AMERICA r WORLX) EVANGELIZATION J. C. KUNZMANN BV 2410 .K8 1920 Kunzmann , Jacob Chr istoph, 1852- America and world P-V^TLa&l ±7 at ■1 nn AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION BY THE REV. J. C. KUNZMANN. D.D. President of the Pacific TJteological Seminary Formerly Superintendent of Home Missions PHILADELPHIA THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE BOARD OF PUBLICATION OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA DEDICATION Dedicated to a United Lutheran Church and to the Evangelical Churches co-operating in the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace for the christianijjation of America, fundamental to world evangelization. FOREWORD This book was written at the call of the Home Mission forces of the General Council, which has since been merged into The United Luth- eran Church in America. Its introduction is written by the President of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of The United Lutheran Church in America. Its object is to set forth the claims and fundamental importance of Home Missions in America, not for the sake of the homeland, but for the most speedy evan- gelization of the world. It stands for the entire program of our Saviour, and calls attention to the main cause of our hitherto failure, in the hope that especial attention may be given to this center of influence and power. But any kind of Home Mission propaganda will not answer. Therefore, we have departed from the usual books on this subject and begun with the fundamental principles of effective missionary effort. The all-power of Jesus only accompanies men and means ordained and ap- pointed by Him. Christ and Christianity are the only specifics for individual and world redemp- tion. Home Missions must be Christian first, last and all the time, or they cannot christianize v vi FOREWORD the homeland, its citizens, homes, communities, governments. A God-man is the only Saviour, and a God-inspired book is the only guide. The Spirit of God is the indispensable agent, without whose help humanity fails. Home Missions are not the only missions of the Church. They are the center, not the cir- cumference. The home work is fundamental to the foreign, and the extent to which the first is accomplished is the measure to which the second can be undertaken. The ideal which the Church must ever set before her is the kingdom, and to this end she must bear witness, labor, and, if need be, suffer with Christ. Her obligation to society and the state, to capital and labor, and to all the affairs of life, are commensurate with her obligations to God. They are embraced in the one commandment of love and in its twofold relation Godward and manward. What love de- mands, no human power can gainsay. We contend that God has been seeking a na- tion in order to evangelize the nations. This is evident from His Word and from His dealings with the nations of the world. His purpose is seen in the opening and peopling of North Amer- ica. Her great leaders, her most devoted citi- zens, and even the common man has been con- scious of the fact that America has a world mis- sion. Even the world seems to have sensed it, as all the nations have been appealing to us, and FOREWORD vii not in vain. We have led the world to a higher civilization and higher ideals. We do not claim perfection, but we do claim an unselfishness in our dealings with the weaker peoples such as has not been paralleled by any other nation. But the greatest crisis of the world has come. The old systems of tyranny and oppression, co- ercion and repression are being everywhere over- thrown. The foundations of our fathers alone stand secure. If we have permitted the accumu- lation of any wood, hay and stubble in our politic or economic structure, it is ours to remove them, and to build upon the true foundation a nation after the pattern of the City of God which com- eth down from heaven. By the Church of Jesus Christ, all America can be roused to its gigantic mission; and if this volume will be of any ser- vice thereto, I shall consider myself abundantly repaid for the time spent in its composition. J. C. KUNZMANN. CONTENTS chapter page Introduction 1 1 I. The Fundamental Principles: The Divine Means and Two- fold Agents 15 II. The Human Agents: Their Fundamental Function 34 III. Home Missions Fundamental to World Evangelization. In the Light of the Scriptures 57 IV. The Testimony of Church His- tory 74 V. The Scope of Home Missions 92 VI. America Fundamental to World Evangelization 122 VII. America and World Evangeliza- tion 145 VIII. America's World Mission 167 Appendices I93 ix INTRODUCTION For many years the mission column in the church weekhes was the sole source of mission information among Protestants. Then came the mission quarterlies and mission monthlies, and even mission weeklies. In process of time, fugi- tive volumes made their appearance in the form of biographies, character sketches, reminiscences, and the like. At last, a complete literature, em- bracing every phase of mission activities, was sent broadcast, volume upon volume; while Mis- sion Study classes were organized in all our Protestant churches, with the resultant response in missionary support. It was the great pre- paratory stage of good things to come. The volume in hand is unique: it is different from all that has preceded it. As a rule, it has been the evident purpose to awaken interest in mission enterprise by the thrilling experiences of the missionaries, the personal sacrifice insepar- able from their service, and the deep need of those to whom they carried the Gospel of grace. It touched the sentimental side of our nature — whose beneficent influence we should neither de- spise nor discount. But here the author goes upon a different principle. He presses the duty xi xii INTRODUCTION home to the individual heart by an array of Scripture passages that drive him with an irre- sistible force to its performance. It is the heart- thrust which no man can escape, and which gives neither rest nor peace till the most and the best has been done. We like the broadness of this book — its ecu- menical spirit. It is always based on the Bible: Word and Sacrament are everywhere made fundamental to all else. It keeps out of the ruts. It is not the resume of other men's thought; nor is it a patchwork of the curious and the quaint. The author is not a mere copyist, much less a literary hack. He blazes a pathway of his own, and never fails to reach the point for which he starts. He has a great objective; and he drives straight to it. He does not write for pastime, but to present overmastering facts. No doubt, here are points on which more than one person will take issue. We should be disappointed were it otherwise. For it must be a poor book to which everyone nods assent on sight. We are confident, however, of this one thing: It will stir up serious, wholesome thought. And we are equally confident that if the reader follows, with- out prejudice, each point back to its root-prin- ciple, he shall find that it is grounded aright. It is not the work of a visionary, but of a man with a vision ; and he who gets at its inner essence will likewise get a vision that sends him into INTRODUCTION xiii the mission trenches to do a yeoman's service there; or he will see to it that the base of sup- plies shall be adequate to the needs on the front. We like the book, because it is the work of a man who is not a novice, but who has a lifetime of Christian experience and mission service to back it. We like it because it is an unanswer- able challenge to every Christian heart, and no Christian heart can escape the duty it im- poses. We like it because it spares none, caters to none, flatters none. It follows the truth with a steady stride, and turns neither to the right hand nor to the left to suit radical men with radi- cal measures, or yield to the compromising tendencies of the times. We like it because the love of God, through Christ, is its central theme, and the constraining power of that love the ele- ment by which it would move the heart and direct the life. And we guarantee to the thought- ful reader a bigger view of our nation's place in worldwide mission enterprise, a deeper sense of personal duty to make every needed sacrifice that the churches of these United States, with the bordering provinces, may come up to the full measure of responsibility in the conduct of the World's Mission Program, and a solemn pledge to make the congregational base the strongest, the purest, the best possible. If such be the blessed influence and effect — and by the grace of God it should not fall short of it — this little vol- xiv INTRODUCTION ume shall mark a new era in the home churches as well as the churches in foreign parts. J. E. Whitteker, President of the Home Mission Board of The United Lutheran Church in America. AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION CHAPTER I The Fundamental Principles: The Divine Means and Twofold Agents "As Luther found it necessary to question even the venerable traditions of the elders, and separate the in- fallible Scriptures [and Sacraments] from all the chaff and alloy of all mere human teaching, it behooves us to pray for grace to go back to the very beginning and inquire of the Master Himself what are the eternal and immutable principles of mission work. — Arthur T. Pier son. We classify missions under the terms Home and Foreign, according as they are conducted in the homeland or among foreign nations. We are not discussing accessories, but divinely prescribed fundamentals. The fundamental requisites in either case are divine and human. The Saviour, when He ascended, committed the work to the Holy Spirit and holy men — to the Holy Spirit and the Church which that Spirit on the day of Pentecost formed; the communion of saints, the fellowship of believers. The means to be used are the Word which holy men uttered as they 16 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION were moved by the Spirit of God, and the Sacra- ments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which the Saviour instituted. The object is the salva- tion of what has fallen, using regenerated agents for God's gracious purpose. The human agencies must use the divine means of grace. These are the heavenly treasures which the earthen vessels must carry to the needy children of men, to transform their lives and the condi- tions under which they live. ENLARGING REVELATION The Old and New Testaments, progressively given to the world, are the full and complete rec- ord of God's will and purpose for the race and the infallible rule of faith and life. They are being progressively understood by the Church under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, bringing forth things new and old according to the needs of the succeeding ages. In the work of the crea- tion there were different operations by the same Spirit, bringing order out of chaos, commanding the light to shine, laying the metals, gems and minerals in the earth, filling the sea with fish, preparing the earth as the abode for man, whom He formed in His image and likeness. God spake to man through the ceremonial law, the levitical code, the legislation of Moses, the ly- ric melody of the Psalms, and through the evan- gelical and political messages of the prophets, as THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 17 well as through the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, that the man of God might be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works." He did not speak through Moses as He did through Isaiah, through James as through Paul, nor through Peter as through John, but through all of them combined He gave His full and complete message to the world. The Epistle to the Hebrews sums it up : "God having of old spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers por- tions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son." It is the same message, in divers portions and even in divers manners, but they all meet in Christ and find their completion and fullness in and through Him. VARYING METHODS AND SIGNS Nor are the methods for the propagation of the truth, or the divine signs, which accompany its triumph and attest its divinity, everywhere alike. They vary according to the age in which and the people to whom the saving Gospel is pro- claimed. The Magi, who studied the heavenly orbs, He led by a star to the prophets, and then by the Word revealed, to see and worship the new-born King of the Jews. To the Jews, who sought signs, He accompanied the outpourings of the Spirit and the Apostolic Message, with those signs which followed the preaching of their day. To the Greeks, who sought wisdom, He 18 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION revealed a wisdom, a godliness which is profit- able not only for this life but for the unending life to come. The devout student of the Bible will be able to note and admire the goodness and wisdom of God in the adaptation of His message and work to the various ages, classes and condi- tions of men. God's work in creation and re- demption is always progressive ; His methods are never reduplications. And the Church in its missionary operations must use the divine means, follow the divine method, and wisely adapt her- self to the varied requirements of the people whom she seeks to save. In theory we distinguish between adiaphora and essentials, but in our practice we often exalt the adiaphora into essentials and reduce the es- sentials to adiaphora. There are many errorists who, because they do not rightly divide the Word, wrongly divide the Churches and carry confusion among men to the hindrance of the cause. The divine message is one and the same, the human forms and methods must vary according to the age, the hearers and the preacher. THE GREAT COMMISSION The commission is to the Church, to the five hundred in Galilee, the one hundred and twenty in Jerusalem; and every believer, in harmony with the brethren, is a participant. "And Jesus came to them, saying, All authority THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 19 (power) is given to me in heaven and on earth: Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all na- tions, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (the consumma- tion of the age). This is the summary, and the details are found in the synoptic Gospels and the first chapter of the book of Acts. They were to disciple all nations — Jew and Gentile — by baptizing and teaching, by Word and Sacraments. The teaching was to eventuate in observing all things that He had commanded. They were to begin at Jerusalem, and from that center continue the work to the ends of the earth. They were to set forth the Christ predicted by Moses and the prophets in His death and resur- rection for the atonement and remission of sins and in His coming again a second time without sin unto salvation. They were to tell them of the Father's love and of the Spirit's work and pro- claim the whole counsel of God. By Word and Sacraments there were to be gathered in suc- ceeding generations those who were to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. All this was to be done under the inspiring presence and leadership of the risen and exalted Saviour. His presence was to go with them. His all-power was to be made manifest in their weak- 20 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ness. The only thing for them to be and do was to be His zmtnesses and to do zvhatsoever He commanded. This spells victory. All else means defeat. Let the Church be His and do His will, and a greater missionary era than the ApostoHc will dawn. For, after all, it depends upon man's reception or rejection of the grace of God whether justice shall overwhelm or mercy shall save. Man's change does not change God, but determines whether He shall pardon or condemn. THE MEANS AND AGENCIES God always works through means and agents, heavenly and earthly, divine and human, to ac- complish His purpose. To this there is no ex- ception in His ordinary or extraordinary work. In miracles He is the agent, the means are beyond our knowledge. It is as true that without us He does nothing, as it is that without Him we can do nothing. The human agents are as necessary, ac- cording to the established order, as are the divine. The daily bread which keeps a world from starvation, and the bread of life which saves man from spiritual death, are brought to us by the joint activity of God and man. The same law holds in nature and in grace. IN NATURE The harvest which is reaped every year, where the bow of promise gilds the heavens and attests THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 21 the fidelity of God, has in it the divine and human elements. By those unseen means which we call miracles, the Almighty fiats, "the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof," but ever since, man has had to gather the harvest in the sweat of his brow; ever since, man has been a copartner with God in the har- vest. Man must labor, but God gives the in- crease. Without God, without man, there would be no harvest. To man God gave the living seed, the earth into which to plant it, the sun to warm, showers to nourish and the wind to fructify. Hence without God there could be no harvest Man may invent the telescope to bring distant planets near, the microscope to reveal more beauty of color on the wing of a fly than we can see with the unaided eye in a flower garden, the electric light to make midnight as bright as noonday ; but he cannot invent a seed of wheat, or rye, or corn, or oats, or rice. He cannot put into it the principle of life. God created that seed and gave it to the father of the race to be handed down through succeeding generations to nourish the bodies of men. Without that seed, that earth, that sun, those showers, that wind, there could be no harvest. But there God stops and man must begin. He must plow, harrow and sow, gather into barns, thresh and mill and bake, in 22 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION order that we may eat our daily bread with thanksgiving. IN GRACE The same is true of the spiritual harvest. Here also must be the co-operation of the human and the divine, the means and agents, earthly and heavenly. Without Christ there is no salvation. Without the Word and the Sacraments and the Holy Spirit, there are no means by which the Christ can be known and His grace applied for salvation of men. True it is, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." But ''How shall they call upon Him, in whom they have 7iot believed f How shall they believe in Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent ? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God?' The heavenly treasure never reaches men except through human instrumentality. God does not baptize, preach the Word or administer the Holy Communion. The divine Word and Sac- raments have been divinely furnished in order that Christians might make disciples of the nations. They must baptize, dispense the Lord's Supper and preach the Word to bring men to faith and holiness of life. It is God co-operating with man, and man co-operating with God, and only thus can humanity be saved. Tlie reason for failure in either case is the THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 23 guilty neglect and perverseness of man. The annual harvest is always sufficient to feed earth's teeming millions. Should there be scarcity in Canaan, there will be abundance in Eg^^pt. And yet we read that there are millions who are only half fed, and thousands upon thousands who starve. Has not God blest the labors of the husbandmen? Has He not caused His sun to shine and rain to descend upon the fields of the godly and ungodly? Why, then, must men starve ? Not because of God, but because of the inhuman greed and selfishness of those who mis- use His bounty. A farmer, pious after the fashion of many professors, lived at the edge of a town in which the mills and factories were closed and many were in need. More pious than others, he gath- ered his family morning and evening for wor- ship. As he prayed, he prayed that God would have mercy upon the hungry and send them help. But, not pious enough, he gave them nothing. One morning his son said, "Father, give me the wheat in the wheat-bin." "Why, my son?" "I want to answer your prayer." It was no prayer. It was simply a mumbling of words. Prayer which will not send us in the way of fulfillment, with all our power and resources, is an hypocrisy. God has no wheat fields or flour mills in heaven. They are on earth, in the possession of His creatures, in order to feed its population. God 24 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION blessed the labors of the farmer and gave him more than enough, in order that he might help the needy. The failure is at the distribution- point, at the human end. So it is with the work of salvation. On God's part all has been done that can be done. Christ tasted death for every man. In the days of His flesh, the oxen and the fatlings had been killed, and all was ready for the marriage, the consum- mation of redemption. Why must the chariots of God still wait? Simply because we have not gone out into the highways and hedges of the country or into the streets and lanes of the city, and by the constraining power of love compelled them to come in. The all-power of Jesus is ready to accompany us. But we have not gone in His Spirit and we are not now going with strong determination. Jewish peddlers scurry through our city streets and scamper over our country highways. With heavy packs on their backs, which often bend them double and warp them out of shape, they climb the attic stairs, descend to the cellars of the poor, and push into every farmhouse. With marvelous patience they display their wares and with dogged perseverance they seek to gain and hold your trade. If our Christian men and women with the love of Christ and souls in their hearts and only the weight of a Bible under their arms, would do as much to save a soul as these THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 25 peddlers to earn a dime, seasons of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord. It is in vain to pray, '*Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," whilst we put the smallest coin in the missionary offering and bear no witness for Christ in our homes and communities. Without us the work will be done. THE MEANS OF GRACE These are the Word and Sacraments ordained of God, to awaken faith and impart life and sal- vation. Some include prayer under this heading, but not wisely. It is a means to, but not a means of grace. It is a petition of man and not a word from God. The divine promise on which a prayer may rest, is a word by which God imparts His grace — a revelation of God; but prayer is a revelation, not of God but of man, in which he expresses his desires and longings. Every word of Scriptures is in harmony with God and by which God binds Himself, but not by every peti- tion even of a saint. God is bound by His and not by man's utterances. These petitions can only be answered in as far as they are in har- mony with God's promise. Hence we cannot call prayer a means of grace. THE WORD Language separates man from animal creation. The Word is the outward expression of the inner 26 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Spirit. It is a mark of personality. It is an index of character and manifests the scale of knowl- edge and virtue to which one has attained. When men dissemble, their speech betrays them. By it the orator sways the multitude and the general directs the army. By it men dispose of posses- sions, and accomplish good or evil. The word of man may save or destroy physical life. The word of Harriet Beecher Stowe, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," helped to free the slaves. The word of Nelson spelled victory and that of Napoleon ruin. The word of man is mighty. But the Word of God is almighty. It accom- plishes that whereunto it is sent. It spake crea- tion into being. It is that by which we live. It abideth forever. It heals the sick, raises the dead, casts out demons, cleanses and sanctifies, and imparts eternal life. Whether we consider the Word spoken or pondered, or written or in- carnate, it reveals God and imparts all His treas- ures of grace. It is the means through which the Holy Spirit brings us into the divine fellow- ship and bestows life and salvation. It is the channel through which His unmerited favor. His gracious purpose and gifts are made ours and work in us to will and to do His good pleasure. It is the seed, potent with divine energy, which produces the spiritual harvest. It is the Word of life and salvation. THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 27 DIVISION AND USE According to time, we divide the Word of God into Old and New Testaments, the first written before and the second after the birth of the Saviour. According, to content, into Law and Gospel. By the one comes the knowledge of sin, by the other the knowledge of salvation. The one shows what the sinner is in himself, and the other what he may become through grace. By the law no one can be justified, and by the Gospel no one can be condemned. The law has a threefold use : ( i ) as a bar and barrier to deter us from the path of destruction, (2) as a mirror in which we see our deeds as they really are, and (3) as an impelling force, a school- master, to show us our sin, to bring us to Christ and to direct us in the way of holy living. The Gospel, the message of saving grace, is the power of God unto salvation to every believer. The one expresses the righteous purpose and the other the gracious purpose of God. Both are con- tained in the Old Testament, and in their full- ness in the New. The Sacraments are those ordinances insti- tuted by Christ and to be observed by man, in which, under visible and external elements, the grace of God is extended to every participant and appropriated by every believer. We here have the Word in all its potency, joined to earthly elements. In Baptism it is water, and in the 28 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Holy Communion bread and the fruit of the vine through, in and by which, after the manner of a sacramental, and not physical, union, the inward and invisible elements are imparted. Jesus com- manded that all should be baptized, and that all His followers should commune with Him in the holy ordinance until He should come again. The Sacraments individualize to us the grace of God. The administrant says, 'T baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" ; he says to the communicant as he gives him the bread, "Take and eat, this is the body of Christ given for thee" ; and with the cup, *'Take and drink, this is the blood of the New Testament shed for thy sins." It is an in- dividual application of the word of grace, first at our admission into the Covenant and then amid the trials and perplexities of life. We com- mune with Him in remembrance of His conflict and triumph. When Queen Elizabeth was asked concerning the mystery in the Supper and her conception of the same, she said: "Christ was the Word and spake it; He took the bread and break it ; And what that Word did make it That I believe and take it." These, then, are the means of grace, by and through which the work of God is done. They are the instruments, as it were, with which the THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 29 Spiritual house is to be built for an habitation of God. In them is God's saving power, and to grant what they declare He stands unalterably pledged. The how we leave to Him. When faith lays hold upon Christ and what they declare and set forth, then the triune God, with all His saving and renewing grace, enters the believer and makes him His temple. But alas, so many attempt to do the divine work with no appreciation of the divine means and often without them. Instead of proceeding with the ''foolishness of preach- ing," they preach foolishness and discard the Sacraments. THE MEANS AND AGENT The Word of God and the Sacraments are the means of grace, administered by man and accom- panied by the Holy Spirit, through which the unsaved are brought into saving relation with God. The Word is called the "Seed," ''the in- corruptible seed," which abideth forever. This seed is scattered by man as God's agent. In Matt. 13:38, Jesus says, "The good seed are the sons of the kingdom." Paul, in Rom. 9 : 8, says, "It is not the children of the flesh that are the children of God; but the children of promise are reckoned for the seed." The chil- dren of the kingdom as God's seed are at one and the same time a means of grace and agents of God. The Saviour on the one hand parallels 30 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the witnessing of the Spirit with the witnessing of the saints, so on the other He parallels the incorruptible seed which is the Word of God with the children of the kingdom. These are the living epistles, read and known of all men. They have the Word written not on tables of stone, but engraven on their hearts. When from the tablets of their hearts and from the love that beams from their faces with a glory like that of Moses and from the deeds done by hands that are clean, sinners behold reincarnations of the Christ and fellow-workers with God and co- witnesses of the Spirit, then the Saviour will see the travail of His soul and be satisfied, then the vv'ork of missions at home will stimulate the work abroad, the fullness of the Gentiles will be brought in and the way of the Lord shall have been made straight for His advent in glory. Agents must administer the means of grace, they are not self-administrants. Christ left their administration to the Holy Spirit, the divine, and holy men, the human. The Saviour began the work as the divine and human Mediator to rec- oncile us to God. Without divinity and without humanity. He could not be a Saviour from sin and death. When Jesus was about to die for our sins, rise again for our justification and enter into the holy of holies with His own blood and there to abide until He should come again to complete the work, He spake of the other Para- THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 31 clete who was to be His representative or agent during His visible absence. As Jesus was man's Advocate, who, because of His substitution, suf- fering and death, stands and pleads for the be- liever in the courts of heaven, the Holy Spirit was to be God's Advocate to present God's claim upon men by convincing them, through the means of grace, of sin, and righteousness and judgment, by awakening faith in Christ and guiding into truth and holiness of life. This is the office of the Holy Spirit. He is a witness of Jesus, the divine witness, and takes the things of Christ and makes them ours. The divine and the human, united in one person, effected redemption and made reconcilia- tion possible — opened a new and living way of access to God. It requires the Holy Spirit and men animated by that Spirit to apply this re- demption. The Holy Spirit never converts a man unless the means of grace are brought to that man by a fellow-man. As the Saviour was brought into the world through the agency of the Holy Spirit, so those who are to co-operate with that Spirit must be born of that Spirit, born from above. In John 15:26, 27, the Saviour assigns the same office and functions to the believer as he does to the Holy Spirit : *'He shall bear witness of me and ye shall also bear witness." The two must work on parallel lines, must work together. 32 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION The Holy Spirit has no approach until a holy man opens the way. The Ethiopian could not understand the witness of the Spirit in Isaiah until the human witness, Philip, prepared the way. It was the disciples whom Jesus had taught and whom He brought to faith that the Holy Spirit baptized with that Spirit-baptism on Pentecost. Before the three thousand were added to the Church, Peter and the eleven had stood up and witnessed. It was Philip who opened the Scrip- tures to the Ethiopian eunuch, and thus opened his heart to the Spirit. It was while Peter spake and testified, and not before, in the house of Cornelius, that the "Holy Spirit fell on them which heard the Word." The Word is con- firmed by two witnesses, the divine and human. The Word itself came into the world not through the Holy Spirit alone — ''Holy men spake as they were moved by the Spirit of God" It was the believing disciples who were to be led into all truth and through whom the New Testa- ment was to be given to the world. The unhe- lieving world does not and cannot receive the Spirit, nor can it know the things of the Spirit, for they are spiritually discerned. The carnal mind is enmity against God. But believers know the Spirit, for He dwelleth in them, and hence they become the medium through whom the Spirit can bring the world to Christ. Atigels, though ministering spirits to the heirs THE DIVINE MEANS AND TWOFOLD AGENTS 33 of salvation, cannot discharge this function. They have never tasted of dying love. They can witness to a saving fact — not to a saving experience. They may proclaim the saving fact of the Saviour's birth and resurrection, they may be serviceable in many ways, but they must direct Philip to open the Scriptures to the Ethiopian eunuch and Peter to proclaim the Word to Cor- nelius before the Holy Spirit can take of the things of Jesus and impart them. The angel told Cornelius that his prayers and alms were gone up as a memorial to God, but in the matter of his salvation directed : "Send to Joppa and fetch Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall speak unto thee zvords, zvhereby thou shalt be saved, thou and all thy house." (Acts 11:13, 14.) And as he spoke the words, the Holy Ghost fell on them. Only those who have had the experi- ence of salvation can be co-witnesses with the Holy Spirit. The sinner saved helps to save the unsaved. God requires such, for even the divine Spirit can have no personal experience of saving grace, and hence in the last analysis the progress of the work depends upon the efficiency, diligence and purity of the human instrumentality. CHAPTER II The Human Agents: Their Fundamental Function "Christ alone can save the world, But Christ cannot save the v^^orld, alone." THE HUMAN AGENTS Men must be reached and saved, and for this purpose the Holy Spirit uses those who are in a state of salvation. Whilst we attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son and sancti- fication to the Holy Spirit, we must not overlook that the account of creation in Genesis fore- shadows both the unity and trinity of God and indicates the presence and activity of the Father, the Spirit and the Word. God loves, the Son atones and the Spirit applies. the triune functions 1. Co-laborers with the Father: ''For we are laborers together with God : Ye are God's hus- bandry. Ye are God's building . . . We then as ivorkers together zvith Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." (i Cor. 3:9; 6: I.) 2. Co-sufferers with the Son: "Who now re- joice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that 34 THE HUMAN AGENTS 35 which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for His body's sake which is the Church, whereof I was made a minister." (Col. i : 24.) 3. Co-witnesses with the Spirit: "When the Comforter is come, even the Spirit of truth. He shall bear zvitness of me, and ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning." (John 12:26, 27.) "And we are witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost whom God hath given them that obey Him." (Acts 5:32.) CLERGY AND LAITY To the Church as the body of Christ, filled with and directed by the Holy Spirit, the work was committed. The members which compose this body are many, and all do not have the same office, but they are nowhere designated as cleri- cal and lay members. It was to the Church, in- dividually and collectively, the 500 in Galilee and the 120 in Jerusalem, that the commission for world evangelization was given. The minister, like every other Christian, is re- sponsible to the extent of his ability and oppor- tunity, no more and no less. His ordination has not bestowed upon him any special prerogatives, powers or functions which an ordinary layman dare not exercise, nay, which he dare not neglect to exercise to the extent of his ability and oppor- tunity. The ministry is an office of, in and by 36 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the Church, authorized indeed by Christ, but in and of itself no more sacred than that of a deacon or an organist. The difference between them is in the importance of the things he handles and the manner in which he magnifies his office. With his functions within the congregation no one may interfere, any more than he can inter- fere with the office of deacon or organist. As no one may play the organ except the organist in the congregation, so no one may displace the minister. However, the deacon, organist and every other member will be encouraged to wit- ness for Christ and proclaim the message of sal- vation both in and out of the congregation by all but a presumptuous autocrat in the pulpit. So long as they testify to the truth as it is in Christ Jesus they are fulfilling their stewardship with which no one may interfere. Because you may not displace the organist at the organ as- signed to him, or the preacher in the pulpit assigned to him, does not prevent you from play- ing the organ to the glory of God or testifying to the grace of God in Christ Jesus in other places. Hierarchism, sacerdotalism and clerical- ism are not of God. The ministry is an office, high and glorious, and no servant of God will on the one hand be interfered with by his devout people, or on the other will do aught but encour- age every layman to exercise the gift of God within him for the glorification of His name. THE HUMAN AGENTS 2>T In the ApostQlic Church the apostles were not divinely endowed with any special gift which did not belong to or was beyond the humblest believer. Stephen was not an apostle. He was not even an ordained minister of the Gospel. He was one of the seven deacons whom the Church selected to serve tables. But that did not pre- vent him from preaching Christ in the syna- gogues and to the Council and to the multitude in that remarkable sermon contained in the seventh chapter of the book of the Acts. That did not prevent him from exercising those charis- mata which some have claimed as the exclusive prerogatives of the apostles and clergy. "Stephen, full of grace and power, wrought ^grcat ivonders and signs among the people." He entered into the synagogues of the Libertines, and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and Asia and preached Christ unto them. "And they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake." Paul of Tarsus v/as a member of the Synagogue of Cilicia; and there that proud Pharisee, educated at the feet of the great Gamaliel, had met Stephen before the day he held the garments of those who stoned him and consented to their deed. He was chagrined, humiliated and maddened because he was not able to withstand the wisdom and Spirit with 38 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION which Stephen spake. But it was the testimony of Stephen and his prayer which led to the sight of Jesus on the Damascus road and turned Saul of Tarsus into Paul the apostle of Jew^s and Gentiles. Philip was also a layman. He, too, was one of the seven selected to serve tables. But he served Christ in more than tables. We read: "And Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed unto them the Christ. And the multitudes gave heed wath one accord unto the things which were spoken by Philip, when they heard, and saw the signs which he did. For from many of those that had unclean spirits, they came out, crying with a loud voice: and many that zvere palsied, and that were lame, were healed. And there was much joy in that city." (Acts 8 : 5-8.) Here again we see that the power of working miracles w^as not the exclusive func- tion of the apostles but belonged to the laity also, to the whole Apostolic Church. Here Samaria is brought to Christ by a layman. We must not forget that it was that same Philip w^ho opened the Scriptures to the Ethiopian eunuch and bap- tized him. We need the apostolic conception and fervor — a missionary Church. Some will say that deacons were an order of the clergy. Such an answer is doubly wrong: first, there is no order, but an office of the clergy ; and, secondly, the diaconate is a separate and dis- THE HUMAN AGENTS 39 tinct office from the clergy, and yet may, as in these cases, exercise the same functions, and that because they belong to all Christians. "The Church which was at Jerusalem" was a witnessing Church, a congregation of wit- nesses. This company numbered one hundred and twenty at the Ascension. No doubt many of the three thousand converted at Pentecost became members of the Church in Jerusalem. In Acts 2 : 47 we learn that *'the Lord added to the Church day by day those that were being saved." "Many of them that heard the Word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand." (Acts 4: 4.) In the fifth chapter it is written that "believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, as signs and wonders were wrought by the hands of the apostles," in Solomon's porch. In the sixth chapter we read, "And the Word of God increased ; and the number of disciples multiplied in Jenisalem exceedingly; and a great company of priests were obedient to the faith." Now the Church which was at Jerusalem had only twelve apostles at most, and seven deacons, and the rest were laymen without office. Note what happened and with what results. "And there arose on that day a great persecution against the Church which was in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." The apostles alone re- 40 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION mained in Jerusalem. The rest of the Church — the seven deacons, "the five thousand men," the added ''multitudes both of men and women" and ''the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly" — were all scattered abroad. Was preaching the Word and witnessing to Jesus the exclusive function of apostles and deacons, or was it the function of the whole Church, of every member of the same? We read, ''They therefore that zvere scattered abroad zvent about preaching the Word!' (Acts 8:4.) This puts it beyond the possibility of a doubt that the ad- ministration of the means of grace is the func- tion of every Christian, which function in the properly organized Church belongs to the minis- try alone. The Reforrnation. When the Church in the days of the Reformation was again restored to apostolic purity in faith and life, the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers was re- asserted and the laity restored to parity with the clergy. It was not the theologians, but the elec- tors, princes and representatives of the cities who testified at Augsburg and (even Melanch- thon, who gave form to that Confession, was a layman) who signed their names to the immortal declaration. That tremendous movement which is still pressing forward was not the exclusive work of the clergy, but of the whole Church. All were absorbed in doing the will and accom- THE HUMAN AGENTS 41 plishing the work of the Master. It was this movement, the impetus of which was caught up by the Wesleys from the writings of Luther, which spread with power through England and America. Luther's Teaching. Dr. Hay, Vol. II, "The Theology of Luther," page 86, sums up Luther's teaching on the priesthood of believers, the functions of the laity, in the following seven propositions: **i. The proclamation of the Word. "2. Baptism, which even women are allowed to administer. "3. The administration of the Lord's Supper. The command of Christ, 'Do this in remem- brance of me,' is addressed to all. '*4. The binding and loosing of sin, the author- ity for which is according to Matt. 18, committed to the entire congregation^ and which is nothing more than the proclamation and application of the Gospel. ''5. The rendering of sacrifice, according to Rom. 12 : I, and i Peter 2 : 5, i. e., the crucifixion of one's flesh, and the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. ''6. Priestly intercession for others before God in prayer. "7. Independent judgment of dogmas in the light of Holy Scriptures." Christian Democracy. It is the doctrine 42 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION of democracy and freedom, which we laud in word and throttle in practice, that must become a conviction so deep and a force so strong as to sweep away the remnants of mediaeval Rom- anism which still skulk among us, marshal the whole Church into an army terrible with ban- ners, and lead it to victory against the strong- holds of Satan. The wars of the Lord will never be won by the few clergy any more than the wars of the nations by a few generals. The great conflict with the Central Powers was won because every general and soldier followed a cen- tralized and unified leadership, because all the economic power of all the nations was placed at its service, and because every man, woman and child gave to the cause their full measure of devotion. The whole Church, clergy and laity, each and all discharging their God-given pre- rogatives, must go forward in His name and in His strength. Then the world will be constrained to believe, to its joy and salvation. THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FUNCTION Paul enumerates among the agents of the Church in his day: apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, gifts of healing, helps, wise counsels or governments, and divers kinds of tongues, deacons, deaconesses, bishops, presby- ters. In other parts of the New Testament are mentioned ambassadors, stewards, heralds, shep- THE HUMAN AGENTS 43 herds, evangelists, etc. Some of these were temporary, serving special needs and exercising functions which ceased — such as healing, tongues and miracles — after the apostolic period. Others, like the presbyters and bishops, expressed differ- ent phases of the same office. But all the offices belong to the Church, and, according to the com- mand of Christ, are for the administration of Word and Sacrament and for carrying on and fulfilling the work. They are for the edifying of the body of Christ and for the work of the ministry in its various phases among the chil- dren of men. Names and designations, styles and titles of offices, may vary. The saving pur- pose must ever be uppermost. Witness-hearing, in addition to co-working and co-suffering, is the absolutely essential func- tion which must characterize every Christian, whether he bear office or not, in order that he may be a co-witness with the Holy Spirit. The human agent must co-ordinate with the divine. This twofold witnessing, man and the Holy Spirit, is the assurance of victory. A witness- ing Church is a conquering Church, and there can be no real advance in our missionary enter- prise without witness-bearing. The prerequisite which Peter laid down, as necessary in the one to be chosen to fill the vacancy of Judas, was that he must "become a witness with us." He must preach and heal, he must labor and pray, 44 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION but in it all he must be a witness to the Saviour and the saving experience of the Gospel. This is what made the Apostolic Church such a power. Peter could say for them all, *'We did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of Jesus, but we were QyQ-witnesses of His majesty." John could say, 'That which we have seen with our own eyes, and that which we be- held and our hands have handled concerning the word of life, declare we unto you." Though Paul never saw Jesus except in vision, he could say, *T know in whom I have believed," and it ''pleased God to reveal His own Son in me." This made Luther the hero of the Reformation and the prophet of these modern ages : he had experienced the saving grace and fellowship with God, and thus became a witness. The Constituent Elements. Two things con- stitute a witness. He must know and tell. Like Peter, John, Paul and Luther, he must person- ally know. No man can be a witness in a court of justice in civil affairs, or before an individual or multitude in affairs of salvation, who has not had personal knowledge of the things to which he testifies. Hearsay, valuable as it may be, will not answer. So many members of the Church are simply' parrots. They retain in memory certain words and phrases, and they repeat them, often ad THE HUMAN AGENTS 45 nauseam, with no more heart in them than has that crooked-billed bird in the things it repeats. They are like the disc of a phonograph. The preacher or Bible school teacher has covered the memory with a number of religious truths on Sunday, and then during the week says them ojf to his listening friends with no more conception or experience of their importance and value than has the metal disc of the things it repeats. Such people are a pretence and impertinence. They do not personally know, and hence they cannot tell with effectiveness. Catechetical instruction, as a means to an end, is most excellent, but if the catechumen never passes from objective knowledge to subjective comprehension, from in- formation to inward experience, it is as useless as the noisy shoutings of the mourners at the bench. Before Charles G. Finney began that re- vival movement, he waited and prayed, and medi- tated upon the Word until through a personal experience he personally knew that God was, that Jesus was the Saviour, that the Holy Spirit was the other Paraclete, and that the Bible was the divine revelation. If all our preachers and all our laity had such personal certainty, what a power the Christian Church would be! It would be irresistible. But can we know? We Do Knoiv. The Christian can and does know. We belong to two worlds : the material and the spiritual. We are related to both and 46 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION have the faculties by which to communicate with both. Through our five senses we come into con- tact with, and knowledge of, the world of matter. By my sense of sight I see before me men, women and children and can distinguish one from the other. By my sense of taste I distinguish be- tween that which to me is pleasant or displeas- ing. And thus through my senses I have been endowed with the power of knowing and enjoy- ing this material world. Spiritual Insight. But my spirit also has, as it were, senses by which I come into contact with the realm of Spirit, of thought, of heaven. I do not hear Him with the hearing of the ear, nor see Him with the seeing of the eye. But the pure in heart see God. They taste Him. They know Him. He has given us an under- standing by which we distinguish the true from the false and a conscience by which we discrimi- nate between right and wrong. He has given me a spirit through which the Holy Spirit, when the approach is made, communicates with my spirit and assures me that I am a child of God. Understanding. How did Columbus come to discover a new continent? He had never seen it, and had not even seen a man who had. He had only seen certain charts, and faulty ones at that. But he had heard a certain rumor con- cerning the sailings of the vikings. He had a clear understanding and knowledge that the earth THE HUMAN AGENTS 47 is round, and he knew that by continuing west- ward he must inevitably return to the place from which he started, and if there were land between, of which he was convinced, he would find it, and he did. Have we not seen charts of God's dealing with our race from creation to re-creation? We have heard rumors concerning that wonderful Child born amid the lowing herd of the stable, over which angels sang the new creation's song and God's glory shone. We have heard of His mar- velous life, miraculous death, resurrection, ascen- sion, the outpouring of the Spirit, the establish- ment of the Church and the blessings which fol- low in its train. We have an understanding by which we can reason it out, how this unspeak- able gift of our God fits into our lives as a key fits into its lock, and that there is no other name given among men whereby we can be saved, ex- cept the name of Jesus. He who studies the divine charts and examines that divine life with a good and honest heart must know that Jesus of Nazareth, approved of God, is the only Redeemer. Even if, through the mistakes of copyists and others, discrepancies and errors, real and alleged, are to be found in the Bible, this will not prevent the Scriptures from infalliby leading us to Christ. Even the faulty charts served their purpose, and the infallible truth, the rotundity of the earth, 48 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION brought Columbus inevitably to the New World. The Scriptures bring us to Christ, and the infal- lible Christ imparts life and salvation. Not the Bible, precious Book as it is, but Christ, is our Saviour. Faith. Understanding and reason are not sufficient to lead us to God and salvation (the heathen also possess these), yet they form the contact through w^hich the human and divine wit- nesses make their approach, and faith is begotten in those who receive with meekness the ingrafted Word. The Word is the seed, sown by Chris- tians, watered by the Spirit, warmed by the Sun of Righteousness, which produces faith and brings forth fruit. Through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments comes a confi- dence and a steadfast assurance into the heart of every honest seeker, that the things, of which Word and Sacrament declare, are true. It is ''faith," which Paul declares *'is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things un- seen." Faith has in its grasp the very substance of the things hoped for and the proof and dem- onstration of those things unseen. By faith I enter into fellowship and commune with God, and by it heaven and the things of the world to come become living and vivid realities. By faith Moses walked as seeing Him that is invisible. By faith Enoch walked with God, enjoyed His THE HUMAN AGENTS 49 companionship, and was translated that he should not see death. It was thus that Paul, and Augustine, and Luther, and all the worthies from the days of righteous Abel to our own day, lived above this world in the light and glory of heaven. ADDITIONAL TESTS These would be sufficient, but as God has given us line upon line, and precept upon precept, so He furnishes us assurance upon assurance. We are here dealing with infallible things, and we have two infallible tests: prayer and obedience. Prayer. Professor Morse, after he had as- sured himself that messages could be sent over the wire by means of invisible electricity, went before Congress in its session (1842-3) and asked for an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to establish a demonstrating station be- tween Washington and Baltimore. A committee of twelve, with a thirteenth as chairman, was ap- pointed, with full power to act. All morning the professor explained and argued with the com- mittee, and, when the vote was cast, six were for and six against the appropriation, and the chairman was undecided. It was agreed to meet again after the noon recess. During the interim, Professor Morse took the chairman to a large upper room in the hotel, where wires were strung from end to end. After having instructed him how to receive and send messages, he placed him 50 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION at one end, whilst he stationed himself at the other. For one hour messages passed between them. When the committee met, the chairman stated his new experience and said, *'I am now ready to give my emphatic decision in favor of the appropriation, for I have both sent and re- ceived messages across the zvires/' There is a wireless between heaven and earth, between God and man, over which we may send and receive messages. It is prayer. When, from the telephone booth or your office, you call up your home, you cannot be mistaken as you re- ceive response ; it was the voice of father or mother, sister or brother which you heard. You are in no doubt as to the person who replied. So, when you enter into your closet, and there speak to God in secret and about things which you have not mentioned to anyone and which no one else could bring about, and He rewards you openly, you know that you were speaking with your heavenly Father. History is full of the records of prayer answered, from the beginning of the world until now. There is not a child of God but has infallible proofs that his heavenly Father has heard and answered. Sophistry Exposed. You say God does not always answer. But He does, always. A crowd of tourists were on Mt. Rainier, above the line of vegetation, where snow and ice hold uninter- rupted sway. They were gathered around a fire THE HUMAN AGENTS 51 in a rude shack between supper and retirement for the night. At the center stood a table, and around it were gathered lawyers and doctors. They were speaking about religion, about prayer. One said, 'These foolish Christians believe in prayer. For example, when Lincoln was shot, they prayed that he might recover, and Lincoln died, and still they believe in prayer." Said an- other, "Yes, when Garfield was shot, and when he hovered between life and death for w^eeks, they gathered in their churches and prayed for Garfield's recovery. Garfield, however, died, and still they believe in prayer." Said another, "It was the same with McKinley." Whilst 'they were speaking, a fellow-tourist was thinking, and he said to his wife, 'T must speak and testify." She gently remonstrated, but he arose and said, "Gentlemen, *no' is an answer as well as 'yes.' We Christians prayed that these precious lives should be prolonged, and rightly, from our limited knowledge; but the omniscient Father said, 'It is better that they depart and be with Christ.' Some of you are fathers. Sup- pose you are shaving, and the razor blade, glit- tering in the sun, attracts your two-year-old boy, and he asks you to give him that razor. Would you do it? Why not? Simply because you, as a father, loved your son and knew what was best. "But let us go back to the days of Lincoln, 52 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION that man of prayer and sorrows. When Gen- eral Sickles was brought to the hospital at Wash- ington, wounded in the first day's battle at Get- tysburg, Lincoln visited him. They spoke about the issue. Lincoln assured him that the North would win. 'But how do you know?' *I have prayed, and God has answered me that we would win.' Lincoln, a servant of God, called to the presidency in a great crisis, was to bring together a divided nation and cement it into an indissol- uble union. We prayed because we thought his life was necessary to the work, yet God knew that Lincoln could do a thousand times more for the cause by his death than by his life. I submit to you that God's way, when He answered *no,' was best. I submit that it was over Lincoln's grave that the South extended her hand to the North, and declared, 'We will live together as brethren.' "Garfield, too, was a servant of God. You may have read how he quelled the mob in the streets of New York by quoting God's Word, and how on another occasion he stopped the mouth of an infidel. When the two senators of New York insisted that they had the right, irre- spective of the qualifications in character or at- tainment, to name the collector of the Port of New York, he stood for the principle that public office is a public trust, and must be so managed. Guiteau shot him under the excitement. We THE HUMAN AGENTS 53 prayed that the precious Hfe be spared, but God saw it otherwise. We now know that had Gar- field lived a hundred years he could not have dealt a harder blow to political graft and cor- ruption than he did by his death. From that day to now the honest men of the nation have been aroused, and, more and more, graft is re- treating to the hell whence it came. God knew it, and we did not. We know it now. "McKinley was shot by an anarchist, Czol- gosz. Anarchy was fast gaining headway in these United States as well as in the world. From the day he, w^ho appealed, for mercy for his as- sassin, died, anarchy has been losing its hold among us. Had he lived to the age of Methuse- lah he could not have accomplished by life what he did by death. McKinley's death has made anarchy and lawlessness odious. "It is appointed unto men once to die. The value and importance of a life is not measured by length of days, but by what it achieves. Lin- coln, Garfield and McKinley, all believers in God, in Christ Jesus, have been enshrined in the mem- ory of our nation and of the world, and the blood of those martyrs are the seeds which are sowing the whole world for a better harvest. If there were no death, there could be no resurrection of the dead. We lament that these bodies must be sown in weakness, in corruption, in mortality. But it is absolutely necessary, in order that they 54 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION may be raised in power, in incorruptibility, in glory and immortality. "You have been making sport of the founda- tion-principles on which our world rises to higher things. There is no progress except through sacrifice. There is no remission of sin except through the shedding of innocent blood. And to think that we jeer, when the great God offers to us that unspeakable gift and gives His Son to die for us on Calvary's cross so that this sin- cursed world might be lifted to higher levels, is not to our credit." He waited for a reply, but there was none, until the next afternoon, on the departing train, the mockers apologized. Yes, God always answers, and the Christian, if he is patient and abides his time, will learn that it was a loving Father who answered, whether He answers ''yes" or "no." Obedience, God is anxious that we try and prove Him and His promises. He desires that we be assured. Hence there is another infallible test. Jesus says, 'Tf any man willeth to do His will, he shall knozv of the teaching whether it be of God." "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." The test of the prescription is in the taking. The truth of the theory is found in its reduction to practice. The value of the promise is tested by compliance with its condition. The doing of Gocf s will demonstrates that godliness is profit- THE HUMAN AGENTS 55 able unto all things, and has what nothing else has, namely, the promise of the best in two worlds — the life that now is and that which is to come. David had varied experiences, but he never saw the righteous forsaken. No man has ever lived in Christ, and in harmony with the word of life, who has not found that God is and is a rezvarder of them who diligently seek Him. Complete Surrender. We must, however, obey fully. No half way obedience will answer. There can be no mental reservation. There dare be no expediency. Many serve God in so far as it is convenient and does not interfere with their selfish desire, and then are disappointed. Fool- ish creatures — they attempt to palm off their hy- pocrisy for true service. The flitting butterfly will serve in so far as it will not interfere with her pleasures; the miser in so far as it will not interfere with his greed; the sensualist in so far as it w411 not interfere with his base gratification ; and others in so far as it will not interfere with this or that darling sin; but it will not answer. It is all or none. We may impose upon ourselves by such duplicity, but surely you would not try it upon an omniscient and righteous God. Such trifling is an abomination to Him. From such He hides, to such He will not appear. They can have no fellowship with Him. He receiveth sin- ners, not that they may continue, but forsake, sin. On Mount Moriah, in Jerusalem, stood the 56 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION temple in whose Holy of Holies was the Sheki- nah, the place where God met and spoke with His people. In order to reach that holy and blessed spot, the worshiper must enter the sacred en- closure by its only gate and offer up his holo- caust at the altar of burnt-offering. It had to be an offering of the whole animal, typical of the full surrender of the worshiper, of himself entire in body, soul and spirit. No part could be re- served. The offering must be full and complete. Only then could he wash at the brazen laver, enter the holy place, and then the most holy, meet his God and commune with Him. Then, and then only, was the fellowship and union perfected. The Result. These give the Christian such a knowledge of God, and of His work and will, as to constitute him a witness. These give him a certainty and assurance which no false science and no plausible philosophy can shake; and a courage which no fire or sword can quench. These give him an insight into the eternal truth, revealed and incarnate, which will enable him to turn transgressors from the evil of their ways and convert sinners to Christ. These will make of him a holy man, born of the Spirit, walking in newness of life, and a co-witness with the Holy Spirit. This human agency thus links up with the divine agency and brings to earth the ''power from on high" for the salvation of the world. CHAPTER III Home Missions Fundamental to World Evangelization You can thoroughly save the world only from a thor- oughly saved home Church. You can have a thoroughly saved home Church only where there is the world-wide vision. — George Eliot. IN THE LIGHT OF THE SCRIPTURES A THOROUGHLY savcd Church must save the nations before it can save the world, and, to save the nations, you must have a saved nation. If, therefore, we substitute the word nation for the Church, we have a more accurate statement, which would read thus: You can thoroughly save the world only from a thoroughly saved nation. You can have a thoroughly saved nation only where there is a world-wide vision. *'But ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be my wit- nesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and ill Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." (Acts i:8.) This is a Home Mission text. There is no mention here of nations as in the Great Com- mission. It begins with the Jews in Jerusalem, passes on to the Jews in Judea and Samaria, and 57 58 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION continues witnessing to the Jews unto the utter- most parts of the earth. The words are a part of the Saviour's last conversation with His dis- ciples. The subject is Israel, and not the Gen- tiles; the nation, and not the nations. It is the question of the restoration of the kingdom to the chosen nation, partly located in Palestine and partly scattered to the ends of the earth. The times and seasons would remain hidden ; but Pentecost would endow them with power from on high, and by faithfully witnessing in Jeru- salem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, they would convert the nation which would convert the nations, and the kingdom would be restored. It is the conversion of the home nation in order to the conversion of the nations. If the first fails, the second cannot be accomplished. The Returned Laymen. When the laymen, sent out by the Southern Presbyterian Church to inspect the fields in heathen lands and report on their condition and needs, returned, after a careful investigation, they declared that the cry- ing need of the foreign work was the enlarge- ment of the home base. They knew, as business men, that if they would increase their export and enlarge their business in foreign lands, they must enlarge and increase the output of the home plant. The items dififer, but the principle is the same. The intimate relation between Home and IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 59 Foreign Missions was never so fully understood as at the present, when inter-communication be- tween Christian and non-Christian nations is so rapid and intimate, the character of the one in- fluencing the character of the other. The funda- mental importance of Home Mission work — its faithful and aggressive prosecution in the home- land, so that the conditions of civilization, of its towns and cities, the life of its people and the acts of its government shall be such as to com- mend the religion of our Saviour to our non- Christian neighbors — has never been so fully ap- preciated as now. Only in proportion as the homelands are christianized, only in that propor- tion will we have the men and means, and also the conditions, for the christianization of the foreign lands. The quotation from Elliott is but a comment on the words of the Saviour. There must be a thoroughly converted home Church, yea, a Church so thoroughly converted and aggressive as to convert the nation, before Christendom can exert its full strength for the conversion of the nations. This is enforced by the example and teaching of Christ and His apostles, and is writ- ten large in the history of the Church. The Factors. When we speak of Home Mis- sions as fundamental to all other mission work, we include all those activities, evangelistic, educational, eleemosynary, social and national, 60 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION employed to win and hold men for Christ, and declare that only in proportion to the work al- ready accomplished in the homeland can we exert power in the lands which are foreign. The mission work is one, but it is one of many parts. They are not all equally important. Some are fundamental and others are relative. We have one body and many members, but all mem- bers, equally necessary to the body as a whole, are not vital. The legs, the arms, the eyes and ears are important; but the heart, the lungs and the liver are vital. The one commission outlines the work which the Church, the body of Christ, is to perform among all nations; the other com- mands beginnings in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as fundamental to the entire mission work. Jerusalem work among the Jews is funda- mental to the Judean, that to the Samaritan and that to the Jews in the uttermost parts of the earth, and all to the world-wide mission among the nations. Weakness or failure in the first will show in the next and in all that is subse- quent. The people unreached in Jerusalem will be lost to the work which is to be undertaken in Judea, weaken the impact upon Samaria and upon every land entered, even unto the utter- most parts of the earth. The unreached and the unconverted are not only not an asset, but they are a liability. They are not only no help, but a positive hindrance. They will not only not go IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 61 up with US to fight the enemy, but, like the Amalekites and PhiHstines, they will be thorns in our sides. According to the preparation of the home field and the extent to which it has been seeded down will be the harvest we can gather for our future sowing. We are God's husbandry, and the seed with which an ever larger area of the world's field is to be made fruitful. The degree in which we care for the lands occupied measures the speed with which we can enter those unoccupied. Upon the size of our home base will depend the extent of our foreign work. Our effectiveness at home forecasts our efficiency abroad. Upon the character and vitality of the home Church depends the foreign Church, and not vice versa. The child may be, in a figure of speech, the father of the man, but never the father of its father. It is the begetter which determines the character of the begotten. In the kingdom of grace, as in that of nature, like begets like, and everything is after its kind. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS, THE FIRST HOME MISSIONARY You have read the startling sentence, "God had but one Son, and He was a Missionary !" More accurately stated, "He was a Home Missionary." "He came to His own." He did not come to a foreign country or race. According to the flesh, 62 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION He Sprang from the race to whom He minis- tered, and from the land to which He confined His ministry. He was born in Bethlehem of Judea, and spent all His earthly ministry among the children of Abraham. He never wrought a miracle or performed an act of His Messiahship beyond the boundaries of the land which was given to the Jews by the covenant deed of God. This was no mere coincidence, but the necessary and preliminary step for the accomplishment of His world-wide mission. He, by word and ex- ample, would teach the Church the necessity of caring for those who were near, in order to more easily reach those afar, thus emphasizing the fundamental importance of the home work to the foreign. The Twelve. The same principle is illus- trated in His sending forth of the twelve and giving them special power. He charged them, saying, '*Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matt. 10:5, 6.) The time had not come for work among the Samaritans. It was after Christ's ascension that Philip converted the city of Samaria and Peter and John preached the Gospel to their villages. Surely it was His purpose to have the Gospel preached among the Samaritans and the Gentiles. This is evidenced by His character as the world's Saviour and by IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 63 His subsequent injunctions. But attention must tirst be given to the more accessible, to those nearer to the home base. In the first verse of the eleventh chapter of Matthew we learn that He Himself begins a missionary tour to teach and preach in the cities of Israel. The Seventy. His commission to the seventy (Luke lo: i) is that they go "before His face into every city and place, whither He Himself is about to come." Here again the ministry is confined to the homeland. Other Instances. In His conversation with the Samaritan woman, He foreshadows the uni- versality of His mission and yet claims special prerogatives for the Jews. In His dealing with the Syro-Phoenician woman and the healing of her daughter, He claims that He is "not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He assigns a prominent place to the children of the covenant. The bread which belonged to them could not be claimed or given to others. Her faith was honored, because she honored God's appointment and meekly sought the crumbs w^hich fell from the Master's table. The care of the household of faith was first and foremost, for they must become the human instrumentali- ties to bring in the others who are not of the fold. Twice do w^e have record of the Saviour weeping: once at Lazarus's grave, when He looked upon death, the ravages of sin, and over- 64 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION came it; and when He looked upon the city of God and the people of God, upon whom the hopes of the world were centered, on whose fidelity depended the coming of the kingdom, and know- ing that Israel would disappoint His just expec- tation, the thought of the loss to the world by the apostasy of the chosen people, overwhelmed Him, and Jesus wept. THE saviour's SPECIAL COMMISSION It had reference only to the Jews scattered all over the world. We shall miss an important element if we fail to see in it a special commis- sion to Israel. We reach a one-sided view if we attempt to construct a theory of missions from one passage. We must study the Scriptures and see the relation of all its parts. When the utter- most parts of the earth are mentiond, the further- est parts to be reached, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria come first in the enumeration; and it is distinctly stated that the work was to find its beginning, and hence its foundation, in Jeru- salem. Israel was included in the mission efforts beyond Palestine, even those which reached the uttermost parts of the earth. Galilee, included, is not mentioned, in which a large portion of the Saviour's ministry had been spent and where the apostles had been active, because it is included in the parts beyond Judea and Samaria. From Galilee a large company followed Him to Jeru- IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 65 salem, and there, in one of His appearances after His resurrection, He was seen by *'over five hun- dred brethren at once." That the work prospered in that and all the territory of the Jews is evi- denced by Acts 9:31, "So the Church through- out all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, be- ing edified ; and, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, zvas multi- plied." JERUSALEM STRATEGIC This order of procedure was not dictated by Jewish narrowness, but by Christlike wisdom. The beginning was to be made in Jerusalem, and there the foundation for world-wide evangeliza- tion laid. Antioch, Alexandria and Rome were more prominent in the eyes of the world, but Jerusalem was the religious center from which, through the converted Jews, the ends of the earth could be reached. On the day of Pentecost the record is that there ''were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." Jerusalem was the cosmopolitan city pre-eminently. It was the religious metropolis of the world, its radiating center. Hither they came three times a year from all parts of the world, as commanded by the Lord, to celebrate the events which were the foundation of their temporal and eternal welfare, and from liere they would return to the lands of their sojourn. What a center from which to send the tidings of 66 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the fulfillment of the prophecies, the proofs of the Messiah's advent and atonement to the utter- most parts of the earth! From the hasty enumeration of the various nationalities, in whose languages the inspired tongues declared the won- derful works of God, we find every part of the compass represented. From Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia and Phrygia, people had come from the north; from the south they had come from Arabia and Egypt; from the east the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians were present; and from the west the Lybians about Cyrene, the Cretes and Romans had sent their representa- tives. The three known continents, Asia, Africa and Europe, the inhabited world was represented. With mighty strides the work went forward in the Holy City. Soon the three thousand swelled to five thousand men, and in quick succession multitudes and a large company of priests were added. Grandly the work went forward from Jerusalem throughout Palestine, until the disci- ples fled from persecution and left the apostles unaided in the evangelization of the city. But whilst in their terror they left the citadel, they were still mindful of the special commission, ''scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria." (Acts 8:i.) "Went about preaching the Word." (Acts 8:8.) But that preaching was still confined to Israel, for in the eleventh chapter and nineteenth verse we IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 67 read, "They therefore. that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation about Stephen traveled in Phoenicia and Cypress and Antioch speaking the Word to none save Jews only." Paul's example A careful study of the separation of Paul for his life work will reveal that he was not merely the special apostle to the Gentiles, but through and by means of the Jews he was to reach the Gen- tiles and preach the Gospel to all nations in that age. The Lord said to Ananias, *'He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gen- tiles, the kings and the children of Israel." (Acts 9:15-) ''And as they ministered before the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said. Separate me Barna- bas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." (Acts 13:2, 3.) Now let us see what the subsequent verses say about the mission of Paul, and note carefully to whom the Holy Spirit had sent him and Barnabas. ''So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went forth to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." And from that day to the end of his life, it was always "to the Jew first" and 68 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION then to the Gentiles. Wisely and advisedly he always, at every opportunity, went to the Jews first. The children of the ten tribes, which now numbered several millions, had never returned. They had been scattered all over the world. The numerous descendants of the vast majority of those who had been carried to Babylon were the children of the dispersion. In Alexandria almost half of the inhabitants were wealthy and power- ful Jews. In Greece and Asia Minor they were everywhere. In Rome they occupied the right bank of the Tiber. They were the cosmopolitans of their age, but still regarded Jerusalem as their headquarters, the Sanhedrin as their highest court, the temple as the seat of their worship. Thither they sent yearly gifts of money, and to it they repaired at the great festivals. The Jews in Paul's day were scattered from Palestine to India and China. Their zeal had translated the Old Testament into Greek, and these Scriptures were widely read. James addressed his epistles "to the twelve tribes who are of the dispersion." James, the brother of the Lord, declares that *'Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him/' being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts 15:21.) Both sacred and secular history confirms this. "The court of the Gentiles" was fenced oil in order that their adherents, the proselytes at the gate, and their converts, the proselytes of right- IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 69 eousness, whom their zeal had gathered from the Gentiles, might have part in the temple worship. Their zeal in making converts is attested by the Saviour. When Paul and Barnabas start on their mis- sionary journey they sail to Cyprus, and at Salamis they preach the Word of God '*in the synagogues of the Jews." At Paphos he ad- dresses a Jew. At Antioch of Pisidia they went into the synagogue and on two Sabbaths in suc- cession they preached to them the words of life. At Iconium they spoke in the synagogue to both Jews and Greeks, i. e., Hellenistic Jews. Cast out of one of the synagogues, they enter another. At Thessalonica ''they find a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures." At Corinth, Paul says to the Jews (Acts i8: 6), "Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles." But he repented of the rash threat. When he reached the next city, Ephesus, "he himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews." (Acts i8: 19.) They might provoke him and cause him even to speak inadvisedly, but he knew the mind of the Saviour, and in obedience to the Lord he always preached to the "Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. i: 16), because the divine mission could all the more speedily be accomplished through the 70 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Jew. It was because those early disciples were cosmopolitan Jews that they preached the Gospel as a witness among the nations in that generation. To the Romans he writes, "Their sound went unto all the earth and their words into the ends of the world" (the inhabited earth). (Rom. lo: 19.) Many will dispute this truth or attempt to explain it away. Yet the more we learn con- cerning the zeal and devotion of the apostles and their co-laborers and the territory they cov- ered in their missionary work, the more are we convinced that the apostolic age had not ended, that that generation had not passed away before the Gospel was preached unto the uttermost parts of the earh, as a witness, Paul, the special mes- senger to Jew and Gentile, writes to the Colos- sians, ''Grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I, Paul, was made a minister." (Col. 1:23.) THE CITADEL LOST The persecution against the Church in Jeru- salem and the scattering of the disciples, leaving the apostles weak-handed in the city, is usually considered a blessing in disguise. It was the work of the devil. The disciples fled and ceased to bear witness in the Holy City. Peter at last divided his activity with other towns and cities. The human agency no longer carried the divine IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 71 power, poured forth in such a marvelous way and with signs so convincing to the Jew. Be- Hevers decreased. The citadel fell. The w^ork throughout Judea, Samaria and Galilee and to the uttermost parts of the earth, which had mul- tiplied so rapidly and was gaining strength day by day, lost its directing center. Hence, instead of evangelizing the nations, instead of abiding monuments of increasing victory, w^e find epi- taphs of a brilliant but brief struggle. That glorious age of a witnessing, but not enduring. Church, closes in catastrophe. Instead of com- ing a second time unto salvation, there was a coming to judgment. Jerusalem was destroyed. Israel lost its leadership among the nations. God, who delights in mercy, was constrained to come in judgment. His gracious will thwarted by the sin of man. His righteous will went into effect, and that age closed w^ith a collapse of the work on the foreign field because the work in the home field w^as no longer prosecuted with that initial vigor and devotion. With the sur- render of Jerusalem, the center and capital of world evangelization, the sound, which had gone out to the ends of the inhabited earth, died away. It was no narrow prejudice which in the world- embracing commission gave special direction con- cerning Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Jews throughout the rest of the world. It was divine missionary wisdom. A Jewish missionary 72 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION was asked what, in his judgment, would do most to convert the world to Christ, and said, **Con- vert the Jew and you will have the men and the money." PAULAS PRECEPT Paul surely will not be accused of narrowness and of a lack of insight into the close connection and inter-relation of the various parts of the mission propaganda to each other, such as Peter at first displayed, when he affirms the primary importance of the work among those who have the Gospel, in order that it may be effectively carried to those who have it not. Whilst we con- cede inspiration equally to all, Paul was pre- eminent in his understanding of the truth, and especially of the missionary idea. He had the deepest insight into the mission principle, and the greatest success in its propagation. Though called also as the apostle of the Gentiles, his epistles are full of the supreme importance of winning Israel in that age and of his example in seeking them out first and foremost at every opportunity, in spite of the harsh treatment ex- perienced again and again at their hands. So clearly does he see the necessity of Israel's con- version in order to world evangelization, that his heart's desire and prayer to God was that Israel might be saved. Yea, so fully was he persuaded of this thai: he was willing to be numbered among the accursed, if thereby Israel — and, through IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURES 73 Israel, the world — might be saved. He is par- ticular to strengthen the work at Jerusalem by gathering gifts for the poor from the wealthier members of the congregations he had established. It almost seems as if he noted the fatal mistake the disciples made in fleeing from, instead of rallying to, the conversion of Jerusalem, when persecution arose, and as if he was endeavor- ing to teach his fellow-apostles the wisdom of holding and strengthening the center of the work at all hazards as he pens these words: "As we therefore have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially to them of the household of faith." (Gal. 6: lo.) Like his Master, he speaks of a general obligation **to all men" and a special one "to them of the household of faith." Those of the household of faith are not necessarily be- lievers. It is not only a faith, but a blood relation- ship also, which is indicated by the household. The world-embracing Paul has a deep longing in his heart, and from it goes up fervent prayer to God for Israel. This was not because he felt little interest in the other work to which he was also assigned — the evangelization of the Gentile na- tions. He realized that the whole work could not be accomplished if the mission to the house- hold of faith failed. He knew that the larger task cannot succeed until the smaller is per- formed. There must be a saved home Church and a saved nation before we can have a saved foreign Church and a saved world. CHAPTER IV Home Missions Fundamental to World Evangelization What the world has been waiting for through the centuries is a sample Christian nation. America has the best chance of being that sample. Consequently every movement which expresses Christian ideals in American life makes easier the task of the missionary abroad. On the other hand, any custom that is unjust makes more difficult the foreign worker's task. — Edward Laird Mills. THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY History is both a commentary on the revela- tion of God and a confirmation of the principles cf the Bible. Certainly the omniscient God fore- saw that the human agency would fail Him in Jerusalem and become weak throughout Pales- tine, and so He permitted the opening of a new center at Antioch. From this place the mission- aries spread the pure Gospel throughout Syria, Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, and, as the Scriptures teach and history more and more cor- roborates, to the ends of the earth. Soon Car- thage became a center and North Africa shone as a bright beacon to the dark continent. Antioch once numbered more than 100,000 Christians, and the cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and 74 THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 75 Alexandria in Egypt, had strong Churches. Constantinople, the capital of the eastern empire, had become a Christian city. But the Christian Church departed from its apostolic purity in doctrine and life. The home Church of those lands had not sufficient vitality to leaven the heathenism by which it was sur- rounded. Mariolatry and the worship of the saints displaced the worship of the true God, and empty forms and ceremonies crowded out the pleaching of the living Word, and sapped the life of the Church. The light became darkness, and the salt lost its savor. Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, westward to the Straits of Gibraltar, were lost to Christendom in the seventh and eighth centuries, not because they had neglected the foreign field, but because they became corrupt in the homelands. Con- stantinople fell in 1453, and one hundred years afterward Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Greece, the Peleponesus, Roumania, Wallachia and Mol- davia were incorporated into the Moslem empire. The Koran displaced the Bible, even in places where Christianity had won some of its most signal triumphs. By the unfaithfulness of the home Church, unfaithful to the homeland, Mo- hammedanism grew up and became the menace of Europe, and for centuries the impenetrable wall to the advance of Christianity. Dr. Barnes, in "Two Thousand Years of Missions Before 76 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Carey," page 84, says : "If Origen had devoted his magnificent powers to evangehzation, Chris- tianity might have been so placed in Arabia as to supplant completely its gross idolatry and to leave no need of the monotheistic reformation with which Mohammed began there, and no start for the career by which he secured the blotting out of half the map of Christendom. Instead of being the false prophet, he might have become our Arabian Luther. Oriental Christianity needed such a one in his day as much as occi- dental Christianity needed him one thousand years later. There is no way of knowing how much of the reformation in religion which Mo- hammed did accomplish was due to Sergius Bohare, of Bostra. This degenerate Nestorian became an intimate associate of the prophet and communicated to him his own poor apocryphal knowledge of Christ." Had the Church been pure in life and doctrine in the homeland, Mo- hammed would have found the truth he was earnestly seeking in the earlier period of his search. A corrupt Church is no match for the zeal and devotion of a fanatic. God spews it out of His mouth. She, like the Pharisees, did not lack missionary enterprise abroad, but her chief failure consisted in not providing for her own, in not making her people thoroughly Christian at home. Had she thoroughly saved herself from the contamination THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 77 of the world in the lands in which she was planted, there would have been powerful wit- nessing at home and abroad. Had she fulfilled her mission in the homeland, she would not only have forestalled Mohammedanism there but she would have extended her sway to the regions beyond. Lacking vitality at the center, a debased and weakened Christianity had no power of re- sistance or expansion. History but confirms the teachings of the Saviour and of His great apostle to the Gentiles, that the Church can only succeed abroad according to the measure in which she succeeds at home. If she have not life and strength there, she cannot manifest it anywhere. ROME LOST HER OPPORTUNITY When we look into the history of the Church of Rome we find this truth corroborated. Chris- tianity had been carried thither before Paul had written his Epistle to the Romans or set foot in that famous city. Doubtless, *'the sojourners from Rome, Jews and proselytes," who had re- ceived the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, were the first witnesses. When the great apostle wrote his letter, their faith had already been proclaimed throughout the world, and twenty-seven of the disciples of Christ resid- ing in Rome are mentioned by name in his salu- tations. The Coliseum and the Catacombs attest the faith and devotion of those early disciples. 78 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION For years the truth as it is in Christ Jesus was both confessed and lived, and the cross was car- ried triumphantly into the countries beyond. But loving rule more than service, esteeming the treasures of the world more than the reproach of Christ, she became devitalized at home and lost her power abroad. Zealous and Corrupt. Rome was never more zealous abroad than when she was most corrupt at home. What kind of a Gospel did Xavier carry when he baptized ten thousand in one month in India, though he did not know their language? Like the Pharisees, they compassed land and sea to make converts. Was it not the unbelief and worldliness of the home Church which made her a false witness abroad? The stream is never purer and higher than its source. The Church can but export what she produces at home. The reflex influence of the work done among the heathen is but an echo of that per- formed among her own people in the homeland. SPAIN LOST HER OPPORTUNITY Think of the possibilities and opportunity of Spain at and preceding the period of the Refor- mation ! W^ith her possessions in both hemi- spheres, she was the mightiest power among the civilized nations. With the Reformation knock- ing at her doors and the wealth of the New World pouring into her lap, with a spirit of ad- THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 79 venture and a zeal for converts unsurpassed by any nation of that day, what an opportunity for world evangelization ! With the fires of inquisi- tion lighted in all her possessions to destroy the noblest witnesses to the faith she professed, and with a crucifix instead of an open Bible, her cor- ruption at home became her undoing abroad. In proportion as she closed her eyes to the truth which makes free, she lost her possessions. Be- cause the Church in Spain was false to her trust, the Christian Church has the Mexican, Cuban, Philippine and Latin American problems await- ing solution. What Father Sherman said about Cuba, dominated by Spain for four hundred years, he could say about every one of these countries — "A Roman Catholic country without religion." It is here again the character of the home Church — the value which she is to the homeland — that determines her effect upon the world. THE FAILURE OF EUROPE We might go through every country of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, to illustrate the self- evident fact that the effectiveness of the Church is determined by her life in the community in which she is planted, that she can only grow abroad as she grows at home, and that the cor- ruption, shortening and narrowing of the home w^ork deprives her of the power of extension abroad. In proportion as her life is pure and 80 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Strong at home, and in that only, will be her effectiveness abroad. This principle holds good whether we examine France or England, Italy or Switzerland, Belgium or Holland, Austria or Germany. The Catholic countries suppressed the truth by persecution and the influence of the Church is seen in its people, the community in which they reside, and the lands to which they have carried a defective message. In the Prot- estant countries, whilst the truth was not sup- pressed, the free and full development of the Church was hindered by the influence and control of the state. She could not develop the holy and vigorous life which issues from the pure and unadulterated Word, and hence she has neither been able to exercise a large influence upon those nations nor upon the heathen world. The pure and noble principles of the Reformation, the doc- trine and life of the Apostolic Church, w^as ham- pered by their environment. This has hindered her witnessing at home, and to that degree has weakened her testimony abroad. The Church of Europe, Catholic more than Protestant, has imposed a large burden upon the Church of America, the United States and Can- ada, because she has not christianized the masses which come to us at the rate of over one million, and to our northern neighbor at the rate of more than two hundred thousand, per year. Had the Church in Europe done her full duty to these THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 81 people, we could expend more of our energy upon the work in foreign countries; yea, were that the case, instead of missionating among our Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs, etc., to bring them into the fold of Christ, they would add to the force which we could throw against heathen- ism. Then the work in our large cities would be comparatively easy and the problem of the American cities would be speedily solved. What a dead weight to the Church many of these people are in the countries which gave them birth, and what a burden upon the Churches to whose lands they come! COMPARISON OF THE WORK OF TWO DENOMINA- TIONS If, now, instead of making the comparison with the Church in different ages and nations, we compare two denominations who have had what we might call a one-sided development, the one upon the foreign and the other upon the home field, the one in the work among the heathen and the other among the household of faith, we shall see that the neglect of the home field compels the neglect of the foreign. Moravian Church. No Church has been more zealous for the conversion of the heathen than the Moravian, and no Church has made less nnpression upon the land in which she came into being and from which she derives her name. 82 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Resuscitated by the hero of the German Refor- mation, she traces her beginning back to Huss. There is scarcely a land blighted by heathenism where she has not borne her testimony. But the mountains and valleys of Moravia, Austria, out of which she came, have been left to the dominion of Rome. She has neglected her home field both in Europe and in America; she has rather diminished than increased her home base ; and in consequence she has been constrained to turn some of her fields over to others. Her people are still Hberal in their gifts to the work abroad, and the income from her endowments swells the foreign treasury, but her lack of ex- pansion at home has proportionately diminished her powder abroad. The Methodist Church has, until recently, given almost undivided attention to home fields in Europe and America. She has done her w ork among the so-called Christian nations, where she has been able to gather millions of the sturdiest manhood for witnessing, and lay hold upon the means with which to finance an expanding work. Having gathered power in the homelands, and with no intention of relaxing her hold upon them, she is forging ahead with wonderful rapidity in the foreign fields. Whilst the Lord was opening up the heathen world, she w^isely gathered the force with which to enter when the doors stood ajar. We shall find, as time unfolds her prog- THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 83 ress and development, that Wesley was a wise missionary general, claiming the world as his parish, but laying strong foundations in Chris- tian lands, the most highly developed, in order to gather the forces for the larger work. Hawaii's lesson On March 31, 1820, the ship 'Thaddeus" brought the first missionaries to the island. God had prepared the way. King Kamehameha I had abolished human sacrifices, and the high priest had set fire to the heathen temples. In 1825, the king's mother, the regent and six chiefs became converts to Christ. Christian schools were established throughout the islands. In 1836, thirty-two additional laborers were secured. In three years more the disciples had grown to 20,cxx). Mr. Coan alone received 5000 in one year and 1700 in one day. In less than fifty years the Church was self-governing and self- supporting, and the work was justly heralded abroad as a "glorious exemplification and proof of the power of the Gospel in missions, for the encouragement of the Church of God in its efforts for the conversion of the world." But the home Church grew lax and ceased to prosecute the work with apostolic zeal, fervor and piety. In the place of an aggressive and holy Christianity, there succeeded a perfunctory ad- ministration of the means of grace and an indif- 84 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ference to the precepts of the Word. The natives lapsed into their former superstitions, and the incoming host from other lands were not brought into fellowship with Jesus. Fetish- ism is dominant among the natives, and polygamy among the colonists. Says Dr. Pierson, "From the time of Kamehameha, idolatry advanced and Christianity died." The light has become dark- ness, and the salt has lost its savor. And the one-time dominant Christianity, because it has ceased to be the force at home, has ceased to be a power abroad. THE COMMON SENSE OF IT It is because we desire the speedy completion ot the work of the witnessing Church that we insist upon the fundamental importance and primal necessity of the home work; yea, of see- ing to it that that portion of the Church is living and powerful and exercising proper influence upon the community and land in which she exists, as a prerequisite to her effectiveness in the for- eign land. This is all the more important in this age, when the occurrences in Christian lands are well-scanned and exert an influence for weal or woe upon the heathen countries. The character of the home Church not only determines the character of the missionaries she sends to other lands, but determines the reception our mission- aries will receive. The fact that England en- THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 85 forced the hated opium trade on China prevents her people from according the same welcome to English missionaries as she gives to those com- ing from countries they love and respect. How m.uch different the reception of American ideals and American missionaries because we dealt most generously with China at the Boxer uprising! They modeled the youngest and largest republic in the world after our government, and are send- ing those whom they expect to use in public ser- vice, those who shall be the most influential in their land, to our institutions and placing them under our influence for training. Nations and their profession are judged by their deeds. 1. An unchristianized homeland will not fur- nish the men and the means for the conversion of the foreign. 2. Unchristianized social, economic and politi- cal conditions in the homeland will discount the work of our missionaries in the foreign. 3. Unchristianized tourists abroad are the sur- est demonstration that Christianity is not tri- umphant at home. 4. The students from heathen lands, imbibing the unchristian science of our university profes- sors, are a bulwark against the advance of the religion of Jesus. JAPAN Dr. Sidney Gulick, in his book, "The White Peril in the Far East," says: "For over fifteen 86 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION years missionaries had been given an absolutely free hand. Privileges of travel in all parts of the land had been allowed to them as to none others. The people had been not only permitted, but al- most urged, to study Christianity and to accept it. Even the formal adoption of Christianity as the state religion had been seriously considered by responsible thinkers. As a result, the pros- pects of Christianity were so bright by the close of the eighties that all students of current mat- ters believed Japan would be a Christian nation ere the close of the century. Having in the course of a few years effected such radical trans- formation in her governmental methods and rul- ing ideas, Japan not unnaturally felt that she should now receive recognition of equality from western governments. Western writers had praised her reform and her progress without stint. Missionaries had nothing but good to say of her people and administration, and were ready to accept abolition of extra-territorial clauses. When, therefore, the Japanese foreign office began to agitate afresh for treaty revision, and discovered that, in spite of all she had done, western nations still doubted her ability, and still made demands which would have been an insult ii made of each other, it is not strange that lead- ing Japanese began to question the motives of those nations. It is not strange that they became incensed and indignant." THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 87 What destroyed the bright prospects, which, if properly utilized, would have made the propa- gation and acceptance of the Gospel easy and sounded the death-knell of heathenism? It was because of the condition and conduct of the lands from which the Christian missionaries had come. Their unholy dealings, their false philosophy and perversion of Christianity, caused a change of attitude, which will not be removed until these so-called Christian people and nations manifest in their dealings toward them the spirit of the Christ. Rev. A. Herbert Gray, of Glasgow, Scotland, in "Social Service," page 171, says: "Our wit- ness for Christianity in foreign lands will always lack its due moral weight till we can point to a civilization in our own country that shall be Christian in fact as well as in name. Hundreds of picked men from China, India and Japan are in our universities. They go and visit the slums. They discover what a drab and weary thing life is for millions under our industrial system. They take notice of the waste of child life that goes on in our midst. They make note of the ravages made in our life by drunkenness and other vices. They are clutched by the horror of it all. And they have said in numbers, Tf this be all the Christian religion can make of a country, we do not want it for ours.' There are heathen mil- lions who do not see the causes but their effects. 88 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Let the causes be removed and their effects will be changed; let the heathen world see but one Christian nation, where government and busi- ness are all serving the Lord, where everyone is his brother's keeper, where the strength of the strong, the wealth of the rich, the wisdom of the learned go to the relief of the weak, the poor and the ignorant, and you will not need another generation before idolatry will vanish, heathen- ism cease, and Christ be worshiped as the King of the earth." "Men and Religion Messages" says: "So- cial redemption at home has an immediate bearing upon the success of the missionary propaganda abroad. A Gospel that does not lift the burdens and exorcise the evil spirit of militarism, that cannot prevent the indus- trial strife and heal class antagonism, that allows racial prejudices and caste snobbery, that does not banish drunkenness and social impurity, that fails to remove the causes which break up the home by divorce, will not commend itself to keen-minded seekers for a religious basis for a socially healthy nation. And, further, the social problems which confront us at home are all par- alleled on the foreign fields, and the solutions we arrive at here will come as good tidings through missionaries there." (Vol. II, page 15.) If our national deeds do not conform with the beneficent principle of Christ, we lose in power THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 89 for good. Hence it is necessary for the Church at home to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We must fully understand that the Church can- not develop a life and exert a power abroad, which she does not possess at home. The much- spoken-of reflex influence of Foreign Missions upon the home Church is nothing more nor less than the echo of its own life and deeds. Reflex Influence, Mr. Joseph Ernest Mc- Afee, in "Missions Striking Home," says: "There is a fallacy which ought not to be far to seek, in the contention that the sending upon ? Foreign Mission necessarily reacts to the sav- ing of the sender. It does not necessarily, be- cause it frequently has not actually. Her For- eign Missions did not save Christian Africa of the early centuries; hers did not save Syria; hers did not save Rome. It is a begging of the ques- tion to protest that these did not prosecute their Foreign Missions with sufficient vigor and purity of motive. Of course they did not. A true- motived Foreign Mission reacts as a powerful saving factor, adding grace to grace. But pre- cisely in that adjective lies the point of insistence. The profound truth for all our missionary enter- prises near or far is that the saving mission is and can only he the zvelling forth of a saved life. The unsaved man cannot be a true saviour, and the im.pact of the unsaved spiritual organism, 90 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION such as is this land of ours, cannot in the truest sense be that of a saving power. Unsaved Amer- ica must remain at best a lame foreign missionary agent." Page 21 : "A Church which is not grip- ping the Hfe of its own community, and is not preaching and working out a Gospel which reno- vates the life immediately about, must always make a poor success of bearing an effective Gos- pel message to communities in the distance. The palpable insincerity of a program which encour- ages or permits such a travesty must always crip- ple any enterprise. Surely such artificiality and, insincerity can never fit into a system which calls itself Christian and presumes to draw its inspira- tion from Him who poured forth His scorn upon pretense." The mirror only reflects the image which you place before it, be it beautiful or hideous. The force with which the ball is thrown determines the force with which it rebounds. The Church cannot send abroad what it does not possess at home. The character of a Church, like the char- acter of a man, is best judged at home. A nation is strong and influential in proportion as she is strong in her homeland. According to the strength of character and manhood, according to the nobility of her aims and achievements at heme, will be her influence abroad. If the Chris- tian Church had proven true to the Saviour in the homelands, gathered the masses and the THE TESTIMONY OF CHURCH HISTORY 91 classes and marshaled them for the world's task, setting them on fire with the constraining love of Christ for the salvation of the world, then the work could now be completed in a generation. This is the method which Christ outlined and proposed, which the Apostle Paul sought to real- ize, and the wisdom of which the entire history of the Church demonstrates. This is the solution of the problem, and the only solution. CHAPTER V The Scope of Home Missions Home Missions are a group of activities, attempting to Christianize the United States, carried on by the Churches. — H. Paul Douglass. ^'Religion uses the language of service not less than that of faith. Each religious organiza- tion, if it would justify its existence, adds to its machinery of worship a further machinery of work. It accepts the ancient test of discipleship, 'By their fruit ye shall know them' ; it condemns as a cardinal sin of religion the sin of Cain, *Am I my brother's keeper'; it holds as the most precious words of Jesus His self-dedication to human service, 'For their sakes I sanctify my- self.' "But if, on the other hand, both religion and the social question are primarily concerned with life, conduct, duty, feeling, hope; if both are in- terpretations of experience in the world that now is — then it is not only needless, but it is impos- sible, to hold them asunder. The religion which is fit for the present age must be a social religion ; the social question which the present age has to answer must be a religious question; and both for religion and the social question the most im- minent peril of contemporary thought is the peril 92 THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 93 of provincialism — the dealing with great truths as though they were small and shut-in experi- ences, set in a corner of life as the special con- cern of a single class. If either religion or the social question has any meaning for the world, it is a universal meaning; not as though they were evanescent eddies in the stream of time, but as the sweep of its main current between the banks of successive ages to the sea of human destiny." — Francis Greenwood Peabody. The scope of the work, which God has commit- ted to Christians individually and to the Church collectively, may be known from His aim, ulti- mate design and purpose. Its sweep and range include time and eternity, body and soul, creed and deed, confession and life, sin and grace, in- dividual and community, nation and nations — the whole world. Everything belongs to God, and everything is to serve Him. Lord Melborne, after hearing a searching sermon, protested, "Things have come to a pretty pass when re- ligion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life." Others consider religion as only a private matter, and would exclude its dominance from public life. The Word of God, Law and Gos- pel, cover the whole round of life and activity, and even baptism, which individualizes, is, in the Great Commission, connected with discipling the nations. The Gospel proclaims for all and the I^aw is over all. 94 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION A Faulty Classification. The mediaeval classi- fication of things into secular and religious has confused thinking and perverted morals. The antithesis to religious is not secular, but irre- ligious. It is on a par with the Romanistic two- fold holiness, the ordinary and extraordinary, the one for the secular and the other for the re- ligious life — the progenitor of the double stand- ard of morals. Our division of history into sacred and profane runs into the same danger, for whilst revelation declares His connection with the one and enables us to trace His hand in the other, God as truly overrules the afifairs of mod- ern America as He did in ancient Israel. We cannot worship God on Sunday and serve the devil on weekdays. We cannot be accepted in the sanctuary if we are unholy in the counting- house. All things are sacred, because they are of God : churches and factories, Sundays and week- days, worship and amusement. Whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, work or play, labor or rest, we are to do to the glory of God. The difiference is in the importance, not in the sacred- ness of things. As in Revelation God spake at divers times and in divers manners, so in our comprehension and application of the same He constrains us to stress and emphasize certain doctrines for cer- tain periods. The early Church formulated the doctrines concerning God and the relation of the THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 95 unity and the trinity. The Reformation was concerned with the right relations and duties of the individual. To-day we are concerned with the solidarity of the race, the obligation of the individual to society, government, the world, and the sphere which society, government and the world still assign to the individual. Hence the Church in this age cannot escape by a mere creedal statement, but must move out into high- ways to manifest, by word and deed, the power of God. We are not only concerned with individual sins, but with corporate sins, city, state and na- tional sins, not only with a sinful heredity but also with a sinful environment. We not only save the unfortunate from the slums by the Gospel, but we must destroy the slum by the law. \Ye not only save the drunkard by the grace of God, but we close up the saloon and remove, as far as we are able, all hindrances to the higher development of humanity. THE TRUE CONCEPTION From the essence and nature of Christianity we may learn something concerning the scope of the mission work of the Church. Christian- ity is the only religion which is universal and of universal application. Hegel postulated that God's approach to us and our communion with Him is through the 96 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION intellect, the reason. Schleiermacher located it in the feelings, the sensibilities. Kant placed it in the will. The first would make religion a creed, the second a morality and the third a service. The first would eventually run to ra- tionalism, the second to mysticism, and the third to humanitarianism. They are each unbalanced, because they do not take in the whole man. Each gives only one side of Christianity. The triune God approaches us and we hold fellowship with Him through all three avenues. The intellect must know, the heart love, the will obey, and all knowledge, affection and action be consecrated to God. Christianity is not a creed, a morality 01 a service. It is none of these singly and more than the three combined. It is a life from God, mediated in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, through Word and Sacrament administered by human agency, which permeates the intellect, heart and will, vitalizes knowledge, love and ser- vice in oneness with Him. Since it is a life in communion with God, that life must go forth in fellowship with God for the fulfilling of the divine purpose in the world and bringing into obedience to God of everything that life touches. It is the whole man — body, soul and spirit — who goes with God to the whole task. ''Every life, and all of life for Christ," is the all-absorbing passion. Then we shall fully com- prehend that neither a deedless creed nor a creed- THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS > less deed fills the measure of God's requirements. The life to be lived must come from God, the direction for service from His law, and the scope of our activity be as universal as His love. Then whatsoever our hand findeth to do in all this wide world will be done, and done with our might. The efforts of the Church evidence her con- ception of the scope of the work. It was not simply for the soul nor the individual. The Apostolic Church added the service of tables to the service of the Word and prayer. Prof. John William Draper, author of the "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," in his work on "Future Civil Policy of America," says: "We vainly attempt the im- provement of a race, intellectually and morally, by missionary exertion or by education, unless we simultaneously touch its actual physical condi- tion, any impression made upon that gives the possibility of accomplishing the other. Great amendments in the daily life of communities, great improvements in the manner of thinking, can only be attained by corresponding physical modifications." Successful missionary efforts for the conversion of the heathen have been marked and attended by changes in their physi- cal conditions. You may educate the Indian at Carlisle and convert him in the Church, but if you turn him back to his tribal life, his education usually goes to seed and his religion to the dogs. 98 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Physical necessities and spiritual ideals control, and if the latter are unable to regulate the former, there will be retrogression. God is the Creator of body and soul. Blessed changes has Christ effected through the Church in the home, in society, in the state and in the world. There is no home where Christ must not control the ideals. Since God was manifest in the flesh, laid as an infant in Beth- lehem's manger, the status of childhood has been elevated and will be more and more. Since He associated with those holy women who were last ac the cross and first at the empty tomb, woman has become the queen of the home and placed on equality with the lords of creation. Since the Son of God stooped once over a sawbuck at the carpenter's bench, the shackles have fallen from the limbs of the slave and honest labor is enriched above the overweening pride of wealth. Since God Himself came to serve, even to the washing of His disciples' feet, governments have been converted from despotisms to democracies, and rulers from tyrants to servants. The Church has impressed upon the world a new ideal, and it remains for her to constrain and compel its ever fuller realization. She has been the leader in every work of mercy and relief, and she must become the chief factor in the prevention of wrong and improvement in righteousness. So all down through the ages, from the indi- T|IE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 99 vidual to the family, to the classes and masses, to the state and the world, she has enlarged her activities. She has been the inspiring cause of every movement for the uplift of communities and nations. Her high ideals have been the in- spiration even of men who have denounced her, and men who were in and yet not of her have brought her shame. There can be no real service of man, divorced from God. All the forces of the world should be pervaded with the all-power of Jesus. THE LAW The Word of God as to its content is divided into Gospel and Law — salvation and godly living. There can be no salvation without godly living, and there can be no godly living without salva- tion. As the motive is the soul of the deed and properly defines its character, there can be no good deed, none acceptable to God, which does not center in love to God and those created in His image. While it centers in Him, it radiates out to all creation, and our opportunity to do good is the measure of our responsibility. The Formula of Concord sets forth the three- fold purpose and use of the law thus : "Since the law was given to me for three reasons : First, that thereby outward discipline might be main- tained against wild, disobedient men; secondly, that men might thereby be led to the knowledge of their sins; thirdly, that after they are regen- 109 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION erate, and the flesh, notwithstanding, cleaves to them, they may have on this account a fixed rule, according to which they should regulate and direct their whole life. Thus the law is and re- mains, both to the penitent and impenitent, both to the regenerate and unregenerate man, one and the same law, namely, the immutable will of God." GENERAL LEGISLATION THE COVENANT OF SINAI . We are accustomed to speak of it as the Ten Commandments, while the Scriptures call it the \\'ords. We have regarded it as law super- imposed by God, whilst Israel looked upon it as a loving covenant into which they willingly entered with Jehovah. Dr. Trumbull says: 'Tn our estimate of the decalogue we have made too much of the law element, and too little of the element of love. But the Ten Commandments are simply a record of God's loving covenant with His people, and they are not the arbitrary commandings of God to His subjects. They indicate the inevitable limits within wiiich God and His people can be in loving union, rather than declare the limits of dutiful obedience on the part of those who would be God's faithful subjects." The words begin, "I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Thus Jehovah, THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 101 the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, sets forth His part of the covenant as fulfilled, and then proceeds to unfold the part which His people are to keep. The Saviour sums up the teaching of the two tables of stone in two com- mandments : 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with ah thy mind. This is the first and great com- mandment." And the second, hke unto it, is this: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matt. 22:37-40.) Here in a summary we see the universal scope of the law which sets forth the universality of our obliga- tions: God and our fellow-man. However great may be our duty to the first, our duty to the sec- ond is "like unto it." The first table contains our relation and obligation to God the *Theos," and from this we derive our theology. The sec- ond table contains our relation and obligation to our neighbor, our ''socius," and from it we derive our sociology. We can never serve God and maltreat our fellow-man. When Rome com- manded her devotees to find salvation by selfishly enclosing themselves in monasteries and nunner- ies, these institutions became the hotbed of in- iquity. It is not upon one of these command- ments separated from the other, but upon the two, unitedly observed and kept, on which hang all the law and the prophets. A dreamy religious 102 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION mysticism on the one hand, and a busy, busthng humanitarianism on the other, fall short of our covenant obligations. SPECIFIC LEGISLATION The festivals observed by the appointment of Jehovah were folkfests, to commemorate the blessings Israel enjoyed. Religion was to domi- nate their work and play, their adversities and joys. The Sabbath rest was a day of rejoicing in blessed fellowship with God and each other, and not a day of gloom. The Passover and the gathering of the first fruits was their day of emancipation, far greater than our Fourth of July. It signalized deliverance for time and eternity. Pentecost reminded them of God's covenant at Sinai as well as His covenant with Noah, and in the ingathering of the wheat harvest they had the proof that seed time and harvest should not fail. The festival of trumpets and tabernacles were days when the people were to ''make great mirth" and rejoice before God and with one another. Religion was not a round of gloom, but of gladness, in Israel. The distribution of the soil to the families was on the unchangeable principle, "The land is mine" and to it all have equal rights. Vedder trenchantly says: "The Jewish land tenure, as has often been pointed out, was essentially social- istic, with its provision of reversion to the origi- THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 103 nal owner in every jubilee year. Modern society shows a tendency to come back to the Mosaic doctrine that rent and interest are in their nature immoral. But again we are assured that busi- ness could not be carried on without them. It is perfectly true and perfectly conclusive that mod- ern business ought not to be carried on." The Church must review its attitude to the capital- istic and the competitive system in the light of God's Word and speak to selfish humanity in His name. The question is raised whether the principles of capitalism or those which God laid down in the Jewish economy should prevail. The exact regulations of diet and of the sani- tation of buildings and measures against conta- gious diseases indicate that healthfulness of the body, the housing of people and the sanitation of cities are religious matters — not secular. The declarations, "There shall be no poor among you," no thief, no murderer, no adulterer, no slanderer, no covetous man, etc., must set us to the removal of poverty and crime. The kindness and gentleness to be shown to animals accord- ing to God's law, proves that it is not beneath the dignity of the Church to foster and support the efforts of the humane society." Testimony of Canon Freemantle. "The Hebrew law was lovable, because it incessantly demanded care for the poor. Just dealing in trade, respect for age, friendliness for neighbors. 104 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION dutifulness to parents, were all included under the same majestic sanction. To abuse the deaf, to make the blind go out of their way, were ac- tions accursed. When the harvest came the rich man was not to gather all the produce or to rake up every ear from the ground, but to leave some for the fatherless and widows to glean. In Israel the care of widows was the object of peculiar care, a care attributed to God Himself. When a poor man had pledged his garment, he was to be allowed the use of it for the night ; if he was in debt, no interest was to be charged him, and at the end of the jubilee year he was to be free; if he had sold himself into slavery, he was not to remain beyond the sixth year, and his wealthier brother whom he had served was not to send him away empty, but to give him help to recommence his career as a freeman." The book of Prov- erbs is still an excellent business manual. The teaching of the prophets, true statesmen because religious teachers of an ideal morality, may still be followed with profit in the councils of the nations. **The Jewish community was a brotherhood bound together by worship and a law of right- eousness, and it gave birth to the righteousness which is owned as complete, where that of Rome and Greece fails. The ideal we seek in modern times is that of a national community knit to- gether in all its relations by righteousness and THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 105 love, and caring especially for its weaker mem- bers. This neither Greece nor Rome did, but only the Jewish nation. Let those who would make Christianity merely a religious system apart from the common life of men, those who ascribe to it a sacerdotal or a dogmatic basis, those who conceive of God as apart from human rela- tions, and of religion as a merely individual con- nection with Him, see to it that they do not fall below the Hebrew ideal. Those who appreciate, that ideal most fully, and dwell most on the divine element pervading it, will see clearly that it points to none of these as its proper develop- ment, but to an all-embracing society, including the whole range of human interests and binding all men and classes and nations together in true relations, which are the work and the expression of the Spirit of God." Jehovah, the same yes- terday, to-day and forever, must desire for His people of the New Testament the ideal condi- tions He prescribed for those of the Old Testa- ment. THE GOSPELS The attitude of Jesus on the social question we gather from the Gospels. In quoting the ex- ample of Jesus we must not overlook two facts: First, that in His first advent He fulfilled the offices of Prophet and High Priest, and not that of King; and secondly, that He committed the work to the Holy Ghost and the Church. He 106 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Himself did not even baptize, and only on the last day of His earthly ministry instituted the Holy Communion. When we assert that He was no mere political or social reformer, we declare that He was more. He was a Teacher come from God, whose spir- itual message was to transform man and the con- ditions under which he lived. The regeneration of individuals must precede, and form the basis for, the reformation of communities and nations. He demonstrated to His disciples, and continues and renews that demonstration in every conver- sion, that right relation to God is fundamental to right relation to man and society, and that the salvation of one man was worth more than all this globe. Not a surface white-wash, but a thorough-going wash-white, is required. No clean clothes, no science or worldly wisdom, ean ever redeem the world. But Jesus also emphasizes social, national and world obligation. To Him the second command- ment, which referred to man and all his relations, was of like obligation as the first. In the story of the Jericho road. He taught that all men are our neighbors, whom we are to love as we love ourselves ; that race prejudice must be laid aside and that helpfulness must be extended according to need. In His "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's, He linked obligation to earthly and THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 107 heavenly rulers, to state and Church together. The Sermon on the Mount, His parables and the rest of His words and works set forth the ideal which He would have His disciples more and more realize on earth. His spiritual messages were never dissassociated from the physical needs of mankind, and all centered in bringing in the kingdom. The Epistles. "In almost every New Testa- ment epistle, while the first part deals with some Christian truth, the last part of the writing deals w^holly with social rights and duties. The stout stem of doctrine blossoms out into practical ethics. The Epistles to the Corinthians are ad- dressed to the 'wickedest city of the ancient world,' and there is hardly a form of social evil they do not discuss. The regulations of mar- riage, the lawlessness of divorce, the duties of parents and children, the Christian view of law- courts and litigation, the Christian attitude toward feasts and festivals, even women's dress and coiffure — these are a few of the subjects which the writer treats with utmost frankness. In other letters the apostle discusses respect for magistrates, obedience to law, the payment of taxes, honesty in financial transactions, the duty of self-support, the relation of master and slave. No modern treatise on social science is more obviously and directly concerned with social obli- 108 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION gations and abuses of every kind which set forth Christ as the Master of mankind." Prayer. The scope of the activities of a Chris- tian and of the Church is fix^ by what they should ask of God. They must be concerned for the things for which they pray. Read the prayers of the Bible in Old and New Testaments. Study carefully the Lord's Prayer and see what it in- cludes. Examine the Litany and the other prayers of the Church, and you will find that they are separate items of the Great Commission and that they range all the way from the giving and getting of daily bread to the proclamation and coming of the kingdom. They include the neces- sities and support of the life that now is and that which is to come. Prayer is communion with God, in which we feel His presence, enter into His fellowship, become His companions and consecrate our energies to fulfill His purpose. Our petitions for ourselves, our neighbors, the Church and all her interests, our nation and all the world, and what is for their good, are the things which, with His aid, we labor to accom- plish. We go to Him because we cannot do with- out Him, and He receives us that He may send us away with renewed strength to fulfill the desires of our hearts. The man who prays, and stops at that, has never prayed. The scope of prayer is the scope of both privilege and obliga- tion. THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 109 CHURCH AND STATE There are three institutions of God on earth: the family, the Church and the state. They are equally divine in origin and obligation: co-ordi- nate. Dr. Robert E. Speer, in "The Christian Man, the Church and the War," says, "The same man belongs to all three, and he cannot separate himself from any of them unless, of course, he becomes an outlaw from his family, an expatriate from his state, or foregoes his place in the Church." "Roughly, it suffices to characterize the family as the institute of affec- tions, the state as the institute of right, and the Church as the institute of humanity." The state has three functions: legislative, judi- cial and executive; it makes, interprets and executes its own laws. The Church never claims the right to any of these functions, but it has its God-given duty to protest against unjust legis- lation, a corrupt judiciary and a grafting execu- tive, and labors for righteousness in every depart- ment of life. The Church can no more stand by without protest and earnest exertions against in- justice by the state to any individual, class or nation, than the state can tolerate injustice by the Church. The Church is the body of which Christ is the Head. It is to speak and work for Him. She is to present the Christ in His threefold office of Prophet, Priest and King, He is the great 110 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Teacher, who speaks as man never spake, whom all men, subjects and rulers, are to heed. He is the Great High Priest who has reconciled us to God, through whom alone men can be saved. He is the God-appointed Ruler of the nations, whose righteous laws and principles alone bring bless- ing. She, as His body, His mouth, hands and feet, must testify and labor to have the state act Christlike in all its relations. She is the co- ivitness, the co-laborer and co-sufferer with the triune God. She must speak the Word which she hears from Him and do the work which He commands, even to the point of suffering. She may not take the law of the land in her own hands and execute a David for his crime against Uriah, but she must testify like Nathan until he repents and forsakes his sin. She may not com- pel Ahab to restore Naboth's vineyard, but she must testify and call upon God and the nation, and persist until the false prophets are shorn of their power, and justice reigns in Israel. She may not by force close the red light districts, but she can testify and labor for the enactment of righteous laws and for their equitable enforce- ment by those who have misused the offices en- trusted to them. She must pray and labor, zvit- ness and work to have accomplished in, for and among men the whole will of God. Her duty does not end with simply confessing and wit- nessing to the truth, but she must, by every power THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 111 within her and every opportunity, strive to make that truth the spring of action for men and nations. The reason which Luther gave for addressing the Christian nobility of the German nation in his day, instead of the clergy of his time, was, "In the hope that God may deign to help His Church through the effort of the laity, since the clergy, to whom the task more properly belongs, have grown quite indifferent." He not only in- sisted on personal regeneration, but on national reformation. He was no less under obligation to issue his address to the Christian nobility of Germany for the moral health of the nation than he was to nail the ninety-five theses for the sal- vation of men's souls. Surely opposition to, and removal of, all sin and labor for the maintenance and enthronement of righteousness is the special province and function of Christ's Church — clergy and laity alike. The question as to whether the Church in her official capacity, or Christians alone as citizens in their individual capacity, should labor for social justice and national righteousness, has been raised. It is a subterfuge, and leads into a blind alley. The Church is Christ's body, and indi- vidual Christians are the separate members of that body, joined to that body, and form that body. Each member of that body, collectively, is equally bound to do, as opportunity presents. 112 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION what God's Word demands. A Christian cannot do what the Church would not do if it possessed his opportunity. One has said, "The Church cannot go on preaching Christ to individuals and Machiavelli to the nation. At last the high gods weary of such stupidity, and send the deluge." The human agency must live the divine life, and then the world will believe. When the Church becomes one, in a unified program for the regeneration of the individual and of the world, there will be no difficulty in having the world believe it to be a divine institution and that Jesus is the Saviour of the race. All Questions Ethical and Religious in the End. Hence the Church is interested in all these ques- tions. Slavery was at first considered to be an economic question. When the results of such en- forced service manifested themselves more and more, the Christian conscience was aroused. There was then no splitting of hairs as to whether a man should testify and labor against slavery as a citizen or as a Christian, and when he should put on his citizenship and submerge his Chris- tianity, or vice versa. No one raised the ques- tion as to whether a woman like Harriet Beecher Stowe had a right to arouse sentiment by writ- ing "Uncle Tom's Cabin." No one thought it out of place for Christians as Christians and Churches as Churches, Synods as Synods and General Bodies as General Bodies, to resolve, THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 113 protest and stir up the nation until Abraham Lincoln signed the Declaration of Emancipation and freed four million slaves. The World War has forced us away from hare-brained theories to stern realities. The Church worked for Lib- erty Loans and encouraged her sons to enlist, decorated her sanctuaries with flags, and gath- ered her women into her churches to sew and knit. General Bodies and churches, as well as individuals, were encouraged to cheer the state, and this because we believed it to be a just war. Suppose we were engaged in an unjust war — what then ? Is God or the state supreme ? God's rule is, "As we therefore have opportunity (whether individual or collective Christians) let us do good." Certainly the priests' lips must keep knowledge and the Church must be fully assured before speaking in God's name. But having the more sure word, she must speak, and, being the servant of the Most High, she must toil and sacrifice to bring in the kingdom of God and its righteousness. THE KINGDOM OF GOD Among the inspired writers, from Moses to St. John, the hope of the world has been the establishment of the kingdom of God. On their way to Canaan, God said, "Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall ye be mine own possession, for all the 114 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION earth is mine ; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation." Here the national, and in Abraham the international, scope of the work is clearly taught. But they would not, and the kingdom was to be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. God finally finds a nation, for in the apocalyptic vision John de- clares, ''The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever." (Rev. 11:15.) The Kingdom Is Here and Yet to Come. The announcement of John, the forerunner, was, "Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Announced by the forerunner, present in every believer, congregation and conquest of righteous- ness, it will be completed in Christ. Some com- mentators regard the term "kingdom of heaven" as the present state, and "kingdom of God" as the final stage, of the kingdom. Christ's Sermon on the Mount and His parables are expositions of the kingdom. The Church is to labor for the establishment of the kingdom. By her diligence she can hasten, as by her negligence she has re- tarded, that blessed consummation. To the Church He has given the keys of the kingdom, that by Word and Sacrament she might loose men from their sin and unite them with God. Every conversion, every putting down of unright- eousness, marks the advance of the rule, the realm, the kingdom of God. THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 115 Daniel likens the kingdom to a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, coming down, overturning and displacing the kingdoms of the world, filling the earth with its power and glory. Amos sets forth its justice, Hosea its mercy, Micah its forgiveness, Isaiah its redemption, and Ezekiel its regeneration. Paul says, 'The king- dom of God is righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost." These terms set forth its essence, its ideals and its blessings. That king- dom was not "within" the Pharisees, but in their midst. It was there in its potentiality in Christ, the Redeemer and King. James, Peter and John did not see death until, on the Mount of Trans- figuration, they saw it in miniature, come with power. There was Jesus resplendent in glory, Moses a type of the risen, and Elijah of the translated saints, and there were James and John and Peter in the flesh, with gladness ready to abide forever. We distinguish hetzveen the extent and content of th^ kingdom. Many persons reside and labor in America who are aliens. There is much prop- erty which belongs to foreigners, and there are principles advocated and ideals upheld which are contrary to ours. They are in the extent, not in the content of the kingdom. The content of the kingdom is Jesus, its King. His co-regents are the children of the kingdom. Even after the second advent and on up to the harvest there will 116 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION be in the kingdom those who defile and make a lie. But when these are gathered out, when the risen and glorified saints shall rule with Christ, then the kingdom shall have come in its fullness, the distinction between content and extent will have vanished. Definitions. Vedder, in "Socialism and Ethics of Jesus,'' page 343 ff, says : "The kingdom in- deed connoted the ideas of a commonwealth of righteousness, peace and plenty. The kingdom was one in which God should rule, righteousness should prevail, good triumph, in which the poor in spirit shall come to their own, the meek inherit the earth, the merciful obtain mercy, and the peacemakers be called the children of God. It was the conception of a society, ordered by law. If Jesus could have won the Jews to acceptance of His spiritual kingdom of God and re-organ- ized society, Jerusalem would have been saved, and the Jewish race would have been promoted to the hegemony of the earth. 'Tt is a kingdom impossible to the natural man ; so as to enter it, he must be born again from above. Men cannot compel the coming of such a kingdom as the Spirit, though they can do much to hasten it. God alone can set it up. The kingdom and the power and the glory are His. "It is the marked feature of the teaching of Jesus that He holds in just equipoise the two THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 117 great, equally necessary, ethical truths : first, that society cannot be regenerated except by the birth of individual souls into a new life ; and, secondly, that the individual cannot exist apart from so- ciety, and cannot be saved apart from his social relations. "They miss the mark altogether, therefore, who say that Jesus was concerned solely with the world of spirit, that He endeavored to found an exclusively spiritual community. To accept His teaching was and is impossible without making an attempt to carry them into every relation of life. The teachings of Jesus are spiritual, no doubt, but their effect, just so far as they really prevail, is necessary to reconstitute the individual spirit not only, but to reconstitute the society in which the Christian spirits dwell. "We find Him describing the kingdom as both present and future, that is to say, a present pos- session, whose full consummation lies in the future, when God's love shall have completely conquered the evil in the world and restored men to His likeness." Edersheim says: "Three ideas did the king- dom of God imply : universality, heavenliness, permanency. Wide as God's domain would be His dominion; holy as heaven in contrast to earth, and God to man, would be its character; and triumphantly lasting its continuance." The kingdom is a gift and a task : a "gabe und aufgabe." 118 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Duty the Same, Though Viezvs Differ. Whether we be post- or pre-millenialists, able with the present means and agencies to estab- Hsh the kingdom in its fullness or hastening His coming for that purpose, the establishment of the kingdom must be the divine ideal for which we labor. The kingdom is the divinely fixed goal, and the degree of its realization in the march of time depends on the fidelity and intelligence of the Church. Prophecy is the fore-announcement of the divinely fixed goal and of the winding course of history, contingent upon the conduct of men, be it good or evil. It is a warning against sin and an incentive to righteousness. The pre- dicted destruction of Nineveh is reversed when that city repents at the preaching of Jonah. The sentence of the immediate death of Hezekiah is suspended and fifteen years added to his life when he beseeches the Lord. The Saviour sends His Spirit with special charismata upon Israel, that they repent and receive seasons of refresh- ing from the presence of the Lord instead of the doom pronouncd. There is nothing in the prophecy that the faith will be at a low ebb at the second advent, to compel any individual or individuals to be without the faith, nor force this or any other nation to be allied with antichrist in the final conflict. We can, if we will, turn the course of history without changing its goal. We can do far more than we have done. The rule THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIOxNS 119 of God, justice and mercy, has permeated govern- ments of the earth, and the people of God can more and more enlarge its blessed dominion and occupy until Christ comes for its perfection. The present dispensation is that of the Spirit in and through the Church. It is "Man's Day," the day of the good and of the evil. The All- Power of Jesus is at the command of the good. As co-workers with the Father, co-witnesses with the Spirit and co-sufferers with the Son, they can, if they will, put to flight the army of the aliens and bring in the kingdom more and more. One shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. THE DIVINE IDEAL The kingdom of God is the divine ideal, and its ultimate establishment the purpose of God. This is the burden of the prophets, the song of the psalmists, the message of Jesus and the apos- tles, and the vision of John from his lonely Pat- mos. It has been impending and depending. On God's part all things have been ready for its consummation. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. He has commanded His Church to gather out the kings and priests and to prepare the way for His kingdom. We are to be witnesses for Him ; to use the Word and Sacra- ment to bring individuals into saving relation with God, to stand at all times and in all places against every wrong and for every right, indi- 120 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION vidual, social, national and international, and to seek to realize on earth what Jesus taught us to pray. } Hallowed be Thy name ; Thy kingdom come; }-0n earth as in heaven. Thy will be done; Finally, since to the Christian nothing is secu- lar and all is sacred, he must seek to bring all things into God's service. Since Christianity is a life which acts in harmony with the divine will, that life will seek to bring everything with which it comes in contact into harmony with God : per- sons, groups, business, politics. It must over- come a sinful heredity and transform an evil environment. Since human agency must co- operate with God that His will may be done on earth, that human agency must be God's agent in all it does and leaves undone, and in all its contacts. If all creation fell with its head, then redemption involves the bringing of all that fell back to its primal condition, and we are workers together with God and must be engaged in this to the full extent of our ability. As the will of God is expressed in the decalogue and in the spe- cific inculcations of the Old and New Testa- ments, and as these laws of God cover every relation of Hfe, the Church as Christ's body, and Christians as individual members thereof, are to THE SCOPE OF HOME MISSIONS 121 seek to have all things ordered in harmony with the will of God as set forth in those laws. As prayer is communion with God for personal holi- ness and power to do His will, the things for which it is our duty to pray are the things which we are to accomplish. In short, the Church is set for the transformation of the individual, the home, society, the nation and the world by the power and principles of Christianity, and to bring to bear the Word of God upon all the relations of life. When the Church shall set forth fully and clearly the gracious purpose of God and shall do what it can toward its realization, the wronged children of men will see in Christ their hope, and the oppressed people will find Him the Desire of the nations. She must christianize business, so- ciety, education, art, science, the nation and the nations. Christ all and in all is the ideal to be realized. CHAPTER VI America Fundamental to World Evan- gelization One of the great problems of our day is the problem of so releasing in our lands those energies of the Chris- tian faith, in which we believe, that they will make out of the very character of our nation an unanswer- able proclamation of Christ to all the world of men. — Robert E. Speer. This is the day of America's opportunity and responsibility. God is not dependent upon us, that His work will fail if we fail Him. But if we now fail Him, the incoming of the kingdom will be delayed, whilst He prepares the nation which w^ill not fail Him. THE QUEST FOR A NATION The Sacraments individualize the grace of God, and hence God deals with individuals. The Word makes its address to groups, to nations, to the world, as well as to individuals, and so God deals with groups, nations and the world. We act in groups; there is national influence; there is world trend; and God would have us conse- crate them all to His service. He called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, not only that he might be saved and in turn save 122 FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 123 Other individuals, but that he might be the father of a nation and in him and his seed "all the na- tions of the earth" might be blessed. With this nation He had made His covenant at Sinai. This nation He was ready to blot out for its sins in the wilderness, and make a new beginning by constituting Moses and his seed "a nation might- ier and greater than they." (Deut. 9: 14.) He calls Israel *'my people" and speaks of them as "the blessed nation." Not only will all men "be blessed in Him," but "all nations shall call Him blessed." (Ps. 62: 11, 17.) It was in Holy Week, on the morning of the 13th of Nisan, the day before His crucifixion, the day on which He cursed the barren fig tree, typical of the Jewish nation, the day He uttered the parable of the vineyard, and met the various political and religious parties which tried to en- tangle Him in His talk; it was on this day that he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and an- nounced the rejection of Israel, ''Therefore I say unto yon, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof." (Matt. 21 143. ) This is a remarkable statement, and its full force is only beginning to dawn upon us as the Holy Spirit is unfolding God's purpose more fully in these opening years of the twentieth century and in this era of solidarity. The nation and not the Church must nationalize and internationalize 124 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the kingdom. The Church is the body of Christ and is in order to the kingdom. She is the body through which the living Head speaks and labors among individuals and nations for the accom- plishment of His gracious purposes. The king- dom belonged to Israel. But they proved un- worthy, and now it was to be *'given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." WESTWARD Jerusalem destroyed, Israel scattered, a new era, a new dispensation begins. The faithful remnant led by the Spirit of God made Antioch the new missionary center, Paul on his second journey is divinely prevented from doing any- thing except to wait at Troas on the ^gean Sea for the direction of the Holy Spirit. In the night he sees a vision : A man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him and saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." Concluding that God had called them to preach the Gospel to a new continent, they immediately set sail and reached Philippi, a city of Macedonia, the first of the district and a Roman colony. On the Sabbath day they went to the banks of the river where they supposed was a house of prayer, and there they found Lydia and her household worshiping God. As Paul spake unto the women, the Lord opened the heart of Lydia, and she requested baptism for herself and her house. There on that FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 125 Sabbath day, the first converts were made in Europe ; and God was passing through that con- tinent, as He has already through that of Asia and Africa, seeking a nation to which He could entrust leadership of the Lord's host for the establishment of the kingdom. "Westward," says the poet, "the star of empire wends its way," and that because the feet of those who bring glad tidings and publish peace have been the advance guard. It is because the cross of Jesus, the sym- bol of victory and power, has been going on before. To accomplish "the one increasing pur- pose which runs through the ages," the nations of Europe were sifted, and whilst each contrib- uted something to the work, none produced the fruits thereof. The story of their apostasy, their failure and inappreciation are read and known to all men. Beyond the pillars of Hercules and to Ultima Thule God searched until the Atlantic interrupted the course, and still found no nation to be entrusted with the kingdom. A NEW BEGINNING, WESTWARD STILL God had preser\^ed to Himself a remnant and had reserved a continent by which it was to be peopled and dominated, and to whom was to be given the opportunity to evangelize the world. When in 1453, thirty years before the birth of Luther, the Turks took Constantinople, and the crescent displaced the cross, and the Koran the 126 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Bible, over the lands which had apostatized from the teachings of the apostles, it seemed to be the darkest hour of Christendom. But it was the birthday of a new era. Two great events, linked together in history and providence, inevitably followed. They were the Reformation in Europe, whose head was Luther, and the discovery of America, for which we honor the daring and persevering Columbus. They were the types and symbols of a coming and a receding age. Luther was the growing boy, the developing youth, the coming man, the representative of a new and better age. Columbus was an old man, the rep- resentative of a decadent Church, a dying creed and a vanishing civilization. And it was only when Luther was learning lessons at his mother's knee and developing that remarkable mind and heart and preparing himself for his world mis- sion, that God permitted Columbus to sail and open up a continent in which the principles of a revived Christianity were to have a growing free- dom, to bless its and the world's inhabitants. The Reformation. When the persecuting Turks conquered Constantinople, they closed those Christian schools which had been the light of the Middle Ages and persecuted its professors. These were compelled to go elsewhere in order to continue their calling and earn a livelihood. Many of them came to Germany. They brought with them the lore of ancient Greece and Rome, FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 127 the writings of the Church fathers and manu- script copies of the sacred Scriptures. These were translated into the language of the people and by means of the printing press were pub- lished and sold at a price accessible to those who thirsted for knowledge and panted for truth. The revival of learning began. Schools and uni- versities sprang up everywhere. The University of Erfurt became the most progressive institu- tion of Europe, the home of German humanism. It was here that Luther imbibed those principles of civil and religious liberty and in its library found that Book divine which changed his whole life. Then followed in rapid succession his struggles in the monastery, his teaching and in- vestigation in the University of Erfurt, his Bibli- cal lectures at the University of Wittenberg, his preaching in the town church, his ninety-five theses, his heroic stand at Worms, his translation of the Bible, and the resultant Reformation. The Discovery of America. Venice and Genoa were the leading commercial cities of the day. Genoa carried on its commerce with India through Constantinople. The plundering Turk robbed the caravans which were sent by Genoa to India and those which returned. The com- mercial prominence of Genoa was destroyed. Unless a new route could be discovered to India, it could not be revived. Columbus, a native of that city, was deeply concerned and pondered the 128 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION problem of finding a new route whereby her com- merce could be revived and enlarged. Con- vinced that he could succeed, he laid his plans before the city fathers only to be rebuffed. He interviews King John II of Portugal. He goes to England. On his second visit he enlists the support of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. An expedition is fitted out, and on the twelfth of October, 1492, he landed on the island of San Salvador, and the new continent, destined to play an important part in making the principles of the Reformtion dominant on the entire globe, is discovered. Luther and Columbus. The Reformation and the discovery of America are the pivots on which the history of the modern world turns. God had a purpose in each. When Luther was born, Columbus was at Lisbon pleading with John II. When Luther was nine years old, laying the foundations of his education and preparing him- self for his world task at Magdeburg, Columbus set sail for America. When the fifteen-year-old boy was earning his way through the schools at Magdeburg and Eisenach, Columbus was on his third voyage. When he was at the University of Erfurt, the navigator was on his fourth voyage. When Luther buried himself in the monastery to find the salvation of his own soul and gain that experience which made him the irresistible man of God, Columbus was laid in FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 129 the tomb. W^hen Luther stood before the Em- peror of Germany at the Diet of Worms on the i8th day of April, 1521, Cortez, in the name of that same ruler, seized the capital of Montezuma in Mexico and made the first conquest in Amer- ica. The work of Columbus was finished at his death, while that of Luther goes on with increas- ing power and blessing. THE STRUGGLE The Reformation sweeps over Europe ; and the foremost nations — Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and England — stand for prog- ress. On July 26, 1 58 1, after a wearisome con- flict, Holland declared • her independence from Spain. In 1588, the invincible Spanish armada was destroyed by the wind in the English Chan- nel, Protestant England became supreme on the ocean, and Catholic Spain never recovered. In 1648, by the peace of Westphalia, at the end of the thirty years' war, Germany had won her re- ligious freedom, and that of the European na- tions and of the world. But the contest for supremacy was transferred to the New World. William A. Mowery, in his preface to "Colonial Growth of the United States," says, "The special favor of divine Provi- dence toward the country appears again and again in the course of our history, particularly in the results of the old French and Indian \\'ars, in 130 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the purchase of Louisiana, the acquisition of New Mexico and California, and the saving of Oregon from the grasp of the EngHsh." On September 13, 1759, the defeat of Mont- calm on the Plains of Abraham, by Wolfe, was an unlucky day for the Catholic Church. The French lost their last hold on North America. By 1819, New Spain had receded from Florida, and soon thereafter from the entire continent. New Portugal prolonged her existence a little longer, and to-day there is no land on the West- ern Continent, from the North to the South Pole, dominated by Rome. The nations of Europe now began to extend their dominion still further westward beyond the Atlantic. There a nation was to be established which was to be dominant on the Western Conti- nent and exert a beneficial influence upon the nations of the earth. Paul, from Mars' Hill, an- nounced the principle, both of the equality of all men and the special favor of God to the faithful nations when he said, "The God that made the world, and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is He served by men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Him- self giveth to all life, and breath and all things, and He made of one every nation of men for to dwell over all the face of the earth, having deter- mined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 131 their habitation; that they should seek God." (Acts 17:24-27.) We shall have occasion to refer again to this passage, but here we note the "appointed seasons" for the settlement of the country and the growing extent of the bounds of the habitation. SUCCESSION OF COLONIES AND SETTLEMENTS In 1607 the first Protestant colony was planted by Lord Raleigh in Jamestown, Va. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers founded Plymouth Rock. In 1621 the Dutch Reformed, and among them Lutherans, settled in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1634 Maryland, and in 1636 Rhode Island and Connecticut were settled. In 1638 the Swedish colony projected by Gustavus Adolphus was established in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1663 the Carolinas were occupied. In 1664 the Duke of York pre- sented parts of New Jersey to Lord Berkeley. In 1682 William Penn and his Quakers came to Pennsylvania. In 1691 the New Hampshire col- ony began. In 1733 Oglethorpe began the settle- ment of Georgia. In 1800 the colonies occupied but a thin fringe of territory bordering on the Atlantic. We fol- low the providence of God as He extends their habitation to the Pacific. In 1803 President Jef- ferson sent James Monroe as a special envoy to secure from Napoleon the eastern territory bor- 132 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION dering on the Mississippi down to the Gulf and offer for the same the sum of five milHon dollars. France was engaged in war with England and the latter had sent a fleet to seize the Louisiana territory. On Easter Sunday, April lo, whilst attending services, Napoleon was troubled over the possible disaster to his possession and sent for Robert Livingston, the United States Min- ister, for consultation. By this time James Mon- roe had arrived, and, contrary to instructions, the agreement at fifteen million dollars was signed by which the vast area now occupied by Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado north of the Arkansas, Wy- oming, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, and Montana, was added to our possessions. In spite of Jefferson's misgivings, and of bitter partisan opposition, the agreement was ratified at a special session of Congress, in October. As Napoleon signed the treaty, he said, ''Whatever nation shall hold the Mississippi Valley will be the most powerful nation on earth. This acces- sion of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States. I have just given England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." In 1 8 19 we exchanged Texas with Spain for Florida and a strip of territory stretching across the southern end of Mississippi and Alabama and her claims on the Columbia River. In 1836 FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 133 Texas, then a province of Mexico and settled largely by Americans, under the presidency of Sam Houston, formerly governor of Tennessee, declared its independence and asked admission into the Union. The political parties were di- vided, but in 1845 Texas was admitted by act of Congress. Our claim to the strip of land between the Rio Grande and Nuerces Rivers, three hun- dred miles long by fifty to one hundred wide, in- volved us in a war with Mexico. In an un- broken series of victories we were successful, and the war ended by the taking of Vera Cruz, March 27, 1847. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848, Mexico, in addition to the above strip, ceded to the United States all the territory comprising parts of Colorado and Wyoming, and all of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and California. THE INDIAN APPEAL The Lewis and Clark exploration and its con- tact with the Nez Perces Indians had awakened in them a desire for the white man's Book of heaven. Four of their chiefs were sent to St. Louis and were received by General Clark, the Suprintendent of Indian Affairs for the North- Vvcst. They took them to the theater, to the Roman Catholic churches, and feted them at ban- quets. Two of the chiefs died and were there buried. When they tendered them a farewell re- 134 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ception, one of the chiefs made this touching speech : ''We came to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with one eye partly opened, for more light for my people who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers who came with me — the braves of many winters and wars — we leave asleep here by your great water. They were tired in many moons and their mocassins wore out. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of heaven. You took me where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the Book was not there. You took me where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the Book was not there. You showed me the images of good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them. I am going back the long, sad trail to my people of the dark land. You make my feet heavy with the burdens of gifts, and my mocassins will grow old in carrying them, but the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people, after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not ]>ring the Book, no word will be spoken by our FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 135 old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting-grounds. No white man will go with them, and no white man's Book, to make the way plain. I have no more words." THE OREGON TERRITORY This appeal found its way into the public press. The Methodist Episcopal Conference sent Rev. Jason Lee and his companion in 1834. In the sam.e year the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions sent Rev. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman, M.D. At the American headquarters on the Green River they conferred with the Nez Perces and Flathead Indian chiefs. Whitman returning with two of the Nez Perces boys to report to the Board, he again journeyed westward accompanied by his bride and Rev. H. H. Spaulding, and settled in their new house at Waiilatpu, twenty-five miles from Fort Walla Walla, December 10, 1836. The Oregon territory included Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and W^yoming, an area thirty-two times as large as Massachusetts. In his missionary work among the Cayuse, Nez Perces and Flathead Indians, he experienced the vicious influence of the Hudson Bay Company, which "stopped the extension of civilization and had excluded the light of religious truth." It 136 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION debauched whilst it defrauded the Indian. In league with Catholic priests he saw that the com- pany was determined to place that territory under the permanent control of Great Britain and to put an end to the mission. In the fall of 1842 he resolved that he would return East (i) to confer with his Board con- cerning the mission and (2) to save the territory to the United States. One of his associates pro- tested, "Brother Whitman, we think you better attend to your missionary duties and let politics alone." To which he replied, **I was a man before I was a missionary, and when I became a missionary I did not expatriate myself." Octo- ber 3 he started, and on March 3 he reached Washington and laid the burden of his mission before President Tyler and Secretary of State Daniel Webster. He returned with a larger col- ony, and the Oregon territory, by the providence of God, was added to the United States. POSSESSIONS COMPLETED The discovery of gold in California in 1848 induced a large migration from the northern states which resulted in its admission as a state into the Union in 1850 and the prevention of the extension of slavery to any new territory. When a dispute arose as to the boundary east of the Colorado River because of the inaccur- acies of the maps employed in the treaty of FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 137 Guadalupe, a commission was appointed, and for $10,000,000 we secured from Mexico in 1853 a section of land lying south of the Gila River, known as the Gadsden Purchase. In 1783, by treaty of peace with Great Britain, the boundary of the United States was fixed. In 1803 the Louisiana territory was purchased from France. In 182 1, by treaty with Spain, we acquired Florida. In 1836 Texas declared her independence, applied for admission to the United States, which, after a long and bitter discussion, was accomplished nine years later. In 1845 the war with Mexico followed and New Mexico and California were ceded. Five years afterward we acquired the Masilla Valley. And in 1867 we secured Alaska. Thus the small strip of territory originally occupied by the thirteen colonies grew until it stretched from coast to coast. AND WESTWARD STILL TO WORLD POWER There appears a ^'manifest destiny" in the ad- dition of territory in rapid succession without a manifest desire on the part of the nation. We had determined and deliberately set ourselves to limit our activities and interests to this Western Continent, with the avowed purpose that we should not be drawn into any entangling alliances with other nations. But westward still the star of empire forced us as we carried the cross of power to the islands of the sea. 138 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION In 1778 Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands. In the following year he was seized and killed by the natives in a conflict which occurred over the stolen ship, the return of which he demanded. In 1809 two Hawaiian boys, Opuckahia and Hopu, came to the United States in an American vessel and were placed in Yale College, New Haven, to be educated. Others followed and entered the mission school at Cornell, Conn. Great interest was awakened, and in 1819 fourteen missionaries, clerical and lay, accompanied the natives, John Honoree, Thomas Hopu and William Tennoe, educated at Cornell, to begin that remarkable enterprise in those islands. In 1820 the principal chiefs de- stroyed all their idols and temples. In 1840 the absolute monarchy became a constitutional gov- ernment. In 1 89 1 the last King Kalakaua died in San Francisco. Liliuokalani, his sister, became queen, and the revolution occurred in 1895. Sanford B. Dole, of American parentage, but a native of the island, accepted the presidency of the Executive Committee of Public Safety. Ap- plication for annexation was made to the United States. After many delays, the House, on the 15th of June, 1898, and the Senate on the 6th of July, passed the bill which was signed by Presi- dent McKinley. On August 12 the sovereignty was transferred to the United States at Hono- lulu with prayer and thanksgiving. FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 139 In 1897 the people of the United States were greatly aroused by the cruelties perpetrated upon the Cubans by General Weyler in command of the Spanish Army. President McKinley, in his message December 6, reviewed the history of the island and our relations to the same. On Janu- ary 24, 1898, the ''Maine" was sent on a friendly visit to Cuban waters and was destroyed on Feb- ruary 15. April 19 Congress demanded that Cuba should be free, that the Spanish Govern- ment relinquish all claims, that the President be empowered to use all naval and land forces for the above purpose, and that we disclaim any in- tention of exercising any control beyond the paci- fication of the island. On April 21 Spain de- clared war on the United States. The Spanish fleets at Manila on May i, and in Santiago Har- bor July 3, were destroyed, and the island of Guam was captured June 21. The treaty of peace, concluded December 10, provides: 1. Spain relinquishes all claim and sovereignty over and title to Cuba. 2. Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Rico and the other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam in the Marimos or Ladrones. 3. Spain cedes to the United States the archi- pelago known as the Philippine Islands. The United States will pay the sum of $20,000,000 within three months after the exchange of the 140 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ratifications of the present treaties. Formal ratifications were exchanged April ii, 1898. Thus Porto Rico, Ponce, Guam and the Philip- pines were added to our possessions. We have outlined at some length the growth of our territory in order that from our "national base" we might catch a glimpse of our world mission. You could lay down all the great and influential kingdoms of the world, such as Ger- many, Great Britain, France and Japan, almost twice on our territory east of the Mississippi. Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Palestine, France, Germany, Denmark, Bulgaria and European Turkey, Roumania, Cuba, Jamaica and Spain do not cover a territory equal to that we occupy east of the Father of Waters. On our territory west of that stream you could lay down Greece and Australia, Great Britain and Italy, Japan and the sixteen provinces of China. God has made the bounds of our habitation large for a large mission. god's intentions are larger When Seward was Secretary of State, his aversion to England for the wrongs she had com- mitted during the Civil War prevented him from exercising the same wisdom he did in the matter of Alaska. Says Albert Shaw : "The British Government, in token of goodwill and to repair all the errors of the past, had offered to us its FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 141 rrT — »,- «> •« '"'"4"" , '\t --X \- \ A \\ P^ ^ 1 ^^ Jf^f-' i |>W {P^ tE ^ i -^ Kj 1^ V. / m ' ' T -7^ i 7 7*5 mi jp+ IJ 1 ■-/ / ^ i^ ^^' •- •s 142 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION great territory of the Northwest (from Ontario to the Pacific), which would have added almost as much to our dominion as the entire extent of the United States." God had placed it within our reach ; the narrowness and prejudice of an otherwise great man prevented its possession. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST When Karl Von Ritter was writing his work on Comparative Geography, he was struck by the remarkable difference between the configura- tion of the continents of Europe, Asia, and that of America. He was convinced that God in the creation of the world had fixed the bounds of habitation for each nation, making them large or small according to the fidelity and wisdom with which they set to the fulfillment of their God-given task. In many cases they entered not into that fullness of their possible possessions because of unbelief. He realized that rivers and mountains were the natural boundaries which separate nations and form the area in which they fulfill -their destiny. He saw that the mountains of Europe and Asia run along the parallels of latitude, east and west, leaving small valleys in between and by the direction of their streams enclosing a national area of a single temperature. He concluded that God intended these continents to be the home of small tribes and nations, which in their individual isolation were to develop their FUNDAMENTAL TO WORLD EVANGELIZATION 143 own national peculiarities as a contribution to the world at large. But the mountains of America run along the meridians of longitude, north and south, from the North to the South Pole, giving ready access to its inhabitants to all the climates, to the products of all the zones, enabling them to go without let or hindrance from the farthest north to the farthest south, and he concluded that God intended America to become the home of a great people and hence made the bounds of their habitation large. Therefore the significance of the expansion of our nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific over all the mountains and into all the valleys from which they could extend their do- minion from the North to the South Pole over the entire Western Continent. Our statesmen had not planned, but were thrust into, the pur- chase of the Louisiana territory. By the acci- dent of war we first reached the Pacific through California, and by the devotion of Marcus Whit- man for the spread of the kingdom we extended our dominion to the same highway through the Oregon territory. This gives our nation ready access to the products of all the climates, enabling us to live self-contained within ourselves, in pos- session of all the necessities and even luxuries of earth, though surrounded by all the nations of the world. Our expanding territory and grow- ing mission constrained the enactment of the Monroe Doctrine, which forced us into the pro- 144 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION tection of the rights of all nations on this conti- nent. The unselfish war of 1898, by which we offered up our treasure and best blood to give Cuba independence, and started Porto Rico and the Philippines on the way to self-government, thrust us into world politjcs. We placed our first outpost in the Hawaiian Islands and our second at the gate of the ancient nations in the East. As this necessitated the project of the Panama Canal, by which, "The land divided — the world united," we were brought into more intimate relation to the peoples of the southern part of this continent and of the world. CHAPTER VII America and World Evangelization He does most to hasten the coming of the kingdom who does most to make America thoroughly Christian. I do not say that God loves an American more than He loves an African or a Mongolian ; I do not say, save America for America's sake; but I do say, save America for the world's sake. — Josiah Strong. THE MESSIANIC NATION Isaiah, in the fifty-fifth chapter and the fifth verse, addresses the Messiah in these words: "Behold, Thou shalt call a nation that Thou knowest not, and a nation that knew not Thee shall run unto Thee because of the Lord Thy God and for the Holy One of Israel; for He hath glorified Thee." The Hebrew verb, trans- lated "know," means more than intellectual knowledge or acquaintance. It signifies such an intimacy as results in intercourse, communion and fellowship. The Messiah was to call a na- tion with which He had had no fellowship, com- munion or intercourse, because it was not in ex- istence; and through this nation, other nations which had no connection with Christ were to be brought to Him. The Christ had foreseen Is- rael's fall, the failure of the nations of Asia, 145 146 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Africa and Europe to measure up to the trust of world evangelization. Each in turn had made their contribution, and each was to make subse- quent contributions, but all of them were wanting in elements needed for the sublime task. So God waited, as He was constrained to wait, until the de-formed Church was re-formed according to the apostolic pattern, until the Reformation had given Christianity its new freedom and America had been opened as a virgin soil on which to develop a nation, through which He might ac- complish His blessed purpose in the world. THE TIME OF SETTLEMENT God had "determined the appointed seasons" for the populating of this continent, for the rise of our nation and for the "bounds of its habita- tion." We have already seen the providential connec- tion between the Reformation in Europe and the discovery of America. The history of the nations of the continent demonstrates, like those of Asia and Africa, that their response to the call of God was not such as to warrant the trust of leader- ship to any of them. They had among them great and noble spirits, whose principles, drawn from the divine Word, raised their nations to a higher stage of civilization, but which needed to come to ever-increasing fullness and fruition under new and unhampered surroundings. AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 147 Mightily they wrought and strongly God moved to thwart the purposes of the nations which per- secuted the faith and raised up those which re- ceived it, all in order that it might have a new beginning in a new continent to send back its blessings to the old. For this reason the Refor- mation was triumphant in Germany, in the Neth- erlands, in all Scandinavia and in England. For this reason the invincible Armada w^as destroyed in the English Channel, the power of Catholic Spain was broken, and Protestant England be- came the great maritime power of the world. For this reason none of the Catholic nations of Europe ever gained a strong foothold north of the Rio Grande, and what they gained they were subsequently constrained to surrender. And for this reason all the nations of Europe who had persecuted the ''Way" lost every inch of terri- tory they possessed even to the south of the Rio Grande, For this reason New Spain and New France disappeared, and New England, New Netherlands, New Sweden and the other col- onies and colonists were merged into the new nation. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TIME OF SETTLEMENT Without a knowledge of the above facts, it would be inexplicable that an all-wise God should have permitted this, the richest of all continents, the best-located for world influence, to remain 148 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION unknown and uninhabited, except by a few sav- ages, from the days of creation to those of the Reformation. Why should its settlement begin in those days and not before? If America had been settled in the year looo, when the Norse- men brought back tidings of a new world, it would have been settled by persecuting Roman Catholics. Rome would have been intrenched on both sides of the Atlantic and the Reforma- tion would have been strangled in its birth. Hence God waited 492 years longer, until Martin Luther was nine years old, before He permitted a Columbus to sail. He waited until the Refor- mation had developed and then opened up in the northern temperate zone, the zone of power, an asylum for all the oppressed and persecuted. God had a prepared land on the western slope of the Atlantic in the year 1000 and before, but He did not have a prepared people to occupy it, and had no one to prepare them until Luther was born. Then, too, God saw how impossible it was for the pure principles of the Reformation to make much headway against the incrusted medi- evalism of the Old World, and hence He opened up the New. Here was a virgin soil in which the seed of the kingdom could be sown and grow to bring forth rich fruit for the homelands and for the whole world. Here v»'as to grow up a free Church, undominated by a corrupt state, a Church which in turn was to develop a free state AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 149 which would shed its beneficent influence upon all nations. Here a nation was to grow strong because it had laid at the foundation and woven into its entire structure the fundamental princi- ples of the Bible as brought to light by the Ref- ormation. In turn it has touched with its hal- lowed fire the nations whose emigrants it wel- comed. SOME TESTIMONIALS Nearly two hundred years ago Bishop Berkeley wrote : "Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four acts already past, . A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is its last." John Adams, in his reminiscences, says: "Nothing is more ancient in my memory than the observation that arts, sciences and empire have traveled westward, and in conversation it was always added that their next leap would be over the Atlantic into America." De Torqueville saw here the home of one hun- dred and fifty million happy people, ''equal to- gether, who will all belong to the same family, who will have the same point of departure, the same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and over which thought will circulate in the same form and paint itself in the same colors." 150 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Chevalier, writing in 1867, declared: "History shows that the civilization on vvhich we depend is subject to a general law which makes it jour- ney by halts, in the manner of armies, in the direction of the Occident, making the scepter pass successively into the hands of nations more worthy to hold it, more strong and more able to employ it for the general good. So it seems that the supreme authority is about to escape from Western and Central Europe to pass to the New- World." Emilio Castelar, addressing the Span- ish Cortes in 1871, spoke of America as the conti- nent of the future, stretched by God between the Atlantic and the Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay and resolve all social problems. Vis- count Bryce voiced the opinion that we have before us as a nation untold ages for the enjoy- ment of conditions far more auspicious than any European country can count upon. "And that America marks the highest level," he says, "not only of material well-being, but of intelligence and happiness, which the race has yet attained, will be the judgment of those who look not at the favored few for whose benefit the world seems hitherto to have framed its institutions, but at the whole body of the people." THE PURPOSE OF T?IE SETTLERS The people who first came to this continent and the object for which they settled it, reveal AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 151 God's providence no less than the time of its occurrence. They came to establish God's king- dom. This stands without a parallel upon the pages of history. True, Paul and his companions crossed the yEgean Sea and preached the Gospel in Europe in order to win the continent for Christ. They did not, however, colonize Europe for the purpose. They were but transitory mis- sionaries of the cross. They were not accom- panied or followed by colony after colony who colonized Europe for the purpose of setting up and extending the kingdom of God. Such, how- ever, was the avowed purpose and the active propaganda of all the colonies established in America from north to south, from east to west. Isabella sent Columbus that "she might emi- nently contribute to diffuse the light and truth of the Gospel." Columbus said, "God made me a messenger of the new heavens and new earth," and he consecrated the land to the cross. In the charter of the Virginia Colony, given by King James I, was written, "We, greatly commending and graciously accepting of thine desire for the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty, on propa- gating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness." In the New England charter of 1620 was written, "And last because the principal effect, which we can desire or ex- 152 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION pect of this action, is the conversion and reduc- tion of the people of those parts to the true wor- ship of God and the Christian reHgion." When the Pilgrim Fathers marched down the slopes of Leyden to embark for the New World, Rev. Mr. Robinson read these significant words : "Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy fathers' house, unto the land that I will show thee : and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse ; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 12:1-3.) The colony at New Amsterdam in 162 1 had a similar purpose. The Massachusetts colony in 1628 sought to "win and incite the natives of that country with knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind and the Christian faith, which is the principal end of this plantation." The Maryland charter of 1632 declares that "Cecil Calvert was animated with a laudable and pious zeal for extending the Chris- tian religion." The citizens of the Connecticut government associated themselves in 1638 "to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." The colony of New Sweden, on the banks of the Delaware, founded in 1638, began the spread- AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 153 ing of the Gospel among the Indians, and granted rehgious tolerance to early settlers and promised peace and liberty to the people. Roger Williams established the colony in Rhode Island for a similar purpose. The Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania made this their motto: *'We lay a foundation for after ages to understand their liberty as Christians and as men." Charles II stated in the Carolina charter that the applicants had been "excited with a laud- able and pious zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith." The Georgia charter, granted to Oglethorpe and his Lutheran and Moravian colonists, who had escaped from persecutions of the Old World, was "for the purpose of freedom of worship and the spread of the Gospel." Bar- row says of Whitman and Spalding and their missionary band, as they occupied the Oregon territory : "Then, spreading their blankets and lifting the American flag, they all kneeled around the Book, and with prayer and praise took pos- session of the western side of the continent for Christ and the Church." Thus from east to west, from north to south, the people who colonized the territory occupied by the United States of America, consecrated it to the service of Jehovah. This is as significant as it is singular and unexampled. Here God found the foundation for the nation, to which, above all nations. He could entrust the extension 154 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION of His kingdom. Will our nation fail Him? God grant that she may bring forth the fruits of the kingdom ! I. THE FREE CHURCH The Church and churches were first to be formed, and out of them were to grow the states and the nation. The great Reformer and his enlightened associates in Europe had desired a free Church and a free state in harmony with the principles of our holy religion. They had recognized the province of each as co-ordinate institutions, equally divine and equally respons- ible to God to work in harmony with His will as expressed in His Word. They were con- vinced it was not by might nor by power, but by the operation of His Spirit working through Word and Sacrament, and, by the co-witnessing ot the two faithful witnesses, that the work would be crowned with success. They knew that the oppression of rulers and the wrongs suffered by the people would cease as the principles of revived Christianity, so generally acknowledged, would be inwoven with the woof and warp of social and political institutions. But rash spirits, unwilling to bear their wrongs in the sublime confidence of approaching deliverance, perverted the movement from the sword of the Spirit to the sword of slaughter. It changed from moral to physical force, from the unity of the Spirit AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATIOX 155 to sectarian divisions, from universal emancipa- tion to universal repression. Then Romanism re- gained much of its loss. The Church in Europe was united with and subsidized by the state, and the Reformation principles never reached their full development. Hence the earnest souls who would not bear civil and ecclesiastical repression, migrated to the new continent to make a new beginning. Even here the first efforts were failures. The early colonies slowly advanced beyond the European models. In New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vir- ginia and elsewhere there was at first a union between Church and state, but the Church rather than the state always proved the dominant fac- tor. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania blazed the V. ay for their separate and yet co-operative ex- istence. Hence both Church and state have here attained their highest development. Here all denominations, whether Protestant or Catholic, are truest to their historic teachings, purest in the lives of their members, and most energetic in the prosecution of the work of the Lord. THE FREE NATION A free Church was exerting its influence for more than a century before the occasion was furnished to interject into our national life the principles and practices of the Church. People who had shed the ecclesiastical tyranny of the 156 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Old World were being prepared to throw off also its political oppressions. The adoption of their own constitution and by-laws in the ecclesiastical sphere, the untrammeled election of their own leaders, and the unsupervised conduct of their own affairs, made the transition to political inde- pendence a logical sequence. De Torqueville says, in "The Pioneers of Pioneers" : "They brought with them a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republic re- ligion. They contributed powerfully to the estab- lishment of a democracy and a republic, and from the earliest settlements of the emigrants politics and religion contracted an alliance that has never been dissolved." Thus the principles of the Church were trans- ferred and incorporated into the constitutions of the states and the United States. Thomas Jefferson was not the first to discover or proclaim the doctrine that all men are born free and equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain natural and inalienable rights. It is written in the very opening book of Revelation, and fixed by the creation of man in the image of God. Paul taught it in his address on Mars' Hill. It oozes out of every page of the Bible and is in- woven with every act of God. Luther reasserted and defended it in the doctrine of the priesthood of believers: every man without an intervening AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 157 or interposing priest can come to God through Christ. God is no respecter of persons. No man can deprive his fellow-man of any rights or privi- leges before Him or receive favors which are not accessible to all and on the same terms. All are equal before Him, and hence equal before each other. The principles of Christianity, as reasserted by Protestantism, shaped our politi- cal character. No priest can interfere w^ith the rights of the believer's citizenship in heaven, and no royalty with a man's citizenship on earth. Henry Ward Beecher said: "Our civil liberty is the result of the open Bible which Luther gave us." At the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monu- ment, June 17, 1843, Daniel Webster said: "The Reformation of Luther introduced the principles of civil liberty into the wilderness of America." George Bancroft says : "Our national organiza- tion counts Christianity among its sources ; it was essentially imbibed into the spirit of the Refor- mation which rose in Germany w^ith Luther." NATIONAL CHARACTER Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court, said some years ago : "Every constitution of the (then) forty- five states contains language which either directly or by clear implication rec- ognizes a profound reverence for religion and an assumption that its influence in all human affairs is essential to the well-being of the community. 158 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION All our state and national legislatures begin their daily sessions with prayer for divine guidance." This does not mean that all our acts are in har- mony with the divine will, but indicates how God has inwoven His purpose with our political fab- ric, and it is an incentive to every Christian patriot to have our nation set itself consciously to fulfill that purpose. Washington, who, in our first great crisis, was on his knees at Valley Forge when our liberty was at stake, said : '*No people can be found to acknowledge and adore that in- visible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States ; every step by which they have advanced to the char- acter of an independent nation seems to have been indicated by some token of providential agency." At the opening of the Constitutional Convention, when the question was raised as to whether the Convention should be opened with prayer, Frank- lin said: "In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity, and have we now forgotten that better AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 159 Friend, or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men." On our Liberty Bell there is inscribed God's proclamation to Israel, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof."- Emerson declared, "Our whole his- tory appears like a last effort of divine Provi- dence in behalf of the human race." Abraham Lincoln, vvho in the dark days of our Civil War had sought God and received answer, said in his inaugural address, March i6, 1861 : "Intelli- gence, patriotism, Christianity and a firm reliance upon Him who has never forsaken this favored land are the best ways out of our present diffi- culties." President Wilson led his cabinet in prayer to God for safe guidance in this world crisis. \\'hen the decisive hour came, we rose above all selfish interest, and entered the conflict, demanding justice for all and injustice to none. At every great crisis of our history God led us to select the man of His choice. THE FIRST NATION ON THIS CONTINENT The United States is the first nation in time and influence on this Western Hemisphere. The principles of liberty inwoven in the religious character of the colonists drew them into a body politic when conditions called those principles 160 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION into action. It was, from the day of the declara- tion of its independence and for a half century thereafter, the only independent nation. To the south from the Rio Grande to the South Pole the peoples on the mainland and the isles of the sea were dominated by European nations. Canada, our neighbor to the north, nobly co-operating with us in the advancement of the kingdom, was and is still a dependency of Great Britain. When we review the Reformation and the discovery of America, the religious character of the colonists in the north, and that of the colonists in the south, it is but natural that we should form the first nation on this continent. ITS CONSTITUTION AND ARBITRATION TRIBUNAL Incrusted European injustice forced the colo- nies to assert the negative principles on the politi- cal sphere which they had learned and practiced in the religious ; and the selfishness which burst forth spontaneously among themselves con- strained them to formulate the positive principles for their harmonious development and for peace- ful intercourse with the nations of the earth. "The Articles of Confederation" were sufficient to hold them together whilst danger threatened from without. When the pressure was removed, they were threatened with disintegration into the original elements out of which they were consti- tuted. Pennsylvania and Connecticut came to AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 161 blows over the W^yoming \"alley, and New York and New Hampshire quarreled over the territory of Vermont. There was weakness and disorgan- ization at home and abroad. It was then that the Constitutional Convention held its first ses- sion on May 25, 1787. It distinguished between freedom and coercion, liberty and license, state rights and national sovereignty. Gladstone pro- nounced our Constitution *'the greatest work ever struck off at a given time by the mind and pur- pose of man." The most far-reaching element in that Consti- tution was the establishment of the Supreme Court as a court of arbitration to adjudicate the rights, first of the thirteen colonies, and then of the steadily increasing states and territories of our Union. It is now the tribunal of arbitration between all the states and to its decision all submit, and from it there is no appeal. It then slopped, and has since prevented bloodshed be- tween the component parts of the Union as well as between us and other nations. When, in 1816, a difference arose between England and the United States concerning the boundaries of the Lakes and the St. Croix River, we settled it, just as we settle differences among our citizens and states, by the peaceful method of arbitration. From 1 816 to 1890 no less than eight different disputes were thus settled between these two na- tions. In i860, and again in 1890, Congress 162 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION called upon the civilized world to settle their differences by arbitration, and, if possible, with- out war. In the latter year, at our call, nineteen American republics met in Washington and unanimously resolved that they would in this way adjudicate all differences except such as might imperil their national existence. We have been the most ardent supporters of the Hague tribunal and have continually stood for the enlargement of the powers of an international tribunal of arbitration, so as to eliminate, if possible, war and bloodshed. Amid the confusion of motives, selfish ambition, we have ever striven for the dominance of justice and insisted upon the guar- antee to all nations of the same freedom which we demand for ourselves. And what, after all, is our Supreme Court but an application of the principle according to which Christ directed men to adjust their differences peaceably? ITS INFLUENCE ON THIS CONTINENT W. E. Doughty, in "The Call of the World," says: "In the history of the expanding king- dom, God has evidently given to America a com- manding place of leadership and power. This is nothing less than a divine appointment. To have such an appointment in a time like ours, from our God, is to have a share in a task like no other task the world has ever seen." AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 163 Our success in liberating ourselves from the oppression of England and in setting up a free republic inspired men like Hidalgo y Castillo, Victoria, Bolivar, Iturbide and others. Chafing under Spanish domination, they waited for a favorable moment to throw off the galling yoke. When Napoleon, in 1808, deposed Ferdinand VII of Spain and placed his own brother on the throne, the last tie which bound the colonies to the Castilian dynasty was broken. Within two years Hidalgo y Castillo, a Catholic priest, headed the revolution in Mexico, and, though betrayed by his Church, the movement for free- dom finally succeeded. Venezuela, in 181 1, and Chili, in 1817, declared their independence; Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina followed in rapid succession, and by 1828 all the colonies of South America, except the Guianas, and the Portuguese possessions of Brazil, had become republics. In 1862, Napoleon III had overthrown the Mexican Republic and placed Maximillian of Austria upon the throne. The United States, engaged in the Civil W^ar, had uttered its pro- tests unheeded. After the surrender of Lee, a strong note was sent to the French Government to remove their troops from Mexican soil. En- couraged by our favor, Berito Juarez, a pure- blooded Indian, a former President, and his heroic band, overthrew the monarchy, and Mex- 164 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ico again was made free. To-day all this West- ern Continent is a continent of republics, owing to the influence of the first and great republic. With the establishment of republics, resisted in every instance by the Roman Catholic Church, there entered the contest for religious freedom, more strenuously resisted. The colporteurs who followed in the wake of General Scott's army in Mexico, and those who traversed the states far- ther south, sowed the seeds of liberty which have not remained without fruitage. Missionaries sent from the north have carried the message of salvation and freedom to all the leading centers. Whilst in practice there is not religious equality everywhere, full religious liberty has been finally granted by the fundamental law of all the Cen- tral and South American republics. The Prot- estantizing of this continent, in that which is fundamental to Protestantism and which lies at the foundation of all democratic institutions, has been virtually accomplished in every nation to the south. The Protestantism of the United States has to this extent already Protestantized the hitherto Roman Catholic countries. The movement is proceeding with increased and gath- ered force, and immova])le foundations for civil liberty are laid in the conquering power of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. At the Panama Congress, Judge Emilio del Toro, of Porto Rico, himself a Roman Catholic, AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION 165 said : "Until a few years ago, the Catholic Church was, in my native island, Porto Rico, the state religion. Among the public expenditures those for worship were conspicuous. The influ- ence of the clergy extended everywhere. And vvhat was the result, after four centuries of abundant opportunities? A people for the most part indifferent or unbelieving. "Those w^ho love the progress of the nations, those who study history dispassionately, those who have faith in the improvement of mankind, cannot but see with deep sympathy that the Ref- ormation is spreading, that free investigation opens broader horizons to the human spirit, that Christianity, preached and interpreted by all, disseminates its beneficent influence and raises the level of society. "Porto Rico is a case in point, and is conclu- sive evidence to me of the results which will be obtained in all Latin America from initiating and sustaining a vigorous and altruistic Protestant movement. Not only will religious feeling grovv^ ; not only will Christianity win converts ; not only wdll it redound in good to the Catholic Church itself, but the influence of Christianity in the life of the Spanish-American democracies will be greatly multiplied. There is something which lives in us which is part of our very being, and it is the heritage received from our ancestors. And wherever the Reformation goes, wherever the 166 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Protestant minister accomplishes his mission, there it will go, there that heritage of so many generations of the peoples of the north who strove for the freedom of man will act and react." CHAPTER VIII America's World Mission It is ours to be either the grave in which the hopes of the world will be entombed, or the pillar of cloud that shall pilot the race onward to its millennial glory. Let us not forget our immortal trust. — Alexander Ham- ilton. If America fails, the world will fail. — Professor Park. America christianized means the world christianized. — Professor Hop pin. I incline to think that the future of America is of greater importance to Christendom at large, than any- other country. — Gladstone. INFLUENCE BEYOND THIS CONTINENT America has been the leading nation of the earth in humanizing governments, protecting the weak against the strong, and enforcing respect for the rights and interests of the governed. The Declaration of Independence, the great Magna Charta of freedom, set before the world a God- fearing and liberty-loving nation in its heroic struggle for freedom. Our Constitutional Con- vention to guard these liberties and prevent op- pression separated the legislative, judicial and executive functions of government. The influ- 167 168 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ence of our free institutions has been felt in lib- eralizing every government of Europe from Eng- land to Russia. The colonies of Great Britain have modeled their constitutions and govern- ments after the American and not the English pattern ; none of them would tolerate a House of Lords; and even England in recent years has shorn that part of its Parliament of its special prerogatives and abolished plural voting by the rich. We are Americanizing — and we should Christianize — the world. The remarkable rise of the Sunrise Kingdom to leadership among the oriental nations was started by Commodore Perry, of the United States Navy, when he constrained Japan to aban- don its policy of isolation and forced her to enter into fellowship and trade with the western na- tions. In 1873, Christopher R. Roberts, of New York City, looked out upon the Ottoman Empire and Persia, and the possibilities of the Near East under Christian influence, and ideals loomed large before him. He planted a Christian college with American professors on the banks of the Bos- phorus, and the foundations for freedom and future greatness and prosperity were laid in the Balkans and their surroundings. It was our gen- erous treatment of China during the Boxer up- rising that vivified the study of our American institutions, led to the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, the establishment of the most populous AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 169 republic of the ages, and the education of their favorite sons at our universities. And when the history of the Russian uprising and the settle- ment which must follow this most terrible of conflicts shall have been recorded, it will be found that the star of our empire has come from Beth- lehem's manger, and that the principles of our holy religion which have made us great, have brought freedom to the most oppressed of the oppressed, and a new era of justice and honor to all the nations of the earth. ITS IDEAL OF EQUAL JUSTICE We cannot claim sinlessness for the United States any more than we can make the claim for the best among us. God does much of His work through fallible instruments. It is a high honor and a hitherto unattained position for any nation, except the United States, to set up the ideal of justice and equality for all nations, and to have it grown into its actualization. By the confessions of our adversary, we were justified in our con- flicts of 1776 and 1812. Our acquisition of Louisi- ana and Oregon, with the purchase of Florida and part of California, was surely honorable. Our dealing with Mexico from the days of the an- nexation of Texas through the war and seizure of territory may not be blameless, yet from that to the present day it involved an exercise of for- 170 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION bearance which has not been shown by any other nation. In our Civil War we asked no indemnities, sacrificed blood and treasure that slavery might cease, that the states of the Union might remain one and inseparable and bear a noble part among the nations of the earth. For years we suffered the annoyance of the misrule of Spain upon neighboring islands, and finally made unex- ampled sacrifices that Cuba might be free and that Porto Rico and the Philippines might be raised in the scale of civilization. No nation has ever done in the same period of time what we did for the Porto Ricans and the Filipinos. In our Monroe Doctrine we have defended the nations to the south from foreign invasion and conquest without the hope of gain, except the gratitude of peoples who can rise to the appreciation of un- selfishness. We have not only adopted the ideal of fair play and unselfishness, but we have pro- claimed it as our working principle for which we stand pledged and for the fulfillment of which we invite the judgment of the world. Whatever may have been the feelings of the various ele- ments which compose our nation, when we de- parted from the advice of Washington and our historical precedents to keep free from European conflicts, we entered upon the World War with most unselfish motives and proclaimed to the world that we would make our sacrifices not to AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 171 further even the ends of our associates, but for the sole purpose of enthroning justice at the end of the conflict and securing guarantees which shall conserve the peace and happiness of the world. It can be truly and nobly asserted that if the nations of Europe had set before them- selves our ideals and striven as we to attain them, no shot would have been fired at Sarajevo, nor, if it had been, would the world have been drawn into the awful catastrophe. Out of the subconscious uprightness of a God-fearing peo- ple, we framed a constitution the sole aim of which was to secure justice and prosperity to all men, an open door for the oppressed of all lands, a tribunal of arbitration to set aside the passion- ate conflict of bloodshed and its blinding hatreds, and to enable our citizens and states in dispas- sionate reflection and mutual goodwill to adjudi- cate their differences as an example to the na- tions of the earth. If forty-eight commonwealths, with a clear determination not to resort to arms, can settle their differences before the Supreme Court of the United States, and if the nations of the earth are really seeking the best interests of others as well as their own, if we are ready to render to God and our fellow-men their due, then surely there can be no hesitancy in creating a Supreme Court of the World to which all the differences among the nations must be sub- m.itted and whose decision shall be final. 172 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION ITS COMMANDING POSITION We are in the north temperate zone, the zone of power. On the north we are bounded by the greatest lakes and on the south by the largest gulf in the world, and to the east and west by the limitless oceans. On our east we are connected with the lands whence we came and on the west with the lands to which we are to bring the Christian forces of the world. There is no other great and independent nation on the globe, whose territory extends from ocean to ocean, bringing it into easy communication with all the conti- nents. AVe are in closest touch with the unde- veloped regions of the Canadian Northwest, Alaska, Siberia, South America, Australia and Africa. Whilst accessible for the peaceful pur- poses, such as commercial and missionary, the oceans are our greatest protection against any possible invasion. Our commanding position is not for world conquest, but for world evangel- ization, and for this we stand connected with the Christianized nations whence we came and the heathen nations to which we are to go. We could call them across the Atlantic to go with us to China, Japan and India by way of the Pacific, and to Africa from the eastern part of South America or directly from their homelands. ITS COMMANDING LANGUAGE It was providential that Luther, the Great Re- former, used the German and the Latin in propa- AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 173 gating- the truth. The former was the more widely understood in Europe by the common people, and the other by the learned in that day. But to-day the English-speaking nations have under their governments more than one-fourth of the inhabitants of the earth and three-fourths of the planet's surface. Their united navies could control the seas. America exerts a mold- ing influence over all. Dr. Josiah Strong says : "The English-speaking people are multiplying more rapidly to-day than those using the com- bined languages of Europe." In the world almanac of Mulhall Bartholo- mew, of Edinburgh, 19 12, the following table of the languages of the seven chief nations of the civilized world is given : 1801 1901 French 31,450,000 52,100,000 German 30,320,000 84,200,000 Italian 15,070,000 34.000,000 Spanish 26,190,000 46,500,000 Portuguese 7,480,000 15,000,000 Russian 30,770,000 85,000,000 English 20,520,000 180,300,000 This also shows an increase of 69,700,000 us- ing the English language in ten years. Besides this, immigration is leading millions to study the English tongue. Canada, the hope 174 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION of the twentieth century, is having an increasing influx of people, and before the war they were coming to the United States at the rate of more than a milHon a year. The total immigration to Canada in 1910-11 was the largest in its history —311,084. Dr. A. W. Halsey, in his leaflet on 'The Seven Wonders of the Modern Missionary World," says: 'The spread of the English language is one of the wonders of the age. The English language is spoken at the present time by nearly 2(X>,ooo,C)00 people ; each year sees large additions to the group of English-speaking peoples. In the Philippines more people to-day speak the English language than spoke the Spanish language after three hundred years of Spanish rule. 'Tn all the higher education in India, English is compulsory ; in the secondary schools in India, English is taught. In China, the government has made English a part of the regular curriculum. In Japan, the students are eager to learn Eng- lish. It is the avenue through which the mis- sionary is frequently able to reach the educated classes. Porto Rico and the Philippines are fast catching the accent. In Syria, one of the boys in the class-room wrote on the blackboard, 'God is love,' in his own language; thirty boys fol- lowed, each writing the text in his own language ; yet these boys sooner or later will all speak in the English language. A speaker at the Edinburgh AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 175 Conference declared that some missionaries read the Lord's command as though it were written, 'Go and teach all nations the English language/ Macaulay says that 'whosoever knows the Eng- lish language has already access to the vast in- tellectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and stored in the course of ninety generations/ The English language is the language of liberty, of law, of morals, of high ideals. The English Bible, which has molded Anglo-Saxon civilization, is making no small im- press on world civilization. 'The Greek language became the vehicle in which the Gospel story was borne to the educated world in the first century. The English language seems destined in the providence of God to be the bearer of the Gospel to the races of the twentieth century." CONSCIOUS OF ITS WORLD MISSION World Mission. We realize that the splendid position which is ours, the religious and political inheritance from our fathers and our standing among the nations of the earth, is not for selfish enjoyment. Like Paul, we feel ourselves debtors to the world. Among no people is there such a quick and generous response to misfortune of any section or nation as from our own. We had scarcely grown to the consciousness of our free- dom and of its benefits than we pledged the re- 176 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION sources of our nation to maintain the blessings of freedom for the repubhcs of the entire conti- nent. Leroy BeauHeu says, in *'The United States of the Twentieth Century": *'The history of nations, Hke the history of individuals, proves beyond peradventure that no economic strength, no material prosperity, is lasting unless it be sus- tained by real moral worth. Moral worth, which includes the recognition of duties as well as of rights, self-respect and respect for one's fellows, has contributed fully as much as the magnificent resources of their country to the brilliant success of the American people. Of the qualities that have co-operated to elevate them so rapidly to such a commanding position, the most impressive is a great, a tireless energy." He might have added that there can be no moral worth unless it has a religious background, and that there can be no lasting morality unless it is founded on Christ, the Mediator between God and man. Conscious of Its Mission. Not only were these United States founded by religious people, but they were, and their successors are, conscious of their Messianic mission. Our fathers were con- vinced that this land with all its treasures and splendid opportunities were not for themselves, but for the people of the earth. Hence they opened their doors to all the oppressed and sought to live so that liberty might enlighten the world. AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 177 Men of other nations, if they have any sense of obHgation beyond themselves, never carry it beyond their national borders. But every Ameri- can, ordinary voter or honored official, realizes that America has a world mission and dare not live to herself. True, we often fall far short of cur ideal, but our altruism lifts our lowest level above the highest attainments of the rest. Says Senator Beveridge, in "American of To- day and To-morrow" : "This republic is no vag- rant nation. The American people are no aim- less marauders. Their banner floats over no pirate craft, portless and doomed. They are no purposeless builders of a meaningless destiny. They obey divine directions and feel that they do. The stars of their flag are fixed stars. They are doing humanity's work — fulfilling God's mis- sion for them — and they know that they are. There is, in the progress of the American people through history, in their connected and intelligent work in the world and for it, a sure faith, a high stability, a conservatism of righteousness, a per- manence and durability of noble achievement. 'Glorious deeds and lasting results inspired by glorious faith and purposes enduring as the ever- lasting hills' — let this be the final word which the gray chronicler of the rise and decline of nations shall write, a thousand years from now, when closing the review of the American people, their work and their place in history. 178 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION "Defects we have — yes; mistakes we have made — certainly. Who believes the American people perfect ? Surely not the American people themselves. "But we do declare that we are making an earnest effort toward perfection. "We do assert that American character, on the whole, is sweet and wholesome and generous and high purposed. "We do proclaim that we will make each year better than the last, each generation nobler than its fathers. "We do assert that each epoch of history shows the flag planted a day's march onward, and that march will continue. "And for proof of these claims we Americans appeal to chronicles and contemporary events, and, most of all, to the historian of the future." We live not for self, but for God's humanity. LEADER IN RELIGIOUS WORLD MOVEMENTS W. E. Doughty, in "The Call of the World," says: "It must not be forgotten that out of American faith and courage and vision were born the most conspicuous missionary movements of modern times. The Moravians and Lutherans in Germany, and William Carey and others in Great Britain, blazed the way for the modern mission- ary uprising. In America the movement for world evangelization was greatly quickened and AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 179 expanded by companies of students at Williams College and Andover Seminary. The purpose of these young men to carry the Gospel abroad when North America was not represented by mission- aries anywhere in the non-Christian world, was at the same time a mighty challenge to faith and a rebuke to the narrow vision of American Chris^ tianity one hundred years ago. Since that day practically all the conspicuous interdenomina- tional missionary movements have begun their career in America. What student of missionary history can forget that the Student Volunteer Movement was born in a conference called by Dwight L. Moody! This movement caused America to dream of a union of college men throughout the world for the world-wide propa- gation of the Gospel. The fruition of that vision is "The World's Student Christian Federation, binding together the students of many lands and thousands of institutions of higher learning. Let it not be forgotten that God planted here the con- viction that missionary education is central in the life of the Church and that ten years ago at Silver Bay on Lake George, began what was then known as the Young People's Missionary Movement; but which has recently been renamed the Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada. This movement has spread to other lands. In North America alone in ten years, more than one million copies of 130 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION text-books and large numbers of other publica- tions have been circulated by this movement. "The latest of these evidences of the mission- ary life of North America is the Laymen's Mis- sionary Movement, which is now organized in fourteen of the principal denominations of North America, with affiliated movements in three others, and in six other lands, with the first steps taken toward the forming of three additional national organizations. Never, until the Lay- men's Missionary Movement flung out the chal- lenge, have Canada and the United States so powerfully felt the call to proceed seriously to undertake to evangelize their share of the world." IT POSSESSES THE MEANS FOR WORLD EVAN- GELIZATION Our agricultural and mineral resources are al- most boundless. We have the best organized and developed system of telegraphs and tele- phones for communication and the greatest net- work of railroads for transportation. From 1880 to 1890 we added more to our wealth than the British Isles had gained in over 1800 years of their existence. From 1890 to 1900 our daily increase in wealth was over six million dollars; from 1900 to 1904 it was over thirteen millions, and from 1904 to the present our wealth has grown by leaps and bounds. Harkins, in the introduction to his volume, "Our Government," AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 181 says: "The United States is the largest nation in the world, in population, area and wealth, whose inhabitants speak one language and enjoy the principles of self-government. Having one- sixteenth of its population, it has one-fourth of its wealth, runs one-third of its railroads, dis- tributes one-half of its mail, controls one-half of its newspapers and magazines. Having but one-twentieth of the world's landed area, we raise one-fifth of its wheat, mine one-fourth of its gold, dig one-half of its coal, and produce one-half of its manufactured ware, steel and petroleum, almost two-thirds of its corn and four- fifths of its cotton." If the United States would contend for Christianity, as it now does for democracy, one of its by-products, we would furnish the men and the means for world evan- gelization. IT HAS THE MEN FOR WORLD EVANGELIZATION Our motto, ''E Pluribus Unum'' must now be ''£ Omnibus Unum." Dr. Charles L. White, in 'The Churches at Work," pictures the polyglot character of our metropolis thus: "On Monday morning a Roumanian ashman cleaned my cellar and a Pole whitevv^ashed its walls. A Hollander pruned my vines, a German plumber came to stop a leak in my bath-room, and this man's helper was a Norwegian. As I left my home for my office a seamstress entered to help my wife. 183 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION She was a Belgian, and the man who was paint- ing my front fence was from Switzerland. I left my laundry with a Chinaman. Later I visited my Russian tailor, ordered groceries of a Welsh- man, meat of a Scotchman, and purchased my fish dinner for the next day at a Frenchman's store. As I waited for an electric car an Italian vegetable man passed, while I was talking with an Irish policeman. The next day I bought some hardware from an Armenian and learned that my milkman was a Lapp and my cobbler was a Hungarian. That evening a Philippine bellboy showed me to a room in a hotel, and I learned that among its waiters were Slovaks, Greeks and Servians. The next day I lunched in a Turkish restaurant, engaged a Syrian to mend my rugs, and purchased two more of an Armenian. In the afternoon I met by accident a college class- mate, a Bulgarian, who introduced me to a Mon- tenegrin. That evening I learned that the Aus- trian consul of the city had rented the house op- posite. The following Sunday I met a Cuban Protestant at church and found a Mexican, a Brazilian, Lithuanian, a Peruvian and a Haitian in a popular Sunday school class of one hundred men. That evening a Japanese merchant and his family attended service, and the next day, as chairman of the committee that looked after the repairs of the church, I learned that the Portu- guese sexton had died, and I selected a Canadian AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 183 in his place. The following day the man who washes my office windows proved to be a Span- iard, and a Jew wished me a merry Christmas. Soon after this, in an early train, I counted twenty-eight passengers in the car. Four were reading German papers, twelve Jewish, six Italian, and I concluded that the only American- born man in the car besides myself was a Negro !" We are composed of all nations, and yet w^e are peculiarly one in ideals and aims and lan- guage. There is continual friction between the various nationalities in Russia, Austria and all the other nations of the earth, and there is no hope of their amalgamation. Side by side they perpetuate their national ideals, aims and lan- guages. Not so in America. The most progres- sive elements of the globe come hither because they both love our institutions and are wearied of the conditions they have forsaken. In a few generations, if not in the first, they conform both to the ideals and language of the land of their adoption. A divine impulse sends them hither that the world's inhabitants may be united on the standards which the early colonists here set up. The marvelous fact stands out clearly that in no nation are the elements of the world found in such large numbers, and nowhere are they so loval to the national standards and so united to accomplish a world mission. These people from 184 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION the ends of the earth having made us what we are, may be readily won to the task of making the world what it should be. Made up of all lands, we recognize our duty to all lands. Must Be Converted. It is an axiom: You cannot convert and evangelize the nations if you cannot convert and evangelize the nation. Nor can you evangelize the nations until you have evangelized a nation. Christ says, **The king- dom of God shall be (taken from you and) given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof.'' Thus the kingdom must be national before it can become international. We cannot have a sample to the nations, a compelling force for their con- version, until there exists on this earth a nation "bringing forth the fruits" of holy living and exhibiting their power and beauty in national life. Our small impact upon the heathen lands is because of the lack of Christian power in our own. When we say that we cannot exert a power in the foreign lands w^hich we do not possess in the homelands, we do not thereby assert that no missionary should be sent abroad until every last man has been converted in America. But we do say that missionaries of American, German, English, and other foreign origin, will never con- vert India, China, Japan, Africa and the rest of the heathen. We do mean to say that you can only undertake the work in these lands in pro- portion as you have already accomplished it in AMERICAS WORLD MISSION 185 your own. We do mean to say that the difficulty and the lack of progress of our work in foreign lands is solely and alone due to the fact that the homelands have not been Christianized. Chris- tianize America and the completion of the task is assured. This is the teaching of the Bible and is written in big letters on the entire history of the Church. Conversion Possible. America's conversion is a promising task. She can most easily be turned to Christ and used in His service. She is the most Christian nation and responds most readily to the appeal of the Gospel. We have more churches to the number of inhabitants, and attend them better, than any other. We have now over twenty-three million Protestant communicants, and over 162,000 Protestant ministers. We have a constituency far beyond this. If a great mod- ern evangelist, faulty in method and message, could stop the mouth of infidelity, compel the press to advertise him, have people singing on the street cars and earnestly discussing religion for the several months he labored in Philadel- phia, what could not the 162,000 ministers and twenty-three million communicants do in the entire Union, were we intensely in earnest? If the Christian forces in the United States would contend and sacrifice for Christ as did the men in the trenches of Europe and the people in the lands to which they belong, how long would it be 186 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION until all America would be as Christian as are our Christian homes, and the dominance of Christian principles enthroned among us ! If we would train, organize, equip and fight, day and night, Sunday and weekday, for Christ and the enthronement of His will on earth and for the coming of His kingdom in love and peace as they do with shot and shell, the issue would not be doubtful. Who would resist an earnest, loving, self-sacrificing Church in its work of lifting off this world's burdens! If we were to work with divine patriotism equal to the national patriotism, determined to invade and destroy opposition to righteousness, it would not be three months until every saloon would be closed, every red light dis- trict removed, every city hall and legislature a house of prayer; in every shop and mart there would be goodwill between capital and labor; disease-breeding tenements would be torn to the ground ; men would think as little of over-reach- ing their neighbors or their wives as we now think of dueling. Then our ships would carry only witnesses for Christ both in the cabins and in the hold. Then nations would run unto us because of the Lord and return to put in practice the principles on which our prosperity and happi- ness was built. Our infidel seats of learning would be confounded by the beauty of the Lord our God resting upon us, and those who hitherto sneered would praise. AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 187 AMERICA CONVERTED MEANS A WORLD CONVERTED Christ chose Jerusalem as the place of begin- ning, not because it was the largest city in the world, but because it contained ''devout men out of every nation under heaven." There were pres- ent, and there came to Jerusalem every year, men who returned again to the uttermost parts of the earth. They came from the east, the west, the north and the south. Convert Jerusalem and there would be witnesses to return at their own expense to the lands whence they had come. It \\as through such converts, as we have seen, that the Church at Rome was founded even before Paul ever set foot in the Imperial City. It was through such converts that the Gospel was preached as a witness in all the inhabited earth in the days of the great apostle, as he testified both in the Epistle to the Romans and to the Colossians. The conversion of Jerusalem, Judea, GaHlee and Samaria meant the securing of men and means for the world's conversion, in that day. However, the homeland was not converted, l^ut destroyed, and the work is still awaiting com- pletion in our day. In these United States, as we have seen, we have men from "every nation under heaven." Dr. Edward Steiner, in one of his books, calls attention to the fact that the men who return from America to their native lands carry back with them what we here teach and impress upon 188 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION them, and has shown what remarkable changes they produce. Convert America and you convert ten milhon Africans, over a milhon Jews and Itahans, 80,000 Chinese, 70,000 Japanese, 40,000 Latin Americans, 6000 Hindus, besides many Armenians, Persians, Turks, Syrians and immigrants from all the other lands. America converted, we would have returned 2762 Chin- ese, 3352 Japanese, 6593 Turks, 9376 Greeks, 27,093 Russians, 72,640 Italians, besides thou- sands of other lands not enumerated in the year 1910. And these would return of their own accord to their native lands as wit- nesses for Christ. Convert America and you could send out the 150 students in our universi- ties from India, the 200 from Armenia, the 300 from the Philippine Islands, the 1000 from Japan, the 1400 from China, the 2000 from Latin Amer- ica, as missionaries for Christ. Convert America and you will have the 350,000 who return from America every year, year in and year out, to preach the crucified and risen Saviour in their native lands and native tongues. Instead of the 20,000 foreign missionaries, including the wives of the men we send, you would have a steady annual stream of 350,000 native missionaries to all the foreign lands. From 1901 to 1910, a period of ten years, there came to these United States over eight million from all the lands of the globe, and there returned three million five hun- AMERICA'S WORLD MISSION 189 dred thousand, or an average of three hundred and fifty thousand every year. These are not foreigners to the people to whom they returned, but of their own flesh and blood. Because they loved the people of their own lands, they went back. They did not need to learn the language nor adapt themselves to the customs, or win their way into the confidence and affection of the peo- ple. They were bone of their bone. If converted to Christ with an appreciation of the value of Jesus to themselves and their people, with what an enthusiasm and with what a demonstration of the spirit they would testify of Christ. Con- vert America and those returned natives would be marshaled into a missionary force with defi- nite plans and objectives, and then v/e would have Pentecost fulfilled. An Italian shoemaker comes to New York as irreligious as he left his native land. He is con- verted. He returns to the town in which he sinned. The people knew him as he left and they saw him as he returned. In a short time he gath- ered three hundred communicants into a Chris- tian congregation. A Chinaman comes to the city of San Fran- cisco a heathen. He returns to the scenes of his childhood a Christian. Night after night he preaches in those towns and villages. They come by thousands, throwing their idols to moles and bats, and ask baptism in the name of Jesus. 190 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION America to-day has been placed by God in the center of the world's movement. She has dem- ocratized the world, and it now remains for her to turn the world's attention from this by-product to the invaluable product of our high and holy religion. God has given to her the ear of the world as He never gave it to any other nation. Oh, that the Church would beseech and constrain America to fully accept the Christ and to more fully permeate her acts and dealings with the spirit of Christ! We are confident that she would prove to be the leader and she would thus become the servant of the nations. Then, truly, in the words of Gladstone, her service would be the greatest and the best. Rev. H. Paul Douglass closes his book on ''The New Home Missions" with this tribute and appeal : **A mighty land — to glimpse whose future is to share a mission with the stars; to control whose destinies is to stand within the grip of the right hand of the omnipotent God. What, then, lovingly and faithfully to follow and to serve all the strange and complicated paths of social duty into the furthest recesses, the utter- most nooks and crannies of human relationship; to control their inner qualities and applications as well as their outer exhibitions and forms ! What, then, to occupy this land for Christ, not fragmentarily, as the field has won upon the forest; not fitfully, as the wind sweeps over the AMERICA'S WORLD -MISSION 191 prairies; but searchingly, engulfingly, as the waters cover the sea! What, then, to share in the social realization of Christianity, O country of our love!" "And crown thy good with brotherhood, From sea to shining sea." LEADER'S HANDBOOK APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I The purpose and general character of the book is stated clearly in the "Introduction" and "Preface." Study that carefully before attempting to plan for the course or to call your class together. Each member of the class ought to be urged to preface his studies by a careful reading of the "In- troduction" and "Preface." The leader will find that it will be of great value to read the entire book and to prepare an outline before calling his class together. This will be an excellent preparation for the details of the study plans. Meeting for the Organisation of the Class The idea of an organization meeting preliminary to the first formal study session of the class is to arouse interest by a general presentation of the book's con- tents, to distribute the individual copies of the book, and to assign the definite work for the first lesson. The following program is suggested : Ask questions to find out whether any members of the class have studied any other books on Home or Foreign Missions. Note those who have done so and what books they have used. You can use such mem- bers for the first study session, since they will have some knowledge of the subject and the method of mission study. Attend to this in connection with the enrollment. 193 194 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Keep the Class Roll in a suitably ruled book, so that attendance can be marked regularly. Impress all with the seriousness of the work undertaken. A display of Home Mission literature will be most helpful. Use books of our own denominational authors and of others as well. The following sugges- tions are made: "The Home Mission Week Hand- book"; Hunt's "Lutheran Home Missions"; Trabert's "English Lutheranism in the Northwest" ; Douglass's "The New Home Missions" ; Allen's "Home Missions in Action" ; Clark's "Leavening the Nation" ; Barnes's "Elemental Forces in Home Missions" ; Love's "The Mission of Our Nation"; Pierson's "The Divine En- terprise of Missions." Some brief time ought to be spent in a cursory ex- amination of Home Mission Fundaincntals in the light of the outline the leader has prepared and put upon the board. Preface the examination by reading the "In- troduction" and "Preface" in concert. Follow it by a short statement concerning the aim of the course as you conceive it and desire its realization. You are ready now for the assignments on Chap- ter I. Assignments, both general and special, will be found for each lesson, properly indicated. All general assignments may be copied in carbon so that each mem- ber may be handed a copy and no time lost. Provide note-books of uniform size for the members. These will serve for their making note of special assignments and for preparing such assignments. Thus all their work will be assembled for them at the close of the course. It is suggested that after the assignment sheets have been distributed at this first meeting the various items be read in concert and explained so that all will under- stand what is meant and expected. At subsequent meetings a brief time might be allowed after the dis- APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I 195 tribution of assignment sheets, during which questions might be asked, after the members have read the work designated. Assignments on Chapter I I. Each member to write in his note-book his own out- Hne of the chapter. 2 Make Hsts in parallel columns of the various activ- ities of Home Missions. 3. Make a list of some things man's word has accom- plished. 4. 2\Iake another of some things which God's Word has wrought. 5. Each member will bring a Bible with him. 6. Read Pierson's "Divine Enterprise of Missions." 7. Read Josiah Strong's "The Next Great Awakening," Chapter I. The session may close with a prayer for divine guid- ance and blessing upon leader and members to the accomplishment of permanent good in each one's life and in the work of the kingdom in America and in the world. The First Session Open this hour with the concerted reading of Matt. 28: 16-20 and of the two paragraphs which follow this passage on pages 3 and 4 of "Home Mission Funda- mentals." Call for any questions and remarks on the Scripture lesson. Have a member of the class, appointed beforehand, to offer prayer for guidance in the hour's study. Let there be comparison and criticism of the outlines prepared by the members. If a blackboard is available two or three might be written thereon for this purpose. Large sheets of manila paper will serve also. Other- wise have one member read his outline and the rest tell wherein theirs differ. 196 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Choose what seems to you to be the main points and encourage discussion by questions or suggestions. Let there be brief comparison of the lists of Home Mission activities. Pursue the same course with those dealing with the accomplishment of God's Word and man's. Have a brief discussion of the fundamental place which God's Word must hold in the Church's life and work. In order to lead forward to the next chapter close with a discussion of the two questions: a. Why are agents necessary in God's work? b. How does He provide these necessary agents? APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II General : 1. Chapter Outline by each member. 2. Suggest passages additional to those in the book to illustrate the three ways in which men are God's agents. 3. Make a list of the various types of agents men- tioned in the New Testament and show these three forms of service meet all demands. 4. Be prepared to suggest which of these types is specially prominent in the Church to-day, and why the others are needed to keep the balance in our development. Special : a. Ask one member to prepare a short essay on Offices in the New Testament Church. b. Request another to prepare to talk briefly on the Signers of the Augsburg Confession. Ask this member to see that a few copies of a list of the names are provided to have the members read the names together. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II 197 c. Read Pierson's "The Divine Enterprise of Mis- sions,'' Chapter I, etc. The Closing Prayers Various members might be requested beforehand to offer short prayers on the following topics : That God would continue to magnify His Word among men. That He would grant all church members a vision of the essential oneness of the missionary task. That He would enlighten the Church and the in- dividual as to the great need of human agents for the spread of the Gospel. The Second Session Begin this time with the singing or reading of the hymn, "How blessed from the bonds of sin," etc. (Common Service Book, 258). Follow this by the responsive reading of Acts 6: 1-15 and 7: 55-60. Point out how the Holy Spirit led the Church to see and supply the need for a division of service ; how those who were ready to serve materially were em- powered for spiritual service; how the division of service resulted in increased triumphs for the Gospel of the cross. Again discuss the outline by comparison and criti- cism. This enables all to get a comprehensive view of the argument of the chapter. In this connection note the connection between Chapters I and H, review- ing the main points of the last lesson. Have the essay on Offices in the New Testament Church read and call for suggestions of the types ex- isting to-day, as an introduction to the discussion of the seven privileges of the Priesthood of Believers. Show which are exercised collectively and which in- 198 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION dividually. Ask each member to answer the question, Which of these privileges can I and ought I to exer- cise? Emphasize Witnessing as the essential function. Discuss the witness's equipment, stressing faith, obe- dience, self-surrender and experience. Have the essay on The Signers of the Augsburg Confession read in this connection. Close the discussion with the practical application of witnessing qualities and opportunities to each member of the class, making use of these three questions : 1. Are you fitted to be an agent? 2. Are you willing to serve God thus? 3. Where do your opportunities lie? APPENDIX TO CHAPTER HI General : Make an outline of the chapter. Also make 1. A personally worded definition of Home Missions. 2. An individual answer to the question, What are the Home Mission applications of the command- ments on the Second Table? 3. A written answer to the proposition, The Luth- eran Church needs to broaden her conception of the scope of Home Missions. 4. Read Josiah Strong's "The Next Great Awaken- ing," Chapters H to IX. Douglass's "The New Home Missions," Chapters II to V. Special : a. Ask one member to lead a brief discussion on the question, Hozv is my work sacred f b. Have another to open a short discussion on the way in which Biblical history justifies any inter- ference in social and economical conditions on the part of the Church. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III 199 c. Request a third to read Luther's pamphlet, "To the Christian Nobility of Germany," and review its general argument for the class. \ Suggested Prayers for This Session Thanksgiving for the witnesses of the Church's past. That the compelling unction of the Lord of the Harvest be laid upon the youth of your congregation and of all our churches, that they may feel themselves thrust into the reaping. Earnest petition for grace to knoiv, and power and place to tell of Christ Jesus be given to each Chris- tian in this our day s.o that the universal priesthood of all believers may manifest its presence and power in the world. The Third Session Begin this session by the concerted reading of Acts i : I-I2. After the reading discuss briefly the zmdening circle of missionary endeavor as presented by the pro- gram given the apostles. Take up the definitions of Home Missions ; find out how members of the class arrived at their conclusions ; write upon the board a composite definition taken from the definitions presented. Open a short discussion of Home, Church and State as outlined in the chapter. Introduce here the question as to the function of the Church in economic and social problems. Call for the talk on Luther's pamphlet. Take some time to ask questions about "The King- dom," as treated in Chapter HL Follow this by the symposium on How is my zvork sacred f Close with the reading of members' answers to the two assigned questions. 200 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION Explain that the preparation of the chapter outnne is of value, even when not used in class. No detailed examination of individual outlines is recommended for this lesson. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV General : 1. Ask each member to prepare an outline on a large sheet, so that all can read it without knowing who wrote it. Provide the sheets beforehand, and give one to each member. 2. Each one should prepare parallel lists of what ap- pears to be the fundamental and the relative parts of the mission work. 3. Study the Scripture passages and their contexts. Special : a. A paper on Jesus as a Home Missionary. b. One on Paul's Valuation of Home Missions. (In the light of the chapter's presentation.) Closing Prayer Topics That the Church and the world be given a large understanding of "The Kingdom." That the Church may be granted a constantly en- larging vision of the scope of her mission. That she may be led to find and put into operation the best possible means for making the influence of true Christian principles felt in the solution of all social and economic problems in our day. The Fourth Session If a good-sized map of the Ancient World can be secured or prepared and if a world map of modern times be hung alongside of it, the interest and profit of the session will be enhanced greatly. Have the Scripture lesson read by one of the mem- APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V 201 bers. The suggested passages are Romans 10:1-4; 11:1-15, 13-16, 25-36. Preface this reading by an ex- planation of the passage as an illustration of Paul's interpretation of the destiny of Israel as referred to in the chapter to be studied. Following the lesson have the presentation and dis- cussion of the paper on Paul's Valuation of Home Missions. Then have the paper on Jesus as a Home Missionary read. Now display the chapter outlines, read them care- fully, and have the class decide which it considers the best one. Announce the name of the author of the chosen outline at the session's close. Review with the maps the course of The Widening Circle. Close with a discussion of the lists of fundamental and relative missionary activities. , APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V General : 1. The chapter outline. 2. A list of the Lost Opportunities as outlined by the book and adding any others of which the members can think. 3. Contrast State Churches with Free Churches. Special : a. The preparation of a list of Strategic Centers of ancient and medieval times. b. A similar list of what seems to the members to be Strategic Centers of the present day. The Prayers at This Session The Collect for the Jews, Common Service Book, No. 57, page 179. 202 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION That our grasp of the fundamentals of mission work may be so strong as to enable the Church to work more effectively both at home and abroad. The Lord's Prayer. The Fifth Session Let this hour open with a prayer for the enlighten- ment of the members of the class and of the entire Church to enable them to see and understand the mis- takes of the past, and for grace to correct them in the missionary programs and performances of the present and the future. Have a "Geography Lesson," using the maps to point out how certain cities and sections deserve the title. Strategic Centers. In this connection use the lists prepared by certain members. Those who have pre- pared such lists might be assigned to conduct this por- tion of the lesson. Discuss Lost Opportunities on the basis of the book's presentation and the lists prepared by members. Lead the discussion into a review of the opportunities which the Lutheran Church has lost. Call for opinions on the Four Propositions. Close with a rapid sketch of the argument of the final paragraphs of the chapter. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI Assignments for Chapter VI General : 1. An outline of the chapter. Read "The Mission of Our Nation," by J. F. Love, Chapter I. 2. Parallel outlines of the lives of Luther and Columbus. 3. Read Chapter I, "New Home Missions," by Doug- lass, and "Kingdom Preparedness," by Kinney. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI 203 Special : Assign brief papers on the following subjects to members of the class : a. God's Hand in Our Country's History. b. Home Mission Contributions to Our National Territory. c. The Panama Canal and Home Missions. Subjects for Petitions That the "testimony of history" may speak loudly and effectively to the Church and nation alike in these days. That America may not lose her opportunity, since God has made for her a manifest place and destiny among the nations. That our own denomination may come to see and to know her opportunity, and that she may have strength to accept and discharge her duty as God fits her for it. The Sixth Session For this lesson a modern world map is a necessary adjunct. If a map showing the various stages of the United States' territorial expansion can be displayed it will be of assistance also. Use Matt. 21 : 33-46 as the Scripture to be read. Discuss the outline prepared by the members. Have the class assist in placing on the board a con- secutive list of the nations God tested in choosing a nation to do His will. Some questions to raise discussion : a. What means did God use from time to time to further the spread of the Truth? (Printing, wars, discoveries, etc.) b. How does the topographical contour of a coun- try effect national unity? 204 AxMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION c. What special evidences has God given of His choice of America? d. How did the various eras of expansion in United States history contribute to her growth in national greatness and increase her world- influence? In connection with these questions have the appro- priate essays read. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII General : 1. Make an outline of the chapter. 2. Make a list of the factors contributing to Amer- ica's fitness to be "The Messianic Nation." 3. Read James Franklin Love's "The Mission of Our Nation," Chapter II. Special : a. A paper on The Western Course of Empire. b. A list of God's Waits as a basis for discussion. c. Chart or outline of our National Constitution. (If this is not obtainable ask for a paper on The Christian Elements in Our National Constitution.) Prayers at the Session's Close Thanksgiving for the discovery of America and for its progress to blessed greatness. Supplication for all to whom governing authority has been delegated that each may be guided by Chris- tian principles and animated by Christian motives in the discharge of his office. That the Church may be enabled to do her full duty toward bringing our country to realize that God has marked her as the chosen nation of the twentieth century. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII 205 The Seventh Session Open with the reading of Isaiah 55 in concert. Fol- low with some remarks upon the fifth verse in its application to the subject under discussion. If possible, have the class sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Have the class discuss the list of God's Waits. Discuss the list of factors contributing to America's fitness for a world task as given by the author. Call for any additional factors which members may have listed. Discuss the outline of the Constitution, or the papers upon its Christian elements. Stress this idea in either case. Close with a general review of the chapter, based upon the outlines made by the members. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII General : 1. A chapter outline. 2. A general outline of the book. 3. A list of the nations affected by the example of American institutions. 4. A list of the wars of the United States, with aims and results in separate parallel columns. 5. A list of the movements inaugurated by America, religious, moral and economic. 6. A brief prayer based on the individual members' impressions of the book and its lessons. 7. Read "The Mission of Our Nation," by Love, Chapter V, and "New Home Missions," by Doug- lass, Chapter VHI. Special : a. Paper on America's Strategic Position. b. Chart of the Waves of Immigration to the United 206 AMERICA AND WORLD EVANGELIZATION States. (Government publications will be helpful in the preparation.) c. A brief review of the chapter's presentation of America's Equipment for World Evangelisation. d. Blackboard or chart presentation of Americas Four Propositions. Some Things for Which to Pray Thanksgiving for the divine elements of greatness in our national institutions and our national character. Thanksgiving for the "great men and good" who founded our colonies, won our independence, shaped our national unity and gave us our national ideals. That our country's influence on this continent may continue to be powerful toward the realization of Christian and democratic ideals in commerce, society and government. That the Church, and our denomination as a part of it, may be empowered to contribute largely to the Christianity of our beloved country, yea, of both Americas. The Eighth Session Open with the singing of ''The Star-Spangled Banner." Pray for the land of this flag and for those that enjoy its blessings that absolutely unselfish world- service may characterize their course; that this final session may bring all members face to face with great visions, great opportunities and great personal de- cisions as citizens of a chosen nation, and as members of God's "peculiar people" — the Christian Church. Let the first discussion be upon the list of the nations affected by America's example. Then conduct a discussion of the War Lists. Consider the Immigration Chart, pointing out how APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII 207 the successive and continued waves constitute an un- exampled missionary opportunity. Have the presentation and discussion of the Four Propositions made at this point. Call for individual estimates as to the value and convincing power of this chapter's argument. Conduct a symposium on the outline of the book and the individual benefit derived from its study. Give opportunity for expression of personal resolu- tions as to the future as the outgrowth of the studies. The Prayer Period may be occupied by the use of the petitions prepared by the members. Sing or read the hymn, "America, the Beautiful," and "God Bless Our Native Land." The leader should close the course of meetings with a brief and earnest prayer and have all unite in the Lord's Prayer. The benediction may be used also. INDEX Agents, Divine and Human United, 31. Agents of the Church in Paul's Day, 42. Agents, The Human, 34. America and World Evangelization, 145. America Converted Means a World Converted, 187. America, Discovery of, 127. America Fundamental to World Evangelization, 122. America Must Be Converted, 184. America's Conversion a Promising Task, 185. America's World Mission, 167. Apostles in the Apostolic Church, yj- Beaulieu, Leroy, on "The United States of the Twen- tieth Century," 176. Beveridge on "Americans of To-day and To-morrow," 177. California, Gold Discovered (1848), 136. Carolinas Occupied (1663), 131. Charters of the Settlements, 151. China, Am.erican Influence Through Boxer Fund, 168. Church Is Body of Which Christ Is Head, 109. Church, The Free, 154. Classification, A Faulty, 94. Clergy and Laity, 35. Colonies and Settlements, 131. Commission, The Great, 18. Commission, The Saviour's Special, 64. Concord, Formula of on the Law, 99. Connecticut Settled, 131. Constitution and Arbitration Tribunal, 160. Cuba, Freedom of, 139. Daniel Compares Kingdom to a Stone Cut Out of Mountain, 115. Democracy, Doctrine of Christian, 42. Diaconate a Distinct Office from the Clergy, 38. 209 210 INDEX Dispensation, Various Views Concerning Duties, ii8. Douglass's Tribute and Appeal, 190. Draper, Prof. John William, 97. Dutch Reformed in New York, 131. Epistles, The, 107. Europe, The Failure of, 79. Factors in Home Mission Work, 59. Festivals Observed by Appointment of Jehovah, 102. Finney, Charles G., 45. Freemantle, Testimony of Canon, 103. Functions, The Triune, 34. Geographical Comparison and Contrast, 142. Gospels. The, 105. Gray, Rev. A. Herbert, 87. Great Britain, Peace of 1783, 137. Gulick, Dr. Sidney on "White Peril in Far East," 85. Hawaiian Islands, 138. Hawaii's Lesson, 83. History, Testimony of Church, 74. Home Missions, The Common Sense of, 84. Influence of America Beyond This Continent, 167. Influence, W. E. Doughty on, 162. Institutions of God on Earth, 109. Family, 109. Church, 109. State, 109. Jamestown, Va., First Protestant Colony in America, 131. Japan, 85. Japan, American Influence on, 168. Jefferson, Through Monroe, Purchases Mississippi Basin, 132. Jerusalem, Church at, a Witnessing, 39. Jerusalem, Effect of Persecution Against the Church, 70. . ^ Jerusalem, Strategic, 65. Jerusalem. Why Destroyed. 123. Jesus' Attitude on Social Questions. 105. Jesus the First Home Missionary. 61. INDEX 211 Jewish Community, A Brotherhood, 104. Judge EHlio del Toro, of Porto Rico, 164. Justice, America's Ideal of Equal, Illustrated in Our Wars, 169. Kingdom, Distinction Between Extent and Content, 115. Kingdom Here and Yet to Come, 114. Kingdom of God, Divine Ideal, 119. Kingdom of God, Establishment of, Hope of World, 113- Kingdom, Three Ideas of, by Edersheim, 117. Kingdom, Vedder Defines, 116. Laity, Clergy and, 35. Language, America's Commanding, 172. Law, The, 99. Laymen Sent Out by Southern Presbyterian Church, 58. Leader in Religious World Movements, America the, 178. Legislation, Special, 102. Lewis and Clark Explorations, 133. Luther and Columbus, 128. Lutherans in New York, 131. Macedonian Call, 124. Maryland Settled in 1634, 131. Means and Agencies, 20. In Nature, 20. In Grace, 22. Means for World Evangelization, America Has, 180. Means of Grace, 25. Men for World Evangelization, America Has, 181. Messianic Nation, The, 145. Methodist Church Missions, 82. Miracles Belonged to the Whole Apostolic Church, 38. Missions Classified as Home and Foreign, 15. Missions, The Agents, 16. Montcalm's Defeat on "The Plains of Abraham," 130. Moravian Church Missions, 81. Morse, Example and Illustration from, 49. Mowery, William A., Points Out Providence Toward America, 129. Nation, The Free, 155. 212 INDEX Nation, The Quest for a, 122. National Character, Justice Brewer on, 157. Nationalities in America, 188, New Hampshire Colony Began (1691), 131, New Jerse}^ Parts of Presented to Lord Berkeley, 131. Nobility of German Nation, Not Clergy, Addressed by Luther, in. Obedience, A Test of, 54. Offices for Administration of Word and Sacrament, 42. Oglethorpe Began Settlement in Georgia (1733), 131. Oregon Territory, 134. Paul's Example, 67. Paul of Tarsus, ZT- Paul's Precept, ^2. Penn and Quakers, 131. Philip a Layman, 38. Philippine Islands, 139. Pierson, Arthur T., 15. Pilgrim Fathers, 131. Porto Rico, 139, 164. Porto Rico a Case in Point, 165. Position, America's Commanding, 172. Prayer, Proofs of Efficacy of, 50. Mount Rainier, Incident on, 50. Garfield and McKinley, 51. Lincoln and General Sickles, 51. Prayer Teaches Scope of Human Activities, 108. Priesthood of Believers, Luther on, 41. Questions Both Ethical and Religious, 112. Reflex Influence, Joseph E. McAfee on, 89. Reformation in Europe and the Discovery of America, 125. Religious Freedom Resisted, 164. Revelation, Enlarging, 16. Revelation, Varying Methods and Signs, 17. Rhode Island Settlement, 131. Roberts and the Founding of Roberts College, 168. Rome Lost Her Opportunity, ']']. Sacraments, The, 27. The Means and Agent, 29. INDEX 313 Samaritan Woman, Conversation of Jesus with, 63. Scope of Home Missions, 92, Scope, The True Conception of, 95. Scriptures, Home Missions in the Light of, 57. Service, Christian Must Bring All into God's, 120. Settlement, Significance of the Time, 147. Settlement, Time of, 146. Settlers, The Purpose of, 150. Seventy. Commission of, 63. Sinai, The Covenant of, 100. Social Justice and National Righteousness, Who Should Labor for, iii. Social Redemption at Home, Men and Religion on, 88. Spain Lost Her Opportunity, 78. Stephen Not an Apostle, 37. Struggle, The Reformation, 129. Surrender, Complete, 55. Swedish Colony on the Delaware (1638), 131. Syro-Phcenician Woman, Healing of Daughter, 63. Texas Exchanged for Florida, 132. Texas Seeks Admission into United States, 133. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 133. Turks' Conquest of Constantinople, Eflfect of, 126. Twelve, Sending Forth of, 62. United States First Nation in Time and Influence on This Continent, 159. Universal Priesthood of Believers Reasserted in the Reformation, 40. Witness-Bearing an Essential Function, 43. Witnessing, Constituent Elements of, 44. Knowledge, 45. Spiritual Insight, 46. Understanding, 46. Faith, 48. Additional Tests, 49. Word. The, 25. Almighty, 26. Division and Use, 27. World Mission, America Conscious of, I75. Xavier in India, 78. Princeton Theological Seminaor Libraries 1012 01233 8804 Date Due Mr 9 " '^ ■i f)