" his words are 
 carefully chosen. He does not say : * ' Now is fulfilled 
 that which was foretold by Joel;" but, ^^ this is that 
 which was spoken by the prophet Joel." 
 
 Precision is one mark of perfection, and to perfec- 
 tion nothing is trivial. Matthew's uniform phrase, 
 when he refers to the coincidences and convergences 
 
THE NEW PENTECOSTS. 13 
 
 of prophecy and history is, *'then was fulfilled," or 
 **so that it was fulfilled which was spoken by the 
 prophet" — often naming the prophet. But, when 
 referring to Christ's residence in Nazareth, he, for 
 the first and only time uses the plural — " that it might 
 be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets: He 
 shall be called a Nazarene;" because while no single 
 prediction was thus accomplished, the trend of many 
 prophecies is in this direction. So in the Gospel 
 according to John, it is very noticeable with what 
 accuracy of precision two prophecies are referred to 
 in connected verses, yet in different terms. Christ's 
 legs were not broken, but His side was pierced ; and 
 it is added, as to the former fact, *' that the Scripture 
 should be fulfilled^ a bone of Him shall not be 
 broken;" but, as to the latter, '* and again another 
 Scripture saith, they shall look on Him whom they 
 pierced." In this latter case the prediction is yet to 
 be fulfilled,* and hence while the language of pre- 
 diction is applied to the event by way of correspond- 
 ence, how carefully is the record guarded so as not 
 to exclude its true fulfilment hereafter. 
 
 Peter might naturally have said, at Pentecost, ''Now 
 is fulfilled that which was spoken;" but Joel's predic- 
 tion was not then fulfilled. The " great and terrible 
 day of the Lord " is yet to come, and the wonders in 
 heaven above and in the earth beneath have yet to 
 be wrought. And another and greater effusion — the 
 universal outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh — is 
 in the future. Joel's prophecy, though not fulfilled, 
 furnished the true philosophy of Pentecost, explain- 
 ing what was then seen and heard. Spectators said, 
 *' these men are full of new wine." Peter answered, 
 that this was not spirituous intoxication but spiritual 
 exhilaration ; they were not drunk with wine wherein 
 is excess, but were filled with the Spirit, the new 
 wine from heaven's vineyards. Careful comparison 
 of the second chapters of Joel and of the Acts must 
 
 * Comp. Revelation i, 7. 
 
14 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 convince us that the cup of prediction has not yet 
 been full to the brim, and waits for a more copious 
 outpouring. Pentecost was the summer shower after 
 long drought ; the final outpouring will make springs 
 gush forth and turn the desert into a garden, and a 
 thousand rills, singing their song, shall blend in 
 rivers of grace that roll like a liquid anthem to the 
 sea. 
 
 There is also a grammatical reason for not limiting 
 to the original Pentecost the Spirit's outpourings. 
 Different prepositions are used to express the rela- 
 tions of the Spirit to the believer. A sharp line 
 seems drawn between '' in " or " within," and '' on " 
 or ''upon." When the work of the Spirit in regen- 
 erating, renewing, sanctifying, is referred to, "in" 
 and " within " represent His permanent influence and 
 abiding presence : for character must be perpetual. 
 But when Plis office in qualifying for service by 
 special enduement is referred to, " on " and "upon " 
 are the prepositions commonly used to express that 
 endowment or enduement which is not permanent 
 but is for the period of such service. 
 
 This distinction is more than grammatical: it is 
 philosophical. A renewed heart must neither lose its 
 renewal nor let go its Renewer. But the anointed 
 tongue needs its special unction only while it is used 
 in v/itness for Christ. Charles G. Finney held that a 
 true servant of God might have more than one en- 
 duement, and that he who, even in spiritual self-cul- 
 ture, forgets his call to service, may forfeit his en- 
 duement. It is possible to be so absorbed in the 
 permanent ministry of the indwelling Spirit as to 
 overlook the occasional ministry of the enduing Spirit. 
 
 Even if it be conceded that, on the day of out- 
 pouring, the Spirit was once for all given in saving 
 and sanctifying power, it does not follow that He 
 does not, from time to time, come anew to saints in 
 gifts of power for witnessing and working. Some 
 careful Bible students regard Pentecost as a baptism 
 
THE NE W PEN TE CO STS. 15 
 
 wherein the Spirit was outpoured as into a vast reser- 
 voir, and would now urge disciples to ask not for a 
 baptism of the Spirit, but to be Ji//cd with the Spirit, 
 like empty vessels dipped into this Divine fulness. 
 
 But our contention is not for a form of statement. 
 The one practical question is, w^hether we are in 
 faith and by prayer to seek for new effusions of power 
 from on High, for tongues of fire to make our witness 
 a Divine flame. Here lies the hope of world-wide 
 missions. Without some new unction from the 
 Spirit, we shall never feel that burning fire shut up in 
 our bones which compels us to witness; nor will our 
 witness without that be a power. If that lost art 
 of Apostolic days may be recovered to the Church, it 
 were worth while to learn it in the severe school of 
 fasting and prayer. A Church half asleep, a world 
 wholly dead, wait for such a renaissance. 
 
 Yet a third argument is the historical. As a fact 
 Pentecost was not the last, but only the first out- 
 pouring. It actually opened a series of such mani- 
 festations. This book of the Acts records repeated 
 wonders similar in kind if not in degree. 
 
 When Philip preached in Samaria, and the rumour 
 of his success reached Jerusalem, Peter and John 
 were sent thither by the Apostles; and when they 
 came down they prayed for the Samaritan converts 
 that " they might receive the Holy Ghost; for as yet 
 He was fallen upon none of them." And they also 
 received the Spirit, similar signs following as at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Again, at Cesarea, when Peter first preached to a 
 representative Roman audience, as he began to 
 speak the Holy Spirit fell on them, and, as he ex- 
 pressly adds, ''as on us at the beginning." Here, 
 once more, were the signs of the first Pentecost 
 wrought, repeated even in the gift of tongues. The 
 gathering of the kinsmen, friends and retainers of 
 the Centurion in the palace of the Caesars is believed 
 to have exceeded in number the original hundred 
 
16 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and twenty at Jerusalem; certainly the results were 
 proportionately larger, for the Holy Spirit fell on all 
 those that heard the word, not only in advance of 
 baptism but, apparently, of believing also. And here 
 possibly we have a forecast of the final outpouring 
 upon all flcsJi, 
 
 Yet again, at Ephesus, among the Greeks, Paul 
 found certain disciples, probably adherents of Apollos, 
 w^ho, like him, had not got beyond John's preliminary 
 baptism of repentance ; and when Paul laid hands on 
 them, the Holy Spirit came upon them also, and 
 they spake with tongues and prophesied. 
 
 Thus, within the bounds of this book and the limits 
 of one generation, three instances are on record sub- 
 sequent to the day of Pentecost, when in each case, 
 with language most explicit, the Spirit is said to have 
 ''come upon," '' fallen upon," been ''received," by 
 disciples. If within forty years there were four dis- 
 tinct and separate outpourings in the Apostolic age, 
 who is competent to say that in the centuries succeed- 
 ing there have been no other Pentecostal effusions, 
 and some of them scarcely less wonderful in some re- 
 spects and aspects than that earliest enduement? 
 May there not be modern saints upon whom the Spirit 
 has not yet fallen in the Pentecostal sense, but would 
 come in power in answer to believing prayer ? 
 
 Recent history argues with the resistless logic of 
 events that Pentecostal wonders may be repeated. 
 This modern missionary century has been made both 
 lustrous and illustrious by outpourings of the Spirit, in 
 some respects surpassing any recorded in Apostolic 
 days. Witness the story of Tahiti and all Western 
 Polynesia; of the Hawaiian, Marquesan, Micronesian 
 groups ; of New Zealand, Madagascar and the Fiji 
 Islands; of Nanumaga under Thomas Powell; of 
 Sierra Leone under William Johnson; of the missions 
 in the valley of the Nile, in Zululand, and on the 
 Gaboon River; in Banza Manteke under Henry Rich- 
 ards, and Basutoland under Dr. Moffat. Read the me- 
 
THE NEW FENTE COSTS. 17 
 
 moirs of Dr. Grant and Fidelia Fiske in Oroomiah; of 
 Mackay in Uganda and his namesake in Formosa. Fol- 
 low the work of Judson in Burma, of Boardman 
 among the Karens ; of Cyrus Wheeler on the Euphra- 
 tes, of Clough and Jewett at Ongole, of William Dun- 
 can in his Metlakahtla and Joseph Neesima in his 
 Doshisha. What are these, and hundreds more that 
 might be cited, but instances of mighty outpourings, 
 in all essentials reproducing Pentecostal signs and 
 wonders, often on a scale of majesty and magnificence 
 scarcely paralleled. 
 
 If this preliminary question seem to have undue 
 heed given to it, it is for a purpose. Our supreme 
 aim is to offset the discouraging lack and need of 
 spiritual life and power by the encouraging fact that 
 from time to time, and in many cases, that original 
 blessing of Pentecost has in its main features been 
 repeated. The history of missions with uplifted 
 finger points to the glowing and glorious records on 
 her shining scroll, and solemnly attests the fact that, 
 wherever the most consecrated witnesses have gone 
 faithfully preaching the gospel, there God has exhib- 
 ited His power and bestowed His new Pentecosts. 
 
 These divine marvels have been wrought especially 
 in the following forms : 
 
 First, in the manifest calling and anointing of special 
 messengers to bear the tidings. 
 
 Secondly, in the providential removal of the natural 
 barriers of language, furnishing, for the rapid acquisi- 
 tion of strange tongues, facilities which were unknown 
 in ancient times. 
 
 Thirdly, in the preparation for the universal diffu- 
 sion of the gospel message, through numerous transla- 
 tions of the word of God and Christian literature. 
 
 Fourthly, in the sudden and strange subduing even 
 of hostile communities and rulers, when human influ- 
 ences were wholly inadequate. 
 
 Fifthly, in marked and multiplied cases of conver- 
 sion and the transformation of whole peoples. 
 
18 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Pentecost may have been repeated in modern times 
 without reproducing its exact original features. Sim- 
 ilar effects do not depend on uniform causes, nor do 
 similar causes always produce uniform effects. Facts 
 assume various forms, and are independent of them. 
 God does not waste power, nor use the supernatural 
 where the natural suffices. When human hands may 
 as well take away the stone, He does not bid it move 
 without hands or send angels to roll it away. The 
 great Economist of the Universe works no needless 
 miracles. He may choose not to bestow the gift of 
 tongues, while He so stimulates philological re- 
 search as that a hundred languages hitherto without 
 written form have their alphabet and grammar, lexi- 
 con and literature ; and the word of God is without a 
 ■miracle both preached and translated in over three 
 hundred vernaculars. In our day, within a space of 
 time in which Paul could scarcely have found his way 
 to strange peoples, our missionaries learn to preach in 
 their tongues, and then teach them to read and write 
 their own language and present them with the word 
 of God as the first printed book in their own speech. 
 So multiplied and marvellous are the facilities for the 
 rapid acquisition of the great tongues of mankind 
 that Bengali, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Sanskrit, 
 may be learned in the Universities of England and 
 America. This is something more than a triumph 
 of human scholarship ; it belongs to the Theology of 
 Inventions, and is part of God's wonder workings. 
 In these and many other ways He who bestowed mi- 
 raculous blessing at the Pentecost in Jerusalem is giv- 
 ing in His own unique fashion New Pentecosts of 
 privilege and power to a witnessing Church. 
 
III. 
 
 THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 
 
 The work of a master hand is seen in the mutual 
 fitness of all its parts. There are a few phrases 
 which God meant should be the watchwords of mis- 
 sions. They are trumpet tongued, they are fit sig- 
 nals for advance, whose clarion call should peal all 
 along the lines; and when heard by obedient souls, 
 they have an electrifying power to arouse to action. 
 Among them this is worthy to ring out like the blast 
 of Gabriel's trump: 
 
 The Fulness and Fitness of Times, 
 
 Here is the hiding of a divine idea. In Abra- 
 ham's day, judgment waited, because the iniquity 
 of the Amorites was not yet full. The vividness of 
 the metaphor is startling. We see the cup slowly 
 filling, and then running over with the blood-red 
 wine of sin. Judgment calmly waits until the scarlet 
 flood reaches the brim and overflows the iron chalice, 
 and then He who is patient because He is eternal, 
 empties the phial of His righteous wrath, and war, 
 pestilence, famine, earthquake, pour their woes upon 
 the earth. So oftentimes in human history, retribu- 
 tion waited for the fit and full season of judgment. 
 
 For blessing, as well as cursing, there is a fitness 
 and fulness of timss. The advent of Messiah 
 waited till the world was made ready, and the fit 
 and full time had come for Christ to be born. The 
 obelisks of prophecy had for hundreds of years stood 
 unread, waiting for the Champollion of history to 
 interpret their hieroglyphs, and give meaning to 
 their mysteries. All false faiths, weighed in the bal- 
 ances, had been found wanting. Persian civilization 
 with its sun adoration, Greek civilization with its 
 wisdom and art, Roman civilization with its law 
 
20 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and valor, Indian civilization with its philosophy 
 of contemplation, Chinese civilization with its ances- 
 tral worship — all these had utterly and confessedly 
 failed to arrest decay; and even Judaism was but a 
 skeleton-leaf of forms, whence the sap of piety had 
 fled. There was a felt need of some great religious 
 reform. 
 
 There was preparation positive as well as nega- 
 tive. Roman roads had run a highway from the 
 golden mile-stone in the Forum to the ends of the 
 earth ; and the Greek dialect had even in Syria forged 
 swift wheels for the Gospel chariot to speed along 
 the highway. Universal peace reigned, and war no 
 longer set nations at variance, locking their gates 
 and shutting their ports. The common and con- 
 scious want of a more satisfying faith was the 
 prophecy of a new teacher and deliverer; and in 
 every land there were seers who watched for the star 
 that heralded the advent of "The Desire of All 
 Nations." 
 
 Just at this time, the first and only point in the 
 annals of the race where such converging lines met, 
 while so many facts hinted one grand issue, and so 
 many voices blended in one loud appeal, a virgin of 
 Bethlehem felt in her womb the quickening of the 
 Holy Spirit, and the greatest birth of the ages gave 
 to man Jesus, the world's Saviour. When the 
 fulness of time was come God sent forth His Son, to 
 bring fulfilment to prediction and redemption to 
 humanity. The advent of the long-promised seed of 
 the woman had awaited its full hour. Both His 
 cradle and His cross were ready; the believer and 
 the betrayer were both at hand. Never before, as 
 never since, had God's clock of the ages struck an 
 hour so awfully meet for the crisis of history. 
 
 Here was another of what Dr. Croly, half a century 
 ago, called "the birth hours" of the race. Man's 
 advent was the first; the advent of Christ, another; 
 and the period of the great Reformation was another. 
 
THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 21 
 
 That religious revolution whose leaders were John 
 de Wyclif and John Bunyan in England, John Knox 
 in Scotland, John Huss in Bohemia, John Calvin in 
 Switzerland, Luther in Germany, Savonarola in 
 Italy, was, if not a new birth hour, at least a resur- 
 rection morn, to the long-buried Apostolic faith. 
 After a thousand years in the sepulchre of the dark 
 ages, rolling away the stone of sacerdotalism, burst- 
 ing the cerements of formalism and traditionalism, 
 breaking the scarlet seal of Papal infallibility and 
 inviolability, behold, coming forth into new life, the 
 imperial truth of justification by faith ! 
 
 When, one hundred years ago, the hand of 
 William Carey rung out from the belfry of the ages, 
 the signal for a new crusade of missions, a fourth birth 
 hour of history struck; and even yet we are but half 
 awake to the full significance of this new signal. It 
 may be well for us to stop and ask how we are to 
 recognize God's plan in our generation, and fall into 
 line with His majestic march — in other words, what 
 are the signs that God's fitness and fulness of times 
 has come? 
 
 Our Lord rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees 
 when they demanded a sign from heaven, because 
 they were keener observers and safer interpreters of 
 the weather signals than of the signs of the times. 
 In the red and glowing sky of sunset, in the lurid 
 and lowering sky of sunrise, they saw the forecast of 
 the fair or foul day succeeding; but to God's signals 
 that flame and flash on the prophetic and historic 
 horizon, they were blind. 
 
 Behind this rebuke hides an indirect hint that to the 
 devout watcher history becomes prophecy. The 
 morning forecasts the evening; and to-day, to- 
 morrow. God gives us premonitory and preparatory 
 signs of His providential purpose, and we should be 
 on the alert to detect them. 
 
 The undevout historian is mad. Only the fool 
 says in his heart there is no God in history. Of the 
 
22 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 world of events as of the world of matter, it is true 
 that ''every house is builded by some builder; and 
 He who built all is God." History is not a heap of 
 ''''disjecta membra^'' but an articulated body, made 
 upon a plan, and with joints and bands compacted. 
 In God's book all coming events were written, when 
 as yet there was none of them, in continuance to be 
 fashioned as His eternal purpose should be wrought 
 into form. Weather forecasts may fail, but God's 
 signs and signals are sure. 
 
 Because the present, rightly read, predicts the 
 future, because God's fit, full time gives prophetic 
 and providential indications of its approach, of what 
 immense importance is it for us to get a proper point 
 from which to view the horizon, and then to keep 
 up our watch ! The golden chalice which is filling is 
 God's purpose; its flood is man's opportunity. And 
 whenever God's full time comes, the angel whose 
 stride spans sea and land declares: " There shall no 
 longer be delay !" Then, or never, we fall into line 
 with God's movement. His times and tides wait for 
 no man. Swiftly His plan sweeps on to its goal, 
 leaving behind the sluggard and the idler. Ye 
 watchers, be ready, and when the full hour is come 
 for the work and war of the ages, stand in your lot 
 and be not found faithless ! 
 
 How then are we to read God's signals, and what are 
 the signs on our horizon? 
 
 To him who, in the study of current events would 
 read the immediate future, God gives two guides: 
 inspired prophecy and converging providence. When 
 the two combine, practical certainty results; for 
 when prediction nears fulfilment, and providential 
 events converge toward the same centre, the true seer 
 finds clear foretokens of what is at hand. 
 
 Let us apply these criteria to the great birth 
 hours already noted. Christ's Incarnation did not 
 surprise such devout seers as Simeon and Anna. 
 They knew that the seventy heptades of years which 
 
THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 23 
 
 were to elapse before the coming of Messiah the 
 Prince, were about complete, and as students of the 
 prophetic word, they were on the watch-tow^er look- 
 ing toward Bethlehem. The universal exhaustion of 
 man's resources, the wide prevalence of peace, the 
 common expectation of a coming Deliverer, were 
 fingers all pointing in the same direction, and so 
 prophecy and providence confirmed each other's wit- 
 ness to the nearness of the Advent of Immanuel ; and 
 so that ''just and devout man" who was "waiting 
 for the consolation of Israel " was not found stagger- 
 ing in unbelief when the infant Jesus was laid in his 
 arms; and that aged prophetess who came into the 
 temple at that same instant, was prepared both to 
 accept the Messiah in His swaddling clothes, and 
 speak of Him to others who " looked for redemption, 
 in Jerusalem." To God's watchers, like them, the 
 Advent was the crown of expectation and anticipa- 
 tion. 
 
 The Reformation era came not without horizon 
 signals. Long before, in parables, vivid as panoramic 
 pictures, Christ had hinted the history and ' ' mystery 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven," the sowing of the seed 
 and the growing of the plant ; the tares of hypocrisy 
 and the leaven of heresy; the period of apparent 
 decay, when the precious treasure was buried in the 
 field or sunk in the sea, to be dug up and dived after. 
 Such figures seem meant to forecast the accession of 
 Constantine, with the inroads of formalism, secular- 
 ism and scepticism, and the thousand years of night- 
 shade when evangelical truth was buried beneath 
 the rubbish of forms and falsehood. The next two 
 scenes in this parabolic series hint the finding of the 
 hid treasure and the recovery of the priceless 
 pearl. 
 
 But if the forecast of prophecy was dim, converg- 
 ing providences lit up the horizon with clearer rays 
 that told of a new dawn after the dark ages. The 
 marshalling of events was signally significant. In 
 
24 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the middle of the fifteenth century the fall of Con- 
 stantinople had started the revival of learning. 
 Greek scholars, dispersed over Europe with their 
 manuscripts of the New Testament, opened the door 
 and paved the way for the translation of the Word 
 into other tongues and its wide dissemination among 
 the people. In the last decade of that century, a 
 new route to the Indies Hnked Protestant Britain 
 with the heart of Oriental heathenism; also a new 
 world was unveiled toward the sunset. This was like- 
 wise the period of the fall of feudalism, and of the 
 assertion of individualism with its doctrine of human 
 rights and personal liberty. 
 
 The theology of inventions found grand illustra- 
 tion. The reformation in philosophy ushered in a revo- 
 lution in science. The mariner's compass then first 
 coming into common use, began to act as a pilot over 
 unknown seas. The printing-press in 1450 issued its 
 first book, and that, a Latin Bible. The steam en- 
 gine, too, between the meridian hours of that cen- 
 tury and the next, supplied man with a new motive 
 power. And so, just as Luther's hammer was heard 
 nailing his theses to *' All Saints'" door, God was 
 loudly calling all saints to rally about the reformed 
 standard, give the Bible to the common folk, and 
 vindicate their right to read and interpret it for them- 
 selves; and to go on swift keels and wheels to the 
 very bounds of the globe with the message of the 
 Reformed Faith. 
 
 We take one more illustration of the signs of the 
 times, nearer to our day and pertinent to our duty. 
 
 That any of God's watchers could misread the signs 
 of the times, in William Carey's day, is to us now a 
 marvel. In all prophecy an age of world-wide evangel- 
 ism is foretold ; and in that prophetic panorama in 
 the thirteenth of Matthew, the recovery of the 
 treasure and the pearl is followed by the casting of 
 the drag-net into the sea, and by great hauls of fish. 
 All prediction treads toward one goal. Abram had 
 
THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 25 
 
 the promise of a blessing to come through him to 
 *' all the families of the earth;" and all down the 
 ages, with voices growing ever louder and clearer, 
 prophets had told of a day of world-wide missions. 
 Christ plainly taught that before the end of the age 
 the Gospel must first be preached as a witness among 
 all nations. 
 
 Many fingers pointed to the close of the last cen- 
 tury as God's time for the new era of missions. 
 While the former half of the century witnessed an 
 awful decline which threatened complete apostasy, 
 the latter half was the most remarkable era of re- 
 vived piety and evangelistic preaching since the 
 days of Paul. Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and 
 Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Walker of Truro 
 and Fletcher of Madeley, William Grimshaw and Wil- 
 liam Romaine, Daniel Rowlands and Rowland Hill, 
 John Berridge and Henry Venn, James Hervey and 
 Augustus Toplady, and others like-minded, began as 
 the evangelists of a new era to stir a half dead 
 Church to proclaim the Gospel to the poor and out- 
 cast classes. The two Northamptons answered to 
 each other across the sea, and Carey, whose cobbler's 
 bench was a watch-tower, saw that for missions to 
 the heathen God's fit and full time was come. For 
 ten years he bore the brunt of sneer and taunt, and 
 the worse hostility of inertia and indifference; felt 
 the keen sting of Sydney Smith's wit and the sharp 
 rebuke of John Ryland's h3"per-calvinism. But when 
 God lets loose a thinker and a seer — when a saint gets on 
 his knees watching the dawn, and sees God's signals 
 flashing — floods and flames cannot stay his progress. 
 Between the Scylla of apathy and the Charybdis of 
 antipathy, Carey boldly steered for India. While 
 others slept he had been on the watch. He had seen 
 God's signs and heard God's step, and he dared not 
 falter or delay; he must move, though he moved 
 alone. 
 
26 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Another birth hour of history has now come, and 
 blessed are the sages who see the star that guides to 
 the cradle of the new age of missions. Even yet, 
 not every eye sees the vision of God or catches its 
 full meaning. One of the wisest thinkers of the age 
 says, that ' ' nothing but deep initiation into the 
 Spirit of the Bible can enable us to form the faintest 
 idea as to what historical events belong most to the 
 divine plan, or have most relation to the Kingdom of 
 the Eternities." If there be any defect in these 
 words, it IS in lack, not excess, of emphasis. 
 
 There was One who was ' in the world, and the 
 world was made by Him and the world knew Him 
 not. He came to His own possessions and His own 
 people received Him not. This is the one parable 
 and paradox of all ages. There is One who is in his- 
 tory, and all history is His curious handiwork, and 
 yet even historians recognize Him not. He comes 
 to the age which is of His own framing and moves 
 amid events which unfold His own eternal plan, and 
 yet His own people too often receive Him not. But 
 to as many as receive Him, recognize His majestic 
 presence and beneficent providence, to them He 
 gives authority to become co-workers with God, 
 sharers in the glory of divine achievement. 
 
 The conviction grows upon us that the birth hour, 
 now fully come, is in some aspects the most im- 
 portant crisis of all history. It marks the nativity of 
 twin offspring. Time has brought forth two giants: 
 Opportunity and Responsibility. And as might be 
 expected, never before has there been such combina- 
 tion and concentration of world-wide signals. The 
 whole horizon is aflame with aurora borealis lights — 
 fingers of fire which reach toward the zenith as if to 
 point man's gaze upward to God. Our risk is not so 
 much that we shall not see these signs, as that we 
 shall not feel their force and read their lesson. 
 Marvels are so common that they cease to be start- 
 ling. The blare of God's trumpets dulls our ears by 
 
THE NEW TIMES AND SEASONS. 27 
 
 its peal, and the flare and glare of His flash-lights 
 dims our eyes by its glory. 
 
 This is no exaggeration of rhetoric or outburst of 
 enthusiasm. The half of the wonders of this age 
 have never been told, and their full meaning yet 
 awaits an interpreter. Let any devout student of 
 history, any sagacious seer of God who reads the 
 signs of the times, tell us what is the forecast of the 
 future. Behind the developments of our day is a 
 divine directing power. A man's hand writes on the 
 wall ; but the writing is a decree of God, telling of 
 world powers and of false faiths, weighed in the bal- 
 ances and found wanting; and of a Conqueror about 
 to receive the Kingdom which human monarchs are 
 unworthy to administer. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE NEW OPEN DOORS. 
 
 That word Opportunity is a pictorial word. It sug- 
 gests a ship, before the port, just sailing into har- 
 bour after the fight with wind and wave. True 
 opportunity is always God-given: ** Behold I have 
 set before thee an open door, and no man can 
 shut it." But doors unentered do not remain 
 open, and if God once shuts no man can open, 
 and we may knock in vain. Unused opportunity 
 never returns: it is forfeited forever. One fact is 
 plain: open doors now challenge us to enter every 
 land. Before us stands the opportunity of the ages. 
 The rapid and sudden multiplication and accumula- 
 tion of these openings compel us to wonder and 
 adore, for He who only doeth wondrous things is at 
 work, and so the iron gates open of their own ac- 
 cord before His messengers and heralds. 
 
 A few familiar facts, which are leaders of a vast 
 host, show that God is on the march, and summon- 
 ing His Church to follow. Brevity compels classifi- 
 cation : we must look at facts only in groups. And 
 this age of wonders is but one century beyond that 
 of Carey; yet within one hundred years what was 
 local and exceptional has become cosmopolitan and 
 universal. With the swift touch of God, He has 
 opened the world, over which the Cobbler of Hackle- 
 ton sighed, to the Gospel which he loved, and given 
 to the Church the chance to occupy it for Christ. 
 
 Keeping in mind that our theme is missions, we 
 select seven of the remarkable features of our own 
 age, all of which are gigantic in character and cos- 
 mopolitan in extent, and which constitute in our 
 day the seven Avonders of the world. 
 
 I. World-wide Exploration. 
 
 If we are to preach the Gospel to every creature 
 
 28 
 
THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 29 
 
 we must first go into all the world, and this has not 
 been possible to any previous age as it is to ours, for all 
 the world has not hitherto been accessible or even 
 known. At last the trackless pathways of the ocean 
 have been crossed and the penetraha of all the con- 
 tinents reached. Land and sea yield up the secrets 
 of six thousand years. Navigation and exploration 
 have been so thorough that we feel sure that no con- 
 tinent is unveiled, nor even one island undiscovered. 
 The frozen poles have been forced to unbar the gates 
 of their ice castles and the flag of the triumphant ex- 
 plorer is unfurled on their crystal battlements. For 
 the first time since the world began man knows his 
 own habitation and domain. 
 
 All this is full of meaning. When God set Canaan 
 before His people. His word was: *' Everyplace that 
 the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I 
 given unto you." That law is general. Every land 
 of promise waits for possession, and possession hangs 
 on appropriation. The first condition of a world's 
 evangelization is its exploration; and, because the 
 prows of our ships, ploughing furrows in every sea, 
 have made the vast oceans harvest-fields of commerce ; 
 because the dauntless explorer has pierced Asiatic 
 jungles and African forests, traced the rivers to their 
 source, and scaled the mountains to their brow; be- 
 cause the exclusion and seclusion of hermit nations 
 has been invaded and the veil rent in twain before 
 their closely-guarded fanes and shrines; because the 
 public sentiment of mankind forbids locked gates 
 and sealed ports, the way is open as never before for 
 the Gospel chariot. 
 
 2. World-wide Comiminication. 
 
 This naturally follows, but not of necessity, for 
 doors, wrested or wrenched open by sheer force, are 
 closed almost as soon as opened. In this case, how- 
 ever, the iron bars of resistance have been broken 
 down, and the two-leaved gates have yielded to the 
 gentler touch of diplomacy as well as to the harsher 
 
30 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 hand of war, — to the still small voice of commerce as 
 well as the louder threat of compulsion. Bonds of 
 union have been braided out of mutual treaties, and 
 barriers that stood firm for ages have been razed to 
 the ground, or fallen like Jericho's walls without a 
 blow. 
 
 Facilities for mutual contact and communication 
 are so multiplied and marvellous that we scarcely 
 recognize our own world. Within the century steam- 
 ships have diminished distance, by shortening time 
 to less than one-tenth of the period required for ocean 
 voyages. Steam carriages cross the continents so 
 swiftly that the limited express needs but a contin- 
 uous track to run round the globe in three weeks; 
 and the black-horse not only climbs the steep moun- 
 tain side but bores his way through its rocky heart, 
 bridges river chasms, tramps down thickest forests, 
 and dares alike Sahara sands and Siberian snows. 
 The postal union bears letters and papers from the 
 great centres to the remotest outskirts of the earth in 
 six weeks; and the telegraph wire and ocean cable 
 yoke God's lightning to human thought, flash news 
 to the ends of the globe ; and, threading the vast body 
 politic with its mysterious system of sensor and 
 motor nerves, electricity makes the whole world 
 thrill with instantaneous intelligence. 
 
 Now, at last, there are no distant lands, no foreign 
 peoples; the whole world is one neighborhood; those 
 who were afar off are brought nigh. Once, to love 
 one's neighbour meant to love him who lived next 
 door: but now everybody lives next door — and by 
 that law we must love the race of man. Commu- 
 nication such as this, making possible a contact so 
 constant, so sympathetic, so universal, never entered 
 into the wildest dreams of the ancients, and to our 
 grandfathers would have seemed incredible. Had 
 Carey foreseen and foretold what one century has 
 made real, his prediction would have ranked him 
 among madmen. The tales of the Arabian Nights 
 
THE NEW OPEN DOORS. 31 
 
 are outdone in extravagance by actual facts. God has, 
 through modern science, given to man the magic wand, 
 the magic lamp. The genius of nature, with all his 
 mighty forces waits to do our bidding, helping us to 
 carry out the last command of our Lord. 
 
 3. World-wide Civilization. 
 
 This comprehensive term includes all that builds 
 mankind into a compact state or civil society, — intelli- 
 gence and industry, enterprise and education, man- 
 ners and morals. 
 
 Barbarism is the burglar of history; its deeds of 
 wrong, robbery, violence, are of the night, and can- 
 not abide the day which dawns when civilization sheds 
 its light. In the flush of the morning, blushing for 
 shame, it seeks the cover of darkness. Such crimes 
 against God and man as infanticide and cannibalism, 
 such orgies of lust and blood as the rites of Jugger- 
 nath and the Meriah groves; such cruelties as those 
 of the torture rack and suttee pyre, are things of the 
 past. 
 
 Education is a revolutionist, overturning intellec- 
 tual errors and superstitious faith. Cuvier knew too 
 much to fear the ghost with horns and hoofs that 
 came to his bed and growled out, '' I will eat you! " 
 He coolly surveyed the sheeted form, and said to him- 
 self, "Horns and hoofs! Humph! Graminivorous, 
 not carnivorous ! that beast feeds on grass and grain, 
 and won't eat me. " And so the comparative anatomist 
 went to sleep. Knowledge is power. It destroys 
 even where it does not construct. The Hindu cannot 
 study astronomy and geology without seeing his 
 absurd cosmogony fall in ruins; yet that cosmogony 
 is so built into his religious system that the two fall 
 together, and he loses faith in the Vedas. The Chinese 
 study geography and history, and learn that the Mid- 
 dle Kingdom must reconstruct its map of the world 
 and its notions of the race of man ; for the Celestial Em- 
 pire is but one among many great nations, and Confu- 
 cius but one among many great teachers. The Siamese 
 
32 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 cannot look into medical science without the uproot- 
 ing of hoary superstitions; nor the degraded Hotten- 
 tot learn common facts about earth, air and water, 
 without finding that the witches he fears are not 
 human beings nor demons, but miasma and malaria, 
 to be exorcised by scientific drainage and sanitary 
 conditions. 
 
 Civilization is in our day the forerunner of missions, 
 not only in casting up a highway and gathering out 
 the stones, but in putting into the hands of Christian 
 and Protestant peoples the balance of power. That 
 those nations where the most enlightened form of 
 Protestant Christianity prevails hold the sceptre that 
 sways the world, there is no doubt. Their sover- 
 eignty is a conceded fact. The pillars of the world's 
 throne are wrought not of brute force but of brain 
 force; the granite columns of character and culture, 
 intelligence and integrity. Great Britain and the 
 United States, the giant empire of the east and the 
 great republic of the west, joined by Prussia, the Pro- 
 testant kingdom of the continent of Europe, wield 
 jointly an influence which Papal, Pagan and Moslem 
 powers, combined, could not resist. Such a fact bears 
 the stamp and seal of God's design, and its bearing 
 on world-wide missions cannot be measured. 
 
 4. World-wide Assiviilation, 
 
 Communication promotes actual contact and com- 
 munion. The intercourse of travel and the inter- 
 change of trade have begotten new relations and 
 suggest a new science which Lieber calls Catallactics — 
 the exchange of thoughts. There has come to be a 
 new trade in ideas, a commerce of sentiments. 
 Hermit nations emerge from their cell and shell. 
 From the sunrise kingdom young Japanese pour into 
 western channels to absorb the secrets of occidental 
 progress, and in their reflow, bear back the new 
 ideas they have acquired. China sends her younger 
 statesmen to study at the centres of Christendom 
 the problems of human progress, and bring back 
 
THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 33 
 
 their solution. The gods of the Celestial Empire 
 actually ask questions of the foreign devils! Con- 
 fucius, the Chinese Pope, no longer wears the tiara 
 of infallibility. He who shook his own hand now 
 shakes ours, respects the head that wears no queue, 
 and the feet that are shod with elastic hide instead of 
 unbending wood. 
 
 The barriers between peoples are down. Barriers 
 of language once more impassable than mountains or 
 oceans are silently crumbling. In Yokohama and 
 Hong Kong, Cairo and Capetown, Calcutta and Con- 
 stantinople, English is spoken: it is becoming the 
 court-language of the world. Thousands in India 
 and Japan flock to hear men like Julius Seelye and 
 Joseph Cook, who use only their own mother 
 tongue, and in some of the capitals of the Orient a 
 translator or interpreter is becoming so far un- 
 necessary. 
 
 Barriers of mutual misunderstanding and suspicion 
 are falling. Acquaintance dissipates false impres- 
 sions. The "foreign devils" are found to be 
 brothers; there is no evil fascination in their eye, 
 no curse in their speech, no fatality in their touch. 
 Trust takes the place of distrust, and love the place 
 of hate. 
 
 The era of universal peace seems to be at hand. 
 Men are learning the divine lesson that war is based 
 not only on a bad principle, but a bad policy, and 
 that O 'Council was not far wrong in stoutly main- 
 taining that "no social revolution is worth one drop 
 of human blood." Generous forbearance, mutual 
 concession, fraternal conference and impartial arbi- 
 tration, may settle any controversy without striking 
 a blow. War is a serpent, with a crush in its coils, a 
 fang in its jaws, and a sting in its tail. Its venom 
 heats the blood for generations. France has never 
 forgotten nor forgiven Waterloo, and the memory 
 of conflicts more remote than the Crimean War, the 
 Battle of Plassey, or even the fall of Constantinople, 
 
34 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 rankles still; for though men die, nations survive. 
 Waste of treasure and of life are bad, but waste of 
 good feeling and kindly relations is worse. 
 
 God sits at His loom. With many shuttles He 
 weaves into one fabric the threads of national life; 
 and in the woof and warp the blood-red threads are 
 getting scarce. Peaceful compacts guard the rights 
 and promote the concord of men. Trade and travel 
 bring men together, and they come to know each 
 other, and to feel that war must be no more. In 
 1884, in Berlin, fourteen nations sent representatives 
 to the conference that gave a constitution to the 
 Congo Free State. That conference marks perhaps 
 the first parliament of man and forecasts the federa- 
 tion of the world; for Protestant, Catholic, Greek 
 and even Mohammedan communities had delegates 
 there. The various congresses and conferences con- 
 nected with the Columbian Exposition would have 
 been impossible half a century ago ; so marked was 
 their testimony to the assimilation going on among 
 men, that there seems risk of losing sight even of 
 some vital distinctions. 
 
 5. World-wide Emancipation, 
 
 This is another marvel of this age. From the fall 
 of man until now, human slavery has been the fatal 
 foe of the best good of the race ; equally bad for 
 master and slave. The nightingale will not sing in 
 a cage until its eyes are put out. The light of man's 
 intelligence must be quenched, the eyes of his intel- 
 lect be blinded, before he will submissively wear 
 his bonds. Hence the castle of human bondage has 
 been built upon the base-blocks of ignorance and 
 degradation, and buttressed with oppression and 
 compulsion. 
 
 But, even when blinded, Samson was a safe victim 
 of tyranny only while his hair was kept shorn ; and 
 so, close in the steps of human knowledge and en- 
 lightenment, has followed the uprising of man in be- 
 half of his fellow-man : if the slave or serf did not burst 
 
THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 35 
 
 his own bonds, civilization has broken them for him. 
 
 Great Britain could not further share this crime of 
 the age without relapsing- toward barbarism, and so 
 British intelligence and integrity soimded the tocsin 
 that on that memorable first day of August, 1838, 
 pealed out liberty in Jamaica. It was not Clarkson 
 and Wilberforce, but the ''Magna Charta," and the 
 Bible, that original charter of human rights, that put 
 beneath the walls where human beings were im- 
 prisoned, a lever mightier than that of Archimedes. 
 Even despotic Russia had to grant at least a nominal 
 release to her serfs ; and the late four years' conflict in 
 America could not end while upon one slave there 
 was left an unbroken fetter: those four millions of 
 bondmen were God's "contraband of war." 
 
 Who but He has brought it about that not one en- 
 lightened nation dares openly to espouse slave trathc 
 or maintain slave labour? The market for human 
 bodies and souls has long been transferred from 
 London and New York to Cairo and Constantinople. 
 The voice of mankind is heard saying, " Away with 
 fetters ! " and appealing for a parliament of man in 
 which there shall be no commons, but all shall sit as 
 peers ! 
 
 Emancipation means more than bodily freedom ; it 
 brings individualism. Knock from the body its 
 shackles and the mind begins to be free. Men 
 begin to learn and think, to reflect and reason. 
 Speech bursts its bonds and the dumb tongue is loosed. 
 Instead of a mass in which individuals are lost, each 
 man learns that he is himself a born sovereign rather 
 than subject, having a little empire of his own. He 
 begins to assert himself and his inalienable right of 
 self-rule. He learns the dignity and majesty of mind, 
 and that no chain ever forged is strong enough to 
 bind a thinker. He learns the grandeur of reason, 
 and that truth is resistless like the waves of the sea, 
 mighty enough to v\rreck the strongest bark of false- 
 hood and grind to powder the age-long rocks of error. 
 
36 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 And SO to-day we see intelligence, that great agitator, 
 striding over the vast steppes of Asia and river high- 
 ways of Africa, scattering the seeds of social revolu- 
 tion; and a bloodless warfare of ideas is going on, be- 
 fore which strongholds of error and injustice are 
 falling. 
 
 When man begins to be free in body and mind he 
 learns also the divinity of conscience. God has de- 
 creed that no human device of tyranny or torture shall 
 suffice to kill or curb man's moral sense; and the 
 cell, the rack, the axe, the stake, have proved power- 
 less to change that decree. Though blinded and 
 made the sport of foes, conscience is still a giant, 
 that has but to get hold of the pillars of Dagon's 
 temple, to lift them from their foundations and 
 bring down to the dust the fabric of organized op- 
 pression and regal wrong. Dr. Francis W. Upham 
 says; **The conscience is the servant only of God, 
 and is not subject to the will of men. Through His 
 words, this truth, which reaches to social as well as re- 
 ligious institutions, has an indestructible life. If it be 
 crucified it will rise again. If buried in the sepulchre 
 the stone will be rolled away, and the keepers become 
 as dead men." * 
 
 Never before has liberty, both civil and religious, 
 reigned among men so widely and wisely. The 
 consequences are most significant touching the 
 work of missions. For example: In most lands, 
 persecution for religious opinion is already done 
 away, or if it still survives it is a relic of a barbarous 
 age, hiding in the darkness and resorting to the 
 secret weapons of the assassin. Enlightened civili- 
 zation which shut the gates of the arena also put 
 out the fires of the stake. Years since in China, the 
 last of the missionary martyrs who died by govern- 
 ment decree, was beheaded. Where in Spain the 
 dungeons of the Inquisition stood, harvests for God 
 are growing out of the ashes of saints. India may 
 
 * St. Matthew's Gospel, by F. W. Upham. 
 
THE NE W OPEN DOORS. 37 
 
 ostracise, but dare not execute, converts. All this 
 forecasts that wider emancipation of the soul of man, 
 when such self-conscious sovereign shall learn to be the 
 willing subject of the Lord of all, and find his 
 highest freedom in the service of a Higher Master. 
 That will be the world's year of jubilee ! 
 
V. 
 
 THE NEW ERA. 
 
 Two of these seven wonders yet remain to be con- 
 sidered, and they serve to inaugurate a new era; for 
 one of them puts multiphed facilities, implements, 
 instruments or weapons into our hands, and the other 
 organizes and mobilizes the forces available for the 
 work and war of the ages. 
 
 The first of these is World-wide Preparation. 
 
 In one sense, all that has been said of other won- 
 ders implies preparation. But there is one aspect 
 of the present condition of the world which implies a 
 preparation in itself so peculiar that it needs ex- 
 tended reference ; namely, the obvious and providen- 
 tial furnishing of facilities exactly adapted for, and 
 preparatory to, a world-wide work of evangelization. 
 These of themselves serve to introduce a new era. 
 
 There is a divine meaning in the fact that this cen- 
 tury, most prolific of missions, has been also most fertile 
 in invention, of all ages; the one great epoch of dis- 
 covery, not only in political and social develop- 
 ments, but in general progress in art and science, 
 leaving behind all other centuries. The leading 
 statesman of Britain is credited with saying, that 
 social advance has moved on such flying feet that in 
 the first fifty years of the nineteenth century all 
 previous history was outrun ; that even this was sur- 
 passed by the next twenty-five, and this again by the 
 rate of progress of the next ten. If Mr. Gladstone's 
 estimate be correct, one decade of years from 1875 
 to 1885 witnessed a forward stride of the race more 
 gigantic than all the previous ages of history ! 
 
 This is doubtless no exaggeration. Certainly since 
 the world began no such epoch of improvement has 
 been known. We have seen huge strides, leaps for- 
 
THE NE W ERA. 39 
 
 ward which make all past advance seem like a snail's 
 pace. During the years of this century the movement 
 onward and upward seems, even to those who are 
 borne on and up by it, incredible. Since Rome was 
 founded the rate of progress has increased at least a 
 thousandfold. 
 
 To appreciate this fact, we need to stop long 
 enough to study comparative history. This is the 
 world's golden age so far as invention and discovery, 
 intelligence and material progress, can bring it. 
 Measured by achievement each year is a century. 
 This is the age of railway and steamship, photograph 
 and phonograph, telescope and microscope, spectro- 
 scope and spectrum analysis; audiphone and micro- 
 phone, petroleum and aniline dyes; steam printing 
 press and machine typesetter; t3^pewriter and sew- 
 ing machine ; of the discovery of forty new metals, 
 and the revolution of chemical science ; of the ocean 
 cable and the signal service; of anaesthetics, and a 
 score of new sciences and arts, of cheap postage and 
 the universal postal union ; of newspapers, magazines 
 and popular literature; of machine work instead of 
 handwork; of free schools and universities for the 
 people; of giant explosives and gigantic enter- 
 prises. Most wonderful of all, this is the age of 
 electricity, which already serves man as motor, mes- 
 senger and illuminator, is to be applied to forging as 
 well as plating metals, and no one knows to how^ many 
 other uses. 
 
 In Robert Mackenzie's graphic sketch of " The 
 Nineteenth Century," he calls this feature of our 
 times " the great outbreak of human inventiveness 
 which left no province of human affairs unvisited." 
 With strange and startling suddenness men's eyes 
 opened to see how rude and crude were previous 
 methods and appliances, and at the same time those 
 eyes became endowed with a scientific insight and 
 foresight almost superhuman. Man became not only 
 scientist but seer; before ^^"^ limitless paths of possi- 
 
40 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ble progress stretched toward a goal so advanced, yet 
 so entrancing, that the enchanting vision quickened 
 the pace of the whole race, as though men had on the 
 mythical *' seven-league boots," or the winged san- 
 dals of Mercury. 
 
 Wherever a high civilization has shone, mankind has 
 felt the thrill of a new passion for investigation and im- 
 provement. See the human form become practically 
 transparent, as the speculum, stethoscope, laryngo- 
 scope, opthalmoscope, microscope, and electric lamp 
 guide the physician and surgeon in searching the 
 darkest hiding places sdi disease. Lithotomy gives 
 place to lithotrity. Limbs, once amputated, are now 
 straightened and strengthened. Since 1 8 1 5 , the treat- 
 ment of the insane has undergone a revolution as 
 radical and significant as the new era of conservative 
 surgery. Machinery now works cotton and wool, 
 metal and wood, and new motors do our planing and 
 carving, hammering and rolling, sowing, mowing, 
 ploughing, reaping, threshing and binding. 
 
 We do not appreciate all this glory of achievement, 
 because the wonders of the age dazzle our eyes and 
 dull our vision. 
 
 Let us glance once more at the electric telegraph. 
 As the earth's rotation on its axis takes a full day, 
 points on its surface at antipodes to each other are 
 twelve hours apart, reckoning by the sun. But tele- 
 graphic signals flash instantaneously, and so far out- 
 run the sun's apparent motion that an afternoon mes- 
 sage, cabled from London, is read in San Francisco on 
 the morning of the same day, and there are points 
 further westward where we might have the paradox 
 of publishing news of an event twenty-four hours 
 before it takes place! This prompts Mackenzie to 
 rank the telegraph as the first human invention 
 which is obviously final. In the race of human im- 
 provement, steam may give place to some yet might- 
 ier power, as gas is already superseded by a better 
 method of lighting; but, "■ no agency for conveying in- 
 
THE NE W ERA. 41 
 
 telligence can ever excel that which is instantaneous. 
 Here for the first time the human mind has reached 
 the utmost Hmit of its progress."* 
 
 This unparalleled progress belongs mostly to the 
 half century now nearing its close. During fifty years 
 the more prominent achievements of the age have 
 been reduced to practical form. Almost the entire 
 system of railway is the product of this brief period. 
 The first sun-picture dates back but sixty years, just 
 before the death of Daguerre, from whom it took its 
 name, and already we have a score of new applica- 
 tions of this principle. These inventions alone link 
 the ages together, ushering in a new era of art and 
 letters, making the sun himself the artist and sculp- 
 tor of the coming era. Already the sun's ray has 
 wedded the delicate lens, and given birth to micro- 
 scopic photography; so that during the siege of Paris 
 pages of the London Tiiiies^ photographed upon a 
 square inch of surface, were borne by carrier pigeons 
 to the French capital, there to be magnified and re- 
 produced. And it would seem that the sunbeam, 
 already used for a pencil and chisel, is about to surpass 
 the pigments of the painter, using sensitized paper 
 in place of canvas and giving us colour as well as 
 form. 
 
 The phonograph, at first a scientific toy, has be- 
 come an automatic clerk, recording and repeating a 
 message, and has begun to be used for that difficult art, 
 the analysis and reproduction of animal sounds and 
 utterances ; and it makes possible for future genera- 
 tions to hear the words and voices of dead orators 
 and statesmen, poets, and preachers. It is within 
 this half century that the spectroscope has brought 
 other orbs near enough to analyze their light and 
 learn the substances burning in their photospheres; 
 and the invaluable service of the spectroscope in re- 
 fining and working metals, shows its possible utility 
 in manufacture. 
 
 * The Nineteenth Century, 197. 
 
42 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Anaesthetics, which renders medical and surgical 
 treatment comparatively painless and so reduces hu- 
 man suffering to a minimum, is so recent a discov- 
 ery that many yet living remember its well-nigh 
 tragic beginning in Edinburgh in 1847. The giant 
 explosives — nitroglycerine, dynamite, giant powder, 
 etc., have already displaced older and tedious 
 methods of clearing the earth's surface of stumps 
 and debris, and opening its veins of metal and min- 
 eral. Delicate photometers and micrometers, every 
 form of monster machinery or delicate mechanism, 
 belong to this age ; while science teaches us drainage 
 and irrigation, analysis and enrichment of the soil 
 and secrets of fertility, turns deserts into gardens, 
 and makes every spot available for building a habita- 
 tion and earning a livelihood. 
 
 If such be the progress of this half century, 
 nothing which men may imagine to do seems 
 impossible in the new era just opening, when science 
 promises to navigate air as well as sea and build ships 
 to master winds as well as waves. Forms of force 
 hitherto unknown are now undergoing experiment. 
 Secrets, hidden even from this century, are yielding to 
 human investigation, and a decade of years may 
 witness a revolution greater than that which even in 
 our day has turned the world upside down. 
 
 We have laid stress upon this march of human 
 improvement, not so much because of the lightning 
 pace of this advance, as because of its obvious 
 connection with God's providential purpose. It is 
 one great sign of the times. It marks this as the 
 golden age of opportunity. A world's evangelization 
 is not only possible but practicable, with a rapidity 
 proportionate to progress in other directions. On the 
 pages of history in large letters it is written that the 
 periods of most marked progress exactly synchronize 
 with the eras of most active missionary effort. Clear 
 as the weather signals in the sky, is this glowing 
 sign of God's plan in this generation. His mind is 
 
THE NE W ERA. 43 
 
 the vital spring of man's intellectual life. He is the 
 fountain of life, and in His light do we see light. 
 It was He who kept a continent veiled for five 
 thousand years, rending the veil only when a re- 
 formed Church with an unchained Bible was ready 
 to enter it and make it the theatre of new gospel 
 triumphs. It was He who locked nature's secrets 
 within her dark chambers, until a missionary Church 
 was aroused to yoke to His chariot the new forces 
 and appliances. God is surely speaking. To the 
 reverent ear the still small voice is more impressive 
 than peals of thunder. ''Behold I have set before 
 thee an open door." An open door to the nations — 
 the world before us; an open door into Nature's 
 Arcana, with all her machinery and forces to do our bid- 
 ding. Opportunities are matched by facilities equally 
 great. Never such a work to be done, never such 
 tools to work with. What responsibility, if such 
 opportunity be lost and such facilities lie unused ! 
 
 The last of these seven modern wonders is 
 world-wide Organization. 
 
 Organization is the watchword of the Age. Never 
 before was there such a period of practical union 
 among men for all the ends of material, intellectual 
 and social improvement. Organization is rapidly 
 extending and far-reaching; its triumphs are so mul- 
 tiplied and magnificent that they constitute the peril 
 of the age, threatening to erect a despotism whose 
 iron sceptre shall be resistless and remorseless. 
 Already the Giant is on the throne; he lifts his 
 finger, and great railway systems are locked in in- 
 action; factory wheels stop, ships lie in the docks, 
 buildings wait for workmen, mines remain unworked; 
 labor's hundred hands are chained, and action is 
 exchanged for petrifaction. Man has created a 
 Frankenstein, and knows not how to manage the 
 monster. 
 
 While we cannot deny the risks attending organi- 
 zation in reckless hands, we must confess both its 
 
44 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 widespread influence, and its great utility when 
 under rational control. What master organizations 
 the Church already commands as helpers! The 
 Young Men's Christian Association is an example, the 
 creation of the last half century, yet a huge banyan, 
 whose original root was in British soil, but throwing 
 out branches on all sides, across continents and 
 oceans into new countries, bending down to take 
 root in papal, pagan, moslem and heathen communi- 
 ties, until there remains scarce a land in any clime 
 where this gigantic and beneficent growth has not 
 reached. 
 
 The Young People's Society of Christian En- 
 deavour is a yet younger giant, fourteen years old, yet 
 in rapidity of growth, daring enterprise, boundless 
 influence and burning enthusiasm, leaving already 
 behind it any other organization ever known on this 
 planet. 
 
 Let these illustrate the genius of the age when 
 everybody organizes. Barristers and judges, physi- 
 cians and surgeons, artists and artisans, underwriters 
 and undertakers, cabmen and cartmen, shoeblacks 
 and newsboys — every learned profession and every 
 form of work resorts to organization. Were there 
 some new trade to-day with only two engaged in it, 
 they would begin by drawing up articles of associ- 
 ation and forming a co-operative union. 
 
 The reason is plain. Men will dare attempt, and 
 can together accomplish, what no one would try to 
 do, or could do, alone ; and so they resort to associ- 
 ated effort. Great and manifold advantages spring 
 from co-operation. When hand joins hand, the weak 
 and timid get strength and courage, and momentum 
 is imparted to a movement in which individual forces 
 are combined and concentrated. Great enterprises 
 are possible only to an epoch of organization, and so 
 we find business schemes pushing triumphantly to 
 the very borders of civilization. 
 
 Compare present history with past records. Before 
 
THE NE W ERA, - 45 
 
 the time of Christ, isolation was the law. Nations 
 had little touch with each other. Universal empires 
 were the aggregates of separate states, held together 
 by those iron bands which conquest imposes and 
 despotism rivets. The unity w^as that of frost, not 
 of fire and fusion. To gather strange peoples under 
 one sceptre, or conglomerate empires into one huge 
 monarchy, insures no unity. Barriers are not broken 
 down, and there is no sympathetic bond or brother- 
 hood any more than between Jews and Samaritans. 
 
 How changed the whole aspect of affairs! We 
 stand in the blazing focal centre of world-wide enter- 
 prise. Discovery sends its heralds to trumpet its 
 triumph from rising to setting sun. Invention yokes to 
 its car steam and lightning, and flies as on the wings of 
 the morning to the uttermost parts of the earth and 
 sea. Many run to and fro ; and knowledge is increased. 
 Material advance has its million messengers who 
 haste to do its bidding. This is the world's Messiah, 
 which bids disciples go into all the world and proclaim 
 to every creature the good tidings of human 
 improvement; and forthwith go the myriad mis- 
 sionaries of invention and discovery, needing no 
 second summons. The swiftest ships and carriages 
 are not fleet enough conveyances for the new apostles 
 of science and art. They dare the sea with its tem- 
 pest and tornado ; defy forest and jungle, river and 
 mountain, plague and famine, hot sands and frozen 
 bergs. And all for what? To tell men of the oil-lamp 
 and the sewing-machine, the timepiece and the 
 parlor organ ; to sell ribbons and calicoes, fire-arms 
 and rum-jugs, soap and flour, at the earth's ends. 
 Trade and traffic, agriculture and manufacture, push 
 their conquests by organizing and co-operating; and 
 so, in quarters most remote, in inland hamlets as 
 well as populous cities, and on islands a half century 
 ago unknown, you may find to-day all the appliances 
 of enlightened society. 
 
 The theme loudly enforces its own lesson and 
 
46 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 appeal. To world-wide missions, organization and 
 co-operation are essential. Shall the Church be slow 
 to learn the lesson of the age? and her Master wait 
 for willing feet to run on His errand of grace, His 
 mission of mercy and salvation? 
 
 It is true the children of light have already re- 
 sorted to organized effort in missions. William 
 Carey was the pioneer, not of missions so much as 
 of organization ; and since his day, this has become 
 so distinctive a feature of Church activity that the 
 marked success attained since 1792 is traceable to 
 associated work. By organization it has already 
 come to pass that, although we have not absolutely 
 reached every nation, still less every creature, our 
 network of missions stretches round the globe and 
 covers the earth. 
 
 And yet, in many quarters, how large are the 
 meshes and how far apart the cords of that network. 
 We have more than one hundred and seventy mis- 
 sionary boards and societies, and over one hundred 
 and ten missionary organizations controlled by 
 women; and these all, nearly three hundred, are the 
 outcome of this century past, and most of them of 
 the last fifty years. Yet what are even these among 
 so many ! We have but begun as yet our work of a 
 world's evangelization. 
 
 The old command of Christ echoes down the long 
 aisles of the ages. Evangelize ! And the new voice of 
 the Providence that speaks through events in this 
 missionary era, peals out. Organize! Lengthen thy 
 cords and strengthen thy stakes. A love that is like 
 God's, must multiply and extend a thousandfold its 
 lines of holy effort, and drive ten thousand times as 
 many stakes deep down into the intelligent conviction 
 and unselfish affection of Christ's disciples. 
 
 God leaves His Church without excuse or even 
 pretext, if missions be not prosecuted as a world-wide 
 enterprise. In a sense never thought of when that 
 promise was spoken, the Lord is with us— with us. 
 
THE NEW ERA. 47 
 
 unlocking the gates of hermit nations, battering 
 down the wall of China, unsealing the ports of 
 Japan and Corea, cleaving a path to the heart of 
 Africa — with us to unchain the human mind and re- 
 veal the secrets of nature. We may now go into all 
 the world, and to every man in his own tongue give 
 the word of God. 
 
 There was never such a work for the time, nor 
 such a time for the work. The opportunities and 
 facilities offered to us make even such a task easy 
 and such a load light, turning weights into wings 
 and burdens into pinions, to the willing soul. Know- 
 ing God's season, the fulness and fitness of His ap- 
 pointed time, it is also man's opportune hour, high 
 time to awake out of sleep, and the world's critical 
 hour of need and want. Dull and dead, indeed, 
 must he be who sees not the signs of the times, hears 
 not the voices that call and the signals that sound, 
 and heeds not the approaching end of the age ! The 
 Captain of our Salvation is blowing a blast on His 
 bugle — everything echoes His command, Forward! 
 Why do we delay? 
 
Part II. 
 
 THE NEW APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 
 
 ''There were giants in those days" is the terse 
 record of the age before the flood. 
 
 Every age has its own giants ; some great in physi- 
 cal stature, others mighty in mind, majestic in moral 
 character, born to command and control. Even in 
 earth's golden ages the giants are rare, for God does 
 not make such gifts too common ; but it is the few, 
 always, whose words shake the world, whose deeds 
 move and mould men, whose lives shape the history 
 and destiny of the race. Carlyle calls history but the 
 ''lengthened shadows " of the world's great men. Is 
 it not rather the lingering twilight, prolonging their 
 influence, perpetuating their memory even when their 
 sun has set, and long lighting up the evening sky? 
 Is not the horizon still aflame from many a grand and 
 noble life, long since withdrawn from among men? 
 
 The modern missionary era has given birth to a royal 
 race of giants ; in fact, so mighty have been these men 
 and women, so herculean their labors, so heroic their 
 achievements, that they seem rather to have made the 
 age than the age them. Some of them were before 
 our day, but we trace the path they trod, by their 
 gigantic footprints. Others we have seen growing 
 to great stature and mounting to thrones of power; 
 and still others yet walk among men, and make the 
 continents shake beneath their tread. They have 
 made the priests of idol fanes tremble with fear; 
 and as the God of this world sees them, like their 
 Master, working the works and speaking the words of 
 God, he knows that his time is short. They are not 
 always recognized as great by the world, for their 
 greatness is not of this world nor measured by its 
 standards. God's giants have not always great heads, 
 
 51 
 
52 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 but they always have ''great hearts." His captains 
 are not the princes of this world that come to naught, 
 not the wise, mighty, noble in men's eyes ; but those 
 of great faith, holy love, who walk with God and 
 work and war in His name, like those of old whose 
 names are graven in that record in Hebrews — that 
 "Westminster Abbey" of Old Testament worthies— 
 "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 righteousness, obtained promises, out of weakness 
 were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to 
 flight the armies of the aliens. " Let us thank God for 
 a type of gianthood to which all believers may both 
 aspire and attain ! Not only venerable ' ' fathers, " but 
 "young men," in whom the word of Godabideth, may 
 be strong, and even "little children" may overcome the 
 evil one ; because greater is He that is in them than 
 he that is in the world. The fable of Hercules is in 
 Christian History become fact; for new-born babes 
 while yet in the cradle of faith have laid hold of the 
 serpent with a giant's grip. 
 
 The study of the missionary age is the story of the 
 giants, and let us hope to read so well the lessons of 
 their lives as to work wonders in the same Almighty 
 name ! 
 
 Every work must wait for workmen, trained to 
 fitness in their work. And so this book of the Acts 
 and facts of the Apostolic age, reveals the actors, the 
 factors in this work for God. The history of prinii- 
 tive missions gives glimpses of the primitive mis- 
 sionaries. 
 
 Because history is the record of facts which demand 
 the personal factor, the key of history is biography, 
 that most suggestive and instructive of all studies. 
 To portray the lives of men is, as Dionysius of Hali- 
 carnassus said, to " teach philosophy by examples." 
 By the analysis of character we detect the elements 
 of success and the causes of failure. Principles and 
 precepts are abstract statements of truth, but virtue 
 and vice teach best through concrete forms; and 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 53 
 
 hence this, best of all books, is a gallery of portraits, 
 where we may study the lives of men, following 
 their faith and shunning their faults and follies; a 
 gallery where the picture of one perfect life, so lus- 
 trous as to disdain even a frame of gold, forever 
 challenges imitation. 
 
 Thus, then, our study of the Acts of the Apostles 
 leads us to look at the actors who took part in mis- 
 sions to a lost world. First there was Peter, to whom 
 it was given to open the door of faith to both Jew 
 and Gentile, and w^hose figure stands out boldly in 
 the opening scenes of this history. But a more sig- 
 nificant point, both critical and pivotal, is reached 
 further on, in the^formal selection and separation of 
 Barnabas and Saul, to a distinct and distinctive mis- 
 sionary career and service. 
 
 Let us place prominently before us the opening 
 verses of the thirteenth chapter of the Acts: 
 
 Now THERE WERE IN THE CHURCH THAT WAS AT 
 AnTIOCH CERTAIN PROPHETS AND TEACHERS; AS BaR- 
 NABAS, AND SiMEON THAT WAS CALLED NiGER, AND 
 
 Lucius OF Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been 
 
 BROUGHT UP WITH HeROD THE TETRARCH, AND SaUL. 
 As THEY MINISTERED TO THE LORD, AND FASTED, 
 
 THE Holy Ghost said, separate Me Barnabas and 
 Saul for the work whereunto I have called 
 them. And when they had fasted and prayed, 
 and laid their hands on them, they sent them 
 away. so they, being sent forth by the holy 
 Ghost, departed. 
 
 The oversight of the Spirit of God is plainly seen 
 in the very words here used. What precision of terms, 
 not one useless phrase or needless adjective; no su- 
 perfluous suggestion to divert the reader from the 
 one lesson God would teach! How majestic the 
 march of the narrative ! How rapid and resolute the 
 onward movement ! What an impact of impression ! 
 A hundred words in the English, standing for but 
 
64 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 eighty in the terse Greek, put on eternal record one 
 of the grandest lessons that God ever taught His 
 people about the work of missions. Well may we 
 ask for the open ear and the teachable spirit, that we 
 may learn. 
 
 AH the surroundings comport with the august 
 solemnity of the occasion. It is Antioch, the Syrian 
 capital, the first gentile centre of Christianity. It is 
 a season of worship, with fasting and prayer. At 
 least five of the early prophets and teachers were 
 there, for they are mentioned by name. While this 
 devout assembly draws near to the secret place where 
 God dwells, the Holy Spirit, no doubt in an audible 
 voice, through one or more of those prophet teachers, 
 says: 
 
 ''Separate Me Barnabas and Saul 
 For the work whereunto I have called them!" 
 
 That was the signal for the birth hour of foreign 
 missions, the true nativity, of which Christ's Ascension 
 message of ten years before was the annunciation. 
 Every circumstance and detail is precious, for it is a 
 presage of things to come, a forerunner to guide the 
 Church to the end of the age. God says, "Write the 
 vision and make it plain upon the tablets set up along 
 the highway of missions, that even by a cursory 
 glance he that runneth may read." All true mis- 
 sionaries, most of all pioneers in mission work, 
 always have been and always will be, those whom 
 the Holy Spirit has singularly separated unto His 
 work. Seldom, if ever, has the Church led the way 
 in setting them apart; in almost if not quite every 
 case, the pioneers have led the Church, and have 
 found sometimes their main hindrance in the apathy, 
 if not antipathy, of those who should have been 
 prompt to encourage and help. As at Antioch, it 
 was not the Church but the Holy Spirit of God that 
 took the lead in selecting and separating the first 
 foreign missionaries, so, always, God by His provi- 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 55 
 
 dence and His Spirit has called out his servants, and 
 the Church has sent away those whom the Spirit had 
 already sent forth. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that in this earliest of gen- 
 tile Churches, missions to the gentiles had their 
 origin. The five prophet-teachers who there min- 
 istered before the Lord stand for gentile peoples. 
 One a Cyrenian, one from Cyprus, one perhaps from 
 Idumea, like Herod, another from the Cilician gates, 
 and the last may have been a black man. When the 
 Lord called his pioneers of missions, he w^ent out- 
 side of the sacred circle of Jewish communities and 
 turned from the mother Church to her first-born gen- 
 tile daughter. And, even then, had not the Antio- 
 chan Church been fasting and praying, they might 
 not have heard, or hearing they might not have 
 heeded, the voice of God; they might not have sent 
 away promptly, if at all, those whom the Spirit sepa- 
 rated and called, and so would have forfeited that rich 
 blessing that within two years returns to the bosom 
 of the Church in that first missionary report ! 
 
 In the New Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit, if 
 not as audibly, not less surely, has separated unto Him- 
 self and His work His select servants. By unmistak- 
 able signs He has set apart His pioneers. But instead 
 of a Church praying, fasting, responsive, how often He 
 has found a Church prayerless, feasting, secularized, 
 corrupt. It is a sad chapter which records the 
 separation of the New Apostles. Torpor and 
 indifference, spiritual decay and death, ridicule and 
 resistance often to the point of persecution, these holy 
 men and women have found even within the ' 'body of 
 Christ!" Sometimes what should have been a 
 sanctuary w^here the Spirit's voice was clearly heard 
 and devoutly heeded, has been a sepulchre, where 
 selfishness wound about God's messengers the 
 cerements of inertia and would not loose them and 
 let them go. 
 
 This lesson, so supremely taught in the inspired 
 
56 
 
 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 narrative, must have urgent emphasis. The one hope 
 of missions is the faith that God's Spirit does select 
 and separate unto Himself, call out from His Church 
 and send forth into His work, His own divinely 
 appointed and divinely anointed messengers. 
 
 Such only can be the apostles of missions. For 
 what is an apostle, or missionary, but one ivJio is 
 seyit! Apostle is missionary spelt Greek-wise, 
 and missionary is apostle spelt Latin-wise. But 
 both words mean one thing: Godsent. Take fast 
 hold of this thought, let it not go, for it is the life of 
 missions ; and our daily risk is in losing sight of it and 
 depending on human argument and appeal and the 
 wisdom of man's selection, to furnish the force for the 
 field. The new apostles, like the old, must be 
 selected, separated, sent forth, by the Spirit. 
 
 Because this lesson is vital to success, let us linger 
 yet longer to learn it fully. Two marked passages 
 of Scripture stand confronting each other, like two 
 pillars that hold up a grand arch : one gives us the 
 theory, the other the practice — one the law, the 
 other the example of God's methods. We set them 
 side by side for comparison : 
 
 " Then saith Jesus unto His disci- 
 ples: 
 
 The harvest truly is plenteous; 
 
 But the labourers are few: 
 
 Pray \e therefore the Lord of 
 the harvest, 
 
 That He will thrust forth 
 labourers 
 
 Into His harvest." 
 
 —Matt. ix. 37, 38. 
 
 " There were in the church that was 
 at Antioch certain prophets and 
 teachers ; 
 " As they ministered to the Lord 
 
 and fasted. 
 The Holy Ghost said: 
 Separate Me Barnabas and Saul, 
 For the work whereunto 
 I have called them." 
 
 — Acts, xiii. 1-4. 
 
 The correspondence here shows one hand and de- 
 sign in both ; they fit each other, like tenon and mor- 
 tise, ball and socket. Our Lord, already foreseeing 
 the harvest field waiting for seed and sickle, and the 
 fewness of labourers ready to reap, also foretold us 
 what was to be done. We are to resort from first to 
 last, to Prayer. 
 
 We face a vast field of world-wide need. Where 
 is the source of supplies, and who shall furnish 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 57 
 
 workers? Do you answer, they are to be found in 
 the Church, in her colleges and theological halls? 
 But who shall choose and make them willing, send 
 them forth and give them power? What if the 
 Church, like Sarah, be barren of offspring, or having 
 sons and daughters, be loath to give them up to God? 
 What if those whom the Church may choose, have 
 not the self-sacrifice to go, but cling to the easy- 
 chair of home comfort and careless indulgence? 
 
 Hear the voice which spake as never man spake : 
 *' Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that 
 He will send — thrust forth — labourers into His har- 
 vest !" Why are our eyes thus to be fixed on God alone? 
 Because He only is the competent Judge of who are 
 fit for His work — because He only can make them 
 willing, can train them to greater competency and 
 higher efficiency, and then thrust them forth into the 
 actual field. 
 
 This is the law, and of this law the narrative 
 before us is both example and illustration. The 
 mother church at Jerusalem was the natural cradle 
 of missionaries to the gentiles ; yet God passes her by, 
 and at the breast of her eldest gentile daughter suckles 
 His first messengers to the heathen. The first two 
 missionaries selected are neither of them from Pales- 
 tine : one is a Levite from Cyprus, the other a con- 
 verted persecutor and blasphemer from Cilicia. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is the one prominent personality 
 in their appointment. He spake in an audible voice 
 and named the very men — declared, ''I have called 
 them," and demanded that they should be separated 
 unto Himself. All that the Church at Antioch had 
 to do was to hear and heed this Voice from above. 
 In laying hands upon them and sending them away, 
 those disciples took no initiative step, but followed 
 where the Spirit went before, ordaining and separat- 
 ing those whom He had first ordained and separated. 
 Our last glimpse of them as they depart recalls not 
 the action of the Church but of the Spirit: ''So they 
 
58 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed." 
 Christ's words thus find an exact example. The 
 Church prays the Lord of the Harvest, and takes no 
 other step until He lays His hand on the very men 
 He has chosen. 
 
 Not only this history, but all history, illustrates the 
 same law. We cannot raise up luorknicn. We do 
 not know God's chosen men and women. Our wis- 
 dom is folly; our steps will be missteps and mistakes. 
 We must resort to prayer. At our peril we seek to 
 multiply workmen by human means. God must 
 call, select, separate and send forth, those whom 
 He ordains — who hear His call and willingly offer 
 themselves; those on whom He sets His seal in their 
 conscious calling to His work and evident knowledge 
 of Him, those who prove their fitness by their passion 
 for souls and the fulness of the Spirit — upon such the 
 Church may safely lay hands, commissioning them 
 with such authority as she can confer. All other 
 choice of labourers is premature, officious, unsafe. 
 
 This book of the Acts opens with the election of 
 an Apostle to fill out the original number. Peter is 
 here conspicuous, and not the Spirit of God. It was 
 before the day of Pentecost had set this Divine 
 Leader in the foreground of Church history. Of 
 Matthias we hear nothing more ; but, later on, God 
 in His own marvellous way makes choice of Saul of 
 Tarsus, and of his career the rest of the New Testa- 
 ment history is full. Hence many reverent students 
 of the Word have been constrained to ask whether, in 
 the supplying of Judas' place, Peter was not hasty, 
 acting in advance of the Spirit's leading; whether 
 Matthias be not an example of a man chosen of men 
 but not called of the Spirit, owned of men rather 
 than recognized of God. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of Peter's course on 
 this occasion, no reader can compare the first and the 
 thirteenth chapters of the Acts without feeling the 
 marked contrast. In one case the leading steps are 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 59 
 
 obviously human; in the other, as obviously super- 
 human ; and while we must resort to doubtful tradi- 
 tion to follow Matthias further, Paul was the most 
 active missionary of all history. 
 
 The New Acts of the Apostles adds emphasis to 
 this lesson. The Potter sits at His wheel, with the 
 clay in His hand. He needs the earthen vessel to 
 bear His name to the gentiles, and He moulds it Him- 
 self, and sometimes out of material the most un- 
 promising, and into shapes most strange. But He 
 knows what He wants and can use. The Church has 
 her faultless machinery of pulpit and pastorate, 
 home-training and theological school. The State 
 erects great universities, and sets running the 
 golden wheels of scholarly culture, at which preside 
 the skilful hands of great educators. But all these 
 never yet moulded one apostle or turned out of 
 human clay one true man. The shelves of man's 
 great pottery stand to-day full of choice wares — pol- 
 ished porcelain, hand-painted with oriental designs 
 and occidental art — brilliant and costly products of 
 education, rated at the highest market-price, grace- 
 ful and ornamental, the pride of nineteenth century 
 scholarship. Yet, how often the Divine Potter 
 passes them all by, and takes instead a rude, crude 
 lump of earth from the slime pits, full of flaws and 
 defects, and shapes it beneath His own hand as He 
 wills. Then He puts it into His furnace, and in fires 
 of hot trial bakes it into hardness and firmness, and 
 glazes it with an unearthly lustre. Man's fine deli- 
 cate wares cannot stand the fire, and crack with 
 harsh handling. God's earthenware may be called 
 common, but hard blows will not break it, and in 
 fierce flames it only takes on a new glory like the 
 face of Him whom John saw in apocalyptic vision. 
 
 As God only can choose, so He only can train 
 missionary apostles. Human schools often spoil, 
 puffing up with pride of learning and worldly wis- 
 dom, self-consciousness and carnal ambition. What 
 
60 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 an irreverent spirit is it, that under the guise of his- 
 torical and literary criticism shamelessly and reck- 
 lessly treads on holy ground, unawed by the burning 
 bush of prophecy or the Shekinah glory of inspired 
 history ; that puts the word of God on a level with 
 Homer and Hesiod and Herodotus, Sophocles and 
 Socrates, Plato and Milton, forgetting that only the 
 spiritual man illumined by the Spirit is competent 
 to perceive or receive the revelation of the Spirit. 
 And so it is that God finds humble, uneducated be- 
 lievers more ready to be taught the secrets of His 
 word and will than many of the foremost scholars 
 who lean to their own understanding and are wise 
 in their own eyes. 
 
 Strange indeed are the theological schools wherein 
 God trains His workmen. He sent Moses into the 
 sheep pastures of Midian for forty years; Elijah into 
 the caves of Carmel and Horeb ; John the Baptist into 
 the wilderness of Judea ; Saul, for three years, into the 
 solitudes of Arabia. When that superb Alexandrian 
 orator, Apollos, the Apollo of the early Church, 
 needed to get beyond the baptism of John and learn 
 the way of God more perfectly, God chose two hum- 
 ble disciples, tent-makers at Corinth, and one of them 
 a woman; and their dwelling became a theological 
 school, and Apollos the solitary student. God has 
 his own educators, but they would not be chosen of 
 man; and His own armoury for His soldiers, but it is 
 not stocked with carnal weapons. 
 
 As our studies in the New Acts of the Apostles 
 thus compel us to become familiar with the new 
 apostles, no fact is more conspicuous than this fact 
 and law of a divine selection — all the great pioneers 
 and leaders of modern missions have been eminently 
 God-appointed and God-anointed. Again we put 
 this fact boldly to the front — the Church has not led 
 the way in their choice, but they have often, if not 
 always, led the Church. Had the Church chosen, they 
 would not have been selected, for some of them have 
 
THE CALLING OF THE NEW APOSTLES. 61 
 
 been a century in advance of their own times, derided 
 as fanatics and fools, apostates of the anvil, the plough 
 and the loom. God has first trained them in His own 
 secret schools, equipped them with weapons forged 
 in the trial fires, then called them out from a reluctant 
 and hostile body; and not a few of them have lived 
 and wrought and died unrecognized as God's great 
 ones. 
 
 This lesson can be learned only by examples, and 
 it should be well learned, for it bears upon the com- 
 ing age of missions. And here, again, we meet in 
 our study of this grand theme an embarrassment of 
 riches. The names of the consecrated men and 
 women who belong to this new age of missions must 
 be numbered by hundreds, by thousands. To pay even 
 a passing tribute to all, we must use only the most gen- 
 eral terms ; and many of the most eminent yet survive, 
 and delicacy if not decorum forbids that the story of 
 their heroism should now be written ; for there is an 
 anointing which befits only burial, and the spices con- 
 secrated for embalming the dead are desecrated when 
 used for anointing the living. It seems best therefore 
 to choose a few representative examples from those 
 who in some department have been pioneers and whose 
 earthly record is complete. 
 
 The study of missionary biography reveals a true 
 and remarkable ' ' apostolic succession. " Missions are 
 so vital to Church life that probably should they wholly 
 cease the Church itself would die. Never since the 
 day of Pentecost has Christ been without witnesses. 
 The dark ages were a millennium of death, yet the 
 lamp of testimony, burning however faintly, never 
 went out. No century or generation has been with- 
 out its missionaries; and these lives have so been 
 linked together, that, since the first link was forged 
 amid the white-heat of Pentecostal fires, this grand 
 succession has continued, without one break or mis- 
 sing link in the chain. Who can fail to see God's 
 hand in all this? At the same time, in different lands. 
 
62 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 without knowledge of each other, messengers have 
 been preparing to work side by side in the great har- 
 vest field ; or at different times raised up so as to keep 
 up the succession. 
 
II. 
 
 THE NEW PIONEERS. 
 
 RaimundusLullius — Pioneer to the Mohammedans. 
 1236-1315. 
 
 To find the pioneer missionary to the Moslem 
 field, we must go back more than six and a half 
 centuries before Keith Falconer fell at Aden, to that 
 young noble of Majorca, born in Palma in 1236. He 
 was trained as a soldier, and thirty years of his life 
 were wasted, not in frivolity only but in sensuality, in 
 scandalous excesses. Even his scholarly culture and 
 philosophical mind, like those of Augustine before 
 him, were only like polished bow and arrow without 
 practical purpose or unselfish love to give them ser- 
 viceableness. 
 
 But God had for this prodigal son a grander career. 
 While writing a song for the siren of lust, he had 
 a vision of the Crucified, which left upon his soul 
 not only its impress but its image. The Captain of 
 the Lord's Host laid hold of the trumpet that hung 
 idle and useless on the walls of society, blew a blast 
 upon it, waked it to music and turned it to a warrior's 
 bugle. The grace that changed the poet of passion 
 into a saint, made the saint a servant of Christ and a 
 witness to a lost world. Born in 1236, he had from 
 his cradle heard the story of the crusades. He 
 conceived the noble purpose of beginning a new 
 crusade against Saracen infidels, not by force of arms 
 to rescue the Saviour's sepulchre from profane hands, 
 but by prevailing prayer and preaching of good 
 tidings to lead the followers of the false prophet to 
 bow before Christ's cross and worship at His empty 
 tomb. 
 
 63 
 
64 THE NE W ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 He suddenly renounced the world and its pleasures, 
 divided his estate among kinsmen and friends, took 
 the Franciscan garb, and went into solitude to 
 prepare for his sacred mission. He studied phil- 
 osophy, theology and the ancient tongues. Learning 
 Arabic from a slave, he made himself familiar with 
 the works of Averroes — the Moorish Aristotle of 
 Cordova — and other Moorish writers, and so derived 
 the germ of that system of dialectics unfolded in 
 his ''''Ars Magna,'' whereby he hoped to reform 
 science and make converts to Christianity. 
 
 The rest of his life was one long and toilsome pil- 
 grimage after the moving pillar. Old habits of sin, 
 like Pharaoh's hosts in pursuit of Israel, would have 
 drawn him back into bondage, but he dared a Red 
 Sea of blood for the sake of following the '* vision." 
 Like the young Count at Halle, he had covenanted 
 with God: " To thee, O Lord God, I offer myself, 
 my wife, my children, and all that I possess;" and be- 
 ing free from all worldly hindrances he gave himself 
 unreservedly to missionary service. Part of his plan 
 for bringing unbelievers to accept the truth of Chris- 
 tianity was to establish missionary training colleges, 
 where young men might be taught Arabic and other 
 tongues; for his was no petty ambition; he aspired 
 to nothing less than to surround and subjugate the 
 whole Moslem territory in Christ's name. There is 
 something sublime in this solitary man, moving the 
 King of Aragon to establish at Palma a monastery to 
 educate monks as missionaries, and spending years in 
 fruitless but tireless endeavour to kindle in successive 
 popes and kings an enthusiasm like unto his own. 
 Then, nothing daunted, crowning all else by going 
 himself into Moslem territory to preach Christ — he 
 was the first of the missionary martyrs to die for the 
 sake of the Dark Continent. 
 
 Those who doubt the romance of missions should 
 read the story, more fascinating than any fiction, of 
 this, the first and greatest of missionaries to the Mo- 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 65 
 
 hammedans, and deservedly wearing the title of the 
 " greatest missionary orator of history," whose work, 
 on "Divine Contemplation," ranks with the Confes- 
 sions of Augustine, the Meditations of Thomas a 
 Kempis, or Bunyan's *' Grace Abounding." Follow 
 this Spaniard, pleading with kings to found training 
 schools for Franciscan missionaries, and with the 
 "Vicars of Christ " to decree missionary institutes 
 and lead on the new crusade. Then see him in 1292, 
 just five centuries before that famous meeting at 
 Kettering when the first Baptist missionary society 
 led the way, himself landing in Tunis, daring to go 
 defenceless and alone to win converts where prosely- 
 tism was a crime, and conversion was apostasy, and 
 both punishable with death. 
 
 Scarcely had he broached his design, when he was 
 cast into prison and then driven out of the country. 
 He returned to Europe for aid, and again unsuccess- 
 ful, went back to Africa in 1307, though threatened 
 with stoning, and, at Bougiah, employed his ' ' great 
 art "in an argument with a learned Mohammedan 
 under cover of an inquiry into the truth of Islamism. 
 His real design was detected, and he escaped death 
 only through his antagonist's intercession. Again 
 in prison, he wrote there a defence of Christianity, 
 and compelled even his foes to respect the fanatical 
 philosopher who risked life itself for the sake of his 
 faith and his mission. 
 
 He was a second time deported, and at seventy 
 years of age we find him on a tour of the chief 
 cities of Europe, like another Peter, the Hermit, 
 preaching his crusade and declaring, " God wills it!" 
 Once more unsuccessful, with a zeal that no dis- 
 couragement could quench or even dampen, in 13 14, 
 at seventy-eight years of age, this grand old hero 
 once more crossed the Mediterranean to Bougiah, 
 and there, in his eightieth year, met death, like the 
 first martyr, by stoning. 
 
 Whatever his faults or fanaticism, he had an iron 
 
66 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 resolution and chivalric ardor seldom equalled, and 
 on the scroll of missionary history the name of this 
 noble of Palma has a grand record. Dr. George 
 Smith says of him; ** No church, papal or reformed, 
 has produced a missionary so original in plan, so 
 ardent and persevering in execution, so varied in 
 gifts, so inspired by the love of Christ, as this saint 
 of seventy-nine, whom Mohammedans stoned to 
 death on the 30th of June, 131 5. In an age of vio- 
 lence and faithlessness, he was the apostle of 
 heavenly love." Let this motto from his own great 
 book be adopted by all his true successors : 
 
 " He who loves not, lives not ; 
 He v^fho lives by the Life, cannot die." 
 
 Francis Xavier — Romish Apostle to the Indies. 
 1506-1552. 
 
 Five centuries stretch between Lull and Carey, and 
 few are the missionary names that history meanwhile 
 records, but sufficient to preserve the succession un- 
 broken and show that God always has true children 
 to become the seed of the Kingdom. 
 
 The Reformation period was not one of missionary 
 activity: from the days of the Bohemian martyr to 
 those of the Florentine, the reformers did little more 
 than purge the Church of false doctrine ; but the Re- 
 formation moved the Romish Church to aggressive 
 measures, and one of the most conspicuous fruits of 
 mediaeval missions was Francis Xavier, the apostle 
 to the Indies. 
 
 This remarkable and unique man, born in 1506, 
 was in youth tainted by association with Protestant 
 ''heretics" but was, by Ignatius Loyola, founder of 
 the Jesuit order, saved from these ''deplorable dan- 
 gers." At forty-six he died on the Island of San- 
 cian, or St. John, off the coast of China, in 1552. 
 But what an all-consuming flame burned in his 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 67 
 
 bosom during those last ten years and set the Orient 
 aglow ! 
 
 He was misguided, no doubt; but no other life, 
 since Paul's, has shown such ardour and fervour, such 
 absorbing zeal for the greater glory of God, such 
 self -forgetting, self-denying passion for the souls of 
 men, as that of the young Saint of Navarre, whose 
 withered relics are still adored in the Church of 
 Bom Jesus at Goa. 
 
 It was not until 1542, ten years before his death, 
 that the Jesuit missionary landed in Portuguese 
 India. Yet what labors abundant crowded that 
 decade! For three years he toiled in Southern 
 India; for nearly three more, in the Chinese Arch- 
 ipelago ; and the last four were given to India and 
 Japan. 
 
 To the doctrine of free grace, unconsciously im- 
 bibed in boyhood, he owed his genuine experience of 
 faith in Christ, his strong hold upon Him, and the 
 inspiration of an unselfish purpose. To his Papal 
 and Jesuit training we trace that admixture of con- 
 fidence in outward rites and good works which al- 
 loyed and vitiated his otherwise superb service. To 
 sprinkle holy water in baptism, to recite the creed 
 and a few prayers, limited his methods and measured 
 his success. His preaching practically knew noth- 
 ing of the purging away of sin by intelligent faith 
 in the atoning blood. He said, ^^ feci cliristiaiios'' — 
 " I make christians"; and it is not strange if the 
 disciples he made often shocked their "maker" by 
 glaring vices and flagrant sins. 
 
 He mastered no oriental language, and was often 
 without an interpreter ; sometimes, as among the pearl 
 fishers of Tuticorin, he was, as he himself felt, but 
 an adept in a dumb show, an actor in a pantomime. 
 His was the gospel of sacraments and ceremonies, 
 preached in mute action, but with what lofty enthu- 
 siasm ! To baptize a new-born babe w^ould save a 
 soul; to mumble a few prayers would deliver from 
 
68 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 purgatory; and so he went on with wild passion for 
 numbers, carrying the counting of converts to the 
 last extreme of error and absurdity. It was the last- 
 ing warning against that mechanical theory which 
 gauges the success of missions by numerical results. 
 
 In one month, in Travancore, he baptized ten thou- 
 sand natives, and at the close of his ten years' work 
 reckoned his converts by the million. In fact, with 
 an ambition that knew no bounds, he planned the 
 conversion of the whole Empire of the Rising Sun, 
 and wanted only time enough to Christianize the 
 Orient. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, this 
 Jesuit fanatic puts to shame all who read the story of 
 his life, by the utter self-abnegation he exhibited. 
 The man who on ship-board could night and day de- 
 vote himself to watching over and nursing a crew sick 
 with the scurvy, himself bathing their disgusting 
 bodies and washing their filthy clothes; who could 
 suffer the pangs of hunger, famishing himself to feed 
 the starving; who could, unresting, make journeys 
 over thousands of miles without care or thought as to 
 personal comfort; who could cheerfully forsake the 
 paths of indulgence and scholarship for one perpetual 
 pilgrimage amid the sickening sights and stifling 
 air of oriental heathenism ; who could, on God's altar 
 lay himself, with his brilliant mind and prospects 
 of preferment, with youth, wealth, worldly ambition, 
 all tempting him to self-seeking — and know only the 
 glory of God — such a man cannot be simply set aside 
 as a fool or a fanatic. If his mistaken zeal for Papal 
 supremacy caused Japan to seal her sea-gates to all 
 foreign approach for two and a half centuries, on 
 the other hand his consecrated earnestness has lit a 
 flame of devotion to Christ in hundreds who have 
 wept over the story of his heroism. 
 
 Xavier might have chosen any career however illus- 
 trious, and success would have had his crown ready. 
 When at twenty-four, he was graduated at the college 
 
THE NEW PIONEERS. 69 
 
 of St. Barbara in Paris as master of philosophy, and 
 licensed to lecture upon Aristotle; when he taught 
 with applause at the College of Beauvais, and in the 
 Sorbonne gained the title of *' doctor," he was like a 
 new star rising on the firmament of European civiliza- 
 tion, and men asked whereunto his fame might not 
 reach. But on August 15, 1534, he with five others, 
 led by Loyola, took their vows in the chapel of Mont- 
 martre, and from that time he never swerved nor 
 looked back. After his ordination as priest, he 
 went to Bologna, and there in his preaching and visits 
 to hospitals and prisons, evinced such apostolic zeal and 
 love, that he seemed a combination of Peter and Paul 
 and John in one; and, when missionaries were in 
 demand for Portuguese settlements in the Indies, he 
 was one of the first two selected. Bell in hand, he 
 went through the streets of Goa calling upon Christian 
 inhabitants to send children and slaves to be taught 
 the true faith; went to the coast of Cormorin and 
 the island of Ceylon, and many other parts of the 
 East, reviving the dead faith of nominal Christians, 
 and gathering flourishing congregations which he 
 left in the care of his disciples, himself pressing on- 
 ward to the regions beyond. Intrepidly he met the 
 intrigues and violence of Japanese priests, publicly dis- 
 puted with the bonzes, and won many from the 
 cultured classes; so that, on returning to Goa in 155 1, 
 he left three great princes of the empire as con- 
 verts and vast numbers of baptized disciples from 
 the humbler ranks. He meant to pierce the Chinese 
 wall of exclusion; and when the fatal fever laid hold 
 upon him he could only look toward the Walled -- 
 Kingdom, and cry, "O rock! rock! when wilt thou 
 open to my Master?" During these ten years this 
 Romish ''apostle" had planted the cross ''in fifty-two 
 different kingdoms, had preached through nine 
 thousand miles of territory, and baptized over one 
 million persons. " In visions of the night when he 
 saw the world conquered for Christ, he would spring 
 
70 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Up shouting, '■'■ Yet more, O my God, yet more!" 
 and his whole life was a commentary on his own 
 motto: 
 
 ''Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam." 
 
 John Eliot — Apostle to the North American 
 Indians. 1604-1690. 
 
 Like Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf, properly belong- 
 ing to the century before Carey, Eliot was one of 
 those who formed the mould in which modern mis- 
 sions took shape. He was a pioneer of pioneers, 
 and history has yet to give him his true niche in her 
 Westminster. His period nearly spans the seven- 
 teenth century, and three features are conspicuous 
 in his personality: first, a pious parentage with its 
 rich legacy of character; secondly, his connection 
 with the Puritan exile, Thomas Hooker, whom he 
 followed to the New World; and thirdly, his absorb- 
 ing passion for the souls of the red men. For sixty 
 years he filled his sole pastorate at Roxbury, from this 
 centre radiating influence over a wider sphere of 
 effort. 
 
 A forecast of his work was seen in his early apti- 
 tude for language. At nineteen, graduated from 
 Cambridge, he had already mastered the original 
 languages of the Bible, and shown unusual skill as a 
 grammarian and philologist. At thirty-five, the 
 colonial leaders chose him to aid in the new version 
 of the Psalter, and his " Bay Psalm Book " was the 
 first book printed in America. 
 
 He had barely taken up his pastoral staff at Rox- 
 bury when his unselfish love was drawn out toward 
 the Indians. Through a young Pequot, he got hold 
 of their strange tongue, and in 1646, in Chief 
 Waban's wigwam preached the first sermon in their 
 language ever known on American soil. This 
 memorable service in camp, near Brighton, lasted 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 71 
 
 three hours. A new camp-fire was kindled, and the 
 spirit of religious inquiry began to burn. Two 
 weeks later, a second visit found an old warrior 
 weeping lest it should be too late to find God; and a 
 fortnight after, Waban himself was found talking to 
 his followers of the strange story of the cross, in face 
 of fierce opposition from the Indian priests. 
 
 What, two hundred years after him, William Duncan 
 did in his *' Metlakahtla," Eliot did in his ''Nonan- 
 tum," five miles west of Boston — building a model 
 state for his "praying Indians," who as such became 
 known in history, like Cromwell's '' Ironsides." The 
 Roxbury pastor, aflame with holy passion to civilize 
 and Christianize these wild men of the forest, organ- 
 ized his converts into a commonwealth, with civil 
 courts, social and industrial improvements and re- 
 ligious institutions. 
 
 No circle of ten miles diameter could fence in 
 such a man. Neponset, Concord, Brookfield, Pawn- 
 tucket, felt his power, and from all quarters came 
 clamorous appeals for new law-codes, Bible institu- 
 tions and Christian teachers. Chiefs and their sons 
 became converts, and then leaders; and, when Eliot's 
 visits involved risk to him, the sachem and his brave 
 warriors became his escort ; while fearless, if not heed- 
 less of danger, alone on horseback, he dared perils 
 and bore privations for Christ's sake. 
 
 Not only were snares of death laid for him by hos- 
 tile and treacherous chiefs, but his own countrymen, 
 not content to withhold aid, pitilessly pelted him 
 with the hail of ridicule, or hurled at him the mud- 
 clods of aspersion; they made him the butt of jest as 
 a trader in fables, or charged him with selfish greed. 
 But God "stepped in and helped." Before the cen- 
 tury had reached its noon, his work had won a 
 double victory; for it had both conquered the Indian 
 and compelled recognition from Britain. Devout 
 souls, across the sea, heard the fame of his deeds and 
 felt the flame of his zeal; and so it came to pass that, 
 
72 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 more than half a century before the '' Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel," a similar organization 
 was formed to propagate the gospel in New Eng- 
 land, and sent fifty pounds a year to the Noncon- 
 formist exile at Roxbury. 
 
 Like Livingstone, Eliot was a missionary general 
 and statesman. In 1650, he gathered most of his 
 converted Indians into *'Natick," a tract of six 
 thousand acres on the Charles River, where each 
 family had a house-lot, where large buildings were 
 erected for church and school, and where distin- 
 guished visitors heard Eliot's praying Indians teach 
 and preach. The evangelist and statesman now be- 
 came also theological professor, training a native 
 ministry — that secret of the perpetuity of all mis- 
 sion work. He who had toiled for thirty-eight years 
 to gather about thirty-six hundred converted Indians 
 into fourteen settlements in 167 1, left twenty-four 
 native preachers behind him when he died in 1690. 
 
 This versatile man was not only preacher and 
 pastor, general and statesman, founder of model set- 
 tlements and trainer of native evangelists; he was 
 also a translator. In 1661 the New Testament, and 
 two years later the Old Testament, were published 
 in the native tongue; and so that famous Indian 
 Bible, which has now no! one living reader, was the 
 first Bible printed west of the Atlantic. As Bayard 
 Taylor said of Humboldt — it is "not a ruin but a 
 pyramid," no mere lonely relic of the past for 
 the curious antiquary, but a grand structure from 
 whose lofty apex the red man got a glimpse of the 
 City of God; and it is still a pillar of witness, testifying 
 to one of God's kings who, against such odds, builded 
 this monument to the glory of God! Both as a 
 memorial of holy zeal and as a testimony to fine 
 scholarship, it merits what Edward Everett said of it, 
 that ' ^ the history of the Christian Church contains 
 no example of resolute, untiring labour superior to 
 it." Eliot likewise created for his beloved children 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 73 
 
 of the forest a new Christian literature, translating 
 such practical guides as '' Baxter's Call," and pre- 
 paring catechism and psalter to follow grammar 
 and primer. When age and weakness kept him at 
 home, and he could not go to his Indians, he besought 
 families to send to him their negro servants that he 
 might teach them saving truth. 
 
 Southey pronounced John Eliot ''one of the most 
 extraordinary men of any country ;" and Richard Bax- 
 ter said there was '' no other man whom he honoured 
 above him." We claim for him a certain priority of 
 pedigree in this apostolic succession. In a peculiar 
 sense he was, on this side the sea, father and founder 
 of modern missions ; for it was his life and work that 
 moved and moulded David Brainerd, James Brainerd 
 Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Adoniram Judson, as also 
 William Carey and others who followed him. Yet 
 this stream of holy influence which watered so many 
 trees of life, Eliot himself traces to its spring in the 
 home of Hooker. ''When I came into this blessed 
 family," said he, "I saw as never before the power 
 of godliness in its lively vigour and efficiency." What 
 a lesson in living ! Eliot held for a time the position 
 of usher in Hooker's grammar school, and the family 
 piety he saw exhibited there led to his conversion and 
 consecration. Thus do the streams whose fountains 
 are beneath the Temple of God flow softly through 
 their hidden channels, and come up to the surface, 
 from time to time, in some Siloam basin or Bethesda 
 pool. Hooker reappears in Eliot, Eliot in Edwards, 
 Edwards in Carey, Carey in Judson, and so on without 
 end. 
 
 The last words on John Eliot's lips were "Welcome, 
 joy!" and were probably the response of the depart- 
 ing soul to the vision of bliss which glorified his dying 
 moments. But there is a brief sentence written at 
 the end of his Indian grammar which is the key to 
 the lock of his life, furnishing at once the interpreta- 
 tion of the man and the revelation of his secret. As 
 
74 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 I stood, in 1893, by the simple slab of stone that in 
 a Boston burial-ground bears his name, that sentence 
 seemed a fit motto for all true missions: 
 
 '' PRAYER AND PAINS 
 THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST 
 WILL DO ANYTHING." 
 
 Baron Justinian Ernst Von Welz — Pioneer to 
 Dutch Guiana. 
 
 The roots of modern missions reach back to the 
 Reformation, and the plant that hangs with such 
 abundant fruit is at least four centuries old. But 
 much of this growth was below the surface; and a 
 distinct and definite line marks the last hundred 
 years as the period of organized missionary effort. 
 
 Luther, and his fellow reformers, revived primitive 
 apostolic faith, which must be the precursor and 
 prepare the way if apostolic life and work are to 
 follow. The Church must always be evangelical 
 before it is evangelistic. Soon after the reformed 
 faith had laid hold upon the convictions of God's 
 people, the debt of duty to a lost race began loudly to 
 demand payment, and the Reformed Church felt the 
 movings of a new impulse to spread the good tidings 
 far and wide. But, after a thousand years of inaction, 
 of spiritual sloth and sleep, apathy and lethargy 
 loose their hold slowly, as the ice-bonds of an arctic 
 winter yield to the summer sun. Here and there 
 one man was reached and roused, his eyes opening to 
 the fact that millions were dying without the gospel ; 
 his ears opening to the cry of want and woe which, 
 like the moan and sob of waves on the sea-shore, tells 
 of storm and wreck. Now and then a man went forth, 
 while as yet the Church as a whole seemed locked in 
 icy indifference and insensibility. 
 
 Von Welz, who belongs before Spener, Francke 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 75 
 
 and Zinzendorf , is one of the precursors of the commg 
 era of missions. About 1664 he issued his invitation 
 for a society of Jesus, to promote Christianity and 
 the conversion of heathendom ; and the same year, 
 another manifesto of Uke purport which, like Carey's 
 Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians, a hundred 
 years later, turned a powerful search-light upon the 
 superficial piety of his day and laid bare its hollo wness 
 and shallowness. 
 
 There is something grand in this solitary man, 
 blowing upon God's silver trumpet a solemn alarm 
 to set in motion the camps. No such voice had be- 
 fore been heard in the Reformed Church, but it 
 awakened no sympathetic responsive echo. Those 
 'Might words," which are the "Devil's keenest 
 swords," pierced him again and again. Unsparing 
 ridicule and contemptuous opposition swept over 
 him, but only to fix deeper the roots of his holy pur- 
 pose, as storms fasten the cedars to the rock-sides of 
 Lebanon. Another manifesto still more searching 
 succeeded : an appeal to court preachers and learned 
 professors to establish a college for training mission- 
 aries. Von Welz joined to the capacity of a states- 
 man and organizer, the enthusiasm of a zealot, the 
 persistency of a born leader, and the courage of a 
 warrior. Because he would not keep silence but 
 kept blowing his bugle blast in men's ears, summon- 
 ing the sleeping Church to propagate the faith among 
 unbelieving peoples, he was laughed at as a dreamer 
 and fanatic, and denounced as a hypocrite, heretic 
 and blasphemer. Dr. Ursinus, severer in rebuke 
 than Ryland was with Carey, prayed, concerning the 
 proposed Jesus- Association, "protect us from it, 
 dear Lord God," as though the proposed missionary 
 society and training college were to be classed with 
 those malicious and seditious schemes from which 
 the litany implores, " Good Lord, deliver us." The 
 famous doctor of Ratisbon regarded the heathen as 
 dogs to whom we are not to give that which is holy, 
 
76 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 or swine that will wallow in the mire and trample 
 under foot the pearls of the gospel, and he would 
 have pfiven them over to work all uncleanness with 
 greediness. 
 
 When the proposal to send out artisans and lay- 
 men to evangelize the heathen met, like other ap- 
 peals, only rebuif and ridicule, that heroic soul that 
 could not move others to action found relief in self- 
 offering. Ordained an apostle to the gentiles by 
 Breckling, a poor priest in Holland, Von Welz, like 
 Zinzendorf after him, left behind his baronetcy and 
 his baronial estate, and himself became the humble 
 messenger to Dutch Guiana, where he laid down his 
 life. Like other seers of God and prophets of hu- 
 manity, he saw farther than his contemporaries; and, 
 had the bold originality of his missionary schemes 
 found earnest co-operation, organized missions might 
 have found in the soil of Protestant Germany their 
 germination at least a hundred years before Carey 
 and his humble tv/elve sat down in widow Wallis' 
 parlor at Kettering. 
 
 Von Welz was another of the examples of which 
 history is full, of great and extraordinary minds en- 
 dowed with a consciousness of strength, impelled by 
 a Divine impulse w^hich is their truest and best ad- 
 viser. There is a "perspicacity of eye " which is the 
 direct effect of that mystic anointing with God's own 
 eye salve ; and God's born prophets must not be diso- 
 bedient to the heavenly vision, though others see not 
 the form and hear not the voice. Baron Von Welz 
 could say of his manifestos what Thucydides said of 
 his histories, * ' I give these to the public as an ever- 
 lasting possession, and not as a contentious instru- 
 ment of temporary applause." 
 
 Such men are God's agitators, sent to marshal 
 the conscience of the Church, to mould the law of its 
 life and the methods of its work in conformity with 
 His word and will. They are educators of the race, 
 but too often they find dull pupils, that, ever learn- 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 77 
 
 ing, are never able to come to the full knowledge of 
 the truth. To us it now seems incredible that the 
 Austrian baron, who would found a new Jesus so- 
 ciety — not a Jesuit order — to rally to itself those 
 whom the love of Jesus constrained to bear His 
 gospel to the lost, and who offered the capital of 
 30,000 thalers as a fund whose interest should sup- 
 port the missionaries in training, — should be met not 
 only by the sneers of the worldly, but by the unspar- 
 ing condemnation of leading Churchmen; that John 
 Heinrich Ursinus, superintendent of Ratisbon, other- 
 wise an excellent man, could so violently oppose 
 a scheme which took all its inspiration from the New 
 Testament! Yet, in so doing, he represented the 
 general attitude of the Lutheran Church of his day. 
 
 The zeal of this first missionary martyr within the 
 Lutheran Church, who found a grave at Surinam, 
 may have flamed with excess of enthusiasm, but 
 we cannot, with Plitt, dismiss him as a ' ' missionary 
 fanatic." His motives were too unselfish, his purpose 
 too lofty, his self-sacrifice too sublime, his appeals 
 too scriptural and too spiritual, to be thus classed 
 with the outcome of a half-disordered brain. How 
 true it is that the madness of one generation is the 
 wisdom of the next, and the fanaticism of one decade 
 becomes the heroism of the next ! The men that are 
 martyrs to the hatred ^nd violence of one age, are 
 the saints that a succeeding age canonizes. Would 
 that we might not slay God's prophets, leaving a 
 wiser generation to pay its too tardy tribute at their 
 sepulchres ! 
 
 Bartholomew Ziegenbalg — Pioneer to India. 
 1683-1719. 
 
 If we seek the pioneer in the East Indies, we must 
 go back beyond Duff and Carey to those devoted 
 pietist missionaries, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and 
 Henry Pliitschau, who, in 1706, just one hundred 
 
78 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 years before Alexander Duff was born, landed at 
 Tranquebar. 
 
 Ziegenbalg, born in Pulsnitz, Upper Lusatia, in 
 1683, and dying in India, of cholera, at thirty-six, 
 crowded into twelve years of missionary life such 
 abundant service as few of the most devoted men 
 have ever offered to the Master on the altar of mis- 
 sions. Trained at Halle in theology and biblical 
 literature, and ordained at Copenhagen in 1705, he 
 arrived at Tranquebar after eight months at sea, 
 only to be imprisoned by the Danish authorities. 
 Unknown to him and his fellow-student, by the 
 same vessel on which they sailed, secret instructions 
 were despatched by the Danish East India Com- 
 pany, authorizing the governor at Tranquebar to 
 block their way by every means and crush their mis- 
 sion in the bud. And the governor did his best to 
 obey instructions. 
 
 These first Protestant missionaries that ever trod 
 the soil of India, had gone over the wide seas to win 
 a new empire for Christ, and as they stood, on the 
 night after they landed, with no shelter but the sky 
 and no companions but the stars, left by the 
 governor to shift for themselves, a pathetic interest 
 invests their loneliness. What a task before them, 
 and what a welcome to their new field ! One of the 
 governor's suite took pity upon them and they found 
 for the first few days a place of sojourn; then they 
 were allowed to occupy a house upon the wall, close 
 by the heathen quarters ; and, all undaunted by diffi- 
 culties, Ziegenbalg, six days after his landing, was 
 busy at Tamil, though he had neither dictionary, 
 grammar nor alphabet. He sat down with native 
 children, writing with fingers on the sand to learn 
 the strange language in which were locked up the 
 secrets of access to the people and their religion. 
 
 By almost unparalleled industry and application, he 
 could in eight months talk in Tamil. All day long 
 "busied with reading and writing, translating and re- 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 79 
 
 citing, he managed not only to master the intricate 
 construction of the language, but to catch the inflec- 
 tion and tone in pronunciation, so that in 1709, 
 Tamil was to him as his native German. He had 
 now, however, made only a start, and applied him- 
 self to the making of a grammar and two lexicons, 
 which together contained nearly 60,000 words. Be- 
 fore he had been in India two years, the translation 
 of the New Testament was in progress, and within a 
 third year completed. Then, when serious illness 
 hindered other work, he began the Old Testament. 
 
 Here was a young missionary of twenty-six, preach- 
 ing in Tamil, and giving the people the New Testa- 
 ment in their own tongue. On the ship sailing 
 from Copenhagen he had learned the broken Portu- 
 guese dialect that all along the coast was used by the 
 half-breeds, and he turned this to good use, opening a 
 school and preaching service for such as could be 
 reached by this language; and the first fruits of his 
 labour were five converted slaves of Danish masters 
 within the first year after his arrival, and, four 
 months later, nine adult Hindus. 
 
 Against the persistent opposition of the governor, 
 and the failure of funds to carry on the mission, in 
 1708, Ziegenbalg made his pioneer preaching tour 
 into the kingdom of Tanjore, and at Negapalam began 
 his friendly conferences with the Brahmans. He 
 not only first gave India a Tamil New Testament 
 and vernacular dictionaries, but he set up the first 
 press. 
 
 Left alone by Pliitschau's return, he was himself 
 driven home by sickness. In 17 15 he suddenly ap- 
 peared in Denmark; then hurried into Germany to 
 Francke and Halle, preaching to crowds that no 
 church could hold ; then Tvith his newly wedded wife, 
 hurrying through Holland to London, he went back 
 to Tranquebar, where he found the governor who 
 had tyrannically fought him displaced by a warm 
 friend of missions. 
 
80 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. . 
 
 For two years more, as though he felt that death 
 was approaching, with almost reckless enthusiasm he 
 sped toward his goal — the winning of India for Christ. 
 At Christmastide, 1 718, he preached, but a week later 
 his voice was so feeble that he could scarce be heard, 
 and he never again spoke in public. On the last 
 Sunday his bed was his pulpit, and from his pillow 
 he exhorted his native converts to hold fast the faith. 
 Soon after morning prayer, February 23, 17 19, the 
 chill of death was upon him. 
 
 Two scenes, one at the beginning, the other at the 
 end of this singularly devoted life, should be placed 
 side by side for the lessons they teach. When his 
 mother died she left to her children as her last legacy, 
 *'a great treasure," which she bade them seek in the 
 Bible. ^' There," said she, "you will find it; there 
 is not a page that I have not wet with my tears." 
 
 Ziegenbalg was very young at the time, but he 
 never forgot the impression of those words; and 
 when he went to India, his mother's legacy to him 
 was the treasure he sought to bequeath to his con- 
 verts. And when about himself to depart, so in- 
 tense was the glory that smote him, that he sud- 
 denly put his hands to his eyes, exclaiming, "How 
 is it so bright, as if the sun shone full in my face !" 
 Soon after, he asked that his favourite hymn might be 
 sung, "Jesus, meine zuversicht" (my confidence), and 
 on the wings of sacred song he took his flight, leaving 
 behind over three hundred and fifty converts, cate- 
 chumens and pupils, a missionary seminary and a 
 Tamil lexicon, but best of all the Tamil Bible. 
 
 When, a hundred and thirty-four years later, Alex- 
 ander Duff stood in the pulpit where Ziegenbalg, as 
 well as Grundler and Schwartz, so often told of 
 Jesus, his heart swelled with emotion. To him the Dan- 
 ish missionary was, among all that had gone to India, 
 not only great, but "first, inferior to none, scarcely 
 second to any that followed him." On the sides of a 
 plain altar lay the dust of Ziegenbalg and Grundler, 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 81 
 
 those two men of such ''brief but brilliant and im- 
 mortal careers in the mighty work of Indian evangeli- 
 zation," whose '' lofty and indomitable spirit breathed 
 the most fervid piety."* 
 
 As truly as Ignatius or Huss, Ziegenbalg was a 
 martyr of Christ. But, as Shelley's heart was found 
 unconsumed in the ashes of his pyre on Italy's shore, 
 the heart of such a pioneer is still the inspiration of 
 all later heroism. Whatever property Ziegenbalg 
 had in himself was made over to God, unencumbered 
 with mortgages ; to him self-denial was a joy, and sacri- 
 fice was amply compensated by service. Like the Maid 
 of Orleans, he would ''rather have died than do any- 
 thing which was known to be contrary to the will of 
 God;" and, like Richard Knill, his contribution to 
 missions was the offering of himself. 
 
 For courageous faith and patient faithfulness, for 
 keen insight and practical wisdom, for untiring indus- 
 try and deep devotion, few missionaries anywhere 
 have equalled Bartholomew Ziegenbalg ; and we can- 
 not but see him repeated and reproduced in that most 
 conspicuous figure in India during the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, Christian Frederick Schwartz, who like him was 
 a German, a student and translator in Tamil, ordained 
 at Copenhagen, and who sailed to Tranquebar. These 
 two men, though one life measured but half the other's 
 in years, wielded a power in India that can be meas- 
 ured only at the last day. 
 
 Hans Egede — The Apostle of Greenland. 
 1686-1758. 
 
 We turn now toward that repellant clime, the frozen 
 pole, to find another example of one whom God 
 called and thrust forth to unfurl the flag of the cross 
 upon the ice-castles of the north. 
 
 It was early in the last century that a humble Dane 
 who was the village pastor in Vaagen, off the 
 Norway coast, in the Lifoden Isles, felt oppressed 
 
 * Smith's Short History. 
 
82 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 with the woe and want of the heathen a thousand 
 miles away toward the pole; and, like Nehemiah at 
 the court of Esther, his face betrayed his sorrow of 
 heart, so that not only his wife but his parishioners 
 sought a reason for his troubled looks. His was a 
 secret that could not be kept. By a seeming 
 accident Hans Egede had read of the discovery of 
 Greenland by Norwegian sailors about the close of 
 the tenth century ; of the successful preaching of the 
 gospel among the rude people of those climes ; of the 
 subsequent ice blockade, and the black pest which, in 
 the fifteenth century, broke off communication, so 
 that for nearly three centuries these poor heathen 
 had been left to relapse into darkness without any 
 man who cared for their souls. 
 
 Hans Egede could not say why he should feel 
 such concern for those toward whom no one else 
 seemed to be drawn ; but he could rest neither day 
 nor night for thinking of them; and he ventured 
 at last to open his heart to his dear ** Gertrude." 
 But, like many another, she found the home-work a 
 sufficient apology for staying at Vaagen, and could 
 neither sympathize with nor understand this yearning 
 for souls three hundred leagues away. Wife and 
 children and parish were to her field enough for 
 apostolic labors and denials, and she begged Hans 
 to dismiss his anxieties, her earnest pleading 
 waxing at last into virtuous indignation at the 
 mistaken zeal that would turn him from duties close 
 at hand to go on a vague mission to the ends of 
 earth. 
 
 God was dealing with her husband, and he could 
 only answer that the Lord would have him do some- 
 thing for Greenland: of that he was sure. He was 
 persuaded to wait, and four years passed away. 
 Greenland seemed to find another ice blockade in 
 Egede's heart. Then came three signs from God; 
 two bishops wrote letters, respectively from Dron- 
 theim and Bergen, both urging Egede to take up this 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 83 
 
 mission ; and a rich merchant made offer of transpor- 
 tation, and help in founding a colony. Egede felt that 
 God was both thrusting him forth and opening the 
 door; but his reluctant wife was now joined by a 
 sorrowing church, and again Hans Egede consented 
 to wait, but solemnly added: "Twice God has 
 called me — if again He calls, I go." 
 
 About a year after, the third call came; and this 
 time it came through his wife, Gertrude. Thorns 
 had been planted in the household nest, and she was 
 restless and unhappy. Some hostile elements in the 
 parish made her home-life bitter, and Vaagen lost its 
 charm. God was stirring up the nestling and pre- 
 paring his eaglet for a flight. Half a night was spent 
 on her knees. Then she asked little Paul, her 
 youngest child, whether she should go with his father 
 to the poor heathen across the sea; and out of the 
 mouth of a babe and suckling God spoke once more, 
 for he said, * ' Yes, let us go ; and I will tell them of 
 Jesus and teach them to say, * Our Father !' " And 
 so, after six years of waiting and watching for God's 
 time to come, the wife, too, felt God thrusting her 
 forth, and now her faith went beyond her husband's. 
 
 Early in 1 7 2 1 the ship was ready to set sail : and 
 when Hans Egede had his foot on the plank to go on 
 board, some sailors warned him that death awaited him 
 if he ventured to those inhospitable shores. They 
 said they had come from Greenland and barely 
 escaped being eaten by those cannibals who dwelt 
 there and who had eaten some of their party. Was 
 this God's voice of warning? The Vaagen pastor 
 took his four children by the hand and turned back. 
 But Gertrude now led the way, crying, "O ye of 
 little faith !" and boldly crossed the plank. To her 
 this was no sign that they were to stay at home ; it 
 was a test, from God, of their worthiness to under- 
 take for Him ; and taking her seat in the boat she 
 bade her family follow. 
 
 They set sail, and, while the husband and children 
 
84 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 wept, her face shone as if it were the face of an angel. 
 They undertook as pioneers to preach the gospel in 
 that foreign land, and with some forty settlers 
 founded the Christian colony of which God-thaab, 
 (Good Hope) is the capital. 
 
 The story of Egede is one of severe hardship, but 
 it is so full of startling marvels that Christlieb has 
 referred to it as one of the many instances which 
 modern missions furnish of that supernatural work- 
 ing which seems to reproduce the apostolic age. 
 Those stupid dwarfs, like the icebergs and snowfields 
 about them, seemed frozen into insensibility; and, 
 feeling that only some sure sign of Divine power 
 could melt their stolid apathy, Egede boldy asked 
 for the gift of healing, and was permitted in scores 
 of cases to exercise it, while his wife received the 
 gift of prophecy, predicting in the crisis of famine 
 the very day and hour when a ship should come bear- 
 ing supplies ! 
 
 When Christian VI. discouraged the settlement on 
 account of the severe hardships and bitter disappoint- 
 ment of the half famished colonists, the work of 
 Egede seemed to have come to naught. But by a 
 very marvellous leading of God, where the mission of 
 Egede ended, Moravian missions began. For, in 
 1 731, at the coronation of Frederick's successor to the 
 throne, the young Count Zinzendorf represented the 
 Saxon court; and meeting two Eskimo converts of 
 Egede, learned that the mission work was to be aban- 
 doned. This was one of the main influences that, in the 
 next year, moved the young count, and through him 
 the Brotherhood, to send to the West Indies Dober 
 and Nitschmann, and to organize a mission work 
 that should know no limits but the wide world. 
 
 Count Von Zinzendorf — The Moravian Apostle. 
 1700-1760. 
 
 To Philip James Spener, head of this pietist school, 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 85 
 
 and to Francke, his greater disciple, this Moravian 
 bishop's spiritual lineage must be traced. His 
 grandfather, an Austrian noble, had for the Lord's 
 sake given up all his estates, and that heroic example 
 of self-denial his grandmother and aunt had empha- 
 sized by such holy training, that the lad, at four 
 years, formally covenanted with his " dear Saviour," 
 ''Be thou Mine and I will be Thine." He so longed 
 for communion with his unseen Lord, that in child- 
 ish simplicity he was wont to write letters to Jesus, 
 in which he laid bare his heart, and, confident that He 
 would get and read them, tossed them from the 
 castle window. 
 
 When but ten years old, the pupil of Francke at 
 Halle, we find him forming prayer circles, and the 
 Order of the Grain of Mustard-seed, whose members 
 were to sow in other hearts the seed of the Kingdom. 
 Though drawn to classic pursuits and tempted by 
 rank and riches, his life-motto was that of Tholuck 
 after him: ''I have one passion; it is He and He 
 alone:" and it was this, that amid the gaieties of 
 Paris and the snares of Dresden, held him fast to 
 Christ. To this, even the new passion of love was at 
 once brought into subjection; he would marry only 
 in the Lord, and his unique covenant of wedlock in- 
 volved a mutual renunciation of rank, a consecration 
 of wealth, and a dedication of self to the Lord and 
 His work. From this marriage-altar two pilgrims 
 went forth, as from the paschal supper in Egypt, 
 with loins girt and staff in hand, for a new Exodus. 
 
 On their wedding-tour, they found the Moravian 
 exiles taking refuge at Berthelsdorf, and welcomed 
 them to build there, Herrnhut; and the seal of the 
 Unitas Fratriini became the count's true coat of 
 arms — a lamb on a crimson ground with the cross of 
 resurrection, and a banner of triumph, with the 
 motto: *'Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur." — 
 "Our Lamb has won; let us follow Him." Zinzen- 
 dorf began with the resolve that wherever the Lord 
 
86 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 had need of him he would find his native land; and 
 a little later could say that he would rather be hated 
 for Christ's sake than be loved for his own. 
 
 His history merges into that of the Moravian 
 Brotherhood, which at the hundred and fiftieth 
 anniversary of its mission work, in 1882, had sent 
 forth 2,170 missionaries, planted 113 stations, 211 
 schools, and 89 Sunday schools, with a total of 
 23,000 pupils, and expended 52,000 pounds yearly, at 
 a cost of only three per cent, for administration. 
 
 The Unitas Fratrum is the pioneer church in mis- 
 sions. This brotherhood is in the direct line of 
 descent from the Bohemian martyr, Huss, and his 
 contemporary Chelczicky. In 1467, a few Bohemi- 
 ans formed themselves into an apostolic Church. 
 Tradition traces the ordination of their first bishop 
 to a Waldensian priest ; and so the Moravians are 
 linked to the martyrs both of Bohemia and of the 
 Vaudois valleys. Their doctrine took form both in 
 the mould of Luther and of Calvin, as became a 
 Church that was to be known alike for its vigorous 
 faith and its spirit of reform. Persecution wrought 
 the red cross into the Moravian robe, and in 1722, 
 Christian David, the carpenter, led a mere band of 
 eleven exiles across the frontier into Saxony. 
 
 How God teaches us not to despise the day of 
 small things ! They remind us of the eleven Apostles at 
 Jerusalem and of the twelve Baptists at Kettering. 
 Five years after they settled on the site of Herrnhut, 
 they were but three hundred strong, with Zinzendorf 
 practically at their head; and August 13, 1727, is still 
 kept as the spiritual birthday of the renewed Church. 
 Ten years later the count became their bishop, and 
 for twenty-three years, until his death in 1760, their 
 " advocate." To his leadership is due more than hu- 
 man annals record. Each morning gives a new text 
 as a watchword ; and certain members of the band 
 keep up the hourly prayer, as vestals guarded the 
 sacred fires and lamps. Death is a joyous home-going 
 to be announced with song and trumpet. 
 
THE XE W PIONEERS. 87 
 
 The Brethren caught the spirit of their leader; the 
 *' seed corn " at Halle has grown into the ^^ Diaspora " 
 at Herrnhut, whose principle, as its name implies, is 
 Dispersion. God has given to the Moravians to 
 prove the power of the spirit of missions, and to 
 make real what too many even yet treat as an im- 
 practicable ideal. The Diaspora is one hundred and 
 sixty-seven years old, has over sixty central stations, 
 numbers over seventy thousand members, and stands 
 for the home mission. To contact with its working 
 force the Wesleys and Whitefield owed their kindling 
 of evangelistic zeal. 
 
 But it is the foreign missions of the Herrnhut 
 band that furnish us our most pertinent example. 
 When in 1732 the settlement was but ten years old 
 and numbered but six hundred, Dober sailed for the 
 West Indies; and, soon after, the United Brethren 
 were planting the cross in Greenland and Lapland, 
 the Americas and Africa. Less than one hundred 
 and sixty years later, there were one hundred and 
 thirty-three stations and filials; three hundred and 
 forty-three missionaries and nearly fivefold as many 
 native helpers; thirty thousand communicants, and 
 nearly twice as many more baptized adults; and two 
 hundred and thirty-tw^o schools with twenty thousand 
 pupils. 
 
 All Christendom may well stop to gaze at the unique 
 spectacle of a Church, having in its missions almost 
 three times as many communicants and baptized 
 adults as in the home Church of its three provinces : 
 British, German and American; a Church, which, 
 while Protestant Churches at large send one member 
 out of five thousand to the foreign field, sends one 
 out of ninety-two! A like ratio throughout the 
 Churches generally would put in the regions beyond 
 three hundred and eighty thousand Protestant mis- 
 sionaries ! 
 
 Let us fix in mind the leading features of this fore- 
 most missionary Church. 
 
88 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 First, its Evangelistic Basis. It holds itself in 
 debt to a lost world, and in trust with the gospel : as 
 trustees to discharge the obligation of debtors. All 
 are trained to service, to work for the common good 
 of the Brotherhood and the redemption of the race; 
 to have few wants, frugal habits and readiness for 
 self-sacrifice. Missions are thus not the exception 
 but the law. Prompt obedience to any clear leading 
 of God is the base-block of daily life. Zinzendorf 
 asked a brother if he would go to Greenland. '' Cer- 
 tainly." " When ?" '^ To-morrow." Any Church 
 destitute of the spirit of missions is considered dead, 
 and every disciple without service, an apostate. 
 
 Again, the law of preference. The worst and 
 most hopeless fields have the first claim. Mary Lyon 
 reflected their unselfishness when she advised her 
 students at Holyoke to be ready to go where no one 
 else would, or as a poor negro slave phrased it, ' ' where 
 dere is most debbil." It was Moravian blood that 
 impelled William Augustine Johnson to choose Sierra 
 Leone, because it was the worst field known ; and so 
 Hans Egede became an exile in the land of eternal 
 snoAv, Dober offered to sell himself into slavery to 
 reach the slaves of St. Thomas, and later martyrs 
 have scaled Thibet's mountain walls to unfurl the flag 
 of the cross above the shrine of the Grand Lama. 
 
 Again, zeal for Divine approval. Wordly ambi- 
 tion is ruled out of the Moravian life. Evangelism, not 
 proselytism, is their principle. Increase of numbers 
 is no object ; and hence there is no counting of converts 
 or overlooking of quality in quantity. Of denomi- 
 national growth they are not jealous, and rather pre- 
 fer not to extend their borders. To them alone belongs 
 the rare distinction of a litany with this unique peti- 
 tion: 
 
 " From the unhappy desire of being great, 
 
 Good Lord, dehver us'-" 
 
 Holy living, ceaseless praying, cheerful giving. 
 
THE NEW PIONEERS. 89 
 
 constitute their conception of discipleship, and the 
 open secret of that Brotherhood, which, fewest in 
 numbers and poorest in resources, leads the van of 
 missions. 
 
 Christian Friederich Schwartz — Founder of the 
 Native Christian Church in India. 1726-1798. 
 
 Here was another of Germany's contributions to 
 the mission field. When at the University of Halle, 
 he studied Tamil that he might superintend the issue 
 of a Bible in that tongue ; and, though this purpose 
 was not carried into effect, he was unconsciously fit- 
 ting for a singularly useful work at the centre of 
 oriental missions. Francke, knowing that he had 
 learned Tamil, urged him to undertake a mission to 
 India; and in January, 1750, the meridian year of the 
 eighteenth century, he set sail, unaccompanied even 
 by a wife, that he might be the more single-eyed in his 
 devotion to His Master's work. 
 
 He was successively identified with Tranquebar, 
 Trichinopoly and Tan j ore. But Schwartz left his track 
 over all India, and he can be traced in footprints of 
 light after one hundred and fifty years. Such was his 
 influence as a man of God that both friends and foes 
 alike looked upon hirn with an awe akin to worship. 
 He was a day's man betwixt contending parties, a 
 whole court of arbitration in himself. He acted as 
 embassy to treat with Hyder Ali and saved Tanjore. 
 The cruel and vindictive despot gave orders: " Let 
 the venerable Father Schwartz pass unmolested!" 
 When, after nearly half a century of work in India, 
 he was not for God took him, he was mourned by a 
 whole nation. The prince of Tanjore wept over his 
 bier and the Rajah himself built him a monument. 
 
 Bishop Heber described him as ''one of the most 
 active, fearless and successful missionaries who have 
 appeared since the Apostles," and it is a curious exam- 
 
90 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 pie of apostolic succession in missions that William 
 Carey had been five years in Serampore, when 
 Schwartz was translated to a higher sphere. 
 
 '' Father Schwartz" wielded a sceptre in India 
 more potent than even Zeigenbalg, who landed at 
 Tranquebar twenty years before Schwartz was born. 
 It may be worth while to notice the steps by which 
 such a career was prepared. Born in 1726, he was 
 left motherless while yet an infant. But, as his 
 mother died, she gave her boy into the hands of her 
 Lutheran pastor and weeping husband, with this 
 solemn charge, which recalls the story of little 
 Samuel : ' ' For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath 
 given me my petition which I asked of Him. There- 
 fore, also, have I lent him to the Lord. So long as 
 he Hveth he shall be lent to the Lord. Take him, 
 and foster in him any aptitude which he may show 
 for the Christian ministry. This is my last legacy," 
 
 The dying commission of this modern Hannah was 
 fulfilled. His father trained young Schwartz to sim- 
 ple, self-denying habits ; sent him at eight years of 
 age to the grammar school at Sonnenberg, where he 
 got a good start in Latin, Greek and Hebrew; then 
 eight years later he transferred him to a higher 
 school at Ciistrin. There unhappily, his youthful 
 passions, not yet under the discipline of moral re- 
 straint, led him into dissipation, and it seemed as 
 though his mother's ''last legacy" would not prove 
 also a prophecy. 
 
 But God remembered his covenant. The lad was 
 kept back from presumptuous sins. He came under 
 Francke's influence, became interested in his orphan 
 houses, and studied at the university where Francke 
 taught. That marvellous man drew him with cords of 
 love, led him to a true consecration, and introduced 
 him to Schiiltze who had been twenty years in India, 
 and was then at Halle to print the Tamil Bible. 
 Under the contagious enthusiasm of this saintly 
 missionary, the seed planted in the boy's heart by 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 91 
 
 his mother found its growth in the man's life and 
 character. 
 
 But its full ripeness was reserved for the oriental 
 clime. On the voyage to India, his remarkable lin- 
 guistic powers were again brought into play, for he so 
 acquired the English tongue as to be able to preach in 
 that language on his arrival at Tranquebar. Within 
 four months, he preached with ease in the native 
 dialect; then mastered Persian, and so had access to 
 the greatest of Mohammedan princes; by his ac- 
 quaintance with Hindustani, he became invaluable 
 in the service of the British Government; and fur- 
 ther acquired the Hindu- Portuguese, that he might 
 reach the mixed race descended from this double 
 ancestry. 
 
 His passion to save men made all labour and sacrifice 
 seem little. He studied the habits, modes of thought 
 and idioms of speech, and even the mazes of mythology, 
 which are the paths to the hearts of the Hindus. 
 But above all he set himself so to live in God as by 
 his life to compel men to think of God. No hin- 
 drance was or is so serious to mission work as the 
 utter and often shameless wickedness of those who in 
 the eye of the native population stand for "Chris- 
 tians." The Indians of the West said of their Span- 
 ish conquerors in Central America, " If they are to 
 be in heaven, we prefer hell;" and the Indians of 
 the East replied to those who preached to them 
 purity, ''If only the pure in heart can see God, it 
 is sure that your countrymen will not be found in 
 heaven." 
 
 But the character of Schwartz was a sermon that 
 convinced the gainsayers. He spared not himself 
 nor counted his own life dear. With an energy and 
 unselfishness that have almost no parallel, as they 
 had almost no limit, early and late he gave himself 
 to work, and what his hands found to do he did with 
 his might. His discourse before a small native con- 
 gregation was prepared with as much care as if for 
 
92 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 
 
 courts and crowned heads of Europe. The country 
 became dotted with native churches. 
 
 He was but forty years old when events occurred 
 which stamped his career as unique, even in the 
 history of mission enterprise. The Society for 
 Promoting- Christian Knowledge chose Schwartz for 
 its new mission at Trichinopoly. His whole 
 allowance was fifty pounds a year. He lived in a 
 small room and on a diet of rice and vegetables. A 
 church was built to hold two thousand people, but he 
 would not allow his work in an English garrison 'to 
 hinder his greater work among the natives. With the 
 humblest of them he conferred and counselled, and 
 the proud Brahmans were often won by his argu- 
 ments, though they, like the Pharisees, feared to con- 
 fess Christ, lest they should be put out of their 
 *' synagogues." In 1769 he so charmed Rajah Tal- 
 jajee by his thanks before meat, and his holy conver- 
 sation, that when Schwartz left Tanjore, the Rajah 
 persuaded him to return ; and so great was his influ- 
 ence on the Rajah's subjects that they declared that 
 if their prince would set the example his followers 
 would all become Christians; and the Rajah might 
 perhaps have confessed Christ but for the violent 
 opposition of his court. 
 
 Henceforth Schwartz went by the name of the 
 *' Padre," and was free to go where he would, preach- 
 ing and teaching. His life was a living epistle of 
 Christ, a whole volume of Christian evidence and 
 apologetics. One young nabob said, ''Until you 
 came we thought of Europeans as godless men who 
 did not know the use of prayers." When chosen as 
 the only man fit to treat with Hyder Ali, lest his hands 
 should even seem defiled with presents he would take 
 nothing beyond bare travelling expenses; and his 
 candour and courtesy won even that tyrant, so that 
 on a subsequent occasion he said, *' Send to me none 
 of your agents, for I trust neither their words nor 
 pledges : send me the Christian missionary and I will 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 93 
 
 receive him." In the awful famine when Tanjore 
 was laid waste, the Rajah said, '' We have all lost 
 our credit; let us try whether the people will trust 
 Schwartz," who was authorized to arrange as he 
 could; and in two days a thousand oxen and eighty 
 thousand measures of rice were ready for the starving 
 garrison. 
 
 This one man, by the simple force of his piety, was 
 not only preacher and pastor, but patriarch. He 
 made laws and gave judgment. He ministered to 
 living and dead. When punishment for slight of- 
 fences became necessary, the culprits besought that 
 he might himself inflict the penalty, and from his 
 judgment there was no attempt or desire to appeal. 
 When, in 1787, the Rajah died, his influence pre- 
 vented the suttee at the funeral. All unsought by 
 him, the magistracy of the country was in the hands 
 of this saintly missionary. Freedom from deceitful- 
 ness and selfishness made him the organizer of cos- 
 mical order in the midst of social chaos. 
 
 After forty-eight years of consecrated service he 
 died, his clear voice still ringing out his favourite 
 hymn: 
 
 " Only to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 The Rajah's heir, Serjofee, could not be kept, 
 even by Hindu custom, from taking his place as a 
 chief mourner; and three years later, at his own 
 cost, built him a superb marble monument, executed 
 by Flaxman. The epitaph he himself wrote, the 
 first English verse ever known to be written by a 
 native Hindu: 
 
 " Firm wast Thou, humble and wise, 
 Honest and pure ; free from disguise ; 
 Father of orphans, the widow's support; 
 Comfort in sorrow of every sort. 
 To the benighted dispenser of light, 
 Doing, and pointing to that which is right. 
 Blessing to princes, to people, to me, 
 May I, my Father, be worthy of Thee, 
 Wisheth and prayeth thy Sarabojee." 
 
94 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs. 
 
 William Carey — Pioneer in Organized Missions. 
 1761-1834. 
 
 To the Paulerspury '' cobbler," the famous mis- 
 sionary, Orientalist, translator, has long been con- 
 ceded a front rank among pioneers of modern 
 missions and the new apostles. 
 
 He was born the year after Zinzendorf died. At 
 fourteen years of age a shoemaker's apprentice, he 
 was converted at about eighteen, and soon after 
 reaching majority joined the Baptists; three years 
 later he was ordained minister, serving churches 
 first at Moulton and then at Leicester; then in 1793, 
 going with Thomas, as the first missionary from 
 Britain to India. When he died at seventy-three he 
 had for half a century been the leading spirit in 
 modern missions to the heathen. 
 
 Several significant stages of progress are notice- 
 able in this leadership. First the kindling of the 
 fires in his own soul and the feeding of them with 
 the fuel of facts; then the carrying of the live coals 
 to other fireless altars, fanning the embers until they 
 burned and glowed, and guarding the feeble flame lest 
 it be smothered by the ashes of apathy, dampened 
 by the atmosphere of selfishness, scattered by the 
 breath of ridicule, or quenched by the wet earth of 
 open hostility. A very distinct stride forward was 
 taken in organizing that parent society at Kettering, 
 among whose original twelve we strangely miss 
 Carey's own name. Then, the next year he became 
 its first representative, and actually arrived at Ser- 
 ampore to give forty years of service to the field in 
 India. 
 
 Carey's life is luminous with lessons. First of all, 
 we learn the worth of hard work. He disclaimed 
 genius, but claimed ''plodding," as his secret. He 
 dug down deep into God's word to find His will. 
 In the reading of Cook's ''Voyages," he went with 
 him "round the world," to learn man's state and 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 95 
 
 need, and so he yearned to bring God's word and 
 that world together, that human want might find 
 its supply, and human woe its solace. From shoe- 
 shop at Hackleton to pulpit and chair at Serampore, 
 he was the same tireless plodder. Up to 1832 he had 
 issued more than two hundred thousand Bibles, 
 wholly or in part, and in forty dialects, beside other 
 printed matter, including valuable grammars and 
 dictionaries of Bengali, Mahratta, Sanskrit, etc. For 
 twenty-nine years he was Oriental professor at Fort 
 William College in Calcutta. 
 
 Carey's force lay in character. What he wrought 
 as a missionary pioneer must find its main explana- 
 tion in what he was, as a man of men, a man of God. 
 Not what one seems, but what one is, fixes the limit 
 of power; the level beyond which the stream never 
 rises is the character which is its source and its 
 spring. ^' To ^^ or not to be, that is the question." 
 Reputation is at best but the reflection of character, 
 and often very imperfect and unfaithful ; the echo, 
 faint, feeble, far off; but if the man be what he 
 ought, others may filch from him his ''good name," 
 but he is not made poor. 
 
 Because of what Carey was, he bore without harm 
 the brunt of a hard, long fight; even the keen blade of 
 unsanctified wit, when used against him, only dulled 
 its edge and blunted its point upon the shield of his 
 manly aim and faith in God. To all accusers, tra- 
 ducers, ridiculers, his life gave the lie. 
 
 The energy of his will, every purposeful soul may 
 emulate and imitate. Life that is aimless is both 
 restless and forceless. On the walls of society how 
 many a trumpet hangs, as we saw in the case of 
 young Raimund Lull, useless, voiceless, rusty ! it has 
 no lustre and gives forth no music, and is losing the 
 power to emit sound. What an hour of redemption, 
 when some brave warrior lays hands on the long 
 unused instrument, puts it to his lips and blows a 
 bugle blast! 
 
96 THE NEW ACTS Ol^ THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Young men — you whose life hangs idle, aimless, 
 mute, while the right is battling with the wrong, 
 would that some hero-spirit might set you quivering 
 and resounding with the clarion-peal of a holy pur- 
 pose to serve God and man ! No work is so weari- 
 some as doing nothing, no self-sacrifice so costly as 
 self-indulgence. Could you wear the ^' magic skin " 
 which makes sure the gratification of every selfish 
 whim, it would shrink with every new carnal pleas- 
 ure and so at last crush out all true life. 
 
 From the cradle to the grave an indomitable will, 
 yoked to a consecrated aim, bore Carey onward, tip- 
 ward, like the black horse of the rail, over torrents, 
 up mountains, drawing after him more passive and 
 less positive and resolute souls. With little teach- 
 ing he became learned; poor himself he made mil- 
 lions rich; by birth obscure he rose to unsought 
 eminence; and seeking only to follow the Lord's 
 leading, himself led on the Lord's host. 
 
 Carey had passion for souls, and, therefore, en- 
 thusiasm for missions: for human uplifting makes 
 toil sweet, and loss, gain. Self-denial was his habit, 
 and all the accumulations of his life in India were 
 turned to the cause of God ; when his income reached 
 ^^1500 he reserved less than fifty for his personal 
 expenses, devoting the rest to the purposes of the 
 mission. This reminds us of Wesley, who kept his 
 personal outlay down to twenty-eight pounds a year, 
 though his income rose from fifty to five hundred. 
 
 Carey's companions felt that God was behind him, 
 and this constrained them no longer to resist what at 
 first seemed the wild scheme of a fanatic, lest haply 
 they should have been found fighting against God. 
 Dr. Ryland confessed that God himself had infused 
 into him that passionate solicitude for the salvation 
 of the heathen which could be traced to no other suffi- 
 cient source. He who, like Bunyan, had been given 
 to dishonesty and profanity; whose untamed tongue 
 had been too familiar with the serpent-slime of filth 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 97 
 
 and lies, was from the hour of conversion a new man. 
 His native aptitude for linguistic study early led him 
 to search into Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and 
 Dutch; and his deep sense of human need and gos- 
 pel power, drew him toward painstaking investigation 
 into the state of the heathen, and into the Bible as 
 the secret of saving grace. 
 
 Holy zeal consumed him. For ten years, with in- 
 creasing ardour and fervour, he urged in private and 
 public prompt and united effort for a world's evan- 
 gelization. Whether mending a shoe, reading a 
 book, or teaching a boy, he was '' absent-minded," for 
 his 'thoughts wandered to the ends of the earth ; he 
 saw a thousand millions of lost souls without Bible, 
 or preacher, or knowledge of Christ. He read 
 Cook's "Voyages " till he knew as much as the writer, 
 of the degradation and destitution he had seen ; then 
 he bought what other books he could, and borrowed 
 what he could not buy; until he had picked up in 
 fragments a mass of information so incredible that 
 he became a living encyclopedia of missions, and 
 even Scott was glad to stop at '^ Carey's College " 
 as he went from Olney to Northampton, and so the 
 commentator sat at the cobbler's feet to be taught. 
 
 Andrew Fuller found him at Moulton, a map- 
 maker. Out of such crude materials as a cobbler's 
 shop could furnish, with paper, paste and ink, he 
 had outlined the countries of the world, representing 
 to the eye the appalling facts about the race and the 
 awful darkness and death-shade in the various lands 
 of cruelty and idolatry and superstition. It was thus 
 that he was prepared, when but thirty-one years old, 
 to publish his powerful ''Inquiry into the Obliga- 
 tions of Christians," and in the same year at Notting- 
 ham to preach that great sermon which has given a 
 movement and a motto to missions for a century 
 past, and which led to the great step at Kettering, 
 the same year, which proved the turning point of 
 missionary organization. 
 
98 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Behold the strange retributions and revohitions of 
 history ! Sydney Smith put Carey and his comrades 
 in the pillory, and pelted them with pitiless mockery. 
 To-day, not the Church only but the world honours 
 with homage the name and memory of that *' sancti- 
 fied cobbler." Let men ridicule ! There is a Nemesis 
 of Providence whose hand holds a scourge, not of 
 small cords, but of scorpion stings. The '' apostates 
 of the anvil and the loom " have become God's apos- 
 tles of the new Acts, and their witty clerical reviler 
 is now in the pillory ! 
 
 Ah, ye humble working men, who, like those prim- 
 itive disciples who forsook ship and tax bench to be 
 Christ's heralds, have left shoe-shop and shepherd's 
 fold, forge and anvil, plough and shuttle, for the sake 
 of the Kingdom, what crowns of glory await you when 
 the final day of awards rights the wrong of the ages I 
 
 Robert Morrison — The Apostle of China. 
 1782-1834. 
 
 This famous ''last-maker " of Morpeth always 
 brings to mind one who was born twenty-one years 
 in advance of him, the cobbler of Hackleton: for as 
 Carey wrought on boots, so Morrison, wrought on 
 boot-trees. Like Carey, he had but an elementary 
 education, and yet had such burning passion for knowl- 
 edge that he worked at his trade with book open be- 
 side him and gave to study the spare hours even of 
 the night. At fifteen years of age he joined the 
 Scotch Church, and at nineteen — again like Carey — 
 was digging deep among the roots of Latin and He- 
 brew tongues, and the more intricate mysteries of 
 theology. 
 
 While yet a student at Hoxton, Morrison chose 
 the mission field, and in 1804 was accepted by the 
 London Missionary Society and designated for 
 China. Two years were given to special prepara- 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 99 
 
 tion, studying- that strange language under a native 
 teacher. He who undertakes the mastery of the 
 Chinese tongue will find his patience and persever- 
 ance tested. It has been said to demand '' a head of 
 iron, a chest of oak, nerves of steel, the patience of 
 Job and the years of Methusaleh." And yet we 
 find Morrison plodding away undismayed at the 
 task he had undertaken and laboriously copying 
 Chinese manuscripts in the British Museum. 
 
 In 1807 he sailed for the Middle Kingdom as an 
 ordained missionary at the age of twenty-five. 
 But Chinese hostility to everything British com- 
 pelled him to go by way of New York City, from 
 which place he bore to the American Consul at 
 Canton a letter from the United States Secretary of 
 State, James Madison. 
 
 Reaching Canton in September, he took lodging 
 in the humblest quarters, adopting for the time 
 native habits both of dress and of diet. Forbidden 
 to preach, he made closer search into the perplexi- 
 ties of the native language, and in 18 10, three years 
 after landing, he actually put in print the first copy 
 of any portion of the Scriptures ever issued by a 
 Protestant missionary in the Chinese tongue. Four 
 years later he had completed the translation of the 
 whole New Testament, and with the aid of William 
 Milne, who joined him in 18 13, in four years more 
 he had ready the entire Old Testament also. It 
 seems incredible, but it is true, that in 182 1, less 
 than fourteen years after he set foot on Chinese soil, 
 this one man gave to the Celestials the complete 
 Word of God in their own vernacular. This was a 
 herculean labor, and can be appreciated only by 
 those who have undertaken a similar task amid cir- 
 cumstances equally discouraging, disheartening and 
 difficult. 
 
 But this missionary Hercules hasother '' labours," 
 as worthy to be reckoned among gigantic achieve- 
 ments. During the eleven years between 1807 and 
 
100 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 1818, he had also prepared and published a Chinese 
 grammar of three hundred pages, quarto; and a 
 '* View of China," for philological purposes. Verily, 
 there have been giants, even in these modern days, 
 who have confronted, undismayed, foes more formid- 
 able than the Anakim with their chariots of iron. 
 To create a new version of the Scriptures — a first 
 attempt, without either helpful precedents or ade- 
 quate linguistic helps — was an undertaking from 
 which any man but Morrison or Carey would have 
 shrunk back dismayed. 
 
 These labours were literally colossal. The Old 
 Testament alone formed twenty-one volumes duo- 
 decimo; but even such tasks were followed by a 
 greater, for he compiled a Chinese dictionary, which 
 he published in the same year with the completed 
 Bible, and which cost the East India Company five 
 thousand pounds sterling to issue ! 
 
 When Morrison died in 1834, he had devoted 
 twenty-seven years to China as a missionary 
 teacher, translator of God's Word, and distributor of 
 a new and sacred literature. He had laid at Malacca 
 in 18 18 the foundations of the Anglo-Chinese College, 
 which was afterward removed to Hong-Kong; and 
 himself gave toward the buildings and the support of 
 the infant enterprise, twenty-two hundred pounds. 
 
 The University of Glasgow sought to pay a tribute 
 to his great intellectual worth, when it conferred 
 upon him, at the early age of thirty-five, the degree 
 of doctor in divinity; and the nation honored him 
 eight years later by making him a Fellow of the 
 Royal Society; and George IV. granted him a special 
 audience, on which occasion he presented the king 
 with a copy of his translation of the Scriptures into 
 the Chinese tongue. 
 
 But these honours pale beside the crown which God 
 placed upon his head in permitting him to be the 
 great pioneer in that most huge and hoary empire of 
 Asia. What a conspicuous example is Morrison of 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 101 
 
 that grand truth, so needful to be learned, that no 
 man's true work can be measured by man's yard- 
 stick. Morrison was only a pioneer. He led the 
 way, and that is all. The end of his work as a phi- 
 lologist and translator was but the beginning of the 
 work of evangelization and education which others 
 have done after him and are now doing. Morrison 
 toiled hard but saw little fruit of his toil. He broke 
 up the fallow soil, sowed the seed, but never saw the 
 harvest and put in the sickle. The same year in 
 which he gave the New Testament to the people, he 
 baptized the first Chinese convert, and for four years 
 Tsai-a-Ko adorned the doctrine, until he was called 
 up into the true country of the Celestials. But Mor- 
 rison's reward was postponed for a future day. He 
 ordained to the ministry Leang-Afa, after eight 
 years, during which he had tested his fitness for the 
 work. To pressnt a nation whose population repre- 
 sents one-fourth of the human race, with the entire 
 Bible; to lay the foundations of a Christian college 
 among them; to gather to Christ the first convert, 
 and ordain the first native evangelist, is enough for 
 one man. But, be it remembered, that as this work 
 of missions is all ^' God's building," he who lays the 
 foundation-stones, down deep, out of sight, and 
 whose work may be forgotten by man in the gran- 
 deur of more conspicuous and famous achievement, 
 has in God's eyes equal honour and shall have equal 
 reward with him who lays the capstone upon a 
 completed structure amid shouts of joy and triumph. 
 The rough base-blocks lie beneath the surface, hid- 
 den from human gaze — but they hold up the whole 
 building. But for them the stately column with its 
 delicate tracery, the graceful arch, the sculptured 
 frieze and cornice, the tapering spire or pinnacle, or 
 the glorious dome, were impossible. And so, when 
 China's evangelization is complete, and the temple 
 of God stands in perfect beauty, Robert Morrison's 
 work will receive both its full recognition and reward. 
 
102 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Samuel J. Mills — Founder of Missions, in America. 
 1783-1818. 
 
 Here is another example of spiritual heredity. 
 This son of a Torring-ford minister was from birth 
 the subject of pious instruction; but the influence 
 that shaped his character antedated even his birth, 
 for his mother declared that she had consecrated 
 him, while yet unborn, to the service of God as a 
 missionary. And from the hour of conversion, he 
 felt an unconquerable desire, which might better be 
 called a passion, for service in regions beyond. This 
 passion instead of cooling with years rather burned 
 more hotly, and during his college career at Wil- 
 liamstown, from 1806 to 1809, was a consuming flame. 
 There he formed the little band whose professed pur- 
 pose was to '* effect in the persons of its members a 
 mission to the heathen"; and in 1810, at Andover, 
 Hall, Newell, Judson and Nott joined him in that 
 memorial to the General Association of Massachusetts 
 which led to the formation of the American Board, 
 the pioneer of all societies, on this side of the sea, 
 for carrying the gospel to the world. 
 
 This man, little known as he is even to this day, 
 was the moving spring behind much of the machinery 
 of missions both at home and abroad. President 
 Griffin of Williams College declared that, from the 
 mind of Mills and from the little society he formed 
 at college came not only the great Missionary Board, 
 but the American Bible Society, United Foreign 
 Missionary Society, and African School under care 
 of the Synods of New York and New Jersey; and all 
 the impulse given to Domestic Missions, to the Colo- 
 nization Society, and to the general cause of benevo- 
 lence in both hemispheres. 
 
 The name oi' Samuel J. Mills thus stands high in 
 rank, for he was in a sense the father and founder of 
 missions in America. About the time when Carey 
 was dreaming, over his cobbling, of the thousand 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 103 
 
 millions without Christ, Mills was born, in 1783. 
 Before birth a godly mother, as we have seen, conse- 
 crated him to missions; at fifteen the Spirit's "de- 
 monstration," with its swift logic of the lightning- 
 flash revealed to him his lost state and his Saviour; 
 and from the hour when he knew himself a miracle 
 of grace, like Saul of Tarsus he had but one aim. 
 Conversion was, with him, consecration, illumination, 
 revelation, all at once. God had plainly set him 
 apart to a missionary career, but none the less did he 
 set himself apart. Active benevolence was the one 
 law of his life, and wherever he was or went, he 
 found a field for his activity. 
 
 His life was apparently 2^ failure to carry out his 
 original design. What at first he willed to do he 
 never lived to work out ; it remained like the un- 
 finished statue of the sculptor, where the chisel has 
 just begun to show the beauty of the ideal form. 
 And yet no man's life was ever a truer success. In 
 a way wholly unforeseen and unique, he fulfilled God's 
 purpose, and it proved larger in scope and grander in 
 result than his own. From the age of sixteen he 
 flamed with one passion : to bear the gospel to the 
 heathen. If ever a man's holy passion was a prophecy 
 of a lif e-Vv'ork, his absorbing ambition was the promise 
 of a mission in foreign lands, though he never actu- 
 ally entered on the work he had chosen. Yet the 
 disappointment was 'God's appointment; for God 
 meant that he should fulfil a far wider mission. 
 
 This was the work of Mills : to show that when the 
 true spirit of missions burns, it can be pent up by no 
 restraints, quenched by no ceeming failures. Mills 
 was everywhere a missionary. Humble as he was, 
 his motto was, not to " rest satisfied till he had made 
 his influence felt in the remotest corner of this ruined 
 world." He waited for no new doors to open but 
 went into the doors that were opened. No dreams 
 of a field, more to his liking, kept him from tilling 
 the field at his feet. In college he was planting trees 
 
104 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of righteousness; and so the famous haystack at 
 Williamstown was consecrated by his meetings with 
 a few like-minded fellow-students, and in its shelter 
 was formed the covenant that sent Newell and Judson 
 to India and Burma, and became the origin of the 
 American Board. 
 
 Mills died at thirty-five. Few lives at seventy- 
 five can compare in work for God. Perhaps no man 
 ever started moving more vast and varied schemes 
 of Christian work, and so projected the lines of his 
 influence to the ends of the earth and perpetuated it 
 to the end of the age. His mind was overwhelmed 
 with the deep night-shade of paganism. He made 
 himself master of facts, and then used them as shot 
 and shell to beat down the walls of carelessness and in- 
 difference. He yearned to enter at once the thousand 
 gates to fields of holy work, to have every limb a 
 tongue, and every tongue a trumpet to spread the 
 sound of the gospel! He found in every new fact 
 a new force ^ to impel to new work. He met the 
 poor heathen lad from Hawaii, and that led him to 
 form the foreign mission school to train such as him 
 for service. When not yet ready to go to foreign 
 lands, he could not wait in idleness. He leaped into 
 the saddle and for months explored the half-settled 
 South and West of the United States. Hardships 
 hindered him not. He swam streams swollen with 
 rains and then stopped to dry his wet clothes and 
 pushed on, making way through dense forests, wading 
 through swamps, hungry and drenched, daring wild 
 men and wild beasts, that he might learn the desti- 
 tution of the people and supply them with the word 
 of God, preaching and conversing as he went; and 
 then coming back to the Eastern coast to organize 
 Bible societies and home missionary effort. Like a 
 warrior fresh from the battle-field, he went every- 
 where trumpeting in Christian ears the awful 
 spiritual wants of the seventy-six thousand families 
 he had found without even a Bible. His charity 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 105 
 
 began at home, but it did not stay there. He felt 
 that he must pass the limits even of those great 
 states and territories. He felt himself '' in a pinhole " 
 even in the great Mississippi valley, while the broad 
 earth lay beyond with its destitute millions. He 
 waited not, like another Micawber, for opportunity 
 to turn up ; he made opportunity. Being for a little 
 time in New York City he made explorations in the 
 metropolis as thorough as in his Southern tours. 
 When all eyes were turned to Africa, and the coloni- 
 zation scheme was formed, he threw his energies 
 into tJiat, and himself sailed for the Dark Continent on 
 a mission in its behalf, and on his return voyage died 
 and was buried at sea. 
 
 For the young men of this generation I can find 
 no finer example of a consecrated life. At thirty- 
 five years his life-work on earth closed. Yet already 
 he had lived a century, if life is measured by its aims 
 and achievements. Most of us do not begin to live 
 until we begin to die. Most men think of life as all 
 before them at an age when his was all behind him. 
 He packed the years with noble work for God and 
 man, and made every day a week, and every week a 
 month, and every month a year, in the reckoning of 
 service. Like a comet whose brilliance increases so 
 fast as it nears its perihelion, he moved nearer and 
 nearer to his Lord, and his life grew brighter and 
 more glorious, until its lustre was lost in the sun of 
 righteousness into whose splendours it was merged. 
 
 AdONIRAM JUDSON APOSTLE OF BURMA. 1788-1850. 
 
 When God thrust Judson forth to serve Him in 
 the field of missions. He knew His man, for He had 
 trained and fitted him for His work. His genius was 
 not inferior to that of Duff; his industry, to that of 
 Carey; his piety, to that of Wayland; his spiritual 
 instincts not less keen than those of Schwartz. His 
 
106 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 career embodies the romance of heroism, touched 
 and tinged with the pathos of severe suffering. 
 
 God meant Judson to be a pioneer at Burma, and 
 he combined the qualities needful in leaders of great 
 enterprises, — self-reliance tempered with humility, 
 energy restrained by prudence, activity anointed 
 with unselfishness; and, withal, that patience and 
 passionate love for souls which no man knows until 
 he is devoted to a holy purpose and is absorbed 
 in God. 
 
 Judson was one of the five now famous men whose 
 offer of themselves for work abroad became the 
 nucleus of the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions. On the way to India, the radical 
 change of his views on the subject of baptism became 
 the germ of a new movement, the organization of 
 the American Baptist Missionary Union; so that 
 providentially he led the way in the formation of 
 two of the most efficient and successful among all 
 the existing missionary societies. 
 
 Like many another of God's heroes, disappoint- 
 ment met him at the outset. India was his chosen 
 field, but he was driven further on to Burma, and so 
 became there the first missionary of the new Baptist 
 Board, thus doubly diverted from a Presbyterian 
 mission and from India, that he might found a Baptist 
 mission in Burma. It was another illustration of the 
 Higher Power that is back of contrary w4nds. God 
 drove him out of his course as he had planned it, to 
 drive him into another course, as God had planned it. 
 There was a barrier that suffered him not to go into 
 Bithynia, that he might obey another call and enter 
 an open door into Macedonia. 
 
 Four facts stand in the foremost rank in the fur- 
 nishing of this Burmese apostle. 
 
 First, the fact of his conversion. Of this he had that 
 clear assurance, for lack of which nothing else will 
 compensate. Whether poets are ' ' born " or * ' made, " 
 there is no doubt about a true missionary. He must 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 107 
 
 be born from above. He can never be made by man. 
 No native genius or acquired scholarship, no endow- 
 ments of nature or attainments of culture, can supply 
 the place of regeneration. Nay more, it is the men 
 who are saved and knozv it, who by their experience 
 give life and power to their testimony. The mes- 
 sage needs the man to back it; the Bible needs the 
 believer behind it. The righteousness of God is re- 
 vealed from faith in the preacher, to faith in the 
 hearer. 
 
 Secondly, the fact of his call. The work of a mis- 
 sionary was his vocation. The voice of conviction 
 and of consciousness affirmed it. With Paul he could 
 say, * ' It pleased God who separated me from my 
 mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to re- 
 veal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among 
 the heathen." From the very first he heard and 
 heeded that voice, and went out not knowing whither 
 he went. Because it was an example of the obedi- 
 ence of faith, he went on in the midst of disappoint- 
 ments ; the retrospect might be dark and the aspect 
 darker, but the ' * prospect was as bright as the 
 promises of God." 
 
 •Thirdly, the fact that he had the word of God. 
 To him the Bible was God's own book; he believed 
 in it throughout, and loved it. His devotion to it 
 reminds us again of the famous Tuscan sculptor's 
 fondness for that relic of the Athenian Apollonius 
 in the Vatican, for Judson studied the Bible from 
 every point of view, as M. Angelo did the torso. 
 
 His reverent affection for God's word made it a 
 constant delight to study it. Compared w4th its 
 infallible oracles, ** the tradition of the elders " was 
 nothing, and his aim was to construct his own char- 
 acter, and build in Burma an Apostolic Church, in all 
 things according to the pattern showed him in the 
 holy mount. That this word might mould the 
 people, he became translator, and so joined the noble 
 army to which belonged Waldo and Lefevre, Wyclif 
 
108 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and Tyndale, Luther and Bedell, Carey and Eliot, 
 Morrison and Hepburn. 
 
 Fourthly, the fact that he held a scriptural idea of 
 missions. He had learned that to preach the gospel 
 to unsaved souls is the one grand business of the 
 Church. Too many seem to count this but as one 
 of many forms of benevolent work, and they talk of 
 missions as an organization of the Church. But 
 Judson saw that the converse is true; that the 
 Church is both the result and fruit of missions; and 
 his life motto was : The Church is both constituted 
 and commissioned to preach the gospel to the world. 
 Of course, then, the chief work of the missionary is 
 put beyond doubt. Though a man of the instincts 
 and the culture of a scholar, finely fitted for a teacher, 
 true to his principles, he made it his one great work 
 to preach Christ, and all else held lower rank. 
 
 To estimate Judson aright wx must emphasize 
 his scriptural idea of a Church. To him it was no 
 worldly association or religious club of respectable 
 moralists, or people whose claim to membership 
 rested upon their baptism in infancy. It was no 
 lawless democracy, or lordly monarchy, or titled 
 aristocracy; no mutual benefit society or social com- 
 munity for religious and ethical culture. He 
 believed the Church to be a divine institution, com- 
 posed of converted souls ; its threefold end, spiritual 
 worship, holy living, and unselfish service. He 
 sought, therefore, first of all to preach that gospel 
 by which souls are saved; then out of converts to 
 form New Testament Churches, and make them 
 self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating ; 
 and to raise up a native ministry as the condition of 
 their normal development. 
 
 He particularly interests the student of missions, 
 as one who projected a biblical theory of missions 
 and put his theory into effective practice. His plan 
 was essentially Pauline, and it led to and fed an un- 
 selfish heroism. The mission field offered a tempt- 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 109 
 
 ing bait to ambition and avarice, as it became plain 
 even to the Burmese powers what a high order of 
 man this humble missionary was. But Judson lived 
 and died poor. He illustrated the self-abnegation 
 which is the cardinal law and primary condition of a 
 missionary life. As Dr. Maclaren finely sa5^s, *'The 
 chord that vibrates most musically is itself unseen 
 while it vibrates." 
 
 The apostle of Burma believed every man's life to 
 be a plan of God, and that he should study to find 
 out and fill out that plan. The result was, as it 
 always is, an increase of power. His weak will was 
 energized by the stronger will of God, and his sphere 
 was constantly expanding as his capacity was enlarg- 
 ing; as God gave him more power to work, he gave 
 him more room to work. Another result was a con- 
 stant deepening of joy. Partnership with God made 
 easy to him patient doing, bearing, and — what is 
 hardest — waiting. And last of all came certain suc- 
 cess, for God never fails, nor does he who sides with 
 God. 
 
 Blessed is he who, like Judson, learns to call 
 Jesus not only Saviour, but Lord. The clear eye to 
 see, the prompt will to obey, the total self-surrender 
 to serve, at whatever cost of sacrifice and suffer- 
 ing — these are the steps whereby we keep to God's 
 plan, and get that enduement of power which both 
 brings and is, success. When the daughter of Pastor 
 A. G. Brown, of London, was asked what led her to 
 China, she said: *'I had known Jesus as Saviour, 
 Redeemer, Friend; but as soon as I knew Him as 
 Lord and Master, He said to me, 'Am I thy Lord 
 and Master ? then go to China.' " 
 
 When Judson died, hundreds of baptized Burmans 
 and Karens were sleeping in Jesus, and over seven 
 thousand survived, in sixty-three churches, under 
 oversight of one hundred and sixty-three mission- 
 aries, native pastors, and helpers. Judson had 
 finished his Bible translation, compiled a Burmese 
 
110 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 dictionary, and laid the basis of Christian character 
 deep down in the Burman heart. 
 
 In the Baptist meeting-house at Maiden, Massachu- 
 setts, one may read upon a simple memorial tablet : 
 
 '*1In /iftemorlam. 
 
 Rev. Adoniram Judson. 
 
 Born August 9, 1788, 
 
 Died April 12, 1850. 
 
 Maiden, his Birthplace, 
 
 The Ocean, his Sepulchre ; 
 
 Converted Bunnans 
 
 and 
 
 The Burman Bible 
 
 His Monument. 
 
 His Record is on High." 
 
 Captain Allen F. Gardiner — Pioneer of Tierra 
 DEL FuEGo. 1794-1851. 
 
 It was a striking saying of the Hon. Ion Keith Fal- 
 coner, the noble martyr of the mission at Aden, that 
 we must not fear to be called *' eccentric." That 
 word means *' out of centre," and if we are in the 
 true centre as to God, in the orbit of obedience, we 
 shall be out of centre as to the world. 
 
 Allen Gardiner was an enthusiast, a fanatic, but in 
 the eyes of God he was fired with a divine passion. 
 His enthusiasm was an '' en-the-ism." While an 
 officer in the English navy, the death of his young 
 wife left him free to give himself to missionary ser- 
 vice, and he shrank not from pioneer work among 
 the worst heathens. After a trial of other lands he 
 turned to South America, but there was no open 
 door, for priests of Papal Rome stood between him 
 and the wild pagan tribes of the far South, until, 
 at the Southern Cape itself, he found the island of 
 Tierra del Fuego, so remote that Spanish Jesuits 
 cared not to keep up their pursuit. 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. Ill 
 
 Dr. Flint says of the gospel, that its divine origin is 
 seen in its universal adaptation. Here is the magic 
 mirror in which the Eskimo and Maori, Fuegian 
 and Fijian, Melanesian cannibals and Australian abo- 
 rigines alike see reflected what they are^ and what 
 they may be. The message of Christ crucified and 
 risen has captivated alike the wisest sage and the 
 simplest child; because meant for the universal man 
 it finds a reception wherever it gets a hearing. 
 Darwin himself, who found, in the natives of this 
 '^ Land of Fire," the missing link between man and 
 the monkey, has left on record his testimony that 
 ^ ' the lesson of the missionary is the wand of the en- 
 chanter." 
 
 Against all conceivable obstacles Allen Gardiner 
 persevered. Nature herself was inhospitable; the 
 climate forbade his approach: winds and waves, 
 summer rains and winter sleet, drove him back. Man 
 gave him no welcome. The Patagonians had low 
 foreheads, but lower minds and morals, wretched 
 hovels and scant clothing; they seemed incapable of 
 any high impulses or real improvement. At times 
 they were like brute beasts; at others, treacherous 
 robbers. At first he was compelled to retreat, and 
 return to England. But, if he could not land on the 
 shore, he could float on the sea; and so we have that 
 unique illustration of a new method in missions, in 
 Captain Gardiner's two-decked boats at Banner Bay, 
 where, with two catechists and two more pious sailors, 
 he undertook to do pioneer work among the natives, 
 from his floating home. Everyone of his party per- 
 ished, never again seen alive by an Englishman. 
 Starvation slowly slew them, and only their dead 
 bodies and their diaries were found to tell the awful 
 tale. One by one, and Gardiner last of all, they had 
 succumbed to hunger. 
 
 Yet there had been no whining nor murmuring. 
 The farewell message of the last survivor bore testi- 
 mony : ' ' Poor and weak as we are, our boat is a very 
 
112 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Bethel to our souls, for we feel and know that God is 
 here. Asleep or awake," wrote Captain Gardiner, 
 **I am, beyond the power of expression, happy." 
 Instead of vain repining or lamenting-, he left behind 
 only earnest entreating that the mission should not 
 be abandoned, and left a brief plan outlining future 
 operations. 
 
 Such was his passionate love for God that, even 
 while starving, he could record nothing save marvels 
 of mercy, and declared that after five days of fasting 
 he felt neither hunger nor thirst. And over the 
 place where he lay down to die he had inscribed, on 
 the rock, from the Psalms, this precious motto : 
 
 " Wait, O my soul, upon God ! 
 For all my expectation is from Him." 
 
 He died, having seen no results of his work. He 
 had sown in tears, but not a blade appeared. It 
 was, however, no failure; for to-day among the 
 heathen tribes of Paraguay there is springing up a 
 plenteous harvest. Hope was deferred, but not lost; 
 faith was tried but not tired, and triumphed. 
 
 It was a very strange way by which God led Allen 
 Gardiner. His love for maritime adventure led him to 
 a naval college, and into service in the navy. Little 
 did he know that the curiosity which drew him to a 
 heathen temple in China to witness the superstitions 
 of idolaters, was to be the means of quickening the 
 seed sown in his heart by pious parents. He saw 
 what heathenism was, and he took his stand boldly 
 for Christ and the Gospel. He began to seek the 
 salvation of his shipmates, who were practically 
 pagans; then as the ship touched at various ports he 
 obtained leave of absence and explored the region 
 near by, and so made himself familiar everywhere 
 with the spiritual condition of the natives. 
 
 The passion for mission work became more in- 
 tense. In 1834, he went to Zululand, but was driven 
 thence three years later by the cruel war between 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. \\% 
 
 Chief Dingaan and the Dutch farmers. A whole 
 year was spent in fruitless effort to get entrance for 
 the gospel into New .Guinea; then for ten months he 
 was on the Falkland Islands, and while there visited 
 Patagonia, where he besought the Church Missionary 
 Society to plant a mission; and in 1845, he himself 
 with Robert Hunt, anchored in Gregory Bay; but 
 Chief Wissale's "petulance, cupidity, treachery, dis- 
 honesty and extortion " again compelled withdrawal, 
 and even as they were conveying their few effects 
 on board an English bark, this dastardly chief 
 was plying his thieving arts. 
 
 In the same year, 1845, nothing daunted, Gardiner 
 with Mr. Gonzalez went to Bolivia, daring the Ata- 
 cama desert for the gospel's sake. Again met by dis- 
 heartening obstacles, in 1848, he headed a small pio- 
 neer party of five, whose destination was Tierra del 
 Fuego, where the hopeless hostility of the natives, 
 led on by Chief Jemmy Button, convinced him 
 that '' The missio7iary establisJiment must for the 
 present be afloat! " Often perplexed, he was never 
 in despair, and nothing could kill his imperishable 
 faith and hope. ' ' Being with him was like a heaven 
 upon earth: he was such a man of prayer," said 
 Joseph Erwin, his boat carpenter. 
 
 Captain Smyley's journal and Captain Morshead's 
 letters gave the public the awful facts about the ex- 
 perience of this starved party of missionaries — how 
 from June 22 to Sept. 6, when Gardiner must have 
 died, they had been out of provisions. Men who read 
 or heard this pathetic tale, knew not which emotion 
 was the mightier, horror at such a tale of suffering, 
 or admiration at such dauntless heroism. 
 
 Secretary Despard published far and wide the 
 decision of the Patagonian Society, that '^With 
 God's help, the mission shall not be abandoned;" and 
 the Allen Gardiner left Bristol in 1854, and in 1855 
 once more anchored in Spaniards' Harbour. A few 
 days later, at Earnest Cove, a new mission party had 
 
114 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 "the mournful satisfaction of standing on the spot 
 where the remains of Gardiner were found," and, 
 with appropriate memorial services, of setting- up a 
 tablet: *'In memory of the lamented missionary 
 martyrs." 
 
 The period of trial was not yet past. In 1858, a 
 suitable site was fixed upon for a mission, which 
 was named Wy cliff e. But Capt. Fell and brother, 
 and Mr. Phillips, the catechist, were brutally mur- 
 dered, and the Allen Gardiner was found in Beagle 
 Channel a perfect wreck, with one survivor, the 
 cook. 
 
 Again the wrecked vessel being repaired, another 
 beginning was made, and since 1872 the work has 
 gone steadily forward. On Keppel Island, Fuegians 
 are boarded and trained. El Carmen, on the coast, 
 has been a medical mission for thirty years past. 
 The Allen Gardijier still goes on its mission cruises, 
 and it has been so demonstrated that brutal Pata- 
 gonians and Fuegians may be evangelized, civilized, 
 christianized, that Admiral Sulivan, at the annual 
 meeting of the South American Missionary Society 
 in 1 88 1, stated, after residing at the Falkland Islands, 
 that he had informed Darwin of the great changes 
 which had taken place in his human monkeys — of 
 kindness shown to shipwrecked crews by the con- 
 verted natives — how fowl-houses remained unlocked 
 without even the theft of an Ggg\ and stated, that in 
 reply Darwin had candidly confessed, '^I could not 
 have believed that all the missionaries in the world 
 could ever have made the Fuegians honest." 
 
 So remarkable is the testimony of this great 
 naturalist, who was, however, no '' supernaturalist," 
 that with his oft-quoted testimony we close this 
 brief sketch. He had said after his visit to Patagonia, 
 ''Nothing can be done by means of mission work; 
 all the pains bestowed on the natives will be thrown 
 away; they never can be civilized." This was Dar- 
 win's opinion until proofs of the facts confronted 
 
THE NE IV PIONEERS. 115 
 
 him, and then he candidly admitted he was wrong, 
 and added : ' ^ I had always thought that the civiliza- 
 tion of the Japanese is the most wonderful thing in 
 history; but I am now convinced that what the 
 missionaries have done in Tierra del Fuego, in civiliz- 
 ing the natives, is at least as wonderful." And from 
 this time Darwin himself regularly subscribed to the 
 society's funds. 
 
 John Williams — The Apostle of the South Seas. 
 1796-1839. 
 
 How curious are the coincidences of history ! It 
 was only six weeks after Williams was born, when 
 The i??/!^' sailed for Tahiti, as though the ship that 
 was to introduce the gospel to the Southern Seas 
 waited until the coming apostle of those island 
 groups was bom, before it unfurled its sails ! 
 
 The life we now outline covered only about forty- 
 three years, from June 29, 1796, to Nov. 20, 1839. 
 But it was crowded with the wonderful works of 
 God. At twenty-one years of age, John Williams 
 was sent to Eimeo, thence removing to Huahine and 
 Raiatea. After five years of apostolic success, he 
 visited the Hervey group, founding a mission at 
 Raratonga, where he prepared books and in part a 
 Bible translation. Then in a boat, built by himself, 
 he explored most of the surrounding archipelago, 
 establishing the Samoan mission. Four years were 
 spent in England, from 1834 to 1838, publishing his 
 story of the South Seas and his Raratongan New 
 Testament, raising five thousand pounds for a new 
 missionary ship, and planning for a high school at 
 Tahiti, and a theological school at Raratonga for 
 training native evangelists. With sixteen recruits 
 he returned to his most loved work, visited Samoa, 
 sailed for the New Hebrides to start a new mission, 
 and, on the shores of Erromanga, fell a martyr. 
 Twenty-two years — from the ironmonger's forge in 
 
116 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 London to the savage's club at Dillon's Bay ! But 
 what a unique mission, and what a lustrous record on 
 high! 
 
 Williams, though generally and deservedly known 
 as the Apostle of the South Seas, was not the pioneer 
 in those waters. Captain Cook's voyages had turned 
 toward these island clusters many eyes besides those 
 of William Carey and the Countess of Huntingdon. 
 When, in 1795, the London Missionary Society was 
 founded, such interest had been awakened in this 
 archipelago, that as early as August 10, of the 
 next year, The Duff set sail for Tahiti, under com- 
 mand of that devoted Christian, Captain James 
 Wilson, and with thirty missionaries aboard. More 
 than twenty years had gone by before John Williams 
 followed, but his career was so exceptional, that 
 without it the work in Polynesia would be a drama 
 without its main actor. 
 
 The religious revolution wrought under his very 
 eyes has, for rapidity and range of result, no parallel. 
 The prophecy was literally fulfilled: 
 
 *' The isles shall wait for His law : 
 As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me. 
 The strangers shall submit themselves to me." 
 
 A year after Raratonga was discovered by Will- 
 iams, idolatry was in ruins; a whole people called 
 upon themselves the name of the Lord, and built a 
 place of worship six hundred feet long, where Aitu- 
 takian chiefs were the main speakers. Greater won- 
 der still, — all this, before one English missionary had 
 yet taught on the island! God had used, to work 
 this transformation, two plain, untaught natives! 
 Here, ten years after Williams had sailed for Eimeo, 
 he met the largest concourse of worshippers he had 
 ever seen outside of his own country; and as they 
 moved past him they laid at his feet fourteen huge 
 idols as gospel trophies ! 
 
 The Raratongans kept their Sabbaths as he had 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 117 
 
 never seen the Day of Rest kept before. Prayer 
 saluted the sunrise and the sunset, as though to 
 punctuate holy time with worship, and the hours 
 between were full of studies in the Word of God, for 
 the people made notes of all the sermons they heard, 
 that they might search, like the Bereans, into the 
 truths they were taught. New codes of laws were built 
 upon the corner-stone of this teaching; marriage 
 was hallowed and polygamy proscribed. One island 
 after another became a sanctuary, vocal with prayer 
 and praise. Chiefs presided at holocausts of idols, 
 stripping the gay trappings from their former gods, 
 and feeding them as fuel to the fires. There were 
 cases in which a few Jioiirs sufficed, to complete the 
 destruction of all false gods and idol fanes, and to 
 lay the foundations of chapels for Christian worship. 
 
 One scene it is well to delineate as an example of 
 many. Tomatoa and his followers approach Opoa. 
 A crowd is at the beach to seize the usual captives 
 of war. But a herald shouts from the canoes, ' ' We 
 bring to you no slain victims; we are all praying 
 people who worship the true God; these" — holding 
 up the books prepared by missionaries — *' these are 
 our victims and trophies of war." 
 
 When the war-god, Oro, was disrobed, and his 
 temple burned by converts at Opoa, the heathen 
 party built a huge cage of wicker-work in which 
 to burn all the Christians alive. Unceasing prayer 
 brought such plain help from above, that in the 
 ensuing struggle even the enemies of the Lord felt 
 that His hand was against them, and they threw 
 down their weapons and fled, panic-stricken. They 
 looked only for vengeance from their Christian con- 
 querors, but found instead a sumptuous feast prepared 
 for them, and for sheer astonishment could not eat. 
 Then one of the vanquished heathen party rose and 
 said: " Others may act as they will; but never again 
 will I worship gods that could give no help in the 
 hour of danger. We were four times as many as 
 
118 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 these praying people, and yet they have defeated us 
 with the greatest ease. Their god must be the true 
 God. Theirs is a religion of mercy. Had we won 
 the victory they would now be burning in that cage ; 
 but instead of burning us, they feed us. I will go and 
 join this people!" Such was the power of these 
 words that every one of the heathen party bowed 
 that night in prayer to the God of the Christians, 
 and praised Him for giving to His own praying 
 people the victory! And the next morning, after 
 prayer, all united in destroying, in Tahua and Raiatea, 
 every Marae, so that within three days not one ves- 
 tige of idol worship was left ! 
 
 John Williams' career was one triumphal progress. 
 At Savaii, for instance, tears of joy greeted him; 
 and he met a people ready formally to renounce 
 paganism. Malietoa, the chief, begged him with all 
 speed to go to his native land and bring back 
 teachers. How pathetic was his plea: *' Come back 
 as soon as you can ; for before you return many of 
 us will be dead." 
 
 The Maruans, who were wont to trace every evil of 
 any kind to bad spirits, turned to God, and proved 
 the sincerity of their faith by ruined Maraes and 
 broken idols. Spears that had once impaled children 
 and borne them as trophies to the temples, were now 
 turned into pulpit balustrades, and Oro and other 
 grim idols of wood were used as props to common 
 wood-sheds and cook-houses. Unchaste songs and 
 gestures gave place to hymns of praise and bowed 
 knees. 
 
 The changes which the apostle of the South Seas 
 saw, defied description, and when described seem 
 fables for the credulous. He himself was overawed 
 by the proofs of the hand of God. At Tahiti, over 
 fourteen years had gone by before one convert was 
 made; and at New Zealand, twenty years, before 
 there seemed to be one honest inquirer. Yet Will- 
 iams witnessed changes nothing short of a radical 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 119 
 
 revolution, within twenty, eighteen, twelve months, 
 and sometimes within as many days. He went to 
 islands where all were heathens; he visited them 
 later to find chapels with thousands of worshippers; 
 he found them without a written language, and left 
 them reading in their own tongue the wonderful 
 words of God! 
 
 Williams was of great service in furnishing ele- 
 mentary primers, translations of the gospels and 
 epistles, and creating a Christian native literature. 
 He trained converts into evangelists, who made 
 tours among the surrounding islands until no 
 heathen settlement remained unvisited. He taught 
 converts the grace of giving, and when they had no 
 money, they marked their pigs or other possessions, 
 with the Lord's sign, and sacredly put into His 
 treasury whatever they brought in the market. 
 
 One comprehensive statement may serve to sum- 
 marize this marvellous story of apostolic success. 
 Five years before he fell, no group of islands, nor 
 single island of importance, within two thousand 
 miles of Tahiti, had been left unvisited. 
 
 This martyr's death was doubtless due to a misap- 
 prehension. The natives of Erromanga had come 
 to hate the sight of foreigners, because of recent 
 wrongs at the hands of a crew, whose vessel touched 
 at those shores. But history has her unique compen- 
 sation as well as retribution. Fifty years after 
 Williams fell, the son of his murderer was laying 
 the corner-stone of the martyr's memorial, while 
 another son was preaching the gospel for which that 
 martyr died ! 
 
 Louis Harms — The Missionary Pastor. 
 1808-1865. 
 
 This man was another of God's pioneers, but his per- 
 sonal field was the parish of Hermannsburgh. His 
 divine vocation was found in furnishing an example 
 
120 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of what one man and his congregation can do in the 
 furtherance of the world-wide work. 
 
 When that disabled candidat came to that obscure 
 parish in Hanover, and told his simple tale of the 
 wants and woes of the heathen, little did he know 
 that, though laid aside from the work himself, he was 
 there lighting a fire which was never to be quenched, 
 but to spread far and wide. When the heart of Pas- 
 tor Harms was kindled with new zeal for missions, 
 the people whom he led felt the fire burning within 
 them also; and, though but a few and feeble folk, 
 mostly occupied with farming and such like work, 
 and too poor to give large sums of money, they re- 
 sponded to his appeal. He said first of all to him- 
 self and to them, ^' Why should we not help missions?" 
 This question soon prompted another, * ' Why may 
 we not plan missions of our own?" There were in- 
 credulous spirits that, like the Samarian lord, asked, 
 **If the Lord- would open windows in Heaven, might 
 this thing be! " But faith and prayer and self-sacri- 
 fice prevailed, and a moral miracle was wrought. 
 
 The simple Hermannsburghers began by offerings 
 of money, but they soon found it easy also to offer 
 themselves. One man gave his farm, and the farm- 
 house became a training school, where missionary 
 candidates, who willingly volunteered for service, 
 began to be educated for the fields abroad. Then a 
 sailor suggested the building and laimching of theix 
 own ship, to bear their missionaries to other lands, 
 and sail to and fro, as a medium of communication ; 
 and so the Candace — first of mission ships — was built 
 and manned by themselves, and became a shuttle to 
 weave threads of practical contact between the 
 Church at home and its workers abroad, and carry 
 mutual messages of love and sympathy. 
 
 This was not all. While sending forth scores of 
 men and women to be its heralds and tell the old 
 story of the cross, the Church scattered yet increased, 
 until its membership reached ten thousand and it 
 
THE A'E JV PIONEERS. 121 
 
 became the largest Church in Christendom. Not 
 content with supplying workmen and caring for their 
 wants, it set up its own printing-press, printed its 
 own missionary magazine, and thus became in itself a 
 whole board of missions, with its own training 
 school, mission treasury, vessel and periodical, and 
 ail the apparatus of a well-organized and thoroughly 
 conducted missionary society ; and although for nearly 
 thirty years Louis Harms has been dead, the work 
 remains to witness to the Church and to the world. 
 
 That one man, and he but forty years old, and 
 with a simple rural parish, should start such a work, 
 has been a problem to all who do not know the 
 power which comes from the Spirit of God in answer 
 to prayer. Though the undertaking was formally 
 inaugurated in 1849, for years before, the foundations 
 had been preparing in the heart of Harms. While in 
 charge of his father's private school, six years earlier, 
 and as his assistant in parish work, he wielded a 
 sceptre of influence over the people which showed 
 him to be one of God's anointed kings. Alike in 
 private converse and public address, he swayed the 
 hearts of those poor peasants. When, in 1844, he 
 became his father's assistant and was ordained, his 
 hold on the people became stronger. His holy zeal, 
 his passionate ardour and fervour, his intensely 
 human sympathy, brought him into close contact with 
 their hearts, and led to a great religious awakening, 
 which was, as it alwa3^s is, accompanied by a new 
 missionary spirit. In fact, it is hard to say which 
 was first in order of development; for Harms had so 
 long felt the leverage there is in missions to raise 
 spiritual life to a higher level, that he sought to 
 arouse new interest in the heathen as one means of 
 raising Church members to a higher plane. And 
 when thus the parish had been made ready, it was 
 only needful that the external circumstances should 
 favour, in order for the work to be actually in- 
 augurated. 
 
122 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 While acting as his father's assistant, Louis Harms 
 felt under restraint, but at his father's death, he was 
 appointed pastor, and so the building whose base- 
 blocks had long been laid began to rise toward com- 
 pletion. 
 
 To trace the history of the Hermannsburgh Society 
 would be impracticable within these limits, and w^ould 
 not serve our present purpose. In 1890, there were 
 some sixty stations, with a total of about three hun- 
 dred missionaries and native helpers. But it does 
 concern us to learn the lesson which God surely 
 means to teach by this new chapter in the Acts of the 
 Apostles. If a single Church, under the leadership 
 o"f one man, and he broken in health, a chronic in- 
 valid, and his people for the most part only the 
 Lord's poory could work such wonders, who shall tell 
 us what some other pastors and Churches might 
 achieve for God, where large wealth and large num- 
 bers, intelligence and culture, social influence and 
 every other help and encouragement exist to assure 
 a wide work and a grand result ! 
 
 Pastor Harms drank in the missionary spirit in the 
 secret place where God dwells. Prayer brought him 
 very close to that heavenly altar where God's own 
 fires' eternally burn, and the angel at that altar 
 touched with a live coal both his heart and his lips. 
 The first impulse to his missionary heroism was 
 found, not in the appeal of human need, but in the 
 celestial spark which needed only a knowledge of 
 facts to find ample fuel for a consuming flame. The 
 man who knows not how to pray and how to lead 
 his people to pray, may construct an organization, 
 but he cannot put into it the motive power that 
 moves its machinery and makes it mighty to effect 
 results. Because Louis Harms prevailed with God, 
 he also prevailed with men. He took the great facts 
 about a world's need, to the mercy-seat, and held 
 them up in the light of the Divine Presence, until in 
 the mystic Shekinah fire they burned and glowed. 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 123 
 
 Then he held them up before the eyes of men until 
 he compelled others also to feel their awful force, 
 and until indifference could no longer endure to con- 
 front them, but was melted into zeal. 
 
 Notwithstanding- the poverty of his peasant parish, 
 Harms from the first would allow no canvassing for 
 funds, and modern methods of appeal and of raising 
 money have always been repudiated upon principle. 
 And yet money has been provided by methods and in 
 measure surprising to worldly minds. The enter- 
 prise that had such obscure and unpromising begin- 
 nings, was scorned by the wise and great of this 
 world ; it survived, however, not only the death of its 
 founder, in 1865, but the schism in the Hanover 
 Church thirteen years later, and the deposition of 
 Theodore Harms in consequence of his loyalty to his 
 conscience in refusing conformity to the customs of 
 the State Church. He was followed by his people 
 in his independent course, and thus was formed the 
 nucleus of the Free Church of Hanover. These and 
 many other causes combined, threatened to wreck the 
 mission cause, but those simple Hermannsburghers 
 have persisted in their devotion to the work of God, 
 and the society is still sending forth its messengers 
 to the region and shadow of death. 
 
 God thus writes upon His shining scroll another 
 name unknown to fame, as men rank greatness; 
 but, like Christ's forerunner, great in the eyes of the 
 Lord, and one to whom it was given to prepare His 
 way among the people ! 
 
 David Livingstone — Africa's Pioneer. 1813-1873. 
 
 The hero of Blantyre furnishes another example of 
 spiritual heredity, for his parents, however humble, 
 were devout, and his father bequeathed to him both 
 his thirst for knowledge and his spirit of enterprise. 
 Though at ten working in the cotton factory, and 
 there continuing for fourteen years, David was so 
 
124 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 eager to learn that he studied Latin by night, and in 
 his daily labour gathered up the smallest fragments of 
 time, often less than a minute — that nothing be lost. 
 " Dick's Philosophy of the Future State " kindled his 
 missionary fervour, and then he got a medical train- 
 ing, intending to go to China. War with Britain 
 closed that door, but '* Moffat's Appeal for the Dark 
 Continent" opened another, and so in 1840, he sailed 
 for Kuruman, little suspecting what a unique career 
 was before him. 
 
 Livingstone outranks all others as Africa's apostle. 
 His life spans but sixty years. Converted at twenty, 
 he was in heart and aim thenceforth a missionary; 
 perhaps no life since the Apostolic age has poured 
 forth upon the feet of Jesus more of the costly oint- 
 ment of consecrated service. 
 
 He was a man of such singular force that Sir Bar- 
 tie Frere thought that ' ' any five years of his life 
 might have established for him in any other occupa- 
 tion, such a character, and raised for him such a for- 
 tune, as none but the most energetic can realize." 
 His last public utterance in Scotland gave in five 
 short words the double secret of his life : ' * Fear 
 God and work hard." That explains his thirty 
 thousand miles of travel and the unrivalled series of 
 discoveries : Five lakes, rivers, falls that outrank 
 Niagara, high ridges that flank Africa's central basin ; 
 that motto accounts for the perseverance that searched 
 into the geology and hydrography, the fauna and flora 
 of the continent, and that fought the two great foes 
 of man and beast — fever and tsetse — with such per- 
 sistency, that he declared that these two words would 
 be found at death graven on his heart. 
 
 Energy weds industry, if it does not beget it. 
 Though his native abilities were mediocre and his early 
 opportunities meagre, like Carey, he could plod. Econ- 
 omy of time and resolute patience were the steeds he 
 yoked to his life-car, and so he made such progress 
 as even genius does not often secure. What careful- 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 125 
 
 ness in details is seen in that famous lined journal of 
 eight hundred quarto pages, with its plain, neat 
 writing. And what versatility is that, akin to genius, 
 which makes it possible for one man in turn to mas- 
 ter questions such as the desiccation of Africa, the 
 utilization of her river highways, missionary organi- 
 zation and Bible translation ! Book-making alone 
 failed to arouse his enthusiasm ; it was a mere task, 
 partly from the long exile that forbade contact or 
 converse with white men. 
 
 Livingstone's services to the race are too great for 
 immediate recognition. What he was as a scientist 
 and explorer, traveller, geographer, zoologist, botan- 
 ist, physician, the future must measure. In accuracy 
 of detail few have ever equalled him. His astronomi- 
 cal observations, exact orientations, and manifold 
 contributions to natural science in all its great de- 
 partments, show a many-sided man. He could tell 
 the Chamber of Commerce of a score of vegetable 
 products entirely new to them; the geographical 
 society decorated him with their gold medal, and 
 three cities honoured him with their " freedom." 
 
 As in all mighty men, the finest elements of his 
 character crystallized about a strong will. If he 
 failed, it meant new and more patient trial. " If I 
 live," he said in 1866, '* I must succeed in my under- 
 taking; death alone will put a stop to my efforts." 
 When half starved, his medicine-chest stolen, at the 
 mercy of foes like a warrior without weapons, and 
 thrice in one day barely escaping death — not one 
 man in a million would have pushed forward as he 
 did in the heart of Africa. When in 1872, Stanley 
 urged his return with him to England, though a 
 strange presentiment weighed upon him that he was 
 on his last journey and would never get to its goal, he 
 flinched not in his resolve but pressed on, praying 
 that before he fell he might work out his purpose. 
 
 He was a man whose great faith in God was the 
 pole star of his life. He saw that great crises turn 
 
126 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 on trifles as great doors swing from small hinges, 
 but that there was a Divine AVorkman who knew how 
 much he could safely hang on such a hinge ; and so 
 he was wont to watch the seemingly trivial events 
 that shape character and destiny. And on what ap- 
 parent trifles Livingstone's career turned ! the chance 
 reading of Dick, the appeal of Gutzlaff, the visit of 
 Moffat, the friendly word of a director of the Lon- 
 don Missionary Society. One text gave to his 
 spiritual vision telescopic range and microscopic 
 delicacy: " In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He 
 shall direct thy paths." Under such guidance trial 
 and trouble were God's angels, calamity was His 
 storm signal ; and that nameless sorrow, which in his 
 dear Mary's death smote him, only drew out once 
 more his ''Fiat, Domine, Voluntas Tua!" 
 
 He was at heart simply a humble missionary. On 
 that altar of service his whole self was laid, and bet- 
 ter to know and meet Africa's wants, he entered that 
 broader sphere that unconsciously made of the mis- 
 sionary a general and statesman. He saw that the 
 true plan for Africa's evangelization must be 
 broad enough to take in the whole continent and its 
 whole future. Hence he sought to explore and de- 
 velop the resources of the country, devise facilities 
 for travel and traffic, and abolish the awful curse of 
 slavery. That he never lost sight of his original aim 
 is plain from his own sage saying: ''the end of the 
 geographical feat is the beginning of the true enter- 
 prise." 
 
 To further this ultimate end he was willing to go 
 anywhere, provided it be only forward, and to do 
 anything provided it were preparing the whole field 
 for the harvest. His gauge of missionary success 
 was, not so many converts per pound sterling, but 
 the wide diffusion of godly principles — results which 
 no statistics can exhibit. 
 
 The hero of Blantyre was Conscience Incarnate. 
 His watchword was duty. To keep his word and do 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 127 
 
 his work faithfully was the double law of his life. 
 But duty was softened by love, and lost all asperity. 
 And it was one of God's gifts to him that his sense 
 of humour was so keen. He enjoyed immensely the 
 superstitious fright of the natives when they watched 
 the figures, shown on the screen by the magic-lantern, 
 mysteriously appear and disappear; and the Soko 
 was to him so hideously ugly, that he could conceive 
 no use for him save to *' sit for a portrait of Satan." 
 
 Livingstone's habitual indifference to worldly ap- 
 plause and advantage was the unique trait in his 
 character; he was in some respects the counterpart 
 of that Soudan hero, of whom Mrs. Charles says, 
 **Not that he tried to renounce the poor prizes of 
 this world; like Joan of Arc, he simply did not 
 value them." Money was to him no bait, and he 
 hated to be lionized. He turned his back on the 
 praise of men and would not even read what was 
 written in his honour. The world's gold was tinsel, 
 its glory a fading laurel: he was after what was 
 better, and he got it. He belonged to no conven- 
 tional society: his citizenship was in Heaven. And 
 when in that little grass hut at Ilala he died, alone 
 with God, in prayer for Africa, as Schmidt had before 
 him — that close to his life was poetically and patheti- 
 cally fitting, more in accord with all that went before 
 it than if he had died in a palace amid fawning cour- 
 tiers. But, as a martyr's grave drew Bishop Heber 
 to Calcutta, that heart that is buried in Africa will 
 yet be like a new Mecca to thousands of pilgrim 
 saints. 
 
 Livingstone's self-oblivion was sublime. The 
 treasures and pleasures of Egypt were to him 
 nothing if he might, like Moses, lead out God's 
 oppressed people from under the slave yoke. For 
 Africa he could spend his last penny, and his last 
 drop of blood. Such was the man whom an intimate 
 acquaintance pronounced the best man he ever knew, 
 and whom history already crowns as Africa's best 
 
128 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 friend. His life was one grand sermon. The golden 
 pen of action, held in the hand of resolve, wrote out 
 its sentences in living letters on the eternal scroll, 
 for all to read. Both by witness and suffering he 
 ranks with the martyrs. His sacrifices were noble, 
 though he declared he had never made any; yes, 
 the man who had been soaked with drenching rains, 
 had made his bed in damp grasses and his food out 
 of roots, who had been forty times scorched in the 
 furnace of fever, and buried his wife in Africa's 
 bosom; even when on a sick bed, without human 
 helper and in a horror of great darkness, neither 
 talked of self-denial nor halted in his work for Christ. 
 
 No wonder if his master passion was to abate and 
 abolish all slavery and slave traffic. The horrors he 
 saw defied description and made him feel that he was 
 in hell. Everywhere he sought to rouse the dormant 
 Christian conscience to the devilish atrocity of this 
 crime; and, the memorial slab in the great Abbey, 
 as is fitting, mutely repeats his memorable words : 
 
 *' All I can add in my loneliness, is, may Heaven's 
 rich blessing come down on everyone — American, 
 Englishman or Turk, — who will help to heal the open 
 sore of the world !" 
 
 Alexander Duff — Pioneer of Education in India. 
 1806-1878. 
 
 The remarkable student of St. Andrew's, from 
 whom this Lectureship takes its name, combined in 
 himself the courage of Knox, the force of Chalmers 
 and the fire of Erskine. He was doubly a pioneer, 
 for he was the first missionary of the Church of Scot- 
 land to India, and he led the way in higher education 
 among the Brahmans. He was almost equally con- 
 spicuous as an orator, an organizer and an educator. 
 Twice wrecked on his way to India, he saved his 
 Bible from the sea — a fact regarded by him as sig- 
 nificant and symbolic of his whole life-work. 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 129 
 
 He Struck out upon a new path. The corner-stone 
 that he laid he himself cleft and shaped in a new 
 quarry. His aim was to open up to the native Hin- 
 dus, not only purely religious truth as such, but to 
 introduce into the centre of the Orient the science 
 and learning of the Occident. His plan was novel, 
 and it signalized a new era in Indian missions. 
 
 A new idea finds slow entrance, especially in the 
 religious sphere, for all new coins are handled with sus- 
 picion. Duff met with misrepresentation and oppo- 
 sition, but his school stood the storm like a cedar of 
 Lebanon, and fierce winds strengthened its roots and 
 toughened its boughs. A few years sufficed for his 
 work to win golden opinions, even from scholars and 
 princes. After five years, illness drove him home, 
 but after five more, he came back to find seven hun- 
 dred pupils instead of the few with which he started : 
 and when, in the year of the disruption, his lot was 
 cast with the Free Church, and his college passed 
 into other hands, he began anew, and organized on a 
 new and ampler scale his whole educational and mis- 
 sionary work. 
 
 Dr. Duff ranks with Carey and Livingstone as one 
 of the great missionary triad of the new age. He 
 was, on Indian affairs and Christian missions, an 
 authority. His service to the Church at home was as 
 great as to the vast Oriental Empire beside the 
 Ganges. In 1834, and again in 1849, he was com- 
 pelled to return to Scotland, and, in 1863, to abandon 
 India altogether; but such a man was anywhere and 
 everywhere a missionary. He was another Peter, the 
 Hermit, sounding the signal of the new crusade, urg- 
 ing and leading God's people onward toward a nobler 
 missionary consecration. He twice filled the Moder- 
 ator's chair, but this was only a sign of his hold upon 
 the Free Church, and no man since Paul has done 
 more to fan and feed the fires of a holy enthusiasm 
 for world-wide evangelism. 
 
 If Duff owed his pious aptitudes to his godly 
 
130 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 parents, it was the joint influence of Chalmers and 
 IngHs that afterward shaped his mind for work in 
 India. Thomas Chalmers, in 1812, before the Dun- 
 dee Missionary Society, had held up the inspired Word 
 and the living herald as God's twin agency for 
 spreading the gospel ; and, two years later, before the 
 Scottish Propagation Society, had given the testi- 
 mony of experience to the utility of missions; these 
 sermons left impressions on young Duff that could 
 not be effaced — impressions deepened by personal 
 contact with that greatest of Scotia's sons, in the 
 University. Then when, in 1825, Dr. Inglis made his 
 fervent plea for workers abroad, Alexander Duff 
 could no longer stay at home; and God, who in Carey 
 had given to Schwartz an '' apostolic heir," gave in 
 Duff an heir to Carey. 
 
 For the period of a whole generation he carried the 
 assault against the citadel of oriental idolatry and 
 superstition, instituting new educational methods for 
 reaching the Brahmans, founding missions not only 
 in India, but in Syria and the New Hebrides. But 
 even this grand and complex achievement is perhaps 
 surpassed in permanent value by his influence over 
 the Church of Christ on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 He made the very pulse of missions to beat quicker, 
 shaping missionary effort and moving hundreds to 
 go, as well as tens of thousands, to give. 
 
 Never will his mission tour in the United States in 
 1854 be forgotten, and when all those are dead who 
 then heard him, his tracks will yet be left upon the 
 history of American missions. His short career was 
 like a prairie fire, sweeping hot and fast over the 
 land. The enthusiasm he kindled was intense and 
 glowing. At a time when material interests ab- 
 sorbed attention, when the development of a new 
 territory and the growth of a young Republic en- 
 grossed thought, he widened the horizon of American 
 disciples, and gave such impulse and impetus to work 
 in other lands as no man since has ever equalled; 
 
THE NE W PIONEERS. 131 
 
 the most ardent and fervent appeals for missions 
 seem but as a faint echo of that clarion voice that 
 shook the continent forty years ago ! 
 
 Perhaps in the age to come, Scotia's great pioneer 
 in India will be most thought of, like Raimund Lull, 
 as a great missionary advocate; and yet he had 
 few of the studied arts and self-conscious graces of 
 the ideal orator or finished declaimer. He would 
 not have been set up as a model of rhetoric or 
 oratory ; if he had any code of rules, he broke the 
 whole decalogue at once. His gestures, when he 
 used any, were uncouth and grotesque. His muscles 
 took rigidity from his mental tension. He twitched 
 his forearm, hitched his shoulder, swung his long 
 arm around, catching up and holding his coat-tails, 
 while he left the other arm free to do the pounding 
 necessary for emphasis. 
 
 But his unique attitudes and motions fitted his 
 unique oratory. For hours he held audiences en- 
 tranced. Words flowed in a tumbling torrent — a tor- 
 rent of fire. Facts stood up at his command in ranks 
 and regiments. His courageous fancy dared the 
 loftiest flights, and his contagious enthusiasm set his 
 whole audience aflame. The expense in vital force 
 was immense, and left behind it exhaustion to the 
 point of peril ; and yet he did not roar or rant — it 
 was not thunder, it was lightning. 
 
 He was a master of climax. His long sentences 
 have been likened to an auger or corkscrew, boring 
 into the minds of men, at* every turn and twist bear- 
 ing down deeper, until at last, as when a cork is 
 withdrawn, pent-up feeling finds vent in tears, in 
 sighs, in shouts of applause. To take down such 
 speeches was impossible. As well attempt to report 
 a terrific storm at sea, with cyclone winds, mountain 
 waves and waterspouts, varied with volcanic' explo- 
 sions, a glorious sunset, and concluding with an 
 aurora borealis and shooting stars ! The reporters 
 gave it up, and with heads resting on their hands. 
 
132 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 fixed eyes and mouth agape, resigned themselves to 
 the charm of a speaker, who, instead of having to say 
 something had something to say. 
 
 It might be invidious, among thousands of illustri- 
 ous names, to assign to any one absolute pre-eminence. 
 But in more respects than one, Alexander Duff 
 shines in the firmament of missions as a star of the 
 first magnitude. No missionary of modern times 
 has laid on God's altar a choicer offering of genius. 
 His mind was at once like Brougham's and like Can- 
 ning's ; as a convex mirror it scattered light in every 
 direction; as a concave mirror it gathered and con- 
 centrated all the rays into one burning focal point. 
 With a memory, a store of information and a versa- 
 tility, equally marvellous, his sagacity was equal to his 
 capacity, which is still more uncommon ; and it will 
 take more than one-half century to dim the lustre of 
 that name which has made so glorious the record of 
 Scottish missions. 
 
 It was fitting that this apostle of Christian educa- 
 tion in India, one of the originators of the Calcutta 
 Revieiu, one of the founders, and for years the vir- 
 tual governor, of the University of Calcutta, and the 
 most eloquent missionary orator of this century, 
 should leave as his last legacy to missions the corner- 
 stone upon which this Lectureship is laid. May God 
 make it ever a pillar of witness, in Duff's native land, 
 to the vital need of missions in directing and develop- 
 ing the life and power of the Church of Christ ! 
 
III. 
 
 THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN. 
 
 A MARKED feature of the New Acts of the Apostles 
 is the apostolate of zvoman. From the day when 
 Gabriel announced to that Virgin of Bethlehem her 
 destiny as the human mother of the Son of God, 
 woman has taken a new rank in history. Mary of 
 Magdala, to whom first He appeared after His resur- 
 rection, was a forerunner of the thousands of her sex 
 who should bear the good tidings of a risen Saviour. 
 That outcast of Sychar who forgot her water-pot and 
 hastened from the well to tell even the men of the 
 city about the Messiah, forecast the myriad women 
 who should forget themselves and all secular cares 
 in the ministry to souls. 
 
 These were prophecies of woman's work, and have 
 been fulfilled in a startling manner in this new era. 
 As the new age of missions moves toward the final 
 goal, more and more does Christian womanhood 
 come to the front. To-day, more than one-third of 
 the entire force in the foreign field is composed of 
 godly women. At home women's organizations, the 
 outgrowth of the last quarter century, have had an 
 increase so rapid, an influence so wide, and an im- 
 pulse so forceful, that no other agency compares with 
 them in value and virtue. They have created and 
 scattered cheap and attractive leaflets on missions, 
 stimulated consecration of home life, and trained up 
 a new generation of self-devoted missionaries; and, 
 amid all the variations of values, and crises in the 
 money market, kept up a constant advance in the 
 scale of gifts to the Lord. To the increased activity 
 of these wom^en who still follow the Master and 
 minister to Him of their substance is mainly owing 
 
 133 
 
134 THE NEW ACES OE THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the decided advance of missionary enterprise during 
 the thirty years past. 
 
 This theme demands a separate treatment, for the 
 field it opens is too broad to be otherwise surveyed. 
 The bare mention of the names, only, of the holy 
 women, single and married, who have adorned the 
 annals of modern missions, would require much 
 space; but to attempt even the briefest sketch of the 
 heroines of the mission field would demand a 
 volume. In some cases they have been wives and 
 mothers, like those three grand women who in suc- 
 cession shared the work of the devoted Judson in 
 Burma, and one of whom laid the corner-stone of 
 Siamese missions. Others have been single women 
 like Fidelia Fiske in Persia, Eliza Agnew in Ceylon, 
 Mary Whately in Cairo, Matilda Rankin in Mexico, 
 Mary Graybell in India, Clara Cushman in China. 
 
 Mary Moffat for a half century bore with her hus- 
 band the yoke of toil and sacrifice among the Bech- 
 uanas. Maria Gobat for forty-five years was Samuel 
 Gobat's invaluable helper in Abyssinia and Malta, 
 and finally in the bishopric of Jerusalem. Hannah 
 Mullens, daughter of one noble missionary, was the 
 wife of another, and has left her lasting footprints 
 in Indian zenanas. Judith Grant spent but four years 
 in Oroomiah, and was but twenty-five years old when 
 she died, but her husband found that her life was the 
 most powerful sermon ever preached in the land of 
 Esther. The work of Mary Williams is scarcely less 
 illustrious than that of the martyr of Erromanga. 
 When Dorothy Jones at twenty-four years of age re- 
 turned to England from the West Indies a childless 
 widow, after a year of service among those degraded 
 negroes, she had passed through a shipwreck whose 
 frightful agonies had distorted her face beyond rec- 
 ognition, yet she could only say, '* I have never once 
 regretted engaging in mission work. " Anna Hinderer 
 spent seventeen years by the side of her beloved 
 David, in the Yoruba country, and so captivated the 
 
THE NEW AFOSTOLATE OF WOAIAJV. 135 
 
 women that they almost worshipped her, and so in- 
 spired heroism in her converts that they dared tor- 
 ture for Jesus' sake. Rebecca Wakefield spent but 
 three years in Zanzibar, but her heroic fight with 
 hardship and privation, and all the foes of a hostile 
 climate and a pagan society, won for her the crown 
 of a courage ''loftier than that of Joan of Arc." 
 Sarah B. Capron not only took equal part in her hus- 
 band's long service in India, but after his death 
 trained scores of Bible women for zenana work, and 
 has now given her maturest days, in the Bible Insti- 
 tute at Chicago, to the training of candidates for mis- 
 sion work, both at home and abroad. 
 
 Out of all this illustrious company of women, in 
 the field of missions, we take, almost at random, a 
 few names as examples of this modern apostolate of 
 woman. 
 
 Hannah Catharine Lacroix Mullens 
 
 Was born in India. The women of that vast penin- 
 sula were therefore doubly her sisters, and nobly did 
 she redeem the debt of sisterhood. As a girl of twelve 
 she was already about her '' Father's business," teach- 
 ing native girls at Bhow^anipore. At nineteen she be- 
 came the wife of the Rev. Joseph Mullens, of the 
 London Missionary Society in Calcutta, and from 
 that time forth the very roots of her being struck 
 deep into the work of a missionary, and absorbed all 
 her energy. Her aid in her husband's study of Ben- 
 gali, her work in the boarding-school for Hindu girls 
 and in the Bible classes for native women, her sanctified 
 pen, fit companion to her anointed tongue — all these 
 are but hints of the varied and abundant service that 
 made that life overflow with usefulness. She has 
 sometimes been called the pioneer of zenana work; 
 but, before her day, when Rev. John Fordyce was in 
 India, the movement for penetrating the closed doors 
 of Hindu homes had begun ; yet Mrs. Mullens has an 
 
136 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 indisputable share in the glory of securing wider 
 access to the exiled women of India, and gf winning 
 them to Christ. And when, after sixteen years as a 
 missionary's wife, she was suddenly called up higher, 
 at the early age of thirty-five, her last day had been 
 spent in writing a book for the native w^omen. 
 
 Emily Chubbuck Judson. 
 
 Long before ''Fanny Forester" had met her hus- 
 band, her zeal for missions had kindled over the 
 memoir of Ann Haseltine Judson; and w^hen, in 1845, 
 he first met her and asked for the service of her grace- 
 ful pen in preparing the memoir of the second Mrs. 
 Judson, little thought either of them that the inter- 
 view would lead to marriage. The few years of her 
 experience in Burma were crowded w^th self-sacrific- 
 ing service; and when in 1850 Dr. Judson's fast fail- 
 ing health made a sea voyage needful, though she 
 scarce knew how to breathe apart from him, and 
 was herself in an apparent decline, she heroically 
 stayed behind. Left with three children in her 
 charge, and one of them her first-born infant of two 
 years, and expecting within one month her second 
 experience of maternity, she cheerfully bade her 
 husband farewell. Three weeks after he sailed, she 
 gave birth to her little '' Charles," and soon after laid 
 him in his grave, little knowing that his father had 
 made the sea his sepulchre ten days before his infant 
 son had departed; for there were four months of ter- 
 rible suspense before she knew whether her husband 
 was alive or dead. Yet she leaned hard on Jesus, and, 
 with a patient heroism which, for pathetic interest, is 
 unsurpassed in the annals of missionary life, ' ' endured 
 as seeing Him who is invisible!" 
 
THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN. 137 
 
 Mary Chauner Williams. 
 
 John Williams always said that, without his wife, 
 he knew not what he would have done. Beside all 
 her loving, conjugal and maternal ministries, her 
 lofty spirit made radiant even the most menial offices 
 of cook and housemaid, and withal she was a teacher. 
 From her the women of Raiatea learned the arts of 
 household life, while every such lesson became a 
 channel for higher instruction. She searched out the 
 aged, half nude and altogether despised and neglected, 
 placed them under proper care, and led many of 
 them to find a new staff for their old age and 
 a new light at life's evening-time. The younger 
 women she diligently taught and catechized until 
 they were trained in the words of faith and good 
 doctrine. Whether with her husband in his ''cir- 
 cumnavigation of charity," or staying behind to care 
 for interests that would suffer in their absence, she 
 was the same unmurmuring servant and burden- 
 bearer of the Lord: and, when seven of her babes 
 were sleeping on the various isles of the Pacific, this 
 handmaid of the Lord could still say, ' ' Be it unto 
 me, according to Thy word!" In poverty or peril, 
 sickness or suffering, she was alike undaunted and 
 undiscouraged. Awakened at midnight with the 
 awful news of her husband's tragic death at Erro- 
 manga, and while so prostrate with a paralysis of 
 grief, that even friendly visits of sympathy were a tor- 
 ture, she admitted, among the first who entered that 
 chamber of sorrow, Malietoa, the chief. He was him- 
 self overwhelmed by the loss which put all Polynesia 
 under its pall. Frantically he appealed to her not to 
 kill herself by indulging grief, pleading with her to 
 live for the sake of himself and his poor people, and 
 crying out, ''If you too are taken, O what shall we 
 then do!" 
 
138 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Fidelia Fiske. 
 
 Born the same year that Williams sailed for the 
 South Seas, at twenty-seven years of age this noble 
 woman went to reproduce in the land of Esther the 
 system of instruction which at Holyoke, Massachu- 
 setts, made Mary Lyon's school for girls so famous. 
 There are various types of bravery, and none more 
 heroic than such as this refined and delicate woman 
 displayed, as for Christ's sake she dared the un- 
 utterable filth and countless army of vermin encoun- 
 tered in the huts of Oroomiah. 
 
 When in 1843 she arrived in Persia, about forty 
 schools had been opened on those plains, but for the 
 most part reached only the boys ; and the girls' school, 
 that Mrs. Grant had founded five years earlier, had 
 dragged out a half dead existence. It was for this 
 humble daughter of Shelbourne, niece of the Syrian 
 missionary, Pliny Fiske, to become the real pioneer 
 of woman's education in Persia. 
 
 God laid it on her heart, to lift up out of the hor- 
 rible pit and miry clay of unspeakable degradation, 
 Nestorian womanhood; but to do it she must herself 
 go dov\m into the pit. She saw that to raise woman- 
 hood, she must first lift girlhood to a higher level. 
 So she began v/ith the daughters, and courageously 
 took measures to gather, into a family school, a few 
 whom she would cleanse and clothe, feed and train. 
 She sought for six girls with whom to begin, and, 
 while as yet she knew but one Syriac sentence, she 
 used that to beg parents to ''give their daugh- 
 ters." On the proposed day of opening, though 
 fifteen day scholars offered, not one ''boarder" was 
 secured. Mar-Yohanan, however, came, leading two 
 little girls of seven and ten; and to this first " gift of 
 daughters" additions were slowly made tmtil they 
 numbered twenty-five — all she could then accommo- 
 date. 
 
 Thus, on foundations laid in prayers and wet with 
 
THE NEW APOSTOLATE OF WOMAN, 139 
 
 tears, was reared that New Holyoke which has been 
 to Persia a pearl of great price. For sixteen years 
 she carried on her apostolic work, and when illness 
 drove her home her one wish was to get back to the 
 land of the magi. Cancer ate at her vitals until, not 
 yet fifty years old, she died, in 1864. Yet, while 
 thus weary and worn, feeling this vulture gnawing at 
 her heart, she not only pleaded ceaselessly for mis- 
 sions, but actually took the principalship at Holyoke, 
 Mass., that with her dying hand she might still sow in 
 youthful soil the seeds of missionary consecration. 
 
 Of Fidelia Fiske the venerable secretary of the 
 American Board has said: ''In the structure and 
 working of her whole nature she seemed to me the 
 nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, to 
 my ideal of our beloved Saviour as he appeared on 
 earth." 
 
 The work which began with the repulsive task of 
 literally cleansing from filth and purging of vermin 
 the very bodies of Persian girls, found its reward 
 when, in the three years from 1844 to 1847, an outpour- 
 ing so copious visited her seminary that it could be 
 compared to nothing but the first Pentecost. All 
 the girls above twelve years were converted, and 
 many of them became missionaries in these Persian 
 homes. The school was so obviously blessed in lift- 
 ing women above the low level of the donkey, and 
 ennobling that character which is the secret of all 
 betterment of condition, that persecution only showed 
 its worth and multiplied its supporters and so made 
 necessary enlarged accommodations. During the 
 closing days of Miss Fiske's stay in Oroomiah ninety- 
 three converted women, in one meeting, greeted her 
 as first-fruits of a life whose motto was, ' ' Live for 
 Christ." 
 
 We may well thank God that, after for centuries 
 being kept in the background. Christian womanhood 
 is finding its true sphere of work, and wielding its 
 golden sceptre of influence. Missions have shown 
 
140 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the normal status of woman in the Church and in the 
 world; and how closely her identification with her 
 Redeemer is also linked with family life and social 
 life, so that. without her there can be no holy household 
 nor reformed society. And her deep sense of infi- 
 nite debt to Christ, not only for salvation, but for her 
 redemption from her domestic and social thraldom, 
 prompts her to undertake a mission to her degraded 
 sisters in pagan, heathen and moslem lands, which 
 can by no one but a Christian woman be done at all. 
 Perhaps God suffered zenanas and harems to be 
 locked against men so that women might the more 
 feel His providential call for their service to their 
 sex. 
 
 Woman's work for woman no human gauge can 
 measure. When Dr. Eli Smith of Syria w^as giving 
 theological students his reasons why, ordinarily, 
 a missionary should take a wife, he spoke not only of 
 her contribution to her husband's home comforts, 
 and her power to shelter him from moral suspicion, 
 but he added with earnest emphasis, that the wife 
 often does full as effective work in the foreign field 
 as her husband, and that nothing is needed more, as 
 a living lesson to these degraded and ignorant idol- 
 aters and victims of vicious social surroundings, than 
 the practical exhibition in the Christian woman her- 
 self of w^hat the religion of Christ does for her as 
 daughter and sister, wife and mother. The common 
 witness of the most heroic and successful missionaries 
 is that the holy lives and tireless labours of devoted 
 women have been indispensable to the highest results 
 of missions. There was a time when woman was 
 regarded as little more than man's helper, if not 
 servant : but Paul wrote, ' ' Help those zvoinen which 
 laboured with us in the gospel," as though they were 
 now leaders, and the men were to go to their help ! 
 
IV. 
 
 THE NEW LESSONS. 
 
 We must not leave this department of our great 
 theme without looking back and asking what new 
 lessons God would have us learn. And, first of all, 
 this history of modern missions has been writing in 
 large letters the lesson of the power of pious parent- 
 age. 
 
 Rev. J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D., has told how 
 he once ascended to a high summit in India in search 
 of the source of the Godivari River: how at last a 
 spot was reached where so few were the drops that 
 trickled from the rocks that they could for some sec- 
 onds be held in the hollow of his hand; and at that 
 point one could in a few moments scoop out a new 
 channel and turn the whole stream in a new direc- 
 tion. From such an insignificant rill sprang one of 
 India's noblest rivers. The little stream he saw, flow- 
 ing down the slope and gradually broadening: then 
 running eastward toward the Bay of Bengal, growing 
 wider and deeper, gathering volume and momentum, 
 until it became the secret of fertility to thousands of 
 acres otherwise dry and desert. 
 
 That river is a parable of human life. "The 
 king's heart is in the hands of the Lord, and he turn- 
 eth it whithersoever He will." He v/ho learns the 
 secret of the Lord, like Him, gets at the point in the 
 stream, near the heart, where life's issues begin to 
 flow outward, and where character, conduct, history 
 and destiny wait for a shaping hand. Thackeray 
 reminds us how we sow a thought and reap an act; 
 sow an act, and reap a habit ; sow a habit, and reap a 
 character; sow a character, and reap destiny. So 
 then he who begins back where thought is forming, 
 moulds the seed of that last, eternal harvest. 
 
 141 
 
142 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 No lesson learned from these lives of the new apos- 
 tles is more awfully solemn than this : They prove 
 to us the power of spiritual ancestry — the faith which, 
 first dwelling in a godly mother or grandmother, has 
 given many a Timothy to the field of missions. The 
 Samuels are to be accounted for by the Hannahs, 
 and the pioneers of our Lord have been nur- 
 tured by some Zacharias and Elisabeth. There may 
 be no inheritance of godliness, but there is certainly a 
 heritage of grace ; aptitudes are transmitted, if charac- 
 ter is not. Let every father remember how from his 
 loins may come a future Judson or Marsden, a Williams 
 or Wilson, a Patteson or Hannington. Let every 
 mother think how the child she bears and rears may 
 be one of God's destined kings or queens, and that it 
 is her hand that helps to give shape to the plastic clay 
 for one of God's chosen vessels. We have only to 
 remember Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf, Schwartz and 
 Livingstone, Paton and Mills, Gulick and Scudder, 
 Judson and Jessup, Duff and Hudson Taylor, to learn 
 how much hangs on the holiness and heroism of the 
 parents, if the children are to become holy and heroic. 
 
 Another lesson taught is that of unrecognized great- 
 ness. The new apostles, like the old, have not 
 ahvays been recognized, and have sometimes been 
 rejected, by their own generation; and this lack of 
 appreciation of God's anointed men and women by 
 their contemporaries is one of the significant lessons 
 of the New Acts of the Apostles. Carey bore the sneers 
 of unhallowed wit ; Stoddard was charged with throw- 
 ing away his fine culture amid Persian wilds, as Liv- 
 ingstone w^as, with wasting great powers amid Afri- 
 can forests. Williams falling at Erromanga, Han- 
 nington shot on the borders of Uganda, Mackay 
 dying yet in youth among the cruel savages of 
 Mwanga's realm, Riggs retiring into scholarly seclu- 
 sion at the Golden Horn, and three peerless women 
 following Judson to Burma — to many all this is 
 sheer waste ; but history reverses many of our ver- 
 
THE NE W LESSONS. 143 
 
 diets, and the judgment-seat of Christ will reverse 
 many more. 
 
 It was not in vain that Morrison wore the queue 
 and burned the midnight lamp at Canton, that 
 Wilder '' buried himself " for thirty years in India, 
 that Carey left Leicester for Serampore, that Hunt 
 exiled himself at the Fiji group, that Patteson fell at 
 Nackapu, that McAll spent his last twenty years in 
 tireless labours amid the commune, in Paris. 
 
 Again, we are taught obedience to the will of God. 
 The plan of God is the only ultimately successful 
 scheme; and to find out that plan and fall into our 
 place in it, is to come into our true orbit round the 
 Sun of the universe — to enter into, to become part of, 
 a system of harmony in which all things work 
 together for good. There, all things are ours, even 
 death as well as life, things present as well as things 
 to come — for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 
 Life's length is not measured by its years, but its 
 yearnings, its prayers, its measure of unity with God 
 and conformity to His purpose. All life is long if 
 it reaches the goal God means for it. 
 
 The new apostles have been men and women who 
 have sought to hear God's voice and heed divine 
 visions, and move along the lines laid down in the 
 word of God — who have waited God's time and 
 wrought in God's way. The founder of the China 
 Inland Mission heard a voice plainly saying to him, 
 ' ' I am going to open central and inland China to the 
 gospel, and will use you if you are ready to come 
 into My plan;" and from that day he has known no 
 will but that will. God cares not for the many, but 
 He uses the few who are wholly His — who in that 
 calling wherein they are found abide with God; 
 whose eyes are unto His, glad to be guided by His 
 eye, and needing not bit and bridle and rein and whip 
 to compel them to obey His will, like the dumb 
 horse or stubborn mule. He who is content to be 
 drained of selfishness, to lose himself in God, as con- 
 
144 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tent to die as to live, if death means life to others; 
 ready, like Ignatius, to be ground between teeth of 
 lions to make bread for God's people — he is the man 
 upon whom the Spirit comes, and with whom, as w^as 
 written of Gideon, He ** clothes Himself, " as a warrior 
 with his coat of armour. 
 
 Yes, the inner secret of service is the sharing of 
 God's Spirit, and so of His power. Herbert Spencer 
 was right, for * ' by no political alchemy can we get 
 golden conduct out of leaden instincts." Influence 
 will not be grandly noble when character is basely 
 ignoble, and all efforts to make up in culture for 
 what the soul lacks in renewed nature, will be worse 
 than waste. The builder should not construct orna- 
 ment, but ornament construction ; and he who w^ants 
 beauty of character needs only to see that there is 
 something solidly built and firmly based, on which 
 to have beauty appear. Otherwise the best appear- 
 ances are like frost-work on the window-pane that 
 melts away before the sunbeam. 
 
 Again, what a lesson may be learned from the 
 diversity of spJieres that have furnished God's work- 
 men. Coleridge at Christ's hospital felt ambitious to 
 be a shoemaker's apprentice, because from this, more 
 than any other handicraft, eminent men have gone 
 forth to serve the world. Jesus Christ was a car- 
 penter at Nazareth, and His life as a mechanic was a 
 prophecy of the host of those who from the workshop 
 of the common tradesman would go forth into fields 
 of wide usefulness and heroic service. Any place 
 may furnish training and any tool may become, like 
 Moses' rod, God's means to work His signs. The 
 heart needs only to be God's — then '■'■ w^hat is that in 
 thine hand?" A shepherd's crook, a carpenter's ham- 
 mer, a mason's trowel, a shoemaker's awl, or the 
 needle of Dorcas, — these God can use as well as the 
 tongue of the orator or the pen of the ready writer, 
 to glorify Him. 
 
Part III. 
 THE NEW VISIONS AND VOICES 
 
THE LEADING VOICE— THE VOICE OF 
 THE MASTER. 
 
 ''After this, I looked, and behold a door was 
 opened in heaven ; and I heard a voice, as it were of 
 a trumpet, talking with me." — Revelation^ iv. i. 
 
 The Apostolic age was both pictorial and vocal : it 
 was an age of visions and voices of God. A door 
 was opened in heaven. Such sights the eye beheld, 
 and such sounds the ear heard, as left no doubt with 
 saints, and sometimes with sinners, that God was in 
 close touch with man. As through a rent veil 
 flashed the hidden glory ; and, whether the sound was 
 that of a trumpet, or of the ''still small voice," it 
 was awe-inspiring and soul-subduing. The gospel 
 message itself was the voice of God, and, as was fit- 
 ting, it was emphasized and accentuated by other 
 utterances clearly divine. Both by His providence 
 and by His Spirit He spake so often, so loudly, that 
 the whole age of the Apostles echoed with these 
 divine voices. In effect the visions were voices, for 
 as messengers of God they were vocal, only that 
 their language entered the city of Mansoul through 
 eyegate rather than eargate. 
 
 Not even in the time of the ancient Theophanies 
 has God more manifestly appeared and spoken to 
 men. Nor were these visions and voices vain. They 
 mark, in the history of missions, turning points, both 
 critical and pivotal ; hinges whereon the golden gates 
 of the kingdom hung and swung. Nor were they 
 meant for that age only. A mere glance at the Acts 
 of the Apostles shows that what God taught the 
 early Church was a lesson for all time: He was giv- 
 ing signs and signals for all ages. To a devout 
 reader this book records and reproduces what prim- 
 itive disciples saw and heard, somewhat as the photo- 
 
 147 
 
148 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 graph and phonograph may yet serve future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 One mark of the close analogy between the age of 
 modern missions and that of the Apostolic, is found 
 in the new visions and voices of God, which though 
 less characterized by the purely miraculous or super- 
 natural element are no less unmistakable in their 
 purpose and purport. Every page of these new 
 chapters is thus illustrated and explained by the 
 Divine Teacher; and the fact is both curious and 
 significant that the main lessons, thus taught the 
 Church in our day, follow the same lines as those of 
 that first century. The Heavenly Schoolmaster, like 
 the earthly, finds needful to use repetition for the 
 sake of impression; and so, after the long interval 
 of centuries, we are still in God's school, learning the 
 same old lessons from the same old text-book, only 
 it is a new edition with notes by the Author, illu- 
 mined by new illustrations, its teaching enforced and 
 vivified by new arguments and appeals. 
 
 The first voice we hear in the Acts of the Apostles 
 is that of the Lord Jesus Himself. His words have a 
 double value; as His last words before He was taken 
 up, they form the sum and substance of all His pre- 
 vious teaching; and as His first words before the new 
 age of missions opens, they, like a table of contents, 
 give the sum and substance of the history that is to 
 follow. All other voices and visions found in this 
 book are meant to fix in the minds of believers what 
 they saw and heard when the Lord last appeared 
 unto them before His ascension, — to echo, explain, 
 amplify, illustrate His great commission. Because 
 every word that He then spake is a little world full 
 of meaning, let us write His farewell message in large 
 letters : 
 
 *' DEPART NOT FROM JERUSALEM, 
 
 BUT WAIT FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER 
 WHICH YE HAVE HEARD OF ME; 
 
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 149 
 
 FOR JOHN TRULY BAPTIZED WITH WATER, 
 
 BUT YE SHALL BE BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, 
 
 NOT MANY DAYS HENCE, 
 YE SHALL RECEIVE THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST 
 
 COMING UPON YOU, 
 AND YE SHALL BE WITNESSES UNTO ME 
 BOTH IN JERUSALEM AND IN ALL JUDEA, 
 
 AND IN SAMARIA, 
 AND UNTO THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH." 
 
 Here then is the loud and leading voice of the 
 Apostolic age, and how majestic and commanding! 
 In this final word of our ascending Lord three things 
 stand out conspicuous like lofty peaks against the 
 horizon : 
 
 First, the work of witness is the duty of the 
 whole Church. Second, the field of witness is the 
 territory of the whole world. Third, the force of 
 witness is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Again we affirm it, this farewell message is all- 
 comprehensive. From it was omitted nothing vital 
 to the Church's great mission; to it nothing- has been, 
 or can be, added. The keynote is struck, and the 
 divine melody is sung ; all that follows is but a varia- 
 tion upon this theme, the harmony which only makes 
 more conspicuous the melody. The chapters that 
 succeed add only emphasis to this first chapter, and 
 so it will be of the unwritten records yet to follow; 
 every failure or success in our mission work only 
 gives fresh force, heavier stress, to this great message 
 of the departing Master. 
 
 Immediately, with but ten days of interval, the 
 farewell word of the Lord, and the promise of the 
 Father, find fulfilment in the outpouring of the 
 Spirit. Pentecost was both a vision and a voice, 
 emphasizing and confirming what Jesus had said. 
 
 The work of witness now began. Hundreds of 
 tongues, like a chorus of silver trumpets of jubilee, 
 proclaimed in unison the acceptable year of the Lord; 
 
150 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and, although at times this work has suffered con- 
 traction through unbelief an,d worldliness, it has 
 never entirely ceased, nor will it, until the end of the 
 age. 
 
 The field of witness now began to be first seen in 
 its true length and breadth. Peter officially said, 
 *'The promise is unto you and unto your children, 
 and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord 
 our God shall call." And this he spake not of him- 
 self; he had little conception of the meaning of his 
 own words, as subsequent events prove. It was the 
 voice of the Spirit, repeating and enlarging the cove- 
 nant promises of a former dispensation; repeating 
 them for the sake of Jewish believers; enlarging 
 them for the sake of the gentiles, who had hitherto 
 been aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and 
 strangers from the covenants of promise. Christ 
 had made the field of witness to embrace the utter- 
 most part of the earth ; and so now the Spirit leads 
 Peter, still fettered with Jewish exclusiveness, to 
 add, "" and to as many as are afar off ! " The golden 
 links of prophecy connect the Hebrew race with a 
 larger grace, that is to touch the whole family of 
 man. And so this same Peter was led, a little later, 
 to say to the unbelieving Jews, '' Repent ye, there- 
 fore, and be converted, so that times of refreshing 
 may come from the presence of the Lord." The 
 reclamation and restoration of God's elect people is 
 a condition, preliminary and preparatory, to that last 
 great time of refreshing which is to come upon all 
 flesh. In Abraham's " seed shall all the kindreds of 
 the earth be blessed! " but that promise made to the 
 father of the faithful will be fulfilled only when 
 Abraham's seed, receiving the Messiah they despised 
 and rejected, become witnesses to the nations. And 
 so Paul adds his testimony to Peter's: '' Now, if the 
 fall of them be the enriching of the world, and their 
 diminishing the enriching of the gentiles, how much 
 more their fulness! For, if their rejection be the 
 
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 151 
 
 reconciling- of the world, what shall the receiving of 
 them be but life from the dead." — Romans, xi. 12-14. 
 
 The field of witness was not only now first seen 
 to be the world, but in a peculiar way its occupation 
 began. From every quarter of the inhabited globe 
 had gathered those representatives who, on the day 
 of Pentecost, received the word and the blessing; and 
 going back to their far-off and widely separated 
 abodes they naturally became witnesses unto the 
 peoples among whom they dwelt. The sheaf of 
 first-fruits thus laid on that Pentecostal altar, sup- 
 plied seed for the sower to scatter in regions beyond. 
 
 The poiver of witness was now for the first time 
 revealed in its fulness. Pentecost emphasized our 
 Lord's words by bringing the promised baptism, the 
 chrism of power, the nameless charm and virtue 
 which make all witness effective. Then began the 
 great endowment and enduement, so indescribable 
 yet indispensable; through human tongues the Holy 
 Spirit spake, with a demonstration of truth far be- 
 yond all the demonstration of logic, making simple 
 witness to Christ to accomplish what all the wisdom 
 of the schools has never been able to effect. And, 
 from that day onward the secret of power to testify 
 for God, to convince and persuade men, has been the 
 same, namely, to be filled with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 We have thus seen that the first two chapters of 
 the Acts furnish the key, not only to this book, but 
 to all missionary history. Our Lord's last words 
 describe the work of witness, define the field of witness, 
 and reveal the force of witness; and the third per- 
 son of the Trinity adds His confirmation of the word of 
 the Lord Jesus, by leading disciples to begin the work, 
 to enter the field, and to use the power. Where God 
 thus teaches three lessons, and stamps them as of 
 such supreme importance, it must be our duty to 
 learn them thoroughly. We therefore tarry to study 
 them with more care and closeness of application. 
 
11. 
 
 THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 
 
 This first lesson taught in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, that the work of witness belongs to the whole 
 Churchy dominates the book; so emphatically, so 
 repeatedly enforced, that it must constitute one, if 
 not the only, design of its records. 
 
 Those who believed were from the first sent forth 
 as witnesses. It is of the very genius of Christianity 
 that it implies and compels testimony; '' I believed 
 and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and 
 therefore speak." This is not only the logic of mis- 
 sions; it is the logic of spiritual life. The Church 
 of God is an army, always to be mobilized in readi- 
 ness for action, — more than this, always in action. 
 Livingstone said, *'The spirit of missions is the 
 Spirit of our Master; the very genius of our religion. 
 A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It 
 requires perpetual propagation to attest its genuine- 
 ness." 
 
 How far this conception of a witnessing Church is 
 the controlling law in the structure of the Acts of 
 the Apostles, only careful search will show. 
 
 The introduction to this book refers to that ''forty 
 days" of communion between the risen Lord and 
 His disciples, the object and result of which were 
 fourfold : 
 
 First, to leave in them no doubt of the fact of His 
 resurrection; secondly, to give them instruction 
 touching the Kingdom of God; thirdly, to prepare 
 them for His unseen presence and guidance; fourthly, 
 to inspire them with the true Spirit of missions. 
 
 Then, as soon as the Spirit was outpoured, we 
 find the bold outlines of early Church history con- 
 fronting us, the record of active, aggressive testi- 
 
 152 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DISCLPLES. 153 
 
 mony, pushing its lines from Jerusalem into all 
 Judea, then into Samaria, and so farther and farther 
 into the remotest regions beyond. 
 
 1. The witnessing Church at Jerusalem and Judea. 
 Chapter i. 13 to vii. 
 
 Ten days of prayer are followed by the Pentecostal 
 enduement for service, persecution by Pharisees and 
 Sadducees, Stephen's martyrdom, and the dispersion 
 of disciples; the voluntary community of goods, 
 division of work, and the institution of the diac- 
 onate. 
 
 2. The witnessing Church in Samaria. Chapter viii. 
 
 Under Philip, the evangelist-deacon, Samaria re- 
 ceives a blessing, essentially a repetition of the Pen- 
 tecost at Jerusalem. 
 
 3. The witnessing Church moving toward the 
 uttermost part of the earth. Chapter ix. to the close. 
 
 The conversion of the eunuch represents evangel- 
 ism begun in Ethiopia; and that of Saul of Tarsus, 
 the chosen apostle to the gentiles, raises up the 
 greatest evangelist the world has ever seen, whose 
 especial passion it is to reach the regions beyond. 
 Among the Romans at Cesarea, then among the 
 Greeks at Antioch and at Ephesus, Pentecostal bless- 
 ings descend with marvellous signs and wonders; 
 and the first gentile Church formed at Antioch 
 becomes the starting point for foreign missions. 
 Paul's three mission tours, with their ever widening 
 circles, are outlined, and the book closes w4th the 
 Cilician apostle teaching and preaching at Rome, the 
 third great centre of Christianity. 
 
 In the latter part of the Acts, Paul comes to the 
 front, while Peter disappears entirely. The reason 
 is plain. The obvious object of the bock is to trace 
 the beginnings of missions to the nations of the wide 
 world. To Peter it was given to unlock the door of 
 faith, first to Jews and then to gentiles; then he goes 
 to the dispersion or scattered tribes of Israel; and 
 Paul, whose commission is to the nations at large, 
 
154 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the typical world-missionary, naturally becomes the 
 main actor in the scene. 
 
 Attention has already been called to the fact, that 
 Luke treats both the gospel which he wrote and this 
 book of which he is the declared author, as parts of 
 one connected, continuous, complete narrative. A 
 careful study will show the links of unity. The pur- 
 pose of the Spirit, in these two sketches, is to outline 
 gospel history from its infancy in its humble Judean 
 cradle to its mature growth as a world-wide power; 
 to trace the seed of the kingdom, first sown on Syrian 
 soil, then scattered widely beside all waters and 
 borne upon the various streams of civilization to the 
 heart of the heathen world. 
 
 Thus, from first to last, this combined narrative is 
 the story of missions. In the gospel our Lord offers 
 the good news to the Jews; and then seeing their 
 actual rejection of Him and foreseeing their con- 
 tinued refusal of His message. He commands and 
 commissions His disciples to go everywhere and wit- 
 ness to every creature. In the Acts we see the com- 
 mission and command actually carried out; the 
 preaching of the gospel to the Jews by both Peter 
 and Paul, and its repeated rejection by them; with 
 its subsequent and consequent proclamation to man- 
 kind as such at the great centres of population. 
 
 The Gospel according to Luke opens with Christ's 
 incarnation, and closes with His resurrection and 
 ascension. The promise of enduement with power 
 "not many days hence," is the last link left to con- 
 nect with the after narrative. In the Pentecostal 
 fires the new links are forged for this chain of events, 
 and so the Acts of the Apostles joins on to the gos- 
 pel, beginning with the natal day of the Church at 
 Pentecost and ending with Paul's work at Rome. 
 
 Now, confining our gaze to the Acts, as a whole, 
 we observe at least ten marked features, all indicat- 
 ing the mission, committed to the whole Church, of 
 a world-wide witness. 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCIPLES. 165 
 
 1. The waiting for the Holy Spirit. The endue- 
 ment from on high was also an endowment, fitting 
 for the work of witness ; the type of other effusions 
 which followed and which indicated that not only 
 Jewish converts but gentile believers also were to be 
 thus endued and endowed. 
 
 2. The substance of this witness was Christ cruci- 
 fied, risen, exalted and glorified, as the only Saviour; 
 pointed prominence being given to the Old Testa- 
 ment prophecies and the exact correspondence of 
 New Testament history; and to that glorious second 
 Coming of our Lord which is to put the capstone 
 upon all prophecy and history. The book is full of 
 Christ, Messiah foretold, Saviour revealed. 
 
 3. The resolute persistence of Christ's witnesses in 
 face of organized opposition. The Jews led by 
 Sanhedric rulers, the gentiles led by such as the 
 Ephesian Demetrius, drive disciples to face, if not 
 to fight, that worst of all wild beasts, the mob. 
 Persecution bares her red right arm and whets her 
 cruel sword, warning disciples what price they must 
 pay for free speech. But they *' cannot but speak 
 the things w^hich they have seen and heard." And 
 so this story of the Acts becomes the first book of 
 Christ's mart3Ts. Stephen's angel smile shines amid 
 a hail of stones. James' head drops under the axe 
 of Herod Agrippa. Peter, kept for a like fate by 
 the same despot, is loosed from prison, at the beck 
 of One before whom even iron fetters fall and iron 
 gates open of their own accord. Yet neither can 
 bribe nor force stop the mouth of Christ's witnesses. 
 God is obeyed and man is defied. 
 
 4. Church life itself is moulded by this mission to 
 mankind. Believers so commonly accept this work of 
 witness that personal and private interests are merged 
 into this wider and nobler service. The community 
 of privilege and responsibility is emphasized by a 
 more remarkable community of goods. With an 
 unselfishness that has no other example in history, 
 
156 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 believers part with worldly possessions and pour the 
 proceeds into a common fund, to be distributed 
 according to the wants of each and all. Not only 
 duties but burdens are shared alike. 
 
 5. The witnesses disperse more and more widely. 
 Those who were sojourners in Jerusalem went back 
 to their separate abodes with the new message of 
 life burned into their souls by the Spirit's fire, and 
 burning on their tongues ; and so light began to shine 
 in the darkness. If we may trust tradition, the 
 eunuch whom Philip guided to the blood of the Lamb 
 and the water of baptism, founded the Church of 
 Alexandria and baptized his own queen. The con- 
 verted blasphemer from Tarsus, swept over a wider 
 and wider arc, until his mission tours touched not 
 only Ephesus, Athens, Corinth and Rome, but possi- 
 bly Spain and Britain. 
 
 6. The open secrets of Apostolic success may be 
 read upon every page of this short story. Apostolic 
 activity moves toward its goal of world-wide missions 
 with so rapid strides, that in one generation it reaches 
 the remotest parts; yet it treads no strange road. 
 All along the way God's lights are hung, that he who 
 will may follow. How simple the methods of work! 
 Childlike faith in the promise of God and the power 
 of His word and Spirit; believing and united prayer 
 that laughs at the giant Anakim with their chariots 
 of iron, and cares not for high walls and strong gates, 
 and foes many and mighty; a heroic obedience that 
 asks only for *' marching orders," and then dares all 
 obstacles and opposers, moving on into the "valley 
 of death," to *Mo and die" — such are the simple clew 
 to the whole maze and mystery of Apostolic missions. 
 
 7. The unseen divine presence pervades the whole 
 history. To Christ's last command was closely 
 linked a last promise, " Lo, I am with you all the 
 days, even to the end of the age." This book is the 
 record of the fulfilment of that promise. Wonder- 
 working miraculous signs, divine interpositions, so 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 157 
 
 abound that the uncommon becomes common, and 
 the supernatural seems no more unnatural. As we 
 cross the threshold of the story we meet the tongues 
 of flame that tell the power of God ; then each chap- 
 ter is a new chamber of marvels. The healing of the 
 lame man, of the divining damsel, of Eneas at 
 Lydda; the raising of dead Dorcas; the healing vir- 
 tue that invests the body of Paul and the shadow of 
 Peter; the prison doors thrice opened, twice by the 
 angel, once by the earthquake as God's angel ; mir- 
 acles of judgment as well as deliverance; Elymas be- 
 ing blinded, and Ananias, Sapphira and Herod struck 
 dead; — at every step we tread on enchanted ground. 
 
 8. The power of the gospel is everywhere conspic- 
 uous. Sinners are converted sometimes as in 
 masses; saints are edified and educated, and the 
 body of Christ grows strong. Even those who are 
 neither converted nor convicted seem compelled to 
 hear and to make some decision ; they may not bow 
 to Christ, but they cannot maintain the stolid apathy 
 of indifference. Stephen's stoners are cut to the 
 heart, for his words are swords ; Felix says ' * go thy 
 way," but he ''trembles;" Agrippa will not yield 
 but is ''almost persuaded." Those who "gnashed 
 on him with their teeth " " could not resist the wis- 
 dom and the spirit w4th which " the first martyr 
 spake; and Saul, who stood by consenting to their 
 deed, never forgot that shining face which prepared 
 him for the glory that smote him near Damascus! 
 
 9. This is the book of the Holy Spirit. Throughout, 
 there runs the stream of His subtle, unseen, mysteri- 
 ous, resistless working. Omniscience, omnipotence, 
 omnipresence, find here the field for their display, 
 promising and prophesying similar results, whenever 
 and wherever like conditions obtain. Here God 
 shows that in grace as in nature He has chosen chan- 
 nels for His power and energ}', and if those channels 
 are not obstructed. He who is the same yesterday 
 and to-day and forever, will still work wonders. 
 
158 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 lo. No undue emphasis is here laid on numerical 
 results or apparent success. In the story of primi- 
 tive missions the whole stress is upon obedience, not 
 consequence, not on succeeding but on serving. The 
 work is God's, the instrumentality only is man's; the 
 whole responsibility is therefore with the Master 
 Workman, and whether success or failure, defeat or 
 triumph, be the apparent outcome, all is well. 
 
 No lesson taught in these chapters is more sublime, 
 or more needful than this. In every age disciples 
 need to learn it anew. So long as our eyes are daz- 
 zled by the glittering trophies of victory, and our 
 hearts depressed by seeming disaster, we shall be in a 
 state of chronic worry. Our joy and hope, our cour- 
 age and confidence, will be like the waves of the sea, 
 iossed up and down by every change of wind, and 
 driven to and fro by every turn of tide. The work 
 of missions is God's work. Man did not plan it, can- 
 not carry it on, cannot make it a success. As Dr. 
 McLaren says, '' the results are so poor as to show 
 that the treasure is in an earthen vessel ; so rich as 
 to prove that in the earthen vessel is a heavenly 
 treasure." We are therefore simply to do our duty, 
 and with a holy abandonment, a sublime *' careless- 
 ness," cast ourselves and trust our work upon Him 
 whose we are and whom we serve. 
 
 Some of these ten principal features of this book 
 will receive more attention further on; but at this 
 point we have sought to look at them as at the feat- 
 ures of one face, striking for the unity and harmony 
 of their combination and impression. And they serve 
 to characterize the Acts of the Apostles as the 
 typical history of the witnessing Church during its 
 first generation, wherein God teaches the philosophy 
 of missions by a historical example. 
 
 This book of the Acts teaches that in this witness 
 every believer is to take part. A duty is involved 
 from whose obligation no disciple is excepted; a 
 privilege from whose enjoyment and enrichment no 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 159 
 
 believer is excluded. The opening miracle of Pente- 
 cost writes this lesson in letters of fire upon the door- 
 way of this historic record, for it brought that two- 
 fold gift of converting and anointing grace, and the 
 anointing came upon all that little company, even 
 upon the women. The gift of tongues was both a 
 sign to the unbelievers and a signal to believers. 
 What is the tongue but the great instrument of 
 testimony? The message was spoken with many 
 tongues to teach disciples that their witness was to 
 reach every nation, whatever its language ; and pos- 
 sibly that gift of tongues fitted them for such wit- 
 ness, without the tedious mastery of foreign speech. 
 And the tongues were of fire to remind them that 
 faithful testimony was to be attended by a new force, 
 an energy not of man but of God. 
 
 So plainly is the tongue of every disciple thus set 
 apart for testimony, that it is a fact beyond explana- 
 tion that the Church should ever have lost sight of 
 God's purpose, that witnessing shall be the preroga- 
 tive of all believers ; and it is one of the startling 
 proofs of a rapid decline from a primitive piety, that 
 so few modern disciples feel the burden of personal 
 responsibility for souls. 
 
 The study of words reveals ethics in language. 
 Error and truth find crystallization in current forms 
 of speech, and so this habitual carelessness that shifts 
 the work of soul-saving iipon other shoulders has 
 become coined into popular phrases, fixed forms of 
 expression. 
 
 For instance, let us look closely at that dangerous 
 term, *' division of labour." It is often said that the 
 Acts of the Apostles encourages and enjoins this 
 principle; and the institution of the diaconate is 
 cited to prove it, because the Church was bidden to 
 look out honest men to serve tables, leaving the 
 Apostles free to give themselves to prayer and to the 
 ministry of the word. 
 
 Let us beware of too broad an induction from so 
 
ICO THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 narrow a basis of particulars. There is a great gulf 
 of difference and distinction between division of 
 labour and distribution of labour. Division hints at 
 partition and separation ; distribution implies only a 
 special assignment or allotment of work. Expedi- 
 ency and convenience may set apart some to a par- 
 ticular service, in order to free them from all entan- 
 glements, and to assure a more competent and 
 thorough attention to that branch of work; but it 
 is quite another matter to build up a dividing wall, 
 or draw even a dividing line, which practically parts 
 disciples, and which they come to think it improper 
 to cross. Service is to be so distributed, that each may 
 have his own sphere and work, and no department 
 be overcrowded or under-supplied. But never, during 
 Apostolic days, was there found asserted in the 
 Church of Christ any law of monopoly, clerical caste, 
 or exclusive right. Whatever such notions or 
 customs have since grown up, ' * from the beginning 
 it was not so." All believers had, and exercised, an 
 inalienable and undisputed right to proclaim Christ 
 to lost men. Experience of grace was the sufficient 
 w^arrant for witness to grace ; and the only limits to 
 such witness were those of ability, opportunity and 
 consecration. 
 
 The appointment of deacons was wise and needful. 
 Material and temporal wants demanded supply, and 
 such cares must not collide and conflict with purely 
 spiritual offices and ministries ; and, because provision 
 for God's poor was a form of service to Him, it must 
 be in charge of men, not only of honest report and 
 of wisdom, but full of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The same need still exists. The ministers and mis- 
 sionaries to whom is committed as their one absorbing 
 trust, the curacy of souls, must not be hindered and 
 hampered by the stern necessity of ministering to the 
 temporal needs of their own and of other families. 
 There is a " business side " of the Lord's work which 
 calls for men with a practical talent for finance and 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. IGl 
 
 business. Some who are not called to give them- 
 selves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word, 
 may unshackle those who are^ relieving them of need- 
 less tax on time and strength, by taking care of poor 
 saints, and by providing a sound financial basis and 
 bottom for evangelistic and spiritual work. 
 
 How often a noble structure of missions has come 
 to w^reck and ruin from dry rot in its timbers, 
 because there has been no one to look after supplies ! 
 The war is God's, but it needs money and materiel. 
 Brave Captain Gardiner, at Tierra del Fuego, led a 
 little band of seven against Satan's seat in Patagonia, 
 but had to turn back, and died of starvation at the 
 very gates of his stronghold, and in the very crisis 
 of the assault, because of lack of the necessities of 
 life. Had some well organized body of men and 
 women at home kept up the "line of communica- 
 tion " between the base of operations and the source 
 of supplies, Allen Gardiner might not have fallen at 
 Spaniards' Harbour in 185 1, and the victory might 
 not have been postponed for half a century ! 
 
 Let it be noted, however, that the appointment of 
 the seven deacons to serve tables, did not shut them 
 out from preaching or even baptizing, as the records 
 of both Stephen and Philip clearly show. Distribu- 
 tion of labour did not divide disciples, nor debar any 
 from taking part in evangelizing. Over the doors of 
 the early Church the Master wrote in letters so large 
 that he who runneth may read at a cursory glance, 
 '' Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
 every creature." The command w^as and is to all 
 disciples. Those who cannot go in person, must go 
 in the person of others who can ; and with no less 
 self-denial, prayer, self-offering, must they w^ho 
 tarry by the stuff support those who go to the battle, 
 than if they themselves went to the field. Only so 
 will they share alike in the work and the reward. 
 Let this one law of service be framed into church- 
 life, and all will be alike missionaries. 
 
162 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 In that Samarian Pentecost, God laid new empha- 
 sis upon the truth already taught, that the commission 
 of disciples was not limited by priestly lines nor con- 
 fined within narrow channels. The sharp distinction 
 between priests and people, found in the days of 
 Judaism, disappears in the Christian Church; the 
 barriers were down between the court of the gentiles 
 and the court of Israel, and the middle walls of parti- 
 tion between the court of Israel and the court of the 
 priests perished with the old Temple, and has no place 
 in the Church of Christ. Nay, the veil is rent between 
 the Holy Place and the Holiest of all, and all believers 
 approach alike without hindrance or hesitation to the 
 mercy-seat. What means all this if not a plain asser- 
 tion of a certain equality of right, dignity and privi- 
 lege? No assault is designed, in the calm recording of 
 these convictions, upon the views or practices of fel- 
 low-disciples ; but candour and loyalty to truth demand 
 of us, that as honest students of this great missionary 
 charter of the Church, we shall accept and defend its 
 plain teachings. If we are in earnest to perfect the 
 missionary methods of our own era, we must with open 
 eyes see our present defects, and own our departures 
 from the primitive standard. The prime condition 
 of all spiritual progress is a candid mind. That a 
 custom exists is no warrant for its right to exist; it 
 is at best but a presumption in its favour. As Cyprian 
 said, *^ Consuetudo vetustas erroris," — Custom may 
 be only the antiquity of error. And if in the Church 
 any notions or practices have found root and growth 
 which are not of God's planting, and whose fruit is 
 not of godly savour, however marked by old age, the 
 sooner we cut them down and extirpate them, root 
 and branch, the better. And surely whatever ham- 
 pers or hinders all believers from bearing witness for 
 the gospel, must find sanction outside of the Acts. 
 
 God used persecution to reveal the true value and 
 need of what is somewhat invidiously called, ''Lay- 
 agency, " in the world-wide work. The Spirit records 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCIPLES. 103 
 
 with marked particularity how in this wide scatter- 
 ing of disciples the Apostles were excepted; so that 
 the fact might be more emphatic that it was the 
 common body of believers who being scattered 
 abroad went everywhere preaching the word. God 
 may yet use persecution to repeat the same lesson, 
 that, as there is to be no distinction among those who 
 need the gospel, so we are to deny to no believer the 
 prerogative, which is a sort of birthright, of telling 
 the gospel story as best he can. It needs all believ- 
 ers to reach all unbelievers. The silver trumpet 
 which peals out God's year of jubilee is wrought of 
 the whole Church, every believer adding material to 
 the trumpet and volume to the sound. The Church 
 is God's golden lampstand, and everyone w^ho is 
 taught of God is part of that framework, helping to 
 lift the Light of the world higher and give its rays 
 more range and power. Because we believe, there- 
 fore we speak, is the reason for missions. Every 
 one of us is needed in the work: the Church, the 
 world, God, have need of us, and we ourselves need 
 the work for our own growth. 
 
 The Church, as primitive piety declined, built up 
 priestly barriers about the '' clergy" and taught the 
 "laity" that it was impertinent intrusion for those 
 who are not '' ordained," to preach the good tidings. 
 But in all great epochs of spiritual power, believers 
 have burst these bonds like cords of burnt tow, and 
 claimed the universal, inalienable right to tell lost 
 souls of Jesus. Such false restraints are cerements 
 of the tomb ; they belong not to the living but to the 
 dead; they have the odour of decay, and, like other 
 grave-clothes, should be left behind in the sepulchre. 
 When Christ's voice calls the dead to life, and one comes 
 forth bound hand and foot with ceremonialism and tra- 
 ditionalism, even his mouth bound about with the nap- 
 kin of enforced silence — the Lord of Glory says, 
 "Loose him and let him go!" As well force him 
 back into the sepulchre and roll the stone to the door 
 
164 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 as to leave a converted soul bound ! Let every live 
 man be a free man. Stand back! ye who would 
 fetter a disciple's utterance. He is one of God's 
 witnesses. Teach his tongue, but do not bind it ! 
 Train him for service, but do not hold him back ! 
 Ye, who are preachers and pastors, become ye 
 teachers of teachers, trainers of workers ! turn your 
 churches into recruiting offices, barracks, armouries, 
 where disciples enlist for the war, and are put 
 through the drill and discipline of soldiers; where 
 they put on the whole armour of God, and then go 
 forth, led by you, to fight the good fight of faith ! _ 
 
 Do we, with needless repetition, seek to emphasize 
 this lesson of the common duty and privilege of 
 believers to preach the gospel ? Mark how God 
 repeats it in this book. That Samarian Pentecost 
 was a new voice of God teaching this truth. All that 
 great work of grace revolved about Philip the deacon, 
 a man set apart indeed, but not for preaching or bap- 
 tizing ; and God set his own sign and seal in a won- 
 derful way upon the ministry of this lay evangelist. 
 What a divine rebuke to all unscriptural notions, 
 whether sacerdotal or sacramental ! The age of mis- 
 sions holds a blessing so large, that it cannot be con- 
 fined within priestly lines and limits. The vast host 
 to be reached defies us to overtake their destitution 
 while we rely upon a few thousand educated, 
 ordained, highly trained workmen. Millions sink, 
 unsaved and unwarned, while we are waiting for 
 experts to come to their rescue with all the most 
 improved life-saving apparatus of the schools. If 
 for these souls in wreck we cannot command the 
 rocket and gun, the swinging-basket and life-boat, 
 let us have the strong arm of the swimmer, the 
 plank — anything to save a sinking man ! 
 
 Let us thank God for the age of a Reformed 
 Church! For fifteen centuries the vicious ecclesi- 
 asticism that found deep root in Constantine's rule, 
 overshadowed the Church, and some remnants of it 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. 165 
 
 Still survive. Too often, with the average Christian, 
 the practical conception of duty is fulfilled if he 
 attends Church-worship, supports the preacher, gives 
 to benevolent work, and lives an upright life, leaving 
 to the minister to do the preaching and to take care 
 of souls. 
 
 Such notions find no native soil in the Acts of the 
 Apostles. There, from first to last, we find one 
 truth taught and one duty done: all who believed 
 were expected to take part in spreading the faith; 
 many, not fitted to lead and teach, could, at least, tell 
 the good tidings. In every age, and above all in an 
 age of reviving missionary activity, this fact needs 
 anew to be wrought into the convictions of God's 
 people, that in this sort of ''preaching" every 
 believer is to have part. No golden chalice, costly 
 and rare, polished and jewelled, is needed to bear 
 water to those who are dying of thirst; a tin cup or 
 a broken potsherd will do, anything that will hold 
 water. 
 
 In our day, new voices of God, loud and clear, are 
 calling disciples to share in this active, aggressive 
 crusade for Christ. God's Providence is the new 
 "Peter, the Hermit," that goes through Christen- 
 dom, shouting, ''Deus vult!" — God wills it! The 
 one great feature of our century has been the growth 
 of consecrated hidividtialisin ; and as a natural, neces- 
 sary sequence, has come the breaking down of all 
 false barriers that, in direct work for souls, fence 
 in ministers of Christ and fence out members of 
 churches. While the ministers are no less needed 
 and no less busy, in all churches where true life 
 throbs common believers have come to feel that 
 every man is his brother's keeper; and that to shirk 
 personal work for souls is not only culpable neglect 
 of the lost, but serious risk of spiritual loss to the 
 neglecting party ! 
 
 It is just a century ago since, in 1793, France 
 called all loval citizens to rise and resist the flood of 
 
IGC THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 invading foes that threatened the destruction of the 
 nation. All were bidden to take part in the work. 
 The older men could forge arms and the younger 
 bear them; the women could make tents and uni- 
 forms, and even the children could scrape lint and 
 prepare bandages. The God of Battles calls all 
 alike, old and young, men, women, children, to a 
 share in the work and war of the ages. He tells us 
 in unmistakable terms, that those who think of 
 nothing beyond their own salvation, are scarcely 
 saved, if at all; and in answer to His summons, a new 
 generation of disciples is coming forward trained to 
 an unselfish consecration to soul-saving. 
 
 1. If we seek some examples of this modern devel- 
 opment of personal activity in Christian service, let 
 us hear God's voice in the modern Sunday-school. 
 Robert Raikes had originally no aim beyond the occu- 
 pation of the idle, ignorant children, who made the 
 Lord's day noisy with their mischief. But God was 
 behind the movement that started in Gloucester, and 
 by it He was leading out believers into new fields of 
 work. And now in the Sunday-school, the humblest 
 disciple may find a little congregation for teaching 
 saving truth, a little parish for exercise of pas- 
 toral oversight, a little field to sow and reap in the 
 Master's name. So universal has the Sunday-school 
 become that no church is complete without this 
 nursery of young plants for the Lord's garden. 
 
 2. The Young Men's Christian Association, now 
 completing its first half century, has a like provi- 
 dential mission. Its rapid growth and world-wide 
 extension reveal its place in the plan of God. 
 Already it has wrought three marked results: it 
 has brought believers together, encouraged Bible 
 study, and trained lay workers. 
 
 It belongs to the very basis of this great organ- 
 ization, that it lifts into prominence only the grand 
 truths which evangelical disciples hold in common ; 
 and so, leaving out of sight those minor matters of 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DISCLPLES. 167 
 
 creed or polity which have often proved divisive and 
 destructive of unity, it unifies all believers by mag- 
 nifying their agreements and minimizing their dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 Then this association directly stimulates systematic 
 search into Holy Scripture, putting the word of God 
 into the hands of young men as their text-book in 
 holy living and serving, and teaching them that its 
 contents are to be mastered and utilized for growth 
 in grace and usefulness. The last half century is 
 the era of the Bagster and the Oxford Bible as the 
 habitual companion of Christian young men. 
 
 These two results contribute to a third, yet more 
 important — the raising up of a generation of young 
 men competent to take intelligent part in soul-win- 
 ning. Even the Apostolic age may safely be chal- 
 lenged to show any parallel development in this 
 direction. Within fifty years hundreds of thousands 
 of young men have been brought to think, not of 
 denominational distinctions, but of fundamental, 
 saving gospel truths; led to give themselves to 
 personal study of the w^ord of God, until they have 
 attained marvellous mastery of its contents and 
 facility in its use, and then have been drawn to feel 
 the duty and delight of direct work to save others, 
 and to engage directly in active personal service for 
 Christ. 
 
 It is a sublime sight to behold this vast army of 
 young men, prayerfully searching the Scriptures, 
 and then going forth to use their knowledge of the 
 inspired word to guide others to Christ, and train 
 them for similar service. To this lay-activity the 
 whole providential history of this world-embracing 
 organization has so rapidly and directly led, that 
 even those who were once incredulous and suspicious 
 are constrained to see in it all, the will and working 
 of God. Just now there is, perhaps, a risk that in 
 the new stress laid upon athletic skill, intellectual 
 culture, social standing, moral excellence, the ulti- 
 
168 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 mate end which God obviously had in view may be 
 sacrificed or obscured. If the Young Men's Christian 
 Association should degenerate into a mere religious 
 club; if spiritual development is made subordinate 
 to any other end; if Bible study, training for service 
 and actual soul-saving are ever pushed to the rear to 
 make way for other practical objects however laud- 
 able, the unique place which this association has 
 filled in history will be sacrificed, and it will be no 
 longer the important factor and mighty force it has 
 been in the purpose of God. As one who has been 
 identified with this organization for forty years, and 
 who has lovingly and thankfully watched its growth, 
 the writer of these pages thus leaves on record his 
 warning word against those devices of the devil 
 which endanger the future of this wonderful out- 
 growth of this missionary century. 
 
 3. It must not be forgotten that Young Women's 
 Christian Associations are the natural result of the 
 other, seeking to do for the sisterhood what the 
 companion associations have done for the brother- 
 hood; and there is coming to be, not the iinsexing^ 
 but the unbinding of woman. In the kingdom of 
 God there is to be '* neither male nor female." Fet- 
 ters of unscriptural restriction are fast falling off 
 from the gentler as from the sterner sex; and where 
 man finds a closed door, woman's suasive tenderness 
 and delicacy touches the secret springs of power. 
 
 4. Another example of God's call to general activ- 
 ity in behalf of souls is found in the Yonjig People's 
 Society of Christian Endeavor. 
 
 In the year 1881, somewhat more than thirteen 
 years ago, a young New England pastor felt that 
 something must be done among the younger mem- 
 bers of his congregation to educate them into habits 
 of witnessing and working for Christ. He must 
 unloose tongues spiritually dumb, and arrest the 
 drift toward the Dead Sea of idleness and stagnation. 
 So he formed in his own church the first society of 
 
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCIPLES. 169 
 
 Christian Endeavor. Its simple secret was a pledge 
 regularly to attend its meetings and habitually to take 
 part in some way in their exercises. Around this 
 mutual covenant, as a nucleus, the society rapidly 
 grew; and so well did the new plan work that 
 neighbouring pastors and churches followed the lead, 
 and formed societies of a like sort. And so it 
 has come to pass that live coals from the altar 
 at Portland, Maine, have been borne from church 
 to church, until, as we write, the number of these 
 organizations is already legion, and the total mem- 
 bership reaches 1,725,000. Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D., 
 who ail-unconsciously kindled this first fire, has 
 been on a world-round tour to visit, as bishop, the 
 hundreds of societies which are belting the globe ! 
 
 5. What shall be said of the ''Salvation Army,'' 
 which, notwithstanding its crude notions and strange 
 methods, has left in the rear all other organiza- 
 tions for carrying the gospel to the most destitute? 
 After an existence of twenty-eight years, it reports 
 4,397 mission stations; seventy-four homes of rest 
 for officers whose health is broken down; sixty-six 
 schools for the training of officers; sixty-four slum 
 posts; forty-nine rescue homes for fallen women; 
 twelve prison-gate homes, fifty-two food and shelter 
 depots ; thirty-four factories and employment offices ; 
 and five farm colonies. 
 
 Who can look at such developments of our own day 
 and not see God's way of working? How plainly do 
 all these, and other similar voices of God, unite in 
 one loud testimony! He is evoking all the latent 
 energies of his Church for the work of witnessing to 
 all men the gospel of His grace, with a rapidity and 
 energy that remind us of the Apostolic age; the 
 forces He had set in motion have swept away arti- 
 ficial barriers between young and old, male and 
 female, and thrust all alike into the field of service. 
 He who watches the signs of the times must see God 
 in history and will have no doubt which way His 
 
170 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 march is moving. He is summoning and leading 
 all willing followers to a combined assault on the 
 strongholds of Satan and the powers of hell. 
 
III. 
 
 THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 
 
 Our Lord's farewell words taught that great second 
 lesson, that the field of witness is as wide as the 
 world. 
 
 " Unto the uttermost parts of the earth" must dis- 
 ciples go. Dispersion is the next lesson to be learned, 
 and learned anew in every age. Pentecost prepared 
 for the scattering of those whom the Spirit endued, 
 as they went back to the four quarters of the inhab- 
 ited world with the life-giving word. 
 
 When the disciples, thus endued with power, re- 
 turned to their separate abodes, this dispersion was 
 itself a missionary campaign. The annual Passover 
 at the national capital was a mighty magnet whose 
 attractive force was felt wherever the scattered rem- 
 nants of the Hebrew race were found. Great was the 
 concourse, and from many lands. The procession of 
 pilgrims was like the flood, swept through dry river- 
 beds by the latter rain, and for miles around the 
 sacred city houses and hamlets were crowded, and in 
 every valley and grove tents thronged like a camp. 
 When those who thus came up to keep the feasts of 
 Passover and Pentecost went back with the endue- 
 ment of power, God was in unforeseen ways multi- 
 plying the channels for far-reaching and effective 
 witness. What human wisdom could have planned a 
 scheme whereby the experience of one day in Jeru- 
 salem should thus touch so quickly the very ends of 
 the earth ! 
 
 The persecution that arose about Stephen was 
 another event, vocal with a new command for dis- 
 persion. Disciples were prone to congregate and 
 concentrate at Jerusalem ; it compelled them to sepa- 
 rate and scatter. It was natural for the Jewish 
 
 171 
 
172 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Christian Church to gravitate toward the old centre 
 of the hierarchy and of worship, where the tribes had 
 been wont to gather. But the centripetal attraction 
 has always been the fatal foe of missions. Love is 
 a centrifugal force, and He who taught us the supreme 
 lesson of love, said, ''Go ye into all the world; as 
 My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." When 
 this message was in danger of being unheeded, and 
 the old tendency to selfish centralization and religious 
 seclusion w^as asserting itself, God, by His provi- 
 dence, repeated with stern emphasis the lesson that 
 the Church was to disperse far and wide. It was 
 done as by a peal of thunder and the shock of earth- 
 quake. Persecution with explosive violence drove 
 disciples from the Holy City to the very bounds of 
 Palestine. The Church was shattered that it might 
 be scattered, and fragments were found at Antioch 
 and throughout Syria, at Cyprus, and throughout 
 Phoenicia. And so persecution became the parent of 
 early Christian missions. Strange parentage ! ''Out 
 of the eater came forth meat! " The devouring lion 
 furnishes supplies to the hungry. 
 
 Thus, for all time, God's voice was heard, and the 
 lesson is left on record that, in all this age of evan- 
 gelism, the policy of His people is to be diffusion and 
 dispersion. No favoured, favourite capital is to 
 become our chapel-of-ease, our earthly rest, even 
 though it could be an earthly Heaven, while hell is 
 found raging in the regions beyond. Even the joys 
 of Christian fellowship may become too absorbing. 
 Selfishness in its most refined forms must yield to 
 the unselfishness which resigns such companionship 
 for ourselves that it may become possible to introduce 
 the most depraved, degraded and destitute to the fel- 
 lowship of saints and of God. Any influence, any 
 combination of causes, implies a curse to the believer 
 whenever it makes the Church a cradle to rock God's 
 children to sleep with the soft lullaby of " Home, 
 Sweet Home ! " 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIEID. 173 
 
 Other visions and voices fastened the impression of 
 this second lesson that the witness of disciples is to 
 find in the wide world, its field. 
 
 I. Peter's trance on the housetop at Joppa was both 
 a vision and a voice, teaching most impressively this 
 truth. A parable was enacted, the Divine hand 
 being back of the shifting scenery. The sheet, let 
 down from heaven by its four corners, in which were 
 found all manner of creatures, wild and tame, clean 
 and unclean, was a speaking sym.bol of the Church, 
 not of man's device but of God's design, let down 
 from heaven and to be caught up again into heaven; 
 its four corners hinting its universal character, reach- 
 ing ultimately to the four corners of the earth ; within 
 w^hose amiple folds are to be brought all classes 
 and conditions of men, from all quarters and climes, 
 nations and grades of society, and representing all 
 varieties of intellectual and moral degradation and 
 development. 
 
 No pictorial lesson ever before or since has so 
 taught the value and dignity of man as man ! The 
 vision was itself sufficiently vocal, yet it must have a 
 voice to interpret it, and that voice three times spoke 
 the same words: 
 
 *' WHAT GOD HATH CLEANSED, 
 
 THAT CALL NOT THOU COMMON !" 
 
 Blow after blow of God's heavy hammer, to break 
 into pieces and beat into powder, the adamantine 
 walls of Jewish exclusiveness, and the brazen gates 
 of religious bigotry ! 
 
 Peter was a representative Jew, and, unlike Paul, 
 seems never as yet to have strayed beyond the bounds 
 of the Holy Land. He was an ecclesiastical aristocrat. 
 To all such as he, the law of separation obscures the 
 law of love. This voice and vision were meant for 
 more than himself. They were the lasting rebuke of 
 that spirit of Caste which upholds invidious distinc- 
 
174 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tions, and upbuilds impassable barriers between 
 man and man. 
 
 Of caste, it is not too much to say that it has been 
 the one giant foe of world-wide missions. Very 
 early in Church history God's own hand wrote upon 
 the wall, in letters of fire, such as struck awe to the 
 hearts of the Babylonian revellers — 
 
 '* What God hath cleansed, that call not thou com- 
 mon." 
 
 The whole race will never be reached with the 
 gospel, until we learn what is meant by ''all the 
 world," and ''every creature." In God's eyes, and 
 therefore in our eyes, no line is to be drawn which 
 limits love or labour for human souls; no discrimina- 
 tion allowed, save in favour of the least and lowest, 
 most destitute and degraded. We are to call or con- 
 sider no man common or unclean; in love's impartial 
 ministry, no one is to be evaded or avoided; and so 
 far are we to be from such narrowness and selfish- 
 ness that those are to have the first claim upon our 
 sympathy and succour, who are most in need and 
 most without help. 
 
 Peter's vision marked a new stage, a new epoch in 
 Church history. Years have sped by since the Lord 
 went up and the Spirit came down. Yet, despite the 
 great commission and the great effusion; notwith- 
 standing the wide diffusion of the witnesses, by their 
 return to distant homes, and the wide dispersion of 
 persecuted disciples, two barriers yet remain to 
 hinder the world-wide work : the tendency to cen- 
 tralization and the principle of exclusion. The Jew 
 had not yet learned that other places were lawful for 
 worship and solemn assembly beside the Temple of 
 Jerusalem, and that wherever worshippers meet in 
 the Spirit, God is to be found. 
 
 The old exclusive policy and spirit survived. As 
 Thales, wisest and best of Greeks, looked on all 
 outside of Greece as "barbarians," so, to the Jew all 
 beyond the circle of the covenant were aliens to be 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 175 
 
 shunned, if not foes to be hated. That phrase, 
 ''The Jews have no dealings with the Samari- 
 tans," is the key to a chamber of curious and 
 shameful customs and prejudices. The road between 
 Jerusalem and Galilee lay through Samaria, and the 
 Jew must needs go that wa}^ or cross the Jordan ; but 
 he held his very garments free from the defiling 
 touch of the inhabitants whom he despised as a 
 hybrid, bastard progeny of heathenism and Judaism. 
 By proximity a neighbour, the Samaritan was by 
 hostility a foe, and the Jew would hesitate to point 
 the lost traveller to the road or the thirsty pilgrim to 
 a spring, if he belonged to that unclean race ! 
 
 What wonder if such barriers had to be broken 
 down before the work of missions could be done or 
 the spirit of missions could have sway ! The walls 
 that shut Jewish disciples in, shut strangers and for- 
 eigners out. Obstinate holding on to Jerusalem 
 meant equally stubborn casting off of all outsiders. 
 The lines of caste were in effect fatal hindrances to 
 all world evangelization, barriers scarcely less rigid 
 and frigid than those which part the millions of 
 India. 
 
 We have seen how the Providence and Spirit of 
 God battered down these walls as with shot and 
 shell by the explosive force of persecution, and how 
 Philip's work in Samaria and his word to the Ethio- 
 pian eunuch crossed caste lines ; and now, not as by 
 earthquake, storm or flame, but in the still small 
 voice of solemn rebuke and repeated remonstrance, 
 God speaks to Peter, that he may echo it to the 
 whole Church, that God's cleansing leaves no man 
 common or unclean. Then followed at Caesar's 
 palace and before a Roman audience, a display of 
 grace that illustrated and enforced the lesson on the 
 housetop, and forbade the Jew ever to dispute the 
 right, even of the hated conqueror of his nation, to a 
 full part in the great salvation. 
 
 That lesson on the housetop was thrice taught 
 
17G THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. ' 
 
 perhaps because it concerned the work of the Triune 
 God. The Father's electing grace, the Son's atoning 
 blood, the Spirit's renewing power, — all cleanse 
 believers equally and guarantee their equality of 
 right. But one thing is sure : so long as any man is 
 to us common or unclean, we have not caught the 
 divine passion of universal missions. Conversion 
 implies contact, and contact, approach. To Peter, 
 because he was appointed to open the kingdom to all 
 believers, as the representative Apostle, the Divine 
 Preacher gave this picture-lesson with its interpret- 
 ing voice. The vision and the voice are equally for 
 us. They teach that before Him who is no respecter 
 of persons, all men are on the same moral level; 
 that as to condemnation there is "no difference," 
 ' ' for all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
 God;" that as to gracious invitation there is "no dif- 
 ference," for the same Lord over all is rich unto all 
 that call upon Him; and as to actual salvation and 
 sanctification there is " no difference," for He puri- 
 fies the hearts of all alike by faith. The first formal 
 proclamation of this fact of the universality of gospel 
 grace was to be made in the palace of Roman aliens, 
 before a gentile centurion and his company, and 
 Peter was to announce it. Hence the thrice-repeated 
 lesson which compelled the impetuous and wilful 
 Jew to learn human equality before God. 
 
 When these new chapters in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles were to be written, in our age of missions, the 
 old lesson was retaught, and if possible, with heavier 
 accentuation of its central truth. In heathen lands 
 caste lines and limits are frigidly rigid like ice bar- 
 riers. The Brahmanic system has been aptly char- 
 acterized as " a cellular structure of society in which 
 the cells never interpenetrate." The different 
 classes, which are by a hoary superstition con- 
 nected with different parts of the body of Brahm, 
 are like strata of rock, petrified into immobility and 
 immutability. Nothing short of an earthquake con- 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 177 
 
 vulsion, upheaving the whole social order, could 
 break up this strong fatality of social status. No 
 personal worth or intellectual attainment or heroic 
 achievement, no service to the nation or to its relig- 
 ion, can lift a Hindu above the level of caste in which 
 he was born, though a trifling violation of petty rules 
 may sink him to a lower level as an out-caste. Cus- 
 toms so absurdly unreasonable and inflexible become 
 barriers to mutual fellowship, even between converts 
 at the table of the Lord, and in work for souls. 
 
 Thus it is not too much to say that the most for- 
 midable obstacle to oriental missions is caste. The 
 Tabu system found prevailing in the islands of the 
 sea was essentially identical with it, forbidding wives 
 to share a meal with their husbands, and making it a 
 capital crime for an inferior to cast his shadow upon 
 his chief by inadvertently passing between him and 
 the sun! 
 
 Caste lines are not confined to heathen, pagan and 
 moslem territory. In countries, called Christian, we 
 find arbitrary distinctions scarcely less formidable 
 as hindrances to practical fellowship and common 
 service. In some Protestant communities there ex- 
 ists an aristocratic social structure, where partition 
 walls still effectually divide patrician and plebeian 
 classes, nobility and commonalty. True, it is pos- 
 sible for a man to rise higher : the common labourer 
 sometimes becomes the master-workman, the mer- 
 chant prince, the member of Parliament or of the rul- 
 ing class. But ascent is not easy, and we all need 
 Peter's lesson reiterated: What God hath cleansed, 
 that call not thou common. Republics as well as 
 monarchies, democracy as well as aristocracy, prove 
 human nature still to be depraved, for in the best 
 social state we find caste walls existing. What is 
 more despotic than the aristocracy of wealth, that 
 hangs one's social rank on the chance of a business 
 venture; or the aristocracy of fashion, that makes 
 Brummels princes, and character something worn on 
 
178 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the back, to be bought at a tailor's shop ; or even the 
 aristocracy of culture, which weighs manhood in the 
 scales of refinement and confounds morals with 
 manners ? 
 
 God saw how much there was needed a new lesson 
 even in this missionary century, a lesson to be 
 taught repeatedly and emphatically, that the only 
 real, ultimate standard of value is that which is 
 within reach of all, namely, vioral wortJi ; and that 
 as to accidents of birth or blood, of poverty, culture 
 and social position, the Scotch poet was a moral 
 philosopher when he sang, 
 
 " A man's a man for a' that ! " 
 
 That social system which most allows men to breathe 
 and move freely, affording inspiration to hope and 
 scope for growth, is the most perfect. The lamented 
 President Garfield, himself an example of one who 
 had risen far above his native level, used to say 
 that the ideal state is one where we find, not * * as in 
 the land, fixed and immovable layers of soil or rock, 
 but as in the sea, conditions so elastic and flexible, 
 that the drop which to-day touches the sand at the 
 bottom may to-morrow gleam upon the wave's crest." 
 If in any man there be the force that bears him 
 onward and upward, love forbids us to hold him 
 hopelessly down. The Church should present an 
 ideal state, where all have equal rights, and equal 
 claims upon all that can uplift, emancipate, educate 
 body, mind, soul ; where aspiration has full play, and 
 advancement finds favouring conditions. 
 
 When King James sent the poor poet, Ben Jon- 
 son, a present of a crown piece, Jonson sent back 
 word by the bearer, ''The king sends me five 
 shillings because I live in an alley. Go tell him 
 that his soul lives in an alley!" Modern missions 
 have written in letters of light this noble lesson, 
 that many a man who is clothed in purple and fine 
 linen, lives in an alley ; and many a beggar who lies 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 179 
 
 at the gate, asking alms of charity, is on his way to 
 the King's palace. See how the Divine Teacher has 
 taught the inherent dignity and royalty of character, 
 in choosing for leaders of the Church universal, 
 Carey from the cobbler's bench, Williams from the 
 ironmonger's forge, Marsden from the blacksmith's 
 anvil, Livingstone from the cotton mill, Hunt from 
 the farmer's plough, Johnson from the sugar refinery ! 
 
 Let us beware how we foster the spirit of caste. 
 Charles Darwin pronounced the Patagonians the 
 missing link between man and the monkey, and 
 thought that not even the lever of Christian missions 
 could uplift them ; the French papist who ruled on 
 the Isle of Bourbon told the pioneer missionaries to 
 Madagascar that to convert the Malagasy was as 
 hopeless as to convert oxen, sheep, or asses. But 
 even so enlightened a man as a Canon of Westmin- 
 ster ranked the aboriginies of Australia so low that 
 it was not worth while to expend labour upon them. 
 In appeals for Africa, how often have we been met 
 by the objection that it is a waste of men and money 
 to preach to the fetish worshippers, because they 
 have no capacity to understand or receive spiritual 
 truth, and the image of God, if it ever existed in 
 them, is not only defaced but effaced ! 
 
 The whole history of modern missions is a vision 
 and a voice in favour of man as man. God has shown 
 by the proof of facts, by that most conclusive argu- 
 ment — experiment — that no human being is too high 
 to need the gospel, or too low to be reached by it. 
 The most signal triumphs and glorious trophies of 
 the good tidings have been among the very classes 
 whom our scepticism would account beneath the 
 reach even of saving grace. The most fertile fields 
 for the seed of the kingdom have been those pre- 
 viously the most barren of good, or desperately fruit- 
 ful in evil. Man would have turned to the higher 
 classes, appealing to intelligence and capacity. But 
 while they have turned from Christ with contempt, 
 
180 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 behold the debased demon worshipper in whom all 
 ideas of true worship seem obliterated; or the de- 
 graded cannibal, v/ithout natural affection, implaca- 
 ble, unmerciful ; or the brutal savage, whose religion 
 was a mixture of lust and lies, robbery and cruelty, 
 bloody wars and lawless violence, who cared neither 
 for the virtue of womanhood, nor the innocence of 
 childhood, nor the helplessness of old age — behold 
 such brought to bow at Jesus' feet, and then going 
 forth to tell of Him to others ! We can scarce be- 
 lieve our own eyes as we see the modern miracles of 
 missions, of which no pen has ever told the half. 
 Those who glutted their avarice by pillage, their re- 
 venge by slaughter, their appetite by feasts on 
 human flesh, — these have been found believing in 
 Jesus and heralding His power to save! Let God 
 speak, ye who think even the worst of the race be- 
 neath your respect and unworthy of Christian effort ! 
 '' God hath made of one blood all nations of men; " 
 and by one blood hath He redeemed all peoples. 
 Therefore, He says, " Go ye into all the world and 
 make disciples of all nations." 
 
 Yes, the century is vocal with divine appeals for 
 man as man. Enthusiasm for humanity, that divine 
 passion for souls, must sweep away the hollow, 
 shallow distinctions which part men asunder. In 
 every human soul we must see the potential saint, 
 outranking angels in the closeness of bond with 
 Christ. Without such enthusiasm for humanity, 
 missions must languish. 
 
 Peter's vision on the housetop was the forecast; the 
 modern Church is the prophecy fulfilling. In the 
 sheet let down from heaven every class of mankind 
 is already embraced. Wild beasts have been tamed 
 and turned into obedient bullocks, ready for plough 
 or altar; unclean birds of prey are changed to gentle 
 doves, celestial songsters, birds of paradise; crawl- 
 ing reptiles that crept along the earth are trans- 
 formed into erect men who walk with God. What 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 181 
 
 the Apostle saw in anticipation, we see in realiza- 
 tion. 
 
 2. Paul, as well as Peter, was taught a divine les- 
 son on the universal need of man. How different 
 his experience at Athens from that of Peter at Cesa- 
 rea, yet both essentially impress one great lesson. 
 
 That ^' altar to the unknown God " in the very cen- 
 tre of Greek art and wisdom, beauty and philosophy, 
 brands as a failure any civilization that knows not 
 God, because it has no savouring or saving element — 
 no salt of salvation. It reminds one of Heine's com- 
 paring beautiful women without religion to flowers 
 without perfume — cold, sober tulips in china vases, 
 looking as though they were also of porcelain, and 
 seeming to say that it is all-sufficient not to have a 
 bad odour, and that a rational flower needs no fra- 
 grance. Athens stands in history as the tulip in the 
 vase, coldly beautiful, lifelessly aesthetic — having no 
 savour or flavour of high moral virtue or piety. And 
 Paul's comparative ill success at the Greek capital, 
 and the apathetic hearing at Mars Hill, serve to re- 
 mind us that stagnant indifference is as bad as vio- 
 lent opposition, and that blasphemers and barbarians 
 go into the kingdom of God before scholarly sceptics 
 and cultivated worldlings. As yet not many wise, 
 mighty, noble, are called. God chooses the foolish, 
 weak, despised nothings to bring to naught the some- 
 things. And yet as the Countess of Huntingdon 
 said, let us thank God it is not true that not any, 
 though not many of the wise and mighty are called. 
 There was one Areopagite, Dionysius, who clave to 
 the Apostle, so that the address on Mars Hill won one 
 convert even from the philosophers. The loftiest as 
 well as lowliest need the gospel, and we are to pro- 
 claim it at Corinth and Athens as well as at Nazareth 
 and Gadara. 
 
 That sermon to the Areopagite wise men should 
 be studied, for it addresses universal and conscious 
 instincts of man's religious nature. It was a unique 
 
182 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 address, wholly unlike any other Paul ever delivered. 
 In it he spoke to those who knew not the true God 
 nor the sacred writings of His prophets, nor the 
 words and works of Jesus, His Son. Hence he had 
 to go further back and deeper down than when he 
 spoke to Felix or Agrippa, to Jews at Jerusalem or 
 Greeks at Antioch. He appealed to seven universal 
 instincts : 
 
 1. The Filial: " For we also are His offspring." 
 
 2. The Fraternal: ^' He hath made of one blood," 
 &c. 
 
 3. The Theistic : *'Your altar to the unknown 
 God." 
 
 4. The Judicial: *'A day in the which He will 
 judge the world." 
 
 5. The Religious: ^'In all things ye are very 
 religious." 
 
 6. The instinct of Worship: ''Ye ignorantly 
 worship." 
 
 7. The instinct of Prayer: "Should feel after 
 Him,"&c. 
 
 In modern days, sagacious missionaries have 
 learned from Paul at Athens, that in every clime 
 they may find classes of men who know not God, 
 but to whose instinctive religious nature they may 
 appeal. 
 
 The universal, belief in God, which, however ob- 
 scured, seemed never obliterated, furnishes a basis 
 for preaching the gospel to all men. Fred. Stanley 
 Arnot found everywhere in Africa two existing 
 notions: First, of a supreme power over all; and 
 secondly, of a future life beyond death. To these he 
 could always safely appeal. And even in Moham- 
 medan lands where little has yet been done, encour- 
 agements are not wanting; for the followers of the 
 Prophet are not idolaters, and claim to be mono- 
 theists, and to accept even the Old Testament. 
 Among them we have the religious instincts com- 
 paratively pure. 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 183 
 
 3. Paul's night vision at Troas was literally vocal, 
 for the man of Macedonia prayed him, saying-, 
 ''Come over into Macedonia, and help us;" and 
 from that vision and that voice he assuredly gathered 
 that the Lord was calling him to a new field in the 
 regions beyond. And so the gospel first entered 
 Europe. 
 
 That vocal vision was for the whole Church, and it 
 means that we are never to rest, whatever has been 
 done, while more yet remains undone. However 
 wide the sweep of our mission tours, if beyond this 
 circle of effort there is a region where the gospel has 
 not reached, this fact constitutes a trumpet peal of 
 God. And especially if the peal be also a personal 
 appeal ; if, as in so many cases, human need finds a 
 voice wherewith to call, as Mtesa did from Uganda, 
 as Chulalangkorn did from Siam, as Pomare did 
 from Tahiti, as Ranavolona II. did from Madagas- 
 car, as McAll did from France, — how prompt should 
 be the response from the Church of Christ ! When 
 out of the region of darkness and death-shade, 
 heathen and pagan peoples clamour for Christian 
 teachers; when fields are ready for the sower and 
 there is no one to scatter the seed, or ready for the 
 reaper and there is no one to put in the sickle ; when 
 doors open fast and wide, and no labourers enter some 
 of them, and in other cases, too few, why do we not 
 assuredly gather that God is calling us to go and 
 carry the cross with us? Why are we so slow to 
 push the schemes of holy work into new territory, 
 and send or bear the bread of life to starving souls ? 
 How can God set before us a wider and more effec- 
 tual door than when the heathen themselves are ready 
 to hear the gospel, and make appeal to us to come to 
 them? 
 
 This is the paradox of missions. Where are our 
 sandals of alacrity that we speed not as on wings of 
 love to fly to the help of the perishing! Had we the 
 true passion for souls, Satan would no longer be the 
 
184 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 hinderer, though he piled up obstacles in our way. 
 We should overleap all self-denials in our zeal to re- 
 lieve soul-wants. It is one of the irreconcilable con- 
 tradictions of history that the instinctive human 
 sympathies have more readily responded to the 
 appeal of flood or famine, pestilence or plague, than 
 the Christian heart to the awful need of those who 
 perish of hunger for living bread, or who are swept 
 away by the flood of sin and smitten with the leprosy 
 of self-consuming lusts ! Temporal wants and woes 
 are real to our sluggish sense, but w^e are dead to the 
 spiritual poverty and misery of humanity. 
 
 That night vision at Troas has been a thousand 
 times repeated within the last century. That man 
 of Macedonia may be seen whichever way we look, 
 and the voice calls to us from every quarter of the 
 horizon. Who that watches modern missions does 
 not feel that what Paul saw and heard at Troas has 
 become the vision for all believers, and the voice from 
 all lands? Let the eye sweep round the whole world, 
 and on the coasts of Corea and Japan, from the 
 depths of Inland China, from the hills of Burma and 
 the rivers of Siam, from India's coral strand and 
 Persia's plains, from the borders of the Red Sea and 
 the valley of the Nile, the banks of the Congo and 
 the vast stretch of the Soudan, from papal countries 
 and pagan communities, there comes one loud voice : 
 *' Come over into our Macedonia and help us." Were 
 our eyes not dull of vision, and our ears, of hearing, 
 through the flare and glare and blare of this world, 
 we should see and hear this ''man of Macedonia," 
 standing at every point of the horizon, stretching 
 forth hands in appeal, and calling for help. 
 
 King Mtesa, whose request for teachers found 
 such voice through Stanley's letters that it pealed 
 across thousands of miles of land and sea and was 
 heard in Britain and America, was only a repre- 
 sentative of the race. The needs of Siam have been 
 referred to; there, cities as large as Birmingham 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 186 
 
 and Edinburgh, Leeds and Leicester, are asking 
 vainly for one evangelist to come to their hundreds 
 of thousands, and tell how God loved the world. 
 Burma and the Karens have never had all the help- 
 ers which the field demanded. Japan, the modern 
 marvel, suddenly threw open her long-locked sea 
 gates forty years ago; and China, India, Central 
 America, Papal Europe, became likewise open fields 
 for missions — all within a twelvemonth! And yet 
 the devil has shown more zeal to take possession 
 than the children of God. Read the story of the 
 South Seas, and see how the consecrated energy of 
 John Hunt and John Williams, of Geddie and 
 Marsden and Selwyn and Patteson and Paton proved 
 unequal to the meeting of the demands for Bibles 
 and men. From that day to this the same experience 
 has been repeated elsewhere. For centuries, where 
 Rome ruled, the open Bible was flung into the flames 
 and the Protestant missionary dared prison cell, if 
 not martyr's stake. Now France has over a hundred 
 and thirty McAll mission salles, and might have 
 a thousand but for want of money and men ; and 
 the land of the Inquisition is growing harvests for 
 God in the very fields which Torquemadaand Valdez, 
 Deza and Ximenes unconsciously fertilized with the 
 ashes of thirty thousand saints. Think of Bible carts 
 in Madrid unable to supply books sufficient for those 
 who would buy; and a few elect messengers of the 
 cross struggling to meet the wants of hundreds who 
 are deserting the crucifix! When Ethiopia thus 
 stretches forth hands unto God, when China's mill- 
 ions call for missions, and Corea's valleys begin to 
 be vocal with praise ; when the capital of the papacy 
 has thirty Protestant chapels within its walls ; when 
 from the kingdom of the sunrise to the land of the 
 sunset, there goes up one call for Bibles, schools and 
 churches, teachers and preachers, what is it but the 
 call from Macedonia repeated like a thunder-peal all 
 around the circle of the earth I 
 
186 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 There are hindrances, no doubt, in the way of 
 missions, but they are most serious withm the 
 Church. We are not so ready to send messengers 
 and Bibles as the unevangelized often are to receive. 
 If the response of the Church were as quick as the 
 appeal from the world is loud, within our generation 
 every hill and valley of the earth might be sending 
 up to God the incense of prayer and praise. 
 
 The slowness of our forward march is saddening, 
 but no words can fitly characterize the sin and the 
 crime of going backward. The call for *' retrejtch- 
 menf is like the tolling of a death-knell from the 
 belfry of our missionary boards. Think of it ! For 
 lack of men and means, we cannot go a step ahead 
 even to enter new doors, but must go back and leave 
 fields already occupied! We cannot advance but 
 must retreat — abandoning vantage-ground already 
 gained, and, instead of taking new strongholds, 
 evacuating those strategic positions now held ! 
 Think of closing preaching stations, shutting up 
 schools, turning adrift native evangelists, locking up 
 Christian presses with silence, calling in our forces 
 and beating a retreat! It seems incredible ; but 
 every time the cry goes forth, retrench ! it means all 
 this and a great deal more ! 
 
 When Judson was in the very crisis of his work in 
 Burma, the appropriation for the mission was ten 
 thousand rupees less than the current expenses re- 
 quired. Instead of any advance, he could not even 
 hold his already-gained positions. With a disap- 
 pointment that bordered on despair, he solemnly 
 recorded as his ''growing conviction" that ''the 
 Baptist churches in America are behind the age in 
 missionary spirit. They now and then make a spas- 
 modic effort to throw off a nightmare debt of some 
 years' accumulation, and then sink back into uncon- 
 scious repose. Then come paralyzing orders to re- 
 trench; new enterprises are checked in their very 
 conception, and applicants for missionary employ are 
 
THE VISION OF THE FIELD. 187 
 
 advised to wait, and soon became merged in the 
 ministry at home." And so letters, which ought to 
 have been Hke a soft and cooHng breeze to a heated 
 brow, came upon him Hke a sudden tornado, sweep- 
 ing away the plans of missionary evangelism. He 
 said in his agony, *' I thought they loved me; and 
 they would scarce have known it if I had died! I 
 thought they were praying for us; and they have 
 never once thought of us!" And so it seemed to the 
 missionary in his unsupported work. 
 
 4. God has in every nation, elect saints; because 
 the gospel message is for man as man, converts are 
 gathered out of most unlikely fields. How signifi- 
 cant, therefore, were that vision and voice at Corinth, 
 when the Lord spake to Paul; ''Be not afraid but 
 speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, 
 and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have 
 much people in this city." 
 
 That vision and voice were for the whole Church and 
 for all time. Often has God shown that even where 
 human hate builds huge walls against the truth, and 
 human wrath builds hot fires for its witnesses. He 
 has much people ; and that the faith that fears not, 
 can face the foes of God and of His gospel with firm- 
 ness and unfaltering fixedness of heart, still wit- 
 nessing to the cross. While martyrs have burned, 
 they have been snatching brands from worse burn- 
 ing to become branches of the true vine; and by 
 their death have brought life to their very mur- 
 derers, as Stephen's stoning was, perhaps, the secret 
 of Saul's conversion. 
 
 This lesson has been taught us so repeatedly in 
 the New Acts of the Apostles that it must be re- 
 served for special treatment when we come to con- 
 sider the New Signs and Wonders. Suffice it now to 
 repeat that in our age of missions, God has thus in 
 many ways taught us by voices and visions this 
 second great lesson: that the field for a witnessing 
 Church is the whole world and embraces every 
 
188 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 creature. Man's universal need gives forth its con- 
 scious echo in response to the good tidings. The 
 worst men show capacity to repent, beheve in Christ 
 and receive the Spirit. Religious instincts, though 
 buried, are not dead, and when exhumed, revive. 
 Even in ruins, souls have a dignity and majesty 
 which forbid caste lines to exclude even the lowest 
 classes from the hope of saints and the love of the 
 brotherhood. In every nation God has accepted 
 souls. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE NEW LESSON OF THE POWER. 
 
 The third great lesson of the Acts of the Apostles 
 we found to be, that the secret of power in witness- 
 ing is the Holy Spirit of God; and about this, as the 
 central lesson, all others cluster. 
 
 A remarkable inversion will be noticed, which can- 
 not be without meaning. When Luke concludes the 
 gospel narrative, he makes our Lord to say : 
 
 ' ' Ye are witnesses of these things ; 
 
 *' And, behold, I send the promise of my Father 
 upon you; 
 
 ** But tarry ye until ye be endued with power from 
 on high." 
 
 Contrast this with Luke's account of our Lord's 
 final message before His ascension: 
 
 ''Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
 coming upon you; 
 
 " And ye shall iDe witnesses unto Me." 
 
 Here the order of the former thought is exactly 
 reversed. In the close of the gospel, it w^as first the 
 work of witnessing, then the promise of power. In 
 the beginning of the Acts, it is first the power, then 
 the work of witness. The meaning of such inversion 
 is not enigmatic. In the former message, the Lord 
 followed the order natural to the commission of a 
 trust; first, the thing to be done; then the secret of 
 its well doing. But in the latter, the trust having 
 been committed to disciples, the all-important thing 
 is to fix the mind upon the only power which can 
 assure the effective execution of the trust. And so 
 with us. The command being once for all given, 
 not to be repeated, the one matter in all subsequent 
 time to engross attention, is, that we may be so filled 
 with the Spirit of all power, whose infilling, if not 
 
 189 
 
190 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 outpouring, is forever new, that we may fulfil our 
 Lord's great commission. 
 
 Power is, in every sphere of work, the one all- 
 important requisite. There are about man two great 
 constituent elements : a body, fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made — the outward, visible, material and per- 
 ishable part ; and the spirit, still more fearfully and 
 wonderfully constituted — inward, invisible, immate- 
 rial, immortal. In the original creation, '' God made 
 man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath or spirit of lives, and man 
 became a living soul." What a divine tribute to the 
 dignity, superiority, majesty of the spirit, as con- 
 stituting the real man, of whom the body is but the 
 house of habitation. 
 
 This truth is typical and suggestive. About all 
 else that pertains to man there is, first, what is out- 
 ward, and then, what is inward ; what is visible, audi- 
 ble, palpable, and somewhat beside which evades all 
 sense tests ; somewhat that is transient, and somewhat 
 that is permanent. Intelligent speech has its body— 
 the spoken word ; and its soul — the thought which only 
 thought can catch and hold. The printed page is a 
 body created by human machinery, but enshrining 
 an invisible something, emanating from the author's 
 secret life. All man's work has a body, or outward 
 form of utterance, action, effort ; but that which gives 
 it value is the subtle spirit that pervades it. 
 
 In the ''spiritual" sphere, whose very name car- 
 ries a lesson — this distinction is vital. The prayer 
 of the lips is but an empty form, unless the Spirit of 
 God intercedes through and prevails in it : the wit- 
 nessing word becomes the powder of God to salvation 
 and edification only when it is the body which He 
 fills and thrills. What we call ''unction" is not 
 merely a fragrant chrism as of ointment poured 
 forth; but an imparting of an essentially new and 
 divine force^ which brings and is, power. Hence, 
 Pentecost was the condition of all true service, so 
 
THE NE W LESSON OF THE PO IVER. 191 
 
 essential that disciples were bidden to ' ' wait for the 
 promise of the Father," to '' tarry until endued with 
 power from on high; " for until that power was given 
 no force or true energy could be exerted. 
 
 It is often said that it is worth while to wait upon 
 God for the Spirit's infilling, because of the increase of 
 power thus secured; but the Acts of the Apostles 
 shows us a far deeper truth, that up to the point of 
 this enduement with power, work is waste. We 
 shall find, like the Greek philosopher who experi- 
 mented upon a dead body, that we are trying to give 
 to a lifeless form the erectness and energy of a living 
 body; and, like him, be compelled to confess that it 
 lacks ri evdov — soviet Jiing luithin. 
 
 When James writes, ' ' The body without the spirit 
 is dead," he gives us one maxim of the wisdom that is 
 from above. He turns our thought back to that 
 primal mystery of man's creation and the parallel 
 mystery of his dissolution; with the spirit, there is a 
 living body, a corpus ; without the spirit, a dead body, 
 a corpse — a mere mass of dead matter. It may still 
 retain its fine and beautiful form and feature and 
 exquisite organization ; but it has no power. It can- 
 not work, or walk, or stand erect; there is no light 
 in the eye, no hearing in the ear, no response to 
 touch, no thought in the brain — w^hat was the tem- 
 ple of mind is the chamber of death. 
 
 But the inspired writer teaches a deeper truth, of 
 which this is but a parable : "So faith without 
 works is dead also" — a profession of faith is but a 
 lifeless form, however fair, until the spirit of life 
 vitalizes and energizes it, and makes possible the 
 works of God. The Scripture maxim teaches a lesson 
 broad enough to cover the whole world of man's ac- 
 tivity and duty. His creed, his character, his wor- 
 ship, his service, even his sacrifice — all are dead, 
 unless and until, behind, beneath, within them all, the 
 spirit of life is found. The form of sound words with- 
 out the spirit of faith and love in Christ Jesus, is dead 
 
192 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 orthodoxy. The form of worship, however decorous 
 and devout, is, without the spirit, dead formalism, 
 ritualism — a censer, it may be of gold, set with gems, 
 but empty of all incense. The form of godliness with- 
 out the power of the spirit, becomes dead works, a self- 
 righteous, soul-deceiving morality or external piety, 
 as different from true godliness as a tomb is from a 
 temple. Even godly service and self-sacrifice may in 
 God's eyes be a dead body, inspired by no spirit of 
 loyalty to Christ or charity and sympathy toward 
 men ; empty of soul as the sound of a brass trumpet 
 or the clangour of a silver cymbal, worse than empti- 
 ness — notJiing! 
 
 Is there no reason that this most vital truth be 
 taught at the very opening of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles ? What more important lesson than this which 
 touches all effective service, — this base-block of all 
 missions: that only when God's Spirit possesses and 
 controls, can we work or witness with power ! Until 
 then, the best we can do is but a body without soul, 
 a form of service without the force which gives it 
 power and assures to it success. That lesson God 
 thought so needful, that in this great book of primi- 
 tive missions it is the first taught, and taught with 
 tongues of fire ! 
 
 Witnessing to Christ is therefore the Spirit of God 
 using a human voice. Let the Spirit be lacking, and 
 there may be wisdom of words, but not the wisdom 
 of God ; the power of oratory, but not the power of 
 God ; the demonstration of argument and the logic of 
 the schools, but not the demonstration of the Holy 
 Spirit, the all-convincing logic of his lightning flash, 
 such as convinced Saul before the Damascus gate. 
 When the Spirit was outpoured and disciples were 
 all filled with power from on high, the most unlet- 
 tered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its 
 new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames 
 fanned by m.ighty winds sweep through forests. 
 
 The study of the universe discloses to us a mysteri- 
 
THE NE W LESSON OF THE PO WER. 193 
 
 ous quality, as in man. The whole creation of God 
 as a whole, consists of a body and a spirit — matter 
 and force. Matter is inert and motionless — power- 
 less to effect results, whether for good or evil, until 
 force lays hold on it. There is nothing to be feared 
 in all God's universe but force. What are the huge 
 mountain without gravitation, the blackest masses of 
 storm-cloud without electricity, the gigantic sun 
 without light and heat, the earthquake's awful vio- 
 lence without chemical affinity, the shock of collid- 
 ing orbs in space w^ithout momentum? And as only 
 force is fearful, only force is forceful. If we seek 
 power we must go not to matter, that in itself has 
 not even power to lie still; but to that by which 
 matter is held, moved, swayed, ruled, and which is 
 the nearest to what in man we call spirit. 
 
 No more wonderful fact confronts us in our actual 
 experience of contact with this universe of God than 
 the power He has given to man of commanding and 
 controlling these eternal forces. They all move in 
 obedience to certain conditions or in certain channels 
 or modes of activity, which we call "laws;" and, 
 therefore, intelligent beings can discover the secret of 
 wielding them. If man, in ignorance of these laws 
 or in daring disobedience to them, transgresses, disre- 
 gards or opposes them, these forces are destructive 
 beyond description. Gravitation dashes him to 
 pieces, heat blasts him or consumes him, even light 
 tortures and blinds him ; chemical affinity and repul- 
 sion are his enemy and bring instant and awful ruin 
 to him and his finest work ; all nature becomes his 
 deadly foe, and unites all her gigantic and resist- 
 less forces to overwhelm him with swift destruction. 
 
 On the other hand, let man but obey the law of 
 
 THE FORCE, AND THE FORCE OBEYS HIM ! He obcyS 
 
 the laws of light and it becomes his servant, the deft 
 artist that with unerring hand draws for him, with 
 the ^nbeam as its pencil, the face of a friend or the 
 scenery of nature, delineating with the skill of per- 
 
194 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 fection every line and lineament, the delicate tracery 
 of every leaf or blade of grass. Man observes the 
 laws of heat, and it becomes the refiner and purifier 
 of his precious metals, melting, moulding the most 
 stubborn material into any desired form. He calls 
 on gravity, and it comes as a master mechanic with 
 a Titanic hammer to beat the rocks to powder, and 
 as his smith to work night and day at the forge. 
 Man learns to control chemical attraction and repul- 
 sion, and effects marvellous combinations which make 
 the universe his laboratory; or nitrogen, the lazy 
 giant, comes with explosives to open the very bowels 
 of the earth and reveal all mineral riches. Heat 
 turns water into one of the greatest motive powers 
 known, and drags his chariots over land and his vessels 
 over the seas as though thirty thousand horses were 
 yoked to them. Man obeys the laws of magnetism 
 and it becomes his pilot over trackless wastes of 
 waters; or he calls the very lightning to serve as 
 motor, messenger, illuminator. 
 
 Let us follow the analogy to a higher plane. God 
 says, ** Concerning the work of My hands command 
 ye Me ! " Stupendous mystery ! The Spirit of God 
 has His chosen channels and methods; and this Su- 
 preme Force of the universe offers Himself to serve 
 man for the ends of the Work of God. Is it not still 
 true, and may it not with reverence be said, "Obey 
 the law of the divine force and the force obeys you? " 
 When God's Spirit controls the man, in a sublime 
 sense the man controls the Spirit ; that is, he wields 
 spiritual power. This paradox, like many others, is 
 a truth. *'God hath given the Holy Ghost to all 
 that obey Him,"* and he who has the Spirit of God, 
 wields the power of God. Let any humble disciple 
 submit wholly to the Spirit's sovereign control, and 
 He becomes to that disciple all and more than all that 
 nature's forces become to humanity when guided by 
 scientific intelligence, — his artist to delineate for him 
 
 Acts, V. 32. 
 
THE NE W LESSON OF THE PO WER. 195 
 
 things divine and celestial, his refiner and purifier to 
 purge away the dross from character and mould him 
 into a chosen vessel, his giant helper to subdue all 
 foes before him, his pilot over life's unknown sea, 
 his motive power in holy enterprise, his messenger 
 between earth and heaven, and his illuminator in the 
 darkness of midnight and mystery. The Spirit of 
 God bows low and condescends to offer to be the 
 servant of those who serve God, to shape character 
 after a divine pattern, and make our works the works 
 of God. And therefore it is that our Saviour bade 
 His disciples zvait, tarr3dng until endued, for up to 
 that point power was not theirs. 
 
 Of this first lesson of the Acts the whole book is 
 the illustration which constantly repeats and enforces 
 the lesson by examples of power from on high. 
 Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit from on 
 high; the Apostolic age traces the flowing and 
 widening and branching out of His streams. These 
 chapters are channels revealing His power, new ex- 
 amples and proofs of what the Spirit can and will do, 
 when He actually dwells in, works in and works 
 through disciples. 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 This book may well be called the Acts of the Holy 
 Ghost, since He is here thus pre-eminent. Out of 
 all the references to the Spirit of God found in the 
 New Testament, four-fifths are found here. He 
 filled disciples with His own power, separated and 
 sent forth missionaries, appointed overseers in the 
 Church, and witnessed with disciples. But more 
 than this, this is the book of His personal presence. 
 He was so among them that they walked in His 
 comfort — r^ 7Taf)a!{X7j(7eL — in his paracletism; that is, 
 He became actually the Paraclete, the personal sub- 
 stitute for Christ's own self. And how beautifully is 
 this personal presence acknowledged at that first 
 council at Jerusalem: '' It seemed good to the Holy 
 Ghost and to us'' — He meeting with and counselling 
 with them, and all coming to a common conclusion ! 
 How august, yet how precious, such a sense of His 
 actual personal presence, when Peter can say to 
 Ananias, ' * Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to 
 the Holy Ghost,'' as though He stood there behind 
 Peter as the real presiding officer! Yes, there He 
 was, the Holy Spirit, making more than good to 
 them Christ's absence, so that in Him their ascended 
 Lord had come back to stay and dwell among them 
 and in them ; to plan for them, and send them where 
 He would have them go; to embolden them in pres- 
 ence of foes, and encourage them by stretching forth 
 His hand to heal and save. Here, indeed, are the 
 Acts of the Spirit, for without Him not a step is 
 taken. The Church is the body of Christ, and Christ 
 is the head, and the Spirit of Life is the vital power 
 filling the body, guiding its movements, and work- 
 ing through its members. • 
 
 196 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 197 
 
 Within the compass of this book the Spirit may be 
 seen exercising all His gracious offices, in the new 
 birth of regeneration, the nurture and growth of 
 sanctification and edification, the enduement and 
 endowment of service, convincing gainsayers and 
 converting even persecutors, and both edifying and 
 multiplying the Churches. 
 
 So all important is this ministry of the Spirit that 
 it is the only law of consecration known in the Acts. 
 Every person and place and time which He touches 
 becomes sacred. Every worshipper whom He guides 
 is a priest, every spot he fills with His presence is a 
 sanctuary, and every day becomes sacred because 
 His work pervades it. We look in vain here for any 
 traces of ecclesiasticism, ceremonialism, sacramen- 
 tarianism ; or, if found here, they are only as relics of 
 a perverted Judaism or leavening paganism, curios- 
 ities, interesting only to antiquarians and befitting a 
 museum. 
 
 Prayer and preaching make a sanctuary wherever 
 believers gather, and wherever souls are new-born is a 
 new shrine of the Nativity. Even temple courts 
 have no longer a monopoly of worship. The house 
 of Mary, the gateway at Lystra, the jail at Philippi, 
 the school of Tyrannus, market-place or theatre, 
 street corner or river side, if only praise and prayer 
 go up and blessings come down, become hallowed, 
 and believers say, '' Surely God is in this place; this 
 is none other but the house of God, this is the gate 
 of heaven." 
 
 I. One most marked effect of the Spirit's presence 
 was seen in the tinsel fisJi spirit which He breathed 
 into saints. ''Sacrifice," as Mr. Froude has said, 
 ''is the first element of religion, and resolves itself 
 into the love of God. Let the thought of self 
 intrude; let the painter but pause to consider how 
 much reward his work will bring to him, and the 
 cunning will forsake his hand, and the power of 
 genius will be gone. Excellence is proportioned to 
 
198 THE NE W ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the oblivion of self." In witnessing for Christ His 
 image so filled disciples as to displace that last idol — 
 self; and the Spirit so filled His own temple as to 
 pervade it with an atmosphere of self-forgetfulness. 
 
 Observe, for instance, the absence of all money 
 considerations or salaried offices. No soft-lined nest 
 allured the self-denying worker; no tempting bait 
 drew the preacher to bite at the devil's hook of 
 greed ; no increase of stipend cleared his eye to read 
 the doubtful call of Providence. As yet no '* crozier 
 golden" had made ^'bishops wooden." Service 
 seems to have been, if not gratuitously rendered, sup- 
 ported only by free-will offerings. 
 
 Is there no possible voice here for the Church of 
 to-day? Is not jealousy for money compensation any 
 hindrance to true missionary work? Imagine Philip 
 sending ahead a financial agent to secure proper 
 remuneration for his evangelistic work in Samaria; 
 or Barnabas, that son of consolation, charging so 
 much a week for his ministry to new converts at 
 Antioch; or Peter, hesitating at Joppa till he knew 
 whether the fee for his visit to Cesarea would at 
 least cover expenses and entertainment; or Paul, 
 taking a collection at Mars Hill, or asking offerings 
 to cover rent for his hired house at Rome. While it 
 is lawful that they who preach the gospel should live 
 of the gospel, that law may easily become a cloak 
 for avarice. We must go outside of this short his- 
 tory of early missions to find a vindication for grow- 
 ing rich upon pew-rents, while a thousand millions 
 are dying without the bread of life ; or, for paying 
 hired singers and operatic ''stars" enough every 
 year to put three or four more missionaries into the 
 field. Satan never won a greater victory than when 
 he made the pulpit a horse-block whereby to vault 
 into the saddle of ambition ; or the pastorate a com- 
 fortable hammock of luxurious ease ; or the service to 
 souls an avenue to wealth. Such perversions have 
 gone far both to destroy the simplicity of a life 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 199 
 
 of faith and the power of an unselfish witness to 
 Christ. 
 
 This voice and this vision mnst once more waken 
 the Church. Everything depends upon having the 
 Spirit with us in His presence and power. 
 
 2. He alone can supply new apostles. What a 
 divine voice is heard in the conversion of Saul! 
 Suddenly arrested in his persecuting career, threaten- 
 ing and slaughter are exchanged for prayer and 
 preaching; the fiery breath of the Cilician dragon 
 gives place to ardent, fervent witness to Jesus. The 
 arch-persecutor and destroyer becomes foremost of 
 Apostles and pioneer of missionaries. Hear God's 
 voice in this event, proclaiming the sovereignty of 
 that grace which snatches from the hands of Jewish 
 rulers the chalice full of the poison of their wrath, 
 and makes of it God's chosen vessel to bear before 
 gentiles and kings, yea, and the very Israel which 
 those rulers represented, the hated name of Jesus. 
 
 The Spirit alone can separate His saints for mis- 
 sionary service. He is therefore the ultimate Source 
 of supplies for the field. The same Barnabas and 
 Saul, sent forth by the Church, were also sent forth 
 by the Holy Spirit, and in this double fact we have 
 God's voice, announcing the twin condition of all 
 successful missionary ministry: that the labourers 
 shall be closely linked with the Church as its repre- 
 sentatives, and be qualified as well as commissioned 
 by the Spirit of God. The authority of the Church 
 is secondary to that other and higher authority; but 
 both are needful as conditions of the highest service. 
 We must not be reckless of forms, but must seek 
 a higher than any formal ordination or separation. 
 Where workmen are independent and irresponsible, 
 amenable to no authority, their zeal is sometimes 
 without knowledge, and they are more active than 
 efficient. Not a few who entered by no regular door 
 but climbed up some other way, have proved more 
 adepts in subtraction and division than in addition 
 
200 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and multiplication, in missionary mathematics. To 
 keep the Church in close touch with the field, the 
 missionary must be sent forth by the Church, as one 
 who is known, loved, trusted; then the work at 
 home and abroad is bound together by a living bond, 
 like the nervous system in the body with its effluent 
 and refluent action. 
 
 But, on the other hand, no human election, educa- 
 tion, ordination, can qualify for God's work. The 
 Spirit says, ' * Separate Me — for the work whereunto / 
 Jiave called tJieni,'''' Instead of our appointing labourers 
 and then asking for them proper qualifications, must 
 we not invert the order? and first waiting to see 
 whom the Spirit appoints and anoints, send them 
 forth. Laying hands suddenly on no man, laying 
 stress on graces more than on gifts, we must value 
 above all else the one qualification which makes all 
 others needless — namely, that they who go forth 
 have been under the tuition and bear the commission 
 of the Spirit of God. 
 
 The Church that is prepared by prayer and fast- 
 ing to hear and heed the Spirit's voice will be a 
 missionary Church. But that is always a still small 
 voice, and is drowned by the voices of worldly 
 clamour, of contending passions and hollow mirth. 
 The Moravian Brotherhood has led the van, both in 
 proportion of workers sent forth and of gifts contrib- 
 uted to their support, because in the constitution, 
 worship and working of the '^Unitas Fratrum," the 
 Spirit finds less to hinder Him from being heard 
 when He speaks. And so it is out of revivals of 
 religion that missionary impulses have been born or 
 revived. Meetings for fasting and prayer, and for 
 deeper spiritual life, have been the matrix where 
 missionaries have been moulded. While Laodicean 
 churches have lulled their members to sleep with an 
 easy religion of the world and a monotonous drone 
 of ritual, and religious club-houses have drawn 
 disciples into the snares of luxurious indulgence and 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. . 201 
 
 refined selfishness, the purer, and generally the 
 poorer, Churches have been fertile mothers of mis- 
 sions all over the world. 
 
 3. The Spirit uses His own schools and teachers 
 for training His servants. Witness that significant 
 record of the service rendered by the tent-makers of 
 Corinth to the eloquent ApoUos. When that gifted 
 Alexandrian Jew, so mighty in the Septuagint Scrip- 
 tures, came to Ephesus, like certain other disciples 
 whom Paul found in Diana's capital, he had not got 
 beyond John's baptism of repentance. And Pris- 
 cilla and Aquila, who made tents for a living, turned 
 their home into a theological school for this one 
 pupil ; and it was in their humble lodgings that this 
 silver tongue was taught to expound the way of God 
 more perfectly, and, with a new baptism of the 
 Spirit, mightily to convince the Jews that Jesus was 
 the Christ. What a lesson on missionary training- 
 schools, when some obscure saint gives the finishing 
 touch to God's choicest workman ! 
 
 4. The Holy Spirit makes every work a divine 
 calling. Tabitha's resuscitation at Joppa was an- 
 other voice of God proclaiming that service depends 
 on no sphere, and is limited by no narrow circle of 
 work. All forms of honest labour may witness for 
 God, and alms-deeds have no stereotyped model. 
 Dorcas may have been a chronic invalid, dumb or 
 palsied and bedridden. But she had left to her, 
 hands that could hold a needle; and the coats and 
 garments that she made to clothe widows and 
 orphans were as true signs of a missionary as the 
 sermons of Peter or the tours of Paul. Whoever in 
 his calling abides with God, is a missionary. If 
 there be first a willing mind it is accepted, according 
 to that a man hath and not according to that he hath 
 not. Then the willing disciple, like Hercules, is a 
 victor, whether he walks or works, stands or sits, 
 
 5. The Spirit of God is heard all through the 
 Acts, teaching that witness to Christ is natural and 
 
202 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 necessar}^ to a true disciple, and is a condition of His 
 full salvation. The tenth chapter of Romans pre- 
 sents God's scheme for universal missions: a message 
 of faith, heard by the ear, entering the heart, and then 
 going out by the gates of speech to find its way to 
 another ear, another heart, another tongue; and so 
 each hearer, who becomes a believer, becomes also 
 a witness. What can be more sublimely simple and 
 more quickly effectual ! A word of life winging its 
 way from lip to ear, from ear to heart, from heart to 
 lip, and so in endless circles till the last unbeliever 
 hears the message. 
 
 Here is an Apostolic succession, indeed! And 
 observe that he who hears and believes, but does 
 not confess and proclaim, breaks up the succession^ 
 and like a wheel whose inaction clogs the machinery, 
 so far as he is concerned, stops all the other wheels 
 and disturbs the divine order. He who believes but 
 does not testify, is not only hindering the growth of 
 the Church, but its continuance ; for without witnesses 
 there can be no new generation of believers. Mis- 
 sions are the nursing-mother of converts and 
 Churches. Love seeks not inlets, but outlets, and is 
 jealous of limits. 
 
 6. The Holy Spirit's administration in the Church 
 will make both giving and going easy. He so 
 unites saints in one body that members have care 
 one for another, and move together, in common 
 work for common ends. 
 
 The dearth which Agabus foretold was a voice of 
 God, calling disciples to send relief to hungry saints 
 in Judea. Infinitely more, then, is world-wide 
 famine of the Bread of Life, God's call for prompt 
 and ample provision for poor and starving souls. 
 All believers form one community, and suffer or 
 rejoice together. There must be no schism in the 
 body. And the whole race is by nature one family, 
 and what some lack, the surplus of others must 
 supply, until, as John Howard said, ''Our lux- 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 203 
 
 uries give way to the comforts of the poor; our 
 comforts to their necessities, and even our necessities 
 to their extremities." No want must plead in vain. 
 
 Each, according to ability, should contribute will- 
 ingly and cheerfully; and remoteness of abode 
 must become neighbourhood of need. When this 
 lesson is learned as only the Spirit can teach it, even 
 our poverty will abound unto the riches of our liber- 
 ality. Nature and sin have made all men akin. 
 " He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse 
 him; " man's inhumanity to man still keeps countless 
 thousands mourning their own awful destitution. 
 Missionary meetings must not only '* work up " the 
 missionary spirit, but " work it down," deeper and 
 deeper, till it reaches our selfishness and casts it out. 
 To this only the Holy Spirit is equal. When He 
 actually resides in the Church, and presides over it, 
 every appeal in behalf of lost souls becomes a plea 
 in Jesus' name; nay, Christ becomes the pleader, 
 and it becomes easier to respond than to refuse. 
 
 A new standard of giving will be adopted by the 
 Church whenever the Spirit once more pervades it 
 with His living power. Greed is to-day dominant 
 even among disciples. It is changing some of them 
 into coin, so that they have a metallic ring and will 
 drop into the coffin with a chink. The ministry of 
 money is not understood or appreciated ; men are 
 purse-proud because they have no sense of steward- 
 ship ; they think of their gains as their own, and of giv- 
 ing as an act of merit; and so become arrogant and 
 sometimes defiant in their avarice. How quickly 
 when God's Spirit possesses us do we see that noth- 
 ing is our own, and even we ourselves are slaves paid 
 for in blood and made free at a great price ; and so 
 we, and all we have, belong to our Redeemer ! To 
 such a man hoarded gains seem heaps of cankered 
 coin whose rust is an accusation. 
 
 There is another and more awful side to this mat- 
 ter. Ananias and Sapphira died for the sin of sacri- 
 
204 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 lege in trifling with their stewardship. Achan was 
 guilty of a similar sin and suffered a like judicial 
 death. Something devoted to the Lord and His by 
 right was kept back from Him for selfish ends. 
 That zvas all! But at these two turning points in 
 sacred history there stand two cairns of black stones 
 — mute warnings that just there is the point of 
 peril, where the step, the slip, may prove fatal. 
 When God in any way calls for our gifts, at our peril 
 we withhold ; no sudden death-blow may fall, but a 
 subtle putrefaction or silent petrifaction attacks char- 
 acter and leaves spiritual life to awful decay and 
 deadness. 
 
 7. When God's Spirit moves in the Church there 
 is a holy cessation of all undue carefulness as to 
 results. However much we rejoice over converts, 
 we are not unduly depressed when Paul's experience 
 at Rome is repeated ; when notwithstanding untiring 
 toil and testimony in preaching and teaching, some 
 believe not, or even harden themselves in rejection 
 of the truth. 
 
 To some the same divine word which is a savour of 
 life to others, becomes a savour of death unto death ; 
 not wings by which to soar, but weights by which 
 to sink. God drops down roses of paradise, but when 
 they touch hard hearts, they become like burning coals 
 of fire. The book of the Acts is a narrative of mis- 
 sionary labours, but records as many failures as suc- 
 cesses. But in God's eyes our failures are often 
 successes, and our successes are often failures. 
 Duty is ours — let Him take care of all other 
 issues. 
 
 The New Acts of the Apostles abounds in voices 
 and visions of God. But not every one hears or 
 sees. Once He spoke in thunders, now in whispers ; 
 once He was seen in flashes of light, now He reveals 
 Himself only to the vision of faith. They who walk 
 the crowded thoroughfares with the worldly and 
 the frivolous, amid the din of Mammon worshippers 
 
THE NEW MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT. 205 
 
 and the blaze of fashion's superficial glory, will 
 neither hear the voice nor see the vision. 
 
 The drift of the age is toward the idolatry of self, 
 and no man can serve two masters. We must make 
 our choice. He who often seeks God in the secret 
 place and keeps silence before Him, will hear voices 
 that wax louder and clearer until the closet of 
 communion becomes the audience-chamber of the 
 King; and will get such glimpses of the glory of God, 
 that to him a door will again be opened into Heaven 
 itself. 
 
Part IV. 
 THE NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS 
 
THE MIRACLE OF CONVERSION. 
 
 Art may borrow models from nature and imitate 
 her ; but life itself defies all rivalry. Between Alexan- 
 dria and Cairo is a row of palms, planted at equal 
 intervals and meeting- overhead, which suggests 
 whence architecture gets its columnar forms with 
 their capitals and arches. But however elegant and 
 graceful, sculptured forms are stiff and dead. God's 
 palms differ from art's pillars, for they are living 
 growths. 
 
 Conversion is God's perpetual miracle. There are 
 transformations in the lives and souls of men which 
 cannot be counterfeited. They are not wrought by 
 human hands as by hammer and chisel; but are 
 growths of a hidden seed of new life, the planting of 
 the Lord that He might be glorified. Reformation 
 of outward conduct may be due not to grace but to 
 selfishness, for manners and morals are a passport to 
 good society, while profligacy is the foe of respect- 
 ability. Amid the death-shade of heathenism, a 
 high type of morality has been sometimes found, be- 
 cause it was believed to be the price of favour with 
 the gods. But regeneration, which changes not only 
 outward habits and conduct, but the inward nature and 
 character, so that new tastes, affections and affinities 
 control ; the conversion which is transformation, which 
 turns hate to love, and former preference to abhor- 
 rence — this is re-creation — as truly a miracle as the 
 first creation. This is God's everlasting sign, never 
 cut off, whatever other signs fail. 
 
 The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the leop- 
 ard his spots ; but if they could, the one would still 
 "he an EthioDian and the other a leopard. Differ- 
 ences of race, genus, species, lie deeper down than 
 
 209 
 
210 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the colour or markings of skin. But for Ethiopian to 
 become Caucasian or American, or leopard to be- 
 come lamb, means a miracle. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles, wonders of transform- 
 ing grace constantly confront the reader. The open- 
 ing miracle of Pentecost was a new creation on a 
 grand scale, of three thousand souls in one day. Such 
 miracles of changed character as these pages record are 
 meant as a type and prophecy of things to come, and 
 hence instances enough are given to represent all 
 future cases and classes of converts. Pentecostal 
 converts may stand for the multitudes that at one 
 time flock like doves to their windows. The *' great 
 company of priests" who became obedient to the 
 faith, hint the gospel triumphs in making inroads 
 upon the very shrines and temples of false gods, and 
 bearing away their priests as trophies. The eunuch's 
 conversion forecasts thousands who, led by the word 
 of God, feel after God and need some man to guide 
 them. Saul is an example of the power which can 
 turn foe into friend, and persecutor into Apostle. 
 
 Side by side with Saul's conversion we may set 
 that of the Ephesian magians as a sign of divine 
 power. 
 
 Around that famous fane of Diana, which was one 
 of the seven world-wonders, the masters of curious 
 arts naturally gathered. Yet, so mightily grew the 
 word of God and prevailed, that even these seers 
 and sorcerers confessed their tricks of trade and 
 impostures upon popular credulity, and crowned 
 their confession by burning before all men, the 
 costly books which contained their secrets, and 
 whose market value was a fortune for those days — 
 fifty thousand pieces of silver ! 
 
 With Apostolic days we associate a series of such 
 marvels of convicting and converting grace. This 
 brief book of the Acts records some twelve indi- 
 vidual cases, and no two alike: The cripple at the 
 beautiful gate, the eunuch of Ethiopia, Saul of 
 
THE MIRACLE OF CONVERSION. 211 
 
 Tarsus, the centurion of Cesarea, the procon- 
 sul of Cyprus, Lydia and the jailer at Philippi, 
 Dionysius and Damaris at Athens, Crispus at 
 Corinth, and possibly Timothy and ^neas. The 
 ignorant and the cultured, Jews and gentiles, men 
 and women, those in high life and in low life, the 
 best and the worst, yield alike to the gospel, to 
 show that the message is adapted to reach all 
 classes. 
 
 Furthermore, the emphasis is unmistakably upon 
 multitudes. The evident intent is to impress upon 
 the reader the fact that, even within the first genera- 
 tion, the world proved a fertile field for gospel har- 
 vests. At least twenty times the stress is put, 
 though not unduly, upon the large numbers of con- 
 verts. At Pentecost, three thousand; soon after, 
 five thousand; a little later, ''multitudes both of 
 men and women;" again, the number of disciples 
 v^as multiplying; and again, "was multiplied in 
 Jerusalem, greatly, and a great multitude of the 
 priests were obedient to the faith." In Samaria 
 multitudes gave heed with one accord to Philip ; all 
 they that dwelt at Lydda and Sharon turned to the 
 Lord; at Joppa, "many believed in the Lord" at 
 the raising of Dorcas; at Cesarea " all who heard the 
 word " believed ; "a great number" at Antioch in 
 Syria; "many Jews and proselytes at Antioch in 
 Pisidia; at Iconium "a great multitude both of 
 Jews and Greeks;" "many disciples" at Derbe; at 
 Thessalonica, "a great multitude of devout Greeks, 
 and not a few of chief women;" of Bereans "many 
 believed;" and likewise of Corinthians, as also of 
 Ephesian magians. The Lord made daily additions 
 to believers, so that James at Jerusalem could point 
 to "many thousands" (myriads) of believing Jews. 
 Such repetitions have meaning. Converts multi- 
 plied in large numbers; large households with ser- 
 vants or retainers, and even villages and wider dis- 
 tricts yielded to the gracious sway of the Spirit. 
 
212 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 The power of the truth wielded by such a divine 
 arm is massive — Jerusalem, Samaria, Joppa, Lydda, 
 Sharon, Cesarea, the two Antiochs, Iconium and 
 Derbe, Thessalonica and Berea, Corinth and Ephesus 
 feel the mighty movings of grace. 
 
 The new chapters of the Acts add records scarcely 
 less wonderful. Individual examples quite as 
 marked, as varied, as significant, abound, to prove 
 converting power, and in every field multitudes 
 have at times been gathered. Of this we shall cite 
 examples and proofs; but here again the embarrass- 
 ment of riches compels a resort to the principle of 
 selection. First, a few marked individual instances 
 will be cited from countries, communities and sur- 
 roundings widely different ; and then we shall glance 
 over broader fields, where results are seen in the 
 transformation of whole communities. 
 
 In explaining the parable of the sower our Lord 
 prophesies a yield of thirty, sixty, an hundredfold 
 increase. It sometimes seems as though His words 
 had already been fulfilled. The Pentecostal gather- 
 ing of one hundred and twenty had added to them, 
 that same day, about three thousand souls — a thirty- 
 fold increase. The South Sea work, from 1817 to 
 1839, and that in the Hawaiian Islands especially, 
 probably exceeded any previous in-gathering in num- 
 ber, variety and rapidity of results; and this may 
 represent sixtyfold increase. Half a century later, 
 the greatest single harvest of Christian history was 
 reaped in Southern India, and may well stand for the 
 hundredfold. The new chapters of the Acts con- 
 tinue the older record, and chronicle similar marvels. 
 Not only do they record individual conversions 
 equally remarkable, but they tell us again of multi- 
 tudes turning to the Lord. 
 
II. 
 
 NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 
 
 Kayarnak — The Converted Eskimo. 
 
 Missions among the stolid, stupid Greenlanders 
 seemed for long years as hopeless as melting the ice- 
 bergs of the Frozen Pole. One hundred and sixty 
 years ago, Matthew Stach wrote home: ''We have 
 found here what we sought, heathens who know not 
 God, who care for nothing but catching seals, fish 
 and reindeer, and for this purpose are constantly 
 roving about." 
 
 The Eskimo religion was the lowest type of 
 paganism. Without temples or idols, they believed 
 in a great spirit, Tongarsuk, and priests or wizards, 
 his Angekoks. Fear seemed to be their only re- 
 ligious emotion, and their superstitions fostered it. 
 Christian truth had apparently no power to impress 
 them, and the native tongue had no words to convey 
 spiritual ideas. Not one missionary in a hundred 
 would have borne what Matthew Stach and Frederick 
 Boehnisch and the heroic John Beck who had 
 already been in prison for the Lord's sake, bore 
 from those natives. The Eskimos shunned them 
 with aversion, blamed them for the scourge of small- 
 pox which had raged for nine months and made New 
 Herrnhut the centre of a desert, and they adopted a 
 systematic course of annoyance. Whatever the mis- 
 sionaries said, was travestied and ridiculed; what- 
 ever they did, was caricatured and grotesquely 
 mimicked. In the midst of earnest exhortations, 
 they feigned sleep and snored ; or they would feign 
 pious desire to hear hymns sung, and then drown the 
 singing with howls and beating of drums. But farce 
 and comedy were not sufficient — and personal insult 
 
 213 
 
214 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and violence threatened a tragedy. For five years 
 they sought to wear out the patience of the mission- 
 aries by a series of persecutions. They laid siege to 
 their huts, broke their furniture, stole their food and 
 manuscripts, pelted them with stones, and broke their 
 boat which was their last hope of subsistence. And 
 when starvation was threatening these noble Mora- 
 vians, with monstrous ingratitude and cruelty they 
 would not even sell them one morsel of food, though 
 they themselves had abundance. 
 
 Seldom has mission work held out less hope. The 
 Eskimos were repulsive dwarfs, with minds and 
 hearts even worse dwarfed than their bodies. Their 
 looks were ugly, their habits filthy. Mothers licked 
 their children as cats do their kittens, and they all 
 wallowed like swine in the mire of their uncleanness. 
 Hans Egede had found all his efforts for their up- 
 lifting met by resistance, doggedly stubborn and 
 malicious. They invoked the aid of their Angekoks 
 to destroy him with their wizard arts, and when these 
 failed they thought he must be chief of wizards, as 
 his Master has been called Prince of Demons. But 
 the motto of these brave men was, ' ' Lose thy way, 
 but lose not thy faith," and they held on to God and 
 persevered in prayer. 
 
 The first sign that God's summer sun was melting 
 these icy hearts was when John Beck's infant daugh- 
 ter drew their eyes to the beauty of Christian home- 
 life. Once more the prophecy was fulfilled: ''And a 
 little child shall lead them." Her lisping lips some- 
 how softened their rudeness and warmed their cold- 
 ness; and when the Eskimo mothers heard her sing- 
 ing holy hymns, they yearned to hear their little 
 ones sing like her, and began themselves to learn 
 those simple gospel songs which Beck and Boehnisch 
 had written in the native tongue. 
 
 Then in 1738, as Beck was in his humble hut 
 preparing an Eskimo Bible, a company of Green- 
 landers from the South came in and watched him at 
 
NE W CON VER TS A AW MAR T YRS. 215 
 
 his work, wondering- that a piece of paper could be 
 made to hear, remember, and repeat the words of 
 God. He read to them from his manuscript transla- 
 tion of the gospels, and once more the story of the 
 cross broke hard hearts. One of these men, Kayar- 
 nak, came nearer and looking- up into Beck's face, 
 said, with pathetic earnestness, *'How was that? 
 Tell it to me once more; for I too want to be 
 saved." 
 
 The ice was breaking, and the long winter was 
 feeling the first touch of spring. Beck's soul, so 
 tried during these years of fruitless toil, could 
 scarcely believe what his ears heard. There was at 
 last one seeker after God. His joy overflowed in 
 tears and in speech; again and more fully he told 
 the tale that never loses its charm. And when his 
 fellow-missionaries returned from work in the dis- 
 tricts round about, they found him in the midst of a 
 group of Greenlanders, whose open ears drank in his 
 words, while their hands were laid on their mouths, 
 to express amazement at the strange and wonderful 
 things, never before heard. 
 
 From that day Ka3^arnak could be found daily at 
 the mission hut, with cheeks wet with tears, w4th 
 heart opened to attend unto the things which were 
 spoken, and yearning to be taught, as no Green- 
 lander had ever been known to yearn before him. 
 He clung fondly to his Moravian teachers, remaining 
 with some twenty companions, through the winter, 
 and aiding in the translation of the gospels. On 
 Easter morning, 1739, i^ presence of a large assem- 
 bly of natives, he, with his wife and two children, 
 confessed Christ in baptism. And so the first fruits 
 of that long-delayed harvest-field began to be 
 gathered. 
 
 The return of spring compelled Kayarnak to start 
 again on his search for seals; for the ocean is the 
 field which the Eskimo cultivates. His boat's keel 
 is his plough, and seals and fish are his crop. 
 
216 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 With no little fear Beck and his brethren let this new 
 convert go forth to his work with heathen compan- 
 ions. But a year later he came back, not only hav- 
 ing fast hold upon his newly-found Jesus, but 
 bringing with him his brother and his family, having 
 been so long absent in hope to gain them as converts 
 to the Lord. 
 
 The conversion of Kayarnak we have thus given 
 in detail, because it marks a new era in missions to 
 that north land. Beholding this man healed, the 
 opposers of the gospel could say nothing against it. 
 The miracle wrought in his changed heart and life 
 put a sudden stop to the mockery that had made 
 Stach's heart burn with holy indignation ; and the 
 spirit of earnest inquiry, which flamed in Kayarnak' s 
 breast, kindled a like spirit among the people. 
 Instead of keeping aloof, or coming to scoff and 
 jeer, they became constant and reverent hearers, and 
 learned and loved the sacred songs and gospel read- 
 ings which Beck had written for them. 
 
 The whole life of the people now underwent a 
 change. Brutal cruelty gave place to considerate 
 kindness; past ill-treatment was confessed, and 
 forgiveness was sought; care for the wants and 
 woes of others, and even of strangers, took the 
 place of heartless indifference. For instance, if the 
 women of Greenland hated anything it was suckling 
 a motherless babe ; yet even this they were found 
 doing gladly, so sweetly had the gospel taught them 
 the grace of unselfish service to the most needy and 
 helpless. If their language had no word for grati- 
 tude, their transformed conduct made up for the lack 
 of their speech by its own peculiar dialect; and 
 the newly converted natives found some words to 
 express their new views and feelings which their for- 
 eign teachers had long sought in vain. It need not 
 be said that the charms of the Angekoks were now 
 broken and the reign of superstition was at an end. 
 
 Kayarnak, the learner, became also the teacher. 
 
A'£IV CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 217 
 
 He taught even the missionaries; he helped them so 
 to understand the language as to correct the errors 
 and blunders of earlier teaching and translating ; and 
 they learned from him a still more valuable lesson; 
 for he led them to stop trying to convince unbeliev- 
 ers by mere argument, and to trust to the patient and 
 prayerful presentation of the mere facts of redemp- 
 tion ; to depend not on the logic that appeals to the 
 reason, but on the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. 
 Kayarnak himiself was permitted only to lead the 
 way in this new era. At the end of a year of most 
 exemplary piety, amidst a living testimony, that in 
 its faith and fervour and rich experience was apos- 
 tolic, he fell asleep; but the work went on. In 1747, 
 twenty-five years after Hans Egede had landed at 
 Ball's River, the first church building in Greenland 
 was erected, where three hundred were wont to 
 gather. As the Moravian Brethren saw the church 
 and school and singing class; as they beheld the 
 very land itself yielding to culture, and the changed 
 aspect of the v.- hole country ; and most of all as they 
 saw the desert of human hearts turning into the gar- 
 den of the Lord, they could only say, "The Lord 
 hath done more for us than we knew how to pray 
 for. A stream of life is now poured upon this 
 people. As we speak or sing of the sufferings of 
 Jesus they are so sensibly affected that tears of love 
 and joy roll down their cheeks. Though they may 
 happen to be from four to six leagues away, almost 
 all come to our Sunday service; and candidates for 
 baptism can scarcely wait patiently for the happy 
 hour." 
 
 Other missions and missionaries followed, and prog- 
 ress was in geometrical ratio, for at Lichtenfels 
 four years saw as much advance as fourteen at New 
 Hermhut, and the largest of the congregations was 
 gathered at Lichtenau. For thirty years John Beck 
 was spared to watch the seed which his own hand 
 had sown ripening into harvests. He had made a 
 
218 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 solemn vow to follow the Lord wholly in that land 
 of ice and snow, to do all and bear all as unto Him 
 — and sacredly had he kept his covenant. He had 
 asked one soul saved, as the seal of God's approval, 
 and that prayer was answered so abundantly that all 
 the settlements throughout Greenland are now 
 Christian, and it is now forty-five years ago since 
 at Proven the last professed pagan died. Kayarnak 
 was the leader of a host ; and Beck's Bible became 
 the base-block on which was built a new Christian 
 State. Over the icy castles of the frozen north floats 
 the flag of the cross, and again the prayer and pains 
 of the missionary have their recompense of reward ! 
 
 Africaner — The Hottentot Terror. 
 
 Africaner was known as the *' Bonaparte of South 
 Africa." This notorious Hottentot chief had become 
 the terror of the whole country. The Boers had at 
 some time wronged or offended him, and in revenge 
 for their insult or injustice, with characteristic rage, 
 he carried on a constant, cruel, relentless war with 
 the natives living near the mouth of the Orange 
 River. He was a terrible foe, feared by everybody, 
 deaf to remonstrance and appeal. He stole cattle, 
 he burned kraals, he took captives only to enslave 
 those whom he did not destroy. 
 
 When in 1817 Moffat started for Africaner's kraal 
 his friends warned him that this savage monster 
 would make a drum-skin of his hide and a drinking- 
 cup of his skull. But the noble hero of Namaqua- 
 land was not to be dissuaded even by the tears of 
 the motherly dame who wept for the danger and 
 death into which he was rushing. 
 
 Africaner was originally a Hottentot in the ser- 
 vice of a Dutch farmer at Tulbach, near Cape Town. 
 His usual work was the care of cattle; but he and 
 his sons were often sent on raids of plunder against 
 unarmed tribes further inland, a good school of rob- 
 bery and of murder, where this Hottentot proved a 
 
NE W CON VER TS A XD MA R T YRS. 219 
 
 quick learner ; and on a slight provocation he shot his 
 employer and his wife. Then Africaner fled as an 
 outlaw, across the Orange River, keeping near 
 enough to harass the Boers, but far enough away to 
 be safe from arrest and punishment. From this time 
 his hand, like that of Ishmael, w^as against every 
 man. It mattered little whether white or black, 
 native or foreigner, Namaqua, Hottentot, or Boer; 
 whoever crossed his track he hunted down like a 
 wild beast, and fire and sword were his merciless 
 weapons. The authorities of the colony would have 
 paid any reasonable price for his head ; but where was 
 the man daring enough to attempt to capture or kill 
 such a monster? It was like fighting a dragon. He 
 might tolerate missionaries, but they could not hope 
 to change him, and gave it up in despair. 
 
 Robert Moffat won this hard-hearted monster, 
 and it was by the same old gospel that has broken 
 so many other hearts of stone and melted so many 
 other hearts of steel. Into the very soul of Africaner 
 this truth of God entered, and until the day of his 
 death there was no break in the harmony of this 
 strange friendship. During Moffat's sickness, it 
 was Africaner whose hands ministered to his needs, 
 furnished his food and the best of milk. And when 
 Moffat found it needful to go to Cape Town, although 
 there w^as still a premium upon his head, Africaner 
 went with him. That whole journey is one of the 
 romances of history. When the missionary stopped 
 on his way at the house of a farmer who had been 
 his host as he journeyed to Namaqualand, he had no 
 little difficulty in convincing him that he was Moffat, 
 for the man had heard that the Hottentot chief had 
 murdered him, and knew a man who had ''seen his 
 bones." But when he saw Africaner, w^ho had killed 
 his uncle, and witnessed the change in his whole 
 character and demeanour, the farmer could only ex- 
 claim, "O God, what cannot Thy grace do! What 
 a miracle of Thy power! " 
 
220 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 The sensation produced by Africaner's appearance 
 at Cape Town defies description. Here was an out- 
 law, a robber, a murderer, for whose capture such 
 large rew^ards had been vainly offered, himself 
 coming back, risking arrest, trusting himself among 
 them, a changed man. The lion had become a lamb. 
 The governor sent for him, and the reward offered 
 for the seizure of the outlaw was actually spent in 
 gifts for himself and presents for his people. As 
 Moffat found it vain to attempt further work in 
 Namaqualand, Africaner went with him to the 
 Bechuanas. He first moved Moffat's goods and 
 cattle and sheep to his new home at Lattakoo, and 
 then, having faithfully fulfilled his trust, went back 
 for his own movables, that he might settle beside his 
 beloved teacher. But his end was near, and he died 
 shortly after at his old kraal. 
 
 Kapiolani — The Hawaiian Female Chief. 
 
 Kapiolani, of the Hawaiian Islands, was the most 
 noted among female chiefs, and had large landed 
 possessions. When first seen by the missionaries she 
 was seated on a rock oiling her person, and was 
 found to be dark-minded, superstitious, intemperate, 
 repulsive. Yet, when the gospel touched her heart, 
 this degraded daughter of heathen kings was found 
 attending the place of prayer, becomingly dressed, 
 dignified in deportment, devout and meek, but 
 resolute and courageous. She received the messen- 
 gers of the Lord at her house with the courteous 
 cordiality of Lydia, and with them planned for the 
 improvement of her own people in condition and 
 character with the ardour and candour of Catherine 
 of Sienna. Like Catherine, she w^as inspired with 
 the heroism of a reformer. From the sanctuary of 
 Keave, the sacred house of deposit, she bore away the 
 royal relics which were worshipped with divine 
 honours, and hid them in inaccessible caves near the 
 
NE W CON VER TS AND MA R T YRS. 221 
 
 head of the bay in the side of a precipitous rock. 
 When Charles S. Stewart, chaplain of the United 
 States ship of war, " Vincennes," was leaving Kaa- 
 waloa at midnight, she insisted on going with 
 him to the shore, that with warm hand-shake and 
 many tears, she might accompany him to the ship, as 
 Ephesian elders did with Paul. This heroic woman, 
 with her husband, strove to uproot the most tena- 
 cious idolatrous notions and customs. Without 
 counting costs to herself, she put down murder and 
 infanticide, theft and Sabbath-breaking, lust and 
 drunkenness, and sought to reform morals and re- 
 ligion. And when, in 1841, she died, had no other 
 gem for the crown of the great Conqueror been dug 
 up on Hawaiian soil, this woman's conversion suf- 
 ficed to prove that the gospel is, as truly as in Apos- 
 tolic days, God's power unto salvation. 
 
 One act of her life will ever stand out in conspicu- 
 ous pre-eminence. She knew that the famous crater 
 of Kilauea was believed by the people to be the 
 residence of the awful goddess, Pele. The super- 
 stitious hold of this goddess upon the people must 
 be broken. And she determined to lay hold upon 
 the very pillars of this temple of the Hawaiian Dagon 
 and bring down this superstition into ruin. In 1825 
 she made a journey of a hundred miles to this volcanic 
 crater, and there openly defied this false deity, at her 
 throne and shrine. She not only refused to offer even 
 the sacred bean as a propitiatory offering or in any 
 way avert or appease the wrath and power of Pele, 
 but she made the crater ring with the praises of Jeho- 
 vah, as she sang hymns to the only true God. She had 
 made the journey on foot with numerous attendants, 
 who were awe-struck at the open indignity with 
 which she defied the dreaded goddess. And those who 
 know with what awful terrors such pagan deities 
 are clothed in the common mind, and with what 
 tenacity these superstitions continue to hold even 
 professed converts, can imagine what holy courage 
 
222 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 faith must have begotten in this Hawaiian heroine. 
 It was eleven hundred years before her (723), when 
 Boniface at Geismar in Upper Hesse, boldly, with 
 axe in hand, hewed down the gigantic and venerable 
 oak sacred to Thor, the Thunderer, defying the super- 
 stitions which held the people in bondage, and the 
 idolatrous associations of centuries; and, as blow 
 after blow fell, the pagans looked to see the bolt of 
 the avenger smite the profaner of his sacred grove 
 dead. That was a heroic deed, but Boniface had never 
 been under the thrall of this idolatry, and had no 
 superstitions of his own to fight. But this woman 
 was herself only just delivered from the chains of 
 lifelong idolatry, and had no band of clergy around 
 her to encourage and share her act of open profa- 
 nation. 
 
 Kho-thah-byu — The Karen Evangelist. 
 
 One man is selected out of the Karens, or wild 
 men of Burma, as an example of the transforming 
 power of the gospel, mainly because he was the first 
 convert among his people. He was a poor man and 
 a slave, and one of the degraded people of a debased 
 nation, a man of very ordinary abilities, and yet most 
 useful and uninterrupted in his labours. The first 
 of his nation to be baptized, he lived to draw hun- 
 dreds and thousands to follow his own steps. He is 
 a singular example of what ordinary faculties will 
 accomplish when wholly consecrated. He aroused 
 the whole nation to Christianity. Born in 1778, and 
 baptized in 1828, he was fifty years old when he took 
 up the cross. Until he was fifteen, he was at home, 
 but wicked, wilful, ungovernable. After he left 
 his parents he became a robber and a murderer; and 
 was, no doubt, at least accessory to no less than 
 thirty murders. His natural temper was vicious. 
 
 After the Burmese war he went to Rangoon, and 
 
NE W CON I ^ER TS A XD MA R T YR S. 223 
 
 got into Mr. Hough's service, by whom the first 
 religious impressions were made upon his mind. He 
 followed Adoniram Judson to Amhurst, and was 
 taken into the family of Ko-shway-bay, who, having 
 paid for him a debt, took him into his family as a 
 servant, according to Burmese law which makes the 
 debtor slave to the creditor. His master, who was 
 also an inquirer, became discouraged with regard to 
 doing him any good, and could not retain him in the 
 family on account of his immoral character. He 
 was, however, transferred to the family of the Rev. 
 Francis Mason, and soon after began to pay atten- 
 tion to religious things, though he had fits of violent 
 temper. Soon signs of repentance appeared, and 
 faith in Jesus. His dark mind slowly took hold of 
 the truths of Christianity, and his violent temper 
 often caused him great discouragement and depres- 
 sion, and deferred his baptism. He was, however, 
 baptized on the i6th May, 1828, as we have said, at 
 fifty years of age. He had already sttidied with 
 great diligence, in order to read the Burman Bible, 
 and became immediately very zealous to bear witness 
 to the Saviour whom he had found. Immediately 
 after his baptism, accompanied by two of his coun- 
 trymen, he left Tavoy to visit the Karens in the val- 
 ley of Tenasserim, preaching and explaining the 
 catechism, and with immediate results in the con- 
 version of other Karens, Moung Khway being the 
 first. 
 
 Nearly a whole village ultimately became Christian 
 through the influences started by this converted 
 Karen. From this time, so long as his strength 
 allowed, he was accustomed to make tours among 
 his brethren, from which he would return with con- 
 verts prepared for baptism, the numbers running 
 all the way up from six to one hundred and fifty. 
 He obtained the ears of the people of whole vil- 
 lages, and remarkable changes took place under 
 his ministry. He was unwearied in labour, would 
 
224 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 often talk of the gospel till near midnight, and 
 absolutely spared not himself. His preaching car- 
 ried with it conviction, and compelled others to say, 
 ' ' Truly this is the word of God. " After Mr. Boardman 
 had preached in Burman he would interpret as much 
 of the discourse as he could remember into Karen. 
 Though a naturally weak man he became magnani- 
 mous, because the Spirit of Christ and the love of 
 souls inspired him. His wife was likewise baptized in 
 1828. She had formerly been very ignorant and 
 very wicked, but the influence of her husband had 
 been blessed to her entire transformation. His 
 tours lasted from a week to six months, spent in itin- 
 erating with perpetual labour, day and night. Most 
 amazing results often followed his ministry. For in- 
 stance, when the mother of the baptized Karen head- 
 man died, in fear that other relatives of the deceased 
 would wish to perform heathenish customs in con- 
 nection with her burial, he proposed to erect a 
 preaching zayat near the grave, and invited Kho- 
 thah-byu to hold forth the word of life there. At one 
 time this Karen evangelist projected a journey into 
 Siam, and actually started to visit the Karens in 
 that country, but was not suffered to cross the bor- 
 der, and was compelled to return. 
 
 After Mr. Boardman became unable to labour, the 
 whole care of the church and the instruction of the 
 inquirers devolved on this simple-minded convert. 
 He taught school and showed diligence in every 
 department of labour. His pupils could repeat ver- 
 batim whole Burman tracts. His boldness in attack- 
 ing idolatry was remarkable. The town of Shen 
 Mouktee is famous for the idol which it contains, 
 which was said to have grown miraculously from a 
 little brass image of a few inches high, to the full size 
 of a man. It was as sacred to the Burmans as Diana 
 was to the Ephesians. When this old man had been 
 left to rest in one of the zayats he was found sur- 
 rounded by a large congregation of Burmans, and, 
 
NEW CONVERTS AND MARTYRS. 225 
 
 holding" them under a peculiar fascination, that was 
 compared to the influence of a serpent over a brood of 
 chickens. And the first words that were heard by 
 Dr. Mason as he approached, were, '' Your God was a 
 black kula;" that is, a foreigner. The peculiar look 
 which accompanied these words could never be for- 
 gotten by the beholder. If ever a man hated idolatry, 
 that man was Kho-thah-byu. No fatigue, no obstacles, 
 could prevent his seeking out his fellow-countrymen, 
 and when he could not reach the Karens he would 
 attack the Burmans and their idolatry with unmerci- 
 ful energy, utterly heedless of their ridicule. His 
 ruling passion was for preaching, and once, when he 
 was in danger of losing his life by drowning, his only 
 solicitude was lest he might never more preach the 
 gospel to the Karens. He was not only a man of 
 very ordinary abilities, but he was actually, in some 
 things, ignorant to the verge of stupidity. His own 
 pupils outran their teacher in their attainments. 
 His adaptation was for a pioneer, and God permitted 
 him to become, in succession, the first Karen preacher 
 to his countrymen in the districts of Tavoy, Maul- 
 main, Rangoon and Aracan. The son born to him 
 in Tavoy he named Joseph, the first Christian name 
 ever conferred by native Karens; and his great 
 desire was that that son might live to become a 
 preacher to his people. 
 
 In his tours he sometimes had to wade streams to 
 his armpits, and sometimes through mud and water 
 where the rain filled the hollows; yet nothing could 
 discourage or dismay him. He was one among a 
 thousand. Sometimes the Karens thronged his 
 house so that there was danger of breaking it down, 
 and their importunity left him no chance for needed 
 physical rest, and scarcely for food. He was chief 
 of all the native Karen assistants employed in the 
 carrying forward of the mission. When his days of 
 itinerating were past by reason of rheumatism and 
 blindness, it was to him the greatest of all his affile- 
 
226 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 tions that he was unable to carry on active work: 
 and when at Sandoway the summons came for him 
 to cease from his labours, on the 9th of Septem- 
 ber, 1840, at sixty-two years of age, he departed 
 without an anxious thought as to his future state. 
 The blue mountains of Pegu, often the first land 
 seen in India by the approaching mariner, remain his 
 monument; and the Christian villages that adorn 
 their sides constitute his epitaph. If he hated idola- 
 try, he loved the gospel with equal intensity ; always 
 planning some new excursion, never so happy as to 
 find hearers for his message. The leading truths of 
 the Bible became familiar as his alphabet, and he 
 sought in every sermon to bring into prominence the 
 vicarious death of Christ. Among his converts there 
 was a more thorough knowledge of justification by 
 faith than can be found among an equal number 
 even in Christian countries. 
 
 While it is true that his work was a pioneer work, 
 breaking up the fallow ground and casting in the 
 seed, yet few who have devoted their entire lives to 
 such labours have been the instruments of gathering 
 as many converts to Christ. He idolized his work. It 
 was the only business to which he attached the least 
 importance ; and it was this which constituted the 
 charm of his life. His absorption in preaching made 
 him quite insensible to external objects, and he has 
 been known in preaching to be forsaken by every 
 individual soon after the commencement of his re- 
 marks, and yet continue with such interest as though 
 he were preaching to listening thousands ; and when, 
 at the close of his discourse he found himself alone, 
 without discouragement he would, with renewed zeal 
 and ardour, enter upon his work with the very next 
 individuals he met. He was utterly unceremonious 
 in introducing religious themes, regarding no time 
 or place unsuitable, and though his mental resources 
 were limited they were well directed. He concen- 
 trated all his powers upon his work. His success 
 
NE W CON VER TS AND MART YRS. 227 
 
 can be accounted for by just four words, '•'• God was 
 with him." He was a man of prayer. It was his 
 practice to read and pray aloud. He has been 
 known to spend all days and, like his Master, whole 
 nights in this way; and, however ignorant upon 
 other subjects, the moment he touched his favourite 
 theme he surprised all his hearers. His baptism in 
 1828 was the commencement of the mission, which in 
 success exceeds perhaps any other, except that to the 
 Hawaiian Islands. He was never ordained, because 
 he lacked a well regulated mind, and to the last was 
 liable to outbreaks of evil temper, which caused him 
 great sorrow and humiliation. 
 
 When the year 1878 completed the centenary of 
 his birth, and the semi-centennial of his conversion, 
 a large new institute building was dedicated to the 
 service of God and Christian education, under the 
 name of the Kho-thah-byu Memorial Hall. That is 
 the true monument of his twelve years of earnest and 
 successful labour. It cost nearly 50,000 rupees, and 
 was the result of ten years of gathered contribu- 
 tions among the Karens of Bassein. It was dedi- 
 cated without debt in the month of May. It stands 
 on a fine knoll in the outskirts of the town, and is 
 visible for a long distance from the north and west. 
 Its entire length on the south front is 134 feet. The 
 east front and wing measure 131 feet, the west side 
 with the wing 104 feet. The tower is sixty feet 
 high, surmounted by a Greek cross, and on the wall 
 of the south verandah, in carved, gilded, Burmese 
 characters, we read this inscription: 
 
 '' 1828— Kho-thah-byu— 1878." 
 
 Ranavalona II. — Madagascar's Queen. 
 
 When Robert Drury gave the first full account of 
 the savages of this great island, it was under the 
 despotism of wickedness, and might was the only 
 
228 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 right. Idolatry of the most degraded kind existed, 
 and the island was the scene of perpetual war, lust, 
 slavery and superstition. Thousands of natives were 
 sold every year, and the spot where they caught the 
 last glimpse of home, as they went into hopeless 
 exile, even yet bears the pathetic name, ' * The weeping- 
 place of the Hovas." Vices were treated as virtues. 
 Punishments were savagely contrived to inflict long 
 torture. The people were a nation of thieves and 
 liars. There were no homes. A native never spoke 
 of family or family ties. The pen refuses to record 
 what was there seen and heard. It should be written 
 in blood and registered in hell. Female virtue was 
 of so little account that it did not even affect the 
 legitimacy of offspring. Idols so filled the land that 
 anything which was not comprehended, though it 
 were but a machine or a photograph, was deified. 
 The French governor of the Isle of Bourbon told the 
 first missionaries that they might as well attempt to 
 convert sheep, oxen or asses. 
 
 Madagascar has unenviable celebrity as the 
 scene of a persecution which might have brought 
 a blush even to the cheek of Nero. When Rana- 
 valona I. mounted the throne, murdering all riv- 
 als, — the "bloody Mary" of Madagascar, treach- 
 erous as Judas, selfish as Cleopatra, — from twenty to 
 thirty thousand victims fell annually a prey to her 
 cruelty. Her chief amusement was a bull fight, and 
 it was said that half of the population perished under 
 her bloody sceptre. At her coronation she took two 
 of the national idols in her hands, and said, " From 
 my ancestors I received you. In you I put my trust, 
 therefore support me." And those idols, in robes of 
 scarlet and gold, were held at the front of the plat- 
 form to overawe the multitude. 
 
 We pass over an interval of years. In 1868, 
 thirty-nine years after the coronation of Ranavalona 
 I., and seven years after her death, Ranavalona II. was 
 crowned. For the first time, Madagascar had a 
 
NE W CON VER TS A ND MART YRS. 229 
 
 Christian, as well as a constitutional, ruler. He who 
 would see the marvellous transformation in this island 
 need only contrast the coronation of these two 
 queens, one on the 12th of June, 1829, and the other 
 on the 3rd of September, 1868. At this latter cere- 
 mony, the symbols of pagan faith were nowhere to 
 be seen. In their place lay a beautitul copy of the 
 Bible, side by side with the laws of Madagascar. 
 Over the queen was stretched a canopy, on whose 
 four sides were as many Scripture mottoes : ' ' Glory 
 to God," '' Peace on Earth," '' Good- will to Men," 
 '•'■ God with Us." Her inaugural address was inter- 
 woven with the dialect of Scripture, and now it was 
 idolatry and not Christianity that became a suppliant 
 for toleration ; — and all this, seven years after the death 
 of the bloody Mary, whose thirty- two years had been a 
 reign of terror! Astrologers and diviners were no 
 longer to be found at court ; Rasoherina's sacred idol 
 was cast out of the palace ; government work ceased 
 on Sunday; Sunday markets were closed, divine wor- 
 ship held in the court. The Madagascar New Year 
 was changed from an idolatrous festival to a Christian 
 holiday, and the queen's address declared, ''I have 
 brought my kingdom to lean upon God, and expect 
 you, one and all, to be wise and just, and to walk in 
 His ways." One month later this Christian queen 
 and her prime minister were publicly baptized by a 
 native preacher, in the very courtyard where the 
 bloodiest edicts had been promulgated. 
 
 When the queen was examined by native minis- 
 ters, previous to baptism, it was found that her first 
 serious impressions were traceable to a native Chris- 
 tian. One of the four noble, men afterward burned 
 as martyrs had thus sown the seed in her own heart. 
 Two days before their baptism, the queen and her 
 prime minister were married, and shortly after pub- 
 licly joined in the Lord's Supper. Her example was 
 likely to be followed by government officers of high 
 rank; and even the chief idol keeper, the astrologer 
 
230 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of Rasoherina, applied for baptism. The congrega- 
 tions multiplied beyond all means of accommodation. 
 A hundred new buildings were in demand. There 
 was an increase of sixteen thousand worshippers in a 
 year, and the royal chapel was erected in the very 
 courtyard of the palace, where to-day that beautiful 
 house of prayer may yet be seen. In gilded letters 
 upon two large stone tablets forming part of the sur- 
 base of the structure, appears engraven the follow- 
 ing royal statement, read at the laying, of the corner- 
 stone in 1869: 
 
 " By the power of God and grace of our Lord 
 Jesus, I, Ranavalomanjaka, Que-^u of Madagascar, 
 founded the House of Prayer, on the thirteenth 
 Adimizana, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 1869, as a house of prayer for the service of God, 
 King of kings and Lord of lords, according to the 
 word in sacred Scriptures, by Jesus Christ the Lord 
 who died for the sons of all men, and rose again for 
 the justification and salvation of all who believe in, 
 and love Him. 
 
 " For these reasons this stone house, founded by me 
 as a house of prayer, cannot be destroyed by any one, 
 whoever may be king of this my land, forever and 
 forever; but if he shall destroy this house of prayer 
 to God which I have founded, then is he not king of 
 my land Madagascar. Wherefore I have signed my 
 name with my hand and the seal of the kingdom. 
 
 "Ranavalomanjaka, Queen of Madagascar." 
 
 Maskepetoom — The Indian Chief. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Rundl^, of the English Wesleyan 
 Missionary Society, was the pioneer, who, at great 
 personal risk, visited the Cree tribes of the North 
 American Indians, that he might bear to them the 
 message of salvation. These tribes were, perhaps, 
 the most numerous and powerful among the Indians 
 that roamed over the vast regions of the Canadian 
 
NE W CON VER TS AND MAR T YRS. 231 
 
 northwest, before the scourge of epidemic disease 
 had mowed them down by thousands. 
 
 We put on record here the simple story of the 
 most powerful chief among those tribes, known as 
 Maskepetoom, or the crooked arm, from the fact 
 that one arm had been so hacked and wounded in 
 close conflict with his ferocious neighbours, the 
 Black Feet Indians, that, in healing, the muscles 
 had contracted and stiffened, and permanently 
 crooked the arm. This chief w^as a born warrior. 
 His special delight was found in the excitement of 
 Indian conflict, in cunning ambuscades, and strategic 
 movements. He did not hesitate to practice those 
 barbarities and cruelties upon the captives of other 
 tribes that have given to the Indians a character as 
 specially vindictive and inhuman. 
 
 The Rev. James Evans, in his marvellous trips 
 through the magnificent distances of this northwest, 
 visited and faithfully preached the gospel to Maske- 
 petoom and his warriors; and, although some ac- 
 cepted the gospel, and became Christian believers, 
 the warlike chief himself was found impervious to 
 the message of peace. Some years later, the Rev. 
 George Macdougal, at one of the camp-fire services, 
 read as his Scripture lesson the story of Christ's trial 
 and crucifixion, and came to the prayer w^hich the 
 Saviour offered for his murderers : ' ' Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do." He stopped 
 to dwell especially upon this prayer, for the Indian 
 spirit feeds upon retaliation. If there be any attribute 
 of the Indian character that has become historically 
 and proverbially conspicuous, not only prominent but 
 overtopping all others, it is the disposition to revenge 
 real or imaginary injuries upon the perpetrators of 
 them. And, having in mind the fact that this quality 
 was so regnant in the hearts of his Indian hearers, he 
 attacked the evil stronghold, and plainly told them 
 the conditions of divine forgiveness: ''If we forgive 
 not men their trespasses, neither will our heavenly 
 
232 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Father forgive our trespasses;" that if they really 
 expected forgiveness from the Great Spirit, they 
 must be able to pray such a prayer as Christ offered 
 on the cross. The dark-eyed warrior listened with 
 profound attention, and was deeply moved, but 
 nothing more was said to him that evening. 
 
 The next day, as the great company led by him, 
 and composed of many hundred Indians, was riding 
 along over the beautiful prairie, a subordinate chief 
 rode quickly to the side of Mr, Macdougal, the mis- 
 sionary, begging him, in an excited manner, to fall 
 back into the rear, lest he should be compelled to 
 witness the horrible torture and violent death of a 
 man who was approaching them in a little band of 
 Indians, seen in the distance, although so far off as 
 scarcely to be distinguishable to a white man's vision. 
 
 The warning of this chief was occasioned by the 
 fact that, months before this, Maskepetoom had sent 
 his only son across a mountain range, or pass, to 
 bring a herd of horses home. Among the foot-hills 
 of these massive mountains are many fertile valleys 
 where there is grazing all the year round, and in one 
 of these the great chieftain had kept his reserve of 
 horses. One of his warriors was selected as the 
 comrade of his son, to aid him in his work. It 
 transpired that this man, having a chance to sell these 
 horses, was so excited by the bait offered to his 
 cupidity, that he actually murdered the son of the 
 chief, disposed of the herd, and for a time conceal- 
 ing his booty, returned to the tribe, telling a plausi- 
 ble story that in one of the dangerous passes in the 
 mountains the young chief had lost his foothold and 
 been dashed to pieces over an awful precipice, so 
 that he, being left alone to manage the herd of 
 horses, had been compelled to see them scattering 
 wildly over the plain. As nothing was at the time 
 known to the contrary, Maskepetoom and his follow- 
 ers were compelled to accept this improbable story; 
 but it subsequently transpired that, unknown to the 
 
NE W COX VER TS A ND MA R T YRS. 233 
 
 murderer, the tragedy had witnesses; so that for 
 months a horrible vengeance had been preparing 
 when the offender should come within the control of 
 the exasperated chief. And now the awful day had 
 come when the vengeance might find opportunity of 
 execution, and the bereaved father was actually 
 approaching the band, among whom was the mur- 
 derer of his only son. As he advanced the very^ 
 warriors held their breath. He quickened the speed 
 of his horse, and rode on in advance. Mr. Macdougal, 
 anxious, if possible, to prevent the execution of such 
 dire revenge, spurred his horse forward, and rode 
 up just in the rear of the mighty chieftain, uplifting 
 his prayer to God that the wrath of man might at 
 least be restrained. 
 
 When the two bands approached within a few hun- 
 dred yards of each other, the eagle eye of Maskepe- 
 toom caught sight of the murderer. He drew his 
 . tomahawk impetuously from his belt, and rode still 
 faster till he came face to face with the man that 
 had treacherously inflicted the greatest injury that 
 was possible upon the father; then, with a voice 
 tremulous with suppressed emotion and yet with 
 admirable command over himself, the chieftain 
 looked in the face the man that had broken his 
 heart and murdered his boy, and said to him, * ' You 
 have killed my son, and you deserve to die. I 
 selected you as his trusted companion, and gave you 
 the post of honour as his comrade, and you have 
 betrayed my trust and cruelly murdered my only 
 boy. No greater injury could you have done to me 
 and to my tribe. You have not only broken my 
 heart, but you have killed him who was to have been 
 my successor. You ought to die, by all the laws of 
 Indian tribes; but I heard from the missionary last 
 night at the camp fire, that, if we expect the Great 
 Spirit to forgive us, we must forgive our enemies, 
 even those who have done to us the greatest wrongs ; 
 and but for this I would have buried my tomahawk 
 
234 THE NEW ACTS OF THE AFOSTLES. 
 
 in your brains at this instant. You have been my 
 most cruel enemy, and you deserve death; but," he 
 added, as his voice trembled with still deeper emotion, 
 " as I hope the Great Spirit will forgive me, I 
 freely forgive you. But go away from me and from 
 my people, and let me never again see your face." 
 Then Maskepetoom hastily pulled up over his head 
 his war bonnet, his voice completely broke down, and 
 actually quivered with the feelings that were tearing 
 his heart, but which he had for the time suppressed; 
 the gigantic form bowed low over the neck of the 
 horse, and he gave way to an agony of tears. 
 
 This great chieftain not only became a devoted 
 and consistent Christian, but for years afterwards 
 lived a becoming and beautiful life. He gave up all 
 his old warlike habits. He mastered the syllabic 
 characters in which the Cree Bible was printed. He 
 made the word of God his daily solace, his counsel- 
 lor, and his joy, and the remainder of his days were 
 spent in service to God and man. He delivered 
 thrilling and earnest addresses to his own people, 
 urging them to give up all their old sinful ways, 
 and become followers of that Saviour who had so 
 grandly saved him. They listened to his words, and 
 many, like him, abandoned their old warlike habits, 
 and settled down into lives of peaceful quiet. He was 
 so desirous even to benefit his old enemies, the Black- 
 feet, and to tell them the story of a Saviour's love, 
 that he actually went fearless and unarmed among 
 them, Bible in hand. His end was the end of a 
 martyr, for a bloodthirsty chief of that vindictive 
 tribe saw him approaching, and, remembering some 
 of the fierce conflicts they had waged in other days, 
 and, doubtless, having lost by the prowess of Mas- 
 kepetoom some of his own relatives in those conflicts, 
 he seized his gun, and, in defiance of all rules of hu- 
 manity, not to say magnanimity, he coolly shot the 
 unarmed and converted Christian chieftain in cold 
 blood. 
 
NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 235 
 
 And SO fell a man who was a wondrous trophy of the 
 cross, a chieftain whose conversion did a vast amount 
 of good, showing how the gospel can change the hard- 
 est heart, eradicate the most deeply rooted habits, and 
 enable a warlike savage so thoroughly to conquer the 
 besetting sin of the Indian character, even under the 
 most extreme provocation and where few could have 
 found fault if the price of blood had been exacted 
 and the murderer executed, as actually to forgive the 
 offender. This is the more remarkable, because re- 
 venge, like cannibalism, has its root in a religious or 
 superstitious conviction. Dr. S. McFarlane says 
 that cannibalism can be accounted for in no way sat- 
 isfactorily but as a religious practice. He gives 
 many proofs of this position. It is not due to appe- 
 tite for human flesh, nor simply to vindictive feeling 
 toward enemies. They regard the devouring of an 
 enemy as the means of incorporating into themselves 
 the strength of a slain foe, and all the ceremonies of 
 cannibalism are invested with the sanctities of re- 
 ligion. And so we may say, of the Indian character, 
 as to revenge ; it is not regarded by them as a vice, 
 but a virtue, as the quality of a manly, brave, and 
 noble spirit ; as a form of justice, not simply of hate- 
 ful passion; and something to be cherished, not to be 
 suppressed. An Indian without revenge is a coward 
 in the tribe, and there is nothing from which an In- 
 dian shrinks more than from the charge of cov/ardice ; 
 and so, when the gospel overcomes in a man like 
 Maskepetoom the instinct of revenge, and especially 
 when revenge could be justified as a judicial act, in- 
 flicting punishment upon a murderer, it is one of the 
 marks of the miracle-working power of the gospel of 
 Christ. 
 
 Ling-Ching-Ting — The Chinese Opium-Smoker. 
 
 Rev. James Main was so shocked at the vacuity of 
 a Chinaman's face that he declared there was in the 
 very look of a Chinese audience somewhat that 
 
236 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 seemed to say that the consequence of not having 
 heard the gospel was a loss of all capacity to receive 
 and understand it. 
 
 Thirty years ago, in Foochow, a man, of about 
 forty, found his way into the little suburban chapel 
 at Ato, and his eyes and ears were fixed upon the 
 Rev. S. L. Binkley, who was preaching on the all- 
 sufficiency of Christ to save. For some reason this 
 poor Chinaman's attention had been strangely riveted 
 to the truth, and he tarried at the close of the service 
 to converse with the missionary. He said, ''This 
 Jesus I never heard of until now, and I don't know 
 who He is; but did you not say that He can save 
 me from all my sins ? " *' Yes," replied Mr. Binkley, 
 '* I said exactly that." '' But then you did not know 
 me when you said so. I have been for many years a 
 liar, a gambler, a sorcerer, an adulterer, and for 
 twenty years an opium-smoker, and no man who has 
 used opium for so long a time was ever known to be 
 cured. Now if you had known me, you would never 
 have said what you did, do you see ? " Of course the 
 missionary could only repeat with emphasis his 
 former declaration, about the power and willingness 
 of Jesus to save his believing people from even such 
 a multitude of sins ! 
 
 The opium-smoker was struck dumb with amaze- 
 ment. His mind was in bondage to ancient super- 
 stitions ; the poison of lust was in his very blood ; and 
 worse than all, he was sold in hopeless slavery to the 
 awful drug and his will was in chains to a habit of 
 twenty years, and he had never yet known any such 
 victim to be set free. The thought of such a deliver- 
 ance as even possible, of salvation from all his sins, 
 was too much — he was dazed by the glory of such 
 new freedom and dared not believe such statements 
 to be other than extravagant fancies or tormenting 
 illusions. And so he went away; but he came back 
 the next day, and day after day, to hear more of this 
 wonderful Saviour, and to look into this gospel of sal- 
 
NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYRS. 23 J 
 
 vation that promised to free even an opium -slave. 
 Weeks passed by ; and one morning impetuously rush- 
 ing into the missionaries' room, before his tongue 
 could speak his radiant face had told of his new dis- 
 covery: ''I know it now! Jesus can save me from 
 all my sins, for He has done it." 
 
 Yes, so quick had been the victory of faith that 
 the last and worst enemy was destroyed; the habit 
 was broken, and even the desire was gone. He no 
 longer felt the bonds under which he had hopelessly 
 struggled for so many years. Christ had made him 
 free; and such deliverance demanded a declaration. 
 The opium slave must speak, for he believed; he 
 must go back to Hok-chiang, where his companions 
 in sin lived, and tell them of this Jesus who could 
 save them from all their sins. Friends sought to 
 dissuade him from preaching this doctrine of these 
 foreign devils; or, if he would, let him stay at Foo- 
 chow, where he would be safe, and not risk the riot- 
 ous mobs at Hok-chiang, who would take off his 
 head, and then there would be a stop to all his talk- 
 ing. But, no ! Ling-Ching-Ting would go to his own 
 people, and with no weapon but the word of God. 
 He went. He told the story of a great salvation for 
 the worst of sinners, and held up himself as an illus- 
 tration — like Paul, a pattern for other believers. 
 Pelted with clods and stones, beaten and bruised, 
 driven from place to place, his witness could not be 
 stopped. At last his persecutors brought him before 
 a cruel district magistrate at Hok-chiang, and false 
 witnesses preferred against him the vilest charges; 
 and the corrupt judge, glad to deal out revenge 
 against this foreign sect, actually sentenced him to 
 receive two thousand stripes ! and upon his bare back 
 the cruel bamboo was mercilessly laid, until the flesh 
 lay in strips. He v/as borne to the mission prem- 
 ises almost dead, and the doctor declared that such 
 injuries he had never before seen inflicted by the 
 bamboo. • 
 
238 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 When Dr. Baldwin sought to comfort this martyr 
 of Christ, before he could find words with which to 
 address him, the suffering saint, so lately the chief 
 of sinners, said with a smile: ''Teacher, this poor 
 body be in great pain, but my inside heart be in a 
 great peace." Then, to the astonishment of the 
 missionary, lifting himself a little on his bloody 
 cot, he said, ''If I get up again from this, you 
 will let me go back to Hok-chiang, won't you? " 
 
 For some time his recovery seemed doubtful, and 
 then improvement slowly began. While yet but half 
 healed, and scarce able to walk, he stole away, and 
 suddenly appeared at Hok-chiang to preach again to 
 his hateful persecutors ; and it was not strange that 
 words of witness, sealed by such experiences of 
 blood, brought his very foes to his Saviour. 
 
 Ling-Ching-Ting for fourteen years kept on preach- 
 ing. He was ordained in 1869. He won hundreds 
 of converts, and a score of native preachers learned 
 from him to tell the old story of full salvation. In 
 1876, failing health gave the signal of his approach- 
 ing end; but when too weak to stand, he still gath- 
 ered around him those to whom he could bear 
 witness to the Saviour, and passed away, singing, in 
 the joy of an unclouded hope. 
 
 Narayan Sheshadri — The Brahman Apostle. 
 
 From the converts of India we select this remark- 
 able man who became the first convert of the Free 
 Church of Scotland, under the ministry of Dr. John 
 Wilson, and Dr. Murray Mitchell, fifty years ago. 
 He spent some years as a missionary, teacher and 
 preacher, and was then ordained by the Presbytery 
 of Bombay, and for the rest of his life this highly 
 educated Brahman devoted himself to a ministry of 
 love among the outcast Mangs of the Deccan centre 
 of India. He left ordinary British territory that he 
 might undertake to annex the great native state of 
 
NE W CON VER TS A ND MA RTYR S. 239 
 
 Hyderabad to the kingdom of Christ. This was in 
 the year 1863, when he was about forty years of age. 
 His evangelistic work was unceasing and untiring. 
 He secured a tract of some three hundred acres near 
 Jalna, and formed a Christian Church and commun- 
 ity which he called by the name of Bethel. After 
 ten years of toil he visited Scotland and America 
 that he might interest the churches in his work and 
 raise money for necessary enlargement. Those who 
 saw him in his native Indian dress and white turban 
 will not soon forget the impression that he made in 
 the assemblies in which he moved. His face was 
 charming, and his personality magnetic. His com- 
 mand of the English tongue was such as left little 
 distinction between himself and the natives of Scot- 
 land. He had an extremely pithy and impressive 
 way of speaking, and his earnestness was both cap- 
 tivating and contagious. He was at the Presbyterian 
 Alliance in Philadelphia in 1880. He was made 
 doctor of divinity by the University of Montreal. 
 
 There were no pews in the Bethel Church in India. 
 The congregation sat on the floor in rows, devout 
 and attentive, while the babies crawded about every- 
 where. An hour or so after service the catechists 
 and Bible women met. Bands went forth under Dr. 
 Sheshadri's training to preach in the villages round 
 about Bethel; and in this way small communities 
 were formed. He carried on work amid the thirty- 
 three villages where Christian converts resided, and, 
 in 1890, reported 1,062 living members, beside 649 
 adherents. These native Christians keep all their 
 primitive simplicity, and are not Anglicised by their 
 Christianity. 
 
 Dr. Sheshadri was a teacher as well as a preacher, 
 singularly facile in his interpretation of Scripture, 
 and acute in meeting objections brought by Hindus 
 and Moslems against Christianity. He sought to train 
 over a thousand converts into intelligent disciples and 
 workers. He left Bombay for Japan on account of 
 
240 THE NEW ACTS OT THE APOSTLES. 
 
 impaired health, in February, 1891, and visited 
 America; but on his return, while en route for Glas- 
 gow, died, and was buried in mid- Atlantic. Here 
 was a Brahman lad who confessed Jesus Christ before 
 the Supreme Court of Bombay, and who was blessed 
 to lead some 2,000 of his countrymen to Christ. 
 What has been done in the case of one educated and 
 accomplished Brahman, who in his youth had been 
 identified with the gods and entitled to worship, may 
 yet be accomplished among thousands and millions 
 of his fellow-countrymen. His first confession of 
 Jesus Christ was in the presence of the Civil Court. 
 \\\ 1843 two brothers left the fire worship of Zoroaster 
 for the service of Christ, and their baptism led two 
 Brahman brothers also to confess Jesus as Saviour. 
 They were Narayan and Shripat. The Civil Court was 
 appealed to. The younger was not sixteen years old, 
 and Sir Erskine Perry handed him over to the Brah- 
 man priests, sneering at his plea that he had arrived 
 at the age of discretion. Torn from the arms of the 
 missionary, Nesbit, he sobbed forth the question, 
 " Am I to be compelled to worship idols ? " It was 
 thus a Christian judge drove this lad back into Brah- 
 manism, and he was compelled to swallow the 
 five products of the cow that he might be restored to 
 caste ; but his older brother, Narayan, being confess- 
 edly of age, could not be hindered, and started on his 
 new career as the Brahman apostle. 
 
 Joseph H. Neesima — The Japanese Educator. 
 
 Fifty years ago, there was born in the Sunrise 
 Kingdom a boy for whom God had decreed a 
 future which was to bear wrought into it, as into 
 the crusader's cloak, the red sign of the cross. He 
 was but five years old when he renounced idol wor- 
 ship, though he had not yet found a faith that fed his 
 soul-hunger. Then a stray copy of a sort of Chinese 
 Bible fell into his hands, and that opening sentence : 
 • ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
 
NE W CON VER TS AND MA RTYRS. 241 
 
 earth," struck his youthful mind as more sublimely 
 simple and satisfactory than any account of the 
 origin of all things that he had ever met. The 
 transcendental philosophers tell us that the owl comes 
 from the egg, and the egg from the owl, but fail to 
 answer the question, where did the first owl come 
 from that laid the first Qggl But here young Nees- 
 ima found a great First Cause. 
 
 Thus he first got a glimpse of the Christian God, 
 and began to feel after Him, if haply he might find 
 Him; and untaught by man, he prayed, '' O, if you 
 have eyes, look upon me; if you have ears, listen for 
 me ! " A glimpse of an atlas of the United States 
 had also awakened a desire to see more of that West- 
 ern World, and he thought, if he could get awa}^ from 
 Japan, he might both see America and learn more 
 of this new faith. And so, in disguise, he sailed for 
 Shanghai, and thence worked his way to Boston, on 
 the voyage studying English and reading a Chinese 
 New Testament which he bought in Hong Kong. 
 
 As in the first verse of Genesis he had found God 
 the Creator, so in John iii. i6 he found God the 
 Saviour. Arriving at Boston, he fell in with a copy 
 of Robinson Crusoe, and was taught by the prayer 
 of Crusoe in shipwreck how to draw near to God. 
 Nothing happens by chance; and it was a part of 
 God's strange ordering that the owner of the ship in 
 which he had come to Boston should be Alpheus 
 Hardy, one of the most benevolent and missionary- 
 spirited men then in America. Hearing of young 
 Neesima from the captain, he sought out the Jap- 
 anese stranger, and gave him a name, Joseph Hardy, 
 declaring that God had raised him up to be to his 
 own people a saviour, like Joseph in Egypt. Mr. 
 Hardy's help secured to Neesima a Christian col- 
 legiate training ; and the result was that he developed 
 so beautiful a character that when President Seelye 
 was asked for a testimonial to his worth, his sufficient 
 answer was, '' You cannot gild gold ! " 
 
242 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 While he was studying theology in 187 1-2, the Jap- 
 anese Embassy, at Washington, secured his services as 
 an interpreter, and the year he spent with them visit- 
 ing the American cities and European capitals was 
 radiant with his shining example of Christ-likeness. 
 These distinguished men secured him a pardon for 
 leaving his own land without leave, and when he 
 returned to Japan, they were at the head of govern- 
 ment, and gave him aid in his projects for the Chris- 
 tian education of his countrymen. 
 
 Joseph Neesima became the first native evangelist 
 of his race. He not only preached Christ boldly and 
 taught the truths of the gospel, but before he left 
 America, had secured the money with which to lay the 
 foundations of the Doshisha, the training college of 
 Kyoto, for Japanese pastors. 
 
 Urged by his friends of the embassy to take a 
 prominent and lucrative part in the government of 
 the New Japan, he could be drawn aside by no bait 
 of money, position or personal gain. He bore the 
 cross to the heart of the Island Empire, first preach- 
 ing Christ in the interior ; and persistently wrought 
 at his great educational enterprise for fifteen years, 
 facing all obstacles, and patiently and prayerfully 
 holding on to his '' one endeavour," as Doshisha 
 implies, until, before his death, he had seen more 
 than nine hundred pupils in his school. 
 
 His perseverance was Apostolic. When as yet the 
 Bible could not openly be taught, he taught Christian- 
 ity under the disguise of moral science. When to put 
 up buildings for a Christian school was pronounced 
 even by friends to be as hopeless and chimerical 
 as to '' attempt to fly to Mars," his faith w^as so cour- 
 ageous that in four months the buildings were open- 
 ing and the objector was taking part in the dedication ! 
 He used to say that he could have been nailed to a 
 literal cross with less suffering than his labours for 
 Christ had cost ; yet nothing but the hand of death 
 ever arrested his work or even dampened his ardour. 
 
NE IV COX VER TS A ND MAR T YRS. 243 
 
 To the last he was planning new enterprises for the 
 evangelization and education of his countrymen. 
 Death overtook him, as it overtook Goujon, the 
 sculptor, who, with chisel in hand, had his eye fixed on a 
 half-carved statue. He was dictating final messages 
 to his school and the missionary society: and, like a 
 great general, with maps of five provinces before him, 
 was marking the strategic points, and issuing orders 
 for a grand campaign. 
 
 His funeral marks an era in the history of Japan. 
 The foremost convert, the apostle of Japan, was 
 dead. Seven hundred students of the Doshisha, 
 seventy graduates from all parts of the empire, gov- 
 ernment officials, and even a delegation of Buddhist 
 priests from Osaka, thronged the procession that fol- 
 lowed to its resting-place the body of the man who, 
 not yet fifty years old, had made upon the empire a 
 mark such as no other had ever left for good. 
 
 Burial could not be permitted beside his father in 
 the Buddhist Temple grove; but the refusal was 
 itself the most splendid tribute to his worth ; for the 
 assigned reason was that Neesima was the very chief 
 and head centre of Christianity in Japan, and must 
 not, therefore, find a grave in the sacred cemetery of 
 Buddhism ! 
 
 Susi AND Chuma — ** Livingstone's Body-guard." 
 
 The work of David Livingstone in Africa was so 
 far that of a missionary explorer and general, that 
 the field of his labour is too broad to permit us to 
 trace individual harvests. No man can thickly scatter 
 seed over so wide an area. But there is one marvel- 
 lous story connected w^ith his death, and which has to 
 do with individual character, the like of which 
 has never been written on the scroll of human his- 
 tory. All the ages may safely be challenged to fur- 
 nish its parallel. 
 
 On the night of his death he called for Susi, his 
 faithful servant, and, after some tender ministries 
 
244 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 had been rendered to the dying man, Livingstone 
 said, '* All right; you may go out now." And reluc- 
 tantly Susi left him alone. At four o'clock next 
 morning, May i, Susi and Chuma, with four other 
 devoted attendants, anxiously entered that grass hut 
 at Ilala. The candle was still burning, but the 
 greater light had gone out. Their great master, as 
 they called him, was on his knees, his body stretched 
 forward, his head buried in' his hands upon the pil- 
 low. With silent awe they stood apart and watched 
 him, lest they should invade the privacy of prayer. 
 But he did not stir; there was not even the motion of 
 breathing, but a suspicious rigidity of inaction. Then 
 one of these black men, Matthew, softly came near and 
 gently laid his hands upon his cheeks. It was 
 enough: the chill of death was there. The great 
 father of Africa's dark children was dead, and they 
 were orphans. 
 
 The most refined and cultured Englishmen would 
 have been perplexed as to what course to take. 
 They were surrounded by superstitious and unsym- 
 pathetic savages, to whom the unburied remains of 
 the dead man would be an object of dread. His 
 native land was six thousand miles away, and even 
 the coast was distant fifteen hundred. A grave respon- 
 sibility rested upon these simple-minded sons of the 
 Dark Continent, — a burden, to which few of the wisest 
 and ablest would have been equal. Those remains, 
 with his valuable journals, instruments, and personal 
 effects, must be carried to Zanzibar. But the body must 
 first be preserved from decay, and they had no skill nor 
 facilities for embalming ; and, if preserved, there were 
 no means of transportation — no roads or carts; no 
 beasts of burden available — the body must be borne 
 on the shoulders of human beings; and, as no 
 strangers could be trusted, they must themselves 
 undertake the journey and the sacred charge. 
 These humble children of the forest were grandly 
 equal to the occasion, and they resolved among 
 
NE W CON VER TS AND MART YRS. 245 
 
 themselves to carry that body to the sea-shore, and 
 not give it into any other hands until they could sur- 
 render it to his countrymen. And, to insure safety 
 to the remains and security to the bearers, it must 
 be done with secrecy. They would gladly have kept 
 secret even their master's death, but the fact could 
 not be concealed. God, however, disposed Chitambo 
 and his subjects to permit these servants of the great 
 missionary to prepare his emaciated body for its last 
 journey, in a hut built for the purpose on the out- 
 skirts of the village. 
 
 Now watch these black men, as they rudely em- 
 balm the body of him who had been to them a 
 saviour. They tenderly open the chest and take out 
 the heart and viscera: these, with a poetic and 
 pathetic sense of fitness, they reserve for his beloved 
 Africa. The heart that for thirty-three years had beat 
 for her welfare must be buried in her own bosom. 
 And so one of the Nassik boys, Jacob Wainwright, read 
 the simple service of burial, and under the moula-tree 
 at Ilala that heart was deposited ; and the tree, carved 
 with a simple inscription, became his monument. 
 Then the body was prepared for its long journey; 
 the cavity was filled with salt, brandy poured into 
 the mouth, and the corpse laid out in the sun for 
 fourteen days to be dried, and so reduced to the con- 
 dition of a mummy. Then it was thrust into a hol- 
 low cylinder of bark, over this was sewn a covering 
 of canvas, the whole package securely lashed to a 
 pole, and so it was made ready to be borne betw^een 
 two men upon their shoulders. 
 
 As yet the enterprise was scarcely begun — and the 
 worst of their task was yet before them. The sea 
 was far aw^ay, and their path lay through a territory 
 where nearly every fifty miles would bring them to a 
 new tribe, to face new difficulties. Nevertheless, 
 Susi and Chuma took up their precious burden, and, 
 looking to Livingstone's God for help, began the most 
 remarkable funeral march on record. They followed 
 
246 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the track their master had marked with his footsteps 
 when he penetrated to Lake Bangweolo — passing to 
 the south of Lake Liembe, which is a continuation of 
 Tanganyika, then crossing to Unyanyembe. Wherever 
 it was found out that they were bearing a dead body, 
 shelter was hard to get or even food ; and at Kase- 
 kera, they could get nothing they asked, except on 
 condition that they would bury the remains they 
 were carrying. And now their love and generalship 
 were put to a new and severe test. But again they 
 were equal to the emergency. They made up an- 
 other package like the precious burden, only that it 
 contained branches instead of human bones — and this 
 with mock solemnity they bore on their shoulders to 
 a safe distance and scattered the contents far and 
 wide in the brushwood, and came back without the 
 bundle. Meanwhile others of their party had re- 
 packed the remains, doubling them up into the sem- 
 blance of a bale of cotton cloth, and so once more 
 they managed to get what they needed and get on 
 with their charge. 
 
 The true story of that nine months' march has 
 never yet been written, and it never will be, for the 
 full data cannot be supplied. But here is material 
 waiting for some coming English Homer or Milton 
 to crystallize into one of the world's noblest epics; 
 and it deserves the master-hand of a great poet artist 
 to do it justice. 
 
 See these black men, whom your scientific philos- 
 ophers would place at one remove from the gorilla, 
 run all manner of risks, by day and night, for forty 
 weeks; now going round by a circuitous route to 
 insure safe passage; now compelled to resort to 
 stratagem to get their precious burden through the 
 country ; sometimes forced to fight their foes in order 
 to carry out their holy mission. Follow them as 
 they ford the rivers and traverse trackless deserts, 
 daring perils from wild beasts and relentless wild 
 men; exposing themselves to the fatal fever, and 
 
NE IV CON VER '^'S A ND MA RTYRS. 247 
 
 burying several of their little band on the way; yet, 
 on they went, patient and persevering, never fainting 
 or halting, until love and gratitude had done all that 
 could be done, and they laid down at the feet of the 
 British Consul, on the 12th of March, 1874, all that 
 was left on earth of Scotland's great hero, save that 
 buried heart. 
 
 When, a little more than a month later, the coffin 
 of Livingstone was landed in England, April 15, it 
 was felt that no less a shrine than Britain's greatest 
 burial-place could fitly hold such precious dust. But 
 so improbable and incredible did it seem that a few 
 rude Africans could actually have done this splendid 
 deed, at such cost of time and risk, that, not until 
 the fractured bones of the arm, which the lion 
 crushed at Mabotsa thirty years before, identified 
 the body, was it certain that these were Livingstone's 
 remains. And then, on the i8th of April, 1874, such 
 a funeral cortege entered the great Abbey of Britain's 
 illustrious dead as few warriors or heroes or princes 
 ever drew to that mausoleum. And those faithful 
 body-servants, who had religiously brought home 
 every relic of the person or property of the great 
 missionary explorer, were accorded places of honor. 
 And well they might be. No triumphal procession 
 of earth's mightiest conqueror ever equalled for sub- 
 liniity that lonely journey through Africa's forests. 
 An example of tenderness, gratitude, devotion, 
 heroism, equal to this, the world has never seen. 
 The exquisite inventiveness of a love that on the 
 feet of Jesus lavished tears as water, and made tresses 
 of hair a towel, and broke the alabaster flask for His 
 anointing ; the feminine tenderness that lifted His man- 
 gled body from the cross and wrapped it in new linen, 
 with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb — even 
 this has at length been surpassed by the ingenious 
 devotion of the cursed sons of Canaan. The grandeur 
 and pathos of that burial scene amid the stately 
 columns and arches of England's famous Abbey loses 
 
248 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 in lustre when contrasted with that simpler scene 
 near Ilala, when, in God's greater cathedral of Nature, 
 whose columns and arches are the trees, whose sur- 
 pliced choir are the singing birds, whose organ is the 
 moaning wind, — the grassy carpet was lifted and dark 
 hands laid Livingstone's heart to rest! And in the 
 great cortege that moved up the nave of Westminster, 
 no truer nobleman was found than that black man, Susi, 
 who in illness had nursed the Blantyre hero, had laid 
 his heart in Africa's bosom, and whose hand was now 
 upon his pall. Let those who doubt and deride Chris- 
 tian missions to the degraded children of Ham, who 
 tell us that it is not worth while to sacrifice precious 
 lives for the sake of these doubly lost millions of the 
 Dark Continent, — let such tell us whether it is not 
 worth while, at any cost, to seek out and save men 
 of whom such Christian heroism is possible ! 
 
IIL 
 
 TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 
 
 The Pitcairn Islanders. 
 
 By His book alone, God has wrought wonders of 
 transformation. 
 
 We have been wont to think the presence of per- 
 sonal agency an essential condition of the work of 
 conversion ; and perhaps, in view of the emphasis laid 
 by God Himself upon the living voice and the believ- 
 er's witness, we are not likely to give any undue 
 importance to personal contact with souls. But we 
 must not forget that God's choice of human channels 
 for His grace does not leave Him absolutely depend- 
 ent upon them. In more instances than one. He has 
 set His peculiar seal and sanction upon His own in- 
 spired word as the means of softening hard hearts 
 and changing foes to friends. 
 
 The story of the Pitcairn exiles is an illustration of 
 the power of the Bible alone, as the seed of God, to 
 raise up in the most sterile soil and amid most hope- 
 less conditions a harvest for the kingdom. For He 
 has two sorts of seed — one is the word of God; the 
 other the children of the kingdom. (Mark iv. 14; 
 Matt. xiii. 38.) 
 
 In the mind and heart of the mutineer, John 
 Adams, God's way may possibly have been prepared 
 by early parental training of which we have no 
 record; but, so far as we know, no human hand 
 wielded the subtle moulding influence that turned 
 that abandoned sailor to God. In this case the soli- 
 tary cause which wrought such miraculous effects on 
 Pitcairn Island was the written word of God. And 
 other facts are fast coming to the surface and de- 
 manding thankful recognition, which prove that, 
 
 249 
 
250 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 quite apart from the voice and presence of the living 
 and witnessing believer, the Bible is doing its own 
 peculiar work. Where the feet of no other mission- 
 ary have yet left their tiacks, this living word, which 
 liveth and abideth forever, has sometimes proved the 
 pioneer missionary and evangelist. 
 
 Pitcairn Island lies solitary in Pacific waters, and 
 is about seven miles in circuit. Carteret discovered 
 it over a century and a quarter since, and named it 
 after one of his officers who caught the first glimpse 
 of it. There for more than sixty years the mutineers 
 of the Bounty and their descendants found a habita- 
 tion. In 1790, nine of these mutineers landed there, 
 with six men and twice as many women from Tahiti. 
 At that time the island was found uninhabited, 
 though relics of previous occupancy were afterwards 
 discovered. 
 
 Among these settlers of a century past, quarrels 
 violent and bloody broke out, and the flames of pas- 
 sion, fed by strong drink, burned so hotly that when 
 the dawn of the new century came, it looked down 
 on desolation: all the Tahitian men had perished, 
 and all but one of the Englishmen. John Adams 
 was, of the mutineers, the sole survivor. He had 
 rescued from the wreck a Bible and a prayer-book. 
 Destitute of all other reading, and left without 
 former companions, he turned to these two books for 
 occupation, comfort and counsel. As he read the 
 word of God, he began to be conscious that he was 
 looking in a magic mirror — he saw himself in his 
 hideousness, and remorse for past sins and crimes 
 began to sting his conscience as with a whip of scor- 
 pions. And from contrition he was led to conver- 
 sion — from fear to faith — and all this without any 
 man to guide him. He became not only a true be- 
 liever in Christ, but a witness to His grace and a 
 missionary. With the aid of these two books, he 
 undertook to teach those grossly ignorant women of 
 Tahiti, and the children that were left of this mixed 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 251 
 
 parentage. Mark the result! Upon this lonely 
 island grew up a Christian community so remarkable 
 that all travellers visiting those shores have borne 
 common witness to the gentleness of character and 
 virtuous simplicity of conduct which were there dis- 
 played. 
 
 This story of the Pitcairn Islanders thus stands 
 quite unique in the history of missions. Here was 
 a bastard community — a progeny whose parentage 
 was mutiny and lust, from the beginning doubly 
 accursed. Of all the common institutions of the 
 gospel, which we significantly call ' ' means of 
 grace," there w^as complete destitution — no clergy- 
 men or Christian laymen, no churches or Sunday- 
 schools, no restraints of law or religion. One stray 
 copy of the blessed book of God, and of that Book of 
 Common Prayer, which is so largely permeated with 
 that word of God, — and even these 'in the hands of 
 a reckless, godless mutineer, — first became means of 
 blessing and salvation to him, and then to that 
 degraded class by whom he was surrounded. 
 
 The Colonists of Sierra Leone. 
 
 When William A. B. Johnson went to this 
 Mountain of Lions, in 1816, he found the refuse of 
 slave ships there gathered. If the horrors of that 
 ''middle passage," in which four hundred wretches 
 w^ere crammed into a hold, twelve yards long, seven 
 w4de, and three and a half high, had crushed their 
 minds and moral natures into as narrow a compass 
 as their bodies, they could have not been more hope- 
 less subjects for labour. They were manumitted 
 slaves, but in all but name were still in most abject 
 bondage. These liberated captives represented 
 tribes so numerous that samples of one hundred and 
 fifty dialects might have been found at Queen's 
 Yard in Sierra Leone. Johnson found himself at 
 Hogbrook, with fifteen hundred half-starved, dis- 
 
252 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 eased, filthy Africans, dying at the rate of two hun- 
 dred a month, and already dead to all response even 
 to human kindness. He held a Sunday service with 
 but nine attendants, and these nearly nude. The 
 fact is that, like the victims of Spanish treachery in 
 Central America, they had so suffered at white men's 
 hands, that even the gospel was unwelcome at white 
 men's lips, and the idea of Heaven, if white men 
 were to be there, was almost as repulsive as hell 
 would be without them. 
 
 This simple-minded German fed them daily with 
 their allowance of rice, and patiently showed them 
 loving sympathy, and so won their confidence for 
 himself. Then they thronged his cottage to hear the 
 gospel until he had to resort to the open air as a 
 meeting-place. His school was likewise full to over- 
 flowing, and those pupils who had never seen a book 
 or known a letter, in less than a year were reading 
 the New Testament. With unceasing labour, and, 
 better still, unceasing prayer, fighting the deadly cli- 
 mate and the enfeebling fever, seeing his fellow- 
 helpers falling beside him till the graveyard at Kissy 
 was full of bodies, he persevered, telling the simple 
 gospel story. And when, in 1819, his wife's illness 
 drove him to England, he left at Regents Town a 
 model state, like Eliot's Nonantum and Duncan's 
 Metlakahtla. The natives had laid out a settlement, 
 properly organized, with decent homes, and all the 
 signs of a Christian community. They had built a 
 church, which held 1,300 and overflowed with habitual 
 attendants at three services each Lord's day. He 
 had 263 communicants, a daily service attended by 
 from 500 to 900, and hundreds of cases of as deep 
 conviction of sin and as genuine conversion to God 
 as any field ever produced. At the very time when 
 his courageous faith almost gave way before the 
 gigantic obstacles he had to surmount, and he had 
 sought the retirement of a forest to indulge in sor- 
 rowful thought, he heard one of these poor slaves 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 253 
 
 pra3nng for the liberty of a son of God, and he knew 
 that the hour of victory was at hand. Even the 
 secular authorities were constrained, in their report 
 to the British Government, to confess, like Pharaoh's 
 magicians, '^This is the finger of God." As they 
 contrasted the former state of the colony, *' grovel- 
 ling and malignant superstitions, their greegrees, 
 their red water, their witchcraft, their devil houses," 
 with the existing sincere Christian worship, they 
 wrote, ''The hand of Heaven is in this!" It is ''a 
 miracle of good which the immediate interposition of 
 the Almighty alone could have wrought." And they 
 added, "What greater blessing could man or nation 
 desire or enjoy than to have been made the instru- 
 ments of conferring such sublime benefits on the 
 most abject of the human race." 
 
 Johnson was so impressed with the simple child- 
 likeness of their faith and the obvious groaning of 
 the Spirit in their prayers, that his journals are full 
 of these records. Their devotion to him was 
 pathetic and romantic. Hundreds of them went on 
 foot with him to Freetown, five miles off, and when 
 the sea prevented their going with him further, they 
 said, in their broken English: " Massa, suppose no 
 water live here — we go all the way with you — till feet 
 no more." And when he came back, and his arrival 
 was announced in the church at night, some could 
 not wait to go out the door, but leaped out through 
 the window. Some went that night to Freetown to 
 meet him, while others could not sleep, but sang the 
 night away. 
 
 Again, in 1823, he was compelled to seek rest in 
 England. And now over a thousand scholars were 
 in his school, seven hundred of whom could read. 
 He had four hundred and fifty communicants, and 
 they had their own missionary society. And when 
 it pleased God that seven years of work should close 
 with his burial at sea, Sara Bickersteth, — the first of 
 her nation to taste the grace of God, his own child in 
 
254 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the faith, — watched by his berth, read to him the 
 twenty-third Psalm and prayed beside him, heard 
 his dying words and closed his dying eyes. And so, 
 dying, like Mills and Hunt, at thirty-five, this man in 
 seven years, and amid a community as hopelessly 
 ignorant and unimpressible as ever a missionary con- 
 fronted, actually laid the basis of a Christian state, 
 where, thirty years after his death. Bishop Vidal con- 
 firmed three thousand candidates, and where, in later 
 years, parishes with native pastors, a college and a 
 vigorous life of its own, pushed missions into the 
 interior and along the Niger. 
 
 Tyndall has called attention to the w^onders of 
 crystallization. ** Looking into this solution of com- 
 mon sulphate of soda, mentally, we see the molecules, 
 like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, 
 arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round 
 distinct centres and forming themselves into solid 
 masses which, after a time, assume the visible shape 
 of this crystal." But there is something far tran- 
 scending this in wonders, when, out of a community 
 such as Johnson found at Sierra Leone, or Hunt at 
 Fiji Islands, a well-ordered Christian state is organ- 
 ized. A secret, unseen, mysterious power, which 
 none can define or describe, is at work. Around the 
 name of Jesus the disorderly and confused elements 
 of a moral chaos arrange themselves in symmetry 
 and beauty, and society becomes crystalline and 
 reflects the glory of God. 
 
 The New Zealand Converts. 
 
 The New Zealanders were alike objects of fear 
 and hate, when the devoted Marsden pleaded their 
 cause with the Church Missionary Society and laid 
 the basis of one of the most successful missions of 
 the modern era. They were perpetually at war, and 
 with brutal murders revenged the treachery and vio- 
 lence of white men who touched at their shores. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 255 
 
 But while Samuel Marsden was yet at New South 
 Wales, he met many from these islands who visited 
 Paramatta, and he detected in them something which 
 promised a nobler life. When the mission was first 
 projected, no clergyman could be found ready for an 
 enterprise so heroic; and two skilled mechanics 
 undertook to win a way for the gospel by the arts of 
 civilization. At the end of thirty years' toil, Mars- 
 den declared that civilization is not necessary before 
 Christianity, but will be found to follow Christianity 
 more easily than Christianity to follow civilization ; 
 and, he added, that with all its cannibalism and idol- 
 atry, New Zealand would yet set an example of 
 Christianity to some nations then before her in point 
 of civilization. 
 
 Certain outrages by a sea captain at Whangaroa 
 Harbour had provoked horrible retaliation on the part 
 of the natives, and this led to subsequent acts of 
 vengeance on the part of a whaling vessel. The ex- 
 citement ensuing postponed missionary effort; but 
 at length, the two mechanics ventured to New 
 Zealand and were well received. Marsden now 
 yearned to follow in person, but could not find a 
 ship captain to take him at a less cost than six hun- 
 dred pounds for the risk; so he bought a brig and 
 set sail, landing on those shores unarmed, and with 
 but one companion. 
 
 As he lay awake that first night, excited by the 
 awful environment of paganism and cannibalism, he 
 saw above him those brilliant constellations, the 
 Southern Cross and the Southern Crown, which 
 served to remind him of One who bore the cross for 
 all men and who would yet wear the crown of uni- 
 versal empire. And on the Christmas-day which 
 soon followed he preached the first sermon in New 
 Zealand, using a native interpreter. His text was, 
 " Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy;" and 
 around him were gathered a motley group of men 
 and women and children and chiefs. For vears no 
 
256 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 converts crowned the work, though the natives 
 seemed to desire the Pakehas, or Englishmen, to set- 
 tle among them; and ventured to assure Marsden 
 that they would not be killed and eaten, as they were 
 such salt eaters that their flesh was less savoury than 
 that of the Maoris — a statement which did not dimin- 
 ish the quantity of salt eaten by the English. At 
 length the spirit of religious inquiry was awakened, 
 and truth found such root and room to grow that 
 even chiefs began to be baptized. And when Mars- 
 den made his sixth visit, the east and west shores of 
 the bay where he landed presented one of those 
 strange and eloquent contrasts often seen where the 
 gospel has won a partial victory. On one side, naked 
 savages, their hands red with blood, yelling like de- 
 mons, and the moans of the wounded and dying: 
 on the other side, a peaceful community, decently 
 clad, assembled for worship, and using devoutly the 
 Church service printed in their own tongue. Here 
 at one glance were the anticipations of heaven and 
 hell — the misery and wretchedness of paganism con- 
 fronting Christianity with its trees of righteousness 
 and plants of godliness. When, at seventy-two, the 
 patriarchal missionary paid his last visit, his coming 
 was the signal for ecstatic delight. In his arm-chair 
 before the mission house, he received the thousands 
 who from great distances thronged to do him honour; 
 and on re-embarking they bore him on their shoul- 
 ders six miles to the shore. Since then, when, on the 
 unconscious verge of another sea on whose unknown 
 waters he was so soon to set sail, the apostle of New 
 Zealand lifted his hands in a farewell benediction — 
 since then, fifteen thousand native Christians bear 
 witness that the introduction of Christianity into the 
 cannibal islands on Christmas-day, 1814, was not in 
 vain. Three years after Marsden's death Bishop 
 vSelwyn reported a whole nation of pagans converted 
 to the faith. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 257 
 
 The Ferocious Cannibals of Fiji. 
 
 We have before referred to the atrocious cannibals 
 of Fiji, the slaves of a religion of organized cruelty, 
 that fattens on blood, crushes conscience, and kills 
 sensibility as a red-hot iron burns out the very eye-ball. 
 For a hardened Fijian to be brought to tenderness of 
 heart and sensitiveness of conscience is as much a 
 miracle as to replace a maimed limb or restore a 
 withered arm. Hunt saw two conversions wrought 
 at Viwa. One from paganism as an idolatrous system, 
 to the Christian faith ; that was wonderful, like open- 
 ing a blind eye or straightening a crooked form. 
 But the other was more marvellous : it was a conver- 
 sion from the love and guilt and power of sin to God 
 and love of godliness. It was comparatively easy to 
 secure a profession of Christianity ; but tJiis was like 
 a resurrection from the dead. 
 
 When this Wesleyan farmer saw in these pagan 
 monsters penitence for sin as sin, deep conviction of 
 guilt and agonies of godly sorrow ; when for days and 
 nights together they were racked with wildest grief 
 until from sheer exhaustion they fainted, and recov- 
 ered only to swoon again after another agony of 
 prayer, he said, this is the work of God. 
 
 John Hunt goes on his circuits of a hundred miles 
 a month, telling Christ's story, forming schools to 
 train converts for teachers, '^ turning care into 
 prayer," working hard on his Fiji New Testament. 
 Who can tell what that lonely servant of God had to 
 overcome in facing hostile, cruel chiefs without 
 force or threat, mastering a difficult tongue without 
 grammar or lexicon, teaching such savages when 
 their pagan tongue supplied no fit terms to convey 
 divine thoughts I 
 
 God had much people even there, and when His fit 
 and full time came He knew how to lead them out. 
 The priests predicted an awful drought as the judg- 
 ment of the gods on the sin of those who confessed 
 
258 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Jesus ; but the failure of the prophecy shook popular 
 faith in the pagan idols. The Queen of Viwa, and 
 the ^^ Napoleon " of Fiji, Verani, became Christians, — 
 and Verani a preacher and winner of thousands of 
 souls. 
 
 This lesson of God's power has been taught us, re- 
 peatedly, in the new chapters of the Acts. The story 
 of JoJin Hunt in the Fiji Group is the all-convincing 
 example and illustration. When he went there in 
 1838, the moral aspect of those hundred islands was 
 as hideous as their material aspect was lovely. If 
 nature had lavished her bounties and beauties so that 
 every prospect was pleasing, how vile and repulsive 
 was man. Treachery and ferocity, raging passion 
 and devilish cruelty, were branded on the very faces 
 of the Fijians. One who had shuddered at the sight 
 has sought to paint the awful portrait: ''The fore- 
 head filled with wrinkles ; the large nostrils distended 
 and fairly smoking; the staring eyeballs red, and 
 gleaming with terrible flashings ; the mouth distended 
 into murderous and disdainful grin; the whole body 
 quivering with excitement; every muscle strained, 
 and the clenched fist eager to bathe itself in the blood 
 of him who has roused this demon of fury." 
 
 If one could dip his pen in the molten brimstone 
 of hell's fiery lake, he could still write no just 
 account of the condition of the Fijians fifty years ago. 
 Two awful forms of crime stood like gates of hell to 
 let in demons and shut out gospel heralds. Of all 
 children born at least two-thirds were killed at birth, 
 and to make sure of their death there was a system 
 of organized destruction, and every village had its 
 authorized executioner, to repeat the tragedy of 
 Bethlehem's babes. Of course, infanticide and par- 
 ricide go together; and so if the parents did not 
 spare their offspring, neither did the offspring spare 
 the parents, but despatched them when old or feeble. 
 
 Cannibalism, — the most atrocious form of pagan 
 ferocity, that breaks the whole decalogue at once, the 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 259 
 
 climax of theft, sensuality and murder, — was not only 
 a custom, but a sacred religious rite, and the chil- 
 dren that were allowed to live, were trained to dishon- 
 our and devour the human form divine. Mothers 
 gave their babes a taste of the horrible feast, as a 
 beast her cubs, to excite a relish for the horrid meal ; 
 and not only dead bodies, but living captives, were 
 given over to young children as playthings on which 
 to practise for sport the art of mutilation and dissec- 
 tion. It became a pride to Fijian chiefs to boast of the 
 number of human bodies they had eaten; and Ra 
 Undreundu's pile of stones, in which each stone 
 stood for one such victim, contained nine hundred ! 
 The Fijian word for corpse^ 'S'akalu," suggests also 
 the idea of a meal, as the Greek word for rejoicing 
 suggests a banquet i^xapa). All the life of these people, 
 civil and religious, was inwrought with the destroy- 
 ing and devouring of helpless victims. A building 
 of a hut, a launching of a canoe, a burying of the 
 dead, and events of far less moment, w^ere the signals 
 for a banquet on human flesh. And if the plump 
 form of a favourite wife, or the tender flesh of a lit- 
 tle child promised an unusual delicacy, without com- 
 punction or hesitation the husband and father called 
 his friends to a feast on the dainty morsel ! 
 
 It was among such a people that the ploughboy of 
 Lincolnshire landed in 1838. He soon found that 
 the half of the inhuman cruelty and devilish 
 butchery of this people had never been told him; 
 and yet he went to Somosomo, whose people were 
 the w^orst of all. When the youngest son of the 
 King Tuithakau was lost at sea, sixteen women were 
 strangled and then burned in front of the mission- 
 house, notwithstanding Mr. Hunt's entreaties that 
 they should be spared ; and when, some months after, 
 eleven men were dragged by ropes to be roasted in 
 the ovens, these demons, who were preparing the 
 feast, threatened to burn down the missionary's 
 house, because his wife closed and blinded the 
 
260 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 windows to shut out the sickening sight and smell 
 of burning bodies ! 
 
 Not one Christian among a hundred would have 
 counselled Hunt to attempt work among such incar- 
 nate monsters, when the king himself forbade his 
 subjects under pain of death to ^'lotu" or profess 
 the new faith, and when even the readiness to con- 
 fess Christ seemed to be due to mere greed of gain 
 in cutlery and firearms. Captain Wilkes of the 
 American navy, in 1840, witnessed the trials of their 
 seemingly hopeless work, and besought them at 
 least to let him carry them to a more hopeful field ; 
 but John Hunt had heard a divine voice — ''Fear 
 not, for I have much people in these islands " — and 
 he stayed. Three years at Somosomo sufficed so to 
 change the horrid life about him that at least a 
 bloodless war was waged, a large canoe launched 
 and a great feast held for weeks without one human 
 sacrifice ; and this last with no direct interference of 
 the missionary. 
 
 The last six years of John Hunt's short career of 
 ten, were spent at Viwa, near Mbau, the head centre 
 of Fiji power. King Thakombau, " the butcher of 
 his people," was a fierce foe, and his wars and 
 hostility to the missionary seemed to make all suc- 
 cess hopeless — yet here again the patience of God's 
 saints was rewarded. Even among this city of 
 demons, God had much people. 
 
 The Land of the Brahman. 
 
 Even India, the Malakoff of heathenism, is not 
 deficient in signs of divine power in furnishing her 
 quota of converts and martyrs. The greater part of 
 a century has passed since the directors of the Brit- 
 ish East India Company put on record their convic- 
 tion that '' the sending of Christian missionaries into 
 our Eastern possessions is the maddest, most expen- 
 sive, most unwarranted project that was ever pro- 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 261 
 
 posed by a lunatic enthusiast." No arraignment of 
 the entire principle and policy of modern missions to 
 the Hindus could have been more sarcastically 
 severe. Observe the terms, which indirectly accuse 
 those who favoured and furthered such a project, as 
 not only lacking good sense, adequate justification, 
 or business economy, but as enthusiasts, madmen and 
 lunatics! But, what is worse — at that time, now 
 more than eighty-five years ago, — this outrageous 
 assault upon obedience to our Lord's command was 
 not repudiated by the great body even of English 
 Christians, and found positive support even among 
 members of parliament and ecclesiastical dignitaries. 
 A few disciples, full of faith and prayer, dared, not- 
 withstanding all this violent opposition, to send mes- 
 sengers and give money for this insane purpose. 
 
 And now it is not too much to say that popular 
 sentiment has undergone such a complete revolution 
 that even the secular newspaper has become the 
 advocate and vindicator of missions to India. The 
 testimony of such men as Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Will- 
 iam Muir, Sir Monier Monier Williams, Sir Herbert 
 Edwardes, Max Miiller, Sir Richard Temple, Sir 
 Donald McLeod, Sir William Hill, Lord John Law- 
 rence, the Earl of Northbrook, Hon. W. E. Baxter, 
 and a host of others, who have had ample time and 
 large facility for forming an intelligent judgment, 
 have left on record words so weighty that, in compari- 
 son, all sneers or charges against missions in India 
 become light and frivolous, if not 'contemptible and 
 dishonest. Such men as these, who could be misled 
 neither by ignorance nor motives of policy, have 
 borne singularly unanimous witness to the number 
 and worth of native converts ; and to something even 
 more important — the fact, that Christianity is form- 
 ing a new nation in the land of the Brahman ; that 
 while every other faith is decaying, this divine gos- 
 pel is alone beginning to run its course; that the 
 changes taking place under the benign influence of 
 
2G2 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Christianity are, for extent and rapidity of effect, far 
 more extraordinary than anything witnessed in 
 modern Europe by us or our fathers. Shortly since, 
 Sir Rivers Thompson, Lieutenant-Governor of Ben- 
 gal, testified that "Christian missionaries have done 
 more real and lasting good than all other agencies 
 combined." And to all this testimony there still 
 remains to be added, before an intelligent verdict 
 can be made up, the testimony of the native Hindus 
 themselves — not Ganga Dhar, Abdul Messeh, Tulsi 
 Paul, Narayan Sheshadri, Keshub Chunder Sen and 
 others like them who have been converts or open 
 advocates of Christianity, but the native rajahs and 
 princes; from the Rajah of Tanjore, who built a monu- 
 ment to Schwartz, down to the first Prince of Travan- 
 core, who in 1874, publicly said: 
 
 '^ Marvellous has been the effect of Christianity in 
 the moral moulding and leavening of Europe. I am 
 7iot a Christian; I do not accept the cardinal tenets 
 of Christianity as they concern man in the next 
 world; but I accept Christian ethics in their en- 
 tirety. I have the highest admiration for them." 
 
 Four years before this, a learned Brahman had 
 candidly said: ** Where did the English-speaking 
 people get all their intelligence, and energy, and 
 cleverness and power ? It is their Bible that gives it 
 to them. And now they bring it to us and say: 
 ' This is what raised us. Take it and raise your- 
 selves!' They do not force it upon us, as the 
 Mohammedans did their Koran, but they bring it in 
 love, and translate it into our languages and lay it 
 before us, and say, '■ Look at it, read it, examine it, 
 and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I am con- 
 vinced, — do what we will, oppose as we may, it is the 
 Christian's Bible that will^ sooner or later ^ zvork the 
 regeneration of this land.'* 
 
 India has presented perhaps the most formidable 
 barriers ever encountered in any of our mission 
 fields. The subtlety and acumen of the Brahmanic 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUXITIES. 263 
 
 priesthood, and their power over the superstitious 
 and ignorant common folk, the rigid restraints of 
 caste — itself a wall of ice, mountain high against the 
 approach of the gospel, and a system of frigid immo- 
 bility which, like a vast polar zone of frost, locks in 
 eternal winter the whole society it girdles — the long 
 sway of that religious faith which is one of the purest 
 and best of Oriental religions, notwithstanding its 
 practical corruptions — these are some of the hin- 
 drances Christian missions have had to meet. And 
 yet notwithstanding all, the gospel is slowly razing 
 these high walls, undermining these strongholds, and, 
 like the resistless summer sun, melting these ice 
 castles. 
 
 The seraphic Henry Martyn, eighty years ago was 
 so horror-struck at the gross idolatries and nameless 
 atrocities connected with the pagodas and pageants 
 of Juggernath, and the blazing fires of the suttee, 
 that his exquisite sensibilities shrank back in revolt 
 at the sight, and he said, ' ' I shivered as if standing, 
 as it were, in the neighbourhood of hell. The fiends 
 of darkness seem to sit in sullen repose in this land ! " 
 Now ruined pagodas have become Christian temples, 
 and where demons were once worshipped, prayer 
 ascends to Him who cast out demons with His word. 
 
 Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, who spent nearly a 
 half century in India, twenty years ago, ''tersely 
 catalogued the bloodless triumphs that had been 
 won " on that field, where Carey led the way a century 
 ago. That catalogue we venture to reproduce entire 
 from the masterly work of his eminent biographer.* 
 
 Horrors and Iniquities of India Removed by Govern- 
 ment. 
 I. Murder of Parents. 
 
 {a) By Suttee. 
 
 {b) By exposure on the banks of rivers. 
 
 Ic) By burial alive. Case in Joudhpore territory, i860. 
 
 * " Life of John Wilson," by George Smith, LL.D., p. 352. 
 
264 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 II. Murder of Children. 
 
 {d) By dedication to the Ganges, there to be devoured by crocodiles. 
 \b) By Rajpoot infanticide, West of India, Punjab, East of India. 
 
 III. Human Sacrifices. 
 {a) Temple sacrifices. 
 
 (<^) By wild tribes — Meriahs of the Khonds. 
 
 IV. Suicide. 
 
 {a) Crushing by idol cars. 
 
 {b) Devotees drowning themselves in rivers. 
 
 (<r) Devotees casting themselves from precipices. 
 
 {d) Leaping into wells — widows. 
 
 {e) By Traga. 
 
 V. Voluntary Torment. 
 {a) By hook-swinging. 
 {p) By thigh-piercing. 
 {c) By tongue-extraction. 
 {ii) By falling on knives. 
 ((?) By austerities. 
 
 VI. Involuntary Torment. 
 {a) Barbarous executions. 
 \b) Mutilation of criminals. 
 
 \c) Extraction of evidence by torment. 
 {d) Bloody and injurious ordeals. 
 {e) Cutting off the noses of women. 
 
 VII. Slavery. 
 
 {a) Hereditary predial slavery. 
 
 \b) Domestic slavery. 
 
 (<f) Importation of slaves from Africa. 
 
 VIII. Extortions. 
 {a) By Dharana. 
 {b) By Traga. 
 
 IX. Religious Intolerance. 
 
 {d) Prevention of Propagation of Christianity. 
 
 \b) Calling upon Christian soldiers to fire salutes at heathen festivals, 
 etc. 
 
 (c) Saluting gods on official papers. 
 {d) Managing affairs of idol temples. 
 
 X. Support of Caste by Law. 
 
 (d) Exclusion of low castes from offices. 
 
 {b\ Exemption of high castes from appearing to give evidence. 
 \c) Disparagement of low caste. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 265 
 
 There are reasons to believe that thousands even 
 in India believe, btit, like the Pharisees of old, do not 
 confess Christ lest they be put out of the synagogue. 
 Observers who have had rare opportunities to note 
 the facts tell us that secret believers are rapidly mul- 
 tiplying; and that for every avowed convert there 
 are hundreds who, for fear of kin and caste, of ostra- 
 cism and actual starvation, dare not make such 
 avowal, but are ready when the break shall come. 
 So said ''The Indian Witness" in 1889. 
 
 The Slaves of Jamaica. 
 
 Who can read the story of Jamaica, and doubt the 
 power of the gospel over even the most degraded negro 
 slaves. When the island was formally ceded to Great 
 Britain by the treaty of Madrid in 1670, the place of 
 the native Indians was taken by Africans, imported 
 by Spaniards, and during the eighteenth century over 
 half a million were brought over to suffer as the heirs 
 of Canaan's curse. The history of these slaves, their 
 poverty, misery, degradation, wretchedness, is among 
 the blackest annals of the race; and when the facts 
 became known in Great Britain, the popular heart of 
 English freemen demanded their liberation. On 
 August I, 1834, the emancipation began to take effect 
 in the freedom of the children of the slave families ; 
 but the midnight of July 31, 1838, was to usher in 
 the complete liberation of the whole slave com- 
 munity ; and on that night, led on by William Knibb 
 and James Philippo, fourteen thousand adult slaves 
 and five thousand children joined in prayer to God as 
 they waited and watched for the hour of twelve, 
 midnight, which was to terminate the life of slavery 
 in Jamaica; and as Rev. J. J. Fuller says, who 
 was himself a child of slavery and there present, 
 every coloured man on the Island was on his knees 
 that night. 
 
 A mahogany coffin had been made, polished and 
 
266 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 fitted by the carpenters and cabinet-makers of 
 this slave population, and, as became the great 
 occasion, a grave was dug. Into that coffin they 
 crowded all the various relics and remnants of their 
 previous bondage and sorrow. The whips, the 
 torture-irons, the branding-irons, the coarse frocks, 
 and shirts, and great hat, fragments of the tread- 
 mill, the handcuffs — whatever was the sign and 
 badge of seventy-eight years of thraldom — they 
 placed in the coffin and screwed down the lid. As the 
 bell began to toll for midnight, the voice of Knibb was 
 heard, "The monster is dying — is dying" — until, when 
 the last stroke sounded from the belfry, Mr. Knibb 
 cried — " The monster is dead! Let us bury him out 
 of sight forever!" and the coffin was lowered into 
 its grave; and then the whole of that throng of thou- 
 sands celebrated their redemption from thraldom by 
 singing the doxology ! This was the way these black 
 slaves took vengeance on their former masters — not 
 by deeds of violence, lust, rapine, murder; but by 
 burying the remnants of their long bondage and 
 the remembrance of their great wrongs, in the grave 
 of oblivion. Where did those debased Africans learn 
 such magnanimous love, except of Him whose greatest 
 miracle was His dying prayer, ''Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do ! " 
 
 This is not the end of this story. To-day there is 
 not on the island among all the different bodies one 
 church dependent on outside help : they all support 
 themselves, and a large portion of them have for 
 pastors the sons of former slaves. They have also 
 their own independent missionary society, as well as 
 schools, higii schools, grammar schools, etc. 
 
 On the island to-day there are more than two 
 hundred and seventy Baptist churches alone, seventy 
 of which are ministered to by young men trained in 
 the colleges of Jamaica, children of former slaves; 
 and the Presbyterians, Wesleyans and Episcopalians 
 have their congregations beside. Here, within a lit- 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 267 
 
 tie more than a half century, the gospel has not only 
 broken slave bonds, but has developed former slaves 
 into a Christian community of freemen of the Lord, 
 with Christian institutions. Folly and vice, idolatry 
 and witchcraft, ignorance and superstition, were the 
 thick growths that covered the soil half a century 
 since, where now are the trees of righteousness, self- 
 sustaining and self-propagating churches of coloured 
 people, ministered to in many cases by sons of those 
 who were formerly enthralled in slavery. These 
 preachers, developed from a former slave popula- 
 tion, side by side with their white brethren main- 
 tain the gospel with equal success. To see the 
 difference which the gospel can make, one needs 
 only to contrast Jamaica with Hayti. 
 
 Old Calabar. 
 
 When Rev. J. J. Fuller, to whom already refer- 
 ence has been made, left his native island of Jamaica 
 to follow his father in a mission on the west coast of 
 Africa, he landed in the Gulf of Guinea and the 
 Bight of Biafra. This was in 1845. He found 
 neither Bible nor book, not even written language ; 
 none of the people had ever heard the name which 
 brings salvation. There was a community of naked, 
 degraded, depraved, ignorant savages, and human 
 sacrifices were the natural apex to a pyramid of 
 cruelties, which were not only common, but sanc- 
 tioned and supported by superstitions which claimed 
 the rank of religion. These horrid and revolting 
 customs were simply built into the whole structure 
 of society, like pillars into the temple they uphold. 
 Cruelty was a part of the education of the people, 
 and a very efficient school it was in vice and crime ! 
 
 The people had faith in a future life, but even that 
 faith only stimulated cruelty ; for it led to the culti- 
 vation of customs supposed to be a protection alike 
 to the dead and the living. If anybody died, somebody 
 
268 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 else was responsible ; accusation followed, and trial for 
 witchcraft by tests which were equally fatal for the in- 
 nocent and the guilty. Poison was the ordeal that fol- 
 lowed accusation. The living infant was buried with 
 the dead mother; and if the mother had borne twins, 
 she was beaten to death and the babes w^ere put out 
 of the way ; and so a curse was supposed to be lifted 
 from the land. A king's death meant a wholesale 
 burial alive of men and women who were put into the 
 royal grave. Mr. Fuller, during forty-five years of 
 personal ministry, witnessed the great transformation. 
 A people without God or hope shortly began to feel 
 after God, and a new faith began to dawn over their 
 horizon. Their language was put in written form. 
 Alfred Saker and the Presbyterian missionaries trans- 
 lated the whole Bible for them ; and now they have 
 churches, schools and a native ministry. The people 
 are learning to read and write, and coming up to the 
 higher plane of enlightenment. Belief in witchcraft 
 is dead; the ordeal of the Calabar bean, the massa- 
 cre of slaves, and other like absurd and cruel cus- 
 toms of centuries, have disappeared. 
 
 Take one contrast: In 1845, one of the kings of 
 old Calabar died. Into his grave, according to long- 
 established custom, many living people were put to 
 die beside the dead. To-day a grandson of that buried 
 chief is an elder in a Presbyterian church ; and every 
 morning, with the open Bible in his hand, he leads 
 his household in family worship. 
 
 Mr. Fuller tells of his going into the Cameroons, 
 and how in the morning, looking across the river he 
 saw many canoes with people dressed up in all their 
 war dresses, and their spears and swords were bran- 
 dished in the sun. They had their war caps upon 
 their heads. He took his glass and looked, and found 
 that the decoration on the bows of all those canoes 
 was nothing else but human heads. He went up to 
 the chief and said to him, ''What do you do such 
 cruel deeds for? " He looked very much astonished 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 269 
 
 that any one should ask him such a question, and 
 said, ''What deeds?" Pointing across the river, Mr. 
 Fuller said, ' ' Look, yonder. What about that row 
 of human heads on 3^our canoe? Why do you do 
 such cruel things ? They are not right." ' The chief 
 replied: "You people come into this country and 
 live here and you claim to be a good people, and that 
 is true enough ; but do you tell me that when I die 
 my sons are going to put me into an empty grave 
 alone and nobody with me?" When Mr. Fuller re- 
 plied "Yes," he looked at him and said, " You are a 
 fool." Then all his sons came up directly and said, 
 "What is the matter, father?" And he repeated 
 what he had said to Mr. Fuller: "This man who 
 has come to live in this country says that when I die 
 you boys will put me into an empty grave, alone, 
 with no one with me," and they looked at Mr. Fuller 
 and grinned their savage grin, and then turned away 
 and said, " Father, do not believe him. He is a fool, 
 and he is a foreigner. W^hat does he know? Let 
 him alone." And yet mark it! That same chief 
 lived on until the old custom of burying living people 
 with the dead was completely abolished. In his 
 town, about fifty yards from his own house, stood a 
 little chapel, and the preacher in that chapel was 
 none other than one of his sons, who was preaching 
 the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ! 
 
 If God, in such a short time, can produce such a 
 marvellous change, surely prayers for missions, and 
 for the extension of Christ's kingdom in the world, 
 have abundant proof that they are being answered of 
 God. Think of the present condition of the people, 
 and then of w^hat was their former state, when this 
 missionary first met them in their degradation as 
 naked savages. A letter was recently received from 
 the Church in Cameroons, reporting that they had 
 built a chapel for themselves that will seat one thou- 
 sand people, and that the membership of that one 
 church had grown to seven hundred ; also that they 
 
270 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 had collected for themselves among their own people 
 one thousand pounds, and had established fifteen 
 different stations in different parts of the country 
 within a year or two, in order to spread the gospel 
 among their own tribe. Africa, with all her degra- 
 dation and ignorance, desires to have the gospel, and 
 if it is given to this degraded people they, of them- 
 selves, in their own country, will spread that gospel. 
 The time will come, and Mr. Fuller believes that it 
 is not far off, when the Dark Continent will emerge 
 from her degradation and darkness. Fifty years ago, 
 up the Congo River, no one had ever heard the gos- 
 pel, and it was looked upon as a hard soil to work ; 
 but to-day the Scripture is being translated into their 
 own tongue, their young men are being taught to 
 read the Bible, Christian churches are being formed, 
 and some of the cruelties that the missionaries met, 
 when they landed first in the Congo, are gradually 
 being removed; so that the time has already come 
 when a great change is visible among the people. 
 
 Mr. Fuller further narrates how he stood at his 
 door and saw one of the chiefs coming toward him. 
 He was a great man, a man of position in his coun- 
 try, but the only covering that he had on, was the 
 fibres of the plantain tree combed out and on his 
 head a great cap with parrots' feathers. He had a 
 great bullock horn hung across his breast, and he 
 walked as stately as a monarch. Several of the princes 
 were following him, all of them dressed in the 
 same way. Mr. Fuller called to this man as he 
 passed the door, using his name, *'Mikani," but he 
 only looked round, and would not answer. He was 
 called again, but would not answer; and yet a third 
 time, when one of his followers turned and said to 
 Mr. Fuller, "• What do you want? " "I only want to 
 speak to him and ask him a question," was the reply. 
 The man said: ''He will not answer you. He has 
 just been taking the sacred oath, and has sworn that 
 for nine days he will not speak to anybody except by 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 271 
 
 signs. At the end of the nine days he will go back 
 to the place where he came from, and after that he 
 will converse as of old." It seemed of no use to 
 trouble him any more, but after the nine days were 
 over Mr. Fuller went to his house. He was sitting 
 at the door, and this bullock's horn that he had worn 
 across his breast was hanging across the threshold of 
 his door. His visitor looked at it, and then looked 
 at him, and said: ''Do you mean to tell me that a 
 big man like you, in such a position as you are, be- 
 lieves in such a foolish charm as that?" The man 
 was rather insulted. ''What do you mean? " he said. 
 " Why! look at that! Do you mean to say that such 
 a thing has any power in it ? Let me take my pen- 
 knife and open it, and I will show you what is in it." 
 There was nothing there but some red clay, parrots' 
 feathers, dogs' teeth, pieces of the skins of animals, 
 some of his own hair, and a little bit of his own toe- 
 nail. "Do you mean to tell me that you believe in 
 that stuff?" He answered: " Believe it? Yes. If 
 I have that horn hanging at my door no witch will 
 dare to come into my house. If she came, before 
 she crossed the threshold of my door she would be 
 dead." Mr. Fuller again remonstrated: "You do 
 not believe such rubbish, do you?" "I do. And 
 the reason why you missionaries all die, is that you 
 come into this country, and the witches know that 
 you have nothing to keep off the power of their 
 witchcraft, and so they kill you; but they will not 
 come near me because they know that I have got a 
 charm that will stop them." 
 
 Mr. Fuller made it his business to visit that man 
 day after day, and try to convince him ; but it seemed 
 of no use. He could do nothing. Six months after 
 that time, he was sitting in his little study and heard 
 the drum that tells of death. He knew what it meant. 
 When a chief dies, the sound of that drum tells the 
 tale, and the missionary has to be immediately on 
 the move to prevent cruelty. He took his hat 
 
272 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 directly, and started up, and got to the chief's hut. 
 ''Mikani, who is dead?" He hung his head down 
 for a minute, and then he said: ''One of those 
 princes that were with me on that day." ''Why," 
 said Mr. Fuller, "you told me that the man that had 
 got that charm would not die. Did not that prince 
 wear one of these horns?" "Yes." "Did he not 
 have a cap?" "Yes." "Was he not protected 
 by that same charm? Then, how is it that he 
 is dead? " The poor savage hung his head down 
 for a moment. Then lifting it up he looked full 
 into the missionary's face for a few moments and 
 was silent. Finally, he stretched out his hand and 
 took hold of the horn as it hung across the door, and 
 removed it from its place and flung it across the 
 road, and said: "I will try your way." Where is he 
 to-day? Go to the Cameroons, and you will see a 
 native minister there preaching the gospel; but on 
 the right hand of that native preacher sits a gray- 
 headed man, and the very look of that man's face 
 tells us of his inward peace and happiness. He is 
 the same man. He has tried and found that there is 
 none other name given among men whereby we must 
 be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. He is the 
 head deacon of the Church, and the membership is 
 now about seven hundred. There is a congregation 
 of perhaps a thousand gathering together there now. 
 Yet when Mr. Fuller landed in 1845, less than fifty 
 years since, these people were rank savages, brutal 
 in every act, — naked, depraved, cruel, vicious sav- 
 ages; and to-day, clothed and in their right mind, 
 they meet as a Christian congregation, with their dark 
 faces and their bright eyes, worshipping the same 
 Saviour that we love ; — and if this is true in such a 
 community, we know that the gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ will win its way wherever it goes. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 273 
 
 The Pentecost on the Congo. 
 
 Few tales of missionary experience surpass for 
 thrilling interest that of the work of the past fifteen 
 years at Banza Manteke. In 1879, Rev. Henry 
 Richards went from England as missionary of the 
 Livingstone Inland Mission, and, at Banza Manteke, 
 one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the 
 Congo, and ten miles south of its stream, established 
 a mission station, afterward transferred to the 
 American Baptist Missionary Union. 
 
 Mr. Richards came to the United States in 1890, 
 and told of the Lord's work on the Congo, — a story 
 so full of interest that we present in these pages a 
 condensed account, as worthy both of preservation 
 and wider circulation. 
 
 When Stanley travelled from Zanzibar across the 
 Dark Continent, for a thousand days, though he met 
 many thousands of people each day, he did not find 
 one who knew the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1879, two 
 missionaries were sent out to penetrate this trackless, 
 desolate region. At length they reached Banza 
 Manteke, and, unable to go farther, decided there 
 to establish a station ; for many villages were near by, 
 and the people were friendly. 
 
 They had only one tent, and built a hut of the long 
 grass that grew about them. There, in September, 
 1879, Mr. Richards found himself alone, among peo- 
 ple entirely unknown to him, as were also their 
 customs and their language. He began at once to 
 study them and then their strange tongue. Some 
 things, however, he learned only too soon. He 
 found that they all seemed to be thieves, and would 
 take everything on which they could lay hands. 
 They were equally adepts at lying; for when he 
 would look into their faces and charge them with 
 their theft, they would deny it with brazen-faced 
 stolidity. 
 
 He gives an interesting description of his experi- 
 
274 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ence in learning their language. They had no dic- 
 tionaries, grammars, nor literature of any kind, and 
 no white man had ever learned their tongue. In a 
 note-book he wrote down phonetically everything he 
 heard, with the supposed meaning belonging to the 
 word. In this way he soon had a number of words, 
 phrases, and sentences, which at once he began to 
 use. His hearers often laughed at his mispronunci- 
 ations and his awkward blunders in putting words 
 together; but he quietly persisted in his effort. 
 Some words he found it very hard to get at. For 
 instance, he noticed the strong affection between 
 mothers and their children, and he sought the word 
 for mother. He thought he had succeeded, but after- 
 ward he learned that the supposed word for mother 
 really meant a full-grown man. He was three 
 months in finding out the equivalent for yester- 
 day. 
 
 He tried to get hold of the grammar of the lan- 
 guage. He began with the nouns, and sought for 
 the way of forming plurals, suspecting it was by 
 some modification at the end of the words, but he 
 could detect no such change. After much experi- 
 menting he found that there were sixteen classes of 
 nouns, with as many modes of forming the plural ; 
 and in like manner he discovered seventeen different 
 classes of verbs, with many tenses besides the ordi- 
 nary present, past and future, each having its speci- 
 fic form, the shades of meaning in these variations 
 often being very delicate and beautiful. 
 
 The language was found to be no mere jargon, 
 but really very beautiful, euphonious and flowing, 
 with numerous inflections. When once acquired, it 
 was easy to preach in it and to translate the Scrip- 
 tures into it. He says, ''If some of our best lin- 
 guists were to try to form a perfect language, they 
 could not do better than to follow the Congo. It 
 seems to be altogether superior to the people; and 
 there must have been a time when they were in a 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 275 
 
 higher state of civilization, from which in some way 
 they have degenerated." 
 
 After learning in this patient way to use the lan- 
 guage a little, he began to study into the customs, 
 superstitions and religion of the people. He found 
 that they believed in a great Creator, who made all 
 things, but they did not worship this ''Nzambi," 
 because they did not think Him a good God, or 
 worthy of praise and worship. He did not concern 
 Himself about them ; He was too far away. They 
 had little images cut out of wood — some like them- 
 selves, only with birds' heads, beaks, and claws; 
 others like animals — these are their gods. They 
 trust them to protect from sickness, death, disaster, 
 but expect no direct blessings from them. They 
 believe also in witchcraft, to which they attribute all 
 evils and misfortunes, and which they counteract by 
 charms. They send for witch-doctors, if any one is 
 sick, w^ho with many incantations drive out the 
 demon, or point out some person as the witch, who 
 has to undergo the test by poison, so common in 
 Africa. 
 
 Mr. Richards sought to show them that sickness, 
 death and other calamity are due not to witchcraft, 
 but to sin. He gave them the Bible account of the 
 creation and the fall, etc., and tried to show that 
 God is not only a great, all-powerful Creator, but a 
 kind and loving Father. For four years he pursued 
 this course, thinking it necessary to give them some 
 idea of the Old Testament before beginning with the 
 New. But they were just as rank heathen at the end 
 of this time as when he first went among them. 
 There was no evidence of any change. They did 
 not even feel themselves to be sinners. 
 
 Then Mr. Richards went home for a season of rest, 
 and, while there, spoke to some who had had much 
 experience in mission work, seeking a clew to his 
 maze of difficulty. He was advised to go back and 
 preach the lazv — for that convinces of sin. So on 
 
276 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 reaching Banza Manteke again, the first thing he did 
 was to translate the Ten Coniviandinents and expound 
 them to the people. They said the commandments 
 were very good, but claimed that they had kept them ; 
 and the plainest and most personal applications of the 
 decalogue made no apparent impression. So two 
 years more passed, and the people were no better. 
 He began to be hopeless of doing them any good. 
 He had gained their respect, and they were kind to 
 him, but that was all. 
 
 At last, in his discouragement, he began to study 
 the Scriptures anew for himself, feeling that there 
 must be some mistake in his preaching or lack in his 
 living. In the Apostolic days souls were converted; 
 why not now? Surely the gospel had not lost its 
 power. If, in the days of the Acts of the Apostles, 
 heathen turned from idols to serve the living God, 
 why should not these heathen in Banza Manteke? 
 He studied the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, 
 and began to see that the commission is not, " Go ye 
 into all the world and preach the Law," but '' preach 
 the Gospel." This was the turning-point in the work 
 of this lonely and disheartened missionary! He 
 determined simply to preach the gospel. Again he 
 noticed that disciples were bidden to wait until they 
 were endued zvitk power from on high. He felt that 
 he had not this power. He returned to his work, 
 determined not only to preach the gospel, but cry 
 to God for the promised enduement. 
 
 It was needful to decide just what '* preaching the 
 gospel " means. If he preached Jesus crucified, the 
 people would want to know who Jesus was. He 
 decided to take Luke's Gospel as most complete and 
 suitable for gentiles. He began translating ten or 
 twelve verses a day, and then read and expounded 
 them, asking God to bless His own word. At once 
 his dark hearers proved more interested than when 
 he had preached the law, and he was more and more 
 encouraged. When he came to the sixth chapter of 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 277 
 
 Luke, thirtieth verse, a new difficulty arose — ''Give 
 to every man that asketh of thee." But these peo- 
 ple were notorious beggars ; they would ask for any- 
 thing that pleased their eye — his blanket, his knife, 
 his plate — and v/hen he would say he could not give 
 these things to them, they would reply, '' You can get 
 more." Henry Richards was greatly perplexed as to 
 wJiat to do zvitJi that verse. He let his helper in 
 translation go, and went to his room to pray over the 
 matter. The time for the daily service was drawing 
 near. What should he do? Why not pass over that 
 verse f But conscience replied that this would not be 
 honest dealing with God's word. The preaching 
 hour came ; instead of advancing, he went back to 
 the beginning of the gospel, reviewing the earlier 
 part, to gain time for fuller consideration of that 
 perplexing text. Still, on further study, he could 
 not find that it meant anything but Just what it said. 
 The commentators said, Jesus was giving general 
 principles, and w^e must use common sense in inter- 
 preting His words. But this did not satisfy him. If 
 he interpreted one text in this way, why not all 
 others? "Common sense" seemed a very unsafe 
 commentator. 
 
 A fortnight of prayer and consideration drove him to 
 the wall : the Lord meant just what He said. And so 
 he read to the people that verse, ' ' Give to every man 
 that asketh of thee," and told them that this was a 
 very high standard, and would probably take a lifetime 
 to live up to it; but he meant to live zuhat he preached. 
 After the address the natives began to ask him for 
 this and that, and he gave them whatever they asked 
 for, wondering whereunto this thing would grow; 
 but he told the Lord he could see no other meaning 
 in His words. Somehow the people were evidently 
 deeply impressed by his course. One day he over- 
 heard one say: "I got this from the white man." 
 Then another said that he was going to ask him for 
 such a thing. But a third said, "No; buy it if you 
 
278 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 want it;" and another said, " This must be God's man, 
 we never saw any other man do so. Don't you think 
 if he is God's man we ought to stop robbing him? " 
 Grace was working in their hearts. After that they 
 rarely asked him for anything, and even brought 
 back what they had taken ! 
 
 This humble man went on translating and expound- 
 ing Luke's Gospel, and the interest continually grew. 
 The climax w^as reached as he came to the account 
 of the crucifixion of Christ. A large congregation 
 confronted him that day. He reminded the people 
 of the kindness and goodness of Jesus, and of His 
 works of mercy; and, pointing to Him as nailed upon 
 the cross between thieves, he said: ''Jesus never 
 would have died if we had not been sinners ; it was 
 because of your sins and mine that he died." The 
 impression was very deep. The Holy Ghost seemed 
 to have fallen upon the people ! 
 
 He continued preaching the gospel and seeking 
 Holy Ghost power. One day as they were return- 
 ing from a service, Lutale, who helped him in 
 translating, began to sing one of the Congo hymns. 
 His face shone with joy, and he said: '' I do believe 
 these words; I do believe Jesus has taken away my 
 sins; I do believe He has saved me." Seven years 
 of toil, weary waiting and suffering had passed, and 
 now the first convert was found at Banza Manteke ! 
 At once, Lutale began testifying what the Lord had 
 done for him. But the people became his enemies 
 and tried to poison him ; so that he had to leave his 
 town and live with Mr. Richards for safety. For a 
 time there were no more converts, but the people 
 were stirred. By and by the king's son became a 
 Christian. Shortly after, another man came with 
 his idols, and placing them on a table, said, with sav- 
 age determination, '' I want to become a Christian," 
 and he soon began to preach. The work went on 
 until ten were converted, but all had to leave their 
 own homes, as they were threatened with death. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 279 
 
 The missionary now shut up his house, and taking 
 these men with him, went from town to town preach- 
 ing the gospel. The whole community was greatly 
 moved; one after another came over to Christ's side. 
 Two daily meetings were held, and inquirers were 
 numerous. The work continued and was blessed, 
 WLitiX all the people immediately aroiuid Banza Man- 
 teke had abandoned their heathenism! More than 
 one thousand names were enrolled in a book of those 
 who gave evidence of real conversion. 
 
 After years had passed, Mr. Richards found the 
 converts holding on their way. About three hun- 
 dred had been baptized, and the native Church was 
 earnest and spiritual. There had been much perse- 
 cution, but it had failed to intimidate these new con- 
 verts. Materials for a chapel, provided through the 
 liberality of Dr. A. J. Gordon's church in Boston, 
 were brought to a point fifty or sixty miles distant, 
 and carried by the people all the way to Banza Man- 
 teke, over rough roads. Some of the carriers went 
 four or five times, each trip requiring a week. In all 
 there were about seven hundred loads, of sixty pounds 
 each, and the whole of these loads were borne with- 
 out charge. 
 
 Those who had been thieves and liars before, now 
 became honest, truthful, industrious and cleanly. 
 Witchcraft, poison-giving, and all such heathen 
 practices have been put away. They brought their 
 idols, and at the first baptism had a bonfire of images, 
 destroying every vestige of idolatry ! Latis Deo! 
 
 The Pentecost at Hilo. 
 
 We have reserved for the last of these sketches of 
 transformed communities, one which deserves a 
 separate setting, as a peculiarly lustrous gem.* 
 
 Titus Coan, nearly sixty years ago, in 1835, began 
 his memorable mission on the shore belt of Hawaii. 
 
 * Eschol. By S. J. Humphrey, D.D. 
 
280 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 He soon began to use the native tongue, and within 
 the year made his first tour of the island. He was 
 a relative of Nettleton and had been a co-labourer 
 with Finney , and had learned what arrows are best 
 for a preacher's quiver, and how to use his bow. 
 His whole being was full of spiritual energy and 
 unction, and, on his first tour, multitudes flocked to 
 hear, and many seemed pricked in their hearts. 
 The multitudes thronged him and followed him, and 
 like his Master, he had no leisure, so much as to eat; 
 and once he preached three times before he had a 
 chance to breakfast. He was wont to make four or 
 five tours a year, and saw tokens of interest, that im- 
 pressed him with so strange a sense of the presence 
 of God, that he said little about them and scarcely 
 understood, himself. He could only say, "It was 
 wonderful!" He went about, like Jeremiah, with the 
 fire of the Lord in his bones ; weary with forbearing, 
 he could not stay. 
 
 In 1837, the slumbering fires broke out. Nearly 
 the whole population became an audience, and those 
 who could not come to the services were brought on 
 their beds or on the backs of others. Mr. Coan found 
 himself ministering to fifteen thousand people, scat- 
 tered along the hundred miles of coast. He longed 
 to be able to fly, that he might get over the ground, 
 or to be able to multiply himself twentyfold, to 
 reach the multitudes who fainted for spiritual food. 
 
 Necessity devises new methods. He bade those 
 to whom he could not go, come to him, and, for a 
 mile around, the people settled down — Hilo's little 
 population of a thousand swelled tenfold, and here 
 was held, on a huge scale, a two years' unique 
 ''camp meeting." There was not an hour, day or 
 night, when an audience of from two thousand to six 
 thousand would not rally at the signal of the bell. 
 
 There was no disorder, and the camp became a 
 sort of industrial school, where gardening, mat- 
 braiding, and bonnet making were taught as well as 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 281 
 
 purely religious truth. These great '' protracted 
 meetings" crowded the old church with six thousand 
 hearers, and a newer building with half as many 
 more ; and when the people got seated, they were so 
 close that until the meeting broke up no one could 
 move. The preacher does not hesitate to deal in 
 stern truths. The law with its awful perfection; 
 hell, with its fires, of which the crater of Kilauea 
 and the volcanoes about them might well furnish a 
 vivid picture — the deep and damning guilt of sin, 
 the hopelessness and helplessness of spiritual death 
 — prepare the way for earnest gospel invitation and 
 appeal. The vast audience sways as cedars before a 
 tornado. There is trembling, weeping, sobbing and 
 loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the 
 preacher to be heard ; and in hundreds of cases his 
 hearers fall in a swoon. 
 
 Titus Coan was made for the work God had for 
 him, and he controlled these great masses. He 
 preached with great simplicity, illustrating and 
 applying the grand old truths, made no effort to ex- 
 cite but rather to allay excitement, and asked for no 
 external manifestation of interest. He depended on 
 the word, borne home by the Spirit. And the Spirit 
 wrought. Some would cry out, ''The two-edged 
 sword is cutting me to pieces." The wicked scoffer 
 who came to make sport dropped like a log, and 
 said, "God has struck me." Once while' preaching 
 in the open field to two thousand people, a man cried 
 out, "What shall I do to be saved?" and prayed the 
 publican's prayer; and the entire congregation took 
 up the cry for mercy. For a half hour Mr. Coan 
 could get no chance to speak, but had to stand still 
 and see God work. 
 
 There were greater signs of the vSpirit than mere 
 words of agony or confession. Godly repentance 
 was at work — quarrels were reconciled, drunkards 
 abandoned drink, thieves restored stolen property, 
 adulteries gave place to purity, and murders were 
 
282 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 confessed. The high priest of Pele and custodian of 
 her crater shrine, who by his glance could doom a 
 native to strangulation, on whose shadow no Ha- 
 waiian dared tread, who ruthlessly struck men dead 
 for their food or garments' sake and robbed and out- 
 raged human beings for a pastime — this gigantic 
 criminal came into the meetings with his sister, the 
 priestess — and even such as they found an irresistible 
 power there — and with bitter tears and penitent con- 
 fession, the crimes of this monster were unearthed. 
 He acknowledged that what he had worshipped was 
 no God at all, and publicly renounced his idolatry 
 and bowed before Jesus. These tw^o had spent about 
 seventy years in sin, but till death maintained their 
 Christian confession. 
 
 In 1838, the converts continued to multiply. 
 Though but two missionaries, a lay preacher, and 
 their wives, constituted the force, and the field was a 
 hundred miles long, the word and work was with 
 power, because God was in it all. Mr. Coan's trips 
 were first of all for preaching; and he spoke on the 
 average from three to four times a day; but these 
 public appeals were interlaced with visits of a pastoral 
 nature at the homes of the people, and with the search- 
 ing inquiry into their state. This marvellous man 
 kept track of his immense parish, and knew a church 
 membership of five thousand as thoroughly as when 
 it numbered one hundred. He never lost individual 
 knowledge and contact in all this huge increase — 
 what a model to modern pastors, who magnify 
 preaching but have '* no time to visit! " It was part 
 of his plan that not one living person in all Puna or 
 Hilo should not have the gospel brought repeatedly 
 to the conscience, and he did not spare any endeav- 
 our or exposure to reach the people. 
 
 He set his people to work, and above forty of them 
 visited from house to house within five miles of the 
 central station. The results were simply incredible 
 were they not attested abundantly. 
 
TRANSFORMED COMMUXITIES. 283 
 
 After great care in examining and testing candi- 
 dates, during the twelve months, ending in June, 
 1839, 5,244 persons had been received into the 
 Church. On one Sabbath, 1,705 were baptized, and 
 2,400 sat down together at the Lord's Table. It 
 was a gathering of villages, and the head of each 
 village came forward with his selected converts. 
 With the exception of one such scene at Ongole, 
 just forty years later, probably no such a sight has 
 been witnessed since the day of Pentecost. What 
 a scene was that when nearly two thousand five 
 hundred sat down together to eat the Lord's Sup- 
 per ! And what a gathering ! ' ' the old, the de- 
 crepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the with- 
 ered, the paralytic, and those afflicted with divers 
 diseases and torments; those with eyes, noses, lips 
 and limbs consumed with the fire of their own or 
 their parents' former lusts, with features distorted 
 and figures the most depraved and loathsome, — 
 and these came hobbling upon their staves, and led 
 or borne by their friends; and among the throng the 
 hoary priest of idolatry, with hands but recently 
 washed from the blood of human victims, together 
 with the thief, the adulterer, the Sodomite, the sor- 
 cerer, the roblDcr, the murderer; and the mother — no, 
 the monster — whose hands had reeked with the blood 
 of her own children ! These all met before the cross 
 of Christ with their enmity slain, and themselves 
 'Svashed and sanctified and justified in the name of 
 the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 
 
 During the five years, ending June, 1841, 7,557 
 persons were received to the Church at Hilo, — 
 three-fourths of the whole adult population of the 
 parish. When Titus Coan left Hilo in 1870, he had 
 himself received and baptized 11,960 persons. 
 
 These people held fast the faith, only one in sixty 
 becoming amenable to discipline. Not even a grog- 
 shop was to be found in that parish, and the Sabbath 
 was better kept than in New England. In 1867, the 
 
284 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 old mother church divided into seven, and there have 
 been built fifteen houses for worship, mainly with 
 the money and labour of the people themselves; 
 who have also planted and sustained their own 
 missions, having given in the aggregate one hundred 
 thousand dollars for holy uses, and having sent twelve 
 of their number to the regions beyond. 
 
 Christian history presents no record of divine 
 power more thrilling than this of the Great Revival 
 at the Hawaiian Islands from 1836 to 1842. When 
 in 1870 the American Board withdrew from this field, 
 there were nearly sixty self-supporting churches, 
 more than two-thirds having a native pastorate, with 
 a membership of about fifteen thousand. That year 
 their contributions reached $30,000. Thirty per 
 cent, of their ministers became missionaries on other 
 islands. That same year, Kanwealoha, the old 
 native missionary, in presence of a vast throng, 
 where the royal family and dignitaries of the islands 
 w^ere assembled, held up the Word of God in the 
 Hawaiian tongue, and in these few words gave the 
 most comprehensive tribute to the fruits of gospel 
 labour : 
 
 ''Not with powder and ball, and swords and can- 
 non, but with this living Word of God, and His 
 Spirit, do we go forth to conquer the Islands for 
 Christ!" 
 
IV. 
 THE NEW WITNESSES AND WORKERS. 
 
 The New Acts of the Apostles tells, as we have 
 intimated, not only of converts, but of those who as 
 unmistakably belong to the ''noble army of martyrs " 
 as did Stephen or James. Converts from tribes 
 the most debased have given proof alike of genuine- 
 ness and heroism by the voluntary endurance of 
 suffering, torture and death for Christ's sake. 
 
 When the capricious and treacherous King of 
 Uganda panted like a wild beast for the blood of 
 Christian victims, he seized young lads whose only 
 crime or offence was their ardent attachment to 
 Jesus, and the consistency that, in them, rebuked 
 his fickleness and inconstancy; and they were led 
 away to die. The crowd followed them with jeering 
 and mockery, led on by the ''high priest" of the 
 king's cruelty. But ridicule and sneer expended 
 their darts in vain upon the shield of faith borne by 
 these young disciples. 
 
 They were, like their crucified Lord, taunted with 
 their faith in God and their trust in His promises, 
 and were burned to ashes to test their new doctrine 
 of the resurrection. But the answer to all this was 
 that of the prisoners in the Philippian jail — prayer 
 and praise to God. The place of their death was the 
 edge of the dismal swamp — Maganja; the bed of 
 their torture a wicker framework built over a slow 
 fire ; and the prelude to this awful agony was mutila- 
 tion — the knife, then the flame. Butchery without 
 mercy — then roasting with fiendish cruelty ! Not a 
 murmur of complaint — songs of praise to Jesus, 
 mingled with moans of agony and sobs of anguish ; 
 and then the long silence that tells of the end ! Yet 
 when another young convert stood by and saw all 
 
 285 
 
286 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 this and was threatened with a hke fate, he only 
 dared these human fiends to do their worst, declar- 
 ing that he was not ashamed of Jesus. 
 
 Japanese converts have had to risk martyrdom. 
 When in 1876, forty pupils of Captain Janes' school 
 in Higo, in Kiushu, pledged themselves to Christ, it 
 was the signal for open war. The leaders were with- 
 drawn from the school, held as prisoners, some of 
 them for over three months, and subjected to all sorts 
 of intimidation and indignity ; parents vowed to com- 
 mit harakii'i, unless their sons abandoned the Chris- 
 tian faith; but they stood firm. Their Bibles were 
 burned, their physical strength in some cases failed, 
 and death was threatened; but all in vain. One 
 of them was made the slave of the servants in 
 his own home, and they were bidden to treat him as 
 a devil-possessed man without human rights. He 
 became an outcast in his own father's house, but 
 stood like a rock. 
 
 It must be remembered that, notwithstanding all 
 the missionary literature of our day, the history of 
 the work of the past century is but fragmentary, 
 like the Acts of the Apostles. Especially is this to 
 be borne in mind, that most of the facts concerning 
 the development of native disciples on foreign soil 
 have been gathered from incidental references in the 
 biographies of missionaries. The major part of the 
 history of native converts and churches is yet un- 
 written. For example, there is as yet no published 
 account of Dr. G. L. Mackay's work in Formosa. 
 Who shall tell us the full story of converts and 
 martyrs who belong to the New Acts of the Apostles? 
 We must wait till God's Book of Remembrance is read ! 
 
 Martyrs — yes, and missionaries^ too, have come 
 from the ranks of these converts. Not only have 
 noble disciples, but valiant witnesses and apostoHc 
 preachers and evangelists, come from the Maoris of 
 New Zealand, the Hottentots of the Southern Cape, 
 the cannibals of the South Seas, the brutal Mala- 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES AND WORKERS. 287 
 
 g-asy, the Australian aborigines — Nazareths of pa- 
 ganism whence even Christian disciples once thought 
 no good thing — certainly no prophet — could come. 
 
 The ministry is the flower of church life, and, 
 therefore, its highest product — its consummate fruit 
 and hope; for in that flow^er is not only the bloom of 
 the beauty of the divine plant, but its fruit and seed 
 — the secret of propagation. In the Acts, we trace 
 the results of missions in the creation of new heralds 
 who spread missions. And, in the new Acts, con- 
 verts have scared)^ been gathered into churches upon 
 heathen soil, before, by a spontaneous movement of 
 the new life, these converts themselves have been 
 found going to the other unsaved souls about them 
 with the good news — and outrunning the mother 
 churches of Christendom in zeal and activity. The 
 first mission to Micronesia was organized and 
 manned by Hawaiian converts. It was the South 
 Sea disciples that John Williams sent forth as 
 pioneers to new islands and island groups ; and they 
 won triumphs and bore away trophies where no 
 white man had ever set foot. Bishop Patteson's ten 
 years' work in Melanesia was full of pathetic 
 heroism; and his native boys proved how sincere 
 was their love to Christ and how ardent their zeal 
 for His kingdom, when they offered to go and 
 undertake work on other islands. The SoiitJiern 
 Ci'oss, in the year of Patteson's death, bore twenty- 
 nine of them from the missionary college at Norfolk 
 Island to spread gospel light at their homes; and 
 when the year ended, three hundred were at work, 
 and they represented most of the islands from the 
 New Hebrides to the Solomon group. 
 
 The total force at work now on the foreign field 
 is close to fifty thousand ; and while not more than 
 one-fifth of the number come from Christian lands — 
 including wives of missionaries and other women 
 who are teaching — the other four-fifths are native 
 evangelists, preachers and pastors, teachers and 
 
288 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 helpers ! So that the missions, recently begun among 
 heathens and pagans, have already given to the mis- 
 sion field four times as many workers as the 
 churches at home have sent forth ! When converted 
 Raiateans organize missionary associations, estab- 
 lish missions in surrounding islands and support 
 them with offerings of cocoanut oil; when the 
 Samoans surprise the missionary by declaring that 
 they are '' Sons of the Word," and in eighteen years 
 every island, within a circle whose diameter is four 
 thousand miles, has heard the gospel, and all this 
 mostly at the mouth of native converts, — the Church 
 may well stop to ask whether mission-harvests have 
 not yielded more of the seed of propagation than 
 the crops that grow at home ! 
 
 When, from Erromanga's shore, the relics of Will- 
 iams's devoured body was borne to Upolu, his 
 Samoan converts resolved to rear the cross on the spot 
 where he fell; and at risk of like fate, again and 
 again, they made the attempt. When Bishop 
 Selwyn knelt on that tragic shore to ask God to open 
 a door of access to those debased natives, it was a 
 converted pagan teacher who knelt beside him. 
 And when at length, forty years ago, the chief, whose 
 club killed Williams, surrendered that club as a 
 trophy of missionary triumph, it was two natives 
 from the Hervey group who had effected entrance. 
 
 Thus the triumphs of the cross are already to be 
 found among all tribes and races, classes and condi- 
 tions of men. As Dr. Flint has well said, '* Com- 
 parative theology is a magnificent demonstration not 
 only that man was made for religion, but for what 
 religion man was made." What missions can do is 
 sufficiently demonstrated and illustrated by what has 
 already been done. The individual is the type of the 
 universal, and one community, of all others like itself. 
 God has chosen enough of the highest from among 
 the heathen to prove that none are so elevated as not 
 to need the gospel; and sufficient from the lowest, 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES AND WORKERS, 289 
 
 to show that none are so degraded as to be beyond 
 the gospel's reach. Whatever doubt may have ex- 
 isted as to the expediency and efficiency of Christian 
 missions, that greatest logician, Experience, has now 
 demonstrated such doubt to be unreasonable and un- 
 founded. 
 
 The most hopeless fields have often been the most 
 fruitful in the end, and the harvests that have been 
 longest in ripening have often been the largest in 
 yielding. History is already so fulfilling prophecy 
 as to render the most glorious predictions no longer 
 seem incredible. God has thus emphasized His own 
 command by the encouragements of rewarded toil. 
 Facts are His new trumpets that sound His new sig- 
 nals. The world lies before us, open to access; a 
 thousand millions of human beings wait for the mes- 
 sage. To go and give the gospel is to impart infinite 
 blessing, and yet increase our own riches of grace in 
 imparting. Every motive — whether drawn from the 
 voice of authority that spoke on Galilean hills, or 
 from the wail of human woe and want that comes up 
 like the moan and sob of many waters telling of 
 wrecks and drowning souls — every conceivable incen- 
 tive, whether found in devotion to our Lord or pas- 
 sion for men; in the humane sympathy that would 
 relieve man's present misery, or the holier self-sacri- 
 fice that would uplift and redeem immortal souls — 
 every motive and incentive unite to urge us to 
 bear to the earth's utmost end the tidings of the 
 cross. Let us tell men what Christ has done for the 
 world and its sins and sorrows — let us assure them 
 that the Son of David even now rides triumphant and 
 comes near to His temple — that they may meet him 
 with their waving palms, and holy hosannas, and 
 cry, '■'■ Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
 Lord!" — and so the final Palm Sunday of the ages 
 shall be ushered in when out of millions of mouths 
 of babes and sucklings, new-born into the kingdom, 
 His praise shall be perfected! 
 
Part V. 
 NEW SIGNS AND WONDERS 
 
THE NEW MIRACLES. 
 
 The law of correlation, in nature, finds every ca- 
 pacity filled and every craving fed, so that the bird's 
 wing and fish's fin become prophecies of the atmos- 
 phere and the water, as the eye and ear imply sights 
 and sounds. 
 
 The same law holds true in the spiritual world. 
 The capacity and craving for the marvellous and 
 wonderful is akin to adoration, which is a higher, 
 holier form of admiration. God's work of creation 
 constantly appeals to the sense of the marvellous; 
 and, ever since the creation of the world, His invisi- 
 ble attributes. His power and Godhead, have been 
 clearly seen. Man's own body has been fearfully 
 and wonderfully made and constrains him to adore 
 his Creator. And so it is in the kingdom of provi- 
 dence and grace. It needs but an open eye to see 
 the working of a supernatural Power : the abundant 
 proofs of the divine handiwork leave all observers 
 " without excuse." 
 
 It may seem without warrant and even irreverent 
 to apply to the wonders wrought in our age the term 
 ''miracles of missions." But a miracle is no more or 
 less than a wonder and a sign combined : — a wonder, 
 for if not out of the common course it would attract 
 no attention; a sign, for if not contrary to, or supe- 
 rior to, the working of natural causes, it would not 
 show to man a higher Hand at work. With such 
 limitations upon the term, we need not hesitate to 
 affirm that modern missionary history furnishes an 
 array of miracles which form the greatest treatise 
 on apologetics ever given to the human race. 
 
 To those who deny or doubt a divine mind and 
 method back of the stage of events, with its changes 
 
 293 
 
294 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of scene and actors — to all who are sceptical as to a 
 presence and power above man which goes with the 
 gospel, the one sufficient answer is, missions to the 
 heathen ! 
 
 Proofs and examples of this have not been wanting 
 in previous pages, as seen in the opening of doors, 
 the calling of apostles, the raising up of converts who 
 have proved both evangelists and martyrs. Through 
 the whole study of the theme thus far the golden 
 thread of a divine plan and performance has been 
 traced. He who holds the Key of David, who open- 
 eth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man 
 openeth, has been seen unlocking the iron gates and 
 bursting bolts and bars. The new Pentecosts reveal 
 the Hand that alone can open the windows of heaven 
 and pour out the blessing which comes only from 
 above. A divine Voice alone could have called out 
 labourers from an apathetic and unwilling Church, 
 and sent them forth at the times and to the points 
 most needful, and only He whose existence and pur- 
 pose span the ages could have kept up this unbroken 
 succession of workmen. God has been visiting his 
 people by Voices and Visions, and training them for 
 new service; and the harvests already reaped argue 
 a divine husbandry. All our paths thus far have 
 been through the territory where Jehovah has 
 worked wonders. A Pillar of cloud and fire has gone 
 before the missionary host — and has led them through 
 deep waters on dry ground, past the Burning Bush, 
 the quaking mount, the riven rock, the routed foe — 
 and all the way a table has been set in the wilder- 
 ness and man has eaten angels' food. 
 
 But a large class of divine interpositions and won- 
 der workings, not so far considered, demands special 
 notice, if the Pleroma — the fulness of the presence 
 and power of God in modern missions — is to be seen. 
 
 Two great miracles, one in the Old Testament and 
 the other in the New, are the evident forecasts both of 
 missionary methods and success, and we feel persuaded 
 
THE NE W MIR A CLES. 295 
 
 that their typical meaning has not been apprehended. 
 One is the Fall of Jericho^ the other is the Feeding 
 of the Five TJioiisand. 
 
 Everything about the Fall of Jericho hints its 
 typical character. The preparation of the people, 
 the circumcision at Gilgal and the rolling away of 
 the reproach — the resumption of the long-neglected 
 Passover Festival, and the courageous crossing of 
 the Jordan — are conditions of the display of God's 
 power. Then Jeric;ho was the first stronghold which 
 they encountered and stands for world conquest. 
 
 Note the circumstances: Exact obedience to the 
 divine command, circumscribing the doomed city, 
 marching round and round it, till thirteen circuits 
 were accomplished with the "soles of their feet," 
 which was the prescribed law of occupation or taking 
 possession by appropriation. How obviously the 
 blowing of the trumpets represents the sevenfold 
 proclamation of the gospel, the jubilee trump, an- 
 nouncing the acceptable year of the Lord; and what 
 was that shout of victory before the walls fell, but the 
 anticipation of faith counting things that are not as 
 though they were, because God had promised! 
 How plainly does the falling of those walls of the 
 doomed city, before one blow was struck, teach us 
 dependence, not on human might or power, but on 
 the good Spirit of the Lord, and teach us that the 
 weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of strongholds! 
 How inadequate human means are! God must 
 interpose to do the real work and achieve the real 
 victory Himself. He will not give His glory to 
 another, and the consummation is all His own. 
 
 When, from this miracle which stands at the be- 
 ginning of the conquest of Canaan, we turn to Pente- 
 cost, which strangely prefaces the beginning of 
 gospel wars of conquest, we see Jericho interpreted. 
 Peter's sermon w^as the blowing of the rams' horns, 
 and the immediate and resistless prostration of the 
 
296 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 walls of Jewish bigotry, self-righteousness and hard- 
 heartedness, — was the divine razing to the ground of 
 barriers to gospel entrance. 
 
 Now turn to the. great New Testament miracle, 
 when the five loaves and two fishes fed the five 
 thousand. Here is the second great lesson of obedi- 
 ence and dependence. A world is to be reached and 
 every creature fed. Our force is inadequate. 
 ' * What are all these among so many ? " Nevertheless, 
 '' give ye them to eat." District the world, go to 
 work on a definite plan of distribution of field and 
 labourers — bring what you have of money and means. 
 Bibles and workers, to Jesus for His blessing. Take 
 no account of the inadequacy of your supplies, but 
 do exactly as He bids and, with what you have, 
 undertake for Him, expecting Him to multiply as 
 you divide. How often is this lesson taught through- 
 out God's Word ! the unwasting barrel of meal and 
 flask of oil, the unexhausted cruise of the widow,* the 
 divine independence of power and wealth and wisdom, 
 of numbers and natural means, — all teach us that 
 things impossible with men are possible with 
 God. 
 
 What greater impulse could be imparted to world- 
 wide missions than this — that the Church should 
 recognize and realize that it is her salvation to be in 
 straits! because the utter despair of self-sufiiciency 
 teaches her that her sufficiency is of God. Our 
 emergency is His opportunity. If the fewness of 
 labourers drives us to pray the Lord of the harvest, 
 that He will thrust forth labourers into His harvest- 
 field. He will be heard, saying, ** Separate Me Bar- 
 nabas and Saul," and Barnabas and Saul will be 
 found ready. If our poverty of resources leads us 
 to look to Him who alone can supply the ever recur- 
 ring and increasing need; if the vast host and 
 mighty power of our foes leads us to spread out our 
 case before the Lord, and plead for His mig^* 
 
 I. Kings xvii. 9-16; II. Kings iv. 1-6. 
 
THE NE W MIR A CLES. 297 
 
 against this great company — success is assured. 
 And, whenever in such spirit, the crises of the king- 
 dom are met, He interposes! 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles records God's sure work- 
 ing. Its pages flush with the glory, flash with the 
 lightnings, and peal with thunders of the Eternal 
 Throne. Christ's promise became reality, for, as 
 they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord 
 wrought with and confirmed the word with signs fol- 
 lowing. It became plain even to foes that God was with 
 them. His seal and sanction was set upon their words 
 by works such as man alone never wrought. From 
 Peter at Pentecost to Paul at Rome, every new chap- 
 ter is a new challenge to faith, for it is a new display 
 of divine power. Those tongues that flamed with 
 Heaven's message; those sharp sword-thrusts of the 
 Spirit by which penitent sinners were pricked in 
 their heart, and by which Stephen's stoners were cut to 
 the heart ; the healing word whereby the cripple, lame 
 from his mother's womb, stood, and walked, and 
 leaped; the prayers that shook the assembly-room at 
 Jerusalem, and the foundations of the prison at 
 Philippi; the judgments that struck the sorcerer blind 
 and the liars dead; the healing virtue that invested 
 with power Paul's person and Peter's shadow; the 
 vivid visions of divine things, which made Stephen's 
 face shine as an angel's, and Paul's heart peaceful in 
 shipwreck; the close contact with God that taught 
 Philip where to go and what to do, and caught him 
 away with sudden rapture ; the personal appearances 
 of Christ to the dying martyr and the living perse- 
 cutor; Paul's sudden blindness and as sudden 
 restoration to sight; the raising of Dorcas at Lydda 
 and Eutychus at Troas; Peter's prophetic vision, 
 and Agabus' prophetic warning; the angel visit to 
 Cornelius in the palace and to Peter in the prison ; 
 the Apostle's deliverance from the sword of Herod, 
 and the tyrant's deliverance unto the sword of the 
 avenging angel ; the supernatural Voice that at Antioch 
 
298 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 separated Paul to missions, and at Corinth assured him 
 of safety ; the healing of the cripple at Lystra and 
 the damsel at Philippi; the outpourings of the Spirit 
 at Samaria, Cesarea, E^phesus as well as Jerusalem! 
 who can walk along this highway of marvels with- 
 out seeing everywhere the signs and tracks of 
 God's footsteps! We feel that the place is holy 
 ground, the place of the Burning Bush, the Pillar of 
 cloud and fire, the Angel of the Lord. We are hur- 
 ried on amid a continual and continuous blaze of 
 glory, for we no sooner emerge from the startling 
 splendour of one miracle before we enter the pre- 
 cincts of another. 
 
 The whole study of the theme seems to bring us 
 face to face with a divine Wonder- Worker, and the 
 history is the pattern of His thought and plan wrought 
 into the fabric of events. The new Pentecosts are 
 His bestowments of blessing, as purely from God as 
 the rain is from the heavens; the doors which open are 
 His gifts of opportunity and facility; in the modern 
 apostles and evangelists His appointment of spheres 
 and service appears; in the control of His providence 
 all creation is but a host — the armies that obey His 
 bugle call; and in His gracious transformations the 
 perpetual miracle is seen which attests the living God. 
 Christ is on the throne, and at the same time on the 
 battle-field. We seem to see the star of universal 
 empire flashing on His breast, and the white horse of 
 conquest makes the battle-field quake beneath His 
 awful tread. 
 
 Have the days of miracles passed^ or are we still 
 moving amid signs and wonders ? If the age of mis- 
 sions does remind us of the Acts of the Apostles in 
 its display of certain divine power, it matters little 
 whether or not the mode of God's working is the 
 same. The fact^ not the form^ concerns us. The 
 signs of the earlier age may have given place to the 
 signs of a later age. God it; not poor in resources; 
 His fund of force is not exhausted; He needs not to 
 
THE NE W MIR A CLES. 299 
 
 repeat Himself, nor does He ; His infinite versatility 
 assures infinite variety. 
 
 Moreover, it is probable that, for our new age, the 
 signs and wonders wrought will be different, if they 
 are to be equally convincing and conclusive, and 
 equally suited to the present purpose of God and the 
 present needs of man. In His kingdom of grace, as 
 of the nature, the lower ever gives place to the 
 higher. And, as Dr. Upham says: '*' Through this 
 invincible law, the lower physical miracles, of the 
 time when our Lord was on earth, gave way before 
 the coming of a higher order of spiritual miracles." 
 The former belonged to a receding dispensation ; and 
 in these things is the answer to the question: " Have 
 miracles ceased? " Miracles have passed on from a 
 lower to a higher sphere; from the seen to the 
 unseen; from the world of nature to the world of 
 spirit, where spiritual miracles are daily, hourly, 
 wrought by the Holy Ghost, in answer to the prayer 
 of faith — miracles far greater than those which typi- 
 fied and prophesied of the later and higher miracles. 
 Even if the earlier signs do occasionally reappear, to 
 clamour for them is to long for and hold fast what 
 belongs to a finished age, instead of going onward 
 and upward. 
 
 Careful research into the history of modern missions 
 leaves on the mind this ineradicable impression and 
 impress: that the facts, abundantly furnished and 
 attested — facts as much above denial or doubt as the 
 most certain events of history — simply defy explana- 
 tion without admitting a divine factor. These facts 
 are not few, scattered, exceptional, isolated; not 
 done in a corner and lacking adequate authentic wit- 
 ness. They are conspicuous and confident; they 
 move in such masses that the march of their host 
 compels their recognition. In this conviction the 
 most devout and acute observers of missionary his- 
 tory are agreed. 
 
 From these modern signs and wonders a. few rep- 
 
300 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 resentative examples may be selected, drawn from 
 all varieties of sphere and experience. And the fciv 
 will suffice; when testimony has confirmation from 
 agreeing witnesses, the mere member of witnesses 
 adds but little assurance. And, if competent testi- 
 mony does not carry conviction, it is vain to pour 
 more light upon any eye that only meets more illu- 
 mination by closer contraction. 
 
 Mission history is both a demonstration and illus- 
 tration of One who is present to preside and provide 
 — a divine Director and Controller. There is an in- 
 visible Actor, whose will is wrought out in the 
 changes of events and the control of inferior actors. 
 These instances and evidences of His interposition 
 sweep round the whole circle of the continents and 
 the whole cycle of the ages. We may trace God's 
 intervention particularly in the following particu- 
 lars: 
 
 We may see Him opening doors of access, and re- 
 moving barriers at critical points and periods. In 
 some cases there has been a sudden subsidence of 
 barriers which can only be likened to the sinking of 
 the land so as to permit the overflow of the sea, as 
 in the Hawaiian Islands in 1819, and Papal France 
 in 1870. 
 
 We may see Him preparing the work for the work- 
 man and the workman for the work, where such fore- 
 sight was impossible to man; controlling invention 
 and discovery so as to develop civilization according 
 to a preconceived plan, and furnishing new instru- 
 ments and agencies in a marked order of succession. 
 We may see Him obviously overruling human mis- 
 takes and failures, frustrating the designs of enemies 
 and persecutors; setting the limits and determining 
 the direction of human lives and purposes. 
 
 We may watch Him answering prayer and turning 
 great crises to which man was utterly unequal, and 
 when there was despair of all human help. 
 
 We may, most of all, see God's power indirectly 
 
THE NE W MIRA CLES. 301 
 
 modifying existing evils, and directly transforming 
 both individuals and whole communities until, as there 
 was subsidence of barriers, there is also an up lie aval 
 of the entire social level. 
 
 All this is no human evolution : it is a divine revo- 
 lutio7i. The strategy is that of a General-in-Chief 
 whose eye commands at a glance the whole field of 
 the world, and the whole history of man, and to 
 whom the future is as present to view as the past. 
 Amid the drift in the direction of a natural scepti- 
 cism, accelerated by the influence of infidel opinion, 
 nothing more restrains and corrects such tendencies 
 than the unanswerable argument for a personal God 
 supplied by the history of modern missions. He 
 who carefully examines it feels that he treads on 
 enchanted ground, whose mysteries compel a divine 
 solution. 
 
 Of course, we are now dealing with matters whose 
 very nature precludes mathematical proofs ; not with 
 the science of quantity, but of moral probability, 
 which demands moral evidence. And, yet, practical 
 certainty is attainable, for moral proofs are conclusive 
 when properly used. For example, the law of coin- 
 cidence pertains to a department of moral evidence. 
 God confirms faith in His interpositions by bringing 
 together occurrences which so correspond as to 
 exhibit an intentional mutual fitness. Hence, for 
 example, Prayer and its Answer often so fit each 
 other, in time, place and exact correspondence, as to 
 make certain that God and the praying soul are in 
 contact. And this principle must be admitted if we 
 are to recognize signs and wonders, not appealing to 
 our senses but to our reason. The greatest signs of 
 God's presence in Apostolic days were found not in 
 miracles addressing the eye and ear, but in the won- 
 ders of such coincidence. When the first fish that 
 Peter caught contained in its mouth the exact sum 
 necessary to pay the tribute due from Christ and him- 
 self, according to Christ's word, the coincidence com- 
 
302 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 pelled conviction that it was no accident. When the 
 tragedy of the crucifixion was attended by six hours of 
 dense darkness, and an earthquake ; and when the dy- 
 ing cry, '' It is finished," and the violent rending of the 
 Temple Veil took place at the same instant, even a 
 Roman centurion could not but say, ' ' Truly this was 
 the Son of God!" The Acts of the Apostles is full 
 of these coincidences, which betray an invisible Hand 
 guiding affairs. 
 
 Philip is led to go down to a desert road at the very 
 time when the eunuch is inquiring as to the true 
 faith, and Philip's approach is at the very moment 
 when he is reading aloud the very verse in prophecy 
 which furnished the best text for a gospel sermon. 
 While Peter had a vision on the housetop, the mes- 
 sengers from Cesarea were knocking at the gate to ask 
 him to go to the Romans whom he had thought unclean; 
 and while many are gathered praying for him, he is 
 delivered from prison and the axe of Herod's execu- 
 tioner. The death of Ananias and Sapphira coming 
 at the instant of an act of lying and perjury against 
 the Holy Spirit, showed that God's judgment was at 
 work; as Herod's awful death at the very time of his 
 accepting divine honours, made plain that God had 
 smitten him. Paul's conversion at the very climax of 
 his triumph as persecutor, and when he was just enter- 
 ing Damascus, left no doubt that he had seen Jesus in 
 the way. These are a few instances of that coincidence 
 which establishes a probability amounting to practi- 
 cal certainty, that something more than the chance 
 of accident had been controlling history. Thoughtless 
 or uncandid persons often foolishly demand on moral 
 subjects what they call, ''mathematical proofs," 
 forgetting that such proofs are in the nature of the case 
 impossible, and we must look for quite another order 
 of demonstration. But, when examined in a proper 
 method and spirit, it will become scarcely less cer- 
 tain that God is, and that He is the actual governor 
 in missionary history, than it is that two and two 
 
THE NE W MIR A CLES. 30i^ 
 
 make four, or that the three angles of a triangle 
 equal two right angles. 
 
 These "miracles of missions" are so numerous 
 and various that we are again compelled to resort 
 both to classification and selection. They fall natu- 
 rally into two classes — raivdide^oi providence and mir- 
 acles of grace. The first includes all those interposi- 
 tions of God which concern the control of individual 
 lives, or governmental acts — which have to do with 
 the general shaping of events, with protecting and 
 providing for His own people, avenging their wrongs, 
 destroying their foes, or raising up for them friends 
 and helpers in crises. The miracles of grace include 
 all direct or indirect influence of His word and Spirit 
 in working transformation of personal character or 
 popular life, and particularly in accomplishing great 
 social revolutions which turn the world upside down 
 and imply an energy superior to man. 
 
 When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch from 
 their first mission tour, they rehearsed in the ears of 
 the Church all that God had done with them and how 
 He had opened the doors of faith unto the nations: 
 and, as Paul went up to the first council at Jerusalem, 
 he declared what things God had wrought by his 
 ministry, and ' ' when they heard that they glorified 
 the Lord." Mark the repeated emphasis upon tJie 
 Lord's doings — what He had done, how He had 
 opened the doors, what He had wrought — that all 
 glory might be His. There has never been a truly 
 great missionary since Paul, who has not magnified 
 the Power of God in the fruits of his work, — who has 
 not known and felt that what results he has seen 
 wrought were accountable for on no other philosophy 
 — and this is the most conspicuous testimony unani- 
 mously borne by the most devout missionaries. 
 
 Just where such recognition of dependence on God 
 and such confidence in His power have most abounded, 
 the grandest demonstrations of His presence have 
 been seen. Pastor Gossner, at sixty-three, stopped 
 
304 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ringing the door-bell of millionaires and rang only the 
 door-bell of heaven — and he put into the field one 
 hundred missionaries who gathered 30,000 converts. 
 Not what great things I have done or suffered for my 
 Lord, but what great things the Lord has wrought 
 for me, — that is the boast of the true missionary. 
 
IL 
 
 NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND PREPARA- 
 TIONS. 
 
 Clear signs of a supernatural Providence are seen 
 in the new opportunities of modern history. The 
 hidden hand of God has manifestly touched the 
 affairs of men in the unlocking and opening of long 
 shut doors. 
 
 The poet Dryden crowned the year 1666 as 
 ''Annus Mirabilis," because made forever mem- 
 orable by such events as the great fire in London, 
 and the naval war with the Dutch and their allies. 
 The Marquis of Worcester entitled the sixteenth 
 century the " century of invention." And a wonder- 
 ful hundred years they were that saw the globe 
 circumnavigated by the ships of Magellan, that 
 covered the era of Charles the Fifth and Elizabeth, 
 of Henry the Eighth, and Leo Tenth, of Luther and 
 the Reformation, of the wars of France and the rise 
 of the Dutch Republic, of the Diets of Worms and 
 of Spires and of Augsburg, of the Council of Trent, 
 and the final triumph of the Protestant cause, and 
 the birth of religious liberty. 
 
 But, in every respect, even as the century of 
 invention, the nineteenth century has far outshone 
 the sixteenth; and as to the "annus mirabilis," that 
 one year, 1858, is probably the most wonderful year 
 in the annals of history, for the rapidity with which 
 on every side new doors opened for access commer- 
 cially, politically and religiously, to the whole 
 world. During that year, Japan, after two centuries 
 of sealed ports, made treaty with Great Britain; 
 China enlarged vastly the rights conceded sixteen 
 years before ; India became part of Britain's world- 
 wide empire, and zenanas were penetrated by Chris- 
 
 305 
 
306 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 tian women ; Italy laid the basis of her new era of 
 freedom; Mexico threw open her doors to the 
 Protestant missionary — all this and much more 
 within a twelvemonth ! 
 
 In that one '^ annus mirabilis," two-thirds of the 
 entire population of the globe were suddenly brought 
 within the reach of the missionary who preaches a 
 full gospel and carries an open Bible. It was that 
 same year that the " w^eek of prayer" began, upon 
 recommendation of the missionaries in Lahore, and 
 how quickly came the answer! From that year, 
 missions entered upon an entirely new career. On 
 the walls of history a divine Finger wrote, as in 
 flaming capitals, certain words which should be the 
 motto of all future enterprise for God: 
 
 *' Behold I have set before thee an open door." 
 *'The fulness of time is now come." 
 *'The King's business requireth haste." 
 *^ The field is the world," 
 *' Occupy till I come." 
 
 One must read the story of missions with veiled 
 eyes who sees no miracles of providential prepara- 
 tion. 
 
 When the Tliaddcus^ in 1820, furled sail in the 
 harbour of Oahu with that pioneer band of eighteen, 
 who went to begin the long, and, as some thought, 
 hopeless fight with a degraded and brutal paganism, 
 what was their astonishment to find that, before they 
 landed, not only had God opened to them a door of 
 access, but He had moved a pagan priest and a 
 pagan king to strike the first blow at Hawaiian idols! 
 Obookiah, the native lad, who in his impatience to 
 get ashore had gone off in a small boat, had 
 brought back to them, while yet on board, the news: 
 ''Oahu's idols are no more!" And they could only 
 make the vault of heaven ring with their praise: 
 Sing, O heavens ! for the Lord hath done it ! 
 
 Was there no meaning in this opening history of 
 
NEW OPPORTUNITIES. 307 
 
 the work of the American Board in those Pacific 
 waters? Who was it that, before these missionaries 
 had set foot on these islands, and not only without 
 their agency but without their knowledge, had 
 demolished the barriers of a thousand years and left 
 before them a wide and effectual door? They came 
 to Jericho, and before they had even marched around 
 it, the walls are found fallen flat, and the stronghold 
 awaiting easy occupation. When it is remembered 
 that this mission was undertaken by that great mis- 
 sionary society as a sort of test-work, in which the 
 will of God might be seen as to future and similar 
 enterprises, the whole of this unparalleled begin- 
 ning reminds us of Joshua's interview with the Cap- 
 tain of the Lord's host, who assured him in advance 
 that He was there to lead them on to victory. 
 
 Japan, almost at the other limit of the half century 
 thus begun, may be cited as an example of providen- 
 tial preparation. If ever a divine plan and purpose 
 were to be seen, surely it is here. Was it an accident 
 or mere incident that, after two centuries of exclu- 
 sion and proscription, Christianity should find entrance 
 to the Land of the Rising Sun, at the very time when a 
 great social and political upheaval had unsettled the 
 old foundations, and offered opportunity to establish 
 a new order ! In no previous time of Japanese his- 
 tory — certainly not since the year 1600 — had such an 
 hour of crisis come. And hence the progress of this 
 Island Empire toward national transformation and 
 evangelization has been more rapid than anything 
 known since the accession of Constantine. 
 
 The preparation which Robert W. McAll found 
 in France for his simple evangelistic work, can be 
 compared to nothing but a sudden subsidence of bar- 
 riers, such as we sometimes see when some seismic 
 convulsion sinks the land below sea level and lets the 
 waters rush in upon the submerged territory. 
 
 When McAll went to the French capital in 1872, 
 the war with Germany had left desolation behind it. 
 
308 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Anarchy and violence had brought a new experience 
 of the revolution of eighty years before, with its 
 cruelties, bloodshed, lawlessness and godlessness. 
 Even atheistic France revolted from the terrors of a 
 society without God. It was a period of transition. 
 The land of La Fayette was breaking her long allegi- 
 ance with Papal Rome ; Gambetta had thundered out 
 his anathema against '' clericalism " as '' the foe of 
 France;" and the nation, weary of a religion which 
 was a wedlock of formalism and superstition, and 
 whose offspring was hollow ceremonial and utter 
 recklessness, was drifting toward utter denial of God 
 and of all godliness. 
 
 Just at this time McAll came to Paris and met that 
 ''man of Macedonia" opposite the wine-shop in 
 Belleville, who, in unmistakable words, said: ''Come 
 over and help us! " That whole mission work is one 
 of the miracles of modern Providence, raising up and 
 thrusting into the field the right man, at the right 
 hour, in the right place ! The round peg dropped 
 into the round hole, and the man and his work fitted 
 each other perfectly. Just when it was needed and 
 prepared for, France got, for the workingmen and 
 the priest-ridden masses, a simple gospel, unencum- 
 bered with churchly methods, without priestly forms 
 and without price. 
 
 Instances such as these are sufficient to convince 
 even unbelievers that God's Hand is in missionary 
 history. And, even if any one of the many exam- 
 ples of such providential preparation were insufficient 
 to sustain the argument for such divine Providence, 
 their tmited testimony is overwhelming; they are like 
 the threads which, separately unable to bear a heavy 
 strain, may, when wound into one strand, defy any 
 power to break them. 
 
m. 
 
 PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATIONS. 
 
 Missionary history abounds in marvels oi preserva- 
 tion. God does not promise, even to the most faithful 
 of His servants, absolute immunity from disease and 
 death. It may be best that witness should be sealed 
 in blood as well as seasoned with suffering. The 
 servant is not above his Master, and the first martyr 
 may have done more to save souls by his death than 
 Paul did by his life ; but God has often stayed the 
 hand of man, and many an imperilled witness to 
 Christ has heard the same voice that Paul heard at 
 Corinth: "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold thy 
 peace ; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on 
 thee to hurt thee." 
 
 When Martin Luther was asked at Augsburg: 
 ' ' Now, with Pope and cardinals, priests and kings 
 all against you, what will you do?" he answered, 
 '' Put myself under the shelter of Him who said, ' I 
 will never leave thee, nor forsake thee ! ' " Having 
 the same spirit of faith, when Robert Moffat's life 
 was threatened at Kuruman, he bared his b;reast to 
 his assailants, and calmly replied: " Strike, if you 
 will! but my mind is made up; I stay among you." 
 The life of John G. Paton, that has recently thrilled 
 all lovers of missions w4th its story of heroism, 
 records perhaps fifty cases in which his life was 
 threatened, or death by violence overhung him ; yet 
 in marvellous ways deliverance came, so that his pre- 
 servation seemed like a perpetual miracle. 
 
 It is now nearly thirty-eight years since on 
 August 19, 1856, Rev. William C. Burns arrived at 
 Chao-chow-fu, in South China, on his sacred mission 
 of evangelization and colportage work. Suddenly 
 arrested, and the same night brought before the dis- 
 
SIO THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 trict magistrate, it was decided to send him to 
 Canton. The relations of China with foreign 
 countries was disturbed. The Tai-ping rebellion 
 threw China into a state of chaos; and Burns arrived 
 on the eve of a war which, that year, broke out 
 between Britain and China. Had he come to 
 Canton only a little later, when the events connected 
 with Commissioner Yeh were in progress, death 
 would probably have been the result. In the diary 
 of Mrs. Stewart Sandemann, of Perth, Scotland, 
 under date of December 28th, that same year, is this 
 entry: "Mr. Burns was safely kept through his 
 arrest and imprisonment in China. Comparing the 
 dates I find that we were met in prayer for him 
 during his dangerous journey under guard of the 
 Chinese officials!" 
 
 For more than one hundred and twenty years, the 
 Moravian missionary ship has sailed between Lon- 
 don and Labrador, over those exceptionally stormy 
 waters and amid fields of icebergs, yet with such 
 freedom from accident that Lord Gambia declared 
 the continued preservation of this vessel to be the 
 most remarkable occurrence in maritime history that 
 had ever come to his knowledge. During more than 
 one hundred and sixty years, during which about 
 twenty-five hundred Moravian missionaries have 
 sailed for foreign lands, in only eleven cases has any 
 loss of life come by shipwreck; and, of all the chil- 
 dren of missionaries sent home to Europe, not one, 
 says Dr. Storrow, has perished at sea. 
 
 Missionaries in Africa, India and the Indian Archi- 
 pelago, have, in hundreds of cases, had to face perils 
 amid beasts of prey and deadly serpents; is there 
 one instance recorded of death by such means? 
 Livingstone was delivered from destruction three 
 times in one day, and once his arm was crushed and 
 he was shaken into insensibility by a lion. To the 
 first missionaries to the Fijians deliverance often 
 came when murderous foes were surrounding them. 
 
PR VIDEN TIA L PRE SER VA TIONS. 311 
 
 and their only weapon was prayer. Kapaio, a 
 native of the New Hebrides, confessed that he 
 watched to waylay Dr. Geddie, and when, with club 
 in hand, he had him in his power, he became unable 
 to deal the blow at the crisis when the man he hated 
 and had followed in order to kill, was at his mercy. 
 He confessed that a strange, new sensation came 
 over him and convinced him that a higher power 
 held him back. 
 
 A little w^hile ago a company of Breecks, a low, 
 fierce tribe of Karens, made a raid on a Christian 
 village, and carried off as captives, two boys and a 
 girl. They said, '' Now we will see; if the Christians' 
 God delivers these captives out of our hands we will 
 believe in Him, and all become Christians; but if 
 their God cannot deliver them, we will go over and 
 take more captives." 
 
 Just at this juncture Dr. Bunker arrived at the 
 village where all had been praying for help. They 
 quickly told him, and he said: '^ Well, this is a case 
 of God versus the Devil," and he felt strong to say, 
 ''*■ God will deliver them; keep on praying.'' He sent 
 a message demanding the release of the cap- 
 tives, and got word back, ''Come on; get them 
 if you can; we have guns." He sent then 
 what he called his nltiniatuni : ''If you do not 
 deliver up those captives we w411 leave you in the 
 hands of our God, w^ho can and will deal with you." 
 Meanwhile he and the Christians prayed mightily. 
 His messengers met the Breecks on the road bring- 
 ing back one of the captives. He then selected one 
 of his preachers and fourteen followers to go un- 
 armed for the other two. 
 
 When they got to the village they did not say a 
 word to any of the tribe, but planted themselves in 
 the road. The preacher took out his hymn-book and 
 read a hymn, which they sang; then he read a por- 
 tion of Scripture and preached, then prayed, and by 
 that time the villagers brought the other captives to 
 
312 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 them and said: ''Now take them, and be gone." 
 This, of course, made a great stir among the Chris- 
 tians, and led them to expect a great ingathering 
 from the Breecks. The captives told them that a 
 brother of the chief who stole the captives, himself 
 an awfully wicked man, talked strongly about the 
 wickedness of the deed, and the wife of the chief 
 begged her husband to make peace while he could, — 
 showing how God was working to bring about 
 answers to prayer. 
 
 Let Mr. J. Hudson Taylor tell for himself the 
 story of his first voyage to China. 
 
 He says: ''The voyage was a very tedious one. 
 We lost a good deal of time on the equator from 
 calms; and when we finally reached the Eastern 
 Archipelago, were again detained from the same 
 cause. Usually a breeze would spring up soon after 
 sunset, and last until about dawn. The utmost use 
 was made of it, but during the day we lay still, with 
 flapping sails, often drifting back and losing a good 
 deal of the advantage we had gained during the 
 night. 
 
 " This happened notably on one occasion, when we 
 were in dangerous proximity to the north of New 
 Guinea. Saturday night had brought us to a point 
 some thirty miles off the land; but during the Sun- 
 day morning service, which was held on deck, I could 
 not fail to notice that the captain looked troubled, 
 and frequently went over to the side of the ship. 
 When the service was ended, I learned from him the 
 cause — a four-knot current was carrying us rapidly 
 towards some sunken reefs, and we were already so 
 near that it seemed improbable that we should get 
 through the afternoon in safety. After dinner the 
 long boat was put out, and all hands endeavoured, 
 without success, to turn the ship's head from the 
 shore. As we drifted nearer we could plainly see the 
 natives rushing about the sands and lighting fires 
 every here and there. The captain's hornbook 
 
PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATIONS. 313 
 
 informed him that these people were cannibals, so 
 that our position was not a little alarming. 
 
 ' ' After standing together on the deck for some time 
 in silence, the captain said to me, ' Well, we have 
 done everything that can be done ; we can only await 
 the result.' A thought occurred to me, and I 
 replied, ' No, there is one thing we have not done 
 yet.' 'What is it?' he queried. 'Four of us on 
 board are Christians,' I answered (the Swedish car- 
 penter and our coloured steward, with the captain 
 and myself); ' let us each retire to his own cabin, 
 and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us imme- 
 diately a breeze. He can as easily send it now as at 
 sunset.' 
 
 '' The captain complied with this proposal. I went 
 and spoke to the other two men, and after prayer 
 with the carpenter we all four retired to wait upon 
 God. I had a good but very brief season in prayer, 
 and then felt so satisfied that our request was granted 
 that I could not continue asking, and very soon went 
 up again on deck. The first officer, a godless man, 
 was in charge. I went over and asked him to let 
 down the clews or corners of the mainsail, which 
 had been drawn up in order to lessen the useless 
 flapping of the sail against the rigging. He answered, 
 ' What w^ould be the good of that? ' I told him we 
 had been asking a wind from God, that it was coming 
 immediately, and we were so near the reef by this 
 time that there w^as not a minute to lose. With a look 
 of incredulity and contempt, he said w4th an oath 
 that he would rather see a wind than hear of it ! But 
 w^hile he was speaking I watched his eye, and followed 
 it up to the royal (the topmost sail), and there, sure 
 enough, the corner of the sail was beginning to 
 tremble in the coming breeze. ' Don't you see the 
 wind is coming? Look at the royal!' I exclaimed. 
 ' No, it is only a cat's-paw,' he rejoined (a mere 
 puff of w4nd). * Cat's-paw or not,' I cried, 'pray 
 let down the mainsail, and let us have the benefit ! ' 
 
314 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ' ' This he was not slow to do. In another minute the 
 heavy tread of the men on the deck brought up the 
 captain from his cabin to see what was the matter, 
 and saw that the breeze had indeed come. In a few 
 minutes we were ploughing our way at six or seven 
 knots an hour through the water, and the multitude 
 of naked savages whom we had seen on the beach had 
 no wreckage that night. We were soon out of dan- 
 ger; and, though the wind was sometimes unsteady, 
 we did not altogether lose it until after passing the 
 Pelew Islands. 
 
 "Thus God encouraged me, before landing on 
 China's shores, to bring every variety of need to Him 
 in prayer, and to expect that He zvotild honour the 
 Name of the Lord Jesus, and give the help which 
 each emergency required." 
 
 The following incident is related of a Chinese con- 
 vert,* who had for many years been a vegetarian, to 
 gain merit and be saved. " He came to the chapel," 
 says the writer, " heard and believed the gospel, 
 and for years has lived a consistent Christian life. 
 Some time ago the people collected a large sum of 
 money to be expended in idolatrous work, in order 
 that their houses might be saved from fire, and asked 
 this man to contribute to that fund. He declined, 
 on the ground that he trusted in the living God, and 
 that the idols were not able to save them from fire. 
 No sooner was the idolatrous ceremony over than 
 an extensive fire broke out in the very street in which 
 this man's house was situated; one hundred and 
 twenty houses were burnt down, and when the 
 flames were coming nearer and nearer to his house, 
 the people said, * Now you see what you have got.' 
 And they wanted to persuade him to take out all his 
 furniture into the street that he might save some- 
 thing. He knew that if he brought the things out 
 into the street, even though they would be safe from 
 
 * "China's Millions," Sept., 1882. "Progress in China," by Rev. A. Foster, 
 
 p. 52. 
 
PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVATIONS. 315 
 
 fire, they would probably be stolen. But he be- 
 lieved that God was going to preserve him from 
 suffering loss, and he told the people so. While 
 they were hurrying to and fro in all their excite- 
 ment, he, in the presence of them all, prayed God 
 that He would show that He was the living and true 
 God. And then he watched the fire as it came 
 nearer and nearer, until there was only one house 
 standing between his own and the flames. But just 
 then there was a sudden change in the wind: God 
 had said, ' Thus far shalt thou come and no farther,' 
 and his house was saved." 
 
 David Livingstone, returning from Central Africa, 
 told of a great inland sea — Lake Nyassa. The Scot- 
 tish churches and the Universities' Mission took 
 possession for Christ — money and life were freely 
 spent to evangelize Nyassaland. After several 
 years the envy of Portugal is aroused: she sends 
 Major Serpa Pinto to seize the country, and Cardinal 
 Lavigerie is ready with his priests to station them in 
 all the places where the missionaries have laboured, 
 where the graves of Englishmen and Englishwomen 
 are '' the title deeds to Nyassaland." Is all this work 
 for Christ to be overthroAvn? A spirit of prayer 
 comes upon British Christians, and the Portuguese 
 encroachments are defeated, not by the statesman- 
 ship of Lord Salisbury, but by the prayers of those 
 who sent out the missionaries, and who, day by day, 
 cease not to pray on their behalf. Truly, "It is 
 better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in 
 princes." * 
 
 In 1574, God, at the siege of Leyden, used the 
 forces of Nature to compel the retreat of the Spanish 
 armies. The Spaniards had derisively shouted to 
 the citizens, "As well might the Prince of Orange 
 pluck the stars from the sky as bring the ocean to the 
 walls of Leyden for your relief;" but, on the night 
 of the first and second of October, a violent gale from 
 
 * Missionary' Review of the World. Vol. iv. p. 26. 
 
316 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 the northwest and southwest piled up the waters of 
 the North Sea in vast masses on the coast, and drove 
 them furiously landward, till the ocean swept with 
 unrestrained fury across the ruined dykes, and the 
 relieving fleet sailed up almost to the walls of the 
 city ! No wonder, as Motley says, that the enemies 
 of Holland were struck with terror when they saw 
 the hand of God send the ocean and tempest to the 
 deliverance of the besieged city. It was the prayers 
 of saints offered up in those times of great peril that 
 preserved Holland from Spanish fury, as Britain was 
 preserved from the Spanish and French Armadas. 
 
 The missionary life of that ' Weteran of Aniwa " is 
 one almost continuous example of striking answers 
 to believing prayer. When the armed savages ap- 
 proached Nowar's village and the people were panic- 
 stricken, such prayer rose to Jehovah as can be 
 offered only by those who stand consciously on the 
 brink of eternity. The savages were only about 
 three hundred yards off when Nowar touched Rev. J. G. 
 Paton's knee, saying, " Missy, Jehovah is here. See, 
 they all stand still ! " " We gazed shore wards," says 
 Mr. Paton, ''and sure enough they were all standing 
 still. They actually began to turn and enter the 
 remote bush at the end of the harbour." Why they 
 turned back no man can tell. God was interfering to 
 save imperilled lives. At another time when the sav- 
 ages surrounded the mission-house, and set fire to the 
 church and the fence connecting the church and the 
 dwelling, Mr. Paton ran out and tore up the burning 
 fence, while savages raised their clubs and shouted, 
 '' Kill him!" At this moment occurred an incident 
 which his readers may explain as they like, but which 
 he traced directly to the interposition of my God. A 
 rushing and roaring sound came from the south, like 
 the noise of a mighty engine or of muttering thunder. 
 Every head was instinctively turned in that direction, 
 and they knew from previous hard experience that 
 it was one of their awful tornadoes. Now mark, the 
 
PRO VI DEN TIA L PRESER VA TIONS. 317 
 
 wind bore the flames away from the house, but had 
 it come in the opposite direction no power on earth 
 could have saved them all from being consumed. It 
 made the work of destroying the church only that of 
 a few minutes; but it brought with it a heavy and 
 murky cloud which poured out a perfect torrent of 
 tropical rain. Now mark again: the flames of the 
 burning church were thereby cut off from extending 
 to and seizing upon the reeds and the bush, and, 
 besides, it had become almost impossible now to set 
 fire to the house. A panic seized the savages, and 
 throwing down their torches they fled. Returning 
 to the house Mr. Paton was met by Mr. Mathieson, 
 who exclaimed, ''If ever, in time of need, God sent 
 help and protection to his servants, in answer to 
 prayer. He has done so to-night. Blessed be His 
 holy name ! " 
 
 The reader of the two volumes of the '' Life of 
 John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides," 
 will not need to be told that the whole narrative 
 evinces the interposition of God. No biography 
 has done more in modern days to revive faith in 
 Providential Preservations. 
 
IV. 
 NEW JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 
 
 We recognize wonders of Providential interposition 
 in the defence of His servants and the defeat and de- 
 struction of their foes. 
 
 From the times that the stars in heaven fought 
 against Sisera, God has not ceased to do battle for 
 His own elect. And in not a few instances His *' lit- 
 tle flock, "few and feeble amid their foes, like lambs 
 among wolves, have had only to stand still and see 
 His salvation. Sometimes the Angel of Death has 
 gone forth at His bidding and smitten the enemies of 
 His people with a destruction as sudden as that which 
 smote Herod in the midst of his fawning courtiers. 
 Kings have conspired to cast away His cords from 
 them, and rulers have counselled together to break 
 asunder His bands; but His sceptre has dashed them 
 in pieces like a potter's vessel. 
 
 In Siam, in 185 1, and in Turkey twelve years be- 
 fore, at the very crisis of missions, when absolute 
 expulsion of all Christ's witnesses was impending and 
 final disaster threatened their work, sudden death 
 came to the hostile monarchs who had flung themselves 
 upon the bosses of Jehovah's buckler. These two 
 cases may stand as sufficient to represent the class of 
 interpositions we refer to now. In both cases the re- 
 spective rulers were at the time proposing and pre- 
 paring to drive out all Christian missionaries and 
 bring their work to wreck and ruin. In both cases, 
 all resistance was so hopeless that prayer to God was 
 the one and only resort. And, in both cases, the 
 death of the stubborn and malignant monarch, at the 
 exact time when the plan was ripe for accomplish- 
 ment, and the crisis of missions had fully come, was 
 
 318 
 
NFAV JUDGMEXTS OF GOD. 319 
 
 felt even by the foes of God themselves to be an 
 interposition of God, and turned the scale. 
 
 When Sultan Mahmiid thus suddenly died in Tur- 
 key, the edict of expulsion found no executive to 
 carry it into operation. On the other hand, Abdul 
 Medjid who succeeded him, on the 3d of November 
 following, in presence of an august assemblage of 
 the nobles of the empire, not only the Mussulmans, 
 but the deputies of the Greeks, Armenians and 
 Jews, together with foreign am.bassadors, ordered 
 his Grand Vizier to read the Haiti Shcrif of Gtd 
 Hane, or first formal Bill of Rights, the Magna 
 Charta of Turkey, and himself led the way in taking 
 the oath of fidelity to this new Charter of Liberty, 
 which prepared the way for the famous Haiti 
 Huinayoun in 1856 ! Thus, for more than fifty years 
 missions have been acquiring more and more influ- 
 ence within the dominions of the Sultan of Turkey. 
 
 As to that other Land of the White Elephant, the 
 turn of tide is one of the most striking in all history. 
 Maha-Mong-Kut, who then came to the throne, was 
 the one man in the empire w^ho had been prepared 
 by God to be the friend and patron of Christian mis- 
 sions. He had been taught in science and language 
 by a missionary, and in this frequent and familiar 
 contact had become his friend and the friend of his 
 fellow missionaries. He had imbibed from such in- 
 tercourse a liberality of mind, a catholicity of senti- 
 ment, which both fitted and disposed him to favour 
 and further the work of the missionary. He was not, 
 however, a Christian disciple, and had retired to the 
 cell of the Buddhist monastery. But, on the sudden 
 demise of the reigning and reckless sovereign, Maha- 
 Mong-Kut was called from his seclusion to mount 
 the throne of the " Sacred Prabahts," and, for seven- 
 teen years, wielded a sceptre so benignant that he has 
 been known as the most enlightened and catholic ruler 
 of all Asia. Before he died he had decreed liberty of 
 conscience throughout all the land, and his son and 
 
320 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 successor, Chulalangkorn, has followed in his steps. 
 More than forty years not only of toleration, but of 
 co-operation toward missions, have been the fruit of 
 one unmistakable act of divine interposition in 185 1. 
 Could unwritten history find a record, there are many 
 such interpositions both in behalf of individuals, and 
 of the work of missions as such, which equally re- 
 veal the presence and power of Him whose last 
 promise was, " Lo, I am with you alway." 
 
 There is something awful in the majesty of divine 
 judgments. God's "great army" has not been dis- 
 banded, though the prophet's pen no longer outlines 
 their march and describes their regiments. Cater- 
 pillar and cankerworm, locust and palmerworm still 
 obey His behests. 
 
 What a desert of devastation, for instance, the 
 locust leaves in his track! Think of an army of 
 these invaders, reaching fifty miles in every direc- 
 tion, and half a mile thick, with one hundred and 
 fifty locusts to the cubic foot, and moving from 
 twelve to twenty miles an hour ! It would require 
 seven million vessels, each of six thousand tons 
 burden, to transport such a host; and yet this is 
 but one small detachment of God's '* great army! " 
 
 God calls for the famine and it does His bidding, 
 and often strangely prepares His way. In India it 
 introduced, in 1877, the greatest ingathering of con- 
 verts ever known. In China, in the days of Morri- 
 son, eight times it did the work of an evangelist 
 and made full proof of its ministry by giving God's 
 servants the opportunity to show the unselfishness of 
 the Christian spirit. A heathen people, dying of 
 drought or flood, pestilence or starvation, see their 
 fellows of the same nation and religion, stand aloof 
 in utter indifference, while ''foreign devils," 
 inspired by a hated faith, labour night and day, 
 daring all privations and exposures to feed the 
 starving, heal the sick, and comfort the dying; and 
 this goes further to correct false prejudices and win 
 
NEW JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 321 
 
 men to Christ than any argument or word of wit- 
 ness. Famine has been so often the precursor of 
 ''revivals" that missionaries have learned to think 
 of it as an angel in dark disguise. 
 
 In connection with that Pentecost at Hilo and 
 Puna, there was a miracle of judgment that will 
 never be forgotten. In a secluded valley of Puna 
 was one small village which was a moral cesspool. 
 Awful as was the heathenism about it, here it was 
 worse, and the labours of Mr. Coan, so rapidly fruit- 
 ful elsewhere, here, for years were vain and even 
 worse than vain, for the people hardened themselves 
 against God, and even sought to starve out his 
 messengers. At one time Mr. Coan, with a little 
 band of native Kanakas, went there to hold a meet- 
 ing, and were refused even a half-potato; and at 
 night lay down unable to sleep for hunger. While 
 the villagers thought them asleep, they were seen 
 eating the food which they had denied that they 
 were able to supply for the Lord's servants. In the 
 morning, the missionary left them, literally shaking 
 off the dust of his feet for a testimony against them, 
 saying, "Never again will I come to you until you 
 call for me." Not long after, this village, though 
 forty miles from port where the infection was usually 
 caught, was so visited by a scourge of small-pox, that, 
 save three or four survivors, every inhabitant died; 
 and in 1840, a lava flood swept over the site of the 
 previous visitation of God, and left only a black field 
 of death and desolation behind it. It is to this day 
 a reminder of the destruction that overtook Sodom ! 
 The people saw in it God's strange work of judg- 
 ment and retribution. 
 
GENERAL ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Japan is looked upon by the world as one of its 
 modern wonders. The revolution, there wrought with- 
 in a decade of years, has perhaps no historic parallel. 
 The steps were giant strides: the fall of the dual 
 dynasty, the change of capitals, the death-blow of 
 feudalism, the adoption of a new calendar, and of 
 the weekly Rest-day; the establishment of postal 
 union and savings banks; national mint, lighthouses 
 and coast survey; of railways and telegraphs; the 
 reconstruction of army and navy and educational 
 systems — these were a few of the prominent features 
 of the New Japan, now also crowned with constitu- 
 tional liberty. 
 
 To some, there is in this no hand of God, but only 
 a nation waking from long sleep, shaking his locks, 
 quaffing the new wine of Western enterprise; and, 
 conscious of gianthood, bursting old bonds and tak- 
 ing huge strides forward. But there are circum- 
 stances too remarkable to allow any explanation 
 short of divine interposition; some coincidences 
 which are both marks and fruits of a higher plan, in 
 which, as cog fits cog in the wheel of a vast machine, 
 event meets event in a pre-arranged harmony. As in 
 Ezekiel's vision, even events which face different 
 ways move together in one direction. 
 
 Commodore Perry's initial act — when he laid an 
 open Bible over the American flag upon the capstan 
 of his flagship, and sent the words of the Hundredth 
 Psalm echoing over Yeddo's Bay — that initial act 
 was a parable in action. The mute guns of his war- 
 ship spoke of a peaceful commerce displacing war- 
 like invasion. The stars and stripes were the sym- 
 bol of Western civilization with its liberty, civil and 
 
 322 
 
GENERAL ADMINISTRA TION. 323 
 
 religious; and the open Bible and the sacred psalm 
 forecast gospel triumph. God himself planned all 
 the details of that opening scene, and according to 
 that pattern the work has been built on those shores. 
 
 All along the subsequent development of these 
 forty years, we see the play of this divine mechanism 
 — the wheel in the middle of the wheel. We shall 
 need only to recur to the story of Neesirna, as already 
 given in previous pages. Apparently accidental, 
 really providential — his disgust with idols, his 
 glimpse of the Bible, his taste of a new faith, his 
 escape to America, his contact with Alpheus Hardy, 
 his Christian training, his service to the embassy, his 
 return to his own land, the vindication of his right 
 to teach, the establishment of the Doshisha — are not 
 these the play of divine coincidents and coincidences 
 in an articulated plan? 
 
 After Neesima found Christ, and, while asking how 
 he could get back to his country without incurring 
 death for having gone away without leave — the Jap- 
 anese embassy seek his aid as interpreter. Through 
 them he not only gets safe conduct, but open door to 
 his new mission among his countrymen; for, when 
 he lands in Japan, his former patrons of the em^bassy 
 are holding the reins of empire, and the decree goes 
 forth to his opponents: *' Let Neesima alone! " 
 
 Watch the play of these wheels still further. 
 Was it a mere chance that opened Kyoto for the 
 Hundred Days' Exhibition, when Rev. O. H. Gulick 
 made the acquaintance of that friend whose power- 
 ful mediation not only furthered Neesima's plans for 
 Christian education, but furnished the site for the 
 Doshisha? And when the " sacred city " would have 
 denied even Neesima the right to teach the Christian 
 faith, it was Tanaka himself, who owed to Neesima 
 his successful study of the common schools of 
 America, — who was head of the department of edu- 
 cation and turned the scale in Neesima's favour; so 
 that he himself could only attribute his deliverance 
 
324 THE NEW ACTS OE THE APOSTLES. 
 
 from the '' deep muds of the past " to the *' unseen 
 hand of God." 
 
 Close search reveals in this curious fabric of Jap- 
 anese history one delicate thread of divine purpose, 
 wrought of countless fibres. Many of these provi- 
 dential events belong to yet unwritten records; but 
 a further example may serve to confirm our faith in 
 this remarkable guidance of God. 
 
 Just when this great work of Christian education 
 at Kyoto hung in the balance and final failure seemed 
 to threaten, there came a strange accession of some 
 thirty native Christian students as reinforcements 
 from a most unexpected quarter. In the old prov- 
 ince of Higo, in Kuishu, some " Jo-i " men, or 
 '^ foreign-expellers" — had banded together to form 
 a school for the purpose of keeping out Western 
 ideas, and especially the hated Western religion. A 
 certain Captain Janes, who had come out to teach 
 military tactics, but was without employment, by 
 another most singular chain of events became the 
 teacher. That man, says Dr. Davis, Neesima's biog- 
 rapher, was himself a Christian. Yet so deadly was 
 the hatred of the new faith that for six months he 
 had to keep his Christianity out of sight; but mean- 
 while he could not keep its influence from pervading 
 the school — a flower cannot suppress its fragrance 
 even in the darkness. At last he ventured to present 
 the scientific argument for the existence of a God, 
 and was met by a bold challenge from his pupils, 
 '' Yon lie, sir! " Two years went by before he dared 
 to ask some more advanced students to study the 
 New Testament with him. The patrons of the school 
 consented because students must understand Chris- 
 tianity in order to oppose it. 
 
 Behold God's hand placing in the very hotbed of 
 infidel culture, a plant of godliness ! and making the 
 foes of the faith to give it room to take root, in order 
 that they might learn how to recognize it and destroy 
 it wherever found! God's armour-bearer is training 
 
GENERAL ADMIXISTRA TION. 325 
 
 the opposers of Christ in the knowledge of His own 
 weapons ; and, meanwhile, they are compelled to see 
 that no weapon formed against Him can prosper ! 
 
 Two years more go by. To study the New Testa- 
 ment is to look upon the cross with its Crucified One, 
 and before the infinite pathos of that cross, the win- 
 ter in their hearts shows signs of melting under 
 the beams of the Sun of Righteousness ! And less 
 than five years after Bible study began its work, 
 forty of those young men who had banded to fight 
 the new faith, went up the Hanaoka mountain to set 
 their seal to a new covenant with Christ and each 
 other, to give their lives to Christ for Japan ! And 
 these were the men that in the crisis reinforced the 
 imperilled enterprise at Kyoto, and in 1879 were 
 graduated from the Doshisha to become the best 
 native teachers and preachers to mould the New 
 Japan ! 
 
 There are many other plain signs of the divine 
 working in this well-jointed mechanism. Neesima 
 was a conspicuous man from his connection with the 
 embassy and the Doshisha, and even the opposition 
 to his work only gave his name and fame a trumpet 
 voice. The graduates from his school were found to 
 be commanding the best posts in the empire and con- 
 trolling affairs by sheer force of character, so that, at 
 the tenth anniversary of the Doshisha, it had proven 
 its mission to be so useful that it had vindicated its 
 right to be. Count Inouye himself gave the address, 
 and so the government recognized a Christian school 
 as a national blessing ! Before Neesima died he had, 
 in a large Buddhist temple at Kyoto, pleaded for the 
 new university, and over 60,000 yen had been sub- 
 scribed. And five years ago the work of the Dosh- 
 isha had already given to Japan nearly one thousand 
 young workers for God. 
 
 This story we have considered worthy of a large 
 place as an example of the wonder-working of God 
 in modern missions. Prominent as is the individual 
 
326 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 factor, its importance is found only in its connection 
 with Him who alone controls history. This man was 
 the rod of God with which He wrought signs. 
 
 Neesima's biographer, already referred to, ex- 
 presses the sum of all this forty years' wonder- 
 working : 
 
 '^ Let us realize that God still moves in a mysteri- 
 ous way His wonders to perform in the world. The 
 age of miracles of physical healing may be past, but 
 we have before us the fulfilment at the present day 
 of the Saviour's promise : ' Greater works than these 
 shall ye do, because I go unto my Father! ' " Then 
 referring to the wonderful chain of events already 
 traced, he adds: ** This is as great a ' miracle ' as is 
 recorded in the Old Testament or the New, if we 
 except our Saviour's incarnation and atoning work. 
 It is inconceivable that all these improbable things 
 should happen and come together at just the right 
 time, simply by chance! " 
 
 The locatioji and succession of labo7ire?'s is another 
 proof of providential administration. Who but God 
 knows what sort of men and women will be needed 
 at any critical and pivotal point of time and place. 
 Yet with what divine prescience the story of mis- 
 sions abounds! God has at the precise exigency 
 raised up and placed at the great centres of influence 
 the exact workmen needed. And they could have had 
 no conscious part in this adaptation, for they did not 
 know the field to which they were going, and still 
 less did they know its peculiar wants. There were 
 obvious pre-adaptations which far transcend all mere 
 human forethought. How little Livingstone knew 
 how his preparations for China were pre-eminently 
 fitting him for Africa and his exact work in the Dark 
 Continent ! When McAU was amusing himself with 
 architectural drawing, how little did he dream that 
 his pencil was to be brought into such requisition in 
 planning ^^//^i- in Paris! When John E. Clough was 
 training as a civil engineer, and persisted in going 
 
GENERAL ADMINISTRA TION. 327 
 
 to India, who but God foresaw that, in 1877, ^ civil 
 engineer would be specially needed to complete that 
 Buckingham canal, and give perishing Teluguswork 
 and wages? Who gave Carey such native love for lin- 
 guistic study and such passion for Cook's '^ Voyages," 
 but He who meant him for England's first missionary 
 to India, and the great translator of His Word into 
 the many dialects of that vast empire? Dr. George 
 E. Post little thought, when perfecting himself in 
 medicine and surgery, that he was to wield a world- 
 wide influence from Beirut, and make St. John's 
 Hospital a vestibule to the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Was it no providence of God that at critical periods 
 of missions raised up and placed at the great centres 
 of influence the exact men and women needed? What 
 a man was Lord William Bentinck, to take the gov- 
 ernor-generalship in India during that memorable 
 seven years, from 1828-1835. It forms an epoch in 
 administrative reform, and in the slow process 
 whereby the population of a province become recon- 
 ciled to foreign rule, and even attached to alien rulers. 
 With Lord Bentinck begins that modern Jiistory of 
 British rule in India which introduced a benevolent 
 and fraternal administration, wherein the good of the 
 native population was the supreme end kept in view. 
 Two memorable acts forever adorn his rule: the 
 abolition of suttee and the suppression of the Thugs. 
 So prevalent was the immolation of widows under 
 religious sanction, that, in the year 18 17, seven hun- 
 dred mounted the pyre in Bengal presidency alone ; 
 and to-day, each of the little white pillars, so thickly 
 dotting the most holy pilgrim paths of the Hindus, 
 commemorates a suttee. In the face of determined 
 opposition, both from natives and Europeans, this 
 noble magistrate decreed Dec. 4, 1829, that all who 
 abetted the suttee were to be held guilty of '' culpa- 
 ble homicide." And w^hen the Brahmans claimed 
 the right to follow their own conscience, which, as 
 they declared, demanded that widows should be 
 
328 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 burned alive, he calmly answered: ''Obey your con- 
 science, then; but I forewarn you that an English- 
 man's conscience compels him to hang every one of 
 you who becomes responsible for such murder!" 
 
 And then, as to the Thugs or Thagi — those bands 
 of secret assassins bound by oath to commit outrages, 
 and basing their vows on the rites of the bloody 
 Kali — between 1826 and 1835, over fifteen hundred 
 of these Thugs were apprehended in different parts 
 of India. And thus gradually the plagues of India 
 abated. 
 
 Macaulay's graceful pen furnished that noble 
 tribute engraved on the statue at Calcutta: 
 
 '' He abolished cruel rites; he effaced humiliating 
 distinctions; he gave liberty to the expression of 
 public opinion ; his constant study it was to elevate 
 the intellectual and moral character of the nations 
 committed to his charge." 
 
 And so suttee and Thug outrages ceased ; and then 
 infanticide — till, in 1863, the last link between idol- 
 fanes and State patronage was broken. 
 
VI. 
 
 MIRACLES OF GRACE. 
 
 The remark of Prof. Theodore Christlieb is often 
 repeated, that 'Mn the history of modern missions 
 we find many wonderful occurrences which unmis- 
 takably remind us of the Apostolic age." And in 
 view of the fact that, now as then, such hindrances 
 to the gospel exist in the heathen world that the 
 sense of divine things is dulled and blunted, he 
 thought that supernatural exhibitions of power are 
 needed to confirm the message and compel attention. 
 With such a basis of conviction that God's interven- 
 tion is to be expected, the wonders recorded in the 
 experience of Hans Egede, Spangenberg and Zeis- 
 berger, Kleinschmidt, and the little flock in the 
 Vaudois valleys, will not appear incredible. And, 
 inasmuch as there is no hint in the New Testament 
 that the signs promised as proofs of Christ's pres- 
 ence and confirmations of faith were ever to cease, 
 why are we incredulous as to the reality of the won- 
 ders recorded? 
 
 The New Acts of the Apostles have recorded sim- 
 ilar triumphs of grace. In countless cases the moral 
 miracle wrought at Ephesus has been repeated. 
 Leaders of the people, who have made merchandise 
 of superstition and imposture, have sacrificed both 
 their profits and their prominence, their means of 
 livelihood and sometimes life itself, rather than 
 longer sin against God, or betray even by silence 
 their former victims of ignorance and delusion. 
 Who can count the cost to a Brahman like Sheshadri 
 in India, or a Maronite priest like Asaad Shidiak 
 in Syria, of renouncing a false faith and a lying life, 
 henceforth to teach the hated gospel and bear the 
 shameful cross! Hudson Taylor tells of one such 
 
 329 
 
330 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 conversion in inland China, where a former leader in 
 atrocious crimes turned the haunts of unbridled lust 
 into the place of prayer, and himself became the 
 witness to those whom he had led astray. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles, they are the wonders of 
 grace that overawe us, and not those of simple 
 power. When the magians, already referred to, that 
 clustered about Diana's great temple, were so 
 wrought upon by the Spirit of God that their pride 
 and greed, their lust of power and their lust of gain, 
 were at once renounced, and the flames devoured the 
 costly text-books of their occult arts, there is some- 
 thing in such sacrifices that is sublimer than any 
 mere display of force, though it were sufficient to 
 shake the earth itself. We all know that selfish 
 greed and social rank grapple men as with hooks of 
 steel; and we stand in awe of such proofs of divine 
 working as were seen when all sources of pecuniary 
 gain and superstitious prestige were thus voluntarily 
 abandoned. 
 
 Is it no sign of God's power when moral and social 
 changes which the wisest men reckon among impos- 
 sibilities are not only actually wrought but with a 
 rapidity that seems fabulous ? 
 
 For example, when Dr. Duff began work in Cal- 
 cutta, he found that a cow had more rights and 
 higher rank than a woman, and he said that to try to 
 educate women in India was as vain as to attempt to 
 *' scale a wall five hundred yards high." To-day in 
 the province of Bengal alone a hundred thousand 
 women and girls are under instruction, and India's 
 most gifted daughters are laying hold of the treas- 
 ures of the higher education. Zenana doors have 
 been unlocked by the gentle hand of Christian 
 womanhood, and a transformation is already accom- 
 plished which centuries of merely human wisdom 
 and power could not even have begun. 
 
 Those sagacious men who are God's seers look on 
 this great change as the hope of this Oriental Em- 
 
MIRACLES OF GRACE. 331 
 
 pire. Woman was taken out of man, yet even in India 
 as in Eden, woman leads man, and through her heart 
 lies the road to his head. Whatever system of truth 
 or faith captivates woman, in the end captures man. 
 Even those who see, can scarce believe what they 
 see — a moral movement to-day in progress, by 
 which the conditions of a half century ago are being 
 reversed. What then was a wall of hopeless exclu- 
 sion, the despair of the missionary, is now become a 
 highway of access and the hope of final conquest, as 
 before the victorious Macedonian the walls of Tyre 
 were turned into the mole that joined the island to 
 the mainland. 
 
 Henry Martyn calmly said that the conversion of 
 Krishna Chundra Pal, India's first Protestant con- 
 vert, was as stupendous a miracle as raising the 
 dead. What would he say if he saw the native 
 Christians in that empire of Brahma, increasing 
 eighty per cent, in one decade of years? 
 
 When that first convert was baptized, in 1800, the 
 islands of the South Seas thronged with hordes of 
 heartlessly cruel savages. Cannibalism, their shame, 
 was yet their glory ; human skins furnished them with 
 water-bags and human skulls with drinking-cups ; 
 men's bones were their ornaments, and men's blood 
 moistened their war-paint. How^ has it come to pass 
 that to-day scarce a trace of these brutal barbarities 
 exists through the vast Pacific Archipelago? 
 
 From the commencement of the BecJiuaiia mission 
 by Hamilton Read, in 18 16, for over ten years no 
 ray of light shot athwart the gloom. The Batlaping 
 had open ears only to w^hat promised temporal gains, 
 and were deaf to all spiritual invitation or warning. 
 When the sorely-tried faith of the missionaries almost 
 gave way, there was a holy woman in the mission 
 who never faltered in her faith. She believed in the 
 promise of an unchanging God, and she said : * ' We 
 may not live to see it, but, as surely as to-morrow's 
 sun will rise, the awakening will come." When her 
 
332 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 friends at home would have counselled her to give 
 up her forlorn hope and go to a promising field, and 
 when Mrs. Greaves, of Sheffield, wrote, asking what 
 could be sent her that would be of use — the sublime 
 answer of Mary Moffat was: ''Send us a communion 
 service; it will be wanted." 
 
 At that time there was not the first glimmer of 
 day — it was the forecast of faith ; and it took many 
 months for the letter to find its way to England and 
 for the request to find fulfilment. And, meanwhile, 
 the darkness seemed to deepen, and doubts grew 
 graver as to the expediency of carrying on the 
 Bechuana mission ; but her faith knew no change : 
 it had its grip on the promises. In 1827, the gray 
 light of dawn faintly appeared, and by 1829, a mar- 
 vellous quickening began even among these stolidly 
 indifferent natives, and without any human or visible 
 cause. There was "a wave of tumultuous and 
 simultaneous enthusiasm," which could not be due to 
 the "sober-minded and hard-headed Scotchmen," 
 who have a wholesome dread of sensationalism and 
 emotionalism. But in a few months the whole 
 aspect of matters was changed. The meeting-house 
 thronged in advance of the hour of service — songs 
 and prayers instead of pagan chants and dances — all 
 at once eternal realities had come to the front and 
 compelled attention. The dirt and filth and nudity 
 of the natives were exchanged for cleanly habits and 
 decent attire, and such a spirit of inquiry was 
 aroused that the little Kuruman meeting-house re- 
 sounded with sobs and cries that made it hard to go 
 on with the usual forms of worship. And the first 
 time the table of the Lord was spread in the Bech- 
 uana mission, the same number sat down as at the 
 original celebration in Jerusalem! and the very day 
 previous to that appointed for this ordinance, there 
 arrived a box, long on the way, which being opened 
 was found to hold the communion vessels Mary 
 Moffat had asked for nearly three years before — • 
 
MIRACLES OF GRACE. 333 
 
 prophesying ' ' we shall want them — send them 
 
 on 
 
 William Duncan took seven years — 1856-1863 — to 
 establish his model state among the wild Red men 
 of North America. When he first went among them 
 he found nine hostile tribes gathered together, and 
 when after six months he undertook to preach his 
 first sermon, he dared not bring them into one assem- 
 bly, but delivered it nine times the same day to as 
 many different groups; and when Lord Dufferin, 
 Governor-General of Canada, went to see Duncan's 
 Metlakahtla, he could find no terms in the various 
 languages of which he was master, fitty to describe 
 what he saw, but could only exclaim, ''What won- 
 ders hath God wrought ! " 
 
 William Duncan went to Fort Simpson in 1856, 
 where he found some twenty houses of fur-traders, 
 and nearly three hundred in a long straight line on the 
 Pacific coast, where wild Indians lived. 
 
 Not long after his arrival he found a crowd of 
 these savages on the beach actually tearing in pieces, 
 and then eating, a human body. With the aid of an 
 Indian, named Clah, who could speak English, he 
 undertook to learn the languages of these wild men, 
 and get acquainted with their habits. He found two 
 distinct parties — " man-eaters," and '' dog-eaters" — 
 but more numerous tribal divisions. He began to 
 visit them at their houses, and after working over 
 eight months, wrote out that first plain sermon which 
 nine times he read to audiences that numbered from 
 fifty to two hundred. He opened his first school in 
 the house of a chief, Legiac. At first he had such 
 conflicts with their unholy rites and pagan supersti- 
 tions, that even his life was in danger; but he 
 persevered, teaching and preaching and visiting 
 the sick, and the influence of the gospel became 
 apparent. Feathers and paint gave place to decent 
 attire. Even the chiefs were found at school; 
 church-goers were numbered by hundreds. And in 
 
334 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 1863, he withdrew with fifty Indians to a retired bay 
 twenty miles off, that he might build there a model 
 state, free from the drunkenness and other vices that 
 were constantly undoing his work at Fort Simpson. 
 Six weeks later, he was joined by three hundred 
 more who entered into the covenant to abandon 
 pagan practices and vicious habits. And so the 
 foundations of MctlakaJitla were laid. A Christian 
 village grew with surprising rapidity. It was laid 
 out with regularity, but its outward order was but a 
 faint reflection of its moral order. 
 
 Chief Legiac was transformed from a fierce and 
 revengeful savage to a quiet carpenter, and became 
 Mr. Duncan's chief helper. The Tsimean Indians 
 developed not only into industrious tradesmen, but 
 into artistic carvers in wood, stone and ivory, and 
 jewellers. The natives bought their own vessel and 
 set on foot their own commerce. Whiskey and im- 
 morality were excluded, and Metlakahtla became a 
 proverb for all the most beneficent fruits of Chris- 
 tianity, and put to vShame the oldest and best gov- 
 erned communities of Christian lands, by its beautful 
 example of the Power of the Gospel. 
 
 Individual conversions weigh heavily in the scale 
 when we are seeking proofs that God is supernatu- 
 rally working ; but when to these is added the weight 
 of testimony found in these changes that affect the 
 whole domestic and social life, what doubt remains? 
 We must take the whole range of human experience, 
 of the sins and sorrows, curses and crimes of society, 
 when we estimate either human degradation or ele- 
 vation. Gesta Diaboli must be known if Gesta 
 Cliristi are understood. 
 
 What lever is that which after thousands of years 
 of worse than slavery is now lifting womanhood to a 
 lofty level? In Asia woman has long found no wel- 
 come at birth, no instruction in girlhood, no love in 
 wifehood, no care in motherhood, no protection in 
 old age, no regret in death. In Africa, sold for so 
 
MIRACLES OF GRACE. 335 
 
 many head of cattle, she has often been more brutally 
 treated; and in Persia, loaded like a donkey, she 
 could not easily be distinguished from a beast of bur- 
 den. Tabooed by caste, denied either freedom or 
 society, counted as soulless, and both incapable of 
 culture and unworthy of respect, she has been shut 
 up in a domestic prison, and treated as a slave for 
 service and a victim for vice. 
 
 Where woman is thus dishonoured, we shall not be 
 surprised to find the whole basis of society rotten, 
 and can believe that the road leading to Juggernath's 
 shrine is for fifty miles paved with men's bones, and 
 that the altars of that monster are stained with blood 
 and smeared with obscenity. We shall not find it 
 hard to credit the awful sacrifices which slavery has 
 offered on the altar of human cruelty, though it has 
 bound and slain such a host of victims that their 
 bodies, laid side by side, would thrice girdle the 
 globe at the equator ! 
 
 Sin has made the earth the habitation of cruelty. 
 When the old king of Eboe died, by t\ieJ2i-J2i rites 
 forty victims were sacrificed. Nine of his youngest 
 wives, their ankles and wrists broken, and in excruci- 
 ating pain, were put at the bottom of the open grave 
 pit, with the dead body, to await death by slow star- 
 vation, guards being stationed about the grave with 
 clubs to beat back any of them if they moved from 
 their place. Other human beings were bored through 
 the feet and hung from high trees heads downward 
 to die in digony. And these are but specimen-pages 
 from that bloody book of human history which records 
 deeds of which it is a shame even to speak. 
 
 The missionary who has witnessed the power of 
 God unto salvation is not ashamed of the gospel of 
 Christ. He sees it lifting the individual to his true 
 level and putting him in his normal place. Naked- 
 ness is decently clad; the hut or hovel, where beasts 
 made their stalls side by side with human beings, 
 gives place to neat and comely houses, where modesty 
 
336 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 is no longer put to shame, and order reigns. Children 
 are nourished and cherished with loving tenderness, 
 and breathe the atmosphere of a pious, prayerful 
 home. Woman is dignified and honoured, wedlock 
 sanctified, and family life glorified. Honest toil is 
 respected and rewarded ; the serf and the slave are 
 made free and independent; ignorance and idleness, 
 the handmaids of vice, are exchanged for virtue's 
 habitual attendants — industry and intelligence. 
 
 Isaac Taylor once attempted a catalogue of the 
 great social evils: polygamy, legalized prostitution 
 and capricious divorce, bloody and brutal games, 
 rapacious and offensive wars, death and punishment 
 by torture, infanticide, caste and slavery. From all 
 lands where the cross has been set up and the gospel 
 faithfully preached, these nine gigantic forms of 
 wrong are either retreating or are no more found. 
 A new standard of manhood is also erected, and new 
 lessons in living, taught. So surely as Christ becomes 
 Master, so surely do these owls of the midnight flee 
 before the new dawn. 
 
 Instead of polygamy, once more, as at the begin- 
 ning, one man and one woman become "one flesh." 
 The law, instead of shielding vice by legalizing it, 
 becomes the avenging sword to punish unbridled 
 lust; and easy divorce is condemned as the apology 
 and refuge of ''free love." Infanticide is branded 
 as both cruelty and crime, fatal both to natural affec- 
 tion and a good conscience. Aggressive warfare 
 becomes highway robbery and organized slaughter. 
 Bloody and brutal games are considered as lowering 
 man to the level of the brute, if not the demon; 
 and needless torture even of the worst criminal, 
 inflicts a pang upon the community scarcely less keen 
 than the anguish of the victim. Caste is seen to be 
 an insult to God, because a dishonour to His image 
 in man; and slavery becomes, to an enlightened 
 Christian society, the breach of all duty and love 
 both to God and our neighbour — the violation of the 
 
MIRACLES OF GRACE. 337 
 
 whole decalogue at once — a conspiracy of man to rob 
 and ruin, debauch and defraud, degrade and dishon- 
 our his fellow-man — to make impossible a true life for 
 the individual, the family, or the state ; to set a pre- 
 mium on lies and lusts, covetousness and cruelty; 
 to cage God's nightingale — the human soul — and 
 put out its eyes, that it may become content behind 
 bars and sing when it can no longer soar ! 
 
 There are those who dispute the unique claims of 
 the Son of God, and talk of Christianity as one of 
 the great religions, all of which have their right to a 
 seat in the world's parliament. But the difference 
 between the gospel of Christ and any other religion 
 is one not of degree only, but of kind. Let these 
 claimants to the honour of equal rank bring forth 
 their witnesses. Greece boasted her religion of 
 beauty and art, wisdom and knovdedge ; Rome, her 
 manly virtue and martial valour, model laws and ideal 
 state. Did the refinement and culture of Athens, 
 even in the age of Pericles, or the noble statesman- 
 ship and heroic courage of Rome in the days of 
 Augustus, actually uplift society from moral degra- 
 dation and depravity? Did these "religions" banish 
 gladiatorial games and the cruelties of the arena, 
 and aggressive wars of conquest? Did they prevent 
 worn-out slaves and even aged parents from being 
 turned out to die ; or, the modesty of maidens from 
 being sacrificed at temple altars in the name of re- 
 ligion? Did Athens or Rome build hospitals or 
 asylums for the deaf and dumb and blind and crip- 
 pled and incurably diseased? Let Buddha, " Light of 
 Asia," and Brahma, India's saviour, tell us whether 
 they made impossible the murder of the innocents, 
 the funeral pyre and the torture fire, the car of Jug- 
 gernath, the hook-swing, the bed of spikes, the 
 caste walls, the child marriage, the worship of the 
 cow and the trampling of woman? 
 
 Now let the Christian missionary testify ! Where- 
 ever Christ has found a throne, the arena is in 
 
338 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ruins. Warfare yields to peaceful arbitration, when 
 it is not needful as a check upon despots or lawless 
 rioters and anarchists. The mercenary spirit gives 
 place to the merciful, and poverty finds pity, and 
 suffering- is soothed by compassion. Christian lands 
 build not only schools and colleges, but great homes 
 where sickness and misfortune find refuge and loving 
 ministries. Man's inalienable rights find their Magna 
 Charta, and even the animal creation profits by the 
 compassion which Christ teaches. Christianity is the 
 only faith that has ever been able to turn the world 
 upside down, and restore the true and original order, 
 so that where man had become the worshipper of 
 beasts and the slave of his own lusts, he has once 
 more asserted the supremacy of conscience and re- 
 gained dominion. 
 
 The zvJiole Jiistory of modern missions abounds in 
 the sublime. It is a panorama of wonders. Take 
 one more example out of hundreds that might be cited. 
 In Japan, without any injustice to the others who 
 compose that noble band who have sought the true 
 illumination of the Sunrise Kingdom, we may men- 
 tion the name of John C. Hepburn, M.D., LL.D., 
 SiS, facile priiiceps. He arrived at Kanagawa October 
 i8, 1859; and, although not the first to enter those 
 ports after the Townsend-H arris treaty of 1858, he 
 has perhaps rendered to the Island Empire the most 
 distinguished service yet permitted to any one man. 
 In December, 1862, he located at Yokohama, doing 
 daily dispensary and lexicographic work, and teaching 
 on Sundays. For over thirty-three years he has been 
 almost continuously a resident of the Island Empire, 
 even his temporary absences being in the interests of 
 Japanese civilization. During two winters he was 
 in Shanghai printing his dictionary, and has more 
 than once visited America. But over the entire 
 empire for the period of a generation this man has 
 been known as a medical missionary, an educator of 
 the very first rank, whose services were sought in 
 
MIRACLES OF GRACE. 339 
 
 vain at high prices by the Japanese Government ; as 
 a Christian statesman and philanthropist tmtiring in 
 his devotion to the well-being of the nation ; but 
 principally as the chief translator of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. And no more sublime hour has been reached 
 in the history of this awakening people, than when, 
 after nearly thirty years of patient toil, holding in his 
 hands the two volumes of the completed Word of 
 God, he formally presented the Japanese Bible to the 
 nation. 
 
 When Rev. Dr. Inglis, of Aneityum, was asked to 
 make a speech before the General Assembly of the 
 Free Church of Scotland, and was cautioned to be 
 brief, he said: 
 
 ** Fathers and brethren, we are told that mission- 
 aries should content themselves with stating facts, 
 and leave the Church to draw the inference. I wish 
 to bring three facts to your notice. 
 
 ^^ First ^ I place on your table," suiting the action 
 to the word, ' ' the Shorter Catechism translated into 
 the language of Aneityum. 
 
 '"''Second^ I place on your table also 'Pilgrim's 
 Progress ' translated into the language of Aneityum." 
 
 Then, taking into his hands a large volume, while 
 he looked longingly on the pages that had cost him 
 years of toil, he laid it on the table, and said : 
 
 " Thirds I place on your table the Holy Scriptures, 
 Old and New Testament, translated into the lan- 
 guage of Aneityum, and now leave the Church to 
 draw the inference," and sat down amid a storm of 
 applause. 
 
VII. 
 RAPIDITY OF RESULTS. 
 
 God shows His power both in the quality and 
 quantity of His work; and perhaps no proofs of His 
 energy are more convincing in the sphere of mis- 
 sions than those furnished in the astonishing rapidity 
 with which results of great magnitude have been 
 wrought. 
 
 This may be made to appear most clearly if we 
 take a cursory glance over the entire century since 
 Carey sailed for India, and, without tarrying at any 
 point, sweep round the vast circle of the work ac- 
 complished, and get at least a comprehensive 
 glimpse of the stupendous changes wrought within 
 these hundred years. 
 
 Ninety-six years have swept by since mission 
 history began in the South Seas. At least fourteen 
 years of labour passed before there was the first con- 
 vert in Tahiti. Then, and while the missionaries 
 were absent from the island, Tuahine and another of 
 the natives, who had been impressed with the truth 
 while serving in a missionary's family, were found 
 praying to God for a new heart. Then Pomare II. 
 gave up his idol-gods; and, before the missionaries 
 had again set foot on Tahiti, a wonderful upheaval 
 of society had begun. Since that day in 1811, the 
 converts, living and dead, in Western Polynesia, 
 have numbered over a million ! 
 
 Let us now shorten the period of our survey to the 
 eighty years since 18 13, when the American Baptist 
 Missionary Union was formed. Then Judson and 
 his wife were its only representatives and Burma its 
 sole field. For ten years he wrought before he had 
 been able to gather one little flock of eighteen con- 
 verts into a church. Those ten years seemed com- 
 
 340 
 
RA PIDI TV OF RESUL TS. 341 
 
 paratively fruitless. But when from across the sea 
 the question was asked, " Judson, what are the 
 prospects?" his faith, undiscouraged, saw only a future 
 as bright as the promises of God! We now look 
 back over this four-score years, and, not excluding 
 the first decade of years of comparative famine, 
 what a glorious harvest the Baptist Union has already 
 reaped! Taking the whole eighty years into our 
 reckoning, one new Baptist church has been organ- 
 ized on heathen soil for every three weeks of the 
 entire time ; one new convert has been baptized for 
 every three hours, counting in day and night ; and at 
 least one in ten of such converts has become an 
 active worker in the field, himself a seed of the 
 kingdom ! 
 
 Let us still narrow down the time to fifty years, 
 and see what signs and wonders He has wTought 
 who takes no note of man's calendar of time. 
 
 In Turkey, more than twenty translations of the 
 Word of God in the languages and dialects of living 
 peoples have been supplied during the half century : 
 an average of one new translation for every thirty 
 months ! By Dr. Cyrus H. Wheeler and his co-workers, 
 the banks of the Euphrates have been dotted with 
 self-sustaining churches ; and a standard of giving, so 
 exalted and apostolic, has been erected, that where- 
 ever ten disciples could be found, a church could be 
 gathered which would support its own pastor. For 
 each disciple gave a tenth of his income, and out of 
 ten such tithes, a sum could be realized equal to the 
 average income of the givers; and so the native 
 pastor, willing to live on a level with his people, 
 could have enough to keep him from want. Think 
 of such model churches in territory newly occupied for 
 Christ ! 
 
 When, in 1878, the jubilee of the baptism of the 
 first Karen convert was kept, the Kho-Thah-Byu 
 Memorial Hall was joyfully dedicated, with its capaci- 
 ous audience-chamber and various accessories. But 
 
342 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 what a host of converts had those fifty years seen 
 gathered to Christ! not less than sixty thousand, 
 half of whom were living to take part in the celebra- 
 tion. Sir Charles Bernard reckons the present Chris- 
 tian community at 200,000, and it has five hundred 
 self-sustaining churches. 
 
 In China, the era of missions properly began in 
 1842; fifty years later, there were fifty thousand 
 converts, and the ratio of increase during the quar- 
 ter century between 1863 and 1888 was eighteen- 
 fold! 
 
 The fifty years in the Fiji Islands from 1835 to 
 1885, saw changes so wonderful that they defy ade- 
 quate description. When James Calvert went there 
 his first duty was to gather up and bury the skulls, 
 hands and feet, of eighty victims, sacrificed at a can- 
 nibal feast. He lived to see the very people who 
 had taken part in that horrible meal seated about the 
 Lord's table to eat of the bread and drink of the cup 
 that are the emblems of His Body and Blood. At 
 the close of that fifty years thirteen hundred 
 churches of Christ could be counted, some of them 
 standing on the site of cannibal ovens, and out of a 
 population of 110,000, 104,000 were habitual attend- 
 ants at places of worship. And in no part of Scot- 
 land could there be found fewer homes where no 
 family worship hallows household life. 
 
 Forty-three years were spent by Eliza Agnew at 
 the girls' seminary, in Oodooville, Ceylon. She was 
 called the ''mother of a thousand daughters," for 
 she had taken part in the training of three successive 
 generations of Ceylonese girls ; teaching the daugh- 
 ters and even granddaughters of her original schol- 
 ars. When she laid down her work, it was found 
 that not a single girl who had gone through the full 
 course under this saintly teacher had gone back 
 unconverted to a heathen home ; and upwards of six 
 hundred whom she had taught were penetrating with 
 the light of the gospel the darkness of Indian zena- 
 
RA FIB I TY OF RES UL FS. 343 
 
 nas ! It may be doubted whether a fuller cup of ser- 
 vice has ever been offered to the Saviour of souls by 
 any woman of the century. 
 
 Look at the contrasts of thirty years in Upper Bur- 
 ma, 1 860- 1 890. When Theebau was inaugurated 
 as King of Upper Burma, at Mandalay, he w^as a 
 monster of cruelty, and the event was celebrated by 
 a massacre so horrible that several hundred of the 
 nobility, and even members of the king's own family, 
 were among the victims. The sacrifice of human 
 life was so common, that when the city of Mandalay 
 w^as built, fifty-six young girls were slain, that the 
 eight gates of the city might by their blood be secure 
 from all invaders. To attempt missions in such a 
 locality meant captivity, if not martyrdom, to who- 
 ever undertook the work. 
 
 Thirty years later, in that same city, the Baptist 
 Missionary Conference was held, and during the con- 
 ference the Judson Memorial Church was dedicated. 
 Burmese Christians had given eight thousand rupees 
 toward the cost; it was a native Karen choir that 
 led the service of sacred song; and at the closing 
 communion of the Lord's Supper, Tamils and Telu- 
 gus, Burmans and Karens, Shans and Tounghus, 
 English and Eurasians, Americans and Chinamen, 
 representatives of five hundred churches and 30,000 
 believers in Burma, sat down together to keep the 
 sacred supper — bound in one bundle of life. 
 
 Let us still shorten the time to a quarter century. 
 Johann Gerhard Oncken, born Varel, Oldenburg, 
 about 1800, and in early life a domestic servant, in 
 young manhood opened a book shop at Hamburg, 
 joined the English Independents, and became agent 
 of the Edinburgh Bible Society and Lower Saxony 
 Tract Society. In April, 1834, about 34 years old, 
 he asked Dr. Barnas Sears of Brown University, then 
 in Hamburg, to baptize him and six others and form 
 them into a Baptist Church, of which Oncken 
 became pastor; and next year the American Baptists 
 
344 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 made him their missionary. Then began a career 
 so remarkable that it can be scarcely believed. He 
 visited all parts of Germany and Denmark, preach- 
 ing, scattering Bibles and tracts and organizing 
 churches. He faced persecution and was several 
 times imprisoned; but, in 1842, during the great 
 fire, he with his family and congregation so helped 
 homeless sufferers, that the Senate publicly decreed 
 to them the right of unhindered worship, and he 
 gave himself anew to missionary work. 
 
 Twenty -five years passed, and sixty-five churches 
 with seven hundred and fifty stations had been estab- 
 lished, with nearly ten thousand members and one 
 hundred and twenty ministers and Bible readers; 
 Bibles and tracts had been scattered by the million 
 pages, and fifty millions of people had heard the 
 gospel. Give us two hundred and fifty churches 
 like Oncken's at Hamburg, and we can, in twenty- 
 five years more, secure the preaching of the gospel 
 to every human soul ! 
 
 Dr. John Geddie was at Aneityum only tzventy- 
 four years, from 1848 to 1872. On the tablet reared 
 to his memory we read: ''When he landed in 1848, 
 there were no Christians; when he left in 1872, there 
 were no heathens." 
 
 John Williams's course reached over but twenty-two 
 years, from 18 17 to 1839. Five years before he fell a 
 martyr at Erromanga, the gospel had been carried 
 over a circle of four thousand miles diameter, whose 
 centre is Tahiti. There lies a vast Pacific archi- 
 pelago, within whose circumference of twelve 
 thousand miles are included the Raratongan, 
 Friendly, Cook, Society, Navigators', Marquesas, 
 Union, Austral, Gambia, and Solomon groups of 
 islands, and Low Archipelago, as well as many 
 others. Yet, within seventeen years, not only had 
 every group, but every considerable island in every 
 group, been evangelized; the people had burned 
 the maraes, and given up their abandoned idols as 
 
RA FID I TY OF RES UL FS. 345 
 
 trophies to the missionaries. War spears had 
 become pulpit rails for the gospel of peace, and 
 the god of war himself had become a prop for the 
 roofs of the homes where peace found dwelling- 
 place ! 
 
 Robert W. Mc All's sixteen years in France, from 
 1872 to 1888, finds no parallel in any papal com- 
 munity. In 1872 he opened one little salle amid the 
 lawless Communists of Belleville; sixteen years 
 later, he had 112 salles ; and in one year held 1 4, 000 
 religious meetings, whereby probably a million of 
 hearers had been reached. And even the govern- 
 ment held out to him every encouragement in his 
 work, declaring that police force became unneces- 
 sary in proportion as McAll meetings prevailed. 
 And all this amazing success was reached without 
 any outward attraction of art. A free gospel for 
 everybody, an open Bible, hearty singing, plain, 
 simple talks, self-denying toil for souls — these were 
 all the machinery. 
 
 It is but sixteen years since the great Pentecost 
 in the Telugu country : and the progress of gospel tri- 
 umph during those years can be compared only with 
 the rapidity of the work in the South Seas. Souls 
 were ingathered with such amazing speed and in such 
 vast numbers, that it has been doubted whether even 
 the first Pentecost in Jerusalem equalled it. The 
 church at Ongole became the largest in the world, 
 numbering with its branches over 30,000 members. 
 And the peculiar feature of this history is that the 
 blessing is perpetual. No one ingathering has per- 
 haps ever been so astonishing from first to last. The 
 revival has known no cessation since its beginning, 
 and nearly ten thousand souls were added to the 
 Church during the eighteen months last re- 
 ported! 
 
 Harpoot — that leading station of the American 
 Board in Eastern Turkey, the seat of the Euphrates 
 College, and the centre of widespread evangelism 
 
346 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 among the Armenians — has been the scene of a quiet, 
 but powerful work of God. One of its most vener- 
 ated missionaries, Dr. H. N. Barnum, once gave an 
 account of fourteen years of labour, in preaching, 
 establishing stations, training a native ministry, and 
 carrying on all the work of evangelization and edu- 
 cation over a wide territory. The question was 
 asked: '* At what cost was all this done?" And the 
 answer was — for a sum less than the cost of the 
 church building in which he was then speaking — an 
 edifice worth probably 150,000 dollars! Fourteen 
 years of such wide-reaching work at an average 
 cost per year of somewhat over 10,000 dollars! 
 
 When Mackay, at Formosa, kept his twelfth anni- 
 versary, he sought to gather all his living converts 
 at the Lord's table — and twelve hundred kept the 
 solemn feast. Many had died during those twelve 
 years, and much time had been spent at the outset in 
 acquiring a strange tongue ; yet, notwithstanding all 
 this, there was this rich living harvest of twelve 
 years' sowing. 
 
 Seven years were allotted to Johnson in Sierra 
 Leone — among the chaotic mass of human beings, 
 the refuse from the holds of slave ships, who could 
 hold no converse with one another except through a 
 bastard English dialect; who lived a life of un- 
 bridled lust, habitual lying, thieving and quarrelling; 
 who had no honest trades to occupy their time or 
 earn their living, but were fed like paupers and 
 criminals on government rations. Yet, out of such 
 worthless material, by God's help, he organized a 
 Christian community, as out of the filth of earth the 
 divine forces of nature crystallize gems, turning the 
 miry clay into sapphires, the sand into opals, and 
 even the soot into diamonds. 
 
 A like period of seven years sufficed to establish 
 among the wild men of North America William 
 Duncan's model State, or Metlakahtla, a community 
 whose industry, intelligence, virtue and piety w^ere 
 
RA PIDI TV OF RES UL TS. 347 
 
 incredible to all who were not eye-witnesses of the 
 marvels of God's grace. 
 
 Six years on the Hawaiian Islands saw almost a 
 complete revolution. Seventeen missionaries had 
 landed March 31, 1820, among a people where 
 infant-murder, even by the hands of mothers, was 
 common ; where modesty was unknown and traffic 
 in female virtue became a trade, and every foreign 
 vessel a floating Sodom ; where no marriage law was 
 known, and the nation was rapidly coming to ex- 
 tinction by its own vices. Yet, even here, in 1826, 
 10,000 natives met at Kawaihae to hear the gospel; 
 at Hilo and Kailua places of worship were built 
 holding 5,000; and at the dedication of the church 
 at the latter place, the rulers of the nation pledged 
 it to the Christians' God. In every district of the 
 islands, Christian schools were found, with a total 
 of 400 teachers and 25,000 pupils. 
 
 Four years, as we have seen already, sufficed at 
 Hilo and Puna to work a transformation that finds 
 no adequate symbol but the volcanic upheavals with 
 which the Kanakas are familiar. The eleven thou- 
 sand converts, gathered from 1835 to 1839, represent 
 only one evidence of God's miraculous work. The 
 whole reconstruction of the community, from its very 
 base, was a grander result and a clearer proof of a 
 supernatural power. Transient movements of sym- 
 pathy and sensibility may account for revivals that 
 sweep like sudden tidal waves over a wide territory; 
 but the permanent creation of an orderly, decorous, 
 peaceful Christian State must be traced back to Him 
 who alone can mould lasting spiritual results. 
 
 Three and a half years of John G. Paton on Aniwa 
 saw a gigantic upheaval of the whole conditions of 
 society. That story is as thrilling as any written in 
 the new chapters of the Acts, and no narrative of 
 missionary toils and triumphs is either more read- 
 able or more romantic, more graphic or pathetic, or 
 more abundant in proofs of supernatural power. A 
 
348 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 religion that in so short a time can transform a can- 
 nibal island into a civilized community, with Christian 
 home life, Sabbath sanctities and unselfish ministries ; 
 that can develop ignorant, heartless, brutal savages 
 into intelligent, affectionate, devoted Christians, 
 must be more than human. One of the first mis- 
 sionaries to this island, twenty-six years before, 
 had been killed. In 1866 Dr. Paton went there to 
 reside, and there are now 1,300 professed disciples 
 on the islands of the New Hebrides group. 
 
 Two years on Nanumaga wrought results not less 
 marvellous. When Thomas Powell left a native 
 evangelist on the island, the natives kept him wait- 
 ing for hours on the beach while they sought to 
 avert the wrath of the gods, for permitting him to 
 land. He found literally an idol-god in every house, 
 and began to labour, with no apparent hope of suc- 
 cess or hold upon the people. Yet, in two years not 
 an idol could be found; the whole population 
 gathered in a place of worship built for Jehovah, and 
 He was inhabiting the praises of those who had just 
 before been abject slaves of the lowest idolatry. 
 All the native children old enough to be taught 
 were in attendance on school, and it is no exaggera- 
 tion to say that the entire complexion, and even con- 
 stitution, of Nanumagan society was changed. 
 
 We may shorten the period of survey to a single 
 year^ and we yet find signs and wonders. Not only 
 does Ongole furnish us an example of 10,000 converts 
 baptized in the one year, 1878, but during that same 
 year, in Tinnevelly and various other places in 
 Southern India, so great was the harvest gathered, 
 that it has been computed that 50,000 turned from 
 idols in that single twelvemonth. 
 
 And what shall we say when one day proves with 
 God as a thousand years? When Titus Coan, on one 
 Sabbath in July, 1838, baptized over 1,700, it was 
 thought scarcely credible that such oversight and 
 scrutiny could have been exercised as to keep out 
 
RAPIDITY OF RE SUITS. 349 
 
 unworthy candidates. But, forty years later, Jewett 
 and Clough baptized in one day over Jive hundred 
 more than Coan had; and that only after the most 
 rigid examination, lest unworthy persons should find 
 their way into the waters of baptism. 
 
 Surely the triumphs of grace already recorded in 
 these pages belong to signs and wonders inexplica- 
 ble by human power. Idolatry, the most degraded 
 in type and the most prolific in fruit, confronted, 
 conquered, uprooted, destroyed! Jeremiah re- 
 proached Judah with having gods as many as cities;* 
 but in Nanumaga every hovel had an idol, and in 
 India more deities are worshipped than the wor- 
 shippers themselves number. Obstacles have been 
 confronted which towered high as mountains and 
 defied either removing or surmounting. Yet see a 
 feeble few seize the very centres and hold the very 
 fortresses of the devil ! as earlier disciples dared to go 
 to Ephesus, centre of Diana worship — to Paphos, 
 where Venus kept her shameless feasts — to Babylon 
 and Rome, where vast pagan empires held their capi- 
 tal and carnival ! Follow unarmed men and sensitive 
 women as they tread over paths lined with human 
 bones, and walk through valleys of death, to assault 
 the image of a modern Moloch and overturn the 
 shrine of Juggerriath! Whether it be to face the 
 despotic Sultan and the ruthless Turk at the Golden 
 Horn, or the cruel ruler of Uganda, or the savage 
 cannibals of the Pacific, or the half idiotic Patago- 
 nians, — the same invincible faith and holy heroism ! 
 
 The horrors of heathenism defy any description. 
 Language is not black enough — hell itself is not equal 
 to the needs of such a portraiture. Take infanti- 
 cide as an example. Mrs. Williams had, at Raiatea, 
 a female servant who, after conversion, gave her an 
 awful glimpse of the customs that swayed all Poly- 
 nesia. A mother would suffocate a new-born babe 
 with a wet cloth, or with her own hands strangle it, or 
 
 * Jeremiah xl. 12. 
 
350 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, 
 
 bury it alive — and feel no pang of compunction ; or, 
 yet more like a demon than a brute, break joint after 
 joint of the fingers and toes and then of the arms 
 and legs, and if such torture did not kill, finish the 
 deed by choking it to death. One woman confessed 
 to thus having killed five, another seven, another 
 nine, and yet another, her whole family of seventeen ! 
 At a school anniversary an aged chief, before whom 
 six hundred children passed in review, arose under 
 the force of deep feeling, and said: ''I must speak! 
 O that I had known that such good was in store for 
 us! my ow^n children might have been among this 
 happy group! But I have destroyed them all — ■ 
 nineteen — and have not one left! " Then turning to 
 the king, his relative, he said, with streaming eyes: 
 ''You, my brother, saw me kill them one after 
 another ! Why did you not stay this murderous hand 1 
 and say, God is about to bless us! Salvation is 
 coming to these shores ! " 
 
 The island of Raiatea, the centre for Williams's 
 tours, was the seat of both the political power and 
 idolatry of the group; there was the Temple of the 
 Mars, and the Moloch of the vSouth Seas. Idleness 
 and iniquity, cruelty and crime, held high carnival. 
 The mind was blunted by ignorance, and the con- 
 science seared into insensibility. ' And yet even 
 among such a people he was not ashamed to preach 
 the gospel, and believed it would prove the power of 
 God. It seemed as though association with such 
 brutes would drag him down, but he brought them 
 up to his level, instead of sinking to theirs. He 
 taught them religion, and religion brought civiliza- 
 tion, until every house seemed a house of prayer, 
 and naked savages clothed and in their right minds 
 sat down at Jesus' feet. No more a wilderness of 
 wretched hovels, but three miles of comely cottages; 
 useful trades and mechanic arts, and a thrifty com- 
 merce. Within a year seven thousand idolaters have 
 flung their gods to the fires and built a great house 
 
J? A PIDI T V OF RE S UL TS. 351 
 
 for God. And so in Samoa five-sixths of the whole 
 population of sixty thousand are shortly flocking to 
 him to be taught. And all this with no aid from the 
 civil power! 
 
 And still God's signs and wonders convince not the 
 unbelieving, for some would not be persuaded though 
 one rose from the dead. '' Critics of missions" still 
 survive who can look at God's great work, and yet 
 call missions either an *' organized hypocrisy, or a 
 disastrous failure ! " Such a judgment recalls Dr. 
 Johnson's verdict upon Milton's ''Lycidas," that it 
 is '*no poem at all;" with Matthew Arnold's quiet 
 rejoinder that *' such a sentence is terrible — for the 
 critic/" Some guns kick so badly that, as Dr. 
 Beecher used to say, '^ it _were better to be before 
 than behind them." 
 
 We have not written to convince sceptics or 
 silence critics, but to encourage believing and praying 
 saints who find new food for faith and prayer in 
 every new fact that proves a present and a living 
 God. To such, God's signs and wonders are a daily 
 inspiration ; and all missionary history becomes one 
 continuous miracle. These signs have not been 
 wrought '' in a corner;" they are found everywhere, 
 and attested by witnesses who are beyond impeach- 
 ment, whether for competency or integrity, and who 
 are too many in number for honest doubt to remain. 
 
 A brilliant but erratic American once replied to an 
 opponent in debate, — who sought to discredit his 
 statements of fact, by saying that '^ of such facts 
 he himself had no knowledge" — ''My knowledge, 
 however limited, cannot be set aside on account of 
 another's ignorance, however extensive!" The mas- 
 terly retort is but too applicable to some who with a 
 superficial denial would sweep away the testimony of 
 that noble band of witnesses who, from Carey to 
 Mackay, and over a field that reaches from Japan to 
 Liberia, and from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, 
 attest gospel conquests. 
 
VIII. 
 ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 
 
 As MIGHT be anticipated, this century of missions 
 bears no mark of the wonder-work of God more con- 
 spicuous than the multiplied and marvellous answers 
 to prayer. 
 
 Every conspicuous step and stage of progress is 
 directly traceable to prevailing, believing, expectant 
 supplication. When Jonathan Edwards blew his 
 trumpet blast, calling all believers to united prayer 
 for a new and world-wide Pentecost, Northampton 
 in England echoed the clarion peal of the New 
 England Northampton, and the monthly concert of 
 prayer, established thirty-seven years later, was the 
 beginning of a stated monthly season of such 
 united, organized pleading with God for a lost 
 world. 
 
 Carey was the Moses and Joshua of the new move- 
 ment, both in one ; and nothing marked him so con- 
 spicuously as the rod of God in his hand — the power 
 of humble, believing supplication. Had Carey not 
 known how to pray, the missionary century had not 
 yet dawned, or had waited for some other praying 
 soul to roll back the curtain of the long night. God 
 has compelled his saints to seek Him at the throne 
 of grace, so that every new advance might be so 
 plainly due to His power that even the unbeliever 
 might be constrained to confess: " Surely this is the 
 finger of God!" 
 
 He meant that the century of missions should be 
 to the Church at home as important as to the distant 
 fields of missions abroad; and, in fact, the heart 
 must have a strong pulse if the life currents of blood 
 are to be driven to the fingers' ends. And so no 
 age, since the Apostolic, has been so peculiar for the 
 
 352 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 353 
 
 revival of prayer. Every new Pentecost has had its 
 preparatory period of supplication — of waiting for 
 enduement; and sometimes the time of tarrying has 
 been lengthened from ''ten days" to as many weeks, 
 months, or even years; but never has there been an 
 outpouring of the Divine Spirit from God without a 
 previous outpouring of the human spirit toward 
 God. To vindicate this statement would require us 
 to trace the whole history of missions, for the field 
 of such display of divine power covers the ages. 
 Yet every missionary biography, from those of Eliot 
 and Edwards, Brainerd and Carey, dow^n to Living- 
 stone and Burns, Hudson Taylor and John E. 
 Clough, tells the same story : prayer has been the 
 preparation for every new triumph, and the secret 
 of all success; and so, if greater triumphs and 
 successes lie before us, more fervent and faithful 
 praying must be their forerunner and herald ! 
 
 If this be so, we must fix this fact in mind by 
 repetition, sound it out as with God's own trump, 
 write it as in letters of light, on the very firmament 
 of missions — that the New Acts of the Apostles 
 opened with prevailing prayer, and in each new 
 chapter records its new triumphs. 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth century the 
 fallow soil began to be sown with those seeds of mis- 
 sionary enterprise which came to the surface a half 
 century later. We repeat what has been said, that 
 Carey's movements were only the germinating of what 
 Edwards, and others like him, had planted. When 
 in 1784, at that Northamptonshire Baptist Associa- 
 tion, John Sutcliff, of Olney, reported, recommend- 
 ing a stated monthly meeting to bewail the low^ state 
 of missions, and to implore God for a general revival 
 of pure piety, and a w^orld-wide outpouring of power 
 from on high, the first Monday of each month was 
 the time designated, and John Ryland, Jr., drew up 
 the plan. Soon after, Sutcliff republished Edward's 
 appeal, thus acknowledging that this nevf advance 
 
854 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 was the result of seed sown as early as 1747, and 
 wholly due to prayer, which was now formally recog- 
 nized as the one hope alike of the Church and the 
 world. 
 
 Three years later, Carey was ordained at Moulton, 
 and five years after that came the compact at Ketter- 
 ing, which was the Magna Charta of modern mis- 
 sions; and the Baptist Missionary Society was born, 
 now mother of so large a family of societies. That 
 small but famous ''fund" of thirteen pounds and 
 one half-crown, laid by that little band of twelve on 
 the altar that so sanctified and magnified the gift, 
 was, by God's decree, the small offering it was, and 
 from His poor, because He meant to show that it was 
 not by might or by power, not by numbers or by 
 wealth, but by His Spirit, that this work is to be car- 
 ried on. 
 
 Those who, like Sydney Smith, sneered at the 
 ''consecrated cobblers" and "apostates" from the 
 humblest callings of life, who with a hundred half- 
 crowns would attempt world-wide missions — were 
 blind to the open mystery of God's dealings, who 
 always chooses the base and weak and despised 
 nothings to bring to naught the great and strong 
 and mighty somethings ; and who deliberately 
 chooses and uses the few and the poor, the lowly 
 and the obscure, that the excellency of the power 
 may be of God and not of man, and that no flesh 
 should glory in His presence. Had that first roll of 
 subscribers held twelve hundred distinguished names, 
 with some prince of royal blood as patron, and had 
 that sum been thirteen thousand pounds to start 
 with, missions might have waited another century 
 for their real beginning. 
 
 Those who knew, and at first opposed, Carey, came 
 to feel that he was a man of prayer and that the God 
 of Prayer was back of him. It was prayer that found 
 expression in the monthly concert, that baptized 
 with power Carey's "Inquiry," that made that map 
 
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 355 
 
 at Moulton luminous with divine light and vocal with 
 a world's mute appeal ; it was prayer that led to that 
 sermon in Nottingham and that gathering in Widow 
 Wallis' parlour at Kettering, and to Carey's offer of 
 himself in 1793. 
 
 God saw that the Church would never take up, or 
 be fit to take up, this Apostolic work without a revi- 
 val of Apostolic faith in divine power and in the 
 prayer that alone commands that power. Reliance 
 on human patronage, and the kindred confidence in 
 numbers and riches, are fatal hindrances to missions. 
 When Carey preached his now immortal sermon, 
 whose divine quality was found in its unction, he 
 said: '^ Saviour, Thy greatest things have had small- 
 est beginnings." It was to him a great encourage- 
 ment that when God called Abraham he was alone. 
 (Isa. 1. I.) And this same truth of insignificant begin- 
 ning was illustrated in Widow Wallis' house on 
 October 2d, 1792. 
 
 Upon this one form of signs and wonders our 
 minds have need, therefore, to linger, as bees upon 
 a bloom, for the nectaries of our Christian life are 
 here to be found: we refer to these Aiisivers to 
 Prayer. 
 
 God has taken infinite care to fasten in the minds 
 of believers the power of supplication in the name of 
 Christ to work supernatural results. In the Word 
 of God there are at least ten very marked lessons on 
 prayer; and these lessons are progressive — they 
 advance from the simplest rudiments, in a distinct 
 order or series, in which each step must be taken on 
 the way to the next — each lesson learned, if the suc- 
 ceeding one is to be understood. For instance, if 
 we combine the gospel narratives and observe the 
 development of the doctrine, we shall find that we 
 are successively taught the nature of prayer as ask- 
 ing of God; then the negative and positive conditions 
 of acceptable, prevailing prayer, such as a frame of 
 forgiveness, of faith in God's promise, of importunate 
 
356 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 earnestness, of devout expectancy, of mutual agree- 
 ment in the Spirit, of accordance with the will of 
 God, etc. The climax of all these lessons is reached 
 in that expressly new lesson taught by our Lord, as 
 to asking in His Name ; that is, by virtue of our 
 identity with Him. When prayer is offered in 
 another's name, that other becomes the real suppliant, 
 whoever presents the request. And so our Lord 
 teaches us that from the time when our oneness with 
 Him is recognized and realized as based upon our 
 membership in His body, we may ask in His name, 
 by His power, in His stead; so that the petition 
 becomes the petition of Him in whose name it is 
 offered, as Esther's writing, when signed and sealed 
 in the name of King Ahasuerus, became his decree.* 
 
 Behold these lessons gathered up and woven into 
 the fabric of one superb metaphorical representation 
 in the Apocalypse. In the eighth chapter, the visions 
 of the seer of Patmos open with a solemn and mys- 
 terious half-hour of silence in heaven. Before the 
 first of the seven trumpets sounds, the seven angels 
 stand silent before God, as though waiting a signal. 
 And the half-hour of silence seems wholly given to 
 this revelation of the power of prayer. 
 
 The Angel of Intercession comes and stands at the 
 altar, holding in his hands a golden censer. Unto 
 him is given much incense, that he should add it 
 unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden 
 altar, before the throne ; and the mingled smoke of 
 the incense and prayers of saints ascend like a sweet 
 savour before God out of the censer. Then the 
 Angel takes the censer, fills it with the fire of the 
 altar, and casts it upon the earth; and astounding 
 results follow — thunderpeals, lightning flashes, voices, 
 and earthquake convulsions. 
 
 This parable in action might still have remained 
 an inscrutable mystery but for a divine key that is 
 in the lock, which opens to us its meaning. We 
 
 * Compare John xvi. 23-27, Esther viii. 8. 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 357 
 
 are here twice told that it concerns the ^^ prayer's of 
 saints,'' And with this key we may open the doors 
 of this great truth. Laying aside the figurative 
 forms of expression, which are like bronze gates, 
 sculptured with allegorical figures — what readest 
 thou? 
 
 Prayers of saints, offered in holy agreement, 
 ascend like vapours, which blend and mingle in pure 
 white clouds. The great Intercessor at the Throne 
 presents them before God, made acceptable by His 
 own infinite merit, and thus they prevail. The 
 power of God is put at the disposal of praying souls ; 
 and upon the earth wonderful changes, convulsions, 
 upheavings, revolutions take place. Pra5^er has gone 
 to heaven, found acceptance, and returned in answers 
 of almighty power, as moisture goes up in vapour and 
 returns in rain. Supplication, when it is according to 
 scriptural conditions, commands divine interposition. 
 
 Here, then, we have a vision of Prayer as a poiver in 
 the universe of God. There is a half-hour silence; no 
 word is spoken. But the silence has a voice. It 
 tells an unbelieving Church that whenever great 
 moral and spiritual reformations and transforma- 
 tions, evolutions and revolutions, are witnessed, 
 somebody has been praying, though only God may 
 trace the links between the prayers and the answers. 
 
 The whole story of missions is the historic inter- 
 pretation of that Apocalyptic vision: it is the story 
 of answered prayer. If we would trace organized 
 mission effort back not to its birth but to its concep- 
 tion, we must go farther than Widow Wallis' parlour 
 at Kettering, or even the cobbler's shop at Hackleton, 
 or Edward's appeal in 1747. Nearly twenty years 
 before that trumpet-call to prayer, another great 
 movement had started at Oxford, where John and 
 Charles Wesley, and Morgan and Kirkham, Ingham, 
 Broughton, Hervey and George Whitefield were 
 studying and praying to promote holiness and use- 
 fulness. At the end of six years this little company 
 
358 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 numbered but sixteen. But such were some of the 
 preparations God was making for the birth-hour of 
 modern missions. Upon these few men at Oxford 
 there came suddenly a blessing from on high, which 
 not only changed the whole tenor of their lives, but 
 became the mould of a revived Church and the 
 matrix of modern missions. 
 
 If the history of all that prayer has wrought, in the 
 century now closing, could be written and read, it 
 would be as startling as the opening of the books in 
 the last great day. The number is legion, of the 
 movements for human weal whose secret source, 
 unknown to the people, has been in prevailing 
 prayer. 
 
 The repeal of the '' Contagious Diseases " Act in 
 Britain was a triumph of prayer. Against the advo- 
 cates of this repeal almost the whole strength of the two 
 houses of Parliament was massed, but throughout the 
 kingdom disciples were giving themselves to suppli- 
 cation. A few men undertook to maintain a stand 
 against the whole nation, and two or three godly 
 women took their stand beside them, hooted at by an 
 insulting rabble and pelted by the daily press with 
 merciless ridicule as the ''howling sisterhood!" 
 But prayer prevailed and the abhorrent measure w^as 
 abolished by unanimous vote. 
 
 Those who in England and America have watched 
 the slow steps by which the way was prepared for 
 the abolition of slavery well know that in that great 
 contest between human rights and the might of 
 organized selfishness and sordidness. Prayer turned 
 the scale. There were some godly women, for ex- 
 ample, who met at stated times in Boston to claim 
 from God the freedom of the slave; and, when the 
 wild waves of riot surged against the very doors of 
 their little place of prayer, they remained on their 
 knees and were heard to say: *' Lord, the foes of God 
 and of the slave molest us indeed, but they cannot 
 make tis afraid.'' And so the praying saints kept 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 359 
 
 praying, until the fires of God came down and 
 burned the fetters from four millions of manacled 
 hands. 
 
 That famous cartoon of the death of St. Genevieve 
 depicts the triumph of Roman valour with its pomp 
 and pageantry of arms, side by side with a humble 
 deathbed around which praying saints are gathered. 
 But it suggests how much mightier is the power that 
 goes with a few supplicating believers than all the 
 boasted might of armies. 
 
 Read the New Acts of the Apostles; linger over 
 the scenes at Hilo and Tahiti, New Zealand and the 
 Fiji isles; pierce to the church of the cavern in the 
 Vaudois vales; follow the Huguenots in exile; study 
 the personal life of Edwards and Brainerd, and Mills 
 and Carey and Judson and Johnson; track to their 
 closets and retreats in the forests and caves, God's 
 praying ones, and you shall know how God's Pente- 
 costs are but the rewarding ' 'openly" of those who 
 have learned how to get hold on Him '' in secret." 
 
 The Church, when it is once more a praying Church, 
 w411 boldly claim of God that He shall stretch forth 
 His hand as the only way to give boldness in preach- 
 ing His word. When it is God's ''work" vv^e are 
 doing it is our right and privilege not only to ask, 
 but to "command" Him. (Isa. xlv. ii.) Faithnot 
 only offers a request, but issues a fiat — and says, it 
 shall be so. Prayer, says Coleridge, is 
 
 " An affirmation and an act, 
 That bids eternal truth be fact ! " 
 
 The promise makes prayer bold, for God's word 
 cannot fail. Fulfilment is as certain as past events 
 are fixed, and the future becomes a present to such 
 faith. There is a new era of missions yet to be 
 ushered in when the disciples of Christ learn to ask 
 in Jesus' name, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for 
 the glory of God, and with a confidence that counts 
 things that are not as though they are. 
 
360 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Missionary history has exemplified that superbly 
 grand lesson, that prayer, when it prevails, has about 
 it a boldness, a holy audacity, which reminds us of 
 the prophet whose plea was — '"''Do not disgrace the 
 Throne of Thy Glory!'' When a saint understands 
 that prayer has three intercessors — the interceding 
 Spirit within, the interceding suppliant, and the in- 
 terceding Christ before the Throne — he feels himself 
 but the channel through whom a current passes, 
 whose source is the Holy Spirit in his heart, whose 
 final outpour is through our great High Priest into 
 the bosom of the Father; and he loses sight of him- 
 self in the thought of the divine stream, and its spring 
 and its ocean. How can he but be bold? Prayer 
 becomes no more mere lame and timid asking — it is 
 claiming and laying hold of blessing. Nay, it is wait- 
 ing for and welcoming the blessing, as a returning 
 stream from the heart of God, pouring back into and 
 through the heart of the supplicant. While he calls, 
 God answers — there is converse, intercourse, inter- 
 communication : prayer is not only speaking to God, 
 but hearing Him speak in return. As a Japanese 
 convert said, it is like the old-fashioned well, where 
 one bucket comes down while another goes up — only 
 in this case it is the full bucket that descends ! Such 
 prayer a true missionary has to learn, and it is such 
 prayer that brings him the conscious presence 
 promised by his Master, with its outcome of divine 
 wisdom and strength. It is such prayer that brings 
 to our aid that consummate preacher, the Holy Spirit, 
 whose divine oratory convinces and persuades — who 
 has the power of revelation, demonstration, illumi- 
 nation — who can flash instant light into the darkest 
 mind and command life to the dead. 
 
 What gracious blessings have come to heathen 
 souls in answer to prayer ! The Rev. Grifflth John, 
 of Hankow, records a whole Saturday spent in prayer 
 for a baptism of the Spirit of God. The following 
 morning he preached on the subject, and at the close 
 
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 361 
 
 of the service proposed a meeting for an hour a day, 
 during the ensuing week, for special anointing from 
 above. From fifty to seventy of his converts met 
 day by day, and mingled a confession of their sins 
 with supplication for the holy outpouring. The 
 impulse which the native Church then received has 
 never yet spent its force. The mission in China, 
 begun in 1847 by William Burns, has now increased 
 until it has five separate centres, with thousands of 
 converts, with native preachers and pastors and 
 schools and medical missions. Its converts have 
 stood firm against persecution, and the abundant 
 blessing has been reverently traced to the monthly 
 prayer-meeting for China held in the room at Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 For some years the writer has been gather- 
 ing and putting on record authentic and striking 
 answers to prayer. A few of them, which have car- 
 ried unspeakable blessing to his own heart, he 
 now places on record in these pages : 
 
 Charles G. Finney, in his '' Revival Lectures " (page 
 112), tells of a pious man in Western New York sick 
 with consumption. He was poor, and had been sick 
 for years. An unconverted merchant was very kind to 
 him, and the only return he could make was to pray 
 for his salvation. By-and-by, to the astonishment of 
 everybody, that merchant was converted, and a great 
 revival followed. This poor man lingered several 
 years. After his death his widow put his diary into 
 Mr. Finney's hands. From this it appeared that, being 
 acquainted with about thirty ministers and churches, 
 he set apart certain hours in the day and week to 
 pray for each of them, and also for different mission- 
 ary stations. His diary contained entries like the fol- 
 lowing: " To-day I have been enabled to offer what I 
 call the prayer of faith for the outpouring of the 
 
 Spirit on the Church." Thus he had gone 
 
 over a great number of churches. Of the missionary 
 stations he mentions particularly the mission at Cey- 
 
362 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Ion. Not long after the dates mentioned, mighty 
 revivals had commenced and swept over that region, 
 nearly in the exact order of Jus praying ; and in due 
 time news came even from Ceylon of a revival there ! 
 Thus this man, too feeble in body to leave his house, 
 was yet useful to the world and the Church. Stand- 
 ing between God and the desolations of the Church, 
 and pouring out his heart in believing prayer, as a 
 prince he had power with God and prevailed. 
 
 The following incident was related at Northfield 
 by the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor: A station in the 
 China Inland Mission was peculiarly blessed of God. 
 Inquirers were more numerous and more easily 
 turned from dumb idols to serve the living God than 
 at other stations. This difference was a theme of 
 conversation and wonder. After a time Mr. Taylor 
 returned to England, and at a certain place was 
 warmly greeted by a stranger, who showed great 
 interest in his mission work. This stranger was so 
 particular and intelligent in his questions concerning 
 one missionary and the locality in which he laboured, 
 seemed so well acquainted with his helpers, in- 
 quirers, and the difficulties of that particular station, 
 that Mr. Taylor's curiosity was aroused to find out 
 the reason of this intimate knowledge. To his great 
 satisfaction, he now learned that this stranger and 
 the successful missionary had covenanted together 
 as co-workers. The missionary kept his home 
 brother informed of all the phases of his labour. 
 He gave him the names of inquirers, stations, hope- 
 ful characters and difficulties, and all these the home 
 worker was wont to spread out before God in prevailing 
 prayer. 
 
 In the recently published memoir of Adolph 
 Saphir,* there is put on record one of the countless 
 instances of divine administration of missions, which 
 we cite because of the many-sided lesson taught. 
 
 It is the story of how the mission for the Jews was 
 
 * Memoir Adolph Saphir, D.D., by Rev. G. Carlyle, M.A., p. 37 et seq. 
 
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 363 
 
 established in Pesth, Hllng•a^3^ Prayer is the key to 
 every new mystery in this series of marvels. First, 
 the father of this movement was Mr. R. Wodrow, of 
 Glasgow, whose private diary shows whole days of 
 fasting and prayer on behalf of Israel. The next 
 step was the appointment of a deputation, in 1838, 
 consisting of those four remarkable men, Doctors 
 Keith and Black, with Andrew Bonar and Mc- 
 Cheyne, to visit lands where the Jews dwelt, and 
 select fields for missions to this neglected people. 
 The intolerance of the Austrian government seemed 
 to shut the door to any work within its dominions, 
 and so, notwithstanding the large Jewish population 
 there resident, Hungary was not embraced in the 
 plan of visitation. But God did not propose that 
 this land should be longer passed by; and He, by 
 mysterious links, joined the plan of the deputation to 
 His own purposes for Hungary. 
 
 Dr. Black slipped from his camel's back as they 
 were crossing from Egypt to Palestine, and the 
 seemingly trifling accident proved sufficiently serious 
 to change the homeward route of Dr. Black and 
 Dr. Keith, by way of the Danube. As they passed 
 through Pesth, they made some inquiries as to the 
 Jews there to be found, little knowing w^hat unseen 
 Hand was leading ' ' the blind by a way that they 
 knew not." 
 
 The Archduchess Maria Dorothea, then residing 
 in the Prince Palatine's palace, had some years pre- 
 viously been led, by a death in her family, to seek 
 solace in the Bible, where ^'she met Jesus." She 
 was, by the imperial law, forced to bring up her 
 children in the Roman Catholic Church; but as she 
 had found the truth, she taught them, with much 
 prayer, the way of faith, and, in her solitude, yearned 
 and besought of God that a Christian friend and 
 counsellor might be sent to her. In a window of her 
 boudoir, which overlooked the city with its hundred 
 thousand people, day by day, for seven years, she 
 
364 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 had poured out her soul in prayer to God for some 
 one to carry the true gospel to those around her; at 
 times, in agony, stretching out imploring hands to 
 God for at least one messenger of the cross to come 
 to Hungary. 
 
 The year of 1840 came, with Drs. Keith's and Black's 
 providential visit to Pesth, and Dr. Keith's almost 
 fatal illness there — and just at this time the arch- 
 duchess was strongly and strangely impressed that a 
 stranger was about to arrive who would bring a 
 peculiar blessing to the Hungarians she loved. 
 There was one fortnight particularly, when, night 
 after night, she awoke at the same hour, with a vivid 
 sense that something was about to take place which 
 was to bring her relief. And when at last she heard 
 that Dr. Keith was in town dangeroUvSly ill of cholera, 
 she said to herself, '' This is what was to happen to 
 me." And from that hour her sleep was no longer 
 broken. She went to the bedside of the prostrate 
 stranger, and with her own hands ministered to his 
 wants; and, as he became better, told him of her 
 longings and prayers, acquainted him with the state 
 of the Hungarian Jews, and assured him that if the 
 Church of Scotland would plant a mission in Pesth, 
 she would throw about it all possible guards. And 
 so it came to pass that in the very field which the 
 deputation purposely left out of all their scheme, 
 God brought about, by link upon link of His inscru- 
 table providence, the famous mission associated 
 with the name of ** Rabbi Duncan," and which was 
 the means of giving, to the Church of Christ, Adolph 
 Saphir.* 
 
 Thus came the Protestant gospel into Buda- Pesth : 
 and by what a series of divine leadings ! A man's 
 prayer in Glasgow, a woman's prayer in Hungary, 
 a seeming accident on desert sand, a change of route, 
 an almost fatal illness, a visit of an archduchess — 
 who shall dare to doubt that the Hungarian mission 
 
 * Bonar's " Mission of Inquiry to the Jews." 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A YER. 365 
 
 was a tree of God's planting! who can wonder that 
 as the first missionaries went to this new field they 
 *' felt wafted along by the breath of prayer, and had, 
 from the very beginning, a mysterious expectation 
 of success!" 
 
 No recent development of missionary zeal is more 
 startling than the sudden and rapid uprising of the 
 educated young nieii on both sides of the Atlantic, to 
 which has been given the title of the '^ Modern 
 Crusade." 
 
 From the inception of this movement, as having been 
 strangely interlinked with it, the writer can testify 
 that, from first to last, its sole secret is prayer. 
 More than twenty-five years ago, a missionary, after 
 seventeen years of work on the foreign field, lay on 
 his deathbed. Suddenly arousing himself, with great 
 emphasis, he said : ' ' I have a testimony to give, and 
 would best give it now. Tell the Christian young 
 men in America that the responsibility of saving the 
 world rests on them ; not on the old men, but on the 
 young. It is past time for holding back and waiting 
 for providences. I used to think that a missionary 
 ought to husband his strength ; but this is a crisis in 
 the world's history, and one man by keeping back 
 may keep back others. Reason is profitable to di- 
 rect, but the man that rushes to duty is faithful. 
 There are times when rashness is the rule and cau- 
 tion the exception. I look upon the Church as a 
 military company : an army of conquest, not of occu- 
 pation." 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this advice, one 
 thing is plain: the heart of a dying missionary is 
 singularly on fire with a passionate zeal for souls; 
 and the dying eyes become gifted with the vision of 
 a seer, who beholds the greatness of the crisis, and 
 would trumpet forth a blast, calling young men to 
 the duty of the hour. 
 
 While that dying missionary was leaving behind 
 his last legacy in a message to young men, there was 
 
366 THE KEIV ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 at Princeton, New Jersey, another missionary, re- 
 turned after thirty years' service in India, who was 
 gathering in his own house, from time to time, a few 
 younger brethren, to urge on them the same deep 
 conviction — that on them God had laid the burden of 
 beginning a new missionary crusade. He put before 
 them the map of the world, pressed the need of an 
 organized movement among young men to enter the 
 regions beyond; and, while he left them to consider 
 and confer, he withdrew into a neighbouring room 
 to pray. To those prayers we may trace a move- 
 ment so mighty that already it enrolls on its mission- 
 ary covenant more than eight thousand young men 
 and women and twice as many in the mighty current 
 of its influence. 
 
 In 1886, at Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, a few 
 hundred students met, at Mr. Moody's invitation, for 
 a few weeks of Bible study and prayer. While there 
 the young men, whose hearts had begun to burn at 
 Princeton, sought to kindle fires on other altars ; and 
 the number who chose the foreign field rose from 
 twenty-three to a hundred. Then, after much 
 prayer, a tour of the colleges was undertaken, that 
 two of their number might bring the facts of the 
 world's need to the minds of fellow-students not 
 represented at that gathering. And now, both in 
 Britain and America, the universities and colleges and 
 theological schools are becoming fountains of missions. 
 And the end is not yet — the movement grows rather 
 than loses in volume and momentum, and it looks 
 like one of the great developments of the latter 
 days.* 
 
 Prayer — Coincidences. 
 
 There are remarkable coincidences in missionary 
 history which show a divine hand, as surely as the 
 release of Peter at the very hour when disciples were 
 
 * The second " Student Volunteers' Convention," held in Detroit, Michigan, in 
 February, 1894, had the largest body of accredited delegates, ever gathered in any 
 missionary conference. 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A VEk. 367 
 
 met at the house of Mary, mother of Mark, praying 
 for him. Let one or two examples suffice to prove 
 and to illustrate this. 
 
 At the precise time in missions to Tahiti, when the 
 labours of fourteen years seemed wholly in vain — ■ 
 when the tireless toil, faithful witness and unsparing 
 self-denial of the early missionaries seemed like 
 blows of a feather against a wall of adamant — when 
 as yet not a single convert had rewarded all 
 this long labour, and abominable idolatry and desola- 
 ting warfare seemed to reign — one of the clearest 
 signs and greatest w^onders of God's power was seen 
 in the South Seas. The directors of the London 
 Missionary Society seriously proposed abandoning 
 this fruitless field. But there were a few who felt 
 that this was the very hour when God was about to 
 rebuke unbelief and reward faith in His promise and 
 fidelity to duty. Dr. Haweis backed up his solemn 
 remonstrance against the withdrawal of missionaries 
 from the field by another donation of two hundred 
 pounds; and Matthew Wilks, the pastor of John 
 Williams, said: " I will sell my clothes from my 
 back rather than give up this work." And, instead 
 of abandoning the mission, it was urged that a special 
 season of united prayer be appointed that the Lord 
 of the Harvest would give fruit from this long seed- 
 sowing. The proposal prevailed ; letters of hope and 
 encouragement were sent to the disheartened toilers 
 at Tahiti ; and the friends of missions, confessing the 
 unbelief that had made God's mighty w^orks im- 
 possible, implored God to make bare His arm. 
 
 Now mark the coincidence. Two vessels started, un- 
 known to each other, from opposite ports — one from 
 Tahiti bound for London, the other from the Thames 
 bound for Tahiti, and crossed each other's track in 
 mid-ocean. That from the South Seas bore the let- 
 ters from the missionaries, announcing a work of God 
 so mighty that idolatry was entirely overthrown; 
 and the same ship bore also the very idols which a 
 
368 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 converted people had surrendered to the missionaries. 
 That other vessel from London carried to the mis- 
 sionaries the letters of encouragement that bade them 
 hold on to God and gave pledges of increased prayer- 
 fulness and more earnest support. Here was not 
 only an answer to prayer, of the most wonderful sort, 
 but the promise was literally fulfilled: '* Before they 
 call I will answer ; and while they are yet speaking I 
 will hear." 
 
 The great outpouring at Ongole is another proof 
 of a prayer-answering God. In 1853, at Albany, New 
 York, the American Baptist Missionary Union was 
 considering whether the fruitless field among the 
 Telugus should not be given up. Here, again, a few 
 of God's prophets foresaw that if faith could but tri- 
 umph in this dark hour, a great harvest might yet 
 come even to this desert of Southern India. And the 
 ** Lone Star" mission was not abandoned but rein- 
 forced ; and Dr. S. F. Smith ventured, in a singularly 
 prophetic poem, to predict that the time would come 
 when that Lone Star would outshine all other mis- 
 sions. A bolder prophecy was never uttered by any 
 uninspired seer. Twenty-five years passed by and 
 then God sent a famine among that people, and the 
 promised blessing seemed farther off than ever. 
 
 In fact, that famine was, like John the Baptist, a 
 forerunner that prepared the way of the Lord. Dr. 
 Clough had in the interval joined the faithful Jewett 
 — and, being a civil engineer by training, he under- 
 took to complete the Buckingham canal, in order to 
 get work and wages for starving thousands. These 
 great gatherings of gangs of workmen gave oppor- 
 tunity for the simple telling of the gospel story. 
 The great text, John iii. 16, was again, as at Tahiti, 
 sixty-three years before, the *' Little Gospel" from 
 which God's love was made known; and, in that 
 very field which had been so nearly abandoned as 
 both fruitless and hopeless, God gave the largest 
 and longest succession of harvests ever yet known 
 
ANSWERS TO PR A YER, 36d 
 
 to the missions of the Christian Church. These 
 two examples are enough to prove to any candid 
 mind that God is still working signs in answer to 
 prayer. 
 
 And, let it be added, that, twelve years before this 
 grand effusion of the Spirit, and when the prospect 
 was darkest, a humble missionary, with his wife and 
 three converted natives, on the first day of the year, 
 climbed the high hill overlooking Ongole, and there, 
 looking down on that large town and fifty surround- 
 ing villages sunk in idol worship, knelt, and each in 
 turn asked of God that He would send a missionary 
 there, and make that centre of heathenism a centre 
 of gospel light. For twelve years God delayed the 
 answer, and then the blessing came, just where it 
 had been besought, only far more abundantly than 
 it had been expected, and it has not yet ceased. In 
 1869, when there were as yet but 143 members, 
 special prayer was made for an addition that year of 
 500 converts, and 573 wxre baptized; and in some 
 twelve years more the Church numbered 2,000. Now 
 it is the largest in the world ! 
 
 In 1872, in December, the Church Missionary 
 Society appointed a day for intercession, with special 
 reference to the increase of missionary force — and 
 that day was spent in prayer offered distinctly and 
 definitely for more men. It was immediately fol- 
 lowed by offers of service beyond any other period 
 of the Society's history. In the five years follow- 
 ing it sent out 112 men, whereas, in the preceding 
 five, it had sent but 51. 
 
 In 1880, this same noble society called for very 
 special intercession for more money — as eight years 
 before, for more men. Within a few months, 
 ;£'i35,ooo were offered to wipe off all deficit, 
 and ;^ 1 5 0,000 more, specially contributed for exten- 
 sion, as well as other special gifts whereby substan- 
 tial advance was made upon the ordinary income. 
 Again, in 1884, men were sorely needed, and it was 
 
370 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 asked of- God that the very flowers of society might 
 be transplanted to heathen climes. A day was ap- 
 pointed to pray for this result. The previous evening 
 Secretary Wigram was summoned to Cambridge to 
 "see a number of graduates and undergraduates who 
 desired to dedicate themselves to the Lord's work 
 abroad." More than one hundred university men 
 met him, and the next day he went back to the 
 prayer-meeting to illustrate to his colleagues the old 
 promise: "Before they call I will answer; and 
 while they are yet speaking I will hear." 
 
 The Two Legions. 
 
 Ancient tradition has handed down two most inter- 
 esting relics about the devout soldiers of the Roman 
 army. The story of the Theban Legion, in the third 
 century, may be coloured by fancy, but has, doubtless, 
 a foundation of fact. Twice, it is said, they were 
 decimated by the Emperor Maximian because they 
 would not obey, when ordered to march against their 
 fellow-Christians in Gaul. But no threats nor ex- 
 ecutions could turn the fixed hearts of the legion. 
 The survivors still held their ground after their 
 fellows had been slain ; and Maurice, their leader, 
 respectfully but firmly declared to the Emperor, in 
 behalf of his fellow-soldiers, that, whilst ready to 
 yield implicit obedience in all matters consistent 
 with conscience, death was preferable to the violation 
 of duty to God. And when the Emperor ordered 
 his soldiers to destroy the whole band, they quietly 
 laid down their arms and accepted martyrdom. 
 
 The other story is that of the Thundering Legion 
 under Marcus Aurelius. When the Roman hosts 
 were surrounded by barbarian hordes, and the peril 
 was great, these Christian soldiers, mighty in prayer, 
 knelt on the very battle-field and sought from God 
 and obtained deliverance by His hand from the 
 dangers that threatened the forces of the empire. 
 
 Whether there ever was a Theban Legion and a 
 
ANSWERS TO PRA YER. 371 
 
 Thundering Legion in the days of the Silver Eagle 
 matters little; but the Missionary Army has had 
 both from the beginning. Men and women who 
 w^ould not be drawn or driven from their duty to 
 Christ and lost souls, though the fever, the famine, 
 the sword decimated their ranks, have dared the 
 prison cell, starvation, persecution and death itself 
 rather than abandon their witness to Christ. And 
 the strength of missions has ever been that the 
 Captain of our salvation has always had His Praying 
 Legion; who in the crises of the conflict, took no 
 account of the number or might of foes, but pre- 
 vailed with God in prayer. It is the central glory of 
 missionary history that it has produced more intrepid 
 and self-sacrificing soldiers of the cross, and more 
 great intercessors like Moses, Samuel, Daniel and 
 Elijah, than any other form even of Church life. 
 Surely between these facts there must be some 
 divine link of connection. A work that develops 
 such courage and constancy, on the one side, and 
 such faith and prayer, on the other, must, in this 
 very fact, bear the peculiar stamp and seal of the 
 King himself. 
 
 Thus, by *'many infallible proofs," missionary 
 history vindicates its rightful claim as a continuation 
 of the Acts of the Apostles, in the signs and wonders 
 God has wrought. And what shall I more say? 
 for the time would fail me to tell of all the marvels 
 of Providence and Grace which make the whole 
 growth of modern missions a Burning Bush aflame 
 with the glory of the presence of God ! 
 
 On the long guns of the African Moors these words 
 are often found engraven: '' For the Holy War if God 
 will." When will disciples learn that they are God's 
 soldiers, and that every power and faculty is to be 
 devoted as a weapon to His holy warfare? What 
 new signs and wonders would be wrought if, in re- 
 sponse to the bugle blast of our great Captain, the 
 whole Church would march to the battle-field ! All 
 
372 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 that God has yet shown of His mighty power would 
 be but a small part of His ways. Men would begin 
 to see Omnipotence baring its resistless arm, and 
 the thunder of His power would shake earth and 
 heaven ! 
 
Part VL 
 
 THE NEW MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 
 
THE LOOK FORWARD. 
 
 It was a saying of Immanuel Kant that every man 
 should propose to himself three questions: What 
 can I know ? What ought I to do ? and for what 
 may I hope ? 
 
 Motive is that which moves, or produces motion. 
 All action is the result of incentives; and the more 
 numerous and powerful the inducements, the more 
 prompt and energetic the activity. Hope is, there- 
 fore, the greatest motor of human life ; it is the very 
 sculptor of character and conduct; the architect of 
 history and destiny. Hope is so connected with hap- 
 piness that its perfect crown is heaven ; and Dante 
 was not less philosopher than poet when he wrote 
 over the gates of the Inferno, * ' Abandon hope, all 
 ye who enter here ! " 
 
 The matter now claiming attention belongs at the 
 conclusion of our studies, for it is the apex which, 
 naturally and fitly, forms that culmination. 
 
 To tarry, at any point of progress, simply to dwell 
 on past successes, is the forfeiture of further advance. 
 The backward glance is helpful only when the retro- 
 spect enables us to apprehend the aspect and appre- 
 ciate the prospect ; when memory inspires and ener- 
 gizes hope; when the review acts not as a sedative 
 and a narcotic, but as a tonic and a stimulant. 
 
 Motives and incentives cannot stimulate to action 
 until their value and virtue are felt, and to be felt 
 they must be appreciated. Their weight in the scale 
 will depend upon the attractive power they possess 
 to our minds; for the scale whose beam they turn is 
 the judgment. God will guide with His eye those 
 who keep their eye fixed on His; but the Divine Eye 
 cannot guide without this answering look. Other- 
 
 375 
 
376 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 wise we must be guided by sterner restraints and 
 constraints, like the beast whose mouth is held in 
 with bit and bridle, leather reins in place of gentler 
 glances. 
 
 To this closing part of our great theme we may 
 well approach with thoughtf ulness, for all new prog- 
 ress in missions finds here the hiding of its power. 
 If the new century, now beginning, is to write new 
 and grander chapters in the Acts of the Apostles we 
 must feel the force of the mighty motives which God 
 puts before us. He means that the hundred years 
 ahead shall be as much more abundant in effort, intel- 
 ligent in zeal, and glorious in achievement, as the 
 century which began with Carey's sermon at Not- 
 tingham surpassed that which went before it. And 
 so countless are the new motives and incentives now 
 yoked to missionary effort, that if they move and 
 draw us as they should, our advance will be not by 
 an arithmetical but a geometrical ratio, and the 
 world's evangelization will go forward not by slow 
 steps but by gigantic strides. 
 
II. 
 
 A NEW ORDER OF THINGS. 
 
 First of all, a new order of things has been di- 
 vinely created for our encouragement. So novel 
 are the conditions of missionary labour that nothing 
 seems old and unchanged but the gospel message 
 and the converting Spirit. Instead of a world locked 
 against us, with walls to be broken down and gates 
 to be forced, an open highway to the heart of Asia 
 and Africa; in most parts a welcome; in almost all, 
 an undisputed entrance. Instead of the barriers of 
 a century ago, — obstacles between the Church and 
 the heathen world, which hindered approach and 
 access, intercourse and impression; and obstacles 
 within the Church itself, which hindered action and 
 co-operation, — an aroused Church, in sympathy with 
 the work of missions, confronting a world-wide field, 
 everywhere inviting the sower with his seed, and in 
 many parts presenting a harvest calling for the 
 reaper with his sickle. 
 
 It has been reserved for the nineteenth century to 
 behold the whole world open to the missionary. God 
 has flung wide the gates of India, broken down the 
 wall of China, unsealed the ports of Japan; Africa 
 is girdled and crossed, Turkey and Siam, Burma and 
 Corea, invite missionary labour, and France and 
 Spain, Italy and Mexico, welcome an open Bible and 
 a simple gospel. These long-locked doors God has 
 curiously opened with the keys of commerce and 
 common schools, the printing-press and medical sci- 
 ence, as well as arms and diplomacy. In some 
 cases, still more strangely. He has used His ** great 
 army " of locusts, caterpillars and cankerworms, 
 famine and fever, drought and flood, to force en- 
 trance into Satan's strongholds. What inspiration 
 
 377 
 
378 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 to holy activity and zeal, when His shining Pillar 
 moves before us to assure of victory through His 
 presence and power! Moreover, our work may now 
 be done, in almost every land, with comparative 
 immunity from danger. M. Schoffler, missionary to 
 Cochin China, was publicly executed at Sontay by 
 order of the grand mandarin, for his preaching of 
 Christ, contrary to the laws of the land, on May 4th, 
 185 1. This was the last such execution in the 
 Flowery Kingdom, and from it dates the new era in 
 Chinese evangelization. Resistance we shall proba- 
 bly continue to meet everywhere, but the more vio- 
 lent, the less likely to be prolonged. 
 
 There are three stages of missionary work : First, 
 the pioneer period, when as yet the missionary is 
 met with such distrust and suspicion, that little 
 headway can be made; secondly, the period of 
 action., when early obstacles have been removed or 
 surmounted, opposition is overcome, and the cross is 
 actually planted, and converts are multiplying; and, 
 last of all, the period of establislnnejit^ when native 
 churches become self-governing, self-supporting, 
 self-propagating. During the first stage it is vain 
 to send many missionaries to the field; during the 
 third, they may be withdrawn as no longer needed ; 
 but during the second they should be especially mul- 
 tiplied; the opportunity is grand but brief, and 
 must be promptly improved; and, in most fields, we 
 have actually reached this middle period, when the 
 need of men and money is most imperative. 
 
 Is it no significant sign of the will of God that just 
 at this time of peculiar crisis, such increased capacity 
 should exist in the Church to meet this greatly in- 
 creased demand? Fewness of numbers and small- 
 ness of means the Christian Church can no longer 
 offer as an excuse or extenuation for inaction. 
 
 To-day the evangelical Protestant Churches have 
 a membership of nearly forty millions of communi- 
 cants. One from every hundred, which is a smaller 
 
A NE W ORDER OF THINGS. 379 . 
 
 proportion than the small community at Herrnhut 
 actually is sending out — would give us a missionary 
 army of about four hundred thousand — fifty times 
 the present available force. As to money, wealth is 
 in the hands of this vast membership to an extent 
 perilous to piety. From careful estimates, the aver- 
 age income of Protestant Church members, the 
 world over, is reckoned at not less than one hundred 
 pounds annually — a low estimate, considering what 
 hoards of treasure are in the coffers of so many; and 
 yet this yields a sum total of four thousand millions 
 of pounds sterling, or about twenty thousand mil- 
 lions of dollars — a sum too immense for us to con- 
 ceive. 
 
 If of this, a tithe were given, there would pour 
 annually into missionary treasuries four hundred 
 millions of pounds, or two hundred times the 
 amount now given to missions. And imagination 
 fails to paint the grandeur and glory of mission con- 
 quests, with a consecrated Church sending nearly 
 half a million men and women into the world field, 
 and furnishing an annual income approaching five 
 hundred million pounds to sustain them in the com- 
 bat with idolatry and iniquity ! 
 
 The gifts that idol worshippers lavish upon the 
 fanes and shrines of false gods, put to shame the wor- 
 shippers of Jehovah. The ''Peacock Throne" of 
 the Great Mogul, in the Hall of Audience at Delhi, 
 cost more than two and a half millions of pounds 
 sterling — or twice as much as missions in India 
 since Carey went to Calcutta ! And the cost of the 
 new twin temples of Hon-gwan-ji, in the ancient city 
 of Kyoto, Japan, will be as much more. The 
 ''Eastern" and "Western" structures belonging to 
 this Japanese fane are superb in expenditure. The 
 latest built of them is erected entirely from free- 
 will offerings of Buddhists; precious woods, metals, 
 money and jewels were given without stint; and the 
 offerings of human hair remind us of the maidens 
 
380 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of Carthage and Tyre, who furnished from their 
 ringlets the bowstrings and cordage for archers and 
 war-ships. On one of the platforms could have been 
 seen twenty-four heavy coils of rope, from three to 
 four inches diameter, attached to which was the 
 inscription : 
 
 ''Since the thirteenth year of Meiji (1880), when 
 the rebuilding of the two halls of the Eastern Hon- 
 gwan-ji was begun, the faithful laymen and lay- 
 women of every place have been unanimous in pre- 
 senting to the principal temple, Hon-gwan-ji, strong 
 ropes wrought of their own hair, to be used in the 
 work of re-erection. The number of these ropes 
 reached fifty-three, twenty-nine of which became 
 worthless from use. The total length of the remain- 
 ing twenty-four is 4,528 feet, and the total weight, 
 11,567 pounds I" 
 
 Beside these ropes lay several large coils of hair — 
 several of them gray, the gifts of the aged — which 
 came too late for use, but not too late to express 
 devotion. 
 
 One feature of this new order of things is found in 
 the changed relations of so-called CJiristian nations 
 to the rest of the world, God has not only opened 
 doors of entrance to all other peoples, and supplied 
 avenues and facilities for this world-wide occupation ; 
 but He has given to the great Protestant peoples of 
 the earth the sceptre of the race. To Great Britain, 
 the United States, Prussia, belongs the undoubted 
 supremacy of the world; for, to the nations most 
 deserving to be called enlightened Christian, the rest 
 of mankind tacitly yield homage. Mohammedanism 
 most stubbornly resists the approach of the gospel ; 
 yet Dr. Schreiber, of Barmen, says, of 175,000,000 
 Moslems, that 100,000,000 are already in subjection 
 to Christian powers, and that before long the other 
 75,000,000 will be. The political downfall of the 
 False Prophet is thus already an accomplished fact. 
 
 The gre^t pro?ninence of missionary literature sup- 
 
A A^EW ORDER OF THINGS. 381 
 
 plies another new incentive. When Christ gave his 
 last command, there was not one Christian book — 
 even the first gospel narrative was not yet written. 
 The Church, for nearly a century, had no literature, 
 and had to wait fifteen centuries for a printing-press ; 
 and for three centuries more, for any missionary 
 literature outside of the Acts of the Apostles. Some 
 who are yet living can remember when the '' Evan- 
 gelical Magazine " promised its readers a page of 
 missionary intelligence, '^as soon as enough matter 
 could be found to fill a page." To-day missionary 
 hymns are in our hymn-books, missionary magazines 
 and reviews throng our mails; and about one-seventh 
 of our religious publications deal either directly or 
 indirectly with missions ; and even our secular dailies 
 devote columns and pages to the subject ! We have 
 chairs of missions in our colleges and theological 
 schools, and missionary lectureships. There are 
 some three hundred societies organized for promot- 
 ing missions, and as many translations of the Bible 
 into the languages and dialects of the peoples whom 
 we need to reach with the message. 
 
III. 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONS. 
 
 What new conditions of success are found in the 
 recent development of medical missions! In the 
 Acts of the Apostles, two great aids were granted 
 to the witnessing Church: first, the gift of tongues^ 
 which fitted the heralds to reach strange peoples 
 without the slow mastery of a foreign speech; and, 
 secondly, the gift of Jiealing^ which made even op- 
 ponents favourably disposed toward the herald who 
 first brought such help to the body. In a natural 
 way, the lack of these supernatural gifts is now com- 
 pensated. Christian scholarship has so far outrun 
 the best learning and training of those earlier days, 
 that grammars and dictionaries of all the leading 
 languages and dialects can be supplied to the stu- 
 dent; Morrison could study Chinese in London and 
 Schwartz could learn Tamil at Halle, and Keith 
 Falconer, Arabic at Cambridge — before China, India 
 or Arabia were reached. 
 
 Within the hundred years past, at least one hun- 
 dred tongues that had before no literature, not even 
 an alphabet, have by missionaries been reduced to 
 writing. And the Word of God, in over three hun- 
 dred dialects, now, like a perpetual Pentecost, speaks 
 to the nations, so that each man may in his own 
 tongue read the wonderful works of God. This re- 
 duction of the world's languages to a written form, 
 to a scientific form, is God's modern gift of 
 tongues. 
 
 And the medical mission, now finding entrance 
 into all fields, and itself having, in many, as at Corea, 
 held the key that unlocked the doors of entrance — 
 what is this but God's modern gift of healing, which 
 is to go before the gospel to dispose men by the help 
 
MEDICAL MISSIONS, 383 
 
 given their bodies to hear the words which, to all the 
 woes and wants of sinsick souls, bring health ! 
 
 Medical missions have great capacity of service, 
 both as a means, and as an end. As an end they dis- 
 place existing systems of so-called medicine, posi- 
 tively useless to reach disease, and positively harmful 
 and cruel to patients. How Christian medical science 
 relieves bodily suffering is shown by such work as 
 that of Dr. Grant in Persia, Dr. Kerr in China, Dr. 
 Post in Syria, and scores of other most successful 
 medical missionaries. No more wonderful story has 
 been written in modern days than that of the St. 
 John's Hospital at Beirut, as given to the World's 
 Conference in 1888. But medical missions are also a 
 means to a higher end. They are destructive of 
 superstition and idolatry, for false faiths are so bound 
 up with false science, that to attack one is to attack 
 the other, and they must go down together. The 
 ignorant devotee who finds that his medicine men 
 and conjurors have only been adding to his pains and 
 sufferings, and that the Christian doctor both brings 
 help and cure, naturally feels drawn to the new faith 
 he teaches; and so medical missions are not only 
 destructive of superstition and false religion, but they 
 are constructive of a new faith and life. God is now 
 singularly using this new agency both as a handmaid 
 to the gospel and as a power to unbar long shut gates 
 to the ambassador of Christ. The healing art is 
 still the preparation for conversion to the great 
 Healer. 
 
 The sudden emphasis, so singularly laid on medi- 
 cal missions within the last sixty years, has solved 
 one of the greatest problems of missions. Of course 
 there has never been a period in which preaching of 
 the gospel has not been closely allied to the healing 
 art. Mackay, of Uganda, was right when he said, 
 that *' All genuine missionary work must be in the 
 highest sense a healing work." Body, soul and spirit 
 have all been poisoned and diseased by sin, and 
 
384 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 redemption must bring salvation to the whole man. 
 We cannot sever sin from sickness, and we cannot 
 but feel that there is more than a link of language 
 between holiness and wholeness, or health. Christ 
 went about preaching the gospel of the kingdom and 
 healing all manner of disease; and in commissioning 
 the seventy and the twelve, healing the sick was con- 
 joined with saving souls. 
 
 Yet as a feature of missions, the medical mission is 
 just sixty years old. The first regularly trained and 
 designated medical missionary was Dr. Peter Parker, 
 who, in 1834, went to Canton, under commission of 
 the American Board; followed shortly after by Ben- 
 jamin Hobson, sent out by the London Society to 
 Macao. 
 
 Dr. Christlieb has called attention to the fact that 
 it was an English physician, Gabriel Boughton, 
 M.D., who really laid in the East the foundations of 
 British civilization and dominion nearly 260 years 
 ago. In 1636, a princess of the great Mogul's court 
 was badly burned, and he was the means of her cure. 
 Whereupon, in his magnanimity declining all personal 
 compensation, he asked as his reward only that his 
 countrymen might have leave to trade with the great 
 Indian Empire. And so the healing art spoke the 
 magic word which caused the iron doors to swing 
 open. Was not Dr. Otis R. Bacheler, sent out to 
 Orissa by the Free Baptists, also one of the first mis- 
 sionary physicians ? 
 
 The Medical Missionary Society of Edinburgh 
 multiplied its income more than fourfold in the 
 ten years from 1871 to 1881. Before 1861, the 
 number of missionary physicians in all heathen 
 lands did not exceed twenty ; and ten years later, 
 not over double that number. Seven years after, 
 the number closely approached one hundred; and 
 in another seven years, there were nearly two 
 hundred regularly qualified medical missionaries; 
 by this time, ten years later, that number has again 
 
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 
 
 385 
 
 about doubled. And yet, how inadequate! New 
 York City alone has 3,000 doctors, or one to about 
 five hundred people: the unevangelized world has 
 about one to every three millions ! * 
 
 * It may be well, in order to make these statements and statistics, so far as 
 practicable, complete up to date, to add, that the British missionary societies, in 
 1893, reported 139 fully qualified physicians engaged in mission work, of whom 13 
 were women. The Medical Missionary Record of New York, after gathering with 
 great care a list of all medical missionaries in the world, gave in 1893, the following 
 as facts : 
 
 There were in the entire world field, up to 1893, 359 fully qualified medical mis- 
 sionaries, of whom 74 were women. 
 
 Presbyterian Church, U. S., has 
 
 A. B. C. F. M., 32 
 
 Methodist Church, ...-.--30 
 C. M. S., - - - - -• - - - 25 
 
 Free Church of Scotland, - - - - - - 20 
 
 United Presbyterian Church, ----- 10 
 
 Church of Scotland, - - - 
 
 Presbyterian Church, Canada, 
 
 This list apportions: to the U. S., 
 
 *■ " to Great Britain, 
 
 " " to Canada, 
 
 " " to Germany, - 
 
 As to Countries, China has 
 " " India, 
 
 " " Africa. 
 
 173 
 
 169 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 126 
 46 
 
IV. 
 THE NEW ACTIVITY OF WOMAN. 
 
 Woman's present prominence in Christian work 
 provides a new incentive of immense value and 
 power. The progress of Christianity has made in 
 woman's estate a complete inversion. Once, by a 
 strange perversion of God's creative word, she was 
 accounted a helpmeet for man — not his correspond- 
 ent or counterparty as the original implies, but his sub- 
 ordinate and servant, or, at best, his helper — that is, 
 man, the superior and sovereign; woman, the subject 
 and servant. And so, even in the Jewish body of 
 believers, woman scarcely ever comes to the front. 
 Miriam, Deborah, Anna the prophetess, are the rare 
 exceptions in Hebrew history, in which woman is 
 submerged and out of sight. With a curious signifi- 
 cance Paul writes: '* Help those women which 
 laboured with me in the gospel," as though they were 
 now leaders in holy service, and men must come to 
 their help. Through Christ and His gospel she who 
 was first in transgression, is becoming first in holy 
 consecration and missionary devotion ; in the family, 
 the radiant centre of attraction; in the Church, the 
 disseminator of missionary intelligence, the kindler 
 of enthusiasm, the organizer of systematic benevo- 
 lence. Woman goes abroad as teacher, nurse and 
 medical missionary, and in endurance and endeavour 
 rivals the most patient and valiant; or, as wife and 
 mother, shows what Christ makes of her sex; and 
 not only joins her husband in work, but sometimes 
 equals and even outdoes him in service. One-third 
 of the unevangelized can best be reached by woman, 
 and a large part of them can be reached by her only, 
 as they are inaccessible to man. 
 
 Medical missions afford a new field for the sister- 
 
THE NE W ACTIVITY OF WOMA N. 387 
 
 hood of Christ. From the reach of this noble auxili- 
 ary to missions, the zvoinen of the Orient, and especi- 
 ally of India, were long shut out by the rigid laws of 
 the zenana, the seraglio and the harem. Even 
 heathen doctors had to them no access. In Syria a 
 physician was called to prescribe for a favourite wife 
 of a dignitary, but was not allowed even to see her 
 tongue or feel her pulse ; and when he insisted that 
 no medical aid could be given without such examina- 
 tion, a female slave was made to thrust out her tongue 
 and reach out her hand through a rent in the curtain, 
 that he might examine his patient by proxy. And 
 so, as late as 1878, Mrs. Weitbrecht wrote: *' All 
 Hindu women are, in time of sickness, utterly neg- 
 lected. Prejudice and usage banish medical help." 
 And hence, fever, ophthalmia and other contagious 
 ills bred their awful progeny unchecked among 
 women and children. 
 
 But now, what a change ! All India clamours for 
 capable women who are trained nurses and qualified 
 physicians. The Presbyterian Female Hospital at 
 Lucknow, opened ten or eleven years .since, had 
 thirteen patients the first year ; but three years later, 
 212, beside 2,712 outside patients and 6,930 distribu- 
 tions of medicine. The movement has ceased to be 
 provincial and become national ; the work at Luck- 
 now and Lodiana, Travancore and Amritstar, is ex- 
 tending over the great empire. 
 
 Five years ago, the medical missions of China 
 were scarcely less numerous than in India, extend- 
 ing from Hong Kong and Canton to Peking, and 
 even into Manchuria and Tartary and Formosa. 
 The whole force then at work, male and female, was 
 upwards of eighty. The hospital at Swatow, opened 
 by Dr. Gauld in 1863, had in 1888 two hundred in- 
 mates, treating six thousand patients a year. 
 
 It is a strange fact that the law of sex runs 
 through all Christian work. The feminine element 
 is needed as well as the masculine. Man may be 
 
388 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 aggfressive, bold, strong, fitted to pioneer, organize, 
 administer; but woman is patient, impressive, ten- 
 der, sympathetic, fitted to win, to soothe, to com- 
 fort, to minister. Both together bring to the work 
 the complete furnishing that leaves no element of 
 adaptation lacking. And hence, when less than fifty 
 years ago women began to organize work among them- 
 selves, gather money, scatter information, send out 
 women and undertake their support, qualify for 
 medical missionaries, and educate their own sex for 
 intelligent co-operation in securing the spread of the 
 good news, the effect was felt from the centre to the 
 circumference of the whole sphere of Christian 
 service. And the end is not yet ! 
 
V. 
 
 NEW LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 
 
 The modern age of missions furnishes new incen- 
 tives in the exhibition of the relations of Christian 
 missions to Christian life, which could be understood 
 only when experience had both proved and illus- 
 trated those relations. 
 
 Long since, Solomon wrote: "There is that scat-, 
 tereth and yet increaseth; and there is that with- 
 holdeth more than is meet but it tendeth to poverty." 
 That is one of the great truths of the wisdom from 
 above, but to the worldly man it is folly. No para- 
 dox Christ uttered is more inexplicable to the nat- 
 ural and carnal heart than this: " He that saveth his 
 life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My 
 sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." To 
 increase by scattering, and grow poor by withhold- 
 ing; to save by losing and lose by saving — is the cli- 
 max of absurdity, yet it is the first principle of 
 divine philosophy. Selfishness withholds and gets 
 poorer by the attempt to grow richer. Benevolence 
 scatters, and in imparting increases — in giving, gets. 
 
 Missions sustain Christian life — a relation both of 
 sustenance and satisfaction — they supply the one 
 most complete avenue for service and for satisfying 
 joy. There are returns, though they are not carnal 
 nor material — the channel which conveys our gifts 
 outward, conveys joy inward — like the mutual action 
 of arteries and veins. Worldly pleasures are sweet 
 for a season, but they lose relish and give place to 
 bitter dregs at the bottom of the chalice. The 
 worldly mind is a mirror turned downward, reflect- 
 ing only what is earthly, sensual and sensuous, 
 material and temporal. The spiritual mind is the 
 mirror turned upward, reflecting heaven with its 
 
390 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 stars. Worldly pleasures lose charm; so shallow 
 that you can look through them and see the mire at 
 the bottom of the stream from which you drink; so 
 hollow that, as you grasp them, you have a sense of 
 their unsubstantial, unsatisfying character. Adolph 
 Monod, dying at fifty-four years of age, in 1891, left 
 in a brief, dying sentence, the sum of his legacy to 
 his survivors: ''All in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, 
 for the glory of God! All else is nothing." 
 
 The Church has found missions needful for its 
 own full arousing to activity, for such work is the 
 preservative of life. Nearly one-third of our exist- 
 ence is passed in that sleep which for all active pur- 
 poses of life is a blank, but which helps to replenish 
 waste and supply energy to exhausted brain and 
 brawn. But while in the physical sphere there is no 
 antagonism between sleep and life, in spiritual things 
 sleep is death. All activities of the vital spirit can- 
 not cease without cessation of life itself, for mo- 
 tionless members become atrophized ; as Dr. Solander 
 said of travellers amid the snows of a Norwegian 
 winter: ''Whoever sits down there will sleep, and 
 whoever sleeps will wake no more." The sleep of 
 the soul arrests spiritual circulation and respiration. 
 Piety cannot survive absolute inaction. 
 
 When missionary activities cease, ritualism and 
 formalism intone their monotonous chant, and by 
 their mechanical uniformity induce hopeless sluggish- 
 ness and spiritual death. There is but one source of 
 safety, even to disciples. Apathy brings apostasy, 
 lethargy palsies and kills. To have a healthy, alive 
 Church, all must be at work for souls; each, like 
 Arnold of Rugby, studious to learn the evils and 
 needs of his own generation and serve the whole race. 
 
 Missions are thus inseparable from the salvation of 
 the Church. The Hawaiian Islands undertook the 
 mission to Micronesia to arrest decline and decay 
 among native converts. The sagacious pioneers in 
 Tahiti and the Fiji group encouraged the newly- 
 
NE W LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 391 
 
 organized churches to send labourers at once to other 
 clusters about them as a means of their own de- 
 velopment. And it has always been so. Not one 
 of the ancient Churches survives in purity that was 
 not a missionary Church ; all the rest are to-day dead. 
 And if, at this time, the forty millions of Protestants 
 should give up all missions and concentrate all effort 
 on denominational extension and self-preservation, 
 it would be the surest, quickest way to promote 
 decay. Ruin w^ould result, perhaps so rapid, that 
 in a century we should have relapsed again into the 
 Dark Ages. 
 
 Daniel Webster, some years before his death, 
 made an extensive tour to the extreme w^est of the 
 United States, and on his return, expressed in four 
 words his impression of the country's peril: " Abun- 
 dance, Luxury, Decline, Desolation." A sagacious 
 seer and prophet was this, our American Burke. He 
 saw that this boasted abundance and luxury were the 
 summit of a hill beyond which the descent was 
 awfully rapid and dangerous. Numerical strength 
 may be weakness, and wealth, impoverishment. 
 What saved the Church of the seventeenth and the 
 first half of the eighteenth century from the apos- 
 tasy that threatened, was the birtli-Jioiir of missions 
 which gave the Church a new remedy for its ills. 
 And the only thing that can save the Church of the 
 nineteenth century from another apostasy, will be a 
 new consecration to the work of a world's evangeliza- 
 tion, proportioned to our new measure of knowledge 
 and opportunity. For be it remembered that fidelity 
 has no fixed standard ; it varies because light has its 
 degrees of clearness, and ability has its varying 
 measure. What would have been faithfulness in 
 Carey's day is neglect now; what would have been 
 zeal then is indifference now. As the world opens 
 to us; as our numbers and resources multiply; as 
 our knowledge of human need increases; as our 
 facilities are indefinitely enlarged, so our readiness, 
 
392 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 promptness, fulness of devotion, must keep pace; 
 otherwise we are unfaithful. If, when I have wealth, 
 I give no larger a proportion than when poor, I really 
 keep a far larger proportion for my indulgence ; if, 
 when I have far more incentives to duty, I am no 
 more active, I am the more unimpressible and irre- 
 sponsive. So, of this age to which so much more is 
 given, God will require the more. 
 
 Frenchmen have accomplished the feat of actually 
 plating a dead child with a metallic shell. The 
 corpse is prepared by a bath of nitrate of silver and 
 the vapour of phosphorus, and then electricity is 
 employed to lay on the thin shell of copper, alumin- 
 ium or gold. The tendency of our day is to a 
 plated Church — to leave the corruption of this world, 
 and the coldness and lifelessness of a secular selfish- 
 ness, within, and gild over with fashionable formal- 
 ism and polite culture. To leave this tendency un- 
 changed is to have, in the end, a corpse with a gold 
 shell ! 
 
 There certainly is a crisis in Church life just now 
 which gives to watchful saints no little alarm. It is 
 an age not only of doubt, but of declared doubt; 
 an age of scholarly inquiry, but audacious rational- 
 ism and impudent irreverence; an age of unrest, 
 insatiate avarice and reckless ambition; an age of 
 fashionable indulgence and unrestrained selfishness; 
 an age of formality in religion and prayerlessness; an 
 age of religious extension, rather than of holy inten- 
 sity; an age of secular churches and wide-spread 
 neglect of the real sanctities of holy living. 
 
 Reference has been made already to John Owen's 
 '* Pneumatologia," and to what he says of every age, 
 ''that it has its own test of fidelity or infidelity." 
 Before Christ's advent, the great testing truth was 
 the oneness of God's nature and His monarchy over 
 all. At His advent, whether a Church was orthodox 
 hung on this — whether it would receive or reject the 
 Son of God as divine, incarnate, sacrificed, glorified 
 
NE W LESSONS FROM EXPERIENCE. 393 
 
 according to prophecy and promise. But, now that 
 the Church has been outgathered, the test is, ''^how 
 the Church receives the Holy Spirit;'' so that a body 
 of disciples who hold tenaciously to the unity of God 
 and the trinity of the persons of the Godhead, and 
 accept Jesus Christ as Son of God, Saviour and Lord, 
 may yet in God's eyes be apostate, because practically 
 rejecting the Holy Spirit in His divine offices! 
 
 The remark is alarmingly true, and there is no 
 sign of such apostasy more convincing than the ab- 
 sence of that missionary spirit which is the practical 
 evidence and expression of the abiding of the Spirit 
 of Christ. If at once the whole Church of God should 
 enter upon the work of a world's evangelization with 
 a zeal proportioned to the present claims of duty and 
 opportunity, there would be a sudden cessation of 
 the widespread doubt, due to the leaven of German 
 rationalism, under polite names of Biblical criticism ; 
 we should find it once more true, as Shaftesbury 
 said, that the antidote to all this scepticism and 
 uncertainty is to be constantly and wholly absorbed 
 in work for soul-saving. All minor questions are 
 forgotten when major issues come to the front; as 
 two animals that have been fighting will suddenly 
 come into friendly terms, and stand side by side when 
 forced to face and fight a lion. Even the Church 
 is coming to embrace a great multitude who ''vigor- 
 ously believing nothing, practice vigorously what they 
 believe;" and it will be worse unless we redouble our 
 fidelity to missions. 
 
 One of the highest incentives is found in the fact 
 that missions thus develop the life that makes them 
 possible. There never was a true mission born un- 
 less there was vitality enough to give it birth; but 
 it is equally true that such child-bearing saves the 
 very mother herself. The sacrifice is salvation. That 
 word. Salvation, has a grander, fuller meaning than 
 we often think. Justification may come to him who 
 believes with the heart ; but there is a full salvation 
 
394 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 only to him who confesses with the mouth, and 
 witnesses to the world. To escape the penalty of 
 sin is but the first step in salvation; to escape the 
 power of sin, and the dominion of evil is the next 
 step, sanctification. But he who advances not 
 further and learns that service which delivers from 
 the more subtle dominion of self, knows not the 
 fullest meaning of salvation. 
 
 It ought to be motive enough that the Church's 
 mission is to save the lost, and not simply to care 
 for the saved. Solomon says, God hath set the 
 world in man's heart — but the Hebrew term is olam 
 — indefinite duration. There is a latent instinct of 
 eternity in the human soul. Man knows that dura- 
 tion was before him and will be after him ; and the 
 believer is one in whose heart this latent instinct has 
 been aroused to activity : his mission is to go forth 
 and awaken that instinct in others • and that is soul- 
 saving ! 
 
VI. 
 
 NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 
 
 The modern notions of giving are not only far 
 below the Scripture level; they contradict Bible 
 standards. An article in the " Nineteenth Century " 
 told men how to live on seven hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year: allowance was made for all needful 
 outlay on food and clothing, house rent and house 
 service; and a generous provision for culture and 
 amusements. But not one penny was set aside for 
 charity, which was not reckoned among necessities 
 or even luxuries. An advertisement appears, offer- 
 ing a very large reward for a poodle, whose diamond- 
 set collar was worth two hundred and fifty pounds 
 sterling, and the silver chain, seven pounds more; 
 but that is to be accounted among the reasonable 
 indulgences, whether any provision is made for per- 
 ishing millions or not ! 
 
 The old doctrine will be unpopular in this degen- 
 erate day of a secularized Church, but it is still to be 
 proclaimed, for the offence of the cross is not ceased. 
 No setting apart of a tithe, or Lord's portion, will, 
 in these days, suffice. It never did. The tithe was 
 the Jews* minimum, not maximum ; it represents what 
 the poorest must give, not what the richest might 
 use to buy off the right to keep the other nine-tenths ! 
 Instead of asking. How little can I spare for God 
 and satisfy His claim and my conscience? we should 
 invert the terms, and ask. How little can I expend 
 upon myself and yet satisfy my actual needs, and 
 how much can I thus spare for God? 
 
 The missionary age 'affords new opportunity and 
 incentive for the culture of this supreme grace. 
 Giving will bring its true blessing, its greater bless- 
 ing, only when systematic and self-denying. 
 
396 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 ** Mammon" is simply another name for money, 
 when, instead of a servant, it becomes a master, 
 practically served — an idol worshipped. There is no 
 difficulty in understanding how what is so grossly 
 material as wealth came to be associated with divine 
 attributes; for, as we have seen, its power to 
 achieve great results suggests omnipotence ; its 
 power to represent the giver, wherever his gifts are 
 bestowed and their blessings scattered, suggests 
 omnipresence ; and its power to perpetuate his in- 
 fluence when he is dead, suggests eternity. What a 
 pity, what a crime, when such power is put in the 
 fetters of selfishness, and locked up in the narrow 
 cell of personal indulgence! when it achieves no 
 result but to fatten and satiate the lust of greed, 
 finds no sphere outside of a luxurious home, and per- 
 petuates no influence but the example of the miser! 
 
 One of the foremost incentives to missions is found 
 in the blessedness of giving. Christ spake a new 
 beatitude, recorded and preserved by Paul, who said 
 to the Ephesian elders : ' ' Remember the words of 
 the Lord Jesus, how He said. It is more blessed to 
 give than to receive ! " The full meaning and truth 
 of that last beatitude is yet to be known, and can be 
 known only as this work of missions is done as He 
 meant it should be done. 
 
 This may be called a new motive, for its power is 
 as yet unfelt. Our giving is not only imperfect and 
 inadequate, it is radically defective ; for its basis is, 
 in a measure, wrong and unsound. The ministry of 
 money is not imderstood, and stewardship is practi- 
 cally denied. That is a virtually effete notion, that 
 all I have belongs to God ; that it is not mine to do as 
 I will with it, to hoard, or spend, to use in selfish 
 indulgence or bestow in unselfish ministries; but 
 that it is held in trust for God, and to be put to holy 
 uses, so that even what I eat and drink and wear is to 
 glorify Him. This may be treated with contemptu- 
 ous scorn as an antiquated doctrine, but it will never 
 
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 397 
 
 be no longer binding while the word of God is our 
 guide and a world waits to be saved. 
 
 This beatitude represents the crown of all beatitudes. 
 There are three stages of experience: first, where 
 joy is found only in getting; second, where joy is 
 found in both getting and giving; third, where giv- 
 ing is the only real joy, and getting is valued only in 
 order to giving. The first shows the purely worldly 
 spirit; the next indexes the average disciple; the 
 last marks the closest identity with the Lord. To 
 this last only the few attain or even aspire. But to such 
 it is the foretaste of heaven on earth. The curse even 
 of our Churches is that getting is recognized as the 
 one thing to be desired and sought ; giving is at best 
 recognized as a duty, not a privilege to be sought but 
 an obligation to be accepted, and a thousand expedi- 
 ents are adoped to evade and avoid that self-denial 
 which represents the very enrichment of giving. If 
 money is to be raised, instead of counting it a blessing 
 to give, and to give what costs self-sacrifice, the 
 constant effort is to give what costs nothing ; and resort 
 is had to secular entertainments, concerts and exhibi- 
 tions, tea-drinkings and picnics, bazaars and raffles, 
 charades and tableaux, lantern shows and comic recita- 
 tions — the whole alphabet of the world's amusements 
 supplies the Church with easy expedients to gather a 
 little money and escape self-denial; and modes, not 
 only secular but unhallowed, are often adopted to 
 secure funds for the most sacred cause of missions. 
 The mistake is the more serious because it not only 
 secularizes the Church, but it makes even our giving 
 selfish; the cause of God must buy our support by 
 some price paid to the eye, in the spectacular; to the 
 ear, in the musical or the amusing; to the palate, in the 
 delicate or the delicious. 
 
 Let us stop and once more ask zvhy and zvhen it 
 is more blessed to give than to receive. Getting 
 without giving is absolutely disastrous; even getting 
 %vith giving is dangerous. And the only way to pre- 
 
398 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 vent the disaster and avert the danger is to give^ 
 constantly, systematically, abundantly, cheerfully, 
 self-denyingly. Fire that has no vent, has soon no 
 flame ; if the flame cannot get out the fire goes out. A 
 spring without outlet cannot have inlet ; the water must 
 give forth a stream, or it seeks a new channel under- 
 ground. The Christian life is the fire of which giving 
 is the vent ; it is the spring of which active benevolence 
 is the stream. He who hoards and withholds, cramps 
 and crushes and cripples his own better nature. 
 
 But, as Lowell makes Christ to say, in the ''Vision 
 of Sir Launfal," 
 
 *' He who gives himself with his alms, feeds three : 
 Himself, his hungering neighbour, and Me." 
 
 The miser is an idolater and worships the golden 
 calf. The law of all idolatry, twice thundered from 
 the Psalms, is universal: 
 
 ''They that make them are like unto them. 
 So is every one that trusteth in them." 
 
 All idols make the maker and worshipper like them- 
 selves. If man worships a beast he becomes beastly 
 and brutal ; if it be a god of wood and stone, dumb and 
 senseless like the image ; if it be a clod of earth, earthy 
 like^the clod. He who worships gold — to whom the 
 ' ' almighty dollar, " the ' ' sovereign, " the ' ' Napoleon, " 
 is, as the names suggest, his practical monarch and 
 master, becomes, as we have before hinted, a kind of 
 coin himself. He gets to have a sort of metallic 
 hardness and insensibility to impression, and a kind of 
 metallic ring. His utterances, his preferences, his 
 tastes, his actions have the sound of the brass trum- 
 pet, the silver cymbal, the gold-piece. And when 
 he falls in death, it is not a man who has disappeared 
 from among men — not some bright star suddenly 
 fading into darkness, or some musical melody sinking 
 into silence, or some fruitful tree torn up by the 
 roots — only a sack of hoarded treasure falling upon 
 the stony pavement of fate, and, as Death cuts the knot 
 
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 399 
 
 that has held its mouth closed, scattering its coins to 
 be picked up by lawful heirs, or, more likely, by 
 greedy lawyers ! One who worships fashion becomes 
 nothing but a tailor's dummy, a walking advertise- 
 ment, a suit of clothes on legs, miscalled a man ; or 
 a wax-doll, trimmed with furs and feathers, and mis- 
 called a woman. The worshippers of fast horses 
 come to have the savour and flavour of the stall and 
 the turf; they smell of the horse; life is to them a 
 race for stakes, and their back is a saddle for 
 jockeys. 
 
 The objection commonly raised against giving to 
 foreign missions — that we shall never see the money 
 again — the field is too far off to make returns — is itself 
 an example of how a Scripture motive may be turned 
 into a hindrance. Christ bids us, do good, hoping for 
 nothing again — give to those from whom we can expect 
 710 returns. That alone is giving. If I invite to my 
 supper those whom I expect to invite me again ; or 
 bestow a favour w^here I look for reciprocal favours, 
 it is all selfish and breeds only selfishness. It is 
 lending, not giving, for the loan is to be returned, 
 perhaps with interest. To carry this principle into 
 our benevolence makes benevolence impossible. If 
 I put money into a savings bank, I have certainly 
 given nothing to the bank. And if I put money into 
 a Christian church or school, expecting returns in 
 any form of self-gain, it may be a good investment, 
 but is it true giving ? 
 
 Our whole Christian life is in danger of being 
 mammonized. The little boy who slipped his penny 
 into the contribution box, and asked his mother 
 what sort of sweets would drop out, whether caro- 
 mels or lozenges, was a good representative of older 
 people, who look on all so-called benevolent schemes 
 as automatic sweetmeat machines, into which you 
 drop your penny, or your shilling, your dollar or 
 your pound, to get sooner or later some adequate 
 returns. 
 
400 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 Once more let it be learned by tis that God's poor- 
 est ones need our gifts far less than zvc need the disci- 
 pline of giving. To say "no" to my selfish greed 
 and appetite, to curb my carnal self and give reins 
 to my spiritual nature, to learn to give without 
 thought of any returns — simply to confer good and 
 impart blessing — ah! that is to be like unto God! 
 The devil delights in returning evil for good ; man 
 is quite willing to return good for good ; but God's 
 joy is to give the best where is returned only the 
 worst! Giving is God's corrective and antidote to 
 selfishness, and, because the remotest field brings the 
 slowest returns, and the most destitute objects leave 
 the least hope of personal gains to tempt cupidity, 
 missions to the heathen furnish the grandest oppor- 
 tunity we can enjoy for cultivating self-oblivion — 
 pure, disinterested, unselfish, Christ-like ministry to 
 want and woe. 
 
 In one sense, this is a new incentive, for there is a 
 new appeal in the cJiangcd conditions of CJiurch life. 
 The primitive Church of the Acts was a poor Church, 
 so poor that the few who had possessions felt con- 
 strained to dispose of their houses and lands and 
 turn the proceeds into the common treasury. That 
 was a simple, frugal age, in which there were no 
 great monopolies and colossal fortunes as now. It 
 was not, as this is, a materialistic age — when the 
 very atmosphere was laden with the miasma of 
 miserliness and incited to greed. We are living in 
 a time when the rich are very rich and the poor very 
 poor, and the gulf between them is becoming un- 
 bridgeable and hopeless alienation is the outcome. 
 These are days when there is far greater risk of 
 Christians' becoming electro-plated with fashionable 
 avarice and hardened into a respectable insensibility 
 to human sorrow and suffering; when it shall be 
 easy to feed and fatten upon dainties, while Lazarus 
 is left to the dogs; when it shall be common to be 
 comfortable in luxury while a world is dying of 
 
MEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 401 
 
 poverty and in sin — than in any previous age. And 
 hence the power of the new appeal. Because the 
 very social life tends to dull our ears to human 
 need, God permits the voice of the heathen's want 
 and woe to be the louder and more clamorous and 
 the more ceaseless. Intelligence is now so wide- 
 spread that ignorance of the world's need is well- 
 nigh impossible, and at least culpable; and, to know 
 that a thousand millions of souls are starving for 
 the bread of life, and that we can give it to them, 
 and yet not to do it, implies an indifference, an 
 apathy, whose crime and curse are proportioned 
 to our greater information, ability and opportunity. 
 In the days of the Apostles there were neither such 
 chances of good, nor such risks of harm to the 
 Church. 
 
 So important is this element of unselfishness in 
 giving, that to avoid or evade it is to take away its 
 vital principle. It is, then, the flower without the 
 colour or odour — the gem without its radiance. As 
 Mr. J. A. Froude says: '' Sacrifice is the first element 
 in religion, and resolves itself into the love of God. 
 Let the thought of self intrude, let the painter but 
 pause to consider how much reward his work will 
 bring to him, and the cunning will forsake his hand 
 and the power of genius will be gone. Excellence 
 is proportioned to the oblivion of self." No doubt 
 money may be raised for missions in ways that obvi- 
 ate self-sacrifice, but in proportion to our success 
 is our failure — and the greater the success the worse 
 the disaster. For this means that we have found a 
 way to make the sacred ointment and leave out 
 the perfume that, to God, gives it all its sweet 
 savour. 
 
 And hence also it is that the more we succeed in 
 making large gifts from the few supply the place 
 of the many small offerings of the self-denying poor, 
 the less practical power is there in our very gifts 
 themselves. It is one of the mysteries of chemical 
 
402 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 galvanism that an increase of its power cannot be 
 got by increasing the dimensioiis of the cells of the 
 battery, but can be secured only by increasing the 
 miviber of those cells. This peculiarity illustrates 
 Christian service in giving. The cumulative energy 
 of our gifts depends not on their amount, but on 
 the sacrifice they involve, and so, the more the givers 
 in whom this sacrifice is developed, the grander the 
 spiritual force and impetus given by the aggregate 
 of gifts. Hence, the highest Church power hangs 
 on all sJiaring in the giving. 
 
 As Jeanie Deans said to the Queen: *' It is not 
 when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that 
 we think on other people's sufferings. Our hearts are 
 waxed light within us then, and we are for righting 
 our ain wrangs, and fighting our ain battles. But 
 when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to 
 the body, and when the hour of death comes, that 
 comes to high and low — long and late may it be 
 yours O my leddy ! — then it is na what we hae dune 
 for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that 
 we think on maist pleasantly." 
 
 God has shown us, by nearly two millenniums of 
 Church history, that missions have a vital relation to 
 Christian life, and that their reflex action is so 
 unspeakably precious that all the cost of money and 
 men is far more than repaid in this returning tide of 
 blessing. The vigorous pulsation which drives the 
 blood to the ends of the body, invigorates the heart 
 itself and strengthens its muscular walls. To nour- 
 ish a missionary spirit is to enlarge, expand, ennoble 
 our whole spiritual life. Take one example. Noth- 
 ing is a greater perplexity and anxiety to true disciples 
 than this — how to ensure a sanctified /<7w?*/y life. It 
 is lamentable that children of Christian parents so 
 often grow up, not only strangers to God but open 
 enemies and infidels. There seems to be some influ- 
 ence at work to annul and neutralize all the power of 
 holy example. The fact is that nothing is so subtly 
 
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 403 
 
 fatal to all true symmetry of character as simple 
 selfishness. There is a curious fact in botany. If 
 you take out a scion from a tree, cut off the branch 
 and set the scion downward, all others that grow out 
 of that branch afterward, will grow downward — and 
 hence, the ornamental gardener gets his drooping trees. 
 The scions in our family tree get early set downward, 
 and all future growths are earthward. There is as 
 truly peril in a self-indulgent home as in a positively 
 vicious one — let a child begin by being pampered, 
 petted, indulged, taught to gratify whims and selfish 
 impulses, and you have given a carnal tendency to 
 the whole life. Now there is this precious fruit of 
 very early training in the missionary spirit, that your 
 boy or girl gets another centre of revolution outside of 
 self. Others' wants and woes are thought of, and 
 the penny that would be wasted on sweets, is saved 
 for the missionary box. It seems a very small matter, 
 but the scion gets an upward growth and all the 
 future life, a tendency upward. Where mission- 
 ary hymns are the lullaby sung at the cradle, and 
 prayer for the heathen is taught to lisping lips at the 
 mother's knee; where simple facts about the awful 
 needs of pagan homes and hearts are fed to the child 
 as food for the thought and tonic for self-denial, and 
 the habit is thus early imparted of looking beyond 
 personal comfort and pleasure, and feeling sympathy 
 for lost souls — a new and strange quality is given to 
 character. It is no strange thing, therefore, that in 
 the homes where a true missionary atmosphere is 
 habitually breathed we find children insensibly grow- 
 ing up to devote themselves and their substance to 
 God. 
 
 And so in that larger family, the Church. Noth- 
 ing so cripples even home work as neglect of the 
 wider field. To withhold from the farthest is to 
 cramp sympathy for the nearest. And so it comes 
 to pass that what is often assigned as a reason or 
 cause for a lack of missionary zeal and effort, is 
 
404 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 rather the effect of it. The Church that apologizes 
 for doing nothing for missions abroad, because of its 
 weakness and poverty, owes its feebleness and sickli- 
 ness to turning all attention upon itself. If we but 
 knew it, it is because we have such burdens to be 
 borne in the home work, that we need the stimulus 
 and strength imparted by active missionary effort 
 for the most distant and destitute. As Bishop Brooks 
 used to say, such excuses resemble the plea of a 
 parricide who first kills his own father, and then 
 pleads for the pity of the court, in remitting the 
 penalty in view of his orphanhood ! 
 
 No vice is more destructive of Christian character 
 than greed. Avarice turns a man into a miser who 
 has no thought beyond his hoarded gold, like that 
 respectable manufacturer in Britain who spent every 
 day for twenty years in counting his sovereigns that 
 he might gloat over his treasures. And it works 
 harm as much to the poor in his penury as to the 
 rich in his affluence ; as it led a wretched victim of 
 avarice, in one of our American cities, to split hicifer 
 matches so as to make one into four. On the other 
 hand, he who learns the true uses of sanctified 
 money understands how it can wield a power next to 
 divine, spread the influence of a single life over a 
 wide sphere, and perpetuate divine omnipotence 
 in the power it may wield; omnipresence, in the wide 
 sphere over which it spreads the influence of one life ; 
 and eternity, in the perpetuation of such influence 
 long after death. 
 
VII. 
 THE NEW APPEAL OF MAN. 
 
 We tarry to make more emphatic what has been 
 already referred to — that voice of Jiinnan need which 
 constitutes a new incentive, for it has never been heard 
 as now, and heard all round the horizon like a thunder- 
 peal from all quarters at once. Never until now have 
 we known what heathenism and paganism mean. The 
 numbers which they represent, so great that in 
 India alone it would take seventeen years to give 
 each woman and girl a Bible, at the rate of 20,000 
 a day! And if the unevangelized passed day and 
 night before us, one by one, the procession would be 
 endless, for a new generation would have grown to 
 majority before the present living host could march 
 by! The need so awful and the woe so mournful 
 that no words can do justice to it, and no figures 
 illustrate it. 
 
 What increased knowledge of the wants and woes 
 of heathendom ! What a book might be written on 
 the condition of mankind in pagan lands — especially 
 of women and children; the curse of caste, of dis- 
 honoured labour, of human slavery and human 
 torture ; of the prostitution of virtue in the name of 
 religion; of infanticide, parricide, suicide; and the 
 countless, nameless enormities and cruelties that 
 have made the places where paganism dwells, the 
 habitations of demons. ''In Darkest Heathendom" 
 is a volume not yet written, but it needs to be writ- 
 ten. The facts are not new, but the knowledge of 
 them is new. The dark places of the earth were 
 full of the habitations of cruelty in the prophetic and 
 Apostolic ages, but the midnight had not then been 
 penetrated, even by the explorer's transient lamp. 
 Now we know the horrors and abominations of pagan, 
 
 405 
 
406 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 papal, heathen, and moslem lands — the awful super- 
 stitions and degrading- rites that even " the Light of 
 Asia" leaves undispelled. 
 
 Near Mauch Chunk, in Pennsylvania, is a burning 
 mine at Summit Hill. For thirty-five years every 
 effort made to quench it has failed, and at a thousand 
 points steam and gas escape ; vegetation is gone and 
 the rocks are so hot as to blister the hand at the 
 touch. That burning mountain is the awful symbol 
 of heathenism. The unquenched fires have burned 
 for ages. War has been the almost constant curse 
 of a Christless paganism, and, asHenry the Fifth said: 
 ''War's three handmaidens are Blood, Fire, and 
 Famine; and Famine, awful as it is, meekest of the 
 three." 
 
 Nevertheless, there are great possibilities waiting 
 for development, even in the heathen world. Gen- 
 eral Grant, after his circuit of the globe, pronounced 
 Li-Hung-Chang one of the three greatest statesmen 
 of the age, ranking him with Gladstone and 
 Bismarck. Surely a country that can produce such 
 a man ought to be permeated and penetrated by the 
 gospel. Sir Bartle Frere witnessed to the indirect 
 effect of Christian teaching, that it everywhere dig- 
 nifies labour, sanctifies marriage and family life, and 
 uplifts manhood; that, even where it does not con- 
 vert and renew, it checks, refines, and reforms; and 
 where it fails to sanctify, it, at least, subdues. 
 
 There is great need of new enterprise in the 
 department of missions, and there is every encour- 
 agement for it. Christ still says: ''Follow me, and 
 let the dead bury their dead." Like Talleyrand, it 
 behooves the Christian disciple to keep his watch 
 ahead of the rest of mankind, and rather surpass than 
 fall behind worldly men in enterprise for God. The 
 time is coming when Christian disciples will look back 
 to this age as radically deficient in energy and holy 
 activity, just as we now look back to the age when 
 William Carey sought to rouse England. 
 
THE NE IV APPEAL OF MAN. 407 
 
 The men who are watching the times are oppressed 
 with the incentives God gives us to immediate action. 
 Hudson Taylor appeals for the evangelization of 
 China within the present generation. Not one- 
 hundredth part of the people have yet been reached. 
 He has proposed that, within five years, a thousand 
 more workers should be put into this special field; 
 that two years should be allowed for the study of 
 the native tongue, and three years given to direct 
 labour ; and he says that, estimating the population at 
 about fifty millions of families, to reach fifty families 
 a day, for one thousand days, by one thousand workers, 
 would bring the first proclamation of the gospel to all. 
 
 We know also how critical is the condition of the 
 world field, and an incentive to new diligence and 
 greatly increased zeal and self-denial, is thus sup- 
 plied. If ever in human history delay meant dan- 
 ger, nay, certain disaster, it is now. The seasons 
 for sowing and reaping, planting and plucking, are 
 fixed, and their limits are set by natural laws. A 
 season is a fit time, and for all work there is but one 
 fit time. The sower wastes his seed if he sows it 
 after sowing time ; and when the harvest is ripe the 
 reaper must put in the sickle, or soon the harvest 
 will not be worth the reaping, for ripeness borders 
 on rottenness. Immediate is God's word: now or 
 never. In all parts of the mission field it is either 
 time to sow or time to reap ; and in some cases the 
 field invites both sower and reaper at once ; for there 
 are some who need the saving message, and others 
 who have heard and are ready for further and fuller 
 steps of teaching, training, ingathering, organizing. 
 We must not think that, because the Church is more 
 aroused than a century ago, it is safe to rest content 
 with the present measure of interest and that we 
 need only to maintain it. The Church of Christ 
 has, thus far, not yet begun to deal in earnest with her 
 duty to the human race. Four-fifths of the territory 
 of heathenism and paganism yet remains to be 
 
408 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 occupied; and as to the Moslem millions, they are 
 scarcely as yet approached ! Even where civilization 
 has gone, its contact with paganism has often been a 
 curse rather than a blessing! Christian nations have 
 been identified in India and China with opium traffic 
 and licensed lust, and in Africa with firearms, slavery 
 and whiskey ! This century has known no document 
 more pathetically significant than that first letter 
 written in English by a Congo native, who thus ad- 
 dressed the Archbishop of Canterbury: 
 
 ' ' Great and good chief of the tribe of Christ : 
 Greeting: The humblest of your servants kisses the 
 hem of your garment, and begs you to send to his 
 fellow servants more gospel and less rum. In the 
 bonds of Christ — Ugalla." 
 
 There are other developments, besides those of 
 time and tide, which '^wait for no man." In the 
 field given us to till, God's work cannot and will not 
 wait. While w^e sleep Satan is busy. He will sow 
 his seed if we do not sow God's. And his pre-occu- 
 pation will double the difficulty when we do under- 
 take for God. Yes, if disciples do not sow the wide 
 and open fields of the world, demons w411. We must 
 not sleep, for the devil never does. 
 
 In some cases heathenism is now a house without 
 an occupant, ''empty, swept, garnished;" people 
 tired of idols and ignorance, fling away their false 
 faiths and yearn for knowledge. When man is left 
 without any religion, he is in greatest risk. Satan 
 watches to take possession of the empty house, w^th 
 sevenfold disaster to the soul. Apathy — neglect of 
 opportunity — -this is all that is needed on the part of 
 disciples, and irreparable damage wall ensue. While 
 we are sending forth one out of five thousand Protes- 
 tant Church members, to carry gospel tidings, and 
 giving less than a tenth of one per cent, on our 
 average income to keep them at work, the consecra- 
 tion of self and substance is so far behind that of the 
 Apostolic Church that it hints an apostasy. 
 
THE NEW APPEAL OF MAN. 409 
 
 Watch Satan as he enters every open door, send- 
 ing his agents everywhere, poisoning the minds of 
 young Japanese and Hindus with Western scepticism 
 before we have got our Christian books and tracts 
 ready, flooding the Soudan and the Congo valley 
 with the drink that drowns reason and conscience, 
 before we have sent missionaries there ! 
 
 Opportunity never lingers, and when, if ever, it 
 returns, like the Sibyl its price is more costly and its 
 precious treasures are less. The Emperor of Brazil 
 accounted for the great inferiority of Brazil to the 
 great Republic of the north, in one sentence. He 
 said: ''My countrymen always cry manana! — 
 to-morrow, to-morrow; but the United States citizen 
 says to-day f' Would to God the Church would 
 stop all boasting of to-morrow and improve to-day. 
 
VIII. 
 
 HARMONY WITH GOD'S PURPOSE^. 
 
 To WORK with God and on God's plan is the only 
 real bliss, and the only sure success. All else is dis- 
 appointment and failure. President Lincoln was 
 once taunted by an adversary with the temporary 
 defeat of political measures which he had adopted in 
 the interests of the eternal principles of right. His 
 sublime reply was : ^ ' Defeat ! If it were not one, 
 but one hundred defeats, I should still pursue the 
 same unchanging course." And, on another occa- 
 sion, when, during the war for the Union, a timid man 
 ventured to say: '' I hope God will be on our side," 
 his response was: *' My only anxiety is to be on 
 God's side." Audit was this man of an incarnate 
 conscience whose heroic words were: ** Let us 
 believe that right makes might, and in that faith let 
 us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand 
 it." It is the same sentiment that Faber crystallized 
 into verse: 
 
 " He always wins who sides with God ; 
 With him no chance is lost." 
 
 It is, therefore, of immense importance to us to 
 know wJiat God's plan is and then to take our place 
 ift it. As to the purpose of God in this dispen- 
 sation, Anthony Grant has, in his Bampton Lectures, 
 given clear and brief statement: "That the gospel 
 shall be preached in some places at all times, and in all 
 places at some time." And beyond this we know 
 very little. How large or rapid are to be the visible 
 results in anyone field is a matter never yet unveiled; 
 it is one of the secret things that belong unto the 
 Lord our God. But what is revealed is His will that 
 
HA RMON V WITH GOD ' S P URPOSE. 41 1 
 
 we should go into all the world and preach the 
 gospel to every creature. 
 
 Then if, as George Bowen told Dr. Norman McLeod 
 of himself, thirty years are spent in India without one 
 known convert, we can still do our duty — for in God's 
 eyes that is success; all else, failure. In this doing 
 of God's will on God's plan, the holiest aspiration finds' 
 satisfaction. A divine ambition engrosses the soul. 
 This is the avenue to the purest, widest influence. 
 One may, at God's bidding, go into comparative 
 retirement and obscurity— as Bishop Butler, author 
 of the famous '* Analogy," into the little country 
 parish of Stanhope, so that Archbishop Blackburne 
 told Queen Caroline that he was ' ' not dead, but 
 buried " — but if it be at God's bidding it is no burial 
 alive, except as a seed secreted for a crop. Butler, 
 during that apparent burial, was writing that great 
 work which revolutionized the thinking of that 
 deistic age ! 
 
 In great crises of Church history some word of 
 God has become the rallying cry of His true fol- 
 lowers. The motto of the Apostolic age was: 
 '^ Christ died for our sins, and rose again, according 
 to the Scriptures." During the Lutheran Reforma- 
 tion, the watchword was: ''The just shall live by 
 faith." And, for this age of missions, what is a 
 more fitting battle-cry than that which has been 
 spontaneously chosen by the Student Volunteers in 
 their '' New Crusade:" 
 
 THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD IN THIS 
 GENERATION ! 
 
 This, now famous motto, has been traced to the 
 writer of these pages, as its author, because he first 
 gave it expression at the inauguration of this move- 
 ment at Mount Hermon, Mass., eight years ago. But 
 the fact is, he got this motto from the thirteenth 
 chapter of the Acts, verses 22 and 36, where the 
 Holy Spirit says of David, that, God in him found a 
 
412 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 man after His own heart, which should fulfil all His 
 will, and that he served his own generation by the will 
 of God. Let us write that divine motto on all our 
 banners ! 
 
 How much is included here ! Sovereignty — a divine 
 Master; Se7'viee — a world's evangelization ; Sphere — 
 our own generation; a Secret and Signal — the will 
 of God. 
 
 A most expressive word is here rendered, '* served " 
 — it means to be an under-rower, and refers to the 
 ancient galleys with their banks of oars, where every 
 man who held an oar served under the control of the 
 pilot. All God asks of us is to take the place which 
 He assigns, and there do our work, watching His 
 signal. When there is obedience to His will, there is 
 sure to be co-operation with all other obedient souls, 
 since they heed the same signal. The conception is 
 magnificent. What a symphony of action ! what a 
 harmony of movement! — the oars rising and falling, 
 dipping and dripping together, though the oarsmen 
 see not each other, and plan no such co-operation; 
 because one will sways all alike, and controls the 
 synchronisms and coincidences of history by a unity 
 of universal plan. 
 
 And what identity with God! His will is His 
 personality. To serve under that will as the all- 
 controlling signal, is to be one with Him — to be 
 about our Father's business. What authority! for 
 all is done in the name of the one Master. What 
 holy audacity! as when David approached Goliath: 
 *' I come to thee in the name of Jehovah, God of the 
 armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied ! " What 
 security to him who does the will of God! '*A11 
 things work together for good," in the orbit of obedi- 
 ence, which is a part of a universal system where 
 God is Sun and Centre ! And what success ! Into the 
 channel of our weak and wayward will is turned the 
 very river of God — the mighty torrent of His 
 omnipotence, to turn the wheels of our life and action, 
 
HARMONY WITH GOD'S PURPOSE. 413 
 
 and insure uninterrupted power and ultimate accom- 
 plishment. And what is the natural sphere of every 
 disciple's work and witness, if it be not his own 
 generation ? He cannot affect the past generations, 
 and the best way to serve the future is by fidelity to 
 the present. He may in a sense belong to the whole 
 race of man, but he is especially related to the human 
 family as living on earth at the same period with him- 
 self. Their claims on him are paramount, pressing, 
 immediate, imperative. 
 
 If the Church would come into harmony with God's 
 purpose, here is the secret: — He must be acknowl- 
 edged as absolute Master, and His command must be 
 the sole, sufficient authority. Service must be con- 
 ceived as part of a full discipleship and even a 
 complete salvation ; and that service must be accepted 
 as proclaiming the gospel to every human creature. 
 The will of God must be the one all-commanding 
 signal which we watch, study, and obey. And our 
 own generation must be, to our constant thought and 
 prayer, the great and present sphere for our ener- 
 getic and consecrated activity. 
 
 God has given a banner to them that fear Him, 
 that it may be displayed because of the truth. And 
 let the Church lift that banner high and bear it in the 
 very front of the ranks and the thick of the fight — 
 with this motto emblazoned on it : 
 
 SERVING OUR OWN GENERATION BY THE WILL OF GOD. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE BLESSED HOPE. 
 
 One powerful incentive, of which not only the 
 Acts of the Apostles but the whole New Testament 
 is full, is, we fear, far less prominent in the thoughts 
 of the modern Church — we refer to the blessed hope 
 of our Lord's Return. 
 
 This was, no doubt, the foremost of all motives, 
 hopes and incentives, which moved early disciples to 
 zeal and activity in missions; and to revive this hope 
 — to make it practically the mighty motor to us that 
 it was to them, is to provide a new impulse and 
 impetus in the work of a world's evangelization. 
 This motive, though so old, is an ever new incentive. 
 Hope is the one impulse that never loses its youth, 
 and above all, tJiis hope. It never falls behind, but 
 always goes before, onward, upward, finding in the 
 goal of yesterday its starting point to-day, and in its 
 goal of to-day only its starting point to-morrow. 
 
 The incentive, drawn from our Lord's promised 
 Return, He Himself has forever connected with our 
 duty to a lost world. He says, *' Occupy till I come.'' 
 Mistaken notions, associated with His second advent, 
 have so marred its visage as to make it even re- 
 pulsive and distasteful to some disciples, so that, 
 what to the Apostolic Church was the main help, 
 has been spoken of as a hindrance, to missions. Out 
 of the dust of neglect and contempt let us lift this 
 standard of the mission host, and once more make it 
 the banner which leads us on to victory ! 
 
 Our Lord's Coming is represented as always immi- 
 nent, and thus it quickens our activity. Imminence is 
 the combination of certainty with uncertainty — cer- 
 tainty at so7ne time, uncertainty at ivhat time; and 
 
 414 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 415 
 
 hence its perpetual warning : "Be ye always ready, 
 for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man 
 Cometh ! " 
 
 The uniform teaching of the New Testament is 
 that the Lord is ever at hand. ' ' Behold the Judge 
 standeth before the door," His hand on the latch! 
 When He will open and enter, no man nor angel 
 knoweth; but when He does, it will be suddenly, 
 without knocking; and because we " know not when 
 the time is," He bids us " Watch and pray." Such a 
 sense of the imminence of His coming must inspire, 
 quicken, stimulate, missionary activity. 
 
 As the Son of Man went into the far-off country 
 to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return. He 
 committed to His servants, as stewards, the whole 
 world as a mission field, saying: " Occupy till I 
 come," giving no hint of the time of His return, that 
 there may be constant alertness and watchfulness. 
 And the natural consequence with every faithful ser- 
 vant is that he hastens to invest in trade what talents 
 are left him in trust, that at his Master's Coming he 
 may be found faithful and his gifts fruitful. 
 
 Such is the philosophy of this Hope. What is the 
 fact? There are two immutable things in which it 
 is impossible for history to lie, namely: first, the 
 early Christians felt our Lord's Coming to be im- 
 minent; second, the early Church was conspicuous 
 for missionary zeal. So vividly was the second 
 advent at hand, to Thessalonian disciples, that they 
 gave too little heed to those events which must 
 first occur; and yet, when was any Church so per- 
 meated and penetrated with missionary enthusiasm ! 
 Paul sounds the keynote of their whole fidelity: 
 serving the living God, and waiting for His Son from 
 heaven ! 
 
 Early Christians looked for the King's Return, at 
 any time. He had entrusted them with a commis- 
 sion, and the King's business required haste. They 
 tarried not, save for that enduement which was their 
 
416 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 equipment. Then to the bounds of Judea, Samaria, 
 Galilee; to Antioch, Athens, Ephesus, Rome, they 
 sped with the message. Peter went eastward to the 
 elect dispersion ; Paul swept, like a flame, westward, 
 across Asia Minor, and into Europe, till he touched 
 Italy, perhaps Spain and Britain. Within one gener- 
 ation, the Cross overtook the Roman Eagle, and the 
 priests of false fanes feared lest their work was at an 
 end. Such will ever be the powxr of this Hope over 
 those who are by it held in constant expectancy of the 
 Lord's advent. 
 
 On the contrary, so soon as w^e lose sight of its 
 imminence and say, "My Lord delayeth His com- 
 ing," we are tempted to indolence, self-indulgence, 
 and controversy on minor matters. When disciples 
 felt the time to be short and the duty to be urgent, 
 they were **all at it and always at it;" self-denial 
 was an easy yoke and petty jealousies were scorned as 
 trifles. So soon and so long as that hope was dim, 
 and Christ's Coming was pushed into the far-off future, 
 the Church began leisurely working, then flippantly 
 playing at missions, as though vast cycles of time lay 
 before us in which to witness to the world. Revive 
 this hope of the Lord's Coming and it begets hourly 
 watching, ceaseless praying, tireless toiling, patient 
 waiting. 
 
 Moreover this blessed hope is forever linked with 
 the glorious compensation for all service and sacrifice 
 for Christ. " Behold I come quickly, and my reward 
 is with me, to give every man according as his work 
 shall be." 
 
 His Coming then, not our death, opens the door to 
 the wedding feast, and the '' Joy of the Lord. " Then 
 the prize awaits the successful runner. Then the 
 ''crowns" are to be given — the "crown of life" to 
 martyrs faithful unto death, the " crown of righteous- 
 ness " to all who love His appearing, the "crown of 
 glory" to shepherds who "feed the flock," the 
 "crown of rejoicing " to those who win souls, the 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 417 
 
 " crown incorruptible " to those who keep the body- 
 under and bring it into subjection. 
 
 Is it strange that the soldier of Christ endures 
 hardness, fights the good fight of faith, carries the 
 cross at all risks to plant it on Satan's strongholds, 
 while he is looking daily for the coming of the Cap- 
 tain of his salvation, and knows not how soon he may 
 lay down his warrior's armour for the crown of victory? 
 Paul forgot all his losses in such gains — and counted 
 all but refuse, for the sake of the resurrection hope. 
 Fellowship with Christ in suffering brings fellowship 
 in glory; and to die with Him as a malefactor is to be 
 exalted with Him as a benefactor. 
 
 With many disciples, the eyes are yet blinded to 
 this mystery of rewards, which is one of the open 
 mysteries of the Word, and some cannot see how 
 rewards can have any place in an economy of grace. 
 But we must not confound salvation and recompense. 
 It must be an imputed righteousness, — exceeding far 
 that of the most proper Pharisee — whereby we enter 
 the Kingdom of Heaven; but, having thus entered by 
 faitJi^ our works determine our relative rank, place, 
 reward, in that Kingdom. Eternal life is God's gift 
 to be had for the asking ; but he who receives the gift, 
 and does work, sowing and reaping for God, re- 
 ceiveth also wages and gathereth fruit unto life 
 eternal. Gifts are bestowed; wages earned. Sinners 
 become saved saints only by grace; but saints are 
 rewarded for service. And so Paul warns Corin- 
 thian Christians that even he who is saved, may be 
 saved as by fire and suffer loss in the burning up 
 of his worthless work; or he may both be saved 
 and have a reward in an abiding work.* 
 
 We shall never have Apostolic missions till this 
 Apostolic Hope claims again its rightful place. Daily 
 dying — so that in the body one bears the marks of the 
 Lord Jesus^will be easy only to him who feels re- 
 demption drawing nigh; and who follows the Son 
 
 * Cor. iii. 12-15. 
 
418 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 of Man in His humiliation, as one who is to sit 
 with Him on the Throne of His glory. His expected 
 appearing is His saints' avenging and rewarding. 
 It is the righting of the wrongs of the ages. Un- 
 recompensed toil receives its wages, and long wait- 
 ing martyrs reach their coronation. Then, however 
 dark the discipline and dismal the failure of mission 
 work, faithfulness and not success will be the stand- 
 ard and measure of reward. We must have our 
 work always dojie, ready for His scrutiny. 
 
 This hope weans its from the world, and by loosen- 
 ing the hold and lessening the worth of all present 
 things makes stronger the powers of the age to 
 come. The steward w^hose Master may at once 
 come and call him to account, cannot hoard treasures 
 of mammon or quaff pleasure's intoxicating cup. 
 He cannot bury his ''poimds" in houses and lands, 
 costly plate and gems, stocks and stores; it must be 
 turned into currency — current coin, passing from 
 hand to hand, like streams that swell as they flow. 
 The time is short, but eternity is long; and, there- 
 fore, there is nothing that is ''worth while," but to 
 push our lines of labour to the ends of earth, and 
 keep our witness constant and clear to the end of 
 time, that the eternal may sway us rather than the 
 temporal. 
 
 Thus this blessed Hope both loosens the hold we 
 have on this world and the hold this world has on 
 us. A true belief in the testimony of our Lord that 
 in such an hour as we think not He cometh, and that 
 we must watch and pray because we know not when 
 the time is — makes impossible all plans for a soft 
 nest and an easy life of indulgence and indolence, 
 for the end of all things is at hand, and the mid- 
 night cry may soon be heard. What have we to do 
 with any pursuits or pleasures which His coming 
 could interrupt or condemn, bring into contempt or 
 bring to naught! If we are to build Heaven here, 
 we may be justified in laying deep and firm founda- 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 419 
 
 tions; but if all these things are to be dissolved, if 
 all work not done for God is to be burned up as 
 wood, hay, stubble, and the work done for God is to 
 be tried by fire — then what folly to spend our faculty 
 and vital force upon what is to be turned to ashes ! 
 Let us walk with God and work with God, and so 
 prepare a structure of character and of service which 
 shall survive the fiery ordeal. 
 
 Perhaps at no one point does the hope of our 
 Lord's Return touch our need so closely and vitally 
 as in this — that it incites to unselfish service. Missions 
 appeal more than any other form of service to the 
 unworldly and unselfish spirit, and find only in such 
 spirit their support, nay their practical basis. Much 
 that goes by the name of "Christian work" is 
 leavened with self-love, is prosecuted in the energy 
 of the flesh, and finds its real though unconscious 
 incentive in the worldly hope of rich returns of 
 temporal advantage. A railway corporation might, 
 on commercial principles, help to build schools and 
 churches along its lines, for these form a nucleus for 
 population, and so for ultimate dividends to stock- 
 holders; much that men call benevolence is but the 
 cloak that hides the shrewd Shylock, who has an eye 
 to business. 
 
 The modern outcry that ''missions do not pay," 
 comes of this selfish, calculating spirit that demands 
 prompt payments of interest on every investment. 
 Cut to the core the apathy that exists as to work among 
 the heathen, and you find simple selfishness. This 
 work in the regions beyond, by its very nature forbids 
 such returns: these distant, destitute souls cannot 
 recompense us. The most passionate appeals for 
 perishing millions along the Congo, beneath the 
 shadows of the Himalayas or in the Corean 
 valleys, will be unheeded by hearts electroplated 
 with greed or petrified by selfishness. Of course 
 missions ''do not pay," if "pay" means any form 
 of temporal recompense. Missions are not a mint 
 
420 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 for coining sovereigns, but a means of saving sonls 
 and witnessing to Christ. 
 
 To give money and send men and women to the 
 ends of the earth to sacrifice themselves for canni- 
 bals and Hottentots, half brutal and half idiotic sav- 
 ages, ^' human baboons" and stupid barbarians, is 
 putting money into a bag with holes and burying 
 pearls in rubbish, — so say the worldly-minded. And 
 we join no issue with such. Missions to the heathen 
 yield slow returns, and seldom justify to human 
 judgment the costly outlay. God, perhaps, does not 
 mean they shall. He gives us this work as nearest 
 in motive and spirit to that which brought Jesus to 
 the cross, as the most unselfish work in which we 
 can engage; and, because its essence lies in self- 
 oblivion, the spirit of missions is the spirit of Christ. 
 To be a true missionary we must be emptied of self — 
 give to those from whom we cannot hope to receive, 
 and bid to the feast those w^ho are not likely to have 
 any feast to invite us to ; and so the miser dies when 
 the missionary is born ; the carnal is cast out if the 
 spiritual is to come in; only he who loses himself can 
 save others. 
 
 But just here the hope of the Lord's Coming sup- 
 plies exactly what is needed. It gives us a loftier 
 level than this world affords, from which to take our 
 survey. Once let this conviction, this consciousness 
 flood the soul of the believer, that the Risen Lord is 
 himself coming back, and may at any time turn His 
 promise into His presence — and this outpouring of 
 consecrated gifts and devoted lives for the sake of 
 the lost, becomes a breaking of the alabaster flask 
 upon Jesus' feet, and there is *' purpose" in this 
 ''waste." John may solve what to Judas is a 
 mystery. 
 
 The blessed Hope, which our Lord would have 
 us to restore to its former and deserved prominence, 
 has a subtle influence in refining character of 
 selfishness, and this makes it the very matrix and 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 421 
 
 mould of missions. Its whole tendency is to turn 
 our thoughts aw^y from self to Him, to relax our 
 hold upon all else, and remould us after the power 
 of an endless life. It makes all time seem short and 
 the whole world seem small, dwarfs the present age 
 into insignificance, and lifts the age to come like a 
 towering peak that leaves all else far below. 
 
 In those seven epistles to the Churches which open 
 the Apocalypse, our Lord uses His imminent Coming 
 as a perpetual hope, motive, incentive ; and this is 
 enough to make it a sin, if not a crime, to lose sight of 
 it. It was because His Coming was ever at hand when 
 trials were to end and triumphs to begin, that the 
 Ephesians must bear, have patience, and not faint; 
 the Smyrnese endure the ten days of tribulation ; the 
 Pergamoans hold fast His name and not deny the 
 faith; the Thyatirans resist Jezebel's seductions; the 
 Sardians keep up their watch and keep white their 
 garments; the Philadelphians keep the Word of His 
 Patience, and the Laodiceans abandon lukewarmness 
 for ardour and fervour. 
 
 This blessed Hope is the crown of all other hopes, 
 and suggests to us an expectation that will be 
 realized. 
 
 Much of the discouragement felt in connection 
 with missions results from a mistaken notion as to 
 what is to be their proper outcome ; and it is so vital 
 to both our true work and our true joy that we 
 understand our Lord's plan, that it may be well for 
 us to go back to the rudiments and begin anew, lest 
 we have built into our missionary conceptions some 
 elements not warranted by the Word. 
 
 There are many who understand by our Lord's 
 parables of the mustard seed and leaven, a gradual 
 growth and extension of the kingdom, during the 
 present dispensation, until the world is transformed 
 into one great believing brotherhood. In this view 
 the gospel is a seed set in the soil of society, to take 
 root and grow until the earth is filled with its far- 
 
422 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 reaching branches; or it is a leaven, hid in the three 
 measures of meal — the world, the flesh and the devil ! 
 — to leaven the lump, modifying the evil it touches, 
 until the world is changed into the Church, the flesh 
 into the spirit, and the devil is driven out altogether, 
 like the gases that escape from the fermenting 
 dough. 
 
 Does the Scripture teaching justify us in looking 
 for the '' conversion of the world " during the pres- 
 ent dispensation, or is this the period of the out- 
 gathering of the Church from all nations? This is 
 not a question of mere curiosity or speculation; it 
 concerns the whole work of missions. For what are 
 we to labour, and what is to be our rational scrip- 
 tural hope? James bade the first council at Jerusa- 
 lem hearken unto him as he reminded them of God's 
 purpose as declared by Simeon, visiting the gentiles 
 *' to take out of them a people for His name." 
 
 That is not only uniformly declared to be the ex'aet 
 p^irpose of gospel witness during these times of the 
 gentiles, but it has been the actual result of these 
 nearly two thousand years of such witness. At this 
 advanced age history is interpreting prophecy and 
 expounding Scripture, if we will but hear it. We see 
 good growths and rich harvests from the seed of the 
 kingdom; but the tares are growing side by side 
 with the wheat, and we are divinely told that they 
 will so continue until the end of the age. Our high- 
 est 'Christian civilization " is an amalgamation of 
 the Church and the world; and the leaven of the 
 world is as surely in the Church, as the influence of the 
 Church is in the world. No doubt the world is more 
 churchly, but there is as little doubt that the Church 
 is more worldly. The dialect of Ashdod corrupts 
 the language of Canaan. The strait gate is wider 
 and the narrow way is broader than of old ; and those 
 who would come into the kingdom find an easy en- 
 trance and an attractive avenue, smooth-paved and 
 bordered with flowers. How few even profess self- 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 423 
 
 denial in cross bearing! If the schools have found 
 no royal road to learning, the Church has built one 
 to Heaven. 
 
 The proofs are sadly at hand of that conformity to 
 the world which is so positively forbidden. For 
 ages the slime of the serpent has been upon certain 
 worldly amusements which, whatever be their in- 
 herent quality, bear the stamp of Satan's ownership 
 and use. And yet Church members sit till midnight 
 over *' progressive euchre," enter their thorough- 
 breds on the race-course, tipple over the wine cup, 
 whirl through the giddy dance, sanction the theatre 
 and use its flavour to give relish to church socials. 
 Church life is honeycombed with worldliness, and 
 practical separation is reduced to a minimum. The 
 great body of disciples are only nominally such, 
 either wholly worldly or worldly holy; at the door 
 of frivolous gaiety they drop their Christian con- 
 sistency, as an oriental guest shuffles off his sandals, 
 and mix freely with the idolaters of folly and fashion. 
 The Church is to-day in danger of the moral putre- 
 faction that loses all godly savour, and the moral 
 petrifaction that loses all godly sensibility. Apos- 
 tolic piety scarcely survives in the Church at large. 
 Disciples rarely keep themselves unspotted from the 
 world; and, instead of the isolation and insulation 
 necessary for receiving and conveying spiritual 
 power, it is only here and there that we find a few 
 who seem to be filled with the Spirit. 
 
 As to the condition of the world, even in this 
 boasted nineteenth century, it is as far from '* con- 
 version," say the most sagacious students of history, 
 as in the days of Augustus. When the glamour and 
 halo of all this deceptive glory is penetrated, what 
 do we find? An era of inventive genius and worldly 
 enterprise, but God-denying and God-defying infidel- 
 ity and anarchy. Giant sons of Anak go about break- 
 ing down faith in God and the Bible. Philosophy 
 blooms into pantheism and materialism, rationalism 
 
424 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 and agnosticism. Some who have drawn their very 
 life from Christianity now turn to curse the dam that 
 nursed, and wound the breast that fed, them. 
 
 The ripeness of modern civihzation borders on rot- 
 tenness, and while men boast of society, its founda- 
 tions sink ; and the anarchy, which is the natural end 
 of atheism, threatens all with wreck. Science itself 
 has furnished the lawless with weapons which are 
 equally mighty against ballot or bullet ; and Germany 
 and Russia, France and Britain, and the great Repub- 
 lic, are to-day at the mercy of the dynamite fiend ! 
 
 Notwithstanding such signs of the times, there are 
 some who regard the outlook as so hopeful that they 
 think the recent *' Parliament of Religions" was the 
 inauguration of the millennium. What enviable 
 sleight of mind that can turn everything into signs 
 of progress! Popular education and swift locomo- 
 tion answer to the prediction: ''Many shall run to 
 and fro in the earth, and knowledge shall be 
 increased." In the triumphs of electric telegraph and 
 telephone, the ''lightning cometh from the east and 
 shineth unto the west." Irrigation and agriculture 
 make "glad the wilderness and solitary place, and 
 make the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose." 
 The ocean cables and swift steamships have so joined 
 the continents that there is "no more sea;" and in 
 peace societies and courts of arbitration, nations 
 "learn war no more." By wide dispersion of God's 
 word and witnesses, the earth is ' ' full of the knowl- 
 edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." In 
 the sympathy and unity of believers our Lord's 
 piayer is fulfilled, that they "all may be one." 
 Rude and barbarous tribes are enlightened — " the 
 cow and the bear feed; " and in converted cannibals, 
 the lion eats " straw like the ox; " the savages, rapa- 
 cious like the wolf, ferocious like the leopard, become, 
 by civilization, the gentle lamb and harmless kid. 
 Those who, with this singular ease, find fulfilment of 
 prediction, have sometimes gone further, and sug- 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 425 
 
 gested that in Britain we have the 'Mion," and in 
 Russia the '' bear," and in the young Republic beneath 
 the setting sun, the ''little child" that leads them! 
 and that China may be the ''red dragon," whose 
 tail draws after it a third part of the race, yet in 
 the contest with Christian England " prevailed 
 not!" 
 
 From all such frivolous methods of dealing with 
 the Scripture and Vv^ith facts, we turn candidly to 
 ask what does the New Testament encourage us to 
 hope for as the outcome of our missionary work? 
 
 If we read aright, the teaching of our Lord is 
 plain. God's present purpose is that the gospel shall 
 everywhere be preached for a witness unto the na- 
 tions and for the outgathering of the Ecclcsia; and 
 then shall the end come, and the Lord Himself return 
 and possess the kingdom, and carry its triumphs to 
 completion. It is true that, after nineteen centuries 
 of Christian history, and at the close of this great 
 missionary century, the gospel net encloses all sorts 
 of fish, both good and bad — swordfish and toadfish, 
 mansharks as well as blood-tinged salmon and 
 delicious cod — devilfish as well as angelfish, — it is 
 true that the tares still grow as vigorously as the 
 wheat and defy uprooting. And yet this is exactly 
 what the Lord foretold as the outcome of this dis- 
 pensation; and to see this gives power to the faint 
 and courage to the desponding. Instead of being 
 dismayed at the parallel progress of good and evil, 
 we expect it and are not disappointed. Hope is not 
 crushed, for we have not attempted impossibilities. 
 Signs of continued rejection of the message and 
 abounding iniquity in the world, or of love waxing 
 cold in the Church, do not overwhelm the true mis- 
 sionary with a sense of defeat. God is working out 
 His plan just as He forecast it, notwithstanding. 
 The devil's great wrath may only be due to the 
 shortness of his time; and the ripeness of the tares 
 may only hint the nearness of the harvest. 
 
426 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 The prominence given to this blessed hope of 
 our Lord's Return, in Scripture, justifies the promi- 
 nence given to it in this treatment of the subject 
 of missions, for it is vitally related to our courage 
 and confidence in carrying on our work. 
 
 Hope defeated, or even deferred, makes the heart 
 sick, and heart-sickness is fatal to successful service. 
 There is a hope that banishes such a malady and 
 in its place gives ever new vigour and strength for 
 serving and suffering; and that is a hope founded on 
 a distinct promise, and actually fulfilling before our 
 eyes. If we are discouraged or despairing, our need 
 and remedy is, perhaps, a laying hold of the hope 
 set before us in the gospel. As the Scriptures war- 
 rant no expectation of the world's conversion in this 
 age of witness, so far as we look for such result we 
 work on the zvrong basis, and will either be dis- 
 appointed or deceived in the outcome. 
 
 The soldier who misconceives the object of a cam- 
 paign, may falsely construe all the movements of the 
 army. If he thinks the whole force of the foe is to be 
 captured, the seizure of a few leading strongholds 
 seems only next to absolute defeat. But, if he knows 
 that this is exactly according to orders from head- 
 quarters, and that the plan of his great commander is 
 thus carried out, seizing and holding certain strategic 
 points, and waiting for him to arrive with reinforce- 
 ments, what would otherwise have seemed defeat, 
 now becomes success. 
 
 Does it matter nothing whether, in our work of 
 missions, we are hoping for results which are moving 
 on toward fruition or not? Let the disciple once 
 get firmly planted upon this rock basis, that we are 
 sent forth not to accomplish a world's conversion, 
 but only its evangelization, and victory springs up 
 out of defeat. Hope that had lost wings, plumes 
 herself for a new flight, and over the grave of buried 
 expectation rises with the song of a lark. Satan 
 has gained no unforeseen advantage, and even his 
 
THE BLESSED HOPE. 427 
 
 movements are all comprehended in God's wider 
 plans. Every backward movement in history is like 
 the receding wave, the preparation for a forward 
 advance to a higher floodmark. 
 
X. 
 
 THE NEW OUTLOOK. 
 
 There is a promise and prophecy which all history is 
 actually fulfilling. Watch the panorama of the ages as 
 it unrolls; see each new scene in vivid colours fill 
 out that shadowy outline pencilled by prophecy. Ever 
 since Pentecost flamed with its tongues of fire, God 
 has been visiting nation after nation, to take out of 
 them a people for His name. At first the door of 
 faith was opened to the Jew, and the proselytes, gath- 
 ered from all nations, went back, like the Ethiopian 
 eunuch, to witness to the peoples among whom they 
 dwelt. Then the door was opened to the Samari- 
 tans, Syrians, people of Asia Minor and Greece ; then 
 to those of Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany; till in 
 our day God successively flings wide the portals of 
 India and Burmah, Syria and Turkey, Siam and 
 China, Africa, Japan, Corea and the Isles of the Sea; 
 yes, even the papal strongholds, France, Italy and 
 Spain. 
 
 And now Thibet, the shrine and throne of the 
 Grand Lama, Buddhism's capital, seems compelled to 
 open her two-leaved gates. God is doing with all 
 these natives just as He said, and in some on a grand 
 scale — "taking out of them a people for His name." 
 Witness the Hawaiian Islands, now a Christian na- 
 tion; the half million native converts in India; the 
 scores of self-supporting churches along the Tigris 
 and Euphrates; the Kho-thah-byu Memorial Hall, 
 rallying and radiating centre for thirty thousand 
 Christian Karens; the two thousand churches of 
 Polynesia; New Japan, with its giant strides toward 
 Christian civilization ; McAll's hundred gospel salles 
 and thousands of converts in atheistic France ; Mada- 
 gascar becoming to Africa what England is to 
 
 428 
 
THE NEW OUTLOOK. 429 
 
 Europe; and China turning converts into evan- 
 gelists. 
 
 Starting from Jerusalem, over eighteen and a half 
 centuries since, and moving westward, the flag of 
 the cross has been unfurled successively in Antioch, 
 Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople; borne from 
 the shores of Britain to a New World across the 
 Atlantic; across that New World to the Pacific and 
 the isles of the sea; over the Pacific to Japan and 
 Corea and the various lands from the Chinese Sea 
 to the Arabian Gulf and the Golden Horn; and thus, 
 completing the circuit of the globe, we once more 
 set up the standard in Jerusalem, the original place 
 of the cross ! 
 
 Meanwhile, this girdle of missions is widening 
 into a zone, spreading northward toward the ice- 
 bergs of Greenland and the snow castles of Siberia, 
 and southward toward the Cape of Good Hope and 
 the Land of Fire. We have only to lengthen our 
 cords and strengthen our stakes, and every creature 
 may yet be reached with the good tidings and hope 
 may reap the fruition of Scripture promise. Then, 
 when from gentile nations, the last convert shall have 
 been gathered and incorporated into Christ's mys- 
 tical body; when the Ecclesia — the *' out-called" 
 ones — shall be complete, and the Bride hath made 
 herself ready, the Bridegroom shall return to claim 
 His own. The fulness of the gentiles being come 
 in, the blindness of Israel shall be removed ; through 
 eyes no longer veiled, and dimmed only by peni- 
 tential tears, they shall look on Him whom they 
 pierced and wounded in the house of His friends, 
 and so all Israel shall be saved and the fallen and 
 ruined Tabernacle of David be rebuilt. Then shall 
 the residue of men and all the gentiles seek after the 
 Lord, and see the salvation of God. 
 
 All these motives and incentives, old and new, 
 unite to sweep over us a deep conviction and per- 
 suasion, like a mighty tidal wave beneath whose 
 
430 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 majestic movement all minor issues are buried. If 
 we discern the signs of the times, there is a redness 
 in the evening sky which hints the dawn of a glori- 
 ous day. The present crisis of missions should com- 
 pel us to forget all lesser interests and issues, and 
 hasten to bear the good news unto earth's very ends. 
 Labourers should be multiplied, gifts increased, and, 
 with a new energy born in us of the Holy Spirit, 
 this greatest enterprise of the ages should be under- 
 taken. 
 
 This gospel of the kingdom must first be preached 
 in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and 
 then shall the end come. 
 
 There is a legitimate way of hastening toward, if 
 not of hastening, that end : promptly to occupy every 
 open door, and amply to sow every open field. While 
 we pray, ''Thy kingdom come," how far may we 
 answer our own prayer ! The whole creation groan- 
 eth and travaileth in pain together, waiting for an 
 apathetic Church to do its duty. Within our gen- 
 eration a thousand millions of human beings will go 
 down to the grave without faith or hope, life or even 
 light; one hundred thousand die daily, while forty 
 millions of Protestant believers, idle and unmoved, 
 see this wholesale descent into the darkness beyond! 
 And yet there are four hundred professed disciples 
 in Protestant communions for every one of that 
 hundred thousand that each day pass into the great 
 unknown. How far-reaching and all-powerful might 
 be the evangelism of these Protestant disciples, if 
 once organized, economized and vitalized by the 
 spirit of missions and the Spirit of God ! 
 
 Since Jesus of Nazareth, through the rent veil of 
 His flesh and the rent door of His tomb, opened to 
 every believer the path of life, nearly nineteen cen- 
 turies have fled, during which a vast number of souls, 
 equal to twenty times the present population of the 
 globe, have gone down to the grave, ignorant of 
 Christ. And during all these centuries, He who is 
 
THE NEW OUTLOOK. 431 
 
 of purer eyes than to behold evil, has confronted 
 the woe and want and wickedness of heathenism! 
 Through all this time God has been preparing His 
 Church to enter these new open doors, and the 
 Messiah, who was cut off without generation, has 
 been waiting to see of the travail of His soul and be 
 satisfied, waiting for his bride to make herself ready 
 and put on her beautiful attire. 
 
 During the last hundred years, since Carey led the 
 way, a series of providential interpositions and gra- 
 cious manifestations that deserve to rank with mira- 
 cles, have set upon mission work the sanction and 
 seal of God. Colossal obstacles have been removed 
 and huge barriers subsided, long locked gates been 
 burst, and grand triumphs won. Why do we hesi- 
 tate ! Let the hosts of the Lord rally to the onset. 
 The great Leader of the host even now sounds His 
 imperial clarion along the whole line of battle. Let 
 us obey the signal, boldly pierce the very centre of 
 the enemy's forces, turn their staggering wings, and 
 in the confidence of faith, move forward, a united 
 army, in one overwhelming charge ! 
 
 Late one summer afternoon, now thirty years ago, 
 a sudden rainpour fell in Virginia, Nevada. It was 
 very unexpected, for those rainless summer skies 
 seldom yield even a shower. After the rain ceased, 
 a dense darkness drew its pall over the whole sky; 
 and Mount Davidson's vast eastern slope that over- 
 looks the city, was so enveloped in darkness that 
 the mountain could scarcely be distinguished from 
 the cloud masses that surrounded it. 
 
 A remarkable phenomenon drew all eyes toward 
 the mountain peak. Upon the lofty summit a little 
 tongue of golden flame moved strangely to and fro, 
 like some supernatural signal. It was very small 
 but bright, and the more conspicuous against the 
 dense, dark background of storm cloud. Most 
 strange of all, this fire neither waxed nor waned, but 
 simply burned on. 
 
432 THE NEW ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 It was at first a mystery ; but, in fact, it was the 
 nation's flag, planted on the mountain's peak, and 
 waving in the wind. Through a narrow rift of cloud 
 the rays of the setting sun had found their way; and 
 that flag of the Republic lay just in the line of their 
 direction, and so they touched it alone, resting upon 
 it, glorifying, transfiguring it. For an hour that 
 burning banner held the fixed, fascinated gaze of the 
 multitude. And it afterwards proved that the setting 
 sun, which thus gilded and glorified the star-spangled 
 banner, had that same day looked down on the fall 
 of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg, which 
 were the decisive turning points of the war for the 
 Union. 
 
 Darkness overspreads the earth and gross dark- 
 ness the people. But God's glory arises, and is seen 
 in the work of missions. We have but to lift our eyes 
 and look, and we may see that, on the very summits 
 of heathendom and in the midst of the death-shade, 
 the heroic soldiers of the Lord Jesus have planted 
 the banner of the cross, and there it still waves, a 
 trophy of coming triumphs. The glory of God rests 
 upon all faithful testimony to His name, and makes it 
 still a tongue of fire. While we set up the cross on 
 the high places of the earth, and seem but solitary, 
 God's great plan of battle comprehends both the 
 world and the age, and takes in all fields of conflict 
 and all faithful witnesses. We may not see it or 
 know it, but elsewhere decisive battles are taking 
 place, and strongholds of evil are giving way before 
 the onset of God's hosts. In His eyes, which com- 
 mand the whole field and period of conflict, while we 
 see only discouragement and defeat, the tide of bat- 
 tle may be turning ! 
 
 The task on which we entered in the discussion of 
 the great theme is now in a sense completed. No 
 one could be more sensible than the writer of these 
 pages, how little justice has been done to the marvels 
 of this missionary century. But our eyes must be 
 
THE NEW OUTLOOK. 433 
 
 turned forward, rather thaPx backward. What God 
 has wrought, with a Church just waking from the 
 sleep of fifteen hundred years, is but a prophetic hint 
 of what He will do, if, thoroughly roused to holy 
 action. His people meet the duty of the hour with 
 the faith, the prayer, the sacrifice, the consecration, 
 which the crisis demands. 
 
 The New Acts of the Apostles is, like the old, an 
 unfinished book. Other chapters wait to be written. 
 What shall they record ! God grant that the unwrit- 
 ten history of the years before us may embrace far 
 greater marvels than have ever been witnessed! 
 New Pentecosts with floods of blessing, until, as 
 Malachi says, there be ''none left to pour out!" 
 New Apostles, until God's chosen heralds leave 
 no Regions Beyond unpenetrated, and no creature 
 unreached! New visions and voices, until every 
 divine lesson is learned, and the whole Church is in 
 living accord with the Master! New converts and 
 martyrs, until the Saviour's soul has found its full 
 satisfaction for its travail ! New signs and wonders, 
 until even unbelievers confess the work to be of God ! 
 New hopes and incentives, if indeed, any be needful 
 to inspire to ever-increasing fidelity, or possible to 
 enhance the grandeur of existing motives ! 
 
 But all this depends on the manifested Presence of 
 the Redeemer, in the power of that Holy Spirit, 
 whose holy ministries made luminous with glory the 
 Acts of the Apostles ! 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abdul Medjid, Sultan, 319. 
 
 Abdul Messeh, 262. 
 
 Accuracy in Science, 125. 
 
 Activity and Piety, 390. 
 
 Acts of Apostles, and Missions, 
 4, 156; Conversions in, 210 ; 
 Incomplete Book, 6, 7,9; Rela- 
 tion to Gospels, 5, 6, 7, 154. 
 
 Acts of the Holy Ghost, 4, 5. 
 
 Adams, John, at Pitcaim Island, 
 249. 
 
 Adaptation of the Gospel, iii, 
 179, 288. 
 
 Administration, Providential, 322; 
 Holy Spirit's, 202. 
 
 Advent, The Second, 11, 414, 
 
 Africa, 105, 123 ; Missions in, 267. 
 
 Africaner, 219. 
 
 Agabus, Prophecy of, 202. 
 
 Agnew, Eliza, 134, 342. 
 
 Aimless Life, 95. 
 
 Altar at Athens, 181. 
 
 America, Discovery of, 24. 
 
 American Bapt. Missionary Union, 
 106, 340, 368. 
 
 American Bible Society, 102. 
 
 American Board, C. F. M., 102, 
 104, 106, 307. 
 
 American Slavery, 35. 
 
 Amorites, Iniquity of, 19. 
 
 Amusements, Worldly, 397, 423. 
 
 Anaesthetics, 41. 
 
 Andover, Mass., 102, 
 
 435 
 
 Aneityum, 339, 344. 
 Angekoks, 213. 
 Angelo, M., 3, 107. 
 Aniline dyes, 39. 
 Aniwa, 316, 347. 
 "Annus Mirabilis," 305. 
 Answered Prayers, 352. 
 Antioch, Missionaries sent from, 53. 
 Apollonius, 107. 
 Apollos, 60; Training of, 201. 
 Apostasy, Signs of, 393. 
 " Apostates of Anvil," etc., 98. 
 Apostles, The New, 199. 
 Apostolate of Women, 133. 
 Apostolic Age, 329 ; Church, 107. 
 Apostolic Succession, 61, 202. 
 Appeal of Man's Want, 405. 
 Appropriation, Law of, 29. 
 " Arabian Nights, The," 30. 
 Archduchess, Maria Dorothea, 363. 
 Areopagus, 181. 
 Aristotle, 64. 
 Armadas, The, 316. 
 Army, God's great, 320. 
 Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 390. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 351. 
 Amot, F. S., 182. 
 " Ars Magna," 64. 
 Art and Nature, 206. 
 Assimilation to Idols, 398. 
 Assimilation, World-wide, 32. 
 Associations, 44 ; (see Y. M. C. A., 
 Y. W. C. A., etc.) 
 
436 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Athens, i8i. 
 Augsburg, 309. 
 Augustine, 63. 
 Authority in service, 412. 
 Authority to preach, 201. 
 Avarice in Ministry, 198. 
 Avarice, Power of, 400. 
 
 Bacheler, Dr. O. R., 384. 
 Balance of Power, 32. 
 Baldwin, Rev. S. L., 238. 
 Bangweolo Lake, 246. 
 Banner Bay, iii, 
 Banza Manteke, 16, 273. 
 Baptismal Regeneration, 67. 
 Baptist Churches, and Judson, 186. 
 Baptist Missionary Union (see 
 
 A. B. M. U.) 
 Baptist Missions, 343, 354. 
 Barbarism, 31. 
 Barnabas, 53. 
 Barnum, Rev, H. N., 346. 
 Basutoland, 16. 
 Baxter, Hon. W. E., 261. 
 Baxter, Richard, 73. 
 Baxter's "Call," 73. 
 Bayard Taylor, 72. 
 Beatitudes, Crown of, 397. 
 Bechuanas, 331-2. 
 Beck, John, 214. 
 Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 351, 
 Beirut, 327, 383. 
 Believers as witnesses, 158. 
 Benevolence and character, 103, 
 
 389- 
 Bengel, 3. 
 
 Bentinck, Gov, Wm., 327, 
 Berlin, Conference at, 34, 
 Bernard, Sir Chas., 342, 
 
 Berridge, John, 25. 
 
 Bethel Church, India, 239. 
 
 Bible, as Evangelist, 249 ; God's 
 Book, 3, 12, 241, 284; Criticism 
 of, 393 ; Distribution of, 24, 104 ; 
 Study of, 324; Translations of, 72, 
 79, 95, 99, 107, 115, 119,214, 
 257, 268, 338, 339; Treasures 
 of, 80, 107, 241. 
 
 Bible Societies, 104. 
 
 Bickersteth, Sara, 253. 
 
 Binckley, Rev. S. L., 236. 
 
 Biography, Key of History, 52. 
 
 Birth Hours of History, 20, 391. 
 
 Bishops in Early Church, 198. 
 
 Bismarck, 406. 
 
 Black, Rev. Dr., 363. 
 
 Blackburne, Archbishop, 411. 
 
 Blackfeet Indians, 231, 234. 
 
 Blantyre, Scotland, 123. 
 
 Blessedness of giving, 396, 
 
 Boardman, Rev, G, D., 17, 224. 
 
 Body and Spirit, 192. 
 
 Boehnisch, Fred., 213. 
 
 Bolivia, Missions in, 113. 
 
 Bonar, Rev. Andrew, 363, 
 
 Boniface, 222. 
 
 Botany, 403. 
 
 Boughton, Dr. Gabriel, 384. 
 
 "Bounty," Mutineers of the, 250, 
 
 Bowen, Rev. Geo., 411. 
 
 Brahman Apostle, 238, 
 
 Brahmanism, 176, 260, 
 
 Brahmans and Gov. Bentinck, 327. 
 
 Brainerd, David, 73. 
 
 Brazil, Emperor of, 409. 
 
 Breckling, 76. 
 
 Breecks, The, 311. 
 
 Britain and Slavery, 35. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 437 
 
 Brooks, Rev. Phillips, 404. 
 Brougham, Lord, 132. 
 Brown, Rev. A. G., 109. 
 Buckingham Canal, 327. 
 Buda-Pesth, 363-4. 
 Buddhism in Practice, 337. 
 Buddhist and Neesima, 243. 
 Buddhist Temples, 379. 
 Bunker, Rev. A., 311. 
 Bunyan, John, 21, 96. 
 Burial Rites in Africa, 335. 
 Burial of slave-relics, Jamaica, 
 
 265-6. 
 " Buried " at Stanhope, 411. 
 Burke, Edmund, 391. 
 Burma, 17, 105, 136, 222, 340, 
 
 343. 
 Bums, Rev. W. C, 309, 361. 
 Bums, Robert, 178. 
 Butler, Bishop, 411. 
 Button, Jemmy, 113. 
 
 Cairo, Palms near, 206. 
 
 Calabar Missions, 268. 
 
 Calcutta, 94 ; Review, 132 ; Univer- 
 sity of, 132. 
 
 Call to Work, 106, 152. 
 
 Calling of Apostles, etc., 199. 
 
 Calling, Every work a, 20 1. 
 
 Calvin, John, 21, 
 
 Cambridge University, 370. 
 
 Cameroons, The, 268. 
 
 Camp meeting at Hilo, 280 
 
 Canaan, Possessing, 29. 
 
 Cannibalism, 31, 235, 257-8, 331, 
 342. 
 
 Canning, George, 132. 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 408. 
 
 Capron, Mrs. S. B., 135. 
 
 Carey, William, 21, 24-5, 28, 30, 
 46, 1Z^ 75-6, 90, 94, 102, 105, 
 116, 124, 129, 263, 327, 352, 
 354-5, 406. 
 
 Carlyle, Thos., 51. 
 
 Caste, 176-7, 263-4. 
 
 Catallactics, 32. 
 
 Catherine of Sienna, 220. 
 
 Ceremonialism, 163. 
 
 Cesarea, Pentecost at, 15. 
 
 Ceylon, 342. 
 
 Chalmers, Rev. Thos., 130. 
 
 " Chapters, The New," 3-10. 
 
 Character, Force of, 95, 144. 
 
 Charles, Mrs., 127, 
 
 Chelczicky, 86. 
 
 Children, Training of, 403. 
 
 China, 98; and Education, 31, 33; 
 Famine in, 320 ; Missions in, 69, 
 143, 342, 361, Z^l, 407 ; Inland 
 Mission, 143 ; Persecution in, 36 ; 
 Rebellion in, 310; "View of," 
 by Morrison, 100. 
 
 Chinese, CiviUzation, 19, 20; Char- 
 acter, 235 ; Dictionary, lOO ; 
 Grammar, 100 ; Tongue, 99; 
 Choirs, 198. 
 
 Christ, and the Paraclete, 6, 12; 
 Incarnation of, 1 1 ; Love for 
 Scripture, 3; Promise of, 156; 
 Second coming of, ii, 414. 
 
 Christian Nations, Influence of, 91. 
 
 Christian Religion, unique, 337. 
 
 Christian VI., 84. 
 
 Christlieb, Prof. Theo., 84, 329, 
 
 Chulalangkom, 183, 320. 
 
 Chunder Sen, 262. 
 
 Church Missionary Society, 254, 
 369- 
 
43d 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Church, Mission of the, lo8; type 
 
 of the, 173. 
 Church Life, Conditions of, 400. 
 CiviUzation, and missions, 32. 
 Civilization, World-wide, 31, 32. 
 Civilization, Rottenness of, 424. 
 Clark, Rev. F. E., 169. 
 Clarkson and Slavery, 35. 
 Clergy and Laity, 162. 
 Clericalism, 308. 
 Climax in oratory, 1 3 1. 
 Clough, Rev. J. E., 17, 326, 
 
 368. 
 Coan, Rev. Titus, 279, 321, 348. 
 Coincidences, Law of, 301. 
 Coincidences, Proof from, 301, 
 
 366. 
 Coleridge, S. T., 144, 359- 
 College, " Fort WiUiam," 95. 
 College, Malacca, 100. 
 Colonization Society, 102, 105, 
 Columbian Exposition, 34. 
 Communication, World-wide, 29. 
 Communities Transformed, 249. 
 Community of Goods, 155. 
 Compass, The, 24. 
 Conformity to the World, 423. 
 Confucius, 31, 33- 
 Congo, Pentecost on, 273. 
 Conscience, Liberty of, 36 ; Loyalty 
 
 to, 126; Misguided, 327-8. 
 Consecration, 197. 
 Constantine, 23, 166. 
 Constantinople, Fall of, 24. 
 Contagious Diseases Act, 358. 
 Conversion, Conscious, 107; Miracle 
 
 of, 206, 210; of World, 422. 
 Converts, Witness of, 163. 
 Convex Mirror, 132. 
 
 Cook, Rev. Jos., ■}f'^. 
 
 Cook's Voyages, 94, 97, I16, 327. 
 
 Co-operative Unions, 44. 
 
 Corea, 382. 
 
 Cornelius, Conversion of, 15. 
 
 Coronation at Madagascar, 228-9. 
 
 Cosmogony, Hindu, 31. 
 
 " Court Language," 33. 
 
 Crater, Kilauea, 221. 
 
 Cree Indians, 230 ; Bible of, 234. 
 
 Crises, of Church Life, 392 ; of 
 
 Missions, 327, 407. 
 Criticism, The Higher, 60. 
 Critics of Missions, 351. 
 Croly, Rev. Dr., 20. 
 Crucifixion, Story of, 278. 
 " Crusade, The Modem," 365. 
 Crusades, 63. 
 Cushman, Clara, 134. 
 Custom, 162. 
 Cuvier, 31. 
 Cyprian, 162. 
 
 Daguerre, 41. 
 
 Dante, 375. 
 
 Dark Ages, The, 61. 
 
 Darwin and Patagonia, ill, 114 
 
 179. 
 David, Christian, 86. 
 Davis, Dr., 324. 
 Deans, Jeanie, 402. 
 Death of Livingstone, 243. 
 Deccan, The, 238. 
 Defeat, 410. 
 Delay, Danger of, 407. 
 Delay, " No Longer," 22. 
 Delhi, 379. 
 
 Denmark, 78 ; Missions in, 344. 
 Desire of all nations, 20. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 Despard, Secretary, 113. 
 
 Diaconate, Institution of, 159. 
 
 Diana, Worship of, 210, 330. 
 
 Diaspora, The, 87, 
 
 Dick's "Futiare State," 124. 
 
 Diffusion, 172. 
 
 Dingaan, Chief, II3. 
 
 Dionysius of HaHcamassus, 52. 
 
 Discipline of giving, 400. 
 
 Dispersion of witnesses, 172. 
 
 Disruption, Scotch Church, 129. 
 
 Distribution of labor, 159, 160. 
 
 Diversity of sphere, 144. 
 
 " Divine Contemplation," 65. 
 
 Division of labor, 159, 160. 
 
 Dober, 84, 87-8. 
 
 Dorcas, 201. 
 
 Doshisha, The, 17, 242, 325. 
 
 Drury, Robt., 227. 
 
 Drv'den, 305. 
 
 Duff, Rev. Alex., 78, 80, 105, 128, 
 
 330- 
 " Duff Lectureship," 132. 
 Dufferin, Lord, -i^n. 
 Duncan, Rabbi, 364. 
 Duncan, William, 17, 71, 252,333, 
 
 346. 
 
 East India Co., 100, 260. 
 
 Eboe, King of, 335. 
 
 Eccentricity, no. 
 
 Ecclesia, 422, 425, 429. 
 
 Economy of Energy, 18. 
 
 Edinburgh Medical Miss. Soc, 384. 
 
 Education, 31 ; in India, 330; of 
 Ceylonese girls, 342 ; of Persian 
 girls, 138; of Woman, 342 (see 
 Woman). 
 
 Edwardes, Sir Herbert, 261. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 25, 73, 352. 
 
 Egede, Hans, 81, 213. 
 
 Eighteenth Century, 25. 
 
 Eimeo, 116. 
 
 Electricity, 30, 40, 194. 
 
 Electric Telegraph, 40. 
 
 Eliot, John, 70, 252. 
 
 Eloquence, Dr. Duflt's, 1 30-1. 
 
 Emancipation, in Jamaica, 265. 
 
 Emancipation, World-wide, 34-5. 
 
 Embalming Livingstone, 244. 
 
 End of the age, 430. 
 
 Enduement from on High, 276, 
 360. 
 
 English Language, 33. 
 
 Enterprise, 45. 
 
 Enthusiasm for Humanity, 180. 
 
 Ephesus, Pentecost in, 16, 210, 
 329-30. 
 
 Epic, The Unwritten, 246. 
 
 Equality of right, 162. 
 
 Erromanga, 1 15. 
 
 Erwin, Jos., 113. 
 
 Eskimo, converts, 84 ; work among, 
 214. 
 
 Eunuch of Ethiopia, 153, 156. 
 
 Euphrates, Churches on, 17; Col- 
 lege, 345 ; Pentecost on, 17. 
 
 " Evangelical Magazine, The," 
 381. 
 
 Evangelism, Revival of, 25. 
 
 Evangelization of World, 161, 411. 
 
 Evans, Rev. Jas., 231. 
 
 Everett, Edward, 72. 
 
 Evidence, Laws of, 301. 
 
 Exclusiveness, Jewish, 150, 173. 
 
 Expectation realized, 421. 
 
 Experience, New Lessons of, 389. 
 
 Exploration, World-wide, 28. 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Explosives, 42. 
 Extortions in India, 264. 
 
 Fact and form of miracle, 298. 
 
 Facts, Power of, 122. 
 
 " Failure of Missions," 351. 
 
 Faith, 359. 
 
 Falconer, Hon. Keith, 63, no. 
 
 Family Life, 402. 
 
 Famine, Mission of, 320, 368. 
 
 "Fannie Forester," 136. 
 
 Feeding Five Thousand, 295. 
 
 Fees, Ministerial, 198. 
 
 Fell, Capt., Murder of, 114. 
 
 Fever, in Africa, 124. 
 
 Field, Vision of the, 171. 
 
 Field of Witness, 171. 
 
 Fiji Cannibals, 257, 258, 342. 
 
 Fiji Islands, 16, 257, 258. 
 
 Fijians, Missions among, 342, 
 
 Filled with the Spirit, 15. 
 
 Finney, Chas. G., 280; on Endue- 
 
 ment, 14; on Prayer, 361. 
 Fiske, Fidelia, 17, 138. 
 Fiske, Rev. Pliny, 138. 
 Fitness of Times, 19. 
 Flag of U. S. on Mt. Davidson, 
 
 432- 
 Flaxman, Monument to Schwartz 
 
 by, 93- 
 Fletcher, of Madeley, 25. 
 Flint, Dr., on the Gospel, in, 
 
 288. 
 Foochow, 236. 
 Force of Witness, 151. 
 Forces of Nature, 193 ; Obedience 
 
 to, 193. 
 Forces, Natural, Laws of, 193. 
 Forgiveness of Injuries, 234. 
 
 Formosa, 17, 286, 346, 
 
 Fort Simpson, 333. 
 
 France, War in, 66. 
 
 Francke, A. H., 85, 89, 90. 
 
 Frankenstein, 43. 
 
 Free Church of Scotland, 129, 
 
 339- 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 406 ; on Living- 
 stone, 124; on India, 261. 
 
 Frivolity in Interpreting Scripture, 
 
 425- 
 Froude, J. A., on Sacrifice, 401. 
 Fulfilment of Prophecy, 13. 
 Fuller, Andrew, 97. 
 Fuller, Rev. J. J., 265, 267. 
 Fulness of Times, 19. 
 
 Gaboon River Missions, 16. 
 Galvanism, Size and number of 
 
 cells, 402. 
 Gambetta, 308. 
 Gambia, Lord, 310. 
 Ganga Dhar, 262. 
 Gardiner, Capt Allen, no, 161. 
 Garfield, President, 178. 
 Geddie, Dr. John, 311, 344. 
 General Association of Mass., 
 
 102. 
 Generation, Our Own, 411 ; Work 
 
 of each, 4. 
 George IV. and Morrison, 100. 
 Germany, Missions in, 344. 
 Getting and Giving, 397. 
 Gettysburg, 432. 
 Ghost, The, and Cuvier, 31. 
 Giants, 51. 
 
 Gifts, Miraculous, 382. 
 " Give to him that asketh thee," 
 
 276, 277. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 441 
 
 Giving, Incentives to, 395. 
 Giving, to Missions, 202, 
 Gladstone, Wm. E. 38, 406. 
 Glasgow, University of, loo. 
 Glory of God, 390. 
 Gobat, Bishop, 134; Mrs. Maria, 
 
 134- 
 God, Ideas of. In Banza Manteke, 
 
 275- 
 Godivari River, 141. 
 " God-thaab," 84. 
 Going to Field, 202. 
 Gonzalez, Missionary to Bolivia, 
 
 113- 
 
 Gordon, Gen., 127 ; Rev. Dr. A. J., 
 279. 
 
 Gospel, Power of, 157 ; Preaching 
 the, 276. 
 
 Gospels, The Four, Compared, 5. 
 
 Gossner, Pastor, 303. 
 
 Goujon, 243. 
 
 Gould, Dr., 387. 
 
 Grace, Miracles of, 329. 
 
 Grammar, Indian, 73. 
 
 Grant, Anthony, 410. 
 
 Grant, Dr., 17,383- 
 
 Grant, Mrs. Judith, 134, 138. 
 
 Grant, U. S., 406. 
 
 Gratitude, No word for, 216. 
 
 Graybell, Mary, 134. 
 
 Great Britain, 380. 
 
 Greatness, Unrecognized, 142. 
 
 Greaves, Mrs., 332. 
 
 Greek, Civilization, 19, 337 ; Lan- 
 guage, 20. 
 
 Greenland, Language of, 216; 
 Missions in, 81, 214 ; Women in, 
 216. 
 
 Griflfin, President, 102. 
 
 Grimshaw, Wm., 25. 
 Grundler, 80. 
 Guiana, Dutch, 74. 
 Gulick, Rev. O. H., 323. 
 
 Habit, Power of, 141. 
 Hackleton, 95. 
 Hair, Offerings of, 380. 
 Hall, 102. 
 Hallam, Arthur, 3. 
 Hamburg, 343. 
 Hanover, Missions in, 1 20. 
 Hardy, Alpheus, 241, 323. 
 Harmony withjGod, 410. 
 Harms, Louis, 1 19. 
 Harms, Theodore, 133. 
 Harpoot, 345. 
 Harvests of Missions, 212. 
 Hatti Sherif, and Humayoun, 319. 
 Hawaiian Islands, 16, 104, 220; 
 Pentecost at, 279, 306, 347-8, 
 
 390- 
 Haweis, Dr., 367. 
 Haystack at Williamstown, 104. 
 Hayti, 267. 
 Healing, Gift of, 382, 
 Heber, Bishop, 89, 127. 
 Heine, 181. 
 Henry V., 406. 
 Hepburn, Dr., t^^Z. 
 Hercules and Serpents, 52. 
 Heredity, 123, 130, 141. 
 Hermannsburgh, 119; Missionary 
 
 Soc, 122. 
 Hermhut, 85. 
 Hervey, Jas., 25. 
 Higo, School at, 286. 
 Hill, Rowland, 25 ; Sir. Wm., 
 
 261. 
 
442 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hilo, Pentecost at, 279, 347-8. 
 
 Hinderer, Anna, 134. 
 
 Hindu, Cosmogony, 31. 
 
 Hindu Women, 389. 
 
 Historian, Undevout, 21, 26. 
 
 History, God in, 21, 26, 326. 
 
 History, Compensations of, 119. 
 
 History, Prophecy and, 21. 
 
 Hobson, Benj., 384. 
 
 Hogbrook, Sierra Leone, 251. 
 
 Hok-chiang, Persecution at, 237. 
 
 Holyoke, Mass., 138; Persia, 138. 
 
 Holy Spirit, Attitude toward, ii, 
 392; Dispensation of, ii, 155, 
 197 ; in Acts of Apostles, 157, 
 196; Relation to Christ, 6; to 
 Church, 196. 
 
 Hong Kong, 100. 
 
 Hon-gwan-ji, Temples of, 379. 
 
 Hooker, Thos., 70, 73. 
 
 Hope, Abandonment of, 375. 
 
 Hope, Power of, 375, 414. 
 
 "Hope, The Blessed," 414. 
 
 Hospital, St. John's, 327. 
 
 Hottentots, 218; Education of, 
 32. 
 
 Hough, Mr., in Burma, 223. 
 
 Howard, John, 202. 
 
 Hoxton, Morrison, at, 98. 
 
 Humboldt, Baron von, 72. 
 
 Humour, 127. 
 
 Hundred-fold increase, 212. 
 
 Hungary, Missions in, 363. 
 
 Hunt, John, 254, 257-8. 
 
 Hunt, Robert, 113. 
 
 Huntingdon, Countess of, 116. 
 
 Huss, John, 21, 86. 
 
 Hyder Ali, 89, 92. 
 
 Hyderabad, 239. 
 
 Identity with God, 412. 
 
 Idolatry, Hatred of, 225. 
 
 Idols, Assimilation to, 398. 
 
 Ignatius, 144. 
 
 Ilala, 244. 
 
 Incarnation of Christ, 1 1, 19, 22. 
 
 Incentives, New, 344. 
 
 India, British Rule in, 327 ; 
 Civilization of, 20 ; Converts 
 in, 37 ; Education in, 28 ; Hor- 
 rors, etc., removed in, 263 ; 
 Famine in, 320; Intolerance in, 
 264; Missions in, 77, 89, 135, 
 260, 331, 348, 387; New Route 
 to, 24. 
 
 Indians, N. A., 230. 
 
 Individual Rights, 35. 
 
 Individualism, 165. 
 
 Industry and Genius, 124. 
 
 Infanticide, 31, 258, 328, 350. 
 
 Inglis, Rev. Dr., Influence on Dr. 
 Duff, 130. 
 
 Inglis, Dr. John, of Aneityum, 339. 
 
 Inouye, Count, 325. 
 
 " Inquiry," Carey's, etc., 75, 97. 
 
 Inquisition in Spain, 185. 
 
 Insane, Treatment of, 40. 
 
 Instincts, Universal, 182. 
 
 Intellect, Freedom of, 35. 
 
 Intelligence, 36. 
 
 Intercession of Christ, 356. 
 
 Inventions, Rapidity of, 39 ; The- 
 ology of, 18, 24, 38. 
 
 Isolation, 45. 
 
 JALNA, 239. 
 
 Jamaica, Slavery in, 35, 265 ; 
 
 Emancipation in, 265 ; Missions 
 
 in, 266. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 443 
 
 James, King, 178. 
 
 Janes, Capt., at Higo, 287, 324. 
 
 Japan, 68, 115, 240, 307, 379; 
 
 Missions in, 240, 322, 338; 
 
 History of, 324. 
 Jericho, Fall of, 295, 307. 
 Jesuits, Order of, 66. 
 Jewett, Rev. Lyman, 17, 368. 
 Jews, Missions for, 363. 
 Joan of Arc, 81, 127. 
 Joel, Prophecy of, 12, 13. 
 John, Gospel of, iii:l6, 368. 
 John, Rev. Griffith, 360. 
 Johnson, W. A. B., 16, 88, 251, 
 
 346. 
 Jones, Mrs. Dorothy, 134. 
 Jonson, Ben., 178. 
 Judaism, Decay of, 20. 
 Judgment, Times of, 19; Miracles 
 
 of, 157- 
 Judgments, The New, 318. 
 Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 17, 73, 
 
 103, 105, 136, 186, 340; Mrs. 
 
 Emily C, 136; Mrs. Ann H., 
 
 136. 
 Juggemath, 31, 263, 335. 
 Juju'Rites, 335. 
 Justification by Faith, 21. 
 
 Kajarnak, Conversion of, 213, 
 
 215- 
 Kali, 328. 
 
 Kant, Emmanuel, 375. 
 Kanwealoha, 284. 
 Kapaio and Dr. Geddie, 311. 
 Kapiolani, 220. 
 Karens, 17, 222, 223, 227, 311, 
 
 341, 343. 
 Keith-Falconer, 63. 
 
 Keith, Rev. Dr., 363. 
 Kerr, Dr., 383. 
 Kettering, 76, 94, 97, 354. 
 Kho-thah-byu, 222 ; Memorial 
 
 Hall, 227, 341. 
 Kilauea, Crater of, 221. 
 Kingdom of Heaven, Parables of, 
 
 Kingsley, Canon, 179, 
 Knibb, Rev. \Vm., 265. 
 Knill, Richard, 81. 
 Knox, John, 21. 
 Krishna Chundra Pal, 33 1; 
 Kyoto, 242, 379; Education at, 
 324- 
 
 Labourers, Location of, 326. 
 Laity and Clergy, 163. 
 Languages, Reduced to Writing, 
 
 18; Foreign, Studied at Home, 
 
 18. 
 Law, Preaching the, 275. 
 Lawrence, Lord John, 261. 
 Leang-Afa, 98. 
 Lefevre, 107. 
 Legiac, Chief, m, 334. 
 Legions, Theban, and Thundering, 
 
 370. 
 Leicester, 94. 
 Lessons, The New, 141. 
 Lessons of the Acts, 158. 
 Leyden, Siege of, 315. 
 Li Hung Chang, 406. 
 Lieber and Catallactics, 32. 
 Liembe, Lake, 246. 
 Light, Laws of, 194. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 410. 
 Ling Ching Ting, 235. 
 Litany of Moravians, 88. 
 
444 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Literature, Christian, 119. 
 
 Little Things, 126. 
 
 Livingstone, David, 72, 123, 129, 
 153, 243; Services to Science, 
 124, 125 ; Grave at Westmin- 
 ster, 128, 310, 315, 326. 
 
 Locusts, Plague of, 320. 
 
 London Missionary Society, 98, 
 
 367- 
 " Lone Star Mission," 368. 
 Loom of God, 35. 
 Lovi^ell, J. Russell, 398. 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 66. 
 Lucknow, Medical Missions in, 
 
 387. 
 Luke, Gospel of, 154. 
 Lullius, Raimundus, 63, 95. 
 Luther, Martin, 22, 24, 74 ; at 
 
 Augsburg, 309. 
 Lutheran Reformation, 411. 
 Lycidas, 351. 
 Lyon, Mary, 88. 
 
 Mabotsa, 247. 
 
 Macaulay on Gov. Bentinck, 328. 
 
 MacDougal, Rev. Geo., 231. 
 
 Macedonia, Call to, 183. 
 
 Mackay in Formosa, 17, 288, 
 
 346. 
 Mackay of Uganda, 17, 383. 
 Mackenzie, Robert, 39, 40. 
 Maclaren, Rev. Alex., D.D., 109, 
 
 158. 
 Madagascar, 16, 179, 227. 
 Madison, James, 99. 
 " Magic Skin," 96. 
 Magnetism, Laws of, 194. 
 Maha-Mong-Kut, 319. 
 Mahmud, Sultan, 319. 
 
 Main, Rev. Jas., 235. 
 
 Malacca, College at, icx). 
 
 Malagasy, 179, 227. 
 
 Maiden, Mass., 1 10. 
 
 Malietoa, Chief, 118, 137. 
 
 Mammon, 394. 
 
 Mangs, 238. 
 
 Maoris, 256. 
 
 Map of World, Carey's, 97. 
 
 Mar Yohanan, 138. 
 
 Maraes, Destruction of, 1 1 8. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 370. 
 
 Marquesas Islands, 16. 
 
 Marsden, Samuel, 354. 
 
 Martyn, Henry, 263, 331. 
 
 Martyrs, of Uganda, 285 ; of Japan, 
 287. 
 
 Maruans, Conversion of, 1 1 8. 
 
 Marvels of God in Missions, Forms 
 of, 17. 
 
 Mary of Magdala, 133. 
 
 Maskepetoom, 230. 
 
 Mason, Rev. Francis, 223, 224. 
 
 Matter vs. Force, 193. 
 
 Matthew and Prophecy, 13. 
 
 " Matthew," Livingstone's Atten- 
 dant, 244. 
 
 Matthias, Choice of, 58. 
 
 Mauch Chunk, 406. 
 
 Maurice, 370. 
 
 Maximian, Emperor, 370. 
 
 McAll, R. W., 307, 326, 345. 
 
 McCheyne, Rev. R. M., 363. 
 
 McFarlane, Rev. S., 235. 
 
 McLeod, Sir Donald, 261. 
 
 McLeod, Norman, 411. 
 
 Mechanics, God's Use of, 144. 
 
 Medical Missions, 32, 382, 384. 
 
 Medical Science, 32. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 445 
 
 Melanesia, 287. 
 
 Memorial Tablet, Dr. Judson's, no. 
 
 Meriah Groves, 31. 
 
 Metlakahtla, 17,71, y^^,, 346. 
 
 Micawber, 105. 
 
 Micronesia, 16, 390; Missions to, 
 286. 
 
 Mikani, Calabar Chief, 270. 
 
 Mills, Sam. J., 102, 254. 
 
 Milne, Richard, 99. 
 
 Milton, John, 351. 
 
 Ministry and Church Life, 287. 
 
 Ministry of the Spirit, 196. 
 
 Miracles, 206 ; The New, 293 ; 
 Physical and Spiritual, 299. 
 
 Miracles of Grace, 329. 
 
 Miser, 398. 
 
 Missionaries, Proportion of, 87. 
 
 Missionaries, Native, 286. 
 
 Missionary Boards, etc., 46. 
 
 Missionary Income, 379. 
 
 Missionary Literature, 380. 
 
 Missions, The Problems of, 4. 
 
 Missions, Service rendered to Lit- 
 erature by, 18. 
 
 Missions and Invention, Ty%. 
 
 Mitchell, Rev. J. Murray, I41, 
 238. 
 
 Model State, 252. 
 
 Moffat, Robert, 16, II8, 219, 309. 
 
 Moffat, Mrs. Robert, 331, 134. 
 
 Moffat's Appeal for Africa, 124. 
 
 Mohammedanism, 182, 380. 
 
 Mohammedans, Missions to, 63. 
 
 Money, Compensation by, 198. 
 
 Money, Ministry of, 396; Prayer 
 for, 369. 
 
 Money and Missions, 123. 
 
 Monod. Adolph, 390. 
 
 Monotheism, 182. 
 
 Moody, D. L., 366. 
 
 Moors of Africa, 371. 
 
 Moravian Brotherhood, 200, 215, 
 
 310; Principles of, 88. 
 Moravian Missions, 84, 86, 379. 
 Morpeth, 98. 
 Morrison, Robt., 98. 
 Morshead, Capt., Letters of, 113. 
 Motives, The New, 373. 
 Motley, J. Lothrop, 36, 
 Moulton, 94, 97. 
 Moung-Khway, 223. 
 Mount Hermon, Mass., 366, 41 1. 
 Mtesa, 183, 184. 
 Muir, Sir Wm., 261. 
 Mullens, Mrs., 134, 135. 
 Mullens, Rev. Joseph, 135. 
 Miiller, Max, 261. 
 Murders in India, 263, 264. 
 
 Namaqualand, 220. 
 
 " Name of Christ," in Prayer, 
 
 356. 
 Nanumaga, 16, 348, 349. 
 Natick, 72. 
 Native ministry, 72. 
 Natural aids to Missions, 18. 
 Neesima, Rev. Joseph H., 17, 240, 
 
 323. 
 Neglect of opportunity, 408. 
 Neighbourhood of Nations, 30. 
 Nesbit, Mr., in India, 240. 
 Nestorian Women, 138. 
 Nettleton, Rev. A., 280. 
 Nevada, Rain shower in, 431. 
 Newell, Mr., 102. 
 New Hebrides, 130, 348. 
 New Hermhut, 213. 
 
446 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 New Zealand, i6; Converts at, 
 
 254- 
 Nile, Missions in valley of, i6. 
 Nineteenth Century Progress, 38-9, 
 
 305- 
 Nitschmann, Mr., 84. 
 Nonantum, 71. 
 Northbrook, Earl of, 261. 
 Northamptons, The two, 25. 
 Norwegian sailors, 82. 
 Nott, Rev. Mr., 102. 
 Nottingham, Carey at, 97. 
 Numbers, Stress on, 158, 211. 
 Nyassaland, 315. 
 
 Oahu, 306. 
 Oak, The Sacred, 222. 
 Oarsmen in Ancient Galleys, 412. 
 Obedience, to God, 143 ; to 
 
 " Laws of Nature," 194. 
 Oblivion of self, 198. 
 Obookiah, 104, 306. 
 Obstacles removed, 377. 
 " Occupy till I come," 414. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 32. 
 Oncken, J. G., 343. 
 " One Blood, Made of," 180. 
 Ongole, 17, 345, 348, 368. 
 Oodooville, Ceylon, 342. 
 "Open Doors," 26, 28, 185, 377. 
 Opium smoker. Conversion of, 
 
 236. 
 Opoa, 117. 
 
 Opportunity, 22, 26, 27, 409. 
 Opportunity, New, 305. 
 Oratory, Rules of, 131 ; Dr. 
 
 Duffs, 131. 
 "Order of grain of mustard seed," 
 
 84; The new, 377. 
 
 Organization, World-wide, 43. 
 Oro, War-God, 1 1 7-1 1 8. 
 Oroomiah, Revival at, 139. 
 Orthodoxy, Tests of, 392-3. 
 Outlook, The new, 428. 
 Owen, John, 10, ii, 392. 
 
 Parable of Sower, 212. 
 Paraclete, The, 196. 
 Parentage, Pious, 142. 
 Parker, Peter, M.D., 384. 
 Parliament of Religions, 337, 
 
 424. 
 Parricide, 258. 
 Passover, 1 71. 
 Paton, Rev. J. G., 309, 316, 
 
 347- 
 
 Patteson, Bishop, 287. 
 
 Paul, at Antioch, 53 ; at Athens, 
 181 ; at Corinth, 187; at Rome, 
 7; at Troas, 183; compared 
 with Dr. Duff, 129. 
 
 Peace, Prevalence of, 23, '^t^. 
 
 " Peacock Throne," 379. 
 
 Pele, 221 ; Priest of, 282. 
 
 Pelew Islands, 314. 
 
 Pentecost, The modem, 16, 139, 
 196; Place in history, ii. 
 
 Periods of Missions, 378. 
 
 Perry, Commodore, 322. 
 
 Perry, Sir Erskine, 240. 
 
 Persecution for religious opinion, 
 36, 155; in early Church, 155, 
 172. 
 
 Persia, Civilization in, 19; Mis- 
 sions in, 138 ; Woman in, 
 
 335- 
 Perversions of Prophecy, 424. 
 Pesth, Hungary, 363. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 447 
 
 Peter, Simon, 53, 58, 150, 153, 
 
 173, 174, 180. 
 Peter, the Hermit, 65, 129, 165. 
 Pew rents, 198. 
 Pharisees rebuked, 21. 
 Philadelphia, Meeting at, 239. 
 Philip in Samaria, 15. 
 Phillips, the catechist, Murder of, 
 
 114. 
 Phillips, Rev. James, 265. 
 Phonograph, 41. 
 Pietists, The, 84. 
 " Pilgrim's Progress," 339. 
 Pioneer Work, loi, 106. 
 Pioneers of Missions, 54-5, 60. 
 Pitcaim Islands, 249. 
 Plan of God, 21, 26, 143. 
 Plating a dead child, 392. 
 PHtt, 77. 
 
 Plodding, Power of, 1 24. 
 Plutschau, Henry, 77, 79. 
 " Pneumatologia," Owen's, il, 392. 
 Polynesia, Converts in, 340. 
 Pomare H., 183. 
 Post, Rev. Geo. E., M.D., 327, 
 
 383- 
 Postal Union, 30. 
 
 Potters, the Divine and Human, 59. 
 Powell, Thomas, i6, 348. 
 Power to witness, 189. 
 Praise of men, 127. 
 Prayer, for missions, 56, 122, 200, 
 
 352, 356 ; of Saints, 356-7. 
 Prayer-book, 250. 
 Preparations, for Events, 23 ; New, 
 
 305 ; World-wide, 38. 
 Prepositions in Scripture, 14. 
 Presbyterian Alliance, 239. 
 Preservations, Divine, 309. 
 
 Princeton, N. J., 366. 
 Printing Press, 24. 
 Prizes of World, 127. 
 Progress, Comparative, 38-9 
 Progress, Deceptive, 424. 
 Prophecy, and History, 19; and 
 
 Providence, 22. 
 Protestantism and Balance of 
 
 Power, 32, 
 Protestant Church Members, 378, 
 Providence, Faith in, 126; and 
 
 Prophecy, 22 ; Miracles of, 309 
 Prussia, 32, 380. 
 Puna, Pentecost at, 282, 321. 
 
 Raiatea, 118, 137, 350. 
 
 Raikes, Robt., 166. 
 
 Raimund Lull, 131. 
 
 Rajah of Tanjore, 89, 91. 
 
 Ranavalona, I., 228 ; II., 227. 
 
 Rankin, Matilda, 134. 
 
 Rapid Results, 340. 
 
 Raratonga, 1 16. 
 
 Rasoherina, 229. 
 
 Rationalism, Leaven of, 393. 
 
 Ra-Undreundu, the Fijian, 259. 
 
 Read, Hamilton, 331. 
 
 Reflex Influence, of Missions, 389 ; 
 
 of Giving, 402. 
 Reformation, The great, 21, 23, 
 
 206 ; in Philosophy, 24. 
 Reformed Church, 164. 
 Regeneration, 206. 
 Regents' Town, 252. 
 Relations of Christian Nations, 
 
 380. 
 Reporters and Dr. Duff, 131, 
 
 132. 
 Retrenchment in Missions, 186. 
 
448 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 " Return, The Lord's," 414. 
 
 Responsibility, 26. 
 
 Results of Missions, 158, 204, 
 
 421. 
 Revelation, Chap, viii., 356. 
 Revenge, in Indian character, 232, 
 
 234. 
 Revival of Learning, 24. 
 Richards, Henry, 273. 
 Ripon, Bishop of, 8. 
 Robinson Crusoe, 241. 
 Romaine, "William, 25. 
 Roman Civilization, 19, 337. 
 Roman Roads, 20. 
 Rome and Protestant Chapels, 185. 
 Rov^^lands, Daniel, 25. 
 Rum, and Missions, 408. 
 Russia and Serfs, 35. 
 Ryland, John, 25, 96 ; Jnc., Jr., 353. 
 
 Sabbath in South Seas, 117. 
 Sacrifice, for Christ, 128, 197; of 
 
 Self, 197 ; Human, 264. 
 Sacrilege, 204. 
 Sadducees rebuked, 21. 
 St. Genevieve, Death of, 359. 
 Saker, Alfred, 268. 
 Salvation, A full, 393. 
 " Salvation Army," 169. 
 Samaria, Pentecost in, 15. 
 Samaritans and Jews, 175. 
 Samoa, 115, 351. 
 Samson, 34. 
 Sanctuary, defined, 197, 
 Sandemann, Mrs. Stevv^art, 310. 
 Sandwich Islands, 220, 348. 
 Saphir, Adolph, 362, 364. 
 Savaii, 118. 
 Savonarola, 21. 
 
 Sceptre of the Race, 380. 
 
 Schmidt, and Africa, 127. 
 
 Schoffler, M., 378. 
 
 Schrieber, Dr., 380. 
 
 Schultz, 90. 
 
 Schwartz, Chr. F., 80, 81, 89, 
 
 105, 130, 162, 262. 
 Science, Livingstone's service to, 
 
 124. 
 Scion and growth, 403. 
 Scott, Thos., and Carey, 97. 
 Scripture study, 167. 
 Sears, Dr. Barnas, 343. 
 Secularism in churches, 397. 
 Seelye, Rev. Julius, 33. 
 Self-denial, of Carey, 96 ; of Jud- 
 
 son, 109. 
 Selfishness, 389. 
 Self-oblivion, 127, 389. 
 Selwyn, Bishop, 256. 
 Separation among Disciples, 162. 
 Separation unto service, 54, 199. 
 Serampore, 94. 
 Serfdom, 34. 
 
 Serfojee, and Schwartz, 92. 
 Serfojee, Epitaph by, 92. 
 Service, a duty, 164; reward of, 
 
 416; sphere of, 412. 
 " Seventy years," 22. 
 Sex, Law of, 388. 
 Shelley's heart, 87. 
 Shen Mouktee, 224. 
 Sheshadrai, Rev. N., 238,262,329. 
 Sheshadrai, Shripat, 240. 
 Shidiak, Asaad, 329. 
 Siam, Needs of, 185 ; Crisis in, 318. 
 Siamese and education, 31. 
 Sierra Leone, 16, 251, 346. 
 " Signs of Times," 21. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 449 
 
 Sixteenth Century, 305. 
 
 Slavery, 34, 128; Abolition of, 
 
 358; in India, 264. 
 Slave-ships, Refuse of, 251. 
 Sleep, 390. 
 Smith, Dr. Eli, 140. 
 Smith, Dr. Geo., 66. 
 Smith, Dr. S. F., 368. 
 Smith, Sydney, 25, 98, 354. 
 Smyley, Capt., 113. 
 Social Evils, Isaac Taylor on, 336. 
 Society for Propagation of Gospel, 
 
 72. 
 Society for Promoting Christian 
 
 Knowledge, 92. 
 Society of Jesus, 75. 
 Solander, Dr , 390. 
 South Seas, Missions in, 331, 340, 
 
 367. 
 Southern Cross, etc., 255. 
 Sower, Parable of, 212. 
 Spain and Inquisition, 36. 
 Spanish Conquest, 91. 
 Spectroscope, 41. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 144. 
 Spener, Philip J., 84. 
 Spirit of God, Power of, 194 ; and 
 
 Missionaries, 57. 
 Stack, Matthew, 213. 
 Stanley, H. M., 184, 273. 
 State, Ideal, 178. 
 Statistics, 204. 
 Steam Engine, 24. 
 Steam Transportation, 30. 
 Stewardship, 204, 395-6. 
 Stewart, Chaplain, C. S., 221. 
 Storrow, Rev. Ed., 310. 
 Subsidence of barriers, 300, 307. 
 Success and failure, 204. 
 
 Suicide, 264. 
 
 Sulivan, Admiral, 114. 
 
 Sunday-schools, 166. 
 
 Supernatural Results, 355. 
 
 Supply of Workers, 199. 
 
 Susi, and Livingstone, 243. 
 
 Sutchffe, Jno., 353. 
 
 Suttee, 92, 263, 327. 
 
 Sychar, Woman of, 133. 
 
 Syria, Medical Missions in, 387 ; 
 
 Missions in, 130 ; Woman in, 
 
 387. 
 
 Tabitha, 201. 
 
 Tabu Customs, 177. 
 
 Tahiti, 16, 340, 367. 
 
 Tahua, 1 18. 
 
 Taljajee, Rajah, 92. 
 
 Talle>Tand, 406. 
 
 Tamil Tongue, 78, 79, 89. 
 
 Tanjore, Kingdom of, 79, 89 ; 
 
 Rajah of, 89, 91, 262. 
 Taylor, Bayard, 72. 
 Taylor, Isaac, 336. 
 Taylor, Rev. J. Hudson, 143, 312, 
 
 314, 329, 362, 407. 
 Taylor, James Brainerd, 73. 
 Telegraph, 30, 40. 
 Telugus, 345, 348. 
 Temple, Sir Richard, 261. 
 Thackeray, 141. 
 "Thaddeus," Brig, 306. 
 Thakombau, King of Fijians, 260. 
 Thales, 174. 
 Theban Legion, 370. 
 Theebau, King, 343. 
 Theology of Inventions, 18, 24. 
 Theological Schools, God's, 60. 
 Thibet, 88, 428. 
 
450 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tholuck's Motto, 85. 
 
 Thomas, Missionary to India, 94. 
 
 Thompson, Sir Rivers, 262. 
 
 Thor and the Oak, 222. 
 
 Thucydides, 76. 
 
 Thugs in India, 327. 
 
 " Thundering Legion," 370. 
 
 Tierra del Fuego, lio. 
 
 Tinnevelly, 348. 
 
 Tithes, 341, 395. 
 
 Tomatoa at Opoa, 1 1 7. 
 
 Tongarsuk, 213. 
 
 Tongues, Gift of, 159, 382. 
 
 Tongues, in testimony, 159, 
 
 Toplady, William, 25. 
 
 Torment, Voluntary and Invol- 
 untary, in India, 264. 
 
 Torringford, 102. 
 
 Training School for Missionaries, 
 120, 201. 
 
 Tranquebar, 89. 
 
 Travancore, Prince of, 262. 
 
 Trichinopoly, 89, 92. 
 
 Tsai-a-Ko, Chinese convert, loi. 
 
 Tsetse Fly, 124. 
 
 Tsimean Indians, 334. 
 
 Tuahine, 340. 
 
 Tulsi Paul, 262. 
 
 Turkey, Crisis in, 318; Missions 
 in, 341, 345- 
 
 Tyndall, on Crystals, 254. 
 
 Ugalla, Congo native, 408. 
 Uganda, 17; Persecutions at, 285. 
 "Unitas P>atrum," 85, 200 ; Coat 
 
 of Arms of, 85. 
 United For. Miss. Soc, 102. 
 United States, 380, 391 ; Debt to 
 
 Dr. Duff, 130. 
 
 "Unknown God," 181. 
 
 Unselfish Spirit, 197, 399; in 
 
 giving, 399; in serving, 419. 
 Unworldliness, 418. 
 Upham, Francis W., 36, 299. 
 Upheaval, Moral, 301. 
 Ursinus, Dr. John H., 75, 77. 
 
 Vaagen, 81. 
 
 Vaudois, 86. 
 
 Vedas, Teaching of, 31. 
 
 Venn, Henry, 25. 
 
 Verani, 258. 
 
 Vicksburg, 432. 
 
 Vidal, Bishop, 254. 
 
 Visions and Voices, The New, 145, 
 
 146. 
 Viwa, 257, 258. 
 Voice, The Leading, 146. 
 Von Welz, Justinian, 74. 
 
 Waban, Chief, 70. 
 
 Wainwright, Jacob, 245. 
 
 Wakefield, Rebecca, 135. 
 
 Waldenses, 86. 
 
 Waldo, 107. 
 
 Walker, of Truro, 35. 
 
 War, 406. 
 
 "War, The Holy," 371. 
 
 Watchwords, 411 ; of Missions, 19, 
 
 306. 
 Webster, Daniel, 391. 
 " Week of Prayer," 306. 
 Weitbrecht, Mrs., 387. 
 Wesley, Chas., 25, 87, 357. 
 Wesley, John, 25, 87 ; Self-denial 
 
 of, 96; at Oxford, 357. 
 Wesleyan Missions, 230. 
 Westminster Abbey, 247. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 451 
 
 Whangaroa Harbour, 255. 
 
 Whately, Mary, 134. 
 
 Wheeler, C. H., 17, 341. 
 
 Whitefield, George, 25, 87, 357. 
 
 Wigram, Sec. F. E., 370. 
 
 Wilberforce, Wm., 35. 
 
 Wilder, Rev. R. G., 366. 
 
 Wilks, Capt., 260. 
 
 Wilks, Matthew, 367. 
 
 Williams, John, 8, 115,282,288, 
 344, 349, 350, 367 ; Murder of, 
 119. 
 
 Williams, Mrs. John, 134, 137. 
 
 Williams, Sir Monier Monier, 261. 
 
 Williamstown, I02, 104. 
 
 Will-power, 125. 
 
 Wilson, John, D.D., and India, 
 238, 263. 
 
 Wilson, Capt. James, 116. 
 
 Wistale, Chief, Patagonia, 113. 
 
 Witch Doctors, 275. 
 
 Witness, among all nations, 25 ; 
 Work of, 149, 152, 202; Field 
 of, 149, 150; Power of, 149, 
 151, 189. 
 
 " Witness, The Indian," 265. 
 
 "Witnesses and Workers," The 
 new, 285. 
 
 W^itnessir^g Church, 153. 
 
 Wodrow, R., 363. 
 
 Woman, Apostolate of, 133 ; and 
 Christ, 133, 140, 358 ; in Mis- 
 sions, 133, 134, 140; Degrada- 
 tion of, 33, 330, 334; Educa- 
 tion of, 330, 342. 
 
 Women in Prayer, 358, 359. 
 Women, New Activity of, 386. 
 Wonders, The Seven, 28. 
 Worcester, Marquis of, 305. 
 Work, Hard, 124. 
 Workers, Prayer for, 369. 
 Workmen, Raised up by God, 
 
 58. 
 World Empires, 45. 
 World, Weaning from, 418. 
 World-wide Enterprise, 45. 
 World-wide Wonders, 48. 
 World's Conference, 1888, 383. 
 Wyclif, John de, 21, 107, 
 
 Xavier, 66, 
 
 YoRUBA Country, 134. 
 
 Young Men, Uprising, 365. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion, 144, 166. 
 
 Young People's Soc. of Christian 
 Endeavor, 44, 168. 
 
 Young Women's Christian Associa- 
 tion, 168. 
 
 Zanzibar, 244. 
 
 Zenanas, Labor in, 342, 387 ; 
 
 Opening of, 330. 
 Ziegenbalg, Earth., 70, 77, 90. 
 Zinzendorf, 64, 70, 76, 84, 94. 
 Zoroaster, 240. 
 Zulu Land, Missions in, 16, 
 
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